A host of confusing signals is coming out of the US which reflect concerns to ensure its security. President Barack Obama announced, as usual, a nicely-worded doctrine which would anger the rightwing while inducing the thinking Americans to ponder where they are headed. What they are reaping now is what was sown by the neocons and their accomplices, as George W. Bush appears to have been only a cover-up for the promotion of a certain lobby.

The Americans themselves and all their well wishers must be feeling sore at how they were fooled to grant two terms to a guy who had no inkling of what was happening.

Now their new President has to tell them that it was ruinous for the US to talk like “you are either with us or against us”, as it may have suited a cowboy of yore but not an occupant of the White House. As things go awry in Afghanistan and regular blood-letting in Iraq by the status quo, the US commanders and their troops are feeling the heat all the way.

What to talk of south, even north is acting hostile after about nine years of foreign occupation. In this scenario, it is even more demoralising for the US that the new British coalition is highly conscious of the poor progress of this war, as well as the history of the region.

Surely a visit by UK’s foreign and defence secretaries would have made the US miss Tony Blair, the ‘lapdog’ who allegedly coaxed up all controversial intelligence with the connivance of Italy’s Berlu-sconi to mislead the world on Bush’s gaffes.

The NATO troops in Afghanistan also appear to be fed up as all kinds of progress is drying up. Lately, their commander has emphatically called for the convening of Loya Jirga to reach an understanding among all parties to the war. This is what Karzai has been advocating which the US hesitates to support openly, while the Taliban have cold-shouldered it.

The fact that even the Saudis support a negotiated settlement in Afghanistan is very important, more so as they have a great understanding with the US on important issues. So the troops deployed by the US must be under tremendous pressure due to the ‘enemy attacks’ all over that gets compounded by the uncertainty in their camp. Its net result is that generally the EU countries are unwilling to risk any more troops in Afghanistan.

Chancellor Merkel’s Christian Democrats have suffered some electoral reverses which represent the despondency about their troops’ involvement in Afghanistan. The German President’s resignation would only boil the cauldron further.

A similar cost had to be borne by Gordon Brown and the Labour Party in UK, mainly, for the same reason. This must be an eye-opener for President Obama, who has the requisite intellect and experience, to be able to recognise what is cooking for his country. So, unlike his prankish predecessor, he has been trying assiduously to build bridges with various countries, who had been alienated during the eight years when the neocon paradigm prevailed.

Apparently, the damage done to the US credibility can hardly be undone. Accordingly, Hillary Clinton claimed that the US is braced for working in a multilateral world.

Nevertheless, the US appears to be utterly confused. Greg Miller writing in the Washington Post, over the weekend, blew the whistle on the planning being done to attack Pakistan, possibly North Wazir-istan, in case some successful hit is made by Al-Qaeda in America.

Recently, CIA Chief Leon Panetta accompanied by National Security Advisor Jim Jones flew to Islamabad to talk about the issue. Thus the incumbent Pakistani government hit by governance issues and growing discontent among the people, due to the worsening law and order situation, killings and inflation, has to make some serious decisions which would have long-term fallouts. Its failure to give protection to the minorities is writ large all over and makes a great embarrassment for all Pakistanis.

The way the trouble is brewing in Karachi, we will have to pull up a solution or we could end up being in dire straits which would only help the extremists. In this backdrop, an expedition by the US in Pakistan’s territory directly killing people and causing other damage would carry long-term costs for us, as well as America.

The US appears to be losing goodwill in our area which also opposes those who are killing Pakistanis through terrorism. So much so that the 9/11 official story is being generally questioned. BBC recently indicated that Philip Alston, UN Rapp-orteur on extra-judicial, summary or arbitrary executions, has denounced the “drone attacks being launched in Pakistan regularly.”

Such attacks make many more Taliban in Afghanistan and helps their ilk in Pakistan. It is also being believed here that Bin Laden is dead and his bogey is being kept up as a devious game. If the US gives the impression of being afraid of Al-Qaeda even without Bin Laden, what message would it send to the world?

The US has to organise its intelligence services which appear to be facing a crisis, as is indicated by Dennis Blair’s resignation. Incidents like Shahzad’s alleged crude attempted blast in New York have to be intercepted by an army of agencies maintained by it.

The US bully, Israel, has landed navy commandoes on a peace flotilla which was meant to aid the beleaguered Palestinians. This is in the tradition of Hitler or a mad Brigadier Dyer in India, who had opened fire in Amritsar in 1920s on ordinary civilians to teach them a lesson.

The Israeli commandoes killed 20 peace activists, mostly Turkish, which has emphatically denounced the atrocity. For Taliban such a crisis caused by Israeli arrogance, prompted by US support, would be a God sent break and they will get thousands of volunteers, initially, in Afghanistan.

It is customary to blame the owner of a mad dog when it attacks somebody. Hence the US, as the only sponsor of Israel, would earn considerable opprobrium all over but more so in Muslims countries.

President Obama must find some way of putting Israel, the US dog, on leash; otherwise Muslims the world over, as yet weak, may lose their faith in it. Such disgust could open up many more Afghanistans!

The writer is a former Secretary Interior.

ALAM RIND

The Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) is an international organisation with permanent delegation to the United Nations. It is a representative body of Muslims that seeks to combine the voice of its 57 member states to safeguard their interests and to ensure progress. Muslims account for about 25 percent of the world population and are endowed with great economic wealth.

It is also important to mention that the Philippines and India aspire to join OIC, as its membership will open the gateway for cooperation with the Muslim World – a lucrative and rich consumer market. In this context, countries desirous of seeking its membership must recognise that one of the primary responsibilities of OIC is to protect the interest of the Muslim world.

Thus, in consonance with its mandate, the 35th Session of Council of Foreign Ministers of OIC held at Kampala, Uganda, in 2008 reaffirmed its support for the people of Jammu and Kashmir for their inalienable right to self-determination. They had also hoped that the next round of talks between Pakistan and India would result in substantial success on outstanding issues, including the core issue of Kashmir.

During the 36th Session of the Council of Foreign Ministers held at Damascus in 2009, a serious note was taken of India’s apathy to redressing Muslim grievances caused by the destruction of the Babri Mosque in 1992 and also the Islamic Complex at Charar-e-Sharif.

The council noted with regret that the 16th Anniversary of Babri Mosque has passed without concrete steps been taken by for its reconstruction and the punishment of those who were responsible for the act and for killing of thousand of Muslims afterwards.

The council urged the international community, especially Muslim States, to exert utmost effort to protect the basic rights of the Kashmiri people, including their right to self-determination according to UN Resolutions. However, these stances were strongly refuted by the Indian government. India’s obstinate attitude is definitely not going to get it closer to the Muslim world.

The Kashmir issue and Indian atrocities against Muslims is once again being raised at the 37th Session of the Council of OIC Foreign Ministers being held at Dushanbe, Tajikistan, from May 18 to 20 May, 2010.

Violence in India against the Muslims is being persistently carried out throughout the last 63 years. To add to their miseries, acts of blasphemy in India are also on the rise. Interestingly, India does not have blasphemy law.

The courts prohibit blasphemy by treating it as an instance of hate speech; virtually encouraging blasphemy as it carries no or very mild punishment. Under the circumstances, those who wish to perpetrate hate would resort to the acts of blasphemy.

A recent example is the posting of a cartoon depicting Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) at the notice board of the district collector’s office in Dhule. This infuriated the Muslims, which eventually led to social unrest injuring 22 people. Lately, a book captioned Crescent over the World, a compilation of the articles of Ibn Warraq, Rushdie and Nasreen, and also containing blasphemous cartoons published in the Danish press in 2005, was reprinted and distributed in India.

Thus, Muslims around the globe will never forgive the Indian government for its apathy to punish the individuals involved in the acts of profanity.
So if India wants to benefit from the huge economic potential of the Islamic world they ought to learn to respect Muslims and people of other religions.

Non-resolution of the Kashmir issue and atrocities against Muslims are of grave concern to the Islamic world, but the acts of profanity are simply unpardonable.

If India desires to benefit from the wealth of Muslims, it needs to resolve disputes with its neighbours, extend right of self-determination to the people of Kashmir, improve the condition of its Muslim minority, restore Muslims’ holy sites in original condition and come hard on those who initiate and support blasphemy in India.

The writer is a freelance columnist.

Right after the forces of General Fidel Castro in the Bay of Pigs repulsed the American attempt at an invasion of Cuba, then President John F Kennedy said: “There was an old saying that victory has a hundred fathers and defeat is an orphan.” This was first said by Count Caleazzo Ciano, an Italian diplomat and son-in-law of Il Duce, Benito Mussolini. The passage is found as an entry of September 9, 1942 of the Ciano Diaries.

Ciano later fled to Germany after Mussolini was captured and executed by partisans. Adolf Hitler and German Foreign Minister Joachim Von Ribbentrop blamed Ciano for the defeat of Mussolini and he, too, was executed for this. We recall the words of Ciano because they sound apropos in the wake of the victory of Senator Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III for the presidency and the possible defeat of Senator Manuel “Mar” Roxas for the Vice Presidency.

Already several factions in the camp of Senator Aquino are jockeying for positions, for themselves and/or for their protégés in the new administration, broadly hinting of course of their contribution to the campaign. Among these are the Hyatt Ten who resigned en masse from the Cabinet of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo in the wake of the “Hello, Garci” scandal and tried to set up Vice President Noli de Castro for the presidency. Their attempt was frustrated, and they segued into supporting the candidacy of Aquino.

Roxas who had earlier announced plans to make a run for the presidency himself, started Aquino’s drive by “sliding down” instead and announced his support for his Senate colleague’s candidacy. With Roxas behind in the unofficial count, commentators backing Aquino’s bid have been gingerly disputing each other as to why Senator Roxas found himself in the hole he is now.

As Congress prepared to do its constitutional duty to canvass the votes for the two national positions, there were fears that the new Vice President may not be proclaimed. To mark time, the media have been concentrating on stories about why the first automated elections may not be as successful as it was cracked up to be. Peripheral issues, an increase in electoral protests and supposed failures in some mechanisms to check the accuracy and veracity of the results continue to float but the people may rest assured that there will be a new President, at least, when July 1 comes around.

For Aquino, the 100-day honeymoon is already in full swing even before his official term has started. As is usual under the circumstances, there is no lack of speculations as to who will be named into the official family of the new President. The President-elect cannot confirm or deny any of the speculations until he can make the official announcements after he has taken his oath of office.

Former President Fidel Ramos was a very minority president, having won with only some 23 percent of the vote. And yet by dint of sharp political leadership, he was able to set up a very strong administration. Aquino may be said to have won by the biggest landslide so far, but he is still a minority president having less that 50 percent of the vote.

More people voted against him than for him. And with opposition (so far split) groups threatening to gain control of the Senate and the House, Aquino may have to do some fancy political stepping. But that’s too early in the day to think about. We shall see after the standard 100-day honeymoon for new office holders.

- Manila Times Online

If ever there was a reaffirmation of the present independence of the judiciary and its absolute determination to dispense justice come what may, it was the decision of a three-member bench of the Supreme Court to reject the federal and Punjab governments’ appeals against the release of Hafiz Saeed by the Lahore High Court.

As the three member bench, headed by Justice Nasir-ul-Mulk and including Justice Jawad S Khawaja and Justice Rehmat Hussain Jafferi, so correctly pointed out, the government cannot confine a person simply on the basis of a mere stipulation and so far the state had failed to provide any hard evidence linking Hafiz Saeed, earlier head of the now-banned Lashkar-i-Taiba and now heading the Jammat-ud-Dawa, to the Mumbai terror attacks or to having links with Al Qaeda.

The Pakistani state, willy nilly, has been under pressure from the US and India to act against Hafiz Saeed using the Mumbai terrorism; but for once the rule of law has been held and good or bad a Pakistani citizen has neither been “rendered” to the US or India nor been made to “disappear”.

Justice is not always popular, but that is what makes it so valuable for the protection of the ordinary person. Obviously the US and India will be displeased – especially the US where justice is certainly not being meted out to the likes of Dr Aafia Siddiqui and other Pakistani-origin US residents and citizens who are being picked up and incarcerated at will under the infamous US Homeland Security set up.

If ever there was an argument against the jury system it is the manner in which the juries function in the US! In any event, while many in Pakistan have a strong dislike for the creed of Hafiz Saeed, if one wants rule of law and an independent judiciary one must concede justice for all no matter how distasteful that may be for some.

Equally important, the independence of the judiciary comes at a time when the political leadership, following the Musharraf regime’s policies, has laid itself prostrate before the US and conceded everything demanded of it. This has included endangering its own citizens’ security through following a US-dictated military-centric anti-terrorism policy; and undermining the citizens’ economic wellbeing through the commitments on VAT and ever higher power prices along with food, energy and water scarcities.

So it is doubly comforting to know that at least the senior judiciary is committed to dispensing justice and is not vulnerable to external pressures being brought upon the state of Pakistan because of the rather evident weaknesses of the present NRO-tainted regime.

It has been interesting to see how, while the government has been playing politics, creating propaganda hypes and doling out state largesse with no questions asked, all in order to shift public sentiment away from support of the judiciary towards support for the President and his loyalists, the judiciary has carried on providing justice and asserting the rule of law.

That is why it is the government’s over-zealous supporters who are finding themselves in a soup, one way or another. In a desperate bid to argue the case for presidential immunity, Ms Wahab has created a religious controversy in which she now claims her life may be in danger! As for Babar Awan – whose doctorate has been called into question – his sound and fury seemed to have ebbed away fast within the Supreme Court before the full bench hearing on the NRO.

For days he had been holding forth on how ministers were not answerable to the courts and how the Swiss cases issue was a dead one and so on. Yet there he was appearing before a court as a minister! All that bombast vanished before the Supreme Court where he was quizzed not on the immunity issue but on the $ 60 million that belonged to the people of Pakistan – a figure he was reminded was in the NAB records.

He had not come prepared to argue any legal points because he thought he was going to do political grandstanding but the Judges of the SC never provided that political opportunity because of their mature handling of the issues and their focus on legalities and the rights of the Pakistani people to be protected against graft and corruption.

All Awan could whimper was to question the $ 60 million amount – as if corruption was okay if the amount was “small”! The message conveyed by that single absurdity revealed the thinking of the man and his political bosses – that if the amount was less than $ 60 million, the corruption was acceptable! And what of the band of supporters who were seen jostling for position next to Awan outside the SC so that the President could see they had come to lend his loyal man support, on the television screens? They probably must have felt rather sheepish at the turn of events within the court room! Perhaps if the Law Minister had focused more on law and legalities, and less on hysterical utterances, he would have saved himself a lot of embarrassment and avoided having to eat humble pie by seeing himself appear before the courts despite his boasts to the contrary.

So all the effort of the government to malign the judiciary through the use of the media, some lawyers and of course the ministerial and other party loyalists seems to have fallen by the wayside because, as the CJP declared, justice will be done at all costs. The Judiciary is not out to curry political favour, but to assert the rule of law which alone can provide protection to the ordinary citizens against their abuse by the government and organs of the state.

So, even when one is getting disheartened by what is not being addressed by the judiciary, or by some of the decisions taken, or the seeming inability of the judiciary to implement its decisions in the face of government defiance, it is vital to remember that all these issues to some extent reflect the difficulty in enforcing the rule of law, the assertion of an independent judiciary in a corrupt and weakly structured state system, and the total absence of effective, let alone good, governance.

Justice and rule of law are the only way we can break the cycle of corruption, nepotism and state excesses that have been hindering our progress as an independent nation for over six decades. Perhaps we are finally going to be able to free ourselves of this malaise?

Following the recent outburst of anger and hatred across the globe, one can’t help but think “has everybody completely lost it?”. It’s a pretty simple question running through our minds with a pretty straightforward answer: “Yes, the average brain has finally shown its limits of shallow idiocy”.

May 20th, 2010. No, it’s not Mother’s Day or some random country’s Independence Day, it’s “Everyone Draw Muhammad Day”. Why? Because some intolerant Gori named Molly Norris sitting in a nook in Seattle had a brilliantly stupid idea. After the outrage shown by Muslim bloggers at the depiction of the Holy Prophet in the popular TV show, South Park, the said Cartoonist decided to ‘teach Muslims a lesson’. Seriously? This plan of yours really isn’t working, Molly.

Currently, 37,507 people on Facebook are currently members of the page, and counting. Where will the madness end? For those who claim it’s a much needed route to real freedom of speech, please think again. You want your freedom of speech and expression by hurting the feelings of millions of Muslims around the world who did nothing to you. Is that really a positive turn to the situation? Religion is a personal choice. It is not something to be mocked at.

I disagree with those around the world writing extremely offensive comments about Islam under the banner of “free speech”. If you really want free speech, then why not call an African American a ‘nigger’ to their face? Or make fun of the Holocaust to a Jew? Or let those held captive in Guantanamo preach what they want? Why don’t you? Answer: Because you make the rules on morality and freedom. And everyone is supposed to follow them.

The problem with the world today is that most of us have lost ourselves in our own extreme ideas, our hatred consuming us every second. We have forgotten that before we are Christians, Jews, Atheists, or Muslims, we are human beings. Our moral duty to one another comes before any religious one. Freedom of speech is a respected notion in the minds of many Muslims. However, it is not freedom of speech when you deliberately slander someone’s emotional integrity. I want to ask those who support this Day, are you trying to prove a point that you’re not “scared” just by pulling off this stunt or are you really showing the Muslim world that you can ignite real hatred by showing YOUR intolerance?

I’m not saying murder threats or bombs or fanatical Muslim comments are right, I’m just trying to remember what we learnt back in preschool. Two wrongs do not make a right. You don’t abuse someone’s mother or sister or roots just because you have the power to. “With great power comes great responsibility”.

That’s what Spiderman taught us. We have the power to use our words at will but we have a responsibility of using them wisely. I chose to sit in the sidelines and laugh at the absurdity of all the useless bickering going on text messages and Facebook. Eventually there comes a time when you get tired of watching and you need to stand up and say “what is wrong with you people?” For me, that time is pretty much now.

M. Abul Fazl

Two women visited British South Asia in 1912 and 1935 respectively and left memoirs of their visits – Beatrice Webb and Khalda Adib Khanam. They both were writers, political observers and activists. Yet, how profoundly the ways were different in which they conceptualised the country and its people.

Beatrice Webb, intellectual and the ideologue of Fabianism, was accompanied by her husband Sidney, a founder of the Fabian Society, the London School of Economics and the weekly New Statesman.

He had also, with Bernard Shaw, persuaded the trade union leadership to send their own representatives to Parliament, instead of depending on the Liberal Party members to defend the workers’ interests there. This led to the founding of the Labour Party later.

She and her husband had been invited by the Congress Party to its annual session in Calcutta. After that, they were practically taken over by the colonial administration. As a result, they met district officers in a number of places, as well as rajas (politicians) etc.

They seem to have liked the method of the district officer of Gorakhpur most. He dealt directly with the people to solve their problems promptly. The Webbs concluded that South Asia needed to be governed a while yet by “aliens”.

But they found, after visiting a factory owned by a British businessman, that the Indian workers were “extraordinarily difficult to sweat.” They would almost starve than earn more by working harder.

Here they forgot that it had taken the European workers two generations to get used to factory labour.
They also did not seem to have noticed that the British rule in South Asia was based upon unequal exchange, upon the draining of a part of the South Asian surplus to the metropole. They truly represented the thinking of the European social democracy which, while it supported the workers against the capitalists at home, stood by the capital abroad.

Lastly, like the socialists of the Edwardian period in general including Nehru, they had a negative attitude towards the Muslims. Beatrice wrote in a letter home that they were a slower and duller race and “hate democracy and really dislike education and all that is modern.” As to the Afghans: “A people – which breaks nearly every Commandment, and is apparently of no earthly use in the universe.”

The Webbs met many South Asians from different walks of life. But they essentially skimmed over the people during the visit.
The other visitor was Khalda Adib Khanam, who came to South Asia in 1935 at the invitation of Dr. M. A. Ansari, a prominent Muslim member of the Congress Party. She was welcomed to the Aligarh University by Majaz with:
“Ghuncha-o-gul thhay yahee laikin yeh ranaaii na thhi,
“Iss gulistan mein bahar iss dhoom say aaii na thhi.”

Khalda represented the new Turkish woman who had participated in the struggle to free Turkey from the divisions and foreign occupation imposed upon it, after the First World War, by the victorious Entente. She was a writer but also, on one occasion, dressed in a military uniform she addressed a meeting of 200,000 in Istanbul during the campaign of resistance to the Greek invasion.

She wrote about her experiences in South Asia upon her return. This book has now been translated into Urdu by Masoodul Haq and published by Maktabai Jamia, New Delhi.

She had stayed with the family of Dr. Ansari in Delhi and with that of the lawyer Wasim in Lucknow which gave her a good idea of the lives of the Muslim Ashrafia women of the north – and of their problems. And she, an emancipated Turkish woman, must have left an interesting impression on the women she met.

Her lectures at Jamia Millia, for which she had been invited, were about the revolution that Turkey was undergoing while waging a struggle to protect its independence and territorial integrity, and of the role of women in it. The interesting point here was that Turkey’s chances of success in it were bound up, to a large extent, with Europeanising itself by adopting the technology and culture of its enemy.

After meeting Gandhi, she said that he was the only person who could mobilise the best among the Hindus, and appealed to the Muslims, who were moving away from the Congress, to support him. In fact, she found him like “an ideal new convert to Islam.”

To her, as to many foreign visitors, the Congress appeared to represent the whole of nationalism in South Asia. She did not seem to grasp that the problem in the region arose from Gandhi’s choice to be a Hindu leader rather than that of all South Asians. His decision to bring religion into politics may have been consistent with, indeed necessary for, that choice but it kept him basically outside the threshold of nationalism.

The writer is a former ambassador.