| September 09, 2006 | Saturday | Sha'aban 15, 1427 |
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Betrayal has limits
A giant in Arab literature
Definition of genocide
Forgotten PAF officers
Creative & innovative economy
Building collapse in Murree
Awaiting telecom action
Defining a rape witness
Ramazan and roads
Complaints not heard
Readers are requested to restrict their comments to a maximum of 400 words. We reserve the right to edit letters for reasons of clarity and space. Letters, including those by e-mail, should carry the complete postal address of the sender. The views expressed in these columns do not necessarily reflect the views of the newspaper.—Editor
NOW that the unfortunate has happened it cannot be undone. It was sad and bad. It is also too soon to expect from his sympathisers to forget and forgive it.
However, irrespective of what the late Nawab Akbar Bugti had done right or wrong against the country or his tribe, it would achieve nothing to recount them all either by the government or the opposition.
On the contrary, all it would do is widen the chasm and endanger the national unity. The spectre of the ethnic disharmony is already reported to be raising its ugly head and there have been a few unfortunate instances of killing and looting of the settlers in the province.
Let’s not stoke the smouldering smoke into engulfing flames by our fiery speeches. The saner element and the intellectuals must come forward to fight the menace as one nation. It is the need of the hour to stabilise the rocking boat.
The government must show compassion and the general amnesty already announced be implemented more liberally. The returning fraries would most certainly need some immediate economic assistance before they could settle down in the bread-earning vocations.
The government must also take cognizance of the fact that the future of Balochistan depends on the pace of economic development there and an early accruing of the benefits of that to the common man of the region.
They must be made to realise that though they have lost a sardar but not their benefactor. Their level of confidence in the government must evoke a feeling of security in them and that there is someone who cares more about them than the late Nawab.
People must know, feel and see it happen. And, the way they had been treated in the past, they deserve every ounce of it. It is no simple task and the government must undertake it seriously, sincerely and taking all the Baloch into confidence.
COL (r) RIAZ JARI
Rawalpindi
THROUGH these columns I wish to congratulate Mr Samad Lassi, EDO, Dera Bugti, for his well-deserved overnight promotion from grade-17 to grade-18, for the skill with which he arranged the burial of a locked wooden-box which he alone knows carried the body of Nawab Akbar Bugti, now ‘shaheed’.
He also arranged ‘15’ men and a maulvi to offer the ‘namaz-i-janaza’. He also appeared on the TV to show the unscratched sunglasses and the wrist-watch of Mr Bugti, which remained in immaculate condition despite Mr Bugti being crushed under the rubble.
If government stories are to be believed, many more men got buried when the cave collapsed. What happened to their bodies? Did they not deserve a burial in a locked wooden-box?
My only worry is that tomorrow this cave could become a tourist attraction.
GHULAM RASOOL BAJWA
Karachi
THIS is with reference to the article by Akhtar Payami (Aug 13) and to the response to it by M. Allauddin (Aug 26).
I will remind Mr Allauddin that he has picked a ‘wrong thread’ from otherwise a very thought-provoking article by Mr Payami. When Mr Payami mentions that “holy persons no longer make this land of the sinners their permanent or temporary abode”, he has tried to underscore the fact that this nation of ours in fact is faced with this deep down despondency.
Like it or not but it is a stark reality, as of today, that given a choice and acceptance by any other developed country, this country will indeed witness a migration to the scale or greater than what was seen in 1947.
However, Mr Allauddin is correct when he opines that all of us here in this country are not just sinners alone. There are many ‘holy persons’ still around too and that is why this country of ours is still pulling on and kicking.
As far as the issue of stranded Pakistanis is concerned, it has indeed festered enough. This is a pure humanitarian issue which has unnecessarily been made a political one. It is unfortunate to see that that Pakistan has ditched and abandoned them. They certainly didn’t deserve to be condemned to a life full of misery that they have been forced to live now in ghetto-like shanties in the camps in Bangladesh.
They are Pakistanis by all legal and political definitions and everything possible should be done by all Pakistanis to honourably and respectfully repatriate them to this part of Pakistan — sooner the better.
I must add here with disgust that I see the mullahs in Pakistan talking about the Ummah and boasting to be custodian of pan-Islamism. This issue of the stranded Pakistanis was a test case for them and without mincing any words I must point out here that they all have failed this test very miserably. Now when I hear them talk about Ummah or similar rhetoric, trust you me I just don’t believe a word of it anymore.
FAIZ AL-NAJDI
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
ON August 30, 2006 a glorious chapter in the world of literature was closed with the passing of Naguib Mahfouz who was the Arab world’s sole Nobel laureate (1988).
My introduction to Mr Mahfouz was an unusual one. It was a dreary, dreary day in December 2000. I was listening to a program on the National Public Radio (NPR) in Ohio, when the late Edward Said came on air. In answer to a question about the notable names in Arab literature, Said put Naguib Mahfouz and his Cairo Trilogy at the very top.
Said could not have been more right. Mahfouz’s novels almost always contain an incisive commentary on the everyday problems faced by common Egyptians. Such problems find close parallels in many developing Muslim-majority countries today. Mahfouz paints his novels with a broad brush and touches upon everything from unemployment, rapid urbanization and crumbling infrastructure to revolution, extremism, love, hate and death. He forces his readers to ask deep and probing philosophical and existential questions.
Mahfouz, a teacher and a civil servant, was a giant in the world of Arab literature. He figures very largely in the Egyptian, indeed the whole Arab mind. For instance, a few months after the radio interview, I was speaking with Saad Eddin Ibrahim, the Egyptian-American intellectual, at a conference on “Progress in the Middle East,” when I found both of us discussing Mahfouz’s trilogy.
Ibrahim became particularly animated narrating the details of his meeting with one of Mahfouz’s assassins during the time when Ibrahim was in jail in Egypt.Though Mahfouz has left us, he will remain with us through his splendid work. It is my wish that Pakistan, too, some day can produce a literary giant who can parallel Mahfouz’s greatness. May Naguib Mahfouz rest in peace.
AMEN AQDAS AFZAL
Lahore
SHAMEEM Akhtar’s use of the term genocide in the article ‘Lessons of a genocidal war’ (Sept 7) is inaccurate and misleading. I too am against the Israeli government’s actions in Lebanon and also their ongoing crimes against humanity in Palestine, but am appalled at the laxity with which such words are thrown about.
Using words such as genocide do us no favours, such hyperbole merely serves to either make people switch off or it misleads. Genocide is the extermination, or attempted extermination, of a people. By any acceptable definition what happened in Lebanon, horrific and cruel as it was, was not genocide. Genocide is Rwanda in 1994, the Holocaust, Germany’s slaughter of the Herero in Namiba, the massacres of the Armenians, the Khmer Rouge’s killing fields, and the mass killings of the Australian aborigines and indigenous peoples of the Americas. These and sadly all too many other examples throughout history were genocides. The war in Lebanon was not.
Inaccuracies like these are grossly insulting; what happened in Lebanon was a crime and was bad enough without giving it the label of genocide. May I suggest the next time such terms are used the writer actually looks up examples of genocide and finds out what it really means. I would be interested in seeing what similarities could be found between a real genocide and what he thinks happened in Lebanon. It is possible to be against the recent war and Israeli government policy without sinking to the level of misleading people with false terminology.
SERGIO TARIQ
Karachi
ONCE again Sept 6 has rolled around and the country remembers gratefully those who laid down their lives in its defence as well as those who fought bravely and lived to tell the tale.
This fanfare reminds of the adage about old pilots that they never die, they just fade away.
This is sadly the case of the valiant Christian PAF officers who rightly hold their place in the roll of honour but are sidelined over the last many years till they seem to have slipped out of the collective consciousness of the nation.
Why this sorry state of affairs? Middlecoat and Christy gave their lives for Pakistan, yet they do not even receive an honourable mention?
Chaudhry, Eric Hall and Nazir Latif did a yeoman’s service to the PAF and the nation but what is their reward? Ignominy and indifference?
Surely if our politicians and leaders were to hail the efforts and the great part played by the Christian PAF heroes, it will not diminish in any way the glory of Rashid Minhas or Rafiqui et al? Nor will it cast a slur on the reputation of our nation.
However, by not instructing the youth of today about the crucial role played by minorities in our nation’s hours of crises, we risk making them biased and narrow-minded and, above all, we are tinkering with the truth and freedom, the principles we hold dearest of all.
TYRONE TELLIS
Karachi
IF our leaders do not capture the high ground in this latest effort to democratise the nation via an election process, it will already be too late because the hearse is now at the back door of our current economic situation.
The game is changing, Business Week magazine recently argued, “It isn’t just about math and science anymore (although those are surely important disciplines). It’s about creativity, imagination and, above all, innovation.”
Apple Computer’s iPod is often cited as an example of the kind of innovation most people are talking about.
Providing easy, legal access to lots of songs (iTunes) was something no one had yet managed. It was not simply making a slick piece of hardware; it was the design of a whole system that made Apple the leader of the innovation economy.
Similarly, Business Week points out it wasn’t Edison’s development of the light bulb that marked his genius and ensured his place in history, but his design of an entire system to produce and distribute electricity. In Pakistan’s case the analogy is quite clear.
According to the UN, the Human Resource Development index of Pakistan is one of the lowest in the world — we are now more acutely aware of the importance of reinventing our business strategies, our organisations, our communities, our schools, our housing and land-use policies and more. Nothing can remain the same if we are to survive, let alone succeed in this new global economy.
Today, organisations and the communities they serve must put themselves at the forefront of this sweeping change in the structure of the world in which we live and work.
It is imperative that we begin in earnest to attract, retain and nurture the creative and innovative workforce we know we need; and, in the process, create a new overlay of our land-use planning as well. Cities across Pakistan have to change the lenses in their cameras and their parochial thinking about ‘land use’, the transformative value of technology and the urgent need to reinvent our schools.
We need to re-design our school, college and university curricula in particular to focus on preparing students for this new competition.
While creative industries, according to the Americans, for the arts are defined as ‘arts-related’, creativity and innovation are vital to the success of all businesses. And we need to focus more on training the next generation of leaders for the creative age.
Sadly, if our leaders and we as a nation fail to capture the high ground in this latest effort to lead the nation by being first in the demand for creativity and innovation, we are at grave, indeed irreparable, risk as the hearse is now at the back door of our current economic situation.
There is now no doubt that the industrial economy is giving way to the creative economy. Organisations and whole communities are at another crossroads. Attributes that made them ideal for the 20th century could cripple them in the 21st, so they will have to change dramatically.
Unless we are awaken to the realities, our graduates will not find the work they want and need, the purchasing power of the average family will continue its downward spiral and the state of our prowess in both the economic and political arenas will be lost.
SHAHAB AFROZ KHAN
Dawood College of Engineering & Technology,
Karachi
THROUGH these columns I express my deepest sympathy to those who perished with the collapse of a building which was ordered to be demolished by the Supreme Court but stood firm till it came down.
It is learned that the chief custodian of Murree had raised this building further by two storeys. It is unfortunate that politicians play with all sorts of games with the rules and regulations to meet their selfish ends at the expense of environmental degradation and putting at risk the lives of thousands of people in this impoverished area of the Punjab province.
Much has been said by all concerned citizens of this country but it looks we have abandoned all norms of decency, honesty and fair play.
The Punjab government and the local Murree administration, specially the nizam of Murree, owe a duty to the people to put an end to all illegal land grabbing, illegal construction and save the environment of this beautiful town.
N.M. ABBASI
Lusaka, Zambia
SINCE its takeover Etisalat, a renowned name in the telecom industry, has not done much for the employees of PTCL.
My husband is a divisional engineer in PTCL: he is a foreign-qualified person with three additional degrees, extensive job experience and a wonderful job record.
He has served PTCL for 14 years and is still hanging on to his job because of the great expectations for a better remuneration package and benefits by the new management.
But now all hopes and expectations are dwindling with the passage of time. It is the most disappointing and stressful period of his career because almost all of his batch-mates have left PTCL for greener pastures but the Etisalat administration is still dead quiet about its future action plan for its employees, especially the foreign-qualified engineers.
The salary and benefits offered to an electrical/telecom engineer working in PTCL are shamefully low and in this era of high cost living it is becoming increasingly difficult for them to survive in this organisation, let alone society.
I would like to draw the attention of Etisalat’s administration towards this serious issue and would like to request them to take immediate decisions regarding the revision of salary package for its engineers.
AYESHA AMJAD
Lahore
THE very definition of a ‘rape witness’ is flawed, since it implicates the witness for not stopping the rape from happening.
When the number of ‘witnesses’ becomes four, then it becomes a gang bang — plain and simple. There is no logical reason why four people cannot prevent a rape from happening, unless they are a party to the crime.
Therefore, if there was a ‘witness’, why would he come forward and incriminate himself? Similarly, can a mullah explain how the absence of four witnesses automatically upgrades the crime to adultery? And the bizarre and magical transformation of the victim into the perpetrator?
According to mullahs’ interpretation, only the clumsy rapist will be convicted — and that too just because he was clumsy enough to have four non-participating witnesses. He should first be tried for being stupid before he’s tried for rape.
Other than politics, there’s a genuine fear of the opening of a Pandora’s box, and the subsequent torrent of rape cases filed, including, but not limited to, rampant incest, paedophilia and other forms of non-consensual sex in the critics’ constituencies if the amendment goes through.
AAMIR N. KHAN
Dubai, UAE
AS the government prepares for Ramazan, one can only imagine the traffic chaos that Karachiites will have to endure in about two weeks’ time. It’s one thing to ask traders to submit price lists, it’s another thing to ask the favourite builder to complete the projects within acceptable delay.
Several government officials are on record stating completion of underpasses and other projects during May-July period. We will be lucky if they finish before the New Year. Not only has the deadline been missed by months, the situation has become worse with several localised diggings for drainage and murky improvement project. Then there are potholes (often referred to as bomb sites) caused by rain due to substandard construction. Finally, we have the triple parking problem on almost all roads.
One purpose of Ramazan is to increase awareness of the underprivileged. But this will be one time when 100 per cent of the population will fall under the underprivileged category as far as road transportation of Karachi is concerned. Do some of us even deserve mercy? Do they have any fear of nature?
FARZAL ALI MUHAMMAD
Karachi
I WOULD like to inform the authorities concerned that my telephone number 2767685 has been out of order since July 30. I lodged the first complaint on August 3. The complaint number was 65. On August 8, I lodged another complaint (number 120). Since then I have lodged four more complaints but to no avail. The phone remains out of order. It is obvious that the PTCL officials are not performing their duties efficiently.
Is there anyone at PTCL who can look into what’s happening and find out why the complaints are not being taken care of? I hope someone will pay attention to my plea and something will be done.
CHANDER PRAKASH
Karachi
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