Rebuttal to a Mullah of Another Kind

By Yasser Latif Hamdani

I am not a Marxist of any kind. Far from it. However I have the greatest respect for Marx and his singular contribution to humanity. I also respect Lenin and the architects of the Bolshevik Revolution.

Cricket and Islam

Is Pakistan winning this year’s Twenty20 a symptom of the receding influence of the Tableeghi Jammat in the team, asks Nadeem F. Paracha.

In 1996 when the underdog Sri Lankan cricket team created one upset after another to finally win that year’s prestigious Cricket World Cup, the then decade long Civil War on the island between the Sinhalese-dominated government and the Tamil Tigers took a subtle but definitive turn. [1]

A Call for Unity between Bourgeoisie and Proletariat against The Taliban

Cross-posted from Red Diary

by Taimur Rahman

It is my contention that the Taliban represent a reactionary and a restorationist movement. A simple definition of the term ”reactionary” is as follow:

Reactionary (also reactionist) refers to any movement or ideology that opposes change or progress in society, and which seeks a return to a previous state (the status quo ante). The term originated in the French Revolution, to denote the counter-revolutionaries who wanted to restore the real or imagined conditions of the monarchical Ancien Régime. In the nineteenth century, the term reactionism denoted those who wished to preserve feudalism and aristocratic privilege against industrialism, republicanism, liberalism and socialism.

Alive and Gay in Pakistan

(The views expressed in this article do not reflect those of Pakteahouse)

By NICK SCHIFRIN

It wasn’t until she was 16 years old, when she’d left her Pashtun family in Peshawar for an elite school where the teachers were nuns, that Minot realized she was gay.

“I found out when I dated my literature teacher [a nun],” she said. “I got an A.”

The Case For History

By Anthony J Aschettino

One of the first obligations of any society, immediately after such a thing as ensuring the safety of the society, should be looking after the welfare of the next generation. This impulse can be seen at all levels of any civilized society: parents (or at least any parent worth their salt) will gladly give their life to protect their children, and of all the crimes humans may commit against one another the lowest ranks in our prisons are reserved for those who have committed offenses against children.

IDPs and Civil Society

Team: Ghazala Minallah, Falaknaz Asfandyar, Fauzia Minallah accompanied by young students Shiza Shahid, Myra and Tajreen Jafri.

 

 

Led by Pir Baba we visited internally displaced in Mashki Killey.

Is Iran The Islamic State?

By Atif Sallahudin
 
Iran’s domestic political situation has once again boiled over with demonstrations and bloodshed on the streets of Tehran. Whereas the Presidential election outcome is the overt casus belli, it is also evident from the nature of the confrontations that this situation has simply given vent to the fissures that have been forming in Iranian society. Whilst it remains to be seen how events will play out in the months ahead it is clear that powerful players within the Iranian establishment are facing off against each other whilst seeking to harness the momentum generated by both liberal and conservative factions of Iranian society. The incumbent President Ahmedinejad has the support of the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei against his rivals primarily Mir Hossein Mousavi, a former Prime Minister who in turn has the support of former reformist Presidents Khatami and Rafsanjani. Rafsanjani also happens to be the head of the Assembly of Experts which has the power to remove the Supreme leader who is increasingly being drawn into a bitter partisan fight.

Khomeni’s Islamic Republic in Danger

By Anthony J Aschettino

Looking at the Iranian post-election uprisings of 2009 from several weeks’ perspective, it becomes much clearer as to what the results of the protests have accomplished: they have affected the regime as much as the voting electorate and they represent a new chapter in potential discourse with the Islamic Republic.

Ataturk’s Turkish Republic in Danger

Kemal Ataturk Turkey is in the middle of a political crisis that has pitted the Islamic-rooted civilian government against the military, following reports of an alleged move by military leaders to overthrow the government. Ameen Izzadeen, who was in Turkey last week meeting journalists, civil society leaders and political activists, reports on the country’s changing socio-political scenario.

Niqab/Burqah Not The Issue Between Islam and France

French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s recent call for a parliamentary commission to look into whether the burqa should be banned in public has once again raised a contentious issue.

Justice In A Way: Obama and Gitmo

Comment by HP

Posted in response to Glen Greenwald’s article on Salon. The article is about the positions the Obama admin has been maintaining over the Gitmo detainees.
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/07/08/obama/index.html

Whither Local Government?

By Ahmad Rafay Aam

The prime minister has announced that the local government elections have been postponed indefinitely because of the security situation. Not content with using the security situation as the excuse to deprive citizens of their rightful public spaces, the government has employed it to adjourn, sine die, the democratic process.

It is ironic that a democratically elected government has chosen to postpone an election. Is Democracy no longer The Best Revenge?

The Other Side of the Story

With Clive Owen’s “The International” being Hollywood’s latest attempt at Slander,  it is about time we revisited the BCCI Scandal controversey.  This is a review of Tariq Ali’s screen play “BANKER FOR ALL SEASONS” from the Newsline.

Student leader, Trotskyite, historian, journalist and playwright manqué, Tariq Ali reached iconic status for his raucous, rabble-rousing anti-Vietnam protests. We, who much to the mocking mirth of our friends, marched in solidarity into Grosvenor Square, looked on with no small measure of pride, as this handsome Pakistani took centre stage. That was the year of the protests in Chicago at the Democratic Convention and of the birth of the famous Chicago Eight. Throughout the intervening years, Tariq Ali has produced a shelf load of historical fiction, essays, TV films and is a much sought-after speaker. In all this time he has maintained his radicalism, even if it is inevitably mellowed and measured.

Indus Valley’s Secrets To Remain Buried

Indus Valley’s secrets to remain buried: Insecurity forces archaeologists to abandon excavations
By Afnan Khan

LAHORE: Foreign archaeologists involved in excavation work to explore the Indus Valley Civilisation in Pakistan have left the country due to the war-like situation.

Hassan Nasir’s Execution

Murder in a dungeon 

Umer A. Chaudhry reviews a book containing graphic details about the Communist leader Hassan Nasir’s killing.

Book:

Hasan Nasir Ki Shahadat
Major Ishaq Mohammad
Xavier Publications, Multan
Rs. 500

The letters of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg moved the lyrical pen of Faiz Ahmed Faiz to write his monumental poem ‘hum jo tareek rahon mein mare gaye.’ The Rosenbergs were Marxists and victims of McCarthyism. A few hours before they were sent to the electric chair in 1953, they left an everlasting message of hope for their children: “Be comforted then that we were serene and understood with the deepest kind of understanding, that civilization had not as yet progressed to the point where life did not have to be lost for the sake of life; and that we were comforted in the sure knowledge that others would carry on after us.”

Marx Shrugged: One for the Common Man

By Zia Ahmad

 

Ridges of conformity demand a certain amount of harmlessness from a common man. A common man that doesn’t give much trouble to anyone but himself and is encouraged to keep on a meek disposition in front of every social, political and economic adversity that falls his way.

The People’s Hero: Shaheed-e-Azam Bhagat Singh

Disturbed to life by the atrocious massacre at Jallianwala Bagh in 1919, disillusioned by the national political leaders who recoiled the promising Non-Cooperation Movement in 1922, alarmed by the rising religious divisions and reactionary rhetoric in the mainstream politics, and motivated by the Bolshevik Revolution of workers and peasants of Russia of 1917, Bhagat Singh and his compatriots entered the political scene of India and became the icon of the aspirations of the people of India in no time. Their aim was to bring a revolution that would not only end the colonial British regime but would also lay the foundations of a system that shall combat all forms of injustices. It was for these crimes that Bhagat Singh, Rajguru, and Sukhdev were hanged by the rulers of British colonialism on 23rd of March, 1931, at Lahore Camp Jail. Bhagat Singh was only 23 years old at the time of his hanging.

Uighur Dalai Lama: Rebiya Kadeer

This article is from the official “People’s Daily Online” and is understandably hostile to Rebiya Kadeer but it gives us a good albeit insight into the life of the woman leading Uighur struggle.

Rebiya Kadeer, presiding over the ‘World Uighur Congress’ and the ‘Uighur American Association,’ denied the accusation of masterminding the July 5th Urumqi bloody riots. But what she did, in her so-called exile since 2005, has manifested as clear as daylight that she is an ironclad separatist colluding with terrorists and Islamic extremists and an instigator unceasingly fanning unrest among her followers within and outside of China.

The Cost of War

By Talat Masood

US think tanks, Congressional committees and State Department officials keep reminding us of the $12 billion of assistance that has been provided to Pakistan since 2001. Nearly 68 percent of this amount was reimbursement of costs incurred by Pakistan military in counterterrorism operations in FATA. And over $3 billion were provided for economic assistance and development.

The Pakistani Soldier

Richard J Douglas

It is gratifying to see the new White House team giving more attention to relations with Pakistan. During my recent tenure as deputy assistant secretary of defence for counter-narcotics, and earlier as a US Senate staffer, I had the privilege of making numerous journeys to Pakistan and sponsoring several counter-narcotics initiatives with Pakistan’s security forces.

Iran’s Broken Election

Mosharraf Zaidi

What is happening in Iran is not a CIA conspiracy to destabilise the Middle East. It is simply more evidence of the incapability of Muslim societies to competently conduct their affairs within the confines of an agreed set of rules.

Analysis of Iran ’s Presidential Elections

PTH does not agree with the contents of this piece but is posting it as a counter point of view.

By Zafar Bangash

Iran’s presidential elections held on June 12 in which the incumbent, President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, retained his post with a wide margin over his nearest rival Mir Hussain Mousavi has provided the Muslim-hating West another opportunity to spout its anti-Islamic venom. Through its corporate-controlled mouthpieces, the media, they had already declared Mousavi the winner even before the people of Iran had had an opportunity to cast their vote. When the result turned out to be contrary to their expectations, it was immediately denounced as “rigged”. It seems even Mousavi had fallen for this propaganda because as soon as the polls closed, he told a press conference in Tehran that he had “won”.

Poem: Around Us (Betrayal of Conscience)

“Around Us” depicts those events that are currently taking place in Pakistan and how it has weakened our moral fabric, the intangible conscience and all that makes us what we are not”.

Engraved in our memory, the old questions
Of freedom and justice, as we watch in silence
Engraved in our memory, the unfolding events
The stories of horror in darkness,
The blunders of our masters, out in the open
In silence- our hands and minds
Engraved in our minds, the old lessons
Of purpose, morals and of courage
As we hear, as we devour, the very fabric
Consumption of all what we once had
Now lay there, only the ruins and questions

In the hazel of dusk, the stories of long march
Out in the open, the corridors of justice- the body
A girl and her existence, kidnapped and raped
To pay the price, the sickness that exists
In minds and in hearts, of flesh and blood
As protectors pay homage to the wolves
The cartels of crime in distance and in open

As we hear the shots, as we see them fall,
The daughters of our land, through crimes
The old trade of flesh and blood and its protection
As the suffering continues, in sorrows and pain
The old hands of mutiny upon us, to shackle
“You will not survive” as we constantly hear
The old sermons through faces of our times
Engulfed in greed and hunger, the story
As the fortune plays their tune, to the mocking crowd

Hear we noises, hear we stories, hear we sermons,
The actions to be taken, the silence must draw
The evils that are there, the darkness that prevails
Through the silken days of our existence,
Comes hither, the brutal reality -naked
The old cartels of crimes, out in the open
As our daughters are sold, as our children pay the price
Of innocence and poverty, as we watch them in silence
The voices inside us, remain inside us, never we shout

The same stories in different formations, around us
Around us, the victims, around us the conscience,
As the hope begins to crackle in its fury
In words and in actions, in participation and presence
As the time stretches itself to eternity
The crimes will never be forgiven small and large
Too much at stake as we devour ourselves
In our greed and in our fame, the forgetful woes
I will stand up, I will stand up, hear me out
Those million souls, asleep as history rewinds
Gather those wolves, gather those evils
Strike them, with justice and strike it hard
The lessons to be learnt, the message to be given
Around us, the wrongs, in its mischief

As the old green now go on sale and in auctions
The symbols of our existence, the symbols of hope
The questions of who will stand up and the answers
Around us, in us, there lies the hope, their lies the quest
Around us, the faces, of victims and hope,
Around us, the magnificent story of our times
There stands a man, in the distance, the history

Around us, the beautiful faces of our generation
Around us, the voices of wisdom and of age
Around us, the passion and principles of conscience
Around us, the existence in flowers and of beauty
Around us, there stands a man, in the distance,
The history, in its words, in its actions,
Around us, Islam and its Prophet, and the civilization
Around us, Jinnah and Iqbal, in words and in peace
Around us, the light from billion years of travel,
Around us, the Universe, it’s Maker, the Force, the Nature
Around us, you and me and million faces,
Around us, the immortal question, of our failures
Hear we not, around us, the voices of reason and wisdom
Around us, the man, in the distance, the history!

Kashkin

Another Interview

By Zia Ahmad

 

Making eye contact with words ending with a Y does not make you chinky. Making eye contact with a prospective employer in this pure land of ours doesn’t do you any favors.  At best it only makes the tongue of your mind go flat for some brief period of time.

We are the World: Saying Good Bye to the King of Pop in Islamabad

LIVE BLOG FROM NYTIMES.