Category: Uncategorized

(Originally published in The Friday Times)

History is an ensemble of memorable events and it is the job of historians to unweave the mystery of those events. Some historical events can be classified as outliers or turning points, altering the course of history. In Pakistan’s context, the first decade after partition held important pointers for things to come. One of the more significant events taking place soon after partition was the scramble for Kashmir. From the embers of the first Kashmir war arose the roots of a conspiracy to overthrow the incumbent civilian government. The conspiracy, known as the ‘Rawalpindi Conspiracy’ was hatched by military officials, all of whom had taken active part in the war for Kashmir. It was one of the first attempts in Pakistan’s history, by members of the armed forces, to stage a coup d’état. It can be argued that seeds of discontent (with civilian rule) among the military were sown during this conspiracy.

The conspiracy and principal actors involved in it have received scant attention during the last few decades. Hassan Zaheer, a retired civil servant, has written an excellent book detailing the conspiracy and its background. What distinguishes the book, titled ‘The Times and Trial of The Rawalpindi Conspiracy 1951’, is the attention to detail by the author who narrates the contemporary history of Kashmir in great detail, providing a platform for the reader to understand subsequent actions after partition.

The Muslim-majority princely state of Jammu and Kashmir was ruled by Maharaja Hari Singh, a Hindu Dogra Rajput. The Muslim population was not comfortable with Maharaja Hari Singh’s regime and its repressive policies. In July 1931, a commotion erupted in the Kashmir valley when Abdul Qadeer, employee of a British Officer visiting Kashmir, delivered an inflammatory speech about the sacrilege of mosques and restrictions on performance of religious rituals by the Dogra administration. In the agitation that followed Qadeer’s arrest and trial, one policeman and twenty-two demonstrators were killed. Srinagar city was placed under martial law and the agitation was suppressed brutally.

The All-India Kashmir Committee was formed in June 1933 by concerned Indian Muslims to highlight the plight of their Kashmiri brethren. The British government had to take note of the situation and the Maharaja appointed an official commission of Inquiry. The commission recommended granting a constitution to the State and safeguarding civil liberties. In the aftermath of the Qadeer agitation, two young leaders emerged to take over the leadership of popular protests.

Chaudhry Ghulam Abbas from Jammu and Sheikh Abdullah from Kashmir joined hands to organize people and in October 1932, the All Jammu and Kashmir Muslim Conference was established. Sheikh Abdullah had become the undisputed leader of the vale, but had no influence in Jammu while Ghulam Abbas’s leadership was confined to the Muslims of Jammu. In a few years, Abdullah gained power in the ranks of the Muslim Conference and changed its name to All Jammu and Kashmir National Conference to bring Hindus into the party’s fold, as advised by his idol, Pandit Nehru. Ghulam Abbas formed another party named Muslim Conference, with exclusive membership for Muslims.

In May 1944, Mr. Jinnah visited Kashmir in order to bring about a compromise between the National Conference and the Muslim Conference. In June 1944, after failure of the talks, addressing its annual session, Jinnah fully supported the Muslim Conference as the representative body of the Muslims of the State and criticized the National Conference for having opened its doors to non-Muslims.

The future of India after withdrawal was to be decided by the Cabinet Mission that arrived in 1946. The Mission presented a memorandum regarding the fate of more than 500 Princely states in India. The 3^rd June Plan reaffirmed the plan discussed in the memorandum. It stipulated that states had to join either India or Pakistan after partition, there was no option of Independence. In the run-up to the partition, All India Congress took an active interest in Kashmir and wooed the Maharaja, forcing him to change his pro-Pakistan Prime Minister at one point.

All India Muslim League had a policy of non-intervention in matters of Princely States, summarized in a letter written by a Muslim Conference leader from Jail. M. Shaukat Ali wrote, “What we are surprised about is the complete indifference and nonchalant attitude of the League vis-à-vis Kashmir. Nothing should prevent the League from taking an active and positive interest in our affairs. Why can’t the League send two top ranking members, like Nishtar and Daultana, to pay a visit to Jammu?” During the same period, Patel and other Congress Leaders were cultivating high level contacts with State authorities, whereas the Muslim league had no communication with any of them.

On the eve of partition, the Maharaja tried to impose a wide range of oppressive taxes on the Muslims of Poonch. It was a Muslim-majority area and many veterans of Subhash Chandra Bose’s Indian National Army (INA) hailed from this district. The refusal to pay these new taxes by villagers and landlords in June began to take the shape of a guerrilla movement, a command structure, and a network of communication between the villages and communities. In the last week of August 1947, a series of public meetings were organized by Sardar Abdul Qayyum Khan and other local leaders in Bagh Tehsil of Poonch district. From the meeting at Neelabutt on 23^rd August, an armed revolt against the state was launched. By the second week of September, the armed revolt had spread to whole of Poonch, as well as to the adjacent regions of Mirpur and Bhimber. Volunteers and tribesmen from Punjab and NWFP joined their kinsmen in the fighting that was going on in the Poonch areas. Most of the Muslim Conference’s top brass had managed to land themselves in jail because of a costly error of judgment. In the immediate post-independence days, the Muslim Conference failed to mobilize people and demonstrate their strength in favor of Pakistan.

An ‘Azad’ force comprising of tribesmen from FATA and Balochistan, under the command of veteran soldiers, was sent to Kashmir by the ruling government. Due to lack of discipline and training, the irregular force failed to advance upon Srinagar, having reached within a few miles of the State capital. Fearing the approaching tribals, Maharaja Hari Singh signed a document of accession to India, resulting in an influx of the Indian army to Kashmir. Mr. Jinnah ordered General Douglas Gracey (C-in-C, Pakistan Army) to move troops immediately ‘to seize the pass on Rawalpindi-Srinagar Road, and then to proceed through Srinagar, occupy Banihal Pass on the road to Jammu, isolating Srinagar and nullifying Indian intervention’. Mr. Jinnah was convinced by General Auchinlek to reconsider his orders and resolve this matter by talking to Nehru and Mountbatten. Failure of talks led to open confrontation between India and Pakistan. Brigadier Akbar Khan, a distinguished member of the British Army, had been appointed Director of Weapons and Equipment Directorate at the General Headquarters (GHQ) after Partition. He played an active role in providing arms to ‘Azad’ forces and returned to Kashmir during the first Indo-Pakistan war, which ended in a stalemate due to UN intervention. He was openly critical of the way the whole Kashmir operation was conducted. Akbar Khan’s Wife, Nasim Akbar, was inspired by communism and distributed communist literature among officers visiting their residence. The couple used to argue that ‘After the death of Quaid-i-Azam, there was no leader of his caliber to run the state, and that civil servants and police were corrupt. The people were not fully ready for a democratic state, but they had great faith in the army and there was no reason why it should not take over the government to run it honestly and efficiently’. Akbar Khan laid the blame of ‘failure’ in Kashmir squarely upon the civilian government.

During 1949, the initial planning of a coup was finalized and it was decided to arrest the Prime Minister (Liaquat Ali Khan) while he was visiting Peshawar in December 1949. Akbar Khan’s unit was based in Kohat and his co-conspirators included Major General Nazir, Bridagier Habibullah, Brigadier Latif Khan, Brigadier Sadiq Khan and Lt.Colonel Siddique Raja. It was planned that Governor General would be arrested in Lahore while the Commander-in-Chief of the Army, Chief of Staff, All British Generals and Adjutant General would be arrested from Rawalpindi. All Divisional Commanders were to be summoned to GHQ, relieved of their duties and arrested. Akbar Khan gave three reasons for military action, including the economic plight of the country, weakness of government during the Kashmir issue and incompetence of government in internal and external affairs. The Prime Minister was to be forced to announce his resignation and a military council was supposed to take over the reins of power.

Due to the unavailability of one of the conspirators, the plan didn’t materialize in 1949 and was postponed. In February 1951, the plan was revised and help was sought from members of the nascent Communist Party of Pakistan. The conspirators were arrested before they could seize power and the event was perhaps one of the first attempts to undermine the civilian government. It was, unfortunately, not to be the last one.

I recently recorded a podcast on this topic, which can be heard here:

https://patari.pk/home/song/Understanding-Pakistan-Episode-2-The-Rawalpindi-Consiracy-Case-Ft-Abdul-Majeed-Abid

https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/remember-tina-dabi-the-2015-ias-topper-she-married-atha-aamir-khan-2nd-rank-holder-from-kashmir-1834585?fb

She topped the civil service exam and he came number 2.

The untouchables strike back..

The trend is Indian is Hindu girls & Muslim boys and also for boys to marry upward in the class/caste hierarchy.

Part 1

Islamism or Political Islam are ideas that emerged in the early twentieth century and were formulated in different parts of the world mainly in response to fall of the Ottoman Caliphate. Two major figures that contributed to this debate immensely were Syed Qutb from Egypt and Abul Ala Maududi from India. The practical expression of this ideology came to fore in the later part of twentieth century and at the start of the twenty first. Browsing through the archives of history, one encounters figures that have been all but forgotten for the roles they played in the grand scheme of things. One such character that needs to be resurrected or at least identified for his role in popularising Islamism is that of Raja of Mahmudabad.

Amir Ahmad Khan (his given name) was a prominent landlord from United Provinces (U.P.). He received education from Lucknow and later from England. He was the youngest member of the Central Working Committee of All India Muslim League and its National Treasurer. He was the chief organizer of the Muslim League National Guard (till 1944) and the chief patron of the All India Muslim Students Federation (AIMSF) formed by Muslim students till August 1946. Despite his aristocratic background, he cultivated an austere personal style. He habitually wore khaddar, was known for his generosity towards his tenants, and his piety as a practicing Shia.

He was ultimately sold on the idea of Pakistan, but he chose to see the future state in a different light than Mr. Jinnah. He claimed that the Lahore resolution possessed global—and not just regional—significance. He exclaimed in a speech that it had been passed not just for Muslims in India but for Muslims in Turkey, Iran and Afghanistan and indeed the whole Islamic world. He held half-baked ideas about democracy and an ‘Islamic political system’ which he articulated in the following words: “When we speak of democracy in Islam it is not democracy in the government but in the cultural and social aspects of life. Islam is totalitarian — there is no denying about it. It is the Quran that we should turn to. It is the dictatorship of the Quranic laws that we want — and that we will have — but not through non-violence and Gandhian truth”.

He outlined some features of ‘Pakistan’ as he envisioned it in his Presidential address to Bombay Muslim League in May 1940: “There will be prohibition, absolute and rigorous, with no chance for its ever being withdrawn. Usury will be banished. Zakat will be levied. Why should not we be all allowed to make this experiment? In treading this path, we will not be crossing the path of any right-minded individual”.

Among contemporary ideologies, he found socialism to be compatible with Islam by and claimed that socialism was first inaugurated by Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) in Arabia long before it came into existence in Russia under the Bolsheviks. To the Raja, socialism just like Islam was based on a new vision of the world where there would be no discrimination based on colour, class, sect, region, or language. Before the Peoples’ Party of Zulfikar Bhutto appropriated the slogan of ‘Islamic Socialism’, Raja of Mahmudabad (and even Liaqat Ali Khan) had blown this trumpet.

Mr. Jinnah was not in favour of an overt theocracy at any time in his career and was irked by the frequent outbursts of Raja of Mahmudabad. An anecdote from Isha’at Habibullah’s unpublished autobiography demonstrates this attitude perfectly: “The Raja started the conversation by saying that since the Lahore resolution had been passed earlier that year, if and when Pakistan was formed, it was undoubtedly to be an Islamic State with the Sunna and Sharia as its bedrock. The Quaid’s face went red and he turned to ask Raja whether he had taken leave of his senses?

Mr. Jinnah added: Did you realize that there are over seventy sects and differences of opinion regarding the Islamic faith, and if what the Raja was suggesting was to be followed, the consequences would be a struggle of religious opinion from the very inception of the State leading to its very dissolution. Mr. Jinnah banged his hands on the table and said: We shall not be an Islamic State but a Liberal Democratic Muslim State.”

Major differences between Mr. Jinnah and Raja of Mahmudabad developed in 1946, due to the Raja’s espousal of violence in North West Frontier Province (NWFP) and his opposition to the Third June Plan that laid the way for partition of India. On the eve of the Partition, the Raja was in Hyderabad but refused to visit Karachi for the 14th August Independence ceremony.

He was appalled by the violence that accompanied the   Partition and left for Iran with his family soon after India was divided.

They travelled from there to Mashhad, then Tehran and finally to Karbala. The Raja and his family stayed in Iraq for ten years. In 1957, the Raja went to Pakistan and changed his Indian passport for a Pakistani one. He had thought of going into politics but then Pakistan was a different country. He was a Mohajir, a refugee in Pakistan, a Shia in a predominantly Sunni country. The Raja left Pakistan again and travelled to London where he finally settled down and passed away in 1973.

Part 2

Browsing through the archives of history, one encounters figures that have been all but forgotten for the roles they played in the grand scheme of things. One such character that needs to be credited for Islamist tendencies was Chaudhry Khaliquzzaman, a political figure from United Provinces (UP).

Early in his political career, he had visited Turkey as part of Red Crescent Society’s medical mission to Turkey led to Dr. M.A. Ansari during the Balkan Wars (1912-13). During the First World War, Ottoman Turkey (ruled by Pashas) decided to side with Kaiser Wilhem’s Germany (part of the Central Powers). Following the defeat of Central Powers, Ottoman Turkey was deprived of its territories and this sparked a furious reaction amongst Muslims in India. A ‘Khilafat Movement’ was led by clerics from India to pressurise the British Government into restoring the Ottoman territories. Khaliq was actively involved in the movement during the early 1920s and led Indian Muslim delegations in the 1930s to international conventions organised to defend Palestinian Arab rights in the face of the Zionist movement and the perceived British attempt to appease world Jewry.

In 1935, British Government introduced the ‘Government of India Act’ which proposed a Federal Structure for running the country under limited Indian rule and elections in provinces. Khaliquzzaman was a member of All India Congress for many years before officially joining All India Muslim League (AIML). He was the Secretary of Muslim Unity Board (MUB) comprising mostly of Muslim politicians with close links to the Congress party, and Ulema belonging to the Jamiatul Ulama-i-Hind. He was involved in a power struggle for leading the Muslim League Parliamentary Board in UP with Raja of Salempur. Before the 1937 Elections, Khaliquzzaman, was parleying with the Congress leadership over ministry making, against Mr. Jinnah’s wishes. He started an Urdu newspaper named Tanveer for propagating pro-AIML’s message.

Speaking at the Pakistan session of the Punjab Muslim Students Federation conference in March 1941, Khaliq said that, “Just as the Prophet had created the first Pakistan in the Arabian Peninsula the ML now wanted to create another Pakistan in a part of India.”

Addressing a gathering in his hometown of Lucknow, he explored the relationship between territorial nationalism and Islam. The Hindus, he noted, saw nationalism as a Hindu Goddess (Devi) that needed to be worshipped. This practice was abhorrent to a Muslim for even though he loved his nation, he could never worship this Devi and become a slave of nationalism. In May 1942, he stated his Islamist goals in following words, “Pakistan is not the final goal of the Muslims. We want more. Pakistan is only the jumping off ground. The time is not far distant when the Muslim countries will have to stand in line with Pakistan and then only the jumping ground will have reached its fruition.”

Soon after the Lahore Resolution, Nawab Ismail Khan convened a conference of Ulema and prominent Muslim intellectuals to draft a blueprint for an Islamic Constitution that would inaugurate an Islamic state in Pakistan. The first meeting was held at the Nadwatul Ulama, Lucknow and was attended by Ismail Khan, Khaliquzzaman, Syed Sulaiman Nadwi, Azad Subhani and Abdul Majid Daryabadi. He firmly believed that a solution to the communal problem can be found by use of force. At a public meeting at Fyzabad, he said: “If the Musalmans of India pursue the policy of tooth for tooth, eye for an eye, nail for a nail, no power on earth can dominate them.”  On the question of the Muslims in the ‘minority provinces’ such as the U.P., Khaliq subscribed to the ‘Hostage population theory’ which he explained in the following words: “After Pakistan is established, the Hindu majority provinces will think a hundred times before they resort to any tyrannical act. They know the Indian Muslim who can shed his blood for his Muslim brethren of Turkey can also do something to save his Indian Muslim brethren of the minority provinces.”

He was fond of recalling past Muslim victories in the subcontinent for furthering political causes. Before the 1946 Elections to the UP Assembly, Khaliq asked Muslims to win the fourth and fifth battles of Panipat corresponding to the central and provincial assembly elections, by casting their votes in favour of the All India Muslim League. After the elections, Khaliquzzaman joined the Constituent Assembly as the leader of the opposition and pledged his loyalty to the Indian Union (although he resigned and left for Pakistan after Partition. Once in Pakistan, he resumed his Islamist activities. He was a founding member of the ‘Islamic World Brotherhood’ alongside Molana Shabbir Usmani. They convened a ‘World Muslim Conference’ in January 1949. A brochure at the conference titled ‘Muslims of the World Unite’ stated that ‘it was but natural that such an effort is made by Muslims of a country who do not subscribe to the theory that a nation is based on geography or race, but whose country’s very foundation is laid on a theory of religious nationality.’

Chaudhry Khaliquzzaman was appointed the President of Pakistan Muslim League a year after he moved from UP. Khaliq affirmed the World Muslim Conference promoted by Shabbir Usmani, as the first step in the creation of a permanent world organization, which would have branches not only in Muslim countries of the world but also in countries with Muslim minorities. It could soon be extended to become an organization similar to the Organization of American States. Expressing the long term aims of the Conference, he noted that in the context of the failure of the Arab League and Arab racial sentiment, he expected the ‘natural reaction’ of Muslims in Arab countries to work for the creation of a ‘central authority for Muslim States which can protect them against further political and economic inroads of other powerful States.’ He conceived this supervening authority in terms of the ‘Quranic State’, which he believed could be brought about through ‘political associations, social contacts, economic co-operation, and linguistic changes.’ This state would embrace any and all Muslim countries that wished to join and would be structured as ‘a loose federation of autonomous states bound together alike by adherence to the principles of Islam and mutuality of interests.’

His last political appointment was to the Governorship of East Pakistan. He passed away in 1973, two years after East Pakistan seceded. Religion did not play the role of ‘glue’ between the two halves of Pakistan, despite the claims of Islamists from UP.

It has been 70 years since the Partition of India. The separation was an ugly affair, with both sides holding grievances against each other. After living side by side for more than a thousand years, Hindus and Muslims were declared separate nations by the All India Muslim League which used religion as the primary reason to demand a separate state. When Pakistan came into being, Mr Muhammad Ali Jinnah tried to be inclusive in his August 11th speech at the Constituent Assembly. But his was a lone voice in a chamber full of proto-Islamists. Debates over the Objectives Resolution brought this issue to the fore when all the non-Muslim members of the Assembly voted against it. The Islamic identity that was chosen by the ruling elite, was propped up in opposition to secular India. Pakistan’s attitude towards India has steered its foreign policy and at times, domestic policy, throughout the last seven decades.

Former Pakistani Ambassador to the US Husain Haqqani has had a ringside seat to developments in this arena since the late 1980s. His latest book, India vs Pakistan: Why Can’t We Just Be Friends, tries to capture this unique relationship by focussing on four key areas: History, Kashmir conflict, Nuclear Bombs, and Terrorism. His analysis is peppered with interesting anecdotes that shed a new light on how politicians from the two countries have interacted over the years. It is also a concise history of different efforts by both countries and the International community (United Nations, the United States, and China) to reach a settlement on bilateral issues, especially the Kashmir dispute. Another book that sheds light on recent milestones in India-Pakistan relationship is Myra Macdonald’s ‘Defeat is an Orphan: How Pakistan Lost the Great South Asian War’. Based on her reporting experience in South Asia for more than a decade, MacDonald has penned a magisterial account of events that underpin the current relationship between the two countries.

On Kashmir, Ambassador Haqqani mentions the 1962-63 Indo-Pak talks when India was willing to give up 1500 square kilometres of territory but then Foreign Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto stuck to a maximalist position, rejecting the offer out of hand. Both sides have stuck to their guns since then and neither side is willing to consider a middle-of-the-road compromise anymore. Pakistan has tried using non-state actors and direct intervention, worsening its own case. India neglected the Kashmiris — despite Kashmir’s state assembly ratifying the accession of state to India in the 1950s — and tried manipulating election results in 1987, resulting in a full-scale insurgency that was later supported by Pakistan. After 9/11 attacks, when the insurgency in Kashmir died off, India failed to sell its multicultural and liberal democratic dream to the Kashmiris. In a recent interview with Indian Express, former chief of India’s Research & Analysis wing (RAW) A.S. Dulat spoke about the failure of Indian government to try rapprochement with Kashmiri leadership, resulting in the current unrest in the Valley.

I have heard similar anecdotes first-hand from people who had a chance to interact with military top-brass in Pakistan. Pakistan remains the only state among the nuclear-capable countries to publicly say that its nukes exist as a defence against another country (India) but it has not yet stated a ‘No First Use’ policy. Nuclear weapons have thus become an integral part of Pakistani nationalism and identity, according to analyst Feroz Hassan Khan. India started its nuclear programme ostensibly to obtain nuclear energy but changed course after the 1962 Indo-China war. Macdonald has mentioned at least three instances when India was ready to display its nuclear capability (before 1998) but was restrained by International pressure. The spectre of a nuclear war hangs over India and Pakistan and remains the biggest threat to humanity in this region. Unlike Nuclear scientists elsewhere in the world, many of Pakistan’s scientists have gone ‘rogue’ in recent years. These include the megalomaniac Dr AQ Khan indulging in a global nuke trade and others who are known to have visited Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan.

The year 2016 saw three different events that will define the broader contours of Indo-Pak relations in the 21st century. On Christmas day in 2015, also the birthday of Pakistan’s current prime minister, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi had made an unexpected visit to Lahore, raising hopes for improvement in relations and opening of a dialogue. Exactly a week after that, terrorists attacked India’s Pathankot airbase. Investigations by Indian authorities revealed a Pakistani connection and Pakistan’s government publicly agreed to cooperate with the investigation. In March 2016, Pakistan’s National Security Adviser called his Indian counterpart and alerted him about a possible attack during the Shivartari celebrations in Gujarat. As a result, security was beefed up and nothing untoward took place. In April of the same year, Pakistan arrested a suspected Indian spy from Balochistan. The arrest was presented as evidence of Indian meddling in Pakistan’s internal affairs and ended any hope of a dialogue with India.

In the last few years, India has started treading the path that Pakistan has taken since the beginning: a path of intolerance, jingoistic nationalism and a visceral hatred for secular values. Pakistan’s political class has lately been trying to change course but the immovable force known as the ‘establishment’ stands in the way. Without improvement of relations between the two countries, the future of South Asia is bleak.

https://www.outlookindia.com/magazine/story/god-is-not-a-khomeini/298043

…An Islamic prototype for free thought and action: Part of the unthought and the unthinkable in Islam is the lesson to be gleaned from the parting of ways between God and Satan, as described in the Quran. When Satan rebelled against God’s command and threatened to lead humanity astray until the day of judgement, God had the option of doing a Khomeini and deciding to finish off Satan once and for all (in the memorable words of V.S. Naipaul in response to the fatwa against Salman Rushdie, ‘an extreme form of literary criticism!’). But he dec­ided to let Satan go and do as he pleased. In other words, God granted Satan absolute freedom of expression and action for eternity. As the Malayali Marxist intellectual K.E.N. recently stressed, the Quranic narrative about God’s decision to grant Satan full freedom is perhaps the best model for Muslims to emulate in matters of freedom of thought and expression. Once they do that, the prospect of a civilisational ascent, as happened during the days of the Abbasid and Andalusian glories, will again beckon.

(Shajahan Madampat is a cultural critic, writing mostly in Malayalam and English and occasionally in Arabic.)

The Arabs would be the venerable, schizophrenic and impotent patriarch.

Iran would be the ageless, beautiful but bitter bride, constantly scheming and harlotting where she can.

The Turks would be the valiant general with whom Iran has carrying on with for the past millennia shortly after her Arabian rape.

Pakistan would be the 20-something sub-altern to the general desperately trying to win the respect of the Patriarch and love of the Bride; to the amusement of all 3.

The Afghans would be the angry teenage chowkidar (gatekeeper) pushed around by the sub-altern after he’s been slapped around.

The Kurds and Berbers would be the angry adopted kids constantly plotting to break up the House but never really getting anywhere except for minor victories. They win a bedroom here and there but they aren’t able to make their own house; no funds, no love, no real friends.

The Indians & Bangladeshis would be the next neighbours over wondering why the sub-altern prefers to be a servant in that house rather than a friend in theirs.

The rest (Malays, Africans) are distant cousins who come over once a year for an Eid reunion and visit the ailing Patriarch.

Someone should make a comic strip about the Ummah; I’m sure it’ll be a blast, no pun intended..

Pardon my French!

The shooter’s name was Nasim Eghdam, who anyone would know was Persian.

In fact she turned out to be a Bahai (like me)! Also there are some Persian surnames that are predominantly or disproportionately Bahá’í in origin because Iran adopted surnames in the 20’s/30’s. Eghdam did sound like a Bahá’í surname..

Of course it seems she had some sort of mental illness and I apologise on behalf of our faith (any violence is forbidden). There could have been no justifications for her action and her father did warn the police. Thankfully no one was killed (3 were unfortunately wounded) and it really does seem like mental illness.

I’m really shocked that a Bahá’í could do something like this but I’m sure there are many learning lessons for the community in this (what do we do with isolated believers etc).

Finally Tarek Fatah is a fool and a half. Anyone with common sense would know that this was a Persian name and that Persians won’t do Terrorism in the name of Islam. I’m beside myself with fury at his blatant Islamophobia; not that I’m an apologist for Muslims in any way.

As one can contrast my approach and apology about a Bahá’í shooter (the genuine shame that she brings on the Faith & the sadness that the Faith was not there for her) in contract to the constant defensiveness of Muslims about terrorism done in the name of Islam.

I am trying to avoid the “P-word” in BP but my wife assures me that after the Shahid Afridi controversy that if BP were to simply be about that “topic” we’d get a million viewers a day (I was telling her the readership views). I’ll probably crack from the moratorium but in the meantime let’s read on the sublime Romesh Ranganathan (his sense of humour is just wicked).

Before I first arrived in the US, I had been bombarded with advice from my friends about the nightmarish experiences that anyone brown faces at immigration, and warned that I should steel myself for a thorough interrogation and a cavity search. This turned out not to be the case, as I was welcomed by the officer at immigration and wished well on my new journey. He then started discussing astrology with me, which I couldn’t give a shiny shit about, but obviously had to feign interest to avoid immediate deportation.

It was only a couple of weeks later that my attitudes towards racism were once again brought under scrutiny. My family and I were at a restaurant having dinner with an all-white family (I mention this because it’s relevant to the story, not just because I want to show off that I have white friends) when an older woman approached our table.

“I have been watching you all evening, and I have to say how wonderful I think you are.” Nobody at the table had any idea what she was talking about, but, I have to admit, a small part of me hoped I might have been recognised so that I could demonstrate to my wife that I did in fact have some profile over here and this move to the US wasn’t a complete waste of time. My dreams were immediately shattered, however, when she announced to most of the restaurant: “This is what America is all about. Families eating together regardless of colour! This makes me so happy. And I’m saying this as a Republican!”

I sat in astonishment as my wife and friend discussed how nice that was and what a positive experience we had just had. I firmly disagreed. I made the point that we were just sitting having dinner and that we should be able to do that without it being commented on or misinterpreted as some sort of social statement. My wife and friend, however, felt that this woman might have felt like she had made some progress in her attitudes and that her approaching us to share that was something to be celebrated.

On both of these occasions, I felt that my response to what was happening was insufficient and that perhaps I have a responsibility to tackle these beliefs to help combat discrimination. But, mostly, I just want to have a quiet Mexican meal with my token white mate.