FL Strikes Again

MM will be the end of FL. Just when you thought that FL would have learnt to keep his mouth shut, he comes out with the best of them all. In an interview with the Washington Post, he says and I quote

"..you must understand the environment in Pakistan, this has become a money-making concern. A lot of people say if you want to go abroad and get a visa for Canada or citizenship and be a millionaire, get yourself raped" unquote.

Bravo!!!

Both FL and his flunkeys have been trying to undo the damage by doing the following

1. Denial. He never said this.
2. Misquoted. It was quoted out of context, FL said he heard this remark somewhere, he was just quoting.
blah blah

My dear FL, you should know the fundamental rule of combating "foot in the mouth disease" which is "When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging."

In the meanwhile, Washington Post says it stands by its story, they even have it taped and say they quoted his comments verbatim.

Another major blunder dear FL! My advice to you is to keep quiet, this too shall pass. Its not as if you have to get elected by the NGOs. You can always have "fair and transparent" elections when they happen again and become the supreme commander of everything, the president, prime minister, even a nazim, if you so desire. And according to you, Bush and the Canadian PM don't really care if you are in or out of uniform, etc. etc. Everyone can see that it is our holy father who sits in the Oval Office, who is the relevant authority on whether the President of our country is a general in uniform, so why even bother with the lesser mortals like the citizens of this country?

Read an interesting article today which drew parallels between the feudal society that FL is trying to rid us of by his Enlightened Moderation, and the response of his government and himself. Lets say there is a patriarchal society where a crime like rape is committed. The feudal lord will punish or not punish the perpetrator and make sure that the news doesn't leak out, because it means loss of honour if the outside world knows about the crime that happens within. Maybe FL wants to convert our society into a feudal society where he is the only lord and master. To be honest, I have no idea what he wants to do. But the contradictions in everything he does and says, is glaring, to say the least.

On a different note, but very relevant to the state of affairs, there was a list of names in the newspapers of our enlightened leaders who were given licenses to bear arms of prohibited bores. The best one was an empowered female minister of state for education of all the things (I am not sure what her current status is), who was issued a license to keep an assault rifle. I say this is a sure sign of the emancipation of women in our country, we have come a long way baby!!

I wonder why the religious parties have not uttered a single word about this whole mess. Maybe they have, like the lady senator who told MM to keep her mouth shut. They are more concerned these days about the registration and audit of the seminaries in the country, which is their personal domain, who cares about such trivial matters like rapes, since it can't be proved unless witnessed by four adult Muslim males. In the absence of which, the woman is tried for adultery and that is the end of that.

I am seeing a lot of incidents being reported which are about minor girls aged between 4 and 10 who are being criminally and sexually assaulted. I don't know the numbers, so I have no idea whether this has suddenly gone up or that it is being reported more. Makes me sick. I wouldn't dream of asking FL to step in, since I am sure he will only make a bigger mess. Maybe I should stop reading the newspapers.

I was attending a week long workshop at one of our best business schools. Everything is good, but I wonder what has happened to our students. Elsewhere in the world, students are the conscience of society, they speak out loud against all the wrongs and injustices that they see around them. Our students have participated in the political arena, by joining either ethnic or religion based parties, but they have never spoken out about issues like the environment or social injustices. Why? I don't have an answer.

One positive thing last week, the Supreme Court has taken a suo-moto notice of the New Murree project and has asked them to provide details of the environmental impact. I hope something good comes out of it, but I am not very optimistic, although just the mere fact is encouraging. But someone tell me this, the SC heard MM's petition, did something happen? I read somewhere that there are 30,000 pending petitions. Good luck with that.

So there you have it.

The wisdom that we lack

The last couple of days have been spent watching the VVIP traffic move in front of the office. FL had arranged the Women Conference thing in order to do god knows what, next doors. So both days, the no parking street actually had the whole police force of Islamabad enforcing the no parking. While people walking on the road were told to get out of sight, and traffic was stopped miles away in all directions. Then came the moment that all were waiting for, sirens screaming, about 20 or thirty unmarked cars with black windows, came and went in all directions. Reminded me so much of our beloved warlords and dictators abundantly found in the third world, all fearful of their lives being lost while fighting the war against the enemy.

I am digressing here. Anyway, the two day international conference came to an end, and FL made his usual bold statements, the NGOs are bad-mouthing Pakistan, rape happens everywhere, why should Pakistan be singled out, and we are doing more for women than anywhere else in the world, yada yada yada. And my favourite woman, the Special Advisor to the PM, made the usual gestures. They just don't get it.

My dear FL, the problem is not rape itself. There are sick bastards everywhere in the world, and violence against women is very commonplace. What makes Pakistan special is the fact that some of these rapes are sanctioned by a parallel legal system, accepted by communities in which they happen, as punishment for petty crime. This is something which can only be changed by enforcing the law, and this is what the whole outcry is about, to raise awareness that breaking the law is going to have consequences, to let the women know that they can't be treated like this and they shouldn't feel threatened by going to the law after something like this happens to them.

In the meantime, another woman was raped, the whole thing was covered up and the woman escaped to the UK. And when she makes a statement where she is out of reach, FL says, "I am not with you out of Pakistan". Another woman, who was arrested because she showed up at the parliament, supposedly to seek help for finding her husband, gets raped by the police. What is going on here? I don't profess to know exactly what transpired, but the whole system is rotten. And FL, putting the gag order on NGOs and everybody else, is not going to help. We have to make sure that every woman in our country knows that she has rights and can't be treated like property.

How do we ensure that all citizens including women understand what their rights are? By educating them, by making a legal and law enforcement system that doesn't scare them more than the crime against them. By removing people who feel that "women should shut up and seek justice from god" from places of power and responsibility. Stopping MM from going abroad and talking about it, is not going to help.

This is the wisdom that we lack, and by the signs of it, we will not have it in the near future.

Oh Katrina!!!

Its been an interesting few days, and although I haven't seen a lot of television, I assume it is filled with images of the aftermath of Katrina and the devastation in New Orleans. I have heard all the arguments and people's angry reactions, and am glad that Dubya is getting a tough time on this.

My observations are as following

1. Gun control
The news of people shooting at rescue choppers, just shows how nice it is to be able to bear arms. You get pissed off and you start shooting. So the governor of Louisiana has given "shoot to kill" orders to the police and other law enforcement agencies, brilliant move that, now we will have gunbattles in the streets.

2. The joys of free capitalism
America's neighbour Cuba gets hit by a lot of hurricanes, the socialist government there evacuates everyone, and the loss of life is minimal. The government of Louisiana tells people to evacuate, and the poor sods who live there have nowhere to go and nothing to take them there either. So they decide to brave it out, which turned out to be a big mistake. A hurricane of Katrina's power was not going to let that happen.

3. Race card
A lot of people are saying that this gross neglect is happening only because the majority of the people effected are black, I don't agree. I think the lines are drawn on purely economic divisions. The rich, whether they are black, pink or yellow, should get more help since they pay more taxes, and there you have it.

4. Scourge of god
This is an interesting one, in many flavours
a. This is happening to America because of Iraq and Afghanistan.
b. New Orleans is home to sinners. etc. etc.
I wish it were that simple, my question to these people would be, why did the tsunami hit Indonesia and killed a hundred thousand?? What did they do wrong?

5. Looting
That never fails to amaze me, when there is a breakdown of law and order, people resort to breaking into other peoples property and stealing what they can lay their hands on. Reminds me of the great New York power breakdown, where the same thing happened. Here we have people, who are in danger of dying of disease etc. and they go around stealing tvs. I just don't get it.

6. Statistics
I was reading somewhere that the number of hurricanes hasn't increased as compared to the last century, and therefore its not the changing environment that is causing this devastation. I am not sure about that, you can always play around with numbers to get the results you want. For example, they say that number of Americans KIA (Killed in Action) in Iraq is 18 hundred something, since all those who died later on in transit through Germany etc. are not being counted. Hmmmm...

7. Blog Surfing
I have been neglecting work and doing a lot of that, saw an interesting counter on one of the blogs, it was counting down the numbers of days, right down to the seconds, that Dubya remains in office. I wish I were that optimistic, replacing him will not change things much.

8. Pakistan and Israel
The foreign ministers meet. And then there is talk of FL meeting with Sharon, and then it hit the fan. Hahaha!!! I think this is a total set up, the government is creating another non-issue for the mullahs to jump on. I love the fact that the Palestinian Authority denied that they were consulted, right after our government spokesman said that "We consulted both Saudi Arabia and Palestine Authority before we arranged the meeting". And thank you so much for consulting Saudi Arabia, maybe while they were at it, they should have sought the permission of the king of Bhutan. What the??

9. Murree
There was a letter in the newspaper by the Director Administration of the said project, who says only 1 percent of the 400,000 trees will be cut down, which means only 4000 trees, and they plan to plant 200,000 trees in the area. I wish I could believe that, does anyone see the conflict of interest here? Why isn't anyone else convinced? We only have the people connected with the project making statements like that, and once they have destroyed this, who will hold them accountable?

Where are the greenpeace? Come on guys, please come and chain yourself against some of our trees. This SOS goes out to you.

I hope for good things.