| August 19, 2003 | Tuesday | Jumadi-us-Sani 20, 1424 |
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Import of old cars
What it takes to clean a beach
Karachi roads’ condition
Ban on Indian TV channels
Private schools’ registration
Woman’s status in Islam
The Swiss verdict: a question
Killings in Karachi
Learning from Turkish experience
BEGUM JAHAN ARA
THE course of true democracy never did run, let alone run smooth might have been the opening line of the play: “Mid-autumn’s nightmare” (mid-autumn seems to be the normal season when elections are held and other strange things occur in Pakistan).
Pakistan, famed for its unsurpassed dramas and unabashed dictations (both hereditary and elected) would have made an irresistibly apt subject for a Shakespearean tragedy.
We as a nation never accept defeat. Mulish-minded arrogance is our national character, and indulging in pestering, piffling, political pandemonium our national pastime. We always make sure that anarchy follows each election as night follows day. If we find ourselves in the opposition, we try to run the government; if we cannot, we plead with the army to step in — something we cannot do at present because the army still has its foot in the door.
One particular fard-i-wahid is refusing to play the game. Nevertheless, we can still cause sufficient chaos by declaring the already perfect 1973 Constitution as sacred. If it were not the LFO, we would have found another pretext to hijack the nation. Our disruptive ingenuity knows no bounds.
We, in the present opposition, are blessed with scholars who are adept at producing sensational fallacies. For example, we chose deliberately to take part in elections that were held under an illegitimate constitution at the direction of an ‘illegal’ Supreme Court.
Ordinarily, we would be as illegitimate as a child born out of an illicit liaison between the parents. But not we, although the rest of parliament is! We had no choice, you see! We had to perform tayummum. This, of course, is the same thing as the ‘Doctrine of Necessity’. Being mindful of the fact that we performed only half of tayummum (as we only accepted half of the LFO), the Doctrine of Necessity will, henceforth, be known as the ‘Doctrine of half a tayummum’ in our sacred tradition of pulling Islamic wool over the people’s eyes. Half a wuzu is conceivable if enough water is not available; but half a tayummum! Well, we have God’s special dispensation in our favour.
Further, the people of Pakistan went to the polls in the full knowledge, like everyone else, that the LFO was in place. What up to that point were constitutional changes, wrought by a fard-i-wahid, became proposals to be tested through elections. The people have, by returning the parliamentary disposition that they have, clearly endorsed the LFO by exercising the supremacy that is eternally theirs. They have denied even a simple majority to any party, and have severely punished the party that had removed 58(2)(b) for opening up the floodgates of corruption.
The people, in their collective wisdom, have spotted a fatal flaw in the original Constitution, i.e. a corrupt prime minister, heading a harmoniously corrupt majority party, is not likely to dissolve the National Assembly in a hurry! In the absence of strong democratic institutions, a device such as 58-2(b) is essential.
This has been rough-and-too-ready a device, but the LFO has tempered it by subjecting it to a democratic forum of the NSC. The people of Pakistan have suffered under ‘Number Two’ institutions for far too long. This time they have retaliated by tossing back a ‘Number Two’ constitution at their representatives. They also understand that the army does not need the LFO or even the Constitution for perpetuating its rule and that by offering the LFO, the army, in fact, is deferring to democracy. Parliamentary supremacy is periodic, confined to the term for which it is elected and subject to the limitations determined by the electorate for the time being. It is neither retrospective nor pre-emptive. The people of Pakistan could have provided overwhelming majority to a suitable party if they have wished the removal of the LFO.
But we, in the opposition, believe that our own principles transcend the will of the people. We cannot ignore the fact that Pakistan was created by another fard-i-wahid under a kind of the British LFO. If we cannot undo this historical aberration, we can at least try to frustrate democracy in the name of democracy.
If you think our antics were all an unholy mischief wrapped up in pious nonsense, you are right.
DR NASIRUL HAQ
Colchester, UK
THE KCCI president’s request made recently to Finance Minister Shaukat Aziz to allow import of second-hand cars is tantamount to discouraging local car-manufacturing industries. In the past the second-hand car dealers exploited people, making huge money by importing old cars with overhauled engine and new tyres and selling them at three-fourths price of a new car.
The import of old cars will adversely affect our foreign exchange reserve. There is no need to import old cars as already car dealers’ showrooms are flooded with second-hand cars.
I agree to a suggestion that the price of new cars be reduced by 10 per cent, and the duty and sales tax be also reduced by 7.5 per cent. The government must encourage large-scale production of cars and explore avenues for their export, as this will generate more employment in the country.
I am also against the idea of importing cement, as mentioned by the KCCI president. The cement industry had suffered much in the past, their production curtailed to single shift instead of three due to paucity of demand. Now when the demand is increasing, the idea of importing cement is whimsical because local cement industries would find it hard to compete with the imported cement. This would result in curtailment of production and thus create the unemployment problem. The government should rather force the cement manufactures to cut the price, but at the same time duty and sales tax should be reduced.
Any large-scale production will lead to more revenue and more employment. The Pakistan Manufacturers Association’s 23-member cartel be curbed by the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan as the excise duty on cement has been reduced in the current year budget.
Unemployment is a curse and a breeding ground for all sorts of vices, of which the government is fully aware. It is our duty to rehabilitate an unemployed person. As education is a must for every child, so is employment important for all able-bodied persons.
KHODA BUKHSH
Karachi
THE impact of the oil spill from the Tasman Spirit ship will be catastrophic. It may help to compare this spill with probably the most famous of oil spills, that of Exxon Valdez off the coast of Alaska in 1989.
The Exxon Valdez spilled approximately 38,800 tonnes of crude oil on the Alaskan coast. The vessel was originally carrying about five times that volume. The authorities managed to drain off about 80 per cent of the crude on board in a much shorter time period than it took the KPT to drain off about 19,000 tonnes.
This impending spill into our coastal waters will be substantially larger than the Exxon Valdez spill in 1989. Consider also that it took Exxon over two billion US dollars to clean up the spill — a clean-up that was far from complete.
It is estimated that approximately 1,300 miles of Alaskan coastline were affected by the spill. Despite the massive, heavily publicized clean-up effort, the effect of the spill on Alaskan animal-life, fish and birds has been catastrophic and there are many species that have yet to make a recovery. We as a nation are traditionally completely apathetic towards our environment, and I am sure we will not even come close to matching the clean-up effort in Alaska.
What needs to be done now is for the government to get actively involved and seek help from international experts who are better equipped and more motivated than the Karachi Port Trust and SEPA to handle this calamity. What we need after that is a thorough investigation into why the authorities concerned failed outright to do their duties, though the tanker has been lying around in our waters for 18 days. Those responsible have to be held accountable.
HASAN SHAKOOR
Palmyra, Pennsylvania, USA
NEWSPAPERS are full of reports about the devastation caused by rains in Sindh. It’s a pity that our civic authorities in Karachi are not able to cope with the problem caused by 108 millimetres of rain, although prior warning had been issued by the meteorological department.
The authorities rely on the data that Sindh has got minimal rainfall and so they do not bother about taking protective measures against rains. Will the governor and the chief minister of Sindh take serious notice of this act of lethargy on the part of the civil administration of Karachi, where even the main roads like Chundrigar Road, Club Road, Schon Circle, Qayyumabad and Malir Halt are submerged in knee-deep water?
The civic administration does not seem to have any concept of sewerage contingency plan and is busy only in squandering away the development funds. The Karachi Water & Sewerage Board as of date owes a liability of Rs42 billion to the Asian Development Bank. No one knows how these ADB funds were utilized. All the rainwater drains have been encroached by land- grabbers in league with the civic authorities, and innocent people are made to suffer again and again.
ALI ASHRAF KHAN
Karachi
I endorse the views expressed by Dr Hamida Khuhro (Aug 7). The government has no right to deny the basic entertainment facilities which it has miserably failed to provide to its citizens. Pakistani channels do not come up to the expectation of its viewers. Even countries like Saudi Arabia have not put such a ban if they are watched inside the homes.
Will the authorities, specially the president and the prime minister, look into the matter and review their decision, so that the people could have access to some entertainment?
SARFRAZ
Karachi
YOUR paper has recently reported that private schools are being closed because they are not registered. I am a nursery school teacher for children between the ages of three and six years. I have a passion for teaching children and am hoping to have a perfect environment at home and give children to the best of my ability during the most important time of the development of their lives of the absorbent mind, sensitive periods and tendencies of man.
If I am supposed to register, could some kind soul take the trouble of letting me know or perhaps your newspaper find out and guide housewives like myself where and when I am supposed to register. Instead of closing down schools why doesn’t the education department guide us as to what to do or ven better exempt registration for the pre-primary schools?
Schools have become a money-minting business is all you hear. We all have to eat to survive. If we don’t charge enough to live on, how can we help these “makers of men”?
Karachi
HOW arrogant it is to assume that Muslim women would not be well-versed with verses 34-35 of Surah Nisa! The writer of a recent letter from Karachi is advised to read the explanation of the last part of verse 34 as given by the 5th ordained Imam. It will dispel the writer’s notion of men’s “hakmiat” over women which he is confusing immensely with issues of chastity of wives.
Men have an edge primarily because they are maintainers and providers of the family. Read this in conjunction with verse 32 of Surah Nisa according to which women are allotted what they earn just like men are allotted what they earn. The writer should read in context and also in historical context when women were tyrannized. It is out of context interpretations that keep the gender non-issues hot and alive.
DR MAHNAZ FATIMA
Karachi
MY question is simple and based on two basic facts. The first is that the SGS, a Swiss company, obtained pre-shipment inspection contract during the government of Ms Benazir Bhutto. The second fact is that a sum of $12 million was indeed paid out of the SGS account to Bomer Finance account. That is the sum and account that have been frozen by the Swiss judge.
Ms Bhutto denies that she or her husband had taken any commission. I tend to believe her. If Ms Bhutto and Asif deny receiving any commission from that account, somebody else certainly did.
It is not a small amount. And such a person must also have been a most important person in her government who could influence such an important decision. Who could it be other than the then president, her finance minister (or did she have an adviser?), or the federal finance secretary. Why should all of them not be interrogated to know the truth?
AMJAD AZIZ
Lahore
THE city of Karachi is stunned and shocked by the murder of five brothers. Murders, dacoities, carjackings, etc., are on the increase while President Gen Pervez Musharraf, it appears, is busy protecting and promoting American interest in the area.
The province of Sindh, Karachi in particular, has been surrendered to thugs, thieves and dacoits. Rampant unchecked crime is order of the day. The law and order situation is at its worst ever. Apparently, there is no genuine will, desire or effort to improve it or to provide the people with basic necessities.
As head of the state, Gen Musharraf is responsible for providing protection of life, honour and property. It is nearly four years since his assumption of power, but there is no improvement. The overall situation is rapidly going from bad to worse — no law and order, no power, no water.
SAJJAD MALIK
Karachi
I WAS delighted to read your editorial, “Learning from Turkish experience” (Aug 2), regarding the passing of a historic bill on July 30 by Turkish parliament stripping the military-dominated National Security Council of its executive powers.
You have rightly said that the bill would establish supremacy of parliament and make the elected government responsible to no one but to the Grand National Assembly, though it has taken decades for Turkey to realize “how the army’s role in politics has hurt the country and how it has militated against the emergence of Turkey as a progressive, liberal and democratic country”.
I need not emphasize that while Pakistan has been facing politico-constitutional crisis since the general election last October, as a result of military intervention and serious confrontations between the government of the military president and the major opposition parties, your editorial was timely and came as a silver lining in the clouds. This confrontation has not only impeded the progress of democracy under the 1973 Constitution but is also adversely affecting the efficiency and credibility of the armed forces.
There are many contentious issues between the parties but two of these are of far-reaching importance and grave consequences, i.e. after the illegal removal of president Rafiq Tarar, the appointment of Gen Musharraf as president in a fake referendum and the promulgation of the LFO by him as chief executive unconstitutionally amending the 1973 Constitution, depriving parliament of its supremacy and sovereignty and undermining the very concept of independence of judiciary.
In other words, the dictator has imposed military control over the nation’s affairs, with a civilian face in the garb of his king’s party and flanked by a host self-seeking persons and parties.
The appointment of Gen Musharraf as president, while retaining his uniform, and the LFO are the issues not only between the military ruler and major opposition parties but these also involve all other sections of society such as lawyers, doctors, intellectuals, human rights activists and the common man because the country has already suffered greatly with the repeated interventions of the military dictators.
Ironically, the apex court every time ratified the military takeover and its civilian government, with the result that the people do not have complete faith in the independence of judiciary. Consequently, the Pakistan Bar Council was constrained to publish a white paper against the judiciary recently, according to which the LFO is “an effort to rewrite the Constitution by a military ruler under the dubious authority conferred by the Supreme Court, which itself had no such authority.
“The provisions of LFO reflect the personal desire of Gen Musharraf to have the ultimate power to steer the ship of the state according to the role he fancies for himself. It is an exercise to enslave and subordinate the Constitution to the will of one person who is not even elected to any office and is a member of the military service of Pakistan. He is not even qualified to stand for the office of President of Pakistan.”
On the contrary, pursuant to the direction of the Supreme Court, the general was to hold a fair election, hand over power and restore supremacy of parliament, as solemnly pledged by him after his takeover on Oct 12, 1999, from an elected government of Mian Nawaz Sharif. It is, however, a different story that the unprecedented event of 9/11, followed by a sudden midnight telephone call to the general from a superpower, changed his thinking and the political roadmap of the country. Thereafter, his preference for personal over institutional mode of governance has once again landed the Quaid-i-Azam’s Pakistan into political whirlpools.
In view of such prevalent undemocratic state of affairs, you have very rightly voiced the sentiments of the nation and said that “repeated military interventions have left the country politically weak and unstable. Constitutional institutions have failed to strike root, the judiciary has been subject to manipulation and the political parties have not been given chance to grow and mature”, and emphasized that “for Pakistan, there are lessons to learn from the Turkish example ... the people alone can guard and sustain a nation’s ideological moorings or options through constitutionalism and democracy. No oligarchy, whosoever entrenched, can do this”.
There cannot be, therefore, two opinions that it is the real democracy (and not the “tailored” or “sustainable” democracy of the general’s imagination) and its requisite attributes and institutions, such as the supremacy of the 1973 Constitution, sovereignty of parliament, independence of the judiciary and the subservience of the army to civilian government, which alone can lead the country to real peace, progress and prosperity. The sooner we learn from the decades of devastating experiments of military interventions in the country and their inter-meddling with various institutions and the wisdom prevails on our law-makers to get rid of the LFO and the military ruler, the better for the country.
As regards the position of the general, being the leader of the frontline country of the ‘war on terror’, President George W. Bush, being such a powerful person and having immense wealth and resources of the world, can always find his substitute elsewhere to fight his war for occupation.
SYED IQBAL AHMAD
Karachi
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