18-10-05

A 'peace' of the action

Afiya Shehrbano

Despite its best efforts, the army and administration has been criticised for its disorganized and non-visionary handling of the earthquake disaster over the past week. At the same time, religious leaders and opinion-makers have shocked many Pakistanis with their arrogant and misplaced claim that Pakistanis can handle this crisis on their own and do not require any 'outside' help. A slap in the face of the international rescue teams who saved many Pakistani lives this week, while the bearded sat in the TV studios spinning their lies to give the impression that they were a part of the action.

Statements by army spokesmen are also confusing when they say we are accepting aid from 'friendly countries'. Given the redefinition of geo-political relationships by this President, who exactly is our enemy now?

To suggest that all critical opinion should be suspended in this moment of crisis is exactly the requirement that leads to mismanagement and institutional collapse. Once the rescue efforts are over and we turn to rehabilitation strategies, it's not as if we will have introspection or a Truth and Reconciliation process for institutional improvement and disaster management for the future.

Do we really believe that the military appointed commission on crisis management will recommend that we divert military spending towards rehabilitation; that the military defence budget should be redefined so that it is used to 'defend' and equip the people against natural disasters and poverty? Are they also going to suggest that army personnel should exercise their discretion at critical times rather than wait for orders from above? No, the reality is we'll just 'borrow' more 'aid' and keep paying it back in one way or the other -- probably the other.

It is only appropriate to acknowledge and pay tribute to the people's spirit and contribution towards the relief efforts. A correspondingly appropriate gesture would've been to set up a relief fund and long-term rehabilitation fund in the name of the people of Pakistan, rather than an individual head of state. The people's efforts have proven what activists have been saying all along -- that the State is an unreliable and non-committal source of development, and that communities should rely on themselves. However, communities need leaders to develop their own agendas. It is toward this end of social development that non-governmental organizations serve as a catalyst.

The ambivalence emerges when one is not sure who should lead the dance in the 'public-private partnership'. Corporations have figured out a profitable manner of doing so. They have named themselves 'corporate citizens' -- whatever those are. Oil companies and multinationals are making public donations to the President's fund and advertising it loud and clear for added effect in the long term. There have been many other companies who have donated substantially, but quietly, perhaps because they don't suffer a guilty conscience that knows how much exploitation, environmental damage, abrogation of rights and institutional inequality large corporations have caused globally.

The late Omar Asghar Khan, was an outspoken development activist who worked arduously in the quake hit areas for many years. During his life-time, he would use every platform to raise awareness against the oil corporations and their political relationships with dictatorial regimes. He was scathing about Shell's responsibility in the execution of Ogoni people's leader, Ken Saro-Wiwa in Nigeria, 1994. Saro-Wiwa was campaigning against the profiteering of the oil company from the land of the Ogoni people when the Nigerian military arrested and executed him for pressurising Shell off their land. Certainly, Omar would be troubled by any 'charity' by the corporations that seek to buy peace for their consciences in the communities where he worked.

Some argue that all corporations should not be tarred with the same brush.

But when by definition, the aims of The Corporation are not people-friendly, then why should we possibly rely on their petty contributions from the PR cum advertising accounts which are tantamount to a bribe? Their foremost interest is only in branding themselves. Such corporate goals should make us wary of their funds particularly in the rebuilding process of the lost cities and villages. Otherwise we may be seeing Beirut like scenes of destroyed cities with huge billboards advertising Malboro light cigarettes.

Corporate rumour has it that Pepsi has on-going threats to project its logo on to the moon's surface, so it may not be too wild to fear that sponsorship could even lead to Muzzafarabad being renamed Pepsi-abad

But what has also been proven in this massive disaster, is that no private organization is equipped to manage national-level crisis. So the State is still accountable in providing the basic needs of its people. But when the State has been trying to absolve itself on every level and privatise even the most basic responsibilities to the private sector, decision-making becomes paralysed in such times. Note that the Federal Minister for Education, a retired Lt. General, has issued a statement saying that relief and crisis management is the responsibility of the civil administration. Does he really not see the irony in his own position as heading the most important civic ministry in the country which should be run by a professional academic civilian?

We better be prepared for more abdication of responsibility in the long run.

Corporations will turn back to their agenda of profiteering and business as usual. Thus, financially and politically, pharmaceuticals and oil companies in particular, must be monitored in the future. The financial future of the army is secure and the international donors will exhaust their budgets and good-will soon enough. The media too will turn its social awareness to the next good story or entertainment because hey, that's show biz.

It would serve the State well to be good to its people and invest in their betterment. How revolutionary if the President's Relief Fund acted as a donor agency for all the credible NGOs in the country instead of each effort relying on international donor funds. A joint body of legitimate representatives from the NGOs and civil society could co-ordinate the efforts and monitor the funds. For after the good intentions are gone, the only one's who will be around to actually rebuild this nation, will be the people -- now and forever.

The writer is a sociologist based in Karachi. She has a background in women's studies and has authored and edited several books on women's issues

Preparedness for disaster
Cutting edge

I Hassan

The devastation caused by the recent earthquake is second only to the one caused by the earthquake that struck Quetta in 1935. I never did experience the Quetta earthquake because I was not in Quetta but in Muzaffarghar at the time. A day after the quake, I was obliged to travel to Lahore. This was by railway train. It was early May and was sizzling hot. I had to change trains at Multan. I sat in the railway compartment. It was so hot that it was not possible to touch anything metallic. In those days there was no such thing as air-conditioning. All one had, travelling second class, was a ceiling fan buzzing fast, spewing hot air. It was absolutely unbearable. Sitting in this infernal compartment all one could do was to watch the platform on the other side.

One after another in rapid succession a train would pull in. It was chock-a-block with miserable humanity. This was possibly the second day after the disaster in Quetta and these trains were packed like sardines with miserable people fleeing from the disaster area to find shelter and solace. It was pathetic and heartbreaking.

Once again in my life time, the same thing has happened. This time though I personally felt the swinging of the earth like a yoyo. I was still lying in bed when it began to happen. I live in Rawalpindi on the ground floor of a block of flats. Initially, with the first rocking, I took it with aplomb but when it went on for some time, I decided to stay in bed calculating that if the concrete block of flats collapsed, I on the ground floor would be buried good and proper. After all, nearing 90, if I ran out and the block collapsed, I would be bereft of everything. With hardly any means, it would be impossible to re-build anything. After all, it had taken almost two life times to accumulate all the good things like say, a cabinet, rosewood, created by a famous Danish designer who built two such cabinets. One was sold to the Queen of Denmark and the other to me. There is a certificate to that effect by the designer.

Great harm has been caused in Muzaffarabad, Rawalakot and the surrounding areas. It will take a long time to mend all that has been destroyed in Azad Kashmir. It is necessary for the media to concentrate on the area of devastation.

In our country, no one takes out an insurance policy on any thing. In Muzaffarabad or in Islamabad, I boldly say that not a property or it contents were insured. Had it been, although the preciousness of the article could not be restored, its value could be recovered.

Because people seem to be actively opposed to insuring property against fire, theft or collapse, if anyone wishes to take such an unlikely step, it is difficult to find an insurance company or a broker. If a person sets out assiduously now to sell insurance, it is likely that such a person will become fabulously wealthy but then our people are hard nuts to crack. Their habits are so set that nothing in the world can persuade them to alter them. Our seller of insurance will end up being poorer because nobody will have bought any insurance.

People are likely to take the view that since earthquakes happen seldom, there is no use to insure against this risk. But fires do break out, robberies do take place and our country is notorious for electrical short circuits leading to disasters. And although floods do not occur frequently they do occur sometime and when that happens, the devastation is unimaginable.

The trouble is that people take the view: "jehan kull giri bijli, woh mera ashian kewn ho!" And should they be struck down, then they take the view that now that it has happened, it cannot happen again.

We are a very, disorganised people and least prepared to cope with any disaster. Training should be given so that should a calamity occur, people should know what to do. For instance, having the dubious distinction of acquiring a nuclear bomb, it has become certain that in the event we will be the victims of a pre-emptive first strike. The total chaos and pandemonium there from is unimaginable.

The writer is a former broadcaster and foreign correspondent

Musings on the 8/10 earthquake tragedy

Dr. Maqsudul Hasan Nuri and Safia Nuri

October 8, 2005 was a poignant day for all Pakistanis. In the 58 years of the country's existence it is no doubt a stunning disaster. An earthquake, measuring 7.6 on the Richter scale struck the northern regions. In the twinkling of an eye the lush green valleys of Hazara and Azad Kashmir were turned into rubble, echoing with the wails of men, women and children, and the dance of death and destruction followed. Bustling human habitations were suddenly muted into ghost towns -- houses shattered, men, women and children entombed alive under the fallen debris, many crying desperately from below the rubble to be saved while still clinging to life. The whole spectacle reminded one of Hiroshima and Nagasaki where death stalked and devastation ruled like a demon.

The civil administration of these quake-devastated areas was completely taken off guard and paralysed, water and food became scarce, and human corpses were seen decomposing and giving off a putrid smell. Men, women and children spent desolate cold nights under open skies waiting for help to arrive. Streams dried up, roads and tracks disappeared under mountain boulders while the topography of the land was completely altered as the earth heaved and trembled in fury.           

The killer earthquake struck like a bolt from the blue. However the Pakistani nation stood up in unison and despite internal socio-political fissures, faced the unprecedented challenge. The government was seized with the formidable task of rescuing, providing relief to the afflicted in a terrain that is mountainous, inaccessible and tricky. It is desperately trying to open the broken, blocked roads, carry airlift relief operations and move military garrisons to start rebuilding the ravaged zones.

Foreign relief aid started streaming in for the unfortunate victims of the tragedy. The task seems indeed stupendous, given the magnitude of the disaster killing scores of thousands, wounding thousands, and displacing millions of people. The immediate need was to pull out thousands of buried people, to provide food and medicines to the wounded and prevent any epidemic. The long-term need is to rebuild demolished homes and rehabilitate the dislocated people.

The magnitude of the disaster was quite unexpected but the national spirit rose to new highs. While the nation collectively rose up to help In the years to come, climatologist's are foreboding is that the world in general and the poor countries in particular may face more of such disasters. These could stem from global warming, urbanisation, pollution and over-consumption of resources, unplanned industrialisation and growth (land and forest mafias) and poor legislation. Any possible use of nuclear weapons -- deliberately or inadvertently could pose real dangers that compound these "silent threats." Recently, storms, earthquakes and rains have shown that nature, if treated unfairly, seeks its own revenge.

There are warnings that sea -- like tsunamis in Karachi and more seismic activity in the northern region may occur in future. Lying in the seismic zone, the northern regions will have to devise serious precautionary strategies and coherent disaster management measures. Moreover, merely rescue and relief is not disaster management. The aim should be, first, prevention of mishaps by all possible means, and, secondly, if possible, on long term rehabilitation of the disaster stricken people.  Besides an overarching strong agency, capacity building of local communities is important, as they are the ones to first respond and act as shock absorbers.

There has to be synergy amongst various government agencies of development, environmental planning and security forces. There should be a central authority, which will coordinate activities of the government, non- governmental and foreign agencies in times of such crises. Disaster management strategy must not be reactive and should not rely on post-crisis management. It has to be proactive and preventive.

Although natural disasters cannot be prevented, their ill-effects can be at least mitigated by right prioritisation, anticipatory planning and political will. Fortunately, the Musharraf government is seized of this possibility and is trying its best to cope with the problem. However, it remains to be seen how sustainable the process will be.

There is a silver lining in this dark ordeal, however. The tragedy has underscored for both India and Pakistan to learn to cooperate in tackling the scourge of floods, earthquakes, besides nuclear weapons. Already there are welcome signs of cooperation. A moment of truth is that a calamity is an opportunity. It should set moral and other errant compasses right as greed, apathy, poverty, and fanaticism erode the vitals of nations.

In the meantime, hats off to the Pakistani people who have rallied to brave the tragedy. A siren call is being sounded that a just, socio-economic order should be based on participation, tolerance, justice and educational empowerment. It is hoped that the nation comes out of this ordeal seasoned and sobered.  

Another lesson is that the far-flung regions need to be catapulted into development and linked with the mainstream.  Here the onus lies as much on local government; but the ultimate responsibility is that of the government which sets overall direction. Needless to say that deprived regions are a disgruntled federation and hence a weak, divided nation.

The difficulties of terrain and conditions should not become alibis for lack of development; in fact, these regions could become assets through sagacious development policies. The ravaged areas are known for their natural beauty and tourism potential.

In times of tragedies like these, any sensitive soul is forced to do some soul-searching. Where have we erred? Why did it have to happen? Was it in any way avoidable? These are some nagging but philosophical questions that agitate minds. Often, normative questions collide with scientific explanations. Historical truth suggests that when moral compasses of a people go awry, when humans transgress bounds of humanity, when injustice, repression and ignorance is allowed to run rampant, when natural balance of nature is violated by avarice and hubris, the heavenly law of retribution comes into play. Such transcendental truths are enshrined in teachings of all prophets, philosophers and sages.  

The spontaneous reaction of the international community to Pakistan's plight by extending generous help testifies two verities: Pakistan's new role in the international community and the stature it has lately acquired in the international community while pursuing a pragmatic policy, that is fast turning its back on global terrorism and militant ideologies. It is a vindication of Pakistan's acceptance as a pivotal state in the region.

More importantly, the response reaffirms the humanitarian strain in mankind where humanity supercedes other barriers. The relief aid by countries like USA, and Britain and others in rescuing people from the jaws of death are appreciated by many Pakistanis; this may modify the prevailing anti-Western sentiments.

Pakistan lives in an interconnected world and events like the recent earthquake evoke a spirit of altruistic internationalism. More importantly, in this age a nation afflicted by a calamity cannot remain isolated. Recent outpouring of international sympathy and help negate the philosophies of hidebound millenialarists and crazy ideologues who preach hatred and violence. In fact, strong bonds of humanity cut across language, caste and creed barriers.

Human societies have witnessed natural and man-made catastrophes. Plagues, wars, epidemics, tornadoes, floods, droughts and pestilence have stalked mankind. The flame of life has quivered but never got extinguished. It is the tenacity and resilience of human spirit that has triumphed.

It is the same spirit that is animating the post-quake scenario in Pakistan. The country has witnessed wars, floods, earthquakes and diverse calamities but outlived them. While one feels deeply melancholic over the thought of thousands dead, wounded and displaced by a sudden stroke of ill luck, there is a flaming hope that shines through the dark skies. It is with this hope that Pakistanis are now braving these hours of trial and tribulation.

Dr. Maqsudul Hasan Nuri is a Senior Research Scholar at the Policy Research Institute, Islamabad.

So far so less…

Naveed Ahmad

Over a week after the D-day, humanitarian assistance for the earthquake victims seems more organized and generous. Still deep into the heart of the disaster zone, hope loses countless battles every day against deadly despair.

I spent about a week travelling all across the disaster zone and exposure to the catastrophe belies the death toll that is being gradually revised upwards. Various agencies and analysts put it in the range of 40,000. With all the logical calculations, one can safely assume the tragedy has claimed over 150,000 lives in NWFP and Kashmir. Of course you can add a few dozen deaths in the Margalla Towers. The homeless may well be over 4 million.

I feel it my honest professional obligation to put my perspective across to you for many reasons: the first and foremost being the need to know how immense the challenge is for the nation and the volunteers. Another rationale for the same is the urgency to adjust the mitigation measures carried out by the governments and foreign aid agencies.

Some 400,000 people used to live in Muzzafarabad while Bagh and Rawalakot were home to a populace of over 200,000. Moreover, don't forget to add the sheer volume of the population in Abbotabad, Hazara and the Kohistan region. The live and still photographic images of ruins speak for themselves about the proportion of the earthquake-affected people.

The federal government, the AJK administration and media all have their own limitations, thus the complete picture is still a casualty in such crises. Very few aid workers as well as reporters must be aware of the devastation the tremors caused deep inside Bhisham valley. The survivors say there is no hope for relief within an hour's drive north of the valley on a dirt road.

Moving beyond the assessment of the scale of devastation, the nation has shown exemplary urgency and generosity in realising its obligations while the Azad Kashmir government and NWFP district government themselves have become victims of the same tragedy. The military stationed along the LoC too faced its share of devastation.

Amid such diverse variables, there is only one constant which may also lead the survivors to more misery and the nation into greater urgency. It is nothing but the chilly winter season which formally started with Wednesday's heavy hailstorm. The nippy weather was literally unbearable for me despite the tough physical training of my college days. Remember, the most affected lived on slopes of the higher mountains while my rest house was perched on hill at a much lower altitude. Initial heavy rainfalls along with landslides and then snowfall will take to epic proportions the daunting task of the survivors' fight for life.

Snow is starting to fall in Indian occupied Kashmir, just across the Line of Control from where the 7.6 magnitude earthquake struck northern Pakistan and Azad Kashmir. For more authenticity, let me add here that the official winter season has begun.

The relief workers are rightly worried that within three weeks, hundreds of thousands of people will be cut off due to multiple effects of unfriendly weather and quake-devastated roads.

On October 11, the United Nations and its partners made a joint appeal for $ 272 million to provide emergency relief supplies to the Himalayan region of Pakistan. The United Nations Flash Appeal will cover the priority needs of the affected population for the next six months, by providing shelter (winterised tents, plastic sheets, blankets, mattresses); nutrition (pre-cooked canned food, high energy biscuits, survival rations); medical supplies (antibiotics, typhoid medicines, first aid and surgical kits, water purification tablets); and transport (helicopters).

The Pakistan government is putting its house in order for better coordinated efforts but still the effort seems to be in its infancy with ministries having little capacity to meet such situations. The foreign friendly countries, however, are gradually revising their pledges upwards, realising the size of the disaster.

The UN appeal and the pledges made by the world community are welcome. Since the dark year of 2005 has been a year of natural catastrophes -- Tsunami, Katrina, Rita and then the earthquake –-- strains on the international donor community as well as the well-to-do cosmopolitans has grown to a record level with assistance to Afghanistan, Iraq and never-ending miseries of Africa far from over.

With at least 100,000 dead and over 400,000 million wounded, the affected people will need a continuous supply of assistance to restart their lives. The million-dollar question here remains: Will the wealthy foreign and local communities not be subjected to 'compassion fatigue'? The recent scenario could even be worse if there is another country-wide catastrophe elsewhere in the world.

The world donor community has used the term 'compassion fatigue' much more often than before. The western world has stood by its words in Sudan's Darfur region, Christmas appeal for Africa, in the tsunami and hurricanes in America, and will hopefully keep up its tradition in Northern Pakistan and Azad Kashmir too. The survivors look towards the wealthy nations hoping that they will summon up the same spirit of compassion once more.

The moral of my experiences over the past six days is greater self-reliance. The Kashmiri as well as Hazara and Pashtun people are self-respecting and no beggars. History bears witness that these mountain people have never been used to charity. They only need help to survive. And nothing like it, when the assistance comes in time and in the right form.

The writer is a senior investigative correspondent of The News who was the first journalist to report from Muzzafarabad, Rawalakot, Bagh, Balakot, and Mansehra

Earthquake aftermath: continuing disaster

Imtiaz Alam

The writer is Editor Current Affairs, The News, and Editor South Asian Journal

No doubt the calamity wrought by the earthquake is immense and beyond imagination. It is being described as even worse than the Indian Ocean Tsunami and Hurricane Katrina. Coping with such vast devastation, particularly in a rugged region where all physical infrastructures have collapsed, is exceptionally difficult. Admittedly, our resources and the emergency foreign assistance made available in the first week have not been sufficient to meet such a huge challenge. Now, after the passage of nine days, the question that has to be asked is that with the seventh largest army and all the resources at its disposal, have we been able to deliver a fraction of what needed to be done? And will the military authorities be able to deliver the way they are behaving?

The first phase of rescuing the alive buried under the debris has miserably failed. A large number of people could have been saved from being buried alive, had we moved the rescuers and their equipment quickly to some of the areas in time. While we stopped rescuing work on Friday last, four children, including a seven month baby, were recovered on Sunday. Failure in treating and rescuing the injured in their thousands is about to produce yet another human tragedy with people dying of gangrene and hypothermia, as forewarned by Merlin and the WHO. 'Several thousand people will die in the next few days', Dr Sean Keogh of Merlin warns, if the help does not reach their isolated villages. With rains and worsening of facilities and unhygienic conditions, that we should have take into account in our calculations and preparations, 'a lot of survivors will die quite soon of their infections and epidemics', the visiting doctors warn.

Where are our relief efforts, ten days after the earthquake, if the authorities have not given up and have not decided to construct their fantasy model colonies on the graveyards? Giving his evaluation, UN Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs, Mr. Jan Egeland, observed 'the operation is a logistical nightmare and in the first phase even the big cities could not be reached'. He contradicted the loud claims of authorities that only 20 percent of earthquake-hit areas remain accessible. Given such horrible conditions and a colossal failure, why would the people stay and not flee to safer areas? And on evacuation, the Prime Minister says that 'they (the people from hilly areas, were used to walking down', while hastily adding that 500 vehicles had been hired for the purpose. Where are those vehicles (waiting for them to die?)

What makes things even worse is that those on the helms continue to under-estimate the devastation and, resultantly, the tasks ahead. Why should the international community respond more than what we continue to understate? The administration, which still doesn't have the correct estimate of dead and missing under the rubble of Margalla Tower in Islamabad, continue to understate the casualties and the losses only God knows to what end.

To avoid panic, one hears, that has already multiplied due to our failure to reach out to people? For a week we continued to hear an official figure of 18,000 dead and 42,000 injured, then raised to 25,000 dead and 62,000 injured and now more than 38,000 dead. From where and how has the ISPR been getting these figures while our valiant armed forces, despite their Herculean efforts, have not been able to reach even the big towns till last Friday? The people with wounds, suffering under rains in the open with temperatures coming down to 3c speaks loudly of our failure to even provide them with temporary cover.

Despite creating a plethora of bodies, the coordination work is so poor that Mr. Egeland has warned of 'devastation within devastation'. Since more than one hundred international agencies and many more local voluntary organizations are engaged in the relief activities, the UN has created its own coordination set up that it should have since it has much more experience in handling such natural disasters. But, in a quasi-civilian setup, as the government faÁade remains non-functional, the military high command has created an exclusive hierarchical structure that has its own limitation in coordinating, through civilian channels, the whole relief effort that is essentially being driven by international agencies or local volunteers in their thousands.

With two parallel chief executives and duplicity of structures, the relief coordination work has become a first casualty before it could even become operative. What do the AJ&K and NWFP governments propose to do? (Chief Minister of the Punjab Chaudhary Pervaiz Elahi perhaps knew his limitations and has kept away.) Or, for that matter, what have these elected representatives, the Prime Minister and the largest cabinet in Pakistan's history accomplished? If they don't have anything to do, as they don't, then who is to connect the people and the state, the community and the powers that be who exclusively carry the burden?

On rehabilitation, the plan to establish a tent city has invited serious objections from the UN, which is against relocating people away from their localities. Had there been proper coordination, this conflict in approach would not have emerged in the first place. And what rehabilitation are we talking about? While the UN agencies, after their initial observations, are projecting the magnitude of losses on either side, Pakistani authorities continue to keep the scale of devastation absurdly low, except for using it as a pretext to hide their own failure when required. And, coincidently, both Islamabad and New Delhi have tried to hide the emerging scenario of much greater destruction and devastation across Kashmir while not allowing limited cooperation for relief and rehabilitation even across the border regions of the LoC which are closer to the other side. It is not the people but the territory that is important for national security establishments and this is what they fight for if it is in dispute.

Continuing to keep the relief fund at $5 billion, our Prime Minister has come up with even bigger miscalculations. While the UN top man, Mr. Jan Egeland, is of the view that, in its magnitude and peculiarity, this calamity is even worse than the Tsunami that killed 200,000 people in nine countries, it will require more than what was spent on the rehabilitation of the people and areas affected by Tsunami ($12 billion), in our Prime Minister's estimates $5 billion will be required to reconstruct in five years (lest we forget, we have not so far been able to rehabilitate all the affectees of Tarbella).

Similarly, while Mr Egeland is calling, again and again, on the international community to contribute more, our top people are too sanguine about the international aid that is far below what is required. Mr Shaukat Aziz should know that the international disaster-relief community is over-stretched from New Orleans to Nigeria and Pakistan. As a consequence of donors' fatigue, international assistance is drying out. That is why the initial response to the UN's appeal and our own appeal has not been that encouraging. This predicament is worsened when we downplay the figures and extent of assistance needed on the ground, as donors are more reluctant to stretch their resources.

One recalls Mr. Bhutto who, after the 1974 earthquake, took a helicopter and went to every nook and corner of inaccessible areas, mobilised people and turned their grief into strength. There was no such panic and confusion as being witnessed now. He raised more funds than were required. Now, the ruling group is not even seen to be concerned and doing enough at the most crucial time. It has even failed to channelise the tremendous humanitarian upsurge that we have seen in our civil society.

The volunteers in their hundreds of thousands from all parts of the country are being frustrated and getting increasingly disappointed. They don't know where to go and what to do and through what channels. The opposition parties have been sidelined, to not let them be seen on the side of the people. And where is that great political force called the king's party, after its landslide victory in the local government elections?

When you displace the political parties who have some genuine roots among the people and cobble together fictitious and worthless elements, you break the bridge between the people and the state. And a state with no intermediary link with its citizens is condemned to fail in undertaking such an enormous task which a government, and especially with no roots among people, alone cannot undertake. Should we pull our hair in desperation or make the authorities answerable?

17-10-05

True happiness is making other people happy
Feuilleton

Prof. Khwaja Masud

Joy, then source of light immortal/Daughter of Elysium/Touched with fire/To the portal of thy radiant shrine we come/Thy pure magic frees all others/Held in custom’s rigid rings/Men throughout the world are brothers/In the haven of thy wings/Millions, myriads, rise and gather!/Share this universal kiss! —Schiller

This is the finale of the greatest of all symphonies, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. The souls of two supreme artists met in the finale, creating art of heavenly beauty.

The first movement is destiny and the inexorable order of the universe; the second movement is physical exuberance and energy; the third movement is love and the fourth movement is joy, which was to Beethoven what charity is to great mystics, the one thing without which all else is incomplete.

Long ago, when times were bad, people reached up to heaven for release. That was Gothic. Later, when times were good, and heaven was here on earth, they wrapped what they loved about them. That was Baroque. There is an indestructible core of truth in what has been said, despite its vulnerability. For the truth lies in the timeless architecture of the human spirit. Baroque in comfort; Gothic in time of need.

Perhaps that is why the Ninth Symphony is never so real, so immediate, so challenging and in the end so comforting as in times of distress and crisis, as we confront after the earthquake. More indelible it is the seeking vaulting spirit of the man in distress that is the fierce, undaunted voice of mankind, ever marching ahead.

Listening to the Ninth Symphony, I have always gone into raptures over the pure and lasting humanity of its theme on which the mind could rest as a final solution of typical human doubts and difficulties. There is a vision in this symphony in which fatefulness and transport; heavenly beauty, mystery and exaltation; man’s tragic destiny when he is overwhelmed by powerful natural forces; but, its music of the spheres carries you away.

The time is 8.50 a.m. and the day is 8th October, when the earthquake struck. Such moments are rare. Only once in my long life of eighty-three years, when a devastating earthquake struck Quetta in 1935 and almost the entire family was in that ill-fated city. Days passed before we could contact them. I can imagine the agony of thousands of people, whose kith and kin are in Azad Kashmir.

In such moments of agony, the Ninth Symphony comes to your aid. Listening to it, you sit transfixed, peering into the future, after throwing away the awesome burden of nature and history. Such moments can only be felt, not described.

Despite the tragedy that surrounds you, the Ninth Symphony drags you into the sunlight of real happiness. But, what is happiness? It is the enjoyment of life that is there even when everything is dreary, the feeling that makes a person smile even as he draws the last breath. As Iqbal puts it: "Let me tell you about the man of faith. As death comes, there is a smile on his face." Happiness is the enjoyment of the sky, the sun, the moon and the stars, the flowers and the grass whose greenness envelops you.

My uncle, a generous soul, who helped us when my father fell a victim to tuberculosis during the thirties of the last century, rarely spoke; but, one day he said: "you will always be happy if you do not look up to those who have what you have not, but always remember those who have not what you have." In very words, he summed up Iqbal’s philosophy of istighna (an untranslatable word of the mystics).

There is no greater joy than to be good simply because you cannot be otherwise. Today is starting as yesterday did: the day testifies happiness for all and reproaches those who are unable to seize happiness. As the Qur’aan puts it: "every day has its own glory."

How can one put a name to the joyous sensation when one feels like a river that has run into a sea? Freedom? Love? One wants to embrace the world; and, if not every one in it is good, the eye meets only those who are; and, it appears that everyone is good. Such a joy becomes God, only He showers His bounties on the virtuous and sinner alike.

It is impossible to work towards happiness as a personal goal. Happiness is attained by them whose goal in life is the happiness of other people. How can you feel happy when thousands of earthquake-stricken people are starving and going about without warm shelter?

Schiller’s poetry and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony have taught me that I would be blessed with happiness only if I would make other people happy.

Happiness is in no way associated with fortune, but fortune often comes from happiness; what is more, it is only by measuring the depth of life through suffering that we gain ability to enjoy life and to be happy. Fortune is the measure of the extent of happiness, while misfortune is a test to measure its depth.

Schiller’s ode to Jsaoy and Beethoven’s rendering it is music, make the message loud, clear and melodious: Let us share happiness.

The writer is a former principal, Gordon College, Rawalpindi

A wake-up call

Nosheen Saeed

"We know that God’s Arithmetic is somewhat odd. When you subtract by giving away, you get more. When you seek to hoard, somehow you lose out." — Archbishop Desmond Tutu

After the monstrous earthquake, that struck South Asia, our Government representatives were running helter-skelter in all directions, vacating their Federal Lodges in fear and panic; cracks appeared in the apartments and according to some, there was no emergency exit and no fire-extinguishers available. Most of them spent the night with relatives and friends and the non-stop shocks gave them jitters. A few got carried away and started being critical, till someone had to remind them that they were the law-makers. These educated and enlightened legislatures have spent three years claiming Midas’s touch; not realising that he was an example of folly being as fatal as sin, for he meant no harm; he merely did not use any intelligence. His story suggests that he had none to use.

The first assembly session after the earthquake, should have compelled the people’s representatives to zero in on the crucial state of affairs in the country and discuss them vigorously. The top most priority should have been the demand to set up a "National Crises Management Centre" and a "National Information Centre" that deals with the pre-disaster action steps, the disaster events and the quick recovery steps for both man-made disasters such as bomb blasts, civil disturbances and terrorist attacks or natural disasters such as earthquakes, floods and storms and other disasters like wild fires, accidents and medical emergencies to facilitate the people. The current earthquake exposed the inefficiency, the unpreparedness and vulnerabilities of the local, civil and Federal administration. While the public knew how to grapple with the situation, the administrators of the Federal Capital of Pakistan were in a state of confusion and ignorance. They had no rescue teams, no emergency squads and no emergency equipment; no hydraulic cutters to slice heavy concrete slabs, no air bags to remove heavy debris and allow rescue workers to enter fallen houses; no search cameras, listening devices, equipped ambulances and all-terrain rescue vehicles and had to arrange for cranes and emergency lights by evening. The people got down to saving lives instantly with their bare hands, shovels and everything they could find and saved many in the process.

It is common knowledge that this zone is prone to earthquakes. Every Government depends on tax-payers for financial support and spends on inland security and the betterment of its people. But in Pakistan while a few are enjoying perks and privileges, the rest are dying because of contaminated water, burden of poverty, floods, earthquakes, bomb blasts, diseases and lack of medical facilities.

I am not being critical I am merely stating facts and putting across a message: "if the fire is in your neighborhood, don’t ignore it, it can engulf your house in minutes." It’s high time our rulers put their best foot forward and handle the public with kid gloves.

The second thing they should be focusing on is to examine the laws applicable to buildings, their construction and inspection on completion and the introduction of a "code of construction" that provides safety measures to the tenants. Thirdly, an inquiry regarding the collapse of Margalla Towers and the arrest of those involved in using sub-standard material, while erecting the building should have been on the agenda. And most of all, the city administration’s negligence for ignoring the risks to the Towers, highlighted six years ago. According to reports, the city administration asked the owner of the Towers to evacuate the building six years ago, after it developed cracks due to an earthquake that occurred, earlier. The owner made some cosmetic repairs to cover the cracks and paid no heed to the administrations’ advice. (Note the helplessness of the CDA.) According to the CDA construction rules, the owner could raise structures only on 50 percent of the area but the owner requested the CDA Chairman to relax the rules and allow him to construct on 75 percent area of the land to meet the cost of the property; the then Chairman obliged the owner. But the most intriguing are the admissions of designer and engineer Haffez Sheikh who claims that his design was not faulty but the owner used substandard construction material; he also revealed that the foundations of the Towers were unable to sustain a multi-storey building; and believes that the reason behind the collapse might have been the faulty pillars. What puzzles me is why Mr. Sheikh went on with the construction if he was aware of the faults? It’s the same old story — while a few make money, millions die.

We should consider this tragedy a wake up call or an ominous sign to mend our ways and redesign the structure of good governance by introducing stringent laws. Everyone must learn to respect the laws of the land; no one should be considered above the law and allowed to flout the rule of law for instant or transitory gain. It is the duty of the Government to safeguard the rights and liberties of the people and to provide support and protection to them. For every ordinary citizen is the constructive and productive force behind the progress and prosperity of Pakistan and I saw the richest resource of the country — human capital in action in Islamabad, Abbottabad, Mansehra and Balakot.

By Saturday evening, Ayub Medical Hospital was thronged with people carrying relief goods on motor cycles, Suzuki cars, vans and jeeps. Everyone wanted to help; they inquired about the things needed and made calls to arrange foodstuff, blankets and tents. The concern, warmth and affection for their distressed brethren was unbelievable! If there is something known as reincarnation, I would love to be born on Pakistani soil again. They were giving and giving without expecting anything in return. The relief camps were full of injured people and traumatic children with stony eyes. It was one of those helpless moments in life when you could just look up towards the sky and moan, "Why God Why." It was just a trivial complaint that I wanted to lodge in the kingdom of the King of kings, to seek His mercy and forgiveness.

The task ahead is a challenging one — the rehabilitation of the people. Having full faith in the resilience, perseverance and fortitude of the public and having witnessed the achievements of this dynamic force; their organising ability and their spirit of enterprise, I know, all Pakistanis will plunge into the task of rebuilding with passionate enthusiasm. We will share their burden and tighten our belts to restore to normality their lives and upgrade their former condition. To generate funds even if it means abstaining from ostentatious behaviour and donating our bulletproof Mercedes and private helicopters for relief work, we will do the needful to meet the emergency requirements. As it is, our Mercedes have become obsolete and we need to import new earthquake-proof models.

In this hour of trial, the nation needs unity and faith to face the multifarious challenges ahead. The crisis is extremely worrying but we will by the help of God Almighty weather the storm. We must devote all our energies towards the rehabilitation of the affected. We have to bring about a result with collective efforts and face the catastrophic loss of our very own with courage. One thing is for sure our lives will never be the same again.

The writer is a freelance columnist

Save the vulnerable

The most sinister activity is trafficking of children

M S Jillani

As the straits created by the worst disaster in the history of Pakistan enter a resolution stage, the Pakistani nation has come out with sterling qualities of its nature and tradition. The philanthropy of the Pakistani people has been recognized the world over. One has seen this nation in crisis situations before: the turmoil of 1947; the 1948 war for Kashmir; the 1965 and 1971 wars with India, and now the October 8 earthquake. On every occasion, Pakistanis rallied around the national cause and proved their mettle as a nation. The present display of solidarity, sacrifice and philanthropy, however is unprecedented. It can only be compared with the spirit of the 1965 war; in one’s judgment, the present response is superior.

Occasions of pride and greatness, however, are always marked by a negative strain which represents the evil aspect of human nature. The post-October 8 developments are no exception. While ongoing rescue operations, delivery of relief goods and planning for rehabilitation should remain foremost on the agenda, the fast emerging hordes of miscreants in earthquake affected areas as well as other large cities of the country must be apprehended on an urgent basis: with every passing day, their activities are becoming more detrimental and their network is expanding.

There are at present five major areas of abominable activity — each one more nefarious than the other — which are being carried out in the country. First and the most sinister activity is trafficking of children. Individuals and gangs are reported to be active in picking up orphaned and dislocated children by posing as ‘uncles’ and ‘aunties’ who purportedly have just arrived from abroad to inquire about their relatives. Since no administrative system had been in place so far, swindlers seem to have disappeared with some children.

We know from the war in Bosnia Herzegovina that children can be taken away in the name of hospitality of foster homes — and disappear forever. In the present situation, the government with the assistance of reliable NGOs should arrange to take custody of these children, register them, advertise their presence, and only in the absence of a claimant, should they be placed in foster homes with strict guarantees for proper upbringing; delay in this respect could spell disaster for thousands of children. The President’s ban on adoption of these children is laudable and in time. However, the ‘aunts’ and ‘uncles’ have also to be kept in check by strict scrutiny.

Second: The area of anxiety is way-laying of relief goods dispatched for disaster-hit areas. Due to the absence of effective civil administration and pre-occupation of the army with rescue, medical assistance, transport, road clearance and myriad other chores, relief goods are being pilfered, trucks hi-jacked by people arriving in the stricken areas as ‘volunteers’. While most of the genuine volunteers are young educated persons with a genuine feeling for the affected people, groups — many armed with lethal weapons — are diverting valuable goods to bazaars of large cities in the vicinity. Some of them are re-sold to people wishing to send relief goods to disaster areas! Visitors to some of the most affected villages and towns have reported that devastated towns are littered with used clothing and cheap household goods, because the best pieces are stolen in transit.

Deployment of guards for relief goods in stores, and convoys of trucks will definitely decrease the incidence of theft. Quick disposal of materials piled at the site of disaster, however, is equally important, as it will quicken the supply of the much-needed commodities to the starved families, besides checking the wastage caused by storing goods in the open.

Third: There has been a totally unwarranted and unjustified escalation of prices of commodities most needed by the marooned people. As if the blatant price hike during Ramazan was not enough, the unscrupulous elements among the business community have increased the prices of commodities of daily use. Although this hike will be inconsequential for the quake-hit people who have almost zero purchasing power, the high prices will affect the flow of goods to the affected population.

Rise in prices will decrease the volume of goods purchased for relief. Increase in the price of essential goods like atta, rice, cooking oil, tea, milk, etc. and the disappearance of many other items of daily use is going to impact the living standards of affectees, lowering their morale. It is an irony that the perpetrators of this crime are a section of the same community of traders who opened their hearts for their suffering brethren and their contributions still make the bulk of aid for quake-hit areas. It is lack of morals and there is little that anybody could do about changing them. However, the public can remember their reaction to a national calamity and isolate them from further dealings.

Fourth: There has been the shocking attitude of transport operators and truck owners. They have doubled, tripled or even quadrupled their fares for transporting relief goods to affected areas. This has adversely affected the delivery of relief goods to the stricken belt. Although the federal and provincial governments have warned them but the practice continues. Will it be too much to cancel their route permits instantly rather than threatening them with ‘drastic action’? Is it not the most immoral act to disrupt supplies to people in immense distress? There are reports that some trucks landed in the tribal areas with their cargo instead of taking them to their rightful destinations; this cargo was sold at a fraction of its value, depriving the affected population.

Fifth: As expected, two developments have taken place on the NGO scene. First is the mushrooming growth of non-governmental groups without any credentials or direction. They have put up stalls all over to collect relief goods and cash donations. People, in their fervour to help have been depositing donations at many of these stalls. Nobody knows about the fate of these collections. It is essential that there should be a control over them. One would not like enthusiastic young persons to stop their efforts to help the needy. But those with an intent to make a fast buck must be weeded out. As an old teacher, one may mention that educated youth are always amenable to guidance, discipline and sacrifice if it is made available.

The other part is more unfortunate. The foreign NGOs and aid groups have to have local contracts for supplies; and, a whole swarm of profiteers is out on the street to exploit the opportunity. Fares of residential accommodation, prices and quality of supplies, transportation costs, salaries of local staff have all been inflated. Funds that should have been spent on the affected population are being swallowed by sharks in the large cities. In addition to this bribes are being offered to foreign staff of NGOs for the award of contracts! Can’t we add to our image in any better way? It would not be too much to ask if every NGO group is assigned a liaison person to guide the NGO and assist it whenever required. This will stop wastage and exploitation.

Let one conclude, that in all these matters, time is of the essence — the quicker the better.

The writer is a former federal secretary with an academic background in Economics and Sociology

The black day and after

Nasim Zehra

The writer is an Islamabad-based
security analyst, and a fellow of the Harvard
University Asia Centre

Teary eyed, tending to his 10 and 12 year old son and daughter with fractured legs, the man from Chinaari recalled the horrific day when for him the world came to an end. Almost. "There was a loud blast and then the earth opened up, the mountains tore apart and our houses just sank into the earth and collapsed...for about three hours darkness spread. We knew the end was here...it was the Day of Judgment. But then we were still alive. I got up and looked around. Everything around me was gone. The houses had collapsed and all my relatives were under the rubble. My wife was dead and my 4-year-old son was screaming for help from under the rubble. I ran for help. But soon I found most people in my village were caught under the rubble. Like a mad man I was running around for help. I then noticed that even the river in front of my house had disappeared. The school building close-by had collapsed. My own children were among the 60 students trapped in the collapsed building. By some miracle I saved my own children. I just carried the two, my son and daughter, for two miles before I got to Muzaffarabad. From there I was put in a helicopter and brought here."

On a neighbouring bed lay a virtually lifeless three-year-old Qayum with an angelic face and his little body all plastered. His seriously injured head was heavily bandaged and two needles pierced into his bodies were supplying him blood and glucose. Little Qayum had been playing just inside the main door of his small hut in the mountainous area of Chinaari — a two hour walk from Muzaffarabad. "A huge blast brought the house down. I lost two children who were at school and my wife has broken her legs. Qayum couldn’t run out and the house collapsed on him," explained Qayum’s father. Almost numbed by pain flowing from his utterly devastated world he looked into space and narrated how he travelled for two days on a bus from Karachi to Muzaffarabad when he heard about the earthquake. A labourer in Karachi, he paid 2200 for a journey that he would normally pay 1000 for. "I don’t know how they forgot their Allah the day qayyamat came. I barely had 1000 I got the rest from friends, the bus walas wanted to make huge profits that day," he lamented.

He walked from Muzaffarabad for two days and arrived in his completely destroyed hometown on the fourth day. He could do nothing, he had nothing and no aid had arrived in this remote village. The injured were lying in the open waiting for help. He just picked up his injured son and walked back for a day arrived at Muzaffarabad and was transported in a helicopter to Islamabad. Now he sits by his little son praying for his survival. "It’s Ramzaan and Allah may listen to us more," is his hope.

Not too far away from Qayum lay wide-eyed all bandaged one and a half year old Abdullah. It was impossible to not cuddle the part gurgling and part whining adorable Abdullah. But then his blood stained sheet slipped. His right leg was amputated. "His mother died that day", someone said. It felt like many tons of bricks had fallen. It was a woman whose little baby girl with an amputated arm was sharing the bed with the handicapped Abdullah. Abdullah’s young father who lost his wife and two children looked away trying to control his tears.

Over a hundred little girls and boys with amputated and seriously fractured joints occupy the beds in the packed Children’s ward of the Islamabad Poly Clinic. With each one their keeper...father, mother, uncle or aunt has a horrifying account to narrate. They talk of the black day and after. Alone they rose from the ruins of all that was life to them.

Nature’s fury spared no one. The suffering multiplied as it wreaked havoc into Nature’s most powerfully formulated parent-child relationship. The utterly helpless parents were unable to pull their little ones out of the collapsed school buildings. "They called out to us, they screamed, they cried, they shouted, for hours and even days...they wanted to live," was the common narration. And they could do very little. In most cases the callousness of calamity forced them to walk away leaving their dying children behind. On that black day Nature inverted "natural" equations.

Little efforts have produced little joys. Squeaking rubber toys produce wonderful smiles on these blood-stained bandaged faces. The ones who have seen the end of the world and have lost immensely in that traumatic journey still express gratitude, still pray for those who visit them. They continue to thank the doctors working 24/7 to save their precious ones. It’s a new cruel world with unprecedented heights of suffering, of loss and of sheer destruction.

A few yards away from the children’s ward is the post-Natal ward where eight women were admitted on the third day. Four lay motionless with broken spines, three with serious head injuries and fractured limbs. Eight month pregnant Khadeeja who was brought unaccompanied in the army helicopter is torn between thinking about the new arrival miraculously saved and the two children she lost under the rubble. Accompanying sisters, cousins, husbands and fathers list the number and gender of children these mothers have lost. They have lived on having lost those they would normally live for.

New words for suffering will have to be coined. To lose so much, so suddenly and altogether, to face death, destruction, burials, callousness, injury, devastation, to be torn apart so brutally from those you live for, you live through, is another league of suffering. The millions in Azad Jammu and Kashmir and in NWFP-hit areas and the hundreds who stood outside the Margalla towers waiting to see their loved ones walk out alive from the rubble, know this only too well.

And those of us who are alive, well and with our loved ones these are testing times. Painful too. As virtually the entire mourning Nation rose to open an account with Allah, giving has been incredible. The ownership of the suffering and the connection with the tragedy of those who are also "us" tells of a Nation with its heart in the right place. The stories of individual and collective efforts to give in kind, in cash and of one’s time are spectacular. Mercifully the critical requirement for humane collective existence, compassion does live on in Pakistan. The true treasure of Pakistan, its khazaana, the people have shown that the spirit of 1947 lives on. In times of national calamities it will always get activated. That some black marketeers will always also surface is no surprise. The good and the evil will always co-exist. The scale tilts heavily towards the good, that’s our silver lining in the days after that Black Day.

As the Nation gears up determined to fight to the effects of the impact of the catastrophe that lives on, the State of Pakistan has to gear itself for a task the likes of which it has never known.

While partnership between State and the people is central to the effort of relief and rehabilitation the onus of making this relationship work for the destroyed and devastated is on the State.

Meanwhile, the Pakistanis owe a special thanks to the global community that has risen to be counted as true friends of a nation that must deal with the fall-out of a catastrophe with worse fall-out than of even the tsunami which had left millions dead.

For us we have no option but to overcome; with God’s blessings and our own competence, unity and compassion.

16-10-05

Managing the quake through 'proper channels'

Iqbal Mustafa

The mind boggles at the enormity of the earthquake that hit us like a bolt from the sky. Of all the natural calamities, earthquakes are the most devastating physically and psychologically. One thing constant in human existence is the stableness of the mother earth. Wind, water and fire can be furious but the earth remains one refuge to which people can cling to like babies to a mother's bosom but when the earth begins to have convulsions it is the ultimate trauma of all -- like a mother turning upon its own child. There can be nothing more terrorising for the human psyche.

It is still too early to take an inventory of the colossal loss of life, livelihoods and property in the quake-hit areas. Vast and remote areas have not merely been lacerated; amputated is perhaps more apt a word to describe the devastation. The first phase of search and rescue continues with diminishing prospects while emergency provisions of sustenance to survivors has turned into an almost 'mission impossible' by the government's own confessions of helplessness. Rehabilitation will take decades and the psychological wound will never heal for three generations who suffered the ordeal.

While it is true, the immediate challenge was so gigantic that no amount of preparedness or efficient response could have come anywhere near meeting it, but the disparity between the two does not provide a carte blanche amnesty to the government with regard to how it managed the situation. Also true, that this is not the time for recriminations and criticism but it is no excuse to continue committing the same mistakes again on the long road of recovery and rehabilitation ahead.

There are two aspects of management failures, which all observers, local and foreign, have highlighted in one respect or the other. One is a straightforward lack of coordination and sluggish response. The second is obliquely manifesting in the rising anger of the victims. The government has remained oblivious to the psychological aspects of calamity management. On the contrary, there have been some unsavoury efforts to squeeze publicity mileage out of the calamity but that sin is being committed by many other sections of the society. Especially corporate bodies and showbiz celebrities who will not miss a chance to get some free coverage on TV and free ink in the press. While striking a positive note that the disaster has unified the nation, we should acknowledge that this is an opportunity to learn from costly mistakes.

The totally unexpected enormity of the quake stunned the government machinery into a state of temporary paralysis it appears. Lacking the self-confidence to acknowledge any chinks in its armour, the state machinery responded with its knee jerk reaction of trying to appear as if all is under control. On his first appearance at the site of demolished Margalla Towers on TV, the PM nonchalantly put aside any dire need for foreign assistance while welcoming voluntary assistance. This was one occasion where an expression of panic, a very justified one, would have sent positive emotive vibes to assuage the terror of the nation. The subliminal message would have been "these guys have a heart; they care so they are devastated". Spouting promises that could never be fulfilled was starting on the wrong foot.

The misplaced calm around the top leadership followed up with "business as usual", managing the crisis through "proper channels". That explains the sluggish response. This was more serious than war! Matters cannot be left to "proper channels" in such circumstances, setting up committees, control centres and delegating ad hoc responsibilities. The leader has to roll up his sleeves and get down to the job hands-on.

An account of how Lord Mountbatten handled the bloodbath that erupted following Partition is a lesson in crisis management. "Freedom at Midnight" by Dominique Lapierre and Larry Collins gives a graphic account of the events. Mountbatten had retired to Simla after handing over the divided subcontinent to its two respective custodians, Mr. Jinnah and Jahawarlal Nehru. As the massive exodus began from both borders, large caravans of migrants took to the roads on foot, in bullock carts, in trains, whatever they could find. Communal violence flared up as looting began on both sides. The massive convoys of migrants, numbering thousands, while crossing convoys from the opposite side, just went mad and killed at random. Sixty thousand would cross a convoy of forty thousand and pass through killing and getting killed with a few thousand surviving and carrying on with the journey, leaving a pile of corpses behind.

On Nehru's humanitarian request to retake charge Mountbatten returned to Delhi and set up his command centre with a map of the Punjab across the wall. His few aeroplanes flew over the region, reporting the location of convoys that were likely to cross paths. With limited resources of jeeps and mostly horseback militia, he would prioritise collusions and despatch forces to intercept and divert the convoys so they do not cross. For two whole weeks, he worked, ate and slept out of his command office orchestrating interceptions and guiding his meagre forces without mobile phones, satellite images or videos. He was the grandson of Queen Victoria on whose empire the sun never set. Our leaders are of much humbler genealogy, to say the least, and yet they choose to enjoy the luxury of taking briefings from clueless minions, through "proper channels", arriving in bulletproof Mercs; what an affront to the suffering populace! The grass root empowered Nazims were nowhere in sight, neither was the local bureaucracy nor the military commandos who pride themselves on sky diving on a five rupee coin and surviving in the bush for days.

The IT guru, Dr. Ata-ur-Rehman did not advice the government to use Geographical Information Technology to bring in satellite pictures to chart out the devastated areas. For military purposes they can take pictures of the number plates of cars parked outside a building but for earthquake disasters they can hold their hands up in the air and say that the terrain is treacherous and we do not know the real picture. It is not important if the government resources are stretched too thin to help everyone, the effort to do so is important. If you cannot help a dying man, sitting besides him makes his misery endurable. How many villages were affected or devastated? A thousand? Couldn't the military parachute one icon of the government in every village (guided by satellite pictures, or are they just for killing enemies) holding the locals, telling them "we care" and organising their efforts and sending back accurate information. Perhaps there were not enough credit holders in the wretched areas.

For military purposes, we become a high-tech country capable of manufacturing long distant cruise missiles but when it comes to civic services, we hold out the beggar's bowl with our tongues hanging out, "gimme a ha'penny I am simple". The aid is beginning to pour in but there seems no central command with a database to list needs (need assessment based on satellite images is very common today). The same database could have made an inventory of resources arriving -- personnel, relief goods and funds. Matching the demand and supply in the most effective way would have been possible if there was central management system being lead by a unified command. How ironic that champions of "supply and demand" economics and "unity of command" principle abandoned their own cherished ideals in times of crisis and retreated into bureaucratic shells.

Resources (or their dearth) are not that critical as their efficient deployment: That is the bottom line. We tried to use the "proper channels" which evaporated into thin air around the affected areas. That has magnified our tragedy. In this hour of colossal tragedy let us hope and pray that the weaknesses of "proper channels" becomes evident to the government machinery and the Herculean task of rehabilitation is not abandoned to them as well.

The writer is a consultant for agro-economy and organisational management

Afterthoughts - II

Kamran Shafi

Right then, if there is to be any improvement, government leaders simply MUST take a truthful and frank look at their response to the earthquake, and at the way in which their instructions (assuming there were any!) were followed or not followed by the government machinery. Here and now I must point out that a whole lot of us who write in the press, including I, lighted upon the Army as the most convenient whipping boy. But the Army must be ordered to move somewhere or other, and to do this or that. If the high command does not order the field formations to move, they will not move. What was the corpulent government of the Islamic Republic 'co-led' by Private Banker Shaukat Aziz doing for the 72 hours the Big General himself says were lost?

Some of my friends are part, like so many thousands of our countrymen and women, of a group that is trying to help out with food and other supplies to the quake-hit areas. My friend Saeed Anwar who went to Balakot and areas higher on October 11and again on the 14th, told me there was a huge difference between the tamasha then, and now, after Army units belonging to Kharian moved into the area. Traffic is under control; soldiers are escorting trucks carrying relief supplies so that they are not set upon by anxious affectees (who can blame them, for they have nothing?); the Army is even accepting supplies in their marshalling area near Mansehra, which they will then deliver according to need. The difference is between night and day, Saeed says. Whilst we reserve the right to criticise, we must also have the heart to commend. So, very well done, chaps.

This is good and well, in the words of my old pal and colleague Ashraf Afridi. But we must identify some other aspects of disaster response that need immediate repair/overhauling. While the shemozzle in Kashmir is a joint venture of the GOP and the AJK government as we have just seen, the administration of Islamabad the Beautiful, the Capital City of the Citadel of Islam has a huge part to play in the tragedy of the collapse of the Margalla Towers block.

Whilst I was myself lusting for a flat in that building but could not buy it for want of funds (who says being poor is always bad?!), I had no inkling through all the negotiations that its Completion Certificate hadn't yet been issued! A Completion Certificate is issued by the CDA when the Authority has satisfied itself that rules and regulations have been followed, is it not? How and why then, pray, were people allowed to live in the building by the CDA? Should the building not have been boarded up and a guard placed on it by the CDA UNTIL the owners met all the conditions and were issued the Completion Certificate? Something far wrong here, sirs! Bribery and corruption, what else.

Second, the CDA must invest in state-of-the-art fire-fighting equipment, which can evacuate people from fifteen floors up and which has equipment that can cut through reinforced concrete. This is an imperative for Islamabad the Beautiful where there are many tall buildings now. As a matter of fact, if we ask the Americans nicely maybe they will donate some second-hand fire trucks, and provide trainers too. It is the Fire Department that arrives first off at the scene of an incident such as the Margalla Towers collapse, or a fire. Please recall the fire in the Shaheed-i-Millat Secretariat some years ago, which no one could do anything about.

Third, people, no matter who they are, should visit the site of recovery work only on a need-to basis. There was no need at all for the Big General to visit the Margalla Towers just as the initial work of recovery was underway, and which came to a grinding halt while he was there due to concerns about his safety. He could as easily sit in a Command Post and be updated by the minute, rather than the Blue Book or whatever it is called now coming into play. As a matter of fact, a dedicated TV link from the scene of a disaster could be arranged for the Big General, beaming directly to wherever he might be -- even in his limo (or Humvee!).

Likewise, there was no need for him to go to the affected areas in the Frontier and AJK for the reason that at least two (if not three) helicopters, of which aircraft there is a paucity according to himself, were surely tied up for five, six hours of flying time ferrying him and his staff. They could have well used that time dropping supplies, and on return ferrying the critically injured to hospitals. The Big General in this case too, could have been kept informed by the senior officer in the area who could fly about anywhere in one small helicopter. The Big General could have gone to see for himself some days down the line when the situation wasn't so fraught. For example, when helicopters donated by other countries had come in. The PRIMARY duty of a government is to provide IMMEDIATE succour, not present its leaders with photo opportunities.

As for Private Banker Shaukat Aziz, there was no need for him to play follow-the-leader with the Big General as he clambered over the roof of the collapsed Margalla Tower, in advisedly, for there were people under it, we must note. Neither was there any need for him to go flying off to AJK in more helicopters along with his entourage. What has he got to do with anything with the Big General in total command?

Hopefully, this present dispensation, which is neither horse nor donkey, which is fat and flabby just like its sister in AJK, will surprise us all and admit its faults (that'll be the day, folks) and learn its lessons from this very great tragedy. As for me, my heart is heavy with sadness and grief for my compatriots, especially the children who were cut down before their prime. I want to lighten up a bit, and share with you something that made me laugh out loud, through my tears. For in every situation you have somebody who is needlessly and fatuously arrogant, who says or does something quite ludicrous.

On the day of the earthquake, there was a report on Mushahid 'Mandela' Hussain making certain remarks while at the Margalla Towers where he is reported to have "overseen and coordinated relief and rescue efforts for seven hours". (If that is so, he made an atrociously pathetic job of it by letting hundreds of lay people climb all over the roof of the fallen building when there were still people buried under it!). The report goes on: "In the absence of PML President Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, Mushahid Hussain took charge of all these efforts on behalf of the ruling party. He talked to senior officials of different agencies for speeding up the rescue operation at the collapsed Margalla Tower". (Which had little effect as we know!).

He is also reported to have been "impressed with a Kenyan national who was engaged in relief measures" and then to have " 'noticed' a Pakistani American, Farooq, using a megaphone ... directing people"; "he also 'noted' a labourer", and "'noticed' General (retd) Jehandad of the Red Crescent Society, with his team, helping people at the place". All of these lucky people, especially General Jehandad Khan (never mind that whilst he is famous for setting up the Al-Shifa eye hospitals across the country, only infamy is 'Mandela's' for egging Nawaz Sharif on to "Play on the front foot, Mian Sahib Ji", and then abandoning him and becoming a lota) should consider themselves doubly blessed that they were 'noted' and 'noticed' by Mushahid 'Mandela' Hussain! Wow! What luck!

Will the pompousness never end?

Bushism of the Week: "I want you to know that farmers are not going to be secondary thoughts to a Bush administration. They will be in the forethought of our thinking" - President George W. Bush; Salinas, California; August 10, 2000.

P.S. One of the world's leading experts on Himalayan earthquakes has been refused a visa for entry into Pakistan. Dr Roger Bilham, of the University of Colorado in the US, who cooperates with the Peshawar University's Centre for Geological Excellence wants to go to the earthquake sites and study the fissures/cracks in the earth, and the other physical changes wrought by the quake before rains and earthmoving equipment erase all the 'evidence'. This country is likely to need help in finding the safest places to rebuild in AK. For that, the world's leading geophysicist might come in handy. He is in Delhi now. Somebody please help -- is the good Aziz Khan reading this?

The writer, a retired army officer, is a freelance columnist.

Pakistani spirit

Dr Farrukh Saleem

The best in Pakistani spirit has revealed its full face; it's as pretty as can be. The challenge was to provide relief to Pakistanis in trouble, and every Pakistani has come out to meet the challenge head-on. The quake generated a cause and Pakistanis are proving that they have what it takes --unity, faith, and discipline along with a deep sense of sacrifice.

All it takes is five things: the right cause, able captains, an efficient private sector, a tradition of giving and a rudimentary infrastructure of community based organizations. We have three -- a vibrant private sector, a long tradition of giving and sharing along with deep-rooted philanthropic organizations. What we haven't had is the right cause and the right skippers.

Intriguingly, almost every building built by the government was the first to collapse. Government schools have come down crashing in areas where private buildings are still intact.

Individual citizens are sending in truckloads of ghee and atta. Civil society organizations are collecting blankets and clothing. The way that housewives have organized networks of support groups I feel that the reigns to run the country should be handed over to them. In Islamabad, the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences has no shortage of volunteers. Pakistanis are volunteering time, profession as well as skill (according to a survey "58 percent of Pakistanis volunteer their time to needy individuals or worthy causes"). At the Paediatric Ward, paediatric surgeons haven't slept for days. It's like Pakistanis who act like monsters on the road have transformed into guardian angels towing in mineral water, milk packs, biscuits, tents, mattresses, bandages, antibiotics and even pampers.

Kashmir has been our cause for fifty-eight long, painful years, civil society's militarization and jihad our favourite instruments. Our teachers have long been directed to preach rather than teach. We have been indoctrinating our youth with religiously induced violence. Look at the Punjab Textbook Board; its prescribed curriculum continues to be part hate literature part jihad. Pakistan Studies has jihad in it and so does biology. If that wasn't enough, we started putting up reminders of our destructive potential -- replicas of Shaheens and Chagai -- in the centre of major intersections.

Custodians of our integrity have long been trying to create a united front under religious umbrellas embedded in a pro-hate agenda. Our leaders then nationalized our religion and mixed up militancy with Islam and mosque with extremism. That is all backfiring. Religious umbrellas have become centres of bloodletting rather than nation building and the world now equates our pro-hate agenda to cross-border terrorism.

Privatise religion, stop preaching at schools, begin teaching and unite us on an economic agenda. Give us the right cause and see us excel. Given the right cause we can outshine and outclass every competitor on track. Give us the cause and we can be the best of the best. If it took Datuk Seri Mahathir 22 years we can do it in 20. If it took Lee Kuan Yew 31 years we can do it in 30.

It had to be an earthquake to prove it but Pakistani spirit has what it takes, what it takes to cross a bridge and what it takes to reach the hilltop.

The writer is an Islamabad-based freelance columnist.

A myriad images

Ghazi Salahuddin

A clichéd observation it has now become but the world did change after 9/11. And it also changed in some ways after the Asian tsunami of December 26, 2004. Will the earthquake of October 8, 2005 change Pakistan -- or at least unearth some realities that we have not been fully aware of?

Without any doubt, a myriad of images have surfaced in the mirror of a traumatic experience that has touched every Pakistani and a large number of people everywhere. Still, it may not be easy to extricate the "core issue" that lies buried in the rubble that is littered mainly in our part of Kashmir. At one level, you feel totally shattered by the tragedy and dismayed by the inadequacies of the official management of this crisis. At another, you feel somewhat inspired by the vigorous response of the ordinary citizens as well as the urban elite. In its hour of grief, the nation did come together.

Unavoidably, there have been allusions to tsunami as well as to Katrina in describing the aftermath of an earthquake that found its way across the Line of Control in Kashmir. So much so that World Health Organisation's regional head told reporters in Islamabad on Thursday that this earthquake was more devastating than the Indian Ocean tsunami in terms of the extent of destruction to infrastructure and the number of people rendered homeless.

Indeed, the anxiety that has been expressed by some relevant experts is truly alarming. United Nations' Emergency Relief Operator Jan Egeland, a familiar face from the coverage of tsunami and the recent hurricanes in the United States, was in Muzaffarabad on Thursday and he felt that time was running out for survivors in remote places as winter was setting in. "I've never seen such devastation before. We are in the sixth day of operation, and every day the scale of devastation is getting wider", he told reporters.

As for Katrina, with those dreadful glimpses of the plight of ordinary and mainly black citizens of the US trapped in a sports stadium in New Orleans, an ominous reference was made even by President General Pervez Musharraf. On the second day of the disaster, he said that it had taken some time for a country like America to get to the people trapped in New Orleans. His message was: "bear with us, it is only 24 hours after the disaster struck".

Speaking to the nation on Wednesday, October 12, -- incidentally the sixth anniversary of the military coup that brought him into power -- he did concede some delay in the launching of the rescue and relief operations. But there was the obvious explanation, and fairly credible, too. In the mountainous terrain, communications were difficult after landslides and it was not possible to carry heavy equipment to remote areas. However, there are still many questions about the ability of the administration to immediately comprehend the range and the nature of the disaster beyond the collapse of the Margalla Towers in Islamabad.

But an analogy with Katrina can be very deceptive. In Katrina, the people were not trapped in collapsed buildings, wounded and maimed, as they were in parts of Azad Kashmir and the Frontier province. One can only imagine the agony of those whose near and dear ones were lying buried in the rubble and we would never know how many more lives could have been saved if the rescue operation had been more efficient and prompt. In one respect, though, Katrina's example was pertinent. Viewers felt exasperated by the fact that television reporters could reach places, with their equipment, where the official agencies had not yet arrived. Incredible, isn't it?

Gradually, when the reality of the catastrophe manifested itself, the nation was overwhelmed with grief and concern. In human terms, the stories that emerged were heartbreaking. One reason why we felt so helplessly involved in the misery and anguish of the affected people was an excellent coverage by the satellite channels, including our own, independent media. In addition, so many of us were able to personally connect with the tragedy because we knew some of the people who had lost their lives or the people who had suffered bereavement. The outpouring of sympathy and compassion surprised many of us who otherwise had a poor impression of the sense of community of our people. It was good to realise that in spite of the damage that has been done by the authoritarian rule and animosity towards social activism, the common people are still able to care and feel for the collective pain of the nation.

As for the different issues and mystifications that have troubled us in a general sense, consider the fact that areas in Azad Kashmir bore the brunt of the disaster. Now, Kashmir has been the focal point of our national security policies throughout our history. It is proverbially our jugular vein. We have fought wars for Kashmir and devoted such a large part of our meagre and precious resources to defence for about six decades. In this process, we boastfully have become a nuclear power. Obviously, our military presence in Azad Kashmir had to be pronounced.

But how well have we been able to protect the lives and homes of the Kashmiris who consider themselves as Pakistanis? After all, this is one area the military should have known intimately. Their presence in Azad Kashmir, with their equipment and supplies, would be taken for granted. This expression of doing something on a war footing would seem to have a literal implication in this case. Alas, our rescue teams were unable to reach such important places as Bagh for almost five or six days.

Meanwhile, there was this squabble about the Indian troops crossing the Line of Control to help repair some bunkers of the Pakistani soldiers. According to some reports from the Indian army, the Pakistani soldiers invited the Indians to help them rebuild some of their bunkers after sleeping in the open in increasingly cold temperatures. But the Pakistani army spokesman asserted that these reports were "unimaginable" and "purely fabricated". It should also be noted that the Indian government was harshly criticised for not doing enough for the earthquake victims on its side of the disputed territory.

For the time being, we feel devastated by this tragedy. Children have particularly been its victims, as school buildings seemed to be the first to collapse. We have seen images that will haunt us for years. At times, one could not bear to see the television coverage. All of us, in an emotional sense, have died a little in this process. Somehow, bereavement makes us passive. It drains us out. It will take us some time to come to terms with this experience and try to make sense of it all. Then, many questions will have to be asked.

The writer is a member of the staff

The pain within

Masood Hasan

In 1965, the deep rumbling tremors of the great guns sent a wave of terror across the lands closest to the war with India. It was a sound the Pakistanis were not used to other than the 23rd March or 14th August ceremonial occasions. This was different and because most of the city folk could not see the guns, the sense of fear and insecurity was heightened greatly. In Lahore, the guns were many miles away but the earth nevertheless shook and the dull thudding reverberations sent many of the macho Lahoris flying for cover across the river Ravi. Cars streamed out of the city as folks fled to safer climes. Towns like Sialkot, which were on the frontline, emptied out even faster and amongst the first deserters were the cops, which may still explain why there was relatively no looting and crime in Sialkot. But as the war carried on and reports of victories and losses poured in, a sense of being one and united in adversity started to grow, quietly and unnoticeably at first, but clear and distinct nevertheless. Since the country's creation, this was just about the first time that such an emotion had been experienced and the effect was heady.

That was 1965. Last Saturday's massive earthquake that claimed as its epicentre an area alarmingly close to the country's capital has sent shock waves right across the minds and hearts of the people who make up the 150 million citizens of this nation. The generations which experienced the 1965 war is old or gone and the younger lot -- men and women in their teens or even in their 30s have no clue about 1965. For them, this epic disaster has been something of a revelation and across the country without prompting and without orders, a wave as large as the one on Saturday has swept. Hundreds and hundreds of people desperately want to be at the scene of the earthquake's worst affected areas. They don't know quite how they will get there or indeed what they will do once they are there, but they just want to reach out and be counted. Thousands are arranging medicines, blankets, food, clothes -- anything they remotely think can help. Just about most people are cleaning out homes and cupboards, overflowing as these are in the affluent homes, taking out whatever they think needs to go. Suddenly, for many people, it is not very important how much you own but a sense of giving to those who have lost everything is prevailing and fashioning their thinking. It would be no exaggeration to say that the tragedy has moved the most cynical and world-weary amongst us. The images have overpowered our senses. People are riveted to the screen, morbidly fascinated by the pictures of horror that the cameras are beaming back. What they see appals them and yet they are driven to watch like iron filings to magnets. The images have brought the great tragedy that's wiped out a generation right into the homes of those who only felt the great tremors or were lucky not to be in the path. The relentless media exposure has brought into sharp focus the plight of fellow countrymen and women whose only fault was that they were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

While it is sad that it has taken a tragedy of epic proportions to weld us together with one purpose -- to give rather than to receive, to share the pain, to empathise with those who have neither families, homes or any means of facing the cruel days ahead, it is still something to think about. If 30,000 and more have died and in dying have given a message of unity in adversity to over 149 million of their fellow citizens, perhaps their deaths have not been in vain, but it is a terrible price examined from any angle. How wonderful would it have been had we reacted the same way without having had to pay with a single life? If this has been nature's way of imparting a lesson, it has been a cruel and expensive way to learn the truth. The fact is that we think nothing of cutting down one another, that the most apocryphal jokes about Pakistanis revolve around them forever running one another down. The Pakistanis boiling in oil in hell without a lid on the great pot is a common joke and needs no repeating. Every day, in every possible situation and in every possible way, we run each other down, lose no opportunity to score a point, drive a stake in the heart of the person next door and stab the ones ahead. The gains are petty for the most part and the disease is widespread and now part of the daily makeup we wear when interacting with one another. Within us, the Pathans largely stick together, as do the Sindhis and Baluchs, but Punjabis think nothing of cutting down one of their own. The earthquake has demolished this ethnic divide but of course the important question is how long will a tragedy keep us together? Even the most demonic tragedies start to peter out and this one will be no exception. The world is a cruel place and this great upheaval in the lives of millions will soon be yesterday's news, while their lives will never ever be the same again. This sweeping mood of giving all and sharing all will sadly not last and this euphoria of being one again, will sadly evaporate in the bright sunshine in which the lucky Pakistanis who have not lost anything, will surely bask. One only wishes that somehow this feeling of unity in adversity remains with us and starts to shape our thinking, not only of those who are at the receiving end but those who are in power today, political, military or financial.

I have travelled a great deal in Azad Kashmir, thanks to my father who was in service there and later my cousin and brother in law, K.H. Khurshid, who is buried in the capital. When news of Muzaffarabad's devastation came through, I wondered how he would have reacted were he with us today. I know that he deeply cared for this part of the valley since the other one, our home in Srinagar, was out of reach. I remember quite well the picturesque Bagh and Rawalakot and Dhirkot with their lush and deep pine forests and Muzaffarabad -- to name four places and I now accept reluctantly, that these are gone.

After a gap of many years I was in Muzaffarabad a few months back and had difficulty in recognizing how the city had changed and grown. It was a gentle afternoon and the two rivers at whose confluence the capital has grown, glistened in the late sunshine. We stopped to pick up a couple of cold water bottles from a kiosk and the young handsome Kashmiri youth, grinned as he gave me the coldest bottles. When I gave him five rupees extra, he grinned even more. In my heart and without any knowledge or proof, I just feel that he is gone too. A stranger whom I had never met before and never met afterwards -- and still the strange bond that united us that golden day seems to have been severed forever. "In the mid'st of life we are in death."

The writer is a columnist based in Lahore