Highlights of the May 2008 issue
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Between the Lines
Idrees Bakhtiar
I have to register a protest. I also want to make an appeal.
I have had enough for I have been suffering since day one. I was deprived of
a Constitution for the first nine years of my life.
My constituent assembly was illegally dissolved and the act was unashamedly
upheld by the superior court, the institution tasked to guard and protect my
basic rights. And when I finally got my Constitution, I was deprived of it
within a couple of years of its enforcement – by an army general – and made
to live under a ruthless, draconian law.
For eleven long years I struggled to get rid of the yoke. All those years
and the ones that followed, I was denied the right to express myself. I was
forcibly kept unaware of what was going on in other parts of my country. I
was not told why my forces killed my own people and why they then
surrendered to the enemy.
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Media Watch
Zohra Yusuf
A mid the promises made by the new government of ensuring the freedom
of the media and peoples’ right to know through improved freedom of
information legislation, there is one important issue that has remained
outside the purview of discourse — the role and, in fact, validity of a
ministry of information in a true democracy. In assessing, historically, the
role of the country’s ministry of information, it seems that Pakistan’s
experience has perhaps been worse than that of other South-Asian countries.
One has only to read the well-chronicled The Press in Chains, by the late
Zamir Niazi, for an understanding of the insidious part this ministry has
played in curbing freedom of press. The conclusion drawn from the book
convincingly clinches the argument against the retention of the ministry of
information.
The crisis over the restoration of the judiciary is far from over and this does not bode well for the PPP–PMLN alliance
The deadline for the restoration for the judiciary deposed by General (retd)
Pervez Musharraf has been extended to May 12. But as the saying goes, once
bitten twice shy: those who had excitedly welcomed the first deadline of
April 30 are now viewing the new one with great scepticism. This was obvious
in the reaction of the press and observers once Nawaz Sharif announced the
new deadline in a press conference on May 2, after his return from Dubai.…
By Adnan Rehmat
Merely scrapping the post-November 2, 2007 amendments to the Pemra
Ordinance will not facilitate in the removal of its inherent anomalies
General
(retd) Pervez Musharraf’s first coup (October 12, 1999) was against the
political parties. His second (November 3, 2007) was against both the
judiciary and the media. Political leaders under his watch were either
jailed, sentenced, exiled, bombed or assassinated. The judges, fired,
detained and held incommunicado. As for the media, he blacked out and shut
down independent television channels and FM stations, banned popular
current-affairs programs, tempered news bulletins and forced journalists off
air, had them beaten on the streets, arrested and/or jailed.
Deng
Xio Peng, the former head of the world’s largest communist party, has all
but settled the debate about the relationship of politics with economy.
When, as China’s president, he allowed the Chinese economy to adopt
wealth-making tools of capitalism, he is reported to have said that it
doesn’t matter whether the cat is black or white as long as it catches mice.
A different era, a different country, a different ideological atmosphere and
even a slightly different relationship, but his saying still holds true for
today’s Pakistan. Does it matter for business if the country has a
democratic administration or a dictatorial one?
The electric price of politics
By Massoud Ansari
When the government launched its accountability crusade against independent power producers, it never thought that the entire nation would have to pay the price a decade later
The
present energy crisis is not one that suddenly crept out of nowhere. It has
been in the making for quite some time. And a closer look at the
developments – or lack thereof – in the energy sector in the past decade or
so reveals that the crisis has been brewing thanks to the government’s poor
planning and lack of foresight, especially in the formulation of policies
and its attitude and approach towards private investors.
By Laila Rahman
Qizilbash’s
work details the inextricable bond between mourning a loss and moving on as
the process of healing retains its sting
In a recent exhibition held at Lahore’s Rohtas 2 Gallery from April 10 to
19, Saba Qizilbash showed a collection of images which were both delicate
and violent. This paradoxical combination, which is executed on paper with
acrylic washes, makes the paintings linger in the mind’s eye.
By Muhammad Badar Alam
With
Interpreter of Maladies, a book that won her the Pulitzer Prize at the age
of 33, Jhumpa Lahiri established herself as a force to be reckoned with.
Now, with the publication of Unaccustomed Earth, her latest collection of
short stories, she has been called “the new Alice Munro.” There could be no
greater accolade in the world of contemporary short stories as A.S. Byatt
considers Munro “the greatest living short story writer.” Furthermore, Lev
Grossman, a book critic for Time magazine, has compared Unaccustomed Earth
to Anton Chekhov’s stories.