Month: December 2014

The Taliban REALLY Don’t Like Music

The kids take it rather well.
Talibs (or as Tariq Ali says, “the Pakhtoon resistance”) make sure Pakhtoon kids are not destroyed by the evils of rhythm, harmony or melody. You have to click the link below to see the video.

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Post by Shah Khalid Muhammad.

Was Nigel Farage right in blaming immigrants?

The fact of the matter is that the establishment (Tory-Lib-Lab) have left Britain in much weaker circumstances since the end of the Thatcherite era,

  • Immigration is not a qualified evil but nor is it a blessing. It’s the idea of who would you like as your neighbours and who would you want in your house. Ideally one would like to live with one’s relatives (or at best close friends) but as we say in Farsi, Doori Doosti (friends from afar).
  • The fact of the matter is that one should be somewhat in favour of one’s closer connections and citizens. However the metropolitan elite is the middle class (from a financial perspective) living the high life (from a social perspective). The metropolitan elite, being inherently middle class, seeks to disadvantage those who are similarly aspirational. Therefore the interests in importing vaste hordes of unqualified immigrants, who won’t pose a threat this generation or the next.
  • Immigrants cannot be parasitical either in seeking welfare or in perpetuating their cross-generational interests. The idea of immigrants is ultimately to integrate into the wider society (or a certain class). In no way does that qualify as assimilation (I don’t drink and don’t plan too, seeing it as a death-instinct made manifest in the Wasps).
  • I was told that as an immigrant I can’t have sympathies for UKIP. I identify as an BritPak Baha’i and I don’t seek to change British society, merely enhance it where I see sub-optimality. For instance I’m planning to host the Lahori festival of Basant in May Bank holiday, Iranian Christmas (Yalda) around my 30th birthday celebrations and Eid-e-Ridvan (the 12th day of the declaration of Baha’u’llah of his Mission to the World). 
  • In no way do I feel offended or underminded by the traditional Season Greetings, in fact I wish everyone I meet a Happy Christmas and New Year (I feel Merry Christmas is a vulgar Americanism but I could be wrong but it does seem rather common).
That’s all for now.

A Strategic Corporal in Faisalabad

A strategic corporal is a junior level operator whose actions can have huge strategic and political consequences well above his pay-grade.

A strategic corporal may have struck gold this morning in Faisalabad.

Imran Khan’s PTI had given a call to “shut down” the city today. The PMLN leadership had mobilized it’s own supporters/toughs to stop the PTI crowd. In the very first confrontation on Monday morning, someone in the PMLN crowd took out a pistol and shot directly at the PTI crowd several times. He has been caught on tape:

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I have not yet heard any report of his arrest or even his identification. It is likely that he will turn out to be some low-level member of the PMLN crowd. Though it is still possible that he will turn out to be an agent provocateur, working for some intelligence agency; of course if he really works for an intelligence agency, he may never be caught in the intelligence republic of Ghaibistan. Anyway, we may find out some day. But one thing is already clear: his killing has energised Imran Khan’s floundering protest campaign and if current clashes accelerate, it may be the spark that starts a prairie fire. In that sense, the actions of this low-level operative, whether an operative of the PMLN (most likely), the LEJ or an intelligence agency; may have very far-reaching strategic consequences.

What strategic consequences?
1. A prolonged agitation that leads to military intervention (direct, or indirect via intelligence agencies and an engineered national government). Such intervention to be followed by a hard-paknationalist regime and then by carefully managed elections (if we get that far). To be followed by an Imran Khan regime under military supervision?
2. A prolonged agitation that is suppressed by force and that delegitimizes the PMLN regime even if it holds on.
3. A collapse of the state and rearrangement of it’s borders and it’s fundamental characteristics (least likely in my opinion, but then again, how likely did a breakup seem in early 1970?)

Or do you think this will blow over?
Inquiring minds want to know.


Power Lunch 8 December 2014 Tahreek e Insaf kamyab by DinNews

Brown Pundits