Friday, June 26, 2015

The Paradoxes of Sex in American Society

June 26, 2015
By Saeed Qureshi
If someone is under the erroneous impression that American society is sexually permissive, then I may straight away tell you it is not. There are tricky snares laid around that make the outdoor sex a costly and scary undertaking. The sex culture here is a blend of queer paradoxes and intrigues that can turn sour for the fun seekers. More often than not, it would be difficult to distinguish between a street whore and an undercover female police operative.

An individual desperately in search of a female could land himself in big trouble enough to ruin his future as a blemished person for all time to come. Those who are categorized as sex offenders carry this mill-stone for the rest of their lives. Once caught, they are treated as pariah and outcast in the society. The law is unforgiving and they would remain in jail for many years.

They cannot live in common neighborhoods. Their dwellings should be far from school zones and they should report to the area police from time to time. In gutter magazines and tabloid papers their pictures are published. These papers are placed at counters of big stores and can be viewed by customers.

The so called sting operations carried by the police have several outlets. One would receive a sudden call from a female with an exceptionally tantalizing and sweet offer to meet her in a lonely or secluded place. She would mention of her being a teenage or young girl recklessly aspiring to make friendship or have sex. 

The young specifically from the immigrant communities, are usually enticed and allured thinking that it was a free society so there was nothing wrong by accepting the offer. He unwittingly falls into a laid-out trap.

When he reaches at the appointed location and had just started the conversation with the female (a cover up police officer), he is pounced upon by other operatives and thus starts a nightmarish phase of his life. The immigrant victims of such operations are treated very harshly and even deported. I would wonder why those who initiate sting operations to involve the unassuming victims through a tricky trap are not taken to task.

In other situations, the male singles and fun seekers alike would drive at such places mostly roadsides, where call girls make their appearance. But the moment one gets into a conversation all of sudden a police car would barge in and arrest the males letting off the girls. The girls are let off because they would be accomplices in that drama of catching the sex offenders.

In United States if a woman maliciously or vindictively accuses someone of sexual advances, it would be taken as a gospel truth. The first thing that the police would resort to is to handcuff and shove the man in jail. It would take a great deal of prolonged litigation that he could prove his innocence. The false accuser is seldom booked for the suffering caused to a citizen based upon concocted or blown up charges.

Polygamy is forbidden in America under the civil and religious laws. The Mormons whose one sect believes in sexual promiscuity and polygamy cannot follow their religious edits as it is forbidden to marry more than one woman at one time. The Muslims also permitted by Islam to have more than one wife cannot do so. And that is good by the way.

 However, what nullifies all this farce or facade of keeping the society immune from sexual predators is to, freely and uninhibitedly, allow the teen age population to date( love mating or meeting), indulge in sex and have children. 

Primarily it should be the underage generation to be strictly prohibited from sexual pursuits before the attainment of the adulthood. In America every years a staggering amount of over 20 billion dollars is expended on teen age mothers, delivery of the babies and follow up care and nursing.

Besides United States, the teen age motherhood is prevalent in most of the western countries because of the sexual permissiveness for the youth. According to a 2001 UNICEF survey in 10 out of 12 developed nations more than two third of the young people have had sexual intercourse while still in their teens. In Denmark, Finland, Germany, Iceland, Norway, the United Kingdom and the United States, the proportion is as high as 75 per cent.

In America, due to co-education and almost no check on the young generation and because of the biased legal protection, the teen age girls and boys can have sex at an early age. The teen mothers drop out of the high school during the pregnancy or after the delivery. 

So do the male partners who take up odd jobs to run the household and to bring up the child. They start the family and household at a much younger age. In hostels where the female and male students live together, the sexual intercourse is frequent.

The children are treated like holy cows to such an extent that an adult even a female is not allowed to touch a teen-age boy or girl. Reportedly, many a female teacher lost their jobs for touching a student. This is the height of the sensitivity of discrimination in favor of boys and girls of minor age. 

On the contrary there is evidence of incest in American society which could be caused because of the lack of moral awareness on this issue as well as children being the easy targets in the privacy of homes.

In almost every country there are areas for the comfort females to carry out their business that is permissible under the law. The redeeming feature of that aspect is that one could release his pent- up sexual urge at such secluded yet highly guarded zones. In those countries the neighborhoods remain immune from sex predators. But here in America the outdoor sex is drastically curbed like in conservative Islamic societies.

Yet in practice, even in Islamic countries where rape, molestation or free sex is deemed as a social and religious crime, one can go to any length to give vent to his sexual needs. There are call girls available round the clock in both Islamic and un-Islamic societies for a price. I would not mention places like Bangkok and the whole Far East and the Scandinavian belt where sex is accessible and as cheap and common as one can order a meal or buy a shirt from the market.

The pristine concept of celibacy was strictly adhered to by the Christians of the first four centuries. They generally observed sexual restraint, eschewed polygamy, rejected the extra marital sexual practices such as prostitution and homosexuality divorce, abortion, and exposure to death of unwanted infants. Bu the later generations of the priestly class desecrated this golden edit to their hearts’ fill. Just to mention two cases of nauseating degeneracy of the Roman Catholic papacy in recent times. 
  
If allowing sex in controlled areas is anti-Christianity or a social vice, then all the priests and clergy class would have been as pious as Jesus Christ was. But history of Christendom testifies that these were the churches and cathedrals where worst kind of sexual debauchery has been going on for ages. 

Even in recent times, many priests have been posthumously charged with molesting hundreds of innocent children in church schools and ministries run under their supervision to impart Christian education. So where do we draw the line as to who is pious and who is not?

Priest Lawrence C Murphy a pedophile predatory priest sexually preyed upon 200 defenseless, innocent, adolescent deaf young boys and girls for 24 years (1950-1974). Another priest (Rev.) Brendan Smyth died in jail 13 years ago while serving 12 years for 74 sexual assaults on children. And there are countess such gory incidents encompassing several centuries of diabolic violation of basic Christian teachings.

The purpose of alluding to these examples is to bear out that in order to satisfy their hedonistic desires how the humans wantonly trample the Jesus’ reverent ministry based upon piety and rectitude. The Catholic Church has been paying millions of dollars as compensation to the victims of sinful priests.

Paradoxically the rape culture is rife in the armed forces of the United States. There are countless complaints about the rape and forcible sex within the army. The rapes are either not reported by the victims or if reported these are either hushed up or seldom probed and the perpetrators prosecuted. One example of this trend of sexual perversion pertains to Naval Station Great Lakes where sailors receive specialized training.

A Pentagon survey reported by New York Times revealed that the number of sexual assaults during 2012 in that Naval Station alone rose to 26,000. One can imagine the enormity of the uncontrollable sexual lust or carnal urge as to override the professional ethics and integrity in such a brazen fashion.

There is also pervasive adultery and sexual encroachments in the offices, shops and work places by the owners or the bosses on their subordinate female staff. Such incidents go mostly unreported and hidden because the females fear losing jobs and prefer to keep such incidents secret from their families. Such are the queer paradoxes that bedevil our society.

I shall omit a detailed opinion on the epidemic of same sex marriages. It would be difficult to rationalize or justify a man marrying a man and woman with woman. Living as friends could bear some logic but entering into matrimonial bonds like female and males in fact defies a rational explanation.
  
At best or worst it could be explained a kind of homosexuality in case of two males and a kind of lesbian propensity in case of the females living together as partners. Indeed it cannot be for procreation of the human progeny. The underlying purpose could also be to share the burden of life and to draw the state benefits as married partners.

Now in Europe and elsewhere in the world there are brothels for a permissible sexual activity. Here in our country the brothel or red zone area are unthinkable. The result is the frequent incidence of rape, forced molestation and similar heinous acts by the lecherous individuals.

Absence of brothels though is very plausible from moral point of view, yet it has its pernicious fallout. The sex seekers then explore the massage parlors; hook-up the stray girls on the roadsides or from the pubs and clubs. More often than not it turns out to be costly, risky and troublesome affair.

By curbing the option for a permissible sex in marked outlets interspersed in Far East and the European countries, the American society in fact forces the sexually deviants to change their partners through divorcing and remarrying.

It is for these compelling reasons that there is a high rate of divorces in this country (60 %).For the affluent and rich individuals; it might not be hurtful and economically disturbing. But for an ordinary person with meager means and limited resources, it entails a host of mental and financial sufferings. 

Those among the citizenry who cannot afford to enter the rigmarole of divorce and remarrying go into the sordid pursuit of rapes or outdoor sex relations. There have been several instances reported in the press that the rapists killed their victims to wash off the evidence.

In a nutshell this society gives a free hand to the teen age boys and girls to have free sex, the girls to become pregnant and for the couple to leave the education incomplete. On the other hand, the adults under the burden of stringent conditions resort to criminal options for sex that land them either in jail, burden them with enormous financial difficulties and segregation from the society as offenders. Many among those who divorce and remarry suffer from economic hardships besides psychological and mental disorders.

For children born out of the previous marriages, the separation of parents is traumatic and would leave deep scars on their tender minds due to separation of their parents. And let us not forget the crushing burden of child support that turns many males and females paupers.

The simple solution of this conundrum is that during their schooling, the teen age dating in school premises or in class rooms should be sternly curbed for which a strategy can be worked out with the help of teachers and parents.

If adults find more liberal environment and resort to permissive outlets minus sting forays, it could drastically reduce the divorce rate, curtail abhorrent crimes as rape and sexual assaults. It could be instrumental is halting to a reasonable scale the separation of families for the sake of having a new sex partner. 

This society has got to be realistic. Even now the covert sex cartels are operating.  But utilizing those is dangerous and exposing oneself to a Pandora-box of troubles.

The writer is a senior journalist, former editor of Diplomatic Times and a former diplomat.This and other articles by the writer can also be read at his blog www.uprightopinion.com.



Wednesday, June 24, 2015

Zardari’s Anti-Army Outburst

June 24, 2015
By Saeed Qureshi
I was rather fascinated by the uncalled for yet daring outburst of the PPP boss and former president of Pakistan Asif Ali Zardari in Islamabad on June 16, against the Rangers now busy in busting the criminal gangs, their dens and abettors. But I would be more delighted if the Rangers or the sitting government of PMLN comes up with a befitting retort of the sort.

So there is an eerie silence on the Rangers ‘front.  Besides some muted utterances from army’s spokespersons or media analysts, the army chief General Raheel Sharif and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif have merely reiterated their resolve to carry forward the onslaught against the corrupt politicians, civil servants, profiteers and anti-social mafias.

Asif Ali Zardari is known for demonstrating peaceful overtures and possessing inborn talent for fruitful negotiations with his political rivals. Ostensibly, in the backdrop of Rangers’ crackdown, he aims at structuring a coalition of political forces for an end to Rangers' engagement in ridding Karachi specifically and Pakistan generally of the diabolic stranglehold of blood hounds and heartless mafias stalking the largest city of Pakistan for a variety of nefarious goals depending upon which mafia they belong.

In his brief discourse, Zardari’s tone and tenor was stunningly aggressive. He did not mince words nor was apprehensive of whom he was addressing and what he was conveying. He was candid in his expressions that were pregnant with some kind of retaliation to Rangers’ punitive assault against the  pervasive crime culture that he termed as “teasing us”. 

He categorically warned the army to be on guard otherwise he would jam the entire country from FATA to Karachi with one call. Addressing the COAS he belittled him by pointing out that he was there for three years and then will leave his office.

Zardari claimed to be in possession of a long list of corrupt army generals from the inception of Pakistan to the present.  He sternly warned that he would make their names public if the drive of vilification against him and his party is not abandoned. He said that his party knows how to fight back and once this fight starts he would create mayhem.

This is clearly a call for civil disobedience movement and head on collision with armed forces. The COAS General Raheel Sharif and prime minister Mian Nawaz Sharif have responded to Zardari’s ultimatum by simply reiterating their resolve to continue the on-going anti-crime blitz in Karachi along with annihilating the religious militant bands in FATA.

The Zardari’s manovre to forge an alliance against the army has been spurned by the PMLN government while it has been accepted by the MQM. But MQM itself is under heavy clouds of sedition and internal subversion against the state and the people of Pakistan. The details and contours of that role have recently been exposed by BBC. It has become a hot topic for social media outlets and Television channels.

These two parties, now coalition partners in Sindh government are blamed to be behind the rampant and prolonged lawlessness, colossal corruption and financial plunder reported to be reaching a staggering figure of 230 billion rupees. The culprits and outlaws apprehended by Rangers in Karachi revealed that most of these elements committing exhortation, kidnapping, stealing and selling water, occupying the land both private and state owned are patronized by MQM and PPP.

Now Zardari is not a Bhutto and the ground realities are not as volatile or ripe as those were in the aftermath of India-Pakistan war in 1965 that was vociferously and tactfully exploited by ZAB Bhutto to oust from power a powerful military head of state Filed Marshall Ayub Khan. The peoples’ fatigue with the military long military rule, the signing of the Tashkent Pact with India became the bĂȘte-noir of Ayub Khan. 

Bhutto also manipulated to his advantage the mercurial situation brewing after the 1970 elections although his refusal to attend the national assembly session in Dacca is interpreted an implicit factor for the division of Pakistan into Bangladesh and West Pakistan.


Of late, late Benazir’s role along with other political forces and civil institutions brought about another landmark breakthrough that paved way for the onset civilian and democratic rule. Benazir's untimely death cleared the way through a will (whose only one page is shown to the people) for Asif Zardari to wear two hats of power: one to be the PPP’s Chairman (CO) and the other that of president of Pakistan. Now Zardari, despite some of his good achievements such as 18th amendment, could not eschew his propensity for amassing wealth and erasing the blot of being the most corrupt person in Pakistan.

With a supposedly renegade party like MQM and coterie of incorrigibly corrupt individuals in the PPP government and a weak chief minister, the corruption turned into a kind of epidemic that afflicted a small government functionary to the highest level of a minister. There has been field day all along during the previous PPP federal and provincial governments and the ongoing coalition of MQM and PPP that all records of harvesting money through every corrupt and coercive means have been broken.

The ministers and their hired gangs and mafias have been involved in a multitude of grabbing vacant private or government land, sale of municipal water, licenses for fish harbors, and exit and entry fees in the port and so on.  It means that those who should be the saviors and custodians of the life and property of the citizens and guardians of the societal peace are themselves robber barons, patrons of cutthroat mafias and enemies of the people.

The crackdown of Rangers followed after a consensus among the political parties, appears to be as a sword of Damocles hanging over the heads of hardened offenders and die-hard criminals
If the Rangers' mission of cleansing the city of Karachi from the wicked elements, fifth columnists, traitors, saboteurs and predators is left half way, it would be like condoning an all embracing mayhem and throwing the helpless people before the hungry wolves. 

The agents of the enemies within and outside Pakistan, the clandestine saboteurs, callous mafias and trigger happy merciless Assassins of present times would keep wrecking Karachi by their insidious activities and perpetration of multifaceted crime.


           

Friday, June 19, 2015

Governor Rule should be proclaimed in Sindh Province

June 17, 2015
By Saeed Qureshi

It appears that now the big fish both erstwhile and in power have started feeling the pinch of the anti-corruption drive pedaled by the Rangers in Karachi. It is a known fact that the MQM and PPP alternately ruling in Karachi have been milking the national exchequer and encouraging the unrelenting spate of lawlessness and crimes for years now.

With the backing and support of the power wielders like ministers and senior government officials, the crimes gangs have a free hand to rob and kill the businessmen, the traders and industrialists without any let or hindrance. From unlawful sale of water to extortion of money from the shopkeepers and robbing the banks had the tacit support and patronage of the stalwarts of PPP and MQM.

Additionally the stray gangs of the religious lot, professional hardened criminals, the bounty hunters of all hues and shades also joined this mayhem to blackmail and harass the common people as well as the business classes for payments of extortion money and forcible seizure of the properties. Those who dithered or resisted were put to death, maimed or brutalized in other manners.

The police and normal law enforcement agencies like police failed to curb or bridle the escalating crime. Rather many members of the police and intelligence agencies had to lose their lives in combating the outlaws that are having a state within a state and have the tacit cover from the power wielders. One can imagine further loss of life and disruption of business in Karachi if the Rangers had not stepped in and rein in the serial killers and tiger happy murderers.

While the successive incumbent provincial governments in Sindh have utterly failed because of their connivance in proliferation of lawlessness and exhibiting scant concern of the deteriorating law and order and public peace, it was an overdue decision to hand over Karachi to well trained Rangers to combat and eliminate the perpetrators of crime, sabotage, lawlessness and killing sprees. 

The Rangers have been doing a highly commendable and historic job restoring peace and order in a city that had turned into a haven for the enemies of the country and that had sinister motives to inflict harm to the economic and industrial activities at the behest of the internal traitors or the external enemies.

While crime incidence has drastically come down in Karachi it is imperative that this purge of the crime mongers is continued till Karachi is cleansed of the crime. Now the Rangers have started apprehending the crooks and thieves of those who massed money through misuse of power in allotting property, real estate and also in doling out ghost jobs. 

The massive funds for development projects for health and education and development have been diverted and grossly misused by the officialdom and bureaucracy. The corruption and lack of accountability and the misuse of powers have been rampant not only in Karachi but elsewhere in the country.

The sources of the inflow of unhindered money from pilferage and sale of water, from robberies and looting banks and the common people and the business classes are now drying up. And that is why the leaders of the PPP and the MQM are questioning the role of the Rangers.
  
The statement of Asif Zardari that he has a long list of the corrupt army generals and that the army should stop teasing them is as surprising as it is foolish in the prevailing circumstances.When Asif Zardari threatens army “not to tease us” he is hinting at not touching the water mafia, the land braggers and misuse of official authorities, the ministers and their minions and foot soldiers. 

It is known to everyone the the incumbent PPP ministers and their appointed officers have done everything possible to amass money and for that did not even wink an eye on miserable plight of the people and the city deteriorating. If the rangers or for that matter the army steps backs then it would mean the victory of the corrupt officialdom and bureaucracy as well as thugs, criminal gangs and brutal mafias.  

 This would rather impel the army to move with greater speed and tempo to unearth the sleazy characters within the government and the politics who encouraged and benefited from the years of lawlessness and break down of the law and order making Karachi and the rest of country a kind of hell and the most unsafe.

It is good that Mian Nawaz Sharif has put off his scheduled meeting with belligerent Asif Zardari which was aimed at winning the support of the incumbent federal government for putting up a combined confrontational posture against the armed forces. 

Had the meeting taken place the army would have gotten a wrong message. This could have also undermined the sincerity of the government towards the army action in Karachi and in northern areas against the militants?

The other dimension could be that by seeing the party in power and PPP in league, the army could have thought of martial law which would have been the worst scenario for Pakistan and continuation of democracy. It can be the most desirable development for India and internal enemies. In that situation Pakistan would have gone back to square one with a throwback to Zia and Musharraf’s military eras scuttling democracy and people empowerment.

As such the Rangers and the armed force should keep on performing their monumental and historic role in clearing Pakistan both from the hardened criminal gangs and corrupt elements as well the religious militants waging their bloody war against the people and state of Pakistan.

The Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah is a weak and dysfunctional person and his letter to the DG Rangers not to exceed the mandate is a resonance of the Zardari statement about the corrupt army generals. 

Since the Sindh provincial government of PPP would be reluctant to support Rangers for known reasons, the only viable way-out for the Rangers is to  continue its operations is to declare governor rule with a limited mandate in that troubled province. That change would give a free hand to the Rangers to continue its operations that are aimed at saving Pakistan and Karachi from outlaws.  

In the meantime two former prime minister of Pakistan Raja Pervez Ashraf and Yousuf Raza Gilani have voluntarily resigned from their positions in the Pakistan People’s Party that demonstrates the internal rift within the party on ill-timed, imprudent and provocative statement of Mr. Zardari



Monday, June 15, 2015

Grave Threat to the Survival of Rohingya Muslims-2

June 13, 2015
By Saeed Qureshi

The international apathy and silence on the persecution of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar (Burma) and Bangladesh is deplorable. Can there be a more miserable and hapless situation of any segment of the inhabitants of earth than the semi-nude Rohingya Muslims strolling aimlessly and desperately along the coasts while the world watches them with folded hands and in complete disregard of the disaster these people are exposed to? The state sponsored carnage of the tiny Muslim minority, is hurling up a colossal humanitarian disaster.

Would the conscience of the international Humanitarian relief agencies including UNHCR, the Islamic world and NGOs awaken on the most tragic plight of the Rohingya Muslims who deserve to be treated at least as human beings?

Rohingya Muslims are known to be the most persecuted minorities on earth and victims of apartheid, violence and extermination, not only in Burma but also in Bangladesh. Since the imposition of military dictatorship in Burma in 1978( now it is a presidential democratic government backed by military), 

While several thousand Rohingya wander in the sea in ramshackle boats, about 140,000 are confined in IDP (internally displaced persons) camps in most humiliating conditions within both the countries. They are denied access to medical assistance, food and educational facilities.

The Muslim population in Burma is estimated to be 4 per cent of the entire population of around 60 million. It comes to roughly 2.4 million. The Rohingya Muslims living in Myanmar or Burma are residing in the northernmost townships of Arakan state bordering Bangladesh.  About one million live overseas. In the 2014 Burma Census, they have been classified as “stateless Bengali Muslims” from Bangladesh since 1982.

The Muslims have been living in Myanmar along with other communities for ages and it is in recent years that they are being treated as outsiders or aliens. They look like Burmese in features and speak the same language. Briefly they are native Burmese except that they profess a different faith in a country whose predominant population believes in Buddhism.
  
While Buddhists preach peace, tolerance and compassion, in the case of Muslims there seems to be an unholy alliance between the Burmese establishment and the Buddhists monks for brutalizing the defenseless Muslims. It is suspected that the Burma's large and much feared military intelligence service, the ‘Directorate of Defense Security Intelligence’ may have agents planted within the monk-hood.

In 2015 alone, in order to escape unrelenting violence and persecution by both the Burmese and Bangladesh governments, some 25,000 Rohingya Muslims have tried to to escape to Southeast Asian countries including Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand in  rickety boats through  the waters of the Strait of Malacca and the Andaman Sea . But most of these rootless people could not get entry and thus remain in the boats.
  
In the backdrop of the Rohingya Muslims misery, one is reminded of the East Timor’s ethnic crisis when the Indonesian Islamic regime was accused of maltreating and suppressing the Christian population there. The entire Christian world with Australia in the lead, under the aegis of the United Nations truncated Indonesia. On May 20, 2002, East Timor separated from Indonesia and became an independent Christian state.

Likewise the western countries and particularly the United States pressurized and isolated   president Omar Al-Bashir of the Republic of Sudan (North Sudan) to such an extent that he finally gave in and agreed to the cessation of South Sudan as an independent country. South Sudan became an independent state on 9 July 2011. The population of Christians in the south is 80 percent while that of Muslim is 18 per cent. 

Understandably the division of Sudan was maneuvered to create a separate independent state for the Christians so as to live in peace and to save them from the civil war.
In former Yugoslavia, the NATO saved Muslim population from a brutal spree of ethnic cleansing by the Serbian army and that was one of the most marked human relief and rescue by the Christian west for the sake of the oppressed Muslims.

The Bosnian Serb army committed atrocious and most heinous genocide against the Muslims and Bosnian Croats in 1995. Besides, a bloody campaign of ethnic cleansing of Muslims was also carried out throughout the areas controlled by the Bosnian Serb Army during the 1992–1995 Bosnian War. 

The United Nations and NATO”s role (April 1933-December 1995) in ending genocide and ethnic cleansing of the Bosnian Muslims by the Serbian military is a golden chapter of history. Otherwise the Muslims would have been reduced to a tiny minority in their own territories.

Hopefully among the comity of nations, two countries can play a vital and decisive role in rescuing besieged and distressed Muslims of Burma. One is Saudi Arabia that can exert her influence and persuade other Muslim countries to approach the United Nations for an urgent action on the miserable plight of the Burmese Muslims and the grave existential threat to them. 

Saudi Arabia and Pakistan and other Muslim states can also approach the Burmese regime urging it to stop the persecution and intimidation of the Burmese Muslims that are entitled to equal rights as citizens including that of religious freedom under the constitution.

Secondly, it is China that is in the strongest position to exert her clout to ask the Burmese leaders to desist from their bestiality against the Muslim population. If the Burmese incumbent government continues its brutal extermination of Muslims, then it would lose its good image as a democratic regime established after long spell of military dictatorship.

The stated official policy of the government of Burma is that “all ethnic, religious, and language groups in Burma are equal”. The Burmese Supreme Court observed in a verdict that “in various parts of Burma, there are people who, because of the origin and the isolated way of life, are totally unlike the Burmese in appearance or speak of events which had occurred outside the limits of their habitation.

 They are nevertheless statutory citizens under the Union (of Burma) Citizenship Act”
In case of Burmese Muslims’ nightmare, the NATO's role is not at all needed. This grave humanitarian calamity is in need of diplomatic efforts to prevail upon the Burmese government to stop aggression against a community living there for ages and is essentially Burmese. 

It is not a question of a separate independent land for them. It is essentially to guarantee their survival, security and equality within the Republic of the Union of Myanmar against the burgeoning ethnic and religious challenges to them.

It would be a colossal catastrophe and tantamount to a slap on the face of humanity if Rohingya Muslims are allowed to perish on the high seas or die in Burma or Bangladesh because of inhuman conditions, starvation, hunger and lack of basic facilities to survive. 

On 7 May 2014, the  United State House of Representatives  passed the  "United States House Resolution on Persecution of Rohingya people in Burma" that called on the government of Burma to end the discrimination and persecution. 

During his May 21-22 visit to Burma although the U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken emphasized the importance of continued political, economic, and social reforms it is imperative that United States puts her pressure on the Burmese government to treat the Rohingya Muslims like other minorities and stop their persecution and brutalization.










Monday, June 1, 2015

Census Can be Helpful in Catching Outlaws

June 1, 2015
By Saeed Qureshi

In order to find out who is living and where living it is utterly imperative to conduct a snap survey cum a census in Pakistan without waiting for the next census due in April 2016.  The traditional censuses in 2008 and 2010 could not be conducted and that of 2012 was discarded as unreliable.

I am proposing a nontraditional snap census that would focus on exploring the number of dwellings and housing units in Pakistan and their inmates and the foreign nationals both legal and illegal.  

Besides having the total tally of population the census would help in finding out the demographic complexion as to who is living in villages, cities and elsewhere. This census might as well be useful in elections and for finding out how many children, adults, old people and women are there in the length and breadth of Pakistan.

It might unravel the scale of literacy and illiteracy. So there could be a wide range of advantages accruing from such monumentally productive campaign
But apart from these peripheral useful outcomes, it would reveal how many foreigners or aliens both legal and illegal are living in Pakistan and for how long. Those who cannot be identified or counted through this extremely useful exercise should be declared as persona-non-grata and either forcibly repatriated to their respective countries or sorted out in regards to their activities.

Those who have valid reasons to stay might be allowed for the permissible time period and then asked to leave the country. Some unaccounted aliens might be involved in terrorism mayhem in Pakistan. 
Pakistan has been under an unremitting spell and incidence of violence and terrorism for a few decades being spawned and carried on by diverse groups to implant their respective nefarious agendas. From Baloch separatists to the merciless bands of religious militants and the professional criminal gangs aided by political forces and external enemies have been wreaking havoc in Pakistan and destroying its social peace, economy and stability.  
In Karachi specifically and the elsewhere in Pakistan generally, countless people have lost their lives at the hands of the Taliban and home-grown religious militants for imposing the Sharia rule of their choice on Pakistan.

The Sectarian violence has taken its toll with minority sects being targeted by the majority sects. The bounty hunters, the trigger happy killers and extortion gangs etc rob and kill the peaceful citizens as and when they want. It is indeed an atrocious mayhem. 
Although the violence and crime can be mainly apportioned to homegrown criminal gangs and sectarian parties, yet the foreign hand and external involvement cannot be ruled out to keep Pakistan in a state of perpetual disorder and instability. One would not wink an eye over the Indian spy agency RAW’s support for the Baloch separatists and other stray groups and individuals for perpetuating the cycle of violence and terrorism in Pakistan.
In the backdrop of all these frightening happenings it should be a dire priority to sift the corn from the chaff or to identify the enemies of the state and people of Pakistan. The sabotage and continuous spate of murders, bomb blasts, suicide attacks, blowing of trains and buses, blasting the educational institutions assailing airports and military installations cannot be done by the ordinary people. Such horrendous acts can only be done by highly organized and trained mafias aided and abetted by the external inimical elements.
The law and order situation has become precarious to this extent in Pakistan that one needs only a revolver or knife to kidnap a peaceful citizen, kidnap or rape women, barge into a house and decamp with all the precious belongings of the inmates or gun down the passengers in a vehicle.

For more serious crimes as blasting a mosques of the rival sect, blowing a bus or train, attacking  naval or air force bases, extract ransom or monthly extortions from the harried business parties, there are powerful and highly organized and armed gangs making a mockery of the law and order enforcement network.
So miraculously or mercifully when Rangers and Pakistan army have achieved major breakthroughs in combating and curbing rampant crime and dogged terrorism in Karachi, it would be most desirable and urgent to carry out a census to discover the individuals and the groups both local and aliens who are involved in destabilizing Pakistan.

The Data so collected should be preserved and updated from time to time. A list of the people having licensed arms needs to be prepared and those having unlicensed weapons must be dealt with summarily and given punishments permissible under the law.
 It is indeed indispensable and overdue that the Afghan refugees who came to Pakistan during and in the aftermath of the anti- Soviet Union Afghan war (1979-1989) should be repatriated back to Afghanistan .The exodus of 4 million Afghans from Pakistan would create a huge reservoir of jobs for the real Pakistanis and this would serve as a veritable solution of the unemployment and eradication of poverty.
The Afghan refugees cannot be assimilated nor should they be given nationality as it takes centuries for any race with different culture and language to fully adopt another nation’s culture and social milieu. Moreover the Afghans are not homeless and were allowed to stay until the end of the Afghan war. That war is now over for many years but the Afghans are still present on the soil of Pakistan as refugees.
If at all any community is to be allowed to stay in Pakistan and become citizens they are those Bengalis who supported Pakistan army and a united Pakistan during the tumultuous period of civil war in 1971-72. They deserve to be accepted in Pakistan as its citizens or given any status that befits their situation for a legal residence in Pakistan.
This segment of society has been suffering, all these years, from horrendous atrocities and maltreatment. They have been languishing in miserable conditions in isolated pockets in Bangladesh. They have been isolated and marginalized from the rest of the Bengali nation and shoved and confined to make shits huts and bamboo dwellings with scant civic or social facilities.
 Pakistan needs to be cleaned off both internal and external elements bent upon proving it as a failed state. To find the identities and whereabouts of internal saboteurs and anti state elements, the best mechanism is to conduct census as proposed in this write up.