Google+ just another transition ?

Here is my tirade about the Google+ project. I know, I know. This is not what I write about in general and am no tech geek or such. I am not even using Google+ yet, the invite is not working ($%#@%$%). However, I am an avid Google user, from Google being my favorite search engine, to Gmail (both personal and for work), Google Docs, Google Latitude, Google Maps, Google Labs, Picasa, Picnik, Blogger, Youtube, Google Sites, Google Analytics, Android. These are all my daily tools for work and personal use, while there are the occasional services like Google Sketchup, Reader, Books, Google Earth etc. The only thing I have been using apart from Google is Facebook, and though I do like Facebook, in the past year or so I have been unhappy with its privacy policies. This was the same reason I stopped using Orkut and moved to Facebook. Orkut privacy policies sucked, and it seemed to be a place only for people with hormonal problems or substance abuse tendencies.

When I switched to Facebook it felt great. I had more control over privacy, I knew who should be able to view my display picture and also people seemed to be real, unlike people on Orkut with names like \/\//-\Q/-\R etc. Moving on, the first issue I had with Facebook was, when they changed the display picture policy. Since then on, the problems have increased instead of being less. Recently, the worst Facebook could do, was changing the group privacy settings, and people who know me, would definitely know what it means to be an apostate from Pakistan. So, it is high time for transitioning from Facebook to Google+, which up until now has been receiving positive reviews in regards to its privacy policy.

I have also already fallen in love with the Circles concept, layout and the maneuverability. Perhaps because only 2 or so weeks ago I had been discussing with this friend of mine about the single wall Facebook offers us and the way the privacy lists are setup. It takes a minimum of 5 clicks to share something on the wall with a specific list on Facebook. I had thought having multiple walls could have solved the issue. And it seems Google+ did exactly that, although the number of clicks is 4, only one short of what one had to do on Facebook, the layout looks more comfortable and easier to manage.

The option to upload from Picasa makes it easier to integrate albums directly onto the profile, and share with exactly the people you want to share with. I see this as having endless possibilities once Google integrates the other services that we are already using. It would be great if there is an option to import Facebook albums, links, videos, groups and pages directly to Google+ as well. But, perhaps that’s hoping for a bit too much. :P

Some random dialogues

These dialogues have been exchanged in real from Indians, to Albanians to Americans.

Day 1 after May 1st
“Hello Paki. How are you today?” With a smirk.
Me: I am pretty well. Glad they finally got Osama.
“Yeah, from Pakistan.” With a smile from one corner of the face to another. “Nobody should trust you guys.”
Me: Umm..
“You know, our politicians already knew this, but US won’t listen to us.”
Me: Well at least he is dead now. (Why can my boss not call me right now?)
“India should be allowed to clear Pakistan of jihadis, US cannot do so. Just give Modi a chance.”
Me: That is highly unlikely, cause we can allow US troops, Afghan smugglers and Jihadis trained by CIA and MOSAD to run freely in Pakistan. But not Indians. You know, it is about Pakistan’s sovereignty.
“Yes, which recently got shattered when US lead this operation near Islamabad.”
Finally the boss calls.

Day 7
“You are Indian?” Expression clearly says, just say no.
Me: No I am from Pakistan.
“Yes, Pakistan. I know, that is where they killed Osama. You guys had been hiding him for 10 years.”
Me: I guess you can say the extremist elements in the army and the ISI were involved.
“Are you kidding me? Do you think anybody can believe that it was just the army and the intelligence? He was living there for so long. Did he never go out to see doctors? He was pretty sick you know. People must have seen him too. But nobody reported. I saw on Fox News that Pakistanis are protesting against the US for carrying out the operation.”
Me: Excuse me, I have work to do.

Day 15
“What do you think of Osama’s death? Do you believe like other conspiracy theorists that he was killed 7 years ago?”
Me: I don’t really know. I only wish Pakistan was not involved in it.
“I understand. Its not the people who do these things. It is the corrupt generals and politicians.”

Finally, I can sit back and not feel guilty about the whole thing. Until.....

Day 20
“Is it common to throw acid on women in Pakistan?”
Me: Some people do it out of anger and for revenge, but it is not a tradition.
“How can you speak English?”
Me: I went to an English medium school.
“They don’t let girls go to school either.”
Me: In tribal areas it can happen.

These and many more questions are an indication that Pakistan is only understood from the political news perspective. Real people with real lives hardly make 2% of this country. What it is mostly known as is a hub for gun wielding bearded nut-jobs with a few ‘Achmeds’ and many ‘black penguins’, sorry ‘burka women’. Interestingly, even people from Middle East think of Pakistan as more backward then themselves.

Merged blogs!

So, finally I took the decision I had been avoiding for so long due to several reasons. I merged my two blogs. Now I only have one, previously arch-rehab.blogspot.com and now changed t0 andaleeb-rizvi.blogspot.com to make it more personalized.

I do not know if this is a good decision or a bad one. But, it is a change!!

Ask the fish now!!

So finally the US thinks it is time to disclose the death of the most wanted criminal Osama Bin Laden on Pakistani soil. While one of the former already dead Prime Minister of Pakistan Benazir Bhutto had disclosed this information a few years ago (and yes she retracted it later). This news is being disclosed at a crucial time when public opinion regarding Democrats is plumetting low, gas prices nearing $5.00 a gallon by Memorial Day, brewing Middle East crises, and among all this need for US to exit Afghanistan asap and gracefully too.

I think while pretending to be going after the big guns, the US has created several evils, and if for a moment one accepts Bin Laden's death as true, the war is still not won. This is a ploy by the current government to divert public attention from 'petty' issues. Or how Obama sanctioned bombing in Libya without approval from the congress. Anyway, lets be honest about the whole thing, Osama Bin Laden was made by the US and the US laid him to rest at sea. Now whether it is a sea of lies remains to be discovered. I will be skeptical unless there is physical evidence of his demise. Just as the US made sure of showing off the moon landing, Saddam's arrest and later his death.

When women are sold its truly a man's world!

An interesting assignment from 2004, 3^rd year Architecture at KU

It was our 1^st or 2^nd assignment. The task was to divide the class in 3 groups of 4 girls each and conduct a socio-economic-administrative survey of a locality called Islamia Colony #1 in Orangi Town. It was the hilly area where mostly Pakhtuns from Wana Waziristan and Chaman lived, along with Afghan refugees or immigrants (hard to tell since many of them own Pakistani ID cards).

It was one of the most memorable assignments for me, perhaps because it had an element of danger involved. We were assigned to research the social aspect of the community and as case study visit as many houses from each community as possible. The area was divided among four communities, mainly Pakistani Pakhtun and Farsiwan Afghan, and hardly 4% Siraiki and Hindko. The majority were Afghan with better and bigger houses, owning shops in the posh localities of Karachi or owning transportation businesses, especially for drugs and arms movement. Pakhtun’s were mostly cabbies or rickshaw drivers who were knee or at times chest deep in loans taken from the Afghans. Interestingly, this was the first time I found out that actually it is not the Pakhtun who give loans on heavy interest but the Afghans.

We were being assisted by two NGOs, basically the Bright Education Society and the Orangi Pilot Project in conducting our study. Through these two NGOs we were directed towards individuals and families who were more welcoming of girls visiting their houses and speaking to them about their life in general and problems in particular.

Speaking to the Pakhtun families and girls was easier as they were not only keen on talking but also adamant to make us drink tea with them. Through them we found that the Afghan’s did not allow the Pakhtuns to even enter their lanes and if someone did, especially a guy, he would disappear in no time. Most of the stories were the same, starting with girls not being allowed to go out alone after 9 years, made to wear a burqa, only allowed to read the Quran and married of to a suitable guy. Suitable here meant a guy who could pay a hefty dowry. Women are not allowed to choose for themselves. According to the Pakhtun girls there was little or no interaction between the different communities. However, we were soon to discover it for ourselves, as one of the Afghan teacher at the local school agreed to take us to his home where we could speak to his mother.

The teacher’s family was from Wana (what he told us, but they spoke Farsi) and they had been living in Karachi for more than 4 years. As per the teacher, they were only allowed religious education and the girls were denied even that after the age of 9. Women in the family were barred to watch TV and could not speak to anybody from outside, including other women. However, he had made a concession or perhaps taken a bold step by inviting us to his home and letting his mother speak to us with him as a translator, since the old lady only spoke Farsi or Dari. She was delighted to see us and kept saying something fast to her daughter-in-laws who stood outside the room covering their faces. She accepted the restrictions put on women with a candor which for me even now is hard to digest, and perhaps to defend her sons told us they took her to the beach for the first time in her life. Nevertheless, all her efforts went to waste when her eldest son out of nowhere started yelling in the loudest possible voice and we were hustled out of the house in no time.

Just as a precaution we had been provided a guard who waited outside, and soon as he heard the yelling he almost rushed us away from the house. Only two days later, we were informed that we can no longer continue our research because the locals threatened the NGO with firing at the school children if the girls were ever seen again.

Later we also found that the other group of girls had stumbled upon a ‘Maulvi’ who proudly claimed he trained both male and female suicide bombers at the madarsa.

These are a few things that I had no idea how to put in with the rest of the words:

• Afghan’s celebrate the birth of daughters since it means more wealth
• A women whose name has been tainted can fetch a better price
• The Maulvi told a man that if he has a daughter, he can never be poor (which meant he can marry her off to the highest bidder)
• Women can be murdered for falling in love
• The Nikkah is not done right away but once a girl is bought, she stays with the man and he can marry her whenever it is convenient for him, or not if he wants to resell her
• Drug dealing and weapon smuggling is an honorable profession (Pakistani government is helpless in this regard, especially the Police who are not equipped to deal with the sophisticated cache of arms owned by the Afghan)

It’s truly a man’s world.

Note: In the beginning I have mentioned Pakistani Pakhtun and Farsiwan Afghan specifically because these were the only people we met. Although Pakhtuns can be either from Pakistan or Afghanistan

Religion of peace, indeed!

Despite being thousands of miles away and being an atheist neither do I feel less guilty about the atrocities Muslims hand out to others in the name of religion nor can I detach myself from my mixed identity. Every other day something crops up to make me question the validity of the claim “Islam is the religion of peace.” I found no peace from it, and unfortunately, even though I am an apostate my name is still Muslim and hence the attached strings.

What is there to convince me about Islam being peaceful? The brutalities committed during the Gojra incident in Pakistan? Or the desecration of a museum church site in Macedonia by Albanian Muslims? Or the thought that my best friend’s brother was killed by a Shiite mob in Iraq, just because he was Christian and worked with the US army? Or better still, her disabled brother-in-law who was shot in the shoulder while he helplessly watched his cousin bleed to death? He was attacked after 2005 in Iraq by a mob of Muslim men shouting Allah-O-Akbar and death to the infidels. Interestingly, these Muslims (or as my friend said Shiite) people who attacked the Christians, were the ones who had been bemoaning about Saddam’s brutality.

My dear friend from Iraq, explained how things worsened for her and her family after 2005. It is important for one to remember she is an orthodox Christian and lived in Iraq all her life. But although she is as much an Iraqi as the next Mohammad Ali Basri, she is not welcome in her own country. Just like Asia bibi who not being a Muslim is being persecuted in Pakistan. Lest also not forget the Jews who were forced to leave Pakistan during the 1980’s.

In light of this hypocrisy, I find that the recent awakening of the Arab world will not have much affect against monarchy and dictatorial regimes. For many it may be wonderful and positive, for me it is nothing but opportunism. A mirage - that will evaporate soon enough. I perhaps am just a pessimist, who considers it a lost cause for Muslims to be awakened in reality and enlightened humanly.

Islam is still a religion of peace, indeed!

'Jihadi' apostates, only a buzzword?

The new breed of atheists has been bothering me for some time now. Inspired by Ali Sina, faithfreedom.org and the likes they appear to possess the same streak of extremism I abhor in the religious fanatics. I call them ‘jihadi anti-theists’. Granted that the level of hysteria and violence between the ‘jihadi theist’ and ‘jihadi anti-theist’ is not at par, however it still is the beginning of atheist fanaticism in some way. It seems this clan is more concerned with Mo and his antics than Mo’s followers themselves. Completely missing out on the overall cultural evolution and geographic impacts on religion, they treat it as something that developed and thrived in isolation and a completely sterile environment.

In my opinion (and its totally subjective of course) after actually being an apostate for a long time one achieves a state of rest and peace. A true apostate will be rational and understand that evolution of religion and culture is going to take its due course in time. If one understands the evolution of cultures, societies and religion, one knows that the choice pool of gods and goddesses has been ever decreasing. It cannot be forced to change instantaneously, just like one cannot do away with the unnecessary hair on genitals for generations to come (at least not yet).

The idea of a god or a super natural being has evolved over thousands of years. First there were natural elements and objects for everything humans did not understand. Than came human personifications in the form of gods and goddesses assigned for every single thing, including good and bad. Gradually it evolved into good and bad gods, while goddesses were eliminated and only gods ruled the roost. After that came the monotheists that eliminated and short listed the candidates for omnipotence (this is not an accurate account but a general sequence for the purpose of this blog). So to condense it, in ancient times there were multiple gods, over time it shrunk to the Abrahamic religions which points to the probable next stage of no gods.

Comparing all of them with their past we can say the new ones were atheist regarding the past ones, and so are the new ones atheist for the ones in the past with only one god. It is a simple and gradual occurrence if thought about within the bigger picture. So, what I fail to understand is this bickering and extremist streak within this new breed of atheists who think they can organise into one single body like their religious counterparts. If it ever happens, I would prefer becoming an a-atheist because I am an apostate of organised religion.