Pak Independent: My story

My patriotic and nationalistic feelings towards Pakistan were always present especially when I moved out of Pakistan and noticed everything about our country is stereotyped either as "Indian" or "Arab."

I was even more saddened and frustrated that many of my own people welcomed these stereotypes and felt like I was the only one seeing this.
It was not just the cultural stereotypes and Indian hijacking of our identity that bothered me, but also the propaganda wars incited by the enemies of Pakistan against our country and people.
There was also the damned problem of the typical Pakistani mentality of "Muslim first, Pakistani second" that made things only more difficult.

After hopeless Internet searches to find others who were noticing what I noticed -whether Pakistani or other-I truly felt I was alone.

A few years later by chance I stumbled upon a website covering the History of Pakistan. Rich, ancient history that has been ignored by Pakistanis thanks to radical Islam and stolen by the Indians, again thanks to radical Islam.

The site covered the Indian propaganda war against Pakistan as well as Indian theft of Pakistani history and culture.
This raised hopes in my mind, but not by much as I was unable to communicate with the site owners.

More years passed by and things didn't seem any brighter. The lies just got worse, theft of our history and identity continued, Pakistanis were more interested in being like Arabs based on their perception of Islam.

But then a miracle took place. I met a few Pakistanis who also voiced protest of Indian hegemony of our history and culture.
We eventually created a whole site and forum on how to protect our history and culture from thievery. A friend of mine and well known blogger Robert Lindsay actually wrote a page on my case.

We did well for the first year or so. But something went wrong I felt. It is what is a normal problem and the cause of the Pakistani identity crisis. Either be Indian or Arab.
In the case of our forum, I felt we were infected with Wahhabists, those who had ideas of making Arabic a second language and even one with making it the national language.

Living in the Middle East has also exposed me to the racism and superiority complex of most of the people there. Being amongst them feels very alien and discomforting. What feels equally alien is being amongst many Pakistanis who make full efforts to imitate the Middle Eastern peoples and worship them in the name of Islam.

I have come into contact with many Pakistanis who have the same issue. Those who reject Indianization, turn to Middle Easternization in the name of Islam and those who reject Middle Easternization have a pro-Indian stance.

It was always the case when Pakistanis had to criticize one cultural invasion or the other. Whenever I met Pakistanis on the Internet concerned about this same problem, it was either be one or the other.
At most other times, they were not entirely helpful to do something about it, weather blogging or informing historians and others of this historic distortion and cultural stereotypes.

These instances have taken place over quite a years. Aside from perhaps one or two people who see the threat of both Indianization and Islamic Middle Easternization, the rest of Pakistanis are silent to the problem or are either picking one or the other side.

As far back as a few months, I decided I had to pursue this cause on my own. Even our shared blog has had very little contribution besides myself.
When we patriotic Pakistanis worked together on our forum, many of our views strongly differed added with Wahabbi Arab wannabes coming in to make things worse.

Ever since I have felt an independent means of writing on issues representing my views is the best solution instead of a shared blog that struggles to accommodate common views of several people; hence Pak Independent came into being with that being the reason of choosing this particular name.

A possible solution to India and Pakistan's disagreement over each other's accussed terrorists

India has long accused a certain number of Pakistanis of being involved in the terrorists attacks in Mumbai back in November 2008.
India has alleged without much evidence of the involvement of certain Pakistani militant groups being behind the attack, while Pakistan denies these allegations- which is only natural due to the lack of proof.

So clearly we have a stand off. India wants Pakistan to handover those accused while Pakistan does not want to extract them, possibly knowing they shall not get a fair trial and be punished for something they most likely had nothing to do with.
India has been trying to rally international support into pressuring Pakistan to handover these accused men.

Pakistan has also occasionally accused certain Indians of being behind bomb blasts and similar attacks within it's territory.
So clearly we have a stand off here.

My solution to this problem is that Pakistan agree to extract the accused individuals behind the attacks to a neutral country where they can be tried under an international terrorism where they could be tried under neutral conditions.
That is of course, if India agrees to do the same.

This way both countries can get what they want and under the control of global entities favorable to neither country.
If the men are proven innocent, India would only have to go against the international community to prove otherwise. The accused Indians behind attacks in Pakistan can also stand a fair trial and an international terrorism court can judge them fairly.

A solution like this could reduce a problem that is only giving a certain number of fanatics in India an excuse to waste their country's resources on constantly fighting battles with Pakistan.
Pakistan on the other hand will also be spending money and resources to defend itself from an Indian military build up.

Any solution to this stand off over a few terrorists is needed so the two countries can move on instead of both being plagued by war.

Population control of stray animals needed in Pakistan

In all my reading and hearing about volunteer animal care in Pakistan, I have never heard of any measures to actually improve the long term situation of stray animals in the country.
Most of their campaigns are to adopt and shelter animals. But does this solve the problem of uncared stray animals as a whole of improve the situation?

The control of population is seen as the solution to reduce poverty; especially in third world countries. I feel the same solution should apply here. To reduce the number of stray animals especially in the cities, a fraction of the animals brought to shelter should be sterilized.

This would prevent an uncontrolled birthrate of animals in need. Controlling the animal population should be part of the program to help them, otherwise we are left with countless stray animals in need.

Donations should partly be spent on this sterilization. With a stable and controlled birth rate of stray animals, they can be much more easily be helped.

Also endangered animals such as the snow leopard need to be moved out of the country to protect it from extinction.
There is no hope in the nearby future for endangered animals in Pakistan. If we are to conserve them we need to use donations and take further steps like the ones I suggested instead of simply giving them food and shelter.

My response to Pakistan's temporary ban on popular websites and the reactions

This was a widespread topic on the Internet and with a few people who raised the issue in person with me.
Nobody I spoke to agreed with the ban and what was most surprising is that more radical Islamist countries like Iran or Saudi Arabia did not take similar actions to my knowledge.

My answer to the question was the ban justifiable? Simply yes. There are many reasons to this and the most important is that it is to keep the Islamists satisfied.
Keeping the Islamists satisfied means protecting precious public property from being destroyed, innocent people getting hurt or killed etc.

The Islamists might be ethically immoral and their restrictions on freedoms may be too. Obeying them is not always a good idea and giving them a free pass to dictate your lifestyle to you is also not a good idea either. Though that has clearly not happened ie. women in Pakistan not having to wear burqas or hijab by law.

But at the same time as I wrote in another post of mine, defying them outright is a bad idea and can have a severe backlash.
For Pakistani elites and expatriates who are mostly unaffected by the influence of the mullahs, it's rather easy for them to complain about censorship, not knowing the damage these influential people can inflict, especially on more vulnerable targets.

The government and judges who imposed these bans probably know the threat they themselves specifically would face from the powerful religious radicals had they showed defiance.
So to point blame at our leaders as we normally do is the easy part. But looking at the reality of the situation is neither easy nor fun.

Speaking of situation, now is no time to seek further conflicts with religious radicals than the government already has. Their silence to the battle against the Taliban or their endorsements -either one- is extremely important.
The religious radicals can easily simplify the job of the Taliban carrying out more terrorism in the rest of Pakistan.

Then there are the other reasons of Western double standards. I have discussed this in my world history and politics blog. Why is a society that is jailing people for denying a historical event/incident (the holocaust) dictating the terms of free expression?

Westerners concerned with the issue of censorship in Muslim countries, especially on religious lines, need to take a second look much closer to home.
Also today, I saw a talk show in Pakistan that discussed banning the burqa in some Western European countries, while defending publishing material considered offensive towards Muslims.

Firstly, I agree with the ban on burqas because I do believe in restrictions on public expression. But I can guarantee those Islamophobic atheists on YouTube who continuously bellow the drum of "free expression," or better their definition of free expression, will endorse burqa banning and banning of religious symbols.

People need to review the social and political circumstances in Pakistan and the world before making judgments.
One should also study the different scenarios of censorship, especially the Islamophobic defenders of "free expression" and then conclude weather they actually defend the idea or just their own messages which fall into their own definition of "free expression."

For the time being Pakistan's government has made the right decision. The way to teach our people into accepting other people's opinions is not by shoving it in their faces, but gradually over time they themselves getting used to the idea that they do not have to view offensive images or other material if they don't want to.

It also means that people who oppose censorship in the West need to speak against censorship in all forms- including topics that Western society is sensitive to. And only after viewing the situations on all sides and all cases can we complain about censorship.

Pakistan needs to ban marraiges between first cousins

The Pakistani government needs to pass a bill banning marriages between first cousins. Such marriages should not be issued any government recognition or registration.
Those who oppose this idea need to read this article first.

Though this practice was invented in the Middle East an imported through Islam, it still doesn't help us.
As I wrote before, for some people in India to drink cow urine or marry dogs may be more primitive, it still doesn't justify such practices.

There is no excuse for this practice especially when we live in the 21st century.

Children born to first cousins can be harmed by disabilities and require extra medical care and facilities. Medical care that probably cannot help them by much and be used on people who actually can be helped.
Such children will be a burden on themselves and on society.

Pro-Indian self-defeatists in Pakistan and their radical Islamist counterparts

This will probably be the first post in a series of posts that discuss in detail of the rise of Indianization and Islamic Middle Easternization in Pakistan on cultural and political lines. My second post on this issue can be found by clicking here. These ideologies seem to be dividing and confusing Pakistanis on both the cultural and political levels.

This post particularly discusses the political side to the rise of this phenomenon. For a long time I have noticed whenever influential people in Pakistan such as university professors and political annalists want to build criticism of Pakistan and our society, it is usually nonconstructive and almost always involves a praise(s) for India. The Pakistani media is polluted with the same ideas.

This "criticism" is better described as self-hatred for Pakistan and an unquestionable pride and praise for the Indian Republic.
These influential self-haters poison the minds of the Pakistani population with guilt for everything that goes wrong in Pakistan and the world. Many of these influential professors, annalists and political activists are seen as heroes by the Indians and are often paraded by the Indian propaganda media against Pakistan.

Whenever something terrible happens in India or the West such as the 2008 Mumbai attacks, the pro-Indian front is quick to blame it on Pakistan without hesitating even though they haven't the slightest evidence linking Pakistan to the incidents.

Whenever anti-Pakistani lobbies in the West and India need a Pakistani to promote their propaganda, no one does a better job for them other than people such as Asma Jahangir, Pervez Hoodbhoy, Ahmed Rashid, Ayesha Jalal and many others like them.

Take for example this public letter written to Pervez Hoodhboy by what appears to be a Pakistani expatriate in Oman.

The self-hatred and anti-Pakistan propaganda of these influential speakers is slowly being echoed by provincial separatists in Pakistan who see this as a perfect opportunity to defame the Pakistani government and the state.
They blame the ISI for every terrorist incident in India, Afghanistan and the world (sometimes even the 911 attacks themselves!) while they praise every small good thing about India and highlight every small bad thing about Pakistan without mercy.

Some go as far to denounce the so-called "partition."

And as I wrote above, these influential people and their propaganda have also polluted the Pakistani media with the same kind of self-hatred. Take this Daily Times article as an example. The media is not short of self-hating publication similar to that example.

So in the end, what we have is a group of Indian pawns who offer no solutions to our problems and fill our peoples minds with self-hatred and worship of the Indian government, and are quick to aid the Indian propaganda machine against Pakistan; called for whenever needed like obedient stooges.

The pro-Indian self-haters have expressed their hatred for their country to such a great extent that there has been a rise in opposition to their sentiments- and that's where the radical Islamists come in, including Wahhabis.
Because too few Pakistanis including the educated ones have been vocal against these Indian pawns, the Islamists have gained an audience in Pakistanis who are resistant to the rise of Indian cultural and political influence in Pakistan.

No one in Pakistan has been as vocal against Indian influence in the country as the Islamists and now the Islamists are gaining even more popularity than they already very much have.
But the Islamists themselves are a mirror of the pro-Indian (and sometimes pro-Western) elites in Pakistan. The Islamists indoctrinate Pakistanis with an inferiority complex towards Muslims of Central Asia and the Middle East.

These Pan-Islamists brainwash Pakistanis into thinking the problems in the Middle East are Pakistan's problems, they make these issues feel more important than the issues Pakistanis face in their own country.
Never will these Islamists criticize the Middle Eastern countries and their barbaric policies, including the slave-like treatment of labor class Pakistanis in Gulf Arab states.

The Islamist Wahabbis will never criticize Afghanistan for it's propaganda war against Pakistan and attempted violations of the Durand Line treaty simply because Afghanistan is a fellow Muslim country.

They also make Pakistanis feel ashamed of their pre-Islamic heritage and anything indigenous in their culture (or something in the culture which is not borrowed from the Middle East) and brand it as "Hindu" or "Kaffir" (infidel).

Many readers might not know, but there is a movement amongst Pakistanis against Indian cultural invasion to remove Urdu as the state language and replace it with Farsi and/or Arabic.
All this is being done in the name of resisting Indian cultural invasion and to make Pakistanis "more Islamic."

By this, the pro-Indian self-haters have done more than enough to give popularity to the Islamists.
The pro-Indian self-haters who spread their lies and propaganda need to be countered, but it does not have involve another type of self-hating Arab worshipers who fill our people's minds with equally prejudiced thoughts of religious hatred and hatred for their own culture.

The Islamists such as Zaid Hamid have also developed the clever tactic of branding any of their opponents and critics as "Hindu agents." Anyone who rejects Arabization or Islamitization is branded as a "Hindu agent" and more recently a "self-defeatist."

I myself have come under fire from the Indian and Islamist side. By the Islamists I've been called a "Hindu agent" for rejecting the glorification of Pakistani ancestors as "Turks" or for rejecting the idea of Islamic Ummah, knowing the bitter hatred and superiority complex many Middle Eastern Muslims have towards Pakistanis.

By Indians, I have been called some other fancy names such as madrassa educated for rejecting their false hegemonic claims on our pre-historic heritage.
Many pro-Indian self-defeatists also link Pakistani patriotism or nationalism with religious fundamentalism and hatred for India. Perhaps they too have a tactic of trying to defame their political opponents and perhaps to hide their own guilt.

The best example of this ongoing political climax is Ahmed Quraishi's outspoken opposition against pro-Indian self-haters in Pakistani universities and Indian propaganda in general, which I give him credit for.

The problem is it appears Mr Quraishi has close ties to Mr Zaid Hamid. Even during the scandal surrounding Mr Hamid on his links to Yousaf Kazzab, Quraishi has voiced much support for him and if I'm not mistaken, accused self-hating pro-Indian pawns of involvement in the scandal.

Never did Quraishi to my knowledge or any other Pakistani express any opposition towards towards the Arab/Middle Eastern worshiping Islamists- which include Zaid Hamid. Instead Zaid Hamid seems to be a close partner of Quraishi and other Pakistanis who stand up to pro-Indian self-defeatists.

Even on his YouTube channel, Ahmed Quraishi seems to be passionate on claiming Persians, Turks and Arabs as the ancestors of Pakistanis without providing any historic or scientific evidence for this popular claim in Pakistan.
This claim has been around for quite a while and is widespread amongst Islamitized Pakistanis. If I'm not mistaken, I also believe this idea of Pakistanis descending from Turks, Arabs and Persians is part of the public education system in Pakistan.

In the post 911 era, a new "blame Pakistan game" has been launched in the West, where every failure of the West in Iraq and Afghanistan is somehow always the fault Pakistan for "not doing enough" or "secretly supporting terrorism."
This blame Pakistan game has become a popular one especially in India and is aided by self-defeatists in Pakistan as well as the provincial separatists.

The Islamists have been the main outspoken ones offering a resistance to the blame Pakistan team of Americans, Indians, self-defeatists and others- in return for spreading their own sick ideologies of Islamic Ummah, intolerance towards other religions and glorification of ancient Islamic armies who were mostly Middle Eastern.
Zaid Hamid and his followers are the latest leaders of countering anti-Pakistan, pro-Indian, self-defeatist propaganda in return for being able to spread the idea of Middle Eastern superiority and turning every issue into a Western, Hindu or Zionist conspiracy theory.

Even amongst the patriotic or Westernized, leftist Pakistanis, Zaid Hamid had gained a huge following and almost turned into an unquestionable icon until his recent scandal.
Zaid Hamid is a strong propagator against a secular society that Jinnah had wished for as discussed in this article.

Zaid Hamid also recently spoke of planting the Pakistani flag on New Delhi, in other words conquering the Indian capital.
Many unintelligent, naive, narrow-minded Pakistanis buy into this ridiculous idea without knowing the nuclear outbreak that would devastate the entire region just trying to conquer a city which is not even ours nor has anything beneficial to conquer anyways.

And unsurprisingly, amongst the most outspoken people against this growing Middle Easternization of Pakistan (particularly Arabization) and rise in religious fundamentalism are the pro-Indian self-defeatists themselves such as Pervez Hoodbhoy.

Many readers at this point can see a clearly established pattern over here. Pro-Indian, self-hating defeatists who offer only regret after regret in being Pakistani and support for the enemy which seeks to destroy us.

On the other hand a rising Islamist movement with an inferiority complex towards the people of the Middle East and a hatred for other religions, indigenous interests as well as indigenous history and culture.

Both sides frequently outspoken against one another and their horrific ambitions/ideologies.
Both sides frequently distorting history to suit themselves and promoting hatred in being Pakistani.

Also interestingly, both sides occasionally like to use conspiracy theories involving the British to score points in their propaganda wars. The pro-Indian self-defeatists often claim the so-called "partition" was the work of the British to "weaken" the unity of the subcontinent, while certain Islamists including Zaid Hamid are said to claim the officialization of Urdu in the subcontinent was a British conspiracy to reduce the influence of Persian and Arabic.

Both sides only adding more confusion in the minds of already confused Pakistanis. Both sides tearing the country apart.
And because too few people are speaking out against either side, you have Pakistanis rejecting either one and embracing the other.

Just about every Pakistani who agrees with me on the problem of Bollywood, Indianization and Indian hijacking of Pakistani identity wishes for Persianization & Arabization. Zaid Hamid and those like him are heroes to these Pakistanis.
On the other hand most of the Pakistanis who agree with me on the problem of Arabization buy into Indianization and often welcome the ideas of the pro-Indian self-defeatists.

If we Pakistanis truly love our country and want to save our people from these poisonous trends, we need to have the courage to openly reject both.

My thoughts on the famous swat girl flogging video and the contreversy behind it.

Watch the video below. Most readers may have already seen this video:


Firstly when I heard of this video and how "disturbing" it was, I was under the impression that it was extremely violent. After watching it, I can say this is heavily exaggerated.
I have seen more violent footage that is far more disturbing such as beadings, shootings. This simply does not compare. However wrong and unjustified it was, it can hardly be called disturbing.

This is what made me suspicious of the video in the first place after many who saw it claimed it to be disturbing.
Another thing is the flogging does not look realistic at all. The sound of the whip should be much louder and stronger; heck even movies do a better job when carrying out whipping scenes such as the Indiana Jones movies.
The "whipping" to me appears at the most tapping the stick on the girl's back.

What increased my suspicion is the huge media attention this video received worldwide, knowing that incidents like these or even worse happen almost everyday in that part of Pakistan, why did people give this incident so much attention?

From what I can see, this was done in a deliberate attempt to discredit Pakistan. Many Pakistanis and international media lashed out at the government for making deals with the Taliban.
For Pakistanis it's a routine blaming of their government weather a dictatorship or elected by them. No matter what the government does. See this post.

For others it's part of the international blame Pakistan game, even though NATO has considered peace deals with the Taliban alongside the Afghan government.

Of course, if I am wrong and the flogging was real, I do hope those behind are captured or killed in a raid on Taliban hideouts, but this incident is still being given unjust special attention than other worse incidents.