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

To: IQBAL LATIF who wrote (46449)	6/11/2004 3:29:13 AM
From: IQBAL LATIF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 50167

Job of small reformers is to attack delusions and fabrications every day, a nation cannot break from cycle of disasters if it does not prepare to listen, that is a new sign, we in Pakistan realising our problems have undertaken a task of reconstruction of mind, a new chapter is opened, sins cannot be perpetually punsished sign of a nation willing ot change is to write and challenge popular myths and wild suggestions, that is an every day thing in our press..on <that American president Abraham Lincoln was secretly a Muslim> and <Where is Dr Afia Siddiqi> : Where is Dr Afia Siddiqi? —Khaled Ahmed’s Urdu Press Review The American attorney general has gone on TV and declared that America was actually looking for her as she had been found to be an Al Qaeda agent who could be involved in the next Al Qaeda assault on the United States. Where is Dr Afia? In our war with the United States there is a lot which cannot be explained. Pakistan is in the middle of the war but not in the grid where information is created. Many books written on terrorism are gleaned from the Arab secret services while in communication with the CIA agents. We in Pakistan get to know the inside stories of the Arab jihad against America from the books written by these agents. Our own stories are buried in the ISI archives. We don’t know what has been happening to us. Should we wait till the Americans need to know? Columnist Ataur Rehman wrote in Nawa-e-Waqt (1 April 2004) that a Pakistani scientist Dr Afia Siddiqi might have been arrested and handed over to the FBI on charges of being a member of Al Qaeda. This would disprove the official claim that no Pakistani would ever be handed over to the FBI. Dr Siddiqi got her PhD in genetics from MIT and came to Pakistan in February 2002 looking for a job. Not finding it she went back to America on a visa and acquired a postal box in Maryland in her own name before returning to Pakistan in March 2003. She was travelling along with her children from Karachi to Islamabad the same month when she was arrested. In June 2003 a ‘Newsweek’ article said she had been arrested on charges of opening a postal box for one Majid Khan who was an Al Qaeda operative. Her photo was placed next to the Al Qaeda agent Khalid Sheikh Muhammad. Her sister Fozia Siddiqi who is herself a PhD in neurology from America went to see politician Ijazul Haq who told her that her sister had been released. Interior minister Faisal Saleh Hayat denied she was arrested by Pakistani authorities but tended to imply that she had done something extremely objectionable. Dr Fozia Siddiqi was still nowhere to be found, while some motorbike rider had gone to her mother’s house and threateningly asked her to keep quiet. Imran Khan has cited the Dr Afia incident repeatedly to give the lie to Pakistan government’s claim that it never handed any Pakistani over to the Americans on charges of terrorism. Now the Americans have announced that they don’t have her. The American attorney general Ashcroft has gone on TV and declared that America was actually looking for her as she had been found to be an Al Qaeda agent who could be involved in the next Al Qaeda assault on the United States. Where is Dr Afia? Great columnist Haroonur Rashid stated in Jang (30 March 2004) that American president Abraham Lincoln was secretly a Muslim and was suspect in the eyes of many Americans. Lincoln was in the mould because he gave freedom to countless blacks in America. He was perhaps killed because he was a Muslim. The columnist wrote that a villager in Khushab had revealed to him that a cook of President Clinton had secretly become a Muslim and used to say his five prayers at once for fear of being discovered. The saints Aish Muhammad and Shalbandi Sharif had predicted the fall of the Soviet Union and were proved right. Americans knew nothing about the adage that powerful states overreached themselves and fell down the cliff of history. The columnist must be tipsy when he wrote the above. Even when you cook up something you have to make it hang together logically. If America was shaped by a Muslim president, the logic is that state is well-founded with the blessings of Allah. Why should he then predict the destruction of America? We are actually stuck with America because Abraham Lincoln the Muslim president liberated it from slavery. The columnist should write next that America was founded by the Jews and the freemasons. After that America will have to get destroyed. According to daily Insaf (27 March 2004), a Christian named Williams who worked in a hospital took home an unclaimed baby — whose mother had died — with the intention of bringing him up. A group of Muslims went to court protesting that a Christian could not bring up a Muslim child. To his great credit and blessing, the judge handed down the verdict that Williams should give the baby back to the hospital although the child was without parents. The judge must have become a popular hero by squelching a non-Muslim. To help the judge one should mention that adoption of children is a crime in Pakistan because ‘shariah’ doesn’t allow it and there cannot be any ‘ijtihad’ on it. And how could a Muslim boy be adopted by a Christian? The Muslim boy is better off dead. Columnist Abdul Qadir Hassan wrote in Jang (28 March 2004) that he was greatly moved by the fact that the Quaid had to disown his daughter because she had sought to marry a non-Muslim. How could a Muslim seek relations with non-Muslims and yet remain a Muslim? When the Quaid disowned his daughter Dina for the sake of the Muslims for whose rights he was struggling, he hid his grief in his heart and never showed it to anyone. This was his biggest personal sacrifice. The same day ‘Nawa-e-Waqt’ wrote that the Quaid had never disowned his daughter. Sharifuddin Pirzada revealed that the two kept corresponding with each other after Dina’s marriage and when Wadia divorced her and married another woman, Dina was in touch with her father through letters. She even got money from his property according to his will which gave away 90 percent of it to institutions. A column is a one-day miracle. Wrong facts are forgiven. According to Nawa-e-Waqt (28 March 2004), lawyer MD Tahir went to High Court with the writ that Israel and America be declared terrorists and that people be restrained from calling mujahideen terrorists because doing so would completely distort history in Pakistan. Declare America and Israel terrorist, then give them a sentence they deserve, then ask MD Tahir to go and get them! Columnist Danish Yar wrote in Nawa-e-Waqt that while the common man in Pakistan would die for Islam there were westernised individuals who were trying to take the country away from its ideological roots through the fashioning of new syllabi and textbooks. They were against the publication of Islamic values and did this to become the favourites of foreign embassies. They also got to go the Western countries on free trips and have a nice time. Such a group of 29 people were ensconced in SDPI in Islamabad and were carrying out the agenda of their sponsoring states. The fact is that apart from the traitors who get invitations to visit America in return for writing evil reports against Pakistani textbooks, there are millions of true Pakistanis, including sons of the greatest hater of America, Qazi Hussain Ahmad, who want to go and settle in America. Sarerahe in ‘Nawa-e-Waqt’ (11 April 2004) said that Libya’s Col Gadafi’s son Saiful Islam had said that property of the Jews grabbed by Libya would be returned to them if they came back to settle there. Sarerahe said when Saiful Islam’s father had come to Pakistan a stadium was named after him for his revolutionary ideas. No one knew then that his son, who is named after Khalid bin Walid, would one day think of returning Jewish properties. Therefore, now Gadafi stadium should be renamed Yassin Stadium after the martyred Hamas leader, Sheikh Yassin. The question to ask is why was the stadium named after Qadafi? Why should the stadium be renamed after Sheikh Yassin now, why not Osama bin Laden? If the columnist felt so strongly, the man who had really done the big thing was Bin Laden. According to Jang (28 March 2004), Pakistanis in the UK were the only community with a bad record in education. School-going children spent more time away from school when they should be attending classes. According to an official report, Pakistani children spent 40 percent of the school-term absenting themselves from school. This was put down to the parents taking them to Pakistan. After each vacation the children took time returning to school. Most of the Pakistani parents belonged to villages in Pakistan and put little value on education. The problem with expatriate Muslims in general and Pakistanis in particular is that they have stopped integrating in the countries where they live. This is a recent trend and it is dangerous. Running away from education is an aspect of non-integration. Visiting Pakistan during vacations to find Pakistan full of hatred of the West doesn’t help either. Indian expatriates are better at integration. It doesn’t augur well for the Pakistani community’s future in the UK. *