WHAT WE R TEACHING OUR CHILDREN REVIEW PAKISTAN TODAY

http://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2011/09/the-review-25th-september/

change of website & email addresses of awami jamhori forum

new issue no 52 will come in a week

           our new website is
www.ajfpk.org
www.ajfpk.org

 

email addresses are as follows

Editor:
Amir Riaz 
editor@ajfpk.org 

Joint Editors:
Kalib Ali Sheikh 
ksheikh@ajfpk.org
Pervaiz Majeed 
pmajeed@ajfpk.org

Art Editor:
Qaisar Nazir Khawar
qnkhawar@hotmail.com 
Advertisements & Circulation: 
Rana Abdur Rehman

sales@ajfpk.org   

 

Pakistan: A personal History by Imran Khan

excerpts r also in urdu too attached below as images along with title. the book is available at readings, Lahore and other famous book stores. Pakistani price 995

Excerpts

1.                   Though Iqbal lived in a historical context that was different from ours in several ways, what he said remains profoundly relevant to us and to our times. In fact, Iqbal’s message is more relevant and important today than that of any other Muslim thinker of the past and present… (Page 319)

2.                   While some famous verses from Iqbal’s poems are often cited in isolation, the core message of his poetry, reflecting his revolutionary spirit, his intrepid imagination and his passionate commitment to justice and the dignity of selfhood, has been excluded from public discourse. (Page 320).

3.                   The decay and decline in Islamic intellectual thought, according to Iqbal, set in five hundred years ago when the doors to ijtihad, a scholarly debate on our religion and its tradition, were closed. (Page 326)

4.                   The third and probably most decisive factor was the Mongols’ destruction in 1258 of Baghdad – the centre of Muslim intellectual life. Had the Mongol hordes not taken over swathes of the Muslim world, our history might have been very different. (Page 327)

5.                   The Quran asks Muslims to follow the ‘Middle Way’, the narrow path that lies between all possible extremes. (Page 335)

6.                   The best weapon against fundamentalism is enlightened Islam. (Page 323)

7.                   According to WikiLeaks, our former finance minister, Shaukat Tarin, asked the US ambassador Anne Patterson how much aid was being given to the Pakistan army. Never again should such a situation be allowed to arise. Neither should our army chief ever be allowed to talk directly to the US or any other government. (Page 363)

8.                   Although I had heard tales about the IJT, I had not fully realized the kind of people they were. Everyone on the campus of the university is scared of them. Once known for their ideological views and great discipline, they known for their ideological views and great discipline, they appear to have degenerated into a kind of mafia or fascist group operating inside the university, bearing guns and beating people up. They stifle debate in an educational establishment that has in its time produced two Noble Laureates… (Page 2)

9.                   For me, the high point of US moral authority was after the Second World War, when the Nazis, who were responsible for the deaths of over 30 million, were given a fair trial. Churchill wanted them summarily executed but Roosevelt insisted on a trial. In the words of Justice Robert Jackson, the chief United States prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials: ‘If certain acts of violation of treaties are crimes, they are crimes whether the United States does them or whether Germany does them, and we are not prepared to lay down a rule of criminal conduct against others which we could not be willing to have invoked against us.’ This was a show of clemency and moral universalism not accorded Muslims since 9/11. (Page 237)

10.               My mother always knew that one of the things I hated most was being forced to do something. The more somebody tried to make me a better Muslim through fear or pressure, the more I would resist. (Page 105)

11.               Most of the struggles against colonialism in the twentieth century were led by people who had studied in the West. Jinnah, Gandhi and Nehru all had the opportunity to see Western democratic societies in action and were inspired to campaign for the same rights for their countrymen. My own awareness of democracy, the rule of law and the welfare state was a awakened when I first went to England to study. (Page 314)

12.               Even in the nine-tenth century during  the twilight days of India’s Mughal Empire, when Syed Ahmed Barelvi founded a revolutionary Islamic movement it failed to take hold. Barelvi preached jihad against non-Muslims influences and tried to rally the Pashtun tribes to his cause but they disliked his rigid brand of Islam and abandoned him, leaving him to be slain by the Sikhs who had at that time conquered the settled Pashtun areas. (Page 296/97)

13.               There is a strong Sufi influences in Pakistan, which will always be at odds with the strict literal islam of Wahhabi ideology that influences many militant groups. This tension is represented by the two main schools of thought for Sunni Muslims in Pakistan. Barelvis typically lean towards South Asia’s traditional brand of Sufi Silam with its saints and shrines and message of tolerance. Deobandis, on the other hand, are more ideologically aligned with the Wahhabis and are therefore more sympathetic to the Taliban’s version of Islam. (Page 297)

Textbooks ‘help’ Punjabis forget their identity by STM in Dawn 13th september 2011

Textbooks ‘help’ Punjabis forget their identity

By Shafqat Tanvir Mirza | From the Newspaper

Out of 165 lessons included in the textbooks of Urdu and Pakistan study meant for 6th, 7th and 8th classes for students of Punjab there are only three lessons about the ancient history of Punjab, six about the urban life and seven about the rural life and only four using cultural shades of Punjab. These books have been authored by Punjabis and produced by Punjabis who have totally forgotten the identity of their province because they have not got knowledge through their mother tongue and are quite unaware of the great history of the area.

The above facts and figures have been quoted from a report tilted, “Hum apney bachon ko kia parrha rahey hein” written by Aamir Riaz, a known intellectual and analyst. It is about the books prepared and published by the Punjab Textbook Board for 6th to 10th classes. These books include the subjects of English, Urdu, Islamiyat, Pakistan Study and Ethics. This report was presented and discussed at a meeting arranged by Actionaid on Thursday last.

Here in the meetings the most well-represented and vocal groups was that of officials of the Punjab Textbook Board and they took more of the time meant for discussion. All they have to do was to defend their faux pas which were not committed by them but by the writers, authors or reviewers or policymakers sitting in Islamabad.

They could not justify wrong translations of Lahore Resolution and Allama Iqbal’s address of Allahabad of 1930. The compiler also asserted that Muhammad Ali Jinnah had given the status of lingua franca to Urdu in his Dhaka speech and instead of lingua franca the word national was inserted.

In the case of personalities from Punjab emerged during the British period who worked for the rights of Punjab none was given even the status of “also mentioned in dispatches” and they are Mian Muhammad Shafi, Sir Shahabuddin, Mian Fazale Husain, Sir Sikander Hayat, Nawab Mamdot, Mumtaz Daultana, Mian Iftikharuddin and many others.

The Lucknow Pact has been mentioned but its rejection and condemnation by Mian Shafi and Allama Iqbal has been totally ignored. The most important point and turn in the struggle of the Muslim India for independence is the acceptance of the Cabinet Mission Plan by Jinnah and the Muslim League which envisaged a united India where all the rights of the Muslims were guaranteed.

This is historically the most important chapter of the Muslim League’s effort to extend political tolerance and acceptance of ground realities. This episode also shows the myopic approach of the Congress and its important leaders including Mahatma Gandhi, Pandit Nehru and Valabh Bhai Patel (who had spent a lot of money on Punjab and Sindh candidates opposing Muslim League candidates) … the trio which could not tolerate the assertion of rights for the Muslims.

With the missing of Cabinet Mission Plan from the textbooks, the young students are fed with the alleged narrow mindedness of Jinnah and his comrades. There is another aspect that many of the Indian writers belonging to different religious communities have justified the role of Jinnah and his Muslim League (not the Muslim Leagues of Raiwind, Gujrat, Deepalpur, Rawalpindi and London based).

Here another aspect must not be forgotten that Abul Kalam Azad, the great ally of Congress and Nehru, in his book India Wins Freedom criticizes Nehru for rejecting the Cabinet Mission Plan when he succeeded Abul Kalam Azad as the president of the Congress. The fact was that the Congress under the presidentship of Abul Kalam had almost accepted the Cabinet Mission Plan.

Another aspect of our political history is that the Muslim League of Punjab in 1945 gave a manifesto which was called a socialist manifesto even by the political rivals, in which radical agrarian reforms and nationalization of basic industry and transport was also promised.

Incidentally, the most important rather damaging the majority provinces like Punjab and Bengal was the Communal Award which made the two provinces minority Muslim provinces while their weightage was given to Muslim minority provinces like UP, Behar, Bombay, Madras etc. This award was criticized by Allama Iqbal and ultimately Chaudhry Khaliquzzama, the leader of UP Muslim League in his book “Pathway to Pakistan”, said had there been no Communal Award there would not have been the partition of Punjab and Bengal.

The fact is that some Urdu speaking chauvinists just forget to refer to the political sacrifice of Bengal and Punjab for minority provinces on their own hardcast and claim themselves as the exclusive champions of the Pakistan Movement and among them now the most important person and party are M. Altaf Husain and his Mohajir (Mutahidda) Qaumi Movement whose mindset is that it were they who should have been the permanent rulers of Pakistan because it is their and only their achievement.

Being Urdu-speaking they take themselves as superior to others and that also on a language basis because their mother tongue has been made the national language. That is why it was tried to be imposed in former East Pakistan with the help of bullets.

They also tried to browbeat Sindhi in Sindh while the Urdu had captured Punjab since the annexation of 1849. And that is the only reason that authors of textbooks and all those who are associated with the work are totally unaware of the history, language, literature, culture, economy, prosperity and the resistance of Punjab since Alexander’s period.

One is not sure whether the war of Punjabis against Nadir Shah, Ahmad Shah Abdali and the remains of those wars have been mentioned in textbooks or not. But one thing is sure that poetic expression of Waris Shah, Bulleh Shah, Ali Haider, Nijabat and Khwaja Farid has not been conveyed to younger generations and that is tragedy inflicted by Punjabis themselves.

PTB books: A case of `teaching mistakes`

THE Punjab Textbook Board’s Urdu, English, Pakistan Studies and Islamiyat/Ethics textbooks are littered with various mistakes that range from altogether wrong information, misinformation and lack of updated information. These mistakes are instrumental in fanning hatred, widening rural-urban divide besides causing biases at cultural, communal, sectarian and gender levels. The PTB curriculum review committees have failed to identify the mistakes – primarily because neither they involve experts from civil society nor the elected representatives and run its activities behind closed doors.
A series of mistakes have recently been identified in 34 Urdu, English, Pakistan Studies and Islamiyat/Ethics textbooks being taught at Class-I to X level by education consultant Amir Riaz. He has published his research report on PTB textbooks titled “What are we teaching to our children?”
Mr Riaz launched his report and gave a multi-media presentation at a consultative meeting, which was attended by representatives of PTB, various NGOs, intellectuals, writers and media persons at a local hotel last week.
PTB Director (Humanities) Shahida Javaid`s statement was most interesting as she said, “If this analysis had been presented a few months back, the mistakes in textbooks for 2012 would have been removed.” She said the board would try to republish all books, which contained objectionable material against any minority as well as misquotations.
Mr Riaz said there were glaring mistakes in Urdu translation of historic Lahore Resolution 1940, Quaid-i-Azam`s speech at Decca (now Dhaka) and famous Allahbad address of Allama Muhammad Iqbal. In Class-VIII Pakistan Studies textbook, he said, the translation of 1940 Resolution was different from the words printed at Minar-i-Pakistan. He showed a slide of the text printed in the book as well as the text written on Minar-i-Pakistan.
Referring to misinformation tantamount to ignoring former prime minister Nawaz Sharif`s contribution, Mr Riaz stated that the authors did not include motorway among famous Pakistani roads in Pakistan Studies textbooks for Class-V at page-57 and Class-IX textbook (page-73).
Similarly in Pakistan Studies textbook for Class-IX and X at page-65, he said there was a chapter on Atomic Energy but the authors were neither ready to give credit to the elected prime minister nor to mention his name. He said the situation was same in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan, Sindh and Islamabad.
He also observed that it was astonishing that even rulers of Punjab had no time to read the curriculum once as it contained hatred material against their party. He said dictators had been praised in all textbooks which were published in an era of democracy.
Mr Riaz said the textbooks` analysis showed that less than 10 per cent content related to peace and tolerance. Citing an example, he said, there were 165 lessons in Urdu and Pakistan Studies books for Classes-VI, VII and VIII that included 58 lessons on religion including 57 on Islam. He said none of these 58 lessons carried reference to any other religion or character that reflected positivity. On a serious note, Mr Riaz stated that four out of 58 lessons spoke against certain Muslim schools of thoughts.
Referring to lack of information about Punjab for students studying PTB textbooks in Punjab, he said, all the 34 books had 871 lessons, while only 35 lessons contained information about Punjab, which was less than five per cent. Stating that the textbooks also reflected gender bias, he said the lessons excluding science, geography, environment and a part of poetry, showed that 210 lessons contained male characters, while women characters were shown only in eight lessons that constituted less than one per cent. The portrayal of women in pictures is also not suitable and tantamount to gender bias. The education consultant suggested that transparency and consultation could be the only way out to have a balance, unbiased and appropriate curriculum and textbooks. He suggested that the PTB should constitute review bodies that should have representatives from the civil society and the elected representatives.
He also suggested that the PTB should be strengthened as a regulatory body and empowered to monitor all types of textbooks being used by public and private sectors as well as madressahs.
The PTB director (Humanities) invited Mr Riaz in the review committee to explain mistakes and give suggestions to update the syllabus.
Writer and columnist Shafqat Tanvir Mirza said primary education must be imparted in mother tongue as it would help children learn easily. He said now Urdu must make room for Punjabi otherwise the tussle between the two languages would continue.

Annually, he said, some 100,000 students selected Punjabi subject in matriculation examination of Lahore Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education alone, while there was not a single teacher available in schools falling under the jurisdiction of the Lahore board.http://www.dawn.com/2011/09/12/ptb-books-a-case-of-teaching-mistakes.html

BENAZIER BHUTOO'S ODYSSES

http://issuu.com/loungemagazine/docs/review_49_for_web/8BENAZIER BHUTTO...A REVIEW

BOOK IS AVAILABLE AT BOOK HOME 37231518

why left is moving in circles: a review of sadia toor book in the NEWS ON SUNDAY

Divided we fall

In her book, Saadia Toor tries to explain how the struggle among Marxists, democrats, liberals and nationalists was influenced and eventually engulfed by the agenda of the religious right

By Aamir Riaz

http://www.jang.com.pk/thenews/sep2011-weekly/nos-11-09-2011/lit.htm#2

A new voice on the scene: uthal pathal review in the News on Sunday sept 11/2001

t

review in the News on Sunday

A new voice on the scene

http://www.jang.com.pk/thenews/sep2011-weekly/nos-11-09-2011/lit.htm#1

A new voice on the scene

study launched regarding text books