I Opened The News, And It Was Yellow

When you have four stories on one patently manufactured 'issue' carried by a newspaper in five days, you can safely consider it an object lesson in how to conduct a witch-hunt.

The News' City pages May 3, 2012

In the first story, titled 'City's elite schools say no to national anthem' published in the city pages of The News on May 3, 2012, reporter Sidrah Roghay wrote that several "elite" schools in Karachi had discontinued the tradition of singing the Pakistani national anthem during morning assembly "calling it a waste of time and energy."

She went on to imply that "regulatory authorities" were complicit in this "dismal" state of affairs, because of the schools' "influence and connections." The schools, we were told, catered mostly to the "elite, upper-middle class and middle class families." The battle lines between 'us' and 'them' being drawn, Ms Roghay and the city editor (who presumably helped commission this near flawless incitement to class resentment and hyper-patriotism), went on to helpfully pin the tail on the donkey. With a staple gun.

A vice principal of Bayview High School was quoted as saying the national anthem was sung only once a week because "it takes too long, and wastes time that can be used in the class constructively."

The reader's take home is, this person, this school, thinks singing the national anthem is a waste of time.

An anonymous school head is then quoted mouthing the words to really get the dander up of all Pakistani and linguistic patriots:

“I do not ask students to sing the national anthem: firstly, because it is in Urdu; secondly, I do not believe in national cohesion. What purpose does the national anthem serve? Students should be engaged in more meaningful activities.”

The reader's take home is, what a jerk!

Further on, for those horses who are reluctant to drink:

"The principal’s obvious disdain for the national language and anthem underlines the fundamental crisis of Pakistan’s education system which remains divided not just on the [sic] class basis, but also on the [sic] ideological grounds."

And in the rub down stage, we have quotes from a collection of impressively titled talking heads that subtly conflate the frequency with which a student sings the national anthem with the depth of their patriotism.

After the first article, there was radio silence for a day as the article did the rounds, eliciting the predictable outraged how dare these people think the national anthem should not be sung! from people who either a) read it; b) read about it on someone's Facebook wall or Twitter feed; or c) heard about it during a lull in conversation at a gathering (such as the provincial assembly).

The News' City pages May 5, 2012

Then, on Saturday May 5th, The News carried two follow up stories. The first, titled 'Elite schools' defiance over national anthem stirs debate in PA' by reporter Imtiaz Ali, began with a paragraph saying that Sindh Education Minister Pir Mazharul Haq had taken serious notice of the paper's report that some of the "elite" schools in Karachi had "banned" the singing of the national anthem.

The minister went on to express his "displeasure" at the schools, and said that such an attitude "made a joke of national identity."

Three schools were named in a sentence that said they had either "totally scrapped the tradition of singing the national anthem or do it only once a week." No further details were provided about which of them had done the former or the latter. No details at all were provided about the frequency of the singing of the national anthem in government schools, madrassas, or the private school equivalent of an alternative to an "elite" school. But...

"The report came as a shock for many senior educationists, parents and students. They expressed concern over the banning of the national anthem at these institutions, which follow the Cambridge system of education, and asked the government to intervene. The minister said the Directorate of Private Schools had been directed to take strict action against these schools, saying that they considered themselves above the law."

An MQM minister is then reported to have suggested that the Sindh Assembly pass a resolution making the singing of the national anthem mandatory at all schools, including the ones "affiliated with a foreign system of education."

The third story, titled 'Schools served with notices' detailed how the Directorate of Private School Institution Sindh (DPIS) had on Friday sent notices to some of the leading private schools which had "barred" the singing of national anthem at their morning assemblies. The heads of the schools mentioned in the initial report - bar one - and some others that traditionally come under the 'elite' banner, met with the DPIS:

"Representatives of most of these schools said that they follow the tradition of national anthem at their assemblies. Meanwhile, Khalid Shah, chairman All Pakistan Private Schools Management Associations Sindh, promised an inquiry regarding the issue, saying that the registration of those schools, which refuse to follow the tradition [italics added] of national anthem, would be cancelled."

Two days later, on Monday May 7th, a further story appeared by Fasahat Mohiuddin under the subheading "Discarding the National Anthem", detailing how various political parties had jumped into the fray and wanted urgent "action against the schools." The PPP minister for local bodies, Agha Siraj Durrani said "Our party will never allow such practice to go unchecked." The MQM's Coordination Committee's Waseem Aftab said his party "strongly condemned the act of dropping the national anthem by a handful of elite schools." The PMLN Sindh President Ghous Ali Shah "demanded action" and "asked for an 'investigation' of how these institutions had been allowed to get away with it for such a long time." The PMLQ's Halim Adil Sheikh "demanded that the government should penalise all such schools." The Jamaat-e-Islami, the Sunni Tehrik and Jafferia Alliance reps expressed similar shock and outrage. The reporter noted:

"There appears a strong, but rare consensus among all the political and religious parties that some of those private schools, which teach the Cambridge system of education, should not be allowed to flout the country's traditions."

The News' City pages May 7, 2012

I do not wish to get into the issue of whether singing the national anthem makes someone more or less patriotic (though many of the people dubbed threats to Pakistan by the same political parties mentioned above sing the anthem the loudest). Or whether making a herd of sleepy kids mouth lyrics they often don't understand five times a week instead of once a week is the most productive use of their time in school. Let's just say I too have been moved by the melody of the Land of the Pure, and I too understand why Sesame Street has a character dubbed a grouch. But I do want to comment on the kind of yellow journalism that characterizes these reports:

1) The facts are that the national anthem is sung and taught at all schools in Pakistan, just not always every single day. After these loaded stories, a lot of people now think the anthem is not sung at all. But far more importantly, in a country where the illiteracy rate is easily above 50%,  where the vast majority of children drop out of school before reaching the 6th grade, where there are more children out of school than the entire population of Australia, where 50% of children between the ages of 6-16 who are in school cannot read a single sentence in any language, where less than 1.5% of the GDP is allocated to education (and even that is not fully spent), where just 39% of schools have electricity connections, and where  the average teacher is missing from school one day every week, THIS is what The News believes is the most pressing issue to take up and run as a campaign?!? (For more shocking figures see Education Emergency.)

2) Note the subtle, intelligent manipulation of language in such propaganda, which is perhaps the only time you see subtle, intelligent manipulation of anything in newsprint these days. The four stories consistently claim the anthem has been 'banned' or 'barred' or 'dropped' or 'scrapped' or 'discarded' in the schools they name, and perhaps others, and that is blatantly false, even going by the stories themselves. You'd have to be a real idiot to 'ban' the national anthem anywhere in Pakistan (and how would that even work?). Furthermore, the fact that a parliamentarian floated a resolution calling for the singing of the national anthem to be made mandatory in schools clearly establishes that there exists no such law in the first place. Even if a school head (from Mars) decided a full assembly with the raising of the flag and the national anthem was best done once a week, he/she would not be breaking any laws. Most people keep referring to the "tradition" of singing the anthem, which also shows there is no law mandating the singing of the anthem. (Incidentally it's also a tradition in Pakistan to provide bad education but nobody wants to harp on that.) Yet, note, in story two, we have a reference to how the 'elite' schools considered themselves "above the law." The editors of The News probably also don't even know that parliamentary resolutions are not laws and are not binding. Then, there is the consistent raising of the 'elite' flag, and the equation of private schools with the elite. Had the reporters and editors of The News done a little bit of real research, they would know that more than half of all urban children in Pakistan attend private schools.

3) The statement most guaranteed to raise hackles, "I do not believe in national cohesion", is attributed to an 'anonymous' source. We have no way of knowing if this is actually a real quote or a bit of spice thrown in by the reporter. If someone is unwilling to own up to what is clearly a provocative statement, why include it? What's next for The News' city pages? "A non-Muslim, speaking on condition of anonymity, said 'I do not believe Muhammed was the last prophet"? Why cross the line between reportage and sensationalism? This bring me to…

4) Motive. What beef does The News, or the editors who have okayed these stories (reasonable to assume since more than one reporter has been assigned this particular story) have with these particular schools? Until they can provide us with more fire than smoke, we're going to have to assume this was simply a case of a child or relative refused admittance or employment.

And we're not going to talk about where Mir Shakilur Rehman's children went to school and college.

I shudder to think what all this says about the issues that will power upcoming electoral pleas. The city pages, more than the oped pages (and definitely more than the lifestyle pages) often act as remoras to the sharks apt to surface in the speeches of the coming year. The rhetoric employed in this campaign against certain private schools "which follow the Cambridge system of education" (note the frequency with which two pop up in the first three stories) is reminiscent of that employed by Imran Khan in his magnum opus I Know What You Did Last Summer (But Let's Not Talk About What I Did Because That's So Last Summer). Now that we have decided we don't like America, are we going to be told we don't like anything foreign at all? Shall we be asked to say goodbye to pants, guitars and any kind of learning focussed on inculcating critical thinking rather than rote learning? If we refuse, will we be told we are not Pakistani enough?

 I hope not. Because I have always hated the Indian toilet.

Read of the Day

I came across an essay today that contained the following passages:

"Widespread ignorance bordering on idiocy is our new national goal. It’s no use pretending otherwise and telling us... that educated people are the nation’s most valuable resources. Sure, they are, but do we still want them? It doesn’t look to me as if we do. The ideal citizen of a politically corrupt state, such as the one we now have, is a gullible dolt unable to tell truth from bullshit. 

An educated, well-informed population, the kind that a functioning democracy requires, would be difficult to lie to, and could not be led by the nose by the various vested interests running amok in this country. Most of our politicians and their political advisers and lobbyists would find themselves unemployed, and so would the gasbags who pass themselves off as our opinion makers. Luckily for them, nothing so catastrophic, even though perfectly well-deserved and widely-welcome, has a remote chance of occurring any time soon. For starters, there’s more money to be made from the ignorant than the enlightened, and deceiving [people] is one of the few growing home industries we still have in this country. A truly educated populace would be bad, both for politicians and for business. 

It took years of indifference and stupidity to make us as ignorant as we are today... If this lack of knowledge is the result of the years of dumbing down of ... school curriculum and of families that don’t talk to their children about the past, there’s another more pernicious kind of ignorance we confront today. It is the product of years of ideological and political polarization and the deliberate effort by the most fanatical and intolerant parties in that conflict to manufacture more ignorance by lying about many aspects of our history and even our recent past."

Exactly what all right-thinking Pakistanis have been moaning about for the longest time, isn't it?

Good to know that celebrated American poets feel the same way.

The Matrix?

Remember, it's a whole system!

Road to protective custody? (Photo: Adnan Ahmad)

Song of the Times

Stumbled across this hilarious gem of a song by legendary Indian composer Madan Mohan from the first film he ever composed for. The film was Aankhen, the year was 1950. The singers are the vocal giants Shamshad Begum and Mukesh. The song is timeless, and nothing if not pertinent to Pakistani politics these days.

By the way, the news today is that Sindh University has asked the Higher Education Commission (HEC) to be given further two months (TWO MONTHS!) to verify the degrees under its purview. That can mean one of two things. One, that the Sindh educational bureaucracy is really as inefficient as everyone thinks it is. OR. Or two, that after failing to delay the inevitable coming to light of fake degrees by using all manner of underhand pressure tactics (such as blackmailing the HEC Chairman by arresting his brother and raiding his home and threatening other education department staffers), the government has decided to employ this latest tactic of postponing the issue. I really don't feel like discussing this complicated and sordid business any further (yes, it's not a simple black and white case as columnist Mosharraf Zaidi eloquently explains here). But I am quite happy to make light of it, for God knows we need some light in our lives.

So here's to you, Babar Awan.

Aslam Raisani: The Standup

Chief Minister Balochistan Muhammad Aslam Raisani is a man of few words. And we should all be thankful for that. Because when he does open his mouth, all sorts of funny pronouncements come pouring out. And it takes time to savour their genius.

Aslam Raisani: a devilish sense of humour?

By now everyone must have heard of his latest declaration that "a degree is a degree, whether fake or real" - said in response to a question about the impact of the drive against parliamentarians who lied about their educational qualifications. Well said, Mr Raisani. And a law is a law, whether stupid or good. And by your logic, a room is a room, whether it's the bedroom in the house or a prison cell. So people who get hauled up for flouting the law, should not mind at all.

But that's not the end of Mr Raisani's cheeky sense of humour, since as we all know, it's difficult to stop once you're on a roll. So we also have the following:

"Chief Minister Nawab Aslam Raisani advised the unemployed youth protesting against the unemployment to join politics and become ministers in their bid to end unemployment."

What's that they say about many a true word being spoken in jest? Give it up for Aslam Raisani folks.

Slurring Education or How To Get "Neat" School Supplies

Even though Five Rupees has already blogged this, how could one go without sharing it?

Geo News reports on what notebook covers in Lahore's Urdu Bazaar are being made of. Hil-ar-ious!



Don't miss the repeated naming by Geo anchors of the "Red Label" and "Black Label" brands (Johnny Walker couldn't have got such advertising even if they paid for it!) and Ghareeda Faruqi's forced pun on "what kind of label" this attaches to education. As Ahsan points out in his post, the concern also seems to be especially over the fact that it was advertising for "ghair mulki sharaab" (foreign liquor) . . . as opposed to the local brands? My particular favourite is when anchor Salman Hassan asks the provincial education minister:

"Kya kahein gay aap ke jo maasoom bachay hain unn ko issi umr se pata chal jaye ga ke market mein kaun kaun si sharaabein available hain...?" (What would you say to the fact that innocent children will get to know at this age what brands of liquor are available in the market?)

Indeed. They should wait at least until they are 18.

But I have a few other questions for Geo to find out the answers to:

1) Are Black Label notebooks more expensive than Red Label ones?
2) Is whiskey getting preferential treatment? What about vodka, tequila, rum, wine and beer?
3) Are there any Single Malt notebooks?
4) Which brand did children have a preference for?
5) What does happen to the hundreds of thousands of cartons of foreign liquor discarded in Pakistan?


Post-Script: Would add a whole new meaning to teachers telling students to keep their copies "neat", wouldn't you say?

How Do You Say 'Corruption' in French, Arabic and Russian?

This report in The News about an audit of the army-administered National University of Modern Languages in Islamabad should serve to shut up those people who believe that if it weren't for the watchful eye of the military, 'corrupt politicians' would eat up this country.

Keep in mind as you read through the report, that the Board of Governors is headed by the Chief of Army Staff and the Rector (Vice Chancellor) is a retired brigadier.

NUML rector, directors caught by own auditors

University management rejects all charges

 

Wednesday, January 06, 2010

By Umar Cheema

 

ISLAMABAD: An audit report of the Army-run National University of Modern Languages (NUML) has found that its Rector, a retired Army brigadier, was also receiving the salary of a night watchman (security supervisor), getting tax rebates as a researcher and had sent his daughter and son-in-law abroad using the university scholarships.

 

While the NUML management has given some lame justifications for these acts, the auditors have found them unsatisfactory. The report finds that out of three scholarship grants, two were granted to the Rector’s family members. A grant of Rs 15.4 million allocated for setting up linkages and exchange of visits with the Utrecht University of the Netherlands was used for summer vacation in the UK, the USA, France and Turkey.

 

A hefty amount collected under the head of fine from students was kept aside for discretionary use of the management as “daily expenditures,” the audit report disclosed. Besides, dozens of appointments were made during a period of hiring ban. One such beneficiary, Maj Gen (retd) Owais Mushtaq Qureshi, has now been appointed as Federal Public Service Commission member.

 

The report finds that Brig. (retd) Aziz Ahmad Khan, the Rector, is not the only official involved in irregularities, he has many partners posted on senior positions like director administration, director finance, director libraries, registrar and director academics.

 

As for drawing money under the garb of a supervisor of security guards, other beneficiaries include his director administration Muhammad Yasin, director finance Muhammad Ashraf, director libraries Muhammad Abbas, registrar Kamran Jahangir and director academics Saeed Akhtar Malik. The Rector, together with his partners, impersonated as security supervisor to collect Rs 620,549 in extra money.

 

Defending itself, the NUML administration told the auditors that high-level security was organised for the protection of a sizeable number of foreign military students in the university. “This was the time when the security situation in Islamabad was beyond anyone’s control. It was, therefore, decided that high-level security be organised. This included security provided by the agencies and overseen by senior officers of the university. It would be appreciated that the whole night duty would definitely require compensation. Hence, the amount under observation was paid. However, as soon as these sensitive students had completed stay at the campus, the payment was stopped forthwith,” the NUML said.

 

The audit report, however, turned down the plea, saying: “Security didn’t fall under the responsibility of the officers mentioned” and directed the beneficiaries to return the money. The Rector’s daughter, Ayesha, and her husband, Waqas Hassan, are named as the two, out of three beneficiaries, who were granted M Phil leading to PhD scholarships for study in Sussex University, UK. The criteria for granting such awards were not adhered to, the audit report objected, noting that there was no provision of awarding scholarship for higher education in the NUML Ordinance 2000.

 

The university administration responding to this objection said the criteria for selection was transparent, the candidates had fulfilled all the conditions for winning the scholarship and that the Rector was not part of the selection committee.

 

The Rector’s administrative post notwithstanding, he received 75 per cent tax rebate posing as researcher as the facility is available to those involved in research work. Director planning & coordination and registrar also abused this facility, the audit objected.

 

The NUML’s reply to this charge was that PhD degree holders from foreign university, who also work as teacher and researcher, qualify for the rebate. This justification was also rejected by the auditors who observed that the facility was available only to full-time teachers.

 

As regards the use of Rs 15.4 million allocated for setting up linkages and exchange of visits with the Utrecht University, the project was intended to promote research and development at the postgraduate level. A department called “Government and Organisational Science” was to be established with similar system in currency at the Utrecht University. The staff was to be trained by the Utrecht University with its staff biannual visit to Pakistan be arranged. It was not done; instead the NUML management started using it for foreign visits.

 

“The activities of the project mainly depicts the picture that the programme was made to have foreign visits to UK, USA, France, Netherlands, Turkey during vacations of the university,” noted the audit report.

 

The NUML administration replying to this objection said that the PC-1 provides that joint faculty visits will be undertaken by the Pakistani side in May and June every year because in June and early part of July, Utrecht’s faculty and administrators are free from their routine assignments and can spare more time for research. However, the management didn’t reply as to how the visits to other countries were undertaken using these funds.

Watchmen salaries for the vice chancellor, scholarships for daughter and son-in-law, joyrides to foreign destinations, inappropriate tax rebates... how low can you go?

Geo Does the Dirty Once Again

You need to view this report from Geo in its entirety to evaluate just how "revolutionary" and "progressive" our electronic media has been for Pakistan...

Yup, this is the side of "fearless journalism" that we never hear about from the champions of media freedom who do not tire from telling us about their "principles" (i.e. "Geo Asool" in this case) and their fight for a more just and educated Pakistan. That is, when they're not inundating us with prattling talk shows about petty political intrigues...

A few questions that come to mind about this report for the Geo Asool people to answer:

1. It mentions that the entire "issue" was first highlighted by Geo itself. Did Geo create this "issue" or was there actually some protest before Geo got their cameras in there?

2. The poor terrorised principal states that the same curriculum is being followed by other schools. Did Geo's reporters make any attempt to check this? And if so, why was it not included in the report?

3. Is there something inherently wrong about teaching biology? Human biology? Sex education? Geo should tell us what its position is on the matter.

4. The thrust of the report seems to be that these kids are much too young to be given information about sex or human biology. Really? Is puberty too young? Is Geo implying that it would be okay if this information came slightly later? Or not at all?

5. What is the background of the moronic "Adviser on Education, Naveed Zuberi" who claims that Pakistani 'kids' are not even aware of sexual issues before they get their National ID card? Is he qualified to discuss educational matters? Does he know that the 'age of consent' in Pakistan is 16? And does an 'adviser' have the authority to conduct 'raids' on a school?

6. The report goes on to accuse the school of using further 'objectionable' material in its curricula, without specifying what this is. What is this objectionable material and who has deemed it objectionable? We see the cover of one book on Islam, with the implication that this is the offending material. If it isn't, Geo owes the writer /publisher of the textbook and the school an apology. If it is, why was it not spelled out so as not to tar everything else with the same brush?

7. Why was this particular school targeted? What connection does the reporter / commissioning editor have with this school? A full disclosure is necessary especially since it has tarnished the image of an educational institution without anything being proven.

Can anyone take up these questions with Geo and it's self-righteous owners?