<!--QuoteBegin-Mudy+Sep 18 2007, 10:52 PM-->QUOTE(Mudy @ Sep 18 2007, 10:52 PM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->
<b>YES, PAKISTANâS NEW NATIONAL ART GALLERY HAS NUDES - MSNBC World Blog</b>
Thanks, to Paki Army and Mushy. <!--emo&
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[right][snapback]73313[/snapback][/right]<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Mudy, I went to that page and found this hysterical comment:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->This is a wonderful story. Coming from such a conflict stricken area, such beauty takes place. I sincerely hope his dream of a national museum comes to fruition. <b>The culture is so old and varied, the Pakistani people</b> should have a place to collectively express their feelings about <b>their history. Our country is so young in comparison.</b>
<b>Robin Housden, Rolla, MO</b> (Sent Tuesday, September 18, 2007 10:28 AM)<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Pakistan is older than America? <!--emo&:lol:--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/laugh.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='laugh.gif' /><!--endemo--> Is this a sign of American education standards... Might explain Californian textbooks.
Or maybe the person commenting actually took this bit in the article to be fact:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->"I am bidding on the national museum project," he said. "We don't have a museum in Islamabad that chronicles <b>our</b> 5,000 years of sub-continent civilization."<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->And what continuous 5,000 years of civilisation in TSP was that? The old civilisation was uprooted completely and a new civili... 'culture' utterly replaced it some centuries ago. All the points of similarity they have today with the civilisation that had evolved from some 5,000 years ago is:
- a subset of the land that was involved in it, and
- some distant genetic relationship which they have themselves gone so far out of the way to confuse with claims to Arabia, that they will never be able to put it back together.
And as far as these two factors are concerned, neither genes nor a piece of earth go to make up a civilisation - the ethos must be there for it to be considered a continuous one.
There were no salamis in TSP 5,000 years ago. And it was the Pakistanis themselves who have ever been proudly (pro)claiming: "our invincible islamic ancestors came from Arabia and conquered the Indian subcontinent and brought down you Hindooos".
And now, overnight they've changed their tune to this new "our 5,000 years of sub-continent civilisation". They must be desperate, wafting whichever way the wind blows. Guess they found it ain't cool to be attached to islam anymore, since 'islamic civilisation' is an oxymoron. Explains why they've started looking to what was there before. Maybe they've realised they can't build TSP on thin air, but need some history. I'm sure it's very kaffiri of them to try and find a pre-islamic <i>anything</i>, but since the Iranians - the trendsetters for Pak - have been doing it, TSP might have felt a bit left out. Poor TSP so uncool in comparison to Persia.
The civilisation in the Indian subcontinent of 5,000 years ago has nothing to do with the terrorising fruitcakes of TSP today: not only were they not alive back then, but, more importantly, those alive now do not even identify with the people, beliefs or culture that existed since those 5,000 years ago and that was killed there with islam's arrival (that is, there's no unbroken continuation from that time's civilisation to the present land and islami people identified as TSP). Besides, it's too late - they can't let go so easily of their carefully-developed hysterical claims to Arabian/Iranian/Afghan/Turkic origins: their own fault they put so much effort into those tales. They've ended up doing their job <i>too</i> well.
Also, what they're referring to was a subcontinent-<b>wide</b> civilisation - today's Pakistani culture (islam) has nothing to do that, besides even Pakistan (the country, land) certainly has no unique claims to it.
Until they can own up to these things and make the necessary changes, there can be no ownership in the way they're implying with their statement "We don't have a museum in Islamabad that chronicles <b>our 5,000 years of sub-continent civilization.</b>"
Must admit though, TSP is a very funny country, though it's odd that a few Americans should take them so seriously and thus miss all the stand-up comedy.
tupid--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/pakee.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='pakee.gif' /><!--endemo--> Sources told Dawn on Friday that during his talks in Islamabad, US Deputy Secretary of State John D. Negroponte had advised Pakistani officials to meet their energy needs by importing electricity from Central Asian states.