Whats the reason for suicide bombing??

In The Tipping Point Malcom Gladwell talks about the sudden surge in the suicide rates on the Island of Micronesia. earlier there used to be no suicides. but at some point, the suicide rates picked up. no one could understand the reason why it happened? the one possible explanation that was given in the book is this:

the suicide attempts appear in the spirit of initiative on experimental play. thus as suicide grows more frequent,in these communities the idea itself acquires a certain familiarity if not fascination to young men, and the lethality of the act seems to be trivilized.

This, in his words, led to the contagious epidemic of self destruction that led to the life becoming meaningless.

Perhaps this could be one reason that has been neglected when we look at the surging rate of the suicide bombing. we should remember that the suicide rate in Micronesia mainly soared in the teenagers. and when we look at the majority of the suicide bombers, they too are teenagers. so perhaps there could be reason that the recent surge in the suicide bombing is because the rate reached its tipping point. and life has become meaningless for these suicide bombers.

or there could be other reasons. but this could be one of them.

a tale of two cities

Karachi and Peshawar are situated at the Extreme ends of Pakistan. the attitude shown by the people of both cities to the recent suicide attacks have also been extreme.

Peshawar has been the harder hit of the two cities. yet the people of Peshawar have shown extreme restraint. one suicide bomb blasted in Karachi today. and the reaction to that was that people started burning markets and vehicles. over 400 shops and 40 vehicles were burnt, according to one TV channel. it was as if there were animals waiting in these people for this mayhem.

I am left to wonder: what is the difference between those terrorists who went with this attack, and the general public who committed the act of arson.

is burning public property the only way we can extinguish the fires within ourselves?

think about it.

or maybe we are not capable of thinking anymore.

who will mourn this city?

Its about the tenth of Muharram and it is being mourned by many people aroudn the world. but who will mourn the death of the beautiful city of peshawar??

Barbed wires make it hard to move around

security personnel outnumber men

virutally no economic activity

out of respect or out of fear??

in a state of war

Democracy in Afghanistan

Here is some news about the democracy in Afghanistan. it is working.

well, that must be good news, No?

well not exactly. it is working the same like in many third world countries. there are fraud elections and the ballot boxes are stuffed for the ruling person.

consider the recent election. Hamid Karzai’s supporters had already stuffed the ballot boxes before the elections even started. at some places there were more votes than registered voters. for example:

In Helmand, for instance, Western officials believe that in the district of Garmser about 5,000 people voted. But the ballot boxes arriving in the provincial capital, Lashkar Gah, contain about 20,000. In Musa Qala the discrepancy was between 9,000 and 18,000. Mr Hadee, the IEC official, now says that turnout in Helmand was 25%. Some Western officials reckon 20% of votes nationally may be fraudulent.

but that is not all. the country is  in bad shape. August tied for the deadliest month.

Whatever happened to the Dream of a democratic Afghanistan.

where’s the leash?

so the Iraqi government has put on new restrictions on the movement of the American troops. and we hope that the Americans would presumably do what the but wait a second. Who are the masters here and who are the servants? who has brought this government into power in the first place? wasnt it because of these American troops?

lets start a conspiracy theory. maybe the Americans have told them to issue this directive so that the world can see how “sovereign” the new Iraq is. plus it will help them to leave the country with grace.” ok the government of Iraq does not want it so we are leaving.”

if that is not the case,  Americans must surely be looking for a leash right now.

do they really care what the Iraqi government says?

salekhanathropy

The operation is Swat has made many of the civilians flee their homes. they have been left to take refuge in far off areas. some of them are being assisted by the world organisations, some by NGOs. but they are not doing it for any good. they are simply doing it becuause they are making money in the process.

fortunately not all people are here to make money. one of the examples of that is the spirit shown by the people of a village called SalehKhana. Saleh Khana is located in the district of Nowshera.

when people started coming in from Swat to the JaloZai camp, the people of SalehKhana started a fund and sheltered some 22 families. they have a capacity of upto 30 families.

the displaced people are being provided every thing free of cost, be it medicines, or food or clothing. an old market with shops have been allocated as the shelter. each family has been housed in one of the shops.

not only that, separate bathrooms for women have already been built. while bathrooms for men are being built. quite an extraordnary work there.

the Swat operation

The Swat operation continues with full vigor. and the secrity forces are claiming that they have been eliminating the Taliban threat. in the new reports, the Army has cleared the Peochar area of these militants, which was their strongest place.

Why do we need the approval of the United States for everything? why does the US have to be the judge of the what we are doing right or wrong? I still can not understand that.

learning from Sri Lanka

the defeat of the Sri Lankan LTTE tells us one thing; if you are persistent enough, you can defeat anything. the Sri Lankans were able to hold off the secessionists. I think Pakistan has lessons to learn from here. after all Pakistan faces similar threats in the form of Talibans etc.

no more nukes?

Barak Obama wants a world without nukes. in his words it is the moral responsibilty of the United States to rid the world of the nuclear weapons. yeah we all want a world with peace and love. such a rosy picture he is showing us.

now lets come back the reality. The United States would be the last state to give up its stockpiles of nuclear weapons. why would it? they have more than their deterrence value. they are a source of terror for the biggest empire in the history of the world.

probably Mr. Obama thinks that the Nukes are not good for other countries. but i dont think he will ever be able to persuade the congress to disarm the nuclear weapons. there are always “threats” to the security of the United States, arent there?

how our values are being killed

the funeral of our values?

something is happening and that is not good. through slow poisoning, with or without intent, our values will be killed.

the Bomb blast in swat on the day of the by elections is how they are being killed. the bomber asked people to come to his car, supposedly broken down, for a push start. as people gathered around to push it, he blew it up.

so now no one will even help someone whose car REALLY has broken down. thus the death of one good value i.e. of helping someone in the hour of need.

what is happening will surely turn us into barbarians.