PM Modi must immediately ban this “fauxgrapher” Alessio Malmo with a lifetime ban and SAARC must follow. I would also ban William Dalyrymple because his faux-Mughal faux-desi act is tiresome but then I’m getting ahead of myself.
The problem with desis is that we bicker over so much trivia (newsflash Nehru & Jinnah are long-dead) that we don’t focus on actually projecting the right image abroad.
India should have given lifetime bans to all of the makers of SlumDog Millionaire and oh yes ask for the Koh-i-Noor. The great mystery of how Duleep’s Singh line mysteriously died out (even when he had 8 children) is a historic tragedy..
Imran Khan of course has made a Faustian bargain and Mephistopheles is probably some shady top-brass general. A few points:
(1.) PTI + Army is the “National” pan-ethnic party of Pakistan that relies on the young frustrated nationalistic religious (but not fanatic) Pakistanis active on social media. As said it’s the BJP equivalent but since Pakistan is an Islamic Republic; the populist right-wing stance is of a different stance.
(2.) PPP & PML are the provincial parties and will have to work some sort of grand coalition deal to survive. The ethnic messy substratum layer of Pakistan that Partition and Paknationalism has tried so hard to erase will form half the country. Pakistani politics must adapt and will be interesting.
(3.) there is no doubt that there has been vote fudging; close seats haven’t been declared. I would imagine there is a PTI wave and approximately 10-20 seat victories are questionable however the PTI has arrived.
(4.) I personally find Imran Khan odd (like the Donald) as Vidhi quipped “Pakistan, like the US, has a thrice married leader.” I find Maryam or Fati much more palatable since women present a gentler side of our Islamic Republic..
(5.) I do think that today has been a victory for Pakistan. Democracy with Mughal characteristics has won the day. I jest but on a serious note; the democratic process is taking seed in Pakistan and the fact that the military are being push behind the scenes is a force for good.
(6.) this is very offensive; after 1948 & 1971, any more meddling in Pakistani sovereign territory is simply unacceptable and I say this as someone who is on the Barkha Dutta/Arundhati Roya spectrum of Pakistan (believe it or not so is Kabir).
(7.) Pakistan’s economy is in a right mess let’s see if Mr. Clean can fix it up but the biggest reason is of course Mephistopheles himself. I’ve seen the Marlow play twice (once with the Game of Thrones chap & Marlow descendant Kit H) and I genuinely can’t remember how the play ends. I’m not going to google it but let the suspense play out; let see how the reality tv version goes..
To be honest to compare the political cultures of Pakistan and India is insulting to the latter.
For instance the condemnable lynching of the Muslim cowherd has been loudly and clearly condemned by the Indian political and media establishment whereas Aasia Bibi is still in jail.
It is furthermore arguable that the more right wing parties in India are still more liberal than the left wing parties in Pakistan since the Indian Right, by and large, accepts the Nehruvian settlement whereas the Pakistani left accepts the Islamic Republic.
Notwithstanding these caveats (after commentators complained of the anti-Indian bias on BP I want to make sure I check myself); if we are to map the Indian and Pakistan political scenes I do see some symmetry between IK & Modi.
One striking one is that they both have rather weird sex lives and haven’t been able to make marriage work for them individually.
Tough times ahead for Pakistan if Imran Khan does get to power. However I will say this that like Modi he does seem rather incorruptible perhaps because he doesn’t have a dynasty.
I would never accept Jemima’s sons in a dynastic setting; Pakistan has a hard enough time dealing with Benazir’s brood. The advantage the Sharifs have with their children is that their children (Maryam et al) exude a Pakistaniness that only comes from being immersed in the environment. Bilawal suffers from the Rahul syndrome (to make another Indo-Pak comparison).
Canada’s parliament passed Motion 103 by a vote of 201–91 on March 23, 2017. The vote is nonbinding and some might allege that Tarek Fatah [an important leader of the global minority and liberal muslim movement] is over-concerned with it. This bill was pushed by the nonmuslim post modernist global intelligentsia in collaboration with the Arabist Lobby and soft Islamists as a way to support soft Islamists against moderate and minority muslims. Many of the Canadians duped into supporting Motion 103 are well intentioned useful idiots.
Tarek argues that Motion 103–which he believes is on the pathway to bringing blasphemy and apostasy laws to Canada–is precisely what most of Canada’s muslim immigrants came to Canada to run away from. I would add that this brings chills of fear down the spines of Canadian muslims and muslims who want to move to Canada. If Motion 103 ever became binding, it could be used to severely limit the freedom of art, thought, intuition and feeling of Sufis, twelvers, sixers, other minority muslims, moderate Sunnis, atheist muslims, ex-muslims; on the grounds that their practices, songs and sayings are Islamophobic and offensive to “muslims.”
Tarek Fatah said:
“it is almost as if you say Hindu or white man is an abuse now a days.”
when the muslims [Umayyad dynasty] tried to kill all remaining blood descendants of Mohammed’s pbuh family, the only country that protected the prophet’s pbuh family was Hindustan. For which Hindustan was attacked.
the holy Koran is not currently sequenced in the order Allah and Gabriel revealed it to the holy prophet.
Usman [and Fatimah] assembled the holy Koran in its current order twenty years after the holy prophet pbuh passed away.
Usman burnt three hundred copies of the holy Koran that didn’t exactly match his preferred written Koran.
muslims murdered the first four rightly guided muslim Caliphs.
the guys we are expected to follow got murdered by the very guys telling us we should follow them
my Hindu, Christian and Jewish friends make jokes . . . but when I do I can be killed
Hindus laugh all the time because Hindus have 50 million Gods so Hindus can pick a God and make fun of Him (the God they picked) because the other guy doesn’t even know that is a God.
[Hindus] have 50,000 books. No one can read them all. So no one knows how to get offended.
Just by holding the Koran [in a public talk] someone can get offended
Our greatest [muslim] saints . . . are celebrated by Sikhs and Hindus, not by muslims
Hindus are too busy getting MBAs or becoming CEOs to notice
All Islamaphobes in Iran die
Mansur Al Hallaj was beheaded for speaking the truth in Iraq 922 AD.
Nizammuddin Auliya said I have two doors in my house, when the mullah and the king enter from the front door I leave because evil comes from the front door with the ruler and the mullah come together [I would strongly recommend that everyone visit his Dargah in Delhi during their next trip. It is a life altering visit.]
There is a fatwa against the same microphone which is used to broadcast the morning prayer across the world.
Holy Land Foundation trial revealed that the Muslim Brotherhood or Ikhwan internally said in 1991 that “these are our organizations that we run under different names”:
Islamic Society of North America or ISNA
Muslim Student Association or MSA that has a presence in every urban high school in Canada and the United States
The Muslim Association of Scientists
seven others
We are waging a civilization jihad against western civilization by infiltrating and destroying from within
Not a single Indian muslim volunteered to fight on behalf of the Mukti Bahini [this is unfair . . . they were asked not to volunteer by Indira so that the Bangladeshi freedom struggle was not discredited. The mistake is Indira’s if there is a mistake.]
War between Mullah’s Islam and Allah’s Islam
There was no “Mullah’s Islam” during the life of the prophet pbuh.
The middle east was the only part of the world to not side against the Nazis in WWII.
many Nazis went to Egypt and Saudi Arabia in 1945
Soviet muslims defeated Hitler in WWII
Islam owes a lot to the Eastern Orthodox Church, to the Zorastrians and to the Hindus
Islam is Judaism planted on pagan Arab culture
We will eliminate Jihad in India before we do it anywhere else.
India is the only country where a muslim can speak the truth and survive [I would add the United States]
Despite a bounty on Tarek Fatah’s head with an Imam saying I will slit your throat was conquered by a million Indian muslims protecting Tarek Fatah.
Please watch this short Joe Rogan [Intellectual Dark Web extraordinaire] interview clip. Only about 29% of US High School graduates meet the minimum academic, physical health and IQ requirements to join the US military. Note that if high school dropouts were added the percentage would drop markedly. Less than 10% of US High School graduates are qualified for many branches of the US military. Note that the physical fitness requirements to join the US military are a joke, to put it very politely. Is America in the words of Charles Murray “Coming Apart” across class lines? Physical health and exercise are strongly correlated with academic performance, career and business outcomes:
The interview discusses how health outcomes, exercise, sports (including formal JV and Varsity High School Sports) are declining rapidly among American children. Sadly this deterioration of physical health might be leading to an increasing percentage of people around the working in “Bullshit Jobs” that don’t add value to society:
What is worse they are forced to pretend to add value and lie, which contributes to growing depression and mental health challenges (an article series on this is planned):
In eastern philosophy for thousands of years it has been believed that physical health (Sharira Siddhi), mental health (Chitta Shuddhi), and intelligence (Buddhi) can be increased by exercise, stretching, breathing, meditation (which I believe simulates the effect of modern brain therapy), sound brain therapy (Naad or Mantra Yoga), and serving others. [My hope is that researchers vigorously test all these hypothesis with data:]
This is why PM Modi of India is trying to offer Yoga classes in every school student in India:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyPZGhA-rMU
Why is America not similarly pushing for sports, martial arts, dance, gymnastics, exercise, stretching, breathing, meditation (brain therapy), sound brain therapy and better nutrition among poor children and the children of the lower middle class? Is it because of fear of the post modernist mostly caucasion intelligentsia? Is it for fear of being accused of victim blaming, racism, bigotry, sectarianism, prejudice, Nazism, Fascism, hegemony, exploitation, oppression, imperialism, colonialism, patriarchy, male misogyny, hate? Does anyone have any ideas on how to encourage character and good behavior among children without being accused of peddling an oppressive meta narrative and universalist norm? There is incredible fear to discuss culture in America:
It is possible that I am misunderstanding the zeitgeist and that there are other larger factors preventing American K-12 kids from eating healthy, exercising, meditating and listening to transcendent music?
If so, please let me know through your comments. This article, the fifth in the Post Modernist article series, is a plea for understanding rather than arguing a specific causation. Thanking all readers in advance for your insights and wisdom 🙂
Pakistan heads to the polls on July 25th. I happen to be in the middle of a move, so I have not been posting much but a short note on the election is certainly due. Back in 2013 Pakistan had its first peaceful democratic transfer of power and it looked like some sort of democracy was finally taking root, with the military still exercising disproportionate influence but with an elected government running most of the country according to its own priorities. Unfortunately, the trend line has since reversed and done so in spectacular fashion. There are many theories about why this particular reversal happened, with some people blaming the party in power (the nominally right of center PMLN) and others the overweening ambitions of GHQ (*General Headquarters. The army). Whatever the triggers, it seems that at some point the army high command decided that it could not coexist with Mian Nawaz Sharif and his politically ambitious daughter (Maryam Nawaz Sharif) and for the last year and a half the army, primarily acting through its intelligence agencies (for the rough stuff) and ISPR (the PR wing of the army, now expanded into a vast public relations operation with a serving general in charge) has been on a crusade against the PMLN in general and Mian Nawaz Sharif (MNS) and his daughter in particular.
The operation has not gone according to plan; it seems clear that the army expected that MNS would give up the fight easily and the PMLN (a party once put together with the help of the army and including many professional turncoats) in any case will get the hint and push him out and replace him with his more cooperative younger brother (Mian Shahbaz Sharif, MSS). But MNS has refused to back down and most of the party has chosen to stand by him. The army has been forced to resort to more and more blatant attempts at political engineering but every escalation has been met by even more stubborn and public resistance from MNS, culminating in his return to the country after being sentenced to a long prison term in a corruption case where legal norms were openly flouted and the fairness of the judiciary was seriously compromised. Multiple national and international observers have already commented on the kind of tactics being used to corner the PMLN and to give an unfair advantage to Imran Khan’s PTI and I won’t go into those details (see links for more on that), but this level of blatant military intervention has also stiffened the resistance of the PMLN and seems to have energized their supporters. At the same time, the combination of 24/7 one-sided propaganda in the Pakistani media and the behind the scenes pressures applied by intelligence agencies has not been without effect, with several candidates disqualified, others induced to switch sides and all facing the possibility of more engineering on election day. The end result is that there is great uncertainty on the eve of the election. Polls generally indicate a close contest, but the unknown unknowns make any guess hazardous.
I am not adding anything extra with this short news item, I think the news speaks eloquently and voluminously by itself. I just want to add that I feel utterly humble when I consider how much courage and determination people like Jibran Nasir possess to do what he is doing day after day in a place like Pakistan.
Rare secular candidate in Pakistan hounded by angry mob
ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – It began with a audience members asking Pakistani parliamentary candidate Jibran Nasir to declare his religion at a public forum, a request he politely refused on the grounds it is irrelevant.
Later, the mobs started showed up. In the past week, three of Nasir’s public meetings in Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city, have been disrupted by religious hardliners – shouting out and shoving his supporters.
Nasir, a human rights lawyer, is a rare breed in Pakistan: an avowedly secular, progressive candidate in the overwhelmingly Muslim country of 208 million, where most parties appeal to an Islamic vote bank.
His independent candidacy is in stark contrast to the prevailing mood of Pakistan’s campaign, which has seen the rise of new ultra-right Islamist parties campaigning on protecting draconian blasphemy laws and denouncing the persecuted Ahmadi sect.
Liberal and secular-minded Pakistanis say the sheer number of religious party candidates, combined with their ultra-conservative rhetoric, has already shifted the agenda in their direction.
Nasir aims to challenge the prevalent extremist discourse.
“Our campaign is bigger than just my win… What it is symbolizing for the people is a change in narrative,” he told Reuters.
“That challenging extremists is possible … not using religion to get votes is possible.”
Since launching his campaign, a number of clerics in Karachi have branded Nasir a blasphemer from the pulpit, a dangerous accusation in Pakistan that can lead to the death penalty, and labeled him an Ahmadi, a sect they consider heretics.
On Saturday, a mob of people chanting slogans associated with the new ultra-Islamist Tehreek-e-Labaik Pakistan party, which campaigns under the “death to blasphemers” rallying cry, descended on his public meeting, crowding around Nasir and intimidating his supporters.
“I believe it’s being done in a very organized manner,” Nasir said. “Our politics should be free from compromise, fear, and discrimination.”
Labaik spokesman Ejaz Ashrafi said his party “did not send anyone to do this”, adding that people running in elections should declare their faith.
Nasir gained nationwide prominence in 2014 after staging protests against the Red Mosque, the Islamabad center of a militant network with links to Pakistani Taliban strongholds in the northwest and in neighboring Afghanistan.
The mosque was the site of a military standoff in 2007, but within two years its chief cleric was freed from detention and was once again calling for strict Islamic rule across Pakistan.
The mosque campaign earned Nasir a phone call and death threats from a high-ranking Taliban commander.
“We are doing it for the millions of Pakistanis … who right now are forced to choose amongst the lesser of evils, who are willing to embrace different political leaders with all their biases and religious bigotry,” he said.
“Every day I am carrying on with my mission, they are making a fool of themselves.”
This is still a modest weblog. But engagement is high (average time on the website is 4+ minutes). And the proportion of Indian readers getting is higher and higher. At some point in 2019, conservatively, I think this weblog will have more Indian readers than American.
That is a problem for me because I have a hard time understanding a lot of the references or anticipating triggers. So flame-wars are getting common as I’m not sanitizing much….
The great story of our Post-1492 age is the decline and decline of Islam. I don’t know what the blip in China (between Burma and Laos) is but I imagine it must have something to do with the WarLord Era.
This does bring to mind Huntington’s maxim that Islam has bloody border; Spain, Israel, Greece (+Balkans) & the Phillipines have all shrugged of the Muslim yoke (according to their national histories)..
