Militancy and politics

ANOTHER day, another horrifying suicide bombing. The double suicide attack on defenceless workers at the Pakistan Ordnance Factories must be condemned in the strongest terms. The war against the Pakistani state and people by militants operating under the umbrella of the Tehrik-i-Taliban (TTP) is now, more than ever, undeniable. The TTP is openly claiming responsibility for the latest wave of bombings and is threatening more. No one, civilian or otherwise, is safe and every murder, no matter how cruel, is reasonable for the TTP. Bombing civilians inside a hospital or outside a factory, murdering in cold blood anyone suspected of ‘deviant’ behaviour, slaughtering people for practising a different version of Islam, and burning girls’ schools are all justifiable forms of warfare for the militants. What have the militants chosen now to own up to their politics of hate and destruction? They are under severe pressure in Swat and Bajaur and are threatened with sustained military action elsewhere. They are finally being taken on because peace deals — they continuously violated — didn’t seem to be working. They only furthered their agenda of territorial dominance.

The government must not falter in its resolve to confront the militants. The wave of violence in Pakistan’s cities and settled areas is meant to bully the state into backing down. The Taliban feel threatened in their backyard, where they recruit, train and equip people to inflict damage on Pakistan. If this pipeline is not shut down the tribal areas will continue to serve as the fountainhead of militancy. Meanwhile, security inside cities must also be tightened to make it more difficult for bombers to strike with impunity. Inevitably, this will disrupt normal life as the security net around public spaces is enhanced but it is a price that the people must be ready to pay. What is undeniable is the need for a government to stand by its people and reassure a frightened citizenry.

The irony is that at a time when people are terrorised by suicide bombers politicians are mightily sidetracked by trying to keep the coalition in Islamabad together. Yet another deadline — Wednesday — for the restoration of the non-functional judges has been issued by Nawaz Sharif. The PML-N struck a hopeful note but nobody failed to notice the absence of the PPP co-chairman Asif Zardari. Without Mr Zardari’s consent the judges will not be restored — on Wednesday or any other day — so there is reason to keep expectations in check. Meanwhile, the unfortunate juxtaposition of a political class beset by infighting while the militants fight the state continues. What is clear is that there will be no winners if the status quo continues.

Yet another look at education

IT is encouraging that the importance of updating and revising the National Education Policy 1998-2010 (NEP) is understood by the government. It is also a welcome measure that this is being undertaken on a war-footing , as we are given to understand. As the government is in the process of reviewing the NEP, it would do well to recall that the Musharraf regime had also constituted a policy review team in September 2005, with the mandate to undertake the revision exercise. The review team issued a White Paper in December 2006 which evidently did not win the approval of the education ministry bosses at the time. Hence the report was shelved. The present government has announced that the revised policy it is preparing will be known as the NEP-2008 and will be announced before the end of the year after it receives input from all four provinces. The need for revision can be attributed to the shortcomings of the education sector that the last policy prepared by Nawaz Sharif’s government failed to rectify. The latest revision exercise notwithstanding, skepticism abounds. The entire exercise implores some questions owing to the checkered history of such undertakings in the past. They have generally failed to produce results. As a result such exercises have proved to be futile. Where does the fault lie? Does it lie in the recommendations which were put forward or in the implementation process? More often than not the problem has been with the lack of political will to implement the recommendations.

The last review addressed some vital aspects of the education sector such as the pillars of quality including the curriculum — and its relevance — textbooks, assessment, teachers training and learning environment; gender equity; accessibility; education financing; political interference and corruption; and parallel systems

in education. But the fact that these recommendations were shelved and never considered seriously points to the underlying factor of failure of implementation. Reviewing policies is a protracted process which requires financial resources and experts. It is a time-consuming job which should only be undertaken if it can improve ongoing reforms. Failure to get the desired results may call for a revision of the recommendations but that should not be such a challenge. The government should consider taking up the White Paper on education which is still relevant to our conditions. It was prepared less than two years ago. It offers a major advantage. The implementation process can be started right away without delay.

Touching rock bottom

DISAPPOINTING, but not surprising. This is what sums up the performance of the Pakistani contingent at the Beijing Olympics. It was expected to return empty-handed and this is exactly what has happened. No shattered hopes there. The swimmers and the athletes, falling in the heats, were quite a few seconds off the pace which is practically an eternity in their respective disciplines where micro-seconds often separate the top ten. The lone shooter in the party also fell at the first whiff of competition. Despite all the chest-thumping rhetoric by the Pakistan Hockey Federation in the run-up to the event, no one pinned much of a hope in the national team because of the string of failures it had registered over the last several years. However, by finishing eighth in a field of 12, the team did produce a surprise of sorts because in terms of ranking it is the worst Olympic finish for the greenshirts ever. The plight of the national game has been a cause of much worry for far too long. From drawing rooms to board meetings, it has been discussed to death. In fact, it has now become unfashionable to talk about it anymore. What the game has not seen beyond discussion is practical input from the government. From appointing professionals sincere and competent to the cause of the game to injecting the required amount of funds and facilities, the government has failed on every single count.

We can find fault with the players or the coaches, but the fact remains that the game is struggling to attract young lads who may wish to take it as a fulltime activity because, unlike cricket, there is no career to be made in hockey. There are no central contracts for senior players, and no jobs for those who fail to make the national grade. This is certainly not a scenario smart enough for someone to wish to be a part of. In athletics and swimming, we are in no position to produce a Usain Bolt or Michael Phelps in the next hundred years. But for hockey, there is still a glimmer of hope. When things hit rock bottom, it is often their best chance to bounce back. The worst-ever finish in Beijing can still work in our favour, provided we are up to the task.

A long matter of shorts

SHORTS, as worn by sportsmen and these days otherwise also rather in vogue, are getting a good deal of play in parts of the national print medium. Some Urdu papers and a couple of English ones as well have been dilating on the ‘extreme impropriety’ of the DCO out there in the southern Punjabi city of Rahim Yar Khan for doing official business in shorts.

The way these news reports carried on, I was rather shocked — for this man seemed to have taken leave of his senses and was running around in his underpants, briefs as we call them. The only paragon of good sense and modesty in that iniquitous city, someone called Ejaz Shafi, was duly scandalised.

Besides, having nothing noteworthy to his account, this man is also a member of the provincial assembly and to that House did he take this matter of national importance.

It turns out that while attending what the DCO called his awami daftar (aka khuli kacheri), the man had worn baggy Bermuda shorts that reached to just below his knees. That, if you please, is just a little bit shorter than the shalwars of some very punctilious religious men. Putting this aside for a bit, a word on the sterling service Shafi has rendered to the district where he has long been a politician.

Feroza and Chachran in his constituency are pictures of neglect. Years ago the public health engineering department installed two disposal pumps in Feroza that have rarely been in use. The one powered by electricity is not usable because the cables feeding it have long since been stolen by heroin addicts who used the premises as a den. The diesel-powered machine is run off and on with fuel contributed by concerned citizens.

After commissioning, the pumping system was handed over to the municipality. But with the new system in force in 2001, the nazim who was of the same party as Ejaz Shafi, refused to take charge of the machinery. But Shafi is not concerned with the reason for this refusal to take over. Had it not been for some concerned Feroza citizens who privately raise funds to run the one serviceable diesel generator, the current monsoon would have sunk the town.

A classic example of the yeoman’s service Ejaz Shafi began as Baitul Maal minister under the last government is the under-construction Khanpur Special Education Institute. Actually, ‘under-construction’ is a poor word to use here for a project that began a year and a half ago, did not get very far and is now under suspension.

Meanwhile, the anti-corruption department chases the absconding contractors accused of having used substandard materials. Indeed, even as the inquiry proceeds, the last fall of rain saw a huge chunk of the boundary wall come crumbling down! Check out the blackguard contractors — mark my words on this — and they will directly or indirectly be connected with Shafi.

The least said of sorry Chachran, the better. Suffice it to be told that there is not one street in the older part of town that does not resemble a wide and open sewer. Such then is the work of Mian Ejaz Shafi who rose to prominence under the last dispensation.

And of the DCO, Raheal Ahmed Siddiqui, there are also tales to tell. As SDM Larkana in 1993 or the year after, he went out with a police force to quell a violent procession of mullahs demanding something or the other.

The lines were drawn and it was announced over the bullhorn that the demonstrators could not cross them. But the mullahs were in a vicious mood and baying for blood. As they came to within thirty yards of him, Siddiqui turned around to order the police escort to fire. He found himself standing all by himself in a street utterly deserted behind him.

Unflinching, the man held his ground. The mob came up to him and could well have torn him limb from limb, but something remarkable took place. The baying ceased, a few of the leaders came up to Siddiqui and there ensued a long round of palaver of the nature of which we do not know. But within minutes the mob dispersed peacefully. Today, 15 years after it occurred, the event is remembered by everyone in Larkana who is old enough to remember it: they find it remarkable that someone should not bolt in terror in the face of a violent mob.

Thereafter this man was sent as SDM Keamari in Karachi. An Urdu newspaper carrying the report mentioned him as being “of good reputation”. And that is the reputation of unimpeachable honesty in matters both professional and fiscal that Raheal Siddiqui carries to this day.

And now we have a pygmy with little to his credit shouting up the Bermuda shorts of a good and decent man. Shafi claims that by the act of wearing shorts the DCO has adversely told on his reputation! Pray, what reputation do you have to protect, Mr Shafi? The reputation of joining PML (Quisling) when their star was in the ascendant and now scraping and cringing to the Punjab chief minister to be taken under his patronage?

It must be admitted that Shafi has genuine grievances against the DCO. In his tenure as minister, Shafi had organised the illegal manipulation of irrigation ditches to water his own and his cronies’ holdings. This deprived the tail-end users of much-needed water. This DCO came around and put an end to this evil malpractice. And so the issue of the shorts.

But for Shafi’s information, when Siddiqui was assistant political agent for Pata (Dera Ghazi Khan), he held similar awami daftars in shorts in the tribal area without anyone taking offence in that far less liberal society. People know when a public representative delivers and they respect such a man. The voice of sanity in the Punjab assembly came from the stalwart Rana Sanaullah: Shafi and his partners found nothing wrong with organising the famous marathons where a couple of thousand runners ran through Lahore in shorts, but now he is outraged.

There was also Ms Zeb Jafar who was surprised why anyone should at all be concerned with such a non-issue. Was all else in order to now afford time for such items? Strange woman: she attended the function of the shorts while Shafi was incensed without even being there.

So, take it easy Ejaz Shafi we know you stand no taller than ankle height. In the end, I will admit that Raheal and I have been friends for close on two decades now. I respect the man for his rectitude, courage and sense of duty. We could do with a few more women and men like him. Let’s let him get on with his work and judge him on that alone.

The writer is the author of several travel books.

odysseus@beaconet.net

Momentous decision

A BRITISH resident facing the death penalty at Guantanamo Bay has won his case for the government to disclose secret evidence that he says supports claims he was tortured into confessing to crimes he did not commit.

Binyam Mohamed, 30, who was arrested in Pakistan six years ago, says the Americans flew him to a prison in Morocco where he was tortured before his transfer to a US detention centre in Afghanistan.

In 2004, he was taken to the US Navy base in Cuba where he is awaiting a trial before a military commission on charges that he conspired with Al Qaeda leaders to plan terror attacks on civilians.

But this week the High Court in London said British authorities still held secret material that might help confirm Mr Mohamed’s whereabouts and the nature of his detention after 2002.

The judges said his allegations of torture were at least “arguable” and that the Security Service, MI5, had information relating to him that was “not only necessary but essential for his defence”.

In the ruling, the judges said the “conduct of the Security Service facilitated interviews by or on behalf of the US when Binyam Mohamed was being detained by the US incommunicado” in 2002 in Pakistan. Working with the Americans after the 9/11 terror attacks, the British authorities sent an officer from MI5 to interview him, the court said. The officer told him he could expect no help from Britain unless he fully cooperated with his US interrogators.

The court found that without the information held by MI5, Mr Mohamed would be unable to put up a defence to the charges against him at his US military tribunal. His lawyers yesterday described the ruling as a “a momentous decision”.

In 1994, Mr Mohamed, an Ethiopian by birth, was granted asylum in the UK.

— The Independent. London

OTHER VOICES - Sri Lankan Press

Confusion in education

Daily Mirror

IT is unfortunate that the proposals formulated by the National Salaries Commission (NSC) submitted for removing salary anomalies in the teacher cadres have not received the teacher unions’ approval. While some of these unions have accepted the proposals others have rejected them….

The education ministry said it would issue the circular soon to implement the new proposals from next month involving an expenditure of Rs1.6bn annually…. Under these proposals … the salary of a teacher would range from Rs21, 500 to 34,005 per month….

The ministry officials reacting to the opposition expressed by unions assert that most unions have accepted the present proposals and charge that the union leaders who had vowed their opposition have no backing from teachers….

The education ministry officials are hopeful of accomplishing the task with the cooperation of these teachers…. The dissenting unions, however, decry this effort stating that the teachers being employed to carry out this task cannot be considered sufficiently qualified to undertake this important duty. But the officials assure that unqualified teachers will not be entrusted with the task.

This is only one aspect of the multifaceted problems the education sector is embroiled in. Administrative weaknesses and student indiscipline are creating unrest in universities, school admissions place parents in pitiable situations, corruption has spread to the portals of these educational institutions….

There is increasing evidence that most … activities of this student organisation are dictated by the controlling party which has now fallen foul of the government. However, it is irrational and unfair to ascribe all these agitations and protests to political party bias and prejudice because there is justification for some of the protests….

Their objections have to be considered sympathetically and multifarious problems in the field of education have to be solved. — (Aug 22)