COMMENT: Nurseries of intolerance

AN alarming new trend has arisen in our country. Intolerance is increasing in society, especially in matters of religion. Strangely the media is blamed for our youth’s detachment from religion. The media is accused of promoting ‘un-Islamic’ festivals like New Year, Basant and Valentine’s Day. The contention, young minds are more impressionable and influenced by the hype created by the media.

The bigots want the media to stop covering festivals related to religion/ culture other than Islam. Pakistan is an Islamic country and the majority of its citizens are Muslims but people practising other religions also inhabit this land and our constitution gives them full freedom to practise their religion and celebrate their festivals. They, too, want their festivals and celebrations, covered.

Another disturbing trend noticed in certain schools is that in their quest to make their students good Muslims, they are inculcating intolerance among them. Children are not only asked to refrain from participating in festivals that are considered un-Islamic but also told to try to stop others from doing so as well.

Has anyone stopped to think: what we are teaching our children? Is it not our teachers’ responsibility to teach values of brotherhood and co-existence? Won’t these children grow up to become fanatics and burn churches and temples at the slightest provocation? Besides the family, it is the responsibility of teachers to inculcate healthy thoughts and feelings among children. The aim should be to make them good Muslims and good human beings; they can only become good human beings when they learn to care for the betterment and sentiments of others, irrespective of caste or creed. While the world becomes a global village, we should be teaching our future generations to be tolerant of other cultures and religions, not turn them into fanatics. If this alarming trend continues, there might come a day when some school will deny admission to non-Muslim students because of their religion. If this happens it would be a sad day for our country.

After the creation of Pakistan there was a dearth of good education institutions. The few good schools that existed were run by church missionaries and the Parsi community. They imparted education to millions of students in the country without bias. These schools also took care to impart Islamic education to Muslim students. I don’t remember, as a student at a church mission school, ever being asked not to practise our religious beliefs, then why this xenophobia?

Mother tongue for education?

MANY educationists and commentators argue with great force and conviction that schoolchildren should be taught in their mother tongues -- at least for the initial three years. In Pakistan's context, however, it doesn’t seem a very convincing argument as there are more than 32 languages and dialects spoken across the country. For a student it would be an uphill task to first weave his way through this tangle of tongues to finally arrive at what is fast becoming the language of higher learning: English.

For instance, Abdul Hameed is a Memon. He speaks to his father and brothers in Urdu and to his mother and sisters in the Memoni language, which is a sub-language of Gujarati. But with his children he converses in English. Hameed's father wanted his children to speak flawless Urdu, without a tinge of their mother tongue.

But Hameed wishes that his children be as fluent in English as possible. It is not that he does not want his mother tongue to develop and progress. But he is prepared even to face the bitter reality that his next generations may not be able to understand what his own mother tongue is.

Once there were several schools in Karachi whose medium of instruction was Gujarati. But first Urdu-medium schools and then the English-medium ones put them out of business.

Give a highly impressive educational institution the title of ‘Urdu medium’ and you would see that only those students who have been turned away by English-medium schools come to it. The same is believed to be true of the Federal Urdu University of Science and Technology. A student acquainted with science subjects taught only in Urdu is likely to have a hard time getting on in the world of academia where English rules the roost.

Government schools in the PECHS once had students belonging to the same locality. When those such students opted for English-medium schools, children of the Urdu-speaking community from Mehmoodabad and other areas filled the classrooms. But now only Pashtuns and other poor communities can afford to enroll their children in the posh locality’s Urdu-medium schools. If English is made easily available to them, they would be more enthusiastic about learning it.

Most of the people working in higher positions in Pakistan did not get their education in their mother tongues. Either it was Urdu or English. If a child can switch to Urdu from his mother tongue, why can’t he excel in English?

Language spoken in relatively well-off countries keep pace with the needs of fast-moving modern technology. Countries like Pakistan just do not have the resources to enable their languages to handle modern studies.

It is true that teachers in government schools are not capable of teaching maths and science concepts in English. The curriculums of private schools are also so difficult that most teachers in the so-called private schools are unable to teach them. What is needed is an effort to simplify these curriculums. Teachers in government schools have the basic training, which teachers in ‘private’ schools lack.

Citing of the example of Japan, France, Spain, China, etc, in relation to progress in science and technology is not convincing. These countries over the decades have made advancement in their languages, too, alongside technology. Ironically, in these countries also English is one of the most sought-after subjects. English teachers are earning a lot even in countries like Saudi Arabia and Iran. Many students from China come to Pakistan to learn English. It can be surmised that one day the mother-tongue chauvinists in all these countries will stop opposing English as a medium of instruction.

The world’s best literature is available in English. If it were not for English how many of the world’s enthusiasts would have known Tolstoy, Chekhov, Voltaire, Marx, Kahlil Gibran, etc. Gibran has written in English also but his major works were originally in Arabic.

The most popular TV channels and radio stations beam their programmes in English. English newspapers, magazines and movies, all have an immense following. The internet, the biggest miracle of the 20th century, will have little value if its user does not know English.

Who can be better judge than the parents about children's medium of instruction? In the earthquake-affected areas last year I observed parents encourage their children to work with foreign NGOs as volunteers so that they could, besides other considerations, improve their knowledge of English.

HUNDREDS of monkeys have started now a 'joint venture' with humans to get the pockets of Karachiites emptied. These lovely animals have stopped dancing, and mimicking. They now beg!

The days of people staging monkey shows in every locality of not-so-old Karachi have virtually gone now. People now see them playing mostly with teenage boys around the busy intersections of Karachi.

The teenagers hug them or get them seated on their heads or shoulders to intercept motorists at busy roads and request for alms. Normally, these children operate in posh Defence and Clifton, upmarket Gulshan-i-Iqbal and North Nazimabad and busy commercial areas of Saddar and Tariq Road.

They continue to stand on footpaths or saunter near traffic signals and jump onto roads and start accosting motorists as soon as the signal lights turn red. The monkeys are not trained like the ones that would be used in the shows of the past. Most of the animals normally exchange friendly looks with motorists and some of them even make gestures showing they are very hungry. In commercial localities the children gather outside restaurants and shops and hunt the visitors.

Abdul Karim arrived in Karachi a few months ago from Faisalabad. Initially, he worked at a shop in Lea Market along with his father but then he got company of a young monkey that his father purchased for him and launched the business with great success.

‘‘I normally earn 150 to 200 rupees daily and spend only 25 to 30 rupees to purchase food for both of us,’’ Karim says, hugging his business partner. Sometimes, the boy even saves more and satiates their hunger with the food offered by some 'good people'. Karim's father had purchased the monkey from Empress Market by paying 3,000 rupees to an animal seller. These merchants offer different packages to the buyers and even sell monkeys on easy instalments.

"Earlier I would sell water to thirsty bus passengers in Saddar and earn not more than 50 rupees but then I purchased a monkey from Empress Market on instalments and started earning more than 150 rupees a day," Ashraf, who belongs to Bahawalpur, says.

These children say initially they were hesitant to beg but now they do it like any other job.

‘‘It is our job like any other job. Why should I be ashamed of it,’’ 11-year-old Mushtaq says. His elder brother does a similar job in the nearby locality of Burnes Road.

These monkeys are normally brought from upcountry. Shopkeepers say they have witnessed a boom in their business since beggars started carrying them along. The main objective behind involving monkeys in the business is to make an appeal to human sympathy and earn more.

‘‘The demand is so huge that it often leaves us short of meeting that,’’ an animal merchant says.

THE Hamara Karachi festival kicked off here on Saturday with a competition among science schoolteachers in a hotel. It had five different programmes lined for Sunday - a street theatre, an Indo-Pakistan mushaira, a walk, an acrobatic performance by military police and a performance by a music band at Clifton's Kothari Parade.

The festival is likely to prove an entertainment-filled mega event spread over several days and almost the whole of the city. As most of the programmes are open to the public, Karachians are looking forward to enjoying themselves thoroughly. So, let's get out of the way.

— Karachian
Email: naseer.awan@dawn.com