Fighting Agents of Intolerance

Sadly, the news of intolerance, abuse and hate crimes, continue to pour out of various parts of South Asia and the Muslim world. Unfortunately, the threats are issued and crimes committed in the name of religion or tradition or ethnicity. What gets reported is probably only the tip of the iceberg, but here's a sampling of what has caught my attention recently:

Top Saudi Judge on Satellite TV operators:

According to media reports, Saudi Arabia’s top judiciary official has issued a religious decree saying it is permissible to kill the owners of satellite TV networks that broadcast "immoral" content.

The 79-year-old Sheik Saleh al-Lihedan said Thursday that satellite channels cause the “deviance of thousands of people.” ...

Al-Lihedan was answering listeners’ questions during the daily “Light in the Path” radio program in which he and others make rulings on what is permissible under Islamic law. One caller asked about Islam’s view of the owners of satellite TV channels that show “bad programs” during Ramadan.

“I want to advise the owners of these channels, who broadcast calls for such indecency and impudence ... and I warn them of the consequences,” he said.

“What does the owner of these networks think, when he provides seduction, obscenity and vulgarity?” he said.

“Those calling for corrupt beliefs, certainly it’s permissible to kill them,” he said. “Those calling for sedition, those who are able to prevent it but don’t, it is permissible to kill them.”

Pakistani TV Host Calls for Ahmadis' Murder:

According to Asia Human Rights Commission, the host of the religious talk show 'Alim Online', Dr. Amir Liaquat Hussain--also former federal minister for religious affairs--declared the murder of Ahmadis, members of a minority sect excommunicated by fundamentalist Islam, to be obligatory (Wajib ul Qatal) according to Islamic teachings, because its followers don't believe in the last prophet, Mohammad. Dr. Hussain repeated his instruction several times, urging Muslim listeners to "kill without fear".

While on air the host also pressed two other Islamic "scholars" (from two different sects) on the program to support the statement. This resulted in a unanimous agreement among the "scholars", on air during the popular television show, to urge lynching of Ahamdis. This was not the first time Mr. Hussain has done this. On September 9, Mr. Hussain answered a query with the comment that blasphemers are liable to be put to death.

According to media reports, at 1:15pm on September 8, 18 hours after the broadcast, six people entered the Fazle Umer Clinic, a two-story hospital at Mirpur Khas city and two of them went to the second floor and asked 45 year-old Dr. Abdul Manan Siddiqui to come downstairs to attend to a patient in crisis. Dr. Manan left his office and descended into an ambush. He was shot 11 times and died on the spot. His private guard was also shot and is in a serious condition. A woman was also injured by firing. The killers remained at the hospital until the doctor was declared dead, then they walked out of the building's front entrance. Police registered the killers as unknown.

On September 9, 48 hours after the broadcast, Mr. Yousuf, a 75 year-old rice trader and district chief of the Ahmadi sect was killed on his way to prayer in Nawab Shah, Sindh province. Yousuf was fired on from people on motor bikes, and sustained three bullet wounds. He died on the way to the hospital. The assailants had taken a route past a police station. No one was arrested.

Thackeray Threatens Bollywood's Bachchan Family:

A star-studded premiere for Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan's new film, The Last Lear, has been scrapped in Mumbai, India, because of security concerns for guests, after the Shiv Sena chief made threats against the Bachchan family. Mr. Bal Thackeray has vowed not to allow any film starring any member of the Bachchan family from being released in the state of Maharashtra of which Mumbai is the capital, according to media reports. Mr. Thackeray has rejected repeated apologies from Mr. and Mrs. Bachan over their reported remarks denigrating Marathi language.

So who is Bal Thackeray and why is he so feared? According to a Wikipedia entry, Bal Keshav Thackeray (born January 23, 1926), popularly known as Balasaheb Thackeray, is the founder and chief of the Shiv Sena, a Hindu nationalist, Marathi ethnocentric and populist party active mainly in the western Indian state of Maharashtra. He is also referred to as Hindu Hridaysamrat (lit. "Ruler of Hindu hearts") and Sher (Tiger) by members of the Shiv Sena.

Thackeray is very vocal in his opposition to people who migrate to Mumbai, to non-Hindus (especially Muslims), and to Bengali Muslims he believes are Bangladeshis. In the late 1970s, as part of his "Maharashtra is for Maharashtrians" campaign, Thackeray threatened migrants from South India with harm unless they left Mumbai.

Women Buried Alive in Baluchistan:

Baba Kot, a village 50 miles from Usta Mohammad town of Jafferabad district in Baluchistan, is where this recent tale of tribal terror began.
The media reports and the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) indicate that it was here that Mr. Abdul Sattar Umrani, a brother of Mr. Sadiq Umrani, a Baluchi tribal leader and a serving PPP provincial minister, came with more than six men and abducted five women at gun point. They were transported in a government vehicle to another remote area, Nau Abadi, near Baba Kot. Upon reaching Nau Abadi, Abdul Sattar Umrani and his men took the three younger women out of the jeep and beat them before opening fire with their guns. The girls were seriously injured but were still alive after the shooting. Sattar Umrani and his men pushed them into a wide ditch and covered them up with dirt and stones. When the two older women protested and tried to stop the burial, the attackers also pushed them into the ditch and buried them alive. After completing the burial, they fired several shots into to the air so that no one would come close and left the scene.

According to media reports, the five female victims were Fatima, wife of Umeed Ali Umrani, Jannat Bibi, wife of Qaiser Khan, Fauzia, daughter of Ata Mohammad Umrani, and two other girls, aged between 16 to 18 years, whose names have not been published. At the moment they were abducted, the women were preparing to leave for a civil court at Usta Mohammad, district Jafarabad, so that three of the girls could marry the men of their choice. Their decision to go to to court for a civil marriage was contrary to the wishes of the elders of the tribe.

The live female burials took place a month ago but the police have neither registered a crime report nor taken any action. There have been no arrests yet. Minister and tribal chief Sadiq Umrani confirmed the incident took place but insisted that only three women had been killed by unknown people.

India's Guantanamos and AbuGhraibs:

An essay on TwoCircles.net by Yoginder Sikand describes the deteriorating human rights situation of Indian Muslims. America's 'global war on terror' has provided a convenient cover to the Hindutva lobby and to fiercely anti-Muslim elements within the Indian state machinery to launch a concerted campaign of terror against Muslims. Large numbers of Muslims in various parts of India continue to languish in jails on trumped-up terror charges, suffering brutal torture as well as routine insults to their religion by police officials. Meanwhile, Hindu terrorists, often in league with the police and the state machinery, are allowed to run riot, unleashing violence and bloodshed on a frightening scale, while the state, the police and the courts take no firm action against them. Bomb blasts that are now occurring with frightening frequency, whose perpetrators remain unknown, are automatically blamed on Muslims, while some of these might possibly be engineered by Hindutva outfits or by elements within the state apparatus, or even by foreign intelligence agencies like the CIA or the Israeli Mossad who have a vested interest in demonizing Muslims and thereby driving India closer into the deadly American-Israeli embrace. That, in brief, was what numerous social activists as well as dozens of Muslim victims of police and state terror testified to at a public hearing on brutalities against Muslims in the name of countering 'terrorism' recently organized in Hyderabad by a group of noted human rights' activists. Going by their depositions and the verdict of the jury of eminent social activists, journalists and retired judges, it appears that powerful elements within the state apparatus are deeply implicated, along with Hindu terrorist groups, in a witch-hunt of India's Muslim citizens.

Aafia Siddiqui 11-year old son in detention:

According to media reports and Human Rights Watch, Ahmed Siddiqui, Dr. Aafia Siddiqui's 11-year-old son, is being held under inhumane conditions by the Afghan authorities. While considerable doubts remain about the US and Afghan accounts of Dr. Siddiqui's arrest in Ghazni, most human rights activists see no justification for holding her son in custody.

Call For Action:

How can we, as individuals, fight this scourge of rising intolerance, abuse and hate crimes? In addition to supporting organizations that fight for human rights such as Human Rights Watch, Human Rights Commission, etc, each of us should raise our voice against it through whatever platform is available to us. We can blog about it, write to newspaper editors, join the call-in shows and sign petitions to officials. Whatever it takes, it is important that we speak up for the basic rights of our fellow human beings everywhere in the world.

Is Pakistan-US Military Confrontation Inevitable?

"The sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country will be defended at all cost and no external force is allowed to conduct operations inside Pakistan," said Pakistan's General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani in his strongest statement yet on the latest US military incursion in FATA. General Kayani, named by Time magazine among the 100 most influential people of the world, was commenting today on a cross-border raid last week allegedly by US-led coalition troops based in neighboring Afghanistan in which 15 Pakistanis were killed. "Such reckless actions only help the militants and further fuel the militancy in the area," he was quoted as saying.

The U.S. is "running out of time" to win the war in Afghanistan, and sending in more troops will not guarantee victory, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Michael Mullen, warned Congress on Wednesday. Mullen said he is convinced the Afghanistan war can be won but said the U.S. urgently needs to improve its nation-building initiatives and its cross-border strategy with Pakistan, according to CNN.

It is clear that there is growing resentment and impatience on both the US and Pakistani sides. Military leaders Kayani and Mullen seem to be indicating that the US and Pakistan are heading toward an unnecessary military confrontation. But is it inevitable?

To understand the Pakistani position, let me refer the readers to what Gary Leupp, a history professor at Tufts University has to say. According to him, Pakistan has provided more assistance to the United States than any other nation as it pursues its goals in southwest Asia. No country has been more dramatically destabilized as the price of its cooperation.

“But not only does the U.S. political class take this disastrous compliance for granted, it wants to further emphasize Islamabad’s irrelevance by attacking the border area at will,” he writes.

The US dilemma is captured well in what Admiral Mullen told Congress today. Mullen stressed that Afghanistan can't be referenced without "speaking of Pakistan," where, he said, the militant groups collaborate and communicate better, launch more sophisticated attacks, employ foreign fighters and use civilians as human shields.

"In my view, these two nations are inextricably linked in a common insurgency that crosses the border between them," he said, adding that he plans "to commission a new, more comprehensive strategy for the region, one that covers both sides of the border.

"I have pressed hard on my counterparts in Pakistan to do more against extremists and to let us do more to help them," he said.

The conflict is exacerbated, he said, by the "poor and struggling Afghan economy" as well as the drug trade and "significant political uncertainty in Pakistan." These factors present a "complex, difficult struggle."

This is a moment of great urgency for the political leadership on both sides to avoid an accidental conflict that could spiral out of control. No military can succeed without political support. For Pakistan, it means that the Pakistani people have to support their military to fight and win against the Taliban insurgents, who have launched a campaign of murder and mayhem on the streets of Pakistan. Pakistani political leadership must accept responsibility to counter the anti-American attitudes and convince the people that they must support the war against the Taliban as their own war, not America's war. On the US side, the political class in Washington, including Bush, McCain and Obama, need to stop taking Pakistan's compliance for granted, and to prevent further destabilization of Pakistan as a nation-state. Al-Qaeda and Taliban thrive on chaos, and a military conflict between US and Pakistan will lead to tremendous chaos in the entire region. Ultimately, if US and Pakistan go to war with each other instead of fighting the insurgents, Al-Qaeda and Taliban will be the big winners. Though it is a remote possibility, US-Pakistan military confrontation could even lead to a nuclear exchange, if Pakistanis feel that their existence as a nation is threatened by the US. Such a disastrous possibility must not be ignored.

The political leaders in Washington and Islamabad need to take a deep breath, and work quickly to reduce tension and frustration among the military brass on both sides. In the meanwhile, both sides must avoid publicly venting their frustrations by inflammatory rhetoric.

Thackeray's Terror

A star-studded premiere for Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan's new film, The Last Lear, has been scrapped in Mumbai, India, because of security concerns for guests, after the Shiv Sena chief made threats against the Bachchan family. Mr. Bal Thackeray has vowed not to allow any film starring any member of the Bachchan family from being released in the state of Maharashtra of which Mumbai is the capital, according to media reports. Mr. Thackeray has rejected repeated apologies from Mr. and Mrs. Bachan over their reported remarks denigrating Marathi language.

So who is Bal Thackeray and why is he so feared? According to a Wikipedia entry, Bal Keshav Thackeray (born January 23, 1926), popularly known as Balasaheb Thackeray, is the founder and chief of the Shiv Sena, a Hindu nationalist, Marathi ethnocentric and populist party active mainly in the western Indian state of Maharashtra. He is also referred to as Hindu Hridaysamrat (lit. "Ruler of Hindu hearts") and Sher (Tiger) by members of the Shiv Sena.

Thackeray is very vocal in his opposition to people who migrate to Mumbai, to non-Hindus (especially Muslims), and to Bengali Muslims he believes are Bangladeshis. In the late 1970s, as part of his "Maharashtra is for Maharashtrians" campaign, Thackeray threatened migrants from South India with harm unless they left Mumbai.

Shiv Sena party has politically allied itself with the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) and its Hindu nationalist agenda. Though currently out of power, Shiv Sena has dominated the Maharashtra legislature in the past.

Indian Muslims have specially felt the wrath of Mr. Bal Thackeray's bigotry. He has called Muslims a cancer in India's body that must be surgically removed. He has also advocated the creation of "Hindu suicide squads" to fight the scourge of "Islamic terrorism." His party activists have vandalized cricket pitches in India, in protest against tours by the Pakistani cricket team. Mr Thackeray commands an almost fanatical following among his party members.

People like Shiv Sena chief Thackeray, BJP leader L.K. Advani and Gujarat Chief Minister Narender Modi represent the ugly underbelly of Indian democracy and a great threat to India's secular constitution. Modi is currently in power in Gujarat, in spite of overwhelming evidence of his participation in 2002 anti-Muslim riots resulting in the massacre of thousands of Muslims. Mr. Advani has been held responsible for the destruction of Babri mosque and subsequent anti-Muslim riots. Mr. Thackeray is considered responsible for major anti-Muslim riots in Mumbai and continues to terrorize any one who disagrees with him. A rudimentary study of world history suggests that if the Indian political system can not find a way to marginalize and isolate Thackeray, Advani, Modi and other fanatics like them, India will continue to face threats to its secular constitution.

Uncle Sam Saves Fannie and Freddie

The US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson announced the weekend seizure of Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae) and Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac). While some have criticized the US regulators' handling of the mortgage crisis, there is almost unanimous agreement that the bailout of the two mortgage giants was absolutely necessary to prevent a major, worldwide financial markets collapse. The cost of this bailout to the US taxpayers is estimated to be at least $200b.

Who are Fannie and Freddie? Both are government sponsored enterprises (GSEs) that guarantee or own more than $5 trillion of mortgages, about 50% of all the mortgages in the United States. Both have suffered heavy losses in the ongoing real estate bust in the United States. Home prices have been falling and many homeowners have lost most or all of their equity in their homes. In many cases, the outstanding mortgage balance is greater than the reduced value of the homes. There have been many mortgage defaults and rising number of foreclosures. The major banks and financial institutions in the US and Europe have had to mark down or write off hundreds of billions of dollars worth of the US mortgage-backed securities. What started as a sub-prime crisis of problem loans obtained the less credit-worthy has now spread to the entire market. Even though the interest rates are fairly low, the banks are unwilling to lend even to the individuals and institutions with good credit. Fannie's and Freddie's ability to raise funds in the bond market has been severely impacted because of concerns about their viability. The latest action by US government is to restore confidence in both organizations to help revive the housing market.

But why are they so important to the US and the world economy? To understand the answer, let us look at the role the US government has played in creating a large middle class and a highly productive economy that is still considered the engine of the world economic growth.

During the second world war, the US economy was essentially geared to mass production of military hardware to support the war effort. Consumer economy was starved of the resources and rationing of essential items was widespread. As the war ended and a large number US soldiers (GIs) started to return, the US Congress passed the GI bill which paid for their free education. At the same time, the US government used Federal Housing Administration (FHA) and Fannie Mae to offer home loans on easy terms to help the GIs purchase their first homes and start their families. With the availability of skilled labor and consumer demand from new homeowners, the US industry transformed itself from military production to consumer production to create a consumer boom.

Ever since the 1940s, the US policy makers have considered home ownership a cornerstone of US policy. Not only have the successive US governments supported the funds availability for home loans with the addition of Freddie Mac in 1970, but they have also continued tax deductibility of mortgage interest to promote home ownership. Growth in home ownership has helped Americans build equity, increased their net worth, and stimulated consumer demand to drive economic growth. Housing has become so important to the US economy that the monthly housing data is eagerly awaited by the policy makers, businesses and markets as a leading economic indicator.

In spite the recent mortgage problems and the current housing crisis, the US policy of promoting home ownership has been a great success. Along with the implementation of GI bill and various student loan programs, these policies have significantly expanded the US middle class and the US economy and created tremendous employment opportunities.

The strong US consumption has turned the US economy into the engine of worldwide growth and a major export market for countries in Europe and Asia. The recent explosive growth of emerging economies such as China and the Asian tigers would not have been possible without the insatiable consumer demand in the United States for their products.

Taking a leaf from the US housing policy to stimulate Pakistani economy, former Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz encouraged borrowing by introducing low-rate mortgages in 2003. This initiative led to a construction boom and expanded housing for the growing middle class in Pakistan, contributing significantly to new jobs creation and rapid GDP growth.

In terms of Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party's promise of roti, kapra aur makan (food, clothing and housing), Fannie and Freddie have been largely responsible for makan (housing) in the richest and most powerful economy of the world that produces more than a quarter of the world's GDP. A genuine emphasis on makan (housing) and education by US policy makers has created lots of jobs and helped produce or buy a lot of roti and kapra (food and clothing) as well as electronics, TV sets, computers, cars, and other consumer goods and services.

Light a Candle, Don't Curse Darkness

"It's better to light a candle than to curse the darkness." Adlai Stevenson, 1962 

ḳhudā ne aaj tak us qaum kī hālat nahīñ badlī 

na ho jis ko ḳhayāl aap apnī hālat ke badalne kā

Maulana Zafar Ali Khan

It is important to repeat these golden words to exhort people to positive action. But it takes more than words to make social service and volunteerism become normal part of every day life for ordinary citizens. The message to be proactive to solve society's problems has to be combined with early education of our children, and followed by appropriate rewards for good behavior. The school curricula need to teach civics and social science lessons by demanding that students participate in specific civic activities to receive credit. Volunteering for charity organizations such as Edhi Foundation should be encouraged. Extra credit should be reserved by teachers for those students who go out of their way to volunteer to teach the illiterate or raise funds to feed the hungry. Parents and teachers should act as role models for their children by voluteering their own time for these activities. The incentives for social and community service must continue beyond high school. Beyond good grades, the college admission criteria should include demonstrated service to community. Programs at colleges should encourage students to perform specific community services as a requirement for graduation. Such programs can be modeled after Americorps or Peace Corps in the United States. National Volunteer Movement in Pakistan appears to be an attempt to create such a program. As the young people join the work force or start their own businesses, they need to continue to help their communities with the support of their employers and businesses. Private businesses should do their part as good corporate citizens to support the communities they do business in. Various civil, business, religious and political leaders, popular celebrities, and wealthy individuals can and should become role models to inspire citizens to do their part in making a difference in the lives of the less fortunate in society. This kind of leadership is particularly crucial as we see increased suffering of daily wage earners in Pakistan's current economic downturn. As people clamor for democracy in Pakistan, they need to clearly understand what it means to be citizens of a democratic nation. Just voting and selecting the rulers by free and fair elections is only the beginning. While civil society advocates, human rights and citizen watch-dog groups, and various other NGOs are helpful, they are no substitute for organizations and individuals providing direct, tangible services to the most vulnerable members of society. True democracy requires active participation by its citizens, willingness to contribute time and money to organize volunteer efforts, and to help fellow citizens in need, rather than reliance on the government to solve all of the problems. Instead of complaining about dirty neighborhood streets, petty street crime, or under-performing schools, neighbors should get together and volunteer to solve these problems. On the continuing power cuts, people in various neighborhoods should find local solutions using alternative clean power as a community. Pakistani financial institutions and foundations should support social entrepreneurs to help solve the problems of lack of microfinance, clean water and clean air. Having lived and raised a family in the United States during the last thirty years, I have had the opportunity to see the American society and democracy in action. I have observed how ordinary people get involved to tackle issues of education, poverty and crime. It is not uncommon to see active participation by Americans in PTAs (Parent-Teacher Associations), neighborhood watch or the food bank for the poor. I have seen how companies participate in helping communities by offering money and their employees' time. Annual United Way campaigns, with matching corporate contributions, are a common feature at many major US companies. In this post, I have shared some of what I have seen in the hope that others can learn from my observations. As a member of the Muslim community in Silicon Valley, I have seen how people come together to build mosques, community centers and schools. And how they offer time and money to complete and run these projects, in spite of their busy lives with their regular jobs and the needs of their families. Here are a couple of quotes from Alexis De Tocqueville, a French philosopher who traveled across America in the 19th century and captured his observations in his book "Democracy in America": "The health of a democratic society may be measured by the quality of functions performed by private citizens." "Americans of all ages, all stations of life and all types of disposition are forever forming associations. There are not only commercial and industrial associations in which all take part, but others of a thousand types-religious, moral, serious, futile, very general and very limited, immensely large and very minute." Here are some examples of self-help in Pakistan I can highlight: Greg Mortenson, an American, has been working with the local villagers to help build schools and promote education in northern Pakistan. While he has raised funds from various sources, Mortenson has insisted on community involvement in his efforts. Because of community 'buy-in', which involves getting villages to donate free land, subsidized or free labor ('sweat equity'), free wood and resources, the schools have local support and have been able to avert retribution by the Taliban or other groups opposed to girls education. Dr. Akhtar Hamid Khan is the force behind Orangi Pilot Project to help residents of Orangi Town, a katchi abadi (shanty town) in Karachi to help themselves. It has helped in a number of projects to build better low-cost housing, improve sanitation and establish schools with the participation of the community. “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” Acclaimed social scientist Dr. Akhtar Hameed Khan used to reference this well-known proverb (according to his son, Akbar Khan), as it quite fittingly represents his philosophy on community development. While the problems faced by Pakistan are huge, I believe that a serious and organized initiative by a tiny percentage of Pakistan's large middle class of at least 40-50m people can begin to make a difference. Pakistanis owe it to themselves and their poor brethren to step up and take responsibility for improving the situation of the most vulnerable citizens of their country. The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. But we must persevere by taking one step after another until we see results. Here is a Skoll Foundation video on social entrepreneurship: Related Links: 

Orangi Pilot Project 

Three Cups of Tea 

Volunteerism in America 

Dr. Akhtar Hamid Khan's Vision

Can Muslim Vote Swing US Race?

The presidential contest between Barack H. Obama and John S. McCain is now even at 42 percent for elections 2008, according to a new CBS News poll conducted Monday-Wednesday of this week. Twelve percent are undecided according to the poll, and one percent said they
wouldn't vote.

The Race Tied:
The two main presidential candidates remain tied in the polls, in spite of the fact that the polls also show George W. Bush and the Republican party are deeply unpopular in the United States about two months prior to US Elections 2008.

Poll after poll shows that the American people continue to express deep dissatisfaction with Republicans' performance on almost all fronts: Economy, Iraq War, Education, Healthcare, Environment etc. It seems almost certain that the Democrats will have a sweeping victory in Congressional elections and take both the House and the Senate with large majorities.

Why Is It So Close?
So, why is it that the overwhelming advantage Democrats enjoy over Republicans is not reflected in the presidential race? Here are a few possible reasons why:

1. There is genuine and deep concern among many Americans about Barack Obama's lack of experience, and growing unease about some of his statements on national security and foreign policy matters. McCain is far more experienced on handling critical national security issues in an uncertain world.

2. John McCain has a well-established reputation as an independent and a maverick, a reputation he and his campaign have continued to highlight to attract the independent and swing vote. In fact, it can be safely said that McCain is neither a George W. Bush clone, nor a traditional Republican.

3. Republican base has begun to rally around McCain-Palin ticket, closing the enthusiasm gap with Obama. The evangelical voter turn-out, in particular, will be essential for a McCain win.

4. Many white Americans, particularly the traditional blue-collar white Democrats, continue to be uncomfortable with the idea of a Black man in the White House.

In all likelihood, this coming presidential election will be hard-fought and close. It may turn out to be a repeat of the 2000 controversial election of George Bush against Al Gore. So, even small voting blocs in the swing states such as Michigan, Ohio and Florida can make a big difference. It should be recalled that Muslim-American political action committees encouraged support for George W. Bush, and proudly claimed credit for his controversial 2000 win.

Can Muslim-Americans Swing It?
By various estimates, there are about 1.5 million to 2 million American Muslim voters in the United States, with significant concentrations of Muslim vote in Florida and Michigan. If, as the anecdotal evidence suggests, Obama gets the lion's share of the Muslim American vote, then he could win the presidency by a thin margin of Muslim votes.

Is an Obama win good for Muslim-Americans or Pakistani-Americans? To answer this question, let's look at a couple of recent events:

Mazen Asbahi Departure:
What happened recently when the Obama campaign quickly dumped Chicago attorney Mazen Asbahi as director of Muslim Outreach raises serious questions about how genuine Obama's "Change" message is. Asbahi and James Zogby, president of Arab-American Institute, are not radicals by any stretch, and yet they were targeted because of who they are: Muslim-American and Arab-American. The speed with which the Obama campaign caved in to right-wing Islamophobes was really shocking.

Obama's Pakistan Policy:
Senator Barack Obama has been very hawkish in dealing with Pakistan. He has threatened to "bomb Pakistan" and send ground troops into FATA. Recently, without offering any evidence, Mr. Obama accused Pakistan of preparing for war with India. He has shown a total disregard for Pakistan's friendship and assistance in the US war on terror, and ignored the fact that Pakistan has made real sacrifices by losing its soldiers and citizens to terrorists in this battle.

According to Gary Leupp, a history professor at Tufts University, Pakistan has provided more assistance to the United States than any other nation as it pursues its goals in southwest Asia. No country has been more dramatically destabilized as the price of its cooperation.

“But not only does the U.S. political class take this disastrous compliance for granted, it wants to further emphasize Islamabad’s irrelevance by attacking the border area at will,” he writes.

Vote for McCain:
I continue to have and express serious reservations about an Obama presidency for Muslim-Americans, Pakistan-Americans, and Americans of all faiths and ethnicities. Obama has shown a tendency to bend over backwards to satisfy anti-Muslim and anti-Pakistan lobbies, in his bid to distance himself from the "Muslim" label. American Muslim support for Obama seems to be based mainly on their negative experience with the Republican administration under George W. Bush during the last seven years. What Muslims and Pakistanis need to realize is that John S. McCain is not George W. Bush, nor is he a traditional, conservative, right-wing Republican ideologue. Unlike George W. Bush in 2000 and Barack H. Obama now, John S. McCain is far more experienced, well tested, and proven as a leader with a lifetime of real world experience of war and peace.

As a life-long registered Democrat, I intend to vote for John McCain for President, and I urge my readers to do the same. However, I will vote for Democrats running for the Senate and the House seats in my district. This will ensure that we have the presidency in safe, experienced hands and we have a forward-looking agenda on economy, healthcare, environment and education in the US Congress. I believe a divided government in Washington, with John S. McCain in the White House and Democrats running the US Congress, is the best recipe for all Americans, and the world at large.

Obama Accuses Pakistan of Preparing for War With India

"We are providing them (Pakistanis) military aid without having enough strings attached. So they're using the military aid that we use to Pakistan, they're preparing for a war against India", said Senator Barack H. Obama, in an interview with Bill O'Reilly of Fox News.

When it comes to important national security and foreign policy matters, Mr. Obama, the US Democratic nominee for President, never ceases to amaze and scare Americans with his knowledge and understanding, or rather the lack of it. While on the one hand he exploits the anti-Iraq war fervor in the US, he keeps advocating a larger, more devastating regional war in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Not only that, he continues to toe the line of anti-Pakistan neighbors showing clear hostility toward Pakistan. His fresh comments to Bill O'Reilly, accusing Pakistan of preparing for war with India, are the latest in a series of ill-conceived statements about Pakistan.

Here's a partial transcript of Obama's interview relating to Pakistan:

O'REILLY: You gave a speech in Denver — good speech, by the way.

OBAMA: Thank you.

O'REILLY: But you bloviated about McCain not following him to the cave. You're not going to invade Pakistan, senator, if you're president. You're not going to send ground troops in there. You know it.

OBAMA: Here's the problem. John McCain loves to say, "I would follow them to the gates of Hell."

O'REILLY: But he's not going to invade either.

OBAMA: And the point is what we could have done...

O'REILLY: No, not could. Let's stay in now.

OBAMA: What we can do...

O'REILLY: Yes.

OBAMA: ...is stay focused on Afghanistan and put more pressure on the Pakistanis.

O'REILLY: Like what?

OBAMA: For example, we are providing them military aid without having enough strings attached. So they're using the military aid that we use to Pakistan, they're preparing for a war against India.

O'REILLY: So you're going to pull it out and let the Islamic fundamentalists take them over?

OBAMA: No, no, no, no. What we say is, look, we're going to provide them with additional military support targeted at terrorists, and we're going to help build their democracy and provide...

O'REILLY: We're doing that now. Negroponte's over there, and he's doing that.

OBAMA: That is not what we've been doing, Bill. We've wasted $10 billion with Musharraf without holding him accountable for knocking out those safe havens.

O'REILLY: So you are going to — again, more diplomacy, and we need it, absolutely, trying to convince the Pakistan government to take a more aggressive approach. If you don't, we're going to pull…

OBAMA: And what I will do is, if we have bin Laden in our sights...

O'REILLY: Yes.

OBAMA: ...we target him, and we knock him out.

O'REILLY: But everybody would do that. I mean, that would be the biggest win Bush could have.

OBAMA: Of course.

O'REILLY: If you send ground troops in, all hell breaks loose.

OBAMA: We can't — we can't have — and nobody talked about some full-blown invasion of Pakistan, but the simple point that I made was we've got to put more pressure on Pakistan to do what they need to do.


Obama did not offer any evidence to back up his claim that Pakistan is preparing for war against India. Pakistan is dealing with its own domestic challenges of economic meltdown, growing Taliban insurgency and continuing political instability. Such an accusation has no basis in fact. It makes no sense for a serious candidate for US presidency to make such wild accusations in a casual way, without realizing the impact of such statements on nuclear-armed South Asia region. What is needed is quite diplomacy and direct, positive engagement by the US, rather than bellicose threats and wild allegations.

As Pakistanis seem to be beginning to realize that the Taliban are no friends of Islam, Pakistan or Muslims, it is important that the US handle the situation very carefully. Any hint that the US is "pushing" Pakistan to crack down on the Taliban, or directly intervening, would be counterproductive. Let Pakistanis see it as their fight rather than America's fight. That is the only way to rebuild support for war against terrorism in Pakistan, to isolate the Taliban, and to defeat them. Repeated belligerent statements from Obama are sending the wrong signals to Pakistanis at a delicate moment. Such indiscretions by Obama do not inspire any confidence in his ability to handle complex and nuanced issues of national security and foreign policy. Let's hope he begins to learn from the experience of his VP pick, Senator Joe Biden, to keep him and the US out of trouble, while giving him time and opportunity to mature on these life-and-death issues for America and the world.

I am not a fan of Bill O'Reilly. But I do appreciate how O'Reilly challenged Obama and his policy statements on Pakistan. Such challenges are necessary to bring Mr. Obama to his senses, and help make him more sensitive about the consequences of his words for world peace and security.

India's Guantanamos and Abu Ghraibs

While the human rights abuses at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib by the Bush administration have been exposed, documented and condemned by the world, similar abuses of Muslims in India's "war on terror" have gone largely unnoticed. There appears to be a conspiracy of silence by the world media when it comes to the brutality against Indian Muslims practiced by officials and the right-wing Hindu extremists in world's largest secular democracy. The western media, in particular, have completely bought what Fareed Zakaria, the Indian-born Muslim editor of Newsweek International, describes as a "peaceful, stable, and prosperous" India. Even the officially-endorsed anti-Muslim violence and resulting deaths of thousands of Muslims in Gujarat have not been able to shake the faith of the Indophile western journalists. Let's see if the following account by Yoginder Sikand changes any minds:


Terrifying Testimonies
By Yoginder Sikand,
TwoCircles.net

For several months now, almost no week passes without the media reporting about 'dreaded Muslim fundamentalists' being picked up by the police and allegedly confessing to being involved in bomb blasts or plots to engineer violence across India. It is not my argument that all of these reports are cooked-up and dished-out propaganda. Some of these stories must be true, and those behind such acts must be caught and punished. But, the fact remains, many of these stories circulating in the media are wholly fabricated, and these are being manufactured and highlighted for a particular motive: to fuel anti-Muslim passions and, thereby, justify various forms of discrimination and oppression—even murder—of hapless Muslim citizens who, far from having anything to do with terrorism, are victims of terror—of agencies of the state, especially the police and Hindutva terror outfits.

America's 'global war on terror' has provided a convenient cover to the Hindutva lobby and to fiercely anti-Muslim elements within the Indian state machinery to launch a concerted campaign of terror against Muslims. Large numbers of Muslims in various parts of India continue to languish in jails on trumped-up terror charges, suffering brutal torture as well as routine insults to their religion by police officials. Meanwhile, Hindu terrorists, often in league with the police and the state machinery, are allowed to run riot, unleashing violence and bloodshed on a frightening scale, while the state, the police and the courts take no firm action against them. Bomb blasts that are now occurring with frightening frequency, whose perpetrators remain unknown, are automatically blamed on Muslims, while some of these might possibly be engineered by Hindutva outfits or by elements within the state apparatus, or even by foreign intelligence agencies like the CIA or the Israeli Mossad who have a vested interest in demonizing Muslims and thereby driving India closer into the deadly American-Israeli embrace. That, in brief, was what numerous social activists as well as dozens of Muslim victims of police and state terror testified to at a public hearing on brutalities against Muslims in the name of countering 'terrorism' recently organised in Hyderabad by a group of noted human rights' activists. Going by their depositions and the verdict of the jury of eminent social activists, journalists and retired judges, it appears that powerful elements within the state apparatus are deeply implicated, along with Hindu terrorist groups, in a witch-hunt of India's Muslim citizens.

27 year-old Yakoob Khan from Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, was arrested at the age of 17, accused of being involved in the Coimbatore blasts in 1998, a charge that he vehemently denies. 'On the day of the blast I attended class at the Industrial Training Institute where I was enrolled, and when I was returning home I heard about the blasts'. In the wake of the blasts, the police went on a rampage, indiscriminately picking up Muslim youth. Some days later, Yakoob found himself in prison, where he was to spend almost the next ten years, much of it in solitary confinement in a small cage- like cell. 'I was accused of being in possession of explosive material, and of being associated with the Islamic group Al-Ummah, although I had never even heard its name.' In addition to routine torture, while in jail he was often abused for his religion. 'I would be beaten up if I wanted to say namaz. My torturers would tell me to face them while praying, rather than the Kaaba. They tore my Quran, and while beating me they would scream "Bharat Mata ki Jai"'. 'They ruined ten precious years of my life, my youth, falsely branding me as a terrorist', he says.

Yakoob Khan's friend, 34 year-old Shiv Kumar, alias Abdul Hamid, is a Hindu convert to Islam. He eked out as livelihood selling old newspapers and utensils for recycling. He was accused of being involved in the Coimbatore blasts, a charge that he denies. The police forced him to sign a blank piece of paper which they later filled out themselves, threatening him that if he refused to do so they would arrest his family as well. He was remanded to the Coimbatore jail on the basis of this forced 'confession' and his repeated applications for bails were rejected. Because he was the sole earner in his family, his wife was forced to beg in order to survive. He was finally acquitted only recently, after almost ten years in incarceration. 'I was mercilessly tortured in prison. I was constantly told that if I had not become a Muslim and had remained a Hindu I would not have been beaten like this', he says.

Shabbir Masiulllah Ansari was picked up by the Mumbai Crime Branch in August 2006, but he was soon released on bail for 'lack of evidence'. Yet, he was charged anew for being allegedly the 'mastermind' of the Malegaon mosque blasts, while, it is said, that at the time the blasts took place he was actually in police custody. He continues to languish in jail and has suffered routine torture, including acid being thrown on his private parts. In the course of torture he was coerced into making a forced confession, but he later retracted this in court.

Maulana Muhammad Zahid is originally from Malegaon. Some two years ago, at the time of the Malegaon bomb blast, he was in Phul Savangi, a village 500 km away from Malegaon, where he used to lead the prayers in a mosque. The police implicated him in the blast, although his relatives insist he is innocent. When he was produced before the magistrate in Mumbai Esplanade Court, he gave a statement listing the torture that was done to him and also the false statement on which the police had taken his signature. The magistrate ignored his plea and asked for the police produced statement and accepted that as evidence. He still languishes in prison.

Faisal Attaur Shaikh and Muzammil Attaur Rehman Shaikh are among the thirteen Muslims charged for the 11 July 2006 Bombay local train blasts. The police accused Faisal of being a commander of Lashkar-e Tayyeba and of setting off the blast. They also claimed to have recovered maps of Mumbai and some CDS from Muzammil. In October 2006, 11 out of the 13 accused in the case gave their confession, but later retracted it in the sessions' court. It is alleged that almost all the accused were subjected to brutal torture, which forced them to confess to crimes they said they had not committed. It is claimed that 11 out of the 13 accused could not endure the torture and finally agreed to whatever story the police fabricated. This is why their confession stands retracted.

33 year-old Kalim Ahmed Karimi used to manage a small radio repair business in Ahmedabad. On 3rd April, 2003 he had gone out to get some medicines for his pregnant wife who was unwell. The police picked him up and he never came back. Although Kalim was arrested on the 3rd April from Ahmedabad, the CBI states that they arrested him on the 26th of April in Andhra Pradesh. He was charged with being allegedly involved in the Tiffin Bomb Blast case, the Haren Pandya murder case and a 'jihadi' conspiracy. Thereafter, he was sentenced to 14 years imprisonment for the Haren Pandya murder case and to 10 years in the Tiffin Bomb Blast case.

Says his 70 year-old father, Habib Karimi, 'My son is innocent. Officials of the crime branch picked me up for questioning. Under duress, I was forced to sign some blank papers that they presented me with. They told me that I should not contact any lawyer and that they had men keeping an eye on me. I was also told not to forget that they had my signatures on blank sheets. My son has been tortured brutally and he has been forced to sign a confession. He and some others have narrated the experience of torture and forced confessions before the POTA Judge Sonia Gokani.'

Junaid is a final year student at Unani Medical College, Hyderabad, and president of the student union. He was picked up on the 3rd of September 2007 while returning to his home. He was produced before the magistrate on 8th of September 2007. Police claim that he was apprehended at Nampally railway station on the 8th of September. He was accused of conspiring against the state, which he vehemently denied. The argument given by the police was that some literature was found in his possession. While in custody he was subjected to heavy electric shocks, including on his private parts, and was coerced into making a forced confession. During his interrogation he was constantly rebuked for having shouted slogans against police violence. They asked him why he raised questions regarding the Sohrabuddin fake encounter and why he attended a conference against it. They even asked him why Muslims have so many children. For two days he was not given anything to eat. His face was kept covered in a black cloth throughout this ordeal. A shoe was stuffed in his mouth and he was told to read the Quran in that condition. In order to further humiliate him he was forced to shout 'Jai Shri Ram'.

24 year-old Aftab Alam Ansari, the only bread-earner in his 10- member lower middle class family, and an employee of the Calcutta Electric Supply Corporation, was picked up by the police and taken to Lucknow. 'I was badly tortured with iron rods by drunken policemen who accused me of being a Bangladeshi. I was forced to declare that my name was actually Altaf Muletar and that I was responsible for the bombings in Sankat Mochan Mandir and the Courts in Lucknow. Of course I had nothing whatsoever to do with these.'

Aftab was then sent to the civil jail in Lucknow where he was stripped and was imprisoned for twenty two days. 'I was accused of being the area commander of the Harkat ul-Jihad al-Islami, although I had never even heard of this outfit. My interrogators heaped abuses on Muslims and Islam.'

'They are targeting us just because we are Muslims', Aftab says. 'They want to falsely implicate us in terror cases so that our image gets tarnished and people start hating Muslims.' Like many other innocent Muslim youths who have been picked up and brutally tortured by interrogating agencies and then released for lack of any evidence, Aftab received no compensation for the enormous amount of money his family spent on securing his release. Nor has the state compensated him in any way for the damage to his health caused by the torture in prison. Nor has he received any sort of apology.

Scores more Muslim men and women testified at this public hearing, narrating the harrowing brutalities that they or their relatives have been subjected to, being, so they insisted, unfairly blamed for various terror acts. Predictably, though, the so-called mainstream Indian media took little notice of the hearing, the first of its kind in the country. Nor, for their part, did major political parties and state authorities. As Ghadr, the popular cultural activist from Andhra Pradesh who addressed the gathering, rightly put it, 'To expect anything else from the media and the establishment is folly. The answer lies not in simply narrating our woes but initiating a mass movement against this sort of oppression.'

Sukhia Sab Sansar Khaye Aur Soye
Dukhia Das Kabir Jagey Aur Roy

The world is 'happy', eating and sleeping
The forlorn Kabir Das is awake and weeping

Will Economic Mess Get Worse Under President Zardari?

As Pakistan finds itself in the midst of arguably the worst economic crisis in its sixty one year history, the recent accounts of Mr. Zardari's understanding of the economy and decision-making are not particularly encouraging. It is certainly a huge letdown after Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, whose expertise on economic matters is well known. Here are the relevant excerpts from a report in the New York Times:

Two recent decisions by Mr. Zardari showed a disregard for Pakistan’s alarming deficits, they (sources) said, speaking anonymously because they did not want to publicly criticize the next president.

In April, Mr. Zardari told Ishaq Dar, the finance minister at the time and a member of Mr. Sharif’s party, which has since broken with Mr. Zardari, that he wanted the price the government paid farmers for wheat to be raised substantially as a way of rewarding an important constituency in Punjab Province, the nation’s most populous, according to two participants in the discussion with Mr. Zardari. The government would then have to heavily subsidize the cost of wheat to the consumer.

When Mr. Dar asked Mr. Zardari how he thought the government would pay for the subsidy, Mr. Zardari replied, “Print the notes,” according to the two participants, a government official and an associate of Mr. Zardari’s. In an effort to solve the impasse over the subsidy, it was suggested that Mr. Zardari form a committee of experts.

“ ‘I am the expert,’ ” Mr. Zardari said, according to his associate.

Farahnaz Ispahani, a spokeswoman for Mr. Zardari’s party, denied the account.

The two officials described another episode in May as the budget was being prepared. Mr. Zardari decided to scrap a proposed capital gains tax after a visit from a group of influential stockbrokers from the Karachi stock exchange, they said. The revenue from the capital gains tax, and from an income tax proposal on the rich, would have paid for an income support program for the poorest Pakistanis, they said. More than half of Pakistanis live on less than $2 a day, according to the World Bank.

In Mr. Zardari’s defense, the finance minister, Naveed Qamar, said that political stability would be restored to Pakistan once Mr. Zardari was president, and that the unsettled economy would benefit from the new political order.

Others were not so sure.

“Zardari will wield unprecedented power for a civilian president,” said Maleeha Lodhi, who was appointed as Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States by Ms. Bhutto and then by Gen. Pervez Musharraf when he was Pakistan’s leader. “But he may lack authority in view of his checkered and controversial past.”

Indeed, Mr. Zardari, who is expected to be chosen in Saturday’s election by the Parliament and four provisional assemblies, is the unintended beneficiary of sweeping powers accumulated by President Musharraf, including the right to dismiss the army chief of staff and dissolve Parliament.

Given Mr. Zardari's past record of economic mismanagement as privatization minister in his wife's cabinet, the hopes in his stewardship of Pakitan's economy have not been great. While some measure of political stability will return to Pakistan with President Zardari in office, these latest disclosures are not going to help restore consumer, business and investor confidence in Pakistan, an essential requirement for its economy to start growing again.

World Economy Worst in Sixty Years

In a candid interview in late August with Guardian Weekend magazine, British Finance Minister Alistair Darling warns that the economic times faced by Britain and the rest of the world "are arguably the worst they've been in 60 years". To deepen the sense of gloom, he adds: "And I think it's going to be more profound and long-lasting than people thought."

While Mr. Darling's candor is rare for such a senior government official, what he revealed are off-the-record feelings shared by many top economic officials around the world. The dramatic impact of a severe, worldwide credit crunch, and sharp rise in the price of basic commodities, including food and fuel, are taking an unprecedented toll on the world economy. Economic growth has either stopped or slowed to a crawl, major stock markets have crashed, unemployment is on the rise, and the increasing world hunger and poverty are threatening global security and stability.


South Asia's economy is no exception. Economic growth and stock markets are down and unemployment and inflation are up. In Pakistan, the KSE-100 has lost 34.6% of its value this year, as investor confidence has been been hurt by political uncertainty and a long list of economic troubles, including skyrocketing inflation, disappearing foreign exchange reserves, declining rupee and a soaring deficit. Putting it in perspective, India's Sensex is down 48%, Shanghai has lost 44 percent, Russia is down 25 percent, and Brazil, 36 percent.


Since the takeover by the PPP-PML(N) coalition, there has been a sharp decline in Pakistan's economy. While Pakistan's GDP is expected to grow at 5% or higher this year, with Pakistan's annual population growth rate of 1.8%, it is important that the GDP growth continue to be at least 1.8% a year just to stay even. Summing up the current economic situation, the Economist magazine in its June 12 issue says as follows:" (The current) macroeconomic disarray will be familiar to the coalition government led by the Pakistan People's Party of Asif Zardari, and to Nawaz Sharif, whose party provides it “outside support”. Before Mr Sharif was ousted in 1999, the two parties had presided over a decade of corruption and mismanagement. But since then, as the IMF remarked in a report in January, there has been a transformation. Pakistan attracted over $5 billion in foreign direct investment in the 2006-07 fiscal year, ten times the figure of 2000-01. The government's debt fell from 68% of GDP in 2003-04 to less than 55% in 2006-07, and its foreign-exchange reserves reached $16.4 billion as recently as in October." Please read "Pakistani Economy Returning to the Bad Old Days".


The rapidly rising unemployment and skyrocketing inflation together have dramatically increased hunger and poverty among the most vulnerable in Pakistan. At 33%, the sum of unemployment rate and inflation, known as the misery index, stands at its highest level in Pakistan's history, and it is likely to increase social strife and hurt the chances of recovery.

While the worldwide economic slowdown and commodity inflation partly account for Pakistan's current economic meltdown, the biggest indigenous problem for Pakistan is the absence of any economic leadership. Pakistan has not even had a full-time finance minister for several months, since PML(N) withdrew from the coalition. With the expected election of Asif Ali Zardari as powerful president, and his hand-picked prime minister already installed, let us hope that the PPP will seriously begin to tackle the challenges of Taliban insurgency, deteriorating economy, and political instability.