| 09 November 2004 | Tuesday | 25 Ramazan 1425 |
'Alms and the man'
Division or unification?
'Hubris and lies rewarded'
Tensions in Punjab towns
Campus politics
Those coming after Arafat
Honour killings
Afghanistan elections
Rule of law
Re-election of Bush
SBP complaint cells
Retirement age of PhDs
Kofi Annan
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Your editorial "Shallow ostentation" (Nov 8) rightly commends the Supreme Court for overriding the Punjab law permitting the serving of one dish at weddings. But there are other critical issues raised by the verdict which need to be commented upon.
First, the verdict legitimizes state's interference in the private lives of citizens to curb a big social evil, ostentation. Fair enough.
By the same logic, the recently passed law on honour killing should also be struck down as it fails to redress the anomaly of a murderer getting pardoned by the relatives of the murderer under the provisions of another law called Qisas and Diyat.
If state's interference in marriages is necessary, then its interference in murders and pardoning of murderers by relatives in some circumstances is even more crucial.
Second, marriage and divorce are subjects on the concurrent list of the Constitution. Both federal and provincial governments can legislate on the subjects in this list. However, the Constitution requires that a provincial legislature cannot legislate if a federal legislation already exists on the statue. Since a federal ordinance is already in the field, the Punjab Marriages Act 2003 has been struck down.
The unanimity of the 1973 Constitution was based, among other things, on a solemn commitment that the concurrent list would be revised after 10 years. The provinces were assured that they would be given more subjects and the shared authority of the federal government to legislate gradually done away with.
The SC verdict would have been more progressive if it had also commented on the issue of the concurrent list. It would have given some strength to the treasury members of the recently set up parliamentary committee on Balochistan and provincial harmony to make bold and imaginative recommendations.
SENATOR FARHATULLAH BABAR
Islamabad
(2)
While welcoming the decision of the Supreme Court restoring the ban on wedding meals and other wedding extravaganzas, I would like to appeal to all my fellow citizens and community organizations to respect this law in letter and spirit. I would particularly appeal to the "big shots" (in uniform and out of uniform) not to violate, circumvent or bypass this law in the genuine and larger national interest.
The citizens community boards (CCBs) of the local government can play an effective role in enforcing this law at all levels throughout the country.
NAZIM F. HAJI
Karachi
(3)
This is apropos of the news report "SC restores ban on wedding meals" (Nov 6).
The apex court has proved to be just as much a social commentator as a court which bases its decisions only on interpretation of the law. Other than the ratio decindi that declared a provincial law conflicting with a federal law nullified, the obiter dictum of the judgment on social evils and distasteful ostentatious displays of wealth should best be kept out of a courtroom and left to sociologists.
HYDER ALI KHAN
Islamabad
'Alms and the man'
Columnist Hafizur Rehman seems quite confused over the issue of giving alms to the poor ("Alms and the man", Nov 3).
First, he advocates giving alms to beggars, a practice that means that those who are really needy do not get charity and instead professionals are given the money instead. Mr Rehman may not be aware that in Karachi, some professional beggars earn in excess of Rs35,000 in Ramazan thanks to the generosity of those who do not make the effort to find out who they are giving their money to. This money is spent on drugs, as well as buying more children who in turn would beg on the streets.
In most major cities (barring Islamabad), begging spots are sold by a begging mafia who charge about Rs100 per day from the beggar for a particularly good location.
While giving alms is a good thing, one should see whether the person is actually in need or using this as a source of income. Isn't it strange that one has to struggle to find good domestic help in Karachi but able-bodied women beggars with children on whom they apply layers of Burnol to give them the look of being burnt, continue to proliferate?
Abdus Sattar Edhi says that instead of doling out money to the beggars on the street, one should collect the money and give it in one go to some charity of choice.
After donations to religious organizations, the next biggest recipients of our largesse are these beggars on the road, and that is why they continue to proliferate. It may be noted that Pakistanis rank as one the biggest givers of charity in the world in terms of our per capita income.
While the columnist does have a point when he says that those who sell instead of beg should be encouraged and not bargained with, a better way to help people would be to collect money and participate in teaching such skills to the poor that they can use so that they can learn something and not have to beg.
KHAN ABDUL AZIZ
Peshawar
Division or unification?
Responding to the call of President Gen Musharraf, the media has initiated a wide-ranging debate on his Kashmir proposals.
The general is of the view that feedback on Kashmir and contiguous regions in contrast to the main valley would help in finding ways to resolve the longstanding dispute. The general's accent on demographic and geographic make-up of the region shows that something of "give and take" is on his mind.
"After identifying these regions, there could be gradual demilitarization, following which the two sides could discuss whose control these areas should be under", he said.
In retrospect, the people in this region have never benefited from theories of division. Their polarization on communal lines resulted in an unending cycle of hatred and repression.
At the time of partition millions of people were massacred and millions more dispossessed for supporting or opposing division.
When the people were divided on the basis of ethnic nationalism, Pakistan broke into two.
Even the rivers were divided, with India in control of the Beas, Sutlej and the Ravi, and Pakistan in control of the Chenab, Jhelum and the Indus.
When there were free-flowing rivers, there was no water shortage in Sindh. There was enough fishing and farming.
Now the people have been asked to consider the division of Kashmir to resolve the dispute.
When the earlier divisions of people, geography and rivers have not resolved problems, how can this one resolve the Kashmir issue?
MANZOOR CHANDIO
Karachi
'Hubris and lies rewarded'
In his Nov 5 column "Hubris and lies rewarded" on the US election, Mr Ayaz Amir accuses the information minister of spreading disinformation and proceeds to do the same.
In defending Syria, the writer praises "Syria for supporting the Palestinians". Few statements can be further from the truth. Syria has killed more Palestinians, civilians and otherwise, in a single three-year period of 1982-1984 than Israel has in the last 60 years. I do not know if Mr Amir has ever heard of the 'Camps War' of Lebanon when the Syrian army and its local militia allies carried out massacres in Palestinian camps in Tyre, Sidon and finally in Tripoli in an effort to eradicate the Palestinian presence there.
Your own sister publication Herald twice carried the story of Palestinian children reduced to eating cats and dogs in Tripoli during the winter of 1983-1984 because the Syrian army in Tripoli would not allow food into the refugee camps until the PLO capitulated completely.
If the killing of Palestinians is wrong, it is wrong no matter who does it. Either it is wrong or it is not wrong. Mr Amir cannot pick and choose who he indicts.
ESAM SOHAIL
Kansas City, Missouri, USA
Tensions in Punjab towns
News that a local MPA from Hafizabad, with other family members, was booked for opening fire on an unruly mob (Dawn, Nov 2) which was protesting against the high-handedness of hospital staff only illustrates the kind of tensions that are surfacing in small towns of Punjab.
An analysis of this incident reveals that neither was at fault - the MPA was trying to save his skin when he attacked and the mob was on a rampage after the death of a man who was not given timely treatment at the local government hospital.
If you think things are bad in major cities in Pakistan, one needs to visit the smaller towns that have sprung up over the past or so decade. The rise in population has outpaced whatever development work has been undertaken.
Civic amenities are almost non-existent and the writ of the state is confined to the nazim's office or the thana.
Unless some attention is paid to these towns, and a major initiative is taken to address their problems, both in terms of civic amenities and issues of governance like law and order, only doom and gloom can be predicted for those living there.
CH. HASHMAT ALI
Hafizabad
Campus politics
The statement by Punjab Governor Khalid Maqbool that there is no room for politics on the campus (Dawn, Nov 1) shows the lack of understanding of university affairs by the government.
After the ban on student unions, violence increased 10 times on major campuses in the country. Favoured student parties are allowed to operate by the government and others are harassed while all this time the government contends that there is a ban on campus politics.
The ability of student parties to play politics on the campus, without being accountable to their electorate in the absence of any elections, only worsens the situation.
For sanity to be restored to the campus, student unions have to be restored.
IRSHAD KHAN
Lahore
Those coming after Arafat
There has been comment ever since Yasser Arafat became seriously ill last week about his role in the Palestinian struggle. This is a man who unlike leaders of most liberation struggles was written off many times in the past - from the Black September uprising brutally crushed by the Jordanian army (1970) to the death camps of Sabra and Shatila - but who always managed to return to the world stage with renewed vigour.
However, if Yasser Arafat is credited with putting the issue of Palestine on the world map, he is also responsible for compromising with feudal Arab oligarchies. He was creative enough to steer the Palestinian question clear of the whims of the pan-Arabists of the 1960s, but he was also blind enough to subordinate the cause of his people to the self-preservation of Arab elites, which ironically led to his own self-preservation.
Sadly, Arafat's increasingly authoritarian practices led to the distancing away of many fine Palestinian progressives such as Faisal Husseini and Hanan Ashrawi, who could have offered an alternative to fundamentalist leaders like Shaikh Yassin (who at one time was an instrument of Zionist attempts to undermine the secular PLO).
The only other Palestinians with a stature comparable to Arafat, who could have led the PLO after Arafat, were Abu Jihad and Abu Iyad, two fine Palestinians assassinated by Israel, and Abu Ali Mustafa of the PFLP, shot in cold blood by Zionist agents. Marwan Barghouti is the only PLO insider who has a genuine mass base with the Palestinian people, but is now in Israeli detention.
The veteran Marxist-Leninist, George Habbash, leader of the PFLP, remains little known in the outside world but enjoys such a great reputation among Palestinians and anti-imperialists that his group has been labelled as 'terrorist' by the US.
There is no doubt that if Arafat's successors attempt to sell out the Palestinian struggle to the Zionists and US, they will be exposed before their own people in a similar way that the second intifada in 2000 exposed Arafat's weaknesses and inability to lead the Palestinian struggle. This exposure might either strengthen the hands of Islamic Jihad or Hamas or/and make a direct intervention by Israel possible, which might take advantage of inter-Palestinian strife to push the Palestinians into Jordan.
Both Ahmad Qurei and Mahmoud Abbas are mediocrities who owe their positions not to a popular base among the Palestinian people but personal loyalty to Arafat.
The situation in the occupied territories is such that any 'leader' who attempts to compromise with the Christian-Zionist axis will be swept away by the tide even if it means throwing out the secular leadership and anointing an Islamist one. We can see this already on offer in the Iraqi resistance against US imperialism.
Another issue the post-Arafat leadership must address is the debate over whether a correct solution to Palestinian woes is a bi-national state for both Palestinians and Israelis or two states for the two nationalities, which would (like our own Pakistan and India) be born amid exclusivist and competing nationalisms.
Those coming after Arafat must build upon his successes (which are few) and learn from his weaknesses (which are many), prevent the Palestinian struggle from degenerating into an unprincipled, ethnonationalist struggle rather than a principled, ideological national liberation struggle for the self-determination of the Palestinian people and against Zionism, and wean it away from dependence on Arab handouts so that it is liberated Palestine and not imperialist-occupied Iraq which becomes the model for democracy in the Middle East.
RIDA GHAFFARI
Lahore
Honour killings
I was horrified to read Ms Fauzia Wahab's letter "Honour killings" (Nov 7). It is disgusting to note that a precious human life was lost once again in the name of self-proclaimed honour. This custom has claimed many a life in our country and fails to elicit any response from the authorities. The murdered woman had sought police protection but the police did not prevent a needless and tragic death.
In order for us to combat this antiquated and barbaric custom, the attitudes and beliefs of the people will need to be changed. Such a change can be achieved through education, awareness and last but not least implementation of strict penalties.
The media must play its role to highlight the issue and educate the public, and the authorities must act to punish the perpetrators of crime against women. The indolence and apathetic behaviour of the authorities must be challenged and police officers involved should be reprimanded for failing to prevent this crime from happening.
DR RAFAY SHERAZI
Cork, Ireland
Afghanistan elections
The Afghans being economically and politically exploited and mentally and physically tortured by contenders for power since 1979 recently got an opportunity where they showed the rest of the world that rationality and wisdom still largely prevail in the war-ravaged country.
Despite the cold, chilly weather and a risky atmosphere, they somehow reached polling stations and cast their votes in favour of Hamid Karzai who won the election with a clear margin and proved that now was the time to end reliance on force.
We hope Hamid Karzai will avoid any type of composite government and take a bold initiative to exclude warlords who have played with the nation in the name of jihad and Islam.
ABDUL WALI KHAN
Takht Bhai Wali
Rule of law
The statement by Chief Justice Nazim Siddiqui that litigation is on the increase in Pakistan due to the absence of socio-economic justice and rule of law (Dawn, Nov 2) is a cause for concern.
The fact that the CJ himself admits that justice is being delayed because of a high number of cases also adds to the problem. It is a classic scenario where the prevailing situation leads to more litigation and more litigation leads to delays in justice. Is there any way we can break this vicious circle?
NOMAN AHMAD
Sargodha
Re-election of Bush
Americans have re-elected George W. Bush as their president. This proves that watching too much television for too long reduces the thinking capabilities of the human mind.
Americans have re-elected a person who is responsible not only for the death of hundreds of thousands of innocent humans in Iraq and Afghanistan but also the killing of more American soldiers than those killed in any of the wars the US has fought since the Vietnam war. His actions have brought home terrorist threats and led to frequent increases in petroleum prices around the world, unsettling the global economy.
It is amazing to think that Americans did not consider these factors before casting their votes for Mr Bush. But then again they are the same people who elected a president who did not even know the names of some foreign presidents and the locations of some foreign countries (as shown in the movie Fahrenheit 911).
SHAHRYAR KHAN BASEER
London, UK
SBP complaint cells
Some months back, the SBP had issued a circular asking banks and financial institutions to set up a channel to address customer complaints. The SBP said that such a mechanism should be in place and it would monitor this once it was operational.
So far nothing seems to have happened on this front. And yet, complaints against banks continue to rise. For example, there has been no action taken on why some HBL branches charged Rs10 per application for PPL shares that were floated earlier this year. This lack of follow-up is perplexing.
RASHID SIDDIQI
Karachi
Retirement age of PhDs
I agree with Mr Rafay bin Ali's suggestion (Oct 10) that the retirement age for teachers who have done their PhD after attaining the age of 50 should be extended to 65 years.
The government will be able to overcome the shortage of qualified teachers in public universities.
DR MOINUDDIN GHORI
Karachi
Kofi Annan
This refers to the article "Can Kofi Annan breathe new life into the UN?" (Dawn, Encounter, Nov 6).
The answer is, no.
The writer could have asked the relevant question: is Kofi Annan tired of being nobody?
IFTIKHAR HAIDER
Islamabad
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