| October 3, 2003 | Friday | Sha’aban 6, 1424 |
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Haj operators
Women in PAF
A peace plan for Middle East
Gross disparity
Police performance
Tribute to Edward Said
Poor Paknet service in Mekran
Hashim Raza remembered
Re-conditioned cars’ import
Pakistan Dental Association
‘Torture in Jhang’
A roadmap for Kashmir
Political bandwagon
PIA affairs
THIS is with reference to the news-item “Muslims must arm themselves, says Mahathir,” (Dawn, Sept 17).
Mr Mahathir said: “We need modern weapons ... These are the weapons that can strike fear into the hearts of our enemies and defend us.” I considered Mr Mahathir a leader more pragmatic than chauvinistic, but it is a pity that bellicosity has become a way of life with our leaders.
If Islam is a religion standing for forbearance, tolerance, forgiveness and peace, aiming at universal brotherhood, why should Muslims have enemies at all? If evil is the enemy we are destined to fight and quell, then we have a greater share of it within our creed. The evil flourishes when there is digression from true religious values. History is witness to the recurring cycles of advancement and enlightenment of civilization in the wake of religious reformation, providing a spiritual and moral base, followed by degeneration and decline coinciding with erosion of religious mores.
What Muslims are in dire need of is moral rearmament rather than an arsenal. The former is not achievable with the influence of kings and queens, heads of state and their functionaries. A politician cannot teach morality. Also morality is not a commodity which a self-styled mullah, peer or faqir can sell. The religious philosophers can only theorize. The soothsayers, “qawwals” and “naatkhwans” serve only to lull the uninquiring mind into dormancy. Paying homage to mausoleums of saints is a ritual. The background of religious seminaries is arcane and the teaching there thrives on dogma.
Morality has its roots in the tenets of religion. The prescribed commandments when observed should not only reform the spiritual aspect of life but also the physical being, by harnessing one’s conduct in respect of God’s other creatures.
The revival of religion depends on guidance from God. Surah Hud (chapter 11) of the holy Quran relates how a generation of men is succeeded by another, thus explaining the reasons of rise and fall of nations. The Surah elaborates that worldly progress cannot sustain itself without observance of the Divine Commandments. Civilizations perish when deprived of God’s guidance.
The Surah provides food for thought to those who would like to be honest to God and man, using prayer as a weapon.
IHSAN-UL-HAQUE
Karachi
HAJ packages are being advertised in the media and through banners in streets. These are very attractive, but my experience has proved that things are otherwise.
A leading advertiser claims to be a pioneer in Haj services. I was their client, with my group of pilgrims. That it was a low-grade operation, we learnt much too late. After they got our hefty cheques, they forgot all about us and we fell victim to their inefficiency throughout the 15/18 days of our pilgrimage.
We had no clue, until the eleventh hour, as to what we would suffer. In the first week of January we got a rosy picture of the operation. Intending pilgrims attended an elaborate presentation at a hotel held by the organizers.
We were divided into groups, according to the chosen package. Special colours and numbers were assigned to each group. To facilitate the Haj process, each group was assigned a coordinator, whose cellphone number was printed on the reverse of our ID cards supplied by the company.
These coordinators did not do their assigned job. They even did not contact us on mobile. The colours and numbers we were assigned were of no use except as stickers on our luggage. Not one coordinator was available to any of the groups of Hajis throughout the 18-day package.
In Makkah, there was total confusion at the hotel. We did not know which rooms were for us. No notice from our Haj operators was put up in the lobbies.
We had paid extra for bus service but, because of the mismanagement, we were always late at rites. We took expensive taxis for ziarat despite having paid in advance for the bus service.
We were promised “buffet meals”. These meals turned out to be deplorable. They were served in the hotel’s basement parking area. The floor was dirty, with oily tyre marks. The food came in large cardboard cartons and plastic pails.
Intending pilgrims must take caution.
NAHID ANEES
Karachi
THIS is with reference to PAF’s advertisement (Feb 23) for the recruitment of women as aeronautical engineers and G.D. pilots in course 64 C.A.E., 2003.
I (PAF registration #14065) and a few other women, after passing the intelligence and academic tests, cleared the initial medical test and interview and were recommended for ISSB selection by the PAF selection centre, Karachi, in April last, and were asked to get prepared for that in June/July.
To my utter surprise, on inquiry in July, I was told that the policy of female recruitment in PAF had been dropped and no further processing in this regard was expected.
Of course, there must be some genuine and justified reasons for the sudden review of this policy, but at least the government is expected to explain the reasons for depriving Pakistani women of this opportunity.
The action is a violation of the Constitution which ensures equal rights to all citizens of Pakistan irrespective of their gender, creed and caste.
Moreover, Pakistani women are known for loyalty and sacrifice. They must also be allowed to prove their loyalty for the defence and solidarity of Pakistan. If Pakistani women can be parliamentarians, senators, ministers and ambassadors, why can’t they prove their talent and potential in the armed forces?
The president and the prime minister are requested to review the policy of female recruitment in the armed forces favourably.
HINA MANZUR and others
Karachi
THERE is a crying need to end the suffering of the Palestinians, but all sides in this conflict, including the US, Israel and the Palestinians, share responsibility for this tragedy.
My suggestion is that the United States (and other willing donors) should give Jordan, via the United Nations, $100,000 for each Palestinian family they allow to resettle in Jordan. In less than $100 billion we could see all Palestinians resettled east of the Jordan River, and all of the territory west of the Jordan (Samaria and Judea) would be then resettled by the Jews. No more bloodshed.
The $100,000 stipend to support each family would be paid over a period of 10 years, with about 20-30 per cent of this total allocated immediately for initial “start-up” infrastructure expenses.
The remainder of the total would be distributed over a nine-year period in monthly payments; this is to assure that sufficient funds would be available for education, health and related costs.
The programme would be administered and monitored by the United Nations. I believe that this would be a better peace investment than the
one billion dollars (plus) the United States is spending each week to occupy Iraq. The source of these funds is Recind Bush’s obscene tax breaks for the rich.
HAROLD S. KRAMER
Marblehead, MA, USA
BBC World News telecast a programme recently, showing the opulence of Hollywood
residents wherein it cost $70
to get a massage for a pet dog.
It seems preposterous to call the world a global village where one billion people subsist on less than one dollar a day and another billion on just two dollars a day. In other words, for a billion people of the world residing in Asia and Africa a massage of a dog in the US would mean 70 days of subsistence.
One can take notice of America’s arrogance when it bestrides the world like a colossus taking the people as insects to be trampled under its boots.
The atrocities perpetrated against the people of Afghanistan and Iraq in the name of freedom would put even a pharaoh to shame who could not devise WMDs or daisy cutter bombs and would only kill individual children.
The US ought to spend its extra wealth on the poor of the world instead of misusing it on the massage of its pets which may not even be in need of it and the very idea is revolting as no pet dog has even been massaged in the human history. It is only a system
of decadence of American
society like AIDs which is inflicted as a result of immorality of a so-called advanced civilization.
The absence of such abominations from Muslim countries is a testimony to the morality standards of Islam which could help the decadent West.
DR M. YAQOOB BHATTI
Lahore
THIS is with reference to S. Babar’s letter “Edhi pays ransom” (Sept 25). The writer asks a rhetorical question: “Is that we have come down to?” If Edhi could do without paying ransom, he would surely have done it.
It is a very sad reflection on the performance of our law-enforcement agencies. Even those who take the Hippocratic oath are no better! For greed the sky is the limit.
However, poor salary may be one of the reasons for the poor performance of our police. When I was a clerical officer in the UK civil service, roughly in Grade 16, my clerical assistant, roughly in grade 15, resigned and joined police service as policeman with a starting pay of grade 17, that of an executive officer in Pakistan.
In England, a policeman is a friend, a guide and a guardian of the common man. His job is hazardous. His authority is circumscribed by responsibility, answerability and working at odd hours most of the time, though working in his vernacular he need not have high qualifications. His wages are commensurate. He need not barter his morality for money. You can see his backbone on his face. There lies the difference.
MOHAMMAD ANWAR
Lahore
EDWARD W. Said’s death is a great loss. He was an international ambassador of peace and freedom, and a crusader for secular justice. His contribution is clear vision and moral energy in order to turn catastrophe into ethical challenge and scholarship into intellectual obligation. His commitment to his people, as well as to his own talents, has made him the most important intellectual of the latter half of the 20th century.
When for the first time he expressed interest in the politics of cultural representation, he wrote: “If the Arab occupies space enough for attention, it is a negative value. He is seen as a disrupter of Israel’s and the West’s existence, or... as a surmountable obstacle to Israel’s creation in 1948. Palestine was imagined as an empty desert waiting to burst into bloom, its inhabitants inconsequential nomads possessing no stable claim to the land and, therefore, no cultural permanence.”
In an editorial for The New York Times, he declared: “The Jews are not a chosen people, but Jews and Arabs together, one as oppressor and the other as oppressed, have chosen each other for a struggle whose roots seem to go deeper with each year, and whose future seems less thinkable and resolvable each year.”
Said was displaced and dispossessed of his home and homeland by the cataclysmic events of 1948. He eventually moved to the US in 1951, but to live in exile is to exist somehow in an embattled relationship with time. Said’s dissonance’s with the temporal, however, des not remain on the philosophical level. Tirelessly on the side of the weak and forgotten, he became primary spokesperson in the West for the Palestinians.
He opposed the Oslo agreement for several reasons, including the fact that the agreements said nothing about the forgotten majority of Palestinians who now reside outside of Gaza and the West Bank. He always said that the best response to terrorism is justice, not more repression. In his death the world has lost a great fighter.
HAMEED BALOCH
Karachi
THE Mekran division, which is composed of Panjgur, Turbat, Gwadar, is one of the most important divisions of Balochistan because of its important sea and land routes which connect it with Iran and other Gulf countries.
This area has assumed great importance since the military government led by President Gen Pervez Musharraf launched a number of development projects, in general, and the Gwadar deep-sea port, Mirani Dam and Coastal Highway, in particular.
But the Mekran division, which is destined to play a key role in the country’s development in the coming days with the completion of the projects mentioned above, is still without modern communication facilities. For example, the facility of the internet — the great facilitator of businesses available to the people of the Mekran division — is very poor.
Paknet, the official Internet service provider, is the only ISP working in the area but the Internet users are facing scores of problems in getting connected to the net because of the poor service.
Those using Paknet’s pre-paid cards usually do not get connected easily. I would like to request the relevant authorities to solve this problem without any further delay.
MALIK SIRAJ AKBAR
Mekran
SYED Hashim Raza was an institution in himself. I have yet to come across anyone who would disagree with this statement. An era, an age of honesty, has died with him.
There is immense information available on Syed Hashim Raza’s life and works and I would restrict myself to my own perceptions. He belonged to a day and age where people were not judged by the car they drove or the ‘phase’ they lived in, but by their intellect, taste, character and honesty. Like the last broken diamond of a beautiful ring, he has left us bereft of hope. Will we be able to produce another Syed Hashim Raza in this country in our lifetime?
IMRAN OWAIS KAZMI
Karachi
IMPORT of re-conditioned cars should not be allowed because of the negative impact it will have on Pakistan’s flourishing automobile industry. It will only increase the smuggling of cars just as it did when the yellow cab scheme was launched.
According to projections, the demand for cars in Pakistan is expected to grow three-fold in the next few years. The government should, therefore, encourage the existing assemblers to expand and new ones to set up plants.
Banks have been helped by the increased demand for leasing. The import of reconditioned cars will affect them too.
FAWWAD SHAFI
Karachi
THIS is with reference to a news-item on Sept 4 regarding a national symposium on dental education organized by the Pakistan Dental Association (PDA), Sindh Chapter.
This symposium was organized by the Karachi branch of Pakistan Dental Association. The PDA Sindh chapter does not exist. Even the Karachi branch’s tenure expired more than a year ago and it has not yet held its elections.
A CONCERNED DENTIST
Karachi
THIS is with reference to your editorial ‘Torture in Jhang’ (Sept 29. Landlords and feudals in Pakistan have long committed atrocities against the people within their spheres of influence with impunity. Some of these feudals even have private jails that are used to punish those who do not follow their wishes. Our parliament is dominated by many of these feudals, who stand in the way of any legislation that would reduce their power.
The case of Tassawar Abbas is not an isolated event; it is the norm in areas dominated by these ruthless feudals.
It is about time the establishment in Pakistan enacted legislation to limit the power of these feudals by land reforms. This is something that should have been done a long time ago. The government must ensure that these feudals are not above the law anymore. This would require a firm stand by Gen Musharraf, and not the half-hearted efforts we have seen from him in the recent past.
TAIMUR MASUD KHAN
Philadelphia, PA, USA
THE Kashmiris want independence, not autonomy. After waiting for a long time for the result of the UN resolutions, deliverance of which was committed by India’s first prime minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, the Kashmiris have, in desperation, resorted to an armed uprising for their independence. Their attitude tells that they will settle for nothing less.
Would it not, therefore, be wise for both India and Pakistan that on their respective independence days they start considering granting the Kashmiris their independent state which they will rule and run themselves. Give them a chance to learn what it means to run a state. The leadership crisis, which we see in their campaign, will be a test for them, and if they survive that, they rightly deserve to be independent.
M. M. KHAN
Karachi
IT is not that some factions or parties have merged. Only some small political entities have joined the ruling bandwagon, at a price. Having Shujaat Hussain as a leader is akin to having no leader. All the joining “leaders” would be accommodated in due course and “they” would “tune” their noises to the wagon-master’s till the time they feel they are being compensated properly.
FAYYAZ FAIZI
Lahore
THIS refers to a recent article by a member of PIA’s board of management. It was disturbing to note that the PIA management chose to buy aircraft on lease, then bought the outdated Boeing 747-300s from Cathay Pacific at an enormous cost and rejected Singapore Airlines’ advanced Boeing 747-400s offered for a much less amount.
Recently, PIA again announced that it planned to buy A-310s from Airbus. These aircraft are already outdated. We need proper and advanced aircraft. The authorities concerned should look into the matter before striking a deal.
JUSTICE (R) MIAN SHAFI
Lahore
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