20th Houston, Texas 2004

A four-member committee including Zafar Agha, Nawaz Ali Bhutto, Ghulam Mohiuddin, and Morai sahib is diligently working to organize activities. A detailed status report will be issued in near future.

SATURDAY, JULY 3, 2004 – KIDS CORNER (3 PM to 4:30 PM)
This session was attended by several Sindhi youth where Sindhi youngsters intermingled to make new or renewed their friendships. ZAFAR AGHA moderated the session and he took the kids on a journey through Sindh’s history. Most youths were quite pleased with session as according to some; the session was quite informative and not too long.

SATURDAY, JULY 3, 2004 – GUEST SPEAKERS (2:15 PM to 4:30 PM)
A strong group of 150 persons attended this very informative and interesting session addressed by two American scholars.

DR. ALLEN KEITH is a Secretary General of World Health Association and associated with many international organizations active in education, global health, and medical field. He has published a book “Politics of Sindh and Muslim Identity in Pakistan – 1907-1940) and visited SaeeN G.M. Syed (considered by many Sindhis as the father of Sindh nationalism) in his hometown called Sann several years ago. He knows Hindi, Urdu and other Indo-Pakistani languages.

He started his address by asking audience several questions “What does Sindhi mean to you? What does it represent to you? What does being Sindhi means to your children? Without waiting for the answers from audience, he went ahead and explained the peaceful nature of Sindhi folks, they have rich history, they have selfless culture, and strong identity. He added that he will never forget his visit to Sindh and will always cherish those memories. He said “There is something unique about Sindhis, that you just don’t find in other Pakistani compatriots”. When you meet Sindhis, they always want to talk about heritage and civilization. In contrast, the people of Punjab are more interested about places and features of their province. Talking about his book, he mentioned that the Sindh’s decision to join Pakistan was strongly influenced by the success of Sindhi Muslim politicians in separating from Bombay. This troubled the Hindu Sindhi politicians and the two sides were never able to fully bridge that gap after that. He said he awarded a Fullbright scholarship to do research mainly about who were leaders of the movement to create Pakistan and what contributions were made by Sindhi leaders in creating Pakistan. During his research, he met several English scholars (Francis Woody, Hugh Dow, and others) and traveled to Sindh, where he met Hatem Alvi, two Rashdi brothers, and other scholars and leaders. During that visit, at the invitation of G. M. Syed, he went to Sann and stayed with him for few days while he was under house arrest. He recited a very interesting story that while SaeeN G. M. Syed was showing his library, he noticed several areas in book shelves no books. Upon his inquiry, SaeeN G. M. Syed said that because he was not sure about the next actions of the government, he had arranged to store some of the sensitive and important papers buried underground to be opened only after his death. He added, he recently asked SaeeN G. M. Syed’s grandson about this and was surprised to learn that he had not heard anything about that.

DR. JONATHAN MARK KENOYER is a professor of Anthropology at the University of Wisconsin and a co-director of Harpa project. He made a slide presentation titled “Sindh and the Indus Valley Civilization: Textile and Ornament Traditions”. He has lived in India for 18 years and speaks Hindi, Sindhi, and Urdu very fluently. Through the story of textile and ornaments found at Moen-jo-daro and Harpa, he demonstrated the rich culture and heritage of Indus valley civilization. He said that Sindh was far more advanced center in textile and ornament technologies than other civilizations of those days including Europe. Sindh was one of the most important trading centers of the world. Tracing the roots of the Indus River, he said in old days there were actually two rivers flowing in the Indus valley – one was called Sindhu and other the Nara River and Indus valley’s fertile and green regions were twice as large as is today. He added that some of the old methods for making garments and ornaments are still practiced by “Kanbiri” or “Jogis”. The region was an important source of quality wool and silk and producing coloring dyes extracted from plants (for example, indigo plant). The trade practices and advanced manufacturing methods made Sindh a very large importer of raw materials and exporter of finished goods. The people of Indus valley had a common and uniform weighing system. In contrast in most other parts of the world, individual cities had their own weighing systems makes inter-regional trading rather difficult. He added there is no evidence of people killing people, something akin to the sufi thinking prevalent in present day Sindh. He said that difference between “culture” and “civilization” is that a civilization generally is made up of many cultures. For example, various provinces of present-day Pakistan belong to the ancient Indus valley civilization and yet each province has own flavor of culture. Answering to a question about whether Indus valley was composed of single nation or many nations, he replied that in old days the concept of “nation” was not the same as today. The nations as defined within the confines of geographic-political boundaries were limited to very small regions. The modern concept of a “nation” developed as small regions got merged or absorbed into larger entities.

SATURDAY, JULY 3, 2004 – DINNER FOLLOWED BY MUSIC PROGRAM (7 PM to 12:00 AM)
The local Sindhis of Houston had arranged a delicious dinner at a near-by Mediterranean restaurant. Although, the restaurant was less than quarter of mile away from the hotel, the gracious hosts organized an army of volunteers to transport guests. The dinner was delicious and the musical program that followed later at the hotel was also excellent.

SUNDAY, JULY 4, 2004 – MEDICAL AND BUSINESS SEMINARS (10:00 Am -11:00 AM
AIJAZ TURK moderated the medical seminar segment. In addition to him, SATTAR SHAIKH, and RAFAT ANSARI made formal and informal presentations. A general public oriented lectures on the causes and preventative measures were made about coronary diseases, diabetics, various forms of cancer, Hepatitis and other gastroenteritis diseases. To stop the alarming rates of lung cancer in developing countries, the need to start “stop smoking” campaigns was emphasized. The increasing rates of Hepatitis C and Tuberculosis in Pakistan were connected to lack of clean drinking water and inadequate health facilities. FAROOQ SOOMRO made a business presentation on his companies Sindh-based outsourcing services including transcribing and call center available to medical practitioners and facilities. He said the management of his company was mainly Sindhi and the company was supported by a financially strong investors.

NAIM MEMON moderated the “Business” segment seminar. Ms CARMEN ALVAREZ talked about the Harris county medical help services available to women, infants, and children who live in the County. Mr. BAQAR SHAH made a presentation titled “Creating Value and Sustainable Competitive Advantage”. He talked about how to gain competitive advantage by knowing your competitor and your customer.

SUNDAY, JULY 4, 2004 – LADIES PROGRAM (12:30 PM – 2 PM)
In keeping with previous years, this year’s ladies session was attended mostly by ladies, although some gents sat at the back of room to support the session. Apart from talking about their interests, Adi ZEB AGHA tabled some serious issues such as “KARO KARI” that attracted some serious discussion. Included in this session was a beautiful song sung by adi Roshan Ara Talpur was a vivid reminder of Mai Bhagi and Rubina Quraishi era (Source: Nazia Junejo’s posting)

SUNDAY, JULY 4, 2004 – BRAINSTORMING SESSION (2:15 PM – 4 PM and 5:30 PM to 6:30 PM)
The theme of the session was “WHAT CAN NORTH AMERICAN SINDHIS
DO ALLEVIATE PLIGHT OF SINDHIS” and was moderated by KHALID HASHMANI and was planned by him and Adi NAZIA JUNEJO. Although only 25-30 participants were expected, more than 70 persons turned out for this often-heated session. To ensure tangible results, the following rules were agreed.

1. Moderator will invite 5-6 persons with whom he already had discussed the theme, to present their recommendation taking no more than 3 minutes.
2. After that session would be opened to all those present for one minute presentation followed by 1-minute arguments to support or oppose a recommendation.
3. Each person was requested to limit their participation to one or two until every one had a chance to present their views.
4. In the end all recommendations will be ranked and one or two top ones will be agreed for the implementation.

After almost two hours of discussion, where sometimes tempers flew and out-of-control situations occurred, the following recommendations were short-listed:

1. Support Education of Sindhis – it holds the key if we were to succeed in alleviating plight of Sindhis
2. . Have a stronger grass-roots organization of Sindhis with good structure and management for an effective struggle.
3. Focus on fighting for human rights and restoring true democracyin Pakistan.
4. Help Sindhis to alleviate their small and day-to-day issues such as medical treatment, offering help against police or wadera brutality, and pursuing bureaucrats to solve day-to-day problems.
5. Help build a team of intellectuals, writers, poets and social workers to lead a movement.
6. Undertake efforts to create a ” Sindhi Think Tank” that will generate new ideas and support Sindhi organizations to fight against the plight.
7. In short-term focus on “ID card” issue which is being misused in Sindh to deny participation in of Sindhis in elections and show reduced count of their population.
8. Focus on local issues of Sindhis and play only a supporting role — only Sindhis back home can effectively fight their plight.

As the time had ended, it was decided to hold second session after the “Adabi session has ended.

In the second session the discussion mainly centered on education and how to strengthen Sindhi organizational capacity in North America. The second session too was emotionally charged when some felt that we were not getting anywhere. But, as every one was resolved to have a successful conclusion. Because of this determination, the group agreed to the following two recommendations:

1. The group recommended to the Executive Council/Board of Directors of SANA, WSI, and WSC to actively engage in cooperation and carry out more and more joint projects. Overwhelming majority approved this recommendation with one vote against and one abstained.
2. Created a Working team to investigate and recommend a plan for supporting a new or existing school at the village level. SARFRAZ ABBASI, who is already committed to start a new school in his village, will act as a chair. Other members include Shoukat Ali Bhangar, Nazia Junejo, Laghari, Adi Noorunnisa Ghanghro, and Khalid Hashmani.

(Below is a reproduction from Adi Nazia Junejo’s posting) It was refreshing to see the passion, zeal and awareness in our community towards our mutual problems. It shows that our Sindhi nation is not as dormant and passive as some people portray it to be. A majority of Sindhis think ‘proactively’ about the problem solving strategies and almost everyone has a well-defined answer in his mind towards the main problems. These strategies may differ in their routes but are more or less similar in terms of goal orientation. Here I would like you to consider a hypothetical situation: If there are 10 people all starting on foot from a point X and trying to reach point Y… How likely is it and how long would it take them to reach their destination individually using their own ‘sense of direction’? As opposed to, if they all sat down together and usedten minds instead of one to make an educated guess pooled their resources and hired a bus?

Although majority of us Sindhis consider ourselves very mature and open-minded; but in the situations like this, we occasionally give in too easily to slightest amount of provocation. At this stage (probably at no stage) the resultant bitterness would be helpful to our cause.

SUNDAY, JULY 4, 2004 – ADABI SESSION (4 PM – 5 PM)
The Adabi (literary) session was presided over by DR. FAHMIDA HUSSAIN, Director of Shah Latif Chair at the Karachi University. A prominent short story writer MUSHTAQ SHORO was the chief guest and AZIZ NAREJO moderated the session. Dr. Fahmida spoke on the poetry of Shah Abdul Latif. Mr. Shoro presented a brief review of the inception, development and progress of short story in Sindh. Ms Noorunnisa Ghanghro spoke on the women writers in Sindhi literature. (Source: Aziz Narejo’s posting)

SUNDAY, JULY 4, 2004 – ANNUAL BANQUET AND MUSICAL EVENING (7 PM – 1 AM)
The dinner and music arrangements were truly great. There were in excess of 400 people in the hall making it the most attended event of the evening. A 10-course dinner with “Indo-Pakistan” cuisine was delicious. Most audience enjoyed food while a local band played soft “desi” songs and instruments. The dinner was followed by fabulous musical evenings with talented singers. It was quite touching to find out that Mr. Morai and Ms. SHAZIA KHUSHK, who came in to perform for the sake of their solidarity to North American Sindhis without any monetary incentives. They and some local talent enthralled the audience with beautiful music. Several prominent local personalities addressed the audience This included Mr. Rasool Bakhsh Baloch, the first Consulate General of Pakistan in Houston. He was requested to present awards to the artists Ms. Shazia Khushk and Saeen Ghalam Nabi Morai. Another person was introduced, as a member of the Houston City Council who I am told originally is an Urdu-speaking who originally came from Latifabad area of Hyderabad and proudly claims that he is a Sindhi! Another person was introduced as the current President of the Pakistan Association for Greater Houston (PAGH). Although some were not thrilled to see these previously unannounced speakers, Most participants have any issue with speaking and gave warm welcome to them. The local organizers explained that they invited them to see the strength of our local Sindhi community and super organization of our big event. Often those invitees provide tremendous help when local Sindhis run in to problems such as immigration and other matters of that nature. The chair of the local organizing committee also announced that they had invited representative of the local Sindhi Hindu organizations and welcomed their presence. Several Sindhi school students were recognized for their academic achievement and receive impressive awards. To celebrate 20th anniversary of SANA, a massive cake, fit to feed 400-500 guests, was brought to the hall. The honor of cutting the cake was bestowed on the Dr. Ali Mohammad Ansari, founding members (Altaf Memon and Khalid Hashmani), past President (Mazhar Lakho), and current acting President (Sajjad Siddiqui).

CONCLUSION
There was almost universal agreement that this was one of the best-organized and as well one of the most memorable SANA conventions. The Houston Sindhis had set a bar that every one is going to be hard pressed to beat. Many thanks to all members of the Local Organizing Committee, particularly Ada Jamil and Adi Fouzia Daudi, and Ada Zafar Agha and Adi Zeb Agha.