Vox Populi

During the past few days I have overheard the following conversation between people at public places in Karachi:

1. How can an order issued by the Chief of Army Staff be applicable to anyone other than army personnel? Why do the Civil Administration and Judiciary take notice of such orders?
2. How can a civil servant of grade 17 issue a document titled “Statutory Regulatory Order” on Government of Pakistan letter head in defiance of the acts of parliament, budgetary allocations and constitutional provisions?
3. How can the army that holds the people and institutions of Pakistan in such contempt be expected to give its blood to defend them?
4. All of Pakistan’s problems can be solved by getting rid of about 600 top civil servants, an equal number of politicians and about 200 top military officers.
5. Pervez Musharraf has not been able to find a general in the Pak army suitable to be appointed as COAS in the last five years, will he import one now?
6. Pervez Musharraf is needed to maintain political stability in Pakistan.
7. Benazir Bhutto in spite of being a democratic icon has no political program or economic policy; she will only fuel further corruption if brought to power.
8. Nawaz Shrif initiated the economic policies in his first term which are still being followed, but he has a dictatorial streak and may again annoy his colleagues who may again conspire with the army to overthrow him.
9. Is Nawaz Sharif the Saudi candidate for premiership or USA’s possible alternative to Benazir?
10. What is the formula to empower the poor who are getting poorer while the rich are getting richer?

God help us.

The Black Night of 10/18

The Black Night of 10/18
By Naseem Mahnavi (mnasim_99@yahoo.com)

The ghastly carnage in Karachi on the night of 18th October, 2007 was perhaps the worst thing that ever happened in Pakistan after independence. No amount of condemnation and consolation can give solace to the bereaved families in particular and the nation in general. It was a heinous crime whose facilitators must be demobilized and punished in an exemplary manner. For now one can only pray for the peace of the deceased and the safety of those who live in this country.

However, it would be extremely imprudent if one does not look back and ponder impartially the events and circumstances that made such a thing possible. The following points come to my mind that should make those who deserve to blame themselves do so.

Pakistani generals who need clearance from the Pentagon for their promotions would do anything to please their mentors.
Perhaps this arrangement was agreed when the USA supplied sophisticated hardware to Pakistani military including Star fighters which were clumsily bugged and crashed at regular intervals. How reliable is the rest of American military hardware?

Generals promoted recently to key posts seem to have emotional personalities that can be manipulated easily.

The US administration would like to have Benazir at the head of government in Pakistan when they attack Iran so that she may control the violent reaction of Pakistani Shias. Insecure as she has proven to be, she would literally be on American strings.

The responsibility of the 10/18 carnage lies heavily on the shoulders of those who had persuaded her to return to Pakistan and played a part in facilitating it.

Pakistani politicians are wishful thinkers and get over-excited at the slightest hint of glory. Nawaz Shrif got swollen headed when the Supreme Court gave verdict that he could not be prevented from returning to his home country and Benazir thought that she was returning as the joint viceroy of the US president and British queen.

Benazir was to be accompanied by a number of British MPs and US Senators and security arrangements were being made accordingly to befit the foreign dignitaries. When she boarded the plane with mere Pakistanis the security arrangements were scaled down to those demanded by other not so popular ex-prime ministers such as Jamali and Shujaat. Why Benazir's foreign friends ditched her at the last moment can only be explained by them.

Benazir was aware of an impending attack and yet she chose the insane option of traveling in an open truck at one mile per hour in the darkness of night through terrorist infested roads. Martyrdom is not for a family woman.

Only days before the Swiss investigating magistrate completed his enquiries and sent the case to the prosecutor general, Benazir gave up all her objections to the military dictatorship and tacitly supported Musharraf in his re-election in uniform in exchange for the withdrawal of criminal cases against her. Was Benazir really afraid or did she give in to blackmail?

Hundreds of thousands of destitute and desperate people were brought to Karachi from interior Sindh and other provinces to the welcome rally on 18/10, but tens of thousands did not return. In the coming months there is going to be a proliferation of street beggars, thefts and robberies in this city.

Pakistanis are fighting a war against extremism, but in doing so one should be careful not to introduce a new kinds of extremism, such as democratic extremism or judicial extremism.

The Supreme Court of Pakistan is examining the eligibility of Pervez Musharraf for the third part-time presidential term and the jurisdiction of the existing Electoral College to elect a new president. He has already submitted an undertaking that if he is declared elected, he would give up his part-time job as army chief. He is already past the maximum age for army service, so perhaps he can get around some of the difficulties by submitting a backdated resignation.

This is with due apologies to anyone who feels hurt or embarrassed by the stark, undiluted truth which is necessary to ensure sanity and purpose in a confused nation.

A Tale of Two Deals

Back in 1970 the pathetic general did a deal with Daddy to get him elected prime minister if he would let him remain president for as long as he liked. Free, fair and transparent elections were held in which Daddy’s brand new political party which had never contested elections before won 60% of the seats in this wing. Daddy was expecting better. In the other wing, the old party threw a spanner in the works by hijacking the rigging plan and winning 99% of seats in that wing and claiming the right to form government. Daddy insisted that he should be made prime minister as per the deal. The motherland was thrown into complete chaos. The jealous neighbor took advantage of this opportunity and moved its forces into that wing. The pathetic general surrendered that wing and left the office of president in disgrace.

Back in 2002 the smart general who had staged a military coup while flying in the air was having difficulty getting himself recognized as president by anybody but the super power. So, on behalf of the super power, the neighbor massed its troops on the borders of the motherland to pressurize the politicians and the courts into cooperating with the smart general. The smart general got a five year term in the presidency.

By the end of the 5 years, like all bad politicians, the smart general had lost his popularity and there seemed no way he could remain president and also general as before. So he decided to make a deal with Baby, whereby he would make her prime minister while she would help her remain president and also general. Nothing wrong with that; but the deal must include the following two points:

1. If the rigging plan fails, Baby would not insist on her pound of flesh at the expense of motherland.

2. Reforms will be carried out in the military recruitment policy and training content to make it more focused on its professional obligations.

Power of the Pen

“The pen is mightier than the sword” is an old saying whose origin can not be traced, although it exists in many languages in all parts of the world. Normally it is interpreted as meaning that a scholar wields greater power than a soldier or military general. However, the study of the history of colonialism yields a different and interesting angle to the adage.

The indigenous populations of the American and Australian continents were almost completely wiped out by the invading colonizers from Europe. One thing common among those nations was the fact that in spite of being reasonably civilized and organized they lacked a written language or script.

The disadvantages of being illiterate are manifold. For one thing, they could not send written messages or make written agreements. It is a simple fact that the spoken word can only be heard by those present within a limited distance and repetitions by the listeners are often inaccurate to say the least. On the other hand, the written message can be read for ever and transmitted in original or in exact copies to any part of the world. That is why we do not have an account of what happened from the view point of the obliterated nations.

At the same time the people of the lands where literacy or a written language existed managed to survive the onslaught of the equally cruel and blood-thirsty invaders starting from the Aryans in India to Europeans in most parts of the world. Most countries of Asia are examples of this survivability of literacy. In fact most of the once colonized literate nations were able to eventually oust the colonizers and some are now taking a leading role in the community of nations.

My antagonists must be wondering, “What about Africa?” The answer is quite simple. Most nations in the coastal areas of Africa had already had contacts with Arabic language and literature. Although the literacy rate there may not have been enviable, there must have been at least a few literate persons in each community. As for the semi-civilized and illiterate people in the hinterlands, they were lucky that Christian missionaries had reached them before the Christian soldiers and given them the divine shield of literacy.

If there are any ambitious generals or politicians in the world who think that the history of the American and Australian continents can be repeated, they will be disappointed. Literate peoples can not be obliterated.

The Nuclear Explosions

Nostradamus -- Century VI, Quatrain 97

Cinq & quarante degrez ciel bruslera,
Feu approcher de la grand cité neuue,
Instant grand flamme esparse sautera,
Quand on voudra des Normans faire preuue,

At forty-five degrees the sky will burn,
Fire to approach the great new city:
In an instant a great scattered flame will leap up,
When one will want to demand proof of the Normans.

Usually such quatrains of Nostradamus start with a year and month indicating the time of the event. The second and third lines of this quatrain evidently describe an above-ground nuclear explosion. The first three nuclear explosions on earth took place in 1945. The first was the atomic bomb Trinity exploded in New Mexico in July, 1945. The second and third were Little Boy and Fat Man dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan with an interval of three days in August, 1945. It is possible that Nostradamus had multiple visions and confused the dates and locations writing down only forty five which was part of 1945. None of the three places at which the atomic bombs exploded was known to Europeans at the time Nostradamus wrote the quatrain.

It would, therefore, be fair to infer that the prediction refers to the atomic bombing of the new cities of Hiroshima or Ngasaki or both in the year 1945. The explanation by some nightmare merchants that the new city refers to New York does not seem to hold water, although anxiety created in that rich city may benefit some people in some ways.

As for the fourth line of the quatrain, the meaning is not hard to understand. One asks for proof from someone whom one does not trust. It means that as a result of the barbaric atomic attacks, the world would stop trusting the men from the north, perhaps meaning North Americans and North Europeans. The cold war following the Second World War is a testimony to that.

It should be understood here that no one can see what has not happened. The visions of Nostradamus consisted of pictures of what had happened in the past at some place in the Universe. He was only trying to correlate them with likely places and times when some thing similar would be repeated on earth. It seems that a specie similar to human beings has existed somewhere in the past and gone through all the developments and experiences that we are now going through. Whether we shall have a better end than them is up to us.

The War of Terror Must Stop

The recently declared American intentions of making armed incursions into Pakistan to kill assumed terrorists are unbecoming of a civilized nation. The proposition is reminiscent of the old imperial technique of turning people into nobodies, then killing them in cold blood and claiming that “nobody was killed.”

Today, world civilization has reached a state in which there is no such thing as an “outlaw”. Every human being has or should have a legal identity and should be made to follow the law.

I would suggest that the Pakistani government should enforce Pakistani laws in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas by making it a province of Pakistan with a governor, provincial assembly, divisions and districts, police stations, courts and local government; the army should establish cantonments there.

As for the foreign nationals there, they should be treated as refugees and given political asylum if they apply for it. Once a list of refugees and asylum seekers is prepared, the world would know whether or not Osama bin Laden and Mulla Omar actually exist. And if they do, they should be brought to justice according to international law. They shouldn’t be killed in sleep because their trial would expose embarrassing truths about their accusers.

If the Americans really want to get rid of the terror that haunts them, they should, among other things, help Pakistan in integrating FATA into the State.

Definitions - 3

Alqaeda = International forum of dissidents originated by veterans of Afghan freedom struggle against USSR to free other countries of the region from covert foreign occupation, involved or implicated by North Atlantic powers in terrorist acts and turned into the most outlawed entity.

Atom = Scientific belief in the unseen.

Beauty = Ability to cause favorable reaction beyond vocabulary.

Buenocracy = Domination by good people. (It doesn't exist anywhere.)

Capitalism = Domination by money and riches.

Cell Phone = The conquest of distance.

Christianity = Worship of the anointed one and belief in morality based on the parables in the pre-Muhammadan Divine Books which originated in the Middle East.

Civilization = A society in which ethical restraints prevent people from going as low as they can.

Communism = Domination by the least educated and skilled members of community.

Computer = An inorganic appendage to human beings for sharing large amounts of knowledge,
information or data and analytical power not possible by sensory or organic means.

Crime = An act whose committer deserves punishment.

Democracy = Universal equality of opinion and domination of majority opinion.

Democratic government = Domination by a group of people who have demonstrated their ability to manipulate public opinion better than others.

Democratic Society = A society in which leadership emerges from the common people through the natural processes of social organization, self government and unrestricted intellectual activity.

Discipline = Ability to restrain oneself before being restrained by others.

Duties = Basic building blocks of civilization – universal or circumstantial human obligations whose neglect is crime. (The UNO has not prepared a charter of human Duties.)

Engineering = Art and science of creating inorganic life.

Evil = Ability to harm or destroy.

Failure = One who ruins every thing when feeling confident.

Freedom = Ability to take one’s own decisions and define one’s own limits.

General = One authorized to get soldiers killed.

God = The Singularity discovered thousands of years ago, but never defined scientifically.

Gravity = Inherent interconnection among bodies of matter.

Guantanamo = Infamous and illicit outfit of US armed forces where people abducted from all over the world are subjected to unconventional psychological experiments without being compensated.

Happiness = Disciplined pursuit of pleasure that does not result in regret.

Hindu = Black-skinned pre-Aryan people of ancient India. The Vedas were their religious books.

Human being = The most advanced organic biological (animal) species capable of conversing, calculating, planning, communicating, building and developing and enforcing ethics.

Islam = Surrender to reason and worship of a conceptual ideal being called Allah as taught by Muhammad.

Israelis = A minority ethnic group of ancient Egypt originating from the Union of an Arab named Abraham and his black African partner. The half breeds were treated badly by the natives and fled from Egypt under their leader Moses who was accused of wanton murder.

Jew = Believer in the earliest moral and religious traditions of the Middle East.

Judaism = Culture based on ancient Middle Eastern traditions, constituted by European money lenders to acquire the status of God’s chosen people.

Kashmir = Historically independent mountain country turned into a disputed territory by North Atlantic powers to create military competition among bordering nations and prevent them from attaining their full economic potential threatening North Atlantic domination.

Law = Collectively adopted limits of individual freedom.

Leader = One who knows the way better than others and stays in front.

Life = Ability to change others' perceptions.

Love = Urge to protect, nourish and share pleasures with, and willingness to make sacrifices for.

Marriage = License to share privacy.

Mulla = One who knows nothing but religious rumor and is not prepared to learn more.

NATO = Enigmatic North Atlantic military outfit that prevents ethnic cleansing where it chooses and carries out ethnic cleansing where it chooses.

Nation = A group of people who identify themselves with each other.

Nazism = Reaction of German Christians to Judaic claim of being the chosen race, asserting superiority over other people on account of undiluted Aryan descent.

Patriot = One willing to make sacrifices to defend the freedom of his or her homeland.

Peace = Absence of irritation.

Politics = Exploitation of the community's weaknesses.

Poverty = Absence of affluence.

Power = Ability to cause beneficial action.

Quality = Comparison with an established standard.

Realist = One who can differentiate between a virtual reality and the actual reality.

Relative Space = Location based on three linear coordinates with reference to an arbitrary point and a fourth age coordinate relative to an arbitrary event (date and time).

Religion = Fixed belief in the imperceptible and the unknown.

Rights = Reward of fulfilling duties or obligations whose denial or violation is crime.

Science = Study of the nature and working of things and events; and belief in proven and verified facts.

Shia = Descendants of Hussain ibn Ali and his own and step brothers, who did not accompany him to the battle of Karbala and regretted it – and many others who joined the sect for their own reasons.

Soldier = One trained to obey orders without questioning and to live constantly in peril.

Space = Occupied part of the void.

Spiritualism = Interaction of central nervous and autonomic systems.

Successful Person = One who learns his or her lessons early.

Taliban = Highly bigoted ethnic minority of Afghanistan who fancy the lifestyle of 7th century Arabs and aspire to establish the Kingdom of God.

Terrorism = Tendency to achieve by violent intimidation rather than by asking, bargaining, creating, developing or earning.

Time = Differential element of age.

Traitor = A citizen who acts against the interests of his or her country or sacrifices national interest for personal gain, and a soldier who points a weapon at an innocent, peaceful, unarmed citizen of his or her own country.

War = Legitimized crime or violent response to it, often a contest of terror.

Weapon = A potentially lethal implement used for persuasion by the mentally weak, for protection by the physically weak, and for committing crimes by the ethically or morally weak.

Zero = Difference between equals.


©Mohammad Nasim

The Second Comedy of Errors

Once upon a time there was an inactive chief justice of a supreme court.
The guy who was actually very smart an aggressive had become inactive
because a stupid television jester had written him a letter but in his
stupidity had put a wrong address on the envelope. The letter somehow
reached the once dismissed general and somehow elected president (the
same person) and the hired temporarily from a bank and charitably elected
prime minister (a single entity). Neither of these men had the slightest
inkling of law or good manners. They had read the constitution and not
found the term contempt of court in it. So they had the chief justice
brought into their office and demanded his resignation because they
thought that someone else could be more useful to them in their pursuit
of greater power. Whether they had committed contempt of court or not is
a matter for the courts to decide, but they had certainly brought the
country into disrepute. The prime minister also ran out of the field not
having the courage to face the situation. If the matter was referred to
the ICC they would definitely get at least a three match ban or its
equivlent in politics, may be even a life ban if the rush of blood could
be related to a contraband substance. The lawyers came out in the streets
and stopped going to the courts. Some people saw history repeating
itself. When the army chief was dismissed and suspended in mid air, his
henchmen revolted and took control of the government, so the lawyers had the right to do the same in their turn. The turn of businessmen, doctors,
engineers, plumbers, coblers etc. would come in due course. Each could
work for period of ten years or so for the benefit of his own community.
But that did not happen. The president and the prime minister withdrew
the reference and tendered public and unconditional opology from the
chief justice who forgave them and everyone went back to his own
business.
Moral: Some stories can be quite boring.

Definitions - 2

Definitions - 2
By Naseem Mahnavi

Atom = Scientific belief in the unseen.
Beauty = Ability to cause favorable reaction beyond vocabulary.
Buenocracy = Domination by good people. (It doesn't exist anywhere.)
Capitalism = Domination by money and riches.
Christianity = Worship of the anointed one and belief in morality based on the parables in the Divine Books which originated in the Middle East.
Crime = An act whose committer deserves punishment.
Democracy = Universal equality of opinion and domination of majority opinion.
Democratic government = Domination by a group of people who have demonstrated their ability to manipulate public opinion better than others.
Duties = Basic building blocks of civilization – universal or circumstantial human obligations whose neglect is crime. (The UNO has not prepared a charter of human Duties.)
Engineering = Art and science of creating inorganic life.
Evil = Ability to harm or destroy.
Freedom = Ability to restrain oneself before being restrained by others.
General = One authorized to get soldiers killed.
God = The Singularity discovered thousands of years ago, but never defined scientifically.
Gravity = Inherent interconnection among bodies of matter.
Happiness = Disciplined pursuit of pleasure that does not result in regret.
Hindu = Black-skinned pre-Aryan people of ancient India. The Vedas were their religious books.
Islam = Surrender to reason and worship of a conceptual ideal Allah as taught by Muhammad.
Israelis = A minority ethnic group of ancient Egypt originating from the Union of an Arab named Abraham and his black African partner. The half breeds were treated badly by the natives and fled from Egypt under their leader Moses who was accused of wanton murder.
Jew = Believer in the earliest moral and religious traditions of the Middle East.
Judaism = Culture based on ancient Middle Eastern traditions, constituted by European money lenders to acquire the status of God’s chosen people.
Law = Limits of freedom.
Leader = One who knows the way better than others and stays in front.
Life = Ability to change others' perceptions.
Love = Urge to protect, nourish and share pleasures with, and willingness to make sacrifices for.
Marriage = License to share privacy.
Nation = A group of people who identify themselves with each other.
Nazism = Reaction of German Christians to Judaic claim of being the chosen race, asserting superiority over other people on account of undiluted Aryan descent.
Patriot = One willing to make sacrifices to defend the freedom of his or her homeland.
Peace = Absence of irritation.
Politics = Exploitation of the community's weaknesses.
Poverty = Absence of affluence.
Power = Ability to cause beneficial action.
Quality = Comparison with an established standard.
Religion = Fixed belief in the unknown.
Rights = Reward of fulfilling duties or obligations, whose denial or violation is a crime.
Science = Study of the nature and working of things and events; and belief in proven and verified facts.
Soldier = One trained to obey orders without questioning and to live constantly in peril.
Space = Occupied part of the void.
Spiritualism = Interaction of central nervous and autonomic systems.
Successful Person = One who learns his or her lessons early.
Terrorism = Tendency to achieve by violent intimidation rather than by asking, bargaining, creating, developing or earning.
Time = Differential element of age.
War = Legitimized crime.
Zero = Difference between equals.