As Lebanon bleeds and burns

WE have heard about a humanitarian “catastrophe” time and again — the tsunami aftermath, the Azad Kashmir earthquake and the Darfur conflict. So there is nothing new when UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan uses this shibboleth for Lebanon. Actually, what we need is a new word for all that is happening in that country under waves of Israel’s air offensive, and there is no one more qualified to articulate his country’s suffering than Prime Minister Fuad Siniora. “We the Lebanese want life. We have chosen life. We refuse to die”, he told foreign ambassadors in Beirut on Wednesday. He must be heard, because his is the desperate voice of a country that is being bombed back into the stone age by Israel. In terms of the destruction it has wrought, Israel’s current offensive is more lethal than its 1982 invasion. In that year, the world was stunned by the strength of the force deployed by Ariel Sharon, then defence minister in Menachem Begin’s government, to drive the Palestinian guerillas out of Lebanon. Besides tanks, heavy artillery, navy and air force, Israel threw in an infantry of nearly 60,000. In its wake the Israeli wehrmacht left a swathe of death and destruction as it advanced towards Beirut. This time, however, there is no infantry and hardly any tank force worth mentioning, but the destruction it has caused in Lebanon far exceeds that in 1982.

This time Israel — keen to avoid casualties of its own- has relied mostly on its awesome firepower to pulverize Lebanon. Now the entire country is in danger of turning into debris. Counting those killed in Gaza — about 100 — the number of recorded deaths in Israel’s offensive in two places has reached 425, thousands have been injured, countless more are unaccounted for, maybe trapped in the rubble still piling up, and half a million rendered homeless. There are other differences, too. First, Yasser Arafat and his Palestinian guerillas were a foreign element in Lebanon; this is not the case with Hezbollah, because they are Lebanese. Israel cannot force them to leave their country (though, given its track record, it is quite capable of doing so, for when it can evict Palestinians from Palestine what moral scruples could it possibly have for not evicting Lebanese form Lebanon?). Second, Hezbollah is in the mainstream of Lebanese political life. Besides having a militia, it also has deputies in the Lebanese parliament. For that reason, given their commitment to resistance, Hezbollah guerillas will fight on and stay where they are, no matter what the cost.

Three, Israel is fighting a phantom enemy, because Hezbollah fighters are nowhere to be seen. They have melted among their people — “guerillas are like fish and the people like water” said Mao Zedong. So Israel is seriously mistaken if it thinks that it can destroy Hezbollah. Let us note that PLO fighters were forced to leave Lebanon after the 1982 invasion, but they were back. Hezbollah will never disappear so the question of its return does not arise. It will stay where it is and will fight on. Knowing this, the Kadima government has vented its anger on the Lebanese people for voting Hezbollah candidates into parliament. Bit by bit, Lebanon is being reduced to a heap of rubble, and the excuse for Israel for destroying Lebanese infrastructure is that it was being used by Hezbollah. America seems to agree, for, as confirmed by the US media, Tel Aviv launched its offensive after a green signal from Washington.

Better urban planning

SPEAKING at a PML seminar on the ‘role of cities in national development’ in Lahore the other day Senator Nisar Memon made good sense when he proposed that think-tanks should be established for guiding proper urban planning and the development of big cities. For this, the senator said, an all-inclusive approach should be adopted; members of the opposition and all other stakeholders should be brought together to help plan our cities better. One could not agree more with some of the other candid observations made at the seminar by a number of the ruling party’s ministers and office holders: the consensus was that our cities were chaotic and undisciplined; they bred frustration which led to a sense of injustice among the people and to violence. The situation, the participants agreed, could only be corrected if all stakeholders, including rural migrants to the cities, were involved in the urban development and management processes. It is the lack of such a sensible approach to urban development that has given us a mega-city like Karachi today. Once hailed as a melting pot of diverse cultures and a vanguard of urban sensibility and development, the city over the years has degenerated into an urban jungle infested with chronic problems — a woeful shortage of civic amenities, socio-economic disparities and chaos and problems of law and order being the foremost.

The absence of a mechanism whereby all urban stakeholders — the general public, the developers, the civic authorities, the business community, the labour force, the rural migrants, etc. — are consulted, and adequate provisions made to safeguard their respective areas of interest, has been holding our cities back from developing with grace. One hopes that the views expressed by the ruling party leaders at the seminar in question will find a receptive ear among policy and political decision-makers. If the future development of our cities is guided by such an approach, there is a lot of hope for meeting the sustainable development challenges, arresting the rising crime wave and the phenomenon of economic disparity and chaos that have come to characterise our cities today.

NGOs under threat

IT should come as no surprise that clerics in Mansehra have asked NGOs to sack their female employees by July 30 or face being forcibly stopped from working in their area. It is no secret that right-wing elements in the country, particularly the religious ones, see NGOs as foreign-funded and inspired therefore un-Islamic in motivation. The lengths to which certain elements can go to discredit NGOs is what is worrisome. Earlier this year, a woman NGO worker in the Kailash area was kidnapped in Peshawar and released only after she paid a ransom of one million rupees. She was still lucky compared to an NGO worker who last year, along with her teenage daughter, was killed in Dir, her crime being that she worked for a women’s rights organisation. Dir was also the focus of much attention during elections when women were prevented from voting until the Supreme Court stepped in and ensured against forcible prevention. NGO workers were then beaten for encouraging women to exercise their right to vote. These incidents show the scale of threats and coercion NGO workers, especially women, face in carrying out their work, especially in the NWFP. This makes it imperative for the authorities to provide security to NGO personnel in Mansehra against threats of violence by bigoted elements.

It is unfortunate that while governments seem unwilling to undertake social work, those that do are often obstructed in every possible way. It is perhaps futile to argue with the clerics on the valuable service NGOs render in promoting health and education for the poor, for they are not open to reason. But they simply must be allowed to obstruct the good work the NGOs are doing for the betterment of the people.

Friday feature: Essence of worship

A QUESTION sometimes disturbs the mind. Does it make any sense to repeat the Divine commands, admonitions, warning and promises of rewards and punishments over and over again every week? Many of us claim we already know them. Yet the answer must be in the affirmative.

Yes, it does make all the sense because for an ignorant person only a single sermon may be enough to learn what he did not know. But for those who claim to know and yet disregard them, recapitulation is necessary as a reminder. It is also useful because most of such people are guilty of procrastination rather than outright denial. Reminders could persuade and encourage them to shed their lassitude and indifference and hasten to seek the Blessing of the Lord.

Some say, “Why the lifelong exercise of prayers, five times a day, seven days a week, especially, when most of the time our mind wanders away during prayers and that sinning and prayers go in tandem for many people?” Others question Ramazan. “Why starve when there are sumptuous, finger-licking delicacies all around waiting to be consumed?” Pertinent questions apparently, but also audacious and insolent.

Yet, interestingly, such insolence can be traced to Allah’s boundless mercy and affection. It has spoiled us just as parental love and absence of punishment often does the kids and they become headstrong and disobedient, flouting instructions and defying orders. In the case of Allah, the love and affection reflects the difference in proportion to His relation with His creatures, vis-a-vis parental relation to their offspring. Allah creates from a tiny, unclean drop, gives form, sustains, develops, protects. In contrast, mothers only conceive, carry, deliver and, sometimes, breast-feed. Fathers only beget. Understandably, therefore, Allah is many times more generous, tolerant, affectionate and kind, ready to overlook and forgive.

Take another example. In the case of a human boss, no employee would be unpunctual or absent from duty without leave. Even procrastination and laziness would not be accepted. A human master does not explain to his employees the reason for a particular order. Similarly, for an employee to question the wisdom of office timings or the need for punctuality and so forth would be unimaginable. The boss would punish dereliction of duty and insubordination by withdrawing the emoluments.

Moreover, a human employer remunerates after duty has been satisfactorily rendered. But Allah gives before asking for service. In case of dereliction of His duty, there would be no instant tit for tat. He would go on giving sustenance and showering His creatures with bounties, regardless of their disobedience. He allows mankind to “choose”. He imposes duties only on those who voluntarily “enlist” to serve Him. It is therefore His indulgence that makes some of us complacent and even audacious.

There are also other reasons why He would not award instant punishment. First, it would militate against His attribute of Ghani (free from all want). He does not need our worship. “Any who is grateful does so to the profit of his own soul. But if any is ungrateful Allah is free from all wants.” (31:12)

Second, He is not vengeful. He is most forbearing. He will first show every individual even the atom’s worth of the good or evil deeds they committed in this world (99:7-8) before giving them their due desserts. Their hands will speak to Him on that Day (36:65), but not here. He would not expose the shame even of a criminal but hold it on till the Day of Judgment. Picture for a moment if one’s hands were to speak out in public, in this world, revealing the crime one had committed a moment ago!

Third, instant retribution as quid pro quo would reduce His status to man’s level. As Omar Khayyam said. “I did a bad deed and Thou gavest a bad return. Then what is the difference between me and Thee?)

The answer to the question about prayers is first, that it is the order of the Lord and Master. It, therefore, must be carried out without question or demur. Second, prayers are the grateful acknowledgement of His bounties received every hour, minute and second. Every breath we take we owe it to His mercy, because, for ought we know, it could be the last.

As to distraction during prayers or persisting in sin along with offering prayers, the answer is not in giving up but to continue to strive. Giving up would amount to accepting defeat and surrendering to Satan.

So the effort to disseminate the word and bring back the errant lambs to the flock must go on. They need to be constantly reminded of the rewards and punishments, the pitfalls if they go astray versus the security that the straight path offers.

Islam is a combination of thought and action. The Qur’an repeatedly asks us to think, to reflect and ponder at the countless aspects of the natural phenomena. Allah not only reminds us of the process of human creation but, particularly, of the purpose behind it. Muslims also believe that he wields absolute power. He is the “doer of what He intends” (85:16). But for Muslims, creation is a serious matter. It is to jolt them to realize its importance that Allah asks, “Do ye think We created you without a purpose and you will not return to Us? (23:115)” Man reflects not only on his own creation but also on the creation of everything “in the heavens and the earth” and exclaims, “Our Lord! Not for naught hast Thou created (all) this....”(3:191)

And what is the “Purpose?” It is, primarily, to serve Him. (“I have created jinn and humans only to serve Me.” 51”56). Here again the Arabic word is “ya’budoon”. It may also, and equally correctly, be translated as “worship”. But in the latter case a strict construction could limit the scope of its application only to such activities as may be clearly defined as acts off worship.

Such specific acts of Ibadah would comprise prayers, zakat, Ramzan (fasting), haj and jihad and finally, zikr (remembering Him). But that is not all the “service” He created us for. These are only the formal expressions of submission and gratitude. Ibadah in fact constitutes even the smallest act that is done to seek His pleasure and conforms to the guiding principles that

He has laid down and the Prophet further elucidated by example. When a servant solemnly declares, “Truly my prayer and my service of sacrifice, my life and my death are (all) for Allah,” (6:168) all his actions become ibadah.

Too much or not enough

(Art Buchwald will not be writing his column on a regular basis for several weeks while he finishes a book about his experiences in hospice care. He may write a column occasionally during this time. In his absence, here’s a substitute column by Andy Rooney.)

WHATEVER it is, food, rain, sunshine, hot, cold, it seems as if we always have either too much or not enough of it. That’s been particularly true of water recently.

In our part of New York State recently, we got more than four inches of rain. Four inches over about 40,000 square miles of land is a lot of water. Hardest hit was Pennsylvania. Parts of Maine recently got 11 inches, and Maine is not a state that’s used to a lot of rain.

In California, they’re dying for some of what we have too much of. It seems as though we ought to develop a web of pipelines that could distribute water evenly over all our states. Alaska and Hawaii could shift for themselves.

It strikes me as funny that, while people go to Florida for sunshine, cities like Tampa and Miami get more rain than any other cities in the country. Jacksonville gets about 55 inches of rain a year.

When you’re in the midst of a drought or a deluge, it’s hard to remember or believe that the amount of water on the planet is constant. There’s never more or less of it; it’s just being distributed differently. If it evaporates in one place, it forms clouds and drops somewhere else. It never just goes away.

I don’t know how some states survive. Rain is unevenly divided. Alabama, for instance, gets about 66 inches of rain a year, but Arizona makes do with less than 10 inches. Raincoat and umbrella sales must be poor there.

Some states like Vermont, Maine and New Hampshire get a lot of their water in the form of snowfall. Ten inches of snow equals an inch of rain. The same amount of rain falls whether it’s falling straight down or falling at an angle because of wind.

There’s something about my perverse nature that makes me happy in a rainstorm. I got up this morning and it was pouring rain. I couldn’t have been happier. I have a really good Barbour raincoat and a huge umbrella that opens double the size of the average umbrella. I enjoy the challenge of trying to stay dry in a deluge. The only real problem is putting down my umbrella and getting me and it into the car before I get wet.

I don’t like or really understand lightning, but I’ve never worried much about it either. Last year, about 60 people were struck and killed by lightning. That isn’t really very many — unless you were one of them, of course. I just stay away from trees when there’s lightning.

In the summer, there are two places where we often spend some of our vacation. One cottage is on a lake in New York State and the other is in the country on a hill not tall enough to be called a mountain. One big difference in being at the lake is that the coffee is better in the morning.

The lake water is soft without many chemicals or minerals in it. The water for the other house comes from a well 435 feet down. The well water is deliciously pure to drink but it’s what is known as “hard” because of the minerals in it, and it doesn’t make good coffee. —Dawn/Tribune Media Services