Saturday - a completely wasted day - the mullahs rejoice with a countrywide strike.
This comes right at the back of them getting the religion column re-instated into the new passports. KO mirrors my feelings on the subject in
this post.
The secular/theocratic debate is one i've had ad-nauseum. And I am firmly of the view that anyone who claims the 1940 lahore resolution intended to raise a state with institutionalized bigotry is being criminally disingenuous.
75 years after the fact, we’re still misinterpreting one of the most central tenets of the resolutions. A healthy mix of cerebrally challenged and power obsessed fundos still making sure that the idea of secular state created for muslim majority areas (and the non-muslims that inhabited them) remains but a distant dream.
Its pathetic that in these days of 'enlightened moderation' we still find ourselves using ID card and passport forms that serve as tools of oppression against minorities. Visit NADRA for the computerised ID cards and they make you sign a statement certifying that you believe the Prophet Muhammad to be the last Prophet - ostensibly to weed out 'kafirs', but really nothing more than a grotesque manifestation of our atrophying ability to accept differing opinons. Its bigotry and oppression carried to absurd extremes.
MMA men held with explosives
KARACHI: Police arrested nine activists of the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal and Jamaat-e-Islami and seized explosive devices from them in Karachi on Saturday. Deputy Inspector General of Police Operations Mushtaq Shah told reporters that acting on a tip off, a police team raided Idara-e-Noorul Haq’s central MMA office in Karachi at 3.30am and arrested nine JI and MMA activists. Police also seized one and a half kilogramme of the explosive material, four pistols and 37 bottles of petrol.
-Daily Times
On a personal level, these militized politics of hatred have very real effects on thousands of Pakistanis- even ones we would think escape if only because of their status.
Geo interviewed Yousaf Youhanna and despite playing for the national team and making us proud so many times over on the pitch, he was resigned to his fate of never getting an endorsement deal-the bread and butter of sportsmen-because of his religious affiliations. It’s a sad reflection of the state to which we've managed to bring our society to, and more worryingly the blatantly self-serving distortion of religion that gives these ideas legitimacy.