Page 6 - Pakistan Link -June 7, 2024

P6 - PAKISTAN LINK - JUNE 7, 2024 OPINION
n By Dr Aslam Abdullah
Fontana, CA Elections 2024 - What Lies Ahead Municipal
2 024 is the election year in the ties and 78 cities, including 41 mayoral
Municipal elections are in 80 coun-
USA.
elections, in 2024.
The country will hold its 60th
Elections are also being held for lo-
presidential election on November 5, cal positions in Guam, the Northern
2024. The winner of the Mariana Islands, and Puerto Rico. That
2024 presidential elec- includes elections for mayor in 19 cities
tion will assume office in Guam and 78 cities in Puerto Rico.
on January 20, 2025.
Joe Biden (D) and Judges
Donald Trump (R) be- A total of 304 appellate court seats
came the presumptive are up for election in 2024. The seats
Democratic and Republican nominees include 83 Supreme Court seats.
on March 12, 2024. The Democratic Four judges will be on the ballot in
Party will make an official presiden- 2024’s retention elections. To remain
tial nomination at the Democratic on the bench, one judge on the Guam
National Convention in August 2024, Supreme Court, two on the Guam Su-
and the Republican Party will make an perior Court, and one on the Northern
official presidential nomination at the Mariana Islands Superior Court must
Republican National Convention in stand for retention.
July 2024.
Ballot measures
Congress As of May 2024, 110 statewide bal-
A total of 468 seats in the US Con- lot measures have been certified for the
gress (33 Senate seats and all 435 House ballot in 35 states for the 2024 elec-
seats) are up for election on November up for regular election on November • 11 gubernatorial seats. lative seats (78%). tions.
5, 2024. 5, 2024. • Nine lieutenant gubernatorial In the US Territories, eight legisla- (Dr Aslam Abdullah is a resi-
Two special elections are for No- Ahead of the elections, Republicans seats. tive chambers hold regularly scheduled dent scholar at Islamicity.org and
vember 5, 2024. One special election hold a majority in the US House, while • Ten attorney general seats. elections for 169 seats in 2024. Elec- editor-in-chief of the Muslim Ob-
will fill the last two years of the six-year Democrats and independents who • Seven secretaries of state seats. tions will be held for the American server newspaper. He is also the
term Ben Sasse (R) was elected to in caucus with Democrats hold a major- State Legislatures Samoa House of Representatives, the Indian Islamic Heritage Project di-
2020. The other special election will fill ity in the US Senate. There are 99 state legislative cham- Guam Legislature, the Puerto Rico rector of the American Federation
the rest with the six-year term Dianne bers in the 50 states. In 44 states, 85 Senate and House of Representatives, of Muslims of Indian origin and
Feinstein (D-Calif.) assumed in 2018. Executive election chambers held regular legislative elec- the Northern Mariana Islands Senate the interim President of the World
Feinstein died on September 29, 2023. State executive offices up for elec- tions in 2024. These elections are for and House of Representatives, and the Council of Muslims for Interfaith
The Senate seat Feinstein held is also tion in 2024 include: 5,793 of the country’s 7,386 state legis- US Virgin Islands Legislature. Relations, WCMIR.)

n By Bina Shah
e still haven’t figured out Jinnah’s Children Barthes says we cannot precisely detect State Dept Says It’s for Pakistani
Courts to Decide Imran Khan’s
what the author intended, which is not
Cases
exactly who Mohammad the point anyway. (Continued from page 1)
Perhaps if we imagine Quaid-i-
WAli Jinnah — Quaid- Azam, the founder of the nation, as a judice matters.
i-Azam — is or was, even in 2024 text that Mohammad Ali Jinnah au- Miller said this to a que-
-Westernized liberal thored in order to achieve his own po- ry posed by a reporter after
secular, or champion litical ends, we begin to see why he is Khan’s acquittal in the cipher
of religious freedom interpreted so differently by so many case and remaining jailed in
for Muslims? Brilliant in Pakistan. Perhaps the same can be the un-Islamic marriage case.
statesman or failed applied to the idea of Pakistan, another The Islamabad High Court
politician who played interlinked ‘text’ that we try to inter- (IHC) on Monday annulled
the religion card? This pret and study, like a Rosetta Stone Khan and PTI Vice-Chairman
national confusion swirls as we con- from 1947. As Barthes said, “text is a Shah Mahmood Qureshi’s
sider whether Jinnah’s personal life tissue drawn from innumerable cen- conviction in the infamous ci-
really was a reflection of what he in- ters of culture”. But unlike the Rosetta pher case containing charges
tended Pakistan to become. Stone, Jinnah’s ‘text’ cannot be ‘deci- of misusing and misplacing
In Jinnah’s Constituent Assembly phered’, only ‘disentangled’ from its the classified diplomatic doc-
speech of Aug 11, 1947, he declared Jinnah’s influence on Pakistan is undeniable — without him, we would not exist. cultural contexts. ument.
his support for peace, harmony, and But it’s time we face the future with a sense of him standing firmly behind us as If Pakistan is a concept, and the Meanwhile, Khan remains
pluralism. He envisioned Pakistan and we create a new sense of meaning, belonging, and purpose in the 21st century. story of the Quaid is a ‘text’, that text is incarcerated under the seven-
India living as tranquil neighbors. Em- We can only succeed in resolving our crisis of identity when we think of ourselves open to the interpretation of scholars, year sentence handed to him
inent Pakistani scholar Prof Akbar S. as Jinnah’s children, not Jinnah’s orphans historians, biographers as well as regu- and his wife Bushra Bibi by a
Ahmed supports this interpretation of lar citizens, students, even schoolchil- trial court on February 3, in
Jinnah’s intentions in his play Gandhi talk about her great disappointment Pakistan could exist as an autonomous dren. The intention behind Pakistan’s the “un-Islamic nikah” case at
and Jinnah that was presented at this with what her father wanted and what entity in a wider, united South Asia. creation will always be contested, as the Adiala Jail. The couple was
year’s KLF. the country had become.” But a lack of numbers in Congress each generation seeks to interpret the also fined Rs500,000 each.
Lawyer Yasser Latif Hamdani, au- . meant that Jinnah had to rely on “Mus- meaning and intent of Pakistan anew. A trial court on February 3
thor of the biography Jinnah: A Life, But others say that Jinnah never in- lim street power” to persuade others of Wise old men may shudder at this ap- handed a seven-year sentence
posited that Jinnah’s personal beliefs tended for Pakistan to be divided from his political strength. proach but it does offer a certain dyna- to the PTI founder and his
in secularism matched his political India in this manner. Historian Ayesha This introduction of religion into mism for a nation continuously trying wife Bushra Bibi.
ones — that he was opposed to bring- Jalal states in her 1985 seminal work, politics gave rise to the obscurantist to reinvent itself amid today’s chal- Further describing the State
ing religion into politics. Islamic fun- The Sole Spokesman, that Jinnah bran- Pakistan we live in today. Ameena lenges. Department’s perspective, the
damentalists are the ones who turned dished the possibility of a partition on Saiyid believes Jinnah is held hostage Jinnah’s influence on Pakistan spokesperson said, “When we
Pakistan into a fundamentalist state a religious basis only to secure more to people who want his endorsement is undeniable — without him, we look at different countries, we
completely the opposite of what Jinnah protections for the Muslims in a united of their ideas and opinions. “His name, would not exist. But it’s time we face take into account appropriate
wanted. India. Congress rejected this idea and imagined life, and politics are being the future with a sense of him stand- context, and circumstances in
Renowned publisher Ameena Saiy- actually made Partition a reality, one used to influence others in the narra- ing firmly behind us as we create a making our judgments.”
id, who has overseen the publication that Jinnah did not really believe in. tive … In the process, the real Jinnah new sense of meaning, belonging, Miller said the US had nu-
of scores of books about Jinnah, agrees Anatol Lieven writes in Pakistan: A has become blurred, even disappeared.” and purpose in the 21st century. We merous times addressed the
that Jinnah envisioned a secular, egali- Hard Country that the “slogan of Paki- In literary critic Roland Barthes’s can only succeed in resolving our question regarding Khan.
tarian country with Muslims living in stan” was used by Jinnah to win control groundbreaking 1967 essay ‘The Death crisis of identity when we think of “The legal proceedings
peace with Hindus, Christians, and over the Muslim League, and to force of the Author’, it is argued that once a ourselves as Jinnah’s children, not against him are something
Parsis, and open borders with India. Congress to agree to a United India text is published, it loses its connec- Jinnah’s orphans. for the Pakistani courts to
She recalls multiple tense conversa- where Muslims shared power with tion with the author’s intentions and (The writer is an author. She has decide (and) I’d say in ac-
tions she held with his daughter Dina, Hindus. His vision of a secular Paki- becomes subject to reader interpreta- been recently appointed the inau- cordance with their laws and
on the phone and in person. “It was as stan where Muslims would be “people tions. In fact, it is the reader’s interpre- gural Writer-in-Residence at AKU- constitution,” he stressed
if she needed to unburden herself and of state” was one idea; another, that tation that has primacy over any other. FAS. Dawn) again. - The News

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