Musharraf's Historic Speech

Submitted by a [keen] student of islam (India), Oct 5, 2005 at 05:10

Besides the religion they are forced to share, there is no logically conceivable, realistic correlation between an Indian Muslim like Mushy and the Arab Muslim. The latter has been engaged in essentially locally-relevant conflict with his Jewish and Christian neighbors – a conflict that's been blown out of all reasonable proportion to its current grievous global ramifications by Western economic interests. Ethnically, culturally, historically, linguistically, economically, politically – in short, in every plausible way – Mushy and his fellow Pakistanis are undoubtedly as "non-Arab" as Eskimos! His wishful thinking about a "bond" with the Arabia of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and the so-called "golden period" of Arab conquest of Europe are on account of primary compulsions of the religion to which his ancestors were converted at some point of time in history. Musharraf is political head of an avowedly modern state and he had been invited to speak in that primary capacity. His oh-so-solemn use of phrases like "our experiences and histories intertwine" and references to events in far away lands, with which neither he nor the people of Pakistan have an iota of reasonable connection, borders on the ludicrous. But the most uproarious statement, however, must have been his 'acknowledgment, appreciation and approbation' of what he said Jews were doing vis-à-vis Bosnian and American Muslims. In view of an absence of every kind of justification for a complete alien to presumptuously arrogate this privilege, it is strange it didn't evoke off so much as a light titter!

Islam's 14-centuries-old doctrine may not acknowledge instinctive human feelings of territorial, cultural, historical or political allegiance, but hasn't humankind moved on quite a bit towards rationalism since? Musharraf had no reasonable justification for saying many of the things he did, much less so for discussing perfectly imaginary – even contrived - fellow feeling for the Arab and the Central Asian!

It is very curious indeed that while his audience patiently heard him, we now have a plethora of opinion acknowledging his right to say it and actually reading sincerity of intention into his habitually wily posturing!

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