| September 28, 2007 | Friday | Ramazan 15, 1428 |
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Disaster prevention
Need for national consensus
A scholar brutalised
Thank you, KESC
Ministry’s poor performance
Swansong
Worthy of trust
Direction of thoughts
Cyber coolies
Parliament
Traffic jam
What the world needs now
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 other night I had an opportunity of seeing on a TV channel proceedings of the US Senate Committee which was convened to hear the testimony of Mr Crocker and Gen Petraeus.
What was remarkable about the speeches of the Democrat senators against and Republican senators for the war in Iraq was the total absence of the questionable basis of US invasion of Iraq. The Democrats, of course, insisted upon an immediate evacuation of the US army and the Republicans talked mostly of Islamic jihadists and their potential threat to the US if they are not eliminated.
The invasion of Iraq has always been justified on WMD, Saddam’s connection with Al Qaeda and his threat to the neighbouring countries. If the Democrats had mentioned these lies in support of their demand for troop evacuation, there would be factual and ethical force to their argument. But they were merely echoing the feelings of the US masses (i.e. voters) who are witnessing the coffins but especially the maimed who are either their kith and kin or neighbours.
There is no point fuming against the Republicans who are fired by the evangelical zeal deriving their inspiration from the Biblical requirement of Jewish concentration in Palestine before the Armageddon. Imagine, the Muslims are being accused of the same sin of zealotry.
The invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan have killed and maimed hundreds of thousands, including the old, women and children, along with the devastation of property and the social fabric of society. Unfortunately, these are not worth considering by the West, in general, and the US, in particular, because they are perusing their global aims with the same callousness as their ancestors showed in respect of slave trade in the 16th and 17th centuries. Hundreds of thousands of Africans were killed as subhumans during transportation, hunger and working as serfs.
A few years ago Bush Sr had uttered an enigmatic remark, perhaps before the invasion of Iraq, that “the standard of living of the Americans is not negotiable…” At the time the remark went unnoticed except by persons in the know of US political and executive sectors. This remark amongst such nonsense as WMD, Islamic extremism and Al Qaeda underlined the policy of the sole superpower.
The meaning of the remark was that the US would not hesitate to control by force the raw materials and markets, etc., to ensure the prosperity of the US.
If the sole aim was to ensure uninterrupted supply of raw materials, especially oil, there was no sign then and now of any interruption in the supply line. The Arab oil-producing countries were selling oil without any condition to the US. No, but the aim was to control the supply of oil to other countries as well.
This kind of mentality and the huge stock of highly sophisticated weapons that the US possesses impelled the US policymakers to go on the rampage. We are seeing the devastating effects of this arrogance.
F. HASAN
Karachi
THERE are many ammunition depots in and around the densely populated cities like Karachi, Lahore and Rawalpindi. These depots were established a long time back when these locations were far away from these cities.
With the ever-growing spread of population, these ammunition depots have now been surrounded by dense population.
Apart from this fact, with the advancement in technology, rockets, bombs, missiles, etc., are far more lethal and disastrous. Their range is believed to be more than 25 kilometres.
This obviously poses a great danger to the population, as well as to some very important installations that may get damaged in case of an accident. The havoc caused by the Ojhri Camp disaster still lives in our memory.
While disaster management is important, even more important is disaster prevention, i.e. taking precautionary measures for averting a disaster.
The authorities should take immediate steps for shifting of all ammunition depots to safer places located far away from thickly populated cities.
WAJID JAWAD
Karachi
EVERY time when the schedule of an election is announced in the country, political rallies are taken out by various parties, speeches are made by leaders at big gatherings and each party comes out with its manifesto to attract voters.
Each party awards tickets to candidates who are shortlisted by the party head and then comes the election day, when people cast their votes in favour of the candidates according to their individual choice.
The forthcoming election has become more important for parties as President Gen Pervez Musharraf is also contesting the presidential election for the next term. The election of the president would take place on Oct 6 before the general election is held.
Except for the PML-Q, no other party wants that Gen Musharraf should contest the election in army uniform. On the other hand, the president’s counsel Sharifuddin Pirzada has filed a written statement in the Supreme Court of Pakistan stating that President Musharraf would doff his uniform after his election and before taking the oath of the president for the next term.
All opposition parties, except for the PML-Q which forms the present government, have raised their voice asking President Gen Pervez Musharraf to doff his uniform before contesting the forthcoming election. The opposition parties also want that Gen Musharraf should seek a vote of confidence from the incoming parliament, and not from the outgoing parliament.
The controversy on the presidential election whether Gen Musharraf should contest election in civilian capacity and whether he should seek vote of confidence from the outgoing or incoming parliament has also raised serious concerns for the business community, as well as for the common man in the country.
Foreign importers who were supposed to come to Pakistan to negotiate business deals have postponed their visit and foreign buyers are reluctant to come to Pakistan in the present political environment. Moreover, the local businesses have also been affected, including the business of investment in property market, which has almost come to a standstill.
A common man is not interested whether the president should remain in uniform or contest the election in civilian capacity. The poor have already become victim of the ever-growing inflation, lawlessness and unemployment in the country.
In the present political scenario, it has become important for all power stakeholders to develop a national consensus on the unsettled political issues that are going on between the opposition parties and the president, due to which an ordinary person has been badly affected and every passing day is becoming more uncertain for him..
SYED A. MATEEN
Karachi
THE story of Florence, the French researcher, robbed and brutalised in Thatta, yet again reminds us how hopelessly the police state of Pakistan has further descended into the quagmire of institutionalised lawlessness.
Our police officials so habitual of meting out cruel treatment to common citizens and taking law into their hands at their sweet will and at the behest of their feudal mentors have now developed the gall to shamelessly torture a European scholar.
In a country where whole families are rendered missing on the biddings of influentials, where the highest dispenser of justice is publicly thrashed and left to look for justice, and where a foreign national is subjected to third-degree torture for demanding justice for her, one can only feel how safe there is the honour, property and life of the common man.
IMTIAZ BHATTI
Hyderabad
ON Tuesday at 11.25pm there was a big bang near my house on 18th Street off Khayaban-i-Badban, DHA-5. There was a fire in one of the electricity poles and shortly thereafter the power went off. Flames were still leaping from the wires when I called the KESC.
Putting the phone down, I turned to my wife and suggested that we settle down for the night as power was not likely to be restored till the following day.
We were shocked when a KESC team arrived within 30 minutes and fixed the problem. The power utility has come in for a lot of stick of late, mostly with very good reason. For a change, I want to take this opportunity to say: Thank you, KESC.
A RESIDENT
Karachi
I AM shocked to read a news item in a section of the press saying that the prime minister has appreciated the progress made by the Population Welfare Programme.
I would like to inform the PM that instead of listening to the minister’s report, he should have glanced at the recently-published report by the National Institute of Population Studies telling the opposite.
Both the population welfare and health sectors do not have any results to show for which they received billions of rupees over the past five years. The fertility is still quite high, rather it is at the same level as was recorded in 2001, that is 4.1 births per woman, while use of contraception remains around 30 per cent – the same level of 2001. Then which progress of the ministry should receive appreciation?
The survey results rather imply much higher population size in the coming years and, of course, higher poverty levels than claimed by the government. Contraceptives are not available with lady health workers, family welfare centres, and basic health units, and women desiring to use the same, end up having births that they never planned or desired in the first place.
The only place the ministry has spent its money is on conferences and international seminars but not learning from good examples of Bangladesh or Indonesia or Iran. As of today, the ministry of population welfare has no reason to report positive results of its performance. Unless the population programme is overhauled in the coming year, I am sure we will not achieve any MDG, rather we will have worse economic scenarios and social implications of high population growth.
TAUSEEF AHMED
Islamabad
MR President, all of us come to pass and by all indications that time has come upon your presidency. Shady deals can only serve to prolong the nation’s agony; the silent masses whose support you all along claimed have lost it with you and for good reason.
To your credit, the media was unchained and a minuscule portion of the population became mega rich, but when history draws up your balance sheet, red will be a dominant colour.
You have always impressed us as a decent type, so now decency and good sense demands that you bow out gracefully. This, besides healing the nation’s wounds, will redeem a measure of respect for you.
What is more, if you announce your departure and allow truly a fair and open election under an independent election commission, you will also deal a coup de grace to the coming back of both Mr Sharif and Ms Bhutto.
For this you will earn the undying gratitude of the thinking population of our blessed nation. Mr President, please live up to the oath you took on the PMA parade ground so many, many moons ago — Pakistan comes first.
JAVED KHAN TARIN
Karachi
PRESIDENT Gen Pervez Musharraf has indicated his well — considered intention to doff the Chief of Army Staff (COAS) uniform after he is elected as the president of Pakistan for another term.
Gen Musharraf, according to the reports in the media, has given this rather categorical indication in the form of an assurance before the Supreme Court of Pakistan through senior counsel Syed Sharifuddin Pirzada and Attorney — General Justice (r) Malik Mohammad Qayyum.
The apex court is hearing the petitions against Gen Musharraf’s holding of dual offices as the president and the army chief.
The assurance given before the Supreme Court should be trusted as a sincere commitment on the part of Gen Musharraf who is indeed very trustworthy.
Some people may have some doubts in this regard, but like millions other, I firmly believe that Gen Musharraf, as he has assured the apex court, will lay down the COAS uniform and quit the army chief office.
This would surely have a very positive impact, bring about political stability and also ensure continuity of his initiated policies and programmes in the larger national interests if he is elected again as the president.
I believe the uniformed president will continue to work for the good of the country and its people as the civilian president also.
M. HAROON ABBASI
Lahore
‘US stay in Iraq will worsen situation’ (Sept 1). Since the start of the war in 2003, between 200,000 and 600,000 Iraqis are reportedly killed in the no-win situation for the US. The war continues by President Bush under ‘give the war a chance’ scheme of untenable things.
All that counts in life is intention, so said great Andrea Brocelli long ago (Dawn Young World, June 23).
Z. A. KAZMI
Karachi
THIS is in response to the column written by Jawed Naqvi. In the column he has expressed his opinion on how ‘Indian spin doctors’ are trying to ‘villainise’ Pakistan, while overlooking the American role in the ‘villainous’ actions.
Well, I don’t have an issue with it, Mr Naqvi is entitled to his opinion, what I take exception to is the last paragraph, where Mr Naqvi made certain observations that are factually not correct, I want to correct the same:
Assertion: “A minor border skirmish with China”
Fact: Total of 3,000 soldiers (both India and Chinese put together) died and double the number were injured. This figure is not too far from the combined casualty toll of around 4,000 in the 1965 Indo-Pakistan ‘war’.
Assertion: “One eye on $10 billion tender for warplanes and other on more US visas for India’s IT coolies”
Fact: Indians are no longer ‘the IT coolies’ of the world. We exported IT and ITES services worth $31 billion in 2006-07, and would grow it by 40 per cent this year. Now you don’t get that kind or revenue by ferrying stuff. Even if it were just ferrying other people’s stuff, why could other countries not figure this out. With the brains of the likes of Mr Naqvi, it should not have been that hard?
End piece: Sino-Indian mutual trade is $11 billion, expected to grow to $40 billion by 2010, so if somebody is worried that both countries have a problem, please be assured we are two mature nations capable of sorting things out. We are not bound by any tie line of modus operandi.
MANU SHARMA
India
WHAT if after the resignation of the opposition the parliment’s time is extended and the seats vacated after resignation are open to re-election?
DR KHALID BUTT
USA
THE local authorities banned Imran Khan from entering Karachi due to possible traffic jams. What will they do when Benazir Bhutto arrives in Karachi? I guess no traffic problems are anticipated? ... appauling!
Z. A. SHAH
USA
HOW are succeeding generations to continue to appreciate the suffering and tribulations of those who have laid the foundations for our present-day freedoms in democratic opportunity? How are they to understand the costs of failing to protect the purity of essence and altruism of intent essential for the sustenance of social stability and civility?
How are we to help generations of people living in seeming plenty to realise that, even when humans are living together harmoniously, the future for humankind is dim wherever we fail to harmonise with nature and appreciate its bounty?
We waste our resources wherever we provide an opportunity to use them only once, where we trade them only once, where resources are extracted from the earth and used only once, never again to be a source of revenue or flourishment for ensuing generations. We betray the best interests of our descendants wherever raw materials and the products from which they are made end up in a refuse dump, never again to be appreciated or utilised.
It takes an enlightened and courageous generation to realise and adequately address the need to facilitate transition within our industries, our market places, and our living circumstances, to adopt new and increasingly sustainable and enriching technologies and ways of living. It will take all of our discipline and integrity to responsibly prepare for the imminent global shortages in essential resources, such as arable land and potable water, that are the consequence of our heretofore inability to appreciate how our actions, historical and contemporary, have affected our living environments and our potentials to flourish into the future.
It is the generations of people who have grown up in a world of seemingly limitless flora, fauna, and natural resources, who have been taught to be suspicious of other tribes, to fight against and subdue nature, to become the most ruthless and fearsome of creatures to roam the jungle in order to survive, who now find it difficult to comprehend the need to actively work to sustain peace, to enrich the natural realm, to abandon an age of fear, suspicion, ignorance, and resentment, to embrace an age of love, of understanding, enlightenment, and communal flourishment with the natural realm.
Without making ethical accountability and credibility the bases for global trade, without making humanitarian enrichment, social development, and environmental well-being the true indicators of economic success, without acknowledging that it is the choices that we make in wealth, and not material wealth itself, that is the mark of an affluent and enlightened society, we cannot hope to auspicate the establishment of international communities of nations free of tensions and animosities.
It is only the highest and noblest of our beliefs, inspirations, and convictions that can help us to rise above self-interest, separatism, suspicion, and hatred, that can ennoble and embolden in us the level of consciousness essential if we are to transcend the kind of short-term materialistic expediency and opportunism that can lead to war, to economic collapse, and to environmental catastrophes.
BRUCE TERRY
Tasmania
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