“The identification of the enemy is no small task given that we are immersed in a system of power so deep and complex that we can no longer determine specific difference or measure. We suffer exploitation, alienation, and command as enemies, but we do not know where to locate the production of oppression. And yet we still resist and struggle.”

—-Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri in ‘Empire’

THE idea of non-alignment as one of the matrices of world politics has returned. Haiti and St. Kitts, the latest entrants, take the membership of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) to 116. If the Havana summit of 1979 was an important landmark in its history, Fidel Castro’s capital city is once again the venue where it would be adjudged to have succeeded or failed in re-defining itself in a world that lost a bipolar balance of power a decade and half ago.

As in the past, the debates have reflected radicalism, conservatism and something in between. At the heart of the internal debate lay a 60-page “final document” that the NAM foreign ministers wrote in May in Putrajaya. For the loyalists of the movement, the document offered an alternative to political and military unilateralism, as, indeed, to unbridled globalisation.

For many in the West, it was a new and radical challenge to its US-led supremacy, an attempt at replacing the unipolar moment in world history by an era of dispersed power and influence. Both China and the United States could be present as observers. Washington declined and thus sent a signal that it did not accept the forum as appropriate to any mediation, any quest for a middle ground.

Media reporting in the run-up to the summit was a virtual battle of perceptions. In the traditional ‘Third World’ of Asia, Africa and Latin America, the growing impoverishment of people, a global crisis of health and the dangerous implications of the Middle East crisis constituted the primary agenda for this great gathering. News stories and comments in the West, however, tended to pre-judge the event as an anti-US enterprise. The movement, it was alleged again and again, had become irrelevant after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact. A bunch of difficult states, characterised by their shared insubordination to the United States, were trying to subvert its global projects of democracy and development.

One could not but notice a serious deficit of substance in these western commentaries accompanied by an abundance of hostile and anxious reference to specific leaders from the non-aligned world. They belonged to the original ‘axis of evil’ now reinforced by rebellious leaders of Latin America. With Fidel Castro still recuperating from surgery, the new demonology focused, without doubt, on President Hugo Chavez who has been travelling to forbidden places like Moscow and Beijing buying arms and diversifying the export of Venezuela’s oil. Worse still, Chavez has supported Iran’s nuclear energy programme, something widely shared in the non-aligned family of nations.

As Latin American politics increasingly becomes a choice between moderate and hard-line Marxists and the writ of the satraps of the global empire that the United States is perceived to have become, shrinks, leaders like Chavez loom large as a further extension of the axis of evil. Havana where the NAM has held its summit now was once again seen as the assembly point of anti-US forces even though a clear majority of non-aligned states work overtime to avoid the polarisation of the decolonisation era.

When the Cuban foreign minister, Felipe Perez Roque, urged the smaller and developing countries to together resist intervention and aggression by powerful states, he was viewed as sending a special message to the peoples of Latin America. That is where some of the most intense electoral battles are being fought.

Beyond the focus on the personal recalcitrance of Chavez and Ahmadinejad lies a more fundamental fear of losing the battle of ideas. The non-aligned forums are beginning to create a counter-narrative. NAM is providing space to erect a rival edifice that robs the imperial dome of its splendour. Empires that are confident of their global authenticity are seldom vexed by isolated, localised rebellions. The Afghanistan of the Taliban could have been one such revolt if the president of the United States had not declared an all-out crusade and abolished limitations of time and space in waging it.

Afghanistan was transformed from being a ghetto of resistance to an emblem of a worldwide conflict. What an imperial order cannot countenance is a global challenge to its authority and legitimacy. NAM is suspected of weaving an alternative discourse that would fuel anti-globalisation and anti-US movements across the board.

Since perception is reality, consider what NAM has been talking about. It does not accept the prescribed definition of terrorism and insists, as it did in the Putrajaya final document, that terrorism “should not be equated with the legitimate struggle of peoples under colonial or alien domination and foreign occupation”. NAM rejects “actions and measures imposed or threatened to be imposed by any state against any non-aligned country under the pretext of combating terrorism or to pursue its political aims, including by directly or indirectly categorising them as terrorism- sponsoring states”.

NAM has also said that the unilateral preparation of lists accusing states of allegedly supporting terrorism constitutes “a form of psychological and political terrorism”. The hosts in Havana would recall with satisfaction that embroidered into the final document’s text was an unambiguous demand that the Guantanamo naval base be returned to Cuban sovereignty. A world order that rests on the denial of the right of self-determination of subjugated people with effect from an arbitrarily determined cut-off date and also asserts a non-negotiable prerogative to resort to pre-emptive war unilaterally at any time outside the framework of the United Nations cannot watch the emerging NAM semantics except with trepidation and alarm.

It is axiomatic that the rise of a power that accepts no constraints would intensify the search for countervailing alliances. The military power of the United States has probably no precedent in human history but so far this advantage has not been matched by its political and economic clout. For reasons that are both intrinsic and extrinsic to the United States, the concept of an imperium continues to be an ill-fitting metaphor for its bid for global dominance. Not many comparable powers in world history were equally inept at winning the hearts and minds of the other people. The great physical reach of its military invariably ends up producing unimagined resistance.

When Kofi Annan says that Middle Eastern rulers have found the invasion of Iraq a disaster, he reflects a universal distrust of American interventionism. Dissuading the United States from embarking upon similar adventures in future has become a sufficient reason for rejuvenating the non-aligned movement. Washington is, therefore, not wrong in thinking that NAM would, in the foreseeable future, be arrayed on the other side of the fence. Where it is wrong is in its failure to see that what NAM really wants is not a confrontation but an accommodation, a return to a more inclusive system of states.

The characteristic rhetoric of NAM conferences is often dismissed as sound and fury signifying nothing; a summit would register the crescendo of anti-imperialist voices but make little impact on the tide of history. This is an inaccurate reading of the present state of international relations. There is a strong reaction to the lopsided world order being established behind the smokescreen of a global war on terrorism. The current strength of the movement lies in encouraging alternatives which even reformed members like India would find difficult to reject. They, too, would secretly wish for the success of projects aiming at the diversification of power.

In different ways, the European Union, China, Russia and a concert of left-leaning Latin American nations would give substance to the quest for alternatives. The more the sole superpower of our times remains embroiled in local wars unleashed by its interventionism the greater would be the lure of multi-polarity. It cannot cut and run from the quagmires of its own creation. It can hold a salient of dominance in Afghanistan and Iraq but only at the price of losing the larger, global battle for influence. Every passing day widens the gap between its imperial needs and the means available to it.

Pakistan was not present at the first NAM summit in 1961. It was a polite guest for many years before it became a member. Once it joined, it brought valuable diplomatic skills to its work often weighing significantly on the side of pragmatism and moderation. The shrill assertiveness of the neo-conservatives in the United States has loaded the revival of the non-aligned movement with a touch of defiance. But the long term security and prosperity of mankind would still warrant a non-confrontationist transition to a more equitable multi-polar world. Judged from either side, its present engagement with the West is opportunistic. Its true place belongs to the middle spectrum of the non-aligned nations. Major issues of our times would eventually find a solution only in that spectrum and Pakistan should make its due contribution to the search for those solutions.

The writer is a former foreign secretary.
Email: tanvir.a.khan@gmail.com

THE outcome of the debate recently staged in the National Assembly over the bill which was supposed to provide protection to women did not come as a surprise to anybody and least of all to the groups agitating for justice for women and their struggle to find a place in the sun.

All it did was to endorse the view commonly held that the government never really had any intention of getting rid of the laws that victimise and are discriminatory to women, the minorities or other disadvantaged groups.

In spite of the commitments made by President Musharraf about empowering and protecting women against arbitrary laws and the capricious behaviour of men who have repeatedly misused the tenets of religion, the criminal laws remain stubbornly on the statute books, and if the obscurantist lobby could have its way, would be etched in stone.

This is not to suggest that the president has not done his bit. A short while ago, he ordered the release of a lot of women prisoners who had been locked up under the controversial zina clause in the Hudood Ordinances, which has contributed considerably to tarnishing the image of the country abroad and projecting what many foreigners see as a repressive stone age culture.

His supporters also believe that in spite of his close relationship with members of the six-party religious alliance, it was he who prodded and goaded the president of the Muslim League to start the ball rolling on the amendments issue, which hit a few snags along the way.

In spite of this, most human rights groups believe the government legislators were taking part in a grand charade and went through the motions in a totally detached manner, as if they were in a hurry to get it over with, irrespective of the outcome.

The travesty nevertheless had its moments. Last Tuesday this newspaper carried the headline that the government had yielded to the MMA on the Hudood laws. On Wednesday the newspaper asked the pertinent question: “What made the PML turn to the MMA?” On Thursday we learnt that the Hudood bill had been “put on hold... indefinitely.’

And on Friday the nation was informed that the MMA had rejected the “agreed” draft on the grounds that “the government had not included in the new draft several points which had been earlier agreed to in a meeting of the ulema nominated by the government and the MMA.” The new draft was totally unacceptable to the MMA and the “flaws” were communicated to Maulana Fazlur Rehman, who subsequently had a meeting with the president of the PML and the chief minister of the Punjab.

Before the leader of the opposition had been apprised of the “objectionable” passages it certainly looked as if the sail no longer had to tack against the wind. An earlier statement issued after the meeting between Chaudhry Shujaat and Chaudhry Parvez Elahi and a delegation of the MMA led by Fazlur Rehman pointed out that “the bill was in complete conformity with the Holy Quran and Sunnah” and that “after lengthy deliberations of the ulema committee on the amendment bill... and its scrutiny from every aspect of the Holy Quran and Sunnah, leaders of all parties were of the opinion that there is nothing in the proposed bill which was against the Holy Quran and Sunnah.”

Apparently, agreement had been reached “on all basic points” of the protection of the bill on women’s rights. It was stressed that “parliamentarians should consider the new draft of the bill realistically, take a proper decision and avoid making it a political issue.” One would have thought that this is what the legislators had been doing all along. Apparently, this was not the case.

Later on we learned that Maulana Mufti Munibur Rehman had pointed out that “Chaudhry Shujaat and Parvez Illahi had invited” ulema from all over the country to consider the amended bill as it was an important national issue as well as a religious obligation.”

What is the reader supposed to make of this statement? Does it mean that we are back to square one and that the whole process of negotiations will be repeated? Or does it advocate that after a few rounds of discussions, during which the bruised ego of the MMA legislators will be assuaged, and after another compromise has been reached, there might, after all, be a light at the end of the tunnel?

A recent seminar held in Karachi pointed out that even if the debate in the National Assembly has been a fruitless and pointless exercise and if nothing substantial is likely to emerge from future negotiations, it has, in a sense, been a positive development. After all, this is the first time during the tenure of the present administration that both the government and the religious alliance by implication have tacitly admitted that the Hudood Ordinances were man-made and were not divine — as earlier stated by the gentlemen of the cloth. This means that the ordinances are not sacrosanct and are subject to amendment — like the Constitution.

It is also a positive development, because there is evidence to suggest that certain sections of the six-party religious alliance might have begun to have second thoughts on the issue. The very fact that the MMA agreed to consider the amendments in the first place shows a change of heart. At the present time the MMA holds most of the trumps. As long as the government does not try to steal Maulana Fazlur Rehman’s thunder they might be able to score a few points.

The MMA still has an abiding grip on the popular imagination in the province bordering Afghanistan and in pockets in the Punjab and a certain amount of nuisance value in Karachi. The government’s strategy to take them along on the rocky road might yet pay dividends.

There have been a few interesting pointers in the fallout over the controversial bill. The first is that while certain MNAs of the government party cooperated with the PPP, members of the Nawaz faction of the Muslim League wouldn’t touch the issue with a barge pole, and have demonstrated that when it comes to standing up for women’s rights they are as retrogressive as the holy warriors.

The second is that on this particular issue the MQM is sitting on the same side of the fence as the PPP. This is an interesting development. Ideological differences notwithstanding, these two parties appear to be the only ones in the country that have a positive attitude to women’s problems. One has to only take a peek at the number of women workers in the MQM to see what liberation is all about.

To get to the genesis of this controversial issue one has to go back to that fateful day in late March 2004 when PPP MNA Sherry Rehman decided to ruffle a few stodgy feathers and send a few shock waves through a moribund assembly. The issue was heatedly debated for three weeks on every private members’ day and had been simmering on the back burner ever since, until its recent reemergence in the Assembly.

What was significant was that this was the first time in 25 years, after Ziaul Haq had bequeathed to the nation the dreaded Hudood Ordinances, that a woman had the courage to stand up and fight.

For over 25 years Pakistani women have lived under the heel of the repressive laws, one of which blatantly stated that a woman could be locked up on mere suspicion. Until President Musharraf stepped in to free women prisoners who were being held for allegedly committing zina, the warden of the jail might just as well have thrown away the key, given the record of the courts in this department.

To ensure that nobody unscrewed any of the bolts that kept the old musket in place, the Muslim League government invariably felt the need to enlist the help of the clergy to bail them out from a sticky situation. How else can one explain the fact that even though the treasury benches had a pretty tight grip on the proceedings in the current debate, they still felt the need to send a helicopter to Maulana Fazlur Rehman in his summer retreat in Murree so that he could once again upset the apple cart? Everything points to the fact that the journey will be a long and torturous one.

WITH the dust now settling across southern Lebanon, yet another Middle East conflict has come to an uneasy close. But as an international peace-keeping force belatedly moves in, the spotlight focuses once again on the world body created six decades ago precisely to deal with this sort of international emergency.

What will the United Nations do? What can it do? Why cannot the theoretically all-powerful UN security council flex its muscles? Why does it act so slowly over Lebanon, but also Sudan, and Srebrenice, Rwanda and earlier catastrophes?

These are questions that deserve a proper answer. If, in 1945, the world community purposefully created an organisation to “save succeeding generations from the scourge of war”, then it is perplexing that it does not seem more fit for purpose. How are we to explain, to indignant national politicians and the angry public, the frequent paralyses within the UN’s most powerful — and most contentious — institution, the security council, or the byzantine diplomatic manoeuvres that follow to facilitate some watered-down compromise?

The question acquired an urgency last week as heads of states and governments around the world made their way to New York, to deliver their addresses to the UN general assembly and to elect a successor to Kofi Annan as secretary general. The latter task has immediately focused attention on the political horse-trading that takes place inside the security council.

While the foreign minister of South Korea, Ban Ki-Moon, emerged as the frontrunner in the race for the secretary generalship, member states gathering for the UN 61st annual assembly were promised a package of reform proposals. These schemes, designed to improve the way the UN works, include measures to cut waste, bureaucracy and the possibility of corruption, streamlining of procedures, and plans for an overhaul of the body’s shaky finances.

All of which is important, but none of it excites the general public - or is even a priority for those governments most likely vote for such changes. The only topic guaranteed to grab the attention is the one that has stirred member states ever since the UN was established in San Francisco in 1945: the demand for reform of the security council itself.

The process of electing a new secretary general throws into sharp relief the intrinsic imbalance of the security council’s composition. Mr Ban was reported to have won the support of 14 of the council’s 15 members in the latest ballot, putting him comfortably ahead of his closest rival, India’s candidate, Shashi Tharoor. Only one thing may now block Mr Ban’s selection by the security council for the endorsement of the general assembly - and that would be if the one contrary vote had come from one of the permanent five members with veto powers, (Britain, China, France, Russia, and the US).

The proposals for reforming the security council take a twin track: given the power conferred by the veto, the idea would be either to increase the number of states who would enjoy permanent veto status, or to reduce the scope of veto privilege or eliminate it altogether. These are rather contradictory demands, but either would bring a dramatic shift in the balance of power at the UN and, say its advocates, make it more effective.

Neither proposal, in fact, is likely to go far, as all such moves run into the well known catch-22 “trap” of the UN charter. In 1945, the five victor powers gave each other the right to veto, and then froze that privilege in a constitution that they and all other member states pledged to respect. Thus, any future attempt to alter the status of the “high table” powers, or to increase or decrease their number, could only succeed if the veto was not wielded. Any one of the permanent five can, and would, bring a proposal for change to a grinding halt.

The 1945 settlement was driven by the historical “lessons” that the Allied planners drew from the interwar years, and the failure of the League of Nations to halt fascist aggressions. The first of these lessons was that, in a world of international anarchy, small nations such as Belgium, Finland and Thailand were inherent “consumers” of security; that is, they could not protect themselves if a larger neighbour attacked them.

By contrast, the lead nations of the Grand Alliance were “providers” of security, not because of any inherent virtue but because they alone had the muscle to deter or defeat future aggressors. (These planners actually gave serious thought to the revival of German and Japanese military power by the 1960s.) It would be the forces of the British empire, the US and the Soviet Union that would be responsible for quashing any future acts of aggression. It was only proper, therefore, that these countries should have a permanent seat and a veto on a body that was being given so much authority in matters of war and peace.

The second compelling lesson was that it was vital to keep all the big elephants inside the circus tent; that is to say, America and Russia had to be part of the UN. This was a particularly British obsession, derived from bitter memories of the League of Nations: the US was never a member, the Soviet Union only entered in the 1930s (to be turned out after it invaded Finland in 1940), and Japan, Germany and Italy walked out.

But if neuralgic American senators and the even more suspicious Josef Stalin were to stay within the tent, they had to be assured that they could block any UN threats to their national interests. Hence the veto, disguised in subtle charter language (Article 27, para 3) that voting on substantive matters by the security council requires “the concurring votes of the permanent members”. And just who decides what is a substantive issue? The permanent five, of course. Voila!

This made sense at the time, but the disadvantages are glaring today. By any objective assessment, India — and perhaps also Brazil and South Africa — ought to have a place at high table now. To critics, the claims of Britain and France to the continued privilege of veto is an anachronism. Finally, to independent-minded smaller nations such as Singapore, the right asserted by large countries to a veto is itself unjustified. Having five governments capable of freezing the international system is bad enough; why make it eight or 10?

But how is one to change this rigid, out-of-date system? It can only be by altering the charter. The terms of the 1945 system can be amended, of course, but only if the parliaments of two-thirds of the general assembly’s members vote in favour — and if the permanent five do not object, a crucial negative condition. Forget, therefore, any proposal to take privileges away from Britain and France; that will simply be vetoed. Forget, too, Japan’s prospects of permanent veto membership; China will not countenance it. Germany cannot muster enough votes and even Brazil may struggle for support, given the reservations of several Latin American states.

By a process of elimination, therefore, the only viable contender for promotion is India. Its size, population, booming economy, remarkable track record of contributions to UN peacekeeping, and prominent place in global dialogues (WTO, Kyoto), all argue that way. It may even have enough general assembly votes. And, if it has, which of the permanent five countries is then going to veto? Even China would hesitate.

Apart from India’s candidature, though, there seems little prospect of significantly altering the composition of the security council. But there are some measures that might make that body appear — and be — more authentic, and more legitimate, than it is now. When the present total of 10 non-permanent members was agreed, there were only about 75 governments represented in the general assembly.

Now that total is up to 191, there is a case for a further increase in the numbers on the council. This need not be a drastic increase, but raising the non-permanent membership from 10 to 18 would give us 23 governments on the security council, which still seems quite functional. And serious thought should be given to abolishing the rule that a non-permanent member can serve for only two years before stepping down.

These modest changes would allow more countries to experience the workings of the security council, and make it more representative. And abolishing the “two years and out” principle might allow countries with a good record at peacekeeping and a significant regional weight (Brazil, India) the chance of being voted for a further term, without a break.—Dawn/Guardian Service

The writer is professor of history and director of international security studies at Yale University.