Category Archives: Social Issues

Over to ‘Urdish’

Books by ZM, Children and Youth, Culture and the Arts, Economy, Education, Human Rights, Information, Language, Social Issues

By Zubeida Mustafa

LANGUAGE continues to be an enigma in Pakistan. For the umpteenth time education is being ‘reformed’ in this country. Federal Minister of Planning and Development Ahsan Iqbal has now announced that ‘Urdish’ will be used as the medium of education in the country.

This is the first time Urdish (not Urlish) is being introduced officially. According to the minister, this initiative will rid the country of the “English medium-Urdu medium controversy that has damaged education standards and adversely affected the growth of young minds.” Continue reading Over to ‘Urdish’ →

Extraordinay People: An ‘inspirer’ who empowers

Health, Notable Personalities, SIUT, Social Issues
By Zubeida Mustafa
Imran-1-300x199The Sindh Institute of Urology and Transplantation (SIUT) is well-known for the healthcare it provides free of charge to the marginalised. Not so well known, however, is the egalitarian  philosophy that its founder, Dr Adibul Hasan Rizvi, has instilled in the Institute’s working guidelines. This means providing equal opportunities to all in other walks of life as well. Take the case of Muhammad Imran, 53, who is the head of the operation theatres  at SIUT.

Continue reading Extraordinay People: An ‘inspirer’ who empowers →

Trapped in poverty

Development and Poverty, Economy, Education, Health, Labour, Social Issues

By Zubeida Mustafa

MIGRANTS are in the news all over the world. Recently, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) released in Rome a report titled Sending Money Home which focused on the remittances — $436 billion in 2014 — transferred by migrant workers to their families. This received positive publicity. The countries that provided jobs to such workers were seen as helping alleviate poverty in the Third World.

In Canada, where I am on a visit, I chanced upon a local paper The Golfi Team Real Estate Market Watch which carried an article against immigrants blaming the latter for many economic woes of the country, including the escalation of property prices and suppression of wages. It sarcastically accused the political parties of seeking to capture immigrant votes by adopting pro-immigration policies while pretending to benefit the rest of the world. Continue reading Trapped in poverty →

Wily Politics

Defence and Disarmament, Development and Poverty, Guest Contributor, Politics, Social Issues

By Rifaat Hamid Ghani

Ethnic politics, dynastic politics, and perhaps most ill-advised of them all – cultist politics.

But it would be false to identify Bhutto himself as the trail-blazer of Bhutto-ism: He was no cultist. Bhutto-ism could become a cult because of what Bhutto actually achieved and signified despite his catastrophic flaws. He founded a political party that reoriented national politics and revitalized the democratic grammar Field Marshal Ayub Khan’s basic democracy had rubbished. Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party had a meaningfully persuasive popular ideology. Unfortunately he betrayed its democratic manifest: Once empowered, he sought the mode of a one-party state. Pakistanis were too pluralistic to accept that; but long after his death the party infrastructure he constructed remains viable. Continue reading Wily Politics →

Justice in Pakistan: Unmasking Perween Rahman’s Killers

Law & Order, Perween Rahman, Social Issues, Women

by Zubeida Mustafa
-Pakistan-

The “weakness of women”, widely believed to be a natural phenomenon, is actually a myth. Women are resilient and there are many cases where “woman power” won the day because women fighting for a cause refused to back off.

The valiant social activist Perween Rahman was gunned down two years ago in Pakistan’s port city of Karachi. Perween was the director of the Orangi Pilot Project-Research and Training Institute, in which capacity she was working to improve the life of the poor. An architect by training, she shunned thirty years ago the opportunity to make a successful corporate career. After joining an architectural firm, soon after her graduation, she said to herself,” I do not want to spend my life building palaces for the rich. I’d rather build homes for the poor.” And that is what brought her to the OPP, at the time the recent creation of its founder Dr Akhter Hameed Khan. And she did exactly what she wanted to do, help the poor build shelters for themselves at affordable prices. She went on to do much more – show the poor how they could live with dignity and self esteem. In the process, Perween instilled confidence in the people she worked for – both men and women – and empowered them. Such was her charisma and the magic of her personal humanism. Continue reading Justice in Pakistan: Unmasking Perween Rahman’s Killers →