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Iraq: violence gets worse
IGNORING deaths from bomb blasts, Sunday was one of Iraq’s bloodiest days where casualties in fighting are concerned. A minimum of 300 people were killed in Najaf alone where Shia and Sunni gunmen fought together against American forces in a day-long battle that continued well into the night. The fighting in Najaf was led by Shia and Sunni gunmen loyal to a relatively unknown cleric, Ahmad Hassani. How things will shape in the future is difficult to say in a factional society like Iraq, but the coming together of Shia and Sunni fighters under one command, even though on a small scale, only points to tougher times ahead for the American forces whose first batch of the additional 21,500 troops requested by the Bush administration has already reached Iraq. Also killed across the country in different incidents were 61 people, including 54 whose bodies were recovered in Baghdad following what obviously were sectarian killings. This takes Sunday’s death toll to over 361. If one assumes at least 10 injured for one dead, the casualty figure for Sunday goes to over 3,600.
In this scenario, America wants to send more boys to fight a battle that seems open-ended, for President George Bush has rejected the Iraq Study Group’s recommendation that he pull out American troops from Iraq by the first quarter of 2008. This obduracy is inexplicable and has served only to embitter the Democrat-dominated Congress, which seems in no mood to give more money for the additional troops for Iraq. What can more troops accomplish except killing and getting killed? Peace lobbies in America are now questioning the 3,000 casualties in Iraq and accusing the Bush administration and pro-war media of suppressing the cost in life for the American people by hiding behind the word ‘casualties’. According to pro-peace websites, casualties in the military sense include the total number made “unavailable” from all causes, including deaths and wounds, accidents, illnesses in a war theatre, self-inflicted wounds and suicides. This way, the figure from hostile action till Dec 27 comes to 24,965 and by non-hostile action to 25,406 by Dec 2 last. Thus the Pentagon’s own websites put the figure at more than 50,000. According to the Iraq Coalition Casualty Count website, the total US casualty figure by Dec 27 stood at 50,371.
This senseless war in Iraq can come to an end only when there is an overall change in the Republican administration’s Middle East policy. At present, it is characterised by unqualified commitment to Israel and an uncompromising attitude towards Syria and Iran. The Iraq Study Group, headed by Mr James Baker and Mr Lee Hamilton, had also recommended engaging Syria and Iran with a view to getting America out of the Iraqi quagmire. Instead, the Bush administration’s blind support to Israel continues, and no day passes without some American official accusing Damascus and Tehran of sending men and material into Iraq to help the militants. Worse still, Israeli preparations for an attack on Iranian nuclear installations seem to be in an advanced stage, and America is fully aware of all this. It would be a bad day for the Middle East and for the West’s interests in the region if Iran were to be targeted for a US-approved Israeli attack. Iraq already stands dangerously radicalised; an attack on Iran will perhaps radicalise the entire Muslim world with consequences too horrifying to comprehend.
PAC’s bold stand
IT is rare that the defence ministry is publicly accused of anything, and that too by a government agency. An outraged Public Accounts Committee was in no mood on Saturday to entertain any excuses from the defence secretary, so much so that his ministry was asked to refrain from wasting the committee’s time. The charges levelled by the National Assembly’s PAC make disturbing reading and, if true, point towards systematic misuse of land acquired by the military at throwaway prices. According to the committee’s audit department, no compensation has been paid to farmers whose holdings were ‘bought’ in the sixties and seventies for the Gujranwala cantonment. This land is now being sold at the rate of millions of rupees per kanal for commercial purposes. Similarly, landowners whose property in district Gujrat was procured by the military in 1987 are still awaiting compensation. Land acquired in Multan from the forest department for a new cantonment is being used for cultivation and a milk plant. In Sargodha, part of the property acquired from the Punjab government for defence purposes has been converted to agricultural use while 3,000 plots have been leased out by the air force. According to the PAC, 22 ‘class A-1’ properties in the Lahore cantonment have been put to commercial use in violation of the Cantonment Land Administration Rules 1937.
In today’s Pakistan, no one is more powerful than the military. As such it is heartening that the PAC has taken strong notice of this alleged land-grabbing instead of being a party to a cover-up. A thorough investigation must be held to ascertain the truth and bring it on the public record. The pressure will be immense but on no account can the defence ministry be allowed to evade the issue. Those who have lost their land to the armed forces must be adequately compensated and, wherever possible, market rates should be paid for any property acquired in the future. At the same time, there is a need to evolve a mechanism whereby it is guaranteed that land taken over for military purposes will not be put to commercial or any other use. No one, including the armed forces, can be above the law.
The curse of dowry
WHILE Sindh Governor Dr Ishratul Ibad had the right sentiment when he said the government would do more to help poor people arrange for dowries, it would have been better if he had discouraged the practice altogether. The custom of giving dowries to daughters at their weddings has caused more misery than is generally realised. Instead of parents giving either money to their daughter or things that raise her esteem in the eyes of her husband and in-laws, over time dowries have come to be associated with one’s social status. Every family feels the pressure to give more than it can afford. Despite laws that limit the amount of dowry, many parents come close to bankruptcy in meeting growing demands. Worse still, at times parents — and even daughters — have committed suicide because they are unable to live up to these unconscionable expectations. It is this oppressive aspect of dowry that Dr Ibad perhaps understood, but he should have addressed it rather than asking officials to find ways to use provincial welfare funds for this purpose. He hopes to give them to deserving people. While the idea may be noble, it is somewhat unrealistic to expect the government to step in and arrange for dowries, especially when it has not been able to provide the people with basics like clean drinking water or adequate public healthcare.
What the government can do, however, is curb social ills through concerted awareness campaigns. While Dr Ibad may be correct in asking the government to support organisations that arrange mass weddings, thereby lessening the burden on parents, he should also speak out against excessive expenditure on marriages. He should support those groups that raise awareness of customs that discriminate against women. This will go a long way towards highlighting the curse of dowry and educating people about according women their due respect and rights.
Martyrdom for Islam
THE heart-rending tragedy of Karbala resulting in the martyrdom of Hazrat Imam Husain and his faithful companions in Muharram 61 A.H. on the bank of river Euphrates is a unique historical phenomenon. It marks the culminating point of an epic struggle put up by the Imam to uphold the spiritual values of Islam and defend the moral and ethical principles which form the basis of Islamic philosophy.
Reaffirmation and resurgence of Islam is bound up with the struggle and sacrifice of the highest order. By embracing shahadat and offering supreme sacrifices the revered Imam revived humanity’s faith in the established values of righteousness, piety and virtue. The heights of heroism with which the grandson of the Holy Prophet (PBUH) resisted the monstrous designs aimed at smothering the spirit of Islam and subverting the order and ideal bequeathed by his grandfather and embraced martyrdom in consequence is a matter of history. But the epic encounter for preserving the truth and justice has come to stay as an eternal symbol of human dignity, a defiance in the face of formidable adversity and an ultimate triumph of righteousness over evil, of purity and steadfastness of faith over treachery, deceit and licentiousness.
Karbala was not a clash between personalities; it was an outright clash of ideologies, of principles of truth and justice where the truth came out triumphant despite apparent defeat and the falsehood was disgraced to utter defeat in spite of apparent victory.
The message that flows from that encounter between the oppressor and the oppressed, between the hypocrite and the true believer, is a great spiritual asset for the Muslims and a reminder that death courted in pursuit of God’s will immortalises man and transforms seeming defeat into eternal victory. For a Muslim, life is a trust in God and has to be sacrificed in the way of Allah whenever and wherever a challenge arises to His Commandments. The martyrdom has, thus, acquired immortality.
With the accession of Yazid to masnad-e-khilafat began an era of totalitarian dictatorship. Freedom of thought was regarded a sin. All those who did not approve of his authority were dubbed traitors. The realm of Islam became a place where public opinion could not be expressed even privately. By usurping power and setting the pattern of despotic rule, Yazid had obviously violated the pristine values of Islam.
Islam is a natural, rational and a non-dogmatic religion which believes in the equality of men irrespective of caste or colour. Nobody can claim superiority on the basis of birth, blood or status in society. God has not created anything better than reason. It is by God’s gifted faculty of reasoning that we are rational beings — so uniquely distinct from other creatures. But man is at times so irrational that he cannot distinguish between what is ugly, false, mischievous and devilish from what is honourable, just, beautiful and divine. By failing to recognise the truth, man indirectly becomes instrumental in letting the falsehood prevail and persist despite his discovery of the truth.
In the long history of human society, the most important problems continue to be those posed by the desire for absolute power and the position to it arising from the ideals of social justice. The Islamic concept of divine uniqueness implies both — absolute power and absolute justice. Justice and power, therefore, must be brought together, so that whatever is just may be powerful and whatever is powerful may be just. Unbridled power without the ideals of justice is repugnant to the Islamic concept of divine uniqueness. The concept of divine justice found its sublime culmination in the ideals of human brotherhood and social equality proclaimed and propagated through the mission of the Holy Prophet.
Islamic society is a revolutionary society dedicated to the promotion of certain values aimed at establishing Divine Rule on earth. Belief in Islam is a pledge, a submission, a covenant with Allah to promote those values. Introduction of innovations detrimental to the promotion of those values would mean betraying the Islamic revolution.
With Yazid’s assumption of power, the Muslim world saw the peak of the crisis which shook the moral foundations of the Islamic polity. Through usurpation Yazid had attained the caliphate but he was neither a rightful nor a just ruler. He was a despot who had suspended the rule of law, and was destroying the values of the Islamic revolution and converting it into imperialism. His rule was, therefore, one of the darkest nights of Islamic history. The teachings of the Islamic faith were being eroded and compliance with the injunctions of the shariah slackening. By employing naked force to settle the question of succession and using coercion as the stamp of legitimacy, Yazid was out to set a dangerous precedent and perpetuate a vicious doctrine.
Hazrat Imam Husain’s personality flowered in the loving laps of his illustrious grandfather, his virtuous mother and his distinguished father. He had inherited their great qualities of head and heart.
He was well versed with the Holy Quran and acted upon it. Every action of the Imam was a prayer for it was done out of a sense of duty with a view to earn the pleasure of God. His personality was a formidable challenge to all the ways and values practised by Yazid. So when in the blind arrogance of authority, he demanded unconditional allegiance from Imam Husain, the latter encountered the brute hordes of the despot ruler with the sheer strength of his undying faith in God.
As a revered member of the House of Muhammad (PBUH) Imam Husain saw it as his supreme duty to protect the Islamic values. For him life was a commitment and belief. When the time came for the Imam to make a choice between submission to despotism and death, he did not waver and preferred death and thus presented to the world an example of how resistance against tyranny and injustice can be put up as a way of life for reviving humanity’s faith in the Islamic values of righteousness, piety and virtue.
In taking up cudgels against Yazid, the prime motive before Imam Husain was never name, nor fame and nor personal glory. He stood not for a specific claim but for a way of life, the pure creed from which Yazid had deviated. His noble motive and inspiration in resisting Yazid were manifest in his memorable address to the people of Iraq in the course of the fateful journey from Medina to Karbala in 681 A.D.
He said: “Listen, the Prophet of God (PBUH) has said that he who sees a ruler perpetrate acts of tyranny and transgress the limits prescribed by Allah and establish the rule of sin and oppression and yet does nothing to thwart him, either by word or by deed, shall not be blessed by God …You are witness to the conditions as they prevail. Society has deviated from the rightful path and drifted away from virtue … The moment has come for the believers and the faithful to take the road to martyrdom, with the banner of truth raised high. I seek martyrdom…since living among tyrants is in itself a sin and a crime.”
Imam Husain’s choice of resistance against Yazid was clear and conscious. He bowed before the will of Almighty Allah but not before the evil designs and whims of those who were violating the sanctity of God’s order and thus fortified the values of Islam against all encroachments of self-seeking tyranny.
UN’s Kosovo plan
HERE’S a place you probably haven’t thought about much in the last seven years: Kosovo. But the Balkan province is about to make a comeback bid for your attention, and not necessarily in a good way.
The former Yugoslavia, a steaming kettle of ethnic and religious resentments, has been comparatively peaceful since the wars of the 1990s — not because the region’s territorial disputes have been settled but because NATO has kept a close watch on the stove (in the case of Kosovo, with 16,000 troops). But an upcoming United Nations ruling on Kosovo’s bid for independence from Serbia stands to set the burner on high.
Kosovo, a province the size of Connecticut, has about 2 million residents, 90 per cent of them ethnic Albanians. It was an autonomous region within the Yugoslav federation until 1989, when Slobodan Milosevic jump-started his career as dictator by asserting Belgrade’s authority over what is, for Serbs, a land of nationalist importance.
The crackdown led to a Kosovar rebellion nine years later that was ruthlessly suppressed until halted by Nato bombardiers. The region has been under UN supervision while the international community fumbles for a more permanent settlement.
That UN blueprint is to be unveiled privately in Vienna to the six-nation Contact Group that sets policy for Kosovo — the US, Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Russia. Leaked pieces of the plan seem a bit of a mess. It is expected to propose “supervised autonomy,” a sort of “independence lite,” watched over by an international monitor. Kosovo will reportedly be allowed to join international organisations such as the UN and the World Bank and even maintain a tiny army. But the minority Serb population would largely be self-governed, with direct links to Serbia.
The plan isn’t going to please many in pro-independence Kosovo, and next to no one in pro-federation Serbia. Anticipation of an unfavourable UN recommendation probably helped the ultranationalist Radicals — led by a Serb awaiting a war crimes trial in The Hague — win the most votes of any party in Serbia’s recent elections.
— Los Angeles Times
| © DAWN Group of Newspapers, 2007 |
