Difa-e-Pakistan is an Urdu word meaning Defense of Pakistan. Difa-e-Pakistan Council means a council willing to/responsible for defending Pakistan. The semantics dictate that the said council should comprise of representatives of the armed forces, the para-military forces, domestic law enforcement agencies, defense ministry and foreign ministry. In fact, the esteemed council that has come to the fore recently consists of none of the above. In the words of the journalist Ejaz Haider, it’s a “circus”.
Much has been written about this mysterious group over the last few weeks by people much more well-read and experienced than myself, thus I would restrict myself to a basic understanding of this group and the online presence of DPC.

The website of DPC lists 36 parties as part of the council. It includes single-digit member parties like Muslim League Zia, Mohsinan e Pakistan, suspicious-named organizations like Pakistan Water Movement, Tehreek e Ittehad, Christian Community( of where?), Sikh Community,  Hindu Community Lahore and notorious people like a certain General® Hameed Gul, Hafiz Saeed, Malik Ishaq, Maulana Fazal-ur-Rehman Khalil, Ahmad Ludhyanwi and last but not the least, representative of Imran Khan, Chaudary Ijaz.
General Hameed Gul, a former spymaster of Pakistan, was responsible for forming IJI(Islami Jamhuri Ittehad-Islamic democratic front) a similar group of religious organizations in 1988 to compete against Pakistan Peoples Party, turned against U.S when the funding for ISI was stopped, was an architect of starting insurgency in Occupied Kashmir, was removed from his position by Benazir Bhutto in 1989. Hafiz Saeed was a teacher of Islamic Studies at University of Engineering and Technology in the 1980s when he and a fellow Professor Zaffar Iqbal formed a new organization which came to be known as Lashkar-e-Taiba (Army of the pious). It was directly funded by Saudi money and collected donations across Pakistan. It was mainly involved in sending fighters trained by them to Kashmir for targeting Indian Military personnel and cantonments. It was declared a Terrorist Organization by both the United States and United Nations. Most Recently it was involved in the November 2008 Attacks on Mumbai.

Malik Ishaq is the leader and founder of Al Qaeda-linked Lashkar-e-Jhangvi. He remained in jail for 14 years facing a number of cases at the antiterrorism court in Lahore charging him with hundreds of murders. He was released from Jail on July 15 because “evidence against him gradually decayed and disappeared”. Molana Fazl ur Rehman Khaleel is a founder of Harkat-ul-Mujahideen(HuM) and current leader of Ansar-ul-Umma, which is accused of being a front organization of the banned HuM. Khalil was a signatory of Osama bin Laden’s 1998 fatwa called the International Front Against Jews and Crusaders. Regarding the sudden arrival of this bunch, investigative journalist Mujahid Hussain wrote, “In November 2011, the ISI Chief asked the Lashkar e Taiba and Jaish e Mohammad to speed up their campaign against India and to mobilize Islamists across the country on the platform of Difa e Pakistan, so that a clear signal could be sent to the international community. Fellow travelers such as Shaikh Rasheed and Hamid Gull were reactivated. A real estate tycoon in Islamabad and some rich businessmen of Karachi were asked to offer inducements. Also, The Sunni Tehreek is being propped up by the ISI as a fully fledged political party and has been tasked to garner the Barelvi vote.”

Traditionally, the parties that make up this pot-pourri are not known to be very modern or having an Internet presence. The interesting thing is that the council as a whole is more efficient in its online presence than the sum of all its constituents combined. This paradigm shift can be witnessed as DPC has its own website where all the speeches from their rallies are available and latest news related to their concerning issues are updated continuously, they have their own facebook page with 1459 Likes(till now) and a twitter account with 306 followers.
All of this fanfare is despite the fact that they are a “banned” organization(If you believe Interior Minister Rehman Malik).

The Facebook page of Difa e Pakistan Council tells us that
“Difa-e-Pakistan Council is an Umbrella Organization of more than 40 Religious and Political Organizations destined for the Defense of Pakistan and envisions the great nation as the Fortress of Islam.” It also informs us that “DPC Does not endorse the understandings and manifestos of organizations and entities that come under the umbrella of DPC. “Difa-e-Pakistan” is a single point cause to defend Pakistan by all threats it faces internally and externally.”

Upon a little digging, it is visible that the bigwigs of the council are not much involved in the Internet crusade rather it is a new batch of “Jihadis” or Internet warriors that are controlling the accounts of the council online. One particular ally is the hyper-nationalist website “Pakistan ka Khuda Hafiz”(Translation:- May God Protect Pakistan). The people behind PKKH website are Ahmad Qureshi, Shireen Mazari, Gen Hameed Gul and Maria Butt(fashion designer and recent convert to this ideology courtesy a Mr. Zaid Hamid). Ahmad Qureshi, Shireen Mazari and Zaid Hamid share a particular vision about Pakistan. They are fiercely Anti-American, Anti-India, Pro-Khilafat(Caliphate), Pro-Taliban and use the jargon of Islam to lure people towards their own agendas. They do not like democracy or politicians as a whole, and harbor sympathy towards Pakistan Army. They are known to be stooges of Military establishment and have always advocated a military solution to all problems.  Just to keep things in perspective, the following words were posted by “Syed Zaid Zaman Hamid [Official]” page very recently, explaining their philosophy in full,
“If the politicians are for sale and hostile powers are ready to buy them, to hell with this democracy. Let the country be ruled by a Benevolent dictator on the model of Khilafat e Rashida! Till that time, army and ISI must make sure that these treacherous politicians do not sell the country to hostile powers”.
Thus, while the Jalsas(meetings/processions) of  DPC are being filled by banned militant organizations, the Internet front is being held by Neo-Jihadis who are followers of Zaid Hamid, completing an “unholy alliance”. They oppose the MFN-status being awarded to India(without an iota of understanding about the WTO) and have a jingoistic attitude towards the rest of the world.

For the record, this is not the first time that establishment-backed forces have been joined together at a platform. It has happened previously in the 1970 elections, in the aforementioned 1990 elections when IJI was formed and in the wake of 9/11 when a similar-sounding “Afghan Defense Council” was formed which paved the way to formation of MMA(Mutahidda Majlis e Amal) in 2002.

The irony of this “internet war” is that most of the constituent parties have strong views about “Pictures” being Un-Islamic and they have, in the past, opposed Television and Radio, even Loudspeakers. The hypocrisy of it all cannot be ignored when the same people use loudspeakers all the time, to deliver hate-filled sermons, use Television for their own propaganda and now they have resorted to the internet, to attract the younger generation. These people are against the tenet of “Freedom of Speech” but they themselves are abusing their freedom of speech to spew hatred and bigotry. The focus of their efforts is to reach out to the Urban Middle class population of Pakistan which has got no clue about their own identity courtesy a paradox that is our “Religious Nation State”. Textbooks of Pakistan are filled with lies that cause narrowing of young minds from an early age, hatred against other religions is evident and ideologies are thrust upon immature minds resulting in a paranoid mental state. The textbooks re-enforce the image of this country not as envisioned by Jinnah but the one envisioned by General Zia(who can be considered Godfather of all the parties that today constitute DPC).

All hope, though, is not lost regarding the situation in Pakistan. The fact that almost 6 million Pakistanis using Facebook and only about 1400 like the DPC page and only about 1 lac people like the Official Zaid Hamid Page (where he has tried to re-invent himself as Syed) offers hope to the moderate factions of the society.  It is the responsibility of the moderate elements of civil society to coalesce and try to control these elements from going out of control by raising awareness and educating people. People should be educated about their role in a democracy. Efforts such as being done by Centre for Civic Education, PILDAT, Pakistan Youth Alliance, Teach for Pakistan and Youth Parliaments should be highlighted. Media has to play a very important role in this regard as well. They have to give equal representation to progressive forces and avoid excessive coverage of the trouble-makers. Government of Pakistan should also play its role by introducing necessary changes in the curricula (as has been proposed by SDPI) and taking effective measures against the “banned” organizations. This is a long war and it is not going to be easy.

Every person on Earth spends an average of 26 minutes on YouTube per month.

Do you know that “500 years of YouTube video” are watched on Facebook every single day?

Google has released new statistics around YouTube usage across the world and the world’s favorite video website continues to set new records. Here are some highlights:

• In 2011, YouTube had more than 1 trillion views* (video playbacks).
• 60 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute. This number was only “48 hours” a couple of months ago.
• Over 4 billion YouTube videos are viewed a day up from 3 billion so the new channel based layout seem to be doing well for YouTube.
• Over 3 billion hours of video are watched each month on YouTube.

The one figure that has however stayed constant for YouTube in the past few months is the number of unique visitors. YouTube, according to the press page, gets around 800 million uniques every month so they still another 50 million to beat Facebook.

[*] Facebook gets around a trillion pageviews every month according to Google’s own data.

The YouTube statistics page also says that 700 YouTube videos are shared on Twitter each minute. Surprisingly, there’s still no mention of Google Plus on that page.

This story, Facebook Users Watch 500 years of YouTube Video Every Day!, was originally published at Digital Inspiration on 01/03/2012 under YouTube, Internet.

I spent almost the entire day playing around with Windows 8 and finally installed it on all the three machines that I have – two of them were previously running Windows 7 while the third one is an iMac running Mac OS X Lion. Everything just worked without any issues.

The first Windows machine is sort of test machine and I therefore installed Windows 8 as the primary OS on that machine overwriting Windows 7. All my previous files, Windows settings and programs were preserved and it was quite an effortless installation.

The second Windows machine is my primary computer, the one that I am using to write this story inside Windows Live Writer, and I therefore installed Windows 8 on another partition (dual-boot setup). Thus my existing Windows 7 installation is not modified in any way while I can switch to Windows 8 anytime with a simple restart.

In the case of iMac, I created a new NTFS partition and installed Windows 8 using Boot Camp. The metro tiles of Windows 8 on the 27” iMac look absolutely gorgeous and the Apple keyboard and Magic Mouse also work inside Windows 8.

Finally, I installed Windows 8 as a Virtual Machine inside Windows 8 itself just for the purpose of recording the Windows 8 installation procedure.

Windows 8 Installation Guides

If you haven’t tried Windows 8 yet, you should consider doing that now because Windows 8 looks fresh, beautiful and definitely brings that “wow” effect. It’s a beta version but after using it for about a day, I found it stable though the new UI might involve a bit of learning curve.

The best part is that setting up Windows 8 is extremely easy and the installation procedure won’t take more than 15-20 minutes. Should you be interested, I have written several detailed guides that will walk you through the installation steps in either of the above scenarios – pick one that best fits your workflow and get going.

• How to Install Windows 8 as a Virtual Machine (using Oracle’s VirtualBox)
• How to Install Windows 8 on a Mac (using Apple’s Boot Camp)
• How to Install Windows 8 alongside an older version of Windows (Dual boot)
• How to Upgrade your Computer to Windows 8 (Overwrite mode)

This story, Windows 8 Installation Guides, was originally published at Digital Inspiration on 01/03/2012 under Windows 8, Software.

If you have been following all the good press around Windows 8 and are waiting to try it on your own computer, here’s the good news. The consumer preview version of Windows 8 (just a fancy name for beta software) is now available for download and it is very likely that your existing system specs are good enough to run Windows 8.

The System Requirements for Windows 8

According to the Windows 8 FAQ, any machine equipped with 1 GB of RAM, 16 GB of hard disk space and 1 GHz processor should be able to handle Windows 8. The minimum RAM requirements are 2 GB in case you would like to install the 64-bit version of Windows 8.

Should you download Windows 8 Setup or the ISO Image?

As you may have noticed on the Windows 8 download page, the installation of Windows 8 can be done in two ways.

1. You can either take the easiest route and download the Windows 8 Setup program – that’s also the default option.
2. Alternatively, you can download ISO Images of Windows 8.

If you are planning to install Windows 8 on your existing computer, either on a different partition (dual-boot) or just want to upgrade an older version of Windows to Windows 8, the default Setup program is a good choice.

Please note that that your installed software program will only be preserved if you are upgrading from Windows 7 to Windows 8. If your planning to install Windows 8 on top of Windows XP or Vista, only the files will be preserved but not the various software programs that you may have on the disk.

The ISO image may be more handy in other situations like:

1. Your computer has an x64 processor but is running the 32-bit version of Windows. If you want to install the 64-bit version of Windows 8, download the 64-bit ISO.
2. You have an iMac or MacBook and want to install Windows 8 on the Mac using Boot Camp software.
3. You want to install Windows 8 on multiple computers. Download the ISO, create a bootable DVD and boot the other system using this Windows 8 disk.
4. You want to run Windows 8 as a Virtual Machine inside your existing copy of Windows.
5. You are running Windows XP.

The universal product key for Windows 8 is NF32V-Q9P3W-7DR7Y-JGWRW-JFCK8.

Will my software programs run inside Windows 8?

Before grabbing the ISO image of Windows 8, quickly run this setup utility and it will show a list of all software programs and hardware drivers on your system that are compatible with Windows 8. Else you can visit this page to see a list of all known software that are found to be working with Windows 7.

What route should you take?

You can have Windows 8 on your computer in three ways – you can install Windows 8 side-by-side (also known as dual-boot), as a virtual machine (so that it runs inside your existing Windows just like any other software) or Windows 8 can be your main OS (there’s no going back then).

If you just want to try out Windows 8  but without disturbing any of your existing set-up, the safest bet is to use a Virtual Machine. If you have a vacant partition or don’t mind creating one (it’s easy), go for the dual-boot option. Else, if you have a spare computer, you can consider upgrading to Windows 8 overwriting the previous installation of Windows. Good luck!

This story, Read this before you Download Windows 8, was originally published at Digital Inspiration on 01/03/2012 under Windows 8, Software.

Pakistan woke up to a zingy Monday morning with journalist and documentary filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy grabbing the golden statuette at the 84th Academy Awards.

Column inches have been filling thick and fast since then. Doubtless more is in store in the coming days and weeks to feast on the latest odds-defying story from Pakistan that keeps the foreigner spoiled.

Great symbolism is attached to this epoch-making development where Pakistan is concerned and it would seem even a rhapsodic note wouldn’t fall in the realm of overstatement.

The Oscar won by Obaid-Chinoy, who directed Saving Face — a stunning work on the harrowing lives of victims of acid throwing — with Daniel Junge, is a first for Pakistan.

It has come at a time when the South Asian nation is caught in a maelstrom of troubles, mainly from a draining war-on-terror in its myriad hues with seemingly no end and extremism to a struggling economy — with a government whose grip on the state is tenuous at best.

But that is stating the political economy. For a country whose better half of the population is female, the environment is hardly conducive for creative work. Crimes against women have increased manifold — forming part of the subject of Obaid-Chinoy’s Oscar-winning work — making it difficult to pursue causes that are at great risk of drawing the worst possible consequences at the hands of obscurantist elements.

Since we are on the subject of films here, it is so easy to forget that while there is no dearth of rich content waiting to be explored by the best of their trade, Pakistan is practically a dead hunting ground for its own industry.

For once, this has little to do with issues of security — that bane of many a Doubting Thomas. The moribund state of cinema has contributed to a general decline in exploring the medium as a vital instrument of expression.

This disenabling environment has led to a spectacular decline in the number of cinema houses, which has fallen dramatically from more than 1,300 countrywide in the Seventies to only dozens now. The arrival of a few Cineplexes half-a-decade ago have retrieved cinegoing to an extent but it is all down to Bollywood and Hollywood fare.

Every four years, a decent local flick does make a happy round but it is a bit rich to suggest that it would revive the Pakistani cinema — somewhat coquettishly branded Lollywood after its favoured seat of culture, Lahore.

It is against this backdrop that a Muslim, female documentary filmmaker from Pakistan has made a significant statement by landing an Oscar at a forum which just doesn’t get any bigger and where competition is nerve-wrecking. No wonder, Pakistan is electrified with message boards, Facebook and twitterverse in overdrive.

Obaid-Chinoy’s greatest hour has done wonders to lift the morale of a nation badly in need of heroes. However, to suggest this is the only story worth its speck of stardust would be underrating the heroics of other female of the species this side of Indus.

Pakistani women have fired the imagination of the nation before in both academic and sporting arenas.

Eighth grader Malal Yousafzai, 13, defined courage in her own way as a blogger for BBC, writing from Swat during the heady days of Taliban. Championing the rights of the people of the bloodied valley, she was nominated by KidsRights Foundation, an international advocacy group, for — and narrowly missed — the International Children’s Peace Prize last year.

The tragic death recently of Arfa Karim, the world’s youngest Microsoft Certified Professional, drowned the nation in sorrow but her heady achievements — she was still shy of her 17th birthday when she died of cardiac arrest induced by a sudden epileptic seizure — are legion, drawing both the state and private entities to honour her work with several rounds of dedication.

The world was also left stunned last year when Sitara Barooj Akbar, an 11-year-old girl from Rabwah — home to Ahmedis, the most persecuted community whose sect has been constitutionally excommunicated from the fold of Islam in Pakistan — became the world’s youngest to pass O’Level.

Sitara passed five papers including English, Physics, Chemistry and Biology and given her age and petite frame was at first mistaken by an IELTS examination officer for the daughter of a candidate!

No private sector institute was initially, willing to admit Sitara, who still has to commute 60km from home each day to a Beaconhouse branch in Faisalabad and back. Initially, her father was forced to leave his government job and open a private school to educate Sitara when no-one would admit her because of age.

Sadly, the international media is too preoccupied with stereotyped coverage of news events surrounding the war-on-terror in Pakistan to note these incredible stories of human endurance and courage.

If there is one woman, who personifies the never-say-die spirit, it is Naseem Hameed, who literally ran out everyone else to complete a fairytale the likes of which would be any nation’s pride.

A poor labourer’s daughter, Naseem became the fastest woman in South Asia. This happened against all odds. Naseem had a trying journey, not in the least because she was forbidden as a teenager from running and told by a medical specialist she could never compete because of a serious foot injury.

For a girl, who could not even afford a decent pair of shoes at one time, and whose parents had to tide over general disapproval among their kith and kin to allow their daughter to pursue her ambition, the 100-metre dash was more than just a means to secure a gold medal.

The spectacular triumph of Pakistani women cricket team at the Asian Games also did wonders for the image of a republic despite a lack of system that harnesses the obvious potential.

This space would not suffice to account for all the achievements but in a literal manifestation of managing the impossible, 19 Pakistani girls from Karachi Grammar School crammed into a smart car to create a world record in 2010 to drive home the point!

Obaid-Chinoy, then, is the latest amongst this magnificent breed of women, who have often been denied their due but almost always excelled given half a decent chance. Significantly, braver are the acid-attack victims, who defied the odds to tell the world their stories to Obaid-Chinoy.

Even more important than the Oscar she won, it was Obaid-Chinoy’s parting message, hand aloft with the coveted statuette, at the accepting speech that continues to inspire: “To all the women in Pakistan who are working for change, don’t give up on your dreams. This is for you”.

Microsoft recently unveiled a new logo for Windows 8 that does away with the colorful flag, first introduced with Windows XP in 2001, and instead uses flat, tile-like shapes done in one solid blue color.

The exact typeface that was used to design the logo is unknown though a quick search did reveal that Windows 8 font is very similar to Freight Sans and the Segoe family of sans-serif fonts.

I am not qualified to dissect the design of the new Windows 8 logo but there’s an active logo-redesign contest happening at 99Designs where over 200 logo designers have submitted several hundred variations of the Windows logo. Some of them are interesting, others not so much but the common theme is that designers want Microsoft to preserve the colors of the original logo in the metro tiles.

On a related note, Web developer Vasiliy Zubach has created a web version of the Windows 8 logo that uses no images and is written in pure CSS and HTML. Vasiliy also using CSS3 animations to add some motion to the Windows tiles and the whole thing looks exactly like the real logo.

This is the underlying CSS code that does the trick.

<style type="text/css">
.windows_8_logo_container {
	padding: 100px 0;
	background: #fff;
	height: 150px;
	-webkit-box-shadow: rgba(0,0,0,0.3) 0 1px 2px;
	-moz-box-shadow: rgba(0,0,0,0.3) 0 1px 2px;
	box-shadow: rgba(0,0,0,0.3) 0 1px 2px;
	-webkit-border-radius: 5px;
	-moz-border-radius: 5px;
	border-radius: 5px;
}
.window {
	position: relative;
	float: left;
	margin-left: 50px;
	width: 200px;
	height: 150px;
	background: #00adef;
	-webkit-transform: perspective(400px) rotateY(-25deg);
	-moz-transform: perspective(400px) rotateY(-25deg);
	-ms-transform: perspective(400px) rotateY(-25deg);
	-o-transform: perspective(400px) rotateY(-25deg);
	transform: perspective(400px) rotateY(-25deg);
	-webkit-animation: windows_animation 3s infinite;
	-moz-animation: windows_animation 5s infinite;
	-ms-animation: windows_animation 5s infinite;
}
.window::after, .window::before {
	content: '';
	background: #fff;
	height: 100%;
	width: 10px;
	left: 50%;
	margin-left:-5px;
	top:0;
	position: absolute;
}
.window::before {
	left: 0;
	top: 50%;
	margin-top: -5px;
	margin-left: 0;
	height: 10px;
	width: 100%;
	position: absolute;
}
.logo_text {
	color: #00adef;
	line-height: 150px;
	font-size: 130px;
	padding-left: 20px;
	float: left;
}
</style>
<div class="windows_8_logo_container">
 <div class="window"></div>
 <div class="logo_text">Windows 8</div>
</div>

This story, Windows 8 Logo Recreated in CSS, was originally published at Digital Inspiration on 29/02/2012 under Css, Windows 8, Internet.

Everyone running Google AdWords campaigns knows that checking and adjusting keyword bids every day can really be a hassle. Until now, small businesses and startups have had to manage their advertising on top of doing everything else that goes along with owning a business. There just isn’t enough time in a day to do it all on your own and that’s exactly why you need WordWatch.

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By Huma Yusuf for The New York Times

On Monday morning, Pakistanis awoke to news that their country had just won its first Oscar. Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy and her co-director Daniel Junge received the award for best documentary in the short-subject category for “Saving Face.” The film chronicles the work of the British-Pakistani plastic surgeon Mohammad Jawad, who performs reconstructive surgery on women who were attacked with acid.

The media in Pakistan couldn’t get enough of the story. Television channels repeatedly broadcast footage of Obaid-Chinoy receiving her award. Fans posted on their Facebook pages pictures of the filmmaker on the red carpet. Her acceptance speech was tweeted and retweeted: “To all the women in Pakistan who are working for change, don’t give up on your dreams — this is for you.”

Politicians tried to share the limelight. Altaf Hussain, the head of the Karachi-based M.Q.M. party, congratulated Obaid-Chinoy publicly. Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani announced that she would be given a civilian award for making Pakistan proud and catalyzing social change.

The chain restaurant Nando’s, which specializes in grilled chicken, even designed an advertising campaign riffing on the documentary’s name: “From one hot chick to another: Thanks for Saving our Face.”

But Obaid-Chinoy’s triumph, a rare piece of good news out of Pakistan, also reveals the extent to which Pakistanis have become accustomed to feeling dejected.

For once, Pakistan is making headlines for a positive achievement, not another terrorist attack, political squabble or natural disaster. For Pakistanis who have been struggling to restore their country’s flailing image, it’s a relief to see a talented, young Pakistani woman receiving a coveted international award — and hobnobbing with George Clooney. As the cultural critic Nadeem F. Paracha put it in a tweet, “Viva la @sharmeenochiony! The pride of Pakistan is in their artistes & intellectuals. Not in bombs and bans!”

But what does it say about a country that it would rejoice at attracting global attention for rampant violations of women’s rights?

Pakistan is the world’s third-most dangerous country for women. Over 150 Pakistani women are the victims of acid attacks each year. Activists for women’s rights claim that only 30 percent of acid cases are reported and that this form of violence is extremely widespread because acid is easily available and inexpensive. Last year, the government passed the Acid Control and Acid Crime Prevention Bill, which imposes on attackers prison terms from 14 years to life and fines of up to one million rupees (about $11,000). But the new law has yet to be rigorously implemented, and attitudes toward women’s rights are far from reformed.

Obaid-Chinoy’s film highlights these problems — hardly a point of pride for Pakistanis.

Once the Oscar high subsides, Pakistanis will have to contend with the fact that their nation remains notorious for its challenges, violence against women included. Then the question will be, can the hundreds of thousands of Pakistanis who rooted for Obaid-Chinoy at the Academy Awards muster the same enthusiasm to tackle the problems that her work exposes?

Huma Yusuf is a columnist for the Pakistani newspaper Dawn and was the 2010-11 Pakistan Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington.

Filed under: blasphemy laws, British Muslims, Freedoms, Pakistan, Pakistani Britons, Pakistanis Tagged: Academy Award, Acid Control and Acid Crime Prevention Bill, Altaf Hussain, Dr Mohammad Jawad, George Clooney, Huma Yusuf, Karachi, MQM, Oscar, Pakistan, PPP, Saving Face, Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, Zakia & Rukhsana

Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy made Oscar history late Sunday, as she became the first Pakistani to win the coveted award for her documentary film Saving Face. Chinoy’s triumph is, rightly, being celebrated with much vigour and the country’s prime minister has announced the highest civilian award for the filmmaker.

Chinoy’s story regarding acid attack victims punished by men and are then giver reconstructive surgery by a British surgeon beat the competitor’s documentaries like Japan’s deadly tsunami and Iraq war. Saving Face touched the several hearts by highlighting the most critical issue of women in Pakistan on global level.

Recently in Pakistan, a bill was passed against such acts of violence against women, last month. While the bill has been hailed as a great achievement, it remains to be seen how effective it will be in restricting violence against women. We do not know that will this Oscar win and the subsequent attention on the subject, help bring an end to such barbaric acts? While it is unfortunate that it took such a humiliating subject to bring Pakistan its first Oscar, is Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy’s Oscar win the biggest moment in the history of Pakistan’s arts and entertainment industry?

Other filmmakers should realize Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy as their role models and super heroes, so more relevant deliverable can be produced by Pakistanis. So lets be positive and share your concerns, feedback, suggestion in comment section. You can also connect us through RSS, Facebook & Twitter.

Reported by Dawn.Com

By George Packer for The New Yorker

President Kennedy’s 1960 speech on religious freedom makes Rick Santorum “throw up.” “What kind of country do we live in that says only people of nonfaith can come into the public square and make their case?” Santorum says. It’s a central part of his campaign strategy to distort such things as a Kennedy speech, or an Obama speech, to whip up outrage at the supposed war on religious people in America. Here’s what Kennedy said:

I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute; where no Catholic prelate would tell the President—should he be Catholic—how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote; where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference, and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the President who might appoint him, or the people who might elect him… I believe in a President whose religious views are his own private affair.

Kennedy said much more, but this is the strongest passage of that famous campaign speech to a group of ministers in Houston, in which he argued that the election of a Catholic President who believed in the Constitution shouldn’t concern any American who believed in the Constitution—and, Santorum says, “That makes me throw up.” Santorum’s rhetorical eloquence is about equal to his analytical skill. Kennedy had nothing to say against believers entering public life, or believers bringing their religious conscience to bear on public policy. He spoke against any move to make religion official. The Constitution speaks against this, too—Article VI establishes an oath to the Constitution as the basis for public office, and explicitly prohibits a religious test, while the First Amendment forbids the official establishment of religion and protects its free practice. Santorum claims to be a constitutionalist, but that’s just rhetoric and opportunism. Santorum believes in a religious test—that may be all he believes in. (Mitt Romney believes in a religious test of a slimy, halfway, Romneyesque variety: in 2007, he reportedly dismissed the idea of appointing a Muslim to his Cabinet, saying, “Based on the numbers of American Muslims [as a percentage] in our population, I cannot see that a Cabinet position would be justified.” So does Newt Gingrich, who has made atheist-baiting a central part of his political business.)

Kennedy seemed to have someone like Santorum in mind when he warned, “For while this year it may be a Catholic against whom the finger of suspicion is pointed, in other years it has been—and may someday be again—a Jew, or a Quaker, or a Unitarian, or a Baptist. It was Virginia’s harassment of Baptist preachers, for example, that led to Jefferson’s statute of religious freedom. Today, I may be the victim, but tomorrow it may be you—until the whole fabric of our harmonious society is ripped apart at a time of great national peril.” In 1960, it would have been hard to imagine how thoroughly religious sectarianism and intolerance would infect American politics, and especially one major party. The outcry over Obama’s policy on health insurance and contraception has almost nothing to do with that part of the First Amendment about the right to free religious practice, which is under no threat in this country. It is all about a modern conservative Kulturkampf that will not accept the other part of the religion clause, which prohibits any official religion.

Santorum, like most conservatives these days, says he is a constitutionalist. Jefferson wrote, and Madison worked to pass, the Commonwealth of Virginia’s Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom, which held that “all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities.” Jefferson included an even stronger phrase that was eventually struck out by amendment: “the opinions of men are not the object of civil government, nor under its jurisdiction.” Presumably, all of this originalist nonsense makes Rick Santorum heave, gag, vomit, and puke.

What makes me throw up is the story of Hamza Kashgari. It’s a shame that every American doesn’t know his name. He’s a young, slender, philosophical-minded columnist and blogger from Saudi Arabia who, earlier this month, dared to tweet phrases of an imagined conversation with the Prophet Mohammad: “I have loved things about you and I have hated things about you and there is a lot I don’t understand about you…I loved the rebel in you…I will not pray for you.” Within twenty-four hours, more than thirty thousand furious replies had been posted on Twitter. Within a few days, more than twenty thousand people had signed on to a Facebook page called “Saudi People Want Punishment for Hamza Kashgari.” (So much for Arab liberation by social media.) One commenter wrote, “The only choice is for Kashgari to be killed and crucified in order to be a lesson to other secularists.”

Kashgari backed down, apologized profusely, and continued to be attacked. He went into hiding. Clerics and government officials threatened him with execution for blasphemy. He fled to Malaysia, hoping to continue to fly to New Zealand, where he would ask for asylum. But Malaysian officials, behaving against law and decency, had him detained at the airport and sent back to Saudi Arabia, where he was promptly arrested. Since mid-February there’s been no word of Kashgari. The Saudis have said they will put him on trial. What a pity there’s no First Amendment to protect him.
If only he had more powerful friends—if only Christopher Hitchens were still alive—Hamza Kashgari would be called the Saudi Rushdie. There would be a worldwide campaign to pressure the Saudis into releasing him. The United States would offer him asylum and quietly push our friends the Saudis into letting him go. But we’ve come to expect these things from our friends the Saudis.

We’ve come to expect these things from the Muslim world. We expect Afghans to riot for days and kill Americans and each other because a few NATO soldiers were stupid enough to burn copies of the Koran along with other objects discarded from a prison outside Kabul. Yes, those soldiers were colossally, destructively insensitive. Yes, we should know by now. Yes, the reaction has a lot to do with ten years of war and occupation and civilian deaths and marines urinating on Taliban corpses. Still, can we have a little outrage at the outrage? Can we reaffirm that human lives are more sacred than books? Can we point out that every time something like this happens, there’s a manufactured and whipped-up quality to much of the hysteria, which has its own cold political calculation (not unlike the jihad against secularists by Sean Hannity and other Salafist mouthpieces)?

Saudi Arabia needs an absolute separation of religion and state so that Hamza Kashgari can say things that other people don’t like without having to flee for his life. Afghanistan needs it, too, and so does Pakistan, so that mob violence and political assassination can’t enjoy the encouragement of religious authorities and the tolerance or acquiescence of government officials. And America needs it so that our Presidents’ religious views remain their own private affairs, and Rick Santorum and his party can’t impose dominion of one narrow, sectarian, Bible-based idea of the public good over a vast, pluralist, heterodox, freedom-loving democracy.

Filed under: Democracy, Freedoms, Hate Crime, Islam, Muslims, Mysticism, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sufism, United States, US Commission on International Religious Freedom Tagged: Afghanistan, American Muslims, Baptist, Catholic President, Commonwealth of Virginia, Constitution, First Amendment, Hamza Kashgari, JFK, Kabul, Kennedy Speech, Malaysia, Mitt Romney, New Zealand, Newt Gingrich, Obama Speech, Pakistan, President John F Kennedy, Quaker, Rick Santorum, Saudi Arabia, Unitarian, US Constitution

Lets agree with us that our majority of Pakistani men have a staring problem. Either we sit on seven star hotel or waiting room of hospital we stare the women. We give very hard time to even women’s ten minutes walk from bus stop to her house irrespective to her dressing, her job and even her physical appearance.

Men from local labors to professionals, university students to school students and even old age people are found involved in staring situation. Women from school girls to university girls, maids to professionals and even hijab wearing ladies are victims of staring problem. Majority of women in Pakistan are victim of staring problem and might be smiling right now by reading this article. Nurses, school teachers, students, are big part of staring scene.

There are several relevant problems, which can not be resolved ever in our nation. But by improvising individual views and civilization we can minimize the risk for women specially working women. Similarly if we move anywhere else in this world we behave like a good kid and follow all civil and moral ethics, so why not in our own nation? It is very sad that how we rape our civilization and culture values. Promise us and your nation that you will bring positive change in Pakistan by minimizing the threats of staring scene and you will respect the women.

So lets be positive and share your concerns, feedback, suggestion in comment section. You can also connect us through RSS, Facebook & Twitter.

Today, Saving Face became the first Pakistani film ever to win an Oscar.

Someone on Facebook shared a picture of Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy accepting her Oscar last night and even though I’m used to seeing unwarranted vitriol online, I was surprised to see the comments below. Everyone with the ability to spell correctly had left positive remarks, but the rest had either tried to shame her for wearing sleeveless to the awards ceremony or had launched attacks against her for reaping in awards for showing Pakistan’s “negative side” to “the West.”

Acha, forget the tools who are too distracted by bare arms to see what a big win this is for Pakistan. What I’m really sick and tired of is people who go berserk if you’re not projecting Pakistan’s “soft image.” Not everything is a conspiracy to make us look bad. Sometimes, we just make ourselves look bad all on our own.

For those people whose number one concern is for Pakistan to look good, quit whining about others who are actively trying to raise awareness and do something to make Pakistan look good. The people who are talking about our problems are not the problem. Here’s a wild idea – maybe if Pakistan improves in reality, it’s perception worldwide will improve as well.

Also, if someone is raising awareness for the many problems helpless people face here, who is anyone else to try and stop them? Raising awareness is the first step in finding solutions. Trying to shut everyone up just so Pakistan can look better in the press (by the way, the rest of the world is not as stupid as you think they are) means you’d rather have people like acid burn victims struggle quietly for superficial reasons.