Saturday, January 31, 2015

Pakistan: Between Civility and Fanaticism


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Pakistan: Between Civility and Fanaticism

by Salim Mansur  •  January 31, 2015 at 5:00 am
A country made for Muslims has turned into a nightmare for Muslims.
The wish of Mohammad Ali Jinnah, the father of Pakistan, was that the country evolved into a modern democratic state where Muslims, as a majority population, could feel at ease.
But the modernizers who succeeded the colonial authorities in taking power aroused expectations that were simply beyond their abilities to deliver.
But religious authorities were agitating, warning the bewildered masses that these defeats were divine punishments for betraying the true message of Islam by not faithfully abiding by its requirements.
Qutb in his writings recast the division in the world from the classic Muslim one between the House of Islam and the House of War, to one between Islam and jahiliyya, a condition of paganism that preceded the coming of Islam to Arabia. Jahiliyya has now become all-pervasive in the modern world, supposedly sparing none, including Muslims, except for that small coterie of Muslims who took flight [hijra] from the corrupted world and prepared for jihad [armed struggle].
Together, Hasan al-Banna, Abul A'la Maududi and Sayed Qutb fashioned political Islam as a closed system, in opposition to all other competing ideologies.
The theology of takfir -- declaring other Muslims apostates or unbelievers; excommunication -- obsessed with "unbelief," has provided the politics of jihad [armed struggle] with the theological justification that arms any Muslim to freelance as a soldier of Allah.
The strategic requirement for advancing global jihad was to convince Muslims that they are liable to be found committing heresy if they support non-Muslim or infidel authorities, such as the United States and its allies, or if they wage war against Muslims, such as members of al-Qaeda.
The theology of takfir and jihad has now come full circle. Many Pakistanis, when they disagree, now find themselves trapped in denunciations that they are unbelievers.
It is from these madrasas that the jihadi fighters come forth as cannon fodder for an endless jihad that has become a growth industry in Pakistan. The entire political elite in Pakistan has profited, just as the Iranian elite continues profiting by doing the same.
For many, being "pure" required separating oneself from non-Muslims.
"The Taliban were not providing strategic depth to Pakistan, but Pakistan was providing strategic depth to the Taliban." — Ahmed Rashid, foremost scholar of the Taliban.
Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan, in conversation with India's Mahatma Gandhi
The recent massacre of school children by Taliban jihadists in a Peshawar army school just lowered even further the bar of atrocities carried out under the banner of Islam in Pakistan. As authorities floundered in the face of mounting violence, with serious implications for new wars in the region, the 2014 Global Terrorism Index ranked Pakistan third behind Iraq and Afghanistan among countries most impacted by terrorism. In addition, the "failed states index" elevated the status of Pakistan to being among the top dozen failed states of the world.
According to the intelligence report of the last conversation before the murders, monitored by Pakistan's security agency, one of the jihadists informed his handler, "We have killed all the children in the auditorium." He then asked, "What do we do now?" The handler answered, "Wait for the army people, kill them before blowing up yourself."[1]

Confronting European Anti-Semitism

by Alan M. Dershowitz  •  January 30, 2015 at 12:00 pm
I just completed a three day visit to Prague and the former Terezin concentration camp.  I was there to speak at a conference commemorating the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi death camps.  Many European speakers talked about the efforts they are making to confront the rising tide of anti-Semitism throughout Europe.  But before one can decide how to confront a sickness like anti-Semitism, one must first describe and diagnose the pathology.
There are several distinct, but sometimes overlapping, types of anti-Semitism.  The first is traditional, right wing, fascist Jew hatred that has historically included theological, racial, economic, social, personal and cultural aspects.  We are seeing a resurgence of this today in Greece, Hungary and other European countries with rising right wing parties that are anti-Muslim as well as anti-Jewish.

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