IN the 67 years since the founding of the modern republic of Egypt, that country of over 99 million souls has seen one democratically elected president, Mohammed Morsi, who ruled for 368 days before being brought down by a military coup.
A year later Morsi was sentenced to death along with 105 others, though his sentence was later commuted [reduced] to life imprisonment. It ended up being a death sentence anyway because while Morsi did not have his neck snapped by a hangman’s rope or have his body electrocuted by energy flowing from the national grid, the abuse and neglect he suffered in Egypt’s notorious ‘scorpion’ prison was certainly intended to shorten his lifespan.
Suffering from high blood pressure, kidney and liver disease and diabetes — all conditions that were left untreated by the Egyptian authorities — the former president succumbed[fail to resist] to his slow-motion death sentence six years later by keeling over from a heart attack in an Egyptian courtroom.
We will never know what his last words were, because at the time he was in the transparent soundproof cage that he was placed in during his hearings. Had that scene taken place in a movie we would be right in saying it was just a bit too heavy on the symbolism. His obituary was a total of 42 words buried in the inside pages of all Egyptian newspapers barring one: Al Youm Al Misri dared to buck the official line by publishing the news on its front page, a rare act of defiance when you consider that state-owned newspapers didn’t even mention him by name, referring to the deposed president as ‘the accused’ or ‘the deceased’.
Now we know that interests trump ideology any day of the week.
On television we had not 42, but 47 words thanks to an anchor reading “sent from a Samsung mobile” at the end of the news item announcing Morsi’s death. It was a telling blunder, in that it told us exactly what the source of this news was. As for global reactions, the only outrage of note comes from Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is still brandishing[کسی کو دکھانے کیلئے کسی چیز کو ہوا میں لہرانا] Jamal Khashoggi as a weapon far more forcefully than all the Western democracies put together.
And if the world at large has forgotten about Khashoggi (the damning UN report notwithstanding) then don’t expect any tears over Morsi who was, for the West, the wrong kind of democrat. For most rulers of the Arab world, particularly Saudi Arabia and the UAE, any democrat is the wrong kind and in the case of Morsi their worst fears were combined: an Islamist who rose to power through the vote. That just sends all kinds of wrong messages to local populations and so, spending billions of dollars to prevent such a thing from coming to pass is a wise investment indeed.
A similar investment was made in Sudan recently when both Saudi Arabia and the UAE announced a $3 billion aid package to that country at a time when its military rulers were facing civilian protests. That’s a good amount of money, and enough to be able to kill 100-odd protesters only to offer a quasi-apology [نیم معذرت، جھوٹی معذرت]later. Here there was certainly outrage, at least on social media where you may have seen a few display pictures turn light blue in solidarity with the Sudanese people.
That’s not all; there were also a few hashtags that trended momentarily but all; in all, it was less visible than what we saw post the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. And if you think that it’s shameful that the death of so many passes with barely a comment then note also that the Sisi regime massacred over 800 pro-Morsi protesters on Aug 14, 2013, and zero tears of any note were shed.
The calculation being made is simple: so long as you play ball with international powers it really doesn’t matter what you do to your own citizens; if you mind their business, they will not make your affairs their business.
Now we know that interests trump ideology any day of the week, and we know for sure that dictatorships, quasi-dictatorships [جو ڈکٹیٹرشپ جیسی ہو] and dictatorships with arguably fraying[گھس کر یا رگڑ کر کم کرنا] civilian facades [دوسروں کو دکھائی جانے والی جھوٹی شکل] the world over have taken so many notes that they’re probably on their fifth notebook and still scribbling [بے احتیاطی سے لکھنا] away furiously[غصے سے], but what becomes of the much-ballyhooed[جس کا بہت چرچا کیا جائے] ‘resistance’? The answer is: nothing at all. Oh there will be shouts of protest and many, many hashtags but ultimately we are all locked in soundless cages of our own, being heard only by each other and holding fast to the delusion that our emotional pleas and incisive opinion columns will stop the march of boots and the firing of guns.
But the truth is that no one is listening, not really. The truth is that when you have fallen silent after shouting yourself hoarse the only sound remaining will be the staccato [بکھری ہوئی یا منتشر]rapping of the midnight knock, accompanied by the cheers of a willingly captive audience that’s there to watch you being dragged away. Don’t believe me? Just do the math.
The writer is a journalist.
Twitter: @zarrarkhuhro
Published in Dawn, June 24th, 2019
Right to shelter
The writer is chairman, Department of Architecture & Planning, NED University, Karachi.
IT is disappointing how almost every strategic development initiative becomes a nightmare for the urban poor. Similar views were expressed during a recent rally against the demolition of shelters along the Karachi Circular Railways (KCR). Not long ago, intensive evictions [بے دخل کرنا ]displaced over 200,000 people to make way for the Lyari Expressway that benefits a few thousand motorists. Historic peri-urban [شہر کے گردا گرد]settlements along the super highway were mercilessly uprooted by a mega developer in collusion [اعانت] with the powers that be in Sindh to launch an elite real estate venture. Official coercion[دباو] and intimidation [ڈرانا دھمکانا]were used to deprive these hapless livestock herders, orchard managers and farmers of their basic right to exist on their own lands. It seems that the words of our Constitution guaranteeing fundamental rights to all are inconsequential[بے مقصد] when it comes to the urban poor.
The issues faced by the urban poor are severe. Upon arrival in big cities, they have no ready option to access formal housing. Most are hosted by relatives or acquaintances in already congested informal settlements. If they find the opportunity to develop an abode [جائے پناہ], they build them in an incremental [اضافی]manner. Since most are daily wagers, occasionally employed or self-employed in precarious [خطرے میں گھری ہوئی]conditions, they aren’t able to save much to invest in shelter.
The issues faced by the urban poor are severe.
In most cases, these constitute a single room with bare cement walls, a katcha or semi-pukka roof and a small open space for cooking, washing, etc. Households often exceed a dozen occupants. Locations include urban invisible spaces such as along the edges of railway tracks, waterways and creeks, unbuilt plots in formal schemes, hills and general wastelands. Water is either acquired from faraway places like mosques or through commercial vendors. Sanitation facilities are either nonexistent or rudimentary[بہت بنیادی].
The urban poor have lived this way for years with virtually no hope of change for the better. On the contrary, fears of eviction [بے دخلی]and extortion [بھتہ](from musclemen as well as law-enforcement functionaries) cause many a sleepless night. Estimates suggest at least a third of Karachi’s population live in such mediaeval conditions.
Past and present episodes show that these vulnerable [جس کو نقصان پہنچنے کا خطرہ ہو]urban dwellers have no capacity to prove their right to exist in the city. Neither existing adjudication processes nor state policies on shelter have any safeguard for the landless to survive in cities. For instance, provincial laws exist to review settlements and settlers’ rights in a prescribed manner. But initiating scientific surveys and negotiating with landowning agencies to regularise long-standing settlements is an extremely slow process overwhelmed by political considerations. One political party that dominated Karachi’s management and development for over two decades labelled katchi abadis as dens of criminality in order to protect its electoral superiority over the rising numbers of neo-urban dwellers. This and several related reasons meant the concerned department entrusted to manage katchi abadis in Sindh made little headway.
The work of NGOs such as Orangi Pilot Project and Saiban practically demonstrated that gradual upgradation of such settlements is possible, provided the government ensures safety of tenure. However these lessons could not be translated into public housing policies.
The superior courts’ verdicts have often caused greater harm than good to the legitimate — if not legal — rights of urban poor to exist in cities. The usual perception is such that access to urban land for housing exists without any constraint. The reality is that land is sold and transacted purely as a commercial commodity, not utilised as a social asset. While many verdicts instruct the concerned government departments to ‘clear’ the lands ‘occupied’ by ‘illegal’ dwellers, they are unable to stretch their guidance to include how and where these people are to live.
Political support for the rights of urban poor is very limited. When the authorities were mobilised to build Lyari Expressway, a few civil society activists supported the evictees in the courts and in various forms of protest. Many mainstream parties decided to look the other way in their hour of need. These days, too, KCR affectees and many uprooted from other places are fending for themselves[اپنا بچاو کرتے پھرنا یا خود کو سنبھالتے پھرنا]. But there are still lessons that the vulnerable and their few supporters can learn to make their voices heard.
Affectees can form coalitions and reach out to support organisations to develop rehabilitation plans for negotiations. If the vulnerable bargain using their own solutions, the government and judiciary may consider them. From land ownership to developing affordable housing stock, numerous workable alternatives exist. For instance, demanding effective implementation of the Sindh Katchi Abadis Act, 1987, can help identify which katchi abadis can be granted security of tenure.
The writer is chairman, Department of Architecture & Planning, NED University, Karachi.
Published in Dawn, June 24th, 2019
