I am Hindu Punjabi from Ludhiana region in Punjab, India. My family originally is from a pind (village) outside of Lahore called Daud (sp?). During British time they moved to Amritsar and then later to Ludhiana. Punjabis in Pakistan and India are basically the same nationality. Only difference is religion. Pakistan is all Mulisms and India Punjab is mix of Hindu/Sikh. Hindus and Sikhs have their troubles here and there but they live in peace. Many Hindus go to Gurudwara and many Sikhs go to Mandir...I know because I have lived and visit Punjab all the time. If Pakistan was never created it would be the same with the Muslims. Yes, it would never be 100% peaceful, but for the most part..Hindus/Sikhs/Muslims would be living nicely together in a much bigger Punjab. Even today, especially in Ludhiana, there is a big Muslim population...and we all live in peace..no one really cares. It's very sad because India+Pakistan+Bangladesh could have been a SUPER POWER in today's world. Strong central government to control terrorism and communal deputes, great leaders, huge military, innovation, technology, engineers, doctors...all countries would have benefited majorly. We would not be rich, but a lot better off than we are separate.
The tensions have been there forever. You had Muslim empires ruling over Hindu and Sikh communities. You had the Sikh Empire conquer large parts of Pakistan and Northern India. You had the Maratha Empire fight constantly with the Mughals. You had insurgent movements all across India that were largely built on religious opposition. That said, the nail in the coffin was the implementation of communal electorates during the early 20th century that essentially split the religious communities by forcing them to vote in seperate electorates. It basically ensured that people running for office wouldn't try to appeal to a cross-section of India but rather they'd appeal to their narrow religious constituencies. The end result was the seeds of dissent among Hindus/Sikhs and Muslims. In addition, there were huge economic disparities between the communities. Hindus were traditionally better educated and wealthier. Lahore for example, was basically controlled by the Hindu community before partition. Despite being a minority they controlled all wealth, businesses, educational institutions, etc.. So you can imagine the type of resentment it built up. Also, and I'll point the finger directly at religion because it was a problem. Hindus treated Muslims like crap. The caste system was still in full force and Muslims, in the eyes of many of the elites, were functionally the lowest caste. The idiotic customs (many of which I still see) that essentially treated Muslims like they were trash served to generate a lot of hate and resentment. On the flip side, the failure of Muslim communities to embrace universal education totally inhibited their ability to economically advance in relation to the Hindus and Sikhs who placed a far higher premium on educating everyone, including women. But this was a process and didnt happen overnight. The Muslim League, for example, was terribly unpopular in Pakistan for decades. It's also why Jinnah was with the Congress Party for a while. The Muslim League refused to support independence and the first elections in British India were basically swept by Congress (even in Pakistan) In fact the tribal areas of Pakistan were all Congress Party backers and really never forgave the Muslim League for initially refusing to support independence. It's one of the reasons why the NWFP and the tribal areas never quite bought into the original Pakistani government. It was only after the Muslim League supported independence and then later supported the idea of a Muslim nation did they gain any traction in Pakistan. In effect they had to play to the communal fears of the Muslim community in order to siphon off support from Congress. And as time went on, eventually riots started and those escalated into all out destruction of rival communities. And in the process about a million people died. A lot of this part just has to do with the fact that the British wanted to get out as fast as possible and didn't really put too much effort into containing the violence. So no, they can never ever combine again. The blood from partition will always divide India and Pakistan and yes the tension between India and Pakistan started well before partition.
Watch parts 4 and 5. Rest are elementary. Shocked at the amount of shared needle heroin use and junkies scavenging through waste dumps. Pakistan needs to systemically sterilize it's lower class, the suffering they face is too great and they only hinder any possibility of becoming a functioning 3rd world nation. Right now it's chaos and it's only going to get worse. Places like Pak and Zimbabwe also face the huge issue of brain drain when cool heads are needed to prevent through a crisis like this. While I liked DudeWah's "sophisticated" analysis of the degradation of Karachi, he does tiptoe around the pink elephant in the room. The issue of Islam driving it into the ground. Major cities in India were in a far worse situation but due to India being a highly secular environment, they were able to position themselves into the strong position they're in today. It all, falls, back, to, religion, manipulating, the, underprivileged. Like geeimsobored accurately stated, nations like India didn't use religion as a crutch to justify all the misery around them. They adopted a more practical, spiritual approach to life that emphasized self reflection and educating oneself in lieu with the pace of the modern world. And it's paying off for the middle class in India and China. Whereas Pakistan can't get past the blasphemous law. Even a so called dictator like Musharaff was sympathetic towards Pakistan's "religious" sensitivities. That's exactly what's getting them nowhere. Pakistan's only hope is to have a sociopathic dictator with no regard for religion come in and put 1 generation through a massive, brutal change in order to give the country a chance in the future. Sterilize the lower class, control the unskilled population, and give your self a shot at cracking down on organized crime. Without authoritative stability due to "religious sensitivity", no progress can be made. Democracy does not work in a nation like this.
Pakistan needs an Atatürk before it can become a democracy. Ronny is right. Islam is a big part of that nation's problems, and its backwardness.
This is a bit simplistic. Pakistan was never doomed to failure, a lot of things just didn't go its way. (religion being one of those things but by no means was it sole reason) The founder of Pakistan, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, was as secular as they get. The man was basically British. He had no desire for a state governed by Islam and made that perfectly clear. His vision of Pakistan (weirdly enough) was modeled on the same concept as Israel. It was to be a homeland for the Muslims of the region where they could be free from the domination of others (mainly the Hindu majority of British India). But beyond that, his vision was that anyone there would get full citizenship and that the countries laws would be governed by secularism. But here's the kicker. Jinnah died only a few months after Pakistan was founded. Unlike India who had Nehru run the country for years, Pakistan was suddenly left to fend for itself without its leader. The other problem was that the Muslim League was a one man show. And without that one man to unite the country, regional parties started forming which began the sectarian politics we see today. In India on the other hand, Congress had decades to cement its support across the country. India had the luxury of being a one party state for decades despite its equally crazy sectarian politics. The Muslim League simply never had the chance to build up that kind of support because they got into the game so late. And subsequently without the strong support of the Muslim people, the Muslim League folded rather quickly after the government was overthrown by the military. And then we see the path down to where we are. Interestingly, most of the religious restrictions (including the blasphemy law) were imposed by a military dictator named Zia Ul-Haq who basically decided on his own that he wanted the country to be really conservative. There was no history of any of that nonsense in most of Pakistan but without an actual functioning democracy, this became the law of the day. Another issue is the demographics of states in Pakistan. In India the states were largely reorganized to ensure that ethnic groups were in control of their own state. (This is also why India keeps making new states, just to please some minority group that wants a state) This in effect solves much of the issues that Pakistan has because ethnic groups are given strong local autonomy since they functionally control their own states. This also takes sectarian issues off the table in government and shifts party differences to other areas. With functioning democracies in each state, the needs of different communities manifest themselves in the ballot box rather than with a gun. Pakistan's states are largely modeled on the same idea but Pakistan went through weird times where military leaders combined the states into one unit before splitting them back up again. And the only reason they did this was to dilute the voting power of East Pakistan (Bangladesh) so Bengalis couldn't take control of the government. But by grouping all of the states together in West Pakistan, you opened yourself up to the sectarian fighting over control of that one unit. Even after they split the unit back into provinces again, the population makeup of many of these provinces got screwed up. The Balochs of Balochistan are now almost a minority in their own state. Karachi of course is a complete mess. (Now Bombay is a demographic swirl as well but Bombay also has a history of a government that doesn't force its way with everyone like the MQM) The NWFP has become more and more Afghani Pashtun. And this flares up the sectarian fights that the states are supposed to prevent. Also with no real history of democracy, ethnic groups are more inclined to fight rather than put any faith in voting. As for Islam itself, the only real impact I see is the Islamic schools. Hindus and Sikhs never really had an equivalent to the madrassa so that type of religious education doesnt really exist. Plus Hinduism's caste system is bent towards only providing religious education to a small elite so the average person gets very little exposure to religious teaching. The madrassa has slowly become the alternative to properly funded education. In India there are tons of communities that also dont have good educational systems. The only difference there is that temples and religious institutions aren't indoctrinating kids there as a substitute because that concept doesn't exist. On the other hand this is a problem in Pakistan and the Indian Muslim community because not only does it not actually provide an education but it serves to warp the way of thinking of these kids. That is my biggest issue with Islam in India and Pakistan. But besides the education problem, I dont really see an issue. Most of the reasons for the failure of democracy deal with circumstance and not religion.
They had their Ataturk. He just died 6 months after Pakistan was founded. And its hard to get Ataturk twice as it requires full scale revolution and a brilliant leader to lead it. Pretty sure that isn't happening.
BUZZZZZZZZ!!! Wrong. Islam is not the problem. Like I've said in every D&D post that points the finger at the religion of Islam for a travesty or tragedy or degradation of a land, it's not the religion at all, it's the people. Separate the DOER from the DOCTRINE. Islam in its essence promotes welfare of the needy and impoverished, equality in gender, a fair and balanced judicial system, rights given to those that practice Islam and those that don't. It is a beautiful, logical and progressive faith. BUT humans that claim themselves to be Muslim may not be. Deficient humans make mistakes, act ignorant, show greed, protect personal interests, have potential to carry hate, prejudice, corruption in their hearts. They may not follow the religions scriptures and teachings at all, or halfway, or make up BS and call it Islam. So once again, it's important to separate the DOER from the DOCTRINE. A lot of problems and corruption in government in so called "Muslim" countries is actually the absolute LACK of correctly implementing Islamic principles and laws in the governments legislation and enforcement or erroneously implementing Islamic rules and regulations or coming up with ridiculous laws that have no basis in Islamic teachings and putting the Islam label on it as if it's right there in the Qur'an. Heck there's people in power and who have held office in Pakistan that cant even recite Qur'an verses that little kids know nor do they study it extensively and they would play the Islam card to garner votes. That don't even do obligatory things that Muslims are supposed to do like pray 5 times a day and give to charity and help the poor and impoverished. I could go on an on but doing an unbiased study of the religion and it's principles and the reasoning of why these rules and regulations exists, one could clearly see that whatever folks in Pakistan and all those other "Muslim" dominated countries that look bad in the news and have all these atrocities and corruption happening, it's absolutely in contrast to the teachings that Islam provides. To sum it up if you didnt feel like reading the last few paragraphs: In "Muslim" countries (Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Middle East), theres a lot of Muslims, but not a lot of Islam. Regarding the topic on hand itself. I've only saw video 1 and need to watch the rest. They are talking about the town where my parents were born and raised and where a lot of my family and relatives reside (Lyari in Karachi Pakistan). And yes sir it is GHETTO. And I'm of the Balochi people. My Last name is Balouch (Pronounced the same way but the spelling means nothing). My relatives in Pakistan for the most part stay out of trouble and the last time I visited was in 1998 when I was 11 (though my mother, father and siblings have visited more recently). My brother said he saw bodies wrapped up in white sheets dropped in the streets one time. It's really the teenagers and such that I worry about and I get concerned for my younger cousins and such and hope they don't get caught up in all the drugs and negativity which I'm sure they deal with pressures from other kids. I dont know much about Uzair Baloch and if he has any relations or interactions with members of my family but I will definitely ask my parents and such since they keep in constant contact back there.
There is A LOT of Islam. You could argue that that is not the Islam as it should be, but your argument makes it very easy to always keep Islam free of any responsibility - it is never responsible for all the failures in the countries where it is prevalent - the simple explanation is always "well that is not the Islam as it is mean to be"...so it is NEVER Islam's fault, always something else.
What does Islam have to do with sectarian killings in karachi? They're all Muslim there so its Muslims killing other Muslims. This is simply a failure of government to manage sectarian differences. It's no different than sectarian conflicts in Africa. India is a total anomaly in terms of avoiding this type of infighting. India had a few brilliant constitutional authors that figured out how to manage its sectarian divisions but there's no unique difference between India and Pakistan. Pakistan simply had some bad management and luck.
Again, one would have to do an unbiased study of Islamic scriptures and sources of law and would see that the overwhelming majority of all the corruption, violence, injustices are direct contradictions to Islamic rules of conduct, sovereignty, business dealings etc. What Pakistan is dealing with and other countries are people that dont have a grip of themselves. They get emotional, they get fired up and they get greedy, power hungry and desperate and when things like that happen, Islam takes a backseat or is covered up with fabrications and BS customized to suit one's own whacky values and interests. They make up whacky rules, implement **** wrong and claim "this is Islam". And when those that are actually learned on the matter try to point it out and call BS on those in power or those trying to start a ridiculous movement, they are silenced with brute force. For example: Muslims that get angry and go into a rage when the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) is drawn or ridiculed, slandered or made fun of in anyway. That's completely against teachings and reportings because during the time of Muhammad (pbuh) while he was living, he had detractors that poked fun at him, at his family, slandered him and such and he never retaliated in a violent hostile way but dealt with such things diplomatically or just let them say whatever and brushed the dirt off his shoulders. So folks getting bent out of shape and wanting to burn and kill folks are acting opposite to the Prophet(pbuh) and thus not following Islam properly. A country can thrive on Islamic rules and laws, but unfortunately, people in power and of influence are usually not ones that implement Islam correctly, and do things in a completely whacked out way that reflects bad upon them when the rest of the world looks at them and they see that "Hey it's probably Islam that's making them so effed up." It's the blatant disregard, ignorance, or customization/bastardization of Islamic principles, teachings and rulings that make these countries fail and remain in their state. And the fact that they try to keep folks illiterate and downtrodden to prevent an uprising makes it so change is difficult to come from within. And like I said those that follow Islam properly and live in accordance to it and are educated/learned are a minority that are held down, ignored and kept at bay so they can't make any impact.
ATW Logic : Pakistan has junkies drugging up and injecting themselves. Most Pakistanis look angry and have beards, must be Muslim. Islam is the common denominator. Islam is at fault.
Simplicity, is the ultimate form of sophistication. Don't forget that kid. What you've done is made the issue very complex by looking for excuses and justifications to get around the root problem. According to you, the problem isn't Islam but the way it's being taught by scholars. Well according to me, the problem isn't nuclear weapons but how they are being used. The problem isn't guns but who they are shot at. The problem isn't child prostitution, it's aids. Do you agree with the blasphemous law that's still heavily supported? Is that related to Islam, or the way Islam is taught? The fact that anyone who speaks out against this law is assassinated (Salman Taseer, Shahbaz Bhatti) shows you how seriously people take it. And for what? So a Quadini won't call himself a muslim? So no one will use a derogatory remark towards the religion? How much longer can you look in the mirror and put up with this cyclical bull****? Just eradicate the importance of religion in the region. That's what is holding back Pakistan and pushing practicality and real world education to the side. Stop making excuses for the r****ded behavior that drives a nation to destitution. "Oh... but if it gives the people happiness, why mess with it?" Because it's not giving them happiness. It's giving them delusion to put up with inhumane suffering. But once the shackles of ignorance are broken, people will begin to see clearly. They won't become nonreligious and satanic, they'll just know what to prioritize and put their energies towards. I can see clearly now the rain is gone, it's gonna be a bright, sunshiny day.
Simplicity is easy when it fits your narrative. There is a wonderful tendency to simplify world problems out of our own ignorance. We see it now everywhere in the Middle East. We were told that Saddam was the problem in Iraq when clearly a poorly constructed country with massive sectarian divisions was the problem. We see it in Egypt, Syria, Lebanon etc.. These are all countries rife with sectarian conflict. Hell lets look at Lebanon. Are the Maronite Christians somehow not involved in their civil war? In fact they're some of the worst offenders and basically tooled the Israelis and the Americans to do their bidding and wipe out enemy villages indiscriminately. Religion didnt stop them from being brutal. The Maronites were no less brutal and repressive than anyone else in Lebanon. ( I am not suggesting that Islam is irrelevant. I made it perfectly clear that Islamic traditions are largely responsible for an education gap in Pakistan that has allowed ignorance to spread. But your simplistic notion that Islam is somehow this force that ruins societies isn't true. I outlined exactly why Pakistan is what it is. It is far more than just Islam. I didnt make excuses, I stated facts. I get your point and by no means should events that happened 50 years ago be used as a tool to justify inaction today. Pakistan has to deal with its present and forget about the past. But people like comparing the separate trajectories of India and Pakistan without any knowledge of what happened. That's why I said what I stated. Pakistan really did get the short end of the stick. There is nothing wrong with acknowledging that certain parts of Islamic culture have been to the detriment of Pakistan. But to suggest that it is sole problem only serves to back the agenda of people who are convinced that Islam is the root of all problems in the Muslim world and that just isn't true.
