Pharaoh Mursi?

This week Egypt’s President Mohammed Morsi  stupefied Egyptian public and Islamists around the world with his new decree which  grants him sweeping powers that practically make him immune to judicial decisions and gives him near absolute power in constitutional matters.

Pharaoh Mursi??

At the time of writing Egypt is roiling with mass pro democracy protests that are spreading with the passing of each day. On 27 November 2012, almost 100,000 protesters flocked to Egypt’s iconic Tahrir Square to protest against Morsi’s new decree, which they call as a power grab and led the Nobel Laureate Opposition leader, Al Baradei to pronounce Morsi as Egypt’s New Pharaoh. 

The decree gives President Morsi the power to proclaim any new law without any hindrance and no challenge could be made to his decisions, not even in the Supreme Court. He also actively banned the judiciary from dissolving the Shura Council (i.e. the Upper House of the Parliament). This has been viewed as a defensive strategy by Morsi to protect the Shura Council from any judicial decisions, seeing that the Supreme Court already dissolved the lower house of Parliament on the premise, that the elections were held on rules that were in contrast to the country’s constitution. That decision pitched Morsi against the Judiciary that has remain unchanged since Mubarak’s reign ended in 2011.

Morsi’s new decree also immunizes his decisions on “National Sovereignty” from any judicial review until a new assembly is elected early next year. Now what those issues of national sovereignty are, no one from the Morsi camp has been able to satisfactorily explain it to the world at large. Most probably, the issues of national sovereignty pertain to his decisions on foreign and domestic affairs like imposition of martial law, severing diplomatic ties with nations and dismissing the cabinet.  

Egypt unsurprisingly has risen up in protest

He also gives himself the power to tackle any challenges by issuing uncontested decisions to protect any state institutions from performing their functions. This has been interpreted to mean that the President has given himself extensive standby emergency powers, should such a situation arise.

Needless to say, this new decree has raised more than just eyebrows. Egypt is up in protest, and this protest seems to have united the hitherto divided and diffused opposition.  Although it is the common Egyptian on the street protesting against the decree because he sees it as a return to Mubarak era and the judiciary, who see it as a blow to their authority,  it is very  interesting to note that the protest camp has also seen former military men join the Anti-Morsi demonstrations.

In an interesting article in the Washington Post , it has been reported that the mass protests are also being used by Anti-Muslim Brotherhood elements, notably the liberals, secularists and Mubarak era military officers, to topple Mursi’s Islamist regime. It is important to bear in mind that Mursi faces opposition from the Coptic Church and secularists who claim that the Brotherhood dominated panel does not reflect the pluralistic identity of Egypt .

Despite the allegations by the liberals and the church leaders that Morsi is trying to pave the way for Salafists to come into power, it is worth noting that Morsi has proved to be so far not the demon that the western analysts predicted. In fact, his relations with USA have improved since he brokered a ceasefire between Israel and Gaza much to the consternation of Islamist and Jewish right-wingers.  It remains to be seen how big a role USA plays in this ongoing drama seeing that ice between the Morsi led government and USA has just started to melt. The White House, given its apparent cold-shouldering of the Islamist regime, has stopped short of denouncing the decree and called for a peaceful solution of the issue.

From the view point of Morsi, we must remember that from day one, he has been on a quest against ousting Mubarak era officials from any positions of power. So far he has been generally successful since he has effectively sidelined the military officials from interfering in important political decisions and also removed the Mubarak era prosecutor general Abdel Maguid Mehmoud, who had infuriated Egyptian revolutionaries , by playing an important role in the acquittal of Mubarak era official who allegedly were involved in violent crackdowns against Anti-Mubarak protesters.

This whole play, it seems, is heading towards the-soon-to-be-introduced constitution, which many fear, would impose stricter Islamist oriented laws in the country, which the Mubarak era elements, liberals, pro-USA parties, church leaders and secularists are opposing in principle. How will the new constitution shape Egypt and its role in the middle east, we will have to wait and see, as the success of the Arab spring  depends on how Morsi lets democracy flourish in post Mubarak Egypt.

Can Anybody please tell me WHO AM I?

Nations rise and fall. To every high, there is a low. That is a universal fact. However, this universal fact does not apply to Pakistan, simply because it never went high. We can say that it is because we are at a pretty low point in history and will certainly climb to the top. “God” will help us. Have faith in “God”. That is what my Mullah Party tells me and so does the Ghairat Brigade. So are you trying to tell me that the matters have now spiraled so much out of control that the fate of “Pakistan” is no longer in human hands? Is this what you are trying to tell me?

But, the fact of the matter is that we are neither high neither low. Pakistan of today is a sort of a Sufi song, full of dualism but with grim undertones. It’s a nuclear power but doesn’t have adequate anti aircraft defense systems. Its students frequently “create” world records in the international academic world, but the literacy rate still hovers around 50%. It has abundant agricultural resources but the price of flour and rice keep on attaining new heights. It was founded on principles of democracy and social equality, but the gap between rich and poor keeps on increasing and to top it, there have been three martial laws in country. It was founded to provide safety and identity to the Indian Muslims, but ------------ (fill in the gap yourself). It has been 64 years, but we still haven’t figured out who we really are.

Who are we? Where do we come from? Are we aliens from outer space? Are we a result of some sort of weird and massive social experiment?

Who Are We?

History books teach us that Pakistan was formed on the basis of the Two Nation theory. On one side there were Hindus and on the other side there were Muslims. But this theory failed on 16 December 1971 when the feet of Indian Army and Mukti Bahni marched on the streets of Dhaka.

Pakistan had the lost the very basis on which it was formed, that it was a separate homeland for the Indian Muslims. Then what? Were the Quaid, Allama Iqbal, Liaquat Ali Khan and a long line of Independence leaders wrong? Were we - which the hostile “anti-Pakistan” media never ceases to tell- formed on the basis of clash of egos and conflicts over power sharing? If I accept that, then all the things that I have been taught in the school books, have been wrong. But I love this country, I cheer for the cricket team when it wins a match, my passport says that I am a Pakistani, i have my own set of favorite Pakistani singers, i want Urdu to be written on the billboards not Hindi, which i do not understand a bit. But where ever I go across the world , people recognize me as an Indian and its only after explaining to them that I belong to a neighbouring country called Pakistan and I am a Muslim ( and by default a terror suspect- I KILL U), then do they understand that i am a Pakistani, who just happens to look like an Indian. But here’s an interesting thing, I did this experiment with some people and answered in yes whenever they asked me that whether I was an Indian or not. “ So do you worship Ganesha?” some of them asked making weird flapping hand gestures so as to describe the Hindu idols. I would say no and they would look at me with the slightest of confusion in their eyes. When I would say that I was kidding and was a Pakistani their confusion would clear up. So it seems that a Brown Indian looking Muslim is a Pakistani in their dictionary. But as you might have read in the preceding lines, the two nation theory had failed, hadn't it? So that again left me in confusion about myself. It was getting way to complicated for me to ponder on.

I doubted my nationality. This was something that was very easy to ignore but very hard to really shake off.

But then i came across Aitzaz’s Ahsan’s book called The Indus Saga in which he explained that the reason Pakistan was formed was because of the fact the people of the Indus Valley were always different from the people across the Jumna. Their customs, traditions, influences, everything was different, and I know for a fact that it is. The struggle for Pakistan might have been an attempt to create a separate homeland for the Muslims but in-fact the deep underlying psyche was that the Indus people were reclaiming their Independence which the invading armies of Ghauri, Ghaznavi, Babar, Chandragupta and Bin Qasim could not entirely subjugate.

Yes i am calling those “”Muslim Heroes” as invaders, who did nothing but pillage and torture and occupy land. To me their religion has nothing to do with the fact that they were invaders. Its just like the Iraqi people of the future calling the American Invaders as heroes and you know that something about this is just plain disgusting. That’s exactly where the confusion over our ‘Pakistaniat’ has been created. And for that we must thank Zia Ul Haq ( “” Rehmatuallah Alleh””) and the Mullah Party.

There was a brief time in the Muslim history when the religious teacher was considered to be the the Man of God and not of the Mosque. He would debate with his Dominican, Fransician and atheist counterparts, a person who would be wise and charming who would explain and make, boring and tedious religious dogma, as easy as Twinkle Little Star. A Gladiator Maximus like person who just could not be corrupted by power. But today that “Religious Teacher” has been replaced by the Pan eating, Gulab Jaman munching, fat and greedy mullah. He has even made his own political party. He is the Eddie Guerrero of the society, because he Lies and Cheats and Steals. The horrifying fact is that he even influences our national policies. So much so that he majorly influenced our 1973 constitution and re wrote our text books, so that the invaders of the past now became our heroes, Hindus and Jews were the arch enemies ( imagine how would a Pakistani Hindu feel when reading those texts in our coursebooks, and we blame other countries for racism and discrimination). On one hand we find the Quaid’s statement that you are free to go to your temples and mosques and on the other hand we are told that the hindus and christians and jews scheme against the muslims and Pakistani was made for the muslims and muslims alone. Isn't that a humongous contradiction to the Quaid’s sayings. If we accept their arguments about Hindus and Jews being our enemies, then the Great Sultan Salahuddin Ayubi, all the Mughal and Ottoman emperors would be first rate heretics because they kept as advisers those same people which the Mullas of today ‘advise’ us to be wary of. In my humble opinion, the people we be wary of should include governments like the Saudis who always manipulate and scheme and shelter the hostile Americans and yet Pakistanis make those wretched Saudi kings as demi-gods and hero worship them.

The mind of the Pakistani of today is just a confused conglomeration of nationalism, religious trans-nationalism and the so called hatred of everything “”Western””, so called because on one hand we Pakistanis condemn western thought and culture, yet would positively drool over a Green Card. That’s the state of confusion that has been wrought upon the Pakistani mind by the so-called religious establishment in collaboration with the business minded politicians.

The point is, that the uniting factor in Pakistan is not religion, but the land itself and the principles of democracy. If religion was a uniting factor then Bangladesh would still have been East Pakistan today. So it is high time that we feel proud of who we are. Stop hero worshipping the Arabs and take pride in our own cultural heritage. And as I browse through the various Facebook pages and online communities, i have a reason to be hopeful, and so should you, the reader.