DAWN Editorials - 25th May 2025

[zarnishhayat]

Principled stand

THE war unleashed on American academia now has global attention. With Harvard University pushing back against the Trump administration’s attempts to bring it to heel, alumni, current and prospective students, and parents worldwide are wondering whether America could soon lose its spot as the most preferred destination for those seeking higher education. To recall, the administration has targeted several respected universities with funding cuts and other measures. Publicly, it claims these universities have failed to adequately ‘combat antisemitism’ — evidently a reaction to most young Americans refusing to accept Israel’s atrocities in Gaza as justified. However, as other observers see it, the campaign is a symptom of general conservative paranoia about the liberal values espoused by most institutions of higher learning. Through its campaign, the Trump administration wishes to assert ‘American values’ instead of ‘woke culture’. Within these values, unquestioning support for Israel ranks right at the top.

In an escalation of its campaign, the government recently attempted to block Harvard from enrolling international students. Harvard has now sued for its rights. “Without its international students, Harvard is not Harvard,” the 389-year-old school stated in its plaint. The government, meanwhile, accused one of the most highly regarded universities in the world of “fostering violence, antisemitism, and coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party”. Many are closely watching the university and cheering its stand. Columbia University, another respected institution, had disappointed many by kowtowing to the Trump administration. Harvard, on the other hand, refuses to “surrender our academic independence and to submit to the federal government’s illegal assertion of control over our curriculum, our faculty, and our student body”, in the words of its president, Alan Garber. It is a brave stand. There are few who would dare defy the most powerful person in the world. Harvard University, though, seems intent on proving that principles are not just for textbooks, but also for everyday life.

Published in Dawn, May 25th, 2025


Captive women

PAKISTAN’S stormy history of political and rights protests shows that even the use of excessive state brutality has never been able to fracture the commitment of women political workers. It seems particularly pertinent to highlight this as more and more women are made targets for suppression and lawfare by an overreaching state. Consider how women political prisoners have been treated lately. Three months after the Baloch Yakjehti Committee’s Mahrang Baloch was arrested, the Balochistan High Court in April rejected her bail petitions after Balochistan’s advocate general argued her release “will cause unrest”. Thereafter, her liberty was placed at the mercy of a sceptical Balochistan government. Not only that, the DG ISPR recently denounced her in a press conference as a “proxy of the terrorists”. Apart from Dr Baloch’s detention, septuagenarian politician Dr Yasmin Rashid’s extended captivity and PTI Punjab chief organiser Aliya Hamza and party supporter Sanam Javed’s return to jail last month, seen together, seem to suggest a pattern of exclusion, discrimination and disregard for women who have dared to assert themselves in domestic politics. Is this a reflection of who we are as a society?

Silencing voices of the public and coercing representatives of a troubled province with tools of repression will achieve little more than test national unity at a particularly sensitive time. There must be realisation on the part of the political leadership that the route to consolidating popularity, power and economic muscle lies through negotiating favourable outcomes for political prisoners and engaging with reasonable advocates from restive regions. The government should, for the sake of the people who rallied unquestioningly behind it and the armed forces in the recent military conflict with India, aim to ease domestic frictions and rethink its policy of oppressing political workers and activists, particularly women, because of the social harm it is causing. Jailing women protesters and party workers without due process will be seen as an aggressive warning to females to desist from participating in politics and public engagement. Similarly, the justice system should uphold the special privileges and considerations for women accused of crimes as laid out in various rules and laws. Undoubtedly, militant separatists must be neutralised. However, the state, through transparency and justice, must ensure that the rights of incarcerated women are not trampled upon in the process.

Published in Dawn, May 25th, 2025


Captive women

PAKISTAN’S stormy history of political and rights protests shows that even the use of excessive state brutality has never been able to fracture the commitment of women political workers. It seems particularly pertinent to highlight this as more and more women are made targets for suppression and lawfare by an overreaching state. Consider how women political prisoners have been treated lately. Three months after the Baloch Yakjehti Committee’s Mahrang Baloch was arrested, the Balochistan High Court in April rejected her bail petitions after Balochistan’s advocate general argued her release “will cause unrest”. Thereafter, her liberty was placed at the mercy of a sceptical Balochistan government. Not only that, the DG ISPR recently denounced her in a press conference as a “proxy of the terrorists”. Apart from Dr Baloch’s detention, septuagenarian politician Dr Yasmin Rashid’s extended captivity and PTI Punjab chief organiser Aliya Hamza and party supporter Sanam Javed’s return to jail last month, seen together, seem to suggest a pattern of exclusion, discrimination and disregard for women who have dared to assert themselves in domestic politics. Is this a reflection of who we are as a society?

Silencing voices of the public and coercing representatives of a troubled province with tools of repression will achieve little more than test national unity at a particularly sensitive time. There must be realisation on the part of the political leadership that the route to consolidating popularity, power and economic muscle lies through negotiating favourable outcomes for political prisoners and engaging with reasonable advocates from restive regions. The government should, for the sake of the people who rallied unquestioningly behind it and the armed forces in the recent military conflict with India, aim to ease domestic frictions and rethink its policy of oppressing political workers and activists, particularly women, because of the social harm it is causing. Jailing women protesters and party workers without due process will be seen as an aggressive warning to females to desist from participating in politics and public engagement. Similarly, the justice system should uphold the special privileges and considerations for women accused of crimes as laid out in various rules and laws. Undoubtedly, militant separatists must be neutralised. However, the state, through transparency and justice, must ensure that the rights of incarcerated women are not trampled upon in the process.

Published in Dawn, May 25th, 2025