Pakistan wants to include a speech by Muhammad Ali Jinnah in its constitution. The speech contained: "You are free, you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or any other place of worship in this state of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed. That has nothing to with business of the state."
One of the dissenting voices in Pakistan argues the opposite:
Right-wing Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal leader Liaqat Baloch said: "Pakistan is an Islamic state and it was created in the name of Islam. We can't go against the ideology... Any bill that negates Pakistan's ideology will not be supported by the MMA. We will in fact reject it with full force."
Most nations have references to some form of deity in their constitutions or founding documents. Australia for instance has a head of state that is also a head of the church. Freedom of religion becomes one of absent executive force and legislative intrusion - ie a lack of discrimination.
This is an area where liberalism's pluralistic approach is far superior to mono-religious states like Saudi Arabia. The enlightenment identified religious coercion through the state as one of the main forms of tyranny and sufferance against a population. This is one of the reasons why freedom of religion is often elevated to the level of the constitution.
Pakistan doesn't appear to be placing freedom of religion as a constitutional restriction on the executive and legislative though, by putting the speech in there it is like a preamble, and not legally binding. It is more like 'Hooray for everything'.
For it to be useful as a political right it will have to be inserted into the constitution in such a way that it leaves no doubt that it is an area the executive cannot enforce in, and that the legislative cannot legislate over. I don't think this is what the Pakistani politicians are arguing for, so it is probably theatre.
This appears to be
Muhammad Ali Jinnah's speech from 1947 that is referenced in the article.
Most Popular on South Sea Republic
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Most Popular Restaurants in Phoenix
Phoenix Eats Out is the restaurant review site for
Phoenix,
Scottsdale and
Old Town Scottsdale which lists the modernist and contemporary restaurants, taverns and bars in the greater Phoenix area.
This is the list of the most popular restaurants pages from phoenixeatsout.com that have been viewed the most;
My personal favourite restaurants in Phoenix are
AZ88,
Postinos,
Bomberos with
Grazie,
Humble Pie,
Orange Table,
The Vig,
Fez and others coming close behind. View the complete list with the photo-journalistic style images on
phoenixeatsout.com
Most Popular Hikes in Arizona
Arizona is an outdoor state and has lots of hiking in the city and around the state. Phoenix is unusual for most cities in having several large mountains in the center of the city with great hiking. Anyone who comes to Phoenix has to do the
Echo Canyon trail on Camelback and the
Summit Hike on Squaw Peak or Piesta Peak. The views of the city, suburbs and surrounding mountains are wonderful from Camelback and Piesta Peak.
For more experienced hikers there is the McDowell Mountains in North Scottsdale that has several difficult and strenuous hikes in
Tom's Thumb and
Bell Pass. Alternatively, you can hike the highest mountain in Arizona. At 12,600 feet
Humphrey's Peak is a long and difficult hike.
Alternate Australian Constitutions
Between 2004 and 2009 this site,
southsearepublic.org, was a constitutional blog based on scoop which focused on Australian and global constitutional issues.
One of the strongest aspects of it was the development of constitutions by those involved in the blog. These constitutions are the outcome:
The constitutions were built using principles from Montesquieu's separation of powers, the enlightnment's universal political rights and the ancient Athenian technology of sortition and choice by lot.
Archives For South Sea Republic
South Sea Republic started in 2004 as an Australian constitutional blog in 2004 based on scoop software. It was an immigrative outgrowth of Kuro5hin. The archives for each year since then;
The articles are ordered by views.
Who Is Cam Riley
I am an Australian living in the United States as a permanent resident.
I am a software developer by trade and mostly work in Java and jump between middleware and front end.
I originally worked in the New York area of the United States in telecommunications before moving to Washington DC and
working in a mix of telecommunications, energy and ITS. I started my own software company before heading out to
Arizona and working with Shutterfly. Since then I have joined a startup in the Phoenix area and am thoroughly enjoying myself.
I do a lot of photography which I post on this website, but also on flickr. I have a photo-journalistic website which lists
the modernist and contemporary restaurants in phoenix. I have a site on the
Australian Flying Corps [AFC] which has been around since the 1990s and which I unfortunately
lost the .org URL to during a life event; however, it is under the
www.australianflyingcorps.com URL now.
The AFC website has gone through several iterations since the 90s and the two most recent are
Australian Flying Corps Archives(2004-2002) and
Australian Flying Corps Archives(2002-1999) which are good places to start.
Websites Worth Reading
Websites of friends, colleagues and of interest;
