Highlights of the June 2005 issue
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What Happened?
By Zaffar Abbas
A major in-camera military trial has been underway at the sixteenth-century Attock Fort, a military facility that doubles as a maximum security detention centre, for the last several weeks. The field general court martial is headed by a major general of the Pakistan Army and is trying prisoners accused of planning and attempting to assassinate the Pakistani Chief of Army Staff General Pervez Musharraf on December 25, 2003.
What is unusual about the military trial is that eight of the nine accused in the case are civilians, one of them a woman. And they are represented by civilian lawyers. In addition, they are being tried for conspiring to assassinate a person who is also the president of Pakistan, a civilian office. Whatever the verdict, it promises to be a controversial trial.
Off Centre
By Zaffar Abbas
Newspeak
By Ali Ahsan Halai
Collateral Damage
By Ayesha Tammy Haq
Blast From The Past
By Syed Shoaib Hasan
The government officials had barely finished congratulating themselves over the May 4 arrest of top al-Qaeda leader Abu Faraj al-Libbi, when they received a rude reminder that terrorist networks in the country are still alive and kicking. On May 27, a suicide bomber entered the Bari Imam’s shrine in Islamabad where memorial celebrations were taking place and blew himself up killing 20 others. Three days later, another suicide bomb attack took place at the Madinatul Ilm Mosque in Karachi, killing five people. As the authorities and intelligence networks focus on ferreting out al-Qaeda operatives, their Pakistani affiliates are making steady progress stoking the fires of sectarian hatred.
No Method, Only Madness
By Syed Shoaib Hasan
While ad hoc transport projects proliferate in Karachi, the authorities have yet to devise a
long-term master plan
Odysseus himself would have trouble navigating Karachi’s traffic. According to the Transport and Communications Department (TCD), the 10,000-kilometre road network that runs through the city hosts 14 million trips every day. Over the years, different governments have promised deliverance from the congestion problem but none have been able to provide an effective, long-term solution. No wonder then that the city’s nightmarish traffic is the most frequent target of Karachiites’ vitriol and invective.
“I plan to leave for work by 7:00 a.m. but never seem to beat the morning rush,” complains Umair Mustafa, who lives in Gulshan-e-Iqbal Block 10 near NIPA Chowrangi and commutes by car to his office on 26th street off Khyaban-e-Shamsheer in Defence Housing Authority (DHA). “The Hasan Square junction is the first obstacle as it takes between 10 and 15 minutes to get through the traffic signal. Then, at the end of Sir Shah Suleman Road, adjacent to Stadium Road, it’s decision time: head for Karsaz or to Stadium Road, which runs through Bahadurabad to Khalid bin Waleed Road?” Earlier, Mustafa used to opt for the Karsaz route to DHA via Shahrah-e-Faisal but the widening of the road has further complicated matters.
Jam Saqi’s arrest unearths case involving Arbab’s nephews
By Moosa Kaleem
Karachi — Jam Saqi, a veteran communist leader and senior council member of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), was arrested by the Hyderabad police on May 29. His arrest came three days after he went to Tharparkar to investigate an HRCP case allegedly involving members of the Sindh Chief Minister Arbab Ghulam Rahim’s family. While Saqi was released on May 30, the next day 20 policemen raided his house in Hyderabad, reportedly without a search warrant, claiming that they had come to record his statement. “My arrest was nothing but a threat from the government aimed at keeping me from disclosing the findings of my inquiry,” Saqi tells the Herald.
Callous About Cholera
By Shahid Husain
More than a month has passed since the World Health Organisation and the National Institute of Health submitted
their report on the discovery of the vibrio cholerae virus in Jacobabad’s ‘drinking’ water. What have the provincial health authorities done besides hushing up the findings?
To drink or not to drink water. That is the question raging in western and southern Sindh these days. “Avoid it and you die of thirst. Drink it and you end up with gastro-enteritis or even cholera which has killed at least five people in Jacobabad,” says a Hyderabad-based health department official.
Reports from lower Sindh suggest that since April more than 30 people have died of contaminated water and thousands have been hospitalised for acute diarrhoea, accompanied in most cases by vomiting. While the health authorities cite gastro-enteritis as the cause of most casualties, the discovery of the vibrio cholerae virus in Jacobabad by a joint team of the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the National Institute of Health (NIH) has fuelled speculations that cholera may have caused deaths outside Jacobabad as well. But the government is not only reluctant to commission a health survey to ascertain the facts but is even trying to hush up the WHO-NIH findings in Jacobabad.
Crimes Of Poverty
By Shahid Husain
Rising prices, falling incomes and rampant unemployment appear to be pushing Pakistan’s poor over the edge
Not even in her wildest dreams had seven-year-old Mariam expected her father to do such a thing. Or be that desperate. But before the break of dawn on April 22, Mohammad Younus, 35, held down his sleeping daughter and slit her throat with a knife. Initially, Younus told the police that he committed the outrage under a spell of black magic. But afterwards he admitted to killing Mariam because he could not adequately feed and clothe her any more. The police say that Younus, a resident of Karachi’s lower middle-class Model Colony township, was a house painter who mostly remained out of work during the past couple of years.
Ayub, 40, a plumber from the Golimar locality of Karachi cited the same reason for killing two of his eldest daughters. He slaughtered Sheza, 16, and Sheba, 15, in separate rooms of his rented house on May 3 and later confessed to the police that he had committed the heinous crimes as he found himself unable to provide for his seven children. “My wages could no longer keep up with the rising cost of living,” he told the police.
The Fifth Column
By Zaffar Abbas
Official encouragement of ‘jihadi’ preaching in the garrisons has promoted conservatism in the army
The creeping coup of conservatism in the Pakistan Army has been the legacy of General Ziaul Haq’s era when state policies centred around Islam. Back in those days, religious sermons by clerics in military units were encouraged and even Tablighi Jamaat members were allowed to preach in the garrisons at will. How this freedom could be exploited by the militant mullahs was not a consideration with the then military leadership. Over time, Islamic sermons became increasingly acceptable in the otherwise disciplined and controlled environment of the military cantonments, indicating a visible shift towards conservatism.
Operation Rebound
By Syed Shoaib Hasan
Unable to nab Rahman Dakait after a five-hour long operation at Hub town, the law-enforcing agencies turn on the hapless residents
About 150 policemen and a posse of 20 rangers, all armed to the teeth, crossed the border between Sindh and Balochistan in the dead of the night on May 17. Their destination was Hub town, 45 kilometres north of Karachi, where they expected to hunt down Rahman Dakait, the dreaded don of Lyari’s underworld. Earlier in the day, they had received a tip that Rahman would be spending the night at the White House, his Hub residence. But they forgot the fundamental rule of stalking: never follow a hunted animal into its den.
Liberal Vacuum
By Intikhab Amir
In the last two and a half years, internal crises, compromised ideologies and the absence of charismatic leadership have continued to plague liberal political forces in the North West Frontier Province. As a result, after losing to the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) in the October 2002 general elections, the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), the Pakistan Peoples Party Patriots, the Pakistan Muslim League – Nawaz (PMLN), the Pakistan Muslim League – Quaid-e-Azam (PMLQ) and the Awami National Party (ANP) have weakened considerably, losing public support.
The local PMLN leaders in Peshawar recently had to wrap up a hunger strike camp protesting a price hike in petroleum and other essential commodities as early as 2:00 p.m. rather than continuing into the evening as no one took any notice of the event. Similarly, the ANP’s public meetings, even when addressed by top leaders, have failed to attract more than a few thousand people in the party’s historical strongholds of Peshawar, Charsadda, Nowshera, Mardan and Swabi.
Fighting Chance
By Mahim Maher
Recent protests in several countries have toppled governments, bringing leaders to their knees. Could they prove equally effective in Pakistan? Street protests can be a government’s worst nightmare. Indeed, in the past few months, they have led to various leaders having sleepless nights. Widespread, sustained agitation in Lebanon, Ukraine, Bolivia, Kyrgyzstan, Italy, Togo, Georgia, Ecuador, Egypt and Nepal, to mention a few, has led to ousted presidents, election recounts and scrambled attempts at restructuring flawed economic policies. As optimists conclude that people power has finally started to sweep across the globe, some political pundits are even saying that democracy has triumphed in the wake of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s first municipal elections and Kuwait granting women the right to vote. Closer to home, opposition forces – pro-democracy or pro-Islam – have also tried their hand at street protest. But is Pakistani society ready to topple a government through popular protest alone?
Few can forget the anti-Ayub Khan movement between 1968 and 1969 against his authoritarian regime or the anti-Zulfikar Ali Bhutto movement targeting election rigging in 1977. These two upheavals showcase the origins of a culture of protest in Pakistan and help explain the predicament of anti-government resistance today. “We tend to think of mass-based politics as urban street protests because of the critical role this kind of resistance has played in bringing about regime change in 1969 and 1977,” explains Ayesha Jalal, professor of history at Tufts University and the author of Democracy and Authoritarianism in South Asia: A Comparative and Historical Perspective.
Higher Ground
By Osman Samiuddin
The story of Pakistan tennis over the past few months would take many by surprise. Flashback to Lahore in March, when the tennis team got tongues wagging with the dismissal of Thailand during the Davis Cup. Sojourning briefly in Saudi Arabia, the team then picked up three golds and one bronze at the Islamic Solidarity Games. Last month, back in Lahore, the team’s saga wrapped up with a surprisingly comfortable win over Chinese Taipei, ensuring qualification for the Davis Cup World Group play-offs, a first for Pakistan.
Off Track
By Saad Sayeed
Despite his frequent fitness problems and erratic behaviour, the Rawalpindi Express still has many miles to clock
It seems like yesterday. Shoaib Akhtar, popularly known as the Rawalpindi Express, ran in and bowled two of the most electrifying deliveries ever produced. The first sent Rahul Dravid’s leg stump cartwheeling out of the ground and the second, even faster, beat the descent of Sachin Tendulkar’s bat and dislodged the middle stump. A 90,000-strong crowd at Kolkata’s Eden Gardens was stunned into silence. A superstar was born. Seven years have passed since and that superstar is apparently unwanted now. His presence is a burden, his teammates find his behaviour disturbing and his captain wants nothing to do with him. Is this the end of Akhtar, arguably the fastest bowler the world has ever seen?
Recent statements have been conflicting. Initially, it was believed that Akhtar had been dropped due to behaviour problems. But then the board, captain and coach issued statements citing lack of fitness as the reason for his exclusion from the India and West Indies tours. Akhtar, meanwhile, refuted the allegation, claiming he was at full fitness. What happens next remains to be seen.
Fazal Mahmood 1927-2005
By Rishad Mahmood
The most auspicious moment in the history of Pakistan cricket belonged to him. At the Oval on August 17, 1954, Fazal Mahmood, a handsome, affable Lahori took the world by storm with a stunning match haul of 12 for 99 runs to create one of the most amazing upsets in the annals of the game. Thanks to his innings, the minions of Asia conquered the formidable sporting giants of the world on their home turf, firmly establishing Pakistan on the international cricket map. “England Fazalled”, cried the English press. A star was born. Sir Len Hutton’s athletic army had been undone by the most baffling display of medium-fast swing bowling and Fazal was being hailed as the blue-eyed scion of Pakistan cricket. And despite the fact that the leg-cutter wizard was to vanquish many territories during his illustrious career spanning about 10 years between 1952 and 1962, the world invariably referred to Fazal as “The Oval Hero”.
On May 30, at the age of 78, Fazal suffered a fatal heart attack in Lahore. While his death will be mourned by friends and family members, his full life will surely be celebrated by cricket lovers across the world. Born in 1927, Fazal migrated with his family to Lahore from Kahkashan in Central Asia. In 1946, when he was barely 19 years old, Fazal began making waves by bagging innumerable wickets during the Ranjhi Trophy matches even as Partition loomed large.
But Fazal was only catching whiffs of fame at the time rather than inhaling deeply. The big moment was to come in 1947 when he was selected to represent India during a challenging tour of Australia. Instead, Fazal opted for Pakistan, a decision he would take pride in until his last breath.
Rangeela 1937-2005
By Rishad Mahmood
For his friend Munawwar Zareef, he was forever the “khote dey moun wala” (the one with a donkey face). And Rangeela, being the incredible reactive comic would make no bones about playing a donkey on the slightest pretext. Lungeing forward in a mock bodybuilder posture, he would utter total bosh in his trademark hoarse accent and the world would roll with laughter. Unfortunately, these inimitable antics are now a thing of the past. The 68-year-old Saeed Khan alias Rangeela breathed his last on May 22 at Raiwind’s Shareef City Hospital after a protracted kidney ailment.
Far From The Finish Line
By Azmat Abbas
Despite a UAE government ban on the use of under-age camel jockeys, poor Pakistani children continue to be smuggled to the Gulf.In the last week of April, Mohammad Ramzan, a resident of district Sadiqabad in southern Punjab, was detained at Lahore’s Allama Iqbal International Airport on his return from Abu Dhabi. Officials suspected Ramzan, who was accompanied by two young boys, of travelling with fake documents. While Ramzan was being questioned, the boys started crying and claimed that they had nothing to do with him even though he was shown as their father in the documents. It was soon discovered that Ramzan was a human smuggler bringing home Asghar and Ashraf Khan from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) where the two brothers had spent at least seven years as camel jockeys. A few days later, another human trafficker returning from Dubai with two children was detained by airport authorities.
Since the UAE banned the use of children as camel jockeys in March this year, a slew of exploited youngsters have been returning home. In fact, the last camel race employing minors as jockeys was held at the al-Wathba racing track, some 45 kilometres from Abu Dhabi, on March 30, a day before the law banning the use of under-age children as jockeys was to come into effect. Apparently, the race was attended by rulers and sheikhs hailing from across the Emirates and so the racetrack had to be cordoned off by armed forces and police personnel who barred foreigners from attending the event.
From X To Why
By Aurangzaib Khan
Of Mice and Men
By Amber Rahim Shamsi
Science is for nerds. Or so goes the unwritten canon of school life. While pimple-speckled boys and frumpy girls toil away in front of Bunsen burners and beakers, the cool kids party in economics and literature. The nerds, of course, go on to become deranged scientists – hair askew, tie awry, mysterious green potions stubbornly encrusted under teeth-bitten fingernails – whose sun and moon is the fluorescent flickering of laboratory lights. And, of course, all the scientists are men. Since such obsolete notions are still prevalent, it is a little hard to believe that Dr Tasneem Zahir is a research scientist.
The Golden Bough
By Aurangzaib Khan
Those unfamiliar with folk music can be forgiven for thinking that perhaps Zar Sanga, the gypsy singer much revered by the Pakhtuns, was separated at birth from her Punjabi counterpart Reshma. On an overcast day in the Peshawar offices of Radio Pakistan, the terrain of Zar Sanga’s face blends with the gloomy interior in such a way that one is struck by the similarity between the two living legends of Pakistan’s ethno-folk music scene. In fact, the women have led parallel lives. But at the suggestion that she could be Reshma, the implacably shy Zar Sanga politely whispers: “I respect her as an artist.” A moment later, taking all those present off guard, she flashes her familiar silver-toothed smile and one realises that she appreciates the comparison.
Sowing Seeds of Deep Content
By Umbereen Beg-Mirza
“My wife likes to say that people envy our lives but few would like to live them,” says horticulturist Tofiq Pasha Mooraj as he strolls across his huge garden. Naheed and Pasha Mooraj do in fact lead enviable lives. A mere 40 minutes drive from the hurly-burly of Karachi, they live at their idyllic farmhouse in Malir. The cacophony of truck horns does not penetrate their space. Nor are there any noisy neighbours or unsolicited visitors. Indeed, the only sounds on this hot summer morning are the clucking of poultry, the languid buzz of flies and the distant trickle of water.
Artistic Appetite
By Mohsin Siddiqui
Despite its location in the heart of Islamabad’s commercial zone, the Blue Area, Shahida Ahmed’s Tiramisu manages to be cosy and intimate. Shrouded in greenery, the restaurant is immune to the chaos of traffic just a few dozen feet away. The noise fails to penetrate the atmosphere or punctuate the conversations of Tiramisu’s many diners.
After gaining a reputation as one of the capital city’s premier caterers, Shahida recently opened the doors to her eatery. The decision to set up shop was a natural offshoot of her love of good food. Of course, Shahida’s delectable dishes have long been enjoyed at the banquet tables of Islamabad’s elite. But now indulgence has become more egalitarian. One no longer has to be a society aunty or a power uncle in order to pamper one’s taste buds.
Requiem For An Unsung Messiah:The Great Interpreters Various Artists
By Rishad Mahmood
“Is tarha apni khamoshi goonji/ goya har simt se jawab aaye” wrote Faiz Ahmed Faiz some 30 years ago. Back then, his verse undermined the dictatorial regimes of the 1960s and 1970s. Its resonance has not ebbed even today. Indeed, the fact that Faiz’s work has been translated into English, French, Czech, Russian and Persian is testament to his universal relevance. Imbued with political and ideological undertones and employing a diction that echoes Ghalib and Iqbal while including a personal, inimitable touch, Faiz’s oeuvre widened the scope of the Urdu ghazal, giving the genre a new direction
Requiem For An Unsung Messiah: The Great Interpreters is the latest tribute to the Sialkot-born literary titan. The four-CD collection – comprising the best renditions of Faiz classics from the past four decades – is accompanied by a well-designed booklet and has been issued by Dawn to commemorate the literary giant’s services for the students of the Abdullah Haroon College and the Abdullah Haroon Yateem Khana through the trying period of martial law in the 1960s.
“Mujh se pehli see mohabbat”, a haunting poem penned in the aftermath of World War II and later immortalised by Madam Noor Jehan kicks off the first volume. Apparently, Faiz heard Noor Jehan’s rendition at a private gathering and was so taken in that he ‘gifted’ the song to the renowned performer. Of course, Noor Jehan keeps good company as Requiem includes three numbers by the versatile Farida Khanum, of which “Chand nikle kisi janib” is outstanding. Similarly, Abida Parveen’s version of “Woh jis ki deed mein” is a collector’s item.
The High Finance of Fine Art
By Hammad Nasar in London
The recent auction at Bonhams may have upped the ante for Pakistani and Indian art but it has also raised the sceptre of the collector’s twin dreads: forgery and price anomalies
Another art auction, yet more records. The Bonhams auction of Islamic and Indian art held in London on April 28 proved that the prices reached at last year’s sale – with works by Sadequain fetching more than 30,000 pounds – were clearly no fluke and that the buoyancy of the South Asian art market grows unabated. But it also raised the sceptre of the art world’s twin dreads of forgery and price anomalies that hint at slumps and ruptures to come.
Four more Sadequain paintings from Farida Ataullah’s collection hit the market and were snapped up at prices that would have been dismissed as fanciful six months ago: between 15,000 pounds to a new record of 48,000 pounds. And Sadequain was not the only Pakistani artist making a splash.
Blowing Away The WindBags
By Shehryar Mazari
Within days of 9/11, there was a sudden upsurge in the number of local windbags, boring anyone within earshot with laborious explanations of why the US was utterly wrong in blaming Osama bin Laden for the death of thousands of New Yorkers. How could a simple Arab living in a cave in Afghanistan orchestrate such a technically proficient manoeuvre from thousands of miles away, they droned frequently?
Thanks to journalist-turned-writer Steve Coll and his Pulitzer Prize-winning book Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001, this question has finally been answered. Indeed, never before has there been such a wealth of information on the secret and not-so secret dealings between key players – the CIA, Saudi intelligence, the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), the Taliban and bin Laden – beginning with the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan up to the assassination of Ahmed Shah Massoud on September 9, 2001.
Passion For Pedigree
By Anwer Mooraj
In the good old days when the sun never set on the British Empire and India was a jewel in the Raj crown, cucumber sandwiches and macaroon cake were served at cricket matches on the village green at Tara Devi near Simla. The scions of India’s princely families would often be found sitting in the first row, periodically applauding and shouting out the refrain of “Well bowled, Sir.”
No wonder British civil servants posted in India were reluctant to return home. Where else could a memsahib hire a clutch of servants led by a uniformed bearer for a few shiny rupees? Or sahib sip his gin and tonic after a few hard chukkas of polo at the foothills of the Himalayas? And then of course there was the pomp, pageantry and protocol associated with princely India. Indeed, empire families often found themselves in an increasingly ambiguous relationship with their home country and compensated for it by identifying with the native rulers.