Women’s football
THE month-long women’s football contest ended Down Under on Sunday — with many moments of unbridled joy and many tears of despair. Most of all, the FIFA Women’s World Cup inspired many people across the world, putting the spotlight on the women’s game. Spain were crowned champions for the first time; their 1-0 win over fellow first-time finalists England coming after a goal by their captain Olga Carmona, who later learnt that her father had passed away two days earlier. Women’s football, at times more than men’s football, throws up stories of adversity en route to success. It remains in the shadow of men’s football, the prize money for winners of the tournament in Australia and New Zealand dwarfed by that awarded to Argentina, the World Cup winners in Qatar last year. However, interest is rising. This was the first women’s World Cup with 32 teams, up from 24 four years ago. It saw the Philippines using several diaspora players — a model Pakistan wants to emulate to make its World Cup debut. Morocco followed their male counterparts with a stirring performance to reach the knockout stages, defender Nouhaila Benzina becoming the first player to wear a hijab while competing at a senior-level global tournament. There was also a shift of power, with traditional heavyweights Germany and defending champions US knocked out early in the tournament. Unheralded Jamaica ended women’s football icon Marta’s hopes of leading Brazil to maiden World Cup glory in the final tournament of her career by knocking them out.
Those stories should serve to inspire Pakistan, where the national women’s team is enjoying a resurgence of sorts after years of crisis in the Pakistan Football Federation. But the domestic structure is non-existent. The national team has inducted several foreign-born players recently. However, to qualify for the World Cup in future, it needs to establish not only a women’s professional league but also competitions across all age groups.
Published in Dawn, August 23rd, 2023
Show of solidarity
IT is some solace that the government has demonstrated more empathy with victims of communal violence in Jaranwala than it is usually seen to do in instances like these. More often than not, nothing more than platitudes about ‘tolerance’ and ‘rights of minorities’ emerge from officialdom. In some recent instances of religious persecution, even that effort was not expended; in its place, a deafening silence. After the mayhem wreaked on churches and homes of Christians in Jaranwala, however, government functionaries went beyond mere words. Caretaker Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar visited the locality along with caretaker Punjab Chief Minister Mohsin Naqvi to express solidarity with the victims and distribute compensation cheques among families whose homes and belongings had been torched. The district administration has moved swiftly to assess the damage sustained by the community so reparations can be quickly processed. On Sunday, the Punjab caretaker cabinet led by Mr Naqvi attended Sunday services in the area, sitting amongst the rubble of a ransacked church. This public show of solidarity must have been a balm on the suffering of the Christian community, a message that they were not alone in their grief, that the state of Pakistan has their back.
But, unless the root causes that give rise to such extremist violence are addressed on a thorough and sustained basis, nothing will change. Our minority communities will continue to live on a knife-edge, not knowing when a misspoken word, a festering resentment or some manufactured pretext will be used against them to bring a murderous mob to their doorstep. The first order of business must be to track down the perpetrators of the Jaranwala outrage and punish them to the fullest extent of the law. No one must harbour delusions about there being any mitigating factors whatsoever behind faith-based violence, no exceptions to the rule. All minorities deserve the protection of the law; every Pakistani has the right to freedom of religion. But this is the ‘easier’ part of what is required if there are to be no more Jaranwalas. Changing society’s triumphalist mindset — the outcome of decades of state-sanctioned indulgence of ultra-right pressure groups to achieve political ends — is a more arduous, multifaceted task. Only the state is in a position to undo the grievous harm its tunnel vision has caused. But, one must ask, will it?
Published in Dawn, August 23rd, 2023
Persisting doubts
AS the debate over the controversial amendments to the Army Act and Official Secrets Act and their current legal status continues, dark clouds are gathering over the Aiwan-i-Sadr.
On Monday, following President Arif Alvi’s allegation a day earlier that he had been undermined by his staff, the presidency dismissed its top secretary. While the presidency itself did not really specify why the secretary was dismissed, the contents of a ‘confidential’ letter penned by the officer and leaked to the media suggested that the secretary at least considered the two events to be directly related. Considering the officer’s proposal to take the matter to court to clear his name, the issue could turn very messy for the president if it continues to hang.
According to the leaked letter, the secretary says the president never gave him any ‘written decision’ to either assent to or return the bills to parliament, so he should not be held responsible for ‘delaying’ them. On the other hand, the president had previously claimed that he had asked for both bills to be returned within the stipulated time and was assured during follow-ups that they were.
Considering these contrasting versions, a high-level inquiry into the matter has become necessary. That it does not seem to have been initiated yet makes it all the more intriguing. It also ought to be noted that whatever his position may have been, the president seems not to have put his reasons for opposing the two bills in writing. This would suggest that his own hands are less than clean. His rather laid-back approach is also perplexing. So far, he has only posted a half-baked apology and fired a staff member without assigning any explicit reason.
The question is: what was the president thinking? Had he always wished to play his hand at the last minute, scuttling the laws only when his decision would be difficult to reverse? These two bills appeared to have had some very powerful sponsors backing them. Despite repeated opportunities, our parliamentarians ultimately found them rather difficult to resist despite their earlier protestations. Was the president’s dillydallying followed by a public denial, therefore, a considered strategy to carefully outmanoeuvre those who would have done anything to see these bills enacted?
Alternatively, was it simply that he took a massive U-turn after facing criticism from his party for providing the state with a noose to hang its leaders with? Or, finally, was it that he genuinely opposed these bills and wanted them reviewed but was undermined by his subordinates, who may have been acting on somebody else’s orders? It is critical that the nation gets to the bottom of this fiasco, and it is the president’s responsibility to have the record set straight.
Published in Dawn, August 23rd, 2023