THE first feudal age came to its end in Europe towards the close of the 18th century as a consequence of a long process of socio-political evolution that culminated in two revolutions: the French and the industrial. In the developing countries that kind of socio-political evolution began much later, proceeded at a slow pace, and has yet to run its course.

Meanwhile, the developing countries, though struggling yet with the vestiges of the first feudal age, have unwittingly fallen into the embrace of the second feudal age that has just begun. The two feudal ages are, of course, different but do have some remarkable similarities too. The comparison is interesting. The first feudal age was founded on the control and ownership of land, while the second feudal age is founded on the control and ownership of knowledge.

In the first feudal age the landed elites, supported by the state apparatus, were the main beneficiaries, while in the second feudal age corporations, supported by the state apparatus, are the main beneficiaries. In the first feudal age the peasants, as cultivators, were the main producers of wealth, in the second feudal age the ordinary people, as consumers, are the enablers of wealth. The first feudal age led to the emergence of kingdoms and empires, while the second feudal age has led to corporate colonialism. There are, as we shall see later, other similarities also.

A lot that is happening in the political and economic world today can be encapsulated in the most sacred ideological concept of our times: globalization. It includes or implies such other concepts (slogans?) as free-market economy; free movement, across the frontiers, of goods and capital (though not of labour); free trade; deregulation. Its implementation is supported, even enforced, by the rich industrialized nations and the international financial and regulatory institutions that they have created, such as the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and World Trade Organization.

But even more important than the countries are the mega corporations that operate from behind the scene and are the main beneficiaries of globalization. The stakes, in terms of corporate profits, are high, very high indeed. No wonder, then, that globalization is being pursued with greater dedication and ruthlessness than, say, alleviation of poverty even in the rich countries, or the right of self-determination even for the communities that have been brutally suppressed now for more than half a century.

Erstwhile US presidential contender, Ralph Nader, referring to the approval by the US of the regulatory formulations of the WTO and free trade agreements, such as Nafta, concluded that those approvals had “institutionalized a global economic and political structure that makes every government increasingly hostage to an unaccountable system of transnational governance designed to increase corporate profit, often with complete disregard for social and ecological considerations.” This, in fact, is a good description of corporate colonialism wherein the state will ultimately wither away, as Lenin said, though not for the reason or the purpose that he had in mind.

There can be no doubt that the state, as it operates through the mechanism of government, is under siege. Forceful voices have been raised against it at the conceptual level, and powerful institutions (IMF, WTO) have undermined it at the operational level. Nobel laureate Milton Friedman, an influential economist for many decades, advocates that the state should control only the most basic functions, that is, the judicial system, the armed forces, and the relief of the most extreme cases of poverty.

There are other influentials (including legislators who get elected with corporate funding) who agree with this astonishing proposition. The proposition is astonishing because the functions assigned to the state by Friedman are precisely the ones that the state exercised in the feudal age!

What is even more astonishing is the fact that Friedman and those who agree with him (management guru Peter Ducker among them) not only believe in divesting the state of its social responsibility but also assert that social responsibility should not be a corporate concern either.

As Friedman argued in his interview to Joel Bakan, there is only one social responsibility for corporate executives and that is to “make as much money as possible for the shareholders”. According to him, executives “who choose social and environmental goals over projects, who try to act morally, are in fact immoral.” The interests of people at large are, thus nobody’s concern, neither of the state nor of the corporations. Shouldn’t this remind us of the feudal age when neither the state nor the feudal lords were burdened with any kind of social responsibility?

The reason for this attack on the state is the regulatory authority that the state exercises on behalf of its citizens, especially in a democratic dispensation. As researchers Lorie Wallach and Mischelle Sfroza argue in their book The WTO, “Government, laws, and democracy are inconvenient factors that restrict their (corporations’) exploitation and limit profit”. This brings us to deregulation and privatization. Deregulation has its virtues so long as it is not indiscriminate or tilted towards maximizing corporate profit and abridgement of the rights of the labour, consumers, or just ordinary citizens. However, quite often deregulation simply means taking a segment of corporate activity out of the purview of the elected representatives of the people. To that extent it undermines the democratic process.

A common example of suspension of public interest rules, supported by corporations and the WTO is that of export processing zones where, among other things, labour is not protected even by the laws that are applicable to the rest of the country. Considering that such zones are established only in the countries where labour is cheap, it is not easily understandable why such labour should be denied the protection of law.

Privatization too has its virtues if it is not indiscriminate and oppressive. But this is not always so. The worst case, cited by Joel Bakan is his book Corporation, is the case of privatization of freshwater system in Cochabamba, Bolivia. Under pressure from the World Bank to privatize water utilities, the Bolivian government contracted with Angus del Tunari, whose major shareholder is Bechtel subsidiary International Water Ltd., to run the water system of Cochabamba.

According to the contract, the government passed a law that prohibited people from collecting water from local lagoons, rivers, and deltas, and even rainwater! The company also confiscated people’s alternative water systems without compensation. The law was repealed and the company did quit, but only after bloody confrontation between citizens and the police and military.

Deregulation and privatization, though acceptable propositions in cases selected and implemented with a sense of social responsibility, are a two pronged attack on the state by the corporations. Deregulation restricts the public intervention and the privatization expands the corporate domain. The whole debate on the big, bad government has been summed up by Noam Chomsky: “one reason why propaganda tries to get you to hate government is because it’s the one existing institution in which people can participate to some extent and contain tyrannical unaccountable power.”

The effect of corporate colonialism is being felt even in the rich and industrialized countries where democratic institutions, despite corporate machinations, remain strong and effective. The developing countries, however, are in double, in fact triple, jeopardy as they are under pressure from three powerful forces: the rich post-industrial nations, international financial and regulatory institutions, and the transnational corporations. For them the new feudal age is a reality, and a logical outcome of unrestrained globalization, deregulation and privatization where relentless pursuit of profit is the highest purpose in life. It is time for the developing countries to get their act together to ensure a less uneven playing field. Here are some thoughts on the subject.

Let’s begin with the possible ways to protect the independence of the elected representatives from corporate influence. The first step that should be taken is to ban corporate funding of political parties or election campaigns. In a number of countries, elections are financed out of public funds but not to the exclusion of corporate funding. This leaves the door open for corporate influence over the election process. Next, exchange of administrators between the government and business should be restricted to ensure that such an exchange does not influence decision making in the government.

As for deregulation and privatization, the simple guideline to be followed is public interest. It is wrong to proceed with the assumption that regulations impose unacceptable restrictions, or that privatization across the board is good. One can think of many situations where it is good to have regulations, and much better to nationalize rather than privatize. The armament industry is one such industry that should be nationalized all over the world. It would serve two purposes: first, it would break the military-industrial complex that the late US President Dwight Eisenhower warned against; second, it would take the profit motive out of international wars and civil wars.

One of the most important issues between the developing and the developed countries, and also between the developing countries and transnational corporations is the one relating to the agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (Trips) under WTO. From the point of view of the developing countries the main problem posed by the agreement relates to the access to food and medicine.

In simple words if the food and medicine are brought under a global patent law, the ownership of seeds would shift from farmers to the transnational corporations in biotechnology, and even life-saving drugs would be out of the reach of the people in poor countries, as is the case today in respect of expensive drugs for HIV/Aids.

The African group in WTO, in whose countries deaths attributable to HIV/Aids in 2004 were estimated at 2.5 million, have been lobbying for the implementation of the commitment of the member states to interpret and implement the Trips agreement in a manner to “protect public health and, in particular, to promote access to medicine for all.” A communication circulated on their behalf on March 31, 2005, states that they have been trying to get an agreement on this humanitarian issue for the last four years, but in vain.

In the present state of moral vacuum a lot is being done on the ground that the world today is a global village created by modern technology. I would like to submit, that even though we have made a village out of this planet, we don’t have to hand it over to robber barons.

Email: tvo@isb.comsats.net.pk

THE British parliamentary system that we follow describes the opposition as Her Majesty’s loyal opposition. It is considered part of the overall ruling apparatus, notwithstanding the party in power. There is never any boycott because it is unthinkable that a part can be separate from the whole.

What we have seen in our parliament is a farce — the BJP’s version of parliamentary democracy which the party has introduced to the world for the first time. The party has no defence. Still Sushma Swaraj, its spokesperson, had the audacity to say that the attendance by the BJP-led NDA of the budget session for one day was to show “respect” to the system. The Rajya Sabha, she said, would continue to be boycotted. It did not mean anything because the money bill required no endorsement of the Upper House.

I believe George Fernandes, who learnt such tactics along with late Raj Narain, was the initiator of the boycott idea. Atal Behari Vajpayee, Jaswant Singh and Yeshwant Sinha were against extending the boycott beyond three days. But then socialists Fernandes, Sushma and, of course, the hardliner Advani, had their way.

People on the left have no sense of proportion when they join the right and become its exponent. Fernandes is another person who, like Sushma, has changed colours after being a socialist for almost all his life. Maybe, both are ideologically convinced that Hindutva is necessary to found a socialist society.

But they forget that the first and foremost duty is to sustain the parliamentary system, in the absence of which the boycott has little meaning. The BJP is chipping away at the very structure. Party chief L.K. Advani, once India’s home minister, did not help when he said that they were not stalling parliament as if they were rendering a great service to the system. But why should the BJP pick on parliament? Does the party have no other forum to voice its protest? If it is the question of publicity — that seems to be the primary purpose — they could have had the dharna outside the parliament house. The boycott has pernicious connotation and it is a bad precedent to set.

I am relieved to see that the Telugu Desam is slowly distancing itself from the NDA. The party should have never associated with the BJP in the first instance. Were the Telugu Desam to analyze the reason for its defeat in the assembly elections, it would find that the taint of communalism alienated the support of liberals and minorities in Andhra Pradesh.

The fact is that the BJP has not reconciled itself to the loss of power after its defeat at the Lok Sabha polls. After having been in power for six years, the party has forgotten how to behave as the opposition. That it misgoverned the country during its tenure is another matter for debate. Why does the budget, the most important annual business of the country, become the target of non-cooperation by the NDA is not understandable?

The alliance did the same thing last year to let the finance bill go through without any scrutiny or debate. It also indicates the abdication of its duty. This is no way to protest. It is playing fraud on the Indian people who, I am sure, will give a befitting reply at the time of general election.

The Congress cannot occupy high moral ground because it too stalled parliament when the NDA was in power. Not once, not twice but almost the entire session. It is a pity that Defence Minister Pranab Mukerjee should justify that the Congress only impeded parliament, not boycotted as being done by the BJP. It is only a question of degree. Both have harmed the system.

Let the Congress and its allies now at least say that they would never disturb parliament, whatever the provocation. The NDA should follow suit and show the same resolve. At one time, the two main political parties in Bangladesh — the BNP and the Awami League — made such a declaration. They fell out on some other issues but their resolve on parliament stood.

What is the issue that created the crisis? The court framed charges against Railways Minister Laloo Prasad Yadav who has umpteen cases of corruption pending against him. He and some ministers have faced NDA’s wrath earlier when it raised the question of tainted ministers. In a way, it is the repeat of what happened three or four years ago.

The Congress was the heckler when Advani was indicted in the Babri masjid demolition case with charges framed against him. In all honesty, Advani should have resigned then. If NDA had set such an example, Laloo Yadav could not have stayed in the government. Coming back to charges against Advani, the NDA government put pressure on the CBI which was pursuing the case. The carrot of National Human Rights Commission membership was dangled before the then CBI director to withdraw the affidavit which formed the basis for charges. He did so and got the post after his retirement as a reward.

In the beginning of its tenure, the UPA seemed following some value system. Jharkhand’s Shibu Soren was dropped from the cabinet when the court at Ranchi framed charges against him. The Congress wanted to show that it had turned a new leaf. But when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said the other day that there was no question of dropping Laloo Yadav even after the charges were framed, it was evident that the Congress could not afford to drop him because his party, Rashtriya Janata Dal, had some 13 seats in the Lok Sabha. The Congress needed every vote in the 546-member house to keep the UPA government afloat.

I come back to the question I raised in the beginning. What point the boycott of parliament has made? In fact, the nation faces a new challenge — the challenge of the opposition party not attending parliament in a democratic set-up. One Congress leader told me the other day after the NDA boycott that parliament was functioning smoothly. Is it the order of things to come? The government and the opposition are batting on their own, one saying things in parliament and the other countering them outside. True, the NDA has caused embarrassment to UPA. But what does it all come to?

Boycotting parliament, the highest elected body in the country, is too serious a matter to be trifled with for political purposes. The two houses represent democracy, India’s pride. This is a confluence of our multi-religious, multi-cultural and multi-lingual society. A consensus reached in parliament is accepted by the nation. What otherwise has been going on in the country is nothing but the highhandedness of the Congress and the BJP, reflecting misgovernance or non-governance.

The writer is a leading columnist based in New Delhi.

OFFICIAL circles in Pakistan are basking in the glow of their fanciful optimism that Pakistan’s relations with the US have never been as close as they are now and will deepen further in the near future. It is argued that Pakistan’s crucial role in the war on terror is the bedrock of this relationship and that in the coming days, the country’s strategic location would impart even greater substance to ties with Washington.

Statements from President Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice praising President Musharraf for his support in the US-led war on terror, the verbal commitment of long-term ties, Pakistan’s status as a major non-Nato ally and the approval of the F-16 aircraft sale are being cited as evidence.

These expectations are based on misplaced confidence in the sustainability of official US declarations. They betray an ignorance of the policymaking process in Washington. In the United States, foreign policy is not the exclusive prerogative of the state department or the White House. There are a number of actors who determine the course of US foreign policy. These include Congress, the media and think-tanks among others. Their analysis, reports, editorials and recommendations carry, in many instances, disproportionate influence on the formulation of objectives and approach of policymakers.

Think tanks and policy research centres like the Rand Corporation, the Heritage Foundation, the Institute of International and Strategic Studies, the Asia Society, Council for Foreign Relations, Carnegie and Brookings etc wield enormous prestige and influence. Each administration, Democratic or Republican, has drawn heavily on their evaluations and recommendations. These bodies engage a wide spectrum of scholars and analysts ranging from conservative ideologues to ultra liberals.

The common strand is their commitment to Israel and since 9/11 both have found convergence in their latent fear of Islamic fundamentalism that they equate with terrorism. On Pakistan there is grudging appreciation of its key role in combating terrorism, but this feeling is diluted by the perceived prevalence of anti-US feelings and the absence of democratic institutions and liberal traditions in Pakistan.

Similarly, the media, both print and electronic, is dominated by neocons and members of the Jewish community who modify, control and even direct US foreign policy on security issues. Comments in newspapers like the Washington Post and the New York Times are required readings for the administration and Congress.

In the wake of 9/11, the focus of US foreign policy has shifted to terrorism, nuclear proliferation and Islamic fundamentalism. The neocons view militant Islam as the “forces of darkness” bent on destroying the fabric of international order. They refuse to accept that terrorist attacks are in response to US policies, in particular its blind support to Israel; its military presence in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states and its invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq.

Two recent reports of the influential US National Intelligence Council and the Congressional Research Service illustrate this. Both not only delineate a bleak picture of Pakistan’s political future, but also differ with the official appreciation of the situation in Pakistan. Both reports were issued in mid-February but are regularly updated.

The Global Futures Assessment Report, prepared in cooperation with the CIA, offers a futuristic projection of selected regions and countries and makes its forecasts based on available data and trends, for the next decade. The report paints a gloomy, almost a scary, scenario of Pakistan in 2015; as a “failed state ripe with civil war, bloodshed, inter-provincial rivalries, lack of command and control of nuclear weapons and lurch towards extreme fundamentalism.”

The report identifies six major trends that have provided the basis for this doom scenario - “political and economic mismanagement, divisive politics, lawlessness, corruption, ethnic friction and militant religious politics.” The report warns that democratic reforms will produce little change in the face of opposition from an entrenched political elite and radical Islamic parties. “Further domestic decline will encourage Islamic political activists who may significantly increase their role in national politics and alter the makeup and cohesion of the military — once Pakistan’s most capable institution. In a climate of continuing domestic turmoil, the central government’s control probably will be reduced to the Punjabi heartland and the economic hub of Karachi.”

The report concludes that in 2015, 10 years hence, “Pakistan will be more fractious, isolated and dependent on international financial assistance.” By contrast, the report predicts that India would emerge as a major regional power, thanks to its economic growth and democratic character and cohesion.

The Congressional Research Service is a semi-official body, mandated with preparation of policy briefs for the members of Congress, it is the most influential, if not decisive factor in developing Capitol Hill’s response to foreign policy issues.

In its latest report on Pakistan, the CRS, in the context of Pakistan’s role in the war against terror, recommends, “sustaining the current scale of aid to Pakistan and the provision of long-term and comprehensive support to Pakistan as long as its government remains committed to combating extremism.”

Despite this positive note, the report warns the lawmakers that Pakistan is “probably the most anti-American country in the world right now, ranging from the radical Islamists on one side to the liberal and westernized elites on the other.” The report further alleges that Pakistan’s powerful intelligence agencies are involved in drug trafficking, and the drug sales have financed activities of Islamic extremists in the recent past.

Such assessments cause considerable concern among US representatives, who having no direct personal knowledge of the region, rely on the findings of such institutions and calibrate their response accordingly.

The infamous Larry Pressler, who as a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, successfully blocked the sale of F-16 aircraft to Pakistan in 1990, had earlier moved a resolution seeking sanctions against Pakistan. In a syndicated article written on the eve of the Rice visit to Pakistan last month, he criticized Washington’s pro-Pakistan policy; urging a fundamental policy shift for the subcontinent and that the US should put the expansion of liberty and democracy at the centre of its foreign policy.

Larry Pressler wrote, “Pakistan is a corrupt and absolute dictatorship. It has a horrendous record on human rights and religious tolerance, and it has been found again and again to be selling nuclear materials to our worst enemies.”

The issue of nuclear proliferation is also a popular subject for US legislators and foreign affairs analysts. The media stories of “A.Q. Khan’s illicit nuclear secrets bazaar” based on dubious intelligence reports raise the ugly spectre of nuclear weapons falling into the hands of terrorists. Responding to such reports, the US Senate Committee on Intelligence held a hearing last month. The CIA chief said that Dr Khan had passed secrets and equipment to a host of “rogue nations” and did not discount the possibility of “non-state actors”, as “potential Khans”. In a recent investigative report in the New York Times it was claimed that Dr Khan sold $100 million worth of nuclear gear to Libya and that “secrets of A.Q.’s nuclear black market continue to uncoil, revealing a vast global enterprise.”

These revelations have generated increasing pressure on the US administration to tie military assistance to Pakistan to the latter’s nuclear ambitions. The CRS in another report has suggested that the “US should seek from Pakistan a stronger adherence to nuclear non-proliferation and more cooperation and information on Khan’s network as a price for obtaining high valued military equipment such as F-16”.

The alarming reports have led to a bill, currently pending with the US House of Representative and moved by the Indian caucus, requiring the US to prohibit military assistance to Pakistan as well as ban the transfer or sale of military equipment or technology unless the president certifies to Congress that Pakistan has provided the US unrestricted opportunity to interview Dr Khan and complied with requests for assistance from the IAEA regarding the “illegal international nuclear proliferation network”.

The bill has scant possibility of passage on the Hill, but its significance lies in the general perceptions widely shared by public institutes, policymakers and the legislators of the unstable political structure in Pakistan and the grave danger it poses to peace and security especially where US strategic interests are concerned.

These negative predictions have cast a long shadow on the prospects of long-term bilateral relations between Islamabad and Washington. Instead of living in a make-believe world, policy planners in Pakistan must assess the gravity of such perceptions and realize that the only way to correct such distortions and gain international credibility is through seeking internal political consensus and unity.

A strategy of reliance on indigenous resources, both material and human, alone would enable us to offset any adverse fallout of a sudden change in US policy, which, as our experience shows, has been unreliable, even unfriendly, at most critical junctures in our national life. Prudence demands that we reshape our foreign policy with greater realism and refrain from taking US support as a constant factor in our future planning.

The writer is a former ambassador.