Here is an email from a fellow desi who is now based in London. Very Brave Man!. One of his articles is attached at the bottom of the email. And the grand mandarins in the Court of St. James will simply shrug and think of this as business as usual. These things happen all the time, no? What happened to the moral foreign policy that we were supposed to follow, you blithering idiots?
Read his email and weep.
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From:Ghani Jafar
Sent: Tuesday, October 16, 2007 3:27 AM
Subject: My update
Dear all,
I am resorting to the not so polite a manner of sending out this joint message to you all since addressing it individually would have been quite time-consuming. Please accept my apologies for that.
The present is meant to be an update on what has transpired in my personal as also professional life over the past month or so.
Rather, the countdown should perhaps start nearly six months ago. As most of you may know, I had since early 2000 rejoined the Institute of Regional Studies, Islamabad, as a research analyst after remaining in the wilderness for nearly a year subsequent to my summary dismissal from the job there. As now, the place even then was headed by a retired Pakistan Army general. My crime? The same as now: writings in the print media that the then government of Mian Nawaz Sharif, particularly his close adviser of the time, Mr Mushahid Hussain Syed, did not quite approve of.
Now, fast-forward to April 2007. I had ever since getting back to the IRS seven years earlier tried to avoid writing in the media on Pakistan's internal affairs; but could no longer suppress the urge to put some of my thought to paper as things started getting hot politically in the homeland once again. The particular incident that had provoked me was the storming of Geo offices in Islamabad by the police and the time-tested administrative ploy of hushing up the whole affair.
My article on the subject appeared in "The News" on April 10 ('Déjà vu, but vicariously'). Although I had been careful in narrating my own experience of 1992 in the third person, the message was not lost to 'them'. The feedback was both encouraging and, understandably, otherwise.
My next piece ('Battlelines') was carried by "The News" in its edition of July 23. That was written in the aftermath of the Lal Masjid showdown. The feedback was again mixed – but stronger at both ends.
Then came 'Hijacking of Pakistan' in "The News" on August 21. The scales went further up both ways a few notches. Finally, what blew 'their' top was the one that appeared in the same daily on Saturday, September 22: 'Reclaiming Pakistan'. Some of my close friends were quick in expressing their surprise that I was still well and alive! But, 'they', too, were not late in responding. The same evening, somebody dropped an undated official notice of vacation of the premises I was living in "within 24 hours failing which action… to take over the possession by force will be taken".
The notice was addressed to Mr S. Iqbal Hussain, a senior official in the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, who is married to my elder sister, Sajida, currently serving as Minister (Press), Pakistan High Commission, Dhaka.
When they and their son were leaving for her to take up the position in Bangladesh more then three years ago, I was requested by them to move over from my rented house in Islamabad to the said premises allotted officially to my brother-in-law who had opted to take leave from his job for the family to be together in Dhaka. The idea was for me to take good care of their place and belongings in their absence. I agreed.
Now comes this notice; alarm bells are sounded here, there and everywhere. 'They' had timed it well, as they usually do. I could not even get a court stay order over the weekend.
At any rate, the Secretary, Housing and Works, Mr Rauf Chaudhry, agreed to intervene to stop the process on Monday morning (September 24). He met me promptly at his office early in the day and reassured me that he would have the 'forced action' delayed by a week during which period Mr S. Iqbal Hussain must report back for duty to his Ministry. Armed with that guarantee, I had barely reached back my office with the intention of conveying the good news to my family members in Dhaka, when my mobile telephone rang. The number was that of my residence. "We are terrorists," said a serious male voice. I, too, had had enough; and told him to do with himself whatever he liked. "Alright, then vacate the house," came the cool reply before he hung up.
I rush home to see the place littered with police, armed ones included; and the labourers they had brought along were throwing each and every thing in the house out in the open.
Alarm bells again, but to no avail. The Secretary Housing or any of the high-ups in the Islamabad Administration continued to make themselves unavailable to some of the most senior and respected names in the federal bureaucracy till late in the evening.
I will leave the details of the trauma to your imagination.
There is a God above: even as I was still trying to put my life together yet again, there showed this light at the end of the tunnel. As I checked my e-mail account late in the evening on October 2 – a week after being thrown out of the house – there was this message from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, stating "We are very pleased to offer you a place to study at SOAS." No; bless you, SOAS, the pleasure is entirely mine!
True, I had applied for admission there, but had despaired of that as the classes for the 2007-2008 academic year had already started. No worries there, either. The message went on to state that I still had time to enrol.
As luck would have it, I still had a valid visit visa to UK. If I were to go for a student visa, the processing time would have denied me the opportunity to join the course. So, I decided to travel on my visit visa, get enrolled, and then fly back home during the winter break to get the student visa.
I was pretty certain of getting a year's study leave from IRS together with my dues by way of earned leave and gratuity for the seven-year-plus period I had put in there. After all, one of the reference letters for admission was from none other than the President, IRS, Maj. Gen. (retired) Jamshed Ayaz Khan. My getting admission at the prestigious SOAS would be a matter of honour for the IRS and its head as well.
No, I must quit the job if I wanted my lawfully earned money, I was told. I did exactly that; it's a different matter though that what I did get at the end was a good hundred thousand rupees less than the amount the office accountant had worked out for me on the quiet before I had resigned.
Meanwhile, I had already booked myself the first available flight to London that brought me here on October 7.
I went to SOAS last week with the request for a deferral of my admission to the next semester starting January next year as I realised after reaching here that starting my studies on a visit visa would not entitle me to even campus jobs. So, I thought it best to brave my dear homeland to get the student visa and only then get started with the SOAS course. But, they could only defer me to the next academic year starting September 2008; and that is what I have done.
I have rented out a cosy little studio apartment in a quiet West London neighbourhood from where I write these lines to you.
Boundless are His Blessings. I am pleased to report that only this afternoon I got the glad tidings that He had bestowed yet another Mercy upon me: One of my three daughters had given birth to her second daughter in a London hospital. I have been with them to plant a kiss on the cheeks of the mother and her angel of a daughter; both of them in perfect health. I intend to continue working as a freelance journalist and researcher.
All of you are free to use the above information as you may like – spread it round on the internet, publish it or, should you feel like it, help me connect to opportunities in journalism (both print and electronic) and research to make the going easier on me. I can be reached at the e-mail address I am now using.
Ghani Jafar October 15, 2007.
London
1
Reclaiming Pakistan
By Ghani Jafar
9/22/2007
It was heartening to learn from a news report early last week that somebody had at long last mustered the courage of moving the Supreme Court for setting right a few of the distortions in the basic scheme of democracy inherent to the 1973 Constitution. The petitioner, Joseph M Francis, chairperson of the Pakistan Christian National Party, has challenged a number of constitutional provisions in this regard.
While nothing can at this stage be obviously stated about the outcome of his groundbreaking initiative, it has come as a breath of fresh air in a political atmosphere polluted heavily by the wild scramble for power by individuals seemingly incapable of seeing beyond their self-centred noses.
The petitioner has based his plea on the contention that the articles of the Constitution challenged by him violate his equality as a citizen, specifically with regard to his right to contest elections to the office of president. To that extent, therefore, the scope of the issues raised by him for adjudication by the Supreme Court is rather limited, even in terms of our history of legislation for so-called Islamisation of Pakistan's state and society.
Noble as the attempt may be, mere patchwork on our constitutional framework would simply not suffice. What needs to be done, instead, is for a workable new social contract to be enacted that, first and foremost, restores Jinnah's liberal, democratic, secular Pakistan where citizens are equal.
What is being proposed here is the formation of a constituent assembly to frame and adopt the basic law that not only incorporates the above principles but also brings the federal structure in line with the aspirations of the smaller units vis-à-vis provincial autonomy.
The scheme of the 1973 Constitution on the latter count, even though not infringed upon to the disadvantage of the constituent units in the past 34 years, has proved not to be tenable any more.
"Islamisation," on the other hand, has been given a major boosts not only during General Zia's dictatorial era but also by Nawaz Sharif's elected government in 1991. We were mercifully saved from the latter's attempt to establish a totalitarian caliphate of sorts through the abortive 15th Constitutional Amendment in 1998.
Starting with Liaquat Ali Khan right down to Nawaz Sharif, Ayub excepted, each and every ruler of Pakistan has not left the seat of power without adding some more weight to the burden of inequity on the corpus of law in the name of "enforcing" Islam.
Jinnah declared in his celebrated August 11, 1947, address, "You may belong to any religion or caste or creed, that has nothing to do with the business of the state." Within six months of his death, Liaquat Ali Khan set out as the objective of Pakistan the establishment of a polity in which the religious minorities were to be relegated to the status of second-class citizens. At one stroke, democracy had been dealt a fatal blow.
The "Objectives Resolution" moved in the Constituent Assembly by the first prime minister on March 7, 1949, and adopted after a five-day debate, took away sovereignty from the people. "Whereas sovereignty over the entire universe belongs to Allah Almighty alone . . ." read the opening of the document. That may very well be understood in the metaphysical sense, and in conformity with the Islamic belief system, at that, but how in heaven's name are the poor mortals on earth to determine His Will in worldly affairs?
Therein lay the catch. His Commands have most exhaustively been laid down in the Holy Quran and the Sunnah, but their "correct" understanding and interpretation is the exclusive preserve of the few "learned" among the mass of ordinary Muslims.
Republicanism was totally alien to this scheme of things. Democracy had been given a new definition in the "Islamic Republic of Pakistan" now envisioned for the state: government of the mullah, by the mullah, for the mullah. Even as the Muslim population of the country had been denied their inalienable right to rule over themselves, the fate of the religious minorities was to be even worse.
Society had come to be divided into three classes: the privileged lot of the mullah was to be first-class citizens, ordinary Muslims second-class citizens, and non-Muslims third-class citizens. It was on the same basis that Pakistan was declared an "Islamic Republic" through the coming into force of the first Constitution in 1956.
In came General Ayub through a martial law two years later, and abrogated the Constitution. While further restricting the democratic rights of the people, the Constitution he enforced in 1962 took away the "Islamic" infringement in the earlier document. Pakistan, henceforth, was to be a "Republic," plain and simple -- but on his terms of severely limited franchise through the mechanism of "basic democracy" contrived by him.
The eastern wing of the country broke away to form Bangladesh in 1971. The new constituent assembly for Pakistan that had been elected in 1970 now met on April 14, 1972, comprising 144 of those elected from West Pakistan alone (together with two who came from what had been East Pakistan). Bhutto had majority support in this assembly of what had remained of Pakistan. Efforts started anew to draft a constitution.
Realising that their only value was that of nuisance, the mullahs were now clamouring for even more "Islamisation" than that in the 1956 Constitution; and Bhutto was only too glad to oblige. Pakistan not only became an "Islamic Republic" once again in 1973, but also one in which not just the ceremonial office of the president but also that of the all-powerful prime minister were reserved for Muslims alone.
Through the "Constitution (Second Amendment) Act" the very next year, Ahmadis were declared non-Muslims. The legislature of the "Islamic Republic" thus came to arrogate to itself the celestial role of judging matters of faith as well.
That proved to be the beginning of sectarian warfare for power in Pakistan. Which of the sect within the main body of Muslims should be the next target for disenfranchisement? We had come to relive history, not in the earlier context of the Hindu-Muslim divide, but in the unending framework of intra-Muslim violence.
The details of further "Islamisation" in the post-Bhutto years of the Zia era and then during Nawaz Shairf's days in power are too numerous to be recounted here.
If the terrorists of today are out to kill all those -- women and children included -- who do not subscribe to their skewed understanding of Islam, we are nothing but reaping the blood-soaked harvest of hatred and intolerance sowed, and so very carefully tended to, over the past half century.
No, any further tinkering with the Constitution would just not do. We have got to structure our polity on the firm principle that religion is a matter totally private to the citizen. The state has no business with that, whatsoever.
Let the parties go into an election to create a constituent assembly with clear-cut positions on that core issue, together with all other contentious matters related to the federal scheme as well as to the form of government.
The writer is a senior journalist working at present as a research analyst at the Institute of Regional Studies, Islamabad. Email: ghanijafar@yahoo.co.uk
All this to be taken with a grain of piquant salt!!!
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