| October 25, 2007 | Thursday | Shawwal 12, 1428 |
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Overseas treatment of bigwigs
Looking for professionalism
Cantonment areas
Appeal for waiver
Bomb victims’ rehabilitation
Parties’ working
Girls school blown up
Missing history
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
IN 2003, Malaysia signed a deal with Russia to purchase 18 SU 30-MKM fighter jets. The country will not only be getting sophisticated fourth generation jets that are supposed to be better than the F-16s but, in a smart move, also arranged to have a Malaysian astronaut sent to the International Space Station (ISS) by the Russians as a part of the package (Dawn, Sept 21).
After undergoing a one-year training, the 35-year-old Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor blasted off into space on Oct 10 aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft along with an American female and a Russian male colleague.
Now, the Malaysian science, innovation and technology minister has disclosed in Moscow that Muszaphar’s back-up candidate, Capt (Dr) Faiz Khaleed would become his country’s second man in space when he joins the next mission in 2008 or 2009 and is scheduled to undertake more challenging tasks (Dawn, Oct. 14).
He further said he plans to submit a proposal to the NASA this year that in addition to Capt Khaleed’s training with the Russian apace agency, he will be able to undergo training with the Americans.
This is indeed very wise on the part of the Malaysian authorities and forces one to contrast it with our situation. Pakistan is probably the first Muslim country that had set up an organisation (Suparco) to conduct upper atmosphere and space research over 40 years back. However, it has not conceived of a similar programme of sending an astronaut into space.
Furthermore, around 1990 the PAF had placed an order for about 28 F-16s and even paid some $600 million in advance for them. However, as is well-known, we neither received those aeroplanes nor was a refund of the down payment made. After years of pleading, all we could obtain were some shiploads of American wheat and soybean oil in compensation from the Clinton administration towards the end of Nawaz Sharif’s premiership in 1999.
Last year, the Musharraf regime placed orders for a package of new and refurbished F-16s, upgrading of our old ones along with supply of related bombs and missiles, worth nearly $3 billion; a couple of planes have recently arrive but the remaining ones will take up to two years. However, given the tough talk of many US legislators, particularly the pro-India ones, calling for sanctions on Pakistan; we can’t be really sure that we will get them all.
Nobody over there thought of asking Washington for a deal similar to the one the Malaysians have obtained regarding the astronauts, even though they are spending only a fraction on the Russian aircraft compared to what we are doing for the F-16s. Anyway, there is still time for Islamabad to ask Washington to train some of our people and send them into space aboard their own space shuttle or the Russian ISS spacecraft. This would demonstrate the Americans’ friendliness and also earn them the Pakistanis’ goodwill.
K. NAQSHBANDI
Karachi
THE report (Oct 23) containing a list showing names of 18 MNAs and senior bureaucrats on whose foreign treatment the federal government has spent Rs65 million is agonizing.
However, it is the tip of the iceberg as the provincial governments are equally benevolent in yielding to the demands of their MPAs and civil servants. If the figures of expenditure spent on the overseas treatment of provincial legislatures and bureaucrats is also added, the amount would indisputably quadruple depleting the already scant funds kept in the budget for general public health.
Although the illnesses (revealed in the list) for the treatment of which these dignitaries were allowed to spend foreign exchange lavishly can equally be managed in the country as the hospitals such as Aga Khan Medical Centres, Shaukat Khanam Cancer Hospital, CMHs and many such facilities available in private sector all over country are now well equipped with most advanced paraphernalia and served by highly qualified doctors. These medical centres are in no way less professionally advanced than any comparable facility of the world.
It is besides the fact that most of the VIPs are having a sound financial background, so they can manage the cure abroad at their own cost. When public hospitals in cities like Karachi and Lahore are most of the time running short of medicines and with outdated equipment, one can imagine the misery of rural health centres where doctors only go to collect their monthly stipends.
On Oct 11 Dawn News channel, in a programme on upper Sindh, covered extensively health conditions of upper Sindh. I was horrified to know that in Johi, K. N. Shah and Mehar talukas (Dadu district) and Qambar (Larkana district), which were devastated recently by floods, alone more than 1.5 million people, in most of the cases entire families, are now suffering from deadly virus, hepatitis B and C, due to substandard drugs and unfiltered toxic water.
However, the authorities as usual are totally oblivious of their trauma as so far no medical facilities to treat these hapless people are available in these areas.
Interestingly, these are the very areas which are contributing in a big way towards the prosperity of the nation with the recently discovered huge gas and oil reservoirs.
The prime minister and chief ministers of provinces are requested that instead of sanctioning huge amounts from public exchequer to those who otherwise can afford better cure themselves locally and aboard should consider those well deserved millions of have-nots awaiting government succour anxiously.
Not only per capita expenditure on healthcare should be increased substantially, the expense on overseas treatment of these blue-eyed should also be stopped from government funds.
MANSOOR UL HAQUE SOLANGI,
Karachi
THIS refers to the article, ‘Looking for professionalism’ (Oct 17), by Ayesha Azfar regarding President Musharraf’s accusation that the group of more than 200 soldiers captured by the Taliban militants had acted unprofessionally.
Benjamin Franklin had observed: “A little neglect may breed great mischief: for want of a nail a shoe was lost; for want of a shoe the horse was lost, and for want of a horse the rider was killed by an enemy, all for want of a little care about a horse-shoe nail.”
There is also a saying: “The wife of a careless man is almost a widow.” This can perhaps be modified for the army as: “An army headed by a neglectful commander is almost an orphan.” Gen Musharraf, in his desire to rule over the country without letting go of the post of the COAS, due to the power it provided, could never have hoped to devote as much attention to the soldiers as his full-time job called for.
Did he himself act professionally when he, as the COAS, spoke to his vice chief on an unsecured telephone line from China during the Kargil crisis when, according to the then Indian foreign minister Jaswant Singh, they had reportedly managed to record their conversation and then replay it for Nawaz Sharif?
In the absence of a civilian president there is nobody to hold him accountable. But, he would know that according to the International Republican Institute, his popularity rating has slumped to only 21 per cent. That should be the real barometer for what the Pakistanis want, rather than a rubber-stamp parliament at the end of its life.
As noted by Ms Azfar, even the experts summoned by the House of Representatives Armed Services Committee in Washington observed that the Pakistan Army suffered from “a weakness of training, a weakness of equipment and… a weakness of motivation” plus low morale. The onus for all that must naturally lie on the COAS.
He must shoulder the responsibility for his own negligence, unprofessional conduct (in China) and that of a group of 200 to 300 jawans and officers, which has caused so much embarrassment and difficulty. His folly of hanging on to two posts has cost the army and the nation heavily and the honourable way to recompense us is for him to relinquish both of these.
ABDULLAH
Karachi
CANTONMENT areas, as commonly understood, are prohibited areas where defence personnel live and public access is restricted. However, on a commercial basis, certain sectors of cantonment areas lying undeveloped at various locations of Karachi have been allowed for development by civilian use and occupancy as well.
All cantonment areas are kept exemplarily clean, hygienically green where people live a healthy life, with smooth roads, pedestrian walkways, gardens, playgrounds, regular supply of water, electricity, Sui gas and no garbage dumps around. With these living amenities and facilitations, the residents (defence personnel) are 100 per cent exempted from payment of all types of property, conservancy, water, sewerage and fire taxes.
But ever since the start of residency by civilians in cantonment areas, the provision of civic facilitations is discriminatory. Unfortunately, the major part of amount earned from tax payment by civilians is being spent on the services and maintenance of areas under use and occupation of defence personnel, while the actual tax-payers are being deprived of basic civic amenities in return, which is not fair.
Taking example of the Cantonment Board Faisal (CBF), Karachi, incidentally a few blocks other than block 18 in Gulistan-i-Jauhar are treated as cantonment areas wherein certain colonies are demarcated/restricted for living of defence personnel only. The remaining areas are most thickly populated by the civilians of various categories.
But the CBF levies on civilians only the ‘property and conservancy taxes’ when facilities in comparison to actual cantonment areas are miserably poor.
Streets, footpaths, main road, traffic islands and greenery are neither maintained nor any proper and regular conservancy is provided. The whole area is full of huge encroachments and full of beggars loitering all day in search of their prey. Is it justified to call such areas as cantonment areas?
The civilian areas claimed as ‘cantonment areas’ under the CBF need to be given to the city district government of Karachi for better services and maintenance of civic amenities to all residents without discrimination. Can someone enlighten on this anomalous condition?
For the sake of justice to common people, the Supreme Court of Pakistan may like to take suo motu action in the matter.
A TAX-PAYING CIVILIAN
Karachi
IMPORTERS are facing a lot of difficulties as shipping companies are levying container detention charges for the four days when all activities in Karachi had come to a standstill in view of the arrival of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto and then the three-day mourning in sympathy of the blast victims.
The Karachi Port Trust has waived the charges in view of the circumstances which were beyond the control of the importers. The FPCCI would now like the shipping companies to also waive the container detention charges so that importers are not penalised for a delay which was beyond their control.
M.A. LODHI
Secretary-General FPCCI,
Karachi
WHEN there were ominous threats to PPP Chairperson Benazir Bhutto from the beginning of her journey to Pakistan on Oct 18, where was the PPP wisdom to collect hundreds of thousands of people on the road and jeopardise their lives? The only reason their leadership gives is that it was their democratic right to stage a rally. But under such dire circumstances? What happened was a colossal tragedy that traumatised the nation and tarnished its image internationally.
There is no foolproof security nor is it possible for any government in our predicament to control and protect mammoth crowds. If the purpose of all this show was to assert Ms Bhutto’s massive following, it was well-managed and funded also to satisfy her patrons abroad.
Now that so many party volunteers and public men have been killed and maimed, I do not see that the PPP has chalked out any plan to help the victims and their families financially. It is the responsibility of the PPP to take adequate care of them and spend adequately on their rehabilitation and relief as they have done on galvanizing an assemblage to welcome Ms Bhutto and prepare a luxurious float for her. Mere salutes to the victims and their families will not suffice.
MOHAMMAD ALEEM SHAIKH
Karachi
POLITICAL parties in Pakistan have invariably revolved around personalities rather than programmes and policies. Also, given the feudal nature of our politics, the accent here is on dynastic politics, with the scions of leading families dominating political parties and, by extension, the seats in the legislature.
Even Z. A. Bhutto, who had won the elections on an issue - based progrmme in 1970, later on reversed himself politically by preferring to patronise the traditional political elites rather than giving strength to the urban middle and lower middle classes who were the social base of anti-Ayub struggle.
The damaging feature of our political system has been the failure to evolve a democratic political culture based on political coexistence of contending politicians and political parties.
The absence of a democratic political culture has tragically manifested itself on key occasions in Pakistan’s politics when politicians, preferring to subordinate their larger political interests to the petty rivalries and infighting, have sought the army’s intervention to oust a political rival rather than to achieve an accommodation with their political opponents.
There is nary a doubt that political parties here have ever displayed opportunism and an inherent inability to create space for civilian political structure. Pakistan’s political parties exhibit certain common attributes. First, the leader exercises the greatest influence and control over the policy and objectives of the party.
Second, the leader of the party is above criticism from within his own party even when he commits serious mistakes.
Third, the leader nominates the party’s executive committee and other central and provincial office-bearers and retains the authority to remove any office-holder.
Fourth, our political parties have also been afflicted with splitism and factionalism. All these characteristics undermine the potential of a party to play its role in democracy.
NAUMAN ASGHAR
Punjab University
Lahore
THE news item, ‘Girls school blown up’ (Oct 22) confirmed my notion that a major portion of our population, which is illiterate and ignorant – and wants to remain as such – does not want education to spread, especially for girls. This news has come from Miramshah, North Waziristan, where schools and colleges are closed for over five months due to escalation in fighting between security forces and militants.
The rifle-carrying people of Waziristan, predominantly illiterate, religious extremists and deadly against American influence in Pakistan, have been destroying schools. Their special targets are girls schools for which they assert that education to girls or women is not allowed in Islam. And mind you they are Islam’s self-appointed guardians and patrons. You differ with it?
I have only one point to elaborate: American influence in Pakistan. Since they are religious people, religious extremists, religious fundamentalists – and also not much educated – they consider their duty to fight the non-Muslims who have attacked Muslim countries like Afghanistan and Iraq. Any country supporting or aligning with the invaders is just as much an enemy as the Americans. In this case the governments in Islamabad and Kabul which are aiding the Americans are the targets.
M. K. NAQVI
Karachi
DR Mubarak Ali in his well-researched article, ‘Missing history’ (Dawn magazine, Oct 21), has rightly stated that history is generally written by the victors and not by the vanquished. He has referred specifically to events of 1857, proceedings of which were narrated mostly through official missives, notes and articles written either by the British officials themselves or by those Indian sympathisers who benefited from the English rule.
However, much before 1857 the western world had entered into the age of discoveries and scientific inventions. Unfortunately, people of the Asian continent could not get advantage of developments achieved by Europe and remained backward, cocooned in its ‘glorious past’.
One of the greatest achievements of the 19th century was the extensive use of printing technology, which promoted and empowered journalism through mass production methods as a result of the Industrial Revolution, as well as led to promotion of general literacy through public education.
The large number of people who had learned how to read demanded reading matter, and new printing machinery made it possible to produce this inexpensively and in great quantities.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, news agencies exploited the invention of the telegraph by using it for the rapid gathering and dissemination of world news via wire services. These services included Reuters, based in England; the Associated Press and United Press (later United Press International), based in the United States; and the Canadian Press, in Canada.
It is for this reason that various independent writers took pen on the worsening affairs of the subcontinent. For instance, numerous articles were written by Karl Marx (1818-1883) and Friedrich Engels (1820-1895) for the New York Daily Tribune on the 1857-59 anti-colonial liberation struggle in India.
These pieces of writing also contain articles written by Marx in 1853 on the situation in India on the eve of the revolt, extracts from his Notes on Indian History, and from letters containing important passages by the founders of Marxism are published in book form as The First Indian War of Independence 1857-1859. Likewise, literature should be available in the shape of travelogues and writings of independent scholars of other languages not directly involved in the subcontinental conflagration, which can be of great help illuminating the events of 1857.
Thus rewriting objective history of 1857 in the presence of such material requires only resolve of the communities on both sides of the divide. However, replacing the memorials set up by the British at various locations with those of national heroes, who offered their lives for independence, will not help except removal of just effigies.
The availability, and not the removal, of old memorials standing alongside statues of war heroes will act as appropriate reminder for young generations of wrongs perpetrated by the colonial power.
ALTAMASH M. KURESHI
Karachi
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