Zulfi's Blog

OVERBURDENED STUDENTS

2012-01-10T16:21:00.001+05:00

By:Dr Faisal Bari Tests, tests, exams, and more tests

Whenever I visit a friend’s house, who has four school-going children, I always find, apart from the summer holidays period, inevitably, that all of his children have either just finished giving tests or examinations, are preparing for them, or are in the middle of them. And given there are four children, one of them is always in the middle of tests, and so the household is always ensuring that at least that child, and in general all the children, are always preparing for these tests and keep up with their studies.

I asked the children how many tests/examinations they got. They reported that they had term finals and midterms, and in addition monthly assessments as well as weekly ones. And then sometimes they would get surprise tests as well. So with 6-8 subjects to contend with for every student, it means every week they had some exam or test to worry about. And a lot of teachers took tests at the start of the week giving students the weekend for preparation. Which means the weekends are usually spent studying for more than one test coming up. I checked with some other children in other ‘good’ private schools too, and the pattern was similar.

The story of homework assignments is in addition to the test/examination issue. But it does add to the time children have to spend studying every evening. Again with 6-8 subjects, and no coordination between teachers on homework assignments, students get homework for every subject almost every day.

Parents and schools want good results from students, and clearly quality of education is linked to effort as well, but what is an appropriate level of effort that we want our students to make? Should they be spending all or almost all of their time away from school studying, and should this continue all the time? One can understand more work in key years and at key times, like closer to finals and so on, but such an effort cannot and should not be expected all the time. This will not lead to better quality.

Children, like adults, need time to internalise what they read. They need to play, mentally and physically, with what they learn so that they can make it a part of their conceptual framework. If children are always cramming for exams and working on their homework, when do they get time to reflect on and play with what they are learning and internalise the material? And if they do not do this, they will develop a tendency to cram and will make rather poor students, and more importantly, will end up going through the education system and even getting all the certificates and degrees, but without having the ability to use what they have learnt.

I was surprised to find that many students use ‘study guides’ even at O-Level or A-Level stages. How can this be good? The students feel they have to cram as quickly as possible, but if they are not taking the time to read their textbooks and original sources that have been put in their syllabi, they are shortchanging their learning process.

I have seen this in many students already. If you ask them to define or explain something they will rattle off the definitions and explanations immediately. But, at least in the case of economics, I can tell which books have they usually studied from because they use the same words that are in their books. If you ask them to explain, in their own words, what they have said, many of them are stumped and confused. Furthermore, if you ask them to give an example, from their life or from around them, to illustrate the principle they are talking of, many of them cannot do that. This is tragic. If children are not able to connect what they are learning with their lives while in schools, what are we teaching them and how are we teaching them?

Are private schools, and almost all of the top private ones seem to be quite similar in their approach to education, pushing students too much to cram and reproduce rather than study, understand, and reflect on what they have studied? And are they also over-testing the students and giving them too much homework? The world is competitive and we have to prepare our youth well, but we should not take things to the point where the preparation we give them kills their creativity and hampers their development and competitiveness. This would be counterproductive at so many levels.

A connected issue, but one that I have been asked to raise by a number of parents, is about the physical load we put our children under. One of my friends tells me that his child, in grade one, weighs less than how much his school bag weighs. The school bag has six text books and six notebooks apart from stationary, lunch box and so on. The child drags this bag to school everyday and drags it back in the afternoon. In higher grades the bags might not outweigh the children but they do remain very heavy. This is another indicator of the load on children, quite literally. Why can’t schools, who can afford it, have lockers for children, or desks that have a drawer in them where children can leave some of the books/notebooks they do not need to bring home on any particular day? But if they have class periods for each subject everyday and get homework for all subjects too, and have tests happening too frequently as well, it will not be possible to leave the books home or at school overnight. The connection with workload is clear.

Educational quality should be a concern for everyone: the parents, the school, and the society. There is an ‘optimal’ way of doing things and we should know that time spent on a task and developing understanding of the task is not linearly related: quality of education does not keep improving as we put more and more pressure on children. At some point additional effort can lead to reduced understanding. In some schools, as a pedagogic tool, it seems there is just too much pressure on students. The parents, feeling that this is good, are going along with it. But it is counterproductive. It is forcing children to take sub-optimal routes such as cramming and/or resorting to study guides and so on. Parents and school administrations need to look into the issue in more detail.

From Pakistan Today, Pakistan, Tuesday 3rd January, 2012

Of economic justice

2012-01-10T08:01:00.000+05:00

By: Asghar Ali Engineer

JUSTICE is one of the central values in Islam, and any economic system not based on justice is unacceptable. The Quran emphasises distributive justice and lends unqualified support to weaker sections of society, whom it calls mustadifun; it condemns the arrogant ruling classes (mustakbirun) that suppress the weaker sections.

I was inspired to write this piece by the recent Occupy Wall Street protests in America for economic justice, which also spread to Europe. They have raised the slogan, ‘We are 99 per cent’, and leaders of the movement say that just one per cent of Americans have concentrated all the wealth in their own hands, depriving 99 per cent of their rights. People wearing badges with the slogan gather at Wall Street in New York and financial hubs in Europe.

In America, a fortress of capitalism, profit is the only sacred word and distributive justice a dirty one. Freedom there is
considered a fundamental value but it is hardly inclusive of freedom to be a socialist, much less communist. It is from this milieu that this movement has started demanding distributive justice and opposing the concentration of wealth in a few hands.

It is interesting to compare the present-day economic situation with what was happening in Makkah before Islam. As a centre of international trade and finance, Makkah was where tribal chiefs had formed a monopoly over trade to accumulate wealth, neglecting all morality and the weaker sections of society. Much like in our own times, when globalisation and economic liberalisation have allowed a few people to accumulate wealth, in pre-Islamic Makkah polarisation between the rich and the poor had increased, leading to social tensions. These were explosive, as very vividly described in the Quran.

Surah 104 points to ‘one who accumulates wealth and counts it again and again and thinks that this wealth will make him eternal. But surely he will be thrown into hutumah.’ What is hutumah? ‘It is burning fire which will engulf the heart…’ In another Makkan surah, the Quran says, ‘Don’t you see the man who belies Deen? It is this man who pushes away the orphans and does not induce people to feed the poor, and deprives people of their small needs’ (107).

Pre-Islamic Makkah was a centre of world trade as most international caravans laden with luxury goods passed through that city. The tribal chiefs, who first acted as guides for crossing the vast desert between Makkah and the Roman Empire, became expert traders. They were greedy for more and more wealth and sought more and more profit.This obsession with profit-making kept them so engaged that in Surah 102 the Quran says, ‘Your riches have made you quite negligent of your studies till you visit your graves’. While this dominant section of Makkan tribal chiefs was becoming super rich, the poor, the
orphans, the widows and the slaves were totally neglected and exploited to accumulate more riches. The victims of the traders’ greed were leading lives of abject poverty and deprivation. Nothing moved the rich whereas there was earlier no concept of the poor in a more equitable tribal society.

It was against this background that such verses were revealed in the Quran. Justice, moreover, is so central in Quranic ethics that Allah’s name is Adil and the Quran says, ‘Do Justice, it is closest to piety’ (5:8). The complete absence of distributive justice and concentration of wealth in pre-Islamic Makkah can be compared with what is happening in America. Wealth has become so concentrated in the hands of one per cent that 99 per cent are feeling the heat, losing jobs and fearing starvation — in America, where people had forgotten what a life of poverty was.

It is under these circumstances that this movement has started and people are protesting on Wall Street and at other such financial hubs. Of course the western media is not too interested in such movements, which expose the weakness of capitalism. Only occasionally are a few compelled to write about it, without making it too visible in the print or electronic media.

Compared to this state of affairs, pre-Islamic Makkah had no democracy nor awareness about one’s rights; neither did it have a democratic system in place, and so the only way to make people aware of their rights was through divine revelation. Hence the Quran, an instrument of divine revelation through Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), was revealed. It condemned the concentration of wealth in a few hands and large-scale deprivation of people. The cited Quranic verses created awareness among the faithful about distributive justice.

The Quran is in favour of leading a need-based life and opposes all greed or a luxurious lifestyle. It clearly enjoins to give away what is left with one after fulfilling one’s needs (the Quran calls it afw). However, Muslims, except the followers of the Prophet (PBUH) during his lifetime and a few thereafter, never practised it. Many companions of the Prophet (PBUH) considered it sinful to drink water in a gold or silver vessel. But such scruples were short-lived in Muslim history.

If Muslims had taken the Quranic verses seriously and put them into practice they would have been the role model for the world for introducing a distributive justice system and a conflict-free world; a world without wars and bloodshed, a peaceful world where everyone would have felt secure, a living paradise on earth. But capitalism, in order to make the lives of a few plentiful and wasteful, has made it a living hell for many today.

The writer is an Islamic scholar who also heads The Centre for Study of Society & Secularism, Mumbai

Source: http://www.dawn.com/2012/01/06/of-economic-justice.html

Sindhi women publicly announce free-will marriages: DAWN News

2011-10-03T15:30:00.001+05:00

Young women from the province frequently publish announcements in Sindhi newspapers declaring their intention to marry of their own free will. – Photo by Dawn

HYDERABAD: Honour killings and forced marriages in Sindh receive wide attention in the national media. What is less well-known is that young women from the province frequently publish announcements in Sindhi newspapers declaring their intention to marry of their own free will.

As a way of fending off allegations that they have been kidnapped or have committed adultery, it is a bold move by these women but is known to few people beyond the readership of these regional papers.

Shabana Khatoon, 23, of Bhango Behan in Khairpur district, declares in widely circulated Sindhi daily Kawish that her parents wanted to sell her to an older man for marriage. Ms Khatoon’s announcement is a summary of an attested affidavit she had a lawyer prepare for her and explains that she decided to run away and marry another man,

Ghulam Murtaza Burero, in accordance with Islamic law.

She adds that no one has kidnapped her and that she is making the declaration as an adult in full possession of her senses. In case her parents register a case against her, her husband or his parents, it should be considered fake. Her statement, she says, is meant for purposes of record in case her parents move against her.

Shakeela Sheikh of Umerkot district also seeks protection through an announcement in the same paper, stating that she is divorced and left her parents’ house to marry Ali Ghulam Chandio when they tried to get her remarried against her will. Guddi of Badin announces that her parents got her engaged to Asghar Ali, who used to bear the expenses of her family, but now want to marry her off to a man offering better compensation.

Couples like Ms Shabana and Mr Burero normally first contact a lawyer who prepares an affidavit based on their story that is attested by a judicial magistrate or notary public. They then have a nikah and announce it by publishing an advertisement commonly titled “dhiyan talab” (“seeking attention”) or “qasam namo” (“sworn affidavit”). Some approach a local court to solemnise their marriages, also asking for protection from their families for fear of being declared karo-kari.

A study carried out by Kawish shows that an average of four to five couples announce these free-will marriages in the paper each day, and an executive in charge of advertisements there says this number can be as high as eight or nine a day. The men and women belong to a wide range of districts, tribes and castes of Sindh, including its Hindu communities, although most do not come from affluent families.

Couples who come to the newspaper’s officers are sometimes too poor to afford regular rates, are often scared for their lives, and sometimes send a relative or lawyer instead of risking a visit themselves. Before publishing the advertisements the newspaper asks for signatures and NICs from the couples, attested affidavits, and photographs of the women involved.

Mayaram Rathi, a manager who handles advertising for daily Ibrat, explains that this is not a new phenomenon and that such advertisements have been published for the last three decades. They include various kinds of cases ranging from teenage girls being forced to marry much older men, women being forced to marry men they don’t know and parents breaking engagements for monetary reasons.

In some instances the announcements are published by Hindu girls who have chosen Muslim husbands. They declare that they have converted to Islam, often adding that they were inspired by Muslim neighbours they had been visiting since their childhoods. One reason for the women to opt for this bold step is to prevent harassment by police or simply to seek the protection of law enforcers and the judicial system from their families, who lodge FIRs of theft or kidnapping, pressurise the couples through their communities or seek the help of jirgas.

But according to social worker Lala Hassan Pathan, who has been working on cases of violence against women and free-will marriages for the last seven years, police seldom take note of these announcements or keep them on record. The couples themselves send clippings to local police officers, who rarely take action based on them and sometimes register kidnapping cases on the parents’ behalf despite the existence of these declarations under oath.

According to Mr Pathan, men who end up in police custody for kidnapping in such cases are often tortured while the women are pressurised and sometimes taken away by parents with the knowledge of police. Judges in lower courts, he says, also tend to be unsympathetic towards the couples in free-will cases.

According to women’s rights activist Arfana Mallah, however, the attitude of the lower judiciary towards women is changing and lawyers are now able to go to court with these affidavits without needing the support of NGOs or influential members of civil society.

On the other hand, she says, the publication of these announcements may provoke parents and other relatives and has been followed by the women’s deaths in some instances. Using the media is a double-edged sword for the women of Sindh; the same declarations that can save them from honour killings can also leave them vulnerable to even more angry reprisals.

Source: http://www.dawn.com/2011/09/03/sindhi-women-publicly-announce-free-will-marriages.html

Raymond Davis charged in parking spot fightym

2011-10-03T15:01:00.000+05:00

Fayr Pharreyaa Gayaa!

Caught Again. In this Jan. 28, 2011, file photo, Pakistani security officials escort Raymond Allen Davis, center, to a local court in Lahore, Pakistan

HIGHLANDS RANCH, Colorado: A CIA contractor freed by Pakistani authorities after the families of two men he killed in a shootout agreed to accept a $2.34 million “blood money” payment was charged Saturday after authorities said he got into a fight over a shopping center parking spot.

Deputies responding to an altercation between two men outside an Einstein Bagel in Highlands Ranch, south of Denver, took Raymond Davis into custody Saturday morning, said Sheriff’s Lt. Glenn Peitzmeier. He was charged with third-degree assault and disorderly conduct, both misdemeanors.

Further details on his arrest, which was first reported by KMGH-TV Channel 7 in Denver, were not immediately available.

Peitzmeier said the victim, who was not identified, refused medical treatment at the scene. Davis was freed from the jail after posting bond, Peitzmeier said.

In January, Davis said he shot two Pakistani men who tried to rob him in Lahore. The case enraged many in the country, where anti-American sentiment runs high.

The US insisted Davis had immunity from prosecution, but he was not released until March 16 under a deal that compensated the victims’ families, who agreed to accept ”blood money” under Islamic tradition. Pakistan’s security agencies came under intense domestic criticism for freeing him.

The agreement, nearly seven weeks after the shootings, ended the dispute that had strained ties between the United States and Pakistan.

Source: http://www.dawn.com/2011/10/02/raymond-davis-charged-in-parking-spot-fight.html

Dawn: Lying liars and the lies they tell By Cyril Almeida

2011-10-01T15:41:00.001+05:00

By: Cyril Almeida

If the US is the 800-pound gorilla that stamps on itself, Pakistan is like a python which thinks it’s crushing its prey but is really asphyxiating itself.

For a couple of days after Mullen’s Haqqanis-are-a-veritable-arm-of-the-ISI allegation last week, it looked like the Americans had finally achieved the improbable: synchronising their tough talk against Pakistan.

In the wake of the Kabul embassy attack, it even made sense why the improbable had materialised: a psychological red line had been crossed by the Afghan militants and the US needed to snarl and snap until the war settled back into a low-level attritional framework.

But the improbable — getting a diverse American foreign and military policy cohort to speak as one, especially when it comes to Pakistan — is actually more like the impossible. Within days, the ‘full-court press’ has started to look like the bench press of a 99-pound weakling.

Mullen didn’t really mean what he said, the Americans began to suggest, the evidence is more like intelligence, it doesn’t really go that far. Yes, the mood is very emotional in DC and in Pakistan, but there’s still work to be done so let’s focus on that, they’ve been saying.

It’s not quite kiss-and-make-up, more an awkward one-armed hug.

The relationship will continue, intelligence cooperation over the capture of yet another Al Qaeda No 3 will be interspersed with spasmodic events like WikiLeaks, Raymond Davis, the OBL raid and the Mullen allegations.

Pressure will mount, pressure will subside, there’ll be paroxysms at times of unhappiness, circumspection at times of measured success and the ungainly and clumsy contraption that is the American policymaking apparatus will continue to make life for itself even more difficult when it comes to Pakistan.

As for the Pakistani side, expect more of the same, i.e. the same
cockamamie nonsense that it has propounded for decades.

Part of the reason Pakistan commands so little respect in the world of diplomacy and international relations is that the self-appointed custodians of the national interest are inveterate liars.

The public at large may no longer be aware of this because it has been drip-fed those lies over the years and now trots them out as truth and reality when overcome by bouts of fist-waving, chest-thumping nationalism and patriotism. But the outside world is fully aware of the lies, and it does hurt Pakistan in ways perceptible and imperceptible.

Having thrust the civilians into the foreground to make the same old tired case for Pakistan this time, the same old tired lies are being repeated. They were on display again at the APC.

Pakistan wants peace and security and prosperity. Pakistan rejects all allegations against it. Pakistan is a big cuddly toy that can do no harm. The outside world misunderstands Pakistan. Pakistan has sacrificed much for the cause of peace. Pakistan is just a boy, standing in front of the world, asking it to love him.

Nobody believes it. Not the Americans, not the Europeans, not the Arabs, not even the Taliban. Mullah Zaeef has memorably said: “Pakistan … is so famous for treachery that it is said they can get milk from a bull. They have two tongues in one mouth, and two faces on one head so they can speak everybody’s language; they use everybody, deceive everybody.”

If outsiders aren’t to be believed, there is a quintessential insider who has said much the same thing that others have long accused Pakistan of.

Riaz Khan, former foreign secretary, has a chapter in his new book on Afghanistan and Pakistan in which he expounds on what he has dubbed the ‘intellectual crisis’ of Pakistan. The chapter is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand, in 60-odd pages, what has gone wrong here over the last 64 years, and particularly the last 30 some.

Given the overwrought and over-the-top theatre of the last week, it is worth reproducing a couple of paragraphs.

Riaz writes: “Yet another concern is the regressive tendency Pakistani thinking has shown towards an easy resort to denial.

This habit has its roots in the convenient myth of non-interference in Afghanistan’s affairs Pakistan maintained during the period of the Afghan jihad in the 1980s.

“[Denial of interference in Afghanistan’s affairs, of Pakistan’s nuclear programme in the 1980s and of support to the Kashmir insurgency in the 1990s] were issues of high national policy on which all states adopt positions in conformity with their national interests. However, issues of lesser import such as the presence of Osama or Mullah Omar or cross-border activity by Afghan Taliban from the Pakistani side did not warrant such categorical denials as were initially maintained in official

statements. A matter-of-fact or noncommittal position, taking into account the peculiar condition of the border regions, could do no damage, politically and diplomatically.”

He adds: “When such denials become untenable, they result in a loss of credibility, a situation that ought to be avoided. Again it bears repetition that a state of denial is not peculiar to Pakistan. It is a question of degree and loss of credibility, to the point where even the denial of fairytales becomes suspect.”

Sift through the public bombast and posturing and bristling of the last week and Riaz Khan’s diagnosis becomes all the more poignant. In the face of external aggression, most countries rally to see off the threat. Nothing unusual there.

But it’s been a strange week, even by Pakistani standards. The Haqqanis have practically been embraced as one of our own.

What was once an establishment in denial has become a country in denial. And where previously we were lying to outsiders, now we are lying to ourselves.

The writer is a member of staff.

Qadri gets death sentence in Salman Taseer’s murderMum

2011-10-01T15:34:00.001+05:00

Malik Mumtaz Hussain Qadri: Murderer of Salman Taseer, Governor Punjab

ISLAMABAD: An Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) awarded death penalty to Malik Mumtaz Hussain Qadri on Saturday, DawnNews reported.
Mr Taseer was assassinated by his security guard and personnel of Punjab Elite Force, Mumtaz Qadri, on January 4, 2011 at Kohsar Market in Islamabad.
“The court has awarded my client with death. The court announced the death sentence for him,” Shujaur Rehman, one of Qadri’s lawyers, told AFP by telephone.
Judge Pervez Ali Shah announced the verdict at the court behind closed doors in the high-security Adiyala prison in Rawalpindi, the lawyer said.
Dozens of people rallied outside the prison where the verdict was announced, chanting slogans in support of Qadri, an AFP photographer said.
Qadri had earlier confessed in court that he had killed Punjab governor Salman Taseer for his ‘blasphemous’ statements.

Source: http://www.dawn.com/2011/10/01/atc-awards-death-penalty-mumtaz-qadri.html

France's burqa ban: women are 'effectively under house arrest': Angelique writes at the Gaurdian UK

2011-09-24T11:59:00.002+05:00

- Angelique Chrisafis
- guardian.co.uk, Monday 19 September 2011 21

Hind Ahmas walks into a brasserie in the north Paris suburb of Aulnay-sous-Bois. Jaws drop, shoulders tighten and a look of disgust ripples across the faces of haggard men sipping coffee at the bar.

"Hang on, what's all this? Isn't that banned?" splutters the outraged waiter behind the bar, waving a wine bottle at her niqab. Ahmas stands firm, clutches her handbag with black-gloved hands and says: "Call the police then." But she decides there's no point fighting. We cross the road to a cafe where she's a regular. No one bats an eyelid; the boss certainly doesn't want to lose her custom. Ahmas is breaking the law by ordering an espresso and sitting in a booth in the window. But these days she is breaking the law by stepping outside her own front door.

Hind Ahmas, one of two French women facing a fine for wearing the niqab in a town near Paris

In April, France introduced a law against covering your face in public.Muslim women in full-face veils, or niqab, are now banned from any public activity including walking down the street, taking a bus, going to the shops or collecting their children from school. French politicians in favour of the ban said they were acting to protect the "gender equality" and "dignity" of women. But five months after the law was introduced, the result is a mixture of confusion and apathy. Muslim groups report a worrying increase in discrimination

and verbal and physical violence against women in veils. There have been instances of people in the street taking the law into their hands and trying to rip off full-face veils, of bus drivers refusing to carry women in niqab or of shop-owners trying to bar entry. A few women have taken to wearing bird-flu-style medical masks to keep their face covered; some describe a climate of divisiveness, mistrust and fear. One politician who backed the law said that women still going out in niqab were simply being "provocative".

Ahmas, 32, French, a divorced single mother of a three-year-old daughter, puts her handbag on the table and takes out a pepper spray and attack alarm. She doesn't live on the high-rise estates but on a quiet street of semi-detached houses. The last time she was attacked in the street a man and woman punched her in front of her daughter, called her a whore and told her to go back to Afghanistan. "My quality of life has seriously deteriorated since the ban. In my head, I have to prepare for war every time I step outside, prepare to come up against people who want to put a bullet in my head. The politicians claimed they were liberating us; what they've done is to exclude us from the social sphere. Before this law, I never asked myself whether I'd be able to make it to a cafe or collect documents from a town hall. One politician in favour of the ban said niqabs were 'walking prisons'. Well, that's exactly where we've been stuck by this law."

But despite all the fanfare surrounding the niqab ban, no woman has yet been punished under the law for wearing one. The first real test will come on Thursday, when a local judge in Meaux, east of Paris, will decide whether to hand out to Ahmas and a friend the first ever fine. They were stopped outside Meaux town hall on 5 May wearing niqabs and carrying an almond cake to celebrate the birthday of the local mayor Jean-François Copé, who is also head of Nicolas Sarkozy's rightwing UMP party and an architect of the ban. The cake was a joke, a play on the French word for fine, amende. They wanted to highlight the absurdity of a law that they say has increased a mood of anti-Muslim discrimination and driven a wedge through French society, yet seems not to have been taken seriously by the justice system. Sarkozy was accused of stigmatising women in niqab to win votes from the extreme right, yet the law didn't actually boost his poll ratings. Now, human rights lawyers are suggesting it could soon be overturned.

Only the French police can confront a woman in niqab. They can't remove her veil but must refer the case to a local judge, who can hand out a ¤150 (£130) fine, a citizenship course, or both. Some police have wrongly given on-the-spot fines, which were later annulled. Others appear to ignore women in niqab walking down the street, perhaps because they feel they have more important crimes to be stopping. The interior ministry says that since the law came into force in April there have been 91 incidents of women in niqab being stopped by police outside Paris and nine incidents in the Paris region. Each time, police file a report, but so far no judge has handed out a fine or citizenship course. The French justice ministry says "fewer than 10" cases are currently going through the courts and the lack of fines shows the state favours "dialogue" not punishment. But Gilles Devers, a lawyer acting for Ahmas and several other women in niqab, argued punishments were not being handed out because the niqab law contravenes European human rights legislation on personal liberties and freedom of religion. As soon as a fine is imposed, there will be an appeal right up to the European court of human rights in Strasbourg, which could rule against the law and expose the French state as a laughing stock.

If the French law is challenged in this way, the result would be crucial for Muslims across the continent. Belgium introduced its own niqab ban this summer, punishable not just by a fine but seven days in prison. In Italy, the far-right Northern League has resuscitated a 1975 law against face coverings to fine women in certain areas of the north. Silvio Berlusconi's party is now preparing an anti-niqab law. Denmark is preparing legislation to limit the wearing of niqabs; politicians in Austria, the Netherlands and Switzerland are pushing for outright bans. Thomas Hammarberg, the Council of Europe's commissioner for human rights,blogged this summer: "The way the dress of a small number of women has been portrayed as a key problem requiring urgent discussion and legislation is a sad capitulation to the prejudices of the xenophobes."

Ahmas grew up in and around Paris, where her father, born in Morocco, worked as a town-hall gardener. Her parents were not strict Muslims. She put on the niqab six years ago as an educated single woman who once wore mini-skirts and liked partying, but then rediscovered her faith. She says her now ex-husband had nothing to do with her choice. (The new law punishes men who force women to wear the niqab with a ¤30,000 fine, but none has yet been imposed.) Like many women in niqab who refuse to stay indoors, she is desperate for work. For years, she worked in call centres as a specialist in telephone polling. Even before the ban, she knew it would be easier to get work without the niqab, so at the office she would always pull back her veil, leaving her face exposed for the day. "Life is hard and I have to work. If my daughter wants something – even a Barbie doll – and I can't pay for it, it breaks my heart."

In January, at the height of the public debate on the niqab, Ahmas lost her job after her contract wasn't renewed. "I've contacted scores of employers looking for work. I always ask them if they accept the veil. They say, 'It depends what type. If it's tunic and trousers and a headscarf, that's OK, but a long robe is not.'" This is clear discrimination: "Totally illegal," she sighs.

Secular France has a complicated relationship with the veil. In 2004, all religious symbols including the headscarf were banned in schools. Even among Sarkozy's opponents there are very few feminists or socialist politicians who would defend the right to wear niqab in a country where secularism is one of the few issues that still unites a fragmented left. Barely a handful of people came to Notre Dame cathedral to protest against the law in April.

On the Cote d'Azur, Stéphanie, 31, still likes to go swimming in the sea off Nice wearing her niqab. But the former law student and convert toIslam tries to go when the beaches are quiet. The last time she went for a dip with her mother and 10-year-old daughter on a Sunday afternoon, a sunbather called the police. A group of officers arrived and hurried across the sand saying: "But Madame, what are you doing?" "I said: 'I'm drying myself.' They wrote in their notebooks, 'Swimming in niqab.'" Stephanie, who prefers not to give her surname, was summoned by the local state prosecutor. She arrived at court and agreed to lift her veil so security guards could check her identity, but they refused to allow her access until an exasperated prosecutor buzzed her in himself. The prosecutor, whom she described as "very human", wanted to better understand why she wore the niqab. She converted at 17 and put on the niqab several years later, long before meeting her husband. Her North African parents-in-law didn't like her wearing full-veil, and the marriage ended. Her own parents converted to Islam a few years later but don't believe a niqab is necessary. She told the prosecutor it was her choice and refused to stop wearing niqab. The prosecutor reminded her of the law and let her go with no sanction or punishment. He told the local paper, Nice Matin, that a woman in a veil was less dangerous than someone who had "double or triple parked".

Before the law, Stephanie would often be called names like "Batman, Zorro, or Ninja" in the street – often by pensioners. Now people favour swear words or sexual insults. She wants to work with children, but despite having a degree in theology, she can't find a job.

The first time Stephanie was stopped by police was for standing on a central Nice shopping street in May. A police officer illegally gave her an on-the-spot fine, which was later overturned. This summer, a bus driver refused to let her onto a bus with her daughter. "If I have a meeting, I'll always leave the house at 6.30am instead of 8.30am in case a bus won't take me and I have to wait 45 minutes for another one." Recently, after she had bought a cinema ticket for the latest Harry Potter film with her daughter, staff tried to stop her entering the screening. Eventually the cinema decided not to call the police because they didn't want to feature in the local paper.

The headquarters of the French Collective against Islamophobia is in a small ground-floor office on a cobbled street near Paris's Gare de L'Est. It doesn't promote the wearing of niqab but gives legal advice. "It's not the police I'm afraid of, it's the personal attacks on women by people acting on their own initiative in the street," says Samy Debah, the association's head.

The group's legal adviser says there has been "an explosion" in the number of physical attacks on women wearing the niqab. Many women say that their attackers were middle-aged or old people. In one recent case a young French convert was assaulted at a zoo outside Paris while carrying her 13-month-old baby. "Her child was traumatised by the zoo attack and is now being seen by a psychologist. These women blame themselves; they see a baby in that situation and think, 'It's my fault.'"

French businessman Rachid Nekkaz, who paid the fines of two women prosecuted for wearing the niqab in Brussels last year Photograph: Julien Warnand/AFP

At a cafe on the left bank, Rachid Nekkaz, a French property developer, explains why his association, Don't Touch my Constitution, was the only group to stage high-profile protests when the law came into force – he backed Ahmas's birthday-cake stunt and has set up a ¤1m fund to pay any fines over the niqab. His next, and most radical, protest action will be this Thursday, when his association announces its plans to field a woman in niqab for president in 2012. Nekkaz is personally opposed to the niqab and thinks it is fair to ban it in French state buildings. But he thinks outlawing it in all public places is "a gross attack on personal freedoms and the French constitution". "The perverse effect of this law is that women in niqab are effectively under house arrest," he says. He plays a voicemail message left on his mobile by the mother of French convert, thanking him for taking a stand and saying there are several converts in niqab in Grenoble now too afraid to leave the house.

There are no reliable statistics on who wears the niqab in France and whether they have kept wearing it since the law. It is estimated that only a few hundred women wear it, mostly French citizens. Muslim associations say a minority of women have taken off the niqab or moved abroad. Nekkaz says that more than 290 women still wearing niqab have contacted him: he says a large number were divorced with children, most were aged between 25 and 35, many were French of north African parentage, and many were living on income support. An Open Society Foundation report on women in niqabs in France in April found that of a sample of 32 women in niqab, none had been forced to wear the full veil. Many said they would refuse to take if off after the law came in, adding that they would avoid leaving home, or move abroad.

‘I’m insulted three to four times a day’ … Kenza Dride Photograph: Anne-Christine Poujoulat/AFP

Kenza Drider, a 32-year-old mother of three, was famously bold enough to appear on French television to oppose the law before it came into force. She refuses to take off her niqab – "My husband doesn't dictate what I do, much less the government" – but she says she now lives in fear of attack. "I still go out in my car, on foot, to the shops, to collect my kids. I'm insulted about three to four times a day," she says. Most say, "Go home"; some say, "We'll kill you." One said: "We'll do to you what we did to the Jews." In the worst attack, before the law came in, a man tried to run her down in his car.

"I feel that I now know what Jewish women went through before the Nazi roundups in France. When they went out in the street they were identified, singled out, they were vilified. Now that's happening to us."

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/sep/19/battle-for-the-burqa

Terror, tradition and good taste

2011-09-24T11:10:00.001+05:00

By Irfan Hussain: OpEd Dawn News

THE suicide bomber who murdered Burhanuddin Rabbani, head of the Afghan High Peace Council, concealed an explosive in his turban. This is not the first time the traditional head gear has been used to hide a bomb.

Similarly, terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan have carried weapons under burkas that they have used to slaughter innocent people. They were safe in the knowledge that they would not be stopped and searched by male security staff in deeply conservative societies. And, of course, it would be an insult to ask a Pakhtun to take off his turban.

These attitudes and traditions present formidable security challenges. We all remember how Maulana Abdul Aziz tried to escape arrest during the Lal Masjid episode by donning a burka. In India, robbers wore this all-concealing garb to hide their guns in a daring hold-up in a jewellery shop.

Security forces have been unable to come up with an answer to this troubling problem. There simply are not enough policewomen available to search every burka-clad woman in public places, and it would be anathema for male cops to demand that burkas be removed. So lives will continue to be lost at the altar of tradition.

In Europe, the burka and the niqab have become the focus of another kind of scrutiny. The French law barring these garments from public spaces has been hugely controversial. Widely supported by the majority, it has nevertheless divided opinion among feminists and liberals.

In a long recent article in the Guardian exploring the impact of the law, Angelique Chrisafis spoke to a number of women who continue to wear the full-face veil, despite the legal and social problems it poses. One of them, Hind Ahmas, said that on one occasion, she was attacked by a man and a woman on the street who told her “to go back to Afghanistan”. She was also punched in front of her three-year old daughter. The journalist quotes Ahmas about how the law has changed her life.

“In my head, I have to prepare for war every time
I step outside… The politicians claimed they were liberating us; what they`ve done is to exclude us from the social sphere. Before this law, I never asked myself whether I`d be able to make it to a café or collect documents from the town hall. One politician in favour of the ban said niqabs were `walking prisons`. Well, that`s exactly where we`ve been stuck by this law.”

The fine for breaking the law is 150 euros; thus far, a judge has yet to impose it. But by the same token, only a few hundred Muslim women are estimated to wear the niqab. In most cases, they have chosen to wear the Islamic covering, rather than being forced to. One woman mentioned in the article compared herself to pre-Second World War Jews, and the persecution and attacks they suffered in France.After this article appeared, I expected a spate of letters to the editor of the Guardian from its staunchly liberal readers denouncing the French law. I saw three letters printed on the subject expressing strong views against the custom of women covering themselves. Emily Marbach wrote:

“If the Jewish women could have torn off their yellow stars and slipped into the masses to survive, they would have done it in a flash. Most Jews have integrated into the societies they have come to live in….”

Leni Gillman cites Islamic doctrine in her criticism of the practice of concealing women`s faces: “Nowhere in Islamic teaching are women required to wear the burka, the niqab or any other swaths of clothing. The only injunction for both men and women is to dress modestly. These coverings are a matter of choice for Muslim women, and nothing to do with faith … Women wearing these styles of dress render their humanity invisible, which is presumably part of their purpose, so they should be prepared to accept the consequences in secular European countries. If wearing such clothes is so important to these women, perhaps they should find accommodation in one of the many countries that approve of them.”

Finally, Maureen Green writes:

“How sad the Guardian should express sympathy for a custom that deprives women of sunlight and fresh air. What next? A survey of the possible benefits of stoning women to death for adultery?”

These writers — all women — reflect a widespread revulsion towards burkas and niqabs in the West. Many liberals oppose it because they think Muslim men force their wives or daughters to cover themselves. Others feel these garments prevent women from achieving their potential and limit them in every sense.

My own feelings on the subject are pretty conflicted: while I respect people`s right to dress as they please, I do feel garments should not cause offence. Thus, if somebody wishes to strip in public, I would suggest they do so in the privacy of their homes. Fortunately, there are laws against public nudity that protect us from unattractive individuals exposing themselves.

Above all, I have a horror of people who try deliberately to call attention to themselves. Thus, orthodox Jews who wear skullcaps, long black coats and untrimmed beards draw curious stares wherever they go. A couple of generations ago, they would also have attracted insulting comments.

The Guardian article quotes Ahmas on the subject of finding work: “I`ve contacted scores of employers looking for work. I always ask them if they accept the veil. They say: “It depends what type. If it`s tunic and trousers and a headscarf, that`s OK, but a long robe is not.”

As an experiment, I wore a burka a few years ago to see how it felt. My world shrank; it was hot and uncomfortable; and my movements were restricted. In short, I would not wish anybody to spend a lifetime in such a garment. But as I said, I respect individual choice, provided it is freely arrived at.

Having said that, the fact is that wearing it not only limits choices, but can also represent a security threat. I think the old adage `When in Rome, do as the Romans do` pretty much sums up my feelings on the subject. Sadly, this still does not resolve the security issues in Afghanistan and Pakistan…

http://www.dawn.com/2011/09/24/terror-tradition-and-good-taste.html

Source:

Several countries in touch with Haqqanis: Kayani

2011-09-24T11:07:00.001+05:00

ISLAMABAD: Reacting to US Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen’s outburst, Army Chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani has not only rejected his allegations of using the Haqqani network for waging a proxy war in Afghanistan but also pointed out that several countries were engaged with the militant group.

Pakistan's Army Chief General Ashfaq Kayani (R) listens to US Admiral Mike Mullen at the start of the NATO MC conference in Seville, Spain on September 16, 2011

A rejoinder issued by the ISPR on Friday quoted Gen Kayani as having said that Admiral Mullen’s statement was “very unfortunate and not based on facts”.

But significantly embedded within the brief rejoinder was an unspoken acknowledgment that Haqqanis were crucial for reconciliation in Afghanistan and, therefore, a number of countries, including Pakistan, maintained contact with them.

“Admiral Mullen knows fully well which countries are in contact with the Haqqanis. Singling out Pakistan is neither fair nor productive,” the army chief said.

A military official disclosed in a background conversation that the United States and a number of European countries had been talking to the Haqqanis for reconciliation. During some recent contacts, he said, Pakistan had made it clear to the US that its engagement with the Haqqani network should not be misconstrued as one meant to undermine American interests in Afghanistan.

“We worked with them for positive objectives which could have been useful for all stakeholders in the Afghan end-game,” he stressed.

Gen Kayani, the ISPR handout said, found Admiral Mullen’s diatribe disturbing because his prolonged meeting with the latter in Spain last week was “rather constructive”.

The military official said there was nothing of this sort (finger pointing) in their meeting held on the sidelines of a Nato conference, rather they had deliberated on the way forward in their soured ties, constraints in relationship, withdrawal of coalition forces from Afghanistan and the role of various stakeholders.

Contrary to his assertion, a US official, speaking to Dawn from Washington, claimed that what was now being publicly said had been conveyed personally to Gen Kayani in Seville (Spain).

The US has been accusing Pakistan for long of supporting the Haqqani network and been exerting pressure on the government and army to act against the group.

But Admiral Mullen’s latest rant was the most serious criticism of Pakistan, its army and ISI ever since Islamabad and Washington allied in the war on terror in 2001, accusing them of being complicit with the militant group in attacks on US installations in Afghanistan.

The military official said the deteriorating ties hit a low point because of lack of clarity about the roadmap for political process in Afghanistan and the roles envisaged for various stakeholders. “We kept asking them about the role for various stakeholders, but nothing was said.”

And as the ISPR said that Gen Kayani had expressed the hope that “the blame game will give way to a constructive and meaningful engagement for a stable and peaceful Afghanistan, an objective to which Pakistan is fully committed”, the official said it was absurd and illogical to think that Pakistan was averse to peace in Afghanistan.

A source close to the army chief divulged that Gen Kayani was particularly troubled by the allegations because these came from a person (Mullen) who was thought to be a friend of Pakistan and someone who still cherished his relationship with his Pakistani interlocutors.

Admiral Mullen, who visited Pakistan 27 times over the past four years, said at a public event in Washington on Sept 21 that he had developed “a very close relationship” with Gen Kayani, which helped move Pakistan beyond its distrust of the US.

The source used a Shakespearean quote “the (most) unkindest cut of all” to express the feelings of admiral’s Pakistani friends after his farewell tirade.

Source: http://www.dawn.com/2011/09/24/several-countries-in-touch-with-haqqanis-kayani.html

Arundhati Roy: 'The Press Decides Which Revolutions To Report'

2011-09-12T11:46:00.001+05:00

The celebrated dissenter on the 10th anniversary of 9/11, mass uprisings in the Arab world, the Anna Hazare movement, her old comrades-in arm like Medha Patkar and Prashant Bhushan, Maoism, writing and much else.

Arundhati Roy

Rajesh Joshi: The 10th anniversary of September the 11th attacks on the US is upon us. What do you think has changed in the world, or hasn’t changed, in these years?

Arundhati Roy: Plenty has changed. The numbers of wars that are being fought has been expanded and the rhetoric that allows those wars —that are essentially a battle for resources —is now disguised in the rhetoric of the war on terror, and has become more acceptable in some ways and yet more transparent in other ways.

Perhaps the most dangerous thing that has happened is that increasingly we are seeing that these wars can’t be won. They can be initiated. But they can’t be won. Like the war in Vietnam was not won. The war in Iraq has not been won. The war in Afghanistan has not been won. The war on Libya will not be won. There is this initial pattern where you claim victory and then these occupation forces get mired in a kind of slow war of attrition. That’s also partially responsible for the global economy slowly coming apart.

The other difficulty is that the more the weapons of conventional warfare become nuclear —and all this kind of air bombing and so on —the more it becomes clear to people who are fighting occupations that you can’t win a conventional war. So, ironically the accumulation of conventional weaponry is leading to different kinds of terrorism and suicide bombings and a sort of desperate resort to extremely violent resistances. Violent, ideologically as well, because you have to really motivate people to want to go and blow themselves up. So, [it's a ] very, very dangerous time.

You have been very critical of the war on terror, especially the US policy. Would you have preferred a Saddam Hussain or a Taliban regime in Afghanistan?

Well, it does look as if the Taliban regime is going to return in Afghanistan in some form or shape. And

obviously, people like Saddam Hussain were first created and put in place and supported and funded and armed by the US. This process is something that a country that seeks hegemonic power can put in the despots it wants, topple them when it wants and then get mired in these kinds of battles where eventually it’s having to desperately scramble to get some foothold of a some face-saving measure in, say, Afghanistan. So, eventually, you are not ever going to get rid of despots or dictators or Taliban. The Taliban was also created by them. That kind of ideology was almost handed out as a kind of weaponry by them at the time they were fighting the Soviets which nobody really mentions. They just talk about Pakistan having had those camps but those camps were actually funded by the CIA and by Saudi Arabia, which is now one of the greatest despotic regimes wholly embraced by the US.

How do you look at the mass uprisings across the Arab world? Do you think it’s a positive development?
Obviously there are very positive things about it but the jury is still out on them, in terms of what happened in Egypt for instance. Hosni Mubarak was in power for 40 years. We knew that three months before the uprising in Tahrir Square, the papers were reporting that he was on his death bed. Then this uprising happened. And then you had such enthusiastic reporting by the western press about the uprising — the press decides which revolutions to report and which not to report and therein lies politics. You had similar huge uprisings, let’s say in Kashmir which was more or less blacked out and yet you had this being reported very enthusiastically but at the end of it you had headlines which said: 'Egypt Free, Army Takes Over'.

And today there are ten thousand people being tried in military tribunals. There is probably the emergence of the Muslim Brotherhood happening now; it’s a negotiated emergence. I would say that it would be a successful uprising and a real democracy if they manage to completely stop the Egyptian role in the siege of Gaza. I don’t know if that’s going to happen.

There are lots of manipulations going on. In India, as well as in these places, there is also the use of people’s power. People are angry. People are genuinely furious. People who have lived under these despotic regimes are desperate. But just moving the big blocks a little bit allows an eruption to take place. Is that eruption really going to end up in a genuine democracy or is that anger going to be channelised into something else?... We are still waiting.

Aren’t you happy that dictatorships are falling like a pack of cards?
I would be happy if they were not going to be replaced by military regimes. I would be happy if I was sure that whatever takes its place isn’t going to be another manipulation... I would be happy. But at this moment in Egypt, people are being picked and tried in military tribunals just the way they were under Hosni Mubarak. Of course, I am happy but why should you be celebrating something unless what you are celebrating is the right thing?

You have been supporting people’s movements everywhere but you are very critical of the Anna Hazare movement. Common people participated in the movement, after all.
I don’t support all people’s movements. I certainly didn’t support the Ram Janambhumi movement which was one of the largest people's movement in this country – the movement to topple the Babri masjid and build a temple there. I think all kinds of fascism could describe itself as people’s movements and I don’t support fascism. I am not an indiscriminate supporter of people’s movements. In this particular case, I think it’s very important to read what was going on and what was going on was not simple. We are at a stage where huge corruption scandals mostly involving mining corporations and telecom companies and so on have been exposed for their links to the government, links to the media, for looting billions of dollars and there is no accountability, neither from the government nor from the corporations. And there is a huge amount of popular anger against them.

The reason I am very suspicious about what is happening here is that I feel that this anger from the top to the bottom is channelised into a people’s movement and that anger which was a very amorphous anger was being used to push through this very specific piece of legislation which I don’t think anybody— including a lot of the people who were pushing it— has read. And if you read that bill, it is not only legally ludicrous but the people who call themselves Team Anna themselves said that people were angry and we provided them the medicine. The Team Anna are themselves saying that the people didn’t read the bill but they said ‘give us some medicine for the sickness’, but they didn’t read what it said on the label of the medicine bottle. Very, very few people have read it. And that medicine is far more dangerous than the illness itself. That’s why I am worried. Then it became this moral movement which started to use the old symbols of religious fascism that all of us have seen, that started to exclude the minorities.

Some of your comrades-in arm like Medha Patkar and Prashant Bhushan are part of that movement. How can you say that the movement has streaks of fascism? Do you doubt Medha Patkar and Prashant Bhushan’s integrity or is it their understanding?
It’s not a question of doubting their integrity. I doubt their (Prashant Bhushan and Medha Patkar’s) understanding for sure on the Lokpal bill — I am not doubting their integrity. Neither of them has brought in the politics they spent their life time doing; they left it outside at the doorstep. I just want somebody to have a proper conversation about that bill that they were insisting be passed without discussion through Parliament by the 30th of August. If you look at the bill, it’s so terrifying. Firstly, it’s so un-worked out. It asks for ten people of integrity —and proper class —to be running a bureaucracy that would contain about 30,000 officers. There is no comment on where those officers are coming from, who they are; there is no idea of what you mean by corruption in a society like ours. Sure there is corruption — from poor people having to bribe government officers to get their ration bills to corporates paying and getting rivers and mountains to mine for free.

But corruption is a value system, which has to be pinned to a legal system. And I keep saying that there are huge numbers, millions of Indians, who live untitled and unidentified outside this legal system. Supposing you live in Delhi. You have huge number of slums, illegal hawkers, squatters' settlements. Suddenly some middle class community can say, ‘I live in Jorbagh there is a slum there, it’s illegal. The politicians are keeping them there because they get votes; the municipalities are allowing them because they get bribes. Get them out of here. These are illegal people’. What’s the meaning of corruption has not been debated. Forget the fact that they are asking for a bill where these ten people are at the top and there is an additional bureaucracy of 30,000 who will be given a huge amount of money by the government and they have the right to prosecute, to sentence, to tap phones, to dismiss, to suspend and to enquire into the activities of everybody from the PM to the judiciary downwards. They are just setting up a parallel hierarchy! What’s happening is that the middle class which has benefited from these policies of privatisation and globalisation has become impatient with democracy.

If globalisation and privatisation is not the answer, according to you, then what is?
I think that the only way that we can begin to move to a place where people have some rights is by learning how to become an opposition which demands accountability. What the Jan Lokpal bill does is to set up another Super Cop. I am saying that the beginning of moving towards a society that we would like to live in is to force accountability. And that is only when people begin to stand by those who are fighting for their rights and demand that something happens. Not when they look away and say: that’s not my problem that people are being killed in Dantewada. I am a middle-class person and I believe that I should benefit. If we live in a democracy and you believe that everybody does have certain minimum rights, then you’ve got to be able to open your eyes to it. That’s what I try and do in whatever way I could by standing by those resistance movements that are questioning everything from big dams to mining to all these things—who are refusing to give up their lands, who are standing up to the biggest powers, whether it’s the army or the corporations and all of that.

You are a fierce critic of the Manmohan Singh government’s economic policies but India’s development has been praised by President Barack Obama of the US and British Prime Minister David Cameron. Many would say you are using your celebrity status as a Booker Prize winner author to criticise the path that India has taken after the collapse of the Soviet Union?
Booker Prize and all that is meaningless. There are plenty of famous people who can use their fame to sell shoes or coca cola. Nobody can use their fame meaninglessly. For me, I am a writer; I am somebody who sees the world in a particular way. And I keep saying that these words like ‘India’s development’ have become meaningless because who is India? When you say 'India' are you talking about the few hundred billionaires or are you talking about the 830 million people who live on less than 20 rupees a day? Surely, some people in India have developed very fast beyond their wildest dreams but they have done that by standing on the shoulders and the bodies of large number of other Indians. I keep saying when you have ten people in a room and one person become a billionaire and two people are doing really well and the rest of seven are starving and someone says, 'Hey, there are seven people are starving in this room', and you say, 'Why are you being negative? People have developed!' It doesn’t matter who I am, what I won, what I didn’t win. If I am saying something that is relevant it will have a place in this world. If I am being stupid, if I am being negative, if I am being meaningless, I won’t have a place in this world. So, there is no point in personalising things because it doesn’t really help.

Is Maoism the answer?

Of course it’s not the answer. However, as I keep saying what I believe is the answer is the diversity of resistance and the Maoists are at one end — the very militant end of the diversity. And they fight deep in the forests which are being filled with paramilitary and police and surely in that tribal village where no television camera ever reaches, where no Gandhian hunger strike is ever going to make the news, there is only the possibility of an armed resistance. Outside, that armed resistance will be crushed in a minute. The Maoists have not had any success outside. You need to look at other kind of resistance outside. The resistance movements often confuse the necessity for tactical differences with ideological differences. But the fact is that one of the things I think is wonderful in India is that there is a huge bandwidth of resistance movements who are being very effective and who are insisting on their rights and who are winning some battles. When you come back to this business of corruption, I would like to say that you have hundreds of secret memorandums of understanding (MoUs) between the governments and private corporations, which will result in a kind of social engineering across central India — forests, mountains, rivers — all of it given away to corporations. Millions of people are fighting for their rights. Nobody stood there and said can you declare those MoUs.

What does the state do? It has to defend itself.
Implicit in that statement is that the state is the enemy of the people and it has to defend itself. And if you see what’s happening in the world, increasingly that’s true that states and their armies are turning upon what traditionally were their own peoples. Wars are not always being fought between countries; they are also being fought by the state against their own people — a kind of vertical colonisation as opposed to a horizontal one.

Do you love to mess with power?
I do believe that the only way to keep power accountable is to always question it, to always mess with it in some way or the other.

Some people would say it’s very convenient of you to criticise things from a safe corner. What do you think your role is going to be in the future? Are you going to be a writer or have you every thought of joining politics?
It’s not a serious question, I am afraid. What I do is politics. What I write is politics. Traditionally this is what writers have done. So to separate commentary from writing, from politics, minimises politics, minimises writing, and minimises commentary. This has historically been the role of writers. I could surely go and wear a khadi sari and sit in the forest and become a martyr but that’s not what I plan to do. I have no problem being who I am, writing what I have because I am not playing for sainthood here. I am not playing for popularity. I am not asking to be hailed as a leader of the masses. I am a writer who has a particular set of views and I use whatever skills I have, I deploy whatever skills I have, whatever means I have to write about them, not always on my own behalf but from the heart of the resistance.

In an interview to Financial Times you once said, and I quote: “I feel like I’ve done a very interesting journey over the last 11 years, but now I’m ready to do something different. Two years ago, I told myself, ‘no more, enough of this’, and I was working on some fiction. Then this huge uprising happened in Kashmir.” Some would say your activism is just another career move — I’ve done this and now let’s move on and do something more exciting?
It’s not about more exciting things, it’s about writing again. If I am a writer and I have written in a certain way, then suddenly you feel like, for example The God of Small Things is a very political book but then there became another phase of very urgent and immediate politics and it became non-fiction. But I think fiction is a deeper, more subversive kind of politics. Like if you read The God of Small Things, dealing with issues of caste for example. It’s not about the government or the state versus the people; it’s about the absolute malaise within your own society. Fiction is a much better way of dealing with it. You can’t allow yourself to just be bogged down doing the same thing, thinking the same ways or using the same techniques of writing. It’s always a challenge. And it can never be that I will stop being a political person. Of course, I think that everybody, even a fashion model, is political. It’s the kind of politics you choose is what you choose to do. There is no escaping that. This idea that politics is only going out and standing for elections or addressing rallies is a very superficial thing.

Source: http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?278269

On Terrorism: Articles by the legendary Eqbal Ahmed

2011-09-12T11:43:00.001+05:00

A Presentation at the University of Colorado, Boulder

October 12, 1998

In the 1930s and 1940s, the Jewish underground in Palestine was described

as "terrorist." Then new things happened. By 1942, the Holocaust was occurring,

and a certain liberal sympathy with the Jewish people had built up in the

Western world.

At that point, the terrorists of Palestine, who were Zionists, suddenly started

to be described, by 1944-45, as "freedom fighters." At least two Israeli Prime

Ministers, including Menachem Begin, have actually, you can find in the books

and posters with their pictures, saying "Terrorists, Reward This Much." The

highest reward I have noted so far was 100,000 British pounds on the head of

Menachem Begin, the terrorist.

Then from 1969 to 1990 the PLO, the Palestine Liberation Organization, occupied

the center stage as the terrorist organization. Yasir Arafat has been described

repeatedly by the great sage of American journalism, William Safire of the New

York Times, as the "Chief of Terrorism." That's Yasir Arafat. Now, on September

29, 1998, I was rather amused to notice a picture of Yasir Arafat to the right

of President Bill Clinton. To his left is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin

Netanyahu. Clinton is looking towards Arafat and Arafat is looking literally

like a meek mouse. Just a few years earlier he used to appear with this very

menacing look around him, with a gun appearing menacing from his belt. You

remember those pictures, and you remember the next one.

In 1985, President Ronald Reagan received a group of bearded men. These bearded

men I was writing about in those days in The New Yorker, actually did. They

were very ferocious-looking bearded men with turbans looking like they came

from another century. President Reagan received them in the White House. After

receiving them he spoke to the press. He pointed towards them, I'm sure some of

you will recall that moment, and said, "These are the moral equivalent of

America's founding fathers". These were the Afghan Mujahiddin.

They were at the time, guns in hand, battling the Evil Empire. They wreathe

moral equivalent of our founding fathers! In August 1998, another American

President ordered missile strikes from the American navy based in the Indian

Ocean to kill Osama Bin Laden and his men in the camps in Afghanistan. I do not

wish to embarrass you with the reminder that Mr. Bin Laden, whom fifteen

American missiles were fired to hit in Afghanistan, was only a few years ago

the moral equivalent of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson! He got angry

over the fact that he has been demoted from" Moral Equivalent" of

your "Founding Fathers". So he is taking out his anger in different ways. I'll

come back to that subject more seriously in a moment.

You see, why I have recalled all these stories is to point out to you that the

matter of terrorism is rather complicated. Terrorists change. The terrorist of

yesterday is the hero of today, and the hero of yesterday becomes the terrorist

of today. This is a serious matter of the constantly changing world of images

in which we have to keep our heads straight to know what is terrorism and what

is not. But more importantly, to know what causes it, and how to stop it.

The next point about our terrorism is that posture of inconsistency necessarily

evades definition. If you are not going to be consistent, you're not going to

define. I have examined at least twenty official documents on terrorism. Not

one defines the word. All of them explain it, express it emotively,

polemically, to arouse our emotions rather than exercise our intelligence. I

give you only one example, which is representative. October 25, 1984. George

Shultz, then Secretary of State of the U.S., is speaking at the New York Park

Avenue Synagogue. It's a long speech on terrorism. In the State Department

Bulletin of seven single-spaced pages, there is not a single definition of

terrorism. What we get is the following:

Definition number one: "Terrorism is a modern barbarism that we call

terrorism."

Definition number two is even more brilliant: "Terrorism is a form of political

violence." Aren't you surprised? It is a form of political violence, says

George Shultz, Secretary of State of the U.S.

Number three: "Terrorism is a threat to Western civilization."

Number four: "Terrorism is a menace to Western moral values."

Did you notice, does it tell you anything other than arouse your emotions? This

is typical. They don't define terrorism because definitions involve a

commitment to analysis, comprehension and adherence to some norms of

consistency. That's the second characteristic of the official literature on

terrorism.

The third characteristic is that the absence of definition does not prevent

officials from being globalistic. We may not define terrorism, but it is a

menace to the moral values of Western civilization. It is a menace also to

mankind. It's a menace to good order. Therefore, you must stamp it out

worldwide. Our reach has to be global. You need a global reach to kill it.

Anti-terrorist policies therefore have to be global. Same speech of George

Shultz: "There is no question about our ability to use force where and when it

is needed to counter terrorism." There is no geographical limit. On a single

day the missiles hit Afghanistan and Sudan. Those two countries are 2,300miles

apart, and they were hit by missiles belonging to a country roughly 8,000 miles

away. Reach is global.

A fourth characteristic: claims of power are not only globalist they are also

omniscient. We know where they are; therefore we know whereto hit. We have the

means to know. We have the instruments of knowledge. We are omniscient.

Shultz: "We know the difference between terrorists and freedom fighters, and as

we look around, we have no trouble telling one from the other." Only Osama Bin

Laden doesn't know that he was an ally one day and an enemy another. That's

very confusing for Osama Bin Laden. I'll comeback to his story towards the end.

It's a real story.

Five. The official approach eschews causation. You don't look at causes of

anybody becoming terrorist. Cause? What cause? They ask gusto be looking, to be

sympathetic to these people. Another example. The New York Times, December 18,

1985, reported that the foreign minister of Yugoslavia, you remember the days

when there was a Yugoslavia, requested the Secretary of State of the U.S. to

consider the causes of Palestinian terrorism. The Secretary of State, George

Shultz, and I am quoting from the New York Times, "went a bit red in the face.

He pounded the table and told the visiting foreign minister, there is no

connection with any cause. Period." Why look for causes?

Number six. The moral revulsion that we must feel against terrorism is

selective. We are to feel the terror of those groups, which are officially

disapproved. We are to applaud the terror of those groups of whom officials do

approve. Hence, President Reagan, "I am contra." He actually said that. We know

the contras of Nicaragua were anything, by any definition, but terrorists. The

media, to move away from the officials, heed the dominant view of terrorism.

The dominant approach also excludes from consideration, more importantly to me,

the terror of friendly governments. To that question I will return because it

excused among others the terror of Pinochet (who killed one of my closest

friends) and Orlando Letelier; and it excused the terror of Zia- ul-Haq, who

killed many of my friends in Pakistan. All I want to tell you is that according

to my ignorant calculations, the ratio of people killed by the state terror of

Zia ul-Haq, Pinochet, Argentinean, Brazilian, Indonesian type, versus the

killing of the PLO and other terrorist types is literally, conservatively, one

to one hundred thousand. That's the ratio.

History unfortunately recognizes and accords visibility to power and not to

weakness. Therefore, visibility has been accorded historically to dominant

groups. In our time, the time that began with this day, Columbus Day. The time

that begins with Columbus Day is a time of extraordinary unrecorded holocausts.

Great civilizations have been wiped out. The Mayas, the Incas, the Aztecs, the

American Indians, the Canadian Indians were all wiped out. Their voices have

not been heard, even to this day fully. Now they are beginning to be heard, but

not fully. They are heard, yes, but only when the dominant power suffers, only

when resistance has a semblance of costing, of exacting a price. When a Custer

is killed or when a Gordon is besieged. That's when you know that they were

Indians fighting, Arabs fighting and dying. My last point of this section: U.S.

policy in the Cold War period has sponsored terrorist regimes one after

another. Somoza, Batista, all kinds of tyrants have been America's friends. You

know that. There was a reason for that. You or I are not guilty. Nicaragua,

contra. Afghanistan, Mujahiddin. El Salvador, etc.

Now the second side. You've suffered enough. So suffer more. There ain't much

good on the other side either. You shouldn't imagine that I have come to praise

the other side. But keep the balance in mind. Keep the imbalance in mind and

first ask ourselves, what is terrorism?

Our first job should be to define the damn thing -- name it; give it a

description of some kind, other than "moral equivalent of founding fathers"

or "a moral outrage to Western civilization." I will stay with you with

Webster's Collegiate Dictionary: "Terror is an intense, overpowering fear." He

uses terrorizing, terrorism, "the use of terrorizing methods of governing or

resisting a government." This simple definition has one great virtue, that of

fairness. It's air. It focuses on the use of coercive violence, violence that

is used illegally, extra-constitutionally, to coerce. And this definition is

correct because it treats terror for what it is, whether the government or

private people commit it.

Have you noticed something? Motivation is left out of it. We're not talking

about whether the cause is just or unjust. We're talking about consensus,

consent, absence of consent, legality, absence of legality, constitutionality,

absence of constitutionality. Why do we keep motives out?

Because motives differ. Motives differ and make no difference. I have

identified in my work five types of terrorism. First, state terrorism. Second,

religious terrorism; terrorism inspired by religion, Catholics killing

Protestants, Sunnis killing Shiites, Shiites killing Sunnis, God, religion,

sacred terror, you can call it if you wish. State, church. Crime. Mafia. All

kinds of crimes commit terror. There is pathology. You're pathological. You're

sick. You want the attention of the whole world. You've got to kill a

president. You will. You terrorize. You hold up a bus. Fifth, there is

political terror of the private group, be they Indian, Vietnamese, Algerian,

Palestinian, Baader-Meinhof, and the Red Brigade. Political terror of the

private group. Oppositional terror.

Keep these five in mind. Keep in mind one more thing. Sometimes these five can

converge on each other. You start with protest terror. You go crazy. You become

pathological. You continue. They converge. State terror can take the form of

private terror. For example, we're all familiar with the death squads in Latin

America or in Pakistan. Government has employed private people to kill its

opponents. It's not quite official. It's privatized. Convergence. Or the

political terrorist that goes crazy and becomes pathological. Or the criminal

who joins politics. In Afghanistan, in Central America, the CIA employed in its

covert operations drug pushers. Drugs and guns often go together. Smuggling of

all things often go together.

Of the five types of terror, the focus is on only one, the least important in

terms of cost to human lives and human property -- the Political Terror of

those who want to be heard. The highest cost is state terror. The second

highest cost is religious terror, although in the twentieth century religious

terror has, relatively speaking, declined. If you are looking historically,

massive costs. The next highest cost is crime. Next highest, pathology. A Rand

Corporation study by Brian Jenkins, for a ten-year period up to 1988, showed 50%

of terror was committed without any political cause at all. No politics. Simply

crime and pathology.

So the focus is on only one, the political terrorist, the PLO, the Bin Laden,

whoever you want to take. Why do they do it? What makes the terrorist tick? I

would like to knock them out quickly to you. First, the need to be heard.

Imagine we are dealing with a minority group, the political, private terrorist.

First, the need to be heard. Normally, and there are exceptions, there is an

effort to be heard, to get your grievances heard by people.

They're not hearing it. A minority acts. The majority applauds. The

Palestinians, for example, the superterrorists of our time, were dispossessed

in 1948. From 1948 to 1968 they went to every court in the world. They knocked

at every door in the world. They were told that they became dispossessed

because some radio told them to go away--an Arab radio, which was a lie. Nobody

was listening to the truth. Finally, they invented a new form of terror,

literally their invention: the airplane hijacking. Between 1968 and 1975 they

pulled the world up by its ears. They dragged us out and said, Listen, Listen.

We listened. We still haven't done them but at least we all know. Even the

Israelis acknowledge. Remember Golda Meir, Prime Minister of Israel, saying in

1970, "There are no Palestinians." They do not exist.

They damn well exist now. We are cheating them at Oslo. At least there are some

people to cheat now. We can't just push them out. The need to be heard is

essential. One motivation there. Mix of anger and helplessness produces an

urge to strike out. You are angry. You are feeling helpless. You want

retribution. You want to wreak retributive justice. The experience of violence

by a stronger party has historically turned victims into terrorists. Battered

children are known to become abusive parents and violent adults. You know that.

That's what happens to peoples and nations. When they are battered, they hit

back.

State terror very often breeds collective terror. Do you recall the fact that

the Jews were never terrorists? By and large Jews were not known to commit

terror except during and after the Holocaust Most studies show that the

majority of members of the worst terrorist groups in Israel or in Palestine,

the Stern and the Irgun gangs, were people who were immigrants from the most

anti-Semitic countries of Eastern Europe and Germany. Similarly, the young

Shiites of Lebanon or the Palestinians from the refugee camps are battered

people. They become very violent. The ghettos are violent internally. They

become violent externally when there is a clear, identifiable external target,

an enemy where you can say, �Yes, this one did it to me". Then they can strike

back. Example is a bad thing. Example spreads. There was a highly publicized

Beirut hijacking of the TWA plane. After that hijacking, there were hijacking

attempts at nine different American airports. Pathological groups or

individuals modeling on the others.

Even more serious are examples set by governments. When governments engage in

terror, they set very large examples. When they engage in supporting terror,

they engage in other sets of examples. Absence of revolutionary ideology is

central to victim terrorism. Revolutionaries do not commit unthinking terror.

Those of you who are familiar with revolutionary theory know the debates, the

disputes, the quarrels, the fights within revolutionary groups of Europe, the

fight between anarchists and Marxists, for example. But the Marxists have

always argued that revolutionary terror, if ever engaged in, must be

sociologically and psychologically selective. Don't hijack a plane. Don't hold

hostages. Don't kill children, for God's sake. Have you recalled also that the

great revolutions, the Chinese, the Vietnamese, the Algerian, the Cuban, never

engaged in hijacking type of terrorism? They did engage in terrorism, but it

was highly selective, highly sociological, still deplorable, but there was an

organized, highly limited, selective character to it. So absence of

revolutionary ideology that begins more or less in the post-World War II period

has been central to this phenomenon.

My final question is - These conditions have existed for a longtime. But why

then this flurry of private political terrorism? Why now so much of it and so

visible?

The answer is modern technology. You have a cause. You can communicate it

through radio and television. They will all come swarming if you have taken an

aircraft and are holding 150 Americans hostage. They will all hear your cause.

You have a modern weapon through which you can shoot a mile away. They can't

reach you. And you have the modern means of communicating. When you put

together the cause, the instrument of coercion and the instrument of

communication, politics is made. A new kind of politics becomes possible. To

this challenge rulers from one country after another have been responding with

traditional methods. The traditional method of shooting it out, whether it's

missiles or some other means. The Israelis are very proud of it. The Americans

are very proud of it. The French became very proud of it. Now the Pakistanis

are very proud of it. The Pakistanis say, "Our commandos are the best."

Frankly, it won't work. A central problem of our time, political minds, rooted

in the past, and modern times, producing new realities. Therefore in

conclusion, what is my recommendation to America?

Quickly. First, avoid extremes of double standards. If you're going to practice

double standards, you will be paid with double standards. Don't use it. Don't

condone Israeli terror, Pakistani terror, Nicaraguan terror, El Salvadoran

terror, on the one hand, and then complain about Afghan terror or Palestinian

terror. It doesn't work. Try to be even-handed. A superpower cannot promote

terror in one place and reasonably expect to discourage terrorism in another

place. It won't work in this shrunken world.

Do not condone the terror of your allies. Condemn them. Fight them. Punish

them. Please eschew, avoid covert operations and low-intensity warfare. These

are breeding grounds of terror and drugs. Violence and drugs are bred there.

The structure of covert operations, I've made a film about it, which has been

very popular in Europe, called Dealing with the Demon. I have shown that

wherever covert operations have been, there has been the central drug problem.

That has been also the center of the drug trade. Because the structure of

covert operations, Afghanistan, Vietnam, Nicaragua, Central America, is very

hospitable to drug trade. Avoid it. Give it up. It doesn't help.

Please focus on causes and help ameliorate causes. Try to look at causes and

solve problems. Do not concentrate on military solutions. Do not seek military

solutions. Terrorism is a political problem. Seek political solutions.

Diplomacy works.

Take the example of the last attack on Bin Laden. You don't know what you're

attacking. They say they know, but they don't know. They were trying to kill

Qadaffi. They killed his four-year-old daughter. The poor baby hadn't done

anything. Qadaffi is still alive. They tried to kill Saddam Hussein. They

killed Laila Bin Attar, a prominent artist, an innocent woman. They tried to

kill Bin Laden and his men. Not one but twenty-five other people died. They

tried to destroy a chemical factory in Sudan. Now they are admitting that they

destroyed an innocent factory, one-half of the production of medicine in Sudan

has been destroyed, not a chemical factory.

You don't know. You think you know. Four of your missiles fell in Pakistan. One

was slightly damaged. Two were totally damaged. One was totally intact. For ten

years the American government has kept an embargo on Pakistan because

Pakistanis trying, stupidly, to build nuclear weapons and missiles. So we have

a technology embargo on my country. One of the missiles was intact. What do you

think a Pakistani official told the Washington Post? He said it was a gift from

Allah. We wanted U.S. technology. Now we have got the technology, and our

scientists are examining this missile very carefully. It fell into the wrong

hands. So don't do that. Look for political solutions. Do not look for military

solutions. They cause more problems than they solve.

Please help reinforce, strengthen the framework of international law. There was

a criminal court in Rome. Why didn't they go to it first to get their warrant

against Bin Laden, if they have some evidence? Get a warrant, and then go after

him. Internationally. Enforce the U.N. Enforce the International Court of

Justice, this unilateralism makes us look very stupid and them relatively

smaller.

Q&A

The question here is that I mentioned that I would go somewhat into the story

of Bin Laden, the Saudi in Afghanistan and didn't do so, could I go into some

detail? The point about Bin Laden would be roughly the same as the point

between Sheikh Abdul Rahman, who was accused and convicted of encouraging the

blowing up of the World Trade Center in New York City. The New Yorker did a

long story on him. It's the same as that of Aimal Kansi, the Pakistani Baluch

who was also convicted of the murder of two CIA agents.

Let me see if I can be very short on this. Jihad, which has been translated a

thousand times as "holy war," is not quite just that. Jihad is an Arabic word

that means, "to struggle." It could be struggle by violence or struggle by non-

violent means. There are two forms, the small jihad and the big jihad. The

small jihad involves violence. The big jihad involves the struggles with self.

Those are the concepts. The reason I mention it is that in Islamic history,

jihad as an international violent phenomenon had disappeared in the last four

hundred years, for all practical purposes.

It was revived suddenly with American help in the1980s. When the Soviet Union

intervened in Afghanistan, Zia ul-Haq, the military dictator of Pakistan, which

borders on Afghanistan, saw an opportunity and launched a jihad there against

godless communism. The U.S. saw a God-sent opportunity to mobilize one billion

Muslims against what Reagan called the Evil Empire. Money started pouring in.

CIA agents starting going all over the Muslim world recruiting people to fight

in the great jihad.

Bin Laden was one of the early prize recruits. He was not only an Arab. He was

also a Saudi. He was not only a Saudi. He was also a multimillionaire, willing

to put his own money into the matter. Bin Laden went around recruiting people

for the jihad against communism.

I first met him in 1986. He was recommended to me by an American official of

whom I do not know whether he was or was not an agent. I was and said, "Who

are the Arabs here who would be very interesting?" By here I meant in

Afghanistan and Pakistan. He said," You must meet Osama." I went to see Osama.

There he was, rich, bringing in recruits from Algeria, from Sudan, from Egypt,

just like Sheikh Abdul Rahman. This fellow was an ally. He remained an ally.

He turns at a particular moment. In 1990 the U.S. goes into Saudi Arabia with

forces. Saudi Arabia is the holy place of Muslims, Mecca and Medina. There had

never been foreign troops there. In 1990, during the Gulf War, they went in, in

the name of helping Saudi Arabia defeat Saddam Hussein. Osama Bin Laden

remained quiet. Saddam was defeated, but the American troops stayed on in the

land of the kaba (the sacred site of Islam in Mecca), foreign troops. He wrote

letter after letter saying, Why are you here? Get out! You came to help but you

have stayed on. Finally he started a jihad against the other occupiers. His

mission is to get American troops out of Saudi Arabia. His earlier mission was

to get Russian troops out of Afghanistan. See what I was saying earlier about

covert operations?

A second point to be made about him is these are tribal people, people who are

really tribal. Being a millionaire doesn't matter. Their code of ethics is

tribal. The tribal code of ethics consists of two words: loyalty and revenge.

You are my friend. You keep your word. I am loyal to you. You break your word;

I go on my path of revenge. For him, America has broken its word. The loyal

friend has betrayed. The one to whom you swore blood loyalty has betrayed you.

They're going to go for you. They're going to do a lot more. These are the

chickens of the Afghanistan war coming home to roost. This is why I said to

stop covert operations. There is a price attached to those that the American

people cannot calculate and Kissinger type of people do not know, don't have

the history to know.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Eqbal Ahmad, Professor Emeritus of International Relations and Middle Eastern

Studies at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts, also served as a

managing editor of the quarterly Race and Class. A prolific writer, his

articles and essays have been published in The Nation, Dawn (Pakistan), among

several other journals throughout the world. He died in 1999.

Source: http://www.bitsonline.net/eqbal/articles_by_eqbal_view_9B98FE1F.htm

G8 pledges billions for Arab uprising

2011-09-12T11:16:00.001+05:00

MARSEILLE (France), Sept 10: Arab states that ousted their dictators got a financial shot in the arm on Saturday with promises of tens of billion of dollars to help their rocky transformation into modern democracies.G8 rich nations and institutions including the World Bank, the IMF, regional banks and the Arab Monetary Fund pledged nearly $80 billion in aid and loans over the next two years, doubling the amount promised earlier this year.
French Finance Minister Francois Baroin announced the massive increase at a Group of Eight finance ministers' meeting in Marseille.
The money is earmarked to support reform and help new governments weather shortterm economic instability in the wake of popular uprisings that began in Tunisia and toppled its strongman leader before spreading to Egypt and Libya.
“We are facing an historical transformational moment, and while there are downsides, there is enormous enthusiasm,” International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde told reporters here.
Jordan and Morocco, which have not faced popular revolutions but whose kings have promised steps towards deeper democracy, joined the socalled Deauville Partnership after the initial members Egypt and Tunisia.
Representatives from the four states were in Marseille on Saturday to explain to donors and lenders how they planned to relaunch their economies and to hear what help they can expect from the world's major economic powers.
Officials from Libya's new government — whose fighters have taken control of most of their country but are still battling remnants of strongman Muammar Qadhafi's forces — were also in the southern French city as observers.
Libya is not yet a formal member of the Deauville Parternship — named after the French town that hosted the G8 meeting in May — but has been promised it will be added to the list soon.—AFP

Trade policy sets export target at $26 billion

2011-09-12T11:12:00.000+05:00

Trade policy sets export target at $26 billion

Approving the recommendations of Trade Policy 2011-12, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani on Saturday directed the commerce ministry to realise the immense potential for regional trade in order to enhance the country’s exports.

The trade policy aims at achieving an ambitious export target of $26 billion for the fiscal year besides seeking better market access by addressing tariff and non-tariff issues.The policy proposals would now be presented to the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) for final approval.

After a presentation by commerce ministry officials, Mr Gilani said the government would soon hold a conference of ambassadors and trade officers with a view to giving them the task of pursuing ‘trade diplomacy’ for increasing exports.

The presentation was attended, among others, by Commerce Minister Makhdoom Amin Fahim, Finance Minister Dr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh, Planning Commission deputy chairman Dr Nadeem-ul-Haq and secretaries of finance and commerce divisions.

Commerce Secretary Zafar Mahmood briefed the meeting on the free trade agreements (FTAs) that had been concluded with Sri Lanka, China and Malaysia and the preferential trade agreements (PTAs) with Mauritius and Iran and Saarc Free Trade Area (SAFTA).

He said negotiations were in progress on the second phase of Pakistan-China trade agreement, Pakistan-Singapore FTA, Pakistan-Indonesia PTA, Pakistan-Turkey PTA, Pakistan-Sri Lanka Comprehensive Economic Partnership, Pakistan-GCC FTA, PakistanMauritius FTA, D-8, OIC PTA and ECO Trade Agreement (ECOTA).

“Other initiatives for greater market access in Asia Pacific are also continuing,” the commerce secretary said. He was hopeful about the success of the current trade policy despite the global economic situation, market access problems, energy deficiency in the country, the poor law and order situation and the scourge of terrorism.

He said the finalisation of an FTA with China had made the country one of the biggest trading partners of Pakistan. Trade with Afghanistan, he said, was registering an upward trend in favour of Pakistan.

He stressed the need for export of human resource and for that a comprehensive plan was being chalked out in collaboration with the Technical Education and Vocational Training Authority (TEVTA), Punjab and Sindh as well as other provinces to train the manpower required in GCC, EU and the US.

Finance Minister Shaikh asked the commerce ministry to try to diversify the export base because traditional approach may not work all the time in the highly competitive international market. “Structural changes must be brought about keeping in view the dynamism of international market and also when the US and European economies were on the slippery ground,” he said.

From theatre in Karachi to numbers in Senate

2011-09-12T10:18:00.002+05:00

The upper house of parliament is slated to get 54 new members, giving the PPP an opportunity to significantly increase its present tally of 27 seats and perhaps even grab a majority in what will be a 104-member Senate from next year

WHILE the political theatre in Sindh and verbal sparring between the PPP and PML-N supremos are grabbing the headlines, behind the political scenes attention is quietly turning towards the battle for the Senate in March.

The upper house of parliament is slated to get 54 new members (re-election to 50 general, technocrat/ulema and women seats and four new, post-18th Amendment minority seats), giving the PPP an opportunity to significantly increase its present tally of 27 seats and perhaps even grab a majority in what will be a 104-member Senate from next year.

But the possibility is generating speculation that the PPP’s otherwise inexorable march towards a dominant position in Senate may be scuttled somehow.

Could the PML-N, with only a handful of Senate seats from Punjab at present, delay the Senate election and force early general election so that new provincial and national assemblies, more favourable towards the N-League, elect the next Senate cohort?Will the security establishment, ever wary of politicians consolidating power, countenance one half of parliament dominated by the PPP, perhaps the first step towards a kind of one-party state as its rivals flounder? Are the internecine warfare and ferocious mud-slinging in Karachi part of surreptitious efforts to forestall Senate elections?

What is clear is that part of the reason for the speculation building around the Senate elections is the upper chamber’s chequered history. “This is the first time since the ’70s, other than military dispensations, that the same assemblies will elect both halves of the Senate,” remarked Nayyar Hussain Bukhari, the PPP senator who is Leader of the House.

Mr Bukhari noted that the first Benazir Bhutto government was felled before Senate elections could take place, while her second government was only able to preside over Senate elections in 1994 before being ousted in 1996.

Perhaps the most notorious example of intervention ahead of a Senate election came during Nawaz Sharif’s second, ‘heavy mandate’ term. With the capture of the Senate only months away (the election was scheduled for March 2000) Sharif was on the threshold of forcing through controversial religiously hued legislative and constitutional changes when the Musharraf coup in late 1999 wrapped up the entire elected set-up.

PPP: game, set … match?

Now, what is at stake next March are institutional and psychological advantages for the PPP.

“Understandably, our political opponents would not like to see the PPP increase its strength in the Senate to cripple our ability to legislate,”
said Farhatullah Babar, spokesperson to the president.

According to Nayyar Bokhari, while the PPP is getting legislation passed with the help of coalition allies at present, the legislative process would become easier if the PPP’s ranks are swelled by 20-plus senators next March.

Privately, PPP leaders suggest a dominant position in the Senate would also be useful if the PML-N were to come to power after the next general election. In that case, the PPP could use its strength in the Senate to thwart the N-League’s legislative agenda until at least the next scheduled Senate election in 2015.

At the very least, according to PPP leaders, having their own chairman of the Senate, who is next in line to the presidency, would be a useful advantage.

There is a psychological victory at stake, too. If all goes to plan, the PPP will have an eye-catching set of constitutional offices to boast of: president, prime minister, senate chairman, speaker of the National Assembly. “The president’s vision is constitutional continuity and we will achieve that,” said Babar Awan.

Disruption unlikely?

Outwardly at least, the PPP is downplaying the possibility of any disruption to the Senate electoral timeline.

Commenting on the various options available to the PML-N, Babar Awan said: “If they try to dissolve the Punjab assembly, so what? Elections will have to be held anyway in 90 days. And in the first place, can they even get all their guys to agree to dissolution? And even if they do, the (Senate) elections from the other assemblies will not be affected.”

A senior Senate official said: “It’s never happened before, but if one provincial assembly isn’t able to elect senators next March for whatever reason all that will happen is there will be vacancies against those seats. The senate quorum is 25, from next March it will be 26, so senate business won’t be stopped.”

But Zain Sheikh, a constitutional expert, claimed that it would be “odd” if one of the federating units were not represented in the Senate and an argument could be made to keep the business of the Senate, or the legislative process, on hold until the Senate is properly constituted. “It would be a novel situation. The courts may have to decide,” Sheikh said. According to Sheikh, emergency rule in a province would not preclude the holding of Senate elections.

A new-look senate

The Senate’s composition will change significantly if the present assemblies elect the next 54 senators (12 from each province, 4 from Fata and 2 from Islamabad).

For one, the PML-Q will be all but wiped out. In 2009, it managed to secure only one seat, Chaudhry Shujaat from Punjab, and in March the six-year terms of its remaining 20 senators are set to expire.

The PML-N, with its minimal presence outside Punjab, will only marginally improve its present total of 7. It will likely pick up six seats, taking its tally to 12, given the expiry of Ishaq Dar’s term next March.

Publicly, at least, the PML-N is brushing aside the difficulties it could face in the Senate. According to Ahsan Iqbal said, “What will they (the PPP) do in the Senate when we win the next (general) election? Block legislation? They won’t have a majority on their own and do you think their allies will stick with them when they are in the opposition?”

Some in the PPP claim otherwise. “We will get 52,” said Babar Awan. A simple majority in a 104-member Senate remains a difficult prospect for the PPP, however.

Of the PPP’s 27 members at present, the terms of five senators will end next March (four from Sindh and Babar Awan from Punjab). If the PPP repeats its performance in the 2009 Senate elections, it should pick up 21 seats of the 50 up for re-election, taking its tally to 43.

But there are new opportunities for the PPP. Of the four new minority seats — one from each province — the PPP is sure to get one in Sindh and may be eyeing another in Balochistan, or even Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.

Then, the changes approved by President Zardari to the rules for Fata elections mean that four Fata Senate seats are likely to be contested for the first time on a party basis, giving the PPP a further chance to pick up seats. Across in Balochistan, where the PPP picked up three seats in 2009 and later wooed an independent to its side, the money-driven, freelance nature of politics means the PPP could arm-twist or bribe its way to an extra seat.

But the PPP may also have to accommodate political allies. In Punjab, Chaudhry Shujaat and the PML-Q will seek to get at least one seat and may, if necessary, press the PPP for support in the Punajb Assembly. “We may even get three of four,” deadpanned Chaudhry Shujaat, a sign of the tough negotiations to come perhaps. Shujaat is believed to command votes a few shy of the 47 needed to win a general Senate seat from Punjab.

Meanwhile, in Sindh, where in 2009 the MQM supported the PPP for Rehman Malik’s election to a seat reserved for technocrats, President Zardari’s determination to keep the MQM onboard and stave off a political crisis may force a senatorial concession to the MQM this time.

Given the complexities, political bargaining and potential pitfalls ahead, the PPP is being guarded in its public assessments.

Asked if the PPP is confident in the run-up to the Senate elections or whether the party is looking over its shoulder, Babar Awan said, “I have confidence in the people of Pakistan and that their will will ultimately prevail.”

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(Tragic Incident) Slain Salman Taseer’s son kidnapped: DAWN NEWS

2011-08-27T12:00:00.000+05:00

LAHORE: Footage of closed-circuit television (CCTV) appeared to be their best lead as police searched on Friday for Shahbaz Taseer, son of slain Punjab governor Salman Taseer, who was kidnapped in the morning near his company’s head office.

Shahbaz Taseer was driving towards the offices of the First Capital Group off M.M. Alam Road in Gulberg when he was intercepted in what had the hallmarks of a well-coordinated abduction plan.

The abductors who, according to witnesses, used a Prado jeep and a motorcycle, bundled the young Taseer into the four-wheeler and rushed away unimpeded.

Later, a gun supposed to have been thrown away by the abductors was found near a plaza not far from Firdous Market and police said his captors had probably driven Taseer towards the Defence Housing Authority.

A high alert was declared, internal routes and highways were sealed amid calls for swift action by both the federal and Punjab governments.

The Federal Investigation Agency joined the Punjab police in their search for Shahbaz Taseer, yet, as precious minutes passed, his whereabouts remained untraced.The police could not identify the motive behind the crime and nobody had claimed responsibility till late on Friday.

This was the second high-profile abduction within a few kilometres of each other in Lahore over the past two weeks. An American aid worker abducted on Aug 13 remains untraced.

Fahad Rasheed Butt, a police driver assigned security duty with Shahbaz Taseer’s mother, Amena Taseer, informed the Rescue 15 about the abduction at around 10.45am after he was alerted by the staff at the First Capital.

Some eyewitnesses had reportedly told the staffers that unknown men had taken away at gunpoint the occupant of the now abandoned car.

Model Town SP (Investigation) Shoaib Khurram told reporters there were four abductors.

As they took away Shahbaz Taseer, they left his cellphones and laptop and some papers that he had on him behind.

It appeared that there was a 25-minute gap between the abduction and when the police were informed about it.

Footage from a CCTV installed close to Shahbaz Taseer’s offices, which was later aired by a television channel, showed him approaching the spot from where he was kidnapped at around 10.19am. It captured Shahbaz Taseer’s sports car turning a corner and entering the street where his offices are located.

The camera was focussed on that particular spot and the scene of the crime was out of its scope. But it did show another vehicle coming close on the heels of the Taseer car and then hastily backing off. These images created an impression as if the abductors had been waiting for him.

Police said Shahbaz Taseer left his home in Cavalry Grounds for his office in his sports car on Friday morning. He was not accompanied by any of the two Elite Force guards he had been provided. One of the guards was quoted as saying that Shahbaz Taseer

had asked him to stay back.

There were suggestions, clearly favoured by a police force under tremendous pressure, which said the security lapse might have been caused by Shahbaz Taseer opting for his two-seater sports car on the day. On other mornings, he preferred to drive to the office in a four-wheeler and would be accompanied by his guard.

The two guards were part of a police contingent assigned to provide security to the Taseer family.

It was learnt that the family, which lost Salman Taseer to his own Elite Force guard’s bullets in Islamabad in January, had recently received threats from extremist groups. The police, however, were not ruling out other possible reasons for the abduction.

Whether the abductors knew that their target was on the day unaccompanied by his guards was a question that continued to be asked throughout the day, getting no answers. The airing of the footage did, however, lead to hope that a bit of rewinding of the recording done through the CCTV could perhaps help the police find a significant lead to the abductors.

Given the sensitivity of the matter, the police were unwilling to share too many details with the media. But an SP did confirm that the suspects had thrown away a gun as they fled towards the Cavalry Bridge. The weapon was picked up by a traffic warden “who failed to” note down the registration number of the vehicle.

Later in the day, the investigators picked up a couple of people in Gulberg for questioning.

Amid speculation if the disposing of the gun could have been a ploy to mislead investigators, Gulberg Circle ASP Fazal-i-Hamid said police were using eyewitness accounts and CCTV footage seized from nearby buildings to establish a lead to the abductors. According to the ASP’s information Shahbaz was alone in the car when he was abducted, while earlier unconfirmed reports said he might have been accompanied by a friend.

Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah said Shahbaz Taseer had been provided an official security detail in addition to the private guards he kept, but he was without security at the time of the incident.

A statement attributed to the law minister said Taseer’s abductors had been trained in Waziristan — a line that the Punjab government didn’t opt to pursue any further.

Shahbaz Taseer has been looking after a group of companies founded by his father which include the First Capital Securities Corporation, First Capital Equities, Shaheen Insurance Company, Lanka Securities, Pace Pakistan, Trident Construction and Media Times.

A senior employee of one of the companies owned by the Taseers told Dawn the family had received threats for pursuing the murder case of the governor who was killed after he stood up for a Christian woman charged with blasphemy.

He also spoke of some business and property disputes the slain governor’s family had to deal with. He confirmed at least 15 police guards, including lady police, were attached with the Taseer family.

The kidnapping led to a fierce attack by the Pakistan People’s Party on the Punjab government which was spearheaded by none other than Governor Sardar Latif Khosa.

At a press conference where he spoke with emotion about the Taseers, the governor said the Shahbaz Sharif government was complicit in the murder of Salman Taseer and the kidnapping of Shahbaz Taseer, even if on account of their “incompetence”.

He said the provincial government had prior information that warned about plans for the “abduction of a son of a well-known figure” in the province.

The sentiment spilled over on to the roads when PPP workers and supporters staged a protest demonstration against the abduction outside the Punjab Assembly in the evening.

Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif returned to the city from Karachi in the evening to face the prospects of another gruelling search for abductors in a capital that has seen a steep rise in crimes this Ramazan.

On Aug 13 American aid worker Warren Weinstein was kidnapped from his home in Model Town. On Thursday, the Punjab police earned some dubious points when reports about the recovery of Weinstein turned out to be false.

Speaking to journalists in Karachi in the afternoon, Chief Minister Sharif promised to utilise all resources at his disposal to recover Shahbaz Taseer.

Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani called up the Taseers by telephone to show his solidarity with the family and assure them of all-out efforts to secure Shahbaz Taseer’s safe return.

The chief minister went to the residence of the former governor and met his family members, including his widow Amena Taseer and son Shehryar.

He said special instructions had been issued to senior police officers and no effort would be spared for early recovery of Shahbaz Taseer.

Our Reporter in Karachi adds: Speaking at the ‘Meet the Press’ programme of the Karachi Press Club in the afternoon, Chief Minister Sharif condemned the kidnapping.

In response to a question about the kidnappings of Shahbaz Taseer and Warren Weinstein, he expressed deep regret and condemned the incidents in strongest terms.

He said that in view of the concerns of the family of Salman Taseer the Punjab government had provided a contingent of 26 policemen of the Elite Force in addition to Rangers personnel.

He regretted that Shahbaz Taseer was kidnapped when he did not take the security. He said every effort was being made for his recovery. He said the same thing about the missing American national.

He parried a question about Rana Sanaullah’s claim that a Waziristan group was behind both the incidents of kidnapping.

Two arrested in Imran Farooq murder case: DAWN News

2011-08-26T23:49:00.000+05:00

ISLAMABAD: Two men were arrested at Karachi airport a few days ago in connection with the killing of MQM leader Imran Farooq in London in September last year.

The suspects are said to be affiliated to a political party.

Officials privy to details told this correspondent that the arrested men had travelled to UK on student visa, stabbed Dr Farooq to death and then flown to Sri Lanka.

They were apprehended soon after they came out of the airport in Karachi after having travelled from Colombo.

It is learnt that they were arrested on a tip from British intelligence and other sources.

Their names have not been disclosed but the sources said that the president, prime minister and security establishment had been informed about the matter.

The sources said the arrests were made by personnel of the country`s elite intelligence agency with the help of photographs and videos provided by the British authorities.

The arrested persons have been kept in Karachi and investigation is in progress.

The accused had flown to London in August 2010 and the murder took place on September 16.

London`s Metropolitan Police and Scotland Yard had launched an investigation and arrested a suspect who was released later for lack of evidence.

Dr Farooq had co-founded the All Pakistan Mohajir Students Organisation (APMSO), the parent organisation of Muttahida Qaumi Movement, with Altaf Hussain. He was deputy convener of the party, technically next to the MQM chief.

But he left the party in 2009 after developing differences over organisational matters.

As the tiger awakens: Mohsin Hafeez on Chinese Power over and Stakes in the US Economy

2011-08-19T05:26:00.001+05:00

TOO much of a good thing is bad. So is the case with the kind of democracy espoused by the political structure in America these days. The recent debt ceiling debate in the power corridors of Capitol Hill smacked of the worst kind of politics one has witnessed in the history of the developed world.

The Tea Party thought it fit to bring the country to the brink of the most disastrous scenario that was averted at the eleventh hour. The looming threat of the largest economy failing to keep its obligations was just as unfathomable to us here as it was spooky to the rest of the world. Notwithstanding the deal, and more because of the process that preceded the ‘signed, sealed and delivered’ moment, the debt rating of the US was lowered a notch to AA+ from its premium AAA rating.

In the last over 50 years, the debt limit has been raised at an average frequency of one and a half times every year, without as much as an eyelid being batted. Why it had to unravel the worst form of political showdown in the process this time is beyond comprehension and it does not hold up the high values of the greatest nation on earth, of American exceptionalism.

The US has borrowed with reckless abandon over the last several years.

The bubble finally burst in 2007, bringing with it the Great Recession. Even the brightest minds in the country missed the depth of the issue. Those who got it were snubbed, being labelled as ‘Keynesian’ as if it were a dirty word not fit for public utterance. The stimulus during the first few months of the Obama administration was cut down to size, with the result that it became only a half-baked effort. The Federal Reserve kept lowering the interest rates, and then deployed the silver bullet in the way of buying in billions, a combination of mortgage-backed and other US treasuries, to keep the interest rates from rising.

China is the largest creditor of the US, with about $1.3tr in US treasuries and agency securities. The Chinese found the US to be a safe haven, and holding US treasuries in large amounts also helped them mai ntain a tight relationship between the yuan and the US dollar. With the economic structure of China moving towards consumption, partially to cater to the rising middle class, at the expense of savings,
that strategy has been relegated in terms of importance.

The last few years might possibly have stirred the sagacious, long-term thinking of the Chinese who are renowned for thinking in centuries as opposed to the developed world that, perhaps, might go as far as decades. The global Great Recession has planted the seeds of scepticism in the minds of Chinese policymakers regarding the level of demand of their products.

With the infrastructural boom in the country, while the class struggle still remains an almost insurmountable challenge for some, there is an emerging middle class as the population moves to the cosmopolitan suburbia. That is where they see growth opportunities more than in being able to generate finished products for the developed world. With less emphasis on manufacturing and more on research and development, China now spends an increasingly higher amount in that domain, currently ranked just below the US. Such is the characteristic of the international product life cycle.

Another factor that has swayed their thinking is the increasing cost of the insurance premium related to the Chinese foreign exchange reserves, all the more aggravated now that the US Congress has so ably facilitated the S&P downgrade of their once riskless assets: the US treasuries. The deficit, which has ballooned in the last decade due to myopic world strategies, now constitutes an unacceptable proportion of the US GDP. Cutting it sharply, as the Tea Party demands, only exacerbates current economic woes, especially if it is accompanied with no revenue hikes, which, again, is a non-negotiable with the Tea Party. Unfortunately, the debt ceiling deal negates all that has to do with sensible economics and smacks of political expediency.

The third important factor is the political pressure on China to let the yuan move naturally in the marketplace relative to the US dollar. China realises this has to be managed over a period of time and it will wean itself gradually away from US dollar-based assets as it works to stimulate domestic demand. This is quite apparent in the new 12th Five-Year Plan. The plan strives to raise the consumption portion of China’s economy quite precipitously. The corollary of the above clearly indicates a mopping up of the external saving account, or, at least, rationalising US dollar reserves.

With the above scenario in place, it behoves US policymakers to not pooh-pooh the innate, subtle power of their largest creditor China. Contrary to the popularly ingrained belief that it will not dare go any place else, the sleeping tiger does have options. The option need not be to deplete US-based reserves; just some scaling down can have undesirable effects on the US markets, and thus the world. It is also time the US Congress and political leaders start playing the adult in the room and in a manner more consistent with that of a First World chamber.

The writer works for an international financial services firm in the US. mohsinhafeez@yahoo.com

Pakistan origin woman shot dead in US

2011-08-19T05:21:00.000+05:00

BOONTON (New Jersey), Aug 17:

A young couple of Pakistani descent was fired upon while walking their son in a stroller on a quiet street in New Jersey. The woman died, and her husband, a Harvard PhD student, was wounded.

Authorities said on Wednesday that the incident on Tuesday night was not random. The 3-year-old child remained unhurt.

Nazish Noorani and her husband, Kashif Pervaiz, were walking the few blocks from her sister’s home to her father’s house in this small suburban town when gunfire erupted on a dark street, authorities said.

Case for privatisation: By Shahid Kardar in Dawn Op-ed

2011-08-14T20:28:00.000+05:00

IN an earlier column in this newspaper this writer had made a case for rearranging the politico-economic building blocks of the Pakistani state.

The article had argued for an early closure or privatisation of either management or ownership of not just the commercial entities in the public sector but also those mandated to provide ostensibly social services like education.

The latter plea was driven by concerns about the fiscal burden of these resource guzzlers on already strained government budgets and how they were becoming a potential source of systemic risk for the financial sector. This article will present the case for speedy privatisation, not on some theoretical principles but on the basis of irrefutable evidence to support its adoption as a key element of policy and structural reform.

One particularly bad example of privatisation, the KESC (a subject that requires a separate treatment and discussion), is repeatedly brought up not just by vested groups but also the general public to oppose the divestment of a host of poorly managed, loss-making enterprises.

This perception persists and continues to find supporters despite overwhelming information on outcomes following privatisation or the opening up of economic sectors like telecom, banking, etc that were hitherto closed to private entities. An array of stakeholders has latched on to this outlier example (the KESC), contrary to all available proof of the immense contribution of privatisation towards bolstering Pakistan’s economy.To start with, take the case of the banks. The lessons learnt from the recent experience with the Bank of Punjab and that of banks like MCB, Habib, UBL and Allied (the last three with huge holes at the time of their privatisation) until their privatisation began in the early 1990s should be a sobering reminder on the need to protect the interests of depositors and to maintain the soundness and stability of the banking system

by saving the remaining public-sector banks from the fate of the Bank of Punjab.

It would be naïve to expect the State Bank as the regulator to be able to initiate timely, corrective measures to prevent such abuse.

Can anyone deny the quality of services and products, the outreach to those outside the banking system and the increased employment opportunities provided by the rapidly growing private banking industry? Add to this the part it has played in the expansion of the country’s GDP and to government tax revenues to value the nature and scale of its contribution to overall public welfare.

From an after-tax loss of Rs9.77bn in 2001 (when they were government owned) the earnings of these privatised banks rose to a profit after-tax of Rs73.115bn in 2007. Higher earnings resulted in increased tax payment by banks to the government from Rs10.8bn in 2001 to Rs33.8bn in 2007. In the same vein, it is instructive that in 2008 and 2009 the average loan write-off per borrower in public-sector banks was more than twice that per borrower in the case of private banks. Therefore, the sooner we privatise the remaining public-sector banks the higher and quicker the economic and social returns to the nation.

Next, let’s take the case of the telecom sector. Does anyone seriously believe that had PTCL continued to have a monopoly in this sector we would have been able to get this variety of choice and quality of services and products and, more importantly, at such alluring and competitive rates? Also, hasn’t PTCL’s service improved since its privatisation? No bribes now needed for new connections and for getting your landline fixed — all seamless with little, if any, human contact. It wasn’t that long ago that we had to suffer all this. Either our memories are short or conveniently selective.

Next, take the case of the electronic media. Could PTV ever have provided such a variety and quality of programmes and also raised public awareness and knowledge of a whole range of constitutional, political, economic and social issues to such heights, and in a society with an abysmal literacy rate?

Moreover, and more importantly, the presence and growth of the private sector is the best, if not the sole, guarantor of recruitment on merit. Isn’t it a pleasure to come across bright young men and women, with hardly any ‘connections’, producing and anchoring widely watched programmes on TV channels and holding middle and senior management positions in leading private companies? To this writer this fact alone that in an economy dominated by the private sector the young would find jobs on the basis of the talent with which they are born (or the skills they have acquired) rather than the family to which they are born is justification enough to privatise every entity in the public sector.

Finally, over the years, successive regimes have overstretched the mandate of the Pakistani state. This has resulted in its inability to perform, efficiently and effectively, its core functions like ensuring security of life and property of its citizenry, provide justice, etc., responsibilities that it cannot outsource, services that it must both pay for and provide. Therefore, by giving up the management or by privatising these enterprises, scarce resources, both financial and human, will be released to enable the state to focus on the above referred core functions.

In conclusion, I for one find the vociferousness of the opposition to privatisation from politicians and bureaucrats rather amusing. All of them without exception, when it comes to their private lives, have chosen differently from what they are proposing or opposing. They are proud owners of more than one cellphone, have private bank accounts, watch channels other than PTV and would have studied in private schools and invariably chosen such schooling for their children. This private behaviour is rational as they are making choices on the basis of service quality.

However, it is this same set of politicians and bureaucrats and their collaborators who continue to oppose privatisation because of the resulting reduced opportunities for ‘patronage’ (an appropriate all-embracing term in our context) or earnings as fees or junket trips as directors of these banks and publicly owned entities.

The writer was, until recently, governor, State Bank of Pakistan.

Devolution the saviour – I

2011-08-13T04:56:00.003+05:00

By Tanwir Naqvi in Dawn Op-Ed
The writer was the founding chairman of the National Reconstruction Bureau and pioneered the reconstruction of the institutions of state during the period 2000-2002.

A TUMULTUOUS month ago, Sindh was pushed back a century and a half to a system of bureaucratic rule through antiquated laws that the British had used for ruling their colonies for two centuries.

The motive of Sindh’s politico-bureaucratic elite for taking this regressive action obviously was to facilitate and perpetuate arbitrary rule over their own people. The Police Act 1861 remaining intact makes it evident that this remains the motive, despite the misleading impression being given that by disbanding the divisions and their commissioners the local government system under the SLGO has replaced the so-called commissionerate system introduced a month ago. This makes it imperative for people to acquire a clear awareness of what had necessitated its replacement a decade ago with the Police Order 2002 and its integration with the Local Government Ordinances 2001.

The colonial system was built around extreme centralisation of authority under six separate laws in one officer who had four titles — collector (of land revenue), district magistrate, deputy commissioner, and controller of local governments — and the concentration of 10 management functions spread across the political, administrative and criminal justice spectrum of governance.

The system’s colonial character was founded on the empowerment of a single officer, the district magistrate, with administrative authority along with the judicial authority to even hold trials in his criminal court, thus making him the arraigner and the prosecution, as well as the judge and the jury in his court. The 1973 constitution did away with this anti-people monstrosity, but allowed five years for the judicial function to be withdrawn from the executive magistracy.

However, it took nearly three decades to get implemented through the Local Government Ordinances 2001 and the Police Order 2002. Violations of the constitution inherent in restoring this executive magistracy, partially or wholly today, pose a stark challenge to our independent judiciary.

The police, headed by the superintendent of police of the district, functioned under the Police Act 1861 for performing three core functions: maintenance of public order; investigation of crime; and prosecution of criminals in courts of law. The ethos of the police under this law was not of policing the district as a service to the people; instead, the police was meant for protecting the colonial state and pro-state people against opponents of the state. Selective justice through tyrannical behaviour was thus inherent to the system.

The Police Rules 1934 placed the police under the ‘general supervision and control’ of the district magistrate. Yet when police excess called for judicial enquiry, the provincial government deputed the district magistrate to conduct it, despite the latter being a party to it as the boss of the police. This, in essence, is the conflict-of-interest ridden

criminal justice system, deliberately built to respond to political requirements as opposed to the needs of justice, which the Sindh government has chosen to reintroduce.

This DC-SP based system of rule was all that the pre-Independence governments considered necessary for governance; because their aim was ensuring absolute control over the people, and the maintenance of public order, both mainly in pursuit of the twin colonial interests of maximising production, and optimising collection of revenue for its repatriation to their mother country.

The Devolution Plan sought to replace this system with an integrated governance system based on two new laws: the provincial Local Government Ordinances 2001 to enable 99 per cent of the people to solve 99 per cent of their problems within the district; while the federal Police Order 2002 laid the foundation for establishing a pro-people criminal justice and policing system. Good governance is possible only through cohesive functioning of these two laws.

The Police Order 2002 subordinates the district police directly to the district nazim for all policing functions except the internal administration of the police, investigation of crime and the prosecution of criminals in courts of law. Very deliberately, authority over the police was not decentralised to any other political leader or bureaucrat in the local government. To infuse professionalism in the planning of all policing functions, Police Order 2002 requires the district police officer to develop a formal policing plan every year for approval by the district nazim.

Taking away the ‘general supervision and control’ over the police from the district magistrate, it vests the police directly with the responsibility of protecting the state and its citizens against crime, as a service to the people, and gives it the authority to measure up to its new role. To balance this autonomy of the district police, and the authority of the district nazim over the police, the Police Order 2002 created and tasked public safety commissions at the district and provincial levels to prevent misuse of the police by the district nazim, as well as misuse of authority by the police itself. The law requires these civil society institutions to be manned by a combination of meticulously selected citizens of eminence and integrity, and elected representatives at both levels.

To promote specialisation, the law de-concentrates the three prime functions of the police by leaving just the maintenance of public order with the main elements of the district police; and creating a separate department within the police to handle investigation of crime; while a separate prosecution department was created in each provincial government for the prosecution of criminals in courts of law. But to ensure that all district functionaries dealing with functions relating to crime and criminals, including prisons and the district courts, function harmoniously, a criminal justice coordination committee, headed by the sessions judge of the district was brought into being.

For internal administration the police was placed under its own district and provincial police officers, but continued to be answerable to the judiciary. Yet the province was given a professional police complaints authority to discipline police functionaries who were reported upon by the public safety commissions for neglect or excess in the performance of their policing functions.

The Police Order also created independent police forces and public safety commissions for each city district, so as to enable the heads of the provincial police to focus on the host of common districts of the province without the massive distraction that crime in the populous city districts causes.

The bureaucracy supported by the political elite introduced regressive amendments to the law and impeded its implementation for keeping alive the case for restoring the executive magistracy and bureaucratic control over the police.

The police itself was not assertive enough to precipitate the implementation of the Police Order despite the support of some progressive elements from among the politico-bureaucratic elite. Coupled with insufficient investment in the police during a decade of rising terror-related crime, this dynamics kept the mutilated law partially implemented leaving the police with its traditional ungainly image largely unchanged.

For the police to emerge as a people-and-state-friendly governance institution, replacing the Police Act 1861 with the Police Order 2002, along with restoring this law and the Local Government Ordinances 2001 to their original state, followed by their prompt and thorough implementation, are the prime needs of durable good governance through a pro-people democracy.

Given the wisdom and the will to weave a prosperous future for the people, Sindh can now lead the nation towards the attainment of this goal.

— To be concluded
http://www.dawn.com/2011/08/10/devolution-the-saviour-%E2%80%93-i.html

Contd in Next Part (http://zulfiqarshaikh.blogspot.com/2011/08/devolution-saviour-ii-devolution.html)

Devolution the saviour — II Devolution the stabiliser

2011-08-13T04:54:00.000+05:00

THIS second article focuses on highlighting the essence of the people-serving local government system that has (fortunately for the people of Sindh) been reintroduced, as well as how governance will be seriously hampered when this pro-people governance system will inevitably clash with the authoritarian anti-people colonial Police Act 1861.

The DC-SP based governance system discussed in the first article had evoked in the people the feeling of being left out from governance. The British therefore introduced powerless local ‘bodies’ in 1909, 1919 and 1924 responsible only for municipal functions in just the large urban areas.

These laws were cloaked in superficial national façades in the Ayub and Ziaul Haq eras up to 1979. And yet, even these municipal entities remained subordinated to the deputy commissioner or commissioner empowered as controller of local governments to countermand any executive order, resolution, byelaw, or budget of the local ‘bodies’.

The local government system devolved the deputy commissioner’s latent political power formally to elected leaders of the people. It de-concentrated the functions of most provincial departments, as well as the 10 functions of the deputy commissioner.

It decentralised these functions to officers of the district, tehsils and unions, who were empowered with the authority to enforce laws within the sphere of their respective responsibilities, and placed them under elected heads of their local governments. It created a system of formula-based transfer of financial resources to each local government along with mechanisms for both internal and external audit.

The law embodied a potent system of dual control over the local governments — the first by the people through their local councils empowered to legislate as well as to monitor their governments; and the second by the province through its local government commission and the provincial assembly.

The local government system thus empowered three-tier local governments, headed by approachable elected leaders, mandated to deliver or face censure or dismissal; and thus trained in wielding political and legislative power coupled with administrative and financial authority for shouldering higher leadership responsibilities.

Under the principle of subsidiarity, the service delivery function of the provincial government was decentralised to local governments, thus freeing the provincial governments to perform five major functions: interacting with the federal and other

provincial governments; formulating policies and strategies; enacting new laws and modernising old laws; directly managing only trans-district functions; and exercising control over local governments through the local government commission.

After the empowerment of the provincial governments through the recent elimination of the Concurrent Legislative List under the very same principle of subsidiarity, the fruits of devolution were expected to ripen in the form of even better service delivery by the provincial and local governments.

To lend focus to those municipal functions that affect every citizen perpetually, LGO 2001 narrowed down the scope of the municipal role by excluding education, training and health from municipal responsibility; and assigned this pruned municipal function to the town/tehsil municipal administration (TMA) of each city/common district.

Functions relating to education, training and health were consequently assigned to the district governments. The responsibility for all schools and colleges, whether established by the provincial governments or the erstwhile municipalities, thus passed to the district governments, leaving specialised colleges within the domain of provincial governments. Similarly, all health facilities from dispensaries to general hospitals were decentralised to district governments, leaving specialised hospitals with the provincial governments.

LGO 2001 converted the ‘tehsil’ into an integrated rural-urban municipal entity with its urban as well as rural population enjoying municipal facilities as a fundamental right. Its TMA has a planning office to plan and manage its coherent urbanisation. It was envisaged that gradual modernisation of agriculture, and establishment of industry, would create new businesses and jobs in each tehsil. This, along with the growth of municipal, health and education facilities, was expected to promote rapid urbanisation of the whole tehsil, and its evolution into a coherent city district.

This countrywide phenomenon would enable the people to stay in their home tehsils and districts instead of migrating to the few existing cities. This trend of ‘urbanisation of rural areas’ would thus gradually arrest the unabated ‘ruralisation of the urban areas’.

Police Order 2002 was designed in harmony with this local government system. The two systems — local governance and policing — were integrated through authority over the head of the district police being given under both the systems to the district nazim, and to no other elected leader or bureaucrat; and both the district nazim and the head of the district police placed under the oversight of public safety commissions.

With the reintroduction of the district magistracy in any form empowered with authority over the police, the district nazim is likely to experience insubordination by the executive magistracy as well as the police; and he, along with the rest of the political leadership, could even feel threatened by both, especially in the absence of public safety commissions.

With the police not exclusively responsible for policing the district to the satisfaction of the district nazim and the people, incompetence and tyrannical behaviour of the police will return, thus leaving the people as helpless before the police and the executive magistracy as they used to be. With the whole district government thus undermined, the governance system could soon border on collapse.

With the return of the local government system Sindh is halfway back to good governance already. Restoration of Police Order 2002 will complete the virtuous circle. If elections within this year can restore political leadership to the system, these July-August hiccups might even be forgotten, and 2011 remembered as the year in which the political elite truly set the stage for the establishment of a stable people-and-state-serving democracy from bottom to top.

If this does not happen, the consequences for democracy could be grave; because it will convince the people that politics is not about improving the lot of the people, or preventing what looks to them like a ‘failing’ state turning into a ‘failed’ state; but only about an oligarchy having fun at the expense of the people, generation after generation.

— Concluded

The writer was the founding chairman of the National Reconstruction Bureau and pioneered the reconstruction of the institutions of state during the period 2000-2002.

How UK police lost control during riots

2011-08-13T04:49:00.000+05:00

By Paul Lewis and Ben Quinn

LONDON: The Metropolitan police`s embattled public order unit, CO11, once prided itself on being the world leader in containing disorder. At 3am on Monday, its exhausted officers slept in police vans lined up in Enfield town centre, bruised, exhausted and, for the second night running, entirely out-manoeuvred.

For hours they had been chasing groups of youths around Enfield, Ponders End and Edmonton, in north London, using dogs and batons to disperse anyone seen looting shops.

Any doubt that police were unable to control the violence was dispelled hours later, around 5pm on Monday, amid further outbreaks of looting in Hackney and other areas of the capital in broad daylight.

The home secretary [UK minister of the interior], Theresa May, who flew home from holiday to deal with the fallout from the riots, will have asked commanders of the UK`s largest police force: how did you lose control of London?

For the third day running, CO11`s territorial support group (TSG), nicknamed the “Muscle of the Met”, suffered the humiliation of requiring support from colleagues in neighbouring forces.

Some will rightly claim police cannot hope to contend with hundreds of roaming youths intent on causing destruction and breaking into unprotected properties in the middle of the night.

That challenge has been exacerbated since disturbances started on Saturday, initially limited to one street in Tottenham and, later in the night, Wood Green.

The contagion that saw looting spread across a 16km stretch of London in the early hours of Monday poses obvious resource issues. Analysts argued the Met suffered from a combination of bad luck, poor intelligence and overstretched forces. But there may be more long-standing and tactical reasons for its failure to quell the violence.

In Tottenham on Saturday police were accused of failing to open dialogue with protesters who had gathered outside the police station following the fatal shooting of Mark Duggan.

“Years ago there would have been a lot of dialogue,” said David Gilbertson, formerly a Metropolitan police division chief superintendent at Tottenham. “We would have gone out of our way to ensure that the organisers of a protest group would have been brought into a station like that even if others were stood outside.”

It took hours for police to change from regular uniforms to riot gear, and even longer for them to begin almost half-hearted attempts at preventing looting.

Officers concentrated almost all their efforts in regaining the territory on the high road, lost during the earlier protest.

There were hardly any attempts to prevent looting, with police only marching in formation and sealing off roads.

“You have an obligation to protect life and property and to do that you need to have a strategy,” Gilbertson said. “The simplest thing to say is that you don`t let groups gather. If it has gone beyond that then you drive them beyond where they are likely to cause damage. There are some blindingly obvious places you don`t let them get near, such as shopping areas.”But there is a problem. During the last decade CO11 has mainly been restricted to dealing with protest. Pre-announced political demonstrations, which are either officially advertised or promoted via Twitter, allow police to plan in advance.

It is common for police to begin with a low-profile presence, wearing high-visibility jackets and soft hats; rows of TSG backup will usually be parked in nearby back streets. At larger protests CO11 will ensure metal barriers are erected, in an attempt to confine groups. Surveillance officers will be placed on roofs; plainclothes officers mingle in the crowd.

The Met`s preferred tactic in recent years has been the controversial “kettle”, in which large numbers of police are drafted in to contain protesters, sometimes for hours on end.

But roaming groups of youths cannot be effectively kettled. And unlike activists they will often return to the site of trouble, seeking direct confrontation with police.

The looters appear to have been more savvy. Large groups targeting shops have been melting into a nearby estate in seconds at the first sound of sirens arriving.

By the time looting began in other parts of north London and in Brixton in the south on Sunday, police had changed their approach. Large numbers in protective gear were on the scene with shields and batons waiting for trouble.

Mounted police officers were used to disperse youths as soon as trouble began. There were more than a dozen dog-handlers in Enfield alone. Police pursued groups as they travelled en masse through London, reacting quickly to any sign of looting by sprinting in and baton-charging everyone in the vicinity.

“The dog is gonna bite you, get back,” one officer shouted as men attacked a shopfront. It was a generally heavier approach; another officer shouted: “Fucking move or you`ll fucking get it.”

That tough approach could backfire. “What you have in a riot is a series of people with different commitments,” said Dr Peter Shirlow, an expert in Northern Ireland policing at Queen`s University Belfast.

“You will have the hardline, which is intent upon violence, you will have onlookers and you will have those who may be relatively sympathetic. What happens is that if the police are harsh with those who are more militant then you simply draw in those who are mildly connected, but still connected to those who are willing to use violence.”

So far the more heavy-handed and reactive policing strategy failed to prevent looting, although it has arguably prevented the kind of sustained attacks that caused huge fires in Tottenham on Saturday.

When riot vans lined a shopping centre in Edmonton Green after it was announced as a target on Sunday, groups of youths were simply diverted into side streets, finding smaller businesses to attack. Police were in tow, but always a minute or two after the damage had been done.

The seeming impossibility of controlling the looting leads to another question: if brute force won`t stop the disorder, could there have been a better approach to hearts and minds?

The dire relations between young people and “the Feds”, as some call police in north London, has been obvious in recent days. “We hate you,” one woman told a police officer who had come to attend to her stabbed friend in Ponders End.

While most of the BBM — BlackBerry Messenger — communications imploring others to take part in the protest have concentrated on looting and theft, many have encouraged people to “Guck da Fed”.

There is a sense that, through looting, young people have discovered a way to beat their police adversaries.

Dr Michael Rosie, a senior lecturer in sociology at the University of Edinburgh, said: “A key lesson to be learned, as in all such instances, is that communication is fundamental. Police seemed taken by surprise by the rapid escalation in Tottenham — that suggests they need to be more proactive in talking to … the community.”—Dawn/Guardian News Service

2011-08-10T01:28:00.000+05:00

By Larry Elliott: Guardian London

A trader at the New York stock exchange. The last four years have seen five key stages of the global financial crisis, with more likely to come.

From sub-prime to downgrade, there have been five stages of the most serious crisis to hit the global economy since the Great Depression.

Phase one on August 9, 2007 began with the seizure in the banking system precipitated by BNP Paribas announcing that it was ceasing activity in three hedge funds that specialised in US mortgage debt.

This was the moment it became clear that there were tens of trillions of dollars worth of dodgy derivatives swilling round which were worth a lot less than the bankers had previously imagined. Nobody knew how big the losses were or how great the exposure of individual banks actually was, so trust evaporated overnight and banks stopped doing business with each other.

It took a year for the financial crisis to come to a head but it did so on Sept 15, 2008 when the US government allowed the investment bank Lehman Brothers to go bankrupt. Up to that point, it had been assumed that governments would always step in to bail out any bank that got into serious trouble: the US had done so by finding a buyer for Bear Stearns while the UK had nationalised Northern Rock.

When Lehman Brothers went down, the notion that all banks were ‘too big to fail’ no longer held true, with the result that every bank was deemed to be risky. Within a month,

the threat of a domino effect through the global financial system forced western governments to inject vast sums of capital into their banks to prevent them from collapsing.

The banks were rescued in the nick of time, but it was too late to prevent the global economy from going into freefall. Credit flows to the private sector were choked off at the same time as consumer and business confidence collapsed. All this came after a period when high oil prices had persuaded central banks that the priority was to keep interest rates high as a bulwark against inflation rather than to cut them in anticipation of the financial crisis spreading to the real economy.

The winter of 2008-09 saw coordinated action by the newly formed G20 group of developed and developing nations in an attempt to prevent recession turning into a slump. Interest rates were cut to the bone, fiscal stimulus packages of varying sizes announced, and electronic money created through quantitative easing.

At the London G20 summit on April 2, 2009, world leaders committed themselves to a $5tr fiscal expansion, an extra $1.1tr of resources to help the International Monetary Fund and other global institutions boost jobs and growth, and to reform of the banks. From this point, when the global economy was on the turn, international cooperation started to disintegrate as individual countries pursued their own agendas.

May 9, 2010 marked the point at which the focus of concern switched from the private sector to the public sector. By the time the IMF and the European Union announced they would provide financial help to Greece, the issue was no longer the solvency of banks but the solvency of governments. Budget deficits had ballooned during the recession, mainly as a result of lower tax receipts and higher non-discretionary welfare spending, but also because of the fiscal packages announced in the winter of 2008-09.

Last Friday, the morphing of a private debt crisis into a sovereign debt crisis was complete when the rating agency, S&P, waited for Wall Street to shut up shop for the weekend before announcing that America’s debt would no longer be classed as top-notch triple A. This could hardly have come at a worse time, and not just because last week saw the biggest sell-off in stock markets since late 2008. — The Guardian, London

Kashgar Must Not Mar Ties

2011-08-10T01:06:00.000+05:00

Pakistan China Relationships are strongly bonded and must not be allowed to mar: Mushahid Hussain, Chairman Pakistan China Institute writes on the subject

By Mushahid Hussain, Chairman Pakistan China Institute

The recent events in the ancient Chinese city of Kashgar and their possible fallout need to be examined in three broad contexts: China’s concerns, Pakistan’s track record in combating anti-China terrorists and extremists, and the emerging ‘Great Game’ in a region in which the strategically located, mineral-rich province of Xinjiang is a geopolitical centre of gravity.

Xinjiang, bordering Pakistan, Afghanistan and the Central Asian Republics, has 17 per cent of China’s land mass producing roughly 40 per cent of its oil, coal and gas. The province’s economic underdevelopment has been reinforced by a cultural chasm between the Muslim Uighurs of Turkic origin and the Han Chinese population. Xinjiang saw the first signs of organised armed groups emerging soon after the end of the Afghan jihad in 1990. The biggest outbreak of violence was in July 2009 when rioting in the provincial capital, Urumqi, led to over 200 deaths and some 1,700 were injured.

Following the Urumqi riots, in May 2010, the Chinese central government announced the launching of a major modernisation and development plan for Xinjiang, with plans to pump in almost $100bn over a five-year period, with its centrepiece being the Special Economic Zone for Kashgar (similar to the one in Shenzhen, close to Hong Kong) to link the province economically closer to Pakistan and the seven other neighbouring countries that border Xinjiang. The Chinese initiative for Xinjiang also has two interrelated objectives: development and stability.

After the recent violence in Kashgar, local authorities referred to a leader of this terror group having been trained in Pakistan, a claim echoed in the semi-official English-language China Daily

of Aug 2 which said “the leaders of the group learned terrorist techniques in Etim camps in Pakistan before they penetrated into Xinjiang”. The East Turkestan Islamic Movement (Etim) was formally declared a terrorist outfit by the United Nations Security Council in 2002.

The subsequent official statement of China’s foreign ministry on Aug 3 made no mention of training camps in Pakistan, focusing only on a positive note of “continued close anti-terror cooperation between Pakistan and China”. And, in an unprecedented comment, the ISPR chief, Maj Gen Athar Abbas, underlined on Aug 5, the “Pakistan Army have been and would continue operations against Etim, and our cooperation (with China) in the field of operations and intelligence will continue against the common threat of terrorism”. It is, therefore, no coincidence that the head of ISI has visited China twice in five weeks.
Given the relatively free movement of people between Pakistan and China, concerns have been raised by Chinese leaders about border crossings by Uighur extremists. For example, when President Zardari visited China in February 2009, China’s minister of public security especially flew from Beijing to Shanghai to discuss these issues with him.
That this irritant hasn’t been able to spoil Pakistan-China relations so far is largely because of Pakistan’s consistently close cooperation with China on this count, key aspects of which have included:
— Capture and extradition of Xinjiang suspects from Pakistan on at least three occasions, 14 in 1997, seven in 2002 and nine in 2009;
— Killing of Etim leader, Hasan Mahsum, by the Pakistan Army in October 2003, as well as the death in a drone attack of his successor Abdul Haq Turkestani in January 2010, on information provided by Pakistan;
— Joint counterterrorism military exercises between the Pakistan Army and the People’s Liberation Army of China in 2004 in Xinjiang, in Abbottabad in 2006 and in July 2010 in the predominantly Muslim Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. Several hundred troops, including elite commandos from both sides, took part in these military drills, whose preparations do not preclude the possibility of joint operations against anti-China terror groups on the Pakistan-China border, should the need ever arise.
Since Xinjiang, and Kashgar in particular, would be the hub of regionalism spawned by economy, energy, road and rail communications (a feasibility study for a railway line from Havelian in Pakistan to Kashgar is under way), geopolitics also casts its shadow over the region.
While China is vital for Pakistan’s security, stability, economy and energy, and is also now a factor for national unity given across-the-board national consensus on close ties with our time-tested neighbour, Pakistan’s importance too has increased since it protects China’s troubled ‘soft southern underbelly’ (Tibet, Xinjiang). With the Dalai Lama operating out of India, the ‘Tibet card’ could now be played in coordination with the ‘Xinjiang card’ as the World Uighur Congress has its headquarters in Washington.
Containing China’s rise and viewing China as the ‘new threat’ seem to be key ingredients of an emerging Great Game which has two other components: cobbling an anti-China coalition of Asian countries like India, Japan and Vietnam, and exploiting China’s ethnic fault lines.
In fact, such thinking is not new among influential circles in Washington. A famous Op-Ed which the prominent establishment writer, Leslie Gelb, provocatively titled ‘Breaking China Apart’, in The New York Times on Nov 13, 1991, stated that “a threat to the territorial integrity of the Middle Kingdom” could become the “ultimate sanction” if Beijing did not behave. He added, somewhat ominously, that “Americans and others may take extraordinary measures” including “kindling separatism” to pressure China.
Notwithstanding such a mindset of others regarding China, the primary onus is on Pakistani policymakers, both in mufti and khaki, to take the fallout of Kashgar seriously for its recurrence can be detrimental to our bilateral bond.
For starters, they have to ensure no part of Pakistan is used by any group against any of our neighbours. The excuse of ‘lack of control over ungoverned spaces’ no longer holds, more so, if such spaces can be used with impunity by forces destabilising both Pakistan and its friendly neighbours.
Earlier, Iran had voiced similar complaints, so the quicker and more competently we act, the better it would be for Pakistan’s interests and that of our relations with the region as a whole.

One Province Leads To Many

2011-08-10T00:59:00.000+05:00

By Asha'ar Rehman: Dawn Op-ed August 9, 2011

THE wish has been expressed, the slogans raised. The people have set off on the road to a new province, which will take some travelling and entail quite a lot of discomfort, not to speak of the pain of those who must view this as a parting.

All historical tours of Pakistan must begin in India. Indian examples abound in all our discussions. It is no surprise then that the new province debate is in part sustained by how the Indians divided their provinces. They divided them in the wake of Partition, chastened by Partition. It was in a way logical for the people of India to demarcate the boundaries when a partition had just happened.

The movements for division — or as it were, a coming together of small British-period states — on a linguistic basis was strong even in the early 1950s, and following the creation of a Telugu-speaking Andhra Pradesh just six years after Partition, a number of new states emerged on the Indian map in 1956. The principles set and constitutional cover given, it later led to the creation of more states. Pakistan, meanwhile, decided to go its own way in nation-building.

Religion was a given, and it used Urdu, in the name of unity of the people who lived in its five provinces. East Pakistan was told by none other than the Quaid himself that Urdu

was going to be the national language of Pakistan. The declaration itself and its consequences are indicative of the tough regime that the new nation-building exposed Pakistanis to.

Religion, as it turned out, was not enough of an adhesive, and those running the country’s affairs searched for the right kind of constitution and were desperate enough to go on adventures such as rule by the bureaucracy and by the military soon after independence.

They pandered to false notions of a union by experimenting with the One Unit system. All these steps failed and East Pakistan went its separate way in 1971.

That the remaining parts of Pakistan didn’t quite fit official definitions of a single nation was clear when the Baloch took up arms against the state in the 1970s. The Balochistan problem as it is often called persists to this day and other provinces have joined the protests against what they call Punjab’s hegemony.

Within Punjab, in areas at a distance from Lahore, local bards have been for long heard coming up with strong denouncements of the ‘Takht Lahore’. In the province’s southern parts, the political divide between the ‘locals’ and ‘settlers’ has been stark, manifesting itself ever more strongly in the politics of the areas.

In the 2008 election, for instance, a large number of seats in southern Punjab were won and lost on the basis of the local-settler bifurcation. Also the rural-urban divide was quite clear, reflecting in the tally of seats secured by the PPP and PML-N.

The PPP did win some seats where settlers had a significant presence while doing remarkably well in constituencies dominated by the locals. The PML-N, on the other hand, did better in urban areas with a sizable population of Punjabi- and Urdu-speaking voters as compared to its showing in the rural parts of southern Punjab.

There is truth in the observation that it is the PPP’s formal embracing of the idea that has given the call for a Seraiki province its verve and drive — more than half a century after our Indian cousins saw logic in smaller provinces ultimately formed on a linguistic basis. Mr Nawaz Sharif’s views notwithstanding, this is the basis on which provinces are going to surface in Pakistan, be it in Punjab or anywhere else.

Since few have been able to oppose it or even stay neutral, it has to be a genuine demand supported by public sentiment as well as logic. There are reports from southern Punjab areas such as Multan which say the people there are confident about being able to secure a province of their own.

There is a suggestion that the years that have passed since the great migration of 1947 have actually meant that groups have had that much more time to assimilate in a common culture.

In these times of high hopes and expectations, in these times of disillusionment with the existing system, settlers from Punjab’s upper parts are also seen to have become culturally compatible with the ‘locals’, the old measure of intermarriages still acting as a gauge to knowing the level of assimilation. Indeed, many new-generation ‘settlers’ have taken to speaking Seraiki.

These happy estimates from observers are quite contrary to the political news emanating from the area in the past. In all honesty, this assimilation part is yet to be fully probed. The earnest political impetus for a province has recent origins and it is only now that analysts will be drawn to looking at the cultural differences that exist. An analysis of potentially how disruptive they can be is yet to be undertaken. These will have to be reconciled as a new province matures from a dream to a practicable, constitutional option.

At this moment, a lot of work remains to be done, before the constitutional spadework on the matter begins. For one, there is not just one demand but various sets of ideas. Groups in Bahawalpur want a state of their own. Unlike Multan that has to dig deep in history to prove its exclusivity as well as affinity with parts that it now wants included in a Seraiki province, Bahawalpur was a separate state until only half a century ago. And then there are areas such as Dera Ismail Khan in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa whose politicians want a union with the new Seraiki province.

These are as yet disparate claims that could ultimately set in motion a process aimed at a demarcation of the entire country.

Javed Hashmi has 16 provinces in mind. His PML-N colleagues could soon be found repeating elsewhere what they are hearing today in their home province of Punjab.

The writer is Dawn’s resident editor in Lahore.