| June 5, 2005 | Sunday | Rabi-us-Sani 27, 1426 |
It is again violence and fear
Chinks in the armour
TRUE, it is not always important for a government to put sweet words in an official policy to do quite a good job in any area of national life. A government can do a bad job with a sweetly worded policy on the table. Nevertheless, the officially formulated policy of a government on any matter of national interest provides citizens with a clue to its approach to the issue.
THAT the setting on fire of the KFC restaurant in Gulshan-i-Iqbal, which also led to the death of six of its employee, is a tragedy with deeper implications, something that is undeniable. It is not just another setback that tarnishes the image of the Sindh’s capital, but also yet another blow to the image of the country.
That the attitude of the government of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party-led four-party combine towards women’s democratic emancipation is quite undemocratic, if not downright reactionary, is clearly reflected in the women’s development policy that it adopted last year.
The policy, circulated recently among certain quarters, is almost a duplicate of the one adopted by the government of the Awami League in March 1997.
But while copying it, the incumbents have deliberately changed, as well as dropped, certain words, phrases and paragraphs, making the policy document much worse than before.
True, the League government did not always go by the dictates of the policy it adopted. But its failure provided the electorate to criticize the party for going back on its promises. The voters will now accuse the BNP for changing the policy for worse.
In its electoral pledges before the Oct 2001 parliamentary polls, the BNP said the party, if voted to power, would take initiatives for increasing the number of reserved seats for women in parliament and introduce direct election to those reserved seats.
The party got a landslide victory in the elections, and its leaders frequently boast of getting a larger share of women’s votes than its opponents. But it is common knowledge that the BNP did not introduce the system of direct elections to women’s seats in parliament.
However, the deviation of the BNP-led government from democratic principles was reflected in all political, economic and administrative sectors.
DIVERGENCE: The policy adopted by the AL-led government in 1997 said steps would be taken to provide women with ‘equal opportunities and share of resources, employment, market and businesses’.
But the one adopted by the present government dropped the idea of providing women with a ‘share of resources’, let alone an equal share. Underlining the importance of ‘economic empowerment of women’, the 1997 policy stressed ‘full opportunity (for women) of owning and equal right over controlling property, earned through better health, education, training, lifelong education, vocational/ technical training, information, employment opportunities, inheritance, resources, credit facilities and market management and their right to land’.
The policy also stressed the need for ‘enacting fresh laws required to put these rights into practice’. But the new policy dropped the idea of women acquiring property through ‘inheritance’, on the one hand, and the ‘right to land’, on the other.
The 1997 policy pleaded for ‘induction of a significant number of women in the cabinet, the highest decision-making forum (of the government), under the relevant articles of the constitution, if necessary’.
The 2004 policy diluted the need for inducting ‘a significant number of women’, particularly in the cabinet, by technically rephrasing the sentence. It opted for induction of ‘a significant number of women’ in the decision-making bodies ‘at all levels’, ignoring the importance of the presence of more women in the cabinet.
The government shows a similar attitude in its administrative policies.
The previous document spoke of ‘appointment of women in Bangladesh missions abroad, the University Grants Commission, Planning Commission and high positions of the judiciary’.
The current one removed the paragraph.
The 1997 policy committed the government to making ‘allout efforts to appoint women in 30 per cent of positions in all spheres of the policy-making process, including the government’s policy-making positions’.
But the Khaleda Zia government dropped the idea of the government making ‘allout’ efforts. It just used the word ‘efforts’, and rephrased the relevant portion to read as ‘gradually increase the existing quota’, instead of appointing women specifically ‘in 30 per cent of the positions’.
The message is obvious: the government is not ready to give 30 per cent of senior positions to women, maybe on the excuse of pragmatism.
The 1997 policy stressed ‘special steps for sound transportation arrangements, accommodation, restrooms, separate lavatories and day-care centres’ in areas largely populated by female workers. The new document dropped the word, ‘accommodation’, denying women a right recognized by international organizations.
The 1997 policy underlined the need for persuading women’s organizations and NGOs to initiate programmes to create an awareness among women about the need for active participation in politics.
The new government dropped the proposition, ignoring the positive role of a large number of small NGOs in the field. The BNP always boasts that it is more popular among women than the Awami League. But women would most probably see the attitude of the Khaleda government as a betrayal and are likely to punish the party through the power of the ballot at the next general election.
I remember seeing a CNN news focus on this story on Tuesday morning reflecting anxiety that the western mind would undergo, quite understandably.
On Friday morning, the PTV in its news during morning telecast focused on the suicide bombing and the general law and order with the channel’s reporters talking to the Sindh Home Minister, Rauf Siddiqui, as an extension of the drill. The media exercise was meant to comfort citizens, I would suggest. To reassure and underline that the culprits would be tracked down and that the law and order would be maintained at all costs. Good, though surprising, that the PTV is trying to look at reality in the face, squarely.
It certainly was good to see that the PTV too had taken notice of these recent incidents, which once again have made discerning and disturbed citizens ask many questions. Many of the questions are new. Each one perhaps underlining, or highlighting the fears of Karachiites, as local bodies elections are approaching fast.
Having picked up this theme for today, and proceeding with it makes one realise the difficult terrain that one treads on. So softly and carefully, one must tread, and keep the interests and future of the city in mind. Society appears more polarized today than ever before, and a hardening of stances and hearts seems to be taking place, and the blame game is being witnessed. There is a sadness that is more evident.
As one writes this column on Friday evening, there is a sense of relief that the day has passed off without any incident of real concern, and the apprehension, rather anticipation, that the protests, scheduled for today, against the MMA leader’s killing and suicide bombing may unleash further violence, disorder or bloodshed, has been misplaced, in a sense. But this uneasy calm (a cliché we are all familiar with) has often been deceptive. Officialdom and one-track bureaucracy have been proven wrong in their forecast about “what lies ahead?”
The question that haunts the mind is what kind of society lies ahead? In a somewhat narrow perspective, the question is whether the average citizen is going to feel safe about going to a KFC restaurant or to any other eating place.
If foreign restaurants symbolize foreign investment, or banks and other institutions for that matter, how does Pakistan send out its message that it is a safe society for foreign investment? Even domestic investment is unsafe, and the general climate questionable.
At this point, thought goes out to the Islamabad exercise that is underway to promote Pakistan’s soft image abroad. With tragedies like the one that took place at the Bari Imam shrine, near Islamabad, and the recent incidents in Karachi, it is not hard to imagine about the challenges that the image makers would be experiencing. “How much can they hide, and cover up? How much can the advertising agencies play down and misrepresent?” asked one colleague.
Let us come back to Karachi where I have heard families expressing their reservations about going to foreign restaurants and fast food eating houses.
One more question that has been asked is about the safety within the eating houses, and the exit routes that could be used in emergencies, not just for their employees but also for the customers. This is a valid question keeping into account the number of new restaurants being added onto the city’s menu.
With direct reference to the ill-fated KFC restaurant in Gulshan-i-Iqbal, many Karachiites have expressed surprise over the point that the six young men who died did not quit the restaurant when the mobs attacked it.
Anyway, there was also a day-long peaceful strike in Karachi on Wednesday, which brought life to a standstill, and which must have also brought back memories of so many other strikes in Karachi. That is also a way of tracing the history of how this city has lived through one crisis after another — defying the odds, and merrily building flyovers, bridges, parks and underpasses now.
THE Jamaat-i-Islami chief and president of the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal Qazi Husain Ahmad somewhat stunned other leaders of the six-party religious alliance on Tuesday by threatening to step down from the MMA presidency if the NWFP chief minister attended the National Security Council meeting. The JUI chief and secretary-general of the alliance Maulana Fazlur Rahman, to whose party the Frontier chief minister belongs, has responded with mixed feelings.
While urging Qazi Sahib to stay on, he described the Jamaat chief’s statements to the press as being in violation of an understanding reached earlier among the MMA leaders. For his part, the Jamaat chief has been unrelenting, especially after his party has come into increasing conflict with the ruling coalition partner, the MQM, in Karachi. He cannot entertain the idea of giving the government any cushion in the form of the MMA Frontier chief minister’s participation in the NSC meeting.
Though the murder of the former Jamaat MPA from Sindh, Mr Aslam Mujahid, this week in Karachi was condemned by the MMA, the alliance chose to condemn the killing by lumping it together its condemnation of the sectarian attack at the Bari Imam shrine and the suicide attack on a minority mosque in Karachi. This perhaps did not go down too well with the Jamaat, which has squarely placed the blame for the killing of its office-bearer on the MQM.
The truth is that the Jamaat is alone if it wants to have a fist-fight with the MQM in urban Sindh. The prospects do not look too good for the Jamaat, especially at a time when the MQM is flexing its muscles and seems ready to field candidates to counter those of the Jamaat in next month’s local body elections.
There is no indication from the centre just yet to suggest that the military bureaucracy would be able to restrain the MQM from entering the contest, like it did four years ago. Unless that happens, there is little hope for the Jamaat to form the next city government in Karachi.
On the other hand, as things stand, there already appear to be serious fissures within the religious alliance. If Maulana Fazlur Rahman is to be believed, all other component parties are in favour of the Frontier chief minister attending the NSC meeting. But by making this disclosure to the press, the Maulana himself may have been in breach of a said agreement among alliance leaders, which he earlier cited to censure Qazi Husain Ahmad.
LAHORIS warmed up to the visiting BJP president and the opposition Indian leader Mr Lal Krishna Advani on Thursday evening when he came to deliver a speech from a non-governmental forum. The hosts were the South Asia Free Media Association people, who had invited the right-wing leader to tea at a local hotel.
A good number of citizens belonging to various walks of life turned up at the function, among them senior poet Munir Niazi. Mr Advani warned at the outset that being out of government and thus having no control on the direction of the ongoing peace process, he would not entertain any questions on the subject. Instead, he said that his party wished the process to continue and hoped to find solutions that both India and Pakistan could live with.
He declared amid a thumping roar from his audience that there could be no compromise on the security and territorial integrity of either country for the sake of resolving the 57-year-old Kashmir dispute. This in turn meant that his party ruled out the redrawing of borders, which has been the BJP’s consistent stance all these years. The point was lost on over-enthused Lahoris, who gave him a loud round of applause.
Thus beckoned, Mr Advani candidly proceeded to say that Pakistanis must be happy to see that he had no horns on his head. This, he said obviously without divulging his own feelings on what he might have thought of us.
The Hindutva-centric leader said he was very pleased to see that Pakistan was going to restore the medieval temples at Katas, for which Indian and Pakistani archaeological departments would work hand in hand. Babari Masjid’s demolition, of course, featured in one of the questions posed by journalists after Mr Advani’s speech, but he brushed it aside, saying that was a very sad day in his life and that we should all move on from the past.
No one dared ask the Indian leader about the latest Hindu claim on the Taj Mahal. Perhaps the reason is that the fate of the Taj is not a sad reminder of a troubled past — just yet.
PRESIDING over a review committee meeting at the Punjab University earlier in the week, the Punjab governor directed the vice-chancellor to phase out the annual examination system in all departments, replacing it with the semester system. This, the governor said, was necessary to discourage learning by rote.
The university uses both systems side by side, with the department heads left free to decide as to which system suits their respective departments better. It remains open to question whether the introduction of the semester system alone will raise the standard of education being imparted by the university.
Though the semester system is more conducive to facilitating modern education, in the absence of a research-oriented curriculum it is not likely to bring about any radical change in standards. In a system that relies strictly on prescribed curricula even at the master’s level, it becomes irrelevant which examination system remains in force.
Universities elsewhere in the world have come to lay stress on research-based study programmes, where each individual student is at liberty to define and formulate his or her own specialized field of study and the sources required for it. This is then examined and approved by the dean concerned and research begun. Unfortunately, our universities still consider such an approach to post-graduation studies anathema to their rigid ways of working, and most teachers are not ready to face the challenge that it entails. Like they say, some things never change.
A REPORT in this newspaper sadly announced the closure of two more cinema houses in the city the other day. This time it happens to be two main theatres in what used to be Lollywood’s high street district of cinemas. Naghma on Abbott Road and New Imperial (erstwhile Moonlight) on McLeod Road have finally decided to call it a day.
Nostalgia aside, you can’t really mourn what has already become a dead horse, namely the cinema culture. Lahore, the report muses, had some 87 cinema houses back in 1978 as compared with today’s 25. If you ask the younger people or those looking to invest in the city, they would likely turn around and ask you why even have those 25 cinemas when no body goes there.
It’s a tough call. You cannot allow your film industry to die out bit by bit, impose restrictions on the screening of good foreign films, and expect that cinema houses won’t be pulled down to build something more lucrative in their lieu. —OBSERVER