Nov
30
Iftikhar Chaudhry in America
Filed Under Postcard USA
Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry returned home midweek, seen off by as many people as had received him, which says something for the appeal he holds for Pakistanis living abroad, because he left on a working day. Those who managed to get themselves to the John F Kennedy airport not only braved New York’s traffic and distances but also knocked off work, not as easy to do as it is in Pakistan.
America is the land of plenty, no doubt, but when it comes to holidays, leisure time and vacation days, this is not the place to be. There is little time off for working people and often absence from the workplace translates into losing that day’s wage or salary. Since the ultimate test of anything remains the ability to put one’s money where one’s mouth is, it will be fair to say that those who went to see off the defrocked chief justice did so because they believed to be doing the right thing.
The deposed judge was well and truly honoured for what those who honoured him see as his standing up for the supremacy of the constitution and the rule of law. He was received by one of the justices of the Supreme Court of the United States, a body whose nine members are remote, unapproachable and rarely to be seen or heard in public. Had it not been for the death that week of Chief Justice John Roberts’s father, he it was who was going to receive Chaudhry. Roberts, by the way, is an old-fashioned conservative, which is why he is where he is.
The New York Bar, the largest in the world, made Chaudhry its honorary member, something it does not do every day, and Harvard conferred the Medal of Freedom on him, making him the third recipient of the honour in its entire history. Just consider the company in which Chaudhry found himself placed: Justice Thurgood Marshall, whose name is synonymous with desegregation since he was the lawyer who argued and won the famous Brown vs Board of Education case, and the living legend, Nelson Mandela.
I will, however, be failing my duty were I after listing these honours and their significance, not put it on record that the deposed Pakistani chief justice’s performance as a public speaker left much to be desired. In fact, so poor it was that his listeners sat squirming in their seats at the Georgetown University’s law school as he began an interminable speech.
I am prepared to stand in court, even his court, and assert that while in his off the cuff, extempore remarks, there was hardly a sentence that could be said to be mistake-free, it was painful to hear him read from the prepared text. He did not seem to realise where a sentence began or ended or where emphasis was needed and where it was not. He just could not manage and everyone heaved a sigh of relief when he had finished.
What has happened to us as a country when our prime minister is unable to understand and speak English properly and where the man who was our chief justice, and may once again occupy that high chair, is so palpably incompetent! This is not to say that his heart is not in the right place and that he did not stand up to the imperious Gen. Musharraf, but only that he is so lacking in ability.
There was a time when we had judges of the calibre and eminence of Rashid, Munir, Kayani, Cornelius, Hamood-ur-Rehman, S A Rehman, Fazle Akbar and Shabbir, to name but a few, but what do we have today? The present occupant or maybe the word is occupier, of Chaudhry’s chair, one is told, is no better. The prepared texts of Chaudhry’s speeches in the United States, issued for some strange reason by the Hong Kong-based Asian Human Rights Commission, are well-worded, but it is hard to believe that they are the same texts from which he read.
Much, I should add, has been made by our conspiracy theorists back home of the fact that Husain Haqqani, our man in Washington, sent his Consul General in New York to receive Chaudhry and another senior embassy official to greet him in Washington. One talk show Socrates said that it was clear the Americans had given the green light to Chaudhry’s reinstatement (as if it were the Americans who had him sent home first), otherwise how could the Pakistani safeer have given him “protocol”.
When I asked the ambassador, he replied that his yardstick was simple and he had not even felt the need to clear it with the government. Any Pakistani of note arriving in the United States should be extended all necessary courtesies. Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry was an important and eminent citizen of Pakistan, which was what had determined what our media have come to call “protocol”. My own view is that the mood in Islamabad on this issue being what it is, the ambassador may even be rapped on the knuckles for the courtesy shown to the deposed chief justice.
But let this matter be put aside till the “next hearing”, while I express my bewilderment at what our man at the United Nations, the redoubtable Munir Akram’s replacement, Abdullah Hussain Haroon, has been going around demanding. It was some days ago that he stated in a speech at the UN that Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, chief of army staff, should be made supreme commander of a joint force of Afghan, NATO and American troops to be deployed on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. His proposal was greeted with disbelief here, while the government back home refrained from comment.
Haroon did not seem to know that US forces do not serve under foreign command. As if once was not enough, in a meeting with the Belgian foreign minister, Pieter De Crem, this week, Haroon said, according to an official press release from his mission, “While discussing the situation in Afghanistan, Ambassador Haroon once again reiterated the need to create a Central Authority under the Command of Pakistan Army Chief to coordinate efforts to control the border by the NATO, Pakistani and other forces.”
I can only close this with a snatch from one of my old school teachers: Kahan se hum kahan tuk aa gayay hain.
Nov
28
Confessions of a Fritterer
Filed Under Private View
may not know very much German but I did think a year or two ago that I knew more than Munir Ataullah, to whose throwing in a German phrase in one of his Daily Times columns I took exception, though not with any seriousness. However, I recall having ended up conceding that though he could as well have used a simple English word – as he should have - his employment of the German phrase had not been out of order. It was in Ordnung.As far as I remember, we have never really met, except fleetingly many moons ago, so I did not expect to be offered a book he has just published and of which I am now in receipt of. The first thing I noticed about this gift was that it did not list the name of a publisher, which is not only most mysterious but also against the law, although the line between legal and illegal has long since disappeared in Pakistan. The book is called The Hon’ble Society of Fritterers. Fritterers? That made me take a deep breath. “Fritter,” always followed by “away,” we all know, but what and who are “fritterers”? I did not have to go far looking for an answer. I found it on the inside flap. This is what it said: “Don’t worry about the relevance of the title to the contents of this book. There is none, unless you believe Pakistan is a nation stubbornly intent on frittering away its immense latent potential and promise.”
As someone who has published several volumes of what had already appeared in newspapers, I have no quarrel with Munir Ataullah putting together his columns. I am also in agreement with him when he writes, “The ancient art of appearing to say something profound, while actually talking drivel, has a long and meritorious tradition.” I have more than leafed through Ataullah’s “fritterings” and feel like sharing some of them. Here he is on Imran Khan, who despite his one-time advocacy of tribal justice, remains among my favourite people. Ataullah wonders, as many of us have, why Imran Khan, given his charisma, his achievements, his honesty, his humanitarian work, can barely get himself elected and why his party remains a nonentity. Ataullah faults Imran for his views on Kashmir and India, for his religiosity and for his ability to make powerful enemies easily. “Self-belief, exemplary conduct, and a stern insistence that others in the team meet his high standards are great qualities in a cricket captain. But a politicians has to humour, coax, cajole and even flatter and deceive, to build and maintain support for his leadership,” he writes. While finding Imran in “limbo,” he hopes that the Big Khan will not get disillusioned with the political scene. “Men like him, as long as they have a public platform, often serve the nation better out of power.”
Ataullah is not afraid to write about Islam and to attack its present-day orthodoxy and those who fight modernity and consider any deviation from the beaten path nothing less than heresy. He writes, “For example, many tout sanitised versions of our glory days as the perfect political model. Should we then be enamoured today of how, and on what basis, political power was then acquired or transferred? Ask if we should allow slavery, concubines, chopping of hands and stoning to death, and do away with a prison system? Should we rely on a basically militia army paid largely through a fixed share of the loot and plunder? What about all the political infighting and intrigue which led to the murder of three Khalifas? How can ancient tribal norms be a model for a modern state?”
Ataullah writes that not only those with an “English medium” background, but all Pakistanis, should be deeply concerned about the Urdu press. “Is the Urdu press being used to mould and shape the mindset of the ordinary citizen or is it simply reflecting his complete disconnect from the modern world? Obviously, both factors are present and naturally reinforce each other to some extent, but it would not surprise me at all if the motives behind much of the rubbish printed were somewhat less than wholly pure. In an environment of widespread ignorance, every shade of charlatan can successfully hope to exploit some his fellow men to his advantage.” To the unholy and dangerous task of the spread of ignorance, I would like to add here, powerful muscle has been now provided by Pakistan’s rapidly breeding TV channels. Just one example. For much of the day on November 4, Geo repeatedly referred to Obama as “Barraq Hussain Obama” till, to his credit, the network’s US-based correspondent Sami Ibrahim told his anchors, et al, that Obama was Christian, and he never used his middle name. But who would blame the channel’s innocent Pakistani viewers who now believe Obama to be Muslim.
One needs to point out that before Zia-ul-Haq, people refrained from wearing their Islam on their sleeve. Much changed with him and there are no signs of recovery or any lessening of the hypocrisy that passes for belief. Ataullah is troubled by that and writes, “An ‘Islamic perspective’ is now a must in any discussion; considered and well-orchestrated displays of piety – real or sham – are now recognised as essential PR; and Bismillahs, Inshaallahs and Alhmadolillahs are now obligatoire , to the point that they are in danger of becoming meaningless words, much as the American phrase ‘Have a nice day.’ Indeed in the Arab world, for most practical purposes, Inshaallah has already acquired the status of a euphemism for ‘No’.” To which I add: Did the Quaid-i-Azam or Liaquat Ali Khan ever begin an address to the nation by invoking the Almighty’s name, which our national hypocrisy has made us press into service for purely selfish and often nefarious ends?
Munir Ataullah is a man of science and a golfer. While his golf I leave to the gentlemen of leisure who roam the Lahore links with him, here is a lovely mathematical riddle he presents us with. “Can you see anything beautiful about an apparently ordinary number such as 142857? No? Well, if you multiply it successively by 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6, you get the following numbers: 285714, 428571, 571428, 714285 and 857142. Amazingly, they are all made up of the same digits as the original number. What is even more interesting, all the digits maintain their relative order vis-à-vis the other digits. But what happens when you multiply the number by 7? Surprise? You get 999999. It is as if Shane Warne, the magician, lulls you with five perfect leg-spinners before foxing you with a googly.”
Nov
26
Well played, James Bond
Filed Under Private View
his is the centenary year for Ian Fleming, the creator of James Bond, British Agent 007, irresistible to women with names like Vesper Lynd, Domino Vitali, Kissy Suzuki, Mary Goodnight, Tiffany Case, Solitaire and Tatiana Romanova. For the baddies of the world, who in his day were mostly commies or crazy men like Dr No who planned to dominate the world through terror and blackmail, Bond was the nemesis. And despite his great partiality for hard liquour – scotch, vodka and martinis – shaken not stirred – and up to 70 specially blended cigarettes a day, Bond got the better of all he confronted, though in the process he often took some heavy punishment, the most painful being what the Russian spy Le Chiffre inflicted on him in Casino Royale , which practically knocked off his whatdoyoucallit.
In celebration of Fleming’s life and unique achievement, all 14 of his books have been reissued in paperback and nowhere else is there more absorbing reading to be experienced than in following James Bond as he brings death and destruction to the enemies of the British empire (or what was left of it) and the West. Fleming published his first book in 1953, when he was in his forties, the book being Casino Royale . Then one after the other came his thrillers, delighting the world and making James Bond and the man who first played him on the screen, Sean Connery, household names around the world, including the Soviet Union and the Iron Curtain countries of Eastern Europe, though surely in smuggled editions.
Bond is a wish fulfillment. He is what most of us would like to be, but aren’t. He has no wife to nag him, no children whom he has to walk to school and no unpaid bills. He is answerable only to M, the head of MI6, and as M’s secretary, Miss Moneypenny, is in love with Bond (a love that remains unrequited), that gives him an additional advantage. After all, it is a given that having the boss’s secretary on your side guarantees you remaining in his good books, even after a botched operation. Bond lives in style when in London, his bachelor pad being off King’s Road, which was the area to be in. He does not have to suffer travel by bus and tube. He has his supercharged Bentley to take him places. He gets sent to the world’s most exotic spots to dispatch one baddy after another, and he always gets the girl.
Bond’s ethics are essentially English public school. He believes in queen and country and he is not exactly fond of foreigners. All the villains he deals with are from other countries and races: Asians, Russians and Eastern Europeans. Fleming’s books were written at a time when the Cold War was at its coldest. It was a world in which McCarthy could happen. It was a world in which the Rosenbergs could be executed for spying for Russia. That world may have vanished with the fall of communism, but as one watches the new Russia gain in wealth, power and influence, it seems only a matter of time before the return of the Bond world. But would there be another Ian Fleming to spin yarns about it? Not likely, for such storytellers are not born every day.
A great deal has been written this year, principally in Britain, about Fleming and the world he created. The Imperial War Museum has mounted an exhibition, featuring an array of material, most of it on public display for the first time. The exhibition explores the early life of Ian Fleming, his wartime career and work as a journalist and travel writer and how, as an author, he drew upon his own experiences to create James Bond. According to the actress Joanna Lumley, who played one of the Bond girls, Fleming was “a complicated personality: a ladies’ man with an amusing sardonic face, impeccable connections and lazy elegance. He had an upper-class drawl and was as fit as a flea, which is always very attractive. He was capable of great sweetness, which you see in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, which he wrote for his son Caspar. But the more I learnt about him, the more I found him to be a solitary man. His pastimes and pleasures were solitary: golf, cards, cars, writing … the things he loved most were lonely; and there is also a loneliness to James Bond, which is part of his allure.”
Roger Moore, who played Bond from 1973 to 1985, writes that he was an aficionado of James Bond – both the books and the films. “I have a vested interest in the character. I feel protective towards him. When I hear people say: ‘Oh, why don’t they call it a day and kill him off?’ I feel compelled to speak out, like a custodial father. It’s true that, like Conan Doyle and Sherlock Holmes, Fleming once toyed with killing off Bond. But his readers protested and he listened. They wouldn’t allow James Bond to die then, and I don’t believe we should any time soon either.” Moore concedes that Sean Connery was the first and probably the best Bond as he originated and defined the cinematic interpretation of the character. Bond, Moore adds, has survived not only Connery’s departure, but five other actors too, and he’s thrived. What’s more, he’s now more popular than ever, hardly breathing the last gasp of a dying man.
Michael Hewitt, in his tribute to Bond, wonders if Bond could afford his extravagant lifestyle today, earning in 1955 a modern-day equivalent of 43,000 pounds. In his first book, Bond was in his thirties, which would make him 90 plus today, a bit past it, wouldn’t you say! Hewitt notes that Bond’s eating habits are hardly guaranteed to make him the picture of health, since he “kicks off each day with an artery-hardening cooked breakfast, courtesy of his housekeeper, May. When travelling, he insists on his own-recipe scrambled eggs. The short story 007 in New York says this includes half a pack of butter and double cream. Otherwise, Bond subsists on ‘grilled soles, oeufs cocotte and cold roast beef with potato salad.’ He loathes fresh fruit and vegetables.” He also has a drinking problem, down as he does half a bottle of spirits a day when off duty. He smokes special Balkan and Turkish mixture cigarettes at the rate of 60 or 70 a day. An MI6 spokesman is supposed to have said, “Obviously, we can’t comment on exactly who we do employ, but I can say that the character described in the books would probably find great difficulty getting a job with us as a cleaner, let alone a field agent.”
The nameless MI6 spokesman is lucky that James Bond did not hear that, otherwise he would have met the same end the baddies do at 007’s hands.
Nov
23
Sarah Palin bags Bigfoot
Filed Under Postcard USA
It turns out that the man posing as Obama has been president or prime minister of 45 countries, from all of which he has decamped with the loot, in the bargain collecting a cool $2.3 billion in campaign funds
The Onion, which claims to be “America’s finest news source”, is no substitute for World Weekly News, which has come back from the dead, so far only on the Internet. But if all goes well, its present owner, a company bearing the delightful name Bat Boy LLC, which bought the defunct publication in October this year, may begin printing it again as a stand-alone publication.
With Obama just about ready to get into the White House, the American people need a weekly dose of humour because the president-to-be, I am afraid, is Mr Gravitas himself. And that is the last thing the world needs, there being enough bad news flying around.
Currently, World Weekly News, which calls itself “the world’s only news source” — and it may well be right — is being updated on its website, which also contains a sampling of its older classics. The Onion, which is being distributed free and can be picked up from outside any underground or metro station, is very funny too but a shade more sophisticated. There is little doubt that it owes something to World Weekly News and its late lamented editor who wrote the most delightful take-offs under the name Ed Anger. All his columns began with “I am madder than a…”
The Onion’s lead story this week runs under the headline: “International Con Man Barack Obama leaves US with $85 million in campaign fundraising”. In a sidebar are printed four pictures of the “fleeing” president: one in a red Fez, the other in a moustache and a green Sikh turban, the third in a two-tone blue Nigerian cap and the fourth a cross between Gobachev and Dick Cheney, complete with the red head smear.
According to the Onion, “In a devastating blow to millions of unsuspecting Americans, newly elected president and international con man Barack Obama fled the country on Wednesday with nearly $85 million in campaign funds.” The FBI is said to have discovered the sudden disappearance of the man who would have been president of the entire United States on January 20, failed to arrive at a gala event. Flight logs at Chicago’s O’Hare airport confirmed that two passengers, a male carrying two silver briefcases and dressed in a perfectly tailored tuxedo and an African-American female wearing a fur coat and speaking in a thick Russian accent were seen boarding a private plane. Three unconscious Secret Service agents were discovered at the scene. Obama is said to have left a letter titled “An explanation, My Dears”.
The letter from the fleeing, rather flying president says, “If you are reading this, then I have already left your silly country in my private jet, and am right now sipping fine champagne with my lovely associate, a woman you have come to know as Michelle. I assure you this was the most pleasurable and fulfilling con I have ever pulled off.”
He closes on a note of thanks, “It has been an absolute delight doing business with you. Rest assured, your generous contributions will be well spent.”
It turns out that the man posing as Obama has been president or prime minister of 45 countries, from all of which he has decamped with the loot, in the bargain collecting a cool $2.3 billion in campaign funds. I would strongly advise any of the Onion’s Pakistani imitators against attempting a similar caper on our beloved president, unless they want to end up in the recently refurbished Dalai Camp, which has been renamed Dubai Camp.
Since Obama is in the news and indeed the flavour of the day, World Weekly News could not to be expected to be found sleeping at the post. Among the weekly’s great concerns is the family pet that the president-elect has promised his two daughters Malia and Sasha. However, it is not going to be a dog, which is what the girls wanted.
The president and his lady have decided to bring in a tiny Bigfoot to accommodate Malia’s allergies, since this little big-guy is the first hypo-allergenic Sasquatch known to man. Tiny Bigfoot has been offered to the first couple and first daughters by a West Virginia animal shelter, which informed the Obama transition team that the tiny Bigfoot, who is called Albert, was found in woods this summer by hikers. “He may not be a mutt, but he sure is a doll,” the shelter said. Tiny Bigfoot spent the weekend with the Obama family, with Malia showing no allergic reaction, we have been informed further.
And what news of Sarah Palin, whom World Weekly News has renamed Sarah Palien.
“Sarah Palien,” it reports, “shot a Bigfoot from a helicopter. A government helicopter was seen flying low over the Chugach National Park with what witnesses described as ‘a sexy librarian shooting out the side’. Employees at a local bait shop report seeing a similar woman only hours before carrying an infant in a camouflage Baby Bjorn. Bigfoot, or Sasquatch as it is known in scientific circles, was found dead on the outskirts of the park, just south of Wasilla, Alaska.
Preliminary forensics reports confirm that an adult male Sasquatch was shot in the face with Palien’s trademark 5mm M4 Carbine Assault Rifle. Environmental groups are in an uproar at the hunting death of a rare and notoriously reclusive species. Efforts to have the Sasquatch placed on the endangered species list have met with repeated opposition from state legislature, since protecting the ‘Missing Link’ could be seen as validating evolution.
Conservatives have immediately rallied to their party’s new star, citing that gun ownership and hunting are indelible parts of American culture. Indeed this point is hard to argue, as John Adams was notorious for having captured what he called a ‘skunk ape’ and killing it with his bare hands on the White House lawn in front of a paying audience.
And now for that other woman: Hillary Clinton. What does she want? No, not the office of Secretary Of State. She wants, discloses World Weekly News, to be head of a new bureau to be called the Bureau of Mutant Affairs!
Hillary told a news conference, surrounded by mutants, “I for one know what it’s like to be persecuted for being a minority.” While crying softly, she added, “It was very difficult running to be the first female presidential nominee. But if I could get through that, I can certainly help these mutants break through their own glass ceiling!”
In Pakistan, oddly, we no longer have a humour magazine. In early post-independence years, there used to come out of Karachi the journal, Namakdan, one of whose regular contributors was Majid Lahori, who once wrote: Khuda ke vastay yaro ministry dilwao: Mera mizaj larakpan se leaderana hai.
So that is what the country needs today, plus a new ministry called Ministry of Laughs, headed by Kashmala Tariq.
Nov
21
Watch that cat’s whiskers
Filed Under Private View
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“Problematic,” he writes, “is an adjective from problem. For the first time, problematics (the plural form) was used when in 1957, RK Merton in his book Social Theory wrote this: ‘…working out its problematics (i.e. the principal problems, conceptual, substantive and procedural).’ Since then a handful of writers have used it. But then some people began to use it as a noun in the singular in the sense where problem should be used (e.g. the dreadful ‘invite’ for ‘invitation’). I would regard it as a heresy and will never use it, nor have I seen it in any writer so far. Concise Oxford Dictionary, being a record of current English usage, only took notice of it as recently as 1999 in its Tenth Edition. I will shun it and you were right to raise your eyebrows (or did you raise onlyone eyebrow which is also allowed?).” Then there is the matter of cat’s whiskers, which is serious enough to induce every grammarian to want to start howling. A headline strapped on an article in the Daily Times was found to have shaved off the said cat’s whiskers, leaving just one single hair or whisker in place. Diffidently, I wrote to Ejaz, who presides over the Times ’s editorial pages: “Isn’t the idiom ‘cat’s whiskers’ rather than ‘cat’s whisker’? How did this get past you?” The response was quick: “Sir ji: the coinage is cat’s whisker, not whiskers.” “I need to check it. Will revert,” I wrote back. I reverted as promised, “I hate to say this but in this case you are wrong. Please see Concise Oxford Dictionary(1985). It is cat’s whiskers NOT whisker. See also the following from on an Online Dictionary: ‘To be the cat’s whiskers (British & Australian); to be better than everyone else. ‘I thought I was the cat’s whiskers in my new dress.’ By a whisker: by a very small amount. ‘Last time she raced against the Brazilian she won by a whisker. He missed the goal by a whisker.’ To come within a whisker of something/doing something. If you come within a whisker of doing something, you almost do it or it almost happens to you. ‘He came within a whisker of beating the world champion.’ ‘Several times on his trek through the jungle he came within a whisker of death.’ ” The word from guru Rafiq in Blighty also snipped off the single whisker to restore the outgrowth in its full glory. He wrote: “Whisker is a long projecting hair or bristle growing from the face or snout of an animal such as a cat. Whiskers is the hair on a man’s face, especially on his cheeks. A whisker is a very small amount. I could go on a bit more but that should suffice to start with. A cat’s whisker is a delicate wire in a crystal detector. ‘Cat’s whiskers’ is an excellent or special person. It is equal in meaning with cat’s pyjamas. Both are dated slang. I hope this puts the matter to rest.” It did, as Ejaz’s gallant response was: “One lives and learns.” George Orwell, who has no equal when it comes to simple and transparent prose, laid down certain rules in his classic essay “Politics and the English Language.” He wrote, “Foreign words and expressions such as cul de sac, ancien regime, deus ex machina, mutatis mutandis, status quo, gleichschaltung, weltanschauung, are used to give an air of culture and elegance. Except for the useful abbreviations ie, eg and etc, there is no real need for any of the hundreds of foreign phrases now current in the English language.” Of the six rules he laid down, here are the first five: Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print. Never use a long word where a short one will do. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out. Never use the passive where you can use the active. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.” Denouncing the “swindles and perversions” that characterise bad writing, Orwell cited one of the noblest passages from Ecclesiastes in the Old Testament: “I returned and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.” Orwell wrote that were someone to put it in “modern English,” this is how it will appear: “Objective considerations of contemporary phenomena compel the conclusion that success or failure in competitive activities exhibits no tendency to be commensurate with innate capacity, but that a considerable element of the unpredictable must invariably be taken into account.” |
Nov
16
Roving Ambassadors Inc.
Filed Under Postcard USA
The State Department when asked about it, said that each country can have only one ambassador in Washington and since in Pakistan’s case, there already existed one in the person of Husain Haqqani, a second ambassador, roving, at-large or whatever was ruled outWhen I learnt that yet another roving ambassador was being appointed, I sent an email to Admiral Ardeshir Cowasjee, the bane of Karachi’s land grabbers: “At this rate, your number should be coming up before long.”
I have not heard from him, which can only mean two things. One, the hard drive on his computer has been sabotaged by the land mafia. Two, he has decided that enough is enough and it is time to board up the social repair workshop he has been running out of his Mary Road residence (beware his dozen dogs, plus the pet iguana, a special import from Guantanamo, courtesy US Consulate, Karachi).
I have lost count but the number of roving ambassadors is now close to a baker’s dozen. One of the first ones to be so appointed was that man for seasons all, Salman Faruqi, who carries the entire weight of the Planning Commission on his shoulders as he roves around the world in the service of his country. Half the things that the Planning Commission now does were not conceived in Islamabad but while friend Faruqi was sipping pineapple juice through a straw with his feet resting in a kidney-shaped swimming pool, somewhere west of Suez.
Then there is the television interviewer from Dubai who always tends to talk more than the one he is interviewing. He also continues to remain in Dubai but where he roves I know not. And what he roves for is another unexplained mystery.
There is also my good friend Akbar Khawaja, once of the World Bank and later the Senate, but now another one of our rovers. He lives in Washington but since he got stung by the bug of politics, which no anti-venom serum has ever been known to cure, he has been seen in these parts less and less. But every time one of the Big Boys hits this side of the water, old Khawaja materialises out of thin air and is inseparable from the ones who believe that the sun rises and sets from a certain point on their persons that I am reluctant to name in a newspaper known for its good taste.
There are also others, some of whom I know or know of, while others I don’t, which is neither here nor there. What do these chosen ones of the toiling masses’ party do? Who decides where they should go and why?
Back here in Washington, the Embassy of Pakistan issued the following press release on Nov 12:
“Prominent Pakistani-American businessman Mr Rafat Mahmood has been appointed as Ambassador-at-Large with the status of Minister. Mr Mahmood has been a resident of the Washington, DC area since 1970. He has contributed immensely to charitable causes in Pakistan and the United States and has played an active role in promoting a positive image of Pakistan. Over the years, Mr Mahmood has cultivated friends in the US Administration, on Capitol Hill and prominent think tanks. Mr Mahmood is well-respected and well-known among influential circles in Washington. He and his wife Shaista Mahmood are recognised as gracious hosts and fund-raisers and their Mount Vernon home has often been the venue of major events to promote Pakistan, inter-faith harmony and civil rights of Muslim communities in the United State. Pakistan’s Ambassador to the United States Husain Haqqani has congratulated Mr Mahmood and said that his appointment shows that the elected leadership of Pakistan appreciates the contribution of renowned overseas Pakistanis.”
Every government has its house style. The present one believes in making decisions first and dealing with their consequences later. A little bird has twittered to me that when it was decided back in Islamabad or maybe it was in our second capital, Dubai, that Washington needed another ambassador, it was also decided to leak the news. Since those who carefully monitor who is in and who is out, who is up and who is down, they were also the first to learn who the man chosen for the glam-post was going to be. As was to be expected, Rafat Mahmood’s phone did not stop ringing for days on end thereafter. But there was no official announcement because of the unexpected roadblock into which this thing had run.
The State Department, when asked about it, said that each country can have only one ambassador in Washington and since in Pakistan’s case, there already existed one in the person of Husain Haqqani, a second ambassador, roving, at-large or whatever was ruled out.
The US government recognises only one ambassador from one country at one time, and it does not allow anyone other than the accredited ambassador to conduct official business here on his country’s behalf. The US government does not recognise ambassadors-at-large where a resident, duly accredited ambassador is already in place. Again, no US citizen, which Rafat Mahmood happens to be, can be appointed full or roving ambassador to the country of which he is a citizen. Should he wish to accept the appointment, he would have to surrender his US citizenship.
But we Pakistanis are an enterprising people. When we come upon a ditch, we go around it, which is what happened in this case also. It was decided that Rafat Mahmood will be Ambassador-at-Large and since he wishes to reside in the US, he will have to be “at large” somewhere else. Uncle Sam should have no problem with that. It is an entirely different matter that if there is any good Rafat Mahmood can do, he can only do it in the country where he has lived for thirty years and where he will be forbidden to operate.
So what are we going to do with him? Send him to Greenland or Outer Mangolia, I suppose.
Khalid Hasan is Daily Times’ US-based correspondent. His e-mail is khasan2@cox.net
Nov
14
Reliving Beyond a Boundary
Filed Under Private View
CLR James’ Beyond a Boundary has been acclaimed since it was first published in1963 as the best book ever written about cricket. It has never been out of print. Described as part Caribbean childhood memoir, part “anatomy of the values and spirit of the game of cricket” and part celebration of West Indian cricket, it overwhelms the reader with James’ passion for the game and the sensitivity with which he writes about its finer points.James, born in Trinidad in 1901 – he died at the age of 88 in 1989 – came to England in1932 and reported cricket for the old Manchester Guardian and Glasgow Herald. He was a man of the left and a tireless worker in the movement for African emancipation from colonial rule. His writings played an undeniable role in the Pan-African movement. James opens Beyond a Boundary with a description of his childhood home. He writes, “Our house was superbly situated, exactly behind the wicket. A huge tree on one side and another house on the other limited the view of the ground, but an umpire could have stood at the bedroom window. By standing on a chair a small boy of six could watch practice every afternoon and matches on Saturday.”
Those who follow Pakistan cricket and who, despite evidence to the contrary, continue to hope for something good to turn up, have had to bear yet another defeat, this time at the hands of Sri Lanka in the 20/20 tournament played in Toronto from October 10 to 13. One squirmed with embarrassment as one waited for Captain Shoaib Malik’s torture to end as he answered questions on television from an interviewer. He was unshaven, which seems to be the permanent facial state of the entire team, and he showed no sign of regret at having thrown a match that was as good as won. Once again Pakistan had grabbed defeat from the gaping mouth of victory. To sweeten my imagination, I turned to CLR James and what he felt as he watched Skipper Abdul Hafiz Kardar lead his team out on an English ground during that storied summer of 1954. James first talks of cricket’s “measured ritualism” and how human personality in sufficiently varied form registers itself “indelibly” on the mind. He writes, “I mention only a few – the lithe grace and elegance of Kardar leading his team on to the field; the unending flow of linear rhythm by which Evans accommodated himself to returns from the field; the dignity which radiates from every motion of Frank Worrell; the magnificence and magnanimity of Keith Miller.”
Here is James reporting a match Pakistan played against Worcestershire on May 10 1954. This is how he describes the 19-year-old Hanif Mohammad: “Hanif will not be twenty until December, but he already has a fine record in Test and representative cricket, and there is a great deal of speculation among those who know his play as to whether this tour will develop him into one of the world’s great batsmen. He is short, like Bradman and Headley, with broad shoulders. His stance is not easy but concentrated, legs apart, left shoulder pointing directly at the bowler. He plays back strongly, but he moves his left foot well out to the pitched up ball and slashes his bat at it late, beating the fieldsmen to the boundary on either side of the bowler. The stroke is perfectly controlled and beautifully timed, and this in combination with his strong back-play is a sound foundation for many years.”
Just regard the company in which James places Kardar, the company of immortals Worrell and Miller. And look around today. With the exception of Shahid Afridi, the rest resemble those whose faces can be seen plastered on every wall in every police station in every country of the world. Had Kardar or Imran been captaining the team today, would one unshaven face and one unkempt beard been allowed to appear on the field?! After the havoc wrought to the game by nephralogist Nasim Ashraf, this crown of thorns has now been placed on the head of Ijaz Butt. What he makes of it remains to be seen. Had he had good advice, he would have declined because what we have today is not cricket but a train wreck.
So let me get back to the seer of cricket, CLR James. Here he is quoting the legendary John Arlott – whom I have had the great good fortune of meeting – on Ray Lindwall coming in to bowl. “From two walking paces Lindwall glides into the 13 running strides which have set the world a model for rhythmic gathering of momentum for speed-giving power. Watching him approach the wicket, Sir Pelham Warner was moved to murmur one word, ‘Poetry.’” Now compare that with our walking, talking disaster Shoaib Akhtar, who was hit all over the place in Toronto by all kinds of batsmen. Another derailment for the Rawalpindi Express.
But I return to James. Writing about the England all-rounder Frank Wooley, who like all great batsmen was a timer of the ball, playing late (our Majid Jahangir was another of the game’s timers), he recalls Wooley’s sense of humour. As Wooley once stood in the slips, the batsman at the crease kept fanning the air in a series of fruitless swipes. “Say, friend,” Wooley finally said, “let us know if you are going to go on like this as I would send for my sweater to protect myself from the draught.” James wrote that if the game of cricket were ever put on trial for its life, its advocates would bring on behalf of the defence Grace, Bradman, Ranjitsinhji and Wooley.
Who did James think the greatest batsman of the century was? He wrote that although he would be in a lot of trouble for saying that, he would choose George Headley. “But I know there would be a chorus of objection and some people would question my judgement or my honesty, and they all would agree that number one should be Don Bradman. I agree, too, in theory. There is no batsman of whom it was more certain that he would score a century in an important match than Don Bradman. I agree, but I only agree in general. When the wicket was wet and the ball moving around, Bradman got out almost immediately.” Headley was good on all wickets, and superb on bad ones, which he actually liked. He told James more than once that he liked bad wickets because “they are so difficult you have to watch the ball and you can’t make any mistakes. You see, when you are on one of those you can’t take any chances, if the ball is short you have to turn and hook. If the ball is pitched up you have to drive because the wicket is such that you can’t expect any special luck. You have to take the chances that they give you, take them as they come.”
And there you have it: all that you will ever need to know about batting.
Nov
9
The full Monty
Filed Under Postcard USA
The incoming Obama administration may after all have something to learn from us. The Americans think they know everything but they have some ways to go when it comes to determining the size of the presidential cabinet.
It is hard to believe that the entire presidential cabinet, which includes the vice president, totals just fifteen. No wonder the US president does not have the advice he needs, because half the time these people are simply not around, having taken their kids for soccer practice.
All that President Bush has by way of a cabinet are his Secretaries of Agriculture, Commerce, Defence, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Labour, State, Transportation, Treasury, and Veterans Affairs, plus the Attorney General. Under Bush, cabinet rank also has been given to the heads of the Environmental Protection Agency, the Office of Management and Budget, the National Drug Control Policy and the office of the US Trade Representative.
Even Liechtenstein, which you can walk through in its entirety in 30 minutes, has a larger cabinet.
America likes to think that it is the one and only superpower in the world today and nothing moves unless there is a nod from Washington that it may so do. That is an illusion because fifteen people can’t even run a dogcatcher’s office efficiently.
Pakistan certainly has something to teach America. We may not be America’s size and we may not be chasing sheep in Afghanistan or catching rabbits in Iraq, but we certainly know how to do some things. We don’t believe in half measures, which is why we do not have a puny federal cabinet as the Americans have. We have the full Monty.
On Monday, November 3, the people’s government finally expanded the federal cabinet in response to popular demand. Also, from across the border, they had begun making fun of us for our itsy-bitsy cabinet. Only a bikini should be itsy-bitsy, not a cabinet, we finally realised.
Everyone is happy now that Makhdoom Amin Faheem, who writes poetry and had recently come to be known as Makhdoom Naraaz Halavi, has been persuaded to join the boys. Management wizards have gone to work and the results are wondrous to behold. Where there was one ministry, there are now two and at places three. It is like not one but several rabbits being produced from a conjurer’s hat.
The communications ministry is no longer a monolith, likewise the Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock. They have laid eggs. The division of Postal Services has been separated from Communications and a new ministry of Postal Services has taken birth, though by Caesarean section. The Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock has been bifurcated to carve out a new ministry called the Ministry of Livestock and Dairy Development. The mother Ministry of Food and Agriculture remains in existence to ensure that food shortages are not interfered with.
To the surprise of some, the Ministry of Religious Affairs has been chopped up into three ministries, namely Minorities Affairs, Zakat and Ushr and of course the Ministry of Religious Affairs, which should be renamed Ministry of Affairs. The Ministry of Population Welfare also needs to be renamed Ministry of Population Farewell considering that the un-Islamic practice of population control has stood abandoned since Gen. Zia-ul-Haq’s time.
I am, however, mystified by the appointment of one Lal Muhammad Khan as Minister of Special Initiatives. What those initiatives are has not been explained. It is possible that Mr Khan may end up poking his big red nose in everyone’s affairs. I was also hoping that the elegant Sherry Rehman, Minister of Information, will be relieved of the crown of thorns placed on her head but it seems she has to suffer it till the next reshuffle, which, given the times we are living through, should not be long in coming.
While I am happy that at least 57 of our citizens have something to do, I am afraid, given the shrinking office space in Islamabad, they may have to remain at home, twiddling their toes and phoning the Estate Office, only to be greeted by the announcement, “Aapka matlooba number badal gya hai. Brah-e-mehrbani nayay number par phone karain.”
To get the new number you have to call another number which also turns out to have been changed, which means you call another number etc. In any case, that is one way to pass the day in the nation’s capital.
There are some spoilsports on the Internet who don’t share the excitement that the rest of the nation feels because of the expanded cabinet. One of them writes:
“You have to admit we Pakistanis are a lucky bunch. Not only is the cabinet now composed of 57 selfless, devoted servants of the people, but several ministries in government have been bifurcated so as to accommodate them. Isn’t that just wonderful? But there is more. If you think you have heard the last of this breathlessly exciting cabinet expansion, hold on to your hats. It appears there are several disgruntled elements waiting on the sidelines, who will, in time, be accommodated. Praise the Lord and pass that spittoon.”
Another writes, “My understanding is that five more will be inducted by the end of the year. We obviously need funds from Friends of Democratic Pakistan to keep all of them in good humour, and of course well protected from those wild Taliban, so additional foreign exchange financing would surely be handy to urgently augment the fleet of bulletproof vehicles.”
One joker says by providing the new inductees bulletproof limos, we would be depriving them of the opportunity to embrace martyrdom, which a roadside bomb might have delivered. This pious suggestion produces the following response from another cyberspace vagabond.
“If one’s fate is pre-ordained, Allah will now choose the most worthy among the now naked ministers for martyrdom. I see a new financial sector service industry emerging here, where odds are placed on a given gentleman’s (no reason to exempt women, I suppose) probability of martyrdom by such-and-such date. One could even place odds on the method of martyrdom. This transaction could then be hedged with a parallel ‘martyrdom-default’ swap. If the government moved quickly, it could create and control such a market in short order, and conceivably make billions. People might even pay the government up front to become ministers in order to have the honour of being part of the probability pool.”
What is wrong with these johnnies, I ask you?
Nov
7
Manto, on murder
Filed Under Private View
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This is vintage Manto. I have translated excerpts from this dramatic re-creation of a crime that plunged the young and struggling state of Pakistan in gloom. Here is the maestro himself: Man: Enemy of man. Party: Enemy of Party. Government: In conflict with government. This is the story of the 20th century, as it was the story of the 1st century. Like other goods and commodities on sale, human flesh has also always been on sale. Gallows used to be erected to hang people by the neck then, as they are now. Human blood was shed in the past, as it is shed today. Murder, oppression, savagery and violence were present in the past as they are present today. So many prophets, savants, mystics and men of God came and went but they all failed to reform human beings. They pointed out what was wrong and criminal but they were unable to eliminate the instincts that make men commit crimes. But mankind is so shamefaced that it has refused to abandon hope. As thousands of years earlier, man also continues to feel moved by the finer feelings of love and desire and longing. And this is what constitutes the greatest of man’s tragedy and triumph. But if in between tragedy and triumph something crude happens, it is irritating. In this drama, there is no drop scene. If one slips and falls, one gets hurt. On the evening of October 16 when I learnt of the murder of Liaquat Ali Khan, I was shaken. Everyone knows that life has to one day end. Being brought down by a bullet could not have come as much of a surprise for Liaquat Ali Khan but what bothered me was the manner in which this tragic drama ended. The first news flashes said: The killer fired two shots from pointblank range. After he fired, the policemen standing next to him began to fire in the air, causing great panic in the crowd present there, which seemed unaware of what had happened. But crowd control was soon established and the deputy commissioner of Rawalpindi imposed Section 144 in both the city and the cantonment. Liaquat Ali Khan was rushed to the hospital where he was given a blood transfusion. He had fainted after being shot. These were all first reports. People drew different conclusions from these reports but I could not understand why the police had fired in the air. Although it is said of Punjab Police that when occasion demands, it bans even the wind from blowing, but when the murderer was out there, visible to all and easy to arrest, why did the police fire in the air to disperse a crowd estimated at between 15,000 and 20,000? The policemen who stood close to the killer kept firing in the air but failed to save the killer. Because of the confusion caused by the incident, with the crowd running pell-mell, it became difficult to remove Liaquat to the hospital for urgent medical care. By the time he arrived at the hospital, he had lost so much blood that a transfusion became necessary. One eyewitness to the murder, a Mr Irfani, in a long article published in Afaq on October 20 reports that the attacker was sitting to his left at an angle no more than six yards away. With the police firing in the air, it was all so sudden and unexpected that no one could think straight. The man who rushed towards Liaquat Ali Khan when he fell was the Rawalpindi deputy commissioner Hardy. Was it not Hardy’s duty to grab the killer first, who was just six yards from him? There were others on duty who could have attended to the prime minister. Who authorised the police to fire in the air? We also know that that the Frontier government had conveyed to the Punjab government that it considered Said Akbar, the killer, a suspicious character. What thickens the plot is that Rs 2,040 were found on his person and 10,000 from where he was staying. One can assume that he was a hired gun. I do not wish to analyse the psychology of the murderer or the act of murder, but why was he carrying so much money when he knew that there would be little chance of his getting out alive? Two more questions spring from this one then. Maybe the killer was hopeful of getting away. If that was so, there must have been others around who he believed would save him. If this is accepted, then the murder assumes an entirely different dimension. There were several men around the killer who shot him dead after he had done the deed. But then one has to ask oneself why those who planned the murder took so many in confidence. Was it not unwise? And then there is the disappearance from Peshawar of the Afghan consul-general, a member of the ruling royal family, five hours before the murder. Is there a link of some sort there? Since the Frontier government had shared its suspicions about the murderer a day before with the Punjab government, what did the latter do? The Punjab police, known for arresting even flies and mosquitoes at the slightest pretext, failed to act after receiving this important report. Why was an eye not kept on the movements of Said Akbar? The police are also looking for the 10-year-old boy who was with the murderer. Before leaving Hazara, Said Akbar had left a note with the police saying he was going to Pindi and he would be staying at the Grand Hotel. He had also asked that he not be tailed as had happened when he went to Murree. It is all very strange. Said Akbar arrives in Rawalpindi on October 13 and does not leave his hotel until October 16. He remains a mystery and everything he does is most unusual. Three people visit him every day, who, he says, are from the CID. In the hotel register, Said Akbar describes himself as “CID pensioner.” It is just not possible to understand why, given all this, he was not kept under surveillance. The killer was killed. But where is the revolver with which he shot Liaquat Ali Khan? On October 19, Punjab chief minister Mian Mumtaz Daultana said in a speech, “I am ashamed that this vile act took place in my province but I assure you that your government and police were not lax in making security arrangements.” May God will that it be so! Said Akbar murdered our beloved prime minister and leader and he deserved to die for it, but he should have been saved from the lynch mob. No matter what we say, and even if we come up with a million reasons, the fact is that on October 16 two human beings were murdered. One was Khan Liaquat Ali Khan, prime minister of Pakistan, and the other, a resident of Hazara by the name of Said Akbar. |
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Nov
2
To the poorhouse in a BMW
Filed Under Postcard USA
The great American wit and folk hero Will Rogers once said of his country back in the twenties that America was a nation going to the poorhouse in a limousine. It may or may not have been true of the United States, but it certainly is of Pakistan today.
For a country which may be only days away from default on its international debt repayments, whose foreign exchange reserves are barely enough to pay for its imports for six to seven weeks, where inflation has been running at a spiralling rate — now close to 30 percent and rising — we are acting as if there were no tomorrow. Such a country, like a person or a company that is about to end up on the street, is not taken seriously by anyone.
The graver our economic condition gets, the more statements our economic managers make. Every statement in some way either contradicts the one made earlier or says something entirely different. While we all wish Mr S Tareen a long life, he should not tempt fate by declaring every now and then that such and such will occur “on my dead body”. I should also caution him that Weight Watchers Inc has an eye out for him and unless he wants to live on carrot juice for the next six months, he should give that outfit a wide berth.
A friend who has just returned from Pakistan is still amazed at the lack of any clear recognition that we were up that certain creek without an oar. The overall national mood is one of denial, he says. The good things of life, including fast cars, foreign visits at public expense and all that big money can buy, remain the principal attractions. Those who were promising the nation as many rescue plans as the alphabet has letters, have finally landed in the lap of that much-maligned agency which, as was to be expected, is laying down conditions that will leave little wiggle room.
How did we come to this sorry pass? It is “the earlier government’s doing”, we are told. But no one has either the time or the inclination to listen to what is universally known as the oldest excuse in the world.
The Friends of Pakistan, that strange group assembled under one roof by the Americans and perfidious Albion, has so far made no more than cooing noises. With the Saudis showing diffidence, one can only wonder how far the half promises made to Pakistan will go. No one has a red cent to spare given the worldwide economic crunch. And the world does not owe us a living, hard though we find that to accept.
How can realism dawn in a country where everyone is convinced that the presidential election in the United States is being held to decide what to do about Pakistan? The world is a wide, wide place and there are others on this planet who too need assistance but they don’t demand it as a matter of right like we do. The world has run out of sympathy, especially for those who become victims of their own unthinking policies and actions.
In any case, while we slide towards the economic abyss, there is no let up in our desire for high living. Are we the last of the world’s big spenders? Why, for instance, did the prime minister spend five days in Turkey? What for? What good did it do to Pakistan and in what way did it ease our situation? Did it cause the price of flour to become affordable or did it reduce the duration of power breakdowns? Did it bring in the money we need if we are not to default and become an international economic pariah, the basket-case of South Asia?
Consider the register of appointments to high, lucrative offices that grows thicker by the week. The prime minister now has an adviser on textiles. Why did he need an adviser on textiles? Aren’t the ministries of the government set up to deal with just such subjects not good enough? Has the national association of textile manufacturers ceased to exist or is it that suddenly its collective brain has been wiped clean of all wisdom and it no longer is able to advise the government how best it can help the industry, which is Pakistan’s export mainstay? Will the new adviser be successful in persuading the United States to ease the restrictions it has placed on the import of our textiles?
Several governments have failed to have that brought about, so maybe this gentleman is the secret weapon we have been hiding all this time, and he will soon have the US Department of Commerce taking orders from a section officer in his office. We wait in hope.
And then there are the roving ambassadors whose number, at the going rate, is certain to exceed that of the regular kind the rest of the world makes do with. The latest addition is a roving ambassador to be appointed in Washington. The gentleman chosen is an affable and hospitable businessman but how is he going to be able to be of any use or utility when there already is an ambassador here?
We are not living through the last days of the crumbling Mughal Empire when state honours were doled out because the state had nothing else to give. And why are our people always seeking favours that they do not always deserve? Even if the new, incoming government makes someone an offer, why can’t some at least decline gracefully?
Roving ambassadors are utterly and totally unnecessary. For instance, the one being appointed here in Washington will have nowhere to roam except from his Maryland home to the District of Columbia. Until recently, if the government had a special message that it wanted personally delivered to another government, it would pick out one of the serving diplomats as special envoy, who would proceed to the destination indicated, deliver his message as instructed and return home to resume his former position.
One of Pakistan’s ablest diplomats, Riaz H Khokhar, I know for a fact, has undertaken some of these delicate assignments without fanfare and with the discretion that the task demands. Can someone kindly explain to me what the six or eight or God knows how many roving ambassadors so far appointed have accomplished?
I rest my case.
Khalid Hasan is Daily Times’ US-based correspondent. His e-mail is khasan2@cox.net