By S A J Shirazi
The souls that pave the way for the modern tarmac road known as the Karakorum Highway (KKH) still seem to flicker amongst the sharp moving shadows of the unstable rocks and the almost countless but crumbly semi-transparent glaciers that constantly threaten its existence.
There has always been a long pass into, and out of China over what is sometime called the “Roof of the World” but in ancient times it was a very hazardous passageway. One wonders how Alexander might have crossed the Karakorum Mountains in 325 BC or how early travellers like Marco Polo, Hieun Tsang and others might have tracked on the route without backpacks, four wheel driven powerful vehicles and even the roads, till Pakistan Army engineers spread asphalt through one of the most difficult terrain in the world and created this great engineering feat that some call the eighth wonder of the world.
Northern Pakistan has some of the most beautiful and mightiest mountain terrain — Hindu Kush and Karakorum — in the world. Besides raw natural beauty, the territory is very difficult for men and machine to work even in this modern age. The road is in fact reflection of man’s incessant struggle against transcendental power.
What one sees while commuting on the highway? A quote from the North West Frontier Province Gazetteer reads:
“the path is certainly narrow, and often clung to the sheer faces of the many deep resonant gorges that confine their turgid, animated rivers. A traveller along the path sees at one glance the shadowy valleys from which a shiny mist columns rise at noon against a luminous sky, the forest ridges, stretches fold behind fold in softly undulating lines — dotted by the white specks which mark the situation of Buddhist monasteries — to the glacier draped pinnacles and precipices of the snowy range. He passes from the zone of tree ferns and endless colonnade of tall stemmed magnolias oaks and chestnut trees, fringes with delicate orchids and festooned by long convolvuluses to the region of gigantic pines, junipers, firs and larches. Down each ravine sparkles a brimming torrent, making the ferns and flowers nod as it dashes past them.
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Adil Najam
Adil Najam
A PIA Fokker plane crashed in Pakistan today killing all 45 people on board. According to a CNN report:
Eye witnesses said the 27-year-old plane spiraled in the air as it plummeted to the ground on the outskirts of Multan, about three kilometers (two miles) from the city’s airport, two or three minutes after take-off from the eastern city of Lahore. “There was a huge explosion after the plane hit the ground,” said Mohammed Nadeem who lives near the crash site. A nearby power line also caught fire. There were no survivors … and a female flight attendant who was pulled alive from the plane’s wreckage died later in hospital.
Although, at this point, the crash is being blamed on technical sources, there is an ominous history to planes flying out of Multan and blowing up in the sky–that is how Gen. Zia-ul-Haq had been killed in 1988. Some are, therefore, raising eyebrows on the fact that, according to Gulf Daily News, “the passengers included two high court judges, a university vice chancellor and two military brigadiers.”
However, the more likely cause is that these are really old–and often rickety–planes. The Associated Press is already reporting the brewing controversy:
Khalid Hamza, the president of the Pakistan Airline Pilots Association, claimed the Fokkers in the PIA fleet — mostly used on less busy domestic routes — were aging and should be grounded. “I think these planes should have been grounded four, five years ago but perhaps the airline was waiting for such an accident,” [APP] quoted the airline’s deputy managing director Farooq Shah as saying that all of the planes — including the one that crashed — were airworthy, and that none of the remaining six had been grounded.
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Adil Najam
This Friday and Saturday I was in Chicago to speak at two different events that were part of the Annual APPNA Convention (APPNA is the Association of Physicians of Pakistani Descent in North America). On Friday my talk was about the future challenges related to the 2005 earthquake.
On Saturday, however, I was part of a 2-person panel on ‘Building Democratic Institutions in Pakistan,’ organized by the Pak-American Democracy Dialogue (PADD). The other featured speaker on the panel was former cricketer and now head of Tehrik-e-Insaaf, Imran Khan. I guess, to be honest, I (and not Imran) was the ‘other’ person.
What I had to say during my presentation and the hour-long Q&A session was of little significance (and not very different from what I have published elsewhere or written on ATP). But what Imran said should be of interest to many; and since you won’t find a report on this anywhere else, I guess we can say that this is an ATP Exclusive!
But before reporting on what he said, let me just say a few words about my impression of him based on this two-and-a-half hour interaction. As always, he came across as extremely passionate, clearly sincere, and quite principled. He also came across as rather angry but also determined. The first time I had met him was in the late 1980s; he was then a cricketing god, and I a sports reporter for the now defunct Daily Muslim. At that point, and in some subsequent meetings, he did come across as rather arrogant. I must confess that this time he did not seem arrogant. The characteristic self-confidence, charisma and an uncompromising posture was still there. But there was also an odd Imran-like humility. Maybe age combined with accumulated political experience of failure can do that people. Over all, I must confess, I came out being more impressed than I had thought I would be. I also surprised myself by agreeing with him more often (though not always) than I thought I would.
So, here are a few things he had to say–you will note that a number of these are interesting predictions and things we have not heard him saying before
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