| May 26, 2005 | Thursday | Rabi-us-Sani 17, 1426 |
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Flawed precepts
Popular comedian
PRESIDENT George Bush and President Hamid Karzai might have agreed to have a strategic partnership between their two countries, but their meeting in Washington on Monday did not exactly take place in a very congenial atmosphere. The visit was preceded by two most unpleasant incidents — violent protests by Afghans against the desecration of the Holy Quran in Guantanamo and reports about the torture and death of two Afghan suspects at the American air base at Bagram. Even though America talks so much about upholding human rights, its record in this matter has hit rock bottom. Abu Ghraib has now paled into insignificance in the wake of reports about the shocking nature of torture at Bagram and Guantanamo. At Bagram, two Afghans were tortured to death by their American interrogators after being subjected to every imaginable kind of abuse — a UN spokesman called the torture “utterly unacceptable” and “an affront to all that the international community in Afghanistan stands for”. The prisoners were Afghan nationals, and it is the Kabul government that had the right to try them and give them justice. The US military does not give Afghan detainees the status of prisoners of war, calls them “enemy combatants” and insists that they are being treated according to the Geneva Conventions, although that seems patently not to be true. President Karzai was so shocked by the reports of torture and death that he went public with his denunciation of the abuse shortly before leaving for Washington. He called for punishing those involved in the torture and murder.
President Bush, too, had his own complaints to make when he met Mr Karzai for the first time after the latter was elected president last October. The most important of America’s complaints is the phenomenal rise in poppy cultivation. Whatever else the Taliban might have been, they were hard on narcotics, for they had succeeded in virtually eradicating poppy cultivation and the manufacture and smuggling of heroin. According to UN statistics, poppy cultivation last year increased to 51.7 million acres, though US statistics put it at 87.5 million acres, with Afghanistan producing 90 per cent of the world’s opium. Corruption has reached a stage where most ministers, governors and officials at the lower levels are all beneficiaries of the drug trade. This has prompted the Afghan Human Rights Commission to say that the country has become a narco-state.
While the American complaint on this issue may be justified, Washington has put too much emphasis on a military solution to Afghanistan’s problems. At present, there are 18,000 US troops there, and 80 per cent of America’s annual $15 billion spending goes to the military. Yet violence is on the rise, as seen in the recent kidnapping of foreign aid workers and the attacks on security forces by the Taliban. Post-war reconstruction seems to have taken a back seat. The Nato-led International Security Assistance Force has confined its activity to Kabul and Kunduz, leaving the rest of the country open to lawlessness. During his recent visit to Brussels, President Karzai pleaded for more European troops. It would be better if Kabul and its friends put more emphasis on economic reconstruction. Pakistan, in spite of its own problems, has pledged $100 million to Afghanistan’s reconstruction. The people of this country share ties of language and culture with the Afghan people and have been interacting with them for centuries. Perhaps Islamabad could take the lead in organizing a regional effort and motivate the Saarc counties into doing their bit to help Afghanistan rebuild itself.
IN yet another gruesome example of tribal justice, two men have been publicly executed by a firing squad in Orakzai Agency for allegedly killing a taxi driver, while a third, accused in the same murder, failed to turn up at the jirga that pronounced the verdict. The jirga stated that if the absconding accused was not produced before the council, his uncle would be executed in his place. It is flawed judgments such as these that raise questions about the social legitimacy of the country’s tribal councils that have, in effect, created a parallel legal system. Tribal councils are now an anachronistic institution. In the past, they might have performed useful functions, but under the changed circumstances, their credibility is being questioned. Those who man them might think they are operating in remote areas, protected by their isolation, but their verdicts are picked up by the print and electronic media.
And, as an increasing number of press reports indicate, instead of adjudicating between right and wrong, many such forums in the country are guilty of abusing a wide range of human rights. By sanctioning gang-rape, child marriages, and collective punishment in order to redress local grievances, they are striking at the very roots of civil society and regressing to an era when state institutions were unknown and national boundaries had yet to be demarcated. Obviously, in a place like Orakzai and others that are far removed from the national mainstream, it is to be expected that tribal forums would have a mediatory role to play in settling quarrels. But surely it is about time the government took a stricter view of the serious anomalies that exist in this perverse system of justice and implemented measures to remove them. True, its own ranks consist of many politicians who, as products of feudalism, patronize the jirga system. However, this should not prevent the government from setting parameters for the functions of these councils so that their actions are kept within the ambit of federal law and do not, in any way, infringe on human rights and dignity.
WITH Rangeela’s death on Tuesday after a prolonged illness, Pakistan has lost one of its most famous comedians who will be remembered for his roles in many films. During his career which started in 1957 when he first appeared in ‘Jatti’, Rangeela grew into a multi-talented actor who could make the audience roll with laughter and also cry; he also dabbled in script-writing, playback singing and direction. He worked in nearly 300 films, both Urdu and Punjabi, and often his mere appearance on the screen was enough to make people laugh. His dialogues were interspersed with ad-lib comments that exposed social and political humbug — the hallmark of all good comedy. ‘Insaan aur Gaddha’ was a biting satire on our society and politics.
There may not have been any great shades of subtlety in Rangeela’s acting, but looking around it is hard to see a replacement. The decline that set in a long time ago in Pakistan’s film industry has not been arrested. Cinema, once one of the most popular avenues of entertainment in the country, is unable to lure people away from TV — and pirated Indian movies available on DVDs — because few films are being made of competitive standards. Even the comedians in our movies today are mostly of the slapstick variety which only appeals to a very small group of cinegoers. This seems true for television as well where wit in dialogue has been replaced by antics that are, in short, not funny. Our once popular TV dramas have also lost their lustre. Lack of freedom and the spirit of inquiry have turned us into a dour nation. We seem to have forgotten the capacity to laugh at ourselves and at our own follies. Rangeela provided a break in the monotony, and will be missed.