Highlights of the April 2008 issue
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Between the Lines
By Idrees Bakhtiar
If General (retd) Pervez Musharraf had listened to my advice, he would have
saved himself so much grief that has come his way since the people of this
country voted out his protégé. He has had to deal with would-be federal
ministers who wear black bands to register their protest against the man
holding the post of president while taking oath and boycott a tea where he
is the host. Some people may feel it does not behove ministers to act as
street protesters but others differ: they are of the view that the president
should have read the writing on the wall a long time ago.
But, if Musharraf had heeded my advice, he would have found himself in a
different situation. It was some time after he overthrew Nawaz Sharif’s
government that he came to Karachi and addressed a press conference at the
Governor House. He was late. A few of us journalists present there were
chatting with Major-General Rashid Qureshi, then chief of the Inter-Services
Public Relations and now the presidential spokesman, and Anwer Mahmood, the
information secretary.
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Media Watch
Zohra Yusuf
Where is the media headed? In the past weeks, it succeeded in creating a
crisis out of the confusion that prevailed regarding the appointment of the
prime minister. While other countries too face delays because of the
consultative process involved in a coalition arrangement (the recent case of
Belgium being undecided for nine months being one example), in Pakistan the
issue remained the focus of all reporting for weeks following the February
polls. Moreover, the media amply contributed to the increase in tensions
between the prime ministerial candidates and the two king-makers — the
chiefs of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and the Pakistan Muslim League –
Nawaz (PMLN).
Nowhere was this more evident as in the relentless pursuit of the president
of the PPP – Parliamentarians, Makhdoom Amin Fahim, in the hope of getting a
negative comment against his party co-chairperson, if not the party itself.
Whenever Fahim made a public appearance, television microphones were
aggressively thrust into his face and the line of questioning that followed
was akin to putting words into his mouth.
Politics is a dirty business. Short-lived collaborations, fleeting
marriages, hopping from one alliance to another, washing hands clean of one
only to join hands with another. Ultimately it makes for some strange
political bedfellows. A hundred-year-old theory, “six degrees of separation”
claims that everyone in the world can be connected to everyone else through
a chain of only six people. Who knew that Yousaf Raza Gillani is –
politically speaking – on the same page as Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi? Here, the
Herald presents our very own “small world phenomenon” — politicians so
intimately entwined with each other that you have to see it to believe it…
By Muhammad Badar Alam
“Anyone who says that suicide attacks can't be stopped has
surrendered to the terror”
Professor
Bruce Hoffman is an expert on terrorism and insurgency. Having studied the
phenomenon for the last 30 years, he has served as an adviser on
counterterrorism to various institutions, both in the US and the Middle
East, and is currently a member of the advisory committee of the Terrorism
and Counterterrorism Program, Human Rights Watch.
Be
it a bank, a news organisation, a hospital or any other workplace, some
aspects of a working day are the same everywhere. The buzz of activity, the
task that must be done before calling it a day, the pressure of meeting a
deadline: no matter where one works, this a scenario most professionals
associate with and take for granted. It comes with the territory and is part
of normal life, most would say.
By Zohair Abbasi
Finding these professions too nerve-racking to handle? Step inside the government office to find the coolest work environment, the most malleable rules and a sluggish staff ‘bogged down’ by an almost peppercorn workload.
Operator: ThisistelephonehelplinehowmayIhelpyou?
Citizen: My phone line is not working for the…
Operator: Number?
Citizen: 5*****7
Operator: Your complaint is already registered.
Citizen: This is what I was going to tell you before you cut me…
Operator: For how long has the phone been out of
order?
Citizen: I have been complaining for the whole of last month but…
Operator: What’s the defect?
Citizen: No ringtone.
Operator: Address?
Citizen: I have already given my address a million times but
nothing has happened.
Operator: But you did not give me your address, did
you?
Citizen: Should I also ask the name of the operator before giving
me address?
Operator: Are you telling me your address or should I
hang up?
Citizen: House No. 100, Street 30…
Operator: Our technician went there yesterday. He says
the house was locked.
Citizen: How come? I have been here all the time.
Operator: I don’t know. I did not visit your house,
did I? Ask the technician. ThankyouforcallingtelephonehelplineAllahhafiz.
*click*
By Seher Hussain
Harrowing tales of human suffering and enormous physical challenges can
leave aid workers in Pakistan exhausted both in mind and body. In the
absence of formal support systems, relief usually comes from understanding
colleagues and the satisfaction of doing worthy work.
By Muhammad Badar Alam
The men in black have devised a number of fancy weapons to fight the demons
that may destroy their careers. Only some of them are open to universal
usage while others are tailored to particular persons as well as peculiar
circumstances. Here is what they are:
What's your father's name?
This fail-safe tool for survival – as well as success – is available to
a few lucky new entrants to the legal profession. A father with an
established legal practice or a father serving as a judge in the upper
echelons of the judicial system is sine qua non for an aspiring son to cover
a lot of ground before others even start. There is no worrying about finding
office space and waiting for the first client.
By Muhammad Badar Alam
He may have been at the forefront of the legal community’s protests and
he may even have undergone imprisonment in the last year, but the
incorrigible Aitzaz Ahsan rarely feels any stress
By his own admission, Aitzaz Ahsan is neither tired nor stressed. Caught
napping, literally, at a recent meeting of lawyers in Quetta, he said his
sleep was induced by surprise and satisfaction more than fatigue and stress.
He is surprised that so many lawyers came to receive him and the deposed
chief justice, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, and is satisfied that their
movement for the restoration of judges is about to bear fruit.
His role pivotal to the movement and its success, Ahsan has always been
close to all the action since March 9, 2007 when the chief justice was first
barred from office. He has spoken for hours to the media and the agitating
lawyers, argued for days in the courtrooms, and driven for weeks, taking
Chaudhry to bars across the country. But yet, as he says, he is far from
being under any stress.
Tales of an Epicurean
By Ali Asghar
Running a successful restaurant might seem an easy task, but Ayaz Khan of Okra paints an image of many a worry
Ayaz Khan, the manager-cum-owner of Okra, is a
busy man. Sitting in the rustic confines of the empty eatery – the
restaurant is closed between mealtimes – I wait for Khan for 15
minutes as he is busy with a staff meeting. He enters looking a tad
disgruntled but it does not take him long to slip into a more mellow
mood, despite the fact that our conversation is interrupted
occasionally so that he can instruct the restaurant staff or answer
their queries. But it does not take long to find out that Khan is a
determined man.
A Woman’s Work
By Rubab Karrar
A day in the life of Shamim, a domestic servant
Shamim gets up at seven in the morning and spends the next couple of hours
making breakfast and then feeding her child who, suffering from physical and
mental disabilities, needs her help to eat. By the time she is done with
breakfast and getting herself and her child ready, it is 9:00 a.m.
After about a 30-minute walk, Shamim reaches the first house she works at
and spends the next two hours sweeping, mopping and dusting a
500-square-yard area. All along she has to keep an eye on her child. On
Sundays, she has to help out with more extensive cleaning at this house. At
the same time, she is happy with this particular employer: “They give my
child food,” she says.