| December 26, 2007 | Wednesday | Zilhaj 15, 1428 |
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Electioneering campaign
Honesty of purpose
Reporting violence
Karzai’s visit
Do they know it’s Christmas?
Kidney trade continues
City School — PAF Chapter
Who is responsible?
Readers are requested to restrict their comments to a maximum of 400 words. We reserve the right to edit letters for reasons of clarity and space. Letters, including those by e-mail, should carry the complete postal address of the sender. The views expressed in these columns do not necessarily reflect the views of the newspaper.—Editor
APROPOS of your editorial, ‘Beyond the suicide attack’ (Dec 12), it is rightly said: “As the Islamists extend their definition of military targets, one wonders where they will strike next”.
Terrorists are not really interested in mass murder but in gaining publicity and using propaganda to influence people and to publicise their cause. What may be regarded by many as fanatical dedication to an irrational or non-negotiable cause will continue to generate suicide bombers or their equivalent.
Terrorists are not likely to allow any humanitarian concerns about number of casualties irrespective of their age, sex and category to impede their chances of gaining their objectives. The cardinal aim of the terrorist is to create a climate of fear and collapse, essentially by demoralising the target into capitulation.
Even the most brutal groups usually avoided mass casualty attacks for fear of alienating their political constituencies and potential recruits. But today religiously-motivated terrorism is ascendant. Religious zealots, whether members of a terrorist group or cult, exhibit fewer self-imposed constraints. They actively seek to maximise the carnage, believing that only by annihilating their enemies by any means can they fulfil the dictates of their guru or god.
In addition, some religious cults view the current millennium in apocalyptic terms and are committed to hastening Armageddon. As we approach the year 2008, such cults might become more prevalent, prominent, and lethal.
According to a report, ‘Centralised Taliban organisation set up’ (Dec 15), local Taliban from tribal areas and some districts of the NWFP have set up a centralised organisation as ‘Tehrik Taliban-i-Pakistan’, to enforce Sharia in their areas and for a joint war against US and Nato forces in Afghanistan and also to wage a ‘defensive jihad’ against Pakistani forces.
So, terrorism is not likely to diminish and is almost certain to increase because of a number of exponential factors. Access to funds and sources of supply, the sheer complexity and density of modern industrial society, and the means for rapid and relatively anonymous travel have spawned what has come to be known as international terrorism.
In addition, the previously unimaginable instant publicity provided by a satellite television age now is proving a key factor. Without ‘the oxygen of publicity’ terrorists would not so often bother to breathe the outside air.
The first step in meeting the terrorist challenge is to examine the tactics, goal, characteristics, and motivations of terrorists. It is vital to recognise what terrorists can and are likely to do in order to respond with appropriate preventive and proactive counter-measures.
Security measures must be constantly re-evaluated and improved. The people must be educated about terrorism and its effects. The media must recognise its unique and difficult responsibilities.
And, finally, effort by the world’s big powers are needed to detect the source of funding, supply of weapons, explosives and logistic support to terrorist organisations so that the ‘war on terror’ is actually directed at these sources.
Once it is done, terrorism will automatically be eradicated from every part of the world.
SQN LDR (r) S. AUSAF HUSAIN
Karachi
THE general election is just about two weeks away from now. President Pervez Musharraf has already given an assurance, committed and reiterated that the polls scheduled to be held on Jan 8 will be held in a free, fair, transparent and orderly manner in a conducive atmosphere.
For ensuring this, all possible measures have been and are being taken by the Election Commission of Pakistan with the cooperation and coordination of the caretaker setup at the national and provincial levels.
Many are ready to go to the polls but there are also some who will boycott it on one account or the other. It is rather strange that both kinds of parties are levelling allegations that the polls have already been rigged and still continuing electioneering in their own way.
The PPP, PML (N), JUI (F), ANP and PML (Q) are the main parties taking part in the election and are busy running electioneering campaign in their own way and style.
Leaders of the PPP and the PML (N) Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif are spearheading the election campaign of their respective parties. But, somehow, they stand debarred from becoming the prime minister for the third time.
It is, however, pertinent to mention here as to what the leaders of main contesting parties are saying pretty loudly, as being projected in the print media, to their electorate.
PPP chairperson Benazir Bhutto says that only such results of the polls will be accepted as will put the PPP on top and the PML (N) second.
PML (N) leader Nawaz Sharif says the PML (Q) only wants to win the election through rigging.
Punjab PML (Q) president Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi continues to harp on anti-PPP theme and has again charged Ms Bhutto as the most corrupt leader and that her party has auctioned tickets to the prospective candidates.
ANP president Asfandyar Wali has criticised the government and others for presenting the Pushtoons all over the world as terrorists.
JUI (F) chief Maulana Fazlur Rahman is of the view that only religious parties and not the secular parties can provide due protection to the minorities.
On these allegations and counter-allegations, they want the electorate to vote them into power for next five years while the voters are mostly in the dark about the promises, priorities and assurances made in their election manifestos.
It is up to the people to decide how these leaders can cast aspersions on the sincerity and commitment of President Musharraf that the election is going to be held in a free, fair and transparent manner.
M. HUMAYUN KHAN
Lahore
I WAS in Thailand with a group of friends a few days ago, spending a wonderful week’s holiday. Our arrival coincided with the ending of the week-long celebrations for King Bhuimbol’s 80th birthday.
Despite all the trials and tribulations that Thailand has gone through over the past years, it is quite amazing how adored and respected the monarch is. All across Bangkok there was evidence that the common man genuinely loved and respected him. At places like the Siam Square Skytrain station thousands of identical little cards with handwritten congratulatory notes (a few in English) were threaded on cords strung across almost a mile worth of Chidlom’s elevated skywalk. And this near divine respect for a monarch, without anywhere near our leader’s kind of power, is not out of fear but of love.
Returning to Pakistan a snippet of news in one of our national papers a few days ago drew my attention: “Thailand’s revered King Bhuimbol Adulyadej reminded the army and civilian judges on Monday of their duty to remain impartial, less than a week before the first election since last year’s military coup.
“Performing duty with no prejudice is an important task for every commissioned soldier,” the King told the heads of the army, navy and air force at his Bangkok palace. “The armed forces will be able to protect the country not with deadly weapons but with good deeds.”
At the same audience, he reminded Thailand’s judges their primary role was to ‘preserve justice’.
What a tragedy that since Mohammad Ali Jinnah this nation has not been able to produce one leader who has genuinely been loved and missed, for the right reasons, when gone. All have had feet of clay: overstepping their mandates, violating the Constitution, transgressing their roles, reneging from their real responsibilities and promises and invariably contemptuous of their source of power -- the people.
As our own election draws near, perhaps the Thai King could address our leaders with some of these words of wisdom. God knows we take enough dictations from most other sources.
DR MERVYN HOSEIN
Karachi
I READ the editorial (Dec 24) about violence just over the Eid holidays and had the following thought: There are violent deaths due to terrorism, due to crime, due to accidents, due to police brutality. We read the news, feel bad about it but then move on. The death toll number just acts as a background noise that is always there, sometimes louder and sometimes softer – but we try to ignore it just like the background noise.
I have two suggestions for your newspaper to help highlight how big a deal this rising death rates are:
1. The paper can publish weekly (or daily) the total reported deaths each day of the week, totals over the week, month and year. Show that in the form of a graph (that people can more easily understand than a bunch of numbers) and compare it with the previous year’s numbers.
One can show it for each category (i.e. terrorism, crime, etc, although terrorism is perhaps the most important category right now).
In my view this will help quantify in the minds of everyone how serious the problem is.
2. Track the families directly affected by terrorism and publish stories of how their lives have changed and how they have adapted, etc.
The purpose is to help us connect with the people affected so that we can understand the full depth of damage inflicted from these acts of terrorism, feel more sympathy with the affected and, therefore, feel more strongly against those who perpetrate terrorism.
I read your newspaper regularly – although I definitely do not have the time to read it cover to cover. But I make sure that I read or at least look at the op/ed page as I believe that is where you all try to make sense of what is happening.
In my view a regular column here, like the Friday feature, dedicated to reporting on terrorism would be very useful.
NADEEM MALIK
Lahore
AFGHAN President Hamid Karzai is visiting Islamabad at a time when Pakistan is considering expanding its cooperation for facilitating the Afghan transit trade all the way from Karachi to Torkham (1,200 kilometres) while the Afghan is reluctant to open the Nawa Pass Arnawi Road (88km) for the passengers travelling from Peshawar to Chitral during winter season when Lowari Pass is closed.
Hamid Karzai’s visit to Pakistan coincides with two major events, 33 containers carrying goods from the port city of Karachi are reaching Torkham shortly, while five ambulance vehicles carrying patients for treatment in Peshawar or bodies from Peshawar have been denied entry into Chitral or Mohmand.
This is irony that Pakistan gives each and every possible facility to the Afghans while Afghanistan offers maximum possible obstacles in our way.
It is time our leadership took up the issue of opening Nawa Pass Road in bilateral talks with the Afghan president.
This is important because Lowari Pass was closed on Dec 19, and Nawa Pass Road is yet to open for passengers travelling from and to Chitral.
BASHIR HUSSAIN AZAD
Chitral
MANY of our spiritual and academic traditions celebrate the advent of light into the world.
In seeking the light, in seeking enlightenment and understanding, we lay the bases for civilised societies living in peace, prosperity, security, and integrity. By sharing in enlightenment we spread the potential for people to participate in the glorification and salvation of all life on Earth, not merely out of feelings of indebtedness and obligation, but out of a desire to find and share in greater understanding and self realisation.
Those who seek the dark, who seek to increase the influence of darkness and ignorance, fear and suspicion, who seek to literally make a killing out of trading in the objects of addiction, are viewed by the truly enlightened as pitiful, as renunciants of lasting wealth and happiness in body and soul, heart and mind.
To trade and barter, to buy and sell, to produce and consume are means of sharing in communal wealth in spirit, mind, heart, and body, of spreading salvation, understanding, enlightenment, and well-being to all corners of the globe, but only where spiritual and ethical, humanitarian and environmental consciousness are to the fore in all trading relations.
A country or society whose members seek to promote enlightenment and understanding, caring and consolation as a whole, in all of its relationships, can progress and endure through all manner of crises, whether of natural or artificial origin.
A Christmas celebratory period that means we rob from the children of the future in order to satisfy the desires of the people of today, that results in the consumption and disposal of unsustainable amounts of non-renewable resources, that means atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide are growing and the bases for increased global warming approach a critical level is contrary to the spirit of peace, justice, truth, compassion, and charity with which this period should be marked.
Gifts that are imbued with the vibrations of suffering of the people who worked to produce, manufacture, transport, and sell them will differ in essence from those that have served to bring salvation and awakening to all of the people at each and every stage of their development, production, and vendition.
A trading nation that measures progress only in terms of increased material production or ownership, that values efficiencies and productivity that are attained via the depletion of non-renewable resources and the degradation of the heartland, has set itself on a path of eventual decline and degeneration.
A political process that creates an unhealthy dependency between candidates for office and their campaign financiers, that serves to increase the obligations of political parties to commercial interests, that devalues accountability before constituents and undermines transparency in political processes, that fails to produce the very best of public representatives and global leaders, is a fatally flawed system that is an obstacle to the salvation, enlightenment, and advancement, in spirit and in being, of people throughout the world.
BRUCE TERRY
Lenah Valley, Tasmania
Australia
THIS is apropos of the news report, ‘Kidney trade continues’ (Dec 19). Transplantation of Human Organs and Tissues Ordinance 2007 is in place, yet the illegal trade of kidney transplant continues.
The ordinance says a living donor, not less than 18, can voluntarily donate any of his/her organ or tissue to anyone genetically/legally related (a close blood/non-blood relative).
A donor below 18 may before his death donate any organ or tissue by a will in writing only.
Also it says a foreigner has to bring a donor along to undergo a kidney transplant in Pakistan.
A million of rupees or a bit more is charged from a foreigner for a kidney and just a half of it from a local.
Here comes the advantage of being a Pakistani. Pay a million, buy one and get one free.
Thanks to kidney trade for it gives some value to a poor whose worth otherwise is just ‘dou cowrie’ (a few coins). It ensures a good life to at least one among the two kidneys of a poor.
The kidney so migrated remains healthy at least for filtering a better quality of drinking water.
Once we reach the stage of development where all body parts will become transplantable, poor will no longer remain unlucky for they’ll be able to sell themselves completely while earning a lot for their dependants and living a better life in bits and pieces in the bodies of others.
Some parts will have a shorter life while others a longer. It’ll be a matter of luck of the parts for where they migrate.
Don’t mind of making a fun of poor since all of us as Pakistanis are doing the same for the last 60 years.
Those who matter more did more.
SQN LDR (r) ZULFIQAR AHMAD
Rawalpindi
THIS is apropos of Sohail Jetha’s letter, ‘City School -- PAF Chapter’ (Nov 26) regarding The City School blocking an important thoroughfare and causing inconvenience on a daily basis. He further goes on to remark at how the level of education has gone beyond the reach of the middle class because of the fees being charged.First, let me clarify to Mr Jetha that it is not the school’s responsibility to ensure the smooth flow of traffic. Second, how do you know that the school management has not approached the CDGK on countless occasions for providing an overhead bridge or giving The City School an NOC to build one?
I must add here that Mr Jetha should blame not the school but the authorities. Lastly, coming to the point about education going beyond the reach of the middle class, let me begin by explaining to Mr Jetha that it is primarily the middle and upper middle class that a network like The City School caters to.
Moreover, does he have any idea how some of the private schools are functioning in Pakistan? It seems not. A majority of the private schools are operating in rented premises simply because they are forced to. Hence, they are subjected to huge tariffs in the form of rents and utility bills, both of which are charged at commercial rates with no relief whatsoever. So, when fees are increased, it is in order to counter the ever increasing rents and utility bills.
In conclusion, I would like to say that if it wasn’t for the private schools of the country, whatever little there is left would also go down the drain. I am so thankful that there are still those out there who support and give credit to the private schools for their services.
JEHANGIR FIROZ
Lahore
APROPOS of the letter, ‘Who is responsible?’ (Dec 11) in which M. Ali had sought the advice of readers about whether the deposed chief justice is responsible for the power outages, here’s my opinion.
Justice Chaudhry is not only responsible for everything that is wrong in Pakistan, including the electricity shortage, but I would also blame him for the train accident of Dec 19 that has killed at least 50 people and injured over 200. Supporters of the CJP may ask how it is possible that someone who is under house-arrest since his ouster on Nov 3 could have a hand in that.
The answer is that the government functionaries were so fearful of his suo motu actions that they are no longer able to work with concentration or plan properly. This is bound to cause mishaps.
NUSRAT
Karachi
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