Lajja.

I remember some years ago while watching the Indian film ‘Lajja’ (shame) I had this overwhelming feeling of frustration at both the reality and prospect that girls in India were treated with such contempt. I had the same feeling this week having browsed through the main reports derived from the Indian Census of 2011. The picture reads that in the age group of 0-6 years, there are 914 girls to every 1,000 boys. Translated this means that for every 1000 boys, there are at least 86 girls under the age of six who were killed before or after birth.

In an article that makes for a disturbing read, The Economist reports “if you compare the number of girls actually born to the number that would have been born had a normal sex ratio prevailed, then 600,000 Indian girls go missing every year.”  Worryingly it goes on to add “if sex ratios stay the same, 600,000 missing girls this year will become, in 18 years’ time, over 10m missing future brides”.

So why is it that in a country where deities such as Lakshmi, Saraswati and Durga are celebrated are girls considered to be such a bad omen? Why when we have Pratibha Patil – President of India, Meira Kumar – speaker of lok sabha, Sonia Gandhi – Chairperson of UPA and ‘defacto PM’, Sushma Swaraj – leader of opposition in loksabha is gendercide so widely accepted in India?  The two most quoted reasons appear to be poverty and a lack of education. Yet even in states where literacy levels have improved at rapid rates, states which are among the wealthiest in India – notably Punjab, Haryana and Gujarat – gendercide still dominates. In Patna alone last week 15 female foetuses were found in a jar left on a rubbbish dump. A statistic which is horrifying for any democratic society.

Dowry has also meant that having a girl makes no economic sense. My colleague Riaz Jugon makes a fair point when he says: “families who have girls spend their lives raising a girl and almost training and domesticating her to look after her husband and essentially her in laws when she moves out. In addition to this, the parents of the girl have to pay a dowry to the grooms family. So raising a girl for 20 years, and then paying a dowry only to see her leave and look after and live with another family doesn’t seem like a fair trade off. Having a guy, there is no dowry to pay, and a well trained daughter in law is gained.”

The anti-dowry laws of 1961 have clearly been ineffectual here. Some would argue this has just been lip service on the part of successive Indian governments, others would argue the impossible task of legal policy being able to eradicate cultural prejudice. And that’s where the problem lies – within the prejudice itself. Both Hinduism and Islam, India’s most dominant religions, revere women. Yet culture dictates the oppression of females in this one billion strong nation. But perhaps different religions foster different perceptions of women. Steve Peiris, a Buddhist by faith, says: ” We have a strong tradition of male-female equality. The “head” of my family is my Grandmother. Buddhism has always had an enlightened view on the role of women in society and Buddhist Sri Lanka voted in the world’s first democratically-elected female head of state in 1960. In my family, the equality thing seems to be linked to the religon which includes a “commandment” that whoever you are, whether King or pauper, “all must bow before the priest”. This sets up the concept of equality in Buddhist scripture. There is also no “original sin” in Buddhism as there is in other religions. Sri Lanka has a long tradition of ordaining female priests even where other branches of Buddhism frown upon it.” 

There is clearly cultural and societal pressure at work. Even British Asian women like Sofia Ahmed feel like they not only need to produce sons to carry on the family name but because it gives them a social status amongst their community: “I have to say I am guilty of wanting to have a boy more than wanting to have a girl and I was super happy when I found out I was carrying twin boys, felt that it was a massive achievement,” she says.

Back on the Indian subcontinent although education is more widespread than ever before, it has not reached those who need it the most. Robert M Maciver in his infamous speech said ‘educate a man and you educate one person, educate a woman and you educate a whole nation’. If this is true of anywhere in the world, it is true of India. The girls that exist in India today need better education – of their religion; of their rights; of their opportunities and of their strengths. So that when tomorrow they have the chance to become the mothers of a future generation of girls, they don’t choose to abort their foetus; or strangle their baby; or let their husbands murder their daughters. They celebrate her arrival with the same zeal as that of their sons.

Hope is on the horizon however, female literacy has jumped from 53.6% to 65.4% in the last 10 years, yet still lags behind the 82% for men in India. And the 1991 reforms have changed things, albeit at a slower pace.

One question remains however: until India stops strangling its daughters by the millions, how can we sit here and legitimately label it a democracy?

Tags: durga saraswati, female infanticide, gujarat, haryana, Hindu, India, india census, lakshmi, literacy, muslim, patna, pratibha patil, punjab, robert m maciver, sonia gandhi, the economist

Revolution the Pakistani way – Step 1: Disillusion.

He called for change; he called for equality; he called for reason.

But he is here no more. The murder of  Shahbaz Bhatti, the Minorities Minister of Pakistan, just two days ago is another nail in the coffin of a barely breathing nation.

Shahbaz Bhatti advocated for equality for Pakistani minorities

I’ve seen many posts, tweets, messages calling for a revolution to sweep through Pakistan just as waves of it have swept through parts of North Africa and the Middle East. But Pakistan isn’t North Africa or the Middle East. Change is on the horizon for Pakistan, but perhaps not the kind of change much of the world is hoping for.

Muhammad Ali Jinnah may have famously spoken the following:

‎”In any case Pakistan is not going to be a theocratic state to be ruled by priests with a divine mission. We have many non-Muslims, Hindus, Christians and Parsis but they are all Pakistanis. They will enjoy the same rights and privileges as any other citizens and will play their rightful part in the affairs of Pakistan.”

But these words were not too far behind either:

“Pakistan not only means freedom and independence but the Muslim Ideology which has to be preserved, which has come to us as a precious gift and treasure and which, we hope others will share with us.”

You may wonder what that may tell us about modern day Pakistan, but it highlights why some of what is playing out today in the country should not come as a surprise to anyone aware of the foundations on which Pakistan was created. In essence, in practicality, in history, in purpose – Pakistan was created as a separate state for those Muslims who believed a future in an overwhelmingly Hindu majority India had become untenable. It gave rise to a new religious majority that rose from the ashes of a minority complex in its neighbouring country. Secularism was never on the agenda for Pakistan, had it been, Jinnah and his advocates would have fought for a secular India, not a theocratic Pakistan.

The Christian Minister was gunned down

What began at its inception only reconvened during the years of Zia at the helm of presidency. Any mild concessions for minorities or secularism or women were only clawed back hand over fist. And just one glance at current Pakistan is enough to acknowledge that Zia may have perished, but those born during the Zia years; those absorbing the Zia sentiment; those dreaming the Zia dream – have only just found their way into the kind of seats he once occupied – those of authority and power – where they are now shaping the future and ideology of their country. Where appeasement of extremism isn’t just a means to an end, it is the end goal.

Pakistan may have been built on an Islamic premise, but it lacks the religious knowledge of the Middle East. This isn’t the birthplace of the Prophet nor is this the place where Islam began and spread. This is home to those Muslims who were once Hindus and as such have always been entrapped in a cultural mirage and not grounded in religious identity. Poverty and successive repressive regimes have robbed it of its education. The result? Millions of people who follow a religion without knowing the basic premise and teachings of their religion. Who are ignorant of its message and therefore vulnerable to those that step in and claim greater knowledge, falling prey to extremists such as LeT and the various divisions of the Taliban who have taken a strong-hold. All of which has been supplemented by the Mullahs and Muftis with their revised texts and pamphlets in madrassahs – selling the “dream” of piety to a nation disillusioned with the West and struggling for an identity.

Liberal armchair activists may call for a revolution in Pakistan, but this is now a fading hope. Tunisia, Egypt, Libya were not fighting venomous extremism – Pakistanis are. Tunisians, Egyptians and Libyans had up to three decades to grow weary under repressive dictatorships – Pakistan hasn’t.

The truth is that those fighting for change and equality in Pakistan are not fighting against extremism, but they’re fighting against a dream. The dream of a nation that thinks a misguided and misinformed religious existence will give rise to stability and some kind of utopian existence. Perhaps the only hope for Pakistan is a complete surrender to extremism. Maybe after decades of living under tyrannical rule, we may then see the spark of a revolution.

Because as it stands we have a battle of reason versus fantasy. And as we all know, dreams are always better than reality.

 

 

Tags: Christian, egypt, Hindu, India, LET, libya, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, muslim, Pakistan, prophet, revolution, Shahbaz Bhatti, Taliban, tunisia, Zia Ul Haq

Lost in translation

In a week where the ambivalence of the big society seemed to grab all of the headlines, I’m still scratching my head trying to work out the Government and its turbulent relationship with extremism.

It now transpires the coalition’s counter-terrorism watchdog believes Britain’s universities are reluctant to deal with radicalisation on campus and says a report by vice-chancellors that rejects demands to ban controversial speakers is “weak”. Lord Carlile, heading the attack, blames Universities UK for a failure to support “moderate Muslims” and limit what he see’s as the growing power of extremism.

With cases such as Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab; alleged extremism at universities such as City University London and UCL; and radical speakers such as Zakir Naik being courted to attend campuses in recent years – the breeding ground for Muslim extremism is at its most fertile it appears.

Zakir Naik - Banned in the UK

Whilst I agree that some vulnerable students may be at risk of radicalisation at University, I am much more perplexed about the strategy to deal with extremism as a whole. The obvious inclination of today’s headlines and this report is that more needs to be done to curb Muslim extremism in universities – just as more needed to be done to erase it in Mosques two years ago and yet more needed to be done recently by Muslim charities set up to advise on terrorism. Agreed. So now that we’ve established more should be done – what is the government’s solution?

Well, firstly we have a collection of university vice-chancellors who have only just self-critiqued and told us that more should be done. Then we have the government’s counter-terrorism advisers who have reacted to the first method by deliberating, yes you guessed it, more should be done. And having reached that fairly unexpected conclusion, the Government has said it will further extend the widely-accepted failing Prevent programme to address what it see’s as the biggest internal threat to UK security in recent years.

Ingenius.

And if I wasn’t confused enough by this masterstroke, I’m still left pondering what the definitions for freedom of speech; radicalisation and extremism actually are. If current debate and political policies are any kind of an indicator – then I could safely conclude that it’s only radicalisation and extremism if it comes with a Muslim prefix. And freedom of speech is only when you say the former is so.

Rabbi Shifren who last year attended in support of an EDL March

I wonder when we’ll step out from the denial that is currently engulfing the nation. The kind of denial that holds us back from tackling Muslim hate-speech for fear of being branded a racist or bigot – and the same denial that fails to see that extremism rears its head in many ugly forms. If we are willing to challenge certain Islamic societies and speakers on their extreme interpretations of Islam in our universities, then why are we not willing to challenge right-wing radicals in football grounds and pubs? What makes it okay to prey on vulnerable youngsters out on a Saturday afternoon to watch a match and recruit them into the next division of the EDL and not okay to draft a lonely Muslim into some jihadist outfit? The two propositions are just as vile as each other. Just as threatening.

Perhaps I’m the last one in a Chinese Whispers chain to listen to the Government’s strategy on extremism. Because I could swear I heard them say “we’re making a right mess and we haven’t got a clue how to fix it”.

Tags: Islamic Societies, Lord Carlile, Muslims, Prevent, Rabbi Shifren, racism, students, Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab, Universities UK, Violence, Zakir Naik

The ‘M’ Word.

He’s done it again hasn’t he? Yup, he’s gone and said that dirty ‘M’ word that Cameron.

You could be forgiven for thinking that multiculturalism (the word) had now transcended that invisible barrier between respectable policy to filthy punctuation during the last few weeks. What began as a storm in a teacup over Baroness Warsi’s comments about Islamophobia passing the dinner table test has now landed the Prime Minister in hot water with his speech on the failure of multiculturalism. Foot-in-mouth seems to be firmly on the Government agenda, right alongside deficit reduction. Perhaps even trumping the latter on current form.

Much of the argument has centred on the ill-timing of Cameron’s speech in Munich, which incidentally coincides with the EDL march in Luton today which has perhaps taken away from some of the valid points he has raised. The debate itself is healthy. Clearly when we have so many communities living in isolated and insular ghettos dotted around the country, we have a problem. When we have extremists calling for gay people to be killed, we have a problem. When some women are oppressed, we have a problem. When people live side by side and not communicate with each other, we have a problem. But are these problems any greater than when we have a growth of right-wing radicalism finding its way into mainstream politics? Are they greater than the use of Muslim and extremist as interchangeable synonyms? Are they greater than the identification of one group of people as part of the problem rather than a medium for solution?

Multiculturalism in Action, UK.

If David Cameron says multiculturalism has failed, then I want to know what the alternative would be for our country? Multiculturalism by definition is the co-existence of difference. We should be able to share common values yet be comfortable in our distinct variations. A homogeneous nation is not a reflection of successful multiculturalism. Furthermore, why has the burden of integration been placed at the door of British Muslims? Are they alone the arbitrators of integration? Is it a case that if Muslims embrace British identity then we have reached unification nirvana? What about working class White discontent? What about black ghettos? What about anti-immigration sentiment? Are these symptomatic of a unified and cohesive identity?

I find it unpalatable that a nation that prides itself on democracy, equality and tolerance should have a Prime Minister and members of government that hold such blinkered and short-sighted views.

Whatever happened to the ‘Great’ in ‘Great Britain’?

 

Tags: baroness warsi, cohesion, David Cameron, EDL, gay, ghettos, identity, immigration, integration, multiculturalism, Muslims

Halal Meat.

I often wonder what a world without political correctness would look like.

Would the allegedly offensive P and N words become embedded in every day language? Would we fail to hire someone based on their skin colour or name or religion? Would there be community ghettos dotted around the country and cities divided along race lines? Would the school system be woefully divisive and segregated? Would certain religions become the whipping boys of populist media? Would disability prove obstructive to equality? Would those who over-eat be labelled fat and those who under-eat be branded anorexic? And would this suddenly become a man’s world?

It’s then that I realise political correctness changed very little in our society, except to mask the real problems and introduce the tick-box solution.

This week there has been international outcry following Jack Straw’s comments regarding some Pakistani men thinking white girls were easy meat. MY question is: what took the country so long to debate this issue? As someone who grew up in a city with the highest concentration of Pakistanis in the country, the scene of an isolated white girl with groups of Asian boys surrounding her; following her; verbally abusing her; heckling; harassing – was the norm on any given day. Growing up, if I wasn’t observing these young, largely Pakistani lads insulting white girls then I was often within hearing distance of their tales of sexual prowess which almost always included the “slutty gori”.

Was this just true of Pakistani boys or of all boys? Well, most teenage boys bragged in much the same fashion but what set Pakistani boys apart was their complete contempt, in some cases, for white girls. Or girls at large.  At least that’s how it appears on the surface. Yet delve deeper and you begin to realise that the issue of the male attitude towards women is much more complex than that. The Asian culture has always existed with a gender bias. The birth of a boy was traditionally greeted with celebration and feast and the birth of a girl with silence and in certain quarters, mourning. Boys aspired to be doctors and lawyers and girls to become good wives and mothers. Whilst times have evolved; aspirations have changed; the Asian mindset has transformed. The gender bias, particularly in some Pakistani families, has remained. So now that these pedestal-mounted young boys have grown into frighteningly dominant chauvinistic men, the results are playing out.

While I agree wholeheartedly that you can’t racially profile a crime and also agree that this crime is not exclusively a Pakistani problem – if you’re asking me why some Pakistani men think white girls are “easy” or “sluts” then my answer is that they suffer from a superiority complex arising from cultural gender inequality. The attitude is not even just prevalent in their contact with white girls, but also in their treatment of Pakistani girls. The latter stops slightly short of the former only by being curbed by notions of shame and honour within the community.

I think there is something wrong with a country when we cannot discuss matters which may be more dominant in one race, purely because the word “race” frightens us. But there is something even more scary about that country when we now only hold public debates levelled at one religious or cultural identity.

If transparency is a tick-box for all, then every culture should be open to challenge.

Tags: ann cryer, blackburn, bradford, grooming, jack straw, muslim, newsnight, Pakistani men, prey, racism, white girls

Salmaan Taseer: In the words of his daughter.

In her first interview following the assassination of her father Salmaan Taseer, the governor of Pakistan’s Punjab province, Shehrbano Taseer speaks exclusively about her emotions following his death; the perpetrator responsible for it; the politics of the country she loves and the the man she called dad.

Dealing with the death of your father is hard for anyone, but how do you deal with it when your father is Salmaan Taseer and he’s killed in the circumstances in which he was?

This time has been unbearable for my family and for those who loved and admired my kind and brave father, Shaheed Salmaan Taseer. His assassination was sudden and violent but not in vain. We will never be afraid. That is what they want. My father lived and died for Pakistan, and we will keep his memory alive by upholding his principles and everything he stood for.

Where were you when you heard about his death? What were your initial feelings or reactions?

I was returning to work after my lunch break and received a message on my phone. My first instinct was to drive home. I did not know how many times he had been shot and was optimistic. The details kept coming in, and it was when I reached home and was with my family and close friends that we learnt of his passing. My father and I were very close. I was distraught and inconsolable, as were my siblings and my lovely strong mother.

Shehrbano Taseer

Your dad was publicly very outspoken against such issues as the Blasphemy laws in Pakistan and constitutional rights for Ahmadi’s – what were his private views? What else was he hoping to fight against or change in Pakistani politics?

His personal views were his public views. He was not a coward or a hypocrite. He wanted a peaceful, progressive, secular, liberal, and egalitarian Pakistan; a Pakistan that belongs to the poor as well as the rich, the women as well as the men, the religious minorities as well as the Muslims, the oppressed as well as the free. Pakistan was not ready for him.

There has been huge criticism levelled at Pakistani media organisations and certain journalists such as Meher Bokhari and Nadeem Paracha for inciting religious fanaticism – do you think the media is partially responsible for the death of your father?

How can you put Nadeem Paracha and Mehr Bokhari in the same sentence? You have your facts wrong there. Nadeem Paracha is amazing and intelligent. The assasin, the perpetrators, the planners, the financers – all the hidden hands – have a role here. I blame them. I blame the lunatic who pulled the trigger.

What was Salmaan Taseer, the man, the husband, the father really like?

Caring, loving, devoted. There is nothing he didn’t do for us. Each of my siblings and my mother of course we all had our own special relationship with him. He used to tease us a lot and we used to tease him back. It was a Taseer family tradition to wake up by 7 or 7:30 AM and have breakfast together before we all went to work. Like I said earlier, the way he was in public was how he was in private. His mind was an encyclopedia – he was a master on any subject whether it was history, politics, poetry (Urdu, English, Punjabi), cricket, art, just about anything. He was absolutely hilarious, he just had the best one-liners. I used to consult him at almost every step. He was encouraging – he treated his sons and daughters equally and gave the utmost respect to my mother.

Family Time

Did he suspect or fear he may be killed?

He constantly received death threats, but he was not afraid of death. He is larger than life. Sounds odd, but he was so dynamic and strong that I can’t imagine him being sick or ill or dying of old age. There is no other way he could have gone. He lived and died for Pakistan. He wouldn’t have WANTED to go in any other way. He has joined Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Shaheed Benazir Bhutto

Do you feel any anger or resentment against the Pakistani people or system after losing your father?

I have received thousands of messages of condolence and support so I know there are sane voices and minds out there. My anger is reserved for the cowards who are behind his untimely assassination and those that support this violence.

In Happier Times: Father and Daughter

Do you have any ambitions of following in his footsteps? Would you consider taking up the baton for change in Pakistan?

Of course. I feel like his fire has come inside me. I have been asked “are you scared” and I said “I am a Taseer. I will never let the enemies win by being scared. Courage runs in my blood.” I will miss my father, my hero, my best friend dearly but my father has not died in vain. He’s left us a legacy and his last name, and we intend to make him proud like he made us proud. I write for Newsweek Pakistan and work with different charities – I will never stop believing in Pakistan’s potential and the change that the educated people can bring to it.

Tags: benazir bhutto, extremism, media, meher bokhari, mumtaz qadri, nadeem paracha, Pakistan, PPP, salmaan taseer, shehrbano taseer

Focus Pakistan: Q&A with Pervez Hoodbhoy

What do you see as the biggest challenges facing Pakistan in 2011?

Pakistan is challenged at multiple levels.  Population growth is out of control, energy resources are fast depleting, pitifully small incomes are being depleted by inflation, and vast oceans of poverty and misery are becoming ever deeper. The destruction of infrastructure by the floods – a fact forgotten by Pakistan’s urban classes – has just begun exacting its toll on agricultural production and enhancing rural poverty. Democracy remains stalemated. The Army has made clear that it will remain the overwhelming force even if the Zardari government miraculously survives its multiple crises. With abysmal educational standards and rampant anti-science and anti-modernity attitudes in its population, Pakistan’s distance from the developed world – and India – will continue to increase. Some people claim that Pakistan has an image problem. Of course it does, but a good part of that image is based upon solid fact.

What impact do you think a fractured Taliban has had in Pakistan with varying demands, as opposed to if we had seen a unified Taliban with a single demand?

A hydra-headed monster may be more difficult to defeat than a single headed one. Cutting off one head, or even several, still allows the beast to survive. Pakistan’s problem is that even if religious extremists of one particular kind are discredited, others that dangle the utopia of an Islamic state will still be around. They will persist in peddling the notion that adherence to some “true Islam” is the solution. But, in reality, the Qur’an and Hadith have multiple interpretations and the “fundamentals” of Islam can be defined at will. Historically, some interpretations have fuelled violent political forces, each seeking to impose its understanding of god’s will upon everybody else. Murderous wars in Pakistan between Sunni and Shia militias started during the late 1980s and have never subsequently stopped.

Today, some orthodox Muslims – such as those of Tablighi Jamaat or their Al-Huda counterparts – do not use overt physical force. But others impose their versions of sharia through the Kalashnikov and suicide bombings. Given the overdose of religion given to Pakistanis, I expect that bitter sectarian wars are going to be around for a long time. Indeed, even as faith-based extremist movements disrupt society, the cry for an ever greater role for religion in public life gets louder. For example, sharia-seeking Taliban had blown up hundreds of girls and boys schools in 2008. Although many found this distasteful, a survey conducted immediately thereafter by World Public Opinion.org discovered that 54% of Pakistanis still wanted strict application of sharia while 25% wanted it in some more dilute form. Totaling 79%, this was the largest pro-sharia percentage in the four countries surveyed (Morocco, Egypt, Pakistan, Indonesia). So, even if the Army someday manages to assert full control over all of FATA, the Taliban spirit will live on there – and in Pakistan’s cities – because the dream to make Pakistan a theocracy is still going to be around.

"Some people claim that Pakistan has an image problem. Of course it does, but a good part of that image is based upon solid fact."

How far has a lack of education hampered the civilian population of Pakistan? What role could/should education have in the future of a democratic Pakistan?

An excess of mis-education, not lack of education, is more important of the two. One just has to see the vile stuff that Pakistani kids are force-fed in school to know that they would be far more peaceful citizens if left uneducated. Instead of a future that is joyous and a peaceful country that offers hope to all, the child is constantly told that life is actually about battling invisible enemies. Fear is ever-present because beneath every stone lurks a venomous snake; Pakistan is supposedly under the siege of sinister forces which the child must learn to acknowledge, identify, and fight to death. What mental space can remain for this child’s innocence when he or she must learn to make speeches on jihad and martyrdom? And what scope exists for accepting and accommodating beliefs other than your own? The outright lies that our children are taught in school means that Pakistan will take a very long time, if ever, to become a democracy. For example, they are simply told that East Pakistan broke away from West Pakistan because the East Wing had Hindu teachers who conspired with India to destroy Pakistan. There is not a word about how miserably Bengalis were treated by West Pakistanis or why Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was the rightful prime minister of Pakistan, not Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto.

What is the biggest threat to Pakistan’s stability – America, India, the Taliban or other internal threats?

Religious fascists are infinitely more dangerous for Pakistan than all other forces combined. They threaten to drag Pakistan into barbaric medievalism. The murder of Governor Salman Taseer – who tried to save a Christian peasant woman’s life – is a recent example of how bad things have become. The fascistic militants say this is a conflict of Islam versus America, India, and Israel when, in fact, they are actually waging an armed struggle to remake society and will keep fighting this war even if America were to miraculously evaporate into space. Created by poverty, a war-culture, and the macabre manipulations of Pakistan’s intelligence services, they want a cultural revolution. This means eliminating music, art, entertainment, and all manifestations of modernity and westernism. Side goals include chasing away the few surviving native Christians, Sikhs, and Hindus. In the promised Islamic utopia there will be speedy Qazi courts which will dispense instant “justice” through amputations and stonings.

**Dr. Pervez Hoodbhoy is professor of nuclear and high-energy physics at Quaid-e-Azam University, where he has taught for 37 years. He received his undergraduate and graduate degrees from MIT, and is a frequent commentator on Pakistan’s social and political issues.

Tags: America, East Pakistan, India, Pakistan, pervez hoodbhoy, Salman Taseer, Secular, Taliban, Zardari