Interesting Recent News from Pakistan

By Prof. Farakh A Khan :
AQ Khan has come up with silly news. In a press conference he claimed that about 800 people were involved in nuclear proliferation to ‘two countries’ and he was ‘ordered’ by BB to do so. Firstly you don’t need 800 people to send centrifuges abroad. In this venture the army top brass was totally involved. BB was not liked by the army and she had no control over the nuclear programme. AQ claims that he was instrumental in nuclear tests in May 1998 and persuaded NS, through threats, to go ahead. Investigations against AQ were started by NS in 1999. Musharraf took the files and axed him since many army officers were involved and the Americans were breathing down his neck. He came out hard on Imran insinuating that he was mixed up with the Taliban and would give them missiles to shoot down drones. As usual AQ is a habitual liar (Aqdas, Farooq. Transferred nuclear tech to 2 countries on BB’s orders: AQ Khan. The News. September 15, 2012). AQ Khan has been proclaimed as the ‘Father of the Bomb’ and ‘worshipped’ by many in Pakistan. Khan is asked to inaugurate many functions and treated as a hero and launched his own political party (Tehreek-e-Tahafuz Pakistan). He was a metallurgist who had a minor role in the making of the bomb. We also know how a penniless scientist from Denmark made a fortune in Islamabad real estate. A self-admitting nuclear peddler was caught in his own ego net. The other day Salman Butt, former captain of Pakistan cricket team, was portrayed as a Pakistani hero on a TV channel talk show. This man was caught red handed in match fixing during the tour of England last year. He was convicted and spent a year in jail in England. Qadri the policeman who was suppose to be protecting former governor of Punjab Salman Taseer shot him dead in cold blood because Taseer spoke against Blasphemy Law. Qadri was proclaimed a hero by many policemen, lawyers and some people of Pakistan. Pakistanis have an odd concept of heroes and it is frightening.

Few days back we were entertained on a private TV channel by Abdul Qadir Gilani son of former prime minister who just got bail in the case of dumping ephedrine on the Pakistani pharmaceutical industry. Besides proclaiming his innocence he came up with some interesting remarks. Gilani claimed that if a murderer came to his dera he would protect him! He then whined about his pedigree starting from his rich great grandfather and how he was born with a ‘golden’ spoon in his mouth. This was all to convince us that he had been framed. Here is a politician who fits Pakistani democracy perfectly and is our future hope to destruction.

After Danish cartoons now Internet is causing great pain to Muslim all over the world over some silly clip on YouTube, which I have no time to watch. The video was produced by a jailbird in California and likely to be put behind bars for probation offence. A madcap can put the Muslim world into a tailspin. The reaction in Cairo and Libya are painful to see. Who gave them the right under Islamic code to kill an innocent diplomat Christopher Stevens? God knows how many offensive materials are floating on the Web, which is in billions. There is no short supply of nut cases all over the world who can post anything they feel like regardless the hurt caused in other parts of the world. We are going to see many more of similar poisonous material in the future (Husain, Irfan. Blasphemy in the digital age. Dawn. September 15, 2012). The best part of computer age is the fact one can choose what one wants to see and switch off offensive material. The power is in your hand.

The religious parties and groups use blasphemy as a political tool to show their strength of street power in the country since they have no other issue to get a violent crowd. Majlis Wahdat-e-Muslimeen and Imamia Students Organisation were in the forefront in Karachi rioting on September 16th. They marched to the US Consulate to give a note of protest. This was repeated in Lahore the next day. It seems that it is so easy to disrupt the Muslims all over the world. There is no need for an atomic bomb to send Muslims into self-destruct frenzy. The economy and state of the people of Pakistan today is not their concern. Their mood is of jihad against America, India and Israel and hell with the people.

What the Muslim world needs to do is to proclaim a joint fatwa to the affect that in future all blasphemous material on the Web and in written form shall be disregarded.