| March 17, 2007 | Saturday | Safar 27, 1428 |
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Pakistan as a littoral state
Our foreign policy
Happiness on a palm tree
Album sales
Our universities need a shake-up
Foreign press
Iraqi women’s executions
Change of heart
Reopening girls primary school
Appeal to ERRA
Karo-kari
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 crisis that has struck us and our society by an ad hoc act of the ruling president, a general, has also unveiled the inner strength of our society that must be applauded.
Gen Musharraf has acted like the kings of old who are not accountable to anybody and exercise their power on the basis of their whim.
The reaction of the legal community has been remarkable. All over the country the various bar associations and councils have given a collective response.
Is this collective voice, and thereby a collective strength, a signal that a critical mass has emerged in our society?
Some social analysts have spoken of the connection between the emergence of a critical mass and social transformation (I have in mind Paolo Freire, a Brazilian educationist and social analyst)
A critical mass represents a collective critical consciousness, and this is what we are witnessing in Pakistan today. As a citizen of Pakistan, I strongly believe that the judiciary is the most significant bastion for the making of a society based on justice and care.
Other civil society groups, especially human rights and women’s rights groups are also struggling and represent a very important aspect of critical consciousness, but I personally think that the impact of their action so far has not been as far reaching as the impact of the legal community of Pakistan today.
We, as individuals or members of any social group, must not sit on the fence at this critical juncture in our history. We must support the legal community and educate ourselves on the constitutional rights and responsibilities of all concerned.
We must work towards making our judiciary stronger, and thereby making our society stronger, so that collectively we can meet the challenges of manipulation and control of anti-people powers.
KAUSAR S. KHAN
Karachi
I FAIL to understand the government’s objection to politicians who are taking part in the protests. Are these politicians not Pakistanis?
At this critical hour every Pakistani belonging to any segment of society has a stake in the events taking place and should stand up and speak out.
I wish a call is made by the leaders for a vigil in Islamabad. I have spoken to many people from the general public who earnestly want to take part in the protest and express themselves at this defining moment.
NAEEM BURNEY
Islamabad
MANY readers have questioned the rationale behind the move made by the the CJP on the grounds that much more severe allegations of misconduct and corruption against the prime minister and other ministers in the current government have gone unnoticed.
I tend to agree with Mr Sagheer Ahmed (letter, March 13) who writes, “to me what it clearly showed is that no one is above the chief of the army staff”.
I was reminded that, not very long ago, in the rape case of a lady doctor in Balochistan, Captain Hammad was declared innocent by the president even before his statement was recorded before a magistrate or in a court of law.
ABDUL QAYUM KHAN
Karachi
THE prime minister of Pakistan, Mr Shaukat Aziz, said during an international maritime conference titled ‘Maritime threats and Opportunities in the 21st Century: A Global Perspective on the Indian Ocean”, that the Indian Ocean should not become a theatre for strategic confrontation or a launching pad for domination over Asia. It should instead become a zone of peace and cooperation (Dawn, March 5).
The prime minister emphasised the strategic importance of the Indian Ocean and underlined the need for launching efforts to promote bilateral and multilateral cooperation in the Indian Ocean to collectively benefit from its resources and overcome challenges to it.
The Indian Ocean is spread over a wide geographic area covering three major continents: Africa, Asia and Australia. All the littoral states are heavily dependent on sea trade for their development and economic growth.
Unimpeded flow of maritime traffic is a prime concern of these states. Freedom of navigation and security of sea-lanes are collective goals of all states and can provide the basis for a common approach to the problem of security at sea.
There is an Indian Ocean organisation called Indian Ocean Rim Association for Regional Cooperation (IOR-ARC) which was launched in Mauritius in 1997 by seven littoral states.
Now it has 18 members, China, Egypt, France, Japan, and the UK are its dialogue partners.
Its key objectives are to promote sustainable growth and balanced development of the region and member-states; to focus on areas of economic cooperation, which provide maximum opportunities to develop shared interest and reap mutual benefits; and to promote liberalisation and free flow of goods, services, investment and technology within the region. It contains three members of Saarc, India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka; and one member of ECO, Iran.
Pakistan being a member of Saarc and ECO and a littoral state of the Indian Ocean is deliberately deprived of collective benefits of cooperation and natural resources.
Unfortunately, Pakistan is not a member of this important regional organisation due to antagonist posture adopted by regional states with dream of Asian dominance.
The strategic location of Pakistan is unique and important. Pakistan will reap the benefits provided it gets the membership of IOR-ARC.
The people of Pakistan urge the prime minister to take steps to become a member of IOR-ARC to deter the regional states from dominating the Indian Ocean, which has proven natural resources and potential vital for sustainable economic development. I am sanguine Pakistan will attend its next summit.
ABDUL QAYUM MANGI
Sukkur
THIS refers to Lt-Col (r) Syed Jamshaid Raza’s letter ‘Our foreign policy’ (March 6). Coming from a man in uniform, it is indeed a sad commentary on the state of the country.
India too went through its share of ‘failed state’ ignominy during the 1980s. The Punjab problem, the northeast in flames and the beginning of the Kashmir issue all put the country on the back foot.
But two decades on, it is being counted as an emerging economy and is compared with China and the US. The India of the 1980s is quickly forgotten.
The government did little to create a better image for the foreign audiences. Instead it went about its business creating engineering colleges all over the country.
The government subsidised higher education, making it one of the cheapest in the world.
When the IT boom appeared in the 1990s, the army of engineers and graduates were ready to take on these jobs. Sleepy cities like Bangalore, Chennai and Hyderabad became the dynamos of this growth.
For every IT job, four more were created in support services such as restaurants, entertainment, retail and banking. The 1990s also saw the emergence of an empowered election commission in India.
It ruthlessly pruned political influence in the world’s largest democratic exercise — the Indian elections. Public accountability during elections ensured that votes could no longer be bought or enforced on the people of India.
Fair elections ensured that no one was disenfranchised and had their say through the ballot.
These are just two factors among many for India’s rise. While the Punjab question was dealt with, the Kashmir issue and the problems in the northeast still linger — but this has not come in the way of India’s rise today.
Instead of constantly looking back on an American president’s visit to the subcontinent or the Kashmir cause, Pakistan will do well to take a leaf from India’s experience just two decades ago.
Pakistan needs to give its people hope more than anything else.
BRIJESH PRABHAKAR
Peoria, Arizona
THE ‘South Asia in Focus’ section of Dawn (March 8) carries a very fascinating account, ‘Happiness on a palm tree’, with a captivating photograph showing a young Bengali writer, Salim Hossen Gaus, climbing a palm tree on which he has prepared a platform to read and write.
For readers’ interest I would like to mention that this novel idea of finding solace in above-the-ground environment was also exercised in a remote corner of Hyderabad, Sindh, by no less a person than Shamsul Ulema Mirza Qaleech Baig (1853-1929), a great scholar.
The late Mirza Qaleech Baig, though a senior bureaucrat, had an unusual quest for knowledge and learning.
In order to attain the passion for learning, he built a nest on an old giant-sized tree within the courtyard of his house in Tando Thoro village where he used to pass most of his leisure time to fulfil his cherished desire of intellectual pursuits, i.e., reading and writing.
This outstanding mortal in a short span accomplished an enormous task of producing almost 500 books in Sindhi, English, Urdu, Persian and Arabic, besides maintaining diaries regularly.
Some of the books on sociology of Sindh, especially related to the role of women in society written as early as 1892, are acknowledged as much more radical in approach than any latter-day books written on the subject.
Unfortunately successors of this intellectual par excellence have proved disappointment as they have failed utterly in keeping the flame of his message burning.
So much so that an old and much revered institution like the University of Sindh has even failed to establish a chair in recognition of the invaluable service Mirza Qaleech Baig rendered for the exalted cause of education.
ISHA M. KURESHI
Karachi
REFERENCE to the letter ‘Album sales’ by a Pakistani, I would like to say that the album is available at retail outlets in several core localities in the Lahore city.
These include, but is not limited to the following areas, Fortress Stadium, DHA, Gulberg (main market and Liberty Market), Muslim Town, Model Town, Garden Town, Faisal Town, Shadmaan and extended cantonment area.
We must mention again that being an English-language product, it is not a first-choice item for the bulk of the audio/video outlets in the country, and having already taken notice of such a situation, EMI (Pakistan) has taken unprecedented decisions:
(1) to place the product on non-cash (pay later and
(2) stock and return unsold items, in order to afford it further support.
These policy shifts were previously not condoned by the company.
Also, other incentives on future mainstream products are offered to the outlets to ensure support to the album.
Furthermore, the main distributors in Lahore and other large cities are constantly following up on the retail outlets for backup support.
UMER SHEIKH
EMI Pakistan
I WOULD like to share some points to further the discussion about HEC policies in letters that have appeared in these columns.
First and foremost, the woeful statistics on enrolment, school dropouts, literacy and gender inequality continue to stare in the face of policymakers despite the launch of a number of primary and higher education projects.
The government will find it very hard to achieve any of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) of 2015. This prediction is, among other factors, largely based on the inadequate funding of education. Pakistan’s expenditure on education has been the lowest in the South Asian region and the world at 1.9 per cent of GDP.
The government has claimed that this has now increased to over three per cent. We are all pleased that a beginning has been initiated; however, this increase is far below than what is required.
While funding of education remains a core cause, the problems of the education sector lie much more in the archaic management and governance structure manifested in lack of empowerment at the community and school levels.
The government’s devolution programme, while sensible in theory, has failed so far in practice and the government has in various publications also admitted to the poor achievements in devolution thus far. Giving money to the local nazims is not good enough; setting up credible and empowered school boards with community participation is the way to go.
The quality of both elementary and post-secondary education remains a prime concern. There is wide dispersion in the quality of curriculum across the country and between private and public schools. We need some basic minimum standards of national curriculum — unfortunately, the education ministry has failed to define and implement any such standards either at the elementary or post-secondary levels.
However, the HEC has recently formed quality cells in various universities. Instead of having quality cells, the HEC should put in place a management infrastructure where universities themselves are held accountable for achieving quality in their teaching and research.
Our policymakers should take a step forward and stop using ‘literacy’ as an indicator of educational achievement. Literacy as currently defined is that a person should be able to write their name in any language, including their native language.
By this definition, even if 100 per cent of the country’s population becomes literate, it will have no correlation with economic growth, which is more related with educated and skilled manpower that has completed at least primary school and preferably high school and post-secondary education or vocational education.
Our universities badly need a shake-up. It’s high time our policymakers, educationists and university administrators started delivering — in principle they are accountable to the people of Pakistan; in practice that has never been the case.
DR ANJUM SIDDIQUI
Gulf University for Science and Technology,
Kuwait
PAKISTAN is passing through a most serious crisis. It has totally eclipsed everything else in the national press and independent electronic media.
It is very peculiar that foreign news channels and their websites are completely ignoring this and giving it no coverage whatsoever.
Their correspondents do not even turn up where these events are taking place. I invite the readers’ views on this.
BILAL HASAN MINTO
Lahore
OUR house is burning too. We kill our daughters under feudal savage traditions of karo-kari, vani, etc, despite the intrepid orders of our courageous courts of laws to curb this inhuman and barbarian practices.
But the deploring news of sentencing Iraqi women to death by the Iraqi jurists (Dawn, March 4) is most astonishing and tearing off the hearts.
What the Iraqi government will gain from this judicial killings except the half-joking applause from America.
According to the report, Iraqis had questioned there that they believed the executions, if allowed to take place, would raise the level of violence across Iraq.
Dawn has commented editorially (March 6) that the country (meaning Iraq) is in the grip of a frenzy of violence which does not have sectarian dimensions alone.
A still taken from a video showing the execution of the kidnapped Iraqi interior ministry official testifies to the kind of madness that has overtaken the country in the wake of Anglo-American victory.
International Commission of Jurists, Organisation of Islamic Conference, international courts of laws and United Nations Organisation are there to ask Iraq to stop nightmares of executing young mothers.
In the light of the specific UN safeguards, all member-countries of the UN must take it as their moral obligation to raise an unanimous voice to prevent this forthcoming blot against Iraqi women in the interest of justice towards the humanity.
GHEEWALA
Karachi
FOR quite some time, the news of snatching of vehicles and cellphones in Karachi has not appeared in the press. Should one assume that all is well and that the criminals have become good citizens — all of a sudden.
Or it is a ‘muk muka’ between the home department and the media. Mr Wasim Akhtar is all over in the electronic media nowadays as if he is the only one controlling the province of Sindh. Let us not play ostrich.
HAJI ASHFAQ
Muscat
I WOULD like to draw the attention of the Sindh education misister to the miserable conidition of the Government Girls Primary School in Matoo village, Bakrani tehsil, Larkana district, that is being used as an animal farm.
A request made several times earlier to the department concerned to convert this school into a public-private concern to make it functional has remained unfulfilled so far, depriving about 100 poor village girls of education.
We appeal to the education minister to look into the matter.
GHUALM FATIMA
Presdient,
Goth Sudhar Sangat,
Matoo
I WOULD like to bring to the notice of ERRA and relevant authorities that our house had developed cracks in the earthquake last October. As a result, we vacated the house fearing it would collapse because of aftershocks.
Our house was surveyed and videotaped by the inspection team but we were not issued even one cheque, though some in our village got the cheques.
Would the authorities concerned take cognizance of the record lying with ERRA and take remedial measures to help rebuild our home?
SAMIULLAH KHAN
Dobathar Bagh,
Abbottabad
How come we never get to read about a husband killed by his wife as a result of Karo-kari?
Are the all the men pious, honest and loyal to their wives, unlike the women?
FILZA G. SIDIQI B
Ireland
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