| 12 November 2004 | Friday | 28 Ramazan 1425 |
Battle of Karameh and Yasser Arafat
Politics of self-esteem
Settling the Kalabagh dam issue
Gratefulness to God is always rewarded. Eidul Fitr is a reward to the Muslim ummah for striving to temper their souls through the rigours of self-denial and offering of special prayers during the holy month of Ramazan in humble thankfulness and sincere gratitude for the countless mercies, blessings and favours of our Creator which we enjoy in our mundane life.
God has created man as the best of all His creations and exalted him to the noble and dignified position of being His deputy on earth. In His infinite kindness and mercy He loves His subjects more than parents love their offsprings. It is only proper, therefore, that man as Allah's vicegerent on earth bases the lofty mission of his life on the worship and thankfulness to God for His endless bounties, grace and favours bestowed on him right from his cradle to the grave.
According to the Holy Quran Allah says, "I have created only jinn and man, that they may serve and worship Me." (Quran, 51:56). On another occasion Allah addresses man in these words: "It is He who brought you forth from the wombs of your mothers when you knew nothing; and He gave you hearing and sight and intelligence and love, that you may give thanks to Him" (Quran, 16:78).
The above verses indicate that the entire community of human beings is enjoined and obligated to worship God and to be thankful to Him. Thankfulness is one of the four qualities essential for perfection of belief in Islam. The other three being truthfulness, modesty and good behaviour. Eidul Fitr, observed after the end of the month of Ramazan, on the first of lunar month Shawwal every year, is a day of rejoicing and thanksgiving to the Lord of the universe for giving the strength for having successfully fulfilled the test of faith Divinely ordained.
Beyond feasting and festivities, Eidul Fitr is also an ibadah (worship). Ibadah is the most vital duty of man towards his Maker and includes all actions which are performed in obedience to and for the pleasure of Allah. The concept of ibadah (worship) in Islam is all too comprehensive and encompasses the whole spectrum of human conduct covering both fulfilling obligations to Allah (Huquq-al-Ibad) and obligations towards fellow-beings (Huquq-al'Ibad). Fulfilment of both Huquq Allah and Huquq-al-'Ibad must be integrated to attain success as true adherents of Allah.
The Lord of the universe did not leave man unguided in treading on to the path leading to the attainment of the lofty mission of his life. The world is a place of trial and man is to be judged on the basis of the life he lives in it. Everything in the world is for man but man himself is for his Lord and his mission in life is to fulfil the will of God. For his guidance, Allah raised many Messengers from amongst the descendants of Adam with Hazrat Muhammad (PBUH) embodying the finality of prophethood and Islam marking the perfection of Divine commandments.
Fundamentally all the Prophets of God based their teachings on the concept of ibadah which helps to develop a close relationship between an individual and his Lord. All good deeds are included in ibadah and consistent observance of ibadah creates taqwa (Godliness) which consists of complete submission to the will of God. The Prophets of God succeeded in making people observe their duty to God and to their fellow beings through the force of taqwa.
Taqwa is the vital driving force in developing the inner strength of man. The Prophets of God tried to nourish and nurture the quality of taqwa among human beings through various forms of ibadah and through emphasis on their social obligations.
However, worship on its own is not enough; it must be accompanied by good deeds denoting complete submission to the will and pleasure of Allah. Through acts of devotion one fulfils obligations to Allah and through good deeds to men one fulfils his obligations towards his fellow beings.
Those who are included in the ummah of the Holy Prophet Hazrat Muhammad (Peace be upon him) have been enjoined among other ibadah, to say prayers five times every day. It has also been made obligatory for Muslims to observe fast during the holy month of Ramazan for it would make them muttaqi (righteous). Quran says: "O you who believe! Fasting is prescribed for you as it was prescribed for those before you, that you may attain taqwa" (Qur'an 2: 183). "It is not the meat nor the blood that reaches Allah! It is taqwa that reaches Him" (Qur'an 22:37). The taqwa is an integral part of the doctrine of Islam and should, therefore, be attained by every Muslim.
As a practical and practicable religion Islam has provided a complete code of life for Muslims and all those who care to follow the teachings of Islam through Divine guidance in the shape of Holy Quran and the Sunnah of the Prophet (PBUH). Herein lies the well-being of man both in this temporal and eternal life. Blessed are those who are fortunate to be included in the ummah of the Holy Prophet (PBUH) as beneficiaries of all His kindness and eternal blessings.
As an act of worship (ibadah), fasting in Ramazan aims at promoting taqwa and realization of the real value of deprivation of a thing and inculcating a keener sense of appreciation and gratitude for it. This is the real significance of Eidul Fitr. While celebrating Eid, we must remember the plight of the less privileged, the discarded, the deprived, the homeless and the destitute who find themselves in trying circumstances in different parts of the world. Our hearts must go out to them. Without this we will be wanting in the real spirit of Eid.
Battle of Karameh and Yasser Arafat
The battle of Karameh was not much of a battle. Only 29 Israelis were killed, less than 100 injured, and a number of Israeli tanks and armed personnel carriers destroyed.
But the battle was of enormous importance politically, for it marked the rise of Yasser Arafat and his Palestine Liberation Organization as a potent political and military force in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Till then, the world was aware only of what Ghada Karmi calls an "Arab refugee" problem. Karameh turned the issue into what it has always been - the usurpation of Palestine by European settlers.
The battle was fought on March 21, 1968, and it involved an attack by a 1,000-strong Israeli force on a PLO military base close to Karameh, a town in Jordan. For reasons not clear till today, Israeli security was lax, possibly because of over-confidence in the wake of the devastating defeat the Israelis had inflicted on the Arab states in the six-day war only nine months earlier.
Another theory is more interesting. Israelis, it is claimed, let it be known to the Jordanian high command that they were moving in on Karameh in a big way and that the Jordanian army could move away and let Israel finish off the PLO fedayeen, whom Jordan, too, did not wish to be on its soil. Another spin-off for Israel would be the flight of Palestinian refugees from the nearby camp. However, someone in the Jordanian army tipped the PLO off. Thus, the element of surprise was lost and the Israelis were met with determined resistance by PLO fighters well dug in there and ready.
Then something that had never happened before occurred: it was the Israelis who withdrew without having achieved any strategic objective, and it was the Arabs - the Palestinians, to be specific - who remained in the battlefield till the end and later enjoyed the sight of the burning Israeli tanks and APCs.
The psychological effect of the outcome of the battle of Karameh was dramatic. For the first the whole world came to know of a liberation movement called the PLO, especially one of its factions, al-Fatah, and its leader Yasser Arafat.
The PLO victory came at a time when the Arab morale was low, and not even the most optimistic among the Arabs thought an Arab force had the guts to face up to the Israeli army and make it suffer casualties and then retreat.
This minor military victory turned out to be seminal, for it unleashed a wave of self-confidence among the Palestinians, who for the first time realized that, instead of looking to Arab states, they should depend on their own strength to liberate Palestine and ensure the return of Palestinian refugees to their soil.
Some four months later, a Palestinian congress adopted a revised PLO charter. It proclaimed armed struggle as the only way to achieve Palestine's liberation. From then on, there was no turning back, for Arafat was to remain the movement's undisputed leader and guide till his dying day.
Like all great men, Arafat had his fair share of critics, denigrators and sworn enemies. They ranged from an academic like Edward Said to a shrewd and calculating dictator like Hafez al-Assad. When he signed the peace accords (Sept 13, 1993) with the Israeli leadership in Washington for the withdrawal of Israeli troops from the Gaza Strip and Jericho - followed later by another one on autonomy with Yitzhak Rabin - he was accused of a sell-out. But his critics failed to point out an alternative and overlooked the overwhelming nature of the military, economic and diplomatic power ranged against him.
Comparisons are often odious. But in assessing his achievements and failures, we can see the stark difference between Mao Zedong and Kemal Ataturk on the one hand and Arafat on the other. Both Mao in the vast expanse of China and Ataturk within the confines of Anatolia operated on their national territories and among their own peoples. Arafat did not have this advantage, for his homeland was under European occupation and his people had either become refugees or lived under enemy occupation.
Unlike Mao and Ataturk, the Fatah leader lived and ate and slept and fought alongside men whose loyalty no one could be sure of. He was in Lebanon at a time when there were nearly a dozen armies involved in strife - two Shia militias (Amal and Hezbollah), several Maronite factions, the official Lebanese army, the Druze militia, a Sunni army, the Israeli-backed South Lebanese army, besides freebooters, mercenaries and drug pushers. In addition, there was the menacing presence of a hostile Syrian army whose strength in the Beka'a valley sometimes reached 40,000. In such an atmosphere, Arafat was supposed to take on Israel militarily.
Yet not for nothing did Menachim Begin and his defence minister, Ariel Sharon, launch their blitz on Lebanon in 1982. With all his handicaps and powerlessness, Arafat was giving Israelis sleepless nights. Outnumbered and outgunned, the PLO men were, no doubt, forced to leave Beirut, but they were back soon. The Israeli victory was pyrrhic.
It is interesting here to note one similarity between the Balfour Declaration (1917) and the document approved by the San Remo conference in 1920 and later approved by the League of Nations in 1922. Both documents concerned Palestine, but neither contained even a single reference to the Arabs living in the holy land for more than a millennium.
Balfour Declaration was a small document - a nine-line declaration contained in a 15-line letter from the British foreign secretary to Lord Rothschild - viewing "with favour" the establishment in Palestine of a homeland for the Jewish people. The letter carefully avoided the word "Arabs" and instead spoke of the civil and religious rights of the "existing non-Jewish communities" (as if the Jews were already in a majority, even though in 1917 they were less than 10 per cent of the population).
On the contrary, the San Remo declaration was a lengthy document and reflected in all its crudity the racist and arrogant mentality that governed European statesmen in the wake of the allied victory in World War I.
The San Remo treaty incorporated the Balfour Declaration in the "mandate" which the League of Nations handed over to Britain, asking it to fulfil the objectives contained in Lord Balfour's letter to Lord Rothschild. It consisted of 28 articles which were replete with words "Jews" and "Jewish rights", while speaking condescendingly of the need for protecting the rights of the "other sections" of the population. The 90 per cent Palestinian population fell in this "other" category.
The two documents were part of a Zionist myth - that Palestine was a land without people and, thus, must be handed over to "a people without land". In his book Der Judenstaat (The Jewish State), Theodor Herzl, the founder of the Zionist movement, completely skips Palestine's existing population while pleading for the holy land to be opened to Jewish settlement. This falsity was continued to be perpetuated by Zionist statesmen, publicists and the western media after Israel had come into being in 1948.
The man who exploded this myth in black and white in the form of an international treaty - the signatories to which included Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin - was Arafat. In the presence of President Clinton and within the precincts of the White House, Yasser Arafat laid this great falsehood to rest forever by making Israel and its supporters accept the reality of the existence of a Palestinian people and agree to the principle of the Palestinian people having a sovereign state of their own on their soil.
Even his worst denigrators cannot take this achievement away from him - all his lapses and failures notwithstanding.
Politics of self-esteem
Pledges to work for more unity or "less polarization" are a standard post-election ritual. We've heard them from George Bush and John Kerry. They're hard to take seriously. Our age practices what I call "the politics of self-esteem."
Political elites of all stripes (elected officials, activists, commentators) try to make their most fervent followers feel better by belittling the other side. By this, I don't mean that there aren't real differences over issues or that elections don't alter some government policies.
What I mean is that, under the cover of these familiar conflicts, politicians and opinion leaders are really engaged in a contest to raise the spirits and affirm the beliefs of their supporters. This is what many Americans now want. They desire elevated self-esteem.
We should not be surprised. The psychologist Abraham Maslow (1908-1970) famously theorized that all people have a "hierarchy of needs," moving from basic requirements for food to love and then to esteem and "self- actualization." In a mainly prosperous society, politics drifts in the same direction. Government has already satisfied many economic needs.
It now pays about $1.2 trillion annually in personal benefits (Social Security, Medicare, food stamps, etc.). Since 1950, the unemployment rate has averaged 5.7 percent. Faded is the terror of the Depression (average unemployment in the 1930s: 18 percent). Paul Volcker and Ronald Reagan suppressed the great post-World War II economic scourge: inflation. Economic issues still matter, but absent some crisis, they matter less.
By contrast, people still want to feel good about themselves. The post-election elation of Bush voters and the wretchedness of Kerry supporters cannot be explained by objective differences on policies. Although a President Kerry might have governed much differently from Bush, their positions were similar on many issues. Both pledged to cut the budget deficit by half. Kerry promised to keep most of Bush's tax cuts, except those for people with incomes exceeding $200,000. Both pledged to kill terrorists. Kerry said he would pursue the war in Iraq, only more competently. These were differences of degree.
Even on gay marriage, the two were close. Both opposed legalizing gay marriage and supported "civil unions." That's the midpoint of public opinion. Here's what the exit polls found: 25 percent of voters support gay marriage, 35 percent back civil unions and 37 percent want no legal recognition of gay couples.
True, Bush backed a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, and Kerry didn't. But the amendment stands little chance of ratification. Bush and Kerry were merely signalling sympathy to core voters for positions that neither would take (for Bush's "base": banning all recognition; for Kerry's: supporting marriage).
Psychology - more than policy - explains the post-election highs and lows. In American democracy, the verdict of the majority confers bragging rights that the winners are "in the mainstream" and the losers are someplace else.
This thrills the winners and devastates the losers. The fashionable factoid of this election was the discovery that 22 percent of voters cited "moral values" as the most important issue for them, ahead of those who cited the economy (20 percent) or terrorism (19 percent). These were supposedly "values voters," mainly right of centre and religious. Actually, "values voters" exist all along the political spectrum.
"Every liberal [thinks he's] intellectually superior to conservatives," Paul Begala, a former Clinton administration official, remarked on CNN. "Every conservative I know wants to think of himself as morally superior." Though these are generalizations (as Begala admitted), they represent real psychological imperatives. Politics increasingly strives to feed these self-images.
The easiest way to make your people feel better is to cast their people as immoral, stupid, evil, corrupt or greedy. Politics, news and entertainment merge, because all seek to satisfy psychological needs. Michael Moore and Bill O'Reilly are more important political figures than most senators.
The starkest contrast between Bush and Kerry was in the sensibilities they projected: Bush as decisive, steadfast and religious; Kerry as thoughtful, informed and worldly. " 'It's a Victory for People Like Us,'" headlined a Washington Post profile of a young evangelical couple.-Dawn/Washington Post Service
Settling the Kalabagh dam issue
The decision to build the controversial Kalabagh dam has been taken. President Musharraf has been unwavering in his resolve to go ahead with the building of the dam despite provinces' reservations. A formal announcement to this effect may be made soon, thus paving the way for undertaking one of Pakistan's most controversial development projects.
Initially, the president favoured a national consensus on the issue. However, in the absence of any consensus and owing to what he sees as the urgency of the situation, the president has now taken the decision to go ahead. By linking the issue of water shortage and power shortfall with the Kalabagh dam, the general has made a convincing case for going ahead with this project.
President Musharraf has been dismissive of those who oppose the building of the Kalabagh dam. He says that a purely technical issue has been turned into a political one and that some vested interests were instigating people against these projects, spreading baseless information about them.
Without discussing the merits of this assertion, all those who oppose this project have been painted with the same brush. Treating such a sensitive issue in this manner only makes things worse and does not help people understand any better why the dam must be built.
The manner in which the issue has been handled by the government raises a number of larger issues about governance in Pakistan. And these are matters that need to be addressed at the earliest. For one, little has been done to address the nationally-held notion - true or false - that the Kalabagh dam, when completed, would benefit Punjab alone. There has been very little effort to address the objections of the smaller provinces.
In fact, the absence of any meaningful debate on such a sensitive subject is worrisome. Many argue that the government's interpretation of arriving at a consensus has been coming round to its point of view. Two committees were appointed to look at the Kalabagh dam project and also larger water issues. One was a technical committee, which comprised water experts, and the other was a political committee that was made up of peoples' representatives. It is not clear whether the findings of these committees were taken into consideration in arriving at the decision to go ahead.
Here, the problem is not just of whether the Kalabagh dam is a feasible project. It is one of taking all factors into consideration before coming to a final. It seems this has not been done in the Kalabagh dam case. Senior politicians from the smaller provinces as well as some leading experts from the field of water management say that they have not been consulted. The government does not say what went into the final decision.
At this stage it seems that the decision to build the seven billion dollar dam has been taken by one man. From his comments on the subject, it is apparent that General Musharraf feels strongly for the construction of these dams.
While there is no doubt about the fact that Pakistan faces an acute and worsening water shortage problem and needs to better manage its water resources, the question remains whether the proposed Kalabagh dam is the answer to this problem. Another question that needs to be looked into is the feasibility of building such a huge dam instead of the concentrating on water reservoirs.
The days of big dams all over the world are over. The World Bank has been the largest single source of funding for large dam construction worldwide. Under its stated aim of alleviating poverty, it has promoted and funded dams that have displaced more than 10 million people from their homes and land, caused severe environmental damage, and pushed borrowers further into debt. Never hesitant to exact loan repayment in perpetuity for projects it has funded (even failed projects), the Bank has never been forced to recompense for the destruction it has caused to millions of people's lives and the environment.
Large dams, whether built for hydropower, flood control or irrigation, epitomize the huge infrastructure development projects that have been the staple of World Bank lending throughout its history. The World Commission on Dams (WCD) estimates that the Bank has provided almost $75 billion for 538 large dams in 92 countries, including many of the world's largest and most controversial projects.
Arunadhati Roy, the acclaimed Indian writer and activist, is in the forefront of the international movement against big dams. She is part of the Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) which is fighting against the building of a series of dams in Central India. Roy likens large dams to monuments to political corruption that are derived from very undemocratic political institutions. She gives the example of the Bargi dam, the first built in the Narmada.
Initial estimates were that it would displace 70,000 people; instead it displaced 114,000 and submerged 162 villages. Ten years later, the dam irrigates only five per cent of the land it was meant to service. In fact, it irrigates less land than it has submerged. Such examples are prevalent the world over especially in Asia.
The World Commission on Dams in a report says that both the multilateral and bilateral development banks played a significant facilitating role in getting Asia, Africa and Latin America started in the dam business.... "[They] have helped finance studies needed for dam construction, and lent money for the construction of the dams themselves. They identified development goals through strategic sectoral planning documents, provided resources and technological capacity and created basin-wide institutional frameworks to plan and implement dams."
Although the proportion of investment in dams directly financed by bilaterals and multilaterals was perhaps less than 15 per cent these institutions played a key role globally in spreading the technology, lending legitimacy to emerging dam projects, training future engineers and government agencies, and leading financing arrangements.
The banks' portfolio of large dams is like a primer on the folly of damming rivers. In case after case the benefits have been far less than promised, and the costs in terms of money spent, debts incurred, communities uprooted, fisheries and forests destroyed, and opportunities lost have been far greater than imagined.
Another misconception that has come out of this debate is the belief in Islamabad that water that ends up in the Arabian Sea is wasted and should be utilized. It is wrong to assume that water should not be allowed to enter the sea. This is a natural process that should not be tampered with as it feeds into the Indus delta, which has a vibrant life and utility of its own. Already, the reduced outflow from the Indus into this delta has resulted in vast areas in on the coastal belt being rendered useless as seawater has moved up to create a serious problem of salinity affecting farmland besides playing havoc with the coastal ecology.
Finally, aside from the technical aspects of this issue, there are political aspects that have to be considered. Merely terming those opposed to the Kalabagh dam as misguided is taking a rather simplistic view of an essentially complex issue. If the Kalabagh dam is to be built, it has to done by evolving a national consensus and not bulldozing it through. Such a move has wider national implications.
As things stand, it seems that Pakistanis are unable to arrive at a consensus on anything. That is why the centre either keeps postponing critical decisions like the NFC award or shoves its solution down the throats of the smaller provinces, as is the case with the Kalabagh dam. Centre-province relations seem to be so fragile that a meaningful debate on issues of national interest remains a non-starter.
Of late, the official media has been singing the praise of this project. It says that the Kalabagh dam would store surplus water during the flood season and make it available for use during the lean season. This water would thus be used for sowing and maturing of the Kharif crops and the entire Rabi crops. The irrigation-oriented operation of the project gives the highest overall economic return. Thus, the full storage of 6.1MAF would be available for guaranteeing assured irrigation supplies throughout the year, including replacement of the storage loss at the three existing reservoirs.
Also, with its installed capacity of 2,400 MW (ultimate 3600 MW) the Kalabagh dam would add to the power system a very large amount of cheap hydro-electricity. In an average year, 11,413 million kilowatt hours (MKWh's) of electricity would be generated at the Kalabagh dam. Further, as a result of conjunctive operation an additional 336 million MKWh's and up to 600 megawatts (MW) of additional power would be generated at Tarbela. To put these figures in perspective, if Kalabagh was in operation today, there would have been no load-shedding in Pakistan.
Also, Kalabagh would reduce the frequency and severity of flooding along the Indus, particularly between the dam site and Indus/Punjab confluence, 300 miles downstream. For the riverine areas lower down in Sindh, it would enable the conversion of the existing 'Sailaba' areas into a year-round tubewell irrigation.
With such advantages it has to offer, one wonders why it is so hard to convince the smaller provinces of the importance of building the dam. With the exception of Punjab, no other province is in its favour. One wonder whether the basis of the opposition is "vested interests" which the president points out, who are not in favour of the project only because of ignorance, or is there more to this?