Potemkin villages

Potemkin village or relief camp

ever heard of Potemkin villages? they were a myth.

but the PPP government set up something that could be called a potemkin village, sort of. so its not a myth.

how about a new idiom: Gilani’s relief camp

for those of you too lazy to click on that link, read the full story below:

UMERKOT: Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani visited a fake relief camp set up in Kunri on Monday only for the visit.

The prime minister, who was accompanied by federal ministers Syed Naveed Qamar and Syed Khursheed Shah and Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah, arrived by helicopter at the Benazir Government Girls College in Kunri where a `temporary relief camp` had been set up by the administration on Sunday night.

According to sources, the camp housed peasants belonging to areas of some PPP legislators. A number of rain-hit people, including women, who have been living on the road outside the school for the past few days, were barred from entering the premises and were allowed only when some journalists intervened.

The prime minister and his team waved from a distance to people in the camp and the rain-affected people. He shook hands with PPP MPA Nawab Taimoor Talpur and returned to the helicopter.

The people who were expecting to get some relief goods or an announcement in this regard from the prime minister received nothing except the dust raised by the helicopter while landing and taking off.

After the prime minister left the area, the affected people tried to pull out tents but they were attacked by PPP workers with sticks.

use energies for betterment

I was walking to my bank when i saw a group of people asking for demonstrating for the hanging of some person who probably had done nothing other than disagree with their preconceived ideas about life should be run.

I have also been looking at the news of one of the severest floods in the history of the country.

If only we could channel our energies to some positive things, we might be able to become a  better country.

a tale of two cities

Karachi and Peshawar are situated at the Extreme ends of Pakistan. the attitude shown by the people of both cities to the recent suicide attacks have also been extreme.

Peshawar has been the harder hit of the two cities. yet the people of Peshawar have shown extreme restraint. one suicide bomb blasted in Karachi today. and the reaction to that was that people started burning markets and vehicles. over 400 shops and 40 vehicles were burnt, according to one TV channel. it was as if there were animals waiting in these people for this mayhem.

I am left to wonder: what is the difference between those terrorists who went with this attack, and the general public who committed the act of arson.

is burning public property the only way we can extinguish the fires within ourselves?

think about it.

or maybe we are not capable of thinking anymore.

making this country a land without music

so we hear that the dancing girl of Lahore have gone on a strike.

no country for dancing girls

Lahore is a culture rich city, and has been like that for centuries. the old Heera Mandi ( named after a sikh called Heera Singh, though literally it translates into diamond market) had been where the old “tawaif” or dancing girls culture was flourishing. the princes in the old days were sent to these dancers because not only were these people skilled at dancing, they could also talk in a refined, most elegant way. thus what came to be known as the “baazari talk” (specifically, talking in the most crude way. very close to dirty talk) is a misleading term. after all, these people talked in the most elegant way, with all the care taken about how to address people. it was gentleman’s talk in short.
the Heera Mandi still retains some of those aspects. if you go there, you will find women who dance and sing for a fee. and many of them have licenses. some, however, went into prostitution, sullying the name of the Heera mandi.
Ziaul Haq ( that man whose marks on our society would probably never be washed completely)  thought that in order to appease the ultra-religious people, it was best to ban some activities. he banned dancing on television. and most of his policies had a negative impact on the dancers. famous Kathak (classical) dancers left the country. but his banning did not do good to the society. the prostitutes used to be in one particular area in Lahore. now, thanks to his policies, they are ubiquitous.
I have related this history precisely because in morality government policies seldom work. and is counter-productive. when the MMA or the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal came into power, it banned all such cultural activies in the NWFP. Eqbal Ahmed had called Afghanistan “a land without music“; precisely that was what the MMA wanted the NWFP to become. however, they were beaten by Technology. what the people could not watch in a live theater, they started watching on CDs. and those artists got a new breath of life in the form of those CDs. again the failure of government in things related to morality.
now what i can not understand is why something that is acceptable on film is certainly unacceptable live?( perhaps the same thing could be argued against the ban on prostitution in the united states, because porn is just paid sex on film). I must say that the quality of theater has gone down in pakistan, because all these theaters contain are naked jokes, ill written scripts and dances. and i have criticized their quality. but, still, it is not the government’s job to ban them. that should reside with the populace. and as we have seen, given the thriving nature of those theaters, it does not seem like the populace would like to get it banned.

why does US not want peace agreements?

I dont think i have understood it wrong, but wasnt the goal of the war on terror was to eliminate or stop terror. and given that the other options have already been applied,and failed, why is the US opposing the peace initiatives taken by the current pakistani government. I fail to understand that. first they say that they want to end terror. fine, if a person renounces terror and does not commit any more of it then i think it is best to leave him rather than to kill him or something. when the government here tried to a peace deal a while ago, a missile launch from the arabian sea ensured that peace would not prevail. pakistan was not informed about it and it was the USA that sent the missile.
and as the government here is on the verge of making peace again, the US is already opposing it.

At a special hearing on Fata at the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday, Republican and Democratic lawmakers put their differences aside in urging the administration to use its influence and persuade Pakistan to call off the talks.

The US media and think tanks are already opposing the talks and questioning Washington’s wisdom in providing military and economic assistance to a government which is making peace overtures to America’s enemies.

Britain has backed the negotiations process though.

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband told a US audience on Wednesday that his government supports talks between Pakistan’s new rulers and tribal leaders aimed at curbing insurgency along the Afghan border.

In a speech to a Washington think-tank, Mr Miliband said there was “no military solution” to the spread of militancy in Afghanistan and Pakistan

well, atleast the British understand that. why cant the thick heads in the US dont undertstand that? and doesnt it once again exposes the hypocrisy of the american government?

saving FATA by giving peace a chance

in the days when Musharraf reigned supreme, the United States struck in our tribal areas without impunity for its actions. it even had a freer hand from the Musharraf government. its stance was the same: we will end terrorism. but has it done anything?

obviously not. with every new attack on our soil the terrorism only increased. the people who were involved in this always said that as long as the USA attacked them they would retaliate. the politicians realized that. they knew that terrorism was a political problem, and as such it could only be solved through negotiations. they invited the local talibans to talks and they were happy to solve their grievances through negotiations.

the USA kept supporting Musharraf hoping that if the new government it would not listen to it much. but when it finally failed it sent its viceroys. after not getting much of a response from teh local politicians they have softened their stance on airstrikes within our boundaries.

we have heard that a person is a fool if he chooses the same means that have failed in the past to solve a recurring problem. obviously if those means have failed before, they will fail again. better look for the alternatives. and alternatives are always there.

by softening their stance on it, the USA might actually improve its image in these areas. it might also lead to less people being anti-american, leading to less terrorists being born. lets give peace a chance in FATA. we hope that this strategy will be a hundred times more effective than mere bombing.

will the PPP ever form a government?

it has been about three weeks since the elections were held and yet there are no signs of the formation of government. that is because of the reason that the biggest party in the house, the PPP, has not been able to decide on who will be heading the government. after having served in the party for many years, and now having gotten the chance, many of the people are looking towards the ultimate prize: prime ministerial office.

since the prize is big, so cracks have formed immediately between the big stalwarts of the party. Makhdoom Amin Fahim is one the longest serving people in the party. and being second in command to BB while she was alive, he thinks he is rightful heir.

and that is the reason he has been doing his part in getting himself elected. and he has gotten into serious conflict with the chairman Asif Zardari.  that is the reason that he called a meeting of the Alliance for restoration of democracy(ARD). had the meeting been held it would have led to serious consequences. however it was called off.

whether they want to show it or not, one thing is clear. PPP has not been able to select an heir to BB. there is no unifying force there. and divisions will soon appear if it keeps losing gravity like that.

what change will the elections bring in NWFP?

I was reading an article titled “aftermath of NWFP polls”that appeared in the daily DAWN yesterday. though it was an interesting article it was a little bit weak on the arguments. there were two points that the author had made in his article. first, that the win for a secular party meant that the people of NWFP were not extremists. and second, that Awami National Party’s government in the province will bring prosperity to the province.

I would like to comment on the two points. first, if the victory of a secular party in 2008 means that the people of NWFP are not extremists, does that mean that the people were extremists in 2002 when the Mullahs won the majority of the seats from this province? and if that be the case what was that miracle that made such a change possible?

second, how would we possibly know that ANP will work for the advancement of the people of the province. the main leaders in the party are from previlaged, businessmen class. how would we know that they will not advance their own interests instead of promoting the interests of the people of the area? their three points agenda, as given in the article, is so superficial. one of the points in their agenda is that they will rename the province to pakhtunkhwa? will that make any significant difference in the life of the people of the province? will that make them prosperous?

perhaps some intelligent minds could give me an answer to that.

VVIP movements make a difference

the signs of a nation’s downfall are clear. one of them is that they VVIPs do not care what goes on. justice in every department is lacking. and public officials, past and present, use their powers to create ease for themselves at the expense of other ordinary mortal.

that problem is rather acute in pakistan. when the VVIPs move, whole cities come to a stop. and it does not matter if there are people in ambulances in critical conditions waiting to be taken to hospitals.

not only do the present caretakers ( sneeringly called undertakers by some) get the VVIP treatment but the former CM also gets the same treatment. he has been out of office, haven’t he?

“farq parrta hai purana CM honay say ” 

some economic sense at last

Pakistan has always experienced some very acute shortages of electricity. that has always been the case but in the recent one year or so it reached unprecedented levels. in fact it had made the people of pakistan to start using techniques of lighting that were part of the bygone era. Lanterns were supposed to have died with the advent of electricity. but as the power outages, euphemistically called loadsheddings, became severe, Lanterns made their way back into the lives of people.

thanks to the present interim government that it was finally able to see what the previous governments had not been able to see, or did not want to see. this government has decided that it would use the coal resources that are available in abundance in the Sind area. they are so vast that they could provide electricity for centuries.

one thing that must be looked at is why all the subsequent never tried those vast reserves. after all they are not a new discovery. they had been discovered 15 years ago. and why have they suddenly realised that we have something we can use.these are some questions that need be answered.