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| India-Pakistan | ||
| In One Pakistan Province, Reality Tempers Ideology | ||
| 2004-01-18 | ||
| EFL, registration req’d Jobs here remain few, health care a mess, education in shambles, the government in debt. But the people of the North-West Frontier Province can rest easy: store mannequins have been officially deemed obscene. Just before the new year in this provincial capital, storekeepers were putting away mannequins and large advertising posters displaying women’s faces, complying with a Jan. 1 deadline. It was the latest initiative of the provincial government, which is controlled by a hard-line Islamist coalition, the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal. It has been a year since the coalition took power, declaring that it would impose strict Islamic law. But it has moved more slowly than expected — and often has had to backpedal. It has also found governing to be difficult, its officials concede. "It’s very difficult to be at the helm of affairs," said Inayatullah, the provincial health minister and a member of Jamaat-e-Islami, a decades-old Islamic political movement and coalition member. "When you come to the government you become a bit realistic. When you are outside, you are The government has had to retreat on a plan to put an ombudsman in every district to settle disputes and regulate public morality. A ban on Western trousers in schools has been little enforced, mostly because of resistance from schools. And although the government closed the town’s two bars, which had served foreigners, alcohol and hypocrisy continue to flow in great quantity. Two young bootleggers said business had never been better. Their customers included the military, the police, doctors, ministers and even members of the religious coalition, whose secretaries often made the purchases, they said. Store owners scoffed at the antimannequin campaign. "We don’t worship those mannequins; they’re lifeless things," said Karam Elahi, who owns a dress shop. Breasts jutting out, eyes gazing glassily, his mannequins sat dismantled and undressed in a dim upstairs corner. Most shopkeepers complied because they feared not the police, but The transformation of this province into what Mr. Inayatullah called an Islamic welfare state, which would provide economic and social justice, has proved perhaps the greatest challenge. The province’s economy is in dire straits, with little industry and hardscrabble agriculture.
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| Posted by:Paul Moloney |
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| Posted by: Frank G 2004-1-18 7:17:37 AM |
| #1 |
| Posted by: Anonymous2U 2004-1-18 1:07:59 AM |