2011

'For You Tagged Ones.'

by

Hajra Komal Feroz
 

Thank you for all that you've done for me,
Thank you for the times near the fallen tree.

Thank you for the movie dates and the dinners too
Thank you for being so freakin' cool.

Thank you for guiding me in times of need,
For being my shoulder, my ear, my friend indeed.

Thank you for giving me permission
to say what I want
and do as I please.

Thank you for listening to my stories,
so very patiently.
And for all those times of,
laughter fits,
emotional breakdowns, &
pms,not judging me.

Thank you for accepting me for who I am
and reading between the lines,
for being a positive ray of sunshine.

For all the times ive needed you,
for always being there.
To reassure me, that i'll make it, sometime, somewhere.

For always knowing what i'm thinking or what i'm about to say,
for being able to make predictions of what is about to come your way.

For taking me out, coming to the rescue, when you know there's no other way, and accepting wholeheartedly that i can be extremely gay.

For laughing at the silly jokes and the annoying habits I posses,
For letting me quote you for my silly little moments note,
i know its irritating, i confess. :p

Some of you are new,
and some of you are old.
I believe everyone is a diamond
it is 'so yesterday' to be gold.

I could go on forever and ever
but i think ive made my point
piglet is adorable, oink oink oink.

You give true meaning to me and my existence,
In a small and/or big way,
All that matters at the end is your presence and how I wish for you to stay;
in my life, in my happiness and in my sorrow,
in the times of need and times i need to borrow,
an ear to listen,
a shoulder to cry on,
a shirt to wear,
mascara to apply on.

I say goodbye to 2010 with you
And hello to 2011 too.

Arundhati Roy

Roy has emerged as a prominent social activist over the years in India, I had heard the name quite often, she is after all the author of 'The God of Small Things,' for which she won the Booker Prize in 1997. But. What amazed me was her courage as an Indian Woman to make the statements and take the steps she took.

She fearlessly spoke for the rights of the Kashmiri people and how wrong it is what is happening to them. She said: "And if no one is listening then it is because they don't want to hear. Because this is a referendum. People don't need anyone to represent them; they are representing themselves.” The fight of 'who' is going to represent Kashmir according to her is uncalled for.

Roy says that the claim that Kashmir is an integral part of India is irrelevant while the people in Kashmir suffer everyday because of this very reason. This territory has been disputed on by Pakistan and India for so many years due to which the people living there have been suffering. She highlighted this topic which is a ‘grey’ area for both Pakistan and India and how wrong it was what was happening there.

On being charged for sedition, Roy stated that India’s Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru should be charged for the same. Which may sound absurd but she has given reasons which should be considered.

She said that her purpose of the statements made was for the sole purpose of the freedom for Kashmir and was a call for justice. “What I say comes from love and pride. It comes from not wanting people to be killed, raped, imprisoned or have their finger-nails pulled out in order to force them to say they are Indians.”

It is truly inspirational to see a woman have such bravery in voicing out her views regardless of the consequences for the mere reason of freeing a people who have been dragged into a fight they do not deserve.

Neo-Liberalism & Pakistan

Neo-liberalism basically promotes free trade, maximization of profits and doing that efficiently, and to make all its objectives possible it’s necessary that regulations on imports and exports be removed or lessened. It emphasizes on both social justice and economic growth. The supporters of liberalism date from European and Western colonizing days.

Joseph Stiglitz in ‘The End of Neo-liberalism?’ writes how “For a quarter-century, there has been a contest among developing countries, and the losers are clear: countries that pursued neo-liberal policies not only lost the growth sweepstakes; when they did grow, the benefits accrued disproportionately to those at the top. This mixture of free-market rhetoric and government intervention has worked particularly badly for developing countries. They were told to stop intervening in agriculture, thereby exposing their farmers to devastating competition from the United States and Europe. Their farmers might have been able to compete with American and European farmers, but they could not compete with US and European Union subsidies. Not surprisingly, investments in agriculture in developing countries faded, and a food gap widened.”

We can see today what the decision of colonizing has done to the colonized countries. From psychological issues like image distortion or what I’d like to term as the ‘Gora Complex’ to self esteem issues. And today we find out that it was just so that the European and American economies could flourish that they decided to colonize, because in order to flourish it was necessary to maintain the power and exploit labor power; while all along we thought they were trying to ‘civilize’ the so termed ‘uncivilized nations.’

Taking into account all of the above, and seeing as the cons seem to outweigh the pros. We can clearly link what has been mentioned as the drawbacks and see them in action in our very own country, Pakistan. Due to free trade we see how the local industries are suffering, the poor have only gotten poorer and the rich seem to keep minting money. We live in a capitalist society, where there is no level of equal distribution of wealth, where unemployment is at a rise and the workers that are employed are being exploited by overtime work or being paid less than what they deserve.

Our labor being cheap is taken advantage of by powerful countries and because of our lack of care for our citizens we let these countries take advantage in the greed for money, that which too goes to benefit the elite class in the end.

We see McDonalds taking over Mr. Burger, Coke taking over Pakola and Doritos taking over Slims. We see that thanks to Nestlé’s pure water the government could care less about the tap water which the poor drink from, which is full of germs. Sad thing is, there is a lack of the dirty tap water too. We have these designers using cheap labor for embroidery purposes and making a profit of twice the cost.

So really, neo-liberalism has done no wonders for our country. It can’t be practiced in developing countries because of its lack of consideration of what globalization may do to the local industries and in general the masses which in developing countries are the poor.

Hence seeing the condition of Pakistan, the Keynesian approach needs to be applied. In this approach restrictions are put on trade, and there is sufficient amount of intervention from the public sector. Instead of a market economy, it promotes mixed economy and even though it seems that we have a mixed economy, we really don’t. Also, believing that an economy is capable of self regulation is very 19^th century, in today’s day and age, regulation of an economy has to be made and that is something that was introduced by the Keynesian approach.

Joseph Stiglitz from his article on ‘The End of Neo-liberalism?’ states that “Neo-liberal market fundamentalism was always a political doctrine serving certain interests. It was never supported by economic theory. Nor, it should now be clear, is it supported by historical experience. Learning this lesson may be the silver lining in the cloud now hanging over the global economy.”

Grameen Bank

Muhammad Yunus was born on 28 June 1940 and is a Bangladeshi banker, economist, Head of the Rural Economics Program at the University of Chittagong, and Nobel Peace Prize recipient for his efforts to create economic and social development from below.He developed concepts of microcredit and microfinance and found a bank that works solely for the poor, ‘Grameen Bank.’ 

The Grameen Bank gives small loans to the poor people without requiring any form of security. Instead a group ensures that the borrowers utilize the loan in a productive manner which embraces the skills that they have. What’s interesting about the bank is that the majority of borrowers are women; this has enabled women to raise their status, become less dependent on their husbands and improve the standard of living of their homes and children. 

The U.S. President, Barack Obama awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom on 12 August 2009, the nation’s highest civilian honor, to 16 people for making a difference in the world, and being agents of change, out of which one of them was Muhammad Yunus. President Obama said: "They remind us that we each have it within our power to fulfill dreams, to advance the dreams of others, and to remake the world for our children." 

His ideas were and still are innovative. He challenged main-stream economics, and brought forth something new that truly helped the masses of his country and is now helping countries all over the world.

His idea of empowering women is also worth writing about because in a country where women are given hardly any rights he decided to empower them, to give them the right to take loans and build on the skills that they have (example: embroidery) and hence become independent. Also, once women and men are both productive in a country, it leads to economic growth. Without the productiveness of both the male and female population, economic growth is highly unattainable, demonstrating Muhammad Yunus’ long term vision.

The best thing about the ‘Grameen Bank’ was that it helped break the vicious cycle that would have carried on for centuries to come. The fact that it has helped 21,000 students from illiterate poor families to attend engineering schools and medical schools ensures that the new generation will break through and bring prosperity to Bangladesh.

Muhammad Yunus began at such a small scale, and what inspired him was to make the condition of the people of his country better. This patriotic spirit is something we all have lost along the way and reading about his achievements is inspirational. Grameen Bank signifies change and the emergence of new ideas and their success.

The emergence of this Bank has shed light upon the concept of every human being having the right to live a healthy life with at least the necessities, and this bank has proved that the poorest of people if given the chance can be agents of change in their own lives, and develop into successful individuals in their own small ways. No one wants to be poor, no one chooses to be poor, and it’s the lack of opportunity that pushes people towards poverty. And micro-credit is one of the opportunities that Muhammad Yunus provided through his bank in order to do away with poverty.

Falak Sufi

The Falak Sufi scholarship is a scholarship that has been introduced by The Graduate School of Arts & Science of New York University. Candidates for the master’s program in Near Eastern Studies are eligible to apply; including applicants to the program’s joint degree with Journalism, the concentration with Museum Studies, and the business track.This scholarship is also to support those individuals who belong to countries in South Asia with a majority Islamic population.

The Falak Sufi scholarship is in honor of Falak Sufi who was a Karachiite, born in Pakistan in 1983. She graduated from the Department of Political Science at the National University of Singapore with a first class Honors degree and carried on to pursue her graduate studies at NYU. She was an upcoming scholar who focused on issues related to women and gender in South Asia. Falak Sufi, aged twenty-three, died on 19 March 2008, not much can be found on how she died exactly.

I was skimming through the paper and found an advertisement for this scholarship by NYU and it was amazing to see the honor that this female from Pakistan has gotten and that to at such a young age.

We tend to complain about the neglect women and scholars of our country face, while we ourselves are neglecting them. Who knew Falak Sufi before this scholarship was announced? I know I didn’t know her. And it gives me great grief that I never met this fine young woman who belonged to my very own country. Before we stereotype what the world thinks of us as Pakistani’s we must look into what we are not told most of the time. This girl was a Muslim, Pakistani, female-all three of which are said to be discriminated against in their own way in today’s day and age; yet I see an institute as prestigious as NYU has honored her in a way that we would have never deemed possible. So really, I urge the people of Pakistan to look through the bubble we all have been put in and into a world that may seem alien to us today but very much exists.

The Fallen Tree

The Fallen Tree at SZABIST was cut down on November 28, 2010. Due to the complaints of students for lack of seating space and cleanliness in that area, a tree that was approximately 100 or so years old was cut. Promises of benches with shades have been made; but the loss of the Fallen Tree makes this news bitter.

For those of you who don’t know the story behind the Fallen Tree, it was a tree at SZABIST, 100 Clifton. This tree was no ordinary tree, it was beautiful. Its branches were long and tilted, hence the 'fallen' bit in the name. This tree wasn't just any tree, it had a name, and it was an actual location in our campus; "come to the fallen tree" we'd say. It was with us on concerts, for society meetings, at different events and was the place where pictures always came out pretty.

Yes, it was a home for many birds who would occasionally share their waste with all those who sat under the tree however; we never hated it for that.

I’m no environmentalist. But. When I came to SZABIST today and saw the ruins of the tree, saw how that entire area had been ripped apart, how it would never be the same again, it hurt; viewing pictures of the cut down tree on facebook was painful enough.

I’m writing this because the fallen tree was a separate entity, it had an identity, and I believe (not to sound melodramatic), an actual life has been taken.

 

 

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That Woman

I was walking on the road at Saddar, opposite Zainab Market, and saw a car pass by me. I wouldn't have noticed but the car slowed down as it passed and that is when I saw that woman. Her face was covered with a veil and all I could see were her eyes. She leaned against the passenger seat door while the man driving the car leaned towards her pulling her towards him with her veil. He grabbed on to it and all I could see was fear in her eyes. For the first time in my life I saw fear in someones eyes. The car simply passed by.

The woman who cooks, who cleans, who carries a child in her womb for 9 months and goes through labor to deliver that child, the woman who listens, who is a partner in life and in bed; does not deserve to be abused by a man who is obviously physically way stronger than she is. She does not deserve to be treated any less then a daughter by her in laws, she does not deserve to be burned, to be cheated on, to be sexually harassed. She does not deserve to be buried alive with her dead husband or have her infant daughter buried. She does not deserve to be killed if raped, doesn't deserve to be raped in the first place.She does not deserve to be judged on her physical appearance rather than her qualification. She does not deserve to be frowned upon if she does not have a spouse.

That woman does not deserve the abuse, in all its forms, that has been and still is laid on her.

I'm no feminist and even I know that.