As If Hell Fell On Me

The Taleban came here and settled here. Now they have a dispute with the government, and the government started taking actions against them. If we stand with the government the Taleban will hit us. If we stand with the Taleban the government will target us. If we don't stand with any of them, you can see how bad our situation is.

Four million people live under the grip of Taleban rule in Khyber Pukhtunkhwa and the FATA regions of Pakistan, 1 million are displaced and ordinary people are caught right in the middle. The 130-page Amnesty report, As if Hell Fell on Me, was based on nearly 300 interviews with residents of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas and the surrounding area. It tells the narrative of the suffering of the people.The government tells a story of success in its combat with the militants. Five million people, and probably a good few more, tell a different story.

Consider this comment by Amnesty International. It sums it up for me:

Most discussions of the conflict ignore the fact that northwest Pakistan is heavily populated and that the majority of people who live in FATA and other areas of northwest Pakistan do not support or take part in violence and are going about the business of trying to farm, raise livestock, weave fabrics, transport goods, raise families, and build, repair, or teach. The well-being of these civilians is rarely mentioned in media reports or policy pronouncements by Taleban or US, Pakistani, or Afghan officials and there are few signs that leaders on either side of the conflict factor civilians into their policies or strategic analyses.

The photograph of the old lady from Waziristan reminds me of a great-aunt of mine who was displaced in the Swat exodus last year. That single tear just breaks the heart.

Je Ne Comprends Pas ...

Le monde est un endroit étrange. Je ne comprends pas ...
The world is a strange place. I do not understand it ...

The Road Not Taken

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I —
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

taken from the last stanza of Robert Frost's The Road Not Taken
from The Mountain Interval, 1920

Thought Cloud

Tor_Khan تور خان

Farcebook

The recent Facebook contoversy has generated a lot of interest, not least because Pakistan and Muslims are in the news yet again. And whereas, there's nothing wrong being Muslim, it's a typical hysteric reaction from many different sides.

The Muslims, in the main, oppose this rather provocative trend of drawing cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad PBUH that has gained pace since the Danish cartoon controversy. The government of Pakistan decided to ban Facebook, Youtube, Twitter etc. in a gesture to control the spread of this, particularly after a "Draw Mohammad Day" was announced and promoted via some of these mediums.

I guess, the rights and wrongs of the ban are one thing. The greater wrong has been the media momentum with which the "draw" brigade has gained voice. There is absolutely no such thing as complete free speech and whereas, I too, use this blog to voice thought and opinon, I know that I concisously filter before I write. I know that there will be an audience somewhere that will read this - and that I can choose to write to inflame or not.

Facebook or Not

The Internet represents a window on the world, that is both cruel and fascinating and as such is the home of many undesirables. Pakistan's decision to ban Facebook, controls only parts of that. The country continues to have problems at home, not least with it's over-dependency on the US, chronic power and supply shortages, a restless population and a real sense of seperation between population and state in the Pashtoon and Baloch belt. In the latter there is an armed resistance movement that opposes the state and in the former, a people divided - with evidence to suggest that paid agents of the state have inflitrated and embedded within local populations so that everyone is caught in the quagmire that is the war on terror.

The cartoonist at the centre of the controversy - has apologised - but in terms of negative publicity, heightened alarm, and entrenched positions ... well the damage is deep, and that isn't as easily undone.

Thirsty World

Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed. ~ Mohandas K. Gandhi

The fundamental notion that environmental sustainability is only achievable through mass control on population growth, is one that needs some challenge. The reason is simple. People are not the problem. It is consumerism that strips the earth of the ability to recover in time, that is.

One of the 2015 Millennium Development Goals is Environmental Sustainability and interestingly, whilst many of the development goals look at what is happening in the developing world, here is one for the industrialised nations of the world. It is about balance, not necessarily about whole-scale reduction in lifestyle, but that key realisation that as Gandhi says, "is about satisfying need, not greed."

When we consider that fashionable "designer" waters are predicted to be an $86.5 million industry by 2011, let's also bear in mind that 42% of the rural poor around the world, still, don't have fresh, clean drinking water and that 2.6 billion people do not have access to safe clean sanitation on a planet that where the land surface is 70% water. There is plenty of water, but much, much, work to do.

Every 3.6 seconds

More than 30 per cent of children in developing countries – about 600 million – live on less than US $1 a day and every 3.6 seconds one person dies of starvation. Usually it is a child under the age of 5.

Poverty hits children hardest. The first, 2015 Millennium Development Goal is to work towards the reduction by half the proportion of people living on less than a dollar a day and to reduce by half the proportion of people who suffer from hunger.

Some of these are very much connected. For example, there is a natural connection between the goal to improve maternal health care and child health care and movements towards the reduction of poverty focussing on children would be connected to access to universal primary education.

This still remains a Millennium Promise by the UN. Is it possible?

Five years will tell.