Split over Dandenong's Afghan Bazaar plans

PLANS to redevelop the Afghan Bazaar to reflect its cultural identity have divided the community.

Greater Dandenong Council and the Office of Multicultural Affairs and Citizenship have been consulting with Afghan traders to design a streetscape reflecting the culture of the Thomas St precinct.

But Shamama Association secretary John Gulzari said he felt some groups were ignored when the council dubbed Thomas St the “Afghan Bazaar”, complete with camels as mascots, in 2009.

Dandenong’s Afghan community is primarily made up of three ethnic groups, the Hazara, Pashtun and Tajik.

Mr Gulzari said camels had negative connotations for some traders, and did not represent all the ethnicities.

“This is Australia and every law-abiding citizen has the freedom of speech to express their opinion,” he said.

Hazara refugee and Dandenong resident Zakir Hussain suggested Hazara patterns and images of Bamiyan Buddhas - sandstone statues from the Hazarajat province destroyed by the Taliban in 2001 - be worked into the Thomas St art.

Mr Hussain said he didn’t call himself Afghan, and would prefer something less divisive, such as Bamiyan Bazaar.

But Afghan Pamir Restaurant owner Rahimi Baryalai said calling the area the Afghan Bazaar encompassed all ethnicities, and the camel was an important symbol.

“Hazara is a small minority group in Australia,” he said.

“We are Afghan, we should be united under the same Afghan name. We shouldn’t have any division.”

Afghan Australian Philanthropic Association chairman Dor Aschna supported a unified front for the bazaar.

“We want to keep the Afghan flag and logo representing the whole Afghani, not just one ethnic group.”

News Source,

http://dandenong-leader.whereilive.com.au/news/story/split-over-dandenongs-afghan-bazaar-plans/

Bit By Bit, Afghanistan Rebuilds Buddhist Statues

by JOANNA KAKISSIS

July 27, 2011
When the Taliban controlled Afghanistan a decade ago, they were fanatical about eliminating everything they considered un-Islamic.

Their biggest targets — literally and figuratively — were the two monumental Buddha statues carved out of the sandstone cliffs in central Afghanistan. One stood nearly 180 feet tall and the other about 120 feet high, and together they had watched over the dusty Bamiyan Valley since the sixth century, several centuries before Islam reached the region.

Despite international opposition, the Taliban destroyed the statues with massive explosions in 2001. At the time they were blown up, the statues were the largest Buddha carvings in the world, and it seemed they were gone for good.

But today, teams from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, along with the International Council on Monuments and Sites, are engaged in the painstaking process of putting the broken Buddhas back together.

Up to half of the Buddha pieces can be recovered, according to Bert Praxenthaler, a German art historian and sculptor, who has been working at the site for the past eight years. He and his crew have sifted through 400 tons of rubble and have recovered many parts of the statues along with shrapnel, land mines and explosives that were used in their demolition.

But how do you rebuild the Buddhas from the rubble?

"The archaeological term is 'anastylosis,' but most people think it's some kind of strange disease," said Praxenthaler.

For those in the archaeology world, "anastylosis" is actually a familiar term. It was the process used to restore the Parthenon of Athens. It involves combining the monument's original pieces with modern material.

On a recent day, Praxenthaler was leading a group through a tunnel behind the niche where the smaller of the two statues once stood.

"We are now on top of the Buddha," he explained. "There was just a wall and a small opening to sit on the top, or the head, of the Buddha. But now there is no head."

The workers were busy removing scaffolding after months spent reinforcing the wall where the Buddha's head once was.

Mixed Feelings About Project

Bamiyan is an extremely poor and remote land in one of the world's most underdeveloped countries. The Buddha statues were once a major tourist attraction, but Afghanistan has been at war virtually nonstop for more than three decades. The fighting drove away the tourists years before the Taliban blew up the statues.

The restoration project is designed to rebuild the historic site, as well as bring back the tourists. The project has the support of Habiba Sarabi, the popular provincial governor. And there are reasons to be hopeful. Bamiyan is now considered one of the less dangerous places in Afghanistan.

Yet others, like human rights activist Abdullah Hamadi, say the empty niches where the Buddhas stood are a reminder of the Taliban's fanaticism, and should be left as they are.

"The Buddha was destroyed," said Hamadi. "If you made it, rebuilt it, that is not the history. The history is the broken Buddha."

Hamadi is from the nearby district of Yakawlang, where the Taliban massacred more than 300 members of a minority group, called the Hazaras, in 2001. Those killings took place just two months before the Taliban blew up the Buddha statues.

While Bamiyan is much safer today, the Taliban can still strike. Recently, Taliban insurgents kidnapped and beheaded Jawad Zahak, the head of the Bamiyan provincial council, while he was driving his family toward Kabul, about 150 miles to the southeast.

Some in Bamiyan say they would rather see the money for the restoration project go toward services like electricity and housing, which are in desperately short supply.

Homeless Take Shelter In Caves

In fact, the caves at the site of the Buddha statues are the only shelter some Bamiyan residents can find. Homeless villagers like Marzia and her six children are living in one of the caves, while the family's goats bleat nearby. Marzia, who like many Afghans uses only one name, said she has no use for the statues.

"We don't have a house, so where else can we live?" she said.

A few enterprising villagers have found ways to make money off the story surrounding the Buddhas. One is Said Merza Husain, known around town as the man who was forced to help the Taliban blow up the statues.

He said he had no choice but to obey the Taliban a decade ago. If he had resisted, they would have killed him. One of his friends refused to take part, and the Taliban shot him.

But that is the only information Husain will share for free. To hear more of the story, he charges anywhere between $20 and $100.

Meanwhile, Bert Praxenthaler's team was about to halt their work temporarily during the scorching Afghan summer. One longtime worker, Ali Reza, was picking up his pay. He signed his name and received a wad of Afghanis.

Praxenthaler also handed him a certificate and thanked him first in Dari, then in English. Piecing together Bamiyan's Buddhas will take many more years. After a summer break, Praxenthaler's team plans to resume their work in the fall.

This story was partly funded by a Knight Luce Fellowship for Reporting on Global
Religion.

Article source,

http://www.npr.org/2011/07/27/137304363/bit-by-bit-afghanistan-rebuilds-buddhist-statues

Letter from a refugee: ‘This is not tolerable for any human being’

Friday, August 19, 2011


The following message was received by Indymedia from within Curtin Detention Centre with a request that it posted on the site. Please circulate this cry for help and solidarity amongst your networks.

* * *

It is known to all and history has also proven that Hazaras have always and systemically been target of national, religious and ethnic oppression and cruelty and yet thousands of people including women and children have lost their life and thousands of families have lost their guardian and thousands of children are now orphan, who do not just have access to education but also experiencing a horrible and miserable life.

Taliban, predominant Pashtuns, are the very actual face of national, religious and significantly ethnic oppression and cruelty who have taken the annihilation of Hazaras serious and have declared that killing of Hazaras is according to rules and regulations of Islam and hence mandatory.

Looting Hazara’s properties is same as their worship therefore consider it a gift from God and continue to their systematic oppression and harassment of Hazaras at any corner of Afghanistan with their barbaric attacks, counting it as their daily pray for god.

The media has always been reporting about the barbaric attacks of marauder Taliban, which have cost several lives and demolitions for Hazaras.

By passing each day, the situation for these people (Hazaras) is deteriorating.

These people whose way of living is becoming harder tried to continue life and along with their families they have left their birthplace and sought refuge from other countries to just survive from the barbaric attacks of Pashtuns/Talibs.

Hazaras, as seen in majority of European countries and even Canada have been seen to have requested for refuge and are now living in peace.

For the last three years that Australia has again opened the gate for asylum seekers, Hazaras traveling thousands of miles and going through 100% serious risks have escaped death to request protection from Australia and yet not every individual has conquered this deathly journey and even tens of people have lost their lives.

Most of these people have sacrificed their life and are now spending in Malaysia's appalling prisons with plenty of calamities and agony, a huge number is jailed in Indonesia and sadly a considerable number of them while carrying lots of hopes on this journey lost their life in depth of the ocean just like Boat SIEV 221 in a very sorrowful, painful and horrible way while sailing across Malaysia, Indonesia and Australian waters and turned into sea animals’ meal.

Luckily after spending three to eleven months of imprisonment in Malaysia and Indonesia, when we arrived in Australia, we thought Australia would embrace us and listen to our stories and treat our long time grief by granting protection, therefore we thought ourselves lucky and fortunate.

Since we deserved to be granted protection, we requested for protection from Australian government. But, after a while in contrary to its prior policy, Australia granted protection visa to a very few number and rejected most of us saying that: ‘The living condition for Hazaras in Afghanistan is fine now’.

While we had already explained the serious risks we are facing during our Immigration interviews.

We need to know that:
1. Is Australia not aware of how we (Hazaras) are being targeted in the most atrocious ways in Afghanistan?
2. Does Australia really don't know that Qarabagh-Jaghuri Express way is still blocked to Hazaras and traveling on this destination equals to death for us?
3. Does Australia really don't know that every day our children's faces are fogged with misery, deprivation and orphanhood?
4. Does Australia really don't know why Pashtun gave birth to Taliban and what was their target?
5. Does Australia really don't know that few months ago Taliban beheaded a number of Hazaras just like sheep?
6. Does Australia really don't know how Hazaras are being targeted in Quetta of Pakistan just for being Shia and Hazara.
And Does.... ? Does.... ? Does.... ? Does....?

Considering all these issues, how could Australia not grant us protection? This matter has turned into enigma for us which is never solvable.

The only good news we have been given by immigration department is that we may have more chances of granting protection visa in second stage called IMR (Independent Merits Review).

As we have escaped death from Afghanistan and returning to Afghanistan is just like suicide for us, we don't have any alternate choice but to suffer in detention centers.

Now that we have spent considerable amount of time taken from 3 to 20 months in detention centers, we still suffer from the amount of time and only God knows how much more time we have to spend here for no reason and without destiny.

Source,

http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/48559

The Marabar Caves complex (The targeted Killings of Hazaras in Balochistan)

By Ejaz Haider
Published: August 3, 2011

Balochistan is like Marabar Caves. No matter what one says the echo turns it into a monotonous ‘boum’; and while something always happens, no one gets to the bottom of it. Allegations, defence, theories, nothingness and more of the same. Forster was asked what happened at the Marabar Caves. He said he didn’t know. In Balochistan, on all sides of the conflict, everyone seems to know everything and yet, scratch deeper and one realises that fact and fiction intersect with such bewildering frequency that sifting the grain from the chaff becomes an exercise in deep frustration.
Take the example of recent sectarian attacks. I sat thinking about them as the plane began the descent to Quetta Airport. The narrative is rather simple: the peaceful Hazara community is being targeted by a sectarian terrorist organisation. I remembered visiting, last December, what the Hazara call the Martyrs’ Graveyard, close to the Marriabad locality where Koh-e Murdar begins to get diminutive. The expanded wing of the graveyard has more graves of people killed in subsequent sectarian attacks. Finding: the Hazara have suffered and continue to at the hands of Deobandi sectarian terrorists.
But wait. Take a look at another set of ‘facts’. On July 28, as Abdul Karim Mengal, a Deobandi prayer leader at Jamia Albadar comes out of a mosque near Pishin Bus Stop, two motorcyclists kill him. Sources on both sides of the divide and in the police say there’s strong suspicion that the killers were linked to Allama Maqsood Domki, the chief of Balochistan’s Jafaria Alliance, and belonged to Dera Allah Yar, Allama Domki’s birthplace.
Domki himself was attacked in 2009 and his guards killed one of the assailants. In June this year, about 170 people from the Hazara community were invited by the Iranian government to attend the death anniversary of Ayatollah Khomeini. “They were feted by the Iranian government. We don’t know what they were told but this year’s Shab-e Barat saw the biggest-ever celebration known to Quetta’s Shia community. They cut a 40 lbs cake, a novelty. It was an aggressive show,” a Hazara told me.
The chairman of Hazara Democratic Party, Abdul Khaliq Hazara, was even more forthcoming as I sat in his baithak sipping kehwa and talking to him. A man with a sense of humour, he criticised both Deobandi terrorists and Hazara and other Shia religious leaders. “They play in the hands of Iran, our religious leaders,” he said. Not one to mince words Khaliq has quite often fallen foul of Shia clerics for objecting to their sectarian sermons and being close to Iran. “Funds come from Iran through their consulate and we see this action-reaction pattern which takes toll of Hazara life.”
Law enforcement officers corroborate the Iranian connection but are more squeamish about the LeJ terrorists. How did Usman Saifullah Kurd, the LeJ terrorist, manage to escape from a high-security ATF prison situated in Quetta cantonment? What about Daud Badini? One source alleges that the night Kurd escaped, some Hazara guards were relieved from duty and the roster changed. It is difficult to corroborate this story especially if the duty roster was indeed changed unless one could compare it with the original roster. It would be naive to think that would still exist. But the question remains: how did Kurd escape?
Hazara clerics seem convinced the LeJ is supported by some elements in the establishment. This is the terrain of allegations which is utilised by all sides in Balochistan. The Deobandi side alleges that former General-President Pervez Musharraf had a policy of placing Shia officers in key positions, another allegation.
The problem with these allegations is that they are based on the group’s own narrative and draw on some elective fact(s) to weave a tapestry that is then mouthed and written about regularly until it is accepted as the gospel truth within that group. The Baloch think they have been deprived while a Pashtun journalist said to the army chief during a function in Quetta on August 1 that the Pashtun think the entire thrust of development is directed towards the Baloch because the latter have picked up the gun – “Should the Pashtun do the same to make their voice heard?”
The army has its own narrative; but equally, within the army, there is much scepticism about the policy of ignoring Baloch sub-nationalist groups. Recently, Commander Southern Command, Lt-Gen Javed Zia, a thinking officer who has worked very hard in the province, was criticised for saying that he didn’t think those who burnt the flag were traitors and should not be engaged. But on the Baloch side ask anyone and they would convincingly tell you that the army thinks as a monolith and its one agenda is to kill the Baloch.
It has become a war of narratives and everyone persists with theirs, deepening the existing fault-lines.

Article Source,

http://tribune.com.pk/story/223437/t%E2%80%A6/

On Ejaz Haider’s ISPR press release on Hazaras of Balochistan – by Farrukhzad Ali

BY ADMIN

Ejaz Haider recently visited Quetta with the purported agenda of meeting Hazara tribal and religious leaders and Deobandi/Lashkar-e-Jhangvi leaders to inform his readers about the situation in Quetta. But what he has finally produced as a result of his Quetta sojourn is nothing short of an ISPR press release. Athar Abbas has most certainly lost credibility, and needs new faces to deliver his messages.

To be honest, Ejaz Haider didn’t have to visit Quetta to write what he did at the end of the day. He knew what he had to write even before he had left. After having formally consummated his relationship with the ISI, he has proven himself as one of the most treacherous spokespersons of the agency.

In his August 3 article published in Express Tribune, Ejaz Haider tells us that the situation in Quetta is not as simple as it might seem because Hazaras are actually not a persecuted lot, but an Iranian proxy in Quetta who are funded by Iran and operate for Iran’s interests. The miseries of Hazaras are therefore self-inflicted, and they fully deserve the fate they have been subjected to.

The justifications Ejaz proffers to substantiate this buncombe are: the Iranian government invited 170 members from the Hazara community to commemorate Ayatollah Khomeini’s death anniversary this year; the Hazaras celebrated Shab-e-Barat this year by cutting a 40 lbs cake; Allama Domki is accused of being involved in a Deobandi prayer leader’s murder on July 28; Shia clerics indulge in sectarian sermons; and happenings in Quetta are of an action-reaction pattern. These are the reasons which according to Ejaz Haider have resulted in the killings of Hazaras ever since it commenced in the late 1990s.

Let me take each of his claims one by one.

For Ejaz Haider’s information, the Iranian government has been inviting Pakistanis from all backgrounds (including Hazaras) to attend Ayatollah Khomeini’s death anniversary for two decades now, and the list of invitees includes politicians, army officers, journalists, members of several religious parties, as well as ordinary citizens. The list of the invitees also includes names such as Qazi Hussain Ahmed, Munauwar Hasan, and Gen. Hamid Gul. So should we accept Ejaz Haider’s apology that Hazaras are being killed because Iran invited 170 of their members to attend Ayatollah Khomeini’s death anniversary in 2011? By the way, most of the 170 Hazaras who visited Iran this year were actually women and children, for whom the visit entailed no political connotations.

Shab-e-Barat celebrations in Quetta are as old a story as Hazaras themselves, and have never included sectarian sermons. Shab-e-Barat in Quetta, like elsewhere, is celebrated by using firecrackers, holding poetry recital gatherings and cutting of cakes – including one 40 lbs this year, which according to Ejaz Haider, was funded by Iran and resulted in killings of Hazaras. For his information, this wasn’t the first instance of a 40 lbs cake being cut – it is a tradition which has continued for quite a while now. And a 40 lbs cake in Quetta costs something like Rs. 6000, which doesn’t necessarily have to come from Iran. Half a million Shias in Quetta can afford to pool that much money. Ejaz probably mortgaged to Khakis his mind along with his character to become their spokesperson.

Allama Maqsood Domki’s involvement in Maulana Karim Mengal’s murder seems far from possible for several reasons. First of all, Domki – a Baloch – is not a native of Quetta and is therefore disliked by the somewhat ethnocentric Hazaras. During the past decade in which he tried to find footholds in the Hazara dominated areas of Quetta, not only did he fail, he was driven out of the Hazara localities. Assuming that the assassin was indeed Domki’s accomplice and hailed from Dera Allah Yar, can Ejaz Haider educate us as to where could he perish instantly after the attack keeping in view the fact that due to Hazaras’ distinct features and their abhorrence for Domki, he couldn’t seek refuge in the Hazara dominated areas which are the only Shia populated localities in Quetta? Does Ejaz Haider even know that Jaffaria Alliance is dysfunctional in Balochistan and doesn’t even command a dozen followers?

In fact, why should we not assume that Mengal was actually murdered by ISI spooks in order to put the onus on Shias of Quetta (hold all of them responsible), present the situation as an ‘action-reaction process’, and deprive them of even the niggling sympathy they have recently received. Is it too far-fetched an assumption keeping ISI’s track record in view? Is it not rather plausible considering that Ejaz Haider visited Quetta right after Mengal’s murder and followed it up with a lousy article? Should the fact that the incident happened at only a few hundred yards from the FC headquarters be ignored? It adds to the suspicions that no arrest has so far been made in connection to Mengal’s murder, although Ejaz Haider has hurled wild accusations against Domki. If our sleuths can instruct Ejaz to accuse Domki for the murder, they wouldn’t have hesitated a moment before arresting him in case there were evidences of his involvement.

While Ejaz Haider has mentioned that Allama Domki was attacked by Lashkar-e-Jhangvi terrorists in 2009 in which his guard (who happened to be a Hazara policeman) killed one of the attackers, he has carefully eschewed the details that followed the incident. The killed Lashkar-e-Jhangvi terrorist was later presented by the state as an ordinary citizen, and Domki’s guard was charged for manslaughter and obviously so – he had killed an ISI strategic asset.

Ejaz Haider’s claim of indulgence of Shia clerics in sectarian sermons is perhaps the most ludicrous of all. While this may be construed as either their spinelessness or diplomacy, Shia clerics in Quetta do not indulge in sectarian rhetoric. Even while carrying dozens of corpses, instead of sloganeering against any other sect, they conveniently blame either some unknown enemies of Islam, or US and Israel – the easy punch bags. If Ejaz Haider insists he is right in his claim, I throw him a wager to name a single such cleric, or produce a single such sermon (which should most certainly be recorded by the ISI, and will be in easy access to him).

Ejaz Haider’s equation of the death of over 500 Shias of Quetta with the assassination of a Deobandi prayer leader, killed on July 28 is appalling, and characteristic of the cold and inhuman Khaki behavior. Ejaz Haider’s simplistic khaki logic deduces that the situation in Quetta is in fact a two-sided sectarian war, in which both the antagonists are killing each other. He conveniently ignores that Shia killings have been taking place for over a decade now, and during all this period, not a single act of violence can be traced back to them. This is not a sectarian war, but systemic genocide of a single sect. Isn’t it ridiculous to say that Shias in Quetta were killed between 2001 and 2011, because a Deobandi prayer leader was killed on 28th July 2011 by unknown assailants? This is exactly what Ejaz Haider is telling us.

Since Ejaz Haider has heavily relied on Abdul Khaliq Hazara’s views to buttress his hogwash, it is important to introduce the fellow to the readers. On the face of it, Abdul Khaliq Hazara is a secular nationalist Hazara leader, who assumed the chair of Hazara Democratic Party (HDP) after Hussain Ali Yousafi’s assassination.

Ridiculous it might seem, but not so when ISI is involved. I have stated previously that while the duplicitous ‘deep state’ has crushed every genuine secular movement in Pakistan, the secular/nationalist Hazaras of Quetta have had the privilege of receiving maximum state support ever since the Iranian Revolution. During the Soviet War, Hazara nationalists served as ISI’s secure channel to the Hazara factions of Afghanistan, more specifically, the self-professed Maoist groups. They have enjoyed a cozy relationship throughout this period, and what keeps them closer is a magnified Iranian influence in Quetta. The nationalists project it to remain relevant to the deep state, which in turn uses it as an excuse to ruthlessly use Hazaras as bait while pursuing its grand project in Afghanistan. Suffice it to say that Abdul Khaliq Hazara is the incumbent ISI blue-eyed among Hazaras in Quetta.

As previously stated, Ejaz Haider’s purpose of visiting Quetta and penning a concocted version of the happenings there is to allay even the marginal feelings of sympathy for the peripheral Hazaras, in mainland Pakistan. He serves the agenda of his Khaki masters well by telling his readers that Hazaras are not innocent citizens under fire, but Iranian agents who are under strict control of war-mongering Shia clerics involved in murders of Deobandi clerics. By presenting the situation as an action-reaction binary, he tries to deprive Hazaras of the higher moral stead, and reduces them to Lashkar-e-Jhangvi’s level and holds them equally responsible for violence.

By trying to prove Iran and Hazaras as the main culprits who have provoked Lashkar-e-Jhangvi for violence, Ejaz Haider has absolved the Pakistani state, especially the ISI, of any culpability. By doing so, he is insidiously arousing the sentiments of the common Pakistanis against the Shias of Quetta, and sedating their consciences with the allegations of treason and violence against the latter.

Article Source,

http://pakistanblogzine.wordpress.com/2011/08/04/on-ejaz-haiders-ispr-press-release-on-hazaras-of-balochistan-by-farrukhzad-ali/

Journey in Bamiyan, Afghanistan - PART 4/4

A Tragic Tale of a Hazara Child