|
Today's
Stories
February 20,
2008
Farzana Versey
The
Great Dictator: Musharraf, Peace and the Autumn of the Patriarch
February 19,
2008
Uri Avnery
Blood
and Champagne
Paul Craig
Roberts
Paying
Insurgents Not to Fight
Gary Leupp
The Independence of Kosovo
Fidel Castro
The Moment Has Come
David Macaray
Management's Dirty Little Secret
Reza Fiyouzat
Buck the Circus! The Left and the Elections
Valerie Morse
The New Zealand Terror Raids: Land of the Long White Lie
Walter Brasch
Bush on Safari
Website of the Day
Don't Think Twice, It's Alright
February 18,
2008
Wajahat Ali
Free
Pakistan: an Interview with Imran Khan
Diana Johnstone
NATO's
Kosovo Colony
Paul Craig Roberts
What Do We Stand For?
Andy Worthington
Gitmo: "We're Making This Up as We Go Along"
Debbie Nathan
Bernie Ward's Sex Tapes
Anthony DiMaggio
Following the Money Trail: the Democratic Party and the Business
of Elections
Bill Simpich
Ten Years Ago, People Power Stopped Clinton in Iraq
Eva Liddell
A Short History of Super-Delegates: Hope, Yes! But Pay in Cash
Christopher Brauchli
The President Who Couldn't Keep His Word: Short-Changing Veterans
Stephen Soldz
Wikileaks is Under Attack!
Johann Rossouw
The Ouster of Thabo Mbeki: South Africa and the Costs of Neoliberalism
Website of
the Day
Sick of It Day!
February 16
/ 17, 2008
Alexander Cockburn
The
Terrorists Still at Ground Zero, 7 World Trade Tower, Lower Manhattan
Ralph Nader
We
the Corporations ...
David Macaray
The Big Buy Out: Did GM Drive Another Nail in Labor's Coffin?
William J.
Peace
Wheelchair Dumping
Ron Jacobs
War on the Psyche: Shellshock and Redemption
Diane Christian
War Corrupts
Alan Maass
Oil, Blood and Greed: Taking Upton Sinclair to the Big Screen
(and Beyond)
Ramzy Baroud
Iraq and the US Elections
Michael Donnelly
Genitalia First! Old Guard Feminists Play the XX Card
Cpt. Paul Watson
The Art of Finding Whalers
James L. Secor
China Diary: Spring Festival and New Year 2008
Eve Bachrach
Bush Returns to Africa
Nikolas Kozloff
Hugo Chávez's Anti-Imperialist Army
Stephen Gowans
Steven Spielberg, Faux-Humanitarian
Missy Beattie
To Vote or Not to Vote?
David Michael
Green
Warming Slowly to Obama
Wajahat Ali
Attack of the Info-tainment Circus
Poets' Basement
Gibbons, Willson, Mickey Z., Orloski and Reuther
Website of the Day
Yellowstone's Bison Need Your Help--NOW!
February 15,
2008
George Szamuely
The
Absurdity of "Independent" Kosovo
Patrick Cockburn
Ground-Truthing the Surge: Is the US Really Bringing Stability
to Baghdad?
Wajahat Ali
Pakistan is Burning: an Interview with Steve Coll on the Taliban,
Bin Laden and the Bush Administration
Mike Whitney
Henry Paulsen's Wild Ride on the Economic Hindenberg
Alan Farago
God and the Democrats
Chris Genovali
Alberta's Black Gold Rush
Jacob Hornberger
Courting Injustice: Scalia on Torture
Dave Lindorff
Snoops Always Ring Twice: Bush's Protect America Bill Bull
Website of the Day
Live From the Land of Hopes and Dreams
February 14,
2008
Kathleen and
Bill Christison
Palestine
in the Mind of America
Mike Whitney
Swan Song for NATO
Clancy Sigal
Strike Notes from a Screenwriter
George Wuerthner
A Bloody Sham: the Yellowstone Bison Slaughter
Peter Morici
Is Bernanke Headed for the Exit?
John Ross
Drug War Mayhem Boils Over from Border to Border
Allan Nairn
Mafia Rules in the Middle East: If You're Big Enough, You Can
Whack Anyone
Rannie Amiri
Lebanon's Warmongers
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
The New Tractatus: Where Wittgenstein Meets Feinstein
Donna Volatile
Be Careful What You Vote For, You Just Might Get It
Seth Sandronsky
The Student Squeeze: Fighting California's Tuition Hikes
Website of
the Day
Conventions: the Land Around Us
February 13,
2008
Nikolas Kozloff
Meet
John McCain: Mr. Big Stick in Latin America
Alan Farago
Hell to Pay: Warren Buffett on the Goal Line
Christina Kasica
King's Dream Foreclosed: the Subprime Crisis in Black America
Vicente Navarro
How to Read the U.S. Primaries
Hall Greenland
Australia's Finest Hour
Lee Sustar
Strange Stimulation: Too Little for Those Who Need It Most
David Macaray
The Writers' Strike Finally Ends
Roderick Frazier
Nash
Celebrating Wilderness
Patrick Irelan
Hugo Chávez and High Anxiety at the NYT
Anthony Papa
Mean Mister Mukasey: AG Tries to Block Crack Cocaine Releases
Carl Finamore
Another Parade Passes Me By: Don't Let Your Movement be Coopted
by Politicians
Website of
the Day
John He Is
February 12,
2008
Frank J. Menetrez
The
Case Against Alan Dershowitz
Paul Craig
Roberts
War Without End
Dr. Trudy Bond
The Elephant at Gitmo: Camp 7 and the Torturer's Shrink
Andy Worthington
The Guantánamo Six: Why Charge Them Now? What About the
Torture?
Col. Dan Smith
The Psychology of Killing: Close In or Far Away?
Ronnie Cummins
Globalization: Standing at the End of the Road
Ralph Nader
Open the Government
John V. Walsh
Antiwarriors, Divided and Conquered
Dave Lindorff
Obama and Progressive Change: Let's Hope the Movement Transforms
the Candidate
Michael Donnelly
Who's Pimping Whom? The Clintons' Selective No Talk Rules
Ron Jacobs
La Lucha Continua: Castro's "Life"
Ben Tripp
Beggars Collide
Website of the Day
Springsteen and Youngstown
February 11,
2008
Cockburn /
St. Clair
Lessons
for Obama: When is a Delegate Not a Delegate?
Wajahat Ali
A Discussion with Walt and Mearsheimer on the Israel Lobby
Ray McGovern
Waterboarding for God and Country
Allan Nairn
The Shooting of Jose Ramos Horta
Uri Avnery
An End Foreseen?
Chris Floyd
American
Psycho: the Meaning of Mitt Romney's Exit Speech
Martha Rosenberg
School Lessons in a Lunchbox: Lunchmeat from Tortured Cows
Stephen Fleischman
The Bonnie and Clyde of American Politics
Marc Lamont Hill
Not My Brand of Hope
Liliana Segura
Obama and Torture: the Sounds of Silence and Equivocation
Peter Morici
Challenges for the New President
Christopher
Brauchli
A Drug Rant from a Former Taker
Website of the Day
Annie vs. the Blue Angels
February 8
/ 10, 2008
Paul Craig
Roberts
Does
the GOP Have Aces Up Its Sleeves?
Patrick Cockburn
Will Moqtada al-Sadr's Truce Hold?
Mike Whitney
The Great Bust of '08
Anthony DiMaggio
How the Press Covers Waterboarding
Andy Worthington
The Guántanamo Trials: Where are the Terrorists?
Linn Cohen-Cole
Hillary, Will You Renounce Your Ties to Monsanto?
Firmin DeBrabander
Notes from the Foreclosure Front: Suing Your Way to Solvency
Cpt. Paul Watson
The Other Whaling Industry: How Greenpeace Cashes In on the Suffering
and Deaths of the Great Whales
Kenneth S. Pope
Why I Resigned from the American Psychological Association
Jacob G. Hornberger
American Soldiers Will Pay the Price for Bush's Torture Policy
Robert Bryce
Beyond Group Think on Climate Change: If More CO2 is Bad ...
Then What?
P. Sainath
The Last of the Buccaneer Editors
Allan Nairn
Give Me Back My Land
Fred Gardner
/
Pebbles Trippet
"The District Attorney of Shasta County Doesn't Know the
Law!"
Andrew Wimmer
Growing Up Catholic: Ignorance is Death
Robert Fantina
America's Disgrace: the Case of Omar Khadr
David Michael Green
Partycide in Six Easy Steps: Watch the Democrats Destroy Themselves
Kevin Zeese
Is Dennis Kucinich Being McKinney'd?
Peter Morici
Wall Street Gives Bernacke a Vote of No Confidence
Chris Driscoll
Could Nader be the Come-Back Kid of 2008?
Prairie Miller
Black August: Bringing George Jackson's Life to the Screen
Poets Basement
Davies and Buknatski
February 7,
2008
Patrick Cockburn
Why
Baghdad Will Explode Again
Bill Christison
Potholes Bigger Than Ever for Palestinians
David Anderson
NBC's "To Entrap" a Predator: Perverting Justice for
the Sake of Ratings
Ron Jacobs
Innocent Flesh: Recruiting Kids to Kill
Nikolas Kozloff
Hugo Chávez's Coca: It's the Real Thing
Jane Rockefeller
The Moral Economy of an Anti-Poverty Foundation
Andy Worthington
On Waterboarding: Two Questions for Michael Hayden
Dave Zirin
Instep Intifada
Saul Landau
The "Honestest" Candidate Since Lincoln
Susie Day
Our Blob in the White House
Website of the Day
George Carlin on Voting
February 6,
2008
Cockburn /
St. Clair
Super
Tuesday's Vote for Chaos
Ben Rosenfeld
Informant Games: The Disturbing GreenScare Case of Briana Waters
Vijay Prashad
An Intellectual Hustler Lays It All Out
Joe Bageant
Nine Billion Little Feet on the Highway of the Damned
Michael Donnelly
What White Women Do In Private Voting Booths
Allan Nairn
Does the US Need a Civilizing Mayan Invasion?
Kathryn Gray
Wilderness on Edge: The Fate of Donner Summit
Ray McGovern
Powell's UN Fiasco
Sheldon Richman
The Whining Empire
Paul Cantor
/ Roger Sparks
A
Presidential Aptitude Examination
John Chuckman
Political Bits and Pieces
Website of
the Day
Save the Albatross
February 5,
2008
Winslow T.
Wheeler
The
Chaos in America's Vast Security Budget
Tariq Ali
Why I Will Not Participate in the Turin Book Fair
Stephen Soldz
The Secret Rules of Engagement in Iraq: Did Rumsfeld Authorize
War Crimes?
Chris Floyd
Strange
Fruit: America's Gulag and the Good War
William S. Lind
Saddam's Secret War Strategy: Die and Win
Martha Rosenberg
Live From the Killing Floor
Heather Gray
Conversations with Georgia Voters
Ayesha Ijaz
Khan
Obama, Bhagwandas and the Battle for a Secular Politics
David Macaray
Unions Need to Stop Being So Nice
Eliza Ernshire
Making Music and Laughing Till the Tears Run
Brenda Norrell
Hated Nation
Website of
the Day
The Things I Used to Do
February 4,
2008
Marc Levy
Winter
in America
Patrick Cockburn
The Bird Market Bombings
Saree Makdisi
Strangling Gaza
Uri Avnery
From Stalingrad to Winograd
Alan Farago
Let's Get Bambi! Someone is Slaughtering Florida's Key Deer
Ben Tripp
Spare Change: the Whine of the Progressive Voter
Paul Wolf
Civil Wars North and South
Paul Craig
Roberts
Why Were the 9/11 Tapes Destroyed?
Joshua Frank
MoveOn's Obama Endorsement: Why There's No Hope for Change
John Halle
Whither Progressive Democrats?
Website of the Day
How to Cheat in School
February 2
/ 3, 2008
Alexander Cockburn
Hot
Democratic Properties
Pam Martens
Bankers
Gone Bonkers: Global Finance and the Insanity Defense
Ralph Nader
The Great Clinton-Obama Debate: Questions They Weren't Asked
John Ross
Hilaria
vs. "El Moreno"
Wajahat Ali
Hillary, Obama and the Clash of Civilizations: an Interview with
Imam Zaid Shakir
Robert Fantina
A Colony by Any Other Name: Iraq as Stepchild of the American
Empire
B. R. Gowani
Not All Veils and Guns
James L. Secor
China in Winter: On the Western Edge of the Great Snow
John V. Walsh
The Invisible Green Primary
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Barack's Bubble, Bubba's Trouble
Dave Zirin
Who Stole the Super Bowl's Soul?
Jeremy Scahill
Blackwater and Blood
Fidel Castro
Reflections on Lula
Joe Allen
Tet Reconsidered: the Turning Point in the Vietnam War
Stephen Lendman
Life in Occupied Gaza
Patrick Irelan
What Happened to the Streetcars?
Andrej Grubacic
Ziga Vodovnik
Caligula's Horse: the USA, New Europe and Kosovo
Josh Karpoff
Dead Soldiers and the Antiwar Movement
Ron Jacobs
Carl Oglesby's War
Paul Krassner
Tom Waits Meets Super-Joel
Website of the Weekend
Company Woman: Hillary and Wal-Mart
February 1,
2008
Ray McGovern
The
Iniquities and Inequalities of War
Diane Farsetta
The Wild Career of James "Dow 36,000" Glassman
Patrick Cockburn
The
Most Dangerous Country in the World for Journalists
Tariq Ali
Et
Tu, New York Times?
Allan Nairn
Eating Dirt for Lunch in Haiti
Rannie Amiri
Collective Punishment in Beirut
Ramzy Baroud
People Power in Gaza: They Simply Did It
Kenneth Couesbouc
The Mother of All Snowballs
Peter Morici
Recession Looms
Mumia Abu-Jamal
Witha "Brutha" Like This: Bill Clinton as White Negro
Rosemary Jackowski
27 Reasons Nader Should Run for President
Scott Campbell
Direct Action to Stop the War Re-emerges
Website of the Day
Betes et Hommes
January 31,
2008
Saul Landau
Return
to Afghanistan
Andy Worthington
Horror at Guantánamo
Mike Whitney
Rate Cut as Dagger: America's Teetering Banking System
Jeff Ballinger
Sustainability for Dictators Initiative? Clinton Praises the
"Suharto of the Steppe"
Tiffany Ten
Eyck
The Saga of the Freightliner Five
William Loren
Katz
Waterboarding:
Torure or Mystery?
Alan Farago
Why the Republicans are in Deep Trouble
Col. Dan Smith
Oh Say Can You See the 2009 Budget?
China Hand
Slouching Toward Islamabad
Dave Lindorff
The Usual Suspects Once Again
Wadner Pierre
Fake Democracy in Haiti
Website of the Day
One Big Union
January 30,
2008
Cockburn /
St. Clair
McCain
vs. Clinton?
Christopher
Ketcham
The Genius of the Development Industrial-Complex
Robert Weissman
America By the Numbers: The Shameful State of the Union
Neve Gordon
An Experiment in Famine
Paul Craig Roberts
Regulation or Deregulation, Which is Worse?
Joanne Mariner
How Anti-Terror Laws Threaten Free Speech
David Macaray
Labor's Only Real Weapon
Liaquat Ali
Khan
Is NATO Committing Genocide in Afghanistan?
Raymond J. Lawrence
Prankster-in-Chief: Bush's Troubling Non-Verbal Communication
Dan Bacher
The Collapse of the Central Valley Salmon
Website of the Day
Onward Through the Fog
January 29,
2008
Franklin C.
Spinney
Bush's
New War Budget: the $70 Billion Hand-Off
Mike Whitney
The Great Credit Unwind of 2008
Alan Farago
Buyer Beware: Florida, the Candidates and the Latin Builders
Association
Patrick Cockburn
"The Americans Bring Us Only Destruction"
Gary Leupp
"We Can't Afford to Let Them Spill the Beans:" a Sibel
Edmonds Timeline
R. F. Blader
A
World Without Abortion: USA v. Romania
Ahmad Faruqui
Musharraf's Post-Electoral Prospect
Fran Shor
Obama, the Kennedys and "Change We Can Believe In"
Jeremy Scahill
Secret Trials and Criminal Convictions: the Ordeal of the Blackwater
Protesters
Allan Nairn
Bush's
SOTU: Entitlement, Justice and the War of All Against All
Website of the Day
The Ghost of Rambo
January 28,
2008
Patrick Cockburn
Return
to Fallujah
Paul Craig
Roberts
The End of American Liberty
Allan Nairn
The Breaking of the Gaza Wall
Eyad al-Sarraj
/ Sara Roy
Ending the Stranglehold on Gaza
Martha Rosenberg
Obit for the "Front Page" City
Corporate Crime
Reporter
How They Rip Us Off
David Michael Green
Kristolizing Iraq: What a Great Freakin' War
Jennifer Van
Bergen
What's Left?
Nancy Oden
Survival Tips for Hard Times
Divya Karnad
Saving India's Sea Turtles
James L. Secor
Pissed About Pistorious: Why the Olympics Needs a Gimp
Website of
the Day
Yellow Journalism?
January 26
/ 27, 2008
Uri Avnery
Worse
Than a Crime
JoAnn Wypijewski
How the Clintons Lost It, Whatever the Outcome in S. Carolina
Ralph Nader
Ambition, Power and the Clintons
Paul Craig
Roberts
How Bush Destroyed the Dollar
Paul Watson
I'm Proud to be a Pirate!
John Ross
Murder and Cover-Up in Mexico
Fred Gardner
Ross v. Raging Wire: Employer's Right to Fire Workers Held Sacred
by California Supreme Court
Allan Nairn
Little Hands with Fever: Some Consequences of Poverty Death
Joshua Frank
Why Bush Wants to Legalize the Nuke Trade with Turkey
Binoy Kampmark
Société Générale and the Economic
Meltdown
James T. Phillips
America's Sick Comedy: Bringing the War Home
Stan Cox
The Depressing Truth About Anti-Depressants
Eamonn McCann
Hillary's Lie: "I Brought Peace to Northern Ireland"
Ron Jacobs
The Horizons of History: What's at Stake in Bolivia
Seth Sandronsky
California's Health Care Crisis
Ben Terrall
The Future is Unwritten
Poets' Basement
Tripp, Gardner, Gibbons and Davies
Website of
the Weekend
City of Immigrants
January 25,
2008
Douglas Valentine
Operation
Two-Fold: How the CIA Infiltrated the DEA
Patrick Cockburn
US Troops Will Be In Iraq for 10 More Years: an Interview with
Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari
JoAnn Wypijewski
Down to the Wire in South Carolina
Heather Gray
Are We Seeing a Racial Shift in the South? Conversations with
South Carolina Voters
Marjorie Cohn
Senate Democrats Poised to Fold to Cheney on FISA
Erica Rosenberg
Environmentalists Out on a Limb: the Perils of Collaboration
Alan Farago
Jeb Bush Goes Nuclear
Robert Weissman
Reclaiming Economic Freedom
Laura Carlsen
Wild Cards: Mining the Hispanic Vote in Nevada
Stephen Lendman
Israeli Repression in the Hebron
Website of the Day
The FIX is In
January 24,
2008
JoAnn Wypijewski
Obama
as Anthologist of Uplift
Paul Craig
Roberts
President Hillary
Alexander Cockburn
Hillary Wants to Talk About Dirty Legal Dealings? Remember Her
Nursing Home Scam?
Kathleen Christison
One and Two State Solutions and the Myth of International Consensus
Jeff Halper
Power to the (Palestinian) People!
Stanley Heller
The Siege of Gaza is Broken
George Wuerthner
The Moronic Sport: ORVs on the Public Lands
Patrick Cockburn
Desperate Iraqi Farmers Turn to Opium
Jeff Sher
Just How "Good" is Your Health Insurance?
Patrick Irelan
Musharraf, the Steadfast Ally?
Charles Modiano
Restoring the Anti-War King
Website of
the Day
An Illustrated History of Trepanation
January 23,
2008
David Rosen
The
Great Disappearing Act: the Presidential Candidates and the Politics
of Sex
David Isenberg
Is
It Really So Hard to Believe That Iran Stopped Its Nuclear Weapons
Program?
Farzana Versey
Hillary's
Harem
Paul Craig
Roberts
The Empire That Must Be Obeyed
Alan Farago
Where Did All the Good Times Go?
Allan Nairn
Indonesian Intelligence Service Threatens to Kill Human Rights
Activist
Kenneth Couesbouc
Another Turn of the Screw
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
How the West was Re-Sold
Michael Donnelly
Obama Strikes Back
Norman Solomon
The Power of Love
Website of the Day
Rafah Today
January 22,
2008
Paul Craig
Roberts
Farewell
to Old Economic Nostrums
JoAnn Wypijewski
King Day in Columbia, South Carolina
Al Giordano
Divide and Conquer Politics: How the Clinton Campaign Armed a
Black-Latino Time Bomb in Nevada
Felice Pace
Power Politics in the Klamath: Water, Dams and Salmon
Paul Wolf
Bolívar's Sword
Robert Weissman
Deregulation and the Financial Crisis
Dave Lindorff
The Bush Dollar Trap
Marjorie Cohn
Cheney Impeachment Gains Traction
Richard Neville
Keeping Shakespeare in a Box
Don Fitz /
Zaki Baruti
St. Louis Mayor Booed Off MLK Platform
Ben Terrall
Cindy Sheehan and the Virtues of Divisiveness
Sam Husseini
Stoning Martin Luther King, Jr.
Website of
the Day
Defend the Mapuche!
January 21,
2008
Kevin Alexander
Gray
Playing
the Race Card
Linn Washington,
Jr.
Deferring Dreams, Delusions of Democracy
Pam Martens
How Wall Street Blew Itself Up
David Macaray
Labor's Grim Dilemma: Do We Need a Labor Party?
Uri Avnery
Look Who's Talking
Omar Barghouti
Europe's Collusion in Israel's Slow Genocide
Joe DeRaymond
Protest and Trial in D.C.
B.R. Gowani
Why Islam Should Tolerate Images
Shepherd Bliss
The False U.S. Economy
Jean-Guy Allard
Philip Agee Versus the CIA
Dan Bacher
Leaping Steelhead!
Website of
the Day
Destroyed
By a Rising Flood
January 19
/ 20, 2008
Alexander Cockburn
The
Campaign in Black and White
Saul Landau
Good Time Charlie's War
China Hand
Endgame for Pakistan?
Conn Hallinan
Desert Mirage: What Was the Bombing of Syria Really About?
Ron Jacobs
No Retreat
Dave Lindorff
A Tax Rebate Won't Fix This Mess
Andy Worthington
Canada's Humiliating Double Standard on Torture
Paul Armentano
What's the Going Price for a Joint? More Than You Might Think
Seth Sandronsky
High Crimes and Economics
Michael Donnelly
Dodging Ecocide
Patrick Irelan
The Ordeal of Dr. Safdar Sarki
Martha Rosenberg
The Drug Industry Takes Another Hit
Sherwood Ross
Making the World Safe for Despots: Bush's Global Arms Trade
David Michael
Green
So You Want to be My President, Eh?
James Rothenberg
Unimpeachable: Under House Protection
Daniel Gross
Starbucks Shortchanges Dr. King
Peter N. Carroll
In Memory of Milton Wolff
Susie Day
Croakin' on Hudson
Paul Krassner
Woody Allen Meets Tongue Fu
Poets' Basement
Wolff, Buknatski and Orloski
Website of the Day
Rocky Mountain
Blues
January 18,
2008
Allan Nairn
Killing
Civilians, Carefully
Ralph Nader
When
the Big Boys Get in Trouble, Who Pays the Ultimate Bill?
Joanne Mariner
Terrorism and Preventative Detention
Alan Farago
The Stimulus and the Meltdown
P. Sainath
Pity the Brahmins
R.F. Blader
Beyond Steinem's Feminism
Andy Worthington
A Letter from Guantánamo
John Jonik
Private Insurance is Bad for Your Health
Brian McKenna
Where Even Sharing is Prohibited: Notes from Inside a Michigan
Women's Prison
Daoud Kuttab
This Time Next Year?
Website of the Day
Those South Carolina Voting Machines
January 17,
2008
Paul Craig
Roberts
Leader
and Vassal
Christopher
Brauchli
The FBI's Bills Come Due
Robert Fantina
Leadership, Bush and the New York Times
Patrick Irelan
Eternal War
Paul A. Moore
When the Rich Pay No Taxes
Stephen Lendman
Institutionalized Spying on Americans
Beena Sarwar
Bhutto and the "State Within a State"
Walter Brasch
Buzzwords in the Echo Chamber: Change and the Establishment
Brenda Norrell
Bush Legacy in Texas Sours
Adam Federman
End of the Left?
Website of the Day
Democrats for Romney
January 16,
2008
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Return
of the Native
Franklin Lamb
The Bombing at Qarantina
Julian Sanchez
David Weigel
Who Wrote Ron Paul's Newsletters?
Sharon Smith
Ron Paul and the Left: a Slippery Slope?
Allan Nairn
Economic Indicator: No Free Lunch, No Free Market
Ayesha Ijaz
Khan
How the American Media Enables Bush's Iran Fixation
Andy Worthington
A Strategic Call to Close Guantánamo
Richard Behan
Nancy Pelosi, You Must Impeach!
Website of the Day
Obama the New JFK? He's Not That Bad!
January 15,
2008
Andrea Peacock
Breach
of Trust in America's Most Toxic Town: How the EPA is Rubbing
Poison Into Libby's Wounds
Wajahat Ali
An Interview with Seymour Hersh on Iraq, Bush Foreign Policy
and the Prospects of War with Iran
Joe Bageant
Getting Out the Bling Vote
Ralph Nader
The Candidate Taboos
John Ross
Zero Hour: NAFTA and Mexico's Agrarian Apocalypse
Elaine Cassel
Jose Padilla vs. John Yoo: Can a National Disgrace be Rectified?
Peter Morici
The Fed Needs More Than a New Communications Strategy
Beena Sarwar
Pakistan's Dirty Tricks Brigade
Robert Weissman
Big Business is Even More Unpopular Than You Thought
Binoy Kampmark
Going Tata in India
Dave Zirin
Dennis Brutus Smacks Down the Hall of Fame
Website of
the Day
David Lynch on the iPhone
January 14,
2008
Ishmael Reed
Ma
and Pa Clinton Flog Uppity Black Man
Roger Morris
Burials in the Sind
Uri Avnery
The
Hands of Esau
Mike Whitney
Bush's Voodoo Stimulus Package
Allan Nairn
General Suharto of Indonesia: One Small Man Leaves a Million
Corpses
William Blum
Oh, By the Way, the Iraqis Don't Really Want Us
Alan Farago
A Subprime Wake Up Call
David Macaray
Are Labor Unions Ready for Prime Time?
Eva Liddell
Getting Drunk with Obama
Zoe Blunt
Road Kill: New Highway Blocked by Protesting Raccoons
Website of the Day
Doug and Andrea Peacock on Grizzlies
January 12
/ 13, 2008
Andrew Cockburn
How
the New England Journal of Medicine Undercounted Iraqi Civilian
Deaths
Saul Landau
60
Years of Empire
Corey D. B. Walker
Barack Obama and the Crisis of the White Intellectual
Col. Dan Smith
Bush, Iran and the Magician of the Tarot
Eric Toussaint
The US Subprime Crisis Goes Global
Ron Jacobs
Television, Murder and Vietnam
Fred Gardner
The People vs. Christopher James Chakos
Stan Cox
Don't Take That Pill!
Jacob G. Hornberger
The Warfare State
Ramzy Baroud
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
Joseph Grosso
The Anglosphere: a Special Relationship of Elites
David Díaz-Arias
Imagining An/Other Latin American Left
Stacey Warde
Before We Move On ...
Dan Bacher
Pumped to Extinction: the Decline of the Delta Smelt
Michael Dickinson
Georgie in Jesusland
Website of
Weekend
CounterPunchers Protest Outside NYT Offices
January 11,
2008
Dave Lindorff
Did
Hillary Really Win New Hampshire? More Questions About Diebold
Voting Machines
Paul Craig
Roberts
No
Escape from War and Unemployment
Andy Worthington
Six Years of Guantánamo
Kenneth Couesbouc
Banking on Thin Ice
Jeff Ballinger
Inside the Vienna Consensus
Christopher
Brauchli
Lethal Injection, the Supremes and China
Manuel Garcia, Jr.
Paying No Attention to the Presidential Campaigns
Andrew Silverstein
Bush's Weepy Visit to Jerasulem
Marwan Bishara
Bush in the Middle East
Robert Weissman
The First Amendment Gone Wild
Patrick Irelan
Damn the Small Boats!
Website of
the Day
Hillary and the Superdelegates: Or Why She Wins Even When She
Loses
January 10,
2008
Alexander Cockburn
Now
Nader Claims He Didn't Endorse Edwards
Bob Wing
Marqueece Harris-Dawson
Race Within the Race: Obama, the NH Vote and the Specter of Tom
Bradley
Michael Donnelly
White Women Gone Wild?
David Macaray
Three Big Reasons for the Decline of Labor Unions
China Hand
Bush's Delusional Policy Pushes Pakistan to Brink of Catastrophe
Ayesha Ijaz Khan
Saudi Arabia and Pakistan: Brotherly, Friendly Countries?
Rannie Amiri
Obama, Man of Kansas or Kenya?
Website of the Day
Iranian Video of the Hormuz Incident
January 9,
2008
Cockburn /
St. Clair
The
Empire Strikes Back
Dave Lindorff
The Bad News from New Hampshire: Death By Triangulation
John Chuckman
Pardon My Laughter: Watching the US Primaries from Canada
James Bovard
Stomping Freedom: Inside the Martial Law Act of 2006
Alan Farago
As Florida Sinks: the View from the Titanic
Russell Mokhiber
Why Picket the New York Times in DC on Friday?
William S. Lind
Kicking the Can Down the Road in Iraq
Peter Morici
Beyond the Sophistry: Why the Trade Deficit Matters
Josh Reubner
Sudan vs. Israel: Double Standard on Divestment
Mike Roselle
The Pursuit of Happiness
Website of the Day
Bottles of Tears on the Wall: Steve Perry on NH
|
February
20, 2008
Hope and the Problem
of Islamic Extremism
The
Pakistani Elections
By FAWZIA AFZAL-KHAN
F ollowing the crackdown on Lal Masjid
(Red Mosque) in Islamabad at the beginning of July 2007, militant
violence increased in Pakistan especially in North Waziristan
and other parts of FATA (Federally Administered Tribal Areas)
-but also, as many Pakistani liberals and allied western elites
have seen to their horror in this past year, it has spread to
places once considered safe from such violence, like Islamabad
itself and adjoining Rawalpindi which have witnessed several
suicide bombings in recent months, as well as Lahore where sixteen
policemen were victims of a suicide bomb blast in front of the
Lahore High Court in early January of this year (Jan 10th, 2008).
Maulana Fazlollah's army of Pakistani Talibans had already sowed
much terror in the Swat valley prior to the Lahore bombing and
thus indeed, according to figures provided by the South Asia
Intelligence Review, approx. 1,580 people died in militant violence
from Jan-Aug 2007 alone-30% civilians, 20% soldiers and 50% militants-an
increase in 30% from the same period of the previous year. The
Associated Press reported on Nov 1st, 2007 that
Pro-Taliban cleric Maulana
Fazlullah has set up a virtual mini-state in Swat, a province
of 4,000 square miles. He uses an FM radio station to help spread
fundamentalist Islam in an area once known to tourists as the
"Switzerland of Asia" for its stunning, snow-covered
mountains. Militias following Fazlullah's teachings, identified
by their shoulder-length hair and camouflage vests over traditional
shalwar kameez clothing, have bombed girls schools and blown
up video and CD shops. They drilled holes into the face of a
20-foot- tall stone Buddha, obliterating the features of the
1,300-year-old sculpture.ii
Many in the Pakistani intelligence
community and general citizenry also blame another Islamist radical,
Baitullah Mehsud (though he denies any involvement)-for being
the mastermind in the assassination of Benazir Bhutto on Dec
29th, 2007.iiiWith her clear statements against Islamic extremism
and its practitioners in Pakistan, Benazir was a clear target
for those whom she would de-fang had she come to power.
While the religious nuts are
nowhere to be seen on Pakistani screens as footage of the day
of elections (Feb 17th 2008) unravels to reveal bhangra-dancing
young men and children celebrating their party's victories at
the election booths (the PML-N in Punjab, Pakistan's most populous
and important province, and the PPP, Benazir Bhutto's party across
the board in all provinces, 87 National Assembly seats going
to the PPP and 66 to the PML-N)-it is important to understand
that these militants are still armed and dangerous, and that
they represent a mind-set which has taken deep root amongst the
poor and the downtrodden segments of Pakistani society. It is
certainly good news that Maulana Fazlur Rahman's coalition Islamist
party-the MMA-has succeeded in winning only three seats in the
272-member National Assembly, and in the NWFP Provincial Assembly-which
is their stronghold, the MMA has won only 8 seats compared to
the secular ANP which has claimed 29 seats total so far. Robert
Reid reporting for the Associated Press writes,
In the north, prominent pro-Taliban
cleric Maulana Fazl-ur Rehman was trailing far behind his rival
from Bhutto's party with more than half the precincts in their
district reporting. "I'm very happy, but we have to struggle,"
said Sadiq ul-Farooq, a senior official in Sharif's party. "We
face serious problems - the economy, law and order and then the
problem of terrorism, which is 70 percent because of President
Musharraf. He has to go. iv
While Farooq's contention-that
70% of the problem of terrorism and rise of extremism in
Pakistan can be laid at the door of Musharraf's policies-is echoed
across the Pakistani spectrum-and that with Musharraf's defeat
at the polls (the party he has backed, the PML-Q coming in a
distant third in the elections)-the Islamist coalition has lost
its base and official patronage-may very well be true, the problem
of Islamic extremism remains a thorny dilemma that needs to be
kept front and center at a moment many hope will be the beginning
of better times for Pakistan. The militants in the Northern areas
are still armed, and the extremist ideology they have spawned
and have themselves become pawns of as they train young folks
to become suicide bombers in the name of God and Islam, needs
to be de-fanged and derailed through careful planning which must
now move beyond the short-sighted military operations mounted
against them in Pakistan's tribal areas, as well as in Swat more
recently, and against the Red Mosque adherents last July by the
Pakistan army under President Musharraf's leadership. Indeed,
what I will present in this article is material gathered through
recent interviews with the former director of the women's wing
of the Red Mosque, Umme Hassan, and a young woman named Misbah
(not her real name)-to show that the extremist ideology has infiltrated
deep into the minds and hearts of not just jihadi young men but
women as well, and that until this brand of thinking is countered
by another more tolerant and humanistic message based on equality
and justice for all of Pakistan's citizenry, the Islamist threat
will not simply disappear with the new ruling dispensation poised
to take power following the elections.v
Umme Hassan was the principal
and founder of the Jamia Hafsa-the women's seminary-lying adjacent
to the Red Mosque in Islamabad's prestigious F-7 sector, close
to the Army GHQ. She is the wife of its leading cleric, Maulana
Abdul Aziz, who was the leader also of the men's seminary, the
Jamia Fareedia, and who, during the Army operation against the
Red Mosque last July, was captured while (according to journalists
and army sources on the scene)-trying to escape the premises
ignominiously clad in a burqa, and is currently in jail as his
case is being tried.vi His younger brother-and Umme Hassan's
brother-in-law-the more charismatic "public face" of
the Red Mosque Islamists, Ghazi Abdul Rashid, was killed during
this army operation which lasted a full week (july 3rd-10th).
As I entered through the gates
of the house in the back lanes of the former mosque where Umme
Hassan now lives and where she agreed to meet me briefly in January
while I was in Pakistan, I saw plastered on the gate a poster
of Ghazi Abdul Rashid, his face smiling beatifically through
a screen of dripping blood, the caption declaring him to be "shaheed"-a
martyr in the cause of Islam. Once inside, past the suspicious
armed and bearded guards, I was welcomed by Umm Hassan in the
front bedroom-simply adorned with two beds and an armoire, a
humble music system on the mantelpiece playing some religious
music, which she later told me were "naats" or hymns"
being sung in praise of her brother-in-law and her own dead son-a
mere lad in his twenties who was also slain during the Red Mosque
debacle. She claimed that these tapes were gifts prepared by
the "many people of Pakistan who loved and admired Ghazi
and appreciated his sacrifice in the true cause, as they did
my son's."
In the brief conversation that
ensued between her, myself and three other young women gathered
in the room, one of them Umme Hassan's own daughter-this, prior
to their all going off to court to appear at one of Abdul Aziz's
hearings-she and the other women emphatically denounced the Army
and Musharraf as devils; Umme Hassan actually compared Musharraf
to Dracula! Her contention was that if indeed, they (the Jamia
Hafsa and Lal Masjid seminarians) were in possession of the type
and amount of ammunitions that the army claimed they had when
the army launched the offensive against them back in July, how
come they were never used, or least were so paltry that they
barely lasted against the army for a week? She went on to say-and
in this she was corroborated by the other young women-that her
brother-in-law had maintained from the start of the offensive
that the army was going to plant ammunitions inside the building
to show the outside world that the Red Mosque Islamists were
diehard militants and indeed had been infiltrated by foreign
Taliban and Al-Qaeda elements-hence, they had to be eliminated.
"That is why my brother-in-law,
Shaheed Ghazi Abdul Rashid-and my own husband too-kept asking
for journalists to be allowed in to the mosque's premises, so
they could see for themselves that we were not armed militants,
but peaceful worshippers of the one true God and one true Islam."
She continued angrily, "It is Musharraf and his thug government
that wants to spread chaos in this land, not us. We have not
plundered the coffers of this state-we have not asked our followers
to spread fire in Pakistan-like the army or the PPP. We did not
kill anyone, until we were attacked. And," here she demanded
an answer, "if as they say, we had so much 'asla'-ammunition'-then
how come we lasted in there only seven days? Where did all that
ammunition go?" One of the other girls let out a sarcastic
laugh, "it doesn't take a genius to figure out who was behind
this. I mean, why were the media not allowed in to the premises
till two days after the operation was over? By then the army
jawans had already gone in, twisted fans, burnt our armoires
and other furniture, including religious books worth a crore
of rupees, and then they had the nerve to claim that they had
found thousands of CDs preaching jihadist warfare! Does that
make any sense? Why only these Cds were left to be found while
all else was razed without a trace? It was the army tankers who
sprinkled petrol all around our mosque and seminary and told
the world it was ours!"
By now, the other women in
the room had all warmed to the act and began pouring their hearts
out. One started crying remembering how, "Sanya was martyred.
She had gone upstairs to do her wazoo when she was shot by a
sniper's bullet-clean through the heart. She went to her death
smiling, "God is here."
When I asked Umme Hassan why
her people refused to enter into a dialogue with the army and
the civil society members like Bilquis Edhi who reportedly tried
to talk to them and come to some agreement, she retorted, "what
nonsense they would have you and others believe! There were never
any 'muzakiraat' bibi-no, it was all a farce, meant to impress
the world that we were being recalcitrant. But we were supposed
to talk to these people through megaphones! Can you have a discussion
like that? " "But your husband-I mean" I said,
somewhat haltingly since it was so clearly an embarrassing thing
to bring up, "Maulana Abdul Aziz, he absconded from the
scene, leaving all of you women and children so vulnerable-and
left wearing a burqa! How do you explain that? Wasn't that shameful
on his part?" Umm Hassan laughed unexpectedly at my allegation,
surprising me with her reaction. " My dear lady," said
she, obviously pitying my naivete, "my husband was asked
to come out wearing that burqa, by the army folks who said they
wanted to negotiate with him, but without anyone knowing. And
we believed them, like fools. So when he went outside, accompanied
by our daughter, they nabbed him and then paraded him on TV like
that to make him-and all of us-look really bad."
The remainder of our time was
spent with Umm Hassan and her cohorts talking bitterly about
the Bush-Mush-Blair axis of evil, and how they must all be exposed
as enemies of Islam, and of the people of third world Muslim
countries like Pakistan. All these leaders-and their followers
here like Musharraf, and even the PPP and other parties-need
to be exposed for what they all are: unbelievers who hate the
followers of Deen, of Truth.
Given the interesting turn in Pakistani politics, with the routing
of Musharraf's backers, many analysts believe that the religious
parties and the Islamist extremists they used for their own ends,
have had their support bases cut off, and will, if the winners
form a stable coalition-be removed as a threat from the arena
of Pakistani society. Rashed Rahman, a senior Pakistani journalist,
said to me on the morning after the election (Feb 19th), that
he believes that the new ruling coalition of secular democratic
parties which have swept the polls, if this coalition can indeed
form a "stable government in the center," will lead
to talks between their representatives and those of the local
Taliban in the provinces as well, especially in the tribal regions
where these latter folks have more of a following or base than
anywhere else. He claims that through a process of local contacts
and persuasive dialogue, the local Taliban element can and will
be "defused." Especially if-and here again Rahman believes
it can be so-the army is persuaded to adopt different tactics
from the scorch-earth policies they have so far and quite unsuccessfully
been pursuing against the local militants. vii
Thus, Umme Hassan and her ilk's
desire to "expose and weaken" the ruling tyrants of
this world and of Pakistan may very well come true. But if indeed,
Musharraf and his government have played the militant angle to
both strengthen these elements and later destroy them as well
(with obviously uneven and unpredictable results as was the case
once the Afghan Taliban jihadis created with the help of the
US were let out of the bag and then couldn't be put back again)-then,
while it may be true that the governmental support which these
militant groups were at least covertly enjoying is now going
to be perhaps completely withdrawn, it does not necessarily follow
that the jihadist/Islamist threat is therefore over.
To illustrate my thesis regarding
the deep inroads that jihadist Islamic thinking has made on the
psyches of the average Pakistani citizens hailing from modest
villages dotting the agricultural belt of the country, I would
like to draw your attention to a few of the statements and sentiments
expressed by a young woman in her late teens who was given the
name "Misbah" by a journalist for BBC Urdu Service,
who interviewed her following this young woman's "escape"
from the Red Mosque after the militants there were captured and
the mosque closed down last July. The interview was conducted
in August and September of 2007, and later published in Urdu,
but I managed through a friend's help to get it translated into
English and will attempt here to summarize and quote what I consider
to be rather telling passages from it.
The first of these reveals
the mindset that I am calling "Islamist/jihadist."
Upon being asked how it feels to be home in her parents village
and to be the object of concern of so many family and friends
who keep pouring in to inquire after her since her ordeal in
the Red Mosque/Jamia Hafsa operation, Misbah, replies fervently
that,
I met with my mother first
after returning from Jamia. Every one is coming to meet me. When
I meet them, I wished to be martyred. Had I been a martyr, and
these people come here, I would have been more happy. That would
have been the real contentment. I am not satisfied now.
While it is a common perception
amongst the liberal elite that the female students trapped in
Jamia Hafsa during the Lal Masjid operation had been taken hostage
by the 'extremists' and were forced to stay there so that they
could be used as human shields, Misbah's comments leave no such
indication despite her being there for the fateful seven days.
Rather, she was a bit dejected, according to her interviewer,
repeatedly voicing her desire for martyrdom over escape.
"We also wanted to carry
out suicide attacks but we were short of weapons. We asked for
weapons from Aapi Jan (wife of Maulana Abdul Aziz, Umme Hassan).
We, all 30 students left at the end, wanted to carry out suicide
attacks but Aapi Jan said that weapons were too short even for
the 'brothers' (Male students of the Lal Masjid)", Misbah
continued. "Where can I provide you weapons from",
Misbah quoted Aapi Jan as having said. "We were in good
faith and expected that we will get the reward even for our desire
to be martyred. We were confident that if given a chance, we
can carry out suicide attacks".
Despite the somewhat confusing
syntax, it is clear that several months after the operation and
the closure of the Red Mosque and both the male and female seminaries
attached to it, Misbah still believes in Jihad as she did before
the Lal Masjid operation when she used to chant jihadi sentiments
along with other female students of Jamia Hafsa while holding
a bamboo in her hand outside the Lal Masjid.
According to her interviewer,
Misbah soon started speaking without any prompting:
They [Musharraf's army] have
demolished Lal Masjid and Jamia Hafsa and now I wish that more
Lal Masjids and Jamia Hafsas are built in every nook and corner
of the country. I wish now if God permits me, to work with the
same 'Jihadi' passion as before back there. If that cannot happen,
I will immediately open my own madrassa to impart 'Jihadi' training
there.
Misbah's comments give the
lie to Umm Hassan's claims that her outfit and that of her husband
were not imparting any politics of hate or encouraging their
impressionable wards to become suicide bombers and "spread
fire" and destruction in the country. Yet, through her own
words, it is clear that Misbah-and presumably other women students
like herself (and there were at least 600 inside by most counts)-felt
they were doing nothing wrong; rather, they were the victims
of a Yezid-like tyrant, who, along with other corrupt and immoral
government officials, was out to "get them" and their
heroic leaders. When their electricity and then their water supply
is cut off and tear gas fired on them by the army rangers, Misbah
draws comparisons between the army's tactics and those of the
tyrant Yezid who attacked the true believers and innocent victims
of anti-Islamic tyranny, the brothers Hussain and Hassan:
There were no basements in
that building. The government functionaries dubbed the classrooms
as the basements and those whom they called channels were rooms
in use of our teacher (Maulana). Electricity remained available
till Wednesday.
It was a bit awkward when they
cut off electricity. They did just as Yazid had done. Water also
was not available and now they have cut off electricity. We could
not do anything but just pray to God. We had a torch. The lighter,
and we all were dependent on that. When we had to offer the prayer
we used that. We did not do ablution only to save water. We mostly
did 'Tayammum' to offer prayers.
Aapi Jan did not tell us about
the operation. We came to know about that when they were to carry
out the operation there on Tuesday. The dialogue continued all
the night on Monday. We came to know that but late. We had juice
and slanty crisps to eat. On Thursday, we used that but after
that they also hurled bombs on the stores and where we used to
prepare food. After that we faced starvation.
Soon thereafter, the end of
the operation drew nigh, and many of the girl students left the
madrassa on the urging of their parents. Misbah reports the feeling
of dejection that came over those like herself who stayed back,
and the feeling that they were being betrayed. She claims that
the girls who left did so as a result of parental pressure, not
because they wanted to.
On Thursday, twenty girls left
the Jamia for homes. After that we were thirty left. Parents
continued to come and take their daughters back to home. They
were weeping, insisting that they were there to meet martyrdom
but their parents took them away forcibly.
Raza Khan asks a crucial question-and
provides some answers to it-in his astute analysis of the Jamia
Hafsa phenomenon on the pages of You! Magazine. He writes,
It is very important to explore
why such a large number of girls joined Jamia Hafsa in the first
place, and then how many among them got enamoured by militancy.
It's common knowledge that most of the girls at Jamia Hafsa hailed
from poverty stricken families and far flung areas. A senior
interior ministry official on condition of anonymity revealed
that most of the girls were from the Frontier, Hazara and Potohar
region including Upper Dir, Battagram, Manshera, Swat and Kohistan.
A significant number of girls joined Jamia Hafsa from conservative
areas like North, South Waziristan and Bajaur tribal agencies.
It's interesting to note that one of the militant girls, who
was like a ringleader, hailed from Mal Khel tribe of Mehsud tribe
in South Waziristan. All the above-mentioned areas are very backward
and the majority of their inhabitants live below the poverty
line. Facilities at Jamia Hafsa like boarding, food and stipends
allured a large number of female students towards the seminary
as most of them belonged to downtrodden families. Being indebted
to the Ghazi brothers and Umme Hassan, wife of the chief cleric
Ghazi Abdul Aziz, it's but natural that these girls were easily
indoctrinated by the militant and extremist views of their benefactors.viii
Indeed, what is even more astonishing
is that so many of them, like Misbah, remain loyal, months later,
to the militant and coercive agendas of the Lal Masjid-Jamia
Hafsa administration. Khan underscores the same point in his
essay by telling his readers:
As an 18-year-old girl speaking in a Potohari accented Urdu told
You! "Even if the madrassah is demolished, the thinking
of its girl students would remain unchanged. No one can scratch
from our minds the spirit of what we learnt from our teachers."
Reportedly some girls coming out of Jamia Hafsa, and upon reaching
their ancestral areas, warned of suicide attacks if the government
did not spare the clerics of Lal Masjid-Jamia Hafsa.
So the question that remains
relevant and I would argue, urgent to ask today, after the jubilation
over the election results simmers down, is this: how are people
like these girl students of madrassas like the Jamia Hafsa, and
their many more male counterparts all over the country, to be
brought back into a more secular, more democratic framework?
While Raza Khan suggests that much of this "rehabilitation"
process has to occur inside the homes and at the hands of the
parents of these young people who were simply "abandoned"
to the coercion of the madrassa forces due to inability or selfishness
of parents to provide for their material and educational needs,
it seems to me that the problem is greater than simply one of
parental neglect which can be "fixed" by the remedy
of "parental love." Thus, while I do agree with Khan
that,
It is indeed a matter of concern
how these girls, after having being indoctrinated with extremist
dogmas and tactics in Jamia Hafsa are going to be re-integrated
into the society
I disagree that simply providing
"full-scale psychological therapy" and " the opportunities
of good education and love," will do the trick. Or that
it is now the "responsibility of the parents to reintegrate
their daughters in their respective social set ups."
Instead, I would argue that
the task at hand is one for which the next government of Pakistan,
being formed even as I write these words, is going to have to
take the largest share of responsibility, by moving the nation
toward a welfare state system, one in which the state provides
a healthy secular-oriented educational system for all its citizens,
free and accessible medical care for all, and employment opportunities
that deliver wages that people can live on with a modicum of
dignity and self-respect. Then, and maybe then, we can hope to
see the tiger of extremism tamed back into a household cat, if
we are lucky.
Otherwise, I am afraid that,
as Raza Khan also underscores at one point,
For a variety of reasons the
attendants of Jamia Hafsa could fall prey to the extremist and
militant groups again since the seed has already been sown in
their minds.
Indeed, like him, I feel this
is the biggest challenge for the parents and relatives of these
underprivileged youth of Pakistan, but also for philanthropists
and others concerned with and committed to altering the class
stratified nature of Pakistani society, the ultimate responsibility
for which lies with the state. That the average Pakistani struggles
with issues of basic survival, facing deep iniquities in the
economic class system of the country, is amply brought to light
in a recent article on Pakistan by Qalander Bux Memon, writing
in the journal Naked Punch Asia:
In Pakistan, outside utility
stores queues of four hundred people have been common for the
three months. Prices of basic goods have doubled in the last
six months driving more people into poverty and hunger. For
example, six months ago one could purchase one kilo gram of flour
for 12 rupees (used to make chapatti--a staple food), one kilo
gram of rice for 35 rupees, and one cylinder of gas (used for
cooking by the majority of people) for 40 rupees. Today, the
price for the same amount of flour is 25 rupees, rice stands
at 60 rupees and cylinder gas stands at 120 rupees. The hardest
affected have been the 40 million of Pakistan's 160 million
people who are living below the poverty line (less than a dollar
a day) it must be borne in mind that the poorest spend between
50-60 per cent of their income on food in normal times. Clearly,
the inflationary increase in the price of stable food by curtailing
the money spent on education and healthcare further compounds
the miseries of these 40 million Pakistanis and their children--thus
condemning yet another generation. ix
I would simply add that we
are indeed condemning these 40 million to extremist ideologies
which promise them some hope of reward and justice in the next
life since all they see around them is injustice and corruption
in this one. The challenge we face is to rectify these wrongs
now, so that a better world can be created here on earth. Let
the new Pakistani government pay heed to this challenge, and
fill the vacuum that militant ideologues and extremist ideologies
have been so quick to exploit in these past scary decades.
Dr. Fawzia Afzal-Khan is Professor of English at Montclair
State University, New Jersey. She is currently on sabbatical
in Pakistan, lecturing at Forman Christian College, working on
a research project on a cultural gendered history of Pakistan
via the iconic figure of the late great female singer Madame
Noor Jehan, singing revolutionary songs and protesting against
the Musharraf regime alongside student and civil society groups
demanding a restoration of the judiciary and of the pre-Nov 3rd
constitution. She can be reached at fak0912@yahoo.com
Notes
i Fast Update/no.4/july-aug
2007
ii http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21583357
iii According to Sohail Abdul
Nasir writing on July 5, 2006,
Baitullah Mehsud is one of the most prominent
leaders among the local Taliban, virtually governing all of South
Waziristan agency in the northern tribal areas. www.jamestown.org/
Anthony Bruno, in "Who
is Baitullah Mehsud? Part 1" published in Crime Library,
quotes Mehsud from an interview the latter gave to the BBC in
Jan 2007:
Allah on 480 occasions in the
Holy Koran extols Muslims to wage jihad. We only fulfill
God's orders. Only jihad can bring peace to the world...We will
continue our struggle until foreign troops are thrown out. Then
we will attack them in the US and Britain until they either accept
Islam or agree to pay jizya (a tax in Islam for non-Muslims living
in an Islamic state)." These are the words of Baitullah
Mehsud, militant leader of the Mehsud tribe of the Pashtun ethnic
group, from a BBC interview in January 2007.
http://www.crimelibrary.com/
iv Robert Reid, "Pakistan
opposition heads toward victory" The Associated Press
Feb. 18, 2008,
v I have written about the
Jamia Hafsa phenomenon earlier. See my "What
Lies
Beneath: Dispatches from the Frontlines of the Burqa Brigade"
in Counterpunch.org, 7-8 July; which was reprinted in
altered form in The Friday
Times of Pakistan ( "Operation Not So-Silent: Meeting
Ghazi Sahib," July 13-19, 2007, vol xix, no. 21), and more
recently, in Social Identities (Routledge/Francis and
Taylor, January 2008.)
vi In "A dangerous game",
an editorial in The Dawn newspaper of Pakistan, the editor informs
us that Maulana Abdul Aziz was almost issued a release order
by the current administration prior to the general elections,
possibly for the purpose of garnering a few extra votes for themselves
from their Islamist constituency:
DOES Chaudhry Shujaat realise what a dangerous game he is playing?
He and several PML personalities have met Maulana Abdul Aziz
of Lal Masjid fame and there are reports that the hard-line cleric
is to be released. Whether or not he is guilty of any crime is
to be decided by the court. But there are cases against him relating
to his involvement in the Lal Masjid insurgency last summer.
The 'deeds' of the brainwashed commandos wearing polka dotted
kaffiyehs and led by him and his dead brother, Ghazi Abdul Rashid,
have included arson, murder, kidnapping (inc |
