It is now almost 17 years to the day that I first stepped into Swat. Being a thorough Karachite, I was totally mesmerized by the snow capped mountains, lush green forest and pristine waters. We were just married and it was our first foray outside the concrete jungle into the real one. I never thought that to see such natural beauty, you just have to travel north. We took a tour organized by PTDC. That includes hotel bookings, a car and drive/guide. On our first day, Toti khan (our driver and guide) took us to Malam Jabba. It is a trip that I can never forget. Driving an hour to the top of the mountain, we reached an empty hotel and ski resort. The view was simply breathtaking. Later we shopped at Madyan, stayed at Kaalam and also went into Ushu valley and saw the glacier over there. But it was our first night stay at Miandam that became the topic of this story. PTDC motel in Miandam is on a mountaintop. From there you look down to the valley and the nearby mountains.
Adil Najam and Owais Mughal
There are many numbers that we can and should be thinking of today. And we will. But there is only one that counts: One.
That ‘one’ is you. And what you can do to make the life of just ‘one’ of the over 6.5 million people affected by the floods in Pakistan that much better.
Of course, that ‘one’ is not just you. It is also me. And all of us. And what we do, or not do, is our choice. This is the moment to make that choice. We will, each of us, make that choice separately. But we will, all of us, reap the fruits of those choices together.
That is the nature of the challenges we face. That is the nature of the responsibilities that confront us.
All the other relevant numbers continue to rise – and will nearly certainly rise further. All except this ‘one’. Here is where those other numbers stand, as of today (see earlier compilation here):
Pakistanis Affected:
13,800,000
(According to the UN this eclipses even in the 2004 Tsunami)
Death Toll:
1650+
(Estimate of 1500+ in Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa only)
Total International Aid Pledged:
US$102,000,000
(Of which only $10-20 million has been delivered thus far)
Cost to Agriculture:
US$1,000,000,000+
(US$ 1 Billion in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa only)
Agricultural Cropland Already flooded:
1,400,000 acres
(Also 10,000 cows have perished)
Estimated cost of rebuilding roads destroyed:
US$59,000,000
(Mostly in Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa and Punjab)
Estimated cost of rebuilding power infrastructure and dams:
US$29,500,000
(This will only worsen the existing energy crisis)
Houses Destroyed:
650,000
(In Punjab and Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa)
Boats available for rescue activities:
583
(According to NMDA numbers, 8 August)
Helicopters available for rescue activities:
41
(According to NMDA numbers, 8 August)
Adil Najam
It has been hard not to notice the embarrassment that has been Mr. Asif Ali Zardari’s ill-fated, and decidedly ill-advised, trip to the United Kingdom. That embarrassment has risen as fast and as high as the waters of the floods ravaging Pakistan while the President is not there. But our electronic media’s reaction – really, obsession – with this trip has itself been embarrassing, as indeed, has been the reactions of too many of us.
But even more than an embarrassment, Mr. Zardari’s trip and our obsessive reactions to it has proved to be an all-too-costly distraction from the far more real disaster at home. A disaster than neither the President nor the media could have averted, but the response to which required political leadership from the President and civic enterprise from the media, and a sense of national purpose from all of us. Unfortunately, all have been been conspicuous by their absence this last week.
And now there is the fiasco about the shoe hurling. It is still not clear what really happened. But the fuss created around it is huge. As is the embarrassment: not just for Mr. Zardari, but for Pakistan itself. If ever there was need for proof that we are all purveyors of tamashbeen politics, this is it. Within hours of the news a clearly fake ‘picture’ was being touted by a supposed ‘journalist’ on a media email list. Indeed, the supposed photo of Mr. Zardari being hit by a shoe was so clearly and nauseatingly a fake that one had to wonder about the deprivation of the mind which would even offer it in this age of the magic of Photoshop.
Democracy is meant to be a messy thing. Nowhere is it messier than in Pakistan. But maybe those of us who worry about national embarrassment should, maybe, worry a little more.
