TEACHING TO BE UNDERSTOOD

 https://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2021/04/24/teaching-to-be-understood/

Thrown into stark relief against a dark background of viruses is the fact that much of the world, and certainly most of Pakistan does not understand – not just about the corona virus but about viruses, microbes and bacteria in general. This is what exacerbates the problem we’re living through now.

“It’s all western propaganda. Just something to keep us buying their vaccines,” says one Pakistani, an ‘educated’ one in fact, showing that the attitude is not restricted to the illiterate.

“If Allah wants us to die, we’ll die,” says another. “Do whatever you will.”

“There’s no such thing as a virus,” says yet another. “I’ve never seen one, have you?”

No I have not, but that does not mean they aren’t there. In any case they can now be seen.

Once upon a time diseases were explained away with supernatural explanations. Djinns were responsible, and of course curses. This belief still thrives, in fact it is very common, but at least ever since the microscope came into existence we can see the microbes and bacteria that cause many diseases. This has made it possible to accept the existence of viruses which are organisms that are not alive– they are more like androids than living organisms, but they can replicate and spread. Viruses are too small even for microscopes. It was not until Ernst Ruska, a German physicist who won a Nobel prize in 1986 for his work on electron optics, designed an electron microscope that we saw them.

And yet, as said above, the disbelief and the attribution to the supernatural persists, and its extent defeats all attempts to do what must be done to combat the spread of viruses, for example in the current pandemic.

The only way to get around the problem is not simply to educate but to educate in a manner that speaks to ignorant minds. And please note, calling someone ignorant is not meant to be a taunt here, it is the description of a mind that does not know, and does not encompass and accept new ideas, mostly because it has been taught to rely on the blame game. The reason for the existence of such minds is not that such persons are unable to understand but that they have not been educated to do so, have not been educated well, or not at all. This is the fault of society, our fault. So what does it mean to educate in a way to speaks to ignorant minds?

It means to use language that will be understood with plenty of examples that relate the thing being taught to the environment of the person being taught. It would help if practical demonstrations are given where possible, and if the students are granted the opportunity to participate in discussions regarding the subject.

An example is the teaching style of an Indian teacher called Faizal Khan, popularly known as Khan Sir, whose videos have gone viral online. The video I saw can be seen on YouTube, and you can watch it here: https://tinyurl.com/bk3f9bzc In this Mr. Khan talks about what a RT-PCR Test is, what the CT value in an RT-PCR test means, how the pulse oximeter works, and how to recover from corona – and he manages to make it very easy to understand.

Mr. Khan calls the coronavirus “susra corona”, a mocking colloquialism that brings the mighty corona down off its scary perch. It relaxes the students and enables them to understand what he says. Such as his funny explanation of what DNA is, that ‘if your child resembles your neighbour, you check the child’s DNA.’ I learnt, thanks to his video that viruses unlike humans are made of RNA which is composed of a single strand, rather than DNA which – as many of us know is composed of two intertwined strands.

Mr. Khans ‘desi way’ of teaching science has attracted almost two million subscribers online. This is what we need here, to move from the current aim of passing exams and scoring for the school to understanding the subject at hand and learning to research, rationalize and derive. It means we need a sharp shift in focus, as huge as when the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) switched from facing the Baitul Maqdas in Jersusalem to face the Kaaba in Mecca while saying his prayers.

Teaching by such means is important not just for literacy or mathematics. It is for other kinds of knowledge that are equally crucial. It will help people to understand the environment for instance – why crop burning affects the air we breathe, how pesticides destroy our food, it will help them understand why it is important to boil water and enforce hygiene. It will make it easier for them to work on the land if they understand some basic physics, to use machines if they understand electronics, to make a living if they believe in the importance of knowledge.

Such education will also help in the understanding of religion if people learn to apply its injunctions to life rather than leaving them within the pages of the Quran.

Pakistan’s massive population has to be given something else to do besides riot, reproduce and die. It is a resource that must be harnessed if not for itself then for the survival of the country and its people.

ISN'T THE CONSTITUTION WORTH DEFENDING?

 https://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2021/04/18/isnt-the-constitution-worth-defending/

The government has declared the TLP a terrorist group and banned it.  Just as it has said that people are not supposed to leave their homes without masks, rightly so, only that injunction has resulted in nothing but most people ignoring the injunction as they ignore all injunctions, followed by the authorities ignoring the ignoring. Therefore so much for declaring groups ‘banned outfits’, ill thought out, kneejerk, look -good measures, like blocking roads during lockdowns, something that makes no sense. And that is just one example.

As a society we are not in the habit of tracking a problem to its deeper source. There are reasons why groups such as the TLP and others exist and have the massive support they enjoy. One of which is that anyone and everyone is free to teach whatever they wish to the country’s youth, many of whom have no education at all to counter that misinformation. Among the things they are taught is the blasphemous idea that killing and violence are justified to gain their mostly unjustified demands. In ignorant minds these demands become justifiable so long as they appear to encompass what they have been taught is religion.

Banning the TLP as a terrorist organisation should rightly constitute only one of the many accusations brought against leaders of such organisations, if the authorities have the guts.

Article 2 of the Pakistan Constitution states that Islam is the state religion of Pakistan. The exact words are: “the Injunctions of Islam as laid down in the Holy Quran and Sunnah shall be the supreme law and source of guidance for legislation to be administered through laws enacted by the Parliament and Provincial Assemblies, and for policy making by Government.”

Article 31 of the Constitution states that it is the country’s responsibility to foster the Islamic way of life. The exact words are: “Steps shall be taken to enable the Muslims of Pakistan, individually and collectively, to order their lives in accordance with the fundamental principles and basic concepts of Islam and to provide facilities whereby they may be enabled to understand the meaning of life according to the Holy Quran and Sunnah.”

Keeping the above in mind where does the TLP’s violence over the last few days fit in? Are their actions in accordance with Islam? Or do they foster the values of Islam?

It was TLP violence which left four persons and one policeman dead, a young man who yet had much to do in life . More than 300 police personnel were injured in the Punjab, many of them seriously when they were attacked by TLP supporters by ‘clubs, bricks and firearms.’

The TLP is an extreme rightwing party, that calls itself a religious party and invokes the name of Allah and the Prophet (PUH) to justify its existence and actions. For rational followers of Islam this is as much blasphemy as blasphemy can get. And yet after all its actions all the TLP gets is a ‘ban’ which, judging by precedent with reference to other rightwing parties, will be ignored. Has banning other rightwing parties made an iota of difference? Why to start with are they allowed to exist? Also, why this discrimination of such scanty charges?

Any group that claims to base its existence on the teachings of the Quran, and then acts in complete opposition to Quranic teachings thereby demeaning those teachings, the religion and its prominent figures and giving them a terrible image, is committing blasphemy. And we all know what the constitutional amendments in Pakistan’s least glorious era prescribe for that.

Instead of which some 505 Ahmedis, 229 Christians and 30 Hindus have been accused under various clauses of the blasphemy law from 1987 until 2018, as a result of accusations that rate from false to trivial.

Such contravention of the Constitution is common.

Article 31 of the constitution also says that “Steps shall be taken to ensure full participation of women in all spheres of national life.”

And yet in the news today we find that yesterday the police in Peshawar booked organisers and participants of the recent Aurat March in Islamabad on the charge of committing blasphemy. This was on the orders of a local court.

Aside from the curious fact that the case was booked in KP against a march taking place in Islamabad, it is also worth noting what participants of the Aurat March were protesting against.

In a society where women are routinely abused, taunted, raped, beaten, forced into marriage and rarely get their rights, the Aurat March places women’s experience of sexual and domestic abuse and violence on the table and asks for justice and change. It calls for better health and reproductive care for women, underage marriage and other such matters.

Last year male participants of a rival march named ‘Haya March’ made up of various religious parties threw stones at participants of the Aurat March in Islamabad. At least one person was injured then.

This year one of those who protested against the Aurat march was the Sunni Rabita Council, another ‘religious’ group.

So whither full participation of women in all spheres of national life?

How about the government doing its job and defending the Constitution which is the manifesto by which we are supposed to lead our lives as a nation?

CAN HE READ?

 https://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2021/04/10/can-he-read/

Murder and rape are generally surreptitious affairs, and most of us have not actually witnessed either taking place. Yet, some of us can read, and we do, so we know the state of affairs in the world, including in the country we call the Land of the Pure.

We know for example that Pakistan is an extremely dangerous place for women. Human Rights Watch carried out a study on the subject and found that in this country there is a case of a woman being raped every hour, and gang-raped every two. As for what is most deplorably called an ‘honour’ killing, thousands take place every single year. And unlike other murders these killings are often neither surreptitious nor considered wrong by the segment of society they take place in.

So given our PM’s statement saying that the reason for rape is because women dress the way they do, you wonder if our PM can read, and missed discovering those statistics exactly the way he missed knowing about the devaluation of the rupee a couple of years ago, when he said he only found out about it via reports in the media.

As for domestic violence, in a survey in 2008 published in the Journal of Political Studies, 70 percent of women who participated had experienced domestic violence. According to another Human Rights Watch Report, ‘70-90% Pakistani women suffered from some kind of domestic violence. About 5,000 women are killed annually from domestic violence in Pakistan, and thousands others maimed or disabled.’ These cases of abuse and death include those who are abused and/or killed because they are viewed as having brought insufficient dowry at marriage, those who are killed or abused for asking for divorce, and those who are victims of acid attacks for any number of reasons…including just because. Domestic violence and death are also often associated with child marriage, and forced conversions, where women are forced to leave their religion of birth and forced to marry a Muslim.

The worst part is that where domestic violence is concerned ‘Law enforcement authorities do not view it as a crime, and usually refuse to register any cases brought to them.’

If not submitting to the general concept of purdah (which is a distortion of the Quranic concept) were the reason for these overwhelming cases of violence, Pakistan would hardly be at the bottom of the rung where safety for women is concerned, yet it is. Therefore, our Prime Minister’s statement regarding the matter where he placed the blame for this violence squarely at the door of every woman in the country was sickening in the extreme.

A leader who cannot recognize the obvious reasons for problems, who blames the wrong half of the country for the distress of the victimised other half is a danger to the entire population. Those given to abusing law and morality recognize this weakness and take advantage of it.

A feeble analogy would be in cricket where a fielder keeps dropping catches every time the ball comes his way. The opposite team recognizes this weakness and makes a point to aim in that less well-defended direction. Perhaps this analogy will be understood but there can be little expectation of it being applied to the current scene, the way religion is rarely applied to anything that occurs after the Prophet (PBUH) and his companions.

Will it really make any difference if women in Pakistan cover themselves even more than they do at present? If they kill themselves covered in fabric in the sweltering sun? Or is the real problem the mindset of this society’s men who consider women to be objects to be leered at, owned and treated any way they wish? God forbid that modesty and kindness should ever be expected of boys and men.

An article published just this month reported a four percent increase in child abuse cases in 2020. Of these 51 percent of the victims were girls and 49 percent boys. Were these little girls abused because they were not in purdah? And how about the little boys? Where does their fault lie in this case?

Words matter. They remain in people’s minds and influence actions and thought. As when Jinnah spoke of everyone being free to visit their temples and mosques, a wish may that has still to be realised but it does occur to us all every time a person is victimized using the blasphemy law, every time a place of worship is destroyed. And who knows, one day it may come into its own.

Leaders need to mind their own morals, and also what they say, because the public takes note of both. Or perhaps that’s the crux of the matter. Blaming women is as easy said as done and safe to boot since this country can boast of few females in its armed forces, therefore such statements will not contravene the respect to the army bill that has just been approved.

DO THEY COUNT?

 https://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2021/04/04/do-they-count/

Poverty means living in tight accommodation, consuming inadequate and poor food and possessing mostly no education. At present more than half of such poverty-stricken persons around the world live in rural areas and about 85 percent are involved in agriculture. This is certainly true of Pakistan, and generally true across the third world where the welfare of the poor is very low on the political agenda if it features at all.

Pakistan is primarily an agricultural country. Its highest exports consist mainly of cotton, followed by rice. Its other exports are fruit (particularly oranges and mangoes), maize and various cereals. The people owning the land that produces these crops are generally well to do, sometimes exceedingly well to do, but those who perform the labour are among the most poverty stricken in the world, and the last to benefit from the fruits of their hard work.

With almost no education these poor individuals have no understanding of health and safety, and the requirements involved. They perceive no sense in things like vaccinations for example, and therefore few of them are bothering to get covid vaccinations these days, nor do they get themselves tested for the disease when they fall sick. Given the tight accommodation and work conditions, and so on, social distancing is generally not possible among this segment of society, and it is not considered important anyway.  In short, the manner in which the poor live and their interactions with things such as powerful machinery and electricity are more frightening than anything Bram Stoker could think of. It is not their fault. They have not been taught any better.

To allow such unfortunate individuals to handle pesticides therefore is like handing a toddler a cyanide pill to play with. And yet pesticides are used in agriculture and that is exactly what happens.

To take one example, aluminum phosphide is a pesticide responsible for  the often unreported deaths of thousands of persons in the Sub-continent alone, and further thousands of deaths worldwide. These deaths are caused by deliberate incidents, accidental ingestion and occupational exposure. Death by ingesting aluminum phosphate is the most common method of suicide in India and some other countries, and it is being increasingly used for that purpose in Pakistan although as yet there are no proper figures available for the country. There is no antidote for the poison and the treatment is mainly supportive. In Pakistan medical help is in any case too inaccessible in many rural areas.

Given all these reasons, the use of aluminum phosphide is banned in several countries because of its high fatality rate. In Europe the sale of aluminum phosphide is restricted to qualified users, which means it is used under supervision by individuals trained in its use, and yet a few cases of poisoning are reported even there.

In a case study done in a hospital in Lahore, the mortality rate as a result of aluminum phosphide poisoning was 70 percent, and another study reported a rate of 55-90 percent.

Despite all this, this chemical is commonly and easily available in Pakistan under several brand names for fumigation of stored cereal crops, and even more dangerously to fumigate homes and as tablets for bed bugs.

In 2019 five young brothers and sisters and their aunt died in Karachi when the floor of the room they were living in was sprayed with the chemical. They had all been sleeping on the floor where they inhaled the maximum amount of poison. Their mother, sleeping on the bed in the same room, was the lone survivor. It was not reported what after-effects she suffered, aside from devastating grief.

There are alternatives to using this chemical as a pesticide, but these alternatives can be expensive. They consist of purpose-built silos and warehouses with prescribed systems of ventilation, a high degree of sanitation, and other requirements such as controlled air quality. None of these methods however are possible without monitoring for safety.

For financial reasons Pakistan can probably only use aluminum phosphide, which can be used with relative safety if properly monitored, and that of course is the crux of the problem.

The general attitude in this country is: why bother with monitoring when those who lose their lives are just peasants and labourers. Do they count? If one dies there is another readily available to take his place.

Those who die as a result of this poison are among the countless victims of lack of education and gross negligence on the part of the concerned authorities who seem to be far more concerned with re-election than anything to do with the safety of the people they are meant to serve.