Immigration reform, making its way through Congress, and the Boston Marathon bombings – allegedly committed by two Chechen immigrants – has raised heated debate about how we measure the assimilation of newcomers civically, culturally, economically, and even patriotically.
For the rest of this interesting article click on the link below.
A worth reading short story.
The girl standing in the women’s section among more men than women in the morning rush hour had been, with all the force of indoctrination, prior experience, and will, pretending as if nothing just happened that concerned her.
When hero took over the situation and had two fellow passengers restraint the offender, he tapped her shoulder with a polite, ‘bibi’. She recoiled in horror. The hand pushing against her buttocks was obviously out of her sight; it was not supposed to be seen by anyone at all. The journey would soon end and she could reclaim her body without a blemish, and without anyone knowing anything about the hand or where it had been wandering. It only happens for a short while, why turn it into a bigger museebat by reacting to it? This policy had worked for her till that day.
The kindly tap on her shoulder pulled her out of a world she’d made up to escape from the real world of a crowded bus and male bodies pressing against her. It exposed her in front of strangers, all looking at her expectantly and imagining God knows what in their heads. She was mortified. She wanted to cry but her features stayed frozen in fright. She raised her eyes with difficulty and looked around in a quick semi circular movement of head. She wanted to plead for help, help her get out of this embarrassment that she was about to be pushed deeper into. All she saw was a blur of male faces perspiring and flushed with the heat of July as much as that of unfamiliar emotions.
Would I want my sister in the shoes of this young woman? Tauba tauba, Allah forbid. Anyways, now that something as commonplace as caressing a butt has been criminalised, let’s see what comes out of it. Females are passive, you do things to her, she is not supposed to react. What is this one going to say or do about it? It was a private court held by a strong man and that was as good an assurance as can be that justice will be done and done quickly. They looked on expectantly.
‘Bibi, look at this beghairat, especially his face, because you are the last one to see this face intact. Go and kick his face until his ears come out of his eyes’. Hero’s voice had the elder brotherly command and assurance in equal measure. She was covering her face with her chador, showing only her anxious, sometimes frightened and sometimes pitiful eyes. Her hands were clasped tight to keep them from shaking. She hadn’t spoken a word, or moved a foot. She was half turned back, towards the men’s section and even with downcast eyes, couldn’t avoid the sight of the offender pinned down on a seat two rows from her. She looked up at hero, begged him with her eyes for something that wasn’t clear to either, and bowed her head again. Click Link for full article;
http://www.dawn.com/news/1030595/growing-wings-in-a-bus
( Posted By F. Sheikh)
This is one of the most heart warming posting we have received for the TF. Thanks Tahir sahib.
Shoeb
ISLAMABAD: Darul Iman Jamia Masjid Qurtuba’s story is as dramatic as the sectarian history of Pakistan. The newly-built mosque in Islamabad’s Margalla foothills is calling upon its followers to stop discriminating along sectarian lines and to start praying together – in whichever way they like – under the same roof.
Zahid Iqbal is a local businessman who conceptualised the idea of a sect-free mosque in 2010. He bought the mosque plot in the E-11 sector. But the road to the realisation of his dream wasn’t easy: At first, authorities refused to register it as a sect-free mosque. Under Capital Development Authority rules, every mosque has to declare its sect following, before being granted permission to build the mosque.
The procedure involved some complicated maneuvering: To bypass the strict rules, he registered a trust, and then sub-registered the mosque under the trust’s banner: The Al-Kitaab Foundation Trust.
Meanwhile, Iqbal has already found an Imam for the mosque – Qari Jehangir, who is currently doing his Master’s degree from the Islamic University. The coordinator of the mosque is doing his MBA from Preston University. Both are young men in their twenties. The Imam and Khateeb are both from different sects – and the mosque administration says it will have no problem if a Shia Imam leads prayers.
There’s a simple philosophy behind Iqbal’s revolutionary idea. For the mosque’s administration, branding Islam along sectarian lines has damaged religion more than any other reason. “By branding ourselves on sectarian lines we have even put non-believers to shame through violence and unruly conduct,” the businessman said. He believes that mullahs have turned religion into business ventures for petty personal gains.
Calling his prayer hall a ‘model mosque’, Iqbal added, “This is God’s house. Even non-Muslims are allowed to come and seek the light.”
In addition, the mosque, located in the northern strip of the capital in the E-11/2 sector, not only invites all sects, but also has a separate section for women, and a library filled with religious books from all sects. With the support of other businessmen and overseas Pakistanis, the 2-kanal compound has been built at a cost of Rs30 million.
The mosque is also funding at least ten students’ completion of their Bachelor’s degree, which they could otherwise not have afforded.
So far, Iqbal is thrilled by the reaction he has received from people. “There has been individual criticism but overall a collective acceptance amongst the community is settling in,” he said, adding that people from different sects are already praying there together, although the number is not yet big enough to cover the 350-people prayer hall.
Despite the heightened sectarian strife that plagues Pakistan, the Darul Iman Jamia Masjid Qurtuba has no qualms in declaring its message loud and clear. A bold tag welcomes the followers to the mosque stating: “This mosque does not discriminate between any sects and welcomes all Muslims.”
Considering the environment at this time, it appears the kind of initiative which was bound to attract the attention of the Taliban. Iqbal recalled how on one recent evening, more than ten members of the Taliban came to his mosque and argued with his thinking and “not adhering to his sect”. The businessman claimed that he debated the Taliban for hours and convinced them to stop opposing his interpretation of Islam. But he knows that they may come back.
This wasn’t the only obstacle that the mosque administrator faced. Iqbal also recalled how the plot for his mosque was forcibly taken over by the ‘Imam’ of another mosque. “After I bought the plot in 2010 for the mosque, I had tasked an architect to prepare its design. In the meantime I was complimented by friends for constructing the structure of my mosque in record time. I was shocked to see that my plot was taken over by a mullah along with his ‘body builder type’ madrassah students. I had to call the police to vacate the plot,” he said.
For now, the mosque administration is planning to spread their message to other mosques as well. As a starting point, the mosque owner is giving Friday sermons in another mosque, also in E-11, to urge people to shun sectarian differences and forge unity amongst their ranks.
While the administration of the mosque acknowledges that it receives some of its funding from the US, it adds in the same breath that that doesn’t necessarily mean it endorses all its policies. “How can we term US aid bad if we ourselves are receiving funding from Pakistanis in the US? But we do condemn US support for Israel against the Palestinians,” he said candidly.
Meanwhile, for the coming Eid, the mosque is planning to hold its first multi-sect gathering for Eid prayers. A bigger gathering, the administration hopes, will be one more step towards tackling sectarianism.
Sectarian militancy, and the resulting violence, has led to hundreds of deaths in recent history. In 2012 alone, according to the Human Rights Watch, 400 members of the Shia community were killed. This included 125 in Balochistan. Most of these were members of the ethnic Hazara community. Things only got worse in 2013, when the worst attack on Hazaras in the history of Pakistan took place in the beginning of the year – responsibility for the attack which led to 92 deaths, and over 120 injured, was claimed by increasingly brazen terrorist group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi. Besides a barrage of suicide bombings, targeted killings have also taken place of prominent members of the Shia community across Pakistan.
The increasing sectarian strife has even led to several members of the Hazara community fleeing the country in hope of asylum elsewhere, often in Australia.
It is worth reading analysis of Afghanistan after US withdrawal. It is in two Parts and link to each part is at the bottom of excerpts of each part. ( F. Sheikh )
“Seen from Kabul, there are good reasons to fear that the US will negotiate some sort of deal with the Taliban and quit Afghanistan entirely. According to unofficial statements from the White House reported in The New York Times, the option of complete withdrawal is one that President Obama is now actively considering. This would be in stark contrast to what had been hitherto planned—keeping bases, aircraft, drones, special forces, and advisers in place until at least 2024 to support the Afghan National Army and continue strikes against Al Qaeda targets in the tribal areas of Pakistan.
Until now, the total withdrawal option has been ruled out largely out of the fear that it would repeat the experience of South Vietnam following the complete US pull out in 1973—where the local state left behind lasted barely two years before North Vietnamese victory. And of course, the latest suggestions from the White House are by no means an indication that the existing strategy will definitely be changed. Indeed, US officials have made it clear that floating the idea of total withdrawal is in significant part an attempt to put pressure on the Karzai administration to engage in the American-led peace effort. It also appears to be a strong warning to Karzai not to attempt to rewrite the Afghan constitution and somehow stay in power after his second term expires.”
“But the prospect of Afghanistan becoming an Indian client state is also the greatest nightmare for Pakistan, the other regional power whose strategies and interests are critical to any Afghan peace process. If the US pulls out completely and India pours in arms, money, and advisers to prop up the Afghan National Army (ANA), then it seems certain that Pakistan would ramp up its support for the Taliban accordingly.”
“The desire in parts of the Indian security establishment to play a much bigger part in Afghanistan is owed in part to a belief that Pakistan’s Afghan strategy remains that of the 1990s: to back the Afghan Taliban to complete victory, in order to create a Pakistani client state. The real picture however has become much more complicated, precisely as a result of the catastrophic failure of Pakistan’s earlier strategy, and the Islamist revolt now unfolding within Pakistan itself”
Part II
What Pakistan Wants?
To understand Pakistan’s position in the conundrum of Afghanistan’s future, it is necessary to understand that in certain respects, Pakistan and Afghanistan have long blended into each other, via the population of around 35 million Pashtuns that straddles both sides of the border between them (a border drawn by the British which Afghanistan has never recognized). Pashtuns have always regarded themselves as the core of Afghanistan, where they form a plurality of the population (Afghan is indeed simply the old Farsi word for Pashtun); yet around two thirds of Pashtuns actually live in Pakistan, where they form the backbone of the present Islamist revolt against the state.
In the 1980s, the US encouraged this merger of Afghan and Pakistani Pashtun sentiment in order to strengthen support of Pakistani Pashtuns for the Afghan Mujahedin. In the 2000s, this came back to haunt America, since most Pakistani Pashtuns with whom I have spoken over the years regard the Taliban fight against the US and its Afghan allies in very much the same light that they regarded the Mujahedin fight against the USSR and its Afghan allies.
Pakistan’s Afghan policy today is essentially an attempt to reconcile the following perceptions and imperatives:
If as a result of all this Pakistani strategy has often looked confused, contradictory, ambiguous, and two-faced—well, it would be, wouldn’t it?
Link to Part I
http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2013/jul/14/afghanistan-war-after-war/
Link to Part II
http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2013/jul/15/Afghanistan-what-pakistan-wants/