Dr Sarwar passes on – memorial meeting May 31st

Posted on May 30, 2009 by beenasarwar

200701-Sarwar-Banner image

Sarwar, Jan 2007. Photo: Anwar Sen Roy

He passed on peacefully in his sleep with his characteristic calm and dignity, shortly after we said goodnight… Here is the note we sent to the press that day (forgot to mention his role in the Medical Gazette, one of the founding members of a publication that provided a platform for progressive political views in dark times):

Dr M. Sarwar passes on

KARACHI, May 26: One of Karachi’s oldest general practitioners, well known physician and former student leader Dr Mohammad Sarwar passed away peacefully in his sleep at home early this morning, May 26 in Karachi, after a prolonged bout with cancer. He was 79.

A memorial meeting is scheduled at PMA House on Sunday, May 31 at 6.30 pm.

Dr Sarwar, Karachi, 2004

Dr Sarwar, Karachi, 2004

Brief bio:

Born in Allahabad, he came to Karachi for ‘sightseeing’ in 1948 and stayed on when he got admission in Dow Medical College. He was instrumental in forming Pakistan’s first student union, the Democratic Students Federation (DSF). He served as DSF’s President and Secretary General before the Mohammad Ali Bogra government banned it in 1954. He was also the driving force behind the Inter-Collegiate Body (ICB) comprising student unions in different colleges and the All Pakistan Students Organisation (APSO), established in 1953.

Sarwar spearheaded the January 8, 1953 ‘Demands Day’ that spelled out the needs of students, including the establishment of a full-fledged university campus (now Karachi University). He tried to prevent the students from surging forward in the face of the police threat when the procession reached Saddar. Sarwar was injured in the police firing that killed seven students that day, commemorated for years as a ‘Black Day’.

APSO brought together college students from all over the country to demand students’ rights regardless of their politics or ideology. The organisation’s influence was visible in the 1954 elections in former East Pakistan when a student leader defeated seasoned politician Noor-ul-Amin.

DSF also published the fortnightly award-winning journal Students’ Herald, edited by the well-known economist S.M. Naseem, then a student activist.

Dr Sarwar received his final medical college results in 1954 while he was in prison for a year — the McCarthy era in the United States impacted Pakistan as well and progressive elements here were rounded up and incarcerated. His elder brother, journalist Mohammad Akhtar (1926-58) was arrested shortly afterwards. Fakhruddin G. Ebrahim, then an upcoming lawyer, defended many of these political prisoners, including their friend Hasan Nasir who was tortured to death later.

After graduation, Dr Sarwar worked as a general physician with various health services until setting up his own clinic in Gulbahar (New Golimar) where he practiced for over forty years. He was also one of the pioneers of the Pakistan Medical Association (PMA) where he was twice elected general secretary. PMA played a vital role in progressive politics during the 1980s. During the Zia years, the PMA was one of the important ‘civil society’ organisations that consistently stood for democratic politics.

Dr Sarwar will be remembered for his inspirational leadership, generosity of spirit, warmth of character and clear-headed political vision.

He is survived by his wife, well known educationist and teacher trainer Zakia Sarwar, and three children, Beena Sarwar, Sehba Sarwar, and Salman Sarwar and three granddaughters, Maha, Myah and Minal.

Some news reports:

In memory of Dr Mohammad Sarwar, Wednesday, May 27, 2009
By Shahid Husain – http://tinyurl.com/sarwar-news

By Ahmed Reza, BBC Urdu, 26 may, 2009 – http://tinyurl.com/sarwar-bbc

Student politics pioneer Dr M Sarwar passes on, Dawn, Tuesday, 26 May, 2009 – http://tinyurl.com/sarwar-dawn

In memory of Dr Mohammad Sarwar Wednesday, May 27, 2009

By Shahid Husain

http://tinyurl.com/sarwar-news

Ahmed Reza, BBC Urdu, 26 may, 2009

http://tinyurl.com/sarwar-bbc

Thanks for your message. We’re grateful he passed on peacefully in his sleep with his characteristic calm and dignity, shortly after we said goodnight…

Here’s a link to a news report about him

Student politics pioneer Dr M Sarwar passes on, Tuesday, 26 May, 2009

http://tinyurl.com/sarwar-dawn

Filed under: Student politics | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Some articles re ‘Talibanisation’, veiling, flogging

Posted on May 18, 2009 by beenasarwar

Two of my articles on `talibanisation’ and violence against women published April 12, 2009 that I didn’t get round to sharing here, reminded by Nadeem Farooq Paracha’s spot on article ‘Slap him or Slap yourself’ (Dawn, May 17, 2009) – http://tinyurl.com/pxrfjz

1. `Ongoing struggle’, in Special Report, ‘The News on Sunday’ about how Talibanisation is splitting our South Asian identity and leading to the existing schizophrenia and changing dress codes…

Extract: The trend (to veil) is also visible at the lower socio-economic level. Some years ago, Sughra, who cleans homes for a living, began wearing a burqa when going to work, motivated by weekly religious meetings. She feels it is “better”, both because it is ordained by religion and because it helps her to avoid the male gaze. Her cousin Ameena, a cook, shrugs off the suggestion to wear a burqa. Although deeply religious– she says her prayers regularly and fasts during Ramzan — she does not see the need to alter how she dresses, which is perfectly modest by any standards. “If a man harasses me, I beat him with his own shoe,” she says.

Complete article at  http://tinyurl.com/dmg4om

2. Op-ed in Dawn for which they changed original title “`Wicked’ NGOs and that flogging thing” to the more mundane `Swat flogging & public outrage’. They also changed the word `bottom’ to `back’ which doesn’t at all mean the same thing. `Buttocks’ would have worked but I guess that’s the prevailing `sensibility’.

Extract: The first casualty of war may be the truth but the first casualty of any `religious militancy’ is women’s rights…. The Taliban’s treatment of women, including their ban on female education while in power in Afghanistan (please note, before the American drone attacks) takes Zia’s obsession with controlling women’s morality and public behaviour further…. One reason for the Pakistani state’s apparent paralysis is that the armed forces and large sections of the population think of this as America’s war, compared to the previous Afghan war with its religious trappings. In fact, that was less `our war’ than the current one, which threatens the very existence of the Pakistani state. http://tinyurl.com/ccelax

A slightly longer, revised version was published in ‘The Hindu’ on April 14 – Vigilantes, the state and that flogging thing’ – The first casualty of war may be truth but the first casualty of any ‘religious militancy’ is women’s rights – http://tinyurl.com/qjs8da

Some other articles published at that time that I liked:

The high cost of surrender, Irfan Husain, Dawn 11 Apr, 2009 http://tinyurl.com/dxfmv8

Are we in denial about terrorism? Shafqat Mahmood, The News, April 10, 2009 http://tinyurl.com/cveryg

A state adrift, by Cyril Almeida, Dawn, 10 Apr, 2009 http://tinyurl.com/d9eoy8

A catalyst for change? By Zubeida Mustafa, 08 Apr, 2009 – WHY did civil society in Pakistan vociferously protest the flogging of a 17-year old girl in a public square in Swat and not when many other atrocities were committed against women in recent times? http://tinyurl.com/czofco

Filed under: 'War on terror', Gender | Tagged: , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Swat aid appeals; Pk can defy odds; ‘WoT’ Myths; Binayak Sen; Ashram in Sindh

Posted on May 15, 2009 by beenasarwar

A lot going on but huge backlog (on the personal front, the ‘Old Fighter’ as his friend Eric Rahim called him still in hospital, fighting on). In this post:

1. Appeals for aid for thousands of Pakistanis displaced by the fighting in the
Swat region (I so dislike using ‘IDP’, the dehumanising but convenient acronym
used for internal refugees) & I.A. Rehman on the disaster brewing & Independent report (scroll below for details)

2. Pakistan Can Defy the Odds: How to Rescue a Failing State by Hassan Abbas – download the PDF document at
http://ispu.org/reports/articledetailpb-76.html
(outlines issues related to the Taliban, a vibrant civil society movement for
the rule of law, an independent judiciary, and the supremacy of the
constitution; a strong ‘independent’ (for the most part) media; writers,
artists, poets, and intellectuals standing up to religious bigotry; the results
of the 2008 elections in which religious political parties were trounced, and
American-Pakistani relations)

3. `A cobweb of myths’ – Prominent linguist and writer Dr Tariq Rahman
de-constructs myth, the realisation of which is essential if our children are to
have a better future – “that we have created our own Frankensteins and not
foreign countries; that most of the militants are our people and not foreigners
(though some are); that foreign countries may help militants but are not
powerful enough to keep them alive for ever; that we made mistakes in the past
of which we are reaping the harvest”
Dawn, May 14, 2009: http://tinyurl.com/p2fo95

4. The campaign to free Dr Binayak Sen – Chattisgarh paediatrician, health care
worker and democracy activist (general secretary of the People’s Union for Civil
Liberties, PUCL) has been imprisoned for two years without trial, without bail,
for allegedly helping Naxalite insurgents – see
Daily South Asian – http://tinyurl.com/padqzk
Countercurrents – http://tinyurl.com/rcqpf7
Indian Express – http://tinyurl.com/r7dpeq

5. Some good news in the middle of the bad – Report on a 100-year-old Ashram in Tharparkar, where hundreds of animals, children and jobless people find solace, by Shahid Husain in ‘The News on Sunday’, Kolachi section, May 10, 2009:
http://tinyurl.com/ov4j4u

OVER TO the burning issue of the military operation in Swat and the internally
displaced persons

‘Malakand priorities’ – Veteran journalist and human rights activist I.A. Rehman warns that with the expected fallout of the military operation in Malakand Division having exceeded official estimates, the whole effort at overcoming terrorism and militancy could miscarry.
Dawn, May 14, 2009 –http://tinyurl.com/par5b2

See also Truthout – <http://www.truthout.org/050909A>
Half a Million Flee Swat Valley as Pakistan Faces Months of Fighting
by Andrew Buncombe, The Independent, Saturday 09 May 2009

BELOW: Localised appeals for aid – besides Edhi – http://www.edhifoundation.com
–
From Fauzia Minallah <funkor.childart@gmail.com>
Summer Clothes for women and children (Please ensure that the shirts are not
be sleeveless ).  Toys will bring back smiles on Children’s faces.
Please drop them at 2 C, Naval Housing F 11/1 Islamabad –
Contact: Naila Zahid 0300 555 4303

From Dr Samrina Hashmi <samrina_hashmi@yahoo.com>
Pakistan Medical Association (PMA), Karachi – accepting Cash,Medicines, Flour, Powdered Milk, Biscuits,Water
Medical Camp for IDPs at Itehad Town, Karachi, Sunday May 17 2009.
Bus will leave from PMA House (Aga Khan 111 Road,Sadder, Karachi) at 9am sharp; Doctors, nurses ,paramedics invited. Need Antibiotics,plaster {Gypsona 4″,6″}, Paracetamols, anti-diarreals, anti-malarials 
Contact:
Amir Peter +92-21-2251159
Rehan   +92-333-2367020   

From Mohsin Sayeed <mohsinqs@hotmail.com>
Voice of the Civil Society-VOTCS donation camp at Carlton Hotel May 15-17, 10:00 a.m-5:00 p.m). Contact: hadiakhan@gmail.com
Collecting cash (esp for tents), dry food, hygenic items (soap etc), beddings &
candies for children, plus basic medicines (Pain Killers, Cough syrups,
Bandages, Antibiotic oral medicines and for external use e.g. Furecin
powder)

From Pakistan Peace and Solidarity Council <pscpak@gmail.com>
PPSC is providing food, drinking water and assist the displaced people in
registration in Shergarh, Takht Bhai, Mardan and Jalala.  

Dr. Nisar Ali Shah,  (Karachi)  Ph# +92-333-7157215

Mr. Pasha (Peshawar)   Ph# +92-300-9363403

Mr. Jamshed Khan  (Mardan)    Ph# +92-345-9386739

Mr. Hassan Zaman (Punjab)      Ph# +92-300-7192515 & +92-61-6014154

Dr. Muhammad Hafiz Ur Rehman (Islamabad)  Ph# +92-334-5038705

Web: http://www.pscpak.org

That’s it for now

Filed under: 'Internally Displaced Persons' | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Women to Reclaim Public Spaces

Posted on May 8, 2009 by beenasarwar

    A Programme of Defiance & Resistance.

Karachi Press Club, On 8th May, 2009, 5:30 – 7:30pm

Dear  friend of humanity,

We invite you to a programme highlighting the implications of Talibanisation for women, artists, and minorities in particular, and to our country in general. The Talibans have created terror through slaughtering of people, bomb blasts, kidnappings, and destruction of properties which has led to severe restrictions on women, and displacements of thousands of people from their homes. It seems their militancy has encouraged some men and women in some urban centers of Pakistan to admonish and threaten women on their mode of dress and their presence in public places. This is a deliberate strategy to purge public spaces of women’s presence.

WAF believe Talibanisation is a mind set which cuts across all ethnic lines and must be resisted by all, and in no uncertain terms. This mind-set abuses Islam by using it to control others. We believe religion is a private matter and all citizens of Pakistan are equal citizens We believe peace and justice must be the guiding light for Pakistan to become peaceful and just society. To achieve our goal we must discuss matters together and resolve to act collectively for greater public good, for this is what democracy is about.

We invite you to a programme of defiance and resistance.

  1. Welcome and introduction to WAF and theme of the programme.
  2. Habib Jalib’s poem written for WAF – We are not without friends and supporters in this land
  3. Art, music, dance, and drama, as statements of social freedom (Coordinator Sheema Kirmani)
  4. Youth speaks of the future she wants
  5. Speaker from minority
  6. Voices of the displaced (we are in touch with the families that have been displaced because of the Talibinsation related disturbances in their area, and hope to have some of them share their experiences)
  7. Representatives of political parties to be respondents to the concerns voiced in the programme.
  8. FAiz Ahmed Faiz’s poem : Hum dekhain gai.

9,    Candle light vigil

Following are the  key positions and we invite you to endorse them

  1. One constitution and one set of laws for all of Pakistan
  2. The writ of the government must prevail on the basis of moral authority premised on protection, health, education, livelihood and security of all persons equally
  3. Urgent de-weaponisation of society
  4. No special accords that compromise the rights of any group of citizens of Pakistan.

Please do attend and bring all your friends – women and men – to show solidarity with our cause which is also your cause.

Thanking you

Women’s Action Forum, Karachi.

Please bring a candle with you.

Filed under: 'War on terror', Gender, Politics | Tagged: , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Justice Sabih’s legacy

Posted on May 7, 2009 by beenasarwar

Karachi, April 28:

Justice Sabih: Upholder of human rights

Justice Sabih: Upholder of human rights

The newspapers on the PIA flight back from New Delhi on April 20 reported the shocking news about Justice Sabihuddin Ahmed’s death. Various thoughts jostled with sadness at his untimely departure. I remembered him as a lawyer, one of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan’s founder members in 1986 and HRCP’s first Vice Chairperson for Sindh. My first term on the HRCP Council coincided with his last as he resigned in 1997, after being appointed as a judge of the Sindh High Court to the jubilation of human rights activists. Colleagues, activists and professionals revered him as a lawyer and later as a brilliant judge for his consistently compassionate and principled stands.

Twenty years ago, as a lawyer, he drafted a groundbreaking legislation regarding organ donations. His colleague and fellow advocate Syed Iqbal Haider twice presented the draft law as a private members’ bill before the Senate. The powerful vested interests of the commercial transplantation lobby kept getting it shelved. Eventually, years of hard work and lobbying by dedicated visionaries like Dr Adeebul Hasan Rizvi and his colleagues got the bill through as a presidential ordinance in October 2007. The commercial transplantation lobby appealed against it on the grounds that it was against Islam. On April 18, 2009, after extensive deliberations, the Federal Shariat Court ruled that organ donations are compatible with Islam, and outlawed commercial transplantations. That was also the day that Justice Sabih breathed his last.

His judgments strengthened human rights principles and gave relief to the aggrieved. His ruling of 1997 ordering the payment of monetary compensation to a detenu in a habeas corpus petition made judicial history in Pakistan. As chief justice of the Sindh High Court he encouraged out-of-the-box thinking, like allowing a judge of the Sindh High Court to take up appeals in interior Sindh as an experiment in 2007. Sitting at the Sukkur High Court, the judge (Justice Rehmat Shah Jafri) found that people had been in prison for 25-30 years on average. Refusing adjournments, he dealt with 300 appeals and disposed of 70 per cent of the murder cases in two months.

Women’s rights organisations always found Justice Sabih sympathetic. In one instance, he got the hearings of two rape cases transferred to Karachi from interior Sindh where the rape survivors felt threatened by the accused.

He was among the judges who refused to take oath under Musharraf’s PCO following the Emergency declaration of Nov 3, 2007. His steadfastness was an example to his brother judges. At one of the judge’s homes in Karachi, where civil society activists presented flowers to the dissenting judges, Justice Sabihuddin succinctly explained why they should be supported even if they had taken oath under an earlier PCO.

The military twice displaced civil power after the promulgation of the 1973 Constitution and took extra-constitutional judicial action through a PCO that required judges to take fresh oath: 1981 (under General Zia) and 2000 (under General Musharraf). After Musharraf seized power (Oct 1999) several judges refused to take oath under the PCO of 2000. The Supreme Court gave the military regime de facto recognition on condition that the judicial organ of the state remained uninterrupted. It also declared that independence of the judiciary was part of the basic structure of the Constitution, which the parliament could not amend. The self-styled chief executive was given power to amend, but not alter, the basic features of the Constitution. Also, extra-constitutional measures would be permissible only when the Constitution did not provide a remedy and the action taken was proportionate to the emergency situation.

In November 2007, an unprecedented 59 out of nearly 94 judges in the higher judiciary refused to take oath under the PCO. They stuck to their guns until after the elections. Over the past year, most ‘deposed’ judges returned to the courts, some like Justice Sabih in elevated positions. Many among civil society who had been active in the movement for the restoration of Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry saw this as a great betrayal.

One of them was on the PIA flight from New Delhi with me, anguished at Justice Sabih’s death. We talked about the lawyers’ movement and the divergent strands within civil society.

An early division within ‘civil society’ was over the general elections. Dominant opinion in discussions over the Internet and on television talk shows advocated boycotting forthcoming polls, with no answer to the question ‘and then what?’ (One Islamabad-based activist told me that his organisation planned to stop people from voting, and he himself planned to pour ink into ballot boxes on election day. If he wanted to boycott the polls that was his right, I responded, but he had no right to spoil other people’s votes.)

Another dominant civil society stand was that the new government should straightaway restore the judges through executive order. The government’s waffling on the issue notwithstanding, those who thought that the judges’ restoration should not be the be-all and end-all of the movement and that it should be debated and decided in parliament were dismissed as government apologists.

When many judges went back into the fold, this dominant civil society opinion saw it as a betrayal of the cause for the restoration of the chief justice, even terming them as ‘PCO judges’. Given the track records of people like Justice Sabihuddin an attempt to understand their move would have been in order, even if people disagreed.

So great was the divide that some virtually ostracised them socially. “I last met him at the Boat Club some months ago,” said my grieving activist friend on the flight, who had known the late judge for over forty years. “He asked me to come and see him but I was too angry. He asked me a couple of times again through someone to see him … I didn’t. I will always regret that.”

When he finally did go, it was too late. Justice Sabihuddin was unconscious in an intensive care unit. I could feel his pain at not having made his peace in time. Many also felt similar ‘too late’ anguish when Benazir Bhutto was assassinated, having pilloried and castigated her for making a ‘deal’ with a military dictator and then contesting elections.

“I have learnt a lesson from this. I will never take such a rigid position again,” he added.

Maybe somewhere, somehow, Justice Sabihuddin understands. Certainly he would forgive. This can be but of small comfort to those who wish they had given him a hearing, as he gave so many others.

Filed under: Lawyers movement, Politics | Tagged: , , , | Leave a comment »

Remembering Victor Kiernan

Posted on May 5, 2009 by beenasarwar

kiernanWhen Victor Gordon Kiernan passed away in February this year aged 95, the Pakistani media took surprisingly little notice (or perhaps not so surprising, given what we’re grappling with) of the death of the Scottish Marxist professor famous for his translations of Faiz and Iqbal, and whose “immense contributions to the post-war flowering of British Marxist historiography …transformed the understanding of social history,” as John Trumpbour (Jack) put it in his obituary for India’s Frontline magazine.

kiernan-new-imperialism-cover

I remain grateful to Jack – one of the few relics of the ‘left’ left at Harvard – for his kindness to me while I was in Cambridge, MA (and to the documentary filmmaker B.J. Bullert in Seattle who introduced us – see http://www.fishermensterminal.net/). I was particularly thrilled when Jack gave me a copy of ‘America: The New Imperialism: From White Settlement to World Hegemony’ (Verso, 2005) when it was just hot off the press.

Jack mentioned at the time that Kiernan had got him to write the epilogue (which I read later and really liked). That, in fact, is how I learnt that V.G. Kiernan was in fact at that point very much alive and kicking in Edinburgh.

On hearing of his death, I wrote a note of condolence to Jack. He replied that Frontline magazine in India had given him 3000 words to discuss Victor Kiernan’s life and work. “So India came through. Both Tariq Ali and Eric Hobsbawm have done articles in the UK. Sadly that outpost of liberal humanitarian imperialism The New York Times seems determined to refuse to do an obituary.”

His article, ‘Ideological warrior against Empire’, is up at http://tinyurl.com/ddcvph

I responded commenting on the strange silence in Pakistan, thinking I’d take it up with someone. Never got around to it. So I was happy to see Hassan Gardezi’s belated but much needed profile of the great man in last week’s Books & Letters section of Dawn – “PROFILE: Remembering Victor Kiernan”, 03 May, 2009 – http://tinyurl.com/cen66z.

Prof Gardezi is co-editor, with Prof. Jamil Rashid of the seminal publication, ‘Pakistan, the roots of dictatorship : the political economy of a praetorian state’ (Zed Press, 1983). Both are based in Canada.

Filed under: History, Politics | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

The Taliban are coming….??? Myths and other realities

Posted on May 4, 2009 by beenasarwar

The Swat flogging video led to an alarmist, emotional, knee jerk response devoid of any political and historical context among the `bloggeratti’ (to borrow a term from Dr Omar Ali of Asiapeace), sms’ing crowd and TV talk shows. Those who are now calling for decisive action were not so long ago justifying the Taliban’s actions as an `anti-imperialist’ force.

Other `civil society’ attempts at countering Talibanisation include
demonstrations and even a signature campaign to the President against
Talibanisation initiated by a friend in Karachi and picked up all over the
country – a well meaning effort available at http://www.sacw.net (direct link
http://tinyurl.com/c6yj4d).

Women’s Action Forum is planning a broad-based meeting on May 8 at Karachi Press Club, 5 pm, on `Women to Reclaim Our Public Spaces’. WAF stands for:
– One constitution and one set of laws for all of Pakistan
– The writ of the government must prevail on the basis of moral authority
premised on protection, health, education, livelihood and security of all
persons equally
– Urgent de-weaponisation of society
– No special accords compromising the rights of one group of citizens of
Pakistan over others

In the end, however, `Talibanisation’ is a political problem that has taken
decades to develop. It calls for long term political solutions. There are no
short cuts. Recognising this, I.A. Rehman advocates two immediate steps in
`Pakistan’s neo-Taliban’ (Dawn, Apr 30) – http://tinyurl.com/ctyl3l – the
government must reduce its trust deficit with the people, and people must see evidence that the army is able and willing to earn its keep.

Also see Dr Hassan Abbas’ report on police reforms in Pakistan as an urgent measure to counter terrorism.  A PDF is available at his excellent blog watandost.blogspot.com
Direct link to the pdf file – http://tinyurl.com/codh8d

Also, three other articles that provide another perspective:

– THE ROVING EYE, The myth of Talibanistan, By Pepe Escobar, Asia Times, May 1, 2009 – http://tinyurl.com/cp8zdr
Sent by S.M. Naseem with the note: “To reassure you that Islamabad is not going to fall to the Talibans any time soon. The rumours are about as credible as those about the USA becoming a socialist state during Obama’s presidency.”

– How Pakistan Is Countering the Taliban – The pacification model that worked in Iraq can work in the Swat Valley, By Husain Haqqani, WSJ, April 30 2009 –
http://tinyurl.com/dmk6py

– Between two fundamentalists, By Dr Mubashir Hasan, The Nation (Pakistan) April 30, 2009 – http://tinyurl.com/da8syr

Finally, a widely circulated article `I want my country back’ by Sehar Tariq, a development studies student, published in The News on April 17 –
http://tinyurl.com/dg2nwn

Below, Seerat Hazir’s response to Sehar Tariq’s article (minus some distracting personal barbs):

“I am curious to find out which Pakistan she wants back. The one created by the British with the help of wealthy and influential feudals and nawabs as a gift to the Americans to serve as a pawn in the cold-war games after the 2nd world war? The one ruled successively by military dictators, aided and abetted by a conniving nexus of corrupt bureaucrats, politicians, industrialists, and devious feudals that many of us were privileged enough to be related to, getting our passports and driving licences made without standing in sweaty queues? The one that created a two-class system: the haves and the have-nots?

“…We are being over-simplistic by focusing just on the Taliban phenomenon, conveniently just mentioning in passing – almost as an after-thought, almost as something you pick up from a souvenir shop at the end of a trip to tell friends back home that you had been there – the real problem stemming from the imperialist greed – the fountain-head of all this violence and self-destructive frenzy which seems to have taken over the  dispossessed of the world. It doesn’t take much intelligence… to understand what’s happening here in Pakistan at the moment. Here is how it goes, more or less:

“The US and allies decide to cut the Pak army and ISI down to size (re-read
Washington Post, since Obama). Obama admin decides to deal directly with the civilian govt and bully the army into playing second fiddle. Aid is made
conditional. Transparency is demanded. Pak Army tells the US, well, then let the civi govt take care of the war on terror. Within weeks things begin to happen:
Taliban blow up 200 Nato trucks, and practically force the Nato command into looking for alternative supply routes into Afghanistan. They can’t be stopped for some mysterious reason. Taliban take over Swat and are seen patrolling cities and towns with impunity, and they can’t be stopped for some reason. FM radio stations start spewing out extremist propaganda and they can’t be jammed for some odd reason. Girl schools are burnt down, video of a young girl being flogged ruthlessly by frothing fanatics pops up to remind everyone what Taliban are capable of. Rumours are sown in diplomatic circles in Islamabad that Taliban are just behind the peaceful Margallas, a mere 100 km from the diplomatic enclave, and, more disturbingly, Kahuta. Nazam-e-adl is given the nod. All this is stage-managed by the Army in connivance with a puppet parliament, to remind
the Americans and their allies how things will look if the army is not supported and financed the way they want it. This was a trailer shown to the men on the Capitol Hill who already have their ears cocked for such news from Pakiland. Officials and generals scurry back and forth. A deal is struck. and Hallelujah! General Kayani appears on the front pages on April 25, reiterating his resolve to fight the war on terror to the bitter end. The Taliban Tide begins to ebb back to its mysterious origins. Thanks be to Allah, the All Merciful.

“Pakistan (read pak army) again points the gun to its head and gets its demands. Only someone with eyes misted over by April showers can fail to see that Taliban of Swat is the other side of the ruling elite led by the army: the side that will flip into broad view once the US decides to take on Pakistan a la Afghanistan and Iraq. I don’t know whether it’s misguided sincerity or plain escapist ideology that defines the activism of most of our more enlightened academics here and abroad. I only wish if all that painstakingly acquired scholarly wisdom were focused on unmasking the real culprits and their local and foreign cohorts, and identifying ways and means to move towards some kind of a  solution, rather than joining the popular chorus written and directed by the western media. and which is sure to bring the crowd to its feet. The only solution lies in paving the way, through word and deed, for greater provincial autonomy and breaking the colossus of a corrupt federation controlled and manipulated by a greedy, all-powerful army.
“You and I are a sorry, confused product of a somewhat privileged class which directly or indirectly benefitted from the elitist culture cultivated by the establishment in cahoots with their foreign masters; a product of the unjust system which gave us an unfair advantage over the marginalized masses. Time now, if there’s still any left, to look back at all the injustices we had partnered in silence; raising our voice only where and when it suited us, as long as we could scamper back to our privileged existence, to the 6 O’clock appointment with the dentist after the 4 sweaty hours spent in robust activism at Regal chowk. The real question is not what we should do about Talibanisation: it’s what we should be doing to challenge and change the system which serves as a nursery for such carnivorous flora. But, sadly, we can’t tear ourselves away from our `qatil’ (killer) that Faiz wrote about, because he is our ‘hamdam’, our benefactor, too: Better blame a bunch of misguided, bearded fanatics with their shalwars hitched up above the ankles, sporting a Gotcha jacket, and be done with it.

“Wake up and smell the shit in our own pyjamas, and don’t be fooled by the
Taliban Cafe smell that the western machinery and its vendors in Pakistan so eagerly want us to wake up to.”

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India trip, the ‘attack’ and some articles

Posted on April 26, 2009 by beenasarwar
Allahabad Chapter of PIPFPD: Comrade Kameshwar Prashad Agarwal

No disruptions at the Allahabad Chapter of PIPFPD, attended, among others, by Comrade Kameshwar Prashad Agarwal

Hello everyone, have been traveling with limited access to internet, hence the silence.

I was among the journalists at a panel discussion ‘Does media jingoism fan tensions between India and Pakistan?’ organised by Forum of Media Professionals at the India International Centre in New Delhi on April 15. The event got a lot of play because of misreporting.

The Indian media hyped up a minor disruption, reporting that the Pakistani journalists in the panel were ‘attacked’ or ‘roughed up’. The Pakistani media picked up on the photos and subsequently there were condemnations and even demonstrations in Pakistan about the ‘attack’.

To set the record straight, no one was roughed up or attacked. One man did disrupt the meeting – but very briefly, from the back of the auditorium. The organisers had turned away 3-4 men who refused to sign the register – he must have sneaked in. The discussion was half over when he stood up and started shouting anti-Pakistan, pro-war slogans (someone sitting near him said he’d just come in). The organisers pushed him out. TV cameramen and photographers followed.

Most papers and channels used photos and footage of the scuffle outside, rather than focusing on the discussion inside, which continued, despite the noise we could hear outside for a couple of minutes. The interruption lasted for maybe a minute or so. The discussion started at 10 am and continued till 1.30 pm. It turned out that he was from the Sri Ram Sene, the same group that tried to prevent Valentines Day celebrations in India, to whom thousands of people sent ‘pink chaddis’ in response.

The incident demonstrated what we had been talking about, that TV, being a visual medium, focuses on images rather than words. Hence their running after the scuffle rather than focusing on the discussion. This is the nature of the beast. Those keen to tame it might try organizing mass emails, letters and phone calls to demand meaningful change.

Here is Rahimullah Yusufzai’s article on the incident – `The good, the bad and the ugly’, The News, Apr 21, 2009 <http://tinyurl.com/dxtuo3>

Our visit also involved several other interactions with the media. Rahimullah Yusufzai, the veteran reporter from Peshawar was the most sought after for his views on Talibanisation, living as he does in the heart of the storm. Here is the link to a full page ‘idea exchange’ published April 19, a forum that The Indian Express regularly holds: “I don’t think we have reached a stage when the Taliban will take over Pakistan” – <http://tinyurl.com/dzeyc9>

I showed some of my documentaries at a meeting of the Allahabad chapter of the Pakistan-India Peoples Forum for Peace and Democracy (PIPFPD) and at the Delhi Press Club, organised by Youth4Peace. Here are links to a couple of reports on the Press Club screening:

‘In Pakistan, change has to come from within, says journalist’ -Indian Express, Apr 20, 2009 – <http://tinyurl.com/covts7>

`Pak journalist’s short take on women’s rights’, Mail Today, Apr 20, 2009 – <http://tinyurl.com/cmb7ey>

More later

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Chicago, Shahidul and ‘Three Cups of Tea’

Posted on April 2, 2009 by beenasarwar

Three Cups of Tea_Mech.indd

Published in Hardnews, New Delhi,April 2, 2009

PERSONAL POLITICAL

Beena Sarwar

I love how connections sometimes just ‘happen’, criss-crossing the world, spanning generations, borders and continents. This particular stream traverses Pakistan’s early progressive struggle to Chicago, an inspiring book by an American who recently received Pakistan’s highest civilian honour, and a Bangladeshi photographer who came to Pakistan to document that moment.

In Chicago for a seminar in May 2007, I stayed with Danial Noorani. He is active with Apna Ghar, a domestic violence shelter for immigrant, primarily South Asian women. His late parents Malik and Mumtaz Noorani were close friends of my parents, active in the Communist Party and city goings-on. Tall jovial Malik Uncle ran a publishing house. ‘Jan-e-Man Phuphi’ (as we called the bright-eyed Mumtaz Noorani because of the endearment she used for us children) was active with Anjuman Jamhooriat Pasand Khawateen (Democratic Women’s Association, headed by Tahira Mazhar Ali, still going strong in Lahore).

There is some symbolism about meeting their son in Chicago. I remembered hearing of Dr Eqbal Ahmad’s disappointment when he found a monument to a policeman rather than the Chicago workers demonstrating for the eight hour day were killed by police fire in 1886. Ironically, the US does not observe May 1 as Labour Day.

Before I left, Danial gave me a paperback titled ‘Three Cups of Tea’ by someone I had vaguely heard of, Greg Mortenson. I couldn’t put it down. It is mandatory reading for anyone interested in education, Pakistan and the ‘war on terror’.

Mortenson builds schools in Pakistan’s remotest areas. The book, co-authored by David Oliver Relin, is sub-titled ‘One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace . . . One School at a Time’– a mission as endangered by the ‘taliban’ as by the militaristic policies of the US and Pakistani governments operating without a political roadmap.

It started in 1993, when Mortenson was recuperating in atiny, unmapped village, Korphe, after being injured while climbing the world’s second highest mountain K2 in the Karakorams. Shocked that the village ‘school’ was a patch of land where children sat in the open scratching their lessons with sticks on the ground, he vowed to build them a school.

Back in the US, he saved rent by sleeping in his car and not taking his girlfriend out to dinner. Not surprisingly, they broke up. Mortenson kept trying to raise funds, manually typing letters to seek help. Two years later he was back at Korphe with a truck-load of building materials.

But he was in for a shock. The villagers told him that they first needed a bridge across the ravine that isolated them. Mortenson nearly went off in a huff. Then he thought about it and realised they were right. An important lesson for aid organizations: ask people what they want and need instead of giving them what you think they should have.

Besides making Korphe more accessible to the world, the bridge enabled the village women to make short trips to visit family on the other side rather than investing days as they used to. And yes, the school was also built. Mortenson has since helped to build some 78 schools in Pakistan (and Afghanistan), providing education to over 28,000 children, including 18,000 girls.

The second part of the book tells a grimmer story: the impact of the mushrooming Wahabi madrassahs and the ‘war on terror’ following ‘9-11’. Mortenson recalls an invitation to the Pentagon to talk about his work, only to realise that they’re not really interested. If they listened to him, perhaps the world would be in less of a mess.

Last August, the Pakistan government announced that Pakistan’s highest civil award, Sitara-e-Pakistan (“Star of Pakistan”) would go to Mortenson for his courage and humanitarian effort to promote education, and literacy in rural areas. The Bangladeshi photographer Shahidul Alam mentioned it when we met last month in Kathmandu. He flew in from Bangladesh especially to record the moment. On March 23rd, 2009, he was in Islamabad with friends of Mortenson watching the awards ceremony live on television.

These are, as Salma Hasan Ali wrote on Shahidul’s blog, “kernels of hope that remind us that all will not be lost to violence and a distorted mindset.”

(ends)

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Five days that changed Pakistan

Posted on March 16, 2009 by beenasarwar

Analysis by Beena Sarwar

KARACHI, Mar 16 (IPS) – A late night meeting between Pakistan’s army chief, President and Prime Minister led to the dramatic announcement in the wee hours of Monday morning that Iftikhar Mohammed Choudhry would be restored as Chief Justice.

The announcement, made by Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gillani, has been widely welcomed for having broken the political impasse that was threatening to plunge the country into chaos and possible army intervention.

For the past few days, hectic efforts had been underway domestically and at the international level to break the impasse, including by United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and British foreign minister David Miliband.

Former president Gen. Pervez Musharraf initially suspended Choudhry from office in March 2007, sparking off a nation-wide lawyers’ movement joined by civil society and political activists. When a Supreme Court order restored Choudhry to office, Musharraf imposed Emergency rule on Nov 3, 2007 that many saw as imposition of martial law.

Superior court judges who refused to take oath under the Emergency orders were sent packing. For the first time in the country’s history, the majority of judges refused to take this oath, leading to hopes that the days of the judiciary’s connivance with the establishment were over.

The elections of Feb 18, 2008 brought in a democratically elected government. But lawyers were unhappy with the way it dealt with the judges’ issue.

The government restored the judges who took a new oath under the constitution.

Choudhry and a few other judges refused on the grounds that this legitimised Musharraf’s illegal executive order that had sent them packing in the first place and that the restoration should take place through another executive order.

Leaders of the lawyers’ movement announced a ‘long march’ starting on Mar.12 to converge on the capital Islamabad on Mar. 16 for a ‘dharna’ or sit-in until the Chief Justice was restored.

As the long march kicked off, the beleaguered government appeared to be at odds with itself. Prime Minister Gillani asserted that the marchers would be allowed to converge on Islamabad even as his Interior Minister Rehman Malik, known to be close to President Asif Ali Zardari, took measures to prevent this from happening.

The resulting scenes of police beating and arresting people, in many cases from their houses, drew comparison to Musharraf’s last months in power, particularly during the Emergency of 2007.

In his early morning announcement, Gillani said that Choudhry would be restored to office “according to my government’s promise” on Mar. 21 when the incumbent Chief Justice Abdul Hameed Dogar, a Zardari appointee, is due to retire.

He confirmed the decision reported a day earlier, that his government would file a review petition in the Supreme Court against the disqualification from elected office of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader Nawaz Sharif and his younger brother Shahbaz Sharif.

A controversial court decision of Feb 25 that dislodged the younger Sharif from office of chief minister of Punjab, Pakistan’s most populous province had led to the Sharifs coming out with no holds barred against the man they saw as behind the judgement, President Zardari.

Many felt the disqualification judgement was timed to remove the Sharifs from power ahead of the ‘long march’. Several city mayors loyal to the PPP whom the Sharifs had removed from office were brought back to aid the federal government in its attempts to block the long march.

Police arrested hundreds of activists across the country and commandeered buses and containers to barricade roads and prevent the protestors from marching – except in Balochistan province where the provincial government remained neutral and allowed the marchers to demonstrate.

However, people defied police barricades and tear gas to converge in large numbers at key points like the Lahore High Court.

Matters climaxed as Nawaz Sharif defied a detention order confining him to his estate at Raiwind near Lahore, and headed a motorcade towards the city centre where hundreds of charged up activists had already converged.

As the momentum gathered the police in some places avoided confrontation and watched from the sidelines, making no attempt to stop the marchers. In other places, protestors armed with sticks attacked the buses blocking the roads, smashing windshields and denting carriages.

Television footage showed a policeman fleeing from a group of protestors only to be caught by others and beaten up even as some demonstrators tried to prevent the mob action.

“The public is taking their revenge,” commented one viewer in Peshawar, glued like many others to his television set since early morning.

Some activists occupied the grand old colonial building of the General Post Office in Lahore, on the roof of which they planted a Jamat-e-Islami flag next to the Pakistan flag. Some hurled red bricks at policemen, severely injuring some who had to be rushed to hospital.

The government had already drawn sharp criticism for holding Islamabad-based women’s rights activist Tahira Abdullah in preventive detention on the day the long march started.

At 4 am on Mar. 15, Peshawar police without search or arrest warrants raided the home of prominent lawyer Musarrat Hilali, who is also vice-chairperson of the respected Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP). As she tried to escape, she fell, fracturing her leg in three places.

“I did not want to be arrested,” Hilali told IPS from her bed in Peshawar. According to law, police cannot detain a woman between sunset and sunrise. Hilali said that the provincial Awami National Party (ANP) government had denied sending the police and that the orders had come from the federal level.

“After I fell and was injured, the police left, but they placed me under house arrest,” she said, recalling her ordeal.

Her house arrest is now over following Gillani’s speech, in which he announced that those arrested or placed under house arrest over the past few days would be immediately released. He also announced the lifting of prohibitory orders that barred public gatherings.

Gillani’s televised speech led to jubilation in city streets across Pakistan. Lawyers and activists danced to drum beats and distributed sweets as Sharif called off the long march.

However, some sound a word of caution.

Zahid Abdullah, programme manager, Transparency and Right to Information Programme, Centre for Peace and Development Initiatives, Pakistan suggests that Chaudhry now needs to ponder over “whether he should be joining the judiciary or remain a symbol of independent judiciary by working from the outside for a truly independent judiciary at its all levels.”

“He has won the moral victory through his tenacity and that of the lawyers. His personal restoration is not an end itself but a means to an end. If he joins the judiciary, he is likely to be bogged down by the practicalities and the compulsions of the judiciary as it stands today,” he wrote in an email circular.

“It would be better if he stays outside and helps political forces by exerting his pressure and influence to suggest and implement the modalities of putting in place independent judges in the courts and carrying out judicial reforms.”

Others are suspicious of the government’s move. Jamat-e-Islami chief Qazi Hussain Ahmed expressed doubts about the move, complaining of not having been taking into confidence about it. “Who knows what pressures were placed on the Chief Justice and what he has been made to agree to,” he told a television anchor.

“Duped again by Mr Zee,” text-messaged a Karachi-based lawyer caustically, referring to Zardari whom he had been hoping the crisis would dislodge.

However, advocate Asad Jamal in Lahore sees the restoration as a success of civil society that has struggled for this cause for the past two years. “It shows the resilience of democracy and the ability of the present rulers to submit to the people’s demand, even if belatedly,” he told IPS.

“I think it would be unfortunate if my fellow citizens, who like to be part of progressive civil society, do not give Zardari credit for this retreat, howsoever belatedly it may have come.”

(END/2009)

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