| February 06, 2007 | Tuesday | Muharram 16, 1428 |
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The right to divorce
The meaning of ‘to serve’
Zafrulla Khan remembered
The Muslim League
Sewage disposal
Route numbers
HEC varsities’ research output
Bringing life to the classroom
Inhuman act
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
THE move by President Musharraf’s government to undertake urgent consultations with key Arab/Islamic states for exploring possibilities of resolving the Arab-Israeli problem and defusing mounting dangers to the Arab-Islamic world is a courageous and timely move.
Observers are not clear, however, about the main thrust of the Pakistan initiative. Although the issues with which the mission is concerned, as mentioned by government spokesmen, include the Middle East problem, Lebanon, Iraq, the war against terror (including Afghanistan), Islamic unity and the fight against extremism, it is doubtful if more than general soundings would have been possible during the flying visits if the Pakistani mission had focused on all or most of these issues.
It is possible, however, that in keeping with a number of statements by Pakistani spokesmen about the need for a strong new initiative on the Middle East problem, the mission had focused more specifically on the Arab-Israeli dispute.
Links in this chain include the informal summit involving President Mahmud Abbas and Prime Minister Olmert, arranged by Secretary Condoleeza Rice for February, the release by Israel of $100 million of sequestered Palestinian funds and the support in certain US political circles for giving up the phased format of the Quartet Roadmap (involving, inter alia, in the initial stages, a Palestinian state with provisional borders) in favour of a move straightaway to a resolution of final settlement issues.
While the Palestinain issue has been described as the core problem, the view that the US is perceived in the Arab/Islamic world largely through the prism of the Arab-Israeli dispute is now outdated. Due to the extremist policies of the US neo-cons, the US is, regrettably for the American people, now viewed in the Arab Islamic world through the larger prism of the Iraqi holocaust, the vendetta against Iran, the Bush–Blair declarations about generational wars against Islamic radicalism and the ever-expanding scope of the Islam-focused war against terror.
Meanwhile, Iran remains under serious, sustained US/Israeli pressure, with categorical declarations about the move of the second aircraft carrier, battle group, Patriot missiles and the rest being linked with the standoff against Iran, a US-inspired war of nerves throwing dark hints about planned destruction of thousands of Iranian targets and bringing about regime change.
Too simplistic is the diplomatic talk of the Saudi and other Gulf Arabs having asked for the moderating effect on their people of a Middle East settlement as a quid pro quo for cooperation in the US plans against Iran. A silver lining in the Gulf clouds has been provided by the recent Saudi–Iranian understanding on efforts to defuse the Lebanese civil strife and the Iraqi sectarian conflict. The Saudi and Iranian governments would fulfil a historic responsibility were they to undertake a more proactive role in healing the sectarian rift in Iraq.
While the move for a strong new initiative on the Arab–Israeli dispute is timely and courageous, it is hoped that this would not detract or divert attention from the overriding urgency of mobilising strong Islamic and other diplomatic efforts for bringing peace to Iraq and safeguarding its unity, with the help of the recently stepped-up opposition to Bush’s policies by the US Democrats. The simmering brew of the witches cauldron in Iraq and the threatening war clouds over Iran, so ominous for the Islamic heartland of the Near East, the Gulf and South Asia, are not likely to await patiently the outcome of the renewed push for a Middle East settlement.
MAHDI MASUD
Karachi
I WAS shocked to read in your editorial (Feb 1) that a recent increase in the number of divorces in Rawalpindi is a sign of progress as this shows that women are more aware of their rights. How can anyone connect divorce with progress?
Maybe the women might be better off but what about children. Who is going to look after them? Please don’t write editorials which are based on half-baked truths without realising the whole dimension of the problem.
Being a consultant child psychiatrist in the UK, I know how devastated the effect of divorce is on the family and on the children.
About 40 per cent of marriages in the UK result in divorce. Is that a sign of progress? If the divorce culture becomes more acceptable in Pakistan, then I am afraid to say that men would not hesitate to divorce also more frequently without caring for the consequences. So it’s a double-edged sword.
Yes there are exceptional circumstances in which women are being abused verbally and physically and there is an answer to that in Islamic law by the name of ‘khula’. So I doubt it if the Women’s Protection Bill has anything to do with it. Are you aware that in the UK about 40 per cent of children are born out of wedlock and single mothers are left to look after them? In the UK they can look after them because the state provides the food and housing but in Pakistan that cannot happen.
I fully believe that women should have equal rights but that should not lead to impulsive decisions like divorce leading to destruction of the family. Actually couples don’t give time to marriages and relationships and they tend to take impulsive decisions if their needs are not met and if this trend is encouraged, it leads to further exploitation.
You have commented that society would accept divorced women in the future as divorce would become more acceptable. Yes for rich women this would be the case but what about poor women. I believe that it would lead to further exploitation. Also, one should think about the children who are innocent victims of the breakdown of relationships.
Divorce should only be exceptional and should not be encouraged to become a norm. NGOs should better concentrate on providing help to poor families rather than encouraging a short-term solution of divorce. Will the NGOs then look after women who have got a divorce? Or would they feel their job is finished once the woman has got the divorce and leave the woman to face the consequences. Meanwhile men will continue to be unaffected. They would go on to marry some other woman and be least affected.
DR CHAUDHRY L. HUSSAIN
Cardiff, UK
IT was very surprising to read the letter by Mian Shehbaz Sharif (Feb 2). It is a matter of not too far past that the Sharif brothers took over power while enjoying the trust of the nation.
With a majority mandate from the people of Pakistan, they were perhaps the only rulers best placed in a position to strengthen the institutions of the country and lead the nation to the path of economical and political stability.
Most Pakistanis, both at home and abroad, had put their full faith in them and responded generously to all their calls for moral and financial support.
I am sure that if the Sharifs had remained honest to their commitments, there is no doubt that they would have enjoyed a long period of rule over people’s hearts and minds.
Unfortunately, they became too impatient and in a bid to ensure absolute power they started to destroy the sanctity of one state institution after the other.
Everyone remembers what manipulations were done to clamp down the powers of the parliament and presidency. The most unfortunate was the havoc played within the domain of the judiciary.
Ultimately, the ill-organised interference into the matters of the army fired back on them. Thus, they became responsible not only for destruction of the democratic process but also for laying down the foundations of the dictatorial era from which the nation finds no easy way out.
It is promising to know that a period of ‘imposed separation from their motherland’ has given the Sharif brothers the ‘time to reflect and strategise’. I suggest that they should restrict their activity of reflection and strategising to only repenting on their mistakes that lead to the loss of the lifetime golden opportunity that knocked on their doors not once but twice.
They can also use their experiences of life to advise the future generations on how not to run a democracy.
What they should avoid is making a wish list which includes their lasting desire to come back to power once again. If power clinching remains their agenda, I am afraid the Sharif brothers have not learnt anything from their ruthless past.
ABDUL REHMAN
Islamabad
I WAS shocked to read the letter by Shabaz Sharif. It’s beyond comprehension how he or anyone from his government can even talk about ‘law’ and an ‘independent judiciary’.
They are the very people who raided the Supreme Court in November 1997 delivering by far the most severe blow to the fragile Pakistan judiciary.
They have no idea what these two words mean. I am sure they must have mistaken these words for ‘corruption’ and ‘control’ on which they are more than qualified to write volumes.
My only request to former PML-N government members is not to write letters like this; you have already done enough damage to Pakistan.
ASAD HASAN
California, USA
Zafrulla Khan, whose 114th birth anniversary falls today (Feb 6), was a man of high calibre. His keen and disciplined intellect, enriched by experience in distinguished positions, was quick to comprehend the finer nuances of productive teamwork at higher echelons. When in June 1947, in characteristic selflessness, he rallied to the summons of the Quaid-i-Azam to serve Pakistan, he made a total commitment to the new country and its founding father.
Here is an engaging anecdote, recorded in his memoirs (Servant of God p.147), reflecting the reverentially synergistic working relationship of an eminent lieutenant and a pre-eminent leader:
“I arrived in Karachi in the afternoon of 24th December and was sworn in next morning. I noticed that I was seated next to the prime minister, and had thus been accorded seniority over the other ministers. The Governor-General was presiding; the meeting had been called at Government House.
‘‘The very first item was the nomination of a minister to represent Pakistan at the independence celebrations of Burma, in Rangoon, beginning on 4th January and extending over three or four days.
“Mr Jinnah indicated that the foreign minister should go. I submitted that I had learnt only from that morning’s papers that India had taken the Kashmir case to the Security Council. I knew nothing of the events in Kashmir and had no knowledge of the history of the dispute. It was necessary that I should make a thorough study of the relevant material available in Karachi, and should be ready to set out for New York at short notice.
“I suggested that Sardar Abdur Rab Nishtar, the next senior minister, should go to Rangoon for the celebrations. This drew a sharp rebuke from Mr Jinnah: ‘You are the foreign minister: it is your business.’ I submitted with good grace. There was no gainsaying Mr Jinnah, then or ever after.”
M.J.AS’AD
Karachi
I WOULD like to respond to the accusations that the Muslim League hijacked Urdu for communal purposes (Amar Jaleel, Dawn Magazine, Jan 28) and was an instrument of the British (Anil Khan Luni, letter, Jan 8). Mr Jaleel fails to acknowledge that efforts were under way before partition to Sanskritise India’s lingua franca, in order to purge it of Muslim influences.
For example, Bharatendu Harishchandra, who was instrumental in the development of modern Hindi, declared in his address to the Education Commission in 1882 that the use of the Perso-Arabic script was “an injustice to Hindus” (‘Krishna the Cruel Beloved’ by Sengupta).
Such attitudes spurred the League to protect the language now known as Urdu. Mr Jaleel may find it instructive to read accounts such as ‘Early Urdu Literary Culture and History’ by Shamsur Rahman Faruqi before laying the blame solely at the League’s door.
The writer also contends that the Quaid-i-Azam picked the wrong time to declare Urdu the national language. The inception of a country is the obvious time to define its attributes, including its national language, in order to give it direction. The Quaid did not reject the continued use of other languages at the provincial level.
Nothing in Mr Luni’s letter proves that the League was created by the British.
Some references to back up the claim that the British planned to form “a loyal, separatist organisation”, for example, would be useful. The declaration of loyalty to the colonial power could just as easily have been a tactic to ensure that the British would not interfere with the League’s formation. The presence of the social elite in such an organisation is not unusual and does not in itself tarnish all of its activities, which must be judged on their own merits.
If we accept that the creation of the League was in fact a British ploy, then we should still be clear that latter-day League members were hardly British lackeys. Had this been the case, Mountbatten’s machinations to thwart the creation of Pakistan would have succeeded.
Mr Luni unfairly states there was a “transfer of power from the British to the Muslim feudals on Aug 14, 1947”. As far as I am aware, the Quaid-i-Azam was not a feudal while Liaquat Ali Khan, though a nawab, had fifty pounds in his bank account upon his death (Jinnah, Pakistan and Islamic Identity by Akbar S. Ahmed).
I am sure the Quaid would have been proud of the freedom to criticise him, the League and Pakistan in the paper that he founded. I think, however, he would have been saddened by the detachment of that criticism from all of the facts and from the full historical context in which he led his people.
NADEEM ALI KHAN
Pennsylvania, USA
MR Ardeshir Cowasjee’s column ‘Hamara Karachi’ (Jan 28) implies that the fault for Clifton’s sewage disposal system, now unable to cope with three inches of rain, rests principally with the city government. While the CDGK management may have several failings, excessive verbosity being among them, in all fairness the sewerage system catastrophe is not its baby.
Credit should go rightfully to the robust and continuing contribution of the Karachi Port Trust. Dawn readers may recall that this same sewerage system (encroachments, blockages and all) was able nevertheless to cope with far heavier rainfalls until last year, when the KPT launched its ‘gift’ of the still-incomplete Clifton underpass, defended by armed guards against irate area citizens each time it rains.
We now learn from an article (in your paper of Jan 29) that the collapse of the old city’s sewerage system is traceable also to a KPT ‘gift’, the Mai Kolachi Road, construction of which has resulted in blockage of a major trunk disposal line and decimation of the mangroves that act as a flood barrier.
The Clifton underpass should more appropriately be called the Clifton underwear, having exposed shortcomings that were better left unrevealed, particularly the facts that we (a) lack the capability to design and project/manage simple road construction programmes, (b) still need overseas assistance to rectify basic engineering problems and (c) do not admit responsibility for failure.
SHAHID SCHEIK
Karachi
TRAFFIC authorities should make sure that at night the route numbers of coaches, mini-buses and other public transports are visible enough to the people waiting at bus stops so that they can board them.
These vehicles make very short stops, making it almost impossible for the commuters to read and figure out their numbers. The elderly people particularly find it extremely difficult to catch these buses and coaches.
I request the authorities concerned to take necessary action in this regard. A strong and regular follow-up is required in the form of checking and detaining the vehicles irrespective of the influence of their owners.
SYED NEHAL ALVI
Karachi
The Higher Education Commission (HEC) has recently announced the Research Output of Universities of Pakistan in 2006. The list is based on the number of publications indexed by the Institute of Scientific Information (ISI) Web of Knowledge Database (Thomson Scientific, 2006).
As a researcher and an academic, I feel this ‘research output criterion’ has been inappropriately identified. All listings are based on a single indexing — the ISI. This makes the criterion highly biased since a number of publications can still be indexed in other credible sources. Secondly, if the HEC had to rank universities’ research output according to the ISI, this should have been communicated to all institutes/universities in advance so that all universities could make an effort to have their publications indexed at the ISI.
More surprisingly, the bottom note says “93.64 per cent of all internationally-abstracted publications from Pakistan were from universities, the balance were from research and development organisations under different ministries”.
I hope the HEC has had a chance to look at The Nucleus, a scientific quarterly published by the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission, since 1964. The journal so far has had 25 issues, with 428 articles. Similarly, there are large research organisations in Pakistan like the Agriculture Research Council and Suparco, which have numerous research publications.
Maybe the HEC would like to consider a revised criterion for universities’ research output to include international research conferences, sponsored research, scientific reports and so on to give a more balanced evaluation of research output of universities?
AZRA MAQSOOD
Dy Director, SZABIST, Karachi
I READ the article “Bringing life to the classroom” by Dr Zaira Wahab just before reading the devastating news about the escalating suicidal trend among children in Sindh.
I don’t know how to visualise both the information at the same time and I wonder how the government official concerned would react to these two different but desperately alarming needs: either they will consider revitalising its educational infrastructure first so that they can bring life to the classroom or they will go for drastic measures to save and nourish whatever life children do enjoy without any services in the state of negligence.
I don’t understand what kind of financial milestone Pakistan has achieved so far as per current government claims because I am not good at math but at least I can decode this numeric symbol of 27, which is the number of children who committed suicide. What a shame.
IKRAM QURESHI
Windsor, Canada
VILLAGE girl assaulted (Feb 1). Let us forget about our nationhood and shamefully admit that we are the subjects of wild animals like inhuman feudal lords.
GHEEWALA
Karachi
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