Art and peace

Book Reviews, Books, Children and Youth, Education, Language, Law & Order, War and Peace

By Zubeida Mustafa

IN her poem Children Learn What They Live, Dorothy Nolte writes that if children live with hostility they learn to fight and if they live with acceptance they learn to love. What parents, teachers and all in a position of power need to know is that they must protect children from exposure to violence and trauma if they are to be peace-loving and tolerant.

Are we doing that? Not really. Look at what television shows its viewers, or worse still what is circulated on WhatsApp or posted on social media, and you will understand why we are becoming so belligerent. Even the much-touted Single National Curriculum prefers silence on this issue and the words ‘peace’, ‘love’, ‘rawadari’ or ‘amn’ figure nowhere in the eight files posted on the federal education ministry’s website.

Continue reading Art and peace →

Anniversaries

History, Politics

By Rifaat Hamid Ghani

Anniversaries serve a purpose – they remind of what was. We Pakistanis have just marked Independence day arrived at 73 years ago. And then, almost exactly a fortnight later, in accordance with the Hijri calendar, the whole Muslim world as Muharram commences, honours—as it has through centuries—with the profoundest reverence the martyrs of Karbala: Despite their lineage they were martyred by people who ‘shared’ their faith, but betrayed it and conflicted for temporal gain in personal ambition to wrest political power. What gives an otherwise common enough conflict sublimity is the martyrs: their personal identities and steadfastness to the right course. Resonating along with commemoration of their historic courageous stand is the love all Muslims feel for ‘Al-i-Rasool right across and through the bitter sectarian divide(s) the aggressors at Karbala unwittingly originated . . .  And so back to Pakistan at 73 and its declared Muslim identity: Divided, exclusive, inclusive, mangled, antagonistic, devout, fanatical, misunderstood, exploitative, exploited . . .  Could we dare this August 14 look into the mirror without flinching?

Continue reading Anniversaries →

Brave women

Development and Poverty, Education, Law & Order, Women

By Zubeida Mustafa

CONVENTIONALLY women are referred to as weak and fickle. They are also dubbed as cowardly. But all these labels have been given by men in a patriarchal society. It is unfortunate that many women have internalised these qualities and thus reinforce the male perception. One has to be grateful for those fearless women — whose numbers are now growing — who continue to defy the stereotypical image to keep reminding society that women are inherently strong and resilient and are capable of meeting the most difficult of challenges they face.

Last week, we were reminded of this truth when Khairo Dero, a village in Sindh, experienced a harrowing incident. I feel a sense of belonging when it comes to Khairo Dero, and the news of the attack on Ramz Ali literally shook me. Ramz is the project manager of the Ali Hasan Mangi Memorial Trust that Naween Mangi has set up to promote the development of this small and charming goth in district Larkana.

Ramz is the gentle and kind and honest-to-the-core soul who runs the various projects of the Trust with a firm and efficient hand. Ramz is also the father of my best friend in Khairo Dero, four-year-old Sitara.

Continue reading Brave women →

A way out

Books, Children and Youth, Education, Human Rights

By Zubeida Mustafa

TODAY is the anniversary of our freedom from colonial rule. Aug 14, Independence Day, is traditionally celebrated with much fanfare with messages from the top leadership. It is the same this year. Why should we not celebrate? After all, under the British Raj we were denied many freedoms. If the East India Company had not been given a charter, the course of South Asian history would have been different. But this is no time for speculation, for there are so many ifs and buts to be considered that it is best to put them aside.

Continue reading A way out →

Gift for donors

Development and Poverty, Health, SIUT

By Zubeida Mustafa

GRATITUDE. Pride. Appreciation. These three words sum up the sentiments of the patients I talked to on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the Donor’s Clinic at the Sindh Institute of Urology and Transplantation (SIUT).

Abida Zahid had given a gift of life to her younger sister four years ago when her sibling had end-stage renal failure. Farman Raza was another donor who gifted a kidney to his brother in 2012 when he fell critically ill.

Continue reading Gift for donors →

Teaching religion

Books, Children and Youth, Culture and the Arts, Education, Islamisation

By Zubeida Mustafa

M.H. ASKARI, my colleague in Dawn and an Urdu short-story writer of eminence in his youth, wrote about his experience of joining the Anglo-Arabic School in Daryaganj in the late 1920s. On the first day, his principal asked him, “Will you study Sunni Deeniat or Shia Deeniat?”

Not being aware of the sects, Askari went home and asked his father Mirza Mohammad Said, an outstanding scholar who was widely acknowledged and had been Patras Bukhari’s teacher at Government College Lahore. Prof Said promptly replied, “My son will not study any Deeniat at school.”

Continue reading Teaching religion →

Confidence: how much?

General, Guest Contributor, Politics

By Rifaat Hamid Ghani

 A CONFIDENCE deficit is afloat. Will it reach the floor of the House?

With an increasing frequency the media’s elect and select fret out loud over the content and style of current governance, and what to do given variously perceived hazards to national security those in charge seem unware of.  Actually the parliamentary system and our constitution – despite curtain calls or Muqarrirs of Zia’s Eighth Amendment – is quite clear as to the protocols of a vote of no confidence. But, since President Alvi can’t do a President Leghari on the PM; and the opposition is constrained and severely handicapped and has egg on its face over the no confidence motion moved against the Senate chairman, there is cause for debate as to whether the rescue service for democratic letdowns lies in a major systemic shakeup rather than parliamentary vacillations:

What sage and smooth analysts argue: is the point of recycling leaders and parties that have been tried and been found wanting twice, even thrice, over? Even the brand new party whose leader had been jostling to win the PM cup for twenty-two years and finally reached the finishing line remains, despite the passage of twenty-two months, at a loss in victory.

Continue reading Confidence: how much? →

To trust or not

Children and Youth, Development and Poverty, Economy, Education, Health

By Zubeida Mustafa

THE underlying cause of what is currently termed as ‘confusion’ in our political discourse is a deficit of trust. Simply put, it is the paranoia that has subsumed people from all walks of life, causing them to distrust others. Can you blame them when they have been deceived so often?

Take the case of the pandemic. On June 19, a very eminent infectious diseases specialist, Dr Naseem Salahuddin, wrote an excellent article in this paper explaining the pandemic, the emergence of the novel coronavirus, Covid-19 and the need for a lockdown. According to her, we have already crossed the Rubicon. She attributes the failure to win the full cooperation of the masses on SOPs to “poverty, illiteracy and dense populations” as well as “ingrained habits”. Hence she appeals for specialists to be given the opportunity to explain what the pandemic really is.

Continue reading To trust or not →

Whither and wherefore?

Politics

By Rifaat Hamid Ghani  

                 THE PTI and its support system are drawing us into dangerous waters. Why? Is it conscious or unwitting? With regard to the PTI leader who is also Pakistan’s prime minister one can say it’s an outcome of mulishness; conceit and arrogant contempt. He may not be able to help himself. But why then should others be helping him persist if it is not possible to tutor him?

         What exactly has the PTI government done to right the mess in governance since taking charge of federal office and the responsibilities of government? Quarrel anew– when taking time off re-runs of old raves and rants. It regularly tells us what it intends to do in various spheres; but provides even less than a broad outline. And it possibly holds a Pakistan Government time-frequency record in instituting commissions and ordering reports and inquiries. The more relevant offences and infringements may regrettably date to its own mandated tenure; but to get to the root as it were, a comprehensive scope can stretch to explore things that took place years ago. Common sense might say their ill-effects have long since been absorbed, digested, or by now decomposed: What is there left to disinter? But there is a viable logical counter-argument that a conscientious inquirer should omit nothing and start from the beginning. Thus, any inquiry’s progress becomes open to both prolongation or acceleration, though all offenders will assuredly be brought to book without fear or favour—Ignore the malice towards none bit.

Continue reading Whither and wherefore? →

Floyd and Zohra

Children and Youth, Education, Human Rights, Justice, Labour, Women

By Zubeida Mustafa

THE BBC reported recently that a lawyer for George Floyd said at the memorial service for the African-American that a “pandemic of racism” led to his death. Floyd had been killed by a white policeman in Minneapolis using the ‘knee-on-the-neck’ technique said to have been developed by Israeli policemen.

Judging by the global protests that followed Floyd’s killing one can at least take heart from the fact that there are people around who have a conscience and do care. But what matters is how many people can be mobilised and how much they care. Is their number big enough to make an impact that will bring about the social change that is needed? Changes in the law help but they are at best just the beginning. More difficult to change are attitudes and mindsets without which society remains mired in prejudice and an abusive psyche.

Continue reading Floyd and Zohra →