The Revolution That Wasn’t

Kannu

Here's an excellent overview of the train crash disaster that is Egypt. Let me lay my opinion up front. The brotherhood presidency was bad but overthrowing it has really made a bad situation worse. A liberal democracy does not happen overnight. Look at India. It took years. It made many mistakes. But it's a good country. Same with the uk and USA. Some common themes. Enlightened leaders. Rule of law. Freedom of speech. Army under control. Free media. Religion firmly kicked in the balls and controlled. Good institutions. Free judiciary. But egypt keeps on making mistakes and keeps on being stupid. What? 5 revolutions in the past century? 

The army is the biggest problem. Second problem is the religion and the religious leaders. Third is the judiciary. And and and. Thousands have now died and now it's back to what it was few years back. Disgruntled Islamists. Army in command. Economy fucked up. Population in distress. 

The solution is clear but the Egyptians don't have patience. Heck the Egyptians laughed at Pakistan and there's an Egyptian quote which said that they don't want to become Pakistan. But with the democratic transition in Pakistan, Egypt will do worse. They would be lucky to be like Pakistan. I do not have a good prognosis about Egypt. Another decade of decay beckons. 

Love

Baba

LRB · Hugh Roberts · The Revolution That Wasn’t
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v35/n17/hugh-roberts/the-revolution-that-wasnt

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Hugh Roberts

• The Rise and Fall of Arab Presidents for Life by Roger Owen
  Harvard, 248 pp, £18.95, May 2012, ISBN 978 0 674 06583 3
• Adaptable Autocrats: Regime Power in Egypt and Syria by Joshua Stacher
  Stanford, 221 pp, £22.50, April 2012, ISBN 978 0 8047 8063 6
• Raging against the Machine: Political Opposition under Authoritarianism in Egypt by Holger Albrecht
  Syracuse, 248 pp, £25.00, October 2012, ISBN 978 0 8156 3320 4
• BuySoldiers, Spies and Statesmen: Egypt’s Road to Revolt byHazem Kandil
  Verso, 303 pp, £16.99, November 2012, ISBN 978 1 84467 961 4

Western opinion has had difficulty working out what to think, or at any rate what to say, about Egypt. It now seems that the pedlars of hallucinations have been cowed and it is no longer fashionable to describe the events of 3 July in Cairo as a ‘second revolution’. But to describe them as a counter-revolution, while indisputably more accurate, presupposes that there was a revolution in the first place. The bulk of Western media commentary seems still to be wedded to this notion. That what the media called ‘the Arab spring’ was a succession of revolutions became orthodoxy very quickly. Egypt was indispensable to the idea of an ‘Arab spring’ and so it had to have had a revolution too.

This Is Danny Pearl's Final Story

Read and weep son. At how people can kill in the name of religion. And be proud of it. As if God, the merciful and compassionate, Allah u Akbar will celebrate and congratulate people who saw off people's heads. But down history, more people have been killed in the name of God than anything else. Think about Aurangzeb. We saw his pearl mosque yesterday at the red fort. A man who was so religious that he killed hundreds of thousands of people. Welcome to these religious bastards lives. And the only way to resolve this son is to keep educating them. The women. Get them into the economy. You cannot fight religious fundamentalism by war and guns only. You need to educate them. You need to laugh at their stupidity. 

Love

Baba

This Is Danny Pearl's Final Story
http://www.washingtonian.com/projects/KSM/index.html

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Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is walking toward me in a black prayer cap, a cream-colored tunic, and matching shalwar, or baggy pants. He’s hunched over, his beard dyed red, a symbol of piety to conservative Muslims, and I can’t take my eyes off him.

It’s May 5, 2012, the first time in three and a half years that KSM—as he’s known to American officials—has appeared in court, outside his prison cell. We are at Guantánamo, where a US military commission is about to arraign him and four other men for the September 11 attacks, in a courtroom that feels like a movie set. Erected atop an abandoned airfield on the base, it’s as big as a warehouse and has small trailers outside set up as holding areas, one for each defendant. When the courtroom door opened for the men, the Caribbean sun pushed its way into the room first.

I’m in seat number two in the first row of journalists and spectators, separated from the defendants by a wall outfitted with soundproof glass. A video system feeds sound and pictures to screens above us. I’m about 30 feet behind KSM, and there are 40 of us in the gallery. Yet as KSM takes his seat, it feels for a moment as if we’re the only two people in the room.

“Allahu, Allahu, Allahu,” I whisper.

For the families of those who died on 9/11, the day marks the start of what’s likely to be a years-long trial for justice against KSM, the self-described architect of the World Trade Center attacks. For me, it’s something else. KSM is the man who bragged about taking a knife to the throat of my Wall Street Journal colleague and close friend Daniel Pearl.

Retracing how a Georgian Queen ended up in Goa

This was a fascinating story about how a Georgian Queen from the Eastern Caucasus region ended up in Goa, India. I quote the main bits from here.

In the year 1613, the emperor of Persia, Shah Abbas I led an army to conquer the Georgian kingdom and Queen Ketevan became his prisoner. The queen was held in Shiraz, southern Iran for approximately ten years, but in 1624, the emperor sent soldiers to convert her to the Islamic faith and to force her into his harem. However, she resisted his orders and as a consequence was tortured and strangled to death on 22 September 1624.

Ruined bell tower of the church of Our Lady of Grace within the St. Augustine convent in Goa. Image: Ramesh Lalwani (Flickr, used under a CC BY 3.0)

Remains taken to Goa

In 1623, a year before her death, two Augustinian friars had arrived in Shiraz to start up a mission and succeeded in gaining the queen’s trust, becoming her confessors. At some point after her death these same friars unearthed the remains of Ketevan and hid them. In 1627, some of these remains (the right arm) were taken to Goa and kept in a black box or stone sarcophagus on the second window along the Epistle side of the chapter chapel in the St. Augustine convent.

Over time the convent had been enlarged and rebuilt in places, but in 1835 the church underwent partial demolition, and in 1842 the main vault collapsed. After this episode, the convent rapidly became ruinous and valuable artefacts belonging to the religious complex had been either sold or lost.

Despite the fact that the exact location of the queen’s relics is mentioned in a Portuguese document, all efforts to find them had proved unsuccessful due to difficulties in the interpretation of the convent layout. However, a ground map of the convent was reconstructed on the basis of the literary sources and the help of local historians. After a topographical survey within the convent was carried out, the chapter chapel and window were finally located.

As per the literary sources, the relic box of Queen Ketevan was expected to be at the second window of the chapter chapel towards the Epistle side. Therefore, this area was systematically explored in 2004 for a stone sarcophagus, which was found broken into pieces due to the collapse of the wall. Whilst clearing the rubble the team also found an arm bone. Two other bone relics were recovered from outside the second window area, within intact stone boxes.

More proof

While the archaeological and historical data were consistent with the relic being the remains of Queen Ketevan, the archaeologists needed to somehow conclusively prove that the bone belonged to her. They approached the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) in Hyderabad who isolated DNA from the bone. Based on the sequence variation in the mitochondrial DNA, they assigned a haplogroup U1b to the sample.

After surveying the mitochondrial DNA sequence of 22,000 individuals from the Indian sub-continent, none of them belonged to U1b haplogroup. However, two out of 30 Georgians analysed have the same haplogroup, suggesting that the bone excavated in Goa is likely to be the remnant of Queen Ketevan of Georgia.

I found the story deeply moving. how this lady ended up on Goa. Her Wiki entry is very interesting as well. She seems to be a very brave woman. She seems to have actually led the Kakhetian nobles against an ursurper’s attempts to take the crown. She was tortured with red-hot pincers in 1624 and died.

William Forsyth composed a whacking big poem called as the Martyrdom of Kelavane (1861) and thankfully its fully available online here. Here’s the first few lines

Know ye the story of Queen "Kelavane ? 
She was no daughter of the days of joy; 
Her tears were countless as the stars of heaven. 
The radiant beauty and the queenly graee, 
That glorified the morning of her y-ears, 
Were sighed away in sorrow long ere noon. 
The fervour of her solitary faith, 
That burn*d like some lone beacon of the sea, 
With no kind ndghbourhood of hopeful hearts. 
Kept shining through the tempest all night long. 
Until it faded in the dawn of heaven. 
And so it was, because she stood alone 

This is what she looked like

Nice boots :)

It was good to read about another lady from Iran who was given succour in India…Like the Zoroastrians.

Why Tunisia's Islamist Party Agreed to Give Up Power

There are four fascinating political experiments going on son, in the Islamic governing political economic spheres. Like in Iran, turkey, Egypt and Tunisia. Mind you, pretty much all Muslim countries are constantly struggling with democracy, rule of law and the role of Islam. But these 4 are the furthest advanced. Iran has had the longest history of constitutionalism going back almost 100 years. Turkey started even earlier but stuttered. Egypt frankly started and has now gone back even further. Tunisia seems to be the most advanced and if I had to put money down, I would say that Tunisia will reach civilisation the earliest compared to the others. Despite the issues they are facing with assassinations and demonstrations. It's an urbanised society so the usual rural obscurantist structures are avoided. Mind you, the Bahrain example is the counter example for urbanism. Then again the gulf Arabs are particularly well noted to be a bunch of weirdass morons. There's a very good reason why Allah decided to emerge his religion in the gulf. Imagine what they would have been without it when you see what they have done up till now with it. 

But politics is this. The spirit of consensus and compromise. And religion usually doesn't allow you to do so hence the utmost importance of having a secular structure son. 

I'm hoping Tunisia can show the way to how a liberal consensus driven democratic society with some elements of Islam can be part of this modern world son. Turkey went a bit too far with the secularism so it's trying to get back into balance. Iran went totally the other way with religiously driven politics. And well you know the utter mess Egypt is in. 

So interesting days ahead to watch how Tunisia is going to play out.

Love

Baba

Rory McCarthy | Why Tunisia's Islamist Party Agreed to Give Up Power | Foreign Affairs
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/features/letters-from/lets-make-a-deal

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Three years after the popular uprising that brought down President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, demonstrations, sit-ins, and strikes have become part of daily life in Tunisia. Railway workers, customs officers, and doctors went on strike earlier this month over changes to their working conditions; next month, taxi drivers will begin an open-ended sit-in to protest rising fuel prices. Politics often seem hopelessly polarized, with Islamists led by the political party Ennahda pitted against their secular opponents in parliament in a manner not unlike Egypt’s bloody rivalries. And the assassinations of two prominent liberal politicians, Chokri Belaid and Mohamed Brahmi, by Islamist militants earlier this year brought public anger against Ennahda into the streets, as many Tunisians blamed the Islamists for a soft embrace of extremist groups. It appeared that Tunisia — whose largely functional democratic transition has set it apart from the other Arab Spring countries — would no longer avoid the violence that has undermined the other revolutions and uprisings across the Middle East.

But for the first time in a long time, the political class has reached an accord. On December 14, after weeks of broken promises and missed deadlines, Tunisia’s rival political parties finally agreed on a deal to dissolve the Ennahda-led government and create an interim administration led by a compromise prime minister. If all goes according to plan, Mehdi Jomaa, who had previously served as minister of industry, will lead a caretaker government of technocrats until elections can be held next year, most likely after the summer. It’s further confirmation that, despite their ideological differences, Tunisia’s Islamists and secularists are perfectly capable of cooperating. It’s also another sign of pragmatism from the Islamists, who in October 2011 swept the first elections after the fall of Ben Ali. Now Ennahda, an Islamist force that sees itself as both a grassroots movement and a political party, has agreed to bow to the demands of its critics and give up power.

Why would you want to repair your hymen 5 times?

This news story is just erm bordering on the off the wtfness scale so many times like its a demented bottle fly banging its head against a window.

I quote the last bit which also completely bewildered me.

Possibly the most interesting thing about both of these websites is that they feature bundle offers—at hymenshop.com, you can get five artificial hymens for $114.95; athymenshop.net, you can get five of them for $103. I’m honestly trying to envision the situation that would call for five artificial hymens—I haven’t had any success yet. It could be a good device in a grim yet devastatingly entertaining farce by Pedro Almodóvar.

Terror Group Recruits From Pakistan’s ‘Best and Brightest’

Kannu

I've written much about Pakistan before. It's a classic example of the worst that can happen when religion gets mixed up in state matters. Despite encouraging signs like the first democratic govt since independence able to complete its term of office, the state and religious nexus isn't broken and is actually getting stronger. 

For example some of my Pakistani friends on fb are showing an increased religiosity. One prayed to Allah to get Imran Khan elected. This fellow is a blithering nincompoop. He talks absolute rot but to listen to his supporters, the sun shines out of this backside. So to tease, I asked if other Pakistani religious minorities will also be praying to Jesus and Ram and Guru Gobind Singh to get him elected? No response but it was amusing. 

This is one of the reasons why I detest religion in politics and overwhelming state power. The combination is even worse.

These 200000 estimated jehadis in this group are with us, the group is growing and not only I but you will be dealing with this over the next 30-50 years minimum. Joy

Love

Baba

Terror Group Recruits From Pakistan’s ‘Best and Brightest’ - ProPublica
http://www.propublica.org/article/terror-group-recruits-from-pakistans-best-and-brightest/single#republish

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Terror Group Recruits From Pakistan’s ‘Best and Brightest’

Imagine a terrorist group that recruits tens of thousands of young men from the same neighborhoods and social networks as the Pakistani military. A group whose well-educated recruits defy the idea that poverty and ignorance breed extremism. A group whose fighters include relatives of a politician, a senior Army officer and a director of Pakistan’s Atomic Energy Commission.

That is the disconcerting reality of Lashkar-e-Taiba, one of the world’s most dangerous militant organizations, according to a study released today [1] by the Combating Terrorism Center at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, N.Y. The report helps explain why Pakistan has resisted international pressure [2] to crack down on Lashkar after it killed 166 people in Mumbai — six U.S. citizens included — and came close to sparking conflict between nuclear-armed Pakistan and India.

The Shiite Murders: Pakistan's Army of Jhangvi

That's where it goes off Son. The radicalisation of society. If society stands up and keeps on saying no, then these militants cannot survive. Same thing happens in India. We saw what happened in Northern Ireland where a vicious tit for tat terrorist campaign went on for decades. Still going on a bit. It's a question of hearts and minds but when religion gets inside minds, then the mind rots. So be careful of organised religion kannu. Stay away from the Hindu Christian Muslim organisations or people who profess an undying love for their religion. Or who are proud of their religion. There is only one religion. Be good. Do good. Rest is mere detail. And mostly, the religious idiots aren't good and don't do good. 

Love

Baba

The Shiite Murders: Pakistan's Army of Jhangvi : The New Yorker
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2013/03/the-shiite-murders-pakistans-army-of-jhangvi.html

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On the morning of February 18th, Dr. Syed Ali Haider, a forty-six-year-old eye surgeon in Lahore, was driving with his eleven-year-old son, Mustafa Haider from their home in upper-middle class Gulberg, a quiet area of mansions on tree-lined avenues, to Aitcheson College, a high school established by the British, which has groomed a few generations of Lahore élite. As Dr. Haider stopped at a traffic light, armed militants on motorbikes surrounded his car, opened fire, and sped away. His driver, who was in the back seat, escaped unhurt and called the police. The doctor had been shot six times in the head and was dead when help arrived; his son, who had been shot once in the head, died later in a hospital.

Dr. Haider came from a much-regarded Lahore family; his relatives were renowned doctors and members of the judiciary. Nobody claimed responsibility for his killing, but everyone in Lahore suspected the Sunni extremist militant group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, which has been involved in numerous attacks on Pakistan’s Shia minority. “This is a sectarian killing. Ali had no personal enmity,” Justice Syed Fazal Haider, his uncle and a retired High Court Judge, told the Pakistani press.

A few days after the murders, I met Professor Osama Siddique, who had returned to teach at Lahore University of Management Sciences after getting his doctorate at Harvard Law School. Siddique’s son goes to the same school as the slain boy, and told him, “I knew Mustafa. I used to teach him how to play cricket at school.” Lahore had largely been unaffected by the frequent violence in Pakistan, but the new wave of attacks on the Shia minority, which constitutes around twenty per cent of Pakistan’s population of a hundred and eighty million, had left the city stunned.

What I Learned in Two Years at the Tea Party

You know kannu, I liked the tea party to come out. Just like I like the salafis and muslim brotherhood to come out in Egypt and across the Arab spring. As I preferred the BJP in India. There are two elements to it. First is that we should have freedom of speech and religion and association. So if people want to make a religious movement into a political movement, they should have the right to do it. That's what classical liberalism is all about. 

But more importantly, the second reason is that people are frequently morons. Organised religion almost always fucks up the well being of countries when it gets into power. But people down the ages have always relied on piety and god and religion to help pull them out when the situation demands basic human good behaviour. So they should be allowed to commit the stupendous mistake of letting religion rule their heads, countries and economics. The Indians the Pakistanis the Arab and Muslim countries and USA all need to elect and run their countries on fine old religious principles. It's Darwinian. If you are stupid enough to believe that some prophet / guru / priest somewhere sometime was so amazing that his works and his followers can lead their current citizens and followers to nirvana then well, as a libertarian I insist that you bear the fruits of your beliefs and end up towards the shallow end of the human intelligence pool. 

Over the coming 3 months, you will see the finest examples of self destructive behaviour in the USA. Think about Saudi Arabia or Pakistan or India or Egypt where religion based policy is enacted and laugh at these idiocy and short sell :) if you can't, then buy gold!

Beware of organised religion son. Anytime anybody says or professes admiration for organised religion, know you can sell a bridge to them. Having faith is good and needed. Not that being an atheist is bad either. But followers of organised religions are gullible sheep :)

Love

Baba

What I Learned in Two Years at the Tea Party | The Awl
http://www.theawl.com/2011/08/what-i-learned-in-two-years-at-the-tea-party

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When I started going to Tea Party meetings two years ago, I was sympathetic. Just after attending one in North Dakota in August of 2009, I wrote: “Most tea partiers are not bad people. They’re just mad. In many meaningful ways, today’s Tea Party attendees’ lives have gotten consistently worse for the last 20 years, regardless of which party was in power.” I concluded that trying to figure out what they wanted was a dead end because what they wanted was simply to complain—that the Tea Party “is not a group of listen and respond; this is a group of respond and respond.”

Two years of Tea Party functions later, and I finally know what the Tea Party wants: A Christian nation.

When S&P downgraded the United States debt, the political difficulties it underlined are embodied in Kim Simac, the candidate for Wisconsin state senate. A founder of Tea Party group Northwoods Patriots, Simac is challenging incumbent Democratic state senator Jim Holperin for the District 12 “Northwoods” seat. Holperin now has the indignity of being the only state legislator in history to face a recall twice—in 1990 for supporting a Republican governor, and in today’s election for opposing one.

Holperin, a “flaming moderate,” has the endorsement of the NRA, despite Simac having authored a pro-Second Amendment children’s book.

Another victim of freedom of speech

And we find another example of the idiocy of the Egyptians. I quote:

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In a rare exercise of its anti-blasphemy laws, an Egyptian court has decided to put on trial a radical Muslim blogger who tore pages of the New Testament Bible while attending protests at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo two weeks ago.

Ahmed Mohammed Abdullah, known as Abu Islam, was shown in two videos posted online desecrating the Christian Bible. In one video, Abdullah stood before a large crowd and ripped up the holy book. In the second video, he told the camera, "Next time I will urinate on it."

Abdullah, who is part owner of the ultra-conservative Islamic television channel Al Uma, told The Associated Press that he was not practicing "contempt for religion" when tearing up the Bible.

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I will wait with bated breath for the hordes of Christian Rage Boys who will riot and create havoc and sodomise the Egyptian Ambassador and kill Egyptian Embassy personnel and burn the Egyptian flag and and and.

Talking about Rage Boys…

You run, mine are all grown up

You know that Islamist terrorists tried to bomb in London in 2007? Here is the news story from BBC. I quote:

 

A car bomb planted in central London would have caused "carnage" if it had exploded, police say. A controlled explosion was carried out on the car, packed with 60 litres of petrol, gas cylinders and nails, in Haymarket, near Piccadilly Circus. An ambulance crew saw smoke coming from the green Mercedes, near the Tiger Tiger nightclub at 0130 BST (0030 GMT).

Reading on:

One report claimed that a quick-thinking officer disconnected the mobile phone before bomb squad officers arrived.

You as well I would have read that statement and moved on, with perhaps a quirk of the eyebrows praising the officer. But here’s something that I read recently about this officer.

It is pretty rare for a terrorist to attempt to detonate a car bomb with a mobile phone in an urban area. It is common to use a mobile device in the deserts of Afghanistan or Iraq, but in a city there is just too much risk of someone dialing a wrong number and triggering the device prematurely by accident. But on 29th June 2007, Mohammed Haneef and Kafeel Ahmed attempted to detonate two large car bombs in London using a mobile phone. They had placed two devices, the first outside Tiger Tiger night club. The second was placed a few hundred meters away, at exactly the point where the police would have set up their control post to deal with the first bomb. Both cars contained around 60 litres of petrol, gas cylinders, nails and a mobile phone connected to a detonator. Their intentions were clear.

The police are often criticised for spending too much time worrying about traffic offences. Actually, it is part of their anti-terrorist activity. Car bombs are judged a threat and hence investigating and removing suspiciously parked vehicles is a priority for the police. I don't know the exact circumstances, but thankfully the second car bomb was removed for being illegally parked and placed in the underground car pound in Park Lane. Being underground, it was out of mobile phone coverage and inadvertently rendered useless. However, the first bomb was still live and posed a very material threat to the people in and around Tiger Tiger that night.

An ambulance crew called to Tiger Tiger at around 1.30am noticed a car suspiciously parked outside and radioed it into the police. The police reacted by deploying a foot patrol consisting of two officers to investigate. They walked around and inspected the car. Inside they could see the gas canisters, wiring and even the mobile phone on the end of the wires. It was clear that this was a bomb that could kill many people; it was primed and ready to explode. At that moment, one of the officers turned to the other - his junior - and uttered a line which puts goose bumps on my arms:

"You run - mine are all grown up."

As his colleague ran, the remaining officer attempted to defuse the device. He could see that the mobile phone was the trigger so he ripped it out of the wiring and started running down the road with it in his hands. As he ran down the street, with the phone in his hands, it rang.

As a result of the sharp eyes of the ambulance crew and the extreme bravery of the police officers, it is unquestionable that many lives were saved. The next day, Mohammed Haneef and Kafeel Ahmed drove a vehicle into the front of Glasgow airport and set fire to it, killing Ahmed in the process. Haneef was arrested and no one else was hurt. It was in part from the mobile phone records that the police were able to link the Glasgow attack to the attempted Tiger Tiger bombing and trace the movements of the two suspects.

You run, mine are all grown up.

Salutations on quiet understated bravery to you. Compare a man who was willing to give up his life to save others while these apologies for humankinds wanted to take lives. And were useless and incompetent to boot. Bah, spits on them.

Earth-shaking cleavage

An amusing story with loads of spinoffs but just one point that I will raise besides the issue of idiot religious leaders banging on about women. Pretty much all organised religions have an unhealthy respect for women and what they do, say, think, wear etc. so don't listen those idiots. 

But On the other hand, be mindful of over emphasis on physical attributes. Cleavage, tanned skin, long hair, etc etc on both males and females is a common sight. Which is fine. But use this fact, over emphasis on physical attributes over mental attributes is a signal that you must learn to identify and the make use of. Nothing wrong in this, don't get me wrong but it's a means of communication. He or she is telling you something and as with every communication, there is something said and unsaid about it. 

Till then laugh at these idiots

tabsir.net » Tabsir Redux: Earth-shaking cleavage
http://tabsir.net/?p=1570#more-1570

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Sun 16 Oct 2011

Tabsir Redux: Earth-shaking cleavage

Posted by tabsir under Gender and Sexuality , Iran , Journalism and Media

 

Violence, scandal and sex: the media feed us a daily diet and we lap it up like faithful mutts willing to chase any sensationalized bone thrown our way. So when an Iranian cleric says something ludicrous to our sectarian ears, it is all the more newsworthy because it is so entertaining. But after the recent loss of life in Haiti, Chile and China, is it really a laughing matter when a far-off cleric blames natural disasters on God’s wrath over human behavior? Consider an AP story which broke on April 19 and was submitted, ironically, by a reporter with the first name of Scheherezade (her namesake could spin a tale almost to death). Here is the bait:

Iranian cleric: Promiscuous women cause quakes

By SCHEHEREZADE FARAMARZI (AP) – Apr 19, 2010

BEIRUT — A senior Iranian cleric says women who wear revealing clothing and behave promiscuously are to blame for earthquakes.

Iran is one of the world’s most earthquake-prone countries, and the cleric’s unusual explanation for why the earth shakes follows a prediction by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that a quake is certain to hit Tehran and that many of its 12 million inhabitants should relocate.

“Many women who do not dress modestly … lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery in society, which (consequently) increases earthquakes,” Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi was quoted as saying by Iranian media.

Rushdie’s trial by Ayatollah Khomeini #flashreads

 

Text of the fatwa against Salman Rushdie issued by Ayatollah Khomeini on February 14:

"We are from God and to God we shall return." (Quranic verse). I am informing all brave Muslims of the world that the author of The Satanic Verses, a text written, edited, and published against Islam, the Prophet of Islam, and the Koran, along with all the editors and publishers aware of its contents, are condemned to death. I call on all valiant Muslims wherever they may be in the world to kill them without delay, so that no one will dare insult the sacred beliefs of Muslims henceforth. And whoever is killed in this cause will be a martyr, God Willing. Meanwhile if someone has access to the author of the book but is incapable of carrying out the execution, he should inform the people so that [Rushdie] is punished for his actions.... Rouhollah al-Mousavi al-Khomeini."

From Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses:

“What kind of idea are you? Are you the kind that compromises, does deals, accomodates itself to society, aims to find a niche, to survive; or are you the cussed, bloody-minded, ramrod-backed type of damnfool notion that would rather break than sway with the breeze? – The kind that will almost certainly, ninety-nine times out of hundred, be smashed to bits; but, the hundredth time, will change the world.” 

Rushdie’s book was the torch paper which lit the flame of revolt against these medieval purveyors of obscurantism. Or much simply, Neanderthal idiots. Here, read the full story if you haven't. I find it bizarre. At one time, Muslims were the most enlightened group of people in the world while rest of the world was stuck in barbarism. These days, some parts in the OIC are regressing back to those benighted times. And I include parts of the UK as well.

The Egyptian Gandhi?

I was reading about Mohamed El Baradei who seems to have gotten into bed with the Muslim Brotherhood.

And his visage reminded me of somebody else who got into bed with Islamists, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. He even looked the same.

See? balding head, round specs, large sticky outie ears, mustache. Rebelling against an autocratic government and thus decides to get into bed with the Islamists via the Khilafat Movement. I hope El Baradei remembers his history, this is one thing (Moplah Rebellion) which happened right after the Khilafat Movement kicked off.

Mr. El Baradei, people who sup with the devil should have a long spoon, but I am really disappointed in you, shows you have some rather flexible principles, eh?

In an alternative universe in Egypt

I got this translation in my in-box. This was very sarcastic and just brilliant. But for religious meatheads, the sarcasm and brilliance will just pass over their heads. Its my firm belief that these muttheads are nuts and the fact that everybody and his dog is now getting on the in-your-face religiousity is really sad. But check it out.

The diary of Mister Abd Rabbo (slave to his god), the Muslim in Coptic Egypt
Try to imagine if these things would happen to you as a Muslim one day, how would you feel?

If you got woken up at dawn by the sounds of a very loud microphone that tears your sleep away and fills your ears with a program from CTV broadcast a mass service from church and national TV would be broadcasting it too, and you find a hoarse voice yelling "glory to god, glory to god, come to church to pray to your lord"
of course after that you would fail in sleeping again and would remain awake until you have to get up to go to work.
you wave to a cab and the driver is a Copt who has a tape playing at the loudest possible volume. The tape is a sermon by a fanatic priest saying those who believe in the Prophet Muhammad are infidels, they need to be killed, so you get scared and ask the driver to drop you off and you decide to take the underground
you find a place and sit down in the underground carriage and your are flanked from both sides by pious Copts reading from  their bibles loudly all the way till you get a headache
you are in the minority, almost everyone around you is a Copt so you cannot say anything because if you do the answer you get will be: are you objecting to God's words? and this will lead to a discussion, which will end up with a problem that will require the police, but then you know that most of the police force are Copts, which is another bigger problem, so you just shut up and keep quiet to avoid problems and get to work
So you reach your place of employment and by now you are very tense and nervous because you did not sleep enough, were awoken rudely and got aggravated by the taxi-driver and have a headache from the underground, so you are not feeling happy and still you wish your co-workers a good morning and peace, and they reply back to you, the Lord's morning and Jesus' peace, so you just shut up and get to your desk
you start to work and in a little while you find your colleagues telling you that they will go pray to the Lord and they gather in the corridor and pray together to secure more rewards and after prayer they take out their little booklets with "dua" (that's kind of personal prayers specially formulated using words from the holy book). You feel like using the restroom and you cannot because the corridor is blocked and you cannot interrupt their prayers, so you try very hard to keep it in till they finish
after that you resume your work and your colleague Girgis (George) comes and asks you why don't you convert to the true religion, it is the majority religion, so it is the right one, instead of remaining a heretic and ending up in hell. You are a good person, and we like you, so we want you to be with us on the right path. Because you want to avoid problems you will have to reply to him diplomatically and politely and say, I like my own religion and even if it is the wrong one, I would rather be in it but thank you for your concern about my wellbeing in the afterlife, so he will get very upset with you and a fight will start
so you appreciate that the working day is over and you can go home, so you remember the cab driver and the neighbours in the underground and you decide that your day has already had enough problems so you walk home.
After all that walking you reach home at sunset and that is the timing of the next prayer and you find your small street blocked by those praying. Even the small grocery store has been converted to a small church and you squeeze between the wall and those praying so you can reach your house and you cant help but hear the sermon given by the priest that true religion is Christianity, that the Copts will prevail, that all others are non-believers and need to be killed or repent and adopt the true religion and that those who believe in Muhammad the false prophet are doomed. SO you swallow your words and go home only to find your wife in a state
she tells you that she was walking in the street and your neighbour's son was telling her that the way she is dressed is all wrong because she is creating temptation and she will burn in hell for it and that she is doomed
so you bite your tongue because you do not want any problems because if you complained the Copts would come and torch your house or torch the Muslim shops in the street and the small old mosque, the only one in the neighbourhood, and the police will come and arrest you for inciting disobedience and you might get slapped with a court case for insulting the true religion and then you will go to jail, and if you keep silent your wife will no longer respect you for being a coward and a weakling so you just tell her, malesh, all will be good eventually and they are just misguided, Allah will help them see the light some day, and you hug your wife and you try to sleep only to find the microphones staring again ....

Veiling doesnt seem to stop harassment

One of the most frequent reasons given by Muslim women who are veiled or want to veil is that it allows them to affirm their faith, follow the strictures of Islam and basically stop themselves being looked as objects of lust. Dress modestly so to say, dont allow your hair to be seen and and and. So when I read this, I was a bit bewildered. I quote:

The Egyptian media reported that about 300 cases of sexual harassment against women occurred over the recent Adha holiday. The cases, which the Interior Ministry would not confirm or deny, varied from verbal taunts to assaults. Al Destour newspaper said the number of incidents was higher than what was reported during the Fitr feast in September.

Sexual harassment in Egyptian cities has become an disturbing phenomenon of late. It recently became associated with feast holidays, where thousands enjoy spending their free time outdoors. Younger generations face less-strict scrutiny from their parents, who tend to allow their daughters to go out without parental supervision during feasts. Police security is usually softer than it is throughout the rest of the year.

The biggest incident came during last year's Fitr, when 150 men and boys were arrested for going on a harassing spree in the streets of Mohandeseen in Cairo. A few of the defendants, who assaulted girls and cut their clothes, were taken to court and one was sentenced to a year in jail.

The number of harassment cases during the feasts echoes a study carried out by the Egyptian Center for Women's Rights (ECWR) last July, showing that 83% of Egyptian women and 98% of foreign females residing in the country reported being harassed.

Egypt's penal code sets imprisonment punishments for anyone who sexually assaults minors, but many assaulted women have seen their cases blocked as judges and prosecutors blamed similar incidents on the "provocative" way some girls are dressed. But the ECWR's study refutes such allegations, saying that 71.5% of women who reported sexual harassment were wearing veils (head scarves) and non-revealing clothes, and 19.6% of them were even wearing niqabs (face veils).

I am not really sure that veiling is really helping out here. And as usual, the problem is with the men. Without veils, you are accused of dressing provocatively and acting whorishly. Seriously, so many debates that i have followed in mailing lists or newspapers or elsewhere, the women who are veiled (and the men who support them) talk about bikini clad women, scantily clad women and how that doesnt give rise to dignity of the women. But seems like if you veil, you are in bigger danger of being groped and harassed. When I spoke to somebody who was Egyptian, their response was that the men think that veiled women are easy, they would not complain, they will simply take the harassment and walk on. Once a woman finds that her body is shameful and has to be hidden away, well, there you go, if you cover the meat, you will get handled, if you uncover the meat, you will be called as uncovered meat.

The problem is not going to be resolved by wearing burqa’s or the veil, the problem is that men are defining what women are and aren't. Look at what happened in New York. I quote:

Scantily clad hipster cyclists attracted to the Brooklyn neighborhood made it difficult, the Hasids said, to obey religious laws forbidding them from staring at members of the opposite sex in various states of undress. These riders also were disobeying the traffic laws, they complained

See? the men are the weak lot, they cannot control their lust and emotions. While I am fully in favour of what you wear and what not to wear, these internal contradictions need to be thought through a bit more. Given that Europe is moving towards banning the veil, does this mean that women’s harassment in Europe will be lessened?

Jihad and the Indian Home Minister

Sometimes I worry about our chattering political classes, specially about their grasp of basic funda’s relating to history, culture, politics and religion. Anyway, seems like our Indian Home Minister Chidambaram spoke (here is another report from a Muslim newspaper) at the Intelligence Bureau Centenary celebrations. The main bits which bewildered me are, and I quote:

The home minister also referred to the rise of a new kind of threat. He said, "Just as the Cold War came to an end, we witnessed the emergence of another kind of war, namely, jihad. Jihad is a war or struggle against non-believers and, currently, it is waged by a number of groups owing allegiance to Islam. Unlike the original Crusades, jihad is not fought like conventional war. Jihad employs terror as an instrument to achieve its objectives. The tactics of jihadis have been copied by militants belonging to other groups too, not excluding militants professing the Hindu faith."

There are so many things wrong with this statement (if correct, I have not been able to access a transcript of his speech). Let's see where all he went off the rails.

1. Jihad is not a war, it can only be termed as a religiously mandated observance. To confuse it with a political and military phenomena, which is the commonly known western sense of the word i.e. war, is seriously deficient and lacking. The word itself is a noun, meaning Struggle and you are supposed to struggle against your own weaknesses of the self (meaning to become better), to guard against bad or false utterances, guard against violence and the struggle with the sword. One can wage war based upon strict criteria (although these criteria can vary and this is the crux of the matter) against apostates, criminals, to defend the Islamic state, to expand the state, rebel against bad rulers, etc. etc. The wiki entry is a reasonably good overview of this topic.

2. The Crusades. Ah, another spectacular silly comment. The crusades were not war. If at all, then that was the Christian Jihad. At least as far as the religious angle is concerned. Various Christian Popes and rulers went about saying that the holy land had to be liberated and it was the Christian duty of the faithful to go about chucking out the infidels. Then the Muslims waged their Muslim Jihad on the Christian Jihad. Very confusing but war it wasn't. This was two religions having it out based upon their respective religious rulings. Here is a good site on how the Muslims viewed Crusades and this is a good book on it. Here’s a nice site from the Christian side.

3. War as we understand it is carried out between two recognised entities, and can be a civil war between two populaces, a war against something like drugs, a war against an idea like poverty or illiteracy, etc. etc. But we generally recognise wars between two countries or states, waged by armies in uniform, with a relatively formal beginning (with firing of a shot) and end (like signing a surrender or ceasefire agreement). It has force of law based upon what cannot be done rather than what its components are. The whole legal paraphernalia and edifice around war crimes (Hague, Geneva, Nuremberg, UN Tribunals and now the International Criminal Court) defines what cannot be done in terms of war. And the crusades definitely were not war, even if you want to apply current thinking to a medieval phenomena like the Crusades.

4. Terror. Again a silly formulation by the minister. Terrorism has 10.2 million definitions at the last count. By and large, they contain words like “use of violence”, “for political or religious or or or purposes”, “against a state or civilians”, etc. etc. But what actually counts on the ground is the definition as included in the Law of the various countries. See here for a good list of these laws.

5. Jihad utilising terror as an instrument. Now this is quite contentious. But if the understanding is that of #4 above, then by and large, that is not agreed upon by the majority of Muslim Jurists as shown by a very large number of jurists who have expressed their views on this. It is pretty much clear that the majority of Jurists do not think that terrorism (as defined by modern day law and usage) is allowed under Jihad.

So you might as well as ask, where on earth are these fundamentalists getting their religious justification from? Well, if one has to point to one source (and believe you me, there are tons of other sources), the original root lies in the time when the Mongols rampaged through the Middle East. A chap called as Imam Ibn Taymiyyah released his famous fatwa on Jihad. Here is the English version of the same and this fatwa, via Banna, Qutb, Maududi and others have come down to the current fundos in Al Queda, LeT and other assorted Mujahedeen’s. The main section is and I quote:

Since lawful warfare is essentially jihad and since its aim is that the religion is God’s entirely [2:189, 8:39] and God’s word is uppermost [9:40], therefore, according to all Muslims, those who stand in the way of this aim must be fought. As for those who cannot offer resistance or cannot fight, such as women, children, monks, old people, the blind, handicapped and their likes, they shall not be killed, unless they actually fight with words [e.g. by propaganda] and acts [e.g. by spying or otherwise assisting in the warfare]. Some [jurists] are of the opinion that all of them may be killed, on the mere ground that they are unbelievers, but they make an exception for women and children since the constitute property for Muslims. However, the first opinion is the correct one, because we may only fight those who fight us when we want to make God’s religious victorious. God, Who is exalted, has said in this respect: "And fight in the way of God those who fight you, but transgress not: God loves not the transgressors." [The Qur’aan, 2:190]……………….

The Sharee`a [shari'a] enjoins fighting the unbelievers, but not the killing of those who have been captured. If a male unbeliever is taken captive during warfare or otherwise, e.g. as a result of a shipwreck, or because he lost his way, or as a result of a ruse, then the head of state (imam) may do whatever he deems appropriate: killing him, enslaving him, releasing him or setting him free for a ransom consisting in either property or people [freeing Muslim captives in return]. This is the view of most jurists and it is supported by the Koran and the Sunna.

As you can see, there are some exclusions and the terrorists use it to appeal to their supporters. Here’s a very good overview of how Ibn Taymiyyah’s fatwa and work has fed its way down to the fundos. But there is obviously a tension between the mainstream view and the terrorists view. Here’s a good overview of this tension. And in particular, if by this time you have not fallen asleep and are still facing problems in comprehending, read this rebuttal from Zawahiri. Warning, it's a book and pretty heavy going. That said, fatwas like this can cause confusion amongst the ranks. Coming from Darul Uloom Deoband means that it is respected.

Now, not having view of the transcript, I cannot say if the minister was right or wrong, but he was speaking from the perspective of the terrorist groups, well, then from their perspective, Jihad does have elements of terror, I am afraid.

6. Finally we come to the point he is making in terms of Hindu militants copying the tactics. Now this is a bit ambivalent. Reading for example Sarvarkar’s book Hindutva (which presumably would be the closest you can get to an ideological book), he talks about Hindutva relying on geographical unity, racial unity and common culture. But while he bangs on about Hinduism, nowhere does he reference any actual religious book to bolster his arguments, thereby giving me the impression that he is talking culture rather than religion, which applies to the notion of Jihad then as well. So that’s a crucial difference but on the other hand, terrorist tactics relating to propaganda, funding, violence against civilians, for political purposes, yes, he totally brought that on board. Here’s a good overview of the ideology and tactics underlying this Hindutva business.

But his other comments were weird and for such a sensitive topic, I am surprised that he spoke so loosely.

Muslim women and micro loans

This causes me no end of frustration. I mean, it's tough enough to get the economic status of women up and running. And then you have these bloody medieval obscurantists who come and bollox it up. I quote:

Ramesh Bellamkonda heads BSS Microfinance, the worst hit of several microfinance institutions (MFIs) in Karnataka. He says BSS has provided microcredit for two years in Kolar, three-and-a-half in Mysore, and eight in Ramanagaram, enjoying excellent relations with its Muslim borrowers and virtually 100% repayment. Today, repayment is down to almost zero, because of non-repayment directives by the anjumans and their goons, who threaten and even assault BSS staff. Muslims constitute a substantial proportion of borrowers, so the anjuman directives can bankrupt entire MFIs, affecting other community borrowers too. Other Karnataka MFIs in several towns face the same problem, and have been obliged to halt lending to Muslims. It is a triumph for the most reactionary Muslims, and a tragedy for Muslim women denied empowerment through finance.

The anjumans say interest on loans is un-Islamic, and so borrowers need not repay, and no further microloans should be given to Muslims…….Because the anjumans will not take on moneyed males, only poor women. They don’t like female empowerment through micro-credit, and so use the bogus rhetoric of Islamic finance to promote their gender agenda.

Can you imagine these pillocks? How on earth can they justify this kind of loser behaviour? Interest in loans is not un-Islamic, you idiots. If you think that’s wrong, go check out what happens in Saudi Arabia, they merrily lend away on interest. And if you think that they are wrong, why do you suck up to them starting from Hyderabad Airport to their hotel rooms? Sheesh.

Banning Fatwa’s

HT John Burgess.

This was interesting. I quote:

JEDDAH – An undisclosed number of religious preachers have been barred from issuing fatwas during this year’s Haj due to the “extremist” nature of their rulings and “violations committed during last year’s Haj.”
The Undersecretary of the Ministry of Islamic Affairs, Endowments, Call and Guidance, Tawfiq Al-Sudairi, said the ministry monitored the “performance of those working in the field of religious call and guidance and issuing edicts during the Haj seasons” through supervisors who produce opinion polls and reports.
“The ministry has tightened supervision this year,” Al-Sudairi said,” and field inspections have led to a number of religious callers, although few in number, being removed due to serious violations.”
The violations reportedly included “hard-line edicts that harm the Haj.”
“The ministry seeks to make things easier for pilgrims during the Haj and prevent the issuing of hard-line edicts, to take into consideration differences in cultural, religious, geographical and jurisprudential backgrounds,” Al-Sudairi said. “The ministry also seeks religious callers with an extensive knowledge of jurisprudence and who take jurisprudential differences into consideration.”

Ok, I know that many people hate the fatwa’s. The hate relates to people saying stupid things or harmful things. And as this is coming from religious scholars, it has the patina of truth, of Divine sanction and given that quite a lot of people are basically sheep when it comes to religion, it can actually do harm.

But I disagree that these people should be banned from giving fatwas. Its freedom of speech and you need to allow them to speak out. If they are talking rot, that’s all right, because it will show up the religious fundo’s up in a bad light. And at end of the day, people are relatively smart and eventually wise up to these morons who go about reading rot and saying garbage.

But it is their right to say what they wish. As long as their sayings to not interfere or injure anybody else, go for it, knock yourself out. The way to deal with crap speech is to discuss and debate with them, not ban them. This causes them to become martyrs. What also struck me as strange was that the ministry in Saudi Arabia which is in charge can actually be charged with being unislamic as no man can know the niyaat of another when talking about religion. Plus one can give a very jaundiced view on what Saudi Arabia thinks of religion anyway.

oh! goody, more restrictions on singers and actors

Dont you think this is good? Restricting those caterwaulers and actors? Bunch of manky gits, doing things that is prohibited under the eyes of God. Can you imagine? Actually singing and dancing and acting? Criminal. Lock them up. Or cane them. Or better still, blow them up. How about shooting them and hanging their bodies up as a warning to others? Now that’s the way to impress God.

 

Wagma, another Pashtu-language woman singer, said that she had also received death threats and joined the group of preachers.

"In the initial stage, I joined the group under threat, but now I have realised that this is a noble way of life and I shall stick to it and shall never return to singing," she said.

Very noble :)

The militants are attempting to alter the city's religious diversity. The people of Peshawar believe that the Lashkar-e-Islam was involved in the recent bombing of the shrine of a Sufi poet, Rehman Baba.

The group had destroyed mausoleums of other saints in the city before, arguing that visiting tombs is un-Islamic.

Rehman Baba, known as the "Nightingale of Peshawar", is venerated as a mystic throughout NWFP and in Afghanistan.

Militant groups disapprove of Pakistan's majority religious tradition that allows for spiritual intercession through the tombs of saints, where visits are often accompanied by music and dance.

The Sufis have fought back. Earlier this year in Swat, Pir Samiullah, the custodian of a shrine who spent three years meditating in a cave, formed a militia to fight against the Taliban.

But militants killed him. His body was mutilated and strung up in public.

Welcome to Heaven on Earth.

Technorati Tags: Taliban,Pakistan

Come back to blighty to see terror plots

I come back from Malaysia and then am faced with a man who wants to blow up a shopping center (was the shopping experience so bad?) and an explosion in Exeter carried out by a mentally disabled man (was the food really that bad?). I am sure this is somehow connected to Palestine :)

Technorati Tags: United Kingdom,Terrorism