This past Tuesday, a man was arrested for throwing four of his children into a canal at Sheikhupura Road in Faisalabad. He had done this following a confrontation with his wife for not being able to buy Eid clothes for their children. The same day, a four-year-old girl was allegedly raped in Karachi’s Essa Nagri neighbourhood. A day prior, three people were killed in separate firing incidents in Balochistan’s Panjgur and Kech district. And the body of a 25-year-old woman was found riddled with bullets from a rented apartment in Lahore. All this in just a span of two days. Countless other gruesome incidents have gone unreported.
These evil acts have pervaded all domains of Pakistani society. But you may ask: apart from the fact that they were crimes of extreme nature, what connection do they have with each other? To find an answer one must dig deep, underneath the apparent motives and past the underlying moral obscurity of such individuals. While specific instances might have triggered acts of aggression, the build-up to a tipping point may have taken years. Mental illness, patriarchy or discrimination may be among the significant contributing factors, but one thing in particular cuts across them all — capitalism. As a global system, capitalism is based on exploitation and oppression. It has induced extreme inequality and curtailed freedom, the effects of which have trickled down to the common man. An underdeveloped country like Pakistan is exploited not only by global powers but also by their own elite. The social divide keeps on exacerbating with millions of people dropping below the poverty. Unemployment and inflation remain high, and literacy low.
The government continues to focus on the economy, blinding itself from the happenings in its backyard. The relevant authorities must realise that GDP and ‘standard of living’ are two totally different concepts — where the latter must be placed at the centre of economic activity. Now, more than ever, the people need monetary relief.
Cementing exports
For any country, exports are a major indicator of their productivity. Cement production, on the other hand, is an indicator of how well is the construction industry progressing. Both of these figures, especially in the context of the latter have shown an uptick in recent years pointing towards a gradual improvement in the economic health of our country. Cement manufacturers in the country have claimed that cement sales have increased multifold on the back of strong domestic consumption and exports.
With the Imran Khan-led government championing the construction sector as the panacea for the economic morass the country finds itself in, the All Pakistan Cement Manufacturers Association (APCMA) say that local sales during July-April 2020-21 surged by 18.87% to 40.249 million tonnes from 33.859 million tonnes in the same period during the last fiscal year. Exports also improved to 8.025 million tonnes during the first 10 months of the ongoing fiscal year from 6.696 million tonnes during the same period in the last fiscal year – up by 19.84%. The top destination for Pakistani cement has been to developing and less developed countries such as those in East Africa, Sri Lanka, Yemen and Mozambique. Afghanistan is a major export destination as well, accounting for around 50% of all our cement exports. According to the APCMA, cement dispatch continues to increase even during Ramazan when the construction sector slows down.
While on paper and per the numbers, this all sounds like good news for the economy, we have to be careful about the true cost that we have to pay for this progress. Unregulated and unrestricted construction has caused problems before in our country, while massive cement manufacturers were touted as the reason for creating environmental pollution and even causing a historical pond to run dry. If we are not too careful, our lust to stuff our pockets with cash could leave us facing a disaster in a very different and real form.
Tension in East Jerusalem
Tensions are high in East Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood, which has seen repeated clashes between Palestinians and Israelis over the past few weeks. Far-right Jewish groups have regularly been harassing Muslims who gather in a nearby square for nightly Iftars. These confrontations regularly turn violent. Worsening the situation is the clear bias of the police. Even though both sides were involved in the violence, all nine arrests reported on Thursday were of Palestinians. This was despite reports and some footage of Israelis firing guns, pepper-spraying Palestinians, and hurling rocks, chairs, and even firebombs.
The tensions heated up last week after an Israeli court ordered the eviction of dozens of Palestinians thanks to a law that allows Jews to claim property they say they have owned before the creation of Israel in 1948. Palestinians have no such rights. The law has in the past been abused by lawyers and settler groups to evict Arabs using forged documents or outright coercion. Meanwhile, there have been cases where Palestinians had authentic pre-1948 ownership documents rejected by Israeli courts.
In the case of East Jerusalem, nationalist Jews have long tried to expand the Jewish population of the area through legal and illegal means. This is because Palestinians want the Muslim-majority East Jerusalem to be the capital of a future Palestinian state, while nationalist Jews have long laid claim to all of Jerusalem. Sheikh Jarrah has its own significance because it is home to a shrine believed to be the tomb of Simeon the Just, a site popular among Jewish pilgrims.
Incidentally, while the authenticity of the Jewish shrine has long been questioned, the neighbourhood is named for a historical figure, Salahuddin Ayyubi’s personal doctor, who lived in the area after the conquest of Jeruselum. That famous resident had made this area popular among the Muslim elite. However, today, thanks to Israel’s apartheid policies, the Muslim sections are only a shadow of their former selves. The Israeli Supreme Court could easily stop this by reviewing ownership documents sent by Jordan. But that would mean taking on the settlers, which the court has rarely been
