JANUARY 25-31 2015
THE REVOLUTION WITHIN Reforming madrassas into places of tolerance and learning is one of the key steps for combating terrorism in Pakistan
JANUARY 25-31 2015
Profile
Of powerhouse proportions
Cover Story
The revolution within Madrassa reforms are the need of the hour for combating terrorism in Pakistan
In conversation with the young, accomplished entrepreneur, Fiza Farhan
30 Feature
Life lessons Despite being of immense importance, most Pakistanis shy away from talking about sexual reproductive health
24
4
36 Regulars
6 People & Parties: Out and about with beautiful people 40 Review: Movie 42 Positve Paksitanis: Reversing brain drain in Pakistan
Magazine Editor: Sarah Munir, Senior Subeditor: Dilaira Dubash Creative Team: Essa Malik, Jamal Khurshid, Mohsin Alam, Omer Asim, Sanober Ahmed & Talha Ahmed Khan Publisher: Bilal A Lakhani. Editor: Kamal Siddiqi For feedback and submissions: magazine@tribune.com.pk Twitter: @ETribuneMag & Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ETribuneMag Printed: uniprint@unigraph.com
PEOPLE & PARTIES
Fatima Ahsan and Seemi Ali
Nosheen Sultan and Sadia Khwaja
Nada Bangash and Kanwal Ilyas
Hannah Qazi and Guloona Qazi
Gia and Maria Malik
6 JANUARY 25-31 2015
Mimi and Haseeb Haider
Syra Rezwan
Nazia, Amber Javed and Ayesha
PHOTOS COURTESY REZZ PR AND EVENTS
Asfa Shafqat launches ‘The Rack’, a multibrand boutique in Islamabad
PEOPLE & PARTIES
Madu Asim, Shanzeh, Misha and Wajeeha
PHOTOS COURTESY REZZ PR AND EVENTS
Farzeen and Natasha Hussain
Aamir and Sarah Farwa Kazmi and Dania Shaikh
Noor Imran and Aisha Hussain
8 JANUARY 25-31 2015
Moonam Aamir, Bia and Anushey Aamir
PEOPLE & PARTIES Ocean Mall hosts a winter carnival in Karachi
Aliya Imam and Ameer
Alleyah and Muzna Ibrahim Sana Javed PHOTOS COURTESY TAKE II PR
Huma Tahir and Kiran Khan Mustafa Pasha, Naveen, Ayaan and Zeemar
Abdul Samad, Mussarat,Yasin and Nawaal
Anusheh Shahid, Fahad Zafar and Afia Sharyar
10 JANUARY 25-31 2015
Anum Tanweer
PEOPLE & PARTIES Meeri Ansari
Hina Latif
Simone and Mehreen
Neera Mansoor and Ahsun
PHOTOS COURTESY TAKE II PR
Ilya, Uzma and Iliyan
Shamaine and Zarrar Samar Mehdi, Humza and Daniyal
Zuhair Yousuf and Uzma Asif
12 JANUARY 25-31 2015
PEOPLE & PARTIES
Zainab, Shazia, Soniah and Sarah
Jahanara
PHOTOS COURTESY LOTUS PR
Pakistani-American author Soniah Kamal hosts the launch event for her debut novel An Isolated Incident in Lahore
Fatima
Kiren, Sobia and Sarah
14 JANUARY 25-31 2015
Foha Raza
Afshan Muggo
Faiqa Mansab
PEOPLE & PARTIES
Aden Kanwal and Sumbal Hammad
Rubia Moghees
Zille and Sonia Nazir
Fatima, Mahak, Anaum and Hajra
16 JANUARY 25-31 2015
PHOTOS COURTESY LOTUS PR
The House of Aphrodite exhibits its winter collection in Lahore Sara Mikaal
Mariyyam
Nabihah Khan
COVER STORY
THE
REVOLUTION WITHIN Reforming madrassas into places
of tolerance and learning is one of the key steps for combating terrorism in Pakistan BY ZAHID GISHKORI PHOTOS BY MUHAMMAD JAVAID DESIGN BY ESSA MALIK
Sitting cross-legged in a wide hall with his books sprawled all around him, 14-year-old Osama Siddiqi, a student at the Mahdul Quran madrassa, located in Chatha Bakhtawar, Islamabad, is one of the estimated 3.5 million students who are pursuing a religious education in one of the approximately 35,337 madrassas affiliated with the Ittehad-e-Tanzeemat-e-Madaris Pakistan (ITMP) — an umbrella of the five schools of Islamic jurisprudence. Washed in shades of deep red, the Mahdul Quran madrassa is one of the most beautiful buildings in town where hundreds of students from various cities acquire a contemporary and religious education which includes subjects such as Urdu, English and Mathematics along with memorising the Holy Quran by heart. Along with registered madrassas like the one Siddiqi is enrolled in, officials working in interior and religious affairs ministries share that there are also nearly 8,249 madrassas operating across the country that are not registered with the ITMP, interior ministry or the provincial home departments. The rapid increase in the number of unregistered and unregulated religious seminaries across Pakistan continues to pose a problem as they are often linked with extremist propaganda-based teachings that have become the breeding ground for intolerance, hatred and terror.
COVER STORY Let’s get the numbers right According to data provided by the provincial home/ auqaf department to the ministry of religious affairs on December 30, 2014, there are 13,000 registered madrassas operating in Balochistan, 16,000 in Punjab, 3,136 in KhyberPakhtunkhwa (K-P), 2,800 in Sindh and 401 in Islamabad. The figures are conflicting as the ministry of religious affairs only has 26,131 madrassas in its record. According to the ministry data, 14,768 madrassas in Punjab, 7,118 in Sindh, 2, 704 in Balochistan, 1,354 in K-P and 187 madrassas in Islamabad are registered with the ministry of religious affairs. Based on the findings of the provincial auqaf departments, the ministry also estimates that there are 125,000 mosques operating in the country, 810 of which are in Islamabad.
provision of basic services such as education by the state. “The government is unable to educate poor children and no one cares. Only madrassas give them free education,” says Muhammad Bilal, an Islamabad-based resident whose son is a student at the Mahdul Quran madrassa. Dr Manzoor Ali Azhari, head of the Institute of Religious Education in Taxila, further corroborates this fact stating that it is only lower-income students who go to these seminaries. “If the government supports these students, I am sure they can make a difference,” he adds. Problems arise in non-registered seminaries when there is no check on the literature being taught there, a cleric shared on the condition of anonymity. “Students of some of these unregistered seminaries are sitting ducks being misguided by anti-state forces,” he says. The claim is not
PROVINCIAL BREAK-UP OF UNREGISTERED MADRASSAS Total: 8,249 4,135 2,411 1,406 266 K-P
Punjab
Sindh
Balochistan
31 Islamabad
The number of unregistered madrassas operating in the country are a different story altogether. According to a senior official at the ministry of religious affairs, there are nearly 4,135 unregistered madrassas in K-P, 2,411 in Punjab, 1,406 in Sindh and 266 in Balochistan. Some 31 madrassas are also unregistered in Islamabad, all of which are built on encroached land. The officer added that these madrassas have never cooperated with government officials when it comes to registration with some of the major hurdles being differences over curriculum, beliefs and thoughts. In a recent briefing to the Parliament, interior minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan also shared that most of these unregistered madrassas were affiliated with mosques that had been established by either individuals or religious organisations.
An ideological vacuum? In order to reform and regulate madrassas, it is critical to first understand the reason behind their rapid growth 26 over the past decade. Madrassas fill up the vacuum in the JANUARY 25-31 2015
In the short run, madrassa curriculums should be regulated and their teaching practices should be monitored by a state authority. In the long run, however, every child must be provided with a basic education by the state and there should be no parallel systems of education headed by individuals or organisations
3.5 million students are currently pursuing a religious education in around 35,337 madrassas affiliated with the Ittehad-eTanzeemat-e-Madaris Pakistan
completely unwarranted as intelligence agencies have identified a few madrassas suspected of having links with terrorist organisations. On the other hand, defence analyst Dr Ayesha Siddiqa feels that the issue was not just limited to unregistered madrassas in the country. “Seminaries of any kind are central to the extremist-militant nexus,” she says.
Reclaim and reform
Students from various cities come to the Mahdul Quran madrassa, located in Chatha Bakhtawar, Islamabad, where they are given a religious and contemporary education.
The need for madrassa reform and the revision of existing curricula picked up heat in the wake of the Peshawar school massacre when Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif listed it as one of the steps on the National Action Plan formulated to combat terrorism. A committee headed by Chaudhry Nisar was set up to look after the registration and regulation of seminaries and the government was also advised to cease funding for madrassas from Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Even though reforming madrassas into places of tolerance has been deemed the need of the hour by most political parties, the government and seminaries’ representatives are at loggerheads in this debate. In a recent meeting, certain representatives of madrassas, including Mufti Muneebur Rehman, Mufti Muhammad Naeem, Qari Muhammad Hanif Jalandhari and other prominent religious leaders criticised the government for “singling them out” for reforms. He lamented that madrassas were told to submit their financial sources but there was little they could do since banks refused to open accounts for them — something he had written about repeatedly to the State Bank of Pakistan governor and finance minister, but to no avail. Ulema Council Pakistan chairman Tahir Ashrafi claimed that there was a lack of communication between the media, diplomats and government officials on the issue. “Madrassas are open; anyone can visit them,” he said adding that not only were all madrassas registered but were also being audited.“Everyone points a finger at our fund-raising mechanism. How come no one questions the government about the money they get from the US?” added founder of Jamia Binoria Karachi Mufti Muhammad Naeem, while refusing to disclose the main source of funding for his madrassas. Moreover, minster for religious affairs Sardar Yousaf argued that the government was bent upon implementing its vision of ‘modern madrassas’ without doing the required homework. “Why is everyone pointing 27 JANUARY 25-31 2015
fingers at us for being the breeding ground of militancy and terrorism in the country,” says Qari Hanif Jalandhri, secretary of Wifaqul Madaris al Arabi General. “The people related to madrassas are also citizens of Pakistan and love it as much as any other countrymen.” The president of Tanzeemul Madaris Ahle Sunnat Mufti Muneebur Rehman further argued that the government had never been serious about reforms. He cited the example of 2002 when funds worth Rs5,759 million went to waste because the education ministry was unable to utilise them for madrassa reforms. “I still remember that former minister for education Zubaida Jalal had promised to provide us with 100 computers for our madrassas back in 2002. I am yet to receive those,” he says. Similarly, a groundbreaking agreement signed by the government and ITMP in 2010 opened up opportunities for thousands of madrassa students to get a modern education both in Pakistan and overseas, says former secretary religious affairs Vakil Ahmed. The agreement stated that the five boards of ITMP would be recognised like other boards through an act of Parliament or an executive order and linked to the ministry of education. Moreover, it prohibited teaching/publishing of any literature by madrassas that promotes militancy or sectarianism and laid groundwork for a more inclusive curriculum that included comparative studies of other religions along with compulsory contemporary subjects. Senator Rehman Malik who signed this agreement in 2010 as the interior minister at the time, said that it was a comprehensive agreement between the clerics and the PPP government but could not be presented to the Parliament due to certain reasons such as a shift in Pakistan’s counter-terrorism strategy and the launch of a military operation against Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan in
REGISTERED MADRASSAS ACROSS PAKISTAN ACCORDING TO THE PROVINCIAL HOME DEPARTMENTS Total: : 35,337 16,000
13,000
A student during a lesson at the Mahdul Quran madrassa, Islamabad, where students are taught subjects such as English, Urdu and Mathematics along with memorising the Holy Quran.
3,136
2,800 401
K-P
Punjab
Sindh
Balochistan Islamabad
Swat and tribal areas. He, however, admitted that neither the government nor the clerics took the agreement too seriously as their attention was immediately diverted to the military operation and support of armed forces. But Mufti Naeem dubbed these repeated failings in the past as lack of political will and expressed similar apprehensions with the approach right now as well.
REGISTERED MADRASSAS ACROSS PAKISTAN ACCORDING TO THE MINISTRY OF RELIGIOUS AFFAIRS Total: 26,131 14,768
7,118 2,704
1,354 K-P
187 Punjab
Sindh
Balochistan Islamabad
Knee-jerk reactions do not lead to sustainable solutions According to Haris Khalique, a writer and poet, it is impossible for the government to just close down madrassas in the absence of a universal public education system. “There will be no change until we revisit our entire education policy,� he says, proposing that in the short run, the curriculum of the madrassas should be regulated and their teaching practices should be monitored by a competent state authority. Amir Rana, executive director of the Pakistan Institute for Peace Studies, also feels that although there is no specific mechanism of banning any organisation, the government can review its policy towards banned outfits and re-examine their behaviour. He added that the government should review the curriculum of the madrassas to change the mindset of the students there if it wants to revamp the system.In the medium to long run, however, every child must be provided with a basic education by the state and there should be no parallel systems of education headed by individuals or organisations.T Shehzad Abbasi, principal of the Mahdul Quran madrassa, Islamabad.
Zahid Gishkori is a 2014 Alfred Friendly/Daniel Pearl fellow and a national correspondent for The Express Tribune. He tweets @ZahidGishkori JANUARY 25-31 2015
29
PROFILE
Of powerhouse proportions
Ambition and positive thinking has landed Fiza Farhan on the 2015 Forbes ’30 under 30’ list BY SARAH ELEAZAR DESIGN BY SANOBER AHMED
30 Fiza Farhan, CEO of Buksh Foundation, who was on the 2015 Forbes ’30 under 30’ social entrepreneurs list. PHOTO COURTESY: MALIK SHAFIQ JANUARY 25-31 2015
Sitting behind a laptop and a pile of folders, Fiza Farhan, CEO of Buksh Foundation and director of Buksh Energy, has timed her day to the minute. In the 45 minutes allotted to the interview, the young powerhouse, who was on the Forbes’ ‘30 under 30’ social entrepreneurs list for 2015, recognises her workaholic tendencies but dismisses them by saying, “I have crazy amounts of energy now which I might not have in years down the line, so I need to make the most of it.” With a graduate degree in economics from the Lahore University of Management Sciences and a masters in entrepreneurship from the Warwick Business School under her belt, Farhan began her career as a consultant and worked for several development institutions. This is also when she first began working on impact investment projects and creating models that would assure multiple gains for all the stakeholders including community members, donors, investors and even the government. In 2008, she met with Asim Buksh, chairman of Buksh Group, and helped co-found Buksh Foundation and Buksh Energy which today is responsible for lighting the lives of millions in Pakistan’s rural areas. Farhan has always enjoyed a challenge and it was when Buksh wanted to explore untapped markets that they got involved in development and energy. “In 2009, we saw other microfinance models collapsing around us, so we went about it with a different philosophy — a sustainable one,” she says, explaining why Buksh Foundation was established as a microfinance company. Once the company goals were laid down and its objective clearly established, Farhan set about creating a sustainable enterprise instead of merely cultivating clients. This, in turn, lead to the company’s recorded less than one per cent default rate. In 2012, Farhan pushed the bar even higher and aimed for a project that would prioritise development in forgotten communities and settled on providing clean energy to villages and settlements that were off the grid. But
I have crazy amounts of energy now which I might not have in years down the line, so I need to make the most of it CEO of Buksh Foundation Fiza Farhan
Other Pakistani women recognised in the Forbes’ '30 Under 30' list for 2014
Malala Yousafzai was on the list for cofounding the Malala Fund which focuses on empowering girls through education.
Shiza Shahid also joined Yousafzai on the list as the co-founder of Malala Fund.
Khalida Brohi earned a spot on the list for founding Sughar, a non-profit organisation which empowers women by providing them with six-month courses on business and crafts. JANUARY 25-31 2015
31
PROFILE she does not take complete credit for the idea; Farhan attributes it to Dr Rajendra Pachauri’s Nobel Prizewinning initiative, ‘Lighting a Billion Lives’ in India. The project’s first step involved visiting an off-the-grid village and mobilising the local community. “They need to own the project or else we scrap it,” she explains, adding that previously the government tried to implement the solar energy project in rural areas but failed in several places because the communities living there were completely disinterested. Next, a local female project representative or ‘roshna bibi’ is appointed after due assessment, including several psychological tests, and takes on the role of a change agent. She is given the responsibility to rent out solar-powered lanterns to community members at one-third or half the price of a gaspowered lantern and exchanging used lamps returned every morning with fully-charged ones. As a reward, she gets to pocket half the earnings while the remainder is deposited into an after-sales fund. The foundation also trains two local mechanics who take charge of basic repairs of the solarpowered lamp chargers. The project has proven to be an allround success because of its inclusive approach. So far, it has reached out to 140 villages in the country and empowered an equal number of roshna bibis. Even the investors have been kept happy by providing personalised marketing strategies in exchange for funds. Based on unanimous support, this year Farhan also plans on expanding the foundation’s work to tap into biogas, biomass and wasteto-energy projects. “Did you know you can light up the whole of Lahore by simply using the waste it produces?” she exclaims, showcasing just how much further she plans on going. It is this attitude of excelling and 32 extending benefits to everyone that JANUARY 25-31 2015
Fiza Farhan at a memorandum of understanding signing ceremony with Jahengir Tareen of
Farhan also has a book in the pipeline in which she outlines her philosophy towards life and certain guiding principles that might encourage other women who aspire to enter the male-dominated corporate world
Lodhran Pilot Project. PHOTO COURTESY: LOTUS PR
has become Farhan’s mission in life. Fortunately, she realised her desire to do more than deliver sales pitches from nine to five early in her career. Hence, when Buksh Foundation offered her the opportunity to implement her ideas from scratch, she decided to make the most of it. Like every effective strategist, she calculated the odds of success and made sure to draw out backup plans. “I assure my team that if we don’t manage to execute a plan one way, we’ll try another. If you plan to succeed, you must learn to deal with failure,” she says. This is one of the reasons Farhan has no regrets about the decisions she has made thus far, she claims. “I trust my intuition and take ownership of my decisions.” Neither has she allowed her gender to be an impediment of any kind. “I have sat in countless meetings and conferences as the only woman [in the room], but it does not daunt me,” she says. “Once a woman has proven her competence, there is no stopping her.” While Farhan has showcased good business sense, she acknowledges that her ascend in the corporate world would have been impossible without the support of her husband and family. Her mentor Abid Bilal and accounts of other successful entrepreneurs also keep her inspired. Farhan also has a book in the pipeline in which she outlines her philosophy towards life and certain guiding principles that might encourage other women who aspire to enter the maledominated corporate world. Despite all the feathers in her cap, Farhan remains humble and grounded. “I had no idea there would be so much attention and plaudits coming in from all over the world… Ask my closest friends and they would say Forbes made a mistake.” T Sarah Eleazar is a sub-editor on The Express Tribune’s Lahore desk. She tweets at @SarahEleazar JANUARY 25-31 2015
33
FEATURE
Life
LESSONS Despite being a key issue, Pakistanis still whisper when it comes to sexual reproductive health BY FARAHNAZ ZAHIDI DESIGN BY TALHA KHAN
“I was nine years old when I started sprouting. I was not made to wear a trainer. My khala (aunt) came to me and said ‘no one should know that you are growing up. I will teach you how to hide it.’” She took two big coins, placed them on my chest at the right spot, and tied a long piece of cloth over it tightly. ‘Never let a man kiss you, otherwise you will become pregnant’, she said. I was nine! I recall my uncle kissing me on my cheek and me crying all night
362 JANUARY 25-31 2015
thinking now I was pregnant and God would never forgive me.” Saima*, an educated working woman from Karachi, is now 39, married, and a mother. Yet, she still feels that the way she looks at sexuality is not normal but is unable to alter her thinking. For the longest time, she could not fully enjoy physical intimacy with her husband either since there was a sense of guilt “as if it is something wrong,” she shares. This sense of shame that society conditions into people when it comes to matters of the body starts
very early on. The man at the grocery store will very deftly look away the moment a woman asks for sanitary napkins and pack them in a brown paper bag. Most Pakistani daughters will not ask their fathers to buy sanitary napkins for them. Menstruation comes as a shock to many Pakistani girls. With a still relatively young average age of marriage of women in Pakistan, many women and even men confess that they did not know enough details of the conjugal relationship till they got married. Zareen*, a USA-based doctor shares that despite having done her MBBS at the time of her wedding, her knowledge was so bookish that she knew almost nothing. “The experience was horrendous,” she says. “My ex-husband was also young at the time and his sources of information about sex had been very wrong. I think we were never able to develop a normal bond.”
Shame shame This halo of shame that surrounds any and everything that has to do with a young body morphing into adulthood has dire consequences. Yet, there is still immense reluctance about discussing the matter with young adults. “Lack of awareness pushes young people to reach out to any source of information out of curiosity,” says Maliha Zia Lari, lawyer and human rights activist. “Questioning sexuality at a certain age is a natural occurrence, but the social clamp down
Questioning sexuality at a certain age is a natural occurrence, but the social clamp down further fuels the curiosity. As a result, they do learn about it, but they learn it [the] wrong way Lawyer and human rights activist Maliha Zia Lari
further fuels the curiosity. As a result, they do learn about it, but they learn it [the] wrong way.” In Lari’s experience, this leads to dangerous things like unnatural experimentation, and often with the wrong people. Even young males are exposed to the risk of contracting sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) or being emotionally exploited by ill-meaning men or women. Lari adds that this is one reason why human rights activists discourage early age marriages. “We teach people to be ashamed of our bodies, not to take ownership. A young mind has so many unanswered questions,” she says. Contrary to popular belief, research also proves that awareness about Sexual Reproductive Health (SRH) does not promote promiscuity in adolescents. In fact, it makes them more cautious.
‘The talk’ Survey of a cross section for this write-up reveals that most parents in Pakistan do not talk to their children about SRH, and if they do, the onus falls on the mothers. According to a study conducted by Marie Stopes Society in selected districts of Pakistan, the onset of menstruation was associated with anxiety in 47% girls as only 13% of them reported receiving information about puberty before the onset of menstruation. Data from a 2013 baseline study conducted by Aahung (a non-profit organisation that concentrates on SRH) in four districts of Sindh, with adolescents as subjects, showed that only 34% adolescents would talk to their parents about pubertal issues. Nearly 49% of those questioned believed that AIDS is a curable disease, which means they were not aware of the possible dangers of unsafe sex either. For Hira*, a mother of three, the experience was one typical for most Pakistani girls. “I came to know about puberty the day I had my first period. I went running to my mom who just told me that this happens to girls and that this is ganda khoon (bad blood) that needs to come out of the body. And I must not tell anyone about it as its one big secret,” she shares. She confesses that she learnt about feminine hygiene or issues related to puberty on a trial and error bases. “Only the basic information of how to use depilatory creams was JANUARY 25-31 2015
337
provided, but nothing about when and where.” Her knowledge of the physical intimacy between men and women and how babies are born remained limited to that from Bollywood movies. “I thought you meet a boy, and then two roses dance together in a park, and you have a baby,” she laughs and says that she was told that “achi larkiyaan is baray mein baat nahi kartin”(nice girls don’t talk about these things). “Once I begun menstruating, my mother would keep drumming one thing in our heads: do not commit adultery, it is one of the major sins,” shares 25-year-old Maria. Such a warning from mothers may not always be a bad idea. However, she acknowledges that her mother’s choice of words was harsh. “For the most part, I thank her for that. I have been tempted many times but never crossed a line and that has saved me from many an emotional disaster,” she admits. Maria’s idea of sex, however is so plagued by a sense of guilt that she fears she will feel guilty initially even with her husband after getting married. “It will take me time. But I would give the same training to my daughters,” she says.
384 JANUARY 25-31 2015
Educationist and motivational speaker Abbas Hussain strongly endorses the practise of parents talking to children about SRH, albeit sensitively. Interestingly, Hussain feels that, “Urban mothers prove to be big prudes, whereas rural mothers see this very important part of human life as a part of nature. Such are the idiocies of urban life that a cow giving birth to a calf is not considered normal,” he adds.
Will daddy talk to his son? “Fathers take very little interest in the sexual education of their children, even boys, as the common notion is uss key doston ney bata diya hoga (his friends must have told him). Men are generally shier then we think,” says Hira. “My father never talked to me about these things,” shares 20-year-old Shehryar Imran. However, he feels it is very important for adolescents to be adequately informed about the changes their bodies are going through “without having to rely on clandestine conversations with peers who also may not be fully informed,’” he says. “In order to combat the spread of STDs, it is imperative to target the root cause of the problem: breaking the unhealthy taboo surrounding sex.”
The ‘talk’ at school and choice of words Hussain also stresses the importance of teachers’ role when it comes to SRH. “Senior teachers can play a huge role, but in this I am very clear about the gender segregation — male teachers for boys and female teachers for girls,” he says, adding that sensitive and cultural sensibilities need to be respected. He also stresses the importance of chosing words carefully. “Using the term ‘sex education’ deflects from the real issue; this term is the red herring,” he adds. Maliha Noor, manager communications at Aahung, endorses using “culturally appropriate language.” Hence, Aahung’s successful awareness programme on the subject is called
Life Skills Based Education (LSBE). “This should be included not just in school curriculum but even our medical practitioners in the making should be taught about this,” says Noor. “Often, doctors and nurses know the biological details but don’t know how to handle queries about it.” Aahung’s LSBE curriculum covers a range of issues including pubertal changes, gender discrimination, HIV / AIDS, protection from violence, peer pressure, rights within the nikah nama, and family planning. Part of the programme also concentrates on training teachers. “When students would talk to us about their issues, we would often not take them seriously and even joke about them,” confessed one of the teachers trained by Aahung. After the training, she has learnt how to handle these queries sensitively. T *Names have been changed to protect privacy. Farahnaz Zahidi is a senior subeditor at The Express Tribune. She tweets @FarahnazZahidi
5
Mimicking genius The probability of The Imitation Game winning an Oscar is slim BY SAIM SAEED
Hollywood still struggles to showcase smart people. They just don’t know how to do it, and its latest manifestation, The Imitation Game — a biopic on English mathematician/ code breaker Alan Turing — is just another example. The movie is based on a true story in which Turing (played by the ubiquitous Benedict Cumberbatch) is hired along with a team of fellow mathematicians to break Nazi Germany’s ridiculously complicated communication code called Enigma. While soldiers are dying and London is bombed, the team is furiously at work in the English countryside at a mansion called Bletchley park, the English code-breaking headquarters posing as a radio manufacturing unit. Turning is a sociopath, hated by his superiors and coworkers alike, some of whom he fires in his first act as the leader of the unit. The team that is left includes Joan Clarke (a deft Keira Knightley) and Hugh Alexander (played by Matthew Goode). After the code is broken around the halfway point — hardly a spoiler — the film picks up pace, leaving moral problems for the audience and characters to 40 deal with, unlike the math problems which JANUARY 25-31 2015
the audience was deprived from during the first half. There’s talk of double agents, moral conundrums dealt crudely by the amoral metric of utilitarianism and Turing’s homosexuality that leads to his arrest and ultimately his suicide nine years after the war. The movie is riddled with a number of predictabilities. This includes the expected list of decorations applied by director Morten Tyldum to convince the audience of Turing and his team’s credentials: a two-time chess champion, child prodigies (Turing complains of not having changed the world at the age of 27), attending elite private schools and solving crossword puzzles in impossibly little time. In fact, there is hardly anything new in the film. Turing is abrasive, arrogant and eccentric (similar to the Sherlock Holmes character played by Cumberbatch) and his superiors are stuffy, angry codgers (Charles Dance, from Tywin Lannister fame) or shady, manipulative super spies (Mark Strong) who are hardly inclined to be sympathetic or supportive of Turing. Unlike previous films which have also highlighted the lives of math geniuses, such
as the highly applauded A Beautiful Mind or even the highly-criticised 21, The Imitation Game features plenty of shots of random equations that mean nothing to either the characters or the audience. But there is some good in this film and it emanates from the lead performances. Like his other characters Cumberbatch brings a familiar intensity to Turing that his fans have perhaps greedily become accustomed to and it works particularly well in this film. He also brings a sense of vulnerability — teary eyes, a subtle stammer and a look of innocence — that make both the man and the actor, and ultimately the movie, still compelling. Knightley has her own struggle as a woman mathematician in a male-dominated, sexist world (a struggle tragically as difficult today as it was then), but it inevitably has to give way to Cumberbatch’s. The Imitation Game is nothing but convention, but admittedly that too has merit.T Rating: Saim Saeed is a sub-editor for The Express Tribune. He tweets @saimsaeed847
positive
PAKISTANIS
The idea[l] integration To reverse brain drain, Asad Badruddin and Zheela Qaiser open up a gateway for free flow of ideas between Pakistanis and expatriates BY BILAL LAKHANI
Founders of Pakathon, Asad Badruddin and Zheela Qaiser. SOURCE: EXTRAORDINARYPAKISTANIS.COM
E
ven after they move overseas, most Pakistanis still like to remain involved and contribute to their homeland. While previously this was done by extending monetary help to various charities — the only option available to expats — today, overseas Pakistanis can offer their services as well. Two innovative, overseas Pakistanis, Asad Badruddin and Zheela Qaiser, along with Azhar Rizvi, founding vice chairman of MIT Enterprise Forum of Pakistan, have teamed up to make this possible through an innovative venture that directly contributes to economic and social uplift back home. According to Zheela, problems are a ‘good’ thing as they enable you to get the wheels turning and to come up with creative solutions to overcome challenges. After completing high school in Karachi, the duo moved to the United States to pursue further studies and took up jobs in Boston, Massachusetts. While conversing over dinner one night, they came up with the idea of a Pakathon — a platform that connects overseas entrepreneurs, researchers and technologists with those back home to conceptualise business plans that could be executed in Pakistan — to reverse the effects of a brain drain. As part of the initiative, Pakathon team members organise competitions, hackathons (where computer programmers and software developers collaborate to work on software projects) and seminars on programming, design and business plans in various cities that include Peshawar, Quetta, Sukkur, Faisalabad, Silicon Valley and Toronto. Last 42 year, over a single weekend, the annual global hackathon JANUARY 25-31 2015
was held simultaneously in 14 cities around the world with more than 10,000 participants and over 140 teams. Teams were formed comprising of members from across the globe and paired with a mentor to formulate a software solution to tackle pressing issues faced by the country, including healthcare, education and energy. The platform even allows startup businesses in Pakistan to access a US market and vice versa. Saim Siddiqui, one of the participants and founder of the Asli Goli initiative which enables consumers to differentiate between genuine and counterfeit medicine, attended a Pakathon event in Boston last year and moved to Pakistan to launch his company. Several successful businesses have been launched as a result. The initiative has grown exponentially since it was conceived in 2013 and now comprises of a team of over 85 volunteers across 15 cities. Another upside of the Pakathon is that it not only targets well-known universities across Pakistan but also reaches out to lesser-known ones such as the University of Malakand, which secured the second position in a global competition. It has, as a result, garnered a lot of global attention and has been sponsored by a number of organisations. And as long as the Pakathon continues to grow in size and prosper, so will the future of Pakistan. *This story originally appeared on extraordinarypakistanis.com Bilal Lakhani is a recipient of the James A Wechsler Award for International Reporting and a graduate of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. He tweets @MBilalLakhani