The 'ISLAMIC' Republic of Pakistan

Though most of us are either too ignorant, or too "liberal" to accept this, I don't like the looks of where Pakistans youth is heading towards, specially the higher class teenagers. What do I have against them? Nothing really, except they don't seem very Pakistani to me. One cannot deny that we are adapting the culture of the West. There is nothing typically wrong with that on one hand, but on the other, it is absurd to me that this is happening. I am not a conservative, I don't want people to go around constantly wearing shalwar-kamiz or what not, but my point is beyond that.

Seriously..dance parties? Drugs and slcohol? Pre-marital relationships? C'mon..these are all normal...why do you have to be so locked up. We have to  compete with the rest of the world! Okaaay. I'm sorry, but I don't know how competing with the world has anything to do with wearing mini-skirts nad getting knocked up and having extreme dance parties in universities. I'm sorry, but this is the 'ISLAMIC' Republic of Pakistan, and where in the world are those things Islamic?!

I'm not an extremist, once again, but oh my gosh, we are losing all sense of our noble culture. And the sad part is, we don't think that htere's anything wrong with that. I classify the youth today in the following types: Wannabe burgers and Wannabe westerners. So, there are the teenagers who want to be like the high class "posh" teenagers, and there are the "posch' teenagers who want to be like the teenagers of the west. We all are impressed if a person has amazing English skills, but don't take it as a high regard if a person has Urdu skills. And yes, I am a person who believes that it is not necessary to have the most amazing English speaking skills to be able to be successful. And the country I IDOLIZE for proving this right is Iran.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but Iran is also a developing country at the moment. But if you look at it, you will be amazed at how well they've developed. And they DON'T use English. They have their own products. They do not rely on the west. Specially on the culture of the west, as they are proud of their own. And I have yet to see a country who isn't funded from outside to develop the madressahs in it's state. (Ofcourse, you would know all about Saudi Arabia being funded by America if you read up on your historical facts). I am blunt, I am not carefree about my principles. I am a Muslim. And I only support what makes sense to me. And Iran has progressed waaaaayyyyy more than Pakistan without adapting their culture.

Are we really so insecure with our own identity that we easily are willing to give up our principles for what the world says is "right" as opposed to what truly IS right? It's perhaps not only our government which is so blatantly said to be "corrupted", the truth is, we are too.

2010- The Year I Completely Abandon The CD

To be fair I can't remember the last time I actually USED a CD other than to rip it onto my hard drive and I can't remember the last CD I bought for myself, but up until now they've still kind of stayed around.

When I began to rip my CDs onto my hard drive I started putting them away, so most of my CDs have already been packed and placed out of the way. Yet a bunch still remained, mostly CDs of artists I don't listen to anymore or ones that I have 5 CDs that have been replaced happily by a Greatest Hits compilation, however up until today they were simply just taking up shelf space.
This past weekend I packed up the balance of those CDs, leaving behind a small stack that needs to be ripped onto the hard drive and leaving out a few of those "collector" case CD's for display.

I mean...really. I recall the time when we used to use cassettess and these huge video tapes. They're a long lost treasure now. And I'm starting to feel that soon enough the CD will too be on our list of "Whatever happened to those old huge things?". With the modern technologies coming in..bigger data is stored in smaller versions..which is a little haven of it's own.

It's much easier now to abandon CD's since most places you can get music digitally you can now get it without that pesky DRM. It's funny I alway's worried that my CD's wouldn't last forever, that something would happen to them and they'd become unplayable. Turns out something did happen to them, they became irrelevant.

The Old vs The Young

Old people have always been considered centers of wisdom; whether or not we respect them for it, most people recognize that old folks have a lot of life experience on the rest of us.

But I was listening to Guy Clark's "Texas, 1947" just now and I realized that in the last 100 years or so it's much more common to view younger people as centers of knowledge. The song was written about the first time he ever saw a Streamline train out in west Texas:

Trains are big and black and smokin', louder'n July four,
but everybody's actin' like this might be somethin' more

than just pickin' up the mail, or the soldiers from the war.
This is somethin' that even old man Wileman never seen before.

Not anymore, kids. Anyone under 20 has seen hundreds of things that their grandparents haven't seen--or even dreamed of. Today's youth certainly face a whole different world. And noone can deny that. With the coming of technolgy and this ongoing race, no doubt that todays youth is more crazy about knowing everything about anything than our grandparents did at our age. With the passing of time, this vew age actually requires us to know more than ever. And I bet we know more of the facts of WWI and WWII than our mothers and fathers-- just because we need to be able to KNOW. Whether it be to show off or to compete, todays generation is undeniable more aware of their surroundings.

I wonder what that does to our sense of wonderment about the world around us...

Burn The Quran Day- Just a Thought...

The Holy Quran wasn't revealed as a written book to our Holy Prophet(PBUH) and the written scripture is just a means of fascilitation for us but indeed held in the highest of reverence is indeed disgraced by blasphemous acts of mass burnings.

What does a comman Muslim like me or you have to say about it?

Let them burn a few copies some said.. Islam is the religion of peace and tolerance others qouted.

True that and frankly not that we are in much of a position to do anything physically about it. We should have been tough but unfortunatly defending our religion classifys us as terrorists these days. The Muslim scribes from Baghdad I recall lost their lives protecting the very same Qurans at the hands of the mongol attacks..! They did still burn them! What the allied forces do during thier activities of war in Muslim states is also not a matter of debate here nor is what a few priests can do in utter foolishness.

If they one day, God forbid, burn all physical copies from NYC would the Holy Quran ceize to exist there? I dont need stats to dictate the thousands of hufaz who if ever the need arises could reproduce copies as fast as they would burn them!

The Holy Quran exists is in our hearts or atleast, it should be.

I have a question..
Is the Holy Quran so sacred a relic that it should just be locked up in cupboards or ceremoniously put on the top-most shelves victim to dust and neglect. And is our love just left for the sake of defending our faith?
How many of us recite the very Quran if not daily even weekly? I'm ashamed to admit that I don't..I hope to one day though!

An American friend of mine said that we will organize buy the Quran day instead of burn the Quran day.
I liked the idea, frankly they were doing something positive then thinking of just blowing up that church!

So what are we going to do?
Defending our faith is mandatory and protesting the proper way is our right and duty!
But there is more that needs to be done.
We need to inculcate within us the habits of reciting the Quran and even more importantly to comprehend the Divine message via whichever medium(English/Urdu) feasable.
We need to understand that what is so Divine about the text that it is called the Holy Quran and that it nigates our respect and love.

Extremism- the biggest threat in Pakistan

Pakistan has been one of those third world countries which has suffered alot from a so called thought known as "Extremism". It has also been a major victim of terrorist acts which are being carried out but different extremist groups in the country. Pakistan has been under a so called state of war since the 80's(President Zia-Ul-Haq's reign) and has not been able to come out of it uptil now.
Now here the question stands what are the reasons due to which Pakistan has not been able to clear the dirt(Terrorist groups) from the country.
There could be many reasons for this:
1. Some could say that the policies of States are not helping the cause.
2. Some could the stand taken by the government is not proper or worth being appreciated.
But I won't be playing the "old blaming games" anymore, no matter how we fight them either using our land forces,gunship helicopters or also the very famous drone planes.
We have seen it quite clearly that it is not helping the cause that well.
The only solution in my perception remains that we have to change the mindsets. If we try to analyze things we will find out that the Pakistani society comprises of two groups and both possess very extreme thoughts.One of them are know as liberal and the other are known as extremists or fundamentalists.
There are quite few who can be called moderate in our society. Due to such two different school of thoughts our society is unbalanced and one takes quite a long time to get him/her self in this westo-eastern society.
Now coming upto the major issue"Extremism".What is extremism?It is a perception or a thought which a person possesses in which he remains quite extreme with his approach,ideas and philosophy.
Why extremism is the biggest threat to Pakistan? The reason stands quite clear,now adays extremism is regarded as that school of thought which is inclined towards religion more then a normal person in the society and these extreme mindsets also lead to certain disasters because they are not able to interpret the religion in a positive manner due to which they become unable to take the world and the religion along,this whole situation unbalances their thought, therefore they try to express it and as they do not possess sich positive approach therefore they take wrong cuts to express themselves which leads to certain mega disasters which one cannot even think of and that is what is going to happen in Pakistan if the mindsets of these people are not changed because the pressure has exceeded the limits and the pressure cooker(extreme approach) will soon burst which will turn the whole country into a place equal to that of hell.
Therefore we have to move on with a positive approach and have to change the mindsets of the people who possess extreme approaches instead of sitting at home and hoping for a miracle.

If you want to be a Princess, you first need to get educated...

I can’t say I’ve thoroughly combed through the media commentary on Prince William’s announcement that he will marry Kate Middleton, but I did read a little of it this morning after this statement in a New York Times article caught my attention:

“Should Miss Middleton become Queen Catherine, she will be the first queen in British history to have a college degree, or indeed, to have any college education at all.”

Some commentators have lamented the fact that future Princess Kate has done little with that college education except procure a husband, but I think that overlooks a more important point.

For the past few weeks, my undergraduate classes have been reading about gender and sharing their thoughts on gender roles, marriage and family, media influences and girls’ education. In a comparison of contemporary and 19th century arguments about single sex education, one student commented that at least nowadays women’s main reason for attending college isn’t to find a husband. Agreed, but when I asked them whether as college women they feel pressure to find a boyfriend, or at the very least to procure male attention, stories started to pour out about friendly teasing at family gatherings and being left out of social events as friends paired off. The story that floored me, though was one young woman’s account of deciding in seventh grade to save her money for higher education, a commitment she stuck to when she recently faced the choice of getting married and starting a family or staying in college and continuing on to the graduate degree.

Two traditions are at issue here. One is education versus marriage, the notion that education (and the career, as e.g. abbess, teacher, social worker, college president, that education can lead to) exists as a respectable alternative to family life, giving women a path to success that runs parallel to the marriage track. Second is education as a means to marriage. A third, far more lovely and quintessentially modern, possibility, is that education is neither the autobahn to marriage nor the functional frontage road running next to it but, rather, a road to adulthood on which women can maintain an autonomy that serves them, and their relationships, well. Education not only provides careers and husbands; it provides the ability to make sense of it all and to keep afloat no matter what follows (divorce, job loss, dissatisfaction, media hullabaloo, whatever life brings).

A few years ago, in a New Yorker review of biographies of Diana Spencer, John Lanchester commented on her “outlandish lack of education” and how poorly it served her in later life. “In retrospect, it’s clear,” he notes, “Diana would have been better off with a mug of cocoa and an art history book than with jetting around Europe with Dodi Al Fayed.”

Yesterday in class, my students discussed media images of women and the out-of-school education those provide. We talked about how much more the media is a part of our lives than ever before and why girls and women hold themselves to the standards of beauty sold to them by television, magazines, the internet, music, film and ads at every turn. And we talked about how to raise girls possessed of self-respect, dignity, insight and resistance to manipulation. At times, the prospects looked hopeless. The education that teachers and parents can offer girls and boys seems a frail opponent to the forces of popular culture. Parents and teachers everywhere can now say this to all those little girls begging for tiaras: If you want to be a princess, first you have to get a higher education.

Eid Galore!

  Eid is in the air and as the Ramadan days come to a close, the rush in markets are already increasing. One can easily take a walk in a corridor of any school and university and see girls comparing notes on what to wear, which fashion desginer is selling the hottest new Eid fashions and whining about the housework and cleaning their mothers have already started to do in preparation for the big day. Atleast, this is see-able in THIS part of the world.
  Where the other, greater half of the world is drowning in flood, getting displaced from their own homes or dying out of hunger and disease, we're pretty thick to close our eyes to the world beyond our safe, air conditioned homes and "celebrate" Eid (like we would every year ofcourse, we're not dying out of plague and huger, right?). Afterall, our part of the world remains pretty much undisturbed, then why should we not celebrate as lavishly as we always do? Amir Adnan has just intrduced his new line of clothes for this season after all, why hold back? The "gaon walas" are already cluttering our cities, bringing about more disease and increasing the number of annoying street beggars who do nothing but ruin the "image" of the place where we live in as is. What difference does it make if we bring happiness in our own lives to those unnecessary others?
  The difference, sadly, is ironically great. It's sad to see how so many of us remain so ignorant towards everything that is going on around our country. Just because we have donated a few bucks, we feel that there is nothing more we can do to help those aroud us who have nowhere else to go. In the recent article in the Images section of the Sunday Dawn, I came across many aricles talking about the latest fashions for Eid, about the "cheap" (only between Rs.3000-Rs.25000) clothes available at the different boutiques and all the new things one can do to lavishly decorate out houses for this Eid. How can people remain so ignorant, completely forgetting the fact that a peice of "cheap" clothing of even Rs.3000 for one day can give a month of supplies to the people of the world we so succesfully ignore? Forgive me for being so very critical, but I fail to understand how we can talk about what we're going to be wearing for Eid when there are so many people around us who have been wearing the same clothes for two months?
  I do not mean to suggest that we should go under severe depression, ignore the gift of Eid that Allah has given us and lie around in the sadness on our beds on Eid day. But perhaps, specially THIS Eid, when our country and so many of it's people are facing so much cruelty and turmoil, we should celebrate Eid day a bit more humbly than we would any other Eid. It isn't important to buy a new peshwaaz, or whatever the heck is "in fashion" these days from that super chic boutique at Zamzama. Rather, go simple by taking out that suit you've only worn once, or go for a relatively cheaper cotton suit, while donating the rest of your budget to the relief fund. Go to the camps during maybe the second or even the first day of Eid and play with the kids, give them Eidi, spend time with the adults, lt them know that you care. How much longer are we going to ignore the population that makes up nearly 99% of Pakistan? It's important to remember those who need our help, that is what the spirit of Ramadhan teaches us and we should not forget about it, not even during Eid. Celebrate simple. Because I'm sure, we are not as ignorant as we sometimes tend to be.