To let these hordes be the judge, jury and the executioner would be the exact opposite of what Salmaan Taseer stood for. They have succeeded in killing Salmaan Taseer but must not be allowed to lynch him posthumously ….
Read more : Daily Times
Category Archives: Personalities
Taseer — Champion of Secular Democracy
By Wajid Shamsul Hasan
The ghastly assassination of Governor of Punjab Salman Taseer is a great loss for the Pakistani nation, Pakistan People’s Party, President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani and the government. He was brave, courageous and daring—a great man who spoke for the rights of the people including minorities. He was totally committed to the high democratic ideals and the egalitarian vision of Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah, Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and martyred Benazir Bhutto.
Salman was held in highest esteem by the people who respected his boldness to proclaim loud and clear that he believed in liberal and secular politics. He was targeted for elimination for having defended the rights of minorities against the black and discriminatory laws introduced by dictator General Ziaul Haq to terrorise the people into submission to his totalitarian rule. …
Read more : PakMission-UK
Salmaan Taseer : My Father Died for Pakistan
My Father Died for Pakistan
By SHEHRBANO TASEER, Lahore, Pakistan
TWENTY-SEVEN. That’s the number of bullets a police guard fired into my father before surrendering himself with a sinister smile to the policemen around him. Salmaan Taseer, governor of Punjab, Pakistan’s most populous province, was assassinated on Tuesday — my brother Shehryar’s 25th birthday — outside a market near our family home in Islamabad. …
Read more : New York Times
Dedicated to Salman Taseer
Mazhab kay jo byopari hein,
Woh sab se bari beemari hein.
Woh jin kay siwa sab kaafir hein,
Jo deen ka harf-e-akhir hein.
In jhootay aur makkaron say,
Mazhab kay theke-daron say,
Mein baaghi hoon mai baaghi hoon.
Jo Chahe mujh per Zulm Karo
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– Benazir Bhutto used to recite this poem. CLICK HERE to listen her recitation of the poem!
Salmaan Taseer: assassinated on a perilous path – Dr Mohammad Taqi
Salmaan Taseer dedicated his personal fortune to the cause of publishing the unvarnished truth and the people’s right to know this truth. It would not have been possible for this paper’s editorial board to carry itself independently were it not for Salmaan Taseer’s personal commitment to not only this project but to the very freedoms of speech and expression.
“The sorrowful smell of the mist,
Lingering over the Indus,
Gentle waves of rice, dung and rind,
This is the salt cry of Sindh,
As I die let me feel,
The fragrance of tears”
— Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai.
“It was a Sindhi poet, Shah Abdul Latif, who captured the forlornness of his country in this haunting verse,” wrote Salmaan Taseer in the opening chapter of his 1979 book, Bhutto: A Political Biography. I have read these words many times but had never once thought that the forlornness might get deeper than the deepest depression one could feel. But the assassination of Salmaan Taseer has left many of us even more devastated and depressed than what Shah Latif could depict.
I do not mourn Salmaan Taseer alone but I also mourn those who have been killed before him on the perilous path of speaking their mind, and those who will be killed in the future on this journey. Ayesha Siddiqa, Kamran Shafi, Nadeem Farooq Paracha, Pervez Hoodbhoy, Sherry Rehman, and so many others are living on borrowed time. It is not a matter of if but when an indoctrinated bigot let loose by the deep state will get to them or, for that matter, any of us who decline to follow the rotten creed that it has been peddling for decades.
However, I have a feeling that Salmaan Taseer would not have wanted to be remembered with melancholy. His illustrious father, Dr M D Taseer, once said:
“Parwana jal kay dil ki muradon ko pa gaya, Aur shama reh gayi rukh-e-zeba liay huay” (Translation: The light-loving moth has died caressing the candle flame. The candle thus remains alone in all its elegance).
It is nearly impossible to accurately translate the above Urdu verse, which my father, Malik Rahat Ali, had quoted while writing Dr M D Taseer’s obituary for Edward’s College, Peshawar’s magazine Tajjali (light) in 1951. The obituary was titled ‘Aik raushan dimagh tha, na raha’ (an enlightened mind is no more). It is amazing how references to light and progressive thought keep popping up when discussing the Taseers and in the work of the Taseers themselves. Pakistan, and the liberal thought within Pakistan, is the candle that Salmaan and M D Taseer loved to the extent that to see it remain alight, they would dedicate their lives to it.
When thinking of Salmaan Taseer, two images come to mind. One is of a political activist and the second is of a patron of progressive and liberal thought. Perhaps senior members of the Indo-Pakistani leftist movement will recall that Dr M D Taseer, along with Abdullah Malik and Rajindra Singh Bedi had pioneered a liberal publishing house called Sangham Publishers in 1947, before the partition. I would not be wrong in assuming that the Daily Times and its media affiliates came into being due to Salmaan Taseer’s desire to follow in his father’s footsteps. …
Read more : Daily Times
Pakistan : Sindh breaks the silence!
Karachi – Sindh: Today on January 05, 2011 in the evening hundreds of people turned up at Karachi press club against the assassination of Salman Taseer. They marched from press club to Zainab market (Saddar). Male- female participants were chanting slogans against the assassination of Salman Taseer & “mulla minded” forces. At the end candles were lit to pay tribute to salman Taseer.
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To watch BBC video, CLICK HERE
Bhutto was Hussain’s follower. Hussain and his follower never die.
Bhutto Lives! – by Mohammad Ali Mahar, Austin, TX
There are some who are born with a personal charm. Others have the privilege of being born with a golden spoons in their mouths. Then there are those who achieve the best of the best education in the best of the educational institutions. A few people attain the highest of the high positions. Very few have a combination of the above. He was among the rare breed of men to have them all. He was certainly no ordinary man. He was Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto.
While interviewing Henry Kissinger, Oriana Fallaci asked who was the greatest leader ever Mr. Kissinger had the privilege of meeting (Interview with History). He rebounded the question to Oriana. Oriana was a great admirer of Indira Gandhi. She had recently done her interview. So, she presented Indira’s name. Kissinger did not agree. Shah of Iran. No. Castro. No. Tito. No. Shah Faisal. No. Nixon. Certainly not.
Then finally, reluctantly, she uttered Bhutto’s name. Oriana in a way hated Bhutto. Bhutto had her abducted from Karachi Airport – while she was on her way to interview Shah of Iran – to present his side of the story in reply to Mrs. Gandhi’s interview after the fall of Dhaka. Kissinger’s face brightened. He told Oriana that Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto was the greatest leader he had ever met. He told Oriana that it was not just the oratorical qualities, not just the education, not even the political upbringing that were necessary ingredients for a leader. It was the combination of all those plus the statesmanship that was required of a great leader. With a smile on his face, he told Oriana that only Bhutto had all those traits. He told Oriana Fallaci that in his opinion Bhutto was the greatest of the leaders of the world.
In 1963, young Bhutto visited the United Sates of America as Foreign Minister of Pakistan. His schedule included a meeting with President J. F. Kennedy. At the end of the meeting, Mr. Kennedy was so impressed by this
young fellow that he told him that had Bhutto been an American, he would have been on Mr. Kennedy’s cabinet. To which Bhutto spontaneously replied, “Beware Mr. President. If I were an American, I would not be in your cabinet, I would be in your place”.
Kennedy liked the reply so much that before his death, he told everyone he met of the courage and wit of this young Pakistani minister.
Bhutto was sent to gallows 20 years ago. Some say that he died that day. I don’t believe that. Bhutto was Hussain’s follower. Hussain and his follower never die.
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Courtesy → : The above article was originally posted by Mohammad Ali Mahar on SANAlist on April 4, 2000. After 11 years, here it is once again, as a tribute to a great leader who lives in our hearts even though his body is buried at Garhi Khuda Bux, Larkano, Sindh.
Remembering Jaun Elia a Marxist wirter and poet
Jaun Elia (Urdu: جون ایلیا, December 14, 1931 – November 8, 2002) was a notable Pakistani Urdu poet, philosopher, biographer and scholar. He was widely praised for his unique style of writing. He was the brother of renowned journalist and psychoanalyst Rais Amrohvi and journalist and world-renowned philosopher Syed Muhammad Taqi, and husband of famous columnist Zahida Hina. He was a man of letters, well versed in Arabic, English, Persian, Sanskrit and Hebrew.
Jaun Elia was born on December 14, 1931 in an illustrious family of Amroha, Uttar Pradesh. He was the youngest of his siblings. His father, Allama Shafiq Hasan Elia, was deeply involved in art and literature and also an astrologer and a poet. This literary environment modeled him along the same lines, and he wrote his first Urdu couplet when he was just 8.
Read more : Wikipedia
Literature and Revolution
Leon Trotsky’s Literature and Revolution
“Trotsky was perhaps the greatest representative in history of the Marxist school of literary criticism, which itself incorporated what was most farsighted in the aesthetic criticism produced by the bourgeois-democratic revolutions of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.”
This extraordinary work of Marxist literary criticism, first published in 1924, is a further illustration of the author’s multifaceted genius. Leon Trotsky, co-leader of the Russian Revolution and its leading orator, Soviet foreign minister and founder and leader of the Red Army, was also one of the leading Marxist critics of this period.
Trotsky subjects the leading trends in literature and art in the early years of the revolution to criticism that is sharp but never tendentious. He illuminates and develops the Marxist method of historical materialism, rejecting “art for art’s sake” conceptions as well as their apparent opposite, the theories of “proletarian culture” and “proletarian art,” then becoming fashionable in certain left circles. …
Mehring Books is pleased to make Literature and Revolution by Leon Trotsky available to readers of the World Socialist Web Site. Click here to order
Tripping democracy — again? — Dr Mohammad Taqi
Benazir Bhutto wrote extensively about reconciliation between the Islamic world and the west. Unfortunately, she did not live to see it materialise. But even before that she had started a rapprochement with Mian Nawaz Sharif and had outlined a roadmap for it too
I write these lines on the evening of December 27, 2010 at exactly the same time when Benazir Bhutto breathed her last, three years ago. Her martyrdom remains one of those immense tragedies where one cannot forget the place where one was or the thoughts that crossed one’s mind upon receiving the tragic news. ….
Read more : Daily Times
Benazir Bhutto – the savior
Woh Kal Bhi Benazir Thi, Woh Ab Bhi Benazir Hai
A Tribute to Shaheed Benazir Bhutto. Singer and Lyrics: Ms. Dilshad Mirza.
Powerful hidden hands are covering up the assassins of Benazir Bhutto?
Courtesy: ARY News, via – Siasat – You Tube Link
Last moments of Benazir Bhutto
Last photo taken moments before SHE was assassinated. Notice the utter spiritual look on HER face as SHE knew…
The Ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity – BJP’s Jaswant revises Jinnah
VIEW: BJP’s Jaswant revises Jinnah —Karan Thapar
Jaswant Singh’s view of Jinnah is markedly different to the accepted Indian image. He sees him as a nationalist. In fact, the author accepts that Jinnah was a great Indian. I’ll even add he admires Jinnah and I’m confident he won’t disagree
There’s a book published tomorrow that deserves to be widely read and I want to be the first to draw your attention to it. It’s Jaswant Singh’s biography of Jinnah. Read on and you’ll discover why.
Continue reading The Ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity – BJP’s Jaswant revises Jinnah
Benazir Bhutto Assassination Investigations : Insaf Do – No Justice, No peace?
Courtesy: Express TV (programme Insaf Do – 24th December 2010 – Benazir Bhutto Assasination Investigations)
via – ZemTV – You Tube Link
Musharraf was hostile when he telephoned Benazir: Siegel
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Musharraf was hostile when he telephoned Benazir: Siegel
* BB’s confidante says Musharraf offered to drop charges if she quit politics for 10 years
* Former premier emailed him asking whom to hold accountable after October 18 incident
LAHORE: Former president Gen (r) Pervez Musharraf was hostile and had a confrontational discussion with former premier Benazir Bhutto before her return to Pakistan, a private TV channel quoted Benazir’s close friend and adviser Mark Siegel on Friday.
Continue reading Musharraf was hostile when he telephoned Benazir: Siegel
Balochistan Bleeds – Another Bugti Baloch leader Arrested in a insulting way
Quetta : After Shahzain Bugti’s arrest, tension has once again escalated in Balochistan. Different view points about the arrest of Nawab Akbar Bugti’s grandson are emerging.
In this episode of Reporter, Arshad Sharif tries to figure out the direction in which things would be heading after this high profile arrest and how the situation in Balochistan can be calmed down.
Courtesy: Dawn News TV (Reporter with Arshad Sharif)
via – ZemTV – You Tube Link
Banladesh awards G. M. Sayed for voicing Bangladesh
Sindh – Karachi : Bangladesh’s government has decided to confer Bangladesh National Award to Sindh nationalist leader late G. M. Sayed, late Mir Ghous Bakhsh Bizinjo from Balochistan, [the poet of Sindhi language, Late Sheikh Ayaz from Sindh, who strongly opposed the military operation and as a president of Sukkur Bar Association he passed a resolution against the brutal military operation and genocide of Bangalis due to it he put behind the bars. During his imprisonment (May 1971 to January 1972) in Sukkur Jail, he wrote his “Jail Diary”. He had also behind the bars from 1965 to 1968 due to his revolutionary poetry in military dictator Ayoub Khan era . In later years it becomes a piece of Sindhi revolutionary literature.], Baadshah Khan, Abdus Samad Achakzai, Khair Bakhsh Marri, Ahmad Saleem, Tahira Muzhar, Zafar Malik and Air Marshal (R) Asghar Khan are among the 40 Pakistanis who were chosen for the award.
G. M. Sayed was the first leader in west Pakistan who had dare to strongly condemned and opposed the genocide of Bangladeshis in 1970 by Pakistani security forces during darkest times of dictatorship. The authoritarian authorities of that time decided to give punishment to G. M. Sayed, therefore, they put G. M. Sayed under house arrest and his house was declared a sub-jail. He had been detained without trial until his death. He was declared “Prisoner of Conscience” by Amnesty International.
G.M. Syed mainly advocated for non-violence, democracy, secularism (Separation of religion from the state), national self-determination, unity among all south Asian nations and states, social and economic equality for all. Long live the struggle of Saeen G. M. Syed for the religious harmony, unity among all south Asian nations and states towards universal peace.
Now Bangladesh selected G.M. Sayed and several other individuals from various countries to award them with its highest civilian decoration.
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For more details : Examiner.com
Chomsky signs Australian letter of support for Assange
Renowned American scholar and activist Noam Chomsky signed an open letter to Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard on Tuesday urging her to make a “strong statement” in support of Julian Assange.
Chomsky, a professor of linguistics at the US Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a prominent critic of US foreign policy, joined scores of high-profile Australian lawyers, authors and journalists in signing the letter.
Noting the “increasingly violent rhetoric” directed towards Australian-born Assange, the besieged founder of whistleblowing website WikiLeaks, the signatories said there were “grave concerns” for his safety.
John Lennon : You can’t murder a legacy
Imagine there’s no heaven.
It’s easy if you try.
No hell below us, Above us only sky.
Imagine all the people Living for today.
Imagine there’s no countries. It isn’t hard to do. Nothing to kill or die for, And no religion too.
Imagine all the people Living life in peace.
– John Lennon
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John Lennon was a musician and singer-songwriter who rose to worldwide fame as one of the founding members of The Beatles and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Lennon disengaged himself from the music business in 1975 to devote time to his family, but re-emerged in 1980 with a new album, Double Fantasy. He was murdered three weeks after its release.
Lennon revealed a rebellious nature and acerbic wit in his music, his writing, his drawings, on film, and in interviews, and he became controversial through his political activism. He moved to New York City in 1971, where his criticism of the Vietnam War resulted in a lengthy attempt by Richard Nixon’s administration to deport him, while his songs were adopted as anthems by the anti-war movement. It’s 30 years ago, shockingly and unexpectedly on 8 Dec. 1980, John Lennon was murdered in Imagine there’s no heaven.
The Man Who Knew The Future Of Pakistan Before Its Creation – Abul Kalam Azad’s predictions about Pakistan – all correct
THE MAN WHO KNEW THE FUTURE
by Shorish Kashmiri, Matbooat Chattan, Lahore
Congress president Maulana Abul Kalam Azad gave the following interview to journalist Shorish Kashmiri for a Lahore based Urdu magazine, Chattan, in April 1946. It was a time when the Cabinet Mission was holding its proceedings in Delhi and Simla. Azad made some startling predictions during the course of the interview, saying that religious conflict would tear apart Pakistan and its eastern half would carve out its own future. He even said that Pakistan’s incompetent rulers might pave the way for military rule. According to Shorish Kashmiri, Azad had earmarked the early hours of the morning for him and the interview was conducted over a period of two weeks. This interview had published Kashmiri’s own book Abul Kalam Azad, which was printed only once by Matbooat Chattan Lahore, a now-defunct publishing house. Former Union Cabinet Minister Arif Mohammed Khan discovered the book after searching for many years and translated the interview in English.
Excerpt :
Maulana Abul Kalam Azad: The Man Who Knew The Future Of Pakistan Before Its Creation
Muslims must realise that they are bearers of a universal message. They are not a racial or regional grouping in whose territory others cannot enter. … But today the situation is worse than ever. Muslims have become firm in their communalism; they prefer politics to religion …
The factors that laid the foundation of Islam in Indian society and created a powerful following have become victim of the politics of partition….
Read more : Scribd
Myanmar democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi released
YANGON, Myanmar – Pro-democracy hero Aung San Suu Kyi walked free after more than seven years under house arrest, welcomed by thousands of cheering supporters outside the decaying lakefront villa that has been her prison. …
Read more : Yahoo News
Another victim of strategic depth policy: ANP vice president Sardar Jilani Khan Achakzai died in target killing
Quetta : Another victim of Pakistan’s strategic depth policy: ANP senior leader and Central vice president Sardar Jilani Khan Achakzai died in target killing in Chaman.
For more details : BBC urdu
Ahmed Faraz – Ghazal – suna hai loag usEy aankh bhar ke
suna hai loag usEy aankh bhar ke deikhte haiN, so uske shaher meiN hUm bhi thaher ke deikhte haiN
Must watch : Kal bhi Bhutto zinda tha aaj bhi Bhutto zida hai
Courtesy: GEO TV ( Jawab deyh – 7th november 2010, Guest speaker Syed Mehdi)
Ghalib Ki Diwali
“Jinnah became irrelevant after Objectives Resolution” : Interview with Mubarak Ali
“YOU MAY BELONG TO ANY RELIGION OR CASTE OR CREED THAT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE BUSINESS OF THE STATE.” – JINNAH
By Mazhar Khan Jadoon
First published in The News on Sunday, August 29, 2010
The News on Sunday: How do you view secularism as having evolved in the particular case of India where the kings did not run their empires on the clergy’s instructions but according to political exigencies?
Mubarak Ali: Secularism has been in evolution since medieval times and if you go back to the ancient Ashoka period in India, you will find the ruling pattern to be entirely secular. It was a requirement for all the empires in India, including the Mughal Empire, to be secular and tolerant towards different religions under their rule. Ghauris, Mughals, Durranis and all other emperors had to opt for a secular approach to keep their vast dynasties intact. Clergy was not allowed to interfere in state matters and all the decisions were taken according to practical political exigencies. Allauddin Khilji was one of the great rulers of India who did tremendous welfare work for his people. Once he asked the Qazi whether his acts were according to Shariah or not. The Qazi said no. Khilji told Qazi, “I am illiterate and I don’t know whether my acts are according to Shariah or not, but what I am sure of is that I work for the betterment of my people.”
TNS: Does secularism have any place in Muslim history?
MA: Yes. Almost all the rulers in Muslim history applied the model of secularism during their rule. During the Abbasid period, ulema were not allowed to interfere in the political affairs of state and the caliph was not allowed to meddle in religious affairs. The Abbasid came to power with the help of Iranians who wanted the caliph to remain secular while the clergy at that time wanted the caliph to adhere to Islamic laws and impose Shariah. The conflict was resolved with the signing of a pact regarding state and religion being separate. Great historian Ziauddin Burney, in his book Fatwa-e-Jahandari, also emphasises that state and religion should be kept separate.
Continue reading “Jinnah became irrelevant after Objectives Resolution” : Interview with Mubarak Ali
BHAGAT KANWAR RAM : A SUFI SAINT OF SINDH
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Ruk Station and Sufi Saint singer and musician of Sindh, martyr (Shaheed) Bhaggat Kanwarram are synonyms. Ruk station is the place where this legend and icon of religious harmony, Ahansa and peace was murdered in November 1-2, 1939. His voice was very melodious and ranged over a very wide scale. His recordings of devotional songs were famous all over Sindh. His songs broadcast regularly over radio Ceylon (Hindi Service) during 1950s & 60s. Sufi mystic Saint Bhaggat Kanwarram and master chander’s songs were also broadcast from Radio Hyderabad, Sindh but dictator Ayoub Khan put ban on both legend singers of Sindh. The songs of both singer were banned up to dictator Zia’s rule. Their songs came back again to Radio Pakistan Hyderabad, when Benazir Bhutto’s elected democratic government came in power after the long “Movement for Restoration of Democracy” (MRD – 1983 and 1986).
Sindhi Song by Harish Chander grandson of Master Chander
–YouTube Link
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