KARACHI: Intellectuals slam military rule in country
By Hasan Mansoor
KARACHI, March 11: The Pen and Art for Peace, a forum striving for peace in the region and the world at large, organised three back-to-back sessions at the Jinnah Medical and Dental College auditorium on Sunday in which intellectuals, academicians, politicians and experts spoke on the prospects of peace in the present turmoil-ridden world.
Tasneem Siddiqui, who presided over the first session, said the military and civil bureaucracy seized the control of Pakistan soon after its inception 60 years ago mainly because the Muslim League was not a political force but a movement in nature. He said the superior judiciary was yet another casualty of the perpetual military rule in the country.
Poet and columnist Zahida Hina said the situation when no women, including those in the government, were safe and protected, was caused by the successive military regimes’ policies to organise and patronise religious extremists.
Prof Bashir of Karvan-i-Amn suggested the establishment of justice and peace commissions at mass-scale to end the growing sectarian hatred and terrorism.
Chairman of the Jeay Sindh Mahnaz, Abdul Khaliq Junejo, said Pakistan was being ruled jointly by the military, feudal lords and clerics.
Dr Mutahir Ahmed and Barkatullah also spoke in the session.
In the second session, the speakers discussed the possibilities of peace between Pakistan and India in the light of increasing nuclear race and growing religious extremism.
Talat Wizarat of Karachi University said the rulers of the two nuclear-armed South Asian neighbours were the actual stumbling block in the way of permanent peace in the region.
Jamaat-i-Islami’s Naib Amir ProfGhafoor Ahmed said the small and weaker nations were losing their sovereignty to the stronger nations after the Sept 11 attacks on the United States.
Deputy convener of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement’s coordination committee, Dr Farooq Sattar, said the rulers of the two countries had even not yet specified a particular direction for their foreign policies. He emphasised the need to change the school curricula of the two countries in which the students were still being taught hate materials.
Anis Haroon of the Pakistan-India Peace Forum said the people were the ultimate sufferers of the foreign policy devised by the Pakistani rulers.
Shamim-ur-Rehman, president of the Karachi Union of Journalists, said a better friendship between the two countries would emerge after Pakistan gets genuine democracy. Azhar Jameel also spoke.
In the third session, the participants spoke about the peace prospects in the Middle East. I.A. Rehman, director of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, said the solution to domestic issues relating to economic, social and political problems confronting the people of Pakistan merited priority than those involving the outside world.
Chief of the Awami Tehrik Rasool Bux Palijo said capitalism had brought huge miseries for the people of Third World countries and the exploitation had become cruel after the end to the erstwhile communist bloc.Akhtar Hussain Advocate of the National Workers Party, Qari Sher Afzal of the JUI, M.B. Naqvi and Asad Iqbal Butt also spoke.
