By Raza Rumi

Mukhtar Mai (2nd R) stands amongst students in a school which she established in Meerwala, located in the Muzaffargarh District of Pakistan’s central Punjab province April 23, 2011.- Reuters Photo

As if the showering of rose petals on Mumtaz Qadri and the release of a new Urdu book ‘Parwana-i-Shama-i-Risalat’ extolling him were not enough, Mukhtar Mai’s plight in today’s Pakistan is simply depressing.

Within hours after the Supreme Court’s split verdict on her was announced, Pakistan once again appeared as a divided polity. The medieval minds in media and intelligentsia were quick to harp on the soundness of the Court’s verdict while those who were sympathetic to Mai’s cause were dismayed. (more…)

By Raza Rumi

By Raza Rumi

Pakistan’s existentialist crisis is no longer a strictly Pakistani issue. Its potential repercussions have emerged as a cornerstone of global debates on regional stability and international concerns on terrorism and nuclear proliferation. The clichés on Pakistan’s disintegration and meltdown have also been done to death in the international media and policy brigades across the world. Perhaps, what the world has not yet fully comprehended is that Pakistan is essentially a transitional country where the old order is crumbling, giving way to a newer society that is grappling with geostrategic compulsions, domestic violence and a post-colonial state which refuses to realign its structures and priorities to a ‘new’ Pakistan.

To begin with, never in Pakistan’s history have so many women been active in the public spheres: from higher education to the workforce and from subaltern resistance movements to national politics. The two leading public sector universities i.e. the Karachi and Punjab Universities respectively, cater to a majority of female students. It is no coincidence that women parliamentarians are far more active in the national assembly and senate and not even shy of resisting patriarchy and clergy in their public roles. Increasingly, urban Pakistan is shedding its traditional conservatism by creating space for women’s inclusion in the media, and other segments of the services sector (also the largest contributing chunk of the GDP). (more…)

REBEL ANGEL

ASIM BUTT 1978-2010

Mohatta Palace Museum is hosting an exhibition of works by the late artist Asim Butt, commencing on Wednesday May 18, 2011. The show is titled Rebel Angel: Asim Butt 1978-2010. The exhibition will continue until July 31, 2011.

Asim Butt was a modern artist and social commentator who in the short span of his career produced a critical body of work within and outside his studio. He was innovative in his aesthetic oeuvre, painting large canvases in which he addressed issues concerning human behavior and social norms. He was deeply committed to the socio-political issues of his day and went out into the streets to paint graffiti and murals that invoked public reaction against war and injustice using trenchant symbols and hard hitting messages.

Asim Butt was born in Karachi in 1978 and lived abroad for some years before returning to Pakistan. He obtained a BSc from LUMS, Lahore and a fine art degree from Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture. He was well-informed and widely-read and his rebellion against social injustice continually manifested itself in his works.

By Raza Rumi

The overwhelming response to my earlier piece on the subject of jaundiced Pakistani textbooks has prompted me to continue with this theme. A large number of Pakistanis are aware of ideological twists given to basic learning materials in Pakistan. Of course, there are many who continue to be in denial and who insist that raising this issue is akin to defaming Pakistan. This strange logic — of accepting the ills of a society in the name of patriotism is simply incomprehensible. Perhaps ‘operation brainwashing’ has succeeded at many levels.

Sceptical readers ask for examples. There is no point in repeating whatthe seminal study on the University of Vermont website already says. However, a key problem is locating Pakistan’s creation in a battle for Islam. Jinnah was ready to give up the idea of a separate country as late as 1946 by accepting the Cabinet Mission proposals. Why do such lies have to be taught then? The answer to this rhetorical question is clear. A national security state had to construct enemies and prepare a mass constituency for militarisation of the country. This is why we have 110 nukes but 55 per cent of the population lives without access to proper sanitation. (more…)

Bureaucratics – Images by Jan Banning

Bureaucratics is a project consisting of a book (ISBN 978-1-59005-232-7) and exhibition containing 50 photographs, the product of an anarchist’s heart, a historian’s mind and an artist’s eye. It is a comparative photographic study of the culture, rituals and symbols of state civil administrations and its servants in eight countries on five continents, selected on the basis of polical, historical and cultural considerations: Bolivia, China, France, India, Liberia, Russia, the United States, and Yemen. In each country, I visited up to hundreds of offices of members of the executive in different services and at different levels. The visits were unannounced and the accompanying writer, Will Tinnemans, by interviewing kept the employees from tidying up or clearing the office. That way, the photos show what a local citizen would be confronted with when entering.

The photography has a conceptual, typological approach reminding of August Sander’s ‘Menschen des 20 Jahrhunderts’ (‘People of the Twentieth Century’). Each subject is posed behind his or her desk. The photos all have a square format (fitting the subject), are shot from the same height (that of the client), with the desk – its front or side photographed parallel to the horizontal edges of the frame – serving as a bulwark protecting the representative of rule and regulation against the individual citizen, the warm-blooded exception. They are full of telling details that sometimes reveal the way the state proclaims its power or the bureaucrat’s rank and function, sometimes of a more private character and are accompanied by information such as name, age, function and salary. Though there is a high degree of humour and absurdity in these photos, they also show compassion with the inhabitants of the state’s paper labyrinth.

September 2008.

Source: http://www.janbanning.com/gallery/bureaucratics/?pid=705&PHPSESSID=186c05dd35e149ec73357a5427d7b598&PHPSESS

ID=186c05dd35e149ec73357a5427d7b598

Har lehza ba shaklay but-e-ayyar baraamad
Dil burd-o-nihaan shud
Har dum ba libaas-e-digar aan yaar baraamad
Gah peer-o-javaan shud

By Raza Rumi

April 21, 2011 will be remembered as a black day in Pakistan’s history. Not because this was the day when the Supreme Court acquitted the alleged rapists of a poor, marginalised woman. It will be marked as the day when, once again, Pakistan’s colonial criminal justice system failed to protect the vulnerable, thereby rendering a heinous crime such as gang rape almost unpunishable.

Nine years ago, a misogynistic panchayat of south Punjab ordered the gang rape of a woman for no sin of hers. It was her (then 12-year-old) brother who was sodomised and then accused of illicit relations with the sister of the powerful rapists. This low-caste family had to be ‘fixed’. Thanks to the media frenzy, the state had to act when what happens in subaltern Pakistan was exposed. Suo motu notices by the courts, police investigation and faulty prosecution ultimately led to no justice. At every step of the legal process, powerful men obstructed the cause of justice. (more…)

‘Pakistan has been playing us all for suckers’

An interview with Sherry Rehman who visited India with Pakistan’s Prime Minister to enjoy cricket and build bridges with India.

It was the first major interaction at this level since the Mumbai terror attacks. How was the reception? What did the Pakistani delegates and their Indian hosts talk about? What was the body language like?

By Jehangir Ali

The Drama
So we had an insouciant, television revolution in Lutyen’s Delhi. How peaceful it was! It took just four days and no bloodshed! No Gaddafis here, no bombing of ‘revolutionaries’, no martyrs, a pure pep talk on corruption and its ‘harmful effects’ and lo, our moment has come, “India has shown on TimesNow tonight that enough is enough! It is a people’s movement and we have won”, thunders a brutally honest Arnab Goswami. A wild dog suddenly starts barking in our street. There were more journalists and onlookers at Jantar Mantar than the actual number of protestors on more than one occasion over the last four days!
The Meeting
I had the pleasure of meeting a “philanthropic” (that is what his visiting card says) on Wednesday night, one Mr P Rajdeep, the ‘official media coordinator’ of Anna Hazare campaign, at Jantar Mantar. Most of the journalists, who covered this ‘campaign’, must know Mr P. He has the same story for everyone; that he owns four Rolls Royce cars and has never travelled on a passenger flight. He also runs “Swabhiman Foundation”, an ‘education and equality foundation’ in Thane, Maharashtra. He has contacts in government too and may help you out, just in case, “I book a chartered plane for myself. Who do you think I am? I haven’t come here for money. I don’t need money, yaar. I want to be a part of the system and change it”. In the same breath, “If you want, I can fix an appointment with any bollywood actress you want. You look very handsome”! Bollywood actresses are now going to bring me revolution. Sure sire. Why not! (more…)

By Omid Safi

There is a lovely story from the life of the Prophet Muhammad, remembering that a mysterious visitor came upon him and his companions. The visitor, later revealed to be the archangel Gabriel, proceeded to sit intimately next to Muhammad and quiz the Prophet. He asked Muhammad about three increasingly higher and deeper levels of religiosity, which the Prophet answered sequentially as Islam (wholehearted submission to God), Faith and, lastly, Loveliness (ihsan). This third quality the Prophet identified as worshipping God as if we could see the Divine, and if we cannot, to always remember that God nevertheless sees us.

The sequence is fascinating, as it reveals that what we think of as Islam (the attestation to Divine Unity, the performance of the prayers, the pilgrimage to Mecca, the paying of the alms tax, the fast of Ramadan) mark only the very first layer — though the foundational layer — of religiosity. Above that is faith, and above faith is the spiritual and mystical layer of spiritual beauty, for ihsan is literally the realm of actualizing and realizing beauty and loveliness (husn), of bringing beauty into this world and connecting it to God, who is the All-Beautiful. (more…)

Three years into its term of office, the government faces unprecedented criticism. Given complaints about the elected government’s performance, do you think Pakistan was more stable and better governed under Musharraf?

ADH: The past three years have shown us that even a dysfunctional, transitional democracy is preferable to military rule and dictatorship. The government’s legitimacy stems from the constitution and hence it has been bound to uphold the rule of law – even in areas where it may not have suited the interests of the ruling party. Musharraf, in contrast, held power through the barrel of a gun and the difference is quite apparent. Of course, elected institutions need to improve their governance capacity and skills, but we must remain cognizant of the fact that the elected government’s authority remains notional in several areas – particularly those concerning the military and its intelligence agencies. In other areas, for example, the judiciary, the executive has had to cede authority to the appropriate institution even if it does not suit its interests. It is a function of democracy and the pressures of pluralism that Zardari restored Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry to office and has cohabited with him for two years now and accepted the independent status of the judiciary. Just this one development marks a significant shift from the structural authoritarianism that is used to govern Pakistan traditionally which vests all power in the executive. I think we should give the government credit for this. That said, there remain serious issues of military impunity and civilian misgovernance that need to be urgently addressed. (more…)

Ali Dayan Hasan — Pakistan representative, Human Rights Watch

The News on Sunday (TNS) How does HRW view the current state of human rights in Balochistan?

Ali Dayan Hasan (ADH) The toxic mix of armed nationalist, sectarian and Taliban actors on the one hand and the trigger-happy military authorities on the other, makes Balochistan one of the most dangerous places in the world today. Illegal detention. torture, disappearances and targeted killings by the military are commonplace. Abuses by nationalist militants are also on the rise. It is an appalling situation and the great losers in this are the long-suffering people of the province.

TNS: Your report on attacks on education in Balochistan was criticised by the nationalists as focusing too much on the issues of settlers. What was the reason for highlighting that? (more…)