Posted on 07/16/2011 9:18:40 PM PDT by LibWhacker
Aatish Taseer, the son of an assassinated Pakistani leader, explains the history and hysteria behind a deadly relationship
Ten days before he was assassinated in January, my father, Salman Taseer, sent out a tweet about an Indian rocket that had come down over the Bay of Bengal: "Why does India make fools of themselves messing in space technology? Stick 2 bollywood my advice."
My father was the governor of Punjab, Pakistan's largest province, and his tweet, with its taunt at India's misfortune, would have delighted his many thousands of followers. It fed straight into Pakistan's unhealthy obsession with India, the country from which it was carved in 1947.
Though my father's attitude went down well in Pakistan, it had caused considerable tension between us. I am half-Indian, raised in Delhi by my Indian mother: India is a country that I consider my own. When my father was killed by one of his own bodyguards for defending a Christian woman accused of blasphemy, we had not spoken for three years.
To understand the Pakistani obsession with India, to get a sense of its special edge—its hysteria—it is necessary to understand the rejection of India, its culture and past, that lies at the heart of the idea of Pakistan. This is not merely an academic question. Pakistan's animus toward India is the cause of both its unwillingness to fight Islamic extremism and its active complicity in undermining the aims of its ostensible ally, the United States.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Hellbender: India has nominal freedom of religion
have you BEEN there to make this statement?
your statement is wrong. Christians are persecuted in some places, but this is not government sanctioned and is condemned by nearly all Hindus (Hindus can't get themselves to hate Christians, since they study in Christian schools, have Christian friends etc. --> hating Moslems on the other hand is something that many Hindus can do....)
I agree with you Sonny, just have to point out that Mother Teresa considered herself Indian, she lived in India from before Indian independence, she lived nearly all of her life in India, she had an Indian passport, etc. She WAS Indian. She may have been born somewhere else, but she was Indian -- just as, say Bobby Jindal is American
That said, I have no doubt that you'll christians persecuted there, along with every religious group (ironically, including Hindus, and its their own country)
Again I agree with you, but also must point out that the Christians there are in their own country -- they are not foreigners. Some, like the Keralite Christians have been there for 2000 years, as long as Brahmanical Hinduism
The Christians have never asked for a separate country because they feel and they ARE Indians.
Pakistan conveniently forgets that the West Pakistanis (Punjabis, Pathans, Sindhis -- all generally Urdu speaking, fairer Aryans) persecuted and discriminated against the East Pakistanis (Bengli speakers, darker Aryans) -- when the East Pakistanis won the majority in parliament in 1970, the West Pakistanis did not allow them and kicked them out (Bhutto).
Then the West Pakistanis committed genocide there -- killing and raping and wounding nearly a million+ Bengalis. India had 10 million refugees come streaming over her borders
India had no choice but to help the Bangladeshis
what makes the Pakistanis so angry is that India smashed the Pakistani forces so easily -- in a few days the war was over and the Pakistani myth that they were a warrior race as opposed to the "cowardly Indians" was shown to be a lie. They never recovered from this.
What was even funnier was that the Field Marshal in charge of the Indian action was a Zoroastrian, he had an Indian Jew (Jews have lived in India for 2000+ years), Sikh, Christian AND Moslem senior officers..
Correct again -- india has 800 languages and dialects from 7 different language super-families (Aryan, Dravidian, Munda, Tai-Burmese, Tibetan, Mongoloid, Jarawaetc.)
By race, 70% of its population is Aryan, 25% Dravidian, 5% Mongoloid, Australoid, etc.
By religion it has (approximately -- I can't remember the actual numbers) 900 million Hindus, 150 million Moslems, 40 million Christians, 20 million Sikhs, 20 million Jains, 5 million Buddhists, 70 thousand Parsis/Zoroastrians, 5 thousand Jews (most migrated to Israel -- but India was the only country Jews were not persecuted)
It is far more diverse than the European Union -- it is not a nation-state as say England, but a federation of multiple states, ethnicities, religions etc. -- a continent as you say (in fact, just as Europe is called a continent separating it from Asia because of the Urals, technically India too is a continent, separate from Asia)
The British were an integral part of this continent's history yes, just as the Romans defined Europe.
MOST? huh? Didn't you hear of the bomb blasts in bombay recently?
Most of the religious violence in India is committed by Moslems on Hindus, Christians, even other Moslems
Hindu-Moslem violence is a lot too (both ways), but Hindu-Christian violence is pretty minimal -- it's not zero, but its not "most of the religious violence" and it is definitely neither government sanctioned and is condemned by the majority of hindus who can't drum up any hatred against Christians (against Moslems, they CAN, but that's another story..)
in the Los Angeles Jewish Journal, it was stated that 'Palazzi accepts Israel's sovereignty over the Holy Land, and says the Qur'an supports it as the will of God as a necessary prerequisite for the Final Judgment. He accepts Israel's sovereignty over Jerusalem, if the rights of other religions are protected. He quotes the Qur'an to support Judaism's special connection to the Temple Mount. According to Palazzi, "The most authoritative Islamic sources affirm the Temples,". He adds that Jerusalem is sacred to Muslims because of its prior holiness to Jews and its standing as home to the biblical prophets and kings David and Solomon, all of whom he says are sacred figures also in Islam. He claims that the Qur'an "expressly recognizes that Jerusalem plays the same role for Jews that Mecca has for Muslims"
Christians want to spread the word as in tell you about the joy that we find in our religion. But we are told to tell people about this and let them choose their own path. yes, this hasn't been the way in some instances in the past, but we are not Islam which spread nearly only by force.
Hindus and Christians get along pretty well in nearly all of India and I've not met a Hindu who can really work up a hatred against Christians (even the most fanatical Sri Ram Sene guys talk about how they are against "forced conversions", whereas when they talk about Moslems, your blood curdles).
do you have any links for that? it sounds like good news.
Correct. And that is why they got the support of the hindu right-wing parties.
That’s true, but when they decide to pull out of a place, the solution they support is always that of dividing the territory and handing half of it over to the Muslims. That solution never works for very long, because any place that Islam considers its own territory is just a jumping off point for expanding into the territory of others in its vicinity.
Interesting history; I am certainly not taking Pakistan’s position in the conflict.
When my father was killed by one of his own bodyguards for defending a Christian woman accused of blasphemy, we had not spoken for three years. To understand the Pakistani obsession with India... it is necessary to understand the rejection of India, its culture and past, that lies at the heart of the idea of Pakistan. This is not merely an academic question. Pakistan's animus toward India is the cause of both its unwillingness to fight Islamic extremism and its active complicity in undermining the aims of its ostensible ally, the United States.He's probably right. Blow Pakistan -- a pseudostate in the first place -- off the map and then eat dinner.
Awkwardly phrased.
Cheers!
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