WORKING FROM HOME?

 https://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2021/02/27/working-from-home/

Life appears to have turned itself upside down as a result of the pandemic. In Pakistan this applies to the urban setting more than the rural. Life in the villages goes on as usual, and predictably so, since there is yet little automation there, let alone electronic change. Agriculture proceeds by hand as it must have done in Harappa and Mohenjodaro times, except for the odd tractor and cell phones. The farm worker is unable to change his work practice, nor have his life experiences taught him to accept change and innovation.

Elsewhere, society has moved indoors wherever possible, and that is probably the biggest change this pandemic era has seen as compared to previous ones: it is now possible to work from home in many sectors of life. Even in the medical field where our front line heroes expose themselves in ways that make us supremely grateful to them, radiologists for example are able to work from home to some extent, although not always.

In other professions there are many where a worker’s physical presence is required, but many others where it can be dispensed with. Some have taken to it like a duck to water, but the  international financial sector does not seem to be unanimous in its approval.

Goldman Sachs operated last year with less than 10 percent of its employees physically present. According to a report in the BBC, David Solomon, the man at the head of Goldman Sachs rejected remote working as a “new normal” and labelled it an “aberration.” JP Morgan and Barclays agree with him.

The Lloyds Banking Group and HSBC however appear to have accepted the inevitable and made adjustments accordingly to their future plans.

Is working from home inevitable? Will it become the norm?

There is a lot going for it, while some factors appear to be against it.

Over the years more and more people have been working from home, particularly in the IT industry which is likely to remain the torchbearer in coming years. Yet the impact on people working completely from home is very mixed.

Humans are social animals, even those who claim to be otherwise. They need a degree of diverse human contact, more than the family at home, some more than others. If working from home becomes the norm there is likely to be a much greater incidence of depression and an increase in obesity.

The impact on families is also likely to be mixed. While it can give families more time together, there is no doubt that absence makes the heart grow fonder. There has been an increase in divorce rates around the world during the pandemic. Once again according to a BBC report, a leading British law firm says it logged a 122 percent increase in enquiries concerning divorce. The strain on finances with many people losing their jobs definitely does not help.

With children at home, since the cost of childcare can perhaps no longer be met, or with schools closed at this time, working from home for parents can also be very difficult. How do you work with a demanding toddler requiring attention every minute? Such conditions might increase a couple’s ability to communicate, to work out options and solutions, but it is as likely to increase tensions. Yet there is little doubt that the ability to stay home where needed is a valuable one. It is already available in countries like England, Australia, Canada and Sweden, but the USA is known to be niggardly in this matter.

The result may be a modification in home design. Homes in future may have greater facilities for a parent requiring a quiet, separate work environment, so that while one parent looks after the children the other can work, (and hopefully the couple can work out an arrangement where they switch around!) There may also be more attention to electronic communications in houses, better wiring, more power outlets and so on, so that people can work efficiently online.

One of the most positive impacts is likely to be upon the environment. In Pakistan the two major sources of urban air pollution are cars and industries that get their fuel from all sorts of sources including burning plastic, mind boggling as that may be . While the government appears to be doing nothing about either, when schools are closed and there are fewer cars on the road, the amount of pollution does drop dramatically: fewer people rushing to and from work means fewer cars, fewer emissions, less noise, fewer accidents.

One of the major impacts around the world is likely to be on the real estate sector.

Microsoft, Facebook and Twitter all seem to be amenable to allow their staff to carry on working from home, permanently, and there will be others. What will this do to property rates? And how, if they fall, is it likely to affect economies?

While the pandemic has been responsible for many businesses to close down, it has also been responsible for many new ones starting up, and is likely to be responsible for many more either way. The big winner for sure is and will be the IT industry, which holds this ‘remote future’ in its hands. “Mera beta doctor banay ga” (“my son will grow up to be a doctor”) is likely to be replaced by “Mera beta woh banay ga” (“my son will be…that”) though no one is clear just what it is that software engineers do, and it will be a while before anyone does in Pakistan.

. May those families who have lost loved ones find strength to bear their loss. And may the world see fit to implement changes necessary to cope with other pandemics that may arise in future, because there can be little doubt that there will be more.

GRAMMAR vs CONTENT

 https://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2021/02/20/grammar-vs-context/

Some examples are called for to illustrate the arguments that follow.

There’s the well-known story of the maulvi who performed a nikah at someone’s house and made things difficult for his hosts by insisting that everyone do things exactly as they were done in the time of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh). So the bride in all her finery and her elderly parents and other relatives and guests were made to sit upon the carpet “because that is how it was done then,” and so on. When it was time for the maulvi to be transported back home, the bride’s father insisted he wait while the camel he had hired arrived to take him back, “because that is how it was done then,” and Maulvi sahib missed out on an airconditioned ride home.

And there is the example of – this time a tweet by Naila Inayat, in which five or six little boys aged about 5 to 7 are seen wielding homemade wooden swords. When asked about them, they said they were doing as done by Ertugrul ghazi, because they were Muslims and had to behead kafirs wherever they found them. Why? So they, the kids, could go to Jannah.

No one explained Ertugrul to these children in the context of the times he lived in, how Ertugrul and his people were surrounded by the Crusaders and the Mongols, who happened to belong to different faiths, who were enemies because they were trying to take over land the Turks considered their own, not by virtue of their faith, and that the survival of the Turkish tribes depended on defeating these enemies.

Ertugrul the television series is an excellent production, but it was best not unleashed on this ignorant country the way it has been, but it was, thanks to our PM whose understanding of things is somewhat limited. So, well done, Imran Khan, for giving rise to a fresh generation of terrorists.

These examples go to show not just that politicians need a brain, but that it requires a basic amount of intelligence to follow religion, and to understand the purpose behind its injunctions. The Prophet of Islam (pbuh) died almost 1400 years ago in a land with its own culture and traditions. Even though the holy book he passed on to all of us is meant for all people in all times, it is nevertheless rooted in that day and age, as were the things he said. When talking about travel he spoke of walking, of horses or camels rather than of flying somewhere or going somewhere in a car. Because of his flawed understanding of the matter our maulvi had to wait for a camel, because he was so mired in the past. He asked for it.

Just like him, we ask for all the brouhaha and confusion twice every year when we insist on seeing the moon with the naked eye before the date for Eid can be announced, even now that telescopes can do the job for us.

Obviously, what we need therefore is a better understanding of the way of life that is Islam. Will we gain that by sitting cross legged on a carpet, riding on camels or learning the language the Arab Prophet (pbuh) spoke?

No. And yet, the Senate in its wisdom has passed a Bill making the teaching of Arabic compulsory in schools in the Federal Capital from classes I to V, at an age when the only thing brains can encompass is the movement of marbles on the floor, the height of a ball when it is kicked, or the path of a kite as it soars over our heads on a summers day.

And then it wants Arabic grammar slung in after, from class V to class XII.

It is very possible that this like most of the government’s other moves, this too will be ignored, but it can’t help making you wonder at the calibre of brains that come up with such ideas.

Many of our school children already learn Urdu and English and in only a handful of schools are these languages well taught. The children who do not learn English find themselves at the other side of a very deep gulf that divides the haves and have-nots, a gulf that is one of the biggest problems this country faces. Add to it another language, badly taught as teaching tends to be in our schools, and it bodes badly for all three languages, not to mention the fact that learning it will not help understand the religion, just as the understanding of conjunctions and adverbs fails to help explain Faiz or Shaw.

What might help– if taught properly and well– is history and the ideas behind religion, which does not mean learning by rote. It means teaching by relating it to events and problems around us and through time, with the students being encouraged to ask questions.

Seeing that none of this is done with other subjects, what makes anyone think that the current injunction to teach Arabic is likely to produce anything other than those children who plan, in their innocence, to kill all kafirs wherever they find them, so that they– the children– can go to heaven? Because that, most emphatically, is not what Islam teaches.

THE AFTERMATH

https://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2021/02/14/the-aftermath/

The human race is engaged in a furious battle against covid-19 at present; we hope it will come out victorious. The signs are promising, our sights are set on that welcome time when this entire episode will have become an event in the past. Yet, the aftermath will not be a return to life as it was before. Life after covid-19 will be different in many ways.

After we’ve counted our immense losses, we will– thankfully– be left with the survivors– those who have had the disease and survived to tell the tale. While most of these people will have come through with few or no after-effects, some will bear signs of their battle with the tiny monster that is this virus. These after-effects are likely to last from days to months.

The most common after-effect is persisting tiredness, as with any viral infection. In the case of covid-19 there could also be a cough and shortness of breath, body aches and pain.

Further symptoms which are rare but have been known to occur are some extent of organ damage, such as to the heart, lungs or kidneys. These might take longer to recover from.

There can be other problems, among which could be a struggle to concentrate and depression.

Aside from these larger concerns, there will be a host of small things that might not be painful as the damage to tissue and muscle, but their effects could be stressful. An example is the obsessive compulsive behaviour that many people are likely to be left with such as a fetish for washing much more than necessary, even when normal conditions return.

There is the much larger problem of the setback to schooling, which although remediable, is likely to be a formidable challenge. Schools all over the world have been closed for an extended period, or have faced a succession of on and off periods. It will be hard to get back to regular attendance. And for those children who have had no schooling at all in the off periods, and most children in Pakistan fall into this category because the majority here does not possess the facility to be online, it will be a tough haul to catch up. This will increase the gulf between the haves and the have nots since the haves will be more or less on track with the syllabus, and the have nots will be as usual left far behind.

In households all over the world where parents are simultaneously working from home and looking after children, there will be a battle to wean the children off televisions and phones. Parents have had little choice but to allow children extended screen time while they work. As a result children’s social skills will have taken a hit due to minimal human to human interaction. To give a small example, you do not say ‘please’ to Google or Alexa, but you do say ‘please’ to real people. Go figure.

One of the biggest after-effects of covid-19, and the most distressing, is likely to be depression. Whether or not this is given much attention, and what attention it does receive, is of concern.

It is so everywhere to some extent, but certainly Pakistan’s is a society in which depression is consistently downplayed and even looked upon as a weakness. Because it has no outward symptoms such as a rash or a fever (true of many other diseases), the impression is that depression can be talked or laughed away. Here a person suffering from depression often takes the diagnosis as a hit on his or her courage and ability to cope with the ups and downs of life, or more often as an affront to faith, as if it implies in some way that the person has insufficient faith in God because of which he or she has downed tools and allowed himself to be overcome by depression.

This is as wrong an attitude as can be.

Depression is not a sign of ‘defeat’ or ‘weakness’. It is very real, as much as any illness. And just like any other illness, it needs medical attention, and often medication.

The concerning prospect is that the higher rate of depression will lead to a corresponding rise in visits to spiritual healers, along with a rise in questionable ‘cures’, many of which can be dangerous.

There is such a thing as a placebo effect. Believing that something helps does sometimes cause the problem to recede, but there is a limit to this. Placebos can not replace medication, professional therapy, exercise, or whatever else is prescribed by a medical professional.

In Pakistan it is commonly believed that djinns cause depression. And the treatment, when taken to a ‘spiritual healer’, is very often dangerous.

People are asked to perform strange rituals or drink ‘holy’ waters that may do nothing except put off proper treatment which leads to unwanted consequences and a greater severity of the disease.

There is another example which is a bit not applicable to the above, but it does give an idea of just how misplaced these so called ‘treatments’ can be. Salima, who was suffering from severe depression, was taken for such a treatment by her inlaws. Even though they were Christian, this family lived in Pakistan and the belief in djinns interacting with humans was dinned into them by their surroundings. The girl was prescribed an amulet which she wore around her neck. The amulet came loose one day and fell onto the road, from where it was retrieved by someone who showed it to a mullah. What followed was a nightmare. Salima was accused of blasphemy because the amulet contained the names of Allah written on a scrap of paper. She was lucky that her husband’s employer was a rich man, who in Pakistan can even step in and override charges of blasphemy.

In fact a large segment of the population do not believe in viruses themselves, and are likely as not boosting the practice of shamans and their products all over the country even as we speak.