Human rights & development

CAN human resources be developed in societies that do not respect human rights? The annual release of the UNDP’s Human Development Report is a time for soul-searching. Most countries slide up or down the Index by a few notches but the bigger picture tells the same tale, year after year: that the development of human resources and respect for human rights go hand in hand.

The countries with the best performance in human development (say the top 30 on any year’s index) also happen to be nations where the protection of human rights of their citizens has strong roots. The countries with the lowest standing in human development (the last 30 on the Index) are those with generally the poorest human rights record. Those in between also reflect a similar relationship between these values.

Where do these ‘rights’ of the people come from? When and how have ordinary people attached human ‘rights’ to their social, economic and political development? An answer to these questions would help us better understand why poverty and underdevelopment of people continues to be so pervasive even in countries sitting on fabulous wealth.

For centuries, whoever conquered or captured any territory assumed all power and control over the life and property of the people in those lands. Other than the ruling family or class of conquerors, the people were serfs, slaves or subjects.

They had no right even to their lives, much less to any property or claim to their human development. In the colonies of the Third World, this medieval practice continued till the 20th century.

India, for instance, as a colony, was actually a possession: a country ‘owned’ first by the shareholders of the East India Company and after 1858 by the British public and was

governed for the benefit of its owners in the UK.

People’s ‘right’ to anything — life, liberty, property and well-being — were recognized in Europe only about 200 years ago after a series of struggles and tectonic changes culminating in the French revolution (1789-91).That fundamentally altered the relationship between society and the state; between people and their governments; and together with the industrial revolution (1760 onwards) became the dividing line between the modern and the mediaeval world — socially, economically and politically.

No longer were people prepared to be serfs, slaves or subjects of their rulers: Instead, as citizens, ordinary folks now claimed ‘rights’ as owners of the state; rights that could not be taken away by any government which itself became dependent upon their expressed will and consent.

The most important point to note here is that since the ‘ownership rights’ are inalienable, the peoples’ rights — as owners of the state — could not be taken away by the government.

People now had ‘rights’ and the government as their agent, had obligation to work for their ‘development’. It was the power of these ideas that fuelled the wars of national liberation throughout the world, denying legitimacy to all forms of alien and unrepresentative rule and ultimately led to the end of colonialism.

So, who are the real owners of these now independent states of Asia and Africa, including Pakistan, and for whose benefit are these countries actually governed? The issues of ownership of state and its resources are critical and lie at the heart of the problems of poverty and underdevelopment of countries, regions and the people.

Equally true, the ownership of resources by the people or ownership by the governments are two different things; especially where the governments do not represent the consent of the governed.

There is a lot of talk of the so-called ‘resource curse’ among scholars where they refer to the problems of poverty and underdevelopment in Asia and Africa even if their countries are sitting on the valuable natural resources or are located strategically.

But it is more interesting to ask why similar resources or strategic importance is not considered a curse for developed countries. Why are the North Sea oil reserves, for instance, not a curse for Norway or the UK unlike the ‘curse’ of oil, gas, diamond or gold reserves for some Asian and African countries?

In fact, the curse lies not in the abundance of natural resources in these countries but in their poor human resources. And it is not for the first time that this curse has befallen Asian and African countries. When colonialism spread across the world, many of these countries were rich in resources and had large populations.

But the people in these countries were a lumpen mass of serfs, slaves and subjects. The ‘ownership’ rights were limited to the small permanent ruling class. Whatever the others received — if they received anything at all — was out of goodwill, kindness, or charity or it was the unwanted and unattractive assets leftover by the ruling class, but not by way of having any ‘rights’ to anything.

In the pursuit of interests by the nations this lumpen mass was no match for the quality and skills — in trade, entrepreneurship, navigation, armaments, organization, science and many other technologies — possessed by the citizens of the much smaller European nations and could not stop the colonization of their countries. Colonialism, seen from this perspective, was, therefore, a contest of unequal — a mismatch between the human resources of the colonizing powers and their colonies.

Remember, some of our spin doctors popularized stories about one of ‘us’ being equal to 100 of ‘them’? That may have been the case in another era when Muslims by virtue of their better organization, skills and knowledge — all aspects of human resources — quickly spread across Asia, Africa and Europe. But surely, no one is making any such claims about their state of affairs in the contemporary world.

But such tales of invincibility have not been a monopoly of Muslims alone. How many Englishmen came to India, for instance, conquered and ruled it for nearly 200 years? Or for that matter, the Dutch over East Indies or the French over Indochina? The fact that at no time were there more than 22,000 Britons (civil and military all together) to conquer, rule and hold together the vast territory and the millions that inhabited India even at that time was proof of the high quality of their human resources.

Much is being written these days, for and against Pakistan’s recognition of Israel. One thing common behind both these views is the acknowledgment of the immense influence of Jewish people in the financial, media and political worlds. More than anything else, they are proof of how much can be achieved by so few people, if each individual is encouraged to rise to his or her full potential.

Many from Arab and Muslim countries who have risen to great heights in their chosen areas in the US and Europe will bear witness to how much the protection of human rights and the rule of law in their adopted countries, despite many difficulties, have helped them rise to their full potential especially in comparison to the state of human rights in many of their countries of origin.

While the cynics may think that human development and human rights are for the faint-hearted and it is smarter to outwit others and hold on to perpetual power by using every trick in the book — race, religion, ethnicity, gender and other assorted slogans. One lesson the people of Asia and Africa should not forget is that it was the mismatch of the poor quality of their human resources that invited colonialism to their countries. Their continuing neglect of human resources is an open invitation for similar consequences being visited upon their countries, although the name of the game may be different this time.

As for the cynics in Muslim countries, they may also like to answer the insidious charge often levelled against Muslims that they are incapable of self-governance, and need to be controlled by autocratic rulers — local or foreign.

As regards the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) or other programmes for human development and poverty reduction in all developing countries, the success of any strategy for achieving the goals would also be proportional to their success in addressing the issues of ownership and governance of national resources and securing the recognition of people’s fundamental ‘right to human development’.

Email: smshah@alum.mit.edu

China’s transformation

IMAGINE 20 Britains. Imagine three European Unions. Now you are beginning to get the idea about China, where more than a fifth of the human race resides.

Now imagine that vast country’s economy growing more than four times faster than that of the United States (as China did between 1990 and 2002) — growing faster, in fact, than any economy in history. According to Goldman Sachs, China’s gross domestic product will overtake Britain’s this year and Germany’s in 2007. By 2041 it will have overtaken the U.S. gross domestic product. That’s what an average annual growth rate of 9% can do: The economy literally doubles in size every eight years.

What does such extraordinary material dynamism look like? Having just visited five of China’s fastest-growing cities, I can report that it looks like the construction of London’s Docklands, projected onto multiple plasma screens, all running images in fast-forward mode. I have never seen so many cranes. And they work day and night.

Not even the United States in its most hectic years — the Roaring ‘20s — can have been like this. You go to sleep not knowing how the skyline through your window will look the next morning. Forget the New World. This is the New New World.

The change in China is so vast that it makes whatever the lead story is in the American media — the appointment of a new Supreme Court chief justice, the latest bombings in Iraq — seem almost parochial. Did we really kid ourselves that 1989 marked the “end of history” and the “triumph of the West”?

The biggest economic transformation of all time is currently being achieved by card-carrying communists, who show no sign of relinquishing their hold on power. On the contrary, since coming to power three years ago, President Hu Jintao has markedly tightened state control of the media.

The 60-billion-renminbi question, of course, is how long the heirs of Mao Tse-tung can get away with running the ultimate contradiction in terms: “the socialist market economy.” Can you really present people, as consumers, with the seemingly boundless choice of the free market without offering them, as citizens, some political choice as well? Put differently, won’t the social strains arising from this second (and real) Great Leap Forward inevitably stimulate popular demands for democracy?

My hunch is that China’s economic and political fates will be decided by two key institutions. Both are networks. The first is the country’s financial system — the credit network that links the country’s vast private savings to its equally vast investment boom. The second is the Internet.

Let’s take the credit network first. This is the shadow side of the Chinese economic miracle. Sure, the People’s Republic has acquired a forest of high-rises, endless miles of new highways and umpteen industrial estates the size of Wales. But its banks, stock market and other financial institutions are a joke. The banks are relics of the old, planned economy, owed unquantifiably large bad debts by the defunct state enterprises of Mao’s time.

The relatively new stock market, meanwhile, is tiny in relation to the scale of the manufacturing sector. The result is that the allocation of funds for investment and credit is not done on the basis of meaningful competition and relevant information but through personal connections that maximize returns to a powerful few, rather than achieve general economic efficiency.

It may be that the familiar laws of economic development have been abolished by the Chinese Communist Party. It may be that China will be able to sustain this runaway growth without ever suffering a financial crisis of the sort that has periodically interrupted the miracles in other Asian economies. But I am doubtful.

China is certainly not going to suffer a currency crisis of the sort that hit Thailand and Malaysia in 1997; the pressure on the renminbi is upward, not downward, as speculators anticipate a further revaluation of the currency after July’s tiny move.

There are other kinds of financial crisis, however. The U.S. had ample gold reserves in 1929 — the biggest in the world. That did not prevent the banking panics that were the key drivers of the Great Depression. And let’s not forget the protectionist pressures building as China’s exporters erode ever more sectors of U.S. manufacturing.

What would the political effect be of a recession in China? Nobody knows. But if there were any kind of public protest, I cannot believe it would be stamped out as easily as the democracy movement was in 1989. One crucial change is that most of the Chinese now have access to the Internet. It may be possible for the authorities to block the BBC’s websites, but so what? With the help of Google, I was able to call up numerous articles on “corruption in China” from sources all over the world. There are simply too many western news agencies — to say nothing of the countless personal Web logs now out there — for censorship to be effective.

If an economic setback were to occur, people’s tolerance of the corruption that is inherent in the “planned market economy” might suddenly diminish. And with the Internet spreading so fast, there is a way to express disenchantment. —Dawn/Los Angeles Times Service

Invisible in paradise

MY Balinese friend Ida texted me about the Bali bombs. When we spoke she expressed anger and dismay about what she called the Saudi Arabianization of Indonesia over the last 20 years.

But Indonesians also know that the Islamization of this huge country is just one of a patchwork of reasons why holidaymakers in Bali have been targeted for a second time — just as resorts have been attacked in other parts of the developing world.

Often dubbed a “paradise” in holiday brochures, the small Hindu island is a microcosm of the impact of global tourism and the inequalities enshrined in its inexorable consumption of culture, people and environments. However repugnant such attacks, it would be naive for holidaymakers to ignore the fact that north-south tourism has a powerful political undercurrent — as the bombers clearly realised.

Bali may indeed be paradise for over 1 million foreign holidaymakers who travel there every year. But for ordinary Balinese, and the economic migrants who flock there from other poorer parts of predominantly Muslim Indonesia, life is far less benign.

Tourism is trumpeted by governments in the global south as a quick-fix means of generating the much-needed foreign exchange demanded by the IMF and the World Bank. But there is rarely any consultation with ordinary people whose lives are irrevocably affected by the influx of wealthy foreigners, and little regard to the environmental, social and cultural impacts at the sharp end.

When we holiday in the developing world, we are engaged in more than a spot of much-needed R & R. Many in the global south regard tourism as a new form of colonialism and cultural imperialism. While that may be hard for the suntanned holidaymaker to take on board, for the millions of ordinary people servicing their needs — the waiting staff, room cleaners, receptionists, shop workers, guides, massage ladies and taxi drivers — the linkage is clearer.

Tourism is a huge industry — the third largest globally after oil and narcotics — employing hundreds of millions of people worldwide. While it benefits some, its impact on local economies and the social and environmental fabric is often disastrous. Tourists like to wear the kind of clothes they wear at home, often flouting norms of decency in the host country.

They stay in rooms that are palatial by local standards, and five-star luxury resorts exclude locals from beaches. Tourists’ consumption of electricity and other resources is many times that of locals. The trickle-down effect mostly fails to trickle down — the bulk of tourist profits in many developing nations ends up leaving the country. And while corporations like KFC, Starbucks and McDonald’s colonize Kuta’s main drag, how can local restaurants compete with the pull of multimillion-dollar ad spends and brand recognition? Local businesses go broke and families fall into poverty.

In Sri Lanka, the aftermath of the tsunami is being used as an opportunity to push through plans for luxury resorts, while locals are still housed in temporary camps. The government has announced a 200m to 1km coastal development zone that excludes locals from the beach on grounds of safety - but five-star resorts are allowed within the zone.

As tourist numbers plummet in the aftermath of the Bali atrocities, against a background of heightened religious tension, the invisible people who keep the cogs of the tourism machine turning and depend on a notoriously fickle industry for their livelihoods are set to become the hidden victims of the Bali bombs.

For the tourist it might be a question mark over paradise.

—Dawn/Guardian Service

Turkey’s elusive goal

OCTOBER 3, 2005 will occupy a significant place in the political calendar of Turkey. The formal negotiations to discuss Turkey’s entry into European Union commenced on this day, though not entirely on an auspicious note.

The commencement of the negotiations which will last for 10 years had remained uncertain until the very last minute because of strident opposition from its influential members such as Austria, France and Germany to the terms of accession. The bone of contention was the Cyprus issue.

Turkey was asked to sign a customs union with all 25 members, which it did but with the caveat that this did not imply the recognition of Cyprus.

Turkey also declared that its ports and airports would be closed to Cypriot ships and planes. Cyprus reacted sharply and threatened to block the negotiations unless the Turks lifted the reservations.

French President Chirac accused the Turks of violating “the spirit” of the European Union. It may be recalled that Turkey had invaded Cyprus in 1974 resulting in its division with the northern part occupied by the Cypriot Turks and the Cypriot Greek government in the southern part.

The Cypriot government in Nicosia is a member of the European Union. The Turkish part, called the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) is not recognized by any country, except by Turkey.

The prospect of the commencement of the entry talks thus remained murky, until the last day. Germany suggested that Turkey, instead of full membership, should be given only “privileged partnership” status. Britain, currently holding the presidency of the European Union, played a very vital role in overriding the objections and overcome the impasse after marathon negotiations lasting 24 hours.

It stressed the “enormous strategic importance of bringing Turkey into the European Union fold”. Foreign Secretary Jack Straw warned that the deadlock could provoke an unprecedented crisis between Europe and the Muslim world. The Turkish prime minister threatened that Turkey would abandon “for good” its ambition of joining the EU if it was offered anything less than full membership.

Though diplomacy has succeeded and the deadline for entry negotiations has been maintained; the continuing opposition from Germany and Austria have rendered the prospects bleak. The European commissioner for external relations cautioned that “these negotiations are an open ended process the outcome of which cannot be guaranteed beforehand.”

During the negotiations period, Turkey will be required to conform to the European Union standards in 35 chapters, or policy areas ranging from foreign policy and school standards to worker’s rights. Above all, it would have to conform to the principles of “liberty ,democracy, respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms on which the Union is based”. The commission is to monitor Turkey’s performance in these spheres and report annually to the European Union summit during the negotiations period. In case of any breach it can recommend that negotiations be suspended.

For the last 40 years, it has been Turkey’s ardent desire to join the European club. It has, however, proved difficult to cross every hurdle and find the goalpost further removed. Last May, the EU saw an unprecedented enlargement with 10 new members. The former communist states of Eastern Europe joined the club, raising its membership to 25. Turkey still failed to make it.

A number of factors, political and economic, have so far frustrated Ankara’s bid. Ostensibly, Turkey has failed to introduce major reforms in laws, judiciary and the system of government. Some EU members, however, have openly expressed doubt about Turkey’s long-term democratic and secular credentials. Cloaking their opposition using the pretext of a poor human rights record, these countries have, in fact, judged Turkey on far harsher standards than the other 10 East European countries that joined the EU.

The futile efforts of Turkey over the last four decades to join the EU have been blamed on its failure to meet EU standards, and initially also on the EU’s inability to absorb new members. However, the truth is that the prospects of Turkey’s — a Muslim nation of 70 million people — joining a Christian club is anathema to the majority of EU members. Turkey’s population is almost equal to that of all 10 Eastern European countries combined, which joined the EU last year.

Reservations, if not outright opposition, to Turkey’s bid are now out in the open. France, Germany and Greece have publicly voiced these sentiments. French President Chirac had proposed to hold a referendum on Turkey’s membership issue — a dangerous and hitherto unknown precedent. There are genuine fears that a public vote would stir anti-Muslim sentiments in an already dangerous political climate. Right wing parties in Italy and Germany also support the referendum, knowing full well that this would bury Turkey’s dream forever.

Turkey has assiduously attempted to come up to EU standards and has reformed its penal and civil codes and introduced other reforms to its constitution to make it more democratic. Still it has come up against other extraneous demands.

The entry negotiations for EU membership are qualified, “this credit is not a blank cheque” reminded Prodi, the chairman of the European Commission.

Turkey’s application did not also find favour on the grounds that its economic and political policies required radical reforms and that being a poor and marginalized country in Europe, it will be a big drain on EU’s resources.

Turkey’s per capita GDP is less than 30 per cent of the EU average. Billions of dollars will flow east and the migration of cheap and poor labour, from a country of 70 million with 18 per cent living below the poverty line and 33 per cent of workforce employed in agriculture, would entail heavy costs.

Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul rightly argues that “at a time that people are talking about a clash of civilizations, Turkey is a natural bridge of civilization. All we are trying to do is to bring Islam and the West closer together”. .

Turkey, in its ambition to join the EU, has maintained an ambivalent attitude towards the Muslim world, afraid that its Islamic identity could harm its European ambitions.

Turkey has pursued policies that may not conflict with its overarching policy of joining the EU. Ankara recognized Israel in 1948 and is among the 11 of the 57 members of OIC to have diplomatic relations with Tel Aviv at an ambassadorial level. It has also signed a broad based defence agreement with Israel, and has consistently endeavoured to project itself as a model for a democratic secular Islamic state,

The road to a decision is riddled with uncertainties which may deny Ankara its ambition. Europe despite all its liberal and secular credentials will not let its essentially Christian character be diluted by the infusion of a vibrant and dynamic Muslim population of 70 million. These fears of a Christian Europe being swamped by 70 million Muslim Turks “runs deep, centuries old back to the siege of Vienna with the dreaded Turks at the gates of Christendom”, as a former New Zealand prime minister put it.

It’s about time that Turkey acknowledges this sad truth and comes to terms with reality. During the next 10 years of negotiations on Turkish membership, demands will continue to be made on Turkey to further erase its Islamic identity from its constitutional and cultural framework.

The irony is that regardless of Turkey’s faithful compliance, the doors of the EU can still be slammed shut with a veto by any one member. The growing anti-Islam sentiments in Europe and the overt opposition by France, Australia and Germany make this a plausible scenario.