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ROADSIDE EXTORTION On Aug. 10, we drove to the summer resort, Murree. A short distance from Islamabad, our car was stopped to pay some sort of tax to the tune of Rs.3. My driver handed over a Rs.10 bill to a functionary. This fellow lingered for quite a while before I yelled at him to return the change. At Ghora Gali, again Rs.7 had to be paid for tax. No problem, my driver paid with the exact amount. On Aug. 11, we drove down to Islamabad for some errand. This time around, I made it sure to have Rs.3 handy for the first tax post. At Ghora Gali a Rs.10 bill was given to a collector. He provided us with the corresponding receipt and disappeared with the bill. Several cars, horns conking, lined up behind our car. I lost my temper, came out of the car and, upon employing some very harsh words, the change of Rs.3 was returned. Just to check on this modus operandi of the roadside tax collectors, the next morning we intentionally descended down to Islamabad. On our return the same delaying tactics took place at the first tax barrier. At Ghora Gali I put up quite a show with indecent language, only then the change of Rs.3 came forth out of a bill of Rs.10. Some of the drivers drove away in rage without caring for the respective change. If some concerned authority

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reads my complaint in your esteemed paper, perhaps some measures may be brought into force to put an end to this highhanded fleecing of citizens in broadday. WORDS & DEEDS The appointment of women judges, the opening of womens police stations and banks, the appointment of a commission to check human rights violations and to protect the disadvantaged (Mazdak, Dawn, Sept. 3), are the unprecedented steps taken by Benazir Bhutto in the annals of Pakistans history and should be praised by friends and foes alike. However, the deadly evils: insidious and inexorable corruption, disregard of merits, police brutalities, indifference to the rights of the poor, fast eroding middle class due to economic squeeze, humiliating sight of unending queues of humanity in sizzling heat outside the premises of banks to pay their bills, arrogance of the socalled public servants, nepotism and helplessness of lawenforcement authorities to name a few, are fast destroying the very fabric of our society. Unfortunately, those who have been holding the reins of the Quaids Pakistan are masters of verbosity but the basic problems of the nation dont seem to be worth their attention. It is wonderful to embark upon grandiose projects but their implementation is a different story. POLITICIANS OR MUCK-RAKERS Dispensing with ethics, especially by the lawmakers, who are supposed to run the destiny of a nation, equals to moral bankruptcy. The vilification of veteran politician and Chairman, Kashmir Committee, Nawabzada Nasrullah Khan in the National Assembly by a budding lawmaker, whose father was a sagacious politician, is nothing less than character assassination. As someone remarked in your esteemed paper the Nawabzada has such a striking record of selfless service to democracy over the decades that research scholars of the PML (N) are

Dear Editor

themselves hesitant to say that his son is now a minister in the Punjab government. The other day, when Air Marshal Asghar Khan visited Lahore, Mian Khurshid Ahmed Kasuri (PML-N), who had been associated with Tehrik-e-Istiqlal for last 21 years, invited his former mentor to his residence. Such beacons of hope do glimmer in the gloom that has enveloped many of my compatriots. One can only wish for our national stalwarts to wise up and show at least minimum of respect to those who do not see eye to eye with them. LAWMAKERS An opposition party lawmaker depicted behind a Lota placed atop his mike in the Punjab Assembly (Dawn, Sept. 26) is revolting enough. Any sensible person will lower his head in shame. Mr. Tahir Mirza (Dawn, Sept. 28) could be no more judicious when he said, It symbolizes much that has gone wrong with our politics and political culture. Sir Ernest Benn once remarked: Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedy. ROADSIDE EMBOSSING On driving back from a recent visit to Lahore, soon after the Shahdera railway crossing on the G.T. Road, some burly fellows menacingly stopped my car. Some of these guys stood right in front of the car while others simply hung around. I was scared. A young fellow with a gun (which was actually for embossing) materialised and embossed the registration plate-number on the front and the rear screen. Only then I realized as to what was actually happening. I was charged Rs.30 for the unsolicited service. About a week earlier, SSP Lahore had issued orders to this effect, which is a laudable way of detecting the stolen cars whose numberplates have been tampered with. At the same time, there must be some identification of these roadside embossers.

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CATCH A THIEF Over 296 cars have been stolen, re-registered, and are being used by the influential people in the federal capital and 29 districts of the Punjab as pinpointed by Shamsul Islam Naz (Dawn, Sept. 2). Are the law-enforcement authorities blind to the fact, or they have dirtied their hands as well? DAMNED BUREAUCRACY During the World War I, in the spring of 1916, the British met with a disaster when Turkish forces compelled the surrender of General Townsends army at Kutel-Amara in the British attempt to conquer Mesopotamia. The surrender was a grievous blow to the British prestige. This prompted an intense debate in the House of Commons in London. A report was also called for about India then a colony of Britain. Edward Samuel Montague, who replaced Austen Chamberlain, secretary of state for India, formulated a report, in April 1918, in consultation with Lord Chelmsford, then the Viceroy of India. The report was known as Montague-Chelmsford Report. In the report the bureaucratic system of India was castigated in such terms as intense isolation and centralization, and cumbrous and inept (Zacharias, H.C.E.1933. Renascent India, London: George Allen and Unwin). Montague was so irked by the attitude of British Civil servants in India that in An Indian Diary he wrote: I wish I could get the damned bureaucracy to realize that we are sitting on an earthquake. Kunwar Idris (Dawn, Sept. 9) presents a grim picture of the current bureaucracy as to how it has become a tool in the hands of our politicians, especially by the late Jam Sadiq and not long ago by Nawaz Sharif who was basking in the glory of power. OUR MUCH CIVILIZED PARLIAMENTARIANS

Dear Editor

On September 28 one of the honourable members of the Punjab Assembly took the microphone in the august House with a Lota in his hand. This time around, this uncivil tradition has even been carried out in the National Assembly (The News, Oct. 30) where a PML (N) MNA not only appeared with a Lota but also started rhythmically shouting Lota, Lota . . . and thumped his desk. One wonders at the moral ethics of some of the nations representatives and their unbecoming behaviour. As if this were not enough, the definition of Lota is being discussed in the Punjab Assembly. What has gone wrong with some of our respected parliamentarians that they have stooped so low in cultural debasement? Perhaps they have some vested interest in pottery works to reap a windfall profit. CURZON AND NWFP Further to the humanistic trait of Lord Curzon as pointed out by S.K. Ahmed (Dawn, Nov. 11) I would like to mention that he, in 1893, managed to lay down the Durand line in agreement with the Amir of Afghanistan to indicate the political boundary, while some thirty miles to the east was the administrative line of British India. Close control ended at the just stated boundary, leaving a sort of no mans land between it and the Durand Line. It was the policy of Lord Curzon to pay subsidies to the tribes in this buffer unorganized area. In addition, the government of Indias financed tribal forces called Khassadars, were paid to help maintain some semblance of law and order. No troops were stationed west of administrative boundary. The frontier system of Lord Curzon was, on the whole, an improvement over the policy that had preceded it, but tribal raids were not eliminated. He could, if he wished, unleash a reign of terror accompanied by bloodshed, but he didnt. EXTORTION IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS

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It appears as if brazen-faced extortion in present-day Pakistan has become a way of life. From the humble to the mighty, all are equally helpless in putting up with it. A case in point is the overt imposition of exacting extra tuition fees from students in public schools. I support financially a needy student whose parents can hardly afford to make both ends meet. As if that were not enough, his father is a blind villager and still works hard to feed his family. The student in question studies in the ninth class in a local government public high school. The regular fee is Rs 14 per month, but all of the students, irrespective of their means and of all the grades, are relentlessly forced to pay Rs 150 as the so-called tuition fee. There is no exception, come what may. And look at the standard of education imparted. Simple question like Do you go to the school regularly? cannot be answered. The prevailing conditions, in which the poor students are herded into classes, are no less than those in a concentration camp are. I sincerely hope that the concerned authorities read my letter in your esteemed paper and take some action to check this evil. CERTAINTY Reference Mrs. Durr-e-Shabnums letter, Uncertainty (Dawn, Nov. 14). The lady prophetically and so truly heralds the doomsday of our power-hungry leaders when she writes: It is certain that the nations whose people fight with each other within the boundaries of ones own country, having leaders who are merely pleaders and politicians who possess only subjective approach with their eyes fixed on the throne never had a respectable and worthy end. ENEMIES WITHIN Balkanization of Pakistan! After the drifting away of East Pakistan what is left of the motherland is again falling on

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hard times. Some evil designs are in the offing. International Mohajir Coordination Council (Oct. 18) in the very first meeting held at Baden Hall, London, adopted a resolution supporting the proposal for the creation of a separate province in southern Pakistan. First a new province, then the autonomous provinces and in the end . . .? God save our Pakistan from the enemies within. GOVT. OF THE RICH The governments decision to introduce a law to unseat parliamentarians, Shurrafa, who resort to violence in the House is just a reaction to the happenings in the joint session on Nov. 14. When the supposed lawmakers themselves broke the law with impunity at a forum, which legally protects their behaviour no matter how indecent, why should street-brawlers be held in check? Khalid Jawed Khan (The News, Nov. 18) cannot be more near the reality when he says Those guilty of outrageous excesses are unworthy of representing their constituents. To this it may be added that if their guilt is proven, they should be barred for life from holding any public position, legislative or executive. And, look at this. The deputy leader of the ANP parliamentary party in the NWFP Assembly, Haji Mohammad Adeel accuses the government of promoting lotacracy (The News, Nov. 13). As if this new addition to the English vocabulary were not enough, a schedule is going to be worked out about Modalities of a debate on the Lota issue in the august House of the Punjab Provincial Assembly. Apparently being fed up with Tamashagah our assemblies have turned into, Emmanuel Nazir Mani (The News, Nov. 14) asks, What do we mean by democracy? Of course what he really has in the mind is the definition of Abraham Lincoln, i.e., government of the people, by the people, for the people. What we indeed have in contemporary Pakistan is plutocracy, which refers to the government of the rich, by the rich and for the rich. Lord help us all. INTAKE OF ZINC

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Brig. Majid (Dawn, Oct. 20) said: Nutrition could greatly help remedy the prostate problem and that enlargement could be reduced in 85 per cent cases by adequate intake of zinc (50 mg elemental zinc taken three times daily). Researchers at the Harvard Universitys Massachusetts General Hospital reported that zinc ions can cause certain proteins to convert into an insoluble form that is believed to kill brain cells and that can accumulate into clumps known as plaques that have been found in the brains of Alzheimer patients. Dr. Rudolph Tanzi remarks: Slight increases of zinc in certain areas of the brain could presumably convert the amyloid peptide (protein) from its safe normal form into a type of amyloid that can accumulate into plaques and kill nerve cells. Several years ago, when I happened to work in the United States, the fad was Think zinc a panacea for a host of organic impairments. Adelle Davis, the author of the best-seller Lets Get Well (London: Unwin Hymen Ltd., 1979) emphasises that copper, manganese, zinc, cobalt, and other trace elements are as essential to health as any of the vitamins. Perhaps, zinc should be taken but with a grain of salt. MAUSOLEUM CONTROVERSY J. F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, and Bush, the expresidents of the United States, all had libraries built for them, at the spots of their choice, by the nation. There can be no better tribute as suggested by Dawn, (Nov. 25) than to build a befitting library to the memory of the remarkable leader, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, at Larkana, and shift a rich collection of his books, now lying at 70 Clifton in Karachi, to that site, instead of wasting taxpayers money on the controversial mausoleum. It wont be a bad idea if the protgs of the late General Zia think along these terms. BRAVE NEW WORLD

Dear Editor

Can the brave new world be trashed? Nadeem A. Paracha (Encore Nov. 18) advises Sustain your demonic brilliance and trash the brave new world. Historically, the anarchism surges, ebbs, and resurges to ebb again, as described by Paracha, with its inherent destructive tendencies. Every individual is biologically unique and unlike other individuals (Aldous Huxley, 1960. Brave New World Revisited. New York: Bantam). Freedom is therefore a great good, tolerance a great virtue, and regimentation a great misfortune. The big question is how can we control the vast impersonal forces that menace our hard-won freedom? Freedom is threatened from many directions, and these threats are of many different kinds: demographic, social, political, and psychological. Freedom is menaced and education for freedom is urgently needed. But so are many other things. For example, social organisation for freedom, birth control for freedom, legislation for freedom. The young who now think so poorly of democracy may grow up to become fighters for freedom. The cry of Give me television and hamburgers, but dont bother me with the responsibilities of liberty, may give place, under altered circumstances, to the cry Give me liberty or give me death. Anarchistic inclinations are anti-establishment that lead to nowhere but chaotic predicaments, only to come later under the mercy of the Brave new world for which we have striven so hard. So the brave new world cannot be trashed; but the demonic brilliance, at times monomaniac can be eclipsed under changed circumstances.

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MISSIONS AND OMISSIONS First came Zulfikar Ali Bhuttos then General Zias missions, and currently Benazir Bhuttos New Social Contract. Academics and the public at large are at a loss to understand, if not fully grasp, such political ideologies. Now comes the New Political Order of M.H.K. Bijarani (The News, Nov. 27) which hinges on the Balkanization of what is left of Pakistan into 13 provinces, while the tribal areas are to be merged with the adjacent units of the NWFP; then Northern Areas may be given the special status of a unit under the federal government. An equal number of steps are laid out to facilitate functioning of proposed federation of the 13 afore-mentioned provinces. In a nation that is plagued by inter and intra-provincial feuds, the disintegration of the existing provinces would lead to feudal fiefdoms going at the throats of one another. The Chaudharies, Mazaris, Vaderas and the like are already potentates of their territories. It is high time if some of the learned readers of this esteemed newspaper throw some light on the much-talked about New World Order of President Clinton.

A BOON FOR RADDI-WALLAS Hafizur Rehman (Dawn, Nov. 30) makes an interesting revelation that when he was in service, the government officers used to be asked to fill in declarations of their assets and it is known by all concerned that these forms are full of lies. What can be an eye-opener, he refers to a statistician who was saying the other day that such declaration forms of public servants, now joined by those MNAs and MPAs, if laid end to end would cover the distance from Landi Kotal to Keamari. Is this the only thing they are good for? Have they no other use at all. A short while ago, I accompanied my son to the PIA Cargo Terminal, Islamabad, to retrieve his unaccompanied baggage, which came through by air from London.

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First, I tried myself but had to give it up and a clearing agent had to be resorted to. No fee was settled until the baggage would be cleared. The agent worked like a machine. He visited at least 12 different paper-filing desks, and some of these had to be revisited. The charges levied were arbitrary and most of these simply cooked up. In the storage hall, for instance, a porter was to be paid and a contractor was to be paid. While coming out of the Cargo Terminal, there was another set of obligatory octroi charges. How much have I to pay? I enquired. Pay whatever you like was the reply, and no receipt was given. Hafizur Rahman has aptly given the title A boon awaiting raddiwallas to his column. CORRUPTION Linda Colley traced in an article (Dawn, Nov. 3) history of corruption in Great Britain and it dates back to long before the 1832 Reform Act, continuing unabated till the present time. Corruption cast shadows over the government of Prime Minister Miyazawa in Japan. Corruption is undermining faith in the Turkish institutions to such an extent that commentator Gungor Mengi wrote: We are dealing here with the fate of society. We believe that to obtain just, clean administration that we deserve, we must clean away the dirt from the past (Dawn, Nov. 1). The corruption graph in the Russian democracy has touched such dazzling heights that the very economy is in shambles: As long as 100 to 200 general directors who have embezzled tens of millions of rubles from the state are not in prison, no macro-economic concept will help us First Deputy Prime Minister Anatoli B. Chubais (Dawn, Nov.11). In our public dealing departments it is almost impossible to get any work done without paying bribe. A citizen once stated: Anti-corruption cells have themselves become corrupt; its easier to pay than to protest (Dawn, Feb.15, 1992). An article entitled, Corruption: unfathomable sea in the desert in Dawn (March 28, 1992) painted a grim picture thus: Negligence, embezzlement, frauds and

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rampant corruption are the words of the day . . . Over Rs. 75 bn lost through corruption. Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto (Nov. 26) directed Interior Minister Naseerullah Baber to immediately conjure up such a system as could ensure quick punishment for corrupt parliamentarians, politicians, something never dared before. Corruption is more powerful than anti-corruption Malik Qasim, Chairman, the Federal Anti-corruption Committee (Dawn, Sept.11). In addition, Malik Qasim noted that his committee was facing unbelievable resistance in dealing with cases against corrupt elements alleged to be involved in plundering national resources. He added: We are now the most corrupt and dishonest nation in the world (Dawn, Dec.8). All those who have presided over the anti-corruption bodies have spoken very strongly, including Lt-Gen Majeed Malik in the days of Junejo government, but they have been able to do very little to reverse the ghastly process. In his article, Sultan Ahmed suggests: It is imperative that those who have made vast fortunes through corrupt means should be dispossessed of their wealth and not allowed to get away with their loot and become industrialists and establish new industrial dynasties (Dawn, Dec. 8). It is in common knowledge that rampant corruption is eroding the very fabric of our society, and we are passing through the worst phase in our history in this respect. No doubt corruption is a universal evil but it varies in its magnitude from country to country. In the Third World countries, its a way of life due to the lack of work ethics, where everyone wants to get rich overnight. So long as our moral values keep on decaying, corruption will thrive. In Spanish America, there is a word for corruption, i.e., soborno, and the corrupts have devised an ingenious way of asking for bribe: Seor, si Ud. colabore conmigo, voy a solucionar su problema (an English equivalent would be Sir, if you collaborate with me, I will solve your problem). INGRATITUDE

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Edhi flies to UK: felt endangered in Pakistan (Dawn, Dec.9). The renowned social worker and chief of the Edhi Foundation has said that he left Pakistan without even telling his wife as he feared he might be assassinated. Not only that, the Edhi Trust spokesman, in London, stated that Maulanas whereabouts were unknown, and he had gone into hiding (Dawn, Dec.11). In the history of Third World countries there is not a man, who has done so much for so many in such a short space of time other than Maulana. What reward he has received from a thankless nation? And, to boot this headline (in an Urdu daily Dec.12): Maulana is playing some game attributed to Imran Khan. TRAVAILS OF PUBLISHING BOOKS BY AUTHORS Shahzad Ali Arif (Dawn, Dec.16) narrated the story of Shamsa Masood who faced discouraging hurdles in the process of getting her book published in Pakistan, and that too at her own expenses, which involved a sum of Rs. 65,000 for 1000 hard-bound copies. Back in 1984, while I was staying in Venezuela, I had to contact 37 publishers in the United States and only one of these agreed to publish my novel, The Faceless Enemy: A True Story of Injustice. I had to check the galley proof only once; the rest was the headache of the publisher. I settled back in Pakistan in 1988, and wrote a book, Israre Sadaf, on Urdu poetry. As customary in the publishing business abroad, 53 publishers were contacted in Pakistan, and only two of them had the courtesy of replying, understandably with negative response. In 1992 I had it published on my own accord, costing Rs. 32,000 for 500 copies; almost all of these books were sent free to the national libraries and other men of literature, not a single copy was sold. Another project was undertaken related to a sort of historical fiction, Saltanat: The Saga of a Desperate Warrior. In 1993, I happened to spend about a year in

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London, and availed this opportunity to approach some British publishers. Altogether 148 letters were written for the purpose of having my novel published. Several copies of the synopsis thereof were mailed as well. As many as 112 publishers responded negatively whereas 36 letters went unanswered. Apart from the British publishers, others in the continental Europe and USA were also contacted, but only to receive the rejection slips. Why not have my frustration recorded in The Guinness Book of Records? The Correspondence Editor, Amanda Brooks, of the Guinness replied: In our 1994 edition we did publish details of the most rejections received by an author and this record is held by Bill Gordon who received 176 rejections for his manuscript before it was actually published. At last to satisfy my vanity, I am getting my book published with the aid of my own funds, no less than Rs. 75,000 for 1000 hard-bound copies; hopefully, it should be off the press soon. Literary history is full of stories about great books that were rejected umpteen times and finally sold. John Creasey, for example, a prolific English writer who created several popular mystery storiesaltogether under 28 pseudonyms he published 600 bookscollected 743 rejection slips before selling a single book. Unfortunately, we are not a nation hankering after literary enrichment, and publishers fleece those who are lucky to see their books through press. Under the prevailing circumstances, if you cannot manage to publish your book, in Pakistan, with your own resources, then forget the idea of being an author. Or, somebody has to be somebodys somebody to seek a grant from the relevant governmental bodies.
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DISREGARD OF LAW The leader of the Opposition, Mr. Nawaz Sharif, is violating the law by traveling till now as the Prime Minister of Pakistan according to press

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reports. He has not surrendered his official passport despite request by the Foreign Office since June 1,1994. The well-known columnist, Art Buchwald once remarked: I cant speak for others, but dont know any law-abiding citizens. That doesnt mean they dont exist it is just that I have never met them. The Spanish proverb Laws, like the spiders web, catch the fly and let the hawk go free (Dawn, Jan. 5) perfectly reflects the state of Pakistani citizens who are unfortunate enough not to have any political clout. GLAUCOMA & BLINDNESS Reference to the letter captioned, Glaucoma and blindness from Dr. M. Aslam Ansari (Dawn, Dec. 21, 1994). This eye disease, a major cause of blindness in the United States, results from prolonged stress and is a typical reaction of adrenal exhaustion (Selye, H. 1956. The Stress of Life. New York: McGraw-Hill). When the adrenals cannot produce aldosterone, so much salt is lost from the body that fluids pass into the tissues at a focal point of stress. Because the eyeball is no longer elastic, the intra-ocular pressure increases. This fluid not only pushes the optic nerve back toward the brain, often damaging it, but also forces the lens forward distorting vision and perhaps closing off the tiny drainage canal in the lower part of the eye. The symptoms of glaucoma vary from person to person and can come on quickly without warning. Sudden severe stress can bring on temporary or even permanent blindness. Yet most of the symptoms have been corrected by vitamin B2, essential before cortisone can be produced and glaucoma has cleared up soon after salty foods were eaten and adequate diet adhered to, and anti-stress formula taken six times daily (Adelle Davis, 1965). CAPITAL PUNISHMENT

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For drug trafficking (more than 15 gm or 0.5 ounces of heroin) death penalty is awarded in Malaysia and till March 5, 1992, 98 persons have been hanged for this crime in Kuala Lumpur. Likewisely, in Singapore the 1975 drug law mandates the death sentence for anyone convicted of trafficking in the above-cited amount. A Malaysian convicted of drug trafficking was hanged at Singapores Changi prison on March 1, 1992. As of April 4, 1992, 37 persons have been hanged. A Dutch national was executed at the Changi prison for drug smuggling (Dawn, Sept. 24, 1994), even an eleventh hour clemency appeal from the Hague couldnt save his life. Exactly one week after the Dutchmans hanging, two Malaysians and a Singaporean faced the same fate (Dawn, Oct. 1, 1994). In Sri Lanka a Pakistani national was executed, and this is the third Pakistani national condemned to death for narcotics offence since 1986 (Dawn, Nov. 24, 1994). In China a drug smuggler was executed (Dawn, Nov. 24, 1994) and in Southern Iran eight drug traffickers were shot to death (Dawn, Aug. 21, 1994). Capital punishment for drug smuggling also exists in the Gulf StatesSaudi Arabia and the UAE. Since the public beheading of drug smugglers was introduced in 1987 in Saudi Arabia about 600 Pakistanis have been decapitated publicly for their alleged involvement in the heroin business. This was disclosed in the Senate by Senator Qazi Hussain (Dawn, Jan. 12, 1994). After this disclosure, 47 persons, mostly Pakistanis, have been beheaded for drug crimes (Dawn, Jan. 22, 1994). Apart from this crime, five Saudis and a Pakistani have been beheaded for sexual assault on boys. No executions have been reported in the UAE. And, this news: District and Sessions Judge and District Qazi, Kotli, have ordered for publicly beheading an accused for murdering a man; the execution will be carried out at Shaheed Chowk, Kotli (Dawn, Jan. 2). The big idea behind public executions is to teach a lesson to law-breakers. Does it work? Is capital punishment a deterrent?

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DEFIANCE The Punjab government had announced its decision to impose ban on carrying and displaying arms in public on Nov. 30, 1994. It came into effect on Dec. 10, 1994 (Dawn, Dec. 11). A picture was published in Dawn of Jan 14 depicting an activist of a sectarian party blatantly carrying a rocketlauncher on the Multan Road, Lahore. Is the law blind (justice is said to be blind) or the authorities are hopelessly impotent to force their will? Theodore Roosevelt once said: No man is above the law and no man is below it: nor do we ask any mans permission when we ask him to obey it. SILENCE The Swedish government, after receiving guarantees from Estonia that it would keep three horses (Tez, Sherdil and Sardar) in a six-month quarantine before transporting them to Sweden, accepted the gift from Gen. Abdul Waheed. Mysteriously, the horses flown from Islamabad on Dec. 19, 1994 landed at Stockholm instead of Estonia. The Swedes without batting an eyelid put the three beautiful thoroughbred horses to sleep. The tragedy is that no infection was actually found (Dawn, Jan 16). Why the world famous animal loving Royal Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) of the Mother of Democracy is silent on the subject?
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. KASHMIR & HURD The British Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd, while in New Delhi, made an oblique reference to Pakistan for supporting the Kashmir freedom-fighters (Dawn, Jan. 8) and gave a tacit approval to Indias stand on Kashmir, namely: an end to foreign intervention in the Valley, a

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dialogue under the Simla Agreement to restore normalcy and a move to initiate a political process in Jammu and Kashmir. He reiterated the same three-point formula to resolve the Kashmir conflict when at Lahore (Dawn, Jan. 8) and Islamabad (Dawn, Jan. 10). As if Hurds tilt towards India were not enough he harped on the unfortunate refrain that time had obsoleted the UN Security Council resolution of Aug. 13, 1948 and Jan. 5, 1949 that embodied the plebiscite provision in Kashmir (even Admiral Nimitz was appointed as an arbitrator but India backed out). Brushing aside the validity of the resolutions, he opted for fair and free elections instead, and remarked: Let us not talk like lawyers and historians. Let us look at the reality and move forward instead of looking back (Dawn, Jan. 10). Apparently, about move forward, Hurd is not aware of the adage: Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present (Marcus Aurelius). About looking back suffice it to say, Those who do not remember the past are doomed to repeat themselves (American philosopher George Santayana). In so far as the question of UN resolutions is concerned, Lord Avebury reminded Douglas Hurd that UN Secretary General had personally told Avebury that Security Council resolutions, like Parliamentary Acts, remain in force until they are repealed or amended (Dawn, Jan. 17). Referring to the Simla Agreement, Lord Avebury pointed out: It is unrealistic to assume that a process, which has been dormant for 23 years, is suddenly going to produce results. Douglas Hurds logic is explicitly exposed in the remarks of Jamil D. Dadabhoy (Dawn letter, Jan. 13), i.e., These days commerce and trade considerations are the guiding lights of foreign policies of the Western countries. The primacy of the Market seems to be the ruling idea: India offers a much larger consumer market than Pakistan does and there is a more scope for comprador (Spanish for buyer) foreign investment in India. Douglas Hurds logic is no more than a premeditated hurdle to make the already difficult situation more complicated.

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BRAVO ARJUN SINGH Indias Home Minister Arjun Singh resigned, accusing Prime Minister Narasimha Rao for failing to stand up for minorities and keeping soft on corruption (Dawn, Jan. 25). Furthermore, he has deplored the lack of urgency in probing the 1991 assassination of Rajiv Gandhi and asked the party to apologize to Muslims for failing to stop the 1992 demolition of the Ayodhya mosque by Hindu extremists. Instead of paying heed to what seems to be true, Rao expelled Arjun from the ruling party. According to Albert Schweitzer Truth has no special time of its own. Its hour is nowalways, and indeed then most truly when it seems most unsuitable to actual circumstances. Its a wishful thinking to think of some of our conscientious ministers to resign as a protest against the runaway inflation, the disintegration of administration, the pervasiveness of corruption and the conduct of our legislatures that combine to portend impending doom. GLAUCOMA & BLINDNESS Further to my letter captioned Glaucoma & blindness (Dawn, Jan. 16) it may be added that Dr. Jamil A. Hakim (Dawn, Nov. 6, 1991) outlined four different types of glaucoma (kala pani or motia), i.e.: 1) childhood glaucoma, usually due to improper formation of the outflow channels from the eye, as the infant eye develops it is stretchable and a build-up pressure causes it to expand; 2) open angle glaucoma in which case the intraocular pressure is elevated but there is no discernible abnormality of the outflow systempainless, slowly progressive condition; 3) sudden blockade of overflow rather like the sudden closure of a dampressure building up rapidly to a very high level and associated with much pain and redness and sometimes vomiting and nausea; and 4)

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secondary glaucoma, including a wide variety of condition in which the pressure builds up due to some other recognizable ocular or non-ocular cause such as inflammation. Haji (Dawn, Jan. 21) about a blinding disease, pigmentation of retina or Retinitis pigmentosa, commonly known as RP, afflicts people between the age of 15-70 and was considered as incurable. A team of Russian surgeons who conducted six operations, with Pakistani surgeons, for the first time in Pakistan (Islamabad) introduced alloplant technique to protect patients from blindness. The Russians claimed that they have developed treatment to fight Retinitis pigmentosa (Dawn, Dec. 23, 1991). About 1,200,000 persons in Pakistan suffer from glaucoma. An expert in biomedical technology, Dr. A. Mateen Ahmed, now a US citizen, designed a valve for implantation in the eye to introduce a cure for life for glaucoma. This valve was introduced for the first time in Pakistan (Dawn, March 22, 1994). Another type of blindness is caused by corneal disorders and more than 20 million people suffer from this disease in Pakistan (Dawn, Jan. 26, 1992). This condition known as corneal opacity is easy of treatment if cornea is available at the right time for transplantation. Sri Lanka is the only country in the world, which sends corneas (cornae) to other soils. The Eye Donation Society of Sri Lanka has sent corneas to more than 57 countries and its membership includes more than 550,000 Srilankans, mostly Buddhists, who have willed their eyes to the society after death. A Japanese, Horokoshi Massao, 60, became the patient No.25000 in whose eyes the corneas of a Srilankan woman, Aslin Nona, 65, were transplanted and he recovered the eyesight (El Universal, Caracas, Dec. 10, 1989). Earlier the corneas were banked from the eyes of legally executed prisoners. When Sri Lanka abolished the capital punishment in 1956, there was a halt to cornea transplantation. The Eye Donation Society was founded in 1961.

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CORRUPTION Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto declared that after fighting dictatorship we are now determined to root out poverty, corruption, lawlessness and sectarianism from the country (Dawn, Jan. 29). What a wishful thinking? The elimination of the above-cited institutional evils is not within the reach of our masters, only if corruption were to be harnessed. But, as pointed out by Barrister Baachaa (Dawn letter, Jan. 30) Where to get Lord Nolan from to chair the committee? With the apology to Malik Qasim. PERRYS VISIT The US Defence Secretary, Dr. William J. Perry, embarked upon a tour of Egypt, Israel, Pakistan and India. The purpose of the trip is, the Pentagon had announced, to enhance US military relationships with the countries the Secretary was going to visit (Dawn, Jan. 1) and is armed with plans that would require Pakistan to make its defence planning and budgeting transparent (Dawn, Jan. 5). Earlier an aide of Perry had remarked at a Pentagon briefing that non-proliferation would not be discussed. However, it emerged later that the Secretary would also discuss the NPT with Pakistani and Indian authorities though the emphasis of the talks would be on defence cooperation. Human Rights Watch/Asia (HRW/A) called upon Perry to take up human rights issues with Pakistan and India and urge Islamabad and New Delhi to Take steps necessary to curb the abuses (Dawn, Jan. 8). In a letter to Perry HRW/A Executive Director Sidney Jones stated we are particularly concerned about the continuing level of abuses in Kashmir. In a statement on his arrival at Islamabad, Perry (more than ten years have elapsed since another US Secretary of Defence Casper Winberger toured Islamabad at the Peak of Afghan War) said: There are differences between the

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United States and Pakistan. I am not here to dwell on what might be wrong in our relationship. I am here to promote a broader security dialogue so that the two countries could better understand each other. Perry held extensive talks with Pakistan top military brass and Defence Minister Aftab Shahban Mirani and the two sides agreed to revive the Pakistan-US consultative group, commonly called the CG, as a forum for regular consultations of defence matters and security cooperation. The CG was established in 1984, met ten times, before its unofficial discontinuation in 1990. On Jan. 5, India and the United States signed a landmark agreement that William Perry said opened a new era in relations between the former Cold War antagonists. Pakistan expressed full confidence in the US Defence Secretary William Perrys even handed policy (Dawn, Jan. 13). What an even-handed policy! Kashmir is still burning, and the US is a silent spectator. India is fullsteam ahead without any letup in its nuclear programme, and reluctant to sign NPT, human rights being flagrantly violated in the valley under India. Indian agents meddling in Pakistans internal security which resulted in the closure of the Indian consulate at Karachi. Pentagons official statement before Perry left the United States to build a defence relationship on a new and even-handed basis is hypocritical and biased since issues of vital concern to Pakistan, i.e. Kashmir, F-16s, Pressler Amendment, and Indias high ambitions, were not high on the US discussion list. General K.M. Arif (Dawn, Jan. 11) arrived at the correct conclusion when he wrote: The US policy of neither releasing the purchased F-16s to Pakistan nor returning the money paid by the latter has eroded the formers credibility and reliability as supplier state. Notwithstanding, certain positive aspects of Perrys visit have come to light, i.e., (1) He accepted the reality of Pressler Amendments failure to serve its purpose as, Pakistan is not willing to accept that pressure; (2) ruled out declaring Pakistan a terrorist state as there was no supportive evidence to put it on the terrorist state list; (3) Pakistan is no more being asked to roll back its nuclear programme or sign NPT as Americans now realize that

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even Pressler law and suspension of its military and economic aid had failed to goad Pakistan sign it; and (4) the Secretary emphasized at New Delhi that his country will use its influence to ensure there is no third war (sic) between India and Pakistan over Kashmir dispute.

In conclusion, one cannot help but agree with Ghani Eirabie (Dawn, Jan. 25) when he said: America may not be very friendly to us; it may have failed to come to our rescue in the past; but it certainly is not committed to destroying Pakistan the way India is. To preserve our sovereignty and. territorial integrity, we should not hesitate to sup with the Devil if unavoidable.
DEATH OF A GLOBE-TROTTER A foreigner, Mr. Larner, on a world-wide tour on bicycle, was crushed to death under the wheels of a speedy truck near Sarawan in Muzzaffargarh district (Dawn, Jan.3). On top of that his documents and money were stolen and police failed to identify his nationality. Never mind Mr. Larner. Life is a great surprise. I do not see why death should not be an even greater one. Vladimir Nabokov (famous Russian author of the bestseller novel, Lolita, now living in the United States). DEMOCRACY George Bernard Shaw once remarked: Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few.

TEA AND CANCER Reference T.A. Faruquis letter captioned, Tea and cancer (Dawn, Jan. 29) that relates to a substance in tea leaves blocking carcinogenous agents in

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bloodstream; drinking more tea could fight cancer, but only without milk. Andaleeb Ahmed (Dawn, Oct. 2, 1991) traced a brief history of tea, which comprises the dried and processed leaves of the plant Camellia sinensis boiled in water. Its use originated in East Asia, encompassing China, Burma, Laos, Vietnam, as well as Japan and is believed to date back more than 4,000 years. There are three main classes of tea in the market, namely: 1. Black tea, the production of which includes fermentation; 2. Oolong tea, which is partially oxidized; and 3. Green tea, which is produced without fermentation. The composition of fresh tealeaf includes 19 constituents like Flavanols, Amino acids, Polysaccharides, Protein etc. The old advertising slogan, Take Tea and See was on the mark. Several research groups now report evidence that drinking large amounts of green tea may offer some protection against cancerRobert Cooke (Dawn, Oct. 2, 1991). The reason for anti-cancer effect of green tea is not known. But studies on laboratory animalsand some evidence based on lung cancer incidence among the Japaneseindicate that the chemicals in green tea may inhibit tumour growth. It is still too early to say what the significance of this is for humans said Dr. Allan Conney, Director Laboratory of Cancer Research at Rutgers, New Jersey. However, Dr. Hirota Fujiki, Chief Cancer Prevention Division of Japans National Cancer Research Institute, added that he has identified a chemical called epigal locatechin gallate, or EGCG, as a major anti-cancer compound in the green tea leaves; the application of which checked the tumour progress in mice. Dr. Flung-Lung Chung, a researcher with the American Health Foundation, New York, found an answer to the question: Why are Japanese smokers less likely to get lung cancer than American smokers? Maybe, because the Japanese drink so much green tea. Other recent studies in Japan and the USA show that drinking green tea also

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helped block various types of cancer in mice (Dawn, Tuesday Review, Feb. 25, 1992). Plain black tea also contains the anti-cancer compound but in smaller amounts. The Sunday Times, London, reported that the US scientists have found evidence that drinking tea regularly may help prevent certain types of cancer (Dawn, July 25, 1994). The scientists said that a substance in the leaves of green and black tea prevented the spread of cancer by blocking carcinogenous agents in the bloodstream originating from eating cooked meats and fish. Researches at the Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, have found that putting green tea extract on mouse skin cancer actually causes the tumours to partly regress; adding green tea chemicals to animals drinking water helped block development of skin cancers (Dawn, Tuesday Review, Dec. 20, 1994). IODINE DEFICIENCY An estimated 20 million people are said to be at risk in the endemic areas (deficient in iodine), with 8 million suffering from various forms of iodine deficiency disorders (IDD) (Dawn leader, Jan. 30). (IDD also refers to insulin dependent diabetic in contrast to NIDDnoninsulin dependent diabetic). Healthy thyroid glands in the neck produce a hormone, thyroxine, which keeps body activities at an optimum rate of speed. Thyroxine is made up of nothing more than amino acids and iodine, yet persons whose thyroids are under-active usually do not improve when adequate protein and iodine are given them. The reason is that when too little iodine is supplied, the cells in the thyroid glands break down, haemorrhage, and appear to be virtually floating in a pool of blood (Follis, R.H., 1959). Eventually they are replaced by scar tissue, which cannot possibly produce the needed hormone, and the entire body suffers accordingly (Adelle, D., 1974). Similarly, a goitre rarely disappears when iodine alone is given because iodine has no effect upon the masses of scar tissue. When vitamin E has been given with iodine to persons having under-active thyroids, the amount of

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iodine taken up by the glands and the quantity of thyroxine in the blood (protein-bound iodine) have increased almost immediately (Costa, A., 1955). Mild iodine deficiencies are associated with toxic goitre, a high incidence of thyroid cancer ( Matovinovic, J., 1962; Benson, J., 1956), an elevated blood cholesterol, and death from heart disease (Marek G., 1962; Danowski, 1963). When only 8.5 mg of potassium iodide has been given daily to children for a few days, iodine was so avidly absorbed by the thyroid that its effect lasted for six months (Najjar, S.S., 1963). It is about time that the iodinization of salt has been made obligatory and the target is Dec. 1995 for universal iodinization in Pakistan. LANGUAGE OF ASSEMBLIES In the British House of Commons Prime Minister John Major called Tony Blair, the Leader of the Opposition, as dimwit. Another Tory minister called an opposition front bench spokesman a nitwit, and a Labour member, Tony Banks, referred to Transport Minister Steven Norris, as a bullsh . . . r (Dawn, Feb. 10). These adjectives prompted the Speaker, Betty Boothroyd, to warn members that their resort to strong language in recent months had damaged the reputation of parliament and reminded them to observe good tempers and moderation when speaking in the House. In retrospection, Osmund (a national English daily, Nov. 24, 1994), while reflecting the comportment of honourable parliamentarians in our national assemblies, remarked: Their language and behaviour have shown not even a semblance of decency. A school-going child upon returning home from school asked his mother: Mummy what is the language of our assemblies? Mummy got puzzled and enquired from his son the reason for putting up such a question. The child replied: The master in the classroom threatened all of the students that if they wont keep quiet, then he will have to use the language of the assembly. Poor mummy had a hard time to put her son off.

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It appears that the language of the assembly is going to become a household reprimand for the public at large. FREE ARMS CORNER The law-enforcement agencies are sometimes overzealous in apprehending those who break the law by brandishing their arms in public and the latter are equally zealous to brandish them. Why not a licence-free corner in all the major cities of Pakistan where the trigger-happy folks, with or without licence, are free to display their arms to their hearts content? After all we have a precedent of the famous Speakers Corner in the Hyde Park, London, open to all to give vent to their feelings without caste, colour and creed, and with impunity too. ENCROACHMENT A makeshift mosque has appeared in a portion of the Nasirabad commercial market in the M. Block of Gulberg III (Lahore), and residents feel that this creeping encroachment will soon lead to the construction of a pucca structure (Dawn, Feb. 4). A student of Jamia Ashrafia, who leads prayer there five times a day, couldnt give any reason for establishing the mosque at a public place in the presence of a nearby Jamia (main) mosque. It wont be out of place to mention that Federal Shariat Court in the mid 1980s disallowed construction of mosques in public places without the permission of the authorities concerned. But who cares when it boils down to religious fervour and sectarian zeal? ABOUT PROFESSORS This refers to the Professors prefix touched upon in the write-up of Barrister Baachaa and followed up by Hameed (Dawn, Feb. 22).

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The Concise Oxford Dictionary defines professor as the one who makes profession (esp. of a religion), teacher of high rank esp. holder of a highest rank or senior teaching appointment in university and professional teacher, sportsman, etc. In the Spanish language an equivalent academic rank is profesor or catedrtico. The other Romance language, French, characterises Professeur as titulaire dune chaire (i.e., occupant of a chair). As far as the criterion of teaching is concerned, the professional career in a university, in the UK, begins with a demonstrator and escalates from junior lecturer, senior lecturer, reader to the full professor. The system in the United States involves about the same categories but with the addition of a prefix (instructor excluded), namely, assistant professor, associate professor and full professor. In Latin America, the corresponding set-up is the same as in the United States; full professor, however, is denominated as Profesor Ttular. Every step up the ladder not only demands the stay of certain years but also one has to undergo through a gruelling ordeal of publish or perish. I know some of my colleagues, back in Venezuela, who got stuck up for years at the same level of escalafn (Spanish for roster) for the simple reason that they failed to publish the required number of research papers and never attained the prestigious height of a Profesor Ttular. Another fellow at Universidad Central de Venezuela, Caracas, was fired from the job for staying too many years at the same category and not publishing the obligatory number of research papers to climb further up. Professors of non-academic activities are a different breed, but the misuse of the coveted title of an academic professorthe fruit of several years of published research papers and exposure to international scholarly gatherings by someone who doesnt qualify the long established norms is an outlandish impersonation. By the way, in Latin America a schoolteacher is known as Profesor de Liceo (Spanish for school) and a university professor, Profesor Universitario.

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ARMS DISPLAY IN PUBLIC Three partially masked and armed sectarian participants in a protest march on the Mall, Lahore, depicted in a picture (Dawn, July 30, 1994) and two policemen stood there confronting them rather meekly. It emerged from the news that 35 other processionists covering their faces to avoid identification held Kalashnikovs aloft. On Nov. 29, 1994 armed members of a sectarian rally directed traffic at gunpoint near Neela Gumbad, Lahore. It was welcome news that the Punjab government has banned the display, carrying and keeping of arms in public places, educational institutes and places of worship. The order was to be effective from Dec. 10, 1994. The Opposition MNA Ejazul Haq, who was displaying Kalashnikov at a public meeting in Rawalpindi, was arrested on Feb. 17, 1995. Ironically, Mian Nawaz Sharif, the Opposition leader, reacted with the statement: A violation of democratic norms and the worst kind of state terrorism. Perhaps, Mian Sahib is unaware of what John Major said: At crucial moments in their careers, political leaders utter words, which haunt them for the rest of their lives. Tahir Mirza, in an article captioned, Making a mockery of the law, (Dawn, Feb. 20) made a judicious analysis: Here is a personwhose job is to make and approve laws and who has sworn to act as custodian of laws and constitutionopenly brandishing a Kalashnikov, declaring that it is unlicenced. On top of that he dared the authorities to arrest him. Yet when the authorities do so, his party says it is an act of state-sponsored hooliganism. What a logic! When a lawmaker is nabbed for breaking the law, its state terrorism. At the same time when an ordinary citizen is nabbed, its a breach of the law. Hermann Hesse once remarked: Those who are too lazy and comfortable to think for themselves and be their own judges obey the laws. Others sense their own laws within them.

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ZHIRINOVSKY Russian ultra-nationalist and opposition leader of the third largest party in the Russian parliament, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, has warned Pakistan not to provoke India and threatened If India has a broad-based agreement with Russia (in the event of a war) then we should send troops against Pakistan (Dawn, March 9). He went to the extent of suggesting that India should annex Pakistan and Bangladesh. Before hurling such imprudent statements, Zhirinovsky should have been a bit wiser to remember a Spanish proverb: Lengua es enemigo de uno (tongue is ones enemy). After all It will, generally, be found, that all great political questions end in the tenure of land. What is the nature of that tenure is the first question a statesman should ask himself, when forming an opinion on public events (Benjamin Disraeli). Besides, at present, luckily Zhirinovsky is in no such position to order Russian troops into foreign soils. But, as one of his late comrades, Nikita Khrushchev, once observed: Politicians are the same all over. They promise to build a bridge even when there is no river. BAD GOVERNANCE Karachi has been helplessly at the mercy of hidden hands, foreign hands, common delinquents, organized terrorists, sectarians, political vendetta and, now, drug Mafia that wreaks indiscriminate havoc. Under the prevailing circumstances, to point an accusing finger at a particular band of miscreants is no more than a subterfuge, as no solid evidence of the specific perpetrators of crimes is coming forth. At the face of it, all are no more than conjectural interpretations. Whatever the case may be, the government cannot be absolved of the responsibility of protecting the life and property of citizens of which there are three classes. The first are the rich, who are indolent and yet always crave more. The second are the poor, who have nothing, are full of envy, hate the rich, and are easily led by demagogues.

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Between the two extremes lie those who make the state secure and uphold the laws Euripides. After so much of water has flown through bridges, the Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto elaborated the hidden hand theory: when the Afghans were confronting the Soviet troops, the West helped form myriads of holy warriors to engage in jihad! After the withdrawal of Russian forces, countries like Algeria, Egypt, Pakistan and Yemen had to cope with the holy warriors, trained in Afghanistan who got involved in factional wars on their soil. (It can be deduced that some of these fighters and their ammunition found their way into Karachi). Ms. Bhutto vowed to crush the terrorists ruthlessly, even at the cost of her life, and believed that the murder of two innocent American diplomats was a premeditated actthis assassination and the recent killings of innocent citizens demand a special measure (Dawn, March 11). Were hundreds of citizens gunned down before, including women and children, even inside imambarghas and mosques, not innocent? Ayaz Amir (Dawn, March 13) has made logical statement: Let us understand once and for all that the problem with this country is not sectarianism or lawlessness in the abstract. The problem is bad and dishonest government. This land today is crying for just a semblance, the barest modicum, of honesty and skill in the managing of its affairs. GOOD GOVERNANCE In a work entitled Kutadgu Bilig written in 1069 for the Turkish ruler of the Karakhanids in Asia, the ideal principle of government was described (Antony Bridge, 1983): To control the State requires a large army. To support the troops requires great wealth. To obtain this wealth the people must be prosperous. The laws must be just. If anyone of these is neglected, the State will collapse. Suleiman the Magnificent (Sultan of Turkey, 1494-1495 to 1566, the founder of Ottoman dynasty) promised to rule

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the empire on just such principles, and that boded well for everyone. HAJI MORARJI I intended to do this write-up as an obituary homage, but decided to do it now when a few days ago I saw in Dawn Morarji turns hundred (Dawn letter Haji Morarji, April 10). A radio network reported the death of Morarji Desai on April 10the same very day on which the letter was published in Dawn. An intense feeling carries with it its own universe, magnificent or wretched as the case may be.Albert Camus FIDDLING WITH MERIT Recently, various ads appeared in national newspapers for diversified provincial and federal government posts. Thousands of unemployed victims hopefully applied to get fixed up. The written interview calls, along with corresponding roll numbers, were mailed to the aspirants. I cannot say for other districts but in Gujrat the mockery of merits was staged in an immaculate dramatic way. The constituted interviewing committee consisted of two grade 17 officials (one of them a friend of mine) and another official of grade 18 acted in the capacity of a chairperson. The instructions, in black and white, from high-ups, made it explicit that only those candidates had to be interviewed who possessed the roll number slips already shipped out to them. So far so good. Just before the proceedings commenced, in front of each member of the committee there was a rubber and a pencil lying on the table. The chairperson explained that the marks to be awarded to each of the interviewed persons must be jotted down in pencil (understandably to be altered later on). Are the mark sheets to be signed in pencil as well? enquired one of the members. No, the signature has to be in ink.

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When, where and who is going to fiddle with the marks to deprive the rightful candidates of their rights? Niccolo Machiavelli once remarked: Though fraud in other activities is detestable, in the management of war it is laudable and glorious, and he who overcomes an enemy by fraud is as much to be praised as he who does so by force. In this case fraud is not in the management of war but in the management to favour someones favourite at the expense of someone who is unlucky to be a favourite of someone. Ayaz Amir can be no more realistic when he said: . . . The one quality which colours the national outlook these days is disgust, disgust with everything, the state of law and order, the crumbling of the administrative machinery, the denial of justice to those who stand the most in need of it, the antics of our rulers, our inability to understand the ethos of democracy and so on (Dawn, April 10). A LONG TERM-TERM ANSWER Far-right presidential candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen speculated , Ailing (suffering from prostate cancer) French President Francois Mitterand might commit suicide in a bid to raise sympathy vote for socialist candidate Lionel Jospin (Dawn, April 16). Perhaps Le Pen is aware of what Barry Taylor said: Suicide is a long-term answer to a short-term problem. THE US VISIT Prior to Prime Minister Benazir Bhuttos visit to the US (April 5-13) some spadework was done to pave the way for a meaningful understanding. For example, not a minute was wasted in sending Ramzi Ahmed Yousif to the US. Then two drug barons were extradited to the States. The actual visit focussed on six apparent objectives, namely: 1) the withdrawal of the Pressler amendment; (2) delivery of F-16 fighter jets already paid for or the refund thereof; (3) prevailing upon the US President to help resolve the Kashmir issue; (4) promotion of trade and US investment in Pakistan; (5) to seek help in combating

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terrorism; and (6) assistance in dealing with ever mounting sectarianism. Undoubtedly, Ms. Bhutto, in the annals of Pakistans history, is the very first leader who has the courage to spearhead a fight, in her own country, against Islamic fundamentalism, and related causes, maintaining that Pakistan is once again a strategic partner with the Unites States in waging struggles, as a front-line state, for truth and justice against sectarianism. But, unfortunately, there can be no return to the warmth which characterised Pakistan-US relations during the days of cold war or the time of the Afghan jihad (Dawn leader, April 4). Time was when Pakistan, during the Afghan War, channeled $9 billion in the aid from the US and Saudi Arabia to arm and help Mujahideen. With the Russian departure, and in the absence of a White House certificate that Pakistan still lacked a nuclear bomb, the Pressler amendment became applicable to Pakistan in September 1990. US aid to Pakistan, about $600 million a year during the height of the Afghan War was reduced to about $13 million today; the F-16 jets that Pakistan had already purchased for $650 million were embargoed, and the money was also not refunded. The United States and Pakistan issued a joint statement on April 11 on the occasion of Ms. Bhuttos official visit to Washington which covers about 20 points of agreement or mutual appreciation for the efforts taken to combat narco-traffic, reaffirmation of two leaders support to prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, etc. In so far as Kashmir is concerned, President Clinton gave an impression of its being a disputed territory. The Pressler law remains as it was except that the US President expressed his intention to work with Congress to reverse the Pressler amendment, because it was a law directed only against Pakistan. Furthermore, I dont think it is right for us to keep the money and the equipment, he added. Paula Newberg observers: Pakistan is impossible to govern, but its governors make it worse. They are symbols of the failure of the political system. This conclusion is based on the following realities: higher education virtually

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not operating anymore, no clean water and less and less clean air, population growth is out of control, energy supplies have no hope of catching up with it, Karachi is burning, Islamic zealots are agitating, heroin and Kalashnikovs tear at the social fabric, and civil authority stands helpless. Adding an increase in intolerance, sectarian clashes and the humiliation of ordinary citizens before arrogant public servants from a petty clerk to a boss may lengthen this list. And, the human rights are begging to be considered. Yet all is not lost. Sixty-two MoUs have been signed with the American investors to the tune of $6 billion. The Prime Minister took an unshakable stand against any unilateral pressure for signing NPT, and Pakistan has been internationally projected as a state effectively challenging terrorism, extremism and drug trade. Those who feel bitter about the outcome of the visit should be wise to remember: Dont give way to bitterness, which has a way of clouding your accomplishment. Accept what is and move on. TROIKA! Federal Minister Anwar Saifullah remarked: Though decisions are taken by the Chief Executive (Prime Minister) there is a sharing of power. Like judiciary and parliament, military was also a kind of check on the working of the government (Dawn, April 30). The prevailing circumstances, in contemporary Pakistan, seemingly corroborate the conclusion of Paula Newberg who said: Pakistan is impossible to govern . . . (Time, April 17). After all, It is a greater work to educate a child, in the true and the larger sense of the word, than to rule a state.William Ellery Channing TRAVAILS OF PUBLISHING In the article Its no joke selling books (Dawn, April 7), Mr. Schazad Ali Arif sketches a vivid picture when he says: Published books in Pakistan are quite impossible to find! Sometimes I wonder if there is anything like a

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publishing industry in Pakistan in the first place. So many books published here fail to see the light of a bookshop. When I was in Venezuela, employed in the capacity of a professor of parasitology, the university published three of my highly specialised reference books in 1984, 1986 and 1991. Printing, binding, marketing and selling were all taken care of by the concerned dependency; I only collected the royalty checks. Another of my humanistic novels entitled, The Faceless Enemy, A True Story of Injustice, was published in the United States in 1985. Here again, apart from the galley checking, there was no other headache, royalty coming through all the way to me in Venezuela. Here in Pakistan, let alone selling, publishing is a big hassle. All the expenses are borne by the writer. I published a book on Urdu poetry, Israre Sadaf, with the aid of my own funds in 1992. I shipped out quite a few copies to the news media for its review. No sooner did the reviews appear in the print than hordes of booksellers pounced on me asking for such unreasonable discounts that if I were to agree to those I would be rendered a pauper if I had not any other source of income. The same applies to my latest novel, Saltanat, The Saga of a Desperate Warrior, reviewed in this paper. Those in power and with political clout have resorted to ingenious ways to sell their books, that is, through the police personnel and other local men of means on official payroll. A well-known advocate in Gujrat compels his clients to buy books from him written by an influential high-up. Charles Brower once remarked: There is no such thing as soft sell and hard sell. There is only smart sell and stupid sell.

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WAR & HUMANITARIAN AID There are at least 56 wars under way all over the world, compared with 34 in 1970. More than 22 million people have been killed in conflicts since World War Two ended in 1945 Arnhem Land (The Cost of Conflict, Dawn, Nov. 9). In 1993, 25000 people were killed by wars worldwide and perhaps 26 million were displaced in their own countries. Sri Lankan civil war alone has displaced 600,000 people. The IFRC and RCSs alone spend $16 billion on aid. Francoise Bouchet-Saulnier of Medicins Sans Frontiers (Doctors Without Frontiers), who has pointed out that UN resolutions on Iraq, Yugoslavia and Somalia referred to the protection of aid convoys but not the protection of victims: The civilian population is regarded solely as the recipient of aid . . . As if soap and milk powder could prevent bombs from falling on hospitals, or generosity could offer protection against murder and expulsion (Dawn, April 27). About the value of life, Pietro Aretino remarks: Life is a toy made of glass; it appears to be of inestimable price, but in reality it is very cheap. WHAT HAPPENS TO CRIMINALS? Chaudry Sahebs above captioned letter (Dawn, April 4), in which he cites a number of alleged perpetrators of criminal activities, is an eye-opener for the watchful eye of those who are basking in glory of power. In a nation (with rare exceptions) bereft of ethics, given to Mammon-worship, trampling human rights with impunity, prone to extra-judicial executions, sectarian to the hilt, gullible to be exploited by pathological liars for a change of helm, accustomed to nepotism, insensitive to fellow-sufferers and so on, dear Mr. Chaudhry the answer to your question is Nothing happens. And, if at all something does happen, its an eye-wash.

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TERRORISM At a conference held in Cairo (Dawn, April 3), the UN was divided over the definition of terrorism. The word terrorism has been demoted to terrorist crimes and its similarity with organized crime recognized. Terrorism aims at overthrowing a regime while organized crime, profiting from regimes weakness, wants particularly not to overthrow it. Terrorist crimes, as the term now stands for terrorism, has evolved from an individual act of violent unlawful activity to an organization of global proportions. Its aim is common but faces are many, namely: (1) Political terrorism, e.g., the Maoist Sendero LuminosoShining Path guerillas of Peru; Tupac Amaru, after the name of the last Inca king, Argentina; Sandinistas, Nicaragua; Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionaria Colombiana, FARC; United Revolucionaria Nacional Guatemalteca, URNG; Hamas, Middle East; Italys Red Brigade; the Japanese Red Army; the Baader-Minhoff gang of Germany; LTTE, Sri Lanka. (2) Ethnic terrorism, e.g., Bosnia-Herzegovina, Rwanda, Burundi. (3) Inter-religious terrorism as demonstrated by Moro Islamic Liberation Front, the Philippines; Irish Republican Army and (4) Intra-religious terrorism, Pakistan. Undoubtedly, Pakistan faces an uphill fight to combat the organised crime, perpetrated by drug barons, which is eroding the very fabric of our society, but is not a threat to the security of the country. However, the real menace is the intra-religious terrorism, which has been allowed to propagate for such a long time that its roots have proliferated to an alarming magnitude. If not checked once and for all, it could lead to dire consequences. As pointed out by Dr. Saleem (Dawn, March 14) She (the chief executive) must now gather all her courage and make a definite choice. She cannot continue to appease sectarian, fire-emitting zealots and at the same time remain committed to the establishment of a liberal democracy. About decision-making Mark Twain has said: Each man must for himself alone decide what is right and what

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is wrong, which course is patriotic and which isnt. You cannot shirk this and be a man. DEATH IN SEINE Three skinheads, influenced by the rabid rhetoric of JeanMarie Le Pen, while coming from the Front National rally, chased a 29 year-old Moroccan immigrant Abraham Bourram, who for the fear of getting beaten up jumped from a bridge into the Seine riverwas drowned to death (Dawn, April 3). The skinheads disappeared into the Front National crowd. As a token of respect, in an unprecedented gesture, President Mitterrand went to the bridge where Bourram drowned and threw a bouquet of lilies into the water. Shabqadr assassination, the brutal slaying of Iqbal Messihdo we see a manifestation of parallel magnitude here in Pakistan? Its up to the readers of this esteemed newspaper to decide to whom applies the saying of Daniel J. Boorstin: Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some hire public relations officers. HONESTY Rehm Din, a taxi-driver of Karachi, is looking for Muhammad Aslam, a local lawyer in the same city, who gave him a check in the amount of Rs.81, 900 to get encashed, which he did but the lawyer failed to turn up to collect his money (Dawn, April 9). It is an old adage that honesty is the best policy. This applies to public as well as private life, to states as well as individuals.George Washington. When George Washington phrased the above-cited axiom, the state of Pakistan was non-existent, otherwise he would have excluded states from the application of his saying. Rehm Din, an ordinary citizen, deserves the highest praise of all those who cherish the lofty principle of honesty above any thing else.

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BARBARITY Israel is the only country in the world legally to sanction violent interrogation methods in the world. The official euphemism, coined by a judicial inquiry in 1987, is moderate physical pressure. This moderate physical pressure notwithstanding, a Palestinian prisoner, who apparently suffered brain damage during interrogation by the Shin Bet secret police, died on Tuesday (Dawn, April 27). This happened while the victim was in judicial custody. How about the much heralded Shabqadar extra-judicial murder of a member of minority Ahmadia community, by the religious zealots, in the court premises of a tehsildar? The answer lies in Religiosity is as far removed from religiousness as charity from kindness.Mazdak in his article (Dawn, March 21). FALLING STAR Star-sprinkled night is a sight to behold and a memory to cherish. Alas, the gems of the celestial bride take to falling. Our star has fallen at the feet of his Jewish heartthrob, a recent convert to Islam. Twinkle, twinkle little star How I wonder what you are!

Make hay while the sunshine, as all fall down, dust to dust ashes to ashes.
POLES APART

I bet my last paisa that the Oxonian Henry Kissinger is miserably bereft of all those characteristics, which enable the Nixonian Henry Kissinger shine ever so brighter even after the eclipse of his boss, now in other world.

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ECONOMIC TERRORISTS The term economic terrorists is generally employed in Iran to describe non-productive speculators and profiteers, who emerged after the 1979 Islamic revolution and grew more powerful during the 19801988 war with Iraq and still have a strong presence in the Iranian economy (Dawn, May 15). Tehran is going to introduce death penalty for speculators and smugglers. The law would treat economic terrorists the same way as counter-revolutionaries. Perhaps, one can learn a lesson from the neighbouring country. But a great deal of learning can be packed into an empty head not to be put into actual practice. LEAD POISIONING The effects of lead poisoning are more dangerous than those of many other pollutants because they are insidious and are not immediately noticeable (Dawn leader, April 21). Liver damage caused by various industrial poisons leaded gasoline, benzene, nitrobenzene and numerous hydrocarbonshas been corrected by diets high in protein and vitamin C; and damage from such chemicals was found to be greatest when these nutrients were undersupplied (Kazantziz, 1963; Shils, 1949). A major function of vitamin C is its non-specific role as a detoxifying agent (Ershoff, 1957, 1958) and it has been known to prevent the toxicity of fluorine, saccharine and other artificial sweeteners, lead, etc. and excessive vitamins A and D as well as drugs. Slight liver causes vague symptoms such as digestive disturbances, loss of energy, and inability to detoxify harmful substances (Irvine, 1959), but damage is rarely suspected until it becomes severe. For example, a gentleman who was neither old nor an alcoholic went into the hospital one Monday afternoon; Wednesday night he

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died of cirrhosis apparently an aftermath of lead poisoning contracted while working in a battery factory. In the same vein, while I was working as a Professor of Parasitology at Universided de Oriente, Venezuela, a news item appeared in the Daily Journal, published in Caracas, that a physician, along with his family, from Los Angeles, visited Guadalajara, Mexico, on holiday. His wife fancied an earthenware jar in a shop, which the shopkeeper used for storing water that remained relatively cool in hot climate. It was polished with a brilliant glaze, so she bought an identical jar and took it with them when they returned to Los Angeles. She took to keeping the jar filled with water in the refrigerator for the drinking purposes. After about a year or so, one of the kids developed a malignant cerebral tumour that proved to be fatal. An autopsy revealed the presence of lead in alarmingly high percentage. Shortly afterwards the other son suffered the same fate. An elaborate investigation led to the source of lead, i.e. the same Mexican jar and its glaze proved to be a mixture of mercury and leadthe same process in vogue in Pakistan as well. Nephritis frequently develops after such stresses as severe infection, particularly strep throats, poisoning from lead, etc. (Eales, 1956; Zimmerman, 1956; Kolff, 1953). Food additives pose another sort of health hazard. Lead and arsenic have been used as colouring agents; plaster of Paris and alum as flour improvers (Dawn, Feb. 29, 1992). Their use has ceased in the developed world as a result of proper management, but in the developing world these are still present in the same form or the other. The adducts are chemicals bound up with DNA or proteins and are often found in people exposed to pollution, resulting in cell mutations that may lead to cancer (Dawn, July 6, 1994).

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HUMILIATION OF UN TROOPS BY SERBIAN BULLIES About 22,000 strong UN Protection Force in Serbia (UNPROFOR) have been condemned to systematic humiliation by Serb political leaders. Having sent a force into Bosnia-Herzegovina to ensure the delivery of humanitarian aid, and to offer protection to civilian population, the troops-contributing countries have ordered the lightly armed and scattered peacekeeping force to avoid confrontation for fear of reprisals. President Slobodan Milosevic, of what has remained of the former YugoslaviaSerbia and Montenegrorefuses to recognize Bosnia unless sanctions against his country are suspended and unconditionally lifted (Dawn, April 26). Sarajevothe capital city of Bosnia with 380,000 people is under Serb siege for more than three years. The Bosnian Serbs ignored an ultimatum to surrender guns seized from UN arms dumps. Consequently, on May 25 and 26 the NATO planes bombed weapons stores at the Serbs stronghold in Pale to enforce a heavy weapons exclusion zone around Sarajevo. There was ferocious Serbs response to two raids by NATO warplanes and the Serb captured all UN heavy arms points around Sarajevo. About 400 UN peacekeeping and military observers have been captured or surrounded by Serb forces. The Bosnian Serb Army (BSA) used the UN hostages as human shields to ward off further NATO bombing raids on potential targets. The Serb officials defended taking hundreds of UN peacekeepers hostage, calling it as an act of self-defence. Presidents of eight central and western European nations denounced Bosnian Serbs for using UN peacekeepers as human shields and called for an immediate halt to fighting in Bosnia asserting re-emergence of barbarism at the 20th century is not to be tolerated. General Ratko Miladic, of Bosnian Serbs, promised that the UN hostages will no longer be handcuffed to poles or warehouses, but will be taken to those locations that are

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NATO targets (Dawn May 31), and will not be released either. The French military, angered and humiliated by TV pictures of its UN peacekeepers taken prisoner by Bosnian Serbs, asked the French media to mask the soldiers faces. The footage prompted President Jacques Chirac to order French commanders in Sarajevo to resist humiliation and ignore UN rules withholding fire if doing so would not cause their men to be himiliated. Chiracs orders led within hours to a French counterattack to recapture a bridge the Serbs had seized from French troops. The intransigent Serb leader Radovan Karadzic (declared a war criminal) resorted to a blackmail with the demands, i.e., demilitarizing all the safe zones in Bosnia, a guarantee of no further airstrikes, and respecting the arms embargo if the UN hostages are to be released. The bullying attitude of the arrogant Serbs has been explained by the inefficiency and indecisiveness of the United Nations and these are the two factors (Dawn leader, May 29) that have led to the Serbian brutalities and intransigence. Obviously, the world conscience has become subservient to the whims and fancies of those who have vested interests in geopolitics. It must be remembered that there is no oil in Bosnia and its geographical location is not strategic enough to be counted upon. On top of that its a Muslim country and the Muslim countries have been mostly singled out as the breeding ground for terrorists. A VICIOUS TRIANGLE At a bare distance of about 200 yards from the Peshawar city Railway station, a flourishing market has come up right on the railway tracks (Dawn, May 20) and the business runs from 0500 through 1700 hours. Accidents notwithstanding, both the people and the authority look askance. Worst still, alongside the railway line, which is right in the heart of the city, people have illegally occupied the railway and the city corporation land and have raised structures which can be sold and rented out at the rate

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between Rs 2000 to 2500 per month. Obviously, the illegitimate income is shared with officials of the Pakistan Railway, the Municipal Corporation and the police. Almost everyday we come across, in the national media, stories of the disregard of law and rampant corruption. All of this must be in the knowledge of the PROs of the governing lite, but a government in the last analysis is an organised opinion. Where there is little or no public opinion, there is likely to be a bad government, which sooner or later becomes an autocratic government.W. L.M. King DOUBLE STANDARDS Notwithstanding the amorality, double standards in the contemporary global political arena have escalated to a norm from an exceptional act of statecraft. The international and national double standards may be roughly classified as follows: The Indian army chief has recently admitted that in the country there is no political threat. This rules out stockpiling nuclear arms as a deterrent. Then why this reluctance to join the NPT? A Russian nuclear ministry spokesman accused the United States of duplicity in its position on the Iranian deal (Iran being helped by CIS to build nuclear reactor for peaceful purposes), citing Washingtons intention to send the same kind of reactors to North Korea as part of the Carter-brokered settlement. The Nuclear Non-Proliferation treaty (NPT) is a pure demonstration of double standards by the nuclear lites since it aims at protecting the rights of the five permanent Security Council members which have the bomb. The dignitaries of the London Nuclear Club, founded in 1975 by Canada, France, Germany, Japan, the UK, the USA and the former USSR didnt take any action against Israel which stole a whole shipment of US nuclear fuel. India has detonated a nuclear device but the Pressler Amendment applies only to Pakistan. The Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Commission (IAEA) was set up in 1957 as a part of the

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US President Dwight Eisenhowers Atoms for Peace initiative. In 1993 the IAEA acknowledged receiving US satellite intelligence on North Koreas alleged nuclear weapons programme. Consequently, the US billed North Korea as a rogue nation. This is typical of the double standards in the operation of NPT . . . the US itself has hundreds of nuclear warheads in South Korea. There are different rules for friends and enemies. While sanctions are upheld against Iraq for the alleged NPT infringement, Washingtons close ally, Israel, generally acknowledged to have more than 200 nuclear warheads, escapes censure.Thussu (Dawn, April 12). The Americans always tend to utter their suspicions and their allegations against Pakistans nuclear programme. But they close their eyes to other spots of the Orient inspite of the hardly-concealed build-up of nuclear deterrent power there an editorial in the German daily Allgemeeine Zeitung (Dawn, Sept. 30, 1994). Human rights and double standards: Kenneth Blackwell, head of the US team on UNHRC, meeting in Geneva (Dawn, Jan. 1, 1992) made the call to refrain from passing resolutions condemning Israel as the 53-nation commission debated for the 25th successive year human rights violations in occupied Arab territories. All hell breaks loose in the so-called democratic world when human rights are abused elsewhere, even to an isolated extent. Amnesty International accused the United States of double standards as the respect of human rights is emphasized in other countries, but the abuse of these rights within the States is looked askance. Geo-political double standards: On March 31, 1994, the Security Council in a split vote, with ten supporting and five abstaining, decided to impose drastic sanctions against Libya if it did not surrender by mid-April its two nationals accused of blowing up the Pan Am 103 airliner over Lockerbie, Scotland. Let an impartial international tribunal try all those guilty in horrendous crimes such as downing of the Libyan airliner by Israel in 1973, destruction of 13 Lebanese planes by Israel, shooting down an Iranian airbus by a warplane in 1988, etc. Why

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Libyans alone?Shammed Akhtar (Dawn, April 15 1992). British and French UN forces in Bosnia are preparing their plans for withdrawal from unfortunate ethnically targeted country if the embargo against sales of arms to Bosnia-Herzegovina was lifted by the UN (Dawn, July 22, 1994). On the other hand, the Serbs of Bosnia get full support in their arrogance from the champions of democracy, British, French and Russia. ADDICTION A small but startling news item, Arrested thrice on bribe charges says: The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) on Tuesday arrested red-handed a WAPDA linesuperintendent for accepting Rs 1,500 as a bribe from a trader (Dawn, June 21). This WAPDA line-superintendent in Multan was earlier twice arrested by FIA in two corruption cases but WAPDA did not take any action against him. Its not surprising, the FIA should know better than that. Corruption, on becoming a way of life, travels upstream, from a small cog in the machinery to the system in-charge. Who is going to take action against whom? My suggestion to FIA: Its better to keep moving forward even in times of indifference. Avoiding action can become progressively paralyzing. REVERSAL OF ROLES Early on Monday morning, a Bosnian government convoy braved Serb gunfire along a precarious mountain route to bring food to an embattled but grateful United Nations mission in Sarajevo (Dawn, June 14). One of the most important tasks assigned to the UNPROFOR, when the UN troops first arrived in Bosnia in 1992, was to ensure that humanitarian aid reached civilians in government-controlled areas threatened by Serb separatists. Now, the role is other way round. The lack of will on the part of big Powers, and contradictory points of view held by the UN and NATO to bomb the Bosnian Serbs, have encouraged the intransigent

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Serbs to an alarming extent. Bosnian Serbs, on June 11, stole a UN convoy carrying 60 tons of aid destined to the isolated Muslim enclave of Zepa. In so far as the Bosnian Serbs are concerned the adage, Power comes through the barrel of a gun holds true to the letter. HELPLESSNESS A small but disturbing news in a newspaper recently reflecting the moral bankruptcy of some higher-ups says: A Punjab provincial minister has been living like a common MPA in the MPA hostel in Lahore for more than a year and a half. Notwithstanding the transfer of some senior executives from the Punjab, they are still occupying the official residences. The minister in question asks, frustratedly: Is there nobody to take notice of it? If this is the plight of a minister, then where do we stand as ordinary citizens? GREAT LEADER OF COMMON MAN The above captioned write-up by Khan Sohail Sultan, in a recent issue of Dawn, while he was staying in Hotel Delphi, Liverpool, in June 1970, refers to the late Harold Wilson on his election campaign. About 16 years ago, when I was in Venezuela on the staff of Universidad de Oriente, in the city of Cuman, the presidential candidate, Dr. Carlos Andrs Perez was on election campaign. And, what a campaign it was! He traversed almost the entire country on foot, followed by thousands of admirers wherever he went. There were no bodyguards and no display of arms either. He also visited Cuman, (my place of residence). Right from the airport, which was about 5km from the downtown, he walked, walked and walked. As I belonged to the same political party, Accin Demortica, and had known him before as well, he came to pay me a visit at my residence.

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He was surprised not to see my sister-in-law and enquired No lo veo la otra seora! ( I dont see the other lady). She is expecting a baby in the clinic, I responded. While he was still in the house having some refreshments, the news came that she gave birth to a son. Felicitaciones, he remarked. Without having been asked, he suggested smilingly that the first name, Andrs, of the infant, after his name, was not a bad choice at all, because he would be a winner in life like him. So it was. He was elected President of the Republic of Venezuela not once but twice. Unfortunately, he couldnt finish his next term due to impeachment and was thrown out of the high office. The Latin American society is known for violence. Political vendetta is deeply rooted. When a political party takes over, the vanquished, both in public and private sector, mostly have a hard time. Here was a candidate, mixing with throngs of people without any fear of coming to grief. There seems to be no better definition of a real leader than in the following words: As for the best leaders, the people do not notice their existence. The next best, the people honour and praise. The next, fear, and the next the people hate. When the best leaders work is done, the people say, we did it ourselves.Lao-Tzu

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CHECHNYA & OIL One of the 21 republics of Russia is a 20,000 sq. km 49 land- locked country, Chechnya, north of the Caucasus Mountains. It is rich in mineral resources like oil, gas, zinc, lead, molybdenum, etc. The bulk of 1.2 million Caucasians are Muslims, as attuned to the Quraan as to the military manuals. There are 150,000 Russians living within the country. The long history of the freedom-loving Chechens dates back to 1810 when they fought the Tsarist armies till 1859. Two other attempts at liberty were made in 1931 and 1945.

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Josef Stalin ordered a superpurge in Chechnya in August 1937; in the first phase of operation about 14,000 Chechens and their ethnic kins, Ingushis, were deported, about one in every 30 of the republics. In 1944, a halfmillion Chechens were herded into cattle cars without any notice and sent to Central Asia. More than 200,000 are estimated to have perished in the operation. The stated reason was that the Chechens collaborated with the Nazis, but Nazis never occupied their territory. Hundreds of miles from their native land, they were removed in exile in Kazakhstan until 1957, when the Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev allowed them to return home. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Chechens declared their independence as did many other non-Russian Soviet republics. The former General of now defunct Strategic Soviet Command, Dzhokhar Dudayev, became the Chechen President. President Boris Yeltsin, who had accepted the independence of the non-Russian republics, could not reconcile himself rather illogically to that of Chechnya and dispatched troops on Dec. 11, 1994. Yelena Bonner, widow of the famous scientist Andrei Sakharov in a statement pointed out three reasons of Yeltsins troops in attacking Chechnya: (1) Yeltsin has yielded to the influence of the olden days military hardlines; (2) new oil cartels within Russia that cannot afford to lose the oil-rich sources of Chechnya; and (3) Yeltsin has sought to shore up his flagging popularity among ordinary Russians by being tough on Chechen rebels. The police action, as President Yeltsin describes the December 1994 invasion of Chechnya, is really part of a huge struggle over energy in the Caucasus, Caspian Sea and Central Asian regions. Grozny, the ruined capital of Chechnya, is now recognized as one of the most critical points in Russias battle with Iran and Turkey to control the all important export routes toward the West for the energy reserves in and near former Soviet republics. The Russian oil pipelines run through the Northern Caucasus to the Russian port of Novrossisk on the Black Sea. An officer in the Czars army more than 150 years ago, Mikhail Lermontov, the Russian poet, said of the ferocity of the Chechens: And savage are those canyons tribes,

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their god is freedom, their law is war. Current Russian Defence Minister Pavel Grachev should have read Lermontov before saying in December 1994 that a single paratrooper regiment could storm the Chechen capital of Grozny in two hours. The Russians may occupy the plains of Chechnya, but they will not be able to exploit the vast oil and gas deposits that lie beneath, or protect the railway, the refinery and the oil pipeline on the ground. Fighting guerilla warfare is like eating soup with a fork. Lawrence of Arabia ACID RAIN The acid rain phenomenon has its roots in sulphur dioxide, which industry pours into air to the tune of ninety million tonnes annually. The real culprit is smoke from low-grade coal, high in sulphur. Sulphur and nitrogen oxides are carried, through the agency of winds, into the atmosphere. The oxides combine with water vapour with the resultant formation of sulphuric and nitric acids. Consequently, rain, sleet or snow become polluted that result in acid rain. When the acid rain falls, it kills aquatic life, marine and freshwater, trees, vegetables, leaches out soil nutrients, and activates heavy metals contaminating water supply system. In humans, respiratory diseases have been linked to exposure to fine, airborne sulphur dioxide, in particular fine and ultrafine particles therefrom have been considered most dangerous. According to Orvosh (Dawn letter, Aug. 24) some of the most serious respiratory problems occur not as a result of rain, but from the combination of stack effluent with atmospheric water vapour near the surface of the earth.

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LEGAL ACTION Since June 1992, with the beginning of the Operation Clean-up in Sindh, the MQM Chief Altaf Hussain, who has been convicted in one case for 27 years in absentia, is reportedly facing over 150 cases. Mr. Unnar has 53 cases against him, and Mian Nawaz Sahrif and family have been implicated in about 140 allegations. Considering the snail-pace of court trials in most cases in Pakistan, the proceedings might prolong well into the 21st century. Are these legal actions worth a while? Seemingly, George Bernard Shaw had a prophetic vision about the future state of affairs when he said: Our laws make law impossible; our liberties destroy the freedom; our property is organised robbery; our morality an impromptu hypocrisy; our wisdom is administered by inexperienced or malexperienced dupes; our power wielded by cowards and weaklings; and our honour false in all its points. I am an enemy of the existing order for good reasons. GREEN GUARDS Reference the above captioned letter (Dawn, Aug. 27). It states, Ever increasing population means more industries, more agriculture, more power plants, more vehicles, more combustion . . . The hazard is twofold; production of more pollutants and shrinkage of natural landscape as more and more land is needed for buildings, industries, agricultural fields, etc. Air we breathe is supposed to be colourless, tasteless and odourless. Mostly it is composed of nitrogen and oxygen. However, there are small amounts of many other gases too like helium, krypton, argon, neon, xenon, methane, hydrogen oxide, nitrous oxide, carbon dioxide and water vapour. Air also carries dust, animal fur, fungi, invisible mites and mite droppings. Some of the air-pollutants come from natural causes like volcanic eruptions, natural gas leaks, smoke and gas from forest-fire. Most air pollution is caused by the activities of human beings. The cars we drive, the factories we run, the

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cigarettes we smoke and the wood we use to produce power. More than half of the air pollution, in the United States, is the direct result of the vehicles such as airplanes, trains, buses, trucks, boats and automobiles. As they burn fuel to run their engines, motor vehicles spew out lead, carbon monoxide, and ozone just to name a few. Following the build-up of carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, sulphur dioxide, hydrocarbons and some other trace gases, the earths environment has become increasingly toxic. These gases could also increase the retention of the suns radiant energy in the earths atmosphere. Known as the greenhouse effect, the phenomenon could cause shifts in climate and temperature all over the world. With an exploding population, the fast rate at which people are cutting down forests all over the world and burning fuel such as gas and coal, we are producing more carbon dioxide than plants can take out of the air. Scientists think that this imbalance may help explain the greenhouse effect that appears to be heating up Earths atmosphere and slowly changing global climate. Plants take up carbon dioxide and use it to make food, in the presence of sunlight, through a complicated process of photosynthesis, and the bye-product is the oxygen made by plants we inhale - the cycle goes on and on. In Colombia, ranchers and lumberjacks have already cut down 40% of the rainforest, which covers 29.6 million acres (12 million hectares) along the countrys 62,000 miles (100,000 km) long coast. Deforestation is progressing at rate of about 395 million acres (160 million hectares) a year. All is not lost. Indias forest cover is rising. Till 1980, 150,000 hectares of forests were stripped annually to make way for farms and illegal settlers. The forest conservation law enacted that year, along with afforestation efforts, has slashed this loss down to 29,000 hectares a year. I wonder, if someone of the distinguished readers of this esteemed daily can come forth with some data related to the actual deforestation / aforestation situation in Pakistan.

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FLEECING! So-called specialists charge up to Rs.1000 for a five minute consultation in which a specialist hardly looks at the patient as he is busy writing the prescription (Dawn, Aug. 27). I am going through this type of fleecing for the last six months as my wife suffers from a painful muscular condition of her left thoracic region (no cardiac involvement). After getting fleeced in my hometown, Gujrat, I was recommended by a physician friend of mine to consult a famous specialist in Lahore. An appointment was accordingly arranged. My wife hardly occupied the patients stool, in the specialists room, when he asked her a couple of questions and simultaneously leafed through her medical file, that I had placed before him. Dr. Sahib, she has been prescribed a whole battery of analgesics without any relief, I interrupted. He never paid any attention to what I said, hurriedly scribbled the prescription and asked for Rs 400 as his fee. The consultation definitely took less than three minutes. When I bought the prescribed drugs, it was a shock to me. Because the generic names of the medicines were the same that had been already administered, only the trademarks were new. The adage Making money for its own sake creates a poverty of spirit. You should enjoy what you earn, seems to have been coined for the inhabitants of another planet. ENDANGERED SPECIES Concerning India a study by the UN Economic and Social Aid Commission for Asia and Pacific says that baby girls have fewer chances of survival than boys in the country, not because of the health care, but because of the widespread practice of killing girls before birth or soon after (Dawn, Sept. 4).

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What a shame! The largest working democracy in the world is practising the ghastly acts of homicide without remorse. Its about time that the WWF should step in to launch a campaign against girl child becoming endangered species.

Proletarian Minister
J. Salik the Federal Minister for Population Planning & Welfare rides a bicycle, unescorted, from the airport to the Press Club, Lahore, for the purpose of attending the first death anniversary of Nisar Usmani (a newspaper picture, Sept. 4). He is a rare breed, son of the soil, among the arrogant and vainglorious galaxy of our ministers and the like, who take pride in the ostentatious flippancy of the socalled power without the least interest of masses at their hearts. Good leaders must first master their own behaviour before they try to legislate others actions. LOTAISM The ism of lotaism is not an ism in real sense of the suffix, which is supposed to be typical conduct or condition, denoting classes or denoting qualities, rather it seems to be a creed hinging on Mammon worship. The lotas of the Pakistan political arena tilt towards the partisanship that affords an opportunity to bulge their coffers. Consequently, the lotas devote their full time to hanker after wealth. The masses can welter in misery, the lotas follow their own political course. THE BARE BONES Under the above caption (Dawn, Sept. 1) the erudite columnist, Ardeshir Cowasjee, as a result of the conversation with a senior Pakistani international

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civil servant, tolls the doomsday bell for Pakistan the way things are shaping up at the moment. Therein is an interesting paragraph which states: Pakistan only avoids the sort of hyperinflation that Latin America has because the illiterate Pakistani masses have not yet discovered the dollar. The day they start rushing to convert their rupees into dollars to protect themselves against inflation the game will be over. Yes Sir, indeed the masses have started to discover the almighty dollar. The other day, I happened to transact some business in a foreign bank, Lahore, and was shocked to notice that the majority of the customers were illiterate seeking the help of others to convert their rupees into dollars for the deposit thereof. I have been in Venezuela for the last thirty years, and the course this country is traversing towards economic ruination is beyond the comprehension of the inhabitants of this part of the world. Before 1982, one bolivar (the Venezuelan monetary unit) was equal to about US$19. To combat galloping inflation, from laity to lords made a run at the banks to buy dollars. Consequently, these days one US dollar amounts to bolivares 187 and the Venezuelan government has been forced to adopt stringent foreign exchange measures. One can hardly get permission to remit US$200 abroad. However, the retired professors are entitled to US$1000 monthly anywhere in the world. The penultimate paragraph of Cowasjees article cannot be more near to reality in foretelling, There is a risk that Pakistan will join the many countries in Africa and soon become one of the failed states . . . The real fear is that if things slide as they are doing, sometime early in the next century there may not be a State of Pakistan. In the end Cowasjee asks: Let any who may disagree, barring of course the government parrots, write in. In view of the facts outlined in the article, one has to be stubbornly unreasonable to deny the gloomy situation pervading the country. Oh God, help us all. .

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FROM SLAUGHTERHOUSE TO LIBRARY Once upon a time there was a flourishing King Library in the Town Hall, Gujrat, though no large, yet reasonably stocked, where not only the educated dignitaries of the area but also students enjoyed reading in a relatively congenial environment. More than four decades back, apart from my own curricular books, it used to be the only source of knowledge for me. Now, what is left of it is simply a disgrace. About three-fourth of the books are either stolen, doled out to the powerful, or issued but not returned. The maintaining of the records is nominal at the most, or not at all bothered about when it refers to somebodys somebody. Some rare and precious books have gathered dust beyond recognition. In good old days, before the partition of the Indian subcontinent, the library in question, housed an informative book, i.e., Hgels Travels in Kashmir and the Punjab, which served as a basis for my frequent trips to Kashmir. I am working on the memoirs that involve my sojourns abroad and other important incidents in this part of the world. Last year I went to the library and looked for Hgel. The man in-charge didnt know about its existence. On insisting, he went through a dog-eared register with the resultant information that it was indeed issued to a gentleman. I followed it through, and he kindly gave me the book back to be returned to the library on his behalf. On Feb. 23, 95, I walked down to the library, returned the book and requested the librarian to have it issued on my name. There was another fellow sitting next to him and he picked up the book for his or somebody elses use. I could do no more than to suffer in silence like suffering silent majority, day in, day out. The librarian charged me Rs 100 as the library fee, no receipt given, with the promise that the book would be soon returned and reserved for me. On Sept. 17, 95, I again made for the library. This time around, another fellow was at the desk who knew absolutely nothing about the existence of that particular book. At least he was honest to confess about his earlier

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post at the Town Halls abattoir, was recently transferred to the present position, and was not at all familiar with the library work. The actual librarian had replaced him at the abattoir. From the slaughterhouse to the library is outlandish, but this is the way most of the happenings are current in our beloved Pakistan. He promised to deliver the required work at my residence! If someone of the city fathers, or the administrator of the Town Hall for that matter, cares to spare some of his precious time to read this esteemed paper, perhaps some order can be brought to the disorder reigning in the Kings Library. THE SULTAN & PROLETARIAN The Sultan Qaboos of Oman actually stopped his car to listen to an ordinary waving pedestrian (Dawn letter, Sept. 18). No motorcade escorts whatsoever, and he was driving the car himself along with some of his cabinet ministers. As he suddenly pulled up his car, a private car coming from behind hit the Sultans automobile. What a contrast! Apparently, most of our leaders shield themselves behind an awful array of security measures because When you come into the presence of a leader of men, you know you have come into the presence of firethat is best not incautiously to touch that man that there is something that makes it dangerous to cross him.Woodrow Wilson BEGGING In Rumania, since the fall of its dictator Nicolae Ceausesu in 1989, begging has become an industry in itself with Mafia style networks of beggars. Consequently, the Bucharest government has passed a law . . . banning begging on the streets and the violators will face prison sentences up to six months (Dawn, Sept. 24). In 1972 and 1976 I happened to be in Santiago de Chile, Chile, and San Jos, Costa Rica, respectively, and during

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my stay of more than two weeks in each of these capitals, I never came across a beggar on the streets. It doesnt mean that they dont exist. Perhaps, I should have ventured into some of the barrios (rundown localities) with the specific purpose of looking for them! It is about time that those who shape the destiny of our nation care to devote some of their precious time to tackle the begging nuisance that has mushroomed into enormous proportions. Beggars should be abolished entirely! Verily, it is annoying to give them, and it is annoying not to give them. Nietzsche DECAYING ETHICS Ethics or ethic (Gk ethikos moral and ethos character) is the branch of philosophy in which men attempt to evaluate and decide upon particular course of conduct. Also, it refers to the values or rules of conduct held by a group or individual, as for example, in the phrases Christian ethic or unethical behaviour. Naturally, the very definition of the term ethics or ethos should lead to some theories of obligation. These may be teleologicalthe rightness or wrongness of an action is determined by its consequences, actual or expectedor deontologicalfactors other than consequences, like intentions, motives, rules, etc., are relevant in assessing actions morally. Two best-known teleological theories of obligation are egoism and utilitarianism. The egoist thinks that a man has the obligationor at least the rightto do whatever is, or seems to him to be, in his own interest. Contrarily, the utilitarianist thinks that man has an obligation to do that which willor which he believes willlead to the greatest good for greatest number of people. We know nothing of the beginning of the moral of man, nothing of the transition from animal behaviour to human conduct. In the animal behaviour there is not a rudimentary morality but rather the material, which in human life, intelligence fashions into morality. The moral situation or ethical conduct is distinguished from the physical behaviour in that in the former enters a socalled moral element.

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Is the failure, or obligation for that matter, in answering letters a moral laxity or simply the lack of will to initiate a physical behaviour that involves time, effort and expenses (pen, paper, postage, etc.), no matter how paltry? Perhaps, it is held that obligation creates more enemies than friends. Ray Cartwell of Oxford, a marathon letter writer, once wrote over 2900 letters in 317 hours. Did he get answers to all of them? One wonders! I myself am a compulsive letter writer, not just for the heck of it, but with a purpose in mind that, along with other factors, entails expenses, to keep in touch with my dear and near ones, to seek information and to contribute to literature in my own humble way. A case in point is that I have shipped out 187 copies of one of my humanistic novels entitled: Saltanat, The Saga of a Desperate Warrior, to intellectuals and the like in Pakistan, only asking for an intimation about the receipt thereof, but just two of the addressees had the courtesy to reply. At the same time, foreign diplomatic missions have indeed responded. The nation is confronted by a most disturbing moral problem. We know that the pursuit of good ends does not justify the employment of bad means. But what about those situations, now of such frequent occurrence, in which good means have end results which turn out to be bad (Aldous Huxley). We are on the horns of an ethical drama. If the nations leaders, intellectuals and so- called lite falter in their obligation to answer letters, then this moral conduct, through the passage of time, might well contaminate the genetic pool with the resultant mutations that could turn out to be dysgenic for the future generations of our motherland. WOMEN: INVISIBLE, IMPASSABLE GLASS CEILING Women constitute over 50 percent of the worlds population; the number of women holding key managerial, professional and business positions had peaked at about 11 percent. The situation prompts commentators to use the

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term glass ceilingMargolies Mezvinsky (Dawn, April 14)to describe invisible and impassable barrier that prevents women from rising professionally regardless of their education experience. The British NGO Oxfam calculates that out of 1.2 billion people living in absolute poverty, about two-thirds are women. On top of that, in much of the world, women have got poorer in the last two decades as those in public power in their countries accepted the economic policies drawn up by the WB and IMF. Violence against women ranges from female genital mutilation in Africa and some of the Islamic countries to abortion of female foetus, infanticide, dowry-related deaths and abuse, slavery, trafficking, mail order and phone call brides, rape, sexual harassment and domestic atrocities. In Pakistan in fact, almost all of the laws which according to womens organizations and human rights bodies turned women into second class citizens and were socially discriminatory against women, were enacted by the Zia regime. They include the Law of Evidence and the Hadood laws (Dawn, April 29). In order to remedy the womens plight, the first UNWCW was held in 1975, in Mexico. Since then millions of women have routinely suffered human rights violations. They have been bought and sold as prostitutes in India and Nepal; have been raped as a part of war strategy in Bosnia and Rwanda and have been raped by the Kenyan police while forcibly removed from their homes on ethnic grounds.Victoria Brittain (Dawn, Sept. 4). The UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) came up for ratification on Dec. 18, 1979, after the Geneva Assembly had adopted it. The United States is the only industrialised nation that has refused to ratify the 16-year old UN treaty, a country where an outspoken woman in public risks revilement. The one-quarter of the worlds women live in China. Perhaps, this was the reason that 30,000 women flooded into Beijing to attend the NGO Forum on women, held in Houairau, from 30 Aug.8 Sept. And, 16,921 people registered in the parallel UN IV WCW in the hall on the

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edge of the Tiananmen Square, Sept. 415, representing 181 countries (Grenada and Saudi Arabia didnt register for the conference. Somalia and the Federal Republic of YugoslaviaSerbia and Montenegrowere not invited). The theme of the WCW was equality, development and peace. The WCW approved a plan of battle for sexual equality that enshrined womens rights as human rights but avoided commitment to pay for action. The South Asian Womens caucus (representing Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka), at the Beijing forum, lobbied for state government to enact and enforce legislation that would guarantee equal succession and inheritance rights of children regardless of sex.Laura Stark (Dawn, Sept. 18). Whatever the Beijing Declaration, the achievement thereof, for the time being, is only a wishful thinking. In the US and Europe, New Right politicians and fundamentalists, especially in the Islamic world, have worked hard to block the goal of equality. Even UN documents admit some loss of momentum in implementation. Barbara Ehrenreich concludes that in Saudi Arabia women are not even permitted to drive; in Algeria more than 500 women were killed in 1994 by armed faction some for being known feminists, others for merely showing their unveiled face; a study by Geneva-based Inter-Parliamentary Union finds that the percentage of women elected to national legislatures has dropped worldwide about 25 per cent in the past seven years; and Benazir Bhutto won high praise for using her podium time, in Beijing, to criticize the Chinese treatment of women. What neither she nor press mentioned is that in Pakistan, female rape victims are subject to prison sentences for adultery. Bhutto once promised to end this stunningly malicious practice, but backed of rather than offends the local mullahs. At the present rate of progress, it will take 475 years for women to achieve parity with men in top-level management and administrative positions (Dawn, Sept. 6).

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FOR AIOUS ATTENTION The system of the Allama Iqbal Open University (AIOU), Islamabad, requires its Regional Directors to submit a list of nominees who in turn are appointed as the Internal Tutors for the candidates of B.Ed. degrees in the respective districts. The tutor of a particular subject informs the students of his jurisdiction that the relevant assignments must be dispatched to him for the purpose of qualified marks. According to the rules of the AIOU, the marked assignments should either be posted back to the students or failing that are returned to them in the designated Student Centre of the pertinent locality. I am not aware of the others, but the tutor, who is a retired professor of a degree college, disregards the norms intentionally withholding the assignments and the poor students run after him literally begging for the retrieval thereof. This gentleman of such a noble profession openly demands bribes in any form, fruits, and vegetables, money and the like to do the needful. No wonder, Pakistan ranks the third-most corrupt country in the world after Indonesia and China (Transparency International, Dawn, Sept. 3). If the big bosses of the AIOU care, I shall provide the name and address of the person I am talking about. However, the names of the victimised candidates cannot be divulged for obvious reasons. RESPONSIBILITY In the absence of the delivery man, the Seth (owner) pulling his tanker cart to supply kerosene to his customers at their homes in the Lasbella Chowk area on Thursday. The deliveryman could not report for duty owing to the strike (Dawn picture, Sept. 23). What a praiseworthy character the Seth is! Apparently, an old man, on an almost deserted road, hauling the full load of merchandise to be delivered at the doorsteps of his

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clients, must deserve the respect of those who admire responsibility. As someone said, Responsibility is fulfilling your obligations to others on a daily basis. A NOVELIST WITHIN Somebody once said, A great many people who settle down to write a novel end up by writing their own life story. It is of course true that an authors life experience can often provide valuable background for novels: a deprived child in a poverty-stricken environment might, for example, grow up to write novels set against his own experience. But all too often the complete life stories and attempting to translate them into novel plots are doomed to failure. Why should this be so? The answer is that life and art are usually diametrically opposed to each otherand remember that a novel or any kind of fiction is not an art form. Art is a vision in the mind of the artist or creator, something that has to be carefully constructed with the precision of a huge jigsaw where every piece fits. The effect gives the illusion of complete reality, but it is an effect that has been artificially contrived in every way. Life, on the other hand, is messy, bitty, random, seemingly pointless, and often without form. Any tutor of writing would instantly dismiss it, if it were preferred as a plot, as being far too unrealistic. The trick is to learn how to use your life story--or anybody elses life story, come to thatas a basis for artistic creation, to explore it and select exciting themes or incidents that can be developed, then work on them. In this way, your life story can almost certainly provide with a wonderful foundation for a novelbut it will generally be no more than that, a foundation on which to build, and not a complete do-it-yourself novel creating kit.

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PLAGIO There was a little controversy about an article (The Parents Charter of Rights) in Dawn Young World whose authorship was wrongly claimed by someone. A letter appeared later and exposed the fraud. What a lie, wrote the angry correspondent. To my mind there seems to be a better expression than What a lie! The Spanish language owns the most appropriate word, i.e., plagio (French equivalent plagiat, plagium a kidnapping; Greek plagin; French, Latin plagiarius kidnapper) denotes taking and using another persons thoughts, writings, inventions or abstractions as ones own; hence plagiarism. The plagio is not only instanced in literature but also creeps in scientific domain as well of which I have a personal experience that might interest the readers of this esteemed newspaper. Several years ago while I happened to be on the staff of a Latin American Multiversity, one of my girl students was working on an avian parasite that was cut into serial sections and excellent microscope slides were prepared. After about a week or so the slides in question mysteriously disappeared. Across the corridor from my laboratories, there used to be the laboratory of an apparently dignified professor from Argentinasupposedly an expert cytologist. In a few months time, the routine annual conference of scientists was celebrated in Caracas, the capital of Venezuela. Among the audience of a particular session, I was sitting along with my students including the girl whose material had been pilfered. When his turn came, the Argentinean professor stood up placidly, with an air of feigned authority, and not only presented his paper but also microprojected the very stolen slides. When the question hour sounded, I asked, What is the specific name of the parasite of which the slides have been projected, professor? Name doesnt interest me, my specialty is cytology. All right, which are the hosts of the parasite? As I said before this is irrelevant to my research.

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How about the source of your slides? He simply couldnt answer, as the slides had changed the owner without divulging their identity. Poor fellow was bathed in his own perspiration. Luckily either the university threw him out, or he resigned on his own accord, I wouldnt know. Now comes an outlandish tale. One of my colleagues, an American, in the department of humanities of the same multiversity cited above, presented his thesis, in English, on certain aspects of languages, that was approved and he got one scale up in the escalafn (academic hierarchy). After a couple of years, one of his students presented a thesis, in Spanish, in another campus of the same multiversity. And, behold! This thesis in Spanish was an exact transliteration of the one presented by the American. The university authorities appointed a commission to check the veracity of the problem. Nothing came out of it, since most of the commissions in the Third World countries are appointed with this very purpose in sight. The irony was that both the English and Spanish versions were lying side by side on the same shelf, in the same section of the library, and in the same campus of the university. STRANGE INTERPRETATION The Chairperson, Foreign Affairs Committee, Islamic Republic of Pakistan, asserted that in 1947 we didnt achieve independenceit was merely a question of geographic partition. Furthermore, none of the world encyclopaedia regards such a division as an act of independence (a news report, Oct. 11). One doesnt have to probe into the etymological details of the word independence. The meaning thereof is too apparent to be confused with any other significance than the one inherent. The Concise Oxford dictionary explicitly says that independence is a state of self-governing, not depending on something else for its validity. Wasnt the partition of the Korean peninsula precursory to the birth of two independent countries?

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How about the status of the occidental and oriental Germanys? (United by now.) You cant belie the truth, its here to stay. When the sun shines, even the blind feels its warmth. However, In academic life you seek to state absolute truth; in politics you seek to accommodate to the facts around you (Pierre Elliot Trudeau), but the learned chairperson (Maulana Fazlur Rahman) stubbornly fails to reconcile himself to the fact around him, i.e., the reality of Pakistan as a sovereign statean outcome of the subdivision of Indian subcontinent on August 15, 1947. JAPANESE HONESTY Ms Talat Rahim, in her article, A tale of two taxi drivers (September 22) narrated an interesting story that took me back to 1975 when I was in Japan. I was in Tokyo, and hired a taxi to visit my friend, Dr. Fukuoka. When the taxi driver hit the road, to my surprise, at every set of red traffic lights, he not only stopped his taxi but also turned the meter off. He would turn it on again as soon as the taxi started moving. As he pulled up his taxi in front of the residence of my friend, I asked the driver: How come at every red light you turned the meter off? Sir, you are paying me only for the time the taxi is moving on the road, not for the time when it is immobile, he replied in his halting English but with typical Japanese courtesy. Dr. Fukuokas brother was an official in the Interpol and happened to be posted at the Tokyo airport. We decided to pay him a visit. After introductions, I invited him for a cup of coffee. He politely declined saying, Its not my coffee time, Sir, thank you. In our land, cups and cups of tea, or cold drinks for that matter, go down the drain simply as an excuse for feigned hospitality while the real reason is undue respite from precious working hours. In fact, comparison can only be justified when conditions are similar. Here we are poles apart.

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ENCROACHMENT Peshawar: Sui Northerns encroachment on footpath near congested Shahi Bagh has remained unheeded for months by concerned authorities. It is not a simple encroachment but also hazardous for people (Dawn photo, Oct. 20). Sir, encroachment, may it be of property or human rights, seems to be a way of life, in particular the majority, without political clout or wealth, cannot escape its clutches. Has anybody witnessed a man of means property encroached upon? The footpath near Shahi Bagh is a public place, and public can wait as we are constructing our glass houses. The main task of a free society is to civilise the struggle for power. Slavery of the acquiescent majority to the wealthy few is the hereditary state of mankind; freedom, a rarely-acquired characteristic.R. H. S. Crossman PARASITES A sum of Rs.92 lakh has been granted from the national exchequer for the medical attention of seven people abroad including an ex-chief minister, two ex-ministers and relatives of important personages (a news item, Oct. 10). The textbook pathogenic parasites are well established all over the world, and there is no dearth at all of social parasites. At the same time, economic parasites, a rare breed of yesteryear, are catching up rapidly. How the taxpayers money is doled out unhesitatingly to those who are already rolling in turns of wealth, whereas a great majority of masses welter in an abject poverty and misery? There seems to be a sort of predilection manoeuver to soak the poor and favour the rich for bulging their coffers. Remember its easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.

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DEMOCRACY! Secretary General Boutros Bourtros-Gali remarked that almost 100 member states asked for UN assistance in democratizing their political system, and since 1992, we have been able to organise, conduct, supervise, coordinate and verify elections in a number of countries (Dawn, Sept.7). Furthermore, there are at least six conditions which were necessary for economic progress: good governance, democracy, participation, independent jury, rule of law and civil peace. But several Third World countries disagree with the Secretary General. Former Prime Minister of Singapore Lee Kuan is of the opinion that the essential prerequisite for Third World economic development is not democracy but discipline. UN officials are first to admit: In this organisation we preach the virtue of democracy but our top body meets as secretly as an old-fashioned Politburo. No official record is taken of what is said at Council meetings. The account that is made for the Secretary General has no official status and he has to keep it absolutely secret, which prompted Mark Frankland to conclude: Secretive Security Council cannot preach democracy. Concerning Pakistan Ayaz Amir (Dawn, Sept. 18) observes, What this country is slowly sinking under is the enormous weight of maladministration and sheer indiscipline on its back. Nothing works, whether at the lowest level or the highest level, without pull, influence or the power of money. The greatest casualty of this phenomenon is not democracy which we are unfit to practice in any case but the rule of law, the very idea of which has been debased over the years and which now is in the process of being destroyed utterly. Bloated utility bills, unending queues for the underprivileged outside the so-called banking facilities, custodial and extra-custodial deaths, politics of conflict and vendetta, turncoat partisan adherents, intransigent opposition, decaying ethics, intolerance, rabid fundamentalism, sectarian hatred, apathetic law-

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enforcement agencies, violation of human rights, lust for wealth, disrespect of law and fellow citizens, arrogantly discourteous public servants, insecurity in home and on street, rampant brutality in Karachi without condemnation from certain quarters hungry for power, and Justice too expensive to be within reach of ordinary citizens, etc. are the ills that are mercilessly eroding the very fabric of our society. On top of that foreign intervention in countrys internal affairs is increasing. What can be done to rectify the ineffectual democracy and breakdown of system mechanism in Pakistan? The answer is to find a way to eradicate the politics of genes and means, i.e., by inheritance or on the basis of wealth (Dawn magazine Ramblers Diary, July 7). REMOTE PEOPLE Way back in sixties when the Cubans, disenchanted with the totalitarian regime of Fidel Castro, continued fleeing illegally from Cuba in boats to Florida, USA, they were branded as the boat people. Over the years, the same has been said of the similar emigrants from Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Vietnam. Susie Morgan (Dawn, Feb. 19, 1995) coins a new term, oat people, for those who in search of bread leave the deserted Tunisian shores, in boats, for a better life in Europe. It wont be a bad idea if we, the ordinary citizens of Pakistan without political clout and money to have the rightful accomplished, are termed the remote people!

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CONSUMERS PROTECTION Consumers from the lower strata of the Pakistani society have been invariably at the mercy of the dealers, who fleece them adroitly, misbehave with them and even physically threaten when a claim is lodged for the defective or otherwise exorbitantly charged stuff. Concomitantly in line with the general moral decay of the lite most of the retailers and whole-salers alike maintain an aura of haughtinessfoolishly confident that the Lady Luck is going to smile over them forever. The done in consumers have no place to go for complaint. The other day, I walked in a famous software store in the Gordon Town shopping centre, Lahore, to enquire about a particular package. The lady employee was quite a pleasant and helpful person, but her boss who was supposed to be back in a few minutes time could only answer my query. Shortly, the man materialised, a bully type, and instead of treating me in a polite way he almost dressed me down as if I had committed some sort of offense or the like. Instead of paying him back in the same coin, I preferred to leave the premises. About twelve years ago, back in a Latin country, I had some problem with my publisher at Fort Lauderdale, Florida, USA. Ralph Nader, the Washington-based crusader for the rights of the consumers had recently established a Consumer Protection Organisation. After a couple of letters to him, the needful was accomplished favourably. Later on, in Venezuela a similar La Sociedad para la Proteccin al Consumidor (Society for the Protection of Consumer) was formed. A more efficient Better Business Bureau exists almost in every urban locality of the United Kingdom. The United States is still a step ahead with the formation of Consumer Product Safety Commission. It is heartening to know that our Senate passed an Islamabad Consumer Protection Bill on July 12, 95. Hopefully, similar bills are passed for other cities of Pakistan as well.

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TWO-YEAR RECORD Prime Minister Benazir Bhuttos mandate completed two years on Oct. 19. Her span of holding the rein of government has been through many vicissitudes, outstanding triumphs and dismal failures. On the positive side, Makhdoom Shahabuddin (Dawn, June 16) outlined six diplomatic coups brought about during the last twenty months, which undoubtedly won Pakistan its due place in the international arena. Additionally, Mohtarma refused to yield on two vital issues, namely: The signing of NPT and Irans role in the region, Ms. Bhutto didnt subscribe to the US position that Iran was a rogue nation. After five years, the defunct Pakistan-US Military Consultation Group was revived during its two-day meeting May 31 through June 1, thus ending the stalemate in the relations between the two allies. Adoption of the Brown Amendment delivered an almost fatal blow to the Pressler Amendment (Dawn, Oct. 26). Senator Hank Browns efforts will become a landmark of sorts in the history of US-Pakistan relations. (The reaction of power-hungry opposition has yet to be seen!) During the month of August the government signed the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). Above all, Foreign policy is one area of national activity where the government can take credit for its endeavours (Dawn leader, Oct. 19). Ms. Bhutto can be justly credited for forcefully advocating Pakistans stand on Kashmir in various international forums. While speaking at the UN 50th anniversary, the Prime Minister made it clear that Indian demand for a permanent seat in the UNSC was unacceptable, for she believed that bully in the region cannot be trusted with such a mandate. The bully will then have more power to cow down its weaker neighbours (Dawn, Oct. 24). On the home front, her policies have resulted in increasing investment to $2.1b in two years, which is more than the total investment flow of last five years put together. Since November 1993 seven lac telephone lines have been added, and the Port Qasim has achieved more

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in two years than in the twenty years. PPIB and the USbased AES Corporation, an energy concern, announced financially close of $700 m project of 720 MW capacity to be completed at Lal Pir, Muzaffargarh. Foreign private investment July 1993 through March 1994 to the tune of $555.6 m increased to $1418.5m July 1994 through March 1995. A National Drainage Programme (NDP)estimated to cost Rs 90b in 25 yearswill be launched throughout the country next year. Silver lining apart, the threateningly dark clouds of gloom are still hovering over the national skies. Escalating inflation and ever-increasing unemployment, arrogant public servants and helpless masses, merciless bloating of utility bills, flourishing breed of Mr. percent, breakdown of law and order, disrespect of human rights, custodial and extra-custodial killings, police brutalities, bureaucracy subservient to mighty and haughty, deteriorating standard of education, generalized fleecing of citizens, institutionalized corruption, and partisan administration, are some of the maladies that beg to be treated. Ms. Bhutto still has time at her disposal but it remains to be seen what use she makes of it. OF DOCTORS & PROFESSORS Reference to the above captioned letter (Dawn, Oct., 29) in which the learned Dr. Khan seems to be offended if a non-medical person dares to use the prefix doctor, and maintains that doctors are the main protagonists of this profession, the question arises what profession the gentleman is talking about? The word doctor according to Middle English, from Old French doctour, from Latin doctor (doceredoct - teach) among other meanings, like physician, dentist or veterinary surgeon, colloquially implies one who carries out repairs. It is also said of the holder of the highest university degree in any faculty (often honorary, used as a prefix to surname). No wonder in the Latin American countries, irrespective of the discipline, the conferee of a

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first university degree is not only addressed to as a doctor but is also entitled to ink it as a prefix to his name. In archaic sense a doctor is a teacher and a learned man. There is a well-known proverb, i.e., Who shall decide when doctors disagree? The term, doctor, also stands for adulterating and falsifying. Now, a surgeon (Middle English, from Anglo-French surgeon, from Old French serurgien, sirurgien, sirurgie: from Latin chirurgia, from Greek kheirourgia handiwork, surgery; from French kheir hand, erogo to work) is a person skilled in surgery (handiwork); medical practitioner qualified to practice surgery; also, a tree surgeon. In as far as the abbreviation Ph. D. is concerned, it refers to a Doctor of Philosophy (of a particular subject; from Latin philosophie doctor). Even a doctor of medicine (M.D., M.B.B.S or M.B. Ch.B., which is no more than a graduate degree) can work for the highest academic degree of Ph. D. To get some idea about a professor, I would suggest Dr. Khan to read the write-ups of Barrister Baachaa, Mr. Hameed and a letter of the present writer that appeared in the relevant columns of this esteemed paper. DELINQUENT OR DEFAULTERS Whichever national entity is involved in financial affairs falls an easy prey to some unscrupulous resourceful who pounce upon it for the grab. It matters little whether they are holders of high office, politicians, lawmakers, industrialists or feudal lords. Their lust for hoarding wealth is like an unfathomable celestial black hole that sucks every thing in, not even the light escapes from its pull. The tragedy is that they not only succeed in obtaining fabulous loans, but also succeed equally well in having these written off. In Toba Tek Singh, Rs.100 million was outstanding against the defaulters of the ADBP (Dawn, June 21). Rs 56 billion of the four nationlised commercial banks (NCBs) are stuck in bad and doubtful debts (Dawn, Nov. 3, 94) and the situation of eight Development

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Finance Institutions (DFIs) was even more delicate; for about Rs.13 billion was stuck up in non-performing loans in their case. There are 28000 defaulters in the country with total unpaid loans amounting to Rs 80.5 billion (Dawn E & B R, March 7). The Habib Bank alone has been relieved of about Rs 32 billion by the influential of which about Rs.20 billion is the capital and the accumulated interest runs to about Rs 12 billion (a national Urdu daily, Nov.8). The debt remains un-recovered mainly because of political pressure, and the same pressure has also been instrumental in preventing banks to proceed against persistent defaulterspoorly industrialists have defaulted on payment of Rs 33.91 billion. With a view to recover loans, the Economic Coordination Committee of the Cabinet (ECCC), last January, adopted certain measures, namely, acceleration of efforts for recovery, recovery to be made through banking tribunals, jurisdiction of other courts to be ousted, allowing only one appeal to the High Court, seeking and grant of stay order excluded, and provisions of imprisonment, along with fines, for various offences like giving false statements, tampering with securities, collateral, etc. The recovery campaign will succeed only if its transparent, fair and impartial (Dawn leader, Jan. 26). Its heartening to know that the Habib Bank, this month, made a start to take the defaulters to book.

Perhaps, the defaulters, who go after big loans, are aware of the adage of Samuel Johnson, that is, Small debts are like small shot; they are rattling on every side, and can scarcely be escaped without a wound: great debts are like cannon; of loud noise, but little danger.

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HUMAN FETUSES AND LIMBS Foetuses and amputated parts of human bodies found in piles of garbage in Sabzazar . . .were said by police to be part of Sheikh Zayed Hospitals waste (Dawn, Oct. 27). On the contrary, a hospital authority asserted, he checked records of the previous three months and had found not a single specimen, limb or fetus missing. The DSP, Nawankot, Lahore, prepared a report that says that the hospital used to throw its waste in Sabzazar. It contains statements of the trolley driver, an employee of the hospital, and a sweeper, who had reportedly thrown the waste (Dawn, Oct. 30). What is truth, the waste came from the hospital or not? The difference between truth and lies is that truth will resurrect itself even long after it has been buried. FIFTY AND AILING The flags of 185 nations snapped in the breeze at Turtle Bay, Manhattan, to celebrate, from 22 October through 24, the golden jubilee of the United Nations. Since its inception, the organisation has brooked a chequered history of triumphs and failures. Some of the Western nations, that designed the UN at San Francisco, and most of the Third World countries have criticised it for being overgrown and under-financed, hypocritical, inefficient, partisan and offish. As if that were not enough, corruption has also crept into the system. A high official at UN headquarters is promoting the career of his mistress in a well-paid UN job and a fellow at the head of a worldwide agency is said to have bought his job by handing out cash (an international magazine, Oct. 95). Another advisor at one of the UN controversial agencies is said to be alcoholic, too seldom sober to do much of the work. The UN fiercest defenders agree that the swarms of agencies, funds and commissions at regional offices have operated with inefficiency that can no longer be tolerated. After seven months on the job, I think the UN is a good example of waste and inefficiency (Karl Paschke).

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In Rwanda, the UN failed to stop the killing of half a million people and more than two million displaced. Failures in Somalia, Burundi, Angola, Kashmir and Bosnia are indelible blemishes on the fair name of the worlds peacekeeper. When bemoaning the helplessness of the UN to stop the rape of Bosnia, Muhammad Scicrbey, Bosnias ambassador to the UN, commented, We mourn the darkness over the United Nations (Dawn, Jan. 22). There are 63 smaller wars and rivalries around the globe, and these include ten where the hostilities have ceased. In all these, the UNs partisan role, subservient to superpowers, is no more evident than in Grenada, Panama, Kuwait and Haiti. Nothing can happen without the Americans. Everything can happen with them commented Abbe Eban the long time former Israel Foreign Minister. On the positive side, the UN provides a forum for antagonists to vent their grievances. It has furnished a framework for international laws for governing varied activities, like NPT, and helped unfortunate nations set up democracies. There are 35 peacekeeping missions, serving as a buffer between warring factions, and UNHCR has given protection to 30 million refugees. The UN has been a success (Boutros-Ghali) and he cites various cases such as the Belgian Congo (Zaire), Mozambique, Cambodia, South Korea, El Salvador, Kuwait, Camp David accords (1978) and IsraelPalestine pact (1993). It cannot be denied that the UN has its limitations. It is faced with a financial disaster. In fact Its bankrupt. The problem is nonpayment of peacekeeping dues. Russia and the US lead the delinquent list with arrears of $900 million and $571 million, receptively. As far as the contributions of the member nations to the organisation are concerned, Washingtons arrears amount to $1.4 billion, or nearly a third of the UN combined budgets of $4.5 billion. The US has withheld payments as a gesture of contempt for the UNs wastefulness. Even after 50 years of the UN existence, those at the helm of its affairs have not been able to resolve the basic human issues and remove snags in the working of its system Parvez Jamil (Dawn, Nov. 4). On the other hand

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negative pursuits, national vanities, fear and mistrust and degeneration of moral and human values have retarded the real progress of the world body. In the words of the journalist Rosemary Righter I always say that the fascinating thing about the UN organisation is that, aside from perhaps newspapers, they are the worlds last absolute dictatorships, with all the inefficiency of dictatorships. In the end, the US Ambassador Madeleine Albright phrases the situation thusly, Reform or die. RISKS IN GLOBALISATION The policies of the Republic of Korea have been summed up in these words: The four major goals of the administration are a clean government, a sound economy, a healthy society and peaceful unification (Dawn, Oct. 3). Also, President Kim Young Sam introduced a new term, Segyehewa for globalisation last Jan. 25, which refers to the emergence of a borderless world, prompted by the rapid flow of information and the expanded application of new knowledge as the prime-mover of human activity. Such lofty ideals undoubtedly are the stepping-stones to enter the 21st century, although the element of empty rhetoric cannot be ruled out. In the wake of globalisation the foreign investment in developing countries jumped from $84 billion in 1989 to $264 billion in 1994, according to the Argentinean Economy Minister Domingo Cavallo (Dawn E & B R, Nov. 8). The beneficial effects apart, the phenomenon of globalisation also brings risks, such as the dangers presented by the withdrawal of flyby-night capital from a market that can destabilise open economies. Five billion US dollars entered Argentina in first six months of 1994, while seven billion fled the country in that same period this year, because of the financial crisis that broke out late in 1994 in Mexico. The flight of hot capital has left the once prospering economy of Venezuela in ruins. In 1982 there were about 43 Bolivars (national monetary unit) to one US dollar and

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now the currency has devalued to about BS 170 to one dollar. On the face of it, globalisation may be a constructive process, but it seems to fail miserably where money matters are concerned, at least in Third World countries with developing economies. THE HOSTAGE PHENOMENON The hostage phenomenon is almost universal. It varies from individual acts to organised crime and the motives are mostly monetary considerations, territorial (Somalia), human trade (India and Vietnam), religious (France, and the Philippines), rape (South Africa)), unknown nature (China, El Salvador, and Germany), and even the drug addicts have their day (Spain). The Bosnian Serbs went to the extremes of blackmail. The UN peacekeepers were not only used as human shields against the NATO airstrikes but also the Serb leader, Radovan Karadzic, in a signed statement, put forth three demands for the release of the UN hostages, i.e., demilitarising all of the safe zones in Bosnia, a guarantee of no further airstrikes, and respecting the arms embargo. Eventually, the hostages were liberated, but David Rhode, the correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor, who exposed the brutalities and massacre of the Bosnian Muslims by the Bosnian Serbs, was taken as a hostage (Dawn, Nov.5). According to Control Risk Group (Dawn, Sept. 6) the hostage victims in Brazil, are usually foreign long-term residents while in China and Italy, the targets are almost local. On the Pakistani soil 236 were kidnapped during eight months (Dawn, Sept. 9). 82 citizens were kidnapped and taken to tribal areas during 1993-94. Of the total number, 56 were released Interior Minister Baber (Dawn, Dec. 12, 94). Colombia has the worlds highest record of kidnapping. About 100 people are abducted every month, and the Colombian President Ernesto Samper appointed former Congressman, Alberto Villamizar to lead his

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governments crusade against kidnapping in the country (Dawn, Sept. 10). The tragedy is that even the law-enforcement authorities are involved in this heinous crime. In Lahore three officials of the Defence Area police were booked for kidnapping (Dawn, Sept. 14). Concerning the hostage issue, a strange development has appeared on the scene. The Republicans in the US Senate, for example, blocked aid to Palestinians, adding another hostage to the long list of issues, including approval of nomination of the new US Ambassador to Pakistan, in their running feud with the Democrats over State Department reorganisation. Senator Dianne Feinstein considered it as holding the entire foreign policy of the United States hostage (Dawn, Nov. 2). WHAT WE REALLY NEED Occasionally the news media present brilliant ideas about the type of government most suitable for Pakistan, to yield the most desirable results for the nations benefits. Syeda Abida Hussain (Dec. 11) provides a thoughtprovoking solution to remedy the prevailing deterioration, which is partly quoted verbatim, namely: We have tried: (1) Secular, militaristic, basic democracy; (2) Populist, socialist democracy/civilian dictatorship; (3) Islamic, militarist Shurai Nizam; (4) Non-partisan democracy; (5) Bi-partisan social democracy. We have been through presidential systems and parliamentary systems and consistently failed to achieve the satisfaction of being governed intelligently enough to balance healthy economic growth alongside the development of an indigenised democratic dispensation, reflective of our pluralistic culture and society. What we really stand in need of is a more efficient, less corrupt form of government.

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CHRISTMAS GIFT Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto has sent a Christmas hamper each, to ambassadors and heads of the UN missions as a Christmas gift. The products have been imported from Harrods, one of the worlds costliest departmental stores in Knightsbridge, London (Dawn, Dec. 21). No local-made presents were included. Benazirs gesture is indeed magnanimous, provided the money involved comes from personal resources. Otherwise, public money is like holy water, everybody helps himself to it. ITS LIFE A 10-year old boy sits with his family in their house in the poorer suburbs of the Afghan capital. He is the countrys youngest medical student, but is forced to sell water after lectures to help support his family (Dawn photo, Dec. 15). Overcoming lifes hurdles is what makes the race worth living. A GREAT COUNTRY The above caption refers to Oh! Great Pakistan, you are a holy-land. But what would I tell other nations when they ask about you? (Dawn letters, Jan. 2). The question is followed by a series of ills brought about by the deadly combination of our unscrupulous leaders. The writer of the write-up concludes: Tell me what I should tell them, my beloved country? There is no more logical answer than to tell them we are our own enemies.

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IS ANYBODY WATCHING? Disabled but not disheartened, Hasant sells car dusters as his daughter Maria keeps an anxious eye on him. Hasant was disabled following a stroke (Dawn photo, Jan.2). Hasant, a portrait of tragedy, pedals around in a wheelchair to earn his living and his innocent little daughter keeps him company. Is any NGO paying attention? And, what happened to the Zakat fund of which millions are channelled wrongly? LOTA EXPORT In Oct. 1995, the Conservative leader Alan Howarth joined the Labor Party in England. On the other hand, Ms. Emma Nicholson, a former Conservative vice-chairperson and a well-respected member of the parliament, announced on Dec. 29, 95 she had decided to leave the Conservative Party . . . and she joined the Liberal Democrats. Our material exports may be a dismal failure, but we should take heart that our lota ideology is gaining ground in foreign markets. After all, The party system is merely a convenient device to enable the majority to have their way and the minority to have their say.S. D. Bailey THE JEWISH EXTREMISTS Until recently, religious extremism was labelled as an exclusive terrain of the Muslims and they received a worldwide condemnation. However, a Jewish extremist, Yigal Amir, 25-year old law student, killed the Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin on November 4,1995. The confessed assassin declared: According to Jewish law, you can kill the enemy. Yigal is a member of the extreme right-wing group, Eyal (an acronym of Jewish National Organization) which believes the Arabs have no right to the West Bank and Gaza strip. Also, he is a soldier in the lite army unit Golani of Israel. It remains to be seen whether there

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was a conspiracy behind his motive. In the meantime, he claimed to have only one accomplice, God and acted alone for all Jewish people. The murder of Rabin has alerted the Israeli people to the peril of Jewish religious extremism . . . The Israelis have persistently branded the Arabs as extremists and terrorists, but ignored the same traits which exist deep within Israeli culture, (Dawn News Analysis, Dec. 19). In Israel The most important source of violence is the nationalist religious ideology, represented not only by settlers but also by increasingly nationalised segments of society as a reaction to the loss of the community. Abboud (Dawn, Dec.2, 95). The Israeli phenomenon of the community loss is currently gaining ground in other parts of the national territory. The seemingly irremediable system breakdown, decaying moral standards, intolerance, blind partisanship and religious fanaticism additionally exacerbate this community loss. Orthodox Jews in New York have set up a hot line to raise money for the man charged with the murder of Rabin. We have watched all these Jews grieving over the killing of Mr. Rabin, and we would like to surprise the world with the news that many Jews are glad.Hotline director Moshe Gross (The New York Times, Nov. 10). According to other press reports, sweets were distributed and dances held to rejoice the death of Rabin. Some people, in Pakistan, on the hanging of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and the unnatural death of General Zia did the same. Instead of rejoicing on a persons death, we should repent, and pray for a better form of death for ourselves, (Dawn letter, Nov. 28). Even the once sworn enemy of Rabin, the PLO Chairperson Yasser Arafat cried when he was informed of his murder. In the present world, how wrong Sigmund Freud seems to be when he said, Toward the person who has died we adopt a special attitude: something like admiration for someone who has accomplished a very difficult task. HIT AND HATE A madressah for girls in Pakistan had the following banner on the wall, Hit and Hate (Dawn letter, Nov. 25, 95). But hatred consumes only the person who hates.

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DOWN TO EARTH French Prime Minister Juppe rides in a public bus during his visit to Gargesles-Gonesses, a Paris suburb (Dawn photo, July 7, 95). Hafizur Rehman (Dawn, Dec. 20) recalls an interesting encounter related to the ex-Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhuttos visit to Sweden. Mr. Bhutto had to stand in the porch of the Pakistan embassy for quite a while for the Swedish PMs car to arrive. Suddenly Mr. Palme walked up to the porch, his great coat on his shoulder, and apologized for the delay. He said he had gone to park his car in the parking lot. In the galaxy of our ministers, J. Salik, the Federal Minister for Population Welfare, is the only brilliant star that outshines the rest when it boils down to the proletariat. On his official visit to the United States, Mr. Salik had to travel in a yellow cab in New York because the Pakistan Counsulate failed to provide him with a car that his status deserved. On the home turf, he cycled, flying the national flag, from Lahore airport to the Press Club to participate in a meeting held on the occasion of the death anniversary of Nisar Usmani. On another occasion, he led a national solidarity rally on bicycles (Dawn, Sept. 30, 95). In the prevailing trend of motorcades and hordes of armed bodyguards, Pakistan can rightfully boast to have at least one down-to-earth minister. NO FATS ARE GOOD With reference to the above captioned letter (Dawn, Jan. 14) from Prof. Sarfaraz Niazi, No fats are good and one should use fats in the smallest quantity possible . . . Not at all if one could manage. The fats during digestion are broken down into fatty acids. The chemical terms saturated and unsaturated (or polyunsaturated) refer to the hydrogen contents of these acids; and most fats are combination of both varieties. Fats that are solid are predominantly saturated: margarine, tallow, butter, lard, hydrogenated cooking fats, and fats

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from all meats. The unsaturated fats are liquids such as fish oils and vegetable oils. Three of the fatty acids, linoleic, linolenic and arachidonic (referring to peanuts), which can be obtained from vegetable oils, are essential before cholesterol and saturated fats can be utilised. The body and blood fat of persons with atherosclerosis are made up largely of saturated fatty acids, whereas the storage and blood fat of individuals free from the disease contain high percentage of unsaturated fatty acids. The vitamins A, D, E and K (acronym Adek), unlike vitamin C and B complex, are all fat-soluble and enter the bloodstream by hitching a ride on the fat molecules that are naturally present in the food. Some of the carotenoids, a family of more than 500 nutrients that keep the immune system healthy, are also fat-soluble. Fat-splitting intestinal enzymes, like lipase, break down the fat molecules that are essential not only for the digestion of fats but also for the absorption of carotene and the Adek. During severe diarrhea, diets high in fats slow down the passage of foods through the GI tract, thus providing a better chance for the absorption of nutrients. The American Medical Association suggests that a diet for people with gallstones, obstruction of the bile duct, and gall bladder diseases contain 25 per cent of the calories in the form of fats. It is emphasized that low fat and fat-free diets should be avoided. Such diets both under supply and prevent the absorption of essential fatty acids, carotene and the Adek, thus causing deficiency states that may be more devastating than the actual gall bladder problem. According to the American Heart Associations recommendations the energy derived from fats should be within 30 per cent of the total daily intake (letter from Sabir A. Khan, Dawn, Jan. 21). In the same write-up, Mr. Khan asks Prof. Niazi to throw some more light on this aspect. It should be a valuable piece of information, if the learned professor elaborates another mechanism for the intestinal absorption of the fat-soluble vitamins in the absence of fats.

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RESURGENCE OF FUNDAMENTALISM When Mustafa Kamal Ataturk took over Turkey in 1923, he vehemently rejected the Islamic trappings of the old Ottoman Empire that ruled the Middle East and part of Europe for more than five centuries. The Article 24 of the Turkish constitution enshrines the principle of secularism. The Turkish fundamentalists, the Islamic Party or Refah, led by Necmettin Erbakan, obtained 158 seats in the 550seat parliament in general elections held Dec. 24,95 (the True Path Party, DYP, of Tansu Ciller acquired 135 seats; Conservative Motherland Party, ANAP, of Mesut Yilmaz 132 seats; Democratic Left Party, DSP, of Bulent Ecevit 75 seats and social democrat Republican Peoples Party, RVP, 50 seats). At stake is Turkeys stance either to tilt toward Euopeanish or Middle Eastern Islamic philosophy. Tansu Ciller asserted, We are the only secular democracy among the worlds 53 Muslim nations. Our citizens will not rest until we have joined the first ranks of Europe in every aspect of our national life. Islamic fundamentalism in Turkey has discovered new strength from the Soviet defeat in Afghanistan, from the resurgence of Islamists in Iran, Egypt, Algeria and the tragedies in Bosnia and Chechnya. Concomitantly, the deteriorating economy, unemployment, corruption, brutal war against Kurdish minority and abysmal human rights record have hastened the rejection of Turkeys center-right parties. It is only among large sections of Muslim people all over the world, that there is a tendency to hold fast to the fundamentals of faith . . . They want to stay away from the degeneration of human soul and body which is in evidence everywhere particularly in the West Jafar Wafa (Dawn, Jan. 5). The real danger that lurks behind fundamentalism is the scourge of extremism as witnessed in Iran, Algeria and to some extent in Pakistan. The Muslim ministers of the OIC at Conakry, Guinea, in last December, urged against militant fundamentalism.

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I would remind you that extremism in the defence of liberty is no vice. And let me remind you that moderation in the pursuit of justice no virtue.Barry Goldwater MEDICAL MALPRACTICE LAW A protest rally was held against the Mardan Headquarters Hospital administrations negligence that had allegedly resulted in the death of the sister of a local PPP leader (Dawn, Feb. 1). The MS of the hospital was also accused for introducing both monetary and moral corruption in the hospital. Shumaila Ilyas, the young daughter of a poor rickshaw driver, bitten by a snake, died due to non-availability of anti-snake and anti-rabies injections in the Liaquat Medical College Hospital, Hyderabad (Dawn, Aug. 17, 1995). The tragedy is that the hospital had a budget of Rs.254 crore for drugs and medicines. Chandrashekhar, a former national Indian table-tennis champion, was crippled after a simple knee surgery, in 1984, at the Apollo Hospital in Madras (Apollo Hospitals is Indias largest private medical chain). He sued the hospital authorities and was awarded 1.7 million rupees (US$53,125) in damages by the Madras High Court in May 1993. Subsequently, Indian Supreme Court ruled allowing patients to sue doctors for malpractice which consumer groups say is the only cure for the ailing healthcare system (Dawn, Nov. 27, 1995). According to William I. Bennett (Dawn, Jan. 22, 1992) there are, for the doctor, two kinds of malpractice claims to be feared: the valid and the false. The valid claim is public, painful and expensive declaration of failure or bad faith. The false claim may be equally public, painful, and expensive to defend, and may or may not lead to vindication. Less discussed, no doubt less feared, and certainly most common, is a third possibility: lack of any claim at all when malpractice has in fact occurred. Apart from negligence, the doctors are responsible for death of their patients by other means as well. Dr. Vernon Coleman in his book (Betrayal of Trust) remarks: Through a mixture of ignorance, incompetence,

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prejudice, dishonesty, laziness, paternalism and misplaced trust, doctors are killing more people than they are serving and they are causing more illness and more discomfort than they are alleviating (Dawn, Oct. 18, 1995). Furthermore, the greatest reason the medical profession kills so many people is its alliance with the deceitful, corrupt and ruthless pharmaceutical industry whose main aim is to achieve record profits. In the Western society, especially in the USA and UK, the malpractice laws are well entrenched and the victims of doctors negligence have been awarded fabulous compensations. Naturally, doctors have denounced malpractice as an atrocity visited on them by the legal system. But there has to be at least a deterrent to safeguard a patients life. Perhaps, some one of our honourable lawmakers, in a moment of reflection, takes an initiative to work on the passage of a malpractice law through the august house of our National Assembly. Simultaneously, Voltaires maxim has to be kept in mind: I was ruined but twiceonce when I lost a lawsuit, and once when I gained one. AN INTRIGUING QUESTION! During Prime Minister Benazir Bhuttos visit to New York for participation in the UN golden jubilee celebrations, US$25,000 was placed in an account for the medical expenses of the 55- member entourage. This amount is untraceable. The officials from the External Finance Wing of the Accountant General of Pakistan (AGPR) were sent to investigate. So where did $25,000 disappear? Its mystery, which the Accountant Generals audit team wants to get to the bottom of(Dawn, Dec. 15, 1995). Does anybody know?

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WATER ROBBERY The policy of seven American presidents regarding the Israeli occupation of landsthe Golan Heights, West Bank and Gaza Stripcaptured in the 1967 war, violates international law. During this takeover, water supplies grabbed from Syria have been diverted to Israel. Now, The $3 billion water project request (from the U.S.) apparently would finance replacement of water sources used by Israel over the years . . .The water project payment would be a reward to Israel for water robberyLeonard Larson (Dawn, Jan. 28). How about that? Where is justice? THE ROT OF CORRUPTION Indias premier federal investigating agency, CBI, sought presidents permission to charge several top politicians with involvement in the countrys worst case of corruption (Dawn, Jan. 17). Consequently, the leader of the main opposition party, BJP, Lal Krishna Advani resigned from the Lok Sabha, and courted arrest. Later, three ministers of the ruling party, alleged to be stained with corruption, also resigned, (Dawn, Jan. 20). To date perhaps some 10 politicians have been touched by this scandal. At the home front, For all the well-founded charges against Irfanullah Marwatnothing has happened to him while the case against his CIA sidetrack, Saleemullah Marwat, has been largely forgotten. In the Mehran Bank scandal, poor Yunus Habib has had to cool his heels in jail while all those who were the subjects of his largessego preaching their sermons to the country.Ayaz Amir (Dawn, Jan.22). A Pakistani MNA involved in a drug-trafficking case, and at present on bail, was made a member of Parliamentary Standing Committee on Narcotics Control (Dawn letter, Jan.23). In contrast, a veteran Colombian military commander announced his resignation, after 35 years of service, as protest against the

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mushrooming scandal over charges that the Colombian President Samper accepted drug money to finance his 1994 election campaign (Dawn, Jan.28). The decaying morals, ceaseless corruption, lack of responsibility, lust for wealth and power, and above all, the faltering courage of those who can dictate their will to the masses, are the principal elements at work to the detriment of our nation. It is worth paying attention to John F. Kennedy when he said, The courage of life is often a less dramatic spectacle than the courage of a final moment; but it is no less a magnificent mixture of triumph and tragedy. A man does what he mustin spite of personal consequences, in spite of obstacles and dangers and pressuresand that is the basis of morality. GLOBAL WARMING: BAD TIMES AHEAD The global warming is changing the shape of the Antarctic Peninsula. February 1995, an ice-shelf disintegrated, breaking off an iceberg on which the Rhode Island State would fit comfortably. Coral reefs from the Caribbean to the South Pacific are sick, apparently due to the warmer water. Glaciers are in full retreat. Snow cover and Arctic Sea ice are declining. The weather pattern known as El Nio, causing misery in California is occurring more frequently and lasting longer. All this has been attributed to the phenomenon of global warming. At the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, most of the worlds nations pledged to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases to 1990 levels by the turn of the century, to protect the planet from the threat of global warming. Now many leading industrial countries admit that they cannot meet that goalnot soon, and perhaps never. Many scientists have known for years that the global industry dumps crap into the air (particularly carbon dioxide and emission of other gases that trap the heat in the atmosphere, producing the so-called greenhouse effect) which causes the earth to heat up and that is going to wreak havoc. At a meeting in Rome of IGPC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), 120

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governments agreed that while uncertainties remain, the balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate. The worlds top scientists now believe global warming has begun and predict the world will suffer more from natural disasters and disease as it takes hold (Dawn, Oct. 10, 95). The climatologists are confident that some of the 0.3 to 0.60 Celsius warming of the past 100 years was caused by human activities and the expected warming in the next century is 1 to 3.50 Celsius. This is still enough to put 100 million people (not counting the expected population growth) at risk from sea-level rise. Increased water vapour generated by global warming could produce clouds that may raise the temperature of the earth still further. But if the clouds form at lower levels they would tend to cool the planet. It all depends what sort of clouds will be created, according to Pierre Morel (Dawn, July 17, 94). It is said that global warming might cause sea levels to rise as much as three feet by the year 2100. Doctor Monica Christensen, a theoretical physicist, observed: There are signs that the sea level rose universally by six or seven meters 130,000 years ago. Could it happen again? To stave off global warming completely, you would have to reduce emissions to where they were in 1920. In the 1920s, the human population was around 2 billion. Now we stand at more than 5.6 billion, with a few hundred thousands more, born every minute. Are we ignoring the human body, with its intrinsic heat of 37o Celsius and its emissions, as a continuing contributing factor in the earths global warming? asks Emmanuel Bonnerman. Bronwyn Clear remarks: The earth has always its own agenda. Some try to pin sea-level changes and species extinction on supposed uncaring members of our species. Literally thousands of sea-level changes and lifeform extinction occurred, however, during the hundreds of millions of years prior to human existence on this earth. The earth will change with us or without us.

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JEMIMAS GESTURE A cancer-stricken person of moderate economic means, travelled from NWFP to Lahore for his treatment.The expenses involved, as he came to know from certain medical facilities, were too outrageous for him to meet. Consequently, he resorted to the SKMH, but was refused admittance due to non-availability of a hospital bed. Incidentally, at that very moment, Mrs. Jemima Khan was about to enter the SKMH, when at the gate, the patient described his plight to her. The good lady immediately ordered the concerned staff to make a room for the patient. Notwithstanding the full occupancy of the wards, a bed was arranged in the guestroom of the premises. The ladys gesture did not stop there. After a while she returned to the patient only to see him shivering with cold. When asked about an electric heater, one of the attendants replied, today the market is closed; it will be definitely purchased tomorrow. It has to be installed today, and the heater was brought from her own residence (news item, Feb. 26). The test of humans is to be gracious in times of good fortune as well as adversity. LAW AND ORDER Four armed men broke into the Kamoke branch of the National Bank of Pakistan and robbed it off Rs.20 million on Sunday night. This is said to be the biggest bank robbery in Gujranwala district (Feb. 27). Six dacoits took away Rs.1.7 million from the Temple Road branch of a bank on Monday (Feb. 27). Two bank heists within a twenty-four-hour span, sounds outlandish and A trader robbed of cash, gold worth Rs.1.5 million (Feb. 29). Also, in Lahore Dacoits kill young man carrying Rs.320, 000 (March 1). Necessity knows no lawthis maxim of the thugs seems to belie the sweeping statements of the police that the law and order situation is improving.

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ENVIRONMENTAL ABUSE Environmental issues continue to receive great attention as countries grapple with the question of sustaining economic growth. Pollution, whether air or water-borne, is readily transported internationally. Pollutants may be classified into two categories: short-lived, e.g., noise, that affect locally, and long-lived, like industrial which include junk dumps, radioactive dust, smoke, noxious emissions, pesticide, etc. Natural disasters sometimes cause air pollution. The Mount Pinatubo, the Philippines, in one of the centurys biggest volcanic blasts, erupted in 1991 spewing tonnes of damaging pollutants into the air. Other natural pollutants result from natural gas leaks and smoke and gas from forest fire. On the other hand, human activity plays a substantial role in the environmental abuse with devastating consequences. Possibly the largest single source of air pollution in the world is a complex of smelters in Norilsk, Siberia. It pumps two million tonnes of sulphur, along with heavy metals and other poisons, into the air each year. These Siberian industrial emissions contribute heavily to the threat of global warming. Since oildrilling began in 1975, the North Sea has become one of the most polluted stretches of water in the world. Some oil discharges are from routine work, but major accidents like the Piper Alpha and Ekofisk have left massive structures leaking toxic substances on the sea floor. Garbage dumping has taken its toll in pollution of Kashmirs Dal Lake, the greatest tourist attraction, which is covered by a stinking film of red algae. Experts say the lake faces a possible death in the next 10-20 years. The sacred Ganges River turns toxic nightmare as hundreds of thousands of factories situated along its bank pour tonnes of garbage daily into the current. Similarly, hazards of tourism have spread the rot in the Kaghan Valley in northern Pakistan. The water of the

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legendary Saif-ul-Muluk Lake, in the Kaghan valley, which till a couple of years ago was clear as sapphire, has now begun to assume strange green coloration. This is all because of the rush of tourists who dump garbage into it. Murree on weekends appears like a Rawalpindi slum transported to a mountain 7,000 feet high. A group of California scientists observed that dirty air in the Los Angeles area kills an estimated 1,600 persons a year, and costs the economy nearly $10 billion annually. The UN has said that environmental destruction, population growth and changing lifestyle patterns will lead to the extinction of 40,000 plant species by the middle of the 21st century. In 1992, the WHO estimated that three quarters of the 49 million people whose deaths are registered each year are killed by illnesses related to a poor environment and unhealthy lifestyle. The amount of money involved in checking the environmental pollution is astronomical. As calculated by the UN, only the developing countries would need about $125 billion a year in aid to pay for the environmental programmes, or $70 billion more than the financial assistance they receive now. In a message to mark the Commonwealth Day, the Queen Elizabeth II of Britain said: The living world is God-given heritage and we have to be more responsible in our stewardship of it. We all share the task of ensuring that our world will remain fit for life and capable of sustaining us and those who will come after us (Dawn, March 10, 1992). The tragedy is that who crusade for environmental purity usually pay with their lives. The Brazilian rubber tapper Chico Mendes was killed for his environmental activism. Ken Saro-Wiwa, the Nigerian poet and environmentalist, along with eight others, were executed: his crime was to protest against the Royal Dutch Shell that has sucked oil from beneath Saro-Wiwas Ogoniland, leaving behind death, diseases, poverty and destruction. Andrew Young, former US ambassador to the UN, remarked: The connection between human rights and environmental quality is inescapable. It is mystery why the Clinton administration with its public support of human rights and the environment is balking at this logical

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step in the development of international protection for human rights and the environment. If we do not act soon, the earths fragile environment will evolve beyond us. Then we will all die. The earth will go on without us.Colin Silvester EXTORTION IN EDUCATION A promising girl obtained excellent marks in a school in Germany. Upon her return to Gujrat, she was, however, denied admission in science classes due to the inability of her parents to pay the exorbitant after-hour tuition fee. Consequently, she had to study humanities, as the fee was affordable. Everybody knows, even the higher educational authorities that teachers are paid relatively low salaries, yet their lifestyle, cars, property and other luxuries are enviable. Where does all this money come from? Of course from fleecing the students, whether they can manage or not to incur the arbitrarily imposed tuition charges. To control this menace, the teachers have to be strictly warned, through some punitive measures, to desist from this practice of extortion. ROWDY LAWMAKERS To check the in-house rowdyism, the Federal Cabinet of Pakistan on Jan. 2, 1995, approved a draft of amendment in the Parliament and Provincial Assemblies (Disqualification of Membership Ordinance, 177) with the purpose to disqualify those lawmakers who engage in unparliamentary conduct. General Zia-ul-Haq used the original Ordinance and former President Ghulam Ishaq Khan against the PPP stalwarts to get them disqualified. There is nothing new with the scenes almost constantly witnessed in our assemblies. In 1993, an acting speaker was attacked in the Pakistan Punjab Assembly.

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Such unbecoming conduct has been witnessed elsewhere too. In June 1995, rival members of Taiwans parliament resorted to splashing tea and taking swings at each other during a preliminary reading of a trust bill. In October 1995, they took a step further and two lawmakers were admitted to a hospital with broken bones and bruises after they traded punches and kicked each other; even the women legislatures were guilty of indulging in violent behaviour. On the issue of adjourning the house for ten minutes for prayers, in our own National Assembly a scuffle broke out on March 13. However, the timely intervention by three ministers saved the situation from getting worse. About this incident, Dawns leader (March 14) under the caption, height of intolerance, warily commented: The people of Pakistan whose commitment to their faith is total and uncompromising do not have to be educated by self-appointed arbiters of the faith about the importance of the call to prayers and the necessity of bowing before the Lord of the Universe. These things are part of their very consciousness. In most countries a parliamentary battle is a political set-to-a struggle for votes in which legislatures mobilise their wits and voices to debate and strategiesDonald Shapiro. Perhaps so, but the quarrelsome legislators expect to be looked on as heroes by their partisans, whereas in reality they run the risk of looking like fools (with due apologies) among the saner strata of the citizens. DEATHS IN HOSPITALS A 25-year old lady, Erum, died in the Agha Khan Maternity Home, Karachi, due to neglect. The consulting gynaecologist arrived at the hospital one-and-a-half hours after Erums death and the aggrieved relative of the deceased, Dr. M. Akhtarul Hassan, lamented, A silent massacre is underway in our hospitals. This will only stop if we, as a people, act in a responsible manner (Dawn, March 8). Neglect aside, incompetence of doctors constitutes yet another imperceptible killer. William Bennett narrated the classical story of a 42-year old woman whose doctor, being well aware of the antecedents of cancer in the

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family, told her that she didnt need a mammography. This mother of four became concerned that her right breast felt different when she performed selfexamination. Eventually a mammography was obtained by another doctor, it showed cancerous growth and the patient died of her disease about six years later. A survey has found that hospital errors in Australia accounted for 14,000 deaths a yearmaking preventable deaths in hospitals the countrys number three killer, after heart disease and cancer. This is the state of affairs in a society where the gift of life is valued above any thing else. Insofar as we are concerned errors and omissions are gleefully accepted, no questions asked, if at all asked, nobody cares. As long as men are liable to die and are desirous to live, a physician will be made fun of, but he will be well paid.Jean de la Bruyere WHAT IS FUNDAMENTALISM? Reference to the above captioned write-up of R.H. Usmani (Dawn, March 6) stating, By implication and usage, particularly in the West, fundamentalism is an expression that is now equivalent of militant orthodox Islam. By definition, fundamentalism is an adherence to traditional orthodox religious beliefs such as the literal acceptance of the creeds as fundamentals. It must be borne in mind that the fundamentalists are in every faith. They will continue to protest unless there are drastic changes. Anwar Sadats assassination by Egyptian fundamentalists has now been matched in notoriety by Rabins slaying at the hands of a Jewish orthodox. That event in turn finds reflections in Hindu attacks on Muslim mosques in India. Again, near the southern German City of Heidelberg, vandals set fire to a Turkish mosque. A mosque was bombed in the capital of an ethnically troubled region in southern Russia; in Kampala, Uganda, seven worshippers were wounded when a man threw a grenade into a crowded mosque; and the settlers from Kiryat Arba broke open the doors of a mosque close to the West Bank town of Al Khalil.

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Mr. Usmanis statement, Fortunately there is so much tolerance in Islam is of universal acceptance in our faith. However, how can we justify when Six die in Saudi mosque blast (Dawn, Oct. 22, 95) six worshippers die as mosque bombed in Algeria (Dawn, Feb. 2), and a bomb exploded in the Noorani Ghousia Mosque, Jhang? (Dawn, Feb. 24). Also, the fundamentalists acts of destruction are represented by a Japanese cults poison gas murders in Tokyo subway and Christian vigilant assault on abortion clinics in the United States. Christian fundamentalists, in Uganda, fighting the government of President Yoweri Museveni killed 22 soldiers, on Feb. 28, and the rebels are under the command of a former Roman Catholic priest, Joseph Kony. The extremists and Jewish settlers are demanding that Israeli soldiers refuse orders to dismantle and halt further spread of Jewish settlements and lands captured by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War. The US President and other politiciansRepublicans and Democrats are struck dumb by the fanaticism and the call for mutiny in the Israel army, too timid to comment lest it be taken as criticism of Israel and quickly interpreted as anti-Semitism Leonard Larson (Dawn, Sept. 1, 95). The West is striving hard to stem the tide of Muslim fundamentalism. This prompted The European Parliament to approve a customs union with Turkey as the spectre of Algeria is looming large. The Clinton administration has taken it for granted that the cross border fundamentalism is being perpetrated at the behest of the Iranian government and efforts are afoot for Irans isolation. In the end the world leaders be warned: the enemy is no longer on the other side of the battle line; he is right behind you.Gautam Venkatachalam UNFRIENDLY ACT A news item item that Pakistan may train Tajik customs men, prompted Mr. Chagthai to comment: This will be a distinctly unfriendly act

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towards a friendly country whose Customs Department has a different reputation (Dawn, May 17). We only make a dupe of the friend whose advice we ask; for we never tell him all; and it is usually what we have left unsaid that decides our conduct.Diane de Potiers HATRED A Delhi newspaper accused a son of the former Indian Prime Minister Narasimha Rao, campaigning as a Congress candidate, of covering his hand with a handkerchief when shaking hands with commoners (Dawn, April 22). Hatred makes one a slave to the object of hate. TECHNOLOGY In this high-tech age, Fertility impairing chem found in baby milk. The chemicals, known as phthalates, have been found to shrink testes and disrupt female reproductive system in laboratory rats (Dawn, May 27). There are three roads to ruin: women, gambling and technology. The most pleasant is with women, the quickest with gambling, but the surest is with technology. Georges Pompidou ON PAPER ONLY Government making efforts to plug corruption, a Federal Ministers statement (Dawn, May 27). On paper only, because El papel guanta lo todo (the paper withstands everything), a Spanish proverb. Pakistan has just jumped from third to second position among the most corrupt countries in the world.

BRITAIN BECOMING RUDER Under the above captioned write-up, Digby Anderson admonishes, Britain is becoming ruder. Loutishness

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in the streets, slovenly and aggressive address, swearing, cheating sportsmen, parents aping the style and slang of teenagers and a false chumminess from doctors and other professions point to a crisis in manners (Dawn, June 5).
You can get through life with bad manners, but it is easier with good manners.Lillian Gish But who cares! BLACK MARKETING OF ID CARD FORMS The postal authorities of the city (Sadiqabad) are denying forms introduced by the Directorate-General of Registration for the issuance of National Identity Cards (NIC) on the pretext of the non-availability of the same(Dawn, May 10). But the forms in question are being sold at particular places, in the same city, at Rs.50 per form instead of Rs.3, the prescribed fee. Here in Gujrat, at the premises of the ID card office, and certain other places, the agents are selling these forms for Rs.10 to 50, depending upon the customers, while the postal authorities expressed their inability to provide these due to lack of supply. The concerned authorities, least concerned about the convenience of the citizens, should have flooded the post offices with ID card forms, especially when it is reported that the old ID cards will not be valid after June 1996. But it is too trivial a matter for those who matter to bother about, because they have to feed the voracious system to generate corruption! RIDDANCE OF EVIL Eight people were killed and 40 other injured as a result of three bomb blasts, one in Gujranwala city and the other two in Kamoke town, some 13 kilometres from here on the Lahore Gujranwala Road on Monday evening.

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Nawabzada Ghazanfer Gul, a PDF member of National Assembly from Gujrat, narrowly escaped in a murder attempt here on Monday in Blue area (Islamabad). A former high court judge and his young son were ambushed and killed outside their PECHS (Karachi) residence on Monday afternoon. These three major incidents took place on the same very day (June 11). Ironically, we read contradictory reports about law and order situation in the country. Something seems to be amiss somewhere in governance. Perhaps the answer is found in what Plato said: Until philosophers govern and rule, and wisdom and political hardship meet in the same person, cities will not cease from evil, nor the human race. HONESTY If my father would have come to Pakistan, he would have been assassinated the next day like Liaquat Ali Khan. Here no good man can survive. There is no place for an honest man in Pakistan, not in the beginning, not now, Princess Abida Sultaan (Dawn TR, June 11-17). Honesty is such a lonely word Cause everyone here is so untrue. Honestyis all I want from you.Billy Joel A HARSH BUDGET Since the inception of Pakistan almost all past governments, upon the annual budget announcement, ask citizens to sacrifice for the sake of the country. People cant tighten their belts any more. Their tongues are hanging out.Javier Elorriaga of Venezuela on his countrys troubled economy. NEEDED: US SENSITIVITY TO ARAB CONCERNS The first bomb blast came on Nov. 13, 1995, at the Saudi Arabian National Guards training facility, a US-run military centre, at Riyadh, in which six people were killed. An organisation, demanding the expulsion of US troops

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from Saudi Arabia, claimed responsibility. Again, on June 26 last, a massive bomb gutted an eight-storey Al Khobar Towers, Dhahran, killing at least 20 Americans. The Arabs and most of the international community see the attacks on the American bases as the outcome of USAs total commitment to Israel with least consideration for the just cause of the Palestinians and the Lebanese. To this end the US has gone so far as to condone the Qana massacre that seems to have had its tacit approval. Perhaps, the latest and most dramatic evidence of this is the endless effort by the United States to prevent the release of the UN report on Israels culpability in the massacre of Lebanese civilians in the UN compound in the South Lebanon. The right-wing Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu acknowledged that the Madrid conference (1991) backed UN resolutions 242 and 338 calling on Israel to surrender occupied Arab land. At the same time, Netanyahu says, I dont agree that the Madrid conference includes land for peace, and We have our own interpretations of the resolutions. The US playing the role of an honest broker, should have condemned this retraction of a commitment that was earlier willingly agreed upon by the Palestinian and Israeli representatives. Saad Al-Faqih, a London-based Saudi dissident aptly remarked that the attack on the American base at Dhahran, will not be the last, and such acts will not stop. Security measures taken at American installations will be of no use, as Tuesdays attack shows (Dawn, July 1). It is about time for the US to rethink its position vis-vis the Arabs. As Clovis Maksoud, former Arab League Ambassador to the UN, said: This is the time to spell out a course in which the American dialogue is based on a sensitivity to Arab concerns . . . The friends of American values and concerns have a far broader constituency than some lites who are eager to tell the United States what it likes to hear.

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GORBACHEVS FALL Reference to M. Nassers letter, Gorbachevs fall, the writer states: History has no place for people like Mikhail Gorbachev because he sold out a mighty empire to the CIA in return for his glorified (sic) projection in the Western media as the saviour of the Soviet people (Dawn, July 5). The so-called fall of Gorbachev is not unusual. The saviours of nations have almost invariably met a similar fate, even worst. Yitzak Rabin was assassinated for making peace with the erstwhile sworn enemy, Yasser Arafat. Shimon Peres met an inglorious end at the elections, because he walked hand in hand with Arafat. In recent history, Mr. Lech Walesa first electrified the world about 16 years ago when, as an unknown electrician, he climbed the railings of a shipyard, in Gdansk, and proclaimed a strike. Solidarity, the Soviet blocks first opposition movement, was born, the son of a farmer, was hailed as its leader. In 1981, the Polish Communist Party invoked martial law to crush the movement. Walesas call to Poles for restraint helped prevent bloodshed. For this he was awarded the Nobel peace prize. During those Round Table Talks, a young communist minister sat across the table from Walesa. His name was Alexander Kwasniewski. November 20, 95, he became Polands second democratically elected president. Walesa lost to Kwasniewski after five years as the president of Poland. Gorbachev, who was elected the partys general secretary by the Politburo on March 11, 1985, launched perestroika (restructuring) and glasnost (openness) policies to reform the systemKremlin leaders are still struggling with problems unleashed by his reforms. As a result of the democratic reforms introduced by him, freedom of speech is permitted, something Russians had never before. Gorbachev is now being written out of history. After all History is more or less bunk. Its tradition. We dont want tradition. We want to live in the present and the only history thats worth a tinkers damn is the history we make

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today (Henry Ford). He won the Nobel Peace Prize and was Time Magazines Man of the Decade. Have we forgotten that Gorbachev (among other like Ronald Reagan) delivered us from the cold war? Russia was never a free society until Gorbachev transformed it.Hal Piper (Dawn, June 26). My greatest mistake was not to preserve the Soviet Union, says Gorbachev but he puts the blame on the hard-liners who tried to oust him in August 1991. Gorbachev lost at the elections so what! Great occasions do not make heroes or cowards; they simply unveil them to the eyes of men. Silently and imperceptibly, as we wake or sleep, we grow strong or weak; and at last some crisis shows that what we have become.Brook Foss Westcott ISRAELS INTRANSIGENCE Israels arrogant Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has ruled out the return of the Golan Heights to Syria, the creation of a Palestinian state or any discussion on the future of Jerusalem. Moreover, he has steadfastly dodged the question of pulling out Israeli troops from the West Bank town of Al Khalil (Hebron) or on meeting Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat. The outgoing Prime Minister Shimon Peres had promised to pull out most Israeli troops out of Al Khalil, where about 400 Jewish settlers live among 100,000 Palestinians, but postponed the move after a series of suicide bombings in February and March. Netanyahu has not only put this issue in cold storage, but has also ignored the land for peace negotiating principle. Netanyahu believes that there should be no prior conditions for the peace process. We are studying the question of Hebron (Al Khalil) in all its complexities historical complexity, religious complexity, security complexity of the highest order. In so far as Israels security is concerned, this is a term used to mask its expansionist policies. Let us not forget Nazi Germany had to occupy Poland for the so-called security of Germany!

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In view of the above situation, President Clinton took an uncompromising stand, not worthy of an honest broker: I am pleased by the tone of Prime Minister Netanyahu struck in the guidelines after the last election and in our conversation.London-based Arabic language newspaper, Ashraq Al Awsat. Egyptian Foreign Minister Amir Mussa said in an interview that if Netanyahu does not want peace, the Arabs will not run after him. In the end, Peres could not deliver. Netanyahu cant deliver. Only (late prime minister) Yitzhak Rabin could deliver (in the words of Senior PLO official Kaddoumi) but he was assassinated. DETECTORS FOR CROOKS In the film titled Khuddar, Amitabh Bachchan played a taxi-driver. His taxi named Basanti possessed such powers that whenever a crook sat in it, it sounded an alarm, warning the hero (Amitabh Bachchan) to have his passenger thrown out. It was an advanced lie detector (Dawn, July 14.) It is a jolly good idea, if only it would be possible to invent such a contraption. The presence of crooks in our society and the governing system is an open secret but who is to bell the cat? It is easy to propose impossible remedies.Acheson A RARE BREED Surgeon uses own kidney for transplant (Dawn, July. 27). The idea resulted from a talk with colleagues who said we should only recommend to our patients what we would do to ourselves, and the surgeon, Prof. Dr. Jochen Huer, Bonn, not only performed a successful kidney transplant operation, but also provided the donor organ himself. About 20 years ago, when I was on the staff of Universidad de Oriente, Venezuela, my wifes respiratory affliction deteriorated. About ten at night, the family physician, Dr. Armando Padrino, was phoned to come over urgently. The good doctor came along with his

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spouse as well. After administering the pertinent treatment, both of them stayed around and his spouse remained busy massaging the chest of the patient. It was past midnight, when the condition of my spouse stabilised, and only then they left. Guess what? No extra charges, only the routine fee! All is not lost. There are some good doctors around, but it is a rare breed. .

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HOW GOOD IS AN APOLOGY? An apology, a regretful acknowledgment of an offence or failure, is an unfortunate word that has been frequently used, abused and relegated to meaninglessness. In Latin America, it is commonly heard that Ud. me perdona pero voy a matarle (you pardon me, but I am going to kill you). In July 1995, the then Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama apologized to an estimated 200,000 women forced to prostitution by Japanese armed forces during WWII. The government also appointed a group hoping to collect at least US$22.7 million to compensate the comfort women of whom about 1,000 are believed to survive. The present prime minister, Hashimoto promised he would write the long-awaited letter of apology to accompany a compensation payment to the Asian women forced into sexual slavery in the last World War. In a dramatic and unprecedented show of contrition from a cabinet official, Japans Health Minister tearfully apologized . . . to AIDS victims for allowing contaminated blood products to be administered to the nations haemophiliacs. President Bill Clinton apologized to the survivors and families of those human guinea pigs who unknowingly were subjects of government-sponsored radiation experiments, and ordered his cabinet to devise a system of reliefincluding financial compensation. That was in October 1995. Once again, President Clinton offered his first direct apology for the White Houses retrieval of FBI

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files on high-level Republican officials. However, FBI Director, Louis Freeh, sharply criticised the Clinton White House for improperly obtaining more than 400 sensitive FBI background files in a serious invasion of privacy. In another instance, the US publicly apologized to Austria for failing to inform successive governments in Vienna that 79 secret arms caches were set up around that country half a century ago. Former Malawian President Hastings Banda offered sincere apologies to nation for wrongs committed during his rule. Canada apologized for Criminal Intelligence Service of Canadas report that said that Hong Kongs institutions, including its police force, would probably be corrupt after 1997. At the home front, Islamabad accepts Kabuls belated apology for the destruction of the Pakistan chancery building in Kabul last year. And, the South Korean students demand an apology from the United States for the 1980 Kwangju massacre by martial law troops, because the two former jailed presidents had the American support. Apologies are by no means a substitute for the harm perpetrated. Then, there are one-way apologies. Why is that only Japan is supposed to apologize for its action during the war? Are there no official regrets for the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Or for the carpet bombings of German cities (Dresden in particular) in the European theatre of war? On the other hand, The Germans have been persuaded from time to time to express their regrets for Nazi atrocities (Dawn leader, August. 17, 95). Apologies only account for the evil which they cannot alter.Disraeli

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ISRAELI LOGIC The hard-liner Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in his public statements, always repeats, Israel will pursue the Palestinian peace process only if the Palestinians honour their commitments, without mentioning Israels commitment. It is not important what the goyism (gentile) say. It is important what the Jews do.Founding Prime Minister of Israel David Ben - Gurion SENSELESS KILLINGS The recent brutal killings in Karachi and near Multan, in which 12 and 18 innocent people have lost their lives, respectively, raise the question why such senseless acts do take place. The killing tendency in scientific terms is generally motivated by a host of factors. At the personal level it may be the outcome of spontaneous odd behaviour, triggered by strong feelings of jealously, rivalry and revenge. As for large scale killings this is a reaction brought about by fear and hatred, due to ideological (communal or sectarian) differences, ethnic passions, etc. Such killings can be attributed to the convoluted thinking of Man. One of my friends, a German Professor, at the New York Polytechnic Institute, once said, Man is the most dangerous animal on earth and cannot tolerate a dissenting ideological opinion, whether ethnic, religious or political. To this end, sometimes killers are made. Russians used drugs in recent years to make better killers. Two drugsPromodol, a narcotic and Demerol, an anti-shock tranquilliser that can cause extremely aggressive behaviourwere used by Russian soldiers during the massacre of about 300 Chechen civilians in the Samaskly village in the beginning of the month of April 1996 (VOA). In January 1996, the famous actor Sultan Rahi fell victim to an assassins bullets without any trace of the cause. Almost immediately after his killing, the director of

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the Punjab Excise and Taxation department was murdered. January 15, the prominent poet and Pride of Performance winner, Mohsin Naqvi was assassinated in Allama Iqbal Town, Lahore. A few weeks back the Commissioner of Sargodha and the Commissioner of Income Tax, Peshawar, were killed brutally. The memories of Islampura, Lahore, slaughter in 1990 in which 17 of a family were butchered had hardly faded away when recently in Mangowal, Gujrat, 9 of a family were massacred. The gruesome killing of a mother and her five children at Sodiwal, Lahore, on July 5 followed the July 4 murder of 11 members of another family in Samundari, Faisalabad. Seemingly, the license to kill has become the order of the day. Intolerance is taking hold of the nation, and it is equally pathetic to see the deterioration of law and order in the country. The public at large has become fed up with words like the culprits to be apprehended within 24, 48 and 72 hours, coming from the Lions mouth. Granted, that capital punishment is no deterrent but, at least, it is a solace to the helpless, bereaved families, if and ever an exemplary sentence is meted out. Obtaining justice has become such a cumbersome and costly enterprise that people are inclined to settle scores themselves . . . The breakdown of the extended family system and the erosion of the authority of family elders has also contributed to distortion in values (Dawn leader, July 7).

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RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE When racial or religious hatred fails to find its vent, the living and inanimate objectsthe exponents of an adversarys faithare desecrated. Consequently, a personal or institutionalised system grounded in a particular belief and worship is maliciously violated. Intolerance to a dissenting faith seems to corroborate the contention of Henry Fielding (Rape upon Rape, 1730, act 2) When I mention religion, I mean the Christian religion; and not only the Christian religion, but Protestant religion, and not only the Protestant religion but the Church of England. This dangerous philosophy has overtaken some of the religious circles in Pakistan and the sectarian killings across the country, which are a grim reminder of the alarming situation prevailing in the country. The sacrilegious acts are almost universal and some instances are given here: In 1995, a leader of a neo-Nazi skinhead group painted swastikas and anti-Semitic slogans on synagogues in two Boston suburbs. Eventually, he was sentenced to 46 months in prison early this year. The racist groups became active during the Gulf War when they inscribed swastikas on Jewish graves after damaging these. Abraham Lincoln had observed that the first recorded torching of a black church occurred in South Carolina, US, in 1882. Racist whites burned down black churches throughout the South during the civil right movement of 1950s and 1960s, because these were often used as a meeting place for demonstrators fighting for the right to vote and an end to segregation. According to Atlantabased CFDR (Centre For Democratic Renewal), since January at a rate of about once a week, a black church has been bombed, burned or vandalised (Dawn, June.17). In April 1995, in Bradford, England, wanton attacks were made on a section of the local cemetery reserved for the Muslims. A similar incident, though on a smaller scale, was reported in 1994. Mosques have been a special target of racial venom in many parts of the world. In Kampala, Uganda, some

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worshippers were wounded when a man threw a grenade into a crowded mosque. A Turkish mosque was set ablaze in Bonn. Violence has rocked Germany since its reunification in 1990, much of it aimed at the 1.5 million Turks living in the country. Unidentified vandals set fire to Turkish mosque near the southern German City of Heidelberg. On Dec. 6, 1992, in Ayodhya, northern India, Hindu militants destroyed the 16th century Babri mosque, because it was thought to have been built by the Moghul emperor on the site of an ancient Hindu temple. In the wake of Babri mosque tragedy, the Jewish settlers in the West Bank town of Al-Khalil, attacked a mosque on the pretext that it happened to be on the site of an old synagogue believed to hold the tomb of Jesse, the father of King David. Not only the 400-year-old Ferhad Pasha mosque has been blown up in Bosnia-Herzegovina under Serb control, but 15 others in Banja Lukathe largest city under Bosnian Serb controlhave faced a similar fate. Today, not a single mosque stands in all of Serb-held Bosnia. Unfortunately, not a single effective voice of concern has been heard from the Organisation of Islamic Conference, Arab League and the recently formed National Solidarity Council of Pakistan. What has gone wrong? George Bernard Shaw seems to be wrong when he said, There is only one religion, though there are a hundred versions of it. The reason being intolerance based on religious animosity appears to be sharply on the increase despite scientific discoveries and progress. PRIME MINISTERIAL ENTOURAGE A letter from Lahori (Dawn, Nov. 3, 1995) states, Our Prime Minister has undertaken 35 visits in allfive more than once a month . . . Some people say she has blown up Rs. 200 million on her comings and goings. Muhammad Saqib (Dawn letter, Sept. 2), Turkish Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan on a recent visit to Pakistan . . . headed a large entourage of 238 members

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and Prime Minster Bhutto always takes the flak when it is her turn to visit a foreign country. Nothing wrong with visits, except the large retinue, which naturally involves large expenses. But in Erbakans case the facts are different. His accompany corps 255 strong (not 238) paid for the trip from their pockets. The anticipated expenses were already deposited with the Turkish treasury before embarking upon the visit according to a newspaper report. Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.Aldous Huxley INFIGHTING AMONG KURDS Renewed fighting between rival Kurdish militia in northern Iraq over money and territory has derailed a USbrokered settlement and turned the remote region into a diplomatic battleground between Washington and Tehran (Dawn, Aug.29). There have been continued hostilities, between the rival guerrillas of Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), which intensified in mid-August, leading to high casualties with several hundreds dead. The Kurds have been subjected to a diaspora by a cruel twist of history to live in Turkey (5 million), Iran (5m), Iraq (4m), Syria (1m), Commonwealth of Independent States, CIS, (1m) and Lebanon (60,000). The Iraqi Kurds, protected by Western air power since their breakaway from Baghdad in 1991, have set up a regional administration in April 94. The power-sharing administration by PUK and KDP became unworkable when clashes broke out, on Dec. 16, 1994, between these rival groups. A delicate truce was brokered by Iraqi National Congress (INC)an umbrella opposition organization. The inter-Kurd conflict slackened in February 1995 after a joint US-Turkish delegation warned both sides to stop infighting or risk losing Western sympathy. As the infighting between the opposing Kurd factions continues and the Turkish pressure mounts, the hardships faced by Kurds in Iraqs autonomous region are becoming more severe. As if that were not enough, racketeers and highway robbers are having their day. At the face of it the

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Kurds are their own enemy. The Kurdish rivalries to outdo one another are best illustrated by a Spanish proverb: Quien es enamorado de el mismo, no se necesita enemigos ajenos (he who loves himself, does not need outside enemies). BRUTALISATION OF OUR SOCIETY The killing of Murtaza Bhutto has brought into focus more clearly the emergence of a new phenomenon, namely, brutalisation of our society, the collapse of administrative structure.Article by Ghani Eirabie (Dawn, Sept. 26). Bertrand Russell observed that man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving, that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocation of atoms. Being the very nature of man, he is easily moulded by the influence of the society in which he is destined to live. Today the old-fashioned notions of obedience to family elders and respect for others are considered as outdated, resulting in unbridled initiatives, no matter how extreme, to the detriment of peaceful citizens. The problem is further worsened by the laxity in the use of firearms, specially by law-enforcement agencies. The demands made by different societies are variable. Some require submission of the individual, others set a higher value on personal independence and initiative, in some, selfishness is encouraged. Professor Amanat Ali once remarked that if in a society in which crime, intergroup violence and social disorganisation are of frequent occurrence, social scientists hold that society to be suffering from social pathology. If this is the case, then the integral components of such a society are sick, and thus prone to disorderly behaviour. The question is how to improve the factors contributing to the state of the society we are compelled to live in? As the standards of political morality have declined over the yearsabuses of state apparatus and services for greatly flawed political purposes of shaky,

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unrepresentative and irresponsible regimes had become the order of the dayeven elected governments have not been scrupulous about abuse of state resources and services to promote their questionable political objectives. What happened on the evening of Friday, Sept. 20, 1996, at 70 Clifton in Karachi was natural and inevitable, given the history of the use of unconscionable violence, force and brutality on the part of law-enforcement agencies. It would therefore, not be fair to blame the agencies alone for being what they have become (Dawn, Sept. 30). MINERALS AND HUMAN BODY Minerals, though required in small amounts, are essential for physical health (Dawn letter, Sept. 12). The great medical genius Dr. Hans Selye, University of Montreal, remarked that the body reacts to every variety of stress in the same way. The adrenal cortex hormones quickly prepare the body to meet the emergency. For example, the blood sugar soars, the blood pressure increases, and minerals are drawn from the bones. A number of drugs interfere with the digestion and the absorption of foodstuffs resulting in deficiency that, in turn, causes some damage to every part of the body. For instance, the importance of calcium is demonstrated by the fact that if it is present in insufficient quantity in the body, healing after surgery is slow or impossible. To correct this situation, only the administration of calcium is not enough because without adequate intake of hydrochloric acid, very little calcium is retained. Deficiencies of trace minerals, in the human body, may occur due to excessive loss of these elements by way of the intestine, urinary tract, or skin. Inadequate dietary ingestion of these minerals may also lead to their shortages as well. Refined flour, for example, provides the body with much less iron and zinc than does whole grain. Fabricated foods such as substitutes for orange juice or whipped cream may contain smaller amounts of trace minerals than their conventional counterparts. The essential trace minerals in the body may be a part of hormones, enzymes, and vitamins, as well as bone and

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tissue structures. Iron is needed to make hemoglobin and myoglobin. Iodine is a constituent of thyroid hormones and prevents iodine-deficiency goiter. Chromium is an activator of insulin. Cobalt is a component of the vitamin B12. The first trace element shown to be essential in the human diet was iron. In 1681, English physician Thomas Sydenham treated chlorosis, an iron-deficiency anemia, by administering iron and steel fillings steeped in cold Rhenish wine. The second trace element proved to be essential in humans was iodine. In about 1850, French chemist Jean Baptist Boussingault discovered that the salt deposits that some S. American Indians believed could cure goiter were able to do so because the deposits contained iodine compounds. Another trace mineral zinc is present in at least 90 enzymes, as well as in the hormone insulin. It plays an important role in the process of growth, including cell division and protein synthesis. It is involved in the functioning of the pituitary, adrenal, pancreas and the gonads. For the first time, in 1963, Dr. Ananda S. Prasad, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan, reported the effects of zinc deficiency among adolescent boys in Egypt. Among the symptoms, the boys showed retarded growth and delayed sexual development. In 1972, scientists also discovered zinc deficiency among children in Turkey and Iran. The zinc deficiency was found to be caused partly by their large consumption of bread containing dietary fiber and phytate, which inhibit the absorption of zinc from the intestine. The boys also ate little meat, which contains zinc in a form that is readily absorbed. The disorders could be corrected by feeding zinc supplements. To date, 15 trace minerals, that is, tin, vanadium, fluorine, silicon, zinc, nickel, arsenic, copper, manganese, cobalt, molybdenum, selenium, chromium, iron, and iodine have been judged essential to the health of humans and/or animals. The exact requirements of only three iron, iodine and zincare known. Adelle Davis, the author of the best-seller, Lets Get Well, remarked that persons over 65 years of age suffer 40 per cent of all illnesses in the US, and their diets have

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been found to be deficient in almost every nutrient except calories. Yet great improvements in health can occur when such foods as yogurt, wheat germ, an orange, eggs, pepup, and food supplements (vitamins and minerals) are taken daily. VITAMINS AND YOUR HEALTH With reference to the write-up of Prof. Syed Aslam (Dawn Health & Environment, Oct. 2), I would like to add the following points: Like vitamin C, a lack of vitamin E allows cells to break down because essential fatty acids, forming part of the cell structure, are destroyed by oxygen in its absence; hence clots form readily. Conversely, vitamin E strengthens the walls of the blood vessels and thus decreases clotting. In 1992, Dr. Ishwarlal Jilal, University of Texas, Southern Medical Centre, Dallas, observed that vitamins appear to work by slowing the damages caused by cholesterol to the artery walls. Thus, the hardening of the arteries, a major factor in the death from heart diseases, appears to nearly stop in patients who increase their intake of vitamins C, E and beta carotenea precursor of vitamin A. A study published in New England Journal of Medicine, February 1995, showed that folic acid, together with vitamin B6 and B12, helps regulate the amino acid homocysteinea natural substance that has many roles to play in the body. Harmless at normal levels, the amino acid turns toxic at high levels, exposing the body to heightened risk of cardiovascular disease, clogged arteries and coronary heart disease. Folic acid, a common vitamin B, is found in green vegetables like spinach, legumes and broccoli. Increasing the amount of folic acid, about 400 micrograms per day, seems to be enough to lower homocysteine to a safe level. SUBSTANDARD GLUCOSE THERAPY For the last few weeks, doctors have been noting an alarming increase in the number of patients reacting to pyrogenic contamination that leads

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to fever and shivering during a glucose infusion therapy, states Sarfraz Ahmed in his report (Dawn, Sept. 13). Doctors at the hospitals, checking the complaints of patients, in Karachi, Lahore, Faisalabad and Multan, found the culprit: substandard infusion sets, contaminated with bacteria. Recently, while suffering from acute diarrhoea, as the result of food poisoning, I was taken to a reputable private clinic in Gujrat for the emergency treatment. About five minutes after having been hooked to an I.V. solution, I developed uncontrollable shivering, violent heart palpitations, speeches impediment and almost drifted to unconsciousness. I vaguely remember asking the nurse to take out the intra-venous needle from my arm. The agony persisted nonetheless and in a short while a doctor turned up and some life-saving drugs were injected. In about half an hours time I felt some relief. My body temperature, however, was still 105 degrees. What happened, doctor? I asked. Nothing serious. This usually happensa reaction to infusion sets! was the answer. The racket of producing bogus drugs is flourishing rather it is on the increase. This racket for easy money through fraud remains unchallenged because of the apathy and connivance of the persons at the helm of affairs.

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POSTAL BLUES The Pakistan Post Office, a department of federal government, was converted into Pakistan Postal Service Corporation (PPSC) in 1992 to make it economically viable and to improve its efficiency. In recent months the postal charges were increased manifold to meet the PPSCs revenue deficit of Rs.894 million. The postal system is based on the principle of utility__ a public service not aimed at profitability. An increase in charges notwithstanding, the service has gone from bad to worse and the pilfering of foreign mail and parcels is taking place at an alarming rate. On Sept. 22, the postman of the circle informed me about a UMS packet waiting to be collected at the main post office. I had to run from pillar to post at the post office, to find the concerned staff member. The packet No. EE 00018918 XVE, from Venezuela, containing three boxes of expensive cigars were tampered with and six cigars, each costing about Rs.53, were stolen. When I made a claim, the clerk simply washed his hands off in an unapologetic way by saying, This is done at the International Mail Service in Islamabad. Another customer, apparently a villager, was almost in tears, because a remote control apparatus in a parcel from Korea was replaced with a stone and nobody listened to his complaint. Lets have look at some instances of postal efficiency. In 1992, a registered letter No. 276 sent from the Sindh University, March 9, failed to reach the addressee at Clifton, Karachi, even after a month. PASSP, Karachi, mailed a letter to an addressee near the Karachi City Railway station in April 1994, and it reached its destination more than 14 months later, i.e., July 5, 1995. Now that we have caretakers, it is hoped that somebody takes care of our postal system as well. THE TALIBAN VERSION OF ISLAM The above-captioned letter (Dawn, Nov.13) states: Does this version of Islam have any resemblance to the religion

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of Islam of 1400 years ago? Does Islam prescribe coercion? Does Isalam authorise terror? If this was the teaching of Islam then who would have been a Muslim? In Afghanistan, the Taliban (plural of Talib, a religious student studying in mosques and madressas mostly known as dar-ul-uloom; also, Chanra or pupil in Pushto, who seeks his meals going from door to door or through funds provided by philanthropists) first emerged upon scene in October 1994 when they dramatically captured Kandahar. After the Russian withdrawal, the Afghan factions took to fight each other for their vested interests unleashing a reign of terror including plunder, rape, extortion, kidnapping and summary executions. Under these circumstances, the Taliban were a Godsend blessing. They control 24 out of 31 Afghan provinces, have brought order to chaos, the food prices have come down overnight and checkpoints have been eliminated. Then, the Taliban began to impose religious restrictions with the same zeal. Maulana Habibullah, a leading member of Taliban leadership, said that the Taliban were determined to enforce a pure Islamic society in Afghanistan. Consequently, TV, movies, music and games have been deemed objectionable; flying kites and playing chess are banned; the Islamic Council of Taliban has prohibited smoking and sale of cigarettes, emphasising that Islam doesnt allow any type of intoxicant; momeylenders are openly punished; the Taliban stop people on the streets and force them to offer prayers. Photography is forbidden. Men, both civilians and under arms are given six weeks too grow a beard and not to trim it and for this purpose, a special religious police has been established. The rulers of Kabul in particular have cracked down drastically on women. The girls schools and colleges are closed down. Employment of women is prohibited, thereby at least 8000 Kabul citizens are affected and some 30,000 widows, the only earning hands of their families, are facing hard times. Women venturing out of their homes must be veiledclad in orthodox shuttlecock burqas. The Afghan Minister for Information and Culture, Mullah Mutaqi, 26, has justified the restrictions to maintain the Islamic way of life for women because, according to him, they were misled in the past eras of

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kings and communists. The Talibans version of Islam invoked an almost worldwide protest. Ayatollah Ahmed Janali, an influential religious scholar in the Tehran government, blasted the strict restrictions in the name of Islam, warning it could harm the religious reputation. The U.S. warned the Taliban that they would not win international recognition unless they respect womens rights. The ex-Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, in an interview to BBC, remarked that the Taliban should adopt a moderate policy regarding the restrictions on working women and schoolgoing girls. The Islamic Rafa Partythe senior partner in Turkeys coalitiontermed the Talibans Islamisation of Afghanistan as a coup detat against Islam. It should be remembered that even during Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) time the women had been taking part in wars along with their male colleagues. The Quranic verse, There is no compulsion in religion seems to have been overlooked. The Taliban have intorduced a most backward attitude towards women in the world. No other societynot even Saudi Arabiahas relegated women to such an inferior position as the Afghans under the Taliban. THE JOB OF CARETAKERS The new imported financial wizard, Mr. Shahid Javed Burki, has incriminated the dismissed administration of Ms Benazir Bhutto for the 120 crisis of Pakistan with the remarks: Depletion in foreign reserves, collapse of government-run banks, uncontrolled spending, expansion in money supply, recession in textile industry, rampant corruption and erosion in real income of the common man (Dawn, Dec. 4). But didnt all of those ills, mentioned above, in a varying degree, plague our country during the regime of Mr. Nawaz Sharif, including the Caretakers No. I, and his predecessors? The saner elements demand answer. As one understands, the caretakers are supposed to take care of the problem for which they were brought in at the first placeaccountability and electionsinstead of indulging in allegations and counter-allegations.

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TWO POINTS OF VIEW A false card no matter how adroitly and how often played is bound to be discarded in the end. A case in point is the much heralded allegations against Asif Zardari, that is: the recovery of Rs700 million from his person on the fateful night between Nov 4 and 5, and 26 maunds of gold, along with 1,430 pieces of antiques, being smuggled out by him, have been reportedly brought back from Karachi to the Lahore Dry Port. The Rangers chief has denied any knowledge of the recovery or whereabouts of the allegedly seized amount (Dawn, Dec. 15). And look at this Naheed Khan released from jail because the learned court observed that Section 409 would not apply in the case as the prosecution had failed to provide documentary evidence to substantiate the charges (of having drawn Rs 200,000 from Baitul Mall which she allegedly gave to two PP workers) (Dawn, Dec. 16). Truth is tough. It will not break, like a bubble, at touch. Nay, you may kick it about all day and it will be round and full at evening.Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. INCAPABILITY It is very difficult job to trace the criminal proofs of big shotsGovernor of Punjab (a news report, Dec. 17). If you cannot stand the heat, dont go into the kitchen.Attributed to Harry Truman when he fired General MacArthur after the WW II. BEGGARS Beggars thrive in Islamabad (Dawn, dec.23). The beggars are the happiest lot; they love one another. Long live the beggars.Beranger THE ANATOMY OF VIOLENCE The character of ideology, its extremism and violence, has

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been analysed by several critics. Albert Camus, in particular, beginning as an existentialist, who subscribed to the view that the universe is absurd, passed to a personal affirmation of justice and human decency as compelling values to be realised. The systematic violence of ideologycrimes de logiquethat were committed in its name, appeared to Camus to be wholly unjustifiable. Though he was willing to admit that the ultimate aim of most ideologies was to diminish human suffering, yet he argued that good ends did not authorise the use of evil means. The commitment to an ideology becomes a sort of enlistment so that to become the adherent of an ideology is to become a combatant partisan. The French socialist revolutionary and syndicalist George Sorel, in his best work, Reflections sur la Violence, 1908 (Reflections on Violence) resorted to define the word violence: by violence he meant passion, not the throwing of bombs and the burning of buildings. Violence for Sorel was the revolutionary denial of the existing social order, and force was the states power of coercion. (His theory was later perverted and utilised by the Italian fascist dictator, Benito Mussolini.) The physical violence may be classified in two categories, that is, sectarian and personal. American Medical Association President Robert McFees report, May 95, ranked four different kinds of personal violence family violence, sexual, public (gang, gun and drug) violenceand virtual violence depicted in entertainment media. Character assassination and mudslinging reflect another aspect of violence without the involvement of material damage, though it hurts profoundly, especially if the target is a sensitive person. The ratnatraya constitutes the basis of a Jains ethics, namely, right knowledge, faith and conduct must be cultivated together, and none of them can be achieved in the absence of others. The code of conduct is based on ahimsa, or non-violence. Since thought gives rise to action, violence in thought merely precedes violent behaviour. Violence in thought, then, is the greater and subtler from of violence, because it arises from ideas of attachment and aversion, grounded in passionate states,

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which result from negligence or lack of care in behaviour. Jainism enjoins avoidance of all forms of injury, whether committed by body, mind, or speech. Internal criticisms of religion have their basis in the imbalance that occurs when one aspect or one understanding of religion is allowed to dominate the rest. If unchecked sectarianism takes rootreligious insights become associated exclusively with one particular doctrinal or theological phrase, such as justification by faith or with one particular theological view regarding religious practices. If religious institution becomes interwoven with political views it can become tyrannical. Furthermore, intra-religious criticisms usually focus on such themes as narrowness, traditionalism, conventionalism, materialism, and immortality. Some criticism is also reserved for religiosity, which though granting a dimension of faith, treats faith in an altogether superficial and unbalanced way. Religiosity represents an excessive preoccupation with religion that is depicted in an incoherent and oversimplified relating of religious faith to intellectual views and social and personal practices. Also, there runs a materialistic hatred of social decadence and resignation. Human nature, it seems, is not innately good thus a satisfactory social order is not likely to evolve but would have to be brought about by violence. On the other hand, Cases where the state may itself be partisan and determined to reject or block a particular demand for ethnic or other narrow reasons underscore anachronistic tendencies. And these, if persisted in, can only result in unending mayhem and collapse of civil society, M.B. Naqvi (Dawn, March 5, 96). Apparently, the global phenomenon of violence is here to stay. Lahori, in his article Our apathetic acceptance of violence, has summed up thus: Crime, brutal and senseless has been brought to your living room and we accept it because we see so much of it. Yes, the killer is caught in the end but not before he has glamorised crime. And not only the people but governments across the world have accepted. At the home front, The gap between indulgence and penury and between privilege and deprivation is too wide to allow us the luxury to hope that a society will move

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steadily towards balance and harmony and acquire the virtue of being at peace with itself (Dawn leader, The anatomy of violence, Jan. 11). IODISED SALTGOOD OR BAD? Reference to the news item, Taking suo motto notice of persistent reports about adverse effects of iodine, or least of its excessive consumption, the Lahore High Court has asked a professor of medicine to explain the beneficial and harmful effects of iodised salt on Dec. 19 (Dawn, Dec. 18), I would like to advance some information in this regard: Small amounts of iodine are needed by animals for the formation of thyroxine, a hormone containing iodine, secreted by the thyroid glands in the neck. Thyroxine controls the speed at which body activities occur. A serious deficiency of iodine may cause goitre, a disease in which the thyroid glands enlarge greatly. A person who synthesizes too little of this hormone suffers from lack of sex interest, fatigue, lethargy, cold, especially cold hands and feet, and usually has low pulse, low blood pressure and gains weight on few calories. Iodine and other nutrients are needed before sufficient amounts of thyroxine are produced. Severe iodine deficiencies resulting in goitre have decreased tremendously since iodised salt became available, but studies of Saxena, et. al. (1962) of iodine absorption in connection with fallout damage have shown that iodine intake is still far too low. Mild deficiencies are associated with toxic goitre, a high incidence of thyroid cancer (Benson, 1956; Matoviniovic, 1962), an elevated blood cholesterol, and death from heart disease (Mark, 1962; Danowski, 1963). When only 8.5 mg of potassium iodide have been given daily to children for only a few days, iodine was so avidly absorbed by the thyroid glands that its effect lasted six months. Six milligrams of iodine daily, given for thyroid abnormalities, have produced excellent results, but large amounts are said to be without merit and can be highly toxic. Organic iodine, such as supplied by kelp (any of numerous large sea-

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weeds found in colder seas and belonging to the Order Laminariales, about 30 genera, of brown algae. The term applies also to the ash produced by the incineration of various seaweeds. Until early in the 19th century this ash was an important source of potash and iodine) is better retained and less readily lost in the urine than potassium iodide. Cancer of the thyroid is unusually high in countries where the iodine intake is low. In America it decreased after the introduction of the iodised salt. If the thyroid gland is supplied with sufficient iodine, it does not absorb the dangerous radioactive material. Excessive iodine is toxic, yet doctors have given 2,400 mg daily to patients including children sometimes for as long as five years (Rogachefsky, 1964) and physicians, like Danowski, consider 300 mg small quantity, though is 2,000 the 0.15 mg allowed by FDA (US Food and Drug Administration Agency). THE AL KHALIL ACCORD Many of the present Jewish residents of Al Khalil (Hebron), and some of those in nearby Kiryat Arba, adhere to a militant wing of religious Zionism and believe they have a mission to resettle in the Biblical land of Israel, including Al Khalil. They are heavily armed and vow never to leave the land they call by its Biblical name, Judea and Samara. According to an accord, Israel was to withdraw its troops from 80 per cent of Al Khalil in March 1996, leaving a small force behind to guard Jewish religious sites and about 400 settlers living in the heart of the city surrounded by the overwhelming Palestinian population of 120,000. Also, downtown is the cave of the Patriarch, a site holy to both Jews and Muslims. Palestinians call it Abraham Mosque. Al Khalil was the last of seven West Bank cities occupied in the 1967 Arab-Israel war to be handed over to the Palestinians under Arafats leadership. However, the then Prime Minster Shimon Peres delayed the Israeli troops redeployment from Al Khalil after a wave of

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Hamas suicide bombings on Feb. 25, 1996, that killed 59 people in Israel in four weeks. Later, Peres promised to go forward with the redeployment but the withdrawal of Israeli forces was delayed until after the Israeli elections in May 1996. As a result of re-negotiations between the PLO and Israel in September 1995, it had been stipulated to redeploy Israeli troops from Al Khalil by June 12, 1996. After Binyamin Netanyahus victory, while referring to the Al Khalil pullout, the US ambassador to Israel, Martin Indyk, told Israel Radio on June 3, 1996, that Washington would work closely with the new government of Netanyahu to see those agreements fulfilled. Netanyahu, during his electoral campaign, had assured that he would not stand by the Peres governments commitment to withdraw most of Israeli troops from Al Khalil by the middle of June. The US, true to its unflinching support of Israel, defended delay in Israels withdrawal. Nicholas Burn, the US State Department spokesman, said on June 11, 1996, . . . it is rational and reasonable to give the new prime minister (Netanyahu) . . . some time to form a government. And were not going to try to hasten that process. In August 1996, Netanyahu finally decided to press ahead with the Israels delayed partial pullout from Al Khalil, but planned to allow Israel troops to patrol Arab parts of the city. But the Palestinian officials rejected this, because according to Saeb Erekat, local government minister in the Palestinian Authority and chief peace negotiator, Interim government only gives them (Israelis) the right to operate in areas of settlement activity and we will not reopen talks on any new government. Yasser Arafat called for the deployment of an international peacekeeping force with US participation in Al Khalil to ease Israeli security concern over redeployment. But US and Israel rejected the suggestion. Eventually, Yasser Arafat (whom fifteen years ago, Prime Minister Menachem Begin, the founding father of the right-wing Likud bloc, called a two-legged beast and less than a year ago, just before the Israeli election, Netanyahu labelled as arch terrorist) and Netanyahu reached an agreement at midnight on Jan 15,1997, at the

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Erez Crossing point, between the Gaza Strip and Israel, on the Israeli pullout from Al Khalil. The main points of the accord are: Israeli redeployment from 80 per cent of Al Khalil; Citys Jewish enclaves and Tomb of the Patriarch to remain under Israeli protection; joint Israeli-Palestinian unit will patrol the high ground overlooking the Jewish neighbourhood; and 180 unarmed observers from Norway, Denmark, Italy, Sweden, Switzerland and Turkey will be deployed in Al Khalil for renewable three-month periods. Arafat showed us not only how and why he is considered the greatest surviving leader on Earth and the best negotiator, but also he taught Netanyahu a fine lesson on how to handle the peace talks, according to an Israeli participant in the negotiations (Dawn, Jan 23). After all Hebron should be a place of friendshipcalled Hevron in Hebrew and Al Khalil in Arabicat the root of both words is friend. DISAPPOINTMENT Burki terms situation in Pakistan disappointing (Jan. 31). Even the caretakers have failed to take care of the job for which they were brought in at the first place, what a pity! Where there are thousand disappointments, let there be another one. NECESSITY The police post at Jahangirabad, Nazimabad, gets power supply direct from supply line (Dawn photo, Feb. 5) and there seems to be no one to arrest or fine members of the law-enforcement agency for the theft. No, Sir, Necessity hath no law. Feigned necessities, imaginary necessities . . . are the greatest cozenage that men can put upon the Providence of God, and make pretences to break known rules by. ___ Oliver Cromwell IRON AND ANAEMIA Iron-deficiency anaemia can be controlled by

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supplementing or fortifying various food products for that matter using ironised salt, Inayat H. Thaver (Feb. 22). Mr. Thavers stance of controlling the iron-deficiency anaemia by iron supplement alone seems to lack scientific basis. Anaemia develops when red cells and the amount of haemoglobin decrease by diets deficient in vitamin B6. This form of anaemia, which cannot be controlled by iron, is found to be common in men, women and children. It sometimes persists for ten years or longer. Such patients, invariably loaded with iron, often become so ill that transfusions are necessary. When 100 mg of vitamin B6 were given daily to these individuals, red cells remarkably increased and the haemoglobin rose quickly from 8.5 to 13 grams. However, the anaemia returned as soon as the vitamin was withdrawn. Iron is so widely distributed that to produce irondeficiency anaemia, one must live largely on refined foods. Meats, eggs, whole-grain breads and cereals, fruits and vegetables all contain iron in considerable quantity. If refined foods are avoided, iron supplements are not needed. Lack of vitamin B folic acid causes large cell anaemia common among pregnant women, individuals lacking stomach acid, infants and children following infections and in persons who have a high intake of refined foods, especially alcohol. This form of anaemia is associated with a sore mouth and tongue and perhaps a greyishbrown skin pigmentation. It cannot be corrected by iron, but within a few hours of adding 1-5 mg of folic acid to a diet, the bone marrow starts producing new blood cells and the anaemia quickly disappears. Ferrous sulphate and various iron compounds are found to destroy vitamin E. They increase the need for oxygen and pantothenic acid and several nutrients. They harm the unsaturated fatty acids and destroy carotene and vitamin A, C, and E. Dr. H.A. Mattill (1952) pointed out that when little food can be eaten during illness and protein intake is low, iron compounds can cause serious liver damage. The least toxic of the iron salts is said to be ferrous gluconate (Thompson, 1959), but iron that is never toxic can easily

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be obtained from unrefined foods and not from ironised salt. BENEFITS OF ASPIRIN This is with reference to Dr. Kokab Jafris letter (Feb. 28) wherein he concludes, . . . it should be stressed that regular doses of aspirin are a real threat to ones stomach. This write-up is long on the harmful effects of aspirin and short on its beneficial aspects, which deserve to be highlighted for the good of the public. When Hippocrates, the father of medicine, was using aspirin to help women endure labour pains, it was a humble herbal remedy obtained from the bark of the willow. Over the passage of time, it has become a wonder drug of the 20th century. Some drugs are highly toxic whereas others, such as aspirin, are less so. Yet, aspirin interferes with digestion, the formation of the body starch, the production of tissue proteins, and the ability of cells to absorb sugar; it slows down the clotting of blood, increases the need both for oxygen and for every known nutrient and accelerates the urinary loss of calcium, potassium, vitamin C and all of the B vitamins. Several chemically unrelated series of complex organic acids have the ability to relieve mild to moderate pain through actions that reduce inflammation at its source. The prototype of this class of drugs is aspirin. Like aspirin, many of the drugs of this class also reduce fever, antipyretic action, and those that resemble aspirin most closely share what is presumed to be its molecular mechanism of action, namely, inhibition of the synthesis of prostaglandins (natural products of inflamed leukocytes, which induce the response in local tissue that include pain and inflammation). In certain cases, the inhibition of prostaglandins synthesis may result in other serious side effects, such as gastric ulcers due in part to the irritant activity of large doses of aspirin on the lining of the stomach and the reduced ability of platelets in the blood to aggregate and form clots. The latter effect, however, has given aspirin an added use as a prophylactic

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anti-thrombotic drug to reduce chances of cardiac or cerebral vascular thrombosis. Aspirin is a mild, non-narcotic analgesic useful in the relief of headache, muscle and joint pains. It is also effective in reducing fever, inflammation and swelling and thus has been used for treatment of rheumatoid arthritis, rheumatic fever and mild infection. In these instances, aspirin generally acts on the symptoms of disease and does not modify or shorten the duration of a disease. It has been used, however, as an anticoagulant in the treatment of such conditions as unstable angina or following a minor stroke or heart attack because of its ability to inhibit the production of blood platelet aggregates (which may cut off the blood supply to regions of the heart or brain). As an analgesic, aspirin interferes with the oxidative burning of fuel by cells. To get energy, the cells switch to a less efficient way of burning fuel that does not use oxygen but generates a lot of heat. Increased perspiration develops to counteract a rise in body temperature, leading to dehydration and thirst. Aspirin is thought to be a causative agent of Reyes syndrome, a rare and serious degenerative disease of the brain and fatty tissue of the liver that accompanies certain viral infections in children and young adults. Aspirin also alters the pH in the body, affecting the central nervous system. In addition, aspirin poisoning causes a number of accidental deaths annually, and Dr. Chrichton (1960) showed that children allergic to this drug are often harmed even by tiny amounts given for mild cold or fever. Many cases of severe toxicity have been recorded, causing ulcers (Kiser, 1953), loss of hearing, and ringing, roaring, and hissing sounds in the ears, especially among persons given the full aspirin treatment of arthritis. As reported by Nicki Pope a small, daily dose of aspirin may cut the risk of lower bowel cancer, because it reduces the number of polyps, the fleshy growths that turn cancerous. In September 95, some of the American scientists observed that the daily intake of aspirin, four to six times a week, for twenty years, reduces the hazard of colon cancer. The desirable results are only achieved if it is used constantly at least for ten years. However, this

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therapy is not recommended for all, as in certain cases it upsets the stomach. According to Dr. Colin Lewis, deputy director of the British Heart Foundation, Only small daily dose of a quarter to half a tablet (of aspirin) are recommended for the treatment of heart disease. Furthermore, As we discover more about the way it works in cancer, we may well get a feeling that it may not be a bad idea to take it. A TRUE LEADER Banazir decides to quit power politics (March 12). A true leader always keeps an element of surprise up his sleeve, which others cannot grasp but which keeps his public excited and breathless.Charles de Gaulle

ABOVE THE LAW Indian PM Deve Gowadas son says, He is above law (March 4). People of privilege will always risk their complete destruction rather than surrender any material part of their advantage.J. K. Galbraith POOR MARCOS In Laoag, the Philippines, power firm cuts the supply of electricity to the mausoleum of the former billionaire, President Ferdinand Marcos because of unpaid bills to the tune of $214,000 (March 4). How apt is Sophie Tuckers remark: I have been poor, and I have been rich, rich is better.

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POVERTY Man sells daughter to meet cops demand (March 1). Extreme poverty is an affront to the dignity of human beings and represents a denial of human rights.Views of experts at a seminar held at the UN, 1994 CROOKEDNESS While the majority of the people have welcomed the ban on meals, there are reports that those who have a lot of money to spend have gone for lunch boxes for their guests. The price of a lunch box sold here (Multan) ranges from Rs.50 to Rs.125 each (March 20). Out of the crooked timber of humanity no straight thing can ever be made.Immanuel Kant

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ATTA CRISIS All claims made by the provincial governments and district administrations have proved hopeless as the wheat flour shortage continues unabated. Long queues of men, women and children are witnessed waiting for hours outside fair price shops set up by the local flourmills and district administrations for the smooth supply of the commodity. The Punjab Food Minister Hafiz Iqbal Khan Khakwani says, There is no scarcity of wheat in the Punjab (March 28) and he fails to explain the flour crisis because his department had sufficient wheat stocks for supply to flourmills till April 20. The minister also claimed that government was providing 150,00 metric tonnes of wheat every day to the flourmills as against 120,000 tonnes actually consumed in the Punjab. The citizens are compelled to purchase atta at the rate of Rs.7.30 to Rs.12 per kg against the government fixed price of Rs.6.40 per kg. The chakki atta continued to be sold

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between Rs.11 and Rs.13.50 in retail, in different parts of Karachi, instead of Rs.8.50 per kg. Roti is sold at Rs.2 and Rs.2.50 apiece in various outlets. The flour bags of 20 kg are being sold at Rs.142 to Rs.155 instead of Rs 120. A wheat sack of 80 kg is supplied to the shopkeepers at the rate of Rs.630 instead of Rs 495 per bag. Mr. Rasheed Naghar, member Central Committee of PML (N), blamed the shortage of wheat on the bureaucracy, which colluded with the roller flourmills, as a result of which atta was being hoarded to earn windfall profits. The Sindh Food Minister Maqbool Ahmed Sheikh attributed the current wheat crisis to smuggling of the commodity to Afghanistan, and to over-utilisation of ministers wheat allocation quota to favourable flourmills by his predecessor in the previous government. The flourmills hold the Caretaker government responsible for the crisis which did not take necessary measures (two ships carrying 94,000 tonnes of imported wheat arrived recently) for the import of wheat from abroad to meet domestic requirements. Marketeers on the other hand, blame the flourmill-owners for the crisis they were getting wheat from the Food Department at Rs.185 per maund and were selling the same at Rs.250 per maund to the smugglers who were paying in dollars. Evidently, the immediate cause of the atta crisis is the administrations failure to check the unscrupulous elements who are out to exploit every situation to fill their pockets (March 27). COUNTRYS SAVIOUR JI alone can pull country out of mess, says Qazi (March 21). Poor at polls, rich in conflict. CHEATING Headmaster found heading cheaters gang (March 26). Thou shalt not steal; an empty feat, when its so lucrative to cheat.Authur Hugh Clough

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GREED The minorities of Sindh have complained about the sale of the Hindu temple Lal Mandir, at Shikarpur, which was under the care of the Evacuee Trust Property Board (April 1). Suppose everybody cared enough, everybody shared enough, wouldnt everybody have enough? There is enough in the world for everyones need, but not enough for everyones greed.Frank Buchman, Remaking the World, 1947 COPYING THE GULF Politicians make the most surprising statements. The latest example is of our Interior Minister Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain who was reported to have said . . . that Pakistan would try to enforce the police system in vogue in the Gulf states to eradicate crime, and the Dawn editorial (April 10) put forth a number of reasons, under the above-cited caption, against following the model in question. Did you ever notice that when a politician does get an idea he usually gets it all wrong.Don Marquis (18781937) FACTS ABOUT LEAD POISON Lead and its compounds accumulate inside the human body and this cumulative poisoning beyond acceptable levels (WHOs limit for the atmospheric lead concentration, ranges from 0.5 through 1.0 microgram per cubic meter of air) may lead to serious health hazards. Lead poisoning, also called Plumbism, is the deleterious effect of a gradual accumulation of lead in body tissues, as a result of repeated exposure to lead or lead containing substances.

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In the home, the main sources of lead are usually leadbased paint and drinking water carried through lead pipes. Industries in which workers encounter lead-containing solids, dusts, or fumes are the petroleum industry, mining, and smelting, printing, cutlery and storage-battery manufacture, plumbing and gas-fitting, paint and pigment manufacture, and manufacture of ceramics, glass, and ammunition. Other possible sources of lead poisoning include the agricultural use of insecticides containing lead compounds; spraying of fruits and vegetables may affect the workers and, eventually, the consumers. Constant exposure to the exhaust fumes of motor vehicles powered by fuel containing tetraethyl lead also causes lead poisoning, especially in children. Airborne lead is absorbed in the body not only through air but also through potable water and food, including foliage. However, the concentration of atmospheric lead drops as the rainfall increases after the dry season. According to the US Environment Programme, gasoline combustion is the single largest source of atmospheric lead. It contributes to the 90% of atmospheric lead emission in the USA. the remaining 10% emanates from other sources. Doctor Mohammad Khaliquzzaman, Chief Scientific Officer, BAEC (Bangladesh Atomic Energy Commission), in 1996, observed that Bangladesh has the highest lead pollution in the worldagainst 383 nanogram (one billionth of a gram) in Mexico City and 360 in Bombay. The problem was attributed largely to the use of leaded fuel. In 1996, a World Bank report stated that nearly two billion people in the cities, in developing countries, are at risk from lead-poisoning. The World Bank also notes Karachi as the worlds ninth city where people are at risk of being afflicted with the leadpoisoning related disorders. Extended exposure to lead may lead to a variety of malfunctions and the toxicity depends upon individual susceptibility. Symptoms also vary; they may develop gradually or appear suddenly after chronic exposure. The patient usually becomes pallid, fatigued, nauseated, moody, and irritable and may complain of a metallic taste. Digestion is deranged, the appetite fails, and there may be

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severe abdominal pain, with spasms of abdominal muscles (lead colic) and constipation. A black line may appear at the base of the gums. There is often anemia. Headache, dizziness, confusion, and visual disturbances (hallucinations) may be noted. Peripheral nerve involvement results in a paralysis (lead palsy) that generally affects the fingers, hands, and wrists (wrist drop). Among children, the brain itself may be affected, resulting in negative mental and cognition growth. Brain injury may also occur in adults after massive exposure. The lead toxicity may involve renal, hepatic, endocrine, reproductive and immune systems as well as the bloodforming tissues. The studies from Harvard Medical School (Journal of American Medical Association, April 96) suggest that cumulative lead burden, as reflected by the levels of lead in cortical bone, may be a significant factor for the development of hypertension. Also, a low-level lead exposure could result in impaired kidney function in middle-aged and older men. It is worth mentioning the part played by vitamin C and other measures to be adopted under toxic conditions. A major function of vitamin C is its non-specific role as a detoxifying agent. The vitamin appears to react with any foreign substance reaching the blood and, if generously supplied, it nullifies the toxicity of fluorine, saccharine and other artificial sweeteners, lead benzene, carbon tetrachloride and excessive vitamin A and D, as well as drugs. Liver damage caused by various industrial poisons, including lead, has been corrected by diets high in protein and vitamin C, and damage from such poisons was found when these nutrients were under-supplied. The lead in the tissues may be removed gradually with substances such as the calcium salts of ethylene diamine, tetraaceitic acid, and penicillamine. A lengthy treatment may be necessary, but recovery is usually complete, except when there is major involvement of the brain structure. Japan had almost completely switched over to lead-free gasoline in 1976. Similarly, the US emission of atmospheric lead derived from 60 thousand metric tons in 1980 was reduced to two thousand metric tons in 1990.

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Unfortunately, the Pakistan Environment Protection Council, 1993, adopted National Environment Quality Standards, but no limit was set for lead emission levels from automobiles. Lead is poison to us, and our public and private vehicles are the foremost offenders (April 24, 96). SIESTA FOR HEALTH A write-up appeared some time ago, under the caption Siesta and progress in which the word siesta was mistakenly taken for shirking work or indolence while on duty. Apparently, the author of this letter mistook the word siesta for the Spanish word fiestameaning entertainment, holidays, festivity and the like. Siesta does not imply laziness. It originates from Latin sexta (hora) sixth (hour), midday. English dictionaries describe siesta as: period of rest or sleep taken in the early afternoons, customary in hot countries. Siesta is a custom prevalent in the Riviera (Italian seashore) region with the climate and scenery like that of South of France, Monaco, and Northwest Italy. It is not only a practice in the Riviera but also Latin American countries. I have observed this habit during my 30-years stay in Venezuela. The period of siesta usually extended from about midday till almost 1500 h. People resumed their normal occupations post-siesta, fresh like a daisy. The sleep laboratories of the Association of German Psychologists (BDP) have found, Even a brief nap in the afternoon restores vitality and concentration and should not be dismissed as a waste of precious time (June 14). The findings indicate that people who sleep a full eight hours each night often need a short nap in the early afternoon to recharge their batteries. PUBLIC TOILETS Reference to the above-captioned write-up (Dawn letter, Aug. 22) which states that in a sprawling city like Karachi with a population of 13 million, there exists the problem

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of public toilets. The gravity of the matter was also highlighted by Mr. Justice Nasir Aslam Zaid recently. I am a frequent traveller to Lahore and Islamabad and the situation is no better there either. One has to hold up ones waterworks till a suitable hotel or restaurant is reached for the convenience. More than 16 years ago, when I was in Venezuela, Dr. Carlos Andrs Perez embarked upon the presidential electoral campaign of Venezuela for the second term, and he won. He traversed the national territory on foot, logging several miles a day. During his gruelling walks, he realized the importance of public toilets. On assuming the Presidency, he issued El decreto veintiuno (the 21st decree) to construct public conveniences, with immediate effect, at all spots that mattered, and it was complied with. On the national scene, those who have power to act may give a thought to it and bring about the installation of conveniences for the good of the public at large, especially in big cities. This power to act according to discretion for the public good, without the prescription of the law, and sometimes even against it, is that which is called prerogative.John Locke PREMONITION You are going to get a big surprise with the next thing I do.Princess Diana to reporters while holidaying on Dodi Al Fayads yatch at St. Tropez (Dawn The Review, July 31Aug. 6). And what a surprise it was! Aug. 31, she came to a tragic end, along with her newfound love, Dodi Al Fayad, and the chauffeur, Henri Paul, in an automobile accident in the Paris tunnel. Sorrow in all lands, and grievous omens. Great danger in the dragon of the hills, And silent now the earths green oracles. That will not speak again of innocence. David Sutton THE CONSEQUENCES OF DESERTIFICATION This refers to the write-up, Desertification a dire threat

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by Dr. S. Khatoon (July 17) related to the UN Day against Desertification that fell on June 17. Climatic changes or human influence or both cause desertification. Climatic factors include periods of temporary but severe drought and long-term climatic changes towards aridity. Human factors include the artificial alteration of the climate, such as degradation of the biological environment by removing vegetation (which can lead to uncontrollably high erosion), excessive cultivation, and exhaustion of surface-water or ground water supplies for irrigation, industry, or domestic use. As cropland soil erodes, water supplies fail, and forests and grasslands are depleted. The Third World economies start to falter or stagnate, even decline. Many Third World countries depend heavily for their development prospects on the natural resourcessoil, water, and vegetationthat sustain much of their economic activity. In Central America, for example, about 25 per cent of the gross domestic product is based on natural resources which also account for more than 50 per cent of all employment and lions share of foreign exchange earnings. Desertification is not limited to non-desert regions and can occur in areas within deserts where the delicate ecological balance is disturbed. The Sonoran and Chihuahuan deserts of the American southwest, for example, have become observably more barren, as the wildlife and plant population have diminished. The spreading deserts are a real threat. This costs the world some US$ 42 billion a year in lost agricultural production, one fourth of that in Africa alone. Desertification exacts its highest toll on those least able to withstand itaffecting some one billion people, most of them poor, ignored and disenfranchised. The UN estimates that over 250 million people face food and water shortage. Most of these people do not live in deserts themselves but on the arid or semi-arid soil that surrounds them. Robert Ryan, a former diplomat who led the US delegation to the Rio summit, says that many of those who used to eke out a marginal existence on drylands in places like Chad and Burkina Faso had been forced to abandon

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their traditional lifestyles. In extreme cases like the Sahara you see lots of places where people cant work the land any more: they have had to leave. The good news is that we still have time, if we act forcefully, to return the dryland to health. In 1994 more than 127 governments, including Pakistan met in Paris to sign the UN Convention to Combat Desertification and Droughts (CCD). It aims to reverse the spread of drylands by improving the management systems and revising international development aid flows. Using a variety of ultramodern and traditional irrigation techniques, UAEs islands have been partially greenified. Much of this tree-planting sprout from the support of Sheikh Zyad bin Sultan al Nahayan, President of the UAE, and one of the leading environmentalists. Under his guidance, the barren face of the desert has been transformed into lush greenery in a little more than a quarter century. The renowned horticulturist Bernard Lavery described the Sheikh as, the man who tamed the desert. Pakistan is annually losing over 442 million tonnes of fertile soil in Tarbela and Mangla reservoirs which is not only losing the life spans of these dams due to silt but also wasting valuable minerals and soil nutrients. According to a survey conducted by Pakistan Agricultural Research Council [PARC], the experts cautioned, The effects of desertification are quite adverse and tragic. Cutting trees and removing vegetation from steep slopes in order to develop new land for farming, quickly washes away the fertile soil during rain. A national action programme to combat desertification is underway. The implementation agencies like Cholistan Development Authority [CDA], WAPDA, Agency for the Barani Areas Development [ABAD], Sindh Arid Zone Development Authority [SAZDA], Agricultural Development Bank of Pakistan [ADB], and PARC need the full support of the federal government to initiate their plan on war-footing to save the country from further desertification.

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WAPDAS FAILURE The Asian Development Bank . . . offered to provide as much as 90 per cent of the funding of Ghazi Barotha (project) on the condition that the rest ten per cent should come from WAPDA. But the Authority is said to have failed to mobilise even this amount (Dawn, Sept. 22). With revenues from all those bloated bills, WAPDA has failed to provide such paltry collateral. What a shame! WAPDA has blamed its failure . . . for these two projects (Barotha and Chashma) on its consumers, mostly non-domestic . . . who have not paid their bills amounting to as much as Rs.15 billion. Good women always think it is their fault when someone else is being offensive. Bad women never take the blame for anything.Anita Brookner, 1938 HONEST PAKISTANIS My wife has been suffering from anorexia nervosa for more than two years, and a very well known specialist of Lahore as paranoid psychosis diagnosed early this year. February 11, she gave me a deck of crisp banknotes of 200 pounds in the denominations of ten for the exchange thereof. Her mental state notwithstanding, as a matter of oversight I forgot to make a recheck of the exact amount when I approached a money exchanger, Deendar Currency Exchange, in the Chowk Nawab Sahib, Gujrat. How much is the amount? the man in-charge inquired. 200 pounds, I replied. The fellow took a cursory look at the bills and, in accordance with the rate of the day, handed me Rs.12000. At about five in the afternoon, the same fellow, along with another gentleman known to me who happened to be in his shop the same time I was there, came to my house. Pir Sahib how much was the amount you said this morning? the fellow asked. 200 pounds, why? I replied with an air of confidence. Both of them laughed and he placed a wad of additional Rs.12000 at the desk before me. As it turned out, the money exchanger, at the close of the day, routinely used to

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take his foreign currency bills to the principal dealer, Haji Nassar, for exchange. When Haji Nassar made a check, the amount was 400 pounds instead of 200 pounds another honest man who could have easily gotten away with the extra money, no question ever asked. How I repaid the honest Currency Exchanger, it is another story. But in the words of Omar Kureishi (July 21), while commenting on the honesty of a Pakistani cab driver (who returned $38,859 left in his cab to the owner), I wish I could say that the young taxi-driver in New York is more representative. Sadly, he isnt I wish he was. SUSPENDED FOR EFFICIENCY! An official of the District Council (Jhang) was suspended allegedly for initiating action against unlawful tree-cutting and the chief officer suspended and asked him to apologise to the accused (Dawn, Sept. 4). The functionary simply performed his duty, a rarity these days. The police action though was not surprising, the government having put wolves to guard (black) sheep.Ghinwa Bhutto (Dawn Sept. 14). WE ARE ALL BEGGARS Wahid Butt (Oct. 11), while referring to the letter of Zakerya Kazmi in which he ridiculed the PM for his public statement, Ham nay kashkol phaink dia hai, states: No government can survive without a begging bowl where virtually every person in the population has a kashkol. The last conclusion is nothing but judicious. With rare exceptions, it is sadly a national character. Everyone literally begs for favours, whether monetary, related to officialdom, job-fixation or other personal affairs. We have reached a state of a beggar amidst great riches (Horace 6580 B.C.) due only to the relentless plunder of the national wealth.

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HEALING MECHANISM Way back in late forties when I was about 10 year old, kite flying was my favourite hobby. One evening I cut the subterminal part of my first finger while tugging at the glass-coated string of the kite in high wind. The cut bled and I came rushing downstairs from the roof. My uncle happened to be around. He instructed me to put the injured part immediately into the mouth and suck hard. After a couple of tries not only the bleeding stopped but also the wound never got infected. At that time I was too young to understand the old wisdom involved in the healing mechanism. A brief note in the Time (Sept. 15) weekly says: Lick your wounds! Heres why: saliva contains nitrite, on skin seems to convert into nitric oxidea potent anti-microbial agent. The action of sucking hard exerted a mechanical pressure on the capillaries, with the resultant coagulation of blood! ENTRY OF INSECT PESTS THE above-cited caption of Faizanuddins write-up (Nov. 1) is a misnomer. It amounts to outrageous violation of the fundamental biological nomenclature. The golden nematode, the author is talking about, belongs to the Class Nematoda parasitic on potatoes, is active, slender, unsegmented roundworm. On the contrary, insects pertain to the Phylum Arthropoda, Class Insecta, a different range of the animals altogether. The great majority of nematodes cannot be seen with the unaided eye because they are tiny and translucent. About 1200 species cause disease in plants. They usually live in the soil and attack small roots, but some species inhabit and feed in bulbs, buds, stems, leaves, or flowers.

It is interesting to learn that the potatoes infested with a small quantity of the golden nematode exhibit

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a better growth than those that are not infested with this parasite. Unparalleled
. . . History had no parallel to show, where a chief justice of the country was removed by his own colleagues and where two supreme courts were functioning simultaneously.Abdul Wahid Areesar Chairman, Jeay Sindh Qaumi Mahaz (Dec. 4). After all, History indeed is a little more than a register of the crimes, follies and misfortunes of mankind.Gibbon

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SUBJECT INDEX
A ABAD...................140 abattoir.....................58 abdominal.................... muscles,136 pain..............136 absorption of foodstuffs...........114 accidents..................93 Acid............................. folic 115, 128 homocysteine, 115 amino: stomach 128: pantothenic 128: tetraaceitic 136: rain, 51: hydrochloric 113 .......................51 acids24, 25, 51, 84, 85, 116, 128, 129 atta.................132, 133 Ayodhya..........19, 111 S Sultan's....................58

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AUTHOR INDEX

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A ABAD...................140 abattoir.....................58 abdominal.................... muscles,136 pain..............136 absorption of foodstuffs...........114 accidents..................93 Acid............................. folic 115, 128 homocysteine, 115 amino:

stomach 128: pantothenic 128: tetraaceitic 136: rain, 51: hydrochloric 113 .......................51 acids24, 25, 51, 84, 85, 116, 128, 129 atta.................132, 133 Ayodhya..........19, 111 S Sultan's....................58