Peace and Justice Post

 by Badri Raina

When the blood-dimmed tide

Creeps under the door,

Malala appears, quells the yellow

Beast with unwavering dark eye,

And simply says “no more.”

Which is when years of fearful

Preparation by Reason’s brave

Handfuls come to contagious fruition.

Naked new-born babes ride

The blast of innocence, all Malala,

Willing to take the disarmed bullet

In head, limb, gullet.

Where all seemed bust, destiny gels

Into a handful of dust.

Malala avatar, living or dying,

You have raised a cowering nation

Out of dithering and prevarication.

And with that reborn Pakistan,

Billions in the days to come will learn

To be soldiers of the sanity you spawn.

May you be blessed, child of indomitable soul,

May you live old to see the irreversible

Spread of the light that speaks from your eye,

May the nations never turn from the goal

For which you may so readily die.

–October 13, 2012

 Editor’s remarks: Mr Akhtar Chaudhry’s  views on NRK Radio (in Norwegian) on religious extremism in Pakistan  are welcome. I will add only a few lines to the discussion. As I see it, the real problem with the Pakistani people is not only about their religious identity. It is rather that such an identity has been hijacked by religious parties and political organizations with the help of clerics. As a result, people in general are not in a position to make a distinction between their universal religion of Islam and a suffocating version of Islam, mostly in the Sunni tradition, that has been forced down the throats of the people for six decades. Thus a mutilated, perverted and fanatic brand of ‘Islam’ has replaced the egalitarian, universalistic and tolerant aspects of Islam. Many problems our Pakistani people face are closely tied to this unhealthy growth that has taken deep roots in Pakistan. Religious extremists and the Taliban are a clear manifestation of that problem. But the actual problem is far deeper and more widespread in Pakistan and among the Pakistanis living in European countries and North America.

Nasir Khan, Editor

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Akhtar Chaudhry,   Facebook, Oct 13, 2012 4:55pm

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Editor’s remarks: We should not expect foreign countries to come and help fight religious fanatics and political exploiters in Pakistan. It is the task of the politically-conscious citizens of Pakistan to have a broad common front to combat them. In Pakistan, unlike Norway and other European countries, religion and political power have worked closely together. Islam has been used, misused, perverted and exploited to the full by both the religious parties who have used Islam to impose their political agenda on the people and also by the political establishment who have used Islam for slogan-mongering to gain support. The results are before us. The ideological bankruptcy of the two has left Pakistani people in a quagmire of despair and apathy. The only people who can change the situation are the people of Pakistan, no one else. In a culture where power and the powerful are worshipped, there are brave progressive and democratic people who are struggling to safeguard the political and social interests of the ordinary people and bring a political change in the country. Let us support them.

Nasir  Khan, Editor

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Report: by Dr Saleem Javed, The Friday Times, October 12, 2012

About 1,000 Hazaras  have been killed in Balochistan in the last decade, and the community is protesting all over the world

On October 4, a Hazara public official Sikander Ali was killed and two other men were injured in an attack on their vehicle on the National Highway near Kuchlak. Days later, two Shia men were killed in Quetta.

Almost 1,000 Shias, mostly Hazaras, have been killed in Quetta in the last 10 years. Although attacks on Shias have increased across Pakistan, the Hazara ethnic community in Balochistan has been especially targeted. One in 500 people of this small community of half a million have been killed in Balochistan since 1999. Around 25,000 Hazaras – about 5 percent of the entire Hazara population in Balochistan – have left the province for Afghanistan, Europe and Australia since 2001.

Most young Hazara people cannot attend universities and colleges in Quetta because of security fears. Data compiled by the Hazara Students Federation shows admissions of Hazara students in Balochistan University have declined by 42 percent since 2008, and enrolment in colleges outside Hazara-dominated areas has decreased by almost 95 percent.

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By David Swanson, opednews.com, October 12, 2012

Yes, indeed, it is a little-acknowledged feat of miraculous life-saving power that Europe has not gone to war with itself — other than that whole Yugoslavia thing — since World War II.  It’s as clear a demonstration as anything that people can choose to stop fighting.  It’s a testament to the pre-war peace efforts that criminalized war, the post-war prosecutions of the brand new crime of making war, the reconstruction of the Marshall Plan, and … and something else a little less noble, and much less Nobel-worthy.

Alfred Nobel’s will, written in 1895, left funding for a prize to be awarded to “the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.” Fredrik Heffermehl has been leading a valuable effort to compel the Nobel committee to abide by the will. Now they’ve outdone themselves in their movement in the other direction.

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Editor’s remarks: The priestly classes have shown the gods to their flocks and followers since the dawn of human history. And Lo! The flocks ‘know’ what the priests say is true. As a result some see the gods, some feel the gods and everybody is happy; the priests, the gods and the flocks! You see, the magic of gods works!! I say to all atheists, agnostics, sceptics, humanists and freethinkers: Get rid of all your arguments, your ungodly knowledge, your false books, your false philosophers! Gently close your eyes and find your way to the nearest priests who will open your mind’s eyes and you’ll see what you thought did not exist!

Nasir Khan, Editor

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Peter Thompson,  guardian.co.uk, Saturday 22 September 2012

A woman dressed as an angel waves from a roof top near the German Reichstag on the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Photograph: Andreas Rentz/Getty Images

They are sending missionaries to eastern Germany. A recent study called Beliefs About God Across Time and Countries found that 52.1% of people asked whether they believed in God identified themselves as atheists. This compared with only 10.3% in western Germany. Indeed, the survey was unable to find a single person under the age of 28 in eastern Germany who believed in God. Obviously there are some – I think I may have even met some once – but the survey was unable to find them. On the face of it this is an extraordinary finding and it is something that needs some careful explanation.

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Editor’s remarks: The brutal murders and violence by the Taliban show no signs of abating. Suddenly, they throw a bomb here or a grenade there in crowded places, killing and maiming people, or they resort to firearms to shoot as they like. But what is not disclosed to our Pakistani people is that these Taliban have not appeared suddenly from some unknown source; in fact they have been in the making for decades in the political anarchy that has prevailed in Pakistan. The major players in this game have been Pakistani politicians and religious leaders (or ringleaders ) of religious parties like the Jamaat-e-Islami, for instance, who have misused the name of Islam for their political ends and have misled the vast majority of Pakistani people that a pure Islam was being re-introduced.

Thus the field was open for such ‘mujahiddin of Islam’ and the custodians of mosques to brainwash common people into believing that the dawn of Islamic rejuvenation was just around the corner. The Islamisation programme by the sadistic dictator General Zia-ul-Haq was a natural growth of that process that had started long ago. That process had matured and has been showing its results in the shape of sectarian versions of Islam, violence against religious minorities (Ahmadis, Christians, Shias, Hindus, etc.), where the ‘pure’ Muslims, the mujahiddin and the Taliban, are doing Allah’s work, and fiery clerics spouting their venom against fellow human beings.

Can these forces be stopped by an official decree or praying for peace? The answer is No. Much has gone wrong in Pakistan in the name of Islam. It will take much more than pious wishes and prayers  to remove the evil forces that are terrorising the people of Pakistan.

Nasir Khan, Editor

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• Jon Boone in Islamabad
• guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 10 October 2012 09.35 BST

The 14-year-old schoolgirl shot in the head by Pakistani Taliban arrives by helicopter at a hospital in Peshawar Link to this video

Pakistani surgeons have removed a bullet from the head of Malala Yousafzai, the 14-year-old schoolgirl and peace activist who was shot by a Taliban gunman on Tuesday.

Relatives of the girl, who rose to fame for her outspoken opposition to Taliban militancy in her home town of Swat, said she appeared to be doing well after a three-hour operation.

Her father, Ziaudduin Yousafzai, said doctors were encouraged by a CT scan taken after the operation. She was unconscious but had moved her hand slightly after coming out of surgery.

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By Paul Craig Roberts, opednews.com, Sep 29, 2012

 

In my last column, “A Culture of Delusion,” I wrote that “Americans live in a matrix of lies. Lies dominate every policy discussion, every political decision.” This column will use two top news stories, Iranian nukes and Julian Assange, to illustrate how lies become “truth.”

The western Presstitute media uses every lie to demonize the Iranian government. On September 28 in a fit of unmitigated ignorance, the UK rag, Mail Online, called the president of Iran a “dictator.” The Iranian presidency is an office filled by popular election, and the authority of the office is subordinate to the ayatollahs. Assange is demonized alternatively as a rapist and a spy.

The western media and the US Congress comprise the two largest whorehouses in human history. One of their favorite lies is that the Iranian president, Ahmadinejad, wants to kill all the Jews. Watch this 6 minute, 42 second video of Ahmadinejad’s meeting with Jewish religious leaders. Don’t be put off by the title. Washington Blog is making a joke.

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• • Tom Engelhardt for TomDispatch, part of the Guardian Comment network
  • guardian.co.uk, Saturday 15 September 2012

Pakistani protestors burn the US flag in response to US drone attacks in the Pakistani tribal region in February 2012. Photograph: S.S. MIRZA/AFP/Getty Images

It’s pop-quiz time when it comes to the American way of war: three questions, torn from the latest news, just for you. Here’s the first of them, and good luck!

Two weeks ago, 200 US Marines began armed operations in?

a) Afghanistan

b) Pakistan

c) Iran

d) Somalia

e) Yemen

f) Central Africa

g) Northern Mali

h) The Philippines

i) Guatemala

If you opted for any answer, “a” through “h,” you took a reasonable shot at it. After all, there’s an ongoing American war in Afghanistan and somewhere in the southern part of that country, 200 armed US Marines could well have been involved in an operation. In Pakistan, an undeclared, CIA-run air war has long been under way, and in the past there have been armed border crossings by US special operations forces as well as US piloted cross-border air strikes, but no Marines.

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Reliable Palestinian sources have revealed that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is ready to drop the Oslo Accord, the Paris Protocol and security coordination with Israel. He made this momentous claim in a meeting of the PLO leadership in Ramallah. So keen was Abbas for the meeting to go ahead while the demonstrations against the situation in the occupied Palestinian territories were going on that he did not wait until he got back from a trip to India.

Abbas accused most of the PLO factions, especially Fatah, of “standing behind the demonstrations” which swept the West Bank recently in protest against the waves of prices rises; he refused to pin the blame solely on Hamas. He threatened to step down and make them go ahead with the legislative and presidential elections without him.

The sources quote one of the senior Fatah members who were present as saying that the meeting was “the most dangerous one” ever held by the leadership. They added that Abbas told those present at the meeting that “not only were the supporters of Hamas and the Islamic Jihad participating in the demonstrations, but also those who are sitting here at this table, the forefront of which are Fatah, the Popular and Democratic Fronts and the People’s Party”. Everyone, Abbas said, had operations rooms to stir the street “which is already festering”, and to raise the pace of popular anger.

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Joint study by Stanford and NYU law schools casts doubt on the legality of drone strikes; Says secretive program fosters anti-American sentiment

US drones do not just kill ‘terrorists’ says new report. They kill innocent people, including women and children, and they sow deep and long-lasting instability. (U.S. Air Force/Lt Col Leslie Pratt/ Flickr)Rejecting the dominant narrative that insulates most Americans from the reality of the US drone program in Pakistan—a narrative that says drones are a surgically precise and effective tool that makes the US safer from “global terrorism” with minimal downsides—a new report by researchers at the Stanford and NYU schools of law says that the program itself is “terrorizing” and that its overall impact is “counterproductive” when it comes to addressing international law, security, and human rights.

The newly released report, Living Under Drones, follows nine months of intensive research—including two investigations in Pakistan, more than 130 interviews with victims, witnesses, and experts, and review of thousands of pages of documentation and media reporting—and presents evidence of the damaging and terrorizing effects of current US drone strike policy. The study provides new and firsthand testimony about the negative impacts the ongoing program is having on the civilians living under drones in Pakistan and seeks to foster a public debate about how to challenge the program and change its current course.

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