People of Pakistan want change: Altaf

Chief Altaf Hussain has said that the country is on the threshold of a revolution that would overthrow the rule of injustice, deception and treachery. He said this while talking on telephone to the office-bearers of the MQM Lahore Zone, who informed Altaf Hussain about organizational matters including relief efforts being done under the aegis of the MQM. He said that the feudal lords and capitalists have pillaged the national exchequer with both hands. Their loot and plunder have weakened Pakistan economically to such an extent that the very security and existence of the state is threatened. He said that MQM is working to eliminate the medieval feudal system from the country by creating awareness in the public. He said that a day would come when the MQM would recover the looted wealth and ensure that the country moves forward on the road of freedom and prosperity. He said that the feudal lords changed the course of water by cleaving embankments in order to save their crops. They had no qualms in drowning human population. Such tyrant feudal lords must be brought to book. He said that the MQM was accused of the conspiracy of Jinnahpur in 1992.

Inter-faith dialogue programme launched

Face to Faith, a programme of Tony Blair’s Faith Foundation, which features video conferencing between groups of young people of different faiths from around the globe, was launched here in Hyderabad Sind.

Education managers, teachers and trainers attended the orientation workshop held for the launch. Danish Jatoi, the country coordinator of the foundation, said the programme aimed to increase religious literacy among students of different faiths, beliefs and cultures and also to foster tolerance among them. The programme encourages understanding of world religions and steers discussions on a variety of issues, convening inter-faith dialogue, he explained.
The interacting groups establish an online community through video conferencing while an expert facilitator supervises the discussions among the young students.

Veena jumps

into the fray


As if the latest spot-fixing controversy was not enough to mar Mohammad Asif’s career, former friend and actor Veena Malik claimed in a programme on Express TV to have evidence of the fast bowler’s involvement in match-fixing. Asif, who played in the last Test against England at Lord’s, is one of the four players alleged to have played a role in spot-fixing after he bowled a no-ball exactly at a time specified by bookmaker Mazhar Majeed.

“I have proof that Asif is involved in match-fixing. On the Australian tour, he talked to me and said Pakistan will not win any series in 2010,” said Veena.
She added that Asif’s influence was rubbing off on the 18-year-old Mohammad Aamir as well, also alleged to have played a role in spot-fixing.“He said that he called Aamir and influenced him to get involved on the Australian tour. ‘There are as many controversial cases against me as your age’ were his words to Aamir.

Thatta: Historic city in south Pakistan saved from floods

Thousands of people streamed back to this historic southern city Monday where new levees hastily built from clay and stone held back floodwaters that have inundated much of Pakistan.

Thousands who fled the waters that inundated neighboring towns complained about the shortage of food and water as they camped in a vast Muslim graveyard on a hill near Thatta city.
Hordes of people ran after vehicles distributing food and water near the graveyard, a chaotic effort that left many flood survivors — especially the old and infirm — with nothing. Some drank rainwater pooled on the ground.

Authorities said they were trying to provide food and shelter to the hundreds of thousands of people camped out on the hill in Makli. But as in other areas of the country, the scale of the disaster has overwhelmed both local capacity and the international partners trying to help.

The floods started about a month ago in the northwest after extremely heavy monsoon rains and have slowly surged south along the Indus River, devastating towns and farmland. More than 1,600 people have died and 17 million more affected by the floods.
Authorities struggled to save Thatta on Sunday, building new levees with clay and stone across a major road to hold back floodwaters that inundated the nearby town of Sujawal. Many of Sujawal's 250,000 residents had already fled, but the water damaged houses, schools and other buildings in the town.
Most of Thatta's 350,000 residents had also fled in recent days but began to return to the city as the danger passed.

Pakistan to import 1 million cotton bales from India

Pakistani spinners have finalised deals with Indian exporters for import of one million bales of cotton since cotton crop has been extensively damaged in the floods that ravaged the country.

The crop losses in Pakistan have led to concerns about a possible steep rise in global cotton and apparel prices as the world cotton supplies are feared to lag far behind the consumption demand.

Domestic cotton prices in India were also expected to increase because of the import orders from Pakistan as it is a worldwide phenomenon and prices are likely to stay upwards because of the global shortages.

Flood relief: Putting your right foot out

These past few weeks have been devastating for Pakistan. But amidst tales of woe, misery and the break down of law and order, what we must grasp and move forward with is the unprecedented human effort that is needed to mitigate the sufferings of the flood victims. There is so much to complain about but there is also a lot to be appreciative of. After all, the glass is half-full as well as half-empty, depending on how you choose to see it.

Foreign aid may have taken time to come but the way citizens have poured their hearts and souls into relief efforts must be considered when judging the nation at large. Twelve hundred may have stood numb while two brothers were being brutally murdered in Sialkot but thousands if not millions have come together to help the flood affected. It’s a sign that humanity is not dead. It brings us hope, if nothing else does, that all is most definitely not lost.

One understands the massive outcry against everything outrageous that has hit Pakistan in the past few weeks. As Ali Zafar rightly wrote on his Facebook page, ‘Every time you think what worse can happen to this country, aren’t you surprised?’ Facebook and Twitter have been flooded with expressions of disappointment and dismay at the government’s flood relief effort and then repugnance against the Sialkot incident. No one is unaffected. That said — and this may be saying it too soon — the will to move forward is as important as the will to stop and revolt.

Sensitive to the issue, a very cautious Pakistan Fashion Design Council (PFDC) cancelled its press conference and issued a press release announcing dates for the upcoming PFDC-Sunsilk Fashion Week (to be held in Karachi between October 11 and 14) instead.
Meanwhile, several altruistic individuals came together in Lahore, putting luxury items on sale for flood relief.

Over Rs2.1 million was raised and donated to the Jazba Foundation. The organisers plan to repeat a similar sale before Eid.


Things were just as vigilant in Karachi where the humdrum of activity kept funds rolling into charities. Around 88 artists from all over the world donated their works to Noorjehan Bilgrami’s Koel Gallery, managing to raise Rs3,322,000 in what they called the Silent Auction. Proceeds from this event were donated to three organisations carefully selected by the Gallery Committee, the first tranche going to the Karachi Relief Trust. The remaining 45 pieces should manage to raise a considerable additional sum too.

On a smaller level, fashion boutique Ensemble hosted a qawwali night featuring Farid Ayaz and, according to Shehrnaz Husain, around Rs500,000 were raised that night.

As many TV hosts are now insisting, one must forget for a minute the failings of the system and concentrate on what one can do individually to not fail the victims. Personal efforts and the power of one will make a difference — it always does — and negativity, pessimism or whining will not.

Match-fixing rips
Pakistan apart

A British newspaper has claimed it has evidence that Pakistani cricket players deliberately bowled “no-balls” during the current test match against England as part of an international betting scam.


World cricket was reeling last night from an elaalf of the Pakistan cricket team has beeborate London newspaper sting that appears to have proven more than hn involved in cheating and match-fixing.

In the covert video operation, The News of the World taped match-fixer and player manager Mazhar Majeed revealing that Pakistan players had rigged their Test against England at Lord's and also their dramatic SCG loss to Australia in January.

Pakistan faces being kicked out of international cricket after Scotland Yard police raided the team hotel in London and took player bags that allegedly contained a large volume of money. Remarkably, the Lord's Test continued last night.

Why donors hesitate to fund relief for Pakistan's flood victims

When natural calamities strike, disaster relief always comes too little and too late.

But how and with what speed the international community responds to a natural catastrophe is influenced by a host of factors.

In the case of the devastating monsoon floods that have ravaged about one-fifth of Pakistan, killed at least 1,600 people and displaced over 20 million more, aid agencies and umbrella organizations like the United Nations are reporting reluctance, especially among the traditionally dependable donors in the West, to dig deep and give. The UN launched a "flash appeal" on Aug. 9 to raise nearly $500 million to cover the first 90 days of disaster relief aid.

Ten days later only half this money had been pledged, in sharp contrast to the response to the earthquake in Haiti earlier this year when nearly $600 million was raised in the same initial 10-day period.

As is to be expected, explanations for donor reluctance have tended to focus on the nature of Pakistan itself.

More generous analysts have contented themselves with saying that perhaps Western donors mistrust the corruption and apparent double-dealing of the government of President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousaf Gillani.

A vituperative minority say the hesitant response is just another example of the West's ingrained "Islamophobia": dislike of Muslims.

As is usually the case, the reality is not so simple.

There appear to be many reasons why donors, including national governments, have been slow to respond to the Pakistan crisis starting with the nature of the catastrophe itself.

Unlike the earthquakes in Haiti this year or Kashmir in 2005, or the tsunami that hit Indonesia, Thailand, Burma, Sri Lanka and India in 2004, the Pakistani floods have not been an instant calamity that killed tens of thousands of people in a matter of minutes or hours.

In Pakistan the floods started on July 29, nearly a month ago, when unusually heavy monsoon rains caused flash floods and landslides in northwestern Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir.

These are largely no-go areas for government officials and military at the best of times. So it was not until a few days later, when the waters, constantly bolstered by fresh monsoon rains, swept down the valley of the Indus River into the Punjab heartland and then on to Sindh in the south, that the extent of the devastation and threat of further destruction became apparent.

Within Pakistan the government's response was woeful and much criticism was levelled at Zardari, who embarked on a planned trip to Europe despite the need for action at home.

He compounded his sins by taking a side trip to visit, by helicopter, his chateau in Normandy in northern France. This crass act of insensitivity not only reminded people both in Pakistan and abroad of the president's reputation for corruption -he's known as "Mister Ten Per Cent" for his alleged rake-offs from government contracts -but also highlighted the government's lack of resources such as helicopters to bring aid to people isolated in the floods.

Only the army in Pakistan, which is the country's sole institution that functions reliably, was able to mount any credible and sustained effort to rescue the stranded and distribute aid.

The slow, gathering and spreading nature of this calamity meant that it was not until Aug. 8 that the UN warned of a human disaster unmatched in recent years, and another three days before it launched its appeal for $500 million.

The ponderous progress of the crisis is undoubtedly a major reason why the Western donor response, especially among traditional private big givers in the U.S., has been slow.

Another factor so far as the U.S. is concerned is geography. American donors are fatigued by the crises on their doorstep like the earthquake in Haiti, Hurricane Katrina which hit New Orleans in 2005 and the oil pollution in the Gulf of Mexico.

Pakistan is a long way away and few Western aid agencies have outposts there to act as hubs on which a network for delivering relief aid can be built.

And there is a good deal of skepticism over whether Pakistan is a worthy recipient of Western aid.

Much blame for this crisis is aimed at Pakistan's semi-feudal ruling classes of landowners who, since the country's creation in 1947, have avoided investing in the infrastructure which could have minimized the impact of the monsoon rains and floods.

That lack of investment sits uncomfortably beside the huge amounts of money Pakistan spends on its military and especially on developing and building nuclear weapons.

Then there's Pakistan's ambiguous-at-best attitude toward the Taliban insurgents fighting NATO forces in neighbouring Afghanistan and the evidence that Pakistani army and intelligence agencies continue to support terrorist groups.

It will take many more pictures of distraught people struggling through flood waters and, sadly, reports of rising numbers dying from disease and lack of food, for donors to overcome their reluctance.


India to route Pak aid through UN

India has agreed to Pakistan's request to route flood aid through the United Nations. Indicative of the mistrust between the two countries, Islamabad has conveyed to New Delhi that it is willing to accept the aid of $5 million, that it had been deliberating for a while, but it should be routed through the UN.

The UN route is a clear deviation, as both nations sent assistance to each other, during 2005 earthquake in Pakistan and 2002 Gujarat earthquake, directly.

India had offered an aid of $5 million when External Affairs Minister spoke to his Pakistan counterpart Shah Mehmood Qureshi on August 13.

On August 19, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh spoke with his Pakistan counterpart, Yousaf Raza Gillani, to express solidarity over the country's devastating floods and to urge him to accept the aid offer. Singh also assured Gilani that India is willing to do more in terms of flood relief.

Pakistan has been delaying a response to receiving Indian aid for the worst flood in its history that claimed 1600 lives and displaced 20 million people. A flash appeal from the UN, had said that $500 million is needed to cover the first 90 days of disaster relief.

Can Pakistan learn from Katrina?

This weekend, as my home state of Mississippi prepares to memorialise the five-year anniversary of America’s worst natural disaster, Pakistan will mark a month since the start of the floods.

Because of this post-Katrina milestone and my upcoming travels to Karachi, I’ve been considering the scope and response to both of these catastrophes. The two floods have superficial similarities, despite the fact that Hurricane Katrina was a smaller event in a better-equipped country.
This means that on the fifth anniversary of Pakistan’s worst natural disaster, things will probably look even less rosy than they do now in New Orleans.
Hurricane Katrina formed over the Bahamas on August 23, 2005, clipping the southern tip of Florida before making a second landfall on August 29, seventy miles southeast of New Orleans—Louisiana’s biggest city, with a pre-storm population of 454,863. With winds of 205 kph, the hurricane was strong enough to breach levees surrounding the city.
New Orleans was submerged and 1,464 of its residents, dead. Not long after, the Mississippi coast sustained a direct hit, wiping out entire towns and taking the lives of an estimated 300 people. Altogether a million people lost their homes, damages totalled over $100 b and five years later, key infrastructures such as public education remain in disarray. New Orleans still has thousands of uninhabitable houses and has regained only 80 per cent of its pre-Katrina population. Thousands of displaced residents continue to live in temporary shelters. None of this bodes well for Pakistan, which one blogger has termed “Katrina on steroids.”

What Pakistani floods and Katrina have in common

So far these floods have displaced 20 million Pakistanis and geographically altered over 20 per cent of the country. Four weeks in, the floods are less predictable than Katrina and the relentless rain continues to disrupt aid in a country with shaky infrastructure to begin with. Moreover, the Taliban are worsening the situation by threatening international aid workers. Katrina victims were hungry, dehydrated, terrified and stranded, and at some point the city operated under a dangerous, semi-authorised version of martial law, but within a week, all survivors were rescued. And while a handful of people died from cholera-related diseases, there was scant fear of waterborne epidemics.
In Pakistan however, these diseases are genuine threats. According to Boston University’s Adil Najam, aid has only reached 5 million victims, while 6 million remain in life-threatening conditions and 2 m still need temporary shelter.
Both Katrina and the Pakistani floods have devastated areas that were already struggling politically and financially. Both floods have suffered looting and riots and both New Orleans and Pakistan owe a degree of suffering to resource mismanagement. Pre-Katrina New Orleans was flush with political corruption, violence and racial tension.
Just as dam-building projects have been consistently delayed for over five decades in Pakistan’s conflict-ridden north, a year prior to Katrina New Orleans’s levees were tested and the city was warned. But federal funds were diverted from relevant projects.
Neither country’s president seemed to realise the cataclysmic nature of things. Or at least, neither of them bothered to cancel vacations in order to personally oversee relief efforts. Just as Asif Ali Zardari couldn’t be bothered to abandon his European hotels and dignitaries, President Bush planned a trip in the final days of August 2005, despite advance notice that Katrina was coming. He witnessed the destruction from his jumbo jet four days after the storm. And in both cases, religious organisations—extremist or not—were among the first responders. On the Mississippi Gulf Coast, church groups were able to avoid bureaucracy, distributing resources long before refugees crossed paths with government officials.

What does any of this mean?

For me, it’s a lens through which to grasp Pakistan’s latest predicament. But it also illustrates the gravity and aftermath of these floods, particularly if the international community doesn’t take action and if the Pakistani government repeats the Bush Administration’s mistakes.
The aid offers following Katrina were unprecedented in America’s history. In addition to food, cash and supplies, foreign countries offered teams of medical and engineering experts while private citizens rallied. Shortly after Katrina, I spent a few months traveling Europe. There were posters soliciting relief everywhere—a benefit concert in Berlin, a party in Prague, Spanish notices urging Red Cross donation. I was amazed and grateful that, despite reigning European antipathy towards American foreign policy, European civilians cared about American civilians and they wanted to help. But the US government eschewed most aid, and Bush made a public statement, that the US “would rise up and take care of it.”
Only about 4 per cent of proffered aid was accepted, most of it cash—and much of that, diverted to NGO’s. It seemed Bush’s America was in the business of broadcasting strength rather than vulnerability, and both American citizens and America’s international image suffered for this understandable but misplaced hubris. So kudos to Pakistan for finally accepting aid from India, and kudos to India and other donors for demonstrating that a stable, healthy Pakistan is in everyone’s interest—whether Pakistan views you or your government as friend or foe. At some time, every country will experience disaster and vulnerability. Let’s hope the international community, the Pakistani government realise this.

Exodus as floods threaten more Pakistani towns

Hundreds of thousands of people were fleeing areas in southern Sindh province Saturday as rising floodwaters breached more defences and inundated towns.
For nearly a month torrential monsoon rains have triggered massive floods, moving steadily from north to south in Pakistan, affecting a fifth of the volatile country and 17 million of its 167 million people.

Sindh is the worst-affected province. Out of its 23 districts, 19 have so far been ravaged by floods, a statement by the United Nations' Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
More than seven million people have been displaced in Sindh since August 3, one million only in the past two days.The magnitude of this catastrophe is so huge that the government cannot cope with it alone.

Foreign musicians campaign for Pakistan

Icelandic singer Bjork is the latest to join a list of celebrities who have been campaigning for donations for Pakistan. Bjork’s “The Comet Song”, featured in the 3D children’s movie Moomins and the Comet Chase, will be released digitally on September 6. Bjork announced that the proceeds from the release will go to Unicef to provide relief to the flood victims in Pakistan.

Mission Impossible star Tom Cruise has also urged his fans to generously donate for the victims of the ongoing floods. The actor reportedly tweeted, “People of Pakistan, our thoughts are with you.” Cruise is also campaigning to support the cause. He has provided information about easy ways make donations by sending a text message that will add $10 to the charity.

We present a roundup of other international celebrities who are working for flood relief efforts.

Angelina Jolie

Angeline Jolie, who is also the goodwill ambassador for the United Nations (UN) High Commissioner for Refugees, has donated $100,000 to help those affected by the floods. The actor has not ruled out coming to Pakistan to further aid the millions affected by this disaster. According to a report, Jolie is also set to appear on CNN to ask people to donate towards flood relief efforts.

Mike Shinoda, Linkin Park

On his official blog, Mike Shinoda has written about the efforts being conducted by Music for Relief (MFR). Shinoda is actively advocating the cause. MFR is aiming to help 560,000 survivors and all the donations made to help the victims of the flood have been guaranteed to reach Pakistanis in need. MFR has further pledged to match individual donations of up to $10,000.

Ashton Kutcher

Like Tom Cruise, actor Ashton Kutcher has also drawn the attention of his fans towards one of the worst natural disasters of the millennium. The actor tweeted, “Think the Pakistan disaster doesn’t concern you? Think again.” He also posted a link of how to give donations to the survivors.

Preity Zinta

Little concern has come from Bollywood. Preity Zinta was one of the few celebrities who showed concern about the flood victims.

“My heart goes out to all who have suffered due to the floods in Pakistan. May God give peace to the departed and strength to all those left behind,” the Bollywood diva tweeted.

Our Lady of Ephesus

From the Shrine Website: At the House of Mary in Ephesus on August 15 (the Feast of the Assumption of Mary) each year, Catholic, Orthodox and Muslim clergy conduct a service together at the shrine, one of the rare occasions this happens anywhere. Muslims and Christians pray silently side by side the rest of the year. This image, found in the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, was revealed in a vision to an American lady who went to Mary's House on pilgrimage back in 1959. She commissioned an artist to render the painting according to her vision.

It has long been held by the Catholic and Orthodox churches that Mary went to Ephesus with John. The once great port city of Ephesus (where Antony met Cleopatra for the first time) was becoming silted in by 4th century and was soon abandoned as malaria drove everyone away. Over the centuries the silt layers became heavier and heavier until the ancient city was buried. It was not discovered again until a railroad line was being put through. The house of Mary was re-discovered in the hills above the city by following the directions found in a book that captured the visions of Bl.

Define ‘Islamist.’
OK, ‘radical.’
Whatever

Islamist, orthodox, jihadist, conservative, Islamism, hardliner, Moslem, extremist, insurgent, fundamentalist, freedom fighter, infidel, moderate, liberal, progressive … blah, blah, blah.

All of these words mean nothing and everything at the same time — a testament to the power and mutability of language in the media, specifically when it comes to the words we use to describe Muslims and Islam in the contemporary world.

So what is an Islamist? According to Princeton University’s WordNet, an Islamist is either “a scholar who knowledgeable in Islamic studies” or “an orthodox Muslim.” So an “Islamist” is someone who most likely knows a great deal about Islam and probably adheres closely to its tenets. (Note: there is no mention of terrorism, violence, hatred or intolerance in this definition). … What is a militant? An “activist (a militant reformer).”

So the individual in question is a fervent Muslim scholar with weapons training? How much Islamic knowledge and learning does he actually have? Does he have a degree in Islamic Studies from Harvard, or is he a sheikh (religious scholar)? How religious is he in terms of his practice of Islam? Perhaps he is just a man that happens to identify as a Muslim who was recruited to commit violent acts in exchange for money or to retaliate against perceived threats to his family or community. …

Finally, what is an extremist? Not surprisingly, I learn he or she is a “person who holds extreme views.” By this definition, many people are extremists.

Fallout of Hate Is Spreading Across America from "Ground Zero"

The hysteria over a planned Islamic community center in downtown Manhattan is only the tip of the iceberg.

Scientists building the first atomic bomb at Los Alamos referred to the coordinates where a test device was detonated as “point zero.” When the horror of nuclear warfare was unleashed on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the term “Ground Zero” entered our lexicon. The expression has come to mean the epicenter of a catastrophic event, be it a nuclear detonation, a disease epidemic or an earthquake. It is the point from which damage spreads, whether it’s radioactive fallout or a deadly contagion.
That the site of the World Trade Center has come to be known as Ground Zero illustrates how the American public has come to fetishize the attacks of 9/11. It’s not an apt analog for the physical destruction that resulted from the attacks on the World Trade Center. But it is an appropriate metaphor for the virulent and socially acceptable bigotry against Muslim Americans that has radiated out from Ground Zero and spread across the United States.

One thing is clear: the feverish discourse about Muslims’ role in American society
is not about the proposal to build an Islamic community center a couple of blocks from the World Trade Center site. Park 51, as it’s being called, merely let an ugly genie out of the bottle. The dark stain of Islamophobia had spread far and wide long before the controversy erupted.

In May, a man walked into the Jacksonville Islamic Center in Northeast Florida during evening prayers and detonated a pipebomb. Fortunately, there were no injuries. (If the man had been Muslim and the House of worship a Christian church, the incident would have garnered wall-to-wall coverage, but while the story got plenty of local press it was ignored by CBS News, Fox, CNN and MSNBC.)
It was the most serious of a series of incidents in which mosques far from the supposedly hallowed earth of Ground Zero have been targeted. A mosque in Miami, Florida, was sprayed with gunfire last year. Mosques have been vandalized or set aflame in Brownstown, Michigan; Nashville, Tennessee; Arlington, Texas (where the mosque was first vandalized and then later targeted by arsonists); Taylor, South Carolina; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Eugene, Oregon; Cape Girardeau, Missouri; Tempe, Arizona; and in both Northern and Southern California. A mosque in a suburb of Chicago has been vandalized four times in recent years.

In May, an Arab man was brutally beaten in broad daylight in New York by four young men. According to the victim’s nephew, "They used the bad word. 'The mother bleeping Muslim, go back to your country.' They started beating him and after that he don't know what happened.” A Muslim woman in Chicago was assaulted by another woman who took offense at her headscarf. A Muslim teacher in Florida was sent a white powdery substance in the mail. In San Diego, a man in his 50s became so incensed by the sight of an American of Afghan descent praying that he assaulted him after screaming, “You idiot, you mother f**ker, go back to where you came from."

The perpetrators of these hate crimes are clearly unhinged, but they’re not operating in a vacuum. They’re being whipped into a frenzy by cynical fearmongers on the Right. Writing for Tablet magazine, Daniel Luban astutely calls the dark spread of Islamophobia, “the new Anti-Semitism.”
It’s ugly, and it can only get worse as Republicans seek to “nationalize” the issue in time for the midterm elections. (According to The Hill, John Cornyn, R-Texas, the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee “believes the mosque set to be built near Ground Zero in New York City will be a campaign issue this fall.”) Right-wingers have started referring to the Park 51 project as “the Obamosque.” They see fear and loathing of Islam as a potent social issue in an era when overtly racist messages invite a political backlash and gay-bashing is gaining less traction among voters. And with prominent Democrats like Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada caving in to the hateful rhetoric, bigotry against American Muslims is becoming an acceptable and bipartisan affair.

It’s an extraordinarily dangerous game, not only for the American Muslim community but for U.S. national security as well. Ali Soufan, a former FBI agent who has interrogated several dangerous terrorists, wrote this week that “when demagogues appear to be equating Islam with terrorism” it reinforces “the message that radicalizers are selling: That the war is against Islam, and Muslims are not welcome in America.” He added: “from a national security perspective, our leaders need to understand that no one is likely to be happier with the opposition to building a mosque than Osama Bin Laden. His next video script has just written itself.”


Fortunately, the hysteria over the Islamic center in downtown Manhattan has produced no fatal attacks to date. But as the rhetoric continues to get hotter, good people -- those who embrace American values of pluralism and religious liberty -- need to stand up to the hate and confront these views before we have a body count on our hands, not after.

Flood: Mirror

The sad part isthat this article is written by an overseas Pakistanis. This is a highly negative article written to please the western readers.

These people who have left Pakistan and writing intellectual articles about Pakistan and criticizing Pakistani politicians for the problems why they do not sacrifice their own well being for Pakistan. I ask them a question, if these people who show so much love for Pakistan, why not they go and serve Pakistan They can provide alternate leadership to Pakistan as when they see so much bad and corrupt leadership in Pakistan.

Cant they follow the example of Imran Khan who is fighting the system alone while the so-called more intelligent and intellectual overseas Pakistanis have run off to the greener shores and have their advisory tongues wagging whenever disaster strikes Pakistan. This does not help in problem solving as these type of articles which please the western readers are no solution for the toiling masses of Pakistan which require support and encouragement and nor more despair as this article projects.

Maths of Flood.

20 million people is 11 percent of Pakistan's population, that means approximately 89 percent of the country's population is not affected. Similarly, the 90 percent of unaffected GDP is still leaves over $150 billion in the country's economy.

Pakistan's public debt is estimated at 46 percent of GDP, a number lower than most of the countries who are now allocating aid to Pakistan including the US (52), the UK (68), and Canada (75).

I don't mean to belittle the plight of the Pakistani people affected by flood water. Regardless of where the money comes from, we should all ensure that they receive assistance and aid where needed. However, the numbers suggest that Pakistan is in a financial position to seek international loans, not handouts.

Flood: Reality
The estimated costs of the floods are US$ 45 billions in infrastructure. Comparing a country with any first world country is utter stupidity, as many writers are doing that arrogantly.

Its one of the poorest country in the world. 20 million people have been its the biggest ever disaster in relation to the number of people affected since the world war two.. People writing here in the western world are totally immune to the suffering of people in the third world as it appears from the above writings.

No one is realizing the gravity of the situation that is the problem, for a humanistic angle that should have been projected here but no effort is being made here, that is the biggest shame!!!

Planet Karachi

At a time when Pakistan is drowning and millions are going hungry, some elements still see it fit to settle personal scores on the streets of Karachi.
Everyone in the country is either worrying about the devastation wreaked by record floods or is aiding the relief operation in one capacity or another. Beyond our borders, the world too is helping out and monitoring the situation with growing concern. From the UN and international lending agencies to the United States and the Arab League, a number of influential global players have made urgent appeals for aid to Pakistan. The misery engulfing the country has made headline news across the world and some foreigners who travelled to the flood zone came back looking genuinely distressed.
All this is lost on those who are, incredibly enough, still focused on eliminating their rivals. It seems they couldn’t care less about the hundreds who have died, those who are dying a slow death and the millions whose lives have been destroyed, perhaps forever. The mindset of such people simply beggars belief: at a time of grave crisis all that matters to them are their political, sectarian and ethnic vendettas. Killers obviously have no heart to begin with but it was hoped that their minders higher up in the hierarchy would rein them in for the time being. Instead, someone somewhere clearly issued orders for an assassination that was bound to spark another cycle of violence.
While Pakistan drowns, Karachi burns yet again. The city has been turned into a parallel universe in which chaos rules and lives are cheap. It is high time the state woke up to the alarming disconnect between Karachi and the rest of the country. The Sindh government is clearly incapable of dousing the fire and as such the response must come from somewhere else. No solution may be in sight right now but one must be found sooner than later.
Is Karachi located on a different planet? Does it operate within some dreadful other-world dimension that is simply impossible to comprehend?
On Thursday the city again descended into anarchy after the murder of a senior leader of the ANP’s Karachi chapter. Several people lost their lives, vehicles were torched, tyres were burnt and, given the level of intimidation, shopkeepers had no option but to pull down their shutters. True, Karachi is no stranger to such mayhem and its residents have tragically come to expect that violence will flare up from time to time. But this latest round of murder and arson needs to be seen in an entirely different context .

Remembering Bhola:
The Cyclone
That Broke Pakistan’s Back
Disaster; East Pakistan: Cyclone May Be The Worst Catastrophe of Century

It wiped out villages. Destroyed crops. Over 3.6 million people were directly affected. Nearly 85% of the area was destroyed. Three months after the catastrophe some 75% of the population was receiving food from relief workers (more here).
It happened in Pakistan. Yet few Pakistanis even know of it by name. Fewer still remember that it eventually contributed to Pakistan’s break-up.
The 1970 Bhola cyclone hit then East Pakistan on November 12, 1970. It brought with it winds of an unbelievable 185 km/hr. It left in its wake a half million Pakistanis dead.

Meteorologists remember it as being one of the most deadly natural disasters in human history – sources suggest that it left between 300,000 to 1 million Pakistanis dead in its wake; most estimates suggest around 500,000 Pakistanis died.
Historians tend to agree that although there were many other forces at work, the devastation caused by the cyclone and the widespread view that the government had mis-managed the relief efforts and West Pakistan had generally shown an attitude of neglect, contributed to high levels of anti-West Pakistan feeling, a sweeping victory for the Awami League, and eventually the breakup of Pakistan and the creation of Bangladesh.

Such, then, are the forces of nature. And such are the forces of history.

As we hear newspaper headlines proclaiming the historic magnitude and devastation wrought by the floods on our plains, it is worth remembering that 40 years ago The New York Times was describing another calamity in Pakistan as the “Worst Catastrophe of the Century.” Much more importantly, we should pay close attention to the lessons of history, and the lessons of nature.

The lesson of how policy mismanagement led to public dissatisfaction and eventually contributed to national dismemberment is a stark reminder. It may not be an entirely applicable parallel since so much more had already happened and gone wrong in the East Pakistan case (and the cyclone was a contributor to, not the cause, of how history unfolded) but it is a lesson that should not be lost on the politicians, policy-makers and people of Pakistan.

There is a reason why disasters require national solidarity. Without it, they can become even more disastrous and deeply buried fissures in the social fabric can burst forth in volcanic anger. As we look around at the political, policy and citizen response to the current floods, one sees too many who wish to turn disaster into a political opportunity. Those who do would be well advised to remember Bhola. Indeed, we would all be well advised to remember Bhola.

I write these lines with some trepidation and with great caution. History is not a predictive science. And I do not believe that there is a real parallel between the two situations.

But I do believe that there are important lessons to learn from our own mistakes. For the sake of our present, if not of our past, let us resolve not to make the same mistakes again. Let us not forget what is the real lesson of Bhola in 1970, as of so many other tragedies: dissatisfaction in times of crisis can be a force of agony, and political catastrophe can sometimes grow from seeds sown in natural disaster.

فیض احمد فیض / Faiz Ahmed Faiz, August, 1952

روشن کهيں بهار کے امکاں هوۓ تو هيں / It’s still distant, but there are hints of springtime
گلشن ميں چاک چند گريباں هوۓ تو هيں / some flowers, aching to bloom, have torn open their collars.

اب بهي خزاں کا راج هے، ليکن کهيں کهيں / In this era of autumn, almost winter, leaves can still be heard
گوشے رەِ چمن ميں غزل خواں هوۓ تو هيں / their dry orchestras play, hidden in corners of the garden.

ٹههري هوي هے شب کي سياهي وهيں، مگر / Night is still where it was, but colors at times take flight,
کچھ کچھ سحر کے رنگ پر افشاں هوۓ تو هيں / leaving red feathers of dawn on the sky.

ان ميں لهو جلا هو همارا، کۂ جان و دل / Don’t regret our breath’s use as air, our blood’s as oil –
محفل ميں کچھ چراغ فروزاں هوۓ تو هيں / some lamps at last are burning in the night.

هاں کج کرو کلاە کۂ سب کچھ لٹا کے هم / Tilt your cup, don’t hesitate! Having given up all,
اب بے نيازِ گردشِ دوراں هوۓ تو هيں / we don’t need wine. We’ve freed ourselves, made Time irrelevant.

اهلِ قفس کي صبحِ چمن ميں ُکھلے گي انکھ / When imprisoned man opens his eyes, cages will dissolve: air, fire,
بادِ صبا سے وعدە و پيماں هوۓ تو هيں / water, earth — all have pledged such dawns, such gardens to him.

هے دشت اب بهي دشت، مگر خونِ پا سے فيض / Your feet bleed, Faiz, something surely will bloom
سيراب چند خارِ مغيلاں هوۓ تو هيں / as you water the desert simply by walking through it.

(Translated by the ever-loved Kashmiri poet, Agha Shahid Ali)

With blazing summers, wildfires in one hemisphere and a deep freeze in the other, is, 2010 the year of extreme weather?

While Pakistan has been hit by catastrophic flooding, Russia has endured a lethal heatwave.
Some 1,200 people have been killed in the deluges sweeping Pakistan, but in Moscow more than 30 are reported to have died in wildfires as temperatures have soared to a new record for the region of 38C (100F).
It marks out 2010 as the year of extreme weather - and experts predict the pronounced conditions will continue across the globe.
Last month alone the UK was hit by a hosepipe ban, saw tarmac melting on roads and the population was issued health warnings about the dangers of too much sun.
Yet despite the heatwave, it was also the wettest July ever recorded.
According to provisional statistics from the Met Office, the country was 46 per cent wetter than average and some areas faced devastating floods.
Britain was not alone. The mercury climbed to its highest point in decades in other parts of Europe, the U.S. and Japan as record temperatures were recorded.
In Russia the army was drafted in to battle the wildfires which threatening dozens of towns and villages.
Thick smoke and ash slowed firefighting efforts and thousands of people were being evacuated.
A state of emergency was declared after swathes of the country were engulfed in flames and thousands were left homeless.
The city has been veiled in acrid smoke causing landmarks to disappear from view and meteorologists expect the scorching temperatures will continue to rise.
More than 2,000 people are said to have died in the region since the beginning of July as they tried to cool down in lakes and rivers.
Meanwhile in Pakistan dozens of villages have been completely submerged by the deadly flooding.
And in Greece dramatic blazes on the island of Samos have wreaked havoc.
Hundreds of tourists were evacuated as the fires spread and helicopters along with more than 150 firefighters were brought in to tackle the flames.
The fire, which broke out in a ravine on Monday, is the second to strike the island in a week.
But Met Office climate change scientist Peter Stott insisted the extreme weather patterns were not unexpected and in keeping with climate change theories.
'What we have observed generally is a tendency for more heavy rain fall, a tendency towards a greater risk of flooding and also a greater risk of drought as well.
'These are consistent with what we know about climate change,' he said.

Pakistan's Flooding 2010; A Point Of View.
Author: sarkan, 14 Aug 2010 09:13:23
14 Million People Affected by Floods in Pakistan

Nellie,

"Nice Ramadan present from God to the dirty Muslims in Pakistan. Revenge for 9/11. I am having an exquisite moment of schadenfreude watching the Taliban and their minions drowning in mud."

This approach to natural disasters is my favorite. After each and every natural disaster, someone comes and tells us the real reason behind this: God's revenge against this and that bunch of people since they did this and that things.
I was enlightened and inspired by your above explanations and had already found additional explanations for some past disasters. You know, if God takes revenge this should be known by everybody and should not remain unnoticed.

2010 Haiti earthquake: 230.000 dead. God takes revenge for the rebellion and overthrowing of Aristide, their leader who is also a priest. He was oppressive but who cares?
2008 Sichuan earthquake: 70.000 dead. God takes revenge from Chinese since they are producing low quality goods. They are one fifth cheaper but still they should have been high quality. This is cheating and God knew this.
2005 Hurricane Katrina: 2.000 dead. God takes revenge from the New Orleans since the Jazz Clubs were in increase and this would make a lot of noise.
Natural disasters have natural grounds. Sometimes humankind has active or passive influence on triggering these natural reasons and their results. God not.
reply view initial story
Author: Bill, 14 Aug 2010 09:24:05
14 Million People Affected by Floods in Pakistan

Sarkan:

"Natural disasters have natural grounds. Sometimes humankind has active or passive influence on triggering these natural reasons and their results. God not."

This view, of course, is held by those who either don't know, choose not to believe, or otherwise dismiss God as the creator of the universe who established those "natural laws".


Author: mavro from australia, 14 Aug 2010 03:56:16
14 Million People Affected by Floods in Pakistan

A historic paralllel to this would be the plague of Athens.
During Pericles' time when the Athenians themselves began to stop being religious as they found that religion was doing nothing for them.
This is why all of a sudden the Taliban are saying that they want to be humanitarian because they know that this is the time when people start asking serious questions

China becomes world's second-largest economy

China surpassed Japan as the world’s second-largest economy last quarter, capping the nation’s three-decade rise from Communist isolation to emerging superpower.
Japan’s nominal gross domestic product for the second quarter totaled US$1.288-trillion, less than China’s US$1.337-trillion, the Japanese Cabinet Office said today. Japan remained bigger in the first half of 2010, the government agency said.
The country of 1.3 billion people will overtake the U.S., where annual GDP is about US$14-trillion, as the world’s largest economy by 2027, according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc. chief economist Jim O’Neill.
China overtook the U.S. last year as the biggest automobile market and Germany as the largest exporter. The nation is the world’s No. 1 buyer of iron ore and copper and the second- biggest importer of crude oil, and has underpinned demand for exports by its Asian neighbors.
Four of the world’s top 10 companies by market capitalization are from China, including PetroChina Co., Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd., China Mobile Ltd. and China Construction Bank Corp.
India poised to become world's fastest growing economy

India may overtake China as the world’s fastest growing major economy by 2015, as the South Asian nation doubles infrastructure investment and adds six-fold more workers than its northern neighbor, Morgan Stanley said.
India’s growth may accelerate to 9.5% between 2011 to 2015, Morgan Stanley economist Chetan Ahya said in an interview from Singapore today. India’s gross domestic product has expanded at an average 7.1% over the decade through the third quarter of 2009, compared with 9.1% in China, which surpassed Japan as the second-largest economy last quarter.
Within the next two years, India will start matching China’s growth rate. After that there will be a clear divergence of growth rates between the two countries.
India is ranked 89 out of 133 nations for its infrastructure, according to the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Index.
India’s US$1.3-trillion economy may accelerate to 8.5% in the year starting April 1 as Asia’s third-largest economy rebounds from the global recession

Pakistan's 'image deficit' may be behind difficulty in fundraising: UN




Relief agencies are having trouble obtaining funds to help millions of Pakistan flood victims as the country suffers from an “image deficit”, a UN spokeswoman said on Monday.

“We note often an image deficit with regards to Pakistan among Western public opinion,” said Elizabeth Byrs, spokeswoman of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
“As a result, Pakistan is among countries that are poorly financed, like Yemen,” she added.
The Unied Nations has been struggling to obtain US$460-million to provide emergency aid to six million victims of the country ravaged by heavy flooding. Only a fifth of the required funds have been pledged since the appeal was launched on August 11.
Melanie Brooks, spokeswoman of the humanitarian group Care International stressed that the UN must explain to donor states that “the money is not going to go to the hands of the Talibans.”
“The victims are the mothers, the farmers, children. But in the past, information linked to Pakistan has always been linked to Talibans and terrorism,” she said.
According to Pakistani authorities, around a quarter of the country which extends over 800,000 square kilometres nd counts 167 million inhabitants, have been affected by the floods over the last three weeks.
The UN said billions would be needed in the long term to reconstruct the villages, infrastructure and harvests devastated by the floods.
anonymous
They have earned all the deficit in image that they have. When they choose such items as fresh water and flushing toilets over a nuclear deterrent then I would consider aid appropriate. I predict that the Muslim brotherhood will donate a pittance with Saudi Arabia leading the way, as usual. I would wager that Israel is more likely to donate more than 90% of Muslim countries.
Every Muslim country has an image deficit problem right now, with Pakistan being close to the worst of them. It is particularly corrupt, so the expectation of any donation being used to help the needy is very low, and unfortunately helping the needy in Pakistan is probably helping the enemy, the fundamentalist Muslims, at the same time. Since Islam is supposedly such a strong brotherhood, I would expect the Muslim countries to donate many billions of dollars of aid. How much have they donated so far? It is a sad situation, but with 6 billion people in the world, resources are getting stretched thinly to help all the poor ones, and it is only getting worse as each year passes. I would rather help our friends than those supporting our enemies.

Why Muslims reject modernity

It is often said that Muslims in the 21st century have rejected modernity. What they are in fact rejecting is the process of suiting themselves to changing circumstances. There are two kinds of thinking: one that seeks to change in order to relate to times and one that seeks to change the world to suit its tenets. There are two ways principles can be formulated. One is to establish them on the basis of facts; the other, on the basis of doctrine. The latter necessitates coercion.

In the 20th century Muslims embraced modernity by accepting the nation-state. In the 21st century they are rejecting the nation-state through a free-wheeling jihad. (Read Ayman Al Zawahiri’s 65-page rejectionist treatise on the Constitution of Pakistan: The Morning and the Lamp.) Their laws increasingly reflect this rejection. The ‘rational’ is being replaced by the ‘doctrinal’. And the popular furore against this or that foe is propelled by the urge to change the world to suit it to doctrine.
A very interesting book Muslim Modernities: Expressions of the Civil Imagination, Edited by Amyn B Sajoo, (IB Tauris 2008), discusses the Muslim attitude towards modernity. Each Muslim country has rejected modernity by first rejecting some of its thinkers. In the case of Pakistan, Sir Syed Ahmad Khan and Allama Iqbal have had to be rejected to pave the way for the Taliban and al Qaeda.
Modernity in the West is based on an inductive assessment of the world. The book traces this modernity to Max Weber (1864-1920) and his classic book, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1905), providing a rational account of the cultural and social convergences taken to be formative in Western modernity. Later, “rationality” became attached to the idea of secularism or separation of religion from the nation-state.
It is by rejecting this “separation” that the Muslims take their first step towards dismissing modernity from their universe. Since doctrine is impervious to experiment, no amount of evidence against the “religious state” can lead to self-correction. Let us see how we have rejected Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, as pointed out by a Pakistani intellectual, Muhammad Ali Siddiqi. Pakistan as a state has ignored his following insights:
1) Nothing in the Holy Quran can be wrong or incorrect or ahistorical; 2) Nothing in the Quran can be contrary to the laws of nature; 3) There is no such thing as abrogation (naskh), using a later text to trump an earlier one with which it seems to disagree; 4) Bank interest is not the same as “riba”; and 5) Hudood punishments must be reassessed in the light of changing times.
The rejection of Allama Iqbal took place formally during a national seminar presided over by General Ziaul Haq in Karachi on 25 December 1986, the birth anniversary of Jinnah. The topic was ‘What is the Problem Number One of Pakistan?’ Justice Javid Iqbal, then a sitting judge of the Supreme Court, got up during the conference and said that the “hudood” enforced by General Zia had been set aside by Allama Iqbal in his Sixth Lecture.
Needless to say, General Zia announced that he had to ignore Allama Iqbal. Later, the Appellate Shariat Bench of the Supreme Court also rejected his view of bank interest which Iqbal shared with Sir Syed Ahmad Khan. Javid Iqbal in his latest book Khutbaat-e-Iqbal (Sang-e-Meel 2008) adds more of Iqbal that we have rejected: divorce by wives, contraception, monogamy, shares markets and insurance companies (p.212).
Today, nothing negates modernity more than jihad. It undermines the nation-state, and destroys the state that organises it. The scattering of the Pakistani state is owed to it.

Hope floats as Karachi’s young blood dips in to help

Two law students from Manchester decided to do something different when they came back home this summer.
Twenty-five-year old Mohammad Jibran Nasir and his friend Amar Abbasi felt that while the floods were wreaking havoc across the country, there did not seem to be an obvious channel to help those affected by the disaster.
“When the earthquake came everybody had a channel, they all knew they could go the PAF base and donate there,” said Jibran. “But this time around there did not seem to be anything out there.”
Since the two young men felt that their efforts were the first step to reach the flood-affected families in Khyber-Pakthunkhwa and other areas, they decided ‘Pehla Qaddam’ would be an apt name.
Despite the target killings, riots and storms, the group managed to raise around Rs250,000 in five days. “We set a target of Rs100,000 in seven days but Mash’Allah we managed to make so much in just five days!” said the optimistic Jibran.
In fact, Pehla Qadam has struck a good deal with the Imtiaz Supermarket chain, which has promised to sell the items on the group’s list (adapted from the National Disaster Management Authority’s list) at a subsidised rate.
Moreover, the Royal Rodale has donated a room, which is serving as the main collection point for the group.
Initially the plan was to collect supplies for a week and then send them off since both Jibran and Amar have to head back to Manchester. “But our friends were so eager that we have decided to leave things to them and keep the process going for another week.”
The hotel too has agreed to let them keep the room for another seven days.
Since Pehla Qadam is not a registered entity, the group decided to affiliate itself with the Rotaract Club. The same organisation will help the group transport the goods to the affected areas.

Pakistan’s military and elite are holding it back: US analyst

There are two groups in Pakistan that hinder its growth, first the military and second the socio-political elite who have their own defined interests. This was the assessment of analyst Walter Russell Mead in a quick interview with the Pakistani newspapers as he stops in for a fortnight to assess how Pakistanis view US foreign policy.

“[The military and elite] make the country appear very dynastic,” said Mead, who is visiting Pakistan for the second time after 2007. Until recently, he was the Henry A Kissinger senior fellow for US foreign policy at the Council on Foreign Relations.
Mead is interested in understanding why American foreign policy so unpopular in Pakistan – what is it that America misunderstands about Pakistan and what is it that Pakistanis don’t understand about US foreign policy. He said he wants to work on crafting new ways to develop trust between the two allies in the fight against extremism.
“It is not in America’s interest to see Pakistan under threat or bullied by its neighbor,” said
Mead said that Pakistan that has a growth rate of eight to 10 per cent, which has improved socio-economic indicators, investment in infrastructure and development, which leads him to be confident about its fundamentals.
After reporting from Pakistan, he identified four main reasons – India, Afghanistan, Islam and the unwelcome influence of the US in Pakistan – for the growing mistrust between Pakistan and the US. Both countries need to have in-depth dialogue on their issues. “It should be an honest and candid talk about each other’s fears, including India and Afghanistan, keeping all the cards on the table,” he stressed. This is how relations will be shaped in the future.
He justified America’s growing interest in India as a response to its emerging power and influence in the region and said that Pakistan needs to keep up if it wants to be treated like its rival. “India is a very fast-emerging economy and we have to respond to it accordingly,” he said. “They achieved that state themselves; we did not create that.”
He said that there was a time when India was equally concerned about the growing influence of China in the region as it could not keep up with its growth level. The same is now happening to Pakistan. India’s prominence in the region is a fact now and it is up to Pakistan to react and adopt to this change.
Answering a question on the Kashmir issue, Mead said that if Pakistanis think that, “we can wave a magic wand over India”, it simply wasn’t true. When the US could not move the 800,000 people of Cyprus even though the EU, UN, Greece and Turkey were on its side, how could it persuade more than one billion people in India to listen? However, America can play a role in improving Pakistan’s state so that it has a better standing, he said.
Now people in America see Pakistan more as part of the Middle East than the growing region of Asia. “Asia now comprises countries such as India, China, Japan and Vietnam for us,” he said. “We see Asia as the center of growth in the future with the Pacific being the ocean of world politics and not the Atlantic.” However, Pakistan has a key position as far as Afghanistan is concerned.
It is a legal obligation for all aid to reach Pakistan through its government, however, with the given level of corruption, it gets divided among the different ministries before it can reach the people it is meant for.
As far as the new world order is concerned, Mead said that it depends on how Pakistan secures an important role in the world in future. Pakistan needs to stabilise its security and economic position, focus on human development and look at the course of Talibanisation. “Pakistan needs to work on its internal strategy if not to please the Americans then for its own benefit,” he concluded.
Walter Russell Mead writes for several international publications and is on the editorial board of ‘The American Interest’ a think tank on American foreign policy http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/>

Will the flood wake up our elite?

Can the floods wake up the elite from their slumber? If it doesn’t, a bloody anarchic revolution could most certainly be on the cards.

Many of us have written about how little the elite give back to Pakistan’s masses and if that trend were to continue unabated a breaking point would not be far. With the merciless deluge that has engulfed our country, that breaking point is now here. From what I can see through TV reports is that the anger is raging and palpable — and rightly so.
Although the current disaster is not of the government or the rich man’s making, nature’s ruthless umbrage falls, once again, disproportionately on those least fortunate. With misery all around us, it is Pakistan’s elite who are in the best position to help, if not for the sake of those wronged then for their own sake, to avoid that bloody revolution that would harm them more than anyone else. This is the subject of a letter written by well-known businessman.
I was recently made privy to the contents of this open letter, written in Urdu, under the title “Pakistan ke ameer tareen khandanon ke naam khula khat”. Addressing some families and individuals specifically, mostly businessmen and his personal friends, the writer acknowledges that Pakistan’s super-rich are indebted to the masses and must give back or face terrible consequences. His prescription is an appeal to form a “fund for the Pakistani awam” which would help rehabilitation efforts by ensuring free food disbursement, building small hospitals and vocational training centres. Citing the example of Bangladesh’s Grameen Bank, he suggests creating micro-credit schemes. In order to set up the fund, he calls upon the super-rich to donate Rs50 million each and then top it up with Rs2 million per month. Once functional, the fund would ask for further donations from those who may not be super-rich but in a position to give. Alluding to the French and Iranian Revolutions, he makes an emotional appeal.
NGOs have done much work in Pakistan, filling important gaps where the government has abdicated. Nevertheless, Pakistan remains one of the countries with the lowest tax-to-GDP ratios in the world. This means that though Pakistan’s elite have contributed significantly to charities, they have evaded paying their due share in taxes. I have often wondered why that is and have come up with a couple of explanations. Charities and NGOs have a better track record than the government. Their work is more visible on the ground and their funds less susceptible to corruption. Also, taxes are anonymous while charities celebrate their donors and founders. The concept of the benefactor and the indebted, so prevalent in our country, is sustained by charity but non-existent in a system funded by taxes. Expectation from the government is premised on entitlement, but relying on private charity fuels indebtedness.
We are stuck in a vicious cycle. The government is incompetent, corrupt and under-funded. The super-rich refuse to pay taxes, barring notable exceptions such as the honourable Jahangir Tareen. Thus we are left with no option but to resort to charity and call upon the very elite who have not otherwise shouldered their responsibilities. The businessman’s letter, with its humble tone and good intention, must be lauded. But do the businessmen trust each other any more than the government? Do they have the will to work together on a mega-project to rebuild lives? We are in a very tough spot. It may already be too late to avoid that dreaded bloody revolution. But if there is a way out of this, it can only rest on unity and discipline. Faith we have never quite been short of. A public-private partnership whereby donors collectively agree on a committee to oversee fund disbursement, working in cohesion with local NGOs as well as the government machinery may be the only way out of this crisis.

The Pakistan Jinnah envisioned

I have been reading the Dawn newspaper since I was a child and it helped form a clear, balanced image of the founder of Pakistan in my mind. This year as I read an article by Jinnah expert Shariful Mujahid article, entitled return to Jinnah’s Pakistan’ I saw with dismay and pessimism , a picture so grey and small.

Gone were the beautiful bright colours of the people of Sindh, Baluchistan , Frontier and Punjab. Gone were the dreams and promises. The style in which he has addressed the readers shows how hopeless and petty our issues have become. How we as a people and a nation have failed completely to govern, guide and prosper. How our ship of nationhood has entered the tossing, destroying, stormy waters of disintegration and destruction. And all thanks to the demons and despots , who only for their petty gains, their bird-brained thoughts, imposed on such a vibrant, tolerant, dynamic people over the last 60 years. No wonder India is still trying to shake our foundations. No wonder we are labeled as a failed state. Through consistent destruction of institutions and syncophant promotion our whole paradigm of healthy progress is destroyed.

Jinnah stood for faith, unity and discipline.Today we stand for hatred, prejudice, intolerance and bigotry. He said “let all people worship freely in churches, masjids and temples.” He stood for honesty and hard work, of which he himself was a shining example. We stand for sheer parasitic, nepotism, communal promotion and moral corruption. He stood for democracy and the masses. We stand for maneuvering, cheating and colluding . He stood for integrity of character.We stand for deluge, trickery, bribery and sheer baseness! My heart is filled with intense pain. I grieve for the lost ideal and I grieve for the lost truth.

Do you not think that it is time for us all to discard the mantle of bigotry and lies. It is time to reread and repledge our vows for a revived Jinnah’s Pakistan? Otherwise we may lose this beautiful country, the soul of our existence, forever! We may never be able to justify the reason for creation of Pakistan again.

Independence Day passes by unceremoniously

Students miss out on traditional Aug 14 celebration

Following the recent flood devastation in different parts of country 64th Independence Day was celebrated with simplicity to express solidarity with the flood victims.
Quran Khawani was held for the martyrs of Pakistan Movement. National flags were hoisted on government and private buildings.
Different functions at government and private level were already cancelled due to flood devastation in different areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan, Punjab and Sindh.
The Independence Day ceremonies were cancelled at president and Prime Minister House and day was celebrated with simplicity.
Pakistan Army had also decided to cancel ceremonies of Independence Day and 6th September.
Contrary to past, this year functions were not arranged by NGO’s and other social organizations as they are busy in collecting donations for the flood victims. Large numbers of workers of private organizations are engaged in rescue and relief work in flood-affected areas. Different vendors resented cancellation of Independence Day celebrations as their stalls comprised of Independence Day material remained deserted.
People from different walks of life appreciated this decision to celebrate the Independence Day with simplicity.
All of public school students who were preparing to take part in the Independence Day ceremony have been told at the last minute to forget the celebrations and help flood victims instead.
Public school teachers vowed to celebrate Independence Day with zeal while also encouraging their students to give financial and moral support to the flood victims.

First to move in,

Islamists win hearts
Pakistani Islamists have been quick to step in to help after this month's devastating floods, winning hearts and minds as frustration with the government grows.
The army was quick to respond with rescue efforts, saving many lives as the torrent struck. The government, overwhelmed by the scale of the disaster, has been blasted as ineffective.

But as the authorities andinternational aid agencies marshal supplies and staff, it is often nimble Islamist charity workers who are first to arrive to help people pick up their lives as the worst of the surge begins to ebb. They may not bring huge resources to bear but they establish a presence. reuters