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--- On Mon, 15/6/09, NewAgeIslam-Newsletter <NewAgeIslam-Newsletter wrote:NewAgeIslam-Newsletter <NewAgeIslam-NewsletterTaliban Stir Rising Anger of Pakistanis , NewAgeIslam.Org - 15 Jun, 2009sultan.shahinDate: Monday, 15 June, 2009, 2:59 AMClick to Subscribe UnDear FriendsWELCOME TO NewAgeIslam.Org Newsletter 15 Jun, 2009If you want to go directly to the website, please http://www.NewAgeIslam.orgLinks to some selected articles are being given below.If you find this newsletter useful, please forward it to your

friends and encourage them to join this mailing list.www.NewAgeIslam.Org/NewAgeIslamNewsLetter.aspxYour Support Is Absolutely Vital For Our Survival and Growth.Regards,Sultan ShahinEditor, NewAgeIslam.OrgTaliban Stir Rising Anger of Pakistanis ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — A year ago, the Pakistani public was deeply divided over what to do about its spreading insurgency. Some saw the Taliban militants as fellow Muslims and native sons who simply wanted Islamic law, and many opposed direct military action against them. But history moves quickly in Pakistan, and after months of televised Taliban cruelties, broken promises and suicide attacks, there is a spreading sense — apparent in the news media, among politicians and the public — that many Pakistanis are finally turning against the Taliban. -- Sabrina Tavernise Attacked, Pakistani Villagers Take On Taliban PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Villagers are rising up against the Taliban in a remote corner of northern Pakistan, a

grass-roots rebellion that underscores the shift in the public mood against the militants and a growing confidence to confront them…. The uprising is not the first time that Pakistanis have formed their own militias to stand up to the Taliban, and previous efforts have often collapsed largely because the government and military did not come to their aid. -- Sabrina Tavernise and Irfan AshrafContinue Reading...Art: The Intersection of Islam, America and Identity Having never lived outside Karachi until she moved to New York, Ms. Ahmed Shikoh did not anticipate the mixture of awe and estrangement that she felt. “Here I was looking at a huge new city and wondering: ‘How do I fit in? How do I make this my home and my territory?’ †she said. Artistically she turned to her Statue of Liberty and Urdu subway map paintings. Socially she started visiting a mosque. “I guess being a minority, everybody starts to look for people of your own kind,†she said. “I had never been to a mosque in Pakistan. The mosque as community centre, I just discovered here. So I made a few Muslim friends, and it opened my eyes. There were women who were progressive, modern, fashionable and

wearing the head scarf.†Over the next few years Ms. Ahmed Shikoh wrestled with herself about covering her hair, wondering, “Why not just wear modest clothes?†Her husband — who after 20 years here is relaxed and Americanized in manner — stayed out of the decision-making process. Her mother, tired of hearing her argue with herself, said: “O.K., what are you waiting for? They won’t throw you a party to start wearing one.†And then Ms. Ahmed Shikoh decided that God was asking her to do it as an act of faith. “I had the freedom in this country

to make that choice,†she said. “Here people just let you live your life.†Ms. Ahmed Shikoh started keeping what she thought of as a hijab diary. Daily she would make a painting or collage that incorporated the template of a head scarf, sometimes quite playfully, as in the hijab with the built-in iPod or the one made of Play-Doh featuring Dora the Explorer. -- Deborah Sontag, New York TimesContinue Reading....Pakistan: A Conspiracy to Divide Punjab By Haroon Adeem, LahoreContinue Reading...The Trouble With Obama’s Cairo Speech: NOAM CHOMSKYObama has called on the Arab states to proceed with normalization, studiously ignoring, however, the crucial political settlement that is its precondition. -- NOAM CHOMSKYThe Muslim world is entitled to question the glaring contradictions in Barack Obama’s speech. -- Faizur RahmanContinue Reading...Shia-Sunni issues: Don’t deny the role of Ahl-e-Bait By Abdul Hameed NomaniContinue

Reading...Barack Obama effect on The Nation of Islam Lawrence Mamiya, a professor of Religion and Africana Studies at Vassar College, contends that while the Nation supports President Obama, and while Obama has changed the landscape that the Nation responds to, there remains a distinct place for the voices of its leaders—whether it evolves its tactics or not. “The people Farrakhan appeals with

aren’t necessarily the same that Obama appeals to,†Mamiya said. “Farrakhan’s message still needs to be heard. Obama hasn’t said much about the black poor, and Farrakhan always put that first.†“Most African Americans celebrate (Obama’s) election. Farrakhan celebrated his election. But there are still needs in that black community that are not addressed—that’s Farrakhan’s role, to address them.â€At the Saviour’s Day keynote in Chicago earlier this year, Farrakhan qualified his celebration of Obama with a familiar call for self-initiative. “There’s an energy among our people that has never been seen before, never produced by any man or organization before,†Farrakhan is quoted as saying. “But we must not allow our people to live in a false world of euphoria.. We must accept our

responsibility to build our communities.â€Continue Reading...Obama “Shakes†the Jewish Consciousness in Cairo Moral equivalency between Palestinian suffering and the Jewish holocaustThis is not moral equivalency but it is subverting the exceptionalism that permeates some Jewish attitudes toward Israel and the peace process. Where would we be if we could no longer use exceptionalism as a claim to public politics? In my estimation, this is a brilliant and necessary move. In essence he (Obama) is saying to the Jews, “The United States is giving you full support in making sure the Holocaust is remembered as a war against the Jews. But you must abandon using that event as an excuse to circumvent your responsibilities as a nation who is occupying another nation, preventing them from the

very same rights you are claiming for yourself.†Rush was wrong (as he so often is) that Obama was making a neat argument of moral equivalency. But he was also right: in this speech there was a radically new message to the Jews. As a Jew I celebrate that message, as it can only serve to enhance the spiritual and physical well-being of the Jews and the Palestinians. Our consciousness should be shaken. May it yield a better world. -- Shaul Magid, a Jewish writer.Continue Reading...The Wahhabis and the Sufis: A Sufi Viewpoint Ibn Sa’ud mixed the tribes in the Ikhwan colonies so that the unifying factor was the wahhabi doctrine, and the removal of tribal loyalty and genealogical poetry broke the Arab sense of historical continuity. In other words, as the House of Sa’ud took on absolute leadership of Arabia, all other tribes, from a societal point of view, were dismantled. This gave a blood-bonded Bedouin tribe of desert raiders on the one hand, and on the other a mass of ignorant, uprooted Bedouin-turned-peasants. They had no wealth. They had no voice in governance. They had one ferocious ambition, which was to wipe out

the historical presence of Islam which was all that was left of their former tribal memory of their desert past. The Ikhwan saw themselves as an elite at war with historical Islam, and in order to distinguish them as the guardians of Wahhabism they were allowed to wear a twisted strip of white material around their headgear instead of the normal black wool Iqal worn by other Arabs. ...The poor Saudis do not seem to realise how ridiculous they are, in the same way that Louis XVI did not realise how ridiculous he was when he put the Phrygian cap of the French Revolution on his head to please the Mob, or indeed, how he gave advice on the design of the same guillotine that all too soon was going to cut off his head. -- Shaykh Dr. Abdalqadir As-SufiContinue Reading...India: Columnist Mahfoozur Rahman on Salman Khursheed’s statement on Reservation for Muslims Continue Reading...Pakistan: Mohajir grievances were never, ever, really addressed The original grievances of the people that formed the MQM were never, ever, really addressed. One needn't have endorsed the original agenda of the MQM to see how linearly consistent it was Muhajir identity in urban Sindh. Simply put, the MQM wanted an end to the affirmative action (or positive discrimination) quota system in Sindh province and it wanted the

repatriation of the almost 300,000 Pakistanis stranded in Bangladesh, back to Pakistan.Instead of challenging the established political Holy Cow of Sindh's quotas, or beginning a process of reconciliation with itself, by absorbing the stranded Pakistanis of Bihar into Pakistan, the military supported Musharraf to do simply what any dictator would do. He bought his way out of the problem by providing the massive infrastructure grants to the MQM-dominated Karachi district government (but only after the people of Karachi got smart and elected an MQM administration at the local level). -- Mosharraf ZaidiContinue Reading...New Ferment in Zionism, old and new, modest and radical Exactly 100 years ago tomorrow, Isaiah Berlin, one of the 20th century's most important political thinkers, was born in Riga, Latvia. Berlin, who died in 1997, grappled with the big ideologies of his day - communism, fascism, and democracy - and the centennial of his birth invites reflection on his approach to two big ideologies of our day: Zionism and Palestinian

self-determination. .... The crimes of totalitarianism, Nazi and Soviet, made Berlin an implacable foe of utopian projects. He was fond of Immanuel Kant's maxim that, "Out of timber so crooked as that from which man is made, nothing entirely straight can be carved." The sensible but melancholy brand of liberalism Berlin fashioned out of the wreckage of World War II, observed his biographer, Michael Ignatieff, was that of a "Jew forced to meditate on the destruction of his people." ... But Berlin's Zionism was a modest Zionism. He did not regard his deep-felt solidarity with his own Jewish people as superior or different from similar bonds that united other nations. Membership in one community, he insisted, does not preclude "holding a large area of ideals in common with everyone else." Berlin did not limit himself to dual loyalties; he had a multitude of them. Furthermore, he didn't look upon Israel as a metaphysical project, a light unto the nations.

Israel is a country, not a cause, he believed. And his observations of the Jewish state were not always charitable. -- Evan R. Goldstein---"Zionism is coolWhat drives them is a highly developed and very profound sense of victimization. They always claim that they are being delegitimized," says Eli Osheroff. "They

complain that we, the Jewish students, are victims of discrimination in the university because we serve three years in the army and the Arabs don't. As a solution to every problem, they always call for taking the law into their hands. For example, ahead of the campus elections, they were initiating the establishment of a student guard that will protect Jewish girls in the dorms near Mt. Scopus against Arabs. If there really is a problem of personal security there, the police or the Civil Guard can solve it, or it can be solved by peaceful means and dialogue. But not by a group of armed students. They are a historic reincarnation of Brit Habiryonim [an extremist Revisionist-Zionist group that was active in Palestine in 1932-1933]. They are Beginist types, gentlemen, intellectuals: They themselves will not lift a hand, but they encourage an atmosphere of violence." -- Kobi Ben-Simhon in Neo-Zionism

101.Continue Reading...Saudi Intellectual: Western Civilization Has Liberated Mankind Just look around… and you will notice that everything beautiful in our life has been produced by Western civilization: even the pen that you are holding in your hand, the recording instrument in front of you, the

light in this room, and the journal in which you work, and many innumerable amenities, which are like miracles for the ancient civilizations.… If it were not for the accomplishments of the West, our lives would have been barren. I only look objectively and value justly what I see and express it honestly. Whoever does not admire great beauty is a person who lacks sensitivity, taste, and observation. Western civilization has reached the summit of science and technology.. It has achieved knowledge, skills, and new discoveries, as no previous civilization before it. The accomplishments of Western civilization cover all areas of life: methods of organization, politics, ethics, economics, and human rights. It is our obligation to acknowledge its amazing excellence. Indeed, this is

a civilization that deserves admiration. … The horrible backwardness in which some nations live is the inevitable result of their refusal to accept this [abundance of Western ideas and visions] while taking refuge in denial and arrogance. -- Ibrahim Al-Buleihi, a member of the Saudi Shura CouncilContinue Reading...The case for Union of South Asia The present day Pakistanis, who are fed on fables and stories of long century old struggle for Pakistan, find it strange and don’t understand why and how Quaid-e-Azam (Mr. Jinnah), accepted a formula for United India as late as 1946? … maybe his demand for Pakistan was in fact an attempt to get maximum political benefits and space for the Muslims in India and in the Cabinet mission’s zonal scheme he got the best deal. …Recently Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh also said something similar, but added that the process may restart from same point

where it discontinued, if Pakistan shows willingness to bring the perpetrators of Mumbai carnage to justice and give exemplary punishment to these criminals. Essentially the Indian demand is justified and must be met with all sincerity and seriousness, why should Pakistan protect a bunch of dozen or so criminals who masterminded the Mumbai acts of terror? Even if these non-state actors did so on the prompting of certain people in some state agency in Pakistan, which might have used them as pawns in its proxy war with India, they should be tried and jailed without any further delay, and no legal or bureaucratic haggling should delay this process. And why can’t people like Daood

Ibrahim and other Indian criminals, who are hiding in Pakistan, be handed over to the Indian authorities? The Pakistanis must realize that these criminals and perpetrators of terrorist acts are not their asset; they are in fact burden and liability; as because of the wrong doings of these people, and their protectors, many million people in this area are suffering poverty and are deprived of basics of human requirements and rights…The Mulla-Military alliance no more exists. The extremist groups have very few supporters in political arena of Pakistan; however this small group leaves no chance to malign India in all the acts of terrorists and insurgency in Pakistan. Their conjecture that India wants to destroy Pakistan from day one of its inception has been proved baseless by history; India, if so desired, could do that by taking over East Pakistan during war in September 1965, when less than 5000 army personnel were posted in that virtually undefended part of Pakistan; and again in 1971 when Pakistan Army had already been embattled, badly beaten and had surrendered in former East Pakistan. India could then ransack the western part with ease, because the then Pakistan army was highly demoralized by that defeat, but India desisted. The claim that India is fuelling insurgency in Baluchistan too has never been proved, no Indian counterpart of ‘Ajmal Qassab†has ever been nabbed by Pakistanis agencies; unless that is done these allegations remain a fable. -- Soulat Pasha, a Karachi-based political commentator.Continue Reading....Towards Muslim-Christian understanding There will always be theological differences between various faiths; differences that external players will always attempt to

manipulate for broader purposes. However, in a politically volatile region such as the Middle East, it is essential to build better relations between two of the world's largest religious groups. It is also important that Muslim-Christian unity should not be at the expense of alienating other faith communities; their collective relations as people of faith should transcend the minutiae of theological differences.Pope Benedict's symbolic gesture of visiting the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the positive reception he received there from the imam of the site must be reinforced with a specific renunciation of negative narratives on both sides. Both faith traditions share the blame for abusing historical incidents as a means of propagating a sense of

alienation from each other. In an increasingly globalized world, we must strive to learn from history but not let the past hamper our progress toward mutually advantageous human relations. -- Saleem H. Ali and Hiba ZeinoContinue Reading...This Newsletter should only be sent to those who have asked to receive it or have been recommended by a friend.To , below or in case of problems write to Webmasterhttp://www.NewAgeIslam.org/NewAgeIslamUnSubscribe.aspxCopyright 2008 NewAgeIslam.org. All Rights

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