How things have gone wrong in Pakistan can be gleaned from the following episode at the end of last month. The chief justice of the Baluchistan High Court, Justice Amir-ul Mulk Mengal, was travelling to Nushki/Kharan when his car was stopped at the Chagai checkpost by the Frontier Constabulary (FC) on November 26. On orders of the checkpost in-charge, a captain Butt, the FC personnel requested that the vehicles be searched.
It was the sort of drama that makes for good press copy, and of course the international press was there to watch it. As the result was announced, hundreds of men applauded, while a “Muslim fundamentalist” reportedly screamed that Kuwaitis don’t want women’s rights.
Now that the dust has settled after the death and state burial of Julius Kambarage Nyerere, ex-President of the Republic of Tanzania, it is time for some of the inconsistencies and paradoxes of the most Islamophobic leader in post-colonial Africa to be discussed and put into context.
Muslim activism in the US is now reaching a point where it can be considered an Islamic movement. Five years ago, it amounted to little more than the building of mosques and occasional protests. There was not generally considered to be an Islamic movement because there was no positive commitment toward Islam.
In the age of the Internet and cyberspace, radio programming may appear small potatoes. But it is not, especially in North America ,as the protests since last March against Pacifica Network policy, which owns KPFK Radio Stations, show.
Prince Faisal bin Fahad, the son of king Fahad of Saudi Arabia, who has died at the age of 54, had been general manager for the Ministry of Youth and Sports since the late 1970s. The cause of his death was surrounded with vagueness and conflicting accounts.
If the authenticity of a Palestinian is judged by the suffering he endured for the last 51 years of displacement ï as some have suggested ï the nearly 500,000 Palestinian refugees residing in Lebanon must be viewed as the most authentic Palestinians of all.
Looking around, it was difficult for me to see any cause for concern. The stony hill-country of Jebel-Amil in South Lebanon seems an idyllic place; most of the flat-roofed houses have olives, figs and almonds, or at least grapes, growing on trellises over their yards.
The dispute about Kashmir between India and Pakistan evokes different reactions at different levels. During the crisis over Kargil, patriotic sentiments on both sides ran high. But, as usual, Muslims in India were put in a particularly difficult position, increasingly asked to prove their loyalty to the country.
The welcome that Israel’s new prime minister received in Arab capitals following his election victory was not unprecedented. The praise for the Zionist state’s most decorated general as a ‘trustworthy man of peace’ has its parallel in the late Egyptian president Anwar Sadat’s sudden visit to Jerusalem in November 1977.
The student demonstrations in Tehran during the second week of July were widely interpreted, especially in the west, as a major crisis in the Revolution and possibly even the beginning of the end for the Islamic Republic. Western media and government officials welcomed them as the beginning of a popular uprising against the Islamic state.
Despite centuries of strong Russian influence and decades of communist rule under the former Soviet Union, Muslims in the region - now consisting of countries organized as the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) - never lost their Muslim identity.
The genocide in Kosova has transformed many of the survivors from self-sufficient, productive people with a virtual shadow-government of their own into objects of charity. Although some Muslim agencies and individuals have strained their resources to offer aid to the Kosovars, the relief-work has been clearly dominated by western secular and Christian groups.
Nato’s intervention in Kosova failed to save the country’s infrastructure from destruction and its Muslim population from genocide, but it has saved the territory for Serbia, asserting the ‘principle’ that it is an integral and inalienable part of Yugoslavia, and disarming the Kosova Liberation Army (KLA).
After months of kite-flying, the world’s wealthiest countries announced a debt-relief plan on June 19 which, they said, was designed to reduce the debt-burden of the world’s 33 poorest countries by up to $70bn from its present level of $127bn.
The streets of Baghdad are filled with vendors, taxicabs and a tenacious spirit. As a result of stagnant salaries and enormous inflation, most of Iraq’s work force has taken to the streets to find other ways of earning a living.
From a distance, you wouldn’t think that this is a city under siege. And why should you? Its giant bridges, ancient ruins and ever-flowing rivers are a sign of a well-nurtured civilization. Once you get close to its alleyways, streets and hospitals however, you will be shocked to see a very different reality.
Elections have become the latest fad around the world. It seems everyone has discovered that elections can be a useful tool to fool almost all the people almost all the time. At the end of February, Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, held elections to end military rule but brought to power a former military dictator, general Olusegun Obasanjo.
If the Qana massacre of April 18, 1996 was a tragic ‘mistake’, have the Zionists made any effort not to repeat such mistakes? Their three-year record shows that the Zionists have continued to kill innocent civilians.
Two weeks after the announcement of the Arbitration Tribunal’s ‘final decision’ on the status of Brcko on March 5, an ‘Annex’ to the decision was added on March 19, clarifying the city’s new status and elaborating on some of the Tribunal’s earlier statements.
