Kamran Shafi

The writer is a retired army officer and a freelance columnist

kshafi1@yahoo.co.uk

Here's an hors d' oeuvres, a starter so to say, for the Director Bahadur of the Pakistan Environmental Protection (Ha, Ha) Agency, Ministry of Environment, Government of Pakistan, one Ziaul Islam: The "satisfactory" level of Coliforms and E.coli in water is determined by the World Health Organisation to be: 1 to 3, and 0, respectively. Well, what does the poor Dhamra have of these beasts: 18 and 18, respectively. Put that in your hookah and smoke it, Director Bahadur, and now that your minister is on his way to setting up a new political party (what is so wrong with the Tehrik-i-Istiqlal, one might ask, is it the name that is unlucky?) your Secretary Bahadur too. I hope some shame adheres to the Ministry in general and to you high mandarins in particular. Do please wait for the detailed analysis; the entree, the main course in other words, which I shall serve after Eid. That should surely be of great interest to your counterparts on the Internet, who will then see what horrific toxins flow in the River Dhamra that you say has "insignificant" pollution.

I am sorry to see Omar Asghar go, for he could have done some good had he tried; but I guess higher calling beckons. Whilst wishing him Godspeed, I will say that he should at the very least, have publicly and strictly censured the Director Bahadur for implying what he has ie, that it is quite alright for marble-cutting mills and motor-vehicle service-stations to be built upon the banks of our rivers, that it is quite alright to have them dump their awful cement-like slurry, and used petroleum products into our very few waterways. It is ironical, is it not, that an important part of this military government, a government I certainly thought would do our country a whole lot of good, should have written a new chapter on how not to treat the environment? The Federal Ministry of Environment will not be too popular with the Environment Inspectors of the Punjab Government who used to get their little back-handers from the marble mill wallahs for looking the other way, and not reporting them for the law-breakers they are/were. Who will dare check them now that General Musharraf's government has declared them halal?

A word of advice to Mein General: The same person must never look after labour affairs and the environment because there is huge conflict of interest there. For it is the first duty of a labour minister to see to it that not one factory closes down, not one factory is forced to adhere to the rules, that no labourers should lose their jobs as a consequence; just as it is the duty of a minister looking after the environment to ensure that no manufacturing plant ruins it; that it is properly taken to task if it does. So when you look for a replacement for Omar, please look for two people. Better still, put the protection of the environment in the hands of an efficient civil servant (I have a name that I could readily suggest but shan't because it might well be the kiss of death to his career!) or someone from the private sector, and make him czar ie, give him cabinet rank, put all the provincial environment departments under him, and make him answerable only to yourself. And hold him to the highest standards. Come on, sir, you've got to do it, otherwise we will lose whatever little we have left of our poor environment.

So then, the Hizb-ut-Tahrir, head-quartered in London, and represented in Pakistan, on Davis Road, Lahore, under various names and descriptions: Khilafah; Al-Muhajiroun and so on, is marching from Speakers Corner, Hyde Park to the Pakistan High Commission in Lowndes Square, Knightsbridge on December 22nd. They will target Mein General particularly, and the State of Pakistan generally, to protest our country's support to the anti-terrorist campaign. Remember that this is the same organisation, which very early on issued a Fatwa against the General (and those who support him) calling for his death, and theirs, and other such. I, for one, get long, unsolicited and unwanted emails from these people one being Faraz Ahmad. Whenever I have tried to get into a discussion with them there is no reply. It is as if they arrogate unto themselves the right to invade the privacy of other people, to lecture and hector them, and are not themselves prepared to answer simple questions.

For example, last week I asked this gentleman the following questions: How many hospitals did the dollar multi-millionaire Osama bin Laden built in Afghanistan? How many orphanages? How many homes for widows? No answer - just an imperious and very ominous silence, as if to say, "What do you know, worm, just shut up and listen and follow". Well no wonder they are not about to answer such questions for look at their manifesto in their own words: "Hizb-ut-Tahrir is a political party whose ideology is Islam, so politics is its work and Islam is its ideology. It works within the Ummah and together with her, so that she adopts Islam as her cause and is led to restore the Khilafah and the ruling by what Allah (swt) revealed. Hizb-ut-Tahrir is a political group and not a priestly one. Nor is it an academic, educational or a charity group. The Islamic thought is the soul of its body, its core and the secret of its life".

Whilst I shall not dwell on the use of the female gender in describing their organisation, no wonder they did not deign to answer me, for their organisation is not an "educational" one. Also, how can the Hizb become a political party without trying to do something for humanity so that it should follow its teachings? It is not a "charity group" they themselves conceitedly say. Well, no wonder Osama bin Laden did not do one single charitable thing for the poor, starving, pitiful Afghans whose ravaged and miserable country he occupied just to satisfy his own power lust.

As to its aim, the Hizb-ut-tahrir says: "Its aim is to resume the Islamic way of life and to convey the Islamic da'wah to the world. This objective means bringing the Muslims back to living an Islamic way of life in Dar-al-Islam and in an Islamic society such that all of life's affairs in society are administered according to the Shari'ah rules, and the viewpoint in it is the halal and the haram under the shade of the Islamic State, which is the Khilafah State. That state is the one in which Muslims appoint a Khaleefah and give him the bay'ah to listen and obey on condition that he rules according to the Book of Allah (swt) and the Sunnah of the Messenger of Allah (saw) and on condition that he conveys Islam as a message to the world through da'wah and jihad".

Well then, how pray, do Muslims appoint the Khaleefah? Just as Osama bin Laden appointed Mullah Omar, to whom the Little Prince did do bay'ah? "Halal" and "Haram" they say; yet where do they operate principally from? The Gloucester Road, London England, that's where. Whilst there is such a lot more that I have got off their web-site but do not have space for, the only point I want to make is that I am a Pakistani Punjabi Arain from my father's side, and a Punjabi Jat Khattar from my mother's. I have been brought up in the Sunni tradition and was taught to respect each and every religion, and fiqh. I was taught to call Jesus Christ Hazrat Isa aLai Salam; I was not allowed to play my transistor radio for the 10 days of the maatam during Muharram. I was brought up with the sound of the Qura'an Shareef being recited so very beautifully by my uncle, Ayub Ada; I grew up with the kalaam of Waris Shah and Baba Buleh Shah ringing in my ears. I am a South Asian: I want to choose my own countryman (or woman!) as my leader; I simply do not want to be part of any Khilafah in which I might have a Saudi ruling over me, or a Malaysian or an Indonesian for that matter.

But, the question to ask is what the Pakistani State intends to do about those who demand the head of its President? Interior Minister Lieutenant General Moinuddin Haider, Punjab Governor Lieutenant General Shiekh Khalid Maqbool, are you listening? The question to ask is what these Generals intend to do about those who propagate the murder of their own Chief?

And another thing - please look at the Hizb and at Al-Muhajiroun. They are led by Shiekh Omar Bakri Mohammed, a Syrian asylum-seeker in Great Britain. In other words they are using the democratic freedoms granted to them under the British Constitution (remember the Brits are "kafirs" too!!), and yet they rail and rant against their own benefactors. Why does'nt Shiekh Bakri go to his homeland and start his "Jihad" from there? Because President Bashar al Asaad will teach him a thing or two.

The question to ask is what the Brits are doing to prevent the trashing of their foremost ally?