DEBILITATING SCAREMONGERING
Khaleej Times Online, 16 February 2007
EDITORIAL
THE news that parents disallowed approximately
24,000 children in northern Pakistan to be
administered polio vaccines last month on
hard-line religious grounds is disturbing and
needs immediate attention.
The refusal seems to stem from some radical
clerics’ propaganda that the vaccine is an
American plot to sterilise Pakistan’s coming
generations. In addition to highlighting these
clerics’ hold and influence in some of Pakistan’s
far-flung areas, this development should also
prompt a serious investigation into other
realities influencing this malaise.
A clear pattern reveals itself upon close
examination. It comes as little surprise that
both the rise in recorded polio cases as well as
the support for the clerics’ stance are
concentrated in the frontier province. And there
too, the higher percentage is in the bordering
areas with Afghanistan, the troublesome area
widely blamed for harbouring Taleban remnants and
abetting terrorist activity.
As Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf has
repeatedly implied, the only credible cure for
indoctrination instilled hatred and ignorance can
come from targeting the root, basic causes of the
problem. These are the very places where careful
and deliberate indoctrination was carried out,
backed by domestic and international agencies, to
produce warrior-cleric prototypes which proved
successful in generating the storm that flushed
the Soviets out of Afghanistan.
The haste with which the US abandoned the region
once its purpose was served left a discomforting
vacuum inside Afghanistan which automatically
became these experimental jihadists’ next target.
And to ensure they survive and thrive, they set
up institutions within themselves that guarantee
self-perpetuation of their extremist dogma.
The West’s attention didn’t return to this area
till the venom they gave root to eventually came
to haunt them in their own home. And as their
fearsome-to-all military might continues to fail
in delivering the death blow, they are finding
out a complex web of international proportions
that has already been put in place by these
apparently little-knowing self-styled clerics.
Notably, they have evolved into a complex,
uncompromising entity, with little scope or
appreciation for modern enlightenment.
The polio-vaccination-refusal is just one aspect
of their detrimental, regressive philosophy. To
counter it, the authorities need to seriously put
together knowledge-based educational programmes.
They must also realise that their recent approach
of subduing these extremist people has only added
fuel to their debilitating scaremongering fire.
MURDERED FOR FIGHTING POLIO
The News, February 17, 2007
Editorial
It started as another of those "conspiracy
theories" — in this case the firm belief among
clerics in Bajaur Agency that the drops of polio
vaccine given to infants were actually part of a
western plot to reduce the population of Muslims.
On Friday it ended up with the meticulously
planned murder of a surgeon promoting an
anti-polio campaign. Dr Abdul Ghani Khan was
returning to the agency’s headquarter, Khaar,
when his official vehicle in which he and a group
of health workers were travelling was blown up by
an improvised explosive device; ironically, the
same IED used by the Iraqi resistance against US
occupation forces. Three of his colleagues were
wounded in the blast. Dr Abdul Ghani seems to
have been an activist against a disease that
mostly strikes young children (Franklin D
Roosevelt was one of the rare cases of adults
contracting polio). The doctor’s only fault seems
to have been to try and convince the agency’s
residents to participate in the government’s
anti-polio vaccination campaign, for the sake and
future of their children. However, this seemed to
have been too much for the obscurantists and
extremists in the area who obviously saw what the
good doctor was doing as something that
necessitated the taking of his life.
The ludicrousness of this paranoia is borne by
the fact that in the past few years, because of
these drops, the number of polio cases has gone
down dramatically in Pakistan, one of only about
half-a-dozen countries in Asia and Africa where
the disease hasn’t been wiped out. Equally
dramatic, of course, has been the rise in the
country’s population. At the time of the
secession of East Pakistan, the combined
population of the wings was about 100 million; 35
years later what was then West Pakistan is
bursting at its seams with more than 150 million
people. But that’s what the conservative elements
want anyway. “A person is born with one stomach,”
they point out, despite the rampant unemployment
“and two hands to earn with”.
Thank goodness, “the west” — the World Health
Organisation, to be specific — eradicated
smallpox 30 years ago around the globe. At that
time Pakistan was incomparably open-minded and
tolerant, and far more peaceful, in relation to
what it is these days, because the influence of
the clerics had been minimal. If smallpox were
still a threat now, doctors like Dr Ghani would
have been accused by the fanatics of injecting
“family-planning medicine” into people’s arms —
at the behest of the west. As for the west, how
did it eliminate polio in its own countries if
not through the same vaccine that is supposedly
poisoning our infants? Whichever way one looks at
it, the Bajaur clerics’ attitude towards polio is
laughable. Incidentally, Khaar, the Agency’s
chief town, is the very place where barbers have
been recently banned from shaving men. But it’s a
grave matter now, with members of the fanatical
fringe murdering and maiming healers doing their
duty. The government will have to take effective
action to trace the murderers of Dr Abdul Ghani.
But first it should make the safety of those
conducting the new campaign absolutely certain.
FIGHTING POLIO ON TWO FRONTS
Dawn, 23 February 2007
Editorial
THE MMA government in the NWFP has to step in and
stop certain clerics’ drivel on the polio
vaccination or run the risk of facing a serious
health crisis they may find difficult to deal
with. Already their inaction has cost lives — 39
polio cases were reported last year in the
province. But the incidence of the disease cannot
be brought down without dealing with the vicious
campaign of falsehood and canard being carried
out by a section of the clerics bent on
frustrating the anti-polio drive. Having access
to illegal radio stations to spew their venom,
such elements are determined to go to any extent
to stop the spread of what they call the "infidel
vaccine". The killing of a doctor earlier this
week in Bajaur is proof of their viciousness. And
now a cleric in a village in Swat is preaching
that Islam prohibits finding a cure for a disease
before its outbreak in the form of an epidemic
and that those who die in an outbreak are
martyrs. Such ludicrous claims have produced
expected results: during an anti-polio campaign
on Wednesday and Thursday in Swat, some refused
to have their children vaccinated. It is
difficult to reason with such illiterate fanatics
but the government will have to find a way to win
over support in favour of an enlightened view of
things. As it is, health officials in certain
areas have postponed the anti-polio campaign for
security reasons after the doctor’s death in
Bajaur. If put off indefinitely, this could have
disastrous effects.
The authorities cannot allow clerics to hijack a
public campaign and jeopardise children’s health
and well-being in the process. They have a
responsibility to contain the polio virus and
must press ahead with the goal of a polio-free
Pakistan. Each time a polio case is detected, it
is a reminder of the government’s failure to
implement a comprehensive strategy to wipe out
the disease. A more effective approach is needed
to achieve the goal.