Combating terrorism

THE London atrocity has been roundly condemned by almost everyone. At the same time, fear of a new wave of Muslim bashing on the lines that was witnessed in the aftermath of 9/11 has been expressed in many quarters. Much of the anxiety on this score relates to Muslims living in the West. But the repercussions could be far wider, and Muslim countries could undergo another tightening of the vice. President Pervez Musharraf himself referred to this while speaking a day after the London bombings, saying an act of terrorism like this would have a deep impact on Muslims all over the world. Pakistan has reason to be particularly on guard because of the way its territory has been used by all kinds of terrorist and militant organizations. Irrespective of what the present military-led government may say or do, we have not been able to quite shake ourselves free of our past association with the Taliban and our encouragement of militant tendencies. We may have come out of our previous state of denial, in which we refused to differentiate between sectarian parties and ‘jihadi’ groups, but recognition of the link between the two has not led to forceful enough action on either front. The fact that wanted persons are regularly unearthed within Pakistan shows that the country remains a beehive of terrorists. A man already in custody in Peshawar is now being investigated for a possible link to those who carried out the London attacks.

Basically, the problem goes beyond punitive action, of which there have been many instances recently. It concerns the basic question of whether we have firmly and finally decided to stop being a laboratory for all kinds of strange ideological and fundamentalist obsessions and illusions of superiority that were not justified by either economic or political power. Arrests continue to take place of Pakistanis or those who allegedly received training in Pakistan. There are unconfirmed reports of militant outfits regrouping in the northwest and again soliciting funds and manpower for ‘jihad’. Madressah reforms have yet to materialize. In the NWFP, a Hasba bill has been approved by the provincial cabinet and when it is promulgated, it will lend a new momentum to the religious parties’ agenda. There is very little comfort to be drawn from proclaiming that we are in the “front line” in the war on terror until we can convince not only other states but also ourselves that we have decided to put the past firmly behind us. Pakistan is particularly vulnerable because of our nuclear capability, which irks many and which was seriously jeopardized by the Qadeer Khan episode.

The other dimension of combating terrorism is to look at its motivation. There was, as Robert Fisk succinctly pointed out in his column in this newspaper yesterday, a clear link between the London bombings and the Bush-Blair handshake at Gleneagles during the G8 summit. The US-UK war in Iraq and its continued occupation, the messy aftermath of the US invasion of Afghanistan, the threats directed at Iran, the refusal to accept Palestinians as legitimate owners of their land — the arrogance inherent in all this will only beget more terrorism. Forcibly changing regimes and defining value systems (“what we hold dear”: Blair) should be replaced with reasoned political action that involves the entire international community. A reference to the United Nations in the context of Iraq might still be useful.

Rising waters

ALL the major rivers of the country are now in varying degrees of spate, with the Indus and the Chenab in high flood at several places. The devastation caused by the Kabul river in Nowshera and Charsadda districts of the Frontier has by far been the worst. Losses are estimated to be in the range of four to five billion rupees in the affected areas of the province, with the federal government providing a mere Rs 100 million in emergency relief so far. The Sindh and Punjab governments have also chipped in with Rs 50 million each. Considering the damage done to crops and the number of people made homeless, the money made available is a pittance. Also, it was insensitive on the part of the prime minister earlier in the week to bring up the question of big dams that he suggested could have helped ease the situation at such times by storing excess water. This he said while dispatching relief goods to the flood-stricken people in the Frontier. Floodwater is now threatening vast areas of the Indus basin from Punjab down to Sindh. This is not the time to raise controversial issues relating to big dams; the need of the hour is to prepare the relevant relief and emergency services to deal with an impending flood.

The Punjab government has been asking people living along the Indus and the Chenab to move to safer places in view of the possibility of the rivers rising further in the days ahead. The dry spell having prevailed for the past 10 years has seen the homeless encroach on riverbeds; the situation along the Ravi lining Lahore on the north and the west is more precarious on this account. An estimated 100,000 people now live in shantytowns and katchi abadis that have come up on the riverbed. They are being evacuated as the river continues to swell. The situation in the urban centres of Sindh, in Sukkur, Hyderabad and Nawabshah, is believed to be no different. Unless a comprehensive flood relief plan is put in place now, swelling rivers in the days ahead threaten to extract a heavy toll.

Theft of artifacts

THE theft of ancient artefacts and Buddhist relics from an archaeological site near Mardan is symptomatic of the low priority given to the preservation of our historical and cultural treasures by governments in Pakistan and society at large. The site, which is of immense historical and cultural significance, has no security around it to prevent treasure-seekers from trespassing into it and stealing its precious relics. In this particular case, the thieves apparently encamped at the site for two days during which no government official or policeman asked them why they were there or told them what they should not be doing. It is quite plausible that the thieves might have paid local officials to look the other way.

Quite clearly, the department of archaeology needs to adopt a more responsible approach to the protection of the country’s historical sites and artefacts. The fact also is that the government’s negligence on this count tends to take the form of an attitude of indifference to monuments and other cultural and historical objects belonging to the pre-Islamic period of the country’s history. Hence only those sites and monuments that belong to the Islamic period tend to get priority in terms of maintenance and care. No wonder, sites which are non-Islamic in origin, such as the Buddhist ones or even Harappa and Moenjodaro dating back to pre-Islamic times, receive far less attention. Of course, there is a market for stolen artefacts at home and abroad, and if the government continues to take no interest in the protection and preservation of what is our cultural heritage, most of the relics that are still there in museums and at archaeological sites would disappear. The important thing is to bolster security at all historical sites to prevent the theft of valuable relics still stored there.