AGAINST THE ODDS

http://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2016/02/22/comment/against-the-odds/

What is routine becomes the way it must be

It must’ve been a rocky road for Aneela Naz but she made it. Naz belongs to the KP, home to one of the country’s most conservative societies. She chose to enter the police at a time when it contained just nineteen women (it now contains 600) and rose to the position of District Superintendent of Police.

Naz’s success is partly due to her father’s support. He moved from their small hometown making it possible for both his sons and daughters to be educated and working.

While the obstacles faced by women such as Naz must be prohibitive, it is hard for most men to understand even the minor obstructions faced by women in Pakistan in their day to day lives. I speak not of acid thrown on a woman’s face or other more serious crimes but of the general attitude towards women.

One of the jobs most easily available to a woman in a country with such high rates of illiteracy as Pakistan is that of a domestic worker, or maid. These domestic workers often encounter abuse at work, particularly from their female employers. Since most employers are unable to offer accommodation, they commute to and fro on the bus and face harassment on the road as well where they are followed by cars containing men, or encounter other male pedestrians who tease them. A routine male response to this is that if a woman would only dress conservatively she would not be subject to such treatment, which is not correct. Women, even if shrouded by a burqa, are subjected to as much disrespect as those in more convenient clothing. The only difference is if the clothing implies some financial standing, then a woman may be treated with a kind of false, temporary respect, and then only to her face.

There is a shockingly high incidence of domestic violence (and substance abuse) in this country, particularly among the poorer segments of society. Almost without exception women such as these domestic workers are also treated badly at home, with disrespect by their mothers-in-law, beaten and otherwise abused by their husbands and in many cases also by his brothers. You would think these abused women would break the chain and bring up their sons to be more respectful, yet come the time to choose brides for their sons they have no criteria beyond close kinship, a pretty face and a large dowry. They treat their daughters-in-law with the same lack of respect they themselves were subjected to, and do not object when their sons treat their wives exactly the way their husbands treated them. What is routine becomes the way it must be.

There is little point in arguing with those who maintain that in Islam a woman’s place is in the home, and that women should not enter the workforce. If the example of Khadija (RA), a successful businesswoman and the wife of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), is insufficient then the only response left is to demand conditions under which women do not need to work and are able to stay at home… which are not the conditions prevalent here in Pakistan. As in most other countries, families here barely manage to exist on a single income.

The plight of unmarried women in our society is perhaps the saddest of all, and this phenomenon is seen across the social board, barring only the most affluent few. The stage is set for this tragedy by members of a woman’s own family when it exerts its imaginary right over her, by not allowing her to marry the person of her choice, by forcing her to marry only within the ‘clan’, and ultimately and worst of all, because even though such marriages may turn out to be happy, by not allowing her to work or have access to skills required to earn a living should the need arise.

How many women do we know living miserably with a sibling or with the extended family? Unloved, unpaid labour, they decry to the last moment the choices that forced them into such an existence, yet are unable to survive independently. Not only will they not be allowed to move out since it would be a disgrace to their male relatives’ ego to have their sister or aunt living anywhere except under their roof, but also they would be unable to support themselves, even as a domestic worker.

There are no visible initiatives to change this situation, to make enablers of our schools and families, like Naz’s father was to his daughters, instead of a hindrance. No amendments or additions to syllabi, no effort to teach better attitudes in schools, no laws to protect women in the workforce or from their families. On the contrary, notice how the media and these very same unhappy women perpetuate the myth of helpless, brainless, born-to-be-dominated womanhood. Go to any bank and notice how the manager and bank tellers speak to the female receptionist, or go to the receptionist’s home to witness the way she treats the woman who cleans the house.

A question asked on social media was, ‘Had Nergis Mavalvala lived in Pakistan, could she have achieved as much as she did?’ The same applies to Malala, and to countless other women. What do you think?

It feels silly to repeat such an obvious fact but women constitute half the population of any nation. It should feel as silly to treat half the population of the country the way women are treated in Pakistan, even were it not wrong and not at all the way women ought to be treated. Why not become enablers instead, like those who made it possible for their daughters to be policewomen, activists and so much more against the odds?

REALITY CHECK

http://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2016/02/15/comment/a-reality-check/

This country didn’t get the population it has by means of IVF

 Dear President of Pakistan Mr Mamnoon Hussain,

You were looking as dapper as is possible for you on the occasion of Abdur Rab Nishtar’s death anniversary. Unfortunately, while making a speech urging people not to observe Valentine’s Day ‘because it has no connection with our culture’, you missed the hypocrisy: you were wearing a suit and tie which have no connection with our culture either. I see nothing wrong with wearing a suit in Pakistan, but neither do I see anything wrong with celebrating Valentine’s Day, although you claim to.

It isn’t just Pakistan. In Egypt a four kilometres long red carpet, estimated to have cost over $200,000, covered the road over which the presidential motorcade drove carrying the Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. His destination? A suburb of Cairo where he was to inaugurate a project consisting of homes for the poor. Do you notice anything wrong with that? Expensive carpet, homes for the poor, representative of the people… no? I didn’t expect you would. Many people don’t.

Most of us, for example, applauded Mr Obama’s visit to a mosque in Baltimore in the US. And many people thought it unfair that a hijab wearing professor was asked to leave a Christian college because of her headdress. It’s obvious that we expect others to be tolerant of our culture and religion, and yet quite a few of these same people would agree with your sentiments regarding Valentine’s Day which means that tolerance is expected only of others, not of oneself. That’s another angle on the matter, doesn’t it seem rather unfair to you? Besides, it’s an inclusive world, Mr President, and although I think it always was, it’s getting more so with every advance in technology. What can a trifling thing like Valentine’s Day achieve given larger issues such as the sectarian violence in this country? Is that violence compatible with our religion, let alone culture? Valentine’s Day is nothing but a Hallmark card hype when people exchange messages and gifts with those they love which could mean any friend, not just a lover. Even if it were the latter, you reckon enough of that doesn’t go on with or without the assistance of St Valentine? And what’s wrong with it anyway? This country didn’t get the population it has by means of IVF. People are tired of such interference, Mr President. But they would appreciate some genuine improvements.

You chose to stress the issue of Valentine’s Day in your speech while there are people out there leading hellish lives, and many are being killed for no reason at all. In Thar innocent children are dying of starvation. In the fiasco surrounding the privatisation of the national airline two persons died, quite needlessly, and a state of emergency was declared in Pakistan as millions of Lahoris fled the city after being disgusted with the performance of their team, the Lahore Qalandars in the Pakistan Super League. Or wait, that was from Khabaristan Today; it’s hard to tell the difference sometimes. Delete that last bit, please.

So what does your government do in response to these hellish lives mentioned above? It buys more F-16 jets. Will anyone be nosediving those jets into the Thar desert to bore wells into the sand? Or using them to drop food packages for the people who live there? Last I heard, the Sindh Minister for Food Syed Nasir Hussain Shah was blaming those deaths on the children’s mothers, on their mishandling of their children’s diet. Yes, I know Mr Shah belongs to the PPP, not the PML-N, but I expected no other response from you as he is covered by the term ‘you guys’ and all you guys remind me of the men who broke into a house in Karachi and after tying up the inmates but before making off with their valuables, they kissed and touched their foreheads to a Quran they found lying on the table. Still duh? Okay. Here’s another reality check for you:

Yesterday in Defence, three kids jumped out of a rubbish skip right beside my car. One of them was carrying a couple of bananas in her hand. They’d been removing and eating food from the rubbish people had thrown into the skip.

A few days ago at the unbelievably overcrowded emergency department in the Punjab Institute of Cardiology a woman lay silently fitting and unattended on a gurney, while on the other side another woman lay dead, all by herself. The ratio of doctors and nurses to patients does not permit attendance upon everyone. Meantime, outside, the new overpass and what not devour meagre funds that, had your government gotten its priorities right, could have been used to improve medical facilities.

Reality is the young woman whose husband beats her. The particular young woman I speak of took refuge in a centre for abused women where she was beaten by the other residents and made to cook for everyone every day for a week until another new woman arrived and she was subjected to the abuse instead. Later the first young woman tried to kill herself but was saved by her relatives. She is now looking for a job but has not yet been successful.

This is rock bottom reality, unperceived by people who think reality lies in dissing St Valentine’s Day. Get a life, Mr President, at least what you think is a life, and let us get on with ours as best we can.

BEHIND THE COMB-OVER

http://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2016/02/09/comment/behind-the-comb-over/

Racism and bigotry become a much greater problem when they attain a platform

Although racism and racists continue to thrive, there has been a struggle and things have improved somewhat. Racism is now frowned upon, at least officially.

It is only a recent improvement. The last permit to shoot a ‘native’ was issued in Namibia as late as 1936. The person who used that permit could well be alive today.

Native Americans did not get the vote in the United States till the 1920s, African Americans in the 1960s, and persons of Latin origin in the 1970s. There is a chance that Americans who were not allowed to vote in the country of their ancestors may still be alive, and there are many Americans living today who could not once vote simply because of the colour of their skin.

In Australia, the White Australia Policy was dismantled as late as 1966, which means there are people living now who were unable to visit an entire continent because they were not white. In Queensland in Australia, Aborigines could be forced to live on reserves till 1971 and could not own property till 1975. The legal right of the Australian State to forcibly remove children from their parents’ custody was not taken away until 1969. The Australian government has apologised to its Aboriginal community for having wrested countless of its members away from their parents, and for having restricted their right to movement, and to ownership of a land which was once all their own.

In many places such changes are yet to occur. In the Punjab in Pakistan, the infamous question requiring details of a person’s caste still exists on tax forms. Being Ahmadi bars you virtually from life, the blasphemy law thrives, and all minorities are routinely discriminated against. Naturally, given such conditions, political correctness is a far cry for this country. People who clean houses and other places for a living are often called ‘chooras’ and ‘Oye! Lame guy!’ is still a common way to hail a physically disabled person.

Political correctness (PC) means that certain terms have been dropped because of their hurtful and abhorrent connotations.  In English, for example, ‘nigger’ is one such word instead of which ‘black’ or ‘African American’ are now used. ‘Native American’ or ‘American Indian’ are used instead of ‘Native Indian’ or ‘Red Indian’. PC applies to physical disability as well, so its ‘disabled’ instead of ‘handicapped’, and ‘visually impaired’ instead of ‘blind’.

The above may appear to be mere words but each of these words is burdened with a past. Behind the word ‘choora’, for instance, lies a history of contempt and humiliation, and the loathsome principles of untouchability and caste. Behind the word ‘natives’ are ranged all those aboriginal people killed just because they existed, the children taken away from their parents and men and women who could never own the land they lived on. Behind ‘negro’ are lives spent in slavery and untold tragedy, marginalisation, ghettos, poverty, a search for roots and a fight for human and political rights. You think of Nelson Mandela and Rosa Parks, of Martin Luther King Jr and Malcolm X… rich lives. The impact of words associated with such lives should not be underestimated.

The politically correct words used as alternatives recall and reinforce values of justice, equality and tolerance that may be limited to politically correct terminology for some people, but given time these values become part of the fabric of an entire society. People like Donald Trump or religious bigots when they come into prominence threaten any move towards a just, more compassionate society because they possess a platform from which to air their views. From that platform they endorse racism and bigotry among their followers, and even others, and undermine the effects of those ‘mere words’ on people’s minds, turning years of valuable but as yet fragile improvement into dust.

Having said that, there is a flip side to the situation. It is not as bad as it may seem for that bald spot behind the comb-over to be exposed, because it never hurts to re-examine values, even good ones. Why do we do what we do, think the way we think? Is race equality a good thing, and if so, why, and what can be done to further it? Re-examination may bring to light unexpected progress or shortcomings, and provide suggestions for further improvement. Should migrants be encouraged to integrate? If so, how can they be helped to do so? Should their places of worship be expected to change in the new environment? Should their dress remain as is or should a change be encouraged? How about the curriculum taught in mainstream schools, versus schools run for and by these minorities, such as American schools outside of America, and Islamic schools in countries with a non-Muslim majority? What should their curriculum consist of? Do either or both need to stress diversity and tolerance to a greater extent than at present? How can change be brought about if it is required?

The recent migrant crisis, tragic as it is, has brought to the forefront questions that needed to be brought into the open, such as questions relating to the exclusivity of nations. Do richer countries have a responsibility towards the less fortunate? Should they be forced to shoulder it, to acknowledge their share in creating the problem? Colonialism, and in present times the quest for oil and the massive weapons industry have all caused havoc in the world. The Dutch, the British and the French in South Africa, India, Australia, the Americas… these once colonial nations thrive today at the expense of indigenous people; the Indian people of the subcontinent were luckier than others. At least they survived.

Pauline Hanson formed the One Nation party that won a number of seats in Australia between the years 1998-2002, but now has no seats at all. In 2006, Ms Hanson famously said that Africans bring disease into the country and should not be allowed in. Similar gems have issued from the mouth of Trump, the American Hanson, on numerous occasions. The reason one gives him any importance is that he has much more support than Ms Hanson ever did and therefore more influence. Hopefully, he too will go the way of Pauline Hanson. Yet his views will continue to bite non-white citizens and visitors to the United States for some time to come. A good question to ask now would be: ‘What went wrong there and how can we prevent it from taking place elsewhere?’ Most importantly, how can we remove the curse of racism in Pakistan, the country that we like to call our own?

MULLAH DONALD TRUMP

http://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2016/02/01/comment/mullah-donald-trump/

Fear, hate and prejudice

This particular less pleasant side of the USA was known and seen, but like the dark side of the moon it was ignored for the most part. Now starkly exposed by Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, the startling thing about it is its familiarity.

In Lahore, recently, the Mall was blocked by a rally several hundred strong. The participants were demanding the removal of the death sentence against Mumtaz Qadri.

A report covering the rally in this newspaper explained that Qadri had confessed to murdering Salmaan Taseer, the person he was hired to protect. One reader threw all his ire into a comment by stating: ‘I think you are a Qadiyani, that is why you are speaking such rubbish against Mumtaz Qadri. Shame on you if you call yourself a Muslim. You will be questioned after death!’

Fear, hate and prejudice, these weapons are used all over the world, purportedly in support of ideologies that are in actual fact opposed to all three.

Some people stand up to this fear and hatred. Salmaan Taseer stood up against the blasphemy law and was murdered by Qadri.

Arish Singh, a Sikh man was escorted out of Donald Trump’s rally, as was Rose Hamid, the Muslim woman who stood in silence behind Trump wearing a shirt that said ‘Salam. I come in peace’. Singh had heckled Donald Trump and unfurled a banner that read: ‘Stop Hate’. The crowd chanted ‘USA! USA!’ as Singh was escorted out. It booed Hamid and yelled ‘Get out! Get out!’ as she was led away. After Singh was removed, Trump made one of his irrational comments, saying, ‘We got to do something folks because it’s not working.’ After Hamid was led out, he said, ‘There is hatred against us that is unbelievable. It’s their hatred, it’s not our hatred.’ Both statements included keywords and phrases calculated to get a response from a mob whose xenophobia had been fanned to fever pitch.

The ideology Trump pretends to support is ‘the American way of life’, an ideology meant to adhere fearlessly to the principles of ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’. The blasphemy law supposedly supports Islam. Neither is true because neither the way of life nor Islam have anything in common with fear, hatred and prejudice.

An electoral candidate must identify something to use against his opponent and anyone else who opposes him. Trump has figured that he can use best xenophobia, which is alive to a varying extent in every country including the USA. Xenophobia has an irrational following, which means the arguments used to fan it are irrational, which suits someone like Trump just fine.

Of course it doesn’t have to be xenophobia. Pick a fear, any fear, and fan it enough to make it grow. Then coin rallying cries using the very terms used to fan the fear into existence. It’s a favourite trick amongst politicians and religious leaders. You get shunted out of a rally, you get slammed with the blasphemy law, you cut off your hand and present it to your local mullah, you get your life turned inside out because you disagree with some big shot… it’s all a result of some kind of fear, it happens all the time.

“Those responsible for the magazine are liable to death.” Maulana Abdul Aziz once said about Zubair Kasuri, editor of the fashion magazine Octane.

“You should know that at the moment they have at least 400 to 500 female suicide bombers in Waziristan and other tribal areas,” Maulana Abdul Aziz said, referring to the TTP. “The government should understand the situation and their demands,” urging the government of Pakistan to come to terms with the TTP which uses fear, hate and prejudice to bring death to innocents.

If only this country was a canal like the one that runs through Lahore. Once a year around this time the Lahore canal is drained for cleaning when it yields its silent load of filth, dead bodies, untreated sewerage and an immense amount of trash. If Pakistan was a canal, we could go back and dredge it free of the fear, hate and prejudice that has been spewed into it from the mouths of demagogues and hatemongers and allow it to run clean again.

It doesn’t matter that the American people pride themselves on their way of life and outlook. We had a better life too and just, intelligent leaders we could look up to, most conspicuously the man who created this country. Neither is recognizable now for what they really were after being shaped by the hands of religious bigots and demagogues, who now have a sizeable following. Donald Trump is beginning to sound uncannily like the rabid mullah from the mosque down the road, exuding fear, hate and prejudice. And like the mullah he has a following. The US needs to learn from Pakistan’s experience before it is too late.

THE WAY LONDONERS CARRY UMBRELLAS

http://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2016/01/26/comment/the-way-londeners-carry-umbrellas/

How much evidence does one need to prove that guns are best kept out of civilian life?

In the last few months alone: an attack in Paris in which a hundred and twenty persons died, a shooting in a school in the US in which ten persons died, another shooting in California in which fourteen persons and the killers themselves were killed.

In Canada, a national registry of firearms had only recently been started when following a protest the preceding government, the one before Trudeau’s, closed the registry down. Now, only a few months after the closure four persons have been shot dead in the sort of small rural community where people own guns and hunt, the sort of community that dominated the protest against the firearm registry.

Although firearms are banned in public in Pakistan many persons carry them openly in the tribal areas prompting Michael Palin of Monty Python fame to observe that ‘Pathans carry guns the way Londoners carry umbrellas’. In the tribal areas of the KP which bear a startling resemblance to the American wild west, the law permits private ownership of even heavy weapons such as rocket propelled grenades and rockets, and guns such as AK-47s virtually constitute part of a man’s attire. No surprise then that in KP twenty one persons were recently tragically shot dead in a school in Charsadda, and in nearby Peshawar just a year ago a hundred and forty seven persons were shot dead in the Army Public School, most of them innocent children.

Generally, in Pakistan, there is no shortage of firearms. The results are for everyone to see in Karachi, for example, in the armed conflicts in Landhi, and elsewhere in the city.

If the evidence against guns is strong enough then why are there so many guns, and why are they so easily available?

Good question (which is what you say when you don’t know).

According to the Chairman of the Pakistan Ordnance factory more than a year ago, Pakistan is selling guns to over forty countries, bringing in over $20 million in annual revenue. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), Pakistan is the third largest importer of arms, behind the USA which ranks sixth as an importer… but first as an exporter.

In addition, Pakistan possesses a huge cottage industry in weapons which makes it possible for individuals to obtain guns even more easily. Any attempt to take away from this industry is unlikely to be viewed favourably, and understandably so, it is a livelihood for many families. But this, combined with almost no monitoring of gun ownership means that people in Pakistan are extremely well armed. When buying firearms there is no need to provide a reason for possessing them, no references are sought, no history of violence belonging to the individual buying the arms is searched for. With so many firearms readily available, the public almost looks for novel ways of using them. The tradition of firing in the air in celebration at important occasions, once restricted to tribal areas, has caught on to become a common practice at weddings in cities where it has caused many accidents and deaths.

If you apply his quote to physical security, it is as Joseph Krutch said, ‘Security is not a question of how much you have but how much you can do without.’ Perhaps because like money there is so little security available that it is now a status symbol in Pakistan. There is no indication that armed guards help. Remember the case of Salmaan Taseer shot dead by his own armed guard Mumtaz Qadri. Qadri became a national hero for shooting his employer following his (Taseer’s) courageous condemnation of the infamous blasphemy law. Meantime, the public does without any security at all. Our school children lose their lives when they try to get an education and as a result of VIP’s quest for safety. You wonder how things fit together.

What can be done to remove guns?

Regulation does help. Compared to the US where firearm regulation is much more lax, Canada, with its greater regulation, has substantially fewer shooting incidents.

Australia has a homicide rate around one-eighth of Pakistan’s. There gun ownership laws were considerably tightened by John Howard’s government in the 1990s following the massacre at Port Arthur.

Pakistan has among the most liberal firearm laws in the world. Anyone with a license can buy a gun. Only a fraction of the firearms present in Pakistan are registered. There is no assessment of suitability for gun ownership, no training regarding its use and no restriction on the number of guns owned by an individual. The incidence of gun violence in Pakistan is even greater than in the US.

Weapons have their place in every country and that place is with the military, not with individuals. Pakistan’s weapons cottage industry must be diverted into proper channels, which isn’t easy. Arms industries everywhere pose a threat for the entire international community. A study conducted by SIPRI finds that more than half of all world weapons exported are from the US and Russia, followed… by quite a large gap, by China, Germany and France. “The flow of arms to Africa, the Americas, Asia and Oceania, and the Middle East increased significantly between 2005-09 and 2010-14, while there was a notable decrease in the flow to Europe,” the study says. This closely corresponds to the prevalence of conflict vs peace around the world. Which came first, the chicken or the egg, is a relevant question here, an interesting one.

If it is difficult for Pakistan to divert the arms it produces into other channels, combating those other huge interests is almost an insurmountable task.

Some countries have managed to keep violence down. Hong Kong is among those with an extremely low incidence of gun violence. It is the job of civilian governments to keep peace within the country and one of the ways of doing this is to study models around the world in an effort to learn from them. Farming this job out to the army within the civilian arena is a short sighted, short term measure.

Debate on this issue as in others should be initiated and tighter regulations on who buys guns and why put in place. And as in most other spheres, the problem should also be handled at the school level where children must be taught the value of peace, in an attempt to remove the glamour surrounding guns and violence, placing it around peace instead, where it belongs.

PLEASE, SPEAK FOR YOURSELF ALONE

http://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2016/01/18/comment/please-speak-for-yourself-alone/

Testing boundaries to the limit

At a recent party the hostess’ neighbour, a much coiffured woman without eyebrows, entertained the other guests for more than an hour with stories relating to various absent persons. Actually ‘entertained’ is not the word since her stories had a malignant touch and Lahore being what it is several of her targets had a friend or relative in the room. The lady on the sofa next to me sat silently through a richly embellished account of her grandfather’s supposed peccadillos. A man across the room betrayed his annoyance only by his tightly crossed arms during a distorted recounting of an incident featuring his uncle’s controversial financial policies. Another guest struck up a loud conversation with the person next to her in the midst of a story focusing on a very dear class fellow’s reputed ill-temper. All told, you had to admire the forbearance and dignity of everyone in that room; not a single person reacted beyond what was unconsciously conveyed by his or her body language all the while the neighbour spoke. Really, nobody needed to react because the people targeted by the lady’s stories were all well respected figures who had achieved great things, and their reputations were easily able to withstand one or two, even several malignant tongues.

It wasn’t until the lady started talking about the small disabled child of a missing guest that anyone betrayed a reaction. The poor hostess tried to change the subject as she had several times that evening but her neighbour continued speaking about the little child’s lopsided face and uncoordinated movements. By the time she began dwelling upon the string of saliva, that still at the age of five, dribbled from the corner of the child’s mouth and the financially ‘despicable’ condition of his parents, the guests had all left inspite of the arrival of the coffee tray, and the neighbour, having lost her audience, left soon after. Only I remained with the lady of the house, a close friend, thinking to console her. I found she didn’t need much consoling.

‘She’s a horrible woman,’ she said in a low voice. ‘Stupid and nasty. But today she hurt only herself, most of all when she started talking about that poor child.’ She shivered and sank into a chair. ‘Now I don’t need to invite her ever again and no one can accuse me of neglecting a neighbour.’

Stupid and nasty. Bête et méchant. That was Charlie Hebdo’s slogan until it was replaced by ‘I am Charlie’ after twelve people were shot dead at its Paris office in January 2015. Like my friend’s neighbour the magazine tends to be inflammatory and obnoxious. Unlike my friend’s guests though, certain people reacted violently to cartoons featuring the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) printed by the magazine sometime ago, and they shot some of the magazine’s staff to death. Like the people targeted by the neighbour at the party that day, only much, much more than them, the towering personality and incredible achievements of the Muslim Prophet (PBUH) are not easily dented, and the respect in which he is held cannot be eroded by one or even many malicious tongues or cartoons. It would have been far better if those people had stuck to the Prophet’s (PBUH) teachings of peace and forbearance than to abandon those teachings for acts of violence that went against everything he stood for.

Charlie Hebdo’s most recent cartoons however are not just inflammatory, they are nauseating, seriously sickening. The Guardian says it quite well that ‘the French magazine may have wanted to give prejudice a kicking but it ended up giving it a platform’, although I’m not sure if Hebdo ever wanted to give prejudice a kicking either with its earlier cartoon or with these. It seems to wish only to test tolerance to the limit and gain a larger, more twisted readership.

Several weeks ago, the world was shaken and grieved to the core by a photograph showing the tiny drowned body of Alan Kurdi, a Syrian refugee, washed up on the beach. I can still hardly bear to see that picture of the little boy as he lies face down in the sand, his arms by his side, his little feet shod in their small shoes facing the viewer. It speaks more eloquently of the refugee crisis and of the misery of the dislocated families than anything anyone could say. And Charlie Hebdo’s recent cartoons feature this toddler. Each cartoon is more horrible than the other, one showing a figure representing Jesus walking on the water beside the tiny drowned body with the caption: Proof that Europe is Christian – Christians walk on water, Muslim kids drown.

If I were that child’s mother I would wish to use a gun.

Please, Charlie Hebdo, do not presume to speak for the Christian world, just as no terrorist can speak for Muslims anywhere. I know many Christians, enough to know that most Christians, like most Muslims, possess more intelligence, greater sensitivity, and infinitely more compassion that you have now or ever displayed.

The best reaction one can display to such provocation which is like the result of eating something rotten at a restaurant, is calm disdain. Hebdo reminds me forcefully of the woman at that party, and also of a python in a story that in showing off how large a prey it could swallow gulped down a cow and died of lactose intolerance. You can only say amen to that.

No violence required. Simply avoid that restaurant and ignore all arrogant snakes.

PAKISTAN'S COMPLETE LACK OF PLANNING CREATES THE IDEAL ENVIRONMENT FOR VIOLENCE

http://blogs.tribune.com.pk/story/31637/pakistans-complete-lack-of-planning-is-to-blame-for-the-quetta-polio-centre-attack/


Pakistani security officials collect belongings of their comrades from the scene of a bomb blast that targeted a Polio vaccination center in Quetta, Pakistan, January 13, 2016. PHOTO: JAMAL TARAQAI/EPA

A loud blast followed by an explosion in Quetta on Wednesday left several persons dead and others severely injured. The scene was a polio vaccination centre, and the explosion took place near a group of vehicles which were being loaded with vaccination supplies.

Twelve of the dead belonged to the police, two to the paramilitary, while two were civilians. Fifteen people died at the hands of a suicide bomber whose remains were later collected from the site. The police and paramilitary personnel killed had come to the polio vaccination centre to escort the polio workers since polio teams are so commonly subjected to attacks these days.

What makes people who organise such terrorist attacks tick?

In any war, getting into the mind of the enemy is of crucial importance. Such terrorists must possess a well-developed streak of sadism. It is difficult to believe that without this characteristic, a person could indulge in such bloody carnage, unless of course they’re paid to do such things. Revolting as it is to imagine that this could be so, it is astounding what money can achieve because it has no ideals, it recognises no nationhood, no morality, no religion.

If you’re dead yourself, you cannot witness the suffering of the people you’ve killed, therefore suicide bombers themselves are unlikely to be sadists. For the organisers, it could be the offer of large sums of money, but in the case of the suicide bomber it would have to take the shape of aid for the family left behind. It is one way for a person to obtain money for a desperate family in a country where the authorities couldn’t care less.

It reminds me of the young Indian squash player who was willing to sell his kidney in order to continue playing and by extension make more money for his family. That young man is the sole bread earner in his family. His earnings paid for his sister’s wedding and his family depends on him. He too should have been able to rely on support from the government instead of selling his body to make ends meet.

The motive could also be a threat, the kidnapping of a child or the death of a parent. Strap a bomb onto the person being victimised and detonate it when agreed or else your family suffers. These are entirely possible, even probable motives in a country where law and order barely exist. It is how the bhatta mafia works and thrives.

The only other motive is a genuine belief in the justification of the violence committed and an expectation of divine reward, paradise, riches or whatever is most desired. Hard as it is to accept this mangling of religion, it is an extremely possible motive for those who believe in the divisive fire and brimstone speeches delivered by so called religious preachers and leaders.

Who can deny the existence of the bitter gulf in society, the huge chasm exposed by this event in Quetta and others like it?

On one hand there are people who will pay money to go to great lengths in order to get their children inoculated against polio and other diseases. On the other hand, there are people, such as the man who held the polio team hostage in Killi Ahmzai, near Quetta in 2014.

Ranged alongside him are people such as these who bombed the centre in Quetta on Wednesday. The militant organisation Jundullah claimed ‘credit’ for the attack which killed many innocent people.

Would a man who has a small house, with well-fed, school-going children and the security of government support be willing to blow himself up? No.

Such a man could only commit a heinous act if he was taught to categorise humanity as kafirs (non-believers) on one side and momins (believers) on the other. In the recent attacks in Paris and the United States we have such examples and we also know where they got their ideas from. Yes, our mullahs (religious clerics) have much to answer for.

You wonder why with all this pressure on the polio vaccination drive, the World Health Organisation’s demands for travellers to be vaccinated have been accepted without amendment. As it stands, when a person travels he/she must get vaccinated against polio and this particular vaccination, instead of lasting a lifetime as with children’s vaccines, lasts for just one year. This has only added to the burden on these centres since frequent travellers will keep returning for drops to obtain a fresh certificate each year.

This is an example of a critical shortcoming in planning and organisation which can be found in every sphere in Pakistan, be it law and order, in the medical field or in education, all of which are implicated in attacks such as the one in Quetta.

If one were to point to any one crucial thing, any one reason behind the mess that is Pakistan, it would be a lack of planning. It is this factor which is responsible for the huge gulf in society and for the entirely irreligious religious teaching that pervades and destroys our lives today.