| 04 March 2004 | Thursday | 12 Muharram 1425 |
'The Passion' controversy threatens Gibson's career
President Musharraf wants to expedite the transfer of the economic gains to the people achieved during the last four years. That is the clamour of the people as well who are unemployed or afflicted by inflation while their wages are low. They see the contrast between the exuberant official claims and the economic reality on the ground.
The peoples of other countries whose economy has recovered after years of recession have the same kind of questions and similar demands which their governments find hard to meet.
A popular joke in the US is: "The American economy is doing fine unless you are looking for a job." It is jobless recovery the confronts many countries. Pakistan is one of them. But in the West they have social security; here we have nothing. And the number of unemployed here is very large even if the bulk of the women are counted out as official statistics always do.
In Pakistan the people ask if the economy is doing so well, and industrial production in the first six months of this fiscal year rose by 14.7 per cent, as the prime minister says, exports rose by 13.52 per cent in the first seven months of the fiscal year and imports far more, and the constantly soaring foreign exchange reserve is now touching 12.5 billion dollars, why are they not doing far better than before?
Finance Minister Shaukat Aziz now admits that while the economy is far better than before, and is on the right track in many areas, that does not mean all the problems have been solved. He acknowledges the need for the people to really benefit by the economic improvements. But he has to take positive steps.
The government is now talking to a celebrated populist economist, the Peruvian Hernando De Soto and availing itself of his services. What matters is not only what kind of advice he tenders but what part of that the government accepts with its feudal dominance, and which part it finally implements within a reasonable timeframe.
Now what do the people want ? The hungry and the starving need food for a reasonable period of time, and more than token assistance. The large Zakat funds and the food stamps should be able to take care of that. But there has to be far less corruption, mismanagement and embezzlement in this area. And there should be public accounting of what is actually done here.
Then for the real solution of the problems the people need employment and on a regular basis. And they should be provided the right jobs according to their training and qualification.
They should be given better wages, and not the good wages shown in the books, while the reality is far less. Because of widespread unemployment,the wages are at present low in many industries and commercial establishments. That imbalance should be corrected.
There should be some kind of retirement benefits, if not proper pensions to begin with. In a large informal economy it is hard to talk of pensions on an organized basis. The informal sector over a period of five years has to become formal, which is possible if the taxes are low and the regulations are not excessive.
Then we have to seek long-term solution of the problem of unemployment. We need reliable unemployment figures. We should also have figures of wage levels or average wages.
Overall, we should have far better labour statistics instead of the notorious group system operating in the textile mills and others which show their workers as employees of the contractors.
We need more reliable and accurate inflation figures in a country which had very high levels of inflation in the past, including imported inflation as we went on devaluing the rupee from Rs 3.35 to a dollar to the current Rs 58 to a dollar.
Either the formula for calculating inflation is wrong or the calculation itself is wrong, or both. The result is the vast gap between the official figures and the ground level reality, and total lack of credibility of the official inflation statistics.
As we need skilled and more productive workers in the age of globalization and the WTO with its intense competition, we need better educated and trained workers.
The government has to set up far better schools with competent teachers who should be paid well. The children of the poor and low income families do not have access to the gleaming teaching shops set up by the commercial educational chains. Their fees, including the admission fee, are too high for the ordinary and middle class families with more than one child.
These glamourized teaching shops should also be regulated . They charge very heavy fees while paying the teachers poorly and having unsatisfactory working conditions.
The high fees the middle income government officers have to pay for their children is one of the major causes of corruption. The parents say they must provide good education to their children at any cost, and if that means taking bribes, they can't help that.
Plenty of funds are coming forth as foreign aid to promote education and set up schools for the poor. In poverty reduction, providing adequate number of new schools has a top priority. The government should make the best use of such funds unlike what was done with the funds of the social action programme I and II. The government teachers should be paid better to make them stay on in their jobs.
India is now reaping the benefits of its quality technical education. The IT revolution in South India is a success on that score. The top American management guru Peter Drucker says the technical institutes in India are as good as the best institutes anywhere in the West, and they will be behind the Indian industrial revolution.
The people need more public hospitals which are efficient, well managed and free of corruption. Too many of the medicines of public hospitals are now taken out and sold. Such abuses and the excessive private practice of government doctors should be checked.
Private treatment is too costly. The prices of medicines too are rising all the time and so also the consultation fee of the doctors and the rates for rooms in private hospitals. All efforts to hold them down or appeals to their owners to become humane have not borne fruit.
I do not know to what extent public-private cooperation in this area can produce better results. The government's taxation of the costly equipment used by the hospitals is also very heavy. When private hospitals pay the same electricity fee as commercial establishments they tend to charge heavy fees from their patients. The government's approach to taxing the hospitals must change now, more so of the life-saving equipment.
There has been too much talk of protection of the environment and too little of that in practice. De Soto's suggestions in this area, particularly in respect of poor housing, are significant.
Not to talk of the excessive pollution of Kutchi Abadis, Karachi itself is so polluted that most of the respiratory ailments are due to that. The pollution is getting worse all the time as the number of cars and other vehicles increases and buses and trucks spew a great deal of smoke.
The varied stomach diseases in Karachi are caused by polluted water as the piped water gets more and more scarce. Water distribution is so topsy turvy that those who pay do not get the water and those who don't get it, often due to excessive corruption. There are a number of middle income persons who say that they pay more for water than they do as income tax. The government can't complain if it gets less tax in return for hardly any service.
When it comes to the Karachi Water Board or the old KDA the issue is more like the 'chicken or egg-- which came first' story. If they don't get the fees from their consumers they cannot render proper service to the people. And if the people pay these organizations they hardly get anything in return.
What is at issue is the quality of life. It is not enough if the quality of life of the ministers, secretaries to the government, senior military officers and police chiefs is good or too good as the officials focus on their areas.
Nor is it enough if some of the posh areas are well maintained, though they too are degrading. How good is the quality of life for the common man? President Musharraf is well advised to set up a group of private consultants to make a study of the quality of life in some cities beginning with Karachi. Let him know the cold reality.
Prime Minister Jamali would like to reduce the prices of some essential goods and services. He says he would reduce the price of electricity by 60 to 70 paisa per unit soon.
That may cost about Rs 32 billion according to a report which seems to be an exaggeration. But can he prevent a rise in the prices of gas against the demand of the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank? Meanwhile the Sindh government has announced that would procure wheat not at Rs 300 for 40 kg but Rs 350 which means higher wheat prices.
What can he do to reduce the soaring cost of transportation because of the ever rising price of the POL? If the world prices of oil come down he will be lucky. Otherwise he has to be ready to reduce the very heavy oil development surcharge of Rs 16 per litre of petrol, and slightly less for diesel oil.
Will the donor agencies let him do that as they want the budget deficit to be brought down to four per cent? As India is under no external control it can afford a budget deficit of 11 per cent of the GDP, including the state deficits. But we are under strict IMF regime along with the supporting cast of World Bank and the ADB.
But India is having the same kind of argument about who benefited by its economic reforms and the expected economic growth of eight per cent this year. The opposition Congress Party criticises the BJP government led by Atal Behari Vajpayee saying that only the elite or the rich have benefited by the reforms - not the poor and the unemployed.
Sonia Gandhi also accused the BJP of taking credit for the economic reforms which were in fact initiated in 1991 by the Congress government with Dr. Manmohan Singh as finance minister and Narasimha Rao as prime minister.
'The Passion' controversy threatens Gibson's career
The backlash against actor, producer, director Mel Gibson's film "The Passion of the Christ" which opened across the United States last week has been so unrelenting that he is literally reeling under pressure.
The attacks, mostly from the Jewish groups, organizations and the media, have called the film and its producer-director anti-Semitic. The film, which Mel Gibson contends is faithful to the Gospels and the Bible on the life and death of Jesus, depicts that the Christ was apprehended by the Jewish high priests brigade after being betrayed by Judas and then taken to the Roman governor Pontius Pilate, calling for his ultimate punishment.
The Jewish rabbis then pressured the reluctant Pilate to sentence Jesus to torture and death. They contended that he was a danger to their order since he was called "King of the Jews".
The scenes of torture of Jesus at the hands of the Romans are so intense and harrowing that at a screening where I was the other day, many faithful walked out of the theatre crying and unable to withstand the pain inflicted on the saviour, with Mary watching and helpless to stop it.
In New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco, many Jewish groups organized protest demonstrations exhorting filmgoers not to see the film. The protests have continued.
The Los Angeles Times carried a front page review of the film lambasting Mr Gibson and the film. It is believed that this could have a devastating impact on Mr Gibson's movie-making career.
The New York Times in an article on the adverse publicity surrounding the film's opening noted, "The Passion of the Christ is making some of Hollywood's most prominent executives uncomfortable in ways that may damage Mr Gibson's career."
Hollywood is a close-knit world, and friendships and social contact are critical in the making of deals and the casting of movies. Many of Hollywood's most prominent figures are also Jewish. So with a furore arising around the film, along with Mr Gibson's reluctance to distance himself from his father, who calls the Holocaust mostly fiction, it is no surprise that Hollywood-Jewish and non-Jewish - has been talking about little else.
The NYT quoted a top film-making executive in Hollywood as saying without retribution: "It doesn't matter what I say. It'll matter what I do. I will do something.
I won't hire him. I won't support anything he's part of. Personally that's all I can do. He said he was angry not just because of what he had read about the film and its portrayal of Jews in relation to the crucifixion of Jesus, but because of Mr Gibson's remarks defending his father, Hutton Gibson, who was being accused of belittling the Holocaust.
In his defence on Thursday, Mel Gibson said the 'Passion of the Christ' was unfairly prejudged for a year before its release. But he forgives his critics. Mr Gibson told Jay Leno on NBC's "Tonight Show" that he would try to adopt a loving attitude "even for those who persecute you."
"For a year, it's been nothing but nasty editorials and name-calling," he said. Mr Gibson acknowledged the movie was violent and said it was R-rated for a reason. But he noted that many other films were violent, mentioning "Kill Bill: Vol 1" the Quentin Tarantino martial arts bloodbath.
"Why am I being picked on for this? There are far more violent movies," he said. Mr Gibson alleged that a copy of the script was obtained "nefariously" before the film was completed, leading to "all these accusations of anti-Semitism," which he denied. "That's not what the film's about," he said. "It's about tolerance."
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Pakistanis Still Support Bush: Despite anger and resentment against the Bush administration's policies which have adversely affected the Pakistani immigrant population here, majority of Pakistanis still want a republican leader in the White House.
The reason: most Pakistanis still believe that republican administrations in the past have been more supportive of Pakistan than the democratic presidents when in power, who are perceived as being sympathetic to India.
During meetings with various Pakistani groups here it became apparent that despite serious misgivings about Bush administration in the aftermath of Sept-11 attacks - thousands of Pakistanis, many of them living here illegally, others on minor visa violations, were deported - they still believe that Pakistan needs a friend in the White House.
"President Bush is that "friend" of Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf who can help Pakistan recover from the onslaught of anti-Pakistan sentiment in the United States following revelation of Dr A.Q. Khan's nuclear activities," observed one Pakistani activist.
But this sentiment is also tempered by some pragmatic thinking in the Pakistani circles as many of the democratic party supporters believe that Senator John Kerry, the front runner in the democratic primaries, will defeat President Bush come November.
"For Pakistan, like in the case of India and Israel, the support should be solicited from both parties. Its not a zero-sum game," said one Kerry supporter. "Why is it that traditionally we accept the claim that republicans support Pakistan more than the democrats? asked another.
Indeed given the politically charged atmosphere in which President Bush is trailing frontrunner John Kerry, now the official nominee of the democratic party, some Pakistanis are reaching out to democrats.
Many Pakistani groups are organizing fund-raisers for the Democratic campaign in an effort to generate clout for Pakistan. The Indians who have always had more than their share of clout in the democratic party are reaching out to the republicans. Many Indian Americans are running for seats in the US Congress on republican tickets. Politics indeed makes strange bedfellows.