How refugees live in camps in Greece? How Pakistanis spend their days until asylum is granted?

Haider Ali, a teenage boy from the central Punjab, is the sole survivor of the Turbat carnage. He cheated death by a stroke luck. 

Khushbakht Suhail, who has spent one year studying the problems of asylum seekers and immigrant applicants in Europe in 2016-17, believes that Haider’s other friends, who have joined the ranks of deceased potential immigrants, would have been alive and kicking, had they all known anything about their life ahead in refugee camps in Greece, the long wait and complex process to get a refugee status, their allocation of a European destination unknown to them and the start of life in new country with a refugee status. 

ATHENS: The container camp where refugees live till the conclusion of their application. Photo by Khushbakht Suhail

During the study, she came across several Pakistani youths, pushed into refugee camps in Athens and Greek islands, living there for years hoping to secure a refugee status to some European places. 

“Every applicant or better call asylum seekers from Pakistan is a sad story,” she sighs. 

“Living in harsh conditions in the camps, fed on charities and leftover of hotels and local families, their every day is an ordeal and every night a nightmare.” 

ATHENS: Hardly any refugee is seen out of the container during the daytime. Photo by Khushbakht Suhail.

In 2016, Karachi-based Khushbakht, an Institute of Business Administration graduate, currently working in The Citizens Foundation as Area Education Manager, was selected for the WISE Learners’ Voice Programme 2016-17, an initiative of the Qatar Foundation, to work with a diverse group of young people from across the world. She was one among 26 outstanding people, selected from 25 countries for the programme. The theme of the programme was ‘Forced Migration and Refugee Crisis’ for which Greece could not have been more perfect. 

ATHENS: Refugees have placed dish antenna on the rooftops of containers. Photo by Khushbakht Suhail 

In a group of five people, Khushbakht spent two weeks in Greece to volunteer in refugee camps and the Regional Asylum Seekers’ Office in Athens to understand the issues of displaced people. 

Her group consisted of members who were from the Philippines, Brazil, France and Australia when she arrived in Greece in March this year. 

The group was given detailed guidance from social workers on the field as well as legal experts to enable them to deal with the applicants.   

The crux of the briefing was: 

Treat every applicant a victim

Avoid digging their background and their ordeals 

Avoid mentioning their identity when reporting 

Take sessions on trauma relieving after visiting the asylum seekers. 

ATHENS: The trauma of refugee influx is often expressed through graffiti on Athens streets. Photo by Khushbakht Suhail 

Once they arrived in Athens, their main place of meeting applicants was the Regional Asylum Seekers Office in Athens. 

Pakistani applicants were outnumbered by their counterpart from Syria, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan and other countries. The only difference was that other immigrants or refugee applicants were mostly in families, with minors, while Pakistanis were all males, ages late teens to mid-30s. 

She says the Pakistanis, mostly from Punjab’s districts of Gujranwala, Mandi Bahauddin, Jhelum, Gujrat and Sialkot, would turn up at the office either to file some documents or get updates on their application. 

What did they plead to secure the refugee or immigrant status? 

“Well, most of them relied on decades-old enmities or political rivalries which could cost them dearly, if they lived in Pakistan. Some had filed cases on their bases of their ethnicity and sect. One astounding case was of a man, who said he belonged to the Wahabi sect, and for his sect affiliation, his life was in danger in Pakistan,” she recalls. 

All were armed with documents like police and court cases and pictures.   

Though they were lucky enough to make to Greece that had not been with heavy risks. 

“Since the time, I left home in Sialkot, I didn’t know if I would see the next day,” said a man in his mid-20s. Many times they were bundled into small suffocating containers; they were told to run miles and miles in rugged border areas; they saw killed their group members by border security personnel and in some cases by the traffickers when someone suffered an injury and was unable to walk or bear the harsh journey ahead. 

Islamabad-based journalist Hassan Shahzad, who has a deep interest in immigrants’ phenomena, says in one case, two brothers saw their father shot at and killed by Turkish border forces and they did not stop. 

Once landed in Greece, the border forces transfer them to refugee camps. 

The camps consist of columns of containers placed on the suburb of the city. The similar camps have been set up on islands of Greece. 

Pakistanis are forced to live in shabby camps where running water and electricity and provision of food were not a guarantee. They would while away time on Whatsapp chatting with their families or playing luddu and cards with each other. 

A few smart skilled applicants had been doing petty jobs in nearby residential and commercials districts. 

One of the youth looked distraught and occasionally in fits of sobs. 

“He just came to know that his father has died,” one of the group members said. 

“He wants to leave the camp for his home. He wants to be deported. No, he, like us, has no option. That's it. No other option,” she quotes the camp resident as saying. 

“He must have known that we came here on a one-way ticket. Just like a suicide bomber.” Their families in Pakistan also urge them to stay showing resilience. 

Some networks and gangs in Greece also force the applicants to stay put and never think about of going back. 

An NGO working for asylum seekers had hired a Pakistani man as a translator to facilitate the applicant. The translator also offered Khushbakht to jump the return date and he would manage a refugee status for her. She was just speechless. 

The containers where families lived, looked somewhat better, at least clean with things in order. Since their container was home, for now, the families would place flower pots in the backyard and front of the containers.  

During her volunteer experience, Khushbakht volunteered in Metadrasi Children's Container inside the asylum seeker centre. 

Each drawing is a story itself, the reflection of displacement trauma, ordeals of sea routes and violence back at home. 

Here are some pictures of the students' drawings. 

One drawing by an eight-year-old girl was of a shipwreck. Another picture depicts a family leaves the house and is stranded in the sea. A drawing a boy shows a flying deadly projectile. That is what the footprint of war in on innocent minds. 

The asylum centre would also see brief scenes of jubilation whenever some applicant was granted the refugee status in some European place. 

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The group of Khusbbakht came across a Syrian youth, whose destination was Finland. He was expecting or desiring for Germany. In Germany, he had many relatives, friends and acquaints. About Finland, he was as blank as the eyeball of the dead. 

The situation struck an idea to Khushbakht and her colleagues. They decided to launch a project – ReConnect. 

“ReConnect is, in fact, Refugee Connect,” she explains. This initiative aims at social integration between refugees and host communities through tech-based peer learning. The refugee gets to learn about the culture, language and day to struggles of living in his new home. The host learns about the challenges of refugees which helps break stereotypes about them. They have piloted this project in Greece, Finland and France.  

The programme taught many lessons to Khushbakht. She met a ten-year-old little girl who had been subjected to bomb shellings and their whole face was burnt but still, she was very positive and played with everybody. She was sure that she would get a plastic surgery soon that will change her life. 

Khushbakht reflects, “I saw an appreciation of little blessings that we take for granted. Life is not meant to be perfect. It is meant to be a challenge,”. 

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Honour in honour killing?

The families of both the man and the woman took part in the bloodbath, according to police: the couple was killed for their free-will marriage in Karachi’s Mominabad locality this month, and this all happened on the orders of a jirga operating in Karachi. 

The bodies of Abdul Hadi and Haseena Bibi were buried in the dead of the night earlier this month in a graveyard in Qaimkhani of the Ittihad Town locality.

Most of the honour killing accused are acquitted of the charge because of the pardon extended to them by the complainants. 

The unlucky bride and the groom, who were also close relative – Haseena Bibi was the daughter of Abdul Hadi’s uncle – had tried to escape death by fleeing their homes and living in a rented house in hiding from November 19. 

They were able to cheat death only for a week when their families chased them like the death angel and ambushed them in their hideouts. The matter came to the light when on November 24, when the landlord was alerted by the residents of the area that they had spotted blood around the house. 

Police have arrested nine people, including the boy’s father, brother and other relatives. One of them confessed to killing the couple for bringing a bad name to the Kohistan-based tribe. The family of the woman is at large. 

The scourge of honour killing, and that mostly done on the orders of illegal jirgas or tribal councils, keeps on claiming people’s lives, most of them for exercising free-will marriage. In most of the honour killings, it is the woman’s side that spills the blood. A gut-wrenching trend, however, is emerging where both families take part in the murder. Earlier in a similar incident in September this year, a couple – boy (17) and girl (15) – were electrocuted by both families on the orders of a Jirga in Sherpao Colony. Both the boy and the girl had wished to marry each other, which their families were opposed to.

As the whole country is in shock over the murders, Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah ordered the police to arrest and get punished the culprits behind the gruesome murders. "This is Karachi, not a tribal area. How was a jirga held here?" he roared in his orders to the police. The words of the chief minister do not approve the holding of jirgas in Karachi, and it should not a rightful activity in tribal areas either. Tribal customs do not allow the people to marry the person of their choice. Any attempt to defy the customs attracts the wrath of the whole tribe. The tribal blood keeps running and claiming people’s lives in a metropolis like Karachi and Lahore. Old, obsolete tribal trends often fail the modern education and civilization.

The government has passed several laws to discourage honour killing and using girls as bargain chips to settle family feuds. The custom of Vani, giving the hand of a woman to a rival family to settle a murder case, in Mianwali and other Punjab areas, has come to an end after the strict enforcement of laws. Similarly, laws stop the act of granting pardon from the complainant to the killer in an honour killing case. These laws are being implemented in letter and spirit but still, bloodshed is reported from across the country. The government, as well as opinion makers, religious leaders, and educationists, all need to join the efforts to change the mindset of the people towards love marriage and honour killings. 

It is not win-win end

A win-win situation holds positive aspects for either side. 

The culmination of the countrywide protests at the call of the Tahreek Labaik Ya Rasool Allah, led by firebrand orator Khadim Hussain Rizvi, has exposed the government’s weak writ to counter the crisis and the elements spreading extremism and using religion as a tool for political gains. 

The charged workers at Faizabad interchange. 

After three weeks of putting up a firm resolve, which turned out to be fake, not to succumb to protesters’ demand of sending the law minister home, the government finally launched an operation, and that too on the court instruction, which ended up declaring the protesters' victors. Shame.

The three-week-long besiege of the federal capital ended after the law minister, Zahid Hamid, resigned, and that was the main demand of the protesters. 

The mob wanted to make him an example of a minister who allegedly tried to reword a voter's oath to the finality of Prophethood in the electoral bill. 

Though the government was quick to fix the wording, which according to the officials was a clerical error, the clerics were not impressed. The government initially stood firm, refusing to accept their demand of sacking the minister, saying that it would be tantamount to setting a dangerous trend. The government did not want to escalate the situation and wanted to wait for the moment until the protesters showed the signs of weariness. 

At least this strategy had worked well in the previous sit-ins of Tahirul Qadri in 2012 and Imran Khan in 2014. That never happened in this case as the court jumped in and the rest is history.

 The sit-in and its aftermaths offer an opportunity for soul-searching on some issues. Every issue involving an iota of blasphemy is becoming life-risking phenomena in Pakistan. It did not happen overnight. Years of cultivation of religious elements by the establishment, read army and judiciary, has made them so powerful that they not only dictate the internal matters but also the foreign policies. Because of such elements, Pakistan is often dubbed as a hostile state. Most of the terror attacks around the world have been linked with the country. Years of mentoring of a particular sect in the Afghan jihad, and another secular in Kashmir jihad, left the third sect to assert its power by playing with the emotions of the people on the issue of love for the last prophet of Allah, Hazrat Muhammad (peace be upon him). Of course, every Muslim and every human, regardless of religion, loves the prophet as a matter of faith and for their services for humanity. When any issue affiliated with the Holy Prophet (PBUH) is used for political gains, and to risk people’s life and property, that is not only unfair but also against the true teaching of Islam as well. We have seen the trails of death and destruction in riots erupted in protests against Dutch caricatures back in 2005. Since then, nothing was planned to change the people’s mindset.

 Still, it is not late to start working on a plan directing the people to follow the teachings of Islam and other religions that all preach tolerance, peace, love for humanity, humility and so on.

Reporting strategy for a religious issue: how to cover Faizabad sit out

The besiege of Islamabad-Rawalpindi by the activists of newly-founded Tahreek Labaik Ya Rasool-Allah is the main issue of the day; the media has been discussing it without any second thought since it started two weeks ago. The Tahreek leader, Khadim Rizvi, blares from the pulpit in Punjabi. 

He talks in Punjab, and the language requires the speaker to be straightforward. 

So does Khadim Rizvi.

He talks straight. When he speaks, his followers say "Subhan Allah", while others smile or laugh or turn green with anger because of his straight Punjabi talk. 

Media only degrades him. 

Ask a media if they have a reporting strategy on the sit-out, and they will seem clueless.  

In 2012, I chanced to attend a course on covering religion by the ICFJ. 

Course instructor Stephen Franklin shared some guidelines about the reporting strategy on events involving religion.

What to do when there is a conflict involving religion? 

To Stephen Franklin,

• Identify an issue that religious groups or leaders have embraced and has become a political issue. 
• Keep your focus on the issue as you show its importance, and what role religious groups or leaders have upon it. 
• Your goal is to measure their impact. 
• You can follow up this story later to see if there have been any changes and whether expectations were met.

Let me also add this very long description of what reporting means to a democracy. I think it applies to what we are talking about. 

This is written by Herbert Gans and here is the link:

http://www.niemanlab.org/2013/02/journalism-for-democracy/?utm_source=Daily+Lab+email+list&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=41d100cfcf-DAILY_EMAIL

This particular rethinking might begin with a better understanding of journalism: as an early warning system, as a reassurance system, and as a panic preventative.

Stephen Franklin says

"The news media enable their audiences to monitor their distant surroundings for harm and danger — the ones beyond those with which people can stay in personal touch. The popular — or non-elite — news media do even more, because even as they are reporting bad news, they also inform their audiences by implication that the rest of the physical, social, economic, political and moral order is free of immediate danger. Without such implied news, an informational vacuum would be created that would soon be filled with rumor and speculation, which in turn would likely result in panics and other forms of political and social chaos. Whether they know it or not, the news media protect the country, including its democratic institutions, from such chaos.

"That said, the popular news media’s other contributions to democracy are more modest, for their regular political reporting is generally limited to top-down (and pegged) news: the decisions, actions, and speeches of top elected officials and the events in which they participate. Journalists may be a bulwark for democracy, but a bulwark is only a stationary obstacle. Because the popular news media limit themselves to covering top-down politics, they often pay little if any attention to the political processes that swirl under and around the bulwark. Only rarely do they report directly on the problems of and dangers to American democracy.

"For example, today they say almost nothing about the long-run polarization of political parties, the disconnects between practical politics and ideological orthodoxy, the Senate’s nearly permanent filibuster, Congressional decision-making gridlock, voter suppression, and gerrymandering. Other problems include the increasing intrusion of the political economy into electoral politics, and the massive campaign donations of the very wealthy.

"The peg-driven news format allows the news media to report instances when these problems manifest themselves dramatically — but that format prevents journalists from going into depth or discussing the causes of and solutions for democracy’s problems. These subjects are normally left to commentators and op-ed writers, but what they write is categorized as opinion even when it is easily proven fact. No wonder that a large portion of the public ascribes democracy’s problems to needless political squabbling.

"Admittedly, journalists alone cannot make America more democratic. But they can turn democracy itself into a newsworthy topic. In so doing, they would sometimes have to set aside their defensive objectivity and their division of the political world into two sides, as well as the false equivalences this division can breed.

"Last but not least, they would need to figure out how to create a mass audience for the kind of political news I am proposing. True, large audiences are ideologically diverse and may not want their beliefs challenged. Advertisers do not like to make audiences unhappy, and news firms rarely venture into politically controversial and economically risky areas. Nonetheless, the attempt is worth making — perhaps for a time when more people are directly affected by democracy’s problems and are ready for more than peg-driven, top-down political news."

A convocation of absurdities - what media reports on convocations, how it should not report.

I bet no journalist has ever won a gold medal in their board or university examinations.

Neither silver. Nor bronze.

Had they won a medal, they would have known the excitement of being at the college/university convocation, receiving a standing ovation on stage while receiving the medal.

They would have known the thrill of having a happy reunion with alumni which the convocation brings with.  

Journalists hate medals; subsequently, they also hate convocation.

Their aversion to medals and, of course, convocations is seen when they report an event like convocation.

They hate to talk about the medal winners. They never talk to them.

Instead, they will write about the chief guest – their address, their dress, their smiles, their frowns and so on.

The age of stereotype reporting is upon us.

Report the elite, for the elite but by common hacks.

The ultimate casualty is news.

On November 20, the media reported the convocation proceedings of the Punjab University.

This is how the media fed readers with a well-worded press release. 

“Punjab Governor Malik Muhammad Rafique Rajwana, who is also chancellor of the Punjab University, has said that quality education would lead to improve international ranking of universities, increasing the respect of degrees and being chancellor of all the universities he is much concerned over the quality of education.”

Thank you for showing your concerns but we are interested in what measures you’ve taken to improve the ranking and quality of education. Hopefully, the subsequent paragraphs should tell us.  

“He was addressing the 126th convocation of the Punjab University at the Faisal Auditorium here on Monday. Vice Chancellor Prof Dr Zafar Mueen Nasir, Lahore Mayor Mubashar Javed, Examinations Controller Prof Dr Shahid Munir, Registrar Dr Muhammad Khalid Khan, heads of various departments, senior faculty, officials and a large number of students along with their parents were also present on the occasion.

Thank you for caring about five Ws and a single H. Now, please elaborate the measures.

“Addressing the ceremony, Governor Rajwana said that there was a difference between education and knowledge. He said that the present era belonged to research, technology, and specialisation and we must focus on improving all those aspects which would bring our universities among top universities of the world.

Why are you not sharing the measures you have taken or planned for universities?

What is the difference between knowledge and difference – please elaborate.

The remaining part is so obvious. There is no news, Sir Chancellor.

“We must appreciate good initiatives and deeds of others. He said that criticism of negative things must be positive and constructive. He said that all the political parties were patriotic but there could be a difference of opinion. However, he said there was no difference of opinion that Pakistan, its democratic institutions, parliament, and economy must be strengthened and every institution must work within its constitutional boundaries.

“He said that toppling the governments was not a service to Pakistan. He said that educated youth must join politics as well because the nation needed sane and sensible politicians too. He said that freedom of expression was everybody’s right, however, they must not spoil others’ basic rights while exercising their own right. He said that students were real assets of Pakistan.”

Ohmygod.

All the things are so obvious and so known. Why one would like to read the obvious things?

This is the first half of the press release.

The second half is more or less the repetition of the first half. 

The last paragraph states “in the convocation, 275 Master’s (session 2014-16), 176 undergraduate degrees (session 2012-2016) and 148 medals were distributed among the students. As many as, 73 medals were distributed among undergraduate students while 75 medals were distributed among Master’s students. A total of 599 degrees, medals and prizes were distributed in the convocation”.

So, the news story ignored 599 distinguished alumni only to highlight the chancellor’s customary sermon.

Not even a single sentence of the governor’s speech is worth reporting.

Yes, not even a single sentence.

It seems 599 degree-holders plus teachers were at the convocation hall to clap and clap on the governor’s sermon. So were reporters. That is not journalism.  

The blog is getting longer, and now let me come to the point.

How should the media cover the convocation?

Convocation is the celebration of candidates’ success and a chance to peep into their’ career inception and the prospect to grow.

So, a reporter can meet the graduate and see if they have got jobs. Many would share their entrepreneurial ventures. Many would share the challenges faced in getting a job or on the job. They would let the reporter know what skills they still lack to meet the job.  

It is a ceremony that celebrates the reunion of alumni where the graduating lot can interact with them and benefit from their experience. It is an opportunity for the university administration to meet with alumni and get to know if they have got the job, how they are competing with their counterparts from other universities. And all these things are for the media to report about; there is huge public interest in these issues. 

In an ideal journalistic regime, a convocation story (or stories) dedicates most of the space to the medal winners, outstanding career winner, and not for a political governor. Lord help us to initiate real journalism. 

Every road is a death trap. Why?

Treacherous roads keep on killing passengers and pedestrians without any discrimination every day across the county, thanks to the blatant violations of traffic rules, bad conditions of roads and tendency to jaywalk. 

Photo: Courtesy Dawn

Road crashes are not regarded big news in the Pakistani news outlets unless the deceased or injured include high profile people. 

On Monday, the road crash in Khairpur district of Sindh claimed 20 lives and left seven others injured when a passenger van and a coal-filled truck crashed into each other. 

More people will die in the coming days because of the gravity of their life-threatening injuries. Police officials citing the survivors said the van driver was trying to overtake the truck on Tehari Bypass but the move ended up slamming into the lorry. The ensuing impact landed both vehicles off the road and into a ditch. The battered van soon became the scene of blood and death. The wreckage and the mounds of coal resisted the attempts of rescuers to pull out the survivors and bodies. Cutters were being arranged to cut the vehicles to rescue the passengers. The injured have been shifted to the Khairpur Civil Hospital, while the bodies have handed over to heirs. 

With this, the crash case will be closed.

Since deceased and survivors are all commoners, the story is unlikely to grab a followup.  

Road safety needs to be taken as a priority. Safe travelling stems from following traffic rules. The top rule of the traffic rules is careful driving which the forces responsible for disciplining the road never take into consideration. Obtaining a driving license is a matter of a couple of visits to the traffic office concerned and greasing the palm of the official in charge. In the developed countries, the driving license is issued after a rigorous scrutiny, while the suspension of one’s driving license is considered a tough punishment. One feels paralysis if their license is suspended or revoked. But our roads are full of untrained, underage reckless drivers, who take pleasure in breaking the laws. Traffic wardens face official action if they try to enforce the law in letter and spirit. Weeks ago, rickshaw drivers blocked roads in Lahore in protest at wardens’ war on traffic rule violators. They dispersed after getting assured that they would be let off if the violation was “minor” one. That is insane. On what scale, one can weigh a violation a minor or a major one. Similarly, when the Karachi police announced no mercy for the motorcyclists without the safety helmet, the media dubbed it a violation of motorcyclists’ rights.

Jaywalkers also contribute to road deaths. Pedestrian bridges on Lahore roads have been used very seldom since their construction, thanks to the popular trend of crossing the road while signalling the vehicles running on high speed to slow and stop in the middle of the road. In case of a road crash, jaywalkers are always taken a victim, not an offender.

The government is the prime culprit in road deaths. While successive governments have resorted to coming up costly road projects, no attention is paid to the people bleeding and dying on roads. The procedure to get compensation for road rash is in place but hardly the victims invoke the law for the complexity of the procedure and simply their lack of awareness about the law.

Every road death is a murder. No doubt.

Who is the murderer: jaywalking, rash driving, pothole-infested road or government’s lack of attention towards the road killing?

An investigation into every case can lead to the murderer. 

How schools kill scientists and what barriers stop lifelong learning in adults?

Children are born scientists, but schools kill the scientists in them. 

The reality is universal, but Pakistani schools are exceptionally bad at killing the curiosity in students.

Look at a child when they go to a zoo; they very curiously observe the movements of animals; they ask a plenty of questions; their eyes roll wide and brighten up with astonishment. By the time they have spent 10 years in schools, the scientist in them is already gone. By the time, they reach college, their learning stops.

Here arise two questions: how to keep alive a scientist in a child and how to keep them on the track of learning for the whole life when they are grown up?

When a child enters a school, they are told to read this, write that, answer this and solve that. In a nutshell, they are 'told' to do the things, instead of driving them to solve the issues. The content being discussed in the school is often unheard of to them. 

In a remote village of Punjab, a child sees cattle, crops, and plants around them. These things never figure in the syllabus. Science should be experimented and not taught in schools. A trained teacher can bring about a visible difference in children’s lives and thoughts.

Now, how to be a life-long learner?

After the college, people entre their career phase. It is their career and instinct that shape their learning behaviour. Lifelong learning has several barriers.  To start with, time and money are two biggest hurdles in the learning process. Of course, the job requires a great deal of time and family and social engagements demand time too. Motivation to learn to explore new horizon plays a key role in the lifelong learning process. Other barriers could be one’s dull job that does not need them to acquire any new skill, lack of access to technology, lack of feedback on one’s learning, lack of clear goals, lack of incentives and so on. Also, there are popular concepts among the masses that education or learning is to secure a secure career. Once one holds a degree to land to them a job, the purpose of the education is over.

How to overcome these barriers is the other logical question.

Once the barriers are identified, one can plan well to negotiate with lifelong learning. Those lacking time will need to manage a portion of time from their daily lives for self-grooming. At least, one spends hours and hours on the mobile phone and in front of the TV. Those complaining of lack of resources may find a plenty of free online courses. Those finding no urge, no motivation to drive them crazy to take up something new may set self-directed goals. If a dull job is a hindrance to one's learning, taking up a research project out of the job data can help them experience new horizons of their workplace.

Right education and right learning have been key to the progress. Every single penny invested in DNA research returned 1,000 times. That is a so safe and secure investment.

Pakistan needs to invest in teacher training, creating a learning and research culture in schools and universities. 

Engaging youths in teaching and using technology in classrooms could be the right steps towards the goal.    

Online learning courses- free, good quality with huge, quick return

Beyond brick and mortar, there is a world of open classrooms with unlimited content to learn. Yes, the world is fast turning towards online learning solutions and a variety of online courses, most of them free to be picked up, has taken educationists and learners by storm. 

That is the beauty of technology that has fashioned self-directed learning into a complete sector of education; a learner, who has access to the internet and computer (smartphone or laptop), can take up a course of their choice and complete them depending on their own availability of time. So far, the share of the online education world, called MOOCs or massive open online courses, is seven percent worldwide. Over the time, the share is likely to go up given its low cost and high return.

This virtual reality has, however, has a few takers in Pakistan. Two years ago, when someone in a newsroom of a prestigious newspaper asked the journalist colleagues if they had heard about the Khan Academy, the biggest wall-less university of the world (in Bill Gates’ words), most of the journalists were certain that this local-name-institution had some local neighborhood address. Khan Academy has a massive data on science and technology in the form of videos. A few big names in the online education world are: Coursera, Apnacourse, Canvas Network, Carnegie Mellon University Open Learning Initiative, Class Central, Stanford, Coursera, MIT and Harvard, EdX courses, FutureLearn, iversity, Janux, Miríada X, MIT Open CourseWare, NovoEd, Open Education Europa, Open HPI, Open Learn, P2P University, Qualt, SyMynd,Udacity courses, University of the People, Unow, WikiEducator and Wikiversity. 

This list is just a fraction of the whole online course providers.

Other than course providers, there are websites that connect professionals and their stakeholders. EDMODO is one such wonderful platform where teachers, students, and parents interact with each other and share content, initiate discussions on certain issues and come up with solutions based on their experiences. Take the example of this wonderful social networking websites. The schools have failed to benefit from this site; still, schools prefer working in isolation; the dictation of the principal is the word of Bible to teachers; experience sharing among colleagues is not a popular trend. This stagnation and refusal to integrate with the world in the learning sector have made our schooling outdated, old-fashioned and less creative. Rote learning prevails over critical thinking. The same situation exists in other professions and occupations.

Pakistan’s Virtual University and Allama Iqbal Open University offer distance learning programmes, but these formal universities have failed to popularise the online education and learning solutions. One thing, these universities offer formal degrees, diplomas, certificates and short courses to a select range of candidates. The other thing, these universities charge heavily. These two factors mar the spirit of the online education, which is open and free. International universities offer online courses free and only charge for certificate and assessment.

Teachers of Pakistan may feel threatened by the onslaught of online education solutions. No, they should not. There is an opportunity for them in online courses: they can create courses and post them on a MOOC website. The revenue comes from advertisement and certification. Having access to international learners, they may earn huge revenues than what they pocket by giving tuition to students in a traditional classroom.

Go, pick a course, get enrolled and start it.

What are you waiting for? 

In search of greener pastures

They would have never thought of being shot at and killed at point-blank range in their own country, Balochistan’s Buledia tehsil, precisely to say, when the group of 15 people, all perspective asylum seekers in some European destination, had left their hometowns back in central Punjab about 20 days ago. 

Their families are grappling with grief, though not so unexpected one, after their bullet-riddled bodies, what a blood-wrenched cliché it is, of their would-be breadwinner were dispatched to them by the law-enforcement agencies. 

Earlier, it was reported that the deceased people were working on a China-Pakistan Economic Corridor project. No, they were just potential immigrants destined for Europe, via Iran, Turkey, and Greece.    

Not surprisingly, the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), the government agency responsible for checking trafficking in human beings, sprang into action in Gujranwala division, after the first-page news story raised the question on their performance. Several people have been rounded up for their alleged role in luring the deceased into take up dangerous paths to the greener pastures. The FIA says one Sabir Gujjar had led the group of 15 people to Quetta for their onward journey to Iran. The chain of smuggling works from destination to destination. The bad Gujjar handed over the clients to another trafficker, who would have crossed the batch illegally into Iran. In the rugged terrain of Buledia area, they fell prey to the gun attack. Who attacked them? Baloch militants? RAW agent? Iranian border guards? Taliban and Lashkar-i-Jhangvi militants who are after the people going to Iran? The traffickers themselves, for they dispose of the people who default on payments or become a burden on them during the journey?

Karachi-based educationist Khushbakht Sohail spent one year studying the problems of Pakistani asylum seekers stranded in Greece. She met several Pakistani youths, pushed into refugee camps, living there for years hoping to secure a refugee status for European places, unknown to them. Every refugee is a sad story. Living in harsh conditions, fed on charities and leftover of hotels and local families, their every day is an ordeal and every night a nightmare. 

Their craze for the greener pastures dies once they leave home and are at the mercy of traffickers. They are bundled into small suffocating containers; they are told to run miles and miles in rugged border areas; they have seen killed their group members by border security personnel and in some cases by the traffickers when some group members suffer an injury and are unable to walk or bear the future harsh conditions.  

Whatsapp keeps them connected with their families back in Pakistan. They upload their pictures of miseries but often find no buyer back in families, who keep them pressing to bear up with the condition as once they land a refugee status, their all pains will be over. 

That is not true. 

Even a European passport does not end their sufferings. They lack the right skills to integrate with local communities. They pay a heavy price to keep their families back in home prosper and thrive.

Hundreds of refugees have died in open skies and open seas.  Wars and conflicts have been aggravating the volume of illegal travelers. 

Only serious efforts to forge peace across the world and economic equality can stem deaths on the routs of economic refugees.

There is bloodbath in Balochistan

Bloodbath is fast becoming a synonym for Balochistan. 

The province bleeds on so many fronts every other day: police officials, paramilitary personnel, Hazara people, laborers workers on China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and Punjabi settlers. 

On Wednesday, a police officer with his family – wife, son, and granddaughter - was shot at and killed in a targeted killing whereas one onlooker was also injured, for being at a wrong place at the wrong time, in the gun attack in Nawan Killi area.

Deputy Inspector General (DIG) Abdul Razzaq Cheema said the two people riding a motorcycle targeted the family in a drive-by shooting. Earlier, police were in the mourning, when a DIG and two others were attacked and killed in a blast in the city last week. If well-guarded police officers had no escape from the blood-thirsty assailants, what to say of the laborers working on a CPEC projects who were killed in a duck shooting in Kech district on Wednesday. Levies found bullet-riddled bodies. According to a DawnNews report, the deceased were from Punjab and working on a CEPC project. In earlier weeks, Hazara people were gunned down.  

As is the norm, a high-level crackdown ensues whenever there is a high profile murder in a targeted killing, government functionaries religiously followed the rituals and vowed to arrest the murderer of police officers.   

Balochistan kept on wearing an impatient calm when there was a wave of death and destruction in tribal areas and targeted suicide bombing across the country from 2001 till 2013. When military operation Zarb Azab claimed peace in most of the parts of the country, Balochistan erupted with sectarian and terrorism. There have been attacks on workers of the CPEC projects, shrines, religious congregation, political leadership and the common man.

It seems Balochistan is under attack from dissidents and terrorists. The government needs to take up a two-pronged strategy to deal with the violence in Balochistan – talks with Baloch leaders and action against Taliban and religious extremists.

Baloch nationalist leaders and workers have been pushed to the wall by the state for their political demands. The demands included provincial autonomy and less and less interference in the federal government. The government, however, answered their demands with the assassination of Baloch nationalist leader Nawab Akbar Bugti in an army operation. Several Baloch leaders were hounded, harassed and killed. Now, several Balochs have been under exile, waging their struggle against the government and the establishment. The government has, several times, extended them offers for talks, but in vain. They will (or should) come to the dialogue table as the confrontation or guerilla warfare will not land them victory against an organized, disciplined Pakistan Army,    

On the other hand, the religious fanatics waging a war of terrorism on Balochistan shrines and sects deserve no leniency from the state. Inspired by the Islamic State, Taliban and Al Qaeda, these outfits do not believe in democracy, peaceful co-existence. The merchants of deaths have been working for a long time and have claimed several lives in suicide-cum-target attacks.

Of the two fronts, the government needs to talk to the people on a fast track, so that the government fully concentrate on eradicating terrorists.

Over to the government.

Hudaibya Mills case offers an opportunity

All eyes are on the Supreme Court for the formation of a new bench to hear the infamous Rs1.2 billion Hudaibya Papers Mills Corruption reference appeal, by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), against the 2014 decision of the Lahore High Court, after on Monday Justice Asif Saeed Khosa recused himself from hearing the case. 

As a new bench is likely to be formed in the next few days, the worried Sharif family, whose all major members are respondents in the case, with ‘ailing’ Finance Minister Ishaq Dar, and some NAB officials, is trying to exhaust the options to evade the troubling times. 

A huddle by the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N) in Lahore was convinced that the taking up the Hudaibya Papers Mills Case by the Supreme Court was unjustified. Neither they offered any explanation to justify their stance, nor did the media question their line of defence.

The case holds a significance for the Sharif family as Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif and his family, which had escaped the NAB reference cases, opened in the wake of the Panama Gate verdict by the Supreme Court, is also a respondent in the case. Earlier, Shahbaz Sharif was heralded as the likely successor to the PML-N throne in case Nawaz Sharif and his daughter, Maryam Nawaz, were disqualified in the references.

Troubling times also awaits Finance Minister Ishaq Dar, currently under treatment for heart ailments in London, in the Hudaibya reference trial. Justice Khosa had in the Panama verdict ordered NAB to proceed against him for he was a prosecution witness when the reference was thrown out by the LHC. The LHC verdict, however, had not declared Ishaq Dar an innocent

The reference dates back to 2000 and states the reference accused launched the Hudaibya Paper Mills only to smuggle illicit money taking the benefit of the Economic Reform Act of 1992. Their method was: the money was first converted into foreign exchange bearer certificates, and then deposited in fishy accounts. The money withdrawn from these accounts was used by the Sharifs to get credit in Pakistani bills for the Hudaibya Paper Mills. That was indeed a smart white collar crime scheme.

The LHC verdict was too lenient in its verdict on the Sharif family. Despite the NAB plea, that the case needed to be reinvestigated, the court barred the bureau from reinvestigation, saying the new findings may be used to victimize the Sharif family. The more astounding act was, however, done the bureau itself, when it chose not to launch an appeal against the verdict in the next available forum – Supreme Court of Pakistan.

Now, when the Supreme Court is hearing the case, it is to be seen how the reference appeal will proceed. First, NAB will fight the case for waiver of the period in the filing the appeal against the case. If the case moves forward, the absence of respondents may hit delays after delays. Many are likely to get a berth booked in some cushy rooms of hospitals to escape personal appearance in the court.

The nation has waitedlong for justice, and as the ruling, influential people have been making the mockery of the justice.

The Hudaibya Paper Mills reference appeal should be a befitting answer to such elements.