Mithi: Where a Hindu fasts and a Muslim does not slaughter cows

Mithi, Pakistan - a Pluralism Town | Foundation for Pluralism

http://foundationforpluralism.blogspot.com/2015/05/mithi-where-hindu-fasts-and-muslim-does.html

Hell, this is not an easy note, I had to write several times, as it did not meet my criteria of mitigating the conflicts and nurturing goodwill. So, I deleted all of that and here is short one now.

Mithi is a model town of Pluralism in Pakistan. Someday, I have to visit this place. Right now the good news is that the Interfaith movement has taken roots in Pakistan, they did a good job in forming a circle around a Church in Lahore, and during the Diwali a circle around the temple for Hindus to celebrate without fear. I am encouraged by it, this is a good beginning and more good will be coming.

I pray that the People of Pakistan will speak up, and the majority voices will be loud enough to drown the voices of bigotry against Ahmadiyya, Shia and Ismaili  Muslims. It's seems its gotten little better with Hindus, Sikhs and Christians. Kidnapping and forced conversions of Hindu Girls is not in news for the last six months. Bigotry is not the monopoly of any one group. For every Muslim bigot, there is one in Christians, Hindus, Jews, Sikhs, Buddhists and others. No one can cast the first stone on the others.

In India right now, a few bigoted Hindus are tarnishing the image of Hinduism, the majority needs to speak up before they are labeled as intolerant ones. The irony of majority (India, Pakistan, US or any where) is that they do not see the problem. They are like the bad husbands who scream at the wife, and expect her to be happy because they provide her a place to live. What is she complaining about? Unless there is justice in the society, no society will fully prosper, if injustice reaches its peak, every thing will collapse for every one. It is in our interest to see that Justice remains the corner stone of the society. I like to see the people in majority speak up against injustice.

Pluralism calls for people to respect the otherness of others. I will be making a video where a Hindu, Muslim, Jew, Christian and a Sikh will be ordering different foods in a restaurant on the same table and see how it should be handled.  We will show both the intolerant and pluralistic ways of dealing with the situation.  Any one wants to fund it?

May God give us guidance to be just to every human. May God give us the wisdom not to judge any human; he alone is the master of the Day of Judgment. 

Mike Ghouse
Foundation for Pluralism 

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Mithi: Where a Hindu fasts and a Muslim does not slaughter cows
http://www.dawn.com/news/1167315/mithi-where-a-hindu-fasts-and-a-muslim-does-not-slaughter-cows 

Pakistan has become synonymous with terrorism. On most local and international news channels, we hear about minorities getting slaughtered at the hands of extremists; attacks on temples, churches, imambargahs; or the forced conversions of Hindus and Christians in the country.

I reckon you might be pleasantly surprised to know that there is a small town in Tharparkar, a district of the Sindh province where none of this is happening.

Mithi is one of the few towns in Pakistan where Muslims do not form the majority. In this quiet portion of a sprawling desert, both Hindus and Muslims have lived together like brothers since the creation of Pakistan.

In November 2014, when I was selected for a three-week fellowship programme in the United States, I met a gentleman from Sindh who was also among my batch. He introduced himself like this:

"I am a Hindu from Sindh, but throughout my life I have lived with Muslims and this is why during Ramazan, we fast along with them; and when it is Muharram, us Hindu boys lead the procession because this is the culture which Sufism has given us".

I was dumbstruck at the idea of a Hindu fasting in Ramazan or leading a Muharram procession. Was this actually true?

Then, in February this year, I happened to travel to Tharparkar with friends to view the drought-affected areas and launch some projects to overcome the disaster that hits every year. After a 20-hour arduous road and rail journey, I finally reached the quaint little town of Mithi, and here I experienced what I had never expected to see in a Pakistani town.

Mithi is as sweet as the name it has been given. Approximately 80 per cent of the population here is Hindu. It is a town where Muslims, out of respect for Hindus, do not slaughter cows; and where Hindus, out of respect for Muslim rites, have never organised any marriage ceremonies or celebrations during the month of Muharram.

Not only that, the Hindus of Mithi also happily participate in providing food and drinks for Muslims during Ramazan, and both groups exchange sweets on Eid and Diwali. The crime rate in Mithi is at two per cent and never has anyone witnessed any incident of religious intolerance.

Speaking with the locals of Mithi, I discovered that here, one could find Hindu speakers organising majaalis in Muharram – something I haven't seen anywhere else in Pakistan – and as my friend in the United States had stated, I heard Hindus sharing their account of Muharram, where they led Ashura processions and provided assistance to procession members in a city where Muslims hardly made up 20 per cent of the population.

A Muslim resident of Thar shared his account by saying:

"In our village, Hindus and Muslims have been living together for decades and there has not been a single day, when I have seen a religious conflict. No loud speaker is used for Azaan at the time when Hindus are worshiping in their temple, and no bells are rung when it is time for namaz. Nobody eats in public when it is Ramazan and Holi is played by every member of the village."

I had always heard stories about interfaith harmony from Sindh but it was so much more amazing to see it firsthand. The love and brotherhood that exists between the Hindus and Muslims of Mithi is a perfect example of pluralism and the tolerant Sufi culture of Sindh.

The author, with his team from 'Humans of Pakistan' seen with Mr Nizam (extreme left), a Muslim, and Mama Vishan (extreme right), a Hindu, who are running a welfare organisation which provides blood donations and ambulance services to the people of Mithi. The friendship between Nizam and Vishan goes back 25 years.

The author, with his team from 'Humans of Pakistan' seen with Mr Nizam (extreme left), a Muslim, and Mama Vishan (extreme right), a Hindu, who are running a welfare organisation which provides blood donations and ambulance services to the people of Mithi. The friendship between Nizam and Vishan goes back 25 years.

If you think Pakistan is all about bombing churches, destroying temples, Talibanisation, slaughtering religious minorities, and forced conversion, I would request you to visit Mithi at least once.

Mithi gives interfaith harmony a new meaning. Religious intolerance elsewhere has barely made a dent in Hindu-Muslim brotherhood over here. They live, eat, and work together, because according to them, it is in their culture.

All religions contradict each other, but that does not mean their followers should make their own colonies on that base alone.

People can and do coexist. It is only the bigots who cannot, and they can be found in every religious group. We must not let them take over the beautiful communities of Pakistan.

Respecting each others' beliefs is the solution of a lot of Pakistan's current predicaments. Religions differ, humans don't.

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WHAT IS PLURALISM?
"It is respecting the otherness of others" 

We have crystallized the definition of pluralism to, “respecting the otherness of the others and accepting the uniqueness of each one of us”. Pluralism is nothing but an attitude of live and let live, and it is applicable in every aspect of life including culture, society, religion, politics, gender, food, ethnicity, race and other uniqueness’s.

By the end of 2020, there will not be a major city in America, and perhaps in the world, where you will not find people of different faiths, cultures, ethnicities, races, nationalities and social backgrounds working, eating, playing, marrying, and doing things together.

We need to prepare ourselves for those eventualities to prevent possible conflicts, and lay a good foundation for nurturing goodwill and effective functioning of the societies. Exclusive communities will become a thing of the past.  If you live amidst others, you must also respect the otherness of others, as you expect them to do the same for you.

You are who you are, and I am who I am. As long as we don't mess with each others space, sustenance and nurturance, and mind our own business, we all will do well.  If we can learn to respect the otherness of other and accept the God-given uniqueness of each one of the seven billion of us, then conflicts fade and solutions emerge.

Pluralism is not a set of rules, it is simply the attitude of live and let live religiously, politically, culturally and socially.  We are committed to building cohesive societies, where no human has to live in apprehension, discomfort or fear of a fellow being.

Mike Ghouse

Texas Faith: How to balance compassion with justice in the immigration debate?

As the Jewish scriptures say Ve’ahavta la’ger, you must love the stranger to remove the sense of discomfort in him..... Justice is the ultimate truth in preserving trust in a given society, for the society to function cohesively and effectively. Compassion is part of the equation in achieving sustainable outcomes.

Continued: http://theghousediary.blogspot.com/2013/02/texas-faith-how-to-balance-compassion.html

Texas Faith: How to balance compassion with justice in the immigration debate?

by Wayne Slater, Dallas, Morning News/ Published 3:58 pm on February 26,2013

Courtesy Dallas Morning News

Conservative evangelicals have become unlikely allies in pressing for the establishment of a path to legal status and citizenship for 11 million undocumented residents. We published a story about that last week. People of faith have long been an integral part of the immigration debate. But it’s the increased involvement of conservative evangelicals with unquestioned social-conservative credentials that is worth noting as Congress and the White House consider immigration reform. Groups like the Evangelical Immigration Forum have sought to bring together a diverse coalition around the biblical injunction to welcome the stranger.

Wilshire Baptist Senior Pastor George Mason, a Texas Faith panel member, was quoted in the story:“Circumstances culturally and politically have thrown evangelicals back on their biblical authority, to ask what does the Bible really say about this. There may be lots of political positions that differ on how we accomplish it, but they want to be on the side of God in their minds. Otherwise, they feel they will be in some way accountable to God for their failure to be obedient.”

But what does the Bible say about immigration? The Bible does encourage kindness toward the outsider and the alien. But it also specifically says we are to follow the laws and obey civil authority. Millions of immigrants have broken the law. And we are a nation of laws.

At the heart of the political debate over immigration is the tension we often find in Scripture between justice and compassion. How do we reconcile that tension? How do faith-based people in a civil society do what’s both moral and just? Can we be both fair and right? Or do policy debates like immigration inevitably force us to take sides between two competing views — both of which make claims in our faith?

Considering the debate over immigration, what does your faith say about bridging justice and compassion?


MIKE GHOUSE, President, Foundation for Pluralism, Dallas, and Speaker on interfaith matters, diversity and pluralism

Compassion is the means to Justice, and justice is the ultimate truth in preserving trust in a given society to function cohesively and effectively.


As a nation we quietly followed the ‘don’t ask don’t tell’ attitude with the undocumented workers because it suited us in boom times to meet the infrastructure needs of the 90’s. Now that we face unemployment, we are ready to throw them out, how disgustingly selfish could we be? It mocks our own sense of justice to deprive them and their children of the roots they have established here with our consent. The just thing to do is close the border first, and then offer amnesty to them as President Obama has proposed.


Here is an example of bridging justice and compassion in Islam: The 2nd Caliph of Islam Umar was known for Justice. He refused to punish a thief, as he saw that the state fell short of the responsibility to create a society where the man did not have to steal food to feed his kids, the very basic needs of life. He also removed the Christian ban on Jews to pray in Jerusalem in 638 AD after he conquered the City, the prevalent laws were no justice to him that deprived Jews to pray in what they believed.


Religion has been used, misused and abused to suit our lust for power. As a moderate Republican, I welcome the change of hearts among hard core Republicans with caution. Mason is right, “they want to be on the side of God” and I must add, hope they are sincere and not using God to gain new voters to get back in power to push their beliefs onto others.


The Bible, Quran and most of the scriptures say spread the good word to the four corners of the world. Mark 16:15, ‘Go into the entire world and proclaim the good news’ to the whole creation. Jesus, Moses, Krishna or Muhammad did not have political boundaries to worry about immigration. Do we follow them?


As the Jewish scriptures say Ve’ahavta la’ger, you must love the stranger to remove the sense of discomfort in him. Indeed, it is obligatory in all religions to greet the stranger and welcome him with a Salaam, Shalom, Peace, Namaste and other greetings. The long term security of the world comes through generosity and caring about others.

To read contributions of all the 14 panelists go to:
http://religionblog.dallasnews.com/2013/02/texas-faith-how-to-balance-compassion-with-justice-in-the-immigration-debate.html/ 

My 4 minutes Speech on Immigration Reforms:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrjU0KULv-Y
...

 Mike Ghouse is a speaker, thinker and a writer on pluralism, politics, peace, Islam,Israel, India, interfaith, and cohesion at work place. He is committed to building aCohesive America and offers pluralistic solutions on issues of the day atwww.TheGhousediary.com. He believes in Standing up for others and has done that throughout his life as an activist. Mike has a presence on national and local TV, Radio and Print Media. He is a frequent guest on Sean Hannity show on Fox TV, and a commentator on national radio networks, he contributes weekly to the Texas Faith Column at Dallas Morning News; fortnightly at Huffington post; and several other periodicals across the world. His personal site www.MikeGhouse.net indexes all his work through many links.

Israel Palestine commitment, part 2 of 3

Israel's security and justice to the Palestinians are directly proportional to each other. Hundred percent security for Israel comes with 100 percent justice to the Palestinians. A majority of people in the conflict understand this, but the leadership runs aground with short sighted false perceptions.

Huffington post on Israel Palestine solutions : http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-ghouse/commitment-to-israelpales_b_1263793.html

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Mike Ghouse is a writer, thinker and a speaker on pluralism, politics, Islam, peace and building a cohesive America, links to details at www.MikeGhouse.net.

TEXAS FAITH: When the pew and the pulpit don't see eye-to-eye?

There is a difference between the pew and the pulpit on this matter. Of course, that is not the first time a divide has been seen between the leaders of a religious tradition and those who adhere to that faith. What I would like to hear from you all this week is how such a divide gets resolved in your tradition. I recognize that sometimes they aren't resolved, but I would like you to elaborate upon this question.

Indeed, there is a great difference between the pew and the pulpit and most certainly a few issues get resolved and a few go to the holding pen to be unleashed whenever the opportunity arises to get even.

Continued

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Mike Ghouse is a writer, thinker and a speaker on pluralism, politics, Islam, peace and building a cohesive America, links to details at www.MikeGhouse.net. 

Peace is the result of Justice

http://wisdomofreligion.blogspot.com/2008/08/peace-is-result-of-justice.html

Peace is the result of Justice
Mike Ghouse

Justice gives birth to peace, prosperity and progress of a nation, without which peace and progress would not sustain; injustice is a drag on the morality and conscience of a people.

When criminals walk around freely without consequences to their crimes, it frightens the victims, neither of them is at peace; one is raged and the other outraged. When a child is abused, there has got to be punishment for the abuser; when a woman is violated, the violator has to pay for it; and when the weak is taken advantage of, the user has to be accounted for it; and when the disadvantaged is had justice must be restored.

When we let injustice get by, the cycle of score keeping perpetuates itself. Neither you nor I would be free from the bondage of injustice, it is consuming, each time you see injustice your blood boils or the anger makes you want to get even when you get your turn.

Injustice creates unchecked ripples whereas justice brings tranquility.

When you know that you can speak without fear, you are at peace; when you know that any one who abuses you will be punished, you are relaxed and productive; when you know you cannot get away with wrong doing, it brings peace to you. Justice is a behavior modifier for the general good of the society.

Justice is like a balance, each injustice affects the balance and that balance is the peace and progress of a community. You can trace the roots of injustice in every conflict and every upheaval.

Justice has been the basis of American society, and we are the proof to the world of our progress, peace and security and we must not let this one value be devalued by the selfish egotistical interests of a few.

In case of Holy Land foundation, a few short sighted individuals sought to destroy them, they manufactured evidence to appease the short term interest of the fear mongers and thank God, yes, thank God, the American sense of Justice will prevail.

Today, it is me, tomorrow it is some one else and ultimately it will be you, who will bear the brunt of it in one form or the other. It is the law of Karma, what goes around comes back.

It is in your interest, my interest and every American’s interest to seek and fight for justice. If you don’t take a stand against injustice, should you expect anyone to stand for you? Please become a part of the movement to seek Justice for the Holy Land Foundation.

Mike Ghouse is a Speaker, Thinker and a Writer. He is president of the Foundation for Pluralism and is a frequent guest on talk radio and local television network discussing interfaith, political and civic issues. He is the founding president of World Muslim Congress with a simple theme: Good for Muslims and good for the world. His comments, news analysis and columns can be found on the Websites and Blogs listed at his personal website http://www.mikeghouse.net/. Mike is a Dallasite for nearly three decades and Carrollton is his home town. He can be reached at MikeGhouse@gmail.com

Path to peace in Mid-east

Plotting the Middle Path to Israeli-Palestinian Peace
The Role of American Jews

Mike Ghouse : I am an optimist and believe in goodness embedded in every human being. There as many Jewish Organizations working for peace as others organizations. If we say there aren't enough, then we are saying we are not doing much either.

By Diane Balser

In the groundbreaking new book, Righteous Indignation: A Jewish Call for Justice, leading rabbis, intellectuals, and activists explore the relationship between Judaism and social justice. Significantly, the book contains an entire section dedicated to exploring the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, including a chapter (excerpted below) by Brit Tzedek's Interim Executive Director and former National Advocacy Chair, Diane Balser.

For many years, resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been left out of the conversation on Jewish social justice. This anthology is a declaration that Israeli-Palestinian peace activism deserves a place in the emerging social justice movement within our community. Brit Tzedek is cosponsoring several book launch events and strongly recommends this landmark work.


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Many American Jews have long been in the vanguard of progressive politics in the United States. The traditional Jewish impulse toward social justice – rooted in our texts, manifested in our political and social history, and shaped by the great questions of the modern day – has compelled American Jews to the forefront of the contemporary world’s definitive struggles, a modern response to the imperative to work toward tikkun olam, repair of a broken world. The establishment of unions, the civil rights movement, the fight for women’s rights – each of these chapters in American history found Jews disproportionately leading the battle and persevering in the face of enormous difficulty.

For at least the first two decades of Israel’s existence, support for the Jewish State was considered part and parcel of the progressive Jewish agenda. Zionism was one of many national liberation movements to come to international attention in the wake of World War II, its ethical and egalitarian aspirations — to become, as its first Prime Minister David Ben Gurion described, “a light unto nations" — enshrined in Israel’s Declaration of Independence:

The State of Israel will be open for Jewish immigration and for the Ingathering of the Exiles; it will foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; it will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions; and it will be faithful to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.

As we supported the rights of others to self-determination, many progressives within the American Jewish community were proud and happy to support the national liberation of our own people.

Of course, there was a potentially perilous naiveté involved in this support, in that most American Jews, along with most of the Western world, failed to understand the level of suffering and sheer disenfranchisement that the establishment of Israel meant for the Palestinian people. The oft’ repeated Zionist adage “a land without a people for a people without a land” captured the imagination of so many of our parents and grandparents in their quest for sanctuary, but now resonates tinnily for we who have seen a very different reality borne out. While some recognized early on the serious implications for Israel’s future of the massive displacement of Palestinians following the 1948 war, for many this understanding dawned slowly, only in the post-Six Day War world, as Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip increasingly took root. Without wishing to deny the right of the Jewish people to its own state, many of us came to comprehend the cost this state has entailed for another people. Particularly since the first Palestinian intifada began in December 1987, many American Jews have begun to try to bring their attachment to their own people’s national project in line with the understanding that Palestinian rights must not be denied.

The question of Israel’s place on a progressive agenda is further complicated by the complex nature of Israel’s relationship with the United States. Largely by virtue of its reliance on the United States for foreign aid and particularly military aid, as well as for diplomatic cover in an often hostile international environment, Israel has become, at least publicly, the standard bearer for the increasingly troubled and troubling American policies in the Middle East.

The effort to put pro-Israel activism back on the progressive agenda will require us to formulate, organize, and put forward a third political and cultural path for supporting Israel, independent of the right wing/neo-conservative US foreign policy agendas, and stepping clear of left wing denial that Jews need a homeland. It will comprise an understanding of the importance of a Jewish homeland to meet both the needs of Jewish survival and demands of broader justice, as well as an understanding of the urgent necessity of such a state to ally itself with a Palestinian state along its border, with which it lives at peace.

In this chapter, I will argue that a progressive Jewish movement must reclaim and reframe the sometimes forgotten progressive ideals that were essential to the establishment of the State of Israel, both as the central path to ensuring Jewish survival, and as the core of our fight for international social justice – a struggle that reflects the most basic of Jewish ethics.

Our own struggle as progressive American Jews – to cultivate a collective agenda-driven identity that is at once independent and closely interconnected to and engaged in the world around it – would then fittingly mirror our aspirations for Israel as a peaceful and secure Jewish homeland that is both integrated in and integral in the Middle East and the international community as a whole. Isolation from other peoples - particularly oppressed peoples - has historically been key to the vulnerability of Jews throughout the world and in Israel in particular. The vision of an Israel of the future is one that lives in cooperation with its Arab neighbors, not a militarized, isolated ghetto in the middle of a hostile Arab world. By cultivating a strong Jewish presence in Israel and the United States that lives in a multi-cultural, multi-national world, we will create a political home for those in the progressive movement who would advance the principle of two states for two people, and help progressive Jews develop greater confidence in their Jewish identity, from which to reach out to potential allies among Muslims, Arabs, African Americans and all peoples of color.

Brit Tzedek v'Shalom, The Jewish Alliance for Justice and Peace
11 E. Adams Street, Suite 707
Chicago, IL 60603
Phone: (312) 341-1205
Fax: (312) 341-1206
info@btvshalom.org
www.btvshalom.org