Category: Open Thread

some random news items.

A “liberal” doctor said something to a pharma rep (he probably said “I dont want to prescribe your overpriced medication to patients who don’t need it“) and the pharma rep told his buddies that the local GP is a liberal and is not properly respectful of religion. His buddies happened to be graduates of the vast network of Islamic Purification Factories one can find all over Pakistan. Mom (Pakistan’s far-sighted armed forces) and Dad (Saudi Arabia and the USA, in that order) got together to make this baby in the 1980s, but as in humans, the germ cells within mom were born a generation earlier. Lovingly cradled in the Islamic Republic and brought to maturity in anticipation of the arrival of Daddy’s little swimmers. Anyway, the local graduates were quick to grasp the necessary implications of having a “liberal” doctor in Jalalpur Jattan. They went and shot him dead.

Junaid, a “liberal” student from the remote borderlands of Punjab went to America on a Fulbright scholarship and came back to teach at Multan University (yes, I know, Bloody Fool, so close to a Green card and he returns to teach!). His “conservative colleagues” were unhappy. So they asked the local chapter of the Islamic Chatra Shibbir to put a stop to this menace. A pamphlet was circulated, saying that Junaid was a blasphemer who wrote blasphemous things about the wives of the Holy Prophet on Facebook under the pseudonym “Mullah Munafiq”. The police sprang into action and arrested the man from a 100 miles away. They prepared an indictment without bothering to involve the cybercrimes wing or otherwise find evidence connecting Junaid to Mulla Munafiq. No evidence? No problem. He is still in prison, 14 months later.

 Junaid’s family had a hard time finding a lawyer for him, until the local representative of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan took the case. He was threatened in court by fellow lawyers for daring to do so. He reported the threats to the police. A few weeks later, he was shot dead. Junaid no longer has a lawyer and faces a mandatory death penalty. Mulla Munafiq is still happily posting on FB 14 MONTHS after Junaid was arrested and put in high security prison. The ways of the infidels are indeed mysterious.

Faisal, a generous, loving, hard-working doctor had served his community for 25 years. He happened to be a Shia and made no bones about it. This was not a problem in the old, impure Pakistan, but by now a “Muavia colony” has grown up near his home (how fast they grow up!).
Muavia colony. As they say in Urdu “naam hi kafi hai” (“the name says it all”). Someone from Muavia colony sent him (and his brother and his cousin) threats, warning them to stop polluting the clean air of Hasan Abdal with their “Rafidhi” religion. They stayed in town, providing medical care to thousands. So Dr Babar Ali was shot dead on his way home from work in March 2014. And 2 months later, so was Dr Faisal Manzur. The police remain clueless.

A group of lawyers protested against police high-handedness. The police officer involved is named Umar Daraz. He was verbally abused during the protest. His name happens to be the name of the second caliph of Islam (and of a few million other people). 60 lawyers have been charged with blasphemy. 

A poor Christian woman working in the fields drank water from a “Muslim” cup. The local Muslim women (“superior” to the Chrisitan lady in terms of status) complained and they had an argument. A couple of days later she was charged with blasphemy. She was duly sentenced to death in 2010. She is still on death row. Hearing about this, the Governor of Punjab said he thought this was a bit much and she should be set free.

His own guard gunned him down. Hundreds of lawyers volunteered to defend the killer. Thousands rallied in front of the killer’s house to support the noble family and to praise their glorious son. A judge sentenced him to death and then ran away from the country because of death threats. A mosque has just been named in honor of the killer. Local Barelvis (so-called “Liberal Sufi Muslims” in  the discourse of Western and Westernized Desis) are delighted that one of their own has restored their honor by killing the governor.

Subhanallah. Everything is going according to plan.

Only an armed force can stop these armed purifiers of Pakistan. But the army has other priorities (linked less to Islamic purification and more to permanent and over-riding “strategic” aims like the conquest of Afghanistan and the eventual defeat of India; but its all connected anyway). Liberals will either have to convert the army to their cause or move to the US to try and invent counter-propaganda for use after the apocalypse.

Theoretically, there is another option: the liberals, Shias, Pakhtoon Nationalists, Baloch Nationalists, Sindhi Nationalists, Ahmedis, Hindus, Free Thinkers, malcontents, etc. could, separately or together, invite another army to enforce order. For various reasons, I think this is not possible at this stage. But after the apocalypse, all bets are off...

For background on the blasphemy law, see here. 

I am posting this excellent column from Gul Bukhari in full. It sheds some light on some aspects of state collusion in this saga.

Our story is heartbreaking, but worth listening to, if you have time, sir. You see us in rags, fearful of rats, and disheveled living in this dungeon, the dingy basement of our own house, and you may think that we were always like this. But that’s not the case, sir. Ours used to be a house, bright and airy, with sprawling lawns, old trees, exotic plants, and vines climbing over the marble pillars of our front porch that overlooked a fountain and a pond filled with colorful fish. At midday when the sun was high, a rainbow appeared on the sheath of mist by the fountain.
The house had many sections, each lived-in by a distinct family having a unique trait, yet the living was harmonious and filled with laughter: Children running about playing hide and seek among the evergreens; birds chirping in the foliage of the fruit laden trees, and peacocks dancing with their plumes open, like bouquets placed over a carpet of green, the pasture–crisscrossed by a bubbly stream, carrying water pure and sweet; and on the horizon towered a mountain chain, their snowy peaks glimmered like gold in the rays of the setting sun.

An old banyan tree stood at the entrance of the house, and from its branches hung, like a woman’s curls, twirly threads–their tips touching the ground; and it was around its trunk where all the family members used to get together from time to time. We used to have guests from all over the world; and some would like our place so much, they would choose to stay and become permanent residents of our home. The food was plenty, the fields were fertile, and we thought things would go on forever in the same way. But as you know, sir: Nothing remains the same.
Some dispute arose among the family members: nothing so great which couldn’t have been solved if we’d all wanted to–after all we’d lived together for centuries. Needless to say, the family quarrel got out of hand; and lets not get into details, sir, for they are messy details, really messy. To cut it short: The house was divided. We got to keep the east and the west flank of the house, and our cousins got the center with the banyan tree in the middle. We were not used to this kind of fragmented existence, but we knew there was no chance of ever going back to live like one unified family again. We felt insecure in our new living arrangement, and so we hired a Chowkidar.
This nice looking fellow with resolute eyes, a rifle on his shoulder, and a smile under his stiff mustache–for us was hard to tell if it was a genuine or a fake one–reassured us about our security, and we gave him a generous sized quarter, one in each flank of the house, to lodge. We fed him the best of foods, clothed him in an expensive uniform, and gave him the top salary. But sir, there was something about him which always made us uncomfortable and doubtful about his intentions. We began to feel that he may not do much to protect us in the time of need. We were right, sir: He got fat and lazy, and many a times we found him snoring at night when he should have been up keeping a watch. In the end, it’s all our mistake, sir. We let the matter go unnoticed for a long time. Of course, in due time we found out that the chowkidar had been planning to control all the affairs of the house right from the beginning, from the very time we hired him. It was too late by then.
To keep his grip on the house, he started inventing all kinds of stories. For example, he threatened us by telling us how the neighbors, the ones with the banyan tree, had been planning to attack us and take over our house. Sir, in reality, the neighbors had been busy dealing with their own problems. They had no interest in taking over our crumbling building, which over time needed some serious maintenance work. One day, during the monsoon, the east flank was flooded after a heavy downpour, and the chowkidar, instead of saving our family members, actually killed the ones trying to swim to safety. We were all told to shut up and mind our own business, sir. Scared to death, we knew at the time that things would only get worse.
It was then that a realization hit us: We had lost our say in matters pertaining to the upkeep of our house. The Chowkidar meanwhile devised all kinds of schemes to make sure he’d continue to keep us hostage to his way of looking at things: to see our existence as an ongoing fight against the neighbors; and he convinced us to see this fight as a Jihad.
In the absence of any alternative, many of the hostage owners, that is us, sir, got brainwashed over time. We forgot our identity; and now sir, we live in this dark and damp basement of our own house, infested with cockroaches, rats, ticks, dust mites and molds of all kinds. Our chowkidar has confiscated all the rooms of the house in the upper stories. They are beautiful rooms, sir, with large windows that open into the surrounding lawns, with views of snowy peaks and lush valleys.
You will agree, sir, thinking requires plenty of fresh air and oxygen; and due to lack of both, we the owners have stopped thinking a long time ago. To tell you the truth, sir, most of us now just simply believe whatever comes out of the lips of the chowkidar. The sad part is, sir, that we fully well know that the air we live and breath has been deteriorating for a long time. Many of us feel the pressure on our chests; we feel suffocated, choked. When we complain about this to our master, the chowkidar, telling him that our lives have been getting more and more difficult with each passing day, we are told: “You people are destined for a very big role in this world; and this has been divinely ordained and foretold; your reward is in the next world.”
When we tell him that before we fulfill that divine role, we need simple stuff, such as clean water, electricity, basic repairs, oil in the creaky door-hinges, pest control and an inlet for fresh air, he tells us: “The house–which is now his, for we, the real owners, live within its basement–is a Fortress.”
Lounging on a luxurious sofa, which once belonged to our great grandfather, and smoking a pipe which smells of expensive, imported tobacco, he says: “Get up, fight and be prepared to give your life for the noble cause of defending your house. He says: “Great people die for glory; they make the ultimate sacrifice; they don’t care if they are annihilated for a noble cause—Let us protect this Fortress.” And then taking a puff and blowing all the smoke on our faces he narrows his eyes, twirls his mustache and says: “You complain of bad air, lack of clean water and fresh food and electricity, and pests roaming all around–these are all part of a Test–a divine Test!”
Sir, for how long this test will last?

Just for a change of pace, here is what our Japanese friends are in to these days…