Grievances on Cleanliness in Islamabad: Sanitation Department of CDA

Hardworking Cleaning Staff of CDA's Sanitation Department, Islamabad

During my stay in Islamabad, I made sure that the neighborhood's cleanliness be maintained. Neighbors (especially shopkeepers and their families living in apartments on or under the shops) here are quite comfortable throwing garbage bags in front of others' house and particularly if it is located in front of the green belt. If you have a market (big or small) close-by then it is definitely going to add misery to your life.

Cleaning campaign by CDA

I called Sanitation Department of CDA, Islamabad (Capital Development Authority) over one hundred times, only 7% of the times action was taken in that regard. I wanted them to fine/penalize the residents for throwing garbage all over the place in spite of regular visit of janitors door to door but was told by the Director that CDA does NOT have the power to fine the people. Viola!

Scavenger's horse grazing

How will we ever have the writ of law in a country like Pakistan where people know that they can get away with everything....even killing a person or burning a person alive  to minor stuff like throwing garbage anywhere and justifying it in the name of Allah or whatnot.

Garbage being picked up by CDA: A very wrong method which will make the janitor a lifetime back-ache patient (change the damn trollys)

I called my residential area's supervisor for sanitation and also the cleaning staff. They told me that people are abusive and are even ready to beat them up. I fully understand the situation hence, I gave up on the staff. I called Chairman CDA's office. They were kind enough to listen to me and referred me to Director General Civic Management: Mr. Rawal. I submitted written applications. Actions were taken, cleaning campaign kicked off and lasted until 8:00pm in the evening (I'm thankful to them)  but then this is NOT the solution that may last long-term. Here, I have to say that everything is based on short-term solutions, sadly.

Scavenger woman in search of recyclable garbage in Islamabad

I believe that in this particular case, solution lies in punishing the culprits. This is a time tested rule worldwide. Singapore is the world's cleanest city/country. Why? Are people law abiding or genetically different from the rest? NO. Laws are tough & are enforced. In Singapore, heavy fines, punishments and penalties are something you can NOT escape from and hence, resulted in creating the cleanest city of the world.

Cleanliness is close to Godliness...I guess???
In a Pakistani culture where mosques, madrassas and mullahs have increased a thousand times in the past 10 -15 years, society per se has become less God-fearing and more mullah-fearing. It is very, very unfortunate. Looking deep, Islam's philosophy revolves around self reflection and considering God (Allah ) as supreme. Man - God relationship is direct without any intermediary. This doesn't seems to be the case anymore.

Lal Masjid: Melody Chowk - Islamabbad

The other day, at the end of Jummah (Friday) prayers, the Imam asked on a loud speaker to pray for Mr. XYZ to have children since his wife couldn't bear a child for the past 3 years. I was literally shocked to hear that but what I want to say is: would our Imam also add up to his priorities - the importance of keeping a clean neighborhood, not throwing garbage etc. to his sermons and doa?

Mosques in Pakistan have failed to give back to the society as much as they could. They have surely taken a lot. NOT once in a khutbah have I heard the Imam of a mosque to focus on some meaningful topics to address and there is plenty to talk about. All I heard was: give us money we have to expand the mosque and thus, build yourself a house in heaven....!  Mosque (masjid) is a place where people can really learn a lot - historically, it was a hub of social networking and also a seat of learning. Organizing lectures on basics topics such as cleanliness and good moral values through Imams can be a very effective and good start but that is NOT the agenda of mosques - Jihad is. Family of the Imam and the moazzan of our neighborhood mosque throw garbage on the main street. I witnessed his young daughter doing so. What will he teach  to others?? Charity begins at home...right?

I told the Director General of Civic Management  (CDA), that people are very offended by me. Since, we are in a habit of abusing, torturing, throwing acid at, killing, shooting or burning people alive - I see myself as a potential target when I leave home for morning walks. With this fear in my head, I continued my daily walks and was stubborn to tell people not to throw garbage here and there, if and when I saw that happening. Nevertheless, this is really NOT the cause worth dying for! My close friends and family said to me again and again: come back alive, please. I can NOT guarantee anything but then, life is in God's hand.I know HE is watching over me. I'm NOT asking too much, though.

I hope people realize that clean mind, house, street, neighborhood, city and country are really a blessing and no wonder, Islam has emphasized on it, again and again.
I wish, people could understand this simple yet beautiful idea!

Maybe in Ramadan, we will learn to practice this habit of NOT throwing garbage all over the place except the designated bins. Abide by law, I know that it is hard in a lawless country but still. Technically, it  takes 15 days only to make something your lifelong  habit. I will surely pray for that...


Note:
I'm utterly grateful to CDA management for addressing my grievances but they MUST CHANGE the rules of the game!

How to get to Directorate of Sanitation, CDA, Islamabad: It is across from Lal
Masjid, A huge board will indicate the directions. The sector is G-6/1-3.

Mohammad Hanif's Article on Ziaul Haq

........................................Muhammad Hanif writes about General Ziaul Haq -  third military dictator of Pakistan, that he is still alive after all these years in different shapes and forms. Zia is very famous for Islamization of Pakistan but not many people in Pakistan know that he was one of the main characters of "Black September" that killed an estimated 5,000-75,000 Palestinians to restore the monarchy of King Hussian of Jordan.
For his services in Jordan, Bhutto promoted him and made him the Chief of Army Staff and within a year Zia staged a coup d'etat against Bhutto. Zia later led America's war in Afghanistan against the Soviets which which he marketed in Pakistan and the Muslim world as Jihad against the infidels. In reality it was actually a master plan of  Charlie Wilson's. (For more read George Crile's  book: Charlie Wilson's War (2003), a New York Times best-seller).

When the last Soviet soldier left Afghanistan in February 1989, Wilson was invited to celebrate at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. On a large movie screen in an auditorium flashed a huge quotation from Pakistan's president at the time, General Mohammad Zia ul-Haq: "Charlie did it." The Soviet Union collapsed two years later. So this is Zia in brief.

I think Muhammad Hanif has written one of the most honest and hard - hitting article on General Zia who slowly poisoned the entire Pakistan. No wonder when one ethnic group kills another or one sect or one religious groups persecutes another - all I can think of is Zia's era. Hanif puts it beautifully .....


اگر یہ بچوں کی کہانی ہوتی تو ہم یہاں پر کہہ سکتے تھے کہ پس ثابت ہوا کہ ظلم کو دوام نہیں، ظالم کو کوئی اچھے لفظوں

  میں یاد نہیں رکھتا اپنے آپکو خدا سمجھنے والے ریت کے بت ہوتے ہیں۔ تاریخ سب سے بڑی منصف ہے اور اُسکی کی سب سے بڑی سزا یہ ہے کہ وہ آپ کا نام نشان مٹا دیتی ہے۔ دیکھو، دیکھو کیا عبرت کا نشان ہے کہ جس شخص نے پوری قوم کو ٹکٹکی پر لٹکایا۔ آئین کو کاغذ کا چیتھڑا بتایا....... جو اپنے لوگوں کو غلام بنا کر افغانستان، بھارتی پنجاب اور کشمیر کو آزاد کرانے چلا جس نے اپنی طمع کو اللہ کا قانون قرار دیا اور اللہ کے قانون کو گلی گلی بدنام کیا۔ آج اس کا نام بھی بھلا دیا گیا۔

 
He further says:

ضیاء کسی انسان کا نام ہوتا تو شاید ہم بھول گئے ہوتے، لیکن وہ ایک سوچ کا نام تھا، فکر کا نام تھا۔ یا یوں کہیے ایک وبا کا نام تھا جو ہمارے خون میں سراعیت کر گئی اور ہمیں پتہ بھی نہ چلا۔
جب بھی کبھی ’زندہ ہے بھٹو زندہ ہے‘ کا نعرہ سنتا ہوں تو جی چاہتا ہے کہ ان دیوانوں کو سمجھاؤں کہ نہیں بھٹو پھانسی پر جھول گیا آؤ تمہیں دکھاتا ہوں کہ کون زندہ ہے۔ دیکھوں تمھاری سڑکوں، چوکوں پر، تمہاری ریڈیائی لہروں پر، تمہارے موبائل فون کی رِنگ ٹون میں، جدھر دیکھو، جدھر سنو، ضیاء زندہ ہے۔

وہ زندہ ہے ہمارے بچوں کو پڑھائی جانے والی کتابوں میں، ان کو سنائی جانے والی لوریوں میں، ہمارے آئین میں، قانون میں، اس قانون کی حفاظت کرنے والوں کے ضمیر میں، اس قانون کو اللہ کا قانون بنانے کا وعدہ کرنے والے کے دماغ میں۔ وہ زندہ ہے مسجدوں میں پھٹنے والے سرفروش نوجوانوں کے دلوں میں، وہ زندہ ہے ٹی وی کے ڈراموں میں، ٹی وی ٹاک شو کے میزبانوں میں، ہمارے حلق سے نکلی جعلی عربی آوازوں میں، وہ زندہ ہے حجابوں میں، نقابوں میں، ہیروئین کی دولت سے بنے محلوں میں، لگثرری عمروں میں، حرام کو حلال کرتے بینک اکاؤنٹوں میں۔ 


وہ زندہ ہے شادی پہ چلائی جانے والی کلاشنکوف کی آواز میں، وہ چھپا ہے ہر اُس چوک پہ جہاں ستر سالہ بڑھیا بھیک مانگتی ہے اور آپکو حاجی صاحب کہہ کر پکارتی ہے۔ وہ زندہ ہے ہر اس پولیس والے کے سوال میں جب وہ کہتا ہے نکاح نامہ کہاں ہے۔ وہ اپنا خراج مانگتا ہے جب کہتا ہے کہ دوسروں کو کافر 
قرار نہیں دوگے تو شناختی کارڈ نہیں ملے گا۔

وہ زندہ ہے اور آسیہ بی بی کی کال کوٹھڑی کا پہرے دار ہے۔ وہ ہر احمدی، ہر شیعہ، ہر ہندو، ہر عیسائی کے سر پہ لٹکی تلوار ہے۔

وہ زندہ ہے ہمارے سیاسی ڈھانچے میں، ہماری چادر اور چار دیواری میں، ہمارے احتساب میں، ہمارے مثبت نتائج میں، ہمارے نظام مصطفیٰ کی تلاش میں، ہمارے امتِ مسلمہ کے خواب میں، وہ زندہ ہے ہمارے ہر عذاب میں۔

جب احمد پور شرقیہ کے چنی گوٹھ چوک پر ہزاروں لوگ اکھٹے ہوتے ہیں اور ایک ملنگ پر تیل چھڑکنا شروع کرتے ہیں تو وہ اس ہجوم میں شامل ہر شخص کے دل میں زندہ ہے۔ جب ملنگ کو آگ لگائی جاتی ہے اور وہ چیختا ہے تو لوگوں

 کی سفاکانہ خاموشی میں سے یہی آواز آتی ہے۔ دیکھو میں زندہ ہوں۔

You can read the original article by Muhammad Hanif of the fame of " A Case of Exploding Mangoes (2008) "  at BBC Urdu here in a better/clearer format.

Nasim Zehra's: From the canvas of consciousness

I am posting this article "From the canvas of consciousness" by Nasim Zehra without her prior permission but I hope she will forgive! It was published in 2007 after the Lal Masjid episode.



From the Canvas of Consciousness

It is hard to recall another event in Pakistan's non-war days which captured the hearts, minds, time and attention of the entire nation, as did the 10-day-long Lal Masjid siege and operation. It was one event which suddenly flared up so much around us and within us. There are countless questions.

What are our values and principles as a nation, where have we journeyed, who is managing us, where are we headed, our we destined to be divided, who is the enemy, was the one that killed 45 innocent people in Karachi less deadly than the one inside Lal Masjid, why do we insist on calling these armed militias Islamic militants, why don't we see their politics as an extension of the failure of our politics, why don't we understand the processes by which these militias were eased into the power fray in our public spaces by all those who now want them extinguished, can we extinguish the 'other' let alone our own? No matter how dangerous and deadly they were we cannot deny that they were our own. Yes we punish even our own too when they go astray, but we must be cautious in the application of force when they are our own.

Will we ever know the extent their deadliness beyond the completely illegal vigilante actions they had taken turning the mosque into a small time arsenal and keeping many boys as hostages. Standing outside Lal Masjid on July 7, a group of four men from Peshawar, Taxila, Mardan and Dir said their sons had told them on the cell phone that they wanted to come out but feared the men inside Lal Masjid would shoot them. We will never know how deadly the men inside were. The ferociously bulleted insides of the Lal Masjid and Madressah Hafsa only tell us about the weaponry and the attacking force used, not what those inside used.

There was never any doubt that the Lal Masjid group seemingly led by Marhoom Rashid Ghazi had to be reined in. For far too long they had been given free rein. Ghazi sahib was a stubborn and finally a self-destructive man. In the narrow and correct definition of law he qualified as the enemy of the state. What remains unclear is if all this blood had to be spilled to get him. Did it have to end this way, could he not have been defanged, de-weaponized and de-linked from his group and his base? Perhaps mindful of all these questions the state had opted for negotiations -- as if a Waziristan kind of accord was underway. Shujaat, the man of peace whose instinct was overruled like earlier in the case of Bugti, was against the final assault. He wanted a settlement. Finally what was a hasty retreat from the negotiations seemed incongruent when the state backed by three cordons of varied but lethally armed forces had been so wisely patient for all those days. The death of a commando officer and maybe the fear that the Supreme Court would issue stay order on the operation the next morning triggered the haste.

The media brought as much transparency as it possibly could in this combat. Maybe even too much. If Marhoom Ghazi was being elevated as a brave rebel, if not a hero, through television interviews it was because the government was ok with it. Why else would the government not jam Ghazi's cell phones? Thos attacking the media must ask the government what its rationale was for letting the dialogue carry on till the last day.

Meanwhile we were never shown the deadly tribe inside. Throughout the seven days we were told about the 'wanted foreigners' inside. Figures ranged from 40 to many more. Some "terrorists" with even head money were inside. But now the foreigners seem to be missing. The two earlier identified by the state have been claimed by Pakistani families. Some tunnels earlier identified have also disappeared. How long did the operation last no one knows. We were told almost 48 hours.

Many untruths had come from Marhoom Ghazi. From July 9 onwards, he was claiming there were almost 200 dead bodies inside. It is unlikely that those were found. He said there were hundreds of women and children. While we don't know how many bodies disappeared or were burnt in the ghastly grenade shower, not too many parents came to claim their lost, certainly not the numbers that the opposition was claiming. But equally, there is no doubt that some collective burials in haste and in secret were also done. We will never know too many facts too soon. But many will speak from all sides.

The journey of the men inside Lal Masjid and the women and children inside Hafsa leading them to this end will have to be traced, truthfully. They could not have defied nature's most fundamental rule. You must reap what you sow. Apples don't grow when mangoes are planted. Peace, tolerance and compassion don't flow from lessons in intolerance, self-righteousness and exclusive piety. But what caused these original inputs into their minds and hearts, what caused the lovely young girls to lose their childhood to that tough and harsh worldview? The apartheid in Pakistan between the rich and economically disadvantaged extends across the entire spectrum of existence; from respect and dignity, to basic amenities, to job availability, to access to food, the exposure to art and culture, the list is endless. Lal Masjid will not go away easily. It will symbolize the worst-ever manifestation of the saying that 'chickens come home to roost.' But they were our people on all sides. The most frustrating of all is the realization that some of this, if not all, was inevitable.

The Supreme Court did well by intervening to ensure that Ghazi's sisters go for his funeral, that the state return the mother's body to the sisters and, even better now, it will stay its course on overseeing the human rights situation of whatever is left of the Lal Masjid case. The moral authority of the state, that is drawn from justice and fair play, has been on the wane for a while. And now in the non-compartmentalized, all encompassing consciousness of the Pakistani citizen many scenes play in her/his mind and heart: the orchestrated killings of May 12, the hanging of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the Waziristan accord with Nek Mohammad, the release of many Al-Zulfiqar fighters by Zia and Nawaz Sharif's exit after having been convicted by the Supreme Court. All these are different instances in different circumstances, so the comparison may not hold. But how do stop the mind seeing the hypocrisy of the state, its double play.

For long the margin of error has not been available to the Pakistani power players. Every error extracts its own cost. The action, however tragic, against Lal Masjid was inevitable. In the minefield of contradictions and controversies this too will extract its cost. We can only pray that it does not go beyond what we have already witnessed. Lal Masjid has let out many messages. One, the state means business. Two, in its language the state confuses religion with politics (Lal Masjid was in fact a challenge to state authority by militias, originally patronized by the state. In Pakistan militias have been allowed to challenge the state and society in the name of justice, religion, ethnicity and national security). Three, it has deepened the suspicion between the state and the people and the state can no longer take its authority over the society for granted; it is lost and has to be reclaimed, on the unfolding canvass of the Pakistani consciousness.

In Pakistan the attempt to label society as good Muslim and bad Muslims will prove to be the country's undoing. Neither the society, nor the army, nor other institutions of the state will find this acceptable, no matter who authors this divide, w Marhoom Ghazi sahib or the top general in the maze of challenges. The only valid divide is the lawful and unlawful Pakistanis, those who live by the law and those who live by breaking the law. This alone is the touchstone that a diligent Supreme Court must promote and protect.

The writer is an Islamabad-based security analyst.

Email: nasimzehra@hotmail.com