I'm in Lahore and was not fasting. At lunch I ran through complete MM Alam road to grab something to eat, none of the restaurants including KFC McDonald's was serving. So what are minorities, sick people, women on menstruation & any other person who is not fasting supposed to do?
— Ahsan (@ahsanzawar) May 15, 2019
Note to Kabir if you write something daft, “like Allah said so”, I’ll ban you. Don’t invite further Shirk by baiting me when I’m understandably upset about what a shit country I hail from.
https://twitter.com/RamblingSufi/status/1128794048418983936?s=20
Yes I get mildly triggered by this. If Fasting is so spiritual and sacred then people who fast should not mind food.
Pakistan is simply an oppressive society and the liberals who hold out on it and somehow pretend that “it’s all to do with Zia” are deluded about the nature of Islam. Jinnah & Iqbal had no real clue about the devil that they were unleashing.
In fact Arab, Turkish & Persian (or even Punjabi) Islam is not really problematic but there is something extremely insiduous about the Islam that Pakistan has nurtured. It’s the substitute for a lack of cultural and national identity hence this over-reliance on religion. Without Islam the Persians still have Iran, the Arabs Arabic and the Turks Turkey; what do the Pakistanis have but India, their most hated enemy?
That’s just BS; there is strong doctrinal justification for coercion in Islam. Islam is built on a societal domination where Islamic values are imposed and yes while Islamic societies were diverse; it was Muslim & Dhimmi (the Kafirs were retrofitted to become Dhimmi).
There is alot of fear in Pakistan however I disagree with Razib that Pakistani liberals are simply aping belief. Pakistani Liberals have bought into all aspects of TNTism & Islamic nationhood hook, link and sinker (even I myself lose my shit over the Urdu language, such conditioning will never go away).
BritPaks like Jameela Jamil and myself routinely shit on the worthless aspects of Pakistani culture. I’m really inspired by Jameela’s tweet:
https://twitter.com/jameelajamil/status/1128013071295762432?s=20
I haven’t had an abortion but again I’m not going to focus on micro-aggressions in Georgia but macro aggressions in Pakistan:
When at 19 Mehnaz became pregnant for the fifth time, she panicked. She already had four daughters, and her husband was threatening to throw her out if she had another. So she did what millions of Pakistani women do every year: She had an abortion.
Like many of those women, her abortion was partly self-administered. “I kept taking tablets — whatever I laid my hands on,” she says. “I lifted heavy things” — like the furniture in her tiny living room. She drank brews of boiled dates — many Pakistanis believe the beverage triggers labor.
“I’m in Lahore and was not fasting. At lunch I ran through complete MM Alam road to grab something to eat, none of the restaurants including KFC McDonald’s was serving.”
Could there be an economic rationale to not keeping your joint open when there’re not enough customers?
Your employees would be fasting as well and they’d also appreciate the break.
Obviously, this leaves open an opportunity for some enterprising businessperson to capture the market for minorities and menstruating women.
Absolutely not – as a young lad in pakistan even I know better than not to eat in public.
Also these type of joints would have Christian Employees too..
“when I’m understandably upset about what a shit country I hail from.”
Bro you are getting unnecessarily worked up on this. We dont have control on where we are born.
BTW what’s happening in Georgia is a shitshow, i mean to be so indifferent to women’s concerns has to be a talent
Having grown up in Pakistan, I doubt abolishing Islam would change it for the better. The society and culture is highly brutal and vicious. Oppression of the poor, minorities, women etc. would continue unabated whether the population was agnostic or believed in Episcopalianism, Shintoism or voodoo. It is a fake nation made up of the most backward parts of the sub-continent, cursed with a rent-seeking elite who are happy to grind the poor into the dirt as long as their lawns are well-watered and they can continue to do as they wish.
Pakistan is not a “fake nation”. It’s been more than 70 years. At this point, we are just as legitimate as any other nation-state.
Fake in the sense that there was no “Pakistani” polity in the northwest of the subcontinent that had been calling for a separate nation. it was a creation largely of Muslims from the current India. It took until 1946 for Punjab voters to decisively swing in favour of the Muslim League away from the Unionist party. Bangladesh in a way had it easier as it was based on a single ethny with one language.
I think alot of Pakistan is about the 1%..
Ouch
When have I ever defended the Etheram-e-Ramzan ordinance? Fasting is supposed to be between the individual believer and Allah. It is not the duty of the state to enforce it. The Quran itself mentions exceptions such as people who are too ill to fast, those who are traveling etc. Also, not everyone in Pakistan is Muslim.
But I don’t think it is fair to say that this has to do with the nature of Islam. There are Muslim countries which don’t have these types of laws. Even in pre-Zia Pakistan, restaurants used to be open. These are man-made laws.
Unfortunately when you create an “Islamic Republic”, there will be pressure to make it more and more “Islamic”. Majoritarianism is a problem in all of South Asia.
“These are man-made laws.”
I like your comment, one thing I notice with Muslim apologists is this type of phrasing.
Basically culture and jurisprudence are to blame, but the key religious texts are perfect.
With most Hindus and Christian apologists I notice something similar but they will say culture, jurisprudence, are to blame, religious texts are allegorical, but the core values of the religion are perfect.
I sometimes wonder why Muslims a a group seem uniquely stuck on trying to defend minutiae and the literal interpretations of their holy books in the year 2020. When the other great religions of the world have moved on to defending their core values.
The other type of so-called liberal phrasing is – ‘have I ever (here) promoted jihad, kill infidels, sharia, 77 virgins, taquiya, etc?’. But, they do not say if they agree or disagree with these things, not mention to strongly denounce them as anticivilizational . Considering ‘taquiya’ even if such statement is hypothetically made, it would be without any credibility.
People should only be held responsible for their own actions and beliefs not for those of others.
For the record, I am against violent extremism, which includes jihad and killing “infidels”. You don’t have to believe me (you probably won’t) but don’t misrepresent my views.
Taquiya is brought up by non-Muslims who dislike Islam, don’t know much about it and find it useful to spin a fantasy of Muslim fifth-columnists infiltrating them. It is a Shia concept used by them to avoid persecution in Sunni-majority lands. Sunni Muslims were on top in their regions and then colonised outright. Why would they need to spin a program of dissimulation when religious persecution of them was non-existent?
The 77 virgins thing is only mentioned by non-Muslims. I have yet to hear a sermon talk about this, usually the emphasis is that the main advantage of being in heaven is you avoid spending eternity in hellfire.
I’m not being an apologist. I simply think that we should correctly identify where the problem lies. The issue is with the Ehtram-e-Ramazan Ordinance and not with the scripture itself. The scripture acknowledges that not everyone is able to fast (and some people may choose not to) and leaves it as an individual decision. It is Pakistani law, introduced by a military dictator in 1981, which prohibits eating or serving food in public. Unfortunately when so-called “Islamic” laws are introduced, it is often impossible to roll them back. It is possible to be against such laws without being against the entire religion.
For the record I think the core values of Islam are very admirable (charity, moderation, non-tribalism, temperance, mercy, humility etc.)
yes that are actually. Kabir actually ramps up the Islamophobia on this blog with his reflexive defense rather than letting us all let off steam and then actually admiring Islam/Islamicate.
http://asianews.it/news-en/Ramadan:-violence-against-those-who-do-not-fast-46997.html