| December 28, 2007 | Friday | Zilhaj 17, 1428 |
To send a letter to the Editor
Click here
EC’s highhandedness
Unfair decision
Impartiality please
Aitzaz’s resolution
Half truth
Draining the future
Chasing the stars
Commuters’ issues
Callous attitude
Time to reform
PIA flights for Chitral
Survival
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 US National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) report surprised US friends and foes alike when it stated that Tehran had halted its nuclear weapons programme in 2003. It might undermine President Bush’s drive to convince other powers to impose further UN sanctions against Iran. Tehran wasted no time in considering it as a vindication of its longstanding claim that its nuclear programme had only peaceful aims. The report validates IAEA’s statements over the years that its inspectors have found no concrete evidence of an undeclared nuclear weapons programme in Iran.
Britain closely allied with Washington and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert called for the US-backed campaign to curb Iran’s nuclear ambitions to press ahead regardless. Reacting to the report, President Bush declared that Iran still has the potential to make a nuclear weapon, ignoring the report jointly prepared by its own 16 spy agencies. This logic is hard to digest. We all know there is a vast difference between potential and pragmatism. But the arrogance of power needs no bounds. Only last month President Bush had alarmed the world by declaring that a failure to stop Iran from going nuclear could risk ‘WWIII.’
It is well-known the world over that Iraq never possessed WMDs, was invaded nevertheless. Now, Bill Gates, the US Secretary of Defence, says that the US has the right to ‘unilaterally’ attack Al Qaeda targets inside Pakistan’s territory. And Israel with the help of its unflinching friend, America, growing ever more belligerent, has mutilated the Palestinian territory in the process turning Gaza into the biggest ‘open’ prison in the world, making the life of Palestinians miserable. The ink had hardly dried on the Annapolis accord when the Israeli prime minister announced the development of its settlements in Jerusalem and reneged on the commitment of a Palestinian state in 2008. Some years back President Bush had also hoped for a Palestinian state in 2005.
Pakistan’s proxy war, prompted by the US war on terror, has resulted in an increase in suicide bombings. With the recent suicide bombing in Swat, the number of such acts has gone to about 21, claiming 219 lives since 2006 (the number stood at 10 only), 14 of these took place in the NWFP and adjoining tribal areas. The targeting of our armed forces is alarming.
We are paying a very heavy price for the belligerency of others, going down deeper in the quagmire. Unless the American hostile stance changes or we have a rational foreign policy, there seems to be no end in sight. The terrorists have all the time on their side and we are running out of it.
DR. P. NASIR
Gujrat
I AM a widow and live in Shah Faisal Colony, using two rooms of my house on the ground floor to teach small children. My two young daughters help me and we make our modest living. My late husband left us the house which is our only possession. Somehow some political elements saw it convenient to turn my ground floor in the last Local Bodies elections as a polling station. I tried to stop them but nobody listened to me and they took over the two rooms and the small lounge, destroying all the small teaching tools for children, causing serious damage to my property and turning it into a centre for their political activities for days.
I and my daughters were caught in the middle of all this activity, practically helpless and voiceless. There was a serious threat to the honour and dignity of my young daughters as well as a huge disruption in our lives. We faced a great loss of our school equipment and furniture. We decided not to allow this again.
In May, I struggled hard to get my school off the list of the Election Commission. On May 2, the Town Municipal Officer, Shah Faisal Town issued a letter addressed to the Assistant Election Commissioner, District East, to delete the name of my school located at 3/155 Shah Faisal Colony, Karachi, from the list of polling stations (Ref: TMO/SFT/144/ 2007). I thought my nightmare was over.
One week ago, some people came to my school and said they would again take it over for January 8 elections. I showed them the letter of the TMO but to no avail. They came again and posted a notice at my gate to return on Jan 7 to take over the place.
This is highly objectionable and outright illegal as the law says no one can occupy any premises if the owner does not agree. This place is my residence and turning it into a polling station will cause a serious threat to my own honour, security and life as well as to my daughters.
I appeal through these columns to all the authorities concerned to take immediate action and stop this high-handedness.
MRS ROOMI RAZA
Karachi
WITH a (midnight) stroke of the pen, the Sindh minister of education has reverted the academic session to its old schedule — it will now start from April 1. This writer has many questions:
Foremost, the decision would be in the interest of many schools that would fleece newly admitted students to pay the fees for the months of June and July (they do not if the academic year starts in August). Starting in April may be good for nothing else. Second, has the Halepota cabinet approved this? For the minister is making this government over-reach beyond its caretaker mandate. The move from April to August was made after much debate.
The recent reversion is a midnight raid – no discussions, just whispers amongst members of the private schools’ association.
More dangerously for the cabinet, it can soil reputations – a high price to pay for a three-month office. This circus will impact hundreds of thousands of students across the province; it may well become the funniest of the interim season.
May this writer expose her naiveté by discussing fairness? The reversion will impact us in March/April, many months after the interim government is gone. A non-mandated minister is taking a self-serving, poor decision that has no relevance to his term in office. Is there anyone in control in Sindh? By the way, the decision would also benefit the minister’s wife happy as she owns a school.
ISM-E-KAZIB
Karachi
I OFTEN read your editorials and I find you to be too quick to criticise President Pervez Musharraf for everything he says. What is wrong with “continuity” of programmes from one government to the next? Remember the old days when politicians of one party cancelled the ongoing development programmes of the other party when they came to power, halting major projects costing billions of rupees.
Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto say that they have come back to Pakistan to save the country. The fact is that they both allowed our economy to deteriorate to the point where all foreign analysts predicted that Pakistan will become a defaulter on its loans.
Neither of the former prime ministers have mentioned the dark days of their own governments. They have never apologized to the people for their failure in the past. They must believe that the memory of the masses is too short to remember the past. They are lying openly and are deceitful in their public statements.
Write something about their past, refresh the people’s memory and guide the public to make better decisions in choosing their leaders. This is the least we expect from our news media.
DR AMANULLAH KHAN
Lahore
AITZAZ Ahsan’s determination to restore the suspended judges is indeed unique in our tainted national history. No one has stood up as gallantly at the face of ruthless dictatorial state power as he has; hats off to him and those he is defending.
They are heroes of our time. Their sacrifices for espousing the cause of an independent judiciary are supreme. What could have been the alternative? CJP Chaudhry could have served as CJ until 2013, Aitzaz become an MNA and held ministry of interior as he did in the past, other judges, who refused to take the oath under the PCO, would have gone on to serve and retire with full benefits.
Instead, these honourable men answered the call of their conscience, which is rare, and declined to submit to state hubris.
They have inscribed their names in golden words. They have made history at the cost of living comfortable lives and providing all comfort to their families. They are no ordinary men; they are indeed men of substance who deserve our respect. On the New Year Day, we must rise to salute them. They would live in our hearts forever.
MEHRAN LEGHARI
Lahore
THIS is in reference to your editorial entitled “Implications of Gujarat polls” (Dec 25). Like you, those of us who are secular-minded are deeply disturbed at Mody’s victory.
However, I also find your description of the carnage “which saw over 2,000 Muslims brutally murdered” deeply disturbing. Your figures were most probably taken from a publication of United States Congressional Research Service (”up to 2,000, mostly Muslims”). The point is: after Iraq, we all know how good or honest the US intelligence is!
As per official reports tabled in the Indian parliament, 790 Muslims and 254 Hindus died in the Gujarat riot. Your editorial conveys the impression that you are only concerned about the deaths of Muslims and not that of Hindus.
A riot victim is a riot victim, irrespective of his or her religion. While rightly condemning Modi, one should not conveniently omit the deaths of Hindus.
In this context, we should remember the old adage that half truth is often more dangerous than outright lie. I am a regular and an avid reader of Dawn and firmly believe that propagation of such half-truth will only strengthen the Muslim fundamentalists against whom your paper is carrying out an admirable fight.
KAUSHIK BHATTACHARYA
Lucknow
I LIVE in Belarus. This year many Pakistanis came here for job opportunities but they found no jobs or work opportunities and also absolutely no opportunity to go to
Europe.
Many consultants, however, send boys here from Pakistan, taking from them about $8,000.
This is the money that they save for their future. Many people are spoiling their future. This letter is to make Pakistanis beware of an apparent fraud.
MUHAMMAD FAROOQ
Belarus
I RECENTLY saw a film named ‘Taarey Zameen Par’, produced and directed by Aamir Khan. This film is about children with problems who are branded as slow learners and the treatment meted out to them by parents, teachers and management.
Through your esteemed columns I would like to thank Mr Aamir Khan for doing a wonderful service to humanity, especially the student fraternity, as well as to the teaching community.
He has focused the film on a child who has problems identifying the letters of the alphabet and numbers but is otherwise a brilliant child. In the educational scenario especially in the developing countries, we judge a child’s intelligence through a paper and pencil memory test. Although we claim that we do justice to a child’s other skills, it is only lip service and hardly any structured progress has been made in this field on both sides of the divide (India and Pakistan) and other developing countries. As a result, many children with a lot of creative talent in them are silenced forever.
What especially appealed to me in this film is the lone struggle of one caring teacher who makes a difference in the life of this child and allows him to blossom. I have also in my teaching career witnessed that the ambitious parents’ and demanding teachers and managements’ attitude and approach towards such children causes more damage than any good. Just, and I repeat, just, one loving and caring teacher who understood the child and gave him extra attention made all the difference and the child blossomed into his full potential.
I can assure you that this film raises many burning issues faced by our developing countries such as corporal punishment, attitude and approach of teachers, curriculum issues, assessment criteria, to name just a few. There is no proper job description of teachers, no accountability of teachers/parents who can be very partial towards their own children, who beat children but again no accountability.
We hope that the developing countries can work together and produce many more educational films raising awareness about such issues so that our precious children, the stars of tomorrow, will shine more brightly in the sky than be broken and brought down to the earth.
QAMAR SAFDAR
Karachi
NO political party in its manifesto seems to have announced to start electric trains or mass transit system in big cities of the country to address the transportation problems faced by the majority of the population.
Due to unavailability of a comfortable, quick and respectful transport system within urban areas, now the roads are overloaded by the leased cars and vehicles. Traffic jams have become a common phenomenon. Car thefts and snatching are rampant. Citizens are scared about the safety of their belongings.
Have the heads of various political parties ever thought about the transport plight and sufferings of the common man? They are frequent visitors of western countries and other developed areas of the world. Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif ruled over the country two times as PM but were unable to address such basic and core issues.
These politicians now must address the grievances of the common man and do some concrete work which should become the symbol of nationalism and collectivism.
SAEEDA NAZ
Rawalpindi
READING the letter “A Wedding Cancelled” (Dec 12), really saddened me. When I was a young girl, the Army’s role was just defending the country. Their attitude and lifestyle were testimony to this. The army people lived a simple life but with great dignity. Many of them would have old cars and would talk proudly of ‘one plot they owned.
Somehow along the years, perhaps the higher-ups decided that defending the country had become a boring job and that ruling the poor masses would be more interesting and lucrative.
We lost half of our country but the wealth of the ‘defenders’ doubled. The old cars were replaced by brand new cars and the single plot became ‘a few bungalows’. Their humble attitude transformed into arrogance and selfishness. To them now, only they and their dear ones mattered.
This has led to similar situations mentioned in the letter. I request President Musharraf to take cognizance of the above matter and many more like them, to save the army from disgrace.
PARVEEN SHAH
Karachi
IN Dawn’s opinion article by Zafar Iqbal, “Are free and fair polls possible?” (Dec 27), the author concludes that “they are not”. His main point is that fair elections require “neutral administrative structure” and that is missing in Pakistan.
I disagree with this conclusion. Elections involve three parties, the people, the political parties and those that have to administer the elections. In a country where none of the political parties hold internal elections or believe in accountability within their own parties, where seat adjustment is a norm, vote buying is a tradition, political parties are considered family operations, democracy means, “so when can I become the next prime minister” and the media is afraid to challenge political leaders, does it even make sense to contemplate such questions?
As opinion makers of this country, our political pundits continue to forget that the business of a country is a shared responsibility in which people and the political parties must first fix themselves. As John F Kennedy once said, “Do not ask what your country can do for you but rather what you can do for your country”. The time has come for the parties to reform themselves and for the people to hold their representatives responsible and accountable.
AMJAD WYNE
USA
I WOULD like to draw the attention of PIA authorities towards the problems of Chitrali passengers due to closure of the Lowari top.
Lowari pass was closed due to heavy snowfall before Eid. The alternative route via Kunar Afghanistan has not been opened so far. People belonging to various walks of life viz-a-viz students, government servants, patients etc. are unable to get their seats reserved for PIA flights due to an insufficient number of carriers.
PIA flies only two flights daily from Peshawar to Chitral, which is insufficient these days to carry passengers from Chitral to Peshawar. The PIA flight for Islamabad was closed due to reasons unknown, which has added to the miseries of the people. I, therefore, request the PIA high-ups on behalf of the city of Chitral to arrange extra flights for Chitral to help allay the sufferings of the people.
On this occasion, we also demand restoration of the PIA flight for Islamabad, which had been running successfully for several months. It is very strange that when the land route from Chitral to the country was open, the flight to Islamabad was in operation, but when winter set in and hardships of the people increased, suddenly the flight service from Islamabad to Chitral was discontinued without making any alternative arrangement.
The earnest request to restore this flight service is in the best interest of the people of Chitral.
BASHIR HUSSAIN AZAD
Chitral
THERE is a joke doing rounds on cellphones in Pakistan these days. It says: “Pervez Musharraf, Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif are sailing in a boat. None of them know how to swim. Suddenly the boat starts sinking. Who will survive?”
The answer is: Pakistan.
M. RAFIQUE ZAKARIA
Karachi
You can also send letters to the Editor
Just send your message to the following address: letters@dawn.com
Make sure you include your full name, postal address, e-mail address, and in the case of Pakistan your day-time telephone number.