Umer Toor Blog 2: Self-serving Blog

Toxic Effects of Inferiority Complex in Pakistan (III)

2013-01-26T11:42:00.000-08:00

Read part I and part II.

In South Africa there are two million whites against almost thirteen million native people, and it has never occurred to a single black to consider himself superior to a member of the white minority.

– Frantz Fanon

The feeling of inferiority of the colonized is the correlative to the European’s feeling of superiority. Let us have the courage to say it outright: It is the racist who creates his inferior.

– Frantz Fanon

(First quote of Fanon really shook our spines to the core. This thought has never occurred to us! We must confess. Ask yourself. The second one is a ‘proven’ psychological fact.)

There’s an undeniable existence of self-hatred, self-pity and total disregard for our Way (cultural and above all religious) present in many of us, especially those dazzled by all things ‘western’. Another term for this disease is Occidentosis. Speaking of which Jalal Al-i Ahmed writes in his famous Occidentosis: A Plague from West:

“Under [occidentosis] we are like strangers to ourselves, in our food and dress, our homes, our manners, our publications, and, most dangerous, our culture. We try to educate ourselves in the European style and strive to solve every problem as the Europeans would.”

Jalal has comprehensively summarized negative effects of westernization in various aspects of our individual and collectives lives which we’ll attempt to examine as following.

Read full article here.

Is this World a mere Accidental Product?

2013-01-25T13:54:00.001-08:00

Let's suppose following statement is true:

"A chance hiccup in the tranquillity of being, so it is posited, produced a big bang in the cosmic nothingness and created everything; time, matter, energy, life, consciousness, morality!" (Source.)

For argument's sake we agree that the hiccup was a mere accident - that the striking of all those variables at the right time produced the world, in itself a statistical miracle - and that it was unplanned.

We cannot deny then that there was something in the things or in the nature of things that had the 'blue-print' to give birth to 'everything'. That even if no one was in control, who wrote that code or made that seed which burst forth all of its secrets into living realities? To deny the creator or to say who created the Creator is like solving the mystery of a ball of thread which has no head! Hence, the most optimal solution to this problem can only be affirming existence of One God.

Theory of accidentalism would have been fine if it remained neutral, but its following claims are more illogical and abdicate the very theory:

"The universe is thus devoid of any goal, meaning and purpose save that created by man. Man’s humanity, his morality, art and science, are nothing but gifts of the biological struggle, chance benefits of man’s effort and genius. For his genesis and existence, therefore, man need be grateful to no one but himself because it is Man not God who is the creator of man’s humanity!" (Source.)

Inferiority Complex & 'the Disease known as Civilization' (I)

2013-01-25T13:52:00.002-08:00

I am talking of millions of men who have been skillfully injected with fear, inferiority complexes, trepidation, servility, despair, abasement. —Aimé Césaire, Discours sur le Colonialisme

The independence movements in colonies and protectorates came into being, not through a return to indigenous values on the part of those concerned, but through the absorption of occidental ideas and ideologies, liberal or revolutionary … the process of modernization – a euphemism for Westernization – far from being halted by the withdrawal, was in fact accelerated. The enthusiasm of the new rulers for everything ‘modern’ was not restrained, as had been the enthusiasm of their former masters, by any element of self-doubt.

—Gai Eaton, Islam and the Destiny of Man

The celebrated Algerian psychologist freedom fighter of blacks, Franz Fanon, saw only two parties in the battle between the colonialists and colonized: white and black. We, the brown, had pretty benign colonizers, who did not like to butcher millions or harass indiscriminately 24/7. We have no idea about the mass murdering of Central Asian Muslims and Africans by imperial powers of 19th/20th century. Our colonization was far less brutal and far more subtle, which left us unsettled, undiscovered, and even unwelcomed in both clubs, of whites and blacks. Our body was not tortured as much as we’re brainwashed and deluded through education and social-engineering by the “generous” colonizers.

Read full article here.

Modern Science & Beauty?

2013-01-19T08:36:00.000-08:00

The morning dew is a source of freshness and is a proof of God too (at least for a saint). Unfortunately, those who worship modern science and technology whole day, do not realize that from its standpoint everything is nothing but matter, with no vertical dimension and causality to it. Divine Imprint is the source of all meaningful beauty.

This mechanistic and materialistic view of nature, that modern science possesses, is also the cause of so much destruction of environment. Because from its view, there's no sacred element to material world, hence it's there to be captured according to free market forces. They realized it later that destruction of nature creates imbalance (too obvious to us though). We must salute from heart all native cultures that are disgusted by the idol of indefinite economic progress. Yet, many muslims who're envious of worldly power and resources have fallen to the same trap seculars did.

Blasphemy Laws: A Rationale

2013-01-18T08:15:00.001-08:00

Muslims - by the virtue of the Prophet - still have a sense of Sacred. This is why they so emotionally and intellectually react to any desecration of Sacred. It is their civilizational right & duty to defend the rights of God, his prophets & his idyaan. West fails to understand that, perhaps.

In USA, if you curse God or Prophet Jesus, nobody would even care, they won't even look at you and pass by. But if you curse someone's color, race or even nose, you'll get sued for 100k dollars or even worse.* This is because they've lost that sense of Sacred. It is against this aggression towards the rights of God that blasphemy laws exist.

Last para example is taken from an audio clip on Salman Rushdie Affair by Dr Seyyed Hossein Nasr.http://mac.abc.se/home/onesr/af/_audio/A065e_SH.Nasr_Sh.Tantawi_19.mp3

Pursuit of Satisfaction

2012-12-25T10:41:00.001-08:00

For some time recently, I've been perplexed by self-projections and how i should judge my myself. Should i judge myself from my professional (ie academic) achievements, or the quantitative influence of my work (though I'm yet to produce a single thing)? This all sounded egoistic afterwards, as soon as i tried to reduce the anxiety by little introspection from a spiritual point of view. But. Even this spiritual understanding of my ambitions didn't solve the conundrum. I got the answer from iqbal's persian poem.

(English trans by me from Urdu)

Laazt e sair ast maqsood e safar.
Gar nigah bar aashiyan dari mapar.

Purpose of journey is in its pleasure.
If you aim at your destination/home, don't fly

***
Zindagi juz lazzat e parwaz neest

Ashiyan ba fitrat e Oo saaz neest

Life is nothing but taste of flight.
Ashiyana (home) is not nourishing for his nature

I've moved to old blog: Umer Toor Blog I

2012-12-18T05:32:00.000-08:00

In Jan 2010, my first blog, Umer Toor Blog, was hacked. Very recently i discovered the hacker, and he agreed to return it.

I will be blogging to that place. I've transferred all posts to that blog. Hope to see you there :)

Get smarter & better effortlessely

2012-12-16T10:31:00.000-08:00

Interact with those who're smarter than you are, who're don't have any feelings of adulation for you, and who're ruthless in giving critical feedback to you.

Why Hope is like Hair or Nails?

2012-12-15T04:29:00.003-08:00

I friend of mine sent an SMS, "Our hopes are like hair and nails. No matter how many time you cut it, they grow up again." Provided a person is not suffering from some kind of biological disease that don't allow these to grow at all.

What can justify such an analogy? Freedom movements. Our rising up from falls or failures. Seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. Night's being darkest just before the sunrise. Yes the last 2 sentences are merely poetic and not arguments, but no matter what they do testify that humans do not fail to be hopeful. Perhaps only this explains existence and constant invocation of such idioms.

What do Modern Muslims Love?

2012-12-14T13:58:00.000-08:00

Of Levantines' historical roles and professions, son of Levant/Lebanon Nassim Nicholas Taleb writes in The Black Swan:

"The Arabs, who seemed interested only in warfare (and poetry) and, later, the Ottomon Turks, who seemed only concerned with warfare (and pleasures), left to us the uninteresting pursuit of commerce and the less dangerous one of scholarship (like the translation of the Aramaic and Greek texts)."

Source.

History remembers the Arabs, the Turks, and Levantines for their individual, independent and original pursuits. They were true to themselves and realized their own potentials without imitating anyone. History remembers those with a vocation and an essence. What about those who are too dazzled by the enslaving, ruling 'decepticons'? Despite the fact that modern Muslims belong to warrior races, they turn their backs on political and territorial independence, succumbing to the pressures to every bullying new super power. And above all, in all aspects of life and thought, only love to be second-best copies of "enlightened" Western men. For what will history remember them, for being parrots trying to mimic voice of a superior species?

What do Pakistanis love? They love to be front-line foot soldiers of Amerikanos with all F 16s and a mercenary Army, for sure... And few franchises of junk food chains, few concrete roads, few ugly huge plazas, few modernized educational instituitions, few mass destructive gadgets, and a an English accent that puts Englishmen to shame.

Old Blog: Very Near to Get it!

2012-12-14T10:14:00.002-08:00

My older beloved blog: Umer Toor Blog. was hacked in Jan 2010.

I'm very near recovering it from the original hacker, who despite everything didn't change a word of it!

I'll be exporting this back and redirecting it to the older blog inshaAllah! If you're following this blog, please follow Umer Toor Blog too.

Colonists Bluffed Us, the Mozlems! Still Do!

2012-12-13T05:19:00.000-08:00

That's a euraka! post that i want to share. I would rather allow Gai Eaton to shed a new light on the Muslim perception of West and ensuing self-pity and reactionism that harms Muslims alone:

The Muslims´ lack of self-confidence may be attributed in part to the experience of colonialism, but it still endures chiefly, I think, because the West has bluffed the Muslims into accepting it at its own valuation and has succeeded in hiding its weaknesses, its vulnerability. It seems to me that this was exemplified in the early 1970s, during the so called "oil crisis." The oil producers — the Saudis in particular — had what amounted to a stranglehold on the Western world; they had very great power, which might have been put to use to their own advantage and to the advantage of the Ummah. What they lacked was the self-confidence which would have enabled them to use that power wisely and effectively. They lacked also that spirit of daring which encourages the powerful to make full use of their power. The opportunity was missed and may not come again... When I talk with my fellow Muslims about the nature of Western dominance, one of my principal aims is to persuade them that this power rests upon very shaky foundations.

These shaky foundations and bogus pshyco-propaganda has to be exposed with so much academic sources available at our disposal. All these academic sources provide logical foundations to the truths already to be found in Islam. Dr Asad Zaman is doing a seminal job by persuading his research graduate students through lectures in this regard by making us realize that we've been bluffed by self-deception (freely available online here). His analyses draw from variety of sources: Islamic reasoning, "subaltern" history, empirical evidences, economics, philosophy, etc. One such introduction to his lectures asserts:

Mostly people believed that history is objective, factual but in fact history is always biased. West claim that they feel the white man burden that’s why they attack other nations to make them civilized but its not true, in this lecture we have tried to show the true picture of why west attack other nations.

Its the game of confidence which Muslims lack at individual level and societal level vis a vis West. The point is: Muslims/easterners are not inferior in any sense to Western men; guess is that they are more advanced. The latter guess has to be induced in the minds to arrive at the former truth, because the confidence level is abysmally low.

What do i envy?

2012-12-12T12:04:00.000-08:00

I envy:

people who know nature of things
people in love with Allah and his Prophet
people who are bay-niyaz, i.e., to whom nothing matters except will of God
non-mercenary, really patriotic and morally aware FIGHTER PILOTS! [My only janoon/extreme passion-obsession-love: a realm beyond that of love/ishq and anything else you know; pure passion: in which one personifies his target job/field/role and behaves like one everyday; only such janoonis as per psychiatrists outperform the rest and do miracles no one else can dare imagine doing]
productive people, especially academically
people with expertise
people with encyclopedic knowledge of fields that really matter, like philosophy, medicine, fiqh, history, mathematics, physics, metaphysics, etc., not fluff being taught in universities - the outliers in non-outliers
people with indomitable courage
with vision, wisdom, perseverance, people knowledge
bloggers who get lot of comments
people who can theorize and explain through essays and even books with lot of evidence (either factual or mental/logical/metaphysical/philosophical)
people on the right track! fixated please...
people with cute children [can i adopt one being single?] and devout wives (hoors later)

Disbelievers are mad, mad, mad

2012-12-12T10:08:00.001-08:00

Mad not in the sense being suffering from some mental or biological disorder but not being reasonable and logical, and being contradictory. There are many living concepts, so to speak part of the world, which we recognize to be existent but we don't observe them, or know them by seeing, or, even, fully understand them. We don't know how such things as gravity, unconscious, invisible rays, etc., as work. We don't know how they make things behave, and on and on and on. We don't know their inner processes or reality through our senses, but know that these exist through their manifestations. Gravity exists because we its effects. Unconscious exists because we see its effects. Although these forces and entities are hidden and beyond our observations, their behavior, their 'products' are however observable.

Take the Freud's unconscious. Despite all criticisms made against him on purely scientific grounds (not that i believe in absolute truthiness of scientific methods), his idea of the "unconscious is intact," as per professor Bloom of Yale. Unconscious is fascinating. All the slip tongues, memory gaps, and other crazy stuff comes from unconscious of which we have no conscious trace or understanding. Still its there. A better example than this is gravity that we can feel but don't observe the way we want to observe God, which is impossible for our perceptions.

The simple logic behind believing in these unobservables is their fruits, to be poetic. Then how we deny the Creator? Dr Asad Zaman in his lecture on logical positivism [lecture # 7] shows how these atheistic scientific theories are so grounded and motivated by this urge of non-believing communities to deny the Maker of the Universe. This logically explains their consistent efforts to deny Allah despite their admission about existence of life and universe being nothing short of a miracle. Allah shows the disbelieving miracles but they deny, as their predecessors did. Allah knows best.

Sidi (late) Charles Gai Eaton shows difference between a Muslim-believer and modern agnostic/atheist western's approach towards faith:

"Formerly, this confrontation [b/w Muslims and Christians in middle ages] was between men of faith who had more in common than they could ever have acknowledged. That likeness, that shared devotion to an almighty and unseen God, no longer exists. The gulf has become infinitely wider and mutual comprehension has become far more difficult. The believer to whom the transcendent reality of God is the most compelling fact known to him cannot really understand unbelief or imagine its sterility. The unbeliever, try as he may, cannot even guess what the experience of faith is; his imagination is baffled by this strange, other-worldly phenomenon."

Sum-total of Modern Man's Efforts

2012-12-12T07:35:00.000-08:00

i think sum-total of modern man's efforts to satisfy his "polymorphous perversity," i.e., total pursuit of pleasure, where suppression of it occurs only as a mean to get to something more pleasurable. The real disappointing part is his instance on being called being civilized, whereas as per their own modern prophets this is the animal part, the most stupid part of human being, the id. God knows best...

A Psycho-Experiment

2012-12-12T07:17:00.003-08:00

Image source.

I'm performing a psychological experiment mentioned in a slide on Freud. It consists of two activities: writing 3 positive features of someone i love. And then: writing 10 positive features. Here it goes.

List 1: 3 features of a person a love: my mother

- caring
- hardworking
- loving

List 2: 10 positive features of my mother

- good at budgetary regulations
- perfectionist
- educated and literary
- good at social relations
- disciplined
- ethical
- helper of poor people
- emotional about positive things [where feelings are necessary]
- traditional in approach towards life; archetypal eastern
- was very obedient to her parents

___________

What was i supposed to feel: The reading asserted: Liking goes up in 3 group. Liking goes down in 10 group.

What i actually felt: Not much change. I totally disagree with the above assertion. My emotions remained same; although writing the traits was exhaustive.

1 timer: When Simple Invaders Converted Advanced People

2012-12-12T02:16:00.001-08:00

The so-called barbarian conquest of Rome led the invaders to convert to the religions of the conquered. The Mongols, who butchered millions of people, second in Barbarity to Westerners only perhaps. There're clear proofs that Westerners cooperated so much with Mongols to destroy Muslims that Mongol leaders were expected to convert to Christianity. Unfortunately, they converted to islam and never repeated their history of barbarity in cooperation of West.

Abdal Hakim Murad, while mentioning these two conquests, mentions how simple, unsophisticated noblemen of Arab in a blink of eye spread through most cultured and sophisticated lands of their times and instead of getting converted led the conquered to convert, although over centuries because they didn't point swords at their throats. It's nothing short of a miracle, he adds.

"Newsflash": Pakistanis are far more advanced

2012-12-11T06:27:00.001-08:00

Image source.

In Pakistan, by grace of Allah, population of villages is still much greater than of cities, although with much less basic necessities, health-care being top priority. This or few other deficiencies don't have to be part and parcel of villages at all. Nonetheless, overall village life and even of semi-Urbanite non-cosmopolitan city-dwellers in Pakistan is liberating. People like me, younger age with cell phones and internet, are becoming slaves of technology day by day, but we're still much more advanced in our human relations, in living a meaningful life devoid of avoidance & superficiality, and in being at ease with nature. Something Westerners - those who're baby-sit by tv and other visual and auditory devices - are very backward at. In the end, it's all about freedom to be Archetypical, Primordial Human, true to our nature forged in the image of God.

The realization of this backwardness is not limited to outward observers - i.e., Asians or Africans or those few in West who still adore nature and rawness. First, the movie Mr Lorax debunked the sterility of anti-nature and artificial living style of Western capitalism. Now, a high school in America is doing something about it: taking students on a 3 month term in a country-side region with no cell-phones, no Facebook and little internet. Please watch the video [click on the link pls] to feel how precious and advanced Eastern way of life really is.

Liberty Books' Home-service: Awesome

2012-12-11T02:16:00.001-08:00

I ordered a book online yesterday for the first time and in 24 hours, it's here all the way from Karachi with no TCS courier charges. Above all, with payment upon delivery!

Here's a book for record... Nassim Nicolas Taleb's much renowned The Black Swan.

Picture taken by yours truly

A heart-rending post: Inferiority complex vis-a-vis English

2012-12-10T23:24:00.000-08:00

Update: It's under bold heading, end para.

I'm too shocked to read this post on a blog and want to share these sickening words and my stammering reply.Please add to it from psychological and other perspectives and the cure to this ugliest disease of self-hatred. Of course the author here doesn't seem to personally hold these views.

"It was in one of the short stories back in the O-level's syllabus that a guy tells a girl (or perhaps it was the other way round) that he loves her and the girl replies that if you had said that in Urdu, it would have sound so bazaari (vulgar) ... or something similar to that ... English does have this intellectualizing, legalizing and toning down effect over here. I have seen people happily bearing abuses hurled at them in English but usually they are not so comfortable with Urdu or Punjabi. Similarly when the Pakistani stage dramas were gaining notoriety with their abundant double entendres; English sitcoms were usually let off scot-free with their sexual innuendos."

My reply:

"I believe, with plenty of evidence, that this is merely because of inferiority complex and hatred of our own culture, and one of the greatest triumphs of our Devilish Egoism. We can ruthlessly mock our own brethren, our friends, our countrymen who can't speak English well grammatically or are too vernacular. Go out of Pakistan and these self-haters would be bootlicking Gori Chamri [whiteman's skin] with no respect from their meaning-masters (or meaningless-masters) - cause they have no self-respect of their own."

"Intellectualizing, legalizing and toning down effect" of English in Pakistan

There's nothing intellectual, "legalizing" effect inherent in this language of Anglophones. If one comes to know about the history of rise of Euro barbarians, s/he would get disenchanted to a considerable degree. Nonetheless, it is modern education that creates this sense of cultural and civilizational inferiority, although in reality this isn't the situation. Shaykh Gibril F Haddad talks about anti-tradition modernists and purists which explains at certain lower level such disastrous cultural infections "excellently" summed up in the 1st quote:

In complete contrast, today, many purportedly educated Muslims – both purists and anti-traditionists – revere bookish knowledge and non-Muslim institutions of learning over and even at the exclusion of Islamic ones. They accredit Western titles and disciplines above the Islamic offices of learning and mashyakhas. They speak, write, read, study, teach, debate after the fashion of non-Muslims just as they may also eat, dress, marry, divorce, and die as Westerners, without a second thought other than implicit or expressed hostility at the heritage of the forerunners in the Religion of Truth (although purists have managed to trumpet the art of lip service to “The Salaf” into a full-fledged ideology). Their approach to learning in our time is to orphan themselves of the principles of the learned Muslims of previous generations – their spiritual foreparents as Imam al-NawawÏ defined one’s Muslim teachers in al-TaqrÏb wal-TaysÏr ila Sunan al-BashÏr al-NadhÏr. They still have isnad – not so much to the people of the Prophetic Way and the Muslim Congregation as to the culture of the non-Muslim world and the ideas of “progressive” journalists, activists, news analysts, social scientists, and, at the other end of the spectrum, Marxist-Leninists and anarchists born-again as purists. Such are the manufactured imqms that have infiltrated the ranks of Muslim leadership and pose as the very Ulema they and their followers desert and belie. The Seal and Last of all Prophets said:

“There will be, towards the end of time, Anti-Christs and arch-liars who shall say to you what neither you nor your foreparents ever heard before. Beware of them and keep away from them! Do not allow them to lead you astray nor sow discord among you.”

Reminds of eclipse only! of reasoning faculties.

Poll: See Right top

2012-12-10T01:09:00.000-08:00

There's a poll going on right now for a year! Please help me by knowing which topics you like on this blog. Feel free to crtiticize and give your feedback no matter how personal and critical. I love it.

It'd me much appreciated if you give feedback here (comment section) about my writing and topics discussed or what you might like me to be focusing on and what not.

Hilarious: of moderate mozlems

2012-12-09T22:54:00.000-08:00

"The Moderate Muslim: ‘Islam is against mass murder! Deep down, we’re just as lovely as you! er … Where’s the buffet?’"

- Shaykh Abdal Hakim Murad. Source. # 26 of Contentions 15.

Moderate Islam is that of extreme apologeticism, forged in the fire of Protestantism. It is being shaped by the policy makers of Imperial Power of America through funding of "moderate voices." This is the greatest of pitfalls of terms because Muslim ummah is that of middle path, who always strives to be moderate in its actions and even in theory. We can no more use this currency anymore. Seyyed Hossein Nasr i believe came with a better solution who is opposed both to modernism and fundamentalism. He places mainstream, orthodox Sunni-Shia dimension of Islam at the Centre, and judges all other sects or interpretations from their proximity to the Centre, to the Orthodoxy. Those interpretation which seek to by-pass 1400 years of orthodoxy, a diverse yet unified systematized development of an understanding of Islam, are extremists. It is so because they're away from the centre. This is both evident in the wrongdoings of Al-Qaeda and Progressive/Modernists/Re-formulationist (or Deformists) movements. There's at least one monograph dedicated to this very topic but which limited its scope to fundamentalism alone, edited by Joseph Lumbard (a Muslim scholar of Islam) entitled, Islam, Fundamentalism and the Betrayal of Tradition. There's now greater need of a detailed surgical analysis of modernist Islam as well.

Presumed Innocent & Punishment for adultery

2012-12-09T07:20:00.002-08:00

Presumed Innocent (1990). In the end of the movie, the adulterer blames in absolute terms her wife for murdering someone he slept with. The women committed fornication; the man, adultery. The wife made the plan of killing the women her husband had slept with like a water-tight mathematical equation with best results for her, being a doctoral mathematics student. The plan is irrelevant here.

In Islam, with 4 witnesses the adulterer(s) are stoned to death; fornicators are treated differently. In the presence of circumstantial evidence - around which the fate of accused in the movie rested - the guilty goes to jail for whole lot of years, as per religious scholars of Pakistan (at least).

One can ponder over the wisdom behind this divine injunction in many ways. One logic the movie provided is the rage, disintegration and destruction adultery brings to family which makes its punishment - in the presence of such strict condition - much more severe and applicable. Surely as Deterrence to say the least. Deterrence is something Islam so much professes in theory and practice from national defense to self-matters.

Image source.

Sentimentalism vs Lack of it: Pakistan's "Liberals" vs Reality Checkers

2012-12-08T10:40:00.000-08:00

Word liberal is disgraced when used with pesudo-liberals of Pakistan who worry most about the vested interests of their spiritual masters in the West, then Britishers now Amerikanos. They occupy the English public discourse not through their scholarship, but pure sentimentalism; and as for the books, their credibility as scholars ranks much lower than Orientalists as perceived by Edward Said. One of my academic goals to write books debunking their self-esteem in their very own eyes and those they lead astray, inshaAllah.

Here's a uni-phase 'debate' between a fiery-some response to a column by Orya Maqbool by an aspiring Native-orientalist, followed by a response who upholds the views of Orya with no sensationalism as such. Orya is Islamic-minded and anti-imperialist (hence much closer to western liberals).

Source: The Difference? Mosaafir e Dasht

Mr Native Orientalist: Well...ISI helps Haqqani network and for obvious reasons, given the fact that Pakistan army is 'concerned' about Kabul's future after US leaves. The likes of Orya Maqbool Jan who apologize for the army and ISI more than they themselves would do so, need a reality check. I come from a family hosting a number of military officials (and I take no pride in that) and all of them very frankly admit that army has always been in bed with Haqqanis and a number of other Afghan militant factions.

Oh and our Afghan brothers did 'defeat' three super-powers within a century - only, they lost just millions of life, life is no longer normal there, peace and tranquillity is a forsaken dream and we, the proud Muslim neighbours (alhamdulillah) have reaped the benefits in the form of terrorist bombings within our lands, the millions of Afghan immigrants and a culture of arms and drugs. The kind of intellectuals who want to brand this as a great 'fatah' are as deluded as they love to brand those who called US the 'saviour' when it attacked Iraq and Afghanistan. Critical eye and a knack for not 'adjusting' facts to suit one's ideology are pertinent for a rational discourse - sadly, the author of the article cited merits none of these qualifications.
Reply
Jehanzeb Idrees10:35 PM

Realpolitik cannot be adjudged by personal accounts it always has a historical perspective without which the understanding of an issue can always fall short. Giving opinions and making judgments are expressions crafted carefully by nuanced words which can either be based on emotional inclination or factual deliberation. However, the subtleties of logic shouldn’t be irresistible enough to end up resisting the very grounds which form a sound judgment or a safe opinion.

After reading the article and the comments I have a few questions to ask from Mr. Salman to learn exactly where his objections actually lie: -

1. ISI helping Haqqani networks OR not helping Americans against Haqqani networks?

2. Pakistan’s concerns about Kabul’s future in US absence OR Kabul’s future with complete absence of anyone?

3. Demands for the likes of Orya Maqbool Jan for the need of reality check OR for the pay cheques of Ahmed Rashids, Hassan Askaris, Hoodbhoys, Aisha Jilanis or Marvi Sirmeds?

4. Army being in bed with the Haqqanis OR not in bed with the Yankees?

5. That Afghan brother did ‘defeat’ 3 super powers within a century OR that they were thrice occupied by 3 different arrogant powers?

6. Or that Afghan brothers’ victory came after losing millions of lives OR those millions of lives were lost under a foreign occupation?

7. Afghan immigrants (along with their culture of arms and drugs) coming to Pakistan because WE invited them OR we invited the Russians to occupy Afghanistan and send all those immigrants to our lands?

8. On the intellectuals who want to brand a certain kind of ‘fatah’ OR the pseudo-intellectuals who drum it as the ‘freedom for democracy’ when Iraq and Afghanistan went into occupation?

9. Does a critical eye need to adjust on ‘known facts’ OR the critical eye needs to adjust on ‘hidden facts’?

10. And finally how a rational discourse should base upon?

i. Personal opinions based on certain ideologies.
ii. An original analysis based on historical facts.

Experiencing Higher Realms through Books

2012-12-08T08:50:00.001-08:00

I too have felt that when you read and reflect on certain books, especially of religious, philosophical and metaphysical nature and even about science, astronomy or social sciences, you feel yourself to be in a different world. The mind seems to have escaped from the worldly surroundings and transferred into a much more beautiful and pure world... Its an amazing feeling that is a fruit of piety. For if i'm not in a good spiritual state, my heart would block the soul from "passing out"!