By
New Age Islam Edit Bureau
By Huma Yusuf
• Dr Abdus Salam: Bigotry Continues
By Yasser Latif Hamdani
• The Military – Civilian Divide And “The
Mafia” Fights Back
By Syed Haider Raza Mehdi
• America’s Absence from the Global Scene
By Shahid Javed Burki
-----
Maulana Fazlur Rehman and His Myopic Approach
By Huma Yusuf
19 Oct 2020
Maulana
Fazlur Rehman
-----
THE sun of
democracy will rise soon. Maulana Fazlur Rehman made this poetic promise at the
Pakistan Democratic Movement’s first rally in Gujranwala last week. His
rhetoric, though lofty, is not yet sufficient to address the ambivalence of
liberal watchers of the PDM, whose stance is considerably more prosaic:
short-term pain for long-term gain.
The PDM is
hitting the right notes for those concerned about Pakistan’s drift toward
authoritarianism. Its 26-point charter touches on key issues such as the
transparency and sanctity of the electoral process, non-interference by the
military in politics, protection of the 18th Amendment and NFC award, and the
need for media freedom. Its leaders’ speeches last week touched on an
additional smorgasbord of public grievances: soaring food prices, persistent corruption,
lack of low-income housing, and even the administration’s poor response to
locust attacks.
But
conspicuous by its absence was the defence of women’s and minorities’ rights,
which are increasingly under threat. What hope can there be for a democratic
movement that does not prioritise representation for all?
Few expect
a movement led by Maulana Fazl to centralise women’s and minorities’ issues.
But those who believe in democracy are holding their nose and championing the
opposition alliance for daring to take on the establishment. They argue that
the maulana’s ability to mobilise the madressah constituency is essential for
the PDM to present a credible threat to the government and its backers,
particularly given how mainstream opposition parties have been successfully
weakened. The thinking is that it’s more important to claw back space for the
opposition and reinstate the democratic façade than fuss over its substance. We
have drifted so far off the democratic course, that merely to critique the involvement
of the military in politics is seen as triumph enough.
Where do
women and minority rights figure in the PDM agenda?
The
virulence of anti-minority rhetoric at recent rallies by religious and
religio-political groups highlights the short-sightedness of this approach.
Attempts by mainstream parties to deploy the maulana as he has previously been
deployed by the powers that be will pave the way for regressive religious
politics — the rightward shift in our political spectrum will be turbo-charged.
Concerns about resulting sectarian strife provoke the greatest amount of
discomfort with the PDM’s composition and current leadership, and scrutiny on
this point will likely lead the PDM to avoid such topics while it builds
momentum.
Maryam
Nawaz’s prominent position among PDM leaders means that the gendered aspect of
the PDM is less frequently addressed. But her presence at the podium is not a
sign of genuine female representation. She is there in her capacity as heir
apparent, her gender a tangent to the dynamics of dynastic politics in
Pakistan. Take Maryam out of the picture, and the PDM seems an attempt to pit
revolutionary religio-politics against militaristic nationalism, and there is
little room for women anywhere on this spectrum.
PDM
supporters will point to the presence of some women at the Gujranwala rally.
This is an improvement from last November, when the Maulana marched on
Islamabad, calling for azadi, but only after his party distributed pamphlets
directing women not to participate in the march. That march was also marred by
reports of women journalists being harassed and prevented from covering the
event.
The
involvement of women this time around is more optics than good politics. For it
was only in February that the maulana was exhorting his party followers to
block the Aurat March. He had also backed the Hasba bill, which called for
religious ombudsmen to police religious observance, and more recently
criticised the Protection of Women Against Violence Act.
The fact
that female enfranchisement is not a priority for the PDM was also revealed by
Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari’s misogynist barb against the prime minister’s wife.
This coming from the party leader with the strongest track record on women’s
rights bodes poorly for gender inclusion.
The fact
is, the PDM cannot raise the democratic flag without meaningfully defending
women’s and minorities’ rights. Pakistan last year ranked 151 out of 153
countries on the Global Gender Index Report, scoring poorly on women’s economic
participation, educational attainment, health and political empowerment — all
factors that a democratic movement cannot ignore. The PDM’s calls for economic
stabilisation also ring hollow without accompanying calls for gender equality,
given that parity would add more than $30bn (or 7.1 per cent of GDP) to the
economy.
If this
movement is to gain traction, it must add the defence of women’s and
minorities’ rights to its charter. It may not be able to implement this promise
immediately, as it fights more urgent battles, but it will provide reassurance
that the pro-democracy stance is not merely a political ploy.
----
Huma Yusuf is a freelance journalist.
https://www.dawn.com/news/1585854/myopic-approach
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Dr Abdus Salam: Bigotry Continues
By Yasser Latif
Hamdani
October 19,
2020
Dr
Abdus Salam
-----
Dr Abdus
Salam was possibly the greatest Pakistani since 1947. Not only was he one of
the greatest physicists in the world, hewas alsothe founder of SUPARCO and
PAEC. While he was much bigger than the idea of an atomic bomb, his contribution
to Pakistan’s nuclear program was certainly much greater than the metallurgist
who takes credit for the bomb. The metallurgist, Qadeer Khan, had about as much
contribution to the bomb as a painter does for a car after coming out of the
assembly line. Qadeer Khan, the self styled Mohsin-e-Pakistan, is no Mohsin of
Pakistan. Qadeer Khan is someone who sold nuclear secrets to other nations and
thereby put Pakistan’s deterrence policy under threat, bringing ignominy to our
nuclear program. Yet he is hailed as a hero while Dr. Salam is slandered by the
right wing.
Stories are
concocted against Dr. Salam by Khadim Rizvi types and transmitted to the
populace, attributed to Sahibzada Yaqub Khan but there is no evidence of the
Sahibzada ever having said anything like that during his life. It is a wild
story, which is so unbelievable that one wonders what kind of idiot believes
it. According to this hilarious tale, Sahibzada visited the CIA headquarters
and was shown the location of Pakistan’s Kahuta nuclear facility on a map. When
he was coming out, he saw Dr Abdus Salam coming out of another room and
laughing. First of all Dr. Salam’s association was withPAEC and not the
metallurgist’s Kahuta facility. Secondly one wonders how stupid CIA people have
to be to have Dr Salam in the next room and then have him come out at the
precise time that Pakistan’s foreign minister was coming out. I mean if you are
going to spin a yarn at least spin one that is believable.
The bigotry
against the Ahmadi community has blinded the people of Pakistan. Despite their
admirable role in Pakistan’s founding and their many contributions, they are
abused as being traitors to Pakistan
There is a
foul mouthed bigot from Chakwal and the head of the so called Youth State
Parliament of Pakistan who recently encouraged a group of stupid boys to go and
blacken the portrait of Dr. Salam in Gujranwala. In reality they only blackened
their faces because Pakistan needs Salam more than Salam needs Pakistan. It is
a matter of great honour that Pakistan produced a Physicist who could talk back
to Einstein and whose research in Electroweak Theory laid the foundations for
important work in Physics. He is also the father of Pakistan’s space program
and under his watch Pakistan became one of the first countries in Asia to
launch a satellite into orbit ahead of China and India. How many satellites has
Pakistan launched since then and what has our space program achieved is a
question that I leave to the reader.
The bigotry
against the Ahmadi community has blinded the people of Pakistan. Despite their
admirable role in Pakistan’s founding and their many contributions, they are
abused as being traitors to Pakistan. They were declared Non-Muslim through a
spurious amendment despite the fact that the founder of Pakistan, Mahomed Ali
Jinnah, considered them Muslims and relied on their support. Jinnah’s right
hand man, Zafarullah Khan, was an Ahmadi. Instead Iqbal, who had nothing to do
with Pakistan, is elevated to the status of ideological founding father of
Pakistan. This is because, unlike Jinnah, Iqbal was in favour of excluding
Ahmadis. This was borne out of personal animus after the Kashmir Committee
where he was supported by Majlis-e-Ahrar, a bigoted fascist party. Even Nehru
had come to the defence of Ahmadis though later he would prop Majlis-e-Ahrar
because of its antipathy to Jinnah. Jinnah was the only politician in the
subcontinent who had the courage to unequivocally state that Ahmadis were
Muslims if they professed to be Muslims; earning the undying hatred of
Majlis-e-Ahrar and other religious parties on the payroll of the Congress
Party. The man of principle that the founder of this country was, he refused to
back down from his position. In the early days of Pakistan, he could already
see the direction that the country was taken causing him to wonder if he had
done the right thing by founding the country. We still have time to redeem
ourselves but we would have to follow Jinnah’s vision, as expressed in the 11
August speech, to letter and spirit. This means we have to jettison the excess
baggage of Allama Iqbal’s thought and ideas.
Meanwhile
we have the likes of Dr Ishtiaq Ahmed, the scion of Majlis-e-Ahrar, writing
against Jinnah and the Ahmadis, misleading the country about the clear and
unequivocal vision that the founder of this country had. The country has ceased
to be Pakistan and has become Ahraristan where the enemies of the founding
father populate both the right and left. We must change Ahraristan back to
Pakistan if we are to survive as a nation state in the 21st Century.
----
Yasser Latif Hamdaniis an Advocate of the High
Courts of Pakistan
https://dailytimes.com.pk/679290/bigotry-continues/
----
The Military – Civilian Divide and “The Mafia”
Fights Back
By Syed Haider Raza
Mehdi
OCTOBER 19,
2020
First, a
bit of historical context! At partition, our civilian institutions couldn’t
develop as strongly as India’s because they inherited the entire institutional
infrastructure of pre partition India, whilst we inherited broken remnants. We
had to build everything afresh, except the military! A fundamental
differentiating factor.
Our
political leadership, came predominantly from the Western part, agrarian,
feudal, tribal, jagirdari. Most pre partition public service administrators
were Hindu (70%). The number was higher in East Pakistan.
Muslims
civil servants, predominantly Urdu speakers, came from UP and CP Provinces in
India and not from regions comprising then West Pakistan. Very few from these
regions joined the civil services, but dominated the military. These factors
were to greatly influence our subsequent politics.
The
Pakistan Army was the only institution which, like most professional armies
anywhere, had and has an inherent ability and training to quickly reorganize
from disparate parts into a whole, rapidly regaining its efficacy. Hence the
bits and pieces of those units that were to become the nucleus of our Army,
became a whole, homogenous entity very quickly, after partition.
And
civilian institutions, weak and nascent to begin with, were dealt the first
deathly blow by Ayub’s Martial Law. One can argue that had Ayub not taken over,
our civilian institutions would have been stronger. Perhaps! But seeing the
vast cultural difference between the military and the civilians it can be
deduced that had Ayub not taken over, another Army chief would have done the
deed sooner or later. This was quite on the cards since our first failed
military coup attempt known as the Rawalpindi conspiracy of 1951.
Despite all
its acts of commission and omission, the Army as an institution, has retained
its relatively meritocratic ethos and hence saved itself from becoming another
failed Pakistani institution
I say this,
because a seemingly efficient, disciplined institution, the Army, with strong
colonial and elitist ethos, was eyeing, in their minds, a squabbling pack of
incompetent, power hungry, corrupt politicians fighting to preserve their
status quo. This sentiment has dominated the thinking of our subsequent
military leaders, leading to the inevitable Martial Laws!
Thus from
1971 on we witnessed a series of civilian administrations, actively weakening
our civilian institutions to preserve their own power and influence, misgovern,
loot and plunder and avoid accountability! A system further strengthened by
Gen. Zia and Gen. Musharraf, who co-opted, by and large, the same corrupt
elements they had overthrown, in their attempt to prolong and legitimize their
take overs.
Post 1971,
our first big opportunity, for reform came under Bhutto who swept to power on a
wave of popular support, his demagoguery and a defeated nation. But he failed
because at heart he was a dictator & not a democrat, despite his democratic
trappings and pretensions. Very quickly, he dislodged the democrats and
socialists in his party, welcoming feudals and traditional corrupt politicians,
who as always, joined the rising sun, Military or Civilian!
And that is
why Martial Law or a quasi military dispensation will never work as it will
result in the same tragic outcomes as the previous attempts!
So what
now?
Our only
hope and future lies in a system that will break the stranglehold of this
strange combination of a status quo political mafia, and ensure strengthening
of civilian institutions and supremacy of civilian rule. This is the only path
to sustained and long term progress and development for Pakistan.
But till
that happens, the political mafia will try its best to recapture power, taking
us back again into the quicksand of corruption, misgovernance and exploitation,
making us even weaker. Their only fear, as we all know, stems from the Army
which has been a constant threat to their loot and plunder. This has been our
unfortunate and sad reality.
Having said
that, let’s also not forget that despite all its acts of commission and
omission, the Army as an institution, has retained its relatively meritocratic
ethos and hence saved itself from becoming another failed Pakistani
institution.
Imagine a
Pakistan Army where Generals, Brigadiers, Lt. Cols, Majors etc were promoted,
posted and transferred with the same impunity, as we witnessed in the police
and bureaucracy, where IG’s, DIG’S, SSP’S, SP’S, SHO’s and bureaucrats were
tossed about on the whims of an Asif Zardari, a Nawaz Sharif or a Shahbaz
Sharif. And sadly we see this continue, even today under the present
administration, especially in Punjab.
But with
one major caveat and difference!
Compromised
as PM Imran is with traditional politicians within his own party and coalition
partners and inexperience, the lack of genuine options is the other much bigger
factor. The quality of people, by and large, in all our destroyed and
devastated public sector institutions, is abysmally poor, corrupt and incompetent,
which greatly limits the choices of an administration or a leader like Imran,
in seeking good people!
One can
however argue, that much more could have been done by the current PTI
administration in initiating significant police and bureaucratic reform then
we’ve seen in these two years.
Developing
and reforming civilian institutions weakened and destroyed by decades of
misrule and misgovernance, is our biggest challenge and a massive undertaking!
While
smaller tactical and operational interventions may have some positive impact,
till we do not reform and restructure our entire electoral and governance
system from scratch allowing people of integrity and competence to reach
powerful policy making roles, the change and reform, we need and require, will not
happen. We cannot find new solutions with the same minds who are the source of
our problems!
Today,
Nawaz Sharif and Zardari with supposedly diametrically opposing political
platforms, have joined forces with the ultra right wing obscurantist forces of
FazlurRehman and the supposedly secular nationalists like Asfandyar and
Achakzai to form a strange new “Urban- Feudal – Religious – Secular” front to
recapture political power.
Their
objective. To dislodge an administration, which despite all its weaknesses and
inexperience, is a major departure from the rampant loot and plunder of the
past and their biggest obstacle to regaining political power. In that effort
they also want to bring into disrepute the Army, the other barrier in their
attempts to regain power.
They hope
to do this by creating civil unrest, widespread violence and strangely enough,
even hoping to invite extra constitutional interventions, hoping to co-opt the
Army, as they did in the past.
In their
desperate attempt, under the pretext of “saving democracy” they are targeting
both PM Imran and the Army, today our strongest force in keeping our enemies at
bay and helping dysfunctional civilian institutions in performing their roles.
This is
playing with fire, putting at stake the very existence of our country and
playing directly into the hands of our enemies, by targeting the military,
dividing people’s loyalties, our national unity and cohesion.
The recent
price hike smells of a major conspiracy as well! The sudden increase in terror
attacks signals how our enemies are taking advantage of this madness
orchestrated by the PDM
It is
extremely critical at this juncture for the people of Pakistan to not fall prey
to the machinations of this political mafia in creating discord and confusion.
It is the people who must not be misled and come out and play their role in
ensuring that these corrupt elements do not succeed, and we are able to create
sufficient time and space for a cleaner, more effective political system to
take root. The People MUST stand and be counted or continue to be exploited and
whipped!
So where
does this leave us?
Our current
governance model has completely failed in delivering good governance. The 1973
Constitution is practically dead, except for the lip service we pay to it.
Today,
Pakistan needs a completely new political and social contract which provides
for:
1) A new
governance model and a new Constitution.
2) More
provinces.
3)
Empowered local government.
4) Complete
revamp of our electoral laws to bring in elements like proportional
representation, majority win and not first past the post.
5) A
complete restructuring of our police, bureaucracy and judiciary.
6) Perhaps
even a Presidential system.
This
transformation cannot happen under the current system and requires a recourse
to the people through a public referendum. There is no other way to dislodge
and remove the corrupt and the powerful from our political process. The stale
argument of repeated elections under the same rules will not work but only
bring the same corrupt lot back in and compromise the ability of people like PM
Imran or others, to initiate major reform. We cannot expect change using the
same people who caused our devastation!
Pakistan
has a great future under stable, honest, capable, democratic civilian
leadership. But this will never happen under the corrupt political mafia status
quo, represented by the likes of Nawaz Sharif, Zardari, FazlurRehman,
Asfandyar, Achakzai and embarrassingly by biological consequences like
BilawalZardari or Maryam Safdar. Nor under military rule!
We must
uproot the current system and rebuild! There is no other choice! A recourse to
the people, via a referendum is our only choice!
Or, as I
always say, its back to the stench and vomit of the Sharifs, Bhuttos, Zardari,
FazlurRehmanetc and what they stand for!
Or Military
rule.
Both with
inevitable tragic consequences!
----
Haider Mehdi is a Geo political commentator /
blogger on National and International affairs. Formerly a media anchor,
corporate leader, management consultant, start up entrepreneur and military
officer.
https://dailytimes.com.pk/679287/the-military-civilian-divide-and-the-mafia-fights-back/
-----
America’s Absence from the Global Scene
By Shahid Javed Burki
October 18,
2020
Some of
what we are witnessing right now on the global scene need not have happened.
Strong post-war leadership had crafted a rule-based system that all nations,
big and small, strong and weak accepted. In this global order, America was the
leader but not the ruler. It allowed countries to participate even when its own
strategic interests were not directly or fully served. For instance, it allowed
the United Nations Security Council to block moves Washington wished to make.
The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the field widely open to the
United States. Even then American leadership showed restraint.
Those who
held the reins of power in Washington had correctly concluded that accepting
the rights and strategic interests of other nations would not weaken it; it
would only make it stronger. At times collective action was the most effective
way of addressing some problems that had a global reach. But this was disturbed
with the coming to power in Washington of Donald J Trump as America’s 45th
president. His ambition he said in his inaugural address delivered on January
20, 2017, was to “make America great again.” MAGA became the slogan that
Trump’s ardent followers had inscribed on their red hats. Along with MAGA,
Trump said he would pursue the “America first” approach in crafting the way he
preferred to deal with the outside world. This left the world to its devices.
David
Ignatius, a highly respected columnist who writes for The Washington Post and
speacialises in the Middle East, recently provided a list of events most of
which were occurring in the geographic space from which Trump’s Washington was
largely absent. “A bloody war erupts between Armenia and Azerbaijan, and both
sides look to Russia for a solution,” he wrote in a column published on October
7 under the title: “A Distracted US only Enables our Rivals”. His list included
the rise of militias, most of them funded by Iran, that were active in Iraq,
Syria and Lebanon. Given the space the militias had created for themselves,
Ignatius was surprised that the US response was to prepare to close down the
embassy in Baghdad for protecting its own people from harm.
The Middle
East was not the only place that left space to be occupied by other nations.
China drew red lines to assert dominance over Taiwan and several islands in
East Pacific. US military experts privately conceded that Chinese power in the
area outmatched that of the US. In a tweet — the form of communication the
American President often used to announce major policy initiatives or personnel
changes — surprised his military commanders by announcing that he was planning
to bring back the 4,500 American troops who remained in Afghanistan. They would
be home to celebrate the 2020 Christmas with their families. If this space was
vacated there was no doubt that it would be filled by extremist groups, in
particular the Taliban.
These were
not the only developments that cried for active American involvement. A
pandemic that at the time of this writing had taken more than a million lives
across the world, 215,000 in the US alone, called for an international
approach. Instead Trump withdrew from the World Health Organization and spurned
international cooperation on developing a vaccine. Continued Ignatius: “He
promoted ‘America First’ with a vengeance.” The move against the WHO was
ill-conceived and ill-timed. It reflected politics rather than science. An
organisation such as the WHO was needed to monitor and determine public policy
priorities as the pandemic showed no signs of abating.
An
international organisation was needed not only to guide the world to adopt the
most effective approaches of dealing with an exceptionally lethal virus but
also of using science to develop medical initiatives that would contain its
impact. There were 36 million cases around the world in the middle of October
and the nature of its geographic spread was changing. In fact, focusing on the
geography of the disease suggested that we were looking at two very different
ailments, one urban and the other rural. India now with 6.8 million cases
compared to 7.6 million in the US was expected to overtake the latter in a few
weeks.
With 30,000
cases reported each day, India outpaced the US by a wide margin. At 1,000 a
day, the death rate was also tickling up. Rural areas were not well-positioned
to cope with the spreading disease. About two-thirds of all hospital beds were
in urban areas that have one-third of the country’s population. Not only was
there a marked difference in the availability of medical facilities. There was
a vast difference in urban and rural cultures. Fearing government intervention
that would hurt them economically, rural Indians were hiding their sick and not
revealing the number of people they have lost to the disease. Bhramar
Mukherjee, an epidemiologist of Indian origin at the University of Michigan,
attributed the spread of the virus in India to “habituation, desensitisation,
fatigue and denial.” Families in what was once her country “are living in fear,
grief, sadness, depression, anxiety and food insecurity, delaying their care
from other health conditions.”
In writing
Rage, his second book in three years on the Trump presidency, Bob Woodard
talked to Trump 17 times and recorded the conversations with the President. The
book revealed that the President was fully aware of the intensity of the
Covid-19 pandemic and how it was likely to take a heavy toll on the US. But the
message that went out from the White House was very different: that the
pandemic was not a big deal. The Woodward book appeared a few days before
President Trump landed in a military hospital in Washington having picked up
the coronavirus.
The
Covid-19 pandemic was not the only crisis the world faced that required
international action. The other was the availability of adequate amounts of
food needed in several troubled world spots. That food-shortages would not
result in famines was the primary function of the World Food Program, the WFP,
whose financial situation was under stress as a result of the Trump
administration’s decision not to fund it to the needed extent. It was ironical
that the WFP was created at the suggestion of US president Dwight D Eisenhower
in 1961. On October 9, 2020, the organisation was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize
for the year. This prize had been coveted by President Trump. He thought he
deserved it because of the work he had done in the Middle East that had
resulted in peace agreements between Israel and the Arab states of Bahrain and
the United Arab Emirates.
“The world
is in danger of experiencing a hunger crisis of inconceivable proportions if
the WFP and other food assistance organisations do not receive the financial
support they have requested,” the Nobel committee said in selecting the WFP for
the reward. “The women and men of the WFP. brave danger and distance to deliver
lifesaving sustenance to those devastated by conflict, suffering because of
disaster, to children and families uncertain about their next meal,” said
Antonio Guterres, the UN Secretary-General after learning of the award. The US
presidential election might bring Joe Biden to the White House. In that case,
the US would return to the world.
https://tribune.com.pk/story/2268933/americas-absence-from-the-global-scene
----
URL: https://newageislam.com/pakistan-press/pakistan-press-maulana-fazlur-rehman,/d/123189
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