‘Looking back to look forward’ – amazing response to an uplifting event

Posted on January 11, 2010 by beenasarwar

Slightly revised version of what was originally posted to the Dr Sarwar blog earlier – more photos at this web album:

Rahat Kazmi introducing speakers - photo by Aliya Nisar

What an amazing response to ‘Looking Back to Look Forward – Celebrating the 1953 Student Movement’. (‘…we look back not to revel in nostalgia, WE LOOK BACK TO LOOK FORWARD,’ said veteran journalist Eric Rahim in an email while we were conceptualising the event).

We didn’t think we’d be able to fill the 1000-seater hall. Everyone said “be happy if 500 people turn up”. The hall was FULL, thanks to the energy and enthusiasm of the volunteers and participants – students and youngsters from Sindh Awami Sangat (huge team of volunteers and a crowded bus-load of participants), Szabist University, Ziauddin Medical College, PECHS Girls’ School (thanks to Seema Malik, 150 students who formed the heart of the audience and kept up the tempo with their youthful energy), and other groups.

Naushaba Zuberi slams the A.T.Naqvi Tower and demands one for the Jan 1953 martyrs. Photo by Sakhawat Ali

View of the audience with PECHS Girls School students - photo Aliya Nisar

“It’s not just the event, it’s the timing of the event that’s important,” said Hiba Ali Raza, one of the student volunteers. “At a time when things look so bleak, and people are so depressed, this was very significant”.

Many had come expecting the usual 200-300 crowd of old lefties with a sprinkling of the young ones. Instead, we had a hall full of young people, boys and girls, students and young professionals who listened attentively to the speakers – Continue reading →

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BANGLADESH’S LEAP FORWARD

Posted on January 6, 2010 by beenasarwar

JAN 5, 2009: AFP report in all major newspapers here

Bangladesh bans religion in politics

DHAKA, Jan 4: Bangladesh’s dozens of Islamic political parties must drop Islam from their name and stop using religion when on the campaign trail following a court ruling, the country’s law minister said on Monday.

The Supreme Court on Sunday upheld an earlier ruling by the High Court from 2005 throwing out the fifth amendment of the constitution, which had allowed religion-based politics to flourish in the country since the late 1970s.

“All politics based on religion are going to be banned as per the original constitution,” Law Minister Shafique Ahmed said.

The verdict does not affect constitutional amendments that made Islam the Muslim majority nation’s state religion in 1988 and incorporated a Quranic verse in the constitution.

The main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party, which is allied with two Islamic parties, said it would appeal the verdict. Bangladesh’s original constitution barred the use of religion in politics.

“We want to reinstate the original constitution. Secularism was a pillar of the 1972 constitution,” said Mr Ahmed.

The move follows the Awami League’s sweep to power in 2008 elections, which saw them beat the BNP with a landslide. The new government outlawed a controversial Islamic party, accusing it of destabilising the country.

Four other Islamic organisations, including the Jamayetul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), were earlier banned after they carried out a series of nationwide bombings that left 28 people dead in 2005.—AFP

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‘Making windows into men’s souls’

Posted on January 4, 2010 by beenasarwar

Benazir Bhutto on arrival in Karachi, Oct 2007. Photo: Beena Sarwar

Slightly revised version of my column in Hardnews January issue, published in The News on Sunday, Jan 3, 2010, written on Dec 25 with a recent postscript.

PERSONAL POLITICAL: Making windows into men’s souls

Beena Sarwar

Writing this on Dec 25, 2009, two words come to mind – ‘morality’ and ‘terrorism’.

Flashback to the first Al Qaeda arrest, Feb, 1995: Pakistan’s Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) picks up Ramzi Yousaf, the Kuwaiti-Pakistani behind the 1993 World Trade Center car bomb that killed six people (the target was thousands). His arrest is credited among others to then FIA additional director Rehman Malik (current Minister for the Interior).

June 1997: Then opposition leader Benazir Bhutto mentions Malik in her diary series for Slate, A Week in the Life of Benazir Bhutto, writing in her entry of June 21, 1997 about a prison visit to Wajid Shamsul Hasan (currently Pakistan’s High Commissioner in London): Continue reading →

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Upcoming event: Jan 9, 2010

Posted on January 2, 2010 by beenasarwar

SAVE THE DATE Jan 9, 2010, 4.30 pm,
Arts Council Bokhari Open Air Auditorium, Karachi

LOOKING BACK TO LOOK FORWARD

Programme, compered by Rahat Kazmi, includes: Honouring the January 1953 movement activists, a documentary film on Pakistan’s first nation-wide student movement, comments by young activists Alia Amirali (QAU), Varda Nisar (Karachi University), Amar Sindhu (Jamshoro University) and Ali Cheema (LUMS); poetry by Fehmida Riaz, renditions by Tina Sani; concluding remarks by I.A. Rehman and performance by the popular band Laal. More details at the Dr Sarwar blog.

Students welcome. For passes contact (tel.) +92-21-3585 3156;
(cell) +92-300-2413103; or email: info@pmc.com.pk or contact The Second Floor

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Irony of Lakki Marwat attack on Aman Ittehad day

Posted on January 2, 2010 by beenasarwar

Suicide attack in Lakki Marwat (NWFP) claims 70 lives – the day over fifty ‘Aman Ittehad‘ (peace and solidarity) rallies took place all over Pakistan…

The attack once again underlines how much more is needed than such rallies, inspiring though they may be, and the urgency of developing consensus and clarity on our direction as a nation: it  cannot be what the jihadi/militaristic mindset envisages.

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Zehra Nigah poem; Aman Ittehad 300 in Swabi; Khi rally 4.00 pm

Posted on January 1, 2010 by beenasarwar

Children with images of doves at the Aman Ittehad rally in Karachi - photo Beena Sarwar

As 2010 begins, our thoughts are with those who have lost loved ones, particularly those who died in violent attacks. It’s always devastating when that happens but it really hits you when you know someone affected. I can’t stop thinking about Faheem who lost his 6-year old son and 13-year old niece, and Sajid who lost his brother and bhabi…

Zehra Nigah’s powerful and moving lines penned as a high school student for the martyrs of the 1953 student movement are sadly still relevant today. She wrote down the few lines she remembered when Sharjil and I went to interview her for our documentary on the student movement to be screened on Jan 9 at the Arts Council Karachi. See scanned image in her own handwriting at the Dr Sarwar blog Continue reading →

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Never forget… the day she arrived and the day she died

Posted on December 27, 2009 by beenasarwar

Oct 18, 2007: Benazir returns. Photo by Beena Sarwar

Benazir Bhutto’s assassination on this day two years ago was utterly devastating for many of us. Here is the link to a piece I wrote for IPS just before she returned to Pakistan. On Oct 18, 2007, Absar Alam and I were both at the Geo TV studios in Karachi. We hopped onto a motorbike and headed for the airport, a cameraman and assistant on another motorbike. Absar managed to get us onto the truck on which Benazir was riding. See photos taken with my cell phone at this web album. Absar scooped a brief interview of her – her first to a Pakistani journalist on home soil since her exile – broadcast on Geo shortly afterwards.

Even those who had been her sternest critics over the years were unable to stem the tide of grief that hit them on learning of her death. I wrote this article after her murder – I was in Lahore, on my own at a friend’s house and it was an incredibly difficult piece to write, in between breaking down, monitoring the television, and calling people for quotes and information.

To those who even on this day, her second death anniversary, focus on her alleged corruption and plundering: please read M. Hanif’s article ‘My Benazir murder fantasy’ posted in Jan 2008 that the Newsline blog just re-posted. Extracts: “Even if all the allegations about her corruption and arrogance are true, one should keep in mind that she was active in politics for 30 years, out of which she was in power only for four and a half years. The rest of the time she struggled against two of the most well entrenched military dictators in the region…

“The reason we don’t see very many dossiers on the financial corruption during General Zia and General Musharraf’s regimes is that when Bhutto was in power the intelligence agencies went into over drive documenting or sometimes inventing her misdemeanours. When the generals or their cronies are in power all the intelligence leaks just dry up.”

This is not to suggest that corruption should be condoned or excused, but it is important to get some perspective on the issue.

 (ends)

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IAR on NRO ruling

Posted on December 24, 2009 by beenasarwar

I.A. Rehman, one of the clearest, sanest voices in Pakistan analyses the NRO ruling in his op-ed today in Dawn, ‘Pause, sirs, and ponder‘

Extract: “…the issue before the Supreme Court was not an amendment to the constitution that would have attracted the basic features theory. The issue before it was an ordinary presidential ordinance. And for laws and ordinances that conflict with the constitution clear remedies are available.
“By invoking Article 227 in the present case the Supreme Court seems to have put Islamic injunctions in command of the whole constitution. Quite a few lawyers argue that this amounts to overruling the court’s judgments in the Hakim Khan (1992) and Kaneez Fatima (1993) cases.
“…The people of Pakistan have every right to ask whether Ziaul Haq’s agenda has been revived.”

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Jan 1, 2010 – Aman Ittehad peace & solidarity day

Posted on December 24, 2009 by beenasarwar

JAN 1, 2010, ‘AMAN ITTEHAD’ – PEACE AND SOLIDARITY DAY
Please join us where ever in the world you are
Friday, January 1, 2010
2:30pm – 5:30pm
 “Let’s stamp out injustice, light a candle each”

Rallies planned in Abbottabad, Haripur, Mardan, Karak, Swabi, D.I.Khan, Peshawar, Mingora, Lahore, Gujranwala, Multan, Bahawalpur, Faisalabad, Sialkot, Badin, Jamshoro, Larkana, Sukkur, Hyderabad, Karachi, Loralai, Quetta and Islamabad

Working together for an end to intolerance, violence, injustice. and equal opportunities for all. Citizens across the nation come together on the first day of 2010 to usher in a decade of peace, justice, equity and tolerance. More than a hundred organisations across Pakistan including the youth, students, concerned citizens, media, lawyers, labour, NGO’s and academics come together to express their resolve to struggle for the right to ‘a life of dignity’.

Join us…. for neither can we afford the luxury of indifference nor a lack of expression of the values that we hold so close to our hearts. Let our resolve find expression. We are one and we are all equals.Solidarity Day marks the beginning of a journey of building trust between citizens and the strengthening of democratic values and institutions.

For more details, contact Ali Asghar Khan

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Not just hot air – Himal Southasian zindabad

Posted on December 23, 2009 by beenasarwar

This article was published in The News on Sunday (TNS) as ‘Mountain magazine resort’, on the Footloose page, Dec 20, 2009 for a special issue on conference tourism

Not just hot air

Himal Southasian, Feb 1998

There are conferences and there are conferences. Some organisers lure participants with travel and daily allowances and fancy hotels at exotic locales. Others rely on goodwill and commitment. If it’s the latter, it helps to be located in an exotic place anyway — like Kathmandu. It also helps if the organisers are professional colleagues for whom you have the highest regard.

These last two factors contribute to my ‘favourite’ conference being one that took place in Kathmandu in early 1996. The man behind it was Kanak Mani Dixit, whom I had met at an earlier South Asia conference about water resources organised by Panos some years ago. Kanak had decided to turn his ‘mountain magazine’ Himal into a Southasian venture (there is a reason Himalers write ‘Southasian’ as one word – for an explanation see the published magazine or the Himal Southasian website.

So Kanak got together a few journalists from around Southasia to meet and brainstorm on this venture. He put Mitu Varma from New Delhi (who later became Country Representative in India for Panos South Asia) and myself up at the Third World Guest House in Pattan, one of the five ancient kingdoms around Kathmandu that are conserved as World Heritage sites. Continue reading →

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