Spreading The Message

Many Muslims consider it very important to spread Islam around the globe. In Islamic terminology it is called Da’wah, which literally means “invitation”. Unlike Jihad, this concept can’t be easily misinterpreted to incorporate any kind of violence. It is simply to invite people to Islam by preaching them the Islamic concepts. But nowadays Muslims don’t have something which had been in the past very instrumental for Dawah.

Like any other Islamic concept, the standard methodology for preaching and spreading Islam is to be taken from the life of The Holy Prophet. The Prophet first preached Islam in Mecca where the nascent religion instantly turned up all the idol worshippers against him and after they made it hard for him to even live in his house, he left for Medina; a city with less violent and more considerate people. After preaching Islam for some time, The Prophet established the first Islamic state; the city state of Medina. It then became the base camp for missionaries who converted all the Arabian Peninsula to Islam. After the establishment of the Islamic state, Medina thrived as never before. It became strong enough to defend Muslims from Meccans and eventually strong enough to capture Mecca. People flourished under the Islamic system and soon there were left few people who lived a life of poverty. People enjoyed more freedom, justice was served equally to the rich and the poor and crime rates went down to almost nil. For the people who were preached the new religion in the deserts of Arabia, Medina used to be an inspiration. They were told about that city and how it had changed after the advent of Islam. This exactly is what Muslims lack nowadays; a successful example to show people how Islam works.  

Islam is not a typical religion; it’s a whole ideology that encompasses every aspect of human life. It has got certain part that is associated with the individual life of people, but it also has system and standards for the whole society. In this era, when people are told about the Islamic systems of government, economy, society etc. people often ask what good are these systems if they couldn’t improve the condition of even a single Muslim country. There are six countries which claim to be Islamic states and fifteen which have Islam as the national religion. None of them is capable of being an inspiration for a non-Muslim.  

Usually Muslims blame The Western nations of plundering their resources and interfering in their politics and describe these to be the reasons for the poor condition of the structure of their country and society. But blaming someone else for one’s own shortcomings is not something very noble. Though it is a fact that many Western governments have been involved in supporting dictators and interfering in the politics and society of the Muslim world, but that too is a fault of the Muslims who let it happen.

When a Muslim preacher says to a non-Muslim, “Let me tell you something that is better for you”, the non-Muslim might well ask, “Why hasn’t that thing been better for your own self?” Why those who claim their religion to be a perfect system for humanity are living in the worst conditions? The answer of course is that they’ve themselves betrayed their religion. It’s only a name that is being spoken of now; Islam has long been abandoned by its followers. Though it is very important to spread The Message around the globe, but at least equal efforts should be made to preach and revive Islam in the Muslim world. The Prophet did it by making himself an example, and then by making an exemplary society and state. So should be done by the Muslims of this era, if they care even a bit about their religion.

The Message from Burma

Burmese Muslims have been facing persecution and discrimination for decades. In 1942, at least 150,000 Muslims were butchered by extremist Buddhists.^[1] Afterwards there have been numerous incidents of violence against Muslims by Buddhists and occasional resistance by Muslims against the extremist monks. Recently, in the wake of violence that started in June 2012, some 650 Muslims have lost their lives and thousands have fled their homes.^[2]

Unfortunately, the dead bodies of hundreds of humans were unable to attract media attention. There hasn’t been any significant reporting by the Western media on the massacre while the news outlets of Muslim countries occasionally reported it. Not only the Western governments, but governments of most of the Muslim countries turned a blind eye too. Only Iranian government discussed the Rohingya Massacre in the parliament and only the Turkish officials visited the victims.

There is something about this massacre that people don’t want to believe; Buddhists can be so violent. Till now all the world was convinced that the agnostic philosophy of Buddha was the most benign religion in the world. They don’t have any system to run a state so they let their countries be secular, their religion doesn’t interfere with their daily life, they have no concept like Jihad, they don’t believe in God. They were thought to be the most peaceful people in the world, like their spiritual leader, Dalai Lama. But the Rohingya massacre has shattered this perception, at least for those who know what is going on in Burma. So, what is the message this massacre delivers to those Pakistanis who think religion is the cancer of their society, and to all of the Islamophobes in the world?   

The message is clear. Violence is not a problem with religion; it is a problem with man. Everyone is pretty much sure that Buddhism doesn’t teach violence; still its followers have proved to be more violent than Al-Qaeda and Taliban. Burma is not an ‘Islamic state’, the people in Burma who are committing the worst crimes against humanity are not Muslims.

In Pakistan people are still not as violent as these Burmese murderers. The Pakistani Taliban have never killed that much civilians. It doesn’t mean that Taliban are anything better than the Buddhist monks, it only means that it’s not religion that is causing violence, it’s the illiteracy and intolerance. People can be taught to respect each other, they can be taught to tolerate each other’s opinion, they can be taught the real Islam. Blaming religion for the violent acts of its followers is like blaming weapon instead of the murderer.     

References:

1. Burma Massacre

2. Press TV

Broken Arrows

It’s very obvious that USA never likes any country in the world to have nuclear weapons. The apparent impression of course is that USA, being a peace loving country, doesn’t want weapons of mass destruction to be used on people in any case. But that impression doesn’t last long when people know that the peace loving country itself has one of the largest nuclear arsenals in the world. The second impression is that the US government is responsible enough to handle nukes and use them just as a deterrence threat, while other countries might have much irresponsible governments which can actually bomb people. But that impression too doesn’t last long when people know that USA is the only country in this world which has actually nuked a couple of cities. Another impression is that USA is always concerned about nuclear weapons being taken over by irresponsible people or terrorist groups. In other words, the US government thinks that none of the countries except USA has the capability and adequate system to prevent nuclear weapons and material from going into wrong hands or some other accident which might lead to the death of many people.

Pakistani nuclear program never sat well with the US government, but it should be kept in mind that it’s not the case with every country. The ‘unannounced’ nuclear program of Israel enjoys complete and unconditional approval of the US government. The main concern that is expressed about the Pakistani nuclear arsenal is of the third type i.e. Pakistani nuclear warheads are not safe and are liable to accidents and can be taken over by extremist groups. Similarly, India joins in with the same concern. Both of these countries have casted a number of doubts on the security and management of the Pakistani nuclear arsenal. Though occasionally some of the officials in the US government have declared that there is no real threat to the Pakistani nuclear arsenal, but those statements are again followed by more doubts and suspicions.

The interesting thing is that no one knows when was the last time Pakistani nuclear program got compromised, because as a matter of fact, it has never been compromised. On the other hand, the countries which so often cast doubts on the ability of Pakistan’s command and control system to handle the nuclear warheads don’t have a record even comparable to Pakistan.

On 13^th February 1950, an American B-36 ‘accidently’ dropped a nuclear weapon near the coast of British Colombia. On 10^th March 1956, an American B-47 loaded with two nuclear weapons ‘disappeared’ over the Mediterranean Sea. On 27^th July 1956, an American B-47 ‘smashed’ into storage igloo containing three nuclear bombs. Luckily the bombs didn’t explode and no one was killed. On  22^nd May 1957, an American bomber ‘incidentally’ dropped a 10 megaton Hydrogen Bomb. Fortunately it was an uninhabited area and no one was killed. On 11^th October, 1957 an American B-47 armed with a nuclear weapon ‘crashed’ just after the take off. The fire was extinguished before the bomb went off. On 14^th January 1961, an American B-52 bomber carrying two Hydrogen Bombs ‘disintegrated’ in mid air due to structural failure. The bombs landed 12 miles north of Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in Goldsboro, NC. One of them parachuted down intact, and the other one plunged into water logged farmland. Parts of that bomb are still embedded in the ground and the area is off limit. On 17^th January 1966, an American B-52 ‘collided’ with an Air Force KC-135 jet tanker while refueling over the coast of Spain, killing eight of the eleven crew members and igniting the KC-135's 40,000 gallons of jet fuel. Two hydrogen bombs ruptured, scattering radioactive particles over the fields of Palomares; a third landed intact near the village of Palomares; the fourth was lost at sea 12 miles off the coast of Palomares and required a search by thousands of men working for three months to recover it. Approximately 1,500 tons of radioactive soil and tomato plants were removed to the U.S. for burial at a nuclear waste dump in Aiken, S.C. The US government had to settle claims by 522 Palomares residents at a cost of $600,000.^[1] All these events are labeled as ‘Broken Arrow’ in the United States military nuclear incident terminology.^[2] More recently, on 19^th August 2007, an American B-52H bomber was ‘mistakenly’ loaded with six nuclear warheads. No one knew that six nuclear bombs were missing from the storage and that a bomber equipped with them was flying from Minot Air Force Base to Barksdale Air Force Base. The warheads were not protected by various mandatory security precautions during the flight. ^[3] This was a ‘Bent Spear’ incident. ^[4] These are just some of the many reported events in the history of American weapons of mass destruction. Apart from these, there have been many such incidents related to American nuclear power plants.

              

Now, let’s see how safe the Indian nuclear program is. In September 2008, Indian police arrested five people on charges of ‘stealing and smuggling’ uranium ore. The packets retrieved from them had seals of India’s Atomic Minerals Division. ^[5] Former Director General Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), Lt.gen (ret.) Hamid Gul said,” Indian nuclear program has gone through 153 major mishaps, but none of the lobbies in the US have ever raised any concern.”^[6] Once again, the interesting point is that both of these countries have been casting doubts on the nuclear program of a country which never went through any of such accidents or mismanagement.  

The point usually raised by the Western media and government officials is that the presence of terrorist groups in Pakistan makes its nuclear assets vulnerable to be taken over by irresponsible elements who might actually kill people with nuclear bombs. One may well ask whether America was being ruled by religious extremists in 1945? If the world is afraid of such people who can use nuclear warheads to annihilate cities, then they should be afraid of the people in the White House and Pentagon. In Pakistan, terrorists will first have to take over the nuclear assets, but in USA they are already taken over. How can someone assume that American government is responsible enough to keep the nuclear warheads without actually killing people, while they’ve already done so? It’s ironic how the only people who’ve actually “wiped cities off the map” are telling the world to stop their nuclear programs.

Sources:

1. http://www.lutins.org/nukes.html#bombs

2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_military_nuclear_incident_terminology#Broken_Arrow

3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_United_States_Air_Force_nuclear_weapons_incident 

4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_military_nuclear_incident_terminology#Bent_Spear

5. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7608984.stm

6. http://www.pakistankakhudahafiz.com/2011/11/06/pakistan-armys-rebuttal-us-media-report-a-mere-laughing-stock/

Weapon of Mass Intimidation

Recently the terrorists in Pakistan have been using many advanced weapons, but most of the people have not yet realized that the most effective of the advanced weapons adopted by the terrorists are not any new kind of firearms. It’s something more effective and more dangerous. It’s the media. One might think that at least in Pakistan, none of the TV channels is owned by any terrorist or extremist organizations, then how could the terrorists have used the media for terrorism?

As a matter of fact, in Pakistan the terrorist outfits and banned organizations are certainly not allowed to broadcast anything, but the Pakistani law is not applicable in other countries where the organizations banned by Pakistan might be enjoying full liberty.  So, there exist some channels, being broadcasted from other countries, which primarily preach extremism. Though none of these channels is allowed to be included in the Pakistani cable network, but individuals can watch these channels through satellite. Besides terrorists also use the internet to serve their purpose, despite the government’s cyber crackdown.

This is not the major issue though. Such channels are not quite popular and affect only a very tiny part of the Pakistani population. The problem is that nowadays the Pakistani news media has been instrumental in augmenting terror in the Pakistani society. Though it’s not owned by the terrorists, but unintentionally it has become the most useful tool for them.

Terrorism is the "systematic use of violence and intimidation to achieve some goal". To intimidate a single person, the terrorist will use violence against him. But to intimidate the whole population, the terrorist can’t use violence against every person in the population. So what they do is to use violence against some people, and let the media deliver the terror to the whole population. In older times, when there used to be no electronic media, terrorists would have had a tough time to intimidate the population. The news of violence in one city could have never reached the other cities with such swiftness and effectiveness as nowadays.

      

In addition to over emphasizing the reports of terrorist activities, the Pakistani news media rarely hesitates to show graphic images, sometimes without any warning. There is absolutely no sense in showing all this to the whole population while it’s understood that these reports only depress and terrorize the population. Doing all this just fulfills the goal of the terrorists i.e. to coerce the people.

Of course it doesn’t mean that terrorist acts shouldn’t be reported at all. But there should be a proper way to report it. What would be more delightful for the terrorists than getting the whole population terrorized with a single blast, as if the whole population was present at the scene. It’s like providing audience to the terrorists. Terrorists will feel quite helpless once the Pakistani media learns to report an event like it should be reported.     

Advocates of Secularism

Most of the religious Pakistanis remain concerned over the growing approval of secularism among the masses. They want Pakistan to be an ‘Islamic Welfare State’, while those who support secularism want it to be a religion free state and make religion a private matter of individuals. As the polarity increases, so does the blame game. People blame the Western governments of promoting secularism in Pakistan through their propaganda campaigns, and consider it as a part of war on Islam. They openly express their anger against the so called ‘enlightened moderate’ Pakistanis who are supposed to be the flag bearers of secularism in this country. But they fail to recognize the most effective advocates of secularism; they themselves.

There are many factors that effect the increasing demand for secularism in this country, but religious extremism is among the most important and effective ones. The face of Islam depicted by religious zealots in this country scares away even many practicing Muslims. Why would a person want to live in an ‘Islamic Welfare State’ if he wouldn’t be able to enjoy any of his individual liberties assigned to him by the Creator Himself? Why would a non Muslim want to live in a state where he wouldn’t be able to practice his religion? Why would a Muslim want to live in a state where he’d be persecuted because he belongs to a different sect of Islam?

What people see is that those who claim to be the ‘caretakers of Islam’ have proved to be the most violent, intolerant and illiterate lot. They’ve killed people for even very minor disagreements from their point of view. They can declare anyone heretic without even listening to his argument. They don’t know how to discuss and resolve disputes. How would such people run a state? No doubt, they’ll make people experience hell right in this world. Though these people claim to be Islamists, but Islam has suffered the most because of them. Muslims were supposed to attract people towards Islam, but they’ve scared the world away from it. As long as these ‘caretakers of Islam’ exist, people will always oppose the establishment of an Islamic state.

The fact is that in Pakistan people become ‘religious scholar’ because they couldn’t become anything else. The dumbest child of the family is sent to religious school by the parents. So, garbage in, garbage out. Pakistani society has got plenty of garbage polluting its religious environment and distancing people from Islam. Of course it’s not always the case. There are many learned and considerate scholars as well. But their number is very small as compared to the illiterate Pakistani mullahs. And apart from their number, their influence among the masses is also quite negligible as compared to their intolerant and less competent counterparts.

If someone is really worried about the growing secular mindset among the Pakistani society, and he’s really sincere with his religion and his country, he should strive to lessen the influence and power of illiterate mullahs, and promote those who’re more competent, learned and considerate. People will have to develop religious institutions that would produce a new generation of religious scholars competent enough to establish an Islamic welfare state, and prompt parents to give their intelligent children to Islam, not the rejected ones.

The first step towards the establishment of an Islamic state in Pakistan is to defeat the advocates of secularism in the society. People will never go for an Islamic state until they are not shown the true Islam. The way extremists have depicted Islam has been instrumental in promoting secularism. Establishment of Islamic state will start after the end of so called Islamic extremism in this country.

Economic Scrimmage and Sanctity of Human Life

 ‘When in ancient world, communities tried to settle down, they always looked out for a suitable place. The best fortune of community would be settling down in an area of fertile land, where they would be able to live prosperously and the surplus natural wealth would not lead them to fight among themselves for control. With time, however, tendencies to mutual competition for the resources gave rise to discrepancies and divisions which led to deciding the fate of these social orders. If the differences and urge to get more was transformed into a tendency to get more from outside their lands by force, it led to formation of empires, or otherwise infighting erupted and the infringement of the nation led some other one to take them over, as this is the nature of the real world as we know it.

This is one of the facts of the world that no one can deny. No matter how much someone adores the Romans; it is a fact that they attacked and ravaged thousands of miles of Lands and killed millions of people just to ensure ‘safe trade routes’. All praises can be offered to the Arab civilization for their exceptional military gains and outstanding cultural achievements, yet one can find out that the genuine Arab reason for taking control of other lands vanished soon after the four caliphs, and demographic reasons along with economic, military and sometimes ethnic priorities took over the mainstream hypothesis of ‘spreading Islam’ as the main reason to press or take over other nations. Similarly, the Ottoman control of Mediterranean for about three centuries was not due to genuine Islamic preaching, but was enforced largely due to the paradigm of naval deterrence for safe trade routes. From the start of the world, up till today, economic factor has been the most vital in Nations fortune, as it ensures the survivability of the people as well as the prowess required to exert the hegemonic pressure on other sections who are deterred into accepting the writ of a power. The wars between Carthage and Rome for example were fought genuinely due to economic reasons which made virtually impossible for two communities to co-exist while at the same time compete economically. The war ended at nothing but gross destruction and consequent annihilation of Carthage, and hundreds of thousands of men, women and children paid the price of being in an economic competition.

The new world of today, too, presents something different if we look at it from the naïve perspective mapped out and commented upon by media persons. We find nations going to war for something different. But in reality, the paradigms have not changed even if ways have somehow. It is regrettable to see the economic deprivations of many countries and then finding out that leading industrial countries were behind it. The exploitation of the economically weak by those who have power is the side of coin internationally ignored, because the ‘internationalism’ in itself is a concept best suited to those who tend to engulf maximum natural resources of a country. The lucrative economic leverage through oil was the major reason for Iraq war, which left no less than seven hundred thousand people dead and millions wounded for the rest of their lives. It leaves behind a country in shambles and a shattered economy which will take decades to come to the point it was in 2003. The propaganda machinery worked, blinded the people and everybody was suddenly thinking that Iraq was the only demon to be stopped at all costs. It happens every time. The great powers do not just attack by telling and yelling the actual reasons. They always attack and desecrate under cover of some reason which most of the time is falsely generated so as to convince that their aggression was ‘mandatory’ or ‘necessary’ somehow. Hitler attacked Poland after convincingly preaching to the people of the Reich, that Polish soldiers were behind an attack on a German outpost; which today has been established was orchestrated by German establishment themselves. Even if someone looks closely, all of the patterns followed by Nazis during their World Conquering stratagems were economically driven and wealth oriented so as to provide for the people of the Reich, a constant source of income as well as reason to keep giving the war their blood and hard work.

The continuum of the megalomaniac and resource hungry nature of powers has brought the world in an unexplainable yet worrisome state of affairs. One country’s mothers send their sons to the battle field, thinking they are going to lay down their lives for the sake of honour and greatness of their land. These gentlemen on the other hand are involved in atrocities and misconduct on some of the most deprived sections of the world, in order to retain or sometime restore the hegemony of the big players involved. Every conflict has some hidden economic agenda; every battle has something to do with resources. There exists one genuine question after this entire hullabaloo-which one of those ‘warriors’ is right.

The answer is simple. The sanctity of a single human life is something that has to be honoured and respected. In all religions of the world, in every philanthropic concept of the world, the sacredness of human life is above everything regardless of time and space. It has to be understood that killing some innocent destitute may restore ‘Government’s Writ’ (The best narration nowadays used to by the governments to evade the blames of atrocities done by them on their own citizens) or it may bring ‘Peace’ (The common rhetoric used by the supreme to attack and vandalise the weak nowadays), but it is but something called brutality and barbarism-and these two things always fire back not in matter of years, but days and months. If some religious sect is killing people-innocent people- they are wrong, because they destroy the sanctity of the human existence and life. If some country does the same, they are wrong- no matter how strong their economy is, or how strong this propaganda machine is working. It has to be established that those who are defenceless, are human beings after all, and that under no pretext-be it economy, security or peace- can their right to live and prosper be deteriorated or even questioned. In the world of today, where even the best of the ideologies are seemingly incapable of holding back devastation and destruction by one another of human beings, this seems to be the only and constructive way to idealize and construct the ideas of one’s self. 

Defenders or Criminals

For quite a long time the educated and learned sections of the Muslim and other Third world countries have been blaming their uniformed warriors and sincere guardians for most of the political paradoxes being created in their countries.  The problem is particularly prominent in Muslim countries and in Africa, where a small misalignment in management of the affairs of the country by the civilian government is sometimes considered a pretext convincing enough to send the politicians to gallows (or jail in fortunate cases) and form a set of ‘Patriotic’ armed forces personnel to exercise executive authority. The democratically elected representatives have their struggles and beliefs shattered to the ground and the groan of ‘My dear Countrymen……’ sounds as the soldiers capture the very capital they were assigned to defend and desecrate the very constitution they were expected to uplift. This entire hullabaloo is out of nothing but one of the most forged, misused and impure concept ‘The Doctrine of Necessity’.

 It takes years of painful struggle, monetarily as well as physically, to become a politician in such countries, as in most cases the people are illiterate and have to be convinced not by educated reason and genuine argument, but by hope of basic necessities. Yet if an environment is somehow generated in which these politicians are unable to deliver, the people slowly become frustrated with the system which results in a showdown of unelected and unscrupulous men who use the system in all ways beneficial for themselves only while becoming successful in convincing the masses and some turncoat politicians that the coup was necessary for the constitution somehow. Now this becomes important that we investigate that how these law breakers are able to convince the people that they are accepted as the guardians of the law and constitution they themselves broke. We must ascertain the factors which give the Generals courage enough to uproot the whole system while being labelled ‘Leaders’ at the same time.

In today’s world where systematic forgery by the media is something regular and unstoppable to some extent, it is very easy for these ‘unwelcomed guests’ in the government to convince the people in their favour by printing out in the media some of the embezzlements of the ex-rulers of the country and telling the people about the corruption and mishandling of the government before which is actually inevitable in every system. People start to look upon the technocrats and military rulers as a safe haven away from the clutches of corrupt politicians, while ignoring that the political elite formed by the army are largely from the same old chunk that failed to provide anything to them, and that the system is working in the same way, except for the faces. So it can be well understood that the military coups have a well groomed media support with them or in some cases, certain sections of media actually create an environment in which existing governments are labelled as incapable to provide anything but chaos and as a consequence, a clandestine innuendo is put forward for the uniformed people to come and do the dirty drama.

But there is a genuine question that arises here. Although the public mind can be moulded in any way by the political or extra political forces in modern era, one observation that is factual yet not easily explainable is that how come when the dictators come to power, the same poor, rag tag country becomes embellished with fruit of happiness and how the same economy which was ineffective to the verge of bankruptcy becomes capable rising once again? Almost every third world after the advent of dictatorial regimes did show exceptional streamlining in its economic prowess and ability of good governance. For example, Pakistan showed extra ordinary growth rate only in two periods, one during the 1960s in Gen Ayyub Khan’s era (a Military dictator) and the other during the first decade of 21^st century in the recent Musharraf regime (Military dictator).

Military coups are not just indigenous uprisings. They are wrongfully thought to be as a ‘last attempt by army to save the country’. Military coups are planned outside whereas propagated clandestinely into country and executed by those inside the country. The generals who go for a military coup are never sincere with the people. While the planning is in progress, a full-fledged business deal is normally cut between the soon-to-be leaders and the big powers which support them. This deal comprises of the dictators giving control of natural resources, reforming and reshaping the country and fomenting the type of strategic environment the big powers involved want. In turn, these dictators get a ‘clean chit’ by being assured of no UN action, personal security and unlimited military support in terms of hardware at the expense of public money. While these puppets are making these deals, they definitely know that they will not survive if they turned against their masters (happened to Gaddafi and Saddam), so they keep on licking their feet for the rest of their lives, while vandalising and choking their own countries in many ways. These big powers keep on providing them with necessary economic support so that they may get their strategic advantage and while everyone in the power structure is busy doing business, the people of the country pay-off dearly due to foreign-bought indoctrinations and other foreign meddling.

It is obligatory that people realize that their military mentors whom most of them cherish and adore as guardians of Nation are not that scrupulous after all. The uniformed puppets are indeed more dangerous than rogue politicians because they come with utmost impunity and are unquestionable for their actions. In fact, army generals get a chance to over throw the civilian governments because the people love the armed forces too much or say worship them like a sacred cow. People will have to realize that in the silent outdoors of the cantonments constructed with their very money, talks and conversations are held by the uniformed clowns who are exceptionally out of context and domain of their constitutional duties. People have to come to terms with their own good conscience and start realizing that a soldier fighting on the front is normally shown on the media wall papers to convince them for the supremacy of the Generals who are playing politics of Land ownership and political prowess. All uniformed puppets in the Muslim countries namely Reza Shah Pehelvi of Iran, Saddam Hussain of Iraq, Hafez Assad of Syria, Ayyub Khan, Zia ulHaq and Musharraf of Pakistan, Hosni Mubarak of Egypt and many others were successful because people of Muslim countries love their armies and soldiers overwhelmingly. People must learn how to optimize their love for the soldier with their love for humanity, principles, constitution and law. They should support the warriors who ensure their safety but those men who in the disguise of being the heads of sacred organizations try to obliterate in any way, the rule of law or the structure of the country, try to bring in external influence and agencies and try to sow some incurable cancers in the country, must be dealt with like criminals. They are criminals of the nation and must be taken care of, not supported, no matter what is the environment at hand.

Iran 2012 isn’t Iraq 1981

An American's perspective

“I don’t bluff,” is the latest volley of ever-heightening rhetoric involving Iran’s nuclear power and/or weapons program. President Obama, his tough talk pointed toward Tehran follows strong suspicions, if not confirmation that Iran is enriching uranium to the level required for mass destruction in addition to developing missiles to deliver warheads. The recent missile tests were a tip-off. An overreaction at this critical juncture by the western allies (Israel) in this situation may very well lead to an outcome far worse than if Iran were to become the tenth nation to possess “the bomb.” The dangers of “mad mullahs” possessing a thermonuclear device along with the means to deliver it to enemy lands (Israel) have everyone on edge, maybe Iranians most of all.

The economic sanctions applied by the U.S. and Europe have crippled the Iranian economy and more are threatened. So far the standoff of the prideful leaders has only hurt the citizens of these nations. Iran’s cost of living has skyrocketed, the value of its currency plummeted. Due to the volatility of the situation, oil speculators have pushed the price of gasoline up which is causing a domino effect on already fragile western economies. None of these hardships are being felt by those playing this global chess match.

Israel feels justifiably threatened by the prospect of a nuclear capable Iran and by the noise level of its rattling saber apparently believes it can repeat the 1981 bombing run on Iraq’s nuclear facilities or 2007’s attack on a Syrian reactor, neither of which were heard from again, nice and neat. The U.N. and U.S. publically condemned Israel’s actions in Iraq while not so privately celebrating the action. This time Israel doesn’t have a hit and run option. Among other issues, the U.S. made GBU-28 bunker-buster bomb in Israel’s arsenal cannot penetrate anything and everything such as the 75 yards of stone encasing the centrifuges of the Fordow facility near Qom located about an hour’s drive south of Tehran. The Jerusalem Post quoted U.S. officials as saying Fordow is a “zone of immunity,” a rather eloquent way of admitting it’s safe from attack.

Iran is currently holding talks with UN inspectors and North Korea announced it is suspending its nuclear ambitions. Maybe economic sanctions do work. Worst case scenario is the tenth country obtains “the bomb” while the west and its allies (Israel) do nothing. Iran is an ancient society, its people cultured and intelligent, more than enough so to realize using this weapon on another nation would be suicide. They also realize Saudi Arabia would be compelled to follow suit as deterrence. Iran would be no more powerful in real terms and many more nuclear missiles would point its direction.

According to British foreign secretary William Hague a military raid would have “enormous downsides” in an apparent bid for understatement of the year. Sometimes the best course of action is to take no action at all outside employing diplomatic and economic tools. The decision making process in any circumstance involves weighing actions against consequences. In this case aggressive, military actions would certainly cause grave consequences, the scope of which can only be imagined. No action may be the best course of action. “I don’t bluff” was a strong message sent to Israel more so than Iran. Obama’s telling Israel not to act unilaterally. This isn’t 1981 or Iraq. A one-time strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities won’t produce the same results and Israel would be well advised to understand the distinction.

Lee Strain is an American freelance writer. Find more articles by him at Because it needs saying.

Balochistan: The Forgotten Land

On 8^th February there was a congressional hearing on Balochistan in USA. This hearing stirred a controversy in Pakistan, whether this was interference in the internal affairs of Pakistan or should it be taken positively. Before the dust was settled, some US lawmakers introduced a resolution that called for an independent Balochistan. This was beyond the threshold of tolerance for a common Pakistani and apparently for the government as well. People poured into the streets to condemn the resolution and urged the US politicians to mind their own business, and if they really have too much idle time, why not pass it by bringing resolutions about the sovereignty of Palestine and Kashmir. Its very obvious that Kashmir and Palestine need more attention than Balochistan. On the other hand the Pakistani government tried its best not to disappoint its people. The foreign minister Hina Rabbani Khar repeatedly condemned the resolution and government started counter lobbying in USA to nullify the effects of the resolution, that eventually resulted in the distancing of US government from it and an assurance by American delegates to Pakistani prime minister that both the American political parties were not in the favor of the resolution.

Apart from its negative effects on the already tense relations between USA and Pakistan, the resolution had some positive outcomes as well.

The Balochistan issue has never been discussed so much in the Pakistani media. This resolution brought the issue to light and also warned the people of Pakistan that the situation in Balochistan is much worse than what they are made to think by their government. It also pressurized the Pakistani government to take immediate steps in order to contain the situation.

But is the government taking any steps that would really contain the situation?

The immediate reaction from the Pakistani interior minister Rehman Malik was to announce the withdrawal of cases against Baloch tribal chiefs including Barahamdakh Bugti and Harbiyar Marri. Some welcomed the decision and others criticized it. Its clearly a wise idea to withdraw cases against Baloch chiefs in order to encourage them to return from their exile and take part in the political process instead of resorting to armed conflict with Pakistan army. But do these chiefs really represent the Baloch people? A common Baloch himself thinks that they do represent him, but what have these chiefs ever done for the people of Balochistan? Why should Baloch people trust them? They’re not democratically elected representatives; they are tribal chiefs who assume the representation of their tribe just because their father was a chief. The approach of Pakistani government to quell the rebellion in Balochistan by bribing the chiefs might cool down the situation for the time being, but in the long run the problem will get even worse because the problems are with the people of Balochistan not with these tribal chiefs.

According to a study by Dr Talat Anwar, rural poverty in Balochistan increased by 15% between 1999 and 2005. The maternal mortality ratio is 650 per 100,000 live births in Balochistan - nearly two times the national average. The province has the lowest literacy rate in the country and highest rates of poverty and unemployment. Apart from this the major tragedy is the extra judicial killings of civilians by Pakistani armed forces. These are the problems that need to be dealt with, not the cases against tribal chiefs. The feeling in Balochistan is that they are at war with Pakistan and Pakistani army in Balochistan is an occupation force. When a Baloch says that he’s a Baloch first he’s told to say he’s a Pakistani first and then a Baloch, but are they being treated like a citizen of this country? Their deprivation forces them to think that they are Baloch first, not any kind of nationalist arrogance. They’re being discriminated just because of being Baloch. If Pakistan can’t keep the people of one of its provinces happy, then what is the point in condemning their call for independence. Its like keeping a bird in a cage without any food and then shooting it when it tries to escape. Either feed it or let it find its own food.

Had the Pakistani politicians been less selfish and more astute, they would have considered the resolution presented by an ‘idle’ American politician as a warning bell and would have started improving the standard of living of Baloch people and restoring their rights sincerely, instead of attempting to bribe their unelected chiefs. The interesting thing is that the attempts to bribe the chiefs have been failed as Harbiyar Marri has rejected Rehman Malik’s offer to withdraw cases against him stating that the Interior Minister was not sincere and had no concern about the sufferings of Baloch people as he deployed frontier corps in the province for killing them. its about time for the Pakistani politicians to keep their personal interests aside for a moment and sincerely restore the rights of Baloch people instead of bribing their chiefs. Had the government been sincere to the Baloch people, it wouldn’t have had any need to deal with their chiefs. Besides, the people of Balochistan should also try to resolve the issues peacefully instead of resorting to violence. Use of force makes their case weaker. They should stop following their chiefs blindly and start representing themselves democratically. Half of the problems of Balochistan would be solved automatically if Baloch people bring common people from amongst them into their provincial assembly instead of tribal chiefs. The solution is never complex if there are sincere people to solve the problem.  

Educated Gangsters

Human being, as it is supposed to be, is a constantly learning machine, focusing on its environment and keeping the process of learning in one way or another, till the very end. Individuals of a social order owe their existence and workability not only to the academic and formal education provided but also on the informal education or in other words, their experience. Thus when we contemplate about a social paradigm, not only academic theories and hypotheses should be considered, one should also take care of the historical experiences or observations so as to come to a workable and positive conclusion. A solution solely based upon academic theories is either impractical or is certain to fail as academics only is unable to fathom the diversity of human nature and social behaviours. Similarly, while a system is being followed, there are events and facts that may ring bells for the people to realize if they are working on the right path or the wrong one. Thus it is obligatory for a student of social behaviours to keep a close eye on events happening around him, so as to draw constructive conclusions.

One of the most important events of the year 2011 was London riots, a series of events, which attracted extensive and worldwide media coverage. People watched in shock and Britain’s Governmental institutions groaned in awe and despair, as the young Brits vandalised and torched their own very Capital and other cities of Central and Northern England. The riots were controlled only after a crackdown, thousands of arrests and a police-state type of baton play by the Government forces. Even foreigners were killed in the destruction that had engulfed the mostly-urban areas and was a major source of concern for families having their loved ones in Great Britain for studying or any other purposes. After the situation was contained, thousands of people were tries in the courts, allegedly even for ‘misuse of social networks, and were fined or jailed to straighten them up.

After this entire hullabaloo, the event became a question. The question was, that how on earth was the mind-set of the British youth changed to so much destruction ,that even being one of the most educated lot in the world, they became a third world mob set around lighting their very own markets and malls? Normally, when a group of angry protesters or a band of disgruntled factory workers does the same in any poor country, the trend is ascribed to their poverty and intolerance arising from their being uneducated. But the young Brit vandals were mostly neither that poor so as to yearn for a living, nor they were uneducated. Ti explain this question, many explanations were put forward. Financial Crunch, frustration due to unemployment and many other explanations were given to explain even in some cases advocate for the cause which led to scenes unfathomable for a country like England in years. What we need to observe is, that if British education system is unable to tell people their social duties and control their frustrations in case of a chaotic situation, is it a successful education system? Or is it even an education system at all?

The answer is a bitter truth. The British system of education was unable to realize in the minds of their youth the social duties an individual has for the society, and consequently this is the key system that has to be held responsible for the devastating events that took place. Putting it straight forward, if the social duties of an individual and respect and honour of other people’s property had been institutionalized in the minds of the British pupils in the past, there would definitely be less carnage and destruction, no matter what was the cause in the perspective. Imparting information is not education. Education is to implant all the necessary components to an individual so as to build a complete and dynamic personality for the betterment of the society. If only information is being flown into an individual with none or very less emphasis on character building, this will result in a bio-mechanical robot programmed to achieve anything it desires at all costs. The concept that laws of a country can contain this kind of social chaos is unrealistic. Laws are actually formulated to keep people streamlined or in this paradigm, the criminal laws and punishments are formulated to keep people astray from committing a crime by generation of fear of punishment. But a mind which becomes corrupt, or in other words which has no respect or character so as to take into account dignity of other people’s choices and property, these laws become just liabilities or obstacles to be dexterously avoided and cleverly evaded. Thus in an education system which just relies upon flow of information as its basic purpose  with no emphasis on character and social responsibilities, there is a constant generation of highly intelligent and overwhelmingly clever criminals. Under a social downturn, everyone educated in this way may start attacking everyone else, thus generating more chaos which actually formed the basis of London riots under the pretext of the killing of one man by the police. Not everyone was protesting the death of the person, neither was destruction of life and property any goo way of protesting. Neither was everyone protesting the death of that individual, nor is the extermination of public life and property any explainable or educated way to protest.

Regrettably, albeit all these shortcomings and ineffectiveness in generation of a good individual by this kind of Education system, our country walks on the same pattern as defined by the British social pundits. And the result is more than obvious: We have an extremely educated lot with a disdain from our culture, society and traditions. Unscrupulous in ways and crooked in thinking a hooligan culture is taking birth in the educated streets of our urban household. In a number of street robberies, educated and most importantly, sons of influential and lavish families have been found involved whose background education is sometimes mind boggling to even believe they are criminals. If scarcity of education is producing criminals and terrorists, this kind of information flow is resulting in generation of materialistic hooligans. This is the hour of the need that our social pundits learn from experience and at once start redefining our syllabi and curricula so as to inculcate and institutionalise sense of social responsibility, human sympathy and dignity in the students’ minds. Otherwise, as they say about Pakistani people, this is already an inflammable liquid and in an event of social disorder, even the most educated will become the most violent and the hypothesis that education teaches tolerance will be licking the feet of vandalism.

The Islamic Culture

It’s a well known fact that the Western media has created a thick wall of misinformation between the Muslim and the Western world. People are made to believe in the West that Muslims are generally quite intolerant, illiterate and extremist. They are told about a number of practices going on in the Muslim world that are against the basic human rights. Keeping in view the Pakistani society, the most obviously inhumane act is ‘honor killing’; killing a family member (mostly women) in the name of honor. This practice is only found in some tribal areas of Pakistan adjacent to Afghanistan, but the act is so violent that even sporadic murders of this sort attract a lot of media attention. There are many more examples of such acts around the Muslim world that go against the human rights, for example, genital mutilation of women in some North African countries.

The problem is that such practices exist mainly due to low literacy rates. The only way to exterminate these customs is by educating the population, especially in the tribal areas, but governments of the countries where such customs exist are rarely interested in educating their people.

Condemning such acts is very natural, and that’s what the Western media does, but there is something that is put into the minds of people by the media that isn’t natural, rather its quite fabricated, and that is the perception that such practices are dominant in ‘Islamic societies’ or these practices come from Islamic teachings. Ideally speaking, the actions of a Muslim should depict the teachings of Islam, but unfortunately this is rarely the case. So, blaming religion for every nonsense custom being practiced by Muslims is not something very wise, because the world is not that much ‘ideal’. There is a clear difference between religion and culture. Religion is same around the Muslim world, but culture is different in every Muslim country and most of the cultural practices date back to the ‘dark ages’ when Islam was not even introduced. 

A recent example of such event is the murder of three girls by a Canadian ‘Muslim’. He killed his daughters because they were indulged in some ‘unchaste’ activities with a Pakistani boy. As soon as the news became public, people started cursing Islam for its atrocities against women, but no one thought for a moment that the Canadian Muslim is an Afghan immigrant. The practice of killing women in the name of honor comes from the tribal culture of Afghanistan, not from Islam. According to Islamic jurisprudence the man would have been charged with murder as has been done by the Canadian judiciary. Everything that belongs to the Afghan, Pakistani or Middle Eastern culture doesn’t necessarily belong to Islam. Certainly it’s a greater dishonor for a Muslim to kill a woman than to let her go with a ‘Pakistani boy’. But for a narrow minded Afghan tribesman it might not be so. 

The problem is that many Muslims value their culture more than their religion and they haven’t let Islam change their customs and traditions that have roots in the dark ages. Islam is not against every cultural aspect of a nation or tribe, but it obliges people to redefine their culture on the basis of fundamental Islamic principles. So, Islam is not a threat to any culture, but it doesn’t condone any inhumane practice belonging to any culture as well. If people let their culture overcome their religion then it’s not the fault of religion if their cultural practices are inhumane. 

The solution is education, and that is not limited to the professional education, but people also need to learn about their religion so that they can live according to it. The interesting but unfortunate thing is that most of the Muslims are ignorant of Islam. They have never been taught about their religion through any authentic source. Rarely any Muslim country has a system to acquaint its people with the teachings of their religion. Today Muslims are being despised by the whole world because they don’t act like Muslims. Terrorism, extremism, intolerance and all other negative attitudes that are today found in some Muslim societies are the same attitudes against which the Prophet Muhammad (S.A.W) struggled throughout his life. Western media won’t be much of a problem for Muslims if someday they themselves realize their own shortcomings and learn to follow their religion earnestly.

Rule of the People

It’s considered a very obvious fact that the Western nations are the flag bearers of democracy. They were the first to invent it, implement it and spread it to rest of the world. As everyone knows, democracy is the rule of people instead of a monarch, dictator or regime. In simple terms, in a perfect democracy the people would be the government. The policies of the government would be outlined according to the opinion of the people and not of only a ruling elite and if its not so, it wouldn’t be a “Demo-cracy” at all.

Usually it is considered a taboo to critically analyze the western democracy, but apparently there is no real harm in doing so.

If the Western countries have got a prefect democracy, the policies of their governments would reflect the opinion of the masses. But some serious questions arise from this hypothesis. For example if we analyze the American democracy that is supposed to be the most successful and perfect democracy of the world, was it the people’s will to nuke Hiroshima and Nagasaki? If someone says yes then it won’t be fair. A whole nation can never be so cruel to eliminate well populated cities off the globe. So, if it wasn’t the will of the people, whose will was it? The most apparent answer is the American government. That means the American government did something, and that was not just something, it was a huge crime against humanity, which was against the will of the Americans. Why is then the American system of government known as ‘Democratic’? If the actions of the American government are not regulated by the opinion and will of the American nation then what type of democracy is this?

Some would argue that it was a historic mistake by the American government. Yes, it could be, after all governments are run by human beings and not by angels. But how many times can a mistake be repeated? Maybe two times, or three or maybe four, and keeping in view the gravity of the mistake, it’s not supposed to be repeated even once. But what happened in the past decade? USA invaded three countries (Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya), is still invading one country (Pakistan) and apparently its planning to invade two more (Syria and Iran). All these invasions resulted in the death of thousands of human beings and fetched no significant results. Doesn’t the belief that American government follows the perfect democratic principles makes the Americans look like a Viking Nation?

As a matter of fact the Americans aren’t as blood thirsty as their government. But if they’re not, how the American government justifies its crimes against humanity in front of its people? American system is a perfectly democratic one; it’s neither a monarchy nor a fascist state. So, certainly the voice of the people counts, but that again leads to the ‘Viking Nation’ impression.

So, what’s the problem with American democracy?

Of course an American knows the best about the problems of his/her system of government, but the victims of the American aggression can also realize some of the problems that the Americans themselves might not be able to spot. America is a completely democratic state, but that is limited only to the system. In actual the policies are made by a small number of people in power and then they just mould the public opinion according to their policies. A real democratic system is supposed to work the other way round, which means the opinion of the people should have been the guideline for policy making. So the actual problem is that the American democracy is working in the opposite direction, at least as far as its foreign policy is concerned. A peaceful nation is forced to condone the violent acts of its government, by feeding them with false information and using the filter of biased media to shape their perception.

America is just an example, this is happening in most of the Western countries that are involved in long and futile wars. All this warmongering can stop if someday the Western nations realize how their democracy has been hijacked by a bunch of influential people who are continuously committing crimes against humanity and are building a wall of hatred between the Western and Muslim world.        

Outsourced Intelligence

If one sees the literacy rate of the countries of the world, there will be very few who would argue against the fact that the European and American Homo Sapiens are way ahead than everyone else around the world, letting go some exceptions. But there has been an unexplained point in an educated population with respect to their Geo-political and international perspectives. An educated population has become increasingly the one, with an overwhelming twist towards a situation in which they are either unaware of the international or other Geo-political environments or if they have any acquiescence somehow and they are taken through a soul-search for meaningful argument, all of them have same perspectives on a given scenario (most probably provided by mainstream media). This is evident from many researches, most awful of which is a video from the US, where an educated street passer-by was not able to tell a male if he was the Prime Minister of Australia, while anyone having even a slight knowledge of the World would definitely disagree, because Ms. Julia Gerard, the Australian Prime Minister, is actually a charismatic female person.

The trend is horrible even in our society, when most of the educated lot of the community ‘rubbishes out’ any argument related to ideologies and principles, is way out of step with the current affairs, or has the same pathetic delusions as their primary source of argument, which are lavishly flowed down the stream by mainstream media, and due to the narrow range of knowledge they have, are either intolerant or aggressive towards any other perspective. For example, whole of the US population unquestionably agreed to the US war strategy in 2001 (which can be called an 'emotional outburst') and in 2003, which led to a horrific massacre of about 1.5 million people, and the US population is very sympathetic to the cause of Israel, and views Palestinians as ‘Terrorists’ although even an insane person who knows the ground realities would never agree to the hypothesis. If someone is bored of examples from the US, even our population unquestionably agreed to the proposal of ‘having talks’ with the Swati Taliban (The parliament unanimously passed a resolution to adopt ‘nizam e adl’regulation in this regard) and just in a matter of days, changed its perspective( to adopt, yet again, a unanimous resolution in favour of attacking the militants and capture Swat valley) the reason being a video showing beating of a woman by Taliban was run on a national TV channel. The video later described by the TV channel was a ‘fake’ and ‘forged’ one and thus an apology was filed by the channel against the public (with no one questioning them obviously).

Any independent analyst of the situation would have called the people of Pakistan a herd of cattle, so easily mocked away into a situation unquestionably alarming. The incident left many questions unanswered. How was just a video on a TV channel able to change the mind-set of the population? If there has been a forgery this time, can there be more out there which we don’t even realize? Why on earth, have our educated lot being taken into this trap while we keep on babbling out the idea that the US population is the one who is controlled by the media?  If we closely analyse the problem, most of the educated people of our own country rely heavily on mainstream media for their basic source of argument and philosophy. Be it anyway it is viewed; this is horrible and alarming situation, world over. The solution to this problem is not that complex, and while one analyses the scenario, finds it easily. People have stopped to think themselves. That is the biggest problem facing the intelligent mankind right now.

Be it argument on Capitalism or debate over Marxism, a subject of Globalization or a topic of Nationalization, we hear to the arguments fragmented in someone else’s brain, babbled out by some old-fool on a TV show, and taken by the argument-thirsty and Hollywood-inspired population as their primary choice of cannon fodder in a debate, while themselves, they think nothing.

For the thought process to evolve and nurture in a person, his personality must be equipped with a very fundamental aspect of human ingredient; Principles of his own. This praiseworthy aspect of a person is literally unimaginable in todays’ world. People, while getting material on some aspect of international or national politics or any other ‘strategic’ spheres of today’s world, do nothing while engulfing and digesting everything that is provided to them by the all-motivating and charming media persons. For example, if someone is a good Muslim, he will definitely be against the US attack on Iraq, Afghanistan or its ambitions against Iran. But what we see on the streets is that many educated people, who are so authoritative in declaring themselves Muslims, get into the lap of ‘the War on Terror’ and support it. Similarly, much of the Muslim and educated population of the country is in favour of carrying out operations in Wana, and other parts of the country, while deliberately ignoring the previous outcomes and price we paid in human and economic terms for following the US directives on our soil.

There can be a long list of arguments and examples, but the point is that it is imperative that we people, and especially the educated ones, stop this ‘outsourcing’ of arguments and intelligence whilst this media war mongering. We should have a set of principles, Nationalism or Religion for example, on the basis of which we should check and scrutinize our thoughts, while at the same time giving room to new thoughts and arguments that come head to head with our beliefs and principles. There should be a proper way by which we analyse the situation, otherwise we will become 'robots', programmed and directed by agenda-oriented media, and we will not be then called as Humans. It is about having our intellectual identity in our own hands and no one else. In the era of conspiracy theories and Governments forgery of facts, this is the best way to save one’s intelligence from going in wrong way.

Revival of the Caliphate

Recently the number of people in Pakistan who are in the favor of the Islamic system of Khilafat/Caliphate has risen significantly, probably due to the failure of democracy to serve the nation. They want the restoration of a central Islamic government that will unite all Muslim countries under one flag and merge the people of all Muslim states as a single nation. Many believe that as long as there was caliphate in the Muslim world, they were invincible and the most progressive nation. They think that restoration of a central leadership will revive their past glory and will strengthen them as their main weakness is their division.

But how practical this idea is and how can Muslims unite themselves under a single leadership keeping in view their numerous differences?

Everyone among the Muslims knows that they are now divided as never before. Not only sectarian differences, but ethnic and linguistic differences have also overcome their commonness of religion and basic believes. How practical is it for a Sunni Muslim to pledge his allegiance to a caliph who is Shi’ite, or how practical is it for an Iranian to pledge his allegiance to a caliph who is an Arab? Why would a Black Muslim follow a white caliph? Of course Islam discourages all these differences, but unfortunately these differences have become as important for Muslims nowadays as religion itself. According to Islam superiority has nothing to do with race or color. It only depends upon piety. That means the criterion to be the caliph of Muslims is to be the most pious person among them. The problem is who’s going to determine who is pious? Even piety has lost impartiality in today’s Muslim world. Can a Salafi Muslim admit that a Sufi Muslim is more pious? Some of them don’t even consider each other Muslims in the first place. People say it shouldn’t be so difficult for the caliphate to be reestablished for it was once established. But the time when caliphate was first established was a different age. There were fewer divisions and more people eligible to be the caliph. Now there are more divisions and few eligible people.  

Some narrow minded Muslims are convinced that as its quite a job to settle the disputes among different sects of Islam, why not go for the establishment of an Islamic governance system for their own sect. This approach might be useful in countries where a certain sect has overwhelming majority like Iran or Saudi Arabia. Still, this won’t result in the creation of an actual caliphate because caliphate has all the Muslim world under its rule, not a certain country alone. As for the countries where different sects of Islam coexist, such an effort will create rift between the adherents of different sects and might result in a secular revolution instead of an Islamic one. Thus any approach that neglects the unification of Muslims simply can’t succeed.

So, does this mean that one shouldn’t strive for caliphate at all, as it is something impractical in today’s world?

As a matter of fact, one should. Every Muslim is supposed to live in an Islamic community. Europeans and Americans fear a ‘Muslim Europe’ and ‘Muslim America’ because some of them are aware of the fact that one of the fundamental ideologies of Islam is to live under the Islamic  jurisprudence or Sharia, and under an Islamic leadership or Ameer/Caliph. They fear that the Muslim immigrants will someday grow stronger and will force their Sharia over them. But Islam isn’t a religion of ‘force’, this means Muslims can’t force their believes on others who are not willing, they are only supposed to preach and convince, and they can only create an Islamic society once they are in majority, that means as long as the number of non-Muslim Europeans is greater than Muslims, they shouldn’t be afraid of anything. But where Muslims are in majority, it is their obligation to create an Islamic society and of course Islam ensures complete freedom for the non-Muslims living within.

Apart from other problems that have been mentioned earlier, a major obstacle to the creation of an Islamic society or restoration of caliphate is that even Muslims are afraid of Sharia. All they see is people getting punished for not having beard, for love marriages, for having a difference of opinion and many other things which are a part of their personal freedom. The Sharia that was implemented by Taliban in The Swat valley has scared many Pakistanis. Of course no one would like a system to be forced on them that deprives them of their personal freedom and forces opinions into their minds that they don’t agree to. Such a system is itself UnIslamic, and calling it ‘Sharia’ is like making fun of Islam.  So, the first step for the restoration of an Islamic system would be to redefine Sharia under the supervision of the most competent and learned scholars belonging to all Islamic schools of thought in order to settle as much differences as possible and optimizing Sharia for this era. This is an exceptionally tough job, but that’s how Muslims can take a step towards an Islamic government, and this step can take decades to be accomplished, because to produce such scholars who are also familiar with other sciences so that they are able to maintain the compatibility of Sharia with this era, and considerate enough to settle disputes among themselves, and intelligent enough to understand the most intelligent religion, Muslims will first have to develop a new generation of religious institutions. Most of the religious institutions in Pakistan are currently producing the most dogmatic, illiterate and inconsiderate type of ‘Mullahs’. These are the type of Mullahs who opposed Allama Iqbal and Jinnah and declared them infidels. They are only making people hate Islam and will cause a secular uprising instead of any Islamic revival in the country. Of course there are good institutions as well, and there are some good scholars as well, but they are too small in number to bring any change in the overall religious environment.

The optimization of Sharia by the ‘new generation’ of Islamic scholars might not lead to a consensus on every dispute among the Muslims of different sects, but at least it will create an understanding among the scholars that will ultimately result in the decline of sectarian hatred and intolerance. Once this hatred slowly vanishes, path will be paved for the establishment of an Islamic system. So, anyone who is interested in the revival of caliphate and Islamic  jurisprudence should spend his energies on creating new religious institutions that can produce the kind of Islamic scholars that is required for the revival of Islam in this era.

Another way is to establish small Muslim communities of likeminded people. An ‘Ameer’ is chosen by the people and Islamic jurisprudence is practiced without breaching the laws of the country in which the community exists. This won’t of course create any central caliphate but it gives space to the devout Muslims who want to live in a purely Islamic society. This idea is already being followed by some people who have established some MuslimVillages. Muslims from around the world who want to live a life under Islamic jurisdiction and in an Islamic environment move to the Muslim villages. Success of these projects depends on the interest of Muslims and the energies they spend on it, because an isolated village can’t survive without putting in some extra effort.

Establishment of an Islamic system and revival of caliphate is a tough job and if someone is really serious about it, he’ll have to devote his whole life to the cause and gather more likeminded and sincere people around him and then he might just get a chance to turn his dream of a central Muslim government into reality.

Pakistan's Political Paradox

The current government of Pakistan made the people hate politicians to the extent that most of them had already decided that they’re not going to vote for anyone in the next general elections. Some thought it’s a better idea to leave the country and some thought a bloody uprising might save the future of their next generations. In such an environment, it wasn’t very difficult for a person like Imran Khan to suddenly gain enormous popularity among the desperate masses. He promised the panicked nation to bring about a change, a revolution in the country that desperately needs it. Having left with no other choice, most of the youth and those who were sick of selfish and greedy politicians, started following him.

But what if Imran Khan fails to do what he has promised?

Many critics believe that he has already begun nullifying his promises by adding politicians from old political parties to Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf. But rarely anyone reflects what made him do so? And the reason that made him do so is the very reason due to which the life of all Pakistanis is becoming more and more miserable with the passage of time.

Imran Khan started his political career in 1996, with a handful of likeminded activists who had almost no experience of politics. Now he has some of Pakistan’s most renowned politicians alongside him. Even the critics acknowledge that Imran Khan now enjoys far more support form the public than he had a decade ago, and only the support of distressed youth wasn’t enough for him to pose any real threat to the vote banks of major political parties. The addition of politicians like Shah Mehmood, Javed Hashmi and Khurshid Qasuri has made Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf a major competitor in the political race. So, what made the difference, the ideology or personalities? What do the Pakistanis follow, ambitions of a person or just a person? Imran Khan started his career with promises of change, his promises are still the same, but no one followed him at that time and everyone is following him now.

If a person wants to bring about a real change in Pakistan, the best and most effective way he can do it is by becoming a part of the parliament. Imran Khan chose this way, but apparently he has at last realized that only his corruption free background or his revolutionary ideologies aren’t enough to make people vote for him, he needs something that is more important for a typical Pakistani voter. He needs faces that are renowned enough. And with a show of strength on 30^th October, 2011, he got the faces as well. All the politicians from politically bankrupt parties and those who were not happy with their fellow party members started joining him at a pace that was never expected by anyone. The most common criticism on Imran Khan before 30^th October was that he has no practical plans for anything because he doesn’t even know that he isn’t going to win any seats in the assembly with unknown activists, he needs electable faces in his party, and the most common criticism he faces now is that he has got old faces in his party, how is he going to do something different and new?

This is the paradox that hampers any improvement in the Pakistani political environment. If a political party emerges with new faces, it doesn’t get any votes. And if a party gets old faces that will make it win seats, it won’t be able to bring about any change. So, aren’t the Pakistani voters their own enemies?