LIKE SENDING MAN TO MARS?

https://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2018/12/28/like-sending-man-to-mars/

• Pakistan’s record of resettling displaced persons has not been good

NASA is preparing to send manned flights to Mars. The pilot of the first human flight to leave earth’s orbit in 1968, Bill Anders, has called it a “stupid” plan, because he said there was a lack of public support to fund the project which would be much more expensive than an unmanned expedition.

For that matter, funds are even thinner on the ground for elaborate systems of roads, overpasses and underpasses in Pakistan. How well judged are these projects? You have to set parameters to work out whether a plan is viable or not. One of those is: what do you gain and what do you lose as a result of carrying out those plans?

In the case of the NASA projects, space travel gave rise to several important advances in scientific knowledge and resulted in inventions that made life easier. We got equipment that saves lives, such as the Jaws of Life that are used to rescue people from places such as crashed cars, a landmine removal system that destroys landmines without detonating them, and the invaluable CAT scanners. Also, think camera phones, scratch resistant lenses, home insulation and wireless headsets, memory foam, foil blankets, ear thermometers, and improved artificial limbs. Dust Busters resulted from a small device used to collect samples on the moon. There is also the computer mouse and laptop computers.

The elaborate system of roads in Pakistani cities, useful as they are, are ill adapted to the needs of the bulk of the public that walks, uses motorbikes or cycles to get from A to B. These new roads with long stretches of barriers between carriageways are not suited to such movement.

In 2002 and again in 2008 and 2009 Pakistan observed Daylight Saving. The idea was to save electricity. But because of a lack of systems and planning there is no data to say if the exercise was worth it or not. It was a costly exercise, and on the face of it we lost much more than we gained, so the schedule was shelved and there is no Daylight Saving in Pakistan any more.

Thalassemia is on the rise in KP, where doctors report that 8pc of the population is vulnerable to this disease. The programme that was supposed to help create awareness of the factors that give rise to this disease has been ended due to lack of funds

And now there is the Daimer Basha Dam project in the offing. Are we likely to gain more than we lose as a result of that project?

Laila Kasuri, a water engineer, has written a useful article about that damn project. She points out that while there is nothing wrong with building a large dam, smaller reservoirs and other techniques for saving water would be far more feasible.

At present, agricultural officialdom is of very little help in disseminating information, seeds and equipment. Farmers grow crops that use a lot of water because they are not taught otherwise (this is an illiterate country, remember), and because large factory owners are very willing to buy sugar cane and rice which are among those water intensive crops.

There is also the crucial matter of the number of persons who will be displaced.

Khalid Hasnain in his article reports that some 14,325 acres of land in Chilas, Gilgit Baltistan has been given over to WAPDA for the Diamer Basha Dam which is to be a 4,500 MW project. The dam will displace 30,350 persons, in other words 4,266 households belonging to 32 villages on either side of the River Indus. They will need to be resettled.

Pakistan’s record of resettling displaced persons has not been good. A report produced by the HRCP in 2010 talks about the massive displacement caused by several factors such as the Afghan refugee crisis, the military action against militants in Malakand, in KP, and against the Taliban in FATA, and the displacement caused by floods and earthquakes. Such crises are likely to continue in Pakistan. The construction of this dam only adds to these already huge numbers of internally displaced persons, among the largest in the world. The report says:

‘While a specific framework exists to offer protection for refugees, in the form of the 1951 Refugee Convention, and an international organisation, the UNHCR, has been mandated to assist them, neither is available for internally displaced persons per se. This because they remain inside their own countries, and therefore do not have a similar claim to assistance and protection under any international legal instrument or from an international organisation. It has not been uncommon for the government of Pakistan to restrict humanitarian assistance or even block access to displaced populations for a range of reasons. Ongoing conflict and overall insecurity in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and FATA have also impeded humanitarian assistance to the internally displaced people. Despite hosting one of the world’s largest displaced populations in modern times – the refugees from Afghanistan to Pakistan – Pakistan remains surprisingly ill-equipped to deal with large-scale internal displacement at both the policy and implementation levels.’

The report adds that:

‘The country has neither prepared nor enacted any specific domestic legislation or policies addressing internal displacement or put in place a framework for the protection of internally displaced persons.’

The population of Pakistan, including its displaced persons, requires safe drinking water, shelter, medical care, food, education, and work opportunities. At present more than half of the children in Baluchistan are subject to stunted growth because of malnutrition, and child mortality in the province is higher than in the other provinces. Almost as many mothers suffer from malnutrition and iodine deficiency, and the incidence of anemia among mothers and children is very high.

Thalassemia is on the rise in KP, where doctors report that 8pc of the population is vulnerable to this disease. The programme that was supposed to help create awareness of the factors that give rise to this disease has been ended due to lack of funds.

So, what was it that Bill Anders said about sending man to Mars? Does the comment apply also to projects here that are likely to create even more displacement in an already cash strapped environment? If the same advantages that the larger project sets out to obtain could have been obtained just as well or better by smaller, less disruptive means, are the larger projects a good idea?

THE WAY THE GOVERNMENT FUNCTIONS

https://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2018/12/24/the-way-the-government-functions/

• Irrational reasons for legislation

Basant was the indirect cause of so many deaths and injuries each year it’s been banned in the Punjab since 2005, with several lapses in between. At no time, either when banning it, or at the time of the frequent lifting of the ban, have the factors that make it dangerous been systematically examined and addressed. Now, it seems that Basant is to be allowed again. Considering that the festival is around the corner this February, talk of a committee headed by the Punjab law minister to look into all aspects of Basant prior to restoring the festival is eyewash, since there is no time for any of the factors to be addressed. This, clearly, is yet another of those arbitrary directives, the way governments in this country tend to function, and the PTI always so to date.

Even harmless customs can backfire badly. Last year a ‘gender reveal’ party took place in Arizona. This is a relatively new custom where the gender of an unborn child is revealed in innovative ways. At this one, a US Border Patrol Agent Mr Dickey decided to reveal the gender of his child by firing at a target labelled ‘boy’ and ‘girl’. The target was filled with a highly explosive substance called Tannerite, and placed in a field of tall, dry grass. Mr Dickey was obviously looking for a spectacular announcement since the Tannerite blows up with an impressive blue flash.  Well it did blow up, and with an impressive blue flash, but not surprisingly it took the tinder dry grass with it, and more than 45,000 acres of land encircling the site, causing  eight million dollars in damage before the fire was brought under control.

In this case it is not gender reveal parties that were at fault, but the shortsightedness of the host of this particular one. Mr Dickey has been placed on a five-year probation and is to pay more than eight million dollars in restitution.

The banning of the Satanic Verses in several Muslim countries a few years ago was a ‘ban milestone’ for Pakistan. The book was not likely to be widely read but following the ban most people who read tried to get hold of a copy, making it patently clear that banning things make them attractive; in other words, that bans rarely work. Really, if something is not likely to do much damage, it is better to let it die a natural death.

But you can’t do that with the custom of female circumcision, because of which an estimated two million women every year undergo torture. Around a third of these women die of shock, excessive bleeding or infection. Circumcised women suffer agony all their lives. So even if it is ensured that those who perform the procedure use sterile instruments this is one of many traditions that do not deserve to survive.

Keeping in mind such examples, the various problems surrounding them, and how they were handled, let’s talk about Basant, which has many positives going for it. Come spring, the skies over Lahore once came alive with thousands of kites, red, blue, green, yellow, and cries of “Bo kata!” the traditional shout of triumph when one person’s kite overpowered another’s. People dressed in bright clothes, partied, danced and sang to celebrate spring. It was a communal festival, which brought neighbours together, and fellow citizens, and it created business opportunities when kite makers and food vendors earned good money. In a world with so many schisms any opportunity to bring people together in amity ought to be encouraged. Traditions tend to do that, and Basant did. But it possessed its share of danger and tragedy.

It is a lapse of organisation and law enforcement if Basant cannot be made risk free by countering its risk factors

In the Inner city of Lahore, houses are built so close together that persons can easily jump from roof to roof, and they did this chasing kites during Basant. And sometimes, their eyes on the sky, they missed their footing.

The other cause for injuries and death is the insane practice of aerial firing in celebration in Pakistan. That and the kite string coated in glass used particularly during Basant, which can and did cut people’s throats. And so Basant was banned, rightly so, until something could be done about it.

It is a lapse of organisation and law enforcement if Basant cannot be made risk free by countering its risk factors. The glass coated string needs to be made illegal outright, as well as the celebratory gunfire. And houses in the inner city to be made safer, not just for Basant but generally, since accessible rooftops without safety walls are dangerous at any time. If enforced the measures to make rooftops safer are likely to take years, which means Basant cannot take place in the inner city until then. But it is surely possible to set aside space for kite flying. There are many parks and open spaces in Lahore.

People ought to be allowed to indulge in festivals and live to tell the tale. Yet certainly lifting the ban on Basant is the result of some government official’s desire to bring back the fun days of his childhood, or the culmination of some group’s pressure campaign to allow this celebration to take place. These are irrational reasons for any legislation. Yet, this is way the government functions.

FRAUD vs RELIGION

https://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2018/12/17/fraud-vs-religion/

• The persistent persist, such is the power of irrational belief

In Germany it seems persons who are superstitious burn hair instead of throwing them in the trash, a practice shared by their counterparts in Pakistan. While in Pakistan the belief behind this is that hair can be used in black magic rituals, in Germany they’re worried a bird may carry the hair off to line its nest, which apparently causes the donor to suffer headaches. And heaven forbid that the bird should be a starling because then the person is likely to go blind of cataract. That one has of course been defeated by surgical removal of cataracts, and there is always the ubiquitous Paracetamol to combat headaches, but no doubt the persistent persist, such is the power of irrational belief.

Hair it seems is interesting. Once again in Germany, if a girl wants to know what her husband’s hair is like before he appears on the scene, she must lean backwards out of the door on Christmas eve and grab. She will find some hair in her hand and that is what her husband’s hair will be like. Presumably, if her hand comes back empty he is likely to be bald? Dunno. Superstitions are as vague as they are irrational.

It isn’t just ignorant, uneducated societies that foster superstitions. Germany which is neither appears to host hundreds of superstitions some of which nasty, such as the one that asks you to slap a child as soon as you see its first tooth. Apparently, it makes babies teethe more easily. And likely as not it also produces an adult with an irrational fear of teeth.

But superstitions have another side which is less easily dismissed. In Pakistan for example there is a widespread belief in the power of prayer to purify water. Several years ago a representative of the WHO reported via IRIN, the news agency focusing on humanitarian issues, that during floods that year 13pc of 4.4 million people treated by the WHO in just one month were suffering from acute diarrhea.  A doctor in the area reports that although chlorine tablets were distributed people disliked its taste in the water and preferred to get a ‘pir’ to pray over the water. That, they believed, purified the water, but instead it caused illness, and death.

Mufti Muneebur Rehman who heads the Ruyat e Hilal Committee helpfully offered his opinion that this belief was incorrect, and said that Imams should tell their congregations so in each mosque. His opinion is appreciated, but coming from a gentleman who believes that life stops unless he physically sights the moon this advice holds only as much water as that satellite, which is hunted down by Mufti sahib and his colleagues from the top of a tower twice a year.

The sad fact is that pirs are taken seriously in this country. Although there must be some well-meaning ones, a growing number of pirs are out to make money by using religion to manipulate a gullible, poverty ridden population, or else – as in the US which is not as poverty ridden except in pockets –persons searching for an anchor and strength in their lives, in the absence of religion. Many of these so called spiritual leaders whose edicts actually lead to death continue their work without being apprehended, which is where Pakistan needs to get its act together. Charles Manson for example, in the US died at the age of eighty-three in a Californian prison. He had been found guilty of nine first degree murders and seven counts of conspiracy to murder; these had been carried out by members of his cult, his murid, at his instruction. He was initially handed a death sentence which was changed to life when California invalidated the death penalty in the 70s.

Although there must be some well-meaning ones, a growing number of pirs are out to make money by using religion

You wonder if the ‘spiritual leader’ who directed two brothers to bury their mentally disturbed sister alive in a well in Taxila will be apprehended and punished – the second does not always follow the first even if the person apprehended is found guilty. It seems the pir told the brothers that their sister was under an evil influence which would affect the rest of the family, and advised them to kill her. And they were so under his influence that they complied.

There was also the case last year of a similar leader in a village near Sargodha who clubbed and knifed twenty persons to death in what he called an attempt to cleanse them of their sins and send them straight to heaven. He, thankfully was arrested, but one does not know what followed the arrest. Let us hope this man, Waheed is his name, and others like him, are more regularly apprehended and placed where they can no longer influence the convoluted thought processes of gullible persons, a tortured population, which should be taught to differentiate between religion and fraud on this and other platforms.

DEFINED BY A LACK OF COHERENCE

https://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2018/12/10/defined-by-a-lack-of-coherence/

• Ruling by ordinance is not a good thing, Mr PM. Don’t even think about it

After a singularly violent birth, Pakistan spent more than three decades under martial law, resulting from three military coups. Since then, although the spectre of martial law has never been far from reality the people of Pakistan have managed to be ruled by civilian governments — democracy, something all people everywhere deserve. The very last thing one wants to hear therefore is a prime minister who calls himself an elected representative of the people saying he would be happy to rule by presidential ordinance. That is another way of saying he wishes to bypass the parliament, aka the people.

One does not rule by such arbitrary means in a democracy, Mr PM, not unless there is an emergency or a very urgent need. It is the ruling government’s job, led by you, the prime minister, to pass legislation via parliament. If an outright majority is unavailable you must use other methods at your disposal, including putting together alliances and coalitions with opposition parties if so required.

But as an editorial in a national newspaper points out, Imran Khan appears to look down upon such methods, saying he would not seek the support of opposition parties, that he would rather push legislation through by means of ordinances. Why? Is this a display of some sort of feudal ego? And also, this is particularly odd seeing that IK is on record supporting talks with the Taliban as the only solution to insurgency. (Euronews 27 Feb 2014)

In a democracy, the party with a majority holds power only currently, a power that may at any time transfer to the opposition. To thumb one’s nose at the opposition or the parliament is to thumb one’s nose at large segments of the people of the country, when it is the people who are supreme, and who rule via parliament. Sadly, many people are unaware of this very basic fact in a country where the majority is uneducated. Imran Khan’s rhetoric is invariably aimed squarely at this very segment, banking on lack of understanding to produce the bulk of support.

What is as if not more unsettling is that Imran’s statements indicate that our new prime minister has himself very little knowledge of political science. It might explain why he vacillates pendulum-like between opposing views: supporting the Taliban being allowed to open offices in Pakistani cities (The Telegraph, 4 Feb 2018) while calling the Taliban ‘a terrorist group’ (Al Jazeera 30 July 2018).

There have been several instances of ordinances being resorted to instead of legislation throughout the history of Pakistan, but none as infamous as Ordinance XX under the dictatorship of General Zia ul Haq in 1984, which is not to be confused with the equally infamous Second Amendment to the Constitution of Pakistan which came earlier in 1974 during the tenure of Mr Bhutto’s government. While the Second Amendment declared Ahmadis to be non-Muslim, the later Ordinance XX imposed further restrictions, barring members of the Ahmadi sect from calling themselves Muslim, claiming to practice Islam, calling their places of worship ‘mosques’ or using the Muslim call to prayer. This ordinance was in flagrant violation of a basic tenet of Pakistan’s existence which supported freedom of worship for all sects and religious groups. It led to thousands of Ahmadis being charged with violations, and a great deal of religious prosecution.

Just as the company in which a person passes his time defines him, a government is defined by the means by which it aims to rule

There were other Ordinances, such as the Protection of Pakistan Ordinance passed in 2013 which granted policing powers to the armed forces and security agencies, allowing them to arrest and detain – even indefinitely, anyone suspected of terrorism and endangering the security of Pakistan, no judicial process involved.

Just as the company in which a person passes his time defines him, a government is defined by the means by which it aims to rule. The current government does not shine by this standard if it supports such arbitrary means, which define its intellectual range. The attitude is not just foolish it is ominous because it reveals a predilection for authoritarian rule. Ordinances –Imran Khan probably does not know this – are not an enduring means of legislation since they are not meant to last beyond 120 days unless extended by parliament for a further 120 days, but no more. A government running a country by means of ordinances would have to scramble for an extension of its ordinance-based policies every four months, leaving it little time for any coherent governance. That probably explains why the first few months of the current government’s tenure are above all defined by a lack of coherence.

KARTARPUR: A BRIGHT SPOT ON THE HORIZON

https://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2018/12/03/kartarpur-a-bright-spot-on-the-horizon/

• In the best interest of the region

One gets a petty satisfaction watching Teresa May’s trials, a vicious gratification witnessing Britain’s suffering in parting ways with the EU, nothing as those sufferings are compared to what the people of India went through when parting ways with each other back in 1947. More than a million people might still be alive had the partition of India remained a pipe dream, which it might have if India not been colonised.

As Al Jazeera reported a couple of years ago, Teresa May was only formally against leaving the European Union. ‘May was almost entirely silent during the referendum,’ it said, ‘and (now that Britain is headed for the exit), she has to stop the UK from fracturing any further.’

Did anyone, it is almost impossible not to ask, ever even try to stop Pakistan from fracturing further once it had parted ways with India? Jinnah’s famous, “You are free; you are free to go to your temples. You are free to go to your mosques or to any other places of worship in this State of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion, caste or creed—that has nothing to do with the business of the state” sentiments were even then gloriously ignored, and they remain so. Pakistan has fractured in every way it could.

Anyway, Partition happened. You may wish it had taken place after the same deliberation and step by step approach as Brexit. That is the reason Brexit was brought into this column. At this stage to ask the question ‘are we any better off after Partition?’ is to open a large kettle of very long worms, so let’s refrain from that question here. We owe Pakistan our allegiance and loyalty, we accept reality and must move on.

Reality, however, does not help since nowhere does one find the promised country that was born only after the deaths of almost a couple of million persons. Is this it, this country whose citizens themselves are not safe if they belong to diverse religions and sects? In fact, they’re not safe. Period.

Ayesha Jalal speaks of Partition of India as ‘the central historical event in twentieth century South Asia,’ She calls it the ‘defining moment that is neither beginning nor end,’ and says that partition ‘continues to influence how the peoples and states of postcolonial South Asia envisage their past, present and future.’

Pakistan is built on expectations of goodwill. Anything that complies with those sentiments is a good thing, and the Kartarpur Corridor, a bright spot on that horizon, seems to do so

Perhaps the defining tragedy of Pakistan is that that vision of the past, present and future is so widely disparate from one quarter to the next, and that the ‘wrong’ quarter appears to be winning the day. The past, as it is stuffed down our throats, has undergone gross distortions, as much as the hapless present and uncertain future.

Thinking along those lines, an event such as foundation of the Kartarpur Corridor is a long overdue bright spot on the horizon, a small but positive way of making it possible for people of other religions to ‘visit their temples in this State Pakistan’, although the people of Pakistan themselves have no such assurances under current conditions.

Observations in support of the Corridor generally result in a tu quoque comeback which says, ‘have you forgotten all that the Sikhs did against Muslims during the Partition of India?’

The answer is another example of the same kind of response: let us remember that the Muslims of India were no saints either. They committed their share of massacres.

I only just learnt the term ‘tu quoque.’ It means ‘an appeal to hypocrisy’ by means of which one tries to discredit an opponent’s argument by asserting the opponent’s failure to act consistently in accordance with his argument’s conclusion. The term applies quite delightfully to most arguments flying around today.

If the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) had gone along with the tu quoque fallacy he would have failed to understand that he was responsible for his own actions, however ignorant his opponents may be. History may have played out very differently then, and for those of us who care about Islam, that would have been a pity. However, that is an aside.

So, why bother with the Kartarpur Corridor?

The Kartarpur Corridor connects the Sikh holy places between India and Pakistan — the shrine Dera Baba Nanak Sahib in Indian Punjab and the gurdwara Darbar Sahib Kartarpur in Punjab in Pakistan, the two being less than three miles apart. Cutting them off one from the other is like Muslims being able to visit either Mecca or Medina, not both.

If it becomes reality this corridor will allow Indian Sikh religious devotees to visit the gurdwara in Kartarpur without requiring a visa or a passport. The corridor is due to be finalised by this time next year.

Mr Khan’s counterpart on the other side of the border has compared the decision to proceed with the corridor to the fall of the Berlin Wall which, unusually for Mr Modi, is pretty apt. And in another aside, it would be interesting to know what both leaders this and that side of the border really think about the project and to what extent their hearts are in the idea of free movement between the two countries. There is of course always a way out, a U-turn for which Mr Khan has expressed enthusiastic support. Let’s hope a U-turn is neither required nor executed in this case.

Pakistan is built on expectations of goodwill. Anything that complies with those sentiments is a good thing, and the Kartarpur Corridor, a bright spot on that horizon, seems to do so.

Here’s wishing the corridor every success. We hope it will prove to be in the best interests of the region and its people. We hope that starting with this project we can leave the past where it belongs and move on, not in ignorance of the past but towards a better future.

Amen.