| August 25, 2003 | Monday | Jumadi-us-Sani 26 |
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Wake-up time for women
PTCL’s reply
One-sided exploitation
Captain for national cricket team
Converting plot into park
Payment of utility bills
A lady in distress
Iraq under US occupation
Dues
Why ZAB failed
THIS is in reply to your editorial titled “Security and social sector” (Aug 7). You have raised very good points about the strength of armed forces, the defence expenditure and the greater burden on the national exchequer due to the following:
— Greater part of the GNP going to the defence expenditure in the name of security of the motherland at the cost of developments in the social sector;
— The top is heavy with rapid promotions;
— 27.7 per cent going to the pension of armed forces’ retired personnel.
The points are genuine beyond an iota of doubt. But this is only one side of the story. Similar criticism can be made of other institutions, particularly the failure of leadership due to many factors. The aim of writing this is not to start an unending discussion but to suggest to see the other side of the story.
The service with the armed forces (including the civil armed forces) is the toughest, demanding, full of sufferings and hardship at the individual level. Sufferings grow further when serving in remote areas for longer spells as this affects education of one’s children etc — all in the name of defence of the motherland for a supreme cause.
Since it is very difficult to continue with such a routine for a very long time, the result is early retirement, i.e. a soldier retires in 15 to 17 years of service (between 32 and 35 years of age). A small number of them rises to higher ranks who serve beyond the above-mentioned times/ages. Thus, the pension bill of national exchequer automatically increases.
The point here is whether we can manage without maintaining such a number of armed forces personnel and such a defence expenditure when we are facing 4-1/2 commands (army only) out of total 5 commands of the Indians against a conventional threat. Specially when the enemy challenges us every third or fourth year with a war, the armed forces personnel remain on high alert at the borders for months together (1984, 1987, 1992, 1997/1998 and, recently, 2001/2003). Thus, maintenance of large armed forces is the requirement of the national security.
The question now arises, how can we reduce the pensionary burden of the national exchequer which keeps increasing every year (maximum of the trained manpower gets early retirement and adds to the list of pensioners). These men remain dutiful during the tenure of their small service. They must have fought few natural calamities beyond the call of their duty, i.e. floods, earthquakes, internal security duties, guarding against sectarian troubles, dacoities and terrorists. How come, they cannot be utilized further? If they cannot continue their service in the armed forces, then we should think of getting maximum from them before giving pensionary benefits.
A government servant in any other department can continue service till the age of 60 years and then retire/get pension. Thus, if these armed forces men are utilized elsewhere and continue their service till 60 years of age, it will automatically reduce the pensionary burden on the national exchequer.
I would suggest to the government to stop this wastage of trained manpower by enacting a small amendment to the rules to transfer these men to other civil service departments, i.e. police, airport, intelligence agencies, educational institutes, transport, communications, industry on security duties etc. This practice already exists in civil bureaucracy where the individuals are employed/transferred from one department to another. No one should be allowed any pensionary or other benefits before acquiring 60 years of age except in case of death or those becoming medically unfit due to field service. Such a practice also exists in some countries.
I may also mention here that some of the armed forces personnel who retire early join other government services and enjoy double pensionary/other benefits, i.e. by joining police or civil armed forces etc.
Z.A.M.
Lahore
AN alert signal to all women who believe they are closer to having equal rights and can function as effectively as men.
To find an example, let’s review common weekly magazines published in the US. We all read them from time to time or at least flick through them occasionally. These intellectually inspiring publications that come from the “civilized” world of the glorious rich and famous where even the streets seem to shine (at least in the pictures they do) are on our supermarket shelves every day of the year.
Check out the front cover, I guarantee you nine times out of ten it will be a scantily-clad young woman posing seductively at the camera. Do not be fooled by that smile, someone knows exactly what’s happening. Sadly, I don’t think the woman on the cover knows the extent of her degradation or what she is inadvertently taking part in.
We ignore the fact that such a highly youth-oriented society is sending out the dangerous message that things they sell are eternally satisfying and that the utility of a thing will last forever just like the women on their magazine covers are always young and slim. I suspect their older models are quietly discarded when a wrinkler or two start to appear. However, we cannot ignore the fact that women are being used as pawns in the big marketing game. They are simply a marketing strategy and from there stems the problem.
Almost every billboard and poster advertising a mobile phone, an electric heater, a washing machine, even toothpaste has similar pictures. Let us even suppose that the women in question know what they are doing, that they are fully aware that they are being exploited and they don’t care as long as they make money out of it — that is even worse because that means they think they can do no better. Their self-esteem has fallen so low that they do not mind selling an image of themselves that doesn’t even vaguely resemble who they are.
This is a problem deeply embedded in society and one that is a threat to all women. With all the education and social services that the western world has to offer, they are no more the wiser. In fact, Noam Chomsky observed, talking on the subject of this kind of unawareness, “education is a form of enforced ignorance”. The so-called developed countries have merely cloaked the problem by trying to glamourize the image of women in order to sell their products and services more effectively. They have defined the concept of “glamour” and “beauty” for us.
Ladies and gentlemen, have a mind of your own. Do not be fooled. Our dignity is being threatened and we cannot take this for granted. It’s time we woke up.
AYESHA SALMAN ALI
Islamabad
THIS refers to the unsatisfactory reply by the PTCL Media Co-ordinator (MC) (Aug 9) to my complaint against the illegal use of my telephone by its staff. The point raised by me was to ask the PTCL to acknowledge its lapse in the matter, penalize the defaulter staff and apologize for the hassle caused to its client.
All this, including the problem of ‘multimetering’, was altogether overlooked, and in its reply condescending tone adopted instead, although the complaint itself was discarded by “...the committee did not find any justification...” assertion and by its magnanimity of offering to re-imburse the ‘meagre’ amount.
Perhaps only after the entry of private parties and competition in the telecom field, one might expect some attitudinal and performance change by the PTCL, which is now enjoying total monopoly which shows even in its correspondence. AMIR ALI ESMAIL
Karachi
TO reconcile to the principle of ‘no taxation without representation’, the local bodies system was devised and given unlimited taxation powers. Today, there is not a single aspect of human activity that is not taxed by these local bodies. Consequently, the volume of corruption has increased manifold while the percentage of population living below poverty line has shot up.
Just to quote one relevant example, now the building-inspector who previously had jurisdiction only within municipal limits goes about everywhere in the Muzaffargarh tehsil area, and when he spots construction activity going on anywhere outside the town, he ferrets out some discrepancy in actual construction and approved plan, catches the owner and imposes a heavy fine on him on the spot but only if he cannot propitiate him privately. The owner is also told to get his building plans approved by the tehsil council at a heavy fee. These inspectors are also in cahoots with the private draughtsmen in the city to whom they send their victims to get building plans drawn at an exorbitant price which is then shared between the draughtsman and the inspector.
In all civilized countries taxation is made reciprocal to the amount of facilities provided on the spot to the citizens, whereas in our country taxes are levied even in places where no civic facilities, such as sewerage, streets and lights have been provided, but rather even the hindrances such as Wapda lines passing over residential plots are not removed. This one-sided exploitation of people is at the root of instability bedevilling our nation since our independence.
Let us pause for a moment and think: how long shall we continue to base our policies on foreign dictates rather than on fulfilling our local needs?
MUHAMMAD SALEEM
Muzaffargarh
SOME TIME back I read two different statements, one by PCB chairman Gen Tauqir Zia and the other by Imran Khan, on the captaincy of the Pakistan cricket team. The PCB boss said: “If performance of Rashid Latif is good and if he is 100 per cent fit, he can lead the team. Imran Khan, on the other hand, favours Moin Khan as captain until the 2007 World Cup.
Both Rashid and Moin are fighters and both have their own identity. The present test record of Rashid Latif is better than Moin’s but when we talk about one-day cricket, it’s Moin who has played match-wining knocks for Pakistan many a time.
However, Yousuf Yohana may be considered for the captain’s slot up to the 2007 World Cup, because he can play good and solid cricket for the coming many years.
TARIQUE ABBASI
Jamshoro
THIS is with reference to an open plot that lies just down the Kalapul Bridge. It was once earmarked for construction of a low-cost housing project but it appears that this project has been abandoned. I would, therefore, request the authorities concerned to convert this plot into a public park, in the same manner as the Gutter Bagicha and Old Subzi Mandi have been proposed for parks.
The DHA, which is in the proximity of the area, has the required expertise and resources to develop it. This would not only add to the beauty of the area but provide a healthy atmosphere to the adjoining localities.
I hope the Pakistan Railways, which perhaps owns the plot, would contribute to the beauty of Karachi by earmarking it for setting up a park.
ASIF MIRZA
Karachi
BANKS in Pakistan have shown a significant improvement in offering customers value-added services, in addition to their traditional services.
These services include enhancement of credit cards members/customers’ base and offering it to the common man, ATM cards, debit cards, home loans, auto loans and ready cash. However, none of these banks has successfully launched a scheme for the payment of utility bills. Some local and foreign banks tried to break the barrier and launched a telephonic scheme for the purpose, but it could not become popular.
Whenever I pass by a bank and see a big queue of bill payers, between 16 and 60 years of age, I ask myself as to why these people are being penalized. Those who have gone through this experience understand what it really takes to wait in 35-38 degrees Centigrade under the sun; there is no shade and no place to sit outside the bill-payment windows at any bank. Since the bills can be paid only during the daytime, most of the people take half a day off from their work so that they can stand in the queue and make the payment.
I am sure if banks focus on this opportunity of providing a service to the people and launch a creative and non- traditional scheme for the utility bills’ payment, only by charging a nominal percentage on payment, they will not only make money, but also solve the problem of the general public.
ASIM SHAFIQ
Karachi
THIS is with reference to Kunwar Khalid Younus’s letter, “A lady in distress” (Aug 12). It is really awful to go through the times as this important Jewish lady went in Karachi.
I pray for her well-being and also that she get her property back from the people who grabbed it long ago.
Being a doctor, all I can do is to provide her with good nursing care and emotional support. I will be grateful to Mr Younus if he provides me with her telephone number and address so that I can talk to her myself and offer her whatever help is possible.
DR (MRS) NADIRA
MUDASSIR
Karachi
THE recent bombing of the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad again shows how insecure the Iraqi people are under the US occupation and how fragile the security is in that country.
The United States is asking countries like India, Pakistan and Turkey to send peace-keeping troops as the US now wants to put an international face to its occupation. What a great idea!
I remember India and Pakistan both opposed the war and the UN was left holding the bag when the US alone took the leap and attacked Iraq. Now when the situation in Iraq is seemingly getting out of hand, the US is trying to bring in other countries to share the death toll. Indian and Pakistani lives are precious too.
India and Pakistan will err if they send their troops to Iraq. The troops will be like sitting ducks as they will not be able to win over the Iraqis who are suffering more now under US occupation, as they do not have even basic amenities of life.
And since when Indians and Pakistanis have started supporting the occupiers? Have they forgotten how the life is when you are occupied by a foreign power?
SURINDER K. DHUPAR
Via email
I WAS selected for the UAE army by a UAE delegation at Rawalpindi at the office of the OPF in 1981. An agreement was signed which covered the period of 1981-97. In 1997 the UAE army got another agreement signed which covered the period of 1997-December 2001.
The UAE army paid less between 1994 and 1997 which amounts to Dhs57,900 against the 1981 agreement. Despite my repeated requests, they have not yet refunded me the said amount.
CH. RAHIM BAKSH
Kharian
THIS refers to Mr Irfan Hussain’s article titled “Why ZAB failed”, published on Aug 16.
First of all, let me say that it is profoundly shocking that some form of appraisal of Bhutto the man and‘ideologue’ would have been conducted by a former finance minister of the People’s Party (who is not even in the party anymore) rather than his own daughter, who is merely content to owning her own faction of the PPP, and that too sitting in exile.
The Bhutto phenomenon is not a unique phenomenon for a country like Pakistan, which decolonized in conditions of peripheral capitalism from the British rule, like other African and Asian states. The rise of populist tyrants like Bhutto is an unescapable consequence of unstable states like Pakistan, where democratic conditions are always under threat from military coups and one way the state responds is to foist populists through elections. There are striking comparisons between what Bhutto did to Pakistan and Juan Domingo Peron did in Argentina. Both have left a name that still resonates among the poor, but the parties that they founded have degenerated into personal politics and factionalism.
In my opinion, the biggest mistake Zulfikar Bhutto made was coming up with the slogan of ‘Islamic socialism’. Purists from both the Marxist and Islamist camps will tell you that there is no such thing as this bastardized hybrid in theory. Bhutto’s rhetoric ended up confusing the masses; they weren’t interested in political Islam anyway. It was ‘roti, kapra, makan’ that they hankered after.
Mr Irfan Hussain conveniently forgets that it was Bhutto who, even before his protege Zia, corrupted our socio-political environment by his inhuman constitutional amendment of declaring Ahmadis as non-Muslims. He did this to pander to the clerical elite, though it had no legal or political basis, and to date this amendment has become living hell for one of the most educated and liberal communities in Pakistan. Had Bhutto bravely taken up the social democratic mantle vacated by Jinnah, our history might have been different.
From a class point of view, Bhutto ultimately proved loyal to his class — feudal landlord. He became so dependent on them that he began to chuck out his more ideologically sound friends like J. A. Rahim, Mairaj Mohammad Khan and Rana Mukhtar. Such a state which veers first towards the left and then towards the right, trying to placate the masses and the bourgeoisie at the same time, without achieving definitively for any one class is known as a Bonapartist state, after the great counter-revolutionary French tyrant. True to his words, the French revolutionary Saint Just had said: “One who creates only half the revolution ultimately brings it down upon himself.”
Bhutto’s main failure was that he refused to allow any participation of the Pakistani masses in the running of government. This was done at a higher level by the Baathists in Iraq and Syria, by Nasser in Egypt and Sukarno in Indonesia. That is why all of them met the same fate as Bhutto. If the masses had been involved in creating the state from below rather than imposition from above, the history of Pakistan would have been different.
The need of the hour is not to create and elect more Bhuttos but to learn from his example; of course the era of Bhutto was a tremendous step for progressive politics in Pakistan, but his era is also synonymous with repression of the workers and peasants, in general, and the Marxist left, in particular. Any analysis of Bhutto must not leave these glaring facts out for the benefit of future generations.
RAZA NAEEM
Lahore
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