Posted on

Eqbal Ahmad: A memoir of Munno Chacha

Eqbal Ahmad (Credit: thefridaytimes.com)
Eqbal Ahmad (Credit: thefridaytimes.com)
It was 1962 and I was an eight-year-old boy living in Quetta. I was vaguely aware of an uncle, my father’s younger brother, who lived in the USA. One day, a ripple of excitement ran through the house: the uncle from the USA was coming to visit us.

In those days, particularly in a small town like Quetta, a visitor from the distant land across the seven oceans was rarer than sighting a Martian.
My father packed his six off-springs in a jeep and headed out for the airport. I had always watched with fascination as a PIA Fokker Friendship plane flew high above in the sky and always wondered how this big bird would look on the ground. I am not sure whether I was more excited about seeing an airplane on the ground for the first time or a mysterious uncle from the fairyland known as the United States of America.

The plane appeared on the horizon, circled the airport, and landed. As it taxied close, I could not believe how big it was! I was still staring at the plane when a man appeared among us and hugged my father.
Shifting my gaze to this man, who appeared different from any man I had seen in Quetta, I noticed he was dressed in light green corduroy trousers, a beige shirt and brown pumps, he looked like an American; just the type I had seen in the movies and magazines. He looked like, dressed like, and spoke like no one I had seen before. Welcome to Quetta, Eqbal Ahmad!

It wasn’t long after reaching home that the stories started to flow.
New worlds opened in front of my very eyes, as he narrated story after story of lands I had not heard of before. There were tales of a revolution in Algeria led by a heroic figure named Ahmed Ben Bella, we heard, in which he had personally participated.

Then, he told us about a man named Habib Bourguiba from a country called Tunisia, who had banned fasting during Ramazan even though he was a Muslim president of a Muslim country. The children listened wide-eyed to the strange uncle who had better stories than the best they had ever heard or read.

On that fateful day, a door opened in my life to a world that I did not know existed; a world of revolutions, heroism, violence, ideals and dreams. That world, and the man who showed me a glimpse of it, became a central part of my life and remains so to this day.
Fast forward to 1971. We get a telegram from another uncle in the USA telling us not to worry about Eqbal as he is fine; the newspaper next day explains the telegram. A Pakistani intellectual named Eqbal Ahmad had been arrested, along with a group of anti-war activists, for planning to kidnap Henry Kissinger and blowing up the underground heating system tunnels of the Capitol in Washington.

Cover stories started appearing in publications like the Time and Life about this mysterious Pakistani. He was variously described as a world renowned scholar on Islam and North Africa, an expert on revolutionary violence, a threat and menace to the security of the United States, and an excellent cook.

The famous trial known as the Harrisburg Seven went on for a long time and finally all the defendants were acquitted.

Eqbal’s nick name was “Munno” (a small boy), an unlikely name for a larger than life figure. But, I think it was very appropriate as he was a very humble man who wore his brilliance very lightly.

He listened to everyone, high and low, young and old, world famous figures and the man in the street, with the same respect and importance and gave out a considered response to each.

When I was a high school student in Pakistan, I would write regularly to him. He always replied to my letters promptly and with detail usually reserved for peers. I was visiting him in New York in 1979 when his close friend Edward Said turned up to pay him a visit. Eqbal introduced me to Said with great enthusiasm saying, “This is my nephew, Vaqar. I learn more about Pakistan from his letters than from reading all the newspapers!”

Twenty years later, after he passed away, we were going through his papers in the last house he lived in the US (a faculty housing at the Hampshire College where he taught), where we found all my letters to him. One of my great regrets is that I lost his letters to me during the many moves I made between homes and countries.

Spending a few days at Eqbal’s New York mid-town Manhattan apartment was like a crash course in world politics.

The best minds from around the globe would turn up frequently and stay for a delicious dinner cooked by Eqbal. I remember meeting the famous lawyer Leonard Boudin, former Attorney General of the USA, Ramsey Clarke, the sociologist Jay Schulman, Eqbal’s fellow defendant at the Harrisburg Seven trial and leading peace activist Danial Berrigan, the iconic Cuban novelist Edmundo Desnoes, a young anthropologist Ashraf Ghani, the Palestinian intellectual Ibrahim Abu-Lughod, and of course, Eqbal’s closest friend Edward Said.

I happened to be staying at Eqbal’s apartment during the Iran Hostage crisis of 1979-81. The phone was ringing off the hook. One time I picked it up, it was President Abolhassn Banisadr of Iran wanting to talk to Eqbal. Later, Secretary of State Cyrus Vance came over. What was happening was that the Iranians wanted Eqbal to be involved in the negotiations with the USA as they trusted him to be an honest and honorable broker.

It was clear that people from all parts of the world and all walks of life loved Eqbal. Once, when Eqbal was visiting Montreal to deliver a lecture at the McGill University, the two of us were sitting at a small café near the campus. When we finished our meal and asked the waiter for the bill, he said something to Eqbal in Arabic and walked away. Eqbal explained that the man said he was an Algerian and he does not charge friends of the Algerian revolution.

Pakistan was Eqbal’s foremost love. Not many know that even after living a large part of his life in the US, Eqbal retained his Pakistani passport and never became an American citizen. He passed away in Islamabad on May 11, 1999. He was 67.

Even as he lay in his hospital bed after an operation for cancer, never one to waste time, he was reviewing an article by my brother-in-law Parvez Hoodbhoy, when he succumbed to a fatal heart attack.

For me personally, he was a lot of things.

A guardian to me after my father passed away when I was 14, a mentor, a hero to look up to, and just plain good company! But above all, he remains the man I had discovered, along with the first sight of a plane on the ground, Munno Chacha, the ever affectionate uncle from the USA.

Posted on

KU Seminar On Balochistan Carries Sabeen’s Legacy of Free Speech

KU Seminar on Missing Persons (Credit: dawn.com)
KU Seminar on Missing Persons (Credit: dawn.com)
In spite of, and in part inspired by Sabeen Mahmud’s murder, faculty members at the Karachi University (KU) held a seminar highlighting the issues surrounding the missing people in Balochistan. Mama Qadeer, Farzana Majeed and Mohammad Ali Talpur, whose activities have irked the government, were the main speakers at the event – titled ‘Baloch missing persons and the role of state and society’.

Despite facing opposition from the KU administration and cognisant of the danger that surrounds any such activity, that students and faculty members were willing to stand their ground is a testament to their courage.

On the flip side, an incident-less event indicates that perhaps the forces that seek to silence debate on this issue recognise that forcefully clamping down on dissent only makes it stronger; and if they haven’t, the relatively tepid aftermath of the seminar should make it abundantly clear.

The brave actions of the organisers and the attendees of the seminar echo those that have troubled dictators and despots throughout history; that despite of insurmountable odds – and to an extent because of them – people will continue to raise their voices against perceived injustices.

Every instance of censorship is used to fuel the next demonstration, the next dialogue; and as the leaders of Egypt, Syria and Israel know, only through extraordinary oppression can this cycle be broken. While the seminar faced opposition from the KU administration, there was no direct outside pressure – like the one exerted on LUMS.

KU’s actions were an attempt at self-censorship.

Whether these outside forces have given up the censorship policy or they have chosen to let this instance go by to avoid back-to-back controversies remains unclear.

Either way the result was a balanced, healthy, and most importantly, a peaceful discussion; which is less damaging than the forces of censorship believe it to be.

Firstly, the successful seminar caused a much smaller ripple in the national narrative than an unsuccessful would have caused; showing that banning something remains the most effective way of ensuring maximum publicity.
Secondly, the dissent against government actions did not preach violence nor draw it; it questioned policies through the prism of the constitution and demanded solutions within that framework.

No ‘anti-Pakistan” sentiments were expressed, nothing unpatriotic was uttered.

Finally, the debate, being a free and open, examined both sides of the coin.

Several attendees grilled Mama Qadeer and company about the atrocities committed by the Balochistan Liberation Army, and demanded justice for their slain relatives.

An unimpeded discussion is not only balanced, but it is peaceful; only logic can convince a person of the error of their ways, oppression enforces their beliefs, no matter how erroneous.

Sabeen Mahmud’s sacrifice enabled others to take up the mantle of openness; that is her legacy.

Posted on

The tweet that prompted a thousand threats

Sabeen's supporters (Credit: dawn.com)
Sabeen’s supporters (Credit: dawn.com)
ISLAMABAD, May 3: Can the words of a grief-stricken woman be used to accuse her of treachery against the state? From the sentiments of social media users, it would appear so.

On the night of Sabeen Mahmud’s murder, social media was awash with expressions of anger, disgust and disbelief at the killing of one of Karachi’s leading civil society activists. One of the many tweets that expressed utter disgust and disillusionment with the current state of the country came from a woman who was close to Ms Mahmud.

“I stood in a dark corner of the house and cried. I was overcome with grief and couldn’t process it. I was fed up with all the senseless violence that plagued Pakistan and in that state, I sent out the tweet.”

That expression of grief, however, unleashed a nightmare for the woman in question. Days after the incident, when civil society members gathered to remember Ms Mahmud, the same tweet was re-circulated, this time amongst a more militant and decidedly more extreme segment of social media users.

Countless death threats, rape threats and messages inciting violence against her and other activists – such as Lums professor Taimur Rehman and National Students Federation activists – who were talking about human rights violations in Balochistan and asking for justice for Sabeen Mahmud, were issued by various social media users and pages.

“I’ve worked on sensitive issues before, and have received my share of hate mail. But this harassment was on a scale I had never seen before. The rabidity of the comments, across all social media platforms, got to me and, on the advice of some friends, I deactivated my accounts on social media,” she told Dawn.

Threats of physical and sexual violence against women are not a new phenomenon on social media and the fact that many of the users copy-and-pasted the exact same message again and again has led a number of IT experts to observe that this appeared to be a coordinated effort.

Fahad Desmukh, a journalist and rights activist, told Dawn that even though freedom of expression activists preferred to err on the side of more freedom, the reality of social media was that users – especially public figures – would have to put up with a certain amount of abuse and venom from others who do not agree with their ideas.

“However, when that abuse turns into threats of rape, physical violence or incitement to violence against the victim, that is very scary,” he said.

Shahzad Ahmed, country director of the digital rights group Bytes For All, said that even though offences such as these were covered in the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) and the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC), law enforcement agencies aren’t the best forum for victims, especially women, to take their cases.

The law provides protection, for example, against incitement to violence under Section 109 of the PPC; against intimidation and threats to a person’s life under Section 506; and against threats of injury or damage to property under Section 503. However, Mr Ahmed said that these laws had never been properly enforced in cases where online activity has been concerned.

“If an individual, especially a woman, takes her case to the National Response Centre for Cyber Crimes (NR3C), local law enforcement or even the courts, there is a tendency to blame the victim,” he said, adding, “a woman exposes herself to more scrutiny and name-calling by pursuing their case through the authorities”.

This is reminiscent of what happened to the late Sabeen Mahmud around Valentine’s Day two years ago, when she ran a campaign extolling peace and love. ‘Faasla na rakhein, pyaar honay dein’ was the message she and her fellow campaigners were spreading.

However, around the same time, a parallel movement that cited Islamic texts and opposed the observance of ‘decadent festivals’ such as Valentine’s Day, cropped up in Karachi and other cities. When Ms Mahmud dismissed their views via her social media account, a concerted campaign was initiated by conservative elements to malign her. They even insinuated that Ms Mahmud had insulted scripture and termed her a blasphemer.

This is a very dangerous accusation in Pakistan, where dozens are killed in the name of blasphemy every year, without anything in the way of due process. So when Ms Mahmud approached the authorities, her plight was belittled and she was asked, “Why did you do this in the first place?”

Both Mr Ahmed and Sana Saleem of Bolo Bhi told Dawn that even though social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook have strict policies regarding incitement to violence and threats of sexual or physical assault, the sites are not always quick to take action against malicious content.

“A good way to get a dangerous post removed is to get a couple of dozen people to report that post or user. If enough people report it, the website is forced to review it. Sometimes they don’t and we get in touch with them directly and plead the case. But we can do this because we’ve had contact with the Facebook team. Not everyone has that kind of access,” Ms Saleem said.

The situation becomes more perilous when the vitriol is echoed by Facebook pages and Twitter accounts that purport to have intimate knowledge of the military’s workings. For example, the Facebook page called simply ‘ISI’ – with over 341,000 subscribers, as well as its allied Twitter page, ‘@ISI_RT’ – have posted photographs of human rights activists, including women, and extolled followers to murder, rape or do bodily harm to them.

Due to the nature of the incident – Ms Mahmud was killed shortly after hosting a controversial seminar titled #UnsilencingBalochistan where Baloch nationalist activist Mama Qadeer was also invited – many of her friends placed the blame for her killing squarely on the state’s shoulders.
A military official Dawn spoke to regretted the practice, but said that the army had little to no control over such pages.

“Journalists and media savvy individuals know that ISPR has one official website and only one Facebook and Twitter page. Most of these other pages copy information from the official websites in order to establish their credibility. They can be operated by anyone, but the average user is not necessarily in a position to judge that,” he said.

The official pointed out that ISPR had issued formal statements in the past, explaining that neither the chief of army staff, nor the DG ISI, have accounts on social media. This was because imposter accounts purporting to be run by the two senior functionaries became quite popular on social networking websites, leading many users to believe that they were, in fact, genuine.
“Social media is a comparatively new medium, so we are looking into what can be done. But in the absence of a proper mechanism whereby such content can be checked, e.g. a cybercrime law, there is only so much the institution can do to clarify its position,” he said.

Veteran rights activist Hina Jilani disagrees. “Defending human rights is one of the most difficult things to do in this country. If the state cannot protect lawyers or activists who are involved with sensitive cases, what guarantees are there that the state is not backing their actions,” she asked, rhetorically.

Ms Jilani – who has been a vocal human rights activist for many decades – was also targeted by several social media users for her defence of Sabeen Mahmud. However, saying that she did not bother with the social media at all, she said that the situation today was far scarier than it was back in her day.

“If journalists or activists fell afoul of the state, they were mostly hauled off to jail. Now, they are just bumped off. This practice began under Gen Zia but gained prominence under the rule of Gen Musharraf,” she said.

Disagreeing with the impression that those with extremist views are ‘lone wolves’ without an agenda, she said that the fact that their views were freely aired on mainstream media, while progressive voices were stifled, proved that they enjoyed state support.

This is exactly what the woman grieving for Ms Mahmud is worried about.

“I have limited my presence on social media and am staying at home until the outcry dies down,” she told Dawn, adding that even though she knew the cause was worth fighting for, it was only natural to be scared for one’s own life given the extent to which Pakistani society had become intolerant of others’ opinions.

Posted on

Progressives in Pakistan see dark future after Sabeen’s murder

Sabeen's murder sends shock waves (Credit: news.yahoo.com)
Sabeen’s murder sends shock waves (Credit: news.yahoo.com)

ISLAMABAD, April 27: The killing of Sabeen Mahmud – a prominent rights campaigner – on Friday has sent shockwaves through the country’s progressives, as those who speak out against alleged abuses by the state say they are under increasing threat.

Mahmud, the 40-year-old director The Second Floor cafe in Karachi which regularly hosted debates and arts events, was killed when gunmen attacked her car as she left the venue minutes after hosting a seminar on abuses in Balochistan.

The same talk – featuring prominent Baloch activist Mama Qadeer who has campaigned for the “missing people” of Balochistan – had been cancelled by the prestigious Lahore University of Management Sciences weeks earlier after members of faculty reported pressure from intelligence agencies.

Police say they are examining whether she was targeted because of her work at the cafe, which held talks against religious extremism as well as state brutality.

“She had no personal enmity so there is much possibility that she might have been targeted because of her intellectual activities. She was getting threatening calls from some unknown callers. We are working (out) who they might be,” senior police official Jamil Ahmed said Sunday.

Her death led to an outpouring of grief with hundreds of mourners attending her funeral Saturday, as the United States and the European Union joined Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in officially condemning the killing.

But most analysts say there is little chance her murderers will ever be brought to justice given the recent history of impunity among those who target the country’s marginalised liberals.

Last year, prominent TV host Raza Rumi narrowly escaped a gun attack on his car in Lahore that killed his driver, while another anchor, Hamid Mir, survived being shot in the stomach in Karachi shortly after hosting a TV programme about Balochistan.

No perpetrators have been brought to justice in either case.

TV anchor Mir, whose brother quickly pointed the finger at the Inter Services Intelligence agency (ISI) for the attempt on his life, said he saw several parallels with the attack on Mahmud.

“The most common factor was Mama Qadeer Baloch because I received threats when I invited him on my show,” Mir told AFP.

“I got six bullet injuries, she got maybe four. I was attacked by the people who were riding a motorcycle, she was too. My attackers were guided by some people who were sitting in a car and this was the same case in her incident.”

Hashim Bin Rashid, a leftwing columnist and activist, says that there is a growing atmosphere among the country’s urban middle classes that encourages the silencing of dissenting voices.

“The overall atmosphere of fascism… is much more worrying – where anyone is offering any dissent is going to be called a traitor,” he said.

Activists who write about the rights of Baloch people on social media, or condemn the killing of minorities, are often loudly berated and receive death threats that are never investigated, while on the other hand the government blocks pages belonging to progressive groups on Facebook, he added.

Mir said the room for freedom of expression on Balochistan had significantly narrowed in the mainstream media.

“Since I was attacked last year, the media has been facing a lot of pressure,” said Mir, who now travels with an armed escort.

“They feel they are helpless, they cannot express their views in the media openly, they cannot get justice. They feel anyone who speaks truth or people who become voice for the voiceless will be silenced. This is not good for democratic society.”

Abid Hussain, a Karachi-based journalist who attended Friday’s seminar and had known Mahmud for more than a decade, described her loss as “unquantifiable”.

“I truly hope we are able to rally around her and do our best to continue her legacy and what she taught us… but the sceptic in me says that it won’t be possible,” he said.

The first test, he said, would be whether a talk on Baochistan scheduled to be held at the University of Karachi next month is allowed to go ahead – and safely.

Posted on

Sabeen Mehmud, Pakistani rights activist, shot dead

Sabeen Mehmud (Credit: nytlive.nytimes.com)
Sabeen Mehmud (Credit: nytlive.nytimes.com)

Islamabad April 27: A leading member of Pakistan’s small band of liberal social activists has been gunned down outside the pioneering Karachi arts venue she founded, in an apparent bid to silence discussion about the country’s brutal efforts to smother separatism in the restive province of Balochistan.

The murder of Sabeen Mahmud on Friday sent shockwaves through Pakistan’s embattled intelligentsia both because she was much loved but also because the killing happened immediately after an event she organised with Mama Abdul Qadeer, an elderly Baloch activist campaigning on behalf of so-called “missing people” abducted by the state security apparatus.

Witnesses said she was shot several times by unknown gunmen in her car just after she left the talk at The Second Floor, or T2F as her cafe and arts space is known. Her mother was also critically injured in the gunfire and rushed to hospital.

On Saturday Pakistan’s army spokesman Asim Bajwa decried the killing of Mahmud as “tragic and unfortunate”.

Intelligence agencies had been “tasked to render all possible assistance to investigating agencies for apprehension of perpetrators and bringing them to justice,” General Bajwa said.

Although Mahmud had also made enemies among religious militants – not least with her counter-protest against Islamist attempts to stop Karachites marking Valentine’s Day – many of her friends believe the country’s “deep state” is responsible.

Pakistan’s military establishment is extremely touchy about the issue of Balochistan, where a nationalist movement has developed into a potent insurgency in the last decade.

The separatists are demanding independence from a Pakistani state they claim is oppressive and only interested in extracting the province’s energy and mineral resources.

Authorities are particularly sensitive about Qadeer, the 73-year-old who in 2013-14 walked 1,200 miles from the Baloch capital of Quetta to Islamabad to protest about missing people, including his own son who was found dead and mutilated in 2011 having vanished in 2009.

In March he was banned from travelling to the US to attend a human rights conference in the US.

This month the Lahore University of Management Sciences, one of the country’s most prestigious colleges, was forced to cancel an event to which Qadeer had been invited.

Senior faculty members told Dawn, a leading Pakistani newspaper, they had been forced to scrap the “Un-Silencing Balochistan” talk on the orders of the Inter-Service Intelligence directorate, the military’s powerful spy wing.

Following the cancellation of the LUMS talk Mahmud was all too aware of the risks and asked her circle of friends on Facebook about what “pre-emptive measures” she should take before hosting what she called “Un-silencing Balochistan (Take 2)”.

“A lot of people did say there would be blowback but nobody thought they could shoot someone dead like that,” said Taha Siddiqui, an outspoken journalist and one of Mahmud’s many friends on Pakistan’s liberal-left.

“Shooting dead seemed a little too brutal, something that happens only in remote areas of Balochistan,” Siddiqui said. “But now they are doing in in Karachi.”

The country is extremely sensitive to the threat from nationalists, given it lost half its territory when East Pakistan seceded to form Bangladesh in 1971.

Authorities are especially keen to quell the insurgency now the province is slated to play a critical role in the grand strategic plan to turn Pakistan into a land corridor connecting China with Arabian Sea.

Last week Chinese president Xi Jinping made an important stat visit to Pakistan where he signed off on a multi-billion dollar spending splurge which hopes to turn Gwadar, a town on the coast of Balochistan, into one of the world’s great trading hubs.

Many Pakistani activists and journalists have learned that it is best not to publicly scrutinise the Balochistan issue.

Hamid Mir, the country’s most famous television news presenter, was seriously wounded by gunmen in Karachi following a confrontation with the army over his coverage of Qadeer.

Mahmud’s funeral procession began on Saturday at T2F, the cafe she established to organise debates and art events.
Local novelist Mohammed Hanif described T2F as “a space for Karachites to come and play and create”.

“The deep state already controls media in reference to Balochistan coverage,” said the acclaimed writer and journalist. “Now Baloch voices can’t be heard in private spaces.”

 

Posted on

Keep smiling, Sabeen

Sabeen Mahmud (Credit: article.wn.com)
Sabeen Mahmud (Credit: article.wn.com)

KARACHI, April 25: Those who knew her will remember her smiling. Sabeen Mahmud was a bastion of art in a forsaken city, a city where 20 million live a life of death. In a city of lifeless droves, Sabeen was alive. Today, she is more alive than ever. She is alive because one cannot imagine she is not. She is alive because if she isn’t, are we? No, we’re dead. She’s alive.

She turned the T2F into a haven of art. If you wanted a space to have a stimulating conversation over a cup of coffee, you went to T2F. If you wanted a space to perform, you went to T2F. If you wanted to rehearse with your bandmates for your upcoming gig, you went to T2F. If you wanted to get away and read a book, you went to T2F. And when you went to T2F, you saw Sabeen smiling. You saw her cherishing the art she had surrounded herself by, reaching out to amateurs, reassuring the professionals. I cannot imagine going there and not seeing her warm, smiling face.

One cannot overstate Karachi’s loss. It has lost its voice; it has lost the best of its inhabitants. One cannot help but despair, to sit in stupor ― silent, catatonic. But knowing Sabeen, this is not how she would want to have us be. No. She would want us to speak up, louder than before. Louder, so that those who silenced her can hear. Louder, lest they think they have won. Louder, so that they are deafened by the noise. Louder, so that they may never silence anyone again.

Even in their immediate grief, Karachi’s shrinking community of artists and intellectuals is taking stock. “It can frighten some people, but it can also inspire others to take a stand as she did, with courage and bravery. We have to keep fighting for our freedom of speech and expression and not let this city become a dead city. Arts and culture ― dance, drama and music ― are the best methods to combat violence,” classical dancer Sheema Kermani told The Express Tribune.

Musician Louis J Pinto, aka Gumby, has played at some of the grandest venues of the world. Yet, his new band decided to have its first performance at T2F recently. For artists, young and old, this was the space where there was no other. Sabeen made sure of that. “Her contribution to society is her legacy, which we should continue to move forward. As an artist, I think we should all continue doing what we do best. It’s the right thing to do and that’s what Sabeen would have wanted,” said the drummer.

Dancer Joshinder Chaggar agrees. “As an artist in Karachi, Sabeen is so intimately woven into our lives. But for me, this has only magnified her presence and cause. I am in awe of this woman who really, truly lived. She lived large, passionately; she supported others. I mean she was a magician. In terms of taking her legacy forward, we need to start living like her. Really LIVING, and singing our song and standing up for what we believe in. Sabeen is still alive; her soul is resonating through the city and vibrating in our hearts.”

Assistant Professor and Chairperson of the Social Sciences & Liberal Arts department at the Institute of Business Administration (IBA), Dr Framji Minwalla says of her, “This is a devastating loss. Every life we lose is a devastating loss. I have met few people like Sabeen: brave, honest, genuinely caring and committed, an idealist who found astonishing ways to ground those ideals in concrete action. It’s difficult for me to imagine Karachi without her in it. She made at least my work and world easier to manage. She made me a better, more engaged thinker, and for that and much more I am immeasurably grateful. The deliberate targeting of activists, thinkers, people of conscience, people working hard to make this country saner, progressive, more equitable will not silence the growing anger we feel. The work will continue because the many people Sabeen touched will make certain it continues.”

Today, Karachi is draped in despair, but the heavens must be rejoicing. To them has returned a curator nonpareil. We’ll meet at the seventh floor, Sabeen.

(Additional input by Hasan Ansari and Saadia Qamar)

 

Posted on

Warren Weinstein’s Devotion to Pakistan Was Part of a Lifetime of Service

Late Warren Weinstein with Pakistani businessman, Majyd Aziz
Late Warren Weinstein with Pakistani businessman, Majyd Aziz

WASHINGTON, April 23 — For more than a decade, Warren Weinstein, an American aid worker and economic adviser, worked in Pakistan trying to improve living conditions there. He moved to the city of Lahore. He learned the Urdu language and dressed in the traditional clothing.

His work came to an abrupt end in the summer of 2011, just days before he was scheduled to return to his family home in Rockville, Md., when he was abducted by a group of armed men who broke into his home in Model Town, an old, affluent neighborhood in Lahore.

United States intelligence officers searched for him for years, but the White House revealed on Thursday morning that Mr. Weinstein, 73, had been killed when he was present during an American counterterrorism strike at a compound of Al Qaeda in January. Giovanni Lo Porto, 37, an Italian who had been held since 2012, was also killed in the strike.

In an extraordinary statement on Thursday, President Obama apologized for the strike and hailed Mr. Weinstein as a humanitarian who had committed his life to a “spirit of service” to his own country and to the people of Pakistan.

The home of Warren Weinstein’s family in Rockville, Md., on Thursday. Credit Jose Luis Magana/Associated Press

“He devoted his life to people across Africa and South Asia,” a somber, grim-faced Mr. Obama said. “He was a loving husband, father and grandfather, who willingly left the comforts of home to help the people of Pakistan.”

Elaine Weinstein, Mr. Weinstein’s wife, expressed her grief at the discovery of his death in a statement she posted on a website, www.bringwarrenhome.com, that had been set up to find him and bring him home safely.

“We are devastated by this news and the knowledge that my husband will never safely return home,” she wrote. “We were so hopeful that those in the U.S. and Pakistani governments with the power to take action and secure his release would have done everything possible to do so, and there are no words to do justice to the disappointment and heartbreak we are going through.”

A veteran aid worker, Mr. Weinstein had spent more than 40 years traveling the world, serving in Africa and South Asia before settling in Pakistan, where his wife once wrote that he had sought to help strengthen the country’s dairy, agriculture and furniture industries.

A Fulbright scholar who earned his Ph.D. in international law and economics, Mr. Weinstein was proficient in seven languages. He served as a Peace Corps director in Ivory Coast and Togo. From 2004 until he was captured in 2011, he worked as an adviser for J.E. Austin Associates, a contractor for the United States Agency for International Development.

“He was a genuinely warm person,” said Stephen R. Weissman, the former staff director for the House of Representatives Subcommittee on Africa, who first met Mr. Weinstein in 1974. “Someone said to me that he is not worried about Weinstein being with Al Qaeda because he would win them over. He was that kind of person.”

Mr. Weinstein’s relatives have attributed his decision to take an assignment in Pakistan to his longstanding affinity with that troubled country, which was also felt by the Pakistanis he met.

“He was an unassuming man who liked wearing shalwar kameez and lived happily without much security,” said Fasi Zaka, a consultant who met Mr. Weinstein in Peshawar, Pakistan, the capital of conflict-ridden Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province. Shalwar kameez is the baggy trousers and long shirt that constitute Pakistan’s national dress.

“Behind the genial exterior was a very smart man committed to Pakistan and making its broken systems work,” Mr. Zaka said. “The first time I met him, he said, ‘Show me the smart kids who aren’t afraid of getting their hands dirty in the field.’ ”

In a column she wrote last year for Newsweek, Mrs. Weinstein described the sense of peace and security that her husband often said he felt working in Pakistan.

“Warren especially respected the culture’s focus on hospitality and the welcoming of strangers embodied in unwritten codes such as the concept of Pashtunwali,” Mrs. Weinstein wrote. “This welcoming atmosphere, and the protection it promised, gave my husband a great sense of peace and safety, and he made every effort to reciprocate it.”

But she also described her concern for her husband’s failing health. She said he had severe asthma and a heart condition. She said she worried that his health would suffer during his captivity.

“If he is not afforded the traditional Pakistani hospitality that he has come to love and respect, I fear that we will lose him,” Mrs. Weinstein wrote in the column.

Mrs. Weinstein said that during her husband’s captivity, he was not allowed to communicate with anyone back home. The only images that she saw of him were the occasional videos released on the Internet by Al Qaeda. The last of those, in December 2013, showed Mr. Weinstein with a gray beard and wearing a cap.

In the video, he pleaded with Mr. Obama to negotiate with the captors for his release, saying he felt “abandoned and forgotten” by his country.

“The years have taken their toll,” Mr. Weinstein said in the video. “I have been cut off from my family. My wife, who is over 70, my two daughters, my two grandchildren, my son-in-law and perhaps new members of the family whom I have never met. Needless to say, I have been suffering deep anxiety every part of every day.”

Mr. Weinstein’s death from an American drone strike is a tragic twist on a case that had already put a human face on the cost of United States involvement in the campaign against terrorism. In the 2013 video, and in an earlier one in 2012, Mr. Weinstein had pleaded with the president to secure his release.

“My life is in your hands, Mr. President,” Mr. Weinstein said in the 2012 video. “If you accept the demands, I live. If you don’t accept the demands, then I die.”

Jeanene Harlick, a longtime friend of Mr. Weinstein’s daughter Alisa, said the family had struggled during his captivity, though they initially stayed quiet about it, fearing that starting a public campaign might hurt their chances of getting him back.

“They were frustrated with the way the government was dealing with it, and that the government was giving them very little information,” said Ms. Harlick, 41, of San Mateo, Calif., who met Ms. Weinstein in 2004 when they were both journalists at a newspaper in Oregon.

Ms. Harlick described Mr. Weinstein as a selfless person who passed on his generosity and compassion to his daughter.

“Most of his life was spent in foreign countries, and that was very hard for his family, but he did it because he was so devoted to helping these people,” Ms. Harlick said.

He reveled in his aid work and had an active and unusual mind, she added, learning several languages to communicate in the countries where he traveled, and even inventing his own language and filling many journals with writings in it.

Mr. Weinstein’s family had mounted a yearslong multimedia campaign to return him to the United States. They used the Twitter hashtag #BringWarrenHome, and they sought media appearances to keep pressure on his captors and on the United States government.

The website, which includes pictures of Mr. Weinstein and his wife in happier times, was updated Thursday morning with a small black box bearing white type: “Warren Weinstein was kidnapped on August 13, 2011, while working in Lahore, Pakistan, and died in captivity during a U.S. counterterrorism operation in January 2015.”

Meredith McCain, 65, lives across the street from Mrs. Weinstein in Rockville, on a quiet street where neighbors tied yellow ribbons around the trees. Ms. McCain said that she did not know Mr. Weinstein because he was often abroad, but that his wife had once attended a birthday party for Ms. McCain’s sister, with whom she lives.

“She talked about him in the here and now,” she said, adding, “He was never off her mind.”

Correction: April 23, 2015

An earlier version of this article misstated the name of the contractor for whom Warren Weinstein worked as an adviser. It was J.E. Austin Associates, not J.E. & Austin Associates.

Rukmini Callimachi contributed reporting from New York; Julie Hirschfeld Davis from Washington; Salman Masood from Islamabad, Pakistan; Emmarie Huetteman from Rockville, Md.; and Declan Walsh from London.

Posted on

Curbing Hate Speech

FC Seizes Hate Material (Credit: tribune.com.pk)
FC Seizes Hate Material (Credit: tribune.com.pk)

Following up with the counterterrorism plan of action, the police raided several hundred bookstores and offices of publishers throughout the country in January. This entailed thousands of arrests and confiscation of printed, audio and visual material. The seizures from Urdu Bazaar, Lahore were the highest as it is the largest site of the printing and publishing business in the country.

According to Amjad Saleem Minhas, Director of Sanjh Publishers, “About 90 per cent of the business in Urdu Bazaar Lahore survives on printing religious books and a large chunk of it is inflammatory and derogatory against different Muslim sects and religions while the publishers and users of the materials include various Madrassas.”

The police also launched a crackdown against the abuse of loudspeakers in mosques. A new law carrying heavier penalties was introduced days before the arrests of several hundred accused in Punjab province alone.

The arrested persons succeeded in securing release on bail using two alibis. The publishers argued that the government never specifically banned the publications in question whereas those accused of misuse of sound amplifiers reported that they were merely reciting holy verses. This shows that the issue of hate speech needs a broader, cohesive and serious response in the area of public policy rather than scattered administrative measures.

Considering the above example of inconsistency in the public policy, the hate speech is likely to find a strong alibi in its favour if the education policy was used as a standard. This area needs immediate attention considering that hate speech in the textbooks is pervasive and acute while more than 37 million students and teachers in the country use textbooks every day.

Despite painstaking efforts by experts over the years to highlight this problem, the textbooks in 2014 were no different than before. These books are approved by the Punjab Textbook Board. However, the studies carried out annually by National Commission for Justice and Peace since 2010 show that textbooks in Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan, were not healthier.

The History textbook for first year class of FA published by Standard Book Center and approved by Federal Board for Intermediate wants student to believe that “Hindus consumed urine of cow and women of easy virtue occupied Hindu temples”(page 4). In 2015 the course was replaced by Tareekh-e-Islam. The preface of this textbook is devoted to highlighting blasphemy against Islam by non-Muslims. Textbooks for languages, Islamic and social studies carry frequent remarks disrespecting religious diversity and illogical comparison between different creeds.

Ostensibly these textbooks pose equal, if not greater, risk of incitement to violence in the name of religion because of the sheer size of readership as well as their function and status. Stuffed with factual misrepresentations, negative portrayal of minority religions in Pakistan and stereotypes, the textbooks for schools and colleges promote a mindset misfit to live in peace with the world at large.

The textbooks are mostly copy pasted rather than authored and printed in Urdu Bazaar largely by private publishers. Authors increase the hate material trying to compete with one another.

The five education policy reviews since 1959 only added to the problem rather than addressing it as the education sector was assigned to fulfill certain political objectives of each regime rather than educating the nation. Besides low budgetary allocation, institutional overlap of responsibility and privatisation of publishing, the complacent curriculum review process was responsible for allowing the religious biases to creep into textbooks and contaminate the environment of educational institutions.

After the devolution of power to provinces under 18th Amendment, each province adopted different institutional approaches though ending up with similar and dismal results.

According to data compiled by Dr Baela Raza Jameel, the Balochistan province has a Curriculum Bureau and Textbook Board, mostly borrowing their textbooks and policy from Punjab. The Punjab government set up an Education Commission in 2011 only to abolish it in 2013. The Punjab Curriculum Authority was created in 2012 that worked along with Punjab Textbook Board. These two bodies were merged into one Curriculum and Textbook Board in February 2015 through a provincial legislation.

Despite a large resource base, Punjab did not achieve better than Balochistan in review of textbooks due to institutional overlap and swift changes. The incumbent government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was quick to reverse some positive changes that the Awami National Party’s government introduced in textbooks in 2012.

The Sindh government recently announced that it will introduce Quaid-e-Azam’s hallmark speech on August 11, 1947 to encourage plurality and nondiscrimination but has taken eight long years to review textbooks. It also formed an Advisory Committee on Curriculum in 2013 that is moving at a snail’s pace.

With the abolition of Curriculum Wing at national level in 2011, the provincial governments were empowered to introduce positive changes. However, their failure to do so strengthened the centralist views which claimed that provincial autonomy was ineffective in the education sector.

In 2014, the Federal Ministry of Education set up a National Curriculum Council, involving education ministries from four provinces as well as Gilgit-Baltistan, Azad Jammu and Kashmir and FATA. The council also runs the risk of becoming toothless due to lack of consensus about its powers.

This state of affairs leaves us with a vague institutional framework and a burgeoning vacuum of responsibility disabling the governments to meet the challenge of curbing hate speech in its roots. Therefore, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and chief ministers of the provinces need to spare some time during the Council of Common Interest to discuss and devise a policy response to the issue. Eradicating hate speech comprehensively will require a revision of education policy, allowing religious diversity, academic freedom and acceptance of cultural plurality.

The Federal Ministry of Education can set the example by undertaking the review of textbooks for schools run by the federal government to weed out religion based hate material. After all, it is against the constitution and general law to discriminate and provoke hatred against any creed, colour, gender and race.

Posted on

Some Facts & Falsehoods on the Yemen Conflict

In a rare act of irrationality, the government of Pakistan announced its decision to protect the territorial integrity of Saudi Arabia. A high-level delegation comprising the defence minister, the prime minister’s adviser on national security and foreign affairs and representatives of the armed forces were promptly dispatched to take lessons on how to participate in an international military coalition built solely for the purpose of aggression against a small country. The region’s richest country has now formally asked one of the poorest for ‘boots on the ground’, ‘airplanes in air’ and ‘ships on water’ to protect its royal family.

Still grievously suffering from the wounds of our past voluntary services, we seem to have learnt very little. Here is a disaster in the offing — visible to a blind man in a dark room — waiting to embroil and push back the entire region by another few hundred years. What ‘substance abuse’ is making us ‘high’ and reckless on an issue that we need not touch with a long pole? Not only do we appear to be bending backwards to comply with the self-seeking desires of a belligerent gang, but we also seem to be fabricating lies that could easily outdo the beauty of the book 1984 by George Orwell.

There are at least six falsehoods being purposely used to mislead the people of Pakistan. The first of these fabrications suggests that we ought to support Saudi Arabia because it is a brotherly Muslim country. In doing so, we meaningfully remain silent on the fact that Yemen is also a Muslim country. If brotherhood is based on being Muslim, then all or no Muslim country should be our brother. How come we appear to have agreed to kill one group of our brothers by taking money from the other? The second falsehood that is being propagated is the impression that Yemenis are attacking Saudi Arabia. The truth is just the opposite. It is Saudi Arabia and its allies that are attacking Yemen and not the other way round.

 

The third falsehood is to intentionally create ambivalence about three completely different entities — the Saudi state, the Saudi Royal family and the holy sites. The fourth falsehood advocates that it is in Pakistan’s national interest to support Saudi Arabia. The fact is that Pakistan’s national interest will be irreversibly compromised by becoming an ally of the Saudi-led coalition. The coalition is blatantly violating the UN Charter by engaging in an unprovoked and illegal act of aggression against a small country.

The fifth falsehood underscores Saudi Arabia’s deep-rooted friendship with Pakistan and its people. The fact is that Saudi Arabia has funded militant groups and fought its proxy wars in Pakistan for many decades. Yemen has done no such thing. Does anyone need to be convinced on how the Saudis treat Pakistanis with servant-like contempt and disrespect, which is even worse than how the rich of Pakistan treat the guards standing outside their gates?

The sixth falsehood is built on how Pakistan’s international prestige and status will go up because of its involvement in the Saudi-led war. The fact is that Pakistan will only be looked down upon as a country that is willing to rent its services when its own house is on fire. There should be no doubt that our involvement will generate a new set of enemies — including Iran that has traditionally held good relations with Pakistan.

One finds it impossible to appeal to the good sense and sanity of our rulers. So here is a plea to the Saudi government. Please leave our country alone. We have enough on our plate, which is far more significant and far more meaningful than protecting families in foreign lands.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 4th, 2015.

 

Posted on

Civil Society Outcry Against Decision To Deploy Pak Armed Forces In Saudi Arabia To Fight Iran-Backed Yemeni Forces

Pakistani human rights activists and civil society organizations have raised a strong voice of protest against the reported imminent deployment of Pakistani armed forces in Saudi Arabia – at the request of the House of Saud – to fight against the Iran-backed forces in the current civil war raging in Yemen.

Civil society has strongly condemned the PML(N) government and its allies amongst the political parties for even the consideration or the remote possibility of such an unethical and wrong move.

It would be a huge strategic and tactical mistake for Pakistan, in longer-term political, military, economic and foreign policy losses, against the ruling political party’s immediate/short-term financial and monetary gains.  The mysterious “gift” of US$1.5 billion in 2014, and the reluctance of the government to be transparent about it then, begins to be comprehended now.  The government should have the courage to be open and honest now.

Firstly, it should not attempt to befool us citizens that “the holy land of Saudi Arabia (i.e. the home of Islam’s two holiest shrines) is under threat of attack” (sic).  It is not.  The fact is that Saudi Arabia is attacking Yemen, not vice versa.

Secondly, our armed forces are not a mercenary force, up for rent to the highest bidder.  We have not yet forgotten Black September: Gen. Zia-ul-Haq’s bombardment of Palestinian refugee camps in Jordan way back in 1970.  We are still paying the diplomatic and political price for that disaster.

Thirdly, we are in the midst of internal military operations against militants and terrorist networks like the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), such as Operation Zarb-e-Azb in North Waziristan, other parts of FATA, Karachi, Malakand, and the Balochistan turmoil, amongst others.  How thin can we spread our armed forces personnel and equipment? Do we even wish to do so?  Where is our priority?  The armed forces risk unpopularity, alienating Pakistani citizens and intensifying extremist sectarianism.

 

Fourthly, we should strictly stay out of the deadly proxy wars that Saudi Arabia and Iran are waging in several countries, including Pakistan, in addition to Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen, Bahrain, and others.  We have managed to stay out for over two and a half decades, we should not change our policy now.  Is Yemen not a Muslim country like Saudi Arabia? Is Yemen not a member of the OIC like Pakistan?  What makes fighting with Saudi Arabia against Yemen more important for Pakistan than fighting against Daaish/ISIS in i.a. Syria, Iraq, Lebanon or Libya?  Yemen ke awaam ka qatl-e-aam na manzoor na manzoor.

Is it the political clout that is bought by financial hammering, e.g. “free grant” aid, cheap oil, 0.8 million migrant workers’ remittances worth billions; or by oral shield protection at the UN Human Rights Council?  Or is it the emotive clout of the “Khaadim-e-Harimain-Sharifain”?  Or that of USA, another big donor and lender, as well as the seller of armaments to Pakistan?

Let USA play its double and triple games in the region.  We must not emulate it.  We must be ethical.  Pakistanis are no longer befooled.  We are no longer silent.  We are Awake. We are Aware.  We are Watching. We are Speaking Out.  NO TO PAKISTANI ARMED FORCES IN THE GULF REGION.