From: nadeem@igpho (Nadeem Malik)
Subject: Re: Human Rights and blasphemy
Organization: Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Zurich, CH
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL3
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 1992 13:23:21 GMT

memon@acsu.buffalo.edu (Naveed Siraj Memon) writes:
: From: nadeem@igpho (Nadeem Malik)
: Newsgroups: soc.culture.pakistan,soc.rights.human
: 
: >The reason given by Zia for enacting the coup against him was the alleged
: >irregularities in the general election ballot boxes of 1974. I have never
: >heard of any other reason given at the time.
: 
: 
: Till 74, Bhutto had not had an exchange with Henry Kissinger who is known to
: have said, "We will make an example out of you". Till 74, Bhutto had not
: made his decision about the Islamic bomb yet. 74 is the year of the
: summit conference in Lahore. So the issue of wrong doing,
: in national affairs has absolutely no connection with the year 1974. The
: elections were as late as 76(?) but definitely not 74.
: 
: I would assume that in 74 Zia, was not as powerful within the military 
: hierarchy, that he had the influence to "enact" a coup.

My apologies --- for 1974 read 1976 in my articles. Then I think what I said 
holds.

: 
: Following the thread that "pakistanis decide for their own form of governement",
: Nadeem J's query still holds. That is, can the voters in Pakistan decide for
: religion to be kept out of government? Why should the Western democracy be
: explained before anwering the Pakistani question. We are not a slave nation,
: so the reference to Western public opinion about Western form of democracy 
: makes little sense to me.

Because the so-called Pakistani inytelligencia about democracy/freedom etc.
is a copy-cat of the Western ideas of the same issues. It is natural to 
query the Western Democracies, especially regarding their naked aboandonment
of thier own cradinal principles (e.g. Algeria, numerous invasions by US on
sovereign conutries, support of the 11 (or so) Gulf dictatorships etc.) when
their interests are in danger. 

"We are not a slave nation" you say. Hmmm, well I must say that I am not
entirely convinced about this. We still suffer from an intellectual and
psychological inferiority complex and defference towards anything British
or American. This includes a defference towards Western concepts on how to run
a country and society in general. I do not say that all Western concepts
are bad -- the Holy Prophet (pbuh) hinted that all peoples have somethings
good to offer -- but it is the unqualified prostration before Western
concepts such as their form of Democracy and moral values which seriously
worries me. Pakistanis and Muslims should be much more critical in their
analyses of Western concepts.

Getting back to Nadeem Jamali's original question, I personally feel that
the question is ill-posed; to the general question of whether most 
Pakistanis what Islamic laws, the overwhleming answer is undoubtedly yes.
However, if ask a sharper question of what type of Islamic government, then
very few (as has indeed been demonstrated many times in elections) will
opt for the Mullah type Jamate-Islami rule. The too key words that thew
Quran uses for good government are "concensus", which is actually a wider
term than democracy, and "Justice". If the policies of a government conform
to these two principles then it can be deemed close to Islamic. 



: 
: Naveed

-Nadeem Malik	nadeem@p.igp.ethz.ch