Pakistani intelligentsia are not in control of their country, Current affairs, NewAgeIslam.com

Current affairs

Pakistani intelligentsia are not in control of their country

Yes, we love you too

By Ashok Malik

India’s attitude towards Pakistan has changed from being patronising to apathetic. And it seems that Islamabad just can’t stomach that, writes Ashok Malik.

Advocates for greater civil society engagement between India and Pakistan have three essential arguments. First, they contend a vast majority of Pakistanis want friendship with India but are being thwarted by a small minority. Second, with Indian help Pakistani civil society and democracy can yet win the battle against Islamism. Third, a democratic and ‘mainstreamed’ Pakistan will guarantee amity.

To be fair, these ideas are not new. Till even the 1990s, it was fashionable to believe that once the Partition generation — or the children of the Partition generation, those with once-removed experiences of 1947 — moved on, India and Pakistan would be able to relate to one another as normal countries.

They would not necessarily love each other or always cooperate. The sense of competition would still be there, but not blind demonisation. In the media and in popular culture, at football matches and occasionally at diplomatic conferences, Britain and France still disparage each other. Neither side sees this, however, as a resurrection of Agincourt and Crecy.

How has this theory panned out? The past 10-odd years have changed Indian attitudes towards Pakistan. After the attack on Parliament in December 2001, India was livid and at one level ready for war. Troops were mobilised. For a whole host of reasons, India did not and could not go to war.

http://newageislam.com/pakistani-intelligentsia-are-not-in-control-of-their-country/current-affairs/d/2462

How real is British outrage over “killer” passports?, Current affairs, NewAgeIslam.com

Current affairs

How real is British outrage over “killer” passports?

By Hasan Suroor

It was billed as the moment when, we were told, Britain would read out the riot act to Israel over Mossad's suspected link to the abuse of British passports by the killers of Hamas commander, Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, in Dubai last month.

But the first thing that the Israeli Ambassador Ron Prosor did as he emerged from a meeting with the Foreign Office chief Sir Peter Ricketts last Thursday was to clarify to waiting journalists that he had come in response to an “invitation” and not summons — making a pointed distinction between being “summoned” (as in the “Iranian envoy summoned for a dressing down”) and being simply called for a coffee.

The message Mr. Prosor wanted to get out — a commentator noted — was that his meeting with Sir Peter was a routine diplomatic drill and there was no need to get too excited, or read too much into it. In other words, Britain was simply going “through the motions” to calm public opinion. A similar line was coming out of Israel where ministers were said to be “confident” that for all the tough talk Britain would “do nothing” to damage its “strategic” alliance with Israel.

“The U.K. is going through the motions of outrage, but our assessment is that they will do nothing,” The Daily Telegraph reported an Israeli government source as saying. The British government, clearly embarrassed first by the disclosure about the misuse of its passports and then by Israeli bid to play down its fallout, insists that it is taking the issue “very seriously” and has ordered an investigation by the Serious Organised Crime Agency. Foreign Secretary David Miliband described the theft of identities of six Israel-based British citizens and their use in the cold-blooded murder of Mahmoud as an “outrage.”

http://newageislam.com/how-real-is-british-outrage-over-%E2%80%9Ckiller%E2%80%9D-passports?/current-affairs/d/2496

'There is no room for suicide in Islam': Al Qaeda's racist attack on Obama signals the death of jihad, Radical Islamism and Jihad, NewAgeIslam.com

Radical Islamism and Jihad

'There is no room for suicide in Islam': Al Qaeda's racist attack on Obama signals the death of jihad

London: With both countries facing the common threat of suicide bombings, India-born inter-faith champion Lord Khalid Hameed says a recent British exercise in bringing Muslim and Jewish students together holds important lessons for India.

"There is absolutely no room for suicide in Islam," said Hameed who has been visiting top British universities along with a group of like-minded parliamentarians, addressing challenging religious issues.

Their visits follow reports of campus tensions between Muslim and Jewish students in Britain.

Lord Hameed is British Asian of the year 2007

"I'd say the same thing to Muslim youth audiences in Britain and in India," the Lucknow-born Hameed, who was honoured with a Padma Shri in 1992 for services in the field of medicine, said.

"You need to come out of the margins and participate in nation-building. Be non-violent, go in for education and put in hard work. At the end of the day, the solution is education, education and education.

"The problem is that Muslims lack credible, sincere and honest leadership. There are no leaders - the community is like a ship with no anchor and no captain, travelling in all directions in turbulent waters," he said.

http://newageislam.com/-there-is-no-room-for-suicide-in-islam---al-qaeda-s-racist-attack-on-obama-signals-the-death-of-jihad/radical-islamism-and-jihad/d/1023

A Background story: Outrage as Muslim cleric likens women to 'uncovered meat', Islamic Sharia Laws, NewAgeIslam.com

Islamic Sharia Laws

A Background story: Outrage as Muslim cleric likens women to 'uncovered meat'

By RICHARD SHEARS

11 October, 2008

There were women, he said, who 'sway suggestively' and wore make-up and immodest dress "and then you get a judge without mercy and gives you 65 years. But the problem, but the problem all began with who?" he said, referring to the women victims.

Addressing 500 worshippers on the topic of adultery, Sheik al-Hilali added: "If you take out uncovered meat and place it outside on the street, or in the garden or in the park, or in the backyard without a cover, and the cats come and eat it..whose fault is it - the cats or the uncovered meat?

"The uncovered meat is the problem."

He went on: "If she was in her room, in her home, in her hijab (veil), no problem would have occurred."

Women, he said, were 'weapons' used by Satan to control men.

His comments, reported yesterday in the nationally-circulated newspaper The Australian, created a storm of outrage.

It follows anger that erupted among Muslims in Britain earlier this month when MP Jack Straw said women who wear veils over their face can make community relations harder.

http://newageislam.com/a-background-story--outrage-as-muslim-cleric-likens-women-to--uncovered-meat---/islamic-sharia-laws/d/871

After the Delhi blasts: Indian Muslim radicals too are affected by global Jehad, Islam,Terrorism and Jihad, NewAgeIslam.com

Islam,Terrorism and Jihad

After the Delhi blasts: Indian Muslim radicals too are affected by global Jehad

Vir Sanghvi, Hindustan Times

September 20, 2008

The experience of the 1980s holds two lessons for us. One: we must not panic unduly or worry needlessly. We have survived much worse. And two: never judge a community by its terrorists. The Sikh militants did not represent their community. These bombers do not represent Indian Muslims.

So why is it happening?: Thousands of books have been written on the jehadi resurgence and I don’t claim to know all the answers. But if you think that India, a country of over a billion, is in a bad way because of these blasts, then think of tiny England. The British security services are monitoring 200 terrorist networks. They estimate there are 16,000 known terrorists in the UK, 3,000 of them trained in Al Qaeda camps.

There is no history of anti-Muslim feeling in Britain. Yet after such events as the 7/7 attacks, polls have found support for the terrorists among some Muslims and pollsters say that over half of Britain’s Muslims have some sympathy for Osama Bin Laden.

So, no country can be immune to a global trend. And given the size of our Muslim population, we have done better than most.

http://newageislam.com/after-the-delhi-blasts--indian-muslim-radicals-too-are-affected-by-global-jehad-/islam,terrorism-and-jihad/d/781

Terror won’t stop till we fight it like a war, War on Terror, NewAgeIslam.com

War on Terror

Terror won’t stop till we fight it like a war

By Vikram Sood

As yet, there is no evidence about who was responsible for these acts, though as usual various names are afloat. But the fact is that we have brought this upon ourselves. Yes, we are the victims of terrorism from Pakistan. But instead of dealing with it single-mindedly, we sought to appease; Instead of strengthening our investigation and intelligence network, we issued caveats to investigators. Pakistan may or may not be responsible for the current terrorist attacks, but we must take responsibility for allowing a certain mindset to grow and spread unhindered.

People like Osama bin Laden claim that the West, led by the United States and Britain, are the "crusaders" of the modern world who have occupied the "holy land." They and their allies — Israelis, Indians and Russians — must be thrown out. The worst offenders, they claim, are the "apostate" Muslim kingdoms and governments in West Asia. These lands have to be freed through jihad. We hear echoes of these instructions in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border regions of Fata and Swat.

http://newageislam.com/terror-won%E2%80%99t-stop-till-we-fight-it-like-a-war/war-on-terror/d/379

The best yet again: Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children wins yet another Booker—one chosen by readers, Islamic Personalities, NewAgeISlam.com

Islamic Personalities

The best yet again: Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children wins yet another Booker—one chosen by readers

At least half the voters were under 35, and the largest age group was 25- 34, a reflection of the ongoing interest in quality fiction amongst readers of all ages, organisers said. Midnight’s Children ,an example of Rushdie’s magical realist style, follows Saleem Sinai who is born on the stroke of midnight on the day of India’s independence in 1947 and whose life loosely parallels the fortunes of his nascent country. Some critics believe it is Rushdie’s finest work, eclipsing subsequent novels including The Satanic Verses, for which he remains best known. What was perceived to be the questioning of the tenets of Islam in The Satanic Verses led to book burnings and riots across the Muslim world culminating in adeath edict against Rushdie by Iran’s supreme religious leader. The author was forced into hiding for nine years. He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II last year and received the honour at Buckingham Palace last month. The other nominees included Nobel Prize winners J. M. Coetzee and Nadine Gordimer, both born in South Africa. The full list comprised Rushdie, Pat Barker (The Ghost Road ), Peter Carey (Oscar and Lucinda ), Coetzee (Disgrace ), J. G. Farrell (The Siege of Krishnapur )and Gordimer (The Conservationist ). Both Coetzee and Carey have won the Booker Prize twice. The prize is formally known as the Man Booker after its sponsor, financial services conglomerate Man Group PLC. It was first handed out in 1969 and is open to writers from Britain, Ireland and the Commonwealth. There have been 41 winners because there were joint champions in 1974 and 1992. Winners receive $100,000 (Rs 43 lakh) and aburst of publicity that usually brings asurge in sales.

http://newageislam.com/the-best-yet-again--rushdie%E2%80%99s-midnight%E2%80%99s-children-wins-yet-another-booker%E2%80%94one-chosen-by-readers--/islamic-personalities/d/199