Cricket in the air

It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that much of Karachi will come to a halt today. It was a long time ago - too long for public memory - that Karachi hosted the Indian cricket team. Notwithstanding the fiasco created by the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) and the local police at the National Stadium earlier this week with regard to the sale of tickets, the interest among the people of Karachi in the first one-day match between their national team and the Indian cricket team has reached unprecedented levels.

Wherever you went on Friday everyone seemed to be talking about the big game between India and Pakistan. A lot of them, especially those with tickets said they were desperately waiting to see Sachin Tendulkar in person and in action. It seems that the series between two of cricket's greatest rivals will reveal (to the visiting Indians as to us) some new things about how the people of the two countries see each other.

Tickets were being sold in the black market for as high as Rs7,000 for the VIP enclosures. As the chief executive of the PCB, Ramiz Raja, has pointed out, Karachi's National Stadium seats around 30,000 people and since the city has a population of 15 million, there will be a lot of fans who will not be able to get a ticket.

Even tickets bought on the Internet have found their way into the black market, with seats for the Rs800 enclosure being sold for thrice their stated price. But the PCB or the police can't really do all that much in this, except to limit, as has been done, a buyer to five tickets on production of a computerized ID card.

The interest in what will be first full Test series in Pakistan against India in 14 years is probably greatest among young people, especially college and school students. Perhaps, and thankfully so, their view of India is not coloured by the politics of confrontation between the two countries (since most of them were born after 1971). Besides, many of their idols come from Bollywood or, as seems to be increasingly the case, from the Indian cricket team's top batting order.

It's a good thing that the Sindh government has announced a public holiday today, probably because it realized that no one would really show up at university or office. The holiday announcement has also made it easier for Karachians of all shades and income levels to make plans for watching the match. There are the chosen ones who have tickets to the match: many of them plan to beat the huge rush expected at the stadium by turning up early. Many say that they will be there by 7am.

Besides watching the cricket, many will also go for the spectacle itself. So many stories are doing the rounds these days of all kinds of celebrities flying in to watch the matches. The PCB has confirmed that the son and daughter of Sonia Gandhi are coming to see the Karachi game (in fact a report in an Indian newspaper on Friday said that India's law minister Arun Jaitley is also coming with them and they will be put up at the State Guest House) and surely that will have made some hearts in the socialite/social climber circle flutter.

And if you talk to cricket enthusiasts they will tell you that Shahrukh Khan and Aishwarya Rai are also coming and also none other than the Big B, Mr Amitabh Bachan. Many top Indian industrialists are due, including the Ambanis, the Birlas, the Tatas and the Goenkas who will fly to Lahore by chartered flight.

As for those who do not have tickets - and there are many who think that it would be best to watch the game on television with all the slow motion replays and no lathi-charge - they have their own plans. Families are assembling at friends' homes while some private colleges and universities have plans to set up big projection screens for the benefit of their students.

It seems that Saturday will be one big picnic for most of Karachi's residents. Let's hope the police do not mess things up for the fans and treats them with some degree of respect. And for those who will be watching from the stands - Karachi has waited for something good like this for a long time and so, please, don't mess it up by throwing a bottle or stone on the field.

Security overtakes the charm of an event

If past experiences are anything to go by, most scuffles at Karachi's National Stadium take place between police constables and cricket fans who find themselves pushed to the wall by often unnecessary use of the baton.

The organizers of the one-day match that will be played today between Pakistan and India have apparently failed to take that fact into consideration while planning the security within the stadium.

A visit to the stadium on Thursday was an eye-opener of sorts. The whole thrust of the security arrangement for the Indian team appears to be on the element of visibility of these arrangements rather than their efficacy and practicality, with law-enforcement personnel standing at almost hand-shaking distance from each other, and on high alert even though no one could enter the stadium without proper accreditation cards issued either by the local administration or by the Pakistan Cricket Board.

With a stated seating capacity of around 33,000, the National Stadium on Friday itself had 20 per cent occupancy, if not more, in the shape of all the police constables who were roaming the various enclosures with batons in most hands.

The intention of all concerned to have an international match conducted smoothly in Karachi is quite understandable, but maybe a less visible, understated arrangement could have been more useful than the option of overdoing the security bit.

The way the Indian team arrived in the city was itself a show of the preferred choice of the organizers. The team arrived amid blaring sirens, with a helicopter hovering over, and security vans and a possible decoy coaster in toe. All traffic was stopped, all the filling stations on the main Sharea Faisal were asked to shut down business, and no parking was allowed on the entire route.

It was no wonder that Indian captain Sourav Ganguly, at his press conference on Friday, said that while he and his team were "enjoying for the time being the fun of having commandos moving all around", it certainly has the potential of wearing them down if it continued to move like this for a week or so.

The way Ganguly was brought to the press conference at the National Stadium was another show of such overbearing, highly irritating and somewhat unnecessary presence of the security personnel. If the security has such suspicions about the media personnel - who have been issued accreditation cards only after proper scrutiny - it is anybody's guess how suspicious the organizers would be of those coming to the stadium as mere spectators.

The organizers have done their bit, it will take great patience on the part of the paying spectator today to move away from the tradition of allowing himself to be irritated by that baton-wielding policeman.

Wag the dog

I am getting deeply suspicious. There is a rather naughty trick used by some con artists. You start a game of darts or tennis or whatever, pretending that you are a lefty. Obviously, you lose badly, and when everyone has bet against you, you switch to your right hand, win the match, and walk off with all the money. What I want to know is, where has the Pakistan-A cricket team come from all of a sudden.

And more to the point, why have we been playing with B team all these years. Also, are we sure that we are playing the Indian A team or are they planning to pull a surprise on us as well? The series has just started and already the twists and turns in the plot have left me breathless.

To be honest, I am not that interested in cricket, but the plot twists are suspiciously similar to the good old days of Indian movies. This is when the climax of the film lasted a good 20 minutes and had a minimum of four sudden twists.

The first twist would occur when the hero/heroes were chained in the villains' hideout with the heroine/heroines doing a little diversionary dance number. At this point they would discover either a long lost parent of that they were brothers.

There were many variants to the twist but to my disappointment, never once in the history of cinema did the hero and heroine discover that they were brother and sister (or indeed, parent and child, which would have quite plausible given the difference in age between male and female actors).

The second twist would occur when the heroes would cunningly untie a chain, steal a gun, etc. and have the villain at bay. Unfortunately, again in all of cinematic history, none of the heroes had heard that an action speaks louder than a thousand words. While they would be relating a list of grievances, another twist would occur with the villains son/henchman stealing a gun or turning up with yet another long lost parent/sibling as hostage.

The final twist would turn tables again and at this pint a spare heroine/parent would be mortally wounded and justice would belatedly triumph with the arrival of the police.

The reason that I have gone at some length about this is that I suspect that this Indo-Pak series has been fixed. Neither of the two countries was taking the chance of any unpleasantness and they have fixed all the matches to provide the maximum of entertainment and the minimum of embarrassment to both sides. I also think they have hired one of the old Indian film directors to stage-manage all this. He has already pulled off one twist with the Pakistan A team.

I bet in the next twist we will have the appearance of an Indian A team. Then two or three of the players on either side will discover that they are long lost brothers, there will be a few dance numbers and cross border marriages and the tour will wind up with the whole sub-continent weeping in joyous emotion. At least that is what the director planned, but I have warned you.

And if you think I am being paranoid, remember that the last period of really good relations started with General Zia declaring that he and Rajiv were long lost brothers and the actress Reena Roy getting married to one of our cricketers.

On other fronts, traffic in Lahore is getting back to normal with the opening of the new canal underpass. With it, one can now sweep non-stop down the canal at a blistering 30kms behind the three motorcycle-wallahs having a conversation and the overloaded Suzuki pickup trying to overtake them. Flushed with success, the government has announced another three underpasses.

This reminds me a little of my niece. On Basant I gave her little kite a kanni so that she could have a laugh. Five hours later I was giving the 900th kanni. So all these underpasses are very delightful, but I was just wondering if anyone else in Punjab needed anything done.

Now Iraqis to face fire of resistance

Baghdad: A drive to the former 'Saddam Hussein International Airport' to meet a colleague. Palm trees cut down on the airport road by the Americans to deprive snipers of cover, the wood given free of charge to the Iraqis who sell it in turn to bakeries in Baghdad.

In a dusty car park, I find eight recruits to the new Iraqi army, standing to attention in uniforms that would do credit to a takeaway. Some are in the clothes of the old Iraqi army of the 1960s, heavy khaki that just might have once been British, a few old camouflage fatigues. Two have beards, two are giggling and one stares forlornly at his Iraqi officer, a fat man smoking a cigarette with three large golden stars on his shoulders. "Attention!" The eight men put their hands to their sides, holding plastic bags of clothes.

An American soldier with "Wilkins" written on his helmet and with an "Old Ironsides" badge on his sleeve - 'Old Ironsides' was the most shelled gunboat of the American civil war--is watching this parade. "When I see this," he says to me, "I don't like what I see." When I suggest that I'd rather have my job than his, he grins. "I bet you would," he says.

The men march through a dust storm to a prefabricated building and halt. Mr Wilkins turns to the two Iraqi officers, the fat man with the stars and a thin, stooped youth with a tiny moustache, and asks them to board the truck to the airport.

The man with the stars says he wants to go to the building where the soldiers are. "Get on the truck," says Mr Wilkins. The man with the stars repeats that he wants to go to the building. "Please get on the truck," Mr Wilkins says kindly and he gently wafts his clipboard towards them. "Get on the truck." He is obeyed, slowly. Then he turns to look at me. "And these," he says meaningfully, "are the officers."

I come across a Nepalese with a rifle over his shoulder, one of the armies of mercenaries now employed by the Americans - let us not call them sandbags - to secure the airport perimetre. He sleeps at the airport and has been here for five months. Does he like it, I ask? "Boring but not much sleep," he smiles. "Too many mortars and too much gunfire."

Overhead, a big four-engined military transport aircraft is groaning into the sky, turning tight 1000-metre circles to keep outside missile range. Go over the 1000 metres and you can be hit. It streams four dirty fuel trails behind its engines as they fight to gain height.

At the terminal stands an American officer in his forties, a lieutenant colonel in civies but with a flak jacket covered with camouflage cloth. And how does he like the airport? "We're leaving here soon. We're leaving the airport. The Iraqis are taking over." In other words, I suggest, the Americans are going to let the Iraqi army or the Iraqi 'Civil Defence' or any of the other fancy Iraqi outfits being trained by the Americans, take the nightly fire of the resistance here? "That's pretty much it," he said.

I don't entirely believe this. The US occupation forces fly their transports into Baghdad airport and won't leave their security to the Iraqis. But they could let the new Iraqi army do the dirty work, hunting and patrolling in the grass and muck outside the 1,000 metre perimetre at night, guarding the perimetre wire, withdrawing the massive US presence to save American lives.

And then I remember that most famous of dates - June 30 - when Iraq's 'sovereignty' will be handed over by the Americans to the American-appointed Iraqi 'Governing Council', and it begins to make sense.

The Americans aren't leaving on June 30, of course; they are retreating to secure, concrete perimetred barracks. The airport will become an Iraqi responsibility. The Iraqis will risk their lives to defend it from the 'resistance'. And it dawns on me that this will happen in a thousand other areas of Iraq.

The dams on the Euphrates, west of Falujah, for instance, the walls of the old RAF Habbaniya airbase which is now home to the 82nd Airborne, the street patrols in Baghdad. Even now, you see fewer US patrols in the old Caliphate capital. No bad thing for a people who don't want to be occupied.

But the Americans are not leaving Iraq and the Iraqis know this. On my way back to Baghdad, I see two of the new recruits in the middle sandswept parade ground. They are taking their military trousers down and pulling on jeans, right there in front of the Americans. Time to go home for the night, the war over for another 12 hours. Until the Americans leave. Why does this remind me of Afghanistan? - (c) The Independent

Spain after the attack

Taking the relative size of Spain and the United States into account, Thursday's terrorist atrocities in Madrid amounted to about half a 9/11: almost 200 dead and over 1,400 injured in a population of less than 40 million.

Spain's people and government are very angry, and they want to see the terrorists punished. They also want to be safe - but not at any cost.

There are claims that the attacks were the work of Al Qaeda, although at the time of writing the Spanish government still believes that the bombs were planted by the Basque separatist group, ETA. Let us assume for the moment that it really was ETA's doing. Here are three things that the Spanish government will not do, no matter who is running it after Sunday's election.

First, it will not declare 'war' on the ETA terrorists and send the Spanish army in to occupy the Basque provinces of northern Spain. Dealing with terrorists will remain a job for the police and intelligence services, operating within the normal confines of Spanish law.

Secondly, it will not arrest thousands of Basques suspected of supporting ETA and whisk them away to a prison camp in some out-of-the-way place where they will be beyond the reach of the Spanish courts, and can be held indefinitely without any proof of wrongdoing.

Thirdly, it will not invade and occupy the neighbouring Basque-speaking provinces of France, just across the Pyrenees, even though Basque militants over the years have made much use of that sanctuary to rest, re-arm, and plan new attacks.

In other words, the Spanish government will not lose its balance. A terrible thing has happened, but it knows that responding with illegal violence and repression would just drive lots of innocent and law-abiding Basques into the terrorists' camp. It also knows that while Thursday's attacks killed about one in 200,000 of the Spanish population - compared to one in 100,000 Americans who died in 9/11 - that is still not a tragedy big enough to justify turning the whole country upside down.

Why does the entire Spanish political class, right and left alike, think like this? Because in 36 years of dealing with relentless ETA terrorist attacks, they have learned a good deal about fighting terrorism. There were serious abuses of civil rights by governments in Madrid at times, and at one point there was even a 'dirty war' of targeted assassinations against ETA leaders, but as time passed almost everybody in Spanish public life realized that the important thing in fighting terrorists is to keep life as normal as possible. Do not overreact, do not break your own laws, and never, never let the terrorists seem more important or more dangerous than they really are.

Right now, the rest of Europe is hoping that the attack in Madrid really was carried out by ETA and not by Al Qaeda, because in that case it is a purely Spanish problem. If it should turn out to be Al Qaeda, however, they will not turn their countries upside down in a vain attempt to make them safe. They will tighten security where it can be done without disrupting daily life - and they should probably do a bit of that even if it wasn't Al Qaeda this time-- but they understand that you cannot prevent every terrorist attack, and should not make that the standard by which you measure a policy's success.

They will respond this way because they have learned that you can live with terrorism. Indeed, you may have to live with it for long periods from time to time, and get on with the rest of your life regardless, because terrorism is the natural weapon of weak but fanatically determined groups. There will always be some of those around, and some of their attacks are bound to get through.

Terrorism is a technique, not an ideology. It is equally available to the extreme left and the extreme right, to religious and to secular fanatics, to national minorities of every kind - and Europe has seen them all.

Britain had the IRA, Germany had the Baader-Meinhof Gang and their friends, Italy had the Red Brigades and the right-wing counter-terror, and France has had various waves of terrorism going all the way back to the Algerian war. But terrorism is not a very effective technique: none of those groups succeeded.

What the target countries have learned from this long and miserable experience is patience. They have realized that if you just ride it out and don't panic, the terrorist campaign will eventually peter out as circumstances and intellectual fashions change, or at worst as a new generation rebels against the ideological obsessions of their parents. Meanwhile, do what you sensibly can to stop the attacks, and for the rest, endure. The statistics are on your side: you are dozens of times likelier to die in a car crash than to be killed by terrorists.

European governments don't ever put it this bluntly to their citizens, but in fact the citizens know it anyway. That is why most ordinary Europeans see Al Qaeda and its allies as just another wave of terrorist fanatics, less familiar ideologically but no different in essence. Most of their national military, police and civil bureaucracies see things the same way, even in the countries like Spain, Italy and Britain where the national leaders have enthusiastically signed up for President Bush's crusade against evil. So even after their own mini-9/11, if that's what it was, the Europeans are not going to panic. - Copyright

Mehfil in memory of Karbala held

Karachi: "Karbala, literature and the writers' role" was the subject discussed at the monthly literary sitting of the Arts Council on Thursday.

Mehdi Masood was in the chair and among those who contributed their poetry and essays included Raghib Moradabadi, Prof Afaq Siddiqui, Prof Saher Ansari and Zahoorul Islam (from Dubai) and the poets Qamer Warsi, Nasim Nazish and Perveen Haider.

In his brief discourse, Mehdi Masood, a former diplomat, quoted luminaries from the West- historians Carlyle, Gibbon and others who had lavishly paid homage to the memory of Imam Hussain (A.S.) and his devoted companions who laid their lives in Karbala and upheld the massage of Islam.

He said that he was personally indebted on two counts to the great martyrs. Firstly, after listening to the sermons at 'majalis' and the recitation of elegiac poetry during Moharram his heart was so much softened that he could not see anybody anymore suffering in pain. He could then easily understand the feelings of others and help them in their moments of distress.

Secondly, the great sacrifices of the holy Imam and others had emboldened him spiritually, and strengthened his faith in the values of godliness, leaving no fear in his heart as said by poet Iftekhar Arif, and he quoted the following couplet:

Hussain tum nahi rahey, tumhara ghar nahi raha
Mager phir iskay baad zalmoon ka dar nahin raha

In most events of martyrdom, Mr Masood said, the concerned persons were left with no choice, but to yield their lives for a cause, while Imam Hussain had a choice. For one word of assent for the ruling "Caliph", he could live in peace even after. He But, had he done so, the real spirit of Islam would have faded away, Mehdi Masood said. He said that he had in his mind many things to deliver, but, due to heavy schedule, he was left with very few minutes to speak.

Raghib Moradabadi was also brief in his comments. Elegiac poetry in Urdu was next to naatia poetry in its volume. He also recited a rubai written for the occasion.

Mr Zahoorul Islam Javed recited his 'Salami'. Earlier, he described the way, people in Abu Dhabi and adjoining places solemnized the martyrdom of the great Imam. Prof Saher Ansari dilated over the contribution of Sufi poets and the marsia writers in the enrichment of literature and poetry. Their efforts to broaden the area of culture were an invaluable part of history.

Prof Afaq Siddiqui quoted Sindhi language poets and said that almost all the languages of Pakistan, Balochi, Pushto, Punjabi and others, carried the spiritual values, enshrined in the events of Karbala.

Nasim Nazish, recited her Salam in familiar tune suited for the occasion. Parveen Haider had come with a mosaddas-like 'marsia' composed after Josh. Qamer Warsi was praised for some of his couplets.

Zaigham Zaidi did the compering. He introduced the participants in brief and suitable words without unnecessary adjective so commonly used at the podium these days.

Naqqash Kazmi, chairman literary committee welcomed the guests.