| 25 April 2005 | Monday | 15 Rabi-ul-Awwal 1426 |
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Festering wounds
A shameful incident
THE Jakarta Declaration issued on Saturday at the end of the two-day Asia-Africa summit conference has understandably called for a concerted world effort for meeting economic growth targets and those of poverty alleviation. It also committed the 100 or so member countries of the two continents that are home to more than 80 per cent of the world’s poor to addressing the threats emanating from terrorism, extremism, weapons’ proliferation and organized crime. The summit was hailed as a ‘historic’ event and a ‘milestone’ by attending leaders, in that it achieved the target of bringing the majority of Third World countries on a single platform and taking a collective stand on issues confronting Asia and Africa. The summit also marked 50 years of the first Asia-Africa conference held at Bandung, Indonesia, which gave birth to the Non-Aligned Movement of the Third World countries at a time when the world was being divided into Western and Soviet blocs. The participating leaders agreed to hold a foreign ministers’ meeting every two years and that of heads of states and governments every four. This mechanism will help keep track of the progress made on commitments given by member countries at Jakarta.
The summit meeting was not without its problems and disagreements. Arch rivals, such as delegates from North and South Korea, managed to meet each other on the sidelines of the conference but failed to achieve a breakthrough in their bilateral relations. By contrast, Pakistan and India spoke with one voice on issues confronting Asia and Africa as a region. On bilateral relations, President Pervez Musharraf said that both India and Pakistan were proud of the progress made towards peace during his recent visit to New Delhi, but warned that lingering disputes would have to be resolved sooner than later to keep the spirit of peace and harmony alive. Responding to the president’s speech, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said he fully reciprocated the president’s sentiments, and reiterated his country’s resolve to finding a peaceful solution to the Kashmir dispute. The Chinese and Japanese leaders also met on the sidelines of the Jakarta summit, following Tokyo’s formal apology to its Asian neighbours on its actions during the second world war. Beijing, however, stressed the need for Japan to match words with action — a clear reference to Japan’s attempt to put a gloss over its wartime conduct as seen by China in regard to the new history books being introduced in Japan. The move prompted weeks of anti-Japan protests in several Chinese cities.
The broader agreements reached at Jakarta have only identified some of the socio-economic problems faced by Asia and Africa and a few mechanisms to keep track of the progress made on these issues. Other development issues pertaining to lack of health-care, education, sanitation, shelter, and food and water supplies, still remain to be tackled at the highest level. Japan’s pledge to more than double its socio-economic aid to Africa over the next three years and China’s resolve to import raw materials from poor countries to meet its industrial needs are welcome. But as President Musharraf, his South African counterpart, Mr Thabo Mbeki and the UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan pointed out, impoverished people of the region now awaited ‘real action’ from their leaders and not just words. The challenge between now and the next summit, planned to be held in South Africa, will be to ensure the effectiveness
of the new grouping by gauging its role in improving people’s lives.
WHILE it is uncertain how effective Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi’s apology at the Asia-Africa summit in Jakarta for Japan’s “colonial rule and aggression” will prove in healing the festering wounds of East Asia’s wartime history, there are signs that the recent, ugly Sino-Japanese spat may be over soon. The Chinese government has welcomed Japan’s apology, which though short on specifics, hinted that the country repented the 1937 Nanjing massacre by Japanese soldiers in which some 300,000 people died and 20,000 women were raped. The glossing over of the facts of this historical event, among others, by newly approved textbooks in Japan was the reason for the violent public rioting that caused much damage to Japanese businesses and diplomatic missions in many Chinese cities. However, there are other important reasons for what is being widely seen as a deepening rift between Asia’s two largest economic powerhouses. These have to do with security concerns over Taiwan, acrimonious competition in the oil and gas sector, and China’s opposition to Japan’s bid for a permanent seat in the UN Security Council.
Conversely, the two countries have much to gain if they put aside their bitter past — and avoid provocative actions like visiting the shrines of wartime criminals (as a group of Japanese politicians recently did) — and move in tandem on the trade and economic front. China is Japan’s biggest trading partner and Japan stands to lose enormously if irate Chinese protestors boycott its goods. Reduced economic ties would not benefit China either because it has more than one million workers employed by Japanese firms, and it is the second largest recipient of Japanese foreign direct investment. The economic stakes for both countries are too high for either to go back on trade and business commitments, their ideological differences notwithstanding. Indeed, with both countries playing a dominant economic role in Asian affairs, the entire region would benefit considerably from strengthened ties between them. To attain these would mean devoting less time to historical introspection and making a greater joint effort to end the current standoff that, if allowed to get out of hand, may have devastating repercussions.
THE report on Thursday of a 60-year-old tailor in Karachi who, on a work-related trip to Mithadar, stopped at the sabeel of a mosque to drink water from a tap, being rounded up by men at the mosque on suspicion of being a thief and manhandled for 10 hours is shameful. The man was beaten, his clothes torn; he was tied to a column of a building and was even deprived of Rs. 450 from his pocket by a group of zealots who took it upon themselves to “punish” him. That this happened in the vicinity of Edhi’s office, and despite Mr Abdul Sattar Edhi’s personal intervention urging the group to release the man and let the police take over, is appalling. Mr Edhi was told by the group “to mind his own business” and the police were called in eventually but not before the poor man —who had fainted by the time the police reached the spot — was subjected to 10 tortuous hours of beating — and for what?
One cannot fathom the logic of this tough justice nor can one understand how the so-called pious worshippers felt the need to take the law into their own hands. Perhaps one should not be so surprised, given the resurgence of religious bigotry and intolerance, but it is shocking that something like this could take place in the heart of Karachi with no consideration for the guilt or innocence of the object of merciless beating. Unless people stand up to this kind of aggressive righteousness, we will witness more incidents where scenes reminiscent of public lynchings will become common. The police must act in this case and arrest those involved in not just roughing up the man but disgracing society as well.