Taal Matol
The odd end of globalisation
By Shoaib Hashmi
With summer reaching its apex and the academic year coming to an end, Lahore is a riot of colours as all Art schools put up their annual theses shows. It's an annual ritual and the last remaining leftover of our colonial past. In Britain, the academic year ends in the summer with annual exams before they all pack off for the long summer vacation. The Brits came here and continued the tradition never realising that the summer here is a misery when no one wants a vacation.

unions
Collective punishment
A new wave of unionisation in the private sector is being met with intimidation by the owners
By Aoun Sahi

"On May 25, I got home around 9 pm. I found several men inside my home and on the rooftop. They blindfolded me and took me away in a police van while ruthlessly torturing me, telling me how they'll 'teach' me what it means to be a trade union leader," says Niaz Khan, General Secretary Carpet Workers Trade Union, Lahore.

According to United Nations, the number of IDPs has crossed three million. The figure hints at the possibility of an ethnic conflict if not properly addressed. Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) -- a party formed on ethnic grounds -- has openly opposed the settlement of IDPs in Karachi.

The statements from Islamabad have been conflicting to say the least. While the Pakistan People's Party says it believes in free movement of IDPs all over the country, it did nothing when Jeay Sindh Qaumi Movement (JSQM) destroyed the IDPs camps in parts of Sindh. Punjab has not even set up a single camp in the province saying the IDPs should be allowed here only after registration.

The Punjab government has also decided to continue extending help to the IDPs at their camps in the NWFP instead of setting up temporary settlements for them in Punjab. Rana Sanaullah, Punjab law minister, said in a press conference that those coming to live with their relatives in Punjab, however, would be welcome.

Prof Dr Sarfraz Khan, director Area Study Centre at Peshawar University, believes the IDPs movement has more to do with disturbing the demographic balance and less with ethnicity: "Urdu-speaking immigrants from India, who call themselves Mohajirs, and later Pashtuns outnumbered the Sindhis making them a minority." But migration, he says, is not a new phenomenon. "It takes place during both war and peace. It happened in Dera Ismail Khan where Seraiki people outnumbered Pashtuns and Lahore too is outnumbered by people from adjoining districts."

Amir Riaz, a Lahore-based researcher and editor Awami Jamhoori Forum, sees Karachi as a separate issue: "We need to ask why people have been allowed to migrate from Khokhrapar and through the sea route and not from NWFP. MQM never opposes migrants other than Pashtuns. It is important to note that historically Malakand Division comprises of the majority cast called Gujjars, the non-Pashtun clan. They were settled here by the chief of Swat. Ethnicity is being used as a tool and both Awami National Party (ANP) and MQM are watching their own interest. This needs to be exposed and a collective approach ought to be evolved." Riaz thinks the import of Wahabi brand of Islam in the last three to four decades in NWFP has isolated Pashtuns.

Haider Abbas Rizvi deputy parliamentary leader of MQM in National Assembly denies MQM's opposition to IDPs and calls this a "purely administrative, economic and security issue."

"We have only asked the IDPs to get registered at the Sindh border and go anywhere in Sindh." Rizvi says people must know that the population of Karachi is more than the total population of NWFP and Balochistan each. Karachi is already over-burdened with problems like power and lack of resources. He says the Taliban are already being traced from within the IDPs in NWFP. He is "surprised" though that the IDPs are coming all the way from NWFP to Karachi travelling as much as 1600 kilometre.

Vice president ANP Haji Mohammad Adeel tells TNS that ANP leaders in their last meeting with President Asif Ali Zardari lodged a protest against the attitude of Punjab and Sindh towards the IDPs. "We have told the president that not only are these two major provinces avoiding to set up IDP camps in their limits, the federal government has also removed a camp established in Islamabad."

Rasul Baksh Rais, a political scientist, says nobody can stop this migration which is constitutionally guaranteed and any citizen can move to any part of the country. "The present rift between parties can create bad blood among ANP, MQM and PPP. It is the responsibility of PPP to sit and resolve the issue but up until now PPP has had an ambiguous stance. Each province in Pakistan is multiethnic and can hardly claim an exclusive domain; Pashtuns and Balochs have been moving towards Sindh and Punjab for a long time."

Dr Mubarak Ali, noted historian, also takes the issue of IDPs as a demographic threat for Mohajirs in Karachi. "Mainly, this is the issue of Karachi where Mohajirs are feeling the threat from this Pathan influx. They fear that migrants will come into business, smuggling, arms dealings, employments, etc. So, this is a matter of life and death for MQM and ethnicity is being used as an excuse." Ethnicity, language and religion are always exploited for political gains, Ali says.

"I don't see peace in future because government is weak and lacks seriousness and understanding of issues. The state is weakening by the day. There is no short-term solution except focusing on the already delayed army operation in NWFP, to finish it at the earliest, and to develop those areas. Migration is routine when people don't see economic opportunities in their own areas. The frustration can increase in camps if the IDPs are mishandled and that may lead to violence and disruption in other parts of the country too," says Ali.

Meanwhile the federal government, with the help of NADRA (National Database Registration Authority), has started registration of IDPs in Sindh. The official line is that IDPs are welcome to settle anywhere in Sindh subject to mandatory registration. The Punjab government has also made registration compulsory. The government has asked all districts' management to take a surety bond from the relatives of IDPs that their guests will not get involved in any illegal activity during their stay. The government has also directed districts to immediately launch the registration process of IDPs.

Providence had given Dr Mohammad Sarwar a tall frame but he made himself stand taller. That is the only true measure of the gentle and large-hearted physician who recently decided he had had enough of this rowdy, irrational and violent world.

No honest chronicler of the story of Pakistan will fail to record, and this with appreciation, Dr Sarwar's struggle to realise his people's dream of liberty and equality. He was one of the founders (and one of its most dedicated leaders) of the Democratic Students Federation (DSF) -- which was one of the few glorious offshoots in Pakistan of the subcontinent's fight for freedom.

For the love of freedom and the rights of the young ones, he cheerfully faced bullets and suffered imprisonment when jails had none of the facilities they now have. The banning of the Democratic Students Federation and All Pakistan Students' Organisation could not force him to surrender. He carried on his romance with liberty as one of the leading lights of the Pakistan Medical Association (PMA) that has been in the vanguard of civil society's movements for the rights of the people, specially the under-privileged.

All this will hopefully be written in a legitimate history of the Pakistani people. Unfortunately, I did not have the opportunity of directly witnessing the events that have been recalled in Dr Sarwar's obituaries and memorial addresses. But that does not matter. The dedication with which the DSF and PMA stalwarts stuck to their noble mission of liberating and completing the lives of their compatriots, even after becoming successful doctors, lawyers and journalists, can tell us all we need to know about their mettle. Dr Sarwar was one of those who tempered the steel. In any case, he was larger than his work.

Quite often Dr Sarwar (or his DSF comrades, for sometimes it is difficult to mention them individually) reminded me of what Pakistan's promise was and how the people were cheated out of it. Breaking with his family's nationalist politics in his early youth, he raised the crescent-and-star flag and travelled to Karachi to savour the joys of a nation in the making. He fell so deeply in love with the challenge as to stay on and meet it. But when the people chose imbeciles as their rulers, democrats like Dr Sarwar decided to serve the people in whatever ways were open to them. He became a dispenser of relief from pain and suffering to a large congregation that he loved and cared for as his extended family. But the man was bigger than the doctor too.

He was bigger because he had the courage of his conviction and the strength to keep the book of his life always open. The freedom his marvellous life-partner and children enjoyed was a reflection of his appreciation of the meaning of freedom. He loved laughing with children and was not afraid of being laughed at. He made no effort to hide what his friends considered his weaknesses -- his languorous life-style, his aversion to travelling (and his penchant for giving up the idea of going abroad minutes before boarding the plane), and his refusal to be drawn into battles he could not accept as genuine.

Dr Sarwar was a friends' friend. Strangers could have no idea of his ability to develop his argument and hold on to it because in their presence he limited his utterances to words of cultured courtesy. But in the company of friends, especially the knowledgeable ones, he enjoyed having a vigorous discourse and nobody could doubt that he kept himself informed and abreast of times. What, however, hurt his friends sometimes was his loss of optimism. The collapse of the world of his dreams exacted in such moments the heaviest possible price -- frustration replacing hope.

He had the capacity of bearing his losses and adversity -- and he had his share of both -- with the patience of a stoic. Nothing proved this better than his reaction on being told a couple of years ago that he might not survive for more than a few months. As a doctor he knew that he was melting away day by day. He was in and out of hospitals and he had pain and discomfort for considerable spells. But he refused to be broken. His robust spirit kept him going longer than his doctors expected.Dr Sarwar belonged to that group of human beings who win recognition not only by what they do but also by simply being themselves. They may well be called normal persons -- by all accounts a vanishing breed in our land. That cuts deeper than the loss of an esteemed friend.

With summer reaching its apex and the academic year coming to an end, Lahore is a riot of colours as all Art schools put up their annual theses shows. It's an annual ritual and the last remaining leftover of our colonial past. In Britain, the academic year ends in the summer with annual exams before they all pack off for the long summer vacation. The Brits came here and continued the tradition never realising that the summer here is a misery when no one wants a vacation.

In winters there is a bright sun and everyone comes to life and wants to do things. But it is also the middle of the academic term. Schools and colleges are in full swing and everyone is busy. Instead, we have to celebrate the summer when none of the colleges' galleries are air-conditioned nor any of the public galleries which the colleges can rent. You sweat your way through the day and pretend you are very happy soaking in the colours.

But I must say the process is still a riot. With so much happening all round us, the art-making process, too, is bound to be affected. One student had concocted an elaborate game based on the characters we encounter in the papers every day -- the terrorists and their opponents from Gitmo to Alcatraz and all over the world. A major effort had gone into developing an amazing environment.

It used to be a tame affair with the effort neatly divided among painting and drawing on the one side and design and architecture on the other. That has changed now. Painting is a very small part now with a major emphasis on computer graphics and filmed and videoed portions that run on screens installed in each room.

I must admit the last few years have seen a remarkable freedom emerge in the very concept of art making. A part of it must be attributed to the proliferation of the computer and the internet. The canvas and the paint box are no longer the basic tools of art. Even when they are, the first effort is to put the artwork on the net so that the exhibition immediately becomes worldwide.

I am not sure if this has come home to everyone yet, but it will pretty soon that the visual world has become one, and you can't sit in your corner and make whatever you want. I think a beginning is being made in the common visual trappings of the art schools where the departments are no longer independent. It's the oddest end of globalisation!

"On May 25, I got home around 9 pm. I found several men inside my home and on the rooftop. They blindfolded me and took me away in a police van while ruthlessly torturing me, telling me how they'll 'teach' me what it means to be a trade union leader," says Niaz Khan, General Secretary Carpet Workers Trade Union, Lahore.

Khan's crime, according to him, was facilitating the workers of a furniture manufacturer establish a trade union last month. After being kidnapped from home, Khan says, he was taken to the CIA centre in Model Town, Lahore. Here, he tells he was tied up with a charpoy and tortured for days. "Later they ordered me to keep standing throughout the night with a policeman standing there with a gun to make sure I don't sit. The next day was even more horrible. I was continuously beaten up," He adds: "I asked them to kill me."

Khan claims he was jailed for a robbery that was registered in 2006. He was never nominated in this or any other case earlier, he says. "The police asked me to disband the trade union at the furniture factory and leave the city or get ready to face worst consequences." He tells he was later released on bail by a local court on June 1. According to him, the owner of the furniture factory has closed down the factory "just to punish the workers for demanding their rights and implementation of the law of the land."

While talking to TNS, Punjab Labour Minister Ashraf Khan Sohna confirms that cases registered against Niaz Khan were false. "He was punished only for setting up trade union in the furniture factory because the owner is very influential," he says.

Niaz Khan is not the only worker who has been suffering the wrath of the owners just for using their very basic right of making a trade union. In fact, during the recent past, especially after Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani's first speech in the parliament in which he promised empowering the workers, the situation has worsened especially in the private sector.

The federal governments has also repealed the anti-worker Industrial Relation Ordinance (IRO) 2002 promulgated by Pervez Musharraf government replacing it with a new one in November 2008 (IRO 2008) that allows the workers to form trade union and has made bilateral mechanism to resolve disputes among workers and employers.

Even though these labour laws have been amended in books, the situation on ground remains the same. On May 16, 2009, police in Faisalabad registered cases of robbery against more than 1300 labourers on the request of a factory owner because they were involved in activities of trade union. The factory management also sacked 15 leaders of the union.

According to Hameed Khan, a labour leader of Balochistan, a big pharmaceutical company in Quetta sacked 10 workers from their jobs in March, only to form a trade union of their choice within the factory. In another multinational company in Hub, two workers lost their jobs on the same charges last month. "Situation is very bad for labourers in the province especially during the last one year or so. In many factories managements have divided the labour force on the basis of ethnicity," he tells TNS.

In Faisalabad, according to Aslam Miraj, general secretary Labour Qaumi Movement, more than 0.2 million workers have been sacked from their jobs during the last one year. "After the government announced Rs 6000 minimum wage, many of the factory owners in Faisalabad have downsized but increased duty hours and consequently thousands of labourers lost their jobs. Since there are no trade unions in the majority of the factories in Faisalabad, no platform is available to labourer for collective bargaining".

Miraj says following the government's decision to lift ban on trade unions in Faisalabad, only 16 trade unions have been registered, most of them in small factories. "Workers of a leading textile mill formed a trade union a few months ago. The owners sacked the whole leadership of trade union and now nobody is ready to come forward."

According to an official of the labour department in Faisalabad, the owners are not ready to give rights to workers despite the directives from the government. "There are at least 0.5 million workers in power loom sector alone but only 20,000 of them have the social security cards," he says.

The situation in Sindh is more or less similar with some exemptions. Labour Department has simplified the process of registration of trade unions and as a result maximum number of trade unions (more than 300) has been registered here during the last one year. The trade unions have also seen some big victories in this province and managed to stop the process of privatisation of Qadirpur Gas Field but situation in private sector has not changed so far.

"Because around 90 percent of workers in the private sector in Karachi do not have appointment letters, they cannot join a trade union," Nasir Mansoor, deputy secretary National Trade Federation tells TNS. According to him more than 100 workers have been sacked in the last four months from different factories or private companies for joining trade unions. "The workers are not allowed to make unions in some industrial areas like Export Processing Zone."

Farooq Tariq, spokesperson Labour Party Pakistan, admits that PPP governments have always been worker-friendly compared to other governments. "But it was after the success of the lawyers' movement when workers realised that peaceful protest can also bring positive results. This has brought a new wave of unionisation in the private sector. But, the owners are not used to it. They have made tremendous profits under eight years of Mushrraf and they are not ready to give space to labourers. Whenever new unions are formed, the owners intimidate with false charges, arrests, tortures and kidnappings."

Ten year old Jamila is a maid servant. She has been working with her present employer for about a year. Her mother visits her every month, collects her monthly wage from her employer only to be seen the following month. Her 'job description' includes working almost 12 hours a day, tolerating physical violence often resulting in bruises all over the body and entertaining her employer's five-year-old son. If only she knew about the Punjab Ombudsman's Children Complaint Cell (CCO) -- a "dedicated section for the child's rights within its secretariat."

The CCO project is in partnership with UNICEF's Child and Adolescent Protection Programme (CAPP). Complaints may be made by children or adults on children's behalf to address unfair treatment by police, in prisons, educational institutions, welfare institutions, orphanages, other government departments and NGOs.

According to Pakistan Demographic and Health Survey, 41 percent of Pakistan's population is below 15 years of age. Children comprise 15 percent of Punjab's total population while in Balochistan it is as much as 46 percent, to point out the polarity. Out of the 41 percent very few children live in a protected environment i.e. share a house with their parents. Special attention in these CCOs, according to the Ombudsman document, will be given to "vulnerable children" -- those without primary caregivers, street children, working children, children with disabilities, children in conflict with the law and children who are victims of trafficking. While these CCOs have been set up in Islamabad, Punjab and Sindh, they are expected to be established in Balochistan and NWFP soon.

Thirteen year old Hamza, who hails from Islamabad, says, if he knew of a complaint office in his area he would approach them directly with complaints against his teacher and school staff, instead of going to his parents. "At home such things are usually ignored and if there is a place like that I would go straight to that place." Hamza is lucky. He is aware of his rights. But not many children are as privileged as him.

Shamshad Qureshi, Child Protection Specialist at UNICEF Pakistan, says children or adults can directly lodge a complaint against police, social welfare or labour department -- "after which it is our duty to mobilise the concerned department."

The basic aim of the project, says Qureshi, "is to provide children with an environment through which their rights are protected and their grievances are addressed in the shortest possible time without harming them."

But it is not easy as it sounds. At the risk of being cynical, it puts a lot of question marks on our attitude towards children as a society. First of all, it took us 62 years to realise we need to address children's grievances; that also not from our own budget but with the help from an international organisation. While direct complaint can be filed, the Ombudsman's office will be dealing with misadministration by any "provincial agency, institution or public body."

Thus, the basic aim -- speedy action without the slow and expensive judicial proceedings -- of the whole exercise might even fall prey to the discrepancies between Ombudsman's office and other departments. Whoever thinks it is an easy task to deal with police, educational institutions, NGOS, and government departments.

A very interesting aspect of CCO is that a child cannot lodge complaint against his parents. In our cultural context, we tend to think of a child-parent relationship based on respect, unquestioned obedience and service. Disobedience towards parents is synonymous with rebellion mostly because religious and social values are often confused. Shamshad Qureshi says that nothing "that is against our values can be done since it will not be acceptable in our social structure." So, for children like Jamila, who are treated like slaves by their own parents, CCO offers no respite.

In a society like ours where a child is discouraged from questioning the role of a teacher, children protesting against their tutors' action are rare. The fear of consequences and backlash cannot be ruled out. The foremost problem with any such programme is that of access. As for those children in jails, reaching out to anything outside the four walls of the prison is synonymous with impossible. According to Shamshad Qureshi, this problem will be addressed through a 24-hour helpline. That possibility of reaching to a phone line in a jail or an orphanage is anybody's guess.

Rafeeq Khan, National Coordinator of Society for Protection of the Rights of a Child (SPARC), has worked closely with children in the prison and residential care. He says at present there is no mechanism under which a child can file a complaint bypassing the jail staff. "There are those children who are living in residential care and there are those in the prison. Those living in residential care or orphanage obviously have no parents so they are responsible for themselves. No one will file a complaint on his or her behalf. Since they have to do it themselves, it is impossible to reach out to someone outside that place for help."

Uzma Bashir, a senior Psychologist who works with a local NGO and deals closely with underprivileged children, says that such children are not normal, and their problems need to be handled differently. "A child in any kind of detentions is extremely insecure and depressed. They will not trust anyone no matter what." What have been defined as "most vulnerable" children are stigmatised. Different forms of abuses are a matter of routine for them. So much so, that it is not even considered as abuse.

Khan believes that the answer lies in an independent body or individual who should be in direct contact with the children -- in prisons, educational institutions, borstal institutions or orphanages etc. "Children should be allowed to meet these representatives in private without the involvement of the staff and share their problems with him frankly. He, then, should file the complaint on behalf of the child."

In our social structure a child is most likely to be ignorant of his own rights. The CCO also aims to introduce a comprehensive "campaign to teach children to protect their own rights," says Qureshi. However, in places like prisons and orphanages, access to independent information is at the discretion of the administration.

The idea of addressing children's complaint gives us hope -- at least we are now ready to acknowledge their problems. But more than social attitudes, solutions within the system need to be explored instead of bypassing it. Setting up commissions to check on other departments will jeopardise the very purpose, that of speedy and accessible justice.

The following is a purportedly intercepted conversation between Muslim Khan, spokesman for the Swat Taliban (who apparently spent more than four years as a house painter in Boston and whose own son studies in the co-educational University of Peshawar) and an apparent ally. It is in Pushto but a rough translation will make non-Pushto speakers (such as myself) understand the gist of the conversation.

Muslim Khan, henceforth MK, is talking to a person whom he calls 'Muslimyar'. The person who sent me this link is a Pushto speaker himself and said that other person had an accent which made him think that he (MK's interlocutor) was Mehsud. However, since no name was mentioned, one can't be sure as to the identity of this other person.

MK rings a number and asks for someone called either Hafiz or Muslimyar. Muslimyar comes on the phone. After exchanging pleasantries Muslimyar tells MK that he spoke to "him" (the person who sent the link thought that this must be the big boss -- perhaps Baitullah Mehsud in this case, but again nothing can be confirmed) and that 'he' has issued orders to his men to "to do their job even in common places" -- by that one probably means carrying out suicide attacks and the idea is to erode the government support.

MK saying that "six" of his men were killed after the army bombed "ten houses" follows this. Muslimyar says again that orders have been given that if the men cannot "reach the strategic places" then they should carry out their job whether they can. MK then wonders why nothing has been done so far -- probably suggesting that the suicide bombers had not been able to reach Swat, which would further suggest that they were coming from another area -- presumably South Waziristan and probably from Qari Hussain's suicide-bomber producing madrassa there (Qari Hussain is known as 'ustad-e-fidayeen', or 'teacher of the suicide bombers').

MK then says that the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan should give an ultimatum to the government and says that the journalists in general and a BBC journalist in particular were "taunting him" on where his coalition partners were now. MK also then says (and this probably is a give away that he is speaking to someone high up in the TTP hierarchy) that if "you people remain quiet" then the army will be "done with us" and will next "go towards you". Muslimyar listens and agrees with MK but then goes on to say that many of his own men have been killed in drone attacks adding that "just a few days ago" he had lost "six of his men" to such an attack. MK then says that Muslimyar should respond to all these attacks in Punjab because "it is better to die in jihad rather than in drone attacks".

Muslimyar then says that "friends" (possibly indicating suicide bombers) have already left for Punjab but that they haven't been able to reach the locations assigned to them because the government had become more vigilant. Therefore, he tells MK, they have been told to carry out their blast wherever they can (does this indicate a hint of desperation in their ranks?). The intercepted conversation then ends with MK saying that "you have to hit the homes of army generals and officers" because that is the "only way that they will learn -- when their children are targeted and killed". The link for the conversation is http://www.youtube. com/watch?v=RrFWHYHJ4Es.

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What should one make of the detention of an alleged suicide bomber trainer and militant outside the Islamabad residence of the recently released Lal Masjid cleric Maulana Abdul Aziz Ghazi. Fiadullah and a former JUI-S MNA Shah Abdul Aziz were arrested outside Maulana Aziz's home on May 27. According to a report in Dawn, he is from Buner district and attended Jamia Faridia. He played a role in the Taliban's advance into Buner in April and is reported to have ordered the beheadings of at least three men he accused of being spies for the government. A recruiter and handler of suicide bombers, he reportedly recruited from madrassa in Islamabad and sent them to Waziristan for 'training'. According to security agencies, he is suspected of involvement in a suicide attack on an FC check post in Islamabad on April 4 and one on March 23 outside a police special branch office.

Shah Abdul Aziz was elected as an MNA from NA-15, Karak, on an MMA ticket (though he is a member of the JUI-S). His profile on the Election Commission of Pakistan website (where he can still be found listed as a candidate for the last election) says he was born in 1970 and his contact details are of the Islami Madrasa Warana in the village of Warana in Tehsil Takhti Nasratti in Karak district. During the height of the Lal Masjid crisis, he was often seen on talk shows and sometimes at the mosque in the role of an interlocutor and veritable spokesman for the Ghazi brothers.

Fidaullah is said to be a native of Buner and was at the mosque when it became the focus of a military operation. He was arrested and eventually released on bail by the government -- all 'students' at the mosque were eventually reportedly released upon furnishing an undertaking that henceforth they would not take part in any terrorist or anti-state activity. (So much for the undertaking -- and the less said about the government's naiveté the better.) After his release, he set up a so-called 'Ghazi Force' (named after the slain Maulana Abdul Rashid Ghazi) which operated in Hangu district. According to The Long War Journal, quoting a US intelligence official, the 'Ghazi Force' ran a terrorist training camp in Guljo in Hangu. Despite all of this, Maulana Aziz was not detained -- given that it is clear that the former MNA was trying to take Fidaullah out of the Maulana's home in his car -- on the assumption that it would not be stopped.

The writer is Editorial Pages Editor of The News.

Email: omarq@cyber.net.pk