Author: Agnieszka Piasecka

Aga is a student of International Relations at the Warsaw School of Social Sciences and Humanities in Warsaw, Poland. She had also been awarded with grants to perform research in Korea and has long term personal interest in East and South Asian contemporary socioeconomic and political affairs. She maintains a blog at www.coastalasiaunrevealed.blogspot.com.

A dream to climb

In my brain people divide not into men and women, villagers and urban, but into those who go to the mountains and those who don’t. The latter will never understand that urge.
(Freedom Climbers)

Several days ago all mountain lovers in Poland celebrated success of Adam Bielecki and Janusz Gołąb, Polish climbers who for the first time in history climbed Gasherbrum I (one of the eighthousanders located in Pakistan) in winters and without the oxygen gear.

Now the whole expedition is stuck in the base-camp because of bad weather and the only contact with them is via satellite phones. Another international group, an Austrian Gerfried Goeschl (leader), Swiss Cedric Hahlen and Pakistani Nisar Hussain attacked the summit also on March 9th. At the moment there is no contact with them and their fate remains unknown.

Why people choose such a fate? Why do they spend their last financial resources to go and sweat, struggle with wind, freezing cold, high altitude and oxygen deprivation? I hike myself and my dad used to climb when he was young. It is impossible to explain. In my brain people divide not into men and women, villagers and urban, but into those who go to the mountains and those who don’t. The latter will never understand that urge.

But if I try to explain to myself why I do that? Somehow in struggle and pain, when I know my limits, I know the Divine. When I look at the pure and simple beauty of harsh walls and peaks and I know I had to really work hard to see it, that I am chosen to watch it, I feel the Creator of the world much closer. Climbers and hikers may die one day because of what they do. But I am sure if they had a choice to go again, they would.

Winter Himalaism is Polish specialty by now. 9 of peaks above 8000 m of height were climbed for the first time in winter by Polish teams. Remaining 3 are Nanga Parbat, K2, and Broad Peak, all in Pakistan. I remember my Indian friend telling me his memoirs of the autumn trek to Goecha La – a 4950m pass over the Talung glacier in Sikkim facing the Eastern face of Kanchenjunga. During this considerably low trek he had taste of changing altitude and oxygen deprivation due to lower atmospheric pressure. When he described what Polish do in climbing he said: Its the kind of plans that most people would call insane but they push boundaries of human endurance. Nanga Parbat has a route called Polish line … and its probably the most difficult route to the top.

Bernadette MacDonald who wrote Freedom Climbers tried to analyze what is the secret behind this special trait that makes Polish do that among so many other nations. During the presentation of the book last Monday in Warsaw she said that it was the love of freedom that makes it, competitiveness, and this special thought that nothing is impossible. There is a goal, a plan, and action to achieve it. With no limitations of typical human brain that would tell them Man you will never succeed, nobody before you did.

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Two brave Pakistani porters-climbers went to search for the lost international team.

Polish wait till the weather improves to get help.

They dream to come home.

And they probably dream of K2.

I hope they will have that chance.

 

 

 

Zofia and Władysław Turowicz – Pakistanis By Choice

I, the author of this memorial, am a 31 years old urban female who lives in a big developed capital city of the 18th wealthiest economy in the world and every single day I am fed with stories of blasts and bombings and picture of hostile Muslim world, especially Pakistan.

However I am an orientalist focused on East Asia and a traveller. So my mind embraces the core of the matter and not just the media image. Yet I humbly admit that I was always reluctant and afraid to go to Karachi or Islamabad having impression that I will be either abducted or killed in an ambush as a foreigner.

My surprise however was big when today on the radio I heard about the death and burial of Zofia Turowicz. Both she and her husband left Poland in 1939 to join the battlefield of the Second World War. The political changes on the map of Europe never allowed them to go back because Stalinist regime hunted down intellectuals and officers of pre-war independent Poland.  Mrs Turowicz or Turowiczowa how her last name is gendered in old-style Polish, was one of the first ever Pakistani gliding teachers who created gliding training programme, the basis for later military pilots, as early as in 1950. She stopped military career in 1957 and later worked at the American School and the University of Karachi where she taught applied mathematics and other core subjects.

Her husband Władysław Turowicz died in 1980 after long term career in Pakistani military aviation industry and forces. He came to Pakistan in 1948 and his wife joined soon after for the three-year contract with Pakistan Air Force which aimed to transform Pakistan Air Force into permanent and effective Air Force of the region. Turowicz set up technical institutes in Karachi. He taught and revitalized Pakistan Air Force Academy as its chief scientist. He initially led the technical training in the airbase and a part of the Polish specialists in the technical section in Karachi. However, they were transferred and accommodated in Peshawar.

In 1952, Turowicz, along with several Polish fighters, were promoted to the rank of Wing Commander. He was also promoted to the rank Lieutenant Commander when he became an Air Force Commander of Pakistan Air Force’s Chaklala Airbase. Promoted several times again along with other Polish Air Force general, became an Air Commodore and a Deputy Chief of Air Staff, in charge of Pakistan Air Force Training Department.

Turowicz was involved in building the face of what is called modern Pakistan. His service added to the pride of the new nation and likely added Polish sense of being statesman to the military and scientific personnel he trained over the years.

During the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965, Turowicz along with other Polish pilots rose to prominence and fame as they helped in successfully defending Lahore and Pakistan. Turowicz, Squadron Leader Anotnii Zbigniew Jedryszek, and other Polish pilots were awarded the Sitara-e-Pakistan. Honorary Pakistani citizenship was also bestowed upon Turowicz, as well as, some other Polish pilots by the President of Pakistan, Ayub Khan.

Turowicz was actively and heavily involved in Pakistan’s space program. According to his close sources, Turowicz was passionate and fascinated with the Russian and American space program.  In 1966, the Government of Pakistan transferred him to SUPARCO, Pakistan’s national space agency, where he worked as a chief scientist and an aeronautical engineer. Together with noted Pakistani theoretical physicist, Dr. Abdus Salam, who later won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1979 convinced president Khan to launch space program for peaceful purposes. He was sure that Pakistan will develop rocket technology and launch its first satelite due course of time. He insisted on sufficient funds for research and development of this sector. His prediction came true, when 10 years after the death of Air. Mar. Gen. Władysław Turowicz, Pakistan launched its first indigenously developed experimental digital communication satellite from Xichang Satellite Launch Center, People’s Republic of China aboard a Long March 2E. His vision did come true but unfortunately, he wasn’t there to see it.

He successfully convinced the United States Government to invest and train Pakistan’s scientists in the field of rocket technology. He is widely credited with setting up the rocket fuel factories and rocket technology laboratories and research institutes in Pakistan. He was one of the chief designers  of Sonmiani Satellite Launch Centre.

He did not stop with Space Programme though. Turowicz initiated himself Nuclear weapons programme in 1970 and laid foundation of research and production that led to Pakistani independent source of Nuclear military potential.

His entire family lived in Pakistan ever since they have entered the country in 1948. His three daughters live in Pakistan and two of them married Pakistanis.

Zofia and Władysław Turowicz were partners both on the ground and in the air where she often joined him as a navigator during his flights. They both had independent military aviation careers before arrival to Pakistan and had been multiawarded and internationally recognised gliders and para shooters.

They are both buried at the catholic cemetery in Karachi in Pakistan and both had been awarded Pakistani citizenship.

Their story reminded me to watch the world with my own eyes and be even more curious and even more brave and less cuffed in the ready stereotypes I am being fed everyday by media and society.