Gay rights, American Muslims and religious laws

American Muslims! do you want American Laws to be based on religion? if not then why all the arguments against gay marriage are coming from religion?

If you have been to Muslim gathering, especially for Jummah namaz, you would have met many concerned muslims and heard ceremons from the pulpits. I did…..

Recent declaration by Obama to end descrimination against Gays marrige rights have stirred quite a bit of uneasynes among religious leadership (if there is something like that in Muslim community of America)

In masajids you might be Imam mentioning gay rights and getting angry on that. You will hear things like they are going to indocternate the children, if we alow gays getting married then next they will going to allow sex with animals, and even you might hear the argument it is slippery slop if we tolerate gays getting married next it might be having sex with kids (yup, for a second i could not believe when I heard such arguments), one Imam pointed out that your child might come home and say dad today my teacher Ms. Jeniffer’s husband came to visit her and her name was Andrea, what you are going to say to them.

I will not go in details about “question of consent” which an animal can’t give. Or Muslim children grow in America where most of the kids are having sex (straight or not) or atleast know that kids around them have boy friends or girl friends. So how traumatic their teacher having gay husband would be?

I will not even go and discuss that in this society people of any inclination are having sex with who ever they want and are open about it, so is big fuss is just giving them legal rights (which as a human they must have) not the physical act itself?

Keep all these aside, and acknowledging that all Ibrahimic religions (Jeudaism, Christianity and Islam) view being gay a sinful act. Question is which one of these wants to have American laws defined according to the religion? Do jews and muslims want America to have Christian laws? If not then why the reasoning they are presenting is coming from the religion?

Why I only hear God has forbiden this act, Allah destroyed a nation for that, ……. where are other detailed reasonings. Because if we start having religious argument here, where it will stop. Why not next have discussion about who could actually be called Christian or Jew or Muslim? Why not go ahead and ban any criticism of any religion? But then who will define religion? Why should Christians accept Islam to be religion? if they do then why not some Spagheti God? Should punishments be also derived from Bible, old and new Testaments?

American Muslims should know better, religious arguments about laws will lead to religions laws and those laws might not be ones that let minorities flourish.

 

concerns on Dean Abernathy’s vague proposal

{for people who don’t know what’s going around, have a look at http://saveufcise.wordpress.com/the-outcry/}

Dean Abernathy posted her proposal (http://www.eng.ufl.edu/news/special-announcement-by-the-dean-cammy-r-abernathy/ on 14th of April) as “special announcement”. Keeping aside that this is the first time students got official access to the proposal, this 3 page proposal is so vague, without proper studies and references that I fear if it was grant request, it will be rejected by any NSF or any other grant agency. Without input from stakeholders or future cost/benefit  analysis it does not even stands as initial business plan.  We, students of CISE, don’t question her integrity, work ethics or good intentions, but that’s what we are scared of  that this is not well thought proposal.

I would like to concentrate on the Key Highlights and Clarification section, especially the portion under “Key  considerations regarding proposed CISE restructure:”

• It is stated that undergraduate is already co-administrated by the CISE and ECE, but fails to state that there was committee formed by Dean Abernathy that recommended how the undergraduate courses could be managed keeping the current structure intact.
• The web post goes on to state that the restructure will allow elimination of the duplication. Mantra that there is duplication is being drummed without providing any proof. One would expect that this conclusion has been reached after a detailed study about the courses offered by both departments. Dean is not able to cite any such study. Infact she herself indicated the CISE faculty is not happy with it and now we know  CISE faculty has previously rejected merger with ECE, which indicates that they don’t believe there is serious overlap between the two departments especially in the graduate level courses.
• Statement cites Georgia Tech where computer science is housed in engineering department. Again failing to tell that Georgia Tech has “College of Computing”  and “Interactive Computing” also. Further look at their Computer and Engineering College will reveal that they have sizeable computer science faculty.Whereas Dean Abernathy’s proposal will only move 10 or 15 computer science Faculty member ot ECE, even that she says will depend upon whom ECE wants to invite. Funding, grants and people politics might result in far fewer computer science faculty members in the ECE to offer a viable computer science program.
• Third and fourth points, I am sorry to state, are totally unsubstantiated. With less than one third computer science faculty in ECE and all the current CISE students in ECE, how can you run a research program? Especially when half of the faculty will be Teach-Only position lingering in the halls of CISE, forced to teach without giving any facility to do research.

I would request her reconsider her proposal, form committee of her peers (faculty members of ECE, CISE, ISE and BME) let them help her in making these decisions. I wish Dr. Abernathy good luck, because if she makes a wrong decision College Of Engineering will lose enrollment and thus great source of revenue and pride: that is their students. One hopes provost and president of UF will take a serious interest and save CISE.

Thanks

 

Syria?

How many people will more die before something is done?

That’s the question that keeps popping in mind, that’s question everyone is asking,

As simple as the question is, answer is not that straight one. Question should be when and how should other countries get involve? Should forces be sent, will sanctions will work? if force is used to what extent and what is objective? Remove the regime? replace it with what? with whom?

While I am writing these words, I keep thinking about the people who are dying, I keep seeing the face of journalist Marie Colvin.

I saw her talking about Syria just yesterday on CNN. I remember her because of her having that eye-patch.

Then those faceless people who are dying come into my mind. All the questions that I have put before, they all are valid, but to the person protecting his/her family do they matter?

One has to ask why we need Arab League and IOC if they will not do anything.

 

Maya Khan Fired; Pakistani social media’s firstblood ?

When Maya Khan took out the camera and start filming people in the parks, she did not knew what will happen afterwards, she had not expected that Social Media will go crazy on that. Youtube clips of Maya-Khan Squad rounding the couples and humiliating them made everyone cringe,……. Facebook hummed her name, blog after blog start appearing criticizing her, then some portion of main-media actually took notice, (tribune was posting blogs already) BBC’s urdu section without naming her wrote a wonderful piece. (Aap Toa Naeb-e-Khuda Hean), she tried to give half hear-ted apology which was more of explanation with an ounce of showing that she understands why people are angry.

Today, Maya Khan has been fired,

I was not expecting that, did not knew Pakistani social media could be a little powerful,  did not fathomed that criticism by the public can force cooperate’s hand to correct the mistake, we are the nation where 100 people die due to medicine-reaction and no one cares, but here it happened, sound was too loud to be muted.

Is this Pakistani social media’s first blood, I don’t know but it is one quite visible one. It’s power, let’s use it properly and effectively? Next topic? Medicine companies? well if not big shots atleast we will be able to mute out the people who announce Kafir Fatwas on Tv.

 

youtube and Gmail Account?

No I don’t want you to automatically login me to the youtube through gmail account, I never made youtube one because I don’t want to make. No thanks I don’t want you to track which videos I have see and what songs I am listening, if you have not noticed that I could have done that by signing up for youtube account, which I did not.

I want to keep my life in different compartments, facebook for socializing, gmail for emailing and youtube for listening songs and mocking cat videos. I don’t want to mix them up. I don’t want youtube suddenly start telling me because I emailed some XYZ guy right now and he likes certain song, I must like it also. He might be some undergrad student wasting my time asking stupid question about the stuff that he would have known if he was not facebooking during lecture.

And no I don’t want to suddenly start telling my friends that I am suddenly listening more Nicki Minaj instead of Adele or no more cat videos That’s scary.

To be serious, I want google to ask me before logging in me to some service, request an approval. Don’t just assume that I will like to co-sign my two accounts and share the information.

Yes google provide me link to opt-out, I don’t want “Easy Login” you are selling. If I need I will login to each website I want to login.

 

RIP Wikyleaks

No, Wikileaks is not gone, it’s still there; but from now it will loose the support it enjoyed from the media outlets and proper journalism community. It feels like it never really appreciated that. By releasing unredacted cables, it has made extremely difficult (if not impossible) for people to defend their actions.

With many newspapers behind him, Assange was able to ward off the major criticism from even many of his supporters; documents were being read by the many News Organizations, things that were too dangerous to be released were being withheld; a reasonable precaution everyone agreed. Such precautions kept many names secret, made sure that peoples lives were not endangered, it protected Wikileaks from claims of hampering National Security and all that most importantly provided wikileaks some credibility, more support.

Wikileaks did what will change the world forever or viewing of history forever. Although no govt. fell because of it no radical change came. In Pakistan, release of such documents just validated what people already knew about the leaders, but no one expected resignations, no one seriously demanded them and no one gave any; not even explanations. American govt. accused it to be playing in the hands of enemies and many in Arab countries cried these documents to be planted by America it self (e.g. Iran on the quotes about it by heads of Gulf countries)

It did changed of what we viewed as “Confidential” and raised the question what governments should declare confidential and what they should not. It strengthened that people who are not directly working in the Journalist organisations can work with them to present ground-breaking news. Wikileaks was blogging getting bigger and reaching a milestone, a natural evolution of what everyone thought WWW will be; a place people can tell what darker things have hidden. And once it was there, there was no hiding, it will reach hundreds and thousands of people, becoming part of history.

Question is do we need everything “Open”; many will agree no, no one wants to all the memos written by every boss at every time circling web, no we don’t want names of sexually abused people on the internet, we want to disclose information about the informants; not because we favor one party or other, because that information can be used to hurt those people; track them and their family down, prosecute them, it can start a witch hunt.

Bigger problem is recent action by Wikileaks destroys the bond it shared with other organizations, they were his shield, they were his backers (even if they did not explicitly stated that), he has lost the partners now.  With loss of his partners he will loose his voice and impact factor. Just data cannot make news, you need people of credible repute to connect dotes, make story from fragments of information, make big picture, verify and clarify. Those people will be more hard to be found.

 

Osama dead, Why Pakistan is silent?

Right now every one must have known that Osama has died. The ghost that haunted the world and was main poster boy of terrorism has finally met his end.

Where was he found? Pakistan, not in mountains, not near border, in ABBOTTABAD. Not in some jungle far away from civilization; right in the city.  (Someone has put the location now on the google map)

Right now all the news is coming is from US, that he has been killed, mainly by operation from US forces with Pakistan’s help;

More interesting point is Pakistan is silent.  Why? is the question that is quite confusing. If we played some role, which I want to believe we really did, why are we not coming out and saying, congratulating our forces and agencies for finding him. More silent we will remain more wind we will give to speculations and spins. It is such an important event.

Also we should take responsibility, explain to our people why he was living in Pakistan, for how long was he living in Pakistan.  Why we were not able to track him down before?

It’s not an era where you can assume that by remaining silent you can avoid the questions. Own the responsibility, own the actions we have to taken to stop the terrorism. President and prime-minister please take a leadership role.

{While our govt. is silent, Live updates are coming twitter from Sohaib Athar http://twitter.com/#!/ReallyVirtual, it appears he was in Abbottabad and was tweeting the incidents without knowing what actually was going around.

Well he is on the New York Observer  Sohaib Athar: The Guy Who Live-Tweeted Osama Bin Laden’s Death}

It’s becoming more and more embarrassing by each minute,  according to Omar Waraich PMA was just a kilometer away from compound, even Hameed Gul is saying “That Bin Laden could be in Abbottabad unknown to authorities “is a bit amazing”" (guardian live blog).  Keeping mum will not wash away the huge embarrassement, tackle the issues that have created this embarassement.

 

Salman Taseer’s Murder: Belt up to fight the intolerance

You must have heard the Parent example for rationalizing violence, The Parent example goes like this, with little variations; “If a shopkeeper curses your father and uses —- words for your mother, will you beat the heck out of him or not?”  This is most used example to justify violence especially in the cases related to Blasphemy. Well I can beat the heck out of that guy but then I will spend years in the jail.  Most importantly from when the Emotional Responses become basis for actions, judge might reduce my punishment but punishment I will get.  Question should not be what I will do, question should be what Law says.

Why I am telling you about this?

When I heard about Salman Taseer’s murder I was thinking it will result in huge change in Pakistan

After just few hours I know what direction we are going. In all the media not one religious scholar has clearly condemned the killing. Fazl-ur-Rehman have included the phrases, that hint that they hold Salman Taseer to be responsible for his murder.  Some other religious and non-religious leaders were clearly saying that he should have been more careful in presenting his views.

Fan page has been setup on the Facebook for that murderer,  he is being called Ghazi by some religious group openly, a guy on twitter is sending salutes to the killer, Adil Najam of Pakistaniat.com is getting threatening comments on his blog, the people on the news channels are rationalizing actions of Malik Mumtaz, some religious leaders are advising against offering funeral prayers, and list continuous.

It’s time to belt up and stand up against the intolerance; it’s time to start telling “No it is not Ok for some one to be whacked up for what he/she has said”

No, no one should be declared Non-Muslim for their views, it’s only their right to declare their faiths.

It’s time to start asking our leadership for condemning such actions.

If we will stand up, if we don’t speak up; we might see people been killed for even things smaller that this. I was horrified to see a guy saying those who question Blasphemy Law are hurting feelings of people of Pakistan and then in not so open phrases defending the killer. This all appeared like threat to other people who criticize Blasphemy Law made by Zia-ul-Haq.

Let’s raise the voice so that Mumtaz Qadri does not become hero, we should be strong to disallow creation of other Mumtaz Qadri’s, we should make enough noise so that people should think twice before supporting a murderer.

 

P.S.

I hate terrorists, not only because they kill people. But also because they make Martyr out of those who should not be respected; first Zia should have been hanged he became Shaeed, Benazir should have been tried for all the corruption and mismanagement she was made Shaheeda and now Suleman Taseer who should have been removed from governorship (for bullying the elected govt. of Punjab not on his stance against Blasphemy laws) and spend rest of days thinking about days in governorship has become Shaheed.

But all things aside, his death will play an important role here in which direction Pakistan has to go. He is high profile enough to not let the matter die for weeks. It will be interesting to know what khutbaas are given during Friday prayers; and how people react when Malik Mumtaz is tried in the courts.

 

 

Governor Salman Taseer assassinated by intolerance

Governor of Punjab Pakistan Salman Taseer has been murdered by his own guard citing that Governor called Blasphemy laws black laws. How much intolerance we can live with? Where is freedom of expression? Can we not criticize a law made by humans?

Killer Mumtaz Qadri is not sole responsible, we all are. Our media anchors, our columnist, our religious scholars and our intellectuals, we all are.

One of the the worst part is there was rumor (according to the TV. Channels) that Salman Taseer was about to removed from Governor’s post. The guy who should have been thrown out of the govt. has now become Pakistan’s hero.

I never liked this guy not because he was vocal against the Blasphemy laws, I respect him for that, but his overall behavior was more of the bully than a respected governor.  Now it’s really hard time for me to say anything against him; he is dead and has been killed for one thing I hold dear, Freedom of Expression.

Let’s not let this person’s spilled blood go waste, let’s start pushing for more open attitude, making people realize that no one will be safe if we let this intolerance attitude prevail.

 

No, nothing Burned in Gainesville; only Candles of Unity were lit

I received an email from Pakistan asking whether Quran was burned or not? Email highlighted suspicion that Tery Jones of Dove Church went ahead with his plans and somehow Govt. of Pakistan is

blocking this news. This view was also part of column published by Express Pakistan, although author did not did anything to stop such suspicions.

So let me state, nothing was burned in Gainesville. That evening Gainesville saw one of the most amazing gathering, where citizens of Gainesville regardless of faith, beliefs, social statuses and views came together to celebrate diversity of Gainesville.  A vigil was held to represent Unity and Peace in community.  The news was covered by Sun Gainesville. When candles were lit and silence was held, the downtown plaza was looking heavenly, beautiful,…….

I don’t know about other cities, but following video is another example of  how people protested to stop Quran Burning.  If you go till end, a Muslim guy tells us about people who placed their hands on the grill.

The person who emailed me has emailed back telling they have confirmation somewhere Quran was burned and they are going to protest. I want to tell everyone, protesting is your right but when you protest do remember these people. When you shout anti—— slogans, do shout slogans in the praise of these people. Let’s spread peace and harmony, let’s balance our stories of Dove Church with the stories of Trinity Church of Gainesville, Jewish Rabbi in Gainesville,  Veteran for peace and hundreds of faceless people, who stood not because they love Islam, but because they love humans regardless of their faith and views.

Peace