Muslims plan more subdued holiday

Eid celebration falls close to 9/11

Millions of Muslims gather in Mecca for Eid

Two Eids in Pakistan – again

Chairman Central Ruet-e-Hilal Committee Mufti Munibur Rehman has announced that Shawwal moon has not been sighted and Eidul Fitr will be celebrated on Saturday.

He made the announcement while addressing the media after the Central Ruet-e-Hilal Committee meeting for the sighting of Shawwal moon.

However, following Rehman’s conference, Mufti Popalzai, head of the controversial Masjid Qasim Ali Khan in Peshawar, announced the sighting of the Eid moon – claiming that they had received a number of Shahadats (testimonies).

His announcement was backed by senior provincial minister Bashir Bilour, who said that the province of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa will be celebrating Eid on Friday (today).

Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Lebanon are set to celebrate Eidul Fitr on Friday. The Supreme Court in Saudi Arabia ruled that since the Shawwal moon was not sighted on Wednesday, Eid would fall on Friday.

Most of the Gulf countries follow the lead of Saudi Arabia to set the day of the Eid feast.

More than three million Muslims were gathering in the holy city of Mecca on Thursday, ahead of the Eid holiday that marks the end of the Ramadan month of fasting.

Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah will join tens of thousands of worshippers for prayers at dawn on Friday at the main mosque in Mecca, Islam's holiest site, to begin the three-day long Eid al-Fitr.

Each year on Eid al-Fitr, the end of the Ramadan month of fasting, 8,000 to 10,000 Muslims stream into the Muslim Community Center in Silver Spring, Md.,US. in shifts for special Eid services, followed by food, singing, dancing, and henna decorating to celebrate one of Islam’s most festive holidays.

Eid, like other Muslim events, is calculated on a lunar calendar and occurs slightly earlier each year. This week, depending on when in August one started fasting, it is either on the 9th, 10th, or 11th.

Particularly, people are taking care not to do any celebrations on the day of 9/11, because it is a day of tragedy, and we have to be sensitive.

Angelina Jolie in Pakistan to meet flood victims

Hollywood star Angelina Jolie visited Pakistan on Tuesday to draw the world’s attention towards the plight of 21 million people affected by the country’s worst-ever floods, the UN refugee agency said.

During a visit to Jalozai camp, Jolie termed the flood situation in Pakistan as extraordinarily complex. Speaking to the media, she said she is ready to extend all-out support to the flood victims such as providing tents, food, drinking water and medicine.

The Hollywood star, who has donated 65,000 pounds for the cause, said Pakistanis face mass death, mass displacement, and that the situation is going to get worse. She added that Pakistan is already giving shelter to millions of Afghan refugees and massive floods have put the country in a very precarious situation.

Jolie, the 34-year-old actress and roving envoy for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, would be travelling to affected communities in the northwest and would meet those involved in the relief efforts, it said.

This is the fourth visit by Jolie to Pakistan since she became a UNHCR goodwill ambassador in 2001.

Last week Jolie released a video message appealing for greater public support for Pakistan’s relief efforts, and she has herselfdonated $100,000 to the flood appeal.

The UNHCR is providing relief aid including shelter materials to those displaced by the disaster, which has killed 1,760 people by the official toll.

Is burning Quran a hate crime or a free speech issue?

In face of Quran-burning threat, 'Silence is not an option:' Clergy

Religious hatred raises its ugly head again

A church in Florida may soon become the

catalyst for another outbreak of worldwide violence. Before they go ahead with their planned “Burn a Qur’an” event on 11 September, they would do well to remember the controversy and bloodshed caused by the Danish cartoons

of the prophet Muhammad. .

The 50-stron

g Dove World Outreach Centre in Gainesville, Florida, plans to mark the

anniversar

y of the 9/11 terrorist attacks by burning copies of the Qur’an. “On 9/11/2010 we are burning Korans to raise awareness and [sic] warn”, the statement on the church’s website reads. “In a sense it is neither an act of love nor of hate. We see, as we state in the Ten Reasons below, that Islam is a danger. We are using this act to warn about the teaching and ideology of Islam, which we do hate as it is hateful. We do not hate any people, however. We love, as God loves, all the people in the world and we want them to come to a knowledge of the truth. To warn of danger and harm is a loving act. God is love and truth. If you know the truth it can set you free. The world is in bondage to the massive grip of the lies of Islam.”

The blog post on the website goes on to list 10 reasons why the church will be burning the Qur’an, such as “the Koran does not have an eternal origin. It is not recorded in heaven.”

Reports of a small religious group in the United States which plans to burn copies of the holy Quran.

Is burning a Bible because you hate Christianity, a hate crime? How about burning a Torah? Is that an anti-Semitic act? And this brings us to the question of burning a Quran....

Is the Dove World Outreach Center's Quran bonfire, planned for the Saturday anniversary of the 9/11 attack, a hate crime or n expression of free speech -- like the deplorable but legal protest act of burning a U.S. flag to object to a government policy?

Punjab govt goes after Hindu mythology cartoons

The Punjab government has formed a committee which will present a report on the airing of cartoons depicting Hindu mythology and if they can be banned in Pakistan.

The committee is headed by Punjab government spokesman Senator Pervaiz Rasheed and comprises Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) Cultural Wing President and MPA, Farah Deeba, MPA Khawaja Imran Nazir and other officials.

Even though Indian TV channels are currently off-air in Pakistan, several cable operators are broadcasting Indian content to meet the demands of their clientele.

A meeting of the committee was held in Lahore, which discussed ways to get these cartoons banned in Pakistan.
Deeba, who attended the meeting, told The Express Tribune that participants had discussed “cartoons which glorified mythology characters such as Hanuman had a bad impact on the minds of the young children.
She said that “these cartoons were in contradiction with the teachings of Islam and young kids could not differentiate between what’s true and what’s not so these should be banned.”
Deeba said that the meeting was attended by bureaucrats and the information, culture and youth affairs department secretary was also present.

However, banning Indian cartoons is not in the Punjab government’s control. According to Deeba, “We have taken our notes but cannot ban these cartoons on our own as this is a federal subject. We will however approach the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority through the federal government to seek a ban on such cartoons,” she said.

According to the 1998 census, 1.6 per cent of Pakistan’s population is Hindu.
Eminent artist and former principal of Lahore’s National College of Arts Salima Hashmi questioned the decision to form a committee for this purpose.

“Why doesn’t the government make a committee to know the root cause of militancy and why doesn’t it set up committees to find reasons of young children becoming suicide attackers?” she questioned.

Hashmi said that in India the number of Muslims was greater than the number of Muslims in Pakistan, so if Muslim children in India were not affected by mythology cartoons, why would children in Pakistan be affected? Hashmi told The Express Tribune, “Isn’t there anything constructive that they can work on? Why waste time on setting up such committees and inquiring into such matters which are not pertinent in the current situation?”

Scraping the barrel

What else again, but the disgrace heaped on our country by these hoodlums who also go by the name of cricketers? How much more disgrace will be piled upon this country by these Yahoos, and the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB), both prime collections of clowns and jokers? I mean what the devil is going on?

The ICC gives us the time and the opportunity to withdraw the three named and (hopefully) shamed players from the T20 and the one-day series and we go on insisting we will not. And then, when the International Cricket Council (ICC) suspends them, we have the gall to say we still think they are innocent and that the ICC overstepped its authority; that it is a conspiracy; that the videos were doctored; that Indian bookies were the ones really to blame, and so on.

What in the world is wrong with us? Why do we strike attitudes and then fall flat on our faces, every single time? Why do we repeatedly shoot ourselves in the groin — shooting oneself in the foot is far less painful so it’s the groin for us — making ourselves the laughing stock of the world?

Instead of taking the high road in matters like this and saying that what has been alleged is serious stuff, and that if the charges are true we will take the most stringent action to wipe out corruption in our cricket, we try to obfuscate and sidestep and lie.

We will simply not do the right thing, ever. Instead of facing the facts, we went and challenged a newspaper such as the News of the World, a tabloid known for dirty tricks I know, but part of a multi-billion pound media empire, which the very next week came out with more lurid stories about Pakistani cricket and the veritable death throes it is in.

Now there are allegations that all Pakistani matches are ‘fixed’, through the mouth (and video) of batsman Yasir Hameed who apparently told the News of the World that every single match that Pakistan plays is ‘fixed’!

Most critically, where in the world is Ijaz Butt, the present undertaker of Pakistan cricket, who is finally interring its putrid corpse; people like the Commando’s favourite Nasim Ashraf already having performed the last rites? Which seven-star London hotel is he lurking in, leaving the high commissioner to do his dirty work? This is not a bilateral matter between the court of St James and the government of Pakistan, so why is Butt himself not facing the music?

And now for the discomfiture of our slow and ponderous prime minister (who just a few weeks ago made the silly remark that now that COAS Kayani had got a three-year extension everybody would complete their tenures — I ask you!) as he watches the army project itself at the politicians cost. Which, be as it may, even I, as a former soldier, was dismayed to see army trucks carrying relief supplies for the flood-affected, emblazoned with banners announcing ‘In tough times Pakistan Army is with you’ and other such.

This is highly unprofessional behaviour: if the army is distributing food and other supplies to Pakistanis in trouble it is the right and proper thing to do: it is the Pakistan Army after all and the food and supplies belong to the people of Pakistan in the first place who pay for the army’s upkeep through their very noses.

Of course, if the relief goods had been bought with the profits of the army’s commercial activities such as real estate businesses; retail shops; bakeries and restaurants; cement, fertiliser and sugar manufacturing industries, then the banner could (rightly) have read ‘donated by the CSD’, ‘donated by Askari Bank’ or ‘donated by Fauji Cement’, and so on.

Also, there should have been an ‘on hire’ plate displayed on the hood of the trucks (as used to happen in days gone by) telling the world that these commercial undertakings had hired army transport, according to the rules, to do their good deeds.

Armies the world over help out during calamities: why, even the New Zealand army has been drafted just two days ago to help clean up the mess after the earthquake that hit that lovely and peaceful country. Just the other day the Australian army was called out to help the affected people in the worst floods in 10 years. I saw no banners on New Zealand or Australian army trucks announcing the army’s kind help to its countrymen and women.

I do wish the army would rid itself of this superiority complex sooner rather than later and start considering itself as just another department of the Pakistani government which it is.

We must note too that when the Pakistan Army is called out to help the civilian authority in natural disasters or in internal security (IS) duties, it is called out in ‘aid to civil power’.

Under this arrangement a certain amount of daily allowance is also paid to all ranks, and quite rightly, for the days that they are engaged in such duties away from the unit lines/residences. Even during the so-called Baloch insurgency in the ’70s when my battalion was posted in Kalat and then in Khuzdar we received DA which was a welcome addition to our salaries.

The DA, and the same amount was paid to all ranks up to lieutenant colonel used to be Rs900 per month if memory serves; I am told it is something like Rs13,000 today. So no one is doing any favours to anyone please, sirs.

On the return of our military delegation from Dulles airport, Washington D.C. just this: where was the American conducting officer who should have met the delegation the moment it set foot in the US, to accompany it during its travels in the US?

And a personal experience: travelling recently in the US, I saw a US Navy rear admiral go through exact same security checks as anyone else. There is no VIP culture there, gentlemen, no one gives a toss for any number of ‘stars’.

Angelina Jolie in Pakistan to meet flood victims

Hollywood star Angelina Jolie Tuesday visited Pakistan

to draw world attention towards the plight of 21 million people affected by the country's worst-ever floods, the UN refugee agency said.

"UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador Angelina Jolie arrived in Pakistan today to meet people affected by the floods and to highlight the continued urgent need for help," the agency said in a statement.

Jolie, the 34-year-old actress and roving envoy for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, would be travelling to affected communities in the northwest and would meet those involved in the relief efforts, it said.

This is the fourth visit by Jolie to Pakistan since she became a UNHCR goodwill ambassador in 2001.

Last week Jolie released a video message appealing for greater public support for Pakistan's relief efforts, and she has herself donated 100,000 dollars to the flood appeal.

The UNHCR is providing relief aid including shelter materials to those displaced by the disaster, which has killed 1,760 people by the official toll.

Floods dampen Pakistan

Defense Day enthusiasm

In view of the devastations wrecked by the ongoing floods in the country, the 45th Defense Day

was observed in Lahore, and other parts of Pakistan, with simplicity on Monday. All the state functions were called off and the funds thus saved will be donated towards the relief efforts.However, a guards’ changing ceremony was held as per routine at the mausoleum of poet/philosopher Allama Muhammad Iqbal. It was this great thinker who first gave the idea of a separate Muslim state in the sub-continent. During the ceremony, Garrison Commander Major General Mazhar Jameel paid homage to the great poet.Pak Army officers laid flower wreath at the mausoleum of the poet of east. On this occasion the Rangers presented the Guard of Honour. The Pakistan Navy observed the Defence Day of Pakistan with respect and solemnity to commemorate its bold operations and sacrifices of its Shuhada (martyrs) during the 1965 Pak-Indo war.Earlier, special prayers were made in mosques for the solidarity of the nation. People also paid homage to those who sacrificed their lives for the sake of the country. The Defence of Pakistan Day is celebrated every year with traditional fervour to commemorate the heroic deeds of the Pakistan Army in defending the motherland during the 1965 war with India. A special ceremony was held at the grave of Major Shabbir Sharif (Shaheed), Nishan-e-Haider to pay homage and commemorate his sacrifice. General Officer Commanding Major General Azeem Asif along with the family members of the martyr laid floral wreath and offered ‘Fateha’. A smartly turned out contingent of Frontier Force Regiment of Pakistan Army presented the salute. Members belonging to all cross-section of society kept on visiting the grave throughout the day to pay their respect to the Great War hero. Similar ceremonies were also held at Army Graveyard in Lahore and Gunj-e-Shuhada, near Kasur, where floral wreaths were laid on the memorial of Brigadier Ahsan Rashid Shami (Shaheed), Hilal-e-Jurrat and graves of other Shuhada.

Hot yuppie soup

Sometimes I feel that the human condition in Pakistan is actually a medical condition. At this point, Pakistan does not need politicians, technocrats or economists to improve its lot. It needs psychiatrists. I am not talking about the masses as such. They’ve swung from left to right, right to left and then back again in their assessments about what their country is supposed to be. Political leaders and the intelligentsia were once the main playmakers in this respect. They fumbled, sometimes triumphed; they disappointed, but many a time helped a lot of Pakistanis see light at the end of its long and unending, dark tunnel — a tunnel infested with booby traps placed at every turn by haughty generals and their allies. In this tunnel also roam macabre thugs enforcing the faith through the barrel of the gun and through brainwashed mad men who believe that by blowing up innocent people, they are on their way to the bloodied (thus glorious) stairway to heaven. Then there are the generals and their shameless civilian and media allies suffering from some serious delusions of grandeur, thinking that they alone are the saviours of Pakistan. Apart from these pleasant folks, those needing psychiatric treatment most, I believe, are many among the educated and modern: the chattering classes and their hip, self-contradictory and condescending offspring who have become great fodder for urban radical-conservatism. I’d rather settle for the word ‘fools’ here for this lot, because the kind of insufferable mixture (of sheer knee-jerk whiplash and mindless patriotism) that these creatures exhibit is rather obnoxious. You’ll find college and university students in this lot, along with those settled in various western countries; you’ll find fashion models, pop musicians, TV actors in there as well, with VJs and DJs, novelists, columnists, journalists, et al. They are all here in this self-congratulatory club — a vivid personification of a collective mental meltdown mistaken as ‘political conscience’ and ‘faith.’ In other words, what gets passed and trumpeted as the glowing face of a ‘moderate’ Pakistan, may as well be an elaborate hoax. All these perfumed patriots and ‘radicals’ (oh, my), have a whole plethora of some wonderful heroes to choose from — according to whatever vile nonsense that gets passed as ‘politics’ and ‘idealism’ these days. They just fancy the hollow peanuts in those pretty little craniums of theirs. They hate Zardari. That’s a given. A national pastime it seems of the gloating bourgeoisie and their representatives in the ‘oh-we’re-so-gallant-and-noble-media’. For heaven’s sake, be a tad more original about your rebellion and anger, I say. It’s funny how they become absolute sheep-like in the name of individuality. Though always in perpendicular patriotic pain by identifying ‘this corrupt monster’ as their (elected) president for whom they are loaded with depraved jokes and abuses, these puffed up men and women conveniently bypass the most hateful drivel that emerges from the foaming mouths of their heroes. So who are these heroes of theirs? It can be anyone from Imran Khan to Zaid Hamid; from Zakir Naik to Shahid Masood; from Farhat Hashmi to whosoever does a good job sympathetically redressing their belligerent set of moral and social hypocrisy. They are fine with people spouting utter hatred against Jews, Hindus, Christians, Ahmadis and ‘bad’ Muslims; and they are okay with idiots who think the army is the best thing that happened to this country. Being informed by a series of hyperbolic fibs (that they catch on TV, the internet and on that narcissistic juvenile dumping hole called Facebook), they absorb these fibs as ‘history’ and ‘facts.’ Lies are okay, you see, as long as they make us feel good about our country and religion. But they go ballistic if someone criticises them for this. They would then roll up their designer sleeves, tank themselves up with all the expensive coffee that they can have at lovely little cafes, rub their varnished palms and go tap, tap, tap on their laptops. ‘How dare these self-loathers criticise Pakistan?’ They will write. Well, exactly what are they doing by regurgitating thorny bile and spite against elected governments, politicians, certain journalists and those who have a more subtle approach to things like faith and patriotism? Are these not Pakistanis as well? But not more than you, right? Many of them had rather hang around in western countries (indulging in some awfully clichéd cyber-preaching from there); and many are the favourite clients of the elaborate, expensive outfits that go by under the nomenclature of cafes, sophisticated restaurants, boutiques and whatnot in this country. It is quite a sight watching so many of these passionate drawing room puffins bemoaning the suffering of the masses and those hit by the recent floods due to the ‘corruption’ and ‘inept attitude of the ruling elite,’ while munching their ‘sushi nigiri,’ and green curry prawn with baby eggplant and sweet basil leaf. They should thank the internet that the schizophrenic silliness that emerges from them now actually finds an audience. But just why would anybody go public about their obvious stupidities? But who would tell them about their loud inanities. That would be such an unpatriotic thing to do, no?

Hot yuppie soup

Sometimes I feel that the human condition in Pakistan is actually a medical condition. At this point, Pakistan does not need politicians, technocrats or economists to improve its lot. It needs psychiatrists. I am not talking about the masses as such. They’ve swung from left to right, right to left and then back again in their assessments about what their country is supposed to be. Political leaders and the intelligentsia were once the main playmakers in this respect. They fumbled, sometimes triumphed; they disappointed, but many a time helped a lot of Pakistanis see light at the end of its long and unending, dark tunnel — a tunnel infested with booby traps placed at every turn by haughty generals and their allies. In this tunnel also roam macabre thugs enforcing the faith through the barrel of the gun and through brainwashed mad men who believe that by blowing up innocent people, they are on their way to the bloodied (thus glorious) stairway to heaven. Then there are the generals and their shameless civilian and media allies suffering from some serious delusions of grandeur, thinking that they alone are the saviours of Pakistan. Apart from these pleasant folks, those needing psychiatric treatment most, I believe, are many among the educated and modern: the chattering classes and their hip, self-contradictory and condescending offspring who have become great fodder for urban radical-conservatism. I’d rather settle for the word ‘fools’ here for this lot, because the kind of insufferable mixture (of sheer knee-jerk whiplash and mindless patriotism) that these creatures exhibit is rather obnoxious. You’ll find college and university students in this lot, along with those settled in various western countries; you’ll find fashion models, pop musicians, TV actors in there as well, with VJs and DJs, novelists, columnists, journalists, et al. They are all here in this self-congratulatory club — a vivid personification of a collective mental meltdown mistaken as ‘political conscience’ and ‘faith.’ In other words, what gets passed and trumpeted as the glowing face of a ‘moderate’ Pakistan, may as well be an elaborate hoax. All these perfumed patriots and ‘radicals’ (oh, my), have a whole plethora of some wonderful heroes to choose from — according to whatever vile nonsense that gets passed as ‘politics’ and ‘idealism’ these days. They just fancy the hollow peanuts in those pretty little craniums of theirs. They hate Zardari. That’s a given. A national pastime it seems of the gloating bourgeoisie and their representatives in the ‘oh-we’re-so-gallant-and-noble-media’. For heaven’s sake, be a tad more original about your rebellion and anger, I say. It’s funny how they become absolute sheep-like in the name of individuality. Though always in perpendicular patriotic pain by identifying ‘this corrupt monster’ as their (elected) president for whom they are loaded with depraved jokes and abuses, these puffed up men and women conveniently bypass the most hateful drivel that emerges from the foaming mouths of their heroes. So who are these heroes of theirs? It can be anyone from Imran Khan to Zaid Hamid; from Zakir Naik to Shahid Masood; from Farhat Hashmi to whosoever does a good job sympathetically redressing their belligerent set of moral and social hypocrisy. They are fine with people spouting utter hatred against Jews, Hindus, Christians, Ahmadis and ‘bad’ Muslims; and they are okay with idiots who think the army is the best thing that happened to this country. Being informed by a series of hyperbolic fibs (that they catch on TV, the internet and on that narcissistic juvenile dumping hole called Facebook), they absorb these fibs as ‘history’ and ‘facts.’ Lies are okay, you see, as long as they make us feel good about our country and religion. But they go ballistic if someone criticises them for this. They would then roll up their designer sleeves, tank themselves up with all the expensive coffee that they can have at lovely little cafes, rub their varnished palms and go tap, tap, tap on their laptops. ‘How dare these self-loathers criticise Pakistan?’ They will write. Well, exactly what are they doing by regurgitating thorny bile and spite against elected governments, politicians, certain journalists and those who have a more subtle approach to things like faith and patriotism? Are these not Pakistanis as well? But not more than you, right? Many of them had rather hang around in western countries (indulging in some awfully clichéd cyber-preaching from there); and many are the favourite clients of the elaborate, expensive outfits that go by under the nomenclature of cafes, sophisticated restaurants, boutiques and whatnot in this country. It is quite a sight watching so many of these passionate drawing room puffins bemoaning the suffering of the masses and those hit by the recent floods due to the ‘corruption’ and ‘inept attitude of the ruling elite,’ while munching their ‘sushi nigiri,’ and green curry prawn with baby eggplant and sweet basil leaf. They should thank the internet that the schizophrenic silliness that emerges from them now actually finds an audience. But just why would anybody go public about their obvious stupidities? But who would tell them about their loud inanities. That would be such an unpatriotic thing to do, no?