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78 responses to “Taliban Times – 2: Who Opposes the Taliban”

1. banjara286 says:

   May 13, 2009 at 9:19 am

   adnan, the religious and the liberal/secular can keep on arguing and blaming each other till the cows come home, but it is not going to make an iota of contribution towards a constructive resolution of the problems facing us all as Pakistanis. if anything, common sense demands that we find some minimum common ground so we can cooperate with, rather than undercut, each other all the time.

   while taliban alone may not deserve the blame for all ills, it is also true that there is nothing positive that can be said of their movement. in time, it will certainly destroy Pakistan. i think that being religious, or being liberal/secular, does not alter this reality in the least.

   what we need is to find a constructive accomodation that we can all live with in good conscience; and i say this as an orthodox believer. the resolution we need to find must give sufficient space to all – liberal, religious, minorities – for them to be able to support it.

   if we can truly understand what shari’ah really is, there is nothing in it that will stop us from finding such a solution. think about it.

2. Adnan Siddiqi says:

   May 12, 2009 at 12:59 pm

   PMA: let’s agree to disagree to argue about conservative vs religious as it would be quite childish and futile to debate about unnecessary thing. I try to answer you statement by statement.

   
   My difficulty with religious community is that it often takes upon itself to police those who do not conform to their ideology or version of

3. PMA says:

   May 12, 2009 at 9:33 am

   Dear Mr. Siddiqi: Our ideological disagreements are not signs of disrespect for each other. You are saying that Pakistani society is ” either religious or semi-religious” and “conservative is a Western term”. Well if ‘conservative’ is a Western term then so are the terms like ‘liberal’, ‘religious’ and ‘secular’. I would say being religious is being conservative, without relegating any negativity to it. I believe that in a free and open society each and every member of the society has full right to carry what ever belief they wish as long as their believes do not infringe upon the rights and believes of others. This principle applies to all schools of thoughts. My difficulty with religious community is that it often takes upon itself to police those who do not conform to their ideology or version of ‘true religion’. I present his discussion on the use of word ‘ya’ (oh) by Brother Ibrahim on this post as an exhibit in support of my point. Taliban as a movement must be heard and allowed political space but not as an armed gang and enforcers about to destroy our country and society. They have no right to force their ideology on innocent people at gun point. And please do not say that this commenter has taken his position under Western media influence. Please grant me the same intellectual respect that I grant you. I speak as a person who loves Pakistan and her people no matter what their personal believes are. West is against Taleban because Taleban abate and support Al-Qaeda, a sworn enemy of the West. Pakistanis detest Taleban because they are about to destroy Pakistan. Pakistan has enough external security threats and need not to be burdened by the internal threats like Taleban.