Irrational thoughts: Malala wants us to draw the line!

Hasan Mansoor

   Sometime one cannot think rational - rather wishes to be irrational. Sometime a person with dry brain prefer to allow his sleepy heart to converse, to agitate and go beyond the limit of sanity. It is hard to stay rational - even hard to vent one's emotions to speak.
   It is this time when we are seriously thinking of a war against those whom many of us never took seriously in the past, whom everyone branded to be touts of one or another security establishments operating at home and away.
   But, now when a rare resolute child has been attacked in Swat the apologists should not take it as a blast from the past but take this child as the whole country put on the ventilator.
   It is time for the apologists to express their heart at least as openly as their beloved Taliban do when they spew venom on the remnants of our liberal posturing and take responsibility when they kill innocent people.
   It is time to clearly draw the line, fill the grey areas and go for a final battle. When one tells the apologists they would not be spared either when the extremists would shun every saner voice, one certainly tells the truth.
   The attackers who shot Malala in her forehead had to ask her classmates to recognise her before pointing the gun on her, but Malala, despite her tender age, knew her enemies long before  - a sin she committed and was condemned to be eliminated by the dark forces.
   Malala joined a rare group of individuals who stood for a small cause that ultimately became the mother of all causes, the greatest of all struggles. She just wanted to see her school open and succeeded. She contributed to revive Swat's liberal culture and got everyone reminded that most Pashtuns are still as liberal and human-loving as they had been since time immemorial.
   She might have not known about Bacha Khan but she proved herself as his stout follower. In Malala even Awami National Party, Ghulam Mohammad Bilour and his clones in particular, should dig up to find its core identity.
   Everyone should decide whether they are with Malala or with theTaliban. They should not enjoy poetic licence in drone attacks and religious connotations. Malala is one of thousands who have been killed and wounded in attacks planned by the dark forces based in shiny, scenic valleys and mountains. The apologists should also consider them Pakistanis.
   Imran Khan says he would shoot down a U.S. drone if his party wins elections. He has no fear of United States, but at the same time he is afraid of Taliban when he told Talat Hussain in a TV show, his negative assertions against Taliban could risk the lives of his party cadres in Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa and tribal agencies.
   Shahbaz Sharif once requested Taliban not to attack Punjab while some of his party's leaders have cordial relations with the banned extremist outfits. When Shah Mehmood Qureshi tows his party's line, Ayaz Amir is the rare free spirit.
   "Why don't you denounce those who attack Malala. Condemn them openly, they have killed thousands of Pakistanis," Amir advised Qureshi in a TV talk show.
   We should give the devil his due. You are free to hate Rehman Malik, Altaf Hussain and Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, but they are at par with Ayaz Amir in their stance.
   "I ask to religious scholars to condemn Taliban in their Friday prayers, condemn them openly. Why don't they condemn Taliban? Are they afraid of them....everyone should condemn these terrorists openly."
   Everyone buys the above statement as positive and daring if it is not attributed to a speaker whom most detract and despise. So, let it be, we should move forward with positives.

October 10, 2012

Pakistan dancers take traditional form alive

by Hasan Mansoor
   In a posh Karachi home, a dozen girls struggle to maintain their balance as they are put through their paces by Sadia Khan, a skilled performer of Pakistan’s traditional Kathak dance.
   Khan is one of a handful of instructors who are trying to keep the classical dance form alive in this conservative Muslim country, where some clerics have branded its fast, twirling footwork and expressive storytelling “un-Islamic”.
   “In Pakistan, depictions of women dancing has never been stopped in movies or on stage,” Khan, 38, said in an interview at her home studio, emphasising the difference between the popular and traditional forms.
   “I have never heard a cleric speak out against those vulgar dances which have run rampant in our society on film, but they oppose our dance, which is pure art with no vulgarity whatsoever.”
   Dancing was a regular part of life in Pakistan until the rise in 1977 of military ruler Zia ul-Haq, who used religion to suppress cultural traditions and only permitted women to appear on state television wearing veils.
   He banned classical dance performances from the airwaves and cracked down on popular Kathak performers.
   Today, Kathak has gone virtually underground, with only a few qualified instructors and few public performances. Radical clerics have also led a campaign to ban public dancing all together.

   In the restive northwestern Swat valley, a female dancer was murdered by suspected Taliban militants who said she did not heed warnings to abandon her profession, local officials said.

   “I believe that in our religion there is nothing written against dance, but the Islamists claim that dance is forbidden,” said Sheema Kirmani, 59, a celebrated Kathak performer who still teaches in Karachi.
   “I argue that some of our greatest Sufi saints were dancers themselves,” she said.
   “Those who do not like this art form do not have to come to see it. We are not imposing ourselves on anyone and we do not want anyone to force their ideas on us.”
   Sakina, 14, is a student in Khan’s evening class and says learning the complicated manoeuvres is her favourite part of the day.
   “My father has encouraged me to learn about this art form, as it has the potential to teach people to be tolerant and sensitive to the miseries and joys of others, while still entertaining them,” Sakina said.
   “It’s true that most people don’t like dance and think it’s strange, but to me, it’s my whole life.”
   Eight-year-old Bisma agreed. “I’m really happy when I’m dancing,” she said.
   Both Kirmani and Khan said they believe that while Kathak dance may never regain its former popularity in Pakistan, it could serve another purpose — to help bring peace with India.
   The dance form has its roots in northern India and is still widely performed across that country.
   With ties between the nuclear-armed neighbours strained in the wake of the Mumbai attacks in November 2008, the dance teachers said art could help bridge the gap.
   “Pakistan and India have inherited the same culture, which could not be changed in just 50 or 60 years. Culture does not change with the redrawing of boundaries,” said Khan, who studied with Kirmani and later spent four years studying in New Delhi.
   Kirmani added: “If we celebrate what we share then we bring ourselves closer and nearer and develop a better understanding.”
   While peace through dance is their lofty dream, the two instructors said that for now they hope the art form will live on in their students, and perhaps someday once again become part of everyday life in Pakistan.
   “I have never seen a single common Pakistani who hates dance. We are prisoners of our norms, which should change to enjoy something which is true beauty and not an evil. It has been misinterpreted,” Khan said.
   “We should follow the precedent set by Iran, where culture is still alive and kicking alongside religion. We should not mix the two things.”

Pakistan rock renaissance defies dwindling concerts

by Hasan Mansoor
   Gumby, a diminutive pony-tailed drummer, believes Pakistani rock music is vibrant enough to withstand pockets of extremism and shield society at large from Western fears of the Taliban.
   “I’ve been in the industry more than two decades and have seen Pakistani music rise, fall and rise again. Our culture is resilient, which won’t allow the Taliban to take over our society,” says the 34-year-old.
   Louis John Pinto, better known as Gumby, launched himself on the rock circuit as a drummer and percussionist while a teenager and has played as a session musician with all the major cult bands in the country.
   Pakistan has seen creeping religious conservatism for years. Its military is fighting to put down Taliban militants in the northwest and lawless tribal belt on the Afghan border, albeit far from cities populated by the moderate elite.
   Extremists have blown up hundreds of music and DVD shops in the northwest, branding them against Islam and forcing traders to display pro-Taliban tirades against the United States to gruesome clips of beheadings and bomb attacks.

   But hundreds of miles away in his compact studio in a multi-storey building in Clifton, Karachi’s poshest address, Gumby says the future of music is promising, with money and passion being injected afresh into the industry.
   “Making music one’s livelihood was thought to be a taboo for people here, but now parents themselves encourage their children to learn music, which shows we have a brighter future,” he said.
   At a concert at an open-air amphitheatre in Islamabad, young middle-class Pakistanis dressed in tight jeans braved a chilly night to cheer bands introduced by two young women teetering on high heels.
   In the more-expensive stalls, parents brought young children, even babies and grandparents to listen to the music.
   Successive governments have encouraged culture by relaxing curbs on artists and intellectuals. The explosion of independent television and radio in the last decade has also fostered musical talent.
   “It is the one thing which comforts our people who are sick of terror attacks and political instability in the country,” said Gumby.
   Hamza Jafri agrees. Last year he opened the Guitar School in Lahore, Pakistan’s relatively liberal and wealthy cultural capital in the east, which now teaches rock guitar to dozens of girls and boys aged seven to 20.
   “Students are forming bands and the youngest one consists of three seven year olds,” said Abid Khan, one of the founders of the school.
   Most pupils come from wealthy families and are actively encouraged by their parents. Some dream of going professional. “I want to become a rock star,” gushed a shy 10-year-old who gave his name only as Kashan.
   Hasan Zaidi, a film producer and director who has chronicled Pakistani music, sees a renaissance in underground contemporary pop.
   “Pakistani pop is beginning to discover its own voice moving beyond bubblegum songs about love, by creating fusion with indigenous folk and singing songs about what is happening around us,” he said.
   But others warn that shows and concerts are declining because of economic woes and fears of bomb attacks — hammering musicians’ main source of income, which rampant piracy deprives them from in sales of DVDs and CDs.
   “Terrorism and a weak economy have affected the music industry dearly,” says Ali Azmat, one of the most famous contemporary rock stars in Pakistan.
   “There has been a 50 to 60 percent decline in shows and concerts and overall earnings since 2005,” he said.
   He accuses “Western powers and their intelligence agencies” of harbouring an agenda against Pakistan. Instead his latest album “Kalashnifolk” focuses on the agonies of social problems that he feels are Pakistan’s real plague.
   But seven years ago Junaid Jamshed, Pakistan’s most famous frontman — lead singer with Vital Signs, the country’s first rock band that emerged in 1986, renounced music and his playboy-image to turn to religion.
   Today he owns designer outlets specialising in conservative dress, keeps his beard long and joined preaching organisation Tablighi Jamaat.
   Critics hold General Zia-ul-Haq and his 11 years of military rule from 1977 to 1988 responsible for infringing the country’s pluralistic tolerant culture and initially driving rock music underground.
   “The early 1980s also saw the rise of political pop, whose lyrics explicitly dealt with issues of freedom and repression,” Hasan Zaidi said.
   Certainly for band Laal, which means Red in Urdu, their music is all about politics and Marxism.
   One of their songs became an anthem for the lawyer’s protest movement that resulted in 2009 in the government restoring the independent judiciary after a two-year hiatus.
   “We are interested in playing music of resistance, struggle and emancipation,” says lead guitarist Taimur Rehman, who is studying for a doctoral degree in London.
   The band’s most popular song is based on popular poems of Habib Jalib, a renowned Pakistani poet who opposed military rule and state oppression in the 1960s, although followers believe his words are as relevant today as ever.
   “You are the truth; they are an illusion, My prayer is that You remain president forever!” is one of their lyrics, which resonates today with critics of President Asif Ali Zardari, who want him to resign over graft allegations.

 

Bomb kills three Pakistani soldiers

by Hasan Mansoor

KARACHI, Dec 9, 2011 (AFP) - Bombers killed three Pakistani soldiers Friday as firefighters battled to control an inferno at a NATO trucking terminal attacked two weeks after Pakistan shut the Afghan border to US supplies.

The roadside bomb exploded alongside a vehicle carrying members of the Rangers paramilitary in Karachi, Pakistan's port city used by the United States to ship the bulk of supplies needed by 140,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan.

The powerful explosion badly damaged the vehicle and wounded four other soldiers in the eastern part of the city after daybreak, officials told AFP.

"Three troops from Pakistan Rangers were killed and four were hurt. It was a remote control bomb," said Sharfuddin Memon, a spokesman for the home ministry in the southern province of Sindh.

Mohammad Salim, an office worker in a nearby government office, said he saw the troops lying on the ground with the vehicle in flames.

"It was a loud explosion. I was going to the office and I rushed to the spot where the rangers were lying on the ground. They were bleeding," he told AFP.

Karachi is Pakistan's largest city, its financial hub and a lifeline for US and NATO troops fighting the Taliban in landlocked Afghanistan.

But the Afghan border crossings have been closed to NATO for 14 days, the longest period since the US-led invasion ousted the Taliban in late 2001.

Pakistan shut its two border crossings in the north and southwest on November 26 in protest after NATO air strikes killed 24 Pakistani soldiers, the deadliest single cross-border attack of the 10-year war in Afghanistan.

The government also ordered US personnel to vacate the Shamsi air base in the southwestern province of Baluchistan, widely reported to have been a hub in the covert CIA drone war against Taliban and Al-Qaeda on Pakistani soil.

Overnight, gunmen destroyed at least 34 trucks in a gun and rocket attack on a NATO trucking terminal in Baluchistan, where police said the fire brigade was still struggling to extinguish the inferno.

"The oil tankers are still on fire. Firefighters have been unable to control it. It was a huge fire," police official Mohammad Majeed told AFP by telephone from the city of Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan.

"We have no final count on how many tankers were torched but you can say dozens were destroyed," Majeed added. Around 44 oil tankers and goods trucks had been parked at the temporary terminal, one of three set up in and around Quetta for stranded vehicles.

No group claimed responsibility for the attack but the Taliban have in the past carried out similar strikes to disrupt supplies.

The bulk of supplies and equipment required by foreign forces in Afghanistan are shipped through Karachi, although US troops have increasingly sought alternative routes through Central Asia owing to violence in Pakistan.

It remains unclear when Pakistan's current blockade will end. The crisis has been described as the worst to hit the fragile Pakistani-US alliance which had not recovered from a secret American raid that killed Osama bin Laden near the capital on May 2.

Initial findings of a US military investigation into the November 26 strikes are not expected until December 23. US President Barack Obama has expressed condolences to President Asif Ali Zardari for the deaths, saying it was not a "deliberate attack."

More than 4,700 people have been killed across Pakistan in attacks blamed on Taliban and other Al-Qaeda-linked networks since government troops stormed a radical mosque in Islamabad in 2007.

Karachi has also seen its worst ethnic- and politically-linked unrest in 16 years, with more than 100 people killed in one week alone in October.

The gang wars have been linked to ethnic tensions between the Mohajirs, the Urdu-speaking majority represented by the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), and Pashtun migrants affiliated to the rival Awami National Party (ANP).