ON an idyllic Sunday afternoon with temperature at a comfortable 70 degrees, hundreds of thousands of people descended into Manhattan for parades, demonstrations, bicycle rides and festivals.

People turned out at parades saluting Israel and Cuba on Fifth Avenue and the Avenue of the Americas. Midtown demonstrators shouted for Palestinian justice. The others celebrated a Mexican national holiday at street festivals in Harlem and Queens-Cinco-de Mayo festival.

One could hear and see the throbbing mambo drums, blaring bands, passionate protests, salutes to diverse heritages, battalions of sweating bikers and joggers, parks crowded with strollers and sunbathers and the scrimmage of traffic caught in a maze of blocked streets.

At the Israel day parade there were bands and banners with New York’s politicians who clamoured to show support for the Jewish nation, as throngs of pro- Palestinian demonstrators shouted slogans demanding justice for the Palestinians caught in the Israeli war and condemning massacre at Jenin.

At the Cuba day parade people danced with joy to the rhythm of the mambo drums dressed in colourful costumes singing their favourite tunes while imbibing in their favourite drinks and foods from the Island nation.

In Harlem just hundreds 50 blocks away from the parades the Mexicans and the Latin population celebrated Cinco-De Mayo the festival of Mexico. The people danced to the beat of drums and music blared on the streets.

“We couldn’t have asked for a more beautiful day,” said a marshal for Bike New York, as the last of 30,000 cyclists whizzed into the Central Park on a 42-mile journey from the silent canyons of Manhattan through quiet neighbourhoods of the Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn and Staten Island

But the air was filled with reminders of Sept 11 attacks and the Middle-East crisis which dominates the news everyday.

The police were out in force and there were a few angry confrontations. “That’s New York,” one New Yorker said. “The great melting pot plays out once again”

CHICAGO MOOT: Last month a Chicago-based organization, Pakistani American Association of North America (PAANA) held its annual leadership conference, which according to Mr Shaukat Sindu, the PAANA President, managed to forge a semblance of unity between various organizations of Pakistanis living in North America. The three-day conference was attended by about 40 organizations from all parts of America and Canada.

US Congressman Henry Hyde, Chairman of House Foreign Relations Committee came as the chief guest while Pakistan’s ambassador Maleeha Lodhi was the keynote speaker. The American politicians who attended the function included: Congressman David Bonior, Congressman Danny Davis Congressman Jim Moody Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky, Rodney W. Jones, President of Policy Architects International, Washington, DC ambassador Dennis Kux, Washington, Jesse White, Illinois Secretary of State, Jim Ryan, Attorney General of Illinois, Judith Rice, Treasurer, City of Chicago, Denial T. Burke, State Representative, State of Illinois Alderman Joseph Moore, Chicago.

REFERENDUM TALKS: The April 30 referendum was talk of the town among Pakistanis in New York and other parts of the US. The so-called Pakistani intelligentsia lambasted the idea of referendum and recalled the days of Gen Zia-ul-Haq drawing parallels between the two army chiefs.

The Pakistani middle-class workers, taxi drivers, grocery store clerks and similar Pakistanis remained indifferent over the exercise. Their indifference was reflected at the polls in which some 500 out of an estimated half-a-million Pakistanis in the tri-state area voted. The Pakistani ethnic media which churns out some 20 weeklies in the city of different days remained largely critical of the referendum.

The American news media, by and large was extremely harsh in their comments on the referendum some were reported earlier.

The Boston Globe in its editorial “Musharraf conscience” said: “An electoral sham such as the referendum on his rule that the president of Pakistan, Gen Pervez Musharraf, staged yesterday ought to be regarded as a political variation on hypocrisy: the tribute vice pays to virtue. The referendum was not a genuine election in any sense. The only choice it gave voters was to approve Musharraf’s rule for another five years or disapprove. Moreover, political parties and human rights groups complained that the claimed turnout rate — 70 per cent — and the final yes vote for Musharraf — more than 97 per cent — were ludicrously inflated. The critics also alleged that civil servants were pressured to cast ballots for Musharraf and that ballot- stuffing was observed at several voting sites.

The only value to such an exercise in electoral make-believe is that it betrays a guilty conscience about Musharraf’s lack of democratic legitimacy. His hollow referendum implies a tacit recognition that he ought to seek the consent of the governed.”

The Baltimore Sun in its editorial “Eyewash in Pakistan” said: “The 1999 coup that brought Gen Pervez Musharraf to power in Pakistan was good for the country. Mr Musharraf proved himself to be an intelligent leader, and his popularity, particularly among the educated middle classes fed up with corruption and religious pandering by the country’s traditional politicians, soared. He put Pakistan on the right side of world events after Sept 11. This makes his insistence on holding a referendum — extending his grip on the presidency by five years — all the more troubling and disappointing. What’s the point? And why hold a referendum that was as brazenly and egregiously rigged as the one Pakistan endured this week? Ballot boxes stuffed, registration rules ignored, civil servants and prisoners rounded up to vote — it was a gala of fraud.”

Several Pakistani newspapers sent their reporters out to vote as often as they could, to see what would happen. Four ballots per person was typical. The turnout was reported variously at 60 per cent and at 2 per cent. More likely it was somewhere in between. Mr Musharraf, results showed, got a 98 percent “yes” vote. Outsiders can only speculate as to how that was conjured up. Did 97 per cent really seem too low to those who cooked the final figures? Was 99 per cent really too high? President Musharraf comes out of this referendum with less legitimacy, not more.”

IN the history of mankind we find groups and sects of people having different and opposite concepts about life. Seen in the context of Islamic view they help appreciate its distinct approach in the light of Divine guidance.

One such group which observed and studied the forces of nature came to the conclusion that there is no Divine plan and these forces are not governed by any Divine law. They became so obsessed with the idea that they considered man a contemptible and insignificant creature on earth as compared to the forces of nature. They prostrated themselves before the objects of nature, such as trees, animals, rivers, mountains, idols of stones, fire or stars.

There is a group which looked at life from another angle. They said that there is all chaos and disorder in the world. The life is full of miseries, pain, victimization, cruelty and injustice. Evil forces are at work everywhere. Everything has a tragic end. One should renounce this world and go into wilderness. Salvation, according to them, lies in self-morification and renunciation of worldly life.

Some people hold the belief that life is all pleasure and enjoyment. Everything has been created to provide us physical pleasure and material comforts. Time limit has been prescribed for the life on this planet. Hence one should seize this opportunity and enjoy the maximum. Their motto is “Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die”. They say there is no life after death. They do not believe in after-life or resurrection at all.

There is still another group which believes that all material comforts, physical enjoyments and pleasures and life itself are a sin. These things are impediments to the soul to progress and flourish. They believe that those who indulge in worldly pleasures and gains and pursue wealth and power are deprived of heavenly kingdom.

A group of human beings hold the view that man is a plaything in the hands of Nature. Nature is hostile to him and frustrates all his efforts to achieve his goal. They believe in determinism. They say that man does not enjoy the freedom of choice and action. He is, therefore, not answerable to anybody for his actions.

At the other extreme we find a class of people who believe in free will. They say that man is free to act and think and is not accountable to any Divine authority for his actions except to his own conscience and the state. He is the master of his own fate. All things are created to serve him. He is free to exploit and utilize them. He has framed his own laws to govern and direct his individual and communal life.

Now we take up what Islam says about life and this world. Islam’s concept of life is very comprehensive and all-embracing. According to it, the man is not a contemptible and insignificant creature on this planet as held by a group who bowed down to every object of Nature. They neglected the brighter aspect of human life that places man at a higher plane than other creatures. They only took into consideration the magnitude of physical strength of the forces at work in nature but forgot the fact that man has been endowed with reason, intellect and choice of freedom and action which no other creature enjoys in this universe and by means of which he could make the forces of nature subservient to him.

According to Islam, this world is a place of trial and probation. The man has been allotted a fixed period of life during which he is being judged. He is responsible for his actions — good or bad — and will be accountable to his Creator on the Day of judgment.

This world is not meant for reward and punishment. Here whatever we have or has been bestowed upon us is for our test and trial. In surah al-Anaam, Allah says: “It is He who made you trustees on the earth and exalted some in rank over others in order to try you by what he has given you.” (6:128).

In surah al-Baqarah: “Be sure we shall try you with something of fear and hunger and loss of wealth and life and fruits (of your labour). (2:155).

The man is vicegerent or representative of God on the earth. He is Allah’s khalifa in the Quranic terminology. He is not the absolute owner but he is, in fact, God’s deputy. It has raised his position and status among the creatures. All things are created to serve him and he is created to serve Allah’s purpose on this earth.

As Allah’s vicegerent or His representative (khalifa) he is to obey Him and carry out whatever He has prescribed for him. All wealth and power are a trust from God. He who betrays his position of trust is a rebel and he who does not betray His trust and is faithful to his Lord is a true believer and a Muslim. He is responsible for his acts and is answerable to Allah for his deeds.

The worldly life, according to the Quran, is short-lived and transitory. It is insignificant as compared to the life in the hereafter. In sura at-Tawbah, God asks: “Do you find the life of the world so pleasing that you forget the life to come? Yet the comfort of worldly life will mean so little in the Hereafter.” But man has to pass through this in order to reach his ultimate destination i.e. al-Akhirah. He is placed in the midst of material inducement and enchantments of life that every moment entice him away from the right path. He has to undergo this test and trial before he attains his goal.