Why to blame MQM, when PPP leadership is there for capitulation to preserve their narrow personal short-term interests and has nothing to do with the welfare of the people

– Potters’ wares – by Mir Mohammad Ali Talpur

Watayo Faqir is to Sindh what Mullah Naseerudin is to Turkey, Afghanistan and Central Asia. Once someone informed Watayo that his mother had gone crazy and was writhing in the dust in the city centre; knowing his mother acted oddly at times he was nonetheless surprised. Reaching home he inquired; she replied that having seen a rupee coin in the path and thinking that if she picks it up someone would claim it, the best way was to act crazy and pocket it without anyone suspecting. Watayo said, “I knew my mother would not be all that crazy without a very good reason.”

What the PPP leadership terms as the policy of reconciliation is in fact a policy of capitulation for preserving their narrow personal short-term interests and has nothing to do with the welfare or benefit of the people in general and Sindhis in particular. But then nothing better can be expected from people whose politics are based on self-interest.

National interest and preservation of democracy is mendaciously bandied about as the reason behind the vacillations, oscillations, dithering and capitulation of the PPP, which would shame even the most brazen politician of any country, to appease the MQM. The sole purpose behind these brazen transmogrifications is the self-interest of the elite of these two parties who do not even bother to ask their colleagues’ opinions. Syed Zafar Ali Shah, Taj Haider and Nabeel Gabol have come out openly against this ludicrous pantomime. Naturally, no one from the MQM wants to end up in a gunny bag so there has not been a squeak from anyone; any way why would the victors complain?

The resentment amongst the people of Sindh is palpable and their anger at the PPP’s capitulation was expressed by the success of the strike called by the nationalist parties on August 8 and 13. Even PPP members have taken to the streets against the latest capitulation. This pusillanimous and chronic backtracking has made them an object of ridicule and derision for common people because those who forge and implement these preposterous decisions live in inaccessible mansions away from the grubby masses. This habitual volte-face along with the carefree attitude towards the views and problems of workers is isolating the PPP from whatever support that has survived.

The MQM is a different entity; it is ruled from London and only absolute submission is the rule — dissenters are meted out horrible punishments. It is a party that is based on terror, oiled by terror and thrives on terror. This is how this organisation is run and there is no other way for its survival. A quote by George MacDonald (1824-1905), a Scottish poet and author, fits to a T all fascist organisations and individuals. He says, “A beast does not know that he is a beast, and the nearer a man gets to being a beast, the less he knows it.”

The terrorism perpetrated after Zulfiqar Mirza’s statement left a trail of destruction in its wake because the call to teach him a lesson resulted in a score killed and properties and vehicles destroyed. This carnage was one of the sequels of the May 12 incident; there have been quite a few follow up episodes of that successful run of the show by the MQM during the Musharraf era. Oddly, no one is ready to blame the real culprits in Karachi.

The much flaunted powerbase and mandate have been acquired by sowing terror. All elections are massively rigged and manipulated and all parties practice it in places where they can cow the election staff. The MQM always boasts of a mind-boggling number of votes cast in their constituencies and this they do through fraudulently stuffing ballot boxes. The number of votes that the MQM claims cannot physically be cast in the limited time period and the cumbersome procedure that is required to cast a single vote. This rigging is done to lay claim to being the majority’s representative. This comes in handy to intimidate others into submission through threats. A heavy and unhindered presence of international observers during the elections could expose this mandate farce any day. …

Read more → Daily Times

Rape, mutilation: Pakistan’s tribal justice for women

By Rebecca Conway

MULTAN,(Reuters) – On April 14, two men entered Asma Firdous’ home, cut off six of her fingers, slashed her arms and lips and then sliced off her nose. Before leaving the house, the men locked their 28-year-old victim inside.

Asma, from impoverished Kohaur Junobi village in Pakistan’s south, was mutilated because her husband was involved in a dispute with his relatives, and they wanted revenge.

Her fate is familiar in parts of Pakistan’s remote and feudal agricultural belts, where women are often used as bargaining chips in family feuds, and where the level of violence they face is increasing in frequency and brutality.

At the hospital in nearby Multan town, Asma’s shocked parents sat quietly by her bedside and struggled to explain what the future holds for their now disfigured daughter.

“I don’t know what will happen to her when she leaves here,” Asma’s father, Ghulam Mustafa, said, in a dilapidated ward heavy with the smell of antiseptic and blood, where other women, doused with acid or kerosene by relatives or fellow villagers, awaiting an equally uncertain future.

Asked if Asma will return to her husband, her father remains silent.

Pakistan is the world’s third-most dangerous country for women, after Afghanistan and the Democratic Republic of Congo, based on a survey conducted by the Thomson Reuters Foundation (link.reuters.com/jet92s)

Read more → Reuters

Fikr-e-G.M. Syed Aur Aaj Ka Pakistan

 

KARACHI – SINDH, Aug 12: Speakers clarified the misconceptions regarding Sindh’s famous politician G.M. Syed and touched on his philosophy of life at the launch of the book Fikr-i-G.M. Syed Aur Aaj Ka Pakistan by Abdul Khaliq Junejo at the PMA House on Friday.

The book is an Urdu translation of three of the politician’s known speeches.

Dr Jaffer Ahmed, who presided over the event, read out a few excerpts from the preface. He said two different behaviours and attitudes vis-à-vis the state’s functioning had existed from the time Pakistan came into being. The first (which had turned into an ideological paradigm) was to do with a strong centralised system, which was usually considered necessary for the country’s unity and progress. Those who held this view often used religion and patriotism to support their standpoint. He said in 1951 no less than 32 religious scholars came up with a programme in favour of that kind of rule, despite the fact that East Pakistan was also part of the country at that time. They were doing so in a country which was multiethnic and multilingual.

Dr Ahmed said the other view that ran parallel to the first one was in favour of provincial and regional autonomy.

The Centre often labelled those who held that view as separatists. He said G.M. Syed was unfortunately one of those politicians who after partition became a victim of the Muslim League’s wrath and was not only ignored in the national discourse but was also dubbed as a ‘negative force’. Such politicians were often accused of something that they never committed or believed in.

He said the book contained some predictions made by G.M. Syed which were now proving true. In the book, he’s seen welcoming those who’d migrated from India to Pakistan and in a speech delivered in Vienna in 1952 he condemned the western powers for adopting the policy of supporting religious forces to counter communism. G.M. Syed had pointed out that if the West continued doing that, the religious extremists and regressive forces would take advantage of the situation and reach the corridors of power — something that later happened.

Prof Dr Tauseef Ahmed said time had proved G.M. Syed right on the things that he disagreed with Mr Jinnah. It was in 1946 that he first took issue with Mr Jinnah and his ‘confederation’ approach was not liked by the Muslim League. He said his address at the formation of the Pakistan People’s Organisation indicated that G.M. Syed wished for a state where there’d be a socialist system, where there’d be protection of everybody’s basic rights.

Continue reading Fikr-e-G.M. Syed Aur Aaj Ka Pakistan

PPP’s recent decision to revive former dictator Musharraf’s undemocratic, repressive, & discriminatory Local Government Ordinance 2001 is violation of its own Manifesto

– Translation by Khalid Hashmani, McLean

PPP’s recent decision to revive former dictator Musharraf’s undemocratic, repressive, & discriminatory, Local Government Ordinance 2001 is violation of its own Manifesto

An article published in Sindhi Daily Kawish, August 13, 2011 by Naseer Memon provides further analysis of the unpopular decision by PPP to to revive Local Government Ordinance 2001. Naseer makes the following key points:

1. PPP’s recent decision to revive former dictator Musharraf’s undemocratic, repressive, & discriminatory, Local Government Ordinance 2001 is violation of its own manifesto (refer to page 17 of the English version of People’s Party manifesto under “Local Government” section).

2. The argument by the PPP that their decision was simply in the sprit of respecting the mandate of a political party that won in the last local elections in some areas of Karachi and Hyderabad simply makes no sense. The mandate received on the basis of winning in local elections cannot supersede the provincial mandate.

3. Naseer asks to imagine how would have PPP and Sindhi masses reacted when former puppet CM of dictator Musharraf, Arbab Rahim’s government had made that decision. Indeed, they would called it treachery of the highest order and termed Arbab and other ministers in his cabinet as traitors.

4. The present government has not only failed to maintain law and order but does not even pay lip service to the notion of “merit”. The administrative matters such as hiring and job transfers are decided by corruption and influence-paddling.

5. The silence and poor performance by the leaders of Sindh PPP and the active Viceroy-like role played by Federal Minister, Mr. Babar Awan, created a feeling among Sindhis as if Sindhis have no say in how the province of Sindh is run.

6. PPP’s criticism of Sindhi nationalist parties and attitude that they have no right to criticize PPP since PPP won the last elections with overwhelmingly majority and that people did not vote for nationalist parties is inappropriate. Since the political party that Sindhis elected is not able to adhere to its own manifesto and properly represent people of Sindh, Sindh’s nationalist parties, Sindhi media, and Sindhi people have every right to criticize PPP. Indeed, they must urge Sindhi masses to remember who worked for their interests who did not when they go to the voting booths in the next elections.

Personally, I feel that it is very sad that not a single PPP official has expressed dismay or criticized this decision. I guess it must be so important for them to cling their positions than to resign to protest this dreadful decision of PPP.

Courtesy: Sindhi daily Kawish, 13th August, 2011.

Sindh is a CAUSE not a CARD – New Sindh is emerging led by the people

– Congratulations! to Saaieen Zardari …. he has united virtually whole Sindh, nationalist parties, ANP, PPP dissidents on one platform to observe complete shutter down strike in Sindh against unending black mailing of MQM-A on gunpoint & betrayal of PPP in Sindh. No body should take Sindh for granted!  New Sindh is emerging led by the people.

Salute to the people of Sindh for complete strike on 13th August 2011. The short sighted & self centered PPP leadership, living in the palaces of Islamabad that ruined its won core constituency should learn lesson that Sindh is not political CARD to use for personal interests but a CAUSE. The people of Sindh never let any one to play this card any more against the wishes of the people of Sindh.

Courtesy: → Above text is adopted from different Sindhi Walls of Facebook.

Awami Tehreek President Ayaz Latif Palijo demanded that two more districts should be carved out of Karachi. The city should comprise districts West, East, South, North, Ibrahim Haidery, Lyari and Malir

A new awakening

By: Aziz-ud-Din Ahmad

The notion that the PPP leadership could treat Sindh as its fiefdom has been challenged by the Sindhi people. The more than a week long protests against decisions having a negative impact on Sindh are enough to indicate that PPP can no more take Sindh for granted. Anybody who thinks he alone knows what is in Sindh’s interests is now bound to be challenged in Sindh’s streets by the local population asserting its right to be consulted.

Read more: → Pakistan Today

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Ayaz Latif Palijo (Bolta Pakistan – 8th August 2011)

Courtesy: → Aaj TV News, (Bolta Pakistan with Mushtaq Minhas and Nusrat Javaid – 8th August 2011)

via → Chagatai Khan  → YouTube