SO WHAT ABOUT THE JAWAB-E- SHIKWAH?

https://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2020/07/26/so-what-about-the-jawab-e-shikwa/

So, the Jawab-e-Shikwa, the great poem by Allama Iqbal, poet, philosopher, theorist, and barrister, calledthe national poet of Pakistan and its “Spiritual Father ” for his contributions to the nation, the man whose poetry fired the imagination of the people of this region for more than a hundred years – is it now to read like this?

Ki Muhammad – salAllahu Alaihi wassalum, khatme nabiyeen – say wafa tu nay to hum taray hain

Yeh jahan cheez hai kia, lau o qalam teray hain

Breaks the rhythm somewhat, don’t you think? And yet what is one to do? If you read the whole thing, extra words and all, you sound like Bilawal Bhutto Zardari plowing through a speech in Urdu. If you omit the extra words you stand a chance of being punished, which– if failing to add those words in front of the Prophet’s name is judged to be desecration– means up to five years in jail and up to Rs. 500,000 fine. Thus says the new Punjab Tahaffuz Bunyad-e-Islam (Protecting The Foundation Of Islam) Bill of 2020 which has just made it through the Punjab Assembly. Its Speaker, Ch Pervaiz Elahi recommends a similar Bill be adopted by all the Assemblies across the country.

It makes you wonder what the reaction would be if Muslims in India were required to say, ‘Oh Supreme Being’ every time they spoke of Rama a major Hindu diety. Or to cross themselves every time they spoke of Jesus in a Christian country, or to refer to God only as Yahweh in a Jewish society. Unfortunately, empathy, the ability to put ourselves in the other person’s shoes is not taught in our society today.

There is also the fact that as per this Bill, the DGPR (the Directorate General Public Relations) has been entrusted with the task of checking out printing presses, publishing houses and book stores and confiscating, at any stage, books that infringe the above law. It may also check the records of these places, including their accounts.

The DGPR Punjab is currently under the supervision of Mr Usman Buzdar, the Chief Minister, and Mr Fayyazul Hassan Chauhan, the Punjab Minister for Information and Culture, neither of whose qualifications or talents enable them to judge the contents of a book about religion. What is more the Minister of Information has twice been accused of making unpleasant remarks against religious and other minorities, which itself promotes sectarianism; and of expressing an admiration for the German once Fuhrer. It is doubtful therefore if the victims of this Bill will have a fair hearing until this too, like all other government promulgations, falls by the wayside.

The Prophet of Islam (PBUH) does not require legislation from the Punjab or any Assembly to bear out his character, his worth or his immense achievements. We do not need to speak a string of words after his name to stress the same. Neither are the foundations of Islam so shaky as to require such support. Those who believe in Islam will value its Prophet, and respect every single thing about him. Those who do not will ridicule this latest attempt to enshrine him in words that make it hard for people to speak about him instead of the other way around.

There are many issues waiting to be addressed in this country: there is a dire need to control the further growth of an already unwieldy population, we need to make education– a good education– available to this massive population, and to feed it. There has been an unchecked increase in prices, including for example a more than 60 percent increase in the price of wheat in the Punjab within these last two months alone. We need to drastically improve healthcare including aspects relating to the current Covid crisis we find ourselves in along with the rest of the world, and preparations for any other such crises in the future. We need to somehow rebuild the country after the economic disaster it is facing during this crisis, to protect rights of the citizens of this county and in particular its women and children who face untold abuse every day. We also need to control the various institutions that seem to consider it their job to mind everybody else’s business. This is what the government needs to act upon, leaving God to look after what he has promised to take care of Himself. Asserting the finality of His prophet in such a crude way does not help to unify the people, or to feed them.

The fact that the Prophet is the last one has been said as often as required. Will the Provincial Assemblies of Pakistan and the Chaudhry baradaran saying so too make it any more valid? By allowing people to believe as they will proves the strength of one’s own belief, it does not weaken it. Why must we feel so threatened?

When in one’s childhood we chanted ‘jal tu jala tu ai bala ko taal tu,’ during a blackout, and the power came on in a while, it did not do so because of the chant, but because some transformer somewhere had been fixed and made to work. Unfortunately the people of the country believe it was the chant, and it is in the interests of our leaders not to fix the grid but to feed this belief. It makes life easier. For them, the leaders. They have power generators.

Yeh jahan cheez hai kiya, lau o qalam unkay hain.

For a while.

THE ROLE OF MONUMENTS

https://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2020/07/19/the-role-of-monuments/

Roads named after prominent persons, mausoleums, structures, artifacts, columns, tombs, war memorials - monuments all of them, their purpose to commemorate history. You find them in Pakistan and all over the world.

Zamzana, the copper and brass cannon also known as ‘Kim’s Gun’ still remains on the Mall in Lahore in front of the Lahore Museum. And many tombs survive in Pakistan. But statues have been less fortunate.

Lahore was once home to several statues. Almost all of them were damaged or destroyed in riots, and removed.  A prominent daily lists them as those of Lala Lajpat Rai, Sir Ganga Ram, Sir John Lawrence, Queen Victoria, King Edward VII, and Dyal Singh. Some of them are now stuck in storage, and a couple taken back to Britain. The statue of Queen Victoria is now in the British High Commission in Islamabad. A statue of Gandhi that was damaged and removed during riots in the 1950s is now with the Indian High Commission in Islamabad. So no, we don’t like statues in this country, in part due to the widespread belief that art should not depict human forms, and for the rest because they are easy, visible targets.

Roads have fared even worse. There seems to be a campaign all over the country to rename roads. Two examples are The Grand Trunk Road, a name that resonates with history but which has been renamed after the founder of Pakistan, a bit like changing the name of the Taj Mahal. And Elphinstone Street in Karachi which is now Zaibunissa Street. It is hard to understand why that name was not maintained when the Honorable Mounstuart Elphinstone, a Scottish statesman and historian, was credited with setting up several educations institutions that were accessible to Indians.

In the current atmosphere of Black Lives Matter, monuments, particular statues are being targeted in the USA. Is it right to do this?

Monuments represent a value, or a fragment of history. A time may come when values change or are allowed to be expressed, when heroes are no longer heroes, and then– because monuments occupy a public spot they are targeted.

In the USA these days, in the current atmosphere of Black Lives Matter, statues of Confederate soldiers and generals, colonists and slave traders are being destroyed or taken down, and it is hard to condemn it. A public spot on a public street or on public land, unlike the inside of a museum, is a space that is visible and therefore it is meant for what commands respect. A guillotine that was used during the French Revolution in France for example would not be a popular sight on the streets. However, you can view one at the Police Museum in Paris and see for yourself what a dreadful thing it was, how terrifying and cruel.

Now that people seem to feel free to express their dislike of the roles played by these historical figures, the best place for the statues of Stonewall Jackson, John C Calhoun and Robert E Lee would be a museum, where placards under each of them would talk about their achievements as well as their less admirable actions, how they upheld slavery and severe racial discrimination.

It is important to ensure however that these figures remain where their lives can be examined. Their actions must not be obliterated from scrutiny, as the separation of East Pakistan from the West has been obliterated in Pakistani schools and textbooks. The wrongs committed by these people or during these events if obliterated stand in danger of being repeated, and they must not be.

Reference to Robert E Lee will not be banned in the USA. Books about his life will still be read to see why he was a hero to some and an exponent of slavery to others, and how a person can be a bit of both.

The Smithsonian magazine writes about Lee that: “His own hand probably never drew human blood nor fired a shot in anger, and his only Civil War wound was a faint scratch on the cheek from a sharpshooter’s bullet, but many thousands of men died quite horribly in battles where he was the dominant spirit, and most of the casualties were on the other side.”

Lee’s statues may have been taken down but you will still be able to see them and read about him to understand where he went wrong.

Life is not black and white. The conviction that all is white on the ‘good side’ is the extremists’ point of view, the view prevalent in Pakistan. If we are to combat this mindset we have to accept that it is history can best teach us how to live in the present and prepare for the future. And monuments, because they commemorate history are important – but they are best in the right place.

ONCE UPON A TIME THERE WAS A GREAT AIRLINE

https://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2020/07/05/once-upon-a-time-there-was-a-great-airline/

Once upon a time there was an airline called PIA that was known by the slogan ‘Great people to fly with.’ It really was a good airline.

It is said that that line which became the flag carrier’s advertising slogan was suggested by Pakistan’s sports columnist Omar Kureishi who also worked for the airline. It was echoed by Jacqueline Kennedy when, as the First Lady, she flew from Pakistan to London. When she was leaving the aircraft she hugged the pilot, and when someone asked her what her flight had been like she said they (PIA) ‘were great people to fly with.’

The line-up on the tarmac shows a confident, smart air stewardesses, and a male pilot returning a skirt-clad Mrs Kennedy’s hug. It did not cause the end of his career and the world did not collapse. Those were different times indeed.

A look back at Pakistan International Airlines is nothing but an exercise in bitterness.

The airline that we were once so proud of and that now makes us hang our heads in shame (the story of Pakistan) started life in 1946 as Orient Airways with financial help from Mirza Ahmad Ispahani and Adamjee Haji Dawood, two of Pakistan’s wealthiest businessmen. It was the year before Pakistan came into being, so the headquarters of this fledgling airline was Calcutta (now Kolkata), one of British India’s major cities. Later, when Pakistan came into being headquarters shifted to Karachi. In 1955 Orient merged with PIA and became PIAC (Pakistan International Airlines Corporation). It started international operations the same year.

The young airline achieved many firsts. As Orient Airways it was the first airline with a Muslim ownership in British India. It was the first Asian airline to operate jet aircraft, and in 1964 it became the first non-communist airline to fly to Mao Zedong’s China, and the first non-Soviet airline flying non-stop from Moscow to Europe. Much later in 2005, PIA made the world’s longest flight by commercial aircraft (a Boing 777) from Hong Kong to London. The flight lasted all of 22 hours and 22 minutes.

PIA also provided assistance to other airlines around the world and was mainly instrumental in setting up Emirates, now a well respected airline based in Dubai.

Air Marshal Nur Khan became Managing Director of PIA in 1959 and the following year PIA became a financially profitable airline.

Then came General Zia. Funny how that line is almost always the precursor to an account of a downturn in events. Zia became Pakistan’s Head of State in 1978.

PIA’s crew have had a few changes of uniform, from the first uniform of a hat and skirt to the second design by Feroze Cowasji. The third design was by Pierre Cardin and the fourth by Sir Hardy Amies. The fifth unform was designer by Pakistan’s own Naheed Azfar, and that appeared in 1986. The process of selection began earlier, personally overlooked by the General himself, who along with his wife was himself present and part of the judging panel. He found Azfar’s design too form fitting, nevertheless it became the uniform with a few strategic changes.

PIA’s life has never been easy, what with political interference in its running. In 1954, the Ministry of Defence for some reason took over the running of the airline; it controlled appointments and made all decisions that had previously been the responsibility of the Civil Aviation Authority. From then on the CAA became kind of redundant. Many major airlines stopped flying to Pakistan. PIA had the highest ratio of employees to aircraft in the world and it suffered due to interference by unions in management. It became known for its dirty cabins, bad food, failure to keep to the timetable, and worst of all, unreliable staff.

In 2013 Nawaz Sharif’s government separated the Aviation Division, which had been a wing of the Ministry of Defence, and it became an independent entity. The Aviation Division took over commercial airlines and the CAA.

The move out from under the thumb of the Ministry of Defence was hailed as a major step in the right direction, although subsequent governance seems to have compromised its potential.

The end seems to have come now with ‘dubious licenses’ adding the final nail on the coffin. Who wishes to fly an airline whose pilots have not passed their flying tests? Pakistan’s national carrier has now been banned from airports around the world and its pilots in several countries have been suspended until further investigation into the status of their flying permits.

The bit about dubious licenses is not hard to believe if one places the issue alongside the car driving licenses held by the people of Pakistan. Raise your hands all those who have a kosher license, obtained by taking a test?