Posts Tagged ‘Tolerance’

LAHORE: A small village near Lahore has achieved what most of the country has failed to forge: religious tolerance. In Qila Bhatianwala village, Shia and Sunnis live, pray, celebrate and mourn together, while the rest of the country sinks deeper into religious intolerance, ethnic violence and a generally distressing divide within [...]

Pakistan’s problems with violent extremism have eclipsed its historical role as a place with a tradition of tolerance. TODAY Peshawar in north-west Pakistan is a hotbed of insurgency and a strategic military entry point into Afghanistan. But more than 1,500 years ago the Gandhara region, which surrounded present-day Peshawar, was an [...]

Here is a thing for you; you heard spine chilling, devastatingly frank and shockingly straight forward admission of botched suicide bombing attempt by a teenage boy of impressionable mind, what would you make of it? To make your life little easier, you have two options to select from. One is beaten since inception and other never put into [...]

The following is a short clip of an interview of the Lebanese Shia Muslim scholar Muhammad Hassan Al-Amin. He discusses the need for a secular state, which is quite rare in the Muslim world, particularly within what one would label the orthodox clergy. Source: http: //youtu.be/pnwI2jcQ2Ww In much of the Muslim world, and particularly in [...]

And he was asked, “What is Love?” “You will see it today, tomorrow and the day after tomorrow.” He answered while smiling. They killed him that day, burned him the next day and threw his ashes to the wind the day after that. That’s how Farid ud Din Attar, a Persian poet and theoretician of Sufism, described the death scene of Mansur [...]

Source: Washington Post, 6 March 2011 Two months ago my friend Salman Taseer, the governor of Punjab, was cut down for standing up against religious intolerance and against those who would use debate about our laws to divide our people. On Tuesday, another leading member of the Pakistan People's Party (PPP), Shahbaz Bhatti, the minister for [...]

Related articles: Shahbaz Bhatti assassinated: Thank you, deep state! LUBP Archive on Shahbaz Bhatti The Federal Minister for Minority Affairs Shahbaz Bhatti was killed today in an attack on his vehicle in Islamabad. Two gunmen fired on Bhatti’s vehicle in I-8/3 area of the capital. He was taken to the hospital where he succumbed to [...]

From out of all the many particulars comes oneness, and out of oneness come all the many particulars- (Heraclitus, Fragment 54) One, while formulating and distinguishing salient idiosyncrasies of Pakistani nationhood, cannot take liberty to overlook the historic as well as ethnic roots which contrive whole national scenario. Looking deep into [...]

The following article suggests that religious fanatics (belonging to Deobandi, Ahl-e-Hadith, Shia and Barelvi sects) are a tiny minority in Pakistan. The dominant majority of Muslims and non-Muslims of Pakistan are a peace loving, tolerant nation. Unfortunately, our enemies within (the ISI) and without (the CIA) have exploited the religious and [...]

Related articles: Sindhi Topi, Indus Valley Civilisation and Our Fast Track Intellectuals – by Qais Anwar Fareeda, turya turya ja: In support of internal diversity of Islam – by Dr Jawad Syed LUBP Archive on 'Sindhi Topi Day' December 4 is Sindh Culture Day. A day when the people of the Sindh will celebrate the cultural heritage of [...]

Related articles: A tale of two Pakistani girls which remains hidden in other more important news No Place for Ahmadi Body in a Muslim graveyard LUBP Archive on Hindu (tag) THERE is no end to the injustices suffered by Pakistan`s minority communities because of the regressive thinking of many among the dominant religious group. As the [...]

Editor's note: Lately, it has become commonplace in Pakistan's middle class urban chatterers (the pseudo-liberals of the (un)civil society) to attack and ridicule individuals and communities on the basis of their religion or sect based beliefs and practices. On various occasions, consistent with their norms of hypocrisy and intolerance, the [...]

Video link of the interview: Tarek Fatah: Blood and Brotherhood In his continuing quest for ecumenical understanding, Tarek Fatah, Author of "The Jew is not my Enemy", explores the historical roots of Muslim anti-Semitism. http://www.tvo.org/TVO/WebObjects/TVO.woa?videoid?658181662001 MONTREAL — Tarek Fatah turns 61 on Nov. 21, but the [...]

The more mischievous among us even prayed to the Almighty to let the Saudis fall in love with this eminent ‘Islamic scholar’ and fund his outlandish theories, leaving television viewers ever so grateful for keeping him there. But, alas, he is set to make a comeback. This time he would be seen on a different channel. Of course, just [...]

The New York City Landmarks Commission unanimously allowed for the demolition of the Italianate building of 1857, near where the World Trade Center's Twin Towers stood, and paves the way for the construction of the Cordoba House, a Mosque in the heart of Manhattan. Cordoba symbolizes the Muslim conquest of  Spain. Today the western democracy [...]

Every time a non-Muslim or a Muslim is killed on charges of insulting Islam, Qur’an, or Muhammad, the hands of those Muslims, who are involved in these heinous acts, are strengthened; because the Deobandi (Sunni) fanatics want the non-Muslims and other Muslims either to leave Pakistan or get killed. On the other hand, the secular forces and [...]

An intolerant nation Dawn Editorial Monday, 19 Apr, 2010 The site of the suicide attack outside an emergency ward at a local hospital in Quetta. A suicide bomber attacked a hospital emergency room where Shiite Muslims were mourning a slain bank manager, police said. –Photo by AP We are reaping the harvest of the seeds of hatred sown [...]

Room for optimism By Mohsin Hamid EVER since returning to live in Pakistan a few months ago, I’ve been struck by the pervasive negativity of views here about our country. Whether in conversation, on television, or in the newspaper, what I hear and read often tends to boil down to the same message: our country is going down the drain. But [...]

Whether you like it or not, the notion of blasphemy, or of ‘defamation of religion’, creates a hierarchy of beliefs which is simply incompatible with the plurality of the world, and the very right to hold a belief The Minister for Minorities, Shahbaz Bhatti, recently announced the revision of the Blasphemy Law. For anyone remotely familiar [...]

Here are two articles highlighting the importance of re-discovering and re-inculcating the seeds of tolerance in Pakistani society and the region in general. The path to freedom Monday, February 22, 2010 Charles Ferndale Kamila Hyat, in a typically lucid, well-reasoned article, published in The News on February 11, laments the present [...]

AWWAMIYA: The street graffiti is so brazenly political in Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province that it hardly seems like Saudi Arabia at all, Reuters reports. ‘Down with the government’, ‘Death to the traitors’ read the messages on the walls of Awwamiya, a small town in the eastern region on the Gulf coast where most of the conservative [...]

Posted by: Jarri MirzaGuest blog: Humza IkramToday world is celebrating International tolerance day but sadly Pakistani society is getting more and more intolerant. Our right wing (more...)

Intolerance stems from arrogance, from a belief that a person’s religion and ideology are true while all else is false. But above all intolerance grows from an individual taking responsibility for scrutinising and guarding the beliefs and practices of other and passing a final judgement on them. We need to build tolerance by reforming the [...]

Thursday, 08 Oct, 2009 (Dawn)A man stands guard at the door to a church in Gojra.— Photo by AFPGOJRA: Almas Hameed lost seven relatives when an angry mob burnt down his home in a rampage against Pakistan’s minority Christian community and lives in fear that more violence is looming. Standing in the wreckage of his home in Gojra in Pakistan’s [...]

Religion and politics Rubina SaigolMonday, September 21, 2009 The writer is an independent researcher specialising in social developmentIn the past few months, there has been a noticeable increase in religiously-motivated violence against minority communities, especially in Punjab. The most recent case is that of [...]

Zahida Hina writes on the Gojra tragey in Pakistan, in which 8 Christians were burnt alive by the pro-Taliban Deobandi-Wahhabi alliance, namely Sipah-e-Sahaba and Lashkar-e-Jhangavi. She also discusses the role of General Zia-ul-Haq in sowing the seeds of (more...)

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By Anwar Iqbal Friday, 20 Mar, 2009 (Dawn) Mr Chaudhry is seen by many middle-class Pakistanis as representing the rule of law: Washington Post.—Reuters WASHINGTON: Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry could set an example for the political leaders by embracing restraint and compromise [...]

By peitha ..... what we are missing in all this chatter is a modern version of someone like Tom Lehrer, producing songs like National Brotherhood Week about these conflicts - though I'm not really sure one wants to go down the route of wondering what an (more...)

Peace and Conflict Resolution Concepts in the Madina Charterby Yetkin YildirimIt is much easier to make contact with people from vastly different cultures and beliefs in the context of today’s world. Unfortunately, increased globalization has also broadened the scope of conflict throughout the world. Modern conflicts take place between societies [...]

Shaikh Ayaz (1923-1997) was one of the major Sindhi poets of Pakistan. He was one of very few brave writers who wrote against the tyrannical rulers of Pakistan and the wars they waged against their own (more...)