Originally posted by Ah Chia:The elections are not fair.
PAP monopolised the mainstream media to spread propaganda, opposition censored.
Campaign period only a few days for opposition to hold rallies, while for 5 years PAP daily spread their bullshit propaganda to brainwash.
Elections definitely never fair.
But as PAP also says, and I find logical... which govt or opponent will make it easy for their opponent to win them? This is politics... They will try all sorts of means to make life hard for opposition....
Sigh....
Persian Language and Culture is Under Attack!
By Ali Maisam Nazary
In
the last two centuries the status of Persian has been decreasing in
Afghanistan and in other countries around the region. In Afghanistan,
Persian, the language spoken by the majority of people, is being
limited in all parts while Pashto, a tribal language spoken by the
minority, is being enforced all over the country. The Persian words for
institutions such ‘hospital,’ ‘University,’ ‘pharmacy’ as well as many
others have unreasonably been replaced by Pashto words. All
governmental documents are being written in Pashto and the National
Anthem is sung in Pashto instead of Persian. It is quite ironic for the
people of a country to not understand their own National Anthem.
In
February 2007 Patman, an official in the Ministry of Education who is
also an active member of the Afghan Mellat Party, was participating in
a round table discussion on Ariana TV. He proposed new plans of
Pashtunizing Afghanistan's education after the upcoming New Year in
March. These new policies have opened a new chapter of chauvinism and
fascism in Afghanistan which will destroy the country instead of making
it prosper. However, it comes as no surprise. This article will
highlight how the Persian language and culture has been oppressed
throughout history from the time of Alexander to the present.
The region has seen great conquerors come and go. One of the first was
Alexander of Macedonia who plundered and pillaged the region with his
savage-like army from Greece. The Greek invasion ended a chapter of
glory and prosperity for the Persian culture and civilization. During
his time, Alexander tried eradicating anything associated with Persian.
He burned the magnificent capital of Persipolis, which was built by the
Acheamanid Dynasty. When Alexander reached Herat, the core of the
Persian Empire, he encountered fierce opposition led by Satibarzan.
Though Satibarzan waged fierce guerilla warfare against the invaders in
ancient Aria, he was ultimately defeated and Alexander headed towards
the Hindu Kush to Balkh were he defeated Satrap Bessus. Afterwards,
Alexander moved on to ancient Samarkand where he burned down most of
the city and massacred half of the population. For hundreds of years
afterwards, his descendants tried to force their Hellenistic culture on
the natives. However, they failed and a strong opposition grew and the
Parthians liberated all of "Ancient Iran" from the Greeks and thus the
second era of the Persian Empire commenced. But the land can never
erode the tell-tale signs of pain felt at the hands of Alexander and
his horde of mercenaries. History shows that the Persians fought until
the end to keep their culture, language, and identity from being
deracinated by the Greeks.
The
second era of the Persian culture and civilization ended when the Arabs
invaded during the time of the Sassanid Empire of Iran. The Arabs
entered Iran like animals on a desperate hunt for prey. They destroyed,
burned, and pillaged the great cities and towns. They killed all
intellectuals, burned great books of literature and science and
enforced their culture, language, and religion on the people of the
region. There are legends of the Arabs invasion of Kabul led by "Shah e
du Shamshera" i.e. "The King with two Swords." At the hands of the
Arabs, the Persians faced genocide far worse than that of the Jewish
Holocaust during World War II. Arabic replaced the Persian language and
anyone caught teaching or learning Persian was put to death. Though all
non-Arabs were mistreated, the Persians were treated far worse during
the Arab occupation. Mu'auiyah in a famous letter addressed to Ziyad
ibn Abih, the then governor of Iraq, wrote:
“…Be watchful of
Iranian Muslims and never treat them as equals of Arabs. Arabs have a
right to take in marriage their women, but they have no right to marry
Arab women. Arabs are entitled to inherit their [the Persians’] legacy,
but they [the Persians] cannot inherit from an Arab. s far as possible
they are to be given lesser pensions and lowly jobs. In the presence of
an Arab a non-Arab shall not lead the congregation prayer, nor are they
to be allowed to stand in the first row of prayer, nor to be entrusted
with the job of guarding the frontiers or the post of a qadi…”
The
hatred that the Arabs and their rulers had towards the Persian language
and culture was no secret. This anti-Persian policy continued for at
least two centuries. During the Umayyad dynasty the Persians were
called Mawali. The excerpt is taken from the work of an Arab historian
named Obid:
"The Mawali were not allowed to lead the prayers or
receive booty even if they had participated in battles and
distinguished themselves. They were not allowed to ride horses, marry
into Arab families, or administer governmental or religious affairs.
Even the offspring of mixed marriages were not exempt. The Mawali did
not have the right to walk alongside an Arab; if a Mawali met an Arab
carrying a load, he had to carry that load to the Arab's home without
expecting any payment. If a Mawali were riding a horse and saw an Arab,
he had to dismount and allow the Arab to ride instead. In fact, he had
to take the Arab to his destination. Furthermore, the Mawali did not
have the right to marry their daughters without prior permission from
their Arab masters. Even in death rituals, there was a distinction. As
a rule, Arabs did not participate in funerals held for the Mawali and
the Mawali were not allowed to perform funeral prayers for a deceased
Arab”
The Persians were not able to do anything under Arab rule;
they suffered under these oppressive rules and all of their
accomplishments were used to educate the Arabs. The Persian Language
was forbidden all over the Arab Empire and its literature was banned.
Hallaj ibn Yusuf had ordered that the language of the ‘divan’ in the
eastern regions of the Empire be replaced by Arabic. In Beruni's From
the Remaining Signs of Past Centuries, it is written:
"…When
Qutaibah bin Muslim under the command of Al-Hajjaj bin Yousef was sent
to Khwarazmia with a military expedition and conquered it for the
second time, he swiftly killed whomever wrote the Khwarazmian native
language that knew of the Khwarazmian heritage, history, and culture.
He then killed all their Zoroastrian priests and burned and wasted
their books, until gradually the illiterate only remained, who knew
nothing of writing, and hence their history was mostly forgotten…"
Dark
times had indeed been cast down upon the Persians. But the time came
when the Great Persians rose once more against their enemies and
defeated them and sent them back to their deserts. The great
civilization of the Egyptians had all but disappeared and they lost
their identity, culture, language to the aggressive Arabs while the
Persians strove for justice and victory, seeking a sort of immunity
from such invading viruses. Heroes such as Behzad Khorasani (Abu Muslim
Khorasani), Babak Khurramdin, Yaqub Saffari, Saman Khudah, like their
forefathers before them, fought for and liberated the Persians and
revived the Persian identity once again. Works produced by great
personalities such as Ferdowsi, Saadi, Hafez, and Mawlana helped the
Persian culture and language flourish. As a result of the hard times
faced by the Arab occupation the Persians were adamant about not going
through such tribulations again and so they were able to defeat the
invading Turko-Mongols who came from the east.
When the
Turko-Mongol forces first entered Khorasan they were able to easily
adopt the Persian culture and language because of they lacked culture
and a proper tongue of their own. Ghaznavids, Seljuqs, Khaharezm Shahs,
Timorids were patriarchs of the Persian culture and language. They
financed works like the Shahnama, one of the most spectacular Epics
ever written in history. At that point in history the Persian language
was the Franca lingua, its influences reaching from the Middle East to
the Indian subcontinent. When the second round of Turko-Mongol savages
led by Genghis Khan came the Persians faced massacre and bloodshed once
more. Historical sources claim that sixty percent of the Persian
population in Central Asia was killed during that time. Because of the
hordes of marauding Turko-Mongols Mawlana, Hafez, and Saadi were forced
to flee from their homeland while others who opted to stay, like Attar,
were killed. The Turko-Mongols pillaged and destroyed the great
cultural centers like the regions of Merv and Balkh. Unlike the Greeks
and Arabs before them, who had their own language and culture, the
Turko-Mongols attached themselves to the Persian culture and language.
Most of their rulers could not speak their own mother tongue and had no
choice but to speak Persian. Timorids used the Persian language when
they ruled India; Ottoman Empire spoke Persian in their courts. Today,
in the 21st Century, because they are embarrassed of their ancestors’
attachment to Persian, Uzbekistan and the Pan-Turkist movement is
working against the Persian culture and language. They have banned the
usage of the Persian language in the great cities of Samarqand and
Bukhara and are “Uzbekizing” the 11,000,000 Tajiks in Uzbekistan. They
have started a process of stealing Persian history, culture, and
personalities; Turkey, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan have started claiming
Rumi, Saadi, Avicenna, Al-Farabi and others as theirs, claims that are
as wrong as they are ridiculous.
After the Afsharid Empire, an
Afghan by the name of Ahmad Khan Abdali came to power in Qandahar and
started the Durrani Dynasty in Khorasan. He and his descendants
preferred to speak the Persian language over their mother tongue,
Pashto. During their time, the Persian language was the language of
communication and the Franca lingua of Khorasan. Durrani and his
descendants used Persian titles like ‘Shah’ and referred to their
Empire as Khorasan rather than Afghanistan or Pashtunistan. Pashtun
chauvinism started in Afghanistan after Habibullah Kalakani's brief
nine month rule as King. As he rose to power after tricking and killing
Kalakani, Nadir Khan, a Muhamadzai Pashtun, massacred native Persian
speakers in the north and granted a lot of northern land to tribal
Pashtuns from the NWFP of British India. At the same time he promoted
Pan-Pashtunism and laid the foundations of an ethno-centric
Afghanistan. When Nadir Khan was killed in 1933, his successor
continued the oppressive process by first changing the national
language from Persian to Pashto and Pashtunizing the Persian city of
Kabul. Though the royal family couldn’t speak Pashto themselves, they
started promoting the primitive language which was spoken by tribal
Pashtuns. They changed Farsi/Persian to Dari so as to create divisions
between Persian speakers in Iran and Afghanistan and other regions.
They stopped printing textbooks in Persian and instead, they
distributed Pashto textbooks to schools throughout the country.
However, there was a lack of interest in Pashto and because everyone,
including the royal family, was a native Persian speaker, this
promotion of Pashto failed and they had no choice but to turn back to
Persian again. But their tribal jealousy and hatred did not dissipate;
anti-Persianism in Afghanistan continued through the Taliban era. The
Taliban torched Persian books and closed Universities which used the
Persian language. There were reports that the Taliban would go to
libraries and bookstores and demand all books in the Persian language
and they would burn them in front of the booksellers or Librarians.
They beat anyone whom they heard speaking Persian and they blew up the
Buddha statues which symbolized the rich history of the region. They
very much wanted to tribalize the entire nation.
After the fall
of the Taliban, a new Pashtun group emerged by the name of ‘Afghan
Mellat.’ They started took advantage of the fragile government and
started imposing their own agenda. Their first step was to declare the
title "Afghan" as a national identity and to remove all other
identities i.e. Tajik, Hazara, Uzbek, etc. Their next step was creating
a National Anthem in Pashto rather than in the Persian language. They
had Persian professors replaced in Kabul University and, as stated
earlier, forcefully placed Pashto words for institutions like
University, governmental institutions, etc. while banning all the
Persian words. It is a wonder just how much the Persian people can take
with all this ethno-centrism plaguing their home.
For the last
3,000 years, the Persian speakers and their culture and language have
been under constant bombardment from those who wish to make others pay
for their own insecurities. The Persian speakers need to once more wake
up and defend their identity, culture, and language which have seen
enough oppression throughout its history. There will be no end to this
sort of oppression once the oppressors are allowed to impose their
tribal ways on the Persian speakers. The time to start raising
awareness and claiming discontentment and injustice is now. Predecessors such as Satibarzan, Ariabarzan, and the Parthians fought
for their rights during the Hellenistic period; Abu Muslim Khorasani,
Babak Khurramdin, and Saman Khuda fought during the Arab occupation of
Iran and Khorasan; Kartas of Herat and Safavids of Persia fought the
Mongol invasions. The Persian speakers of today need another Abu Muslim
to get rid of Afghan Mellat and Pan-Turkism. But in today’s world, even
a simple man can become a hero just by standing up for justice and
equality. History will always repeat itself if the mistakes are allowed
to be repeated.
Originally posted by eagle:Elections definitely never fair.
But as PAP also says, and I find logical... which govt or opponent will make it easy for their opponent to win them? This is politics... They will try all sorts of means to make life hard for opposition....
Sigh....
Well, at least we can be sure that what ever opposition that managed hold itself together despite the disadvantage of being challengers instead of incumbent, it will be a strong opposition, not some losers who get pwned and cry foul all day.
Well, at least we can be sure that what ever opposition that managed hold itself together despite the disadvantage of being challengers instead of incumbent, it will be a strong opposition
Weird logic.
Please lah Uncle, i am doing my paper on singapore social and moral issue against laws, you go talk about ALI BABA story here, if i take your posting to copy and paste, sure get knock on the head by my professor. He wants substance...SUBSTANCE!!! ok, not ALi baba stuffs!! Help dun wan to help, somemore give me lots of bullshit reading, me go sleep liao..
Originally posted by Ah Chia:Well, at least we can be sure that what ever opposition that managed hold itself together despite the disadvantage of being challengers instead of incumbent, it will be a strong opposition
Weird logic.
why weird?
why weird?
You are saying an oppressed group can be strong.
i also dunno why weird
Originally posted by eagle:i also dunno why weird
i agree.
Oppressed group or non oppressed group strong?
If we go and follow your logic, Barisan Sosialis AFTER coldstore is stronger than before coldstore.
Operation Coldstore (sometimes spelled Operation Cold Store) was a security operation conducted by the government of Singapore in February 1963, in which it arrested at least 107 left-wing politicians and trade unionists, many of them were members of the political party Barisan Sosialis and the Singapore Association of Trade Unions (SATU).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Coldstore
Is that logical?
Originally posted by Ah Chia:why weird?
You are saying an oppressed group can be strong.
Nice twisting of my words. Why don't you cut and paste what i posted and tell us how you morph it into an "oppressed group can be strong." This could be interesting.
Well, at least we can be sure that what ever opposition that managed hold itself together despite the disadvantage of being challengers instead of incumbent, it will be a strong opposition.
Your phrasing is not very clear.
Can you make it clearer?
Originally posted by Ah Chia:Well, at least we can be sure that what ever opposition that managed hold itself together despite the disadvantage of being challengers instead of incumbent, it will be a strong opposition.
Your phrasing is not very clear.
Can you make it clearer?
no. it is clear enough.
no. it is clear enough.
It's unclear, not clear.
So, SDP is strong opposition?
Originally posted by Ah Chia:no. it is clear enough.
It's unclear, not clear.
So, SDP is strong opposition?
still don't understand? too bad for you.
So, SDP is strong opposition according to your logic?
Strong or weak?
What does not destroy me, makes me stronger.
Friedrich Nietzsche
So, SDP strong or weak?
i don't keep track of SDP.
Originally posted by Stevenson101:What does not destroy me, makes me stronger.
Friedrich Nietzsche
i heard that one from the 5th element, the movie with the pretty girl...
If we follow your logic, SDP should be strong correct?
what ever opposition that managed hold itself together despite the disadvantage of being challengers instead of incumbent, it will be a strong opposition.
Originally posted by Ah Chia:If we follow your logic, SDP should be strong correct?
what ever opposition that managed hold itself together despite the disadvantage of being challengers instead of incumbent, it will be a strong opposition.
i don't know, is the SDP holding itself together? Did it win anything? Is it a strong opposition? How you want to define strong?
You answer your own question.
How you want to define strong?
Your post did not make it clear.
That is why I say it is unclear.
Well, at least we can be sure that what ever opposition that managed hold itself together despite the disadvantage of being challengers instead of incumbent, it will be a strong opposition.
It is unclear, not clear.
Originally posted by Ah Chia:How you want to define strong?
Your post did not make it clear.
That is why I say it is unclear.
Well, at least we can be sure that what ever opposition that managed hold itself together despite the disadvantage of being challengers instead of incumbent, it will be a strong opposition.
It is unclear, not clear.
ok. it is unclear to you. whatever.