Discuss anything, but speak in English
THE English Speaking Union of Pakistan is no longer content with its popularising conventional role of promoting English in Pakistan or popularising the English literature. Any topic could be discussed there as long as the speakers do that in English of some kind.
So if Abdul Kader Jaffer invited Gen. Pervez Musharraf as chief of staff of the army to address it on strategy, his successor Byram Avari invited Lt. Gen. Tanvir Naqvi, chairman of National Reconstruction Bureau, to address it on “National Reconstruction”.
Broadening the scope of the discussions has increased the interest of its members in its deliberations, and brings a capacity crowd to its meetings. But while non-members too are invited they are forbidden to ask questions. Some privileges have to be confined to the members.
But these days the audience has the advantage of listening not only to the main speech but also a parallel speech or contrary performance by Hussain Haroon as the vice president who comes to thank the speaker at the end of the evening. He usually apologises for that exceptional performance, but that certainly puts the speaker on the mat as he does not have the right of reply. Haroon’s dissenting note of thanks has become such a regular show the members have come to accept the inevitable as that is done stylishly.
For example, after Gen. Naqvi called for a bottoms up approach for building up democracy from the grassroots in Pakistan, Haroon called for a top down approach without specifying what it was. He said, “If you lie down and look at the sky it is a lot more beautiful than if you stand up and stare.”
But this time the advantage was in favour of Haroon. He came up with so many valid points or so many questions, while Gen. Naqvi did not say anything new about National Reconstruction which the audience did not know. At least a dozen suggestions were made from the floor. His staple reply was “that is being looked into.” So Haroon had the day.
Byram had asked the general six months ago to address the ESU meeting. But as he had nothing new to tell a well informed audience he took a few months more to come up with new materials and made the informed audience wiser about the future.
Byram has come back with his wife Goshpi from the lovely holiday island of Mauritius where they attended the annual English Speaking Union Conference. He was impressed by the communal harmony in that holiday paradise which is drawing the VIP crowds. With its Hindu majority, a large Muslim minority and people of other religion, there was absolute peace and social harmony and no unemployment there.
He urged joint electorate for Pakistan as the minorities wanted to vote for the people living next door to them and not for distant minority candidates whose help they could not obtain in times of need. When he became a minority member of the National Assembly the whole country was his constituency. That was a tedious and elaborate exercise and he gave it up.
The diplomats in the city were eager to know more about what was to come politically or at least in the electoral field. So the German, Swiss, Japanese, Russian and Turkish consul generals were there, but they did not come to know more than what they had already known. So the questions were all about the issues which the general ignored.
At night Byram and Goshpi gave a dinner for Gen. Naqvi and Mrs Naqvi and he turned up in white Shalwar-Kurta to conform with the casual dress code and mixed with the guests. Mumtaz Bhutto was there and he was asked a number of questions about the war, its consequences for the country and the future of the political set-up.
The new KPT chairman Rear Admiral Ahmed Hayat was there. When someone complained about the high charges of KPT he said 70 per cent of the expenditure of the port was on wages.
Shams Lakha of the Aga Khan Hospital was back from Islamabad where the French ambassador Yannick Gerard had held an investiture ceremony to bestow the award of Officer of the French National Order of Merit, which truly pleased him. Earlier the ambassador had conferred a high French award on Zakir Mahmud, president of Habib Bank, for the services he had rendered as chief of the French Bank Agricole-Indosuez in Karachi.
Zahid Bashir of the Crescents Group, who has become president of the Karachi Cotton Association, was there talking to Rafiq Habib.
STRATEGIC IGNORANCE
Military strategy and arms procurement are not quite the concerns of Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Institute of Science and Technology whose graduates are more concerned with increasing the productivity of the companies they work for and maximizing their profits.
But SZABIST, which under Dr Javed Leghari organizes some interesting non-academic lectures, made an exception in respect of Dr Ayesha Siddiqa Agha, a PhD of Kings College, London, and author of the new book, Pakistan’s Arms Procurement and Military Build-up 1979-99, which is a rare publication in this key area. She is currently part of the adjunct faculty at the Quaid-i-Azam University Islamabad and is involved in organizing the first Track I and Track II dialogue between the navies of India and Pakistan. Her analytical work pertains to conventional and nuclear weapons technologies, small arms and light weapons proliferation, politics of Pakistan, arms procurement and defence studies.
She stands for more openness in the Pakistan armed forces and regrets that the opening to the public provided by Gen. Aslam Beg has been choked since then and the Air Force had become the least accessible part of our armed forces. “When we get our advanced planes from foreign countries there cannot be excessive secret in this area, but there is,” she argues.
She did not say that military matters are too serious to be left to generals, but said that in effect. She said, “The situation is far too complex to be left to a handful of people. We as a people must strive to build the capacity to see the complex affairs of military security. After all, military security is about the security of the common people of this region and it is in the interest of the common man that we undertake security sector reforms”.
While the book is enlightening and has the right approach to the issue, researchers are usually not good speakers. More so when they read their paper. And she gave the impression she was weary of reading the same paper again and again and was so far which made it hard for the audience to keep track of her. She will do well with a small seminar audience than a meeting of young students.
THE HIGH COMMISSIONER
Aziz Memon of the Kings Group is a very busy man these days. He has to rush to Islamabad to meet the American Ambassador and than the Japanese ambassador and fly off to the US to meet the commerce secretary to promote the flagging textile exports of Pakistan. Then he rushes to Islamabad again to meet the US under secretary of state for economic, business and agricultural affairs.
While he is doing all that as a major textile exporter he is also keen on meeting his export target of 10 million pieces of hosiery for the current year. He is more interested in such exports now than importing more from Italy to sell through his chain stores of the United Colours of Benetton with their racy colours.
Such hectic preoccupations to boost the textile trade of Pakistan did not bar him from finding time to hold a dinner for Abdul Kader Jaffer, our high commissioner in London, who was here for a day after visiting Islamabad in connection with the visit of Prime Minister Tony Blair to Pakistan.
At a short notice he had assembled a large number of consuls general including the British deputy high commissioner David Pearey with whom Kader had long consultations before he left for London to take up his assignment. Japan’s Kuzumi Debika was there as also Italy’s Fabrizio Nicolettey and Switzerland’s Roland Fisher.
Chaudhri Jamil was there thanking Kader Jaffer for the excellent reception he had arranged for his wife Shahida Jamil in London where she met several ministers and other VIPs.
Kader said the British attitude towards Pakistan had changed a great deal after September 11. Previously many Britishers were avoiding him but now they are too happy to meet him and other Pakistanis.
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