| 25 February 2005 | Friday | 15 Muharram 1426 |
Europeans ignore Bush's actions
Development with empowerment
End of the romance
The Quran says, "O Prophet invite to the Way of your Lord with wisdom and excellent preachings and argue with the people in the best manner"(16:125). In this way the Quran not only emphasized the use of the best possible substance but also the application of best possible method.
While taking its message across, The Quran further says "and do not dispute with the people of the Book except in the best manner, save with those who do wrong, and say to them, we have believed in that which has been sent down to us as well as in that which has been sent down to you. Our God and your God is one and to Him we have surrendered (as Muslims)" (29:46).
The Quran also tells us what kind of substance and what kind of method we should use while preaching and arguing with the people. The common points of faith are belief in the existence and Unity of Allah, belief in their scriptures and belief in their Prophets as the Messengers of Allah. The method to be applied according to the verse should be by taking a start from the common points of faith.
On the other hand if a start is taken directly from the points in dispute, it will have negative effect. That's why the Quran lays emphasis on the use of best possible substance as well as the application of best possible method. All the letters sent by the Prophet (peace be upon him) to the Christian heads of states and tribes started with stressing the common points of faith.
In this connection the Quran cites an excellent example as to how one point of common faith can arouse sympathies towards each other. When the Romans who were Christians but believed in the Unity of Allah were defeated by the Persians, the Muslims of Makkah got very disappointed.
The people of Quraish tribe started joking with them saying that in the same manner as the Persians defeated the believers in the Unity of Allah, they (the Quraish) too will defeat the Muslims whenever they fought with them.
During this period, a few verses of Surah Ar-Room of the Quran were revealed which predicted that very soon the Romans will emerge as the victors and on that day the Muslims will rejoice (30:3,4). And the Romans did emerge as victors within a short span as predicted by the Quran.
The best way to preach is by reasoning as explained by the Quran with reference to the way Hazrat Ibrahim tried to convince the people about the authenticity of his message.
Hazrat Ibrahim had to deal with people professing different kinds of faith. Some of them took stars as their gods, some took moon and some took the sun as their gods and worshipped them.
To those who worshipped stars, he said that the star was his god when he saw the star in the night. But when in the morning he found that no star was visible anywhere he said how could he accept an object as his God which was apt to set.
Then to those who worshipped moon he said that the moon was his god when he saw it in the night. But when the moon disappeared in the morning, he exclaimed that surely one was likely to go astray without guidance from Allah. And finally to those who worshipped the sun, he said that the sun was his god which was the most powerful of all when he saw the sun in the morning. But when the sun disappeared in the evening, he said to the people that he was free of their guilt of associating partners with Allah.
Thus, in each case, Hazrat Ibrahim accepted the version of the concerned people first but rejected it subsequently when he came to know about its fallacy on the basis of solid proof. That's why about the method so applied the Quran says "that was the reasoning about Us that We gave to Ibrahim (to use) against his people"(6:83).
In addition to the above, the Quran tells us about many facts and realities that can be used as substance in order to make such arguments more meaningful. The first instance that can be quoted in this connection could be the existence of harmony in the creation, a fact that cannot be denied on any score whatsoever, about which the Quran says "He raised the heavens high and set the balance"(55:7).
According to the verse, after the creation of all the stars, planets and other celestial bodies, Allah placed them in proper order so as to maintain the requisite degree of equilibrium and balance.
As the Quran says "the sun must not catch up the moon, nor does the night outstrip the day. Each one is travelling in an orbit with its own motion"(36:40).
It says again "Have they never looked up to the sky above them (and observed) how We made it and adorned it and there is no flaw in it"(50:6). It further says "such is the artistry of Allah Who arranges all things in perfect order"(27:88).
That's why the renowned scientist Einstein said "God reveals himself in the harmony that exists in the creation". According to Martin Lings "harmony is the imprint of Oneness upon multiplicity and the Quran draws attention to that harmony for man's meditation.
Another fact worth quoting in this connection could be the creation of the universe itself about which the Quran says "do the non-believers not see that the heavens and the earth were joined together, then we separated them"(21:30). The Arabic word "fataq" occurring in this verse implies separation by force or as a result of split or explosion.
The modern science has now found that originally the entire universe was a gaseous mass consisting of hydrogen and a certain amount of helium gases that was slowly rotating to which also there is a clear reference in the Quran (41:11).
After condensation and contraction, it turned into a super dense agglomeration of matter and finally got split through what the scientists call big bang. The fragments so separated from one another took the shape of billions of galaxies comprising stars, planets and other celestial bodies. This fact is further confirmed by another Quranic verse which says "I seek refuge with the Lord of Dawn (falaq)" (133:1).
The Arabic word "falaq" implies that which comes into being as a result of split or explosion. That's why in another Quranic verse (6:96), the word "faliq" from the same root, has been used for the daybreak from the darkness (Dawn) which obviously occurs through a split, when the sun-rays pierce through the darkness of the night.
In this way, many other facts and instances narrated in the Quran can be used as the basis of arguments in line with the Quranic verse (telling the Prophet) "Say thou I do invite unto Allah on evidence clear as the seeing with one's eyes"(12:108).
Europeans ignore Bush's actions
George Bush is this week having an extravagantly orchestrated series of meetings with Europe's leaders, designed to show a united front for the creation of democracy around the world. Tony Blair talks of "shared values". No one mentions the word that makes this show a mockery: torture.
It is now undeniable that the US administration, at the highest levels, is responsible for the torture that has been routine not only, as seen round the world in iconic photographs, at Abu Ghraib, but at Guantanamo Bay and Bagram.
Meanwhile, in prisons in Egypt, Jordan and Syria (and no doubt others we do not know about), Muslim men have been tortured by electric shocks, by being kept in water, by being threatened with death - after being flown to those countries by the CIA for that very purpose.
How can it be that not one mainstream public figure in Europe has denounced these appalling practices and declared that, in view of all we now know of cells, cages, underground bunkers, solitary confinement, sodomy and threatened sodomy, beatings, sleep deprivation, sexual humiliation, mock executions and kidnapping, President Bush and his officials are not welcome? Perhaps it's not surprising given the British army's own dismal record in southern Iraq.
Why has no public figure had the honesty to admit that the democracy and freedom promised for the Middle East are fake and mask US plans to leave Washington dominant in the area? And why does no one say publicly that what is really happening in the "war on terror" is a war on Muslims that is creating a far more dangerous world for all?
From the flood of declassified material from Guantanamo, from recent reports by the military that reveal evidence of abuse and even deaths at Bagram being destroyed, from the war between the FBI and the CIA about who is responsible for the interrogations, from the utter confusion about who is to be responsible for the prisoners who will never be released, one thing is clear: even in its own terms, the torture strategy is a failure.
As far back as September 2002, a secret CIA study into the Guantanamo detainees suggested that many were innocent or such low-level recruits to the Taliban forces that they had no intelligence value whatever.
You do not have to be a specialist in torture to know that after a short period anyone will confess to anything to stop the pain. Men in Guantanamo have been interrogated more than 100 times - always shackled, always the same questions. No wonder prisoners simply stop answering. No wonder there are so many unconvincing confessions.
Now The Torture Papers - 1,249 pages of government memos and reports, edited by Karen Greenberg, the executive director of the centre on law and security at the New York University School of Law - shows the American government to be guilty of a "systematic decision to alter the use of methods of coercion and torture that lay outside of accepted and legal norms".
The young women interrogators in Guantanamo who humiliated devout Muslim men through bizarre acts and mocked them by turning off the water so they could not wash before prayers, did not dream up such an idea. It was policy designed to humiliate and break men.
These reports have come from an army translator, Eric Saar, as well as from prisoners. Lawyer Michael Ratner of the New York Centre for Constitutional Rights, which represents over 100 prisoners, said it reminded him of "a pornographic website - it's like the fantasy of these S and M clubs".
The lack of moral courage that prevents our leaders, religious as well as political, from speaking out against all this is deeply disturbing. Either they choose not to know or, by not speaking out, they tacitly condone it.
Whichever it is, their behaviour is in stark contrast to the dignity of the relatives of the prisoners, or of the returned prisoners in many countries. The care and concern that many of them display to the isolated, the sick, the frightened and the traumatized among the families are a testimony to the very best of the human spirit. If only these were the shared values that Tony Blair liked to highlight.
These men are driven by a feeling of responsibility for trying to end the ordeal of those 540 men still at Guantanamo, including six UK residents. Among these are a Palestinian refugee, Jamil el Banna, and an Iraqi, Bisher al Rawi, men who have lived here for 10 and 20 years respectively, have families in Britain, and who the British foreign secretary shamefully refuses to bring home from hell. -Dawn/Guardian Service.
Development with empowerment
Can a country be "developed" without widening the circles of opportunities and power for its people - its critical human resources? And if the development of a society does not mean the economic and political empowerment of its people, what is it all about? National development is more than a catalogue of construction projects.
If construction works were synonymous with development, then no one has built anything more mega than the pyramids of Egypt. But the pharoahs constructed these projects as a testimony to their power and to serve as their shelter in the afterlife, not for the development and well-being of Egyptian society.
The development process has a better chance of achieving nation-building objectives if it fulfils two basic conditions: it is "consultative" and "rational". Consultative in the sense of engaging the stakeholders in a dialogue for the determination of their needs and designing the project accordingly. And, rational in the sense that instead of imposing predetermined preferences, various alternatives are examined with an open mind to arrive at the most feasible option.
Although, so much has been appearing in the national press about some mega construction projects like Gwadar, Kalabagh, Thal Canal, etc., it is not clear from what has been said how critical conditions of consultations and rationality are being satisfied.
The controversy raging round certain projects are not about their credentials as instruments of development. It is about their role as instruments of empowerment. Essentially, how are the new circles of opportunities and power created by these projects, going to be balanced out among the people?
It is safe to assume that those who expect to benefit and be empowered by these projects and are calling for bold decisions are supporting the projects while those who fear their displacement and dis empowerment are opposing them.
Rational, not bold, decisions are needed. Development can be a double edged sword. There was a great deal of development work done during the days of Ayub Khan that created empowerment problems.
"Dis empowered by development" through these projects, our fellow citizens in the eastern wing felt the pain and anguish of the insensitivity behind such development. Instead of national development, these very projects contributed to increasing tensions and weakening of the national fabric leading to tragic results.
Half the issues confronting Pakistan society could be solved if we stop posturing and were open and honest with each other. So often we try to hide our pursuit of self, group or regional interest behind various grandiose slogans. There is nothing wrong with the pursuit of one's interests - it is natural and human, so long as the equally valid interests of others are not thrown overboard.
Compromise or meeting each other halfway helps resolve issues and makes it possible to move ahead. It shows that there is respect for each other and demonstrates that we care enough work hard to find common meeting ground.
It is the development of a common interest, and the consequent empowerment, that will bind us together as a nation and which will prove much stronger than any mega project, or even common language, culture or religion.
If we need further proof we need to look no further than the continuing disarray in the ranks of the Arab League - an association of peoples with the same language, culture and religion.
On the other hand, the unity in diversity of the European Union or Asean (Association of South East Asian Nations) will show us the powerful bonds that common interest builds among nations, otherwise rich and proud of their own cultural diversities.
Issues pertaining to empowerment are sensitive and not resolved by repeating each other's positions any number of times. Nor would technical or economic evaluation reports by experts convince or convert many on the two sides. These are best resolved under the umbrella of the representative institutions working together to find a common position.
Big resource allocation decisions cannot be viewed in the narrow context of project development. These are also decisions on the empowerment - and dis empowerment of the people and must be taken in that spirit. To appreciate how others approach big resource allocation decisions, a real life instance from the Pakistani experience will help.
Prime Minister Toshiki Kaifu of Japan paid an official visit to Pakistan in May 1990. Among other subjects on the discussion list was the issue of the utilization of a Japanese loan of over 3 billion yen for various Pakistani projects.
The government had prepared a list of about eight mega projects considered eligible for these funds. However, the project details were not sent to Japan in time for their evaluation and concurrence before Mr Kaifu left on his official tour of several Asian countries including Pakistan.
During the talks in Islamabad, the hosts pressed for the concurrence of the Japanese prime minister so that an official announcement could be made during his presence in Islamabad.
The Japanese side declined to make such an "on-the-spot" decisions without completing the consultation process and satisfying themselves about the rationality of these choices.
The whole discussion on the subject of allocating national resources for development was summed up by a very senior member of the visiting delegation. He reassured the hosts that these funds were meant for Pakistan and would be utilized for Pakistani projects. But he also gave them a lesson in good governance by telling them that under their rules of governance, the prime minister, although the executive head of government, could not take such decisions on his own.
He told them plainly that these funds were not the personal funds of the prime minister but the property of the people of Japan who had laid down a consultative framework that had to be followed before they could make resource allocation decisions.
It seems that rich nations build up their wealth because of the care they take in the utilization of their resources, and poor countries remain poor because of the cavalier attitude to their resource allocation decisions.
Poverty is not just a question of living in a cash strapped country. Poverty, under-development and the backwardness of a people or a region are more a function of governance that determines priorities for resource allocations, than of the scarcity of resources itself.
The poverty of a people is inversely proportional to their influence over governance. Those who influence decision making process most also benefit from the allocation of resources more than the others.
In the absence of governance reforms, even if development funds are doubled or trebled for a country or a region, the old instruments of governance continue to channel the increased resource flows to further empower and benefit those who most influence the governance process, rather than the most deserving or needy.
Given a system of governance which is representative of, and responsive to, the people, there is a much greater chance of reducing poverty, illiteracy, hunger, disease and malnutrition than any other system, however well intentioned it may be, other things being equal.
The truth of this argument is beautifully summed up by no less a person than by the 2001 Noble laureate in economics, Amartya Sen, who said "there has not been, nor can there be, any famine in a democracy".
Because authoritarian and non-democratic governance is unencumbered by the consent of the governed, its survival is not performance related. It is essentially a winner- take- all system where the polarization between the haves and have-nots is largely complete.
Those excluded become fatalist and are forced to accept their continuing misery as destiny. It is a Catch-22 for them. Because, they cannot influence their governance, they cannot change their fate.
And, they cannot change their fate because they cannot influence their governance. Those who are not so poor or weak do not find it easy to accept this fatalist view.
The new generation of left-outs, who have grown up in the age of global media, know much more about governance than we give them credit for. They do not find it easy to accept their continuing poverty and backwardness, nor are they inclined to blame it on destiny. Increasingly, they see these as man-made disasters and are unwilling to accept their dis empowerment.
The intensity of despair and anger of those permanently blocked out in such a dysfunctional system is now receiving a more sympathetic hearing around the world as the nexus between authoritarianism and terrorism is being increasingly recognized and reforms in governance are now taking centre stage in every development agenda.
For countries receiving aid and assistance for their development from bilateral and multilateral agencies, the reforms process has a much better chance of picking up momentum.
Political reforms are no less important than economic reforms since economics and politics are inextricably linked in governance. Governance reforms should aim at widening the circles of opportunities and power, and not confining these to a favoured few.
The mark of a civilized and developed society lies in how far the economic well being of its people does, as opposed to the politics of power, provide the driving force behind governance.
The closer we bring development to mean the economic and political empowerment of the people and the more successful we will be in eradicating poverty, reducing disparities, and taking the wind out of the sails of those who are preaching hatred, intolerance and violence.
Email: smshah@alum.mit.edu.
End of the romance
Valdas Adamkus has a problem. The 79-year-old president of Lithuania has been invited - personally, persistently, even threateningly - by Russian President Vladimir Putin to an event that he really doesn't think he should attend: the May 9 celebrations in Moscow marking the 60th anniversary of the Soviet Union's victory over Adolf Hitler.
It's a real A-list affair: President Bush, Tony Blair, Jacques Chirac, Gerhard Schroeder, Silvio Berlusconi, the presidents of other former Soviet republics, and a cast of thousands.
But Adamkus does not view May 9, 1945, as a day of liberation for his tiny country and its Baltic neighbours. "On that day we traded Hitler for Stalin, and we should not celebrate it," he tells visitors.
Most Lithuanians, proud of their central role in breaking up the Soviet Union in 1991, agree. But Putin seems almost desperate to have all the former Soviet republics honour Russia on May 9; he has even used his most potent threat, hinting that if Adamkus does not go, it could affect Russia's shipments of oil and gas.
Of course, as US Ambassador to Lithuania Steve Mull has said, it does not matter to the United States whether Adamkus attends. What makes this more than a social problem is that it is symptomatic of a disturbing trend in Russian behaviour toward the area where the Soviet Union once reigned supreme. And it poses to the Bush administration a dilemma far greater than the one Adamkus faces.
I am neither predicting nor advocating a return to the bad old Cold War days. Those are, thank God, gone forever. Russia, although much-diminished, is now an important and legitimate part of the international system.
The new security architecture of Europe, worked out in the Clinton and Bush administrations with Boris Yeltsin and Putin, is no longer about containing Russia but about including it, and it has produced some historic achievements and cooperation. But the continuation of those productive policies is endangered by events over the past year that the West can no longer ignore. Putin is rattled by the growing independence of some of the former Soviet republics, most notably Georgia and Ukraine. But his inept meddling, which failed to prevent democratic popular uprisings last year in both countries, has only weakened him.
One of Russia's most serious actions has been ignored by Washington and the European Union: the continued presence of Russian troops in neighbouring countries without their permission. In 1999 Russia promised to gradually withdraw troops stationed in parts of Georgia and Moldova - troops supporting destabilizing separatist movements.
Six years later Russian troops are still in these "frozen conflict" zones. At a conference in Munich last week, Russian Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov said that Moscow had never made such a commitment - a view of recent history that Clinton and Bush administration officials firmly reject.
Simultaneously, Putin's internal performance has veered toward what one might call "soft authoritarianism": provincial governors are now appointed by the Kremlin, not elected; press restrictions are growing; and the Yukos Oil affair amounts to state-sponsored theft.
Meanwhile, the war in Chechnya defies solution and Chechnya has become a notorious sanctuary for terrorists. So one must ask what the United States got for its "blank cheque" policy toward Russia in the past four years. - Dawn/ Washington Post Service
The writer was a US ambassador to the United Nations during the Clinton administration.