Not cricket

Woe is Pakistan! The tragedy of the floods is still unfolding, as if in slow motion. Last week, we had the horrendous lynching in Sialkot. Now cricket, Pakistan's national sport, is in the news for all the wrong reasons.

Video footage of money being counted, and the over and ball number when the no-balls will be delivered being described, with further replay from the actual matches showing precisely those balls being no-balls, makes one want to throw up. Even the commentators wonder about the no-balls, asking whether it is inexperience and at one point saying how there have been a few no-balls. It is like an adulterer being caught with his pants down and in a pose that is a lot more than merely preparatory, as they say in legal jargon.

Although there is widespread anger in Pakistan and here, it isn't tinged with surprise. Many have suspected the integrity of Pakistani cricket for a while. We have been here before; the Qayyum report into the last betting scandal cast a shadow over Pakistani cricket in general and certain players in particular.

In cyberspace, people have asked whether there is any wonder about the corrupt state of Pakistani cricket when the head of the state, Zardari, himself is made of the same corrupt material. After all, Pakistan's cricketing management is stuffed with Zardari's cronies.

Not another coup

The 'London Wala' as he is contemptuously called by opponents who do not want to utter his name, or the one from London, MQM leader Altaf Hussain, has called for a military coup in Pakistan. All the reasons he cited, such as corruption and medieval feudalism, are real, if endemic, problems in Pakistan. Yet his call is simply wrong and mischievous.

As Pakistan's history shows, the military is a part of the problem.

If one ongoing ill defines the legacy of the first military dictator, Ayub Khan, it is corruption. His family did handsomely and has been in politics ever since. The next one, Yahya Khan, known for his debauchery, presided over the dismemberment of Pakistan. Then came Zia, who, though less corrupt, introduced the poison of extremism and the Kalashnikov culture.

Finally came Musharraf, who, also hanging out in London these days, laid the ground of the current anarchy in the country.

Yet all these dictators co-opted civilian politicians. Military dictators do not operate in a vacuum. Even Z.A.Bhutto was a Minister in Ayub's government.

Zardari least of all deserves to be President; but the solution is not a coup. At present, the sole focus should be on dealing with the floods. Once the emergency is over, Parliament can assert itself.

Brutality in Sialkot

In the midst of the worst flooding in its history, that has visited untold suffering on millions of people, another heart wrenching story came out of Pakistan yesterday. The brutal lynching of two brothers in Sialkot has shocked people in Pakistan and beyond. Video footage of the incident makes ones hairs stand on end. The brothers are clubbed to death and then when dead, are strung up. Chilling video of the brutality is easily available on YouTube.

At first, it was suggested that the brothers were 'dacoits'; today there are reports that this incident, which should prompt national soul searching, was over nothing more than cricket. Witnesses who know the family of the victims testify that the family are highly respected and shareef. One of the brothers was also a hafiz. Whatever the matter, no one deserves this.

It is simply beyond comprehension as to why this brutality could take place in the presence of so many people and effectively supervised by the police. When crimes take place in the darkness of the night, it is possible to shrug our shoulders and bemoan the state of society. But what can we say when a whole city, the city of Iqbal and Faiz, turns out as a spectator of such brutality?

The shoe

Throwing shoes at someone is particularly resonant in Asia and the Middle East as a form of insulting those who are deemed to be immoral. So it was with the shoe that was hurled at Zardari. Even if we ignore the corruption, palatial buildings and chateaus, which is a massive concession, it is still the case that Zardari should, at a time of unprecedented flooding in Pakistan, be there helping the people. In the bits of the speech which I caught on PTV, he referred to the floods as 'aani-jaani', as things that come and go. Tell that to the hundreds of thousands of people who have lost their humble homes. They will struggle for decades. It seems Zardari either doesn't understand or care about the gravity of the floods. Of course, should the country drown, he can always retire to his chateau or central London flat.

According to reports by the independent ARY TV (which I understand is now being harassed by the Pakistani government for revealing the shoe affair), the shoe thrower was an 'old man with a white beard'. I salute the old man with the white beard. His symbolic act has expressed the sentiments of millions of Pakistanis.

Pakistan 'People’s Party'

A stomach-churning event is billed to take place in Birmingham on Saturday. Bilawal ‘Bhutto’ Zardari (the middle name was hastily added following the assassination of his mother), will assume political duties, now that he has graduated. I say stomach-churning because the very idea of dynastic politics, where an aristocratic leader class is groomed in Platonic fashion, is against the spirit of democracy. Add to that the fact that Bilawal, who has spent most of his time outside Pakistan, has very little in common with the Pakistani masses. Even now he will spend most of his time in Dubai.

The event is being promoted as a chance for Bilawal’s father, Mr Ten Per cent, to meet with British Pakistanis. In reality the audience will be composed of die-hard People’s Party supporters. I have yet to come across a British Pakistani who does not add an expletive when uttering the president’s name. No doubt sycophants will be on hand at the event to drown the president in praise. Flattery is commonplace in Pakistani politics, but it is particularly pronounced in the ‘People’s Party.’ That accounts for the fact that several not-so-able people have been given ministerial portfolios by the federal government.

But the flatterers will be plain wrong. This is the most corrupt politician Pakistan has ever had – and that is saying something, because corruption has been endemic in Pakistan for decades. For example, initially he denied ownership of the 335-acre Rockwood House in Surrey, reportedly bought for 4 million pounds. According to the Telegraph, he proclaimed: “How can anyone think of buying a mansion in England when people in Pakistan don’t even have a roof over their heads?” The Telegraphs adds: “It was only after the house had been sold and the Pakistani authorities tried to seize some of the money that he acknowledged his ownership.”

Zardari is a far cry from the patrician Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who, by instinct an autocrat, at least possessed tremendous charisma, leadership qualities and intellect. Pakistan would possibly be a better place now if Bhutto possessed these qualities without an equally strong hunger for power.

Both father and son should be in Pakistan, meeting the millions of victims of the floods.

Chattroh

On 28 June news began circulating that two people (British Pakistanis) had been murdered in Chattroh: (see http://www.dadyal.com.pk/?p=1541, which includes a news report). According to the Urdu Daily Ausaf later that week, all the parties were closely related and, apparently, land disputes and the ‘argumentativeness’ (my translation of the word used by the paper) of the womenfolk were behind the murders.

I cannot comment on this particular case or the ‘argumentativeness’ of women, but the whole issue of land distribution in Mirpur does appear to be an explosive one. The district is a relatively peaceful place compared to the rest of Pakistan. Any murders are generally related to land or 'honour'.

Part of the problem is that the land laws there are so archaic that no one really understands them. Another issue is that the value of land has increased only relatively recently. Before that, land was essentially for farming. When elders died, there was no attempt by their heirs to update the records. You basically owned land by general agreement and acquiescence, rather than by strict legal title.

Even then, however, a small astute minority was able to play the system, in collaboration with venal land officials, and get documents altered and land boundaries expanded. These issues are only now coming to light, when the succeeding generation of British Pakistanis, are querying their land ownership before building new houses.

Constant talk of raising further the limit of the Mangla Reservoir, which will submerge more villages, adds to the demand for habitable land. I've already mentioned corrupt land officials, who are not averse to supplementing their salaries with handsome bribes. Miscreants and reprobates from villages across the Mirpur district are often close to land officials.

General Election 2010

Once again the General Election is upon us. At the last election (2005), I was an enthusiatic blogger; in the current one, I am less so. So here are some observations on the election due in a few weeks.

First the prediction: Polling has become remarkeably prescient in recent years; the message they are giving in the current election is mixed. The most likely outcome is a hung Parliament, with Labour being the largest party. The reason for this is partly systemic - the way the constituency system works, as at present, favours Labour. You could form a government here without a moral majority.

What would I like to see, not that it matters? I think I would prefer Labour returned, albeit with a chastened majority and a party humbled by the loss of some prominent seats.

Locally, in the newly restructured constituency of Hall Green, even the retiring MP for Selly Oak, Dr Lynne Jones, has called on people to vote for Salma Yaqoob, the Respect candidate. So much for the calibre of the current MP, Roger Godsiff, who is seeking re-election. At the last election, (when it was the Sparkbrook constituency) Salma Yaqoob came an impressive second and was close to creating a major upset for Labour locally.

In the current election, I think the Respect vote will hold, but victory seems more unlikely. The new Hall Green constituency includes the largely middle class, and white, ward of Hall Green. Any anti-Labour feeling there is more likely to transfer to the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives. With the anti-Labour vote thus divided, Labour will win again, even if their candidate does not deserve to win.

Rise of rationality

Homeopathy is going out of favour (in official circles). Whether this is because rationality is on the up, or because financial woes mean we have to make choices, I am not sure. The term 'alternative medicine' includes a whole range of techniques, from the ridiculous to the plausible and effective (for some conditions). Homeopathy falls on the ridiculous side of the scale. It is based on incorrect premises - that like cures like and repeated dilution, to the point where what remains is 100% water, increases potency. Based on this logic, forgetting to take your homeopathic tablet is tantamount to overdosing!

That doesn't mean people will stop taking alternative medicine;it remains as popular as ever.

In our Mirpuri community, alternative medicine is very common. It can include anything from herbal concoctions to spiritual incantations. The latter might include reciting something x times. This is fine, but, in my opinion, it is something that should not be paid for. Prayer is free and we should not fall into the trap of paying spiritual healers.

Immanuel Kant

This month will see the 205th death anniversary of Immanuel Kant, the great German philosopher. I suspect most people are not bothered, but in recent years I have developed an interest in Kant's writings.

Kant wrote on a wide range of issues, including science, but his three Critiques essentially ask and answer three questions: what we can know, what we should do, and - among other things - how we can appreciate beauty. These questions are raised in the Critique of Pure Reason, Critique of Practical Reason, and the Critique of Judgment. Kant had an extremely difficult to follow writing style, even by the standards of German philosophers. It is probably fair to say no one person understands everything he said.

The Critique of Pure Reason is probably the most well-known of the three Critiques and the most widely discussed in academic circles. It is folly to attempt to summarise it in a blog. Suffice it to say that in answer to the question what we can know, Kant gave prominence to the perspective of the knowing subject.

What I admire most about Kant's is his critical attitude. His best known essay, and probably one of the more readable pieces he wrote, is "What is englightenment?" In that, he states that the key to enlightenment, or knowledge and understanding unaided by assistance from authorities, is the urge to know. "Sapere aude", "dare to know" he says.

It is this attitude that is most needed in the Muslim world today and it is also the approach of Iqbal, to a greater extent than some of his most ardent admirers would admit or know. Indeed, Iqbal's Reconstruction of Religious Though in Islam is filled with references to German philopsphers, including Kant.

'Do not go out unless absolutely necessary'

Of the pieces of advice dished out during the cold snap, the most useless and vacuous must be the advice not to venture out unless absolutely necessary. What weight and value does such advice carry? Who is to decide what is necessary? Presumably if you are a doctor or nurse, your work is necessary. What if you work in a fast food chain flipping unhealthy burgers? Far from being necessary, staying at home might even help the nation's arteries.

I am not suggesting we can't cope with bad weather. The UK is a fairly temperate place, which means we are not used to coping with extreme weather and do not have the systems in place to deal with it. In fact the longer it lasts, the better we seem to cope. In Birmingham, snow really arrived in the middle of last week and this led to school closures and work places were also affected. Yet driving conditions, and conditions for pedestrians, were far worse yesterday, when there was hardly any disruption. Which just goes to show that if this became a regular occurrence, we would just adapt pretty fast.

Finally, various figures have been thrown around to illustrate the scale of financial loss owing to the bad weather. It does look as if these figures are just plucked from the air. How can such calculations be made so quickly? In any case, it is not as if the loss falls in one place; as if suddenly a single account has had millions debited from it.

BNP member list

Once again there are reports that BNP member details have been released. I do not condone this, as we all have a right to privacy; in addition, anything which can create martyrs out of bigots is misguided.

Nevertheless, as the data is available, I could not stop myself from doing some basic analysis. Using my newly acquired skills in mapping, I plotted Birmingham & Solihull cases on the map with this blog.

As of Mid-April, there are just over 16000 members (assuming we can trust the genuineness of the data). There are 44 people with Dr as their title; 8 with military titles; 2 professors and a reverend.

Of marriage and divorce - conflict of laws

As an undergraduate, one of the most interesting topics I studied was called conflict of laws, a study of the discrepancy between the laws of different countries (or cultures) in matters (mainly) of personal law. An interesting example of such a conflict is provided by the clash between Muslim family law and English family law.

Take the issue of marriage and divorce. For Muslims, what matters is the nikah ceremony. As this operates outside English law, there is potential for conflict: you can obviate the spirit of English law by conducting just the nikah ceremony. Hence though polygamy is forbidden under English law, most British Pakistanis know of at least one person with more than one wife. In the eyes of English law, such men and women are unmarried, but not in the eyes of the law that matters to such people. Living together while unmarried is anathema to most Muslims.

Further conflict arises in matters relating to divorce. The conflict can be exploited by divorcing parties to make life difficult for each other, particularly where there is much acrimony. In the case where a couple have gone through an English marriage and undergone the nikah ceremony, the man could divorce the woman under English law but refuse the tilak (religious divorce). The woman is thereby trapped; she is unable to re-marry until a long procedure involving the shariah court is gone through. Even then some scholars are of the opinion that such divorces are invalid.

There are also cases where, after obtaining the tilak, the man or woman then refuses to assent to the English divorce. This is common where the party being refused assent is non-British and as had to return to their country of origin after the marital dispute. The British citizen, by refusing to provide an English divorce, is effectively making sure such a person is unable to return to the UK again (as someone’s marriage partner).

The problem with such conflicts of law is that they can be exploited to harm people out of sheer spite and ill-will, and furthermore they lead to hypocrisy and falsehood. For example, there are many Muslim men in the UK who have more than one wife. To them, for people to live together when unmarried is sinful. Yet for whatever reason if they are questioned by British authorities they would claim they have only one wife and if challenged further would claim the other person is a mistress and that they are not married to them! That goes against the spirit of both Islamic and English law.

Again, take the case of a man or woman who refuses to assent to an English divorce but engages in a nikah ceremony. Such a person is also living a lie. In the eyes of friends and family they are married, something which they would deny if asked by the state. This cannot be compatible with the spirit of Islam or English law.

Swine Flu - closing in on us

The swine flu story has now changed completely since my last blog - with my own city, Birmingham, now the worst affected outside the US and Mexico. And the rate of transmission is rapid.

The worst affected are those areas with large Muslim populations. I spoke to a scientist last week who was fascinated by the cultural aspects of transmission - the closer communities are, the quicker the virus is likely to spread. Cohesion is a positive in general, but isolation is necessary to prevent infectious illness spreading.

Swine flu is a relatively mild condition, but as yet no one knows how it will evolve. If it does evolve into something more sinister, the Birmingham experience of the logistics of rapidly distributing anti-virals to deal with large outbreaks does not inspire much confidence. People are angry as they do not know who to turn to for help.

Swine Flu

You could not have failed to noticed the swine flu storm over the last week or so. Some have argued that this is much ado about nothing; others have spoken in millinarian terms of a world on the brink. A lot of my fellow Muslims proclaim glibly but erroneously that they need not fear anything as they do not eat pork.

It is right that any new variant of flu should be treated seriously. The possibilities for mutation are endless - the way to remain on top is to prepare for every eventuality. Flu in general affects millions and spreads easily. Hence this accounts for some of the alarm.

On the other hand, the use of apocalyptic language by scientists and medics is inappropriate. When social scientists say such things, their words can be safely ignored. It is worrying when scientists use such language.

In a related point, many of us have been surprised to learn that pigs are reared in Egypt. I wonder if something similar happens anywhere in Pakistan?

A touch uncomfortable

The sun is out and the streets of Birmingham are buzzing again with shoppers from all over the UK. This year I have noticed two things that make me uncomfortable; they are not new but just a little more accentuated this year.

Walk down, for example Stratford Road or Alum Rock Road, and note how purely religious hyms, verses and poetry are being blasted from cd players. Now in a multicultural and mutli-religious society this makes me uncomfortable, the idea of imposing your religion in this vociferous manner. By its very nature, religion is exclusive.

A word also about fund raisers. Those who give up their weekends to raise funds for the less fortunate of the world are admirable. What makes me uncomfortable is reference to the religion of those whose suffering is the subject of the fund raising. What difference should it make if the suffering are Muslim, Christian, etc. The purpose is to relieve suffering. Period.

Woolworths

Last week there were reports of customers harassing Woolworths workers because the closing down sales bargains were “not cheap enough”. It is difficult not to feel for the workers, who, in addition to the imminent loss of their livelihoods, have to face such attitude from customers.

We all like a good bargain and feel we have conquered something when we get something ridiculously cheap. I can understand, however, why things are not being just given away at next to nothing by Woolworths. The duty of the administrators is to maximise the amount left in the coffers when the doors finally shut. This cannot be achieved by selling items at a massive loss, because then the loss becomes even bigger, as you are still paying staff, rent and other expenses.

If people expect things for next to nothing, then it may as well have been cheaper for Woolworths to put everything outside, with a ‘help yourself’ notice and shut its doors to minimise costs.

Beat the credit crunch!

Capitalism is great at exploiting the mood of the moment. Walk around any shopping centre and see how posters beckon you to 'beat the credit crunch'. In other words capitalism is happy to exploit its own misery. Such is its creative destruction.

Pakistan and cyberspace...

What is behind Pakistan’s drive to criminalise cyberspace by introducing draconian measures based on vague and indeterminate infractions? I can hazard a guess. Pakistan is currently led by criminals and liars; the president is the most corrupt in its history. He does not even have a façade to show how he became a billionaire. Lest you think corruption cases against him were fabricated, remember that they were taking place not just in Pakistan but in Europe as well, where the judiciary is more robust. The leadership wants to keep people ignorant about this. Hence the clampdown on cyberspace.

The honourable Prime Minister (or not so?) has his own reasons for cyber-bitterness. To find out, type Prime Minister of Pakistan and Sherry Rehman in YouTube and watch the esteemed PMs hands carefully! The fate of the nation lies in the selfsame hands! He protests and yet he protests not, if you know what I mean.

(Alternatively, just click here)

Welfare reform...missed opportunities

The Queen's speech on Thursday is likely to contain proposals for significant changes to the way unemployment benefits are paid, with a greater emphasis on using the stick, such as withdrawing benefits from those who refuse to cooperate with efforts to get them back to work. This is always a delicate issue, with on the one hand a populist desire to get 'scroungers' off benefits and the need to ensure people are not punished and left to suffer. One target is likely to be single parents.

Yet I find it strange that these measures are being considered during a recession, when the recently unemployed will be competing with the long-term and hard core jobless. I think the opportunity to make permanent structural changes to welfare have been missed. We have just come out of a very long boom, which included an abundance of jobs. That was the time to encourage the hardcore jobless back to work. Instead what happened was that most of the extra jobs were filled by those coming from abroad, which in turn helped to inflate the housing boom, thereby making it even more difficult for the jobless to join the property ladder and entrenching poverty and dependence further.

Now that we are in a recession, many of the (more scrupulous) private companies who are bidding for contracts to help people find work are beggining to have second thoughts about the contractual targets. Unless there is a quick, miraculous change of economic conditions, we could have another fiasco similar to the Individual Learning Accounts one.

Bare below the elbows...

The NHS' “Bare Below the Elbows” policy requires that to prevent the spread of infections, health workers should not wear watches, rings (other than wedding rings) and should be bare below the elbows. This is based on research showing that bacteria can survive on sleeves and from there spread to patients on contact. Some Muslim female health workers, and 'community' leaders, have raised concerns about this policy.

A number of options are being discussed, including sleeves that can be easily rolled up on patient contact. My own view is that Islam is sufficiently flexible to take account of necessity. If there is scientific evidence for the survival of bacteria on sleeves, and transmission from there to patients, then out of necessity, there should be no obstacle to women health workers being bare below the arms.