Bad day for war on terror

MONDAY was a bad day for the war on terror. Two incidents highlighted this truth. One showed the vulnerability of our security forces to indoctrinated fanatics; the other threw into bold relief the need for greater coordination between Pakistan and those on the other side of the Durand Line. “Those on the other side of the Durand Line” is perhaps the apt way of describing the coalition that has been operating in Afghanistan without having achieved any results during the last five years. But first the suicide attack that left four Pakistani security men and a woman dead. The attack on the military convoy near Mirali is the first major incident in North Waziristan since the signing last Sept 5 of the peace agreement between the government and the militants. Tribal leaders condemned Monday’s incident and later held consultations among themselves to decide who could possibly be behind the crime. The Taliban denounced it, saying that they wanted to abide by last year’s agreement, while expecting the government to do the same. As Dawn correspondents covering the incident reported, the Taliban have no presence in the Mirali area, which is considered to be the hub of foreign militants.

This brings us to the Sept 5 deal. The 16-point accord had two major points: one, the militants will not attack state property and security forces; two, foreign militants would either leave the country or live peacefully. But the unprovoked attack on the convoy shows the militants have failed to carry out their part of the bargain. Baitullah Mehsud’s complicity in Monday’s crime appears probable, though this cannot be said with certainty till concrete evidence is available, but he had vowed vengeance on Pakistan after the Hamzola incident. Whether Baitullah is involved in the attack is now of secondary importance. The questions to which answers must be sought are: one, why were not the tribal elders able to pre-empt the attack, whether by foreign or Pakistani militants? Two, why was the government’s intelligence set-up caught napping? Three, is the deal going to last, or does the attack near Mirali indicate that the deal is coming apart? Four, since Mirali is the hub of foreign militants, who was the suicide bomber and where did he come from?

The last question takes us to whatever is happening across the Durand Line. The Nato-led forces and the American military have between them completely failed to crush the insurgency. They and the host government have nothing to show by way of concrete results. The only point on which they seem united is to blame Pakistan for their own failure to develop a comprehensive politico-military strategy that could give results. In spite of having the most modern war equipment, the coalition has failed to check the two-way infiltration across the border. If it is Pakistan’s responsibility to check the movement of militants on this side of the border, it is their duty to do the same on the other side. Regrettably, they have failed to check incursions. Islamabad has rightly protested to the coalition forces for the attack on the Shawal checkpost in North Waziristan, killing one soldier. Pakistan must tell its partners in the war on terror that such incidents do not serve the common cause and could, besides outraging the public opinion in Pakistan, derail the war on terror.

Textbook policy

THE new textbook policy adopted by the education ministers’ meeting will generally be welcomed, provided there are no lacunae in it to negate its visible advantages. Until a few years ago the textbook board of every province had the monopoly of publishing books for schools holding local matriculation examinations. As anyone would know, textbook publishing is a lucrative business. Vested interests were created by the board by outsourcing the printing of books which normally run into hundreds of thousands. The absence of competition and a captive market meant that the textbook boards were left to their own devices and the shoddy quality of books testified to their incompetence and corruption.

When the government tried to break the monopoly and induct private publishers into this sector to introduce competition, the education departments of the provinces defeated the federal government’s aim by not directing the government schools to prescribe books by private publishers even though these had the certificate of approval from the Curriculum Wing. Under the new policy it appears that private publishers will once again be invited to offer their textbooks for consideration although the procedure has not been clearly defined. The report says that the textbook board will invite book development proposals which will be evaluated and ranked. It appears that the board will have an active role in this procedure, which is an anomaly if its own books will compete with other publications.

It is a positive move that multiple titles will be prescribed and the examination boards will not test candidates on the basis of particular textbooks but in the light of the curriculum. From past experience it is clear that the policy must prescribe some inbuilt mechanism to ensure that all school principals have the freedom of choice in the selection of the textbooks on offer. This will ensure that students are not taught to learn by rote. Needless to say, the quality of the textbooks, in terms of their content, presentation, style and printing should be the main factors determining the selection, apart from the price which in our society is also important. If this principle is followed, it is not clear why orders for the printing and publishing of books should be divided among second and third rankers as the impression persists.

Regulating kite-flying

THE Supreme Court has told the Punjab government that if it wants to go ahead with a temporary reprieve on kite-flying during this year’s Basant festival it will do so at its own risk. It has rightly asked why the government is seeking its permission when it has already promulgated a law giving nazims the right to lift the ban on kite-flying during Basant. It seems that the government wanted the blessings of the Supreme Court, which had first taken notice of the deaths caused during Basant by metal kite strings or by falling from rooftops while flying kites before banning it. Having now made its decision, the court — which is justified in expressing concern about peoples’ safety — can monitor how the authorities manage the festivity this time. The authorities should not allow unscrupulous elements, who blatantly flout the law, to spoil a cultural event that generates enthusiasm, a sense of pride, economic activity and tourism earnings. Accidents can be largely avoided if strict regulations are put in place and implemented, and this is where the Punjab government will have to show its mettle if it is keen on addressing safety concerns.

For starters, manufacturers who use twine in their kites should be caught and given the strictest possible punishment. This will send a powerful message to anyone contemplating selling items that are life-threatening. Regulations on kites themselves (shape and size) must be prescribed and publicised and those flouting these must be seriously dealt with. A strict enforcement of these will prevent violations of the prescribed rules. Most importantly, the public must be made aware — from now as Basant is only a few weeks away — of the dangers of reckless kite-flying, especially from rooftops. Children are particularly vulnerable as they are highly excited during Basant and must never be left unguarded.

The pleasure of your company

‘You can go on stilts.
You can go by fish.
You can go in a Crunk-Car
If you wish.
If you wish
You may go
By lion’s tail.
Or stamp yourself
And go by mail.
Richard M. Nixon
Don’t you know
The time has come
To go, go, GO!’

NINE days after the above words — and a lot more in the same vein — appeared in print in hundreds of newspapers, Richard Milhous Nixon did indeed go, becoming the first president of the United States to do so.

For the record, he ignored all of the bizarre options on offer. He left by helicopter. The exhortation appeared in a widely syndicated column, but it wasn’t the columnist who had thought up the words. Sometime earlier, Art Buchwald had chided his friend Theodor Geisel — an extraordinarily innovative children’s writer better known by his nom de plume, Dr Seuss — for having failed to write anything about the dominant political issue of the day, the Watergate scandal. Geisel responded by sending him a copy of ‘Marvin K. Mooney Will You Please Go Now!’, a book he had published two years earlier, with every reference to the title character crossed out and replaced with Richard M. Nixon.

Buchwald was so amused that he obtained Geisel’s permission to reproduce the text in place of his column. The rest, as they say, is history.

Of course, Buchwald didn’t usually require such assistance: he was pretty good himself at coming up with amusing little tales that mocked the foibles and follies of the high and mighty. So good, in fact, that he made a living out of it for more than 50 years.

Buchwald died a week ago at the age of 81, after what was arguably the most unexpected year of his life. After kidney and vascular ailments compelled doctors to amputate one of his legs, they told him he would need regular dialysis to cling on to life. Buchwald decided against it. About 12 months ago, he submitted his last column, requesting that it be published posthumously (as it finally was last week), and entered a hospice, describing it as “a place where you go when you want to go”.

He had been led to believe that two or three weeks were the most he could hope for, and he planned to make the most of it. He feasted at will on the unhealthiest foods — often from McDonald’s — and played host to all manner of celebrities who came to bid farewell.

Then, a funny thing happened. His kidneys kept functioning. He resumed his column. “I hold court in the big living room,” he reported to his readers in a column published on March 8 last year. “We sit here talking about the past, and since it’s my show, we talk about anything I want. It’s a wonderful place to be ... How long they allow me to stay here is another problem. I don’t know where I’d go now, or if people would still want to see me if I wasn’t in a hospice. But in case you’re wondering, I’m having a swell time — the best time of my life.”

Somehow, it’s not hard to believe him. Eventually he checked out and returned to his home in Martha’s Vineyard. According to friends, he retained his sense of humour to the last. One of Buchwald’s final wishes was not to die on the same day as Fidel Castro, as that would adversely affect the news coverage he received. As far as anyone can tell, it was fulfilled.

His columns in recent months reflected his diversity of interests and underlined his penchant for making unexpected connections between seemingly disparate events. Last October, for instance, he pictured himself at Dulles Airport, unable for months on end to catch a flight to Heaven. The lady at the counter explains why the planes are so full: “Heaven is still one of the most popular places to go ... For many, it’s a religious experience ... All the big religions — Christianity, Islam, Judaism — are booking flights. Atheists are in our data bank too. They’re on the no-fly list.” Eventually the woman starts summoning standby passengers by name. “Who knows when she’ll get to me,” wonders Buchwald.

Earlier the same month, inspired by General Pervez Musharraf’s appearance on Jon Stewart’s comedy show, Buchwald imagined hosting Saddam Hussein in a similar setting. The deposed Iraqi leader tells him: “I was tried for violating human rights. Everyone knows we never had any human rights in Iraq.” Buchwald tells him, “They say you gassed 180,000 Kurds.” Saddam responds: “I proved it was a crime of passion. It’s the best chapter in my book.”

In another recent column, he envisaged Colonel Cruncher and Major Numbers trying to come up with a credible official figure after it was reported that more than 650,000 Iraqis had died since the American invasion. After agonising for a while, Colonel Cruncher comes up with: “Let’s tell them (the White House) to use 30,000 — the same figure we had three years ago.” Then, on reflection, he decides to arbitrarily double it.

It is hardly surprising that the Bush administration provided Buchwald with rich pickings. So, for that matter, did the Clinton and Reagan administrations. It has always been my impression, though, that he particularly relished the Nixon years. That may be a subjective assessment, given that my acquaintance with Buchwald — in print, that is — dates back to the early 1970s. On Watergate as well as Vietnam, he could be excoriating. To his lasting regret, he never made it onto the president’s infamous Enemies List, but that didn’t deter Buchwald from adopting Nixon as his favourite president, quipping at one point: “I worship the quicksand he walks on.”

Nixon wasn’t, by a long stretch, Buchwald’s earliest target. In fact, his humorous barbs date back to the days when Nixon was no more than an unpopular vice-president. The budding columnist was based in Paris at the time. How he got there is an intriguing story. The young Art, of Austro-Hungarian descent, endured an unhappy childhood that entailed deprivation and sojourns in orphanages. At an early age, he learnt to make others laugh. When the Second World War broke out, he joined the Marines — and that proved to be his salvation in more ways than one.

After the war, he enrolled himself in a writing course at university, but then realised that the GI Bill entitled him to study in France at government expense. So off he went. Once there, he conned his way into a job with the New York Herald Tribune, which published an international edition in Paris, as a food and entertainment reporter. Before long he realised his true vocation lay not in straight reporting or gossip columns, but in humour. It proved popular enough for the Tribune to syndicate.

Buchwald never did learn much French, but his rudimentary knowledge of the language enabled him to come up with a perennial favourite: a column explaining the North American harvest festival Thanksgiving Day — or “le Jour de Merci Donnant” — to the French. Since the mid-1950s, it has been published every year on the fourth Thursday in November. And in all these years, it hasn’t grown stale. That’s quite an achievement.

After 10 years in Paris, Buchwald found himself stagnating, so he relocated to the US capital in 1962. Ever afterwards, he held up a mildly distorting mirror to Washington and won the admiration of millions — including many of his victims. “If you attack the establishment long enough and hard enough,” he noted, “they will make you a member of it.” That’s not entirely true. It depends on how you do it. There are innumerable critics of the US establishment who suffered for their dissidence and were never invited into its ranks. Buchwald was, in a sense, embedded from the start. His lambastings were not only humorous but generally gentle and, at best, only mildly subversive. He posed no threat to the established order but merely offered a safety valve.

None of that detracts, however, from his brilliance as a master of brevity and wit. His broadly liberal leanings notwithstanding, Buchwald wasn’t really a political being: he appears to have had no agenda other than to point people towards the funny side of politics in particular and life in general. He didn’t have a problem with exposing hypocrisy and lies, even though he may have had an interest, at least subconsciously, in perpetuating the status quo. And although it could be argued that innocuous humour can diminish the unpalatability of those who deserve to be disdained, it must be acknowledged that Buchwald was reasonably indiscriminate in his choice of targets.

He will be missed. His wry observations and meaningful flights of fancy tended to produce smiles rather than belly-laughs. And the smiles will linger, not least because they were evoked by a man who himself suffered from bouts of depression that verged on the suicidal.

In his premature final column, Buchwald noted: “I would just like to say what a great pleasure it has been knowing all of you and being a part of your lives.”

To which one can only respond: Thank you, Mr Buchwald. The pleasure was all ours.

email: mahir.worldview@gmail.com