| May 30, 2003 | Friday | Rabi-ul-Awwal 27,1424 |
Please Visit our Sponsor (Ads open in separate window)
Enough is enough
Making Madadgar work
PRESIDENT Mohammad Khatami’s speech at the Islamic foreign ministers’ conference in Tehran attempts to grapple with the two major issues facing the world, especially the Muslim ummah, today. Addressing the delegates from the 57-member Organization of Islamic Conference on Wednesday, the Iranian leader condemned both “terrorism and unilateralism.” Analysing the twin phenomena, he observed that if terrorism and fanaticism had “distorted the humane and freedom-seeking face of religion,” arrogance of powers and unilateralism had made a mockery of freedom, democracy and justice. The point is that a genuine struggle for freedom is one thing; mindless terrorism that kills innocent civilians quite another. It is the latter category that has done enormous harm to the Muslim world and by extension, to the image of Islam itself. The perpetrators of the attack on the World Trade Centre have till this day not been able to convince the world, and the vast majority of the Muslims, that the action served any worthwhile purpose. The attack on the WTC killed nearly 3,000 innocent people engaged in their daily task in a commercial building; they had posed no threat to anyone. Those who were burnt alive or buried under tons of debris belonged to all religions and nationalities. They perished without the perpetrators of these dastardly attacks achieving anything except infamy for themselves and hatred for Muslims and Islam. The same holds true of those who carried out the bombing in Bali, or killed 11 French engineers in a suicide attack in Karachi.
These mindless acts have given an opportunity to many states oppressing Muslims to de-legitimize genuine freedom movements. In the Middle East, Israel has attempted to portray all those fighting for Palestine’s liberation as terrorists, while in the subcontinent India, too, has promptly seized the opportunity to malign the Kashmiri people’s fight for freedom as a terrorist operation. However, when he referred to “arrogant powers”, hegemony and unilateralism, President Khatami had America in mind. There is no doubt that America has lost a great deal of goodwill which it had earned worldwide in the wake of 9/11. Its blind support to Zionist terrorism, its refusal to condemn India’s colossal human rights violations in Kashmir, its criminal silence on the state-sponsored pogroms of Muslims in Gujarat, and the thoroughly unwarranted attack on Iraq have shocked the Muslim world to the core. In choosing this line of action, the US has thrown overboard all high moral principles and values that are fundamentally important to international relations. It has now cast itself in the role of a big bully and an enemy of the Muslim peoples. Only a close scrutiny of America’s policies will confirm this truth. Regrettably, the American media has not helped matters, for it has seldom made a clear distinction between mindless killers called terrorists and those fighting oppression and injustice. Palestinians fighting for their liberation are terrorists, while Israeli occupiers are supposed to be targets of terrorism.
Muslims the world over, especially those engaged in fighting for freedom and justice, would do well to give thought to President Khatami’s advice. Their frustration is understandable, and there is no denying the nobility of the motives that impel them to fight. But what is essential to note is that the means and methods employed to achieve goals must be equally moral and ethical. As the world-wide anti-war demonstrations recently showed, people the world over can see through propaganda and judge for themselves who is right and who is wrong. Mindless terrorist acts only serve to alienate the world opinion and that hinders rather than helps the cause of freedom and justice.
THE on-going protest by the Punjab opposition MPAs and their subsequent arrest and release by the police are a sad commentary on how the Punjab government is handling the situation. This is neither democratic nor ethical. The MPAs, under the speaker’s unprecedented orders, may have been barred from attending the current assembly session but they cannot be barred from entering the assembly building under any existing rule or law. The Punjab law minister’s blase expression of ignorance about the treatment meted out to the protesting MPAs is a tacit admission of the provincial government’s questionable and partisan role in the origin and prolongation of the crisis. A whole series of mishandling, acts and omissions, starting with the speaker’s refusal to give the opposition members a chance to vent their grievances on the floor of the house, has gone into the making of an unpleasant situation which has since degenerated into a no-holds-barred slanging match between the government and the opposition.
The wholesale intimidation, manhandling and arrests of the opposition MPAs and party workers, among them women, are wholly abhorring, especially when it comes to dealing with elected representatives of the people. No wonder, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan has condemned such brutal methods — including refusal to allow journalists and lawyers access to arrested MPAs — as excesses characteristic of a ‘police state’. The Punjab governor and chief minister have conveniently kept mum over the whole sordid affair. In desperation, the opposition parties have given out a call for a street protest on Saturday.
These are ominous signs of potentially greater trouble brewing in the days ahead, and call for immediate damage control on the part of the Punjab government. The chief minister should meet the leader of the opposition and attempt a resolution of the crisis. The speaker should be asked to withdraw his ‘barring’ ruling, making it possible for the opposition members to return to the house and say what they want to say there. For their part, the latter must also give an assurance that they would abide by the rules and practices of assembly proceedings and withdraw the call for street agitation. It is still not too late to save the situation from slipping out of hand and resulting, possibly, in the suspension of the assembly session or even worse.
THE Sindh police’s 15 Madadgar helpline service for Karachi’s residents was a good initiative to change the department’s negative public image but has not lived up to its promise because of lack of planning and implementation. According to a report, the service has not been functioning properly because of equipment and personnel constraints. Police mobiles meant for the service have been either given over to senior officers who have nothing to do with Madadgar, or to those on guard duty. In other cases, mobiles in need of repair are lying in an inoperable state or are not returned in all cases to the helpline staff after repair. Some of the Madadgar offices are poorly equipped and the staff have even to pay for their food.
Clearly, this is not the way to make a public oriented service work. The whole idea behind Madadgar is to help citizens report a crime and to ensure quick response to a call for help in the event of theft or burglary and to obtain information that may help in the arrest of some criminals or in the recovery of stolen goods. Given the difficulty that ordinary people face in getting even an FIR registered, the helpline could actually be very useful, provided it is functional in actual terms. True, it cannot be blamed when dumb callers or those seeking police intervention in trivial matters try the staff’s time and patience. But it could immensely benefit if the home department gave it the vehicles, equipment and personnel needed to cover a city the size and problems of Karachi. Also, it should ensure that the staff at the Madadgar offices are provided the same facilities as those available to other police employees. The department should see to it that the helpline goes beyond being just a good idea and actually plays a useful role in crime control and prevention and in the capture of criminals.