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Aqsa Parvez was only sixteen when her father strangled her because she no longer wanted to wear the hijab. What he erroneously believed was an Islamic injunction was more important to him than his schoolgirl daughter’s life. This happened in the Toronto suburb of Mississauga on December 10, ironically at a time of year which is celebrated as the season of goodwill, good cheer, family togetherness and peace on earth. But for Aqsa Parvez, it proved to be her year of death. She was deprived of life, love and fulfilment by her own father who believed he was doing God’s will. Muhammed Parvez, her killer, is a 57 year old cabdriver who would take three to four breaks during his working day to say his prayers. One can only wonder if he was praying to the same God of compassion that the Quran gives tidings of.

Natasha Fatah, speaking on Canadian national radio, said some Muslims had turned the wearing of hijab into the sixth pillar of Islam. They had brought into Canadian homes the radical tribal notion that a man’s honour is encompassed in the sexual and physical body of the women in his family, which is why they must be covered up and kept inside. They had made a woman’s body the fighting ground for their religious wars, and before their congregations, deluded imams kept exhorting men to control their daughters, wives and sisters.

The most shameful part of the Aqsa tragedy lies in the online and offline rumours that those who consider themselves “rightly guided” have been circulating. Some suggested that she had a black boyfriend (note the racism), others that she was sexually promiscuous, and some even called her a drug pusher. In other words, her father had every moral right to kill her, is the message. The Canadian imams, many of them in their self-styled attires and operatic headgear came out with other justifications. Sheikh Alaa El-Sayyed, imam of a Toronto mosque, said, “Women who wear hijabs occupy higher positions in Islam, according to religious teachings.” Where did the imam get that because nowhere does Islam lay that out? He also said, “We cannot let culture supersede religion. If we stay away from the teachings of Islam, we will pay for it.” Translated into straight language, it means that since Aqsa stayed away from the teachings of Islam, she had to “pay for it”. Imam Iqbal Nadvi of Oakville’s Al-Falah Islamic Centre mosque said, “Parents fail and bring shame upon themselves if a child chooses to abandon holy writings and not wear the hijab. It is their duty to convince their kids that this is part of their culture.” In other words, Aqsa’s father was justified in killing her because she would not wear the hijab. He also said that Aqsa was “going in the wrong direction, going with some other boy or some other thing.” That being so, she got what was coming to her and good riddance that was.

Now let me quickly examine what precisely the Quran says on the subject, because that alone should be a believing Muslim’s supreme and only guide. Dr Fazlur Rahman’s wrote that all Quranic passages, revealed as they were at a specific time in history and within certain general and particular circumstances, should be given expression relative to those circumstances. Another Muslim scholar, Dr Ibrahim Syed, says that those who claim that the Quranic verses are explicit about hijab base that position on Sura Al-Ahzab (33:59). The operative words in Arabic on which this interpretation is based mean (that women should) “lower their garments” or “draw their garments closer to their bodies”. Nowhere does the verse say that the face should be covered. In fact, the verse is devoid of the word ‘face’. The advocates of hijab also quote in support of their position Sura Al-Nur (24:31). Dr Syed writes: “In the pre-Islamic period, women used to wear a cloth called khimar on their necks that was normally thrown towards the back leaving the head and the chest exposed. The reference in Al-Nur apparently instructs that this piece of cloth, normally worn on the head and neck, should be made to cover the bosom.” The khimar was akin to a scarf or the Pakistani dupatta He writes: “So it is erroneous to conclude that the Quran demands (of) Muslim women to cover their heads.”

According to Dr Abou el Fadl, “From the gross liberties taken in translating the (Quranic) text, apparently the translators believe that God wishes women to be like house-broken dogs — loyal, sweet and obedient. One can only ponder what type of rotted and foul soul imagines that God wishes to imprison women in a sewer of squalid male egos, and suffer because men cannot control their libidos. What an ugly picture they have created of God’s compassion and mercy!”

A Western scholar of Islam, Daphne Grace, in a 2004 work wrote, “Contrary to popular belief, the veiling of women is nowhere explicitly prescribed in the Quran. It is claimed that the custom of veiling arises from the verse in the Quran telling believers to ‘cast down their eyes … and reveal not their adornment save such as is outward; and let them cast their veils over their bosoms.’” She quotes the scholar Fadwa El Guindi, who elaborated the translation of this passage to reveal that the original meaning was to “cover the cleavage of the breasts”. Grace writes: “The passage has been interpreted by men in some countries to indicate the requirement of the full veil . . . while in other countries (such as Egypt), a fashionable headscarf suffices. It is worth noting that the cover outlined in the Quran was intended to prevent the public flaunting of sexuality, and a parallel verse prescribed an equivalent modest dress code for men.”

But I will let Saadat Hasan Manto have the last word. He wrote that outward symbols, be they beards or metal wristbands or sacred threads across the bare chest, are external manifestations of a sprit that is no longer alive. The hijab, which has been gaining ground among Muslim women since the Iranian “revolution”, falls in the same category. Those who wear it believe that they are fulfilling the Quranic injunction and thus earning merit in the eyes of God. Their reading of the holy book is faulty and it only bears witness to their ignorance and narrow-mindedness. Aqsa Parvez lost her young life at the alter of ignorance. She will surely end up in heaven.

Khalid Hasan is Daily Times’ US-based correspondent

Never again will the opportunity come, as it did in the 1970s, when a handful of Third World nations could have changed the world. But that was not to be, because the kings, potentates, princes, and dictators who presided over these countries did not have the imagination and the desire to transcend their personal and corporate interests. I refer to the precipitate increase in world oil prices and what the West came to call “the oil shock” that put billions of dollars almost overnight into the treasuries of thirteen countries, all members of OPEC or the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries.

What did OPEC countries, six of whom were in the Middle East, four in Africa, two in Latin America and one in Southeast Asia, do with that money? For the most part, they blew it on wasteful projects and on the luxurious lifestyle of their profligate princes and absolute rulers. Much of the money ended up in Western banks and with Western governments. Billions upon billions paid for country houses, villas and yachts in the world’s expensive resorts. Vast sums went into the acquisition of European and American companies. The political clout that the vast fortunes of member states had conferred on them was never used to promote Third World causes. Financial help for those in need amounted to no more than token gestures. An OPEC Fund for International Development was set up in Vienna, where OPEC itself was headquartered, to extend soft-term loans to some of the poorer nations of the world. But the gap between what OPEC had and what OPEC gave, what OPEC did and what OPEC could have done, remained staggeringly large. What OPEC parted with remained embarrassingly inadequate. The Fund had decided to house itself in one of Vienna’s grand old palaces, which was so indicative of the worldview of its founders.

There was so much OPEC could have done but did not, which only proves the old adage that it is not the gun but the man behind the gun who matters. Similarly, it is not money that matters but those with the money. In the late 1970s, some OPEC ministers felt that the world flow of information was entirely one-sided, running from North to South and West to East. They, therefore, decided to set up a news agency. With their resources, they could have brought into being an agency bigger than Reuters, Agence France Presse and Associatied Press put together. There were enough good journalists in Third World countries, who could have been recruited to form its back bone. And OPEC could have outbid any rival to hire the best from the West, creating an agency that could have become the voice of the Third World. It had the money to do it, but it lacked motivation and understanding. Its member countries lacked the culture of information because in none of them was the press free. In Arab counties, it was only free to praise the government. Venezuela, one of OPEC’s founders, came closest to having a free press and Nigeria had a lively media tradition despite the periodic coups that brought one general after another to power.

In 1981 I was living in London and I had been out of work for nearly a year. One day, I saw an advertisement in the UK Press Gazette, which said that a Vienna-based new news agency was looking for editors. I applied, received a call for an interview some weeks later in London. One of the two interviewers was Gonzolo Plaza, a Venezuelan gentleman of immense good humour and intelligence. He had never been a journalist. He said he was the head of the new agency that was to be called the OPEC News Agency or OPECNA and it was going to get the flow of news reversed and let the world know the countries of the South as they were and not as they were seen. It would project OPEC not as the Western cartoonist’s filthy, greedy, rotund Arab sheikh determined to starve the poor West of its life-blood, which was oil, unless it paid extortionist prices of the Arab’s choosing. He asked me if I knew anything about oil. I said I didn’t but I could write about oil as I could write about the first cuckoo of spring. I was hired and a few days later, I landed in Vienna on a cold and dark evening, without a word of German.

We were supposed to acquire our own premises, get our own systems in place and operate free of the OPEC secretariat and run as a professional news agency, small to begin with but on the ball. That was not to be. We remained in the secretariat and became part of it and its highly elitist and bureaucratic pecking order. We also realised that we were not free to write on any political issues and we must never do anything that would raise eyebrows in any member country’s capital. We did not have lines of our own. We sent out two news bulletins a day, each containing about seven to eight stories to three agencies, which put them out in exchange for a fee. When there were OPEC ministerial meetings, we were only allowed to send out what was officially cleared. We could not comment or speculate or get into any kind of controversy. Once OPECNA fired off a story about a certain Iraqi minister having inaugurated something somewhere. It turned out we had got the name wrong. The minister named in our story had been executed on Saddam Hussain’s personal orders some time earlier. Our list was outdated. Oil was big news – and always will be – but seldom if ever were we first with the news. Oil ministers like Ahmed Zaki Yamani, who was the face of OPEC in those days, never spoke to us. He only spoke to Petroleum Intelligence Weekly or Platt’s Oilgram News. We were invisible like the waiter who serves you the soup in an expensive restaurant.

But there were other things to do in Vienna and the money wasn’t bad. I stayed with OPECNA for ten years, leaving in 1991. I wouldn’t say I did not have fun and I did not travel to energy conferences around the world and to most member states, but “The Third World news agency” that OPEC had the money to establish, never came to be. OPEC member countries had no use for that kind of thing. This summer I was in Vienna and walked down Kaertnerstrasse, past the great cathedral and on to Rotentrumstrasse to cross the Danube Canal (which isn’t blue) and turned left on Obere Donaustrasse to call at No. 93 where the OPEC secretariat is still housed. “How is OPECNA doing?” I asked. “Don’t you know? It was closed down nearly two years ago.”

Why it saddened me, I do not know. I also thought of Gonzolo Plaza, our chief, now dead and gone, who loved cars. At one point, he had three Mercedez, parked next to each other. “Why three?” I asked him. “Mr Hasan,” he said, “some people collect matchboxes, some people collect stamps, some people collect women. I collect cars.”

Some years ago, Hamid Akhtar sent me a message from Lahore, which said, “At the rate at which you are writing obituaries, friends here feel that their number may come much sooner than they wish. The earnest appeal from us all, therefore, is: please stop.” Hamid Akhtar, one of the stars of the Progressive Writers Movement and a lifelong comrade, is not only alive and kicking but writing a most readable column for one of the Urdu dailies. Muslehuddin once said, “An akhbarwala may go here and he may go there, but ultimately he lands in a newspaper because that is where he belongs and that is where he is the happiest.”

I narrate the Hamid Akhtar story because I have another message, this time from Islamabad. It comes from Zahur Azar. He writes, “Long time, no see: no news. You know that for some time now I have not been keeping good health. Basically it is a disability, a ‘foot drop’ that has badly affected my ability to walk, which I cannot do without support of one or two persons. This keeps me confined to bed. I am fighting it as best I can with the help, of course, of my doctors and physiotherapist. However, there is no real hope of getting back on my feet again, and the condition can get worse. Hence this letter, to request you to write or start writing my obituary.” He adds, “Please do not dismiss this letter as a sign of morbidity or senile old age. Please keep in touch and write longer letters than your last laconic message.”

Since I want Zahur Azar to live long and if not run the Olympics, at least find again the ability to walk about on his own, I want to write about him here and now. There is a priceless saying in Punjabi: What is the point of kissing a sleeping child’s mouth when no-one is around to see it? Zahur Azar should, therefore, read what follows, here and now. Obituaries are morbid and in his case unnecessary, since he is around and has every intention of staying around.

I think I first met Zahur Azar at the Pakistan National Centre at Lahore, run by the warm and wonderful Farrukh Nigar Aziz. Azar spoke about classical music, about which he has forgotten more than many of us will learn in a lifetime. I recorded the minutes of that discussion and he read them and despite the CSP glasses resting on his nose, he thought they were quite good.

Azar was director general of Radio Pakistan from 1962 to 1966, but when I got to radio as secretary of the Broadcasting Committee chaired by Mumtaz Hasan, he had just left, having been replaced by the ever-affable Syed Munir Hussain. However, to Azar goes the credit – not always given or recognised – for pressing radio into the service of the nation at such a difficult time and keeping the people both informed and inspired.

Madam Nur Jehan’s uplifting songs are now legend, but it was Azar who oversaw and helped plan every major programme. He was not new to radio because it was with radio that he had begun his long and distinguished public service career in 1945 at Delhi. He had just taken his MA in English from Saint Stephens College, which he had joined in 1939, completed his honours degree there and stayed on to take his master’s. That was where he met Zia ul Haq who did not stay long, because he joined the Indian army. Fate was to bring the two together more than 35 years later when Azar was cabinet secretary and Zia was president. He stayed as cabinet secretary for eight years, a record unlikely to be excelled by another civil servant. I recall suggesting in a column at the time that there were credible reports that Zahur Azar takes a file to bed every night. I am told that even the dour Ghulam Ishaq Khan was seen smiling – though briefly – when told of it. We have remained friends nevertheless.

There are few high-profile government positions that Azar has not held in his 46 years of public service, from member Planning Commission, to secretary Information and Commerce, chairman of the Trading Corporation of Pakistan and head of the Federal Public Service Commission. But all that fades into nothingness when compared with something that he is the proudest of because it makes him part of a historic and fateful moment in the nation’s life, at whose beginning he was not only present but it became his privilege to bring the news of its arrival to the world. Zahur Azar, it was, who announced the birth of Pakistan from the Lahore station when freedom came at the hour of midnight on 13 August.

The first announcement that Pakistan was about to be born came in English. It went on the air exactly five seconds before midnight on August 13, or at 23 hours 59 minutes, 55 seconds, in Azar’s voice, “At the stroke of midnight, the independent and sovereign State of Pakistan will come into existence.” The text was written by Afzal Iqbal, later to become ambassador. This was followed by twelve chimes of the studio clock. There was a hush and then Azar’s voice came on the air again, “This is Pakistan Broadcasting Service, Lahore. We now bring you a special programme on the dawn of Pakistan’s Independence.” The name, Pakistan Broadcasting Service, was thought up by Zulfiqar Ali Bokhari. The change of name to Radio Pakistan came several years later. The third announcement was made by the great Urdu broadcaster, Mustafa Ali Hamdani, in Urdu. He said, “ Assalam-au-Alaikum. Ye Pakistan Broadcasting Service, Lahore, hai. Abb aap hamara khusoosi programme sunye. ” The special programme that followed began with the first two stanzas of Iqbal’s Saqi Nama, sung by Fateh Ali Khan and Mubarak Ali Khan, the celebrated qawwals and scions of the gharana that was to give the world the one and only Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. A short news bulletin prepared by Hamid Jalal followed the music. Hamid Jalal was assisted by Ghani Eirabie. The news bulletin was read by the legendary newsreader Shakeel Ahmed.

50 years later, Azar recalled that night, “In those days, very few people possessed radio sets. The transistor still lay in the womb of time. The homes and rooftops of families with a radio were thronged by excited listeners, all waiting for the magic moment of freedom at midnight. I often think of the talented men who were associated with radio in those days. They are all gone, but they live on in my memory.”

In November 2006 Asma Jehangir came to Washington. ‘Hurricane Asma hits Washington’ was the only headline I could think of for that week’s Postcard USA in my effort to convey something of her storming of this world-weary capital. Less volatile but equally hard hitting has been the visit this week of her sister Hina Jilani.

Whereas Asma is flamboyant, Hina is solidity itself. Never straying from the point she is making, she does so calmly, convincingly and without taking her eye off the ball. Their father, Malik Ghulam Jilani, who let no unconstitutional development go past him without a court challenge would be proud of his two daughters because they have carried forward his legacy as he would have wished.

Hina Jilani was on Capitol Hill at the invitation of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus to speak about the struggle of the legal community to bring back constitutional government to Pakistan. She was joined by three members of the house, who while expressing support for human rights in Pakistan, delivered themselves of the standard tribute to President Pervez Musharraf for his contribution to the US effort in fighting global terrorism.

Congressman Trent Franks said that while President Musharraf had been given “leeway” because of his role in the US-led war, “I thank him for the good he has done”. Hina shoots straight and wastes neither time nor words. She wondered where the good really lay and who had benefited from that good. She pointed out that the action taken on November 3, when the constitution was suspended and a state of emergency was imposed, would have grave long-term consequences.

Hina, speaking about the state of things as obtaining in Pakistan, said, “Freedom of assembly is totally curtailed, freedom of expression is curtailed. Under these conditions the election that is going to take place on January 8 has very little credibility. Under Pakistan’s constitution and the law, the judiciary oversees the elections. A judiciary that lacks the confidence of the people and has no credibility, how do you think the elections are going to be credible?”

She said time and again, Pakistan’s Supreme Court had given legitimacy to illegitimate governments. But one day, finally, the judges’ conscience had caught up with them. The first blow struck against the executive’s high-handedness had been the Court’s blocking of the sale of the Pakistan Steel Mills at a bargain basement price. What the regime was not prepared to countenance was the Court demanding that 600 “disappeared” citizens be produced or their whereabouts disclosed. In a country, where certain arms of the government had grown used to making their own laws and doing what they pleased, that was clearly unacceptable.

The Human Rights Commission handed the government a list of 188 citizens who had disappeared. Some days later, 44 of them were produced. The Court, she said, contradicting what the President had once asserted, had never ordered the release of anyone who was charged with a terrorist offence.

Hina asked Congressman Franks, who had now been joined by Congresswoman Sheila Jackson-Lee and Congressman Jim Moran, what “good” had been done on the terrorism front during the last eight years. The country had never known such violence as was being witnessed today. Pakistan’s sovereign territory had been surrendered to terrorists, who hanged and beheaded their victims in the name of some barbaric tribal code. There were areas of Pakistan where nobody could any longer go. She recalled that she used to make regular trips to the tribal agencies in connection with her human rights and legal work. That was no longer possible. The entire region had been destabilised and plunged into a never-ending, borderless war.

Congressman Moran paid tribute to both sisters for their “courage and character” and their “sacrifices and bravery” in pursuit of their great cause of the defence of human rights. Hina replied that what the United States needs to do first and foremost, is to get its facts right. The long-term effects of what was done on November 3 would be devastating.

She pointed out that 70 percent of the judges had refused to take the new oath under the provisional constitution order. “Pakistan’s courts today are non-functional. Their judges have been discredited and there no longer exists what can be called an independent judiciary. The blow struck on November 3 was a blow against civil society.” She said to this day, the government had failed to provide a list of those who were arrested and those who had been released.

Hina scoffed at the much-trumpeted idea here that the January polls would be monitored, which would ensure their fairness. She declared, “There is no point in monitoring the polls. The rigging has already taken place. I am not here to ask the United States to do something. I am here to inform you that although terrorism is an important issue, it is not the only issue.”

She pointed out that the military has been carrying out operations against terrorists without a political strategy. Unless such actions are grounded in civilian authority, they cannot bear fruit. She said the people of Pakistan need a military that is backed by a civilian government.

“We go to court to strengthen the rule of law and the people of Pakistan support us. All we ask the international community to do is to support us and further our objectives rather than stand in our way,” she told the congressmen and more than a hundred people who had come to listen to her and who gave her resounding applause.

Congressman Moran caused a bit of amusement among at least some of his listeners when he said that he had recently met a former head of the ISI — Gen. Ehsanul Haq, I later found out — who had told him that the unrest in Pakistan was mainly a Shia-Sunni thing. The military, he had said next was Pakistan’s “best hope”.

Moran asked Hina, “Whom should we trust?” She replied, “Don’t trust anyone.” She was doubtful if the January elections would calm things down. She explained that the politicians opted for them because they were afraid of being left out for the next five years, but the people did not want them.

“His presence in itself is destabilising,” she said, referring to the President. The judiciary, she said, must be reinstated. “That is the key,” she stressed. “The same standards apply to us, the citizens of Pakistan, that apply to people here in America. We have a right to be governed under the rule of law,” she said.

Fond hope while that may be, it was a good note to end the meeting on.

Khalid Hasan is Daily Times’ US-based correspondent

I have a letter from Qurratulain Hyder, bearing the date January 19, 1995, mailed from the Delhi suburb of NOIDA, across the river Jamuna, where she lived for the last decade of her life.

Parvin Shakir died in 1994 in a tragic car crash in Islamabad. Annie writes, “Parvin Shakir’s death is immensely shocking. Forugh Farrokhzad, Sylvia Plath, Sara Shagufta, all four of them committed suicide. About Forugh Farrokhzad I am not so sure; but to die in an accident is just fate. Parvin Shakir had just been given an Oxford scholarship for a PhD on Bangladesh, and perhaps she was making preparations to leave. According to Javed Akhtar (whom you met in Bombay), like Amrita Sher-Gil, Parvin Shakir too will become a myth. Young and beautiful, an artist – and to die before her time. This you can quote.”

I had no idea until recently – and for that I am indebted to Parvez Ahmed Parvazi and a paper he recently read at a memorial meeting for Qurratulain Hyder in Toronto – that Annie and Parvin (whom I regret never having met) knew each other, except by name and through their work. But they had met. And a poem Parvin had written after meeting Annie had angered her greatly. Parvin, in explanation, had written her a long letter, which Annie does not appear to have answered. Annie was not one to let what she imagined to be a slight go unprotested or unpunished. But she forgave easily, as she once forgave me when something she had written to me about Fehmida Riaz and her “brash” sister, I shared with a friend in Lahore, who put it in Nawa e Waqt , causing great embarrassment to Annie, much unhappiness to Fehmida and lasting regret to me.

What follows is the story of the Annie-Parvin fracas. In 1978, Parvin went to India and on return wrote a number of poems, one of them called Qurratulain Hyder. This is how it ran (my inadequate English translation will have to suffice):

She who used to draw nectar from life’s poisoned chalice/Now sits thirsty, holding the the chalice which is full/The evil star of time keeps churning overhead/The goddess watches it helplessly/She is restless with thirst, and she’s silent/No ordinary thirst is this/Her tongue lies pierced by thorns of seven lifetimes/The sea it was where she came to birth/But water is now her foe/Her feet have begun to burn, barefooted as she walks on the sand/This is no ordinary sand/The heat and light it reflects singes her eyes/Her wish that her name be written in gold has come true/But her thirsty spirit cannot drink gold/The sun that showers the world with light/Is powerless to expel its own inner darkness/By the time the evening comes, her black wall’ll have grown higher.

The poem was published in the Karachi literary monthly, Seep . Annie also wrote to Parvin Shakir on January 3, 1979, taking her to task for using such crude words about her and asking why and how she had struck her as a “figure of tragedy and frustration.” She ended the letter with a Parthian shot, “Either you were bamboozled by Bombay or you must be out of your mind.”

Parvin wrote to Annie on February 18, 1979. “Annie Apa, Adab , I apologise that something I wrote caused you anguish. Believe me, that was never my intention. Nor did I write that poem to please or displease you. It was something impressionistic. You are a great writer, and we have learned how to write by reading you. You met me with sincerity and friendliness. I simply cannot understand why you think I used crude words about you. I found you to be a very loveable and profound person. Sick figures and frustrated people are not like that. As for tragedy, I own that impression. Is there a life that’s without pain? The difference is that exalted people such as you know how to bear that pain, turning tears into pearls. You don’t let them fall to the ground and disappear in the dust. If you think that is not how it is, I’ll not press the point. I wish you to be happy. What prayer other than this can your admirers offer?

“Annie Apa, I am taking the liberty of saying this, but if you think I am trying to gain fame by writing such poems, fame, let me add, is like love. It has to be earned through the effort of one’s own soul. No one can confer it on you. Maulana Hali and Boswell have never been my ideals. You are right when you say, ‘If I decide to turn nasty and cause mischief, I too hold a pen in my hand and I can write about you or anyone else that I please.’ Not only I, but anyone whose identity is ‘the word’ is aware of the power of your pen. So please go ahead. Since you raised a question, it would have been rude of me not to respond. Hence this explanation. I did not write the poem because I was motivated by any particular factor. When I returned from India and after the dust of my travels had settled, I found a few gold particles glued to my fingers, such as the Taj Mahal, the river Ganges that Amir Khusro called the world’s artificer, Qurratulain Hyder and Salma Krishen. These poems are my gift from that journey. As for being mentally sick, only a psychiatrist can pronounce on that. But if you believe in the sanctity of the word, then please believe me when I say that these poems were not an attempt to bring down any personality or superstructure.

“As for our relationship, Annie Apa, I beg you to read my poem again. Nowhere do I claim old or new friendship with you. We are not the same age either for reasons of history and circumstance. Our meetings were certainly casual and you alone have the privilege to decide how you wish to live. Even those who have the privilege of knowing you intimately and for long, do not have that right. As for my being “out of mind,” I have given a third person the right to determine that. Let me, however, make one thing clear. Bombay is not such a big city that it should bamboozle a resident of Karachi. May God look after my Pakistan. If you find time, please ask Ali Sardar Jaffrey what I think of your city.

Both Qurratulain Hyder and Parvin Shakir are now in Elysium, sipping the nectar of immortality with the gods. Back on earth, they have left behind work that will forever keep their names alive.

In what would remain the understatement of the year, Teresita Schaffer, who heads the South Asia programme at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, Washington, told Dr Nasim Ashraf, leader of the regime’s image repair team, “I don’t think you entirely convinced them,” them being those who had braved snowy weather to hear him and his two companions on why it was in Pakistan’s supreme national interest to unleash November 3.

Dr Ashraf, who carries a heavy burden on his shoulders, being cricket czar, human development supremo, nephrologist without a scalpel and currently the President’s special envoy, only smiled wanly when asked why he was not in India instead to urge his team not to lose the series — the One Days having been already gobbled up by “them perfidious Injuns”.

He appeared for the meeting late, duly limousined in from Capitol Hill where he and his two companions, Barrister someone or the other and the fragrant Kashmala Tariq, had been explaining why it would be unfair to judge the situation in Pakistan on the basis of screen images and newspaper accounts of lawyers being clubbed by the gallant Punjab police. The two congressmen who turned up briefly to hear them might have had a hard time identifying South Asia on a map.

Ms Tariq was the cynosure of all eyes in the audience, especially the ladies who looked at her, as women do, with barely-disguised envy, and a touch of ill will. And who could have blamed them. Ms Tariq said in defence of her president, “No one is an angel”, then added, “but he is the lesser evil”. That she was not exactly an admirer of the late lamented “Shortcut” (where for Pete’s sake is he?) was evident when she demanded, “We want a political prime minister”.

One can only hope her dream comes true. Someone later wondered if she had Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi in mind. After all, what this country needs is more underpasses, which he alone he can build. History, it was also clear, may not be Ms Tariq’s strong suit since she told her American audience that the United States has been a republic for the last 300 years. “America had an Al Gore issue,” she added, “but we have a long way to go, being only 60.”

It wasn’t clear if by “Al Gore issue,’ she meant his 2000 election or if she had global warming in mind. She regretted that Benazir Bhutto hadn’t even visited Aitzaz Ahsan’s house, while Nawaz Sharif had not only gone there but to Justice Ramday’s place also. He had also gone to Data Sahib, but I take it Ms Tariq has nothing against Lahore’s saint protector. She also blew the whistle on the deposed Chief Justice who, she said, was “in touch with opposition leaders”. She went on to disclose that the protesting lawyers had received “huge funding” from abroad to pay those who came to their rallies. Some of us are always in the wrong place when chamak is being handed out.

Dr Ashraf opened his innings by reading out from a TFT editorial, which only proves that it’s not always angels who quote from the scriptures. I had no idea our word carried such weight as to have 50 judges of the higher courts sent home, the constitution of Pakistan suspended and all suspects, usual and unusual, locked up. His basic case for November 3 was that the actions of the Supreme Court had paralysed the government, what with terrorists being released and judges interfering in how traffic should be directed in Karachi. He added that he was not “terribly proud” of some of the decisions taken, nor was he here to “blow the President’s trumpet”. What was done was “painful but unavoidable”. Amused scepticism was writ large on many faces when he said that the government had ushered in a “silent revolution” in Pakistan.

A two-member image repair team is also in England making everyone wonder what is up. Who better to educate the British about the true spirit of democracy and the higher motivation behind the November 3 action than Javed Ashraf Qazi, former head of Invisible Soldiers Inc.

It is not clear whose bright idea it was to send out these teams that only opened wounds, some of which had begun to heal. There are several things wrong with such exercises. First, special envoys are only taken notice of if they are men of eminence. When in the early days, Gen Musharraf sent Sahibzada Yaqub Khan to Washington, he was heard with respect because of who he was. Special envoys are not aware of the lay of the land where they are sent. It is like throwing them into the deep end of the pool. While ambassadors have managed to build relationships with people of note in their respective countries, they are given a receptive hearing even when they carry unpalatable messages.

Special envoys nobody gives the time of day to. They do not know the local scene, nor are they sensitive to the nuances of diplomatic discourse. Such visits are more to score points at home than abroad. Such emissaries are not unifying but polarising figures. The Pakistani community sees them as freeloaders having a paid holiday at state expense.

The Nasim Ashraf team held what everyone agreed was a fractious meeting at Asia Society. Some enterprising students monitored the proceedings and circulated a list of the false claims made by the “special envoys”. Here are some.

The chief of army staff is entitled to declare an emergency (false). The president has the right to suspend the chief justice (false). The Supreme Court was releasing terrorists (false). The court never ordered the release of any person charged with a crime. The Supreme Court ordered the reopening of the Lal Masjid. Correct, but the two judges who passed that order remain on the bench. The federal government needed the NWFP government’s approval to send the army into Swat, which Peshawar would not grant. The MMA government had resigned prior to Nov 3, so no approval was needed to send in troops.

There was a long list of charges against the Chief Justice. Not true, because the charges had been dismissed unanimously by an 11-member bench of the Supreme Court. The Chief Justice was making political speeches. Not true, because he confined himself to constitutional questions. He was also planning to head a political party and run for president (false). None of the judges is under house arrest (false). President Musharraf is no longer liable under Article 6 of the constitution (false). If the 1973 constitution is revived, he is liable.

In any case, by the time this appears, Dr Nasim Ashraf will be in India with a cricket cap on his head, and Ms Tariq in Lahore. As for the barrister, he can go where he likes, although the place I have in mind may not be to his liking.

Khalid Hasan is Daily Times’ US-based correspondent

Qurratulain Hyder wrote Aag ka Darya , which by any measure remains one of the greatest novels in world literature, between August 1956 and December 1997 at Mauripur, Karachi, where she was then living. It is a monumental work, taking in its stride the sweep of history, the rise and fall of civilisations, the eternal human quest for enlightenment, the mystery of life’s transience and the ultimately futile search for happiness.

She was just 28 years old when she wrote the novel’s great ending: “‘Blessed be those who are awake; blessed be those who advocate the law’s supremacy; blessed be peace in the land, blessed be the tribulations of those whose souls found calm; thus spake Shakiamani.’ He stepped down from the parapet, took a long breath and taking slow steps returned to the settlement where people lived.”

In my mourning for Qurratulain Hyder, I returned to her great work, and savouring every word, took two weeks to read through its 638 incandescent pages. It is breathlessly beautiful writing. One feels staggered by her profound understanding of history, of religion, of human love and kinship, of the sadness of drifting apart from what one feels drawn to, of the transitoriness of human life, of the passing of empires, of the futility of it all at the end of days.

But what I found stunning was the precision with which she was able to sum up Pakistani society. Each word of what she wrote when Pakistan was just ten years old is true today. Her brilliant and prophetic summing up comes near the end of the book. Given the turmoil in which we find ourselves today, there could be no better time to reproduce here what Qurratulain Hyder wrote half a century ago. Had I had access to her own English translation of her novel, I would have used her words rather than mine; but that not being the case, here is what she wrote, and I am sure she will forgive yet another one of my trespasses if I do not do an adequate job. She is, you see, not easy to translate.

Qurratulain Hyder writes: “Here’s Karachi, the God-given state of Pakistan, the world’s largest Islamic country and the capital of the world’s fifth largest country, whose slums and refugee shelters can be counted among the world’s marvels, especially those horrifying and filthy makeshift refuges that lie all around the resting place of the Quaid i Azam. There is a large population of white foreigners, especially Americans, in this city. In the Housing Society, some extremely beautiful bungalows have been built, which leads one to the conclusion that the Muslim middle class has never had it so good in its entire history. Here the new rich rule, with their new social order and their new principles.

“Karachi is an ultra modern city. Every night its swank hotels and clubs bring to life a world of resplendent lights. Sociologists ought to investigate the quite fascinating birth, in just nine years, of this new class and its culture. The basis of this class is money: how to make it, how to get rich. While the river flows, leap in and swim because who knows, tomorrow it may run dry or it may start flowing in another direction.

“The third element to note is the prevalent feeling of intense frustration. The black marketer is frustrated because he cannot put any more stuff on the black market. The left-wing intellectual bewails the fact that there appears to be no possibility any longer of a revolution. The Jamaat e Islami follower is screaming because he sees Muslim women going about unveiled and dancing in the ballroom. The middle class has a million things to worry about. Employment without a recommendation is not to be had, nor can children find admission in school or college without a word from someone in authority. Then there are those Bengali and Punjabi refugees who are tense because of their conflict with the locals. This struggle is as intense as the one between Hindu and Muslim in undivided India. Some people say that the last hope lies in a military revolution. There is one party, that is the party of the refugees. This by far is the strangest of creatures in this country. It has come from India and is to be found in every city, town and village of the country, with Karachi serving as its headquarters. The special racket of this class is called culture.”

Kamal Raza, Muslim refugee from Lucknow, now in Karachi, soliloquises: “This one has learnt only after Partition. The Hindu says when your culture and your beliefs are different, then you should go to Pakistan. What are you doing here? So these people came to Pakistan as ‘ mohajirs ,’ but once here they learnt that while they had got rid of the Hindu, there was a different problem facing them. The mohajir felt frustrated both at Lahore, where there was the Punjabi, and Dhaka where there was the Bengali. Therefore, the mohajir made a beeline for Karachi. So Karachi is the mohajir centre. It is astonishing how well those from Uttar Pradesh have transplanted themselves here. Their colonies are everywhere.”

Qurratulain Hyder on Islam in Pakistan: “Islam! Islam has had a rough ride here. If the Pakistani team begins to lose at cricket, Islam falls into danger. Every problem in the world is ultimately reduced to this word Islam. Other Muslim countries resent the fact that the sole contractors of Islam are these people from Pakistan. Everything is being upholstered with narrow-mindedness. Music, art, civilisation, learning and literature, they are all being viewed from the perspective of the Mullah . Islam, which was like a rising river whose majestic flow had been augmented by so many tributaries to turn it into a cascading force, has been reduced to a muddy stream which is being enclosed from all four sides with high walls.

The joke is that those who raise the slogan of Islam in the loudest voices have nothing to do with the philosophy of this religion. The only thing they know is that the Muslims ruled Spain for 800 years, that they ruled Bharat for a thousand years, that the Ottomans kept East Europe subjugated for centuries. Apart from imperialism, no mention is ever made of Islam’s great humanism, nor is it considered necessary to speak about the open-heartedness of Arab seers, Iranian poets and Indian Sufis. There is no interest in the philosophy of Ali and Hussain. Islam is being presented as a violent religion and a violent way of life.”

50 years ago, Qurratulain Hyder, whom a friend of mine always calls Hazrat Rabia Hindi, saw us for what we were. And she left us. Had she stayed, she would have been crucified in the name of the glory of Islam and the “ideology” of Pakistan.

So we had it wrong all these years. Poor Senator Larry Pressler, who is no longer in the Senate, got more curses from Pakistanis heaped on his head than even the three devils that the faithful stone during the annual pilgrimage.

I will start with myself. Everything bad I ever wrote, said or even thought about Larry Pressler, I take back. I would suggest similar penance be offered by all those trigger-happy editorial writers and columnists, especially the latter, who demonised the former senator from North Dakota. Had the Pakistanis not been misled about this good man, he might still have been in the Senate. But what did they do? They ganged up against him when he ran for another term, raised money for his rival, made phone calls, sent emails and even sought the intervention of the Almighty so that he should lose the election. And lo and behold, he did. Some Pakistanis were dancing in the streets when Tim Johnson beat Larry Pressler.

And why did we behave like a herd of wild bulls that has gone off its rocker? Because we were made to believe that if there was one man responsible for all of Pakistan’s troubles it was this monster from the stony Dakota mountains. It is clear that “we wuz mizinformed”, as Humphary Bogart says when told that if he had came to Casablanca looking for “the waters”, he should have known that it was a desert. Larry Pressler, the entire Pakistani nation and the chirpy ex-pat community of cardiologists, chartered accountants, stockbrokers, structural engineers and high-flyin’ techies was assured, was Enemy No. 1 because he was the author of the Pressler Amendment, a black law that held back Pakistan from turning overnight into Japan.

Back home, even those who could not count from one to ten or remember the alphabet beyond the first nine letters knew that the one obstacle in Pakistan’s way was this dreaded thing called the Pressler Amendment. Similar demonisation, I recalled, was the poor CTBT subjected to in Pakistan about eight or nine years ago. Everybody began his day by cursing it. “Don’t sign the CTBT,” was the national chant. One of the few people who knew what CTBT was, was Dr Maleeha Lodhi who patiently explained it to me, but five minutes later, I had forgotten what I had been told.

But let me return to Larry Pressler and why I think national atonement is in order. It now turns out that the Pressler Amendment was practically drafted by the Pakistanis themselves. Poor Sen Pressler just lent his name to it. The amendment which Larry the Innocent was made to move was a ruse to bypass the 1977 Glenn-Symington Amendment. Glenn for those who do not care much for space should know that John Glenn was the first man to orbit the earth in a capsule the size of a tube of toothpaste. His amendment with Sen Symington modified the US Foreign Assistance Act to require a cut-off of economic and military assistance to any country that imported or exported un-safeguarded nuclear enrichment or reprocessing materials, equipment or technology. This amounted to drawing a red circle around Pakistan’s name, the “usual suspect” that we anyway were.

America first cut off aid to Pakistan in September 1977, for a reprocessing-related violation. It did so again in April 1979 for a violation of the enrichment provision. In 1981, under the Reagan administration, the law was changed to permit the flow of assistance to Pakistan during the Afghanistan war. Over the next decade, US aid to Pakistan toted up to more than USD4 billion, including the delivery of 40 F-16 fighter planes.

In 1985, the Pressler amendment was brought in, requiring the president to certify that Pakistan did not possess a nuclear explosive device and that US aid would greatly cut the risk of its getting one. Reagan continued to certify annually that Pakistan did not “possess” a nuclear device and (despite all evidence to the contrary) that continued US assistance would reduce the risk of such possession. The last waiver was granted in 1989 but Islamabad was also told by President Bush 1 that no further waiver will be granted from next year on.

Pakistan immediately came under a host of sanctions that had been held back all these years. The Pakistani ambassador to Washington after presenting his credentials burst into the State Department like the proverbial “shocked virgin”, screaming, “How could you do that to us!” Everything came to a dead stop. The billion-plus dollars that Pakistan had paid for those F16s were kept back, as were the F16s.

The scene changed in 1995 when the money was refunded, thanks to another helpful amendment. Other things remained where they were more or less for the next six years. Then came 9/11 and the world changed for Pakistan after we did a u-turn on our cherished Taliban policy. Just 13 days later, Glenn, Symington and Pressler sanctions, all imposed because of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons programme, were waived for “US national security reasons”. Also waived a month later were coup-related democracy sanctions.

Does this tale have a moral? Yes. Life is unpredictable and even more unpredictable is life with Uncle Sam.

Khalid Hasan is Daily Times’ US-based correspondent

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