Siachen: Hell At 20,000 Feet

On the morning of April 7th, Pakistan woke up to the news of a terrible tragedy. At around 6:00 AM Pakistan Standard time, the Pakistani base at Gyari, near the disputed Siachen Glacier was struck by an avalanche. It buried an area of roughly a kilometer wide trapping 138 soldiers and civilians under 70 feet of snow.

Across the world, six Peruvian miners were trapped in a mine collapse. Their President was on site. He was fully knowledgeable of the rescue efforts. He was also in contact with the trapped miners talking to them, encouraging them, giving them hope.  Meanwhile, our President diligently went about the demanding job of thoroughly enjoying his vacation and documenting it with photographs of all of his teeth displayed in wide smiles like a trophy president.  But then that begs the question: What contest in hell did we win to get this trophy?

Do we even know why our troops were there? According to historical data, the Siachen glacier was not divided in the Simla agreement because UN officials presumed, mistakenly, there would be no dispute between India and Pakistan over such a harsh and barren region.The conflict started when American maps started showing the entire 5,000 km of the glacier as part of Pakistan and Pakistan started believing it. They proceeded to profit from it by issuing permits for mountaineering expeditions. This caught the attention of the Indian Government and started a conflict in 1984 which has lasted to this day.

Siachen, the name, ironically meaning a bed of wild roses, is the highest battleground on earth. Both, India and Pakistan, maintain a permanent military presence in the region at a terrible cost. During this time approximately 8,000 lives have been lost. Only a fraction of them have been combat related. The rest of the deaths have been due to  frostbite, altitude sickness, heart failure, inadequate cold weather equipment, avalanches and landslides. According to The News, the cost to maintain this conflict has been estimated at upwards of Rs. 50 million per day for Pakistan.

Who will be the first to realize that this a senseless war, being fought over a piece of god-forsaken land. The human toll is enough for governments to take notice.  One Pakistani soldier dies every three to four days. But what of those they leave behind. Entire families depend on one person. As a soldier dies, a family is condemned. If the government could peacefully resolve Siachen and reallocate the money, these soldiers would not die needlessly in a frozen wasteland leaving behind families to fend for themselves in an unforgiving world.  There are no houses for these families, no college-funds for the fatherless children. Only a bleak and uncertain future. So the toll is two-fold. Not only does the country lose valuable assets when soldiers die, their children, the next generation of future doctors, educators, engineers are also sentenced to hopelessness and uncertainty. Some of these families never recover. They are barely getting by in a soldier's salary, without it they have nothing. What could the future possibly hold for these children except a downward spiral into oblivion? In some of these cases the only salvation and sense of purpose these children find might be among the ranks of radical organizations like the Taliban, who can exploit their anger and resentment.

Alongside everything, the military presence on the glacier is destroying the environment.  While most of the glaciers on the Karakoram side have expanded in the past years, Siachen has reduced in size by 30 percent. Experts claim that half of that is due to troop movements. The waste that is being generated by these troops and dumped into the glacier has been estimated at more than 2000 pounds per day. The garbage consists of human waste, plastic and metal which is further poisoning the ecosystem. The indigenous wildlife is being threatened. The melting water from this glacier feeds many  rivers, Indus among them. These waters are being poisoned by toxins generated by the garbage and leaching into the rivers. So, we are basically fighting over a giant melting ice cube where nobody wanted to live in the first place.

But as usual, inflated egos get in the way of logical  reasoning. How long will it take for governments to realize that there is no military solution to this problem. That much should be obvious after almost thirty years of stalemate. Bilateral talks are the way to a resolution but egos need to be checked at the door.  Make it a demilitarized zone. Bring our boys back home. Reallocate those thousands of dollars from the destructiveness of  war to projects of peace and progress. Use that money to feed and educate our people rather than put our bravest in harms way.

According to Indian Foreign Minister, Ranjan Mathai, when Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh offered his help to Pakistan, Zardari thanked Manmohan Singh for his offer and said that he would check if there was any requirement, he would revert. (http://www.aajkikhabar.com/en/news/manmohan-zardari-meet-2012-talks-on-for-avalanche-tragedy/692655.html ) Maybe that was the point where our president could have taken the first step towards a non-military resolution instead of sounding totally oblivious to a great tragedy. I hope he had a great time during his vacation while our troops died as a result of senseless policies.  

Acceptable Losses?

A US Soldier has been charged with the mindless slaughter of 17 Afghan villagers. His lawyers claim that he is not responsible for his actions, as he was suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD. The lawyer is confident that his client will not be charged, as he cannot be held responsible for his actions. Instead of the death penalty or even a lifetime of incarceration, there is a possibility that this soldier will spend his life in therapy.

PTSD is a debilitating condition which affects people who witness, or are a part of, situations where they are in danger of great injury or death. It is often assumed that this is a condition prevalent only in soldiers, but nothing can be further from the truth. Civilians living in violence are just as prone to be affected by this condition as soldiers. A survey of refugees in a Bosnian camp revealed that approximately 33% were suffering with depression, 25% were diagnosed with PTSD while 20% exhibited symptoms of both depression and PTSD. Also, these civilians are also prone to ill health later in life at a greater than others.  

The Afghan people have been living in a war-torn country for generations. They have been exposed to all of the civilian markers of this debilitating condition. They have been bombed, they have been shot at and they have been displaced from their homes. They have lost loved ones, suffered from financial and physical hardships and been restricted from food, water and other necessities. They have suffered, witnessed and have perpetrated violence and are now suffering the consequences.

To cope with the symptoms, most turn to hardcore drugs and prefer to drown out the memories. Few try their hand at making light of the situation. A group of Afghans interviewed about their experiences couldn't stop laughing while recalling their stories. One of them, between bouts of laughter,  talked about how he had been tortured by three different regimes as he had tried to overthrow all three of them. But humour is not enough to cure this dangerous and relentless condition. Not only did this man appear to be ten years older than his peers, he also died of bad health a few years after his interview.

Most of these civilians either don't realize that there is anything wrong with them, or don't admit it. To add insult to injury, the few Afghans who, either themselves realize that they have a problem or have relatives who are concerned, have nowhere to go for help. The closest hospital, where these psychological problems can be dealt with, is in Peshawar, Pakistan. Getting there is a perilous and stress inducing journey in itself. Regardless, they come to Peshawar with hopes of putting the demons of war to sleep. Some making the trip from as far away as Kabul.

The doctors in Peshawar are already dealing with a dramatic rise in mental health problems among Pakistanis living in the tribal areas along the border. Some claim that these numbers have increased threefold.  In the border areas, people are constantly exposed to conflicts between the Pakistani army and the militants. They also live in constant fear of death from American drone attacks. This constant exposure to mindless violence leads to all sorts of psychological disorders.  

These doctors are overwhelmed by the volume of tragedies that they are facing. One psychologist who runs a private hospital often ends up diagnosing and treating up to 70 patients per day. Some nights, he is treating patients until midnight and ends up spending the night in his hospital.  Almost all patients are sent away with a prescription for antidepressants and tranquilizers. There is not much else he can do with the sheer number of patients and the limited resources at hand. These patients need psychotherapy, family therapy, cognitive and behavioral therapy as well as coping skills for dealing with their life.  

PTSD is not the exclusive domain of the American soldier. It does not discriminate. It is an equal opportunity life-destroyer and, in some sort of a weird karmic payback loop, it targets the oppressors and the oppressed alike. But, most of all,  those affected, whether warriors or innocent bystanders, need the eyes of the world on them.

WE WERE DESTINED FOR GREATNESS!

A man and his brother killed and a woman injured. They were attacked by armed gunmen who wanted them dead because of a difference in political belief.  Is human life worth so little that it can be snuffed out over a difference of political opinion. Do we hate each other so much that we can justify murder?   

What happened to us? We fought for our freedom against insurmountable odds. We stood up against the British Empire and we won. At that time when countries were being carved out of the world on ethnicities, we stood together, shoulder to shoulder. Sindhis, Baluchis, Pathans, Muhajirs, and Punjabis and fought hard to demand a nation on the basis of our beliefs, as Muslims.  Why, now, are we fighting just as hard to break our country apart?

Is each group so dissatisfied with the state of affairs that they are willing to pull apart from what they fought so hard for, a mere 60 years ago? The separatists in Baluchistan want their own nation because the army has laid siege to their villages and cut off their supplies. According to a report by UNICEF, the Bugti and Marri children are among the most malnourished in the world. The Sindhi separatists want their own nation because their resources are being looted, they are denied growth and development. FATA has always been out of the range of the Constitution. Muhajirs want to preserve the integrity of the country, but they yearn for a province of their own as they feel that they need to fight for their rights. The Punjabis seem to be biding their time. Under these circumstances, who wouldn’t feel powerless and marginalized?

But tearing our country apart is not the answer. What we seem to forget is that we -- the common people -- have all the power. During these hard times, we have seen leaders emerge who hold the confidence of their people. If there are people that the Baluchis, Sindhis or Pathans consider competent enough to lead them out of disaster, then elect them to positions of power. Take a lesson from the Muhajir playbook. Elect your representative to power and then hold them accountable.  Don’t do away with the federal government, but make your provincial governments stronger. If they fail you, find new leaders.

We are a strong and proud people. We are passionate about what we want. We have leaders among us. How long are we going to keep making the same mistakes, electing the same heartless souls to power again and again,only to push us further into misery? We should all rise up and stand together once again, and fight the corruption and hatred that is eating us from the inside. We should vote according to who will work for us. We make the mistake of voting for political parties because of a warped sense of loyalty.That is where we go wrong.  Let them compete for our vote rather than us competing for their handouts. If the party you have been voting for through generations is not fulfilling its promises, don’t vote for them. Vote for a person who is sincere, even if he belongs to a different party. Then we will have a progressive society where the voters are empowered.

One strong country. A country where the voters have the power and the government is the public servant. This is the goal towards which we should strive. The people who make decisions that affect the life of the common man on the street should be from the streets. What do the privileged elite know of our pain? Have they ever gone hungry? Have they ever looked for a job? Have they ever worried about where the next meal will come from?

Let us come together as a nation and not as the tattered fragments of one. Let us burn our old animosities and prejudices and rise together as one, stronger than ever. Then, and only then, will we be noticed. It is time we stop being the victims and become game-changers and king-makers.

LYARI: PPP’S STEPCHILD

Kala Naag, Dadal, Laloo, Babu Dacait, Rehman Dacait...these names seem to be of characters straight out of a bad Bollywood flick. But they are far from figments of imagination. These are actual people who grew up to be feared, hated, and in some cases, gunned to death in streets like animals. Some might say that they got what was coming to them, that they were the scum of the earth while others might say that their only misfortune might have been that they were born in a pit called Lyari.

Lyari is one of the oldest settlements of Karachi. It is the smallest town by area but the most densely populated, home to about a million souls. These people are served by a few understaffed schools, a few substandard hospitals. Water is scarce and so is electricity. Roads are riddled with potholes and sanitation is just a concept. Basic needs to live a decent, hopeful life are absent, but the community is rich in certain assets. One of them is loyal voters for the Pakistan Peoples Party. The representatives win overwhelmingly from the district of Lyari, but have they ever walked in the shoes of their constituents? Do they know what a day in the life of a Lyari resident is like? None of them has ever lived there. They might not have even tasted the water from Lyari, for which its residents were paying fifty rupees per hundred litres until Mustafa Kamal, while in office as Mayor of Karachi, brought water to their homes. Yet come election time, the representatives of PPP drive in on their fancy rides and promise the heaven and earth to them and the loyal people of Lyari come through for them again and again.

The residents of Lyari have been ignored and marginalized by their representatives in office. Their needs have been consistently sidelined by their leaders. They have witnessed every form of violence, every insecurity. They have come to accept this hopelessness as a way of life. When confronted, these representatives blame everything on “gangsters,” but have no viable plans to curb the violence. One would think these are the forgotten people...but this couldn't be further from the truth. Maybe there is some method to this madness. If you look closely at chaos you start to discern patterns.

Violence and hopeless environments always breed a very unique people. Lyari is where you go when you need your dirty work done, when you need a place to hide a hostage, when you need an assassin, when you need desperate people to do desperate things. It has become a safe haven for criminals and separatists from Baluchistan. Drugs and bullets are the currency of the streets and necessities are given as payment by benevolent benefactors. As long as Lyari is on fire, there will always be an army for hire and an unpatrolled “no-go” area for war. It’s like having your own little piece of hell where demons are bred unchecked.

All the journalists sitting with the “peaceful” leaders of Lyari with ajraks (traditional fabrics from the region of Sindh) around their necks, discussing how Lyari is peaceful and law-abiding should maybe look for new careers, because pandering to their benefactors and producing these puff piece documentaries is not journalism.  These people deserve respect and hope for a future. We need to know what the mothers and fathers of Lyari want. What do they see when they look at the faces of their new-born babies? Do they see doctors and engineers, or do they see drug dealers and killers?

It is time to stop treating Lyari like the waste disposal unit of a giant machine, serving a vital purpose as long as you don't let the stench bother you. It is time to humanize Lyari and elevate it to the status it so richly deserves.  

What Is Your Country Worth To You?

It has been said that for every piece of land there is someone who is willing to die for it. Unfortunately for Pakistan, those kinds of people are a rarity. But the number of people who are willing to sell Pakistan for a personal gain has seen a tremendous rise, like a festering epidemic.

It has also been said: “justice delayed is justice denied.” But justice is not only delayed, it is ignored for the sake of convenience when petitions are put away to “mature” for twelve years or more before seeing the light of day.

There is a list of politicians and members of the media who were allegedly offered money by the ISI to derail PPP in the 1990 elections. In retrospect, whether the outcome of that election was detrimental or beneficial for the country is not the topic of discussion here today.The point is, that influencing the election process by any form of coercion is unconstitutional in its most benign form and treasonous in its most malignant. The leaders who accepted the money, were they not bound by duty to protect the constitution? Were the rewards so great that they sold their country? Or were the consequences so dire that they had to betray their country? And finally, was it worth it?

As a matter of fact, it was an offer that, apparently, could have been refused.There were those who said, “no thank you,” and took the high road.  But those people are in a minority close to extinction. The integrity, loyalty and love of country that are the requirements for leaders of  a nation are the first aspects of character that seep out of a person when they decide on a political career. The tragedy is that decisions of prosperity or poverty, life or death for the common man, are made by these uncommon men whose first act in office is to shed all pretences of love of country and fellow man and engage wholeheartedly in the love of self. Self-preservation is the strongest of instincts and those who step beyond it and do for others are called “heroes.” We, unfortunately, are still waiting for ours. 

The Road To Hell Is Paved With Good Intentions!

I was sent an e-mail about another heart-breaking story about two women condemned to death as part of a resolution to a conflict. After hearing news like this, outrage is usually followed by discussions of women’s education and empowerment. Activists and citizens are wringing their hands in frustration. If only our system was geared towards protecting our women. If only they knew their rights. If only... but then a random comment in a random conversation took me in a totally different direction. It’s not the women who need education and empowerment, it’s the men who need education and enlightenment.

No matter how educated and powerful women become, the truth of the matter is that the entire world is male-dominated. We have to accept that as the cold, hard truth. The injustices perpetrated upon women are mostly by men who are the self-appointed judges, juries and executioners. It is said that to truly understand an act, we have to understand the motivation behind it. In their own misguided way, these people are actually trying to purge their society of evil and mischief. They feel guided by the hand of God and end up doing the Devil’s work. Intoxicated by their righteous delusions, they ride roughshod over everyone who stands in the way of their distorted version of Allah’s Utopia.

The Panchayats and Jirgas are mostly lead by men who do not have an enlightened education. They have never had the experience of understanding the Qur’an through Tafseer. Even those who have been educated grow up so steeped in tradition that they have a hard time separating it from religion. In their misguided way, they are trying to uphold the laws of Islam as they understand it. No one is there to tell them that Islam has no place in their version of the world, where cruelty trumps kindness every time, where forgiveness is just a word and where injustice is the law of the land.

The icing on the cake is that we have political leaders, educated in the most esteemed establishments, who by not condemning these practices, condone them. We have government officials who add insult to the injury of illiteracy by stating that a degree is a degree whether earned or forged.

I feel that Punjab is taking a step in the right direction in making the study of the Qur’an and the Arabic language mandatory in schools.  My hope is that these subjects are taught by learned and progressive teachers who can separate culture from religion and nurture a generation of men and women who not only know their own rights, but also the rights of others so that we do not end up paving our road to hell with good intentions.

DO YOU NOT HEAR THEM CRY?

Once upon a time, long, long ago…around four hundred years ago, to be exact, there was a distant land called Mianwali. Two of the tribes were fighting a long, drawn-out war. 800 lives were lost and no end was in sight. At that point both tribes saw that the conflict was not going to end well for either side and decided that a compromise should be reached where either side can call a cessation of hostilities. So naturally, some asinine genius suggested that they should each give women to the other side as a token of their “good faith.” And the rest of the asinine geniuses agreed. And thus was born the disgusting tradition of Vani.
This story in itself is tragic enough, but the horror intensifies when we realize how prevalent it is in this day and age. A shameful incident, which should have been strangled at birth grew and blossomed, blatant, repeated and unchecked.
This is a country that boasts female political leaders, ambassadors, educators, activists, doctors, lawyers….the list goes on. On the flip side of this progressive façade is the complete annihilation of women’s dignity and integrity on multiple levels. Women are traded like animals. Once traded, they loose all identity all hope. Their basic rights lie at the mercy of their masters.
Infant girls are traded as  acts of rectification or a gestures of reconciliation. How does a country with any kind of discernible judicial system stand impotently by and do so little to erase this damning tradition?
In Pakistan, all indicators of violence are present: poverty, discrimination, ignorance and social unrest.  We can blame one or all of them. But in my opinion, it is the cultural forces and their advocates that are the enemies of women’s dignity and freedom. The tribal leaders who defend these traditions claim that methods like Vani conserve peace and prevent bloodshed but in reality their main function seems to be the preservation of male domination and the total and complete subjugation of women.
Pakistan has laws against all violence against women and it consistently makes feeble attempts to bring the detractors to justice. But even if one abuser goes unpunished, it is inexcusable. It should be acknowledged as a failure of justice, not as a “well, we tried!” scenario. Women are kept away from education and enlightenment. They are brought up to be docile and submitting through conditioning. They are kept away from outside influences and they believe that once they step out of their homes in search of help, they will suffer a more horrible fate than what they are going through now.

The lawmakers in Islamabad have failed their most vulnerable citizens once again! Women are bound with the chains of financial dependence and poor education and these bindings are enforced by violence from the very people who should be protecting them.
Female empowerment is not a curse. It is latent potential waiting to explode. How can a country ever hope to prosper when it tells its women that they are not worth saving? That their life, their dignity, their honor bear no value? They are degraded from the day they are born and become prisoners of “the apartheid of gender,” a term coined by James P. Grant, the former executive director of UNICEF.
Then comes along a news article -- a blog or an Oscar Award winning documentary -- that picks at a scab and exposes the oozing reality of the unreported and ignored violence, which is part of the culture of Pakistan. The world sees it. Let this spur us on out of our apathy and compel us to erase these shameful traditions which have no place in a progressive society.
People who are dedicating their lives to abolish this heinous practice have stated time and time again that reform of the Vani laws and greater commitment from local authorities are crucial for ending the custom.
My question is to the sons of Pakistan and especially to PTI’s Imran Khan, a Mianwali native and a self-proclaimed champion of the masses: do you not hear their cries? The women of Pakistan demand to be saved. They don’t need you to beat a path of gold for them so they can walk up to the door of success. They can do that all by themselves! All they need is for someone to stand in front of them long enough so that they can take that first breath of freedom without choking on sorrow. Once they are on their feet, watch them stand with you and transform this country into the heaven that it was meant to be, when the founders first started fighting for it!