LUMS Review

LUMS National Outreach Programme

2009-11-05T20:53:17Z

LUMS recently released a newsletter on their National Outreach Programme (NOP). It gives a nice overview of the motivation, current progress, and future ambitions of the NOP initiative. LUMS is actively seeking funding support for this programme. You can view the newsletter as a PDF file here:

NOP Newsletter 2009

If you wish to make any donations, you can find a pledge form at the end of the newsletter.

NYC Dinner with Syed Babar Ali

2009-10-03T16:10:47Z

Syed Babar Ali missed the reunion with the North America alumni last June due to an unavoidable clash of meetings. To make up for his lapse, he is coming again! Alumni, their spouse and friends are also welcome (everybody pays for self and accompanying members).

What? Dinner with Syed Babar Ali
When? Saturday, October 10, 2009
Time? 6:00pm - 8:30pm
City? New York, NY
Location? Ali Baba's Terrace, 862 Second Avenue - (46th and 2nd)
Why? Because SBA rocks.

Email address for RSVP:

LUMS Alumni Newsletter 2009

2009-09-20T21:16:52Z

To keep alumni informed about the developments at LUMS as well as alumni news/achievements, the alumni department has developed a midyear newsletter. The first edition of this newsletter is embedded at the end of this post. Alternatively, a PDF version is also available:

LUMS Alumni Newsletter 2009

Refugees from Swat and Burner

2009-06-07T06:13:16Z

Some quick observations made by Pervez Hoodbhoy after a relief trip to areas around Mardan for refugees from Swat, Buner, and Dir:

1. There are several tent cities along the Islamabad-Swabi-Mardan stretch. It is said that about 2 million people have been displaced. We spent some time in one of them (Sheikh Yasin Camp) but decided against depositing our precious supplies there. Every NGO in the world, Islamic and secular, seems to be in the camps. Yes, this is a real struggle for hearts and minds that will determine the future direction of the war -- and everyone knows it. A strong army presence in this particular camp helps assure a moderately fair distribution mechanism, maintain law and order, and deal with Taliban elements who may have infiltrated the refugees. I had a chat with tough machine gun-toting junior officers who suggested that we go to places that have received no aid rather than in their camp. Good advice.

(Image courtesy: Khuban Omer Khan)

2. Subsequently, we spent our day searching for the neediest of the needy. Eventually we deposited our supplies in 3 different places: a village where refugee families had been allowed temporary residence in hujras (Pashtuns are incredibly hospitable people). Then, a sugar cane research institute whose residential quarters had been occupied by refugees, and two public schools where refugee families are living in classrooms.

3. Swat refugees told us that they had fled both because of Taliban atrocities and army action (F-16's, tank and mortar shellings). Many blamed the Taliban for their predicament, but said they actually fled because of the military action. Nevertheless, perhaps out of fear of talking to strangers like us, they were not prepared to condemn either side.

4. Comparing the Pakistani state's tardy and inadequate response to the 2005 earthquake and this man-made catastrophe, I feel that everyone is higher on the learning curve. This time around, both the state and civil society have acted much quicker. This is the good news.

5. The bad news is that Swat, Buner, Dir, etc. are drowning in children. Every family to which we supplied provisions had 7 or more children. One man scratched his head - he thought he had 16 or 17 kids, but could not quite remember. In the school-housed community of 300 refugees, housed at 40 per classroom, 4 kids had been born in the last 20 days, and more were on the way. If this pace continues, the world will run out of oxygen. Girls upto 7-8 years run around like normal kids. But after that age, they totally disappear. In this horrible heat (40C, it was relatively cool today), it must be a double hell to be a refugee girl and then be confined to a tent or room with 20 others. Unless Pashtoons repudiate the toxic mix of religion and tribal culture that oppresses their womenfolk, they will be miserable in perpetuity even without external enemies. And they will be the cause of endless miseries to others as well.

On Why the US Foreign Policy Will Fail in Pakistan

2009-05-07T20:20:56Z

By Ali Farid Khwaja

Pakistan seems to have occupied a central space in the policy debate and foreign policy agenda of President Obama. Besides getting a lot of attention from the administration, lawmakers and think tanks, the country has also been committed substantial foreign aid package by the US Government. President Obama announced a total aid package of US $10bn to support development work and military operation by the Pakistan army. The aim of this multi-faceted aid and support package is to garner Pakistan's military support in dealing with the situation in Afghanistan, fighting the insurgent radical groups inside Pakistan and to control the threat of religious radicalization inside Pakistan. However I think that cooperation and collaboration between US and Pakistan will remain at a bottleneck until the conspiracy theories and perceptions of the US Af-Pak agenda which exist inside Pakistan are alleviated. I believe the biggest threat to US Pakistan relationship is the trust deficit which exists between the two countries, along with irresponsible media frenzy and aggressive posturing from US administration on the risks, threats and state institutions in Pakistan.

From the perspective of Pakistan's public, the amount of attention and coverage which the country gets in media, press and international arena is both confusing and suspicious. The country features as a cover page story on magazines like the Economist, Newsweek and the Times and newspapers like New York Times, Financial Times cover the country on almost a daily basis. Huffington Post, a leading news blog, has a separate page for Pakistan with the title that "some stories are so important that they deserve a separate page"! That is indeed a lot of attention and limelight for a medium sized, developing country in Asia. Though a Urdu adage says that it is better to be infamous than not being known at all, most of these stories and expert opinions only create suspicion, fuel conspiracy theories and create further distrust of the West inside Pakistan.

People in Pakistan question, when they read headlines like "Pakistan the most dangerous place in the world", or that "Pakistan is a failed state and about to disintegrate within months". They question under what criteria and evaluation rules has this political judgment, deem fit for a cover page story, been awarded. Is really Pakistan the most dangerous place to live in? What about civil wars in Thailand, what about the decade long conflict in Sri Lanka, what about the many separate movements in India? What about living in Gaza and Palestine? What about Lebanon, Sudan, Somalia, Zimbabwe, Georgia? And of course, what about the prevailing situation in Iraq and Afghanistan? Is Pakistan more dangerous, unstable or even radicalized than some of these countries? The answer to most Pakistanis at least, is no. What about Israel? Israel claims its cities were hit by 6000 rockets fired by Palestinians in Gaza. Doesn't that make Israel more dangerous than Pakistan?

Inside Pakistan, regardless of what is written in the media, people are generally at ease and don't find the frequent warnings credible. This is a very alarming situation. The observations which are made by experts in the US, like Pakistan has risk of disintegration, becoming a failed state or being a dangerous place to live in, only seem to be creating alienation and suspicion inside Pakistan. The mainstream view both in the government, media and the public in Pakistan is that a media and political campaign is being used to malign the country, exaggerate political risks, create militancy and then eventually invade the sovereignty of the country.

People of Pakistan see a conspiracy against their state. They see a conspiracy in which India, US and Israel have collaborated. The conspiracy is to destabilize Pakistan and eventually to divide the country on the lines of provinces; the "balkanization" of Pakistan as President Zardari called it. The theory is that the troika of India-Israel-US has plans to carve an independent state out of Pakistan by dividing the province of Baluchistan and Frontier. Such a state, which extends from the border of Iran and the Indian Ocean will link with Afghanistan to create a larger "Pashtun" belt. From the point of view of US, many strategic advantages are credited behind such a policy agenda: Such a state can create a buffer between Pakistan and Afghanistan, provide the US a supply route from the Indian Ocean to Afghanistan, it will provide access to vital strategic location which borders Iran, Russia and China, and provide access to the presumably minerals and oil and gas rich Baluchistan region. The strategy of getting access to Indian Ocean through Afghanistan has a historical element to it and both USSR and Russia under Peter the Great have believed to have explored the option.

This conspiracy theory is based on the infamous "map" which originated from some US strategy and policy center and has been widely distributed around and commented on in Pakistan. A story on New York Times, captioned, "Obama Plots the Breakup of Pakistan" published on 23 November 2008, had a reference to this map.

This conspiracy theory is fast becoming the mainstream public opinion, accepted both by the establishment in Pakistan and the public on the street. It also seems to have traveled outside Pakistan and Gulf Times, a leading newspaper of Middle East published a story on 22nd April 2009 on the role played by an unnamed leading Gulf state (the reference was to Saudi Arabia) in preventing the US from using an economic aid plan to divide Pakistan. The article talks about how the US and the "West" planned to use an economic aid program to get access to the Baluchistan and Frontier province and later leverage this financial investment to involve UN and broker a division of Pakistan.

Another major perceived threat to Pakistan comes from its Nuclear Weapons. The threat originates not from the Taliban taking over nuclear weapons but rather from the US forces trying to use military and economic pressures to take away nuclear technology from Pakistan. I don't want to debate on the merits or demerits of such a policy or neither on whether such a policy exists but rather want to emphasis that the perception in Pakistan. The mainstream opinion is of a risk on nuclear technology from the US!

Can the US government expect cooperation from Pakistan government, when the perception in Pakistan is that the US wants to break it up? I doubt it. I doubt Pakistan can consider the Taliban their priority when they expect a major political game being played in the region. I doubt, the public opinion inside Pakistan can ever support cooperation with the US if the people believe that the US is a threat to their sovereignty. I doubt the Af-Pak agenda of President Obama can be successful until this distrust exists.

President Obama has been giving mixed signals on his foreign policy agenda. He is softening up to Iran and Cuba, he is silent on Middle East and indecisive on North Korea. Whereas Pakistan, a long ally of the US government since the last sixty years and a country which in 2004 was made a major non-Nato Ally, is now getting aggressive postures from the US administration, Iran is getting New Year greetings from President Obama. It is not surprising then to hear political leaders in Pakistan debating that perhaps taking the Iran route of isolation and defiance might be the best strategy. This to me can be a disastrous scenario for both Pakistan and US, but the risk of pushing Pakistan into isolation are very real. There is a risk that political distrust of the US, along with the aggressive posturing by US administration and the carrot and stick policy, can lead to radicalization and rise of fundamentalism inside the country.

President Obama and his administration face a lot of challenges, more domestic than external. Iraq still is a political mess and Afghanistan has become the drug capital of the world run by war lords. The US domestic economy is still facing the biggest recession in its recent history and large US companies are unsure of their survival. The new US foreign policy needs to be based on partnership and trust and surely President Obama has been a preacher on the merits of these virtues. US relationship with Pakistan also needs to be based on mutual trust and common goals. Carrot and stick policies and intrusion on sovereignty will not only fail US foreign policy agenda in the region but also make the $10bn dollars committed by the US government a case of cash for trash, as Krugman would put it.

I think we should start by being honest. The US needs to address to alleviate these concerns and put end to such conspiracy theories. Perception is reality in foreign affairs and the reaction inside Pakistan of such a perception surely cannot be too productive. The country faces real problems and needs to focus all its resources in dealing with the Taliban rather than getting distracted by ghosts of larger political agendas. Building bridges of trust is necessary for future cooperation and collaboration. Or if there is some truth behind these theories, then again being honest and open is the right policy, as otherwise, it will only create further suspicion and doubt. The bigger risk is that such perception of risk can make other countries in the region like China, Iran and the Middle East also active and lead to another great game in a region which has been home to many.

Ali Farid Khwaja is a London based fund manager and a Rhodes Scholar.

Varsity Heroes: Time for Major Ownage

2009-04-24T13:42:20Z

Some LUMS and GIKI alumni have launched a new social gaming network - Varsity Heroes. The idea seems quite interesting and within a few days of launch they have attracted hundreds of users. In their own words, "Varsity Heroes is a more fun way of social networking where you get to diss other networks, take up guns against them and remind them of their grannies. All that in 2 minutes a day". Check out Varsity Heroes here.

Continue reading this post to read a comic about their story. They have a facebook page as well.

Misquoting a Book in the Name of Fiction

2009-04-18T22:21:26Z

by Khuban Omer Khan

Nadeem Aslam's latest book The Wasted Vigil is set in Afghanistan where people of different ideologies and religion cross paths, while searching for something or someone .When I read Aslam's book I was taken aback by numerous misquotes attributed to the Quran. To find out more about Aslam, his book and why he chose to defame the Quran, especially in the current climate, I attended a reading of his novel at LUMS. I asked him, "Mr. Aslam, your fictional book is based in reality, it's not make believe right? And in it you have described the mindset of a jihadi. Now, an American journalist who has written a review of your book in the New York Times has said that 'those unfamiliar with Islam may misconstrue your characters' thoughts as being consistent with the faith'. How would you respond to this statement? Also, do you have any obligation to your reader to present an informed fictional account or can you write anything at all without any obligation to the audience of the message's veracity?"

Discomfort was writ large on the faces of much of the uber-liberal audience. It was as if I had attacked the man simply by asking him why he chose to misquote the Holy Book. While Aslam struggled to answer, he was politely interrupted by the moderator, who did not want a discussion on religion (even though she had earlier commented on how the book revolves around religion) and an audience member who said, "well this is how jihadis think, it's time we accepted that." After that I was silenced.

Did I imply we deny what jihadi's think? No. This is what I wanted to say:

Aslam, in describing the mindset of his jihadi character, misquotes from the Quran by splitting the verses and taking them out of context. He italicizes the Quranic verses and does not reference them anywhere in the book. For example, on page 104 he writes, "Because no true Muslim should shrink from killing in cold blood, his jihad training had included slitting the throats of sheep and horses while reciting the verse from the holy Quran which gives permission to massacre prisoners of war: it is not for the Prophet to have captives until he has spread the fear of slaughter in the land."

The verse is taken from Surah 8: Al-Anfal Ayah 67 which describes jihad as a defensive war and when read alongside Ayahs 70-71 brings Allah's message into perspective.

Aslam does this again when he writes on page 105, "He chanted the sacred words of the Quran. I will instill terror in the hearts of the infidels, strike off their heads, and strike off from them every fingertip."

This is half of Ayat 12 from Surah Al-Anfal The misquote is actually the end of the sentence where Allah is commanding angels, not humans, to attack the enemy in Jang-e-Badr. This is just one more example of how the author misconstrues the Quran's message for the sake of fiction.

I am not saying ban the book, I am not suggesting there should be a fatwa against the author. He, being a fictional writer may have the liberty to write whatever he wants. My only contention with him is that he should do so responsibly when quoting a Holy Book. It would, therefore, be wrong to generalize my argument to pure fiction. My suggestion: He should have given footnotes with the entire ayah, wherever the Quran was quoted. For people who oppose footnotes as strongly as I oppose misinterpreting the Quran (even in a fictional setting) another suggestion is that he could have written in his prologue a line or two saying he has misquoted from the Quran to fit the mindset of the jhadi terrorist. This way he would have separated his character's mindset from the doctrine itself. Even The Da Vinci Code separate fiction from fact on its first page.

In Aslam's defense, on answering my question at the reading he did manage to get across that his character Duniya (who makes her appearance in the latter part of the book) represents moderate Islam and therefore counters Casa's view. My answer to him (had I not been silenced) would be that he does not go through the effort of describing a moderate Muslims viewpoint through Quranic quotes. He only describes the Jihadi's perspective in light of the Quran. And since my purpose is not to salvage the image of Muslims around the world, for I know people like Casa exist, all I'm saying is that Aslam should be careful when quoting from the Quran. It is a very small point, if you think about it, yet it is an important issue because the thought of being mindful when it comes to the Quran is so unbearable for some people.

Given the way Muslims are perceived all over the world and how some Muslims perceive themselves, it is not fair of someone to perpetuate the stereotype in such an irresponsible manner, while people like me have to pick up the pieces and defend the Quran. Unfortunately, after distributing some handouts (at the reading) with the same information as in this article, I was ambushed by hate mails by those who thought I was attacking all fictional writing. That seems highly un-intellectual for a group of people who should be critically pondering and questioning literature with some degree of education and thought. For those who bombarded me with condescending words, told me not to be an apologist for Islam and even tried to stop me from distributing my handouts I have to say: If Aslam has the right to write whatever he wants and label it as fiction, then we should have the right to disagree with his method.

Nadeem Aslam "though culturally a Muslim but otherwise a non believer" (reference: interview with The Independent) says "I have no message in my book". He needs to realize that all expression, art, writing, fiction or non-fiction, has a message. His book has a message, and a purpose. Aslam also believes that "the novelist's job is not to pose solutions, but to find out how best to live." "From [his] viewpoint, all writing is political" (reference: BookBrowse interview).

Aslam has written this book, knowing it has a message and knowing it's a political message. He has misused the Quran to suit this purpose. Why would Mr. Aslam choose to attribute words of ill-will and unprovoked aggression to the Quran? For the sake of fiction?

Khuban Omer Khan received her MFA in Film Production from Boston Univeristy in 2007 and a BSc in Social Sciences from LUMS in 2004. This article is a response to an article published on April 14th, 2009 in Instep, a sub-section of The News, by Hani Taha Salim.

The Taliban Cancer

2009-04-17T22:34:23Z

by Muneeb Ali

The recent girl flogging video, public beheadings in Swat, regular suicide attacks, and scary NY Times articles have one thing in common. They all scream out one clear message; the Taliban movement is alive again. This time in Pakistan. The war against the Taliban will not, and cannot, be won on the battlefield alone.

If the Taliban gain strength and mobilize millions instead of thousands of followers, this clash can turn into a genocide. The Taliban will use any such genocide to further shake the status quo. The 1971 Bangladesh atrocities teach us that you cannot use bullets and bombs to stop the will of a people. It only fuels their anger and strengthens their cause.

What surprises me is the lack of non-military initiatives launched against the Taliban. Is dropping bombs and sending aid the best we can do? Considering we are at the loosing end right now, how do we adapt and try to control the Taliban cancer?

I think that we forgot the basics. The Taliban movement started and will end at Madrassas (religious schools). Whoever controls the Madrassas controls the next generation of Taliban fighters and followers. There is no such thing as a peaceful Madrassa and a violent Madrassa. With no worldly knowledge, Madrassa students grow up to be naturally receptive to the message of the Taliban. Every young soul is important. He will either grow up to be a Taliban supporter or not. What are we doing to bring him to the other side?

It is shameful that people as illiterate and poor as the Taliban are better at spreading their message than us. Their grassroots movements are stronger and more effective. They reach more eye balls and ears than any anti-Taliban message. At least in the areas which matter. Because the Taliban is fighting in the name of religion, people find it hard to openly criticize them. As if they will anger God. This should not be a fight between religion and moderation, but a fight between (good) religion and (bad) religion. You need religious scholars to come out and label the Taliban as "Kafir" (infidels). You need them to send a strong, clear message that a suicide bomber will go straight to hell. No virgins for you son.

This is an advertising war. Make Taliban a synonym for "Kafir" and their support in the Muslim world will break. Even though Muslims don't have a Pope, there is still considerable hierarchy in the religious circles e.g., the Shia Mujtahids or the Imam of Kaba. The message of the Taliban being anti-Islamic needs to trickle down from top religious authorities and then spread to every corner of every village.

Controlling the spread of the Taliban is much more complex than militarily defeating them. It requires a coherent policy from multiple parties, most of which have conflicting incentives. Our only hope is that they all come together against this common enemy. The American policy think tanks do bring up issues like investigating their monetary supply and stopping the flow of drug money, foreign donations, and weapons. However, there is little evidence of any practical steps.

ISI on the other hand needs to refresh its strategy. They need to let go of the Jihadi networks for the benefit of everyone. This is too crucial a time to play double games. The worst players by far are the Pakistani politicians. You cannot make peace deals with the Taliban. This only legitimizes their authority. You cannot deal with the Taliban at the diplomatic level. You don't negotiate with lunatics and thugs. Period.

Driving the Taliban out of areas is not important, keeping them out forever is. This war is more about winning hearts and minds than winning territories. The sooner we realize this the better. Corner them on all the other fronts and then unleash the military might. Use tanks, bombs, drones - whatever it takes. Let history remember them as the fools who thought they could suck the world back in to the dark ages.

Towards Theocracy?

2009-04-09T20:19:40Z

by Pervez Hoodbhoy

For 20 years or more, a few of us in Pakistan have been desperately sending out SOS messages, warning of terrible times to come. Nevertheless, none anticipated how quickly and accurately our dire predictions would come true. It is a small matter that the flames of terrorism set Mumbai on fire and, more recently, destroyed Pakistan's cricketing future. A much more important and brutal fight lies ahead as Pakistan, a nation of 175 million, struggles for its very survival. The implications for the future of South Asia are enormous.

Today a full-scale war is being fought in FATA (Federally Administered Tribal Areas), Swat and other "wild" areas of Pakistan, with thousands dying and hundreds of thousands of IDPs (internally displaced people) streaming into cities and towns. In February 2009, with the writ of the Pakistani state in tatters, the government gave in to the demand of the TTP (Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, the Pakistani Taliban Movement) to implement the Islamic Sharia in Malakand, a region of FATA. It also announced the suspension of a military offensive in Swat, which has been almost totally taken over by the TTP. But the respite that it brought was short-lived and started breaking down only hours later.

The fighting is now inexorably migrating towards Peshawar where, fearing the Taliban, video shop owners have shut shop, banners have been placed in bazaars declaring them closed for women, musicians are out of business, and kidnapping for ransom is the best business in town. Islamabad has already seen Lal Masjid and the Marriot bombing, and has had its police personnel repeatedly blown up by suicide bombers. Today, its barricaded streets give a picture of a city under siege. In Karachi, the Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM), an ethnic but secular party well known for strong-arm tactics, has issued a call for arms to prevent the Taliban from making further inroads into the city. Lahore once appeared relatively safe and different but, after the attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team, has rejoined Pakistan.

The suicide bomber and the masked abductor have crippled Pakistan's urban life and shattered its national economy. Soldiers, policemen, factory and hospital workers, mourners at funerals, and ordinary people praying in mosques have been reduced to hideous masses of flesh and fragments of bones. The bearded ones, many operating out of madrassas, are hitting targets across the country. Although a substantial part of the Pakistani public insists upon lionising them as "standing up to the Americans", they are neither seeking to evict a foreign occupier nor fighting for a homeland. They want nothing less than to seize power and to turn Pakistan into their version of the ideal Islamic state. In their incoherent, ill-formed vision, this would include restoring the caliphate as well as doing away with all forms of western influence and elements of modernity. The AK-47 and the Internet, of course, would stay.

But, perhaps paradoxically, in spite of the fact that the dead bodies and shattered lives are almost all Muslim ones, few Pakistanis speak out against these atrocities. Nor do they approve of military action against the cruel perpetrators, choosing to believe that they are fighting for Islam and against an imagined American occupation. Political leaders like Qazi Husain Ahmed and Imran Khan have no words of kindness for those who have suffered from Islamic extremists. Their tears are reserved for the victims of predator drones, whether innocent or otherwise. By definition, for them terrorism is an act that only Americans can commit.

Why the Denial?

To understand Pakistan's collective masochism, one needs to study the drastic social and cultural transformations that have made this country so utterly different from what it was in earlier times. For three decades, deep tectonic forces have been silently tearing Pakistan away from the Indian subcontinent and driving it towards the Arabian peninsula.

This continental drift is not physical but cultural, driven by a belief that Pakistan must exchange its South Asian identity for an Arab-Muslim one. Grain by grain, the desert sands of Saudi Arabia are replacing the rich soil that had nurtured a rich Muslim culture in India for a thousand years. This culture produced Mughal architecture, the Taj Mahal, the poetry of Asadullah Ghalib, and much more. Now a stern, unyielding version of Islam - Wahabism - is replacing the kinder, gentler Islam of the sufis and saints who had walked on this land for hundreds of years.

This change is by design. Twenty-five years ago, under the approving gaze of Ronald Reagan's America, the Pakistani state pushed Islam on to its people. Prayers in government departments were deemed compulsory, floggings were carried out publicly, punishments were meted out to those who did not fast in Ramadan, selection for university academic posts required that the candidate demonstrate knowledge of Islamic teachings, and jehad was declared essential for every Muslim.

Villages have changed drastically, driven in part by Pakistani workers returning from Arab countries. Many village mosques are now giant madrassas that propagate hard-line Salafi and Deobandi beliefs through oversized loudspeakers. They are bitterly opposed to Barelvis, Shias and other Muslims, who they do not consider to be proper Muslims. Punjabis, who were far more liberal towards women than Pashtuns, are now also beginning to take a line resembling the Taliban. Hanafi law has begun to prevail over tradition and civil law, as is evident from recent decisions in the Lahore High Court.

In the Pakistani lower-middle and middle-middle classes lurks a grim and humourless Saudi-inspired revivalist movement which frowns on every expression of joy and pleasurable pastime. Lacking any positive connection to history, culture and knowledge, it seeks to eliminate "corruption" by regulating cultural life and seizing control of the education system.

"Classical music is on its last legs in Pakistan; the sarangi and vichtarveena are completely dead," laments Mohammad Shehzad, a music aficionado. Indeed, teaching music in public universities is violently opposed by students of the Islami Jamaat-e-Talaba at Punjab University. Religious fundamentalists consider music haram. Kathak dancing, once popular with the Muslim elite of India, has no teachers left. Pakistan produces no feature films of any consequence.

As a part of General Zia-ul-Haq's cultural offensive, Hindi words were expunged from daily use and replaced with heavy-sounding Arabic ones. Persian, the language of Mughal India, had once been taught as a second or third language in many Pakistani schools. But, because of its association with Shiite Iran, it too was dropped and replaced with Arabic. The morphing of the traditional "khuda hafiz" (Persian for "God be with you") into "allah hafiz" (Arabic for "God be with you") took two decades to complete. The Arab import sounded odd and contrived, but ultimately the Arabic God won and the Persian God lost.

Genesis of Jehad

One can squarely place the genesis of religious militancy in Pakistan to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 and the subsequent efforts of the U.S.-Pakistan-Saudi grand alliance to create and support the Great Global Jehad of the 20th century. A toxic mix of imperial might, religious fundamentalism, and local interests ultimately defeated the Soviets. But the network of Islamic militant organisations did not disappear after it achieved success. By now the Pakistani Army establishment had realised the power of jehad as an instrument of foreign policy, and so the network grew from strength to strength.

The amazing success of the state is now turning out to be its own undoing. Today the Pakistan Army and establishment are under attack from religious militants, and rival Islamic groups battle each other with heavy weapons. Ironically, the same Army - whose men were recruited under the banner of jehad, and which saw itself as the fighting arm of Islam - today stands accused of betrayal and is almost daily targeted by Islamist suicide bombers. Over 1,800 soldiers have died as of February 2009 in encounters with religious militants, and many have been tortured before decapitation. Nevertheless, the Army is still ambivalent in its relationship with the jehadists and largely focusses upon India.

Education or Indoctrination?

Similar sentiments exist in a large part of the Pakistani public media. The commonly expressed view is that Islamic radicalism is a problem only in FATA and that madrassas are the only jehad factories around. This could not be more wrong. Extremism is breeding at a ferocious rate in public and private schools within Pakistan's towns and cities. Left unchallenged, this kind of education will produce a generation incapable of living together with any except strictly their own kind. Pakistan's education system demands that Islam be understood as a complete code of life, and creates in the mind of the schoolchild a sense of siege and constant embattlement by stressing that Islam is under threat everywhere.

The government-approved curriculum, prepared by the Curriculum Wing of the Federal Ministry of Education, is the basic road map for transmitting values and knowledge to the young. By an Act of Parliament, passed in 1976, all government and private schools (except for O-level schools) are required to follow this curriculum. It is a blueprint for a religious fascist state.

The masthead of an illustrated primer for the Urdu alphabet states that it has been prepared by Iqra Publishers, Rawalpindi, along "Islamic lines". Although not an officially approved textbook, it has been used for many years by some regular schools, as well as madrassas, associated with the Jamiat-ul-Ulema-e-Islam (JUI), an Islamic political party that had allied itself with General Pervez Musharraf.

The world of the Pakistani schoolchild was largely unchanged even after September 11, 2001, which led to Pakistan's timely desertion of the Taliban and the slackening of the Kashmir jehad. Indeed, for all his hypocritical talk of "enlightened moderation", Musharraf's educational curriculum was far from enlightening. It was a slightly toned-down copy of that under Nawaz Sharif which, in turn, was identical to that under Benazir Bhutto, who inherited it from Zia-ul-Haq.

Fearful of taking on powerful religious forces, every incumbent government refused to take a position on the curriculum and thus quietly allowed young minds to be moulded by fanatics. What might happen a generation later has always been a secondary matter for a government challenged on so many sides.

The promotion of militarism in Pakistan's so-called "secular" public schools, colleges and universities had a profound effect upon young minds. Militant jehad became part of the culture on college and university campuses. Armed groups flourished, invited students for jehad in Kashmir and Afghanistan, set up offices throughout the country, collected funds at Friday prayers, and declared a war without borders. Pre-9/11, my university was ablaze with posters inviting students to participate in the Kashmir jehad. After 2001, this slipped below the surface.

The Madrassas

The primary vehicle for Saudi-ising Pakistan's education has been the madrassa. In earlier times, these had turned out the occasional Islamic scholar, using a curriculum that essentially dates from the 11th century with only minor subsequent revisions. But their principal function had been to produce imams and muezzins for mosques, and those who eked out an existence as "moulvi sahibs" teaching children to read the Quran.

The Afghan jehad changed everything. During the war against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, madrassas provided the U.S.-Saudi-Pakistani alliance the cannon fodder needed for fighting a holy war. The Americans and the Saudis, helped by a more-than-willing General Zia, funded new madrassas across the length and breadth of Pakistan.

A detailed picture of the current situation is not available. But, according to the national education census, which the Ministry of Education released in 2006, Punjab has 5,459 madrassas followed by the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) with 2,843; Sindh 1,935; Federally Administrated Northern Areas (FANA) 1,193; Balochistan 769; Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) 586; FATA 135; and Islamabad capital territory 77. The Ministry estimates that 1.5 million students are getting religious education in the 13,000 madrassas.

These figures could be quite off the mark. Commonly quoted figures range between 18,000 and 22,000 madrassas. The number of students could be correspondingly larger. The free room, board and supplies to students, form a key part of their appeal. But the desire of parents across the country is for children to be "disciplined" and to be given a thorough Islamic education. This is also a major contributing factor.

Madrassas have deeply impacted upon the urban environment. For example, until a few years ago, Islamabad was a quiet, orderly, modern city different from all others in Pakistan. Still earlier, it had been largely the abode of Pakistan's hyper-elite and foreign diplomats. But the rapid transformation of its demography brought with it hundreds of mosques with multi-barrelled audio-cannons mounted on minarets, as well as scores of madrassas illegally constructed in what used to be public parks and green areas. Now, tens of thousands of their students with little prayer caps dutifully chant the Quran all day. In the evenings they swarm around the city, making bare-faced women increasingly nervous.

Women - the Lesser Species

Total separation of the sexes is a central goal of the Islamists. Two decades ago the fully veiled student was a rarity on Pakistani university and college campuses. The abaya was an unknown word in Urdu; it is a foreign import. But today, some shops in Islamabad specialise in abaya. At colleges and universities across Pakistan, female students are seeking the anonymity of the burqa. Such students outnumber their sisters who still dare show their faces.

While social conservatism does not necessarily lead to violent extremism, it does shorten the path. Those with beards and burqas are more easily convinced that Muslims are being demonised by the rest of the world. The real problem, they say, is the plight of the Palestinians, the decadent and discriminatory West, the Jews, the Christians, the Hindus, the Kashmir issue, the Bush doctrine, and so on. They vehemently deny that those committing terrorist acts are Muslims or, if faced by incontrovertible evidence, say it is a mere reaction to oppression. Faced with the embarrassment that 200 schools for girls were blown up in Swat by Fazlullah's militants, they wriggle out by saying that some schools were housing the Pakistan Army, who should be targeted anyway.

The Prognosis

The immediate future is not hopeful: increasing numbers of mullahs are creating cults around themselves and seizing control over the minds of worshippers. In the tribal areas, a string of new Islamist leaders have suddenly emerged: Sufi Mohammad, Baitullah Mehsud, Fazlullah, Mangal Bagh.... The enabling environment of poverty, deprivation, lack of justice, and extreme differences of wealth is perfect for these demagogues. Their gruesome acts of terror and public beheadings are still being perceived by large numbers of Pakistanis as part of the fight against imperialist America and, sometimes, India as well. This could not be more wrong.

The jehadists have longer-range goals. A couple of years ago, a Karachi-based monthly magazine ran a cover story on the terrorism in Kashmir. One fighter was asked what he would do if a political resolution were found for the disputed valley. Revealingly, he replied that he would not lay down his gun but turn it on the Pakistani leadership, with the aim of installing an Islamic government there.

Over the next year or two, we are likely to see more short-lived "peace accords", as in Malakand, Swat and, earlier on, in Shakai. In my opinion, these are exercises in futility. Until the Pakistan Army finally realises that Mr. Frankenstein needs to be eliminated rather than be engaged in negotiations, it will continue to soft-pedal on counter-insurgency. It will also continue to develop and demand from the U.S. high-tech weapons that are not the slightest use against insurgents. There are some indications that some realisation of the internal threat is dawning, but the speed is as yet glacial.

Even if Mumbai-II occurs, India's options in dealing with nuclear Pakistan are severely limited. Cross-border strikes should be dismissed from the realm of possibilities. They could lead to escalations that neither government would have control over. I am convinced that India's prosperity - and perhaps its physical survival - demands that Pakistan stays together. Pakistan could disintegrate into a hell, where different parts are run by different warlords. Paradoxically perhaps, India's most effective defence could be the Pakistan Army, torn and fractured though it may be. To convert a former enemy army into a possible ally will require that India change tack.

To create a future working alliance with the struggling Pakistani state, and in deference to basic democratic principles, India must be seen as genuinely working towards some kind of resolution of the Kashmir issue. It must not deny that the majority of Kashmiri Muslims are deeply alienated from the Indian state and that they desperately seek balm for their wounds. Else the forces of cross-border jehad, and its hate-filled holy warriors, will continue to receive unnecessary succour.

I shall end this rather grim essay on an optimistic note: the forces of irrationality will surely cancel themselves out because they act in random directions, whereas reason pulls in only one. History leads us to believe that reason will triumph over unreason, and humans will continue their evolution towards a higher and better species. Ultimately, it will not matter whether we are Pakistanis, Indians, Kashmiris, or whatever. Using ways that we cannot currently anticipate, people will somehow overcome their primal impulses of territoriality, tribalism, religion and nationalism. But for now this must be just a hypothesis.

Also published in Frontline, Volume 26 - Issue 06 :: Mar. 14-27, 2009. Posted here with permission from the author.

Inching Closer to a Failed State

2009-03-03T07:34:37Z

by Muneeb Ali

The cricket team of Sri Lanka was attacked in Lahore, Pakistan today. They received a Taliban-style welcome with AK-47 bullets, rockets, and grenades. While terrorists are carrying out attacks in broad daylight in the heart of Pakistan - literally, those responsible for running this country are fighting over scraps of political power.

The threats to Pakistan are many. The newly elected democratic government is engaged in an internal power struggle and is perceived as doing an awful job at running the country. Al-Qaida and Taliban are strengthening their roots in the north and northwest. They recently forced the Pakistani government into accepting fundamental Islamic law in the once-beautiful-tourist-attraction of Swat. After the Mumbai attacks, there is a looming threat of yet-another-war with India. US drones bomb Pakistani soil on a regular basis, fueling anti-US and pro-Taliban sentiments. To top this all off, Pakistan's strongest institution, the army, is at record unpopularity levels - thanks both to Musharraf and to the US-lead war on terror that the Pakistani army is carrying out.

I must admit. I am scared. For the first time, the glaring reality that Pakistan is a "failing" state is sinking in. We are all waiting for a train-wreck, with everyone on board. And I believe that very recently we passed a tipping point. The stage is all set. All that is missing now is a religious revolution.

Islamic fundamentalism is on the rise in the country. And I don't mean just the terrorists. There has been a passive strengthening of fundamental Islamic rules and traditions in the society at large. Islamic TV and radio stations are more popular than ever. Growing economic hardships and lack of faith in every other institution is drawing more and more people towards the institution of religion. Imagine someone with Pakistani roots following the "glorious" steps of Mullah Omar and issuing a "fatwa" that its time for Sharia (Islamic law) now. Not just in Swat, but in Islamabad and Lahore. There will be riots. Army might be called in. But without a hard man like Musharraf in power, no one will like to take the responsibility of killing religious students. People will sit back and watch. After all the average Pakistanis have watched the drama of this country unfold from the back seats since the very beginning. Why will they do anything proactive now?

World Bank Help For Pakistan's Education - A Poisoned Chalice?

2009-03-02T03:14:03Z

by Pervez Hoodbhoy

Rumor has it that the World Bank is on its way back to Pakistan with a bagful of loans, together with plans for how we must spend the money. A major focus of the Bank's efforts will be higher education reform. No one doubts the desperate need for reform of Pakistan's education sector, or the need for assistance, especially since we have shown little capacity to fund or plan our education ourselves. But recent experience suggests the Bank's help may be a poisoned chalice. If it is to be otherwise, the Bank will have to avoid local snake charmers and be more skeptical of what bureaucrats and ministers claim.

Said to be the world's biggest research institution working on developmental issues, the Bank employs thousands of technical people at its Washington headquarters and abroad. Typically, a highly paid World Bank team of experts, trained in the use of sophisticated mathematical and statistical tools and report writing, is parachuted into a Third World country. They could be charged with fixing broken down systems of education, healthcare, agriculture, or electricity. But although its researchers and team leaders are often accomplished individuals, experience suggests they are not adequately equipped to understand the complexity of local issues. As important, the Bank depends on government agencies and cannot easily bite the hand that invites it in and provides access.

The Bank's limitations are exposed by how it allowed itself to be systematically deceived in its mission to promote and support reform of higher education in Pakistan. For six years, Pakistanis heard endless stories of success about the revamping of their universities under the leadership of the Higher Education Commission and its celebrated chief, Dr. Atta-ur-Rahman. With a record-smashing 12-fold increase in the HEC's funding ordered by Gen. Musharraf's government, new universities popped into existence almost every other month. Production of PhD's and research papers shot up. It seemed obvious that things were improving. At least that's what HEC and the World Bank said.

A 2006 World Bank report on the HEC's performance, issued by a team led by Benoît Millot, reads like a paean to the HEC. Written in impeccable English, and embellished with impressive charts and diagrams, this 109-page report finds no fault, nor questions any assumption of the-then prevailing authorities, and proclaims that "HEC has placed quality improvement of the higher education sub-sector at the centre of its agenda". No surprise then that the report was widely quoted by the HEC as evidence of its achievements and used to demand yet more money for HEC schemes. Everything dovetailed perfectly: the Bank wanted to lend and the HEC to spend.

But now as the bitter truth gradually seeps out, the HEC's alleged accomplishments are fading away. Today, in spite of sporadic newspaper items planted by the HEC's former chairman, the consequences of arbitrary one-man decision making, deliberately exaggerated or invented numbers, and plain sloppy thinking are becoming apparent.

The construction of university buildings has been frozen leaving them half-completed. Fantastically expensive research equipment litters the country, much of which is unused. It has been abandoned by even those who insisted on their import. Vice-chancellors are panicking over unpaid salaries for faculty and staff. Thousands of desperate Pakistani students sent overseas have received no scholarship money for months. Until they were cancelled a few weeks ago, many of HEC's hugely expensive but shoddily planned projects - such as building nine new Pak-European universities - had been furiously sucking resources away from real needs.

Academic quality may be an even bigger casualty. Driven by huge cash incentives to mass-produce PhD degrees, university teachers have banded together across campuses to fight tooth and nail against every attempt to enforce genuine academic standards on Ph.D. graduates. Fearful of losing their bonuses, they oppose setting a reasonable pass mark for the Ph.D. exam, the internationally recognised GRE subject test. They know many of their students would fail, even though these students are now allowed to take the test even at the end of their studies. In China, India, and Iran, students take this exam as part of getting admission to a PhD programme overseas - and do immensely better.

Then there is research. The HEC claimed that, prior to the launch of its programs, annual research publication rates in universities were very low. It says, for example, that Quaid-e-Azam University published only 631 research papers between 1998-2003. But, after the HEC's chairman started his cash reward-per-paper program, the number of research papers shot up to 1482 in the 2003-2008 period, a 235% improvement.

But, all serious academics know that what matters is not how many papers are written but how good these papers are. A standard measure of a paper is how many times other academics refer to it in their own papers. According to the International Science Citation Index, the total number of times the research papers published in the 1998-2003 period were cited by other researchers (excluding worthless self-citations) was 2817. But, in the 2003-2008 period the citation count was a mere 1258. The message this sends is loud and clear - producing more papers does not mean more useful knowledge is being produced.

The fact is that for years numbers were twisted around and no one noticed, including the World Bank. What's worse is that the Bank did not even bother to check. Its trained and intelligent observers could have easily investigated several of the HEC's claims without even stirring from their desks. All they would have needed is a good internet connection, and access to standard science citation indexes.

Rather than simply sign off on HEC claims that it had worked miracles, the World Bank could have undertaken its own study. It could, for instance, have looked for evidence of improvement in university teaching quality (rather than a mere increase in enrollment). To do this scientifically it would have needed to work out the parameters that define teaching quality and then gathered the relevant data. This might have involved establishing some reasonable metrics for gauging the quality of the faculty and student body, assessing the state of library and laboratory facilities, the content of university courses, the standard of examination papers, the presence (or lack thereof) of academic colloquia and seminars on campuses, the suitability of those appointed as vice-chancellors, the number of days in a year that the universities actually function, satisfaction of employers with university graduates, etc. But there is no sign that the World Bank bothered to do this groundwork. At least, having searched available databases, I could find none.

If the Bank is again going to try support higher education reform in Pakistan, it needs to be more serious. It must focus on quality and demand greater accountability.

What Pakistan needs from the Bank is help for improving the dilapidated infrastructure (buildings, libraries, laboratories) of ordinary colleges where the bulk of Pakistani students in higher education study, not more half-baked universities. Mega-sized projects for producing qualified junior faculty for universities and colleges are badly needed. The importance of quality teaching in colleges and universities must be emphasized, not meaningless publications and more junk Ph.D. degrees. Better institutional governance and ethics is the key. Encourage this and the rest will follow.

Also published in Dawn, 18 Jan 2009. Posted here with permission from the author.

DreamFly: Crawl Before You Can Walk

2009-02-25T02:57:28Z

DreamFly is giving poor kids in Pakistan, living on less than 50 cents a day, a chance of going to school. These children have no access to education and yet they dare to dream of becoming doctors, engineers, and entrepreneurs.

Recently, DreamFly organized a successful fund raiser at the Harvard Business School. And also met their goal of raising $100,000 for the first DreamFly school. Help this venture in any way you can. More information about DreamFly is here. This initiative has LUMS roots.

How Greed Ruins Academia

2009-02-20T05:47:46Z

by Pervez Hoodbhoy

Image via Wikipedia

Pakistan's university system is breaking down, perhaps irreparably so. Thanks to the Higher Education Commission's grand plans for a massive change, a tidal wave of money hit our public universities during the Musharraf years. Although difficult financial times finally stemmed the flood, this enormous cash infusion served to amplify problems rather than improve teaching and research quality.

Naked greed is now destroying the moral fibre of academia. Professors across the country are clamoring to lift even minimal requirements that could assure quality education. This is happening in two critical ways. First, to benefit from 3-fold increases in salaries for tenure-track positions, professors are speedily removing all barriers for their promotions. Second, they want to be able to take on more PhD students, whether these students have the requisite academic capacity or not. Having more students translates into proportionately more money in each professor's pocket.

Nowhere is this more evident than at Quaid-e-Azam University, said to be Pakistan's flagship public university. Barely two miles from the presidency and the prime minister's secretariat, it was once an island of excellence in a shallow sea of mediocrity. Most other universities started lower, and their decay has gone further and faster than at QAU. Some are recognizable as universities in name only.

QAU's departments of physics and economics were especially well known 35 years ago, which is when I joined the university. The faculty was small and not many Ph.D. degrees were awarded in those days. Money was scarce, but standards were fairly good and approximated those at a reasonable US university. But as time passed, less care was taken in appointing new faculty members. Politics began to dominate over merit and quality slipped. That slow slippage is now turning into rapid collapse.

Last month, at a formal meeting, QAU professors voted to make life easy for themselves. The Academic Council, the key decision-making body of the university, decided that henceforth no applicant for a university teaching position, whether at the associate professor or professor level, could be required to give an open seminar or lecture as a part of the selection process. Open lectures were deemed by the Council as illegal, unjust, and a ploy for victimizing teachers.

This is mind-boggling. Public presentations allow an applicant's subject competence and ability to communicate to be assessed by the academic community. (For the record, the author of this article insisted that requiring open lectures from candidates is standard practice in every decent university in the world. This prompted angry demands for his dismissal as chairman of his department!) A second major decision also dealt a stunning blow to the future of QAU. The Council voted 25-12 that QAU's PhD candidates did not have to conform to international standards. It decided to overturn its earlier acceptance of the HEC's requirement that the international GRE subject tests must be passed by a candidate prior to the award of a Ph.D. degree. Some professors gleefully noted that the HEC had been mortally weakened by the removal of its chairman, Dr. Atta-ur-Rahman, and argued that good advantage needed to be taken of this happy fact. Those who wanted international testing were labeled agents of foreign powers.

This horrible mess comes from a misguided HEC policy that emphasized numbers over all else. The number of PhD students registered at various universities, including QAU, was purposely made to explode. But many PhD students, perhaps because of their poor schooling, are not good enough as PhD material. Under pressure to maintain a minimal standard for PhD students, the HEC finally decreed a pass-mark of 40 percentile in the international GRE subject test.

The GRE test is fairly elementary and pitched only at the bachelor's level (i.e. 16-years of education). It has, however, proved to be too difficult for many Pakistani PhD students even at the end of their PhD studies. In spite of several tries, most cannot meet the 40 percentile pass mark, an extremely low level. But it is common for Indian, Chinese, and Iranian students to score twice as much at the beginning of their studies.

Why the urgency for eliminating international testing? This is easily understood. Each professor gets paid a few lakh rupees per PhD produced, with a current maximum of 10 students per supervisor at QAU. Lifting the GRE requirement removes a threat to the additional income of their supervisors. To keep up appearances, from now on a token internal test will be used instead. It is hard to imagine that any student will be allowed to fail. While the decision of the professors to do away with international testing has been greeted with relief by many enrolled Ph.D. students at QAU, among better students there is a sense of foreboding of an endless downward slide.

Many students recognize that international tests are difficult but they also know it is a real measure of what they have learned. Although students in all other departments have reportedly failed, the fact is that even average students in my department have done reasonably well. Over the last year, a total of 9 students in the physics department have cleared the 40 percentile requirement. Three students, who the department subsequently honored, secured over 75 percentile. All students, whether they do well or otherwise, say they learned a great deal of subject matter in preparing for this challenge and felt more educated. The problem is their teachers seem to think the test is impossibly difficult, or perhaps they are insufficiently equipped to help their students prepare for it.

The involvement of teachers in running QAU's non-teaching affairs is another bad sign. A weak university administration appears unwilling or unable to resist the growing power of professors who seek personal profit at the expense of public good. There is even resort to violence - some professors had physically kicked the former registrar, the second-most senior university administrator, out of his office. This action drew no comment from the head of the university.

To be fair, the threat to QAU is not just from inside. The campus contains some of the prime undeveloped public land in the capital. This land is being encroached upon by surrounding villagers as well as political influentials. University administrators, supposedly on behalf of the public interest, plan to sell off bits and pieces of university property to commercial interests. The sale of a piece of campus land to make a gas station on Murree Road is currently under negotiation. But the university's land was given to it for educational purposes. It rightfully belongs to future generations of Pakistanis.

Also published in Dawn, 9 Feb 2009. Posted here with permission from the author.

Alumni Magazine 2008

2009-02-13T06:34:38Z

LUMS published their Alumni Magazine for 2008 in December. This year the central theme was the alumni perspective of the workplace. The magazine is embedded at the end of this post. Alternatively, a PDF version is also available:

LUMS Alumni Magazine 2008

With the growing size of the alumni body, the class notes are fast becoming a big dead tree on paper. Maybe they need to re-invent that section.

LUMS Gradute Studies Talk

2009-01-28T04:17:13Z

Last January, LUMS Career Development Office hosted a session on graduate studies. They invited a few alumni to share their experience with current students. The session covered topics like admissions, funding, and PhD vs. Masters debate. Below are the slides used at the LUMS graduate session:

Graduate Studies Talk

There is also a similar talk given at UC Berkeley by Jacob Scott. A copy of Jacob's slides are here.

Students may find these two talks useful.