Self-defeating practices of liberals

Taimur Rahman on the self-defeating practices of Pakistani liberals:

1) Liberals are unable to develop an awami (popular) culture.
2) Liberals elevate the principle of individualism to a dogma.
3) Liberals support an apolitical form of politics.
4) Conclusion: The main strategy of liberals is to convince the ruling class to become liberal.

 Detailed read at the link, or below:

Najam Sethi on a Liberal Pakistan

Sounds too good to be true!

Now, thankfully, positive change is in the air. Nawaz Sharif was handpicked and nurtured by the military three decades ago to do its bidding. He duly became the nemesis of the PPP, in the bargain getting into bed with the religious parties, passing Islamic laws and promoting jihad against India. Now he is all for peace with India, wants to stop all jihad across borders, is waking up to action against sectarian parties and religious terrorists and is embarrassed and hampered by the Islamic laws passed on his watch. The military, no less, sees the primary and immediate national security threat as emanating from internal religious extremism and not externally from archenemy India. Unfortunately, however, Imran Khan’s PTI is still muddying the waters by continuing to resist the development of a new national narrative of state and society based on modern notions of liberal and secular democracy.

Indicators of liberalism

Taimur Ashraf, in the Daily Times, has an interesting point to make.  Since Jinnah, a lawyer, defended in court both Lokmanya Bal Gangadhar Tilak (1909, on a charge of sedition) and Ilam Din (1929, appeal of his death sentence awarded for the murder of Rajpal; motive of the murder - alleged blasphemy against the Prophet),  Jinnah's liberal credentials are established.

Imran Khan on Pakistani liberals

Who are these liberals? I want to know because if you look at our rallies, for me it was very satisfying because I have struggled for 15 years, but it was all cross-sections of society. It was girls coming in jeans. It was women coming from deeni madrassas, it was Urdu medium, English medium, the religious. All of them came. It's the only party in Karachi that does a rally and all sections of society come; the Pashtuns come and the Urdu speaking come and the Balochis, Sindhis. So it is a party that hopes to get all the country on one platform. I don't know whom you talk about. These liberals. I don't know these liberals, because these liberals back bombing of villages. They back drone attacks. I mean, I don't call them liberals. I call them fascists. In my book these people are fascists. They have criticised me because I opposed this War on Terror. I opposed this criminal bombing, aerial bombing of villages, women and children getting killed. And these people were applauding it. These are not liberals. This is the scum of Pakistan who call themselves liberals, who have brought this country to this stage. Because of them we have extremism in this country. When they look at these people who stand behind every American policy which allows this country to, all human rights being violated, people being picked up and disappeared, and they've applauded all that. These liberals, so called liberals, applauded the incineration, where they bombed this mosque when there were children and women in it, students in it. And these liberals were in the forefront. I don't call them liberals. I agree. I really think these are the scum of this country.

Read more at: http://www.ndtv.com/article/world/full-transcript-the-age-of-martial-law-is-over-in-pakistan-says-imran-khan-168293&cp&cp

Full transcript of the interview

Marvi Sirmed on Jinnah

Here.

Civil & Military Gazette

A lot of quotes of Jinnah from the 1940s are sourced from the Lahore-based newspaper "Civil & Military Gazette". I had idly wondered what had become of the newspaper, and by chance, I found out today. 

http://www.therepublicofrumi.com/chronicle/1949.htm

Ban on the newspaper

May 13 {1949}. Lahore-based Civil & Military Gazzette is banned on instigation of other leading journalists, including Faiz Ahmed Faiz (!), progressive editor of Pakistan Times. In an unprecedented move, six leading dailies publish the same editorial urging the government to act against CMG.

One more from Tharoor

http://www.deccanchronicle.com/columnists/shashi-tharoor/no-more-delusions

I do understand that Pakistan has to survive in a tough neighbourhood and it needs a capable military. And I do not expect any Pakistani government, military or civilian, to act in anything but Pakistan’s own best interest.

But — and alas, there is a but — I don’t believe it’s in Pakistan’s best interest to be the country whose military consumes the largest percentage of national resources (both GDP and annual budget) of any military in the world. I don’t believe it’s in Pakistan’s best interest to adopt a policy of seeking “strategic depth” by destabilising its neighbours.

I don’t believe it’s in Pakistan’s best interest to try to wrest Kashmir from India by financing or arming violent militancy. I don’t believe it’s in Pakistan’s best interest to be the cradle and crucible of militant Islamist terrorism. I don’t believe it’s in Pakistan’s best interest to be a country where no elected civilian government has ever served a full term. And I do believe that any Pakistani liberal worth the name (take a bow, Marvi Sirmed) should have no difficulty in agreeing with any of these propositions.

Even if they come from an Indian. Ay, there’s the rub...

Why Taseer angered Pakistani liberals

The article by Aatish Taseer in the Wall Street Journal drew angry responses from the Pakistani side.
E.g., Ejaz Haider.
Shashi Tharoor replied. Among other things, he wrote:

No, the “Indian threat” is merely a useful device cynically exploited by the Pakistani military to justify their power (and their grossly disproportionate share of Pakistan’s national assets). But Pakistani liberals are particularly prone to the desire to prove themselves true nationalists; it is the best way to ensure that their otherwise heretical opinions are not completely discredited by the men in uniform who hold the reins of power in the state.

As this otherwise minor editorial spat demonstrates, Indians need to put aside their illusions that there are liberal partners for us on the other side of the border who echo our diagnosis of their plight and share our desire to defenestrate their military. Nor should we be surprised: a Pakistani liberal is, after all, a Pakistani before he is a liberal.

 This is very perceptive.  E.g., see this item from the trial of M.M.Qadri, the killer of Salman Taseer (reproduced below).  What should be evident is that Qadri's lawyers are constructing the defence  that Taseer was insufficiently pious and so his murder is justifiable.  Since Pakistani liberals are for separation of piety and state (if not always for separation of religion and state), the one leg they have to stand on to prove that they are patriotic and not wajib-ul-qatl is their anti-Indianism.   Making anti-Indianism unrespectable will undermine them.

RAWALPINDI: Son of late Punjab governor appeared here on Saturday before Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) No-II, Rawalpindi judge Syed Pervez Ali Shah for cross-questioning and also for recording his statement.

Malik Muhammad Rafiq the lawyer of Malik Muhammad Mumtaz Qadri (alleged killer of Salman Taseer) asked hard questions from Shahryar Taseer during hearing in Adiala Jail. The court adjourned further hearing till July 9.

As Shahryar Taseer the son of late Salman Taseer appeared in the court, Malik Muhammad Rafiq the lawyer of Malik Muhammad Mumtaz Qadri asked as to how many times did his father marry in his life. Shahryar Taseer said, Four. To a question from the lawyer whether all wives were legally valid and the women were Muslim, he replied in the affirmative. But the lawyer countered him saying that his late father had gone to India in 1982, when dictator Zia-ul-Haq was in power, and he married a Sikh woman. The Sikh woman gave birth to a child named Atish Taseer in India at that time.

Do you know Atish Taseer, your brother? asked the lawyer and Shahryar answered in the negative. The lawyer presented a book titled Strange to History in court, saying that it was written by Atish Taseer, son from Sikh woman. Shahryar Taseer admitted that Atish had written a book on the life of his father which was published in India.

Malik Muhammad Rafiq, the lawyer told the court that Atish Taseer has written in the book that his father ate pork, drank excessively and had affairs with several beautiful women. Atish Taseer came to Lahore to meet his father Salman Taseer but he refused to meet him. Slahuddin Ahmed the closest relative of Salman Taseer arranged a secret meeting between Atish and his father. In the meeting Atish demanded rights of his mother and himself as well but Salman Taseer refused, said the lawyer.

When the lawyer asked Shahryar whether he or his late father had issued any clarification about the book Strange to History written by Atish about the life of Salman Taseer, he replied in the negative. Malik Muhammad Mumtaz Qadri the alleged killer of Salman Taseer was present during the hearing.