| September 11, 2006 | Monday | Sha'aban 17, 1427 |
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Frozen in time
Islamiat and Pakistan Studies
Renewal of property leases
Nothing will change
What if it rains tomorrow
Bugti and Quaid
Fiery claims
Pakistan Defence Day
Expensive licensing
Speed should slow down
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
IT was very pleasing to hear the other day speeches of the chief justice of Pakistan and the prime minister placing emphasis on ‘Justice for all’. Concern was shown in the speeches for dispensation of justice to the needy and particularly to the poor.
The prime minister stressed in his speech that an independent judiciary was vital to “ensure accountability of public authorities and to interpret, enforce the rule of law and the Constitution”.
The speeches were made at the inauguration of the conference organised by the Supreme Court to mark its golden jubilee celebrations. It aimed at reviewing the apex court’s performance over the past 50 years and to evolve a viable strategy for provision of speedy and inexpensive justice. One could not wish for anything better.
Justice has been going a-begging attention in the country for almost 60 years. The Islamabad Declaration was issued at the end of the conference. This was also a welcome development. This conference must be regarded as a great initiator and the declaration adopted offers great hope for the civil authority in establishing rule of law. There would be no doubt in anyone’s mind that enforcement of rule of law is most important in any civil society.
Why, however, are we still talking even after a lapse of more than half a century of enforcement of rule of law? This may be so because some sections of our society are alleged to be getting away even after committing crimes of serious nature. For this, it needs to made clear that no one is above the law and that everyone, military or civilian, should abide by it. A few personal examples at the topmost level, including ministers and members of the legislatures, are bound to have tremendous spill-over effect down the line.
One is greatly encouraged by the response of the government to the recent landmark decision of the Supreme Court setting aside the privatisation deal of Pakistan Steel Mill. It is hoped the government will exercise due care and vigilance in future privatisation deals. However, a few more decisions of the type of PSM in any future cases should set the government on the right course in all cases.
Making justice speedy is another serious problem. Foreign aid has been received for reforms in the judicial system. One does not see as yet any visible beneficial impact of the reforms: people are still resorting to the parallel justice system, where available, in the form of jirga or panchayat which in many cases have been instruments of miscarriage of justice.
The general public complains of high fees demanded by lawyers for accessing justice system. There are also complaints of long delays in getting decisions.
Some organisations have sprung up here and there for taking up of cases of the poor but these are few and far between. These cases seldom get early hearings and end up mostly in smoke. It is for the Supreme Court to give attention to the serious matter of high cost of accessing justice and to devise mechanism for dispensation of inexpensive justice. As for delays and miscarriage of justice, it is for the government and the Supreme Court of Pakistan to join their heads for tackling these problems.
The institution of federal and provincial Ombudsmen has been devised to deal with the grievances of citizens against federal, provincial and semi-government departments and also their semi-government organizations, with no cost involved. These are useful organisations and need to be revamped and strengthened. Other law courts may give more importance to law than to equity, but these institutions are intended as more courts of equity than of law.
I strongly emphasise the importance of all concerned in the government and the Supreme Court for giving due and proper attention to all aspects of dispensation of justice in Pakistan.
MOHAMMED ANWAR KHAN
Karachi
THIS is in response to Mr Ayaz Amir’s column ‘How many F-16s does Hezbollah have?’ (Aug 11). It is the same kind of rhetorical thinking, where everything is left to faith, which has led to the downfall of Muslims.
To me the whole Ummah has been frozen in time and space going back at least 500 to 600 years. There was a time when we had intellectual thinkers who were independent in their opinions and not brain-washed from childhood as we are nowadays.
To a Muslim, creative thinking is the unthinkable and everything that is the latest innovation is either a sin or the work of the devil, not understanding that no invention or knowledge is evil, only their use could be wrong. If incorporating the knowledge of the ‘infidels’ was a heinous crime, then why did the Abbasid Dynasty tried translating all the scientific work done by the Greeks into Arabic, the medical part of which is still remembered by its original name as ‘Unani medicine’.
Weren’t the Taliban the most ‘pious’ of all Muslim? Why couldn’t they stand the might of the US? To me the main reasons for our demise as a nation is the complete lack of innovative and intellectual thinking and the presence of concrete, black and white thought processes.
How can a lawyer explain the details of a surgical procedure to someone? Correspondingly, how will a religious scholar explain the details about economics when he doesn’t even understand it himself?
What we need now are ‘mujthahids’ who are well versed in the religion and current modern-day knowledge. For example, a ‘mujthahid’ with special interest in contemporary economics would thus be be able to clearly explain modern economics with sound knowledge of the subject and religion. Similarly, there should be ‘mujthahids’ with special interest in medicine, law, media, IT, etc.
This reminds me of Sultan Salahuddin Ayubi who for 20 years braved the storm of the Crusaders and ultimately pushed back the combined forces of Europe which had come to swarm the Holy Land. The world has hardly witnessed a more chivalrous and humane conqueror.
As a response to one of his emotional and impatient general, Sultan Salahuddin Ayubi said: “You lost previous wars not because Allah wanted you to lose but because you were not prepared enough.” That just sums it all up, I guess.
DR YASIR ABBASI
Nottinghamshire, UK
ACCORDING to a report, the provincial education manager of Sindh, Dr Mohammad Ali Shaikh, presided over a workshop on ‘What subjects should be taught in colleges’ (Dawn, Sept 3).
While proposing that the teaching of Islamiat and Pakistan Studies be discontinued at college level, he gave the following justification:
Our great leaders who founded Pakistan had not studied Pakistan Studies during their education, while there are good Muslims in our rural areas who never studied Islamiat, which we teach students at our educational institutes.
This absurd logic appears to be a crude attempt to help Islamabad enforce some power’s agenda of distancing the Pakistani students from Islam and the ideology of Pakistan. The gentleman should know that there are many Muslims in rural areas who do not even know the ‘kalima’ or about the Islamic teachings pertaining to the requirement of taking a bath and other matters relating to personal cleanliness. That is why millions of them got converted to Christianity: what could be more pleasing to the West?
Besides, there are many illiterate and semi-literate Pakistani businessmen, shopkeepers, mechanics and agriculturists and others who earn more than a lot of their educated compatriots do. Since the purpose of acquiring education in many persons’ view is only to make money, does that mean we should wind up our universities and colleges?
If, instead of improving and streamlining the teaching of these subjects, such officials manage to remove them from the college curricula, perhaps their next argument will be:
The Americans never studied Islamiat or Pakistan Studies, yet they are good people and the US is a superpower. So, if we don’t teach these subjects at all even in our schools, we could still become very rich and also a superpower.”
Z.A. JALALI
Karachi
THERE are a number of properties in Karachi whose leases have ended on the expiry of the initial period of 99 years. Many people have approached the department concerned to renew their leases, but all their efforts have gone to waste for one simple reason that the Sindh government has not yet announced the renewal charges for lease of these properties.
Moreover, the department concerned does not have any proper office and the requisite staff to deal with such cases.
Taking advantage of the situation some middlemen in the market are offering their services for renewal of leases to the extent of two or so years to builders and developers so that the latter should be able to carry out construction of high-rise apartments, after submitting necessary affidavits to satisfy the relevant department that as and when renewal charges are levied on such properties the builders and developers will pay the same.
The trap is that once the builders and developers have sold out shops and apartments to individual buyers, they will disappear from the scene, while later on individual buyers will have to bear the additional amount once the department concerned will issue challans for renewal of lease.
It is hoped that the Sindh government will announce a schedule of affordable minimum charges for renewal of property leases, and set up a proper office where individual property owners are able to submit their cases, and at the same time builders and developers are able to offer a 99-year lease, instead of passing on the burden of renewal of property charges, to individual property buyers.
SYED A. MATEEN
Karachi
AYUB stepped down, then came Yahya, then Bhutto and on and on and on. Even when the so-called elected ones were out of office people rejoiced with distribution of sweets. One day President Musharraf will also be gone and the country will be looking for another Messiah.
The will to change can only come from the people. Leaders then pick up the flame. So let us all correct the situation wherever and at whatever level we can and not wait for that Messiah. Only then change will come and not from wishing or writing letters.
ALI HAQQANI
Karachi
THE clarification given by Col(r) Rafat Naqvi (letter, Aug 28) was neither plausible nor persuasive — at best it was a PR ploy. Due to sheer negligence of both the DHA and the Clifton Cantonment Board the rainwater played havoc with both roads and houses located in the DHA.
It was forecast that the rain was coming but like New Orleans when it was struck by Katrina, the residents of DHA were left to the mercy of the vagaries of weather. No contingency plan was in place whatsoever. The gutters in the DHA always remain choked because a white elephant organisation known as Clifton Cantonment Board does not coordinate efforts with the DHA.
Both are independent and pass on the buck to each other causing untold misery to the residents. After the rain a few Khayabans became Suez Canal. Khayabans Shamsheer and Bahria resembled Victoria Lake. Needless to say that when you plan a town, you make an effective drainage system. The sea being close by, this would have become all the more easier to flush rainwater into the sea.
We see in the Discovery Channel that towering oil rigs in North Sea or elsewhere are ravaged by choppy sea but sea water never enters its pillars leave alone its platform.
Forty to 50 per cent streetlights of the DHA are out of order, both the DHA and the CCB say to each other: “No, it’s your responsibility”. There are a few hundred pye-dogs if not a thousand. In various Phases of the DHA, they keep harassing and attacking residents. It is quite natural that dog-bite cases are reported. They bark endlessly at night, does one need anything more annoying than that. I have not heard or seen that these two organisations ever made an effort to rid the DHA of pye-dogs. And the most important of all things security is ‘ukhpal bandobast’.
You can find electric wire dangling in almost all the streets save a few Khayabans. The commercial areas are gradually turning into shanty towns and ghettoes. Just go behind any commercial area and you will find heaps of garbage and overflowing gutters. There are no arrangements in place for stemming the rot. Aesthetic sense to beautify the surrounding has long perished.
Drinking water scarcity is a source of great agony for the residents of the DHA. We have been hearing since ages that its water purification plant once put in operation will change the destiny of residents. Not long ago our prime minister had said he would change the destiny of Thar.
Instead of concentrating on lingering problems, the DHA embarked on making Creek vistas and what not, least bothering that these vistas will play havoc with the already crumbling infrastructure. There will be massive traffic jams on all the Khayabans, street, nook and cranny of the DHA. Even now there is massive jam near a famous consulate on Shamsheer. The wildly driven dumpers engaged in building of various mega projects have already upturned and twisted the Seaview Road. Come the rain and it resembled the road of Kobe which had become a graveyard in the aftermath of an earthquake in 1995. In a nutshell, the DHA can’t boast of anything. (KPT can, for their eighth wonder of the world, the Clifton underpass.) Its planners and minders simply lack commitment. In the end a time-tested adage: “Action speaks louder than the words.”
SAFIR A. SIDDIQUI
Karachi
THIS is with reference to Vice Admiral (r) Iqbal F. Quadir’s letter “The Bugti I met” (Sept 6). It was disturbing to read Mr Quadir’s analogy of Mr Bugti’s death with that of the Quaid and Nawabzada Liaqat Ali Khan. I am afraid his was an emotional letter based on just one meeting with Mr Bugti. He seems to have been carried away by the late governor’s charm.
So what if Mr Bugti considered buying a few colognes for his guards. We must not forget that he treated Balochistan as his personal domain throughout his life. He denied its people the right to even the most basic amenities enjoyed by the civilized world and used force to resist any development activity in his area while he and his family amassed great wealth and power. The only thing he did allow the Baloch was to have arms, and loads of them. Perhaps he was afraid that his people would stand up against his self-imposed rule if they were to become more prosperous.
As a result, Pakistan’s largest province and perhaps the richest in untapped natural resources is in a mess, with its people still living in the primitive age. I was also shocked to learn that August 14 was celebrated by his ‘subjects’ by hoisting black flags instead of the Pakistani flag. It is high time that the people of Balochistan enjoyed their due share of the riches of their beautiful province. This can only happen if President Musharraf is supported in his efforts to develop Balochistan on war footings.
HASAN JAFREE
Pennsylvania, USA
I AM writing this letter with reference to the home minister’s claim of placing a ban on fireworks on the occasion of Shab-i-Barat. For the past three days chilren in and around my neighbourhood have repeatedly been bothering the elderly and working people with firecrackers and I never saw even one police mobile doing their rounds to check on these perpetrators
Yesterday when it became virtually unbearable to control myself any longer, since the children were standing right outside my gate blowing up their firecrackers, I first tried to stop them verbally. When their parents started taking their side and quarrelled with me, I dialled 15 for police help.
The pathetic response I got was that it was not really an issue to be reported and they lied about sending a mobile to my address. I called them four times without success. The reason I am relating this incident is to request the higher authorities not to make tall claims and false promises to the public.
AYESHA KHAN
Karachi
THE cancellation of the Defence Day holiday since the past few years has made it impossible for the younger generation to take part in the festivities and learn about this historic day. I request the authorities to revive the Defence Day holiday or replace it with some other national holiday.
I feel that young people are missing out on a glorious part of our national history and are thus falling behind in terms of patriotism and love for Pakistan. It is our job to teach our children the importance of this day and remind them of the numerous sacrifices made by our heroes.
Growing up in a traditional Pakistani family, my sisters and brothers were brought up with a very Pakistani and patriotic upbringing. Throughout our childhood and teenage years our parents took us to army and air force bases every year on the occasion of September 6 to view the impressive display of the might and discipline of our armed forces.
The revival of the Defence Day holiday will open new avenues for our younger generation to nurture its love and patriotism for Pakistan. The road to becoming a success story as a nation may be difficult but it is certainly not impossible. All we need are proud Pakistanis who are ready to stand up for their country.
NOOR AFSHAN URAIZEE
Karachi
INDIA banned Microsoft in a few states and introduced Linux as they did not want to waste millions of dollars on paper licensing. In Pakistan, on the other hand, state run institutions remain shackled to expensive Microsoft licensing.
This is despite all the hype about the government adopting only Linux as its operating system. An example is the State Bank of Pakistan which keeps on doling out tax payers money to Microsoft whereas they have a clear and inexpensive Linux alternative. Would someone please put a stop to this madness?
CONCERNED TAXPAYER
Karachi
AFTER reading Mr Speed’s threats (Sept 5), I am reminded of a cliché (though the translation does not do justice to the essence): “The bully wants to beat up and wouldn’t allow to weep”.
KHALID M. KHAN
Karachi
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