Adil Najam
This rather striking picture, taken by Associated Press in Peshawar Pakistan is remarkable just for it captivating composition. But I have no doubt that our readers will not disappoint in making more of this than probably needs to be made!
Dear Readers,
While All Things Pakistan has remained alive and online, it has been dormant since June 11, 2011 - when, on the blog's 5th anniversary, we decided that it was time to move on. We have been heartened by your messages and the fact that a steady traffic has continued to enjoy the archived content on ATP. While the blog itself will remain dormant, we are now beginning to add occasional (but infrequent) new material by the original authors of the blog, mostly to archive what they may now publish elsewhere. We will also be updating older posts to make sure that new readers who stumble onto this site still find it useful.
We hope you will continue to find ATP a useful venue to reflect upon and express your Pakistaniat. - Editors
I think our beloved Saudis got it right – we should ban anything that is red on Valentines day. Paint over all the Red Crescent signs – rename the Red Sea …
then ban anything orange for Halloween… ban pink on Mothers Day, blue on Father’s day
And also, to constantly say that non-Arabs have nothing to contribute to Islamic thought, and have never contributed anything that is worthwhile or correct (unless Arabs agree with it), is to say in effect that Islam is so tied into Arabic identity as to be a religion only for Arabs. This is the opposite of what most Muslims believe Islam teaches.
I’m not sure if it’s the active export on the part of the decrepit Arab cultures or the vacuum inside our own cultural landscape that is sucking all the gunk in.
The trojan horse of course is the one true way or “the Islamic way”, and the payload is every idiocy, ritual and superficialiaty associated with the “golden days of empire”. But the reasons of this change are still connected to the homicidal economic & culture wars being waged inside Pakistan amongst the various interest groups. (Natives vs. the Self Imposed Saahibs)
The vacuum of course has been left in the wake of the silly culture war that was fought for the supremacy of Urdu/Nazria-Pakistan and the stalemate and the unwritten truce that has followed after the sinking of that particular boat ( in the Bay of Bengal) has basically allowed the Arabic/Islamic influence to come in. Buy why Arabic influence? Why doesthe vacuum prefer the Arabic influence over Western or Iranian influence? (or even Indian for that matter?) I think it is because the outward Arabization gives itself legitimacy through being subconsciously being equated to Islam itself. (and everyone knows keh “Pakistan kaa matlab kia” hai!)
IMO, The importation of the Arabic influence in the guise of Islamization is in fact the second phase of the rebellion of the natives against the state and therefore the dominant and coercive cultural apparatus that vied to maintain control of resources and levers of power (through cultural dominance) over the natives. Interest group politics packaged in a sacred box colored white and green with a big ole chaaNd-sitaara sploched all over it.
Any display of local identities can be brutally attacked and crushed by the coercive organs of the state, but what are you going to do when the same drive is exhibited through another even more “sacred” identity. The local identities, instead of dying at the hands of the center, have killed (negated?) themselves (in part) and re-constituted the struggle against the “center” (the invisible hand, the establishment, the language executioners etc.) using a newer more violent “Islamic” narrative.
The war is still the same, but it is being fought in new garb, under seemingly different pretexts and apparently unrelated contexts. While in fact it is still about economic interests, but everyone involved has figured out that the old ways of control aren’t working. However, the same group holds the coercive powers of the state, therefore the need to change to a newer more violent “Islamic” (outwardly Arabized) tint to the struggle (of the disadvantaged natives.)
The ethnic and linguistic makeup of the suicide bombers and the various “Lashkar-e-X” are clues to that particular dynamic.
At least that’s what I think right now.
libertarian–
the answer of course is that the Arabs were the first Muslims and “first” in most Muslims’ minds still means “purest” and “best”.
Problem with this thinking is that of course Arabs have changed over the centuries just like everyone else so who is to say their ideas about Islam are “pure” and “better” 1,400 years on. Most Arabs today can’t read the Q’uran in original any better than non-Arabic speakers can, unless they have studied it specially.
Hats off to Tab’an Khamosh.