| 03 December 2004 | Friday | 20 Shawwal 1425 |
Evolving NFC consensus
Forced marriages
The report that Mr Marwan Barghouti will take part in the Palestinian presidential election alters the scenario radically. On Nov 26, Mr Barghouti announced that he would not contest the January 9 election in the larger interest of Palestinian unity.
Instead, as chief of the Fatah on the West Bank, he asked his followers to support Mr Mahmoud Abbas, head of the Palestine Liberation Organization. This gave Mr Abbas, a former prime minister, an edge over all other candidates.
However, Mr Barghouti's wife announced on Wednesday that her husband would take part in the election. Should the 45-year-old fire-brand leader decide to re-enter the electoral arena, Mr Abbas's chances would plummet.
Hamas, the fundamentalist Islamic resistance movement, would support Mr Barghouti, and that could rule out an Abbas victory. Hamas itself has announced its boycott of the election. There is a possibility that, while officially boycotting the election, Hamas supporters would cast their votes and thus swing the election in Mr Barghouti's favour.
Since Mr Barghouti is in an Israeli jail, his victory would raise problems for the Palestinian Authority on the one hand and for Israel and America on the other. To expect Israel to release Mr Barghouti if and when he is elected is to ask for the moon.
Israel has neither the decency nor the foresight to realize the importance of working with the post-Arafat leadership. A government that kept Yasser Arafat in virtual prison until shortly before his death would have no qualms about keeping Mr Barghouti in prison for life.
That would have at least two highly negative consequences. One, Hamas and other militant organizations will be forced to continue armed resistance; that would mean more bloodshed. Two, the Palestinian Authority will refuse to negotiate with a government that keeps its president in jail.
The real responsibility for re-starting the peace process rests with the US. Because of Washington's blanket support for Mr Ariel Sharon, Israel has behaved like a bull in a china shop.
Ever since his election in February 2001, Mr Sharon has refused to negotiate with the Palestinians. He has also taken a number of other actions that have destroyed the roadmap to peace announced by President George Bush in April 2003.
These steps include the continuation of the settlements activity and the construction of a separation barrier. America not only did not censure Mr Sharon on these actions; Mr Bush encouraged him by focussing on the personality of Yasser Arafat and on the need for reforms in PA.
He also torpedoed the peace process by two blatant violations of the roadmap. First he said that even after withdrawing its troops from Gaza, Israel would keep "some" Palestinian land.
Second, he said 2005 was an unrealistic date for a Palestinian state to emerge. Should America continue with this policy, there is little possibility of peace ever coming to the holy land.
The post-Arafat scenario presents an opportunity for the US to kick start the peace process. The Bush administration had for years maintained that Arafat was the main hurdle in the way to peace in the Middle East.
Now that Arafat is no longer there, America should prove its sincerity about the cause of peace by reviving the peace process and making Israel talk to the new leadership with a view to ending the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza and ensuring the emergence of a sovereign Palestinian state with Al Quds as its capital.
Evolving NFC consensus
Efforts afoot to evolve a consensus ahead of a meeting of the National Finance Commission in January should be viewed with some scepticism. There are fears that an "authoritarian consensus" is being pushed through. If this is so it is most unfortunate.
The issue of NFC awards must be settled in a democratic manner and in a spirit of give and take. The provinces must show flexibility in their positions and the centre should lead the way by accommodating provincial demands. For example, the federal government's proposal to increase the share of the provinces in the divisible pool falls short of provincial demands to raise their share to 50 per cent from the existing 37.5 per cent.
The manner in which the finance ministers of all four provinces were able to put across their demands in past meetings should be seen as a positive preparation of the groundwork for an agreement that is acceptable to all.
What is required is to work towards a general agreement. History has shown us that those issues that are resolved as a result of building a consensus are more long lasting. But building a consensus will be a difficult task. Punjab's demand for population as the sole criterion for allocation of resources is as unacceptable to other provinces as is Sindh's demand for revenue collection as the principal determinant for revenue sharing.
An acceptable basis has thus to be worked out by agreeing on population as the primary determinant and then adding revenue collection, under-development, rural poverty, internal migration and so forth as factors warranting weight age in the matter of resource allocation among the provinces.
These are some of the considerations that must be taken into account in arriving at a fair and realistic basis for resource sharing. The question is one of mutual understanding and accommodation in the larger national interest.
Unless such a spirit is brought to bear on the task ahead, a consensus on the next NFC award would be endlessly delayed, allowing positions to be further hardened and hardship caused to the resource-poor provinces.
Forced marriages
The campaign against forced marriages, which was pushed to the forefront of the British media in the late 1990s, has now reached Mirpur in Pakistan. The British government recently appointed an honorary consul in Mirpur to help deal with the issue of forced marriages because of the rising incidence of problems resulting from such marriages between British nationals of Pakistani origin and Pakistanis belonging to the Mirpur region.
The new honorary consul in Mirpur will be helping the British High Commission to improve awareness among the people about the negative effects of forced marriages. The view being propagated is that forced marriage, which is different from arranged marriage, is a form of human rights abuse, and that youths have the right to choose their life partners.
Apart from the appointment of an honorary consul in Mirpur, other measures being considered by the British government to tackle the issue include a new entry clearance officer in Islamabad to help reluctant spouses, a new government unit to handle such cases, and possibly even a new law making it a criminal offence to force someone into marriage.
Rooting out forced marriages is not a simple matter. The more difficult part of the job is changing the thinking and attitude of the community. It has been reported that every year, more than 1,000 girls of South Asian origin in Britain, many in their teens, are tricked by their families into travelling to the subcontinent for holidays, where they are then forced to marry someone chosen for them.
Factors such as family honour and long-standing family commitments or protecting cultural forms are the usual reasons why parents force their children into marriage. On this side, gaining a passport into Britain through marriage with a British national is a major factor prompting many families into resorting to forced marriages.