Farrukh Khan Pitafi's Official Website

A 25 year old Sindhi man tried committing suicide in front of the Supreme Court of Pakistan today. He was reportedly protesting against unemployment. If you can read Urdu please see the report at BBC Urdu website by clicking here. While the government remains oblivious of the plight of the common man, the situation keeps getting mushier and mushier every passing day.

Posted by farrukh at 17:05:46

Bravo Ayman,
With your recent televised speech you have proven whom are you serving.
Exactly when BBC was unravelling its research on Pope’s implication in covering up of the sex scandals in the Vatican, and people were compelled to reconsider his profile, in its Panorama program Sex crimes and the Vatican all the people of the world needed was your idiotic speech criticising him. Your rogue profile and your criticism is enough to make anyone a star.
You are a true enemy of Islam and serving the interest of Bush Inc then.

Posted by farrukh at 14:07:47

Read my Sunday column Our very own McCarthyism. Your comments are most welcome. You may find these comments relevant to the recent killing of Sardar Akbar Bugti.

Posted by farrukh at 06:31:19.

Read my today’s column. Its called Nation building in 60th year and was carried by The Post today. It is a reflective article on Pakistan’s accomplishments thus far. Please read on by clicking on thhe link above and I may need your comment. Yes you can read all my The Post columns by clicking here.

An excellent article appeared in Wilson Quarterly on the perceived peril of Islam in Europe by Martin Walker. Its called Europe’s Mosque Hysteria. You better read it because its excellent and hardly needs any comment.

Posted by farrukh at 05:33:31.

A friend recently visited my weblog and complained that he did not find any comment on the Lebanon situation. To be honest I did not write anyting on the issue. It is plain fact that I condemn Israel’s policies and the impotence of the world leadership in stopping such gruesome act. Today the ceasefire is coming into force which should have already taken place weeks ago. But the fact is I am thoroughly disillusioned and do not have enough energies left to write on such brutalities and double standards which have become every day routine now. And then I don’t like this cottage industry flourishing in the shape of commentary on crises which inflict terrible losses on humanity. Recently I was invited by a producer friend who asked me to participate on his TV program to comentate on the current. Since I do not seek opportunities in other people’s suffering, my response was precisely the same.
Folks, it’ a human tragedy and not a soccer match. Have some pity on your fellow humans!

Posted by farrukh at 18:02:22

A friend recently introduced me to an online discussion going on through emails on religion. Unfortunately it seems to have deformed to cursing and abusing activity rather than anything constructive. After having tolerated the flood of mails hurling abuses at each other’s faiths I decided to reply to a contributor who seems to be a Christian and calls himself Servant of Jesus and others.

The correspondence is given below:

“Look folks, I have been following your arguments for considerable time. I would not make any bones about the fact that in the heart of my hearts I am a deeply religious Muslim and insults regarding my faith and creed really hurt me. But let me also not mince a word on this. In my early youth I was seized by what I would call the ghost of a Muslim missionary and I would spend hours and hours in convincing people of my religion that I would lose track of the minute difference between defending my faith and fighting for the satisfaction of my personal ego. It was later that I realised that all such stuff was pointless. Allah, God, Yahweh, Eeshwar, or whosoever it is He doesnt want us to be upon each other throats. We need not to indulge in unnecessary and fruitless discussions on religion. I am a Muslim and it is part of my faith that no matter whatever argument you bring to me I’ll still stick to my faith. I am sure you’ll do the same. So instead of hurling abuses on eachother let us learn to tolerate eachother. Every faith has its own literature so vast that it can be used to simultaneously inculcate peace and incite violence. Why waste time in destructive efforts? There is enough poverty and challenges like climatic meltdown that face our collective future. Why should we not try true essence of humanity and stop adding to our plate of troubles?
I personally have friends among Christians, Jews, Hindus and Zoroastrians. I respect their religion and they respect my choices. Whenever we talk we talk of commonalities not discrepancies. Again those who think it is fine to malign Muslims because they are already under thick cloud let me remind them that we are a quarter of the world population. Even if they hate us so much that they want to kill us they won’t succeed. So what’s the point in this useless meddling in each other’s faith. It was God’s will that like blooming flowers there should be more than one creed. Who are we to under estimate His widom?
Let me conclude by invoking a metaphor. Gulliver goes to Lilliput and finds that the pygmies of lilliput often fight with their neighbour blefuscu on the issue of breaking egg from small side or the other. I am sure we all are not pygmies.

Best regards,
FKP

In reply On 8/13/06, Servant_Of_Jesus Messiah wrote:

Sir,

good for you. then rise against all kinds of injustices. including the ones that moslems commit such as honor-killings, terror, anti-knowledge attitudes that
prevails in the moslem world, subjugation of women, religious freedom
such as moslems killing others who preach other religions in moslem lands
while moslems preach freely their islam in non-moslem countries. (this is a very bad one that is moslems commit against the rest of humanity)

fight all these injustices. that is the true jihaad…

In response I wrote:
Honor killings, terrorism, anti-knowledge attitudes and subjugation of women are evils that should be condemned no matter from wherever they come. Women are half of the world’s population. We don’t have any right and there is no reason in subjugating them. Terrorism kills innocent citizens, its all forms and manifestations should be fought. These are cultural issues and not essentially religious. Jihad in essence means struggle and there is no shred of doubt in my mind that it includes fighting such evils. But won’t you agree that bitterness created by anger management issues can never be a panacea. How can rationality and the rational ones prevail in the Muslim world if we keep receiving insults and humiliation all the time. The best way is to stand together and fight them in our respective domains. I for one have always used my pen and my body and soul to fight such evils.
And as ffor preaching I believe that there should be moratorium by all religions to stop luring believers to their own faith because even though there are some who succeed in doing so it mostly gives way to hatred and friction. This may sound an onerous antidote but this is the only solution till humanity becomes rational and pluralist enough to tolerate privacy of religion.
best regards,
FKP

I recently came across a colleague and very dear friend’s recommended books list at Amazon.com. I have tried only few titles of these but they are really awesome. I’ll soon try to add some good texts in the “favourites” section of my website. And my friends that enjoy the company of books can also send me their favourite lists at my email: farrukh.khan@pitafi.com.
Meanwhile please go through Adnan Rehmat’s above mentioned best love stories list. [Permalink]

For four or five days I have lazily been mulling over writing a comment on the world’s second richest man Warren Buffett’s decision to donate about 85 percent of his fortune to charity. The biggest chunk of this charity would go to Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The founder of this charity is ofcourse Bill Gates the richest man among us. While people will try smelling rat in it I am thoroughly convinced of Bill’s conviction. I think he is a great man who can really contribute to the society and inspire others to do the same. The fortune story and Buffett’s interview can be viewed by clicking on the hyperlinks above.
In fact quite recently I was talking to a senior colleague Mark Harvey recently and the issue of Philanthropy came up. Mark was appreciating Bill for his extraordinary courage to take the growing global problems as an intellectual challenge. This reminded me of one column of mine which actually came before the Foundation’s announcement of its quest for solution to the problems like HIV-AIDS and other epidemics. You can also read this article. It is called World War III begins .

Please check my today’s article on the topic given above by clicking here.
Kindly note that once you click this link you’ll have to hit back button to return to my weblog.