More details needed

THE prime minister has done well to reject the opposition’s demand that former President Pervez Musharraf be asked to appear before the MPs during the current in-camera briefing and let them know of the purported secret deal his government struck with America. This is a strange demand, for the majority of the sitting MPs — irrespective of party affiliation — never accepted Musharraf’s legitimacy as a ruler. Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani’s reply makes sense. He said the results of the general election clearly showed that the people had rejected the former president’s policies, stressing that the house should look to the future rather than rake up the past.

That said, the government’s intended course of action in what must be a coordinated battle against militancy is far from clear. Even though Pakistan and America are allies in the war on terror, a degree of mistrust has characterised their relationship. Recent months have seen several US incursions into Pakistani territory, the worst of them being on Sept 3. The future looks even more disturbing, because Barack Obama, who is ahead of his rival in the opinion polls, has been threatening to invade Pakistan and using highly provocative language. Even though John McCain speaks with considerable circumspection, their TV debates have made it clear that dealing with Pakistan is a major election issue in America. No wonder many in this country want more details from the government vis-à-vis its own plan of action.

The challenge before both the government and the opposition lies in developing a national consensus on the war on terror. True, America’s invasion of Iraq outraged and alienated Muslims across the world. In Pakistan, anti-US sentiment was already high in parts of the tribal belt following the Taliban’s ouster from Kabul. Still, no excuses can be made for our home-grown militants whose claims to morality and a higher calling sound hollow in the face of their ceaseless bloodletting and terrorism. The government has to take the opposition and the public along and present the militants with a unified national response. Dialogue as an option must never be discarded, provided the militants give up arms. Similarly, while sensitive security issues cannot be made public, the irritation in the relationship with America must be sorted out. Pakistan cannot compromise on its sovereignty, and it is the Pakistani security forces’ job to battle with the militants on their soil. One hopes the tripartite meeting on Wednesday between Pakistan, Nato and Afghan commanders helped sort out the grey areas in the rules of engagement for the three sides.

The lot of rural women

IT is a sign of progress that society has begun to raise serious questions about the status of women in the country and their role in a patriarchal social structure. In a bid to illustrate the gender inequality that has persisted over the decades, statistics are often presented to indicate the slow advancement of women in areas like education and health. Such statistics are particularly appalling when compared to social-sector figures for males who appear far ahead in a number of fields.

However, we need to go beyond taking a general view of women. A closer look reveals that if women are disadvantaged as a group, there are those among their ranks who are worse off than others. Nowhere does this fact stand out more starkly than when comparing urban and rural women. Take education, one of the key barometers of progress in society. According to the Pakistan Economic Survey, in 2006-07 the figure for the female ‘population that has ever attended school’ was 66 per cent in the urban areas, while in the rural areas it was a mere 32 per cent. There is validity in the argument that both the male and female population have a difficult life in the rural areas where there is little access to proper education or healthcare. Nevertheless general attitudes as well as the rigid social structures of tribes and clans have undermined the rights and potential of rural women in a big way. Marginalised from the mainstream, their voices go unheard and their participation in the labour force unrecognised.

The key to improving the lot of rural women lies in empowering them and towards that end it is essential to recognise their contribution to labour and the economy as much as it is to educate them. This is quite obvious to the government as well but it seems to lack the political will needed to devise and act on policies that could improve conditions for rural women. True, there are NGOs that realise the importance of uplifting the voiceless. But unless the government lends its support to independent organisations by taking the lead in promoting decision-making among rural women and providing the latter with facilities aimed at enhancing their potential, the question of empowerment will be taken lightly. The first International Day of Rural Women was observed on Wednesday. How meaningful this day will prove in the years ahead depends on the measures taken to promote the well-being of rural women.

Disturbing rise in bomb scares

THE callers who have been spreading panic with bomb hoaxes are not ordinary people. Most of them are pranksters of a pathetic breed that feeds on the fear gripping the country. A few, however, are believed to be supporters of militant outfits looking to spread terror over the telephone. There have been scores of these calls recently all over the country — called hoaxes even though they succeed in achieving their end. It is believed that the Bomb Disposal Squad in Karachi receives an average of seven fake bomb threats a week and the numbers are rising. All these calls entail, or should entail, crisis-level activity on the part of the emergency services, for a fear of the threat being real is always there. No one is taking any chances in times like this when a threatening letter to traders on Lahore’s Hall Road can lead to a voluntary cremation of piles of ‘objectionable’ CDs and DVDs.

The calls have terrified Pakistanis generally. Nervous parents have been heard asking each other whether it would cost them too much if they did not send their children to school for a few days. There have been reports of how teachers have refused to return to classrooms and how traders are reluctant to resume business after they have been a victim of a fake bomb threat. And yet we hear that the worst is still to come; it is feared that the number of ‘pranksters’ in our midst is likely to grow on the sidelines of the war raging between militants and the security agencies.

While the circumstances in which these calls are made may vary, hoaxes are not peculiar to Pakistan. Law enforcers all over the world have been struggling to deal with the menace and take the caller more seriously than perhaps is the case in this country. In India, for instance, alleged hoax callers cannot get bail. In Pakistan, says a senior police officer, the caller is booked under the Telegraph Act, which is a bailable offence carrying a sentence of up to three years in jail. Some alleged hoax callers have been arrested here but most manage to elude the law. This in turn encourages copycats. Stern action against a few hoax callers could act as a deterrent as a greater effort is made to rid the land of the unusual situation that encourages the crime.

Benefits of reciting the Quran

INDEED, to reflect on Allah’s verses is a form of worship that will draw one close to Him. The Quran is not a book like any other; it is a timeless guide for life, death and the hereafter.

Therefore, it necessitates that the reader return to the early narrations of those who witnessed its revelation and heard its explanation by the one deputed by Allah to explain His words to humanity. So every sincere Muslim who hopes to earn Allah’s love by reciting and reflecting over His book should hold on to the meanings explained by the Prophet of Islam, his companions and early scholars of Islam.

Reciting and reflecting over the Quran has tremendous benefits. Each of the ones explained here stands as an encouragement to read and try to understand the Holy Quran. The Prophet of Islam (PBUH) summarised the faith as naseehah (sincerity). When Hazrat Tameem ibn Aws inquired, “To whom?” He said: “To Allah, His book, His messenger, the leaders of the people and their common folk.”

Thus, sincerity is due to the Quran, its recitation, learning the rules of reciting it beautifully, learning about its interpretation and the reasons for its revelation, abiding by the orders found in it, teaching it and calling the faithful to it. So by reading and reflecting over the Quran, one fulfils an obligation and is rewarded for it. Upon fulfilling this obligation, the Quran then becomes a witness for one on the Day of Judgment. The Holy Prophet says, “the Quran is a proof for you or against you.”

It will either be in your favour, a proof for you on the day when you will need every single good deed, or it will be something against you, the very speech of your Creator, a proof against you.

The Quran will intercede for us on the Day of Judgment. Hazrat Abu Umaamah relates that the Prophet said: “Read the Quran, for verily it will come on the Day of Judgment as an intercessor for its companions.” According to Saheeh al-Muslim, we find a lovely story about how Hazrat Umar understood this principle. Some men once came to ask him, “Who do you use to govern Makkah?” He said, “Ibn Abzaa.” They asked, “Who is Ibn Abzaa?” Umar replied, “A freed slave.”

They remarked, “You have left a freed slave in charge of the people of the valley (the noble tribes of the Quraish)?” He answered them, “Verily, he is a reader of the Book of Allah and is knowledgeable about the obligations of Muslims. Haven’t you heard the statement of your Messenger: ‘Allah raises some people by this Book and lowers others by it’?”

Hazrat Usman also narrates the Holy Prophet as having said: “The best among you are the ones who learn the Quran and teach it to others,” according to Saheeh al-Bukhari. There are ten rewards for each letter you recite from the Quran. A hadith in Al-Tirmizi says: “Whoever reads a letter from the Book of Allah will have a reward. And that reward will be multiplied by ten. I am not saying that ‘Alif, Laam, Meem’ is one letter, rather ‘Alif’ is a letter, ‘Laam’ is a letter and ‘Meem’ is a letter.”

Hazrat Ayesha, too, relates that the Prophet once said: “One who recites the Quran beautifully, smoothly and precisely will be in the company of noble angels. As for the one who recites it with difficulty, stammering or stumbling through its verses, (s)he will have twice that reward.”

Hazrat Abdullaah ibn Amr ibn al-Aas quotes the Holy Prophet as saying: “It will be said to the companion of the Quran: ‘Read and elevate (through the levels of paradise) and beautify your voice as you used to do when you were (alive). For verily, your position in paradise will be at the last verse you recited!’”

The Prophet also said: “The Quran is an intercessor, is given the permission to intercede, and it is rightfully believed in. Whoever puts it in front of himself, will be led to paradise; whoever puts it behind him, will be steered to hellfire.”

This hadith about the Quran is on the authority of Hazrat Abdullaah ibn Masood, summarising for the faithful the importance of reading the Quran and reflecting on its universal message.

The nuclear game

KOREA is not a tropical country. In the autumn, the leaves turn yellow and red, and by October the process is pretty far along, especially in North Korea. Which is why there are grave doubts that Kim Jong-Il is in good health, as Pyongyang pretends, and indeed some question whether he is alive at all.

And despite Monday’s agreement by Washington to take Kim’s neo-Stalinist regime off its list of terrorism sponsors, which persuaded North Korea to let international inspectors back into its Yongbyon nuclear site, we still don’t know where its nuclear weapons (if they exist) might be hidden.

Kim, the “Dear Leader” and absolute ruler of North Korea since 1994, has not been seen in public since early September, when he failed to make an appearance at a military parade marking the regime’s 60th anniversary. There was intense speculation in South Korea that the 66-year-old dictator had suffered a stroke and undergone surgery, although the source of this rumour was never clear.

The North Korean regime denied anything was wrong (as it always does), and last Saturday it finally produced some recent footage of Kim Jong-Il inspecting a women’s military unit. The only problem was that it was an outdoor location with lots of trees and bushes, and all the leaves were a lush green colour. Nowhere in Korea looks like that in mid-October; a horticultural expert at Seoul National University estimated that the event took place in July or August.

This confirms that Kim Jong-Il is at least seriously ill. For all we know, he may be dead, and there may be a fierce succession struggle going on behind the scenes in Pyongyang. (The Dear Leader inherited power from his father, the “Great Leader” Kim Il-Sung, who founded the regime in 1948, but none of the current ruler’s children have been publicly groomed for the throne.) Whatever the state of palace politics in Pyongyang, however, the regime retains the ability to run circles around the Bush administration in diplomacy.

The most recent confrontation began last month, when North Korea announced that it intended to restart nuclear activities at Yongbyon because the US had not kept its promise to remove Pyongyang from its terrorism blacklist. That was part of the six-country deal signed last November, in which North Korea agreed to end its nuclear activities in return for badly needed aid.

As part of the deal, Washington agreed to remove North Korea from its list of state sponsors of terrorism — and a lot of the aid could not legally flow to Pyongyang until that was done. But the Bush administration, as so often before, overplayed a weak hand: it stalled on removing the terrorism label in the hope of forcing North Korea to allow American and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors’ freer access to suspected North Korean nuclear sites.

So the North Koreans simply stopped dismantling the Yongbyon nuclear site (including the plutonium reprocessing plant) and announced that they were re-activating it. It took the Bush administration, in legacy mode and desperate for at least one apparent foreign policy success, only a couple of weeks to yield to Pyongyang’s demand. Washington removed North Korea from the terrorism list on Saturday, and Pyongyang let the inspectors back in on Sunday. But they can’t go wherever they please.

As before, international inspectors only have access to “declared” North Korean nuclear sites. “Undeclared” sites — ones that Pyongyang forgot to mention — can only be inspected with the regime’s permission, on a case-by-case basis. The whole play around the terrorism designation was an attempt by Washington to force Pyongyang to allow wider access, and it has failed miserably. Game, set and match to North Korea.

The harshest critic of this outcome is none other than John Bolton, undersecretary of state for arms control and international security in the first Bush administration. Washington’s climb-down last weekend left all the key questions unanswered, he complained: “Where are their weapons? Where is the rest of their plutonium? Where is their uranium enrichment programme? What have they done in terms of outward proliferation? And we got essentially nothing new on that other than a commitment to keep negotiating.”

The rest of the world still doesn’t know whether North Korea has usable nuclear weapons (it tested one in 2006, with unimpressive results), or how many, or where they might be hidden. Whoever is in charge in Pyongyang is playing a weak hand very, very well.

— Copyright Gwynne Dyer

OTHER VOICES - Bangladesh Press

BNP, Jamaat talks with government

The Daily Star

NOT unexpectedly, the talks between the caretaker government and the BNP and its alliance member Jamaat did not produce any results on Tuesday. Obviously, mere understanding between the two sides on making the polls free and fair, and ensuring a level playing field, did not provide answers to the questions raised by [the] BNP bargaining hard all the way. The party seemed determined to fulfil its seven-point demand, regardless of the government’s conciliatory mood.... The Election Commission has extended the time for the political parties’ registration by five days and is ready to accept an interim constitution of any party adapting to the changes prescribed in the RPO.... So there is no sign of imposing anything that the parties cannot possibly comply with.

All this is aimed at holding the election on time and in a free and fair manner, which for obvious reasons should also be the prime concern close to the hearts of the parties. However, people would expect such concern to be reflected in the way the parties work to attain their objectives. Practically, a dialogue cannot be a one-sided affair where a party or the government will decide unilaterally what should be done to put the country back on the democratic track.

The goal is clear enough not to be confused with any partisan political expediency…. [W]e really cannot see what the BNP or the Jamaat is giving while asking for a lot.

After all that the country has been through in the last nearly two years, people would at least expect the parties to come with a very clear position. The BNP has demanded unconditional release of all “political prisoners”. This is an example of partisan interests overshadowing even the understanding of how the law should be enforced. In the first place, people accused of corruption, and some of them have already been convicted, can by no means be treated as political prisoners. And the BNP cannot be unaware that corruption assumed unmanageable proportions during the four-party alliance government’s tenure. So how can it demand [the] release of those convicted of corruption without being conspicuously disrespectful of the legal process?

Return to democracy is now a top national priority. The political parties should move in that direction without losing sight of our (theirs too) goal. — (Oct 16)