Lecture of Defense Analyst Dr. Ayesha Siddiqa at Kinnaird College for Women Lahore
Dr. Ayesha Siddiqa Agha is an independent security analyst and strategic affairs columnist of Pakistan. She is also a regular op-ed contributor to Dawn, and before that to Daily Times. Dr Siddiqa visited Kinnaird College for women for her lecture on Friday ,20th November 2009 and refreshed her old sweet memories as an old kcite. She delivered her lecture on “US Presence in South Asian Region” and handled the question answer session at the end. The lecture was of 40 minutes and Dr Siddiqa smartly handled this short time however the topic of her lecture was broad.
According to Dr Siddiqa, the countries built relation on the basis of their interests and US has erratic relation with South Asian region which was build during the cold war when Afghanistan played its role as a buffer state between US and USSR. Indian’s had a socialist policy during that movement. In 1958 Pakistan opted to join two arrangements CEATO and CENTO which was not liked by Muslim countries especially Egypt however Pakistan received military and financial assistance by US and made it clear to satisfy India that “weapons provided to fight would not be used against India to combat communism”. The relation between US and USSR had been affected the South Asian region. In 1962 when tension started between China and India, US was eager to help India instead of Pakistan’s unhappiness. US realized that its presence in this region means if they would help India, Pakistan will remain be unhappy and vise versa. In 1965 war Pakistan faced embargo. During 1970s India signed friendship treaty with USSR and received equipment on concessional rates. For Pakistan, US and China both are important, Pakistan is the only non-communist state to receive economic aid from US. So US contained USSR with the help of China by thinking its better to use a minor enemy against the big enemy.
After defining the history of relation between US and South Asia, Dr Siddiqa said that Amercia’s relations with this region developed gradually as there is a long geographical distance between both and the end of 1970s changed the situation when US had zero sum game with South Asian countries. In 1979, Soviet invasion in Afghanistan and Iranian revolution further reshaped the relations between US and South Asian countries. Pakistan started the training of Jihandi’s during 1970s, the last days of Bhutto’s government. The Soviet invasion in Afghanistan was to reach warm water in Pakistan but resulted in disintegration of USSR in 1990s.In 1990s, there was a new world as US happened to be the only supper power and were thinking to be the only supper power and were thinking to have a new relation with South Asian region and has started building economic and military relations and India became significant in this regard. The significant role of academia can not be neglected; who worked on India-US relation after Indra Gandhi who supported socialism in past but the new leadership propagated the capitalist state. The tension emerged between US and Pakistan. 9/11 incident was a miles tone between US/South Asia and resulted in first war in Afghanistan, second the emergence of non-state actors as a force, third the expansion of South Asia (when US joined SAARC), fourth the Bill Clinton started this strategy that we will engage in both India –Pakistan at the same time and China followed the same policy. China builds up the relation with India as they don’t want to be hostile to anyone out of both. Dr Ayesha remarked that American engagement in South Asia was build on the principles that what the other states will offer to them, but this relationship strategy can not be understand without the conspiracy theory. The important thing is that some important personals of government institutions had been caught in connection with Al-Qaeda, which shows the actual presence of Americans in this region. While concluding her lecture, Dr Siddiqa said that US can leave this region on two conditions, first if Pakistan agrees to leave and say good bye to democracy, second if Pakistan and India have bad relations.
Lecturer: Zamurrad Awan
Political Science Dept
Kinnaird College for Women Lhr
Friday, November 27, 2009
Sunday, June 28, 2009
The Madrassah Challenge: Militancy and Religious Education in Pakistan by C Christine Fair
BOOK REVIEW: The madrassa puzzle in Pakistan —by Khaled Ahmed
The Madrassah Challenge: Militancy and Religious Education in Pakistan; By C Christine Fair; Vanguard Books Lahore 2009; Pp145; Price Rs 500
On the face of it, no madrassa looks either jihadi or sectarian, but research has shown that the seminarians are more narrow-minded and intolerant than the pupils of normal schools
Christine Fair served at the Centre for Conflict Analysis and Prevention of the United States Institute of Peace, and currently is a senior political scientist with the RAND Corporation. She is co-author of Fortifying Pakistan: The Role of U.S Interim Security Assistance (USIP Press, 2006).
According to an estimate in Jang (January 6, 2006), there were 11,221 religious seminaries (madrassas) in Pakistan in the year 2005. This number had grown from 6,761 in 2000. This meant that in the five years that also saw the terrorist attack of 9/11, the apostatising seminaries had almost doubled in Pakistan. There were 448 madrassas for women too.
The largest number of madrassas, 8,191, belonged to Wifaqul Madaris Arabiya, 1,952 to Tanzimul Madaris and 381 to Wifaqul Madaris Shia. The majority seminaries are Deobandi. For instance, in Punjab 444,156 pupils are Deobandi as opposed to 199,733 Barelvi, 34,253 Ahle Hadith and 7,333 Shia. The largest number of madrassas is not in Lahore but Bahawalpur, then in Lahore, in Bahawalnagar and Faisalabad.
It is accepted that South Punjab is home to the most aggressive and poisoned of all madrassas. South Punjab stretches from Jhang to Bahawalpur, dotted with madrassas that private citizens from Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Kuwait fund generously, thinking they are spreading the message of Islam. This is the region where the countryside is dominated by feudal lords with large landholdings and cities teeming with the poor masses controlled by jihadi groups.
Only in Dera Ghazi Khan, the origin of the dreaded clerics of Lal Masjid in Islamabad, there are 185 registered madrassas, of which 90 are Deobandi (with a total of 324 teachers), 84 are Barelvi (with a total of 212 teachers), six are Ahle Hadith (107 teachers) and five are Fiqh-e-Jafaria (10 teachers). Multan is the traditional base of madrassas, while Rahimyar Khan and Bahawalpur have seen their proliferation in recent years.
Together with Peshawar, Islamabad is the most vulnerable city as far as the possibility of a sudden takeover by the Taliban is concerned. Islamabad was supposed to have 80 madrassas just two years ago. Reported in Jang (June 18, 2009), the government had discovered that there were 260 madrassas in Islamabad, out of which one dozen were illegal. Some madrassas were busy spreading hatred against the armed forces of Pakistan. One Jamia Masjid Qasimiya in F-8/3 and its leader Ehsanullah Khan were warned by government to give up these activities in 15 days.
Ms Fair thinks that in some ways the madrassas in the Islamic world are the centre of a civil war of ideas. Westernised and usually affluent Muslims lack an interest in religious matters, but religious scholars, marginalised by modernisation, seek to assert their own relevance by insisting on orthodoxy. She writes: “Poor students attending madrassa find it easy to believe that the West, loyal to uncaring and aloof leaders, is responsible for their misery and that Islam as practiced in its earliest form can deliver them.”
But she is careful to point out that a study had revealed that terrorists in involved in the 1998 bombing of two US embassies in Africa, the September 11, 2001, attacks, the Bali nightclub bombing, and the London bombings in July 2005 were not madrassa graduates. The masterminds of the attacks had had university degrees. (p.5) In a survey she scans, of the 141 mujahideen in the data set, the vast majority served and died in Kashmir. Of these mujahideen, only nineteen were reportedly recruited at a madrassa—the same number recruited at a public school.
But she can’t completely absolve the madrassa of all blame. She says: “Available evidence suggests that madrassas are important sources of supply of suicide attackers in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Attacks in Afghanistan are relevant because many are attackers from madrassas in Pakistan’s tribal areas. The reasons for this are not quite clear. In the case of Afghanistan, the validity of suicide attacks as an acceptable means of warfare are contested, with many Afghans seeing them as suicide rather than a legitimate mode of waging jihad.” (p.68)
According to her the registered madrassas in Pakistan number just over 6,700. Since a Pakistani will usually accept 20,000 as the total number, one must assume that the state will have a tough time registering those that stand outside the record. One reason could be the condition of rendering annual audit account, telling the government how much money was contributed by whom.
She finds the madrassas in the following order: Wafaq-ul-Madaris Arabia Pakistan (Deobandi) founded in 1959 in Multan; Tanzeem-ul-Madaris (Barelvi) founded in 1960 in Lahore; Wafaq-ul-Madaris Salafia (Ahl-e-Hadith) founded in 1955 in Faisalabad; RabitatuI Madaris Islamiya (Jama’at-e Islami) founded in 1983 in Mansoora Lahore; and Wafaq-ul-Madaris (Shia) founded in 1959 in Lahore.
Fair also finds the terrorists better educated than the average Pakistani: “Of those thirty-three madrassa products, 27 attended a madrassa for four or fewer years, and most also attended public schools. In contrast, 82 of the 141 were very well educated by Pakistani standards, with at least a matriculation qualification tenth-grade education, in stark contrast to the average level for Pakistani males. Only 9 of the 141 had no formal education, the militants in this sample were much better educated than the average Pakistani male.” (p.69)
She finds that many madrassas refuse to accept government funding because they think the money is coming from America. She discovered it to be true as “the amount allocated to Pakistan through USAID exactly equals the funding pledged by the government to the religious sector”. (p.86)
The madrassas insisted to her that there was no evidence that their students were involved in illegal activities. She could recall that the younger brother of Hanbali, Al Qaeda’s organiser in Southeast Asia, and mastermind of the Bali blasts, was arrested along with 17 people from Malaysia, Indonesia, and Burma, and in raids on three madrassas in Karachi.
Fair writes: “I did confirm during fieldwork that substantial numbers of foreign students from Africa, Europe and the United Kingdom, the Middle East and Central, South, and Southeast Asia were at many of the madrassas visited. In fact, Jamia Banuria at SITE in Karachi still has a large foreign students’ section, and one can still visit its Website to obtain information about applying for the foreign students’ programme’.” (p.90)
Some facts are well known about the madrassa background of some jihadi leaders. For instance, the leader of Jamia Banuria, Mufti Nizamuddin Shamzai, was the patron of both Harkatul Mujahideen and Jaish-e-Muhammad and inclined more to the latter as the two bickered and split. The leader of Jaish, Maulana Masood Azhar, was his student at Jamia Banuria. So was the leader of Sipah Sahaba, Maulana Azam Tariq.
Shamzai headed many madrassas and was funded generously by Saudi Arabia. On the face of it, no madrassa looks either jihadi or sectarian, but research has shown that the seminarians are more narrow-minded and intolerant than the pupils of normal schools. *
The Madrassah Challenge: Militancy and Religious Education in Pakistan; By C Christine Fair; Vanguard Books Lahore 2009; Pp145; Price Rs 500
On the face of it, no madrassa looks either jihadi or sectarian, but research has shown that the seminarians are more narrow-minded and intolerant than the pupils of normal schools
Christine Fair served at the Centre for Conflict Analysis and Prevention of the United States Institute of Peace, and currently is a senior political scientist with the RAND Corporation. She is co-author of Fortifying Pakistan: The Role of U.S Interim Security Assistance (USIP Press, 2006).
According to an estimate in Jang (January 6, 2006), there were 11,221 religious seminaries (madrassas) in Pakistan in the year 2005. This number had grown from 6,761 in 2000. This meant that in the five years that also saw the terrorist attack of 9/11, the apostatising seminaries had almost doubled in Pakistan. There were 448 madrassas for women too.
The largest number of madrassas, 8,191, belonged to Wifaqul Madaris Arabiya, 1,952 to Tanzimul Madaris and 381 to Wifaqul Madaris Shia. The majority seminaries are Deobandi. For instance, in Punjab 444,156 pupils are Deobandi as opposed to 199,733 Barelvi, 34,253 Ahle Hadith and 7,333 Shia. The largest number of madrassas is not in Lahore but Bahawalpur, then in Lahore, in Bahawalnagar and Faisalabad.
It is accepted that South Punjab is home to the most aggressive and poisoned of all madrassas. South Punjab stretches from Jhang to Bahawalpur, dotted with madrassas that private citizens from Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Kuwait fund generously, thinking they are spreading the message of Islam. This is the region where the countryside is dominated by feudal lords with large landholdings and cities teeming with the poor masses controlled by jihadi groups.
Only in Dera Ghazi Khan, the origin of the dreaded clerics of Lal Masjid in Islamabad, there are 185 registered madrassas, of which 90 are Deobandi (with a total of 324 teachers), 84 are Barelvi (with a total of 212 teachers), six are Ahle Hadith (107 teachers) and five are Fiqh-e-Jafaria (10 teachers). Multan is the traditional base of madrassas, while Rahimyar Khan and Bahawalpur have seen their proliferation in recent years.
Together with Peshawar, Islamabad is the most vulnerable city as far as the possibility of a sudden takeover by the Taliban is concerned. Islamabad was supposed to have 80 madrassas just two years ago. Reported in Jang (June 18, 2009), the government had discovered that there were 260 madrassas in Islamabad, out of which one dozen were illegal. Some madrassas were busy spreading hatred against the armed forces of Pakistan. One Jamia Masjid Qasimiya in F-8/3 and its leader Ehsanullah Khan were warned by government to give up these activities in 15 days.
Ms Fair thinks that in some ways the madrassas in the Islamic world are the centre of a civil war of ideas. Westernised and usually affluent Muslims lack an interest in religious matters, but religious scholars, marginalised by modernisation, seek to assert their own relevance by insisting on orthodoxy. She writes: “Poor students attending madrassa find it easy to believe that the West, loyal to uncaring and aloof leaders, is responsible for their misery and that Islam as practiced in its earliest form can deliver them.”
But she is careful to point out that a study had revealed that terrorists in involved in the 1998 bombing of two US embassies in Africa, the September 11, 2001, attacks, the Bali nightclub bombing, and the London bombings in July 2005 were not madrassa graduates. The masterminds of the attacks had had university degrees. (p.5) In a survey she scans, of the 141 mujahideen in the data set, the vast majority served and died in Kashmir. Of these mujahideen, only nineteen were reportedly recruited at a madrassa—the same number recruited at a public school.
But she can’t completely absolve the madrassa of all blame. She says: “Available evidence suggests that madrassas are important sources of supply of suicide attackers in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Attacks in Afghanistan are relevant because many are attackers from madrassas in Pakistan’s tribal areas. The reasons for this are not quite clear. In the case of Afghanistan, the validity of suicide attacks as an acceptable means of warfare are contested, with many Afghans seeing them as suicide rather than a legitimate mode of waging jihad.” (p.68)
According to her the registered madrassas in Pakistan number just over 6,700. Since a Pakistani will usually accept 20,000 as the total number, one must assume that the state will have a tough time registering those that stand outside the record. One reason could be the condition of rendering annual audit account, telling the government how much money was contributed by whom.
She finds the madrassas in the following order: Wafaq-ul-Madaris Arabia Pakistan (Deobandi) founded in 1959 in Multan; Tanzeem-ul-Madaris (Barelvi) founded in 1960 in Lahore; Wafaq-ul-Madaris Salafia (Ahl-e-Hadith) founded in 1955 in Faisalabad; RabitatuI Madaris Islamiya (Jama’at-e Islami) founded in 1983 in Mansoora Lahore; and Wafaq-ul-Madaris (Shia) founded in 1959 in Lahore.
Fair also finds the terrorists better educated than the average Pakistani: “Of those thirty-three madrassa products, 27 attended a madrassa for four or fewer years, and most also attended public schools. In contrast, 82 of the 141 were very well educated by Pakistani standards, with at least a matriculation qualification tenth-grade education, in stark contrast to the average level for Pakistani males. Only 9 of the 141 had no formal education, the militants in this sample were much better educated than the average Pakistani male.” (p.69)
She finds that many madrassas refuse to accept government funding because they think the money is coming from America. She discovered it to be true as “the amount allocated to Pakistan through USAID exactly equals the funding pledged by the government to the religious sector”. (p.86)
The madrassas insisted to her that there was no evidence that their students were involved in illegal activities. She could recall that the younger brother of Hanbali, Al Qaeda’s organiser in Southeast Asia, and mastermind of the Bali blasts, was arrested along with 17 people from Malaysia, Indonesia, and Burma, and in raids on three madrassas in Karachi.
Fair writes: “I did confirm during fieldwork that substantial numbers of foreign students from Africa, Europe and the United Kingdom, the Middle East and Central, South, and Southeast Asia were at many of the madrassas visited. In fact, Jamia Banuria at SITE in Karachi still has a large foreign students’ section, and one can still visit its Website to obtain information about applying for the foreign students’ programme’.” (p.90)
Some facts are well known about the madrassa background of some jihadi leaders. For instance, the leader of Jamia Banuria, Mufti Nizamuddin Shamzai, was the patron of both Harkatul Mujahideen and Jaish-e-Muhammad and inclined more to the latter as the two bickered and split. The leader of Jaish, Maulana Masood Azhar, was his student at Jamia Banuria. So was the leader of Sipah Sahaba, Maulana Azam Tariq.
Shamzai headed many madrassas and was funded generously by Saudi Arabia. On the face of it, no madrassa looks either jihadi or sectarian, but research has shown that the seminarians are more narrow-minded and intolerant than the pupils of normal schools. *
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Report on Training Workshop organized by Centre for Civic Education Pakistan written by Zamurrad awan
Report on Training Workshop organized by Centre for Civic Education Pakistan
Centre for Civic education (CCE), which is a nonprofit organization, organized a training workshop on Civic Education and Youth participation from 30th January 2009 to 26th April 2009, based on five modules held Islamabad. The workshop took place in the lecture hall of Allama Iqbal Open University, Islamabad. The stay for the non-resident participants of Islamabad was also arranged by CCE in the hostel of AIOU. The workshop was highly organized as hereafter the CCE reimbursed the travel and food allowances. Moreover, to make this workshop more interactive and timely, Mr.Quresh Khattak, Mr.Murtaza Noor and Ms Hafza worked efficiently under the kind supervision of Mr .Zafaraullah Khan, Executive Director of Centre for Civic Education. The workshop exclusively involved the students accompanied by their teachers from different colleges and universities. Therefore, the students were being invited from Kinnaird College for women Lahore, Quaid-e-Azam University Islamabad, Peshawar University, Preston University Islamabad, Comsat College, Punjab University Lahore, Allama Iqbal Open University, and Islamic University Islamabad.
The purpose of this workshop was to sensitize students as well as the teachers regarding their positive and active role in democratic structure of Pakistan. Moreover, the objective of this training was to give them a sense of shared responsibility regarding their different role in society. Therefore, CCE organized lectures of renowned scholars, arranged activities and encouraged youth for participation through proper dialogue techniques.
The methodology through which this organization started its work was to inform, inspire and involve the youth in respective fields so that the social justice and equality which is not more then a dream for the down trodden class of our society can be ensure. To achieve this objective the interactive exercises were being arranged.
The first module was held on the development of communication skills in effective citizenship. The basic purpose was to enlighten the participants about the significance of effective communication skills for an active citizen. The 2nd module was based on civic activism, rule of law and Good Governance. The scholars who delivered their lectures on Good governance and the responsibility and role of citizens further highlighted its importance in the active citizenship.
The 3rd module was particularly addressed the most debatable issue of extremism which make the participants aware of its effects on the lives of common people. Moreover, the strategies have been discussed through which the violence can be counter. The 4th module particularly addressed Islam in contemporary world, which highlights the modern approach of Islam, so that the students get a better understanding of Islam which is not merely a religion but also a full code of conduct for living a life. The last session of this module focused on the activities which these students would organize in their own institutes after going back to their universities and colleges. It was told to them that they could take any of the topics addressed in these 5 modules to arrange a one day workshop. So that the motive to sensitize the youth of Pakistan could not stop, as the students are the real policy makers for future.
The 5th and the last module based on the citizenship in the age of Globalization, the purpose was to view the diversities and commonalities in contemporary civilization. In this last module the certificates were even distributed to the students qualified in this training workshop. The ceremony of certificate distribution took place in Sareena Hotel Islamabad.
Zamurrad Awan
Lecturer at Kinnaird College for Women, Lhr
zamurredawan@yahoo.com
Friday, April 10, 2009
Fake Video to Sabotage the Peace Agreement in Sawat by Zamurrad Awan
Questions in mind after watching such a fake video
• Does Islam allow any punishment to the women over any sin, in such an exposing way?
• Is it possible that after receiving these lashed, a women feel herself ok to get up and to move any place as has been seen in the video?
• If it really happened, didn’t the Taliban aware that they are being captured while doing such act, when we find them highly alert and organize in their all violent actions?
• The timing of sending such video is highly addressable as it was send when the peace agreement was in its way to be discussed?
• Can’t be West as a beneficiary of this video, who are already in search to prove Pakistan in respect of Islam an antagonist and fundamentalist country, where they think, there is no respect of any human lives?
Zamurrad Awan
Kinnaird College for Women, lhr
zamurredawan@yahoo.com
Thursday, April 9, 2009
Gender Biased Society of Pakistan (A Case-Study of Mukhtaran Mai) by Zamurrad Awan
Gender Biased Society of Pakistan
(A Case-Study of Mukhtaran Mai)
The status of women in Pakistan varies considerably across classes, regions and the rural/urban divide due to uneven socioeconomic development and the impact of tribal, feudal and capitalist social formations on women’s lives. The Pakistani women of today enjoy a better status than most Islamic and Middle Eastern women. However, on an average,, the women’s situation vis-à-vis men is one of systematic subordination, although there have been attempts by the government and enlightened groups to elevate the status of women in Pakistani society.
Pakistani society is male dominated society where women are the centre of attention and life but this society also consider women as no more than secondary citizens which is perhaps due to the traditional; norms prevailing in the whole society. The role and status of Pakistani women in all walks of life has been highly undermined. Though over the years this scenario has changed and the awareness of woman’s abilities, her rights and her status has reached almost all parts of Pakistan which is a third world country. but this privilege of the right acknowledgment is limited as the majority of Pakistani women belong to the rural areas who work in the fields and in the industrial centre. It is a pool and virtually illiterate majority, which leads a life of physical hardship involving long hours at tedious chores for which there is neither compensation nor recognition. Most of these women bear the double burden of housework and outside work. Not only do these women have longer days than the rest of the family, but also being the last to eat, they eat less well and suffer from anemia and malnutrition.
The violence against women in Pakistan is dilemma of our society. Feminists and women’s groups in Pakistan have criticized the Pakistani government and it’s leaders for white washing the prosecution of women and typing to suppress information about their plight in the international arena. Skepticism and biased attitudes against women’s complaints of violence are common among prosecutors, police officers and medicolegal doctors in Pakistan. According to reports from 1990s, such complaints often delayed/mishandled processing and inadequate/improper investigation. The crimes against the women in Pakistan has its various forms like Sexual Abuse, Women Trafficking, Dowry abuse, Domestic Violence, Honor Killings, Marriage to Quran and many other form. After many ups and downs in the case The Lahore high court ruled on 6 June 2005 that the accused men could be released on payment of a 50,000 rupees ($840) bond. However, the men were unable to come up with the money, and remained in jail while the prosecution appealed their acquittal. Just over two weeks later, the Supreme Court intervened and suspended the acquittals of the five men as well as the eight who were acquitted at the original 2002 trial. All 14 would be retried in the Supreme Court.
The daunting step of a rural woman with an un-influential background is no doubt a source of inspiration for those women of Pakistan who never dares to break the barriers and bear the physical and mental victimization of their rights. Mukhtaran never stopped here; she was picked up by women national and international NGOs, and Human tights activist. She was nominated for many awards and souvenirs.
On 15th March 2009, Mukhtaran Mai, 37 years married to Nasir Abbas Gabol, a 30 years old police officer who was assigned to protect her as her case gained notoriety. She has been criticized for her legal marriage, when she reserved all rights regarding every decision about her life. That is totally her personal decisions, and it comes in to the personal liberty of one individual. She did lot of work for the development of her region despite of the reality that her region witnessed the cruel act of human history with her. A decent society is not easy to attain, it can only he achieved when the society has a deep sense of responsibility regarding its citizens and when the state ensure the personal privacy to its citizens. It’s the time to change the set pattern of society; in fact it’s the time to broaden our minds regarding the most sensitive issue of women rights. It’s high time now that we bear the brunt of the patriarchal mind set of our society, which make many women in relation with daughters, sisters, mothers and wives.
Lets finish the case of Mukhtaran with a thought provoking statement of an unknown writer “She’s not a feminist, she’s not an educated person, she does not have any personal politics. Yes, because of her own experience, she has an oppositional consciousness, but without really knowing why. She has a right to get along with her life”
by Zamurrad Awan
Kinnaird College for women Lhr
zamurredawan@yahoo.com
Problems of South Asian Countries by Zamurrad Awan & Yawar Hayat Shah
Problems of South Asian Countries
Pakistan
• Progressive Deterioration of Internal Security
• Terrorism/Extremism/Sectarianism
• Energy Crisis/Limited Energy Resources/High Dependency on imported Furnace Oil/Country wide Power Shortage
• Scarcity of Irrigation Water/ Water Crisis/Mega Water Reservoirs
• Food Shortage (e.g. severe flour shortage)
• Currant Account/ Trade Deficit
• Fiscal Deficit
• High indigenous and foreign debt
• Staggering Unemployment & Poverty
• Inadequate Health Facilities (e.g. High infant/maternal mortality rate)
• Exploitation of Women
• Violation of Human Rights
• No Agricultural taxation
• Droughts and famine
• Adulteration of Fertilizers
• Low growth rates in industry manufacturing and service sector
• Low per-capita income and HDI
• High Population growth rate
• High Defence Budget
• Lack of Foreign Direct Investment
• Frequent disruption of democratic governance due to military coups
• Dynastic Politics
• Absence of internal democracy in Political Parties
Bangladesh
• Frequent Military Take over
• Sharply polarized political environment
• Population Explosion
• Fail to reduce poverty
• Fail in delivery of basic services
• High illiteracy rate
• Low pace of development
India
• Human Rights Abuses
• Insufficient economic growth
• Political challenges slowing down the pace of economic development reforms
• Low per-capita income
• HIV/AIDS pandemic
• Environmental degradation
• High population rate
• Female infanticide
• Communal Violence
• Terrorist incidents
• Separationists and cessationists insurgencies (e.g. Kashmir, Mewos, Nagas, Maos)
Sri-Lanka
• Terrorist insurgency by LTTE
• 18 years old civil war
• Tension with India over Tamil issue
• Ecological Problems
Nepal
• Low per capita income
• High rate of poverty
• Bad governance
• Social injustice
• Distorted distribution f income, wealth and human capital
• Lack of social harmony
Zamurrad Awan & Yawar Hayat Shah
Monday, April 6, 2009
Responsibility of Media towards Ensuring Good Governance in Pakistan by Zamurrad Awan
Responsibility of Media towards Ensuring Good Governance in
One of the most important elements of good governance in any country is the existence of free and impartial media which could make the access of common citizen possible to any happening or event. media consists of multifarious organizations such as Radio, Television, newspaper, web explorer, which serves as channels for a limitless range of conflicting views on virtually all issues, and which are frequently in competition with each other. In
Media is a vehicle which guarantees the free flow of information and ideas necessary for an effective functioning of a democratic society. Although media is not formally a institution of government, but it is considered as fourth institution of government machinery after legislature, executive and judiciary. As the matter of fact, media professionals are the representatives of the people but they are not been elected but they serve as an agents of the people in that they act on behalf of the people when they seek out and disseminate information on which the people need to make political judgments and other decisions that are important for their well-beings.
The case of developing countries in regard of media policy and practice is different from the developed countries. In Developing countries, the high rates of illiteracy and widespread ignorance among a majority of their populations about the most basic issues of national importance and unavailability of basic necessities does not let them analyze the routine policies of government. Thus the prevailing disorder in the developing countries demands high responsibility on the part of media to inform the citizen and to enlighten them about political, economic and social issues. It also has a responsibility to subject government policies, programs and activities in to scrutiny and to expose corruption, misconduct and incompetence in government.
Unfortunately, this is often difficult for many leaders to do. They see any demand for accountability as a challenge to their power and authority, as an attempt to control them. They view demands for transparency as an insult to their integrity, even when they are stealing the people blind. They see the media, which embodies all of these, as a nuisance, at best, and as an enemy, at the worst. They therefore devote their resources and energies to fighting these “enemies” who seek to introduce instruments or establish institutions of accountability and transparency. All that is required is for governments and political leaders to recognize that they have a batter chance of making progress and bringing development to their countries when they expand the pool of ideas available to them by allowing effective pubic participation in the governance process.
In respect to
Every citizen shall have the right to freedom of speech and expression, and there shall be freedom of the press, subject to any reasonable restrictions imposed by law in the interest of the glory of Islam or the integrity, security or defense of Pakistan or any part thereof, friendly relations with foreign states, public order, decency or morality, or in relation to contempt of court, commission of or incitement to an offense.
This particular article guarantees the freedom of expression and freedom of the press, but it also talk about the "reasonable restrictions", so that the check could be made on the given freedom of individuals as well as of organizations to avoid any encroachments of rights. The media history in Paksiatn exhibits the bitter realities that whenever the military take over the rule, media had to face certain restrictions. In 1963 the Press and Publications Ordinance (PPO) came into being containing the harshest of laws curtailing freedom of expression and the progressive development of the media and leading to the March 1969 relinquishing of power by President Ayub Khan to General Yahya Khan who imposed martial law. In 1977, General Zia ul Haq ousted Bhutto from the prime minister position and once again imposed martial law under which abuse of journalists became public rather than covert. Journalists were flogged in public at Zia's whim. Not one single law or regulation of any progressive character was created during Zia's rule. In 1988, Benaiz Bhutto as a successor of Zulfiqar ali Bhutoo became a first Women Prim Minster of Pakisatan, She brought with her a new phase of liberalism toward the mass media laws and regulations. For example, Bhutto's government allowed government-controlled radio and television to provide daily and well-balanced coverage of the speeches and statements of its opposition in news bulletins and current affairs programs. Because the print media reaches such a small percentage of the population, this change had a significant impact on the pubic, but was returned to the old, one-sided coverage after only four months because of pressure on Bhutto by her party, the Pakistan People's Party. Specifically, the Ministry of Information no longer required issuance of permits to import newsprint and allowed a free and open system of importing newsprint at market prices.
In1997, when Pakistan Muslim League (N) came in to power , Sharif used many heavy-handed methods to deal with journalists who dared to criticize his government. He put tremendous pressure on independent journalists, using both covert and overt means of retribution. In 1999: General Pervez Musharraf overthrows Sharif, suspends the constitution, and declares martial law; government agents raid the country's most influential newspaper, Jang, because it was too critical of the government. On 1st March 2002,
Its worth mentioning here that somehow or the other, the media is somewhere neglecting its positive an effective role to inform the citizen and its now become a tool to harass the viewers regarding the particular happening or event. To expose the dead bodies, to show the blood shed to a large scale can not give the public a food of thought in fact it prevail chaos and disturbance in society. The Television channels are being high jacked by the political parties, the journalist are writing for the particular political parties, the impartiality of the media is begin effected by such policies. The Pakistan peoples party came in third time rule after the general elections 2008, and Prime Minister Syed Yousaf Raza Gillani in his first address on 25th March 2008 to the parliament showed his willingness towards the freedom of media by declaring the Pemra ordinance null and void which was implemented in Musharaff regime to put the jinee of Media in the bottle. In this regard the role of former information Sherry Rehman can not be over looked who did not only allow media to record the regular proceedings of the parliament session but only resigned as she was not being discussed in some decisions related to her ministry. In such situation the media has an imperative role of not only the provision of quick and unbiased information but also to educate people socially and politically. The pessimist role of media being observed now a days, as electronic media isn’t reluctant to show the undressed dead bodies with blood which is no doubt a psychologically a bad effect on the minds of people. It’s the true fact that the people who watch television and who expire web belongs to every age, it is against the dignity of human being to expose violent actions resulted in the form of massive lose of lives in such a inhuman way. No developed county allow to on air such kinds of videos on media. Though the free media is one of the important element to ensure good governance but media need to be well aware of its responsibilities and it should not be allowed to disrespect humanity under the cover of freedom of expression.
Reference:
1. Owais Aslam Ali.
2. Sarah Chaudhary, Voice of the Nation in Nation:Sunday plus,Vol.25,November 2007, pg 18
3. "Country Profile:
4. Jabbar, Javed, and Qazi Faez Isa. Mass Media Laws and Regulations in
Zamurrad Awan
Lecturer
Kinnaird College for Women, Lhr
zamurredawan@yahoo.com
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