| October 5, 2002 | Saturday | Rajab 27, 1423 |
Razi Tirmazi down the years
Sanctimonious hypocrisy: MEDIA REVIEW
FEAR is the most prominent feeling, felt and expressed, in Lackawanna, a working class neighbourhood in western New York state.
It was here on Sept 13 that FBI agents arrested five young men of Yemeni origin who allegedly had trained at an Al Qaeda camp in Afghanistan. A sixth, also from Lackawanna, was later dragged out of his nuptial bed in Bahrain, Middle East, and brought back to the United States.
The charges against some of them brought not only fear but also skepticism and shock to the Muslims of Lackawanna.
Shopkeepers have painted over Arabic and Islamic signs. Fearing a backlash against Arab-American students, the Lackawanna Board of Education voted last week to boost security in city schools.
There have been calls to boycott Muslim businesses, a move that would hurt the Yemenis some of whom own small corner shops while others work in them.
“Yemeni immigrants have been here for a long time,” says Dennis Clark, deputy sheriff of Erie County, who has lived in Lackawanna. “They are a peaceful, law-abiding community. We want them here.”
Others were more critical. “They may have been a peaceful community in the past but we do not want any Al Qaeda supporters in our area. They do not belong here,” says Karen, a homemaker from Buffalo who only gave her first name.
Different people have reacted differently to the fear. Some have become more defiant, visiting the mosque regularly and parading in traditional dresses. Even before the arrest of the six suspects, Muslim women, some covering their faces, shared the streets with black teenagers in baseball caps and baggy hip-hop jeans. But their numbers have increased now. The call to prayer does not only bring out old men, youngsters can also be seen rushing to the mosque.
One woman came to the recent bail hearings at the federal court in Buffalo wearing a long flowing robe and a Yemeni headdress, complete with artificial pearls and a crescent. “It must have taken hours to do all this,” said a reporter to her. “Do you always dress up like this?”
“No, only for this occasion,” responded the woman.
But others have trimmed their beards, changed over to Western clothes and have become more pronounced in expressing allegiance to America.
“Anyone who does not feel that the United States is the greatest country in the world has no place in our community,” said Mohammad Albanna, a businessman and community leader.
Religious leaders are a little more outspoken. “We came here to America to find justice,” said Abdul Wahab Ziad, the imam of the Lackawanna mosque. “And we hope the court hearing the charges against the six men will do justice.”
On Sept 18, when the prosecution set out its arguments, asking the court not to release the six men on bail, the imam rushed out of the court building and declared before the journalists waiting outside: “What we heard in the court today is no case, just charges. The prosecution has no evidence. We always knew that these men are innocent.”
Although Ziad is among the few who openly expressed their feelings, he is not the only one to believe that the men are not guilty.
The majority finds it difficult to believe that six of their own have been plotting with terrorists, he says. They insist that the men had visited Pakistan last summer for religious training.
They do not necessarily dispute the prosecution’s charge that the men visited Afghanistan but say that they were duped into doing so. They also say that the six men might have spent a few days in an Al Qaeda camp and might — as the prosecution says — have listened to a few speeches, including one by terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden. But they were no terrorists.
“These were naive young men, looking for adventure and that’s how they were trapped,” said a Lackawanna man. “Remember, this was before 9/11.”
The sympathizers of the six men — and they have many in Lackawanna — agree with the prosecution that Osama was already a known terrorist before 9/11 but meeting him was not yet a taboo. “Many Americans met him, journalists, diplomats, even US officials,” said one sympathizer. “These men were looking for adventure and thought it was exciting to visit an Al Qaeda camp and listen to their leaders. They never wanted to commit an act of terrorism. They love America.”
The Yemeni community has such a strong belief in the men’s innocence that in less than a week it raised more than $700,000 for their bail. But this closing of ranks goes beyond the six men and their arrests. There’s a general feeling that because the perpetrators of the 9/11 tragedy were Muslims, the Islamic community in America is in for trouble. They fear more arrests, racial profiling, social boycott and possible attacks by other groups.
In Lackawanna, community leaders and law enforcers are meeting local Muslim leaders to ease their fears. On Sept 17, Sheriff Patrick M. Gallivan met Khalid Qazi, president of the western New York chapter of the American Muslim Council. Qazi, a prominent local physician, enjoys much respect among both Muslims and non-Muslims and is working with the law enforcers to ease the situation.
People like him try to convince the Muslims that the government is not against them and tell others that all Muslims are not terrorists. Most of them are law-abiding citizens who hated terrorism as much as other Americans.
“The entire Muslim community has provided and will continue to provide law enforcers with as much help as they need in this case,” said Qazi.
Federal authorities in Washington also acknowledged this support at a news briefing on Sept 14. “I want to thank the Muslim community of Buffalo for providing invaluable help in the arrest of these suspects,” said Larry Thompson, deputy attorney-general. “They have helped to make America safer.”
But the Muslims complain that negative media coverage blunts such praise. “If you watch some television channels, you feel as if the majority of Muslims are enemies of America. They seldom mention that America is fighting the war against terrorism with Muslim support, both here in the United State and abroad,” said a Lackawanna resident.
Other Muslims say the media also fail to highlight the issues and conditions — politics, poverty, and grievances — that cause violent behaviours.
Ricardo Estrada, Lackawanna’s 1st Ward Councilman, also advises the media to be careful. “The whole community’s reputation should not have to suffer based on the alleged acts of six gentlemen,” he said.
The arrests brought the world to this sleepy and poor neighbourhood — there is not a single restaurant in the Arab quarter with its 5,000 population. Reporters were everywhere, going in and out of the local mosque, knocking at people’s doors and crowding outside the Yemeni community centre. Television crew teams took footage of religious services at the mosque — annoying the worshippers who regard praying as an extremely private act.
Young Muslim women, wearing traditional long dresses and head covering, walked by. Television teams turned their cameras towards them, another taboo. Cameras are never pointed at veiled women. So the women curse. The reporters and photographers are puzzled. Even upset.
“Get these vultures out of the neighbourhood,” said a man in Arabic to another who looks back at the journalist and shrugs his shoulders.
About 5,000 Arab Americans, mostly from Yemen, share Lackawanna with people of Hispanic, African and East European descent. As the focus on Lackawanna increased, residents, even non-Muslims, grew weary. “F-ing reporters,” shouted a black teenager as a television crew unloaded its equipment near the house where accused sleeper cell ringleader Kamal Derwish lived. He fled to Yemen before the teenagers were arrested.
Immigrants have been coming to Lackawanna from Yemen — a country bordering on southwest Saudi Arabia — since the 1930s. The early settlers found jobs at Buffalo’s steel factories. By the 1970s, the community began to flourish as settlers brought over their families and when the steel industry began to decline, they branched out to other fields.
In 1975, they bought an old Ukrainian church on Wilkesbarre Avenue. In the 1980s, they added a school to the mosque, which continues to be at the centre of the community. About 400-500 regularly attend the mosque. The attendance swells to over a thousand at Juma prayers.
The school has 140 students, from kindergarten through six grade. The students learn the Arabic language, math, geography and the Islamic studies. “This is to keep the children connected to their roots,” says Mohammad Saleh, assistant principal of Lackawanna Islamic Centre.
City officials say that Lackawanna is one of the fastest growing communities in the area. About one in six students in Lackawanna’s school system are of Yemeni origin.
“We are here. We love this country and we do not like it when others doubt our sincerity,” said Saleh. “We are here to stay.”
But already some Muslims are thinking of going back to their countries of origin. “God forbid, if something unfortunate happens again, people will be lynching Muslims out in the streets,” said another Lackawanna resident. “Such fears are forcing people to think how long will they be welcomed in America.”
ONE of the senior poets of the country, Razi Tirmazi, started writing poetry in the ‘40s and these were accepted for publication by the leading literary magazines. It was in 1948 that he joined Radio Pakistan as a senior programme producer and served the organization in several capacities for nearly 40 years.
During this period, he distinguished himself by being the first poet to write full length verse plays for the radio. It was an innovation and won wide appreciation. Some of these plays were produced by the director-general of Radio Pakistan himself, the golden-voiced broadcaster, Z. A. Bukhari. Later, these plays were published in book form by Maktaba-i-Jadeed under the title, Misal key Taur Par, in 1965. Most critics considered them a welcome addition to modern Urdu literature.
Tirmazi’s collection of verse, Yadon ka Mausam, was published quite some years ago. He has now subjected it to self-censorship and come up with a revised edition after expunging the material he thought was amateurish. I do not know why he had to do that as the book had received high praise from all quarters when it was first published.
The noted psychologist, and also a poet, the late Dr Muhammad Ajmal, found a specific individuality in Razi’s poetry which is laced with a hint of alienation. Faiz Ahmad Faiz who wrote the foreword to the book found all of Tirmazi’s work to be of high quality but had a special word of praise for the devotional poems addressed to the Omnipresent.
Ahmad Nadeem Qasmi appreciates Tirmazi’s ability of making apt and appropriate use of words and even managing to give some of them a different meaning. Munnoo Bhai, however, is more candid. According to him, Tirmazi’s poetry does not cause any explosion but only manages to slip into your subconscious and have a resounding effect on the innermost recesses of your mind.
Yadon ka Mausam, has hamds, naats, manqabats and other devotional poetry plus ghazals, nazms and geets. All these are good but what fascinates me in particular are his ghazals. It is not because of the pathos in them but also because of their spontaneity. Says he:
Roneywaley toa rotey rehtey hein
Aap apna karam na kam kartey
Kash ham aur sakht jan hotey
Kash voh aur bhi sitam kartey
Tirmazi is still up and doing and attends mushairas, though rarely. However, he refuses to consider himself an old man. I say this because in his introduction to Yadon ka Mausam he remorsefully says: “The biggest misfortune is that people have started considering me a buzurg.” Mind you he wrote this in 1984 and this is the year of grace 2002.
I HAVE known Zahid Masood as a poet and have read him in magazines but I never knew that he also writes a column for an Urdu newspaper until invited to attend the launching of his collection, Kaha Suna Mu’af
It was arranged by Ataul Haq Qasmi’s Ma’asir producing agency, and I understand, it is under the influence of Ata that Zahid took to writing newspaper columns.
Ata, of course, is a postmaster at that and has several published collections to his credit. After all, a column is not creative literature. It has its limits and cannot fall under that category. It is something transient and usually provides temporary reading pleasure. To be readable a column has to have some salty content apart from a combination of wit and wisdom.
However, it is commonly said that column writing is a game without rules. As it is, newspaper columns are casual writing, each piece complete in itself and not necessarily related to the next. It can be on some current topic but if nothing of the sort comes to the mind of the columnist he can get away with indulging in idle chatter.
The function to launch Kaha Suna Mu’af was held in a local hotel and was presided over by the chief editor of the daily Pakistan and president, CPNE, Mujibur Rahman Shami. Munnoo Bhai was supposed to be the chief guest but he could not make it. Other speakers were there. The first, Asghar Nadeem Syed, was all praise for Zahid because he deals with everyday problems in his pieces. He said: “He adequately covers such issues as are related to politics, society, the media and education. Moreover, he does not indulge in leg-pulling or in self-praise.”
Ataul Haq Qasmi particularly appreciated Zahid’s commitment to the ideology of Pakistan.
The popular column writer, better known as a poet, was also there that evening. He came with a well written script. The point which he stressed was that a newspaper column should provide reading pleasure.
Before reading out one of his columns, Zahid said his main aim while writing was to bring a smile on the lips of his reader. The column he read out was well received.
In his presidential remarks, Mr Shami said Zahid had all the qualities of becoming a sought-after column writer.—Ashfaque Naqvi
IT HAS TO be said, perhaps a bit unfortunately, that we South Asians in general take the cake when it comes to being sanctimonious. The so-called furore — more in the pages of some newspapers and in the mind of the federal culture secretary — this last week surrounding the presence of Pakistani contestant in a beauty pageant in Tokyo has been, to say the least, in extremely bad taste.
It all started when a foreign wire service released what it said was the photograph of a contest at the Miss International Beauty in Japan. This pageant is not to be confused with other more-known contests like the ones that elect Miss Universe or Miss World but nonetheless it was being organized in Japan and had contestants from around 58 countries. It was not clear whether the contestant was resident in Japan — the country has a Pakistani community several thousand strong — or whether she had gone from Pakistan to participate in the contest. The matter should have rested at that but didn’t. At best it might have aroused curiosity in some people here, probably surprised to see a Pakistani contestant for a change.
The media in Pakistan, led by an English daily (not Dawn) over-reacted to the appearance of this photograph. A story came on the back page with the contestant’s picture and the title ‘Beauty queen or an ultimate disgrace?’. The article never quoted the contestant on whom it was based, automatically assuming that such a decision to take part in a beauty contest ran counter to not only religious injunctions but also to Pakistan’s cultural values.
Instead of making even the slightest efforts to get in touch with the woman — probably easy for the reporter to justify since the story came from Islamabad while the contest was being held in Tokyo — the article instead quoted Pakistan’s culture secretary whose sense of modesty and propriety seemed to have been thoroughly outraged. In fact, reading the language contained in the story a reader would have had no trouble imagining a bureaucrat huffing and puffing at a perceived slight and attack on our Pakistani ‘culture’ just because a Pakistani woman decided to take part in a beauty contest.
A story carried by AFP two days later and printed in the same newspaper, this time from Tokyo and written in much more temperate language, said that the contestant had withdrawn after the Pakistani embassy had been asked to pursue the matter with the contest’s organizers.
Now for the specifics. The argument that this goes against our religious values is not new. However, all one has to say in response to it, and perhaps to assuage the hyper-ventilation that the federal culture secretary seems to have experienced after finding out about the contestant, is that contestants from several other Muslim countries were taking part in this competition.
Apart from contestants from Malaysia, Indonesia, Nigeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Turkey, Lebanon, Maldives, Egypt and even Bosnia routinely take part in international beauty pageants. Yes, there might be some opposition locally by people in these countries — and the opposition can even come from the other end of the ideological spectrum, i.e. from feminists — but it boils down to a decision of personal choice.
In fact, the reigning Miss World happens to be a Nigerian and that’s where this year’s pageant is going to be held.
As far as the cultural aspect is concerned, the federal culture secretary is not our official keeper in that regard. This might sound tedious but for the benefit of those in our bureaucracy cultures always change and evolve. Besides, different people have different ideas on even their own culture. And people should be allowed to make choices in the way they want to be identified, which is basically what this contestant was doing. If the government felt so strongly about something — something at last on which it has a definitive stand — then it could have pursued the matter in a more discreet professional manner. And, to ask our embassy in Tokyo to force a beauty pageant contestant to withdraw is not exactly the best use of our generally limited diplomatic resources.
And yes, our culture ministry would have us believe, when a woman walks on a Pakistani street, — no man dares even look at her. Those who blew this story out of all proportion should also know that beauty pageants have been organized even within Pakistan, albeit at a quieter and local level.
Just recently, Indus Music organized a face of the year contest, which was amply covered by leading newspapers. Going by the pictures that were published, it was also a beauty contest, and sponsored by some of the biggest multi-nationals. Why wasn’t there an over-reaction in this case?
Frankly speaking, local television channels, especially PTV, are littered with vulgar dances and performances that have little to do with artistic creativity or aesthetics. In fact, the majority of these performances are decidedly more sleazy than an international beauty pageant. But these shows are shown without any problem, and some of the performers wear clothes that would humble even our would-be Tokyo contestant. Why doesn’t the ministry of culture do something about this first before trying to harass a poor woman and her imagined attack on Pakistani ‘culture’?
In any case, it really seems quite sanctimonious of senior government officials to be acting all self-righteous just because one woman decided to make a foray in this way.
Postscript: The winner of the International Beauty pageant in Tokyo was Christina Sawaya, representing Lebanon. — Omar R. Quraishi
E-mail:omarq@cyber.net.pk