Just noticed this in Facebook's "Suggestions" and saw which of my friends are already fans.

UNITED AGAINST ZAID HAMIDISM (OFFICIAL PAGE)

The aim of this page is to unite everyone against Zaid Hamid and his supporters and to save Pakistan from Neo - Nazism. The page will provide regular updates against this propaganda network and will facilitate discussions to counter his ideologies. This page also aims to counter Ghaz we Hind (A Delusional Paranoia of Zaid Hamid) suppose to take place soon or may be on 14 august 2012 according to his gullible followers. http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=logo#/event.php?eid=235593936574&index=1

Critic:275 fans

I just LOVE how this one cause--denouncing a senior of mine from college who's a right wing nationalist and is not even a political party yet--brings together my MQM wala friends, my Tehreek-i-Insaf-leaning friends, my progressive Muslim friends, my Marxist friends, my Trotskyist friends, my blaager activist friends...wallah! if we had that kind of unity amongst Pakistanis on ANYthing else, we'd get somewhere!

Though, I also have to say I am nostalgic for the late 80s/early 90s when NFP was the one walking around with a trademark cap (of which I can find no photos on the Internet--very curious!) and Zaid H was the one saving the world from the evil empire--and you have to give credit to Imran Khan; then, as now, he was a hero out saving the national honour, but who couldn't bring himself to give the little guy credit with having anything real to contribute to helping the nation achieve greatness...

Just thought I would bring toegether thoughts about Lahore and Mumbai in one place. My previous post had some thoughts about Lahore:

http://blog.ifaqeer.com/2009/12/hamara-lahore.html

I have had some other thoughts in previous posts about the situation in Lahore:

http://blog.ifaqeer.com/2009/10/word-on-pakistan.html and
http://blog.ifaqeer.com/2009/10/lahore-we-say-is-pakistans-heart.html

and in that other sister city across the bay marking an event this week:

http://blog.ifaqeer.com/2006/07/thought-for-mumbaikars.html

For some of us who lived through Karachi's troubles, Lahore is in our thoughts nowadays. We saw the fanatic tripe wreck first our campuses, then our city, then the country and then follow us across the world. It was the proverbial problem you wouldn't wish on anyone else--and, of course, for us, Lahore is the perennial "other". And we, of all people, feel for that city.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Had reason to say this on Facebook:

We are all Macaulay's grandchildren--and Zia's children. We need to stop acting exactly like those two wanted us to: for example fighting amongst ourselves over the scraps that Gora Saahab, or our Shayukh throw us, thinking we can't live as full, co-equal citizens of the world with Gora Saahab, or said Shaiyukh.

There's a video from the New York Times website is going around. [Click on the graphic to view it on their website.]

This video is so hit-or-miss and done from one specific point of view!

Firstly, Pakistanis, including Pakistani musicians, can walk and chew gum at the same time. They see that Pakistan is stuck, as Ali Azmat's current ideological guru puts it, between the twin jaws of fanaticism and neo-imperialism. The same video clips could have been used to say that Pakistani musicians and artists are actually taking the issues on in a more nuanced way and talking about both sides of that equation rather than leaning on side or the other. Except Ali Azmat, but we'll come back to that.

To say that "Yeh Hum Naheen" (This is not us) is belittling the issue by not using the word "Taliban" is so ass-backwards! Pakistanis see that Taliban are only one face of terrorism and fanaticism. Take a closer look at the graphic on the left. That statement "Terrorism is murder. Murder is haram." expressed in those religious terms, using a word--haram--that every Western Muslim pounds into their children with respect to eating pork, and wine, and so on is something I am still waiting for any "American Muslim" or Muslim government official to utter, 8 years after 9/11.

I try not to make sweeping statements, but to say that only the entity (or three entities, if you really follow US establishment rhetoric) known as "The Taliban" are our fanaticism problem is to follow the same shortsighted attitude of solving one problem and ignoring if not creating another that the US establishment has done again, and again--not least during the jihad, yes, jihad, against the Soviets.

And coming back to Ali Azmat. To have a discussion about Ali Azmat without bringing into the discussion the gentleman--and I am personally not allergic to him as others--that he has been hosting a show with and seems to be re-presenting the thoughts of is to miss the point. If you are not following Zaid Hamid and his influence on large swathes of Pakistani society, you're not paying attention.

A couple of days ago was the day celebrated in Pakistan as "Iqbal Day". Allama Dr. Sir Mohammad Iqbal is the thinker and poet that wrote a song that is de facto an alternative national anthem for India on the one hand, and who Pakistanis consider "the philosopher of Pakistan", the person who came up with the very idea that became Pakistan. [Please, I am just relating what the national story accpeted in Pakistan is; I know others--Indian lovers of the "Hakeem", or Doctor, in particular--disagree. I am not here to re-argue that one.]

So what would Iqbal say about today's Pakistan, a friend asked on Facebook? No need to ask the question. There's a famous poem by him in the form of a prayer "Lab pay aati hai dua bun kay tamanna meri" which Pakistanis love to quote--but don't much pay attention to the lines about what action to take:

Ho mera kaam garibon ki himaayat karna /
Dard-mandon se zaiifon se mohabbat karna
[May my work be to work in support of the poor
To love the afflicted and the weak]

And on Mullahs:

When in a vision I saw
A mullah ordered to paradise,
Unable to hold my tongue,
I said something in this wise:

‘Pardon me, O Lord,
For these bold words of mine,
But he will not be pleased
With the houris and the wine.

He loves to dispute and fight,
And furiously wrangle,
But paradise is no place
For this kind of jangle.

His task is to disunite
And leave people in the lurch,
But paradise has no temple,
No mosque and no church.’

See: http://www.masabih.org/showthread.php?t=3753 for one posting of the original and a translation.

My position is that unless we learn to love other Muslims DESPITE and WITH all that we might disagree with them upon, we can't be united. The Saudi approach--and that of other neo-purists--is to say "No, no, no; there is only one thing here--we are all Muslims." and then only allowing what and how they understand things to be as what that "one thing" is. Too often it is these very people who will be quickest to say--maybe because they understand Islam in a very narrowly-defined unitary whole--that this or that practice is "not Islam" and therefore Sufis, say, or Shias are not Muslims. That's what's gotta change if we are to be united; we have to recognize that there will be those who are more in tune with the metaphysical side of the bigger picture (such as the Sufis), and others that will look at things rationally (such as those who follow Kutub or Maududi), yet others who revere the personal link to The Prophet (as the Shias do) and yet respect (and not even just tolerate) them all as different interpretations within Islam.

Forcing people to believe as one never works, and only creates harder divisions.