Although the congressional hearing and subsequent resolutions were not sponsored by the Obama administration, American diplomats still face the wrath of Pakistani officials due to utter ignorance of the American poli-tical system. Anti-Americanism is not unfamiliar in Pakistan, but bashing the Obama administration for a ‘crime’ it has not committed simply means there is something fishy in Islamabad’s cupboard.
Continue reading Pakistan’s festering wound – TOI
Tag Archives: Sub
The Dönmeh heritage, Mustapha Kemal Ataturk & Modern Turkey
The Dönmeh: The Middle East’s Most Whispered Secret (Part I)
By Wayne MADSEN
There is a historical “eight hundred pound gorilla” lurking in the background of almost every serious military and diplomatic incident involving Israel, Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Greece, Armenia, the Kurds, the Assyrians, and some other players in the Middle East and southeastern Europe. It is a factor that is generally only whispered about at diplomatic receptions, news conferences, and think tank sessions due to the explosiveness and controversial nature of the subject. And it is the secretiveness attached to the subject that has been the reason for so much misunderstanding about the current breakdown in relations between Israel and Turkey, a growing warming of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia, and increasing enmity between Saudi Arabia and Iran…
Although known to historians and religious experts, the centuries-old political and economic influence of a group known in Turkish as the “Dönmeh” is only beginning to cross the lips of Turks, Arabs, and Israelis who have been reluctant to discuss the presence in Turkey and elsewhere of a sect of Turks descended from a group of Sephardic Jews who were expelled from Spain during the Spanish Inquisition in the 16th and 17th centuries. These Jewish refugees from Spain were welcomed to settle in the Ottoman Empire and over the years they converted to a mystical sect of Islam that eventually mixed Jewish Kabbala and Islamic Sufi semi-mystical beliefs into a sect that eventually championed secularism in post-Ottoman Turkey. It is interesting that “Dönmeh” not only refers to the Jewish “untrustworthy converts” to Islam in Turkey but it is also a derogatory Turkish word for a transvestite, or someone who is claiming to be someone they are not.
The Donmeh sect of Judaism was founded in the 17th century by Rabbi Sabbatai Zevi, a Kabbalist who believed he was the Messiah but was forced to convert to Islam by Sultan Mehmet IV, the Ottoman ruler. Many of the rabbi’s followers, known as Sabbateans, but also “crypto-Jews,” publicly proclaimed their Islamic faith but secretly practiced their hybrid form of Judaism, which was unrecognized by mainstream Jewish rabbinical authorities. Because it was against their beliefs to marry outside their sect, the Dönmeh created a rather secretive sub-societal clan.
The Dönmeh rise to power in Turkey
Continue reading The Dönmeh heritage, Mustapha Kemal Ataturk & Modern Turkey
Zardari sub pey bhari..
By Omar Ali
Asif Ali Zardari’s astounding survival as President of Pakistan is captured well in this poem by Mohammed Ayub (Punjabi, with English translation).
A friend’s comment on this topic:
Dr. Manzur Ejaz at SANA on language, culture & politics
Dr. Manzoor Ejaz of Washington DC, a very well known journalist and economist speaking at Sindhi Association of North America 27th Annual SANA CONVENTION in speakers forum. Dr. Manzoor Ejaz flanked by Kamran Shafi on the left and Mohammad Taqi on the right is talking on language, culture and politics.
→ YouTube
Kashmiri protests were paid for by ISI plunge movement into crisis
– Damaging revelations emerge from Fai arrest
FBI allegations that diasporic Kashmiri protests were paid for by ISI plunge movement into crisis
Last summer, as bloody clashes broke out between police and protesters on the streets of Kashmir’s cities and towns, Ghulam Nabi Fai had an impassioned message for the world. ….
Read more → New Digital Point
Open corruption in India by politicians and the bureaucrats!
– India’s ‘black money’ in Switzerland
By Kuldip Nayar
I do not think there is any top civil servant or a leading politician in South Asia without the blemish of having a foreign bank account. But the pressure in India on the Manmohan Singh government to bring back the black money stashed abroad has been relentless. But instead of taking any concrete action, the government seems to be trying its best not to let the gamut of black money come to light. Therefore, it is understandable why it is seeking clarifications on the Indian Supreme Court’s indictment: “The issue of unaccounted monies held by nationals and other legal entities in foreign banks is of primordial importance to the welfare of the citizens.”
It had warned the government not to presume that the money hidden in Switzerland was a result of tax evasion. It could be money that has been laundered after being earned from gun-running, drugs, terrorism, etc. …
Read more → THE EXPRESS TRIBUNE
Unnecessarily provocative statements, violence & attempts by anyone to divide people shoud be condemned. Find ways to bond together irrespective of the languages
Courtesy: Geo Tv (Capital talk with Hamid Mir, Haroon-ul-Rasheen and Nazir Laghari – 14th july 2011 part – 4)
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To read more about PPP and MQM → BBC urdu
Partitioning India over lunch
Memoirs of a British civil servant never seen in public until now show how much the partition of India was decided by just two men, the BBC’s Alastair Lawson reports. …
Read more: → BBC
Baloch leader stopped from making speech by EU
by Murtaza Ali Shah
LONDON: The European Union (EU) accepted a Pakistani demand and cancelled the speech of an eminent Baloch leader to the EU Human Rights sub-committee, The News has learnt.
Mehran Baloch, son of Nawab Khair Baksh Marri, a Balochistan representative at the United Nations, European Union and many other international forums, was invited to speak by the EU Sub-Committee on Human Rights to Members of European Parliament (MEPs) on April 13 but, to his shock, he was told by organisers a few minutes before he was scheduled to deliver the speech that Pakistan had demanded to cancel the Baloch’s speech through European External Action Service (EEAS). …
Read more : The News
Sindh saves the day
by Nadeem F. Paracha
Plans are afoot to build the world’s first ever international Sufi university near Bhit Shah in Sindh.
The main purpose of the institution would be to promote interfaith and intercultural education to tackle extremism in the country.
Such a thought and project could only have come about in Sindh. Especially in the context of what Pakistan has beengoing through in the last many years. …
Read more : blog.Dawn
Punjabian di shaan vakhri – Veena rocks
Life plays out of her in great tunes like tunes come of the blissful ragas of Veena. Veena Mailk’s Birthday in India With ASHMEET.
– You Tube