THE development criss-cross is a convergence and a clash, at one and the same time, of positive, progressive trends with conflictual eruptions of violence, decline and breakdown. This phenomenon has been simmering for some decades but is now gaining a new visibility and momentum.

Systems of reformist governance try to cope with enormous pressures of population growth and inadequate physical infrastructure, specially in urban areas. New water pipelines go empty as drainage pipes burst with raw sewage that spills out on to the streets. Computer training institutes proliferate into lanes and alleys as cyber cafes increase access to the new technology. Even as information technology (IT) education centres multiply, the quality of IT education stagnates or declines in many areas.

Just as estimates project future shortages in software design engineers, unemployment levels reach new heights in Western Europe and in South Asia. Satellite TV channels conduct live telecasts from remote villages where famine sharpens its deathly appetite by the minute. Electronic voting machines are introduced into large democracies where over 300 to 400 million people remain trapped in abject poverty and in oppressive caste structures.

Directors-General of military operations of two adversary armies in Pakistan and India exchange telephone calls on the hot-line even as the temperatures soar on their borders because of heavy troop concentrations. The world enters the 21st century almost at the same time as a global economic recession.

Duality and paradoxes are features of human history, past and present. The novel and unique dimension of the era of the digital divide is the blistering and relentless speed at which knowledge is growing and technology is advancing in some parts of the planet, making it more and more difficult for the vast majority of the other areas to catch up with those ahead of them. This gap has never been as great as it is today.

To illustrate: an American strategic analyst estimates in February 2002 that in imminent new conflicts, even the other members of Nato will be unable to work with the US because the USA enjoys a sharp technical superiority over its own military partners, making it impractical to attempt synchronized, co-ordinated and integrated military action against a common enemy.

Yet this is cold comfort for the vast majority of humanity who are far behind the Nato partners of the US.

The development criss-cross is even more damaging than the digital divide. Human resources are distorted and distracted. Many aspects are involved that are more fundamental to the quality of life than IT. Psychological, social, cultural, economic and political dimensions come into play. The collective, inter-active facets of community and nation impinge.

Meanwhile, the digital divide spans the planet across regions, within countries, within sectors, between urban and rural areas, between neighbourhoods and communities. This divide arises from disparities in income, literacy, education, cultural practices, gender discrimination, lack of access to electricity, telecommunication and mass media. The divide is also due to misallocations and lopsided investments. For example, in the judicial sector. The lower courts, where justice for the millions is delivered, are the ill-equipped and under-resourced parts of the system, most without a single computer. Whereas the Supreme Court, where only a few thousands gravitate, presides over justice in air-conditioned, well-wired splendour.

Governments and non-official programmes comprising efforts by both the private sector and civil society are aiming to bridge this divide and reduce the disparities.

Pakistan is an excellent example of new initiatives to significantly reduce the digital divide and disparities. The present government and the work of the ministry of science and technology are fine illustrations of this aspect.

Even more intensive attempts need to be made to reduce the digital divide and minimize the adverse effects on the dispossessed and the disadvantaged, by containing and curbing the development criss-cross.

The social divide and the economic divide are larger and more critical than the digital divide. The IT process and convergence can certainly reduce some degree of the social and economic divide. But by no means can IT initiatives alone address the fundamental economic disparities.

The challenge of the digital divide and the development criss-cross requires a comprehensive, multi-dimensional response. This response has to be led by state, governmental and political leaderships which have vision and determination, which are committed to build strong, stable democratic institutions with a continuity of policy objectives and programmes. In turn, such leaderships must be produced by good citizens actively engaged in the political and nation-building process.

The development criss-cross calls for:

* A conceptual reappraisal of the principles and practices that shape international relations, moving from the thesis of economic power and military might to include reduction of disparities as a central factor in determining aid, trade, grants and support.

* Accelerated reform of governance, police, education, health, transparency and accountability.

* Enforcement of law and order without discrimination.

* A restructuring of urban management to stem the rising tidal wave of people, vehicles, houses and strained civic services.

* Consolidation of IT, telecom and media reforms, initiatives and programmes.

* Unification and massification of educational streams.

* Capacity building and training of individuals, community-based organizations and communities.

* Large-scale teacher training in English, IT and special subjects.

* Building and nurturing of political, democratic institutions that enable purposeful participation by both women and men.

In some countries, including Pakistan, an energetic response has begun. The journey through the maze of the development criss-cross urges us onwards — faster!

The writer is a former senator and federal minister.

I AM flying down to the Broward Public Library in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., to do a book signing for a paperback I wrote that, for ethical reasons, my publicity department forbids me to mention.

Over the years I have done thousands of book-signings (well anyhow, quite a few). It’s even tougher than writing a book. Sandy Vanocur once told me, “You know you’ve been on the road too long when you’ve run out of quarters for the vibrating bed in your motel.”

I have had many adventures in my book-signing career. One of my favorites was when I went to a department store in Rochester. The books were set up in the lobby. By accident I received a copy of the instructions for the staff.

One employee was assigned to make sure the books were there. Another supplied the ice water. A third person was in charge of supplying the pens.

The last assignment on the list had to do with security. Written next to it was the notation, “Mr. Buchwald does not need security because he is not that well-known.”

When you’re flogging a book, you sit in a lot of TV show Green Rooms, waiting to go on the air. I shared one in Chicago with a chimpanzee who was holding onto his owner for dear life. I kept eyeing the chimp, and he kept eyeing me. Finally his owner, a little old lady, asked me to hold him while she changed his diaper. At that moment I declared I was going to give up show business.

Sometimes on the road you are the victim of a breaking story and they tell you they are going to bounce you off the air.

This happened in Detroit. A friend, Tony Kornheiser, was with me plugging his book. The producer came out and said, “We have to cancel both of you. We just invaded Grenada.”

I immediately said, “I just came back from Grenada.”

He said, “Then come on the air.”

When the producer left the room, Tony growled, “You lying SOB. You don’t even know where Grenada is.”

I said, “You have to think fast when you’re out on the road.”

Jim Michener and I were good friends, though he outsold me in the bookstores by 100 to 1.

One time I was at a bookstore on Fifth Avenue for an autograph session. Michener’s “Hawaii” was displayed all over the window. My book was hidden all the way in the back.

I took off my suit jacket and looked for someone who worked there. I called over a stockroom boy and said, “You see all those Michener books in the window? Put them in the back and take the books in the back and put them in the window.”

It was one of my greatest book-signing triumphs and when I told him, Michener laughed and said he was wondering why everyone was going to the back of the store.

The toughest book-signing competitor I ever had was Sylvia Porter, the business author and columnist. I appeared with her at a book luncheon. She talked about bonds and I talked about Washington. After we both spoke, we signed books. I had two people (my sisters) waiting to buy my book, and Sylvia Porter had a line that went around the block.

I learned from Andy Rooney that the only way to speed up a book-signing line is not to talk to anyone whose book you are autographing.

I will do this in Fort Lauderdale. Flogging one’s book is a dirty business, but somebody has to do it. —Dawn/Tribune Media Services

IN both his visits to the US, in November 2001 and now in February 2002 General Pervez Musharraf has made a number of statements on transforming Pakistan into, what he calls, a “moderate” state.

Since this term has direct reference to doctrinaire evaluations and priorities to our Islamic heritage and ideology, it is manifest such projections in New York and Washington were designed to influence those whose political interests and strategic focus do not necessarily coincide with those of Pakistan.

If any proof of this reality is needed, Musharraf should know that best of all. His own government, regime and status brought down all kinds of sanctions and castigation on Pakistan until September 10, 2000, when the world underwent a cataclysmic international political metamorphosis.

In my view Huntington was perceptive in projecting his thesis of Clash of Civilizations in the 21st century. This conviction has been strengthened by Pope John Paul’s recent affirmation of this doctrine in his recent address to a multi-congregational audience in Assisi on January 22, 2002 when he said, particularly to the Muslims, that he feared what he saw was an ongoing, even increasing crescendo of clashes, involving the western civilizations and that of the Islamic peoples.

In the face of such an onslaught, many Islamic leaders have plainly become afraid and few have openly defended anything that the Muslims believe in or do. Is it now “fashionable” to appear to be a “moderate”? In this context, in a Hegelian sense of historical perspective, recent events towards a “secular” Pakistan have to be viewed.

General Musharraf’s speech to the world on the nation’s TV networks on January 12, 2002 contained the genesis of a form of de-Islamization that no one in Pakistan has publicly espoused while in office. Even Mr. L.K. Advani from across the border amusingly remarked on January 16, 2002 that “Musharraf’s speech was path-breaking. I have not heard any Pakistani government denounce theocracy in the manner the general did.”

Surely if even Mr Advani praises Musharraf, there is something very wrong somewhere. Why were the Indians commenting on such matters that were essentially “domestic” in content and scope? Because no one was under any illusion, from the White House to New Delhi, that Musharraf’s famous pronouncements were directed at appeasing such powers and places. Newsweek further projected Musharraf’s views by stating boldly that he wanted Pakistan to be “Muslim secular state”.

When many in the Pakistan press objected to his using the term “Muslim” and “Secular state” together in this interview with Newsweek, it had to be clarified by a presidential spokesman three days later, that this was not a term used by the general, but by the script writers of the magazine.

It is really unimportant what words he deployed to propagate this de-Islamization of Pakistan. We know what this term signifies. It is equally clear that in Musharraf’s political lexicography, “Islamic”, “moderate” and “secular” are easily interchangeable terms and concepts. The diversity of actions announced in this speech and in the subsequent days regarding the proposed “changes” in the Constitution is strong indication of what the present regime has in store for Pakistan.

The ethos of what Musharraf wants can be summed up in his own words: “We should eliminate militancy, hatred. We should stop extremists from exploiting the poor into taking up arms in the name of Islam” He further said that he wanted Pakistan to be a “moderate and progressive” Islamic state. Indeed he went on to ask pointedly: “Are we to make Pakistan a theocratic state, or are we to make Pakistan an Islamic welfare state?”

In Pakistan such matters relating to our creation as a state are entitled to scrutiny by the people. But the chain of command system in Pakistan, particularly in the present administration, is such that all others in any important capacity, whether they share General Musharraf’s views or not, have begun to publicly pronounce in chorus the same views over the electronic media which is totally in state control. Concerned outsiders have chosen to ignore such far- reaching doctrinaire changes in our national outlook since it benefits them. In this background the national press, as a custodian of public views, has thus a pivotal role to play in this debate.

It is quite possible that the general may well have spoken for a large number of educated people of Pakistan, even for a substantial portion of the urban middle classes in projecting his thesis that Pakistan should be merely a “Republic” and not necessarily an “Islamic” one. Many Pakistanis are not ready to have the country controlled by clerics or mullas and are really abhorred and terrified by sectarian violence that has been plaguing this country.

But the real socio-political question is: Is antipathy to mullaism equivalent to indifference to Islam? I am certain this is not the case.

Equally important is the problem that this is not merely an intellectual debate. These matters are so fundamental for our future as a state that it has to be determined, a fortiori, whether in fact in the sense of jus cogens, what Musharrraf has said is constitutionally acceptable or plausible given our own national ideology?

Let us examine this subject from these angles. Clearly Musharraf as head of state and government (which is a clear violation of our Constitution) is bound by convention and common sense to speak for the entire country and not a section of it, howsoever privileged it might be.

His personal views, important though may be, are essentially irrelevant. Further it is axiomatic that his policy statements on state action of the Republic should be in accordance with our Constitution and our ideology. Why?

Because Pakistan’s creation and continued existence depends upon it. We are not a state in the nature of the ordinary run of the mill countries in which by emphasizing “secularism” it can be concluded that our very existence has been doctrinally secured. Without adherence to our Islamic history and ideology, we face the prospect of disunity, chaos, internal disorder and possible breakup.

First let us simply look at the salient Islamic features of our Constitution. Article 2 says: “Islam shall be the state religion of Pakistan”. This is followed by Article 31, which appears in Chapter 2 of the Constitution entitled, Principles of Policy, and contains a mandate to adopt comprehensively, for the Muslims, the Islamic way of life. The provisions of this chapter provide guidelines for policy-oriented decisions of all state functionaries.

This Article says that “steps shall be taken to enable the Muslims of Pakistan, individually and collectively, to order their lives in accordance with the fundamental principles and basic concepts of Islam and to provide facilities whereby they may be enabled to understand the meaning of life according to the Holy Quran and Sunnat.” It is further provided in this provision that “The state shall endeavour, as respects the Muslims of Pakistan to make the teachings of Holy Quran and Islamayiat compulsory, to encourage and facilitate the learning of Arabic language” Further the state has to promote unity and the observance of the Islamic moral standards.

In addition to these Articles, we have a large number of other constitutional provisions relating to, for instance, enforcement of religious laws and the oaths of every notable state functionary contained in the Third Schedule of the Basic Law which emphasize the highest supremacy of the teachings and laws of Islam; further reference can be made to Articles 62 and 63 which address the matter of qualifications of membership of national elected bodies in which it is candidly said that no one devoid of complete obedience to Islamic values can be given any office of authority in the country.

Indeed, ironically, under a sub provision of these Articles it is an affront to the Constitution to speak against the Islamic ideology of the nation, which is precisely what seems to be taking place currently in the country in a diversity of ways. In face of such provisions, how can Musharraf ask for mosques and religious schools to be registered, when no such certification is needed for non-Muslim institutions? How does he justify the “official” endorsement of his views when acknowledged leaders of contrary public opinion such as Qazi Hussain Ahmed are jailed in the woke of the war in Afghanistan? How does Musharraf explain to those who know how Pakistan was created that separate electorate has nothing to do with the Two-Nation theory?

Even more surprisingly, how does the minister for minorities, a non-Muslim in the cabinet and a former member of the armed forces of Pakistan, say at a public function in Lahore that the Two-Nation theory was only for the creation of Pakistan and realistically came to an end with the country’s creation? The jailing of hundreds of members or sympathizers of religious parties in January, and the banning of five such entities, two of them registered as Political Parties, is a matter that on a political and legal plane needs an elaborate explanation.

I am afraid, by undertaking or endorsing such decisions Musharraf has not only possibly changed electoral politics into one of probable agitation, he has dealt a severe blow to our ideology and continued cohesion as a “nation-state”.

No one should forget that this is an age of national states, and if we cannot have the basic foundation of Islam in our constitutionalism, the future of the federation, itself composed of diverse ethnicities, faces a dangerous prospect.