Megalomaniac

A wave of terror swept through the entire city of Lahore when a bomb exploded in Gulberg’s busy Liberty Market on Tuesday, injuring four people. Reportedly, the device had been planted between two cars parked outside a shoe store when it went off at about 7:35 pm. According to reports, the device was home-made and was packed with 1.5 kg or 2 kg of explosives. The bomb disposal squad has taken the pieces of the bomb into possession for further investigation. The market, which usually remains open till late night, closed down minutes after the explosion. Understandably, traders whose shops were damaged did not leave the place till late night. This blast is a blatant reminder for the people of Pakistan about the tumultuous situation the country is in today. Given the circumstances of Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti’s death and the outrage it has caused all over the country, especially in Balochistan, the security in all the major cities of Pakistan was set on red alert, including Lahore. But this ...

“By Allah, it is not poverty that I fear upon you, but I fear that the world (materialistic things) will be spread before you as it was spread before the nations that preceded you, and you will compete with one another (resulting) in the world (materialistic things) destroying you as it destroyed them” — hadith of Prophet Mohammad (PBUH). Pakistan is a country where the cultural heritage and traditions reflect centuries old patriarchy. The males dominate every field and do not give any public space to women, be it cultural or religious. Wherever the religion suits them, they apply it but when the religion talks about giving rights to women, most of the males cling to the cultural values that obviously support them instead of the women folk. Marriage is one such subject where traditional customs are espoused instead of following the religious ones. The Islamic wedding procedure is extremely simple and favours both the bride and groom. It makes it easy for both the male and the female t...

I was out on the road on August 14 this year and I witnessed young boys sporting the Pakistani flag as bandanas, shouting out loud, “Pakistan Zindabad ” (Long live Pakistan). For some odd reason, I did not feel like celebrating. In fact, I did not feel anything. Why? I guess it was because these people were celebrating freedom, while I thought to myself, “What freedom?” We are not free people, we should not be celebrating ‘freedom’. And we have no right to celebrate this day because we have not done justice to this country and its ideology. We have let down those who fought for our freedom. The likes of Jinnah and Iqbal must be turning in their graves at the present condition of Pakistan. Jinnah fought to create a democratic, tolerant Muslim nation, while Iqbal wanted the new generation to break free from archaic theological thinking. In his presidential address to the All India Muslim Conference meeting held in March 1932, Allama Iqbal said, “The grandeur of our Deen [religion] is ly...

Even though the Israeli army stepped up its withdrawal from the region and handed over some of its positions to the advancing Lebanese army, ambiguity remains in the air. The Lebanese are not saying anything about Hezbollah’s disarmament, while Israel’s pullout plan is also vague. Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said completion of the Israeli pullout depended on the presence of both the Lebanese army and an international force. Meanwhile Hezbollah has said that it will continue to fight Israel so long as the Israeli forces are on Lebanese soil. But it seems this ceasefire is still holding generally despite some Israeli-Hezbollah skirmishes in its early days. Although US President George Bush has claimed that the month-long Lebanon crisis had ended with Hezbollah’s defeat, the facts on the ground indicate otherwise. The Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was obliged to admit “shortcomings” in the month-old operation in Lebanon. His admission was made in a fiery Knesset session, whi...

“The primary function of myth is to validate an existing social order. Myth enshrines conservative social values, raising tradition on a pedestal. It expresses and confirms, rather than explains or questions, the sources of cultural attitudes and values. Because myth anchors the present in the past it is a sociological charter for a future society which is an exact replica of the present one” — Ann Oakley. Indulging in illusions in today’s world is a recipe for disaster. The countries with a Muslim majority are all encircled by the world’s greatest myth, a myth that has been doing the rounds for countless years: the myth of a Muslim Ummah . In a letter published in the Gulf News , a letter writer says, “The soul of the Muslim Ummah is dead. How else can one explain the apathy of the Muslims to the plight of the Palestinians? They are being starved into submission, and we sit idly by marvelling at the next high-rise and ogling the opulence of Dubai” (‘The soul is dead’, A. Zayd, May 13...

‘Kandlelight King Khitaab ’ This is to announce an editor’s reward of a lifetime subscription of The Post , and the title of 'Kandlelight King' to the scientist who invents a television set that operates solely on candlelight. In the words of our editor, “ Kasam se , load-shedding ho gayi hai Kahaani ghar ghar ki. Aik waqt tha jab bijli thi Kabhi sautan, Kabhi saheli. Ab to Kayamat aa gayi hai! Aise chalta raha tou kya hoga Kumkum ka ?!” It is also hereby announced that the employees of The Post have pooled in a sum of $ 100,000 to the award, to restore their editor to his much needed Wapda-deprived Ektaa Kapoor-induced stupor. Humour aside, the gravity of the issue of electric failures cannot be reduced to merely missing one’s favourite TV programmes. Such petty issues are nothing as compared to the wide gamut of real world losses that various people are suffering on a daily basis due to the inadequacy of electricity supply. Load shedding is on the rise with each passing d...

Open a newspaper – any newspaper around the world – the news of Israeli aggression is splashed all over. Although the Western press is undoubtedly favouring Israel, but the facts on the ground speak for themselves. It all started when a 19-year old Israeli soldier Corporal Gilad Shalit was abducted by Palestinian militants during a raid on an Israeli post near Gaza on June 25, 2006. The kidnapping was in retaliation for Israel’s arrest raid in Gaza on June 24, where Israeli forces detained two Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, who the army said were Hamas militants. On June 27, Israel launched a massive attack on the Gaza Strip. What started from the Gaza Strip spilled into the West Bank and then entered into another country, Lebanon. At the recent G-8 summit in Russia, the following statement was released by the members: “We, the leaders of the G-8, meeting in St Petersburg, categorically denounce terrorist attacks worldwide and condemn in the strongest terms those who perpetrate these ...

If a natural disaster like the October 8 earthquake occurs, one feels helpless and gradually comes to terms with it, thinking that it was the will of God and man could not have prevented it. But when a man-made disaster takes place, it is obvious that one would be outraged. Words cannot describe my initial feelings of sorrow and then utter outrage at the recent bomb explosions in the suburban commuter trains in Mumbai, India, at rush hour. More than 200 people have died, while hundreds lay injured, and who knows how many of these injured will succumb to their wounds. These people were the victims of terrorism – a menace that plagues the entire world today. The American Heritage Dictionary defines terrorism as: “The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organised group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons.” The terrorists’ targets are mostly civilian...

If your death leaves a hole in someone’s heart, a void that cannot be filled with the passage of time, only then have you truly lived. The literary genius Ahmad Nadeem Qasmi was one such man. He passed away on July 10, leaving behind a vacuum in Pakistani literary circles that can never be filled, because he represented so much to so many people. He made a monumental contribution to Urdu literature. One of the most senior literary figures in the subcontinent, Qasmi sahib devoted his entire life to fighting many metaphorical illnesses. He firmly believed in his own ethos and fought for the emancipation of the masses. A staunch warrior against oppression, his courage inspired many. Not only do literary circles mourn the icon’s death, people all over Pakistan grieve the end of an era. In a career spanning almost 70 years, he published some 50 books and distinguished himself as a seasoned poet, writer, critic and journalist. Qasmi sahib was the recipient of Pakistan Academy of Letters’ l...

“The facts fairly and honestly presented; truth will take care of itself” — William Allen White. There was a time in my life when I had given up on reading newspapers or watching the news channels. The reason was that every media report, whether it was in the newspapers or on the news channels, had nothing but dismal news. But what I did not realise then was that if the media does not highlight such news, how would we ever come to know about such events? This was reality, not fiction. Our society is in dire need of one profession that actually documents reality, and journalism is one such profession. “The job of the newspaper is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable,” said American journalist Finley Peter Dunne at the beginning of the 20th century. The basic role of a journalist is to bring to attention the events that inflict injustice on the public, create awareness and hope of a time when truth shall prevail. Journalism is the power of suggestion. If an event takes pl...

“Cautious, careful people always casting about to preserve their reputation or social standards never can bring about reform. Those who are really in earnest are willing to be anything or nothing in the world’s estimation, and publicly and privately, in season and out, avow their sympathies with despised ideas and their advocates, and bear the consequences” — Susan B. Anthony. Since its inception, Pakistan has had one bad ruler after the other – whether it be military or civilian rulers – but certainly the worst period in Pakistan’s history was General Ziaul Haq’s regime. Pakistan’s history bears out the fact that atrocities in the name of religion have taken place over the years, and continue due to the ignorance of the masses. On December 2, 1978, on the occasion of the first day of the Hijra calendar to enforce the Islamic system in Pakistan, in a nationwide address, General Zia accused politicians of exploiting the name of Islam saying, “Many a ruler did what they pleased in the na...

Guarantees of press freedom and freedom of expression are enshrined in the Constitution of Pakistan, but they are more ‘entombed’ than being practiced. Time and again it has been seen that the bold voices in Pakistan have been muted by sudden ‘disappearing’ acts or been laid to rest completely. On December 5, 2005, unidentified gunmen kidnapped local journalist Hayatullah Khan in Mir Ali town in the lawless North Waziristan district near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. Hayatullah was covering the politics of the troubled mountainous region for an Urdu-language daily Ausaf , English-language daily The Nation and was also working as a photographer for the European Press Photo Agency (EPA). He reported allegations that a suspected al Qaeda operative, Abu Hamza Rabia and four other people in the town of Asoray, including a seven-year-old boy, had been killed by a US missile attack, not an accidental explosion while making a bomb, as Pakistani officials had asserted. Previously in his car...

“Other than many famous historical monuments, the city [Lahore] is also known for its beautiful gardens…,” says the official website of the City Government Lahore. The website should instead say that in the good old days, Lahore used to be know for its greenery and was called the “city of gardens”, but today many of its old parks and gardens are gone – even those that were a vital part of the city’s identity. For instance, the Circular Gardens that ran alongside the walled city were turned into a stormwater drain, but it actually serves as a stinking sewer. The leftover green patches of the garden provide a sleeping area for the homeless working class and it would be nothing short of an insult if these patches are called a ‘garden’. Successive governments in Lahore seem to have been sold on the idea that development and modernisation mean turning the city into a concrete jungle. Lahore has been taken over by commercial bedlam, which has destroyed the true essence of the city’s traditio...

“And, finally, by claiming (again, without any warrant in Quran or Sunnah ) that the shariah imposes on us the duty to discriminate [against non-Muslims], they make it impossible for [the non-Muslims] to bear with equanimity the thought that the country in which they live might become an Islamic state” — Muhammad Asad, author of The Road to Mecca . Last month there were media reports that land grabbers had demolished a 500-year-old temple, Krishna Mandir, in Lahore. The Foreign Office moved swiftly to set the record straight that these reports were untrue. But the reason these reports were thought to be true was because many temples have been demolished in Pakistan over the years. This raises many a pertinent question about whether minority rights are protected in Pakistan or not. A report by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) issued last year noted that the trend of kidnapping girls of the minority [Hindu] communities and their forcible conversions was on the rise in Sind...

Senator Salim Saifullah Khan called for maximum provincial autonomy while addressing a press conference at the Chief Minister’s House in Quetta on Sunday. Further, the provinces would be having inter-province coordination ministers to take up disputes amongst the federating units or with the Centre. The provincial governments have been asked to notify their respective ministers for this task. Punjab and Balochistan promptly responded to the directive, while Singh has notified Dr Sohrab, but NWFP has not yet notified its minister. The dialectics of the developing situation in Pakistan suggest that the country that started as a beacon of hope 59 years ago is now entrenched in darkness. Half of Pakistan was lost in 1971 due to inter-provincial disharmony. There are chances that if the federation continues with its current policies, history may well repeat itself. In such a situation, while there may not be too much serious harm in the idea of having inter-province coordination ministers i...

S M Zafar, a senior lawmaker and member of the treasury benches in the Senate, severely criticised the government’s policies and called for opening up a debate on the defence budget in the House. He also emphasised the need for a grand national reconciliation between the civil and military leadership on the future of democracy. Zafar termed the 2007 elections crucial for the country and stressed the need for giving autonomy to the Election Commission. He also criticised the way the law enforcement agencies were secretly abducting citizens. Whether it be the Charter of Democracy or Mr. S M Zafar, the idea of civilian control over the military has cut across the political divide. It is an idea whose time has come. The elemental forces in history have proved that an idea whose time has come will surely be realised – sooner or later. The track record of military-led regimes or direct military rule has all ended in major disasters. Ayub Khan’s 10-year rule laid the foundations for the separ...

“I believe democracy to be of all forms of government the most natural, and the most consonant with individual liberty. In it no one transfers his natural rights so absolutely that he has no further voice in affairs, he only hands it over to the majority of a society, whereof he is a unit. Thus all men remain, as they were in the state of nature, equals” — Spinoza. Ever since the day I was born, General Ziaul Haq has been the subject of debate in our family circles. Maybe it was because of my family’s interest in politics that his name kept popping up in every conversation, or maybe it was because everyone was so miserable during his rule that they had to bring up his name incessantly to curse him. In my mind’s eye, General Zia and cursing soon became synonymous. At that time I was too young to understand the reasons why people were against him, but I remember all too clearly that when he died, there were muted celebrations all around. Death is a sad occasion, but General Ziaul Haq’s d...