Dharna till the end

Yesterday's reception of the Chief Justice at the Lahore Airport gave plenty of confidence that the movement for an independent judiciary is not only alive, but regaining momentum. The celebratory spirit defied the despondency that emerges now and then seeing the lack of leadership displayed by the elected members.

Actions determine fates of society and this announcement by the lawyers will have plenty of repercussions. Committing to a dharna this time will set the stage for conflict with two entities. The first supposedly obvious one is with the PPP government heads - namely Zardari. While Zardari has plenty of reasons to prefer an impotent judiciary for personal reasons, the conflict with him will pale in comparison to the forces who have more to lose with an independent judiciary.

The long history of coups and acts of treason, the loss of territorial integrity, the loss of rivers, the attacks on Baluchistan and Lal Masjid and consequential losses of innocent lives, the hundreds of missing persons, illegal tapping of phones, detentions...the list of crimes perpetrated by this entity goes on.

How this entity reacts to the brave lawyers movement for building an independent judicary remains to be seen.

I fear that the PML-N, unwilling to take on this entity, and desiring to save its Punjab government, may bargain to forego the movement to restore the Chief Justice in return for the sacking Governor Salman Taseer.

It'll weaken the movement as far as the support from the Punjab Government is concerned, but it won't be the end. The dharna doesn't need any single political party backing it. Those who hope to scuttle or maul the movement will have to do much more than merely making deals with the parties in the assemblies. The more deals the assembly members make, the less relevantt their assemblies will become.

During the last long march, there were fears of some 'extra-constitutional' methods applied in case the lawyers got too tough. Unfortunatley the lawyers decided not to up the ante. This time everyone is on the same page - there is no middle ground left. It's either the unqualified restoration of the Chief Justice, or a volcanic rise in the movement for an indepedent judicary.

Monumental Disasters of PCB

Pakistan's cricket team, once a shining example of possibilities the nation could achieve with the immense talent it has, now rests in line with the rest of the nation, distraught, unwanted, and unsure of what it will do next and where to go.  Many of the leading players of the national team have decided to jump ship despite all the heavy threats by the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) and joined the Indian Cricket League (ICL).  

While players of many other nations have joined ICL, Pakistan's leading names - primarily rejects from the national team - have joined in large numbers.  When Muhammad Yusuf joined ICL, it became clear that PCB's leadership in steering the ship for the sport had eroded.  

The malaise in cricket reflects the institutional negligeance seen elsewhere.  The PCB still hasn't finalized it's constitution - something the last Chairman, Nasim Ashraf, had promised to do, but remained undone throughout his tenure.  

Now the current news of another 'monumental disaster' in the awarding of a contract by the former COO Shafqat Naghmi to build a VIP pavilion at Gaddafi Stadium.  Whether this is a vendetta launched by the current PCB heads or some very bad mathematics - or as will be popularly believed, yet anther example of runaway corruption - the project was supposed to be completed at 142 million back in September 2008 and remains unfinished requiring another 471 million rupees.  

This quote nevertheless will keep the controvery alive and provide many juicy insights:  

“The whole project is a monumental disaster, utter wastage of PCB funds and is a tribute to the management ego and vision of grandeur. The project was to be completed by 31st August 2008. It was sheer negligence and incompetence of the previous management that the project has not been completed in time and there has been a colossal cost increase. The amazing aspect of the whole fraudulent tender is that a hefty advance has already been paid to the contractor.”

Religulous

"Jesus Christ wrote no account of himself, of his birth, parentage, or any thing else; not a line of what is called the New Testament is of his own writing. The history of him is altogether the work of other people; and as to the account given of his resurrection and ascension, it was the necessary counterpart to the story of his birth. His historians having brought him into the world in a supernatural manner, were obliged to take him out again in the same manner, or the first part of the story must have fallen to the ground." 

- "The age of reason" by Thomas Paine

 

"I don't know." 

- Bill Maher in his film "Religulous" 

 

Bill Maher's movie keeps it real.  It's funny, thought provoking while straying clear of boredom as often happens in intellectually motivated films.  But then, the role of religion in contemporary politics prefers a rejection of intellectual debate.  Muslims refuse to question their faith and text, Christian Evangelicals are inspired by theirs and use it to 'spread righteousness' such as in Iraq, and the Jews, despite the community's contribution to reason and science, are hell bent on keeping Palestine burning no matter how many innocent humans are slaughtered. 

One of the points that came out in the movie was how contemporary mindsets shape the interpretation of old religious texts.  For example, the monk in Amsterdam was more interested in what the Bible 'meant' to say rather than its literal interpretation.  Thus according to him, God does not want homosexuals to change, rather they should be happy with who they are.  The Bible 'means' to say this!  

The female Muslim politician interviewed in Amsterdam rejects that the Quran calls for the slaughtering of infidels.  And the parts that do make such calls are 'time specific' and something of the past.  

It reminds me of Imam Ghazali, the most famous Sunnni Islamic scholar whose book 'Ihya-ul-Uloom' has a section titled 'Etiquette of Marriage'.  In it, the 'Proof of Islam' - a title Ghazali has been honored with by subsequent Sunni scholars - argues that the Quran considers the place of women almost equal to slaves.  Women should never leave their homes - unless absolutely necessary, and even then, only with an accompanying man, and they should always serve their husbands as their primary and most important duty.  There are other extremely mysogonistic arguments targetting women, but Imam Ghazali's inspiration for such statements is the Quran. 

However, a thousand years later, many scholars, using the same inspiration of the Quran, the same text, reject such ridiculous dehumanization of females.  

The same text was used to both degrade half the human population, and the same text is used to give women somewhat a sense of equality.  

Is this 'flexibility' seen in religious texts a virtue, a strength or something less noble?  That the same religious texts can take on completely different meanings based on time reveals the strength of time rather than anything else.  That religious doctrines are left to play 'keep up' with time reveals the gap between reason, science and faith.  

Faith insists it knows everything - how everything began and how it will end.  It uses this knowledge of the beginning and end to control everything that happens in between.  

Science only plays with what it know, in the gaps in between and doesn't much care for the beginning or the end.  

There may be many questions that emerge from science's lack of assurance on some critical metaphysical issues, but at least it strays clear of fabricated historical accounts such as those highlighted by Thomas Paine which require continuous fabrications to uphold.  

Using songs to hack computers

Whether this report accurately reflects the process hackers use to destabilize computers or not nevertheless achieves the objective of discrediting a business - albeit, one without legality.

www.songs.pk is a famous website music lovers use to download songs - for free. Naturally it was bound to gain popularity since most of the desi land would prefer to acquire the intangibles without having to pay for them.

The accusation made, as per Press Trust of India, by Indian intelligence agencies, is that Pakistani hackers have embedded codes within the songs which when downloaded can provide access to anyone's computer when desired. 1.2 million computers around the world could be at the mercy of a few hackers.

However, songs.pk have issued a notification rejecting such allegations meant to hurt its business of freely providing a service without having to pay.

War hysteria and Pak-Indo tensions are spilling over into the music scene. Already there have been calls within Pakistan to ban the extremely popular Indian films that were regularly shown to sold out crowds which had been helping the cinemas breathe again.