What CNN or Fox won’t tell you about Enron

AMERICA’s seventh largest company, heralded by Forbes magazine for several years in a row as one’s of the most innovative firms in industry, went bankrupt last December as many of you know. As the mess began to unravel, it became known that senior executives at the Houston-based firm knew well in advance what was in store for the company. After all, they sanctioned all kinds of creative accounting techniques and other gimmicks that eventually led to the company’s falling apart. As late as last year, Enron claimed that it had a profit worth a billion dollars. It is the same company which was trying for years to set up an electricity generation plant in Dhabol in the Indian state of Maharashtra, only to be thwarted after some local groups, led among others by the writer Arundhiti Roy, rallied support against the project.

Well, back to Enron. Earlier this month, the US Congress finally began to hold hearings into the affair. At first, former Enron chairman Kenneth Lay refused to show up. He was then issued a subpoena or summoned to show up and explain his position. However, he refused to do that, hiding behind America’s Fifth Amendment which allows anyone to refuse testifying before a court or a similar body if he or she feels that the testimony so given might incriminate him. However, all this doesn’t take away from the fact that thousands of Enron employees have lost their jobs and their life savings, because for some unexplained reason their pension funds had been reinvested back into the company. Other than that, it has also come to light that senior Enron executives who knew what was happening, and hence realized that sooner or later the party would end, sold their stock on the side at much higher prices while ordinary employees lost everything (because they were not privy to the information). Enron — and this is amazing considering that no regulatory watchdog ever caught it — also hired consultants and auditors from the same company, Arthur Andersen, which was paid around $25 million in consulting fees.

However, the scandal has all the makings of, some would say, even Watergate. But that’s not going to be the impression if one looks at CNN or Fox, or even BBC. Thanks to various newspapers and websites that do not really fall into the mainstream US media there are many things that have not really been mentioned by the major news channels.

For example, Enron’s former boss under whom all this happened, Kenneth Lay, is, or perhaps was, a good friend of US President George W Bush, both being from Texas. In fact, this friendship is, or rather was, such that during his campaign Mr Bush used Mr Lay’s company jet to fly around America, while campaigning. Mr Bush also interrupted an important campaign trip in April, 2000, to fly back to Houston to see the city’s baseball team, the Astros, open their season at their new stadium, built, yes you guessed it, by Enron and aptly named Enron Field.

After Mr Bush became president, the friendship between him and the former Enron boss flourished. Mr Lay — derided these days as ‘Kenny Boy’ — was invited to stay at the White House. Critics say that Mr Lay even had a say in the Bush administration’s nominees to senior positions in the Department of Energy. In fact, the new chairman of America’s Securities and Exchange Commission — the watchdog that oversees the stock markets — is a lawyer who also worked for Enron.

‘Kenny Boy’, they say, also spent a lot of time with US Vice-President Dick Cheney who is known to have strong connections to the oil industry, having been associated himself with Enron and Hallibruton. Because of his close association with Mr Bush and Mr Cheney, Mr Lay has been accused of having a role in the formulation of the new energy policy which incidentally ended up creating a huge crisis last summer in California.

Here’s something else the US news channels, that we watch all the time in Pakistan, will never tell us: Lawrence Lindsey, President Bush’s chief economic adviser, was formerly an adviser at Enron. US Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill is a former CEO of Aloca whose lobbying firm Vinson and Elkins, apart from being the third largest contributor to the Bush campaign also represents Enron.

The list goes on and gets even more interesting. Timothy White, the Army Secretary, was a former vice-chairman of Enron Energy. Robert Zoellick, America’s Trade Representative, was also a former adviser at Enron, while Karl Rove, Mr Bush’s senior adviser in the White House, owned a quarter million dollars in Enron stock. Apart from this, a lawyer who worked for Enron was later nominated by Mr Bush to be a federal judge in Texas, while the chairman of the Republican Party has also been a lobbyist for Enron. Two former Enron officials also work for House majority leader Tom DeLay while the wife of Texas Senator Phil Gramm, a staunch Republican and one-time contender for his party’s presidential nomination, sits on Enron’s board.

One of the jokes on Enron — but you never hear this on Jay Leno or David Letterman — is that Mr Bush’s mother-in-law, also had $8,000 invested in Enron. She lost all of it when the company went under. And before it collapsed, senior executives called Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill, Commerce Secretary Don Evans and White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card but they all declined to help.

In May, 2000, the venerable New York Times became so concerned about the influence Mr Lay had come to enjoy with the Bush administration that he was referred to as the president’s “shadow advisor.” In fact, this influence is such that as late as December last year — by which time members of Mr Bush’s cabinet had come to know that something was desperately wrong at Enron — the Bush administration was pushing forward its economic “stimulus” bill which had a section that would have given Enron, critics say, a “gift of $250 million of the taxpayer’s money.”

One of Mr Bush’s chief critics — and this is another voice that we are unlikely to hear on CNN or the other US news channels — Michael Moore, puts it well when he says: “The saddest part of this whole affair was the day the scandal was revealed — and you denied that you even knew your good friend, Kenneth Lay. “Ken who?” you said. Oh, he’s just some businessman from Texas. “Heck, he backed my opponent for governor, Ann Richards!” was your way of trying to deflect the truth that was hitting you like a Mack truck. You knew that he, in fact, endorsed you and gave you three times the money Ann Richards ever saw from him. I hardly ever talk to the guy, you said.”—OMAR R QURESHI

Are you a third rate poet?

LONG time, a poet who had come all the way from Rawalpindi to read a paper at the launching of one of my books complained to me that Ataul Haq Qasmi, who also read a paper on the occasion, had called him a third rate poet. When I remonstrated with Ata, he did not deny the charge and went on to justify it. “You see,” he said, “Ghalib and Iqbal are first rate poets. Correct? After them come Faiz and Ahmad Nadeem Qasmi who consequently become second rate poets. Correct? Now we who come after them can, therefore, only be categorized as third rate poets. What’s wrong with what I have said?” His argument was convincing.

This incident came to my mind as I picked up my pen to write about the mini-mushaira arranged by the literary organization, Adab Serai, every month at the residence of its chairperson, Shahnaz Muzzammil. If I say that all the third rate poets were present there that evening they would feel insulted. So all I can say is that the usual crowd of poets was there that day who presented their usual poetry in the usual way. I cannot add anything to it.

Earlier that evening, Shahnaz Muzzammil gave a brief review at the sitting of some recently published books. These included the collection of the haiko poet and artist, Sheba Taraz, titled Roopnagar, and another of the Gujranwala-based poet, Irfan Amar, Muhabbat Bayzaban Kiun Ho. The third was also a collection of poetry by Ashar Wakeel Rao, who lives in Sargodha. The book is titled, Tera Milna Zaroori Heh.

Incidentally the same book was launched earlier in the Lahore Press Club with Dr Khwaja Zakariya presiding. However, since the proceedings started more than an hour late as usual, Khwaja Sahib left early to keep another appointment. But he did say a few complimentary words about the poet’s verse which he found highly rhythmic. The presidential chair was then occupied by the veteran writer, Hameed Akhtar, who said in his remarks that he had not known Ashar earlier but after going through his book, he felt as if he had known him for years. He added that he had been associated with several poets during his long career but had always refrained from commenting upon their poetry. However, he felt that Ashar’s poetry had a certain effect in it. The same opinion was expressed earlier by Sarfraz Syed and Dr Khurshid Rizvi.

The present book happens to be the poet’s second collection, appearing only ten months after his first, Abhi Imkaan Baqi Heh. That augurs well for his future. He has tried his hand at the makalmati or dialogue form of ghazal as well. Some of his ghazals are unduly long and some have only four lines. He seems to be overwhelmed by romanticism but manages to make up for it with a measure of sobriety.

The book has been printed on art paper and produced by Syed Shahzeb Bukhari of Viqar-i-Qalam Publications, Urdu Bazaar, Lahore. It is priced at Rs120.

THIS piece is about Pakistani Literature, a journal produced twice every year by the Pakistan Academy of Letters. It carries English translations of stories and poems written in different languages of the country. The object, evidently, is to make Pakistani writings known to the outside world. The journal has been published since 1992 but has appeared again after a long gap for reasons unknown. Perhaps, as the chairman of the Academy has said in the foreword, it was because of lack of good translators in the country. This is preposterous. There are several who are fully proficient at handling such assignments. I personally know of at least two in the city where the head office of the Academy is located. I can name many more from other parts of the country.

In the present issue, one of the guest editors has added his name as a translator in every section of the journal, probably to give credence to the Academy chairman’s complaint about the lack of translators. This guest editor is supposed to have translated writings of Urdu, Sindhi, Punjabi, Pushto, Balochi and even Kashmiri. He deserves all credit for mastery over all the languages spoken in the country. Wouldn’t it have been better had a Sindhi story been translated by someone like Amar Jaleel? It would at least have been from the original and not from an Urdu translation.

Translation is not a mechanical thing. If it were so, sentences like ‘my heart became gardens and gardens’ would be heard more often. While translating from one language into another one has to grasp the spirit of the original as every language has its own nuances. Even a great linguist and translator like AR Nicholson stumbled pitifully while translating Allama Iqbal’s Asrar-i-Khudi. He had to be corrected by the Allama himself.

This latest issue of Pakistani Literature was launched by the Academy at its Lahore offices. The launch was presided over by Hina Faisal Imam. Most of the speakers on the occasion, especially Yasmeen Hameed, said that the majority of our translators were not properly trained in the art. The same aspect was brought up by the president of the evening who said that our universities should pay greater attention to this aspect.

That reminds me of what the English poet of India, Sukrita Paul Kumar, told me during her last visit to Lahore. She happens to be the daughter of the well known Urdu short story writer, Joginder Paul, who settled down in Delhi after partition and keeps yearning for his hometown, Sialkot.

Sukrita teaches English literature at a college in Delhi and is director of a Unesco project engaged in highlighting Indo-Pak culture abroad. She is also a translator and has selected Bano Qudsia, Intezar Husain and some others from Pakistan for translating them into English. It was she who told me that the technique of translating from one language to another was being taught as a subject in India at university level. Is any high-up from our universities listening?

Getting back to the present issue of Pakistani Literature, I can only say that I have yet to see a more poorly edited journal. Leaving the contents and the standard aside, I would like to point out some glaring faults. For example, in the Punjabi/Seraiki section one does not know which of the published material is from Punjabi and which one belongs to Seraiki. Then, the names of contributors have been spelt and carried wrongly. Now, for all I now, Bushra is no longer Bushra Naqi, unless the editors have her Diorama in view, but is now known as Bushra Shams.

More surprising in this issue is the claim by the chairman that he is the chief editor of the journal. Why does he want to credit the shortcomings of the guest editors to his account when the entire spadework has been done by them? It was they who chose the matter and went about selecting translators. For good or for bad, Iftikhar Arif, is the publisher.