An illusive chase
Ibn-e-Hmat

ACCORDING to media sources Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was quoted as saying “that Pakistan needs to do more to prevent Taliban fighters from launching attacks into Afghanistan from its territory. She suggested to reporters that a surge in Taliban related violence in Afghanistan had its source in the restive semi-autonomous tribal areas along Pakistan border with Afghanistan. We understand that is difficult we understand that the northwest frontier area is difficult, but fighters cannot be allowed to organize there and to plan their and to engage across the border. So yes more needs to be done”.
The Khaleej Time has quoted Henry Kissinger cynically saying “American ally is more dangerous than being its enemy”. The newspaper has also reported by a renowned reporter Eric S Margolis – a veteran US journalist that India, Pakistan’s bitter foe, has an army of agents in Afghanistan and is arming, backing and financing the Karzai regime in Kabul. Pakistan’s historical strategic interests have been undermined by the US occupation. One of the former Chief Secretary in NWFP in his article in daily News dated 13 July cautioned the government through one of his articles saying; “during the last few months there have been numerous articles in the US media and comments by members of think tanks regarding a threat to the US and world security from the tribal areas – many of them recommended US intervention. They are a harbinger of US action on the ground in the tribal areas soon. Such an action would be colossal mistake with dangerous results for Pakistan and the region. It will break the compact against terrorism. It will help the militants who would welcome such a move. The publication of such reports coincides with the US elections. It is now obvious that period of phony peace in FATA and NWFP is over now.
On the other hand, government has consistently denied charges against Pakistan saying it will not allow its territory to be used for terrorism or to launch attacks in Afghanistan. Even, the Pakistani leaders have vehemently resisted all such options floated by the US or other foreign scholars that NATO troops should be allowed into the remote region to combat the fighter.
In fact, the word Taliban is being misconstrued as the group of Muslims who are extremists, fundamentalists and preach ideology akin to terrorism. The word Taliban actually means pupils or students, who join different education institutions, generally imparting religious education. Whereas Islam is a religion of peace and followers of this faith advocate an ideology which has neither any room for the extremism nor the terrorism. The elements infiltrated into the Afghanis, commonly known as Taliban, in fact are militants, some local and many of whom are foreigners, have their own dubious motives such as destabilize Islamic regimes, lust for money or power are playing with the lives of peace-loving citizen by creating law and order problems. Say it a tragedy that innocent and poor peaceful citizens, having no fault of their own are the worst sufferers of vengeful retaliatory action of the NATO forces. There are strong feelings among the sizeable Muslim community that punishing the whole Pushtoon tribe for the fault of a few militants/dubious shady characters makes no sense. Such a gross inhuman act is an abuse of the human values, which no sane person approves.
The other aspect is provision of basic necessities of life to every individual. The foremost of all the basic needs is, legitimate means of earning. Afghanistan’s decades old war has left the country with nothing but debris of wreckage and no economic infra-structure to earn livelihood. On the other hand Pakistan, although in economic strait, where poor can manage something with his efforts to fill their hungry bellies, is the only destination that provides them a solace like `a dying man catches at straw’. It is matter of life and death for them to either starve in their own country or to migrate/seek asylum in an area with better economic and security prospects. These ill-fated asylum seekers may include some of the elements who later re-group and indulge in militant activities or else some of them fall prey to the Taleban designs, out of their ferocious necessities.
Apart from the foregoing, there are some other compulsions, such as ethnic relations, social contacts and chances of seeking employment and religious affinities. Such bonds compel or force the poor masses to seek migration through infrequent routes. Pak-Afghan almost 2500 kilometer poorly guarded long border having hundreds of infrequent routes, with no check-post maintained by NATO/ISAF on Afghan side, a country replete with drug trafficking menace, domination of war-lords, inept, poorly trained and ill-equipped Security Forces are some of major hurdles in achieving desired results. To guard, such a long border may cost billions and that too cannot a guarantee for desired amount of success. Occasional harsh climatic conditions, corrupt government machinery, pressure groups and unpredictable moral values can be exploited to full extent by these militants, to buy the officials of security forces to sneak into Pakistan. Again, the influx of refugee sometime include a few terrorists who are tempted to earn their livelihood out of naivety or may be with the connivance with some of corrupt security officials. Under these hard ground realities how a country like Pakistan, with meager resources can ensure that no al-Qaeda or Taliban would ever take sanctuary in Pakistan, when US with unlimited resources herself failed to do so. And in case a few can manage their entry, how can Pakistan’s government be blamed for not doing enough.
Again the people living in Miran Shah, Mawand, Kurram Agency, South Waziristan and other areas have their relatives on both sides of the border. Their business and properties fall on both sides of the line of control. With so meager and scanty sources of income, they cannot afford to sacrifice their interests. The degree of success can, however, be achieved, if a dynamic and egalitarian approach based on solid facts coinciding with the cultural and religious values of Afghan history are woven together. The current approach based on rag-tag of Afghan policy, devoid of facts, riddled with second hand intelligence, led by those bereft of wisdom and political acumen would multiply losses. People who are helplessly watching how their children, parents or relatives are being butchered to death during retaliatory attacks cannot reconcile with the grief over the loss of their near and dear ones. In short, the US expectations that Pakistan should do more may carry some meaning for those who did not know the background of the Afghan fiasco, but those, who have first hand experience categorically disapprove it terming it, as immoral, ingenious, impracticable and far-fetched possibility as neither Pakistan nor any other nation with existing set of available means cannot meet the goals set by our friends.

A plan to change Kashmir demography
Amjed Jaaved

TILL recently, Indian government claimed that the `militancy’ (a euphemism for freedom movement) in Kashmir was on the wane because of efficiency of Indian forces. It could end up for good, if Pakistan dismantles the infiltration-and-training infrastructure. The land-transfer dispute concerning Shri Amarnath Shrine Board brought into limelight communal fault lines in Kashmir state. The bitter reality is that Indian government wants to populate the Valley with Hindus. It is thought that once Hindus outnumber Muslims, the latter would stop demanding self–determination right. The Kashmiri leaders from all walks of life are convinced that, by allotting land to Delhi-based non-Kashmiris, the Indian government wanted to undermine special status of the state, as enshrined in Article 370 of India’s Constitution. According to laws, enforced even by the tyrannical dogra, land in Kashmir can only be allotted to Kashmiri subjects of the disputed state.
A review of the six-week-long agitation reflects evil designs of the Indian government. Since it was discovered by a Kashmiri shepherd, the Amarnath shrine was being peacefully visited by thousands of pilgrims each year. Voluntary arrangements to look after the pilgrims were sufficient. This year, the state’s governor decided to allot 40 hectares of forest land in Baltal area to the Shrine Board for paltry sum of Rs 2.31 crore (2.31 million rupees). Kashmiris rose in ubiquitous protest against the intended allotment. The governor initially tried to give the impression that the allotment decision had fizzled out as the Shrine Board had failed to pay the price of land. Subsequently, he admitted existence of the illegal order, and revoked it. So far, so good. But, Bharatya Janata Party (BJP), Amarnath Yatra Sangharsh Samiti and several other parties lost no time in upping the ante and making the issue a key theme of their electoral campaigns (assembly elections in the disputed state were expected in October 2008). The Samiti is a loose conglomerate of Jammu-based parties, supported by fanatic Rashtriya Swayemsevak Sangh.
To resuscitate their hindutva motif, the top brass of BJP stalwarts participated at the Aradhana Divas on August 11 in New Delhi. They exhibited an ice shivlingham like that in the Amarnath cave. Amidst chants of har har Mahadev, BJP’s senior leader L. K. Advani shouted: “Denial of land to Shri Amarnath shrine is an affront to the Hindu sentiments and another example of flawed secularism” (The India Today, “Divide and be damned”, August 25, 2008, page 128). Vishwa Hindu Parishad organized a chakka jam (wheel jam). Ear-rending slogans were raised: “one constitution, one flag and one prime minister” (ek samvidhan, ek nishan aur ek pradhan).
Hindus in Jammu blocked the 450-mile Pathankot-Jammu-Srinagar highway, lifeline to the Valley. Thousands of Hindus broke curfew to swarm upon police stations to court arrest. About 4,000 trucks on the highway were looted. The blockade caused a loss of over Rs 2,000 crore to the state’s economy. Fruit and vegetable on export queue began to rot in the go-downs. Patients began to die because of shortage of drugs. The government hastily agreed to protect the trucks, but to no avail. In anguish, the Kashmiri leaders demanded that they should be allowed to send goods to Muzaffarabad. To appease protesters’ anger, the government accepted the demand.
When the leaders marched towards Muzaffarabad, scores of Kashmiris, including Sheikh Abdu Aziz, were killed. In ensuing protests, 27 people were killed, and over 500 injured. The government arrested most of the Kashmiri leaders. Yet, the protest continued unabated. It is now obvious that the governor allotted land to the shrine under the Centre’s instructions. The underlying purpose was to change demography of the state. Disgusted with India’s attitude, Mirwaiz Farooq suggested that the Kashmiris would have no objection to carving a Hindu-dominated dogra desh out of Jammu province, and another Muslim state south of the Chenab River (Dixon Plan).
All TV channels in occupied Kashmir remain off the air. Newspapers are no longer being published because of incessant curfew. Those violating curfew in the Valley are shot dead while those in Jammu go scot-free. Bham bham bholey has become a rallying cry and temples are nocturnal meeting points for planning and orchestrating street protests and organisaing violence against Kashmiri Muslims [in Jammu] despite the curfew. Will the international community wake up to the plight of Kashmiris under Indian yoke. It is surprising that the so-called champions of human rights and guardians of world peace have done nothing to stop persecution of Muslims at the hands of Hindus in Kashmir. The international organisations continue to be reticent about blatant acts of India’s state terrorism. Likewise, the international media have not been able to portray the issue in proper perspective so as to wake up slumbering conscious of the international community.

Change the American way
Tom Plate

IT is for the rest of the world to judge whether educating leaders is something America does well. But it is certainly something America sets out consciously to do — not with malice of forethought (dear conspiracy theorists) but with every good intention. The American theory of the broad liberal arts education emphasizes the civic education of future leaders. It is a matter very relevant to the U. S President election.
The properly ambitious American educator imagines that her or his students walk onto campus as mere mortals and walk off as potential immortals. They are admitted to colleges or universities with a rarified sense of themselves that defies adult description or general belief —- not to mention objective reality —- but graduate with the deeply educated humility of a modern-day Socrates. Only educated humility, it is believed, can produce the flowering of true wisdom. American education doesn’t always work out this way, of course. Ideals are often detoured by the roadblocks of every-day existence. Bummer budgets can bring everyone down to earth faster than a plunging space capsule. Sometimes the ideal is indeed the enemy of the good - and of the modest but helpful improvement. But our best and most determined educators always soldier on, like undermanned Confederate generals, unafraid to charge up the hill against terrible odds.
A good iconic exemplar of the American search for the leadership ideal in education is a liberal arts institution in Los Angeles known as Occidental College. We choose it to make our larger point about educating future leaders because it regularly shows up in the top-small college ratings lists and because among its most prominent former students is Barack Obama, currently charging up the steep hill of American politics to capture the White House and become America’s leader and presumptive leader of the Western world, and because like almost all these small colleges, it sports a reflective and articulate president. We caught up with Occidental College President Robert A. Skotheim the day after the president’s traditional ”Convocation Address” that kicks off the school’s academic year. What a liberal-arts college should be, said the former director of the prestigious Huntington Museum, is a cauldron of challenge and change. ”This is what going to college has got to be all about, if it is successful,” he said. ”If you are not changed by it, you are being-short changed. But what you cannot know, probably, is how you will be changed.”
Take the Obama example. For him, the Oxy (as it is known locally) experience was clearly transformative. For the first year, 1979, he preferred to be called by his nickname Barry. Just two years later, Barry was history. In the cauldron of change marked by intense courses in literature, arts, philosophy and social science, the student found himself as Barack, with all its implications, not as Barry, for all the normality. He transferred to finish his undergraduate degree at Columbia University in New York, and then to Harvard for legal education. It wasn’t long after, that America found the one and only Barack Obama.
”A true liberal-arts college education was and should be a secular conversion experience,” said Skotheim. ”And that transformation experience takes place on campus, where you live as a student. That’s where the change happens.” It’s harder for the transformation to take place at commuter schools, where students live off campus; or at very large institutions, where undergraduate education can be de-prioritized and undergrads viewed as little more than a student ID number and an obligation to educate.
 

—Khaleej Times