Refuting Aatish Taseer

[toxic_pus]

Now comes the refutation of refutation of Aatish Taseer. Posting without highlighting.

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RECOMMENDING AATISH TASEER

- Alamdar Mengal

It was interesting to come across some Twitter reactions to Mr. Aatish Taseer’s boldly written article, “Why My Father Hated Pakistan” that was published in the Wall Street Journal yesterday, which poses some tough questions about the historical and current nature of the military dominated state of Pakistan.

Prominent Fake Civil Society (FCS) journalist types (also known as Darbari Liberals) were quick to dismiss this compelling and incisive article and resorted to the typical personalized digs that one makes in the absence of coherent arguments. Then again, what would these FCS types know about coherent arguments and maintaining journalistic integrity?

Prominent among them was Ejaz Haider, a “journalist” whose long ties with the Pakistan Military Academy are well reflected in his condescending, too-clever-by-half “articles” that the discerning reader has to suffer to on a regular basis.

Suffice to say, Ejaz’s latest article is another piece of incoherent babble that suffers from reductionism and petty personal digs- the same thing he unfairly accuses Aatish of.

While the FCS Tweeple Brigade will do its best to diss Aatish’s article, one must at least examine the arguments within Aatish’s article.

Aatish Taseer gets to the roots of the issue of extremism in Pakistan:

“To understand the Pakistani obsession with India, to get a sense of its special edge—its hysteria—it is necessary to understand the rejection of India, its culture and past, that lies at the heart of the idea of Pakistan. This is not merely an academic question. Pakistan’s animus toward India is the cause of both its unwillingness to fight Islamic extremism and its active complicity in undermining the aims of its ostensible ally, the United States.”​

For the urban (fake) liberal chatterati, this profound insight is unsettling. Most cannot come to terms with critical questions about the hazy myths and drawing room gossip that they hold as sacred truths regarding Pakistani history and Partition. Hence, it is very difficult for them to grasp Aatish’s very valid argument that the India-phobia shared by the security establishment has been the primary factor for fuelling violent Islamofascism in Pakistan.

For the venal, shallow and fickle de-politicized urban elites, the India phobia of the security establishment defines them as well. Their virulent hatred for elected political leaders blinds them to the fact that the vast majority of Pakistanis who vote in PPP and other groups do not share their warped obsession with India. Pakistan’s elected leaders in the last three decades have all done their best to restore good relations with India (BB-Rajiv, NS-AV, AAZ-MMS) only for their efforts to be scuttled by the security establishment.

Therefore for this class, America, like India before it has become a convenient scapegoat to perpetuate an Ostrich mentality. Hence any criticism of the Taliban and their security establishment sponsors is diverted by regurgitating Tariq Ali’s stale and rehashed critiques of US foreign policy. Like Tariq Ali, this class is mostly beholden to the world view of the security establishment and its assorted creatures like Imran Khan.

It is Aatish’s bold and direct criticism of the military establishment that is the most refreshing aspect of this article and perhaps the single major reason for the unfair criticism he has to bear by urban liberals of Pakistan. He writes:

“The primary agent of this decline has been the Pakistani army. The beneficiary of vast amounts of American assistance and money—$11 billion since 9/11—the military has diverted a significant amount of these resources to arming itself against India. In Afghanistan, it has sought neither security nor stability but rather a backyard, which—once the Americans leave—might provide Pakistan with “strategic depth” against India. In order to realize these objectives, the Pakistani army has led the U.S. in a dance, in which it had to be seen to be fighting the war on terror, but never so much as to actually win it, for its extension meant the continuing flow of American money. All this time the army kept alive a double game, in which some terror was fought and some—such as Laskhar-e-Tayyba’s 2008 attack on Mumbai—actively supported.

The army’s duplicity was exposed decisively this May, with the killing of Osama bin Laden in the garrison town of Abbottabad. It was only the last and most incriminating charge against an institution whose activities over the years have included the creation of the Taliban, the financing of international terrorism and the running of a lucrative trade in nuclear secrets. This army, whose might has always been justified by the imaginary threat from India, has been more harmful to Pakistan than to anybody else. It has consumed annually a quarter of the country’s wealth, undermined one civilian government after another and enriched itself through a range of economic interests, from bakeries and shopping malls to huge property holdings.”​

In these few lines, Mr. Aatish Taseer is more lucid and clear than most of the media big wigs like Najam Sethi (1990s messiah fame), Omar Waraich (who recently tried to paint Messrs Hamid Mir, Najam Sethi and Ejaz Haider as anti-ISI) and Cyril Almeida (PPP-abandoned-Taseer fame) and all those who have recently anointed themselves as “liberals” (or as a Balcoh friend recently called them ‘darbari liberals’).

Such criticism of the security establishment only comes from a few brave individuals like Kamran Shafi, Dr. Siddiqa, Dr. Taqi, Farhat Taj and Arif Jamal amongst a small group of non-professional journalists and analysts – individuals who are not part of a sellout industry.

The bold tone of Mr. Taseer’s article is sorely lacking among our “Darbari liberals” who jealously guard their turf and whose one-sided virulence against political parties, particularly the PPP, is matched by their tame, weak and vacillating critiques of the security establishment.

The “Darbari liberals” of Pakistan are liberals in name only and in the mistaken impression that the ability to imbibe bribery liquor and show-off their surface knowledge of the European Football league somehow qualifies them as liberals. I wish it were that easy.

For example, most recently, these “Darbari Liberals” and their FCS cheerleaders couldn’t even tolerate a twitter activist @laibaah whose impassioned, in-your-face approach to minority rights was too much to bear – a quality that saw her account being suspended for the third time in 2 weeks via the coordinated effort of this tweeple brigade of “darbari liberals”. For these “Darbari liberals”, the daily human rights abuses of the Baloch can be explained away as part of a RAW conspiracy to destabilize Pakistan-anything to divert attention away from the security establishment whose material interests are allied with theirs.

Mr. Aatish Taseer should realize that the mentality of these darbari liberals who are trashing his article is no different from the intolerant mindset of his father’s murderer, Mumtaz Qadri. They are in no mood to be circumspect at the harsh but true observations of Aatish. During the lifetime of the late Governor Taseer, he and his family were often made the targets of vicious personal attacks due to his loyalty to PPP and on his clear stance on the Lawyer’s Movement and the Jamaa Islami and Sipah-e-Sahaba leaning judges in the LHC and SCP.

The same people who rushed to cry a few crocodile tears on Salmaan Taseer’s death whilst simultaneously blaming the PPP for his murder are also likely the ones who will not take too kindly to the bold and refreshingly honest article of his son. In the post-Taseer scenario, they were up to their typical obfuscation tactics to minimize the role of the security establishment in fanning religious hatred (directed against the democratic government) and the role of the Opposition parties both in providing compromised security and fanning extremism and hysteria.

SOURCE

 

[DESERT FIGHTER]

He hates salman taseer n Pakistan coz hes a bastard disowned by a Pakistani born to a indian woman.......... Yet its really strange tht he uses taseers sir name.... what a twerp.

 

[muse]

So much passion, so much attention -- over what? See Ejaz Haider's take on today's Express Tribune.

 

[PakShah]

Didn't we conclude a while ago that Aatish Taseer is an idoit?
Nobody in Pakistan really cares what this guy thinks!

 

[gubbi]

So much passion, so much attention -- over what? See Ejaz Haider's take on today's Express Tribune.

Really, what about it? Except for ad hominem attack, Ejaz Haider does nothing in the 'refute article'.

Didn't we conclude a while ago that Aatish Taseer is an idoit?
Nobody in Pakistan really cares what this guy thinks!

Personally attacking a person instead of the points raised amounts to concluding that he's an idiot? Bravo! We will keep that in mind if and when replying to your posts.

He hates salman taseer n Pakistan coz hes a bastard disowned by a Pakistani born to a indian woman.......... Yet its really strange tht he uses taseers sir name.... what a twerp.

Since when does the "legality" of a person's familial ties determine his/her intelligence or analytical skills. If that was the case, Pakistan should have been awash with well bred intellectuals and well bred intelligent competent politicians.

 

[PakShah]

Really, what about it? Except for ad hominem attack, Ejaz Haider does nothing in the 'refute article'.


Personally attacking a person instead of the points raised amounts to concluding that he's an idiot? Bravo! We will keep that in mind when replying to your posts.



Since when does the legality of a person's familial ties determine his/her intelligence or analytical skills. If that was the case, Pakistan should have been awash with well bred intellectuals and well bred intelligent competent politicians.

There was already a thread on Aatish Taseer, and it was concluded that he is an idiot.
Enough said.

 

[SpArK]

Aatish Taseer is a joke, he speaks truth.

 

[Patrician]

There was already a thread on Aatish Taseer, and it was concluded that he is an idiot.
Enough said.

lol concluded by whom and under whose authorization and what authorization would that be?

 

[indushek]

A illegitimate kid can never be taken seriously!!!!!!!!!!

 

[LaBong]

He hates salman taseer n Pakistan coz hes a bastard disowned by a Pakistani born to a indian woman.......... Yet its really strange tht he uses taseers sir name.... what a twerp.

Quite summed up the logic most of Pakistanis present to refute Aatish. Seems the main fault of the guy is that his biological father wasnt man enough to accept his son over political gain.

 

[EjazR]

I don't understand what Ejaz Haider is trying to refute here.

Sure there is always power politics in International relations. India has serious issues with China, but the Indian school system does not preach hatred against China. Nor does the political culture in India go on talking about some sort of fundamental two nation theory where Chinese and Indians can never live in peace. At the same time, there is of course the plain power politics that dogs relations between any two countries. But that is not the case between India and Pakistan.

Isn't it true that Pakistani curriculum, particularly Pakistan Studies specifically characterizes Pakistan as completely separate from India. The NDU in Pakistan specifically pushes a philosophy that they are fundamentally different from India and are infact closer to Central Asia, Iran, Arabia, even China than India.

Sure there are a few who recognizes this futility, that Pakistani history, culture, language is intertwined more tightly with India's than any other country. But they are far and few to find. More people- covertly if not overtly - tend to believe like Zia that without hostility to India and constant emphasis on political Islam - Pakistan is nothing more than India itself.

Except for the mis-characterization of Allama Iqbal's speech of 1930 instead of Chaudary Rahmat Ali's "Now or Never" in 1933 being the first articulation of Pakistan as it is today - it does address a fundamental philosophy that people in Pakistan should think about.

Is the Two Nation theory valid today? Is it still the ideology of Pakistan as being taught in Pakistan Studies classes? Will this "theory" - brought about only in the 1980s - be thought through and removed as the "ideology" of Pakistan?

 

[AmberDutt]

And don't forget Bilal that we control some important real estate that we captured from the indians that overlook the key indian lifeline in occupied J&K - artillery observers can bring in very accurate fire, on that road and effectively close it.

Artillery fire goes both ways mate.. Wars are fought not only militarily but also diplomatically. And who can forget the lashing Nawaz Sharif got in Washington over Pakistan futile attempt to disguise the aggression as insurgents and also the bodies of Pakistani military men who had to be buried in India because the country who sent them to fight for her refused to accept the bodies of its martyred soldiers to avoid international condemnation.

Makes you feel proud.. Good for you..

 

[AmberDutt]

Where is the actual article by Atish Taseer?

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nvm.. got it..

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304911104576445862242908294.html

 

[Kyusuibu Honbu]

in territory that was legally a part of Pakistan, and then invaded and occupied that territory and annexed it. I am not arguing about the similarity, or not, to J&K, merely highlighting an example of Indian aggression against Pakistan.

According to whom? , the UN?

 

[Dance]

Atish Taseer-Shashi Tharoor Tag Team v. Pakistani Liberals​

Atish Taseer wrote a rather mediocre piece in the Wall Street Journal named “Why my father hated India”. Then Shashi Tharoor wrote a piece called “Delusional liberals” which defended Atish Taseer’s piece. I wonder if these two gentlemen realize how similar their rhetoric- couched in simplistic terms- is to the 1500 page manifesto released by Anders Breivik when it comes to Pakistan.

Atish and Anders both believe that Mohammad Iqbal was a founder of Pakistan
Atish, Anders and Shashi Tharoor all believe that Pakistanis are clever scheming rascals out to do substantial damage to the world.
Atish, Anders and Shashi Tharoor believe that there is something genetically wrong with the Pakistani mindset that predisposes it to violence and exclusion.
Atish and Shashi Tharoor pieces were aimed at reinforcing the Pakistan bogey, just like Anders who feared “mini-Pakistans” and “Pakistanis in London”.
The day Atish Taseer wrote about why he thought his father was a bigot, I could not help but find a ripped poster praising Mumtaz Qadri for killing Salmaan Taseer in the Lahore High Court’s computer section ironic. Sadly Indians – even those as closely related as a son to their father- are unable to understand Pakistan, a country that was only six decades a part of their own.

To say that Atish’s piece was inaccurate would be an understatement. It was a piece that singularly captured in all its tragic sadness the way Indians like him have been unable to come to terms with the existence of Pakistan as a nation state that has much right to exist as India.

Forget that Salmaan Taseer’s entire career as a politician and a newspaper publisher was dedicated to secular liberal politics but let us highlight the fact that he mocked the failure of Indian missile test. Simply put in order for Salmaan Taseer to prove his “liberalism” to Indians like Atish Taseer, not that the great man lost any sleep over it, dying for the cause of a poor marginalized Christian woman was not enough. No! The late governor should have instead patted the Indians on the back for a good effort in trying to perfect a weapon of mass destruction! Yes because we all know true liberalism is really about how many Indians you hug. Things like women’s rights, minority rights and standing up for unpopular causes are incidental and at times inconvenient facts that need to swept under the rug.

Atish got the narrative of partition wrong as well. Muhammad Iqbal, who in any event played a peripheral role in the Pakistan movement, in his famous speech of 1930 was quite clear that the state he was proposing would not be a religious state nor did he envisage a complete separation. Both Iqbal and Jinnah started off as staunch Indian nationalists who believed in the plurality of India and Hindu-Muslim Unity. Iqbal’s poem “hai Hindustan hamara” remains one of the most touching odes to mother India for many Indians. He also forgets that Jinnah, the Darth Vader of the popular Indian imagination who ultimately became the founder of Pakistan and whose name our Indian Harry Potter must not utter, was the only Indian politician to be called the best ambassador of Hindu Muslim Unity.

The truth is that partition of India happened because the Hindu right-wing within the Congress Party was unable to come to terms with the rising secular liberal Muslim salariat represented largely by westernised and secular urban professionals like Jinnah and Atish Taseer’s grandfather, M D Taseer. These people asked for things like a share of jobs, competition in business and a share in sovereignty. Mahatma Gandhi was much more willing to deal with the rigid Maulanas of Deoband and conservative Pathan leaders like Bacha Khan who were willing to bargain economic and political rights of the Muslim minority for the right to shepherd their flock. Had the Congress Party dealt with the secular liberal Muslim leadership properly there would have been no partition of India. Now this is precisely what bothers Indians like Atish Taseer about Pakistani liberals: they refuse to roll over and play dead.

Salmaan Taseer was the generation that followed partition and was imbued with a sense of achievement and identity that had internalized the reformist legacy of Islamic modernism. If Salmaan Taseer mocked the failure of India’s test of weapons of mass destruction, it was because those weapons were ultimately aimed at their country. He had consistently spoken out against groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba that targeted innocent civilians in India. So it was natural that a confident and successful Pakistani like him threatened Indians like Atish who are drunk with their “sudden prosperity” and unable to accept to see a Pakistani like Salmaan Taseer standing up with his head held high and not hailing shining India. Unable to make sense of his father’s liberal and secular Pakistani nationalism, he wrote a book that illustrated for his readers his own personal turmoil about his father and the country he loved. Now this is the real reason why Atish Taseer hates Pakistan and he also hates Pakistan because he does have a parent who is a borderline bigot. It is his mother, Tavleen Singh, a mouthpiece for the right wing BJP and Indian ultra-nationalism.

And if that was not enough, Shashi Tharoor, once the foremost ambassador for brand India, decided to jump to Atish’s defence with an equally ill-conceived article titled “Delusional Liberals”. It was a distasteful rant that played on the readily available anti-Pakistan card and which named people like Marvi Sirmed and Ejaz Haider as “liberals” who were Pakistanis before they were liberal and who were trying to prove a point about their nationalism. If anything Marvi Sirmed’s rage against Atish Taseer ‘s piece should have given any reasonable person reason to pause and ponder for anyone who has met Ms Sirmed that she is not your India-baiting Pakistani nationalist type. She is a rare Pakistani who is perfectly at ease with Pakistan’s Indian cultural heritage and South Asian identity. People like her have courageously stood against the civil military establishment of Pakistan and have acted as whistle-blowing voices of reason.

To suggest that “Indians need to put aside their illusions that there are liberal partners for us on the other side of the border who echo our diagnosis of their plight and share our desire to defenestrate their military” is tantamount to saying “if you don’t agree with our diagnosis you are not liberal”. While a very large number of Pakistanis, not just liberal ones, might not want to “defenestrate” our military but they do want to bring it under strict civilian control and scrutiny. Some of them have faced jail and torture for this but of course nothing less than total surrender would be enough for you. One question though: would a Pakistani liberal – who might share your vision for defenestration of Pakistani military- remain a liberal in your opinion if he also expressed a similar wish about your military?

Pakistan – with all its problems and turmoil- will survive and things will get better; this is what history teaches us. For all of Mr. Tharoor and Atish Taseer’s thinly veiled triumphalism, it would be worthwhile for them to remember that time is a great leveler and on a long enough timeline there are no winners and losers.

Atish Taseer-Shashi Tharoor Tag Team v. Pakistani Liberals | Pak Tea House