Tolerance for our inner terrorist by Rabia Mehmood tribune.com.pk ‘Data Sahib’ was a place which represented religious harmony I might get my share of hate mail if this piece finds it way online and people read it. Actually, I wanted to claim responsibility for the attacks. I want to share some burden. I want to say that what happened at the Data Darbar was our own doing, we the people of Pakistan brought it upon us. Living in a society which openly engages in discourse where those who have different religious beliefs will always be vulnerable to a death wish… … Continue reading The inner terrorist

The violence seen in Lahore last week was aided by a bigoted constitution. How has stock in our nationhood plummeted so? Basim Usmani guardian.co.uk, Monday 5 July 2010 09.01 BST Article history The recent attacks on a prominent shrine in Lahore demonstrate how the unrest in Pakistan is caused by a minority of few who cannot tolerate the plurality of beliefs in Pakistan. The Tehrik-e-Taliban are lying through their teeth when they claim that they do not attack public places. It’s becoming more and more apparent that these militants aren’t resisting American hegemony; this a war to determine Pakistan’s future … Continue reading Sectarianism has poisoned Pakistan

We are not xenophobes By labelling those who question the EU, Europhiles are trying to take dissent and debate off the agenda Daniel Hannan guardian.co.uk, Sunday 4 July 2010 22.00 BST Article history I am, Guardian readers keep telling me, a xenophobe. Never mind that I speak French and Spanish, that I love Europe, that I’ve lived a high proportion of my life abroad. The fact that I oppose the political amalgamation of the European Union’s states is ipso facto proof that I dislike foreigners. Last week I took part in a debate in Brussels about the euro crisis. The … Continue reading Xenophobes or Eurosceptics?

It would help the debate if we had more than one word for something that comes in so many different guises Simon Woolley The Guardian, Monday 5 July 2010 Article history It’s said that the Inuit people have more than 50 words to describe snow. In one of the most contentious debates taking place in modern Britain, though, we have only one crude term to describe a whole range of individual and institutional practices and prejudices: “racism”. This often blunt instrument becomes even more problematic when we consider that to be labelled a racist is only marginally better than being called … Continue reading Racism has shades of grey

Linking nationality and IQ is wrong A study claiming people who live in countries where disease is rife have lower IQs is flawed on many levels Gavin Evans guardian.co.uk, Monday 5 July 2010 11.10 BST Article history The idea of a link between nationality and intelligence has a long pedigree – certainly as ancient as slavery and colonialism. And in its faux-scientific form, well, Darwin dabbled, Churchill embraced and Hitler implemented. The latest burst comes from Randy Thornhill of the University of New Mexico, who once proposed the idea that men evolved with a genetic predisposition to rape (raising the … Continue reading Linking nationality and IQ

Bin Laden, the Taliban, Zawahiri: Britain’s done business with them all Five years after the 7/7 bombings in London, the UK’s decades-long collusion with radical Islam is still going strong Mark Curtis guardian.co.uk, Monday 5 July 2010 20.30 BST Article history When the London bombers struck five years ago, many people blamed the invasion of Iraq for inspiring them. But the connection between 7/7 and British foreign policy goes much deeper. The terrorist threat to Britain is partly “blowback”, resulting from a web of British covert operations with militant Islamist groups stretching back decades. And while terrorism is held up as … Continue reading Britain’s done business with terrorists and still is!

VIEW: Extremists’ war on people’s Islam —Yasser Latif Hamdani The Deoband philosophy is a rejectionist philosophy, which rejected modernity and saw the British as the embodiment of western irreligious thought and materialism The attack on Hazrat Ali Hajvery’s shrine has struck at the root of Lahore’s religious and cultural ethos. For 1,000 years, this city has been sustained by the cultural openness and tolerance that Ali Hajvery, or as he is known to the people of Lahore, Data, gave us. Indeed, Lahore is famously called Data Ki Nagri for the Data was, in a way, the famed Afghan warrior-plunderer, Mahmud … Continue reading Mullahs Against Islam!

COMMENT: Life must go on —Dr Syed Mansoor Hussain The concept of brain death has allowed heart donations to occur in people who are no longer functionally alive but their hearts are still working. In Pakistan, this concept is now legally established but is obviously not yet publicly accepted The need to write about the horrific attack on Data Darbar (tomb of the sufi saint Ali Hajvery) in Lahore is overwhelming but I will resist the urge to do so. Not because I do not want to say anything about it but rather because there is nothing I can say … Continue reading Life must go on

VIEW: Dissecting dissent —Shahzad Chaudhry Militaries the world over do not get deployed on executive impulse alone. This is serious business meant to achieve militarily what seems impossible diplomatically. When militaries apply, they do so to win McChrystal, by all accounts, was on self-destruct while granting the privilege of proximity to an interposing journalist. Why did he do it? Was it McChrystal’s failure, or does it point to a larger institutional malady? The underlying reasons though are difficult to come by unless one can literally see below the surface at the life and times of any operational commander on his … Continue reading Dissecting dissent

dawn.com In this picture taken on August 24, 2006, Indian detective Sanjay Singh uses a pair of binoculars to keep an eye on an apartment in New Delhi. – AFP NEW DELHI: The wedding, to be celebrated in sumptuous Indian style, was due for June and everything was progressing smoothly until the groom suddenly lost interest. Suspicious of an affair, the bride did what increasing numbers of anxious lovers and nervous families are doing in India: she rang a private detective to find out why. In a country where nine out of 10 marriages are still arranged and modern social … Continue reading Private detectives: a pre-nuptial priority for some in India