| October 04, 2007 | Thursday | Ramazan 21, 1428 |
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Mental health
The return of Benazir
Student politics
SC’s writ negated
Hats off
Illegal houses
Lawyers’ movement
Nishan-i-Haider?
Impact of ideas on humanity
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
aA REPORT prepared by the American think tank, the Nuclear Threat Initiative, claims that Pakistan and Russia are the most vulnerable to nuclear theft, which is said to have raised the possibility of additional pressure on Islamabad to open its facilities for international inspection (Sept 28).
The main weaknesses seen are the high corruption prevalent in Pakistan (and Russia) as well as the probability of insiders cooperating with the Al Qaeda and such other groups to make nuclear goods and technology available to them. It is also noted that if the Pakistan government’s claim that A. Q. Khan’s exports of sensitive nuclear technology were completely unauthorised is true, then his activities over a 20-year period represent an immense security failure.
One wonders why don’t such think tanks pay similar attention to the failures of the US and other western governments in several areas. Some of these are:
— The failure of the American and Canadian governments to prevent India from diverting plutonium and heavy water supplied for the Tarapur reactor into conducting New Delhi’s first atomic explosion in 1974.
— The failure of the CIA and others to know beforehand in 1998 that India was going to test five nuclear bombs, including what was claimed by it to be a thermonuclear device.
— The attack by the US and the UK on Iraq under the pretext that Saddam Hussain possessed WMDs, whereas he had none. They destroyed the country, ruined global peace and fanned terrorism on an unprecedented scale, whereas none existed in Iraq before that. Hundreds of thousands of lives have been lost and millions made homeless. But this monumental sin is camouflaged by their paranoia about Pakistan’s real and presumed lapses.
— It is well-known and was also revealed by Israeli nuclear technician Mordechai Vanunu (who was jailed for about 18 years by Tel Aviv for this disclosure) that Israel possesses nukes. But, neither the US intelligence agencies nor the think tanks seem bothered about the 200 to 400 Israeli nuclear warheads that can destroy the world several times over. In contrast, they all start clamouring if any Muslim country makes the slightest move towards acquiring nuclear capability.
— Many years back, the CIA had alleged that a factory in Sudan was making chemical weapons. As a result, the US bombed it, only to find out that aspirin was being manufactured there.
These institutions would do well to apply the same standards to themselves and their allies Israel and India as they do to Muslim countries — the latter two and Pakistan couldn’t have gone nuclear without the cooperation of many western entities.
It is also advisable for them to remember what Charles Mayo had said: “Worry affects the circulation — the heart, the glands, the whole nervous system. I have never known a man who died from overwork, but many who died from doubt.”
To this, one may add that the West’s suspicions, prejudices and desire to control the Muslims’ oil and gas resources have done infinitely more to destroy world peace and kill more people than the activities of Islamic extremists in response.
Furthermore, the alleged past activities of Dr A.Q. Khan didn’t take any lives, nor are they likely to do so. He has been under house arrest for nearly four years and his network is closed. Besides, a greatly chastened Pakistani establishment will simply not let such a thing ever happen again.
ABDUL ALEEM
Karachi
PROF Murad M. Khan has lamented in his letter, ‘Mental Health Ordinance’ (Sept 16), that despite its promulgation in 2001 nothing has changed on the ground, which reflects the government’s apathy and low priority accorded to psychiatry in Pakistan.
The good professor should note that ever since Sept 11 of the same year 2001 the government’s own mental health has been getting questionable. And from last March it is beginning to look definitely deranged.
The ruling clique is unable to protect the lives of the Pakistanis, how can it be expected to safeguard their mental health? For quite some time, its top priority has only been to perpetuate itself in power no matter if that turns all of us into lunatics.
About a month ago, the BBC had interviewed a psychiatrist, presumably from the NWFP, regarding the situation in North and South Waziristan. He had said that because of the constant and severe violence in the region the effect on the psychological health of women and children, in particular, was alarming and could cause long-term or irreversible damage.
Unless the government makes amends, soon enough we all will become the inmates of one vast asylum called ‘pagalistan’ (land of the insane).
Z.A. JALALI
Karachi
GEN Pervez Musharraf was heard by many when he had said: “Benazir and Nawaz Sharif looted Pakistan, they have no future role in the country…..” Over two-thirds majority in the National Assembly had, therefore, been persuaded by the general’s minions to express its moral condemnation of the two ‘looters’ by making constitutional enactments to ensure the prevention of their return to politics, with prime ministerial aspirations.
Now the confirmed news is that at least Benazir Bhutto and her spouse are fully poised to arrive in Pakistan very soon — with full absolution from appearing in courts for their ‘crimes of corruption and loot’.
This, when the courts in Pakistan, Switzerland and Britain have conclusive prima facie record of their culpability to have issued the indictments.
No doubt a throng of dynastic hangers-on will welcome the two (to line themselves up for future rewards). And this time round the BBC is unlikely to make a documentary like the ‘princess and the playboy’ about them, because the masters of the BBC will be told to keep off this turf, in the interest of freedom.
Just why such a thing, such a travesty of justice is being allowed. Gen Musharraf cannot use the alibi of our being under the threat of being bombed into Stone Age, to be complying with morally and legally corrosive American diktats on our domestic politics.
The American lies and deception to launch their aggression of Iraq and the resistance in Iraq have visibly destroyed American capability to think of issuing threats of bombing to even the government of the Maldives.
The US is now reduced to be solely occupied with covering its impending defeat through some ‘honourable’ rear guard action in Iraq and Afghanistan. Sensing this, Iran and North Korea have gone to town staring the erstwhile superpower a little too mercilessly in the eye.
Therefore, at the very least, we have the freedom to refuse, point blank, any and all American blandishments on any matter. Gen Musharraf and his foreign minister have actually been ‘shouting from rooftops’ that we never accept dictation from the US on any matter.
But just when the strategic boot is truly on our foot to help the US save its superpower face in Afghanistan, we are demonstrating a morally devastating, slavish compliance.
SULTAN AHMED GEELANI
Karachi
STUDENT politics plays an active role in disturbing and creating several problems for the doers, as was evident recently from the happenings– spread of anarchy — in the Sindh Medical College, Karachi. This is the case with all universities in Pakistan.
In our case, the University of Sindh, Jamshoro, recently witnessed a lot of firing and strikes at frequent intervals — all this the result of enmity between two political federations — creating much disturbances for students staying in hostels, places ideal for creating a war atmosphere.
As the administration does nothing, it is my appeal to the students involved in such activities to refrain from doing so and instead discipline themselves to shoulder the future responsibilities as leaders of society.
KHALEEQUE ZAMAN
MAHESAR
University of Sindh
Jamshoro
IN February 2006 in the case ‘Maulvi Iqbal Haider vs CDA and others’, the Supreme Court ordered that commercial activities in public parks violated Article 26 of the Constitution and was contrary to the by-laws of Islamabad’s Capital Development Authority (CDA).
The court revoked the lease granted by the CDA to Mr Shah Sharabeel to build and operate a mini-golf course in the F 7 Jubilee Park. This followed an effective campaign against the project by Fauzia Minallah, a local artist. Further, the court ordered the CDA to start disciplinary action against staff responsible for executing the lease. The reason this has almost certainly not been done is that such a lease must have had the blessing of Kamran Lashari, the CDA chairman who is a friend of Mr Sharabeel.
Also nothing has been done by the CDA yet to bring back the park to its original condition after building work was stopped, what to talk of it being improved. This shows the bad moods of the CDA and its chairman at having their plans squashed.
It has deprived the people of the nearby crowded slum, euphemistically called the ‘French Colony’, of their only public space. This park also offered valuable open space for the houses in this posh neighbourhood and for shoppers at the F-7 Markaz.
This lack of care for a existing park made worse by the CDA’s arrogant disregard for the court’s ruling, led to it giving a lease to McDonalds to cut out a large chunk of the Fatima Jinnah Park for selling unhealthy fast food. When the chief justice was removed from his position, Mr Sharabeel publicly insulted him and his golf course decision at a public gathering.
The court has failed to get its ruling implemented in letter and in spirit by the executive in Islamabad. This is also true for the demolition of 150 dangerous highrise buildings in Murree, several that the court had ordered to be destroyed eight years ago.
The justices must spend time ensuring that their past decisions and orders are respected. They should also improve the court’s complaints section which receives nearly 700 letters daily, for which its antiquated system is grossly inadequate.
Q. ISA DAUDPOTA
Islamabad
I WATCH television as the government unleashes its power again on unarmed mediamen and the lawyers. Hats off to Ahmed Ali Kurd, Munir A. Malik, Aitzaz Ahsan and the media. Tariq Azeen was also beaten up but I am sure he was beaten up by security agencies so that the government has something against the media also.
Where were the opposition parties? Where were they when the police were beating Aitzaz Ahsan and his comrades? Where were Imran Khan, Qazi Hussain Ahmad and Maulana Fazlur Rahman? All the opposition parties have failed. Where were the PML-N leaders and workers when Nawaz Sharif landed? I heard some of them even had to pay the police to take them in. Only the lawyers have emerged as a force to reckon with.
SANEE AKBAR CHAUDHRY
Lahore
I AM a career medical doctor. It took me some 40 years of work to muster funds enough to buy a plot in block 10 A of Gulshan-i- lqbal, Karachi, and get a modest house constructed on it.
A couple of weeks ago I was approached by an estate agent with an offer of buying a house, No. 236 B, in the same block for one-tenth the price I have paid for my present house.
Flabbergasted, I visited the site and was shocked to see rows after rows of houses constructed on illegal plots. The unanticipated element was the faultless first rated infrastructures made available by the city government, the KESC, KWSB,the SSGC, etc.
I wonder how these land grabbers manage to hoodwink the land utilisation and revenue department and sell plots. How much do they pay to KBCA officials who let illegal occupants build RCC structures? What does make the civic bodies provide services (not so impeccably and effortlessly offered to the law-abiding, taxpaying legal plot owners)? Once the whole jigsaw puzzle is in place, how does the whole locale get regularised en bloc?
DR FAZALUR REHMAN KHAN
Karachi
SINCE emergence of Pakistan, army generals dominated state affairs and did not allow democracy to take roots. A group of intelligence agencies-groomed politicians were organised to support military rules. These people grew as industrialists and millionaires by exploiting national resources.
Be it military or civil rule, members of this self-serving group are found around the power seat holding important political and government appointments like ministers, chief ministers, governors and other top posts in the administration and the judiciary.
Every government paid lip-service to democracy and uplift of masses but practically they left no stone unturned to loot public by raising false slogans. Dispensation of justice at lower level was victim of malpractices.
Rulers for their own interest fragmented assemblies and disfigured state institutions. They tailored laws to prolong their tenures in power for promoting their interests. Welfare of masses was never on their agenda. Now-days the same practice is being repeated. Laws and rules are being enacted/changed for re-electing a general in uniform as president by assemblies second time in their tenure which is a gross violation of the Constitution. If such a state of affairs continues unabated, the country will suffer and face disgrace.
So with this background in mind, lawyers thought an opportune time has come to launch this movement when the president suspended the chief justice for not accepting government pressure on performance of judicial duties. Preservation of rule of law, supremacy of the Constitution, restoration of democracy and bringing an end to military rule for ever were set as objectives.
Some lawyers from the very start attempted to block the path of this great historical movement and they fell as casualties in the process. Blackening the face of an advocate is also part of such casualties.
GANGLY KHAN
Mandi Bahauddin
THIS is apropos of your newspaper’s special supplement on the Defence Day, Sept 6.
Three ads printed by Pakistan Ordnance Factory, Fauji Foundation and even Pakistan Army show pictures of 11 people who have been awarded Nishan-i-Haider.
As far as I know, only 10 people have been given this highest military award, the last being Lalik Jan in the Kargil war, and he was the 10th. Can someone enlighten me who’s the 11th martyr to receive this honour and for what achievement?
An ad by FWO in the same supplement shows 10 pictures only.
MUHAMMAD SHAHZAD
Islamabad
THIS is apropos of Dr Arifa Farid’s letter, ‘HEC’s criteria for journals’ (Sept 24). While welcoming the HEC’s timely revision of its website by including Journal of European Studies in the list, she has touched an interesting topic, i.e. ‘impact factor of ideas on humanity’.
Dr Farid has rightly said that ideas presented in the social sciences and humanities cannot be gauged in a fixed timeframe. However, I do not agree that ‘philosophical and social ideas that have moved the world or have impact on social structures of societies or the world at large’ have rarely been observed immediately after they were presented.
According to Plato, ideas are a timeless essence or universal, a dynamic and creative archetype of existents. They comprise a hierarchy and an organic unity in the good, and are ideals as patterns of existence and as objects of human desire.
Any fresh idea etc when introduced, its doctrine got instant notice of those having vested interests and who were hit by it. And to maintain the status quo, they sprang back to counter the same. Sometimes they succeeded in delaying their acceptance by confounding the public mind but more often than not it is the truth which always prevailed.
Islam’s spread is a most appropriate example of acceptance in the shortest possible time. The Holy Prophet overcomes all odds within 23 years of the message as at the time of pilgrimage he led about 150,000 Muslims to Makkah.
In Das Kapital, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels developed the theory put forth by British economist David Ricardo that the value of an object is measured by the labour required to produce it.
Marx claimed that the owners of the means of production, whom he called the capitalists or bourgeoisie, exploited the proletariat, i.e. the working class, by paying them only a small fraction of the value of their labour while keeping the surplus value for themselves. This stimulated widespread interest in the study of economics and inspired socialists and communists throughout the world. However, Marx’s analysis failed to anticipate the world’s first socialist revolution in early 20th-century Russia, a country with a mainly feudal economy.
Thus allowing singular credit to the critics for popularising the idea of Marx and Engels will be unfair to the monumental work which within a short time shook the world. It was only after Joseph Stalin took over party leadership that his despotic policies changed the contours of communism.
William James, psychologist and philosopher, and Charles Sanders Peirce were contemporaries. The former helped to popularise the latter’s philosophy of pragmatism with his book, Pragmatism: A New Name for Old Ways of Thinking. Influenced by a theory of meaning and verification developed for scientific hypotheses by Peirce, James held that truth is what works, or has good experimental results.
In a related theory, James argued the existence of God is partly verifiable because many people derive benefits from believing. So in this case it is the continuity of the original idea which influenced James to further develop it.
As regards Christianity’s success, I would like to controvert the thesis of Dr Arfa. The acceptance of Christianity by Emperor Constantine as a state religion, on the contrary, metamorphosed completely its original form through the Council of Council of Nicaea (325) by injecting concepts of trinity etc.
This transformed Christianity from a monotheist to polytheist religion. The Arians who believed that Jesus Christ was a supernatural being — not quite human, not quite divine — who was created by God were condemned in perpetuity. So this change did not brought ‘part success’ in his mission rather it has deformed its pristine character as is being accepted now by western scholars.
Socrates though has been officially exonerated recently, his acceptance of hemlock for the cause of truth not only stirs the Greek society as reflected from the works of his contemporaries such as Xenophon’s Memorabilia, Plato’s Dialogues and Aristophanes’ Clouds.
Here I quote an anecdote which explains impact factor of ideas befittingly. It was during a private meeting with Chairman Mao that Z. A Bhutto asked him what he believed to have been the effects of the French Revolution (1779) on the history of modern Europe. Mao’s reply was: “It is perhaps too early to tell”.
Manzoor H. Kureshi
Karachi
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