The enigma of values

SOME three weeks ago, a gentleman who is a member of the Human Rights Commission in Pakistan sent me the following account of an incident that had occurred in a village called Bhila Hithar (Kasur district).

During the night of September 29, 2005, a small group of the village notables and tough guys, posing as a “panchayat,” sat in chairs placed in a semi-circle; a young man stood in front of them stark naked; a designee of the “panchayat” beat him up with fists, kicks, and a stick; a young woman and her mother were forced to watch these proceedings. This was the panchayat’s way of showing its disapproval of the fact that the young man and the young woman had fallen in love.

This account set me thinking about our values. The other day I happened to watch a discussion on a Pakistani television channel in which the participants were talking about the media’s role, and failure, in preserving our values. They also referred to the gap between our values and the demands of modern times. I was struck by the want of specificity in this conversation. None of the participants identified any of our values; nor did they say what the demands of modern times were. They reduced the discussion to an exercise in punching the air.

The following day I went to dinner at a friend’s house. I asked the other guests (about 10 of them) if they would name our values. Initially, none of them would get beyond the safeguarding of our women’s chastity. After some prompting from me, they came up with “justice,” deference for age, and a couple of other things. It transpired also that they did not think the values they had named were actually practised in Pakistan. In other words, a distinction had to be made between professed values and operational values.

Values come partly from religion and partly from a people’s historical experience the lessons of which are stored in its culture. The Protestant ethic (specifically, the values of hard work, thrift, and accumulation) is said to have worked as the engine of western capitalism. In our own case, some of our professed values come from Islam while others, both professed and operational, come from our culture.

Allow me to list here some of our professed values as they come to mind: (1) justice, (2) respect for the law, (3) accountability, (4) personal honour; (5) chastity, (6) generosity (including contributions to noble causes), (7) honesty in both private and public transactions, (8) self-denial, (9) humility, (10) patriotism, (11) dedication to the public interest, (12) dedication to duty, (13) freedom (including that of belief, expression, movement, etc.), (14) commitment to truth, (15) avoidance of accumulation, (16) equality before law, (17) loyalty to friends, (18) brotherhood of man, (19) frugality and simplicity of life styles, (20) deference for age and obligation to parents, (21) loyalty to family/clan/tribe, (22) moderation, (23) punctuality, (24) hard work, (25) acquisition of knowledge.

The meaning and dictates of some of these values are surrounded by ambiguity. There is, for instance, no general agreement on what justice is and what it requires. One may say it means that everybody gets his due. But the ways of figuring out what anyone’s due is vary. In certain systems of thought the idea of justice is linked with that of law, with the result that there is no such thing as justice by itself.

Islam is one of them: God being supremely just, whatever is in accord with His law is just, and whatever is at variance with it is, to that extent, unjust. For all practical purposes, the same is the case in Pakistan: we don’t normally go looking for justice outside the realm of law (except when judges invoke the “doctrine of necessity” because a “man on horseback,” gun in hand, has suppressed the law).

In Pakistan the concept of honour is generally linked with the chastity of one’s women. An invasion, or even questioning, of their chastity would amount to an invasion of their man’s honour. The concept used to connote a good deal more. Conduct unbecoming to a man’s role or station would have been considered a breach of his honour. The accusation that a public official took bribes, or that a soldier ran away from battle, would have been regarded as an attack on his honour. But, alas, that is no longer the case.

The concept of freedom is just as tricky. Normally it refers to freedom under law. Some political systems forbid the making of laws that would abridge certain specified freedoms, while others do not place that kind of a restriction upon the lawmaker. Thus, in our own case, all freedoms may be abridged by law. Vaguely defined types of expression may be treated as blasphemous and their authors put to death.

It is generally believed that one is obligated to tell the truth. The obligation surely does hold when the inquirer is entitled to know the truth as, for instance, is the judge before whom a person is testifying in a court of law. But, in my view, the obligation ceases when the inquirer is a gossip-monger, trying to peep into your private affairs, and intending to use the information to amuse himself and others. Let us take another situation. A stranger comes to see you and asks how you are. You are not well, but you do not wish to unburden yourself to this man about the poor state of your health. You say you are fine. Does that make you a liar? I don’t think so. As far as I can tell, chastity, deference to age, regard for parents, and loyalty to family are operational values in Pakistan. Every time I visit the country, strangers, seeing my white hair (or what is left of it), go out of their way to be nice to me. Fear that a woman’s chastity might be lost leads to excessive restraint upon her freedom of movement and choice. It denies young men and women the option of falling in love and motivates others to visit barbaric indignity and torture upon those who do, as it happened to the young people in Bhila Hithar village referred to above.

In my younger days loyalty to friends was a live value, but folks tell me that is not the case any more. Generosity as a value can be fully operational if the occasion so requires as shown by our people’s tremendous response to the victims of the recent earthquake. But there are other situations in the normal routines of life where we are not inclined to be generous. For instance, we as a people tend to be niggardly in praising the good work of others if they happen to be equal, or lower than us, in status.

We in Pakistan do not practise most of our other professed values; in fact we follow their opposites. It is a fact so well known that I need not dwell upon it. I should like to use the space I still have to mention two or three related issues. First, our excessive disapproval of romance between young people is, in the long run, dysfunctional. They have been falling in and out of love since times immemorial and they will continue to do so. We as a society will have to come to terms with it.

Consider also the irresistible impact of western and Indian lifestyles projected on television. I see abundant evidence of that impact already. Further, as the movement for women’s rights, their education, and their economic independence go forward, they will be less and less inclined to accept rules of conduct made by men.

Our people’s disinclination to practise some of the other professed values should not be regarded as an unalterable component of our national character. I believe these values can be revived and made operational, admittedly not to their fullest possible extent, but substantially. Who is to undertake this revivalist mission?

In a totalitarian state the media could function as the disseminator of the approved values. In a place like Pakistan the media will perform this role only to a very limited extent. Television and most of the newspapers and journals are moneymaking enterprises. If they are to maintain their earnings from advertising, their owners and managers will print and show what they think their audiences would like to read and see. They know that their “customers” will get bored with sermons, and that they will simply switch to an Indian channel. I have often heard commentators say that it is the function of teachers, and the syllabus they follow, to communicate the community’s professed values to their students. This is not a reasonable expectation. The physics or geography teacher in middle school may spank a student who has been caught lying or cheating, but it is none of his business to preach to him every day that he is to take care of his parents when they get to be old, that he is to be loyal to his friends, or that he is to spend in the way of the Lord.

It is the function of parents to convey the right values to their children, and that is best done by example. If the father has taken care of his own parents in their old age, rejected offers of bribe, been frugal and avoided ostentation, his children will most likely do the same.

Next to the parents, it is the function of the pulpit to spread the right values to the faithful. Let the clergy, for a change, preach to men and women in their “flock” that they must go to work on time, do the day’s work diligently and competently, answer their mail promptly, refrain from taking anything that does not lawfully belong to them, and be helpful to the citizen who comes to them.

I have never heard a preacher in a mosque say any of these things.

The writer is professor emeritus of political science at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, USA.

Email: anwarsyed@cox.net

Practical approach to rehabilitation

THERE are practical lessons to be drawn from the tragedy of the earthquake. The reactions of the people who must learn the lessons, however, range from fatalism to pipe dreams.

Fatalism is evident in defending or blaming the government, voluntary organizations or the community itself and then closing the chapter until another calamity strikes. The pipe dream is seen in the promises to build quake-resistant homes in model villages and towns for half a million or more displaced families.

Since a quake cannot be predicted nor its intensity reduced by human endeavour, the first lesson that both fatalists and pipe dreamers must learn is that the government, NGOs and the people who are spared the ravage must join hands to provide prompt relief to the victims. All plans and resources must be directed to this end — now and in any future calamity — which hopefully will not be as horrendous as the one that struck on October 8.

Then, those who have lost their homes must be helped by the government, the NGOs or others to repair or rebuild their own homes within weeks and months without making them wait for a year or more before they are shifted into new model homes. In any case, going by the past experience, the concept of model homes and villages has proved a costly failure more than once.

In the sixties, perhaps it was 1967, 17 inches of rain fell in Karachi in just 24 hours causing extensive damage to the low-lying areas. Lyari was among the worst hit. In the dark cloud, the Karachi administration of that time saw a silver lining and that was to convert Lyari — an old and large fishing settlement with rural characteristics — into a planned colony and in a way to safeguard it against future inundations.

The relief fund raised by the citizens was used to build a hundred flats along the Mauripur road on the edges of the colony. The grand idea was to shift the worst-hit residents to the flats, demolish their shacks and build more flats on the space thus vacated. The cycle thus established was expected to transform Lyari from an old shanty settlement into a new model township.

The scheme was aborted at the very first stage. The residents preferred to live in their old and dangerous homes and face future hazards rather than get cooped up in safe flats. The flats lay vacant and in a state of decay until the dockyard bought the whole lot for its workers. The money the citizens had donated for relief to the rain victims thus never benefited them.

A model village was built in rural Karachi for the peasants who didn’t have their own homes in the surrounding villages. Though conveniently situated on the road to Hyderabad, the model village became the haunt for dogs and drug addicts until it was taken over by the police and made a part of the force’s training school. Thus what in government books is a project for the rural poor, in on the ground a police establishment.

These are but two of the numerous failed model schemes that litter Pakistan’s landscape. Before the president and the prime minister use the donated or government money for building model villages for the quake victims they must look hard for one that didn’t fail.

In any case, the cost would be formidable and the time taken too long for the homeless to wait. Such ideas are prompted only by financiers and contractors for only they stand to gain. No doubt the World Bank has hastily pledged $100 million for model villages when it would give no more than $5 million for relief.

The best use of the international aid and our own resources would be to improve, or build anew, the infrastructure of the villages and towns (water supply and sanitation in particular) damaged by the quake and give technical advice, money and material to the people to repair or rebuild their homes that withstand shocks better and on collapsing cause less damage than traditional structures.

The infrastructure is bound to take long but if homes are not rebuilt in three to six months under the supervision of the officials and representatives of the local community the touts and brokers will move in. Thus, there might begin another, and longer, nightmare for the survivors. The government should help the traumatized people resume normal lives in familiar surroundings among their own folk as early as possible rather than prolong their agony by forcing them to wait for a new model home which they may not want and, indeed, which may never be built.

Pakistan has been widely criticized by the world media for its failure to organize its rescue and relief efforts. Even The Economist which is not prone to make scathing judgments was compelled to write “for a country as militarized as Pakistan to be handling the aftermath so badly is a disgrace”. A more correct view would be that the handling was so bad because the country is militarized. The dependence of the people on the military is total and debilitating. The civil services and civil society itself are there only to sulk or, at best, collect donations.

The judgment of the international community may be no less scathing if in rehabilitating the victims the president and the prime minister persist in carrying on with centralized planning and the construction of model villages by military commanders. International mistrust is already showing itself. The pledges so far made against the UN secretary-general’s appeal for $400 million are only 12 per cent of the amount.

The international community’s indifference to the agony of Pakistan and its pressing needs is a measure of the world’s disapproval of the political, religious and military elements that dominate our national policies and behaviour.

Pakistan has also been criticized by the world media for rebuffing an Indian proposal for joint search-and-rescue operations across the Line of Control in Kashmir. According to the foreign office spokesperson the proposal has its “sensitivity”. Nothing can be more insensitive than to think of ego while people are dying of wounds, cold and hunger.

Attitudes on both sides are now changing though half heartedly. International money is needed for rehabilitation but India’s goodwill is absolutely crucial. The generals and the jihadists will have to make sure that it is not lost.

Staying the course

BAGHDAD can make a strong claim to being the most dangerous place on Earth. It is a teeming, anarchic city of uncounted murders, rapes, kidnaps and unexplained violent deaths.

No race, colour, belief or religion offers any immunity, nor does any profession or vocation. Outside the formidable fortress built by the occupying forces it is a place of random terror. Our own correspondent in Baghdad, Rory Carroll, experienced a taste of that terror this week when he was snatched off the streets at gunpoint and kept in handcuffed captivity for some 36 hours after travelling a short distance from the centre of the city to watch the televised trial of Saddam Hussein with a Shia victim of the former president’s regime.

The abduction was mercifully brief and Carroll survived to tell the story we run on the front of today’s paper. But with every such abduction, attack or murder editors around the world ask themselves how much longer they are prepared to send unembedded reporters to Iraq.

The veteran correspondent, Robert Fisk, who has in the past been critical of “hotel journalism”, a self-explanatory phrase, recently coined a new term: “mouse journalism”. He defines this as the practice of popping up at a scene and vanishing again almost immediately before the gunmen are summoned. Fisk now doubts whether he can return to Baghdad, adding that there is virtually no free information about Iraq outside the capital and Basra.

Some western media organisations now resort to employing local Iraqis to gather information on their behalf. But - as the recent murder of the New York Times’s Fakker Haider al Tamimi illustrated - this is also fraught with deadly danger. Reporters are no braver than the soldiers, medics, spooks and non-governmental organisation workers who risk their lives on a daily basis in Iraq.

The best of them insist on returning time and again out of a fundamental conviction that a clean flow of information is as vital to a society as transport, government, electricity or security. The fact that our own government bears such a responsibility for Baghdad’s current nightmare places an even greater responsibility on British news organisations to report on life and death beyond the Green Zone.

—The Guardian, London

Cyber loophole

CONSIDER this campaign finance scenario: A member of Congress faces a tough reelection race and needs as much financial help as possible. The politician can’t legally take money from a corporation or labour union, and the most individuals can give is a few thousand dollars.

But the lawmaker goes to a company and suggests another way to help out. He proposes that it pay for his Internet advertising. The campaign’s consultants will produce the spots and choose the Web sites; the company need only write the cheque. And the company’s help won’t ever show up in campaign finance records.

Preposterous and dangerous as this may sound, it would be legal under a measure that hasn’t received much attention but that has gained disturbing traction in Congress. The provision would exempt the Internet from the type of “public communications” covered by campaign finance laws, carving a huge cyber-loophole in the recent ban on huge “soft money” contributions by corporations, labour unions and wealthy individuals.

—The Washington Post