Castes in Karachi

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By Staff Reporter

KARACHI, June 3: Speakers at a workshop on Sunday demanded that a national commission be set up to solve the problems being faced by the scheduled castes and that caste-based discrimination be declared a serious crime.

They were speaking at a national workshop on “Caste-based discrimination in Pakistan,” organised by the Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research (Piler) and the Thardeep Rural Development Programme (TRDP).

The workshop was part of an international research project being conducted in Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh, sponsored by the Denmark-based International Dalit Solidarity Network (IDSN) and Indian Institute of Dalit Studies (IIDS).

The speakers demanded that a constitutional package and protection for scheduled castes be provided. They said steps should be taken to stop forced conversions of scheduled caste girls and an independent commission should be formed to investigate the conversions.

They demanded that special scholarships be provided to Dalit students and steps be taken to end the discrimination in schools against them, along with reforms in the curriculum. It was further demanded that the Dalits be given due representation at the decision-making levels so that they could protect their rights.

Earlier, researcher Zulfiqar Shah presented the initial findings of his study carried out on 5,000 households. He focussed on four districts – two in lower Punjab and two in lower Sindh. He said that about two million scheduled caste people – belonging to the Kolhi, Meghwar, Bheel, Balmiki, Oad, Jogi, Bagri and other communities – were the poorest of the poor and were discriminated against in day to day life, despite the fact that the country’s constitution promises equal rights to all citizens.

The survey revealed that the worst form of discrimination — from both upper caste Hindus and Muslims — came in the shape of untouchability, which means they were denied access to public places like restaurants, barber shops, etc.

In some places they were served in separate crockery and in other areas they were even denied entry to certain restaurants and shops.

They had segregated housing, while the situation is worse in rural areas as 95 per cent of Dalits living in Rahimyar Khan reported untouchability as compared to 35 per cent living in Multan. Sixty-nine per cent of those surveyed said that their upper caste Hindu and Muslim neighbours either do not invite them to their social gatherings like weddings, or if invited they are served food separately. This attitude was relatively more prevalent in Rahimyar Khan (87 per cent) than in Tharparkar (60 per cent).

The study claims that only one per cent of scheduled caste people were in government service, that also in the lowest tiers like primary school teachers. The illiteracy level in Dalits stood at 73 per cent against the national literacy level of around 50 per cent. The majority of these literates are educated up to the primary or secondary school levels, while only one per cent were graduates.

Approximately 56 per cent of Dalit families live in single-room katcha houses, while 35 per cent reported the death of a child under 5 years in their families. The data showed that they were ignored by the political groups and government; hence they were unable to reap any benefits from the devolution plan. They also faced economic exploitation and the majority of bonded labourers in Sindh are from the scheduled castes.

The research, conducted by Mr Shah and his team, revealed that very little information was available on the status of issues being faced by marginalised groups like the scheduled castes. Also, there was no legal protection or affirmative action policy to combat caste-based discrimination in Pakistan, unlike in India.

The research presentation was followed by a discussion in which about 40 participants, including Dalit community representatives, political leaders, academics, researchers and activists, took part. At the end of the workshop the participants decided to form a Pakistan Dalit Solidarity Network.

Former MNA Dr Khatumal Jewan, former MPA of Punjab Lala Mehar Lal Bheel, Rochi Ram Advocate, Dr Sono Khingharani of the TRDP, journalist Surrendar Valasai, Dr Aly Ercelawn of the Piler and others also spoke.

A number of representatives of the scheduled castes from Sindh and Punjab attended the workshop.

Scheduled Castes Federation of Pakistan (SCFP); Cell: 0092333-3686426; http://www.geocities.com/pakdalits/1/main.htm.

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Boston Muslims Forgive Israel Advocates

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By Karin Friedemann, World View News Service and Muslim Media News Service (MMNS)

Many celebrated the construction of New England’s largest mosque as proof of “the Muslim community coming into its own.” Yet not everyone celebrated. In 2004, the City of Boston was sued for selling the land to Muslims. Racist commentators whipped up public hysteria against the mosque.

“Muslims are very upset,” said Mushtaque Mirza, who has lived in Boston for 30 years. “The mosque is always depicted as [supporting] terrorism.”

The lawsuit against the City was dismissed in 2007, but irreparable damage had already been done. Donations slowed to a trickle, the mosque only half built.

When in 2005, mosque directors Dr. Yousef Abou Allaban and Ossama Kandil sued Fox News and the Boston Herald for defamation, analysis of discovery materials exposed a professionally coordinated network of pro-Israel organizations, mass media, Islamophobic academics, and real estate developers. The directors accused a growing list of defendants, including Steven Emerson, the David Project, and Citizens for Peace and Tolerance (CPT), whose president is Dennis Hale, of “a concerted, well-coordinated effort to deprive … members of the Boston Muslim community of their basic right of free association and the free exercise of their religion.”

The Jewish community

Some Jewish groups kindly distanced themselves from this conspiracy to deprive Muslim Americans of their constitutional rights, which is a federal crime, but Nancy Kaufman, executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston, whose stated mission includes minimizing the political influence of groups feared hostile to Israel, stated, “None of those organizations [who signed statements supporting the mosque] are members of the organizations of the JCRC.

We don’t consider them to be a part of the mainstream Jewish community.”

Who is Charles Jacobs?

In 2006, Dr. Yousef Abou-Allaban, chairman of the board of the Islamic Society of Boston, addressed Charles Jacobs, president of the David Project, in an open letter that was quoted in the Boston Globe.

“We would like to know why you and others at the David Project appear to be so intent on inflaming relations between our communities,” Abou-Allaban wrote. “Do you really hate us that much?”

Charles Jacobs, like Charles Krauthammer and Richard Perle, earns his living through a speakers’ bureau called Benador Associates, which specializes in pro-Israel campus events focusing on Islam and terrorism. Fareeha Iqbal, a student at MIT, attended one of his lectures.

“Dr. Jacobs’ talk expressed blatantly racist and anti-Islamic views. In fact, I have never seen Islamophobia exuded so blatantly at a public forum at MIT, nor such racist views aired at a panel discussion on human rights.”

A pioneer in the technological aspects of mass-marketing hate, CAMERA, which Jacobs co-founded in 1982 to enforce pro-Israel bias in the news, email blasts tailored “action alerts” to huge databases of specific target groups.

This Polish immigrant, armed with only a BA from Rutgers and a Masters in Education from Harvard has proven exceptionally effective in manipulating the US government and major American institutions into following policy blueprints created by his Israel advocacy organization, the David Project.

The David Project

The David Project is an affiliate member of the Israel on Campus Coalition (ICC), a network of national Jewish organizations, founded in partnership with the Jewish student organization Hillel and the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation. (The three organizations share a building in Washington.) It is essentially an Islamophobia franchisor complete with manuals and training videos.

In October 2003, the David Project funded a film, produced by Ralph Avi Goldwasser, to slander professors Rashid Khalidi, Joseph Massad, Hamid Dabashi, and Georges Saliba of Columbia University’s Department of Middle East studies. Joseph Massad became known as one of the most dangerous intellectuals on campus. Calls for the professor’s dismissal were issued by Congressman Weiner and by the editors of the Daily News and the New York Sun, and the propaganda film was shown in Israel before a government minister at an anti-Semitism conference.

The David Project regularly places racist anti-Arab and anti-Muslim speakers on Harvard campus, but its first major accomplishment was blocking a $2 million donation from the late president of the United Arab Emirates, Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan, for a chair in Islamic Studies at the Harvard Divinity School. The Project’s 2003 smear campaign, coordinated with the ADL, sought to exclude Arabs and Muslims from developments at Harvard University.

Charles Jacobs smeared Shaykh Zaid’s donation to Harvard.

Anti-Sudan Campaigns

Jacobs’ pro-Israel advocacy organization spearheaded the campaign to vilify the Islamic Republic of Sudan, and provided huge quantities of lurid, both popular and pseudo-academic material, in which Sudan is described as a “terrorist, genocidal” state engaged in a “holy war.” Charles Jacobs’ carefully designed “PR puff pieces” about “slavery” in Sudan have managed to secure national media coverage.

While pro-Palestine activists have long struggled to halt public funding of Israel, the dishonest “Save Darfur!” campaign, put together by DP friends and trainees, is the quickest divestment success in history. Sudan divestment resolutions have become law in Iowa and are in the process of approval in 12 states. The JCRC coordinating with the David Project has further poisoned human rights discourse with this effort to turn Arab and African Americans against each other.

ISB Settles Lawsuit

The furor over the Roxbury mosque has exposed the ways Israel advocacy groups pollute discourse on US foreign and domestic policy, which have until now remained mostly invisible to American political scientists.

Two lawyers that were originally helping the David Project, Jonathon Leffel and Jacob Feinberg, apparently had a change of heart and handed over to the Islamic Society of Boston damning evidence against the David Project.

The ISB had always made clear that they would settle if the David Project stopped challenging their right to build the mosque. On May 29, 2007 the David Project offered to withdraw Policastro’s appeal, and on May 30, 2007, the Muslim American Society announced that Kandil and Abou Allaban agreed to dismiss their defamation lawsuits.

Every time Jacobs, Kaufman, or Goldwasser look out of the top floor window of the Combined Jewish Philanthropies in downtown Boston, they will see the dome and minaret despite their best efforts to prevent its completion.

Karin Friedemann is a Muslim Media News Service (MMNS) reporter and editor of World View News Service in Boston, focusing on the Islamic world. Please visit http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/wvns/.

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