Intolerance of dissent

UNITY, uniformity, conformity, consensus — all of them sound so very virtuous. Their desirability is apparent in times of a crisis such as war when the nation’s very survival is at stake. But reflection will reveal that, under normal conditions, if they come without further qualification, each one of them can be subversive of a free society. Taken together they make a recipe for despotism. When calls for them are issued, it would not be inappropriate to inquire into their whys and wherefores.

It should be understood that civilization in its various dimensions cannot go forward if opposing views and the ensuing debates are suppressed. Tolerance of the dissident does not mean subscribing to the position that all views are equally valid. In the realm of ideological persuasions, three types of reaction to the outsider may be identified. There are the “exclusivists,” who regard their faith as the only true one and others as false. This is the most common way of thinking among the devout, and it is also the one that has is liable to spread hate, civil strife, and even genocide in places.

“Inclusivists” think that while their way is completely true, the others are not necessarily “wrong.” They may possibly offer different approaches to the final truth. Then there are the “pluralists” and “relativists,” who maintain that belief systems develop within specific cultures, and each of them is legitimate within its cultural context. They all merit respect.

In the western world a general acceptance of the right to the freedom of belief and expression has done much to abate intolerance of differing views. We in Pakistan are still a long way from that stage. Indeed, our threshold of tolerance has gone down substantially during the last 25 years. Many of our people have become fanatics, and some of them have been killing persons of differing beliefs, and bombing their places of worship.

In our case, intolerance of the dissident, and the accompanying violence, go beyond religious differences. They have also been a part of our political culture. They became graphic during Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s rule, and a lot more blatant and brutal after the advent of Ziaul Haq. Apart from physical violence visited upon opponents, a procedure favoured by those in power has been to implicate them in bogus criminal cases, and thus harass them for years on end.

Apparently, the idea of instituting criminal cases against those whose views one does not like is spreading. I have received several messages from historians, saying that one of their number, Dr Mubarak Ali, is being persecuted because of his unconventional interpretations of modern and recent history of India and Pakistan. Then, a few days ago I saw this gentleman’s own statement in a Lahore newspaper, (October 25), saying that a group of lawyers, presumably in collusion with his professional rivals, had registered four FIRs against him in different police stations in Lahore, that the police had raided his home (during his absence abroad) and harassed his family, that he had to obtain bail before arrest, that two cases against him are actually in court, and that he is burdened with the expense of engaging lawyers to defend him.

I am in no position to assess the charges against Mubarak Ali in the courts. But I learn from many sources that his writings are indeed controversial, and that the “establishment” historians despise him and his views. Let us see where he stands.

It should first be noted that he finds Pakistani historiography, and most of our historians, lacking in respects that he considers critical. They limit themselves, he says, to political developments, the comings and goings of kings and other rulers. History, as a discipline, should encompass a great deal more, such as societal organization (e.g., castes, tribes), urbanization (cities and their impact), culture, customs and mores, norms and values, architecture, artistic expressions (e.g., poetry, music, painting), and intellectual currents.

I, for one, do not dispute the desirability of such inclusiveness in historical writing. But I do wonder if, given the levels of competence in the Pakistani academia, Mubarak Ali is not asking for the moon. On the other hand, even if he is, one cannot blame him for being ambitious.

I have in front of me two volumes of a celebrated work on American history, written by two illustrious professors, namely, Samuel Eliot Morrison (Harvard) and Henry Steele Commager (Columbia). In addition to politics and related matters, it includes chapters on sectional and class divisions, labour, education, economy, transportation, agriculture, arts and letters, philosophy, progressivism, social reform, literary interpretations, fine arts, music, natural and social sciences.

It goes without saying that a historian should know a good deal about music, poetry, sociology, economics and other non-political subjects if he is to discuss them intelligently in his professional writing. Note, for instance, the fact that Henry Steele Commager, co-author of the above-mentioned book, is also the author of a monumental work entitled, The American Mind, which is an intellectual history of America since the 1880s.

Thus, ideally, Mubarak Ali is not wrong in asking that the Pakistani historian broaden his concerns to include non-political developments. But where are the likes of Henry Steele Commager in Pakistani universities? I am not so sure that in his breadth of knowledge, and in the firmness of his grasp, even Mubarak Ali himself can match wits with Commager. But once again how can you blame him for wanting to do the right thing even if it is hard to do? In addition to traditional subjects, he has written about cities (Karachi and Lahore), table manners (“khanay kay adaab”), and domestic/personal life (“niji zindagi”). I hope sociologists and cultural anthropologists have rated them well.

I should add that even if professional historians in this country do not take account of non-political material, histories of Pakistani literature (poetry, fiction, essays, humour, satire), music, architecture, folklore, feudalism, mass movements, among other things, do exist. I see some of them on my own shelves.

His next grouse is that many historians have become “servants” of the so-called “ideology of Pakistan.” Their commitment to ideology, he says, detracts from their objectivity, and leads them to misrepresent and misinterpret characters and events. Their frame of analysis is open to question also because the “ideology of Pakistan” remains moot. Second, it has made the writers of our school textbooks messengers of hate. Readers are taught to denounce India and Hindus. One may say that the writers of Indian textbooks teach their readers to condemn Pakistan and everything it stands for. Mubarak Ali could say that two wrongs do not make one right, and that if the Indians are misleading their kids, we should not do the same. His reasoning would be valid and his point well taken.

Some of Mubarak Ali’s other controversial positions may be noted. (1) He rejects the Jamaat-i-Islami’s thesis that Pakistan was created to demonstrate the efficacy of an Islamic state; (2) the proposition that Iqbal conceived the idea of Pakistan and Jinnah implemented it is excessive glorification of these men, and that the contribution of others, including that of the Muslim people at large, should be acknowledged; (3) that a polity hooked to religion cannot function as a democracy; (4) that Muslims were not as oppressed by the British as they are said to have been in history books; (5) that Punjab played a minor role in the struggle for Pakistan, and that Punjabi and Sindhi feudal lords joined the Muslim League only when they got the impression that their vast holdings would be secure in Pakistan; (6) that Pakistani writers often confuse reform with revolution and use these words interchangeably.

As a professor of political science, with interest in South Asia, I have given considerable thought to these issues. In my view, Mubarak Ali’s position on each of these six items is basically sound. Others may disagree with him and, needless to say, it is open to them to produce evidence and reasoning in support of their case. In any event, there is nothing alarming in any of these propositions, and there is no reason for anyone to lose his cool and denounce him (much less lodge FIRs against him).

In assessing Mubarak Ali’s work, two elements in his perspective should be kept in mind. I gather the impression that, first, he stands fairly far to the left of centre in his outlook on issues of politics and social organization. Second, he appears to be secular-minded to the point of discounting the efficacy of religious orientations in scholarship. These are legitimate approaches, and in any decent university one will encounter many highly accomplished scholars who adopt them. On the other hand, one should recognize also that many equally renowned scholars have been “rightists” in outlook and serious about their religion. Belief in religion and a conservative disposition on the one hand, and intellectual excellence, on the other, can go together.

At the end, I should like to offer a word of caution. Mubarak Ali has, reportedly, said of Allama Iqbal that he was “reactionary” in his thinking; that some of his poetry is “meaningless”; that his prose (Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam) brings in science and philosophy to justify religion; that the concepts he borrowed from western philosophy have already become outdated; and that he spoke of politics without having a political vision. (Mubarak Ali’s interview with Khurram Shafique, Dawn, 1996).

Each one of these is an extravagant assertion, proceeding from an inadequate understanding of Iqbal’s work. I have considered Mubarak Ali’s academic qualifications and seen a list of books and articles (in professional journals and reputable magazines) that he has written in English. I find no evidence there of credentials that would entitle him to speak authoritatively on poetry or philosophy. If I were in his position, I would stay away from subjects with which I had no more than a nodding acquaintance.

The writer is professor emeritus of political science at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, US. Email: anwarsyed@cox.net

The avian flu threat

IT seems inappropriate to write about anything but the earthquake that devastated Pakistan, but since this writer is deep in northern China, he leaves this tragic subject to colleagues closer to home.

But I do know the afflicted region quite well. So, from afar, let me say how disappointing and sometimes inadequate the rescue effort mounted by Pakistan’s armed forces appears. How can three million people still be without shelter, and many without adequate medical attention when Pakistan has a crack 550,000-man army that, as I know from personal experience, is one of the world’s finest military organizations?

Pakistan had no warning of the quake, but given that its northern territories sit atop a major geological fault zone, why was the government so woefully unprepared for a major disaster in the high mountains? Just as President Bush has earned the anger of so many Americans over his mishandling of Hurricane Katrina, so now many Pakistanis must be asking why their own government, whose main, self-proclaimed reason for existence is national security, was so slow to act effectively when the disaster struck?

Why did it take Islamabad and New Delhi over two weeks to open the LoC crossings to relief convoys? Their delay and squabbling is childish.

One asks why President Musharraf didn’t take this golden opportunity to tell the American people that President Bush’s war against Islamic charities has prevented millions in aid from reaching the quake victims. Or remind Americans that Pakistan would have had many more helicopters to aid the rescue had it not been for the long US embargo of military equipment to old ally, Pakistan.

Meanwhile, fast-growing fear of the H5N1 avian flu totally dominates Asian news outside Pakistan. China just reported a new outbreak of the flu in Hunan. So far, 58 people have died from avian flu in Vietnam, Thailand and Indonesia.

I just visited Cambodia, where four farmers have died. Avian flu deaths came, say health authorities, from direct contact with infected fowl and droppings. No case of human to human transmission has yet been confirmed.

But this may be only a matter of time. Recently, in Hong Kong, the South China Morning Post ran a front-page photo of farm hands in southern China sleeping on the ground among hundreds of chickens. Previous epidemics have originated in southern China’s unsanitary, cruel animal markets. The SARS virus is now believed to have come from bats or their droppings used in traditional Chinese medicine.

China has been making mighty efforts to clean up its livestock — in fact, the entire country. But old bad habits are hard to break. Government inspectors can’t be everywhere. Last week, Beijing threatened to close its borders at the first case of proven human to human flu transmission. Other nations would surely follow this sensible precaution.

Even a few cases of suspected human-to-human avian flu could result in the temporary paralysis of world transportation and global trade. Asian governments are panicking at the prospect of their export-dependent economies being shut down.

Taiwan’s government isn’t waiting: it is producing an unauthorized generic version of Roche’s patented Tamiflu, the main anti-viral drug believed to lessen flu symptoms. But the key active raw ingredient used to make the increasingly scarce Tamiflu is Chinese star anise, which is in very short supply, though Roche says it has managed to synthesize the active ingredient, shikimic acid. South Korea and India threaten to follow Taiwan’s patent-busting lead.

China, which has 75 per cent of the world’s geese, half its ducks and a quarter of its chickens, is on red alert to combat human-avian flu which threatens China’s surging exports and food supply. Across Asia and Europe, birds are being mercilessly slaughtered.

There is no human vaccination yet against the H5N1 strain, though Hungary claims to be developing one. But if the avian flu does infect humans, the only recourse will be quarantine and isolation. Like the 1918 flu, which killed 50 million worldwide, the virus will first kill off the vulnerable old and young, then gradually diminish in virulence as survivors develop resistance. But the death toll could still be enormous.

The likeliest place for the human avian virus to emerge will be among those least aware of its danger, isolated, illiterate farmers in Asia unwilling to destroy their livelihoods because they have what may be only a head cold. The avian flu may never jump to humans, but if it does, a worldwide plague will surely ensue. Let’s hope Pakistan is better prepared if this horror actually does occur.

—Copyright Eric S. Margolis

Bridges over the bombs

IT is hard to get inside the minds of people who are prepared to plant bombs in order to destroy innocent lives on buses, markets or in restaurants, especially when the precise identity of the perpetrators remains unknown, as it does with the brutal atrocities that left more than 60 dead in Delhi.

But the usual suspects are in the frame and it is widely assumed that their objective was to sabotage the painfully slow rapprochement between India and Pakistan.

The timing of the three synchronised blasts on the eve of celebrations of the Hindu festival of Diwali and the Muslim Eid-ul-Fitr, was calculated to hit ordinary families preparing for religious holidays. Victims died under tinsel decorations and fairy lights in the city’s Sarojini Nagar market as they shopped for bargain saris, sweets and toys. But the explosions also coincided with cautious moves by the governments in Delhi and Islamabad to cooperate across the Line of Control in Kashmir in the wake of the terrible earthquake that has already claimed at least 54,000 lives and whose chaotic aftermath is unfortunately likely to kill thousands more as winter approaches.

Pakistan had already turned down an Indian request to fly helicopters into the militarised area and there was a depressing sense that the nuclear-armed rivals had missed their chance to turn a crisis into an opportunity to build bridges. It has taken too long but now travel restrictions are to be eased to allow access to the Himalayan border crossings for relatives who are unable to make contact by telephone, and to deliver humanitarian and reconstruction aid.

A better performance by the two governments, especially by the Pakistani army, should help prevent men with Kalashnikov rifles winning too many hearts and minds. Goodwill is always bad news for those, including jihadists, who thrive on violence and hatred. This cautious “quake diplomacy” could emulate the example of Greece and Turkey, another pair of old enemies who began a honeymoon by cooperating over a natural disaster. And it is built on an awareness by both sides, wooed by the US — too assiduously, some argue — as allies in its “war on terror,” that they badly need better relations even if they cannot solve their 60-year conflict over Kashmir.

Some Indians have dismissed expressions of regret from Pakistan — issued immediately by President Musharraf — as no more than “crocodile tears” from those who have allowed terrorist groups, perhaps linked to Pakistan’s shadowy ISI intelligence agency, to operate freely. The chief suspect, according to Indian security officials, is Lashkar-e-Taiba - the most dangerous of the militant factions fighting Indian rule in Kashmir, though it is Pakistani rather than Kashmiri. And the group is listed, without equivocation, as a “terrorist organisation” by both Britain and the US.

—The Guardian, London

The elusive mass transit

A MASS transit system for Karachi has become an excruciating joke for two generations of the residents of the city. It was first announced when they numbered three and a half million. It has come round again for the umpteenth time now that they are four times as many.

According to a report in the Dawn issue of October 29, the Sindh governor gave “three weeks to the authorities for the signing of an agreement” with directions that the “first of all the mass transit corridor from Sohrab Goth to Merewether Tower should be completed without any delay.”

But let no one get excited. This seems to be sheer bravado on the part of a youthful incumbent of the gubernatorial office belonging to a party which has its power base in Karachi and wants to be seen delivering where the other larger parties before him didn’t. No matter what time limit the governor sets, the government procedures will take their own course and time.

The cost of the first corridor which Dr Ishratul Ibad wants to be completed “without delay” is said to be 289 million dollars. Whatever the mode of financing or implementation the government’s rules of business require that the project should be approved by the National Economic Council (NEC) after scrutiny by the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) of the cabinet. The “authorities” that the governor was addressing — the provincial and city officials — are not authorized to sign an agreement for the execution of the project until permitted modoso by the NEC, and that ordinarily takes years and not months.

The question, therefore, is not whether the first of the seven corridors can be built and that too without delay but whether it would be built at all. Thus, once again in its long history the project has become a subject of glib politics rather than of hard economic thinking.

Among the vast numbers of MoUs that Karachi’s former nazim signed in his four-year term quite a few related to mass transport. The citizens have not seen even one of them resulting in a project. Unaware of the rules and procedures applicable to public spending, former nazim Naimatullah Khan blamed the bureaucrats for frustrating his efforts to bring foreign investment not just in mass transit but also in desalination of sea water, housing and recreation. The well-meaning but gullible nazim must have been puzzled when his apparently “eager” foreign investors demanded the Pakistan government’s guarantee for the

safety of their capital and a reasonable return on it before they came in.

The only time Karachi came close to getting a mass transit system was in the mid-nineties when Pakistan’s Adamjee group formed a consortium with SNC-Lavalin of Canada and STFA of Turkey to build and operate the same Sohrab-Tower corridor which is now again in the news. The consortium was all set to start work waiting only for the government’s sovereign guarantee for the return of the loans the consortium had itself raised on the strength of the economic feasibility of the project from the export-import banks of the US and Japan and the Islamic Development Bank. The government tarried long. When Pakistan decided to go nuclear in 1998 foreign investment stopped. The sponsors, having wasted four years and spent four million dollars on feasibility studies, sulkily departed.

The Adamjee-Lavalin-StFA project was based on the conventional light rail running on ground up to Karimabad and on raised pillars beyond that up to the Tower. Its capital cost agreed to by the government and the lending banks was 586 million dollars. How 10 years later it has come down to 289 million dollars and that too for magnetically-levitated trains running elevated all the way defies common sense. The governor and his planners should know better.

The fare worked out for the 19 km length of the route in the Adamjee project was Rs. 25. If the cost of the project now under consideration is only 289 million dollars the fare should be much less. If the sponsors concede that and do not demand sovereign guarantee nor set out any other condition, the city district/provincial government should sign the agreement straightaway and let the approval follow. But it is too good to be true. A seven-minute ride on Shanghai’s magnetically levitated train from the city centre to the airport costs $20 or Rs 1,200.

While looking at the offer in hand and other foreign offers that might follow, the political leaders and soldiers who are now in the driving seat need to bear in mind that mass city transport is nowhere a profitable proposition be it as old and large as London’s tube-cum-double decker bus or Bangkok’s brand new elevated trains. The fares the people are prepared to pay even in rich countries are never enough to cover even operational expenses. Capital investment is usually a sunk cost. In Pakistan the gap between income and expenses would be wider because of lower fares.

When the investors — whether foreign or local — stake their money in a project it is for profit and not for charity. If it needs subsidy the money for that, we know well, has to come from the federal government. Karachi’s mass transit will need it in a large measure because the first consideration of the vast majority of commuters here is low fares. Speed and comfort come next. That is the reason the old, rickety individually owned buses have gradually displaced Karachi’s organised bus fleets. It will be thus safe to assume that if the bus fare is half that of the transit train, the train would run half empty despite speed and comfort.

No matter how scarce the resources every large city sooner or later has to have a mass transit system and be prepared to subsidise it. Kolkata and Delhi have already built their underground train lines. Karachi cannot be an exception for long but meanwhile it should invest in its bus service and not let it deteriorate. Currently, it is fast deteriorating. Buses will be needed in ever growing numbers even when all the seven corridors are built.

The first priority in Karachi’s master transit plan, therefore, should go to the expansion and renewal of the city’s bus service. Almost the entire fleet of 10,000 or more buses (no one knows the real count) needs to be replaced by new and, in the course of time, CNG-equipped buses.

Of the seven transit corridors, the easiest, cheapest and quickest to renovate and build should be the circular railway. Perhaps, the commuter traffic on it would also be more than 12 per cent of the total which is the best estimate for the Sohrab-Tower corridor. The cost would be obviously much less.

The essential point to make here is that the best and most economical solutions for public transport should be decided and priorities for their implementation determined by our own people and planners rather than by foreign consultants and contractors. In common reckoning, here the improvement of the bus service and the completion and renovation of the circular railway come first while the Sohrab-Tower corridor is a favourite with foreign financiers and contractors.

We went along when one of them said the cost would be 586 million dollars. Ten years later we are once again unwarily going along with another who says it would be half of that sum and yet the trains would be faster and better. Both cannot be right. It is impossible to share the Sindh governors’s zeal.

A future investigation

IT’S NOT yet clear whether senators will succeed in their effort to force the Bush administration to give up the use of “cruel, inhuman and degrading” treatment of foreign detainees, despite a 90-9 vote by the Senate.

Resistance by House Republicans and the White House threat of a veto means this badly needed restoration of the American commitment to human rights faces an uphill battle in the coming weeks. Meanwhile, the outcome of another legislative initiative stemming from the hundreds of documented cases of prisoner abuse is even cloudier.

Sen. Carl M. Levin so far has won no Republican support for a proposal to create an independent commission to investigate the treatment of detainees since 2001. Given what is known — and still unknown — about this shocking and shameful record, the rejection of accountability by the administration and Congress is a scandal in its own right.

Administration officials frequently assert that prisoner treatment has been investigated by a number of military or Pentagon-appointed panels since the photos of abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison surfaced last year. What they don’t acknowledge is the lack of independence of those probes or the very wide areas they have overlooked.

—The Washington Post