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Politics : Idea Of The Day -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: IQBAL LATIF who wrote (41962)	12/15/2001 3:26:25 AM
From: IQBAL LATIF	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 50167

Heroes are supposed to fight and die fighting, not to slink from hole to hole in the night like a common thief. Pakistan has lived for more than two decades under the threat of a religious Sword of Damocles, after the Talibs took over in Afghanistan in 1996 our "future" began to take name and shape, the Talibanisation of Pakistan. Ikram Sehgal writes in Nation today...... For starters, instead of "Interfering in Afghanistan" by being a food granary for Afghanistan and providing their refugees safe haven, we must start interfering in our own affairs. With the religious extremists on the run we must take steps to ensure they never ever reach a position to hold this nation hostage again. Why should religious groupings be allowed to function as political parties? It is the right of every citizen to be able to choose democratic platform, so why should we allow platforms that discriminate against the ordinary citizens simply because of his or her personal religious beliefs. The country has only one ideology, why allow its base to be narrowed down further? Those of a particular belief must have as a broad-base the ideology of Pakistan. As an Islamic country that gives equal opportunity to other religions we cannot afford myriad religious factions in our own. It is un-Islamic to give recognition to factions propagating their own interpretation of Islamic ideology. Jamaat-i-Islami (JI), Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (JUI), Jamiat Ullema-i-Pakistan (JUP), etc must become part of mainline parties. Presently, they have no hope of ever winning an electoral majority but they have the capacity to hold the majority to ransom by simply using their vocal militancy. This nuisance value must be eradicated, just ban religious parties, Mr President. Moreover, all mosques must be run by the government, whether District, Provincial or Federal is unimportant, the mosque pulpits must not be used to propagate a narrow parochial ideology. Goods and commodities going to Afghanistan or passing from Afghanistan to other countries use Pakistani ports, Pakistani socio-economic infra-structure including roads, highways, railways, fuel, etc, taking away badly needed communications potential from our own population. A very vocal, religious minority in Pakistan held a rather submissive and terrified liberal majority in virtual thrall, threatening to convert our present back to the past and to make our future bleak. While religious teaching is more than necessary it can never be a complete education by itself, given the technological advances, theology is hopelessly mired in the past. Instead of investing in more schools and colleges, we allowed Madrassahs to move into this vacuum, proportionately increasing ignorance among our schoolgoing children. An absence of basic world knowledge among our youth virtually asked to be exploited by the religiously motivated. The religious rioting in Pakistan in September/October this year had the streets brimming over with sympathy for the Taliban. The youth yelled their throats hoarse and lungs out in support of "their" heroes Osama Bin Laden and Mullah Umar, a frenzied thousand or so crossing over into Afghanistan to join the ranks already fighting with the Taliban. Moulvi Sufi Mohammad of the Tehrik Shahriah Nifaz Muhammadi (TSNM) flamboyantly led them across the border on prime time TV, first in he was first out, abandoning them on the "every man for himself" basis and making it safely back across. Sales of Osama Bin Laden T-shirts nose-dived when Osama took off on the age-old principle, discretion is the better part of valour. Heroes are supposed to fight and die fighting, not to slink from hole to hole in the night like a common thief. One is grieved at the loss of civilian lives in Afghanistan and force-multiplying of the miseries of the Afghan people at the hands of both nature and man, for Pakistan the war has been a blessing in disguise. It started with President Bush doing the "Godfather" act, making an offer that the Pakistani President could not refuse. The logic of acceptance is infructuous, what mattered was a quick response, dragging of the feet being taken as good as a negative answer. The speed ensured that Pakistan did not, for once, end up on the wrong side of the divide. Even though we took an economic hit of massive export cancellations as well as an increasing burden of refugees, the economy is on the mend, at least in one area, an hefty increase in foreign reserves because of aid flows and home remittances. Debt relief also looks promising, that would be the icing on the cake. Most important, the "Hundi" system that kills official home remittances is on the hit list of the western powers, not quite dead as yet but remaining alive only with difficulty.