Hoping for change in chaotic Pakistan
Rahimullah Yusufzai
Tuesday, August 02, 2011
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The disorder that characterises present-day Pakistan was in evidence again when the simple issue of Ramazan moon-sighting generated the usual controversy and the common wish of the people to observe and celebrate religious events together remained unfulfilled. In this modern age when technology could be used to find solutions to such problems, a failure to sight the moon on the same day in Pakistan is symptomatic of the chaos prevailing in the country.
But what else is working to our satisfaction in Pakistan? There cannot be rule of law when the government itself decides to defy the judiciary and refuse to implement court verdicts. There cannot be any real accountability if the ruling elite indulge in corruption and get away with it. People cannot feel secure when the security forces and the police themselves are insecure. A politicised administration and bureaucracy cannot be expected to uphold merit.
As the government and its institutions lack credibility, ordinary people don’t feel the need to accept their writ or decisions. The Central Ruet-e-Hilal Committee has been courting controversy every year on Ramazan and Shawwal moon-sightings. No real effort is made in time to find a solution to the issue. It is like crying over spilt milk on a yearly basis.
Ramazan 1432 Hijri thus began on a wrong note due to the decision by the unofficial moon-sighting committee in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa to announce the commencement of the month of fasting on Aug 1, a day ahead of the rest of the country. Clerics led by Mufti Shahabuddin Popalzai, the prayer leader at the historic Qasim Ali Khan mosque in Peshawar, must have valid reasons for doing so, because a number of people had volunteered to claim that they sighted the Ramazan moon. But who gave the authority to this private moon-sighting committee to take decisions that have impact on the lives of so many people? Why are the ulema in this unofficial committee courted by the government if they are defying the authority of the central moon-sighting body? And what is the reason that clerics and the faithful in major parts of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa follow the directions of this committee instead of the Central Ruet-e-Hilal Committee of Mufti Muneebur Rahman? There must be something wrong that a moon-sighting committee set up by the government isn’t considered credible by a sizeable section of the population in northwestern Pakistan.
There are heartbreaking stories everywhere in Pakistan. One can live with differences over Ramazan moon-sighting as we have been doing for years now, but the sight of members of the Hazara community being regularly target-killed in Quetta because they happen to be Shias, and innocent and mostly poor Pakistanis shot dead on a daily basis in Karachi due to their ethnicity is unforgivable and heartrending. There is a poignant story of grief and suffering behind every killing as women are made widows and children orphans. We get to hear only a few such stories, but Pakistan has experienced so many deaths and tragedies that our capacity to endure suffering has increased manifold. The government and the state has failed to protect its citizens and political parties, claiming to represent the people, are in league with the killers because they refuse to accept proposals to deweaponise cities such as Karachi that are awash with weapons. The political parties’ priority is to stay in power by hook or by crook, regardless of the fact that their governments in the centre and the provinces have failed on every count.
As we witnessed on the first anniversary of the floods that devastated Pakistan in July-August 2010, those affected by the disaster are still seething with anger against the government due to complaints that the authorities have been ineffective and slow to assist them in rebuilding their lives. It is sad to see uprooted families trying to build a shelter with the first instalment of Rs20,000 by pooling resources from other sources in the hope that they would eventually receive the second instalment from the government. The government, on the other hand, has been looking to international donors to provide the funds needed to compensate the flood victims. With more than 800,000 families still without permanent shelter and a million in need of food assistance as the aid group Oxfam reported recently, it is certainly going to be a gigantic task to resettle and rehabilitate the flood victims.
Equally heartrending is the plight of the internally displaced persons from the conflict areas in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas. Their suffering has become an old and largely forgotten story as displacement started some years ago when the military operations were launched against the militants first in Fata and then in Swat and the rest of Malakand division. IDPs from militancy-hit areas will probably remain a part of our lives for quite sometime as more military operations are in the pipeline. Meanwhile, the government’s capacity and capability to rehabilitate this category of IDPs, owing to its skewed sense of priorities, is suspect.
The suffering of the Hazara community in Quetta is not the only tragic news coming out of Balochistan. Coalminers die often in mines where safety regulations are flouted by both government departments and private owners. As these coalminers mostly belong to Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, their deaths cause pain both in Balochistan and in faraway places such as Swat, Shangla and Dir from where they come in search of livelihood. Also in Balochistan, bullet-riddled bodies continue to be found as political workers, student activists and settlers are kidnapped or target-killed. Recent media reports portrayed the decrease in insurgent attacks in Balochistan as the weakening of the separatists, but nobody mentioned the scars left on the bodies and minds of the Baloch people as a result of denial of rights and kidnapping of political activists. It isn’t that only commoners are suffering in Balochistan. Chief Minister Nawabzada Aslam Raisani felt the pain when his young nephew and Siraj Raisani’s son Hakmal Raisani was killed in a terrorist attack in Mastung. Numerous known politicians, lawyers and teachers too have been target-killed in previous incidents in Balochistan.
There are also lesser instances by Pakistani standards of our dysfunctional state. The sight of the trains breaking down and running late is hardly surprising in view of the deterioration that the Pakistan Railways has suffered over the years. But now there is no fuel to power the engines and the elderly Minister of Railways, Ghulam Ahmad Bilour, was seen on television announcing that, Inshallah (God willing), most of the trains would stop running in the coming days. His choice of words gave one the idea that he was offering a prayer before bringing the curtains down on the operations of the Pakistan Railways, an over-staffed and inefficient state organization where tales of corruption are common.
The same sorry state of affairs exists in other public-sector organisations, be it Pakistan Steel Mills or Pakistan International Airlines. Surplus staff, political appointments and mismanagement have taken their toll and pushed these and other organisations into the red. Social sectors remain ignored and the utility services being offered to consumers are poor and erratic. People are not only paying, they are willing to pay more provided they are assured regular supply of electricity, water, gas and other services.
Is there any hope that an effort would be made to turn things aroundand bring some improvements in the lives of the people? As far as the people are concerned, there isn’t much expectation from the present government if the recent poll by the Abu Dhabi Gallup Centre is to be believed. It shows that only 28 percent of Pakistanis express any confidence in this government. Besides, only 19 percent approve of the PPP leadership, including President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani. The poll found out that the military is viewed favourably by 78 percent. And if one goes by other recent public opinion polls, Imran Khan is emerging as a serious contender for power. It is possible that most Pakistanis are looking for a change and waiting for a messiah to help them cope with the seemingly insurmountable problems they are facing.
The writer is resident editor of The News in Peshawar. Email: rahim
yusufzai@yahoo.com
Hoping for change in chaotic Pakistan - Rahimullah Yusufzai
