Adil Najam
This picture is carried today by both Dawn and Daily Times. Dawn’s title is “Still Heroes” and the caption reads: “Bronze statues of Quaid-i-Azam, Sir Syed Ahmed Khan and Allama Iqbal put on display at the Science and Technology Expo-2007 being held at National Memorial Museum in Shakarparian in Islamabad.”
A visit to the Museum is on the top of my ‘To Do’ list when I return to Islamabad end of the month. I hope they are still there.
My first thought on looking at the picture was to note how both Jinnah and Iqbal are wearing suits here (this penchant of ours – me included – to dress up these guys in the garbs of our desires has been has been quite a remarkable historical see-saw!). My second thought was to wonder what the folks at Lal Masjid and Jamia Hafsa might have to say – or do – about this. I hope there is significant security against vandalism here.
But even more than that, I wonder what these three men are sitting there thinking about what is happening today in the country they helped conceive. Late at night when the museum is closed and the statues come alive and walk about, what is it that they sit together and talk about?
YLH: However… the pogrom against Muslims in India was an event, that hasn’t occured in Pakistan post 1971 Bangladesh killings
Hundreds in Balochistan (06-07), thousands in Baltistan (87-88), all the folks killed as “apostates” or for “blasphemy” … (not counting the Ojhri “explosion” here).
PS: While I agree with the spirit of what Tina is saying … I should point out – as someone who is accused more often than anyone else of harboring a “Qadiani/leftist/secularist” agenda here by our resident McCarthy mian who suspects that I am a Qadiani myself- that Gujurat Riots and the violence against Muslims are incomparable… 3000 Muslims were killed/burnt alive in one single day there…
Consider the fact that despite the most horrible institutionalised discrimination against them … the total number of Ahmadis killed since 1974 is at 79. This is the number claimed by the Ahmaddiya community. The situation vis a vis sectarian violence between Shias and Sunnis is worse.. claiming approx. 5500 lives over the last 17 years… out of which 60% were shiites… However… there have been NO pogroms against any community in Pakistan.
Every death is wrong and being better than India doesn’t mean anything. However… the pogrom against Muslims in India was an event, that hasn’t occured in Pakistan post 1971 Bangladesh killings…
Not only did Jinnah admire Ataturk greatly…. but Jinnah considered Ataturk as the Greatest Muslim of the 20th century and one of greatest people in history… worthy of emulation by Muslims of South Asia:
Speaking to the press in November 1938 … after the demise of Kemal Ataturk, Jinnah, the president of the Muslim League said:
“He (Kemal Ataturk) was the greatest Musalman in the modern Islamic world and I am sure that the entire Musalman world will deeply mourn his passing away. It is impossible to express adequately in a press interview one,s appreciation of his remarkable and varied services, as the builder and the maker of Modern Turkey and an example to the rest of the world, especially to the Musalmans States in the Middle East. The remarkable way in which he rescused and built up his people against all odds has no parallel in the history of the world. He must have derived the greatest sense of satisfaction that he fully accomplished his mission during his lifetime and left his people and his country consolidated, united and a powerful nation. In him, not only the Musalmans but the whole world has lost one the greatest men that ever lived.”
(Quaid-e-Azam and the Islamic World, Rizwan Ahmed, Published 1981 on the occasion of OIC Foreign Ministers’ conference in Karachi)
For the sake of accuracy… Jinnah did not create the “Islamic” Republic of Pakistan but simply the Dominion of Pakistan. His concern was Muslim political and cultural sovereignty and economic future … in which he was partially correct…
Sulman…
Even if we accept your arguments (which are wrong as is) weren’t Ahmadis considered part of the 87% electorate that voted for Pakistan? Didn’t the Muslim League woo the Ahmadis on the premise that Ahmadis were as good as Muslims as anyone else?
Wasn’t Sir Zafrullah Khan the principal author of the Lahore Resolution? Wasn’t Zafrullah Khan… an Ahmadi Muslim… nominated as a Muslim to plead the Muslim case in front of the Boundary commission…
Your failure to answer the questions raised in my previous posts shows that you are not even willing to address the real issues…
Iqbal: ‘bhaitay bhaitay thak tay nai gayee’?
Jinnah: ‘Nahi par chaa da order dita si par chota muriya nahi’
Iqbal: ‘ oye chotay, pata nahi kithay mar giya ai, sir syed saab tusi khlotya ki kar rai ho, ik jhaati tay maro’
Sir Syed: ‘main sochi piyaan aan, nazar nai aundaa, hali time naiee ai’
Jinnah: ‘sunniyaa ai islamabad day haalaat fair khraab ho ray nai’
Iqbal: ‘chado jee, miti pao, ai kut kut tay lagi rahndi ai, sanon ki, issi tay apnaa kum puraa kar dita si.
Jinah: ‘kahnday tay teekh o, par sanon tay ithay kursi tay suknay paa dita ai, mera rang wi khraab ho giyaa ai’.
Iqbal: ‘ sach kahnday o, chaloo fair qailoola kariyeh’.
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Hunhhhhh?????? I am lost now. Would someone please translate this for me?