| April 19, 2003 | Saturday | Safar 16, 1424 |
The art of recovering WMDs
Shortage of textbooks
Abdullah Malik: early days
Finding the right sources
THE distinguished Punjabi poet-satirist Ustad Daman was arrested during the Zulfikar Ali Bhutto regime for his biting verse against the people’s government. He was presented in court on the charge that bombs were recovered from his house —- rather than, as all Lahore wags said at the time, empty bottles.
ON Friday evening the opposition staged a marathon protest in the upper house, and in the morning, it forced the Speaker to cut short the proceedings of the lower house in no time at all after the recitation from the Holy Quran was over.
In the Senate the combined opposition staged the first instalment of its protest for almost an hour and then when the house met after the Maghrib prayers it remained on its feet protesting until 11:40pm when the house was finally prorogued.
Never before in the chequered parliamentary history of Pakistan such a marathon protest was ever witnessed. One does recall that while the 8th amendment was being discussed by the non-party house the then opposition made up of about 9-10 members had resorted to such intense filibustering that it was almost midnight by the time the bill was finally passed and that too only after veiled threats of dissolution were held out by some unidentified elements.
It certainly must have been torturous for people like Maulana Noorani, Professor Ghafoor and Professor Khurshid Ahmed, all of whom must be in their 80s to remain standing for such a long time. And it was indeed an unwelcome sight to see the treasury benches taking seemingly sadistic pleasure in the suffering of these elderly parliamentarians.
The Senate chairman who is the custodian of the house appeared as if conducting the proceedings on instructions. Instead of adjourning the unmanageable house immediately, he pushed his chair back and kept looking on without any expression on his face while the shouting and desk-thumbing went on unabated.
The women members of the ruling alliance lost patience first and started raising slogans in favour of Musharraf and the LFO thinking perhaps that they were shouting down the opposition. But in actual fact they had played straight into the hands of the opposition members who badly needed to give some rest to their vocal chords and hands. At one point tempers did get the better of the two sides. A physical clash was averted in the nick of the time.
Seemingly, the combined opposition is bent upon forcing a showdown on the government. The government on its part appears to have so far succeeded in averting such a showdown. It does, though, reiterate again and again its intentions to continue its talks with the opposition, warning at the same time, however, that the continued “intransigence” of the latter would cause the very system to collapse.
But some of the leading lights of the ruling alliance like Chaudhry Shujaat Husain and Sheikh Rashid Ahmed also insist that the ruling alliance can fulfil its parliamentary obligations despite the opposition’s efforts to hijack the two houses. On the face of it this looks like a tall claim. But perhaps some of the more imaginative members of the ruling alliance have found a constitutional solution to the problem.
Under the Constitution (Article 54-2) it is mandatory for the NA to meet for not less than 130 working days each year. The “working days” include any period not exceeding two days, for which the NA is adjourned. So if the NA meets on Tuesdays and Fridays each week for five minutes, it would be taken to have met for full seven days as Sundays being closed holidays are already counted in the week. So, all that is needed to be done is to call the NA on Tuesdays and Fridays of the same week for 19 weeks in a year and the speaker to adjourn each such sitting soon after the recital of the Holy Quran to complete 19 weeks of sittings which would mean that the NA has met for more the 130 mandatory days. In the case of the upper house the chairman could keep trying to tire the opposition out by letting the house drag on hour after hour.
And in case the government needs to get some important legislation like the finance bill (budget) passed, the Speaker can announce soon after the mover has tabled the bill that it has been taken as read and then call for voice vote immediately taking care first that all the members of the ruling alliance are present at the time of voting.
There is but only one problem. How does the president avert addressing a joint sitting of the two houses? This is a must even for the 38 sittings of the NA lasting five minutes each to be taken as sittings for the mandatory 130 days. Some of the more enterprising members of the ruling alliance were heard suggesting that even this constitutional hurdle could be taken care of if when the president is on an official tour abroad next, the acting president who under the constitution enjoys the full powers of the president during his period of acting could summon the joint sitting and address it. All this sounds too farcical but what the elected houses too have been doing so far appears to be equally farcical.
The charges could not of course stand in court, and later Ustad Daman immortalized the episode thus:
Awami hukumat da hunar waikho
Daman Ustad dey ghar choon bum nikley
(Admire the talent of the people’s government that they have discovered bombs in Ustad Daman’s house.)
The subcontinent’s police are past masters in the art of “recovering” things from the person or houses of those they want to harass, either on their own or at the behest of the administration. It can be heroin from the boot of a car or a revolver from the possession of a political opponent. When the police run into a dead-end in an investigation of a crime, which is often, they resort to such “recoveries” to save their skins.
The Americans, in their search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, should send some of their boys to us to learn how to conjure up what they seek and cannot find. We can tell them how to plant WMDs in some remote corner of the Iraqi desert or under the Tigris in a waterproof cave.
A month of bombing and killing and probing has produced nothing so far. The Saddam palaces, in one of which Gen Tommy Franks proudly held court the other day, have been full of luxurious upholstery, but, alas, no WMDs. America is now to send 1,000 of its own inspectors to Iraq to speed up the search for WMDs. Make no mistake: some will be “recovered”. They have to be, because already questions are being asked about this, and the questioning is bound to increase, even within the United States. The main reason for the attack on Iraq was that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction and thus posed a threat to the world. The UN inspectors were not allowed to complete their work because reports coming out from them clearly indicated that no hard evidence had been found of any WMD stocks. Somewhere this will gradually sink into the conscience of ordinary Americans and then they will wonder whether the cost in human suffering and material resources was worth it.
So, please, sir, soon expect some “baraamdaat”, the police term for ‘recoveries’.
The Arab Group at the United Nations has for once been clever: it has proposed declaring the entire Middle East as a WMD-free zone. Let’s get into Israel, and see what they have. There is a rich store waiting to be unearthed. Here, then, is another contradiction presented to the Americans. They support and keep in place a state whose possession of WMDs and terrorist character have been repeatedly exposed before the world but go in for an invasion of an Arab country. The argument that the Iraq war is primarily aimed at strengthening the Israeli hold and further decapitating Arab resistance to Israeli expansionism daily gains weight.
However, the balance sheet should not be seen as being entirely in the negative. The Iraq war has for the first time since the end of colonialism after the Second World War brought out imperialism in its full military and economic regalia. For too long, the lines had been blurred. At least the divide is now clearly marked. That is a positive development.
ALTHOUGH the new academic session has started in all government and private educational institutions, there is a shortage of textbooks from class I to 10 in Sialkot and other neighbouring towns.
Book sellers are of the view that the shortage is due to non-supply of the newly-published textbooks by the Punjab Textbook Board.
Students and their parents have protested against the shortage and urged the authorities to ensure the availability of textbooks in the market.
RESEARCHERS of various foreign universities have shown interest in the “Export culture of Sialkot”.
EPB sources told Dawn that many researchers of American, British and Asian universities have sought the bureau’s cooperation in this regard.
EPB authorities said Sialkot is globally known for its value-added quality traditional and non-traditional products like musical instruments, badges, sports and leather goods, surgical instruments, martial arts uniforms, readymade garments and cutlery.
In 2002, the value-added products to the tune of Rs687.22 million were exported, indicating an increase of 11.04 per cent compared to the previous year. Sialkot is the country’s only city where practically anything produced is exported.
Hundreds of small and medium enterprises scattered in and around the city provided impetus to export.
EPB officials said the researchers wanted to know how the people of Sialkot were doing export business successfully.
SME Bank Limited has formulated a line of action for providing necessary financial and technical assistance for boosting the cottage industry.
On the other hand, the Sialkot Chamber of Commerce and Industry and other trade bodies have announced their full cooperation to the researchers.
THE Narowal district government has successfully launched the Universal Primary Education programme in the district.
It has decided to ensure 100 per cent enrolment of five to seven years old children in primary schools with the collaboration of the National Commission for Human Development. It will be done through UPE training workshops for teachers and the education department’s clerical staff.
WE MET every morning during a walk in the Linear Park in Model Town until my back problem prevented my venturing out and old age started catching up with Abdullah Malik. Later, whenever I went to my bank to draw some cash I invariably found Abdullah Malik there as he also had an account in the same branch. After meeting him there for the umpteenth time, I once said jokingly, “Malik Sahib, do we always have to meet in a bank?” “Of course,” he said spontaneously, “in the younger days one could always meet friends in the Hira Mandi but at this age you can only come across them in a bank.” An excellent conversationalist, he had a succinct sense of humour and it was always a pleasure talking to him.
A lot has been written about him by friends, colleagues and associates, yet there are some aspects of his early life which are not generally known.
Abdullah Malik started writing as a student when appointed editor of the Urdu section of the Islamia College magazine, The Crescent. Its English section was edited by Hamid Jalal. By 1939, Abdullah Malik had become well known in literary circles. He got a foothold with Maktaba-i-Urdu which started publishing a series of six anna books. The first in the series was Abdullah Malik’s book, Sarmayadari, whose foreword was written by Shorish Malik. His second book in the series was Jagirdari.
His career in journalism started when he joined the communist party’s weekly paper, Jang-i-Azadi, in 1942. Edited by Ferozeuddin Mansur, it appeared both in the Persian and Gurmukhi scripts. Going to Bombay as a member of the Punjab delegation to attend the communist party’s first conference, he was asked by Sajjad Zaheer to join the Qaumi Jang which he was editing. Joining it in May, 1943, he came across Syed Sibte Hasan and Ali Sardar Jafri as well.
Returning to Lahore after six months, he worked for some time as a correspondent of the communist party’s paper, People’s War, as also for Qaumi Jang.
Abdullah Malik gradually got more and more engrossed in journalistic activities and even went to the extent of starting a magazine for women, Niswani Dunya, with his wife as its editor. He also spent some time working for the Nawa-i-Waqt. In 1947, he joined the Mohajrin, a paper of the federal government, as its assistant editor. The editor was Maulana Chiragh Hasan Hasrat. Later, when the Maulana joined the Imroze, Abdullah Malik started editing the Mohajrin. Taking an active part in the Progressive Writers Movement, he attended its first All-Pakistan conference in 1949 which was attended by six Russian writers. This led to the banning of all communist party newspapers and the arrest of Abdullah Malik who spent three months in the Lahore Fort. After release, he joined the Imroze in 1951 as a reporter. Thereafter, everyone knowns what became till the end of his life.
Abdullah Malik was a prolific writer and he authored scores of books. Soon as he produced one, he would ask, rather order me to come over and collect my copy. I even have his eulogy of the Soviet Union, Arz-i-Jannat. However, I think his auto-biography, Purani Mahfilein Yaad aa Rahi Hein, deserves the greatest attention. It is not a book of history yet a historic document.
Towards the end of his life, Abdullah Malik appeared quite disappointed with the happenings around him. He was not very hopeful when elections were announced for last year. “Have you ever had an election in which rigging has not taken place?”, he would ask. And after the elections he went on to say, “Do you know that even the MMA is the king’s party?” At the same time, he was not happy with what the human rights activists were doing. “They cannot do much to make the situation tolerable,” he would say.
Abdullah Malik’s funeral was largely, rather very largely, attended. Every conceivable writer and journalist was there. The one conspicuous by his absence was Ashfaq Ahmed who lives a few paces away from his residence.
PROBABLY now in the eleventh year of its existence, the literary setup of the librarian, Shahnaz Muzammil, Adab Serai, continues to hold its second-Monday-of-the-month sittings with regularity. This time I made bold to go in person and attend the session. As I reached the venue, I found Aijaz Feroz Aijaz locking his motorbike. It frightened me to see the word POLICE on its number plate. However, once inside it was a pleasure sitting close to him and listening to his excellent verses. He has greatly improved over the years and both his hamd and ghazal were superb. Here is a verse from the ghazal:
Pehley qalam to eik amanat thi qaum ki
Bikney lagey qalam to bahut dukh hua mujhey
Karamat Bukhari was also there that evening. He came up with a ghazal with an elongated radeef. However, he made apt use of it to produce some interesting verses:
Aap ki aur baat heh varna
Chand tarey haseen hotey hein
Kuch nigahon mein husn hota heh
Kuch nazarey haseen hotey hein
Azeem Wasti expressed disgust with the prevailing conditions:
Mulk ham nein bhi ik banaya tha
Jis ka ham bhool gaye hein maqsad tak
Shahnaz Muzammil, as usual, recited some of her recent compositions. Here are two of her verses:
Safeena jis nein daboya mera lab-i-sahil
Voh aa gaya hei merey pass nakhuda ban kar
Akela chor do kuch deir merey charagaro
Na azmao mujhey tum meri saza ban kar
— ASHFAQUE NAQVI
A US-BASED media watchdog, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR, at www.fair.org), has come out with a stinging indictment of the pro-war bias shown by the major US networks —- ABC, CBS, NBC and PBS —- prior to the hostilities against Iraq.
The gist of the findings of the survey, carried out over a two-week period from January 30 to February 12 was that the people or representatives of organizations (hence the need for all-encompassing term ‘sources’) invited by the networks to give ‘expert’ opinion were mainly serving or former US government officials, and that those whose views were thought to be sceptical or opposed to the Bush administration’s policy on Iraq were generally not invited. The time of the survey coincided with a period of much discussion on whether there even was a need for attacking Iraq. It included the period during which US Secretary of State Colin Powell made a major policy speech before the UN Security Council, outlining his government’s case for attacking Iraq.
FAIR’s major findings were:
Seventy-six per cent of all sources were current or former officials. ‘All’ refers to the fact that some of the guests and ‘experts’ were not American but people from other countries called on by the networks to comment. As for American sources of opinion, 75 per cent were current or former government officials. This obviously meant that independent or anti-Establishment views were automatically squeezed out.
The watchdog pointed out that during the weeks preceding the war —- when heated debate was going on between America and the rest of the world on how much time to allow the weapons inspectors —- just six per cent of the US sources held views that were opposed to or sceptical of the need for a war on Iraq. This became even more worrying given the fact that according to a major poll carried out on February 6, 61 per cent of Americans were saying that their government should give more time to diplomacy and the weapons inspectors. It seems as if the networks were deliberately trying to ready Americans for war that was to come.
The FAIR survey shows the sources of opinion formally affiliated with any anit-war movements or organizations were “merely non-existent”. It says that of the total of 393 sources whose opinions were solicited during the four-week period, only three —- less than half per cent —- were identified as being affiliated with anti-war activism. Of the 267 American sources that came on air, just one was similarly affiliated. ABC’s ABC World News Tonight, CBS’s Evening News, NBC’s Nightly News and PBS’s News Hour with Jim Lebrer.
A more detailed analysis showed that over two-thirds —- 266 out of 393 —- of all sources of opinion and comment were from within the US. Of these, 199 had either served in the US government or the military or were currently serving. Only one official US, Democratic Senator Edward Kennedy expressed any kind of sceptisim or opposition to the war and even his views were vague and had more to do with the cost to the “American people” rather than any remorse for what the Iraqi people might have to go through.
Of the total 393 sources, 297 were official. Of these 20, or seven per cent, represented the then government of Iraq while a further 19 (six per cent) represented other governments, mostly US allies. Another 34 sources of comment were former or current UN employees.
Of all the official sources, 14 per cent (43 out of 297) representated a position that was sceptical or opposed to the Americans government’s policy. FAIR bracketed all sources as sceptics or critics if either their statements or their affiliations put them in that category. For example, all French or German government officials were counted as sceptics, regardless of the content of their quotes.
The remaining 96 sources —- those without a current or former government connection had more balanced views; 26 per cent of these non-official sources took a sceptical or critical position on the war.
However, at a time when 61 per cent of respondents in a CBS poll had said that the US should “wait and give the United Nations and weapons inspectors more time”, only 16 of the 68 non-official guests (24 per cent) from America expressed such views. Hence, it would be safe to say that this sampling of ‘expert’ opinion could hardly be termed representative of what the American public was thinking in those days. Besides, network executives and programme producers must have surely known of the results of such polls.
Half of the non-official US sceptics were “persons in the street” meaning they held no position of authority. In fact, FAIR points out, five of them were not even identified by name. Only one US source, Catherine Thompson of Physicians for Social Responsibility, represented an anti-war organization.
Overall, 68 guests represented positions or views that were sceptical or critical of the US. The percentage of sceptical sources ranged from 21 per cent at PBS (22 of 106) to 14 per cent at NBC (18 of 125). ABC (16 of 92) and CBS (12 of 70) each had 17 per cent skeptics. — OMAR R.QURESHI
(Email:omarq@cyber.net.pk)