Erosion of liberal values

PRESIDENT Bush held a spirited press conference on October 25, to stem the tide of pessimism about Iraq that may result in the Republican loss of control in the House of Representatives and perhaps even in the Senate. The stakes are high enough to make the beleaguered president ring alarm bells.

The sheer momentum of rhetoric, however, stretched his usual evocation of the fear of Islamic fascists to a new level: he warned that failure in Iraq would produce a radical Islamic empire from Morocco to Indonesia. In raising the spectre of a supranational terrorist “caliphate”, he has once again made an outstanding contribution to the radicalisation of the region.

When Pope Benedict included a poorly selected 500-year old quotation from an obscure Christian ruler facing defeat at the hands of Ottomans at the peak of their power, he had hoped to bring out the perils of Muslim militancy and irrationality. He only succeeded in inadvertently advertising the inroads made by present-day Islamophobia into the Catholic Church.

Earlier, in a less exalted capacity, the Holy Father had thrown his weight behind those who oppose Turkey’s admission to the European Union on “cultural” grounds. No matter how secular the Turkish polity may be, it is simply not compatible with the idea of Europe as a unique synthesis of Judaic-Christian civilisation with Greek humanist thought. The fact that Muslim Arabs were the intermediary for this transformational interaction is of no consequence. The Spanish Inquisition obliterated the Muslim culture that made that miracle possible 500 years ago.

On October 12, the lower chamber of the French parliament passed a bill that seeks to make denial of an “Armenian genocide” by Turks some 90 years ago a criminal offence. History is littered with barbaric events that need objective investigation by historians and other specialists to discover the forensic evidence of culpability. In most cases, there is no simple answer: the chain of causality is much too tangled to justify precipitate judgment and scholars end up painting truth in shades of gray. And yet in France, of all the countries, MPs take it upon themselves to use the force of law to snuff out independent inquiry into what doubtless was a gory chapter of history.

In a testimony to the US Congress in 1996, a distinguished scholar made the following observation: “Turkish scholars, Armenian scholars, and those of us who are neither Turks nor Armenians should not feel that Congress has decided that the issue is resolved, when we know that this is not the case.” A decade later, the French legislature swept this academic care aside to create a dogma as sacred as the Jewish Holocaust. Probably, they only wanted to stiffen up the opposition to Turkey’s bid to join the European Union. It may still fail to become a law but President Jacques Chirac and presidential-candidate Segolene Royal have spoken of Ankara’s acknowledgment of Armenian genocide as a virtual precondition for EU membership.

There is no doubt that the Armenians suffered grievously and so did the Turks and Muslims of different ethnicity in a period of tectonic collisions between contending empires. The years 1915-16 might have been climactic but they are part of a narrative that spans at least 125 years. There cannot be any rationalisation of mass murder but history should not be subjected to selective amnesia either.

Like many other people, the Armenians have their recorded history and an even more powerful national myth. Amongst the earliest Christians, the Armenians preserved their cultural traditions and often prospered as mercantile communities in lands ruled by Muslims for more than 700 years.

By 1800, the Russian empire was expanding into the Caucasus. Driven partly by Christian loyalties and partly by a sense of alienation from overbearing Muslim kingdoms, the Armenians supported the Russian marches and became a controversial people. The Russian conquest of Muslim lands was colonial in a fundamental sense. In 50 years beginning with 1827, the Russians had uprooted 1.3 million Muslims who sought refuge in a shrinking Ottoman empire.

As the Ottomans battled in the west against freedom movements in the Balkans that were supported amongst others by Russia and the imperial Russian thrust in the east, the Armenians saw unprecedented opportunities and organised themselves politically and militarily to establish a homeland by force. An organisation called Protection of the Fatherland adopted “liberty or death” as the Armenian slogan. Reprisals came from Istanbul and, more dangerously, from local Kurdish chieftains. The internecine communal conflict took a heavy toll of life; the Ottoman state had neither the will nor the strength to maintain the rule of law. The years 1895-1896 were particularly violent.

As the empire crumbled, the Young Turks rallied around a nationalistic idea for survival. Mustafa Kemal argued against joining the First World War on the German side but his plea of neutrality was ignored. Military reverses plunged the Turkish nation into an existential crisis. The famous triumvirate from the Committee of Union and Progress — Enver Pasha, Talaat Pasha and Jemal Pasha — were in no position to work out a comprehensive policy on the perceived Armenian allies of the Russian armies and the result was an ethnic and religious war in which the Armenians were major victims.

In the larger cities, including Istanbul, they were safe but in the far flung places, an ethnic cleansing took place. A much bigger cleansing of the Muslim subjects of the Sublime Porte from the Balkans and from Caucasus and territories around the Black Sea might well have provided justification for it.

The Armenian diaspora has always accused Talaat Pasha, the interior minister, of masterminding a planned genocide but with evidence increasingly questioned by independent historians as forgery and exaggeration. There is need to sift fact from fiction in cases such as the unravelling of the Ottoman empire, the Jewish Holocaust, the orgy of communal killing and the displacement of millions that accompanied the partition of India, the atrocities in Bosnia and the massacres in Rwanda.

The task must engage the best of unbiased minds because ethnic, religious and racist outrages also exemplify a recurring human tragedy that the world must learn to avert. The French parliament should ponder if it would help at all if an African parliament were to adopt a measure making it a crime to deny French responsibility for the Rwandan genocide.

The Turkish sensitivity about the Armenian past and the Kurdish present is well known. But it does not prevent Turkish scholars from seeking the truth about them. The taboo has been breaking down for some time. It is the controversial Turkish novelist, Orhan Pamuk, who entertained unthinkable thoughts about the Armenian tragedy. He may well be the cutting edge in the society’s moral evolution that opens up national discourse to new dimensions. It is churlish not to recognise this evolution.

In Pakistan, we should not forget that the most telling expose of the death sentence awarded to Afzal Guru by the Indian courts has come from Arundhati Roy and not from a Pakistani or one of Guru’s fellow Kashmiris.

The multifaceted impact of the current western intellectual onslaught on the world of Islam is the staple of debates in the East and West. One of its worrisome consequences is the erosion of liberal values all over the world. The freedoms that gave the West a moral edge over many other societies in Asia, Africa and Latin America are systematically being abridged. Psychosis produced by mindless Islamophobia aids and abets legislation that western parliaments would not have countenanced not long ago. The great republics of Europe are rattled by the headscarf of a Muslim teenager.

This, however, is only half the story. What Pope Benedict said, what the Danish cartoonists drew and what the French parliament deliberates weaken the liberal classes in Muslim lands. I think it was Sultan Abdul Hamid who responded to an adviser’s suggestion that Turkey should organise counter-propaganda in Europe by asking as to who would publish the Turkish version, who would read it, and even if read, who would act on it. I would not be surprised if many people in Turkey are beginning to similarly despair when faced with the bizarre prejudices used to thwart their European application.

It is almost unbelievable that a few hundred Christian evangelists, Zionists and neo-conservatives have vitiated the global movement for greater inter-state and inter-faith harmony. They have certainly succeeded in creating, by way of reaction, groups amongst us which are by no means numerous but which are vocal enough to send their own chilling message that western extremism can be countered only by greater extremism from our side.

When the French MPs put pressure on Turkey to admit its presumed Armenian guilt or when President Bush conjures up a vision of Muslim states falling like dominoes in the face of a radical Islamic empire from Morocco to Indonesia, they effectively tip the balance in the Arab-Muslim world in favour of the extremists. Secular Muslim states like Turkey and pro-West Muslim rulers are tragically caught between the Scylla of rising Muslim anger and the Charybdis of western thoughtlessness. So far, possible solutions appear to be mirages; the only reality is a relentless line of fire.

The writer is a former foreign secretary.

Email: tanvir.a.khan@gmail.com

The point of departure

CLOSE to its end, just as at its beginning and all through its execution, the occupation of Iraq has been shaped by miscalculation, haste and deceit. An ill-judged invasion fought on a misleading premise gave way to a chaotic aftermath that placed theory ahead of reality, with consequences that the world will have to endure for decades.

For a time, however, even for those who opposed the war, real hope lay in the promise of recovery, a slow imposition of order underpinned by a form of democracy that could have allowed western forces to leave Iraq gradually, and without disgrace. The case for running away was never strong while that hope remained.

Now, although they dare not say it, even the war’s architects in Washington and London know that there will be no honourable departure. They are preparing to scuttle. Military reality and political expediency are blowing away all talk of patience, reconstruction, “staying the course” and “getting the job done” — the desperate expectation that somehow, despite all the violence and disorder, a better destination would be found for Iraq. The language is still heard, more now from Tony Blair than President Bush. But it has become nothing more than passing cover for a retreat from western engagement that is already under way, a thin disguise draped over defeat.

The years ahead will provide many chances to rake over what went wrong and to challenge those responsible. This has already begun in the US, where the midterm elections are forcing the pace. But the need is not for retribution at home, but a truthful account of how things stand and an assessment of how best the country can be pulled up from the black depths into which it is plunging. There is no cure for wounds that will bleed for many years. What can be hoped for is a salvage operation. Plan for departure

The crucial point is that the American and British departure must be planned with the care and understanding that was so lamentably — some would say criminally — absent when the invasion took place. Yet this is not happening. Honest planning requires that the people who created the war admit the original vision of a liberal democracy is dead. Yet they still peddle the comfortable fantasy that British and US troops will hand over to able Iraqi forces, when these are failing from Basra to Baghdad.

The prime minister told the Commons last week that “there will be no change in the strategy of withdrawal from Iraq only happening when Iraqi forces are confident that they can handle security. To do anything else would be a complete betrayal.” He cannot really think this, unless he intends to keep Britain in Iraq indefinitely, which he does not. How does he square his statement with the British army’s confidence that its 7,200 troops in Iraq will become 3,000 or fewer even by the middle of next year and be gone within not much more than 12 months? The answer is that Mr Blair prefers the easy camouflage of handover to the painful honesty of admitting that his strategy for what follows withdrawal is a sham.

So the evasions continue. No British minister has even said unequivocally that things have gone wrong in Iraq. There has, shamefully, been no parliamentary debate or vote on the government’s action for more than two years, a position the leadership of both main parties are complicit in, neither being keen to rake over the unfolding disaster of a policy that they supported. There should be a free debate now. New policy is needed, and urgently.

The starting point must be an open assessment of the weakness of Iraq’s government and security forces. Iraq’s prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, claimed on Thursday that he could bring violence under control within six months. But of the 115,000 Iraqi troops reported by the Pentagon many are unavailable for duty in Baghdad. Some divisions are ethnically recruited and unwilling to serve outside their native region; a quarter to a third are on leave at any one time. Desertion is rife. Parallel problems exist with the 162,000 police and interior ministry forces, many more loyal to sectarian militias than the Iraqi state and the cause of the slaughter they are meant to stop.

The US’s private assessment of Iraq’s military capability must be made public. It will make disturbing reading. But as there is little prospect of adequate Iraqi forces, their weakness cannot provide justification for prolonging Britain’s presence.

—The Guardian, London

Shrinking food stocks

WE are still living off the proceeds of the Green Revolution, but that hit diminishing returns 20 years ago.

Now we live in a finely balanced situation where world food supply just about meets demand, with no reserve to cover further population growth. But the population will grow anyway, and the world’s existing grain supply for human consumption is being eroded by three different factors: meat, heat and biofuels.

For the sixth time in the past seven years, the human race will grow less food than it eats this year. We closed the gap by eating into food stocks accumulated in better times, but there is no doubt that the situation is getting serious. The world’s food stocks have shrunk by half since 1999, from a reserve big enough to feed the entire world for 116 days then to a predicted low of only 57 days by the end of this year.

That is well below the official safety level, and there is no sign that the downward trend is going to reverse. If it doesn’t, then at some point not too far down the road we reach the point of absolute food shortages, and rationing by price kicks in. In other words, grain prices soar, and the poorest start to starve.

The miracle that has fed us for a whole generation now was the Green Revolution: higher-yielding crops that enabled us to almost triple world food production between 1950 and 1990 while increasing the area of farmland by no more than ten percent. The global population more than doubled in that time, so we are now living on less than half the land per person than our grandparents needed. But that was a one-time miracle, and it’s over. Since the beginning of the 1990s, crop yields have essentially stopped rising.

The world’s population continues to grow, of course, though more slowly than in the previous generation. We will have to find food for the equivalent of another India and another China in the next fifty years, and nobody has a clue how we are going to do that. But the more immediate problem is that the world’s existing grain supply is under threat.

One reason we are getting closer to the edge is the diversion of grain for meat production. As incomes rise, so does the consumption of meat, and feeding animals for meat is a very inefficient way of using grain. It takes between eleven and seventeen calories of food (almost all grain) to produce one calorie of beef, pork or chicken, and the world’s production of meat has increased fivefold since 1950. We now get through five billion hoofed animals and fourteen billion poultry a year, and it takes slightly over a third of all our grain to feed them.

Then there’s the heat. The most visible cause of the fall in world grain production — from 2.68 billion tonnes in 2004 to 2.38 billion tonnes last year and a predicted 1.98 billion tonnes this year — is droughts, but there are strong suspicions that these droughts are related to climate change.

Moreover, beyond a certain point hotter temperatures directly reduce grain yields. Current estimates suggest that the yield of the main grain crops drops ten percent, on average, for every one degree Celsius that the mean temperature exceeds the optimum for that crop during the growing season. Which may be why the average corn yield in the US reached a record 8.4 tonnes per hectare in 1994, and has since fallen back significantly.

Finally, biofuels. The idea is elegant: the carbon dioxide absorbed when the crops are grown exactly equals the carbon dioxide released when the fuel refined from those crops is burned, so the whole process is carbon-neutral. And it would be fine if the land used to grow this biomass was land that had no alternative use, but that is rarely the case.

In South-East Asia, the main source of biofuels is oil palms, which are mostly grown on cleared rainforest. In the United States, a “corn rush” has been unleashed by government subsidies for ethanol, and so many ethanol plants are planned or already in existence in Iowa that they could absorb the state’s entire crop of corn (maize, mealies). In effect, food is being turned into fuel — and the amount of ethanol needed to fill a big four-wheel-drive SUV just once uses enough grain to feed one person for an entire year.

There is a hidden buffer in the system, in the sense that some of the grain now fed to animals could be diverted to feed people directly in an emergency. On the other hand, the downward trend in grain production will only accelerate if it is directly related to global warming. And the fashion for biofuels is making a bad situation worse.—Copyright

Fair elections are the only answer

WITH just a little over 11 months to the next general elections, the question of who is most likely to be the person to pull the strings that will make the marionettes dance, has certainly excited the public imagination.

The position regarding possible alliances will become clearer in the next few months, now that news of a possible collusion between the PPP and the military strongman have surfaced. But unless there is a dramatic turn of events which measures at least five points on the Richter scale, it does look as if it is going to be business as usual and the nation will have to suffer another bout of inane supervision at the hands of the Muslim League government and its allies.

The news about secret talks between representatives of the military establishment and Ms Benazir Bhutto, which certain PPP spokesmen have affirmed while others have taken pains to deny, must have nevertheless sent shock waves through the rightwing alliance and given both Mr Shaukat Aziz and Chaudhry Shujaat a few sleepless nights. For even the most dim witted in the League camp must have interpreted the move as not only the disenchantment of the president with the performance of the present government, but also that a change in guard might enable the military strongman to shed some of his growing unpopularity.

But in spite of what critics see as some adroit manoeuvring on the part of the military chief, Mr Shaukat Aziz has remained unfazed. With a straight face, he pointed out in a recent press conference that his government has performed exceptionally well and that the King’s League will not only contest the next general election but will achieve another resounding electoral victory.

He said this in spite of the fact that 50 per cent of the nation’s population continue to be subjected to the most appalling indignities because of the reluctance of a group of retrogressive legislators to remove those edicts from the statute book that militate against the rights of women, and the fact that the class system that they perpetuate is corrosive and divisive and has done nothing for the poor.

The Downers, the lumpen mass, whose cultural impoverishment blots out any modest material improvement that might have been made, are as badly off as they have always been. One must also not forget that his government, ever since it was installed, hasn’t added a single watt of electricity to turn the nation’s turbines — which does make some of the claims being trumpeted by the Muslim League think tank sound improbable and hollow.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the other fence, the two leaders in exile appear to have buried the hatchet and have agreed to work in tandem to restore democracy in the country. They started off by crafting a Charter of Democracy earlier in the year which was well received by liberal elements in the country, and followed this up with another significant meeting in which Mr Nawaz Sharif expressed his willingness to play second fiddle to Ms Bhutto — and saw himself as occupying the position of president.

Though there was a lot of rhetoric and the usual aphorisms about rights and obligations imposed for glossy relief, the message which finally emerged was nevertheless loud and clear. The military should go back to the barracks and the next election should be fair and transparent.

What this means in common parlance is that the election to be fair, will have to be conducted by a neutral caretaker government and an independent, neutral election commission that has no axe to grind and carries out its duties without having to execute a pre-arranged agenda; in fact, the sort of electoral machinery that existed under Yahya Khan when the country had the only fair and free election in its history. It would help if there were observers from another country — just to make sure that over zealous officials don’t fiddle with the ballot boxes with their customary grizzly zeal.

The installation of an independent election commission with foreign observers would be meaningless unless the leaders of the two mainstream political parties were allowed to return to their homeland to lead their respective election campaigns. But even without their physical presence in the country, the disenchantment of the population with the policies of the present government is bound to be witnessed at the polls. Voters are already caught up in the revolution of rising expectations, and the tide of government has, for some time, been at its lowest ebb.

Even without the presence of Mr Sharif and Ms Bhutto there are bound to be quite a few defections from the King’s League to other parties. The PPP is likely to emerge a little stronger, especially in the Punjab; the ANP in the Frontier would get a marginal boost and the strength of the MMA would probably be reduced by more than half.

The election commission will also have to exercise a little more care when doling out election symbols. The last time round the MMA asked for and was awarded the book — an emblem which the unwary took to be the Holy Book. The gullible in the Frontier and Balochistan were given to understand that by rejecting the book they were, in fact, rejecting Islam. This gave them a decisive advantage over other parties and catapulted them into third place in the electoral rolls. President Musharraf also helped. The establishment was so determined to keep out Mr Sharif and Ms Bhutto from the political arena; they left the field wide open for the holy warriors.

In spite of the oft repeated hypothesis about there being collusion between the military and the men of the cloth, one wonders if the president, in one of his more reflective moods, has rued the way his administration made it possible for the MMA to achieve such an astounding victory in the past, especially when in previous elections they couldn’t even scrounge a single seat.

Whatever his motives might have been at the time, the MMA, which continues to adopt the posture of an opposition party, is currently hanging like a millstone around his neck. The party has been in the forefront of the anti-Bush lobby by placing the epicentre of the agitation in the Frontier, and has been the most vocal in the campaign over the president’s persistence in continuing to wear two hats.

The London meeting was important and significant, though Mr Nawaz Sharif couldn’t possibly have been quite as enthusiastic as Ms Bhutto about negotiating with the enemy. To start with, President Musharraf has nothing personal against the chairperson of the PPP and sees her as being acceptable to the West. As it is most of the cases registered against the Daughter of the East were instigated during the time when Mr Sharif’s faction of the Muslim League held the reins of government. But Mr Sharif is altogether a different kettle of fish. In his case, it is personal.

It is now widely believed that even if the government allows the two exiled leaders to return before the elections, they will not be allowed to contest the elections. This would, indeed, be a pity.

One can still smell the candles and the waxy odour of sanctity that permeated that historic meeting in London. But all those exhortations to bring back democracy and to put things right will become exercises in sheer futility if the King’s League persists in its plan to get the assemblies to re-elect President Musharraf for another five-year term.

It would not only be a sad day for democracy but for the country, and would destroy forever any hopes that the voters might have nurtured that the electoral process would usher in a return to genuine democracy.