Feudal-mullah alliance – Dr Manzur Ejaz

The combination of rising mullah shahi and feudalism has produced the most corrupt and inhumane systems in human history. From mediaeval Europe to India to modern Pakistan, the feudal-clergy alliance — in most cases the clergy was the feudal — has devastated social development

The last time I checked the history books, it was clear to me that the British gave lands to our feudals. I had to check it again during the last week and I did not find anything contrary to my previous assessment. The cause for doubting my own recollection of history was due to an e-mail response to one of my articles from a reader.

The reader had serious problems with my emphasis on abolishing feudalism and enforcing a strict land reforms programme. The reader asserted that the land was given to the feudal class by God and that land reforms were akin to negating religion and the will of the Creator. The reader had suggested that we should plead to the rich to be kind to the poor and not indulge in methods negating the essence of our religion.

There is nothing new about this reader’s critique. Such arguments were common in pre-industrial Europe where the Catholic Church was part of the ruling classes in exploiting the poor serfs. …

Read more >> WICHAAR

The question of Balochistan

By: Urooj Zia

If you see the flag of Pakistan in Balochistan, you are either on the Balochistan University campus in Quetta or at the provincial assembly – or, more alarmingly, within metres of a checkpost manned by the Frontier Corps (FC), the paramilitary force that controls the province. Nowhere else in this, the country’s largest province by area, will you see the national flag. On the contrary, flags of Azad Balochistan are a dime a dozen, adorning shops, houses, streetlights and random poles. Schools in the province – even those administered by the government – start their day not with ‘Pak ser zameen’ (the national anthem), but with ‘Ma chukki Balochani’, the anthem of Azad Balochistan. Here, the Pakistani state, army and paramilitary forces are figures of hate, while the sarmachar (Baloch ‘freedom fighters’) are considered heroes.

Read more >>- HIMAL

Nurse finds her long-lost dad

Nurse Discovers Patient Is Her Long-Lost Father

- David Knowles

Wanda Rodriguez, a 41-year-old assistant head nurse at New York’s Calvary Hospital, had not seen her father since she was a baby.

Raised by her mother in the Bronx after her parents broke up when she was less than a year old, Rodriguez didn’t know much more of her father than his name, Victor Peraza, and her mother’s recollection that Rodriguez looked a lot like him.

But as fate would have it, on Aug. 25 a new cancer patient was admitted to Calvary, a hospital that administers care to the terminally ill. When Rodriguez learned his name while discussing his case with a colleague, she froze up.

“I thought, if he’s my complexion, if he has green eyes, he could be my dad,” Rodriguez told ABC News. …

Read more >> AOL News

Barbaric punishments are in fact the only part of Islam that appeals to the Taliban and their supporters

Stoning to death —Ishtiaq Ahmed

The well-known English journalist Robert Fisk has presented a detailed investigative report, ‘The crimewave that shames the world’ in The Independent, September 7, 2010, about so-called honour killings. Not surprisingly, the highest incidence of such crimes is in the Muslim world, though even some non-Muslim Middle Eastern minorities and Hindus in India practise it. What I found particularly shocking was that after murdering a daughter or sister, a Muslim culprit can walk away scot-free because the Islamic law of qisas (retaliation) allows heirs to pardon the criminal. Thus, other family members can pardon the offender. All such relics of barbarism have to be done away with. Already in the 19th century, Maulvi Chiragh Ali wrote that the Quran is not a book of law. Justice Munir has also advanced similar arguments. Privately, most of the educated Muslims I talk to agree with me that hudood laws, blasphemy laws and many other such laws are anachronisms that have no place in the 21st century. More such voices need to be heard in the public space.

The task in hand for modern Muslims is to separate the spiritual, moral and ethical message of Islam from penal laws reflecting the sensibilities of tribal society of the seventh century.

Stoning to death is practised as a routine punishment for adultery in Iran and Saudi Arabia. When the Taliban ruled in Afghanistan, they too imposed it with a relish and did it with the same enthusiasm in their enclaves called Islamic emirates when they ruled in some pockets of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Swat valley. There is no doubt that the origin of this barbaric punishment is the Old Testament of the Jews. The Jewish Torah prescribes it for a host of other offences as well. It is not mentioned in the Quran. However, all the five schools of Islamic jurisprudence — Hanafi, Shafai, Maliki and Hanbali of the Sunnis and the Ja’afri of the Shias prescribe it for adultery. On this point of law, there is complete unanimity of opinion. I believe the Khawarji school of thought adheres to it as well. …

Read more >> Daily Times

Skin diseases make lives a living hell in Sindh

Rare skin disease makes a family’s life a living hell

Report: Imran Soomro

According to residents of Tahir Bhatti village near Daharki, the man tried to set himself and his children on fire. Residents rushed to his house when they heard the children’s screams and saved the family from a gory death. “I cannot watch my little children in such pain,” said the father, “Death is better than such existence.” Bhatti said his children cannot sleep in the night or even sit because of their pain. “All day they just keep standing,” he said. The children, 11-year-old Yasmin, eight-year-old Naseema, seven-year-old Fahad and one-year-old Sohrab, have been afflicted with a skin disease for as long as Bhatti can remember. Bhatti is a daily-wage labourer. Having no means to get medical help for his children, he has no choice but to watch his children become sicker. …

Read more >> The Sindh Telegraph

SINDH – flood victims suffer food poisoning

250 flood victims suffer food poisoning – By Irfan Aligi

KARACHI: More than 250 of the 1,400 flood victims at a relief camp set up in Bengali Boys Sindhi Section School in Ibrahim Hyderi fell unconscious immediately after consuming cooked food, sources said.

The victims started vomiting and the condition of around 59 of them started worsening until they had to be taken to a nearby hospital.

The medical teams available at the camp rushed to the scene and efforts were initiated to provide immediate medical assistance to them.

A local philanthropist had been providing cooked food to the flood victims after Mukhtiarkar Asadullah Abbasi had encouraged him to do so.

A well-placed officer in the City District Government Karachi (CDGK) Revenue Department told Daily Times that by the time the food carriage arrived at the relief camp, the cooked rice had turned stale.

However, since the rice did not show any sign of rotting, it was served to the flood victims.

Subsequently, they started vomiting and majority of them fell unconscious.

Read more >> Daily Times

Villagers say landowners breached levees to save their own property

Pakistani villagers say landowners breached levees to save their own property

Several canal walls were breached during last month’s floods, and accusations are mounting that the ruptures were deliberate. But an irrigation chief says the surging Indus [River Sindh] alone is to blame. …

Read more >> Los Angeles Times

India is a corporate, Hindu state: Arundhati

- Karan Thapar , CNN-IBN

Hello and welcome to Devil’s Advocate. At the end of a week when the Maoists have been on the front pages practically every day, we present a completely different perspective to that of the government’s. My guest today is an author, essayist and Booker Prize winner, Arundhati Roy.

Karan Thapar: I want to talk to you about how you view the Maoists and how you think the government should respond, but first, how do you view the recent hostage taking in Bihar where four policemen were kidnapped and kept kidnapped for eight days, and one of them – Lukas Tete – murdered?

Arundhati Roy: I don’t think there is anything revolutionary about killing a person that is in custody. I have made a statement where I said it was as bad as the police killing Azad, as they did, in a fake encounter in Andhra. But, I actually shy away from this atrocity-based analysis that’s coming out of our TV screens these days because a part of it is meant for you to lose the big picture about what is this war about, who wants the war? Who needs the war? …

Read more >> IBNLive

Thousands attend Eid protests in Kashmir

The BBC’s Altaf Hussain: “The government is clueless as to what to do about it”

Tens of thousands of people across Indian-administered Kashmir have joined protests against Indian rule, following prayers to mark the end of Ramadan.

A government building and a police checkpoint were set on fire in separate rallies in the city of Srinagar.

The demonstrators carried green Islamic flags and chanted slogans demanding autonomy and freedom.

Seventy people have been killed in protests in Kashmir since June. But clashes are rare during Eid al-Fitr.

‘Lingering dispute’

Police fired warning shots and tear gas to disperse the protesters who attacked the police checkpoint near the Hazrat Bal shrine on the outskirts of Srinagar on Saturday, and burned the nearby offices of the state police force and the electricity department.

“We want freedom. Go India, go back,” the demonstrators chanted. “Our nation, we’ll decide its fate.” …

Read more >> BBC

Regional Scenario: Central Asian ‘Muslim’ states fear Pakistan – by Shiraz Paracha

Central Asia’s richest and largest state Kazakhstan is following a strict visa policy for Pakistan and Afghanistan at the same time offering further relaxations in visa regulations to nationals from Western and several non-Western countries.

Pakistan has an image problem in the former Soviet republics. The current floods and the continuing violence has further exacerbated Pakistan’s image. To the people of Central Asia and other countries in the region Pakistan is a trouble spot.

It is an irony that the six “Muslim” Central Asian states prefer to keep a distance from Pakistan despite the fact that Pakistan played a crucial role in their independence.

Following the split of the Soviet Union, Pakistani military generals thought that they would control poor and backward Central Asia. The plan was to bring the six Central Asian states under the Pakistan’s sphere of influence. Time has proved how wrong the Pakistani generals were. In the early 1990s, Pakistan took Central Asia for granted. Islamabad looked down at Central Asian countries. Now it is the other way round. Many Central Asians pity Pakistan. Almost every day, they watch television and realize that Pakistan is home to millions of hungry, poor and helpless people. Central Asians fear that troubles from Pakistan can come into their societies. …

Read more >> Criticalppp

Amnesty International Is Concerned With the Growing Number of Crimes Committed Against Muslims

Washington, D.C. -  Amnesty International U.S.A. (AIUSA) is deeply concerned about the growing number of reports of crimes committed against Muslims and of other anti-Muslim sentiment and activity in the United States.

AIUSA deplores the stabbing of a Muslim cab driver in New York, the arson attack against a mosque construction site in Tennessee and the vandalizing of an Islamic center in California.

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Pakistanis Suspect Landowners of Diverting Floods

By Sebastian Abbot and Ashraf Khan

As the disastrous floods recede in Pakistan, something new is rising: suspicions and rumors that powerful officials and landowners used their influence to divert water away from their property and inundate the villages and fields of millions of poor Pakistanis.

Courtesy: The Washington Post, September 7, 2010

Read more >> Washington Post

Pakistan’s Urdu press

by Shakil Chaudhary

Pakistan’s Urdu press is perhaps the most careless, irresponsible and demagogic in the world. It promotes conspiracy theories day in day out. Instead of expert knowledge, most editorialists and columnists rely on crude propaganda, emotionalism and prejudice. It does not let the facts stand in the way of a good story. The concept of fact checking is totally alien. …

Read more >> ViewPoint

Pakistan – Minorities Under Siege

by Mohammad Taqi

…. Most leaders of the Pakistani jihadist-terrorist outfits, including the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, are the alumni of the Wahabist Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan and its offshoots like Lashkar-e-Jhangavi. They work hand-in-glove with the al-Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban, especially the Haqqani network and the Quetta Shura. While the Pakistan Army continues to boast victories in the war against terrorism, its inaction in face of the jihadist violence against the non-Wahhabi population raises serious concerns about such claims.

Peter Gourevitch notes that “the dead are innocent, the killers monstrous, and the surrounding politics insane or nonexistent” (in We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families: Stories from Rwanda). When the Taliban were ravaging Swat, the politics of resisting them appeared nonexistent. The media then, especially the English newspapers, did an admirable job of building the political and military will to fight the jihadists. Banishing the minorities has never stopped the fascists. One hopes that the Pakistani leaders and media call for banishing the barbarians, not their victims.

To read full article >> OUTLOOK

India’s golden opportunity – By B. R. GOWANI

Following the bloody partition of the Indian sub-continent in 1947, both India and Pakistan have wasted the few opportunities that came their way in order to end the bitter animosity generated and later enhanced, due to the bloody division.

The war on terror and the barbaric acts of some Muslim militant groups in Pakistan have provided the news media with such bias against all Pakistanis that it has almost convinced the un- or ill-informed world that all Pakistanis are involved in terror. This has resulted in reluctance on part of the donors to see the affected people as struggling humans in need of help. …

Read more >> GLOBEISTAN

Canada speaks out against Quran burning

Harper condemns Qur’an burning plan

Prime Minister Stephen Harper added his voice to the global outcry against a U.S. church’s plan to burn 200 copies of the Qur’an on Saturday — the ninth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.

“I don’t speak very often about my own religion but let me be very clear: My God and my Christ is a tolerant God, and that’s what we want to see in this world,” he said.

“I unequivocally condemn it,” he said. “We all enjoy freedom of religion and that freedom of religion comes from a tolerant spirit.”

Read more >> CBCNews

The politics of hate, bigotry must end

Quran burning pastor: The politics of hate, bigotry must end

by Aziz Narejo, TX

The people, the civil society must stand up, call for and work for an end to the politics of hate, anger, reaction, bigotry and extremism. And to promote peace, tolerance and understanding.

The extremists are pulling everything down. We (mankind) will sink together if they are not stopped wherever they are and whatever faith they believe in – the Quran burning pastor, Fox, Glenn Beck, Zaid Hamid, Taliban, Qaeda, Shive Sena, rightists in JI, BJP, Jaish or whatever there name is … all are same breed …

Courtesy: Sindhi e-lists/ e-groups, September 9, 2010

Fakhruddin G. Ibrahim, we are proud of you

by Suraiya Makhdoom

I had the honour to watch honourable Fakhruddin G. Ibrahim’s detailed interview on ARY news. As usual he was great and spoke as a true son of the soil, Sindh.

To a question about Sindh situation, our Fakhru Saeen said those who live in Sindh should consider themselves as Sindhis. We should realise that Sindh gave us shelter and gave us opportunities to prosper. Sindh has given us everything. He also spoke passionately about the flood related issues.

Saeen Fakhruddin G. Ibrahim has said it all and he has also proven with his deeds what he says. Currently he is busy in providing relief to the flood affected people. He has responded to people’s problems and he is working to address the same. He has provided relief in many flood affected areas, such as Khairpur, Sukkur, Shikarpur and Kashmore.

Fakhruddin G. Ebrahim has a distinguished career and is well known for his principled stance. He has been a Supreme Court Judge, Attorney General for Pakistan, Governor of Sindh and Federal Law Minister. In 1981, while serving as an adhoc Judge of the Supreme Court, he and Justice Dorab Patel (another great son of the soil), refused to take a fresh oath under the PCO, promulgated by General Zia-ul-Haq.

In his latest interview, Fakhruddin G. Ebrahim while analysing the constitutional and other problems of Pakistan, has once again pleaded the case of Sindh as well and expressed his concern for the flood affected people.

Fakhruddin G. Ebrahim, Sindh is proud of you . We salute you for your courage, principles and compassion. May God give you long life and excellent health.

September 7, 2010

Sindhi Association of New Jersey – Sindh Flood Relief Fundraiser

Sindh Flood Relief Fundraiser- September 9 from 6PM to 9PM

Sindhi Association of New Jersey (SANJ) has teamed up & actively supports Hemant’s Initiative for SINDH FLOOD RELIEF. Take the little effort to attend the event evening.

An awareness/fund raising event will be held for Sindh relief victims – featuring jazz singer Sachal Vasandani, Nita Chawla, and global environmental/solar energy band Solarpunch.org. All three have given their time and talent generously pro bono, and they all believe in the unity of this collective community and in the betterment of humanity – they are truly a blessing to us in our community as many of you will see on on Thursday September 9 from 6PM to 9PM, Sumei Multidisciplinary Arts Center, 85 Hamilton Street (corner of Hamilton and NJ Railroad Avenue), Newark, NJ.

Strength is in numbers. It is not so much about the donation, but what we can create with that collective energy. If you live away from NJ/NY/CT, we encourage you to organise local fundraisers. Let us know and we will guide you on this. A GLOBAL SINDHI FUND for SINDH FLOOD RELIEF PROJECTS is also in the works.

WSC asks all the Sindhi political and civil society organisations, technocrats, and intellectuals to rise above political differences, and to work together in order to help and lead people out of this flood disaster

SITUATION OF FLOODS IN SINDH AND WORK FOR THE RELIEF AND REHABILITATION OF SINDHI PEOPLE

London – The unprecedented floods in Sindh continue even after a month. Scandalously still new major towns and hundreds of villages continue being inundated resulting in displacement of hundreds of thousands more Sindhis, bringing further destruction of communities, livelihood, crops, homes and infrastructure.

WSC believes, that the current floods in Sindh and resulting unprecedented destruction is a concerted effort to direct the destructive powers of a natural phenomenon to eliminate and uproot a nation and subject them to a long-term process of slow genocide. These assertions are based on the following facts, inferences and analysis:

1. Sindh has been drowned resulting from literally hundreds of breaches to river waters in Kashmore, Jacobabad, Sukkur, Shikarpur, Larkana, Dadu and Thatta. There are serious questions, suspicions and concerns within Sindhi people, and now even the government circles, about the first major breach, Thori bund. This breach so far has resulted in displacement of about five million people, drowning of 4000 towns and villages, loss of trillions of worth property and crops and immeasurable pain, suffering and indeterminate consequences. The British authorities who built the Sukkur barrage recommended cutting river Indus from Ali Wahan if the water levels cross the threshold of barrage’s capacity. As the waters will then divert to the desert areas of Naro, Thar and eventually ending in sea taking historical routes of Hakro and Mehrano riverbeds. Off course, this also would have resulted in displacement but the population is sparse, sand has far greater ability to absorb water and people in such circumstances occupy high locations on sandy dunes. It is now emerging that the river Indus was cut at Thori to mainly to save Panoo Aaqil cantonment, Qadirpur gas installations and Fauji Fertiliser.

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Pakistan – Why stop corruption when you have Allah?

Why stop corruption when you have Allah?

Dr Manzur Ejaz

Our intelligence agencies are filled with God-fearing, truly moralistic Muslims. Tracking the corrupt activities of national players, politicians and the bureaucracy is not really on their agenda because, being true Muslims, they believe that these matters are between individuals and God. …

Read more >> WICHAAR

Pakistan – No sign of a rainbow

Banyan

No sign of a rainbow

Badly governed and short of the foreign help it needs, Pakistan’s people deserve a new covenant

….. Even the optimistic case for Pakistan’s survival is downbeat. It has long been “the most dangerous place on earth”, on the brink of some apocalypse. Yet it is more resilient than it looks. “This is Pakistan’s fifth last chance,” quips a government minister. Or, in the words of Husain Haqqani, Pakistan’s ambassador to America: “We’ll muddle through again.” Even if he is right, as Banyan hopes and believes, it is not just a question of limping through the next few weeks until the monsoon ends. The floods have washed away food and cash crops in the country’s agricultural heartland of southern Punjab. Livestock in the tens of thousands has been lost. Irrigation canals, roads, bridges and electricity networks have been damaged. The economic hardship will help provide recruits for terrorist outfits. Even if it survives without a political or social upheaval, Pakistan is going to worry its neighbours and the outside world for another generation.

To read full article >> The Economist

CPP view point on Altaf’s statement

CPP View Point on Call of Altaf Revolution in Pakistan in Current Scenario!

(8th September, 2010) The press statement on the subject CPP View Point on Call of Altaf Revolution in Pakistan in Current Scenario as issued by the Central Secretariat of the Communist Party of Pakistan (CPP) for the information of public, electronic and press media is as under:-

Give me hat and I will lead the Revolution in Pakistan, this is the latest saying of UK Citizen, Mr. Altaf Hussain Chief of MQM on the private Pakistani TVs Channel while addressing his workers from his posh residence in London, a day or so back.

A revolution is coming soon and it will be unstoppable, the MQM chief said.

CPP Chairman, Engineer Jameel Ahmad Malik in a rebuttal said that Altaf statement is a political match fixing and Communist Party of Pakistan does not see any revolution in Pakistan in coming few years.

It is on record of history that all the revolution except Iranian Revolution was brought by the Communist Parties of China, Russia, Vietnam, Cuba and North Korea through arms struggle. Even in Nepal last year, three hundreds years kingship was abolished by the Communists of Nepal and none else….

CPP has taken a serious view of his statement in which Altaf Hussain said that he would bring revolution in collaboration with patriotic generals, media and masses.

What a ridiculous and funny statement by a person, who wants to bring revolution in Pakistan without coming to Pakistan, said the CPP Chairman.

Altaf Hussain further said in his speech that if people of Pakistan will come out for revolution than he will come back. Engineer Jameel said that MQM Chief is a unique revolutionary who is imposing prior condition of his coming to Pakistan.

A leader leads his people in difficult times, not rule the people after a successful revolution! It is so ridiculous of Altaf Hussain to say that he will return to Pakistan if people are ready for a revolution.

Lastly revolutions rise with the people, not thousands of miles away where your security is above that of your country and fellow Pakistanis. True leaders are never afraid of their security, they live with their people.

A man who is so concerned about his personal security can not lead a revolution. Revolution requires a loin hearted person who does not care for his person. …

In rebuttal to Altaf statement, Engineer Malik reiterated that MQM was and is a party of every government where feudal lords and corrupt politicians were in league with MQM and which waived off millions of rupees of the corrupt politicians of Pakistan. Where was Altaf at that time? He posed.

Due to MQMs biased policies, it has failed to become a national party in the country. It is only the party of Karachiites but it also badly failed to control target killings and kidnapping cases for ransom money.

People of Pakistan have not forgotten 12th May, one of the darkest days of Pakistani history, which was occurred by MQM in collaboration with patriotic general Musharraf under the direct instruction of UK based revolutionary Altaf.

Political dictionary of Pakistan is already exhaustive with some heavy revolutionary terms i.e. Islamic Revolution of Jamait-e-Islami, Justice Revolution of Pakistan Tehreek Insaf, Socialist Revolution of Communist Party of Pakistan, Bloody Revolution of Mian Shahbaz Sharif and now we have been introduced with the Martiallaw like Revolution by MQM Chief Altaf Hussain which is strangely associated with patriotic generals.

Engineer Jameel concluded his statement with these remarks. All statements issued from Britain by a British National are not less than a drama. Don’t fool Pakistanis with such statements at the time when 25 millions people need food and basic necessities of life after flood.

Pakistan economy on the verge of collapse?

Economy: on the verge of collapse?

Finance Minister Hafeez Sheikh’s warning to officials of the state, delivered in a sombre meeting late last month, could not be clearer: the government, federal and provincial, is on the verge of financial collapse. So dire is the state of affairs that the government may not have money to pay salaries in a few months. Lest this be dismissed as hyperbole, Mr Sheikh’s comments have been echoed privately by many economists and experts familiar with state finances in recent weeks. In fact, if anything the finance minister’s comments are on the more optimistic side of dire.

The basic problem is clear: the Pakistani state, all tiers of government, spends twice as much as revenue generated, while neither is expenditure being curtailed nor are revenues being meaningfully increased. At the level of the citizenry, the immediate impact is felt in the form of rising inflation (sustained budget deficits of the kind Pakistan has had over the last few years are highly inflationary in nature) while in the long term it will be felt in terms of debt servicing crowding out investments in development and infrastructure.

The blame must be shared by everyone. …

Read more >> Dawn Editorial

Pakistanis outraged at landowners suspected of diverting floodwaters to save property

Associated Press – SUKKUR, Pakistan (AP) — As the disastrous floods recede in Pakistan, something new is rising: suspicions and rumors that powerful officials and landowners used their influence to divert water away from their property and inundate the villages and fields of millions of poor Pakistanis. …

Read more >> FOX NEWS

Angelina Jolie upset over Quran-burning plan

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – Actress Angelina Jolie on Wednesday joined a growing chorus of opposition to plans by a U.S. pastor to burn copies of the Quran on the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, amid fears it would fan religious hatred.

The Quran-torching event on Saturday planned by Pastor Terry Jones, who heads a tiny, little-known church in Florida, is fueling growing fears about heightened Christian-Muslim tensions in the United States as well as elsewhere in the world.

Oscar-winning Jolie, who is visiting Pakistan to highlight the plight of millions of people devastated by the country’s worst-ever floods, said she would never support any such plans.

“Of course not. Of course not,” she told a news conference when asked if she supported Jones’ plans.

She said she had “hardly the words” to express her opposition to burning someone’s religious text. …

Read more >> The Gazette

Bloodshed and chaos

Suicide Bomber Hits Pakistani Police Station

By ISMAIL KHAN and SALMAN MASOOD

PESHAWAR, Pakistan — A suicide bomber rammed a vehicle packed with explosives into a police station in northwest Pakistan on Monday, killing 19 people and injuring at least 46, according to officials and local news outlets. Among the dead were nine police officers, eight civilians and two children, local and provincial authorities said. …

Read more >> New York Times

Altaf Hussain: Out of touch, out of date

MQM cadres are having a tough time defending their leader’s rants, as they are in touch and engaged with the reality that Pakistan is moving towards democracy, not dictatorship. Altaf Hussain is out of touch and out of date and arguably overtaken by history.

EDITORIAL: Out of touch, out of date

Altaf Hussain needs a history lesson before he makes suspect calls for ‘revolution’ led by ‘patriotic’ military generals. It seems that there are ulterior motives disguised as the desire for cleansing corruption. History is replete with examples of revolutions, which by no means are a dinner party, as Mr Hussain is making it sound. Revolution is an act, usually violent, whereby an oppressed class or a set of classes overthrows an oppressive ruling class or a set of classes and a new order is established. In such conflicts, there is no mercy. The victors will ruthlessly crush the other side.

Revolutions of ancient times, the Middle Ages and the modern era were defined by their protagonists. These three epochs coincided roughly with slave-owning societies, feudalism and the emergence of capitalism. In ancient Rome, the slave revolt led by Spartacus, which nearly overthrew the Roman Empire, was a reflection of its time. The slaves rose against the so-called democracy of the rich and powerful, which Rome had acquired as a legacy from Greece, but which excluded slaves. It did not succeed and was brutally crushed.

In the Middle Ages, there were changes that paved the way for the Enlightenment and the Renaissance, which ushered in the modern era. Magna Carta, one of the earliest documents considered the mother of democracy in modern times, was in fact a very limited document, given the times in which it was authored. It reflected the conflict between the nobility and the monarchy. The nobility wanted to wrest absolute powers from the monarchy and transfer them to a representative body called parliament, thus circumscribing the monarch’s powers. It led the way for major changes later on, reflected in the English Revolution of the 17th century, which overthrew the monarchy. A constitutional monarchy was restored after the death of Cromwell, creating the space for parliamentary democracy to incrementally flourish and define the limitations, right and obligations of a constitutional monarchy.

The most prominent example of that era, and the one that Altaf Hussain used, is that of the French Revolution in the 18th century. It overthrew monarchy, crushed feudalism and redistributed land among the peasants. The citizen’s power became supreme, opening the way to a modern nation state and democracy. France’s subsequent tilt towards autocracy was overtaken by proletarian revolts throughout Europe in the mid-19th century. Although these revolts were suppressed, they left a deep imprint. From then on, in Europe at least, autocracy was in retreat and democracy was advancing incrementally, with the exception perhaps of Prussia and Russia. …

Read more >> Daily Times

Medical disorder or black magic?

By Amar Guriro

KARACHI: The doctors and professors of a medical institute in Karachi are struggling to understand the reasons behind a mysterious case in which seven members of a family, hailing from Tharparkar district, claim that metallic needles have penetrated their body parts for the last 14 years.

The ill-fated family members feel a sudden piercing feeling in certain organs, after which mysterious needles can be pushed out of the flesh. They have also brought with them hundreds of needles in matchboxes, while x-ray images have revealed that several needles were still lodged inside their bodies. …

Read more >> Daily Times