Our skewed world view won't let us see the real Pakistan
By: Jason Burke
The Observer
Sunday, March 15th, 2009.
First for the good news: Pakistan is not about to explode. The Islamic militants are not going to take power tomorrow; the nuclear weapons are not about to be trafficked to al-Qaida; the army is not about to send the Afghan Taliban to invade India; a civil war is unlikely. The bad news is that Pakistan poses us questions that are much more profound than those we would face if this nation of 170m, the world's second biggest Muslim state, were simply a failed state. If Pakistan collapsed, we would be faced by a serious security challenge. But the resilience of Pakistan and the nation's continuing collective refusal to do what the west would like it to together pose questions with implications far beyond simple security concerns. They are about our ability to influence events in far-off places, our capacity to analyse and understand the behaviour and perceived interests of other nations and cultures, about our ability to deal with difference, about how we see the world.
Pakistan has very grave problems. In the last two years, I have reported on bloody ethnic and political riots, on violent demonstrations, from the front line of a vicious war against radical Islamic insurgents. I spent a day with Benazir Bhutto a week before she was assassinated and covered the series of murderous attacks committed at home and abroad by militant groups based in Pakistan with shadowy connections to its security services. There is an economic crisis and social problems - illiteracy, domestic violence, drug addiction - of grotesque proportions. Osama bin Laden is probably on Pakistani soil.
For many developing nations, all this would signal the state's total disintegration. This partly explains why Pakistan's collapse is so often predicted. The nation's meltdown was forecast when its eastern half seceded to become Bangladesh in 1971, during the violence that preceded General Zia ul-Haq's coup in 1977, when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, when Zia was killed in 1988, during the horrific sectarian violence of the early Nineties, through sundry ethnic insurgencies, after 9/11, after the 2007 death of Bhutto and now after yet another political crisis. These predictions have been consistently proved wrong. The most recent will be too. Yesterday, tempers were already calming.
Some of the perpetual international hysteria is stoked by the Pakistanis themselves. Successive governments have perfected the art of negotiating by pointing a gun to their own heads. They know that their nation's strategic importance guarantees the financial life support they need from the international community. More broadly, our understanding of Pakistan is skewed. This is in part due to centuries of historical baggage. Though few would quote Emile Zola on contemporary France, Winston Churchill, who as a young man fought on the North-West Frontier, is regularly cited to explain today's insurgency. This legacy also includes stereotypes of "Mad Mullahs" running amok, an image fuelled by television footage that highlights ranting demonstrators from Pakistan's Islamist parties though they have never won more than 14% in an election.
For many Britons, Pakistan represents "the other" - chaotic, distant, exotic, dirty, hot, fanatical and threatening. Yet at the same time, Pakistan seems very familiar. There is the English language, cricket, kebabs and curries and figures such as Imran Khan. There are a million-odd Britons of Pakistani-descent who over four decades have largely integrated far better in the UK than often suggested.
It is the tension between these two largely imaginary Pakistans that leads to such strong reactions in Britain. We see the country as plunged in a struggle between the frighteningly foreign and the familiar, between fanaticism and western democracy, values, our vision of the world and how it should be ordered. Yet while we are fretting about Pakistan's imminent disintegration, we are blind to the really important change.
Recent years have seen the consolidation of a new Pakistani identity between these two extremes. It is nationalist, conservative in religious and social terms and much more aggressive in asserting what are seen, rightly or wrongly, as local "Pakistani" interests. It is a mix of patriotic chauvinism and moderate Islamism that is currently heavily informed by a distorted view of the world sadly all too familiar across the entire Muslim world. This means that for many Pakistanis, the west is rapacious and hostile. Admiration for the British and desire for holidays in London have been replaced by a view of the UK as "America's poodle" and dreams of Dubai or Malaysia. The 9/11 attacks are seen, even by senior army officers, as a put-up job by Mossad, the CIA or both. The Indians, the old enemy, are seen as running riot in Afghanistan where the Taliban are "freedom fighters". AQ Khan, the nuclear scientist seen as a bomb-selling criminal by the West, is a hero. Democracy is seen as the best system, but only if democracy results in governments that take decisions that reflect the sentiments of most Pakistanis, not just those of the Anglophone, westernised elite among whom western policy-makers, politicians and journalists tend to chose their interlocutors.
This view of the world is most common among the new, urban middle classes in Pakistan, much larger after a decade of fast and uneven economic growth. It is this class that provides the bulk of the country's military officers and bureaucrats. This in part explains the Pakistani security establishment's dogged support for elements within the Taliban. The infamous ISI spy agency is largely staffed by soldiers and the army is a reflection of society. For the ISI, as for many Pakistanis, supporting certain insurgent factions in Afghanistan is seen as the rational choice. If this trend continues, it poses us problems rather different from those posed by a failed state. Instead, you have a nuclear armed nation with a large population that is increasingly vocal and which sees the world very differently from us.
We face a related problem in Afghanistan where we are still hoping to build the state we want the Afghans to want, rather than the state that they actually want. Ask many Afghans which state they hope their own will resemble in a few decades and the answer is "Iran". Dozens of interviews with senior western generals, diplomats and officials in Kabul last week have shown me how deeply the years of conflict and "nation-building" have dented confidence in our ability to transplant western values. Our interest in Afghanistan has been reduced to preventing it from becoming a platform for threats to the west. In Afghanistan, as in Iraq, the west has glimpsed the limits to its power and to the supposedly universal attraction of its values.
The west's dreams of a comfortable post-Cold War era have been rudely shaken. We have been forced reluctantly to accept the independence and influence of China and Russia. These are countries that we recognise as difficult international actors pursuing agendas popular with substantial proportions of their citizens. Other countries, particularly those less troubled than Pakistan or Afghanistan, are likely soon to join that list.
This poses a critical challenge in foreign policy. Worrying about the imminent collapse of Pakistan is not going to help us find answers to the really difficult questions that Pakistan poses.
Link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/mar/15/jason-burke-pakistan
mercredi 6 janvier 2010
mardi 5 janvier 2010
Dear Mr. Terrorist
So you think you know who you're working for?
By: Gordon Duff
Published at Opinion-Maker.org
04 Jan, 2010
By: Gordon Duff
Published at Opinion-Maker.org
04 Jan, 2010
Dear Mr. Terrorist,
Hello and Happy New Year from an American friend. I hope your new year is one that offers both health, spiritual enlightenment and an opportunity to learn what you have gotten yourself into before it's too late. Take a look at that man beside you, the one who will some day hand you a bomb and tell you to kill yourself and, maybe, dozens of women and children, many Muslims. Are you really sure he is who he says he is? Like the "Al Qaeda" leaders in Yemen, you know, the ones who Dick Cheney decided to release for some unknown reason, are you, maybe, taking orders from someone like this?
You remember Usama bin Laden, do you not? Remember why he said he had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks? He said the Koran would not allow it. Does not the Koran say this is sin? Look at poor Umar Farouk Abdul-Mutallab (the Nigerian nationality UK-student who attempted to blow-up the Detroit bound NWA flight), now sitting in a prison in Milan, Michigan. How do you think he was helped through airport after airport, all run by Israelis, put on a plane full of Muslims, men, women, families, going back to their homes in Detroit (Fi Aman-Allah), with orders to blow it up? Do you think the people who walked him around passport control at Schiphol Airport could have only done so with the highly secure special keys available only to the security company running the airport? Of course you know who these people are.
Let us say you are in Afghanistan. Did you ever wonder where all those brand new weapons come from? Look at the markings. Does it not say "Made in India?" So, you head into Pakistan to kill Muslims with your new weapons from Israel and India. You think they were free? Imagine the laughter in Tel-Aviv and Mumbai. You believe you are acting in Fi Sabil-Allah (for the cause of Allah)? Do you not believe that America goes to war to make money for its defence companies and big oil? Are you not aware that much of the ownership of America's military suppliers is from the Middle East? Without money from Saudi Arabia and the UAE, the money financing the bombs and planes, Islamic money, would there be a war?
Many say they fight America because it is here, in an Islamic country, supporting a puppet government. If America is here to fight you and you are here to fight them, who is benefiting? What are you fighting for? Will you want a government like the Islamic Republic of Iran? Do you know that there is now little difference between the government there today and the puppet dictatorship of the Shah? Aren't loyal, country-loving people being murdered by secret police now as they were 40 years ago? Years ago, when America was cast out of Iran and Iraq (on US backing) attacked Iran, did not Iran turn to Israel to bargain with the Americans for weapons in exchange for oil? Perhaps you would want to consider that giving away your trust without opening your eyes to what can be seen is unwise.
No matter if the US stays in Afghanistan or goes, India and Israel will continue to meddle in the country as they do in many others. And when they too will have to leave, perhaps China will take-over. Look at the map. Only Pakistan has nuclear weapons, a dependable military and an elected government, albeit problematic and unstable past. You would destroy it and turn it over to India and Israel in the name of Islam? Who do you serve?
Are you killing Americans to teach a lesson? To whom? Does corporate America care if its soldiers die? Do you know that when wounded soldiers return from war, they are treated like dogs, here? America talks about how it loves its soldiers but it cares little more for them than it cares for you. It simply kills them in a slower and more painful way.
Consider these things before blowing-up yourself and taking the lives of those around you:
[1]. You are likely working for people influenced or even paid by the enemies of very Islam that you are going to die for.
[2]. Your percieved American enemies (common people of US) are people far more like you, just like many fellow Muslims.
[3]. War and terrorism empowers the enemies of Islam and cripples unity and economic development among Islamic nations.
[4]. If you believe killing and dying for your religion is your duty, you have little or no real understanding of the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad (Sal-Allaho Alayhi Wa-Aalihi Wassallum).
[5]. Learn the lessons of Vietnam: stop killing for creating terror, ask for Americans to go home, then settle your political differences among yourselves. America will not return once they have left.
[6]. Accept the fact that, maybe in 5 years, maybe 20 years, your enemies will be your business associates and possibly your friends. It is beginning to happen now but it is hard to see when you are still carrying a gun.
If you seek justice against tyranny, know you have allies around the world, many in America. We can only define justice when we talk, when we listen. We all know tyranny very well. The boot of tyranny is everywhere. War has brought a flowering of tyranny that has the potential to envelop this entire century. Do we kill tyranny with more war?
Looking away from NWA Flight 253
By: Gordon Duff
Published at Opinion-Maker.org
01 Jan, 2010
Detroit: Mainstream Press Selling Little Green Men
Once, a story wasn't real unless it was carried on "mainstream news." "They" used to make news "official," certifying the real from theory and conjecture, made honest and "clean" by their reputations and expertise. Then came the news wars, left against right, "fair and balanced" as a way of describing "slant and spin." Even that grew old as people began to realize that "left" and "right" was only imagination and news was only another form of corporate advertising, first thinly disguised and eventually a pointless waste of time, reality TV with no reality.
What broke the camel's back? It happened when aliens from the planet Schipol invaded Detroit. This was a story they had to crush before it destroyed the very fabric of western culture. Before that dozens even hundreds of stories were ignored, "spun" out of existence or "de-fabricated", everything from illegal invasions to a systematic disassembly of America's system of government, capitalist economy and civil rights. Those things had to go, they weren't "efficient" enough for the Masters of the Universe who dictate to the soulless buffoons selling fantasy as news. Then came Detroit.
Normally, when the phony news is being attacked as government or corporate controlled, 9/11 or the "imbedded" reporters during the Iraq invasion are brought up. The Detroit terror attack goes beyond that, not so much in significance though, since no body count, no huge explosions, no toppling statues, no charred children, but in significance the Detroit cover-up is entirely on another level. Detroit is reminiscent of another story from another era. Roswell, 1947.
Another thing: There were two terrorists taken from the Detroit plane but now, mysteriously, there is only one left? Is the other one in a freezer at Wright Patterson Air-Force Base or held prisoner in Area 51? When the FBI visited witnesses, playing "Men in Black", did they think we were under attack from aliens? "You saw no flying saucer, there were no aliens, it was only swamp gas and the planet Venus. The Indian man in orange we arrested and hauled away in chains never existed, nor did the bomb in his carry-on luggage. You are all suffering from mass hysteria and post traumatic stress."
Is the press shying away from the story because the terrorists and their helpers, CIA employees in Nigeria, airport security in the Netherlands, mysteriously repatriated former Gitmo residents released by Bush and the dozens, perhaps hundreds of others who nudged a bit here, erased a bit there and looked the other way, are all secretly aliens also? Are we living "The Day of the Triffids?" Is this science fiction? Is the press working so hard to look the other way when a pack of burglers drops a conspiracy in their lap a 3 year old could understand because they are protecting us from the terror of an upcoming alien invasion? What makes this, the lamest terrorist attack plan of all time, to not be the last nail in the coffin of phony corporate journalism? What qualifies it for such a flagrant press cover-up? Is it because inside is a story where every lead goes one place, a story ripe with evidence, testimony, CCTV, immigration records, release records from Guantanamo, public records in Nigeria, records of Israeli company charged with Amsterdam's Schiphol airport security, reports from the Government of Yemen, all lead one place? Israel.
No matter where you follow this story, every step of the way one thing comes up. Israel. It is almost as though, if you really look at it, like Israel and friends of theirs in the US have found a way of making money through creating phony terrorist attacks. Are people making money off this terrorist stuff and the wars? I don't know, maybe the press ought to look into it. I wonder what they would find.
So, how do we deal with it? Simple. We're told: "There is no story." Instead, we send government agents out to intimidate witnesses, "classify" evidence and "find" (seek & destroy) the truth. How did the press react? Our terrorist's father had the worst cover in the history of, well, how do we say it? "Hi, I am a friendly banker with a foolish son. No, I don't run a huge arms industry in partnership with Israel and I am not close to the American Ambassador and the CIA Chief of Station in Nigeria." Shouldn't a sane press be alarmed at that? People with the power to release the most dangerous terrorists ever held by the US, released without a single word, terrorists who seemed to put together a major terror plot that required the full cooperation of the CIA, State Department, Homeland Security and, most of all, the security services of the Netherlands, secret services of Israel and India, are so careless and incompetent that they are caught at every level, exposed, seen, heard, photographed, tracked down and nobody "paid to care" seems to care?
Published at Opinion-Maker.org
01 Jan, 2010
Detroit: Mainstream Press Selling Little Green Men
Once, a story wasn't real unless it was carried on "mainstream news." "They" used to make news "official," certifying the real from theory and conjecture, made honest and "clean" by their reputations and expertise. Then came the news wars, left against right, "fair and balanced" as a way of describing "slant and spin." Even that grew old as people began to realize that "left" and "right" was only imagination and news was only another form of corporate advertising, first thinly disguised and eventually a pointless waste of time, reality TV with no reality.
What broke the camel's back? It happened when aliens from the planet Schipol invaded Detroit. This was a story they had to crush before it destroyed the very fabric of western culture. Before that dozens even hundreds of stories were ignored, "spun" out of existence or "de-fabricated", everything from illegal invasions to a systematic disassembly of America's system of government, capitalist economy and civil rights. Those things had to go, they weren't "efficient" enough for the Masters of the Universe who dictate to the soulless buffoons selling fantasy as news. Then came Detroit.
Normally, when the phony news is being attacked as government or corporate controlled, 9/11 or the "imbedded" reporters during the Iraq invasion are brought up. The Detroit terror attack goes beyond that, not so much in significance though, since no body count, no huge explosions, no toppling statues, no charred children, but in significance the Detroit cover-up is entirely on another level. Detroit is reminiscent of another story from another era. Roswell, 1947.
Another thing: There were two terrorists taken from the Detroit plane but now, mysteriously, there is only one left? Is the other one in a freezer at Wright Patterson Air-Force Base or held prisoner in Area 51? When the FBI visited witnesses, playing "Men in Black", did they think we were under attack from aliens? "You saw no flying saucer, there were no aliens, it was only swamp gas and the planet Venus. The Indian man in orange we arrested and hauled away in chains never existed, nor did the bomb in his carry-on luggage. You are all suffering from mass hysteria and post traumatic stress."
Is the press shying away from the story because the terrorists and their helpers, CIA employees in Nigeria, airport security in the Netherlands, mysteriously repatriated former Gitmo residents released by Bush and the dozens, perhaps hundreds of others who nudged a bit here, erased a bit there and looked the other way, are all secretly aliens also? Are we living "The Day of the Triffids?" Is this science fiction? Is the press working so hard to look the other way when a pack of burglers drops a conspiracy in their lap a 3 year old could understand because they are protecting us from the terror of an upcoming alien invasion? What makes this, the lamest terrorist attack plan of all time, to not be the last nail in the coffin of phony corporate journalism? What qualifies it for such a flagrant press cover-up? Is it because inside is a story where every lead goes one place, a story ripe with evidence, testimony, CCTV, immigration records, release records from Guantanamo, public records in Nigeria, records of Israeli company charged with Amsterdam's Schiphol airport security, reports from the Government of Yemen, all lead one place? Israel.
No matter where you follow this story, every step of the way one thing comes up. Israel. It is almost as though, if you really look at it, like Israel and friends of theirs in the US have found a way of making money through creating phony terrorist attacks. Are people making money off this terrorist stuff and the wars? I don't know, maybe the press ought to look into it. I wonder what they would find.
So, how do we deal with it? Simple. We're told: "There is no story." Instead, we send government agents out to intimidate witnesses, "classify" evidence and "find" (seek & destroy) the truth. How did the press react? Our terrorist's father had the worst cover in the history of, well, how do we say it? "Hi, I am a friendly banker with a foolish son. No, I don't run a huge arms industry in partnership with Israel and I am not close to the American Ambassador and the CIA Chief of Station in Nigeria." Shouldn't a sane press be alarmed at that? People with the power to release the most dangerous terrorists ever held by the US, released without a single word, terrorists who seemed to put together a major terror plot that required the full cooperation of the CIA, State Department, Homeland Security and, most of all, the security services of the Netherlands, secret services of Israel and India, are so careless and incompetent that they are caught at every level, exposed, seen, heard, photographed, tracked down and nobody "paid to care" seems to care?
Fascinating.
What exactly do you have to do to get arrested for terrorism? How lame do you have to be to get caught? How involved does our government and their little "helper" governments have to be, how obvious, how incompetent, how clumsy, before the press feels a need to report, just out of embarrassment. You don't get much closer to a "smoking gun" than this. Maybe whoever was involved in the Detroit attack was joking. May be we should ask them. Afterall we know who they are, we know where they are, everyone does, everyone BUT the "mainstream press."
jeudi 31 décembre 2009
New Year 2010
Copy and Paste the number lines below in a new Notepad document (won't work with Wordpad), maximize the window, press Control + H (for windows) to invoke the "Replace" dialog box, type 0 in "Find" field and _ in "Replace" field, click "Replace All".
À vous ...
À vous ...
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mardi 22 décembre 2009
Direct elections for the Senate in Pakistan
THE TIDE HAS TURNED OR RE-TURNED?
By: Kunwar Idris
Sunday, 20 Dec, 2009
kunwaridris[at]hotmail.com
By: Kunwar Idris
Sunday, 20 Dec, 2009
kunwaridris[at]hotmail.com
It must go to the lasting discredit of our political parties and their leaders that in less than two years of a credible election the centre of state power has shifted entirely from parliament to the Supreme Court and the public aspirations towards the armed forces of Pakistan. The politicians may allege conspiracies by outsiders but have only their own shenanigans to blame. In pursuing personal and factional interests they have been violating every rule and convention of parliamentary democracy. In the absence of a single-party majority in the National Assembly, the obvious course for the two major parties i.e. the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) and the Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N group) to follow was that one should lead a coalition government and the other a united opposition. Instead, President Zardari incessantly and deceitfully talked of "taking everybody on board" and Nawaz Sharif (leader of PML-N) cluelessly sung of "not destabilising the system". They couldn't, however, bring themselves round to forming a national government. Resultantly, the governments at the centre and in the provinces have been no more than ragbags of ministers, advisers, special assistants, and ambassadors at large -- you name it, they have it -- drawn from a variety of parties, most with shockingly shady backgrounds. Particularly comical was the position in Balochistan where, at one time, every assembly member joined the government but for one who was also the leader of his own one-man opposition. The worse and the most fatal blow to the parliamentary system, however, came when Mr. Asif Ali Zardari chose himself to be the president of the country and chose for his party (PPP) in Punjab to be an unwelcomed, sulking partner in PML-N dominated government rather than sitting in a functional, respectable opposition. Government Ministers like Mr. Kamal Azfar should not have been blaming the CIA and ISI, nor Babar Awan, the Jews and Qadianis for conspiring against the government. Conspiracies brewed in their own ranks. The Supreme Court's order now leaves no choice for the political leaders but to agree to hold elections afresh. If the Supreme Court's order points towards immediate elections, the NFC award announced a week earlier provides an initial basis for a new operational framework between the federation and the provinces.
For the first time the award has recognised that:
[1] the provinces deserve a larger share in the national income;
[2] population should not be the only basis for division of developmental funds;
[3] the tax jurisdiction of the provinces needs to be enlarged; and
[4] the provinces should have greater control over their natural resources.
Punjab had been traditionally resisting any departure from the set formula. This time round Shahbaz Sharif (the Chief Minister of Punjab) has valiantly pioneered the change even though his province has been the only loser. Balochistan, the most aggrieved, has gained the most. While it may be said that the award is no substitute for provincial autonomy but it is certainly a big step in that direction. The problems confronting the country are too many and too formidable for the present shattered institutions and demoralised leadership to comprehend and resolve. Topping the list are: constitutional structures, provincial autonomy, jurisdiction of local councils and reorganisation of civil services. Violence may subside but discontent will continue to simmer till the representatives of the people from all regions find some equitable and enduring solutions. That the form of government will be parliamentary and the prime minister the chief executive is by now a settled question. But how the prime minister should be restrained from abusing his authority remains a worrisome issue. The recent appointments of secretaries and ambassadors at will by the Prime Minister are a case in point. A solution that instantly suggests itself is that all such appointments should be subject to the approval of a committee of the Senate. Presently Ben Bernanke is being grilled by a US Senate committee for his second tenure as head of the Federal Reserve. Here in Pakistan the President / Prime Minister pick up whosoever they wish as governor of the State Bank. The public accounts committee headed by Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan has shown that abuse of financial authority can be checked but long after it has taken place. For such appointments the committee's approval must come beforehand.
In the legislative institutions, the reform most needed is the direct elections to the Senate. In the present system the Senate just mirrors the position of parties in the National Assembly. On provincial level, the aspirations for provincial autonomy range from greater autonomy to mere abolition of the concurrent list. In the prevailing regional situation, which threatens the country overall as much as its various parts, it is nearly impossible to meet the extremists halfway. The new parliament with a directly elected Senate would be the best forum to debate and settle this question as the previous senates have never really been seriously considered as nationalists, rather they're only viewed as cranks and seccessionists. Local councils should be protected in the constitution but each Province must have its own law defining its functions. The underlying principle should be that the council must earn its keep. An independent commission should determine the subsidy each council must get depending on the income it can raise and the service it is expected to provide.The civil service (that is all career public servants to put it curtly) has become an extension of the political party in power. Politicians expect civil servants to carry out their orders, legal or illegal without any moral conscience. For this reason, the people have been fast losing faith in the ability of the civil servants to be just and impartial. Today their trust is at an all-time low. No commission has been able to reverse this trend nor will another if it were to be constituted. The police was politicised more when President Musharraf's law put it under independent commissions. The only remedy left to be tried is to go back to the laws and systems that governed the civil servants before Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto launched a viral corrosion of the legendary institutions in Pakistan by dismissing more than 1,300 of the public officials overnight, in a civilian dictatorship manner. Much may not be achieved but an effort must be made to reform the legal and administrative systems before the optimism generated by the Supreme Court's judgment fades away.
"There is a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea are we now afloat. And we must take the current when it serves, or lose our ventures." -- Shakespeare.
dimanche 20 décembre 2009
Discussing the Pakistan of 1971
......................................................................
Brasstacks Special: 1971 War - The Untold Story
Zaid Hamid discusses the lies and propaganda of India against the people of Pakistan and its armed forces regarding the 1971 war and exposes RAW's role in the Mukti-Bahni conspiracy to break Pakistan apart.
[1]. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULpCroezFrY
[2]. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfKKYt9hy5k
[3]. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTlidi0ZBrs
[4]. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3FGnFQQwGA
[5]. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHGKVN0p4v8
[6]. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQg0dw2gcxk
Excerpts from: "Blood and Tears"
Author of the book: Qutubuddin Aziz
Looking at the tragic events of March 1971 in retrospect, I must confess that even I, although my press service commanded a sizeable network of district correspondents in the interior of East Pakistan, was not fully aware of the scale, ferocity and dimension of the province-wide massacre carried out by RAW-sponsored Mukti-Bahni slaughter squads. The 170 eye-witnesses, whose testimonies or interviews are contained in this book in abridged form have been chosen from a universe of more than 5,000 repatriated non-Bengali families. I had identified, after some considerable research, 55 towns and cities in East Pakistan where the abridgement of the non-Bengali population in March and early April 1971 was conspicuously heavy. The collection and compilation of these eye-witness accounts was started in January 1974 and completed in twelve weeks. A team of four reporters, commissioned for interviewing the witnesses from all these 55 towns and cities of East Pakistan, worked with intense devotion to secure their testimony. Many of the interviews were prolonged because the Witnesses broke down in a flurry of sobs and tears as they related the agonising stories of their wrecked lives. I had issued in February 1974 an appeal in the newspapers for such eye-witness accounts, and I am grateful to the many hundreds of witnesses who promptly responded to my call.
Further Reading:
[1]. Book: Blood and Tears
http://www.statelesspeopleinbangladesh.net/blood_tears.php
[2]. Anatomy of Violence Analysis of Civil War in East Pakistan in 1971
http://www.politics.ox.ac.uk/about/staff/materials/SBose-Anatomy_of_Violence-EPW_v_40_no_41_%282005%29.pdf
"While events of 1971 continue to evoke strong emotion in both Pakistan and Bangladesh (formerly East Pakistan), there has been little systematic study of the violent conflicts that prevailed in the course of the nine-month long civil war. Popular attention has, thus far, focused on the Pakistani army’s action against the Bengalis, or on the India-Pakistan war. However, East Pakistan in 1971 was simultaneously a battleground for many different kinds of violent conflict that included militant rebellion, mob violence, military crackdown on a civilian population, urban terrorism to full-scale war between India and Pakistan. The culture of violence fomented by the conflict of 1971 forms the context for much of Bangladesh’s subsequent history. A careful, evidence-based approach to understanding the events of 1971 is vital if the different parties to the conflict are to be ever reconciled."
[3]. The truth about the Jessore Massacre
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1060319/asp/look/story_5969733.asp
The massacre may have been genocide, but it wasn’t committed by the Pakistan army. The contradictory claims on the photos of the dead of 1971 reveal in part the difficulty of recording a messy war, but also illustrate vividly what happens when political motives corrupt the cause of justice and humanity. The political need to spin a neat story of Pakistani attackers and Bengali victims made the Bengali perpetrators of the massacre of Punjabi civilians in Jessore conceal their crime and blame the army. The New York Times and The Washington Post “bought” that story too. The media’s reputation is salvaged in this case by the even-handed eye-witness reports of Tomalin in The Times and Sunday Times.
[4]. Losing the Victims: Problems of Using Women as Weapons in Recounting the Bangladesh War
http://www.politics.ox.ac.uk/materials/profile_materials/sbose-losing_the_victims-epw_v_42_no_38_2007.pdf
"Every war is accompanied by sexual violence against women. That rape occurred in East Pakistan in 1971 has never been in any doubt. The question is what was the true extent of rape, who were the victims and who the perpetrators and was there any systematic policy of rape by any party, as opposed to opportunistic sexual crimes in times of war. This work brings into focus the real victims of sexual violence by pointing out the paucity of reliable material, critically analysing widely cited testimonies of rape and suggesting the next steps to address the issue meaningfully."
[5]. Book: Pakistan - A Modern History, Ian Talbot, 1998, History, 432 pages
http://www.scribd.com/doc/37177183/Pakistan-a-Modern-History-by-Ian-Talbot
"On meetings between leaders of Awami League, President Yahya and Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto it is stated that Awami League leaders used to arrive with Bangladesh flag flying on their cars."
"Sheikh Mujib-ur-Rehman, on one side, was engaged in negotiations with the President of Pakistan and on the other, on March 21st 1971 (National Day celebrations) he saluted militant students carrying Bangladesh flag."
.....................................................................
Speech of Mutiny:
"Yes; my father did break Pakistan", declares Bangladesh Premier, Sheikh Hasina Wajid
The Daily Mail
March 10th, 2010.
Dhaka — Bangladesh’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajid has declared that her father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, was a traitor who formed a detailed conspiracy to break Pakistan into two pieces with the help of the Indian government and intelligence agencies during his stay in London in 1969 while the conspiracy was materialized in 1971. Hasina was addressing a discussion in Dhaka to mark the ‘March 7, 1971’ speech of mutiny, in which Sheikh Mujib called on the people of East Pakistan to prepare for secession from the rest of the Pakistan.
She said that her father made seperation plans just months after his release from Kurmitola where he had been detained in the Agartala Conspiracy Case, in which the Pakistan government had brought sedition charges against him and 34 others. “He went to London on October 22 1969, following his release in the Agartala case on April 22 that year. I reached London the next day from Italy, where I was living with my husband,” she recalled.
“It was there that my father at a meeting made plans for separating West Pakistan from East Pakistan, including when the war would start, where our fighters would be trained and where refugees would take shelter.”
“All preparations were made there (London). I was serving tea and entered the room several times where the meeting between my father and some Indian officials was being held. I heard their discussions,” the Prime Minister said.
Referring to the recent debate over who first proclaimed Bangladesh’s independence, she urged all to go through the reports of intelligence agencies and foreign ministries of different countries. She also said that the Aug 15, 1975 assassination of her father and family members, and the Jail Killings of four national leaders on Nov 3 the same year, were planned by those defeated in the war to take revenge for their defeat. “Those who rewarded the killers had never expected Bangladesh’s independence. They [India] wanted to impose the principles of the defeated forces on the people,” she added.
http://gauhar.com/?p=472
......................................................................
Brasstacks Special: 1971 War - The Untold Story
Zaid Hamid discusses the lies and propaganda of India against the people of Pakistan and its armed forces regarding the 1971 war and exposes RAW's role in the Mukti-Bahni conspiracy to break Pakistan apart.
[1]. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULpCroezFrY
[2]. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfKKYt9hy5k
[3]. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTlidi0ZBrs
[4]. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3FGnFQQwGA
[5]. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHGKVN0p4v8
[6]. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQg0dw2gcxk
Excerpts from: "Blood and Tears"
Author of the book: Qutubuddin Aziz
Looking at the tragic events of March 1971 in retrospect, I must confess that even I, although my press service commanded a sizeable network of district correspondents in the interior of East Pakistan, was not fully aware of the scale, ferocity and dimension of the province-wide massacre carried out by RAW-sponsored Mukti-Bahni slaughter squads. The 170 eye-witnesses, whose testimonies or interviews are contained in this book in abridged form have been chosen from a universe of more than 5,000 repatriated non-Bengali families. I had identified, after some considerable research, 55 towns and cities in East Pakistan where the abridgement of the non-Bengali population in March and early April 1971 was conspicuously heavy. The collection and compilation of these eye-witness accounts was started in January 1974 and completed in twelve weeks. A team of four reporters, commissioned for interviewing the witnesses from all these 55 towns and cities of East Pakistan, worked with intense devotion to secure their testimony. Many of the interviews were prolonged because the Witnesses broke down in a flurry of sobs and tears as they related the agonising stories of their wrecked lives. I had issued in February 1974 an appeal in the newspapers for such eye-witness accounts, and I am grateful to the many hundreds of witnesses who promptly responded to my call.
Further Reading:
[1]. Book: Blood and Tears
http://www.statelesspeopleinbangladesh.net/blood_tears.php
[2]. Anatomy of Violence Analysis of Civil War in East Pakistan in 1971
http://www.politics.ox.ac.uk/about/staff/materials/SBose-Anatomy_of_Violence-EPW_v_40_no_41_%282005%29.pdf
"While events of 1971 continue to evoke strong emotion in both Pakistan and Bangladesh (formerly East Pakistan), there has been little systematic study of the violent conflicts that prevailed in the course of the nine-month long civil war. Popular attention has, thus far, focused on the Pakistani army’s action against the Bengalis, or on the India-Pakistan war. However, East Pakistan in 1971 was simultaneously a battleground for many different kinds of violent conflict that included militant rebellion, mob violence, military crackdown on a civilian population, urban terrorism to full-scale war between India and Pakistan. The culture of violence fomented by the conflict of 1971 forms the context for much of Bangladesh’s subsequent history. A careful, evidence-based approach to understanding the events of 1971 is vital if the different parties to the conflict are to be ever reconciled."
[3]. The truth about the Jessore Massacre
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1060319/asp/look/story_5969733.asp
The massacre may have been genocide, but it wasn’t committed by the Pakistan army. The contradictory claims on the photos of the dead of 1971 reveal in part the difficulty of recording a messy war, but also illustrate vividly what happens when political motives corrupt the cause of justice and humanity. The political need to spin a neat story of Pakistani attackers and Bengali victims made the Bengali perpetrators of the massacre of Punjabi civilians in Jessore conceal their crime and blame the army. The New York Times and The Washington Post “bought” that story too. The media’s reputation is salvaged in this case by the even-handed eye-witness reports of Tomalin in The Times and Sunday Times.
[4]. Losing the Victims: Problems of Using Women as Weapons in Recounting the Bangladesh War
http://www.politics.ox.ac.uk/materials/profile_materials/sbose-losing_the_victims-epw_v_42_no_38_2007.pdf
"Every war is accompanied by sexual violence against women. That rape occurred in East Pakistan in 1971 has never been in any doubt. The question is what was the true extent of rape, who were the victims and who the perpetrators and was there any systematic policy of rape by any party, as opposed to opportunistic sexual crimes in times of war. This work brings into focus the real victims of sexual violence by pointing out the paucity of reliable material, critically analysing widely cited testimonies of rape and suggesting the next steps to address the issue meaningfully."
[5]. Book: Pakistan - A Modern History, Ian Talbot, 1998, History, 432 pages
http://www.scribd.com/doc/37177183/Pakistan-a-Modern-History-by-Ian-Talbot
"On meetings between leaders of Awami League, President Yahya and Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto it is stated that Awami League leaders used to arrive with Bangladesh flag flying on their cars."
"Sheikh Mujib-ur-Rehman, on one side, was engaged in negotiations with the President of Pakistan and on the other, on March 21st 1971 (National Day celebrations) he saluted militant students carrying Bangladesh flag."
.....................................................................
Speech of Mutiny:
"Yes; my father did break Pakistan", declares Bangladesh Premier, Sheikh Hasina Wajid
The Daily Mail
March 10th, 2010.
Dhaka — Bangladesh’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajid has declared that her father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, was a traitor who formed a detailed conspiracy to break Pakistan into two pieces with the help of the Indian government and intelligence agencies during his stay in London in 1969 while the conspiracy was materialized in 1971. Hasina was addressing a discussion in Dhaka to mark the ‘March 7, 1971’ speech of mutiny, in which Sheikh Mujib called on the people of East Pakistan to prepare for secession from the rest of the Pakistan.
She said that her father made seperation plans just months after his release from Kurmitola where he had been detained in the Agartala Conspiracy Case, in which the Pakistan government had brought sedition charges against him and 34 others. “He went to London on October 22 1969, following his release in the Agartala case on April 22 that year. I reached London the next day from Italy, where I was living with my husband,” she recalled.
“It was there that my father at a meeting made plans for separating West Pakistan from East Pakistan, including when the war would start, where our fighters would be trained and where refugees would take shelter.”
“All preparations were made there (London). I was serving tea and entered the room several times where the meeting between my father and some Indian officials was being held. I heard their discussions,” the Prime Minister said.
Referring to the recent debate over who first proclaimed Bangladesh’s independence, she urged all to go through the reports of intelligence agencies and foreign ministries of different countries. She also said that the Aug 15, 1975 assassination of her father and family members, and the Jail Killings of four national leaders on Nov 3 the same year, were planned by those defeated in the war to take revenge for their defeat. “Those who rewarded the killers had never expected Bangladesh’s independence. They [India] wanted to impose the principles of the defeated forces on the people,” she added.
http://gauhar.com/?p=472
......................................................................
samedi 19 décembre 2009
We are on track ... are we?
In my honest opinion, the idea being propelled by the original report: ...
"Support the idea that religion and the state can be separate in Islam too and that this does not endanger the faith but, in fact, may strengthen it".
... is ridiculous in its roots. And we Pakistanis are not the only target of this expansive conspiracy. This same doctrine is being implemented in Iraq. Islam, unlike any other religion, is a full code of conduct ... which guides you from matters simple as personal hygiene to matters complex as running a state. To assume that the state can be governed by keeping the religion out, is not only foolish but outrightly suicidal for in doing so, inevitably we will force the two to clash with eachother. And when that happens the death of the one of the two (religion or state) will remain the only way out. A choice we wouldn't want to make. And we have been there before ... remember the last caliphate (Khilafat-e-Usmania)? But the other end, the belief in extreme nationalism and tribalism, is equally dangerous too! The great philosopher thinker Allama Iqbal has written a beautiful couplet which sums up the attitude of a Muslim towards these ideas of extremism.
In ta'aza khudaon main sab say bara hay watan,
Jo iss ka banay pairhan woh mazhab ka kafan hay!
Translation:
The biggest among the freshly made idols is that of extreme nationalism,
Whatever fits it as a robe, becomes the burial-cloth for the faith!
Islam encourages Muslims to help their countrymen. A Muslim must look after his neighbors regardless of their faith and make sure that they have what they need. That sense of good neighborliness is strongly emphasized by the Prophet who has spoken about every aspect of it. We need to remind ourselves of its essence by quoting the Hadith in which the Prophet swears by Allah three times that a certain person is not a believer. When his companions asked him to define that wretched person, he said: "He who goes to bed having eaten well while his neighbor remains hungry and he is aware of that fact."
Each one of us belongs to a particular country and it's only natural to want the best for our countrymen regardless of their faith. The best way to do that would be to be honest in all our dealings and not succumb to corruption and injustice. But Islam also asks Muslims to take a stand when some people seek to promote the love for a country by defying the teachings of the religion itself. They make an idol out of the country/tribe/sect and urge other Muslims to follow that path. Such people are the biggest threat to our ummah, even bigger a threat than the people of other religions. These people work by proping up identities and ideas which divide Muslims into smaller groups and make them focus on rather irrelevant issues. We Muslims ourselves are partly responsible for the predicament which we find ourselves in, by forgetting what we were told by our Holy Prophet (pbuh). A hadith of our beloved Prophet Mohammad (pbuh) narrated by Abu Dawood says "He is not one of us who calls for Asabiyyah (extreme nationalism/tribalism) or who fights for Asabiyyah or who dies for Asabiyyah."
Rameez Khalid <razocky[at]hotmail.com> writes:
Mercredi, 22 Novembre 2006, 13h 53min 22s
We are on track
For Ilyas's disturbance I, up to my understanding, can only say that this particular statement of this report depicts the ideas which Christians got from Islamic jurist, physician and philosopher Ibn-e-Rushd or Averroës. He said that metaphysical truths can be expressed by 2 ways: Philosophy and Religion, but he never proposed or suggested that basically there are two truths which the Christians misinterpreted as the theory of "double truths", just for separating the Church from the Govt. Basically Ibn-e-Rushd was of the idea that reason takes precedence over religion.
TC. AH.
Free devient le 4eme opérateur mobile
Free devient le 4eme opérateur mobile (en France)
La licence, facturée 240 millions d'euros, lui sera officiellement attribuée en janvier. Free, qui s'est engagé à couvrir d'ici huit ans au moins 90% de la population par son réseau 3G, devrait proposer ses forfaits au plus tard début 2012.
Ce n'est pas une surprise, car il était le seul candidat en lice. Le fournisseur d'accès internet Free (Iliad) a remporté la 4e licence de téléphonie mobile, devenant le nouvel opérateur français aux côtés d'Orange, de SFR et de Bouygues Telecom, annonce ce vendredi l'Autorité de régulation des télécoms (Arcep).
Le dossier de Free a été évalué selon plusieurs critères, les plus importants étant la «cohérence et crédibilité du projet» et la «couverture du territoire».
«L'arrivée de ce nouvel acteur devrait avoir un effet favorable sur la dynamique du marché de la téléphonie mobile, et, plus généralement, devrait être un facteur positif pour le développement des services de communications électroniques», estime l'Autorité, qui a longtemps critiqué le manque de concurrence dans la téléphonie mobile.
Selon l'Arcep, Free «envisage de proposer au consommateur des offres claires et innovantes à des tarifs compétitifs de nature notamment à faciliter l'accès à l'internet mobile» et prend «de nombreux engagements concernant l'accueil des opérateurs mobiles virtuels (MVNO)», ces petits opérateurs qui n'ont pas de réseau mais achètent des minutes aux opérateurs en place pour proposer leurs offres.
Free «s'engage enfin à ouvrir commercialement son réseau mobile au plus tard deux ans après la délivrance de l'autorisation et à couvrir, d'ici huit ans, au moins 90% de la population par son réseau 3G». Ce qui devrait permettre à Free de proposer ses forfaits au plus tard début 2012, la licence, facturée 240 millions d'euros, lui étant officiellement attribuée à partir de janvier 2010.
Alors qu'Orange (France Télécom), SFR et Bouygues Telecom ont déposé des recours devant Bruxelles et le Conseil d'Etat pour contester la procédure, l'Arcep juge au contraire que les «nouvelles offres (de Free) devraient stimuler les opérateurs existants dont la situation actuelle est pérenne et solide». (Source AFP)
La licence, facturée 240 millions d'euros, lui sera officiellement attribuée en janvier. Free, qui s'est engagé à couvrir d'ici huit ans au moins 90% de la population par son réseau 3G, devrait proposer ses forfaits au plus tard début 2012.
Ce n'est pas une surprise, car il était le seul candidat en lice. Le fournisseur d'accès internet Free (Iliad) a remporté la 4e licence de téléphonie mobile, devenant le nouvel opérateur français aux côtés d'Orange, de SFR et de Bouygues Telecom, annonce ce vendredi l'Autorité de régulation des télécoms (Arcep).
Le dossier de Free a été évalué selon plusieurs critères, les plus importants étant la «cohérence et crédibilité du projet» et la «couverture du territoire».
«L'arrivée de ce nouvel acteur devrait avoir un effet favorable sur la dynamique du marché de la téléphonie mobile, et, plus généralement, devrait être un facteur positif pour le développement des services de communications électroniques», estime l'Autorité, qui a longtemps critiqué le manque de concurrence dans la téléphonie mobile.
Selon l'Arcep, Free «envisage de proposer au consommateur des offres claires et innovantes à des tarifs compétitifs de nature notamment à faciliter l'accès à l'internet mobile» et prend «de nombreux engagements concernant l'accueil des opérateurs mobiles virtuels (MVNO)», ces petits opérateurs qui n'ont pas de réseau mais achètent des minutes aux opérateurs en place pour proposer leurs offres.
Free «s'engage enfin à ouvrir commercialement son réseau mobile au plus tard deux ans après la délivrance de l'autorisation et à couvrir, d'ici huit ans, au moins 90% de la population par son réseau 3G». Ce qui devrait permettre à Free de proposer ses forfaits au plus tard début 2012, la licence, facturée 240 millions d'euros, lui étant officiellement attribuée à partir de janvier 2010.
Alors qu'Orange (France Télécom), SFR et Bouygues Telecom ont déposé des recours devant Bruxelles et le Conseil d'Etat pour contester la procédure, l'Arcep juge au contraire que les «nouvelles offres (de Free) devraient stimuler les opérateurs existants dont la situation actuelle est pérenne et solide». (Source AFP)
About South-East Asia
Sean Paul's Reflections on India
Author: Sean Paul Kelley
Paraphrased by: Romesa Khalid
Tuesday, 15 December 2009 01:43
Link: http://pak1stanfirst.com/home/45-letter-to-editor/1672-reflections-on-india-.html
If you are Indian, or of Indian descent, I must preface this post with a clear warning: you are not going to like what I have to say. My criticisms may be very hard to stomach. But consider them as the hard words and loving advice of a good friend. Someone who's being honest with you and wants nothing from you. These criticisms apply to all of India except Kerala and the places I didn't visit, except that I have a feeling it applies to all of India, except as I mentioned before, Kerala. Lastly, before anyone accuses me of Western Cultural Imperialism, let me say this: if this is what India and Indians want, then hey, who am I to tell them differently. Take what you like and leave the rest. In the end it doesn't really matter, as I get the sense that Indians, at least many upper class Indians, don't seem to care and the lower classes just don't know any better, what with Indian culture being so intense and pervasive on the sub-continent. But here it goes, nonetheless.
India is a mess. It's that simple, but it's also quite complicated. I'll start with what I think are India's four major problems -- the four most preventing India from becoming a developing nation -- and then move to some of the ancillary ones.
First, pollution. In my opinion the filth, squalor and all around pollution indicates a marked lack of respect for India by *Indians.* I don't know how cultural the filth is, but it's really beyond anything I have ever encountered. At times the smells, trash, refuse and excrement are like a garbage dump. Right next door to the Taj Mahal was a pile of trash that smelled so bad, was so foul as to almost ruin the entire Taj experience. Delhi, Bangalore and Chennai to a lesser degree were so very polluted as to make me physically ill. Sinus infections, ear infection, bowels churning was an all to common experience in India. Dung, be it goat, cow or human fecal matter was common *on the streets.* In major tourist areas filth was everywhere, littering the sidewalks,the roadways, you name it. Toilets in the middle of the road, men urinating and defecating anywhere, in broad daylight. Whole villages are plastic bag wastelands. Roadsides are choked by it. Air quality that can hardly be called quality. Far too much coal and far to few unleaded vehicles on the road. The measure should be how dangerous the air is for one's health, not how good it is. People casually throw trash in the streets, on the roads. The only two cities that could be considered sanitary in my journey were Trivandrum--the capital of Kerala--and Calicut. I don't know why this is. But I can assure you that at some point this pollution will cut into India's productivity, if it already hasn't. The pollution will hobble India's growth path, if that indeed is what the country wants. (Which I personally doubt, as India is far too conservative a country, in the small 'c' sense.)
The second issue, infrastructure, can be divided into four subcategories: roads, rails and ports and the electrical grid. The electrical grid is a joke. Load shedding is all too common, everywhere in India. Wide swaths of the country spend much of the day without the electricity they actually pay for. With out regular electricity, productivity, again, falls. The ports are a joke. Antiquated, out of date, hardly even appropriate for the mechanized world of container ports, more in line with the days of longshoremen and the like. Roads are an equal disaster. I only saw one elevated highway that would be considered decent in Thailand, much less Western Europe or America. And I covered fully two thirds of the country during my visit. There are so few dual carriage way roads as to be laughable. There are no traffic laws to speak of, and if there are, they are rarely obeyed, much less enforced. A drive that should take an hour takes three. A drive that should take three takes nine. The buses are at least thirty years old,if not older. Everyone in India, or who travels in India raves about the railway system. Rubbish. It's awful. Now, when I was there in 2003 and then late 2004 it was decent. But in the last five years the traffic on the rails has grown so quickly that once again, it is threatening productivity. Waiting in line just to ask a question now takes thirty minutes. Routes are routinely sold out three and four days in advance now, leaving travelers stranded with little option except to take the decrepit and dangerous buses. At least fifty million people use the trains *a day* in India. 50 million people! Not surprising that waitlists of 500 or more people are common now. The rails are affordable and comprehensive but they are overcrowded and what with budget airlines popping up in India like Sadhus in an ashram the middle and lowers classes are left to deal with the overutilized rails and quality suffers. No one seems to give a shit. Seriously, I just never have the impression that the Indian government really cares. Too interested in buying weapons from Russia, Israel and the US I guess.
The last major problem in India is an old problem and can be divided into two parts that've been two sides of the same coin since government was invented: bureaucracy and corruption. It take triplicates to register into a hotel. To get a SIM card for one's phone is like wading into a jungle of red-tape and photocopies one is not likely to emerge from in a good mood, much less satisfied with customer service. Getting train tickets is a terrible ordeal, first you have to find the train number, which takes 30 minutes, then you have to fill in the form, which is far from easy, then you have to wait in line to try and make a reservation, which takes 30 minutes at least and if you made a single mistake on the form back you go to the end of the queue, or what passes for a queue in India. The government is notoriously uninterested in the problems of the commoners, too busy fleecing the rich, or trying to get rich themselves in some way shape or form. Take the trash for example, civil rubbish collection authorities are too busy taking kickbacks from the wealthy to keep their areas clean that they don't have the time, manpower, money or interest in doing their job. Rural hospitals are perennially understaffed as doctors pocket the fees the government pays them, never show up at the rural hospitals and practice in the cities instead.
I could go on for quite some time about my perception of India and its problems, but in all seriousness, I don't think anyone in India really cares. And that, to me, is the biggest problem. India is too conservative a society to want to change in any way. Mumbai, India's financial capital is about as filthy, polluted and poor as the worst city imaginable in Vietnam, or Indonesia--and being more polluted than Medan, in Sumatra is no easy task. The biggest rats I have ever seen were in Medan!
One would expect a certain amount of, yes, I am going to use this word, backwardness, in a country that hasn't produced so many Nobel Laureates, nuclear physicists, imminent economists and entrepreneurs. But India has all these things and what have they brought back to India with them? Nothing. The rich still have their servants, the lower castes are still there to do the dirty work and so the country remains in stasis. It's a shame. Indians and India have many wonderful things to offer the world, but I'm far from sanguine that India will amount to much in my lifetime.
Now, have at it, call me a cultural imperialist, a spoiled child of the West and all that. But remember, I've been there. I've done it. And I've seen 50 other countries on this planet and none, not even Ethiopia, have as long and gargantuan a laundry list of problems as India does. And the bottom line is, I don't think India really cares. Too complacent and too conservative.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Author: Sean Paul Kelley
Paraphrased by: Romesa Khalid
Tuesday, 15 December 2009 01:43
Link: http://pak1stanfirst.com/home/45-letter-to-editor/1672-reflections-on-india-.html
If you are Indian, or of Indian descent, I must preface this post with a clear warning: you are not going to like what I have to say. My criticisms may be very hard to stomach. But consider them as the hard words and loving advice of a good friend. Someone who's being honest with you and wants nothing from you. These criticisms apply to all of India except Kerala and the places I didn't visit, except that I have a feeling it applies to all of India, except as I mentioned before, Kerala. Lastly, before anyone accuses me of Western Cultural Imperialism, let me say this: if this is what India and Indians want, then hey, who am I to tell them differently. Take what you like and leave the rest. In the end it doesn't really matter, as I get the sense that Indians, at least many upper class Indians, don't seem to care and the lower classes just don't know any better, what with Indian culture being so intense and pervasive on the sub-continent. But here it goes, nonetheless.
India is a mess. It's that simple, but it's also quite complicated. I'll start with what I think are India's four major problems -- the four most preventing India from becoming a developing nation -- and then move to some of the ancillary ones.
First, pollution. In my opinion the filth, squalor and all around pollution indicates a marked lack of respect for India by *Indians.* I don't know how cultural the filth is, but it's really beyond anything I have ever encountered. At times the smells, trash, refuse and excrement are like a garbage dump. Right next door to the Taj Mahal was a pile of trash that smelled so bad, was so foul as to almost ruin the entire Taj experience. Delhi, Bangalore and Chennai to a lesser degree were so very polluted as to make me physically ill. Sinus infections, ear infection, bowels churning was an all to common experience in India. Dung, be it goat, cow or human fecal matter was common *on the streets.* In major tourist areas filth was everywhere, littering the sidewalks,the roadways, you name it. Toilets in the middle of the road, men urinating and defecating anywhere, in broad daylight. Whole villages are plastic bag wastelands. Roadsides are choked by it. Air quality that can hardly be called quality. Far too much coal and far to few unleaded vehicles on the road. The measure should be how dangerous the air is for one's health, not how good it is. People casually throw trash in the streets, on the roads. The only two cities that could be considered sanitary in my journey were Trivandrum--the capital of Kerala--and Calicut. I don't know why this is. But I can assure you that at some point this pollution will cut into India's productivity, if it already hasn't. The pollution will hobble India's growth path, if that indeed is what the country wants. (Which I personally doubt, as India is far too conservative a country, in the small 'c' sense.)
The second issue, infrastructure, can be divided into four subcategories: roads, rails and ports and the electrical grid. The electrical grid is a joke. Load shedding is all too common, everywhere in India. Wide swaths of the country spend much of the day without the electricity they actually pay for. With out regular electricity, productivity, again, falls. The ports are a joke. Antiquated, out of date, hardly even appropriate for the mechanized world of container ports, more in line with the days of longshoremen and the like. Roads are an equal disaster. I only saw one elevated highway that would be considered decent in Thailand, much less Western Europe or America. And I covered fully two thirds of the country during my visit. There are so few dual carriage way roads as to be laughable. There are no traffic laws to speak of, and if there are, they are rarely obeyed, much less enforced. A drive that should take an hour takes three. A drive that should take three takes nine. The buses are at least thirty years old,if not older. Everyone in India, or who travels in India raves about the railway system. Rubbish. It's awful. Now, when I was there in 2003 and then late 2004 it was decent. But in the last five years the traffic on the rails has grown so quickly that once again, it is threatening productivity. Waiting in line just to ask a question now takes thirty minutes. Routes are routinely sold out three and four days in advance now, leaving travelers stranded with little option except to take the decrepit and dangerous buses. At least fifty million people use the trains *a day* in India. 50 million people! Not surprising that waitlists of 500 or more people are common now. The rails are affordable and comprehensive but they are overcrowded and what with budget airlines popping up in India like Sadhus in an ashram the middle and lowers classes are left to deal with the overutilized rails and quality suffers. No one seems to give a shit. Seriously, I just never have the impression that the Indian government really cares. Too interested in buying weapons from Russia, Israel and the US I guess.
The last major problem in India is an old problem and can be divided into two parts that've been two sides of the same coin since government was invented: bureaucracy and corruption. It take triplicates to register into a hotel. To get a SIM card for one's phone is like wading into a jungle of red-tape and photocopies one is not likely to emerge from in a good mood, much less satisfied with customer service. Getting train tickets is a terrible ordeal, first you have to find the train number, which takes 30 minutes, then you have to fill in the form, which is far from easy, then you have to wait in line to try and make a reservation, which takes 30 minutes at least and if you made a single mistake on the form back you go to the end of the queue, or what passes for a queue in India. The government is notoriously uninterested in the problems of the commoners, too busy fleecing the rich, or trying to get rich themselves in some way shape or form. Take the trash for example, civil rubbish collection authorities are too busy taking kickbacks from the wealthy to keep their areas clean that they don't have the time, manpower, money or interest in doing their job. Rural hospitals are perennially understaffed as doctors pocket the fees the government pays them, never show up at the rural hospitals and practice in the cities instead.
I could go on for quite some time about my perception of India and its problems, but in all seriousness, I don't think anyone in India really cares. And that, to me, is the biggest problem. India is too conservative a society to want to change in any way. Mumbai, India's financial capital is about as filthy, polluted and poor as the worst city imaginable in Vietnam, or Indonesia--and being more polluted than Medan, in Sumatra is no easy task. The biggest rats I have ever seen were in Medan!
One would expect a certain amount of, yes, I am going to use this word, backwardness, in a country that hasn't produced so many Nobel Laureates, nuclear physicists, imminent economists and entrepreneurs. But India has all these things and what have they brought back to India with them? Nothing. The rich still have their servants, the lower castes are still there to do the dirty work and so the country remains in stasis. It's a shame. Indians and India have many wonderful things to offer the world, but I'm far from sanguine that India will amount to much in my lifetime.
Now, have at it, call me a cultural imperialist, a spoiled child of the West and all that. But remember, I've been there. I've done it. And I've seen 50 other countries on this planet and none, not even Ethiopia, have as long and gargantuan a laundry list of problems as India does. And the bottom line is, I don't think India really cares. Too complacent and too conservative.
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dimanche 31 mai 2009
Good-bye General Motors
This news post (yahoo! finance news post linked below), like everything GM, is again shamefully mis-titled and mis-represented. "End of an era"? GM isn't and never was symbol of any 'golden' era (not even any worth remembering era for that matter), no matter how repeatedly they've told us so and how continuously they'd keep telling us so. "End of a cartel" may be. Or, "end of blatant greed" perhaps. Or, "failure of that concept called capitalism" more aptly. GM epitomizes everything that is and was wrong with American capitalism. From 'profit-comes-first' thinking to 'everything is fair in business' belief, from insensitive customer handling to inept workforce management, from confusingly complex marketing tricks to outrightly dumb designs, from insane white-collar benefits to an increasing innovation deficit, from a super-inflated ego to a line of mediocre products ... for a long time GM has been accumulating in it's repertoire, everything necessary to sink it to the ocean floor and take down with it, a whole lot of others too. Do I need to say, that's the same path that capitalism is on, too?
End of a 'crap car' era: Good bye GM.
-- Waqqas.
*For more of GM's 'historic accomplishments' to mark an 'era', see my 2007 post (copied below).
----- Message d'origine ----
De: Shiraz Bashir shirazbashir[at]gmail.com
Envoyé le: Dimanche, 31 Mai 2009, 13h31mn 35s
Objet: End of an Era: US General Motors Going Bankrupt on Monday
End of an Era: US General Motors Going Bankrupt on Mondayhttp://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/article/256244/End-of-an-Era%3A-GM-Going-Bankrupt-On-Monday
The company who defined Automotive industry is going bankrupt. This is classic example of disaster which results from refusing to Introspect, continuing to blame others, unable to change.
-Shiraz.
----- Message d'origine ----
De : Waqqas Akhtar <waqqas_akhtar[at]yahoo.com>
Envoyé le : Jeudi, 24 Mai 2007, 23h42mn 39s
Objet: Fact file: How Petro-enterprises are blocking the electric revolution...
Hello!
This evening I intend sharing with you a revealing documentary. "Who killed the Electric Car?"
This documentary makes clear, electric vehicles didn’t die of consumer indifference. They didn’t even die – as some of the more arcane arguments would have it – because of concern about electrical grid capacity in the wake of blackout crisis. Rather, they were deliberately and meticulously pulled out of circulation and destroyed by the companies who manufactured them. The car makers, along with the oil companies and the gas pump operators and their political allies, first sabotaged and then strangled the electric vehicle, not because it had no future but because it threatened their core livelihood - OIL!
In this excellent documentary video . . . Director Chris Paine elucidates the situation that we all know of subliminally, but maybe are afraid to face head on, that we do not REALLY need the deadly oil, or in this case, gas, to make our lives and our cars go. They can run just as easily, and more importantly, cleanly, on electricity. Paine outlines in chilling detail how the major car companies created, then reclaimed and destroyed the very vehicle that may save our planet, from everything from Global Warming to War in Iraq. That terrible secret is laid right out clearly and powerfully. The Oil Companies are running the world and our lives. And their greed for fossil fuels is destroying our environment, our health and maybe eventually the entire planet itself. . .
Who Killed the Electric Car? is electrifying and should be required viewing for every citizen of the Earth. Kudos to distributors Sony Pictures Classics for putting this important film out there for all the world to see. I hope that someday a film of this type nabs an Oscar nomination, for Best Documentary.
Preview:
http://www.sonyclassics.com/whokilledtheelectriccar/electric.html
Synopsis:
It was among the fastest, most efficient production cars ever built. It ran on electricity, produced no emissions and catapulted technology to the forefront of the automotive industry. The lucky few who drove it never wanted to give it up. So why did General Motors crush its fleet of EV1 electric vehicles in the Arizona desert?
WHO KILLED THE ELECTRIC CAR? chronicles the life and mysterious death of the GM EV1, examining its cultural and economic ripple effects and how they reverberated through the halls of government and big business. The year is 1990. California is in a pollution crisis. Smog threatens public health. Desperate for a solution, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) targets the source of its problem: auto exhaust. Inspired by a recent announcement from General Motors about an electric vehicle prototype, the Zero Emissions Mandate (ZEV) is born. It required 2% of new vehicles sold in California to be emission-free by 1998, 10% by 2003. It is the most radical smog-fighting mandate since the catalytic converter. With a jump on the competition thanks to its speed-record-breaking electric concept car, GM launches its EV1 electric vehicle in 1996. It was a revolutionary modern car, requiring no gas, no oil changes, no mufflers, and rare brake maintenance (a billion-dollar industry unto itself). A typical maintenance checkup for the EV1 consisted of replenishing the windshield washer fluid and a tire rotation. But the fanfare surrounding the EV1’s launch disappeared and the cars followed. Was it lack of consumer demand as carmakers claimed, or were other persuasive forces at work?
Fast forward to 6 years later... The fleet is gone. EV charging stations dot the California landscape like tombstones, collecting dust and spider webs. How could this happen? Did anyone bother to examine the evidence? Yes, in fact, someone did. And it was a murder. The electric car threatened the status quo. The truth behind its demise resembles the climactic outcome of Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express: multiple suspects, each taking their turn with the knife.
WHO KILLED THE ELECTRIC CAR? interviews and investigates automakers, legislators, engineers, consumers and car enthusiasts from Los Angeles to Detroit, to work through motives and alibis, and to piece the complex puzzle together. WHO KILLED THE ELECTRIC CAR? is not just about the EV1. It’s about how this allegory for failure—reflected in today’s oil prices and air quality—can also be a shining symbol of society’s potential to better itself and the world around it. While there’s plenty of outrage for lost time, there’s also time for renewal as technology is reborn in WHO KILLED THE ELECTRIC CAR?
-- Waqqas.
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