Highlights of the April 2006 issue
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Off Centre
By Zaffar Abbas
Between the Lines
By Idrees Bakhtiar
The ruling Pakistan Muslim League – Quaid-e-Azam (PMLQ) swept the elections for 12 special seats – six for technocrats and six for women – in the Northern Areas Legislative Council (NALC) elections held on March 22. The PMLQ bagged all six technocrat seats as well as four women’s seats. The remaining two seats were won by independent candidates backed by the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy (ARD). The electoral college for the candidates was the 24-member NALC, elected by direct vote in October 2004, which has 15 members from PMLQ, seven from the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and two from Pakistan Muslim League – Nawaz (PMLN).
Waziristan No man’s land?
By Intikhab Amir
While the missiles fired by Pakistani helicopters on March 1 have completely destroyed Abdul Ghafoor’s sprawling mud compound, some telltale signs have survived. One is a 12 by 12-foot basement. Its roof caved in during the attack but the mud-and-brick stairway leading into it remains intact. “Please don’t take any photographs,” says a 30-something tribesman firmly. The man refuses to introduce himself but a local source later informs the Herald that he is a member of the group led by one Ayub, who ran this place.
Under the placid waters of the lake formed by the damming of the Sindhu River at Tarbela stand the waterlogged remains of two ancient settlements: Amb on the west and Darband on the east bank. It was from Darband that the chief of Amb ruled over a fiefdom that spanned the eastern and western banks of the Sindhu. Given that the plain area of modern Haripur district east of the river is known as Tanaval, it is not surprising that the chief and his family favoured the cognomen of Tanoli for themselves.
Mirror Image
By Syed Shoaib Hasan
The most dangerous criminal is one who successfully remains anonymous. Notorious criminals are easier to catch as more people can recognise them and help law enforcers trace them. Moreover, it is challenging to remain anonymous because even the most slick criminal will leave a trail that in some way points to his identity. But what if that identity is forged? What if the criminal is, to quote W.B. Yeats, “a man who does not exist”? Increasingly, in crimes ranging from terrorism and kidnapping to simple fraud, investigators are encountering a dangerous new phenomenon: identity theft.
The first time I saw Sara Suleri, long before she accepted the syncopation of her name to Goodyear, she was changing flights at an international air terminal, heading straight for Lahore, just as I was. After the first electric moment of recognition, I spent the remaining eight hours of the journey in full sight of her, ruminating over the possibility of approaching her in a manner that was not entirely de trop. It was the silence in her face – the aristocratic cheekbones, one perpetually arched eyebrow looking at the world bemused and bewildered – that stilled the desire to accost her.
George Bugliarello, in his book The Bridge, refers to urbanisation as “the most powerful and most visible anthropogenic force on Earth ... which affects the surface of the Earth, its atmosphere, and its seas. The expanding surface that cities occupy and the resources required to supply their needs absorb or transform, directly or indirectly, ever-larger extensions of forests and arable land.” Bugliarello’s view sums up the core issues addressed by Bangladeshi artist Kazi Salahuddin Ahmed in his twenty-third solo show Urbanisation held last month at Karachi’s Canvas Gallery. Ahmed’s focus, however, leans more towards the development of unplanned cities and how they seem to grow outwards, much like living entities, invading and occupying the natural spaces that exist around them.