In 2013, there was a debate going on in a communist circle in Pakistan, whether we support America or Taliban? Which can be accepted as the lesser evil; drone strikes which are killing innocent civilians or suicide bombings which are also killing innocent civilians? It was never an easy task to take a side. But events which were occurring with ever increasing speed confused many communist and socialist and liberals and I don’t know whom else, but definitely a lot of people. Communist and socialist who ever wanted an end to American imperialism was ‘Okay’ with Taliban, as long as they were targeting Americans, but obviously they were not only attacking NATO forces but also innocent civilians across The Durand Line. On the other hand, these same people were also ‘Okay’ with American drone strikes as long as they were just eliminating Taliban and other terrorist organizations who allied with the USA at first place to fight a war against communist Russia.

A similar confusion was heard and seen after Paris attacks, in which more than a hundred people were killed. Facebook, a social network site, gave its users an option to filter their profile pictures with France’s flag, to show solidarity. This same feature was offered by a few other social networking sites as well. Some people right after the attacks tri-colored their profile pictures and updated their status, mostly words of solidarity with the Parisians. But other didn’t. Some gave explanations for why they aren’t coloring their profile pictures whereas other colored their picture with flag or flags of their desired country or countries.

One of the explanations caught my attention and it was ending with this question that, “why Facebook didn't add this feature after terrorist attacks in Palestine, Syria, Afghanistan or Pakistan”? Well, I intend not to speak for Facebook or any other social media for that matter, but I have a counter question, does this justify not standing with innocent civilians and drawing comparisons, comparisons which are clearly leading towards confusion and more confusion?

I asked my friends where this whole thing is leading and an old friend of mine who is nowadays campaigning for ISIS, said something which didn’t make sense to me. Next day an MPhil colleague expressed similar views and today on breakfast table another PhD candidate said what that “ISIS supporter” said a couple of days earlier. And if I can put their opinion in words, it was more like “Whatever happened to the people of Paris was just and they deserved so”. “Now they will know how it feels”, “Why they are complaining and about what, they have lost just one hundred or so whereas we (Muslims) have lost hundreds of thousands.”

I felt like they all were considering the victims as some property of a bad guy who actually brought harm to their property in first place in Syria, Iraq or Afghanistan. But this is not the case, how we can draw a comparison between two lives. A life in Syria is as important and valuable as a life in Paris. So if we are not falling on this end why we are falling on that end? I think we as a majority still don’t understand terrorism. These very terrorists who killed your beloved ones now killed their beloved ones and you are not condemning it because they didn’t condemn it at the first place.

This is strange. Terrorists are one ‘’US”, for them all the Parisians and Syrians and anyone else who is not supporting their cause is “THEM”, so deserves to be killed. Westerns including Americas, are another “US” and for them, Al-Qaeda, ISIS, Taliban and anyone else who is not accepting their supremacy is “THEM”, and so deserves to be "droned". Yet you are another “Us” and for you both “Terrorists’’ and “Westerns” are “THEM”, and for this you are oscillating between those two “THEMS”. The point is when you condemn the West you are perceived as a supporter of the Terrorists and when you condemn the Terrorists you are perceived as a Western supporter. Which needs to be changed.

We being a third “US”, need neither to support the drones nor the suicide bombers. We don’t understand terrorism yet fully so have to maintain some important categorizations. Need to set some agreeable points. And for my personal understanding, I differentiate in regards to “civilians”, which means if someone kills some civilians somewhere to achieve his political goals he is a terrorist and this act is terrorism. These political goals can be religious or otherwise.

Terrorism is disturbing and now it’s an everyday phenomenon. If you lack a basic understanding of terrorism and are confuse, you could be next attacker or a suicide bomber or at least a social media abuser. To avoid such a situation, I’ll suggest you to adopt one definition of terrorism which can work for you and there are more than one hundred definitions. I am not saying go for an American definition or of United Nation’s. Write your own, if you can but remember trickier you’ll make it more chances you will get trap by yourself.

So go for a simple one and here are a couple of them.

Criminal acts, including against civilians, committed with the intent to cause death or serious bodily injury, or taking of hostages, with the purpose to provoke a state of terror in the general public or in a group of persons or particular persons, intimidate a population or compel a government or an international organization to do or to abstain from doing any act. UN Security Council

Criminal acts intended or calculated to provoke a state of terror in the general public, a group of persons or particular persons for political purposes are in any circumstance unjustifiable, whatever the considerations of a political, philosophical, ideological, racial, ethnic, religious or any other nature that may be invoked to justify them. UN General Assembly

And the one I have adopted is, terrorism would be defined as deliberate use or threat to use violence against civilians or against civilian targets in order to attain political aims. Boaz Gonar

Writer is pursuing his MPhil at Iqra University Islamabad, blogs at Kashmirica.wordpress.com and can be followed @imrankhushaal 

You are infected with coccidioidomycosis and you don't know what is it? How will you get rid of it? Can you give yourself a treatment, without knowing what are you suffering from? I think no. The first step in curing any disease is knowing and accepting it. Then, diagnosing and verifying, through the symptoms and the knowledge, acquired at the first place, then applying proper treatment, with all precautions and preventive measures, to cure, and eliminate the risk of future attack or infection.

Same is true when it comes about curing the terrorism, like any other disease it is one, and definitely the most dangerous. So dangerous that other day it killed 141 at Peshwar in just one incident, and hundreds and thousands before that in many others. I believe it can be cure if we know it, understand it, admit that we are sick of it, and present ourselves to proper treatment. Following measures can help us in a faster recovery.

Redefine and relate the concept

Go out and ask the folks, people from different walks of life; ask them who attacked at Peshawar School? Who they really were? And majority of them will answer your question. They'll tell you "those weren't Muslims... because no Muslim can do that." Really? Is this the case? Can we standardized this? If yes, then, I think, we can also say, "Muslims are not corrupt, because corruption is prohibited in Islam." So by this stranded, making any law and doing any effort against corruption would be an implicit negation of this notion. And if we accept it, there is no need of any, I mean absolutely any law against corruption as it is a Muslim majority country and they can't be corrupt so no need... am I right? No, I am not right and neither they are. So here is a need to rethink and redefine the concepts related to terrorism. Here is a need to related and accept this phenomena. Accept and to be clear and bold like; "Yes, whoever did that, they could be Muslims could be non-Muslims, but they did wrong, and should be punished."

Reprogram the programmer

I don't know, if you have heard the story of two fast friends, a politician and a Peer Sahib, but I did. Peer Sahib got a lot of disciples, purchased land and constructed Mosques. Then, he appointed his Qari and Hafiz in every mosque which was (and is) his property. They served well, very well, and Peer Sahib's friend never lost an election. This and similar kind of stories are true about every mosque, these are like someone's private property. One or another group has its control on them and they have their own interpretation of religion, which is obviously different from the other group's. So the point is, as long as state doesn't take the control of mosque; device and authorize a policy and a person, to run and regulate the matters, biased, violent and extremist interpretations are inevitable. You can't simply minus the role of Molvi in our society, these are people, society need at everything, from birth to adultery, and from marriage to funeral, they are interpreters of the religion, they are programmers of the society. So need is not to mess up with them but alter the role, because reprogrammed programmers can serve the purpose of making this society less biased, non-violent and non-extremist; a place to live in peace.

Launch effective media campaigns

Two things are really connected, military operations and media campaigns. Military operations without making the public consensus can be counterproductive. But if they move step by step, building public opinion and getting all of them, and without discrimination of good or bad, I think this can work. Media houses can broadcast and print, anything that makes masses understand the direction of authorities, by changing their perceptions, and they should. As they did in the past, while introducing these as true heroes of Islam at first place. Also, a strict media monitoring is required, to keep a check on those who are implicitly or explicitly promoting the agenda of terrorist’s organizations, and there are many. Exact number can be checked but a rough estimate is of hundreds, including the (print) newspapers like Ghazwa and Zarb-E-Momin, which are distributed free, and many (electronic) newspapers and blogs. There are others, who aren't publishing propaganda newspapers but they are writing for big houses, and contaminating the public opinion, need to check them too.

Bring syllabus modification

We all know, I assume, what our syllabus teaches us. Those who went school before seventies read a different syllabus but after Zia’s take over, the situation changed dramatically. Later, on one hand America was spending million dollars on Afghan Schoolchildren syllabus and on other hand syllabus was being changed in Pakistan. We printed and published, horrendous pictures and worse text, a weapon of self-destruction for our own children, which taught violence and extremism, and ultimately prepare them to join “Afghan Jihad”, better known dollar Jihad. Now it is time to accept our mistake (blunder) and go to fix it. Syllabus in our government schools still need a lot of modifications, to de-radicalize and moderate the minds of our children to make them tolerant toward other religions and respect difference.

Go for Madrasa reforms

I know, many people don’t like talk about madrasa reforms but I am not going to ask for typical one. A friend of mine just talked to me and told me about someone, who was on TV, and has proposed a different solution for madrassa reforms. According to my friend, he was a foreign qualified religious scholar who said, students of these madrassa’s can be awarded scholarships not by the government but by different capable families instead of paying Zakat and Sadqa, and they can also go in a private school. Although it looks difficult but if government take an initiative with civil societies’ help it can be done.

Writer is an Mphil student at Iqra University Islamabad, blogs at Kashmirica.org and works with Institute for Social and Economic Justice (ISEJ). He tweets @imrankhushaal

One of the problems, with ESL learners is, they think in their native language; then try to translate their thoughts into English, which takes time and often make them stuck.
To speak fluently one must need to think in that same language in which he is talking, same is the case with English. So the question which really needs to be addressed is, How to think in English?

Bad news ..... fast.
1. Spread
2. Spreads

This question was on an ESL forum where I commented the following comment. Here am sharing that with you to check weather it's correct or not.

*"Bad news spreads fast."*

Because NEWS is not a plural of NEW as it seems. It's an abbreviation of North East West South. It can be singular as well as plural. So both options are correct. But the context matters in this regard. Normally a single NEWS or a Breaking NEWS is broken at once which could spread fast. So in My opinion it should be SPREADS.

You are funny, aren't you?

This is a Tag Question. The whole sentence is called "tag question" whereas the end or tail part is known as "question tag". Tag questions are very common in now a days English. You must hear them in movies and TV shows. But sometimes they sound funny or strange to ESL Learners. For instance in case of "I" we use "aren't" e.g. I'm the funniest, aren't I? 
Some other tag questions could be like.

She is beautiful, isn't she?
He will come today, won't he?
They have eaten their meal, haven't they?

She isn't coming, is she?
John will not agree, will he?
They haven't eaten their meal, have they?

Please note the difference. If first half is positive the question tag should be negative. And if first half is negative the question tag should be positive. This is general rule but as you all know English is a Funny Language so there are "funny exceptions" too.

Hello Everyone!

Here in this post I am going to share 10 things which can really improve your English speaking skill.

1. Don't start learning English (speaking) until you decide which accent you are going to adopt. 

2. Choose an accent. British or American. I recommend American because of 10 reasons which I will try to share sometime later.

3. If you have chosen American accent, then go for it, grab it and stop watching BBC and other British channels. 

3. Don't read in beginning.

4. Don't try to write at very first.

5. Start with listening. As key of leaning any language is LISTENING, LISTENING and LISTENING. Don’t care either you comprehend or not. Keep listening.

6. Watch American Dramas and movies belonging to this category. As dialogue are much clear in Dramas then Actions and Comedies. Animated movies are also helpful.

7. Listen old songs because new are difficult to understand.

8. Visit VOA special English every day and listen it regularly.

9. Make ESL PODCAST and EFFORTLESS ENGLISH your daily listing stuff.

10. Follow me for next post. 

She loved, and stoned to death. 

She grownup, harassed, raped and buried.