An Evening with Imran Khan

Imran Khan, the former Pakistan cricket captain and now politician, came to the University of Birmingham to talk about Pakistan: A Personal History, his new book, although the talk touched all manner of subjects. Imran started by saying that Iqbal is his greatest intellectual influence, a man who understood the true spirit of Islam and its relevance for the modern world. I have not read the book, but in the talk at least Imran did not show evidence of any profound reading of Iqbal. He did, however, several times during the evening turn to Iqbal to illustrate his points. Turning overtly political fairly early in the talk, there was thunderous clapping when he lamented the fact that a crook could become the president of Pakistan.

For Imran, the Afghan war and Pakistan’s involvement in it has been an unmitigated disaster that has pitted the Pakistani army against its own people. He does not see the US winning the war and was sceptical about the very possibility of defining what success would mean. He is obviously very fond of the tribal areas and the people who live there and has much credibility among them. He is all for a political solution to the problems in Afghanistan and the tribal areas, a sort of truth and reconciliation approach. It is, he argued, the only way to isolate the extremists. Obama’s biggest mistake, according to Imran, was not to disown Bush’s wars and make a clean start.

Imran was very upbeat about the prospects for his party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf, PTI. He said the party was growing fast. He likened the prospects for his party to Pakistan’s famous victory in the 1992 World Cup. Initially the odds were against Pakistan, but the ‘cornered tiger’ fought back to clinch victory. So it would be for PTI, he said. He said a large proportion of Pakistani voters were young (under 30) and that his party would enthuse them about politics. He clearly has his sights on the young vote, but I am not so sanguine about the overall prospects for PTI, although as an individual he should not find it difficult to enter Parliament.

There followed a long question and answer session. Some of the questions were barely audible. Someone asked him if he feared assassination; to which he said he had conquered the fear of death before entering politics. He said he was much inspired by Nelson Mandela, a man who defeated apartheid but did not harbour any lingering bitterness that could easily have translated into a civil war. On education, he said Pakistan has a 3 tier system, composed of high quality English education for a tiny elite, a very poor quality Urdu education for the masses and the Madrassas. He said a national emergency should be declared as far as education was concerned.

Someone asked how, if victorious, his party would be immune from corruption, given that it was so widespread in Pakistan. He said for corruption to be eradicated, the team at the top needs to be totally clean. As a miniature example of good governance, he mentioned his hospital, the Shaukat Khanum. Various governments had tried hard to find accounting irregularities but were unable to do so. He said the reason was because the top team was totally clean. He also called for the creation of an independent bureau that would investigate individuals suspected of corruption and that would not spare anyone involved , whether in government or in opposition.

On the violence in Karachi, Imran repeated what is already well-known, that criminal elements linked to the main parties in the city (MQM, ANP and PP) are behind the violence. He does not think the military should be sent in to deal with the issue. Rather, he said a professional, empowered, well equipped and totally neutral police force was needed.

A question about sectarianism, particularly in the Shia-Sunni context, elicited a refreshing and frank reply for a Pakistani politician. He said over the last few decades, Saudi Arabia and Iran had been cultivating various rival groups in Pakistan who were now responsible for much of the sectarian violence. Not many Pakistani politicians would publicly admit this, but there is truth to it.

Imran did not necessarily answer the questions he was asked. Salma Yaqoob, the very articulate local politician from Birmingham, asked him if his party had touched base with some of the social justice movements in Latin America, a question he did not answer, but talked about connecting with the people and how there was a massive gulf between the masses and the ruling elite in Pakistan, a fair point and one which probably also applies to Latin America. The theme of his party being small and irrelevant was touched on in various questions, to which he confidently said it was a growing party. He would, he said, agitate against the government when the time was right.

Although somewhat aged, Imran has lost none of his charm, the debonair and the dashing looks. Later in the evening I overheard a young lady say, only half facetiously, that she would ask him to blow her a kiss. One must admire him for persevering in the hinterland of Pakistani politics. After all, on retirement from cricket, there must have been many desirable and lucrative avenues open to him.

Much of what Imran said I could easily agree with and the regular bouts of clapping were evidence that the audience were enjoying it. Nevertheless, I must say that he did not strike me as particularly articulate, often struggling to find the right words to make his point. Time will tell whether his confident predictions about his party are justified; I hope he is right.

Children and materialism

Anyone with children will connect with a recent UNICEF report that says materialism is increasingly dominating the lives of children in the UK. Busy, guilt-ridden parents, who have little quality time to spend with their families, disburden their consciences by helping their kids amass all kinds of useless items. This materialism was also an important driver behind the recent riots. So what has happened?

The issue is complex, with the media and advertising playing a big role, as well as guilt-ridden parents. We human beings are compulsive comparers. We compare ourselves not with royalty and billionaires, but with people like ourselves. If other kids in the class and friends have a new gadget, that adds an additional reason why your kid should also have that gadget. If the conscience of the parent is not prickled by the fact of other children possessing that item, then there is always pester power. Either way, whether by guilty conscience or by submission to pester power, the parent will buy the same item.

I am not sure what the solution is. Advertising and the media must play a role. Parents need to spend more time with their children. A weekly visit to the local library, for example, would be more productive than time spent playing electronic games. Ultimately, we must learn to stop being compulsive comparers. Some comparison is adaptive and a motivation for self-improvement. But taken to an extreme, it becomes maladaptive and counter-productive. We must learn to be our individual selves.

Mental health in Mirpur

On my last visit to Mirpur, I was interested to discover how mental illness is handled and was unsurprised to learn that there is practically no community level mental health service. I came away with several discrete insights about mental health in Mirpur.

Rarely is mental illness diagnosed when there is a sudden onset of psychotic symptoms. Instead the person is deemed to be possessed by a spirit, or jinn, and the spiritual route to cure is taken. This involves reference to pirs, who perform various rituals. Patients with psychotic symptoms behave and speak in an uncharacteristic way. However, this is often interpreted as the behaviour and speech of the jinn. Although there is no cure, the placebo effect often means the immediate acute symptoms are relieved by the intervention of the pir.

I also noted a fascinating resemblance between mental health in Mirpur and the history of mental health in Victorian Britain, particularly in relation to women. In both cases there is an underlying social hypocrisy that creates a tension between expectations and innermost desires, a tension which manifests itself in mental symptoms. Often there is profound guilt about illicit liaisons. Young women are most affected by the prevalent hypocrisy.

Medication is also often prescribed, particularly for depression. I was able to speak to a village doctor who, though not a specialist in mental health, said he frequently prescribed anti-depressants. Life is tough in the villages, particularly for middle aged women with large families and larger still responsibilities from dawn to way past sunset. It is not difficult in such circumstances to diagnose depression.

Democracy, freedom, and oil

Is the decision to support the rebels in Libya about standing up for freedom and democracy? Hardly. The rush of oil firms to obtain a foothold, including some potentially dodgy dealing (see: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/libya/8736496/Libya-the-minister-the-Tory-donor-and-a-contract-to-supply-oil.html), puts paid to that. According to that report, secret oil cells have been created to deal with the rebels.

Oil is the real reason for the war in Libya, as it was for the war in Iraq. Not much new, easily retrievable oil is being discovered. It is therefore a strategic geo-political aim of the West to secure existing oil deposits. That is why there is clamour for democracy in recalcitrant Libya and Iran, but barely a murmur against the arguably more autocratic and obscurantist but compliant Saudi Arabia and other Kingdoms.

Happy Eids

Once again Eid-ul-Fitr was celebrated on two days in the UK. The problem is related to the fact that the Muslim calendar begins with the first sighting of the sliver-thin, crescent moon. In this age of science, it is indeed embarrassing that we are unable to decide on a single day for Eid. Why, we can ask, can we not rely on visibility calculations, which have now achieved a level of accuracy not known in earlier centuries? Why must people insist on a literalist interpretation of the sighting of the moon? Using visibility calculations will introduce a degree of certainty. If people are willing to base prayer times and times for breaking the fast on precise timing (e.g. 8:07pm for the last day this year), why are people not willing to base the decision to start fasting and to celebrate Eid on calculated times?