| July 18, 2006 | Tuesday | Jumadi-ul-Sani 21, 1427 |
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Freedom of inquiry
Middle East crisis
Down the drain
Elements of politics
Mumbai blasts
Lack of spine
Clifton upheaval
Sports and technology
A query
KARACHI is hostage to terrorists and criminals of all hues. In the recent time, beginning with the killing of many Eid Miladun Nabi celebrators at Nishtar Park, terrorists have acted without any let or hindrance that shows that they have brought the administration, whatever it is, to its feet, humbled and humiliated. Their latest victims being the Sindh chief of Tehreek-i-Islami and provincial vice-president of the MMA, and his young nephew.
On a lower scale, one would find muggers\gangsters prowling all around, on the street, in the lanes, on the buses and minibuses, at the doors of houses and even in the houses doing a brisk business of robbing one of whatever they want to take away. Wolf, wolf one may cry umpteenth time but no help would be coming forth either from the law-enforcers or from the people who are already scared to the marrow of their bone.
We read every day how gangsters take away motorcars and motorcycles, cellphones, wallets containing money while people dare not do anything for fear of losing their lives. Those have tried to put up any resistance have paid with their lives.
From a four-year-old kindergarten child to an 80-year-old pensioner, nobody is safe in Karachi. When people go out of their houses, they are not certain they would return safe, so uncertain has become life. A sense of uncertainty that terrorists, robbers, thieves and thugs have created is a sign of a decaying society. Government arms are certainly long and visible in squeezing every ounce of blood from the people by burdening them with a variety of taxes on the necessities of life but not visible as far as their security and and security of their possessions, whatever these are, are concerned . Here the administration appears spineless.
Newspaper reports show that even two-year-old girls are not safe. According to reports, two-and-a-half-year-old Laiba was kidnapped and subsequently murdered. Young Taheera and Zainab who were travelling in a rickshaw were intercepted by an armed man and deprived of their cash and jewellery. Fifty-year-old Aafreen who works as a domestic help was robbed by a woman of her monthly remuneration while travelling in a bus.
Two young women were going to the market when a man caught hold of one of them and forcibly embraced her, while policemen sitting in a mobile van nearby instead of arresting the culprit thought it fit to have a laugh at the cost of the woman, proving that some members of law-enforcement agencies patronise criminals.
In view of the apparent failure of the government in controlling the rising graph of crime, the civil society must come forward and provide security and peace to the people.
MONA WASEEM
Karachi
ONCE again there were riots in Karachi after the suicide murder of a religious leader. It is very unfortunate to see that we have not learned anything from our past. Sadly this time again we witnessed the burning of buses and a fast-food outlet.
It may be a moment of emotional madness for some, however, we must act within the confines of the law and try to be more prudent. The burning of a foreign fast-food outlet especially will not bring any good to economic or law and order situation in our beloved country.
One must not rule out the chances of some conspiracy in these acts of violence. Each time there is a bomb blast, rioters end up burning foreign fast-food outlets without any reason.
Our government must take serious action and proper investigations must be made in order to reveal the actual motives behind these actions.
These kinds of acts will ultimately discourage foreign investors from coming to Pakistan and they will bring a bad reputation to our country in general. Therefore, those who are responsible for these acts must be found and punished in accordance with the law.
NASIR AYYAZ
Stockholm, Sweden
THIS refers to Dr Manzoor Ali Isran’s letter ‘Freedom of inquiry’ (July 10). The Higher Education Commission has done good work in accelerating the growth of reforms in relation to the development of higher education.
However, a number of reforms implemented at the gross-roots’ level were left at the mercy of university administrators to impose their dictum on the teaching faculty who are continuously harassed and restrained from expressing their views.
It is time the syndicate membership was changed to incorporate a new setup based on the Federal University Act 2002. Among the most sensitive but least discussed dilemmas is the one illustrated by the problem of academic freedom to the faculty who are the pillars of scholarships and who groom our future leadership.
What prompted me to write this letter is the shocking response of the university to the violation of academic freedom and freedom of speech in respect of Dr Mehtab Ali Shah, who has been a professor at the University of Sindh for the last two decades.
Anyone who has spent a considerable time on a campus knows what the university community wants from higher education. For most of them a university is a place for self-discovery, for developing passionate interest and offering them an opportunity to weave into a meaningful acquisition of knowledge which will make a positive impact on a society where we live in.
Understanding the nature of knowledge, its unity, its varieties, its limitations and its uses and abuses is necessary for success of our democracy. After all, political empowerment and economic opportunity start from the same root: the spread of knowledge. In other words, societies become more democratic as citizens become more knowledgeable and cultured.
What Dr Shah wanted was to hear new and provocative ideas, to discuss what injustices are being imposed on innocent faculty and the faculty is unable to speak for fear of punishment. Our Constitution guarantees freedom of speech to everyone, not only those with whom we disagree. The constitutional guarantees are to protect us, in a nation of great diversity, from being victimised for our beliefs and expressions of these beliefs, especially on academic turf. Shall we blacklist those ideas which are unacceptable? Shall we return to the day of lynching and witch-burning?
The primary purpose of a university is to advance our understanding of life, the world and the universe. It is to discover truth, to transmit as much of human understanding as we can from one generation to the next and add as much new knowledge as we can to the existing store of human knowledge. In addition, universities are charged with nurturing a scholarly temperament. Academic freedom and freedom of expression go to the heart of the university, to the rights and responsibility of the university administration, to the nature of teaching and scholarship. It is a freedom we share only on the campus; in classroom — it encompasses a student’s right to learn and a professor’s right to breathe easily.
When intellectual diversity and freedom of speech is suppressed, the university campuses turn into model of repression which compels a faculty to proclaim: “I did not see, I did not hear and I did not say”.
One guiding principle should be to respect the separation of the university and the state. Universities do not penalise faculty members or students for comments they make as citizens in public debate. A corollary is that while faculty members and students are free to take whatever position they wish on university as well as on public issues, universities are not.
When we threaten those with whom we disagree with termination of job, charge-sheeting and setting of committees, we undermine the very institutions that are in place to keep us free. We became a lynch mob. We do not educate, we do not learn, we are diminished.
PROF (DR) NAZIR A. MUGHAL
Preston University, Karachi
EVEN as governments and international organisations continue to make calls for peace, human life in the Middle East continues to be cheap and eradicable.
As bombs drop on Gaza, and now on Beirut, there are no laudable efforts being made by the international community to stop the ongoing crisis in the Middle East. At least on the political front, the United Nations has long proved itself to be a toothless watchdog. It has been given the option of either patronising the United States and licensing its intrigues, or of being completely cast aside and remaining unheeded, as seen when its efforts to prevent the United States from spilling civilian blood in Iraq ended in a fiasco.
It is not surprising that the United States, the supposed champion of peace efforts in the Middle East, should pass comments, which, if anything, only serve as a pat on the back to Israel and its bloody onslaught into Palestinian and Lebanese territory. The fact that countries like the United States and Britain are the major players in international politics makes it an obligation for them to try to mollify Israel, Hezbollah and Hamas, instead of inciting further conflict.
It is also questionable why the leading Islamic countries, such as Saudi Arabia and Malaysia, or even the Organisation of Islamic Conference for that matter, don’t make an effort to pacify the parties involved in the crisis. If the Palestinians are still dependant on western aid and western intercession in times of conflict, then obviously the Muslim world is not doing enough.
FATIMA AQEEL
Karachi
I FIND it very difficult to express in words condemnation for the blind tyranny going on in the Middle East. The drama is being staged under the cover of a campaign to free a captured Israeli soldier. Many more innocent lives have been lost in the retaliation that has followed.
The most ridiculous part of the whole situation is the deaf and dumb role played by international organisations. These organisations, including the crippled UN, have proved their lack of influence, particularly when it comes to Israel.
May I ask the government of Pakistan where it stands in this state of affairs? And how long should we wait to see justice where a tyrant is punished and the innocent get the recompense?
OMER MAJEED
Lahore
I WOULD like to point out that pressure-washing of cars in the thousands of workshops and pumping stations in Karachi is a sheer waste of precious water. It is also a source of pollution as millions of gallons of oily water seeps into our sewerage lines, and even fresh water lines. Similarly in other parts of the country the same procedure allows water to directly pollute our rivers via the storm drains.
All this wasted water ultimately goes into our oceans in the form of a toxic stream of cigarette butts, litter, oil residue and urban grime. This debris can easily be swept up and disposed of properly. It has also been observed that this residue mixture chokes our drains system thereby causing overflow of the manholes in the city. We need to create more public awareness about this issue and the local authorities everywhere need to inform the public as well as take remedial action.
MAHWISH NAQVI
Karachi
I HAVE been closely following the debate on Pakistan being declared a ‘failed state’ by Fund for Peace (FFP) on the basis of Failure State Index (FSI). Pakistan stands at number nine. In this connection, I recently came a cross Dr Saifur Rahman Sherani’s article ‘Conspiracy behind calling Pakistan a failed states’ (Encounter, July 8), in which the writer smells the element of politics in calling Pakistan a failed state.
In this regard, he argues “American social scientists and thank-tanks have, over the years, developed a methodology to label certain states as totalitarian, failed, rouge and axis of evil to meet their country’s foreign policy needs. These labels were used for political propaganda in the past and are now employed to justify the new doctrine of pre-emptive strike.”
This may partially be true and contains the whiff of propaganda as assumed by the writer. As a matter of fact, these labels are often given to the countries which are ideologically hostile to the US but Pakistan is a non-Nato strategic ally of Washington and proactively supporting and participating in US-led war on terror to the extent that it has deployed its 80,000 troops along the Afghan border to hunt Al Qaeda terrorists.
Apart from that, Pakistan is beneficiary of massive economic and military aid from the US and after 9/11 Washington is taking deep interest not only to revamp Pakistan’s declining standard of education right from primary to higher education but also to help Islamabad in its so-called drive for poverty alleviation — yet the benefits of the US aid has to reach the common people.
The writer questions the conceptualisation and methodology while setting the FSI and maintains that reliability of data and validity of measurement are important factors in the social sciences. That is true, but the situation of Pakistan should be judged in the light of international standards set by some independent studies in international relations to measure the failure or success of the state system.
According to the study of Robert Jackson and Georg Sorensen, there are at least five basic social values that states are usually expected to uphold: security, freedom, order, justice and welfare. These are social values that are so fundamental to human well-being that they must be protected or ensured in some way.
If we judge Pakistan against these values, the situation is very grim and internal political and socio-economic conditions are in a state of total chaos and anarchy. The country where democracy is bleeding, elections are rigged through palatial conspiracies, the constitution is used as a tool of coercion, the state is failing to provide basic health, education and security and overall the plight of men, women and children puts into question the credibility and perhaps even the legitimacy of the existence of Pakistan as a state.
The economic situation is very gloomy. More than 40 million people are under the poverty line and 65 per cent are earning $2 daily. The majority is deprived of potable water and healthcare, state of governance is appalling, religious extremism has adopted a horrible proportion, law and order situation, especially in Sindh, is horrible.
It appears the government has lost its writ, legal and moral authority to protect people.
These developments point to the fact that the state is failing in its duties. Forecasting a ‘Yugoslavia-like fate’ of Pakistan, the US National Intelligence Council and Central Intelligence Agency, in a jointly prepared Global Futures Assessment Report, have said Pakistan would be ripe with civil war, bloodshed, and inter-provincial rivalries. This will finally lead to dismemberment by 2015 (Rediff.com)
Instead of accusing Washington of propaganda, we should take steps to address the issues giving the bad label of a failing state. Hope rulers will respond to the situation and take positive steps to cultivate national consensus and address the issue of poor governance, rampant corruption and rising poverty in the country. These are issues that are ripping the nation apart and need immediate solution.
MANZOOR ALI ISRAN
Shah Abdul Latif University
Khairpur
REGARDING the Mumbai blasts, no one is accusing the Pakistani people of complicity in the act. The average Pakistani would never condone such Barbarity, and Indians know it.
However, even Pakistanis know that the ISI operates as “a law unto itself” (in the words of a Dawn columnist) and is accountable to no one. It may well have an agenda that is completely different. As long as the ISI remains unanswerable to the people of Pakistan, it is only natural that it will attract the finger of suspicion.
SHOUROV BHATTACHARYA
Sydney, Australia
WHILE the Mumbai blasts are deplorable to the greatest possible extent, the Indians should do a proper and thorough investigation before blaming Pakistan. Pakistan is facing the same threats and bombings as Indians (as seen in the recent mosque blasts in Karachi and bomb blasts at the American consulate).
This is most likely the handiwork of Al Qaeda which is spreading its tentacles across both India and Pakistan to destabilise their economies. I appeal to both the Indian and Pakistan governments to trust each other and work together in these testing times to fight the menace of terrorism. God willing, we will defeat it.
MOHIT BHATNAGAR
California, USA
PRIVATE Steven D. Green massacred an innocent woman’s family, including her child, in Mahmoudiya, Iraq. He then gang-raped her with his comrades, shot her in the head two to three times and then burned her body. The US government honourably discharged Private Green but then, fearing a public outcry, arrested him and charged him with murder (Dawn, July 4)
Now our government plans to buy arms worth $5 billion from the US government This will make our defence higher-ups super-rich as if they are not mega-rich already) through commissions and kickbacks. A sum of $5 billion is enough to build nuclear power plants to solve our energy crisis forever. It is also enough to make our whole population 100 per cent educated. If we lack the spine to stand up to the US, then we should limit our engagements with the US to a bare minimum.
My question to the defence higher-ups is: after giving away $5 billion to the US government which honourably discharged Private Green, how do you plan to sleep at night?
MUS
Karachi
I WONDER why Mr Ardeshir Cowasjee, Corps Commander of Sindh, high court judges and others who reside in Bath Island and frequently use Ch. Rehmat Ali Road (which intersects main Clifton Road), don’t protest at the abandoned KWSB project which has left behind heaps of mud and large potholes at the intersection of Clifton Road and Ch. Rehmat Ali Road.
ROHENA S. R. ALI
Karachi
RECENTLY the entire world enjoyed FIFA 2006. There were lots of instances where referees were unable to do justice. I do not doubt their fairness, but physical limitations tend to force referees to make their own decisions.
One referee has to run along with the ball. Obviously he tends to miss many occasions where he needs to make decisions. It is time FIFA considered using technology in football. Few would argue that using a “third umpire” would spoil the game.
Justice is more important than beauty. In other sports, such as tennis and cricket, technology has been adopted and hence because of third umpires there is justice in these sports. Our teams (India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka) suffered a lot before the introduction of technology in cricket.
P. JOSHI
Middlesex, UK
THE incumbent president of the Larkana Chamber of Commerce and Industry is a practising lawyer, enrolled with different Bar associations, including the PBC.
I wonder whether a practising lawyer has been enrolled by the chamber as its member in the category of commerce or industry.
ARSALAN FAROOQUI
Karachi
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