Islamic Center NY 10-9-10

Dear Friends,

Some of you have asked for my opinion on the contrived Islamic Center controversy. Thanks for asking, I dedicate it to your valuable friendship. If you find it worth reading please forward it to your friends, if you find flaws in it please educate me.

This essay reflects my deeply held views of the baser instincts in us that are prone to political exploitation of religions. An ignoble Florida pastor made to the front pages by his holding the US and all decent people, Christians and Muslims, hostage to the fear of repercussions of his action. I decided not to include him in the essay, because I do not want to add even a modicum to the publicity he seeks. Thanks and warm regards,

Mirza

_____________________________

Contrived Controversy - Islamic Center in New York

Mirza A. Beg

September 9, 2010

The Tuscaloosa News - Sunday, September 12, 2010

http://www.tuscaloosanews.com/article/20100912/NEWS/100919917

Media Monitor Network- Saturday, September 11, 2010

http://usa.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/78158

Two Circles Network – Saturday, September 11, 2010

http://twocircles.net/2010sep11/contrived_controversy_islamic_center_new_york.html

Indian Muslims – Monday, September 14, 2010

http://indianmuslims.in/contrived-controversy-islamic-center-in-new-york/

Almost everyone except a minuscule minority is born to their religion and adheres to the social traditions of their culture. Religions may preach unity to their flock but give-in to sectarianism. The sects roughly fall into two cerebral groups.

At the upper end a thoughtful and introspective minority that considers humility and service to humanity as the essence of their being and the calling of their religion. At the other end the narrow-minded who consider their creed to have been chosen by God for domination and use selected passages from their scripture in zealous pursuit of political power.

In the middle lives a large majority of usually kind and decent people too busy in the chores of living to think critically the morality of their social setting. They follow religious rituals and usually admire the first group, but succumb to the propaganda of the second in traumatic times.

In dictatorial or feudal regimes the first group is persecuted and the second latches on to power and thrives. In democracies, the first group may draw people to a higher vision, but suffers the onslaught of unethical propaganda by the second, especially during elections in stressful times.

After eight long years of mismanagement, two wars of hubris and a complete economic collapse, the US electorate in the elections of 2006 and 08 threw the Republicans out of power. In the last year and a half the economy has been stabilized, but the jobless rate is still very high, the electorate is not happy. With this backdrop and the trauma of 9/11, the drummed up controversy and misinformation about the Islamic community center two blocks from ground zero in New York follows this pattern.

In the last two months opposition politicians with the help of pundits on the anything, but “fair and balanced” FOX news and talk radio have kept up the drum beat of misinformation and half truths about the Islamic Center. Unsurprisingly, there has been a gradual rise in anti Islamic Center opinion along with anti Muslim feeling in the ephemeral public opinion polls. Many local right wing groups have latched on in opposing Islamic centers in many smaller communities as well.

The fear mongers have found a more potent propaganda, better than the perennial illegal immigration that simmers on the back burner to be resurrected in elections. Even better than the invented new twist of a few months ago, “the Anchor Babies”, implying that people come to US to deliver babies to cash in years later, the eventual right of citizenship under the US constitution.

Muslims should not be disheartened at this turn of events. Immigrants in the past have been subjected to much worse. It is part of the endemic struggle between the idea of the great democracy that the founding fathers envisioned and the drag of the baser human tendencies.

The United States of America came into being as a democracy drawing on the high ideals of enlightenment. Yet the full implementation of the ideals in the constitution took another two centuries to unfold. The genius of the US constitution is that it guides and allows progress, evolving with the needs of times.

The drag of the baser part of our history is well known, the massacre of Natives, the horrible legacy of slavery, the ethno-religious persecution of Jewish, Catholic - Irish and Italian immigrants, and the indigenous Mormon. The exploitation and persecution of imported Chinese and Japanese laborers in the 19^th century is also a part of the same exploitative fabric.

The nation gradually evolved to reject these, once accepted practices. In hard economic times and in times of war it often regresses, but eventually it re-discovers its moorings. It takes time, often a long time. Blacks were forced to immigrate in chains and were kept in political chains up to the 1960s, until the passage of the Civil Rights legislations. During the hysterical fear of the “new age religions” of 1970s and 80s, charlatan “deprogrammers” made a lot of money preying on the fears of the parents whose children opted to experiment with new trends in thoughts. The current anti Muslim propaganda too shall pass.

So the present anti Muslim propaganda is not surprising. What should be celebrated is that in the wake of 9/11 the administration arrested about 1,200 innocent Muslims; justice prevailed and none of them were found guilty. However in the last three years some Muslims have indulged in reprehensible acts and are legitimately being brought to justice. There have been many attacks on Islamic centers and Mosques by the cowardly religious miscreants, but the law is actively pursuing justice.

Though right wing propagandists have succeeded in corrupting the public mind to gain about sixty percent support, it is a great tribute to the US democracy that about thirty to forty percent have not succumbed to the knee jerk reaction. Many Pastors, Rabbis and most editorials in the newspapers and commentary sections have decried this assault on the first amendment. It is a very high index of sanity in difficult times in any country. The founding fathers took special care to check the tyranny of the insidious emotional gullible majority by requiring two thirds majority in the Senate and ratification by three-fourths of the states to change the constitution.

It is important to realize that bigots on all sides are equally reprehensible. Each side considers the nameless, faceless bigots on the other side to be despicable propaganda figures. While the bigots on their side to be human beings who love their children and are good neighbors, therefore are more easily swayed by their rhetoric. In wars of supremacy each side succumbs to those who misuse religion and yields leadership to the most despicable charlatans among them.

The soul of the US resides in its strong and just constitution. Those with baser attitudes are a blight that infects all societies. Unlike many other countries, the US democracy has weathered them for more than two centuries, and has consistently been on an upward humane trajectory, respecting and celebrating the diversity and aspirations of all its citizens. Muslims in the United States know it and they have a lot to learn and contribute to this great nation of immigrants. When things are going well it is easy to be good, the real test of character is to be just and balanced when one’s own ox is being gored.

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

Comments:

___________________________________________________

Mirza,

The ground zero mosque debate can be boiled down to a single issue - compassion. If there are so many families affected by the 9-11 attacks and so many of them opposed to the location of the mosque, then isn't it simply the compassionate thing to do to move the mosque?Even if there are but a few families that had love ones die on 9-11 that wish for the site to be moved, isn't that alone reason enough? Regards,

Casey Sears

-----------------

Casey,

Thanks for your thoughtful note. It is easy to be for your sentiments, and I join you. If people, particularly those with power and resources, are really serious it can and should be achieved. I have heard different opinions from the loudest voices such as Bill Oreily to Newt Gingrich that it should be moved to at least 4 blocks to 10 blocks from ground zero.
As you would realize, it can be achieved if a similar property could be found as an almost even swap. I have not heard from any one a plausible proposal. If they really are honest in their expression, they should try to facilitate what they propose; this will put their criticism on solid ground and worth serious consideration. Thanks again,
Mirza

-----------------------------------------------------------

Shahid Azmi Murder 10-02-12

Murder of Shahid Azmi,

Assault on the Heart of the Indian Democracy

Mirza A. Beg

February12, 2010

Counter Currents. February 14, 2010

http://www.countercurrents.org/beg140210.htm

Indian Muslims, February 12, 2010

http://indianmuslims.in/murder-of-shahid-azmi-assault-on-the-heart-of-the-indian-democracy/

Thirty-two years old, Shahid Azmi, the defense counsel to the accused, framed by the police in the Malgaon case in Maharashtra, was gunned down in his office by a five member assassination squad in broad daylight. In his very young career he became the voice of the downtrodden and defenseless, because he had suffered the heavy hand of the corrupt state police as a young boy of fifteen.

He reported to the police, many times, to no avail, about the threats he received from those who manipulate the justice system for sectarian purposes and kill those who get in the way.

Shahid Azmi, the defense attorney’s murder is more detrimental to the Indian democracy than many other terribly egregious murders that are in themselves the bane of Indian democracy and civil society.

All injustices, particularly murders are injurious to the functioning of a civil society. Even more detrimental to the functioning of democracy is state terrorism or the state turning a blind eye to the murder of citizens who try to keep the state honest. Injustices and mayhem perpetrated by the state against the minorities, as in Gujarat, under Chief Minister Mr. Modi, is almost universally known. There are many other states where political heavy weights run a parallel government through open intimidation, irrespective of the political party in power. Mr. Bal Thakery of Maharashtra is well known to wield such evil supra-state power.

The tribal people in Orissa and Chhattisgarh, Dalits in Bihar, Muslims and Christians in many states, particularly in Gujarat have suffered grievously. It has been well documented. The military and police have often been oppressive and brutal in states rife with long term ubiquitous rebellions. They end up feeding the cause that feeds the rebellion rather than being about a solution in states such as Kashmir, Nagaland and Mizoram as well the as the tribal belt of Central India.

Yet, with all these pitfalls and lamentable inadequacies, the Indian democracy has made great strides, because many brave and principled Indians have made great sacrifices to stand up and expose the corruption of power. Such efforts occasionally gather wider support and come to the notice of the Supreme Court of India. The Apex court occasionally feels obliged to intervene for the cause of justice, when the state government apparatus and the lower courts are completely overwhelmed by the sectarian attitudes, as in the case of Gujarat under Mr. Modi.

Indians owe a great debt of gratitude to these brave citizens, journalists and lawyers, the conscience keepers of the Indian democracy. They risk their safely to take up the cause and cases, to uphold the constitution of India that guarantees justice to the hapless accused, boxed in by the corrupt judicial system at the lower rungs of the justice system.

The murder of Shahid Azmi is not a murder of an individual only, it is a brazen effort to intimidate and ultimately obliterate the idea of justice and silence the voice of the Indian conscience. The central government of India should do its utmost to bring the murderers to justice, because it is an assault on the soul of the Indian constitution and state, much more grave than the terrorist that kills individuals or the thief that prowls in the darkness of night.

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

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/

Delhi Blasts 08-09-15

Delhi Blasts, Time to go Beyond Condemnations

Mirza A. Beg
Monday, September 15th 2008

The American Muslim, September 16, 2008
http://theamericanmuslim.org/tam.php/features/articles/india_delhi_blasts_time_to_go_beyond_condemnations/


A series of bomb blasts tore through the busy markets in Delhi on the 13th of September. They are reprehensible, but lamentably not surprising. There have been more than a dozen gory blasts in major cities, including Delhi in the last three years.

After each such episode, there are many customary statements of condemnation. But after so many times, condemnations sound stale and obligatory. It is time to shake our collective conscience and challenge our hackneyed thinking to develop thoughtful and just solutions.

With the exponential expansion of beneficial technology; the technology of mass killing has also made tremendous gains in the military research labs of the nation sates, ostensibly for defense. The unforeseen blow-back is that terrorists eventually get access to these technologies as well to enhance their ability to kill using remote-triggers and more lethal explosives.

India is home to almost all religions and ethnicities, and has more distinct languages and dialects among its vast multitude than any other country in the world.

The process of welding such diversity into a nation has not been easy. There were language riots in late fifties and early sixties, when the central government tried to impose Hindi as a national language. In spite of the pressure from the Hindi language chauvinists, the government wisely relented. More respect for regional languages and the go slow approach worked. Hindi is now accepted as the national link language. There have been endemic ethnic conflicts between local upper casts and lower casts. The police composed of only upper casts was often partial. The induction of lower casts in the police and administration has some what eased the problem.

Rise of sectarian parties to power:

With the increasing literacy, and dwindling secular education, Indians are getting more religiously polarized. This has resulted in the rise of religious-supremacist political parties. So much so that many states elected Hindu chauvinist parties (called Hindutva in Indian parlance) in late 1980s and by 1990s they took power at the central government. In a democracy minority sectarianism, though odious is not lethal. But the majority sectarianism because of the power of votes usually ends up in fascism and destruction of democracy.

Gradually under Hindutva (Hindu sectarianism) leadership the education system has become even more sectarian and the religious divide among the majority Hindus and minority Muslims has become more stark and lethal. A vast majority of Hindus and Muslims are decent law abiding citizens, who have lived with each other harmoniously. They are being polarized by endemic riots, usually engineered just before the elections using fear mongering to garner votes. This has lead to a vicious downward spiral.

Very small religious communities, not affected by sectarianism did not feel the contamination of the society by Hindutva’s incessant propaganda through the governmental agencies. Now even the small Christian community has been targeted by the Hindutva forces, especially in the backward tribal areas where because of evangelical activities many low-cast or castless tribal communities have accepted Christianity.

The birth of terrorism:

There were no terroristic bombings in India before 1993. Though the sectarian riots have been on the rise since 1960s, often the sectarian police being the main culprit, it was the demolition of the 16th Century Mosque (Babri Masjid) in December 1992 that lead to the new era of bombing crowded markets.

The demolition was preceded by a slow deliberate 1,000 miles march of Mr. Advani from Gujarat State in western India to the site of the mosque in sleepy little town Ayodhya in UP, a state in Northern Indian. Two months long slow march with fan-fare and speeches full of venom and misquotation of history whipped up Hindu passions that resulted in many local riots. The march was stopped by the secular Chief Minister of UP state. As a result he was defeated in the next election and the new Hindutva party Chief Minister allowed a frenzied mob to take down the large historic Mosque, brick by brick in the full glare of the television. The Indian Prime Minster of a supposed secular party sat in Delhi cloistered in his office offering inane excuses.

In the wake of the demolition of Babri Masjid there were riots in many parts of India. The riots in Mumbai (Bombay) were particularly gruesome because the Police carried out a massacre of Muslim localities. An inquiry commission under Justice Shri Krishna (a devout Hindu) found the local and national Hindutva parties guilty. Just as many other such commission reports, the Shri Krishna commission report was s also shelved and no cases were brought against the politically powerful culprits.

The heightened sectarianism brought the Hindutva party (BJP) to power at the center in Delhi and Mr. Advani, a criminal became the Deputy Prime Minister. “Ayodhya” episode was milked for a decade by whipping up hate through virulent sectarian grafting of feudalistic medieval history on democratic India to weaken and injure the basic democratic ethos. Threatening demolition of many other historic mosques, worked again and Hindutva party (BJP) won in many states including Gujarat.

The pogrom in Gujarat under the Chief Minister, Mr. Mody in which about 2,000 Muslims were by the mob under police protection throwing incendiary bombs from behind the police lines is well documented, and condemned all over the world and all secular Hindus.

Unfortunately as Muslim felt cornered and unprotected by the government, the Muslim polarization gave rise to underground fringe groups that took it upon them-selves to avenge the massacres. As always when small fringe groups take up arms to avenge, they only do more damage by killing other innocent citizens who had no part in violence and further polarize the populace.

After many such bombing, supposedly by the Muslim fringe groups, many Hindu groups attached to the Hindutva Parties have also sprung up. They have been caught at least on two occasions and couple of times the bombers have blown themselves up while constructing crude bombs.

After each set of bomb blast the police habitually accuse the commonly known Muslim fringe groups and arrest local Muslim youth, usually with no evidence. The police often torture them, but the cases are either not brought to the court or they are thrown out. It simply creates more hatred for the police and the government without any tangible positive result. The cycle goes on.

Way back to sanity of civil and just society:

The road back to sanity after fanning the flames for decades is never easy. The essential glue that holds a nation together is the sense of belonging. Belonging means a common purpose, rooted in equal opportunity and justice for all. A simple concept, but it becomes exceedingly difficult after it has been violated for years.

Four steps are essential for return to democratic sanity.

1. The government has an essential obligation to bring the culprits of bombing to justice, irrespective of their affiliation or religion, not for the sake of revenge or to avenge the innocent, but for the essential concept of justice.

2. But selective justice is no justice at all. To restore the Muslims and the Christian victims of violence in Orrisa and Gujarat states, the investigative reports of the high powered commissions on the major riots, languishing in archives, should be brought back to the light. Those accused should be brought to the bar of justice, as it was done in the case of the massacre of Sikhs in 1984 in wake if the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.

3. Teaching of secular values to the children is essential to nurture pluralistic democracy. Primary and secondary education in all schools should have a strong component of secular education. Indians are inheritors of an ancient multi religious civilization. The values from all religions and philosophies should be included as a positive re-enforcement of multi-religious, multi-cultural ethos. This is the most important aspect of raising a better generation.

4. To sustain the secular education and eventually eliminate sectarianism, the police force, the administration and the judiciary should have adequate representation of all religious and ethnic communities. The excuse that the employment is dependent upon the competitive qualifications is a rouge by sectarian forces. No great intellectual prowess is needed to be a policeman, a city clerk, or a low to mid level administrator. The government can not monitor each small office, but the presence of people of all communities integrated in an office setting impedes discrimination and helps assimilation of citizenry to weld a nation, as has been the proven by the assimilation of the lower casts in the power structure.

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

Minority safety India 08-08-21

Need for Equitable Representation of Minorities in the Administration of Indian Government
Mirza A. Beg
Thursday, August 21, 2008

Counter Currents, Monday, August 25, 2008
http://www.countercurrents.org/beg250808.htm

Indian Muslims Sunday, August 24, 2008
http://indianmuslims.in/need-for-equitable-representation-of-minorities-in-the-administration-of-indian-government/

Khabrein Info .com, Saturday August 23, 2008
http://www.khabrein.info/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=16101&Itemid=58


The essential requirement of good governance in a country is the welfare of all its citizens. This is the paramount ideal of constitutional democracies. India is a constitutional republic based on a very good and robust constitution.

The first duty of the Indian government is to protect the life and liberty of all its citizens. Everything else pales in comparison. Endemic sectarian riots rob the beleaguered communities. It dehumanizes and polarizes the majority as well as the minority. India has been rocked by cyclical sectarian riots for decades with increasing partisanship of those in power. With the burgeoning information technology, India has unprecedented opportunity and is on an upward trajectory to find its rightful destiny. The endemic poverty of a majority of its citizens and the fear of life by many minorities is an enormous drag, impeding progress.

Many, weak secularist though lightly infected with sectarianism take shelter and find justification in a myopic view that India is better than many other countries. It is true India is a better democracy than many. India’s record is even better, considering the size and tremendous diversity of the population. But simply saying that we are better than others does not wish or wash away the problems. It certainly does not help the nation, particularly the suffering poor and the minorities at the receiving end of the stick.

Baser human instincts propel many, to smugly justify what is advantageous to them and find the reverse reprehensible, if advantage accrue to others. Societies and nations do better when this tendency is on the decline or enough people stand up for the downtrodden. India has a better record than many other countries. Many great souls, particularly from the majority community have sacrificed a lot to stand up for justice for those perceived to be “the others”. Sectarianism of the majority is much more injurious to the nation than the minority sectarianism, because in a democracy minorities do not have the power of numbers to drive the agenda.

Free press should be and is a boon, but it becomes a bane when ordinary decent citizen inundated with insidious propaganda absorbs sectarianism (communalism in Indian parlance) without realizing it. Half truths from anecdotal stories are circulated to fortify sectarianism. Democracy has a self corrective mechanism, when enough thoughtful people rise up to negate such misuse and help protect the minorities from the clutches of entrenched sectarian interests. Fortunately many from the majority community in India have taken up this necessary burden.

Sectarian forces use perceived anecdotal injustices to spread their propaganda. Systematic discrimination and oppression that creates a deprived underclass can only be determined by rigorous social scientific research. In India the constitution itself made special provisions for the long suffering down-trodden casts and tribes (Scheduled casts and tribes) to overcome the horrible disparities and systemic exploitation of millennia. When such constitutional remedies are used some very deserving individuals of upper casts have felt cheated. That is what happens when we think of people as groups.

The case of grouping Muslims and Hindus as groups has many pitfalls, because they do not form homogeneous groups. But in the last six decades, because of endemic sectarian riots a large proportion of Hindus and Muslims have polarized and coalesced into a sectarian consciousness.

In order to design a solution based on well researched statistical data from the government archives and dozens of judicial enquiry reports into cyclical sectarian riots the Government of India established a committee under Justice Sachar. An exhaustive and comprehensive “Sachar Committee Report” came out in December 2006. It deals with the consequences of the endemic sectarian riots, destruction of lives and property and systematic discriminations against a large minority of Muslims and recommends temporary reservations in government employment for Muslims to compensate for the decades of discrimination.

Many object to sectarian reservation, suggesting that help should be based on economics parameter, taking into account individual circumstances. Religion or cast based reservations are not a panacea and have built in resentment. I sympathize with this view, but experience has shown that individuals, especially those at the bottom of the ladder have no power to get redress from systematic discrimination. The only way though imperfect is to implement the policy for the discriminated groups. Larger numbers provide vigilance in implementation of a policy.

The solutions are not simple, but some redress is imperative otherwise, India will continue sliding down the spiral in the sectarian abyss. Fortunately there are two trends to the advantage of India at this juncture.

First is the fast expanding Indian economy due to the technological revolution and the globalization. In a limited economy, for some to get redress others loose, but in an expanding economy it is easier to share, except for those whose ideology is based on hatred of others.

Second. No government can or should try to micro engineer every facet of life on the basis of perfection in equality. It will fail under the enormous weight of bureaucracy. In the burgeoning fields of sciences, education and research meritocracy ought to rule and profit motivated fast expanding private sector can not afford not to employ the best and the brightest. It is in the realm of the governing power where some parity is needed. Inequality in governance, such as police powers, justice dispensation and licensing of industries is not only deleterious, but it has been lethal, as proven time and again in endemic sectarian riots. Based on the judicial inquiry reports and disproportionate number of victims from the minority communities the injustice becomes obvious.

Why the representation of Muslims in administration is pitiful? No great intellectual prowess or great qualification is needed to be a policeman, a city clerk, or a low to mid level administrator. The judiciary at the district level must have judges represented from all communities to avoid blatant miscarriage of justice. Experience has shown that these are the levels where the most damage is done to the impoverished powerless communities. If different communities have approximate parity in these jobs, sectarian riots will not occur, or if they do, they will be very short lived, because the culprits will have a much better probability of being brought to justice.

Fortunately the Supreme Court of India has been a beacon of responsibility and Justice. One reason could be that they are in the lime light. It was the Supreme Court, the court, the court of last resort that was able to put breaks on Mr. Modi’s pogroms in Gujarat. Though the sectarian influences have kept him in power, but his murderous ways have been checked. There are now documented evidences of the culpability of the Gujarat government under Modi using the state machinery of power. That is why the events in Gujarat have been classed as pogroms rather than riots by most non sectarian observers.

The essential responsibility of a government is to safeguard its people from the enemies. Foreign enemies are easy to recognize, it the domestic enemies who injure the constitution and the national fabric. They are more dangerous and pose an existential challenge to the nation. The sectarian rioters are the domestic enemies. They can be curbed if the government really wants. There are glaring examples within India. Bengal, particularly Calcutta was prone to communal rioting in the 1960s. Since the advent of the communist government in Bengal the sectarian riots have all but vanished.

Should there be limited reservations in above mentioned jobs? I feel uncomfortable with the idea. Besides religion and politics when they are directly connected, they make an explosive mix and it solidifies the identity separation. The government should make effort to bring about equity in essential services among many better defines smaller subgroups among all communities. It will avoid major cleavages based on religion. Many minor cleavages tend to cancel out each other. It is good for the people and it is good for the country.

If the government does not succeed soon in designing programs similar in spirit as the “Affirmative action” in USA, I am afraid the reservations, a much less desirable remedy until a reasonable approximation to parity is achieved will be needed by default. By limiting reservations to administration of justice, police, army and low level bureaucracy will leave the rest of the burgeoning private enterprise open to meritocracy.

A government that can not safeguard the lives of its citizens fails in its primary purpose.

Mirza A. Beg can be contacted at mab64@yahoo.com
Mirza’s essays and poems can be read at http://mirzasmusings.blogspot.com/

Karadzic Arrested 08-07-22

Karadzic, the Serbian Butcher of Bosnia, Arrested

Mirza A. Beg
Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Pine Magazine, Tuesday, July 22, 2008
http://www.pine-magazine.com/maincat.php?category_id=2
Media Monitors Network, Tuesday, July 22, 2008
http://usa.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/53127
The American Muslim, Tuesday, July 22, 2008
http://www.theamericanmuslim.org/tam.php/features/articles/karadzic_the_serbian_butcher_of_bosnia_arrested/0016437


The arrest of Radovan Karadzic, the leader and one of the main architects of Serbian atrocities and genocide against the Bosnian Muslims and Catholic Croats is not only good news, but much needed victory for the cause of justice. He, as the civilian leader, along with Ratko Mladic, the military leader of the Serb forces, was the main culprit in the civil war in Bosnia from 1991 to 1996. They rained death and destruction on Sarajevo and directed the genocide in Bosnia that killed more than 200,000 Bosnians and Croats. They were indicted for their crimes against humanity by the international court of justice at The Hague and have eluded arrest for the last thirteen years.

As children, we are taught and fortunately we believe that evil does not pay and justice triumphs in the end. It is an uplifting message to imbibe. It gives us an ideal to aspire for, rooted in the purity of innocence. Perhaps that early implant of idealism is what keeps the world from spinning completely out of control and falling irredeemably into chaos.

Unfortunately, as adults we come face to face with the reality, leading to disillusionment. We sadly come to realize that tyrants, exploiters and killers are only occasionally brought to justice to face deserved punishment. Most tyrants not only thrive, but are even celebrated; especially when they are supported by a sectarian populace. If they live long enough and mellow with age, their sectarian good deeds help cover up their terrible crimes.

The best known extreme examples are Hitler who came to a well deserved ignominious end, but Stalin was celebrated until his natural death by his beleaguered countrymen. History is full of such pairs. In modern times many horrible killers and dictators retired and found refuge in other countries to live and die in isolated luxury. Tyranny by stronger countries on weaker countries is often celebrated in the hallowed name of patriotism and nationalism by the strong.

Occasionally when tyrants, killers and genocide perpetrators are caught and brought to the bar of slow grinding sporadic justice, a modicum of humanity is reclaimed, a few tears are wiped and it rekindles hope.

Often tyrants are replaced by other tyrants, or even unintended tyranny of war of hubris, such as the fate of Saddam Hussein. Many dictators and evil systems fall to leaders full of promise who adapt the same methods, once in power, as in the case of Idi Amin of Uganda and Mugabe of Zimbabwe. Unfortunately most major countries have been guilty of selective violations of human rights of beleaguered minorities; there are many current examples of such ongoing conflicts.

After the unprecedented carnage of the WW II, the stunned world came to its senses to establish a world-wide organization, The United Nations (UN), to be a world assembly where a consensus could be reached, so that such carnages could be avoided for a better future.

Though the UN has been immensely successful through its many agencies in helping the poverty-stricken peoples of the word, unfortunately it has failed in its primary purpose of outlawing wars and carnage. The main impediments are the five major powers, the victors of the WW II; Great Britain, France, the United States, China and now Russia in place of the Soviet Union. They reserved for them-selves the power of veto, the right to individually kill any resolution in the Security Council, the executive arm for world peace in the UN. Thus many regional wars and even genocides have continued, in which either the powers them-selves were engaged or it involved their client states.

The UN also created the International Court of Justice, headquartered at The Hague in the Netherlands, to be the impartial arm of justice for those who had no other recourse. The most powerful country, the United States refused to join it. Therefore, the International Court of Justice works only when the less powerful tyrants are defeated and caught.

Nevertheless, the arrest of Radovan Karadzic after thirteen years of eluding half-hearted attempts by the Serbian and the UN peace-keepers is a small victory for the ideals that we were raised on, and it keeps the flickering flame of justice alive.

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

Soldiers & Generals 08-3-12

When Brave Soldiers were led by Timid Generals

Mirza A. Beg
Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Counter Currents, Tuesday, March 18, 2008
http://www.countercurrents.org/beg180308.htm

Cross Cultural Understanding march 17, 2008
http://www.ccun.org/Opinion%20Editorials/2008/March/17%20o/When%20Brave%20Soldiers%20Were%20Led%20by%20Timid%20Generals%20By%20Mirza%20A.%20Beg.htm

The American Muslim March 14, 2008
http://www.theamericanmuslim.org/tam.php/features/articles/when_brave_soldiers_were_led_by _timid_generals/0015929

Pine Magazine March 24, 2008
http://pine-magazine.com/content.php?id=1234

Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced on March 11th that Admiral William J. Fallon's request for early retirement had been granted regretfully. The 63-year-old admiral was appointed with great fanfare as the head of the U S Central Command only about a year ago, after serving as head of US Pacific Command. He became the commander of the US forces in the Middle East, responsible for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq (as General Petraeus’ boss). And if Bush had his way in engineering a war with Iran, Admiral Fallon would have been saddled with this third war as well, while still being mired in Iraq and Afghanistan.

A fall out of the Republicans losing control of the Congress in the November 2006 elections was the resignation of Defense Secretary Rumsfeld. Bush was forced to appoint people like Secretary Gates, Admiral Fallon and General Petraeus, because the traditional yes-men could not be confirmed by a Democratic Congress.

Admiral Fallon’s frank testimony before the Congress and occasional pronouncements emphasizing diplomacy over war in dealing with Iran, were regular irritants to Bush and his cohorts. His backing of further troop withdrawals from Iraq to boost the forces in Afghanistan reversing the long trend of neglect of Afghanistan brought to focus the open secret that Afghanistan was spiraling out of control.

An article in Esquire magazine describing Admiral Fallon standing between the Bush administration and the war with Iran was the final straw. It became too obvious that unlike many of his predecessors, Admiral Fallon would not be a toady to the brazen, ill-conceived Bush follies. The public spat of Secretary Gates with the Europeans about more forces for Afghanistan, while the US is mired in Iraq and Bush is craving for a war with Iran, did not help either.

So the Admiral had to be fired, and he was.

Young soldiers in their teens and early twenties follow orders and serve on nebulous front lines in Iraq and Afghanistan as a patriotic duty. They bravely put their lives on the line in the mistaken belief that they are being led by a sane and caring policy executed by their officers who care for them as surrogate parents.

Generals seldom die in wars. How many generals have died or been maimed in Iraq? What bravery, courage and sacrifice are expected from the generals?

The bravery expected from the generals is that they speak “truth to power”. The courage expected is to be ready to resign, if they consider the policies of the administration to be injurious to the country they love and the constitution they have sworn to defend. The sacrifice expected is to give up lucrative careers for the sake of the soldiers under their command; the soldiers whose sacrifice and bravery they swear by; the soldiers who put their lives on the line for the generals.

General Shinseki was fired in 2003 before the Iraq war. His sin was, an honest testimony before the congress contradicting the contrived rosy and gross underestimates of troops required for the Iraq war by Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz. It drove the point home to many generals that expression of honest opinion was inimical to their careers. The Staff officers bold enough to express their opinions with courage and tenacity were shunted to obscure positions or were cashiered. The message was loud and clear, generals who fell in line were rewarded with promotions. Rumsfeld and Bush chose only those generals who lived by the “lofty ideals” of spineless subservience.

Dozens of retired generals have been very critical of the Bush policies and the contrived war in Iraq from the beginning. Some of the well known names are General Wesley Clark, former commander of NATO and General Anthony Zinni, the former commander of the Central Command, one of the predecessors of Admiral Fallon. Lately even some of the generals, who danced to the Bush-Rumsfeld tune, have discovered spine after retirement and have become critics of the policies and the conduct of the Iraq war.

It is customary to say that we oppose the war, but support the brave troops. It is an inherently thoughtless and contradictory position. Politicians afraid of the backlash from a misinformed public take this position to hedge their bets. Most soldiers indeed are brave, but to support them is to bring them home away from this misbegotten war. It is craven lip service to keep the soldiers in harms way, to use a hackneyed phrase. To keep funding the war means that soldiers will keep dieing and killing, in an immoral war based on proven lies and deceit.

By resigning, Admiral Fallon has really served the country and has risen to the moral high ground of supporting the constitutional supremacy of the civilian authority of the elected officials over the military. He has come to the conclusion that the President’s policies are indefensible and are doing tremendous harm to the constitution and the country he loves. It is time for him to speak bravely and clearly to tell the nation and his peers in the services about his struggle to serve his country above and beyond the lure of promotions.

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

Thoughts for 2008, 07-12-20

Will the year 2008 be Different?

Mirza A. Beg
Tuesday, December 20, 2007

Counter Currents, Wednesday, December21, 2007
http://www.countercurrents.org/beg211207.htm

The American Muslim, Tuesday, December 20, 2007
http://www.theamericanmuslim.org/tam.php/features/articles/will_the_year_2008_be_different/0015294

Media Monitors Network, Monday, December 24, 2007
http://usa.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/48396

My News India, Sunday, December 30, 2007
http://www.mynews.in/fullstory.aspx?storyid=1601

Asia Peace, Article of the month, December 2007
http://www.asiapeace.org/article_of_month.htm

January 1, of the year 2008 of the Julian-Gregorian calendar will be just another day in the steady flow of time. Some will celebrate because it is customary, while others will rejoice in the ever present hope of renewal, but most of the teaming poor and dispossessed of the world will not notice it. The wars will go on as legalized murder. It will be yet another day of misery and deprivation.

Most people, across the globe, at least wish for peace on Earth and equity and justice for all. They are kind and considerate as individuals. But as a group, “us versus them”, we conveniently forget that it requires treating the distant “others” as we, the “us” would like to be treated. It is easy to find tortuous reasons to justify selfish interests, resulting in wars based on the worst of lies, the self serving lies that we tell ourselves. They propel us to support the politicians who lie most convincingly that killing neighbors or a people in far off lands is necessary to preserve our way of life.

Religions become the most convenient hand maiden of the propagandists, and we willingly with enthusiasm profane what we purport to hold sacred.

Eventually all wars do end, often with the exhaustion of all sides. In the past two centuries, the quantum growth in modern technology has provided unimaginable material conveniences. It has brought prosperity, but sadly there is even a greater growth in weapons to feed the wars; weapons that can be used without any danger to the user; impersonalized weapons.

In my name, with my taxes, a neighborhood full of people with similar dreams as mine, in a far off place, will be destroyed by a rocket delivered by a remote controlled plane, while I am celebrating the New Year festivities and talking of peace and goodwill. If confronted by the deception, the trite explanation will be “collateral damage”, or at best an oft repeated hackneyed phrase “Oops, a mistake for which we are extremely sorry.”

Ours is an age of information and instant communication. No technology can be secret for very long. Every weapon invented by an established government to oppress others in the name of crass nationalism will eventually leak out or are sold to those fighting the oppression, who after gaining power, in turn become oppressors.

The wars can not be fought or sustained unless the populace is duped into believing that the “ungodly other” or “beastly other” is trying to destroy them. The propaganda is self-sustaining and it grows until we are jolted after falling off the precipice.

Those who see injustice and keep quiet, end up being silent supporters of oppression. The "innocent" bystanders are no longer as innocent as they want to believe, especially in a democracy. If we do not object to our own government's misdeeds at home and abroad, we are guilty, because in a democracy we are the government.

Many of us were not taken in by the lies of warmongers. We foresaw and wrote about the quagmire and destruction that the war would bring, but being right before a majority realizes the folly is perceived as a greater political folly. The strength of ethical principles and intellect is branded as weakness of brawn by the glib power seekers who keep trying to deceive the electorate by appealing to the baser instincts.

We need to speak in louder and clearer voices to inject backbones in politicians who want to be with the winning side. We also need to convince the popular media that people do want to hear the other side as well. It is not economically injurious. They do not need to imitate Fox news. Unless we do it in greater numbers, the malfeasances of the Bush administration in domestic policy and endless indiscriminate wars in the name of peace will continue to create more terrorists and wider wars.

The warmongers had their run. They have sown terrible death and destruction. They have the power of the latest weapons, but they suffer a great disadvantage. They have to be against others to be hegemonic. They thrive on hatred, pitting “us” against “them”.

The ideals of peace and of consideration of others as human beings may appear to be powerless, but they have one great advantage. They can unite across the false divide created by forces of ignorance and war. They extend a hand of friendship across the artificial rift. They can erase the dishonest division.

Let us make the year 2008 a watershed, when the 21st century emerges from the deathly clutches of the wars of the 20th century to claim its much needed place to unfold an era of peace in the flow of time.

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

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.
.
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/