Update on Makli

I asked a friend's uncle, who is fairly active in local politics in Sindh, to ask around about the Makli business.

He was in Thatta last Sunday and had the opportunity to talk to people on both sides of the issue.

Palejo recently built something like a dyke to protect his land during heavy rainfall. Dr. Awab reported on his blog (see link above) that it was a drain. In any case, some kind of earthen construction that seems to have upped the ante - allegedly by damaging some of the artefacts in the Makli cemetry and possibly also by more clearly defining the extent of Palejo's land claim.

Palejo questions why only he is being held accountable on the issue and claims that it is no more than blackmail. In fact, he has sued Sindh TV (a private channel) and claimed that various journalists have tried to blackmail him on this issue. My interlocutor reminded me at this point that while the policeman was able to extort money from pretty much anyone in Pakistan, journalists as a body are the only segment who actually blackmail policemen, and that too on a regular basis - hence lending a general sort of credence to Palejo's claim.

It seems to be general knowledge that many other sites of historical interest have been damaged/violated through similar allotments.

Apparently, however, the Sindh Archives/Culture/Arhaeology people have said that the land belongs to the Palejo family, while the nationalist people feel that all such allotments, infringing on historical sites, are illegal.

The problem is that Sassi Palejo (a close relative of Ghulam Qadir's) is the Sindh Culture Minister and may have leaned on her ministry/department to issue a statement favourable to her family's interests.

The solution seems to lie in a full review of all historical sites in Sindh, investigation of all claims of expropriation/squatting and fair judgments in each case.

Pipe dream?

Truth & forgiveness

So many things about the 2005 film The Interpreter really bugged me - it was too typically Hollywood in its soundtrack and pan shots, the way it lionised Sean Penn (then in the limelight for all the accolades he was winning for Mystic River) the character actor, rather than letting him act out his role, and perhaps most of all, the fact that the camera just couldn't seem to get over the fact that Nicole Kidman looked drop-dead beautiful. And I'd better not get started about how the film almost exclusively presents the white farmers' case in Zimbabwe (in the film, the African portions unfold in a fictional country called Matobo). All of which meant that, out of sheer irritation at a great opportunity lost, I had more or less forgotten some pretty neat stuff.

Truth:
"The gunfire around us makes it hard to hear. But the human voice is different from other sounds. It can be heard over noises that bury everything else. Even when it's not shouting. Even when it's just a whisper. Even the lowest whisper can be heard - over armies... when it's telling the truth." -- the foreword of the autobiography that the fictional president and liberation leader of Matobo is supposed to have written.


Forgiveness:
"Everyone who loses somebody wants revenge on someone, on God if they can't find anyone else. But in Africa, in Matobo, the Ku believe that the only way to end grief is to save a life. If someone is murdered, a year of mourning ends with a ritual that we call the Drowning Man Trial. There's an all-night party beside a river. At dawn, the killer is put in a boat. He's taken out on the water and he's dropped. He's bound so that he can't swim. The family of the dead then has to make a choice. They can let him drown or they can swim out and save him. The Ku believe that if the family lets the killer drown, they'll have justice but spend the rest of their lives in mourning. But if they save him, if they admit that life isn't always just... that very act can take away their sorrow."

How can we carry word to the ignorant armies within?

IPSS Political School, Summer 2008

The school consisted of four sessions spread out over two days, the 23^rd and 24^th of August, '08.

I was lucky enough to be invited and found it a great forum for interacting with scholars and thinkers I'd heard much of (a few I'd even read) but never met or certainly not in a setting where they were so accessible.

One of the nice things about the school was that it was organised specifically with youth activists in mind, people who had participated to some extent in the groundswell of support for the movement for an independent judiciary and an end to Emergency Rule.

In addition to links to the reading material which was provided to the participants before the school, you can also listen to the sessions (both the talks and the discussions that followed) at the IPSS page. Both streaming (from imeem) and downloading from the IPSS site are supported, depending on whether you have a blazing fast connection or a slower one you can use to download the file for listening in one go (like on your mp3 player).

Dasht-e-tanhai

A friend wonders why we are afflicted with a feeling of being abnormal, of being cut off from those around us. I was reminded of something I read recently:

Seeking refuge in history, out of fear of loneliness, I immediately sought out my brother Ayn al-Quzat, who was burned to death in the very blossoming of his youth for the crime of awareness and sensitivity, for the boldness of his thought. For in an age of ignorance, awareness is itself a crime. Loftiness of spirit and fortitude of heart in the society of the oppressed and the humiliated, and, as the Buddha said, "being an island in a land of lakes," are unforgivable sins.

-- Ali Shari'ati, from the introduction to Kavir (Desert)

These Eid holidays have given me a chance to sit back and think a little, watch a little al-Jazeera too. Robert Fisk, interviewed by Riz Khan, said two very interesting things. First he said something about the most dangerous front-lines running through our minds and then he quoted Imam Ali who is supposed to have said something like "When you see another man, he is either your brother in Islam or your brother in humanity."

So, one is the message of universal brotherhood and God knows we need that to be heard and practised if we want to come out of this mess alive. The other is about the mind. Too often in the past, I've continued going through the motions, until I eventually lost steam, which would happen because I would give up mentally.

The nuclear tests in 1998, the first LFO, the war in Afghanistan, the war in Iraq, NGO corruption I've heard about or witnessed myself, Akbar Bugti's assassination, JI's infiltration of the PTI, the burial of five Baloch women in Naseerabad a few months ago... there's really a whole list of issues that I haven't read or written enough about. And if I can't even read about an issue, how can I possibly hope to go further and find people with whom to mount effective and long-term resistance to oppression?

So it's a mind game, first and foremost. Battle has to be joined in the solitude of one's mind.

And for that, I thank Awais Masood for leading the way with some really well thought-out posts.