Whats up with Hatim!

I have watched 2008 elections very closely. After witnessing the 2004 elections first hand in the US I was convinced that the Democrats will not be able to make it. I have a very rough understanding of US politics and most of it was because of my roommate in University of Nebraska who had interned for a congressman. I also had formed the opinion that Democrats were not as organized but in Lewis Black's own words "Democrats are the party of no ideas and Republicans are a party of bad ideas"

I was also weary of the fact that Obama had called openly to attack Pakistan if there was reliable intelligence that a high value terrorist was in reach and Pakistan won't corporate. But I was not aware of the full transcripts as I never looked them up and Pakistani media some how did not project his views correctly, most likely because of Pakistani's associated more with Hillary Clinton (she has alot of Pakistani businessmen in her constituency). But it seems that Obama's policy towards Pakistan would be in coherence with his ideals of freedom, equality and justice. He co-sponsored a bill with his running mate which is very sensible to the needs of Pakistanis and not Pakistani government. I also found an article which details about other connections of Obama to Pakistan

Overall I must admit that I am still weary of Obama. He is not very experienced and these are desperate times. Some times it takes a non idealistic prick to run the office and Obama seems like a nice guy who may end up in a mess. But I did like few things about all of this. Obama's campaign heavily relied on the Internet and he himslef realizes the importance of modern communications as mentioned in his victory speech. He is reasonably young man to make bold choices which people of the Age of Mcain would probably not

Finally a shout out to BBC. I watched some of the election coverage on my linux box with firefox and flash installed. I am not sure which streaming technology they use but it was really awesome. Perhaps CNN should also abandon Windows based streaming and come to flash one. The webpage was even updating results with AJAX. Here is a screen shot of the page

There was a suicide attack outside the Danish embassy on 2 June. The Embassy is located in a posh residential area of F-6/2. The attack claimed 8 lives and 24 injured almost all of them Pakistanis and most of them belonging to the office adjacent to the Embassy. The attack has triggered few other embassies to close down operations temporarily including embassy of Sweden of whose closure affects me personally. There are few problems which I think need to be addressed.

In entire Islamabad there is a severe shortage of housing and office space. On top of that all the good spots are taken up by foreign missions etc. They should be moved into an isolated locale so that they don't affect day to day operations of Pakistani citizen.

The Danish could have made an exception in exercising freedom of speech. They could have just stopped printing of those cartoons the second time. The only messege those cartoons were giving was that freedom of speech is more important than caring about the feelings of millions of muslims. If they had stopped reprinting of those cartoons perhaps it would not have come to blasts in Pakistan. I think there are sensible people in EU and US who would agree with me, freedom of speech does not necessarily mean saying what ever you want, some times making sure that hurtful and hateful message never get across.

Today started as normal Monday for me, I got up early to get in my Dad's car only to sleep my way through the journey from Abbottabad to Islamabad (our weekly Monday ritual). We reached in time , I had my usual breakfast and hitched a ride with my Dad's chuffer to my office as I had left my car parked there. I was on my usual route in rush hour traffic and then some thing happened which has shocked me to my core. A young boy in his teens wearing school unform was on a bus full of otehr kids hanging from the bus. The fully loaded public transport hastily sped and over took a truck. In this process the boy lost his grip and fell down on the road only to be crushed by the oncoming truck.

I just can't describe how horrific it was. I have never seen a person die before, atleast like this.Since that time the scene of that young boy in school uniform getting crushed by a truck has been playing in my mind over and over. There was nothing any one could do. No one knew what that young student could have become had he continued his education. We probably loose so many young people this way. This was just a pointless death, So many people could have done some thing to avoid such a loss. I just can't help but think, what did that young chap deserve to get this painful death. He was son to some one, probably brother to some others. He could have become a sole bread earner for his family, with his death so many hopes and dreams have died. It is true that you can tell the charecter of a nation by looking at it's traffic. Our charecter can then only be described as thugs, rapists and of murderes. It was the guy's fault too that he should have considered his own safety. But I would blame it all on the traffic police.

Why can't Islamabad traffic police stop buses which are over crowded, ban any driver or company who violates these basics of safety. I am not talking about seat belts or air bags, I am talking about people not hanging from the roof of buses and every one having a decent seat to sit on. I am just not going to sit idle on this and will make sure that I make this case heard on every public forum.

You would think that with election results not going in favor of the establishment of Pakistan, the least it could do is sit tight and do nothing. Today I recieved the following email from my ISP

 

Dear Valued Customer:

Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (www.pta.gov.pk)
has directed all ISPs of the country to block access
to www.youtube.com web site for containing
blasphemous web content/movies.

The site would remain blocked till further orders from
PTA. Meanwhile, Internet users can write to
youtube.com to remove the objectionable web
content/movies because this removal would enable
the authorities to order un-blocking of this web
site.

We're sorry for any inconvenience.

Best Regards

Manager
Technical Assistance Center
Nayatel Pvt. Ltd.
Islamabad.

 

I am not sure which objectionable web content is the Govt after now. Previously  Google's blogspot was banned in Pakistan for some time. Some genius decided to block the whole domain of blogspot.com instead of certain blogs. I serioulsy hope that the new Govt would take some steps to ensure freedom for the people of Pakistan on the internet.

 

 

I never adorerd Benazir, neither did I ever like her political party. But her assasination has made me quite upset today. I am sure there are many people in the world who are upset by it and probably a few of them were her rivals as well. It is just not right for a person to be killed like that. First off she was a mother of three, then she was a leader of a party which represents a smaller province. Her father was also hanged in the same city not far from where her assasination took place. But It makes me think why am I not upset even to half of what I am now when I hear about all those people dying in bomb blasts. I think the reasons are simple, I knew Benazir more than just an anonymous person. I had seen her pictures and knew about her history (where she got educated etc). I knew about her (dysfunctional?) family. Then I saw a video of how she died. It is still unknown how she died exactly, but the very fact that she is waving and smiling to a cheering crowd of supporters and the next moment is utter chaos body parts flying every where.No one deserves to die like this, but the truth is people die like this on daily basis. I wonder when would this killing stop and we as a species would decide to be more like fedration in StarTrek.

On Saturday before I went to MAJU campus, there were more bomb blasts in Rawalpindi. The target were Army personnel. It saddens me that in all this exchnage of violence, its always the most common man or soldier who is affected. Pakistan's situation is already critical and I don't know how long the confederation will hold up. 

When I was in MAJU campus, I had the chance to have a discussion with an acquinatice of mine. He was telling every one how the cleric of Lal Masjid died in gun battle with Govt. forces and how peace ful he looked in death as he had attained martayrdom. Some times it amazes me how common people, who seem to have very limited knowldge of relegion, are so swayed by the idea of eternal life and martayardom. People who have no ambition in life, who don't want to work hard, use their knowldge or fight back in true sense find it rather comforting that they can still  achieve some thing rather easily (ie by just confronting evil with nothing in hand, no plan what so ever and making your self die for a "nobel" cause).

Perhaps Ghazi Abdul Rasheed was a pious man, perhaps all his deeds were right and perhaps he is a martayar, but if he did kidnap people to enforce his visions, with that act I don't agree. There are millions of things which are wrong with this world and all the Mullas care is about sex and booze (or perhaps the lack of them in their own lives). Islam is a beautiful relegion but the fact is that Muslims of present day (presnet company included) are a bunch of horrible, misrable hypocrites.  

There has been upsurge in suicide bomb attacks in Pakistan in last few months. The most notebale of them happend in a convoy of Benazir Bhutto upon her return from self imposed exile. I have no sympathies with Benazir and I am indifferent to any thing which happens to her (as long as she doesn't come back to power), but it was really horrific to see 130 people die for nothing. There is a taliban style militancy going in the provice of NWFP (my home is in a border district of NWFP), and this wave of extremism is spreading. Pakistan is seeing a drak period these days.
There were few more attacks, but one which really upset me was attack on a bus full of air force officers in Sargodha. I was born in Sargodha and spent a good 15 years of my life in that town (and on the base). This was a pointless murder of innocent people as they were not involved in any kind of conflict in NWFP. I guess people who do these things have lost all humanity in them, and their human rights shouldbe revoked. But the problem is its not easy to identify the people who are actually behind these attrocities from the people who are associated with them. Perhaps this is why in the tribal areas its never a person who is guilty of doing some thing bad, it always the tribe who pays the price.

But then some people think that there is a good chance that all of this is being done by the Governemnt. Some people further believe all of this is being done on the orders of Americans. Leaving all conspercies aside, I believe that Pakistan is no longer a place for me. I have decided that I will be immigrating from this region to a better and safer future. My family also supports this idea. But I do feel bad about this country, it could be much better.