Reg
location: back to the wilderness
listening to: static
registered: 1999.11.22
posts: 6470
[view all posts]
[view all posts]
I have plenty I could say about all this but no time to do so right now but I figured I'd share this with you guys. This article is from the Standard-Speaker a Pennsylvania newspaper and the gentleman interviewed in the article, Ghulam, is a very good friend of mine. In fact I had been at his house the day before he was interviewed for this article. It's not a great article but hey, it's from a paper that serves small town PA. There are some interesting points and he is a very interesting guy with one heck of a life story. Ghulam has been in the hospital the past couple days, so if you are the praying type it'd be nice if you said one for him. I'm sort of surprised he gave this interview... -------------------Hazleton minister educated in Pakistan remembers Bhutto
Friday, 28 December 2007
By AMANDA CHRISTMAN
Staff Writer
The Rev. Ghulam M. Nasrani was born and raised in India and educated in Pakistan before moving to the United States.Nasrani, of Hazleton, attended Gordon College in Pakistan across the street from Liaquat Bagh Park in Rawalpindi, where former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was assassinated Thursday.
He remembers a similar assassination of Pakistan’s first prime minister over 50 years ago while he was in college. Nasrani said classes were cut short for the day because the country’s first prime minister, Liaquat Ali Khan, was speaking at the park.
“We ran across the street to listen to him. As I ran across the street I saw thousands of people running towards me.” Nasrani said.
He was confused and panic hit him as he heard that Kahn was killed by Islamic fundamentalists.
“So we ran away,” Nasrani said, “I had to run away from the bullets.”
The park, he said was named for Khan after his death.
It’s an eerie and ironic coincidence to the assassination of Bhutto, he said.
Like Kahn, Bhutto was giving a speech to supporters. Bhutto, Nasrani said, was very pro-West, as was her father, Zulfiqar Bhutto. Zulfiqar was hanged in the 1970s for his beliefs.
Nasrani said he believes Islamic fundamentalists are at the root of Bhutto’s assassination.
The fundamentalists, Nasrani said don’t want women walking around “bare-faced” (Pakistani women typically have their faces covered in public). The group also doesn’t want women in power and hates the western world and its supporters, Nasrani said.
Bhutto served as prime minister twice and was running in the parliamentary election slated for Jan. 8. Bhutto was Pakistan’s first female prime minister and the first of any Islamic nation.
Nasrani said both Bhuttos believed in democracy. However, Nasrani said it is very difficult to establish democracy in a developing nation.
“Democracy works only when people are educated and they understand the system,” Nasrani said. Pakistanis are part of a developing nation and not everyone understands the concept of democracy, he said.
But, Nasrani said, Bhutto died doing what she believed in.
“She died for a cause… she was willing to die for the cause she believed in,” Nasrani said.
Though Nasrani was out of Pakistan for some time when Bhutto came to power as prime minister, he described her as a knowledgeable, controversial person who believed in education and democracy.
“She was a charming, beautiful, graceful person,” he said. “I’m sure the moderate Muslim community in Hazleton, in America and even in Pakistan stand with me in grief.”
–--
'The only way to avoid getting crushed by absurdity, is to humbly include the absurd in our calculations.'
'The only way to avoid getting crushed by absurdity, is to humbly include the absurd in our calculations.'
Reg
(view)
I have plenty I could say about all this but no time to do so right now but I figured I'd share this with you guys. This article is from the Standard-Speaker a Pennsylvania newspaper and the gentleman interviewed in the article, Ghulam, is a very good friend of mine. In fact I had been at his house the day before he was interviewed for this article. It's not a great article but hey, it's from a paper that serves small town PA. There are some interesting points and he is a very interesting guy with one heck of a life story. Ghulam has been in the hospital the past couple days, so if you are the praying type it'd be nice if you said one for him. I'm sort of surprised he gave this interview... -------------------Hazleton minister educated in Pakistan remembers Bhutto
Friday, 28 December 2007
By AMANDA CHRISTMAN
Staff Writer
The Rev. Ghulam M. Nasrani was born and raised in India and educated in Pakistan before moving to the United States.Nasrani, of Hazleton, attended Gordon College in Pakistan across the street from Liaquat Bagh Park in Rawalpindi, where former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was assassinated Thursday.
He remembers a similar assassination of Pakistan’s first prime minister over 50 years ago while he was in college. Nasrani said classes were cut short for the day because the country’s first prime minister, Liaquat Ali Khan, was speaking at the park.
“We ran across the street to listen to him. As I ran across the street I saw thousands of people running towards me.” Nasrani said.
He was confused and panic hit him as he heard that Kahn was killed by Islamic fundamentalists.
“So we ran away,” Nasrani said, “I had to run away from the bullets.”
The park, he said was named for Khan after his death.
It’s an eerie and ironic coincidence to the assassination of Bhutto, he said.
Like Kahn, Bhutto was giving a speech to supporters. Bhutto, Nasrani said, was very pro-West, as was her father, Zulfiqar Bhutto. Zulfiqar was hanged in the 1970s for his beliefs.
Nasrani said he believes Islamic fundamentalists are at the root of Bhutto’s assassination.
The fundamentalists, Nasrani said don’t want women walking around “bare-faced” (Pakistani women typically have their faces covered in public). The group also doesn’t want women in power and hates the western world and its supporters, Nasrani said.
Bhutto served as prime minister twice and was running in the parliamentary election slated for Jan. 8. Bhutto was Pakistan’s first female prime minister and the first of any Islamic nation.
Nasrani said both Bhuttos believed in democracy. However, Nasrani said it is very difficult to establish democracy in a developing nation.
“Democracy works only when people are educated and they understand the system,” Nasrani said. Pakistanis are part of a developing nation and not everyone understands the concept of democracy, he said.
But, Nasrani said, Bhutto died doing what she believed in.
“She died for a cause… she was willing to die for the cause she believed in,” Nasrani said.
Though Nasrani was out of Pakistan for some time when Bhutto came to power as prime minister, he described her as a knowledgeable, controversial person who believed in education and democracy.
“She was a charming, beautiful, graceful person,” he said. “I’m sure the moderate Muslim community in Hazleton, in America and even in Pakistan stand with me in grief.”
–--
'The only way to avoid getting crushed by absurdity, is to humbly include the absurd in our calculations.'
'The only way to avoid getting crushed by absurdity, is to humbly include the absurd in our calculations.'
posted 2008.01.02
posted on January 2nd 2008
Reg
location: back to the wilderness
listening to: static
registered: 1999.11.22
posts: 6470
[view all posts]
[view all posts]
-
This is awful – Andrea on December 27th, 2007-
Re: This is awful – kravitz on December 27th, 2007-
Re: This is awful – Baerwald on December 27th, 2007
Re: This is awful – cassandra on December 27th, 2007-
Re: This is awful – Baerwald on December 27th, 2007-
Re: This is awful – Baerwald on December 27th, 2007
-
-
-
