| July 19, 2008 | Saturday | Rajab 15, 1429 |
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Western double standards
Of the coalition
Rescuing the poor
Theatre in awareness-raising campaigns
Rejecting Talibanisation
The US and the OIC
One-way responsibility
Pensioners’ plight
Shortage of textbooks
Readers are requested to restrict their comments to a maximum of 400 words. We reserve the right to edit letters for reasons of clarity and space. Letters, including those by e-mail, should carry the complete postal address of the sender. The views expressed in these columns do not necessarily reflect the views of the newspaper.—Editor
HAMID Karzai’s fulminations against Pakistan appear to be increasing in proportion to his failure to govern Afghanistan properly or to live up to the western governments’ expectations. The latest salvo that he has fired is aimed at the ISI for its alleged involvement in Kabul’s India embassy bombing. Shouldn’t he have been more upset about the ISAF attack on a wedding party that killed dozens of women and children, including the bride?
After a meeting of Karzai and his cabinet, a statement said: “The people of Afghanistan know very well that Pakistan’s intelligence agency (ISI) and military have turned that country to (sic) the biggest exporter of terrorism and extremism to the world, particularly to Afghanistan” (July 15). It also alleged that other “destructive attempts are all indicators of ISI’s attempts to recapture and destroy our country.”
While there are several problems with this argument but, first, one must admire the gall of the man who is undoubtedly the biggest ingrate that emerged out of a refuge in Pakistan. Mr Karzai has most thanklessly forgotten the days that he and his family spent here in safety during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.
The reasoning doesn’t hold water because: (a) President Musharraf’s been in power for many years and he simply couldn’t have afforded to lose America’s patronage and pleasure by letting the ISI, which he directly controlled, to work against western interests; (b) If Pakistan had wanted to destroy Afghanistan, it could have done that without moving a muscle by ignoring Moscow’s occupation of that country in 1979. Thus, it is preposterous for anyone to make such a claim.
The real reason for the Afghan president’s denunciations is his attempt to find a scapegoat to divert his western masters’ growing impatience with his administration’s failures. For instance, Afghan newspaper Shahadat wrote on Jan 22 that a French newsagency has quoted an American official as saying that poppy was mostly cultivated in Afghanistan on government land. Further, that Afghan officials are engaged in activities that are against the interests of the Afghan masses (Dawn, Jan 25).
A Reuters report has meanwhile noted that a government-run daily newspaper in Afghanistan wrote: “(The Afghans) have never accepted and nor will accept a protégé government.”
Also, that Karzai’s government was a protectorate and the nation must discuss the issue of national sovereignty with ‘the foreigners’ before next year’s presidential elections (Dawn, Feb 17).
In addition, Shahadat observed in another issue that many foreign powers, including Russia, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, besides the US, had, even during the Taliban rule, been interfering in Afghanistan. The Iranian military and Revolutionary Guards had even established a base in the east of the Panjsher valley during Ahmad Shah Masood’s time.
The paper then asks: “The readers should, now, judge the present actors on Afghan stage …. Who has been fighting for whom and why? The Afghan people should be aware of all those who now present themselves in a different light.”
There’s an Armenian saying: “Warm up a frozen snake and she will bite you.” This is what Mr Karzai has been doing to Pakistan. The time has now come to tell his western backers clearly that we absolutely won’t stand any more of this abuse. Washington must arrange to get a new president elected who is not hostile towards any of his neighbours. Failing that, our leaders must have the honesty, patriotism and spine to tell the Americans we will no longer be able to help them in any way in their ‘war on terror’, which is really a cover for grabbing the central Asian countries’ reserves of oil and gas, while castrating the nuclear-powered Pakistan.
IRSHAD SIDDIQUE
Karachi
WESTERN leaders and media have been arrogating to themselves the right to abuse, cajole, insult and demonise Islam, its values and role models, also in the name of ‘freedom and expression and press’. They have gone to the extent of producing blasphemous cartoons and caricatures of the Prophet of Islam, injuring the feelings and faith of one-and-a-half billion Muslims the world over.
However, the hypocrisy of the stand is exposed by the fact that in a number of European countries denial of Holocaust has been made a crime and even university professors, like Prof Irving, who have challenged some of the Zionist claims in a highly academic manner and based on the research have been charged and punished even with imprisonment for resort to ‘freedom of expression’. Now an eye-opening example has come from Spain.
The Times, London, in its edition of June 23, has reported that a cartoonist who depicted the Spanish king as ‘drunken’ king and the other who portrayed the crown prince engaged in sex are being prosecuted for the attack on the “Monarch’s self-esteem”.
In Spanish law, “damaging the prestige of the Crown is a crime,” punishable with up to two years’ imprisonment. The case was ignored by a lower court but it is now being taken up in the Spanish National Court, where it has been claimed that the cartoons and the article are slanderous and invite punishment.
This is one more case exposing the double standards, of the so-called liberal West. Their insensitivity to the faith and the dealings of the Muslims and continuous assault on our values and role models and using different standards on what they hold sacrosanct should be an eye-opener for those who blindly succumb to all that comes from the West in the name of globalisation, modernisation and liberalism.
PROF KHURSHID AHMAD
Islamabad
RENDEZVOUS appointed to jumpstart the joint effort to realise the coalition’s agenda, after accomplishing the first thing first (restoration of judges), within 30 days of the Murree Declaration, remains elusive even after the lapse of over 100 days.
The Murree Declaration gave the impression of complete convergence of views of the coalition partners. That generated euphoria in the country and people thought that dawn of democracy and good governance was setting in and the era of dictatorship was over.
The famous saying “…..you can’t fool all of the people all of the time” seems to have completely been disregarded by the signatories to the above accord.
To a person even with an iota of common sense, the doomed fate of the coalition, in not too distant a future, is like writing on the wall.
The main architects of the coalition, we believe, possess more than mere iota of common sense and knew the fate of the arrangement as well as we do. Despite that, they went ahead orchestrating the accord. That exposes their mala fide intentions right at the start.
Ever since the institution of the coalition government, all the significant events taking place in the country betray evil intentions of two major coalition partners, that is the PPP and the PML(N). All the moves directed by the parties’ stalwarts were aimed at jeopardising each other’s interest.
The irony is that the individuals holding fiats of these parties are not even public representatives in the parliamentary parlance. The other irony is that democracy is least practised even within the framework of these parties. The biggest irony is that we vote them in, not once, every now and then. That is how the leaders of these parties take our permanent foolishness a foregone conclusion.
A. RASHID
Dubai, UAE
This is apropos of the news item, ‘CNG outlets ignore govt price’, published recently.
The counter-statements of the government and the CNG association for the high price of CNG do not provide a solid base to defend their stances. Being a common man, I feel that the CNG association and the government are no more a helping hand.
The ratio between the price hike and the salary of a layman has become so much widened that people in some cases are committing suicide while the elite (ministers) are performing Umra, meeting their leader at the cost of revenue generated through the taxes on the layman.
Couldn’t the expenses on the ministers’ visits abroad be turned into a subsidy for the masses?
M.ZAMEER AHMED
Karachi
THEATRE has fascinated people all around the world from time immemorial. On the one hand, the elite classes had their own theatre that told the stories of kings, queens, princes and princesses and, on the other hand, there was a tradition of street theatre that focused on the common man’s life and problems.
The elite theatre made heavy use of costumes, and other props with usually very large cast; while street theatre was comparatively inexpensive entertainment.
The subcontinent has its own tradition of people’s theatre that is known as Notanki, Natak, or Rahs. The most important aspect of this traditional theatre is its simplicity. Unlike theatre in the proscenium, street theatre entails minimum use of lights, cosmetics/makeup, costumes and other paraphernalia.
A character is established with a small but significant prop, e.g. a stick to portray a policeman, a stool/chair to represent a king’s throne etc. The actor achieves success with his acting skills such as voice control, body language and expressions.
This kind of theatre was quite popular among the masses, and people thronged to its performances, which were held on melas or fairs regularly in every nook and corner of the subcontinent.
Its strong appeal to the masses makes it a most cherished tool for development workers, especially the ones involved in advocacy and awareness — raising campaigns. As the subcontinental version is more affordable and culturally acceptable, it becomes more important for awareness — raising campaigns. There is no need to hire professional actors and actresses, as members of a community can themselves prepare short plays with minimum training.
Alex Mavrocordatos says: “The first step to development is a change of attitude, both individual and collective — and in that order — from declared helplessness to empowerment. This is culture in action, and theatre is a cultural tool.”
Theatre is a cultural tool that helps change people’s attitudes. When they prepare a play on a certain issue facing their community, they analyse its different aspects, and search for its causes and learn about its possible consequences. These insights lead to a change in the attitude of the people who are directly involved in the production of the play.
As these activists become aware of the complications of the issue, they can become the best advocates on the issue for the rest of the community, and their play can be the best way to convince other members of the community to take the issue seriously.
Furthermore, these people have continuous presence in the community as opposed to the advocacy campaigners who visit a community for a short time, and cannot have long-term interaction with the community.
Another special aspect of this kind of theatre is that the play is produced by the members of the community, so it portrays their problems in their own unique context, which makes it more relevant to the viewers.
People start identifying themselves with the characters of the play, which makes them feel the agony, pain and suffering as well as joys of the characters. As a result, what characters of the play learn is learnt by the audience as well. It results in a change in the way the people perceive that particular issue, which leads towards a change in behaviour afterwards. Drama achieves what endless sermons cannot.
Theatre remains an underutilised tool in Pakistan. We need to make proper use of this powerful tool to bring about a lasting change in people’s attitude towards many issues plaguing our society, i.e. violence, religious intolerance, environment, etc.
I would like to suggest it to all the organisations working for creating awareness about one or the other issue to make vigorous use of theatre in their awareness-raising campaigns.
SAFEER ULLAH KHAN
Islamabad
A FEW weeks ago, the Nato-led coalition forces attacked the Pakistani paramilitary forces on the Afghan border killing at least 13 Pakistani soldiers.
The result was that the whole nation sternly condemned this cowardly and outrageous act and raised slogans against the US and its allies. Certainly it was condemnable, but two days ago, the local Taliban killed 17 FC (Frontier Constabulary) troops when the latter were patrolling in Hangu for keeping peace.
This time no such activity of protest was observed from the nation. Hardly anyone seemed to condemn openly this ‘cowardly’ act of the Taliban.
These Taliban have done a hundred-fold damage to Pakistani society by shattering peace through such mass killings than any foreign forces.
It is time we as a peaceful nation rejected the Taliban brutalities and curbed any further Talibanisation of society.
MUBASHER JAMIL
Rawalpindi
THE United States government has appointed Sada Cumber as special envoy to the Organisation of the Islamic Conference with the objective “to promote mutual understanding and dialogue between the United States and Muslim communities around the world.”
The question arises how effectively the interaction between the United States and the Organisation of the Islamic Conference could foster understanding between the US and the Muslim societies, keeping in view that the Organisation of the Islamic Conference is a fractured representative of mostly autocrat governments in the Muslim world, who are mostly even otherwise on very good terms with the US.
The resentment against the United States and its policies mostly prevails amongst the masses in the Muslim countries which are not represented by their respective dictatorial and autocratic governments.
These masses in the Muslim countries are as discontented with their governments as with the United States.
In these circumstances, isn’t it an exercise in futility and unnecessary expenditure for the US to work with an ineffective organisation like the Organisation of the Islamic Conference?
DR MUHAMMAD ALI SHAIKH
Ex Principal,
Sindh Madressatul Islam
Karachi
APROPOS of your editorial, ‘One-way responsibility’ (July 15), I fully endorse your call that the US-led forces in Afghanistan must reassess their seven years’ performance. So far many of the Nato partners are avoiding direct combat duties. They are being saved from performing such duties by the self-serving caveats of their respective governments.
It is time the Nato forces used their combative strength for rooting out corruption and narcotics trade.
JALALUDDIN S. HUSSAIN
Quebec
THE rising prices of consumer goods and the alarming rise in electricity tariff and the rates of petrol, gas and other utility items are causing deep depression among the pensioners and making their life miserable.
They feel that the relief provided to them in the budget was no more than peanuts as compared to the daily mounting inflation. The old pensioners who get less than half of the new pensioners are the worst sufferers. They have been demanding equal pension for old and new pensioners that India did 25 years back.
The new government should favourably consider the case in accordance with the formula already forwarded to the authorities, suggesting that the pensioners over the age of 70 years be compensated first, followed by the rest.
COL (r) RAFI NASIM
Secretary (Information), DFVA
Lahore
IT’s a routine matter for the Sindh Textbook Board, Jamshoro, to produce textbooks below the demand or print these late enough for the academic year. That is why every year one or the other book is not available in the market. For instance, this year the textbook of math for Class X was produced in so small a quantity that not a single copy is found at any book depot in Hyderabad. Would the authorities take appropriate steps to solve this recurring problem?
RASHID AHMAD DAR
Tando Jam
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