| March 31, 2003 | Monday | Muharram 27, 1424 |
What the father couldn’t do...
Living with the ghosts of Abdali, Prithviraj
Protest also has a culture
The ban on heavy vehicles
NOBODY here as yet has any idea when the president will summon the two houses for the obligatory joint session. But going by what is happening on the political front these days, such a session seems to be a long way off.
However, the ruling alliance appears to have persuaded itself that it is very close to cutting a deal with the MMA on the LFO. One, therefore, does not see much anxiety in government circles about the delay in the summoning of the joint session.
And there seems to be no anxiety as well in government circles about the apparently resolute stand of the PPP, the PML-N and other smaller parties on the LFO. In fact the government seems to be so confident of neutralizing these parties’ opposition to the LFO once it has won over the MMA that nobody from the ruling alliance side is even talking to the leaders of these parties on the matter.
When ruling alliance members are asked questions about what kind of a deal is being offered to the MMA to persuade it to give up its opposition to the LFO, one gets the feeling that the government has actually set its sights on getting the MMA to join the cabinet at the centre so as to liberate the system from the appearance of being too fragile.
And in order to achieve this dream coalition, even the president is said to have expressed his willingness to get himself elected under Article 41 of the Constitution. In fact those who claim to know his mind since even before he went for his dubious referendum insist that that was what the president had in view all along. He is reported to have told his close confidants that barring a war with India, he will follow the demands of Article 41 to get himself elected president in due course of time.
And it was because he had intended to do so, they say, that he had let his lawyers defend the referendum as an act valid only during the period of the constitutional deviation. And this they added was borne out by the fact that the ruling given by the Supreme Court on the referendum issue had made it unambiguously clear that the issue of legitimacy of the president elected through the referendum would be decided at the ‘proper forum’ after the elections.
Could this mean that the offer of the MMA to help elect Gen Musharraf president of Pakistan under Article 41 if he were to give up his uniform has been made to order? Interestingly, the religious alliance has already expressed its agreement with most of the clauses of the LFO. So, if the MMA offers its votes in parliament after it has helped get the president elected under Article 41, to get the LFO passed with a two-thirds majority, the last important hurdle in the way of the MMA joining hands with the PML-Q at the centre will also have been removed. This, indeed, appears to be the safest exit route for Musharraf and it also seems to take care of the threat of the use of Article 6 against him at some future date.
And if all goes well and according to the plan, the PPP and the PML-N will be left holding the empty sack and reduced to the level of pocket-sized parties with, at best, a nuisance value. The ruling alliance is seemingly convinced that these two parties unlike the MMA which has a stake in the present system do not want the system to survive and have joined hands with the religious alliance with which have no any ideological affinity only to create conditions for fresh elections by bringing the government down. Therefore, the ruling alliance wants to eliminate the PPP and PML-N before they succeed in destroying the system.
The PML-N is likely to go down fighting if things actually head the way the ruling alliance and its behind-the-scene handlers are taking them. The PPP, on the other hand, is likely to fight back in order to save itself from complete destruction, But any fight back without Benazir Bhutto leading the party from up front appears doomed to end in a knock-out victory for the establishment.
There is, however, one very important factor which could upset the whole scheme of things so painstakingly being put together by the establishment. The Pakistani bureaucracy has over the years acquired a knack of throwing the monkey wrench in its own works at inappropriate junctures. And this could happen once again. Already a turf war has started between the secretariats of the president and the prime minister.
The seemingly whimsical postings, appointments, transfers and dismissals of top-level officials, ostensibly on the orders of the PM, are said to have upset the president. And he is said to have already taken a firm assurance from the PM that he will not let his special assistant, Brigadier (retd) Mansoor, interfere in such matters any more.
The name of Brig Mansoor pops up intermittently in every conversation concerning the functions of the Establishment Division these days. He is said to be another Tariq Aziz in the making. And he is said to have a finger in every pie, from heritage to foreign investment conferences.
And don’t be surprised if one fine morning you read in newspapers stories of a Islamabad new city style rip-off. In this case, too, we have a supposedly Singapore-based company managing the rip-off and like the CDA which then had allowed a private party to use its letterhead and insignia to collect money from the general public, in this case too a government department is said to be letting its stationary be used by a private company to solicit large sums of money by way of participation fee from national and multinational investors when there is no possibility of such a conference taking place in view of the ongoing Iraq war.—ONLOOKER
I WAS deeply moved by the United Nations Secretary-General’s recent statement that the United States “is legally responsible for providing humanitarian assistance to the Iraqis gravely affected by the war in areas controlled by the coalition forces.”
However, Annan said any UN role in post-war Iraq beyond the provisions of humanitarian assistance must be approved by the Security Council. What Security Council and for whose security has it ever worked? There was a demonstration somewhere in Asia the other night calling for Annan’s resignation. That is what the fellow should actually do. He is the keeper of Western, especially American interests wherever they are threatened or appear to be threatened. The Security Council’s record in Kashmir is shameful and Annan represents the continuation of the United Nations as a handmaiden of imperial interests.
I have made use of Mr Ramsey Clark’s book, The Fire This Time —- US War Crimes in the Gulf. Mr Clark is a former Attorney-General of the United States. So he should know what he is talking about. In a passage, Post-War Operations against Iraq, he writes:
Throughout the Gulf crisis, President Bush made many well-publicized calls to the Iraqi people to revolt. In a February 15, 1991 speech, he said: “There’s another way for the bloodshed to stop, and that is for the Iraqi military and the Iraqi people to take matters into their own hands, and force Saddam Hussein, the dictator, to step aside.”
Washington made a great show of concern for the plight of the Kurds. But the evidence shows that the United States cynically encouraged the Kurds’ post-war rebellion for its own purposes, just as it had in the 1970s. The result of the encouragement and covert aid to Kurdish rebels was death, hunger, and despair for thousands, and displacement for hundreds of thousands of others. Bush did not really want Kurdish uprisings in Iraq to succeed, for this might have incited the more than 10 million Kurds oppressed by the government in Turkey. A staunch US ally. Turkey hosts 16 US bases and it is Washington’s third largest military aid recipient.
Iraq’s large Shiite population, concentrated in the south, was also prodded into rebellion, with disastrous results. An even greater threat to US strategy than Kurdish success was the risk of successful Shiite uprisings, for an intervention by Iran, itself overwhelmingly Shiite, would threaten Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, both Sunni nations. The royal families dreaded a strong Shiite fundamentalist movement in southern Iraq aligned with Iran. After the war, the United States sent an Iraqi exile with CIA contacts to meetings of the Shiite opposition leaders to offer US backing, while warning that Washington would not tolerate fundamentalist Muslim regimes if a Shiite movement successfully toppled Saddam Hussein. Though less publicized than the Kurdish revolt, the cost in life and property of the Shiite uprising was enormous and borne overwhelmingly by the Shiites themselves.
After these rebellions were crushed, the Bush administration claimed the Kurds and Shiites “misunderstood (it)”. But US actions and statements were very clear. Washington allowed arms sales to the Kurds before the war, as retired Col Jim McDonald admitted on the PBS Frontline broadcast “The War We Left Behind”. British special operations forces operated deep inside Iraq during the war, contacting Kurdish and other resistance groups.
Besides Bush’s repeated calls for uprisings, the United States appealed directly to the Kurds to rebel on a radio station called the Voices of Free Iraq (VOFI), broadcast into Iraq in the Kurdish language, Kurdish expatriates often made the broadcasts. This clandestine station was funded and operated by the CIA in concert with Saudi Intelligence. Many of the broadcasts immediately after the war were aimed directly at the Kurdish people, and strongly implied military support would be provided to the rebels. The London Times journalist Hazir Temourian told Bill Moyers on PBS’s “Special Report: After the war” that the broadcasts said in Kurdish and Arabic, “Rise! This is your moment! This time, the allies will not let you down!”
A transcript from the US government’s Foreign Broadcast Information Service has a VOFI broadcaster declaring: “We are with you in every heartbeat, in all your feelings, and in every move you make .... We stand by you in whatever you carry out and whatever step you take.”
On April 16, 1991, The New York Times reported that in an effort to broaden the revolt beyond uprisings by the Shiites in the south and the Kurds in the north, an April 6 VOFI broadcast had exhorted “brother Iraqis” to liberate Baghdad. A March 20 broadcast extolled martyrdom: “The Iraqis have never felt such enthusiasm, joy and verve to take part in the revolution or be martyrs.”
The broadcasts, continued after the war, are part of a convert anti-Iraq campaign that began as early as August 1990, when President Bush signed the first of at least three authorizations designed to overthrow Hussein’s government —- one of which called for smuggling thousands of small transistor radios into Iraq for the VOFI broadcasts. These findings, the first of which was signed in August 1990, also authorized broad CIA sponsored propaganda and deception; CIA cooperation with Army Special Operations forces to supply and support guerrilla fighters in Kuwait; destabilization of the Baath Party government; and CIA aid to rebel factions inside Iraq. (It) granted “broad and general authority” for clandestine activities to undermine Hussein and support the efforts of opposition forces.
Thus, it is clear that the United States knowingly fomented revolt in Iraq. The indifference to life was appalling. That Washington never intended the Kurds or Shiites to succeed simply exposes how the United States cynically manipulated these minority peoples in order to weaken Iraq. This activity added directly to the terrible refugee problems after the war.
US forces stayed in southern Iraq until May 9, 1991. Check points in southern Iraq provided food, water, and medical supplies to refugees from the Shiite uprisings, who were then told to move on. But if the refugees had participated in the rebellions, they could not go back to Iraq. If they tried to flee to Kuwait, they were not met with hostility.
(The ‘Bush’ referred to in this passage is the present President’s father. As they say in Persian, what the father could not do, the son will. Dust in my mouth.)
POSTSCRIPT: The organizers of the World Cup should have had the tournament insured for 75 billion dollars. After the Bush action in Iraq many people across the Continents lost all interest in the Australia-India final. You see, the world wanted India to lose in peace, and, believe it or not, there was little or no betting on the outcome in Lahore.
THE animus which is often whipped up into a lather to justify war and mayhem against citizens of another country is more often than not actually made up of tiny bubbles of expedient fabrication. This is true of the raging war in the Middle East as it is, indeed, of South Asia’s post-nuclear existence or about any conflict anywhere else.
Take, for example, the ghosts of the mediaeval warriors Ahmed Shah Abdali and Prithviraj Chauhan who came to visit us recently, not for the first time, to whip up easy passions. And these passions seem to come to us South Asians all too quickly, usually in the garb of reckless jingoism.
All this is ironical since our jingoism is mostly rooted in laughable assumptions. For instance, most Pakistanis and many Indians believe that the short-range nuclear-capable and, to be sure, Pakistan-specific missile that India test-fired on Wednesday while the world’s eyes were riveted on Iraq, is named after Prithviraj Chauhan.
Now this may or may not be the case as Prithvi also means earth just as India’s other longer-ranged nuclear missile is called Agni which means fire, thereby indicating that they are so called after the elements of nature rather than a Hindu icon.
Assuming, but not conceding, that Prithvi is deliberately named after the Hindu warrior because he valiantly fought a Muslim invader in 1191, the insidious propaganda value of this historical invocation tends to dull our senses to the reality that Hindu or Muslim, a nuclear missile is a nuclear missile and as such it is lethal for both.
In any case, Prithviraj managed to become a ruler of any stature not by fighting Muslims but by eliminating a competing clan of Tomar Rajput rulers first. He then annoyed his cousin Jaichand, the ruler of Kannauj, by eloping with his daughter whom he married before confronting the challenge from Shahabuddin Ghauri.
Pakistan’s naming of the Abdali missile is equally baffling, although the intention is not so difficult to divine. Most Pakistanis and indeed Indians too would be bound to be brought up on the hype that Ahmed Shah Abdali was a Muslim hero because he defeated the predominantly Hindu Maratha forces in the decisive Battle of Panipat in 1761.
But was Abdali a Muslim hero in the eyes of the Mughal ruler too, whose throne he helped pick up when he came first as Nadir Shah’s understudy to Delhi in 1739? All countries rightly or wrongly lionize their alleged heroes and trash their alleged villains. Yes, Abdali may have been an Afghan hero, but is that the intent behind naming a missile after him?
When he came back to India on his own, in order to pay for the maintenance of his army, Ahmed Shah Abdali had to conquer new lands. He attacked Peshawar and drove out its Mughal governor Nasir Khan, in October 1747. Just about then, he received an invitation from Shah Nawaz Khan to invade and annex the provinces of Multan, Kashmir and Lahore, saying that he would co-operate fully in this campaign in return for his own confirmation as governor of Lahore.
During the course of his tenure in India, Ahmed Shah Abdali was mainly fighting the Mughals before he launched forth against the Sikhs and the Marathas. Does that make him an icon? Even if it does, does it also then make the Abdali missile something to celebrate? I can hear a resounding “no” from the robustly vocal corners of sanity that mercifully happen to exist in both countries despite the best efforts of their establishments to undermine them.
GUNIYA is an unlikely name and even an unlikelier person to be carrying an anti-war placard at a rally in Delhi on Friday, one of the almost daily protests that are being organized by different parties and groups across India against the American assault on Iraq.
If you did not see the wizened old face of Guniya on your television, blame it on the media, Indian and foreign ones alike, which have been virtually blacking out the protests. Guniya is an 88-year-old impoverished woman from the backwaters of India’s poorest state of Bihar. She arrived in Delhi, probably her first visit out of her village in Chhapra district, with some eight to 10,000 other underprivileged men and women.
They are all low caste peasants or ordinary rural folk who once lived in mortal fear of the upper caste landlords but are now organized as a lethal force that contributes to the well- armed Naxalite groups that have taken the battle to the enemy’s camp.
In what could be an onset of Parkinson’s disability, Guniya’s hands were shaking as was her head as she waded through the maze of red flags and anti-Bush posters. Her visage was made more visible by her unwashed, matted hair although her nearly shredded dhoti did not detract from the calm smile she wore all the time, that exuded both courage and conviction.
So even as the soft-drinks guzzling classes are missing from the streets, and the government dithers on the issue, Guniya and her comrades are sending out a clear message about where the real India stands in this untenable war.
And what do these poor men and women have to say on the issue of war? Be surprised.. They told their audiences tales of courage, not of Saddam Hussein, but of the courage of Bhagat Singh and Rachel Corrie, both martyred when they were 23 years old.
Indian freedom fighter Bhagat Singh was hanged by the British government in 1931. Rachel Corrie, an American human rights worker, was crushed by an Israeli bulldozer when she was protesting the assault on Palestinian homes in Gaza earlier this month.
The war on Iraq has thus brought together Guniya, Rachel Corrie and Bhagat Singh in an unlikely yet logical bond of fellowship.
LIKE almost everywhere else in the world, we are living through times that would test the nerves, good sense and even soul of the ordinary mortals that most of us happen to be. Just as well. Who would wish to be a big-shot like Bush, or a Blair, or a Saddam? For once Shakespeare rings wrong. He had said when the poor die no comets are seen. It is not true in Iraq today.
Thanks to the robust media we now have, the comets are very much seen ever since hell has been let loose upon the common run of the Iraqi people. The night sky over scores of places in Iraq is full of blazing comets right through the nights. Last night was the eleventh night and the heavens over Iraq were again aflame. Beneath, there was rain of destruction and death. None of that looked very far away from us. All of us here feel close to it and involved and hurt.
So, inevitably, we are all sucked into this holocaust. Not a day passes without some protest, indeed protests, in Karachi. The refrain continues to be common. Without going into the rights and wrongs of this war, we are all opposed to it. For many of us, war has no rights about it. War is all wrong, eternally wrong. It depends on which side you are, aggressing or resisting. Those who would cite some exceptions, may be, they are missing the point.
In our country, especially in our city, we have more activists than ordinary, normal people. Those who lead us, or believe are born with a divine right to lead, are not the type who would give a damn to the suggestion that it is better to look before you leap. That probably explains better than any other theory why our protests are loud, furious and usually tend to lose what they were meant to signify in the sound and fury of it all.
We also have a profusion of those who know exactly when the iron of raw public sentiment is hot. They hammer relentlessly away at it. All of us are sad and distressed over what is happening in Iraq. Those who have brought Iraq to doors of hell are being abused in the hottest possible vocabulary. That they deserve it is not under argument. What needs to be argued about is whether or not too hot words or rash actions do not diminish their impact by being too intemperate?
Some of us, if not many of us, would wonder if burning a national flag is not stretching the protest logic too far. A flag, whether of a whole nation or state or of a small group, association, organization or even a club, is much more than a collection of people or the interest it might stand to signify at any given moment or in any situation or set of circumstances. In the current round of public demonstrations to protest against the war on Iraq and against those who are perceived to be the people (guilty of) inflicting it, the issues are not very complicated. For most of us it is a black and white contest with no gray areas. Agreed, or let us say not disputed. This war is the doing of individuals. They come and go. Bush, Blair and Saddam are but as players. After some time they will be heard no more.
The individuals can be tried for crimes they are accused of and they can be punished. Even if they are not punished, stark criminal acts come in time to receive their condemnation at the bar of public opinion, and finally at the bar of history. There is a vast, almost incalculable, moral divide between Hitler and the German people and the German flag.
This has to be said with no less force for Bush and Blair and Aznar and the American, the British and the Spanish flags. Erring individuals are disposable carbon in the incinerator of history. Flags are sacred. Subjecting an individual’s supposed likeness in any form to an expression of distaste and disapproval may be fair game. Doing anything less than respectful to a flag is not quite the same.
What we in Karachi have to be on our red alert about is the danger of some professional agitators hijack perfectly decent and honest upsurge of public sentiment. There are many on the prowl to do just that. They are past-masters in organizing street rumpus. When they manage to get a correct cause, they nearly always overdo and manage to reap a harvest of wholly undeserved bonus. In doing so, they make a short mileage for the business they temporarily have in hand. Next time round, they will pick up some entirely different issue to make some passing capital, using the gullible people and abusing their innocent emotions.
In recent days protesters in Karachi have sometimes gone overboard, or beyond the top. This city prides in being a notch above others in matters that demand a touch of grace, even when sentiments should be beyond the ignition point. A protest loses much of its moral authority if it slips below that line between grace and want of it. The people of Karachi owe it to themselves to ensure that no matter how intolerable a provocation, it would not be beyond our tolerance level. Tolerance of provocation and protest with dignity are not the opposites. When the two combine, you have a winning case at the bar of the highest court, from here to the hereafter.
Saturday’s newspaper carried a small news item which said “to eliminate major causes of frequent fatal accidents, particularly during the peak hours, the Karachi Nazim has prohibited movement of heavy vehicles within the limits of the City District Government”.
It said further that heavy traffic will not be allowed within the city from 7 am to 1 pm and again from 4 pm to 8 pm and that the order will be enforced with “immediate effect” for a period of seven days.
This is a very welcome directive for most Karachiites, especially those who live in the former District South. Anyone who has travelled on or past Khayaban-i-Jami (the main Clifton road) which runs from Mai Kolachi at one end to Sunset Boulevard at the other, or on Korangi Road will vouch for the terrible traffic jams that are created every afternoon and evening because of these vehicles. The situation at the Boating Basin roundabout where Mai Kolachi ends and Khayaban-i-Jami starts is particularly troublesome, especially during the afternoon because of the presence of three large schools in the area.
That said, the City Nazim issued a very similar order not too long ago. In fact, this newspaper had welcomed it editorially and had hoped that it would be enforced properly so that the residents of the affected areas get the intended benefit. Clearly, the last time around the city government was not in a position to implement its otherwise well-intentioned directive. That is probably why the Nazim has had to announce it again. Which leads one to ask the inevitable question: Is there no way for the city government to ensure that truck and heavy vehicle owners agree to decisions taken by the Nazim in the larger public interest?
A human shield speaks out
In times like these it is difficult to talk about provincial local issues. The Notebook is supposed to be about events, people, incidents, moods, reminiscences and what not about Karachi. But once in a while it seems criminal not to talk about the larger scheme of things. After all, events in the rest of the world, especially as tragic and brutal as the war against Iraq, are bound to have some effect on people living in Karachi. With that in mind, one thought it fit to publish what a human shield, a young Australian woman living in Baghdad these days, wrote last week of her experiences.
“Last night [March 23] the United States bombarded Iraq with 1000 missiles. Three hundred and twenty of them hit Baghdad. One of them landed near the April 7 Water Treatment Plant where I am living. The missile struck at about 10 pm. There was a deafening explosion, shaking the building where we sleep. One of the other human shields, Donna Mulhearn, also from Australia, was nearly blown off her feet from the impact of the blast.
“The missile explosion set off a major fire, which sent a great cloud of smoke spreading across the sky above us, in much the same way billowing clouds of smoke spread across the sky during the recent Canberra bushfires.
“The fire spread. It took hours before the fire was brought under control. We could still smell the acrid smell of something burning as the night turned into dawn.
“The missile had landed little more than a kilometre away from where we were standing. Just a small difference in the trajectory would have had the missile heading straight for us. There are thirteen human shields living at the site, three Australians, one American, two from Britain, three from Japan, one Norwegian, one Belgian, one Italian, and one Dane. If the US tries again, misses again and hits us instead, we will just become an unrecognizable mass of bits of concrete, human flesh and broken furniture.
“Not only would the missile kill all of us, it would also destroy the water treatment plant, which processes water for three million people. To hit the site would also destroy the special unit run by the International Committee of the Red Cross which processes water for use in the hospitals of Baghdad.
“The United States, by firing the missile that landed so close to us last night, close to a Red Cross installation, has committed an act of criminal recklessness. These missiles are themselves clearly weapons of mass destruction, part of a huge arsenal of weapons of mass destruction ready to be hurled at Iraq, its people, and us.
“[Australian Prime Minister John] Howard is not listening to us. Blair is not listening to the people of Britain. Bush is not listening to the American people. They are living in a fantasy world of make believe that the war will be a quick act of penetration and Iraq will surrender. That is nonsense. How many people will die before they realize that, no matter how many weapons of mass destruction they throw at Iraq, the people will continue to resist the invasion?
“Howard, Bush and Blair are acting like dictators. They are not listening to the people, they are taking their marching orders from the big oil companies. The only thing that will stop this war will be civil disobedience.
“FRIENDS WE ARE DOING OUR BIT HERE, PLEASE DO YOUR BIT AND STOP THIS WAR BEFORE IT’S TOO BLOODY LATE!”
Anti-war play today
The Tehrik-i-Niswan is staging “Jang ub nahin ho gi”, what it claims is an anti-war feminist play at the Arts Council today at 7 pm. The performance will be free, organizers said.
An adaptation by Fehmida Riaz of a foreign anti-war play, the Tehrik says it “has to be seen both for its feminist stand as well as its anti-war message”.
Tehrik-i-Niswan has said that everyone interested in such themes is invited to the performance. There is no ticket and no entrance fee but the Tehrik does apparently want a “large but appreciative audience”.
It is being organized with the Women and Development Association and with support from The Arts Council of Karachi. And one more thing please: children will not be permitted. Those interested in attending can email at tehrik@hotmail.com or call 5822721 and 5837119.
Buyers beware
Consumer rights are almost non-existent in this country. Whether you are paying top prices for third rate fruit, shabbily put together electronic items, or other goods and services, most shopkeepers treat their customers as mere prey, ready to strike as soon as the buyer’s guard is lowered. A friend relayed his sob story.
He was in Saddar, looking for a phone. Not wanting to spend a lot of money and running short of time, he decided to check out one of the many establishments at Regal Chowk. He stepped in and let the shopkeeper know what he wanted. Immediately, a snazzy looking brown contraption wrapped in airtight plastic was unveiled. This was too good to be true, he thought. Already in a rush, he gave the apparatus a cursory glance and negotiations for the price were soon underway. A compromise was reached at Rs500, and our friend proudly marched out of the shop patting himself on the back for such a glorious consumer conquest.
But as soon as he got home, things turned ugly. He plugged the jack into the back of the phone and was relieved to hear a dial tone. He made a call from his mobile to make sure the ringer was working which it was. But as soon as he tried dialling a number, he discovered that the keypad didn’t work.
Not only that, on closer inspection, he found that the phone had scratches all over and various forms of grime, proving beyond doubt that it had been used. Furious with both himself and the shopkeeper, he couldn’t wait to throw the phone back into the shopkeeper’s face the next day.
When he went back to the place, the shopkeeper turned defensive. He said he would exchange the piece but flatly refused to give the customer his money back. He had to settle for another second-hand replacement, and this time had it thoroughly tested in the shop before returning home. The shopkeeper haughtily claimed that there were bound to be a few duds in a shipment of several thousand units. Whoever said that the customer is always right should get their facts checked.— By Karachian
Email: karachi_notebook@hotmail.com