BOOK REVIEW

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It's so easy to be wicked without knowing it, isn't it?

Lucy Maud Montgomery (1874-1942)

EVOLVING SITUATION IN AFGHANISTAN (A REVIEW)

BY: NASSER YOUSAF 

Some may say I have no right to comment on the subject mentioned anthology edited by you. I say this because I didn't purchase this work but received it as a gift. I couldn't even have purchased it because it doesn't carry a price tag, and hence must not be available for sale in the market. I was a little taken aback when I read your copyright notice with strong-worded warnings because I thought to myself how could anyone copy from it when it is not supposed to be bought and sold in the market.

I am sorry for presuming that this collection of essays on Afghanistan is intended and meant for the officers in the Foreign Office, and the cautionary note is for these officers not to copy from it for their thesis while undergoing training in the Pakistan's elite academies. I also wonder how many Afghans, the protagonists in these essays, even know about such a collection.

My comments on the contents of this collection of essays may thus be called as unsolicited. Though, not unjustified because it has ostensibly been published with the taxpayers money. I may also add that I try to read almost everything about Afghanistan which may be due to our closeness to this country and its people.

I have to say the following about what has been discussed in the aforesaid anthology: 

1: I couldn't find the ordinary Afghans in these essays, the Afghans who live in mud-houses and tents in Pakistan and Iran. It refers to those Afghans just in passing or simply as 'numbers,' 39 millions or 40 millions at different places. Ironically, even after 20 years of the Western evaluators on the Afghan soil, we couldn't arrive at an agreed-upon number. It's as if one million people do not matter in the discussion. 

2: The Institute of Strategic Studies (ISSI) appears to be a body of the Foreign Office of Pakistan. Precisely, Afghan Refugees have now lived in Pakistan for 45 years, if we consider the arrival of Soviets on the scene in December 1979. Since Afghans marry early, three generations of them were born on the Pakistani soil during the last 45 years. A child, who could be seen rummaging in the garbage for his piece of bread, his/her father and the grandparents.These people can speak the Pakistani languages like Urdu, Punjabi and Hindko better than many locals in the areas of their respective residences. A vast majority of them have never set foot on the Afghan soil. Recent years have seen forcible repatriation of more than six hundred thousand refugees from Pakistan to Afghanistan where they are said to be living in miserable conditions.

3: The essays say absolutely nothing about these people. These people have their elders and children buried in the Pakistani cemeteries and their daughters married off to the Pakistani lads. Forcibly evicting these people from their tenements and then denying them entry in Pakistan even after passing through a cumbersome and malfunctioning legal channel is like extracting a tooth without the administration of anaesthesia. It's painful beyond the power of words to explain. How could officialdom allow this?

4: Both sturdy and frail-limbed Afghan labourers have built our upscale colonies and houses by the sweat of their brows. They have baked our breads and brought the vegetables to our doorstep. Afghan kids have disposed of our awful garbage for decades. Pakistan's farcical online visa system has made even these Afghans totally dependent on the agents and go-getters. Like in all other departments, we Pakistanis know better than all other people in the world how best to make mockery of the online systems.

5: The aforesaid essays tell us nothing of these Afghans, but tell us only of the Taliban as if the land and its resources are only theirs since time immemorial. This despite the fact that Taliban came to be known only from 1996 onwards. Some of the essayists have laid too much emphasis on which militant group is operating where and with what particular bent of belief. Giving so much importance to such trivial considerations has made the militants look bigger than what they can actually attain which is perhaps what the West wants to brandish as a grave threat to the world.

6: The essays talk of how much in billions of dollars and euros were expended on the rebuilding of Afghanistan and the training of its armed forces by the allied forces led by Mr. Sam. But it doesn't talk of why those security forces trained along modern lines couldn't withstand the Taliban onslaught even for one day. Both the Taliban and those trained by the West were Afghans. When we talk of being invincible, we don't talk of the Taliban, but the Afghans. This saga invariably starts relating itself from the the three Anglo-Afghan wars and as of now ends at the discomfiture of the NATO.

7: Western authors love rhetoric and cliches. The Taliban's retort that the West had the watch but the former had the time could in fact have been rephrased as the West had the 5000-pounders but the Taliban had the jacket. It's as simple as that. The jacket forced NATO out of Afghanistan. It's strange that anything other than this could be attributed to the end result. 

8: One of the essays tell us that Taliban delegates were accommodated in the most expensive hotels during their stay in Qatar. Those talking of rehabilitation should realize that even this grand hospitality didn't help change the hardened mindset. Taliban deliberated but at their own terms because they knew well that the interlocutors across the table suffered from the pangs of resistance-fatigue. Apparently, the negotiators and mediators didn't even try to make the Taliban agree to some kind of flexibility on their part. Such a stance could have been the holding of a referendum where only men would vote. The West probably thought such a solution would have made it look to be compromising on its self-styled stand on the women's rights. Based on ground realities both in Afghanistan and Pakistan, even a men only referendum wouldn't have given Taliban the mandate to return to power. Had this not been true a great majority of the refugees would have returned home to the Taliban controlled Afghanistan. As things turned out, both the refashioned country and women rights were lost to the fighters on the table. 

9: The essayist Thembisa Fakude ought to have known better that it was in Qatar where the Afghans lost their independence to a group of militants. In its eagerness to show its importance to the world and win undeserved plaudits, Qatar bartered away the most-adored possession of the Afghan people. Before long, Taliban too would realize that the victory that they gained was indeed pyrrhic.

10: The stolid bureaucratic corridors which engaged in prolonged talks with the Taliban would most likely pooh-pooh the foregoing ground realities. The conceited bureaucracy is perhaps more rigid than even the Taliban.

10: The essay titled 'China and Afghanistan' by Amin Mohseni gives a detailed list of Afghanistan's mineral deposits. The essays details that Afghanistan has untapped deposits of copper, lithium, uranium, gold, diamond etcetera including in how much quantity. It's a most intriguing account of Afghanistan's mineral wealth which undoubtedly this godforsaken country must be having but of what use is it to the thousands of Afghan kids as young as three who could be seen working as garbage-collectors on the streets of Pakistan. If the essayist is originally from Afghanistan, as his name suggests him to be, why he and others like him have runaway from their motherland. It's all too easy to settle down in the US or Europe and start writing sermons and an altogether different thing to face the reality head on. Every Afghan, both illiterate and semi or highly educated is trying to runaway and work as a slave in the West in whatever capacity possible.

11: Together, Hamid Karzai (2002-2014) and Ashraf Ghani (2014-2021) ruled Afghanistan as presidents respectively for close to 20 years. Both of them were of the Pashtun stock. They spoke fluent English language, and were very popular in the West. The Afghan people appeared to like these two gentleman, but the liking looked to be one-sided. While Karzai still remains stationed at home after the fall of Kabul in 2021, Ashraf fled to one of his several favourite hideouts from where he had sprang leaving behind a trail of allegations of malpractices. One always wonders what kind of foresight or understanding of the job the twosome had if they couldn't foresee the gathering storm around them. They couldn't even defend themselves against widespread allegations of doling out illicit favours to the people around them. They both had opportunities to leave indelible marks of good governance but they appeared to be consuming their energies in self-glorification in the eyes of the West. Karzai and Ashraf Ghani betrayed the trust of the wretched Afghans like no one else. How could the two forgive themselves especially Ghani who is said to be very highly educated?

12: The essay about Germany's contribution to the efforts in Afghanistan by Christian Wagner appears to be an exercise not worth the while. Germany through its consistent behaviour as an irresponsible state has proved that it should not have been allowed to come out of its status of pariah in the post World War 11 scheme of things. Germany should never have been permitted to rearm itself. Germany's rearming would now appear to have been allowed to aid and abet genocides by Israel on unarmed people like those in Gaza. Germany believes it is the only way it can atone for the crimes it committed against the Jewish people. By supplying arms to Israel to kill kids in Gaza, Germany has demolished the trust it was trying to reconstruct in Afghanistan. God is surely angry with countries like Germany, the US and UK. Why else would we see 17 billion euros spent on the training of 80, 000 Afghan police force by Germany go in vain. It appears that those euros were thrown in an oven in a baker's shop at the Shahr-e Naw in Kabul as the policemen supposedly trained by the rogue state of Germany didn't perform their duty even for an hour when the crunch time came.

13: After reading all the essays, one may safely assume that China, Russia and Iran have emerged as the most responsible states from the quagmire called Afghanistan. These three countries have behaved most reasonably both with respect to their own economic and geostrategic intersts as well as respecting the sovereignty of Afghanistan. The NATO countries led by the US have suffered a most ignoble defeat yet. They had to suffer this because wherever America and its partners go in the world they invariably interfere with the way of life of the people they come in contact with.

In conclusion, it can be argued that if Pakistan army can withhold the Taliban legions, although not without a heavy cost, why couldn't the Afghan military trained by the so called superior forces do the same even for one day? The Afghans are said to be formidable warriors. Training by the Western forces and being in possession of the most deadly weapons should have enabled them to offer at least some resistance. This part of the macabre drama needs to be told. It cannot be told in the niceties of the diplomatic jargon; if it is so attempted to be narrated than it will hardly help.

I hope the above will be shared with all the essayists in the best interest of the people of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran, the three countries that suffered the most from the tragedy.

BOOKS

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WHY DO WE READ LOLITA?

By: Nasser Yousaf

Our reading decisions are mostly influenced by the West. Western media, publishers and the award-giving organizations tell us what to read, and we comply with their biddings, whims and dictates.

Take for instance the case of 'Lolita' by the Russian writer Vladimir Nabokov. Lolita is an out and out paedopphilic story. But it has been showcased as a masterpiece in the West.

Had he not been a Soviet or Russian dissident, Nabokov wouldn't have been a household name in the Western literary circles. West loves dissidents if they happen to be from the countries that the West loves to hate.

Incidentally, paedophilia is a sickness that is very common in the West. Elderly people from Europe and America visit some Asian countries only to indulge their craving for children forced into prostitution due to extreme poverty.

But look at the dishonesty. In order to promote a novel by one of their favourite dissidents, and at the same time to cover up its own explicit proclivity for paedophilia, Western media tells us that Lolita is a story woven around exploitation in the former Soviet Union.

One doesn't really know when would the self-righteous organization called Transparency International wake up to rating intellectual dishonesty as a base crime. Intellectual propriety appears to have never existed on the shelf.

Undoubtedly, West has a license to do everything it wishes to do with impunity. It has perfected the art of annihilating cultures, societies and countries through its total control on media and through enslaving the rest of the world economically.

Organizations like the World Bank, IMF, UNDP, UNESCO, UNICEF, WHO etcetera are being used like guided intercontinental ballistic missiles. AI and its tools like Chatgpt have now added to the western arsenal.

Lest we forget him, the last Soviet leader Michael Gorbachev died in 2022. We remember him because his rule didn't just spell the end of his own country but it also dealt a fatal blow to a bi-polar world.

Russia defeated Napoleon in the early 19th century. War and Peace by Tolstoy tells the story of the ignominious French adventurism. Again, Russia defeated Germany in WW2. Russia didn't lose in Afghanistan but Gorbachev did when he got carried away with his glorification in the Western media.

Western media pampered and extolled Gorbachev through the excessive repetition of his so called reforms oriented slogans of 'glasnost' (openness) and 'perestroika' (reconstruction) to an extent that he was compelled into doing the bidding of the western media. Adept in flaunting its seductive charms, the western media acting like Circe, led Gorbachev to his inevitable doom.

Such is the power of the western media. But in Donald Trump, western media finally appears to have found its nemesis, and one would hope to the rescue of the rest of the world from the venomous bite of the ubiquitous chatter boxes.

Another novel that we have read despite it being outrageous and, therefore, unreadable is The Holy Sinner by a German Jewish writer Thomas Mann. Thomas was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature in 1929. Ironically though, the world saw its worst economic meltdown or depression in the same year.

Thomas was an immensely intelligent man in addition to being a humanist. He wrote on subjects as varied as Mohandas Gandhi. It is, therefore, quite strange that he chose some most repulsive human habits to tell his stories.

The Holy Sinner novel is about incest from the beginning to the end. Throughout the torturous reading, one feels like skipping pages to find out if the subject wasn't intended to be what it has come down to. But there was no escaping the fact that the writer indeed was enraptured by the story that he had woven around incestuous relationship between a brother and sister.

The Blood of the Walsungs is another novel by the same writer on the same subject, which luckily one has not read. His infatuation with incest is beyond comprehension although the present-day Western reviewers would do their best to hide it under the veneer of most tempting explanations.

Before one is branded a moralistic prig, it would help to make mention of some of the great but nonetheless controversial works that one has read and reread. Thomas Hardy's Tess of the d'Urbervilles and Jude the Obscure, D.H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover, Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray and Gabriel Garcia's One Hundred Years of Solitude merit mention among scores of others.

The beauty of its smooth flowery prose of one of the recent works of fiction titled 'The Crimson Petal and the White' by Michel Faber is so tempting that one had to reread it. Set in the Victorian era, the lead protagonist in the novel is a prostitute known for her killing charms, her average looks notwithstanding.

A novel, laced profusely with different figures of speech, is a beautiful narrative. The Crimson Petal and the White like Anna Karenina by Tolstoy is an ever lengthening narrative of love, betrayal and adultery. The prose in all such works makes them unceasingly readable. These superb novels are unlike Lolita, The Holy Sinner and many other similar works where the reader finds oneself in a claustrophobic cul de sac.

Apart from being a smart novelist, VS Naipaul was also known for his uncanny and belligerent arrogance, and no less for touching raw nerves in the literary circles. He had no love lost for women novelists of whom he told The Guardian that they were excessively sentimental. Having read the likes of George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans), Bronte sisters, Jane Austen, Virginia Woolf and Hilary Mantel, one totally disagrees with Naipaul. 

But in the midst of all his scurrilous chitchat, Naipaul would some time blurt out the truth. Of his publishers, he once said that they would sell anything, even tosh, only if the cover had his name printed on it. This is exactly how western media plays with our reading choices simply because of our blindly following them.

'Have you read Bob Wood's latest book about Trump, or have you read Charlie Wilson, Clinton, Obama, Bush, Henry Kissinger?' are some of the inquiries we keep making all the time. We all know all such villainous characters by their criminal deeds they committed when they held the highest offices. Books written by them after quitting offices are little more than piffle.

We should be discerning enough to make better reading choices. Mandela, Gandhi, Castro, Teresa are not known to have hurt a bird. Reading autobiographies and biographies of such leaders raise our spirits.

A great work of literature is like an enticing cocktail. We must choose our own cocktails and sip them leisurely instead of looking to the West to recommend their undrinkable beverages to us. 

POETRY

By: Nasser Yousaf

BEYOND DATES AND POMEGRANATES

It may sound self-aggrandizing, but there appears to be no other way of saying it. One may move earth and heaven, but one may not be able to to pay a visit to the God's most favourite tenement at Makkah till an invitation is received from the Transcendental Being.

Like others born in a Muslim household, one must have wished many times to do the pilgrimage to Makkah, but the mailbox remained empty for pretty too long. When the invitation finally did come, one had suffered an irreparable personal loss.

But that's how the Transcendental One works, as our poet laureate Ejaz Rahim loves referring to Him as such in his monumental work titled, 'Beyond Dates and Pomegranates.'

Almost immediately after exiting the Jeddah airport and boarding a waiting coach to Makkah, a thought, awaiting fruition, immediately refreshed.

For quite some time, the word 'Taif' had been tolling in one's mind. One didn't know where from and why with such urgency. A confession is essential. The ignorance on one's part stemmed from the fact that owing to a perturbed state of mind, all arrangements for the great odyssey had been attended to by the family.

While still some way from Makkah, one broached the matter with the family and decided to include 'Taif' in the itinerary. The journey to Makkah took place through a gray and light brown landscape with not a blade of grass in sight. Some emaciated camels were seen fending for themselves in the blazing sun pouring down from the high heavens.

Having performed the fulfilling rituals of 'Umrah,' one settled down in a comfortable lodging. It was from the expansive glass windows of the room, that one would mostly keep looking at the distant hills.

It was quite interesting that while the blessed Valley of Makkah itself remained lit up with the sunlight throughout the long hours of the day, the distant hills appeared to be under a pall of cloud cover. One had no idea that the hills were the abode of 'Taif.' It was only after traversing the vast desert and reaching the hill station that the distant home of the clouds was discovered.

But for the cool comfort of a luxury coach, the journey through a bone dry desert wouldn't have been easier. Looking at the dun, craggy hills and a limitless sea of sand, it wasn't possible not to think of how our Holy Prophet must have traveled here on a camel's back. Some Divine help must have interfered to the relief of the last Messenger of Allah. Some kind of soothing umbrella, one kept thinking.

One had read of a cloud cover protecting Mohammad (PBUH) from the pitless heat of the sun. Later, upon arriving back home, a most beautiful description of the same was found in Ejaz Rahim's epic poem on the life and achievements of the Holy Prophet.
 
Referring to his early childhood in the company of the children of his foster mother Bibi Haleema, the bard from Pakistan's northern climes writes:

They would often quiz their parents 

Why does a cloud always hover

Over his head providing shade

Against the blazing sun

At age twelve, not many years after camping out of Bibi Haleema's care, Prophet Mohammad accompanied his uncle Abu Talib on one of the guardian uncle's trading trips to Syria. Enroute, a Syrian mystic by the name of Baheera met them at a place called Bosra. Mention of the heavenly shadow cropped up here again.

Like Haleema's children in the desert 

Several years before, the Syrian mystic 

Noticed a canopy of clouds 

Protecting his head

Unbeknownst to him

As he trudged in the sun

Many years later, on his return journey from 'Taif' to Makkah, Allah's continued ownership of His beloved Prophet was witnessed yet again. Some miles short of his destination, Mohammad (PBUH) got knowledge of the lurking threat ahead. A pagan chieftain, Mutim ibn Adi, ensured his safe entry at God's own abode through his seven sons with swords in their hands. Abu Sufyan had not yet embraced the faith.

Ejaz Rahim says:

Abu Sufyan and Abu Jahl who were 

Present in the Kabba 

Could not believe their eyes

But opted not to question 

A powerful chieftain's decision 

Of Abu Jahl, the epic story says:

And that idiomatic leopard 

Had not changed his spots-

On the contrary, both his bark

And his bite had turned 

More vicious than ever 

Here, the probable place where his two arch critics were seeing him perform the 'Thawaf' (circumambulation) could be the present-day site of Makkah Tower. An endless burlesque Western capitalist drama takes place here under the euphemism of the Sacred name of Makkah. 

The Holy Prophet's stay at Taif was not quite uneventful as he faced resistance from the locals and their trenchant opposition to his preaching. An old woman caused him much distress by throwing litter in his path, but of such strength was his character that he refused to invoke God's wrath upon his detractors.

They also arranged an assault 

By their minions until 

He bled profusely 

Yet in that precarious state 

He inspired a poor Christian slave 

Named Addas to seek Shahadah

Even to this day, a humble little mosque by the name of Addas stands witness to the events of those days. This, despite the fact that for reasons hard to understand, the present-day custodians of the sacred cities of Makkah and Madinah do not seem to like preserving the historical record of those defining times on the world's stage.

The journey to the hill station at Taif was not a pleasure-seeking trip. It was undertaken at a most challenging time in the life of the last Messenger.

It has been aptly described

As the Year of Sadness for him

Of his beloved wife, Bibi Khadijah

And his loving uncle, Abu Talib the Wise

With their departure 

Two lamps of love went out

Two pillars of strength were lost

Undiluted faith does not need the crutches of miracles. The Holy Prophet remained steadfast in the face of challenges from his staunch enemies to exhibit his heavenly powers which he never claimed to have.

They accused the Holy Prophet 

Of being a con man, as someone 

Who forged revelations 

With the connivance of a ghost-writer

Identified as Rahman of Yamama

And taunts like:

Call upon Him', they demanded

'To descend from the skies

In a blaze of radiance

In front of our eyes

Let Him convert our barren hills

Into fertile plains dotted with water rills

Let him resurrect for us 

Our great ancestor Kosai

Whom we all respect 

As proof of his puissance'

Before proceeding to Makkah, one's simple mind would always think of the two most obvious signs of miracles which one thought were enough to reinforce one's faith. The eternally flowing spring of Aab e Zam Zam in the otherwise parched desert and the Divine Book revealed to an unlettered shepherd.

The famous Iqra command: Read

In the Name of the Creator-

The Lord of all creation

'How can I?' remonstrated instinctively 

The untutored and unlettered Makkan

Upon reaching Makkah, one immediately realized that here was another miracle, greater than the other two that had captured a simpleton's imagination. The sun-baked desert was in fact a sea in which all the rivers of the planet Earth flowed. 

Despite the avowed declaration in: 

Al-Baqarah (The Cow)

Let there be no compulsion 

In matters of Religion 

There wasn't a land that had not sent a representative, or many thousands of them, to plead on their behalf to the Omniscient and Omnipotent.

We will show them of Our Signs

In the Afaaq, or the far reaches

Of the universe 

And in their own selves or Anfus

Until it is manifest to them 

That this is indeed the Truth 

The journey to Makkah had necessitated a re-reading of 'Beyond Dates and Pomegranates.' One had already read it immediately after receiving it. What a great companion to the Holy Land the epic would have been, one keeps thinking. Especially, since Ejaz Rahim appears to have left little to imagination. 

He starts his arguments with the challengers to the faith: 

Aficionados of Modern Science 

Flaunting fluorescent flames

Yet, alas, many have fallen 

Into the ubiquitous trap 

Of hubris, that illusory state 

Where mortals start believing 

They've overthrown their Creator-

Fashioner and Sustainer 

Of the universe, and of every aspect 

Known and unknown in the cosmos

Earlier, in a beautifully scripted and convincing prologue, Ejaz Rahim lays down the framework of his project when he pens:

Science has superseded 

Both religion and philosophy 

To become in our times

Executioner, judge and jury 

In the hunting grounds 

Of haunting realities 

Surrounding us with spectres 

Of probabilities and possibilities 

Never encountered before 

Nowhere in the epic stretching over 345 pages, does the poet leave a shred of doubt about his love for science and reason. Indeed, he builds his epic solidly with reason and rationale.

Reason should not be run down 

Or scoffed at lightly 

By ecclesiastical champions

Or secular tycoons 

Reason and faith must seek 

A happy balance 

To achieve the best outcomes

For human beings 

And then with an even greater conviction, he says:

We are not faceless cogs

In a heartless machine 

But a body-spirit phenomenon 

Playing a pivotal part 

In a grand cosmic opera

Where the known, the unknown 

And the unknowable 

Are performing in sync

And further on:

We who are apt to measure 

The flow of celestial time 

By successes and failures

Of our own wiles and guiles

Must also understand 

That without God's intervention 

In the order of existence 

Not a single current will sail

In one's direction-

But when He wills

A whole river will fall like a cascade

At one's feet

As regards reason, Ejaz Rahim couldn't have got his inspiration from nowhere. The protagonist of his epic himself was the fountainhead of reason.

The Holy Prophet recognised

Reason as a heavenly book

Meant to generate

And validate knowledge-

The kind of reason preached in the aforesaid lines is best in evidence at the Haram and the Grand Prophet's Mosque at Madinah. As the call for the prayers go, not only the the milling crowds made up of hundreds and thousands of people from all over the world but also the pillars and stones and indeed the entire edifice of the two august houses fall in order as if by a fiat from God Himself. 

What is so wonderful to find at such moments is the complete absence of acrimony and malice. In row after row, people from different countries and regions would be seen praying in their own styles but no coneited or self-righteous among them would have the strength to pluck the courage and point out any oddity. In fact, every prayer turns out to be a congregational prayer.

And, all this due to the Allah's beloved messenger who was a human being just like all of us. His likeness to the human beings is manifest from the Surah Abasa when he gets a reprimand from the High above for neglecting an ordinary blind man. He was a mortal like us as is forcefully mentioned in the Surah Aal-i-Imran:

Every human being is bound to taste death...

Mohammad is only an apostle 

If he dies, will you then turn away?...

Prophets before you have also 

Suffered in God's way

Many years ago, one had read a book by an American writer called Michael Moore. The book was titled 'Stupid White Men.' As the title suggested, the writer was at war with the Republican voters, mostly whites, for electing a man like George Bush as the president. The writer taunted the US president on many counts including the latter's inability to have read and understood Iliad by Homer.

Such is the way in which the West makes its literature known to the world. Although Iliad was little more than mythology with a limited sphere of influence, yet its renown is such that not having read it is considered as unfashionable, if not gross ignorance.

But here is a true story of unimaginable importance, consequences and influence narrated by a man who is a veritable repository of knowledge of the world. Ejaz Rahim has an inexhaustible treasure of words with which he embellishes any story that inspires him like no one else. The story of the Holy Prophet is the closest to his heart and soul and he has narrated it in a way that no one else can do with such passion, flair and finesse.

One hopes this great epic will be remembered for all times to come, beating all other epics told by everyone else.

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READING

BY: Nasser Yousaf

LETTERS AND SERMONS

The properties of ink are peculiar and contradictory: it may be used to make reputations and unmake them; to blacken them and to make them white; but it is most generally and acceptably employed as a mortar to bind together the stones of an edifice of fame, and as a whitewash to conceal afterward the rascal quality of the material.

Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914)pp

The above quote recently popped up in one of the websites that I frequently visit. It may have a very subtle relevance to what I wish to discuss here.

I loved reading newspapers from a very early age. My love for reading literature sprang up from following stories in the children's section. This passion led me to reading and writing letters, especially those penned by the ordinary folks.

One of the most unforgettable and touching letters that I ever found and read was in a book titled 'THE OXFORD BOOK OF LETTERS.' It was written by a woman in the Victorian era, perhaps to her immediate family, in which she had narrated the agony and trauma of having undergone a double mastectomy surgery.

Times have changed. Reading and writing letters is a passé. It is very unlikely that someone in the present age will now go to the Peshawar Archives Library, look for that book, and pick it up. People have more urgent matters to attend to.

Sermons-writing, on the other hand, continues with an even greater flourish. It is not the most commonly known religious sermon that one would like to refer to; it is the one that we find in editorials and newspaper columns. 

We have seen all different types of crops of sermon-writers in Pakistan. The knee-jerk types who can hardly wait for a bullet to leave the barrel before they file a story to a newspaper. Those having retired from the civil or military service and having got themselves a weekly slot in the newspapers. The out of touch with the real world armchair intellectuals. Those wishing to use their articles as their recommendation letters and waiting in the wings to hop on the bandwagon by grabbing a choicest position in the government.

Pakistan has seen and experienced the net worth of all these different types of dispassionate writers. Quite a few of them got themselves the ambassadorial robes, others found themselves snugly settled in the public sector departments and organizations. Unfortunately, none of them left indelible marks in the areas that they worked in.

Such people could best be described as critics with no substance. They use the power of the glib and pen as sheer nuisance value. In their interviews, they are seen sitting in their studies with bookshelves full of books in the background.

One such gentleman got himself a very prestigious and lucrative position as the chairman of the country's revenue department. He had absolutely no experience of how a government department functioned except as an outsider. A few months into the job and he quit feigning interference. He has now relegated himself to giving interviews on podcasts and YouTube.

A few months ago, the Government of Pakistan appointed two columnists to a committee tasked with downsizing or rightsizing (a mouth-watering cliché) of the bureaucratic machinery. The two gentlemen have been writing scathing critiques on the country's economy and everything that ails it for as long as one remembers. 

Again, the two columnists had no experience of how things worked, or didn't, in the officialdom. One of them has since quit citing unfathomable reasons, and his video talks are now being bandied about on the e-machines.

What makes us useful to the society is our knowledge of how the proletariat, those languishing at the lower tier bide their time and how they manage to find their piece of bread. This knowledge is not available in the voluminous books and tomes lying on our shelves.

Scientist in Pakistan, as perhaps elsewhere, brandish their knowledge of science only to ridicule the clergy. Some of them are literally pompous to a degree. Their research and experiment appear to be focused more on pooh-poohing the clergy and less on mitigating the sufferings of the downtrodden. This is particularly true of Pakistan.

It is said that laughter is the best medicine. One can find something or a little to smile or laugh at, even during the times of untellable sadness.

During the Indian Moon Rover Chandrayaan 3's launching, a discussion ensued in Pakistan as regards why couldn't we do the same. Mullahs were facing the brunt of the blame. 

During the heat of the discussion, a very vocal religious scholar from Lahore was asked the reason for Pakistan's failure to do likewise. 'Who is stopping our scientists from going to the moon, do you want us to send them, did the Hindu sadhus send the Chandrayaan to the moon,' there came a sharp retort from the erudite Allama.' 

The retort could be enjoyed by those having some little sense of humour. By and by, we need our clergy to be in possession of their vast deposits of humour so as to be able to take on their critics with the power of their intellect, and not otherwise.

One wouldn't like to drag this discussion turning into an insipid sermon. One would better leave sermon-writing to the charlatans.

One would rather like to read from some beautiful poetry, or a page or many from a book read long ago and fascinated by it. One could also go back to reading from letters penned mostly by ordinary souls about their existential matters. There is an element of personal touch attached to writing and reading beautiful letters which is a world apart from reading an impersonal soporific sermon in a newspaper.

EDUCATION

BY: NASSER YOUSAF

DISRESPECTING EDUCATION

Sabaq da madrasseh wai

Da para da paise wai

Pa Janat ke be zay na v

Pa dozakh ke ba ghope wahi

(One who studies worldly education, does so to make money; he will have no place in heaven, and will keep rotting in hell)

One could literally picture Abul Ghaffar Khan smiling sardonically while reciting the above verses to his listeners. He appeared to enjoy repeating it often to his admirers to whom he was and still remains Bacha Khan. There was then resistance to the promotion of education from the clergy in the erstwhile Frontier.

Many years after his going away, the mullah's taunt has come to hit us with an unexplained ferocious truth to it. 

Education appears to be going haywire. One gets to know this from the billboards and posters hung from the poles in the medians of the roads. A kind of craziness is in evidence at all conspicuous points in the country.

Education is now about quantity, not quality. The end most certainly is materialistic, if one were to make an inference from the means being employed to acquire education.

The owner of a very popular schooling network in Peshawar recently approached a lady working in another school to join his newly opened branch as a principal. The gentleman's schools are popular because students enrolled therein get guaranteed outstanding scores.

'But I don't know how to attract students to your new branch because I am not familiar with any such practice,' the bewildered lady asked. 

'You need not stress yourself on that count because parents would come running to me if I put up my school's name even on an empty plot of land,' the thoroughly amused owner replied complacently.

We now have the advantage of seeing many things which were earlier hidden from our view. A picture splashed on the ubiquitous social media shows a long queue of men waiting outside a window.  'These are some of the thousands of the candidates applying for the posts of peons in the education department in KP,' the caption reads.

The caption goes on to add that some of these candidates were PhD degrees-holders while scores of others had done their masters in different subjects. 

Why would someone with a PhD degree want to serve as a peon in any department? To be somewhat charitable to the hundreds of apparently frustrated applicants, one could somehow give a leeway to the other applicants including those with masters in various subjects

But one would keep asking why the PhDs? Didn't going all the tiresome way up to earning a PhD help in any sense?  Why couldn't the privilege of studying for a PhD nourish the candidates with stupendous ideas and creating in them a newest sense of self-respect? 

Why is Pakistan's Higher Education Commission HEC silent on the subject?

One could safely say that behind HEC's silence is the Commission's own lack or total absence of self-esteem. A PhD in Pakistan is approved and financed by HEC at the expense of the taxpayers. Hence, it is HEC that must be held accountable for the disrespect being shown to the highest degree in any discipline.

Strange, no institution is asking HEC about the award of thousands of PhDs over the years and the nil improvements brought about as a result thereof. For instance, no new invention in agriculture, trade, industry, medicine, architecture, finance, language, and indeed the desired impact on our economy has been witnessed so far. 

People in Pakistan aim to attain a PhD for very trivial reasons. Some do so to add an additional increment to their salaries in the public sector departments. More often than not, it is the same in the pursuit of a masters degree.

A former head of the Department of English in the Peshawar University was intelligently cognizant of the many trivial reasons. In the Viva Voce test, the smart chairman would easily bring round the candidate to admitting the reason for going for a masters degree.

We have taught the world precious little in medicine by way of new techniques, procedures or some little cures for common colds. But going by the sheer numbers of medical specialists, one would assume as if we have revolutionised the medical field.

Immediately, after getting their MBBS degrees, medical students go straight for their FCPS, FRCS etcetera. It would appear that the examiners do not require some minimum experience by way of criteria before allowing a candidate to take the specialisation examinations. 

Money makes the mare go. Education in our country might not have endowed us with brilliant or extraordinary ideas but it has certainly helped a great many people earn incredible riches. Some such people, notably in KP, could be seen emerging as wheelers-dealers in the political arena.

It was the word 'system' that let open the gates to money in the education sector. Pakistanis were first introduced to the idea of 'school system,' by the corporate entities of Punjab and Sindh. Ever since then, it's a no-holds-barred trafficking in education for the ambitious ones.

There are very few educationists running schools and colleges. Abbottabad and Peshawar have just a few honest educationists as against the hundreds of school networks in these two big cities of the province.

The less scrupulous in the field know the way to success better through their contacts and connections in the examination boards. The results obtained as a result of such manipulative practices are then displayed on massive billboards for all to see.

This discussion could be endless. It is in fact a saga. Nobody appears to be getting educated in the truest sense. Materialism has seeped into the very roots of the system.

The bureaucratic machinery overseeing education is the least educated of all. There are layers upon layers of offices and officers looking after this and that aspect of education but all to no avail.

The examination system is simply non existent. It is not the case just in schools and colleges but also at the professional levels.

Our public service commissions are manned by people with connections and absolutely very little by way of any credible works or publications to their credit. Perhaps same is true of HEC.

The way to overhauling must begin from the beginning. Any government wishing to do the job has first got to focus on the teachers' training. The examiners must first be examined before they are allowed to examine others.

The mindset has to be reset. Doctors must not be allowed to announce themselves on billboards. Educational institutions and tuition academies ought to be restrained from indulging in outrageous publicity.

The award of exaggeratedly high scores to the students in the matriculation examinations and the higher secondary schools is not serving the cause of education. Ground realities tell a different story when the same students step into the practical life. 

The situation in KP in particular is alarming. The gentleman looking after the ministry of finance in the province is from Karachi. The gentleman tasked to look after the ministry of environment was running a shop before he joined politics. His department was subsequently changed after he made himself a laughing stock in the media through his very poor knowledge of forestry. 

The less said about the people in charge of education, the better. The gentleman looking after the department of health is doing so from the US as the de facto head. One would wish, like us poor folks, he knew firsthand what dreadful state were our public and private hospitals in. Human life is, unfortunately, a merchandise now.

An unsavoury joke must conclude this discussion.'You know I wrote exactly the same answer to all five questions in one of my papers of international relations and I got through,' a friend once said while making fun of our examination system. The guy got a masters degree in international relations from the Peshawar University. 

POETRY

Though perfect in rhyming and meter, this is less a poem and more a commentary in verse by Ghani Khan on the human nature, more specifically those of his own Pakhtun clansmen. Ghani Khan was an anthropologist through keen and meticulous observations of the human conduct and behaviour. Unlike us, poor folks, the Pashtun poet laureate bided his time in the world to good purpose. Pakhtuns are called simple people which has earned them the epithet of 'Gul Khans.' But Ghani Khan does not seem to agree with this assumption that his clansmen are simple people. He knows each and every flaw in the typical Pakhtun character and pinpoints it with his superb command of the verse. Here is an example:

Translation from Pashto: Nasser Yousaf

THIS AND THAT (HAGHA DAGHA)

Befriend a mule and pal around with a bull

Pat a donkey enough to carry your load around

Keep flattering a shabby old blacksmith

So that he sharpens your sword hard

When the state wants to rid itself of some folks

One is made a captain the other a Subedar

When a donkey finds himself unfit to frolic around 

In robes of piety he wraps himself around 

A fatal illness as it strikes one down

He becomes a Hajji and a puritan very fine 

When God gets angry with an ant

Wings it gets to its meager body parts 

When God gets angry with a Pakhtun 

He is made to serve as Malik to the state

Khan and the donkey are real brothers 

Both similarly work as they try to seduce 

A true Pakhtun is the one who when he dies

Invokes the curses both of his kin and all

No bigger fool in the world would be found 

Than the one who judges one by his beard

Fill your heart with evil, mouth sugary 

Come hither o donkey, and be shrewd

Sweet are the lips only of the beloved 

And delicious too is the meat gotten from game

TOURISM

THE FLIPSIDE OF TOURISM

By: Nasser Yousaf

In 2016, I had made a vow never to visit the mountaintop of Malam Jabba again. My resolve stemmed from what I had found after a tiresome journey to the top in the blazing sun of peak summer season.

The mountaintop and its surrounding scenery stood denuded of most of the conifer forest. The entire area was still reeling from the state of militancy which had hit the Malakand region in the first decade of the present century.

Some of the people that we asked about the trees recounted how and who had cut and transported the trees to the down country. It wasn't something cheerful to listen to for long especially since one still had very fond memories of a blissful walk undertaken in 2005 under the canopy of towering conifers from the Shangla top to the mountaintop of Malam Jabba.

More often than not, the vows that we make come back to haunt us. So it was that one had to renege on that solemn vow under the sheer force of circumstances.

A family sojourn, in our time of great private distress, took us to the Malam Jabba mountaintop in the month of July, 2024.

There was a thin cloud cover when we left Saidu Shareef in the morning for a day-long visit to the mountaintop. We thought the clouds will shield us from the sun that blazes down in the mountains with an incredible ferocity. But it wasn't to be and the cloud cover soon fizzled out.

As we got nearer to our destination, an array of hotels started coming out in our view. Those grotesque, multistorey structures were literally around every turn, jutting out of the mountains like juggernauts.

Instead of the scent of the wood, we encountered mountains of concrete painted in gaudy colours and beckoning tourists from all over, especially from the plains of Punjab. The unimaginative construction appeared to have disfigured the mountain scape beyond repair. 

On the top of the mountain stood another massive structure with an ungainly brown façade. It was the five-star hotel about which the mainstream media in Pakistan was so all agog. The hotel sat behind a massive wall of impenetrable barbed wire as it covered the entire length of the mountaintop.

One had to pay a handsome amount to go through the gates of the hotel and into its vast precincts. Not quite long ago, one could roam freely in this area where just about half a dozen kiosks sold light refreshments to the sundry tourists.

But the aura of solitude appeared to have run away from the mountain as if it had been chased by predators. 

Dozens of kiosks now stood outside the gates of the big hotel like sentinels in colourful uniforms. They sold eatables to customers who couldn't afford to get into the limits of the five-star hotel. They had travelled all the way to the top in their own or rented transport which had lined up on the road in hundreds.

The five-star hotel didn't appear to be a work of great architecture. It had a claustrophobic foyer and a lounge that offered no panoramic view of the mountains and some few faraway clusters of conifers. The standard room rent was something close to Rs. 50000/ per night.

The hotel and its infrastructure that comprise a chairlift, a zip-line, skiing turf and a golf course have been built to cater to its rich and 'nouveau riche' clientele from Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi.

In the lush green lawns of the hotel, a young sapling of a cedar with a name plate of the officer who had planted it was quite conspicuous. It was perhaps one of the one-billion trees that the Forest Department claimed to have planted in the province. But little more of the 'tsunami' (as the billion-trees project is famously referred to by those who launched it) was in evidence.

A few hours on the mountaintop left one wondering what more was in store for us. Our mountains are becoming more and more like our cities, our forests are thinning and our rivers have lost their pristine charm.

Every few years, a flood in the river Swat strikes the area with a vengeance but no sooner than the flood recedes, everything returns to where they stood before. Orchards of apples and peaches are making way for commercial markets.

The truth of Swat as our Switzerland is dawning on us in its most shocking manifestation. Without the least amount of exaggeration, the entire Swat region is one endless bazaar of shops and hotels.

There are hundreds and thousands of registered and unregistered motor vehicles in the vast Malakand Division, soley due to petty politics as the area has been bestowed a tax-free status by the succesive governments.

A few days after one returned from the visit, a minister in the KP government crowed at length about a 💯 per cent increase in the number of tourists. 'Nine million domestic and two and a half thousand foreign tourists visited KP this summer,' the figures-brandishing minister announced.

Shying away from telling the whole truth, the minister didn't tell us about the fallouts of such unrestrained movement of both the humans and their transport on nature. Perhaps, the minister is not aware that reverse tourism has set in motion in some parts of the world.

Many countries in Europe including Spain, Italy and Greece have banned the entry of tourists in some areas. Such countries believe that the flow of tourists was endangering their culture and heritage.

It is one thing to write a eulogy for our tourism from the comfort of our desks, and an altogether different story to experience it and write it after witnessing frenzied crowds in our mountains and valleys. Sedentary writing has caused us great harm, notably, when such writings lead us, or mislead, into believing that tourism could be the mainstay of our economy.

Tourism is fast gnawing away at our wilderness, and more viciously than our poverty of imagination would allow us to harness it.