Traditional Neighborhoods - A Humane Environment?

A few days back, I called an ex-colleague of mine to touch base with her. Surprised to hear my voice after three-year gap, she inquired about my whereabouts and what am I up to these days.  I told her that I have returned to Pakistan and at present, I am living with my mother in our old house located in one of the oldest localities of Lahore. Upon hearing the name of the neighborhood where my house is situated, she said “wonderful, these are the places which still are more humane then the posh and newly built localities”.

I am quiet uncertain about the “more humane” character of the old neighborhood of Lahore; I am living in these days. Nevertheless, like any other Lahori residential locality situated in the oldest part of the city, the residents of my neighborhood also encounter numerous problems on day-to-day basis. Some of these problems are common to all old localities such as frequent power and gas outages, bad sewerage system, no solid waste management system, worsening law and order situation, lack of recreational facilities for children, eve-teasing and harassment, broken roads and streets etc whereas some of these problems are locality-specific.

The occurring frequency of these problems is so high that the populace of such localities including my own neighborhood is not left with no other way to deal with them other than ignoring such problems altogether. In doing so, they also forget that they should avoid becoming nuisance for their fellow neighbors. The same is the case with few of my neighbors, who at the moment are source of utmost annoyance for me and many other neighbors. The problem is that those neighboring houses seem very much found of Indian music. Now many readers of this blog would probably think how fondness for Indian music by my neighbors becomes an issue for me? 

Certainly, liking Indian songs or music is not a problem but playing those songs at full volume whenever one feels like listening is definitely a real problem. Just imagine the scenario that it is 12:30 am and you are fast asleep and suddenly you woke-up because of the silly noise of music entering your ears without any sort of hindrance, would not you feel like banging your head in the wall at that time? Also visualize in your mind that you have an old and ailing family member at home who is advised by the doctor for complete bed rest. But your old ailing family member finds it hard to sleep because your neighbors are entertaining themselves by listening loud music. Also think that your youngest of brother has an exam the next day but he is unable to prepare for his exam because of the loud music being played by your neighbor. What are you going to do in such circumstances?

To deal with the situation described above, my brother and myself discussed the issue with other neighbors and we decided to visit the houses of those neighbors who were fond of playing loud music at odd times, to request them if they could turn-down the volume relatively low while enjoying their favorite music because their loud music is disturbing other neighbors. However, to our surprise our effort to resolve the issue remained counter-productive. Our humble request has not yet been granted by those neighboring houses and they continue playing music at full volume and at odd times. I wonder if I should consider this behavior of my neighbors as “more humane” or as something depicting sheer “ignorance” or “lack of civic sense”. Perhaps, people living in old neighborhoods like mine would be “more humane” and more considerate of their neighbors some twenty years back or so but things have changed considerably today. 

Implications of Lower Dir's Blast

Like me and my colleagues, many people in Pakistan would have spent a major part of Wednesday in tweeting and retweeting Wednesday’s bomb blast in Lower Dir which killed “three US marines”,  four school children and a Pakistani soldier. The blast had also left at least 131 wounded including two US marines, two Pakistani reporters and dozens of school children. The news stirred a lot of confusion and initially, it appeared as a puzzle with some missing pieces because the identity of the people killed particularly of the US soldiers was not acknowledges from the very beginning. Firstly, it was reported that three US journalists were killed, later on it was speculated that three USAID workers had died and then the final confirmation of the death of three US marines came from Pakistani Military spokesperson Major Athar Abbas and the US Embassy’s press statement. The ambiguity regarding the identity of the US soldiers probably arise because one Pakistani journalist overheard a Pakistani military man as saying “foreign journalists have arrived” and hence the journalist assumed that the dead US personnel were foreign journalists and spread these words.

The confusion also prevailed regarding the type of attack. Earlier it was reported that the convoy was hit by a roadside bomb but later on, it was reported that it was a remote-controlled bomb. This confusion still prevailed till Thursday morning as Dawn has still reported it as a suicide attack whereas the BBC and The Wall Street Journal are reporting it as remote-controlled blast. This is not the first time the Pakistani media has spread news as “breaking news” without going into actual verification. Nevertheless, amidst all this utter confusion of who the dead people were and what sort of an attack was it, Taliban has already claimed responsibility of Wednesday’s blast in Lower Dir. Taliban have alleged that the killed US personnel were not soldiers but members of the controversial US military contracting agency ‘Blackwater”.  However, Halbroke has rejected Taliban’s claim calling it “Taliban’s Propaganda”.

The fact of the matter is that the news of Wednesday’s blast was really attention-grabbing because the death of the US soldiers has for the first time revealed the presence of the US marines in Pakistan. According to AP report, at least 60-100 US marines are present in Pakistan with a mission to train Pakistan’s ill-equipped “Frontier Corps”. However, there are few crucial questions which require further explanation. Firstly, why the US soldiers were introduced as “journalists” and why the identity of the killed US marines was kept so secretive by both the Pakistani government and the US Embassy? One possible reason for that as is reported in the Wall Street Journal is the widespread anit-american sentiments prevalent in Pakistan.   

Secondly, the question arises what the US marines had to do with the inauguration of a school located in one of the strongholds of Taliban? The statement issued by the US Embassy sates that the US soldiers were in Pakistan to conduct trainings at the request of the Frontier Corps. Nevertheless, the US soldiers would not be training Frontier Corps on building schools but probably on counter-insurgency techniques. Surely, there was no training of the embattled Frontier Corps organized at the school inaugural. The possibility that the US soldiers were partaking in managing the US development assistance in Pakistan can not be ruled out altogether. As it has already been reported by the NY Times that the “Americans’ involvement in training Frontier Corps recruits in development assistance was little known until Wednesday’s attack”.

Thirdly, the question arises whether “the militarization of the US aid” has also started in Pakistan and it has not made public yet in Pakistan? This militarization of aid has already happened in case of Haiti, Afghanistan, Iraq and Africa where the US soldiers are managing a large part of the US humanitarian assistance. Militarization of aid is partly due to the wider belief within the United States’ foreign assistance bureaucracy that the development workers can not perform well in insecure countries.  Consequently, USAID has also militarized and the Office of Military Affairs (OMA) has already been established at the USAID’s
Bureau of Democracy, Conflict and Humanitarian Assistance which is meant to act as a regular coordination platform between the USAID and the Department of Defence.

However, the news carries with itself obvious implications. Firstly, the humanitarian assistance work in Lower Dir which was initiated after halting of the military operation would come to a stand still. The poor households which were displaced and then repatriated as a result of the military operation would not receive any assistance at least for some time. Secondly, Taliban can also exploit the situation and can also recruit more people into their camp after their claim of the killed “US personnel” as “Blackwater representatives”. Thirdly, the anti-government forces have another weak point of the government in hand to exploit and use to heighten anti-government and anti-American sentiments among common Pakistani masses.

Assault of a Professor at the National University of Modern Languages

Across the world, Universities are a place where anything can be debated at length and professors are respected due to their scholarship and grasp of the subject matter. But is it the case with the Pakistani universities? On February 4, 2010 in Islamabad, the registrar of the National University of Modern Languages beat-up a university Professor Tahir Malik at a students’ reception ceremony organized by the International Relations Department of the university.

The registrar of the university is an ex-military serviceman who got maddened after hearing the criticism on General Musharaf’s role in power brokering deal with the PPP through the National Reconciliation Ordinance. The registrar also got enraged when Professor Tahir Malik questioned the registrar’s appointment which was made without any advertisement or following the prescribed selection criteria. The registrar is neither guilty of his act nor the university administration has taken any disciplinary action against him as yet other than calling for an inquiry of the incident.

According to “The News” this is not the first incident at NUML where a University professor has been assaulted because of criticizing army. At another such incident, Azaz Syed, a journalist teaching in the NUML’s Journalism Department, was sacked from his job because of criticized ISI’ chief. The News also reports that after these two incidents the tension between NUML’s civilian and military staff (retired army officers) has grown to a great extent.

Surely, NUML is one of the many military businesses or “MILBUS” in Pakistan and as Dr Ayesha Siddiqa Agha discusses in her book “Military Inc.”, the purpose of these MILIBUS like NUML is to ensure a very dominant social presence as well as gain political and economic control. Besides, the recent incident of assault of a professor by the NUML administrator also suggests that criticizing army can not be tolerated by any means if you are being employed by any of the MILIBUS. But then where goes the fundamental constitutional guarantee of “freedom of speech and expression”? Or probably freedom of speech and expression is only limited to books and it has not yet been accepted by the masses and institutions. Or probably we are not that democratic yet and therefore freedom of speech and expression has not become a norm here.

Update: The President of Pakistan who is also the Chancellor of the NUML has ordered an inquiry into the incident. More Details can be found here http://thenews.jang.com.pk/top_story_detail.asp?Id=27097

originally written for http://islamabad.metblogs.com

Superstitious Zardari

I read a hilarious news report in today’s Dawn. The news report pronounces President Zardari’s superstition and the adopted measures to protect Mr. President from ‘black magic’ and evil eyes’. According to the news report, the measure taken to protect our dear President from black magic is an everyday slaughter of a ‘black’ goat. Sure, currently, our President is confronting some harsh criticism from political parties particularly PML-N, nevertheless, I really wonder if Zardari is really taking this criticism as ‘black magic’? But this news item really shows how progressive Mr Zardai is. Holy cow, if we made rough calculations then probably at least 600 goats have already been slaughtered so far.


originally written for http://islamabad.metblogs.com

Harassment by the long arm of the law

Within approximately the last two weeks I have observed an over deployment of police on the major roads of Lahore, particularly on Mall Road. One major reason of this excessive showcasing of police in Lahore could possibly be the potential of suicide attacks in Lahore, growing security threats, and consequently the maintenance of the law and order situation in the provincial capital, especially when the President of Pakistan was visiting the city. Although it is only the policemen on-duty who can tell to what extent they were successful in fulfilling these tasks, I can narrate about at least two occasions when I was harassed and intimidated by the police of Lahore due to reasons, which can hardly be linked to security issues.

It is my everyday routine to get dropped by my office car on canal road-Mall Road junction. From there I walk on foot to Lawrence Garden. Even though this walk is always refreshing for me, the vulgar comments passed on me by the on-duty policemen there are an everyday annoyance. The hostile and insensitive attitude of the police towards women is a well-known fact.  However, what astonished me the most was, that even those public servants who are responsible for people’s safety and security seldom miss an opportunity of teasing a woman. In Punjabi this is also called ‘phoondi’.

Last weekend, while walking with a foreign friend of mine on Mall road, we were stopped by four policemen. They took my friend to a corner and interrogated him for quite a long time. When I was inquiring the purpose of this police interrogation, I got an ironic laughter and a ridiculous reply in Punjabi “Taun Bari Toup Cheze hai (What a big gun you are!) in return. Initially, I thought that the interrogation might be a routine check and probably the police is ordered to keep an eye on foreigners, particularly after the arrest of a group of US students in Sargodha.

However, later on I had to find out that my initial speculations about the main motivation of the police’s interrogation was completely wrong. My friend told me that the main emphasis was “my friend’s relationship with me”. One of those policemen went even so far as to say to my friend that the woman accompanying (which was myself) him would be pregnant. My friend’s response to that policeman was “You must be kidding. How could you dare to say that?” They also told him that it is ‘unlawful’ in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan to walk on roads with a non-married female friend and as a consequence both of us could be detained in jail according to Pakistani law. Upon hearing these details from my friend, I realized that these policemen only had the courage to say such things, because we were walking in the open street and were appearing to be an easy ‘target’ to show their ‘authority’. I am sure they would never have dared to interrogate a woman accompanying a foreigner in a big land cruiser; apprehensive of losing their jobs.

On both occasions, the behavior of the ‘men in uniform’ was shocking for me to a great extent. On the first occasion, the ‘men in uniform’ behaved like foolish teenagers amusing themselves with chatting up a passing-by woman for their personal ‘enjoyment’ therewith considering a passing-by woman as a mere ‘sexual object’. In the second incident the ‘men in uniform’ behaved like a ‘religious police’ who takes it as their moral obligation to intimidate people to ensure that ‘Islamic’ laws are being followed, at least by those who apparently do not possess any authority. After all, one thing which I can hardly comprehend is, why the police, rather than looking into very real security threats for the city, was wasting its time and therewith taxpayers’ money  with intimidating innocent couples on the street in order to stop them from hanging out together, because it is ‘unlawful’. I wonder under which Pakistani law walking together on the street becomes a crime and why the deliberate harassment of women is not considered as such; the same goes for ‘phoondi’. If we have not yet moved away from the Stone Ages, then why we are resisting the Taliban and their plan to impose ‘Islamic Sharia’ so hard at all?

Pakistan’s First Annual Blog Awards

Blogging is becoming a popular medium of expression in Pakistan. In recognition of this fact, Google Pakistan and OIC Pakistan in partnership with Dawn News are organizing Pakistan’s First Annual Blog Awards. The news about annual blog awards was announced in Lahore and Karachi Tweetups 2009 by Mr. Badar Khushnood, Pakistan Country Consultant Google Inc. At present, a website by the name Pakistan Blog Awards is functional where Pakistani bloggers can submit or nominate their blogs under any one of the listed categories. There are three broad categories namely general categories, topic area categories, and arts & letters categories. Each of these categories is further divided into at least nine or more sub-categories. Additionally, rules of game have also been articulated as ‘entry guidelines’. Till to-date, Pakistani bloggers have either nominated / submitted 120 blogs to the first annual blog awards. However, neither the closing date of the competition has been announced yet nor there is any information available regarding the date by which blogs/bloggers for each listed category will be selected and announced as winners. But still, the competition is on. So guys and gals, if you have an active blog and you want to compete then rush and nominate yourself for the blog awards here, here and here…

originally written for http://islamabad.metblogs.com

Whats is going on around us?

In today’s unprecedented times when the world’s attention is focused on Copenhagen’s Climate Change Conference and its outcome, we in Pakistan, whether in safe havens of our drawing-rooms or online social networks such as Facebook or Twitter, are discussing bomb blasts which took place on Monday in Peshawar, Quetta and Lahore; provincial capitals of NWFP, Balochistan and Punjab respectively.  Many more such blasts have already occurred during the last few months and many more are yet to come. Being exposed to the danger to the maximum we are left alone to deal with the biggest catastrophe of our times: Terrorism as the world calls it. Undoubtedly, Pakistani people are terrorized and paranoid by the an increase in the number of blasts taking place around them to such an extent that they have started fearing that the next blast will kill anyone of their dear family members or friends. Confirming with friends and relatives whether they are safe after every bomb blast is becoming a norm. And, why people should not be worried particularly when the Military’s Headquarter of the country, police stations, check posts, mosques, a university, the UN WFP office and various market places have been targeted for the past two and a half years killing more than 2,600 people.

Paranoid by the current security situation, a number of people are seriously considering the option of migrating abroad in order to provide their kids with a safe environment. “We have a particular life style in Pakistan. However, the present scenario in Pakistan has made our mobility very limited and the place has been transformed into a living hell. We are unable to provide our children a safe and healthy environment for their personal growth. Therefore, the best available option in given circumstances is of moving abroad “, said Faiqa who works as a school administrator in Islamabad.

Nevertheless, there are people who are of the opinion that the situation needs to be fixed because not everyone has the necessary resources in order to migrate to another country. Nevertheless, who is ready to deal with this monster of widespread terrorism? After every blast, we hear nothing from our President, Prime Minister and other elected leaders other than ‘condemnation’. The leadership of the country is busy in deciding the fate of other more “pressing” issues such as the National Reconciliation Ordinance because their fate is dependent on NRO. The woes and sufferings of the electorate have been ignored because politicians do not need people’s vote and there is still time left till next elections.

The prevailing security situation in the country has not only resulted in killing scores of people but even it has worsening impact on livelihood of people. ‘Laying off’ of staff is a common complaint in the private sector these days because the investor is not willing to invest in Pakistan. The country’s economy is sinking with ever passing day and we have seen an incredible devaluation of Pakistani currency that was not witnessed before.  This dismal sate of affairs has led many foreign policy experts calling Pakistan “as the most dangerous country in the world”. This week the Foreign policy Magazine in a recent survey has also enlisted Pakistan as an option to choose as answer to the question “What is the most dangerous country in the world? The global hegemonic America has decided to deal with this “most dangerous country” by authorizing an expansion of the C.I.A.’s drone program in Pakistan despite the fact that such strikes have also caused hundreds of civilian casualties. We cry, we die but there is nobody to pay a heed to our sufferings, We, The Living of this “most dangerous country” do not know what is going to happen to us and our friends and families in coming days .  But, do we matter ? The International Human Rights Day is approaching and I wonder if we are entitled to all those rights as enshrined in Universal Declaration of Human Rights and  do our rights really matter ?

originally written for http://islamabad.metblogs.com