From: jamalin@newton.ccs.tuns.ca (Nadeem Jamali)
Subject: Re: Muhajirs again
Date: Sun, 27 Dec 1992 23:43:26 GMT
Organization: Technical University of Nova Scotia, Halifax, N.S.

In article <1hktjvINN6hr@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu> khan@ces.cwru.edu (Mansoor Khan) writes:
>
>	AS usual, any discussion on S.C.P. can be turned into 
>	racial crap. Some people just love it. Every time I curse
>	Zardari( I love it) and Navaz, people like NJ( Can I call you NJ honey?)        wonder if there is any "other" reason besides their credentials.
>	Well, there is none.

I asked you this question only once if I remember correctly. You can call
me NJ if you like, but I personally prefer Nadeem Jamali :)

>
>
>>As usual, Nadeem, an unqualified pleasure to observe your cordial
>>tone of argument, :-).  
>
>>You have called me an insincere liar.  Very good.  I can say the
>	What is sincere liar. may be Zia-ul-Haq? 
>

Come on now!! those are Saad's words :)

>>same thing about your tales of you and your family being terrorised
>>by MQM.
>
>>You say you cannot reason with a member of the muhajir "race".  Even
>>better.  What is the muhajir "race" and why am I a member of it ?
>	There is no such thing as muhajir race. Muhajir( as labeled
>	by rest of Pakistanis) are not a single race. I guess the same
>	definition was used by MQM. Acording to them, any one who crossed
>	Indo -Pak border after 47, and their descendants were muhajirs,
>	minus people from East Panjab coming into West Panjab. This is
>	exactly the definition rest of pakistanis used to label someone as
>	muhajir. But, if i remember correctly, in rural Sindh MQM had
>	Panjabis running elections on its ticket. Back to the point,
>	Muhajirs are not one race, they do not speak one language,
>	and have variety of cultures. One thing common is that most
>	of them live in cities in Pakistan. 

I have explained my use of the word "race" in my reply to Saad's posting.
MQM had tried initially to get the support of immigrants in West Punjab.
If you recall, they had tried to organize a few marches in Rawalpindi in
the early days... army wasn't very happy with this attempt to divide 
Panjab... nor were the people in general.. in short it failed. In Sindh
MQM tried different tactics... one as you mention was to make it appear
like a united force against Sindians. It failed in Karachi specially because
of their earlier conflicts with Panjabis and  Pathans. There was another
attempt to divide Sindhis and Baluchs... a bad miscalculation indeed :)

>
>
>>Because my father was born in Agra ?  Oh, but wait, my mother
>>was born in Lahore.  Does that make me Panjabi ?  But no, no,
>>wait, I have a friend called Chachar.  Does that help ?  Look
>>sai'N.  I don't argue as a member of any "race" and I think it
>>is quite petty of you to bring it up.  
>	And he loves to bring it up. His typical question will
>	be.. IS there any other reason. Man, I do not even know
>	if Zardari is a Sindhi, Balochi, or Irani. 
>

Who cares what he is? We're not racists are we :) 

>
>>You say you find my discussion very frustrating.  Do you think I
>>relish yours ?  The last time we locked horns, you had made the
>>[perfectly juvenile] claim that muhajir immigration into Karachi
>>robbed Sindhis of educational institutions they had made.  I came
>>back with the response that NED was made by a parsi, Dawood College
>>and Habib School by memons, Aga Khan University by Ismailis, 
>	Memons and Ismailis are muhajirs too. The mayor of Karachi
>	belonging to MQM was a memon.
>	As I said earlier, muhajir are not one race/ one-language.
>

Memons are originally from Sindh. Even though many of them deny this,
there is historical evidence to support this. Their language is quite
evidently a dialect of Sindhi. Ismailism was also introduced in Sindh
for the first time in the 10th century. There was a very major Ismaili
revolution. I had given a quote from a book that I read recently. I
think the title was "Islam in Arab Sindh". One of the later Muslim 
Muslim invaders (I forget his name) started a genocide of Ismailis.
It was probably after this that Ismailism went westwards. Descendants
of those Ismailis are known as Khojas and still exist in Sindh. Anwar
Rammal of Karachi is one of them. There is also a theory that many
Ismailis that migrated to Sindh after partition had migrated east at
an earlier time.

But the question is, do we really care about someone's descent? 

>
>>Dow Medical College by the British, Sindh Medical College by
>>the Federal Government, Baqai Medical College by a "muhajir",
>>and St. Patrick's and related schools by Christian missionaries.
>>I then asked you which Sindhi institutions were you talking about.
>	Hey, I can tell you.
>	First of all, Sindh Madrasah. 
>	How about Abdullah College in Khuddaa Area( I guess it was
>	founded by Sir Abdullah Haroon). This Abdullah college
>	is different from the Abdullah girls college in Nazimabad.
>	How about S.M. Colleges ( eg. S.M.Science/Law etc)
>	Gulistan School?
>	How about D.J. College. 
>	Now come on, Sindhis have established educational institutions.
>	The only problem is that people who are so-called representatives
>	of Sindhis these days( Zardari, BB,  Jatoi, etc) are bunch of crooks,
>	sucking blood out of Sindh and Pakistan, and have no interest
>	in Sindh's welfare.
>
>
>>Remeber your response ?  Let me remind you my level-headed sai'N:
>>it was nothing but a vat of vitriol.  No substance, just adjectives
>>attacking me.  You don't know what frustration feels like until
>>you've argued with you, :-)
>	Aisee baatai'n jub hee hotee hai'n, jub pyaar-o-mohabat ho.
>	too-too-mae-mae dosto'n may hee hotee hae. Jamali will
>	never get on chinese network and tell all those things.
>	he likes Pakistan and he likes you, that is why he is reading
>	S.C.P.  and talking to you.

Here's someone who understands me :) :)

>
>>You write me off because I supported the MQM.  First of all,
>>my support was qualified.  I am deeply repulsed by all the
>>badmashi that MQM did and advocate exemplary punishment for
>>them.  What I did support was that MQM had started to give
>>muhajirs ethnic credentials, which had fast become the
>>only way to get counted in Pakistan.
>-- 
>
>Mansoor Khan
>Cleveland, Ohio 
>

regards

Nadeem

-- 
Nadeem Jamali                                     jamalin@newton.ccs.tuns.ca
						 
School of Computer Science			  
Technical University of Nova Scotia		  (902)420-7527  
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