Political Authors From Pakistan

"DIRE. That’s the word the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan uses to describe the state of human rights in our country. Its annual report, released last week, makes for a distressing read, particularly in the midst of a pandemic. One wonders, given how widespread rights violations are, when this brutalised body politic will reach its breaking point. The PTI government has cited concerns of riots fuelled by starvation as a reason to impose light-touch lockdowns. But the HRCP’s report reminds us that the state's fear of its citizenry is rooted in a deeper knowledge of systemic fissures in our country; fissures produced by the disgraceful treatment of an — including women, children, dissenters, religious minorities, labour, prisoners, and more — often by state institutions themselves."

"Not surprisingly, initiatives to criminalise disappearances are stalled. The thing is, you only silence critics when you have something to hide. And the HRCP's — documenting everything from to to poor enfranchisement — gives a sense of what this might be. The sad and shocking scale of rights abuses again raises the question of how efficacious the state's censorship strategy can be. When the public narrative significantly diverges from lived experience, the only outcome is more frustration among the people, who realise that on top of being poorly served, they’re also being lied to and manipulated."

"Pakistan has the somewhat unique problem that the concept of human rights has been deemed toxic among the es because it is too often associated with curbs on media and religious freedoms. Decades of authoritarian state policy have entrenched a suspicion of democracy and secularism, and there is perversely a fair amount of support for policies targeting those labelled unpatriotic or blasphemous. But human rights are also about positive access to food, healthcare, safety, and education."

"Our country's healthcare spending is less than one per cent of GDP, even though the WHO recommends 6pc. And only 4pc of Pakistani children receive a 'minimally acceptable diet'. These poor healthcare and standards expose the flaws of the prime minister's reasoning that our youthful demography will protect us against the worst of the pandemic; malnourishment can hardly boost immunity."

"The report also focuses on failings of our criminal justice system, an issue so endemic that we take it for granted rather than consider it a rights violation. But without a functional judicial system, we have no recourse or accountability. Justice in Pakistan is delayed and denied. And miscarriages of justice — such as Rana Bibi's 19-year imprisonment for a murder she didn't commit — are not atoned for."

"In light of the pandemic, the plight of prisoners is particularly relevant. Pakistan's prisons are appallingly overcrowded, with an occupancy rate of 133.8pc. More than 62pc of this population comprises pre-trial detainees and those on remand. Jam-packed prisoners are more vulnerable to diseases, including , HIV and now Covid-19."

"Only up to 3pc of Pakistan's is unionised, and there are few opportunities for for fair wages or safe working conditions. The last year banned 62 labour unions in the province. The disregard for will take on new dimensions during a pandemic, when workers should have ample rights to demand safe working conditions and job protection in the event of sickness."

"Upholding human rights should underpin all policymaking. The challenges the report identifies will take years to address, but there are several ways this administration can signal a commitment to human rights. For starters, it can vow to protect the 18th Amendment. Such are the times, that the mere presentation of a report can be a political act."

"Those closest, and so most accountable, to the people are best positioned to protect their rights."

"In fact, India and Israel are probably better equipped about these problems then the US will ever be. You have a 13% Muslim population just as Israel has 20% Muslim population. Only Israel and India can figure out what is happening. But Saudi money is so prevalent in the West that everyone thinks that Iran is the problem and not Pakistan."

"Islam doesn’t need a reform. It is nobody’s business! All it needs is people to step down and say that no public laws can come from a divine text. I don’t care if you believe like most Christians that snakes can talk or the Muslims believe that horses can fly or Hindus that chariots can roam in the sky. But the day that you start making laws based on those myths then I have a problem. So we are looking at a nation state in which our laws should be governed by the International Charter of Human Rights of 1948. If it runs counter to that law, that country shouldn’t be a member of the UN or be able to trade with anyone. The embargoes placed on Iran should be placed on Saudi Arabia. Iran has not invaded any country. It’s mischief is very trivial compared to the mischief of Pakistan. Iran doesn’t have people in Philippines hijacking planes. Pakistan is there at the Thailand-Malaysia border. It is involved in Myanmar, Bangladesh, Nepal, India, Afghanistan and Tajikistan, Turkey, the US and UK, and yet is a US ally."

"Sindh has been destroyed by the Urdu speaking people who arrived from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar and took over its capital where Sindhi is not spoken anymore."

"I am an Indian born in Pakistan, a Punjabi born in Islam; an immigrant in Canada with a Muslim consciousness, grounded in a Marxist youth. I am one of Salman Rushdie's many Midnight's Children: we were snatched from the cradle of a great civilization and made permanent refugees, sent in search of an oasis that turned out to be a mirage."

"I don’t think it is a controversy. It is a non-issue that stems out of several backgrounds. Too many temples have been destroyed for anyone to cry about a mosque. It was a reaction to a pent up emotion that can blow up anytime. You can’t expect people to forget 700 years of subjugation overnight and expect a rational reaction when no one has as yet admitted that they or their forefathers were wrong. Even now every history book I read tries to justify that the Islamic rule wasn’t so bad after all. There is no major admission that there was apartheid for 700 years. There was a law that allowed you to spit into the mouth of an untouchable, even if he were a Muslim. And even Indian Muslims used to pay jizya to Arabs."

"And so Daliah Mogahed was introduced as [Obama's] speech writer. And he goes where, to Cairo, and insists that Muslim Brotherhood members should sit in the front row and that the US is a great country because women can wear hijab! He reduced the entire United States of America to one issue: not the First Amendment, not its constitution, not its Seventh Fleet, not the aircraft that the Wright Brothers invented, not the motorcar of Detroit! He reduced it to a hijaab, in a country where women are fighting to take it off because his speechwriter or advisor was a Muslim Brotherhood woman. The former US ambassador to the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), Rashad Hussain, is a Muslim Brotherhood supporter. Saudi educated Chief of Staff, Huma Abedin, is another Mulim Brotherhood member."

"But that is not my concern. My concern is that slowly the Arabisation of Indian Muslims is taking place, and of all the places in Kerala. But what is very fortunate is that Arabic will not be accepted by any self-respecting Malayalam speaking Muslim. Even the radicalisation of the Tamil Muslims is part of the same phenomenon. But then there is not one Muslim community in India. The Kashmiri Muslims are a completely separate issue than the Uttar Pradesh Muslims, who are very different from Kerala’s Muslims, who in turn are completely different from West Bengal’s Muslims. Therefore, in some ways you can’t say there is a Muslim community. That definition should not be used. As there are multiple Indian Muslims, so this label is ridiculous. Like when I use it, I associate it more with the Uttar Pradesh Muslims. Your president was a Tamil Muslim completely at odds with the clerical elite."

"It wasn't us Muslims who built Babri Mosque over Ram's Temple; It was those wicked Hindus who built the Ram Temple under the Babri Mosque."

"Manufacturer’s Warranty. ALL EXPRESS AND IMPLIED WARRANTIES made by the manufacturer will be considered void if any unauthorized third-party add-ons are installed on top of the basic operating system of Islam. Such add-ons are causing a worldwide system failure. The manufacturer is warning the general public to be wary of unscrupulous vendors who are marketing bootlegged versions of the product to unsuspecting customers. Users are hereby warned that the manufacturer does not guarantee the proper functioning of Islam if these add-ons are installed over the basic operating system. The manufacturer also cautions all users that there has been no new version of Islam since the last upgrade in 632 CE. Speculation that the manufacturer plans to release a new Service Pack are without foundation."

"Pakistan is a living testament to the bankrupt idea of an Islamic State."

"The question is this: Why is it that when the Babri mosque in Ayodhya was demolished, hundreds of thousands of Muslims worldwide took to the streets to protest, but when Saudi authorities plan to demolish the home of our beloved Prophet, not a whisper is heard?"

"India is the only major civilizational country where you are systematically taught to hate your heritage and glorify the invaders who came to destroy it. And this absurdity is called 'secularism'."

"‘US-hating’ chemist held in India with 10Kg of Fentanyl Hydrochloride that could kill 5M people. Mohammad Sadiq’s name was concealed by all major newspapers except a local daily in Maharashtra. This is the same drug found with brother of Toronto terrorist."

"Any use of Islam to develop supremacist ideas, which are political in nature and subjugate people who are not from that philosophy, is fascism. Fascism involves whipping up people under a certain order by employing non-state actors to implement policies of supremacy, whether it is the concept of Aryan supremacy in Germany or Italian Blackshirts. Islamofascism is a new form of fascism where the religion is implemented and used as a political tool to implement the goals of a worldwide caliphate, in which the Muslims will rule supreme and non-Muslims will either have to submit by paying a tax or convert or die. The Muslim Brotherhood, Jamat-i-Islami, Islami Jamiat-e-Talaba, SIMI, Taliban, Al Qaeda or ISIS, they are all different shades of the same animal; a worldwide Islamofascist ideology."

"The US has been reduced to from Ronald Regan right down to the joker sitting there who lectured India about religious tolerance and then went to Saudi Arabia to kiss the king’s hand! How stupid can you be! You are going to the world’s most intolerant country by cutting short your visit to India. And the joke is, when Michelle asked, “Oh Barack, why aren’t we going to Agra?” he said, “Let me show you a living 17th century king!” The US doesn’t know what it is doing, and it won’t act unless that makes money for someone."

"Stupidity knows no bounds, especially when fuelled by narcissism and a tongue laced with demagogy. There is no other way to describe George Galloway's absurd and offensive suggestion that Bradford should impose a total ban on Israeli tourists."

"[On the funders of the Black Dwarf newspaper] The other one was an armed-struggle potter, a woman called Fiona Armour-Brown, who lived in Wales. She was slightly over the top. She believed we should be setting up small terrorist groups – that wasn't the word used, but that's effectively what it was – in Wales and parts of Northern England, to challenge Labour. So we laughed her out of that one. But, again, she would send a cheque for a hundred quid, occasionally more – I think she'd inherited family money, too. Once when she came to the office I asked her why she was giving us this money. She said: "Politics – it’s the best paper around – but there’s also a personal thing involved." "What’s that?" She said: "Once, I was standing by a cliff-edge on the French Riviera – I was very unhappy, don't ask why – when a guy rolled up on a motorbike, with a leather jacket, stopped, looked sternly at me and said: 'You’re not thinking of committing suicide, are you?' And I was so stunned I said: 'Well, that is what I was about to do.' He said, 'Don’t be silly! Come on, get on the back of my motorbike – I don’t have a spare helmet – and I’ll take you to the nearest town, and we'll sit down and get rid of this nonsense in your head.' That was Christopher Logue. 'So,' she said, 'I owe Christopher my life, and when I saw that he was also one of the founding editors of your magazine ...' I checked with Christopher, who said: 'Thank God I did it.'""

"Let's discuss the world. To answer the question, "is globalisation possible without God", the simple answer is "yes". Globalisation is after all itself a code word, a mask, for not using the C-word, capitalism. Globalisation is basically the latest phase of expanding capitalism. This not something which is neutral, this is a capitalism that has its rules: it has its economic rules, it has its political rules, it has its cultural rules and it has its military rules. It is a system. At the heart of this system is the United States of America, the world's only existing empire today. The first time in the history of humanity that you have just had a single empire, so dominant, whose military budget is higher than the military budgets of the next 15 countries put together, and whose military-industrial complex itself is the eleventh largest economic entity in the world. This is the reality we live in, and this is the reality which confronts us in different ways."

"["Attacking Israeli right-wingers"] They have learnt nothing from what happened in to them in Europe. Nothing. [...] They talk a lot about saying all those marching for Palestine are antisemities. This of course isn't true. But I will tell you something, they don't like hearing. Every time they bomb Gaza, every time they attack Jerusalem – that is what creates antisemitism. Stop the occupation, stop the bombing and casual antisemitism will soon disappear."

"Julian exposed another set of wars. Basically, he exposed the so-called war on terror, which began after 9/11, has lasted 20 years, has led to six wars, millions killed, trillions wasted... So, what do you say to people like Chelsea Manning and Julian, who's the principal target of the legal and judicial brutalities taking place, when they reveal stuff, which everyone knows it's true, since some of it is on video — Americans bombing Iraqi families, totally innocent — totally innocent — laughing about it and are recorded killing them?... Julian, far from being indicted, should actually be a hero... And if they think that punishing him in this vindictive and punitive way is going to change people’s attitudes to coming out and telling the truth, they’re wrong. ...Julian...should never have been kept in prison for bail. He should not be in prison now awaiting a trial for extradition. He should be released."

"Hamas's atrocities, as they call it[, was] not something I would support, but in the middle of a liberation war that has been going on for nearly three decades it's a bit difficult for us sitting here to give concrete advice on tactics."

"Every time the Palestinians have tried non-violence it has failed. [Since October 7] there's been a huge shift. Why? Because the resistance has resumed."

"History handed Lenin a gift in the shape of the First World War. He grasped it with both hands and used it to craft an insurrection. It is revolutions that make history happen. Liberals of every sort, with rare exceptions, are found on the other side."

"Revolutionary periods invariably encompass a huge fluctuation of political consciousness that can never be registered accurately by any referendum."

"Fractures in the state, divisions in the ruling class and indecision on the part of the intermediate classes pave the way for dual power, which, in Russia, led to the creation of new institutions and later, in China, Vietnam, and Cuba, rested on revolutionary armies with varying class compositions that were locked in battle against their respective state machines."

"Why is insurrection an art? Because an armed uprising against he capitalist state or occupying imperialist armies has to be choreographed with precision, especially during its final stages."

"Time, then, to bury Lenin's body and revive some of his ideas. Future generations in Russia might realise that Lenin still has a bit more to offer than [[w:Pyotr Stolypin|Prince Stolypin."

"The assassination of the Austrian crown prince by a Serbian nationalist was the trigger for the conflict, not the underlying cause, comparable in modern times to the explosions of 9/11 that provided the pretext for the war on Iraq, the destruction of Libya, Syria and the Yemen and the total destabilisation of Afghanistan and Pakistan. The post 9/11 wars have lasted longer than the First and Second Wars put together."

"Had the United States remained neutral, as a majority of the country wanted, a ceasefire and truce between the British and German empires would have been the only realistic solution."

"In State and Revolution. the unfinished theoretical text interrupted by the revolution, Lenin abandoned all references to the divide between Russia and Western Europe that had littered previous writings."

"Not even the largest party can 'make' or 'steal' a revolution, but the success of such an endeavor depends on the ability, lucidity, energy and single-mindedness of a revolutionary party when confronted with a prerevolutionary crisis."

"The Punjab and the North-West Frontier Province had been through a brutal process of ethnic cleansing."

"The centre of the town was swathed in red flags. It was my first demonstration and one that I remember to this day. The city was Lahore, which for many centuries had been a much envied metropolis in Northern India. Then the last conquerors had departed, leaving behind a divided subcontinent. The old town had become part of a new country – Pakistan. The founder of this state, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, an agnostic, had cynically used religion to create a 'Muslim nation'. Jinnah had expressed the hope that Pakistan would, despite everything, remain a secular state, but the logic of history had proved fatal. All the Hindu and Sikh families in Lahore had fled across confessional frontiers. Little ‘Lahores’ had sprung up in Delhi."

"For my parents, most of whose friends suddenly vanished, Lahore in the fifties was like a ghost town. The pain of Partition has been sensitively depicted in a number of short stories by the Urdu writer, Saadat Hasan Manto, and by poets like Faiz Ahmed Faiz and Sahir Ludhianvi. I had been three and a half years old in 1947. Pre-Partition Lahore, for me, existed only in numerous overheard conversations. The recent past became a subject for discussions, sometimes heated, but more often sad, and these could be heard in every quarter of the city. They frequently centred on the vibrancy of the town. During the twenties, thirties and forties, it had been an important cultural centre, a home for poets and painters, a city that was proud of its cosmopolitanism. Nineteen forty-seven had changed all that for ever. The old coffee houses and teashops were still in place, but the Hindu and Sikh faces had disappeared, never to return. This fact was soon accepted; political gossip and poetry reasserted their old primacy under new conditions."

"Growing up in a newly independent country should have provided at least a tiny bit of inspiration, excitement or stimulation. Pakistan, alas, was a state without a history. Its ideologues, on the few occasions when they were coherent, could only think in terms of comparing and counterposing everything, big or small, to neighbouring India. Pakistan’s rulers suffered from a gigantic inferiority complex. This created problems on many levels, but for those of us at school in the fifties it created a terrible vacuum. Nationalism in Pakistan did not mean keeping a self-respecting distance from the former colonial power, but crude anti-Indian chauvinism. It was not totally illogical. The Congress in India had waged a two-pronged struggle against British imperialism. The Muslim League had been created by the British to organize the Muslim gentry. Even in the years prior to 1947, the Muslim League had essentially fought, not the British, but the Congress. In secret, I admired Nehru, but to have said so publicly would have led to too many fist-fights at school."

"Pakistan, deprived of a viable left after the migration of Hindu and Sikh communists following Partition, gained a set of radical mass-circulation daily papers and journals which had no equal in neighbouring India or elsewhere in the continent."

"The Progressive Papers had always been an anomaly in Pakistan, where the bulk of the post-Partition intelligentsia was not merely conformist, but engaged in a project to rewrite the history of the struggle for Indian independence in order to provide the new state with a raison d’être."

"Bhutto walked in smartly attired, but slightly nervous. He clearly thought that he would warm us up with a carefully chosen diatribe against India. He demanded that the Indians permit the people of Kashmir to determine their own future and decide whether or not they wanted to stay in India or join Pakistan. "There has to be a plebiscite in Kashmir", he thundered, expecting a round of applause. There was none. Unable to contain myself I shouted from the back: "What about a plebiscite in Pakistan first?" He was so shocked at my effrontery that, uncharacteristically, he was silent for a few seconds as he frowned at me. This was taken as a signal and heckling began on a massive scale. "Why are you in a military government?" "Are you scared to contest free elections?" "Death to Ayub Khan!" Bhutto refused to answer these questions, but kept insisting that he was there to talk on a different subject. We said we weren't interested in that topic, but wanted to discuss Pakistan."

"Powell did strike me, however, as an extremely capable and intelligent Conservative politician. There was no fanatical gleam in his eyes, though I do remember feeling that his attitude to India was slightly strange. I could not place it at the time; it was neither jingoism nor simply nostalgia, but nor was it the scholarly interest of a historian or the detached reflections of a logician. Many years later when I was reading Paul Scott's opus on the British in India, I suddenly remembered Powell. One of the major characters in Scott's novels reminded me of him. It was Ronald Merrick, whose ambiguous class background in Britain ultimately exploded in colonial India. This was a reflection of something that ran very deep in many middle- and lower-middle-class Englishmen and women who had served as colonial administrators or officers in India."

"A few days before we were due to leave for Hanoi, our Cambodian hosts took pity on us. A small plane was laid on to fly us to Angkor Wat, where we could marvel at the magic of the 850-year-old Khymer palaces. The occasion was slightly surreal. Next door a bitter and cruel war was taking place; we could hear the noise of the bombings from Cambodia. And yet these old ruins generated an unbelievable tranquillity. I walked silently through and around them. I observed their richness from every possible angle and gazed in awe at the rich repertoire of images. The beautiful reliefs on the plinths supporting the terraces were matched by the friezes of erotic groups and minor deities of traditional Hindu sculpture. Here in the middle of the Cambodian jungles one caught a glimpse of the myths and legends of medieval India. Here, too, a caste of military aristocrats must have established its control over tribespeoples and ‘barbarians’. As I wandered, in a semidaze, I thought of the polymathic qualities, skills and perseverance that must have been a hallmark of the architects, stonemasons, master-artists and their apprentices, the latter notorious for the outspoken eroticism of their sexual sculptures. And the slaves who carried the stones that made all this possible? What was their lifespan? I saw the sun set on Angkor Wat that evening and almost forgot the war. It is one of the wonders of the world, but impossible to record except in the mind’s eye. No postcard or film could convey the richness of the Cambodian sky or the play of golden red shadows and reflections on the stones and statues of the ancient Khymer works."

"The same night, in a neighbouring palatial ruin, we saw a moon rise and in its light witnessed an exquisite display of Cambodian folk dancing, once again a variation of the old dances of Southern India. In the background lay the darkness of the forest. The night was enveloped by silence. The technologies of the 20th century could neither be seen nor heard. We might easily have been part of a scene from a different epoch. The image of Angkor Wat remains vivid. When I shut my eyes I can still recall many pictures of the sun setting on the delicate and graceful reliefs. I thought of them a lot in the years that followed, first when Kissinger and Nixon embarked on their campaign and bombed the country into the Stone Age, resulting in a savagery which gave birth to the deranged squads of Pol Pot. Neither variant, I am happy to say, destroyed Angkor Wat. It is still there and I have not given up the idea of seeing it again one day."