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feature Legacy
of secrecy A
word about letters There might be a million activities planned out for the summer but knocking a book for once doesn’t hurt that bad By Aamir
Tariq It seems like a summer
where events are on a new high. Many countries such as Zimbabwe might be
under Sixteen-year-old Saim is half-through A Case of Exploding Mangoes. He might have technically lived half his life under a dictatorship but feels things are better now. “There are flaws in every system but it feels great living under a democratic government. Musharraf might be ‘better’ than Zia but reading A Case of Exploding Mangoes certainly proves that no dictator is actually any good. Mohammed Hanif, I think, has written the best dark satirical novel ever.” Harris Salman really doesn’t like anything and avoids doing anything; he is a slacker to be precise. He stumbles upon the question of reading as if I had mentioned something out of the ordinary. He feels humiliated as if he missed upon another trend these days. He admits though he had read Moth Smoke by Mohsin Hamid. But as I mentioned earlier, Salman really doesn’t do anything really, so I ask him again… “No, not the whole thing,” he replies sheepishly. “I thought there were some good parts between the hero and the girl but it was really a disappointment, they really don’t do anything accept talk deep thoughts, which I didn’t really understand. Why would anyone want to read a book, when you can see the movie based on a book?” If one believes that intellect might just be a perfect essential for a teen to perk up his outlook then people like Nauman beg to differ. He still believes that Harry Potter is the best thing to happen in the last decade as he is stuck on The Half-blood Prince. Interestingly Nauman thinks that J.K. Rowling is a bad writer. “She is pretty mediocre as compared to other writers I have read, but I am compelled by the plot to continue reading.” Shoaib, an employee at Readings bookstore in Lahore, confessed that Harry Potter was the most popular series amongst teenagers after The Lord of the Rings. “Many teenagers just prefer to visit Readings and end up reading the book at the store.” People like Mahmood Pasha, however, are in denial. He might have a stack of critically acclaimed books in his room, all borrowed from friends and relatives, and God forbid read any of them. Pasha personally owns of the largest collections of Archie comics ever. He has read and re-read everything from the late 1980s to the latest issue. On asking him why he prefers them than Dan Brown’s Lost Symbol or the Lord of the Rings, he has a perfect answer: “It isn’t a drag. It’s funny, less complicated and great fun.” With the traditionally well-known bestsellers, it feels great to hear from young teens such as Mahnoor, an internee at a multinational bank, is on her way completing The Confessions of an Economic Hitman. Her interest in the book grew from a documentary that focused on economic hitmen. Hamna, another teenager, aspires to be a model. She believes in reading. Whether it’s Cosmo or Variety, she knows it all — latest fashion to superstar lives. “Look, books are good for you fine, but I am a realistic person. I don’t want to go into fantasylands and someone else’s fantasyland for that matter! I am going to be a model, so I need to be update on my chosen profession, everything revolves around that.” Its summers after all, and if one differs to even be least interested in reading, it’s pretty sane. The weather is scorching enough to drive the pile of books away when there is a vacation on the corner. Athar Mahmood Khan, currently working at the Prime Minister Secatariat is another book lover. He says that children today should develop the habit of reading at an early age. According to him, the children should at least give a read to Glimpses of World History, written by Jawarharlal Nehru. He believes that the language used is not only simple but is a good overview on world history. He further describes his awkwardness with children when he sees reading as a rare activity amongst teenagers. He agrees that today is a technological era where ipods and ebooks are readily available, “But nothing beats the feeling of flipping through each page of a book in your hand. “ Being a teen, I couldn’t resist sharing my summer reading experience. It isn’t a bestseller. It isn’t even English nor some francais pour beginners. It is a pure fusion of Persian and Urdu. It is tagged as one of the most influential pieces of all time — Mohammad Iqbal called it Shikwa. With more than 200 couplets, this masterpiece takes you onto a remarkable journey, making us remember of the glorious past of Muslims. It advocates youth’s promotion and identifies the real issues that are eminent in society today as well. So at the end of the day if one wishes to live in the comics’ world or intends to explore political dimensions, it’s completely fine to pursue it the way you want to. Though when summers are around one wishes to leave all chores aside and concentrate on summer plans. Because there are millions of other activities than just reading but knocking a book for once doesn’t hurt that bad. Legacy of secrecy Keith Jeffery’s new book is full of hidden policies and intrigue
By Aamir Riaz “By the beginning of 1947
it was clear that the territory (British India) would become independent (as
it did when it was partitioned into India & Pakistan) and SIS (Secret
Intelligence Service, MI6) begun to consider what intelligence arrangements
would be necessary in the future. On New Year’s Day 1947 a meeting of
representatives of MI5, SIS, and the India Office’s intelligence
organization, Indian Political Intelligence (IPI), met to consider the
issue….As for SIS, it was recognized that even if the independent
government of India was ‘willing to liaise in a friendly manner, it was
improbable that they would, either on account of inefficiency or lack of
interest, be able to furnish all the information required by HMG’. Thus it
was proposed that SIS should set up a covert organization in
post-independence India.” Keith Jeffry gleamed this from the record of 40
years archive of SIS, pinpointing a If we read Jeffery’s book along with Patrick French’s famous book Partition of India: Liberty or Death based on the British intelligence reports declassified in the mid 1990s, it will help readers to understand hidden policies and intrigues in that era. MI6: The history of the SIS 1909-49 is full of such records which include the British spying on Germans, Ottomans, Japanese, Chinese, Russians, Americans, Indians, and Pakistanis etc. No historian can really understand the politics of 20th century without having spent time with intelligence records. In his preface, Jeffery writes “reviewing the work of SIS in the early 1920s, one officer observed that the SIS headquarters receives from its overseas branches over 13000 reports per annum.” If one multiply this number with 40, than you can well imagine the magnitude of tedious work Jeffery had to go through. Intelligence work always needs an enemy. Enemy construction is always subservient to trade interests. For centuries, empires and modern nation states are following this Machiavellian theory. In the good old days, Land Trade Routes (LTRs) had a unique importance. One can gauge its importance by the example of Silk Trade Route. Yet after the 12th century, pirates not only discovered sea routes but also developed heavy ships. Gradually naval powers started capturing sea routes which ultimately diverted world politics towards new trade horizons which gave birth to more innovative enemy constructions. The whole issue of regional security was a product of capturing Sea Trade Routes (STRs). Britain developed fortress colonies such as Gibraltar, Malta and Aden to secure its STRs. From mid 19th century till the Second World War, British diplomacy worked to protect its STRs along with a Forward Policy towards joining corners of LTRs. SIS’s 40 year record supports the British administration interest in STRs. The 1893 Durand Line agreement and the 1914 McMahon Line agreement decided the fate of LTR in favour of STRs. After those agreements smugglers, revolutionaries and spies had liberty to use LTRs, yet formal trade was abandoned. This status still prevails for the last 100 years. Keeping in view that background, one can enjoy Jeffery’s book along with the politics behind security regimes. In his more than 800 page book Jeffery tries his best to advocate British interests. “The corollary to understand access to the archives has been an extremely painstaking and fastidious disclosure process. From the start it was laid down that the identity of any agent could not be revealed for the first time in this book. One result of this stipulation is the regrettable need (from the historian’s point of view) to omit some significant and important SIS stories.” Jeffery details all three SIS chiefs’ tenures till 1949, Mansfield Cumming (1909-23), Hugh Sinclair (1923-39) and Stewart Menzies (1939-52) yet he admitted that without pivotal role of Government Code (GC) and Cypher School (CS), SIS could not get success in protecting Britain’s interests. “This branch of British intelligence community was notably successful. John Ferris has estimated that the GC&CS was one of the world’s largest code-breaking agencies, perhaps the biggest; as effective as any other, better than most, possibly the best on earth between 1919 and 1935.” While the book has much information, covert as well as overt stories, yet it fails to record reactions of the British intelligence agencies at the demise of the Empire. Neither has Jeffery written anything about the 1941 Atlantic Charter which pressurised Britain to start a process of decolonisation process under US pressure. The relationship between intelligence agencies and parliaments is the most debatable issue especially in developing democracies. Jeffery admitted the fact that Britain’s overseas intelligence networks have been working under its foreign office rather than the interior ministry while the foreign office is always answerable to the parliament. One wonders why developing democracies like India and Pakistan are still reluctant to follow it. The manifesto of the SIS (which can be read on the SIS website) might give some answers. “SIS is part of our democratic society. The parliament and citizens need to be confident that our activities are within UK law, ethical, and consistent with our national values. Like any other part of the government, SIS is subject to UK law, as are SIS members of staff. The following sets out how SIS is accountable to Parliament. Oversight of SIS and its operations is exercised through Ministers (primarily the Foreign Secretary), Parliament (The Intelligence and Security Committee) and two independent Commissioners who provide judicial expertise. These arrangements are set out in two key pieces of UK legislation, the Intelligence Services Act 1994 (ISA) and the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000.” MI6:
The History of The Secret Intelligence Service 1909-49 is available at
Readings
A
word about letters Hemingway is alive in Cuba Many literary critics and psychologists have attempted to explain Earnest Hemingway’s longing for death. Journalist Paul Johnson came up with a simple explanation: Hemingway set himself the task of creating a new way of writing. He succeeded to the extent that Ezra Pound once described him as “the finest stylist in the world”. But it was not easy to maintain the high creative standards he had set for himself. With the passage of time Hemingway realised this difficulty and it greatly added to his habitual depression. Johnson says that
Hemingway’s few successful pieces penned during the last fifteen or so
years of his life were He sought the help of alcohol. A heavy drinker he had always been, but now Hemingway drank to no end. His younger brother Leicester is reported to have said that during the last two decades of his life. Hemmingway was drinking seventeen scotch-and-sodas a day and often taking a bottle of champagne to bed with him at night. Paul Johnson says that the effect on his work was exactly as might be expected. But there were some exceptions, notably The Old Man and the Sea, but the general level was falling. His awareness of “his inability to recapture his genius, let alone develop it, accelerated the spinning circle of depression and drink” and also added to his longing for death which, to some extent, he had also inherited from his father who ended his life by committing suicide. Depression, excessive drinking and painful awareness of his inability to recapture his genius made him follow in his father’s footsteps. He committed suicide in July 1961. The world has not buried him in oblivion. He is still read and admired. But the people of Cuba, where he spent many years of his life, love him. Some recent newspaper reports give details of events recently celebrated in Cuba to honour the 50th anniversary of his death. Finca, a colonial house in the tropical jungle west of Cuba’s capital is where Hemmingway lived and where some of his best-known pieces including The Old Man and the Sea were written. It has s been turned into a Hemmingway museum, and was the centre of these events. Ada Rosa Alfonso, director of the museum, said “Hemingway is not dead. In Cuba, he is always alive. He is immortal.” The Seep Zulfiqar Tabish has been
leading secluded sort of life for many years but he was an active member of
the literary and cultural community of Lahore during the seventh and eighth
decades of the past century. He wrote fiction, literary Tabish was part of Ashfaq Ahmad’s close circle of friends. Half a century ago, when he was a student of the Dyal Singh College of Lahore, he came across Ashfaq Ahmad’s short story Gudiyya published in Naqoosh which was a famous literary magazine in those days. A good number of literary critics and readers rate the story as Ashfaq Ahmad’s best piece. Tabish also read Gudiyya and fell for the writer. A number of years later, Tabish got a job with the Central Urdu Board where Ashfaq Ahmad was director general and Hanif Ramay served as a deputy director. The job brought him in close proximity to them. Those were the days when Ashfaq Ahmad, Hanif Ramay and some of their friends had discovered, or perhaps created, a guru and had started preaching Sufism. Tabish joined the group. In the current issue of the Seep, a socio-cultural and literary magazine published from Karachi, Tabish has contributed a memoir of Ashfaq Ahmad wherein he has given a fascinating account of the days spent in the company of Ashfaq Ahmad. Nasim Durrani has been editing and publishing the Seep for the past forty-eight long years. The magazine has all along been supporting new trends in Pakistani letters and has played a significant role in developing and refining cultural consciousness in our society. Each edition of magazine brings laudable pieces of noted as well as new writers from all the corners of the country. Its current issue carries literary creations of Salim Akhtar, Agha Gul, Tahira Iqbal, Salma Awan, Anwar Zahidi, Murtaza Barlas, Aamar Sohail, Mohsin Ehsan, Ali Tanha, Saba Ikram, Nasir Zaidi, Karamatullah Ghori and many others. New books Ashfaq Saleem Mirza is seeking guidance from philosophy to light a lamp of his own in the present intellectual darkness. But philosophy itself is in sorry plight. Having lost its former glory, it is no more in vogue anywhere in the world. During his good days, Mirza received higher education in philosophy from Government College, Lahore. He wrote a book on the nature of philosophy, Falsfa kia hai? some five years ago. He developed therein a concept of philosophy which gives negates transcendentalism and lends credence to materialism. His idea of the discipline is not aloof to the socio-cultural and intellectual issues of contemporary life and is rather helpful in tacking them. The book soon became a talking point in literary and intellectual circles. Mirza has now come up with another book published by the Sanjh Publishers under the title Falfa-e-Tareekh: Nauabadiyat aur Jamhooriyat. It is a series of articles that shed light on subjects related to the philosophy of history. |
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hyper-inflation, yet some such as Libya are still working on the civil
disobedience movement. Meanwhile I feel void and intend to fill the top shelf
that still has only two books, Zahir and 11 minutes, both written by Coelho.
He may have been a genius with his bestsellers one after the other but
there’s more to literature than his vivid sex tales. And that is when I
decided to take a toll on what teenagers today had to say about reading
books.
conversation between Menzies and Hayter dated 17 January 1947. Sir Stewart
Menzies was chief of SIS from 1939-52 while Sir William Hayter was head of
Foreign Office Services, Liaison Department. In the conversation, Menzies
told Hayter that he would take over some of the work currently done by IPI,
including intelligence about British India itself and also about its
neighbouring countries especially USSR.
“aberrations in a long downward slide”. This painful fact would have gone
unnoticed if he had been less of an artist. He would have written and
published inferior literature like many other writers. But he knew he was
writing bad fiction and the knowing was intolerable to him.
articles, newspaper columns and painted pictures. For quite a long time he
served as the editor of the monthly Kitab, the first Urdu magazine about
books published by the National Book Council.