Pakistan.

Shenshen

Shenshen wrote: »

It shines a light on the current culture of one country.
That says little enough about how Kaveh Billal from Iran is integrating into German society when he's attending his daughter's civil union ceremony where she's getting married to her long-term girlfriend (he's a friend of my mother's).

Congratulations to all concerned, I hope they are happy together and have a wonderful life for many many years to come. However I notice you say integrating to German society. Will they not be integrating into Iranian society anytime soon too?

donaghs

Danzy wrote: »

Two atheist societies, The USSR and People's Republic of China were the most murderous societies in a long time, Genghis khan, who let people believe or practice without fear or favour, killed up to 2 in every 100 alive at the time globally.

It is more complex than blaming it on religion or one thing.

True, but in the case of Pakistan, from the slightly more secular and stable time of Jinnah and Ali Khan to the present day, its clear that overriding problem there is religion. It poisons all attempts at modernity and tolerance.

FTA69

We need to be secular, sometimes aggressively so. That means restricting funding abroad going into certain mosques and madrassahs. A huge of amount of Islamic and Jewish faith schools are a total disaster educationally; there is no need for them - or Christian schools for that matter, if people want to instill religion into their kids they can do so on their own time.

Someone above was giving out about the Soviets but they had absolutely the correct position on state secularism. In fact many of the socialist-leaning Arab and Muslim states saw the need for modernisation and progressiveness and fought hard to achieve it. Islamism was actively funded and promoted in these places by countries such as the USA et al who wanted to undermine governments in places like Egypt and Afghanistan.

Shenshen

Deleted User wrote: »

Congratulations to all concerned, I hope they are happy together and have a wonderful life for many many years to come. However I notice you say integrating to German society. Will they not be integrating into Iranian society anytime soon too?

I was replying to someone saying "How anyone thinks that people of this belief can integrate into western culture is beyond me."
I'm not sure you'd classify Iran as a western culture?

But if you're asking if they've broken off all contact to family and friends in Iran, they haven't.

Mutant z

Its islamic thats all you need to know.

Danzy

donaghs wrote: »

True, but in the case of Pakistan, from the slightly more secular and stable time of Jinnah and Ali Khan to the present day, its clear that overriding problem there is religion. It poisons all attempts at modernity and tolerance.

Correct

Danzy

donaghs wrote: »

True, but in the case of Pakistan, from the slightly more secular and stable time of Jinnah and Ali Khan to the present day, its clear that overriding problem there is religion. It poisons all attempts at modernity and tolerance.

Correct

Ipso

FTA69 wrote: »

We need to be secular, sometimes aggressively so. That means restricting funding abroad going into certain mosques and madrassahs. A huge of amount of Islamic and Jewish faith schools are a total disaster educationally; there is no need for them - or Christian schools for that matter, if people want to instill religion into their kids they can do so on their own time.

Someone above was giving out about the Soviets but they had absolutely the correct position on state secularism. In fact many of the socialist-leaning Arab and Muslim states saw the need for modernisation and progressiveness and fought hard to achieve it. Islamism was actively funded and promoted in these places by countries such as the USA et al who wanted to undermine governments in places like Egypt and Afghanistan.

You mean that religion would distract them from being a good worker/robot?

milehip

It'll all fake news and for the op to suggest otherwise make them an islamaphobe, they probably think North Korea isn't a socialist paradise.

imme

milehip wrote: »

It'll all fake news and for the op to suggest otherwise make them an islamaphobe, they probably think North Korea isn't a socialist paradise.

What is fake news?

The photos of Pakistani men with posters saying "Hang the Asia".

If it wasn't so absolutely incredible it would be so so funny.
When you have a country where people value memorisation of religious texts over education you will have these problems.

Recent deals with China to promote development of ports in Pakistan might go some way to develop the country.
China won't be too worried about that as all they want are the raw materials.

Backward backward country.

milehip

^ i know a guy who can fix your sarcasm detector.

jmreire

FTA69 wrote: »

We need to be secular, sometimes aggressively so. That means restricting funding abroad going into certain mosques and madrassahs. A huge of amount of Islamic and Jewish faith schools are a total disaster educationally; there is no need for them - or Christian schools for that matter, if people want to instill religion into their kids they can do so on their own time.

Someone above was giving out about the Soviets but they had absolutely the correct position on state secularism. In fact many of the socialist-leaning Arab and Muslim states saw the need for modernisation and progressiveness and fought hard to achieve it. Islamism was actively funded and promoted in these places by countries such as the USA et al who wanted to undermine governments in places like Egypt and Afghanistan.

The problem with Pakistan, is that since it's foundation in 1947, and with at that time a population of 60 million has in the intervening 70 odd years, grown to close on 200 Million. But vast nrs of those 200 Million are very poor people, unable to afford proper ( or indeed any ) education. So the Saudis' ( and others ) step in and take over that function via the madrassa's, and what is happening now in Pakistan is a direct result of Wahhabi extremist Islam teaching. In that video the rioting that took place because Asia Bibi ( an innocent woman) was to be released. Just look at the faces of those rioters, pure religious fanaticism . If the Pakistan Army were deployed to break them up and stop the rioting...they would charge the guns barehanded. You cannot control these people.

dreamers75

Seems everything is fine.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-46102013

BattleCorp

If the Pakistan Army were deployed to break them up and stop the rioting...they would charge the guns barehanded. You cannot control these people.

Bullets work quite well. 6 or 7 of them per rioter work wonders for stopping repeat offenders.

wexie

jmreire wrote: »

The problem with Pakistan, is that since it's foundation in 1947, and with at that time a population of 60 million has in the intervening 70 odd years, grown to close on 200 Million. But vast nrs of those 200 Million are very poor people, unable to afford proper ( or indeed any ) education. So the Saudis' ( and others ) step in and take over that function via the madrassa's, and what is happening now in Pakistan is a direct result of Wahhabi extremist Islam teaching. In that video the rioting that took place because Asia Bibi ( an innocent woman) was to be released. Just look at the faces of those rioters, pure religious fanaticism . If the Pakistan Army were deployed to break them up and stop the rioting...they would charge the guns barehanded. You cannot control these people.

While I'm certainly not a big fan of condemning all of these people for the behaviours or the worst of them and any Pakistani (not that many I'd have to admit, maybe 10 or so) I've met and worked with have been really pleasant....

You'd have to wonder about the mindset of a nation (or the rulers thereof more appropriately) that would spend massive amounts of money on a nuclear weapons program while failing to provide even fairly basic education for large parts of their citizens.

Similarly with India and their space program. I think the dichotomy of a country where lack of indoor plumbing is a serious health issue yet has a space (or nuclear weapons program) will never cease to baffle me.

jmreire

BattleCorp wrote: »

Bullets work quite well. 6 or 7 of them per rioter work wonders for stopping repeat offenders.

Yes BattleCorp, I understand that very well, so why did it not happen? After all, if they get away with that in this case, what's to stop them doing it again, every time they feel aggrieved that their religion is insulted? Remember, that in 2009, militants from the FATA Tribal areas got to within 60 Klms of Islamabad, before the Government reacted to the threat, and sent in the Regular PK Army and stopped them. On that occasion, they had no choice.
As you say, the bullets would stop them, BUT, which way would the guns be aimed? At the rioters..or the Government??? Remember that the leaders of these riots asked the military to join them. So if push came to shove....what would have happened, which side would they pick? Interesting question, bearing in mind that the only education many of these soldiers would have received, would have been in the Madrassa's. In any case, Mr. Khan choose to negotiate rather than to confront, so in this instance we will never know what might have happened. But the fact remains, these Madrassas
are turning out thousands and thousands of "Scholars" each year. And sooner or later, he problem of this kind of rioting will have to faced up to. For sure, it's not the last time it will happen.

jmreire

wexie wrote: »

While I'm certainly not a big fan of condemning all of these people for the behaviours or the worst of them and any Pakistani (not that many I'd have to admit, maybe 10 or so) I've met and worked with have been really pleasant....

You'd have to wonder about the mindset of a nation (or the rulers thereof more appropriately) that would spend massive amounts of money on a nuclear weapons program while failing to provide even fairly basic education for large parts of their citizens.

Similarly with India and their space program. I think the dichotomy of a country where lack of indoor plumbing is a serious health issue yet has a space (or nuclear weapons program) will never cease to baffle me.[/QUOTE

After the terrible destructive power of the 1st Atomic Bombs became known, some one asked Albert Einstein, who would be able to get and use them. Albert replied that with one or two exceptions, any other Country in the world that wanted nuclear weapons, would have to make the choice between the bomb, or bread for it's people, but they would not be able to afford both. And so it has proved.....

Kirby

Except it hasn't been proven. At all. He was dead wrong.

Unless you think countries like Russia, UK, France, Germany or Isreal have trouble feeding their people? Not to mention that any lunatic extremist with some backing can buy himself the bomb.

yoke

Richard Hillman wrote: »

Without colonialism, they'd still be chucking Spears at each other.

If the colonial powers didn't leave the way they did, it would have been years and years of false prophets running around telling everybody that everything will be great as soon as the colonisers are gone, there will be a million "Free <insert region> Protests", the colonisers will back off and they'll end up screwing the country up themselves.

There is a reason why these countries were colonised and they were not the colonisers

This is a very common misconception.


What's interesting is that especially in the case of India/Pakistan, this was not the case at all.

It was more of a slow (took nearly 200 years to accomplish) corporate (and opportunistic) takeover by a company, the process was quite simple and can be used anywhere in the world where there is an ongoing war, regardless of technology:



The background was that India, which had been at more than one point an extremely powerful, relatively free (invented kamasutra), and technologically advanced society had over time developed a massive inequality inside it's own population (far worse than what is happening in America or the West right now). This led to huge internal problems and economic and social stagnation which finally culminated in the country being unable to defend itself effectively and being invaded by muslim/arab armies in 1100 AD (after successfully resisting these same forces for ~300 years previously). However this invasion was never complete, and for the next 600 years, India was effectively in a state of war, with catastrophic consequences for it's economy.




Seeing this, the British did something quite simple, so "natural" even that it was probably not even "planned":



step 1. establish a trading post somewhere. make lots of mutual profit through trading with the Indians.

step 2. local bandit gangs keep raiding the trading posts, so put some of the profits into hiring local security "soldiers" who are now working for you to guard the rich trading posts.

step 3. Over time, these local guards gain experience and become an armed force.
step 4. Now we have a resource - the armed force - which is sitting idle while there are local wars being fought. Let's put them to good use - let's hire them out as mercenaries to the various kingdoms.
step 5. when one of the kingdoms is about to attack another one, but can't pay any money - accept a percentage of the land that they will grab from the victim kingdom as payment, instead.
step 6. Now you have gained land, and an armed force (consisting of local people) who are being paid by you from the profits/proceeds of the land.
step 7. Repeat for ~200 years, amassing most of India in the process.


The hilarious thing about it was, at the beginning of it all, the British had better sea transport but worse armies technologically, and yet they were able to take over a superior/technologically more advanced opponent - through the above "profit-based" approach.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mysorean_rockets - even in the 1780s and 1790s Indian armies still occasionally had some technology advantages over the British - wikipedia says: "The Mysorean army [...] used the rockets effectively against the British East India Company during the 1780s and 1790s. Their conflicts with the company exposed the British to this technology, which was then used to advance European rocketry with the development of the Congreve rocket in 1805." - the British then used this technology against the French.

A quick look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_science_and_technology_in_the_Indian_subcontinent shows up some more interesting facts for the people who still think Britain (or even Europe) was some sort of superior military force at the beginning - "Gunpowder and gunpowder weapons were transmitted to India through the Mongol invasions of India.[106][107] The Mongols were defeated by Alauddin Khalji of the Delhi Sultanate" and the Mongol invasion of India was effectively stopped - for comparision, these were the same Mongol armies (with the same technology) who went undefeated through central Europe, supposedly unstoppable. European colonialism started when the European countries recovered from the Mongols and used their newly gained technology (gunpowder weapons, from the Mongols) and started doing the same to other less fortunate people.

It's a complete fallacy to believe that the British somehow "civilised" India, they were just opportunistic businessmen.

Dick phelan

Not to defend Colonialism in any way and no denying the British left both India and the newly created Pakistan in a mess when they withdrew. However i fail to see the link between colonialism from decades ago to tribal leaders ordering a girl to be raped as punishment for a brothers apparent crime. The case from the OP cannot be blamed on the British or anyone else, the blame falls squarely on Pakistani society and their backward stone age beliefs. Pakistan is from what i'v been reading not far away from civil war or from the Islamist taking firm control. Very scary thought given it's population and arms capabilities, it could become like Afghanistan except on a far worse scale.

yoke

Dick phelan wrote: »

[..]However i fail to see the link between colonialism from decades ago to tribal leaders ordering a girl to be raped as punishment for a brothers apparent crime. The case from the OP cannot be blamed on the British or anyone else, the blame falls squarely on Pakistani society and their backward stone age beliefs[...]

I was responding to a series of posts by Richard Hillman where he expressed beliefs that colonialism was great, and suggested it was due to some inherent superiority in the colonisers, whereas it was more a case of luck/opportunity.

Richard Hillman wrote: »

Why were countries, even smaller countries like Belgium, able to colonise much larger lands and populations? Why were they more powerful?

- because they experienced getting beaten by gunpowder weapons of the Mongols (which the Mongols stole from the Chinese), luckily for them the Mongols eventually collapsed by themselves (through no actions of the Europeans), and then afterwards they used this new-found technology to subdue other unrelated populations until eventually the whole thing came full circle and China itself (being the place where gunpowder was invented) was colonised... using... gunpowder..

Hopefully the above sequence of events shows how stupid it is to try to attribute how history happened to unfold, to the "innate superiority or inferiority" of people. It's the old "If you're so smart, why aren't you rich?" argument. a.k.a. "your boss must be 3 times smarter than you, because he earns 3 times your salary" - "the colonisers must be smarter than the colonised".


I also think that the behaviour you mentioned coming from the modern day state of Pakistan is ridiculous and stupid.

jmreire

Kirby wrote: »

Except it hasn't been proven. At all. He was dead wrong.

Unless you think countries like Russia, UK, France, Germany or Isreal have trouble feeding their people? Not to mention that any lunatic extremist with some backing can buy himself the bomb.

When Einstein made this statement, back in 1945, it was indeed very true. Now you have a total of 195 Countries in existence, so from this total you mention 5, which have nuclear weapons, and still managing to feed their people.. what about China, India, Pakistan and N Korea? Would you consider these Countries as looking after their people as they should? Imagine the standard of living in those "nuclear" Countries, ( all of them ) if this money was diverted into other endeavours? health, feeding and educating their populations would be a doddle. So Yes, it was true back in 1945, and its still true today.

CrankyHaus

Pakistan keeps part of its nuclear arsenal in unmarked trucks on its public roads. This is to maintain a cheap second strike capability but its a tremendous vulnerability to terrorists as Pakistan is a major nexus of islamist extremism and terrorism.

It also quite likely will be/is the source of Saudi Arabia's nuclear arsenal if the Saudi's ever announce they have one.

It's interesting that the Global War on Terror has only empowered Islamist countries like Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and even Iran while secular muslim countries like Iraq, Syria and Libya have been ruined by it.

Brendan Bendar

RasTa wrote: »

Beautiful country too, great mountains. Kashmir worth a visit

Any Irish Pubs there?

postername1

i never met a pakistani, but from what i heard about them over in england, i'm just gonna say no thanks

lawred2

Richard Hillman wrote: »

Check out @GulBukhari’;s Tweet: https://twitter.com/GulBukhari/status/1058348196366336000?s=09

Urm few lads whacking cars with sticks is definitely not the worst bit of violence that someone could have recorded in Pakistan

igCorcaigh

https://twitter.com/BNONews/status/1060252828885753861?s=19

She might have been safer in prison...

Has Ireland offered her and her family asylum?

jmreire

Brendan Bendar wrote: »

Any Irish Pubs there?

Well they do have a brewery......in the town of Murree....Its on the road to Muzaffarabad, and any locals purchasing alcohol from there, had to have a signed paper from a Doctor stating that it was medicine for their non-muslim boss. They do whiskey, gin, vodka and beer.

jmreire

lawred2 wrote: »

Urm few lads whacking cars with sticks is definitely not the worst bit of violence that someone could have recorded in Pakistan

For sure it's not the worst bit of violence that Pakistan has seen. And only for the Govt backed down and gave assurances that Asia would not be allowed to leave , and any rioters that had been arrested would be released. It would have gotten much worse.The total cost of the rioting ( so far ) is $ 1.2 Billion......hardly a few lads whacking cars with sticks. They burned a lot of vehicles, and caused a lot of destruction. They were out of control mob's. And they have not given up yet either..they are still demanding that Asia Bibi be produced, and "severely punished" IE; Hanged.

josip

I was in Lahore for a while in the 90s.
Spent most of my time in and around the Christian community.
They were by and large normal like 'us', did the menial jobs and kept their heads down.
But at the time Lahore seemed fairly relaxed.
Even the Wagah border ceremony was performed in good spirit.
The only time I felt uncomfortable was when we went up to Gulshan-e-Iqbal Park and passed through suburbs where militia back from the north openly walked the streets with AK47s.
Gulshan-e-Iqbal Park was the place that was bombed on Easter Sunday 2016.
It's depressing to see the impact that radical Islam can have on a race of people who otherwise would be reasonably sane.