The cursed ones

March 10th, 2010

The Persian poet Anwari wrote: “Har balaey ze aasman uftad,/Khanaey Anwari ra mee pursad.” (Every calamity that descends from the heavens looks for the house of Anwari.) Everyone tends to consider their own misfortunes more troublesome than those of others and the comforts of others more than their own. This view lies within the individual and can be corrected by their own efforts–i.e., prayer, seeking out and utilising all possibilities for a solution and working hard at that solution. This is reflected in yet another Persian saying: “Jaan-e-man, khud kardai, khud-karda ra tadbir neest.” (My dear, you have asked for it yourself and there is no remedy for what you do yourself.) There is another type of misfortune in which the individual plays no part–for example floods, earthquakes, hurricanes, etc. The Divine edict is that nations are destroyed for their wrongdoings–e.g., the drowning of the Pharaoh and his army and the rain of stones on the disobedient disciples of the Prophets Aad (PBUH) and Samud (PBUH). There is very little that a human being can do to stop or prevent it. It is a Divine (natural) event.

The elderly always used to pray: “Allahumma, ahfizna min kulle bala ad-duniya wal akhira,” (O Almighty, please protect us from the trials of this world and the Hereafter). In addition to praying for protection from natural tragedies, we often also pray to Almighty Allah to protect us from the mischief and atrocities committed by worldly rulers. While natural catastrophes may be considered to be a chastisement for worldly wrongdoings, cruelty and suppression is the means used by rulers.

They usually start off benignly but power often leads to arrogance and a feeling of one’s not being answerable to anyone. Sometimes they prolong their rule by any means, fair or otherwise. These are the people who, according to the Holy Quran, are “deaf, dumb and blind” and who are not afraid of one day having to answer for their deeds. They seem to forget the clear warnings given by Almighty Allah in “Do they not travel through the earth and see what was the end of those before them? They were more numerous than these and superior in strength and in the traces (they left) in the land. Yet all that they accomplished was of no use to them.” (40:82) They surround themselves with sycophants and self-centred companions and carry on with corruption, injustice, nepotism, suppression, cruelty, etc., till they face their appointed time and then it is too late and there is no respite from judgement. Even worse is the fact that, by their deeds, the Divine blessing (barkat) disappears and the whole nation suffers.

A story to illustrate this goes as follows. Once a king and his companions became very thirsty while out hunting. They found a cottage by a field of sugarcane and asked for some water. The old lady went inside and brought out sugarcane juice for everyone. The king asked her how many canes it had required to obtain this much juice, to which she replied that it had taken only one good stick. The king, upon returning to his palace, increased the tax on the sugarcane crop, erroneously believing that the poor farmers were making too much profit. The next year the king again went hunting in the same area and once again went to the same cottage. After quite some time the lady came back with bowls only half filled. The king looked surprised and asked her for the reason of the delay and the half-filled bowls. She replied that the king, being a miser, taxed the people by unfair means, putting an unbearable burden on his subjects. Due to this the Divine blessing (barkat) had disappeared, leading to drought in the country. The king had enough conscience to feel guilty and ashamed and immediately abolished the overly heavy taxes. His kingdom soon thereafter, so the story goes, once more regained prosperity.

In Pakistan we are more or less facing the same situation today. Everything has gone wrong – no electricity, gas, LPG, sugar, flour, etc. And if available, they are sold at exorbitant prices, far beyond the reach of the common man. We seem to have lost that Divine blessing (barkat) due to our wrongdoings.

It sometimes makes one wonder whether the name “Karbala” has something to do with “karb” (pain) and “bala” (misfortune) – a place where a pious, honest, noble person was, together with his family, brutally martyred for the sake of worldly benefits. But Yazid failed to keep the dynasty in his family. All his companions were killed; he himself died within four years of that tragic event. Before dying he nominated his son, Muawiya, as his successor. Muawiya was a pious and religious man and abdicated within three months. Marwan Ibnul-Hakam, Yazid’s minister and a very influential person, became caliph and married Khalid bin Yazid’s mother. He nominated his own son, Abdul Malik, as crown prince, bypassing Khalid bin Yazid. This infuriated his mother so much that, with the help of some court ladies, she strangled Marwan. Abdul Malik ruled efficiently for many years, but Yazid had lost his dynasty, thus paying for his crimes.

People indulge in all kinds of misdemeanours – corruption, manipulation, etc. – to either benefit personally or for the sake of their relatives and/or friends. But fate rolls the final dice. An apt Persian proverb says: “Tadbir kunad banda, taqdir kunad khanda,” meaning, man proposes (plans) and Fate laughs at it. In English they say: “Man proposes but God disposes.” In the Holy Quran, Allah has forewarned that the ultimate judgement/decision will be His.

Corrupt, greedy, tyrannical rulers who do not have the good of the people at heart are a curse. This curse appears in different ways. The Indo-Pakistan subcontinent paid for its lack of integrity by becoming slaves of the British for centuries. With sincere efforts and hard work of some leaders we managed to gain freedom from the British and independence from Hindu domination. But very soon thereafter corrupt practices surfaced. Political intrigues became the order of the day. Noting all this, one poet went on to write:

Mulk Sadeun ki ghulami se to aazad hua;

Tum bhi aazad hue, ehle watan se puchho.

Source: http://www.thenews.com.pk, Wednesday, March 10, 2010 written by Dr A Q Khan

Did you like this? If so, please bookmark it,
tell a friend
about it, and subscribe to the blog RSS feed.

Tags:
Posted in Friend of Pakistan | No Comments »

British boy kidnapped in Pakistan for £100,000 ransom

March 5th, 2010

I am British born in Pakistan, living in the same city whose one resident of age five has been abducted in Pakistan while he was on holidays in Pakistan. I am ashamed on it and all other Pakistanis who love their country and after this incident are scared to go to Pakistan with their families. The media all over the world is broadcasting this news. Newspapers have highlighted this news. Each Pakistani living in UK especially is viewing the TV to see and listen when Sahil Saeed will be released and praying for his release. We, all British and Pakistanis condemn the situation in Pakistan where citizens are robbed and abducted. About six months before, another Pakistani Rashid Karim from Faisalabad was abducted for a ransom of one ten million rupees and was released from Peshawar. The Police and higher authorities know the situation and in some cases know the abductors but are silent as they also have the share in ransom.

“The BBC has published the news as following:

A five-year-old British boy has been kidnapped by armed robbers in Pakistan, local police have said. Sahil Saeed, from Oldham, Greater Manchester, was abducted in Jhelum, where his family were on holiday. Robbers broke into where they were staying, in Punjab province, on Wednesday night and have demanded a ransom of about £100,000.
The British High Commission is in touch with his family and local police are said to have arrested a taxi driver.
Pakistan’s High Commissioner to the UK, Wajid Shamsul Hasan, said the chief of police had told him of the arrest and hoped the man could provide clues as to Sahil’s whereabouts. The family had been due to fly back to Britain on Thursday following a two-week visit. The boy’s father, Raja Naqqah Saeed, had been visiting his mother in Pakistan with Sahil.

They were about to leave for the airport to return to the UK at 2300 local time (1800 GMT) on Wednesday when four men – armed with guns and a grenade – approached the house.

Mother of kidnapped boy says she is afraid. Up to 10 family members inside the house were beaten by the intruders in a six-hour ordeal during the night. The robbers eventually fled with the boy, demanding a ransom equivalent to £100,000. They also took household items, believed to be jewellery and money.
The intruders said they would be back in touch at 0700 GMT, although the boy’s father said he had not heard from them.
Mr Saeed, who has been based in the UK for about seven years, told BBC News that his son, who only speaks English, was a child who “loves everyone”. “I don’t have any money at all. They can take me if they want – just let my son come back,” he said. “I am nothing without him.”
Raja Naqqah Saeed, Sahil’s father: “I want to give my son back to my wife”
And, speaking at the family’s home in Oldham, the child’s mother, Akila Naqqash, said there was no chance her family would be able to pay the ransom.
Fearing for the safety of her “bubbly” child, the boy’s mother said she had no idea why her son had been targeted.
She said: “Sahil is a really quiet child – he’s no harm to nobody. Why would they want to take my son? What have we done? We’ve done nothing wrong. This is a normal holiday. Every family takes a holiday.
“How is he coping with strangers? Four grown men. I don’t know what they are doing to him. I just want him back.”
Jane Sheridan, head teacher of Rushcroft Primary School, which Sahil attends, said everyone was “deeply concerned” about his welfare and they were doing all they could to support his family.
Jhelum itself is not a particularly dangerous place, it’s not a tribal area – it’s a relatively safe part of Pakistan

Mr Hasan, Pakistan’s High Commissioner to the UK, described the kidnapping as a “condemnable act” that has caused the Pakistan government concern. He said the chief of police had told him earlier “no stone would be left unturned” in the search for Sahil and the culprits.

George Sherriff, a spokesman for the British High Commission in Islamabad, said they were “continually monitoring the situation”.
The BBC’s Aleem Maqbool says Punjab police are taking this very seriously and a large team is working on the case.
He says the chief of police is now involved and officers think the kidnapping is unlikely to be the result of a family feud or a personal grudge.
Our correspondent says there are isolated incidents of kidnapping in Pakistan by criminal gangs who want to make money, occasionally linked to militant groups. However, he says there is nothing to suggest this is the case in this kidnapping.
Our correspondent says Jhelum is not in a tribal area and is a relatively safe part of Pakistan, where many British Pakistanis are from. He says police are confident they will bring the case to a successful conclusion.”

Source:http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8548834.stm

Did you like this? If so, please bookmark it,
tell a friend
about it, and subscribe to the blog RSS feed.

Tags:
Posted in Law and Order, Terrorisom in Pakistan | No Comments »

Hypocrisy galore!

March 3rd, 2010

Some days ago it was reported in this newspaper that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) had granted leeway to the government of Pakistan in curbing its fiscal deficit and permitted an increase of Rs130 billion in the defence budget. Apparently, the ever-present ’security concerns’ facing Pakistan – and therefore, the ‘free world’ at large – are serious enough for the IMF to waive its usually stringent requirements and allow an increase in military spending. Alas, the IMF is not as gracious when it comes to expenditures on the social sector.

Pakistan’s external debt has soared over the past three years. It seems a very long time ago now that the then prime minister Shaukat ‘Shortcut’ Aziz pronounced that Pakistan had broken the begging bowl once and for all and that there was no longer any need to acquire loans from the international financial institutions (IFIs). In fact, the state’s coffers are in worse shape than ever, and it is literally a daily struggle to make sure that the government departments continue to function.

In September 2009 and then again in December, Pakistan Railways’ management did not release wages on time, and only after the intervention of the ministry of finance was the ensuing stand-off between workers and management prevented from becoming a major confrontation. Hundreds of contract workers in innumerable government departments ranging from the Capital Development Authority (CDA) to Allama Iqbal Open University protest on a daily basis because they are subject to completely arbitrary treatment by their employers, and often do not receive salaries at all.

Once upon a time such insecure employment was the preserve of the private sector only, but under the pressure of the IFIs, the third world governments such as ours are adopting contractual labour practices in a big way. The situation in the first-world, where welfare states once guaranteed jobs, health, housing and education, is only a little bit better, especially in the wake of the financial collapse.

And so, it is unfortunate that the reaction to the agreement of the IMF and government of Pakistan on the ‘necessity’ of increasing the defence budget should be so muted. Mainstream political parties, particularly the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), should be at the forefront of all efforts to decrease non-productive expenditures, but in practice it appears as if those who we elect simply do not have the will or power to resist the dictates of the powers-that-be, including the IFIs, the US and other western governments, and our very own military establishment.

Indeed, more than half of the Rs130 billion will go towards increased salaries for the men in khaki. There is no indication of whether all ranks of military men will benefit, but either way, the average increase of Rs10,000 in wages is far in excess when compared to any increment that is granted to employees of civilian departments. Evidently, inducements must be offered to military personnel so as to keep the so-called ‘war on terror’ on track whereas it matters little whether the hundreds of thousands that staff civilian departments have any incentive to improve, or at the very least, maintain a minimum level of service to the public (daresay there is a link between the failure of the state to meet the basic needs and the rise of militant Islamism).

Surely it is time to ask why the white elephants such as defence and debt servicing are never put on the IMF’s – and therefore the government’s – chopping block when all and sundry are extolling the virtues of controlling the fiscal deficit. In the United States, intelligent voices have started to make noises about the relationship between the social and economic conditions of working people and the gargantuan defence budget; it does not take rocket science to recognise that there is a direct trade-off between spending money on bombs and spending money on meeting people’s needs.

It is unfortunate that the Pakistani media apes its American counterpart by not allowing such voices to gain the kind of audience that they deserve. There is a lot of hyperbole about American interference in our affairs and the violation of our sovereignty, but no one appears willing to accept that our own love-affair with nuclear bombs and military might is directly correlated with our inability to provide for ourselves and not have to rely on the largesse of the imperialist powers.

It is true that, from the very outset, imperialism has patronised the military establishment and ensured that Pakistan remains a garrison state. And this is precisely why only Pakistanis themselves can be relied upon to change the nature of the state and thereby the priorities that shape our public expenditures. Until and unless we insist that notional ’security concerns’ and nuclear bombs are nowhere near as important as providing for people and creating a peaceful society, we will neither decrease our dependence on the IFIs and western governments, nor move beyond the cynicism and opportunism that have become so commonplace across the length and breadth of the land of the pure.

If nothing else, the sheer hypocrisy of the IMF and its sister institutions should be exposed. It is telling that IMF missions do not even bother to come to Pakistan anymore to negotiate with our finance managers, but instead summon the latter to the desert paradise of Dubai. Presumably the IMFers are worried about the ’security situation’; it is the teeming 170 million in whose name the IMFers conduct their ‘development’ experiments that are left to deal with the fallouts of neo-liberalism and imperialist war.

With the resignation of finance minister Shaukat Tarin, Pakistan’s elected government has established the dubious record of having gone through three finance ministers in barely two years in office. The search for the fourth will be straightforward: the candidate will need to be fluent in neo-liberal speak, be familiar with the IMF, World Bank and Asian Development Bank (ADB) bureaucracies, and know how to lie to his own people about ‘development’, ‘progress’ and the ‘national interest’.

Source: http://www.thenews.com.pk, Wednesday, March 03, 2010 written by Aasim Sajjad Akhtar

The writer is an activist-academic who teaches at Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, and is closely affiliated with working-class movements. Email: amajid@comsats. net.pk

Did you like this? If so, please bookmark it,
tell a friend
about it, and subscribe to the blog RSS feed.

Tags:
Posted in Pakistan and its Economy | No Comments »

From one crisis to another

March 2nd, 2010

This article briefly reviews two years of economic performance of the present government. What it inherited, what it informed the IMF and the people of Pakistan, why it went to the IMF, and where we stand now – are the subject matter of this article.

Pakistan positioned itself as one of the four fastest growing economies in the Asian region during 2000-07 with its growth averaging 7.0 per cent per annum for most of this period. As a result of strong economic growth, Pakistan succeeded in reducing poverty by one-half, creating almost 13 million jobs, halving the country’s debt burden, raising foreign exchange reserves to a comfortable position and propping the country’s exchange rate, restoring investors’ confidence and most importantly, taking Pakistan out of the IMF Programme.

These facts were acknowledged by the present government in a Memorandum of Economic and Financial Policies (MEFP) for 2008/09-2009/10, while signing agreement with the IMF on November 20, 2008. The document clearly acknowledged that “Pakistan’s economy witnessed a major economic transformation in the last decade. The country’s real GDP increased from $60 billion to $170 billion, with per capita income rising from under $500 to over $1000 during 2000-07″. It further acknowledged that “the volume of international trade increased from $20 billion to nearly $60 billion. The improved macroeconomic performance enabled Pakistan to re-enter the international capital markets in the mid-2000s. Large capital inflows financed the current account deficit and contributed to an increase in gross official reserves to $14.3 billion at end-June 2007. Buoyant output growth, low inflation, and the government’s social policies contributed to a reduction in poverty and improvement in many social indicators”. (see MEFP, November 20, 2008, Para 1)

A cursory look at the above stated acknowledgement is sufficient to see that the government deliberately misguided the people of Pakistan by presenting a totally distorted picture of the economy. While it could misguide the people of Pakistan for domestic political consumption, it had no option but to tell the truth to the international financial institutions as these facts were known to them.

Even the government did not inform the people of Pakistan that it obtained the IMF Programme on the basis of past performance. Pakistan received the extra-ordinary funding from the IMF under the fast-track Emergency Financing Mechanism which was meant for the countries “that have a strong track record of sound policies, access to capital markets and sustainable debt burdens but need rapid help to overcome financial crisis”. (IMF Survey, October 29, 2008) Thus, a government which starts its inning on distortion can never bring stability in the economy. Most of its time and energy would be consumed for covering up of its failure.

The present government inherited a relatively sound economy on March 31, 2008. It inherited foreign exchange reserves of $13.3 billion, exchange rate at Rs62.76 per US dollar, the KSE index at 15,125 with market capitalisation at $74 billion, inflation at 20.6 per cent and the country’s debt burden on a declining path. The government itself acknowledged in the same document that “the macroeconomic situation deteriorated significantly in 2007/08 and the first four months of 2008/09 owing to adverse security developments, large exogenous price shocks (oil and food), global financial turmoil, and policy inaction during the political transition to the new government”. (Para 3 of the MEFP, November 20, 2008)

What went wrong? Why one of the fastest growing economies in the Asian region until two years ago has been totally forgotten in the region? Firstly, the speed and dimension of exogenous price shocks (oil and food) were of extraordinary proportions. Secondly, the present government found itself totally ill-prepared and clueless in addressing the challenges arising out of the shocks. While rest of the world was taking corrective measures and adjusting to higher food and fuel prices, Pakistan lurched from one crisis to another.

Despite peaceful election and a smooth transition to a new government, political instability persisted. For a protracted period there were no finance, commerce, petroleum and natural resources and health ministers in the country. The government lost six precious months in finding its feet. It gave the impression of having little sense of direction and purpose. A crisis of confidence intensified as investors and development partners started to walk away. The stock market nosedived, capital flight set in, foreign exchange reserves plummeted and the Pakistani rupee lost one-third of its value. In short, Pakistan’s macroeconomic vulnerability had grown unbearable. It had no option but to return to the IMF for a bailout package. There were no Plan A, B and C. There was only one plan, that is, to return to the IMF.

While the country was moving rapidly towards the IMF, the ministry of finance had prepared the plan to bring $4 billion by June 30, 2008 through four transactions. A kick-off meeting was scheduled on April 23, 2008 at the ministry to give a final touch to the various roadshows. These transactions were cancelled on April 20, 2008. Who ordered the cancellation of $4 billion transaction? This cancellation prompted balance of payment crisis and the rest became history.

The economy continues to remain in intensive care unit and is breathing thanks to the injections from the IMF, World Bank and Asian Development Bank. The economy is not on the radar screen of the government and as such the economic managers have no relevance in the current political set up. The exit of Shaukat Tarin is a classic example. At least he tried his level best to inject financial discipline but paid the price of teaching prudent financial management. No matter who replaces Shaukat Tarin, the economy would continue to lurch from one crisis to another until and unless the government brings the economy at the centre stage.

Source:http://www.thenews.com.pk, Tuesday, March 02, 2010 en by Dr Ashfaque H Khan
whois is director general and dean at NUST Business School, Islamabad. Email: ahkhan@nbs.edu.pk

Did you like this? If so, please bookmark it,
tell a friend
about it, and subscribe to the blog RSS feed.

Tags:
Posted in Pakistan and its Economy | No Comments »

The misery on our faces

February 26th, 2010

Times may be hard but why add to the sum of national misery? Some of our afflictions, like the economic downturn and the war raging along the Afghan frontier, may be beyond anyone’s control. But some are entirely self-created.

We are not a police state in the political sense of the term. This is not a country behind any kind of iron curtain and, the notoriety of our intelligence services notwithstanding, we do not have anything like the East German Stasi prying into every aspect of national life. We have one of the freest media in the Islamic world. Our kind of talk shows would not be permitted in most Muslim countries.

While we should count our blessings we should not forget that in the social sense this is a very repressed society.

The pity of it is that it wasn’t always like this. Once upon a time mosque and tavern stood side by side (in a metaphorical sense of course) and even as they did, no one said Islam was in danger. How distant that time seems.

We were Muslims in 1947; we are Muslims now. There is a difference, however. Today we wear our religion on our sleeves and shout it from the housetops.

Protesting too much about anything betrays a sense of insecurity. An honest man, not given to self-righteousness, feels no necessity to proclaim his honesty. An honest woman, normally, does not protest her virtue — unless there be the memory of a past sitting uneasily on her conscience.

Just as Italy will always be Catholic, and just as there will always be a Pope in the Vatican, we will be Muslims until the end of time. This is our destiny, something that we were born into. So what is there to be so worked up about? Hinduism stood in danger at the hands of Islam. Islam in the sub-continent was never threatened by Hinduism.

But if someone were to read our Constitution, with its repetitive references to Islam, or if someone were to read our court judgments wherein our learned judges are hard put not to deliver extended lectures on Islam, or if someone were to hear political speeches being delivered at public meeting where references to the faith are virtually endless, he/she would come away convinced that here was a people in perpetual fear of something dreadful happening to their faith.

The problems we were called upon to solve at our birth were political and economic in nature: temporal problems, secular problems, not problems of the hereafter. We solved some, failed to solve others. But every time we ran into difficulties, we retreated into the bosom of extraneous issues, seeking comfort under the banner of Islam. This has been an extreme form of national escapism.

Soon after independence we should have been able to frame a constitution. But our attempts at constitution-making were sidetracked by a never-ending debate about the role of Islam in our collective life. It was amidst the cacophony of this debate that Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan moved the Objectives Resolution in the Constituent Assembly.

What is this Resolution? Read it and it is hard to escape the impression that it is a tribute to needless rhetoric. Many years later, Gen Ziaul Haq, not famous as a respecter of constitutions, made the Resolution a substantive part of the 1973 Constitution, his move another Islamisation gimmick at which he was so good. Since Zia, many parliaments have come and gone. None thought it fit to do away with his constitutional innovations.

The people of East Pakistan were as good or bad Muslims as we in the West. They had issues with us regarding language, the sharing of political power, the distribution of national resources. Not being able to address those issues we discovered to our cost in 1970-71 that religion alone was not enough of a force to keep the country together. Just as we are discovering today that religion alone is irrelevant to the grievances of Balochistan.

Today we present the picture not of a house divided — which would be too harsh an indictment — but of a fractured society. The share of other faiths in our population is miniscule. We are an overwhelmingly Muslim country. But if we are still a fractured society, this should give us pause to think whether our problems are related to religion or other things.

If our cities are unclean we need better municipal services. Islamabad is dotted with mosques, large and small, which is a very good thing because at least it shows that while we may not be serious about other things, eternity figures high in the list of our preoccupations. But how does it help to have a capital which even after 50 years of its founding does not have an adequate system of solid waste disposal?

Islamabad should have been a model city in more senses than one. The city should have meandered around the many clear water springs flowing down from the Margalla Hills. Today there is not one which is not a monument to pollution. There are schools in this capital city for the rich and poor. At least here we could have experimented with a uniform education system. One can go on and on about Islamabad but that’s not the point of this journey.

The problems of Pakistan will not be fixed overnight. My generation can now write its epitaph. It has failed this country by not providing the leadership and direction needed. We could not set out on the golden road to Samarkand. We lacked the imagination for it and no doubt the vigour of action.

But we are not unique on the planet. Every place has its problems, in many cases worse than ours. We stand alone in making our problems worse by shackling ourselves in fetters we could have done without.

We don’t look a happy people. Other things may abound in the Islamic Republic but not the spirit of joy. There are people who celebrate life. There are people who carry a cross all the time and mourn about life. We fall in the second category. Partly through choice, partly through the sheer force of circumstances, we have elected to become a killjoy society.

This is not what we deserve. People laugh and cry. Tragedy triggers sorrow. But that is not the whole truth. When the shadows of tragedy depart people still have a yearning for some fun. This is part of our inheritance as human beings, an inalienable aspect of the human condition. But since the Islamic Republic, and what we have made of it, frowns upon the outward expression of joy, things to do with joy and happiness have been driven indoors.

The veil in Pakistan is not just an item of female clothing. It is also the cover behind which lurks social hypocrisy: outward piety masking inward licence. But inward licence only for the rich. Since the many dimensions of happiness are forbidden fruit in the broad spaces of the Republic, small wonder if the price of sin has become prohibitive.

Hypocrisy as a national characteristic, an all-pervading phenomenon, is not a good thing. It makes a people sick and stunted. It makes them less free. Isn’t it time the veil was rent asunder?

That parliament could cleanse the Constitution and return it to the form in which it existed on the eve of Zia’s coup is hoping for too much. There is nothing in parliament to indicate the audacity required for such a leap. But appealing to the god of lesser things, why can’t we do away with the Hadood Ordinance, one of Zia’s most poisonous gifts at the altar of hypocrisy. Many of our social shackles derive their strength from this iniquitous legislation. What allows the police to smell breaths and ask for marriage papers is this ordinance. Scrapping it would allow the people of Pakistan to breathe more freely. The frontiers of the social police state would contract.

Forget about universal solutions. Forget about appeals to revolutionary arms. This won’t happen. In the season of our discontent if only two small miracles can happen — getting rid of the plastic shopping bag, more of a long-term threat than the Taliban, and the Hadood Ordinance — Pakistan will look a cleaner and healthier place. Along with the social police state, the frontiers of morbidity will also contract.

Source://www.thenews.com.pk Friday, February 26, 2010 written by Ayaz Amir
Email: winlust@yahoo.com

Did you like this? If so, please bookmark it,
tell a friend
about it, and subscribe to the blog RSS feed.

Tags:
Posted in Friend of Pakistan | No Comments »

« Older Entries