Myanmar prison guards torture inmates marking Martyrs’ Day

They beat 31 political prisoners and locked them in narrow, dark cells.

By RFA Burmese
2023.08.04

Police guard Tharyawady Prison on Aug. 4, 2015.

RFA

Prison guards at Myanmar’s Thayarwady (Tharyawaddy) Prison have beaten 31 inmates for marking the country’s Martyrs’ Day and four are being treated for their injuries in the prison hospital, sources told RFA Friday.

Prisoners held a saluting ceremony on July 19, while women inmates wore black ribbons, said the sources close to the prison who didn’t want to be named for security reasons.

They said 16 men and 15 women have been locked up since then.

Martyr’s Day marks the July 19, 1947 assassination of nine Myanmar independence leaders, shot dead by members of a rival political group while holding a cabinet meeting in Yangon. The victims were Prime Minister Aung San, Minister of Information Ba Cho, Minister of Industry and Labor Mahn Ba Khaing, Minister of Trade Ba Win, Minister of Education Abdul Razak, and Myanmar’s unofficial Deputy Prime Minister Thakin Mya.

Less than six months after the end of British rule, the date of their assassination was designated a national holiday. It is marked annually by both the military regime and pro-democracy groups.

The prison ceremonies are thought to have been organized by Than Toe Aung, head of Yangon region’s Thanlyin township Youth Group of the National League for Democracy, the party which won a landslide victory in 2020 elections before being ousted by the military.

Than Toe Aung was hospitalized after interrogation, along with three others, Thaik Tun Oo, an official of the Myanmar Political Prisoners Network told RFA.

“Three days after Than Toe Aung was admitted to the hospital, three more were also admitted,” he said.

“We can confirm that they were severely beaten. Than Toe Aung is in critical condition. I heard he would be put in a locked cell after medical treatment.”

He added other political prisoners who have been locked in dark, cramped cells after interrogation include male dormitory inmates Yan Naing Soe; Hla Soe; Sote Phwar Gyi; Tarmwe Ko Zwel; ‘Dr Joe’; O Be; and a Letpantan township Civil Disobedience Movement captain who wasn’t named.

Women’s dormitory inmates who are still locked up after interrogation include Hnin Lae Nanda Lwin; Shun Ei Phyu; Nilar Sein; Su Yi Paing; Wut Yi Lwin; Aye Thida Kyaw; Yi Yi Swe; Lwin Lwin Nyunt; Sandi Nyunt Win; Aye Thet San; Shwe Yi Nyunt; Ya Min Htet; Htoo Htet Htet Wai; Myo Thandar Tun; and Moe Myat Thazin, according to the prisoners network official.

Another source close to the Tharyawady Prison told RFA other political prisoners are protesting against the locking up of their fellow inmates by boycotting the prison shop.

RFA contacted the Naypyidaw-based Prison Department by phone to get its comments on the case but there was no response.

The entrance to Tharyawady Prison is seen in this file photograph. Credit: RFA

There has been a series of brutal beatings and killings by prison guards since a jail break three months ago at the prison housing Myanmar’s ousted president, Win Myint.

On May 18, nine inmates escaped from Bago region’s Taungoo Prison, grabbing guns from prison guards and escaping into the jungle where they were met by members of a local People’s Defense Force.

Since then, political prisoners at Bago’s Thayarwady and Daik-U Central prisons and Myingyan Prison in Mandalay region have been beaten to death during interrogation or killed during ‘prison transfers’, according to family members and sources close to the prisons, who all requested anonymity to protect prisoners and their relatives.

More than 24,000 people, including pro-democracy activists, have been arrested since the Feb.1, 2021 coup, according to the Thailand-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma). It says almost 20,000 are still being detained across Myanmar.

On August 1, 254 prisoners, including some political prisoners in Tharyawady Prison were released by the junta’s amnesty. But sources close to the prison say as many as 900 political prisoners are still being held there, awaiting trial.

Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn and Taejun Kang.

Denied Passage: The struggle of people stranded at the Italian-French border

Maïté*, 20-year-old woman from Guinea Conakry, was a victim of domestic violence in her country. She hopes to reach France where she wants to get an education. 

*Name changed to protect identity. Italy, 15 May 2023.

MSF

 4 August 2023

Findings from our operations in Ventimiglia, Italy, between February and June 2023, indicate that people on the move crossing the French-Italian border are systematically and indiscriminately returned to Italy, without consideration of individual circumstances or vulnerabilities.

Most of our patients in Ventimiglia have gone through extremely dangerous journeys to reach Europe. Many have survived highly traumatic experiences in their countries of origin or during their migration journey.

The following report documents the significant dangers migrants face throughout their journeys to and within Europe. It also provides valuable insight into people’s living conditions and access to healthcare once they reach Europe.

Furthermore, it emphasises European countries' failure to safeguard individuals' well-being effectively. The ‘bottleneck’ created in Ventimiglia is causing unnecessary suffering among migrants attempting to continue their journeys. Ensuring comprehensive protection and services that address the specific needs of individuals in transit, irrespective of their legal status, is of the utmost importance.

Read the full report below:
Denied Passage: The continuous struggle of people on the move pushed-back and stranded at the Italian-French borderPDF — 3.09 MB

DOWNLOAD

Turkey Approves New Coal Mining to Feed Power Plants

Destruction of Forest Latest Battleground on Coal

Emma Sinclair-Webb
Associate Director and Turkey Director

HRW

esinclairwebb

Police used water cannon and teargas against local people and environmental activists who protested against the destruction of the Akbelen forest in Turkey’s western province of Muğla, July 29, 2023.

 © 2023 Mert Can Bükülmez

Dramatic scenes of villagers and environmental activists protesting the felling of thousands of trees in order to expand a coal mine have received widespread media coverage in Turkey over the past two weeks. Police used teargas and water cannon against the protesters and numerous were arrested as they attempted to stop the tree felling in Akbelen forest in Turkey’s western Muğla province.

The episode highlights the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ongoing support for coal mines and coal-fired power plants, and its disregard for the well-documented impact of coal burning on air pollution, which negatively affects the health of local people. It also ignores the significant greenhouse gas emissions generated by burning coal and the contribution this is making to the climate crisis.

Turkey has 37 coal-fired power plants licensed to run, in some cases, until the 2060s. The two plants near the Akbelen forest have been operating for decades. Both have a long history of negative environmental impacts, which has even led to cases being brought against them in the European Court of Human Rights. Both plants were found to have operated in violation of national environmental regulations, and experts have continued to raise concern that they may be operated without adequate pollutant filtration systems in the majority of the plants units. To keep the two plants operating, the government has also approved further coal mining in the area.

Turkey ratified the Paris Agreement in 2021 and announced that it would be carbon neutral by 2053. Yet, in Europe, alongside Bosnia and Herzogovina, Poland, and Serbia, Turkey has not announced when it will stop using coal. The Turkish government’s plans to enable new coal mining and to keep operating 37 coal-fired power plants – including the two for whom the Akbelen forest has been sacrificed – raises serious questions over Erdogan’s commitment to clean air and tackling the climate crisis.

Hun Sen heir could get New York business reception after Cambodia succession

Hun Manet, son of Cambodia's Prime Minister Hun Sen is seen at a polling station on the day of Cambodia's general election, in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, on July 23, 2023.

PUBLISHED ON AUGUST 04, 2023 

WASHINGTON - The incoming hereditary ruler of Cambodia, a country Washington is keen to pull out of Beijing's orbit, could meet CEOs of US firms interested in investing there in New York next month, the head of the US business lobby for Southeast Asia told Reuters.

Cambodia's long-ruling Prime Minister Hun Sen has said he will hand power to his Western-educated son, Hun Manet, 45, this month, after the incumbent Cambodian People's Party (CPP) swept a July general election in which it was virtually unopposed.

"We hope to host (Hun Manet). We hope to see if there's a way to start a new chapter" between the Washington and Phnom Penh, Ted Osius, president of the US-Asean Business Council said on Thursday (Aug 3).

"It's not an entirely new chapter (but) he's not his dad, he's a different person. So maybe there's some opportunities here."

Talks were underway for a hotel reception around the UN General Assembly (UNGA) meetings held in September, said Osius, a former career diplomat who served as America's ambassador to Cambodia's neighbour Vietnam.

"(We'll) bring in CEOs, high-level execs who are interested in Cambodia and might want to get a view of the new guy. And I think he would welcome that."

Washington, which has over the years denounced Hun Sen's authoritarian and anti-democratic moves, has said the elections were "neither free nor fair."

Hun Manet, educated at Western institutions including the West Point military academy in the United States, would not want to be "owned lock stock and barrel" by another country, Osius said, a reference to Cambodia's close ties to US rival China.

Read Also

ASIA

Cambodia's Hun Sen says he will step down as PM, son to take over

Cambodia's decision to allow China's navy to develop its naval base at Ream has upset Washington and neighbours worried it will give Beijing a new outpost near the contested South China Sea.

Osius said the US approach to Cambodia had been "punitive" and Washington should look for opportunities for dialogue.

"Better for (Hun Manet) if there if he's got some strategic options, and that could mean improving ties with us," he said.

A spokesperson for the US State Department said it had no specific comment on Hun Manet's future leadership, but the formation of a new government was an opportunity for the CPP to improve Cambodia's international standing.

Ways it could do this included "restoring genuine multi-party democracy, ending politically motivated trials, reversing convictions of government critics, and allowing independent media outlets to reopen and function without interference."

Asked if Hun Manet and US officials could meet on the sidelines of UNGA, the spokesperson added: "We are still determining schedules for US principals and do not have any further information to share."

Cambodia's Washington embassy did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Source: Reuters

Abandoned walrus pup given constant cuddles to try and keep him alive

The one-month-old walrus calf is being monitored by Alaska SeaLife Centre after being found in Alaska's extreme north

Saturday 5 August 2023 

Pacific walrus pup rests his head on the lap of a staff member. Pic: AP

An abandoned walrus pup is receiving round-the-clock "cuddling" from welfare workers trying to keep him alive.

The unnamed Pacific walrus was found alone miles from the ocean on Alaska's North Slope and taken to Alaska SeaLife Centre.

Weighing a whopping 90kg, the "cuddling" approach is an effort to mimic the near-constant care a calf would get from its mother in the wild.

Animal Care Specialists Halley Werner and Savannah Costner feed formula to walrus calf. Pic: AP

It gives the month-old walrus an "option to have a warm body to lean up against" which workers said he has been "taking advantage of almost constantly".

He is also being fed every three hours.

The calf was found by oil field workers about four miles (6.4km) away from the Beaufort Sea - where the breed are occasionally observed.

It remains unknown how he became abandoned.

Although a walrus track was found nearby, there were no signs of adults.

Image:Pic: AP

In the wild, Pacific walrus rely on their mothers for the first two years of their lives, sparking concern for the abandoned calf.

The centre said the walrus will be under 24-hour care for several weeks - with his health, appetite and progress monitored.

COMMODITY FETISH

Die-hard Barbie fans: Funeral home in El Salvador offers pink coffins with Barbie linings

AP
4 Aug, 2023 


According to the funeral home manager, the idea was well received as a joyful atmosphere for losing a loved one. Photo / AP

A funeral home in El Salvador has taken Barbie mania to an extreme, offering pink coffins with Barbie linings.

It’s all designed so you can be a Barbie fan till the day you die — and even after that.

The pink metal coffins are on sale at the Alpha and Omega Funeral Home in the city of Ahuachapán, near the border with Guatemala.

Owner Isaac Villegas said Friday he had already offered the option of pink coffins before the July premiere of the Barbie movie. But the craze that swept Latin America convinced him to decorate the cloth linings of the coffins with pictures of the doll. The coffins are also decorated with little white stars.

A pink coffin featuring a Barbie motif is displayed at a funeral home in Ahuachapan, El Salvador. Photo / AP

“I said, ‘We have to jump on this trend,’” Villegas said of the coffins, noting “it has been a success.”

He said the funeral home has already launched a promotional campaign around the Barbie boxes, and has sold 10 of them. Though that doesn’t mean 10 people have actually been buried in them — many people in El Salvador buy a pre-paid package for future burial.

Villegas said that until a year ago, families had preferred traditional coffins in colors like brown, black, white or gray. But a year ago, he sold his first pink coffin to family who wanted their very happy relative buried in a happier-colored coffin.

Now he has no plans to turn back, though he still offers darker colors.

Ryan Gosling as Ken and Margot Robbie as Barbie. Photo / Warner Bros. Pictures

“We are going to have more pink coffins, because people are asking for it,” he said.

Latin America jumped on Barbie mania with pink-colored tacos and pastries, commercial planes bearing the Barbie logo, political ads, and even Barbie-themed protests.

The famous doll’s theme has also taken a macabre tone.

Read More

Barbie the movie: What you need to know before taking ...
Mum accidentally hires stripper for Barbie-themed party ...
Review: Barbie a fun meta-comedy that chooses style ...

In July, anti-government demonstrators dressed up two women in pink and put them in giant Barbie boxes in the main square of Lima, Peru’s capital, to protest President Dina Boluarte, under whose administration police have often clashed with protesters.

And in Mexico, a sister of one of Mexico’s 112,000 missing people began sewing doll outfits to make a “Searching Mother” Barbie, referring to the volunteers who fan out across Mexico’s dusty plains to search for gravesites that might contain their children’s remains. Her creator, volunteer searcher Delia Quiroa, hopes to publicise the plight of mothers who have to carry out the searches and investigations that police won’t do.

 

 

“If you loved Barbie go watch it. If you hated Barbie, go watch it.”

Is the entire world turning Barbie Pink?

SARA JAMIL

PUBLISHED 3 DAYS AGO

So much about Barbie – both the toy and the movie – “mirrors” (a great word used in a recent New York Times article) what it is like to be a woman, or yes, even a man, in the world today. As a designer, I wish I could have been a fly on the wall when the first marketing design brief was shared. With an iconic global brand like Barbie, so much groundwork is already laid; history, competition and culture has been archived and can be utilised at the right time, using the right approach. A simple case of waiting for the swell and riding the wave, preferably on a pink surfboard.

When I went with my “nearly 13” year old (“Still a month to go, Mama!”) to watch it, I had already been ‘Barbiefied’ online by the likes of the Barbie Airbnb followed by Aldo, Beis, Forever 21, Zara and NYX collections to name a few, and had participated in a rousing discussion on the viral trending of a Pantone Barbie Pink. Collaborative brand alliances are on fire right now in the design world and who better to do it than Barbie, harnessing the power of women, nostalgia and shared experiences? Pink Krispy Kremes that must taste better if had with other Barbies, ‘Barbie CAN’ replacing the word station on the London Underground’s signs adding a smile to her day, Pink UNO, Crocs and an HGTV Barbie Dreamhouse Makeover challenge that no one can resist, and even Xbox coming on board to give gaming a whole new vibe (and market) are just the tip of the collaborative iceberg.

Covering an array of trending “marketable topics” from blatant consumerism to the invisible labour of women, the feminist manifesto to the friend zone, and being stuck in the terminology of old times as the world moves ahead, Barbie the movie also nails Millennial and Gen Z speak. And by weaving in the irrepressible ‘adulting’ aspect of life, it neatly ropes in anyone who has felt the angst, either as a parent or as a teenager themselves of surviving in a world that puts perfection (and men) on a pedestal. The best part? The smartly written dialogue, the juxtaposition of a Barbie world vs Barbie in a human world makes it impossible to disagree with or deny the majority of truth bombs dropped in the film’s 1 hour 54 minutes’ runtime, making this brand – which was teetering on a dangerous precipice – top of mind yet again, this time with a whole new set of relevant conversations.

Barbie has since its inception stood for and about so much that it’s hard to nutshell it, from the “you can be anything” to the “you don’t have to look like this” to the “but maybe you want to.” Other brands have both aligned and dissociated themselves with it, depending on how the world swayed, which is why there was no surprise that bright, colourful collaborations were the way forward when it came to promoting this much-awaited movie. While there has been a healthy amount of criticism around the Barbie brand calling out its push of unhealthy beauty standards (tall, fair, thin girl rishta anyone?) perfection and consumerism, the film somehow also aligns with what is happening today so seamlessly that the marketing team probably nudged the wheels in motion and sat back with their coffee, watching the world explode pink, as more names, trends and conversations jumped on board, both officially and unofficially, fearing missing out on the Barbie campervan party.

The movie will surprise most who have assumed this will feed an existing narrative around the brand. It starts off with the Barbie perfection for sure but then slides smoothly down a spiral into real life. One doesn’t think they will ever relate to the stereotypical Barbie, but as the movie progresses, we do empathise with her, root for her, and eventually cheer her journey back to ‘perfection’ but this time, it’s the human kind – flawed and with cellulite.

A final clap here for the well thought out tagline that ties it all up in a bow, including the fans yes, but also challenging the haters with a tongue-in-cheek “If you loved Barbie go watch it. If you hated Barbie, go watch it.”

Sara Jamil is a career freelance designer and currently also teaches typography at IVS. jam.designs@gmail.com

UK Scout leader reveals Jamboree chaos amid South Korea heatwave - with 'ambulances everywhere'

The UK contingent leader, whose group is looking after 30 children, told Sky News it's a 10-minute walk for water in searing heat - with poor food and toilet facilities. One parent said organisers in South Korea had made a "complete mess".


Saturday 5 August 2023

Queues at Jamboree

A UK Scout leader at the World Jamboree in South Korea has described conditions as "atrocious and unusable".

More than 4,000 British attendees - many of them children - are being moved from a camp into hotels due to extreme temperatures hitting the country.


The 29-year-old contingent unit leader claimed there were "ambulances everywhere" - and the event's infrastructure was ill-equipped to keep people safe in searing heat.

Leaky water bottle given to Scouts by UK contingent

Speaking to Sky News journalist Kirsty Hickey, he said his group - which includes 30 children - had been given bad-quality, small water bottles.

"A third have broken and leak even though they tell us to drink a litre every hour," he said. "Getting water is a 10-minute walk away in the heat."



The Scout leader, who did not wish to be named, also alleged toilet facilities were unclean, and there have been complaints the meals offered were not nutritionally balanced.

Toilet block at Jamboree was described as 'unusable'

He revealed that they had to wait for over an hour in the heat for coaches to take them to Seoul - and claimed the emergency services needed to be called after some children passed out. However, the kids in his group are fine.

"The money hasn't been worth it as we're leaving and not getting the experience we paid for," the Scout leader told us.

"The kids are upset that this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity has gone to waste because of lack of organisation and preparation."

Emergency services deployed to event

The contingent unit leader added that in comparison to the 2015 World Jamboree in Japan - which also suffered from stifling temperatures - appropriate infrastructure made the event bearable.

It comes after organisers and the South Korean government said water trucks, air-conditioned spaced and medics were being sent to the event.

Temperatures in some parts of the country have topped 38C (100.4F) this week, with at least 600 people at the event having been treated for heat-related ailments, according to officials.

The event in southwestern Buan has attracted around 40,000 participants from 155 countries, most of them aged between 14 and 18.

Bear Grylls urges Scouts to stay hydrated

'A complete mess'

Peter Naldrett, who has two children at the World Scout Jamboree, posted on X (formerly Twitter) to say that parents have been asked not to talk to the press.

He revealed that he had raised a total of £9,000 so his kids could attend the event.



"The South Koreans have made a complete mess of organising this. The government took over running the site and it's still a mess," Mr Naldrett wrote.

He praised UK contingent leaders for how they have handled the situation and tried to keep morale high.

"If moving all the scouts off site over 48 hours is honestly the best move for the event, then fair enough. But the kids are looking forward to trips out and the famous culture day," Mr Naldrett added.

The father believes that children should be able to return to the site for key events - and called on corporate sponsors to make donations so their trip isn't wasted.

Urging the government to help, he concluded by saying: "There needs to be a massive effort to save this experience and it should be a no expense spared job... I do want the 4,000 UK kids to experience the international mixing and activities they have been flown over there for."

OPEN PLAIN, NO SHADE

South Korea races to help heat-struck scouts in global event

Air-conditioned buses and refrigerator trucks have been ordered to cool down and provide cold drinks to participants of the World Scout Jamboree being held in South Korea amid soaring heat

US, UK AND SINGAPORE HAVE LEFT

Deutsche Welle

 Published 05.08.23, 


The event is taking place amid the highest heat warning by authorities in four yearsDeutsche Welle

South Korea on Friday ordered the deployment of air-conditioned busses and freezer trucks as hundreds of scouts at a global event fell ill this week due to the unusually hot weather the country is currently witnessing.

Thousands of teenagers from over 155 countries are taking part in the World Scout Jamboree — deemed the world's largest youth camp — that began Tuesday in Buan.

With temperatures in some parts of South Korea crossing 38 degrees Celsius (100.4 degrees Fahrenheit) this week, the jamboree is taking place amid the highest heat warning by authorities in four years,

At least 600 people at the event have so far been treated for heat-related illnesses.

What are South Korea's relief plans for the scouts?


Local media reports have deemed the situation as a "national disgrace," given the time the country had to make preparations for the event.


On Friday, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol's office called an emergency meeting.


The government then ordered an unlimited number of air-conditioned busses that the scouts can use for relief and trucks to provide cold water, presidential spokeswoman Kim Eun-hye said.


The emergency meeting would make a decision "regarding the allocation of approximately 6 billion won (€4.2 million, $4.6 million) in contingency funds," Yoon's office said.


British, US Scouts to move into hotels, army garrison


More than 4,000 British Scouts will leave their campsite at the Jamboree and move into hotels this weekend, the UK Scout Association said.


"As we are the largest contingent, our hope is that this helps alleviate the pressure on the site overall," the association said.


"We will continue the Jamboree experience in Seoul, working with Korean authorities on a program of activities so our young people still get the most from their time in Korea," it added.


Later on Friday, news agency Reuters obtained an email to parents of US Scouts participating in the Jamboree.


"The US Contingent to the World Scout Jamboree has made the difficult decision that we will be departing the 25th World Scout Jamboree site early because of ongoing extreme weather and resulting conditions at the jamboree site," the email said.


It added that the US scouts would take part in Saturday's program, but that they would then relocate to the US Army Garrison Humphreys site, located fairly close to the event.


Organizers say only minority of scouts 'very unsatisfied'


Meanwhile, the organizers said they were modifying the schedule depending on the heat conditions.


"Despite the heat and the difficulties and the challenges that they are facing, only 8% reported that they were very unsatisfied with the experience so far," Jacob Murray, the director for World Events at the Scouts, told the media.


"We are grateful to the Korean government and provincial government for providing additional resources."

Dumbed down deliberately

By robbing its young of their power to reason, Pakistan is choosing backwardness over prosperity.

Pervez Hoodbhoy 

Published August 5, 2023

What PM Shehbaz Sharif blurted out recently isn’t quite a national secret. Though none in high office can admit it publicly, in a moment of despair he admitted that wherever he visits, disdain is written on the faces of hosts.

Respecting those who keep asking for loans and rollovers is hard. This, said he, is no way to live and so, “today we have to decide whether to live uprightly or by begging”.

Begging is a foul word. But a second whammy followed: “India has progressed ahead but we have been left behind due to our own faults.”

This understated the truth: Pakistan is seen everywhere as problematic even as major world powers cosy up to India; foreign companies are fleeing skill-empty Pakistan but high-tech semiconductor manufacturers woo India; and Pakistan’s space programme has faded away even as Chandrayaan and Mangalyaan elevated India to the world’s top four space-faring nations.

Those without blinders had seen this coming. No 21st-century country can function on tribal values, an 11th-century Arab-origin education system, and a 19th-century colonial administrative apparatus.

Proof: Pakistan is desperate to outsource its airports, cannot run its railways, state industrial enterprises are major liabilities, and it exports mostly primitive items like textiles and leather.

Political instability and corruption are important factors but not decisive. How we educate our young is at the core of our backwardness.

Snuffing out reasoning capacity and rewarding mediocrity means that even college graduates are unable to read, comprehend, calculate, or innovate. Many become Careem captains and pizza delivery boys.

As for Pakistani PhDs: nobody wants them. Last year, overseas work permits were issued mostly to drivers and construction workers. The brain drain of earlier decades has become brawn-drain.

By robbing its young of their power to reason, Pakistan is choosing backwardness over prosperity.

To fix it all, the Sharif brothers — expected back in the saddle soon — want more useless universities, more highways and roads, buy more Chinese power plants, and, of course, distribute more free laptops. The PM pledged another 100,000 would be given away this year. What the last 100,000 accomplished, no one knows.

So let me propose a different fix. Outraged readers may want to practise hurling an inkpot. Others can have a good chuckle. All will agree — I included — that it cannot fly. Still, here it goes:

Let’s close down the federal and provincial ministries of education, give the officers and staff a golden handshake, and send them to wherever they can make an honest living.

Accustomed to the good life of pushing papers from one desk to another, that won’t be easy. All compassionate citizens will be called upon to pray for them.

Next: invite tenders from Finland, Singapore, Japan, China, Vietnam and five other countries. The successful bidder for a 10-year contract must reconstruct Pakistan’s primary, middle, and high school system.

The TORs will include implementing a space-age curriculum, examination system, training teachers and arranging for textbooks, teaching materials, school infrastructure, and school management systems.

Contract renewal will hinge upon enhanced performance of students evaluated through standardised tests which measure reading, comprehension, and math skills.

Students may opt for Urdu, English or five to seven regional languages. Performance will be assessed using best international practices. Equally important will be enhancing subject knowledge of teachers, pedagogical practices, and all that is expected of a teacher.

Reaping the dividends will need a generation or two. After that, the sky will turn blue. Pakistan, the sick man of Asia, will be cured and can then race towards becoming the subcontinent’s most vibrant country. India will be left trailing behind in a friendly-unfriendly competition between normal countries.

But here’s the rub. Pakistan is not a normal country with normal aspirations. Belief in blind memorisation is unshakeable. All subjects including science and math are taught and evaluated as though they were holy texts. Securing high marks is paramount.

But if successful memorisation is all that’s needed for good marks, why master concepts?

 Public demand for change is weak and so most schools are below mediocre.

Recently, I met some remarkably enlightened principals of schools for lower middle-class children. Risking disapproval from ministry officials and parents, they strive to make education useful. Even those from semi-rural areas are dismayed by what the Single National Curriculum (SNC) requires them to do. Some are quietly resisting.

Proposed by Imran Khan, SNC was turbocharged by Sharif’s government. To accommodate a massive amount of religious materials within school hours, many schools have been forced to drop their library period.

On one child’s report card I saw ‘Art’ scratched out and replaced by ‘Nazira’. On another, computer classes had been sacrificed.

The principal of a school in Chakwal told me his teachers, including female ones, were recently herded to rural “teaching centres”. To fulfil SNC’s tajweed requirement, for days they practised the proper pronunciation of Arabic words.

Elsewhere magistrates and police are strictly enforcing other religious parts of SNC. That most schools don’t have labs, libraries, or fans matters not.

This being Pakistan, laws work differently for the rich and the poor. British-linked ‘O’-/‘A’-level schools for the upper and upper-middle classes largely evade SNC.

Greasing the palms of magistrates, police officers, and school inspectors is part of the game. But it works because Pakistan’s ruling classes agree that children — all except their own — must be obedient robots.

For the reader a quick quiz: which army general or political leader sent his progeny to a madressah or an Urdu-medium school: Ayub Khan? Yahya? Bhutto? Zia? Benazir? Nawaz? Musharraf? Zardari? Imran Khan? Shehbaz? Answer: none.

The oligarchies from 1947 onward have permanently entrenched themselves. Imran Khan’s minister of education, Harvard-educated Shafqat Mahmood, assured them SNC would never replace the elite ‘O’-/‘A’ system.

If extreme privilege and extreme deprivation are to safely coexist, for the poor to think clearly and critically could be fatal. What Marx called opium for the masses is needed as much today as 200 years ago.

A dumbed-down country lacking geostrategic saleability or oil has to walk on crutches. Our education system is precisely why Pakistan shall return to the IMF for the 24th time next year and, to use Mr Sharif’s words, initiate a new round of begging.

The writer is an Islamabad-based physicist and writer.

Published in Dawn, August 5th, 2023

'Lola Montez': The extraordinary life of a 19th-century, Scots-raised woman who refused to be shamed by divorce – Susan Morrison

After a childhood in Montrose and a failed marriage, Eliza Gilbert decided to reinvent herself as the Spanish dancer Maria Dolores de Porris y Montez. It was just the start of her astonishing transformation

By Susan Morrison
Published 5th Aug 2023


Her name was Lola, she was a dancer, with flowers in her hair and her dress cut down to there. She was a sensation in London. The Morning Herald said “the lady came, saw and conquered”. The Times, no less, wrote that they were grateful at last to have seen “a Spanish dance by a Spaniard, executed after the Spanish fashion”. It wasn’t the first time The Times had been fooled, and it wouldn’t be the last.

Lola Montez stormed the London stage with her debut appearance at Her Majesty's Theatre in June 1843. The blue-eyed, black-haired beauty performed dances from her native Spain, particularly the Tarantella, a frenetic folk dance with a backstory. A young woman believes a deadly tarantula is hiding in her skirts and she twirls wildly, pulling her clothes off to find the spider before it bites her. Lola threw everything into the performance and ripped away her clothing to expose well-turned ankles, shapely arms and a heaving bosom.

Her Majesty’s theatre exploded with applause and acclaim. Tickets sold fast. The place was packed. The gentlemen couldn’t get enough. But, it is said, one evening a voice drawled from the balcony, “That’s no Spanish dancer. That’s little Mrs James.”

Lola had been unmasked. She was about as Spanish as Fawlty Towers’ Manuel. The heckle from the gallery might be apocryphal, but the letters fired into the press about the fake dancer were real. Why, Tarantella wasn’t even Spanish. It was Neapolitan. Even more outrageously, she was a divorcee, and a proven adultress, the discarded wife of a British army officer.

She was born Eliza Rosanna Gilbert in Ireland in 1821, but spent most of her childhood in India. Her mother was widowed not long after they arrived, but soon married again, to Lieutenant Patrick Craigie, whose family came from Montrose.

Patrick seems to have liked this little girl he had taken on. Perhaps he over-indulged her. She was a bit of a handful. So much so that she was sent back to Britain, to the care of his family in Scotland. She turned out to be even more exuberant back in Montrose. On one occasion, she amused herself during the Sunday service by sticking flowers in the wig of the old man sitting in the pew in front.

Now that’ll get the neighbours talking. Not even a stern boarding school, run by Patrick’s sister, seems to have curbed Eliza’s wayward ways. She was still on the wild side by the time she finished school and her mother came to fetch the 16-year-old girl to take her back to India, and marriage.

She later said that a match had already been arranged, to a 64-year-old widower, Major General Lumley. Unfortunately for at least one half of the happy couple, a young, dashing Lieutenant Thomas James got in the way and whisked the teenager off to Ireland. At least he married her.

The marriage was a miserable failure. James had affairs, naturally. Eliza was bored, naturally. They returned to India, but it was no good. Eliza was sent home to stay with an uncle in Leith. But she didn’t stay long. London beckoned, with all the vices attractive to a young blue-eyed beauty, and Eliza fell for the lot, well, specifically a man. Before long, Captain James heard of his wife’s activities and Eliza was divorced, with all the shame that brought with it.

Shame killed women then. Not our girl. Today we’d call it re-invention. Eliza was ruthlessly overwritten by Maria Dolores de Porris y Montez, aka Lola, who claimed to be the widow of a Spanish nobleman. She was a dancer, a beauty, undeniably a massive fibber, and possibly the greatest courtesan of 19th-century Europe, America and Australia.

London might have run her out of town, but all it did was force Lola onto the world stage and into an extraordinary life, starting in Europe. She became a mistress of the famous composer Franz Liszt, until he snuck away in the middle of the night. In Paris, she had an affair with a wealthy newspaper owner, who died in a duel.

Then, spectacularly, she caught the eye of King Ludwig of Bavaria. She claimed that when they first met, he asked if her breasts were really as magnificent as they looked. Lola slashed her gown open with scissors. Probably not true, but very Lola. He made her Countess of Landsfeld. She made him abdicate.

Lola headed to America, where she toured the West. There was another marriage, but it didn’t take. Her manager took her to Australia, where she horsewhipped a newspaper editor for giving her a bad review. Well, we’ve all been there. She and her manager boarded a ship to return to the United States. He never made San Francisco. Lola said he fell overboard.

She wound up in New York in the late 1850s, living quietly, rolling her trademark cigarettes and kept in modest comfort by the proceeds of her book and lectures. She died in 1861.

Maria Dolores de Porris y Montez may have sounded like she was made in Spain, but in a way she was born in Scotland. When Eliza James fled scandal in London, she headed for her step-aunts house in Nelson Street, Edinburgh. There, in March 1842, she was served with those papers summoning her back to answer the accusation of adultery. We’ll never really know just how the 21-year-old Eliza James felt that day but this much is certain, rather than spend her life behind the net curtains of shame she decided to come out all guns blazing.

She became Lola Montez, she conquered the world, and she began that metamorphosis in Edinburgh.