Parched of imagination

tribune.com.pk/story/2244862/6-parched-of-imagination

June 18, 2020

By durdana najam
Jun.18,2020

There was hardly any reason to assess the performance of the Sindh govt during
lockdown in light of its past record
Crisis brings a rare opportunity to leaders to reunite with their
people and to cast aside old ways of doing business, which is
usually not possible in normal times, considering that the
majority supports the status quo for its comfort. Other than
Pakistan, which has refused to take this high road most of the
countries have revamped their system to adjust to the Covid-19
induced new normal. Instead of treating it as a healthcare
emergency, both the government and the opposition have been
using the pandemic as a political football.

Not that Pakistan is the only country giving a political cover to the
pandemic. India and the US have even compartmentalised corona
into a Muslim and China virus. Not to speak of the Black Lives
Matter movement in the wake of George Floyd’s murder. What
sets Pakistan apart in its crisis handling from the rest of the
countries is the toxic combination of petty, self-centred, and
biased politics. As the world saw some real fights — the Dalit
against Hindu chauvinism, the black against white supremacy —
the Pakistanis had to contend with the pseudo spatting among
politicians.

Blaming opposition for the spread of Covid-19 among the

parliamentarians, since the latter insisted on reviving the session,
is wrong. Parliament should be revived so that instead of getting
into petty bickering, the lawmakers find a purpose of the objective
to fight relevant battles. Only if they choose to see, their table is
already cluttered with new challenges: rising unemployment,
businesses closing down and children forced to join the labour
market to fend for themselves and their families.

Three things have led to an increase in deaths from Covid-19. One,

the government’s inability to understand the importance of
lockdowns; two, the absence of trust between the government and
its citizens — nobody ever took social distancing seriously; three,
self-medication to cure the virus because people feared that if
they went to the hospital they would be poisoned. Most of the
medicines people took on their own further depleted their
immune system making cure complicated. People went to
hospitals late in the day when their situation had worsened,
making treatment difficult.

What brought us to this pass? The government’s frequent policy

shifts. The country was held hostage to the debate on lockdown
and no lockdown, smart lockdown, and elite lockdown pendulum.
In between hanged the begging bowl. We wanted to walk both
ways — as a victim and as a beneficiary. We asked for more debts
and sought relief from G-20 countries. This attitude of the rulers
further polarised the country on the definitions of the virus. If in
the beginning the pandemic was considered some Western ploy to
control the Third World, later it was viewed as a sinister game by
the government to increase deaths from corona and thus claim
debt relief.

With his heart divided between the haves and the have-nots,
Imran Khan turned out to be an indecisive leader with absolutely
no understanding of opportunity cost and substitution effect to
turn around the economy. He is worried that people may die of
poverty if a complete lockdown is imposed but has allowed
hoarders to have a field day and price regulators to keep to their
usual clumsiness. The result is a sharp spike in the prices of
essential commodities because of demand and supply issues. In
spite of all his good intentions the road that Imran Khan has taken
will only lead to deep waters. In the face of job losses and
inflation, the government is expected to accelerate the wheel of
justice, and not just rely on the clichéd mechanism of forming
investigative committees and accusing the opposition of its follies,
apparently to deflect attention.

There was hardly any reason to assess the performance of the

Sindh government during the lockdown in the light of its past
record. As if we did not have enough of irresponsible national
behaviour on display, Cynthia Ritchie was launched to further
undermine the PPP government in Sindh. This ill-advised, ill-
timed, and half-cooked blame of harassment has not only
damaged the cause of many women facing workplace harassment
but has also made the government look an appendage to the
power that be.

If anything this pandemic has brought to bear is the realisation

that the quality of leadership in Pakistan, and by extension its
people, has dropped significantly. This probably could be the
context in which the Punjab government has made the Quran a
compulsory subject in universities. The idea must be to make the
future generation intolerant to inequalities, exploitation, and
opportunism — some of the major vices eating into Pakistan’s
moral fibres. The step is indeed praiseworthy and deserves
appreciation. However, the question is: for a state that has failed
to implement a Constitution, which has been designed on the lines
of the Quran and Sunnah, how does it plan to help universities
make the Holy Scripture an instrument of change and
development?

The problem is not that we are reading less of the Quran or more
of other unnecessary literature. The problem is that we have
leadership parched of imagination and hostage to the interest of
the elite — the so-called mafias — who are hands in glove with the
government.
Published in The Express Tribune, June 18th, 2020.
Plasma therapy
tribune.com.pk/story/2244844/6-plasma-therapy

June 18, 2020

By editorial
Jun.18,2020

The entire society should join hands in motivating coronavirus survivors to donate
their plasma

According to official statistics, in Pakistan, of the 154,334 patients

of coronavirus, 56,391 have recovered. This shows that on an
average, one in three patients have recovered. In view of the fact
that the use of plasma of recovered patients has proved effective
in the treatment of Covid-19, we have a sufficiently large number
of coronavirus survivors who can save precious human lives by
donating their plasma.

Even though the Ministry of National Health says plasma therapy

should not be considered as a cure, doctors say that plasma
donation by one survivor can help cure two to three patients of
coronavirus. In Karachi, the plasma therapy has produced
promising results. Things have been smooth because survivors
are willing to donate their plasma. It is, however, difficult to get
voluntary donors in other parts of the country.

Since there is no proven treatment for the coronavirus, medical

experts and scientists are frantically trying things from drugs to
survivors’ plasma to treat Covid-19 patients. The plasma method
of treatment had been applied to treat infections before the
advent of modern medicines. While the evidence is sketchy, the
use of plasma may have served well during the 1918 flu
pandemic. Experts believe that when the human body encounters
a new germ, it produces proteins called antibodies that help fight
the infection. Medical experts are of the view that transfusing a
survivor’s antibodies could help a patient’s fight virus until his
own immune system resumes working.

There are few coronavirus survivors who are coming forward to

donate their plasma. Herein lies the crunch. Doctors from Khyber-
Pakhtunkhwa have appealed to Covid-19 survivors to donate their
plasma to save human lives. The entire society should join hands
in motivating coronavirus survivors to donate their plasma.
According to unconfirmed reports, a survivor’s blood plasma can
fetch Rs200, 000 to Rs250,000. This tendency to commodify a life-
saving therapy should be discouraged.
Published in The Express Tribune, June 18th, 2020.
The legend lives on
tribune.com.pk/story/2244850/6-the-legend-lives-on

June 18, 2020

By editorial
Jun.18,2020

Tariq Aziz had been far ahead of a lot of poets and authors had he concentrated a
little bit more on this side

The first voice that went on air on behalf of Pakistan Television —

on Thursday, November 26, 1964 — has gone mute for good. Tariq
Aziz is no more. A man of many talents, he was a broadcaster, an
actor, poet, politician, philanthropist, and what not. But to
describe him in one single word best suited to his personality,
Tariq Aziz was a patriot — a through and through Pakistani.
Whatever he did during his life, of 84 years, carried a strong
imprint of a soldier-like patriotism. Pakistan Zindabad! — his
famous, boisterous chant that would herald the end his iconic
weekly quiz show Neelam Ghar — that ran for a record four
decades on PTV — speaks of his sheer nationalism. It was his
strong attachment to a Pakistani product, the PTV, that never let
him join any private production house even though lots and lots
of money was up for grabs.

Tariq Aziz was a self-made person who thrived purely on talent.

From Radio Pakistan to Pakistan Television and films, it was solely
his talent that carved out a way forward for him. Though most of
his contribution relates to the world of entertainment and
infotainment due to which he was widely acknowledged as the
most popular PTV personality, he was a true Man of Letters,
having penned books on poetry and literature — Hamzad Da
Dukh and Iqbal Shanasi — that earned him critical acclaim. In the
words of Dr Mehdi Hassan, a renowned academic and one of his
friends since his days of struggle, Tariq Aziz had been far ahead of
a lot of poets and authors had he concentrated a little bit more on
this side. Tariq Aziz also joined politics, and was even elected to
the National Assembly in 1996, but like his literary talent, his
politics was also overtaken by his TV career.

A Pride of Performance he was awarded with, in 1992, is no

match to the contribution and services of a true legend that was
Tariq Aziz. Here he says his last salaam to all dekhti aankon aur
sunte kaano.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 18th, 2020.

India-China tensions
tribune.com.pk/story/2244830/6-india-china-tensions

June 18, 2020

By editorial
Jun.18,2020

While the military didn’t admit it, Pakistan is directly in the fallout zone of this
brewing nightmare

It finally happened. India’s adventurism along the border with

China has gotten soldiers killed. At least 20 Indian soldiers
including an officer were confirmed dead by Tuesday night, and
while the Chinese had not released any casualty numbers, even
state-backed Chinese journalists such as the editor of Global Times
admitted that they also suffered casualties. The most recent
dispute between the world’s two most-populous countries began
over a road, but has now gotten to the point of war in all but
name.

Even before India began working on roads to link to the Galwan

Valley region, the area was known to be one of the border
hotspots. It is close to Aksai Chin, part of China’s Xinjiang region.
India claims that Aksai Chin and nearby areas are part of Ladakh,
which is itself part of the Kashmir dispute with Pakistan. In fact,
one of Pakistan’s early ‘friendship moments’ with China was
relinquishing claims to land in Indian Occupied Kashmir, which
China had also claimed.

But despite resolving its dispute with Pakistan decades ago, India
was unwilling to give up its claim to the strategically important
area. The dispute, however, had held up infrastructure
development. Even today, although the Chinese side has better
infrastructure, vehicle patrols along the Line of Actual Control
must go across disputed territory to turn around. That is still
better than the Indian side, which is still dependent on foot
patrols. This is why the Indians were willing to take the risk to
build the road.

The same lack of roads is also being blamed for a majority of the
deaths in the recent clashes — 17 seriously injured troops
apparently could not be taken for timely treatment and
succumbed to the elements. Keep in mind that all this death did
not involve the use of guns, just sticks and stones, with a few
punches and kicks thrown in.

If one side doesn’t blink soon, the guns will come out, and the
consequences will be nightmarish. And it is likely for this reason
that Pakistan’s top military command gathered at ISI
headquarters on Tuesday. While the military didn’t admit it,
Pakistan is directly in the fallout zone of this brewing nightmare.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 18th, 2020.

Afghanistan — corruption trumps violence
tribune.com.pk/story/2244858/6-afghanistan-corruption-trumps-violence

June 18, 2020

By inam ul haque
Jun.18,2020

Corruption-tired common Afghans continue to flock towards the Taliban, viewed as

“brutal but efficient and devout”

The “Afghanistan Papers” were published in The Washington Post

in December 2019, detailing causes of US failures in Afghanistan.
These papers were based upon the US Special Inspector General
for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) interviews with some 400
— mainly insider — US, Afghan and UN officials. My two columns,
“The Afghanistan Papers — Truth be Damned” published on
December 17, and “Afghanistan Papers — Scapegoating Pakistan”
published on December 24, 2019, analysed the US war effort and
responded to Pakistan specific finger pointing. This op-ed would
focus on the financial mismanagement of the invasion and the
war and the scope of its implications.

The Papers note, “About halfway into the 18-year war, Afghans
stopped hiding how corrupt their country had become… Dark
money sloshed all around. Afghanistan’s largest bank liquefied
into a cesspool of fraud. Travellers lugged suitcases loaded with
$1 million, or more, on flights leaving Kabul… Mansions known as
“poppy palaces” rose from the rubble to house opium kingpins.”

In damning indictment, the US stands as an accomplice in seeding

corruption in the Afghan state and society, at a scale never
previously known.

First, it doled out vast sums without proper oversight. Barnett

Rubin, a former State Department adviser and university
professor, told SIGAR, “The basic assumption was that corruption
is an Afghan problem.” Even if so, he points out, it was the
Americans who brought in the money.

Second, the US assistance was in total disregard to the absorption

capacity of the Afghan state. The rush to spend, in order to quick-
fix a state and society, US/NATO did not fully understand, had
downsides. During the “nation building” under president Bush
(2001-09), the US allocated more than $133 billion; flooding
Afghanistan with far more aid than it could absorb. Gert Berthold,
a forensic accountant in Afghanistan (2010 to 2012), who helped
analyse some 3,000 Defense Department contracts worth $106
billion, concluded, “About [more than] 40% of the money ended
up in the pockets of insurgents, criminal syndicates or corrupt
Afghan officials.” Nobody wanted to hear about it, let alone own it
and do something about it.

Third, hard cash was used in an unprecedented manner to

purchase loyalties and information from warlords,
parliamentarians, governors and even religious leaders. President
Karzai admitted to the CIA delivering bags of cash to his office
calling it “nothing unusual”. Papers cite the US military, CIA, State
Department/other agencies using cash (and lucrative contracts) to
win Afghan warlords in the fight against the Taliban and Al
Qaeda. This short-term tactic ended up binding the US with some
of the most tainted figures for years.

Fourth, the unholy trinity of warlords, drug barons and defense

contractors was tolerated… being US allies. The long list includes
Mohammad Qasim Fahimi (died 2014) — the Tajik commander —
and later the first Afghan vice president. Fahimi was known for
his “brutality and graft”; the US Ambassador Ryan C Crooker
(2011-12), described him as “a totally evil person”. The other
“prime beneficiary of US largesse was Abdul Rashid Dostum”, the
brutal Uzbek strongman accused of rape, torture and the
Sheberghan massacre — suffocating captured Taliban fighters in
airtight shipping containers during November 2001. Papers cite
Dostum getting a hefty $100,000 monthly from the CIA for not
causing trouble. Dostum, ironically, is vying to be a “Marshall”
under the present Afghan government.

Another ruthless US protégé was Sher Mohammad Akhundzada

— aka SMA, the Helmand provincial governor (2001 to 2005). US
Army general McNeill describes the warlord, a confirmed drug-
baron, as; “SMA was dirty but he kept stability because people
were afraid of him”, claiming he was not “advocating dancing
with the devil”. Richard Boucher, a former assistant secretary of
state (South Asia) in a nuanced view, justified corruption.
“Corruption that ‘spreads the wealth’ to people who need it,” he
said, was “tolerable, even necessary”.

Boucher also admired Gul Agha Sherzai aka “bulldozer”, another

warlord from Nangarhar, who had “amassed a fortune by
skimming taxes and contracts while serving as a provincial
governor”. Boucher advocated giving money to Afghans rather
than to “a bunch of expensive American experts” wasting 80 to
90% of it on overheads and profit. He declared, “I want it [the
money] to disappear in Afghanistan, rather than in the Beltway.”
Other government officials rubbished this approach. Nils Taxell, a
Swedish anti-corruption expert called Sherazi “a benevolent
asshole” who “didn’t take or keep everything for himself, he left a
little for others.”

Warlords were not the only beneficiaries, the Papers report. The
US government gave “nice packages” to supportive Afghan tribal
delegates who were to write a new constitution in 2002 and 2003.
Lawmakers were made to realise the monetary value of their vote
and position on issues, tainting their view of democracy as a
system “in which money was deeply embedded”.

By 2006, the Afghan government had morphed into a kleptocracy,

interested only in self-sustenance and not good governance. The
corruption-trail was long and never cold. Barnett Rubin, aide to
Richard Holbrooke, special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan
(2009 to 2010), said, “Holbrooke hated Hamid Karzai. He thought
he was corrupt as hell.” After the 2009 Afghan presidential
elections, a UN-backed investigation determined “Karzai had
received about one million illegal votes, a quarter of all those
cast”.
The aid dollar loot was siphoned through New Ansari Money
Exchange, a leading Afghan financial institution to buy properties
in Dubai. Somewhere in July 2010, Afghan anti-corruption
officials took heart to raid the Ansari offices. Incriminating
evidence recovered led to the arrest of Zia Salehi, a Karzai aide
and a CIA mole. He was quickly released on Karzai’s intervention.

Later in 2010, Kabul Bank, the country’s biggest, “nearly collapsed

under the weight of $1 billion in fraudulent loans” extended to
the president’s brother Mahmoud Karzai, family of Fahim Khan
and others. Ironically, when the US spy agencies knew of the
brewing trouble, a US consultant to the bank was vouchsafing for
its health to the Treasury Department. US ambassador Ryan
Crooker and the military helped bury the bank investigation in
political appeasement.

The Afghan National Army and police have a predatory officer

corps, accused of taking cuts from soldiers’ wages and pocketing
of ghost soldiers’ salaries. “Soldiers sell official property including
gasoline.” The US spent about $9 billion to curb opium production
during the past 18 years; only to find that in 2018 alone,
Afghanistan produced 82% of the global opium.

In a bizarre manner, US and NATO forces have been paying the

Taliban “rahdari” or fee for safe passage through Taliban areas.
This figure alone runs into billions. No wonder the US Auditor
General cannot reconcile and balance the war accounts.

The US/NATO approach has created a deep-rooted corruption-

tolerant culture that Afghanistan would take generations to cast-
off. The consequent loss of US/Western credibility makes the
present settlement so hard. Ghani and his cabal cannot let go of
their pie. Corruption-tired common Afghans, meanwhile, continue
to flock towards the Taliban, viewed as “brutal but efficient and
devout”.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 18th, 2020.

Ignorance or denial?
tribune.com.pk/story/2244829/6-ignorance-or-denial

June 18, 2020

By imran jan
Jun.18,2020

The world doesn’t need more knowledge as much as it needs the truth

An old Pashto saying goes that you can find a way to make the
deaf hear or understand what you are saying but if the listener is
pretending to be deaf, there is no way you can convey your
message. Civilisations before us and the world we live in appear
to have one thing in common: a suicidal tendency.
If we look at the threat that climate change poses to our survival,
it’s as though we are racing toward destruction with ever-
increasing fervour and excitement. David Wallace Wells’ book,
The Uninhabitable Earth, highlights this very important aspect.
The rate of carbon emissions is 100 times faster than at any time
since the beginning of Industrialisation. The damage to our planet
increased ever since climate change has been known than before
it. We have been destroying our planet knowingly more than we
did unknowingly.

That is a remarkable kamikaze trait we humans have collectively.

A suicide bomber takes his own life and those of others around
him. Climate change is not only going to take human lives, but
rather wildlife and marine life as well. Furthermore, it will
destroy many livelihoods, if it hasn’t already done so. Our
grandchildren may not have a planet they can easily breathe in.
Lo and behold, we continue to drill and emit.

Denial is observed in almost every aspect of human action. Ever

since Israel has been created on the foundations of falsehoods and
force, it has maintained one national habit intact: the denial of
Palestinians as a people. Every Israeli leader has kept this at the
heart of his or her rule that Palestinians — whether those who are
Israeli citizens or those living in open air prisons of Gaza, West
Bank, and elsewhere — do not exist. When the nation’s only
female prime minister said “there were no such thing as
Palestinians”, she only turned the volume up on a general
consensus inside Israel. The entire ideology on which Israel is
based is not nationhood or something similar but rather the
denial of a people. Israelis know that conflict wouldn’t end at the
end of a barrel, but they continue to take more land and lives,
adding fuel to the fire knowingly.
India’s treatment of its own citizens of low caste or specifically the
Muslims, demystifies one unmistakable conclusion: the denial of
their existence and their rights. India’s denial of the Kashmiris’
freedom is another illustration of this textbook suicidal trait. The
problem wouldn’t go away but rather boomerang harder. The
terrorism around the world, while despicable and condemnable,
is mostly a reaction to aggression. Repeating the same actions and
expecting different results is only going to exacerbate global
conflicts. India would have to stop denying that Kashmiris are
human beings.

American democracy is another interesting example. The concept

on which the electoral college vote is based is the antithesis of
democracy. In order to control the “excess of democracy,” this
system has been put in place to prevent people’s impulsive desires
in electing a president. It’s designed to deny the people’s wish in
electing their leader; the core idea behind the ballot and
democracy. It’s a system based on a denial, a wilful rejection of a
right. Donald Trump is the president not because he received
more, but rather less votes from the American people. The
American democracy revels in the denial of people’s vote and
acceptance of an anti-democratic system.

Covid-19 has spread faster and stronger after it was known to the
world than before. While lockdowns have been imposed by many
governments around the world, there are still many out there in
almost all countries who defy the truth and science and roam
around exposing themselves and others.

The world doesn’t need more knowledge as much as it needs the

truth. Denial of knowledge can be more dangerous than
ignorance.
Published in The Express Tribune, June 18th, 2020.