IN his address to the nation the other day, President General Musharaf deemed it prudent to name a former head of the Securities and Exchange Commission for being wholly responsible for last year’s disaster at the Karachi Stock Exchange. In common language this could be characterized as condemning a person without due process, regardless of the correctness or otherwise of the charges against him. The matter invites attention to two dangerous trends in governance.

First, the convention that in constitutional democracies the heads of state do not get personally involved in matters that lie in the domain of duly designated functionaries seems to have been breached. Secondly, and more importantly, the government appears to have eliminated whatever space for second opinion there was in its councils.

The convention about non-involvement of a state’s constitutional head, particularly in a system supposed to be in accord with parliamentary form of government, is based on a basic need to protect his status as a non-controversial, non-partisan guardian of the rights of all citizens, including those who are suspected of wrong-doing. He is supposed to be a dispenser of mercy and not an instrument of wreaking retribution; he can pardon criminals but he cannot punish anyone of them, he cannot supplant the state’s judicial organs.

Principles apart, this convention is backed by practical wisdom. In case presidential indictment fails to survive judicial scrutiny, the integrity of the highest office in the land will be compromised. And if, as happens, the various state organs come under pressure to bend laws and break conventions and do whatever is required to vindicate such an indictment, the integrity of the whole state system will be compromised.

There is no doubt that in all countries many things happen that make heads of state unhappy. They have possibilities of conveying their views to the authorities concerned or to the public in a non-partisan way. The same procedure applies to their responses to issues of public concern. If they focus attention on any particular matter (stock market crash in the present case) and choose to be silent on other matters of concern to the people (say, the doings of sugar millowners or cement cartels or land grabbers, in Pakistan’s case), the charge of partisanship may not be avoidable.

Special care is considered necessary in case of members of bureaucracy, because they have become progressively more vulnerable over the past 50 years or so. Over the last few years alone the “competent authority” has acquired enhanced powers to sack and prosecute government servants in addition to the powers to transfer them or make them OSDs by way of punishment. Since many ways of dealing with an offender in service are available, it is not considered good form to berate individual bureaucrats in public. While attacks on the bureaucracy as an institution have always been common, attacks on bureaucrats by name were not allowed in legislatures for the same reason, and also on the ground that public servants had no opportunity to defend themselves in the assemblies.

One thought all the necessary lessons had been learnt when a former prime minister exposed himself by ordering on-the-spot arrest of an engineer or two. Apparently, this view was not grounded in reality, and there is much more to learn.

However, the issue is much larger than the rights or reputation of a particular bureaucrat as it reveals a further increase in the Establishment’s intolerance of public servants who dare point out flaws in its policies or decisions. Quite a few recent happenings indicate closure of space for alternative or second opinion.

A former chairman of the Federal Public Service Commission disagreed with the Establishment over some official business. A law was made to squeeze him out of office by reducing the tenure of the FPSC chairman and members. The incident was reminiscent of the tactics used by employers in olden times when they often sacked troublesome employees by abolishing their posts, or of the incident when a Sindh League chief frustrated a non-member chief minister’s bid to get himself elected to the assembly (in a byelection) by denying him the party ticket.

The Chief Economist in the Planning Division was transferred out of his key post (while he was on his way back from Colombo) because he could not justify the Establishment’s decision to inflate poverty reduction rate to more than 10 per cent, a jump independent economist have found impossible to secure over a short period under any circumstances.

Some time ago, the Establishment took umbrage at the findings (poverty again, perhaps) of a special probe by SPDC, a well-established NGO, and approached one of its main donors to cut off their funding for it. When this did not work the organisation’s board of governors was pressured into getting rid of its chief executive, the economist whose services it had been extraordinarily keen to acquire only a short time earlier.

Instances of transfer of officials holding opinions at variance with those of the powers that be are legion. For example, when it became known that a divisional police chief had decided to act against a wadera who had been accused of complicity in the abduction of hari Munno Bheel’s family members, he was transferred, and the Supreme Court had to intervene.

The government’s growing intolerance of second opinion within the administration is a matter of great public importance because it undermines the administration’s efficiency as well as its democratic framework. Intra-government consultation with a view to arriving at a decision after examining all possible views and opinions is considered an essential requisite of good governance. For the same reason, ordinances issued by the executive are rated inferior to laws adopted after fair and reasonable debate in legislatures. In case of fundamental issues reference to opinion outside the legislature is considered necessary.

One reprehensible consequence of intolerance of second opinion in high echelons of authority is that minions of the state along the line tend to arrogate similar privileges to themselves. For example, when a journalist put a difficult question at a press briefing he was reportedly told that “sometimes people disappear”. A Sindhi journalist had his house burnt down for holding a view different from that of the local satrap. And Hayatullah of Waziristan may have lost his life for suggesting that truth was different from the press release.

That governance without the benefit of second opinion undermines broader community/humanitarian interests can easily be demonstrated. On the theoretical plane such governance invites censure by degenerating into absolute rule. In practice, examples can be found in Pakistan’s own travail. Why was the formation of the Council of Common Interests ignored for long.? The only plausible answer is: a deeply ingrained resistance to the idea of entertaining second opinion. The same about the unending wrangle over the National Finance Award. Or take the case of the Police Order.

The subject falls within provincial jurisdiction but, according to a senior official, when it was discussed at a meeting in Islamabad, the provincial representatives were hardly asked to speak. There was no allowance for second opinion. As a result, several changes in the law had to be made later on and a chief minister is said to have gained power to sack a thanedar simply by threatening to resign if he did not get “this little bit of authority”.

Above all, intolerance of second opinion in matters related to administration quickly travels into the political domain and Authority’s pursuit of uniformity of action, and eventually of thought, makes tolerance of political dissent impossible. And where dissent is not permitted in politics, it will not be allowed in the social sphere either. The regimentation of morons then becomes complete.

A dictatorial political dispensation and social stagnation are both cause and effect of suppressing second opinions. By no means a matter to be disposed of cavalierly.

TO stop the war in Lebanon, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will need to start with some basics: The best strategy for containing a militia such as Hezbollah is to build a strong Lebanese state; any lasting solution for this conflict will be political, not just military; continued Israeli bombardment of Lebanon to destroy the militants might backfire by creating another failed state from which they can operate more freely.

The outlines of a settlement that recognises these basics were floated Monday in Beirut. The Lebanese urged Rice to consider a compromise package — of the sort that Beirutis describe in a French phrase meaning “neither victor nor vanquished.” That kind of negotiated truce would not please those on either side who would like to see their adversaries eradicated. But it might be the best chance of achieving Rice’s goal of replacing the dangerous prewar status quo in Lebanon with something more secure and stable for everyone.

Negotiated settlements are always messy, but this package has one great advantage: It would provide a framework for the chronically weak Lebanese state, backed by an international force, to begin to assert control over all its territory. It would stress the basic idea that should be the centrepiece of US policy in the Middle East from Beirut to Baghdad: that political compromise and reconciliation, backed by US and allied military power, provide the only path out of the crisis afflicting the region.

The challenge in Lebanon is identical to the one in Iraq: how to help weak Arab democracies control sectarian militias and build sovereignty and security. The correct American strategy is one that might be called “muscular reconciliation.” Its starting premise is that if one side seeks unilateral advantage, everyone will suffer.

Lebanese sources outlined for me the compromise package they say was discussed Monday when Rice met Fouad Siniora, the Lebanese prime minister, and Nabih Berri, the parliament speaker and leader of the Shia militia known as Amal. The cornerstone of this package, according to my sources, is that Hezbollah would agree to withdraw its armed fighters from south Lebanon and accept an international force there that would accompany the Lebanese army. Israel, for its part, would agree to halt its attacks and lift its air and sea blockade. The United States would call for negotiations over the return of a disputed territory known as Shebaa Farms, claimed by Lebanon even though the United Nations ruled in 2000 that it was Syrian.

Within 24 hours after a ceasefire, there would be an exchange of prisoners as part of this package: Hezbollah would give up the two Israeli soldiers it captured in the July 12 border raid that started the crisis; Israel would release Lebanese prisoners it holds. The package also includes some minor provisions, including an Israeli agreement to provide maps of land mines placed just north of the Lebanon-Israel border.

What’s in it for Israel to accept such a deal, which would allow Hezbollah to survive? The answer is that an attempt to go all the way and destroy the Shia militia would require a full-scale invasion of Lebanon, and might well misfire in the same way as Israel’s 1982 invasion. Better to go for a solid half a loaf — pushing armed Hezbollah fighters north of the Litani River and bringing in an international force to help the Lebanese army police a buffer zone — than to risk further setbacks.

Hezbollah’s military power would be severely degraded under such a negotiated settlement, but it would remain intact politically. The Shia militia is trying to put on a brave face, sending me an e-mail message yesterday through a Lebanese intermediary claiming that it has the upper hand. If a ceasefire isn’t reached and Hezbollah fights on, it will “accept a four-to-one casualty ratio,” the message warned. “Human losses all go to heaven as martyrs with families and children handsomely compensated.” But for all this brave talk, statements by Hezbollah’s leader, Hasan Nasrallah, seem to be defining victory as simple survival.

Wars end when both sides decide they can gain more from a negotiated settlement than from continued fighting. Nearly two weeks into the Lebanon war, Israel and Hezbollah both seem split between those who think they can gain from more combat and those ready to cut a deal. As of late Tuesday, Rice was continuing to resist mounting international demands for a cease-fire, presumably to allow Israel more time to hammer Hezbollah. But that strategy is becoming dangerous for all sides. Rice should turn now to negotiating a formula that can halt the bombs and rockets — and enhance the authority of the Lebanese state. Bargaining with the devil (or at least the devil’s intermediary) is part of the job description for an American secretary of state. —Dawn/Washington Post Service

TO the outsider there’s little to suggest that Fishwick Parade, the scene of Saturday’s fatal stabbing of 20-year-old Shezan Umarji, is much different from any other predominantly Asian inner-city area in northern England, or that Shezan was a victim of a rampant racism that has led to Preston, my home town, being described as Britain’s race-hate capital.

The floral tributes to Shezan, around a tree near where he fell, are signed by both Muslims and Christians. White and Asian residents tick off journalists for portraying a misleading image of a racially torn town. And the heavy police presence isn’t too unusual in a part of Preston renowned as one of its toughest and roughest.

Residents are used to things kicking off around here. They put it down to youths fighting over turf, burnishing their gang credentials. But that is to gloss over the fact that in most cases the conflicts are played out along racial lines. Even now, beneath the shared sense of grief at the loss of a young life, the climate is one in which two communities coexist uneasily in the knowledge that a highly charged youngster from either side could trigger another clash.

Head east along Fishwick Parade and the predominantly Asian area gives way to the almost exclusively white Callon estate. Callon is the kind of place where youths tear up and down the streets on mini-motorbikes and hurl bricks at fire engines arriving to put out car blazes they have started — and where their parents hang the cross of Saint George out of bedroom windows to tell the “darkies” that this is a white area.

Another conspicuous difference is the ubiquitous presence of CCTV cameras. Perched on 10m poles, these were installed several years ago to control rising crime — drugs, prostitution, burglary and violence — on the estate. Cameras never lie, and their location reflects an uncomfortable truth. They begin at Callon, which indicates that crime here is of a much higher order than in neighbouring Fishwick, which is predominantly Muslim and south Asian.

The social demography will be familiar to most south Asian Muslims living in areas bordering working-class white and, for that matter, black estates. Politicians seem preoccupied with the problems Muslim communities present in terms of “social cohesion”. In fact it is Britain’s white and black underclass that is in more urgent need of integration into mainstream society and the common values it upholds.

Callon is one such example. Marked by high unemployment, low educational achievement, high incidence of single-parent and broken families, endemic crime, welfare dependency and a culture of hedonism, these estates are easy prey for the far-right and its diagnosis that “you’re poor because they’re better off”. True, many Asian Muslim communities suffer from similar social conditions, but these are often mitigated by a family-centred culture that values self-help and educational achievement. For all the relatively poor showing of their communities in socioeconomic indices, they are nevertheless outperforming their white working-class peers.

But instead of being emulated, Asian Muslims have increasingly found themselves becoming targets. Last year’s racial unrest in the Handsworth and Lozells areas of Birmingham, between Bengali/Pakistani Muslims and African-Caribbeans, originated in the unfounded perception that Asians — with their highly visible businesses — had benefited disproportionately from public funds. The same resentment had been brought to the surface before the Oldham and Bradford riots of 2001. And a common view among the Asians who live near Callon is that the racism they suffer at the hands of local whites arises from economic jealousy.

Despite Callon, Preston is probably no worse for racism than other northern towns.—Dawn/Guardian Service

LAST month, a union of 14 Islamic courts defeated the warlords of Mogadishu, the battered capital of war-torn Somalia. The clan-based courts, whose militias have since taken control of three other strategic regions in south Somalia, have joined forces to establish an Islamic society and enforce Shariah laws in a country divided along clan lines and consisting of fiefdoms under scores of warlords.

The rise of the Islamic courts has exposed the fragility of the UN-sponsored and internationally-recognised transitional federal government (TFG) based in Baidoa, in Bay region, and elicited a military response from Ethiopia. Anticipating an onslaught on TFG from the Islamic courts the Ethiopian forces now occupy Baidoa and Waajid to protect the lame-duck interim government as Somalia moves from civil war towards a regional conflict. The anti-US militant Islamic movement that is riding a wave of popularity has also been a severe setback to America’s war on terrorism.

The political and military ascendancy of a motley alliance of Somalia’s Shariah courts challenges many established notions about the nature and strength of the Islamic movement in the Horn of Africa. In his testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on July 12, more than a month after the Islamic militia’s victory over the warlords of Mogadishu, former US ambassador to Ethiopia David Shinn argued that Washington should continue to back an unpopular, fragile and disorderly transitional federal government. He discounted the possibility that Somalia was “headed towards a Taliban form of government.” The vast majority of Somalis, he said, followed a moderate form of Islam and were highly suspicious of foreign influence.

In the same vein, on July 18 a joint communique from Brussels by the International Somalia Contact Group, which includes the United States, Norway, Sweden, Italy, Tanzania and the United Kingdom, reaffirmed its “continued support to the unity and effective functioning of the TFIs”, the transitional federal institutions which are internationally recognised but that enjoy little authority or legitimacy inside Somalia. The contact group also urged all parties in the country “to firmly reject any violent extremist agenda and deny safe haven to terrorists and their supporters”.

“Somalia’s Islamists”, a report by the Brussels-based International Crisis Group, said in December 2005 that “The growth of courts, charities and businesses with an apparently Islamist character has sparked fears in some circles of a conspiracy to transform Somalia into an Islamic state. In reality, the Islamist activists are a diverse community, characterised more by competition and contradiction than cooperation, making a broad-based conspiracy implausible.” The report goes on to say: “Islamist extremism has failed to take a broader hold in Somalia because of Somali resistance... The vast majority of Somalis desire a government — democratic, broadly-based and responsive — that reflects the Islamic faith as they have practised it for centuries: with tolerance, moderation and respect for variation in religious observance.”

However, the brewing military standoff in Somalia — with Ethiopian forces and US-backed warlords on one side and Islamic forces on the other — should make policymakers shed the conventional wisdom and take into account the changed realities. On July 22, thousands of angry Somalis turned up in Mogadishu to support the courts and vowed to take on the Ethiopian troops. Since taking over the capital Mogadishu in June this year the Union of Islamic Courts, that has much public support, has faced little resistance in establishing its control over most of south Somalia. A war-weary public sees hope in the victory of the Islamic militias.

In many instances, militiamen from rival warlords have defected to join the Islamic courts. Troubled and tormented by 15 years of civil war, people in Mogadishu and other regions have experienced the long-forgotten normalcy and stability under the Islamic forces. Now that a common enemy, Ethiopia, has made a physical intervention the Islamic credentials of the militia are unifying the various strands of the religious movements that, for the time being, are transcending clan, sub-clan and ideological divisions.

Aside from the hope of peace and order after years of bloodshed and anarchy, much of the legitimacy the Islamic movement enjoys in Somalia is due to its anti-American posture. Since the disastrous American intervention in the early 1990s, epitomised by the fateful Black Hawk Down episode and the killing of dozens of US troops in 1993, Washington has consistently opposed the Islamic movements in Somalia.

Now, the Bush administration accuses the Islamic courts, especially its leader Hasan Dahir Aweys, of supporting Al Qaeda and giving refuge to militants responsible for the 2002 bombing of American embassies in Nairobi and Dar-es-Salam. The CIA has also openly funded and backed rivals of the Islamic courts. An Osama bin Laden audiotape lauding the victory of the Somali Islamic forces has strengthened American fears.

On the other hand, the Somali people remain suspicious of American intentions. The terror Somalia has known over the last decade and a half has been unleashed by the factional warlords and their forces from whom they are gaining respite due to the Islamic courts. In his first interview after taking over Mogadishu Shaykh Sharif Ahmed, one of the “moderate” leaders of the Supreme Council of Islamic Courts, said: “I think it is the American government that is against the Somali people. It is they who attacked the Somali people. It is the US government that gave a lot of money to fund the faction leaders... We believe that the American government was responsible for the fighting. It is the Americans who are against the Somali people. We are not against them.” Court leaders dismiss the idea of Al Qaeda as “a figment of American imagination.”

Another source of strength for the surging Islamic courts is the Islamic civil society in Somalia. There is a wide network of businesses and NGOs with Islamic emblems and Islamised educational institutions (including universities, professional institutes and more than 300 madressahs). The growing influence of the Tablighi Jamaat in Somali society also complements the cause of the Shariah movements. In the wake of protracted internecine violence and in the post-September 11 international environment, the notion of a moderate tolerant Islamic society in Somalia is wishful and unrealistic.

Most of Somalia’s neighbours, especially Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda, are hostile to the idea of an Islamic state in their midst. All these factors are threatening to radicalise Somali society and the triumph of the Islamic courts is a pointer in that direction. However, moderate and tolerant Somali Islam might have been in the past, the future bodes ill and violent for Somalia. A new theatre of war on terrorism and violent confrontation has opened up in the Horn of Africa the impact of which will be felt far beyond the region.