Abhorrent practices

THE absconding tribal chief, Fateh Ali Umrani, missed the point altogether when he accused the media and human rights bodies, over the phone, of using the Nasirabad ‘honour killing’ incident to defame the Baloch. This newspaper, along with many others, has been consistent in espousing the political, economic and cultural rights of the Baloch. But when it comes to barbaric traditions that violate fundamental freedoms — even the right to life — then it becomes necessary to raise one’s voice against a kind of medievalism that should have been eliminated generations ago. Mr Umrani — who said he presided over the jirga that ordered the killing of the two unfortunate women initially thought to have been buried alive — was correct in indicating that ‘honour killings’ were prevalent in other parts of the country too. But that in no way justifies such a horrendous practice. Nor does it suggest for one moment that the opprobrium has been reserved for Balochistan. In fact, the consistent reporting of honour killings in other parts of the country, especially Sindh, shows otherwise. After all, the principles of human rights are universal and their violation cannot be condoned under any circumstances, whether for cultural or religious reasons. That is why it is totally irrelevant whether or not there is any truth in the allegations of ‘immorality’ on the part of the unfortunate Baloch women. Even the manner of their death — whether they were killed first and then interred, or buried alive — is not pertinent to the issue. The point is that they were murdered in cold blood — which brings us to the question of those who killed them and the tribal elders who sanctioned their death.

Mr Umrani’s revelation that he headed the jirga that sentenced the women makes him nothing less than a self-confessed murderer, and the police should leave no stone unturned to find and arrest him so that he can face trial — not in front of another jirga, of course, but in a court of law. Although Balochistan’s influential feudals routinely escape accountability, much like their counterparts in Sindh and elsewhere, this may not be as difficult as it sounds. The Supreme Court of Pakistan has taken suo motu notice of the affair and ordered an inquiry into the matter. This was a necessary step, and one hopes that the outcome of the inquiry and the subsequent process of law will result in the criminals being caught and punished. Meanwhile, the media and human rights bodies have done a commendable job overall in highlighting this particular case and others before it. Continuing to raise awareness on this issue will go a long way in mitigating the effects of such barbarism.

India’s Muslim problem

AS India struggles to identify the perpetrators of serial bombings in Indian cities, it is increasingly lashing out at Pakistan. Now Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has added his voice to the Pakistan-bashing: “We have reports that certain Pakistan-based terrorist outfits are constantly seeking to set up new terrorist modules within our country. This is a matter of utmost concern.” This follows a string of recent statements by Union ministers implicating Pakistan in the wave of ‘metro terrorism’ on Indian soil. However, look past the Indian allegations against Pakistan and local Indian groups emerge as the real threat. Even as Prime Minister Singh was attacking Pakistan, he was forced to concede that “in view of the growing involvement of local elements” increased vigilance on the Pakistan-India border was not enough. The message: the terrorists are already amongst us and they are Indian. Indeed, investigations into the blasts across India have focussed on a group that calls itself the Indian Mujahideen. Not much is known about the group, but it is believed to be an offshoot of the banned Students Islamic Movement of India, which India accuses of having ties to militant groups in Pakistan and Bangladesh, especially the Harkat-ul-Jihad al Islami.

The Indian Mujahideen appear to view their conflict with the Indian state as a Hindu-Muslim civilisational struggle. In an email sent after the New Delhi blasts, the group accused Indians — read Hindus — of harbouring “never-ending hostile hatred in your hearts against Islam and its people”. What is feeding this raw, ugly hatred? Finance Minister P. Chidambaram has eloquently, and helpfully, pointed out some of the reasons — while also blaming Pakistan for stoking unrest in India. The real challenge, according to Mr Chidambaram, is the alienation of the Muslim community from mainstream India, fuelled by “ghettoisation, social boycott, discrimination in employment and the blurring of lines between state and religion as was seen in Gujarat”. The minister further claimed that new waves of terror will rise “out of the hopelessness and despair of the Muslim community”. This then is India’s real challenge. Something must urgently be done to address Muslim alienation — the reason that graduates, engineers and doctors, “born, educated and living in India”, are taking to the path of violence. At one level, terrorism is a law and order problem and the government is rightly focussing on the nuts and bolts of counter-terrorism. However, at another level, India must win over its disaffected Muslim community. Blaming Pakistan may make Indian politicians feel better about their terrorism problem, but it does nothing to solve that problem.

Terror in Yemen

THE strength of Yemen’s terror groups became evident once again on Wednesday when two suicide car-bomb attacks on the American embassy in Sanaa by an Al Qaeda affiliate killed 16 people, including six of the perpetrators. The attack is thus the deadliest on an American target since the bombing of USS Cole in October 2000. The tone adopted by the Islamic Jihad, which claimed responsibility for the crime, is menacing, for it has threatened more attacks not just on American but also on Yemeni, Saudi and UAE targets unless its demands are met. The demands focus on the release of its agents now in prison. Not related to a Palestinian group with a similar name, the Islamic Jihad of Yemen has carried out daring attacks on western targets, and the execution of its leader in 1999 has evidently not served to break up the organisation or discourage it from continuing terrorist activity.

No one knows it more than we in Pakistan that such groups kill and hurt their own people without advancing whatever their cause. Ignoring the six terrorists, all the others except one killed in Wednesday’s attack were Yemenis. Since 2000, the Islamic Jihad and other Yemeni extremist groups have carried out 12 attacks on western targets, but the majority of those killed were civilians. The Islamic Jihad leadership must let the world know in what way they are closer to achieving the release of their activists or getting Israel to vacate the occupied territories.

There is no doubt unresolved disputes in which Muslims are the main sufferers — Palestine and Kashmir, for instance — and the slaughter in Bosnia have shaken the Muslim world to the core, made it aware of its weakness and unleashed an anti-West wave. But there are better ways of undoing the injustices to the Muslim peoples than acts of madness that prove counterproductive. In fact, a look at geopolitical developments since 9/11 shows the attacks on the Twin Towers undermined Muslim causes throughout the world and helped exactly those countries which organisations like Al Qaeda and Islamic Jihad consider their enemies.

OTHER VOICES - Pushto Press

The Pak-Afghan jirga

Wahdat, Peshawar

THE NWFP governor, Owais Ahmad Ghani, while addressing a high-level meeting in Peshawar the other day said that the Pak-Afghan jirga subcommittee meeting will be held in Islamabad after Eid to devise a strategy for promoting the process of dialogue among the warring groups and the Afghanistan government. The subcommittees of the Grand Pak-Afghan Jirga consist of 25 members each from Pakistan and Afghanistan. The meeting which was chaired by the governor in Peshawar was attended by prominent government officials, including Afrasiab Khattak … the envoy for peace of the NWFP government and other influential personalities. In the present circumstances, the statement will have far-reaching consequences in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The situation in both Pakistan and Afghanistan has never stabilised after 9/11 as far as security and law and order are concerned. Keeping this fact in mind, the governments of both Kabul and Islamabad convened a grand jirga in Kabul last year to sort out the issues pertaining to militancy and terrorism in both countries. The jirga was attended by 700 delegates from both sides. It is to be recalled that the tradition of the jirga is quite old in both countries, especially in the Pashtun belt where it has played a unique role.

The attacks by US forces — stationed in Afghanistan — on Pakistani territory are another reason to hold the subcommittee meeting of the Pak-Afghan jirga. These attacks have created a very volatile situation in the border areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan and have caused a large number of civilian casualties. Likewise, military operations both in Swat and Bajaur for the last several weeks have left hundreds of thousands of non-combatants displaced and hundreds others dead. The loss of property … has added fuel to the fire in both countries. This whole situation has created a charged atmosphere in both countries. The survival of an entire population is in question. Civilian casualties in the war against terrorism has been one of the most sensitive issues in both Pakistan and Afghanistan. It is now all the more important that both countries continue to interact through jirgas more frequently. There is an unprecedented need for them. — (Sept 14)

— Selected and translated by Khadim Hussain

Knowledge as the real essence

ISLAM regards the seeking of knowledge as an ethical imperative, and an endeavour highly pleasing to God. Amongst the sources of knowledge, the Quran particularly emphasises the following: revelation and practice of the Holy Prophet (PBUH); reason; empirical inquiry; history and intuition.

From the Quranic perspective, knowledge is not limited to what is learnt through a reasoning mind or the senses. Acquisition of knowledge requires a total involvement of the seeker in relation to the total reality. To become a “total” or a “whole” person, integration of the diverse, often mutually conflicting, aspects of one’s outer and inner self is required, as sages through the centuries have taught.

By identifying and endorsing the diverse sources of knowledge often considered to be mutually opposing (as revelation and reason, or reason and intuition), the Quran points to both the possibility of, and the need for, an integration or synthesis leading to a unity of knowledge that subsumes the multiplicity of the sources of knowledge. That the Quranic vision had been internalised by Allama Iqbal, for instance, is clear from his statement: “Modern India ought to focus on the discovery of man as a personality — as an independent “whole” in an all-embracing synthesis of life. But does our education today tend to awaken in us such a sense of inner wholeness? My answer is ‘No’. ...The soul of man is left untouched and the result is a superficial knowledge with a mere illusion of culture and freedom. Amidst this predominantly intellectual culture which must accentuate separate centres within the ‘whole’, the duty of higher minds… is to reveal the inner synthesis of life.”

The Quran urges the seeking of knowledge so that through it both inner and outer reality may be transformed. It is in the essence of a river to flow and the sun to give light. Likewise, it is in the essence of an alim (scholar) to translate knowledge into objective reality as did the Prophet of Islam (PBUH). The Quran calls those who know but do not act jahilun (ignorant ones). Understood in these terms, an alim is one who strives in the way of God.

The high rate of illiteracy amongst Muslims, especially women, is both a tragedy and irony, given the importance accorded to acquisition of knowledge by Islam. The Quran refers more than one hundred times to God as Alim (One who knows), and the very first verse revealed to the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) links to divine bounty the human ability to write and to know (Surah 96: 1)

The Quran describes the Prophet of Islam as one taught by God (Surah 4: 113) and as an imparter of knowledge to others (Surah 2: 151) but commands him, nevertheless, to pray: “O my Sustainer, cause me to grow in knowledge” (Surah 20: 114). About those who have knowledge, the Quran says that they have been given great wealth (Surah 2: 269), and will be exalted by God (Surah 58: 11)

The Quranic perspective is also reflected in a number of well-known ahadith. For instance: “The seeking of knowledge is obligatory upon every Muslim” (Baihaqi, Mishkat); “Search for knowledge is compulsory for every Muslim, male and female: (Ibn Majah); “He who goes forth in search of knowledge is in the way of Allah till he returns” (Tirmidhi, Darimi); “Search for knowledge though it be in China: (Baihaqi); “Whoever searches after knowledge, it will be expiation for his past sins.” (Tirmidhi)

The high priority given to his community’s education by the Prophet (PBUH) is attested by Goldziher thus: “That Muhammad himself — partly, it may be, on utilitarian grounds — attached considerable importance to the acquisition of the most indispensable elements of knowledge, may be inferred from the conditions on which he released prisoners of war after his victory at Badr. He employed several Quraish captives to teach the boys of Medina to write, and this service counted as their ransom.”

The Prophet’s attitude had a strong impact on his community as pointed out by Semaan: “In the realm of education, we may say, Muhammad instituted learning as an incumbent duty upon his people and this established a definite educational policy for Islam.”

Gulick expresses the belief that the knowledge affirming ahadith which “have been widely accepted as authentic and... have exerted a wide and salutary influence… must assuredly have stimulated and encouraged the great thinkers of the golden age of Islamic civilisation.” n

The writer is a scholar of Iqbal and Islam, teaching at the University of Louisville, USA.

Email: rshass01@gwise.louisville.edu

The fruit of hypocrisy

HOUSES of cards, chickens coming home to roost — pick your cliche. The new low in the financial crisis, which has prompted comparisons with the 1929 Wall Street crash, is the fruit of a pattern of dishonesty on the part of financial institutions, and incompetence on the part of policymakers.

We had become accustomed to the hypocrisy. The banks reject any suggestion they should face regulation, rebuff any move towards anti-trust measures — yet when trouble strikes, all of a sudden they demand state intervention: they must be bailed out; they are too big, too important to be allowed to fail.

Eventually, however, we were always going to learn how big the safety net was. And a sign of the limits of the US Federal Reserve and treasury’s willingness to rescue comes with the collapse of the investment bank Lehman Brothers, one of the most famous Wall Street names.

The big question always centres on systemic risk: to what extent does the collapse of an institution imperil the financial system as a whole? Wall Street has always been quick to overstate systemic risk — take, for example, the 1994 Mexican financial crisis — but loath to allow examination of their own dealings. Last week the US treasury secretary, Henry Paulson, judged there was sufficient systemic risk to warrant a government rescue of mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac; but there was not sufficient systemic risk seen in Lehman.

The present financial crisis springs from a catastrophic collapse in confidence. The banks were laying huge bets with each other over loans and assets. Complex transactions were designed to move risk and disguise the sliding value of assets. In this game there are winners and losers. And it’s not a zero-sum game, it’s a negative-sum game: as people wake up to the smoke and mirrors in the financial system, as people grow averse to risk, losses occur; the market as a whole plummets and everyone loses.

Financial markets hinge on trust, and that trust has eroded. Lehman’s collapse marks at the very least a powerful symbol of a new low in confidence, and the reverberations will continue.

The crisis in trust extends beyond banks. In the global context, there is dwindling confidence in US policymakers. At July’s G8 meeting in Hokkaido the US delivered assurances that things were turning around at last. The weeks since have done nothing but confirm any global mistrust of government experts.

How seriously, then, should we take comparisons with the crash of 1929? Most economists believe we have the monetary and fiscal instruments and understanding to avoid collapse on that scale. And yet the IMF and the US treasury, together with central banks and finance ministers from many other countries, are capable of supporting the sort of “rescue” policies that led Indonesia to economic disaster in 1998.

Moreover, it is difficult to have faith in the policy wherewithal of a government that oversaw the utter mismanagement of the war in Iraq and the response to Hurricane Katrina. If any administration can turn this crisis into another depression, it is the Bush administration.

America’s financial system failed in its two crucial responsibilities: managing risk and allocating capital. The industry as a whole has not been doing what it should be doing — for instance creating products that help Americans manage critical risks, such as staying in their homes when interest rates rise or house prices fall — and it must now face change in its regulatory structures. Regrettably, many of the worst elements of the US financial system — toxic mortgages and the practices that led to them — were exported to the rest of the world.

It was all done in the name of innovation, and any regulatory initiative was fought away with claims that it would suppress that innovation. They were innovating, all right, but not in ways that made the economy stronger. Some of America’s best and brightest were devoting their talents to getting around standards and regulations designed to ensure the efficiency of the economy and the safety of the banking system. Unfortunately, they were far too successful, and we are all — homeowners, workers, investors, taxpayers — paying the price.

The writer is recipient of the 2001 Nobel prize in economics.

— The Guardian, London