Repeatedly shocked at the height and extent of corruption among Pakistanis I have wondered whether it had become genetic in some way. With the concept of memes (pronounced like dreams) my ruminations may well be founded in emerging sociological theory.
In his 1976 book The Selfish Gene British scientist Richard Dawkins coined the term meme as a unit of cultural ideas, symbols or practices which can be transmitted from one mind to another through writing, speech, gestures or other imitable phenomena. The origin of the word meme is from the Greek word mimema which means something imitated. Supporters of the concept of memes regard them as the cultural analogues of genes, in that they self-replicate and respond to selective pressures.
Dawkins coined the word meme as a concept for discussion of evolutionary principles to explain the spread of ideas and cultural phenomena. Simply stated he considered a meme as a unit of cultural transmission. Examples of memes in the book are melodies, catch-phrases, beliefs (especially religious beliefs) and fashion. Detractors do not believe that culture can be understood in such discrete units.
Gene replication causes information transmission vertically from parent to child. Virus replication does this horizontally. But memes are able to transmit information horizontally and vertically; perhaps this is why the corruption meme of Pakistanis is now so entrenched.
Tales of corruption by Pakistanis both within the country and expatriate are numerous, long and sordid. A recent one that takes the cake is of course the corrupt betrayal of the Pakistan cricket team and the incredible videos of the money-filled brief-cases.
Nepotism knows no bounds in the case of the appointment of Adnan Khwaja as the new OGDC chief. Inexperience, lack of education and jail-time were not able to outweigh the most important qualifier: crony of the Prime Minister.
Another deeply embarrassing tale is that of the antics of the officers of the New York Consulate General when the New York Stock Exchange, touched by the enormity of the floods in Pakistan donated the Times Square screen for one hour for an appeal for the flood victims. $5-10 million could have been raised with ease if an appeal for flood aid had been made. But Consul General Babar Hashmi and commercial counselor Muhammad Amer portrayed “welcome to New York” and photos of themselves and the Pakistan flag instead. Watching a video of this travesty makes it even more incomprehensible. Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureishi has promised an investigation but the prognosis for stemming corruption in Pakistan remains guarded at best.
And why would it not be? It has permeated Pakistani society like a termite that need hide no more. Time was that it was devious and under the table. It is now a badge of honor, a kind of recognition, a rite of passage. Time was that people whispered about and avoided the corrupt and sneered at their ways. I remember my father, God bless his soul, alternately laugh and complain about corruption within the civil service with stories of “donoan haathoan sey khaya hai” (they have eaten with both hands). But now it is a given.
In the expatriate Pakistani world more than money, it is power and its hunger that corrupt absolutely.
And that is where the meme theory applies to Pakistanis: in the corruption meme. Some of it is the imitation aspect of the meme theory and some of it is survival-if you can’t beat ‘em join ‘em, like the Americans say. Some of it is the role models our society offers. In the highly visible tripartite branches of government, the executive, the legislative and the judiciary corruption rules.
As much as a fan of the democratic process that I am I was benumbed that the nation chose a man with a deeply suspect past as its president. By the very process of election to such an office we are essentially condoning unfathomable corruption and the theft of wealth that if returned to Pakistan, where it rightfully belongs, could yank it out of its misery in an a hurry. Feudal politicians that hold Pakistan in the vice of abuse and essential slavery outdo each other in their nauseating antics of corruption.
In 2009 Transparency International reported the Corruption Perception Index (CPI) which measures the perceived level of public corruption in 180 countries. The scale is 0 (perceived to be highly corrupt) to 10 (perceived to have low levels of corruption). New Zealand was least corrupt with a CPI of 9.4. The most corrupt was Somalia at 1.1. Pakistan hit spot number 139 with a CPI of 2.4.
“Stemming corruption requires strong oversight by parliaments, a well performing judiciary, independent and properly resourced audit and anti-corruption agencies, vigorous law enforcement, transparency in public budgets, revenue and aid flows, as well as space for independent media and a vibrant civil society,” said Huguette Labelle, Chair Transparency International. This in current day Pakistan seems like wanting the stars and the moon.
So is all hope lost and are we all helplessly addicted to corruption? If one considers the meme theory again it appears that meme evolution follows the laws of natural selection. Dawkins notes that as various ideas pass from generation to generation, they either enhance or reduce the survival of the host or influence the survival of the ideas themselves. So it seems that all of us have not been hit by the meme of Pakistani corruption. Will it take a few good people to buoy a drowning nation?
We are a fickle nation and tire of rulers quickly. Although it seems to be a meme to be disciplined by the army, when it rules we fatigue with dictatorship. Civilian rule is subverted by corruption labels, forgetting that the army is no Sufi bunch. For really, the corruption meme appears to be an equal opportunity employer in Pakistan.
Like there is no force in religion (Quran 2: 256) there can be no force in eliminating the evil of corruption. We need to change the Pakistani corruption meme and make absolute, invincible honesty its fashionable replacement.
My addiction patients are only successful in recovery when they have hit rock bottom and the desire for sobriety comes from within. Pakistanis have to feel that we have hit rock bottom; we have to want to erase corruption at the personal level so it extrapolates to the national level.
Allama Iqbal paraphrased the Quranic verse (13:11) beautifully: khuda ney aaj tak us qaum ki halat nahin badli na ho jis ko shuoor khud apni halat key badalney ka. (God does not change the condition of a nation which has no desire to change itself)
Mahjabeen Islam is a columnist, family physician and addictionist. She can be reached at mahjabeen.islam@gmail.com
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Abolish feudalism
Despite how trite it sounds the floods may well be a blessing in disguise. Perhaps they are meant to wrest Pakistan from the abyss that it was hurtling toward and set its compass right.
As idealistic as my three-point action plan, abolish feudalism, prosecute corruption and ensure speedy justice to quick-fix Pakistan may seem, it can be given actual practicality. All that is needed is a national will. The unequalled Shakespeare: “there is a tide in the affairs of men, which taken at the flood leads onto fortune”.
One of the bitter remnants of British Raj, feudalism was used to honor and ingratiate nawabs, taluqdars, jagirdars etc. Originally the intent was to bless the favored with large tracts of land and when the blessed expired the land returned to the Raj. During the tenure of the blessings by His Majesty, the grantee enjoyed material, political and social favors. The land was tilled by peasants that had no ownership with lives bordering on slavery.
Land reforms occurred in post-partition India in 1953 but Pakistan chose to be buried under the yoke of feudalism with its attendant economic, social, educational, human rights and political evils. With Pakistan being largely agrarian feudalism has permeated and saturated the national psyche and one notices its recurring stamp in what is now an entrenched feudal mindset. And with globalization and the technological revolution, do not imagine your feudal lord dressed in shalwar kameez and pagri with a perpetually curled waxed mustache; your modern day man is vrooming in a convertible BMW and is dressed in pants, casual cotton shirts and loafers.
A few thousand families currently hold Pakistan in a vice-like grip. They own thousands of acres of land that is tilled by haris, landless peasants, who are held in varying degrees of subjugation by cruel feudals. Bondage is widespread in rural Pakistan and landlords and tribal leaders have even created private prisons. There is also the concept of debt bondage that the peasant has to work off, rather than pay off with money or goods, and this debt bondage extends through generations. The violation of basic human rights that this creates is another one of many stains on our nation.
Strongly politically connected or the only political game in the village, feudals do not pay taxes.
Themselves minimally educated if at all, feudals perpetuate the horrific literacy statistics of Pakistan. Married invariably to four and keeper of numerous, the feudal lord maintains all in deep ignorance, knowing that education would sever the bondage.
The family and social environment of the feudal community is impervious to rules of religion and of course to modern day justice. Some landlords are alleged pirs or spiritual leaders with propaganda of their lineage to Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and hordes of people do bayt or swear allegiance to them. Besides the gold that the land brings in, the mureeds or followers rid themselves of a variety of ills by giving nazar or a monetary gift to the pir.
The deep and disgusting rot that is part and parcel of feudal families is well documented in many graphic novels that cause insomnia. That rape, incest and child sexual abuse is brushed under the rug of hallowed spiritualism makes it all even more despicable.
Sad also is the political hold that the feudal families have on Pakistan. Be it the PML (N) or the PPP, a majority of the National Assembly members belong to these infamous feudal families.
Slowly but surely their duplicity is being unmasked. Since the passage of the minimal qualification for election being a bachelor’s degree, many landlords are noted to have fake degrees and their grip on political power is loosened. A bit.
Pakistanis have an interesting fixation with land. Right after partition, people allegedly walked into vacant homes and called them their own. Pakistan has been ruled by alternating military and civilian dispensations; in the military regime promotions were given in the form of pieces of land. And in the heavy cross that the nation bears, all civilian governments have been headed by disgustingly wealthy landlord politicians from the infamous feudal families.
And now the floods and the accusation by peasants that the politically powerful diverted the water by breaking the levees so that their lands could be saved and the land of the poor was inundated.
The economic, social and political inequity perpetuated by feudalism must end if Pakistan is not to drown in the literal and figurative sense of the word. The floods provide a strangely painful opportunity to do this. Anger at the feudal lord has been steadily growing and as the media becomes more powerful stories of the murders, jirga justice, vani or child marriages, marriages to the Quran to retain property are all coming to light.
Altaf Hussain makes all the right noises but suffers from a glaring lack of credibility. Hordes of female fans listening to his crackling dramatic voice on a bad speaker notwithstanding. When bhatta or an imposed bribe/tax is part and parcel of the workings of a party and when he is unable to land in Pakistan for fear of a reprisal murder, no calls for a French revolution type movement or ending feudalism make a dent.
Changing from the PPP to the PML (N) is like a collective jump from the frying pan into the fire. The leaders of Pakistan’s major parties are embedded in the Pakistani staple of self-aggrandizement, self-enrichment, unfathomable corruption and a terrible betrayal to the poor whose backs they have ridden on all their lives.
The silver lining in Pakistan’s dense clouds is the definite mindset change that the default solution is the Supreme Court and not the military. The media has also played an indomitable role in unmasking Pakistan’s evils that were perpetually either brushed into oblivion or propagandized a la Goebbels.
Perhaps Pakistanis are still in the denial stage as far as the magnitude of the flood devastation and how it puts Pakistan in peril of actual survival.
Land ownership should maximize at 100 acres and with such a large percentage of land inundated, the time is ripe to rid Pakistan of feudalism, both physical and the mindset. And correct the huge gap between rich and poor.
The deeply dishonest politicians of Pakistan, with all their vested interests, will not institute land reforms. The people must: using the force of the media and the writ of the Supreme Court. To call for revolutions and indulge in the impracticable would be another betrayal and an opportunity to save Pakistan lost.
Mahjabeen Islam is a columnist, family physician and addictionist. She may be reached at mahjabeen.islam@gmail.com
As idealistic as my three-point action plan, abolish feudalism, prosecute corruption and ensure speedy justice to quick-fix Pakistan may seem, it can be given actual practicality. All that is needed is a national will. The unequalled Shakespeare: “there is a tide in the affairs of men, which taken at the flood leads onto fortune”.
One of the bitter remnants of British Raj, feudalism was used to honor and ingratiate nawabs, taluqdars, jagirdars etc. Originally the intent was to bless the favored with large tracts of land and when the blessed expired the land returned to the Raj. During the tenure of the blessings by His Majesty, the grantee enjoyed material, political and social favors. The land was tilled by peasants that had no ownership with lives bordering on slavery.
Land reforms occurred in post-partition India in 1953 but Pakistan chose to be buried under the yoke of feudalism with its attendant economic, social, educational, human rights and political evils. With Pakistan being largely agrarian feudalism has permeated and saturated the national psyche and one notices its recurring stamp in what is now an entrenched feudal mindset. And with globalization and the technological revolution, do not imagine your feudal lord dressed in shalwar kameez and pagri with a perpetually curled waxed mustache; your modern day man is vrooming in a convertible BMW and is dressed in pants, casual cotton shirts and loafers.
A few thousand families currently hold Pakistan in a vice-like grip. They own thousands of acres of land that is tilled by haris, landless peasants, who are held in varying degrees of subjugation by cruel feudals. Bondage is widespread in rural Pakistan and landlords and tribal leaders have even created private prisons. There is also the concept of debt bondage that the peasant has to work off, rather than pay off with money or goods, and this debt bondage extends through generations. The violation of basic human rights that this creates is another one of many stains on our nation.
Strongly politically connected or the only political game in the village, feudals do not pay taxes.
Themselves minimally educated if at all, feudals perpetuate the horrific literacy statistics of Pakistan. Married invariably to four and keeper of numerous, the feudal lord maintains all in deep ignorance, knowing that education would sever the bondage.
The family and social environment of the feudal community is impervious to rules of religion and of course to modern day justice. Some landlords are alleged pirs or spiritual leaders with propaganda of their lineage to Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and hordes of people do bayt or swear allegiance to them. Besides the gold that the land brings in, the mureeds or followers rid themselves of a variety of ills by giving nazar or a monetary gift to the pir.
The deep and disgusting rot that is part and parcel of feudal families is well documented in many graphic novels that cause insomnia. That rape, incest and child sexual abuse is brushed under the rug of hallowed spiritualism makes it all even more despicable.
Sad also is the political hold that the feudal families have on Pakistan. Be it the PML (N) or the PPP, a majority of the National Assembly members belong to these infamous feudal families.
Slowly but surely their duplicity is being unmasked. Since the passage of the minimal qualification for election being a bachelor’s degree, many landlords are noted to have fake degrees and their grip on political power is loosened. A bit.
Pakistanis have an interesting fixation with land. Right after partition, people allegedly walked into vacant homes and called them their own. Pakistan has been ruled by alternating military and civilian dispensations; in the military regime promotions were given in the form of pieces of land. And in the heavy cross that the nation bears, all civilian governments have been headed by disgustingly wealthy landlord politicians from the infamous feudal families.
And now the floods and the accusation by peasants that the politically powerful diverted the water by breaking the levees so that their lands could be saved and the land of the poor was inundated.
The economic, social and political inequity perpetuated by feudalism must end if Pakistan is not to drown in the literal and figurative sense of the word. The floods provide a strangely painful opportunity to do this. Anger at the feudal lord has been steadily growing and as the media becomes more powerful stories of the murders, jirga justice, vani or child marriages, marriages to the Quran to retain property are all coming to light.
Altaf Hussain makes all the right noises but suffers from a glaring lack of credibility. Hordes of female fans listening to his crackling dramatic voice on a bad speaker notwithstanding. When bhatta or an imposed bribe/tax is part and parcel of the workings of a party and when he is unable to land in Pakistan for fear of a reprisal murder, no calls for a French revolution type movement or ending feudalism make a dent.
Changing from the PPP to the PML (N) is like a collective jump from the frying pan into the fire. The leaders of Pakistan’s major parties are embedded in the Pakistani staple of self-aggrandizement, self-enrichment, unfathomable corruption and a terrible betrayal to the poor whose backs they have ridden on all their lives.
The silver lining in Pakistan’s dense clouds is the definite mindset change that the default solution is the Supreme Court and not the military. The media has also played an indomitable role in unmasking Pakistan’s evils that were perpetually either brushed into oblivion or propagandized a la Goebbels.
Perhaps Pakistanis are still in the denial stage as far as the magnitude of the flood devastation and how it puts Pakistan in peril of actual survival.
Land ownership should maximize at 100 acres and with such a large percentage of land inundated, the time is ripe to rid Pakistan of feudalism, both physical and the mindset. And correct the huge gap between rich and poor.
The deeply dishonest politicians of Pakistan, with all their vested interests, will not institute land reforms. The people must: using the force of the media and the writ of the Supreme Court. To call for revolutions and indulge in the impracticable would be another betrayal and an opportunity to save Pakistan lost.
Mahjabeen Islam is a columnist, family physician and addictionist. She may be reached at mahjabeen.islam@gmail.com
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Perish or rise
In collusion with Pakistan’s imbecile political leadership plans for the balkanization of Pakistan were going along as scripted until an unlikely interruption: floods of biblical proportions. Forces one to recall an almost wry verse in the Quran: wa yamkuruna wa yamkurullah wallaho khairul makireen- they plot and plan and Allah too plans; and the best of planners is Allah (Anfal 8:30, Al-Imran 3:54)
Michel Chossudovsky, Director of the Montreal based Center for Research on Globalization and author of America’s War on Terrorism in his article “The Destabilization of Pakistan” says: “Washington’s foreign policy course is to actively promote the political fragmentation and balkanization of Pakistan as a nation”. Chossudovsky points out that “the US strategy, supported by covert intelligence operations, consists in triggering ethnic and religious strife, abetting and financing secessionist movements while also weakening the institutions of the central government.” Chossudovsky’s analysis, Selig Harrison’s 2007 article “Drawn and Quartered” and Pentagon scholar Ralph Peters article “Blood Borders” are all based on a 2005 report by the US National Intelligence Council and the CIA. This report forecasts a "Yugoslav-like fate" for Pakistan "in a decade with the country riven by civil war, bloodshed and inter-provincial rivalries, as seen recently in Balochistan."
The purported interest for all this is control over Pakistan’s nuclear assets, the 25 trillion cft. of gas and 6 trillion barrels of oil sitting in Balochistan and angst over Chinese interest in the Pakistan-Iran gas pipeline traversing Balochistan.
With the submersion of thousands of acres it seems that this is the point that we can springboard to a fresh start. Abolish feudalism and every last remnant of it. Ownership is suspect and documents non-existent. It is time that we as Pakistanis begin to look to the Supreme Court and our judicial system as the sole working institution in the country, not the army as the default one. In a crisis that mirrors Partition, legislation must come from the Supreme Court that erases the iniquity of feudalism and the incalculable damage that it has caused Pakistan and its people. Our deeply corrupt feudal politicians that form a majority in the National Assembly have always worked for self, never for state, so expecting them to pass legislation is to expect the Indus to rewind.
Corruption and Pakistan have become synonymous and we hang our heads in collective national ignominy at the blatant monetary sellout by certain members of the Pakistan cricket team and their enabling by the Pakistan Cricket Board. Why do all roads lead to the same old place? PCB bigwigs are related to our President and that is exactly the point. The Pakistani nation is inured, immune, desensitized to any and all amounts of mind-blowing immorality. The hoopla about Zardari’s French chateau died down and now the news of his successful bid out of a bullet proof Mercedes of a £146 million flat in Hyde Park nauseates.
In my floods-induced depression I have an idea which might seem entirely insane to the President, but someone must convey it to him. He can become Quaid-e-Azam II from the gentle Pharoah that he is now. Mr. President bring all your assets back to Pakistan, each and every dollar/pound and rebuild Pakistan from scratch. Live in a 1000 sq. yard home. Wash your party and Pakistan of corruption and make it a prosecutable offence. You are now known as Mr 10%; you would be worshipped in life and hallowed in death with street corners bearing witness to your amazing vision, generosity and ability to make Pakistan forget mindless corruption. Washed eternally of all its pain rising anew as a beacon of hope and happiness.
Alright so I am being delusional. Pain and anger does that to people. The pain of the woman whose baby was delivered in the filthy graveyard that the village folk had taken refuge in. Starved herself she is unable to nurse the baby so it is dying slowly. The pain of children being swept away by the angry waters. The pain of gushing waters and inundated towns, gaunt, weathered faces and desperate eyes.
And anger is a mild word, fury is better. Fury at how the law of the jungle prevails in Pakistan. Parliamentarians have this sixth sense it seems that they may not be on public payroll too darn long, so why part with any donation? The brutality of the killing of the brothers in Sialkot, the many dead in the Yaum-e-Ali processions in Lahore and Karachi and mainly fury at the pervasive Pakistani mindset of minimizing everything and going on with business as usual.
Pakistan a largely agrarian economy has had its agricultural base destroyed and this will generate a chain reaction affecting all aspects of life in Pakistan. Estimates vary but the agricultural loss is Rs. 6billion. Inflation is 25%, over 10% are unemployed and a whopping 40% of the nation now lives below the poverty line. After the water recedes the support structure that will be needed for rehabilitation will require at least a year’s worth of food and a detailed, exhaustive plan to recreate from zero.
Not only has there been a loss of life and property, the education of the nation’s school and college going students in the flood affected areas has been compromised for at least a year.
Developed nations have trouble withstanding floods. Pakistan was teetering before they came. As a nation though we cannot feel that band-aiding the situation will do it. In calmer moments one is forced to think that perhaps there is a reason the floods happened: a maslihat maybe. Perhaps Pakistan was on its way to destruction, what with plans to carve it into four, bomb it every day and pillage it all the time.
If Pakistan becomes worse than sub-Saharan Africa, if cholera takes several more lives and famine descends upon it while its rulers luxuriate in Rs. 10 lakh-a-day maintenance of presidential and prime ministerial residences, then balkanizing Pakistan will be ever so easy.
But if our self-respect awakens and the blood of the millions who lost their lives to create Pakistan is valued we will realize that there are only three things we need to do as a nation, however simplistic they sound: abolish feudalism, prosecute corruption and establish speedy justice. We have a choice as a nation: perish or rise like a phoenix from the ashes.
Mahjabeen Islam is a columnist, family physician and addictionist. She can be reached at mahjabeen.islam@gmail.com
Michel Chossudovsky, Director of the Montreal based Center for Research on Globalization and author of America’s War on Terrorism in his article “The Destabilization of Pakistan” says: “Washington’s foreign policy course is to actively promote the political fragmentation and balkanization of Pakistan as a nation”. Chossudovsky points out that “the US strategy, supported by covert intelligence operations, consists in triggering ethnic and religious strife, abetting and financing secessionist movements while also weakening the institutions of the central government.” Chossudovsky’s analysis, Selig Harrison’s 2007 article “Drawn and Quartered” and Pentagon scholar Ralph Peters article “Blood Borders” are all based on a 2005 report by the US National Intelligence Council and the CIA. This report forecasts a "Yugoslav-like fate" for Pakistan "in a decade with the country riven by civil war, bloodshed and inter-provincial rivalries, as seen recently in Balochistan."
The purported interest for all this is control over Pakistan’s nuclear assets, the 25 trillion cft. of gas and 6 trillion barrels of oil sitting in Balochistan and angst over Chinese interest in the Pakistan-Iran gas pipeline traversing Balochistan.
With the submersion of thousands of acres it seems that this is the point that we can springboard to a fresh start. Abolish feudalism and every last remnant of it. Ownership is suspect and documents non-existent. It is time that we as Pakistanis begin to look to the Supreme Court and our judicial system as the sole working institution in the country, not the army as the default one. In a crisis that mirrors Partition, legislation must come from the Supreme Court that erases the iniquity of feudalism and the incalculable damage that it has caused Pakistan and its people. Our deeply corrupt feudal politicians that form a majority in the National Assembly have always worked for self, never for state, so expecting them to pass legislation is to expect the Indus to rewind.
Corruption and Pakistan have become synonymous and we hang our heads in collective national ignominy at the blatant monetary sellout by certain members of the Pakistan cricket team and their enabling by the Pakistan Cricket Board. Why do all roads lead to the same old place? PCB bigwigs are related to our President and that is exactly the point. The Pakistani nation is inured, immune, desensitized to any and all amounts of mind-blowing immorality. The hoopla about Zardari’s French chateau died down and now the news of his successful bid out of a bullet proof Mercedes of a £146 million flat in Hyde Park nauseates.
In my floods-induced depression I have an idea which might seem entirely insane to the President, but someone must convey it to him. He can become Quaid-e-Azam II from the gentle Pharoah that he is now. Mr. President bring all your assets back to Pakistan, each and every dollar/pound and rebuild Pakistan from scratch. Live in a 1000 sq. yard home. Wash your party and Pakistan of corruption and make it a prosecutable offence. You are now known as Mr 10%; you would be worshipped in life and hallowed in death with street corners bearing witness to your amazing vision, generosity and ability to make Pakistan forget mindless corruption. Washed eternally of all its pain rising anew as a beacon of hope and happiness.
Alright so I am being delusional. Pain and anger does that to people. The pain of the woman whose baby was delivered in the filthy graveyard that the village folk had taken refuge in. Starved herself she is unable to nurse the baby so it is dying slowly. The pain of children being swept away by the angry waters. The pain of gushing waters and inundated towns, gaunt, weathered faces and desperate eyes.
And anger is a mild word, fury is better. Fury at how the law of the jungle prevails in Pakistan. Parliamentarians have this sixth sense it seems that they may not be on public payroll too darn long, so why part with any donation? The brutality of the killing of the brothers in Sialkot, the many dead in the Yaum-e-Ali processions in Lahore and Karachi and mainly fury at the pervasive Pakistani mindset of minimizing everything and going on with business as usual.
Pakistan a largely agrarian economy has had its agricultural base destroyed and this will generate a chain reaction affecting all aspects of life in Pakistan. Estimates vary but the agricultural loss is Rs. 6billion. Inflation is 25%, over 10% are unemployed and a whopping 40% of the nation now lives below the poverty line. After the water recedes the support structure that will be needed for rehabilitation will require at least a year’s worth of food and a detailed, exhaustive plan to recreate from zero.
Not only has there been a loss of life and property, the education of the nation’s school and college going students in the flood affected areas has been compromised for at least a year.
Developed nations have trouble withstanding floods. Pakistan was teetering before they came. As a nation though we cannot feel that band-aiding the situation will do it. In calmer moments one is forced to think that perhaps there is a reason the floods happened: a maslihat maybe. Perhaps Pakistan was on its way to destruction, what with plans to carve it into four, bomb it every day and pillage it all the time.
If Pakistan becomes worse than sub-Saharan Africa, if cholera takes several more lives and famine descends upon it while its rulers luxuriate in Rs. 10 lakh-a-day maintenance of presidential and prime ministerial residences, then balkanizing Pakistan will be ever so easy.
But if our self-respect awakens and the blood of the millions who lost their lives to create Pakistan is valued we will realize that there are only three things we need to do as a nation, however simplistic they sound: abolish feudalism, prosecute corruption and establish speedy justice. We have a choice as a nation: perish or rise like a phoenix from the ashes.
Mahjabeen Islam is a columnist, family physician and addictionist. She can be reached at mahjabeen.islam@gmail.com
Thursday, August 26, 2010
A thought revolution
I have spent years crying silently for the brothers that I lost to a car accident and my father who died within five years of them, overcome with grief. I have hated that life went on as though nothing had happened; the condolences faded and soon enough it was business as usual. For the world. My mother and I lost all the men in our family but we were not reduced to abject poverty; tens of thousands of flood victims in Pakistan have the burden of grief as well as economic ruin. Millions are homeless. But as the intensity plateaus and tries to fade, Pakistanis are practicing the infamous mantra: sub theek ho jaye ga (everything will be alright).
Capitalizing on the glaring absence of the government and its unforgivable inefficiency, political mileage is sought by all quarters. Subservience to the British and to martial law have penetrated Pakistani psyche almost to the point of being a part of the national DNA. In times of trouble, martial law seems to be the default solution. Public memory is short and the struggles and bloodshed to remove dictatorship are swept away and the deep corruption within the army becomes the food of amnesia.
Pakistani billionaire Malik Riaz Hussain has pledged 75% of his fortune to the flood victims. The King, Crown Prince and Interior Minister of Saudi Arabia have donated millions of dollars from private funds and Saudi citizens have thronged flood relief centers. In face of that philanthropy is the niggardliness of Pakistani politicians. The Sharif clan donated Rs. 10 million, Zardari Rs. 5 million as did Altaf Hussain, while Yusuf Raza Gilani, not a “believer in cash donations” sent his son down with donation in kind. Seems the Quran address this issue well in Surah Baqarah (2:268): when you get ready to donate Satan puts the fear of poverty in your heart and you hold back.
Back to the army worship issue, brought to the fore by Altaf Hussain and Imran Khan’s welcome of the army. Pakistan is rudderless and no leader in the current potpourri is its panacea. It is also highly unlikely that an Ayatollah, Stalin, Mao or Lee Kuan Yew will emerge from one of the tenements anytime soon. We have always looked up to leaders to bring about a change, perhaps we need to have a grassroots movement, in something as simple as a thought revolution.
Pakistanis should not be delusional to think that replacement of ruling parties or martial law is that answer. The problem is corruption, unfortunately a national trait; democracy should not be sacrificed at the altar of our collective fury. Placement of processes and institution building is sorely needed in Pakistan. The history of all politicians on offer is sordid and to work for dislodging the present government in the hope of a better future is grossly misplaced. Zardari, the Sharif brothers, Altaf Hussain or Imran Khan are all the different faces of the same termite that eats away at a nation that is busy covering over corruption, unleashing mafia murders and harboring extremism.
As a citizenry we must bring about accountability, transparency, mandatory payment of taxes, the rule of law, abolition of feudalism and the marginalization of corruption. Every effort must be made to prevent corruption with all aid for flood victims. Be it a peon or a president, we must start with stark personal accountability and then apply that unchanging principle in each and every sphere of our influence. This, conglomerated, will be the flood that will salvage Pakistan.
As the floods take Pakistan back at least fifty years, perhaps a steady change in the way we think and live will cause the necessary paradigm shift. Maybe corruption will become unfashionable in Pakistan. What a thought!
Prior to the floods Pakistan was in the lower rung of the developing world. With 30% of the country under water, destruction of its agricultural mainstay as well as the ripple effect that this will have on its economy and national psyche, Pakistan is threatened with joining sub-Saharan Africa; a sea of brown water, outstretched hands and rampant disease as its marks on the memory.
Pakistani scholars, from Mufti Munibur Rahman to Tahirul Qadri and many others were asked whether they felt that the floods were a trial or a punishment. In a surprise show of unanimity they said that this was a time of trial for when God wishes to punish a people He wipes them off the face of the earth. Their Quranic quotations did not address the issue fully and they seemed typically smug. They unanimously discouraged Umra and non-obligatory Hajj trips as well as iftar and Eid parties, encouraging diversion of the funds to the flood victims.
But our patriotism starts and ends with the notes of the national anthem. Pakistanis both within and expatriate have this sickening survival of the fittest skill. Iftar parties are jamming along. Eid day invitations have arrived. APPNA, the Association of Physicians of Pakistani-Descent of North America will have its Fall Meeting in the ultra-luxurious Ritz-Carlton in Key Biscayne Florida. Lots of money has been raised for flood victims but nowhere near what could have been. I wonder what heart Pakistanis the world over have for celebrating iftars, Eid parties and the luxuries of the Ritz? It is tradition to not celebrate two consecutive Eids when we lose a loved one. Donating a paltry amount to flood relief and then skipping off to decide your iftar invitee list and your ritzy travel plans are representative of that same national rot that we love to blame the government for all the time. The enormity of the flood devastation calls for a decade of mourning.
The situation is so dire that any and all of our incomes beyond our basic needs must go toward rebuilding Pakistan. We must question each party, each purchase and each bite of food keeping the memory of the millions always alive in our minds.
This is our last chance as a nation. The change has to come from an individual level then a family level followed by a community level to permeate and repair the character and corruption leaks of Pakistan. It is a thought revolution that is needed in Pakistan, from the bottom up, not the typical blame game and passing the buck and always expecting change from leaders that put clowns to shame.
Mahjabeen Islam is a family physician, addictionist and columnist. She can be reached at mahjabeen.islam@gmail.com
Capitalizing on the glaring absence of the government and its unforgivable inefficiency, political mileage is sought by all quarters. Subservience to the British and to martial law have penetrated Pakistani psyche almost to the point of being a part of the national DNA. In times of trouble, martial law seems to be the default solution. Public memory is short and the struggles and bloodshed to remove dictatorship are swept away and the deep corruption within the army becomes the food of amnesia.
Pakistani billionaire Malik Riaz Hussain has pledged 75% of his fortune to the flood victims. The King, Crown Prince and Interior Minister of Saudi Arabia have donated millions of dollars from private funds and Saudi citizens have thronged flood relief centers. In face of that philanthropy is the niggardliness of Pakistani politicians. The Sharif clan donated Rs. 10 million, Zardari Rs. 5 million as did Altaf Hussain, while Yusuf Raza Gilani, not a “believer in cash donations” sent his son down with donation in kind. Seems the Quran address this issue well in Surah Baqarah (2:268): when you get ready to donate Satan puts the fear of poverty in your heart and you hold back.
Back to the army worship issue, brought to the fore by Altaf Hussain and Imran Khan’s welcome of the army. Pakistan is rudderless and no leader in the current potpourri is its panacea. It is also highly unlikely that an Ayatollah, Stalin, Mao or Lee Kuan Yew will emerge from one of the tenements anytime soon. We have always looked up to leaders to bring about a change, perhaps we need to have a grassroots movement, in something as simple as a thought revolution.
Pakistanis should not be delusional to think that replacement of ruling parties or martial law is that answer. The problem is corruption, unfortunately a national trait; democracy should not be sacrificed at the altar of our collective fury. Placement of processes and institution building is sorely needed in Pakistan. The history of all politicians on offer is sordid and to work for dislodging the present government in the hope of a better future is grossly misplaced. Zardari, the Sharif brothers, Altaf Hussain or Imran Khan are all the different faces of the same termite that eats away at a nation that is busy covering over corruption, unleashing mafia murders and harboring extremism.
As a citizenry we must bring about accountability, transparency, mandatory payment of taxes, the rule of law, abolition of feudalism and the marginalization of corruption. Every effort must be made to prevent corruption with all aid for flood victims. Be it a peon or a president, we must start with stark personal accountability and then apply that unchanging principle in each and every sphere of our influence. This, conglomerated, will be the flood that will salvage Pakistan.
As the floods take Pakistan back at least fifty years, perhaps a steady change in the way we think and live will cause the necessary paradigm shift. Maybe corruption will become unfashionable in Pakistan. What a thought!
Prior to the floods Pakistan was in the lower rung of the developing world. With 30% of the country under water, destruction of its agricultural mainstay as well as the ripple effect that this will have on its economy and national psyche, Pakistan is threatened with joining sub-Saharan Africa; a sea of brown water, outstretched hands and rampant disease as its marks on the memory.
Pakistani scholars, from Mufti Munibur Rahman to Tahirul Qadri and many others were asked whether they felt that the floods were a trial or a punishment. In a surprise show of unanimity they said that this was a time of trial for when God wishes to punish a people He wipes them off the face of the earth. Their Quranic quotations did not address the issue fully and they seemed typically smug. They unanimously discouraged Umra and non-obligatory Hajj trips as well as iftar and Eid parties, encouraging diversion of the funds to the flood victims.
But our patriotism starts and ends with the notes of the national anthem. Pakistanis both within and expatriate have this sickening survival of the fittest skill. Iftar parties are jamming along. Eid day invitations have arrived. APPNA, the Association of Physicians of Pakistani-Descent of North America will have its Fall Meeting in the ultra-luxurious Ritz-Carlton in Key Biscayne Florida. Lots of money has been raised for flood victims but nowhere near what could have been. I wonder what heart Pakistanis the world over have for celebrating iftars, Eid parties and the luxuries of the Ritz? It is tradition to not celebrate two consecutive Eids when we lose a loved one. Donating a paltry amount to flood relief and then skipping off to decide your iftar invitee list and your ritzy travel plans are representative of that same national rot that we love to blame the government for all the time. The enormity of the flood devastation calls for a decade of mourning.
The situation is so dire that any and all of our incomes beyond our basic needs must go toward rebuilding Pakistan. We must question each party, each purchase and each bite of food keeping the memory of the millions always alive in our minds.
This is our last chance as a nation. The change has to come from an individual level then a family level followed by a community level to permeate and repair the character and corruption leaks of Pakistan. It is a thought revolution that is needed in Pakistan, from the bottom up, not the typical blame game and passing the buck and always expecting change from leaders that put clowns to shame.
Mahjabeen Islam is a family physician, addictionist and columnist. She can be reached at mahjabeen.islam@gmail.com
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Comprehending the catastrophe
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
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 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
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