| November 14, 2007 | Wednesday | Ziqa’ad 03, 1428 |
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Russia’s warning
ANP leader’s statement
Revert to the radio, please
Student inactivity
Instead of clinging to power...
MNAs with fake degrees
Disillusioned
...on hunting
Political drama
Availability of drug & drink
A dollar a barrel
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
IT was heart-breaking to read the quotation from the Washington Post of Nov 3, cited by Junaid Abbasi in his letter (Nov 8). It had been written: “Pakistan is the world’s most dangerous country because it should never have been a country in the first place”.
One would like to point out to that writer that not too long ago Pakistan was the country which, because of the sacrifices rendered and assistance provided to the US, was labelled as America’s ‘most allied ally’.
In 1962, after an American spy plane U2, piloted by Gary Powers, was shot down over the USSR, Moscow had been so angered that it had pointed some of its nuclear missiles towards Pakistan, after giving us a warning. What we are getting in return for undergoing such frightful consequences is the declaration by some Americans that we should never have come into existence!
Even some of the ‘natural’ Caucasian allies of the US such as Australia, Canada and New Zealand have never had to face such Russian terror. Furthermore, it was only due to Pakistan’s indispensable role that not only were the Soviet forces expelled from Afghanistan after a decade of jihad but also the USSR disintegrated, thereby ending the Cold War. But what did we get in return? Four million Afghan refugees, a gun and drug culture, massive social and security problems such as militancy (that has only skyrocketed after the American occupation of Afghanistan), along with a paltry $3.2 billion in US aid —whereas the losses suffered by Pakistan cannot be made good even by hundreds of billions of dollars. It is the USSR and US interventions and India’s hegemonism that have caused the militancy and dangers here.
Such ingratitude can only make one regret the decision of ever helping the country involved. However, the redeeming feature is the moral support recently extended to the Pakistani people by the more sensible and fair-minded Americans, particularly Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, who is the co-chair of the Congressional Pakistan caucus. Senator Joe Biden, too, has made notable efforts trying to reverse the emergency imposed by the COAS.
However, one must note with regret that nobody from the White House or the State Department has so far demanded the restoration of the Supreme Court chief justice and other judges, as well as those of the high courts who were removed from service and subjected to house arrests and maltreatment.
This and other actions only go to show that the Bush administration is only interested in seeing its favourite leaders, such as Musharraf and Benazir, return to power in the country.
QAMAR
Karachi
ACCORDING to a report from Moscow, a senior Russian diplomat has warned the US that the threat from Pakistan if extremists were to come to power in Islamabad would be far greater than the potential danger from Iran ( Nov 9).
It is ironic that the same country that bears the primary responsibility for giving rise to militancy and jihadi fervour in Afghanistan and Pakistan by invading Afghanistan in 1979 is now telling the other major power involved in that enterprise about the threat resulting as a consequence of the two superpowers’ actions.
After 9/11, both the countries sided with the so-called Northern Alliance in disenfranchising the Pakhtoons because the majority of the Taliban also belonged to this ethnic group. This is even more tragic and has caused great resentment because of the perceived injustice to the Pakhtoons, leading to an increased support for the Taliban on both sides of the border.
Anyway, since Moscow and Washington forgive themselves all their trespasses and like to put the entire blame on the weaker parties, in this case the Muslims, perhaps the only peaceful option left is for them to try and undo the damage they have caused. They ought to put aside their own political preferences and sincerely work on winning over the Pakhtoons through dialogue and a friendly stance.
Once the Pakthoons are won over, Al Qaeda will go out of business and the militancy in the region will subside, thereby ending the western world’s fears of a takeover by the extremists.
Given an earnest desire and urgent action from the two biggest powers, this can be accomplished in as little as a year.
Another crucial thing is that the two must also pressure Gen Musharraf to not only restore constitutional rule but the higher court judges as well and be prepared to accept their verdict on the pending cases. Otherwise, the moderate majority won’t accept the general, thereby giving the extremists a boost.
Also, one extremely important thing is for the international community to help resolve the Kashmir issue in accordance with the wishes of the Kashmiris. This will assuredly work wonders in bringing peace to South Asia. If Washington and Moscow can do all this, they will be able to win the hearts and minds of about 500 million Muslims of the subcontinent who will be very gratified by these fair and sincere actions of the two powers.
IBNE INAYAT
Karachi
ONE was appalled to read the statement given by Haji Mohammad Adeel, the additional secretary-general of the ANP (Nov 10) On the one hand, he alleged that the rulers, with the backing of western powers, were trying to carve up an ‘Islamic Republic of Pakhtoonistan’ in the northwest of Pakistan. On the other hand, he said that the Muhajir-Punjabi alliance was against the existence of the country.
An objective assessment of the situation will show that the alienation currently being seen in the NWFP and Northern Areas is the result of Islamabad’s collaboration with America in its war on terror, based on the lack of wisdom or self-serving policies of Gen Musharraf rather than any intentional bid to dismember Pakistan.
The creation of an autonomous province, if not a country, called Pakhtoonistan, has always been the demand of nationalist parties, rather than someone else. The religious parties have never shown any separatist tendencies and another important fact is that the leaders from other parties, such as Nawaz Sharif, as well as the ordinary Pakistanis, too, have opposed even the renaming of the NWFP as Pakhtoonistan, because nobody wants to encourage the separatism implicit in that move.
As far as his other claim is concerned, that is very malevolent. He would be aware that there has been a party in Karachi and elsewhere in Sindh called the Punjabi-Pakhtoon Ittehad, which had been opposing the MQM. Similarly, it should be evident even to a child that the massive support shown for Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry cuts across ethnic and political affiliations, which illustrated national unity, rather than any major group being against the existence of the country.
Leaders like Mr Adeel must assess things intelligently and dispassionately before jumping on to wrong conclusions because these in turn can lead to issuing slanderous statements that can actually hurt the country.
A. ALEEM
Karachi
DEAR readers, are you really worried that since Nov 3 all private news channels, local as well as foreign, have been blocked by the cable operators in compliance with government instructions?
My humble advice to the dear readers who feel deprived of news of what is happening in the country as a result of this measure is to take heart for this has been done to stop corrupting their innocent minds, a very laudable objective which for quite some time had remained unattended by the state’s apparatus.
Yet if the dear readers are very keen to have their minds corrupted and are not willing to go by the pure stuff being diligently purveyed by PTV, they have the option of reverting to good old radio, the contraption that has since long been sidelined by us. I, for one, have gone for this option for the last couple of days and I feel one can get all the information one wants about the happenings in the country.
One can tune on to the BBC, VOA, Voice of Germany and many other stations to get all the local news one needs as well as information on international reaction to the situation in Pakistan.
Some people would say that recourse to radio in this age is a sign of retrogression. So what, I would say. Perhaps retrogressive steps taken by the government call for retrogressive responses from the people.
So, dear readers, revert to the radio for satiating your curiosity.
KHALID IDREES
Islamabad
THIS is in response to the report by Qasim A. Moini (Nov 11). I agree with him. I too am a student at NED University and I have been continuously trying to motivate my colleagues and make them realise the sensitivity and severity of this emergency issue in our country but in vain. Nobody seems to be interested in the prevailing conditions of our country.
While some of us are too obsessed with what is hot in Bollywood, others are too engrossed with their plans to earn a distinction in examinations and daydream of a highly paid job offer at the very start of their careers. We must not neglect such severe issues as this.
I was shocked that the other day a colleague expressed amazement at being told that the news channels had been taken off air. I think it is not only our engineering university but the entire student community that is going through the same phase.
An unknown teacher in the same report has mentioned that politics is negligible within the campus. I wonder how he/she justifies the administration’s control over a certain party in the university who has very confidently written (big and bold) anti-Imran Khan slogans on the walls of the university’s biggest canteen, while an ordinary student is issued a show-cause notice on even scribbling a funny remark on a wall.
We must, therefore, work together for a cause: the restoration of the judiciary, Constitution, democracy and the media.
NABIHA CHAUDHRY
Karachi
A WISE person had once taught me that even when you have to criticise someone, you should still be fair to him and try to first think of some of the good things in him.
So before coming to the main point, let me act on this advice.
A few days before the proclamation of the emergency, I had a small but significant experience. There is this very sensible girl from a low-income family who works on three jobs from eight to five, six days a week and whom I had been teaching to read and write Urdu, in trying to uphold the motto, “Each one, teach one.”
One day I saw her chirping away happily on a cellphone with some girlfriend and was very pleased on two accounts. First, that in spite of her very hard life she could still find moments of happiness. Second, that it had become possible for an impoverished person like her to afford a telephone, along with the freedom to communicate in ordinary circumstances, as well as in an emergency.
This second aspect has only become possible due to the IT revolution ushered in by President Musharraf’s government. The second good thing done by him had been to vastly expand the electronic media and give it a big measure of freedom.
However, all his good work has been immensely outweighed by the most undemocratic steps of first moving against the chief justice of Pakistan in March and then of clamping on now what is really a martial law, which is being justly pilloried by people inside and outside Pakistan.
So many people can’t be wrong. At the risk of appearing harsh, but wanting the general to know the real sentiments of the citizens, he has acted like one of the many ‘qabza’ groups in the country. This has turned the regime into what can only be called the ‘Musharraf Qabza Movement’ and the PML-Q into ‘Pervez Musharraf League’.
Sir, about a year after coming into power in 1999, Gen Musharraf had said that he was given this new position by Allah, which meant that all Pakistanis must accept it as an act of God. With whatever gnosis one can claim to possess, two things can be said.
One, that Allah gives power, wealth or other blessings partly as a trial for a person. Thus, Gen Musharraf had been provided an opportunity to transform the fate of Pakistan and, with all the powers vested in him, he could have become the most popular leader ever, after the Quaid. Inklings of this could be seen in the way the people had welcomed his first address to them, listing his famous seven points for revolutionising Pakistan.
Two, that one is not allowed to grab a blessing forcibly and must only wait patiently until divine will places it in one’s hands. Unfortunately, the president’s attitude changed some time after 9/11, when he seemed to have developed a hunger for power, which taciturn has called ‘the most flagrant of all passions’.
Instead of focusing on bettering the lot of his compatriots, he diverted most of his energies on retaining and perpetuating his power.
No man is wise enough nor good enough to be trusted with unlimited power. There is still time for the general to undo the damage he has done and the pain caused to the nation by reversing all the newly-enforced measures.
Instead of impatiently trying to snatch this blessing out of God’s hands, he should show good manners by leaving the matter to the Almighty by resigning from both his posts and contesting the election as a civilian. If Allah still wants him to rule the country, Mr Musharraf will surely win.
PAKISTANI FIRST
Karachi
IT became common knowledge that a number of PML-Q legislators had been provided bachelor degree certificates by agencies of the government to ensure their eligibility in the past election.
Through these columns and in three letters to Justice ( r) Irshad Hassan Khan, the earlier election commissioner (EC), and to the Higher Education Commission, it was requested that this matter be cleared through two clearly defined steps: (a) The EC should ask all MNAs and MPAs to submit their degree certificates and (b) the EC pass on the originals for thorough verification by the HEC. Sadly, neither body took these simple steps to clear the air. This should still be done so that those found to have received illegal degrees should be disqualified from the forthcoming election.
Q. ISA DAUDPOTA
Islamabad
I AM totally disillusioned by the turn of events in my beloved country. There was a lot of optimism when I landed in Lahore on Oct 14, 1947. Only 15 years old, there was a feeling of euphoria all around in spite of the tales of woe that we heard from the refugees from East Punjab, who were being looked after by the government and volunteers.
What has happened in this country for the last 60 years is sorrowful. Ever since Ayub Khan decided to derail the rickety wagon of democracy, we have seen knights-in-armour taking over, declaring that they are the only people who have the right to rule, election or no election.
I have been disillusioned because I cannot see even a thin streak of silver lining on the dark horizon. The country which was created through ‘blood, toil, tears and sweat’ of our elders is stuck in a quagmire and there is no sign of getting out of it, notwithstanding Ayaz Amir’s euphemism that we should not despair,
I cannot see myself enjoying the fruits of freedom under foreign slavery, de facto or de jure.
ZAFAR SULTAN
Karachi
ACCORDING to a news report, (Nov 11), NWFP Governor Ali Mohammad Jan Aurakzai had flown to Nawabshah for hunting and recreation. Does the situation in Swat and Kalam allow the governor to have such a recreation trip?
It is unfortunate that the governor should be out hunting while people are being killed in his province.
One wonders if the governor has taken any concrete measures to stop the fire in Swat before going for hunting.
It’s surely apt to say here for the governor that when Rome was burning, Nero was playing the violin.
FARHAT AKRAM
Islamabad
THE game which President Gen Pervez Musharraf and PPP Chairperson Benazir Bhutto are playing is the same old one, but with a new strategy that has been unheard of or unseen in the politics of Pakistan.
Since Ms Bhutto and Gen Musharraf both know that anyone who openly sides with the latter will have no sympathy from the people of Pakistan, they are playing this game so that Ms Bhutto’s credibility can go up in the eyes of the people.
It is again the White House which is openly backing Ms Bhutto and dictating Gen Musharraf to take her into the government. If this plan succeeds, it will then be a very strange and short-lived coalition.
Until we bring justice to the common man, who is very poor, uneducated and without a proper home to live in, we can neither be successful as a country nor can bring peace in the lives of the ordinary citizens of our beloved country.
SHAHID JAFFERY
Dallas, USA
THE letter on the unavailability of a painkiller (Nov 10) prompts me also to add one more very important heart drug ‘Sustec’. The medicine is produced by ‘Searle Company’ of England.
The medicine has not been readily available to the heart patients even at big medical stores in the city for the past some months. The old stock available at one or two medical stores is being sold at Rs400 to Rs500 and above against its original price of Rs180 or so for 30 tablets.
Besides this drug, the diabetics have not been getting bottles of ‘Diet Seven Up’ for many months. If manufacturers of this drink have not stopped producing it, they are requested to see why it has stopped coming in the market. Is it to boost the sale of their diet cans?
The authorities concerned should urgently ensure that supply of both ‘Sustec’ and the ‘Diet Seven Up’ bottles is restored in the public interest.
A PATIENT
Karachi
THE prevalent spike in the prices of oil to a staggering $98 a barrel is generating windfall profits to oil-producing countries.
The Islamic oil producers should create an Islamic monetary fund by donating $1 a barrel. The poor Islamic countries would receive aid in the shape of food etc to sustain their basic requirements.
This benevolent effort will go a long way to free the Muslim brethren from the shackles of IMF etc., besides honouring the Islamic tenet of helping Muslim brothers who are less fortunate.
RAFI ADAMJEE
Karachi
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