Category Archives: Social Issues

Social exclusion is their lot

Children and Youth, Social Issues

By Zubeida Mustafa
Source: Dawn

UNICEF’S The State of the World’s Children, 2006 is titled “Excluded and Invisible”. The authors of the report define those children as excluded and invisible who are deemed to be at risk of missing out on an environment that protects them from violence, abuse and exploitation.

Those children are also considered to be excluded if they are unable to access essential services in a way that threatens their ability to participate fully in society in the future. Keeping this definition in mind one wonders how many children in Pakistan would qualify as ‘excluded’.

In the physical sense, children’s “visibility” in our society is very high. You see them everywhere, even in places where they should not be seen — on the streets, in workplaces, in garbage dumps, and even in battle zones. With 4.7 million children born every year and nearly 71 million Pakistanis being under 18 years of age (about a third of them under five) it is not surprising that the physical presence of children is so noticeable. Yet a huge majority of them qualify as being defined as excluded.
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Business and charity

Social Issues

By Zubeida Mustafa
Source: Dawn

THE Pakistan Centre for Philanthropy has prepared a report on corporate philanthropy to estimate the volume, patterns and range of ‘giving’ of Public Listed Companies in Pakistan. The findings of the PCP survey are significant as well as interesting. They confirm the changing trends in philanthropy in the country which has captured the interest of the government in a big way.

That is nothing intriguing. The government has been reducing its share in the social sectors which are directly concerned with human resource development. For instance, there was a time in the heyday of socialism when it was considered the responsibility of the government to provide basic education and health care to its citizens. Social welfare, from the cradle to the grave, was considered to be the responsibility of the state. Although Pakistan never succeeded in undertaking this responsibility fully, it did not reject this concept theoretically.
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Will WSF make an impact?

International Politics, Social Issues

By Zubeida Mustafa
Source: Dawn

FOR Karachi, the World Social Forum was a big event. This is a city that has in recent years earned a bad name for itself for its lawlessness, crime and violence, where foreigners fear to tread because of dreaded bomb blasts. When it played host for five days to 20,000 people — 2,500 foreign delegates — (organisers’ claims) without any untoward incident, this could be termed as a major achievement.

The WSF has certainly restored for the time being the good image of the city. The delegates who came from outside found it a friendly and hospitable place, the water, sanitation and boarding/lodging problems notwithstanding. Karachi’s cosmopolitan and open-minded ambience makes it a great place to be in.
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WSF comes to Pakistan

International Politics, Social Issues

By Zubeida Mustafa
Source: Dawn

LATER this month — from March 24 to 29 to be precise — Karachi will play host to an international gathering that will be a phenomenon not experienced before in this city. This will be the World Social Forum (WSF) that, according to the organizers, is expected to draw a crowd of 30,000 of whom 10,000 will be foreign participants.

It is not so much the size of the gathering — the 2004 Forum in Mumbai had attracted 130,000 people — but the concept and motive of this meeting that gives it such an exciting dimension.

The WSF was first organised in Porto Alegre in Brazil in 2001 by eight Brazilian civil society organisations which described it as an “open democratic space for debates of ideas and multiple and plural reflections on the development of alternatives” to the neoliberal policies, imperialist behaviour and globalisation that we are witnessing today. It is designed to be an antidote to the capitalist thrust that has come in the wake of the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the socialist bloc.
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Is this the infamous clash?

International Politics, Social Issues

By Zubeida Mustafa
Source: Dawn

ARE we witnessing today the clash of civilizations predicted by Samuel Huntington after the Cold War ended? One would have liked to believe that this is not the clash. But how else would one interpret the calculated publication of the blasphemous caricatures of the Holy Prophet(PBUH) — they were actually commissioned by the culture editor — by the Danish weekly, Jyllands-Posten and the violent reaction they have provoked in the Muslim world — again incited by a group of extremist Muslims.

What needs to be noted is that the civilizations that are clashing are not those of the Muslims and the Christians. The confrontation is between two cultures, that of the fanatical extremists on either side. There are the demonstrators all over the Muslim world who are going overboard in their protests against those they hate (their government, the Americans and anyone they have a grouse against) and they are using the cartoon episode to mobilize public support. Over 30 people have already lost their lives on account of the violence unleashed. There are others, mainly Europeans, who are concealing in a subtle manner their racism in the name of freedom of expression and secularism.
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