APPNA’s
Million-Dollar Tribute to Advani!
By Saleem Akhtar
Chicago, Illinois
The math is simple and obvious:
250 doctors at 4, 000 per head make up a million
dollars.
APPNA’s million-dollar tribute to Advani
reveals the moral and intellectual bankruptcy
of carpet begging. Theirs is precisely the decadent
mentality that Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, Altaf Hussain
Hali, and Muhammad Iqbal had decried: opulence
devoid of dignity and conspicuous consumption
devoid of moral purpose.
The Progressive Writers’ Movement, which
included literary giants like Manto, Ismat, Faiz
and Jalib, was, in part, an exposé of such
callous disregard for human suffering and such
violently abusive misallocation of resources.
Leaving aside the additional money that was spent
on shopping (saris, jewelry, and gifts) private
tours, and other luxury items, the million dollars
spent on APPNA’s trip to India primarily
to honor Advani could have been used for any one
of dozens of public-benefit projects.
In India, these million dollars could have been
used to fund any of the following projects:
1. Provide free education to working Muslim children.
This money could have been given to the Indian
Muslim Relief Committee (IMRC) that operates a
large network of free schools in Indian villages
to provide free primary education to working Muslim
children. The IMRC runs one village-based primary
school, providing free education 75 to 100 students,
for a total of $ 2000 a year. With a million dollar
gift they could have opened and operated 500 schools
for one year, or 100 schools for five years, ensuring
free primary education from 1st through 5th grade
for thousands of poor students.
2. Provide seed money to build or expand a rehabilitation
center for the victims and survivors of the BJP’s
genocidal violence against Muslims in Gujarat
in 2003.
3. Provide training, employment counseling and
job referrals to unemployed and starving embroidery
workers in UP and CP, most of whom happen to be
working class Muslims.
4. Given that Muslim women in India are among
the least educated strata of that society, these
million dollars could have been used to set up
special remedial school(s) for Muslim girls.
In Pakistan, these million dollars could have
been used for any one of the following projects:
1. Strengthen the Human Rights Commission and
fight human rights abuses.
Support the national movement against honor killings
and retributive rapes.
Set up a Teacher Training Center for high school
teachers of math and science.
Fund a water purification plant in Balochistan.
Buy 5000 computers from China and distribute them
to low-income families, 1250 in each province.
In the US, these million dollars could have been
be used to:
1. Provide legal assistance to Pakistanis languishing
in jails or to their economically stranded families.
2. Open a service center in Brooklyn, New York,
to help find housing, training, and jobs for newly
arrived working class Pakistanis.
3. Build a much-needed “Pakistan Center”
in DC.
Launch a first-rate Pakistani-American think tank.
But unfortunately that couldn’t be. Money
can buy comforts, fame, even access to power but
not commitment and character.
By now it is clear that APPNA’s award for
Advani is cut out from the same cloth as Musharraf’s
invitation to Advani (which has been accepted),
to inaugurate a Mandir in Pakistan in June.
APPNA’s guilty-conscious attitude is evident
from its unwillingness to publicize its trip to
India. The entire March 6-13 APPNA trip was taped
by a Pakistan-affiliated TV channel but to date
that channel has not aired the story, allegedly
under pressure from a Pakistani agency. Notwithstanding
the fact that news is a perishable commodity,
the said TV channel has delayed it for more than
six weeks and may delay it for several more.
Reportedly, the video has been massively edited
(“doctored?”) but even at that it
will be aired only after receiving a signal that
the storm of public rebuke is over.
Although, allegedly, TV professionals have been
told to give the story a positive spin, yet the
whole APPNA trip reeks of two primary motivations:
opportunism and hedonism. Evidently, APPNA’s
class affinity with rich and powerful of any group,
even the fascist, is stronger than their affinity
for the poor of their own community. The irony
is that they want to be loved and admired for
that.
In an article titled “Darul Aloom Musalmanan
ke Dushman”, Sir Syed Ahmed Khan had the
following to say about the decadent Muslim aristocracy:
“I am referring to those people who, except
for their own needs and carnal pleasures, are
not concerned about anything else. They don’t
know what is national affinity or national dignity.
They always look at public good in terms of personal
advantage.”
While other communities are blessed with “doctors
without borders”, the Pakistani-Americans
are cursed with “doctors without scruples.”
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