Profile: Zaid Hamid

Biography

Zaid Hamid was born in Karachi on March 14, 1964. His father, Col. Zaman Hamid (Retd), served in the Pakistan Army. Zaid spent his early life in Karachi. He received a Bachelor of Engineering (BE) degree in Computer Systems Engineering from NED University, Karachi in 1980's.

According to the brochure published by BrassTacks, available on the website www.zaidhamid.pk. Zaid Hamid rose to the fore when he started a program named Brass Tacks on a TV channel, discussing “Economic Terrorism, CIA Threats to Pakistan, Zionist Wars against Islam and Role of Spiritual Forces in War”.
The brochure also proudly states that, “The International think tanks and media, especially the Americans and Iranians have distinctively noticed him as well. A New York Times article and documentary specially featured the impact his so falsely termed "conspiracy theories" have on the Pakistani youth”

Claim to Fame

Zaid Hamid proudly confesses taking part in the Afghan “Jihad” (which was funded by American Money and Israeli weaponry. Khulla Tazad?). Since then he has been working at Brass Tacks, a security analysis company. After the show on ARY news, he also did a show named “Iqbal ka Pakistan” on Aag TV (that program has been reviewed thoroughly by myself which can be seen here).  We will see a sample of one of the reports of BrassTacks and my comments on that afterwards.

The “Confidential Weekly Edition: Pakistan Security and Political Situation Report & Threat Analysis© 2011 BrassTacks. All Rights Reserve Issued on April 24th, 2011” available here(despite being termed confidential) states that

“What is most unfortunate is that it is the Pakistani PM who is acting as Indian Information minister and doing the bidding for the enemy state. Now it is clear that Pakistan and India would go to war on water in not so far future! With summers approaching and water shortage hitting the vital food crops, the temperature on diplomatic and military axis would also rise rapidly. Proxy war between Pakistan and India is now heating up in the entire region with regional countries also becoming the battle ground for Indian total war on Pakistani state. It is incredible that how Indian foreign office, information ministry and their leadership maintain a friendly face towards Pakistan while attacking Pakistan on all economic, diplomatic and military axis in the entire region.”

It further informs us that,
“Pakistan is not a monolithic state like Iran or Saudi Arabia rather its sectarian demography contains a sizeable Shia population among the majority Sunni. This Shia populace is well integrated with Pakistani society and is playing a vital role in
progress and development.”

Yes, Shia populace is SOO well-integrated in Pakistani Society that thousands of Shias have been killed in the last 20 years and there has not been any sectarian violence in this “Land of Peace”.
The Broucher also provides the details of Zaid Hamid’s appearances in media, and that he has appeared in multiple episodes of Thori si Siyasat with his lackey, Ahmad Qureshi.
The website zaidhamid.pk also informs us
 “Welcome to our battle station in a war to defend Pakistan's Islamic ideology and national identity! This is our platform and weapon system to launch the counter attack against ideological subversion by the hostile forces through the axis of disinformation and propaganda warfare.” The website www.brasstacks.pk has only one working page, the rest is “Under Construction”.

Antagonists

Another very useful website is http://zaidhamidexposition.org/who-is-zaid-hamid/ which was instrumental in bringing his drama to a premature end in 2008-09. The problem was that this website based all its hatred and opposition of Zaid Hamid on some previous blasphemy charges of his. He successfully reinvented himself a few months after that because you just cannot fight illogical people with illogical claims. Very few serious attempts were done to understand and destroy the utopian fallacies being propagated by Zaid Hamid.

Zaid Hamid has been exposed and ridiculed in the media by columnists Fasi Zaka(whom ZH had accused of being a Jewish agent because he was a Fulbright Scholar), Nadeem Farooq Paracha and Mohammad Haneef. He has also been parodied multiple times on the Four Man Show. Despite all these efforts, he still was invited on TV channels as a “Political Analyst” while he has advocated an Anti-politician bias throughout his programs and speeches. Last year, he appeared in a program with Marvi Sirmed in which he tried to defend his delusions and myths propagated in history by the establishment.

Recently, in a program on Express News, Zaid Hamid was dealt expertly by Hasan Nisar and Ali Chishti. They ruthlessly exposed his baseless claims and so-called ideology by using facts. Not surprisingly, the very next day, Hasan Nisar was labeled as a “RAW agent” and “Anti-Pakistani, depression-creator Traitor” on the Syed Zaid Zaman Hamid[Official] page. (Interestingly, Zaid Hamid re-branded himself as “Syed” after his prosecution based on alleged links with Yousaf Kazzab, to show the world that he in-fact is a big Aashiq-e-Rasool.)
In Zaid Hamid’s universe, anyone that does not agree with him is either a traitor or Anti-Pakistan/Anti-Islam/RAW agent/Zionist.

Zaid Hamid’s Views/Ideology:

Zaid Hamid advocates the establishment of Khilafah and an Iranian style revolution. He is staunchly anti-democracy. He wants the Gold Standard back. He wants to “conquer” India. He has a different definition for “Zionists” and labels everyone whom he dislikes as a Zionist. He was one of the proponents of the “Good Taliban/Bad Taliban” theory.
 He thinks Allama Iqbal was not a human being but a “spiritual” super-human. He is openly pro-establishment and wants Army to take over the political system until the Khalifa arrives. He thinks Muslims can form a political bloc to fight against the “immoral, corrupt and conspiring West”. He believes that the cause of floods in Pakistan was some secret Indian/American mission. He thinks Baloch Insurgents and TTP are foreign-funded. Zaid Hamid has changed his positions many times as well. There was no mention of Khilafah in his earlier programs, but after the “Kazzab” allegations, he took up a new name, changed his identity to a hyper-national, Spiritual, Dynamic person. In short, he is the Glenn Beck of Pakistan, without the black-board that is. Our worry is not that Zaid Hamid will get a chance to rule this country, our worry is that main stream politicians like Imran Khan have espoused the same ideologies as Zaid Hamid and this trend needs to be checked(If you do not believe this, please do watch the show Iqbal ka Pakistan, in which Imran Khan was invited to the show in episode 4 as a guest and apart from other similarities, Zaid Hamid used the word “tsunami” as a political force in episode 21). Fringe players like Zaid Hamid are present in almost every country, they shouldn’t be allowed though to enter the mainstream and affect National Discourse.

(also published at Pak Tea House)

Deconstructing Zaid Hamid Part 10

Deconstructing Zaid Hamid

Zaid Hamid is a TV-phenomenon popularized by his programmers like Brass Tacks and Iqbal ka Pakistan. Eighteen episodes of Iqbal ka Pakistan have been examined by this author in last nine issues. Episodes 19 and 20 of Iqbal ka Pakistan are reviewed below.

Recently, Zaid Hamid was invited as guest on a show on Express News and was made to run for his money by the use of logic from Hasan Nisar and Ali Chishti. They debunked the vague theories of Zaid Hamid by showing him the mirror of reality.

Spoiler Alert: Zaid Hamid mentioned his favorite document i.e. “Protocols of the elders of Zion” in Episode 19.
Zaid Hamid also posted a message on his face book fan page, urging people to close down their Facebook accounts because CIA is collecting their data. Last time I checked his own Facebook page is still up and running. Double Standards, anyone?

Episode 19

Zaid Hamid: - Iqbal’s poetry and ideology is being suppressed, but these are sacred documents and cannot be hidden for long.
Comment: - I really do not know which universe does Zaid Hamid live in because there is NO such effort to “suppress” Iqbal’s message. Iqbal’s poetry is present in the Urdu Textbooks throughout the country and there has been no change is that regard. We can also hear Iqbal’s poetry from the people he never liked in his own life i.e. Mullahs and Terrorists like the Difa-e-Pakistan Council guys. As far as being “sacred” is concerned, this is just an example of a typical Zaid Hamid hyperbole. 

Zaid Hamid: - There is a whole spiritual system/dimension governing this world, apart from the physical dimension.

Comment: - This is no different than the conspiracy theories perpetrated about Illuminati, Free Masons and similar secret societies. Science has established four dimensions till now, while in Quantum mechanics, dozens of other “dimensions” have also been discovered, but this home-made dimension is so secret that no-one beside Zaid Hamid has discovered it yet.


Zaid Hamid: - Zionists worship deities and use black magic.

Comment: - According to Merriam-Webster Dictionary, Zionism is defined as “an international movement originally for the establishment of a Jewish national or religious community in Palestine and later for the support of modern Israel”. According to Oxford Advanced Learner’s dictionary, Zionism is defined as “a movement for (originally) the re-establishment and (now) the development and protection of a Jewish nation in what is now Israel. It was established as a political organization in 1897 under Theodor Herzl, and was later led by Chaim Weizmann.” The definitions establish that Zionists are Jewish people while the attributes Zaid Hamid is telling are of people belonging to a cult. Does he think Jewish people are followers of a cult? Or does he not even know the meaning of Zionism? I leave it to the reader to decide.

Zaid Hamid: - During the swat operation, spiritual forces helped our army.

Comment:- The Swat operation, named Operation Black Thunderstorm, was conducted by Pakistan Army between April-June 2009 against Tehrik e Taliban Pakistan(TTP) in the Swat Valley.
During this operation, Pakistan Army not only fought the TTP insurgents but also committed gross human rights violations as reported by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch and BBC. If spiritual forces helped our army, where were those spiritual forces when Army was committing the same atrocities that TTP(the bad guys) were committing before them?


Zaid Hamid:- People with spiritual dimensions have brighter faces.

Comment:- This statement by Zaid Hamid is simply an example of Racial Profiling and nothing else. It is similar to identifying "potential terrorists" at the Police Check posts throughout the country or at the Airports.!!!

Zaid Hamid:- Doubt in your mind is not a good thing.

Comment: Zaid Hamid doesn’t want us to have doubts in our mind because If we started doubting and thinking for ourselves, we will easily understand the gibberish that he is espousing and promoting. 

Zaid Hamid: The establishment is working on the agenda of Pharaohs(Fir’aun).

Comment: This one is outlandish, even by the lofty standards of Zaid Hamid. He doesn’t specify which Pharaoh is he referring to, as in Egyptian history, more than 60 pharaohs are mentioned.

Episode 20

Zaid Hamid:- The capitalist economic system is a sham and they have been fooling the world for the last 200 years.

Comment:- In fact, Zaid Hamid is right in assuming this, although Rosa Luxemburg said this more than a 100 years ago when she said, “If people only knew how capitalist system works, it would collapse overnight”. The difference between these two statements is that Rosa Luxemburg was proposing an alternative system which since then has been tested in different countries while Zaid Hamid’s alternative is a Utopia that may have worked in agrarian societies but is not implement-able in the modern world. Cultural Critic, Nadeem Farooq Paracha has repeatedly written that the new “messiahs” like Zaid Hamid are using the exact same rhetoric used by the Left-wing during 1960s and 70s.

Zaid Hamid:- The leader should constantly worry about his nation and should spend all his time thinking about his nation.

Comment:- As I mentioned in the last edition of this series, Zaid Hamid is promoting the idea of a messiah, a visionary leader who will make all our problems go away with his magic wand. I also mentioned that this particular attitude gives rise to Dictatorships.

(also published on Viewpointonline.net)

The Curious Case of Difa e Pakistan Council

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 reputed 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 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”(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 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 last 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 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 war and it is not going to be easy.

(Originally published by Pak Tea House)

Deconstructing Zaid Hamid part 9

Ladies and Gentlemen, the process of debunking Zaid Hamid is back.!! Enjoy reading.

Deconstructing Zaid Hamid

Zaid Hamid is a TV-phenomenon popularized by his programmes like Brass Tacks and Iqbal ka Pakistan. Sixteen episodes of Iqbal ka Pakistan have been examined by this author in last eight issues. Episodes 17 and 18 of Iqbal ka Pakistan are reviewed below.

Recently Ali Azmat, in a show on Dunya TV, presented the theory that after 1945 the musical instruments have been tuned to a specific frequency that is destructive for cellular structure, leading to Mass Hypnotism and Crowd Control. He also indicted “News Corp” as one of the factors behind that. He should have known that News Corp. was founded in 1979.!!
He claimed that the Libyan upsurge recently was due to Oil. He probably does not know that Italy was already getting majority of Oil from Libya. He also opined that Occupy movement is being supported by Capitalists.

Episode 17

At the start of the show, Ali Azmat exclaimed that Pakistan recently became world t20 champions but we actually are the eternal champions, we don't need any trophies to prove that.

Zaid Hamid:- Ham jis khel main jate hain, champion ban jate hain.(Translation:- Whichever sport we play, we end up becoming World Champion in that sport).

Comment:- This is a typical exaggeration by Mr. Zaid. We just need to look at our Olympic Gold Medals Tally to know the truth. For the record, from 1948 till date, Pakistan has won only THREE gold medals in Olympics that too in Field Hockey. 

Zaid Hamid:- We built nuclear centrifuges totally on our own.

Comment:- This is a bold and unsubstantiated claim by Zaid Hamid. Shahid-ur-Rehman, author of the books Long Road to Chagai, wrote on page 51, ‘During 1975, A. Q. Khan plundered the Almelo[where he was working at that time] facility to provide Pakistan with ‘blueprints of the enrichment plant, design and literature relating to centrifuge technology and lists of suppliers, equipment and materials’. In 1983 a Dutch court sentenced him, in absentia, to four years’ imprisonment for attempting to obtain classified information.

Zaid Hamid:- We need role models for progress.

Comment:- This is a prevalent idea among the youth of Pakistan. While this remains partially true, students of Political Sciences know that the search for role models leads to dictatorships. Every dictator of today was a hero(a role model) of yesterday. Saddam Hussain, Qaddafi, Ben Ali, Stalin, Marcos, Ayub Khan and dozens of South American dictators came to power with a promise of change and we all know what happened. We certainly need role models but more than role models, we need our “systems”(political systems) to work. When systems start working irrespective of who is the President or Prime Minister, that is the true change we should aspire towards.

Zaid Hamid:- The man on the street in Pakistan is very honest and a good human being.

Comment: - This statement is an over-simplification of the actual state of affairs. This is a view espoused by people visiting from abroad, people who are not ingrained in the realpoitik of Pakistan. Emma Duncan, in her book about Pakistan “Breaking the Curfew” wrote, ‘Pakistan is a land of contradictions, confusions and hypocrisies. After staying here for some time, the visitor feels duped: Why do they pretend to be in 20^th century Europe when they are in 7^th century Asia? How can educated people justify benefitting from superstition and ignorance? Why do they complain about the state of their government and their laws when they’re profiting from the anarchy? Why do they criticize the Army’s power when they’re working with the soldiers?’  Indeed the “man on the street” is by nature a good person but that is true for almost every other country in the world, or is it not?

Zaid Hamid: - Change in country cannot be brought about by long marches and democracy.

Comment:- This comment is an indirect insult of the process of democracy and peaceful protests. In the last 50 or so years, “change” has been brought about either by Military takeovers or protests. When Mr. Zaid Hamid refutes the power of one of them, he is suggesting that perhaps the other option is the best option.

Zaid Hamid: - He blamed separation of East Pakistan and fall of Dhaka exclusively to will of God.

Comment: - This is another blunder by so-called Intellectual Mr. Zaid Hamid. By transferring the blame for Separation of East Pakistan to the will of the Almighty, Zaid Hamid wants us to ignore how we usurped the rights of our Bengali Brothers. To be brutally honest, If it was not for the Bengalis, Pakistan Movement would never have been started. Muslim League was formed in Bengal, the division of Bengal in 1906 was the moment that changed everything in the realm of Indian Muslim Politics, most of middle class leadership of Muslim League was from Bengal, the Lahore Resolution was presented by a Bengali Leader and still Bengalis were kept away from key political decisions in the Muslim League Hierarchy before and after the Partition. All of this had to end badly, because of our own mistakes. For further Reading on this issue, I suggest reading Murder of History by Mr. K.K Aziz.

Zaid Hamid: - We have produced leaders in every field except political one.
Comment: - Zaid Hamid is quite right in saying this. Although he did not suggest any reasons for this. Maybe the lack of political leadership is due to frequent incursions by a certain Army into the political arena for the last 65 years? But that’s just a guess.

Episode 18

Zaid Hamid:-‘Ramooz e bekhudi’ is a template for revolution for all nations in the world.

Comment: - If this claim is true, why has anyone not given any credit to “Ramooz-e-Bekhudi” in the revolutions since the publication of the book?

Zaid Hamid: - We are doing this program because we do not want our nation to indulge in terrorist activities.

Comment: - By appearing on a youth channel playing non-stop music and promoting jingoism, hyper-nationalism and false sense of gusto, no-one is stopping anyone from anything. It is simply absurd.

The rest of the show was spent unduly praising Iqbal and Zaid Hamid reading from his notes. According to Nadeem Farooq Paracha, writer and blogger, “ I sometimes feel, a non-critical stance towards Iqbal’s work in this country has actually damaged his standing. He was a product of his time and well suited to compliment what was going in the minds of Indian Muslim men in the first half of the 20^th century. But was he a visionary? I don’t think so. I don’t think his work is as relevant today as it is made out to be. Certainly not in a post-modern world where the notions of universalism based on certain singular concepts of faith and progress have long crumbled and given way to a healthy respect and need for democracy, pluralism and diversity.”  

(also published at Viewpointonline.net)

A study of Anti-Americanism in Pakistan

A study of Anti-Americanism in Pakistan

(Part 1)

“Yours is a great country with enormous resources of wealth, experience and technical skill. We, who believe in individual initiative, effort and enterprise do not believe that the era of private ownership is over. But we do believe that we have entered upon an era when capital should come out of its shell and move in the spheres of international social objectives and move on from exploitation to production.
Your country fought for its own independence once. You have been great exponents and the jealous guardians of freedom. Words from your Declaration of Independence and your constitution have inspired men in far-off lands. You have shown to the world what human effort can do for human welfare. You have no colonies and I believe no territorial ambitions. Has not your history therefore equipped you more than most nations to be among the leading architects of the enlightened internationalism of the future?”
(Prime Minister Liaqat Ali Khan’s speech at Berkley University, May 16th, 1950)

Every year, thousands of bright and young Pakistani students apply for admission to colleges in the United States of America. A few hundred of them are finally selected and even fewer students actually make it to the US for college education. Hundreds of thousands of people from Pakistan apply for a US Visa every year; most of them want to go there just for a job. Thousands of doctors, engineers, lawyers and businessmen from Pakistan have permanently settled in the US and are contributing to the country's economy by sending remittances. Financially, US has helped only Israel more than Pakistan in the last 60 years.
American money began flowing into Pakistan in 1954, when a mutual defense agreement was signed.According to the agreement, Washinton agreed to provide a military and economic aid program to Pakistan worth 105 Million Dollars a year. By 1957, the covert U.S military commitment to Pakistan had grown to 500 Million dollars a year(Dennis Kux, The United States and Pakistan, 1947-2000:disenchanted Allies, Woordow Wilson Press, 2001) Under Ronald Reagan, U.S. aid nearly quintupled: about three billion dollars in economic assistance and two billion in military aid. The U.S. provided over $11billion in aid to Pakistan since 2001. In 2010, $4.5 billion-one of the largest amounts ever given to a foreign country-aid was given to Pakistan. United States is redirecting another $50 million to flood aid from earlier projects. (Lawrence Wright,  The NewYorker, 16 May 2011)

Despite all the above mentioned facts, the first thing that a Pakistani thinks in case of a national tragedy is that 'America is behind that tragedy'. A survey for international broadcaster al Jazeera by Gallup Pakistan found that 59 percent of Pakistanis felt the greatest threat to the country was the United States. A separate survey by the Pew Research Center, an independent pollster based in Washington, recorded that 64 percent of the Pakistani public regards the U.S. “as an enemy” and only 9 percent believe it to be a partner.

Cultural Critic, Nadeem F Paracha writes, “the present-day phenomenon in this context has become an obligatory part of populist rhetoric in which American involvement is blamed for everything — from terrorist attacks, to the energy crises, to perhaps even the break of dengue fever!”.

Tufail Ahmed( Director of South Asia Studies Project at the Middle East Media Research Institute, Washington DC) in his article for viewpointonline, noted that “Anti-Americanism is one of several dominant narratives that have taken hold over mass consciousness in Pakistan. Anti-Americanism has emerged as an ideology, as an overriding system of ideas. Writers, politicians and commentators frequently use the ideology of anti-Americanism, sometimes intentionally and mostly unintentionally, to explain the causes of various problems in terms of America’s international role. As a dominant perspective, anti-Americanism has come to acquire an autonomous reality of its own. It hegemonizes minds and prevents people from seeing facts as they exist.”

A lot of research has been done to understand this tricky relationship between the United States and Pakistan’s people despite the former’s largesse towards the country.
According to a research paper written by Dr Talukder Muniruzaman in 1971 on the politics of young Pakistanis, a majority of Pakistanis viewed America positively and admiringly in the 1950s.

The paper also suggests that right up until Pakistan’s 1965 war with India, most Pakistanis saw America as a friend, especially in the context of the Soviet Union’s close ties with India.

According to another paper published by Chicago University in 1983, on the ideological orientation of Pakistan’s university students by Kiren Aziz and Peter McDonough, anti-Americanism among most Pakistanis remained low even during the celebrated movement (in 1967-68) against the Ayub Khan dictatorship – in spite of the fact that the movement was largely led by leftist students, activists and politicians.

Professor Vali Nasr in his book, ‘Vanguards of the Islamic Revolution’ writes that the religious parties (especially JI)  began attributing the Pakistan Army’s defeat in 1971 to the ‘decadence and debauchery of men like General Yahya Khan’ and due to ‘Pakistanis’ failure to become good Muslims.’ However before that, a large number of Pakistanis began blaming the US because it had ‘failed to help Pakistan in the war.’

Part 2

History tells us that relations between Pakistan and United States started on the right note, as demonstrated by aforementioned speech of Prime Minister Liaqat Ali Khan. It was followed by the decade of co-operation between the two countries in matters of trade and military training. As we can see, the seeds of perceived animosity were laid during the 1965-71 period during which United States stopped the military aid to both Pakistan and India in the wake of the 1965 war. The people responsible for arousing these sentiments were the dexterous politicians of Pakistan and to some extent the religio-political parties and they did that just to mask their own shortcomings.

A similar attitude was shown by Mr. Bhutto when he blamed the alarming political situation upon the machinations of United States that wanted to “stop him from forming a Muslim-bloc”. In his book ‘Political Dynamics of Sindh 1947-1977’ Tanvir Ahmed Tahir suggests that the post-1971 anti-Americanism in Pakistan was more an occupation of progressive and leftist groups. This is confirmed in Hassan Abbas’ book, ‘Pakistan’s drift into extremism: Allah, the Army and America’s War on Terror’.

According to Lubna Rafique’s 1994 paper, ‘Benazir & British Press, ( Rafiue, Lubna. Benazir and British Press. 1986-1994, Gautam Publishers, Lahore,
Pakistan, 1994) it was only in the last year of Z.A. Bhutto’s regime (1977), that he started to allude to moving out of the ‘American camp,’ calling the US a ‘white elephant.’ He also went on to accuse the Jimmy Carter administration for financing the religious parties’ agitation against him in 1977.

After the ousting of Mr. Bhutto came the martial law  decade(1977-88) orchestrated by General Zia ul Haq. The setup that came to power because of unrest created by parties that were essentially anti-American in outlook ended up becoming a pawn in the hands of the same Americans. Zia-ul-Haq milked the opportunities when neighbor Afghanistan was attacked by USSR and a communist government was installed there. The flow of dollars towards the coffers of Pakistan continued until 1986. In 1985, Section 620E(e) (the Pressler amendment) was added to the Foreign Assistance Act, requiring the President to certify to Congress that Pakistan does not possess a nuclear explosive device during the fiscal year for which aid is to be provided. With the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, Pakistan’s nuclear activities again came under intensive U.S. scrutiny and, in 1990, President Bush again suspended aid to Pakistan. Under the provisions of the Pressler amendment, most bilateral economic and all military aid ended and deliveries of major military equipment ceased.  In 1992, Congress partially relaxed the scope of the aid cutoff to allow for food assistance and continuing support for nongovernmental organizations (Congressional Research Service Issue Brief for Congress on Pakistan-U.S Relations, Feb 2006).   

It was followed by the dwindling relations between the two countries in the 90s  culminating in an ebb in the relation during 1998 following the Nuclear tests conducted by Pakistan. Interestingly, when the Pakistan Army was caught with its pants down in Kargil, it was the United States that acted as the peace-ensurer   following an ugly fight. 


The Musharraf era (1999-2008) witnessed the ascent of Pakistan-U.S relation to an altogether different level of co-operation following 9/11 attacks. Despite the fact  that not a single Pakistani was involved in the horrendous attacks on World Trade Center, Pakistanis were targeted by and large by the American media and hate-crimes surfaced against Pakistanis living in the United States. The U.S attack on Afghanistan did not help regarding the negative feelings harbored by Pakistanis towards U.S since the 70s and then the 90s.           
This anti-U.S sentiment was cashed by the alliance of religio-political

parties in NWFP(now Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa), one of  Pakistan’s


provinces bordering Afghanistan and for the first time in the 
history of Pakistan, religious parties won a landslide 
victory in 2002 elections. On the official front, Pakistan
was awarded the non-NATO ally status while the
leaders of various parties kept blaming America for all
the ills in the country. The top command of Al Qaeda
and Taliban sought refuge in the treacherous terrain of 
semi-autonomous tribal agencies that form Pakistan’s 
border with Afghanistan. This led to unmanned drone 
strikes by the U.S to eliminate threats to its personnel in 
Afghanistan and its own security. The drone strikes not 
only killed the insurgents but also the innocent people
present around that area creating strong grievances 
against the mighty America and its army. This issue 


was used to create furor by religious parties and right-
wing politicians including a certain Imran Khan. 
Massive sit-ins were held at various places in the 
country and media fueled the emotion even further by inflammatory programs. In the last one year, several major developments happened vis-à-vis relations with the United States that have made the relation more unstable than it already was. Raymond Davis, a security contractor, killed 3 people at a busy thoroughfare in Lahore, a U.S SEAL team raided a house in Abbotabad killing Osama Bin Laden and 24 Pakistani soldiers were killed in a gunfight with NATO forces at the Afghan Border.

Part 3

Regarding the basis of hate towards the US, Professor Hamid Kizilbash’s paper in 1988 stated that Pakistanis give three kinds of reasons for negative feelings about America. One involves U.S. policies toward Pakistan such as failure to come to Pakistan's aid during the Bangladesh crisis, using Pakistan for its own interests, and opposition to Pakistan's peaceful nuclear program. A second deals with American global policy, including support of Israel, opposition to Iran's present government, and use of force against small Third World nations. The third includes American involvement in Pakistan—for example, support of the military regime, obstructing a settlement of the Afghan issue, and responsibility for the decline in the value of the local currency.

Columnist Fasi Zaka in one of his columns suggested that the kind of anti-Americanism found these days (among the middle-classes of the country) is extremely ill-informed. He wrote that a lot of young Pakistanis are basing their understanding of international politics by watching low-budget straight-to-video ‘documentaries’ on YouTube!

The unfortunate fact is that most of Anti-America bashing is done for all the wrong reasons. United States of America is no beacon of International justice nor are they the mega-scheming empire that we so love to depict in our lengthy and flowery diatribes. U.S.A is neither the “great Satan” nor is the “defender of democracy”, it is somewhere in between these two extremes.   The most accurate basis of U.S-bashing would be to criticize the impunity with which that country holds the rest of the world accountable based on its standards or the brazen use of force by the United States across the globe(and NOT only against the Muslims-contrary to popular belief) over the last 70 years.  Ironically, more people in the United States itself and in Europe protested against the Iraq war than in any of the Muslim “Ummah”. While we are at it, it should also not be forgotten what the “Muslim Imperialism” did in its own days. If Mohammad bin Qasim can come all the way from Hijaz to Sindh just because of a letter written by a woman, Moosa bin Naseer can send an army to help Count Julian across the Mediterranean, G.I Joe also has the equal right to retaliate when a bunch of dimwits attack its homeland via flying planes. America is not controlling the world like we think it is. Add this to the fact that more than 90% Pakistani people have never been to the U.S and have never met an American in real life.

Another ugly issue surrounding the prevalent anti-Americanism is the hypocrisy of it. Most people attending the “Go Amrika Go” rallies would love to get a U.S Visa and spend their rest of lives in the same country whose flag they burn on monthly basis for fun. People like this can be seen queuing up outside American fast-food chains, they like to wear American brands(new or second hand), they watch American films, follow the trends set by Americans, use American-built devices like a Personal Computer or an iPhone and the list goes on and on. It would be unfair not to say that one characteristic that unites us Pakistanis is this hypocrisy that we fail to see. 

U.S is not the wealthiest country in the world, rather it the country with the most loans. The unemployment rates in United States are rising on weekly basis, people are getting their homes taken away from them, if “Amrika” is so powerful, Why can’t it help its OWN people? We have been made to think via convoluted conspiracy theories that Amrika has some kind of Vendetta against Muslims. No doubt, a lot of Muslim countries have been at the receiving end of Amrika’s wrath including Iraq, Afghanistan and lately Libya. But does that mean what was happening at Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya was Justified.? The genocide being committed by Saddam and Qaddafi was “western propaganda” only? Al-Qaeda was a bunch of average  bearded guys who played for the same football team? As a society, we do not want to tolerate any dissenting voice and I am already expecting remarks branding me “another American agent” or  “Amriki apologist” and all my protestations will be useless when that happens.At the end, I would just like to re-quote Mr. Tufail Ahmad, “It[Anti-American sentiment] hegemonizes minds and prevents people from seeing facts as they exist” 

(also published on Pak Tea House, Part 1, Part 2 and part 3)

Radicalism and Engineers

Professionals form the backbone of a society. Professionals include Doctors, engineers, bankers, businessmen, lawyers, soldiers and law-enforcers. Pakistani society as a whole has been affected by the problem of increasing intolerance and religious extremism over the years. One of the many causes of this rise is the state of textbooks in Pakistan that promote hatred and bigotry(Consider for instance Meri Kitab, which is a required text textbook for grade one students in most public schools. Seven out of 16 chapters in Meri Kitab contained religious sermons. A report by United States Commission on International Religious Freedom found that textbooks were filled with disparaging remarks about the Hindus, while never mentioning that for centuries Muslims and Hindus had lived peacefully in the subcontinent.). Students are taught from a young age to hate perceived enemies. Other causes include the propaganda-mongering by state-backed Madrassas and even state-controlled media, enormous groundwork done by religious groups and exploitation of religious beliefs of people by clergy.

A common belief about terrorists is that only uneducated, unemployed and frustrated people join the ranks of terrorists. Research has proven this wrong and we know today that there are many doctors, engineers and other professionals in the terrorist ranks. The 9/11 conspirators included 8 engineers, Faisal Shehzad, famously known as Times-square bomber is a qualified engineer, Yahya Ayyash from Hamas-an electrical engineer-is credited with advancing the technique of suicide bombing,  Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab (confessed Al Qaeda operative and engineering student) tried to blow up an airliner over Detroit, Mohammed Abd al-Salam Faraj, leader of the killers of Anwar Sadat, Kafeel Ahmed, who tried to bomb Glasgow Airport in 2007, Anwar al-Awlaki(top Al-Qaeda leader from Yemen famous for his internet sermons), studied engineering as an undergraduate at Colorado State University. In Pakistan, Hafiz Saeed-the founder of Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jamaat-ud-Dawaa, both on International terror watch list-used to teach at University of Engineering and Technology, Faiz Mohammad, a civil engineer, was caught at Karachi’s airport with batteries and an electrical circuit hidden in his shoes, Asif Mehmood, a chemical engineer from UET, was involved in the 2009 bombing of the ISI office in Lahore.  

Diego Gambetta and Steffen Herog in their research paper titled “Why are there so many Engineers among Islamic Radicals?” note that According to data compiled by Carnegie foundation in 1984, The proportion of engineers who declare themselves to be on the right of the political spectrum is greater than in any other disciplinary group: 57.6 % of them are either conservative or strongly conservative, as compared to 51.1 % of economists, 42.5 % of doctors and 33.5 % of scientists, 21.4 % of those in the humanities, and 18.6 % of the social scientists. The Carnegie survey reveals an even more surprising fact, hitherto unnoticed, that strengthens the suspicion that the engineers’ mindset may play a part in their proneness not only to radicalize to the right of the political spectrum, but do so with a religious slant: engineers turn out to be by far the most religious group of all academics – 66.5 %, followed again by 61.7 % in economics, 49.9 % in sciences, 48.8 % of social scientists, 46.3 % of doctors and 44.1% of lawyers.” Similarly, Peter Bergen and Swati Pandey in their 2006 study of ‘madrassas (Islamic schools) and lack of education as a putative terrorist incubator’ found that the most popular subjects amongst those jihadi terrorists who attended university was engineering followed by medicine.

Regarding the cause of this dangerous trend among engineers, Awais Masood, an engineer by profession, wrote in the Daily Times, “The relationship between religious fundamentalism and technology has remained complicated. Religious fundamentalist movements have been widely described as reaction to modernity though the movements are themselves modern in nature. Hence there exists an inherent conflict where these movements reject the underlying notions of rationality, secular and scientific constituting modernity. On the other hand, these movements continue to appropriate modern symbols and technology to further their cause. Historically, fundamentalist movements vehemently opposed natural sciences and technology but that does not hold true anymore. As stated in a paper titled ‘Postmodern Conservatism and Religious Fundamentalism’ by Geoff Boucher, the fundamentalist movements of today harbour a selective, instead of a wholesome, hostility towards natural sciences and try to engage in an understanding of the world that remains compatible with the commercialized science of today encompassing applied sciences and technology. Hence, these movements hold a significant appeal among technical professionals such as engineers, doctors and lawyers. Carrying forward this correlation between technical education and fundamentalism, a 2009 study published in The European Journal of Sociology showed that engineers constitute 20 percent of all Islamist militant organizations, a value remarkably greater than the expected 3.5 percent figure.”

There is also the question as to why people who are supposed to think according to the scientific method adopt the narrow-minded approach of terrorists. According to Professor of Nuclear Physics, Dr. Parvez Hoodbhoy, “We need to separate the scientists from the technologists, meaning those who use science in a narrowly functional sense rather than as a means for understanding the natural world. I have never seen a first-rate Muslim scientist become an Islamist or a terrorist even when he or she is a strong believer. But second- and third-rate technologists are more susceptible. These are people who use science in some capacity but without any need to understand it very much—engineers, doctors, technicians, etc.—all of whom are more inclined towards radicalism. They have been trained to absorb facts without thinking, and this makes them more susceptible to the inducements of holy books and preachers.”

The phenomenon of rising intolerance and fanaticism is not limited to engineers rather it has encapsulated our society in general. The most worrying aspect about this issue is the lack of awareness regarding it. As a society, we fall upon excuses to somehow justify terrorism due to clever usage of religious symbolism attached to it, despite losing more than 35 thousand innocent lives due to terrorist activities. Veteran Journalist Khaled Ahmed recently commented that “Pakistan is sinking because it doesn’t want to look terrorism in the eye”.

Very little is being written against radicalization in mainstream newspapers particularly Urdu newspapers. Ratings-hungry News channels are not devoting any time to raise awareness about the radical ideology. Government is not spending enough resources to counter the tide of fanaticism. The problem starts with the textbooks and is augmented by societal pressures and a criminal lack of focus on critical thinking. A combined effort by the government, civil society and media is required to halt the onslaught of radicalism and to ensure a better, a safer future for this country. It should also be mentioned that by not speaking up, we are colluding with the enemy.

 (also published at Pak Tea house)

Of Political Islam and an Ideological State

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to attend a lecture by Professor Amjad Ali Shakir, Principal of Islamia College, Lahore and author of many books including 'Dau Quami Nazriya, Aik Tareekhi Jaiza' i.e. Two Nation Theory: A historical Perspective. 
The topic of discussion was Political Islam and the concept of an "Islamic Ideological State". I'll summarize the basic points as said by Prof Amjad.

Pakistan is a secular nation state in every aspect except two
1. We do not have love for our geographical boundaries; rather we are more concerned with the ‘ideological boundaries’ of our nation
2. There is no respect for constitution by the common man.

The geographical limits are not respected because of the concept of 'ummah' thereby negating the idea of physical/geographical boundaries and we do not respect our constitution because we have been made to believe (by our erstwhile politicians and religious leaders) that Quran is our constitution and we do not need any other constitution which is not how a nation state works. Quran is the book of God, it is not a constitution and no book of God has ever been sent as a “constitution” for a nation state. Religion and Nationalism are two different domains.
Religions have a universal approach, nationalism has a limited approach. The amalgam of these two i.e. Religious Nationalism is a misuse of religion. For Example,

If Pakistani=Muslim, then a Non-Muslim Pakistani becomes a second grade citizen. Extrapolating this concept, when the same Pakistani gets a green card, theoretically he doesn’t remain a Pakistani, thus not a Muslim (but this is not something Pakistanis enamored with ‘religious nationalism’ want to think).

Regarding the claim that Islam is the complete way of life (mukammal zabta e hayat), He said:-
There is a lot of difference between 'deen' and zabita e hayat(way of life. In Quran, there are at least 14 different meanings of the word 'deen'. Deen includes shariat and matters related to religious law. Zabta e hayat(way of life) is an evolutionary term, it changes with times. It includes Laws related to everyday lives e.g. Criminal Procedure Codes. Deen is a religious term, backed by power of wahee(Revelation).zabta hayat is a secular term, not backed by power of wahee. Islam claims to be a complete Deen, not a complete way of life(there is not a SINGLE ayat or hadees explicitly stating that Islam is a complete way of Life. Explanations of many verses have been used by apologists to prove their point but different verses have been explained differently by different people, thus decreasing the reliability of their claim)
In the history of Islam, not a single aalim or imam(including the 4 big Imams of Sunnism i.e. Imam Abu Haneefa, Imam Malik, Imam Shafi or Imam Ahmad) asked for establishment of an 'Islamic ideological state'(until Mr. Maududi happened), because all of them struggled for establishment of a 'welfare state'.

Regarding the history of this ideology, Professor Amjad told that Allama Inayatullah Mashriqi was the first person to say that Islam ghalbay k liye aya hai, agar ghalba nai to Islam nai(Islam is dependent upon dominance). These sentiments are an exact replica of the thoughts expressed in Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler. This gave rise to the ideology of 'Islamic Fascism'.
Marxists believed that Marxism can only be practiced when it is implemented as a system in a state. After the 1917 Russian Revolution, the same sentiments were echoed by Mr. Ghulam Ahmad Pervaiz in context of Islam. He proposed that theory that without political power, Islam becomes toothless/worthless for ordinary Muslims. Mr. Maududi was strongly opposed to many of Mr. Pervaiz’s ideas but surprisingly, throughout his life,Mr. Maududi shared and preached the same ideas.

Regarding a common misconception, he said:-  Namaz is a Farsi word while Salaat is an Arabic word. Similarly, ‘Khuda’ is a Farsi word and Allah is an Arabic word but due to  propaganda we do not like saying Khuda but prefer to use the word Allah. Ironically, the same people use the word namaz in their daily lives, but not salaat.Why these double standards.?