January 2017 - The Debates

To many people it may be strange things to know about Peshawar, that why it is called the city of flower? And how many names has it changed in the course of history. How it is a city which has faced the British’s atrocities in the colonial era next only to the jallianwala Bagh tragedy, and how different types of streets has it got. There is indeed a reason to call it the city of flower, why it is called the kissa khani (story teller ) bazaar, and similarly the city has undergone almost eleven names in during the course of history.

It was the great Mughal king and the founder of the Mughal dynasty in the Sub-continent, emperor Babur who said that if a blind walks across India, he realize when he reaches Peshawar by the smell of its flowers, and hence then it has become to be called as the city of flowers in the discourses of history.

The city indeed has faced the worst kind of atrocity in term of the loss of human lives in the British colonial history of the Sub-contitnet, which is only next to the Jallianwallah Bagh Tragedy of Amritsar. It April 23,1930 that the British forces opened fire on civilians in the Kissa Khani Barzar and trampled them under their armored cars. In the ancident 125 civilians were killed and 43 were missing. It was indeed a massacre next to the Jallianwallah Bagh tragedy, where the casualties were more than this.

The city has undergone eleven names in the course of history and arrived the present one Peshawar. These names are: Caspatyrus, Paruparaesana, Paraopamisadae,Ghandara,Paraspaur, Purashapura, Poshapura, Polushapulo,Folusha, Farshabur and PESHAWAR.

Similarly the city of Peshawar has the following types of streets,The street of Dentists, the street of potters, the street of felt caps, the street of silver, the street of money changer, the street of coppersmiths, and the street of English women.

The Kissa Khani Baazar derives it names from the fact that in the ancient times there used to be people who would narrate various stories couched in the pashto literary genre called Badala.

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The Arab Colonization...

Authority of one man over another is not justified unless it is derived from a legal social contract. People want themselves to be bastion of the power, as they should be, have a meaningful input in the state business, practice the religion of their own choice, utilize their natural resources for their own benefit, and the ruler must be a man elected by the of the ruled. It is therefore that the colonialism is resisted as it negates the aforesaid values and favors force rather than the will of the people in ruling them. The tactics of the colonial powers vary with passage of time same, even if they physically withdraw; they make use of imperialist devices and exert their influence on the third world countries. The colonized resist the oppression physically as well as through certain befitting intellectual responses. But it is strange to learn of certain cases where the colonized hold a brief for the colonizers and condone the same. Arab’s colonization of some parts of the Muslim world, Pakistan certainly is no exception, is one of such examples.

The Arabs have made use of physical might for colonizing some parts of the world, and the same exercise was done in the sub-continent in 712 AD. However, a score of circumstances showed them their way back. The British came in 1600, and it were 1857 when the sub-continent came under rule of the majesty. The British colonization has been hotly debated among the intellectual circles and bids of neocolonialism are resisted. But ironically such acts of Arabs are favorably condoned.

Arabs certainly export their own brand of Wahabi Islam and culture, and use the same for realization of their political ends. The practice has been resulting into growing extremism in most parts of the Muslim countries and disturb their internal social order and religious harmony among the various denominations. The undercurrent purpose is to indoctrinate mind of the people against the Shia’s doctrine.

A strong intellectual response has been in the vogue against the western colonizers ‘approach and their so-called projects of civilizing the world on the pretext of which they exploited the colonized and misappropriated their resources. Their bid to universalize their own culture and world view is challenged by putting the counter patterns. The marginalized cultural patterns are revived, their tastes and cultural values are given importance, and history and literature are re-read (as Edward Said puts it) to highlight the marginalization of the colonizers. The European’s bid to universalize their own model of democracy, political and judicial systems, which they regarded as a panacea for all ills, is challenged. Attempts are made to revive the past the era before the arrival of the white men, which the colonizers usually call a pre-civilization era. Even use of the modern tools of exploitation in the field economy, social and cultural fields, are termed as neocolonialism. But ironically no attention is paid to the inroads of the Arabs into the social and cultural fabric.

Colonization should be condemned in all its manifestations, man should not be deprived of the his fundamental rights and freedoms: freedom of speech; freedom of religion; freedom of association assembly and the right to rule himself is certainly one of them which the colonization negates. However, a critical approach is necessary identifying and analyzing the different modes colonization. Approach to condone colonization of one power and resist against the other reflects a double standard which certainly obstructs one way to true liberty.

The impact of Islam on Arabs.

Can't we be human beings?

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