2004 Pak-Millennium Report
Published
By Parwez Wahid
Boston,
Massachusetts: The Board of Directors of the Pak-Millennium
Conference has published the report of the 2004 Conference
that was held on the campus of Boston College in April of
2004. The Conference theme addressed the subject of strengthening
civil society for a democratic polity under the title “Pakistanis
and Democracy: Incompatible or Fixable?”
The 2004 Pak-Millennium Conference was the fourth in a series
of symposiums on development issues relevant to Pakistan.
These conferences have been held in Boston since 1999. The
main speakers for the 2004 program were: Salman Raja, Khaled
Ahmed, I. A. Imtiazi and Tariq Banuri. Other speakers included:
Christopher Candland, Faiz Rehman, and Khawja Asif. Ambassador
Ashraf Jehangir Qazi delivered the keynote address.
The topics covered during the conference discussions addressed
the responsibilities of public decision-makers, the importance
of attracting young minds to the public sector, the nexus
between decision makers and vested interests. Under such a
broad topic the conference focused on four subjects relating
to the roles of NGOs, media, bureaucracy, and political parties.
A free downloadable copy of the report can be obtained from
the Pak-Millennium website: www.pakistan2000.org.
(The next symposium of the Pak-Millennium series will likely
be held in the Spring of 2006.)
Some of the key points raised in the discussions stated:
• For NGOs to be more effective, the government must
protect and enable the NGOs’ efforts.
• NGOs fail because they fail to define themselves.
• Treating NGOs as representative of society is a dangerous
trend.
• The Urdu press has built an image of nationalism based
on tragedy.
• It is imperative that the Pakistani-American community
makes its presence known through print, broadcast and Internet,
and achieves activism through journalism.
• The systematic failure of institution building in
Pakistan contributes to the failure of bureaucracies.
• Education is needed to replace the feudal/elitist
class as a more educated society wants to vote, liberalize
bring about positive change.
Only religious parties have any semblance of vision that makes
for an undesirable situation as these parties look to restrict
personal liberties.
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