AMONG the various loopholes identified in the system leading to a sharp downturn in the economy during the last two decades, poor administration and total disregard for good governance in all spheres of our socio-economic setup have played a major part in worsening the situation.

These in turn are, obviously the outcome of conflicting policies/strategies devised both at government and individual organizational level having least comprehension of the socio-economic problems of the country. This has given rise to adhocism and uncertainty and a conflicting attitude on the part of human resources responsible for running these organizations and in the process transmitting the culture of conflict to the entire nation.

The competition among various units and individuals of an organization is considered an essential ingredient for organizational growth and this gives rise to win-lose struggle. The organizational structure of public sector corporations, although depicts synergic road map for operational growth of the organization, in reality it prompts competition against cooperation among various units of the corporation and human resources manning these units vie with each other for imposing their superiority and importance. Thus self-interest prevails among individuals.

The culture of conflict in an organization emerges out of:-

a) Lack of clarity in communication creates misunderstandings, hence wrong decisions and their faulty implementation are the outcome. As a result conflict situation arises among various departments and between the management and the employees.

b) Inappropriate organizational structure also leads to power struggle between various units, having conflicting objectives or where there is a situation of interdependence between two or more departments to achieve set targets.

c) Certain personality traits / characteristics like total disregard of business ethics for self-interest and inclination towards authoritative approach to get things done by subordinates.

d) Fast technological development is no doubt giving immediate benefit to society, but at the same time it has totally damaged human values. Karl Mannheim, a renowned sociologist (1893-1947), had strong reservations regarding industrial revolution taking place. According to him this changeover had resulted in total degradation of moral values in society.

It is a fact that the use of latest technology in all business setups proves a threat to traditional labour, artisans and the work of art at least in the transitional period. This generates conflict and dissatisfaction on the part of the affected class of workers.

Sometimes conflicting culture emanates from economic and political and sometimes even from social reformers who behave in undemocratic and autocratic manner, thus creating an atmosphere of antagonism, dissatisfaction, insecurity, and above all, uncertainty in all spheres of life.

For the rational growth of an organization, the atmosphere of tranquillity, cooperation and consensus need to be put in place. The formula devised by Eleaner Philips and Ric Cheston (contained in their study “Conflict resolution-what works?” published in California Management Review) gives different resolving methods for different conflict situations in an organization. Basically, they have identified four methods — forcing, problem solving, compromise, and avoidance.

However according to them the use of force, and problem solving are the preferred strategies to resolve conflict situations. The study revealed that problem solving through consensus and teamwork with added attributes like candour, trust for others, and open-mindedness was more successful in settling conflicts caused by communication difficulties. It is only the conflicts arising out of one’s personal values or personality itself or caused by subordinates’ discipline problems which can be tackled by using the forcing tactics like taking disciplinary action or transferring the person to other assignments or places for eliminating chances of recurrence.

In order to change the entire conflicting culture of the country as a whole, sincere efforts should be made both at each organizational and individual level for self-discipline and self-regulation. For that business organizations in Pakistan, aspiring to achieve best of their business goals, need to manage conflicts in the industry effectively. This conflict-free culture can be developed if each organization whether commercial or non-commercial, while developing its human resources must give thought to creating an environment to develop their emotional intelligence.

According to John Mayor, a renowned sociologist who propounded the concept of emotional intelligence, defines the same as one’s capability of controlling / regulating emotions in a manner that he or she is able to understand not only his / her own self, but also has empathy for others.

According to Goleman one’s job success and his / her inter personal skills impacting entire organization, and to go a step further affecting entire socio-economic environment of the country, depend on self-awareness, which is a key to realize one’s strengths and weaknesses. Secondly it is one’s competence regarding social awareness or social empathy, which enables a person to have a judicious awareness of other’s emotions, concerns and needs.

A person capable of assessing his / her strength and weaknesses, automatically develops the attributes of self-control, trust-worthiness, adaptability to changing situations, initiative and desire for self-actualization. The same person is found to have empathy for others and in the industry where he / she operates has total awareness regarding organizational goals and policies and at the same time concerns and aspirations of the people manning it. Such a person heading an organization has true concern for career development and career progression of the employees.

For all levels of hierarchy and top management in particular, it is essential to understand emotions of the people in the organization and also of all stake holders. A visionary executive has quality of building relationship by putting in place an effective communication system which in turn helps him / her in managing conflict in the industry.

One’s competence to have self-control, enables him / her to handle all antagonism and conflict effectively through collaboration and team work approach. An emphatic leader communicates effectively with all levels of employees for being a good listener at the same time. As such he or she gives problem-solving approach to each issue, thus eliminating all dark areas in inter-personal relationship.

Thus one’s capability to give a balanced approach towards achieving organizational objectives and having highly motivated team to perform reflects his / her effective leadership, which is essential for the success of any organization and nation as a whole. It is unfortunate that the country as a whole suffers from ethical degradation due to lack of empathy and social awareness on the part of the people in all walks of life.

Ethics of life demand that one must rise above personal gains and motives. Basically the political managers of the country need to develop self-control and empathy for the nation as a whole. They must work, earnestly, for promoting democratic values, welfare of their countrymen and of course, for enhancing the image of the country.

In order to develop emotional competence at organizational level, apart from giving conventional approach for developing technical and behavioural skills of the employees, the management must focus on giving them exposure to emotional competency development training programmes.

It is also essential, while evaluating performance of the employees, that their overall assessment be done by giving due weightage to their emotional competence, because one’s adaptability to changing situations at work-place and competence for developing harmonious inter-personal relations are vitally needed attributes of human resources for the growth of an industry.

THE current electoral process is shrouded in a dense fog of uncertainties and apprehensions and what we are witnessing today would be a comedy of errors if it were not tragic for the country. In an earlier article published in this paper, I had warned the military government that evils were already beginning to emerge again and if not nipped in the bud would become uncontrollable. This has come to pass in all aspects of life, including politics. Let us look backwards a bit.

Zia tried to use Islam as his manifesto for staying in power but this did not work. He then resorted to wholesale corruption. He did not even spare the very honourable courts of law in his resolve to corrupt every institution in the country so that all were vulnerable and none strong enough to challenge him. In this he gave special attention to corrupting politics.

For instance, parliamentarians received huge amounts of public funds, ostensibly for development projects in their constituencies, which, being unaudited, were actually bribes in exchange for support. Thus, the concept of politicking for profit and buying and selling loyalties took roots which were further strengthened during the so-called people’s governments of Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif. It became much easier for governments to buy loyalties at public expense than to impress with their achievements.

Corruption, which for long existed mainly in the bureaucracy, is now universal and most visible in the political field. Since there was no need to show qualification and ability, incompetence has also become endemic and the combination of corruption and incompetence has given a strong stench to politics.

In this scenario came General Musharraf with his seven-point agenda for correcting all wrongs and putting things right. This was a breath of fresh air for the demoralized and frustrated masses of the country. Things were so bad that the machinery of government stood defeated. In such circumstances even the slightest effort to cope would have appeared like a big step and certainly yielded results. But, alas, the dark night of woes was not over.

The military government, the advent of which struck terror in the hearts of the culprits, who could not find holes deep enough to hide in, began to show a singular lack of capacity to prove equal to the task. It seemed that it had bitten off more than it could chew and was stumbling and blundering along without any direction. Today the government has no control: chaos has grown into anarchy.

It is not only the magnitude of the existing evils that have overwhelmed the government; its own unpragmatic approach has also stymied it. It has made policies which it cannot implement and retreats in the face of resistance. It has introduced reforms which do not work, partly because they are hallucinatory with no concept of what is actually required and partly because the machinery of implementation is recalcitrant, corrupt and incompetent. Even if the reform is good, it cannot work if not implemented properly. Thus the first and foremost task of the government should have been to clean up the administration, for which it has had more than enough time.

It was sad to hear General Musharraf say in his last press conference that it will take a long time to improve the law and order situation. This, coming from a military ruler who has enjoyed three years of unfettered power, is indeed most depressing. This reason for lawlessness is simply the corruption, incompetence and even criminal conduct of the police. Why fudge the issue by seeking other causes or getting trapped in far-fetched theories and philosophies? If the process of cleaning up the police set-up had begun three years ago, today it would be a force no criminal would dare confront. It is as simple as that.

But instead of doing this, the government has introduced highly complicated and uncalled-for reforms which are not working and which, in fact, have increased corruption and incompetence among the police. Similarly, the new local government system is still not understood even by those who are practising it. The need here was to simplify the mode of working and streamline the system so that redress and solutions are easily available. In fact, the opposite has been done. The net result is more misery and hardship for the people and again increased corruption and incompetence.

The government has blundered even more seriously in the political field. Instead of systematically befriending the masses by removing their difficulties and winning their confidence by seeking out the right ones amongst the corrupt and recalcitrant and by bringing forth a new breed of honest, dedicated and motivated class of politicians, it started off by labelling all politicians as crooks and hounding them.

But even in this it could not do a thorough job as most of the real crooks either slipped away or made deals with it, making a mockery of its accountability process. In this state of affairs, the government suddenly woke up to the fact that it is politics that makes the world go round and General Musharraf leapt into the arena with the announcement of a referendum. This and its results were a disaster to beat all disasters.

Going to the people with whom he has no rapport and who were in the grip of mounting hardships which the government had done nothing to lessen, it was obvious that they would manifest a sullen disposition, which gave the PPP and the PML-N a stick to beat the government with. The PPP has stepped up its international propaganda campaign which has put the government on the defensive. Finding itself drowning in the political sea, the government has scrambled only to find leftovers.

What has been labelled as the King’s Party is only a conglomeration of losers and rejects who line up for any government that is in power and abandon it when the going gets rough. This is exactly the lot that should have been removed from the field in the process of cleaning up politics.

While the requirement of degrees, etc., has prevented some old sinners from contesting the elections, it is still a sorry lot that is going to the polls. On all sides there are the notorious individuals who are licking their lips for another piece of the cake. There are no manifestos or commitments to the people. There is no belief in any principles or programmes. Even allegiances to parties are fake and expediency the order of the day. Overnight foes are becoming friends and friends turning foes. Who could foresee that Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto would become political allies and exchange niceties?

Manipulation, trickery, deceit and lies are all being used to get votes. Rigging and violation of the rules have already begun. The government is the same helpless spectator that it was when all rules and norms were violated in the local bodies’ polls. In one ease in Larkana a Returning Officer, who received the nomination form four days earlier, had only one day for scrutiny which demanded certification of a foreign university degree by the University Grants Commission in Islamabad. Similarly, S.E. Wapda, Sukkur, refused to give an NOC to a candidate who had paid the full amount of the electricity bills in court where these bills were challenged as being bogus.

In Kashmore, a candidate, who has very high ambitions had his forged degree accepted by the Returning Officer even though a similar certificate has been rejected in another case. A report says that in his previous election nomination forms, the forged degree-holder had declared himself to be only Intermediate pass. In Garhi Yasin, the Returning Officer demanded the production of a party ticket from one candidate and not from any other although this is not required to be shown till September 13.

Rigging is not necessarily an activity open only to the government. All are adept at it. Whenever there are elections there is rigging — only the consequences vary according to the degree. More rigging brings greater protest. However, if the government rigs the process this time, the explosion will be even greater than in 1977 and if others do so we shall have bogus assemblies. It is clear that the latter is the direction we are moving in. The end result will be assemblies with no calibre, with a predominant presence of members who are not fit to be there or have not been properly elected. These will have only one object and that is to make maximum personal gains while the going is good. They will make deals and blackmail the government and there will be such a mess that the whole set-up will become unworkable.

We saw this happen in Zia days when even the assembly consisting only of the King’s Party was scrapped and things were back to square one. Those, however, were different days. This time round the failure of the set-up will have far more damaging consequences and one only say: May the Lord have mercy on us.

The writer is chairman, Sindh National Front.

THE tragedy of September 11 was not just the incinerated bodies and the shock to the political nervous system of our one and only superpower, it is that a year later it has led to America becoming separated from the world at large.

Governments may still pay formal allegiance to Washington, but behind the facade of politeness few have a kind word. As for the people, who last had a conversation where real empathy for America’s predicament was readily apparent? Even the most sympathetic or most loyal have their doubts.

It was not that “America had it coming to it”. That would be to exaggerate (although a poll published last week reports that a majority of Europeans think that U.S. policy is partially to blame for the September 11 attack).

But having been hit so hard in the solar plexus America then seemed to rear up like a wounded elephant and trample everyone’s grass, while bellowing that “who is not with us is against us”. The world suddenly saw America in a sharper light.

What had been fuzzy before became less ambiguous, the contours sharper and the image clearer — the pizazz of American life, cultural, political or militaristic, at one time considered stimulating, reassuring, even envy-making, now seemed, depending on the vantage point, a bridge too far, a highway to damnation, a path to perdition or, at the very least, simply a road map to where people did not want their own societies to head. One didn’t have to be an earnest Muslim to feel this.

Hypocrisy is a tribute which vice pays to virtue. Few maybe have yet stopped watching the violent and sexually loaded films or the pornographic Spam that America pours out to the word. No one, apart from a few anxious Saudis, has pulled out their fortunes from their American investments.

No one, even the more economically and political secure Europeans, dare challenge America directly in a way it hurts, like announcing the closure of Nato assets for use in a war against Iraq. But underneath there is an ebb tide that Americans should ignore at their peril. To win a round, whether it be in Afghanistan or in Iraq, but lose the world is not a very clever thing to do.

Americans like to think of their country, to quote Ronald Reagan, as “a shining city on a hill”. Maybe in Madison, Wisconsin, there is something of that. But in most American big cities there is the most appalling racial discrimination (despite the remarkable emancipation of a black middle class), crime, social and family disintegration, school violence and urban decay.

America’s prisons can offer the worst of the Soviet gulag and American justice is reserved for those with deep pockets.

Its propensity to see violence as the preferred political solution is no new philosophy of Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld but runs like a ribbon through the recent history of the fratricidal Central American wars, the long running tribal war in Angola, the initial war in Afghanistan when Osama bin Laden and his friends were operating against the Soviet army under the tutelage of the CIA, back to the wars of Vietnam and Cambodia, which even many on the right in America now consider a terrible mistake, so pointless became the carnage relative to what was largely an imagined problem of hostile communist takeover.

The threat from global terrorism is “at least partly a reaction to the looming global presence of the United States”, as Professor Steven Walt of Harvard has succinctly put it. “Some Americans are likely to ask if the danger might also be reduced if it were not as visibly and actively engaged in trying to run the world.”

Only when voices from within like his are seriously listened to will America avoid the disaster it is now on course to head into. A war with Iraq, as former National Security Advisor, Brent Scowcroft, has wisely argued, will throw the whole of Middle East into a period of serious political disturbance.

If America does manage to depose Saddam Hussein it is quite likely on past performance to end up putting its weight behind an equally malevolent figure. (After all it is not so long ago since Washington gave satellite intelligence and military guidance to Saddam in his war against its neighbour Iran.) The outwards waves thrown up by the turbulence of a war with Iraq is also likely to embolden the extremists in Pakistan who could with a deft assassination throw that nuclear-armed country into the hands of the politically irresponsible.

America may bully its way past its European allies and over and round the despairing council of its Arab friends all the way to Baghdad. Conceivably it will pull off the regime change, perhaps the democratisation, it says it wants. But the chances of success are slim. This operation even more than Vietnam has too many uncertain and difficult elements that could make it go badly wrong.

Last time everyone said “come home America” and friends and partners from all over the world rushed to help bind up the psychological wounds and help America simply (too simply) put Vietnam behind it.

But this time if things go wrong the tide has already turned. When America loses its chutzpah and looks for support it could well find itself beached on a long and desolate ‘no man’s land’. Who any longer will want to stand up and be seen as a friend of America?—Copyright Jonathan Power

What’s happening in Spain doesn’t make sense. Last week, as the police dragged members of the recently ‘illegalized’ Basque separatist party Batasuna from their party offices in Bilbao, the evicted activists chanted “pim, pam, pum” (bang, bang, bang) — in effect a threat that their military wing, ETA, would take revenge on the police.

And last weekend ETA duly hijacked a van and left it parked under an elevated Bilbao freeway with a 40 kg (88 lb.) bomb aboard (though the police managed to defuse the bomb in time).

At least it made a change from ETA’s recent tactic of targeting foreign tourists by burying bombs on Spanish beaches. But why would a significant number of the two million Basques, who have freedom, prosperity, and more autonomy than any other comparable region in Europe, feel sympathy for these terrorists? Why would ten to fifteen percent of Spain’s Basque citizens regularly vote for Batasuna, a political party that they know is only a front for the terrorists?

The terrorist organisation ETA (Euzkadi ta Azkatasuna — Basque Land and Liberty) first emerged in the early 1970s, in the dying days of the long Franco dictatorship, but it really got going only after democracy had been restored in Spain: fewer than a dozen of the 836 killings attributed to ETA were committed before Franco’s death. It can never achieve its goal of independence through the ballot-box: 85-90 per cent of the electorate in the Basque region vote for moderate Basque nationalists or mainstream Spanish parties. But there is still that other ten or fifteen percent.

There is no comparable constituency for terror and murder elsewhere in Western Europe. The long and bitter quarrel between the Flemish and French-speakers of Belgium has never got beyond insults and fisticuffs. The Swiss, despite their four languages, are models of tolerant coexistence. Even in Northern Ireland, the killing has stopped at last. It doesn’t make sense that the Basques, or a substantial number of them at least, are still at it.

But neither do the Spanish government’s actions make much sense. More than a quarter-century of tough security measures has not ended ETA’s struggle, so it’s obvious that there must ultimately be a political solution. For which you need a political partner.

For all of that quarter-century there has been a legal political party, now called Batasuna, which collected funds for ETA, acted as its spokesman, and ran candidates for office throughout the Basque provinces, while always formally denying its links with the banned organisation. Leaving this front organisation in existence (while trying to curb its illegal activities) made sense, because it gave the Spanish government somebody legal to talk to, and make deals with if ETA ever got tired of killing.

Unfortunately, since the election of Jose Maria Aznar’s Popular Party government in 1996, there has been nobody in Madrid who wants to talk. An eighteen-month ceasefire by ETA, ending two years ago, achieved nothing because Spanish government made no response whatever. And the ‘war on terrorism’ launched by Washington after last September’s attacks in the US has emboldened Aznar’s government to ban Batasuna.entirely.

It is a two-pronged assault, political and legal. Last June the Spanish parliament passed a ‘law of political parties’ which provides for the banning of parties that are complicit in terrorism, and on 26 August it passed a law banning Batasuna and confiscating all its property. Even before that, the crusading judge Baltasar Garzon had amassed enough evidence of the close links between Batasuna and ETA to get a court order suspending Batasuna for three years.

Over the coming weeks, not only will Batasuna’s political offices be shut down, but even the corner bars in every Basque town where the militants gather (and which serve as a cash cow for the organisation) will be closed.

Demonstrations and public meetings under Batasuna’s banner will be banned. Many Basque nationalists who are not involved consciously implicated in terror will be arrested during these events, and some will go to jail. The bombs and assassinations, of course, will continue.

In Madrid, all the major parties agree that this is a wise move. In the Basque country itself, however, the doubts are huge. The regional government, led by the moderate, non-violent Basque Nationalist Party, is deploying its police against Batasuna only with the gravest misgivings: “This operation takes us further from peace,” said Basque interior minister Jose Jon Imaz as he gave the necessary orders.

Is he right? The experience of Northern Ireland suggests that he is. For over thirty years the Irish Republican Army waged a savage terrorist war in Northern Ireland; the death toll was three times higher in a place with a quarter of the population of the Basque provinces.

But through it all the British government refused to ban the Sinn Fein, the IRA’s political front and the moral equivalent of Batasuna, because the substantial proportion of the Catholic population who backed its goals and methods should not be stripped of all political representation.—Copyright

IN a recent visit to Delhi, I came across a large hoarding advertising a new serial on one of the (Indian) satellite channels. The name of the serial was Draupadi. I asked an Indian friend of mine who Draupadi was, and she was shocked by my question.

‘Hai Rama’, she cried in disbelief, ‘what kind of a South Asian are you? You don’t even know who Draupadi is?’ While she began to explain to me who Draupadi was, a feeling that I have always had in India was re-emphasized. All of us who live in this region called South Asia, are now Indians.

How should I know who Draupadi is? I come from a country where 97 per cent of the population is Muslim and has been so for at least fifty years, where Islam dominates culturally and politically, and while India has a huge presence and influence on Pakistan, the stories of Indian mythology are not those which form our reality or consciousness.

For a non-Indian South Asian, it is not so much this fact that is important, but the assumption that all of us outside India should be Indians too, influenced by the same cultural, social, historical and religious experiences as is India. This is especially so after Partition, when the trajectory of each country has been diverse and different, moving away from any assumed collectiveness and similarity.

Moreover, what constitutes an Indian-ness in India and what represents India in most ways (especially internationally and in the South Asian context), is a north Indian, upper caste, upper class, male Indian-ness, where much of the rest of India is subsumed, if not hegemonized, under the broad category ‘Indian’.

Nevertheless, India does dominate South Asia in every respect. Seventy-two per cent of the land mass constituted by the seven South Asian countries is Indian territory. India’s economy is 78 per cent of that of the region, and it contains 76 per cent of South Asia’s 1.5 billion people.

In fact, the number of people living in India below the poverty line is greater than all the peoples, poor and not-so-poor, living in the other six South Asian countries collectively. Without doubt, the South Asian region is the Indian region. So why dress it up as South Asia?

Increasingly in the academic institutions in the West, Indian history, Indian studies and Indian art, have now been replaced by the supposedly inclusive term South Asian studies, art, etc. Yet, other than a little window-dressing, nothing has changed. Students still study Indian history, culture and politics, with perhaps, the last three lectures of a semester or term devoted to Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh put together. The other three smaller countries do not even register in the course not even getting a mention, and I am sure that a large majority of those who are studying for a degree in South Asian studies would not even be able to name all seven countries.

One finds the same over-representation/hegemony at conferences, seminars, cultural shows and workshops on South Asia. While at times there is participation from other South Asian countries (often simply window-dressing again), the discussion is primarily Indian, emphasized by the larger number of Indians present at such meetings. The issues discussed are mainly Indian as are the symbols, the histories and the examples.

Additionally, many South Asian associations, committees and groups (particularly in the West) often have membership from Indians in India, from Indians abroad and from western scholars working on India. Other South Asians, particularly from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka are often not represented.

Given India’s presence and domination in the region, not only in terms of size and numbers, much of this is not surprising in the least. With three-quarters of the land-mass, population, and economy, India, not surprisingly, has a much larger share of writers, artists and scholars in and out of South Asia. Not just in terms of numbers but also in terms of quality, Indians have made their mark internationally in almost every discipline gaining recognition from all quarters. India dominates not just in South Asia, but makes its presence felt far beyond as well. There are fewer well known or accomplished achievers in similar fields from the other South Asian countries. In terms of merit and achievement, in comparison, Indians excel.

The alternative to the hegemonizing/domination argument is that of learning from Indian excellence and from the Indian experience. Why shouldn’t the other South Asian countries not acknowledge India’s obvious dominance and excellence where it exists, whether this is in terms of the economy, art or scholarship in the social sciences?

The answer probably lies in the politics of the region and particularly that of India. While there are numerous advantages of greater economic and other forms of integration which will benefit all countries, there is also the fear of being swamped by an increasingly Indianized Hindu (or a Hinduised Indian) culture.

Perhaps the timing of the idea of a more inclusivist South Asia has spoilt what could have been a meaningful and potent concept which could have led to a closer, more harmonious, region. Fifty-five years ago, when we all emerged as independent nations, perhaps a South Asian identity would have been possible and more productive and may have resulted in addressing the numerous problems which affect us collectively and individually today. Yet, the problem of hegemony would still have been genuine cause for concern but perhaps at that time, could have been dealt with.

Today, however, South Asia is just another name for India. If South Asia is to become a more meaningful concept, one which is truly inclusivist, which recognizes and acknowledges cultural diversity, it will have to be the dominant country in the region which takes the initiative to do so, providing far greater trust and assurances to its neighbours addressing, first of all, pending political problems. This will require India to become a secular, progressive, open, democratic and, most of all, accommodating, cultural and political entity. Sadly, as India falters on many of these ideals, it is unlikely that we will ever become South Asians.

The writer is a Karachi-based social scientist.