| September 22, 2002 | Sunday | Rajab 14, 1423 |
It’s everyone to himself this time around
Defence show security makes citizens suffer: SOCIAL THEMES
Book on Azadari launched
THE RISE and fall of Pakistan hockey is a real reflection of change in our social values and morals which has become self centred and shrunk to self promotion than national projection.
“DEFENCE SHOW brings traffic gridlock, suspension of business”, says a report. It is almost inevitable to ask in wonder: but how much of VVIP movement can Karachi now take? Keep into account the state of the city being what it is. The real context. And we all know how security measures, official and private, are growing all the time. Those are the scary times, we live in evidently.
After partition, the nation brimmed with emotion and people from all walks of life were prepared to sacrifice anything and everything for the promotion, projection and development of the new born country. The spirit at the time of independence was different than what it is today. Whether anyone likes it or not it is a ground reality and the whole outlook has got to be changed to bring in all round improvement.
Merit and merit alone if made the criteria, will eradicate all the evils gradually.
The same stands for Pakistan hockey which has a very short and a very long history. Hockey became the national game soon after independence as some stalwarts of the game like Col A.I.S. Dara, Aziz Malik, Niaz Khan and Hameedi formed the mainstay of the team which participated in the 1948 Olympics and finished fourth.
The hockey stalwarts did not rest in peace and strived for another four years, till 1952 Helsinki Olympics but could not improve their performance. Working tirelessly, the team finished second at Melbourne Olympics in 1956.
Pakistan won its first Gold at 1958 Asian Games when the team was awarded gold medal on better goal average after playing goalless in the final against India.
In the period between 1948 and 1958 diehard followers of the game did not relax and kept on plugging the holes in a bid to end the supremacy of their arch rivals, India who were undisputed Olympic champions as in those days there were no Asian Games, Champions Trophy or World Cup.
The experience in ten years gained by those who were close to the game made them realise that they should bring about some change to derive better result. There was the spirit of trying to improve and in best national interest, they decided to appoint only one man as Manager and Chief Coach to be assisted by an Assistant Coach who had to be a technical person.
It was at 1960 Rome Olympics that Late Col A.I.S. Dara was appointed Manager and the policy got boost when Pakistan won its first-ever Olympic gold. That practice continued for well over 35 years when anyone who was appointed Camp Commandant before any international event was made Manager and Chief Coach and was assisted by an Assistant coach.
It hardly gave any room for groupings in the team and every player had to follow the instructions of the Camp Commandant. It helped in keeping healthy atmosphere in the team. No doubt that there always remained some difference of opinion in the final selection of the team but it hardly changed the fate of the national team as it was done in the best national interest.
After Col Dara, Brig (Retd) M.H. Atif took over as Manager of the national team and won Mexico Olympic Gold medal in 1968, 1982 Bombay World Cup and 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games in different tenures.
Col Zafri was the Manager and Chief Coach of the first World Cup held at Barcelona in 1971. Pakistan being the founder of the World Cup was an automatic choice for hosting it but had to hand it over to Spain because of political tension with India.
Then former Olympian Abdul Waheed Khan, who held the world record of scoring highest number of goals in any one tournament was made Manager of the team in 1976. He helped Pakistan win the Champions Trophy, Asian Games, 1978 Buenos Aires World Cup, Asia Cup, Quaid-e-Azam International Hockey Tournament and the first-ever hockey series played between Pakistan and India.
Pakistan won the 1994 Sydney World Cup under Rashid Jr when PHF hired the services of Dutch coach, bringing in a new trend in Pakistan hockey, which however, was abandoned soon after as the appointment of a foreign coach was not well received by the countrymen.
The 1994 World Cup was the end of Pakistan’s supremacy as the game was politicalised and merit was kept aside and political affiliations and personal equation and loyalty to the hockey hierarcy got preference. To this date the same policy is being practised by the successive establishments.
Once again as in the early days of independence bureaucratic concept creeped in and made deep roots which has resulted in total failure. The present PHF management is guilty of doing the biggest damage.
The present PHF chief, General Aziz Khan, because of the present international political scenario has little time to attend to the needs of the national game. His trusted men have let him down by taking strange decisions and made a mess of the game.
The present hockey affairs is being run by two men in uniform — Brig Musarrat Ullah Khan, Secretary of the PHF and Brig Khalid Sajjad Khokhar, Director General of the Army Sports Control Board. They are acting and fully involved in the game. They both are members of the Selection Committee and have toured with the Pakistan team regularly.
The present policy of the PHF is based simply on personal likes and dislikes. It has done away with the old system of appointing a Manager who by virtue of being an old stalwart was an authority on the game and it paid dividends which the performance graph of Pakistan hockey is proof enough.
The most surprising thing is that when any such policy decision is taken, people from all schools of thought are taken into confidence or their opinion is sought in the best national interest. No such drill was ever conducted and proven policy was discarded by people who have no background of the game. They are there just because of their position and status in their career. As far as the expertise or knowledge of the game is concerned they are nothing more than novices and guilty of tarnishing the country’s name.
The PHF secretary and Brig Sajjad Khokar who have proved clueless on the return of the team from Cologne (Germany) after finishing third in the Champions Trophy showed full confidence and announced that there will be no change in the team for the Busan Asian Games scheduled later this month.
Realising the failure of the team in the Commonwealth Games and the Champions Trophy they had no guts to call a spade a spade. But they manipulated the uncalled for retirement of Kamran Ashraf and injury related ouster of right-half Mohammad Usman and indications are that some more players may be persuaded to drop out on health grounds. One just cannot understand why the PHF has to deal with the players underhand. Why it is shy of accepting its folly and quit the office in a graceful manner.
It is perhaps asking for too much as we do not have any such tradition in our country. People have no self respect as they are self centred and want to make full use of their office unless they are booted out.
It is time that someone takes note of the damage done to hockey and put the national prestige at stake for self glory. They are perhaps not aware that their name will be in the black list of Pakistan hockey and their era will be known as the darkest period of Pakistan hockey.
WHETHER election-related activities are dormant or lively is one thing and how individual candidates are coping with the pressures of electioneering another. A near-blank is to be drawn on the first count; the second informs of a sea change in voter attitudes and expectations.
A candidate poured out his troubled heart the other day. After successfully contesting a few elections, he was confident about approaching, satisfying and influencing the voters. That was before hitting the campaign trail. When he started meeting his constituents, he realized that they presented a complete departure from the past. Practically everyone he came across, had a single-point agenda. No candidate or political party is in a position to meet it before the polls, he said, adding that it may be even worse afterwards.
In previous polls, his constituents wanted promises for the construction of roads in the locality, improvement of sewerage lines, help in getting their children admitted to good government schools and colleges, particularly the latter and raised other such problems that a politician cold help resolve after getting elected. Moreover, they mostly talked from the collective point of view of their area. It has become a case of everyone for himself this time.
People also sought jobs in the past but the number of employment seekers used to be restricted. All the usual and traditional demands seem to have been shelved and superseded by requests for employment this time. Practically everyone wants a job for himself or his children. The candidate was aware of a rising curve of unemployment but had not correctly assessed and assimilated its dimensions. The smouldering problem of unemployment has now grown into jungle fire. There isn’t much one can do, not instantly at least, he said. But voters are not willing to accept promises; they want jobs in a here and now manner, he added.
This politician has been in the thick of it for years. He is not easily upset by pressure from his constituents —- not that he is insincere, and is accepted as a sympathetic and helpful soul who has no hesitation using his powers and resources to provide relief to the maximum number of people of his constituency. The campaign for the October polls has, however, put him at a loss for an answer to the question how to satisfy job seekers. Other candidates should be experiencing similar predicaments.
Candidates can wring their hands in dismay and express their distress over the misery increasingly marking people’s lives but more than that is beyond them, particularly as the economic conditions are as dull as the campaigns of most candidates. Political activity should pick up as D-day closes in but no such optimistic forecast is to be made for the economy in the near future, burgeoning foreign exchange reserves notwithstanding. But just as unemployment is unsettling voters, their demand for jobs is hurting the campaigns of most candidates. How to get out of this situation has become a major problem for most candidates contesting national or provincial seats from Lahore.
While politicians have been confronted with rampant unemployment among their constituents, an average citizen is faced with evidence of rapidly mounting poverty at every turn. Lahore never had a shortage of beggars but the flood currently inundating the city is unprecedented. There are beggars of all ages, all sexes and many of them suffering from various types of physical impairment. A local wit comments with callous lack of charity that considering what the end result of the ‘latest and the newest democratic exercise will be, this is exactly what vote-seeking has come to be —- alms for politicians’.
SEMINARS and workshops are a dime a dozen these days, particularly events arranged by organizations in the public sector. They are like left-foot-forward in cricket against deliveries a batsman cannot read. When an issue attains discomforting proportions, offices concerned focus on it by gathering experts from their field and holding some kind of a brain storming session. That can be for the record or motivated by serious concerns.
One thought that the three-day SAARC workshop held by the Pakistan Council for Research in Water Resources (PCRWR) in Lahore last week to discuss and evolve strategies for countering the effects of droughts and finding ways and means of surviving in water-scarce times could well be another of those attempts that are periodically made to divert attention by proving in the books that positive business had been conducted. This workshop, however, turned out to be serious business.
Officials from the Maldives, Sri Lanka and Nepal, besides local water sector experts, seemed to take the task before them earnestly and sounded determined to pick up the water shortage and drought gauntlet. PCRWR Chairman Dr Akram Kahloon, Member, Wapda (Water), Sardar Mohammad Tariq, Flood Commission Chairman RA Khan and others came up with practical proposals and received excellent advice from the presidential adviser on agriculture, the irrepressible, blunt, no holds barred Chaudhry Shafi Niaz who impressed on the gathering the need for acting instead of talking.
But practical steps would only be possible if the authorities accept the recommendations of the workshop and a strategy for water and drought management is evolved for overcoming the threat from water shortages. Which means that the ball is now in the government’s court. If the suggestions are treated with customary disdain, availability of water in Pakistan may well become more acute in the years ahead. One hopes that decision-makers would follow the robust approach of Shafi Niaz instead of persisting with their familiar lethargy and sterility.
A PAPER produced by the director-general on farm water management wing of the Punjab agriculture department, Mushtaq Ahmed Gill, with help from colleagues Chaudhry M Ashraf and Maqsood Ahmed, suggested a conservation-based approach for resolving the issue. While their thesis was of a general nature concerning agriculture, it also took up the issue of the quality of water and reported the result of a sample survey of tubewells installed in Lahore for supplying water to the citizens.
Samples from 318 tubewells in Lahore were taken. Water from 67 tubewells was found fit for drinking and from another 17, marginally potable. Water from the remaining 234 tubewells was unfit for drinking because it was saline and contained a high degree of solidity. The areas were tubewells selected as samples are installed were not identified. Water shortage has been increasing in Lahore for the last few years and complaints of low supply have been made by the residents of some localities. They should consider themselves fortunate if the limited supply consists of potable water.—-ZAFAR SAMDANI
Having said this let us look at a glimpse of the city on Monday morning. The Dawn reported on Tuesday that “life in almost half the city remained disturbed on Monday as shopkeepers were forced to shut down their businesses and traffic was diverted to alternative routes from Sharea Faisal on the eve of a five-day defence exhibition — Ideas 2002”.
Many of Karachi’s perceptive citizens actually restricted their movements in the city that day, and even after that, until the Ideas 2002 came to an end. But let us see how some of us moved on the roads on Monday morning, in a developed part of the city, where the influential and the powerful live and work.
There was enormous, overbearing intimidating security being provided by the integrated umbrella of the army, the rangers, and the police, plus plain-clothes personnel at numerous points, along the route from the School Road to Dr Ziauddin Road, via Sharea Faisal and so one drove cautiously and in contemplation. Where would one be checked or stopped or diverted, what kind of questions would one be asked? What kind of documents and papers would be required to prove identity and explain movement? By the way this happens even otherwise, but when there is VVIP movement, it is a much higher degree of security check that a citizen is subjected to.
Many thoughts came to me mind. That if there are no-go areas in the suburbs and lesser developed parts of the Sindh capital, there are no-go areas in the developed areas too. No-go in another context!
That there are new such no-go areas in posh developed parts of Karachi; even where there are five star hotels, or VIP residences. Developed affluent areas of Karachi have insecurity of another kind it seems. Troubling scenarios emerge.
Another thought. That Karachi, was described at times, as a city of lights. Is that true now in real terms? In terms of the spirit of the description. That real light has to come from within as well?
Over the years the descriptions of Karachi have begun to relate to its crime and terrorism, and one such depressing title that this city got was “the killing fields of Karachi.” Did someone call it the crime capital of the country or the most dangerous city in the world.
Of course the way in which Karachiites live their fearful lives, they seek to courageously defy these descriptions, and come through as survivors and strong individuals at that. It must be this kind of positivism of the people of this city, that there continue to be held occasions as prestigious and elitist as the Defence show that came to an end at the Expo Centre this week.
And here lies the question that very many of the worried citizens have been asking this week. Should there be so much security that it makes it impossible for them to carry on with life’s routine, and on such a vast scale. Is it fair and truly necessary that the common man is subjected to such dislocation repeatedly when there is VVIP movement in the city.
Is it going to be acceptable to continue to restrict the movement of poor patients and other such categories of citizens just because there is a VVIP movement on the University Road or the Sharea Faisal, asked one person who had to go to the National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases on Monday morning.
But there was another point of view that one heard with reference to the IDEAS 2002. This one took into account the well-known affection and love that the common man has always had for the armed forces of the country, and respect and the admiration there is for the legendary jawans. These were people who said that the IDEAS 2002 should have been open to the common man, and especially young people and families. Look at the way in which these people have thronged army, airforce and navy bases and installations on occasions like defence day, they said, suggesting that such a defence show should be employed to promote the image of the armed forces, in the future.
All the details in the Sept 17 mentioned above reflect only partly the nature and extent of the inconvenience that was caused to thousands and thousands of people as a result of the defence show that was held. But there is another story that needs to referred to.
This one appeared on Sept 3 with a headline that speaks for itself: “President in city, thoughtless police action irks people”, said Dawn. Another daily reported that “extraordinary security measures taken on President’s impromptu visit”. It makes one wonder whether the President knows the details of what happens when he comes to town. One can recall that he is reported to have said earlier on that the common man should not be inconvenienced when he is in Karachi. No traffic gridlocks, for instance.
That much for the defence show that was held in the heart of the city and which was not open to the public. Even the press was unable to enter the inaugural ceremony. Someone overdid his job?
But there is something else that strikes one about the city. The extent of the security umbrella that is being provided and the manner in which the city comes under its cover. There is something very grim, grey and disturbing in this. There is here, crimes, and there is terrorism too. So there is a security cover (private and official) to counter it. If you look deep into the future, the confidence that you have, gets undone, diminishes.
PS: IDEAS 2002 and it caused a water shortage in certain areas, because the tankers were not allowed their normal run on the roads. Someone tougher than tanker mafia, it appears!
KARACHI: Azadari, a monumental work on literary and cultural aspects of the rituals observed during Muharram commemorating the great tragedy of Karbala and the martyrdom of Imam Hussain, was launched on Friday at the Pakistan Arts Council.
Shahid Naqvi, the ailing senior writer and poet with eight volumes to his credit, was also there. The book, he produced, the speakers generally agreed was an encyclopaedia volume spread over more than five hundred pages, graphically describing the mourning rituals and the mode of their performance during all those days in every part of the subcontinent and elsewhere.
Presided over by Dr Manzoor Ahmed and attended by General Azher Ahmed (retd) and former envoy Mehdi Masood, those who spoke at the launching were Dr Mohammed Ali Siddiqui, Dr Hilal Naqvi, Syed Javed Hasan and Maulana Asgher Dars.
Dr Manzoor Ahmed, known for his clarity of thought and vision, referring to the speeches made earlier, observed that it was due to lack of tolerance and bigotry that a conflict between the Islamic and Western cultures was being witnessed. It was not the religion but economic and political interests of the Western powers which were at work. While admiring the book written with full objectivity and a deep inner feeling, Dr Manzoor expressed the opinion that objectivity demanded open minds and dialogue between different peoples, faiths and ideals, to build a peaceful world.
As in Naqvi’s survey of Imambargahs some places and persons were omitted, Javed Hasan in his address pointed out the lapses though he was all praise for the book, containing immense research material.
Dr Hilal Naqvi in his paper elaborated on the academic and emotional value of elegical literature, and said it had promoted the cause of the oppressed against the oppressor. “Aashura (10th of Muharram) is a day of protest to us,” Dr Hilal said quoting Ali Sardar Jafery who was seen demonstrating in Moscow on Aashura with a black band around his arm.
Replying to Javed Hasan that the description of Azadari in Karachi was lacking in details, Dr Siddiqui, defending the author, said that what was important was the description of the cultural impact of Azadari and the role it had played in the unity and cohesiveness of the Muslims, and its impact was felt even among non-Muslims as Hindus too observed Muharram with reverence.
He cautioned the audience against the rising menace of globalization and the cultural invasion of the world capitalism on Islam, its culture and the great Muslim civilization. He said we should proudly own our culture, its rituals, our literature, and Islamic heritage and protect it.
Maulana Dars recalled that he had been addressing Majalis at Kharadar since a long time and was a legatee of a noble cause, as his great grandfather too had been addressing Muharram congregations.
At the outset, Muslim Shamim, Secretary of the Progressive Writers Association, introduced Shahid Naqvi as a noted progressive poet. Fatema Hasan did the compering.—Hasan Abidi