End the slaughter
TWO weeks after Hamas staged an unprecedented attack inside Israel, and Tel Aviv responded with savagery, Palestinians continue to face the merciless assault of the Israeli war machine.
However, a tiny sliver of hope appeared on Saturday when the Rafah crossing that links Egypt to Gaza was finally opened, allowing 20 trucks of aid — for over 2m people — into the besieged Strip. While Israel is determined to starve Palestinian civilians to death, it took the personal intervention of the UN secretary general to open the crossing and allow in limited aid.
As António Guterres, who visited Rafah, observed, there are “food trucks on one side and empty stomachs on the other”. The UN and all states with a conscience must ensure this is not a token display of compassion, and that the requisite amount of aid reaches Gaza’s people without restriction.
Yet welcome as this development is, the world should be under no illusion that Israel has suddenly realised the human catastrophe it has unleashed in Gaza. A ground invasion of the Strip is very much on the cards, and knowing the brutality of the Israeli military, the civilian toll may go up significantly.
Already over 4,000 Palestinians, many of them children, have died during the conflict. This is more than the number of deaths in the two Intifadas. Despite these appalling figures, those who run the international ‘rules-based order’ feel no compassion for Palestinians.
Over the past few days, the US vetoed two UNSC resolutions — one Russian, the other Brazilian — that called for a humanitarian ceasefire. As the Russian UN representative noted, the Security Council had become “hostage to the selfish intentions of the Western bloc”.
The international community — at least those of its members that consider Palestinians worthy of basic dignity — must insist on an immediate cessation of hostilities. Furthermore, Israel needs to be warned that continuing slaughter of civilians during a ground invasion will not be tolerated.
Once the bloodshed stops, a serious effort, led by the Global South, must be undertaken to permanently solve the Palestine issue, ensuring a viable Palestinian state, and an end to the daily humiliation of the Arabs by Israel.
The West has shown that it is not — and arguably has never been — an honest broker in the Arab-Israeli dispute. That’s why states with a more measured approach to the issue, such as Russia and China, as well as South Africa and Brazil, can lead the effort.
History will look back at these dark times and bear witness to the ordinary people in the East and West who stood in solidarity with Palestine’s defenceless civilians. It will also remember that the world’s most powerful states — who could have stopped the violence — abetted Israel’s butchery of the Palestinian people.
Published in Dawn, October 23th, 2023
Pulled strings
SHEIKH Rashid Ahmed, the bombastic head of the Awami Muslim League, has become the latest leader to be dragged in front of a camera to convince the public that PTI chairman Imran Khan deserves to be penalised by the state for his actions. The practice has become so commonplace that an Islamabad High Court judge once recommended to a PTI leader facing victimisation that he address a press conference and be rid of his legal troubles. It is evident that the establishment wants the citizenry to accept that Mr Khan is persona non grata in Pakistani politics. However, Pakistan’s history has shown that deliberate attempts — especially by forces that have nothing to do with electoral politics — to sideline a political party and its leaders will not necessarily sway public opinion and may, in fact, complicate the challenge for these forces. The state’s crude attempts to silence dissent and turn people away from popular leaders in the past has had quite the opposite effect in several cases. In the present instance, whisking away politicians and anchors, then lying about their whereabouts in court, only to have them magically reappear on TV, is not a viable strategy, and is only widening the gap between the people and the state.
Many PTI leaders and sympathisers have already publicly distanced themselves from Mr Khan. But while the PTI chairman’s self-centredness, considerable ego and flawed understanding of politics obviously did not help him or his party, the general consensus seems to be that most of those who abandoned him did not do so of their own volition. Additionally, while only fair elections can provide a decisive answer, Mr Khan continues to be a popular politician for many potential voters. For this reason, there are few who are ready to take the statements of the reappearing PTI politicians at face value. Through these pages, this publication has reminded those making the decisions at the top that popular leaders — hailing from any political party — cannot be removed from the political equation based on forced arithmetic. As long as Pakistan remains a democracy, it is the people who will decide politicians’ fates with their votes. The state cannot reduce politics to a farce and expect people to believe its narrative. The establishment’s shenanigans have a long history, and the public now can see through its machinations.
Published in Dawn, October 23th, 2023
Past perfect
IN Pakistan, antiquity has been at odds with the politics of ideology and identity, leading to a partisan concept of culture based on dominance. Therefore, Thursday’s judgement by a division bench of the Sindh High Court’s Hyderabad circuit on the preservation of Nagarparkar’s Karoonjhar Hills and their “protection in conformity with international guidelines” was momentous as it endorsed the range as a well of heritage. The order stated that “the entire range of Karoonjhar Hills is one monument under the law and cannot be divided into pieces and portions”. The court also called for the resurrection of every Jain temple in its original form and that statues declared as world heritage be made available.
Sindh’s forgotten ties with Jainism nestle in the depths of Nagarparkar and Karoonjhar Hills, a range which some archaeologists say is nearly three billion years old. Nourished by the lost Hakra river, the area throve as a cultural hub in the Chalcolithic and Paleolithic ages. The pink granite stretch, once known as Kinro, is still encrusted with magnificence: Bodhesar, Sadhro, Ambaji, Virawah temples, the Gorri Jain Mandir and a Bodhesar mosque. Almost six kilometres from central Nagarparkar stands a complex of three Bodhesar Jain temples built in 1375 AD and in 1449 AD; two have domes carved from Karoonjhar stone and the third is in complete decay. While the higher Bodhesar temple, with an uneven stone stairwell, was said to be by the Gulf of Sindhu, Bodhesar talao and a white marble mosque built in 1505 are at the foot of the hills. Such relics, and the remains of the fifth-century Parinagar Fort, which connected Karoonjhar to the sea, illustrate how sacred the slopes were to Jains. The least we can do today is to ensure that all beautiful residues of the past do not fade away as besides monetary rewards, such vestige reconnects us to our humane, accepting selves — an invaluable inheritance for future generations.
Published in Dawn, October 23th, 2023