Weekly Column-Side- Effect (Gutter Bageecha)

LINK: http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=195267

Gutter Bageecha

Friday, August 28, 2009

Harris Khalique

 

The visit to Fida Khalidi's home near Gutter Bagheecha was my first introduction to this humble but cosmopolitan neighbourhood of Karachi around 30 years ago. The area which has 18 old settlements going back to the 19th century and a few colonies established after 1947 is a part what is now called SITE Town. I was in school then and often accompanied my aunt who would occasionally visit her ustaad (mentor), Khalidi sahib and, once in a while, take things such as galavat ke kebabs, shab-deg, qorma or Kashmiri chai for him and his family.

 

Khalidi sahib mentored a large number of novice poets, speaking different languages and dialects of Urdu. They would get their ghazals corrected by him and spend hours listening to his literary ramblings. He was a poet of considerable merit belonging to the Dehlavi School of Ghazal. My aunt stressed on her Lucknavi style but eventually, her ustaad would prevail.

 

The afternoon I visited Khalidi sahib was like all other Friday afternoons, a busy one for him. Some poets, fond of listening to poetry, were engaged in rigorously debating the pitfalls and advantages of Urdu prosody. One of his sons, who I fondly called Nazar Bhai, was sympathetic towards the young boy sitting idle and getting bored in the midst of an incomprehensible debate. He came up to us and asked my aunt to let me go with him to the Gutter Bagheecha. Nazar Bhai made me sit on the carrier of his bicycle and within 10 minutes, we entered the lush green park with palms and guava trees, enjoying ourselves thoroughly. Those are my first memories of that beautiful park, which served as lungs for the neighbourhood surrounded by bustling industrial activity. The industrial district, SITE, lies on the east of the park. Marble for construction is processed and sold in the vicinity, besides some old establishments of the traders here.

 

Some citizens have recently complained that the City District Government Karachi (CDGK) has changed the status of at least 26 parks and playgrounds in middle, lower-middle and working-class neighbourhoods of the city. On one hand, a large tract of land by the sea is converted into a modern park in the heart of a rich neighbourhood and, on the other, the not-so-privileged residents of the metropolis are being denied their right to public spaces and amenity plots. The residents around Gutter Bagheecha, predominantly Sindhi and Baloch – who have a claim over the city for two centuries at least -- have been foiling attempts to occupy of the park by the omnipotent city managers, after its illegally changed status, for the last 17 years.

 

A rightfully agitated Nisar Baloch is among those running the campaign for the restoration of the park and the amenity status for 480 acres of open land. He is equally critical of both the MQM and the Pakistan People's Party (PPP), one for its coercion and the other for its tardiness. He said that when the people of settlements near the park staged a peaceful protest on August 26, they were attacked by members of the law-enforcing agencies. Six women and four young men were injured, one of them in a critical condition, while two protesters were arrested.

 

Sadly, the media has, so far, not been unable to cover the story properly and for those who think that overlooking the matter will make it go away, here's some food for thought the politics of intimidation, profiteering, patronage and prejudice can hold us together only for so long.

 

 

The writer is an Islamabad-based poet and rights campaigner. Email: harris@spopk.org

 

EFA: a distant goal: Over half of world's children out of school are from minorities or indigenous peoples

LINK: http://www.minorityrights.org

16 July 2009

 

New global report Of the world's 101 million children out of school, between 50 and 70 per cent are from minorities or indigenous peoples, Minority Rights Group International (MRG) says in a new report released today.

The State of the World's Minorities and Indigenous Peoples 2009 details how minority and indigenous children have been systematically excluded, discriminated against, or are too poor to afford an education.

In developing countries with the largest number of children out of school, such as Bangladesh, Ethiopia, India, Kenya, Nigeria and Pakistan minority and indigenous populations enjoy far less access to schooling than majority groups.

MRG's flagship annual report, prepared this year with UNICEF's collaboration, says that the Millennium Development Goal on education will not be met in 2015 if policies are not properly targeted on the needs of minorities and indigenous peoples.

"Education authorities need to recognize that it is not just lack of resources that is keeping so many children out of school worldwide. Tens of millions of children are systematically excluded from school or receive only a second-rate education because of ethnic or religious discrimination," says Mark Lattimer, MRG's Executive Director.

Providing adequate education for minority and indigenous children is not a choice, but a legal obligation on the part of states, yet statistics reveal that the costs of failing to provide education for all are massive: holding back economic growth and sowing the seeds for inter-ethnic and inter-religious conflict.

In a Foreword to the report, the UN Independent Expert on Minority Issues, Gay McDougall, argues, "When I ask people who belong to disadvantaged minorities to tell me their greatest problem, the answer is always the same. They are concerned their children are not getting a quality education. Worldwide, minority children suffer disproportionately from unequal access to quality education."

The Chairperson of the UN Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, John Henriksen, adds, "Deprivation of access to quality education is a major factor contributing to the social marginalization, poverty and dispossession of indigenous peoples. The content and objective of education in some instances contributes to the eradication of their cultures, languages and ways of life."

The report shows that in African countries such as Burundi, Rwanda and Sudan, exclusion from school and the lack of educational opportunities for young people have been critical factors in fuelling conflict over past decades.

The study cites numerous cases which demonstrate a world of exclusion and discrimination against minorities and indigenous peoples. The most discriminated against of all tend to be poor girls, living in poor families in rural areas who belong to a minority community. In Guatemala, for example, only 4 per cent of ‘extremely poor' indigenous girls attend school by the age of 16.

Globally, more than half of out-of-school girls have never been to school and might never go to school without additional incentives. The report finds that reducing the gender gap paves the way to a more democratic, balanced and stable society.

The report makes a number of key recommendations to address these significant inequities in education for minorities and indigenous peoples, including building more schools in rural communities, recruiting more local, bilingual and minority-language teachers and abolishing segregation in classes.

 

New Arrival

Dear All,

 

This is to inform you that “Mahbub ul Haq Human Development Report 2008” recently added to our “Development Resource Centre” (DRC). It is available if any one is interested!

 

 

Regards,

 

Roohi Bano

 

 

 

 

 

Weekly column-side- effect (Jaswant on Jinnah)

http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=194025