| August 2, 2005 | Tuesday | Jumadi-us-Sani 25, 1426 |
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Suicide bombings
Medical education
NWFP, Punjab floods
Marine turtles
‘Path to paradise’
Street crime
President’s address
Muslims in the West
Women’s vote
‘Madressahs reforms’
DR PERVEZ Hoodbhoy and others while objecting to HEC programmes have criticized the commission for producing PhDs in large numbers. One entirely disagrees with the critics. It is an established fact that a PhD degree holder is better equipped to teach and guide research. University teaching is not confined to teaching. Research is an important component of education in universities; we do need highly qualified professionals to improve the quality of education, get out of the state of underdevelopment, under take rapid industrialization and self-reliance. Can there be two opinions about it? So why this hue and cry against HEC PhD programmes?
To term it a waste of money is a big joke. The government spends huge money on defence, foreign visits of officials and a number of programmes that produce little that is good. So what is the big deal if a few hundred million rupees are spent on providing education to youth who are the real asset of this country?
As far as the question of quality is concerned one appreciates the worries of the critics of HEC but I feel Dr Attaur Rehman is concerned about quality and the HEC has taken adequate steps to ensure quality of the PhDs produced in the country. I am referring to the minimum criteria for a PhD laid down by the HEC including international GRE, minimum credit hours of course work, dissertation evaluation by two foreign experts, publication of papers in indexed journals, restriction over number of students enrolled with one supervisor, etc.
Recently, the HEC chairman said substandard degrees would not be accepted by the HEC. I am surprised Dr Hoodbhoy completely ignores these steps while criticizing the HEC. Please let the HEC do its work. Sustainability and continuity of these policies are required to improve higher education and ultimately the quality of life in Pakistan.
BADAR ZAMAN
Lahore
IT is interesting to read the criticism of Dr Pervez Hoodbhoy on HEC projects and the clarification from the HEC staff. It is a good debate and brings out the shortcomings of the HEC as an organization and provides a chance to improve the policy-making process within the commission.
One believes that no organization is perfect, especially in the beginning, and criticism like this helps. The HEC people should be thankful to the people who look through the HEC’s working mechanism and provide feedback to improve upon the shortcomings and loopholes.
One would like to add that a conflict of interest results in influencing decisions. It is quite to be expected that if the HEC staff get allotted a huge amount of money for projects headed by themselves, people will point fingers. The project of Dr Saadia Chishti is obviously a flawed one, and it can be expected that her official position on the HEC governing board may have resulted in approval of her grant.
It is sad that the HEC staff while tackling criticism become personal. It will be good if they do not get personal and do not keep changing their stance on allocation of money to try to defend their co-workers.
It should be guaranteed in the working rules that no person who is head of the committee concerned can nominate himself/herself as the best teacher.
It will also be appreciated if critics offer some remedies (possible solutions) for the shortcomings within the available limited human resources of the HEC.
RIAZ NASEER
California, USA
IN her article “Muslim communities must be treated as allies, not enemies” (Dawn, July 15), Madeleine Bunting has cited a British Muslim’s introspective views. Plenty of people are really angry about Iraq, but they don’t give up their life at 19. There’s a missing link here — what makes a boy commit suicide? It can only be if he thinks that what lies in store for him is better than life.
References to violence in the Holy Quran have to be contextualized. New thinking is desperately needed.
However, one must first concur with an observation made by another correspondent recently: it was not love of Islam (and, by extension, of a better afterlife) that triggered the London bombings. It was pure and simple hatred for the policies and actions of the sole superpower and its allies. This seems to be further supported by the fact that quite a few of the 19 people who attacked the WTC and the Pentagon on 9/11 had a lavish lifestyle, not the kind expected from a religious extremist.
One can’t expect such people to commit suicide for a better hereafter. They do it more to teach the US a lesson. From the Holy Quran it is clear that the killing of even one innocent person is like killing all of humanity; suicide is expressly forbidden in Islamic teachings; the Muslims are allowed to fight if their life, property, honour or religion are under attack. If a martyr is then promised Heaven in return for sacrificing his life for the country or religion, what’s wrong with that? The Muslims must, therefore, not get confused and become entangled in neurotic introspection or doubts about Islam. There has been no such problem for 1,400 years and there is absolutely nothing wrong with our theology.
It is only in recent decades, when the oppression of the Muslims in Palestine, Bosnia, Chechnya, Kashmir, Afghanistan and Iraq has exceeded all bounds that some elements, out of a sense of utter helplessness and despair, have begun innovations or taken to suicide bombings.
Those who really need to do some soul-searching are people like Bush, Blair, Ariel Sharon, the other hawks and those who have been or are subjecting the Muslims to genocide and persecution in many places. Unless they redress the wrongs done to the latter, terrorism won’t end. This is evident from the rapid rise in the number of suicide bombers acting in small, independent groups or individually.
MUSLIM
Karachi
THIS is with reference to Dr S. Baqar Askari’s letter ‘PAMI, PMA & PMDC’ (July 23). Private medical education was once a matter of controversy and many people were against its basic idea. Now it has become a reality. As to the issue of the PAMI and the PMA, Dr Baqar Askari has very rightly discovered some areas of common understanding between the two. I think there was some gross misunderstandings between the PAMI and the PMA regarding the role of the PMDC and private medical education. Unfortunately, this misunderstanding went on the air through a private TV channel which I think tarnished the image of the medical profession.
Further insult to injury was the letter written by Dr Asim Hussain in which he termed the PMA as a trade union of doctors or a mafia. This was all in a bad taste. The actual culprit in this whole scenario is the PMDC which has not played its due role.
The fact of the matter is the stuff coming out of our medical institutions (public and private both) is of poor quality. What is required to be done now is that members of the PMA and the PAMI and all those who are concerned with the deteriorating standards of medical education should work together and ask for an autonomous, authoritative and regulatory body in the PMDC which should be free of all corruption and influence (from political and vested interest groups).
This should have a fair representation from all stakeholders, the judiciary and the media. It should perform its function in a democratic way and be empowered to take action against all those who violate its rules and recommendations. One is not against private medical education, but against the corrupt and dishonest practices being carried out in the name of medical education.
Last but not least, I would like to suggest that the PMDC may take guidance from Britain’s General Medical Council, as a model as it has played a very positive and constructive role in maintaining and upgrading standards of medical education in the UK.
DR MIRZA ALI AZHAR
Karachi
THIS is about the recent floods in the NWFP and Punjab. Such a freak flood is known to have occurred in the NWFP about 1924. High flood marks of the historic flood can be seen on rail and road bridges in the area. For this reason in 1951 Ghulam Faruque, then chairman of the PIDC, had ordered re-sitting of some factories planned to be built on the river side.
Some experts are of the view that such freak floods occur due to the huge piling up of snow on the mountains in the catchment of rivers, causing the lower layers of the snows to melt, due to the high pressure coupled with high temperatures, making the snow to fall down like a huge avalanche.
Such a phenomenon usually occurs after several decades in some cases. Apparently here this has taken place after 80 years. It is gratifying that it occurred in the Kabul river and simultaneously not in the Indus, in which case it could have been far more disastrous. This offers food for thought for the planners of dams to carefully study this phenomenon of freak floods and to adequately cater for such an eventuality.
The situation in the Punjab rivers is similar. Due to the absence of floodgates in the old headworks, river beds have gone up by almost 15 feet, exposing over 20 miles upstream to heavy floods. This was pointed out during the unprecedented flood damage in 1973, but so far no action appears to have been taken to provide floodgates. This is not only aggravating the chances of flood damage, but is also causing heavy silting of the canal system, depriving the tail-enders of water, adversely affecting agro-production, besides depriving the country of huge water storage of nearly the capacity of a medium-sized Indus dam.
It is hoped that the authorities will look into these aspects to prevent similar calamities in the future.
S.M.H. RIZVI
Karachi
THIS refers to Mr Rashid Ashraf’s letter (July 19) voicing concern on the export of turtle meat from Lahore. The controversial meat was of freshwater tortoise and not marine turtles, which are classified as endangered by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).
Indian soft-shell turtles and some other varieties are abundantly available in Pakistans rivers. Putting a complete ban on their trade would hence not be justified. Even the hunting of the whale which is the most endangered sea mammal could not be stopped due to pressure from Japan, as the Japanese are the largest consumers of whale meat.
The production of freshwater turtles in rivers should be increased to cater to the demands of the export market. However, harvesting “protected species” should be controlled and allowed under a licence.
QASIM IQBAL KHAN
Lahore
THIS is with reference to Mr Ardeshir Cowasjee’s column “Path to paradise” (July 17). Most of us who have regularly read Dawn, for the last many years greatly value Mr Cowasjee’s views.
Having said that, may I state that his incrimination of Maulana Abul Ala Maudoodi in the quixotic activities of some individuals gone astray is neither fair nor reasonable. Mr Amir Taheri, who has been lavishly quoted, does not appear to have read all of Maulana Maudoodi’s publications.
The way Osama bin Laden has been labelled as his disciple it seems if he got tutored from the Maulana 20 years after his death. No one knew Osama in 1979, the year of Abul Ala Maudoodi’s death. In any case, reading any material by anyone and distorting it to suit one’s own convenience is not enough to incinerate the original author.
If reading material were sufficient to indoctrinate, then no personal leadership was required in the battlefield or the political arena. The text of Amir Taheri gives an erroneous impression that whatever he has added from his side and also from the sermons of some ‘khateebs’ all came from Maulana Maudoodi. Had Taheri read only one book by Maulana Maudoodi, From Caliphate to Kingdom with 113 references from scholars at Cairo, Damascus, Istanbul and Baghdad, he would have known the scholarship of the author.
The Islamic state as envisioned by the Maulana does not exist anywhere. I challenge Mr Taheri to quote precisely as to where exactly has Maulana Maudoodi stated that any group of individuals can take on the task of killing innocent individuals, including women and children, an act which is strictly forbidden in Islam. Mr Taheri’s knowledge of Islam can be judged by his labelling the type of some ‘raids’ as ‘ghazwas’. A ‘ghazwa’ was a battle where the Holy Prophet himself led the army in battle. And this definition has been in vogue before scholars of Indo-Pakistan origin were born.
Since Dawn is on the Internet, many other points need clarification, especially for non-Muslim readers. Jesus Christ and Moses: they did not fail in their mission. It is the distortion and innovation of their message which necessitated a change and God Himself promised to preserve the Quranic message. To believe in these two great prophets and their original message is an act of our faith. The Quran, our holy book, describes the miracles attributed to Jesus Christ and confirms the piety of his mother Hazrat Maryam (Mary). Similarly, Moses is praised for his perseverance despite the rebellious nature of some of his followers.
‘Kufr’: Scholars differ on this definition. But most agree that those who believe in the unity of God and the last day of Judgment should not be dubbed as kafirs. People of the Book: The Prophet (peace be upon him) always treated them very kindly. Those who betrayed were treated by their own laws. Nowhere it is mentioned that a war be waged against the people of the book for no rhyme or reason. As for the difference in understanding, it is said: “Verily, thy Lord will decide between them by His Decree”. — Al Namal, the Ants (XX VII, 78).
However, it must be recognized that while Islam believes in forgiveness, it gives an option for revenge on the same scale as the victims suffered. “Not exceed bounds in the matter of taking life”. — Bani Israel: Children of Israel (X VII, 33). Under the present circumstances and in the absence of an Islamic state encompassing the whole Muslim world, the best revenge is to propagate and practise the true Islam: “Remember; For God loves not those who do mischief”. — Al Qasas, the Narration (XX VIII, 77).
As for Abul Ala Maudoodi, one can differ from some of his political views in the context of Pakistani politics but to blame him for all the uncalled-for events in the world is not justifiable.
BRIG.(retd) KHALID HASSAN MAHMOOD
Karachi
TO enjoy civil liberties is the right of every citizen and to ensure it is the responsibility of the government. Although the Sindh government has adopted several measures to curtail the rate of street crimes such as carjacking and mobile phone thefts, things have not improved a whit.
In the olden days robbers used to loot people at desolate places, but now they do it openly. There is no one to challenge them. Should we call it progress?
There may be several reasons for crime like poverty, inadequate job opportunities, falling education standards and, above all, flawed policies of the government and weak laws.
Providing ample opportunities of employment to the citizens may control some of the motivation for criminal activities.
ASIF AHMED KHAN
Karachi
In his address to the nation last week, President Pervez Musharraf was right in asking British Prime Minister Tony Blair to set his own house in order first before raising a finger on Pakistan for terrorism attacks of 7/7.
It is now clear that if the Pakistani president can agree to become a frontline ally with western countries in their fight against terrorism, he can also boldly speak to western leaders, whether Blair or Bush, to stop blaming Muslim countries for every act of terrorism that takes place anywhere in the world. Well done, Mr. President. Your courage is appreciated.
RAFIQUE ZAKARIA
Karachi
HOWEVER noble the aims of Asian American Network Against Abuse of Women (ANAA) may be (July 15), it is best not to wash one’s dirty linen in public. ANAA should join hands with other reform-minded compatriots here and use its ingenuity to solve social problems.
Else, the network is requested to work discreetly so that the majority’s image is not tarnished unfairly. In these times when whatever good Muslims or Pakistanis do, western and other hostile media only focus on our faults, we need to remember the old English rhyme:
When I did well, I heard it never;
When I did ill, I heard it ever.
KHALID CHAUDHRY
Karachi
YET another sign of the Talibanization of Pakistan, only this time more potent, has surfaced in Dir and Battagram districts where the local religio-political parties including the PML have imposed a ban on women to either contest for an office of the local government or vote for a candidate in the coming local body elections.
The Constitution not only allows women equal voting rights but has also fixed a certain number of seats for them in the assemblies. But who cares and who dare say a word against the mullahs disenfranchizing women? The stalwarts of democracy are holding up the Constitution on every occasion and at the flimsiest of pretexts, like Liaqat Baloch who has given in peevishly and taken refuge under the garb of “local customs and traditions” of the area.
One would request the Supreme Court to take suo motu action in this regard to protect the Constitution of Pakistan.
COL (retd) RIAZ JAFRI
Rawalpindi
CAN anyone please tell me why Benazir Bhutto, the first democratically elected woman (former) prime minister of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is silent over the issue of women being denied the right to cast votes in some areas the forthcoming local government elections in the NWFP?
REEM PASHA
Islamabad
“MADRESSAH reform: a superficial view” by Mr Muhammad Ali Siddiqi (Dawn, July 23) is an excellent in-depth analysis of madressahs and their products. Mr Siddiqi has summed up the panacea for the evil in just one sentence: “The madressah needs the modern teacher more than a modern curriculum”.
COL (retd) RIAZ JAFRI
Rawalpindi
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