Sunday 22 May 2011

Android

Android developed by Android Inc., the Linux-based operating system that has had people excited since its emergence in 2005. The collaboration with Google and the Open Handset Alliance has seen Android become the world's best selling smartphone platform*. 

Google Inc. released the Android software under a free, open-source license and so the whole Android experience takes on the aspect of a wider, shared collaboration through developers who have written over 200,000 apps for the operating system so far. The great thing is its free.There's an entire open source community out there and if we're ever going to bridge the digital divide, surely open source will play a key factor. Go, Android, Go! 

*Android is also the operating system on my Samsung Galaxy S.

Monday 16 May 2011

د مور او پلار حق

I love the accessibility of Kabir Stori's writing. I owe him a mention as he remains a modern literary master whose published work range from writings on psychology, philosophy, politics to poetry.

Dr Stori died in 2006, but he is impressioned forever, in many of his verses. His signature trick was to have a little mention of himself somewhere (quite often at the end) of his verses. I like this - it's a clever writing device indeed. In this poem, entitled Haq, حق from his Khwagai Misrai خوږې مسرۍ collection, we are reminded of the importance of our parents. Next to our duty of faith and love of Allah, our parents rank very highly. May Allah bless all of ours.

I dedicate this one to mine.
Tor_Khan تور خان

حق


اول حق په هر بنده د خداى غفار دى

پس د داى نه، بيا حق د مور او پلار دى

پس له مرګه به ئى هم روح ناارام وى

چې اخستى چا د مور او پلار ازار دى

په د نيا كى هم ښه ورځ موند لى نه شي

چې خد مت د مور او پلار نه څوك انكار دى

د بخت ستوری به ئى روڼ وي تل تر تله

چې رښتيا د مور او پلار څوك خد متګار دى


ډاکتر کبير ستوری 

Saturday 14 May 2011

Global War: Local Cause?

More than 100 dead; many more injured. 


There is a terrible inevitability about the twin bombings in Charsadda, yesterday morning. Little about it is different from previous bombings. There is the same vicious tactic of two devices - one designed to kill helpers moments after the first blast. There is the familiar target: recruits to the underpaid, under-equipped paramilitary frontier corps. There is a familiar culprit: the Pakistani Taliban, who claimed the attack.

The difference is that this strike comes after the death of Osama bin Laden. It is an attack, claimed in the name of al-Qaida, by Pakistanis on Pakistanis. I'm not the sympathiser, the analyst, nor the strategist here, but I do have a question.

Why?

Why is it that we live in a world where the region to which I owe my personal history continues to be caught up in a war without end? Why is it that Pakistan and the US continue with a delusional marriage that aggravates the suffering? Why is it that Pashtoons appear to be caught up in someone else's war? Why is it that Islam ("peace") has increasingly little to do with this? Why?

The story goes that Osama bin Laden is dead, killed in a secret raid that may/may not have had Pakistani involvement and one that continues to raise questions on the legitimacy - should the US have entered sovereign territory; should bin Laden have been captured and tried; what was the exact narrative of events? Many questions unanswered and perhaps for another time.

But for now I wish to understand the whys I raised earlier. Jason Burke, writes in The Guardian that Osama's "strategy, happily, was not always a successful one ... [many groups across the Middle East] ... rejected Bin Laden's advances, as did others throughout the Far East, the Balkans, the Caucasus and Central Asia."

Global War: Local Cause?
But of those that did sign up, there is a decidedly local dimension which appears first. The global brand of terrorism, such as the Tehrik-e-Taliban-Pakistan, who were responsible for an attempted bombing in New York last year have hitched their local cause to the broader one – against the "Crusader Zionist alliance" or their local hypocrite, infidel, apostate stooges (in this case the Pakistani government and military and all who work for them).

In his article, Burke makes the key point about the appeal for radical groups not being universal across the Muslim world, but points out that "the global language usually disguises local weakness. That of the Pakistani Taliban is that they are not a conservative traditional group battling to preserve age-old customs but a bunch of marginalised men from smaller tribes, without education, without positions in the social hierarchy and who would be nothing without the power of the gun."

... Above all, what the invocation of a dead Saudi-born terrorist's name is aimed at disguising is the truth about the various conflicts that have been conflated into the narrative, in Washington as much as in compounds in Abbottabad, of one single civilisational clash.

In fact, there is no single conflict, simply a nasty mesh of individual wars, most of which pitch countryman against countryman, in Iraq, in Afghanistan and in Pakistan."

Wednesday 4 May 2011

Bakht Zamina - بخت زمينه

There is something incredibly iconic about media personalities who die young - James Dean, Che Guevara, Princess Diana, Madhubala - their images frozen in youth forever. 

Bakht Zamina, بخت زمينه, is amongst those iconic names and was caught up in the conflicts between Soviet loyalists and the resistance at the start of the Afghan troubles beginning in the seventies. Her loyalties to the resistance and her songs of support meant that she ultimately paid with her life.

In perhaps, one of the clearest surviving recordings in the public sphere, she performs Akhtar De Mazedara. One for a glimpse into what was certainly a beautiful past.


Tor_Khan تور خان

Monday 2 May 2011

Osama, Dead.

This is not a good day for Pakistan, despite the announcement of the death of Osama Bin Laden. 

The compound in Abbotabad that Osama Bin Laden was found in was reported to have had high walls, barbed wire and security cameras. Did the intelligence arm of the Pakistan military - the Inter Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI) know he was here less than a 1km away from a military academy?

Since 2005, the US authorities have become increasingly persuaded that the ISI has taken an "a la carte" approach to terrorist groups - picking and choosing which group to support.

Crudely, this boils down to whether the groups act as a hedge against the growing regional influence of India.

Billions in aid is sent every year to Pakistan and if the US assessment is that there were elements within the ISI who did know where Osama Bin Laden was hiding, US relations with Pakistan - already severely strained - could reach crisis point.

... Oh and ... whilst I do know better than to join the conspiracy theory wagon, exactly where are the photographs that prove the death yesterday ...?
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