Voice of a lost generation

Most fascinating has been Jagjit’s universal appeal which touched millions of lives around the world and helped them connect. One is  amazed by the spontaneous outpouring of grief across the border in Pakistan. Hours after his death, Pakistani television networks paid fulsome tributes to the singer, vying with those across the border It’s not often that you see Pakistani media shower such unqualified and unreserved praise on an artist from the other side. Which incidentally holds true for Indian media as well. As India and Pakistan mourn the singer, we are once again struck by all that the separated at birth twins have in common despite the unpleasantness of the past few decades and wars they have fought on and off the field.

Despite the best efforts of our perpetually scheming politicians, to divide us and poison our relations, what unites and bonds us, Indians and Pakistanis, is still greater than what divides us. From music to culture to literature and from food to sports to arts, the things that ordinary people of India and Pakistan share is truly mind-boggling. 

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THERE HAS NEVER BEEN A GREATER NEED TO SPEAK OUT FOR LOVE, PEACE AND REASON – AND NOT JUST IN SOUTH ASIA 

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by Aijaz Zaka Syed

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Note for WoP readers: In the following post, Aijaz Zaka Syed recounts the life and times and the art – of that great performing soul, called Jagjit Singh. Stirring millions of hearts with his melodious numbers Jhuki jhuki si nazar and Kaagaz ki kashti, Jagit Singh infused a new life in the dying genre of music in the eighties and carved a niche for himself in the Bollywood.

 Jagjit Singh was indeed a marvel in the art of ghazal singing ad as rightly said by Zaka he made ghazal a popular genre when in the subcontinent modern disco jingles were ruling the roost.

The pain and melancholy in his voice gave vent to the feelings of many a lonely heart.

Note: This YouTube video may be copyrighted material. We make use of such material available to our readers under the provisions of “fair use” only. If you wish to use copyrighted material for purposes other than “fair use” you must request permission from the copyright owner.

I remember in the 1980’s when his CD’s came into the Pakistani market, I bought one of his ghazals CD which carried his most impressive ghazal [my most favourite one too] sarakti jayay hae rukh se naqab aahista ahista. Interestingly Zaka missed this wonderful rendition, but to me it has always been like his signature tune.

Another aspect which endeared him to us in the Punjab was his very frequent telling of some joke which he narrated with such finesse that you enjoyed his jokes as much as you did his ghazal singing.

In the later period, when he lost his young son Vivek [Vivek used to accompany him in singing] more pain, melancholy and sadness crept into Jagjit’s soul and he stopped jokes which he used to do before starting his ghazals.

Jagjit was one of the most successful and loved artistes of his time, who has left behind a huge body of work in a career spanning five decades, including 80 albums. [Nayyar]

*****

This is one of those times when words fail us pen pushers. Men like Jagjit Singh defy and transcend platitudes and unoriginal sobriquets such as “end of an era” and “Ghazal King.” The gifted singer, who passed away this week in New Delhi, strutted the world of South Asian music and ghazal singing like a colossus, earning himself popularity that at times seemed to surpass that of Mehdi Hassan, the original emperor of the genre who has inspired generations of artists, including Jagjit Singh himself.

Environmental Crisis and Self-Destructive Imperialism

With our current bad habits, would we be able to save our planet! African nuclear scientist Jamal.S.Shrair throws light on this very pertinent issue of the day and warns on where to we are heading.

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Jamal S. Shrair

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The present environmental crisis was triggered by the industrial revolution. As the industrial age started to progress the problem became visible, but it was simply ignored. From the beginning of the industrial revolution until the last two decades of the 20th century, we paid no attention to the pollution of our common home. The only important things were maximum profit and minimum loss, industrial expansion, especially that of the military industries which served the aims of colonialism, irrational ideological struggle, hegemony, power politics, etc.

The lack of a rational economic order is certainly the primary cause of the problem:

The resources of the planet are unwisely exploited, the motivation being to make as much profit as possible within the shortest possible time, while waste is being dumped wherever it is the cheapest to do so, such as in the oceans. There is no doubt that with a small fraction of what we have already wasted from the resources of the planet, the entire present world population could have prospered and enjoyed a very high standard of living if only we possessed – and practised – a higher level of social consciousness than we have done in the past one hundred years. As an example, the total military expenditure in the USA and former USSR in the 1980s alone (!) reached one trillion USD.

Now, however, there are urgent steps which should be taken to ameliorate the environmental crisis. Firstly, productive methods and activities, including the way of life in all advanced and the developing nations must change. We still only have this planet to live on, which has a finite space and mostly non-renewable resources. The earth cannot provide an unlimited number of individuals with a good material life. Therefore, irrational material growth and unrestricted demographic growth ultimately imply a lower standard of living. Secondly, population growth in the developing countries which the developed countries also worry about, must slow down and may be finally stopped altogether, aided by increased economic prosperity.

PRIORITIES

In our time, market forces should play a secondary role, not a primary one. We cannot afford to let them operate freely, because the environmental issue is outside the interest and the domain of the market forces. Local and global planning is what we need and should be the priority. Long-term goals must be specified and short-term goals made consistent with them.

The specification of production techniques, entailing the materials used, must meet environmental protection requirements. In other words, an integrated technological program to protect our environment must be put into practice so that we can attack the problems, not retroactively, but proactively by thinking about waste before thinking about production.

There is a crying need for new technologies, different materials, new laws and regulations, strictly implemented by local governments. We have to encourage the development of, and investment in, environmentally friendly power, regardless of the costs.

But, we must not give undue weight to the possibility of scientific and technological advances alone when it comes to solving the problems of the environment. Such developments would probably come too late to avert environmental disasters: in the final analysis, any technological advances would merely delay crisis, rather than avoid it, if no fundamental changes in the values of society were to take place. The issue requires more than technical solutions.

THE BIG POLLUTERS

The biggest polluters in the world, are also the ones who hold both the political power and the practical tools for solving most of the basic problems related to the issue of the environment in their countries and the world as a whole. Yet, they are also the ones who are not yet willing to implement or even sign any environmental agreement.

Those biggest polluters do not want to cut their poisonous gas emissions even to the same level as some developing countries. The target they set for their poisonous gas emissions cuts (or rather, the one they promise) is absolutely worth nothing since most environmental scientists have stated clearly that if the degradation of the environment is to stop, then at least a 50% reduction is required of the world’s total emissions.

Instead, therefore, worldwide emissions are still rising.

Those nations are well known, and include all members of the United Nations Security Council. They therefore have a veto power on anything decided by other nations, even if the entire world was to unite around a resolution, as often happens in the General Assembly, it is overturned in the so-called Security Council.

After almost two hundred years of capital accumulation — to a great extent as the result of exploitations and colonization — the developed countries want the developing countries, who are victims of those rich countries pollution, to stop developing their economies! They also expect those developing nations who are now going through the same industrial process as that undergone by the now-developed countries (e.g. China, India, Brazil) to do it in costly and environmentally-friendly fashion, and without the cushion of wealth that colonialism and neo-colonialism gave those now-wealthy nations.

“Get rid of your buses so that the developed countries can have more cars!” they cry, whilst hiding from all environmental statistics the pollution caused by their own Military Industrial Complex which has waged huge wars in many parts of the world, causing untold environmental disaster. Can that not be called the new imperialism?

It would be more accurate to call it self-destructive imperialism, because in a few decades, the degradation of the environment will affect advanced countries just as much as developing ones. The Lobbyist groups of the bourgeoisie of the big polluting nations and the industrialists argue that the environmental issue is exaggerated and it is beyond human control (not man-made!), and they also claim that if there were fundamental changes in society, productivity and output would decrease, which is not in the interest of the people.

Thus, finding a real solution to the environmental crisis under the present economic order is a hopeless task. All these conferences and summits are nothing more than a show business. Even if binding climate agreements can be achieved at these summits they would not be either effective or practically implemented. For example, where is the Kyoto Protocol now? The USA signed it, and Bush upon election, tore it up.

NEW SOCIO ECONOMIC ORDER

It is now becoming increasingly clear every passing day that the present socio-economic order cannot solve the basic problems of our time whether they be social, political or environmental problems. Even the material progress that has been achieved under capitalism is not uniformly distributed at the national or international levels. The absolute majority of humanity is still destitute, living in absolute poverty. More than three billion people live on less than two USD a day. And another one billion is on the brink of starvation. Around 50,000 children die EACH DAY, unreported by the news media.

There would be no harmonious development in any region of the world if one believed one needed only to take consideration of narrow economic questions. The present economic crisis and the financial volatility in the world markets are further proofs that Laissez-faire politics alone is not enough to help developing countries or even developed ones. Therefore, the basic principle that laissez-faire is not a correct policy in our time has established itself. There will be further crashes, turmoil and catastrophes if social and ecological questions are not taken into consideration.

DIRE WARNINGS

The global situation is deteriorating dangerously: there are a number of crises confronting mankind, such as rapid population growth in the third world and rising food prices accelerated by diversion of production of food crops toward bio-fuel crops, deteriorating environment, widespread misery, malnutrition, depletion of non-renewable energy resources and escalating military conflicts in different parts of the world. Though the many proxy wars of the past have come to an end, these have been replaced by a few large scale direct military operations, mainly by the U.S. and its allies.

All these major issues are fundamentally interlinked and depend upon each other. More importantly, the severity of these crises is increasing with time and these crises are in a process of interaction where they might well produce unexpected catastrophes.

The developed nations of the world have to realize that our world needs global and not just local stability and that requires a global strategy. Global stability can become reality only if there will be global equilibrium — equitable distribution of wealth and income worldwide — where the income of the developing countries is substantially improved, both in absolute terms and also relative to the developed nations.

Otherwise, the huge gaps and inequalities in today’s world between the developed and developing countries will continue to grow larger. The outcome in a few decades will be nothing less than a total and irreversible disaster. The global system can no longer tolerate such selfish behaviour, irrational and unrestricted material growth in one section of the planet which is inhabited by only 20% or less of the present world population.

Therefore, we must question the economic model that exists today in the advanced countries, and whether it can be copied by the developing countries in order to develop their economies and reach the same standard of living. This is really a rhetorical question, because this model has been imposed and also it is a precondition not only by the multinational corporations that want to invest in developing countries but also by the “International Monetary Fund / World Bank” for granting loans.

However, a theoretical model showed that if the present world population will reach a Gross National Product per capita equal to that of present-day U.S. Americans, with the same economic model the total pollution load on the environment would be more than 20 times its present values. Can the natural systems of the earth support an intrusion of that magnitude?

CONCLUSION

There can be no doubt even in the mind of the most conservative capitalist that the present economic order has not only failed to prevent or even brought about the outbreak of wars and conflicts among and within the nations of the world, where peace and security should necessarily reign in order to insure the basic requirements for real social development and fundamental human rights, but that this system has also failed miserably to protect our beautiful planet Earth from the dangers of different kinds of pollutions by not creating and maintaining harmony between nature and development.

The secret of nature in all its forms is where the future of the world lies, and if we destroy it due to the absence of a rational economic and social order, we destroy the future of life on earth.

The writer Jamal S. Amar Shrair, whose article as above(edited by Mathaba) is an MSc in High Energy Physics & PhD in Surface Physics and Electron Devices at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics. He  has written a paper entitled “Can Solid-State Nuclear Fusion Reactor Be the Ultimate Green Energy Solution?” which can be downloaded here[.doc].

Source: Mathaba.net

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Think, Americans: What’s Better, Tomahawks Or Michael Jackson?

Michael Jackson: It didn’t take weapons to launch America’s cultural supremacy in the digital age.

They say Muslim nations want war with America. Can you explain why an American like Michael Jackson became hugely popular across Middle East and Central Asia despite the hatred for America’s foreign policy and military involvements in Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan? Anti-Americanism is a lie used by Washington to lead the American people into unnecessary wars and create new enemies. Washington needs to learn from Jackson, Stallone, Madonna, and Tom Cruise. They took America to places where its military and politicians couldn’t.

by AHMED QURAISHI

Two things made America more influential and awe inspiring than any other nation on the face of the earth: cowboy movies and Michael Jackson.

Long before the American Tomahawks, B-52s and the rest of the American weapons used in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine, Michael Jackson entered the houses of the nations across the Middle East and Central Asia.

Cover to Michael Jackson’s 1971′s - Got to Be There

Some say these Muslim nations want war with America. That’s typical Langley hogwash. Long before Karen Hughes and Don Rumsfeld came up with kooky concepts of public diplomacy, and long before Pentagon and State Department established offices for outreach to Muslims, this icon of modern American culture was welcomed in a region that knew little about American culture or simply didn’t care.

America didn’t need men with twisted minds and Darth-Vader plans for global domination to open the doors for American supremacy [this is for you, Richard Perle]. It happened anyway thanks to Jackson, Stallone and Madonna.

I was ten years old, growing up in the Middle East with kids who were Iraqis, Saudis, Kuwaitis, Iranians, Palestinians, Yemenis, Egyptians, Pakistanis, Syrians, Turks, Sudanese and Afghans. And I distinctly remember how in 1982 and 1983 Michael Jackson burst on the scene, to a great and an enthusiastic welcome never accorded to an American before.

Michael Jackson portrai

Those who knew one face of America – Reagan at the time – and vehemently hated it became crazy about another American face. I am sure they could never reconcile this contradiction deep in their hearts. But it was there, the two sides coexisting side by side.

Aside from our region, Michael’s music opened the doors of the Soviet Union and China to everything American, not to mention Africa, East Asia and the rest of the world. Before his album, Thriller, for example, only members of the elite in some of these nations knew the truth: that there is another side to America besides imperialism, a good side.

It seems so ordinary now. But, really, think about it; closed and proud societies warmly welcoming a completely new and alien culture of a country whose foreign policy was viewed suspiciously by many.

Right about the same time as Michael’s Thriller and the moonwalk, there came Sylvester Stallone with his accent, Tom Cruise with Top Gun, and then ‘USA for Africa’: forty-five American singers joining in a song for the victims of the African drought. The song, We Are The World, gave the world this amazing message about an American nation striving to help the needy.  Even the best American diplomats and the best image consultants couldn’t buy the goodwill that these ordinary good Americans created for their nation.

Cover of Blood on the Dance Floor: HIStory in the Mix

This is the lesson that America desperately needs to learn today. Jackson almost launched America’s cultural supremacy in the digital age. CIA or the US military used it, not caused it. So who is the real asset?

Enough of US government using Hollywood celebrities to get back at China like Stephen Spielberg did when he canceled a contract for Beijing Olympics last year in a theatrical move to politicize Tibet; and enough of the US government using YouTube and Twitter as political tools in its not-so-innocent battle with Iran.

The Americans need to bring that time back when they came together for something like ‘USA for Africa’, an effort devoid of any political mileage, like the search for cheap oil in African jungles, which is what they’re doing now.

This ugly and militarized side of America has eclipsed everything else in the past decade. Let’s remember that Washington’s entire might in Iraq and Afghanistan didn’t and couldn’t generate the kind of real goodwill that America received with Jackson’s death.

Your Jacksons are far more appealing than your Tomahawks. Get it. Or beat it.

Sure, while this was happening, CIA was secretly supporting terrorist militias in Latin America and Africa, pushing Iraq to declare war against Iran, destabilizing governments and exploiting the pure passion and the blood of the Afghans to settle an American score with the Soviets.  America’s governments were doing dirty things. But it was the good side of America that the people of the world preferred, the one that was really launched by Michael Jackson and others. The Berlin Wall and the Soviet Union didn’t exactly crumble thanks only to America’s gung-ho politicians or military strategists. They crumbled because of the enduring power of the image that Jackson and Madonna and Tom Cruise and Stallone and others spread worldwide. [Continued below the picture].

Credits: Text & title pic: AhmedQuraishi.com & PakNationalists Last 3 photogaphs: http://www.solarnavigator.net/

The obsession to `Muslimize` MJ

In 2006 it was also rumored that Michael Jackson embraced Islam but it was later denied. Yet the 2008 news were never denied

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By Kazi Mahmood

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A rather fantastic event hit the earth on the 25th of June in the US and it was here, at Kuala Lumpur the 26th of June in the early hours of the morning. The news of Micheal Jackson’s death hit the Internet with blogs and other twitter users carrying the story which grew like wild fires. At World Future Online, we published the story as early as 7 am in the morning and we followed it with another story on the reported conversion to Islam of MJ. Here we tell you more on the Muslim obsession to have MJ as a Muslim and why is this is very important to this community of 1.5 billion people.

 

The Muslims are sometimes accused of being thirsty for big names to join the list of those who embraced Islam in the course of their successful carreer. MJ had a larger than life success as a singer, a genius that the world will not see for a long time with the kind of musical phenomenon that we might not see again, unless the prophetized ‘Dajjal’ appear.

 

At the begining of his meteorical rise, MJ gave some Muslim thinkers reasons to fear that the ‘Dajjal’s coming was near. The reference to the ‘Dajjal’ was due to the 1982 global record sale of the Album ‘Thriller’ that took the world by storm and for ever changed the way the music industry looked at itself and was looked upon by the world.

Then came other albums, including Bad which sold very well and made MJ look like the number one dominant force in the music world. His aura, the magnetic appeal and his charismatic character turned him into a world musical giant. This again forced some people in the Musilm world to be weary. The idea that ‘Dajjal’, the anti-Christ for the Christian world and the anti-Muslim ogre for the Muslims, was on his way to earth. Dajjal will be a one eyed (perhaps biased?) singer who will capture the world with his power to deliver a music that mankind has never heard before.

Jermain Jackson on the right with Micheal holding an umbrella

With the concert ‘We are the World’ the image of Micheal Jackson took a sudden change as all the fears were torn apart. In this concert, with its background and the reasons for MJ to be involved in this project portrayed a very different Micheal Jackson. He became more fragile, human and down to earth and this made him more popular in Africa, Arabia and the Asian continent where he captured the people with his aura and charisma. The vulnerable Micheal showed his heart with ‘We are the World’ and this doused the fears of the 666 number appearing soon for many Muslims.

 

It is to be noted that Africa, Asia and Arabia has large populations of Muslims and the popularity of Micheal Jackson among the Muslims is uncomparable. Not a single Muslim star could reach the iconic height that MJ reached with his Muslim followers/supporters and this will probably remain as such for generations. ‘We are the World’ showed that Micheal wanted to save the world not destroy it and that he was a gentle, kind human being and never a threat to other people.

 

The charges against Micheal Jackson brought up by the families of the children who were his companions in his dream land sent a wave of pity across the world. The American justice system had much more to lose than to win with the accusations made against the man without a childhood. The entire world now knows that MJ wanted to be in the company of kids only to feel the same joy that they felt being at Dream Land. There’s nothing else to it and the families that made millions out of their accusations have nothing else to gain but the shame of having given a bad time to MJ. That is the global impression of people when you read blogs and other articles by people online and offline.

 

About his conversion to Islam, the news came as a sound of good tidings in the ears of the Muslims, battered in the war on terror and accused of being ‘extreme’ while their Prophet and their Holy Al-Quraan both suffered the ill-doings of bad intentioned non-believers. MJ a Muslim? The impact is huge. It is even bigger than Muhammad Ali becoming a Muslim in his tender age after he won the Olympic Gold Medal for the US in the 1960′s.

Muhammad Ali created a wave of joy in the Muslim world when he became a Muslim, abandoning the name Cassius Clay for his Muslim one. His successes and his ups and downs became that of the Muslim communities world wide. The fact that MJ is said to have converted to Islam too became a part and parcel of the Muslims who follows the news and are interested in MJ.

Great Muslim names have today paid their reverence to Micheal Jacson on his untimely death, a death that has made many people cry on the Television during interviews with TV presenters including Larry King who spoke to close friends of MJ. And most of them cried live on TV or said later on that they could not stop crying. Their heart broken and their hopes dashed, they loved MJ too much to have lost him so soon.

 

Nevertheless, for the Muslims, it is like a sort of blessing in disguise and when Jermain said the word ‘Allah’ during the official declaration of MJ’s death, it was a light in the tunnel for the millions of Muslims who are living in state of war, war caused by their enemies who are today head quartered in no other place than the Pentagon! The news of MJ becoming a Muslims had spread like wild fires in November last year. In 2006 it was also rumored that he embraced Islam but it was later denied. Yet the 2008 news were never denied.

 

The impact of the MJ’s death on his followers will inevitably bring some of them to consider the fact that Jermain is a Muslim and that perhaps MJ converted to Islam. The same impact was seen with Lady Diana Spencer after her passing in 1997. Though 911 will remain the greatest impact on non-Muslims who embraced Islam after that deadly event, the role MJ’s reported conversion and Jermain’s confirmed conversion will play in the future. This will be of great importance to Muslims and also to non-Muslims as the latter folks will see a new light, a new way to understand Islam despite the massive anti-Islam campaigns by the American Neo-Cons and the Jews.

Source: Mathaba

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the ‘Wonders of Pakistan’. The contents of this article too are the sole responsibility of the author(s). WoP will not be responsible or liable for any inaccurate or incorrect statements contained in this post.

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Does it Matter if Michael Jackson, Princess Diana Were Muslim?

RPK Addresses The Issue of Asian Muslim Inferiority Complex. We say Asian (including Arab), because this strange phenomena of looking for endorsement by Western Stars is a primarily if not exclusively Asian phenomena which reveals an insecurity and inferiority complex.

WHAT IS THERE TO BE PROUD OF?

So, does it really matter whether Lady Diana became a Muslim before she died? Would Islam benefit if Prince Charles or the Queen herself became a Muslim? Does this really enhance the image of Islam, as most Muslims believe it would?

by Raja Petra Kamarudin

There are many who are pleased with the revelation brought on by the death of Michael Jackson. This is of course the revelation that he may have converted to Islam. These happy people were also pleased that Cassius Clay became a Muslim (and is now called Muhammad Ali) and in most likelihood Princes Diana and astronaut Neil Armstrong did as well — although I don’t think these personalities concerned actually publicly said so.

Why is it so important to Muslims that these superstars converted to Islam? So they died as Muslims. Or maybe they never became Muslims and died as Jews or Christians or whatever. Does it really matter one way or another what religion they professed before they died? What is it to us anyway? Would it not be their business more than ours?

I suppose to some this would be very meaningful. To know that extremely important people like Michael Jackson, Muhammad Ali, Princes Diana and Neil Armstrong may have all become Muslims gives us that feeling of winning. This proves that we were right all along. And everyone likes to feel that he or she was right and enjoy the satisfaction of being able to say, “I told you so!”

Would it mean anything to Muslims if one million poor and starving Africans converted to Islam? Probably not and we really don’t care if it were 100 million poor and starving Africans who had converted. It is not the numbers that count. We don’t care about quantity. We are concerned about the ‘quality’ of the converts.

One million or even 100 million poor and starving Africans converting to Islam is not something to be proud of. But if Prince Charles, heir to the British throne, was to become a Muslim then that is cause to celebrate with the slaughter of 100 camels and 300 sheep. That proves beyond any shadow of doubt that Islam is the correct religion and it further proves that I was right all along in subscribing to Islam. Hey, even Prince Charles agrees with me and Prince Charles is no ordinary human being.

This ‘we won’ and ‘we were right all along’ is not only a Muslim obsession but also an obsession of all religions. So before you take this as a cue to start your Islam-bashing please note that the word ‘Islam’ can be replaced with the word ‘Christianity’, ‘Hinduism’ or whatever. No religion is exempted from this ‘competitive spirit’ and the obsession to ‘prove itself’ by the converts it attracts — and the higher the profile of the convert the higher your win and the stronger your message of being ‘right’.

Instead of harping on the number of new converts you are able to attract and the high profile or high quality of these converts, I would rather focus on the high quality of your existing practitioners and ask whether they are doing justice to the religion they are supposed to be professing. What does it matter if Queen Elizabeth herself converted to Islam if the rest of the five million or so Muslims in Britain leave much to be desired as far as their conduct is concerned.

Why are properties in non-white areas in Britain lower than in an all-white area? Well, basically this is because in a non-white area the crime rate is very high. Even your car insurance is higher if you live and park your car in these ‘black’ areas — especially if you don’t own a garage and park your car on the street.

RPK

Granted, not all the non-whites are Muslims. Some are Christians, Hindus, or whatever. Nevertheless, if that particular Briton happens to be a Muslim rather than a Jew, Christian or Hindu, you can safely bet that that person would be non-white rather than white. So, while not all non-whites are Muslims, most Muslims are non-white. And the crime rate is higher in non-white areas (as it is in ‘white’ council areas).

So, does it really matter whether Lady Diana became a Muslim before she died? Would Islam benefit if Prince Charles or the Queen herself became a Muslim? Does this really enhance the image of Islam, as most Muslims believe it would? What would really enhance the image of Islam would be if property in non-white areas are exactly the same price as property in the white areas and your car insurance is not loaded because you live and park your car in a non-white area.

If Michael Jackson really did die a Muslim then well and fine. Good for him. It does not do anything for me anyway. The same as far as Lady Di is concerned and for the rest of the British Royal Family as well. The fact that these high profile people became Muslims does not add value to Islam. What would add value to Islam would be when you buy a car in Britain and you don’t end up paying double the insurance premium because you live in a high-crime rate ‘Muslim’ neighbourhood’ or that your home is cheaper in value because all your neighbours are non-white Muslims.

Now that would make me real proud indeed.

—

Source: Mathaba

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the ‘Wonders of Pakistan’. The contents of this article too are the sole responsibility of the author(s). WoP will not be responsible or liable for any inaccurate or incorrect statements contained in this post.

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We at Wonders of Pakistan use copyrighted material the use of which may not have always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We make such material available to our readers under the provisions of “fair use” only. If you wish to use copyrighted material for purposes other than “fair use” you must request permission from the copyright owner.

Michael Jackson Dead

United States pop star Michael Jackson has been reported dead by U.S. media.

United States Pop star Michael Jackson was pronounced dead by doctors this afternoon after arriving at a hospital in a deep coma, city and law enforcement sources told The Los Angeles Times.

GlobalGrind.com and TMZ.com first reported his death. The United States pop star was aged 50. The reports said Jackson suffered a cardiac arrest earlier in the afternoon and that paramedics were unable to revive him.

The same reports say that when paramedics arrived Jackson had no pulse and they never managed to obtain a pulse.

Jackson is survived by three children: Michael Joseph Jackson, Jr., Paris Michael Katherine Jackson and Prince “Blanket” Michael Jackson II. Jackson had 13 number one hits during his solo career, Global Grind reports.

There have been concerns about Jackson’s health in recent years but the promoters of the London concerts, AEG Live, said in March that Jackson had passed a four-and-a-half hour physical examination with independent doctors.

Jackson – who started out as a child star in the band The Jackson 5 more than 40 years ago – has lived as a virtual recluse since his acquittal in 2005 on charges of child molestation.

The Jackson clan gathered at UCLA Medical Center, where Jackson was taken by ambulance. Media converged on the hospital as CNN debated the merits of “Thriller,” and the news spread like wildfire on Facebook and Twitter: #p start Michael Jackson has been reported dead by U.S. media.

Source:

Ghazal, Gazelle and Tina Sani

Many artists have been singing ghazals and some have earned a great name in the history of ghazal recitals. These include the classical, semi classical as well as the popular singers of the movie world. However, when we talk of ghazal in music, it needs to be emphasized that ghazal singing is a distinct art from classical singing, for skilled classical singers are not necessarily good ghazal singers as well. And when it comes to a rendition of the lyrics into art of ghazal singing, then among the contemporary artists nobody can do it as perfectly as that sober and husk-voiced lady Tina Sani. With her melodious voice, she throbs the heart of millions of Pakistanis and is country’s undisputed Queen of Melody. Another reason for her success as a performer is her ability to communicate; so that even when singing the likes of Zauq, she does not lose the audience – a skill, which, in fact is integral to the art of ghazal and classical singing.

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by Nayyar Hashmey

Ghazalis a poetic form. It uses couplets which share a rhyme and a refrain. Each line must share the same meter.

Etymologically, the word refers to “the mortal cry of a gazelle”.

The structural requirements of ghazal are more stringent than most other poetic forms, traditionally written in Urdu, English or other languages. In its style and content it is a genre that has proved itself capable of an extraordinary variety of expression around its central theme of love and separation. Many consider it as the principal poetic form which the Persian civilization offered to the eastern Islamic world.