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fate review The
man who defied Zia Country
called music
fate The design of our
democracy allows the citizens of Pakistan to overthrow the government every
five years. And as the sun sets on the utterly ‘incompetent’ and
‘corrupt’ PPP regime, the political and legal arena is abuzz with
rumours and hopes that leaders of the former regime will be brought to bear
to the fullest extent of the law. Above all, the question
that everyone seems to be wondering about (if not asking aloud) is whether
the president, who is still in office for a few months, will face the
charges pending against him in different courts of law once his term ends?
After all, a central leader and chief minister of the party that has now
come to power, just a few months ago, during a fiery speech in Lahore,
threatened the president of dire consequences. Passion and rhetoric
aside, it is pertinent to take a deeper look into the cases against the
president, in order to understand and explore the realistic possibility of
any consequences that they may entail. Turning to the specific
cases against President Zardari: the good news (for those wishing to see the
president behind bars) is that there is a plethora of civil and criminal
cases against Asif Ali Zardari. The bad news is that, in the long run, none
of the cases have a realistic chance of putting the former president behind
bars for an indefinite period. Starting with the civil
side, numerous cases have been filed against Asif Ali Zardari over the past
two decades. Perhaps most controversial, among these, are the SGS Swiss Case
(Reference No. 41/2001) and the Cotecna case (Reference 35/2000), both of
which had been filed as one case, under Saif-ur-Rehman’s tainted Ehtisaab
Bureau, but were later tried and decided separately. These reference,
against Zardari, Benazir Bhutto and AR Siddiqui (the then Chairman FBR),
arise out of an allegation that in 1995, the government of late Benazir
Bhutto hired certain shipment inspection firms to check the quality of
imports, which in return paid kickbacks worth millions of dollars, into
offshore bank accounts belonging to the accused. In July of 2011, however,
a judge of the Accountability Court, Rawalpindi, through a 35 page judgment
(primarily placing reliance on the statement of the Investigation Officer)
acquitted Mr. Siddiqui and other accused personnel, concluding that no
reliable or admissible evidence had come on record to prove the allegations.
While dismissing the charges, the judge also noted that the president, under
Article 248(2) of the Constitution, was immune from criminal prosecution
(till his date in office), and thus a case cannot be proceeded against him. Similarly, in the ARY Gold
Reference (Reference No. 23/2000) relating to the allegation that Asif Ali
Zardari, Aslam Hayat Qureshi, Salman Faruqui and Javed Talat, granted
monopolistic gold import license to ARY Gold, in return for kickbacks worth
USD10 million (paid to Capricorn Trading Inc, an offshore company owned by
Mr Zardari), the trial judge has acquitted all the co-accused (with the
exception of Javed Talat, having been declared absconder from law), and
dropped the proceedings against the president, in light of his
constitutional immunity. Same has been the fate of
the Ursus Tractors Reference (Reference No. 13/2001), pertaining to
receiving commission and exemption of duties, in the purchase of purchasing
5,900 Russian and Polish made Ursus tractors, and the Polo Ground Reference
(Reference No. 6/2000) concerning the construction of Polo Ground on the
verbal orders of Asif Ali Zardari, where the co-accused (including one Mr.
Saeed Mehdi) have been acquitted, and no further proceedings have taken
place in light of president’s constitutional immunity. It is true that, in these
cases, the court proceedings that have stalled, to the extent of the
president, under the garb of presidential immunity, can recommence once the
said immunity expires (at the end of the presidential term). However, in
light of the fact that the co-accused in all these cases have been
acquitted, there is minimal likelihood that Asif Ali Zardari will be
convicted. Away from these, three
other domestic cases, on the civil side, were filed against Mr Zardari. One
of these, the Assets Reference (Reference No. 14/2001), relates to freezing
of such assets of Zardari, which were deemed beyond his legitimate means.
The said case was last heard on its merits in 2004, and subsequently the
appeal (before the Supreme Court) was withdrawn by the president’s
lawyers, under the plea that the case had been abolished under the NRO. The
said case could be reinstituted, in light of the NRO judgment, but no real
move in this regard has taken place yet. In two other cases, the
BMW case (Reference No. 59/2002), relating to the evasion of duties on the
import of a 1993 model armoured car, and the Steel Mill case (Reference No.
27/2000), the president has been acquitted (on merits, not under the NRO) by
the Accountability Court and the Lahore High Court, respectively. Unless an
appeal is filed against these acquittals, there is no further proceeding to
be done, in regards to these. Internationally, two
possible scandals could haunt the president. One relates to the proceeds
from the sale of Rockwood House (a 350 acres estate in Surrey), ownership of
which was initially denied and later (in 2004) claimed by Mr Zardari, and
the second relates to a scandal concerning Oil-for-Food Program in Iraq, in
which it was discovered that a company called Petroline FZC (allegedly owned
by Asif Zardari) breached UN sanctions to trade $144m of Iraqi oil, and made
$2m of illegal payments to Saddam Hussein’s regime. The claims, however, are
at an inquiry/investigation stage, and no specific trial is yet under way.
As a result, for now, no speculation can be made as to the veracity of the
claims. On the criminal side, Mr
Asif Zardari has been accused in Mir Murtaza murder case (FIR 443/96),
Justice Nizam ud Din murder case (FIR No. 357/96), Alam Baloch murder case
(FIR No. 70/97), Sajjad Hussain murder case (FIR No. 220/1998), two suicide
cases (FIRs No. 65/99 and FIR 66/99), and a case concerning evasion of
customs duty on goods being sent abroad (FIR No. 2/97). Despite all efforts and
might of successive antagonistic governments, including the 1997 government
of Nawaz Sharif, and then nine years of rule of General Musharraf (during
most of which, Asif Zardari remained under imprisonment), and even though
the establishment and the intelligentsia frequently brow-beat individuals
into becoming witnesses and approvers, in all these cases, Asif Zardari has
been acquitted by a court of competent jurisdiction. Till date, not a single
charge, in any of these criminal cases, has been proven against the
president. The stalwarts and
supporters of the PPP are quick to point out that the only thing that all
these (politically motivated) prosecutions and cases prove is that Asif Ali
Zardari does not cower away from prosecution or even jail-time. He will not
go away to a foreign land to ‘see his ailing mother’, or sign a
‘contract’ with the government to not return to Pakistan or politics for
another decade. And to this extent —
whether one likes Asif Ali Zardari or not — his supporters are correct. We live in the era of
‘due process of law’, where we have chosen to make cathedrals out of our
houses of justice, and begun celebrating the supremacy of the letter and
spirit of the law. In times like these, it is when a popularly-despised
person stands trial, that the true resolve of the justice system, and that
of its proponents, is tested. Despite the passions and
unfeigned hatred that countless people across Pakistan harbour for the
president, it is important to be mindful of the fact that everyone is
innocent till proven guilty. And that guilt can only be established through
the requirements of due process of law, including the production of evidence
and legal finding of facts. These thresholds, in the cases against Asif Ali
Zardari, have not been met. Either out of fear, or respect, sufficient
testimony and evidence has not been brought forward against the man. And if history is any
indicator, it is unlikely that any meaningful conviction against Asif Ali
Zardari will result in any of the cases pending before the respective
courts. The writer is a lawyer
based in Lahore. He has a Masters in Constitutional Law from Harvard Law
School. saad@post.harvard.edu
review “Instead of
changing the world, art only makes it look better.” Boris Groys Art till the recent past
was limited to a select few who were trained in the discipline or were born
with the talent for it. Today, in the shape of photography, everyone is
empowered to create works of art. From its invention in 1839
to its spread through digital cameras and camera mobile phones, photography
has been changing our perception of art and the concept of reality. Jean
Paul Sartre, in one of his essays on the occupation of Paris by Nazis, talks
about the absence of truth in photography as, contrary to normal views and
beliefs, camera does not convey total reality. It crops it and communicates
a carefully-selected version, thus an interpretation of the factual world. However, with camera
(derived from the Greek word Kamara, which is not different in sound and
meaning to the Urdu Kamra the space with a cover, or room!) having become a
common device to capture images, the ideas, tasks and challenges of
‘photographers’ or art photographers are being constantly altered. They
are probably facing a similar problem as the painters who witnessed the
first phase of photography. They were confused as to what to do in the
presence of a tool that could record reality in a more accurate and quick
manner than themselves. Thus, according to John
Berger, the portrait painter came up with the concept of portraying ‘inner
self’ of the subject which could not be achieved through the mechanical
device. Other critics hold that the emergence of Impressionism has some link
with the invention of photography because painters distinguished themselves
by recording fleeting visions of the outside world — like an instant
glance — that was not possible to create with the camera lens. Perhaps, photographers now
realise that they need to “do something else” in order to differentiate
themselves from those who click the aperture of cell phones and download
pictures on their computers. The immediate solution available to many is the
manipulation of images through different programmes and softwares. A course
that arguably ensures the elevation of a photographer from the amateurs who
are equally ‘capable’ of taking pictures with good composition, sharp
focus and serious subject matter. This conflict in the
photographer can be sensed at the 2nd National Photographic Art Exhibition
2013, being held at the Alhamra Art Gallery, Lahore (from May 27-June 7,
2013). The entire gallery space is allocated to photographs by individuals
from across the country but a majority of pictures are identical in size.
Even if one neglects the closely-hung frames (a hallmark of Alhamra!), the
decision of printing most images on the same scale by the organisers shows
their limited understanding of photography as art. For them, the subject is
more important than the scale in which it is presented. Interestingly, this
frame of mind — of reducing every work to a uniform measurement — can be
a residue of our habit of looking at digital images on the screen of
computer. These could vary if printed but, on the computer screen, every
visual is modified i.e reduced or enlarged. The preference for equal
sizes suggests that photographers — at least those connected to the 2nd
National Exhibition — still consider photography to be a technical
practice rather than an art endeavour. The limitation of scale has
transformed the whole exhibition into a kind of ‘catalogue’, in which
all works (paintings, prints, drawings etc.) regardless of original
dimensions are reproduced in the same way/format. A number of participants
have tried to move away from mere photography and indulged into ‘art’ by
adding special effects to their first shots. Thus there are scenes aplenty
from mountains to plains to fields, lakes to sea, and sky to clouds and
rainbows, in which colours are modified and bright tones are added in order
to reduce the purity of vision and to include the photographer’s
imagination in reality. The consequence is unintended — several of the
works look more like pages of a calendar or picture postcards. The effects
are predictable and similar in terms of treatment and aesthetics. Besides the uniformity in
scale, the subject matter is boring and repetitive, too, with snapshots of
sunsets, wrinkled old faces, characters from rural background and birds of
multiple shades. These themes may appear to be different but for a typical
photographer all these fall into a single category — exotic. Instead of
focusing on ordinary reality and extracting the extraordinary from it,
photographers have relied on the strangeness of their subject and presented
them sometimes as honestly as possible and at times by adding their
chromatic inputs. It is therefore difficult
to say that photography has reached the level of art (one wonders, if the
practitioners wanted it to be so?). Yet, in the present show, a number of
works stand out due to their original thought and personalising of visual
material. For instance, Hamida Khatri approaches her photographs as parodies
of famous paintings, with models from her surroundings posing as the
characters in those canvases. Or works by Maryam Arif, in which one is not
supposed to see anything spectacular but mere spaces, which can leave their
mark on the memory, for example the Shadow Path. One can mention the
photograph of Mo Shah, in which the unusual element is not in the found
frame, but is sought in the way reality is captured and thus transformed. Walking from one end to
the other at Alhamra, one realises the works in black and white, attract
more than the colour. One is reminded of a quote of Israeli novelist A. B.
Yehoshua from his novel The Retrospective, in which he reflects that the
black and white images appear closer to our feelings and thoughts in
comparison to our reaction to fully coloured images; only because
monochromatic visuals (photographs or films) echo the singularity of colour
from our dreams. The present exhibition
reaffirms this reading and rendering of reality, and the link or difference
between life and dream or art!. caption ‘Untitled’ by Mo Shah. caption ‘Shadow Path’ by
Maryam Arif.
The man who
defied Zia It has been a
quarter of a century since it happened but the story of the dismissal of
Pakistan’s 10th prime minister Mohammad Khan Junejo is still a great
illustration of the precarious position of any principled politician in the
land of the pure. On May 29, 1988, Junejo
returned from an official visit to the Far East. He was received at the
airport with usual protocol by his cabinet and the five high ranking
generals. Even as the PM addressed a press conference and briefed the media
about the visit, reporters were told by the Press Information Department
officials that they should go to the presidency for an “urgent” presser. Reporters began leaving
the PM’s presser to go the president’s one. The PM, unaware, left the
airport and soon after learnt that the president had dismissed him and
dissolved parliament. The PM’s press secretary
who had returned with the PM says he heard the news on TV. Then, late at
night, a bureaucrat called him at home and told him he needn’t come to
work the next morning. Junejo was sacked by
General Zia in a decidedly unceremonious manner. The man, who Zia had
thought would serve well as a puppet PM in an assembly elected through
non-party polls, had proved to be an independent-minded,
democratically-inclined politician who asserted the civilian authority at
every turn, and who was a thorn in the president’s side. The aftermath of the
sacking, as recounted by Junejo’s minister of state for defence, Rana
Naeem is depressingly familiar: immediately after the sacking, Junejo was
not contactable by phone and could not meet anybody, and was under virtual
house arrest at the PM house. Junejo went to court to
appeal this dismissal and the Supreme Court’s decision was a little
confusing: the court declared the dismissal was illegal yet did not restore
the government. Journalist Nasir Malik
covered the court proceedings and says that all indicators before the
judgement pointed to the Junejo government being restored. The judges
instructed the attorney general to ask the former prime minister to come to
the court so he could be heard. Apparently, full protocol was extended to
Junejo, but then the court did not ask him anything, he was not heard and
the decision was to not restore him to the prime ministership. Rana Naeem has now
revealed that before the judgement, the judges sent a message to Junejo:
they asked for an assurance that he would stick to the election schedule
announced by Zia if they restored his government. Junejo refused on
principle, according to Rana Naeem, and he said that as PM it was his
prerogative to choose the time of any election. The non independence of
the judiciary in this case was confirmed some years later: journalist Nasir
Malik recalls that Wasim Sajjad, former chairman senate and trusted Zia-ite
admitted in a subsequent court case that he himself had called the chief
justice on the morning before the court’s decision on Junejo’s dismissal
with a message from the army: that they did not want Junejo government
restored. The problem with Junejo
was that he was very high-minded, something that is not an advantage in
Pakistan. He had zero tolerance for any peer tainted by the suggestion of
any sort of corruption, and sacked a few cabinet members on this basis. He
decided to follow an Afghan policy at odds with the army and probably of
some benefit to the civilian population. He insisted on legality and
morality in most matters and expected that government resources should
neither be squandered nor abused, and actually started behaving like the
frugal leader of a third world nation, advocating thrift and modesty rather
than ostentation and waste. He also defied Zia by
restoring political parties and negating Zia’s vision of a non-party
system. And somehow he managed to
promote a culture of politics: Benazir Bhutto returned from exile during his
tenure, and campaigned freely across the country. And so he had to go. And
before his actual dismissal, rumours of this dismissal reached the ears of
Rana Naeem. He says that the worst was confirmed when he saw CJCOS General
Akhtar Abdul Rehman at the airport when they were assembled to receive
Junejo “he wasn’t wearing a cap. When a fauji doesn’t want to salute
somebody he doesn’t wear a cap. When I saw him I knew the rumours were
true.” Twenty-five years later
the story of Junejo’s dismissal still resonates: a morality tale of some
sort... A drama played out again
and again in various ways. Best wishes Umber Khairi
Country
called music It was fun and
frolic at the concerts held last week in various colleges of Lahore. Blended
328 performed more in the manner of an event than a musical performance. It
was a happening at its best as the band elicited and enticed the audiences
to be part of their musical performance. Perhaps this is the true
spirit of Country Music. The musical forms that have originated in the
United States do not have the formality that is generally associated with
classical forms. It can be attributed to their pioneering thrust in a land
where the spirit of adventure overrode everything else and created forms
which did not carry the baggage of a long-venerated tradition. Blended 328, chosen by
Campus Magazine as What’s Hot in 2012, has been described by some fans as
a high energy party band with different ethnicities and musical influences. It has created a fresh and
enticing country sound layered with funk, neo soul and rock. The Nashville
scene in their 2011 Best of Nashville issue described 328’s vibes as
country music for the world. As it is, these new forms
are more amorphous and open to inclusion as against the classical forms that
are wary of any breach of tradition. Neither are they restricted to vocal or
instrumental music because other than these two it may also include dance
and other small vignettes which are not usually strictly associated with a
music concert. It is more like a performance where the primary interest is
not virtuosity but an instant connection with the audiences. Country Music was
initially introduced to the world as a folk music of the South, a
combination of cultural strains, combining musical traditions of a variety
of ethnic groups in the region. Some instrumental pieces from Irish
immigrants were the basis of folk songs and ballads of the form that is now
known as old time music. Country Music descended from it because it is
commonly thought that Irish folk music heavily influenced the development of
old time music in the Southern Appalachian Mountains, where the earliest
European settlers hailed principally from Ireland. Country Music, often
erroneously thought as solely the creation of European Americans, is no
longer true. A great deal of style and, of course, the banjo, a major
instrument in most early American folk songs, came from African Americans.
Country Music was created by African Americans as well as European Americans
because both blacks and whites in rural communities in the south often
worked and played together. With the developments
during the last hundred years, Country Music as said by the critics has gone
through ten generations. It has an international dimension to it with
Canadian and Australian Country Music, too, making its presence felt. The
similarity of the experiences of the European settlers must have played a
part in the evolution of these forms in faraway lands but it is not now only
limited to that. Country Music as a form has its presence in other European
countries as well. It is not the similarity of experience but the
opportunities that this polyglot form offers that is of musical interest to
them. According to the band’s
website: “Crashing on the Nashville music scene in September of 2011 the
band quickly become a local favorite, performing sold out shows at venues
like The Hard Rock, 12th and Porter and The Bluebird Cafe. The band
sincerely has a global vision to initiate positive change in the world by
breaking down racial barriers and promoting equality, respect, inclusion and
peace through country music.” As said earlier, the band
involved the audiences in all kinds of activity. There were scenes and
moments when it appeared to be a matter of pure spontaneity. The younger
audiences at the colleges truly loved to rock with the sound and the beat as
well as partake of the small acts that were made available to them. If
nothing else, it seemed to be an enjoyable experience for them. At one time, the various
agencies of the United States were very active in promoting their culture,
thus helping in fusing the cultures of US and Pakistan. The American
experience, too, is of fusion of various cultures; Country Music being one
good example of it. American Centre was a venue for most of these activities
but it appears all this was in the past. Nevertheless, such
cultural shows and visits should be held regularly because they provide an
opportunity of exposure to other cultures.
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