Islam vs Secularism : Surely All Humans are Brothers

إِنَّمَا الْمُؤْمِنُونَ إِخْوَةٌ vs إِنَّمَا الْإنسان إِخْوَةٌ 

"Surely all Muslims are brothers" vs "Surely all Humans are brothers"

Quran says in chapter 49, verse 10: Surely all Muslims are brothers.

This seems like the worst feature of Islam and indeed all other religions. All their good and noble values end at the border of religion. Outside this boundary, all other Humans may, rather must, be hated, looted and killed. This narrow-mindedness is the prime reason that I dont believe in religion. All the good that religion does is delivered on the condition of first accepting its god. No one else deserves respect, love or sympathy. No one else has the right to live in peace and happiness. It is actually good for one religion to destroy the life and livelihood of other religions.

If only Muslims and all other religions will erase their boundaries of goodness, the Earth will become a paradise, the Promised Land. If only we could treat all Humans like brothers. But I think this ideal is still far away.

Congratulations: Death Penalty is Gone Forever from pakistan

After ten years without hangings, death penalty will be no longer be acceptable to the people of Pakistan.

Nawaz government has extended the ban on death penalty for an indefinite period (Dawn, 4 Oct 2013, http://dawn.com/news/1047379/plan-to-restore-death-penalty-shelved ). If there are no hangings for ten years, then it is highly unlikely that they will ever be restarted. This is a remarkable case of positive feedback. The ban was initially started by Zardari as a personal decision based on his idea of human rights. PML-N tried to restart hangings but found that the public was not very interested in it, but Taliban were strongly opposed to it. There was also some pressure from European Union since death penalty has been banned in Europe.

Hopefully, after ten years, ordinary Pakistanis will consider hanging to be as cruel as whipping, stoning and amputations. Putting someone in prison for life imprisonment is severe enough. After twenty years in jail, the person will be too old and outdated to commit serious crime. And if few of them again do something serious, then we can send them to jail again, hopefully till the end of their lives.

People will also realize that death penalty is not necessary to establish safety and security. What is actually needed to protect the general public is good police work and fair judiciary. Things like finger printing, security cameras, ID card checking, control of mobile SIM sale, reducing cash and promoting debit cards make it very difficult to hide a criminal person or his black money. Of course if we can help in ending the wars in Afghanistan and Kashmir instead of promoting them, and convert Tribal Areas into settled areas, then we will see a huge fall in weapons and crimes all over the country.

But for the moment, let us celebrate a small but important step that Pakistan has taken in moving towards Humanity. Unnecessary cruelty, even in the name of nation or religion, is still cruelty.

How TPL insurance (Tracker) cheats its loyal customers

''May we draw your attention to the Market Value Clause which specifically mentions that liability of the Company, in the event of a total loss, shall be limited to the Sum Insured or Market Value of the vehicle whichever is less at the time of accident. Therefore, if you wish the value to be revised, please let us know accordingly so that we may adjust you the premium payable.''

This innocent looking paragraph is included in the application form for renewal of insurance for another year by TPL Direct Insurance Ltd. What it practically means is that you will pay insurance according to the original price of your car but if it is stolen TPL will give you money after 10% annual depreciation of price. Of course if you are careful enough to identify this fraud, then they have also said that they will correct this "mistake".

Please be careful. Call TPL when your insurance is renewed and ask them to reduce your premium according to 10% annual depreciation of price.

Want Peace in Pakistan? Give peace to Afghanistan

Khyber PakhtunKhwa, KPK,  is again facing a spike in terrorist violence. The mass bombings in Church and market in Peshawar have re-ignited the debate over the best way to achieve peace. There are only two options. Peace deal with Taliban or forceful operation to destroy Taliban.

                Let us look at the talks option. Pakistan government and Pakistani Taliban can reach only one deal. That is ceasefire along a new Line of Control. Pak Army will withdraw from Taliban controlled Tribal areas along with Dir and Swat districts of KPK. Taliban will withdraw from rest of KPK. We cannot really expect that after the talks, Taliban will agree to hand over all of Tribal areas to Pak Army. Nor can we expect Pakistan government to hand over all of Pakistan to the Taliban. Tribal areas will practically become a new country, say Talibanistan. But it is almost certain that Pakistan and Afghanistan will continue to be attacked from this Talibanistan. And the Talibanistan will certainly be attacked by US. So there will be no peace after all!

                The only other option is a comprehensive military operation against Taliban focused on North Waziristan and including extremist Madrassas all over Pakistan. This will be very bloody indeed, but the result is certain. Pakistan Army can easily defeat Taliban when it goes all out, like it did in Swat and South Waziristan. But that needs public support which will have to accept the wave of suicide bombings all over Pakistan and the difficulties of refugees from Tribal Areas. But the bombings and refugees are already there, so what is the problem?

                The problem is that every medicine has a side effect. The side effect of peace in Pakistan is that it will also bring peace to Afghanistan, and that is a big side effect. A clear majority of Pakistanis whole-heartedly support Afghan Taliban and want to remove Karzai government through a civil war. But the Afghan Taliban’s main group, Haqqani faction, is based in North Waziristan together with Pakistani Taliban. They don’t fight each other. Afghan Taliban don’t even tell Pak Army about the hiding places of Pakistani Taliban. So any operation in North Waziristan will have to remove both Pakistani and Afghan Taliban. This is unacceptable to a majority of Pakistanis. Pak Army also wants to protect Afghan Taliban while destroying Pakistani Taliban. Pak Army has been trying for 10 years to cut the branches of terrorists in other tribal areas without cutting the root in North Waziristan. This unwillingness to destroy Afghan Taliban with our own hands is the main, the basic reason why we cannot bring peace to our country.

We as a nation have still not understood that you cannot burn the houses of your neighbor to the right and the neighbor to the left without burning your own house! Pakistan will find peace only when it gives peace to Kashmir and Afghanistan. As long as we continue training militants to bomb our neighbors, we will keep dying by the same bombs.

Joint rally by Kashmiri Mujahideen, Taliban and ISI godfathers

All the puppets together celebrating their mom's birthday!

Lashkar-e-Taiba chief Hafiz Saeed (Right, leader of Kashmiri mujahideen), former Pakistani intelligence ISI chief Hamid Gul (Center), and founder of Akora Khattak Madrassa Maulana Sami ul-Haq (Left, Taliban godfather) join hands as they attend an anti-India rally in Islamabad on Pakistan Defence Forces Day, 6 September 2013.

A little too obvious!

http://www.dawn.com/news/1041013/hafiz-saeed-leads-mass-rally-in-islamabad

Why there will never be another Martial Law in Pakistan

The elections are finally here but there is still a lot of anxiety whether they will be held on time, or held at all. Of course there are no certainties in politics but there are some larger trends which are more powerful than individual players. The information technology, including satellite TV, mobile phones and internet will ensure that there will never be another Martial Law in Pakistan, or anywhere else in the world.

Let me explain. Crime needs a cover. No criminal is more powerful than the whole society. A strong man cannot beat an old lady in the middle of a busy street because the society will interfere against the cruelty. Preparation for Martial Law needs the cover of a censored media. No conspiracy can work if every meeting between Generals and politicians gets reported in media. A general can still possibly capture Islamabad with tanks and impose censorship on the news channels, but not on email and twitter. If government closes the entire internet and SMS service for a long time, then the economy will collapse, family contacts will be broken and the whole public will turn against that government. If the dictator uses violence to crush the public, the world media will reveal it. Every country has enemies and jealous neighbours who will help the rebels to overthrow the dictator.

Information technology brings democracy because mobile phones and internet, specifically SMS and social media (Facebook, twitter, emails) give ordinary citizen a lot of freedom. Everyone can get information from any news source in the world and similarly we can all express ourselves freely and rapidly about ongoing events. This forces the rulers to respond to the public opinion otherwise they will be overthrown by the same public.

The reason why the assemblies have completed their tenure for the first time in Pakistan’s history is not the skill of Zardari but new power of the social media. The internet and SMS cannot be controlled without closing down the entire economy. This social media defended the news channels when they were closed by Musharraf, the channels restored the judiciary when the dictator dismissed the judges, and the judiciary has protected the constitution against the next batch of conspiracies. This alliance of freedom cannot be defeated by any General or Taliban.

There is another more philosophical basis of this faith in permanent democracy. When the Humans lived as tribes in the forest or deserts, the only form of government was the tribal leader. When we leant agriculture, the society changed. Now there were kings who had slaves to work in the fields. Next came the industrial revolution which gave allowed a dictator to organise a huge army to control his own people and to invade the neighbours. But factories require technical people, so slavery was abolished and workers were hired on salary. And now the information revolution has come and has given the freedom of information and speech to the common man. This is the reason that peoples’ power has suddenly risen all over the world. General Musharraf was removed in Pakistan, Arab dictators were overthrown, democratic governments now control almost all of Africa and even advanced democracies faced “Occupy Wall Street” movements by ordinary citizens. 

Once the Human society has reached a more advanced stage of progress, it cannot easily go back. So the chances of martial Law in Pakistan are about the same as the chances of return of the Mughal Kingdom. Just relax and join the fun of a historic democratic transition in Pakistan and the whole world.

We are living in a better world than our forefathers

Have you ever pondered the fact that we are better than our forefathers? If you think otherwise, I’ll explain why I think this way. The present time is the age of science and technology. Man is no longer a prey to superstitions and foolish customs. There is less ignorance. Oppressive customs and cruel practices are steadily dying out. The working classes are better off than in the past when they had to work for the whole of their lives as slaves. The percentage of literacy has gone up. The status of women has improved and they are considered equal to men. In short, we are living in a truly civilized society.

Most people say that our forefathers’ lives were very peaceful. We have technology at our hands and we have made atom bombs and weapons. For destruction you might say, but that’s not true because we are making these for our protection. The fact is that today’s world is far more peaceful than last century. There are less than a dozen wars going on throughout the world, while a hundred years ago, every city was fighting every neighbouring city.

Our forefathers lived without many modern amenities and inventions such as electricity, aeroplanes, microwave ovens and more, whereas we cannot even imagine life without computers and cellular phones. Even children play with such things. There life was a life of boredom which they resolved by listening to stories by old people, but today we have so many ways of entertainment that we have no time to be bored.

The greatest drawback of the lives that our forefathers led was that of education; the people were mostly uneducated.  They had very limited technical knowledge. The education was not available to girls, and even boys could not learn only that which was known to the village elders. Nowadays, you can access the knowledge of the whole world in a click by internet. This allows you to solve problems of agriculture, transport, construction etc.

Our forefathers had virtually no medical facility. The local hakeem had little knowledge and scanty medicine. Now we have the help of the latest medical information to improve our health and treat diseases. This has resulted in longer life expectancy for all of us.

We are not only living a more comfortable and healthy life, but we are also more beautiful than our forefathers. Their skin was exposed to sun and dryness, while we have so many lotions and creams, their lack of nutritional knowledge resulted in poor growth of bones but we are stronger, they had no vaccination but we have eradicated small pox, leprosy and other diseases that scarred our faces. And of course they could not imagine about plastic surgery.

Today, we can communicate with people in different countries within no time — thanks to telephone and email. However, in the past it would take months to send message from one country to another or one place to another.

Today, people possess knowledge about every layer within the earth whereas our forefathers living in the past were only familiar with well water. We can even touch the skies, thanks to the major strides that have been made in the field of transportation.

When our forefathers went for Hajj, they could not be sure if they will ever return alive. But today so many of us can fly to Makkah Mukarramah and Madina Munawwara and return quickly and safely to our homes. And some of us have even gone for a second time. This could not be imagined before air travel.

The sky is the limit when it comes to development and progress in our age. We have overcome time and space and are covering large distances in a short span of time. While in the past people travelled on foot or in horse driven carriages now we have bullet trains and supersonic aero planes.


No less remarkable is our progress in social sphere. Oppressive and unjust social practices have been discarded. Women are no longer looked down upon as mere goods.

Finally, let us do an experiment. Suppose when you wake up tomorrow, you will have no electricity in your home and no toilet, no Sui gas in your kitchen, you will not go to school any more, you will not see television, you will not sit in a car, you will not use mobile phone, there will be no chocolates, no Pepsi… I know you are already scared, but this is exactly the world in which our forefathers lived.

Of course, all these facts prove that we are leading better lives than our forefathers but it is also a fact that the next generation will live in a world even better than ours.