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Dr Abdus Salam has been dead ten years, which is a long time but he is mourned and remembered everywhere except in the country that he considered home, despite all his years away from it, and in whose earth he lies because that was where he wished to be.

The most endearing quality about Dr Salam was his humility and his sense of humour. During the 1980s, he used to come to Vienna every now and then for consultations with one or the other US agency, no less than to see his younger brother Majid, a technical specialist with the UN Industrial Development Organisation. The UN building in Vienna, on the right bank of the Danube, has a huge domed rotunda as you enter it. One afternoon as I was walking across it with a friend on my way out to take the underground train to my place of work, I saw Dr Salam and hailed him from a distance.

“Dr sahib,” I said. He stopped and we stood under the rotunda for a long time chatting, mostly about Pakistan. I introduced my friend with whom he shook hands with great warmth. After he was gone to the meeting he had flown in for from Trieste, my friend asked who this was. I told him who. “My God. The Prof. Salam. But he is so modest. I have never seen a man more simple.” “My friend,” I said to him, “you have just met one of the greatest physicists of the 20th century.” Dr Salam was utterly self-effacing, the last word in his book being the first person singular, I.

I never met Dr Salam in Pakistan though I did see him at the famous Multan meeting at Nawab Sadiq Hussain Qureshi’s house — which was called White House and I am sure still is — where in early 1972, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in a stirring speech to scientists announced that Pakistan had to take the nuclear road. He asked them if they could do it and they all responded emotionally, even promising to deliver in three to five years. It was Dr Salam who calmed them down.

In 1975, when I was in Ottawa, serving at the Pakistan embassy, I learnt that Dr Salam was arriving for certain meetings with Canadian officials. He was no longer the chief scientific adviser to the government of Pakistan, having resigned after the deplorable and disastrous 1974 national assembly decision declaring the Ahmadis non-Muslim. I went to he airport to receive him and did not recognise him at first because he had grown a beard. “You have grown a beard,” I said. “Well, the day we were declared non-Muslim, I decided to fulfil Sunnat-e-Rasool,” he replied, his eyes twinkling.

He would not accept the use of the official car as long as he was in town but I insisted and in the end he agreed. He was touched. A few days after his return to Trieste, he wrote me a gracious thank you note, adding, “Please thank Mirza Abdul Rehman for showing me around.” Mirza Abdul Rehman was one of the embassy drivers who had driven Dr Salam for the couple of days he was there. I can’t think of another Pakistani who would do this, since we don’t even notice those who serve us and do not consider them worthy of any kind of attention. Such gestures were typical of Dr Salam, who helped thousands of people in his life in all kinds of ways and who treated everyone as an equal and worthy of respect.

I asked him why he had resigned after the 1974 decision. He told me that it was the same question Bhutto had asked him. “Salam, what is this? Why have you resigned as chief scientific adviser?” Salam told him that after the national assembly verdict declaring his entire community of Ahmadi Muslims non-Muslim, he could not possibly continue. “But Salam that is all politics,” Bhutto told him, then added, “Give me time; I will change it. Believe me.” Salam said to Bhutto, “All right Zulfi, I believe you, but write down what you have told me on a plain piece of paper and it will remain between the two of us, forever and always.” Bhutto’s reply was classic Bhutto, “Salam, I can’t do that; I am a politician.”

In London, Dr Salam lived in Putney and when he won the Nobel Prize, I too was living in London, working with Mr Altaf Gauhar at his Third World Foundation, having resigned from foreign service after the July 1977 Zia coup that overthrew Bhutto and plunged Pakistan in the black pit of obscurantism. Salam and AG (which was what we called Mr Gauhar) were at Government College around the same time. The Foundation threw a big celebratory party in honour of Dr Salam that I coordinated. Some days later I took an album of the pictures taken there to him at his Putney home, which pleased him immensely, although the pleasure was really and truly mine. In his company you felt lit up.

He was a man without bitterness. For example, had Pakistan nominated him as UNESCO director general, he would have won easily; but Zia nominated Sahibzada Yaqub Khan, with Attiya Enayatullah acting as his principal lobbyist. The election was lost from the word go, but the last nail must have been Ms Enayatullah’s declaration in Paris: A general saved France; a general will save UNESCO. In Vienna, Dr Salam told me that he had gone to every Muslim capital after his Nobel, begging them to set aside one percent of their GNP for scientific education. None had agreed.

In Libya, he was whisked off his aircraft after it had begun to taxi to see ‘The Leader’ and all he had asked Salam was if he could make him a nuclear bomb. “I am not that kind of scientist,” Salam had replied. The Colonel had shown no more interest in Salam thereafter or his ideas.

Prof Ashfaq Ali Khan once said that Ayub was an unfortunate man. “History tries to lead him by the hand to greatness and every time he wrests his hand free.” So, here is Gen. Pervez Musharraf’s chance to redeem himself. He should visit Dr Salam’s grave in this 10th anniversary year and lay a wreath on it on behalf of the people of Pakistan. He should also scrap the revolting regulation that changed Rabwah’s name to Chenab Nagar. And one day, I hope, the despicable 1974 law that has thrown Pakistan into the witches’ cauldron of sectarianism will be annulled.

Khalid Hasan is Daily Times’ US-based correspondent

Asma Jahangir came, spoke, conquered and left to do the same elsewhere. She is a one-woman uprising against all that is unjust, illegal and unconstitutional. It is not for nothing that she is recognised today as one of the world’s leading advocates of human rights and fundamental freedoms. In her own country, her government disowns her and considers her an embarrassment, which only proves that she is doing something right. Truly, she is a worthy daughter of a worthy father, the late Malik Ghulam Jilani, whose legacy of questioning illegality in legal forums she has continued and carried forward.

She is a person who is utterly natural and who is utterly unafraid. She is not impressed by rank or power or position. Nor does she fear those who want to do her harm. The two attempts on her life – there may have been more that we know not of – have steeled her resolve to fight on. She stands up for those for whom nobody will stand up. She has carried the voice of the exploited and the powerless to the highest courts of the land. And if she has not been able to obtain justice in those marble-columned halls, she has not hesitated to say so.

Despite the international spotlight under which she stands and despite the many awards and honours that have come her way, she remains the same person she was when as a teenager she lent her name to one of the most celebrated constitutional petitions in Pakistan’s history, filed by her father, that has come to be known as the Asma Jilani case. It has become a landmark, a guiding light, in the fight for constitutional rule that brave and principled individuals have waged against successive military dictatorships that have been like a black cloud between the sun of accountable government and the people of Pakistan. If a patron saint for constitutionalism were to be chosen, no one will be better qualified to have that halo surround her head than Asma Jilani.

Asma Jahangir came to Washington to speak at the State Department at an event celebrating the 25th anniversary of the UN Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination based on Religion and Belief. She spoke with great feeling and she held her audience in thrall. She also answered a large number of questions in her characteristically open manner. She spoke to a small invited audience at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace the next day. She said Pakistan has been in a state of constant transition. It is an intellectually fragmented society with no cohesion. It is not a melting pot like the United States and Pakistanis are not super-nationalists like Indians. There is economic anarchy and there is a dearth of money earned on merit. The aim is quick takings. The business philosophy can be summed up in two words: easy picks. Cartels abound and operate with impunity. They are beyond accountability. It seems everyone is waiting for a financial windfall.

She said there are far too many myths about Pakistan, especially abroad. One myth that the Bush administration paddles around is that Gen Musharraf is popular. Another myth in which the General himself believes is that he is an expert on everything. The open rigging of the 2002 Musharraf referendum raised no eyebrows in America, whereas its blatancy shocked the people of Pakistan. She asked: are we Pakistanis destined to be ruled by military dictators? She said the United States is reluctant to admit that Pakistanis are capable of democracy, although they have struggled for democracy all along. The fact is that Pakistanis do not want and do not accept military dictatorship, which has sapped the country’s economic resources. This is something US policymakers must understand. They must also know that resentment against the US is increasing. The White House thinks that Musharraf is good for America and believes in the myth that his policies are working.

Asma spoke about the cross-linkages the army maintains with vested interests across the country. Turning to the higher judiciary, she wondered what confidence the citizen could have in courts when the Chief Justice of the Lahore High Court refuses to be superceded. She felt that the judiciary in Pakistan is dysfunctional. She recalled that when she tried to run in a mixed marathon in Lahore, Intelligence Bureau agents tore up her clothes and one of them shouted, “Take a photo of this bitch!” That was one example of the government’s “enlightened moderation.” She said as many as 600 people had disappeared, and 300 of whom could not be accounted for. Among those who were picked up were Baloch and Sindhi nationalists. She said the state of affairs is exemplified by the Ministry of Defence saying in court that it is not in charge of intelligence operations. She disclosed that detention centres have been set up in many cities where torture is routinely practised. People are given electric shocks and mysterious injections when they are brought in. Whenever there is tension with India, Hindus are picked up from Sindh and taken away. Journalists have been picked up and released after a couple of days and told to “behave.”

Asma said there is a nexus between the ISI and the Islamist militants and everybody knows it. Hafiz Saeed, while under house arrest, was paid Rs 25,000 a month by the state. The ISI and Islamic militants are old friends, after all, she added. Referring to the Dr AQ Khan affair, she said the government says it did not know what he was doing. “It is even worse if the government did not know what he was doing,” she said, since it was happening “under its very nose.” She found the Balochistan operation suspect. She said at the heart of that operation lay the army’s bid to take control of the area’s oil and gas resources. Roads had been built to the Marri areas, not for the people but for the gas. She said when the government accuses Nawab Akbar Bugti of human rights violations, “I smile, look who’s talking.” This government has patronised and cohabited with feudals as no other. “I smile when I hear that the government will not stand defiance of the law.” A military regime invoking law! The army, she said, lives in great style. It runs everything, even beauty parlours. It does what it wants. No one is allowed to go into Waziristan, so who can say what is going on there! The recent Azad Kashmir election, she said, had been rigged. The Azad government had been given no role to play after the earthquake, and not even consulted. Where has all the money gone, she asked?

Were there any bright spots, someone wanted to know? Yes, she said, people no longer hold back when it comes to what they think about the army. “We have a vibrant society. People question what they never used to. Those once charmed by Pervez Musharraf are not charmed anymore.” When someone pointed out that the Musharraf government had also certain achievements to its credit, she replied, “Even Hitler had achievements.” The people of Pakistan, she declared, have come to the point where they are raising their voice and the army should understand that it cannot behave as it behaved in the 1960s. It should go.

Well, we only have a year or less to wait.

At a time when there is a chilling State Department advisory against travel to Pakistan, which has been declared the continuing subject of US concerns where the “possibility of terrorist activity directed against American citizens and interests” is very much a fact of life, tourism minister Nilofar Bakhtiar and her prime minister Shaukat Aziz saw nothing inappropriate about holding a ‘bara khana’ in New York this month as the opening salvo of their ‘Visit Pakistan 2007’ campaign, which has crash-landed before it could take off.

There is not only a US travel advisory against all inessential travel to Pakistan. There is also one issued by the British government and another one by Spain. Ian Botham said it long ago and he was right about not even wishing his mother-in-law to go to Pakistan. The waste of Pakistani taxpayer’s money on such pointless and self-defeating exercises now verges on the criminal. One day perhaps there will be a people’s court where those who commit such offences will be taken to task. That of course is a dream but as far as I know, Gen. Musharraf’s government so far has not made it illegal to dream.

It is not that there wasn’t advice from official quarters, which I am not free to identify, that it was not the inappropriate time for unveiling such a project. That sound piece of advice was first ignored and when resubmitted, it was got overruled by personages higher than those who had rendered the advice. And how was the ‘Visit Pakistan 2007’ campaign launched by the lady who has proved that one does not have to be an elected representative in order to gain senior cabinet posts?

Cut to the Hilton, New York City, where nearly 400 people were invited to dinner and given a presentation that was effective enough to dissuade anyone able to count from one to ten to stay at home. And who were the guests? Nearly 80 percent of them were Pakistanis. There were travel agents and airline people, but mostly it was the local noises of the community and members of the large delegation that had come with the prime minister who had pride of place and the best seats. Delegation members must have welcomed the diversion because it gave them something to do besides shopping and looking up family and friends.

Its bitsy presents, the kind children between ages eight to ten would have been pleased with, were handed over to the guests. Anyone looking for a free key ring or a Pakistan flag lapel button would have found it at ‘Visit Pakistan 2007’, Hotel Hilton, New York that evening. The only good thing was a woman opening the proceedings with a Quran recitation that outraged every fundo in the audience — and there were plenty of those. One of them hissed to a fellow beard, “She is singing the Quran, the devil take her!” A video of the sights of Pakistan — Gandhara, Mughal monuments, mountains, sports (including, surely, by mistake a flash of Imran Khan holding the World Cup high over his head, Melbourne 1992) — was screened. It took four attempts for the projector to work.

There were speeches by Ms Bakhtiar and the prime minister in which the president was showered with praise. The lady praised both the prime minister and the president. They both made the same speech with exactly the same points that the video had made. Can’t they find a decent speechwriter? Food was served, which to the disappointment of the guests was not Pakistani, that it should have been, given the occasion. Instead it was rubber chicken and fish. Someone said, “This is hospital food.” While people ate or tried to do so, a dancer appeared on the stage, attempting to do some kind of kathak, which is associated with the decadent court of Nawab Wajid Ali Shah rather than the robust culture of Pakistan. However, nobody paid much attention to her.

Did it not occur to those who planned this event that cost a huge amount of money which could and should have been saved for the sake of Pakistan’ poor that before launching the ‘Visit Pakistan 2007’ year, the Americans and the British should be persuaded to lift their travel advisories? No travel agent is going to organise tours to Pakistan because if something bad happens to any of his clients, he will be taken to the cleaners by the injured party or the family concerned.

One recalls that when the State Department clamped a travel advisory on India, the reaction from New Delhi was sharp and immediate and the offending directive was withdrawn. But what about us? Given the exemplary state of public order in Pakistan, dare we ask Washington to lift the order? In any case, 2007 is going to a turbulent year, what with the elections and that unresolved uniform business, and so it is hardly the year that should have been so designated.

It was also insensitive to hold this pointless event in the wake of the Dargai tragedy in which so many innocent young army recruits lost their lives. As a matter of fact, the prime minister should have cut short his visit and returned to Pakistan as a show of sympathy and solidarity with the people he claims to be prime minister of. While on the subject, I should mention that the Airbus that brought him and his party to New York and took him to Canada carries 196 passengers, so it was less than one-third full. Few know that when a VVIP PIA flight takes off from Pakistan on such visits, another PIA aircraft is taken out of the commercial fleet and parked in a hanger in Karachi as a standby, just in case something goes wrong with the aircraft in which the VVIP is travelling.

And now by way of icing on the cake, a few words from the US travel advisory on Pakistan. According to the version updated on 14 November, “The US Embassy in Islamabad and the Consulates in Karachi, Lahore, and Peshawar continue to operate at reduced staffing levels. Family members of official Americans assigned to the Embassy in Islamabad and to the three consulates in Pakistan were ordered to leave the country in March 2002 and have not been allowed to return. Al Qaeda and Taliban elements continue to operate inside Pakistan, particularly along the porous Afghan border region. Their presence, coupled with that of indigenous sectarian and militant groups in Pakistan, continues to pose potential danger to American citizens. Continuing tensions in the Middle East also increase the possibility of violence against Westerners in Pakistan. As security has tightened at official US facilities, terrorists and their sympathisers have demonstrated their willingness and capability to attack more vulnerable targets, including facilities where Americans are generally known to congregate or visit, such as hotels, clubs, restaurants, places of worship, schools, or outdoor recreation events.”

Welcome to Ms Bakhtiar’s Pakistan.

Khalid Hasan is Daily Times’ US-based correspondent

All truckers are romantics at heart. If you are looking for heartbroken lovers and their lovesick calls for attention, you need go no farther than the back of any passing long-distance truck. On city roads, the tradition is kept alive by rickshaw and taxi drivers. But who these heartless femme fatales are who break the hearts of these desolate souls, we do not know. However, not all truck, taxi and rickshaw drivers have been felled by unrequited love. There are many who are mama’s boys and whose vehicles carry the message, ‘Mother’s prayer is breeze from heaven.’

I have been watching the backs of these trucks and rickshaws for years and jotting down the messages they carry. While no translation can possibly convey the flavour of what really is literature on wheels, it should be attempted, not least for those who have lost the ability to read Urdu and, inexplicably, wear it as a badge of honour.

My all-time favourite is ‘Greetings to Kafeel Bhai of Ghotki. Left-arm, right-arm spin bowler, cricket player, world superstar, all-round cricketer.’ Kafeel Bhai, I have been told, does exist and actually lives in Ghotki, Sindh. He is a painter and any truck, taxi or rickshaw that he paints does not leave his workshop without his signature. One cricket-related inscription that the new chairman of the Pakistan Cricket Board, Dr Nasim Ashraf, should pay attention to, says, ‘All credit is suspended till we win the next World Cup.’

Many rickshaws in Lahore scoot around carrying terrified passengers with the following line scribbled across their rear: ‘Ji Butt Ji.’ Another favourite is, ‘My beloved pray for me’. And what about these? ‘Look, ain’t I pretty?’ ‘Sweet dream,’ ‘Blow your horn and overtake,’ ‘Sorry, I am in a race against time,’ ‘This car running wild,’ ‘Pinko Prince,’ ‘Load Larkana, Unload Sukkur, that is my life’s chakkar,’ ‘A curse on the selfish,’ ‘On the road in quest of dollars, but Murree is my town,’ ‘Look, but with love,’ ‘Touch me not,’ ‘Dark is the night, the lazy world sleeps; But all my eyes see is your face,’ ‘OK friend, we’ll meet again,’ ‘Jubilantly rushing into the mouth of death; My God protect you, O Rocket rider,’ ‘Red fairy, flying from Lahore to Gilgit,’ ‘It’s the first flush of youth, dance on,’ ‘You sweet cheat,’ ‘You want to travel? Forget buses, go by truck; you want to slay? Use your eyes, what good are swords!’ ‘Some burn by jealousy; some say a prayer,’ ‘Lady luck’s serpent,’ and ‘Live long Lion King.’

Drivers and police have a complicated relationship. Wise drivers have learnt to operate on the principle: live and let live. They also realise that the poor policeman on duty on the open highway is not a favoured child of the government and could do with a bit of a backhander. So, the wise driver has a small slush fund which is his passport to getting to his destination in time. Many trucks go around with ‘Salute to Punjab police,’ emblazoned in front and back. It will be a hard-hearted policeman who would write such an admirer a ticket. One truck I spied on the Grand Trunk Road had this written in the rear: ‘What a life is a driver’s! If death he escapes, it is jail he ends up in.’ One taxi in Lahore said, ‘Do not look at me with anger; What’ve I done to deserve your unkindly eye?’ Then there was this, ‘Bhaijan, keep your distance.’ One taxi whizzed past me on Lahore’s Mall, but I was able to read the rear: ‘Run, my darling; you were not fated to rest.’

Ideally, someone should publish a book with photographs so that the full fun and flavour of this passing show on our roads can be captured. Here in inadequate translation are some more of the painted nuggets. ‘What can I say about my friends! They are the flowers of my kismet. Every time they meet me, they cheat me. But at least they are principled,’ ‘What a life! What a world; wherever you look, injustice rules,’ ‘Beauty is in attendance ready to be punished; but let no one throw stones at my crazy lover,’ ‘The mother said to her baby, “I will not forgive you my milk if you disobey me” and the baby replied, “Threaten me not, the milk I drank came from tins”,’ ‘Drive slow, drive forever,’ ‘The love court is in session and love is on trial; The heart is in the witness stand, and in the dock is love,’ ‘Fare thee well, stone-hearted one; Say what blessing I should pronounce on you, heartbreaker,’ ‘Think of me when spring comes to the garden,’ ‘Let the Prince go,’ ‘My little moon, it is all a matter of luck,’ ‘Don’t tell me it was in my stars, beloved; you too had a hand in my destruction,’ ‘The Princess of Sweden in the lap of Punjab,’ ‘The world will sing my songs,’ ‘Who says I will die when death comes; I am a driver, I will give death “the cut” and get away,’ ‘O wayfarer, I’m a wayfarer too, so bye bye, wayfarer.’

Here is yet another group of quotable quotes: ‘You Model 1960, that Toyota just winked at you,’ ‘Snakes I returned to their basket for men do the job better,’ ‘This wanderer had no need for rest,’ ‘Here goes the King of Kala,’ ‘Live with it or overtake me,’ ‘I am Imam Bari Sarkar’s servant,’ ‘Calamites touch me not; Is it my fault I keep smiling?’ ‘Qalandari speedboat,’ ‘The rosebud of Kashmir,’ ‘Thirsty lover,’ ‘The eagle in flight,’ ‘Look but lovingly,’ ‘Do not burn with jealousy, wish everyone well,’ ‘Look, Baji, there goes No 2455,’ ‘He whom your conscience accepts not, Shaukat Khan, greet him not,’ ‘Why, is there some doubt?’, ‘Fly love letter like a pigeon; love will bring love, write back the beloved will,’ ‘If only there was just one problem here!’ ‘Warning from Ministry of Love: love is hazardous to life,’ ‘No late, no wait,’ ‘Let the jealous one’s face turn black!’ ‘Where do you disappear every evening?’ ‘I worship beautiful women,’ ‘Do not put arms or other organs outside the bus window,’ ‘Why do you stand there looking worried, my sweet? Here comes lover boy,’ ‘Burnt heart,’ ‘Mermaid Princess, may God protect you,’ ‘How beautiful you are, you who sleep on thorns; you need no flowers because you are a rose yourself,’ ‘Run forward my nightingale, you will be in money.’

But there is one slogan that nobody has been able to better. It is also untranslatable: “ Pappoo, yaar tung na kar .’

Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz will have left New York for the wilds of Canada in pursuit of microcredit when this sees the black light of print. Also would have come and gone like a thief in the night the mini-conference organised by the redoubtable minister of tourism, Nilofar Bakhtiar, whose continued presence in the cabinet, despite being unelected, remains one of Islamabad’s unsolved mysteries. It is a pity the slogan I suggested for the ‘Visit Pakistan 2007’ event Ms Bakhtiar came to launch was not accepted. I proposed to a member of the Prime Minister’s delegation that the most appropriate slogan for what was being planned would be ‘Visit Pakistan in 2007 and Get Shot.’

Had it been Henry Kissinger, whose company Kissinger Associates continues to be smiled at on the Pakistani taxpayer’s behalf, who had come up with this slogan, he would not only have been paid $100,000 but also invited to Pakistan as the personal guest of the President and the Prime Minister (take your pick Henry). Every time, President Musharraf has come to New York, he has met Henry. Why, only the next White Paper, which should be printed in shocking pink, will reveal. It is, however, said the it was old Henry who came up with the phrase “Enlightened Moderation.” Since he even charges for being asked the time of day, he is said to have been paid a fee of $50,000 with a note of thanks and an invitation to visit Pakistan whose one-time Prime Minister he once promised to make a “horrible example” of. Some say the story is apocryphal; others claim it is true. As far as I know, Henry the K has not denied it.

Kissinger is a dyed in the wool Republican and he is one of those who occasionally advise President George W. Bush. Since advice rendered to US presidents is not made public until Bob Wodward’s next book, we do not know what counsel has been offered to Bush by Kissinger on the Iraq war or on the war against terrorism. One can assume that it has been advice in keeping with the President’s own lopsided view of the world. Heads of state and government only seek advice that reconfirms their thinking. If the advice offered runs counter to their own views, it is discarded. The name of the person rendering such advice is crossed out from the social register of the leader. This is the only way one can understand why those who run states and administer governments make so many mistakes. They never want to listen to views contrary to theirs. I remember the late Punjab Governor Gen Ghulam Jilani Khan once saying, “The ruler of the day only hears what he wishes to hear and sees what he wishes to see.” He was a wise man whose transgressions can be forgiven for the lovely gardens he left Lahore with.

But back to the Prime Minister whose short visit to New York, wags say, wasn’t really necessary. The presentation of the UN reform report did not require his physical presence in the Big Apple. It could easily have been handed over by Pakistan’s UN ambassador Munir Akram to the Secretary General. The UN is the world’s largest burial ground of just such reports. They all get flung, after being presented, into some bottomless pit on the left bank of the Hudson River that flows by the side of this great debating club. The Prime Minister is not travelling alone; although this time his delegation is somewhat trimmer, it still contains far too many with no useful function to perform. Why bring five newspaper editors, for example? And why bring them at state expense? Why, indeed, why, as Nanna that wonderful television comedian used to scream at Allan, whose sidekick he was (although Nanna thought it was the other way around)?

Gen. Musharraf began well insofar as foreign visits go. He would always bring a small party and he would travel on a normal, as opposed to a chartered, PIA flight. The policy in terms of journalists was — and for that we have to credit Gen. Rashid Qureshi, his PR and information man at the time — that they pay their own way and their own keep. Since this was most unwelcome news to the Fourth Estate, few of its members, if any, came. The General’s visits still received their due press coverage.

This policy has long since been abandoned. It is a sign of the times that nobody has questioned the legitimacy of this charge on state revenues.

Travel by normal PIA flights was also abandoned years ago. As long as the President or the Prime Minister — who are in a race to see who notches up more trips — is out of the country, a PIA passenger aircraft is taken out of its commercial operations and placed at the service of the travelling party. President Musharraf’s last foreign visit lasted 18 days, an all-time record, and for 18 days, a PIA aircraft which would have earned millions of dollars had it stayed in service, sat around idle. The Prime Minister, who could easily have taken a regular PIA flight to New York and a commercial flight to Halifax for a dime-a-dozen conference, has travelled instead by a PIA Airbus. His party is small, by his standards, so the giant aircraft is practically empty. No wonder the PIA is in the financial and operational mess it is. The airline which used to be the pride of the aviation industry once upon a time — it was PIA that set up Singapore Airlines, Air Malta and some of the Gulf carriers — has now reached a point where it recently suffered the indignity of its planes being declared unsafe by European airports. Someone asked me why PIA was not being privatised. The short answer is that if it were privatised, how will our beloved leaders be able to commandeer its aircraft without paying for them?

Mr Prime Minister, enjoy your trip. Your grateful nation pays the bill.

Khalid Hasan is Daily Times’ US-based correspondent

There is no one in this town quite like Chas W Freeman Jr, retired US ambassador.

He was ambassador to Saudi Arabia and is a much respected figure in the Kingdom and many Arab countries. He also heads the only think tank in Washington – the Middle East Policy Institute – that takes a balanced view of the Middle East. Every other think tank in Washington, when it comes to this area, acts like an Israeli proxy. Freeman’s institute is perennially short of funds and has been on the verge of shutting shop more than once. It remains alive by a slender thread and because of Chas Freeman. For that reason alone the man deserves a salute.

The other day he spoke to the United States Information Agency Alumni Association. He borrowed the title of his speech from Caligula whose motto for effective foreign policy was: Why not let them hate us as long as they fear us? Chasman, who reminded his audience that the US Information Agency was “euthanised” in 1999, went on to propose a “brief moment of silence” for the Agency and also for the Republic. He reminded his audience that America had begun its independence with an act of public diplomacy, an appeal for international support, based upon a “decent regard to the opinion of mankind.” However, 243 years later, Americans had convinced themselves that their history had been fulfilled, and the requirement to explain themselves to others had ended.

Freeman recalled that there was a time when no country was more widely admired or emulated than the United States. He said, “The superior features of our society – our insistence on individual liberty under law; the equality of opportunity we had finally extended to all; the egalitarianism of our prosperity; our openness to ideas, change, and visitors; our generous attention to the development of other nations; our sacrifices to defend small states against larger predators both in the Cold War. . . were recognised throughout the world.” But, that he added, was before the trauma of 9/11 when America underwent the equivalent of a “national nervous breakdown.”

Freeman said, “It was before we panicked and decided to construct a national-security state that would protect us from the risks posed by foreign visitors or evil-minded Americans armed with toenail clippers or liquid cosmetics. It was before we decided that policy debate is unpatriotic and realised that the only thing foreigners understand is the use of force. It was before we replaced the dispassionate judgments of our intelligence community with the faith-based analyses of our political leaders. It was before we embraced the spin-driven strategies that have stranded our armed forces in Afghanistan, marched them off to die in the terrorist ambush of Iraq, and multiplied and united our Muslim enemies rather than diminishing and dividing them. It was before we began to throw our values overboard in order to stay on course while evading attack. It was before, in a mere five years, we transformed ourselves from 9/11’s object of almost universal sympathy and support into the planet’s most despised nation, with its most hateful policies.”

He pointed out that in most Arab and Muslim lands, the percentage of those who now wish the US ill is “statistically indistinguishable from unanimity.” In many formerly friendly countries in Europe and Latin America, those with a favourable opinion of America were now in the low double digits. Polls show, he reminded his audience, that China is almost everywhere more admired than the United States. The US used to attract 9 percent of tourists internationally; now it is down to 6 percent. The best and the brightest from around the world came to American universities; now, very often, they go elsewhere. America is steadily losing market share in the global economy. Such is the atmosphere that Chávez and Ahmedinejad felt confident of receiving a warm response to their anti-American diatribes at the UN.

Freeman said the US media had created a “bubble universe” as an alternative to the real world in which many Americans now live. They think it’s just fine for foreigners to hate them as long as the US is in a position to “string ‘em up.” They believe that if force doesn’t work the first time, the answer is to apply more force. Other Americans are in denial. The third reaction is to call for a return to public diplomacy, “this time on steroids.” Freeman said a democracy that stifles debate at home, picks and chooses which laws it will ignore or respect, and whose opposition party whines but does not oppose, is not one with much standing to promote democracy abroad. A government that responds to unwelcome election results by supporting efforts to correct them with political assassinations and cluster bombs has even less credibility in this regard, he added.

Freeman said. “We are very concerned that, by talking to foreigners with whom we disagree, we might inadvertently suggest that we respect them and are prepared to work with them rather than preparing to bomb them into peaceful coexistence. Both at home and abroad, we respond to critics by stigmatising and ostracising them. To avoid sending a signal of reasonableness or willingness to engage in dialogue, we do threats, not diplomacy. That’s something we outsource to whomever we can find to take on the morally reprehensible task of conducting it. Usually, this means entrusting our interests to people we manifestly distrust.”

He observed that “not content just to let foreigners – Arabs and Muslims, in particular – hate us, we often seem to go out of our way to speak and act in such a way as to compel them to do so.” He added, “We have given the terrorists what they cannot have dared dream we would – policies and practices that recruit new terrorists but that leave no space for our friends and former admirers to make their case for us or for our values or policies.”

Freeman pointed out that Muslim extremists want to drive the US from their lands by hurting it, but they neither seek to destroy nor to convert nor to conquer the United States, nor can they have the capability. The Islamist threat in no way justifies the sacrifice of the civil liberties and related values America once defended against the far greater threats posed by fascism and communism. “We have lost international support not because foreigners hate our values but because they believe we are repudiating them and behaving contrary to them. To prevail, we must remember who we are and what we stand for. If we can rediscover and reaffirm the identity and values that made our republic so great, we will find much support abroad, including among those in the Muslim world we now wrongly dismiss as enemies rather than friends,” he declared.

The great tragedy of America is that it is not listening to a man like Chas Freeman, whose voice remains in the wilderness, but what a voice of sanity and moderation!

I only know three Lieutenant Generals. Two of them are gone, one is in retirement. The two who are gone were also my favourite people, officers and gentlemen as officers and gentlemen used to be. They were Lt. Gen, Abdul Ali Malik and Lt. Gen. Ejaz Azim. My third Lt. Gen. is alive and well and lives in Islamabad and may his golf-playing days be long. He is Syed Refaqat. Our connection is Sialkot. He comes not from the city but from a neighbouring town, as does his brother Syed Sarfraz, a civil servant of distinction who now leads a contemplative life. While I haven’t met him in years, the General I remain in touch with.

Last week, writing in this space, I called him the “Columbus” of computer rigging, a view or rumour dating back to his days as Gen. Zia ul Haq’s chief of staff. Some also believe he is the man who chose Gen. Zia’s burial site in Islamabad. While Gen. Refaqat wants to leave the Columbus bit for another day, he has revealed, for the first time, how Gen. Zia’s gravesite was chosen, and permitted me to use the account “in any way you think fit.” Since this will lay a long-running controversy to rest, here it is, word for word.

Gen. Refaqat writes: “As soon as I learned about the crash on 17 Aug 1988, my first official action was to contact GIK and request him to reach the Presidency (Now F.J. Women’s University Campus) immediately. At that moment, I was operating from this office. At the same time, I directed a staff officer to get the Cabinet, Information, Foreign, Interior and Law Secretaries to the Presidency. Also inform all ministers present in Islamabad to assemble at the Presidency for a cabinet meeting — no agenda was given.

“Then I contacted all the Governors and CMs and informed them, officially, of the crash and death of the President. Some of them already knew of the tragedy, but were cautious enough not to talk until the death was officially announced. Meanwhile, a parallel session, entirely consisting of the military, was being held at GHQ. I was requested to join in that. I would not go into that aspect because it has nothing to do with the burial. When I arrived back at the Presidency, many ministers and all secretaries had already arrived, some of them completely ignorant about the tragic ‘happening.’

“First, I briefed the Secretaries and formed a committee of 3 or 4 secretaries, to prepare a Radio/TV speech for GIK. I went into a quiet room and jotted down some points to be approved by the Cabinet. Those were: a) Formation of an Emergency Cabinet Committee (without declaring Emergency in the Country). b) Formation of a Funeral Committee. Task: (1) Arrange all management issues connected the funeral and burial; (2) Arrange security; (3) Mobilise the provincial resources to the extent necessary; c) Formation of Protocol Committee to make all arrangements for the foreign dignitaries coming for the funeral. Minister of Interior Nasim Aheer was appointed head of ‘Funeral Committee.’ assisted by Lt. Gen. Imran Ullah Khan, Commander 10 Corps. The Protocol Committee was headed by, naturally, Sahibzada (Yaqub Khan) Sahib.

“When the cabinet assembled around 7 p.m, with the military brass as participants, Mr Ghulam Ishaq Khan announced the death of President Zia ul Haq, assured (the meeting) that the constitutional process would continue, and requested the existing Cabinet to continue. Among other issues, the most important item was when and where the funeral/burial would take place. Meanwhile, late President’s son Anwaar ul Haq, on the request of everyone, joined in. Ejaz ul Haq was still in the USA. There was general consensus that the funeral/burial would take place in the Army Graveyard, near Race Course, Rawalpindi. But when? By this time, I was receiving small notes from my ‘boys’ informing me that requests from foreign governments about a decision on the funeral date/time were pouring in. Incidentally, Jordan’s query was the first one brought to my notice.

“The question of a place of burial since having been agreed upon, someone suggested that Zia ul Haq being a devout Muslim, would not have liked a day’s delay in the burial. Hence the burial should take place ‘tomorrow’ i.e. Thursday, August 18. I strongly disagreed on two grounds. First, it was not yet known when the remains of the bodies would be available from Bahawalpur. I had contacted the Corps Commander, and he was not sure. Secondly, the foreign dignitaries needed some time warning to reach Islamabad. I suggested Sunday as the day. After some haggling, we agreed on Saturday (August 20). However, the very next day, I received a call from Gen Aslam Beg informing me that after fuller examination, the Funeral Committee and he had come to the conclusion that the Army Graveyard was totally unsuited from the point of security, mob control and traffic capability. He also informed me that the Committee had gone to Islamabad to select a suitable site. I informed the President.

“Next day, I received a message that the Funeral Committee and CDA had selected some sites in the vicinity of Faisal Masjid, and could the President (GIK) come over and make a final decision. At that time, the Punjab Governor, Sajjad Hussain Qureshi, was also present in the President’s office. Immediately, we left for the Faisal Masjid. Minister Nasim Aheer, Gen. Imran Khan, Mazhar Rafi, Chairman CDA, Dr Mahmood Ghazi, and some others were waiting for us in the southern open space of the Masjid. Chairman CDA briefed us that three sites had been selected. The first one was on the North side (hillside) of the Masjid. There was a flat space, originally earmarked by the Turkish designer (Dolakay Wahadat) as VVIP Graveyard (a la Westminster Abbey). The second suggested site was just inside the Southern main entrance of the Masjid. The motivation for proposing this site was the assumption that all those who come to pray in the Masjid would also pray for the soul of the late President. The third site was the one where we were standing and which was selected by the Design Department of the CDA. The Chairman CDA also informed us that the concept of VVIP Graveyard had been objected to by the Saudi authorities who funded the entire Masjid project. After a bit of discussion, we, jointly, selected the third site, which, by the way, was highly appreciated by the Architect Dolakey when he called on me for condolences about two weeks after the burial.

“That is how General Zia’s mortal remains were buried where they remain buried till today. Mohtarma (Benazir Bhutto) made some clumsy efforts to demolish the humble superstructure erected on the grave, but she did not succeed. That is another story. The funeral took place on Saturday, 20 August, 1988 after zohar prayers. The only connection I could find between Iran (as alleged) and the burial is that the UN-sponsored ceasefire between Iran and Iraq took place on that day.”

Khalid Hasan is Daily Times’ US-based correspondent

Every year as October comes around, I think of Abdul Hamid Khan and Sialkot winters and cricket under blue skies with the mountains beyond Jammu visible in the far distance. I think of Hamid Khan, the doyen of cricket lovers in the city, universally known as Khan sahib, except to his army of nephews, all cricketers, to whom he was Mama Hamid. I think of him at this time of year because you could set your winter calendar by what he was wearing. Rain or shine, hell or high water, on 15 October precisely, Hamid Khan would put on his blue cricket blazer with the golden sun of his City Cricket Club emblazoned on the left breast pocket. The blazer would not come off until the middle of March. Vagaries of weather notwithstanding, Hamid Khan’s winter lasted five months. The weather gods obviously went along with his calendar rather than theirs.

The navy blue blazer, tailored to cover Hamid Khan’s ample girth had seen many winters and a lot of cricket. He used to say that there wasn’t a single Test match played at Lahore that he had not watched. Lahore at a distance of 80 miles was three hours by bus, and two and a half if you were on the District Transport Bus Service and the driver was Mushtaq, who was known to have completed the journey, which took you from the city to Daska, through the wrestlers’ town of Gujranwala to Lahore, in two hours as well. Kala Shah Kaku, which lay just short of Shahdara, was where most accidents took place. Obviously, the saint who lies there, did not relish his peace being disturbed by noisy buses and reckless drivers.

Hamid Khan was a big man and he could bowl off breaks at an angle of 30 to 45 degrees. Although his entire life, he never admitted it, he was a chucker and would have been called anywhere except in Sialkot. A Lahore team, which was skittled out during the Connley winter tournament by Hamid Khan and Yusuf “Goot” – which is Punjabi for chucker - on return to Lahore published a letter in the Pakistan Times captioned ‘Stoned in Sialkot.’ Hamid Khan used to say that anyone who bowled a lesser off-break than him was no spinner and anyone who bowled a longer one was a lunatic who should be put away in the Lahore “pagal khana”, since Sialkot, despite its sizeable population of crazies, had no nut house of its own.

Sialkot had always had cricket and it was the world’s leading centre for the manufacture of sports equipment. Cricket bats chiselled in Sialkot from English willow were as good if not better than their famed English cousins. In fact, some English bats were actually made in Sialkot and shipped to England, from where they were sometimes sent back to Sialkot as “100 percent Vilayati ballas”, which is what a bat is called from Landi Kotal to Ras Kumari.

Sialkot winters were cold and crisp and although there must have been rainy days, from the distance of years, one only remembers the sun shining brightly out of an ice-blue sky. Winter was also the time when the Connley Cricket Tournament was played. The competition, one of the best known and most popular in Northern India before independence, was named, I think, after some public-spirited British deputy commissioner of the city. That reminds me that thanks to Gen Tanvir Naqvi “Gorbachev”, the Musharraf regime’s whiz kid, now in the dog house, we no longer have deputy commissioners. What we have in their place, no one is quite sure about.

There were two major cricket clubs in Sialkot in those days, the City Club and the Sialkot Gymkhana. A couple more came up later, including the one founded by Mirza Bahar Beg, who once told a body builder, who had decided to become a batsman, that if muscles alone could make a man a batsman, Gama Pehlwan would have been a greater batsman than Bradman. The Connley tournament continued for many years into independence and at its height it used to bring to Sialkot almost every major cricketer in the country. I have seen Abdul Hafiz Kardar, Maqsood Ahmed “Merry Max”, Imtiaz Ahmed, Mahmood Hussain, Aga Saadat Aly and so many others come and play for one team or another. Hamid Khan and his City Club were the tournament’s main organisers.

Sialkot was where I saw Miran Bux play. He used to come with a team from Pindi. When he played his first Test for Pakistan – against India in Lahore – at the age of 47, he became the oldest cricketer to have done so. He had a strange action and he would bowl with his cap on, a bright red, blue and yellow striped affair. Those of a cricket-conscious age at the time, will remember the Lahore Test against India at which Miran Bux made his debut. He was brought on early while there was still dew on the wicket. He clean bowled Vijay Manjrekar with a beauty as well as the opener Punjabi. He also got Polly Umrigar except that Waqar Hasan Mir put, what was a dolly, to the ground. Miran Bux, who used to work for the 502 Army Workshop in Pindi died in 1991 at the age of 83. Some said he was a chucker but others disagreed. Darrell Hair would have called him, as he would have called Haseeb Ahsan.

The most colourful figure in Sialkot cricket was that of NQ Khawaja, known to one and all as NQ. Being NQ, he was the patron and moving spirit of City Club’s rival, the Sialkot Gymkhana. But he could have his moments. Once when he was upset about something regarding the Club, he gathered the entire equipment the Gymkhana owned – bats, balls, stumps, pads, protective gear – placed it in the middle of Connley Park (naturally named Jinnah Park after Pakistan) and set it on fire. That was why Hamid Khan used to call him NQ “Jangi”. To NQ’s credit, he replaced everything the next day. NQ was a stickler when it came to good cricket manners. Once, umpiring a match, he sent back a chap everyone called Aslam Hathoroo because while on his way to the wicket, he was seen trying to slip on his second hand glove with the aid of his teeth. “Back to the pavillion you go,” NQ ordered, “put on your gloves inside and come back looking like a batsman.”

But to return to Hamid Khan, he was the older of the legendary cricketing Khans of Sialkot. There was Aftab Ahmed Khan, his youngest brother, who once scored a memorable century for Islamia College in its hard-fought final against Government College and was shoulder-carried by a jubilant crowd through the streets of Lahore. Then there were the nephews who all lived in Beriwala Chowk in the city, a 15-minute walk to Connley Park (which Sialkotis called Kanglay Park). There was Maqbool Javed “Boola” with his acerbic wit who turned the ball both ways and played with a straight bat. Tahir Khan “Taro” was the only from among the six brothers who fancied pigeons not cricket. Khalid Khan “Khalo”, a contemporary of Kardar, Imtiaz and Khan Muhammad, was as stylish a batsman as Nazar. He was good enough to have played for India or Pakistan but luck is as important a determinant in these matters as talent. Then there was Hamad Khan “Hamo”, tall and green eyed who bowled fast and could hit a few out of the ground when required. Babar Khan, who had no nickname, was a safe allrounder, while the youngest, Jehangir Khan “Jango,” bowled medium pace and could play every stroke in the book.

Sialkot cricket was quite something. The first time Hanif Muhammad came to Sialkot, he was clean bowled by 16-year old Salim Mirza. Hanif just stood there for a minute or two, sometimes eyeing the thin kid at the other end, sometimes looking at his stumps, one of which lay flat on the grass. Sialkot has produced many cricketers since but there never will be another family of Cricketing Khans.

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