Regardless of one’s persuasion when faced with catastrophes and personal suffering the question ‘why’ always comes up. And with all that Pakistan has been through in variegated forms from terrorism to economic collapse and now the floods, for Pakistanis it is not a simple question but a chorus of agony.
On a mundane and scientific level it appears that global warming is to blame. About 14 million people have been affected by the floods making it more disastrous than the South East Asian tsunami and the Haitian earthquake combined. According to scientists ‘a supercharged jet-stream’ is responsible for the floods and landslides in Pakistan and China and an extreme heat wave in Russia and one that killed 60 people in Japan in July.
Meteorologists are unsure of the root cause but seem to favor that rising greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere will drive up the number of extreme heat events. This same effect and the ‘supercharged jet stream’ are blamed for the floods in the UK in 2007 and the heat wave then in Eastern Europe.
Antiquated irrigation systems and the lack of repair of irrigation leaks have compounded the situation in Pakistan. And the deforestation mafia created the final straw causing rivers to barrel down in mammoth fury.
The count now is over 1600 dead and 20 million affected but what of entire villages that have been swallowed by the waters? As weeks go on and the floodwaters recede the actual devastation will become apparent and the fact that a struggling nation has been pulled back another fifty years from current civilization is likely to emerge. And now killer diseases like cholera can claim more lives.
After the 7.0 Richter scale earthquake in Haiti in January evangelical priest Pat Robertson claimed that the earthquake had hit Haiti as it had “made a pact with the devil” referring to voodoo rituals carried out before a slave rebellion against the French colonists in 1791. After Hurricane Katrina in 2006 John Hagee another evangelical pastor said "I believe that New Orleans had a level of sin that was offensive to God, and they were recipients of the judgment of God for that. There was to be a homosexual parade there on the Monday that Hurricane Katrina came”. However in 2008, Hagee backed away from his comments regarding Hurricane Katrina by saying, "But ultimately neither I nor any other person can know the mind of God concerning Hurricane Katrina. I should not have suggested otherwise”.
But we love to second guess God, don’t we? Explaining the current floods crisis the ultra-right claims God’s wrath for the Lal Masjid fiasco and the pact with the Great Satan aka America. And the mystics say they knew His fury was not far when Data Ganj Baksh’s shrine was attacked.
If only His will were that simple and events so elementary to dissect. If the Lal Masjid fiasco is to be blamed, why does its primary perpetrator Pervez Musharraf sit in luxurious dry land in England?
Hadith Qudsi 25 states: “Whosoever shows enmity to someone devoted to Me, I shall be at war with him. When I love him I am his hearing with which he hears, his seeing with which he sees, his hand with which he strikes and his foot with which he walks. Were he to ask [something] of Me, I would surely give it to him, and were he to ask Me for refuge, I would surely grant him it”. This is widely taken to describe the auliya-Allah or the friends of God of whom Data Ganj Baksh was one. And yet the thinking mind wonders why God would decimate thousands of innocents for the disrespect of one?
While the Bible and the Quran are graphic about God’s wrath and ascribe a reason each time, it is important to grasp the concept of Divine retribution, or sin and result, but not to play God and float theories regarding our terrible state.
Several verses in the Quran speak of God’s retribution against the defiance of the people of Prophets Lut, Nuh, Shuaib, Hud and Moses. Chapter Ankabut (29:40) encapsulates the other verses well: “Each one of them(wicked people) We seized for his crime: of them, against some We sent a violent tornado (with showers of stones); some were caught by a (mighty) Blast; some We caused the earth to swallow up; and some We drowned (in the waters): It was not Allah Who injured (or oppressed) them: They injured (and oppressed) their own souls.”
Like my friend Saeed Akhtar Malik wrote “our day of reckoning has come, it seems”. Something has gone awfully wrong with all things Pakistani: corruption, moral and monetary, is part of our social fabric. Even if we wanted to it seems we could not escape it. The disconnected power-elite wallow in it, the middle class and the poor indulge to make ends meet. Killing has no worldly or moral consequence it seems. Our moral compass was teetering, seems absent now. For all our claims to religiosity, there is widespread use of black magic for quick attainment of relevant desires. Black magic is akin to the unforgivable sin of shirk or associating an entity with God. Forget taxes to the State one wonders how many in the Islamic Republic practice the fourth pillar of Zakat. If the obscenely wealthy gave 2 ½ % of their assets to charity in Pakistan we would not be dirt poor.
The stark incompetence of the government at the time of its people’s greatest need, spending its time doing damage control over its leader’s foreign trips and shoe adventures is a travesty but another chapter in many similar ones. Extremist organizations are filling the void in the hardest hit areas promising to generate greater militancy in the future.
Our focus needs to be reformation at the personal, community and then national levels. It is very Pakistani to generate fire and brimstone explanations of natural disasters and also to theorize about the future. The Internet is replete with predictions of an army takeover or an Islamic revolution.
We would be better served if we went through an exhaustive personal moral inventory and contribution of any kind to the humanitarian disaster. If ever there was a wake-up call this is it. Pakistan already is in a state of anarchy. If we don’t galvanize quickly it is threatened with extinction.
Tail-piece: As events unfold one can’t help but think that the one thing that the populace can be incriminated for is electing a government that has institutionalized corruption. And it is entirely weird that the greatest ravages are in Sind, the stronghold of the PPP. The flood victims are hungry and homeless awaiting government help-the leader of which entertained himself and his coterie with an expensive European trip-all while his government is missing in action.
Mahjabeen Islam is a columnist, family physician and addictionist. She can be reached at mahjabeen.islam@gmail.com
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Sunday, August 8, 2010
Death and taxes
A common Americanism attributed to Benjamin Franklin goes “In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes”. In Pakistan the only certainty these days is death. Everywhere you turn: the crash in Margalla Hills, the worst floods in a generation, endless terrorism and resurgent target-killings. But taxes are an alien concept in Pakistan
In a shaming July article the New York Times states “Out of more than 170 million Pakistanis, fewer than 2 percent pay income tax, making Pakistan’s revenue from taxes among the lowest in the world, a notch below Sierra Leone’s as a ratio of tax to gross domestic product.” A December study by the Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development and Transparency reveals that the average net worth of a Pakistani parliamentarian is $900,000 with its richest topping $37million. The article quotes Zafarul Majeed a senior official of the Federal Board of Revenue as stating that Pakistan’s income from taxes last year was the lowest in the country’s history. And this in face of the PILDAT study which revealed that Pakistani Parliamentarians’ assets doubled in the last year.
To complete our humiliation, the article states: “The country’s top opposition leader Nawaz Sharif reported that he paid no personal income tax for three years ending in 2007 in public documents he filed with Pakistan’s election commission. A spokesman for Mr. Sharif, an industrialist who is widely believed to be a millionaire, said he had been in exile and had turned over positions in his companies to relatives. A month of requests for similar documents for Pakistan’s president and prime minister went unanswered by the commission; representatives for the men said they did not have the figures”
There is a reason for taxes being equated with the certainty of death in the West; they bleed you. And yet how else would health care, education, public transport, roads and railways be financed? The industrialization of Japan, Europe, Canada and the United States testifies to the steep and certain taxes imposed on their respective populace.
And in the injustice that is now so Pakistani, sales tax is imposed and breaks the back of the desperate driver who makes $123 per month while it’s a breeze for the Parliamentarian who makes $1400 per month. God forbid that the Parliamentarian should pay income tax on his millions. Feudals are so powerful and plentiful in Parliament that no federal tax on agriculture has been established.
Would eat into that income too, now wouldn’t it?
British Prime Minister David Cameron insulted Pakistan during a visit to India saying “Britain cannot tolerate in any sense the idea that Pakistan is allowed to look both ways and is able, in any way, to promote the export of terror”. Around this time the Airblue jet crashed in the Margalla Hills numbing an already worn people. Plans are already set for a Presidential jaunt to France and England. Pakistan’s security officials cancel a visit to England in protest of Cameron’s statement but Presidential plans are still on. And then all dams break loose and the worst flood in a generation claims 1400 lives, affects 3.4 million and erases 70% livestock.
One’s mouth hangs open watching footage of houses swallowed by the turbulent waters as though they were made of cards. You rewind and play thinking that it must be a simulation and forget to move because it is not.
It is a terrible day at work for those images keep coming back and block other brain activity. And somehow the day ends and I struggle back only to be hit hard with more devastation and the worst insult to Pakistan’s injury: Zardari’s trip to France and England on public expense. Now I feel like I have PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder, I am not kidding. PPP diehards in England wail protests joining the national chorus of condemnation. But the French chateaus beckon.
Despite the noise of the naysayers, the President proceeds. But why the entourage of an entire plane load? The entire ninth floor of the Hyatt Regency, The Churchill a swanky 5-star hotel in London is booked. Tab-£7000 a suite. Dozens of Rolls Royces and Bentleys wait to entertain the entourage, not to forget the special chef and food.
Now I just don’t have PTSD, I feel like the girl in Exorcist: my whole head is turning around and green yuk wants to spew forth.
And when the bill is paid from the taxes of those stupid Pakistanis that did not know how to evade them or the millions brought in from sales tax, who is counting and who cares?
Zardari and his entourage may have missed the point, but British-Pakistani politicians have not for they stolidly refused to meet with him. “I’m not going to meet with the president because I believe that a head of state needs to be in his country of origin when people are drowning and have nowhere to go. He is spending poor people’s money on the launch of his son’s political career at a time when his country needs him shows that he’s out of touch and his advisors are ill-informed. Quite frankly, staying in five-star hotels with his huge entourage, tens of big cars that have been hired just to give him this protocol in London, it’s quite outrageous” said Labour peer Lord Nazir Ahmed. He was echoed by Labour MP Khalid Mahmood.
And then the foreign policy gaffes. Feeling the criticism, Zardari attempted to deflect it by some chest thumping: the coalition was losing the war on terror, he said in an interview to a French paper. Even if that is the case, a statement by the leader of a frontline state only serves to strengthen terrorism and cause more loss of life in Pakistan.
Maybe it is my mental handicap that I am still at a loss to understand this madness. “How do they sleep at night?” I scream at a colleague. He claims they do not have a conscience. I insist that everyone does. Well then, they have given it Valium and put it to bed! So there you have it: no conscience, no taxes. Just a flood of death-for the poor.
Mahjabeen Islam is a columnist, family physician and addictionist. She can be reached at mahjabeen.islam@gmail.com
In a shaming July article the New York Times states “Out of more than 170 million Pakistanis, fewer than 2 percent pay income tax, making Pakistan’s revenue from taxes among the lowest in the world, a notch below Sierra Leone’s as a ratio of tax to gross domestic product.” A December study by the Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development and Transparency reveals that the average net worth of a Pakistani parliamentarian is $900,000 with its richest topping $37million. The article quotes Zafarul Majeed a senior official of the Federal Board of Revenue as stating that Pakistan’s income from taxes last year was the lowest in the country’s history. And this in face of the PILDAT study which revealed that Pakistani Parliamentarians’ assets doubled in the last year.
To complete our humiliation, the article states: “The country’s top opposition leader Nawaz Sharif reported that he paid no personal income tax for three years ending in 2007 in public documents he filed with Pakistan’s election commission. A spokesman for Mr. Sharif, an industrialist who is widely believed to be a millionaire, said he had been in exile and had turned over positions in his companies to relatives. A month of requests for similar documents for Pakistan’s president and prime minister went unanswered by the commission; representatives for the men said they did not have the figures”
There is a reason for taxes being equated with the certainty of death in the West; they bleed you. And yet how else would health care, education, public transport, roads and railways be financed? The industrialization of Japan, Europe, Canada and the United States testifies to the steep and certain taxes imposed on their respective populace.
And in the injustice that is now so Pakistani, sales tax is imposed and breaks the back of the desperate driver who makes $123 per month while it’s a breeze for the Parliamentarian who makes $1400 per month. God forbid that the Parliamentarian should pay income tax on his millions. Feudals are so powerful and plentiful in Parliament that no federal tax on agriculture has been established.
Would eat into that income too, now wouldn’t it?
British Prime Minister David Cameron insulted Pakistan during a visit to India saying “Britain cannot tolerate in any sense the idea that Pakistan is allowed to look both ways and is able, in any way, to promote the export of terror”. Around this time the Airblue jet crashed in the Margalla Hills numbing an already worn people. Plans are already set for a Presidential jaunt to France and England. Pakistan’s security officials cancel a visit to England in protest of Cameron’s statement but Presidential plans are still on. And then all dams break loose and the worst flood in a generation claims 1400 lives, affects 3.4 million and erases 70% livestock.
One’s mouth hangs open watching footage of houses swallowed by the turbulent waters as though they were made of cards. You rewind and play thinking that it must be a simulation and forget to move because it is not.
It is a terrible day at work for those images keep coming back and block other brain activity. And somehow the day ends and I struggle back only to be hit hard with more devastation and the worst insult to Pakistan’s injury: Zardari’s trip to France and England on public expense. Now I feel like I have PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder, I am not kidding. PPP diehards in England wail protests joining the national chorus of condemnation. But the French chateaus beckon.
Despite the noise of the naysayers, the President proceeds. But why the entourage of an entire plane load? The entire ninth floor of the Hyatt Regency, The Churchill a swanky 5-star hotel in London is booked. Tab-£7000 a suite. Dozens of Rolls Royces and Bentleys wait to entertain the entourage, not to forget the special chef and food.
Now I just don’t have PTSD, I feel like the girl in Exorcist: my whole head is turning around and green yuk wants to spew forth.
And when the bill is paid from the taxes of those stupid Pakistanis that did not know how to evade them or the millions brought in from sales tax, who is counting and who cares?
Zardari and his entourage may have missed the point, but British-Pakistani politicians have not for they stolidly refused to meet with him. “I’m not going to meet with the president because I believe that a head of state needs to be in his country of origin when people are drowning and have nowhere to go. He is spending poor people’s money on the launch of his son’s political career at a time when his country needs him shows that he’s out of touch and his advisors are ill-informed. Quite frankly, staying in five-star hotels with his huge entourage, tens of big cars that have been hired just to give him this protocol in London, it’s quite outrageous” said Labour peer Lord Nazir Ahmed. He was echoed by Labour MP Khalid Mahmood.
And then the foreign policy gaffes. Feeling the criticism, Zardari attempted to deflect it by some chest thumping: the coalition was losing the war on terror, he said in an interview to a French paper. Even if that is the case, a statement by the leader of a frontline state only serves to strengthen terrorism and cause more loss of life in Pakistan.
Maybe it is my mental handicap that I am still at a loss to understand this madness. “How do they sleep at night?” I scream at a colleague. He claims they do not have a conscience. I insist that everyone does. Well then, they have given it Valium and put it to bed! So there you have it: no conscience, no taxes. Just a flood of death-for the poor.
Mahjabeen Islam is a columnist, family physician and addictionist. She can be reached at mahjabeen.islam@gmail.com
An erosion of national character
Buffeted by air-crashes, natural disasters, economic collapse and terrorism at the Islamabad Marriott and Lahore’s Data Ganj Baksh shrine among numerous others, one wonders at Pakistan’s resilience. And the shot nerves of its populace. If fury rains from the heavens above, one can do the fatalistic thing and bow to God’s will; but how does one stem the tears when people wrong you?
National character is an extrapolation of individual, family and community values. And these have taken a steady downturn since Pakistan’s creation. The word sharafat has a deeper meaning than just decency- it is one of those untranslatables. Time was that as a nation sharafat was a concept that was recognized and referenced; with a bearing on marriages as well as national appointments. Lost in the chaos, confusion and cacophony of our national post-traumatic stress disorder is our moral compass. And though it sounds blasé in face of life and death issues, in and of itself it guarantees our perpetuity.
Islam underscores the means to the end; any and all means are not acceptable. Pakistanis seem to be emphasizing the end; the means seem entirely irrelevant.
The tragedy is not the mind-boggling wealth of the super-elite but the attitude that the 10% commissions did not happen as they were never proven. Even a cursory look at the net worth of MNAs is enough to give you vertigo. There has to be something deeply wrong somewhere if an American physician traveling to Pakistan feels poor around her friends who seem to be pulling out large denomination bills as though they had a veritable mint in their purses.
And how totally Pakistani to practice all the wrong that the West struggles with. One of the latest is the proving business. Take MNA Shumaila Rana for example. She calmly steals a woman’s credit card from a locker room, tries to buy jewelry with it and on failing and pressure from her party resigns. The entire interaction in the jewelry store and the conversation with the bank is caught on closed-circuit television, and when the banker is asking for her password, is particularly amusing, as she keeps saying “yes, yes”. The other lady does not press charges and so Ms. Rana now wishes to rejoin the National Assembly and has the gall to say that since the case against her was not proven she is innocent!
This same Shumaila Rana and women of her ilk riding in their top-of-the-line Lexus would have no problem harassing the poor vegetable seller and insisting he lower the price of tomatoes by a few rupees. Or abusing the farmer that tills the hundreds of acres that the elite own.
Pakistanis only concept of patriotism is to sing the national anthem with gusto. All else and thereafter is for self rather than state. Feudalism would be abolished, first thing, if that were not so. However broken, Pakistan has a democracy, but what use is it when legislators are feudal landlords and suck the blood of an entire stratum and keep them locked in illiteracy, poverty, debt, injustice and terror. With nothing for them or their families but a lifetime of tilling the land for pennies.
Another national fiasco is the issue of fake degrees, bringing home once again the point of only proof being relevant and not the truth. And in the wonderful vein of Pakistani resourcefulness, we have a plethora of fake degrees that the fraudulent had hoped would pass muster. What is even more interesting is the attempt by guilty parliamentarians to shift blame on the media and for female parliamentarians to actually pout and then sob. Have we no shame at all?
The Supreme Court has ordered a verification of the genuineness of these degrees by the Higher Education Commission. The disqualification of a significant number of parliamentarians could create a crisis for the ruling party. The HEC head Javaid Laghari is under intense pressure and has refused to “slow down” the process and as a consequence has suffered the arrest of his brother on purported corruption charges and a raid on his farmhouse and arrest of his servants.
Bill Clinton’s dalliance with Monica Lewinsky seemed to have downed America in a pall of gloom and shame. And was probably one of the reasons that George Bush slid into the White House. The ruling elite of Pakistan are deeply corrupt, their antics displayed time and again on national and satellite television, but outrage is eerily absent. For the stage is set from above. In a frayed economy and multiple crises the population has learned to negotiate life’s tedium by the tattered moral standards of the ruling elite. Love that Americanism: “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em”.
Years ago as I took the professional exams in MBBS in Dow Medical College I vividly remember the invigilator order me to “help” one of my classmates. Horrified and panicked I refused. She went on to another student with whom she made a tacit pact. This student had various pockets stitched into her shalwar and she removed various pieces of paper from them, copied them with impunity and handed them over to the one that needed the help. My idealism was shattered when the invigilator’s little pet, a professor’s daughter no less, graduated in the top ten.
Farah Hameed Dogar the daughter of then Supreme Court Chief Justice Abdul Hameed Dogar had her marksheet manipulated 20 points so she could be admitted to Islamic Medical College Rawalpindi.
Youth Prime Minister Hasan Javed Khan who died in the terrible Air Blue tragedy had some wonderful advice for a nation that would mourn him and all that lost their lives: good governance and accountability are only possible with supremacy of the law.
I grieve for all that died in the Margalla Hills as much as I mourn the erosion of my nation’s moral character. Festering at the top and trickling down, leaving our youth with the premise that any and all means justify money and power.
Mahjabeen Islam is a family physician, addictionist and columnist. She can be reached at mahjabeen.islam@gmail.com
National character is an extrapolation of individual, family and community values. And these have taken a steady downturn since Pakistan’s creation. The word sharafat has a deeper meaning than just decency- it is one of those untranslatables. Time was that as a nation sharafat was a concept that was recognized and referenced; with a bearing on marriages as well as national appointments. Lost in the chaos, confusion and cacophony of our national post-traumatic stress disorder is our moral compass. And though it sounds blasé in face of life and death issues, in and of itself it guarantees our perpetuity.
Islam underscores the means to the end; any and all means are not acceptable. Pakistanis seem to be emphasizing the end; the means seem entirely irrelevant.
The tragedy is not the mind-boggling wealth of the super-elite but the attitude that the 10% commissions did not happen as they were never proven. Even a cursory look at the net worth of MNAs is enough to give you vertigo. There has to be something deeply wrong somewhere if an American physician traveling to Pakistan feels poor around her friends who seem to be pulling out large denomination bills as though they had a veritable mint in their purses.
And how totally Pakistani to practice all the wrong that the West struggles with. One of the latest is the proving business. Take MNA Shumaila Rana for example. She calmly steals a woman’s credit card from a locker room, tries to buy jewelry with it and on failing and pressure from her party resigns. The entire interaction in the jewelry store and the conversation with the bank is caught on closed-circuit television, and when the banker is asking for her password, is particularly amusing, as she keeps saying “yes, yes”. The other lady does not press charges and so Ms. Rana now wishes to rejoin the National Assembly and has the gall to say that since the case against her was not proven she is innocent!
This same Shumaila Rana and women of her ilk riding in their top-of-the-line Lexus would have no problem harassing the poor vegetable seller and insisting he lower the price of tomatoes by a few rupees. Or abusing the farmer that tills the hundreds of acres that the elite own.
Pakistanis only concept of patriotism is to sing the national anthem with gusto. All else and thereafter is for self rather than state. Feudalism would be abolished, first thing, if that were not so. However broken, Pakistan has a democracy, but what use is it when legislators are feudal landlords and suck the blood of an entire stratum and keep them locked in illiteracy, poverty, debt, injustice and terror. With nothing for them or their families but a lifetime of tilling the land for pennies.
Another national fiasco is the issue of fake degrees, bringing home once again the point of only proof being relevant and not the truth. And in the wonderful vein of Pakistani resourcefulness, we have a plethora of fake degrees that the fraudulent had hoped would pass muster. What is even more interesting is the attempt by guilty parliamentarians to shift blame on the media and for female parliamentarians to actually pout and then sob. Have we no shame at all?
The Supreme Court has ordered a verification of the genuineness of these degrees by the Higher Education Commission. The disqualification of a significant number of parliamentarians could create a crisis for the ruling party. The HEC head Javaid Laghari is under intense pressure and has refused to “slow down” the process and as a consequence has suffered the arrest of his brother on purported corruption charges and a raid on his farmhouse and arrest of his servants.
Bill Clinton’s dalliance with Monica Lewinsky seemed to have downed America in a pall of gloom and shame. And was probably one of the reasons that George Bush slid into the White House. The ruling elite of Pakistan are deeply corrupt, their antics displayed time and again on national and satellite television, but outrage is eerily absent. For the stage is set from above. In a frayed economy and multiple crises the population has learned to negotiate life’s tedium by the tattered moral standards of the ruling elite. Love that Americanism: “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em”.
Years ago as I took the professional exams in MBBS in Dow Medical College I vividly remember the invigilator order me to “help” one of my classmates. Horrified and panicked I refused. She went on to another student with whom she made a tacit pact. This student had various pockets stitched into her shalwar and she removed various pieces of paper from them, copied them with impunity and handed them over to the one that needed the help. My idealism was shattered when the invigilator’s little pet, a professor’s daughter no less, graduated in the top ten.
Farah Hameed Dogar the daughter of then Supreme Court Chief Justice Abdul Hameed Dogar had her marksheet manipulated 20 points so she could be admitted to Islamic Medical College Rawalpindi.
Youth Prime Minister Hasan Javed Khan who died in the terrible Air Blue tragedy had some wonderful advice for a nation that would mourn him and all that lost their lives: good governance and accountability are only possible with supremacy of the law.
I grieve for all that died in the Margalla Hills as much as I mourn the erosion of my nation’s moral character. Festering at the top and trickling down, leaving our youth with the premise that any and all means justify money and power.
Mahjabeen Islam is a family physician, addictionist and columnist. She can be reached at mahjabeen.islam@gmail.com
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Patriarchy the hijacker
Patriarchy is the worst hijacker of Islam, right up there with terrorism. And to think that a simple partition in a woman’s anatomy could be the real or imagined basis for horrific acts of violence is difficult to accept.
The Muslim male’s obsession with virginity, and by extrapolation chastity, plays out in conflict at the domestic level where fathers and brothers apply a standard to women that is flagrantly dichotomous. Muslim societies completely accept a young man dating, drinking and engaging in premarital sex. Some families just look the other way, in others it is open and accepted.
In the days of old chaste women were sequestered from prying male eyes. And now the tacit order remains in effect: female virginity can be proven and so it must be protected at all costs. Current day England is not free from honor killings or threats toward women. Afshan Azad a 22-year old actress in the Harry Potter movies has been assaulted and threatened by her brother and father in disapproval of her Hindu boyfriend.
Jamal Badawi in his book Gender Equity in Islam shatters patriarchal models as well as the propaganda that Muslim women are inferior to men. Most of all the distinction between equality and equity is brilliant.
Twenty years ago a young man in Pakistan was dining a young, brilliant corporate executive. Excitedly my mother persuaded him to propose to her. “No, no Auntie, one does not marry women like her, one just has fun with them” was the decimating answer.
This shameless patriarchy and double standard have become part of the genetic complement of the Muslim male. Contrary to Islamophobic hysteria, the only two points in which men and women are set apart, in Islam, is in the man being the head of the household and inheritance laws. The analogy of having only one CEO applies in terms of the head of the household issue. This is also part of the other Abrahamic faiths. Women in Islam inherit less than men as women are not required to share their earnings or wealth and when they become orphans, divorcees or widows they are deemed the financial responsibilities of first degree male relatives. If males do not fulfill their role here, it is their greed and irresponsibility; Islam cannot be bashed.
Spiritually men and women are treated as total equals and many a verse in the Quran addresses “the believing men and the believing women, the Muslim men and the Muslim women”. Men may not have physical proof of virginity but premarital sex and adultery carry the same punitive damages in the eyes of God, regardless of the gender of the perpetrator. That the reprehensible Hudood Ordinance and the deep corruption in Pakistan allow the man to go scot-free is an essay for another day.
Women outnumber men in Pakistan and somehow the number of marriageable Muslim women in North America also appears to outnumber male counterparts. This has served to strengthen patriarchy and deep hypocrisy in Muslim households. Men, even if they are drunks and nincompoops have a pick of the crème de la crème, while girls may have to weigh their options: go with a loser or witness the maddening inexorable ticking of the biological clock.
A strong premise in Islam is that of niyyah or intention. The reason for a Muslim man to sport a beard or a woman to wear the hijab may not be entirely a strong personal inclination toward Islam; it may well be multi-factorial.
But men seem to have this distorted sense that hijab equals holy. Some savvy families have latched on to the concept of market economics; knowing that the demand for hijab wearing girls seems higher attempts are made to increase market value by adorning the hijab. “I had to kick out my hijabi roommate because she wanted to bring her boyfriend to sleep over every third night when I was on call” said a disgusted young physician, adding that the hijab served as a great cover for the deep affectionate impressions he left on her neck.
Another manifestation of market economics melding with entrenched societal tradition is the effort to regain what has been lost. While the furious kill the one that stains their honor, other parents take no chances in ensuring that the necessary stain does occur on the wedding night and their daughter is not sent packing for promiscuity. Plastic surgeons in Egypt and Europe have been doing hymen reconstructions for young Muslim women for a while now.
Jamal Badawi repeatedly challenges Islamophobes to show to him which chapter or verse in the Quran speaks of 72 virgins promised in heaven for violent jihad. And yet out of context and weak Hadiths superimposed on tales of Western hegemony and imperialism are continually used to brainwash teenagers to make an explosive exit taking many with them.
And fair is fair. Deeply conservative and sexually uninitiated men wishing to marry their own kind should have every right to. But households where sons can come home at any hour, alcohol and drug use is no issue, premarital sex is considered grooming but daughters are monitored and cloistered, the expectation to marry a virgin half the man’s age is beyond reprehensible.
The most vital piece is educational and economic empowerment of women. Women must stop this cycle of abuse that they perpetuate against their own gender. The birth of a son is hailed and he is given preference in food, education and favors. These same women become economically and psychologically insecure mothers-in-law and generate horrific abuse toward the poor woman that sonny boy gets married to. And that daughter-in-law, herself marginally educated and disfavored, does the same to her daughters. And the cycle of abuse and disempowerment goes on.
“Say to the believing men and women to lower their gaze and guard their modesty” says Surah Nur (24:30, 24:31). Note that the exhortation is to both men and women-not to women alone.
Testosterone-infused patriarchs have knowingly and unconsciously vilified Islam and misinterpreted it to satisfy their virginity-obsessed lusts. To save family units, and indeed the world, a strong swift swipe must be made against the steel-webs of the mind. Either we accept promiscuity in our wives, daughters and daughters-in-law or work toward the simple standard of gender equity, spiritual and physical modesty. Either way, what’s good for the goose must be good for the gander.
Mahjabeen Islam is a columnist, family physician and addictionist. She can be reached at mahjabeen.islam@gmail.com
The Muslim male’s obsession with virginity, and by extrapolation chastity, plays out in conflict at the domestic level where fathers and brothers apply a standard to women that is flagrantly dichotomous. Muslim societies completely accept a young man dating, drinking and engaging in premarital sex. Some families just look the other way, in others it is open and accepted.
In the days of old chaste women were sequestered from prying male eyes. And now the tacit order remains in effect: female virginity can be proven and so it must be protected at all costs. Current day England is not free from honor killings or threats toward women. Afshan Azad a 22-year old actress in the Harry Potter movies has been assaulted and threatened by her brother and father in disapproval of her Hindu boyfriend.
Jamal Badawi in his book Gender Equity in Islam shatters patriarchal models as well as the propaganda that Muslim women are inferior to men. Most of all the distinction between equality and equity is brilliant.
Twenty years ago a young man in Pakistan was dining a young, brilliant corporate executive. Excitedly my mother persuaded him to propose to her. “No, no Auntie, one does not marry women like her, one just has fun with them” was the decimating answer.
This shameless patriarchy and double standard have become part of the genetic complement of the Muslim male. Contrary to Islamophobic hysteria, the only two points in which men and women are set apart, in Islam, is in the man being the head of the household and inheritance laws. The analogy of having only one CEO applies in terms of the head of the household issue. This is also part of the other Abrahamic faiths. Women in Islam inherit less than men as women are not required to share their earnings or wealth and when they become orphans, divorcees or widows they are deemed the financial responsibilities of first degree male relatives. If males do not fulfill their role here, it is their greed and irresponsibility; Islam cannot be bashed.
Spiritually men and women are treated as total equals and many a verse in the Quran addresses “the believing men and the believing women, the Muslim men and the Muslim women”. Men may not have physical proof of virginity but premarital sex and adultery carry the same punitive damages in the eyes of God, regardless of the gender of the perpetrator. That the reprehensible Hudood Ordinance and the deep corruption in Pakistan allow the man to go scot-free is an essay for another day.
Women outnumber men in Pakistan and somehow the number of marriageable Muslim women in North America also appears to outnumber male counterparts. This has served to strengthen patriarchy and deep hypocrisy in Muslim households. Men, even if they are drunks and nincompoops have a pick of the crème de la crème, while girls may have to weigh their options: go with a loser or witness the maddening inexorable ticking of the biological clock.
A strong premise in Islam is that of niyyah or intention. The reason for a Muslim man to sport a beard or a woman to wear the hijab may not be entirely a strong personal inclination toward Islam; it may well be multi-factorial.
But men seem to have this distorted sense that hijab equals holy. Some savvy families have latched on to the concept of market economics; knowing that the demand for hijab wearing girls seems higher attempts are made to increase market value by adorning the hijab. “I had to kick out my hijabi roommate because she wanted to bring her boyfriend to sleep over every third night when I was on call” said a disgusted young physician, adding that the hijab served as a great cover for the deep affectionate impressions he left on her neck.
Another manifestation of market economics melding with entrenched societal tradition is the effort to regain what has been lost. While the furious kill the one that stains their honor, other parents take no chances in ensuring that the necessary stain does occur on the wedding night and their daughter is not sent packing for promiscuity. Plastic surgeons in Egypt and Europe have been doing hymen reconstructions for young Muslim women for a while now.
Jamal Badawi repeatedly challenges Islamophobes to show to him which chapter or verse in the Quran speaks of 72 virgins promised in heaven for violent jihad. And yet out of context and weak Hadiths superimposed on tales of Western hegemony and imperialism are continually used to brainwash teenagers to make an explosive exit taking many with them.
And fair is fair. Deeply conservative and sexually uninitiated men wishing to marry their own kind should have every right to. But households where sons can come home at any hour, alcohol and drug use is no issue, premarital sex is considered grooming but daughters are monitored and cloistered, the expectation to marry a virgin half the man’s age is beyond reprehensible.
The most vital piece is educational and economic empowerment of women. Women must stop this cycle of abuse that they perpetuate against their own gender. The birth of a son is hailed and he is given preference in food, education and favors. These same women become economically and psychologically insecure mothers-in-law and generate horrific abuse toward the poor woman that sonny boy gets married to. And that daughter-in-law, herself marginally educated and disfavored, does the same to her daughters. And the cycle of abuse and disempowerment goes on.
“Say to the believing men and women to lower their gaze and guard their modesty” says Surah Nur (24:30, 24:31). Note that the exhortation is to both men and women-not to women alone.
Testosterone-infused patriarchs have knowingly and unconsciously vilified Islam and misinterpreted it to satisfy their virginity-obsessed lusts. To save family units, and indeed the world, a strong swift swipe must be made against the steel-webs of the mind. Either we accept promiscuity in our wives, daughters and daughters-in-law or work toward the simple standard of gender equity, spiritual and physical modesty. Either way, what’s good for the goose must be good for the gander.
Mahjabeen Islam is a columnist, family physician and addictionist. She can be reached at mahjabeen.islam@gmail.com
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Surging suicides in Pakistan
VIEW: Surging suicides in Pakistan —Dr Mahjabeen Islam
It is true that there have always been suicides and always will be, in any society. But to relegate it all to mental illness in current day Pakistan is representative of the mental insulation that typifies any party that acquires power
Fauzia Wahab, the PPP information secretary, and her government are fast becoming the Pakistani versions of Marie Antoinette. The Queen of Louis XVI of France, when told that the population could not afford bread, is reported to have said, “Then let them eat cake!”
Suicides are surging in Pakistan and now there is an increase in murder-suicides. Surviving relatives detail their financial desperation or crushing debt. And when fathers, like the rickshaw driver, poison their entire family and then kill themselves, it seems to take the whole nation’s breath away. The many stories are essentially the same, the characters and details a bit different. The refrain is invariably poverty and the frank inability to feed, clothe and shelter a family.
But Ms Wahab’s take is different. When asked about this issue, she felt that it was related to “despondency, mental illness and the media glorifying suicides”. She went on to say that “these people need to understand that there is no namaz-e-janaza for the one who commits suicide, that suicide is haram and that suicide is cowardice!”
This is a classic case of mental insulation; how can one live, drive, watch and hear and still not sense the screams of desperation of a populace? The poor kismet that I have of living thousands of miles away and just watching the news, even I can sense the pervasive economic desperation in Pakistan. It is adding insult to injury for the many dead of so many households that the powerful in Pakistan speak in such contemptuous terms of such a grave situation and offer no solutions except finger-wagging admonition.
The Quran does say in Surah Isra and Anam (17:31, 6:151), “Kill not your children for fear of want: We shall provide sustenance for them as well as for you: verily the killing of them is a great sin.” In the vicissitudes of life though, the most comforting is Surah Zumar (39:53): “Do not feel disconnected from the Mercy of God, for God is Oft-forgiving, Most-Merciful.”
And yet, to understand this sad scourge of suicides, one must understand that it is not abrupt but rather very slowly sequential. The onset of trouble is with a situational depression, precipitated in this case by economic burdens. The person tries to deal with it and if there is relief, the situational depression resolves. If there is none, the person’s depression progresses, thought processes start to fuzz out and major depression sets in. The hallmark of major depression is suicidal ideation.
It is only in the very early parts of a person’s emotional decline that they are able to understand and value the importance of Quranic injunctions and societal condemnation. After major depression sets in, the decline begins so precipitously that unless there is immediate removal of the precipitating factor as well as medical treatment of the depression, the person is liable to proceed down the path of suicide.
The actual rate of suicides in Pakistan is not available or accurate for suicides are not always reported due to the attendant shame. It is true that there have always been suicides and always will be, in any society. But to relegate it all to mental illness in current day Pakistan is representative of the mental insulation that typifies any party that acquires power. I have named it the ‘Kursi Syndrome’ in past articles; even if a Sufi acquired power in Pakistan they would become arrogant, delusional and disconnected from the very people that elected them.
Major depression, or like Ms Wahab puts it, “despondency”, is an equal opportunity disease. If, in their Marie Antoinette supercilious arrogance, the ruling elite seriously believes that they are somehow inured to the ravages of depression, or the turning of fortune, a reality check is immediately in order. It would be the ultimate irony if, God forbid, one of them had to be declined for a namaz-e-janaza.
The insensitivity of calling such a tremendous societal tragedy an act of “cowardice” is beyond my ability to condemn adequately, especially when the government has devoted more money to the war against terror than economic and educational uplift.
The dichotomy of the ultra-right in the face of these suicides is also sad. The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan and other similar groups brainwash teenagers to commit suicide, convincing them with perverse and unfounded logic of reward in the afterlife. In Islam, a male is classified as an adult when he comes of age biologically and a woman when she menstruates; and both at adulthood become responsible for their actions. “Killing one person is as if he has killed all of humanity,” (Surah Maidah 5:32) says in the Quran rather directly. And regardless of the brainwashing by men who themselves stay away from suicide vests, the young perpetrators of these heinous crimes are in full control of their mental faculties.
The only individuals who are exempted from accounting for their five daily prayers are the insane and mentally challenged. When a person has crossed over from the blues to major depression with psychosis, they would not be considered mentally competent in a worldly court of law. So what is one to think of the Oft-Forgiving and Most-Merciful?
Ijtihad, or re-interpretation of Islam in the light of modern knowledge, is dead. It is no wonder that religious scholars in Pakistan do not have the vaguest clue of what depression is except 'a weakness of faith’. The government gives monetary support to families of murder-suicides. Should not this monetary help have arrived sooner?
Rapid and effective economic and health relief needs to be provided to the people of Pakistan. Suicides as a whole are preventable and those based on financial desperation, completely so. Food, clothing, shelter, education and health are basic rights and need to be provided urgently and across the board. Human rights activist Tahira Abdullah said rather forebodingly: “Some of the hungry are committing suicide now. The government needs to fear the day when the rest of the hungry come onto the streets and demand justice.”
Mahjabeen Islam is a columnist, family physician and addictionist with a practice in Toledo Ohio. She can be reached at mahjabeen.islam@gmail.com
It is true that there have always been suicides and always will be, in any society. But to relegate it all to mental illness in current day Pakistan is representative of the mental insulation that typifies any party that acquires power
Fauzia Wahab, the PPP information secretary, and her government are fast becoming the Pakistani versions of Marie Antoinette. The Queen of Louis XVI of France, when told that the population could not afford bread, is reported to have said, “Then let them eat cake!”
Suicides are surging in Pakistan and now there is an increase in murder-suicides. Surviving relatives detail their financial desperation or crushing debt. And when fathers, like the rickshaw driver, poison their entire family and then kill themselves, it seems to take the whole nation’s breath away. The many stories are essentially the same, the characters and details a bit different. The refrain is invariably poverty and the frank inability to feed, clothe and shelter a family.
But Ms Wahab’s take is different. When asked about this issue, she felt that it was related to “despondency, mental illness and the media glorifying suicides”. She went on to say that “these people need to understand that there is no namaz-e-janaza for the one who commits suicide, that suicide is haram and that suicide is cowardice!”
This is a classic case of mental insulation; how can one live, drive, watch and hear and still not sense the screams of desperation of a populace? The poor kismet that I have of living thousands of miles away and just watching the news, even I can sense the pervasive economic desperation in Pakistan. It is adding insult to injury for the many dead of so many households that the powerful in Pakistan speak in such contemptuous terms of such a grave situation and offer no solutions except finger-wagging admonition.
The Quran does say in Surah Isra and Anam (17:31, 6:151), “Kill not your children for fear of want: We shall provide sustenance for them as well as for you: verily the killing of them is a great sin.” In the vicissitudes of life though, the most comforting is Surah Zumar (39:53): “Do not feel disconnected from the Mercy of God, for God is Oft-forgiving, Most-Merciful.”
And yet, to understand this sad scourge of suicides, one must understand that it is not abrupt but rather very slowly sequential. The onset of trouble is with a situational depression, precipitated in this case by economic burdens. The person tries to deal with it and if there is relief, the situational depression resolves. If there is none, the person’s depression progresses, thought processes start to fuzz out and major depression sets in. The hallmark of major depression is suicidal ideation.
It is only in the very early parts of a person’s emotional decline that they are able to understand and value the importance of Quranic injunctions and societal condemnation. After major depression sets in, the decline begins so precipitously that unless there is immediate removal of the precipitating factor as well as medical treatment of the depression, the person is liable to proceed down the path of suicide.
The actual rate of suicides in Pakistan is not available or accurate for suicides are not always reported due to the attendant shame. It is true that there have always been suicides and always will be, in any society. But to relegate it all to mental illness in current day Pakistan is representative of the mental insulation that typifies any party that acquires power. I have named it the ‘Kursi Syndrome’ in past articles; even if a Sufi acquired power in Pakistan they would become arrogant, delusional and disconnected from the very people that elected them.
Major depression, or like Ms Wahab puts it, “despondency”, is an equal opportunity disease. If, in their Marie Antoinette supercilious arrogance, the ruling elite seriously believes that they are somehow inured to the ravages of depression, or the turning of fortune, a reality check is immediately in order. It would be the ultimate irony if, God forbid, one of them had to be declined for a namaz-e-janaza.
The insensitivity of calling such a tremendous societal tragedy an act of “cowardice” is beyond my ability to condemn adequately, especially when the government has devoted more money to the war against terror than economic and educational uplift.
The dichotomy of the ultra-right in the face of these suicides is also sad. The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan and other similar groups brainwash teenagers to commit suicide, convincing them with perverse and unfounded logic of reward in the afterlife. In Islam, a male is classified as an adult when he comes of age biologically and a woman when she menstruates; and both at adulthood become responsible for their actions. “Killing one person is as if he has killed all of humanity,” (Surah Maidah 5:32) says in the Quran rather directly. And regardless of the brainwashing by men who themselves stay away from suicide vests, the young perpetrators of these heinous crimes are in full control of their mental faculties.
The only individuals who are exempted from accounting for their five daily prayers are the insane and mentally challenged. When a person has crossed over from the blues to major depression with psychosis, they would not be considered mentally competent in a worldly court of law. So what is one to think of the Oft-Forgiving and Most-Merciful?
Ijtihad, or re-interpretation of Islam in the light of modern knowledge, is dead. It is no wonder that religious scholars in Pakistan do not have the vaguest clue of what depression is except 'a weakness of faith’. The government gives monetary support to families of murder-suicides. Should not this monetary help have arrived sooner?
Rapid and effective economic and health relief needs to be provided to the people of Pakistan. Suicides as a whole are preventable and those based on financial desperation, completely so. Food, clothing, shelter, education and health are basic rights and need to be provided urgently and across the board. Human rights activist Tahira Abdullah said rather forebodingly: “Some of the hungry are committing suicide now. The government needs to fear the day when the rest of the hungry come onto the streets and demand justice.”
Mahjabeen Islam is a columnist, family physician and addictionist with a practice in Toledo Ohio. She can be reached at mahjabeen.islam@gmail.com
Monday, June 28, 2010
A gun slinging nation
VIEW: A gun-slinging nation —Dr Mahjabeen Islam
Friday, June 25, 2010
When a government is entirely incapable of providing security to its citizens, it takes up arms to protect itself, and when the going gets tough those arms are used
Pakistanis have developed a markedly predatory character, on an individual, community and national level. Democracy is neonatal yet, and as scores are not settled in the ballot box, bullets are so much more efficient it seems.
We do not have an effective population control programme and it seems to me that people at large know this for they are doing their bit in subscribing to the Malthusian theory of population. Political economist Thomas Malthus theorised that population growth is stemmed by famine, disease and natural disasters. Taking the law into their own hands and gunning down tens to hundreds at a time, Pakistanis have added predatory practices to the Malthusian theory.
Listening to the news, especially anything related to Pakistan, is an exercise in adrenaline surges. Rarely does a day go by that some sort of violence does not occur on a significant scale in Pakistan. On individual levels, one hears of revenge killings or the calm motorcycle murders in Karachi in which one or two walk into a medical clinic, empty their revolvers into a doctor’s head, jump back on the motorcycle and vaporise into the crowd.
Assault rifles are used when vindictive families clash and, after all is said and shot, dozens lie dead on both sides. And, of course, the ever-present sword of Damocles, terrorism, in which suicide vests, combined with assault weapons, wreak havoc in one part of the country or another.
There was a time when one saw rifles slung on the shoulders of soldiers. With the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, tanks on street corners of Pakistani cities became commonplace and Kalashnikovs proliferated on the shoulders of chowkidars. And now it is not a status symbol to have rifle-wielding guards. Pakistanis feel that it is as necessary, perhaps, as food and water.
With poor governance, rampant corruption, a collapsing economy and an extremely high-strung nation, the chicken-or-the-egg theory applies. When a government is entirely incapable of providing security to its citizens, it takes up arms to protect itself, and when the going gets tough those arms are used. And now that the population is armed to the teeth, disarming it is going to be a mammoth project and one that the government is not only unprepared to undertake, it seems to see no need to do it.
This mind-boggling disinterest on the part of the government is borne out by a de-weaponising plan that is as ineffective as the redundancy in which it is described. This is not a time for bureaucratic retardation and lines and points of methods and plans, none of which have even been given semblance of shape.
Pakistan’s National Report on the Implementation of the UN Programme of Action on Small Arms and Light Weapons (SALW), June 2010, submitted to the UN by the interior ministry, states under the heading ‘Legal, regulatory and administrative framework’, in minuscule part:
“Production, import, export, transit and transfer of all weapons, including SALW, is strictly regulated under law. The laws and regulations are kept under constant review in order to ensure their relevance to new developments.
A very well defined and effective national system of export, import or authorisation of SALW exists in the country. Production of weapons for export is totally government controlled and falls under the purview of a specialised ministry, i.e. the ministry of defence.”
This is just a sample of the government’s tall claims and one wonders what the author was smoking while writing it, knowing of course that perverse corruption and unbridled power serve as the opium of the government for it to be so out of touch with the ground realities.
While winding up the budget debate in parliament, Finance Minister Abdul Hafeez Shaikh said that ministers with six cars ought to be ashamed. Though he got desk-rapping applause for this, Speaker Fehmida Mirza appeared markedly uncomfortable and one wonders with what conscience parliamentarians applaud when many probably hit the six-car mark with ease.
SALW in Pakistan are produced firstly by state-owned enterprise, second by private manufacturers who operate under state license and regulation and, lastly, the Darra Adam Khel/Bara gun cottage industry, which is not under any state supervision. Weapons manufactured in Darra Adam Khel and Landi Kotal closely mimic the original, be they AK-47s or M-16s with apparently only the weight of the gun setting it apart from the lighter-weight original. The gunsmiths in Darra Adam Khel manufacture guns hidden in ballpoint pens and walking sticks as well!
Production and availability are not the problem anymore; proliferation is vast and reaches all segments of society. The Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf website makes an effective suggestion about tracking gun-ownership by linking it to the NADRA locator. But that time has now sadly passed and probably has future importance when only very limited security agencies should be allowed to possess weapons.
The urgent need of the hour is to create a simple, viable and rapidly effective programme to disarm the civilian population. All arms of the government, the executive, legislature and judiciary must get on the same page now. Immediate brainstorming sessions must be held at all levels to develop and execute a plan that disarms and, at the same time, provides effective security to the population. This is certainly easier said than done, but it must be done or else our fall threatens to be precipitous and collectively fatal.
Prosecution for gun-ownership and uniform application of punishment should be announced, dependable and harsh. Only the police and armed forces need to possess weapons.
Presidential and prime ministerial bulletproof limousines and their security details could feed and clothe entire villages with ease. They also belie the hoarse screams of, “The day of death is fixed, that is our faith, and we do not fear death.”
There must be an equalisation of yardsticks. We cannot apply one to the widowed teacher who walks warily to school, wrapped in layers in the searing heat to avoid leering male eyes and another to the air-conditioned vroom of ministers with their fake degrees.
In a recent television discussion, commentator Javed Jabbar calmly spoke of the inevitable, which according to him was a peaceful or violent revolution. “Peaceful revolution is the better way but the way things are going, we are now walking towards the violent one,” he contended. I dread to think what would happen if civilian guns turned on their perceived oppressors. So let us de-ostrich ourselves and de-weaponise the citizenry now; maybe we can keep that inevitable change a peaceful one.
Mahjabeen Islam is a columnist, family physician and addictionist with a practice in Toledo, Ohio. She can be reached at mahjabeen.islam@gmail.com
Friday, June 25, 2010
When a government is entirely incapable of providing security to its citizens, it takes up arms to protect itself, and when the going gets tough those arms are used
Pakistanis have developed a markedly predatory character, on an individual, community and national level. Democracy is neonatal yet, and as scores are not settled in the ballot box, bullets are so much more efficient it seems.
We do not have an effective population control programme and it seems to me that people at large know this for they are doing their bit in subscribing to the Malthusian theory of population. Political economist Thomas Malthus theorised that population growth is stemmed by famine, disease and natural disasters. Taking the law into their own hands and gunning down tens to hundreds at a time, Pakistanis have added predatory practices to the Malthusian theory.
Listening to the news, especially anything related to Pakistan, is an exercise in adrenaline surges. Rarely does a day go by that some sort of violence does not occur on a significant scale in Pakistan. On individual levels, one hears of revenge killings or the calm motorcycle murders in Karachi in which one or two walk into a medical clinic, empty their revolvers into a doctor’s head, jump back on the motorcycle and vaporise into the crowd.
Assault rifles are used when vindictive families clash and, after all is said and shot, dozens lie dead on both sides. And, of course, the ever-present sword of Damocles, terrorism, in which suicide vests, combined with assault weapons, wreak havoc in one part of the country or another.
There was a time when one saw rifles slung on the shoulders of soldiers. With the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, tanks on street corners of Pakistani cities became commonplace and Kalashnikovs proliferated on the shoulders of chowkidars. And now it is not a status symbol to have rifle-wielding guards. Pakistanis feel that it is as necessary, perhaps, as food and water.
With poor governance, rampant corruption, a collapsing economy and an extremely high-strung nation, the chicken-or-the-egg theory applies. When a government is entirely incapable of providing security to its citizens, it takes up arms to protect itself, and when the going gets tough those arms are used. And now that the population is armed to the teeth, disarming it is going to be a mammoth project and one that the government is not only unprepared to undertake, it seems to see no need to do it.
This mind-boggling disinterest on the part of the government is borne out by a de-weaponising plan that is as ineffective as the redundancy in which it is described. This is not a time for bureaucratic retardation and lines and points of methods and plans, none of which have even been given semblance of shape.
Pakistan’s National Report on the Implementation of the UN Programme of Action on Small Arms and Light Weapons (SALW), June 2010, submitted to the UN by the interior ministry, states under the heading ‘Legal, regulatory and administrative framework’, in minuscule part:
“Production, import, export, transit and transfer of all weapons, including SALW, is strictly regulated under law. The laws and regulations are kept under constant review in order to ensure their relevance to new developments.
A very well defined and effective national system of export, import or authorisation of SALW exists in the country. Production of weapons for export is totally government controlled and falls under the purview of a specialised ministry, i.e. the ministry of defence.”
This is just a sample of the government’s tall claims and one wonders what the author was smoking while writing it, knowing of course that perverse corruption and unbridled power serve as the opium of the government for it to be so out of touch with the ground realities.
While winding up the budget debate in parliament, Finance Minister Abdul Hafeez Shaikh said that ministers with six cars ought to be ashamed. Though he got desk-rapping applause for this, Speaker Fehmida Mirza appeared markedly uncomfortable and one wonders with what conscience parliamentarians applaud when many probably hit the six-car mark with ease.
SALW in Pakistan are produced firstly by state-owned enterprise, second by private manufacturers who operate under state license and regulation and, lastly, the Darra Adam Khel/Bara gun cottage industry, which is not under any state supervision. Weapons manufactured in Darra Adam Khel and Landi Kotal closely mimic the original, be they AK-47s or M-16s with apparently only the weight of the gun setting it apart from the lighter-weight original. The gunsmiths in Darra Adam Khel manufacture guns hidden in ballpoint pens and walking sticks as well!
Production and availability are not the problem anymore; proliferation is vast and reaches all segments of society. The Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf website makes an effective suggestion about tracking gun-ownership by linking it to the NADRA locator. But that time has now sadly passed and probably has future importance when only very limited security agencies should be allowed to possess weapons.
The urgent need of the hour is to create a simple, viable and rapidly effective programme to disarm the civilian population. All arms of the government, the executive, legislature and judiciary must get on the same page now. Immediate brainstorming sessions must be held at all levels to develop and execute a plan that disarms and, at the same time, provides effective security to the population. This is certainly easier said than done, but it must be done or else our fall threatens to be precipitous and collectively fatal.
Prosecution for gun-ownership and uniform application of punishment should be announced, dependable and harsh. Only the police and armed forces need to possess weapons.
Presidential and prime ministerial bulletproof limousines and their security details could feed and clothe entire villages with ease. They also belie the hoarse screams of, “The day of death is fixed, that is our faith, and we do not fear death.”
There must be an equalisation of yardsticks. We cannot apply one to the widowed teacher who walks warily to school, wrapped in layers in the searing heat to avoid leering male eyes and another to the air-conditioned vroom of ministers with their fake degrees.
In a recent television discussion, commentator Javed Jabbar calmly spoke of the inevitable, which according to him was a peaceful or violent revolution. “Peaceful revolution is the better way but the way things are going, we are now walking towards the violent one,” he contended. I dread to think what would happen if civilian guns turned on their perceived oppressors. So let us de-ostrich ourselves and de-weaponise the citizenry now; maybe we can keep that inevitable change a peaceful one.
Mahjabeen Islam is a columnist, family physician and addictionist with a practice in Toledo, Ohio. She can be reached at mahjabeen.islam@gmail.com
Sunday, June 20, 2010
The continual killing of physicians
VIEW: The continual killing of physicians —Dr Mahjabeen Islam
Friday June 18, 2010
There is something seriously wrong with a society that harasses those who stand for justice. If I protest the killing of Ahmedis, then I am labelled as one. And now watch me metamorphose into a Shia
What do you do with a nation that has been killing its physicians for the last 10 years? Not in the name of vigilantism and avenging malpractice or the egregious deaths of patients but for insane ideologies that fault a physician for being Shia. Or worse: Ahmedi.
The spectrum of consent is vast: on the one end are those who do not know or care and on the other those who actively orchestrate the targeted murders. And the government versus the people ping-pong continues. No photo-ops are sacrificed and the promises are nauseating in their emptiness.
It all began 25 years ago as extremism, a la Ziaul Haq, permeated the Pakistani psyche. When slowly but surely the Arabisation of Pakistan began. When we found it blasphemous to say Khuda hafiz and substituted it with Allah hafiz. When the colourful and totally modest shalwar-kameez-dupatta combo had to be substituted with the austere, frequently grey or brown, jilbab-hijab-niqab trio. Harassment of Shias, and especially Shia physicians, had begun, and then, as now, the government had better things to do.
About 80 doctors were murdered in a crescendo of target killing in 2000, and the majority were Shias. Many worked in the underserved and overpopulated areas of Karachi. It seems to me that there may not have been a subsequent reprieve, just an exodus of Shia physicians.
Ahmedi is, of course, almost an expletive in Pakistan. In the recent past, in Punjab, Ahmedi physicians have been murdered in broad daylight. And, for all the legal recourse that the return of Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry allegedly brought, no suo motus occurred, no one was apprehended and no trials were set.
Pakistan was built on the doctrine of Islam, an ideology that is based most fundamentally on justice. There is something seriously wrong with a society that harasses those who stand for justice. If I protest the killing of Ahmedis, then I am labelled as one. And now watch me metamorphose into a Shia.
The second wave of target killings is sadly now. There have been days in which six have been killed. A press release of the Pakistan Medical Association (PMA) on June 8, 2010 is very telling.
“A meeting was held at PMA House, Karachi, which was attended by CCPO Mr Waseem Ahmed, Mr Raja Umer Khattak, SSP Investigation, senior leadership of PMA, doctors of the city, members of the PMA Karachi, PMA Centre and Pakistan Islamic Medical Association (PIMA). The CCPO informed the doctors that the police department knew which groups were involved in the killings and the people behind the killers. He further said that he and his men were going to apprehend them in the next 24hours. He further committed that if he were unable to protect the lives of the citizens and the doctors he would proudly resign from the post and go home.
“He elaborated in detail the motives of these target killings and the proliferation of unlicensed arms in the city. Mentioning this, he said every day more than 10 search arrests are made but due to pressure and ill implementation of specific laws such criminals go free, though he assured that despite all this he would deliver positive results soon.
“In his statement, Dr Idrees Adhi, the President PMA, was agitated and saddened on the apathy of government officials. He added that there are so many doctors in the government holding important portfolios, for example, the governor of Sindh, interior minister and health minister of Sindh but none of them had taken notice of the situation and issued a statement in this regard.”
Now, for the CCPO Mr Waseem Ahmed to make brazen statements such as having prior knowledge of the criminals and the inability to apprehend them due to ‘pressure’ baffles the mind and defies response. Considering the continuance of the murders and his lofty promises, it seems it is resignation time.
In this meeting to protest the repeated murders of physicians, it is to be noted, though euphemistically omitted in the press release, that all 20 doctors participated. The fear and panic that grips the nation has permeated physician minds and the “discretion is the better part of valour” paranoid copout has taken hold.
Governor Ishratul Ibad and Dr Farooq Sattar, in a meeting with President Zardari, appeared appropriately grim. Cocooned in his mansions and Mercedes, Mr Zardari smiled and smiled. Is a smile his version of the infamous Pakistani prescription of ‘sub theek ho jaye ga’?
Thirty-year-old Dr Babar Mannan was working in Hussaini Health Home in the Irani Camp locality of Orangi Town when two young men barged in and emptied their guns on him. In another recent episode, motorbike gunmen intercepted Dr Haider Abbas near Metroville III, killing him on the spot. In the same wave of madness, Dr Junaid Shakir and Dr Hasan Haider were killed in New Karachi and Railway Colony respectively.
Sad, and seemingly powerless, physicians on the Dow Medical College alumni list mourn the victims. Dr Tariq Chundrigar writes poignantly: “A childhood friend of mine used to run a dental clinic in Nazimabad. He shared the clinic with a GP. This tireless, never out of temper gentleman had a following of patients that warmed one’s heart. One day, in 1989, someone walked into the GP’s clinic, pretending to be a doctor, put a gun to his head and shot him twice. And calmly walked out, to a waiting motorcycle, and rode off. Closer to home and heart, I am sure you all remember Raza Jafri. A more brilliant mind I have not seen. I spoke to a fellow surgeon and was shocked when he told me that he actually identified Raza’s remains on the stretcher in a small private hospital in Gulshan. This was late 2000.”
The Association of Physicians of Pakistani Descent of North America (APPNA) is also busy preparing for its summer extravaganza. No time for condemnations.
The US constitution guarantees the right to bear arms; Pakistan’s does not. De-weaponisation must be immediate, without ifs, ands, buts, smiles and promises. Perhaps the Supreme Court needs to step in for a government that is as usual ineffective, unwilling and incapable of protecting its citizens.
Pakistan’s literacy rate is abysmal as it is. And no society is in a position to destroy its greatest asset: intellectual capital.
Mahjabeen Islam is a columnist, family physician and addictionist with a practice in Toledo, Ohio. She can be reached at mahjabeen.islam@gmail.com
http://dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2010\06\18\story_18-6-2010_pg3_3
Friday June 18, 2010
There is something seriously wrong with a society that harasses those who stand for justice. If I protest the killing of Ahmedis, then I am labelled as one. And now watch me metamorphose into a Shia
What do you do with a nation that has been killing its physicians for the last 10 years? Not in the name of vigilantism and avenging malpractice or the egregious deaths of patients but for insane ideologies that fault a physician for being Shia. Or worse: Ahmedi.
The spectrum of consent is vast: on the one end are those who do not know or care and on the other those who actively orchestrate the targeted murders. And the government versus the people ping-pong continues. No photo-ops are sacrificed and the promises are nauseating in their emptiness.
It all began 25 years ago as extremism, a la Ziaul Haq, permeated the Pakistani psyche. When slowly but surely the Arabisation of Pakistan began. When we found it blasphemous to say Khuda hafiz and substituted it with Allah hafiz. When the colourful and totally modest shalwar-kameez-dupatta combo had to be substituted with the austere, frequently grey or brown, jilbab-hijab-niqab trio. Harassment of Shias, and especially Shia physicians, had begun, and then, as now, the government had better things to do.
About 80 doctors were murdered in a crescendo of target killing in 2000, and the majority were Shias. Many worked in the underserved and overpopulated areas of Karachi. It seems to me that there may not have been a subsequent reprieve, just an exodus of Shia physicians.
Ahmedi is, of course, almost an expletive in Pakistan. In the recent past, in Punjab, Ahmedi physicians have been murdered in broad daylight. And, for all the legal recourse that the return of Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry allegedly brought, no suo motus occurred, no one was apprehended and no trials were set.
Pakistan was built on the doctrine of Islam, an ideology that is based most fundamentally on justice. There is something seriously wrong with a society that harasses those who stand for justice. If I protest the killing of Ahmedis, then I am labelled as one. And now watch me metamorphose into a Shia.
The second wave of target killings is sadly now. There have been days in which six have been killed. A press release of the Pakistan Medical Association (PMA) on June 8, 2010 is very telling.
“A meeting was held at PMA House, Karachi, which was attended by CCPO Mr Waseem Ahmed, Mr Raja Umer Khattak, SSP Investigation, senior leadership of PMA, doctors of the city, members of the PMA Karachi, PMA Centre and Pakistan Islamic Medical Association (PIMA). The CCPO informed the doctors that the police department knew which groups were involved in the killings and the people behind the killers. He further said that he and his men were going to apprehend them in the next 24hours. He further committed that if he were unable to protect the lives of the citizens and the doctors he would proudly resign from the post and go home.
“He elaborated in detail the motives of these target killings and the proliferation of unlicensed arms in the city. Mentioning this, he said every day more than 10 search arrests are made but due to pressure and ill implementation of specific laws such criminals go free, though he assured that despite all this he would deliver positive results soon.
“In his statement, Dr Idrees Adhi, the President PMA, was agitated and saddened on the apathy of government officials. He added that there are so many doctors in the government holding important portfolios, for example, the governor of Sindh, interior minister and health minister of Sindh but none of them had taken notice of the situation and issued a statement in this regard.”
Now, for the CCPO Mr Waseem Ahmed to make brazen statements such as having prior knowledge of the criminals and the inability to apprehend them due to ‘pressure’ baffles the mind and defies response. Considering the continuance of the murders and his lofty promises, it seems it is resignation time.
In this meeting to protest the repeated murders of physicians, it is to be noted, though euphemistically omitted in the press release, that all 20 doctors participated. The fear and panic that grips the nation has permeated physician minds and the “discretion is the better part of valour” paranoid copout has taken hold.
Governor Ishratul Ibad and Dr Farooq Sattar, in a meeting with President Zardari, appeared appropriately grim. Cocooned in his mansions and Mercedes, Mr Zardari smiled and smiled. Is a smile his version of the infamous Pakistani prescription of ‘sub theek ho jaye ga’?
Thirty-year-old Dr Babar Mannan was working in Hussaini Health Home in the Irani Camp locality of Orangi Town when two young men barged in and emptied their guns on him. In another recent episode, motorbike gunmen intercepted Dr Haider Abbas near Metroville III, killing him on the spot. In the same wave of madness, Dr Junaid Shakir and Dr Hasan Haider were killed in New Karachi and Railway Colony respectively.
Sad, and seemingly powerless, physicians on the Dow Medical College alumni list mourn the victims. Dr Tariq Chundrigar writes poignantly: “A childhood friend of mine used to run a dental clinic in Nazimabad. He shared the clinic with a GP. This tireless, never out of temper gentleman had a following of patients that warmed one’s heart. One day, in 1989, someone walked into the GP’s clinic, pretending to be a doctor, put a gun to his head and shot him twice. And calmly walked out, to a waiting motorcycle, and rode off. Closer to home and heart, I am sure you all remember Raza Jafri. A more brilliant mind I have not seen. I spoke to a fellow surgeon and was shocked when he told me that he actually identified Raza’s remains on the stretcher in a small private hospital in Gulshan. This was late 2000.”
The Association of Physicians of Pakistani Descent of North America (APPNA) is also busy preparing for its summer extravaganza. No time for condemnations.
The US constitution guarantees the right to bear arms; Pakistan’s does not. De-weaponisation must be immediate, without ifs, ands, buts, smiles and promises. Perhaps the Supreme Court needs to step in for a government that is as usual ineffective, unwilling and incapable of protecting its citizens.
Pakistan’s literacy rate is abysmal as it is. And no society is in a position to destroy its greatest asset: intellectual capital.
Mahjabeen Islam is a columnist, family physician and addictionist with a practice in Toledo, Ohio. She can be reached at mahjabeen.islam@gmail.com
http://dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2010\06\18\story_18-6-2010_pg3_3
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