Cover of Karl Marx

I must declare at the outset that I do not see these two concepts in a binaristic fashion as both these conepcts, at least in my field of study, have more of a dynamic and dialectical relationship rather than an agonistic one.

Postcolonial theory is often blamed for its esoteric content and for its reliance on poststructuralism. The critics can thus posit that by abjuring Marxism, postcolonial theory has, somehow, given up on any hope of a revolutionary politics and has fallen prey to the impractical assertions of some high fluting armchair philosophers and critics invested deeply in a form of depoliticized culturalism. These claims are certainly absurd and fallacious as they are based on a simplistic understanding of psotcolonialism and postcolonial theory.

In fact, one main strength of postcolonial theory happens to be its hybrid and non-foudationalist approach to study of literatures and cultures. I believe that in certain ways postcolonial theory has maintained its deeply Marxist core, but has also facilitated the evolution and development of Marxism from a party-central, vanguardist Marxism to that of structural Marxism that goes beyond the oversimplified readings of Marx. Quite a few scholars in the field, including my mentor Dr. Robin Goodman, have clearly articulated that in this phase of capital our purpose is not the end of the state but rather a reassertion of state as the last remaining bulwark against the forces of neoliberal capital. This is where postcolonial theory takes its lessons beyond the usual understanding of Marx to a level where theory informs a more nuanced and liberatory politics. But, to state simply, psotcolonialism does get a wide variety of criticisms from both ends of the global division of labor and not the elast of this criticism is directed at the opacity of the arguments offered by its leading theorists.

In order  to challenge the pseudo-oppositionality of postcolonialism and Marxism, I would like to briefly discuss one of the most important articles by, one of the most astutely poststructuralist, feminist, deconstructionist critic: Gaytari Spivak.

What I want to assert is that despite its reliance on high theory, psotcolonialism never really abdicates its responsibility to highlight certain important aspects of colonizer/colonized relationship in terms of history but also in the light of current phase of neoliberal capital. I have chosen Spivak as my scholar of use simply because she is often blamed for being too esoteric and incomprehensible, a claim that is completely unjust and can only be mobilized if one had not had a chance to really read and contemplate on her intellectual as well activist work in the world. What I want to posit is that even the so-called most opaque and esoteric postcolonial theorist relies heavily on her understanding of Marx and Marxism to posit a theory of subaltern subjectivity.

Her highly anthologized essay, “Can the Subaltern Speak[1]” is, in its very essence, a Marxist argument against certain claims of poststructuralist theory. The essay was written in response to some claims made by Foucault and Deleuze in a 1972 interview[2].

During the course of the interview, both Foucault and Deleuze make certain specific assertions. I will only deal with one of them, as that happens to be Spivak’s point of entry into this debate. At one point in the interview, while suggesting that theory is inevitably connected to praxis, Deleuze suggests that there is no representation and that people can speak for themselves, or have come to voice. Of course, this assertion immediately eliminates any vanguardist approach to the question of revolution, but it also suggests that, somehow, since people can now speak for themselves, the role of the intellectual has therefore been reduced to that of a relay, thus rendering, in Spivak’s words, the intellectual transparent.

Spivak challenges this assertion by invoking and discussing the global division of labor of which, of course, Euro-America happens to be the center and the Third World the periphery. The question for Spivak, as far as I can tell, is simply this: can we declare that the subaltern subject has come to speech without taking into account the global division of labor and its attendant class hierarchies? Her point is that both these intellectuals, while speaking “with” the subaltern still remain deeply Eurocentric. But to assume that the subaltern can speak, and thus render the intellectual transparent, is a dangerous assumption especially since it disavows representation. Spivak then provides two specific forms of representation: Datstellen (representation as speckinf for in politics) and Vertreten (representation as in art and philosophy)

It is representation as Datstellen, substitution, speaking for, the one so aptly discussed by Marx in the “18^th Brumaire of Louis Bonaprte[3]” that Spivak attempts to foreground. This is strictly linked with Marx’s theorization of class and also Marx’s answer to the question of class status for those who cannot claim it on the ground of common interests or geographic contiguity or contingency. In explaining the class status of the rural peasants, Marx, (The famous quote, misquoted even by Edward Said: “They cannot represent themselves, they must be represented”) suggests that they can be represented by the figure of the father, Napoleon himself. They come to speech, thus, through an act of representation and thus gain the status of class. Representation, therefore, is crucial to political empowerment of those who do not automatically constitute a class.

With the global division of Labor, Spivak suggests, the postcolonial sub proletariat has not come to speech and there is a need for not only representation but also a certain kind of didactics that will enable those at the other end of the global divide to learn of their own exploitation and then to forge alliances to counter the nefarious impact of policies made elsewhere for the interest of metropolitan corporation.

This, I must assert, is not classical Marxist vanguardist approach to the issues of revolution or class solidarity. This is rather the role of the intellectual and critic as the organic intellectual that Antonio Gramsci had so articulately expressed in his The Prison Notebooks. What Spivak asserts at a certain point in her argument is that one cannot abjure representation without accounting for the global division of labor and without articulating a general ideology of this moment in history.

Of course, when we invoke ideology, we also need to go beyond the epistemological model offered by Marx and must keep in mind the srtucturalist rearticulating of ideology by Althusser. In Marx, at least early Marx, ideology is a kind of false consciousness that makes the workers see the world from the point of view of the capitalists. The revolutionary act is aimed at lifting the veil so that the workers can see their real conditions of existence. In its structuralist model, since there is no real, everything is ideological and all we do is shift from one ideology to another.Postcolonial theory, in my humble opinion, does just that: it gives us the tools to choose the right ideology and liberatory philosophy without buying into the reductive explanations of classical Marxian take on ideology.

There is no outside to capital: we must therefore fight it from within but not to create a non-capitalistic utopia but to create a more humane world. Marx can be helpful there but Marx cannot give us all the answers especially since theory has moved beyond the basic assumptions of party politics and class solidarity. Didactics is a major part of this new phase of Marxist-leaning work. The critic, as Spivak asserts at the end of her essay, must not give up on representation. Furthermore, the critic and activist must also acknowledge that in the absence of a grand narrative of Marxian revolution and a centralized party, one must learn to rely more on Gramsci rather than parroting the hackneyed formulas offered by Lenin and others.

A great example of this symbiotic relationship between the intellectual and a people is that of the Zapatista movement. In the jungles of Mexico, Marcos, probably a former professor, has learned from the people but has also taught them to represent themselves in the language that the world understands. Built around the solidarity of a people, Marcos can thus learn of their desires, needs, and demands, and then as an organic intellectual render them into a language that the world understands. In such a relationship, the intellectual is not rendered transparent but is rather more palpable as he/ she not only works with the people, but also learns from them and teaches them at the same time.

If Marxism has to mean anything in today’s world, it will have to move beyond the party politics or its claims to end the state. It will have to reconfigure a mode of operation that accounts for the multiplicity of voices in the world and then articulate a vision that enables a kind of didactic relationship in which the intellectuals work with the people, share their knowledge, and defend the role and function of a redemptive and socialistic state, for the end of the state is no longer the rise of the people but rather, the ultimate rise of multinational corporations.

(Also published in Viewpoint Online)

© 2012, Masood Ashraf Raja. This article may not be reproduced in any form without providing an active attribution link/ reference to The Pakistan Forum. All attribution links within the article must also be retained.

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Mr. Umeed Khalid, Conservator Wildlife, National Council for the conservation of wildlife gave the welcome remarks. He welcomed the participants and highlighted the status of biodiversity and importance of Clearing House Mechanism in Pakistan.

Dr. Shehzad Jehanghir, Deputy Inspector General Forests, presented about the Convention on Biological Diversity and its implementation along with the targets and action plans.

Dr. Ghulam Akbar, National Programme Manager, Pakistan Wetlands Programme highlighted the major aims of the inception workshop.

The main points of the presentations were:

1)    Dissemination of National CHM Strategy and its finalization

2)    Capacity Building of the stakeholders and sharing experiences for better implementation of CHM

3)    Promote awareness and education on biodiversity of Pakistan

4)    Sharing Pakistan’s National CHM website layout and design

Syed Mehmood Nasir Inspector General Forests was the chief guest at the inaugural session. Chief Guest admired the efforts incorporated by the organisers of the workshop. He further added there is an immense need to implement these types of initiatives. The GIS Nodes developed by the Pakistan Wetlands Programme will be utilized as the CHM capacity building nodes. At the final day recommendations and suggestions were collected and will be incorporated in the strategy and the website.

Pakistan as the signatory of Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) is implementing various Programme of Works (PoWs) towards fulfillment of objectives of the Convention. Under Article 18.3 of CBD, a global Clearing House Mechanism (CHM) has been established at the level of Convention Secretariat. As per decision X/15, CHM is meant to contribute in implementing Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020 through effective information services and scientific & technical cooperation, knowledge sharing and information exchange. At national levels, CBD member countries are establishing National CHMs for sharing of knowledge, information and data related to biodiversity to facilitate implementation of their respective biodiversity strategies and action plans.

Ministry of Climate Change (former Ministry of Environment), as the focal Ministry for Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), is developing Pakistan’s National Clearing House Mechanism in collaboration with WWF-Pakistan with the support of GEF and UNEP. The National Focal Point (NFP) for CBD and NFP for CHM will be the custodian and WWF – Pakistan will be assisting the Ministry of Climate Change in developing and maintaining the Pakistan’s national CHM. A draft national CHM Strategy for Pakistan has been formulated and CHM website has been designed by WWF – Pakistan; both have to be finalized and adopted after consultation with key stakeholders including data producer and potential user groups. Data collection, formatting and authentication have been started by the Ministry through official channel for populating national CHM. The CHM website is planned to be launched officially on the occasion of “International Biodiversity Day” on 22^nd May, 2012.

For further information please visit the website (www.pakistanwetlands.org) or contact:

Contact Nasir Iqbal Malik, Coordinator, Awareness Raising and Communications, Pakistan Wetlands Programme, on landline 051-2114125-9 & personal cell no. 0301 5536468

In assuming this role as warmongers voluntarily, news media flare up the war hysteria and promote conflict and tension between rival nations. In this role the mainstream media do not kill people directly; they create a mindset to destroy the perceived “others”.

“Although there may be doubts about the media’s peacemaking potential, it can be demonstrated that news media can make matters a lot worse and can certainly contribute to the escalation of group conflicts into mass killings. This is especially so when media workers become agents for the dissemination of the ‘elimination belief’ and when media are intentionally used as weapons to incite people to commit crimes against humanity.”

Cees J. Hamelink, ‘Media Between Warmongers and Peacemakers,’ Media, War and Conflict, Vol. 1(1), 2008.

A prominent media scholar C. J. Hamelink argues that it is not the human mind that is violent; it is the media images that construct “others” or identify members of certain ethnic or religious groups as enemies. They create an image of these groups as harmful to the society or nation and consequently incite people to destroy them.

War mongering through channels of mass communication occurs through a systematic process which involves identification of the enemy, creating a negative image as a dangerous individual, group or nation and then asking the audience to act against the identified enemy.

We can see how this theory works in the contexts of South Asia where media, especially TV news channels, have increased exponentially without proper training of their staff and news personnel. This development has brought a large entourage of news personnel in the field who have no ethical boundaries and professional know how on what to report and how their mishandling the message can lead to violence against innocent people. They knowingly or unknowingly develop the warmongering hysteria among the audience against certain groups, individuals or countries.

In the context of interstate hostility the process of creating this “elimination belief” becomes comparatively easier for media as the nationalistic mindset is already there for majority of people of a country against another country perceived as their enemy.

During the 1971 and 1965 wars media were owned by the state on both sides of the bother in India and Pakistan, making it easier for both establishments to manipulate media messages against each other.

In Pakistan, private newspapers and magazines and state owned TV and radio were ideologically speaking with one voice against India and Bengalis in the 1971 war. Symbols of hatred and unimaginable myths were created to reinforce superiority of Pakistani armed forces and people and inferiority of Bengalis as coward, short and unintelligent people whose culture was closer to Hindus than Muslims.

I have also watched the media coverage of the terror attack on Taj Mahal Hotel in Mumbai by Indian and Pakistani news channels. Interestingly, news media in both countries sensationalized the event to gain sympathy and popularity of their respective audiences. It was a typical example of a pseudo-nationalistic, irrational and emotional coverage of the mainstream media to support narrowly defined religious, ethnic and official views on the horrific attack conducted by a terrorist organization in Pakistan.

While the Indian news channels blamed the whole Pakistani nation for the attack, the Pakistani coverage tried to prove that the attack was actually hatched in India. The coverage on both sides missed the real issues of interstate politics, the role of conservative forces in each country and the terrorists’ tangible purpose of the attack to infuriate tensions between the two nations.

TV news channels in this case, if not newspapers, contributed a great deal of irresponsible, sensational and unrealistic coverage which further increased the huge gulf of trust and animosities between the people of two countries. Not only the privately owned media did follow the official and popular ideology of confrontation, they terribly failed to investigate the truth behind the attack.

In Indian and Pakistani media the coverage was extremely biased, emotional divided on the Hindu-Muslim lines, further exaggerating the hatred and mistrust between the two countries. Clearly, in this case, the media served the purpose of terrorists and conservatives in both countries.

Corporate media all over the world tend to be more balanced and rational when they cover internal events within their national boundaries. But when it comes to international coverage, more often they follow the popular, official and mainstream ideological positions. This biased media coverage further contributes to interstate violence and conflict.

In assuming this role as warmongers voluntarily, news media flare up the war hysteria and promote conflict and tension between rival nations. In this role the mainstream media do not kill people directly; they create a mindset to destroy the perceived “others.”

If this warmongering role of news media is a worldwide phenomenon, how can we identify media messages and improve the overall coverage? Citing trials of the leaders of the Nazi propaganda machine after World War II, Hamelink also argues:

“Once the perpetrators of crimes against humanity are brought to justice, it usually is too late for the victims. It is therefore of utmost importance that public expressions of “elimination beliefs” are spotted–and exposed! – as early as possible.  An International Media Alert System (IMAS) is needed to monitor media contents in areas of conflict. This system would provide an ‘early warning’ where and when media set the climate for crimes against humanity and begin to motivate people to kill others.”

To him, to eradicate hate messages of media, people should establish an alert system to monitor media messages and have better knowledge of how negative images of the perceived “enemy” are being created by media anchors, reporters and participating “experts.” Within this context, media workers and participants all become harbingers of the “elimination belief.”

In other words, when the mainstream news media tend to manufacture confrontational ideologies through news coverage that lead to terrorism, violence and warmongering, analysts and media organizations themselves should establish a news monitoring system to avoid this alarming trend.

Despite the much trumpeted concept of objectivity, media have never been objective in covering news. The modern mass media with their global reach have a serious responsibility to promote peace, not war.

(Source: http://www.viewpointonline.net/media-as-warmongers.html)

© 2012, Qaisar Abbas. This article may not be reproduced in any form without providing an active attribution link/ reference to The Pakistan Forum. All attribution links within the article must also be retained.

“My red skirt is hitched up to my waist, though no higher. Below it the Commander is fucking. What he is fucking is the lower part of my body. I do not say making love, because this is not what he’s doing. Copulating too would be inaccurate, because it would imply two people and only one is involved. Nor does rape cover it: nothing is going on here that I haven’t signed up for.”

From A Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

A friend suggested A Handmaid’s Tale and I cannot help responding to it – in my own context, mostly. This book has shaken me somewhat but I wish to limit my musing to myself and not aspire to make sweeping statements or have opinions about the world of men and women. Frankly, I am as lost as the next person. I am merely a revisionist. I revise myself as I see fit (or unfit). Sometimes, I feel like I have no right to opine on anything since everything revises itself.

My “context” is also revised – by men and women alike. I usually feel like a bystander, watching people tell me who and what I am. I revise myself and I watch as others revise me. And I am aware that I am not a victim. This is just how things are, I suppose, within a social construct. I can only bitch and whine. “Take control” they say. And I nod and plod on. What else is one to do?

I know and don’t really know, how others view me. Communication is deceptive. Sometimes, I catch myself believing them. Sometimes, I feel paranoid and withdraw into myself. No harm done. However, I feel a disconnect that I cannot explain or articulate. Is it the curse of the artist? I keep revising the myth of the artist, you see. We watch and we make. We watch from afar. We watch unseen. We have a gaze – the all powerful gaze, that is borrowed from the world and then given back to the world. The audience takes over and we are gone. Maybe we are living on borrowed sight.

This disconnect is powerful. It takes away my sense of self and emotion. It hollows me. Maybe I am living on borrowed self.

“nothing is going on here that I haven’t signed up for.”

In the book, the word that struck me most was Unwomen: Unwomen are sterile women, widows, feminists, lesbians, nuns, and politically dissident women: all women who are incapable of social integration within the Republic’s strict gender divisions.

Dissedence is deceptively alluring. I am a person who dissents from established policy only to assent to another established policy. The show goes on. Only half of me is really awake. The other half is disconnected.

© 2012, Nadia Hussain. This article may not be reproduced in any form without providing an active attribution link/ reference to The Pakistan Forum. All attribution links within the article must also be retained.

To loud applause at a special distribution ceremony on Pakistan Day, PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif declared: “We do not give weapons in the hands of youngsters, we

Nawaz Sharif, Former Prime Minister of Pakistan (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

give them laptops; we give them education”. The laptop scheme is the brainchild of kid brother Shahbaz Sharif, chief minister of Punjab. He says that the Punjab government plans to distribute a further 300,000 laptops – in addition to the 100,000 already distributed – as a “weapon against poverty and ignorance”.

The Sharifs are surely to be commended for preferring computers over Kalashnikovs (some of their political rivals would want it the other way around). But laptops are not silver bullets that can transform Pakistan’s education. Cost is not the main issue. Of course, we do know that Dell laptops, purchased at Rs 37,700 apiece, are more expensive than the Rs 2,200 indigenous product developed by Tata for use in India’s schools. Possible cuts and commissions by middlemen, and allegations of unfair distribution, also cannot be ruled out. But this too is a peripheral matter.

Instead, the central question is: how exactly are these laptops to combat poverty and ignorance, or improve education? The answer is not clear in any developing country but is even muddier in Pakistan. The purchased computers did not come loaded with school books, supplementary educational materials, or programmes like “Comic Life” which make math learning fun. There are no locally-developed programmes, and none in Urdu or any local language. Nor have schoolteachers been trained to deal with computers as a teaching tool. Of course, there will be some Google searching and perhaps some educational material will be downloaded. But overwhelmingly they will be used for chatting, surfing, or video games.

The false notion of technology as a magic wand has made our rulers euphoric from time to time. Few Pakistanis will remember the bulk purchase of Apple-II C computers for schools at the end of the 1980s. General Ziaul Haq’s minister of education, Dr Muhammad Afzal, (now deceased), was a progressive man in a religiously-charged government. Somehow he was seized with the notion that computers would revolutionise everything. In one of my occasional meetings with him, I unsuccessfully sought to persuade him that his idea was fundamentally flawed. Sadly, the warning turned out to be correct: it is likely that many machines were not even turned on before they were junked en masse 10-15 years later.

Earlier on, a still bigger revolution had been promised. Pakistan Television was founded on the premise that its core purpose would be education. At the invitation of the Pakistan government, a Unesco team visited Pakistan and met with the ministers of law, broadcasting, and education. In a subsequent report the team leaders, HR Cassirer and TS Duckmanton, wrote:

“We arrived in Lahore on October 10, 1960, where we were the guests of the Regional Director of Radio Pakistan, as well as the Provincial Department of Education. We pursued our consultations with officials concerned with the following: university and college education, primary and secondary education, vocational education, village aid, broadcasting, the Arts Council”. The report document does not even mention entertainment or news broadcasts, but has paragraphs on how telecourses should be conducted.

But PTV never made a sizable contribution to education. For 50 years its broadcast content has been almost exclusively entertainment and news. In this period PTV has produced only two documentary serials that sought to popularise science for the general public, one in 1994 and the other in 2002. I can testify that these had the lowest priority accorded to any programme series; for months I was given the midnight shift and would work through on the editing until morning arrived, at which point I would go bleary-eyed to teach my classes at Quaid-e-Azam University.

These negative examples do not mean that technology is valueless for education. Far from it! Distance education, conveyed via laptops and notebooks, is clearly the future. Open Course Software (OCS) from the world’s best universities brings a wealth of knowledge to those who can absorb it; the clever instructional techniques of the Khan Academy helps millions of students across the world; and increasing interactive learning programmes are becoming more effective learning tools.

But students who benefit from internet resources already know what they are looking for; they have already achieved a certain level. A digital utopia cannot be constructed on a shaky educational base such as ours. Most Pakistani schools do not have the bare minimum infrastructure like blackboards, toilets, library, or wall posters. More importantly, they do not have competent teachers. Expectedly, the recently released Annual Status of Education Report paints a dismal picture of basic reading and writing skills. Laptops can do nothing to improve things here.

What about well-off city schools that do have reasonable infrastructure? Unfortunately here too, the laptop can presently play only a marginal role because, with some honourable exceptions, students mostly study for grades. If grades were awarded on the basis of real learning, it would be a different matter. But where money buys marks and cheating is rampant, the incentive for self-improvement diminishes. Moreover, exams test little beyond that contained in guidebooks or prescribed textbooks. They stress memorisation rather than internalisation of concepts. I think revamping the examination system will do more good than buying a million laptops.

Of course some good does come from merely connecting children to the internet. Nicholas Negroponte of MIT, who fathered the idea of one-child one-laptop, argues that children are naturally inquisitive and access to an internet-enabled computing device is sufficient to release their creative faculties. He says somehow they will “figure it out” and “learn to learn”. But this view is excessively optimistic.

Connectivity and access, already provided by cellphones, alone does not create a thinking mind. For example, consider Darul Ulum Haqqania at Akora Khattak. This “Harvard of madrassas” has produced Mullah Omar as well as other such luminaries. It is awash in computers but, even in a hundred years from now, shall not have added an iota to the stock of human knowledge.

The bottom line: good education requires planning, organisation, integrity, resources and, above all, a mindset that is oriented towards the future and not the past. Techy hi-fi stuff has glitz, but it’s really the sub-stratum of thought that matters.

(From: http://tribune.com.pk/story/371740/free-laptops-is-not-the-answer-what-is/#comments)

© 2012, Pervez Hoodbhoy. This article may not be reproduced in any form without providing an active attribution link/ reference to The Pakistan Forum. All attribution links within the article must also be retained.

Gilani or no Gilani, the democratic process should prevail and the current government should be allowed to continue and complete its term for the first time in political history of Pakistan.

Continuing its tradition, Pakistan has revealed another surprise in its political basket that has astonished the whole world.The Supreme Court of Pakistan has pronounced the sitting prime minister of the country as guilty of contempt of court. Punishing for the crime, it has efficiently and promptly punished the leader “incarcerating” him for 30 seconds, announcing the verdict in these words:

“As regards the sentence to be passed against the convict, we note that the findings and the conviction for contempt of court recorded above are likely to entail some serious consequences in terms of Article 63 (1) (g) of the Constitution which may be treated as mitigating factors towards the sentence to be passed against him. He is, therefore, punished under Article 5 of the contempt of court ordinance (ordinance 5 of 2003) with imprisonment till the rising of the court today.”

The verdict, however symbolic, sends a strong message to all institutions, especially political parties, that gone are the days when army, bureaucracy and politicians were free to manipulate the institution to do whatever they want.

The verdict should be seen within the context of a long power struggle in Pakistan among several institutions including the judiciary, the executive, legislature and most importantly the mighty armed forces. This power struggle is also part of the genuine process for every institution in the country until they mature and respect each other’s boundaries of checks and balances.

As it happens, whenever an institution is pushed hard and manipulated, declining its legitimate role in the whole system, the institution comes back and asserts itself strongly. In the process, however, sometimes the suppressed institution also crosses its own boundaries to prove that it is not as weak as perceived.

This is what happened with the judiciary in Pakistan. It was manipulated by all other institutions including the army, political parties, and the bureaucracy since independence. As a result, the institution was seen as a tool in the hand of other institutions and in the process it lost its credibility, trust and image.

Remember those days when a gang of the then Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif stormed the court and humiliated openly the institution without any repercussions. It was the lowest point in the history of Pakistan’s politics which further traumatized not only the judiciary but the political system as a whole.

Then came the notorious reign of the last dictator, Pervez Musharraf, who on a fine morning decided to fire the Chief Justice. Chief Justice Iftikhar Choudhry, however, had the courage to challenge the dictator which started the courageous lawyer’s movement to reassert the pride and due place of the institution within the system. The movement became the last nail in the coffin of the dictator who had to leave the presidency and finally the country under the public and political pressure.

Since then, the judiciary has been trying to regain its lost space in the political system and this new verdict is only a sign of regaining its power in the system. Prime Minister Gilani, unfortunately, became the symbolic scapegoat in the process.

By not disbarring the Prime Minster from politics, the judges, however, left a loophole in the verdict, allowing the PPP leadership to take its time and complete its term. While licking their wounds, the PPP leadership might decide to appeal against the verdict and drag the process until it completes the term.

To his credit, Gilani is the longest serving prime minister in the country and now he has also become the only sitting prime minister punished by his Supreme Court.

Gilani or no Gilani, the democratic process should prevail and the current government should be allowed to continue and complete its term for the first time in political history of Pakistan.

Meanwhile we can wait for the next shockwave in the weird political system of Pakistan!

(From Viewpoint Online: http://www.viewpointonline.net/punished-for-30-seconds.html)

© 2012, Qaisar Abbas. This article may not be reproduced in any form without providing an active attribution link/ reference to The Pakistan Forum. All attribution links within the article must also be retained.

SHARM EL SHEIKH/EGYPT, 19MAY08 - Syed Yousaf Raza Gillani, Prime Minister of Pakistan, captured during the session "Eye on Pakistan" at the World Economic Forum on the Middle East 2008 held in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

South Asia Democracy Watch (SADeW), Dallas, U.S.

News Release

Contact: Dr. Qaisar Abbas (906-281-7771, qaabbas@gmail.com)

(April 28, Dallas, U.S.) The U.S. based South Asia Democracy Watch (SADeW) has strongly criticized the recent Supreme Court verdict in Pakistan, sentencing the sitting Prime Minister, identifying it as an attempt to derail the current democratic process in the country as part of the institutional power struggle.

The statement issued after the group’s meeting in Dallas last Saturday categorically articulated its position that the party in power should be allowed to complete its current term for the first time in the history of Pakistan which is an important step to strengthen the democratic process.

Realizing that corruption of all sorts is a serious menace to democracy and it should be investigated, the verdict, however, has been viewed by SADeW as an attempt of the judiciary to cross its boundaries of checks and balances. “South Asia as a region is witnessing a strong surge in strengthening democracy from Nepal to Bangladesh to Maldives and Sri Lanka and this positive development strongly supported by the masses should not be stalled,” the statement strongly reiterated.

The nonprofit organization, representing known intellectuals, scholars, legal experts, journalists, political activists and community leaders, has announced that the verdict, limiting the credibility of the Prime Minister has severely jeopardized his role in resolving regional and international issues including terrorism, Kashmir, peace negotiations with India and relations with the United States and Afghanistan.

The statement, endorsed by the group representatives, Syed Fyyaz Hasan (political activist), Tausif Kamal (attorney), Dr. Qaisar Abbas (scholar and educationist), Raja Muzaffar (politician) and Zahid Akhtar Khanzada (journalist) appealed the people of Pakistan, political parties, intellectuals and media to oppose any attempt to disrupt the democratic process in Pakistan. It has also formed a committee of legal experts to analyze the legal aspects of the verdict and submit a report headed by the known attorney Tausif Kamal.

SADeW viewed Prime Minister Gilani as a victim of the institutional struggle between the executive, legislature, judiciary, and most importantly the army within the historical contexts in which the judiciary has been widely manipulated by the army and politicians in the past. With this backdrop, SADeW considered this verdict as an attempt of the judiciary to regain its lost credibility in Pakistan.

Related articles

• Pakistan Prime Minister convicted of contempt, receives no jail time (vancouversun.com)
• PM not disqualified after verdict, appeal to be filed: Aitzaz (dawn.com)

© 2012, Masood Ashraf Raja. This article may not be reproduced in any form without providing an active attribution link/ reference to The Pakistan Forum. All attribution links within the article must also be retained.

Julius Salik

The Chairman of International Human Rights Commission (IHRC) His Excellency Dr. Muhammad Shahid Amin Khan has announced that ‘Excellency Julius Salik’ is designated as the ‘Ambassador at Large for Peace of International Human Rights Commission’ in view of his meritorious services for Peace, Human Rights & especially for the Minority Rights and Interfaith Harmony in Pakistan and worldwide.

The International Human Rights Commission (http://www.ihrchq.org) aims to:

• Facilitate the creation of cooperative networks and economic development programs enlisting and involving financial institutions, traditional and alternative energy producers, private enterprises, diplomatic representations, universities, governmental bodies and other concerned parties;
• Promote human rights peace, gender equality, health, equality, economic development and educational access, awareness regarding the rights of women, children and youth in developing nations and where ever needed;
• Broaden the understanding of sustainable economic development and promote the implementation and dissemination of norms, rules and guidelines that apply to this field;
• Assist developing nations by identifying and retaining businessmen, professionals and scholars willing to act as human Rights advisers to their diplomatic and consular network;
• Develop, establish and maintain ‘Sister’ relationships with institutions and like minded organizations located in high GNP countries and developing countries.
  

  IHRC Chief Dr. Muhammad Shahid Amin Khan

• Strengthen and support to all Nation’s capacity to engage in Sustainable Development through educational access, relief programs, ecological and bio-ethical reflection and action, while taking into consideration the traditional social and cultur
  al values of each Nation;

Talking on telephone with J. Salik, His Excellency Dr. Muhammad Shahid Amin Khan appreciated his noble services and assured full support for his prolific peace initiatives.

Excellency Julius Salik will be honoured as ‘Ambassador at Large for Peace of International Human Rights Commission’ in a special ceremony and IHRC Chief will grace the occasion.

J. Salik disconnects the electricity to his residence and brings in camels to share his living space; burns his belongings; treks thousands of kilometers; observes silence for days on; talks for hours on; wears coarse cotton – does it all for a cause! as for Salik, every action has a reason, and an effect.

Nobel peace prize nominee and former Federal Minister of Pakistan, 62 year old J. Salik, is currently promoting his mission of world peace.

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak at Goldsmiths College, University of London, 2007. Photo by Shih-Lun CHANG. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Having read enough of Gayatri Spivak to understand the power dynamics involved in the center-periphery exchanges, I have always been wary of the role of the cultural informant. As a scholar of postcolonial studies, therefore, I always keep a critical eye on my own conduct in order to avoid falling for this deeply troubling role.

Recently, in my exchanges with a graduate student from a neighboring university, I have also learned the deeply exploitative and troubling structure of power between the US scholars and the students that they bring from the global periphery as the recruited cultural informants for their projects.

One such student who was enrolled by a US scholar to help him finish a nationally funded project on a mountain language of Pakistan, has provided me an experiential view of what, until now, has been simply a theoretical project. This brief article is therefore an exercise in giving voice to this student and so many others like her who are being legally exploited by the so-called scholars. Naturally, to protect the student I am not providing any names. I will probably openly do that in another venue if the mistreatment of this student continues.

This un-named student is not one of your average struggling Pakistanis brought in by a benevolent scholar to provide her the opportunities that only a metropolitan university can dispense. This student was involved with the US scholar from the very inception of his project and provided not only the basic knowledge of the language but also put all her local contacts at the disposal of the US scholar. Her reason for this, simply stated, was to aid a US scholar in recording and saving the linguistic heritage of her people. Now this US scholar does not speak a lick of the language that he is trying to preserve. Coming from literary studies, this alone is almost unthinkable to me: I cannot imagine applying for a job in my own field without a native level understanding of English language. Furthermore, the US scholar has not shown any interest or love for the language or culture of his study.

So how does he accomplish his research without even knowing the language? Our un-named graduate student does all the grunt work, and the professor just collates and piles up the data collected and prepared by this un-named Pakistani graduate student. I find this practice deeply exploitative and unethical and I will write about this to the granting agency of this professor soon.

But right now my point goes beyond just this systemic exploitation of the subject of periphery by the enunciating subject of the West. In the process of her education here, the Pakistani student has also learned the modes of research and methods of scholarship in her field of study. She has now started developing her own ideas and projects about research on her own culture and language. In my field, this is the natural outcome of a mentor-mentee relationship; we always expect our graduate students to learn and then go beyond what we have done ourselves. That is how a field of study constantly renews itself.

But in case of this student, when she went with her project proposal to her mentor, she was told categorically that she could not do that. The reason: the project could ruin the professor’s own project. The student was also told that she was being ungrateful for trying to do things at her own despite the great favor done to her by her mentor of bringing her to the US.

In a nutshell, then, this graduate student can only have one assigned role: that of the willing silent subaltern on the periphery of her master’s imperial project. I find this extremely distasteful and unjust. I have advised this student to report all the verbal and other abuses to her department. I have also encouraged her to dump this professor and ask the department for another graduate mentor.

In the long run, I hope this graduate student learns the methods of her field and then, I hope, I want her to publish her research and demolish the house of cards built by her mentor, a house of cards built with the labor of this graduate student.

It is strange that we always critique the exploitative nature of the market and the corporations, but it seems that when it comes to us academics, we can also be deeply exploitative. Only in our case the stakes are so low that our actions are petty and childish.

So, here is to this un-named student: Go on, learn from these oppressors, and then write your own story–You at least know the language!

© 2012, Masood Ashraf Raja. This article may not be reproduced in any form without providing an active attribution link/ reference to The Pakistan Forum. All attribution links within the article must also be retained.