Religion

Religion is a very naive subject when brought under discussion. It is so weak a topic because it has more emotions then logic attached to it. One denies all facts when it comes to religion and to someone who is either a deep follower of his religion or not it is still the best religion in the world. To a Muslim Islam is the best and most purified and complete religion of all, to a Christian Christianity will be over all other religions and same will be the case with a Hindu, a Jew and a Zoroastrian. The problem not only ends into mere arguments but it might even lead up to a war. Wars have been fought under the banner of religion, wars have been fought in order to spread the word, in order to gain more land for religion to breed. Muslims have fought in the time and after of the Holy prophet, Christians fought after Jesus was crucified and even Christian monasteries raided battles against the crusaders in order to save the church. Let us trace centuries back into the time of the Aryans when they started off as very peaceful and religious tribe. They believed in self sacrifice and would sacrifice animals and even their plantations for theirs Gods. But suddenly when their demands grew and they realized that there is a vaster world others the small chunk of land they have been habiting on for centuries they started to discover more. Just then “GLOBALIZATION” stepped in, which meant that they learned how to tame their horses and use them commercially they learned the art of fighting and swords. Before this they would only sacrifice for the Gods and in order to make them happy and gain health or wealth. But then now they became warriors and they kept on looting traders of their animals and attacking neighboring lands. Even their religion had changed now their Prime God had shifted from Mazda to Indra. Mazda was a peaceful God while Indra was the one who had saved the world on his chariot killing a monster which had brought in stability into the world. Their heroes had changed from their priest to the chariot warriors. A peaceful nation had been converted into warrior tribe. Even more dangerous than this is the perceptions that every individual has created of its religion or what a complete tribe holds about it. The people of the axial time had a God for everything source on this Earth. They had a God for something that didn’t even exist. This link to God and religion was the reason that this conversion took place. Some tribes amongst them faded away into becoming warriors for a different God while some remained the same. Same is the case with every religion that has either existed on this planet or is still here. Same is with Islam. Muslims relate everything that happens in their life to Allah and his orders and wishes. They might be right in believing this but this is what has led to extremism and fundamentalism. This has become the excuse for extremist to raise swords against what they consider as infidels and apostates.

Something as pure and holy as religion has been infiltrated by us humans. We have used it and bended it according to our wishes and suitability. Its purity has been lost when it became more then religion, when it became the reason to attack, when it became a reason to enforce our views onto others, its purity was lost when it was used.

Philosophy

Even I believe that every individual is a philosopher in himself. We think, we imagine, we question and then we try finding the answers ourselves or even achieve them through any means. But we only accept them if we find them logical or rational. Rationality then varies greatly. Rationality to a scientist would be that it fits is equation but rationality to a priest would be if it helps him attain spirituality. To a layman it would be if it answers his questions according to his satisfaction or what the society accepts it as. Rationality thus differs from society to society and nation to nation and then between every individual. All the three questions that rose here are not the only ones I believe to be of relevance. It not always what should we know or what is in it or how do we know, it is also why do we want to know and when should be the right time to know it. Thinking cannot be limited to just a few naïve questions. It is one endless system, it is an unbreakable chain. One question will always lead to another one and then the effect carries on.  One belief will lead to another belief and questioning one of it will lead to questioning the next one. This chain cannot be broken or altered or even controlled. This is the complexity the brain carries and this is what philosophy is all about. This is what knowledge is. Accepting everything as it is, is not gaining knowledge, it is limiting it. Knowledge is a never ending path and questioning becomes it staircase.

We might answer everything through religion but it doesn’t end here. Even religion demands us to question certain stuff. Blindly following something without knowing why it has been endowed upon us is not acceptance, its ignorance. If we question what we belief we are not trying to go against it but we might just be trying to fastening our belief in it more. If the questions are correctly answered the belief is strengthened.

Great philosophers have lived on this planet have they have attained this status by questioning, by trying to figuring out what, why, how, when, where, have things occurred. This is why we have so many branches of education and this is why the tree of knowledge is ever growing.

The LTTE and their major assassinations

The LTTE, which may have between 7,000 and 15,000 armed combatants (PDF), is infamous for its suicide bombings. Since the late 1980s, the group has conducted approximately two hundred suicide attacks which are carried out by elite squads called Black Tigers. Targets have included transit hubs, Buddhist shrines, and office buildings. According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the LTTE invented the suicide belt and pioneered the use of women in suicide attacks. LTTE fighters wore cyanide capsules around their necks so they could commit suicide if they were captured.

Beyond suicide bombings, the LTTE used conventional bombs and Claymore mines to attack political and civilian targets, and gunned down both Sri Lankan officials and civilians. In an April 2008 report, the U.S. State Department also accuses the LTTE of engaging in abductions and extortion. Many of the LTTE's victims have been public officials. Over the past twenty years, the LTTE has been accused of assassinating almost a dozen high-level figures, including two heads of state.

Assassinations and attacks on officials allegedly committed by the LTTE include;

·         The May 1991 assassination of former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi at a campaign rally in India

·         the July 1999 assassination of a Sri Lankan member of parliament, Neelan Thiruchelvam, an ethnic Tamil involved in a government-sponsored peace initiative;

·         a pair of December 1999 suicide bombings in Colombo that wounded Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga. the June 2000 assassination of Sri Lankan Industry Minister C.V. Goonaratne;

·         the August 2005 assassination of Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar; ]

·         the January 2008 assassination of a member of parliament from the opposition United National Party (UNP), T. Maheswaran. the January 2008 assassination of Sri Lankan Nation-Building Minister D. M. Dassanayake;

·          the February 2008 assassination of two cadres of the political party and paramilitary group Tamil Makkal Viduthalai Pulikal (TMVP). the April 2008 assassination of Sri Lankan Highway Minister Jeyaraj Fernandopulle.

A short history of LTTE

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), also known as the Tamil Tigers, are a separatist group in Sri Lanka, led by Vellupillai Prabhakaran . The LTTE had been agitating for a homeland for ethnic Tamils, who felt persecuted by Sri Lanka's ethnic majority, the Sinhalese since the 1980’s.  For the last twenty six years the group has been blamed for a dozen high-level assassinations, over two hundred suicide attacks, and its war against the government which has cost more than seventy thousand lives.

Sri Lanka, an island in the Indian Ocean off the southeast coast of India, gained its independence in 1948. The Ethnic Sinhalese Buddhists make up about three-quarters of the island's population; Tamils, both Indian and Sri Lankan, are the next largest ethnic group out of which most are Hindu. The Tamils are an ethnic group that live in southern India (mainly in the state of Tamil Nadu) hand on Sri Lanka, an island of 21 million people off the southern tip of India. Most Tamils live in northern and eastern Sri Lanka, and they comprise approximately 10 percent of the island's population. Their religion and Tamil language set them apart from the four-fifths of Sri Lankans who are Sinhalese—members of a largely Buddhist, Sinhala-speaking ethnic group. When Sri Lanka was ruled as Ceylon by the British, most Sri Lankans regarded the Tamil minority as collaborators with imperial rule and resented the Tamil's perceived preferential treatment. But since Sri Lanka became independent in 1948, the Sinhalese majority has dominated the country. The remainder of Sri Lanka's population includes ethnic Muslims, as well as Tamil and Sinhalese Christians. The Tamils in Sri Lanka number just 3.2 million, but they have close links to a far larger Tamil population just a few miles across the sea in southern India, where they benefit from sanctuary and financial support. Their grievances run deep, with roots in the British colonial administration that favored the Hindu Tamils as bureaucratic administrators. Many Tamils say they are discriminated against in jobs and education in favor of the Buddhist Sinhalese majority, who make up three quarters of the population.

Interviewing a hero..Major Iqbal Najmi

Me: “ First of all I would like to thank you for this and that it is a great honor to be able to take your interview Major Iqbal Najmi, Sir can you tell us about how and when you joined the army?”

Major Iqbal: “I joined army in 1978 as a cadet and stayed a cadet for the following year, but I was then relegated, I was not being commissioned due to some reasons but after another six months I was commissioned into a 22 cavalry, I was commissioned here because General Zia-ul-Haq was also in the 22 cavalry, I was a proud man, this was because I had passed 7^th in my course.”

Me: “You were in the Siachen War, can you give us a few highlights of the war and what was your role in it?”

Major Iqbal: “ I was not been commissioned at the war site first, but then Me and a group of soldiers were ordered to camp at Mount Eagle, the highest peak in the Siachen War ground. It was around 22000 feet above sea level and was around negative sixty cold. We were sent there to have a bird’s eye view of everything, but on reaching there I suffered severe nausea and started vomiting. Due to which I had to be brought down and the only method was to drag me down wrapped up in a comforter. While I was been dragged down I slipped and fell into a cavern. It was here that I suffered this frost bite. It took me three months to be able to stand up on my feet. General Zia had com personally to meet me at the base and asked me if I needed something. I asked him if I could be moved to my cavalry but due to my poor health I was asked to rest.

Me: “After you suffered the injury did you leave the army or u continued to give yours services to the forces?”

Major Iqbal: “After a few months of well attained rest I was asked to join the intelligence were I served for a couple of years and then attained retirement from the army”

Me: “After retirement was there any special offers that the army had bestowed for you?”

Major Iqbal: “Yes, obviously right after retirement I was offered Rs1587 pension which continued for about two months and then I was offered a job which I serviced for about ten years. They not only offered me medical assistance but medical facilities for my family were completely free in the civil hospitals.

Me: “Currently you have moved to America, why did you have to leave Pakistan and go?”

Major Iqbal: “ Well we moved in search of a better living and a better future for our children but in reaching there I was become a victim of this very rare disease that happens to a very few in a million in America because of which my neck has tilted towards the left, the doctors there were not able to treat me so I have come back here and a local doctor has been treating me and my health seems to be improving. I suffered this because my body because of what it had to go through around thirty years ago in the Siachen War has become very vulnerable.

Me: “Thank you sir for this extra ordinary interview and truly you are one of the heroes that Pakistan deserves”

Naubedari: Helping those who really need it.

In the month of august a major catastrophe hit Pakistan. The flood that started from the north of Khyber Pakhtoonkhuwa and flooded down towards Punjab, Baluchistan and Sindh destroyed all that came in its way destroying thousands of towns and left millions of poor souls to leave their beloved homes and run for dear life. This is a natural disaster that is bigger and more devastating then any that has hit Pakistan ever in it 63 years of independence. One that has shook the very foundations of this nation. It was claimed that the earth quake that had hit Pakistan on the 18^th of October was not able to cause this massive scale of devastation. That was a catastrophe that the Pakistani nation when joined hands were able to not if over come at the least over see.

Their have been heated claims that the government has not done enough to help those who have been affected. It has also been a common believe now that even the general public has not shown the same enthusiasm that it showed years ago. The hands that joined in great brotherhood have gone numb. Great leaders such has Imran khan and media individuals such as Fakhr e Alam have yet to be seen doing what they did when the earth quake shook this nation. But in this heat there rose small groups of individuals and students whose hearts where drown seeing their brothers affected. One of these was a small group of students who have been actively working under the leadership of Murtaza Mustafa and Asad Ali (I) under the name of Naubedari (an unregistered charity organization) for those who needed help, and just when they saw millions “really” needed help they stepped out of their houses trying to gather as much as they could. They went door to door asking for whatever people were willing to donate. They knocked and people answered. It took them around 9 days to gather an approximate of 0.3 million rupees and more then a ton of clothing. People not only provided good cash but also appreciations that lifted their hopes and souls.  With these they were able to make boxes of basic food necessities including bread, salt, sugar, daal (), tea, water and some basic medicines.

 They then joined hands with a group of bayview high graduates who had also like them stepped onto streets and were able to collect a handsome amount of cash. Naubedari was then able to provide their allies with around 108 6 liters of pet water bottles. Naubedari also joined hands with the Rotaract club of Karachi helping them with food and water supplies. They were then able to help two small towns in the upper sindh district providing them indirectly through their own land lords or trailers that were taken by individuals themselves.

This effort did not satisfy the ever growing love and care for their brothers but when they were asked to volunteer at the Pakistan Air Force base at Shahrah e faisal they did not agitate. It has been 5 days since they have been regularly volunteering packing, loading and unloading tons of donations and they seem just not willing to stop. They spend 3 to 4 hours daily at the base working under trained officials trying their hearts out for their own badly injured nation.

The enthusiasm has not died and I doubt it ever will until such young souls live on the phase of this world. Young men who understand and feel what their brothers went through young men who have the “JAZBA” that made this country and the jazba that drives it till today.

Fabrication of race

Racism as I believe is a struggle for power and domination. It is one race’s attempt to degrade the other, in order to achieve a higher status. All these years the whites have not only degraded but mistreated the blacks in order to show them as an inferior race. It also becomes a way to show their insecurity. Persecutions have been carried out; millions have been tortured and killed under the banner and struggle for race domination. This imbalance between the whites and the non-whites specially let to major gaps between people. Richmond here tries to show us the affects in South Africa and what I felt from this article was that the whites due to their insecurities towards the blacks caused mass displacements and killings. Entire races have been swept away from the face of this world the best example being the Latin Americans.

In Fabrication of Race the author tries to convey and question as to what this “race” theory actually is. This is a very complicated subject. He tries to bring up the question as to what would determine ones race and how do u know as to what race one belongs to? The same is what I feel of this mixture of views and of the difference of this man-made ideology. Even though nearly all religions in this world say that all humans are same but the greatest separation also becomes religion itself. But still white Christians degrade black ones. They try to show their superiority but what proves that they are superior. 

I believe that it was the colonial era that had the greatest impact in determining the differences between races. I feel and as the article “black skin white mask” says that it is our weakness that allowed the whites culture become superior to ours, it is ourselves who has allowed them to suppress us, it is our own fault our own weaknesses and differences that blinded us to fight against each other and gave them the path to domination. It is us Asians that are so enslaved to their culture and their methods, that we gave them an advantage to dominate us. The best example is of the sub-continent, a land that had lived in an invisible bond of harmony and brotherhood for decades but after the entrance of the British and our own cultural and ethnic differences we became an easy meat to the ever growing power of the English.

Even though we do have our own identity but our wish to be someone else is where we deny the strength that we could endow and leave a tree with weak roots for the power hungry to prey on.