In August of 2005 the NWIP delegation (Thomas Silverberg and Jenny Immerstrand from Sweden, Gard Jorgenssen from Norway and Asha Shrestha from Nepal) visited Pakistan to hold a dialogue with the medical students in Karachi and Islamabad. The Program was coordinated by Dr Ali Afridi. With over 60 students attending the dialogue and interesting arguments being waged, the event both helped the new members of the delegation and changed the mindset of the Pakistani students.

Program:

August 15th                  Meeting and dinner with Dr Tipu Sultan

August 17th                  Dialogue at Jinnah Medical College, Karachi

August 17th                  Training, Karachi

August 18th-19th           Meetings in Islamabad

August 15th, 2005:

The NWIP delegation had a meeting and dinner with the president of PDPD (Dr Tipu Sultan) at his residence. The delegation was briefed about the future plan of action of the PDPD students division. They were thoroughly explained the infrastructure of the PDPD and the physicians working under it. The delegation was told about the obstacles that the PDPD has been facing in uplifting the organization. The delegation all proposed various prospect of making the organization stronger in the future. The meeting was fruitful since the delegation team was aware about our way of working and our plan of action

August 16th, 2005:

The delegation was taken for sight seeing. They were shown various slum areas in the city where poverty prevailed at the utmost level. I would like to thank Thomas for drawing particular attention towards these slum areas and the people living there. We surely need such people who care for these poor fellow beings.


August 17th, 2005:

The delegation was taken to Jinnah Medical College Karachi where the discussion took place between the delegation and some 60 participants. The program was inaugurated by the incharge of the academic council of the college (Mrs. Debra Lobo) followed by a speech by Dr Ali Afridi. The delegates initially were faced with some pronuclear participants who were in favour of possession of these senseless weapons which day by day are increasing the level of poverty and illiteracy in Pakistan and its SO CALLED enemy India. The delegates displayed some mind blowing and agonizing pictures of Hiroshima to the participants which without a doubt started raising concerns and a sense of realization. The program eventually turned out to be a successful one which in the beginning looked as if no results may be achieved as the delegation was faced with tough question but they handled the whole situation very successfully and professionally.

Dialogue at Jinnah Medical College, Karachi

Participants: 60

Arguments from Pakistani students:

• USA is to blame they should disarm the first
• We would definitely disarm if the other states also did
• USA is the only country that ever have used a NW – who should you focus on – USA!
• We can’t trust India they have always tried to fool us, and they are so much bigger that NW is the only way we can protect
• We have seen what first happened to Afghanistan then to Iraq – we might be the next
• We will never use the weapons
• Our technology is sufficient; I don’t think accidental launch is likely and not more than in the USA or other countries

The delegation team now consisted of Thomas (Sweden), Asha (Nepal) and Gard (Norway). As this would be Asha’s first dialog and also our first without Camilla, who was the most experienced in the team, it became quiet tough for us all when we had to share the arguments between us, without much time for preparation and coordination of how to do thing.

Gard was chair for the first time and Thomas presented medical effects. As we hadn’t been to Pakistan before we didn’t know what kind of reactions we would get from the students. Therefore we assumed that they would respond almost like Indian students and we decided to conduct the dialogues like in India as we should be prepared for people reacting with more feelings. After an opening speech from the college and Dr. Ali Afridi, we went through the opening procedure and Thomas presented a power point presentation on medical effects.

When we asked for people to raise their hands if they wanted Pakistan to keep its nuclear weapons. remarkably a few did.  The same response happened when we asked for people who were against it as well. But when we opened for people telling their thoughts, there was no doubt about most of them believed that nuclear weapons where necessary. In one way the arguments and the development of the dialogue went like in India, but on the other hand we felt much more feelings and aggression being attached to the question here.

After an OK start with us presenting our arguments in response to what the Pakistani students said, the whole dialogue become more “hot” as the temperament of the students got more emotional. Especially a few students gave us quite a tough time with their long and aggressive arguments. As a local student went around in the auditorium with the microphone it was quite hard for us to select those people that had something to say to speak.

Afterwards we discussed whether we should have controlled the session more at this point and cooled people down, but we didn’t find a definitive answer on that question. A good dialogue should have some temper but it’s hard to know where the limit is.

Much of the aggression from the students was especially connected to the USA and their responsibility in this matter. This made it important to explain several times that we are working with all NW-countries and not just the small one.

Although it was a tough session,we felt that we got more into our track again at the end when we launched our final and well prepared statements with many feelings. Doing a monologue in those last minutes with some of our best arguments really seemed to settle the whole situation quiet much and we felt that we landed it ok. Although we were very uncertain about how many people that would come for our training. How many did we convince?

Training in Karachi:

Because we just had two hours for the training session we decided to do it as we did in Nagpur and focused only on what activities they could do and how to do them. We had 11 students for the session and when the two students giving us the toughest time at the dialogue showed up we really felt that we actually must have done quite a dialogue!

The students at the training seemed to be really resourceful and had an ocean of ideas so our job was to slow them down and make them pick the ideas that they had most faith in and that where realistic. Dr. Ali also helped us so they understood some of the local limitations that they have to work with.

The basic plan for the future went out to be that they should get better into the facts about nuclear weapons and dialogue techniques so they can arrange dialogues to be conducted by themselves at local medical colleges. If this becomes a success and they grow bigger, schools and other non-medical colleges can be places of future action as well.

August 18th, 2005:

In Islamabad, Faisal Yousafir had prepared an ambitious schedule where we should meet several NGOs as well as medical colleges during our two day visit. The aim was to strengthen the PDPD (Pakistani Doctors for Peace and Development), the Pakistani affiliate of the IPPNW, and also to provide them with contacts of other organisations to cooperate with.

We met the Dean and students from Shifa International Medical College. The dean kindly explained to us that he couldn't support any kind of activities apart from the studies. When we were shown around the college we explained our aims in more detail to some of the students there and we collected some e-mails. After that we went on to discuss our aims and methods with people working for Association of Pakistani Physicians in North America. We had some common ideas and this could be used for further contacts. Then we had a meeting with Sustainable Development Policy Institute where we presented our organisation. This institute seemed interested in conducting research on nuclear weapon issues. The day ended with discussing the press release for our open session the day after. This was done by the help from Pak-India Peoples Forum for Peace.

August 19th, 2005

The day started with a visit at Margalla Institute of Health Sciences. We had a 45 minute session with a class of students there. We explained the IPPNW and gave them some motivation why they should care about nuclear weapon issues. Then we distributed a lot of material and discussed things further with interested students. Finally we gave them the e-mail contacts of PDPD. Then we went on to meet College of Physician and Surgeons where, I have to say that, they were totally indifferent to our organisation, instead they wanted to show us around the college. After that we met with SFSH (Society For the Service of Humanity). This organisation seemed very interested in further cooperation with PDPD and IPPNW. The last thing of the day was our open discussion, which had been published in national newspapers that morning. On the meeting there were people from Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, Pak-India Forum for Peace, Citizen Peace Committee, Peace Coalition, Peace Education and Development, Action Aid, The Hindu, Business Recorder as well as some students and other NGOs. The discussion was very good. The issues were touched upon with honesty and with total freedom. We managed to explain how IPPNW is working and what questions we feel are the most important.

Conclusion:

The overall visit to Karachi was a great success .The PDPD would like to congratulate the delegation for a successful and prepared visit .We are able to recruit 11 students as a result and hope that these new recruits will strengthen and take the organization towards success. I would like to thank my team (Rimsha Hassan, Nabiha Shah, Mikram Jaffri, Rauf Ahmad and Murtaza Khan) for making this event a successful one. We assure to extending our cooperation further in the field of disarmament and peace as we all are sailing in the same boat and desire to achieve what we call ‘PEACE and HARMONY’.  As a conclusion, our work in Islamabad will hopefully be resulting in new activities there. We made a lot of advertisement for IPPNW among the concerned people as well as in the newspapers. We have given e-mails to the people who expressed interest in PDPD, so that they can stay in contact with the local affiliate. We have also a few of them ourselves.

Impressions from a new NWIP member

During the dialogue, more than half of the students were pronuclear because they thought the weapons would provide them security. A minority was antinuclear because they didn't believe in peace through war and they were well-acquainted with the fact that nuclear weapons are taking the general population away from their rights to have food, education and health.

Most of the students were unaware of nuclear weapon issues and the activities going on to mitigate it. Probably, we have delivered the message well to them. To evaluate our success, a regular follow-up in the form of dialogue is a must. For this, the PDPD must be very active and serious and should try to involve as many students as they can. As medical students, we can't have our eyes blind, ears deaf, and mouth dumb. It is our dire responsibility to raise awareness globally and reach our voices to the decision makers who have been changing the fate of people on their own will.