From: memon@acsu.buffalo.edu (Naveed Siraj Memon)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.pakistan
Subject: Re Pakistan and Islam
Date: 24 Jul 92 21:33:30 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: UB

From: dogar@rtsg.mot.com (Haroon H. Dogar)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.pakistan
Subject: Re: Karachi and Sind


>This does surprise Hum because,in doing so, he totally abandons his main point.
>discussion began because you stated that Pakistan was not created for Islam.
>I responded along the lines of "Bullshit, an entire generation fought, 
>sacrificed, and died for an Islamic Pakistan."
>Because of your ethnocentric hatred of the Muslims from UP/CP/Bihar, etc.
>you denigrated all of their sacrifices and declared them irrelevant.
>I responded with the story of my own Punjabi tribe to illustrate the point.
>Along came Iblees whispering in the ear [Alathhee yu waswesu fi sudurinnas.
>minnal JINNati wannass] saying, "That was then, this is now."
>[Sorry, this whole Iblees symbolism is just too fun to pass up. As Naveed
>says: sometimes I just slay myself  :-)]

pra Haroon,

The Now is important for Pakistanis to make sense of the direction they would
want go into in the 21 st century. I am not saying that the slogan that
Pakistan was created in the name of Islam will throw us back two 
thousand years(as if we are not too different from the medieval Arab
cutlure even now) but the past is another country :)  Quaid e Azam did 
say "you are free to go to your mosques, your temples, your churches, 
just remember that whereever you go, you will Pakistanis first". He did
not say Muslims. The clergy has isolated Pakistanis from the political
debate, all you have at your hands is human rights violations in the
form of Ahmadis and Hindu mandirs burnt in Saddar, Karachi.  It is not
the ethnocentric hatred of the natives of Sindh that they cannot relate
to or they denigrate the sacrifices. The fact is that the social fabric
in Sindh was different from that of UP/CP/Bihar and therefore your
forefathers need to be free from the atrocities caused the people in  
other peaceful parts of the subcontinent of relocate. That is unpak. And
to believe that Quaid e Azam had wanted an Islamic state where public
lashings, or carry out the business the Zia ul Haq style, where 
the order of the day is a slap in his face.  


>I submit that your sampling for the WE is not complete, because I believe
>that if you were  able to ask the people of Pakistan if they wanted
>the rule of Allah or the rule of Kufr, they would overwhelmingly choose
>the former. It is, perhaps, their tough luck that they continue to be 
>ruled by Kufr and that they have the Devils that continue to whisper
>in their ears.

We does not include the diverse ideologies that people cling to. Yo uare
quite right but if you were able to ask the people of NWFP and Sindh 
in pre-1947 era, they would not equate the rule of the people=kufr. By
people I mean people of all religions that lived there for 
centuries. The problem of Muslims in East Punjab resulted in the
uprooting of several others in Sindh, just in the name of religion. Who is
the Devil, things are so relative in this world.

>Either Pakistan has yet to fulfill its original goals, or it was the
>biggest fraud perpetrated upon the Muslims of the Subcontinent.
>If the truth is the latter, then I say to all of you, as a disenchanted
>youth from the foreign-born generation that looks to the land of our 
>ancestors and sees such ethnic hatred, crime, immorality and disdain
>for Islam, that your country is misnamed. Instead of a capital P at 
>the beginning, it should have a small p preceded by an Na.

Funny that you equate pak=Islam. Why can't Pakistan be Pak if the
people of Pakistan decided that they would follow Islam and be
inspired by its legal code but still subject it to the 21 century
society. Haroon do you know of the legal code of Islam. You enjoy
freedom of expression but do you know of the consequences if I 
were to test the limits of my society. It is different to look to the
land of ancestors and be inspired by the symbolic romanticism, it's
quite a different story to survive in the land surrounded by the
Mahfooz Jafrys and the Mustafa Ibrahims who get the electoral support
or a pat on the back by the ameer ul momineen and outlay and label
any group that they hate as Kafirs.  It is one thing to advocate the rule of
Islam, it is quite a different ball game to see how the ruling elite
uses it to their benefit. Pakistan is still the land of the pure if
Islam remains the inspiration for the codes of social justice, it 
should not be an istrument to be taken advantage of, to "take care
of business" of those who are different.



Naveed