Re: 'In The Line Of Fire' (Merged)
And once again Cowasjee writes brilliantly, and looks more impressive every other week.
The Book & the environment
** RECENT conversations I had with good friends, all well schooled in life, and all naturally moaners and groaners (difficult to be anything else in this stifling environment) follow the same pattern — largely because of the recent launch of The Book followed by its sale and distribution.
The ‘she’ friends are normally somewhat superior in their practicality, outlook on life and acumen, but they differ little in their thinking on one particular subject to that of the ‘he’ friends. Well, I tell them all, after having heard a protracted moan, ‘tell me who would you prefer as Top Gun right now — Musharraf or Nawaz, Musharraf or BiBi?’
The answer invariably has been ‘That duo, good lord, no, Musharraf any day.’ To Musharraf or Mullah Whoever — are you joking? To Musharraf or the London Pir — ‘Have you lost your mind?’ To Musharraf or one of our heavily bearded generals — ‘No, no, save our souls!’ And as a last desperate throw I ask, Musharraf or the Chaudhry of Gujrat — ‘For heaven’s sake, not that blabbering storto!’
Musharraf or who is the question. There must be replacements other than those already cited — but who can name them? To the few literates, and maybe to many illiterates, President General Pervez Musharraf, despite his multiple shortcomings, despite blunders and backtracking, remains the best and the safest of a dicey lot.
In this fast changing mercurial world bullied by Jungle ka Badshah George Dubya Bush, or now by little tyrant Big Leader who struts above the 38th parallel, we need a Top Gun who can do a 180 degree turn within the space of ten seconds. The problem lies with the pygmies who surround him, to whom he is prone to listen when not dealing with matters of survival. When it comes to local politics, local laws and law and order, he lends his ear far too easily — to the nation’s detriment. He could do better, much better, were he more selective in his close entourage and were he to remember the old truth: when it comes to politics and leadership there are no friends.
For the past three weeks we have firstly heard and then we have read about what US Deputy Secretary of state Richard Armitage did or did not say in Washington to the chief of the ISI just after 9/11 which was conveyed back to Boss Musharraf in Islamabad. We can be sure that whatever was said was said rudely and bluntly, as the circumstances demanded, and successfully induced Musharraf to turn as he swiftly did, and with confidence. He should rightly be given full marks for doing so. Has anyone really considered what would have happened to the moth-eaten remnant of Jinnah’s Pakistan in the alternative?**
That’s the good news, now on a downward path to a ‘core issue’ that affects the great city of Karachi, now on a fast declining slope. The environment we live in has fallen into the hands of pygmies and is at risk. Recommended reading on the fates of societies which treat their environment with scorn is the book ‘Collapse : How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed’ written by Jared Diamond (also the author of the 1997 Pulitzer Prize winner ‘Guns, Germs, and Steel : the Fates of Human Societies), which has been around since early 2005, more copies of which have been sold than the best-seller ‘In the Line of Fire.’
One reviewer of ‘Collapse’ has written : “If ‘Guns’ venerated the role that geographic chance played in societal development, Diamond’s ‘Collapse’ restores human agency to the picture. Through a grab bag of case studies that range from the Mayan Empire to modern China, Diamond tries to distil a unified theory about why societies fail or succeed. He identifies five factors that contribute to collapse : climate change, hostile neighbours, trade partners (that is, alternative sources of essential goods), environmental problems, and, finally, a society’s response to its environmental problems. The first four may or may not prove significant in each society’s demise, Diamond claims, but the fifth always does. The salient point, of course, is that a society’s response to environmental problems is completely within its control, which is not always true of the other factors. In other words, as his subtitle puts it, a society can ‘choose to fail’.”
It is clear that Pakistan has chosen to fail.
Last week’s column related how the members of that badly supported, highly caring NGO, Shehri-CBE, which works its butt off trying and saving the environment not only of Karachi but of other areas too, had filed a public interest petition in the Sindh High Court concerning the unlawful construction of a desalination plant by the masters of the Defence Housing Authority (DHA), always commanded by a retired or soon to retire officer of the Pakistan Army (often ‘topchis’ and sometimes ‘paidals’ as opposed to qualified men from the corps of engineers).
The petition was filed in April 2005. The other side, the government, huffed and puffed and procrastinated until the honourable judges were requested to order that the construction of the plant be suspended. Exasperated, they obliged. This had the desired result, and DHA’s counsel, the learned Attorney- General of Pakistan (a skilled lawyer in his own right who really should not have agreed to take on the job) was in attendance on the next date of hearing, the case proceeded, and a judgment was handed down early this month.
Worthy of appeal, Shehri scrounged around, naturally unsuccessfully, for funds and for a high-flying legal eagle willing to represent it for free, or almost free, in the Supreme Court. They were too late as the worthy attorney-general in Islamabad, on October 16, sent notice of his intent to appeal, as required by law, to Shehri’s lawyer in Karachi. Before the notice arrived on October 18, the attorney-general was heard in the Supreme Court on October 17. Ex parte? The Supreme Court has suspended the execution of the High Court judgment. However the SC judgment has yet to be signed, which we presume it will be as soon as the judges have stopped wishing their brethren Eid Mubarak. Nil desperandum?
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