Third screening in Season of World Cinema at RPC

Research and Publication Centre (RPC) in collaboration with Filmbar (on Instagram) announces the screening of the third film in its Season of World Cinema: Asghar Farhadi's 'The Salesman' (2016).

Amateur actors Emad and Rana prepare for opening night of their production of Arthur Miller's play Death of a Salesman. However, when the couple is forced to change apartments quickly when their building almost crumbles, a case of mistaken identity sees a shocking incident throw their lives into turmoil.

Timing: Friday, January 13, 2023, 5:00 pm at Research and Publication Centre (RPC), 2nd floor, 65 Main Boulevard Gulberg, Lahore (next to Standard Chartered Bank, above Indesign showroom).

Rashed Rahman

Editor, Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) (link: pakistanmonthlyreview.com)

Director, Research and Publication Centre (RPC) (on Facebook)

Business Recorder Column January 3, 2023

Terrorism hydra, again

 

Rashed Rahman

 

A pale sun greeted a troubled Pakistan on the first day of the new year. Traditional greetings wishing friends and family a Happy New Year sounded like the aspired for triumph of hope over reality, given the plethora of crises gripping the state and society. Amongst these, a short list necessarily would have to include the political impasse, struggling economy, flood relief and rehabilitation, and the hydra of terrorism raising its head again.

Of all these, it is terrorism that poses an increasingly serious threat to peace. The tendency to relax and go to sleep amongst our state institutions after partial successes is what has led to the resurgence of the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). Forced to relocate to Afghan soil under the irresistible pressure of the military operations in the tribal areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), the TTP left behind sleeper cells awaiting just the present turn. The coming into power of their Afghan brothers last year opened the floodgates to infiltration back into Pakistan and attacks on the security forces, assassinations of tribal elders who are opposed to the TTP, and the emergence of alarm at these developments amongst the population of the whole of KP, whose memories of past suffering at the hands of these terrorists are still fresh.

While wrestling with the other crises afflicting Pakistan, Prime Minister (PM) Shahbaz Sharif pledged to crush terrorism. The National Security Committee (NSC) is meeting as these lines are being written to chalk out the strategy, tactics and measures required to scotch the terrorist snake. The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N)-led Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) coalition government blames Imran Khan and his Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf (PTI) government for the uptick in TTP terrorism inside the country. The latter’s mistake was not to have learnt anything from the experience of negotiating with the religiously-inspired fanatics, which since 2004 resulted in every agreement being broken by the terrorists. Imran Khan still bleats on about military means ‘never’ being a solution, without admitting his responsibility for relying on our Afghan Taliban ‘friends’ (now in power in Kabul) to bring about a rapprochement with the TTP. No ceasefire, negotiations or any means other than military force can budge the TTP from its unacceptable demands, one of which is the restoration of FATA so they can once again enjoy their original base area in the merged tribal districts.

It may be jumping the gun to anticipate what the NSC will decide, but a few pointers, gleaned from experience, may be useful. First and foremost, counterinsurgency is not simply a military effort. That effort needs to be coordinated with on ground intelligence. And that intelligence, its gathering and analysis requires a degree of the missing coordination between all the intelligence and security agencies of the state, especially between the military and civilian wings of our intelligence and security structure. That was the missing element throughout our history, and even after the 2014 military operations were launched in the wake of the Army Public School, Peshawar, massacre of children and teachers by the TTP. The National Action Plan formulated to bolster those military operations by coordinating all the data of the intelligence agencies never took off, and the much touted National Counter-Terrorism Coordination Authority (NACTA) remains a dead letter to this day. Perhaps the NSC can now help fill that void.

The Bannu detention centre incident, in which TTP prisoners were able to seize weapons from their guards, take over the centre and only be winkled out after a serious assault on their positions, offers lessons. Vigilance, vigilance, vigilance. Our guard cannot be lowered at any time or place where the struggle against terrorism is concerned.

The uptick in terrorism, including a suicide blast in Islamabad, persuaded many foreign embassies in the federal capital to issue advisories to their officials and citizens to restrict their movements for fear of terrorist attacks. The major bombing of the Islamabad Marriot Hotel came back to haunt the foreign diplomats and evoked an advisory to avoid visiting the popular hotel. All hotels in Islamabad have reportedly beefed up their security, as have the security agencies through increased road checks, etc. The suicide bomber in Islamabad reportedly travelled from KP, pointing to the need to strengthen checks at the entrances to Islamabad.

In the reporting of the mainstream media, the series of attacks by nationalist guerrillas in Balochistan, which too have experienced an uptick of late, is being lumped as usual in the ‘terrorist’ basket, including the allegation that Baloch insurgent groups have forged a nexus with TTP. This lack of nuance or ‘one size fits all’ approach negates any possibility of finding a political solution to an entirely different problem – a nationalist insurgency fuelled by the sense of injustice and oppression since Independence common amongst the people of Balochistan. If, as is the riposte of the military establishment every time this more nuanced approach is suggested, it is indeed true that India is supporting the Baloch guerrilla struggle, does it not make sense to douse the fire in our house by accommodating Baloch grievances within the four corners of the Constitution so as to deny any hostile power the opportunity to fish in troubled waters?

Food for thought.

 

 

 

 

 

rashed.rahman1@gmail.com

rashed-rahman.blogspot.com

Third screening in Season of World Cinema at RPC

Research and Publication Centre (RPC) in collaboration with Filmbar (on Instagram) announces the screening of the third film in its Season of World Cinema: Asghar Farhadi's 'The Salesman' (2016).

Amateur actors Emad and Rana prepare for opening night of their production of Arthur Miller's play Death of a Salesman. However, when the couple is forced to change apartments quickly when their building almost crumbles, a case of mistaken identity sees a shocking incident throw their lives into turmoil.

Timing: Friday, January 13, 2023, 5:00 pm at Research and Publication Centre (RPC), 2nd floor, 65 Main Boulevard Gulberg, Lahore (next to Standard Chartered Bank, above Indesign showroom).

Rashed Rahman

Editor, Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) (link: pakistanmonthlyreview.com)

Director, Research and Publication Centre (RPC) (on Facebook)

The December 2022 issue of Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) is out

The December 2022 issue of Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) is out. Link: pakistanmonthlyreview.com

Contents:

1. From the Editor: Pakistan's political crisis.

2. Rashed Rahman: The Left in Pakistan.

3. Vijay Prashad: In Malay, Orangutans means 'People of the Forest', but those forests are disappearing.

Rashed Rahman

Editor Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) (link: pakistanmonthlyreview.com)

Director, Research and Publication Centre (RPC) (on Facebook)

Business Recorder Column December 20, 2022

Has Imran Khan shot his bolt?

 

Rashed Rahman

 

Imran Khan finally announced the date for the dissolution of the Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provincial Assemblies on December 17, 2022, after having threatened it for weeks. The date set for the dissolution is December 23, 2022. During his virtual address to the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf (PTI) rally in Liberty Chowk, Gulberg, Lahore, he had seated Punjab Chief Minister (CM) Parvez Elahi and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) CM Mahmood Khan beside him. However, when Imran Khan once again lambasted his favourite hobby horse these days, former COAS General Qamar Javed Bajwa, Parvez Elahi’s expression and body language betrayed his discomfort.

Sure enough, the very next day, December 18, 2022, the Punjab CM took Imran Khan to task for continuously criticizing General Bajwa and asserted that he and his party, Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) would no longer tolerate any such remarks against the former army chief, whom he described as our and PTI’s benefactor. That did not detract Imran Khan from once again on December 18, 2022 painting the former army chief as having no problem with corruption and therefore himself being corrupt. Parvez Elahi on the other hand, having just dashed to Rawalpindi for a meeting with the establishment, once again reiterated in a TV interview his relationship with the establishment, which he described as long-lasting and never broken under any circumstances even when times were rough in his interactions with the ubiquitous establishment.

Parvez Elahi’s angry rebuttal of Imran Khan’s continuing attacks on General Bajwa really put the cat among the pigeons as far as the PML-Q-PTI alliance is concerned. Prime Minister (PM) Shahbaz Sharif and Pakistan People’s Party co-chairperson Asif Ali Zardari, perhaps sensing an opening, wooed Chaudhry Shujaat by suggesting some form of accommodation of Parvez Elahi to continue as CM Punjab if he were to ditch Imran Khan and come over to the Pakistan Democratic Movement’s (PDM’s) side. If that fails, the two PDM leaders discussed all the options available to halt the dissolution, particularly Punjab’s provincial Assembly’s, including moving a no-confidence motion against Parvez Elahi and/or asking him to take a vote of confidence from the Punjab house.

In the meantime, Imran Khan’s insistent demand that the National Assembly (NA) Speaker, Raja Pervaiz Ashraf, accept the mass resignations of the PTI MNAs, does not seem to be going anywhere. The idea was that if the Punjab and KP Assemblies are dissolved along with the NA resignations being accepted, this would mount what the PTI hopes will be irresistible pressure on the government to announce early elections. However, the snag is that the NA secretariat has expressed doubts about the signatures on some of the PTI MNAs’ resignation letters, and Speaker Raja Pervaiz Ashraf has flatly refused to accept the resignations without first verifying from the PTI MNAs face-to-face that they stand by their resignation letters of their own free will and without any pressures or coercion.

Whichever way all these manoeuvres by both sides pan out, Imran Khan’s plan is clear. He wants to deny any further remaining legitimacy to the existing political structure in order to make early elections necessary. Will he succeed in this endeavour is at least open to question, given the very public ‘falling out’ with Parvez Elahi, the blockage of the NA mass resignations, and Imran Khan’s off-again, on-again assaults on General Bajwa and, by implication, on the institution of the military. It should perhaps be recalled that since his ouster in April 2022 through a no-confidence motion, Imran Khan has been railing about a foreign (US) conspiracy to get rid of his government. The cypher story never really took off nor was accepted by people. Now Imran Khan has joined General Bajwa’s name to the foreign conspiracy and, in his latest diatribe, accorded the honorific ‘corrupt’ on the former army chief’s name.

In the same breath, and ignoring or unaware of the implications and fallout of his anti-Bajwa attacks, Imran Khan expects the new COAS, General Asim Munir, to adhere to what General Bajwa in his farewell address had claimed: that the military had made mistakes and violated the Constitution in the past by intervening in politics, and had decided henceforth to remain neutral. However, Imran Khan will only be satisfied that the military has indeed become politically neutral if the new COAS ‘ensures’ early elections are held after the dissolution of two provincial Assemblies and the mass resignation of PTI MNAs. What kind of ‘neutrality’ would that be? Imran Khan’s weak grasp on logic in the interest of his self-serving daily propaganda blasts is exposed by this contradiction in his stance.

The fact is that with the failure of his street rallies and abortive long march (because of being wounded in the Wazirabad attack), Imran Khan seems frustrated and desperate. He is therefore flailing around, clutching at straws, and, in his inimitable style, contradicting himself almost with every breath (the famous U-turns). Such a desperate hankering for a return to power (with, he hopes, the support of a ‘neutral’ establishment) seems to have addled whatever political sense Imran Khan ever had.

Imran Khan’s political fate and future will probably be decided in the next few days if his dissolution gambit and denuding the NA of PTI MNAs does not work out. That would imply Imran Khan has shot his bolt and needs to return to the drawing board, realistically assess the lay of the land and the forces arraigned against him if he is to keep his and the PTI’s hopes for the future alive and credible.

 

 

 

 

rashed.rahman1@gmail.com

rashed-rahman.blogspot.com

Inauguration of Season of world Cinema at RPC

 Research and Publication Centre (RPC) in collaboration with Filmbar (on Instagram) announces the inauguration of a Season of World Cinema beginning Friday, December 16, 2022 with the first screening of Ingmar Bergman's Persona.

In the first of a series of legendary performances for Bergman, Liv Ullmann plays a stage actor who has inexplicably gone mute. An equally mesmerising Bibi Andersson is the garrulous young nurse caring for her in a remote island cottage. While isolated, the two women undergo a mysterious spiritual and emotional transference. Performed with astonishing nuance and shot in stark contrast and soft light by Sven Nykvist, the film is a penetrating, dreamlike work of profound psychological depth.

Timing: 5:00 pm, Friday, December 16, 2022 at Research and Publication Centre (RPC), 2nd floor, 65 Main Boulevard Gulberg, Lahore (next to Standard Chartered Bank, above Indesign showroom).

All friends are welcome. Tea will be served after the show.

Rashed Rahman

Editor, Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) (link: pakistanmonthlyreview.com)

Director, Research and Publication Centre (RPC) (on Facebook) 

Business Recorder Column December 13, 2022

Wages of the original sin

 

Rashed Rahman

 

The incident of unprovoked and indiscriminate shelling by Afghan Taliban forces at the Chaman border on December 11, 2022, in which one security man was killed and 16 others injured, may be considered the wages of the original sin of meddling in the neighbouring country’s affairs. Although the incident in question evoked counter-firing by our forces, ISPR did not dilate on casualties on the Afghan side. That was left to Mr Zaid, the Kandahar Governor’s spokesman to reveal. He said one Afghan security man was killed and 13 injured, which included 10 soldiers and three civilians. Reports say the Afghan forces took umbrage when some Afghan citizens were refused entry into Pakistan because of incomplete documents. Another report has it that some people from the Afghan side tried to cut a fence near the border village of Lala Mohammad, which resulted in the closing of the Friendship Gate at Chaman. Although the border was reopened after half an hour, soon after the Afghan forces started firing at two border posts, prompting a response by Pakistani forces. The Afghan troops then escalated the exchange by using artillery and mortars.

Traditionally, despite Pakistan emerging as an independent state in 1947, the Afghan border had remained porous for as long as memory serves. Document checking, in fact any checking at all was the exception rather than the rule, given nomadic Powindas crossing the line seasonally and the tribes on either side being linked through family and other ties. All this changed, gradually but incrementally, during the Afghan wars following the Communist coup in that country in 1978, the subsequent Soviet invasion in 1979, and the rest, as they say, is history. Following the Soviet withdrawal in 1989, the resistance Mujahideen soon fell into a civil war, ending only when the Afghan Taliban took over in 1996. Ousted by the US invasion following 9/11, the Afghan Taliban retreated into and found safe havens in Pakistani territory, from where they waged a guerrilla resistance until the occupiers tired and called it quits in 2021.

The Afghan Taliban had thus, with more than a little help from Pakistan’s security establishment, come back to power triumphant. Islamabad is faulted for harbouring the wishful thinking that the Taliban regime in Kabul would take action against the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), whose forces had taken shelter with the Afghan Taliban on Afghan soil in the face of the irresistible pressure applied by Pakistani military offensives against them in the tribal areas. The TTP emerged as a result of the long Afghan wars, during which first the Afghan Mujahideen and later the Taliban lived cheek by jowl with local people in Pakistan’s tribal areas. Logistics and intelligence help from Pakistani tribesmen was exchanged for ideological indoctrination of the Pakistani Taliban, hence the TTP.

Pakistan had been resentful of Afghanistan’s refusal to accept the emergence of Pakistan as an independent successor state of the British Raj because of irredentist claims on Pakistani Pashtun territory. Such irredentist claims fly in the face of history, otherwise some people in Pakistan may have been tempted to claim suzerainty over Afghanistan, at least up to Kabul, which often remained within the acquisitions of Subcontinental empires that rose and fell in the past. Fortunately, no such claim ever saw the light of day on this side. Relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan remained fraught because of such irredentism, despite the commonality of ethnicity and culture on either side of the new border. When Sardar Daoud overthrew the Afghan monarchy in 1973, this tipped the already strained Pakistan-Afghanistan relationship into a tailspin from which it never recovered. Daoud’s credentials as an ardent Pashtun nationalist had been well established in his earlier stint in power under the monarchy. His crackdown on Islamist militant organisations persuaded their leaders such as Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and Ahmed Shah Masoud to flee to Pakistan, where they were taken under the wing of the ISI during Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s government, trained, equipped and infiltrated back into Afghanistan as the embryonic beginnings of the Mujahideen. The rest, at the risk of repeating oneself, is history.

The Afghan Taliban in 2001 had clearly indicated that they were not Pakistani satraps when they rejected Musharraf’s plea to surrender Osama bin Laden to the US after 9/11. Having helped them come back to power after a 20-year guerrilla resistance, Pakistan could be forgiven for naivete despite the 9/11episode in thinking the Afghan Taliban would completely go along with Pakistan’s desire they act against the TTP. On the contrary, the Haqqani Network, to whom the TTP is close, persuaded Islamabad to hold negotiations with the TTP. Having learnt little from the futility of such negotiations with fanatical terrorists in the past, the Pakistani security establishment was misled and now finds the so-called ceasefire was little else but a ruse to allow the TTP time to regroup and infiltrate back into Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. In the erstwhile tribal areas as well as adjoining settled areas, this has aroused a storm of anxiety amongst the local people, who do not want a repetition of the terrorist wave of the past. In some areas, local jirgas are threatening to take up arms in self-defence against the TTP if the state does not protect them.

The wages of the original sin are now upon us. It is time the security establishment woke up to the resurgent terrorist threat and conducted necessary operations against them to, this time, scotch the snake for good.

 

 

 

 

 

rashed.rahman1@gmail.com

rashed-rahman.blogspot.com