Sunday, December 7, 2008
Saturday, December 6, 2008
Friday, December 5, 2008
Calling All Pakistanis
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Published: December 2, 2008
On Feb. 6, 2006, three Pakistanis died in Peshawar and Lahore during violent street protests against Danish cartoons that had satirized the Prophet Muhammad. More such mass protests followed weeks later. When Pakistanis and other Muslims are willing to take to the streets, even suffer death, to protest an insulting cartoon published in Denmark, is it fair to ask: Who in the Muslim world, who in Pakistan, is ready to take to the streets to protest the mass murders of real people, not cartoon characters, right next door in Mumbai?
After all, if 10 young Indians from a splinter wing of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party traveled by boat to Pakistan, shot up two hotels in Karachi and the central train station, killed at least 173 people, and then, for good measure, murdered the imam and his wife at a Saudi-financed mosque while they were cradling their 2-year-old son — purely because they were Sunni Muslims — where would we be today? The entire Muslim world would be aflame and in the streets.
So what can we expect from Pakistan and the wider Muslim world after Mumbai? India says its interrogation of the surviving terrorist indicates that all 10 men come from the Pakistani port of Karachi, and at least one, if not all 10, were Pakistani nationals.
First of all, it seems to me that the Pakistani government, which is extremely weak to begin with, has been taking this mass murder very seriously, and, for now, no official connection between the terrorists and elements of the Pakistani security services has been uncovered.
At the same time, any reading of the Pakistani English-language press reveals Pakistani voices expressing real anguish and horror over this incident. Take for instance the Inter Press Service news agency article of Nov. 29 from Karachi: “ ‘I feel a great fear that [the Mumbai violence] will adversely affect Pakistan and India relations,’ the prominent Karachi-based feminist poet and writer Attiya Dawood told I.P.S. ‘I can’t say whether Pakistan is involved or not, but whoever is involved, it is not the ordinary people of Pakistan, like myself, or my daughters. We are with our Indian brothers and sisters in their pain and sorrow.’
But while the Pakistani government’s sober response is important, and the sincere expressions of outrage by individual Pakistanis are critical, I am still hoping for more. I am still hoping — just once — for that mass demonstration of “ordinary people” against the Mumbai bombers, not for my sake, not for India’s sake, but for Pakistan’s sake.
Why? Because it takes a village. The best defense against this kind of murderous violence is to limit the pool of recruits, and the only way to do that is for the home society to isolate, condemn and denounce publicly and repeatedly the murderers — and not amplify, ignore, glorify, justify or “explain” their activities.
Sure, better intelligence is important. And, yes, better SWAT teams are critical to defeating the perpetrators quickly before they can do much damage. But at the end of the day, terrorists often are just acting on what they sense the majority really wants but doesn’t dare do or say. That is why the most powerful deterrent to their behavior is when the community as a whole says: “No more. What you have done in murdering defenseless men, women and children has brought shame on us and on you.”
Why should Pakistanis do that? Because you can’t have a healthy society that tolerates in any way its own sons going into a modern city, anywhere, and just murdering everyone in sight — including some 40 other Muslims — in a suicide-murder operation, without even bothering to leave a note. Because the act was their note, and destroying just to destroy was their goal. If you do that with enemies abroad, you will do that with enemies at home and destroy your own society in the process.
“I often make the comparison to Catholics during the pedophile priest scandal,” a Muslim woman friend wrote me. “Those Catholics that left the church or spoke out against the church were not trying to prove to anyone that they are anti-pedophile. Nor were they apologizing for Catholics, or trying to make the point that this is not Catholicism to the non-Catholic world. They spoke out because they wanted to influence the church. They wanted to fix a terrible problem” in their own religious community.
We know from the Danish cartoons affair that Pakistanis and other Muslims know how to mobilize quickly to express their heartfelt feelings, not just as individuals, but as a powerful collective. That is what is needed here.
Because, I repeat, this kind of murderous violence only stops when the village — all the good people in Pakistan, including the community elders and spiritual leaders who want a decent future for their country — declares, as a collective, that those who carry out such murders are shameful unbelievers who will not dance with virgins in heaven but burn in hell. And they do it with the same vehemence with which they denounce Danish cartoons.
Published: December 2, 2008
On Feb. 6, 2006, three Pakistanis died in Peshawar and Lahore during violent street protests against Danish cartoons that had satirized the Prophet Muhammad. More such mass protests followed weeks later. When Pakistanis and other Muslims are willing to take to the streets, even suffer death, to protest an insulting cartoon published in Denmark, is it fair to ask: Who in the Muslim world, who in Pakistan, is ready to take to the streets to protest the mass murders of real people, not cartoon characters, right next door in Mumbai?
After all, if 10 young Indians from a splinter wing of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party traveled by boat to Pakistan, shot up two hotels in Karachi and the central train station, killed at least 173 people, and then, for good measure, murdered the imam and his wife at a Saudi-financed mosque while they were cradling their 2-year-old son — purely because they were Sunni Muslims — where would we be today? The entire Muslim world would be aflame and in the streets.
So what can we expect from Pakistan and the wider Muslim world after Mumbai? India says its interrogation of the surviving terrorist indicates that all 10 men come from the Pakistani port of Karachi, and at least one, if not all 10, were Pakistani nationals.
First of all, it seems to me that the Pakistani government, which is extremely weak to begin with, has been taking this mass murder very seriously, and, for now, no official connection between the terrorists and elements of the Pakistani security services has been uncovered.
At the same time, any reading of the Pakistani English-language press reveals Pakistani voices expressing real anguish and horror over this incident. Take for instance the Inter Press Service news agency article of Nov. 29 from Karachi: “ ‘I feel a great fear that [the Mumbai violence] will adversely affect Pakistan and India relations,’ the prominent Karachi-based feminist poet and writer Attiya Dawood told I.P.S. ‘I can’t say whether Pakistan is involved or not, but whoever is involved, it is not the ordinary people of Pakistan, like myself, or my daughters. We are with our Indian brothers and sisters in their pain and sorrow.’
But while the Pakistani government’s sober response is important, and the sincere expressions of outrage by individual Pakistanis are critical, I am still hoping for more. I am still hoping — just once — for that mass demonstration of “ordinary people” against the Mumbai bombers, not for my sake, not for India’s sake, but for Pakistan’s sake.
Why? Because it takes a village. The best defense against this kind of murderous violence is to limit the pool of recruits, and the only way to do that is for the home society to isolate, condemn and denounce publicly and repeatedly the murderers — and not amplify, ignore, glorify, justify or “explain” their activities.
Sure, better intelligence is important. And, yes, better SWAT teams are critical to defeating the perpetrators quickly before they can do much damage. But at the end of the day, terrorists often are just acting on what they sense the majority really wants but doesn’t dare do or say. That is why the most powerful deterrent to their behavior is when the community as a whole says: “No more. What you have done in murdering defenseless men, women and children has brought shame on us and on you.”
Why should Pakistanis do that? Because you can’t have a healthy society that tolerates in any way its own sons going into a modern city, anywhere, and just murdering everyone in sight — including some 40 other Muslims — in a suicide-murder operation, without even bothering to leave a note. Because the act was their note, and destroying just to destroy was their goal. If you do that with enemies abroad, you will do that with enemies at home and destroy your own society in the process.
“I often make the comparison to Catholics during the pedophile priest scandal,” a Muslim woman friend wrote me. “Those Catholics that left the church or spoke out against the church were not trying to prove to anyone that they are anti-pedophile. Nor were they apologizing for Catholics, or trying to make the point that this is not Catholicism to the non-Catholic world. They spoke out because they wanted to influence the church. They wanted to fix a terrible problem” in their own religious community.
We know from the Danish cartoons affair that Pakistanis and other Muslims know how to mobilize quickly to express their heartfelt feelings, not just as individuals, but as a powerful collective. That is what is needed here.
Because, I repeat, this kind of murderous violence only stops when the village — all the good people in Pakistan, including the community elders and spiritual leaders who want a decent future for their country — declares, as a collective, that those who carry out such murders are shameful unbelievers who will not dance with virgins in heaven but burn in hell. And they do it with the same vehemence with which they denounce Danish cartoons.
The Blonde & Golf Balls
A man entered the bus with both of his front pockets full of golf balls and sat down next to a beautiful, (you guessed it), blonde.
The puzzled blonde kept looking at him and his bulging pockets.
Finally, after many such glances from her, he said, 'Its golf balls'.
Nevertheless, the blonde continued to look at him for a very long time, deeply thinking about what he had said.
After several minutes, not being able to contain her curiosity any longer, she asked;
'Does it hurt as much as tennis elbow?'
The puzzled blonde kept looking at him and his bulging pockets.
Finally, after many such glances from her, he said, 'Its golf balls'.
Nevertheless, the blonde continued to look at him for a very long time, deeply thinking about what he had said.
After several minutes, not being able to contain her curiosity any longer, she asked;
'Does it hurt as much as tennis elbow?'
Thursday, December 4, 2008
The Hindu Rate Of Wrath
Outlook Magazine| Nov 10, 2008
Opinion
The Hindu Rate Of Wrath
When the Mahatma's cowards erupt in fury, it hurts. It isn't terror.
Francois Gautier
Is there such a thing as 'Hindu terrorism', as the arrest of Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur for the recent Malegaon blasts may tend to prove? Well, I guess I was asked to write this column because I am one of that rare breed of foreign correspondents—a lover of Hindus! A born Frenchman, Catholic-educated and non-Hindu, I do hope I'll be given some credit for my opinions, which are not the product of my parents' ideas, my education or my atavism, but garnered from 25 years of reporting in South Asia (for Le Journal de Geneve and Le Figaro).
In the early 1980s, when I started freelancing in south India, doing photo features on kalaripayattu, the Ayyappa festival, or the Ayyanars, I slowly realised that the genius of this country lies in its Hindu ethos, in the true spirituality behind Hinduism. The average Hindu you meet in a million villages possesses this simple, innate spirituality and accepts your diversity, whether you are Christian or Muslim, Jain or Arab, French or Chinese. It is this Hinduness that makes the Indian Christian different from, say, a French Christian, or the Indian Muslim unlike a Saudi Muslim. I also learnt that Hindus not only believed that the divine could manifest itself at different times, under different names, using different scriptures (not to mention the wonderful avatar concept, the perfect answer to 21st century religious strife) but that they had also given refuge to persecuted minorities from across the world—Syrian Christians, Parsis, Jews, Armenians, and today, Tibetans. In 3,500 years of existence, Hindus have never militarily invaded another country, never tried to impose their religion on others by force or induced conversions.
You cannot find anybody less fundamentalist than a Hindu in the world and it saddens me when I see the Indian and western press equating terrorist groups like SIMI, which blow up innocent civilians, with ordinary, angry Hindus who burn churches without killing anybody. We know also that most of these communal incidents often involve persons from the same groups—often Dalits and tribals—some of who have converted to Christianity and others not.
However reprehensible the destruction of Babri Masjid, no Muslim was killed in the process; compare this to the 'vengeance' bombings of 1993 in Bombay, which wiped out hundreds of innocents, mostly Hindus. Yet the Babri Masjid destruction is often described by journalists as the more horrible act of the two. We also remember how Sharad Pawar, when he was chief minister of Maharashtra in 1993, lied about a bomb that was supposed to have gone off in a Muslim locality of Bombay.
I have never been politically correct, but have always written what I have discovered while reporting. Let me then be straightforward about this so-called Hindu terror. Hindus, since the first Arab invasions, have been at the receiving end of terrorism, whether it was by Timur, who killed 1,00,000 Hindus in a single day in 1399, or by the Portuguese Inquisition which crucified Brahmins in Goa. Today, Hindus are still being targeted: there were one million Hindus in the Kashmir valley in 1900; only a few hundred remain, the rest having fled in terror. Blasts after blasts have killed hundreds of innocent Hindus all over India in the last four years. Hindus, the overwhelming majority community of this country, are being made fun of, are despised, are deprived of the most basic facilities for one of their most sacred pilgrimages in Amarnath while their government heavily sponsors the Haj. They see their brothers and sisters converted to Christianity through inducements and financial traps, see a harmless 84-year-old swami and a sadhvi brutally murdered. Their gods are blasphemed.
So sometimes, enough is enough.At some point, after years or even centuries of submitting like sheep to slaughter, Hindus—whom the Mahatma once gently called cowards—erupt in uncontrolled fury. And it hurts badly. It happened in Gujarat. It happened in Jammu, then in Kandhamal, Mangalore, and Malegaon. It may happen again elsewhere. What should be understood is that this is a spontaneous revolution on the ground, by ordinary Hindus, without any planning from the political leadership. Therefore, the BJP, instead of acting embarrassed, should not disown those who choose other means to let their anguished voices be heard.
There are about a billion Hindus, one in every six persons on this planet. They form one of the most successful, law-abiding and integrated communities in the world today. Can you call them terrorists?
(The writer is the editor-in-chief of the Paris-based La Revue de l'Inde.)
Opinion
The Hindu Rate Of Wrath
When the Mahatma's cowards erupt in fury, it hurts. It isn't terror.
Francois Gautier
Is there such a thing as 'Hindu terrorism', as the arrest of Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur for the recent Malegaon blasts may tend to prove? Well, I guess I was asked to write this column because I am one of that rare breed of foreign correspondents—a lover of Hindus! A born Frenchman, Catholic-educated and non-Hindu, I do hope I'll be given some credit for my opinions, which are not the product of my parents' ideas, my education or my atavism, but garnered from 25 years of reporting in South Asia (for Le Journal de Geneve and Le Figaro).
In the early 1980s, when I started freelancing in south India, doing photo features on kalaripayattu, the Ayyappa festival, or the Ayyanars, I slowly realised that the genius of this country lies in its Hindu ethos, in the true spirituality behind Hinduism. The average Hindu you meet in a million villages possesses this simple, innate spirituality and accepts your diversity, whether you are Christian or Muslim, Jain or Arab, French or Chinese. It is this Hinduness that makes the Indian Christian different from, say, a French Christian, or the Indian Muslim unlike a Saudi Muslim. I also learnt that Hindus not only believed that the divine could manifest itself at different times, under different names, using different scriptures (not to mention the wonderful avatar concept, the perfect answer to 21st century religious strife) but that they had also given refuge to persecuted minorities from across the world—Syrian Christians, Parsis, Jews, Armenians, and today, Tibetans. In 3,500 years of existence, Hindus have never militarily invaded another country, never tried to impose their religion on others by force or induced conversions.
You cannot find anybody less fundamentalist than a Hindu in the world and it saddens me when I see the Indian and western press equating terrorist groups like SIMI, which blow up innocent civilians, with ordinary, angry Hindus who burn churches without killing anybody. We know also that most of these communal incidents often involve persons from the same groups—often Dalits and tribals—some of who have converted to Christianity and others not.
However reprehensible the destruction of Babri Masjid, no Muslim was killed in the process; compare this to the 'vengeance' bombings of 1993 in Bombay, which wiped out hundreds of innocents, mostly Hindus. Yet the Babri Masjid destruction is often described by journalists as the more horrible act of the two. We also remember how Sharad Pawar, when he was chief minister of Maharashtra in 1993, lied about a bomb that was supposed to have gone off in a Muslim locality of Bombay.
I have never been politically correct, but have always written what I have discovered while reporting. Let me then be straightforward about this so-called Hindu terror. Hindus, since the first Arab invasions, have been at the receiving end of terrorism, whether it was by Timur, who killed 1,00,000 Hindus in a single day in 1399, or by the Portuguese Inquisition which crucified Brahmins in Goa. Today, Hindus are still being targeted: there were one million Hindus in the Kashmir valley in 1900; only a few hundred remain, the rest having fled in terror. Blasts after blasts have killed hundreds of innocent Hindus all over India in the last four years. Hindus, the overwhelming majority community of this country, are being made fun of, are despised, are deprived of the most basic facilities for one of their most sacred pilgrimages in Amarnath while their government heavily sponsors the Haj. They see their brothers and sisters converted to Christianity through inducements and financial traps, see a harmless 84-year-old swami and a sadhvi brutally murdered. Their gods are blasphemed.
So sometimes, enough is enough.At some point, after years or even centuries of submitting like sheep to slaughter, Hindus—whom the Mahatma once gently called cowards—erupt in uncontrolled fury. And it hurts badly. It happened in Gujarat. It happened in Jammu, then in Kandhamal, Mangalore, and Malegaon. It may happen again elsewhere. What should be understood is that this is a spontaneous revolution on the ground, by ordinary Hindus, without any planning from the political leadership. Therefore, the BJP, instead of acting embarrassed, should not disown those who choose other means to let their anguished voices be heard.
There are about a billion Hindus, one in every six persons on this planet. They form one of the most successful, law-abiding and integrated communities in the world today. Can you call them terrorists?
(The writer is the editor-in-chief of the Paris-based La Revue de l'Inde.)
Sardarji Jaago!!!!
We had a Sikh ruler (Maharaja Ranjit Singh) who was even feared by the Afghans and there is a Sikh leading India now who cannot proceed against Pakistan without taking permission & approval from the West and then a nod from Ma’am Sonia. Somewhere a Pakistani told me that India is not US and they are not Georgia to be run over that easily. This same stigma has made our leaders a group of eunuchs. India has existed for more than 5,000 years without the help of any Western power. We are more than capable of dealing with terrorism and the domestic problems. All we Indians need is self belief…..Yes! Self belief. The days of the “Raj” robbed us of that and twisted our way of life. We are 20% of mankind; everyone must remember that. They need us more than we need them. God bless India!
Jai Hind! Jai Maharashtra!
The Ethics of Stem Cell Research: A Hindu view
What does it mean to protect 'the sanctity of life?' This is the question
that for Hindus, as for those in other religious traditions, lies at the
heart of debate on whether embryonic stem (ES) cell research is ethical.
It could be argued that embryos in the early process of fertilisation
have only a 30 per cent chance of becoming a full human being, so why not
use them for the potential benefit of existing human beings, for 14 days,
and then destroy them? After all, it is not thought that in these early
stages cells are sufficiently developed to feel any sensation or anything
that could be called 'pain.'
Furthermore, we are told, the benefits of stem cell research could be
radical. Each ES cell has properties of a regenerative nature, which can
transform itself into any cell required, meaning it is pluripotent. Thus
these cells could potentially be used to treat illnesses that we currently
do not have a cure for. It is a compelling argument; when scientists tell us
that in embracing this technique we could reduce the hideous effects of
motor neurone disease, stroke, heart disease, multiple sclerosis and cancers
of various sorts, who would dare be 'inhuman' enough to suggest this end
does not justify the means?
And, as we are quite used to using animals for scientific research,
where is the harm in extending that use to human life, especially human life
at a primordial stage?
On the face of it, such an argument would be quite wrong. The Hindu
Vedas dictate that all life is sacred, including animal and plant life. It
is this precept that lies at the heart of the Hindu doctrine of non-violence
or ahimsa. We believe that respect for life is a prerequisite; by showing
love to all creatures, all living things, we likewise show our love towards
God, who is in all things. All things are God's creation and therefore we
must respect all of it, as we love all of God.
However, there is a paradox in this view. The law of nature rules that
we must kill in order to survive. Human beings only live and continue to
breathe by consuming the plant and, in most cases, the animal life around
us. All of Creation works by taking one life for the survival of another.
The ancient Rishis, or divine sages, resolved this paradox by referring
to the various stages of evolution of consciousness that we share. They
believed plants were at the lowest level of consciousness. Animals then
followed, and finally humans were placed at the top of the evolutionary
tree. In creating this hierarchy, the Rishis ensured life itself was
protected, but within the laws of creation. So, what really matters is that
we protect the highest level of consciousness even if we have to kill the
lower levels in order to do so.
In Hinduism the soul passes through many species - one ancient scripture
suggests as many as 8.4 million species - until it finally evolves to the
highest level consciousness, in the form of a human being. It is this human
birth that can then bring about salvation from the cycle of rebirth and
finally end up with God.
So, to be born human is to achieve the highest value within the process
of reincarnation. The human life we experience, the only life which offers
us the chance to achieve ultimate and final union with God, is of an even
greater value. Recognising this value, Hinduism developed the ancient
systems of Yoga and Ayurveda to alleviate illnesses and prolong healthy
life.
Modern science works on the same quest. Medical research aims to help a
person's longevity. In Hinduism all human life is evolving towards God,
regardless of belief or non-belief, and that makes it much more valuable
than the embryonic cell at a primordial stage, where it has no sensation.
The difference is in the degree of consciousness. Further, if there is no
shortage of reproducing such cells then surely we must be prepared to
sacrifice a few for the greater good of helping the existing life, in itself
a noble value for all our salvation?
- By Anil Bhanot, General Secretary, The Hindu Council
that for Hindus, as for those in other religious traditions, lies at the
heart of debate on whether embryonic stem (ES) cell research is ethical.
It could be argued that embryos in the early process of fertilisation
have only a 30 per cent chance of becoming a full human being, so why not
use them for the potential benefit of existing human beings, for 14 days,
and then destroy them? After all, it is not thought that in these early
stages cells are sufficiently developed to feel any sensation or anything
that could be called 'pain.'
Furthermore, we are told, the benefits of stem cell research could be
radical. Each ES cell has properties of a regenerative nature, which can
transform itself into any cell required, meaning it is pluripotent. Thus
these cells could potentially be used to treat illnesses that we currently
do not have a cure for. It is a compelling argument; when scientists tell us
that in embracing this technique we could reduce the hideous effects of
motor neurone disease, stroke, heart disease, multiple sclerosis and cancers
of various sorts, who would dare be 'inhuman' enough to suggest this end
does not justify the means?
And, as we are quite used to using animals for scientific research,
where is the harm in extending that use to human life, especially human life
at a primordial stage?
On the face of it, such an argument would be quite wrong. The Hindu
Vedas dictate that all life is sacred, including animal and plant life. It
is this precept that lies at the heart of the Hindu doctrine of non-violence
or ahimsa. We believe that respect for life is a prerequisite; by showing
love to all creatures, all living things, we likewise show our love towards
God, who is in all things. All things are God's creation and therefore we
must respect all of it, as we love all of God.
However, there is a paradox in this view. The law of nature rules that
we must kill in order to survive. Human beings only live and continue to
breathe by consuming the plant and, in most cases, the animal life around
us. All of Creation works by taking one life for the survival of another.
The ancient Rishis, or divine sages, resolved this paradox by referring
to the various stages of evolution of consciousness that we share. They
believed plants were at the lowest level of consciousness. Animals then
followed, and finally humans were placed at the top of the evolutionary
tree. In creating this hierarchy, the Rishis ensured life itself was
protected, but within the laws of creation. So, what really matters is that
we protect the highest level of consciousness even if we have to kill the
lower levels in order to do so.
In Hinduism the soul passes through many species - one ancient scripture
suggests as many as 8.4 million species - until it finally evolves to the
highest level consciousness, in the form of a human being. It is this human
birth that can then bring about salvation from the cycle of rebirth and
finally end up with God.
So, to be born human is to achieve the highest value within the process
of reincarnation. The human life we experience, the only life which offers
us the chance to achieve ultimate and final union with God, is of an even
greater value. Recognising this value, Hinduism developed the ancient
systems of Yoga and Ayurveda to alleviate illnesses and prolong healthy
life.
Modern science works on the same quest. Medical research aims to help a
person's longevity. In Hinduism all human life is evolving towards God,
regardless of belief or non-belief, and that makes it much more valuable
than the embryonic cell at a primordial stage, where it has no sensation.
The difference is in the degree of consciousness. Further, if there is no
shortage of reproducing such cells then surely we must be prepared to
sacrifice a few for the greater good of helping the existing life, in itself
a noble value for all our salvation?
- By Anil Bhanot, General Secretary, The Hindu Council
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