Egypt Uprising 11-2-2

Uprising in Egypt – Country at the Cross Roads

Mirza A. Beg

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

The Tuscaloosa News Wednesday, February 2, 2011

http://www.tuscaloosanews.com/article/20110202/NEWS/110209918

The American Muslim, Wednesday, February 2, 2011

http://www.theamericanmuslim.org/tam.php/features/articles/uprising_in_egypt_country_at_a_cross_roads/0018368

Media Monitors Net, Wednesday, February 2, 2011

http://world.mediamonitors.net/Headlines/Uprising-in-Egypt-Country-at-the-Crossroads

Cross Currents, Wednesday, February 2, 2011

http://www.countercurrents.org/beg010211.htm

Inspired by the spontaneous revolution in Tunisia, thousands of young Egyptians took to the streets in Cairo on January 25^th 2011, congregating in Tehrir (Liberation) Square. A 20^th century dictatorship was overwhelmed by 21^st century technology. Facebook and Twitter facilitated instant communication to overcome the government censors. Their protest against poverty, unemployment and government corruption erupted as a peaceful revolt against the thirty years of autocratic rule of President Hosni Mubarak. In unison they demanded Mubarak to leave.

Eighty-two year old Mubarak, caught by surprise sent his family to England, shut off the Internet and imposed a curfew. He employed his usual means to suppress the peaceful protesters by sending the feared police and Special Forces. Police used water cannons, tear gas and rubber bullets, but to their surprise they could not intimidate as in the past. It was reported that about a dozen protesters were killed. This simply made the protesters even more determined and the crowd grew even larger and at places the police were overwhelmed and even beaten.

Out of fear, or as a matter of policy, the hated police were withdrawn on the third day and the army was called out. Some damage to the government buildings was reported, including the world famous Museum of Antiquities. Looting of richer neighborhoods by nefarious miscreants is widely believed to be the act of agent provocateurs and the police, to discredit the peaceful revolution.

The military is one of the most respected and egalitarian institutions in Egypt. People welcomed the soldiers in their tanks and armored carriers as protectors. They did not interfere with the peaceful protest. It was amazing to see protesters joyously riding on the tanks along with the soldiers.

Three days later Mubarak reconstituted his government, appointing a Vice President for the first time. Omar Sulaiman, the new Vice President is respected in some US circles, but the Egyptians know him as the former intelligence chief known for his role in torture of prisoners, particularly in the US extraordinary rendition-for-torture program. Mubarak also replaced the Prime Minister. and the police chief.

Though the spontaneous revolution started with the young, gradually men and women of all ages and people of all political leanings have joined in. On Tuesday the 1^st of February, millions of Egyptians marched throughout Egypt, demanding Mubarak’s resignation with sporadic anti US slogans for the long US support for Mubarak. The newly appointed Vice President Sulaiman has offered to meet the leaders of the revolution to discuss ways to proceed with the reforms.

The army has announced that it would patrol to protect people and property, but would not fire on peaceful protest, confirming that Mubarak’s weakening power.

Though the revolution was spontaneous and leaderless, gradually Egyptians from all shades of the political spectrum, including the Muslim Brotherhood and the Communists have coalesced behind an internationally respected figure, El Baradei, a 2005 Nobel Laureate and former Director General of International Atomic Energy Agency.

Western governments, especially the United States were also caught flatfooted. Secretary of State Clinton’s first statement was insipid, but by the second day the US administration could read the writing on the wall. Obama strongly urged Mubarak to respect people’s right to peaceful protest and asked for the restoration of the internet connections. He also diplomatically threatened Mubark to behave or jeopardize the annual largess of one and a half billion dollars.

The US has traditionally considered Egypt as one of the most important allies in the Middle East for four reasons. First - Egypt is by far the most populous Arab country. Second - The US considers it a bulwark of peace with Israel. It provides enormous leverage to Israel’s occupation and activities in the occupied Gaza and West Bank. Third - After 9/11, Egypt has toed the US line in the war on terrorism, to the extent that it was one of the most important destinations for torture of “extraordinary rendition prisoners” in the Bush administration. And fourth – Suez Canal is a strategic passage for oil and commerce for Europe.

The nervousness in the US is understandable. The Obama administration is very carefully playing its cards. The US realizes that the era of preaching democracy and supporting dictators in Latin America, Middle East and Asia is over. The much-maligned Wikileaks expose, though embarrassing, shows that the US did urge dictators like Mubarak to ease up on the draconian laws and move towards democracy. It has not gone un-noticed among the intelligentsia in the Middle East and it bodes well for the future of US standing among the people in the region and puts potentates on notice. But the average Egyptian does not consider the US to be a friend. Obama administration needs to be more proactive and on the right side of the unfolding history.

Israel is naturally terribly concerned and considers Mubarak to be a close ally. NPR has reported that it is strongly encouraging the US and others to fully support Mubarak.

Leaders of most of the important parties, especially El Baradei have emphasized that they would honor all treaty obligations, including the peace treaty with Israel. In a democratic Egypt the government would be answerable to its people and would not be pliant to the US policy towards the Palestinians, and would not support Israel’s strangulating blockade of Gaza as Mubarak has. This would bring greater urgency to the peaceful solution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and give impetus to the US efforts.

Obviously a major change in the power equation cannot be fully predicted. It poses new challenges and new opportunities. No one doubts that democracy with all its problems and flaws has proven to be a better form of government. It takes time to take root and find its stride.

Some in the West are afraid that Egypt would follow the example of Iran. It is based on ignorance of history as well as geography. The Iranian revolution sprang against a tyrant that suppressed Islam. As it unfolded, instead of looking to the future, the US and Iranian policy makers became prisoners of their past, rooted in the1953 US interference in suppressing the budding democracy in Iran.

Egyptians have no such history. In 1956 Eisenhower forced the withdrawal of the tripartite invasion of Egypt by Britain, France and Israel. To its credit Obama administration has carefully supported the right to peaceful revolution. Though the death toll has reached more than hundred, a whole-sale suppression has not occurred because of a blunt US warning to Mubarak use of force on peaceful demonstrators will not be tolerated.

If handled with care democracy in Egypt is more likely to follow the Turkish model. The Muslim Brotherhood since 1960s has abjured force and has followed political means under an oppressive dictatorship. It is more akin to the Christian right in the US than the theocratic clergy in Iran. Though in a new democracy respect for constitution needs time to take root.

Democratic Egypt would be a positive force in bringing democracy to countries that have educated populations with large-scale unemployment and poverty, such as Syria, Algeria, Jordan, Yemen, and Sudan. The Gulf Countries and Saudi Arabia have small populations rich because of petro-dollars and would not follow the current wave of revolutions.

Egyptians are a proud people with a five thousand year of great history, and one of the best-educated young generations in the Middle East. Two years ago when I was in Cairo, I talked to Egyptians from a broad cross section of generational, educational and economic and religious background. They were friendly talkative and inquisitive. They talked about everything under the sun, but could not voice opinions on their government. Liberation is in the air and Egyptians have found their voice.

Mirza A. Beg can be contacted at mab64@yahoo.com and comments may be posted on mirzasmusings.blogspot.com

Oman Snubs Modi 2009-10-27

Oman Disinvites Modi - News Reverberates in India

Mirza A. Beg

Written Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Counter Currents, Wednesday, October 28, 2009
http://www.countercurrents.org/beg281009.htm

Media Monitor Network, Wednesday, October 28, 2009
http://world.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/67736

Some times good guys also win. It happens only once in a while, but when it does, it gives hope to many who struggle against the evil perpetrated by the powerful, the rich and the connected.

Such is the case when some decent ordinary people with the support of many other decent people were able convince the Government of Oman to deny Mr. Modi a visa. It thwarted, Gujarat’s Chief Minister Mr. Modi from falsely projecting himself as a world trotting statesman and camouflaging his evil deeds.

Mr. Modi was elected the Chief Minister of Gujarat State in the western part of India, on the platform of a fascistic leaning Indian Peoples Party (Hindi initials BJP). It came to power in late1990s. It got that chance because the Congress party that had governed India since independence from Britain in 1947, with only one break of four years, had become stale and the populace was tired. In that vacuum stepped in the rightwing BJP. It cashed in on its years of devious hard work, promoting sectarian riots and fear mongering in the well trodden footsteps of demagogues, albeit with an Indian patina. For years the BJP had engineered riots against the Muslim minorities, Christian evangelism and lower cast Indians. Finally it was able cash in on the fear it had planted among decent ordinary Hindus.

Mr. Modi was the Chief Minister of Gujarat in February 2002, when a train carriage in which the BJP goons were travelling and harassing people on the railway station, was burnet at Godhra in Gujarat. To this day it has not been conclusively proven as to who did it. Instead of arresting those responsible for the event and bringing them to justice, he blamed Muslims, whom his party has been killing for years in contrived riots. The next day in the manner of Nazi “Krstallnacht” he unleashed a reign of terror and mayhem, by the goons of his party under the protection of his chosen police force, in the manner of Nazi SS.

As Chief Minister of Gujarat, Mr. Modi presided over and orchestrated widespread riots in which about 2000 hapless Muslims were massacred and more than 200,000 were rendered homeless. It was internationally reported as a pogrom against the Muslim minority in Gujarat.

International human rights organizations, including the Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the National Human Rights Commission of India held Mr. Modi directly responsible for orchestrating that gory mob violence in which innocent Muslims were butchered, burnt alive and women gang raped.

Mr. Modi has also succeeded in corrupting and intimidating most of the judiciary in Gujarat. The criminals are protected by Mr. Modi’s police, while thousands of displaced Muslims are unable to return to their homes. The same gangsters also harass Christians and have burned their Churches.

The Supreme Court of India felt compelled to step in. It compared Mr. Modi with the infamous Roman Emperor Nero and ordered an especially constituted team from the Federal (Central) Government to investigate Mr. Modi’s crimes.

Though his party has lost national power in two successive national elections of 2004 and 2009; unfortunately in the federal structure of India, states have power over law and order, just as the federal US government was hampered in the American South of1960s. Mr. Modi has succeeded in polarizing the normally decent people of Gujarat and has won elections to remain the Chief Minister in Gujarat. And because as often happens, fascistic demagogues are efficient, Mr. Modi is indeed efficient and has brought businesses to Gujarat supported by some among the rich diaspora of Guajaratis from the US.

Now that his party is in decline in the rest of India, he has been trying mightily to project himself as a world class leader with an eye on gaining national leadership. With a well-deserved harvest of global condemnation haunting him, Mr. Modi is desperately courting foreign collaboration to mend his image to achieve political restitution in India.

Fortunately because of the efforts of those who value the Gandhian tradition of India, Indians from all religions and ethnic groups came together, petitioned and convinced the US State department to deny Mr. Modi the coveted visa, not only once but twice in three years.

Spurned by the US and some Western countries, he aimed at developing contacts with the rich Gulf Emirates. Mr. Modi nefariously planted stories of being invited by the Sultanate of Oman. Again some concerned people took it upon themselves to circulate a petition on line. Again many human rights organizations all over the world, but most importantly from India extended their full support. Many wrote personal letters to the Ambassador and the government of Oman.

In response, not only the Ambassador of Oman disinvited him, but took out an advertisement in a well respected national newspaper, Indian Express, stating that the Sultanate of Oman had not invited Mr. Modi to Oman.

To Mr. Modi’s discomfort the news is reverberating though the Indian press and has even been picked up by the international web based media. (It can easily be searched on Google, “Modi denied Visa to Oman”). It puts his efforts towards gaining coveted visas from Indonesia that he has been working on, and visa from many other countries in jeopardy.

Though it is only a small victory for decency, and not much help to those who perished in the Mayhem engineered by Mr. Modi in Gujarat, but it does give incentive to average people. They can make a difference. All they have to do is, try.

Mirza A. Beg can be contacted at mab64@yahoo.com or Mirzasmusings@blogspot.com

Iran at Cossroads 09-06-22

Iran at the Cross Roads – What should the US Do

By
Mirza A. Beg
Written Monday, June 22, 2009

Part I -The Tuscaloosa News, Thursday, June 25, 2009
http://www.tuscaloosanews.com/article/20090625/NEWS/906249887
Part II -The Tuscaloosa News, Friday, June 26, 2009
http://www.tuscaloosanews.com/article/20090626/NEWS/906259938

Media Monitors. Network, Thursday, June 25, 2009
http://world.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/63766

Part – I, The American Muslim, June 25, 2009
http://www.theamericanmuslim.org/tam.php/features/articles/iran_at_the_cross_roads_what_should_the_us_do_part_1/0017427
Part – II, The American Muslim , June 25, 2009 http://www.theamericanmuslim.org/tam.php/features/articles/iran_at_the_cross_roads_what_should_the_us_do_part_2/0017428

Part I – Iran at the Cross Roads

The tenth presidential election in Iran was on the 12th of June. A few months ago, it was widely thought to be an easy win for President Ahmadinijad. Though his popularity had some what declined, because of the economic pressures on an average Iranian, but his very simple unostentatious life style and his strong stand against the tirade of the Bush administration were very popular. It was a matter of national pride. The very fact that Iran was able to withstand the massive American pressure, made Iran look strong and the US appear weak.

The most popular person to challenge President Ahmadinijad was the former two-term President Khatami, who was very popular when first-elected in 1997. Considered a reformer, but by the end of his second term his followers were disappointed. On the domestic front he failed to loosen the grip of the clergy on the levers of power. On the international front his friendly overtures to United States, including his offer of support against the Talibans in Afghanistan were rebuffed by the Bush administration. Instead of taking the hand of friendship, the Bush administration inanely branded Iran to be a part of the Axis of Evil. Mr. Ahmadinejad won the presidential elections of 2005, by painting the reformers as ineffective appeasers of the United States.

The dynamics of the presidential election changed when in March 2009 the former President Khatami, having problems even getting the approval of the Guardian Council to run, withdrew and threw his support to Mr Moussavi.

The other important factor was the end of the Bush era and the election of President Obama, along with the change in the US foreign policy from belligerency to diplomacy. Mr. Obama’s overtures for a civil dialogue with Iran left President Ahmadinejad without an easy mark to rail against. Mr. Moussavi, a loyal supporter of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, was approved by the clerical establishment. He started gathering the support of all who were dissatisfied with the status-quo. It included the intellectuals, liberals, young people asking for the easing of what they considered onerous regulations, but most of all, many average Iranians suffering the economic hardship because of the western embargo on Iran and fall in oil prices since last November.

In this contentious election, almost 40 million Iranians, eighty percent of the electorate voted. The pre-election polls indicated a very close race, with a chance of Mr. Moussavi winning. The election results started trickling in even before the polls closed. Surprisingly, President Ahmadinejad won by a thumping majority of 62% to Mr. Moussavi 33%. To the shock of many, Mr. Moussavi, as well as the other candidates lost by big margins even in their hometowns.

Those who had voted for Mr Moussavi, felt strongly that the election had been rigged. In Iran the system did not allow observers from the campaigns to monitor the voting and tabulation. It fed the dissatisfaction. The authorities refused to entertain any doubts. Within a week the dissatisfaction burgeoned to wide scale protests and civil demonstrations. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenie first rejected the demand for recount, then accepted a partial recount, again without the monitors.

In the mean time, the government arrested an untold number of people. Many well known names from the 1979 revolution, such as the daughter and some family members of Ayatollah Rafsanjani, and many others former ministers have been detained.

The strong arm suppression of hundreds of thousands of peaceful protesters was beamed the world over, including the beating and killing of silent marchers. According to the Iranian government 17 people have been killed, the opposition and other sources claim hundreds killed.

In this budding revolution, many supporters of the Iranian regime see the hand of the CIA, as it had overthrown Prime Minister Mosaaddeq in 1953 to restore the Shah to the throne. There concerns are legitimate, as the Bush administration had left no doubt that it would use any means to change the regime in Iran. It is quite possible that the Bush policies and spies in place in Iran may have a hand in stirring up the pot.

It is also possible that the election was very close and President Ahmadinejad may have won the election by a small margin, but it is becoming clearer by the day that there was wide scale rigging to ensure the results. On the 22nd of June, the 12 member Guardian Council, that oversees the election, accepted that three million votes may have been miscounted and there were 50 places, where the number of votes cast exceeded the eligible voters. Yet it declared the elections to be fair, allowing only a limited recount. Once people loose faith in the honesty of the process, they can not be satisfied by the promises of unsupervised rectification by the same people.

From the fast changing scene in the past twelve days, it is evident that the CIA may have had its designs, but this wide spread movement was neither planned, nor controlled by anyone including its reluctant leader Mr. Moussavi. The wide spread pent up frustration of a large populace has found an avenue to express itself. Mr. Moussavi finds himself at the head of a budding revolution that he did not plan. He is in no position to contain it without loosing face and his leadership.

Ayatollah Khamenie is in a precarious position. By taking a strong stand against a total and open recount, he missed a great opportunity to control the events peacefully and to co-opt the opposition. One great advantage of democracy is that it allows change to take place without tearing up the fabric of the society. It tolerates a certain level of corruption, nepotism, even small irregularities in vote counting. By taking a strong stand Ayatollah Khamenie is in danger of loosing control or suppressing and closing the country, harming Iran and the people of Iran, to retain power by the force of arms. Iran may lurch from a theocratic democracy to a dictatorship.

Iran is finding it difficult to run a system as part democracy. Half free responding to the will of the people, such as popularly elected president and the Assembly (Majlis) albeit allowing only the candidates approved by the Guardian Council, and half controlled by the Supreme leader, indirectly elected for life, by an elected Assembly of Experts.

When the fog of the fast moving events clears, Iran would have changed, no matter who wins. If the present structure of the government survives by closing the doors shut to the outside world, it would be detrimental to the Iranian people. If it incorporates the opposition, it will be a desirable change; otherwise it may turn out to be a bloody revolution that no Iranian wants.

The Iranian regime is trying to shut the news of demonstrations and repression, but inter-connective technology of the 21st century is proving to be an impediment. The cell phones are ubiquitous, more than 80 percent of the people, especially the young have it and can twitter the information and pictures world wide. The government cannot shut the technology portal to the rest of the world without severely wounding its own economy and communications.

One hopes that the rulers in Iran will remember that violent repression of the voice of the people exposes the bankruptcy of the government. The US may dislike and may have been helping elements opposed to the government within Iran, but the enormous uprising and peaceful demonstrations in support of the opposition is the voice of Iran and its future.

Mirza A. Beg can be contacted at mab64@yahoo.com and at mirzasmusings@blogspot.com


Iran at the Cross Roads – What Should the US Do

By
Mirza A. Beg
Written Monday, June 22, 2009

Part II - What should the United States do

Iran has been in turmoil since the election on June 12th. For the rest of the world, especially for the US, it is important to understand, it is about Iran and not about the United States. It is the 21st Century, not the 20th, when the super powers manipulated the events in the world with impunity.

Events in Iran are moving fast. Most of the popular punditry in the United States was initially flummoxed, interpreting events with the US-centric biases; particularly the Neo-Con infected Republican Party. In spite of all the horrible mistakes of the eight Bush years, miring the country in un-necessary and terribly mismanaged wars and driving the country to near bankruptcy, they have learned no lessons, certainly not humility. They are taking pot shots at President Obama to be more belligerent towards the Iranian government.

They do not understand that the history of US orchestration of the overthrow of the first democratically elected Iranian regime in 1953 is as fresh in the Iranian psyche as the hostage taking of Americans by Iran in 1979 is for the American mind. The US supported brutal war waged on Iran by Saddam Hussain during the Reagan administration in the1980s has not faded from Iranian memory. Iran lost about a million of its youth affecting most families in Iran. The countries that the Iranians mistrust the most are Great Britain and the United States.

The Neo-Con mindset argues, “The Mullahs in Iran accuse the US anyway, so why not support the opposition”. They do not understand an important distinction. It matters less what the government propaganda machine puts out, it matters enormously what the people believe. So far it appears that because of the election of President Obama and the change in course of the US foreign policy, the Iranian public opinion towards the US has changed from completely negative to largely favorable or ambivalent.

Obviously the killing of peaceful protestors and bystanders in Iran is of concern to all decent human beings. But it is in the interest of the Iranians, the US and the world, that the events in Iran should be handled by Iranians peacefully. If the situation deteriorates in chaos, it is the Iranians who will suffer the brunt. The Iranian opposition has asked for moral support not belligerency towards the Iranian regime.

The United States is, and has been a super power for the last seventy years with world wide interests. It has often supported corrupt dictatorships over democracy in Asia, Africa and Latin America, while paying lip service to the idea of democracy. Mr. Reagan’s opposition of the Soviets is often highlighted by the Neo-Cons, but they never acknowledge his support of the South African apartheid regime while branding Nelson Mandela a terrorist, the support of the murderous Contras in Nicaragua and a deafening silence after the rape and murder of five US nuns and the murder of the Archbishop by the government death squads in El Salvador.

It is important to understand the present crisis in Iran and the role of major players in historical context. The Islamic Republic of Iran was born thirty years ago in a people’s revolution against the corrupt and brutal regime of the Shah wedded solely to aggrandizement of his personal power helped by the western interests. Iran is not a dictatorship as some exaggerate, but a theocratic democracy, not to our liking.

Since the revolution in 1979, Iran has had ten presidential elections, and six presidents. Three of the presidents were elected for two terms each. All the previous elections were largely considered to be fair. The office of the President in Iran is not the highest office. It is more like the office of the chief executive officer, under the ultimate authority of the Supreme Leader (literally, the leader of the revolution).

The Supreme Leader is elected for a life time by the 86 members, Assembly of Experts. The Assembly of Experts is elected from a list of screened candidates by a direct election for an eight year term. That is how the theocracy controls the democracy. The former president Ayatollah Rafsanjani is the current chairman. He along with many in the religious establishment are supporting Mr. Moussavi.

Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini who led the1979 revolution was unanimously elected as the first Supreme Leader. He held the office until his death in June 1989. The Assembly of Experts filled the vacancy by electing Seyyed Ali Khamenei (the president at the time) as the Supreme Leader by a two thirds majority. After twenty years he is still in power. He can only be replaced by impeachment. The reformers have unsucessfully tried to limit the term of the Supreme Leader.

The candidates for presidential election in contention are the children of the revolution and were strong supporters of Ayatollah Khomeini. Mr. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the current president was seeking a second term. The challenger Mr. Mir Hossein Moussavi is a former foreign minister who became the prime minister, during the presidency of, no other than the present Supreme Leader Seyyed Ali Khameini from 1981 to 1989.

Many in the US, particularly in the Neo-Con circles are making the mistake of grouping the Moussavi followers to be an anti Islamic revolution. One of the most potent symbols used by the Moussavi supporters is the green color, popularly considered to be the color of Islam. This is an internal Iranian struggle for power in the Iranian context of freedom; the limit on the power of the state and for the bread and butter issues. Both the candidates are Iranian patriots who support the 1979 revolution and do not disagree with the ideas of constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran; though gradually it is evolving as a struggle for the check on the near absolute power of the Supreme Leader.

Their foreign policy is not likely to be substantially different. While Mr. Ahmadinijad was reactive to the belligerency of President Bush and finds it difficult to change, Mr. Moussavi will perhaps be more nuanced and soft spoken in the Obama mode, but will not yield Iranian interests to the Western pressure. President Obama is appropriately using the soft power words, rather than the bluster and empty threats of the Bush era.

Mirza A. Beg can be contacted at mab64@yahoo.com and at mirzasmusings@blogspot.com

Dem. in Pakistan 09-03-18

Civil Revolution may Usher a Constitutional Democracy in Pakistan

Mirza A. Beg

Written Wednesday March 18, 2009

Counter Currents, Saturday, March 21, 2009
http://www.countercurrents.org/beg210309.htm

The Tuscaloosa News, Sunday March 22, 2009

Indian Muslim, India, Saturday, March 21, 2009
http://indianmuslims.in/civil-revolution-pakistan-democracy/



Pakistan avoided yet another crisis. Although oscillating between corrupt civilian governments and military dictatorships, crises have been a way of life for Pakistan. But this crisis was different. It was not particularly for or against a leader. It was the third act of a grass-roots movement, led by the lawyers, in favor of the rule of law under a constitutional framework.

Pakistan appears to be on the verge of emerging as a functioning constitutional democracy, with primacy of laws and constitution that has eluded Pakistan for 61 years of its checkered history.

Three times in the span of two years the lawyers, men and women in their somber black coats defied the illegal edicts of the government and succeeded in forcing the government to back down.

The Current Crisis:
The current crisis precipitated when, presumably with the connivance of President Zardari the current Supreme Court (largely considered illegitimate) barred the leader of opposition Mr. Nawaz Sharif and his brother, Shabaz from contesting elections and holding offices. President Zardari recklessly dismissed the Shabaz led government of Panjab, the most populous province.

This brought out the Lawyers back on the streets for the third time with planned marches to the capital Islamabad, demanding the restoration of Supreme Court justices fired by the former President Musharraf, and as promised by Mr. Zardari in February 2008 elections. The leader of the opposition Mr. Nawaz Sharif’s joined in the protest.

The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) of President Zardari, in the face of massive civil demonstrations averted its breakup when President Zardari yielded to the pressure from the senior leaders of the PPP led by the Prime Minister Gilani, the United States and the Military. Prime Minister Gilani diffused the crisis by announcing that the Supreme Court Judges and the former Chief Justice Iftekhar Chaudhry will resume offices following the resignation of the current justices (considered illegal) on the 21st of March. It led to widespread nation wide jubilation.

This was not a win for Mr. Sharif, though he is the beneficiary of it. Large sections of the population consider Mr. Zardari and Mr. Sharif as corrupt and there have been legal verdicts against them. It is the victory of a movement led by lawyers demanding respect for the constitution and the rule of law.

The first and second civil disobedience movement of lawyers:
The first time the lawyers led the movement for the rule of law March 2007, when on irrelevant charges President, General Musharraf suspended Chief Justice Chaudhry for taking up the petition on behalf of hundreds of people missing, allegedly at secret detention centers accused of terrorism. Eventually he was exonerated and General Musharraf backed down.

The movement sprang up the second time in November 2007, when only days before the Supreme Court of Pakistan was to give its verdict on a petition challenging the constitutionality of President, General Musharraf’s re-election in October 2007, because he held on to the post of the chief of staff of the army simultaneously. President Musharraf suspended the constitution, jailed several justices of the Supreme Court, including the Chief Justice Iftekhar Chaudhry and appointed a new slate of judges who ruled in his favor. But under the intense pressure of the civil disobedience led by the legal profession, General Musharraf had to yield and gave up the post of the Army Chief of Staff, appointing General Kayani in his place.


The elections of 2008 and Mr. Zardari’s rise to power:
New Assembly elections were held in February 2008. The two main opposition parties, the PPP led by former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and the Faction of Pakistan Muslim League (PLM) led by the Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had one thing in common, the promise to reinstate the fired Chief Justice and other judges.

PPP leader Benazir Bhutto fell to an assassin’s bullet at an election rally on the 27th of December 2007. Her Husband and a reviled figure in Pakistan, Asif Ali Zardari stepped into the vacuum and partly as a sympathy vote for popular Benazir Bhutto the PPP won the largest share of seats followed by PLM. Since no party won an outright majority, the two largest parties PPP and PLM formed a coalition government.

The coalition broke up when Mr. Zardari reneged on his promise to reinstate the ousted judges by the President Musharraf. In August 2008, President Musharraf resigned under a threat of impeachment and in September Mr. Zardari was elected the President of Pakistan. Since then Mr. Zardari has reneged on all the inconvenient promises and has tried to accrue power.

Pakistan has floundered rudderless in the crosscurrents of internal power struggle between the corrupt civilian governments and endemic coups by the military dictators; and external pressure from the United States to serve its foreign policy aims through the Pakistani military for the last fifty years. The result has been complete decimation of the Pakistani judiciary. The Supreme Court has become the handmaiden of who ever holds the reins of power. Chief Justices have been appointed and fired at the whims of the government in power many times.

The new opportunity for Pakistan:
Fortunately for Pakistan Mr. Zardari was thwarted by the third civil disobedience by the lawyers. The power equation has also changed. Unlike the past, the forces that traditionally supported those in power in Pakistan had to take other realities into consideration.

The American government is the main economic backer of Pakistan, but under President Obama, it realizes that the war on terrorism can not be won by propping corrupt oppressive regimes. President Obama conveyed his strong disapproval of Mr. Zardari’s grab for power. The army, the most important instrument of power in Pakistan had had enough under President, General Musharraf. The new Chief of Staff General Kayani told Mr. Zardari in no uncertain term that the Army will not intervene to support him. The top leadership of PPP including the Prime Minister Mr. Gilani, weary of Mr. Zardari’s leadership, let him know that they were not behind him. And finally the police that was supposed to stop the marchers refused to use force on the silent peaceful marchers, except at some places in Karachi the strong hold of PPP.

The change in circumstances will exert an enormous pressure on all concerned. The reinstated Chief Justice Chaudhry will feel the weight of responsibility to make the Supreme Court a true guardian of the constitution. The Army had had enough for the time being and will try to influence the government, but not as heavy handedly, and the politicians have learnt at least for the immediate future that they can not take people to be supine as before. The lawyers movement has shown no ulterior motive to form a competing center of power, it has disbanded after every success to pursue their private lives. Yet it has rejuvenated in the times of need.

The maturing of Pakistan as a constitutional democracy will strengthen the authority of the elected government and will obviously be good for Pakistan. It will also be beneficial to countries with interest in Pakistan. Though it will take time, but after eight years of floundering in Afghanistan the new Obama administration realizes that US efforts in combating the terrorism will succeed only if Pakistan is not a failed state. A constitutional democracy in Pakistan will also be better for India because the relations will not depend on the whims of individuals. It will lead to better cooperation and enhance the possibility of reconciliation between two democratically elected constitutional governments.
Mirza A. Beg may be contacted at mab64@yahoo.com or at http://mirzasmusings.blogspot.com/

Mumbai Carnage 08-12-01

Mumbai Carnage, Wish It Was The Last Horror!

Mirza A. Beg
Monday, December 1, 2008

Media Monitor Network, Wednesday, December 3, 2008
http://usa.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/57272

Counter Currents, Thursday, December 4, 2008
http://www.countercurrents.org/beg041208.htm

The American Muslim, Friday, December 5, 2008
http://theamericanmuslim.org/tam.php/features/articles/mumbai_carnage_wish_it_were_the_last_horror/

Pine magazine Friday, December 5, 2008
http://pine-magazine.com/content.php?id=1559

The coordinated attacks on the Taj-Mahal Hotel and nine other sites in Mumbai (formerly Bombay) have claimed about 190 innocent lives, with hundreds more injured. Distressed Indians and concerned people all over the world are looking for answers.

Quick preconceived answers demand immediate retaliation. To mollify the public, authorities arrest and torture a few easy targets and extract confessions. Over the years there have been dozens of well documented incidences of police summarily executing helpless people in what are euphemistically called encounters (fake gun battles). It only validates the terrorist propaganda.

Comprehensive answers take time. I hope the government of India will diligently take up the slow and painful task of investigation and prosecution of those involved, within India and with international help, those hiding in other countries.

With the globalization of commerce, unfortunately terrorism has also become globalized. The terrorist networks have become an international scourge. In the 1960s and 70s the Baader Meinhof Gang and the Red Army collaborated with disparate terrorists, such as the Irish Republican Army, the Shining Path Guerillas in Latin America and the Abu Nidal in the Middle-east. With greater sophistication and richer resources, Al Qaida is even more effective, mostly, but not exclusively in Muslim countries.

Initial reports based on the interrogation of the only surviving Mumbai attacker indicate that at least some of the terrorists were from Pakistan. Pakistan and India have a sad history of wars and animosity. But no nation has suffered the ravages of Islamist extremist terrorism more than Pakistan. Bombings in major cities of Pakistan are pervasive. The Marriott Hotel in Islamabad was bombed only a few months ago. From the statements of the President Zardari, it seems that the newly elected fledgling government of Pakistan realizes that the extremist ideology sown by the Zia regime in the1980s has come back as an evil whirl-wind to destroy the country.

There are segments of society in India and Pakistan with legitimate grievances.
Extremists exploit these grievances through carnage to achieve a greater polarization. Unfortunately many governments have done the same through their intelligence agencies to destabilize weaker countries. It behooves Pakistan and India to unshackle themselves from the sordid history of hatred and join forces to eradicate this scourge for mutual benefit.

After every major carnage, organizations, leaders and pretend leaders in India and around the world customarily condemn the outrage, and then go about their business as usual. Equating this carnage to 9/11 is spurious. Such outrages have been happening in India, Pakistan and many other countries with the regularity of tides. Unfortunately the Mumbai carnage is greater only in magnitude and daring, therefore more newsworthy. Such reprehensible carnage is lamentably not surprising. A series of bomb blasts tore through the busy markets in Delhi on the 13th of September, preceded by more than a dozen gory blasts in major cities in the last three years, including an earlier blast in Delhi and a train bombing in Mumbai in July 2006, claiming hundreds of lives. Today, merely four days after the Mumbai carnage, three people were killed in Assam (Eastern India) in yet another train bombing.

In the past few decades, thousands of innocent lives have been lost in sectarian violence all over India. Kashmir is a festering wound of competing claims of the two countries, left-over from the partition of the British colonial India. By now the average Kashmiri wants to be left alone. More than 80,000 Kasmiris, mostly civilians have died in the last twenty years. It is a major source of recent terrorism. Preliminary reports indicate that the Mumbai terrorists were connected to the Lashkar Taiba movement that was spawned in Kashmir with the help of the Zia regime in 1980s.

Imagine; one of our loved ones among the dead, and the tragedy hits home. Many loved ones regularly fall to endemic terrorism. In a wider sense they were us, mindless tits for the multiple tats and on it goes. Governments with impunity suppress and even kill weaker minorities to mollify the majority population, in the name of nationalism, in blatant violation of humane laws.
Some, otherwise ordinary people after years of victimization, blinded by anger take refuge and find justification in terrorism. Unable to penetrate the bastion of oppression, they attack easy defenseless targets. Terrorists become so callous in their anger multiplied by hate-filled ideologies that they lose all sense of decency, distinction and humanity, visiting carnage in distant lands on innocent people.
Growing up in India, only a few of my friends were Muslims, most were Hindus. We celebrate our friendship on my visits to India. Some of these friends are quite involved in helping down-trodden and forgotten masses. They hold no animosity towards Muslims. But the virulence of decades of violence and propaganda has polarized a few of them, especially their children. Similarly the polarized Muslims do not know my humane Hindu friends. With polarization, fewer Hindus and Muslims know each other personally. They tend to stereotype each-other as caricatures based on propaganda.

With each episode of sectarian riot the divide grows. The attack and demolition of a 16th century Mosque and ensuing loss of thousands of lives in December 1992, and the pogrom in Gujarat in February 2002, where 2,000 Muslims were killed and more than hundred thousand driven from their homes, have created a deep fissure. More recently the bomb blasts in markets, trains and now the Mumbai carnage are part of the downward spiral. The chasm is widening in spite of tireless work being done by enlightened and thoughtful people from all communities, especially Hindus. Unfortunately the sectarian propaganda is more powerful than thoughtful analysis.

A few weeks ago an educated Brahmin Gujarati friend wrote to me that he is supporting Mr. Modi’s Hindu (fascistic) party in the upcoming elections in Gujarat, because he wants a strong government that supports economic development. The sad part is that at least tacitly he had condemned the pogrom against Muslims by Mr. Modi in 2002, the worst crime a government can commit against its citizens. I reminded him, but he did not address my question.

People, honest in personal dealings; good neighbors, who would help the needy and feed the hungry, are taken in by the propaganda, driven by the partisans from the opposing sides, turning lies into truth and making enemies out of friends. Good people end up supporting horrible policies and even pray for the success of their leaders who spread misery in their name.

We will be at least morally culpable, if it happened in our neighborhoods and we closed our eyes. In this globalised information age, there is no place too far. Ignoring the plight of people we only see on television screens, is tacitly supporting the oppressor. It becomes our collective guilt.

An instructive example is Mr. Bush’s statement in the wake of 9/11, “Now they will taste the American justice”. The whole world supported our sentiment. Sadly, what they got was blind vengeance and indiscriminate incarceration of about 700 people at Guantanamo Bay, including many 12 to 14 year old minors, without trial for more than six years in violation of the Geneva Convention. It brought shame to America. In spite of strenuous objections of the Bush administration, some Americans petitioned the courts. Slowly the courts intervened. How we wish, it was the American justice that they faced.

Terrorism is a scourge. It should be eradicated through the implementation of humane civil laws. The vocabulary of war, such as “war on terrorism” sounds good but denigrates the civil society to lawlessness of war. It predisposes us to forsake our humanity and fall for the militaristic propaganda, where trigger happy excesses, bombings, and civilian deaths are justified as “collateral damage”, as if a neighbor’s wall was damaged by mistake, and will be made whole.

The first reaction to terrorism is to suppress it by brute force, such as in case of the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka. Brute force spirals into tit for tat. The situation only worsens. There are ways to defeat it, as in Northern Ireland in the1970s and 80s. The brute British force only exacerbated it, until the British government reached an equitable political settlement.

It is time for universal cooperation. The United Nations was created to be the instrument of the collective will of the world. It has worked very well in helping the poor and feeding the hungry. It has failed in implementation of the international law to protect the rights of the down-trodden minorities from the state terrorism in sovereign countries, and keeping stronger nations from attacking weaker nations. But the five permanent members of the Security Council have hindered its purpose.

The only effective way to remove the cancer of terrorism is to leave the hubris of the 20th century behind, ushering a new peaceful and just millennium by adhering to the International Charter of Human Rights and strengthening the United Nations. This requires the modification of the Security Council so that no country is above the international law.

Mirza A. Beg can be reached at mab64@yahoo.com. His writings are at http://mirzasmusings.blogspot.com/

Burmese disaster 08-05-12

Junta Obstructs Aid While Burmese Die

Mirza A. Beg
Monday, May 12, 2008

The American Muslim Tuesday, May 13, 2008
http://www.theamericanmuslim.org/tam.php/features/articles/junta_obstructs_aid_while_burmese_die/0016218

The devastation caused by the forces of nature such as cyclones, tsunamis and earthquakes are well known. We have witnessed their fury many times, particularly in the last three years. What we have not witnessed is the intentional criminal neglect by the government of the country. The Burmese government has not only ignored the plight of the suffering masses, but has done all they can to reject and impede the help that the world is eager to provide.

The cyclone that hit Burma (Myanmar) on the third of May, 2008 devastated the heavily populated, rice farming delta region of the Irrawaddy River, including the largest city and, until recently, the capital Rangoon (Yangon).

People all over the world through their governments and through private charities are aching to help, but have been stymied, by the putative Burmese military junta masquerading as a government.

Unlike tsunamis or earthquakes, the cyclone system moves slowly. Modern weather predictions and satellite tracking allows time for governments to help populations prepare for the impending disaster, and where possible evacuation. There is no evidence that the Burmese junta cared to inform the people in the path of the cyclone. Cyclones are a natural phenomenon, neither good nor evil. The Burmese junta has proven to be not only depraved, but criminal, because it does not allow others to help either, transforming a tragedy into a catastrophe.

The United Nations estimates that as many as 120,000 people may be dead and millions are homeless, in dire need of food, shelter and clean water. With the experiences after the tsunami in Indonesia in December 2004, and the earthquake in Pakistan in October, 2005, the UN and international community learned valuable lessons in large scale disaster relief. The first few hours after a disaster are extremely important for the survival of people barely hanging on to the tenuous thread of life.

The response from the international community was immediate. Supplies were on the way, being stored in neighboring countries and relief ships the same day. All that the government of Burma had to do was, say yes. The relief supplies and equipments along with trained aid workers would have poured in.

The Burmese Junta said no. Later under universal condemnation modified it to “yes but”. They wanted the supplies to be given to them, and obstinately refused the influx of foreign aid workers. They are scared that aid workers would be carriers of humane ideas and democracy. The United Nations and the relief agencies know the modus operandi of the Burmese Junta. They are sure that the aid will be pilfered; diverted to the well-healed generals and the army. Most of it will not reach the hungry suffering victims in dire need.

Cruel military juntas are efficient in the use and mobilization of the army. The Burmese junta was very efficient in the misuse of the army in the brutal suppression of the peaceful demonstration by the monks in September- October 2007, but the army was nowhere to be seen in the devastated regions of the Irrawaddy delta in the wake of the this cyclone. Yet, the government was telling the UN that its army would help distribute the emergency supplies.

On the contrary, while the people in the Irrawaddy delta are dieing, the junta has spent its attention, meager resources, and man power in holding sham elections in the rest of the country to legitimize its rule. The only local organized help that the people have is from the Monks and the shelters in the monasteries.

UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon has expressed immense frustration that after nine days only a trickle of aid has reached the victims. He has not been able to contact the leader of the junta General Than Shwe in the last nine days. Obviously General Shwe does not care.

Unfortunately in this show down, the cruel dictators have had their way. This stand-off has already resulted in the death of thousands, who could have been saved in the immediate aftermath of the cyclone. If the food, water and medicine do not reach the survivors, they will die in large numbers because of malnutrition, diarrhea, malaria and other contagious diseases that can be avoided. Children are particularly vulnerable. The international community has reluctantly started to surrender the relief supplies to the Burmese junta.

How has such dastardly government survived for almost forty-five years? It is the same old story. While the democracies condemn the government and have even imposed sanctions in the last few years, they quietly and often illegally trade with it because of rich mineral wealth of Burma. Burmese rubies and sapphires are the best in the world. China is the biggest beneficiary of such trade. To compete with China, India and other south-east Asian countries have regular trade relations with Burma. The French and other oil companies are engaged in petroleum exploration and production, even the US while imposing trade sanctions quietly allowed Chevron Oil Company to trade freely with Burma up to the last November.

Democracies mostly pay lip service to the idea of democracy, while they surreptitiously support dictatorships for their interests, as in the case of Burma. It is time that the citizens of democracies should expose such nefarious deals. The world super-powers have consistently worked to weaken the UN for their own purposes, as we have seen in the case of the Iraq invasion. It is time to strengthen the UN and other international organizations, so that an above-board united action can be taken against the governments that kill and torture their own citizens and invade and torture others.

Mirza A. Beg can be contacted at mab64@yahoo.com
His writings are available at http://mirzasmusings.blogspot.com/

Benazir Bhutto Killed 07-12-27

Benazir Bhutto faced death with courage

Mirza A. Beg
Thursday, December 27, 2007

Counter Currents, Saturday, December 29, 2007
http://www.countercurrents.org/beg291207.htm

Indian Muslims, Friday, December 28, 2007
http://indianmuslims.in/obituary-benazir-bhutto-faced-death-with-courage/#more-481

Khabrein Info. India, Friday, December 28, 2007
http://www.khabrein.info/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=10399&Itemid=88

My News India, Sunday, December 30, 2007
http://www.mynews.in/fullstory.aspx?storyid=1600

Pine Magazine, Atlanta, Wednesday, January 2, 2008
http://pine-magazine.com/content.php?id=1098

The Tuscaloosa News, Thursday, January 3, 2008
http://www.tuscaloosanews.com/article/20080103/NEWS/801030301

Banazir Bhutto, fell victim to the politics of endemic violence in Pakistan. She called herself “the Daughter of Destiny” in her autobiography and often styled herself as the daughter of Pakistan. She had more upheavals in one life time than most can imagine. In her untimely death, she followed her slain father and two brothers.

She was the daughter of former President, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, appointed under emergency rule when former dictator Yahya Khan abdicated in the wake of civil war of 1971. The war was brought on by hubris of Yahya Khan and Zulfiqar Bhutto, resulting in East Pakistan breaking away to form Bangladesh. Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto later became the Prime Minister under a parliamentary constitution designed by him. He rigged the next election and was overthrown in a military coup in 1977 by General Zia ul Haq, who hanged him in 1979 for the murder of a political opponent.

With courage and perseverance, twenty-six year old Oxford and Harvard educated Benazir Bhutto became the undisputed leader of her father's Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP). The PPP was hounded by General Zia, an ally of the US in the war against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. After the death of dictator-President Zia ul Haq in a plane crash, she returned from exile to lead PPP to victory twice to become the Prime Minister in 1988 and again in 1993. And twice she was dismissed from office under a cloud of corruption and nepotism in 1990 and 1996 by the ceremonial president.

In 1999, General Parvez Musharraf overthrew the government of her political rival Nawaz Sharif. General Musharraf has ruled Pakistan through some very difficult times in the wake of 9/11 and the US war on Al Qaeda and the Talibans in neighboring Afghanistan.

After eight years of dictatorship, and close cooperation with the United States, Musharraf has not been able to contain the virulent Talibanist ideology that has spilled over among the kith and kin of Afghan Pashtuns in the very porous frontier areas of Pakistan. With regular indiscriminate bombings of Pashtun villages in Afghanistan by the US lead forces and occasional stealth bombings in Pakistan, claiming hundreds perhaps thousands of innocent lives, the Pashtuns have become much more anti-American and anti-Pakistan government than ever before, resulting in Iraq style suicide bombings in civilian areas of Pakistan.

Unable to defeat the Talibanist ideology and unable to safeguard the civilian population in the heartland of Pakistan, Musharraf has become quite unpopular. He found his power slipping and made the mistake of firing the Chief Justice of the Pakistan Supreme Court in March 2007. Unexpected widespread protest followed and Musharraf was forced to reinstate the Chief Justice. It weakened him further.

Over the summer of 2007, the United States brokered a power sharing deal between General Musharraf and Benazir Bhutto to provide a gradual shift in power. Musharraf dropped the pending corruption charges against her and allowed her return to Pakistan after a decade of self exile. She was a candidate for Prime Minister again in the upcoming election on January 8, 2008. On again, off again political maneuvering by General Musharraf and Benazir Bhutto further weakened Musharraf who declared emergency in early November, but was forced to relinquish his military dictator’s uniform to become a newly minted civilian president.

Whatever the veracity of behind the scene deal may have been, Bush took credit for it, trying to shore his sagging popularity in the United States. To the Pakistanis the very idea of Bush meddling and controlling the two top political figures, made Musharraf and Benazir Bhutto appear to be stooges of Bush, who while preaching democracy has a record of supporting dictatorships and bullying other countries. An average Pakistani does not support the Talibanist ideology and feels caught between the devil and the deep sea, unable to decide which is which.

Benazir Bhutto was a polarizing figure in a country that had aspirations of nationhood, but keeps loosing to the vested interests based on many conflicting ethnic, linguistic and economic fissures held together or perhaps suppressed together by the domineering presence of the military. For sixty years, its leaders have gone for quick fixes of military dictatorships rather than let the imperfect civilian institutions grow and mature.

As polarizing leaders often are, she was intensely loved by many and was hated by many others. In the past Benazir Bhutto had political opponents, but this time she had deadly enemies. The bullets of an assassin and the suicide bomber not only killed Benazir Bhutto, but have set Pakistan further back, denying another possible chance for an imperfect democracy to take root.

I was not an admirer of Benazir Bhutto’s political compromises and considered her father to be one of the architects of the dismemberment of Pakistan when Bangladesh broke away in 1971. But criticism aside one has to admire her courage and persistence. She tried to bring sanity to Pakistan's many-sided murky politics choked with a strangle-hold of military on all the intermittent civilian governments, including hers.

Finally she went down fighting courageously trying to do some good for her beleaguered country. She was less than what critics like me would have liked her to be, but then critics have the luxury of not being in the rough and tumble of politics. They do not have to swallow principles and make calculated imperfect or at times far from perfect compromises. As Theodore Roosevelt said,

"It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again ... who spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly."

Banazir Bhutto knew the dangers she faced. About 150 people died in an attempt on her life when she arrived in Pakistan from exile in mid-October this year. She was not intimidated but pursued on with vigor. She died valiantly fighting for her and Pakistan's future as she saw it. She was cut down in her prime by those who have a very narrow jaundiced view of their religion and no vision of the future. They court death, killing innocent bystanders in ignorance of the ideals of religion and nobility of human spirit.

After six years of war, death and destruction the US should realize that bombing wins battles and destroys some enemies while creating many more, resulting in a heavy blowback price to pay. War of ideas is won by convincing the enemy of a better future. Instead of supporting military dictatorships the United States should invest in better schools, universities, hospitals and infrastructure to help Pakistan alleviate poverty and build a more equitable society.

Pakistan is again at fateful cross roads. It is sixty years late, but not too late, because what else can a people or a nation do, but to take up the fallen standard and persevere. Pakistanis can reject the politics of fear imposed by the quick-fix promises of military dictatorships. They should take up the difficult long journey of slowly building civil institutions of imperfect political give and take to reach an internal cohesion and become a nation at peace with itself and its neighbors.

Mirza A. Beg can be contacted at mab64@yahoo.com or read at http://mirzasmusings.blogspot.com/

Justice & Gujarat 07-12-10

Justice for the Victims of Gujarat Pogrom

Mirza A. Beg

December 10, 2007

Counter Currents, Tuesday December 11, 2007
http://www.countercurrents.org/beg111207.htm


Dear Mr. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and
The Congress President Mrs. Sonia Gandhi.

At this important juncture, the helm of the ship of state, the Republic of India is primarily in your hands. The agenda of the executive and political power has been entrusted to your judgment by the people of India, in the hope that you will leave an ethical and proud legacy for the generations to come. Unfortunately the nightmare of the BJP misrule persists in many parts of the Republic and the constitutionally guaranteed rights of minorities are still being violated with impunity.

The perpetrators, the victims and the average Indians know that Narendra Modi's government engineered the riots in Gujarat resulting in the death of 2000 innocent people and injuring hundreds of thousands more in 2002. The justice to the victims is being denied because the BJP controlled governments in Gujarat and at the Center concealed the evidence, precluding a citizen’s ability to seek redress in the courts of law. Therefore, it was not a spontaneous riot, but a planned Pogrom.

The fig-leaf of lack of legal evidence of Modi government's direct involvement is believed only by the morally bankrupt. Even the American and European governments, though well disposed towards India, know enough to repeatedly deny the coveted diplomatic visa to Modi.

Over the years sectarians within the Congress party stealthily looked the other way while the Hindutva (Hindu sectarians) engineered cyclical riots, too numerous to list, often supported by the police. It culminated in the orchestrated destruction of the Babri Masjid in 1992 while the then Congress Prime Minister Narsimha Rao, feigned helpless surprise for six long hours. The loss of faith among the secular electorate, and the minorities resulted in Congress's defeat in the successive general elections.

After being in wilderness for eight years, the Congress led coalition under your new and vigorous leadership was elected as a repudiation of the fascistic and sectarian agenda of the BJP. Indian electorate gave the Congress another chance in the hope that the party has learned a lesson and returned to its founding secular and humane principles.

The dead and the dispossessed are still waiting for justice after five long years. Some may find them a political inconvenience, but they cannot be wished away.

We understand that political disputes in a democracy are decided by elections; and the division of power between the Central and the Provincial governments are well established in the constitution. But the constitution clearly provides mechanisms to punish provincial governments guilty of blatant criminality. Many times in the past provincial governments have been dismissed by the President for much less.

The brave reporters and editors of the Tahelka News magazine took enormous risks to record irrefutable evidence from the culprits, exposing the hand of Modi and the Gujarat government. They did what the government should have done.

I know the elections in Gujarat are around the corner; some wedded to politics of unprincipled power, afraid of political muscle of the Hindutva forces, want to cajole them. This will be a grave mistake. Instead of more placebos of toothless inquiry commissions, the Central government should protect the Tahelka reporters and promptly bring charges against Modi and his cohorts in the court of law. A five year delay is not too soon. Failure to act will fortify the assessment that the Congress has forsaken the ethos of the Indian Constitution to succumb to the destructive lure of power. It will confirm the perception of Congress as enablers of riots by stealth sectarianism.

Both of you understand the economics of dispossession and personal loss. Steadfastly you have overcome great impediments to reach your present coveted positions, not in search of power, but in pursuit of ideals. Great leaders courageously navigate the country to uphold the Constitution and establish principles that the succeeding generations will be proud to follow. It is time to use the irrefutable evidence provided by the Tahelka reporters to bring the powerful nefarious sectarian forces to justice and set the Indian Republic on the firm footing as a nation of laws.

Mirza A. Beg can be reached at mab64@yahoo.com or http://mirzasmusings.blogspot.com/

Sudanese Justice 07-11-30

Travesty of Justice - Sudanese Caricature of the Islamic Law

Mirza A. Beg

Friday, November 30, 2007

Indian Muslims, Friday, November 30, 2007
http://indianmuslims.in/travesty-of-justice-sudanese-caricature-of-the-islamic-law/

American Muslims, Friday, November 30, 2007
http://www.theamericanmuslim.org/tam.php/features/articles/travesty_of_justice_sudanese_caricature_of_the_islamic_law/0015056

Counter Currents. Org, Sunday, December 2, 2007
http://www.countercurrents.org/beg021207.htm

Sadly a majority of people practice double standards. They tend to judge others more harshly, but find excuses for their own failings. Collectively, other races, countries and religions are judged harshly, while we turn a blind eye to whatever we construe as our own.

I suffer from a reverse malady. I am sad at injustice to anyone anywhere, but it offends much more when it is done in the name of my country, society or religion. That is why abjuring popular sentiments, I am more critical of injustices done in the name of Islam, the United States and India.

When others condemn, some times genuinely, and some times maliciously, the knee-jerk reaction is to criticize the critic that they are equally bad or worse. I hear this often, when I write about the immoral war in Iraq, based on lies; the Pogrom by the state government of Gujarat in India or the horrible things that the Talibanist mentality has done in the name of Islam.

Recently, a woman in Saudi Arabia was gang-raped. She was seen in a car with a person not of her family. She was also found guilty along with the rapists and recommended punishment under the Saudi Law. That is bad enough, but to call it Islamic is travesty of truth and reason.

In Sudan, a British teacher was arrested for the “sin” of helping her class of seven year olds to name a cuddly teddy bear, Muhammad. Yesterday, after a court trial, she was sentenced to 15 days in jail, and it is reported that a crowd was clamoring for a death sentence. In a closed dictatorial country a crowd does not gather, it is allowed or urged to gather.

The problem springs from a misunderstanding of cultural norms. In the West people often name their pets after the people they love, including their parents, friends, and even prophets. In the East people give their pets loving precious names, but not the names of people they love and respect. It is considered an insult, akin to calling one’s best friend or a prophet a dog or a cat.

All Muslims consider Islam to be a just and humane religion. The most popular stories that children grow up with are about the kindness, humanity and mercy of the Prophet.

One of the most popular stories is that the Prophet was reviled and cursed by many Meccans, just after his call to Islam. There was a woman who routinely threw garbage on him, when he passed through her street. For a couple of days she did not. He inquired and learned that she had been sick. His reaction was to go to her house to console her.

A well recorded fact of history is that after conquering Mecca he forgave all, including some who had said and done vile things, including a woman, Hinda, who desecrated the corpse of the Prophet’s uncle. There are many other such stories and recorded historical events.

An average person may be forgiven for being impetuous, emotional and blinded by the love for the Prophet, but the Sudanese judge and the government ought to know better. This is complete ignorance and disregard of the primary sources of Islamic jurisprudence. It is an insult to Islam, humanity and justice.

All Islamic scholars would agree that the Islamic laws are based on four principles, in the following order of importance, with a strong caveat that the act is punishable based on intent, and when in doubt mercy over-rides the blind word of the law.

1. The edicts of Quran.
2. Not finding in Quran, the actions or sayings of the Prophet, compiled as sets of Hadeeth by a few scholars about 150 years after his passing.
3. Qiyas – analogy from similar rulings emanating from the first two.
4. Ijma – the consensus of the scholars.

In view of the above, as reported, the British teacher was in Sudan serving the populace. 1-Though the Quran condemns harming or insulting the Prophet, it does not recommend a temporal punishment. 2- The Prophet was the best interpreter of Quran. The life history of the Prophet illustrate that he was kind to even those who insulted or injured him. 3-The teacher was clearly serving the people and her intent was not to insult. 4 - Most scholars in the Islamic world would be at variance with the Saudi and Sudanese interpretation, because not only they violate the intent and mercy clause, but also the 2nd principle.

As children we laughed at a collection of jokes under the loosely translated ditty:
Strange land - Stupid ruler - they sell - Cow for a dollar - Hay for a dollar.
One of the jokes was - a very fat man was condemned to hang. The rope was not strong enough for his weight. So they found a thin man and hanged him, to satisfy the letter of the law.

That was a joke, but this is an insult to all sense of justice, Islam and humanity.

Mirza A, Beg can be contacted at mab64@yahoo.com or http://mirzasmusings.blogspot.com/
_________________________

Response to critics of my article,
“Travesty of Justice - Sudanese Caricature of the Islamic Law”.

Mirza A. Beg
December 3, 2007

Dear Friends

ASAK

There have been lots of responses to my article “Travesty of Justice - Sudanese Caricature of the Islamic Law”. Most have been positive, but a few have been critical, of those all have been civil, but a couple have been abusive. Thanks to all of you, because I did ask for your response. It is perfectly legitimate to criticize the critic. I had hoped that while criticizing people will try to keep three points in mind, but mostly they have not.

1. I had stated in the first paragraph that “others are as bad or worse” is not a legitimate argument in favor of right, decency, justice or the grandeur of one’s own religion or philosophy. At best it is an argument in favor of tit for tat. But some have spent a lot of time blaming the West for many offences. While they are true, they do not help if the evil is done in revenge in the name of Islam.

2. In my article we are not talking of politics, we are talking of law and justice for an individual. There are flaws in many national laws, in the West as well. Bush administration has misused the laws of US to prosecute many Muslims and their institutions. The wheels of Justice grind slowly, but in most cases the administration has been proven wrong in the judgments of the courts. Yet the justice has not always prevailed. Those are temporal national laws and are often criticized by many. I have written strongly critical articles about them such as my article about the “Patriot Act”. In case of Sudan and Saudi Arabia we are talking about laws that are proclaimed to be Islamic and are instituted in the name of Islam. That is where my ire resides.

3. Now talking of Islamic laws. This one needs a bit longer explanation. Please keep in mind that according to Muslim creed, the Quran is God’s word and the Rasool was the best interpreter of Quran.

Obviously the Quran is not very easy to interpret, such was God’s design and will. If it were easy, there would not have been so many sects in Islam and so many interpretations by good, honest and pious people.

Sunnah and the sayings of the Prophet collected as Hadeeth by many hard working meticulous scholars. Some of the best known are Bukhari, Muslim and Tirmidhi. There are a few narrations in these that are considered spurious, many of them of are considered weak in lineage and many are on general same topic, but in different situations.

It is very important to keep in mind the veracity of Hadeeth and the situation under which the action was taken or the word spoken. It is even more important when they are being used as a part of Judicial proceedings. The judge needs to and has a duty to explain them in great detail for the parties to respect the decision.

I had given the most popular two examples that almost every one knows. Those who claim that the Rasool did condemn a person to death for the crime of insult to Islam or his person should educate us by telling us the antecedents of the action. When, where and under what circumstances.

Please be aware that I am not saying that it did not happen. I am saying that I do not know about it and would appreciate to be educated by those who know. The preponderance of the Hadeeth and the character of the Rasool as it emerges from the well known biographies (Seerat) and the Hadeeth is that of a very logical, thoughtful, kind and just person. If he did some thing that seems to be different than his usual practice, I hope you will agree; it needs much closer examination and understanding.

My general observation is that Quran lends itself to harsher as well as more merciful interpretation. The detractors of Islam selectively and at times only partly quote ayahs to castigate Islam. We resent it, but often without thinking, indulge in similar interpretations when it suites us. I think that is much more egregious. This is even truer of the quoting and interpretation of Hadeeth. It very much depends upon our own propensities. It speaks much more about our own values than the veracity of Hadeeth.

Some are quick to blame those who seek more humane interpretation to be stooges of the West. This is particularly sad, because Islam gave us the freedom to think and not blindly follow our own baser instinct, our dictatorial leaders or the West. At the time of the early Caliphs (Khulefa Rashedun) people used to strongly question, even criticize them. They encouraged it in truth and humility and took pains to answer and explain. We lost that early ethos and became subservient to the power of the rulers, and blind obedience. We do not need to learn this independence of character and courage from the West, we should learn it from our own early history.

I find it amazing that when there are many more instances of Rasool forgiving those who had insulted and injured him and Islam grievously, some may give a greater weight to a single incidence of dubious antecedents. One person even wants to name a dog (Bitch according to him) after me. All I can say, in the foot steps of my Rasool; please do, if it assuages your misplaced anger, and enhances your character and understanding of Islam.

Thanks again. A decent give and take in dialogue makes us think introspectively and critically about our own beliefs, values and helps us grow and be better. Warm regards,

Mirza

Pakistan - Coup 07-11-5

Pakistan - Back to the Past Again

Mirza A. Beg
Monday, November 5, 2007

Media Monitor Network, Tuesday, November 6, 2007
http://usa.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/47234

Indian Muslims, India Tuesday, November 6, 2007
http://indianmuslims.in/author/mbeg/
http://indianmuslims.in/pakistan-back-to-the-past-again/#more-414

Counter Currents, Wednesday, November 7, 2007
http://www.countercurrents.org/beg071107.htm

Tuscaloosa News, Thursday, November 8, 2007
http://www.tuscaloosanews.com/article/20071108/NEWS/711080304

My News India, Thursday, November 8, 2007
http://www.mynews.in/fullstory.aspx?storyid=1131#

Cross Cultural Understanding, Thursday, November 8, 2007
http://ccun.org/Opinion%20Editorials/2007/November/8%20o/Pakistan%20Back%20to%20the%20Past%20Again%20By%20Mirza%20A.%20Beg.htm

Indian Express, Delhi, India, Thursday, November8, 2007
http://www.indianexpress.com/story/237126.html

Pine magazine November 12, 2007
http://www.pine-magazine.com/content.php?id=1014

Will the future ever arrive in Pakistan? It is back to the past again. Technically, President Musharraf has declared an emergency, but in reality, it is a coup against the democracy creeping in; which he reluctantly promised eight years ago. This time General Musharraf overthrew the government of the other infernal co-resident in his body, President Musharraf.

Those familiar with the 1885 opera, The Mikado by Gilbert and Sullivan may take a cue; the General is everything and everywhere; all the institutions of power reside in him. To Pakistanis, this is not an opera. It is deadly serious to the lives of one hundred and sixty million, caught in the vise of external forces and internal instability exacerbated by an unrepresentative government.

General Musharraf came to power in a coup against the civilian government of Nawaz Sharif on October 12, 1999, with the promise of election within months. In January 2000 as the Chief Executive of Pakistan, he ordered all the judges to take a fresh oath of office swearing allegiance to the military rule. In effect the judges were barred from making any decisions against his rule.

The Judiciary did not play dead. Thirteen judges of the Supreme Court, including the Chief Justice refused. They were summarily dismissed and replaced by pliant judges. In June 2001 Musharraf appointed himself as the President, replacing the constitutional president.

On September 11, 2001 Al-Qaida attacked the United States. That changed the dynamics of power. To the US, Pakistan became an indispensable ally to be courted, cajoled, threatened and controlled in pursuit of the war against the Talibans and Al-Qaida. This aggravated the fissures in a fissiparous Pakistani society that experienced the wrenching away of Bangladesh in 1971.

To attain legitimacy, General Musharraf won a carefully worded, widely boycotted referendum in April 2002, with a promise to hold the elections for National Assembly in October 2002. In that election, a party co-opted for the purpose, won a plurality and gave legitimacy to the government for a five year term ending in October 2007. To quell the rebellion in the National Assembly, in December 2003, Musharraf made a deal, that he will leave the Army and be a full time President by December 2004 which he later reneged.

Musharraf knows; the military has had a strangle-hold on Pakistani governments for about fifty years. As the French saying goes, “A mistress should never become a wife; it leaves the most important office of the mistress to be filled.” The General may masquerade as a president, but if he relinquishes the most important office of the Commanding General, his days will be numbered.

Most observers acknowledge that in very precarious post 9/11times, Musharraf was successful in navigating the ship-of-state. On one side was the US pressure to go after the Taliban, rooted in Afghan-Pashtun tribes that straddle the highly porous, artificial Afghan-Pakistan border (the Durand line). It is a relic of British imperialism imposed on the Pashtunes more than a century ago. On the other side, the Pashtun tribes in NW Pakistan, used to complete internal autonomy through the centuries, deeply resent the new heavy hand of the Pakistan government. The Afghan Taliban are hiding with their tribal kith and kin in the North West Frontier area of Pakistan, with the bedrock belief that “Blood is thicker than water”: or in the present context, artificial borders, nations, money or even a superpower.

With the US invasion of Iraq on trumped-up charges in March 2003, more and more Pakistanis became anti-American. Frequent bombings of Pashtunes by the US air power in south-west Afghanistan, tyrannically killing large number of civilians, has made the situation explosive. The Americans see it in false, stark colors of their nebulous all-encompassing war; and the tribal Pashtunes see it in equally false, reverse colors, as attacks on their families and tribes. They perceive Musharraf to be an American stooge.

Gradually Musharraf has found himself losing his grip. Tribesmen accuse him of killing his own people and have adapted suicide bombings, a deadly new import to Pakistan. The secular Pakistanis chafing under dictatorship accuse him of failing to protect Pakistan from the growing reactionary extremism within Pakistan.

Considering the dire situation in which Pakistan finds itself, Musharraf was reluctantly and tepidly supported by the Pakistani intelligentsia, in the hope that he will put the country on a sound footing and return it to democracy. He initially made some headway maintaining a deft balance, but as always, unable to deliver the promised panacea, dictators overstay their welcome.

In March of this year, the specter of the promised elections of 2007 looming, a lawsuit was filed in the Pakistani Supreme Court that the General can not contest the election to Presidency unless he resigns the all-powerful position of the General of the Army. Miffed that the court even entertained such a case, he fired the Chief Justice on trumped up charges. The legal profession could bear no more. The lawyers boycotted the courts and took to the streets. In spite of harsh measures and police firings the situation was getting out of control, so he backed down, re-instated the Chief Justice and promised again that he would contest the election as a civilian.

The US finds itself exposed again by supporting dictatorship while paying lip service to the propagation of democracy. Quietly the US pressurized the General through the summer of 2007, not to mount a coup. The US strung together a formula of Musharraf sharing power with the former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, becoming the Prime Minister again. The General reluctantly went along.

Just before the elections in October 2007, a new challenge to the constitutionality of Musharraf's candidacy to the Presidency was filed in the Supreme Court as he still held on to the Generalship. The Supreme Court was supposed to render a verdict this week. It is widely perceived that Musharraf believed that the verdict will go against him. He could wait no more. Defying the US pressure, he declared a state of emergency; suspending the Constitution and thus the opinions of the Supreme Court.
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The clock has come full circle. General Musharraf has decided that the uniform is more important and has mounted a coup with a promise, yet again, to hold elections for the National Assembly soon. The Judges that do not take a new oath to the new realities are being fired. Eleven of the seventeen judges refused again. The US has tepidly criticized the coup and has urged the General to reconsider.

There are no quick and easy solutions. Dictators offer quick perfect solutions that always fail; democracy offers a difficult, imperfect, winding road to consensual nation-building. Pakistanis have to decide to trudge through on that rocky road full of pitfalls as all democracies do.

Considering the quagmire in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Bush routinely threatening to bomb Iran every week, the General knows that the US is stuck. It cannot cut off aid to the Pakistani military to keep them in his camp or else Bush’s cow-boyish dare of the third World War would be closer. The past is haunting Pakistan’s future, and Bush’s march of folly has landed the US foreign policy in the worst fiasco America has ever experienced.

My Pakistani friends find a modicum of relief in the sardonic humor, "Other countries have an Army. In Pakistan the Army has a country.

Mirza A. Beg can be contacted at mab64@yahoo.com or read this at http://mirzasmusings.blogspot.com/