| April 20, 2002 | Saturday | Safar 6, 1423 |
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Western phobia
Women in PAF
An unpleasant train journey
Sales tax and export
Please reflect
Economic subjugation
Telephone line rent
Watching BBC
Adm. Ahsan remembered
Height of insecurity
Who is right?
Peace: the only promise
THESE days the main subject of discussion is the forthcoming referendum. I am astonished that people like Mr Abdul Hafeez Pirzada are defending the referendum.
Mr Pirzada himself says that he is the author of the 1973 Constitution, which clearly says in Article 41(2) that “a person shall not be qualified for election as president if he is not qualified to be the member of National Assembly”. Pervez Musharraf is serving in the Pakistan Army and is the Chief of Army Staff, so he is not qualified to be a member of the National Assembly and so cannot be elected as President of Pakistan.
Article 43(1) of the Constitution says: “The President shall not hold any office of profit in the service of Pakistan or occupy any other position carrying the right to remuneration for rendering services”. This means that Gen Musharraf, who is Chief of Army Staff and receiving remuneration on that post, is ineligible to hold office of President.
Article 244 of the Constitution enumerates how a person in the defence forces of Pakistan takes oath: “I do solemnly swear that I will not engage myself in any political activities whatsoever and that I will honestly and faithfully serve Pakistan in the Pakistan Army (or Navy or Air force) as required by and under the law.” Now, Pervez Musharraf in violating his oath and taking part in political activities and so is automatically disqualified to be president of Pakistan.
Now, I come to the referendum Musharraf is holding under article 48(6) which clearly says that any matter of national importance should be referred to the people. Referendum can only be held to decide a matter for which there is no provision in the Constitution but not for President’s election because there is clear provision in the Constitution and the electoral college has been named for this purpose. Musharraf himself said umpteen times that elections will be held in Oct 2002 and the Supreme Court has given a clear roadmap for the elections, then why hold a referendum and incur high expenditure on such an exercise?
According to Article 3(2) of the Referendum Order 2002, the whole of Pakistan has become a single constituency and every person is entitled to vote at a poling station of his choice regardless of his place of residence. This is utter violation of election rules. Article 4 of the referendum order says that if majority of the votes cast in the referendum are in the affirmative the candidate will be elected. Suppose 80 per cent of the people boycott the referendum and 11 per cent of the remaining 20 per cent vote in favour then the presidential candidate will be elected, though having the confidence of only 11 per cent of Pakistanis.
KHALID SHAH
Karachi
THE meaning of civilization was developed as the opposite of the concept of ‘barbarism’ (very common in Kashmir and Palestine). Civilized society differs from a barbaric one because it is literate, urban and settled.
The concept of civilization provides a standard by which to judge societies, and during the era of Islamic world expansion, Muslims devoted much intellectual, systematic and political energy to elaborating the criteria by which non-Islamic societies might be judged sufficiently ‘civilized’ to be accepted as members of the Islamic-dominated international system: one that enabled other civilizations to enter a new era of development of human and women rights.
Worldwide equality among all humanity provides an international concept of civilized world.
The expansion of the Islamic world had promoted both the civilization and the humanism of non-Islamic societies. The people of these societies had responded to the Islamic impact heartily because they felt it was better.
In this perspective, the phobia that is overwhelming almost the entire western society, has made them frightened from the expansion of other civilizations. It seems that all western powers have engrossed themselves to dominate the poor world, and to impose their beliefs of secularism by force. Unfortunately, they think that Islamic resurgence and the economic dynamism of Asia are a threat to them.
All civilizations go though similar processes of emergence, rise, and decline. Islam differs from other civilizations not in the way it has developed but in the distinctive character of its cultural, family, social and humanitarian values.
These include most notably its morality, humanity, equality, and rule of divine, which will make it possible for the Islam to invent modernity, expand throughout the world, and become the envy of other societies and saviour for victimized societies where people are being slaughtered because of their colour, race and beliefs.
The world needs to be civilized by civilized people who think that all humans are equal and have equal rights. Therefore, Lester Pearson’s warning is the only way of salvation of the world: that different civilizations will have to learn to live side by side in peaceful interchange, learning from each other, studying each other’s history, ideals, art and culture, mutually enriching each other’s lives.
In fact, peace depends upon understanding and co-operation among world’s major civilizations. In the emerging era, clashes of civilizations are the greatest threat to world peace. Crusade and jihad can be against barbarism, poverty, deprivation, state terrorism and illiteracy, and this step can definitely bring a new era of peace.
NASIR FAROOQ
Karachi
MR Zia Habib (April 17) has rather strange logics against women working as fighter pilots.
Which research has proved that women cannot take spontaneous decisions in critical situations? If he carefully looks around him, he will find that while men are working at a leisurely pace in the offices, housewives are constantly making decisions at the spur of the moment, as they have to face whatever comes up without prior notice.
He has written that women are performing well as Logistics Officers and Air Traffic Controllers. Does he mean to say that those working in these positions do not need decision-making and mental fitness?
The writer thinks that just being born a man is enough to be physically and mentally fit, while every woman is mentally as well as physically weak. I wish to tell him that it is mostly the mother who tends to the injuries of her child, not the father.
As far as assault is concerned, at which place including the four walls of her house, can a woman be sure that she will not be assaulted?
And, as far as the treatment of a woman POW is concerned, such a captured woman will have at least one satisfaction — that she was assaulted by an enemy and not killed by a father or a brother in the name of honour, that too to either get off easily for their own crimes or to usurp her rights.
NASREEN TALAT
Karachi
ENCOURAGED by the statement given by the federal minister/ chairman of railways that the department has made improvement in customer service and the fiscal deficit has dropped by 2 billion rupees, I reached the Drig Road station on March 23 to take the Taiz Ro Express, departing at 11:00 am.
No sooner had the vehicle, which carried me to the station, entered the station, the watchman asked for the parking fee. I told him that the vehicle would leave just after dropping me but he insisted that any vehicle entering the station premises would have to pay the parking fee.
The clerk at the booking office did not even know what time the train would reach Mehrabpur station.
He charged me the fare for Ranipur station. I went to the station master and informed him about the parking/ booking problems. He said that as he was a small employee he could not do anything. There was no inquiry office, public telephone and toilet facilities for the passengers.
When I boarded the train, the window shutters were jammed. The ceiling fans in the compartment were switched on when the train arrived at Tando Adam. The passengers boarding the train later forcibly occupied the reserved seats of those who had left them for a few minutes.
A large number of people occupied that rooftop and no one bothered to tell them that if the driver of the fast moving train applied brakes, they would be crushed to death. Will someone in the railways look into the matter?
S. BUKHARI
Karachi
A REQUEST was made to the CBR chairman and the minister of commerce vide my letter (April 11) on the above subject. The small commercial exporters are eager to know if any instructions have been given to the collectors of sales tax to clear up the long outstanding refund cases pending with almost all the collectorates for years, blocking billions of rupees of small and medium commercial exporters in spite of submission of all the required documents as per Sales Tax Act 1990.
It will be further appreciated if direction may kindly be issued to the collectorates of sales tax to give written reasons to the prospective claimants for holding up their claims so that they are able to either address the objection(s) if any or take up the matter with the federal Tax Ombudsman Secretariat, Islamabad, for judgement and to obtain necessary payment orders.
While some individual companies, with sufficient means, are taking up the matter with the Federal Tax Ombudsman Secretariat and are obtaining orders for the immediate payment of their long outstanding refund claims, most of the commercial exporters are not in a position to do the same.
In the interest of the country’s small commercial exporters and to make export trade more competitive, it is once again requested to the chairman CBR and the minister of commerce to take appropriate steps at the earliest.
ASIF HANIF
Karachi
SOME time ago, an old-generation politician suggested a solution to the dispute of the state of Jammu and Kashmir by dividing it. According to him, Jammu, Laddakh and Gilgit should have been given to the illegal occupiers.
Laddakh is 56 per cent of the entire Jammu and Kashmir state. Its population under the 1941 census was Bhuddist and had an edge over the Muslims. The demographic changes turned the district under the 1991 census into a Muslim majority district. Jammu would mean Jammu province, which includes Mirpur and Poonch and by all counts is a Muslim majority province.
It gets very depressing when one does not think before speaking.
QUDSIA LODI
Lahore
HEGEMONIC powers do not need to occupy a country physically in the modern times; economic subjugation serves their purpose best. The third world countries which produce mainly raw materials are, therefore, the best targets. For example, many ginning factories were established during the 1990s in the rural areas in our country but almost all of them have rendered their owners bankrupt due to adverse price manipulations by the international economic powers.
One such factory situated in Lundi Pitafi in Muzaffargarh has thus gone under and its hapless owners’ homes have been attached and are to be auctioned in the last week of this month. The authorities should pause to think: would it not be better to adopt a holistic approach to this problem instead of making people homeless for no fault of their own?
Will the auctioning of citizens’ properties bring about economic progress in our country? Wouldn’t it be better instead to hand over the factory to a party which can run it profitably and repay its loans in due coarse of time as well as save its owners from being thrown out of their homes?
ABDUL KARIM
Muzaffargarh
A FEW years ago the telephone line rent was Rs50 a month. Then it was raised, almost five times higher, to Rs245 and now it has been further enhanced to Rs261.
The line rent is the money we pay for the line that connects our telephone to the telephone exchange. Electricity lines, too, connect our homes or offices to the power generating source and gas lines connect the consumers’ premises to the gas grid. The electricity and the gas lines are many times more costly than the telephone lines. But we are not charged any ‘line rent’ by the electricity or the gas supply company. Following that the telephone company should also not charge us any line rent at all.
I think that the telephone company is hell-bent to reverse the good work being done by the government.
HEDAYET ULLAH KHAN
Karachi
COLIN Powell looks like a dithering schoolboy in the presence of the headmaster (Sharon): “I will meet Arafat. No, I will not meet Arafat. Yes, I think I will meet Arafat. I may or may not meet Arafat a second time. The Middle East conference can go on without Arafat” (the French prime minister has called this last bit of wisdom ‘nonsense’).
Powell only had to switch on the TV (BBC, not CNN) to see the colossal human and material damage caused in Jenin by his hosts. The Jewish lobby has such a stranglehold on his boss back in Washington and consequently on him that he is jumping on one leg to the shots being called by Sharon.
KHURSHID ANWER
Lahore
THIS is with regard to the letter ‘Apology required’ (April 18).
I am in a logically valid position to write about Vice Admiral Syed Mohammad Ahsan because we trained together in the renowned Training Ship I.M.M.T.S. ‘Dufferin’, 1936-38.
Some years later I was at Karachi Airport on Aug 12, 1947, when Ahsan, as ADC to our Quaid-i-Azam, arrived at the airport. History records that Lord Louis Mountbatten, when announcing the emergence of Pakistan, said to our Quaid-i-Azam: “I am happy that you have an independent Pakistan, and you have Syed Mohammad Ahsan.”
In view of this unblemished personality of an individual, and in view of his many services to our country including a very popular governorship of East Pakistan, it amazes me as to how he could be mistaken for a person well-known for many dishonest and despicable deeds that have been proven.
I suggest that Dawn should seriously consider a detailed apology to Begum Nighat Ahsan and Admiral Ahsan’s family; it will be in keeping with the moral and journalistic code of Mr Jinnah’s newspaper Dawn.
M.J. SAYEED
Karachi
THIS is with reference to Marya Husain’s letter ‘Height of insecurity’ (April 16), in which she has described one of the many fears of the common man in Karachi: being robbed or killed by the police. It is a pity indeed that those paid to protect us from criminals, are themselves being identified as the ones involved in many illegal and horrifying acts.
The robbery at a Saddar electronics shop was only one example while there are many more still uncovered. Another example, a more serious one, is the case of gang rape of two sisters in front of their family members. Four persons from among ‘our saviours’, the police force, have been identified as the offenders. Though an FIR was registered after much reluctance, only two have been taken into custody while the rest are absconding, perhaps allowed to abscond.
I request the President, who is soon coming to Karachi to seek our votes in his favour in the forthcoming referendum, to address this feeling of insecurity that is heightening among the residents of this city mainly because of the criminal character of many of those belonging to the police force.
Such incidents give rise not only to a feeling of insecurity but also to a feeling of great shame.
TANYA MIRZA
Karachi
THE press all over the country is saying that transport is being hauled for the public meetings of the president by the police or other concerned authorities.
On the other hand, the president said in his televized press conference that the transport has either been volunteered or is being paid by the people. Who is correct, the President or the press?
DR KHALID BUTT
Karachi
SINCE the dawn of history real peace has remained elusive. Not that it was so decreed, but because the powerful could not bridle materialistic greed, overcome arrogance of brute strength and keep individual egos in healthy restraint. But who suffered? The gullible masses; promised milk and honey that never came.
Previously, the world could manage to dodder along for conflict was largely internal and weapons unsophisticated. This is hardly so in the 21st century. Conflict spills over with global implications, with weapons lethal enough to destroy large land masses and their populace at the touch of a button.
So the stakes are enormous unless the civilization of science, unrestrained by basic values, is suffering from a death wish syndrome. Can anything be done to stem this inexorable slide towards self-destruction? Indeed — and fortunately — yes. But only if the five victors of World War II — USA, UK, France, Russia and China — still powerful and affluent, sit up and take notice of the crumbling edifice of collective security, and consciously act the role they assigned themselves 60 years ago at San Francisco. That is to guard ‘peace’ by upholding the purposes, principles, provisions and procedures of the UN Charter, in beneficent concert, as expected of them under UN’s basic, and all but overriding, concept of ‘unanimity’, in matters dealing with conflict.
If the world through its people, wishing a life without fear, would demand of their leaders, as representing their member state at the UN, to support the following suggestions, there is no reason why the objective of durable world peace cannot be achieved within a generation.
1. Vote to make it incumbent to follow the procedure of negotiation, mediation, arbitration, judicial settlement, but time-tabled, (Articles 33/42) by member states for pacific settlement of international disputes.
2. Make it incumbent on member states to accept the compulsory jurisdiction of the World Court to ultimately settle all international disputes.
3. Establish the envisaged Military Staff Committee (Article 47) and make it responsible to audit conventional and nuclear arms in the possession of Member States and actively pursue world disarmament.
4. Establish a UN Rapid Deployment Force as envisaged in Article 46, for pre-emptive intervention or otherwise should circumstances demand.
M.J. AS’AD
Karachi
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