THE THEATRE OF THE ABSURD. In 1948 , Mr. Khrisna Menon was appointed Indian High Commissioner to the United Kingdom . Concurrently he was his country’s Ambassador to the Republic of Ireland .On one of his visits there , he called upon the Irish President .In the meeting , he asked his host what the Irish exports were . The latter replied that his country’s exports were painters , poets , novelists , dramatists . The former Chairman of the Higher Education Commission, Professor Atta Ur Rahman, in an article published in the newspaper the other day brought out the Sind Government’s attempts to defang it .He summarized the actions taken by the Federal Government since 2008 , including the decreasing the Commission’s budget with the result that the students studying abroad were compelled to beg , the eighteenth amendment to the Constitution , the judgment of the Supreme Court against the Government on that issue . The Higher Courts challenged the academic qualifications of many parliamentarians , found them to be fake and and asked the HEC to verify their academic credentials before they were disqualified . The Government tried to sabotage the exercise . Basically the Government to bring the Commission under its thumb . Instead of appreciating the commendable work in increasing the enrollment to universities , the number of universities from 50 to 138 and the number of PhD(3000 by 2003 and 10000 between 2003 till 2013) by Professor Atta Ur Rehman and the Commission , the Government virtually pushed him out .. A similar treatment was meted out to his successor , Mr Javed Ahmed Leghari , except that he retired at the proper time this August /September. Now the Government is not eager to fill the Chairman’s vacant slot despite the Supreme Court’s giving it of fifteen days for making this appointment. Such is the state of affairs ‘in the land of the pure’ that the Governments are playing hide and seek with the higher courts. In a desert of ignorance with intellectual oasis few and far between, the achievement of Dr.Rahman and Mr.Leghari and their team at the HEC is a fresh breeze: a record any other country would be proud of . However, in Pakistan , the ‘Brown sahebs’ advise the government and forward their inputs to incompetent ministers, many of them having fake degrees in making educational policies .Thus blind leading blind . In the rural areas of the country , it is worse : the fiat of the feudal lord is the law . The teacher and the Imam Masjid are considered menial .Education is not promoted by them for they fear of the villagers getting it and challenging the lord . Christine Lamb described the situation beautifully in her book “Waiting for Allahâ€. Animals are tied in schools . In addition , there are many ghost schools in each Province .It is ,indeed, mind boggling to see or to hear about this in this era of reasoning and rapid communication . When the countries to excel each other in the fields of education and mass literacy ,it is sad to see one’s country drifting apart . Yet we are the followers of the Holy Prophet (Peace and Blessings of Allah be upon him) who taught us to seek “ knowledge from the cradle to the graveâ€. In India , quality education is relatively cheaper . A two year MBA at Delhi University costs Rs 25000/ whereas it is much more expensive in Pakistan . The Indian universities attract students even from the privileged countries viz. USA , UK ,Australia who cannot get into any university in their own country . The change of guards is an non event in any other country . On the contrary , it was a major piece of news here on all news channels whether print media or electronic .It still is . There were speculations over the name of the new army chief . However, the common people were not pushed about the outgoing or coming of the new army chief .Talking about media . I think freedom from shackles had made the media , print and electronic, wild to the extent that saner elements in the society are switching to the Government controlled PTV to escape the licence given by PEMRA, the regulating body for TV channels, for airing cheap dramas and noisy talk shows. One month before the Eighteenth Amendment was signed by the representatives of each party , enough time was given to wedding celebrations of Shoaib Malik , a first class cricketer at best, with Ms Sania Mirza , an Indian tennis star, because the then Minister for Information belonged to the same home town as Shoaib .But the real reason was to divert the attention of the people of Pakistan to the political wrangling going on towards the Eighteenth Amendment . In the same context , the TV channels air the loss of weight by a famous Indian actress in their hourly news bulletin . As regards the print media , most of them print trash as news . DAWN is an exception . The standard of news reporting and articles in DAWN remains the same over the years . Amongst the magazines , I can speakly highly of ‘Herald’ and ‘Criterion’ , the latter edited by Mr. Iftikhar Murshed , a former diplomat and Ambassador to Russia . The Pakistan Government faces an acute deficit financing . However , thanks to General Musharraf for making the media free to write or speak about it , Dr. Ashfaq Hasan Khan , Dr.Maliha Lodhi , Dr. Muhammad Yaqub and others are contributing articles in the newspapers .Imports are up (always) while the exports are going down . Besides the export items remain the same .A gentleman warned the nation on Facebook as earlier as June 2013 about the hyper inflation in the days to come . Now that , it is here, the Government has no plans to save the common people from its ravages . In fact , it is clueless . But it did sign the $5.6billion loan with severe conditions .Incidentally , the terms of the loan were secret . I wonder if the Kerry Lugar Bill is being monitored . What was its expiry date ? Did the donor Government faithfully adhere to the provisions of the Bill ? What benefits to the receiving country ? How was it visibly beneficial to the common people ? Once the World Bank had a meeting at 4 PM with the Finance Minister .The World Bank Chief Pakistan desk and we reached the venue of the meeting . We learnt that the Minister was fast asleep . He reached it at 5PM . A fabulous tea was served . The Minister began to ask personal questions from the Chief . It was apparent that either the Minister was not prepared for the meeting or he had no grip over the subject . Incidentally not many cabinet ministers and parliamentarians do read the official papers . The task is left to the bureaucracy . Pakistan inherited a canal system and the Railways system . No government paid heed to the canals silting till General Pervez Musharraf came on the scene and asked the army to do the job . In Europe , USA , Canada waterways are used beneficially for trading . Huge container ships and oil tankers ply the rivers . But we don’t desilt the rivers . On the contrary , we let our precious water go waste into the sea. In 1964 , the late Mr. Ghulam Farooq , the then Commerce Minister and a previous Chairman , WAPDA, told the press that the Government would not let a single drop of water go to the sea . However, nothing was heard further either from him or the Government . Under the Indus Water Basin Treaty , both India and Pakistan were allocated three rivers each . India has rapidly building dams on the rivers given to Pakistan . When we protest the world forums , India silences us by saying that we waste water . On River Kabul , the Afghan Government are building under the advice of the Indian Government. On water again , Karachi has an acute water shortage . Why cant we use sea for drinking ? It only requires a desalination plant to make it potable . The case regarding the mass transit project financed by the World Bank has been mooted since the 1980s . However , no action has been taken by the concerned Provincial Governments for unknown reasons, We are a weird nation .We let the remains of Chaudary Rehmat Ali , who gave the name of Pakistan , to be buried in the Cambridge University and the remains of Raja Saheb of Mahmoodabad , a companion of the Quaid e Azam , buried in Iran . We hate wearing sherwanis because we prefer wearing western suits and because the English , when the ruled India, made office peons and hotel doormen to wear it . Never the less we don’t hesitate to wear it on ceremonial occasions .Only General Zia ul Haq had the courage to define Pakistan in and outside the country even while addressing the UN General Assembly . We shout hoarse over the injustice done to Dr. Afia Siddiqui within Pakistan . But when our leaders are on a ‘pilgrimage’ to Washington DC to answer the summons of the US President , they remain quiet lest they incur his wrath . After his ‘pilgrimage’ to Washington DC ,General Zia also visited Arlington Cemetery where American heroes are buried . Impressed by it ,he wished that a similar graveyard may be prepared in Islamabad for Pakistani heroes. A meeting was called by one of the joint secretaries .I attended armed with the entire list of the persons who had been awarded with civil awards. When I was asked to speak I asked the meeting to define a hero , barring those who laid their lives for the defence of the motherland . I told them that from the awardees of Nishan e Pakistan, none of them deserved to be called a hero because they were either thrown out or they abrogated the Constitution . From the awardees of Nishan e Imtiaz , the only one who was a hero , Dr.Abdus Salam,( one of three Muslim Nobel Prize winners) , had been declared a non Muslim (Qaddiana) by the law of the land. Nothing further was heard . Our economy is nothing to be proud of . We have a trade deficit virtually with all our trading partners . The Indo China trade which was $ 20 bilion in 2008 has jumped to $70 billion We have been isolated in the world . The world only bears with us as a poor relative . No cricket playing nation is prepared to visit Pakistan . Hockey and squash were our games .We used to win laurels . We used to produced to match winning batsmen and bowlers . Not any more . Recently the Pakistan Captain , Misbah ul Haq , saved the team from certain defeats .We hardly excel in Science and Technology .Most students find a path of easy resistance through cheating .Imagine youngsters cheat even in primary classes. We have no unity . We have no faith and we have no discipline. We are a disorganized set of people . And we have no trust in the Governments .Yet we vote for them repeatedly . Only Islam can provide a focal point : teach us unity . Ignorance of laws is no excuse is the cardinal principles in all civilized nations across the globe . Whatever one does viz. travelling , driving , working in an office , we have to obtain knowledge before embarking on it . But when we come to the Noble Quran , we hesitate . We go to the Imam Masjid regardless of the fact that we know that it provides answers to the problems facing the world .However , we are ready criticize or ridicule that Imam Masjid for his little knowledge of the world and of Science and Technology . Why don’t we read the Noble Quran ourselves ? This is the writer’s opinion. Mahfooz ur Rahman Islamabad December 01 , 2013
Posted on: Wed, 13 Aug 2014 05:33:25 +0000
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