People here are assuming too much and reading too little. Honestly most posters here seem like they just read the title and started typing enraged comments in some sort of knee-jerk reaction.
For example, assuming that by criticizing certain people who call themselves liberals, Moeed Pirzada is rationalizing, justifying or otherwise supporting religious extremists. He is not.
+1 to
@Armstrong 's point on this matter:
Why do we need to side with an extreme at all?
Besides, isn't criticism and freedom of speech part of liberalism in the first place?
Another point people in this thread seem to be missing is that
this article is not criticizing Liberals in general. It is criticizing
Pakistani Liberals. The author even creates a clear distinction between Pakistani and Western Liberals
I prefer using a more blunt term, 'pseudo-Liberals', to refer to the people he's talking about. Because the fact is that these Liberals are only that in name - a Liberal is by definition ''willing to respect or accept behaviour or opinions different from one's own''. The pseudo-Liberals are, otherwise, very intolerant of many perfectly rational ideas, arguments, people and things in general and adhere more to a different kind of conservatism and political view instead of Liberalism.
This article raises many such valid points, especially the part about the geopolitical use of 'liberal' movements and NGOs to aid Western foreign policy:
And the Shafqat Hussain drama was clearly an attempt to undermine the entire death penalty, Anti-Terror Courts and
Military courts.
Another very good point he made was this:
This is similar to an analogy Hassan Nisar was using recently. He said that when a poor person buys used clothes for himself, he has to alter and tailor them to fit him - similarly, when a developing country like Pakistan adopts a western system like Democracy, it has to modify it to fit the country's needs, which are very different from those of Western nations.
Video link (the part I am talking about is from 11:53 and onwards)
Here, the author summarizes this entire idea in one word, 'transliterate', but the concept is still equally valid and important.
Sure, these Liberals don't blow themselves up - but their misguided actions can actually result in other people, more likely to blow themselves up, to be set free and given the opportunity to do that. (I am referring to their opposition of the death penalty and how terrorists tend to escape from jails)
I do agree, however, that
conservative religious extremists are an infinitely bigger problem than these liberals.
Liberals aren't even microscopic if we were to compare them, in terms of how problematic they are, with extremist terrorists. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't discuss and criticize the former just because the latter exists.
Very well summarized.
@SipahSalar here's your TL;DR version.
He's definitely not the most manly of people.
Still annoyed with his pic of me though. It's a bit old, doesn't even have any of my tattoos or other cosmetic changes like my hair
.
" about my public image later.
. Pinterest and Instagram too
.
.
