PRESIDENT George W. Bush and his predecessors may or may not have read William Shakespeare but their approach to many of the world’s major issues today and even earlier would appear to be rooted in the two crucial scenes involving the three witches of Macbeth.

The witches promised Macbeth the moon, but like the fine print of today’s insurance policies, they deftly masked the real risks involved in seeking such a trajectory. Thus Shakespeare’s loyal and valiant general not only murders his own king to become his blood-soaked successor, but by a quaint misreading of the witches’ prophecy he finds himself cornered by a combination of forces that would have seemed to him unthinkable before they were slyly conjured.

The operational word in the tragedy of Macbeth is equivocation, a highfalutin synonym for double-cross.

Consider also a more generally damning scene in Macbeth, the Porter’s soliloquy that could apply to any or many of us in so far as it speaks of our ability to lie through the teeth. The porter describes the witches’ agenda in the following lines, which equally and perhaps with greater relevance are valid for us:

Faith, here’s an equivocator, that could

swear in both the scales against either scale;

who committed treason enough for God’s sake,

yet could not equivocate to heaven: O, come in, equivocator.

We all know, for example, that Robin Raphel, who rose very quickly from the political office of the US embassy in New Delhi to become a key State Department policy driver on South Asia, had a lot of time for the Taliban in their formative years. The Taliban were America’s babies.

We also know that Zbigniew Brzezinski, the powerful National Security adviser in the Carter Administration, had personally hand-crafted the hatchery from which Muslim guerillas were to be created to fight the Soviet troops in Kabul. When confronted with the reality of a Frankenstein-like situation today, he cynically remarked: “What is more important? The demise of the Soviet empire or a few stirred-up Muslims?” A few stirred-up Muslims, indeed.

It was clear as late as last month that Brzezinski’s double-speak had not deserted him since he embarked on his Afghanistan policy a quarter century ago. For after playing havoc with South Asia’s stability in which he had a direct hand in the eventual creation of characters like Osama bin Laden and Mullah Umar et al, he was advising the Bush administration last month to observe, yes, restraint on Iraq.

“War is too serious a business and too unpredictable in its dynamic consequences — especially in a highly flammable region — to be undertaken because of a personal peeve, demagogically articulated fears or vague factual assertions,” Brzezinski declared in an article in the Washington Post of Aug 18. “If it is to be war, it should be conducted in a manner that legitimizes US global hegemony and, at the same time, contributes to a more responsible system of international security.”

We can hardly quarrel with the former Democrat official’s gratuitous advice to a rightwing Republican administration. War is a serious business. True. But look who is talking? What does Brzezinski really mean by “a responsible system of international security”? Is it patterned after the one he left behind in Afghanistan? So as far as America is concerned there is a time to hatch religious bigots in dollar-funded hatcheries and there is a time to hunt them with smart bombs.

Take today’s US policy on Kashmir. It springs from a new expediency. The United Nations Security Council, of which the US is the presiding deity, has all but formally backed off from the commitment to plebiscite. Anyone visiting Kashmir today would observe that the very people, including America’s former Muslim fundamentalist allies in the local equations, have almost completely given up the call for right to self-determination.

In January 1972, President Nixon and Mao Zedong were concluding, albeit in the context of Indo-China, that in the absence of a negotiated settlement there “the United States envisages the ultimate withdrawal of all US forces from the region consistent with the aim of self-determination for each country of Indo-China.”

Self-determination did suit the Americans, as did plebiscite, but in a context that suited them. The net effect is that the very people who had once counted on US help in Kashmir as elsewhere now have to cope with an emotional rebound. It is still too early to divine the script ahead, but the applause one hears from Western observers of the absurd polls being staged in Kashmir must be condescending, if not cynically self-indulgent. Yet the way ahead is somehow believed to be hinged on them, with American approval.

Whether Yasser Arafat is feeling more besieged by Israeli tanks than feeling stood up by America’s private exigencies is something that falls in the realm of conjecture. But the hottest issue of the day, targeting President Saddam Hussein of Iraq, is leaking like a sieve with stories that easily border on perfidy.

Who doesn’t know that Saddam was helped and indulged by Washington as long as his guns were trained at Iran. There are even credible reports of Americans ignoring Saddam’s use of chemical warfare as a means to keep the Iranians from taking over Basra.

Then there is this damning transcript of a conversation between US ambassador in Baghdad April Glaspie and Saddam. If it is true, as it seems to be, although there are indications that Baghdad leaked the transcript to set the record “straight” and may have, therefore, fudged some facts, this conversation between the two sides eight days before Iraq invaded Kuwait on Aug 2, 1990, puts the focus on familiar duplicity that often passes for diplomacy.

GLASPIE: I have direct instructions from President Bush to improve our relations with Iraq. We have considerable sympathy for your quest for higher oil prices, the immediate cause of your confrontation with Kuwait. (pause) As you know, I lived here for years and admire your extraordinary efforts to rebuild your country. We know you need funds. We understand that, and our opinion is that you should have the opportunity to rebuild your country. (pause) We can see that you have deployed massive numbers of troops in the south. Normally that would be none of our business, but when this happens in the context of your threats against Kuwait, then it would be reasonable for us to be concerned. For this reason, I have received an instruction to ask you, in the spirit of friendship — not confrontation — regarding your intentions: Why are your troops massed so very close to Kuwait’s borders?

SADDAM: As you know, for years now I have made every effort to reach a settlement on our dispute with Kuwait. There is to be a meeting in two days; I am prepared to give negotiations only this one more brief chance. (pause) When we (the Iraqis) meet (with the Kuwaitis) and we see there is hope, then nothing will happen. But if we are unable to find a solution, then it will be natural that Iraq will not accept death.

GLASPIE: What solutions would be acceptable?

SADDAM: If we could keep the whole of the Shatt al Arab — our strategic goal in our war with Iran — we will make concessions (to the Kuwaitis). But, if we are forced to choose between keeping half of the Shatt and the whole of Iraq (i.e., in Saddam’s view, including Kuwait ) then we will give up all of the Shatt to defend our claims on Kuwait to keep the whole of Iraq in the shape we wish it to be. (pause) What is the United States’ opinion on this?

GLASPIE: We have no opinion on your Arab — Arab conflicts, such as your dispute with Kuwait. Secretary (of State James) Baker has directed me to emphasize the instruction, first given to Iraq in the 1960’s, that the Kuwait issue is not associated with America. (Saddam smiles)

One month later, British journalists obtain the above tape and transcript of the Saddam-Glaspie meeting of July 29, 1990. They decide to confront Ms Glaspie as she leaves the US embassy in Baghdad.

JOURNALIST 1: Are the transcripts (holding them up) correct, Madam Ambassador? (Ambassador Glaspie does not respond)

JOURNALIST 2: You knew Saddam was going to invade (Kuwait) but you didn’t warn him not to. You didn’t tell him America would defend Kuwait. You told him the opposite — that America was not associated with Kuwait.

JOURNALIST 1: You encouraged this aggression — his invasion. What were you thinking?

GLASPIE: Obviously, I didn’t think, and nobody else did, that the Iraqis were going to take all of Kuwait.

JOURNALIST 1: You thought he was just going to take some of it? But, how could you? Saddam told you that, if negotiations failed, he would give up his Iran (Shatt al Arab waterway) goal for the Whole of Iraq, in the shape we wish it to be. You know that includes Kuwait, which the Iraqis have always viewed as an historic part of their country!

JOURNALIST 1: American green-lighted the invasion. At a minimum, you admit signalling Saddam that some aggression was okay — that the US would not oppose a grab of the al-Rumeilah oilfield, the disputed border strip and the Gulf Islands (including Bubiyan) — the territories claimed by Iraq?

Ambassador Glaspie says nothing as a limousine door closed behind her and the car drives off as yet another scene closes in a tragic drama, not being played out on a barren heath but on the sun-baked dunes of an Arabian desert that would have made William Shakespeare envious.

THE populous city of Karachi has been the theatre of violence of many an ethnic, sectarian or factional strife, be it Punjabi- Mohajir, Pathan-Punjabi or Shia-Sunni. Only earlier this year, the city was terrorized by a spate of assassinations targeted at Shia medical doctors, a phenomenon which ended just as mysteriously as it began.

Last week, the city was the scene of what may be a totally new kind of strife. The shocking massacre of seven workers of a Christian-funded NGO on Sept 25 and the subsequent rowdy protests against the killings by the Christian community in the city the next day and during the funerals of the victims over the weekend have for the first time in the country’s history catapulted this minority community into the political limelight.

Since independence, the Christian community has lived in relative peace in the country. One of the largest groups among the small community of minorities living in Pakistan, in general the Christian community — believed to number two million — did not pose a threat as such in terms of economic and political competition.

In the urban areas, they have traditionally been going into the nursing and teaching professions and also as cleaners and janitors. In the rural areas, particularly in the Punjab province, they are mainly poor landless peasants, just as many Muslims there are also.

Even during the reign of Gen Ziaul Haq which saw the passage of Shariat laws and in particular the blasphemy law — laws perceived by the minority community to be against its interests — the minority community got special seats in the National Assembly and Provincial Assemblies under the general’s separate electorate system. This system, under which the next five elections since 1985 was held, was supposed to give the minorities more chances at political representation, although some minority groups argued that this set them apart from the political and social mainstream.

During the past year, however, the hitherto quiet Christian community in the country was pushed under the political spotlight because of several factors, both international and domestic in origin. The first was Sept 11 and its immediate aftermath, events which unnerved the local Christian community, particularly after the reverberations were felt in the form of violent attacks on churches and other Western targets in the country believed to be perpetrated by suspected militants angered by President Musharraf’s support for the US-led war on terrorism.

These attacks, which killed some 30 Pakistani Christians in the past year, raised the fear of the Christian community about its very survival in the country for the first time since independence. This fear prompted the Christians to raise their voice for the protection of their lives and their rights — religious, economic and social.

A domestic factor that worked concomitantly in the past year to raise the Christian voice was the rise of the peasant movement in Punjab. Demanding ownership rights of the land that the peasants, comprising both Muslims and Christians, have been tilling on the military farms in Punjab for four generations, the movement brought the peasants into direct confrontation with the military administration managing the farms.

Although the peasant movement first began over two years ago when the military farm administration introduced a new contract system that the peasants rejected, it picked up momentum after a peasants’ convention held on Nov 16, 2001, at the Okara military farms. At this convention, some 10,000 Christian and Muslim peasants united on one platform under the common demand for land ownership rights. The slogan at the convention reflected the spirit and determination of the peasants in their struggle: ownership or death.

The main organization involved in the movement is the Anjuman Mazarain Punjab (Tenants Association of Punjab) but the convention was supported and addressed by speakers from a wide political spectrum including the Christian NGO community, the leftist parties like the Labour Party of Pakistan and the National Workers Party, and even the rightwing Jamaat-i-Islami, which had established the Kissan (peasant) Board.

Emboldened by the convention, the peasants began to refuse to pay the share of crops due to the military farm administration. Confrontation worsened a few months ago when the police encircled some villagers, and peasants were arrested or implicated in FIRs. At the end of August a violent standoff between the peasants and the paramilitary Rangers at Okara military farms resulted in the death of a twenty-year-old Christian farmer. All this added to the insecurity of the Christian community.

Meanwhile, another factor that propelled the minority community to raise their voice is the abolishment of the separate electorate system by the Musharraf government. The reinstatement of the joint electorate system meant that the minority community might not win a single seat if it contests the October elections on its own, whereas under the previous separate electorate system it was guaranteed 10 seats in the National Assembly, in addition to its reserved share of seats in the Provincial Assemblies.

Looking for like-minded political partners who were willing to give the minority community its due share of seats in the general election also increased in urgency with the establishment of the electoral alliance of six major religious parties under the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal umbrella. With the MMA vowing to implement the Shariat system in the country and not to allow any dismantling of the Islamic laws already enacted during Gen Zia’s rule, the minority community, already feeling increasingly insecure, felt it had to get its act together to ensure protection of its rights.

In mid July the various minority communities came together to form a new political party, the All Pakistan Minorities Alliance (APMA). The alliance brought together the small group — less than 5 per cent of the country’s population — of Christians, Hindus, Sikhs, Bheels, Miangwals, Bakmeeks, Bhais, Parsis, Kalashes and other minorities under the chairmanship of a Christian leader. On Sept 22, three days before the gruesome attack on the Christian NGO in Karachi, the APMA entered into an electoral alliance with the People’s Party Parliamentarians (PPP).

Ideally speaking, the minority community should have confidence in all political parties and governments, whether leftist or rightist, civilian or military, in the protection of its interests and rights. After all, the safeguard of the interests of the minority community is enshrined in the very creation of Pakistan, as is symbolized in this Muslim nation’s flag.

That the minority community should feel the need to ally with the “opposition” in order to safeguard its interests is therefore a sad reflection of the failure of the current government to reassure this community of its protection, whether it be their lives or their economic, social and political interests.

WHILE MOURNING the wanton killing of seven Christians at Karachi’s Idara Amn-o-Insaf, Awami Awaz writes that the non-government organization has been striving for two decades for restoration of basic human rights to the country. The city’s failure to come up with a strong reaction to this heinous tragedy, except for some demonstrations staged by the Christian community and NGO activists, shows the depth of apathy our society has plunged into. Similarly, the inability of law- enforcement agencies to prevent the killings discloses their inefficiency, since it was not the first attack on the members of our Christian community. If the police had taken steps to protect the Idara, the killings could have been averted. Even now protection of the minority people should be ensured on a priority basis, and a multi-dimensional strategy must be prepared for this.

Kawish says that after an agonizing wait, spread over almost three decades, the announcement of the Labour Policy 2002 has disappointed the working class. Through this law the workers have been denied their right to observe strike, the government’s role in settling labour disputes has been scrapped and the pay raise has been made mandatory after a long period of three years. Let us first take up the right to observe strike. Our labour force has neither the financial strength nor has it the required legal expertise to fight its case(s) in the courts of law. When it sees no other way, it resorts to strike against injustices they face, and to press the administration of an industrial unit to accept their economic demands. Under the conventions of the International Labour Organization, workers have been provided with the right to observe strike throughout the world. The denial of this right will make our already under- pressure labour force more helpless.

The second most important aspect of the labour policy is the declaration of a dispute between the employee and the employer a bilateral affair and the scrapping of the government role in resolving it. This will add to the haplessness of the employee as it will strengthen the superiority and monopoly of the employer, who more often tries to bypass the labour laws. Wherever the government role in such disputes is decreased, at least a regulatory role for it is maintained, which is not the case with us.

Moreover, with the termination of the Labour Appellate Tribunal, the power to hear appeals against verdicts of the labour courts has been handed over to high courts. A common labour leader is simply unable to understand legal complexities to enable him to fight a case in the high courts. For this he will now have to hire an advocate, preferably more competent than the one representing his rival. Thus it will become costlier for the workers to secure justice.

As per the new law, the government has decided that minimum wages of a worker will be 2,500 rupees per month and it will be compulsory for an employer to increase salaries of his employees only after three years. No economist will be able to prepare the budget of a family, how small it may be, within this meagre amount. To add insult to injury, the labour policy has closed the door of the pay raise before three years while the prices of essential commodities and charges of utilities keep on increasing, not by the month but by the week. Where this part of the policy will lead our workers, who are already passing a subhuman life, much below the poverty line, requires no comment.

Similarly, the labour policy fails to provide job security to the employees and is bound to encourage the rising trend of hiring workers on a contract basis and, consequently, denying them the benefits of a permanent job. In short, the labour policy will give the employer the benefit of rising unemployment in the country. It will give him a licence to hire labour force on cheaper rates and, of course, the right to fire his employees whenever he feels doing so. It is too obvious that this policy will neither help maintain industrial peace nor will it increase industrial production. Similarly, it will not help to alleviate poverty, a global agenda of today’s world, rather it will increase poverty to a horrendous level. In this sense, this is a policy for the employer and not for the employee.

“Sindh is happy over the wastage of Indus water by way of its discharge into the sea whereas it opposes the Kalabagh dam.” While passing these remarks, Sindhu writes, Interior Minister Moeenuddin Haider has ignored barrenness of fertile land below Kotri and destruction of eco-system of the coastal area of the province due to the scarcity of water downstream Kotri. It is a universally established fact that the river water discharged into the sea is not wastage of this precious commodity, rather it is very necessary to maintain the natural eco-system. In the absence of it, mangroves perish, which on the one hand act as a nursery for fish breeding and, on the other, prevent sea intrusion into the mainland. Anybody can witness this phenomenon along the coastline of Thatta and Badin districts, where it has led to the rise of poverty among the communities of fisherfolk, growers and livestock breeders.

Tameer-i-Sindh says that the newly-promulgated Freedom of Information Ordinance 2002 has imposed a restriction on acquiring information about many things, including defence matters, bank accounts and proceedings of the government departments. Freedom of expression is integrally related with freedom of information as the former is incomplete and useless without the latter. The citizens of any civilized country will loath to withdraw from any of these freedoms. Both the freedoms should also be provided to the people of Pakistan.