Ten Commandments for the contemporary world

Human society needs to adopt new ‘Ten Commandments’ for the salvation of human beings, the earth, and the life over it. The era of red, green, blue, and saffron tinted ideological states is over. Human society has evolved, throughout the course of its history, some basic values, and principles on which it has repeatedly tried to offer humanity the maximum possible equity, justice, prosperity, and peace.

No doubt, however, these values can never be attained in the absolute terms, therefore have always remained relative.

The evolution of religions, philosophies, doctrines and sociopolitical theories has always directed to these basic virtues, which is aimed to create new human and thereby a new human society.

After thousands years of transcending, the human society once again is at the verge of transcending process for a new order of collective survival, prosperity and liberation in broader terms.

It cannot voyage through the time without following seven pliers, which essentially will lead to global justice.

1) All forms of life including human beings have equal right over what is offered by nature on the globe. Human is a higher form of consciousness and is more responsible to the earth and all forms of life over it and on other planets in the universe as well.

2) Rights ensuring human and socioeconomic development that strengthens collectivism and integratedness will lead the individuals and collectives to the social, cultural, and economic liberties and liberations. It requires a new kind of statecraft, political discourse, culture, and development initiatives.

3) Economic self-reliance and livelihood security combined with rights are the foundations of development and human prosperity in the individual societies and around the globe.

4) The people could only achieve the climax of democracy when the theory of ‘government by the people’ transforms state-society relations into the governance by the people.

5) Justice and Peace are essentials for the human society. If the policies by states, governments, political parties and other social impact making forums are in contradiction with this, they will not only be counterproductive and retrogressive but retaliating as well.

6) Diversity in all of its forms, within the parameters of devised social systems, is a beauty of contemporary human social web and it has emerged on the foundations of modern human and industrial development.

7) An elevated social order is impossible without a necessarily healthier political discourse and culture, which will guaranty social, cultural, and spiritual prosperity. Only spiritually rich and elevated individuals can be the cornerstone of liberated human society. Individual and collective social actions need to be non-violent for the sustenance of human existence.

8) Whatever is offered by nature on the globe as well as in the universe is the collective human property. Individuals have only right on what they humanly produce.

9) Offending nature would retaliate in higher velocity to the human existence. The time has come when all manmade actions need to harmonious with the natural being.

10) Mafias have started dominating the statecraft in the majority nation-states. Revising the role of states and making the nation-states more humanistic is the only path to avoid upcoming global anarchy.

Almost all continents are witnessing anarchy of various forms. The time has come when world needs to sit together on the brewing global anarchy having its deep foundations in the local and global social injustice. Let the construction win over the global soul.

Courtesy: MeriNews.com
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Permanent revolution

by John Reiman

There will be no breaking the power of the “feudals” in Pakistan, no equality for women in Afghanistan, no establishment of stable democracy in Egypt, no resolving the tribal conflicts in Africa, and no salvation for the 15 million children who die of hunger every year on the basis of capitalism

As they did in the 1950s, once again, the winds of revolution are sweeping the former colonial world. This time, however, these winds are mixed with those of counter-revolution also, and this complication is partly a result of the failure of the previous period to resolve the problems in that part of the world. ….

Read more → ViewPoint

Symbiosis —Mir Mohammad Ali Talpur

Excerpt:

….. This – Shahbaz’s appeal and Altaf’s frequent appeals to ‘patriotic generals’ – are not random but are clear proofs of the evolution of symbiosis in the establishment here, the mock showdowns notwithstanding. This sort of cooperation, with the increasing tendency to overlook injustices by all elements of the establishment, simply finishes off any hope of even mock checks and balances and certainly does not augur well for the people. Expecting any part of the establishment to act as a ‘saviour’ and inviting them for salvation is inviting unmitigated disasters.

Read more : Daily Times

G.M. Syed on the “Unity and Diversity of Religion”

By Manbir Singh Chowdhary

G.M. Syed was as an enigmatic leader who spent his entire life advocating the rights of peasants in a feudal society, and fighting the adverse effects of centralized power and authority in Pakistan. As a result, he became renowned as a champion of his native Sindh.

In 1971, disillusioned with national politics and the stronghold of Pakistan’s federal government over smaller provinces, Syed formed the ‘Jiye Sindh‘ movement that called for the recognition and right to self-determination of the Sindhi people.

Unafraid to speak out against the ethnically Punjabi-dominated government’s marginalization of his Sindhi brethren, he died in 1995 under house arrest, after a lifelong career in politics. Amnesty International declared him, “A Prisoner of Conscience”.

A 2002 editorial in Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper claimed Syed was the longest serving political prisoner in recent history, beating Nelson Mandela by six months.

At a February 2001 gathering to commemorate G.M. Syed’s 97th birth anniversary, the Dawn reported various leaders of nationalist parties paying tribute to him as “a man of principle who never compromised with feudals and dictators for the sake of power.”

The article reflected the common sentiment of those who view Syed as a political icon: “The late Syed believed in the salvation of all oppressed people of Sindh who had been subjugated by feudals and forces of exploitation.”

Despite remaining firm in his convictions and standing up against political oppression, it was G.M. Syed’s views on religion and philosophy that truly formed the basis of his legacy to the world. A man of great learning, he was a staunch proponent of humanity and love – a man who respected and drew from the teachings of all faiths.

In the words of author and historian, Khadim Hussain Soomro, “History will remember him as an eminent ambassador of peace, goodwill, and tolerance.”

Flight of Reason – by Aamer Ahmed Khan

We published two photo galleries on BBC’s Urdu website last Friday. One on the Jamaat-e-Islami’s youth wing Shabab-e-Milli’s tribute to Mumtaz Qadri’s father in Rawalpindi and the other on the candlelit vigil in Lahore in memory of the slain Punjab governor Salmaan Taseer.

As expected, comments started to pour in almost instantly. The most telling among them simply said: “Please compare the crowd in the two, for every Taseer mourner, there are at least 50 Qadri supporters.” If nothing else, it says a lot about the state of siege in which liberal opinion finds itself, as more and more people flock behind Mr Qadri, a cold-blooded killer who had been painstakingly planning Taseer’s murder for weeks before he struck.

Irrespective of the number of people who gathered for the vigil in Lahore, I am stunned at their courage in standing up to a crazed mob that neither understands its religion nor the man who brought it to them. It is a mob of moral cheats that has become religiously, politically, intellectually and morally so bankrupt that it seems to have convinced itself that its only salvation lies in baying for innocent blood.

Let us give ourselves some idea of how courageous the dozens who flocked to the vigil in Lahore really are. Since the glowing tribute paid to Qadri by lawyers at his first court appearance, we have been trying to contact the lawyer leadership that spearheaded the civil society movement only three years ago to bring down General Musharraf’s dictatorship. In that movement, millions around the world saw the seeds of a politics that Pakistan has desperately been waiting for all its life — a politics that flows from the combined intellect of the mobile middle class instead of dynastic politics, hereditary constituencies and endemic corruption.

Justice (retd) Wajihuddin Ahmed, Aitzaz Ahsan, Ali Ahmed Kurd and Justice (retd) Tariq Mahmood became household names as tens of thousands of people rallied behind them wherever they went. For weeks, no political talk show in the country was considered complete without at least one of them in the chair. Since Taseer’s murder, they simply seemed to have vanished into thin air.

We finally managed to get through to two of them: one simply said that we are free to call him a coward if we want to but he doesn’t want to comment on the issue at all. The other one went even further: he said he would not even allow us to report that he was contacted for his opinion on the issue.

Predictably, Asma Jahangir was the honourable exception who not only spoke in detail about the atrocity against Taseer but was candid and unambiguous in her criticism of the legal fraternity’s sudden gush for a killer. But then, one has always known her to be one of the bravest women in the country.

Which brings to mind another brave woman who dared to bring a bill to the National Assembly aimed at amending some of the more draconian provisions of a law that has spawned nothing but injustice in the quarter century of its existence. Our crazed mob has distributed pamphlets advocating that she must meet the same fate as Mr Taseer. I am proud to have worked for her at Herald for six years. She was one of the bravest editors I know. Today, she has been forced into abandoning her public life by the tyranny of bloodthirsty criminals masquerading as religious zealots.

President Asif Ali Zardari’s administration has already surrendered to these criminals. It is pointless to expect him to fight this battle. However unfortunate as it may be for the liberals, they do not have the luxury to follow suit. They have to go on fighting even if their battle is far more dangerous than the one Pakistan has been fighting in its tribal areas for the last 10 years.

Courtesy: http://www.columnspk.com/flight-of-reason-by-aamer-ahmed-khan/