TWO significant lessons have been burnt into the people’s consciousness since Bloody Saturday (May 12, 2007): first, that anarchy in the land has entered an advanced stage, and, secondly, that the regime’s ability to prevent its friends and defenders abroad from speaking aloud about its vulnerability and lack of legitimacy has nearly been exhausted. Both of these lessons portend a grave situation ahead.

Usually, anarchy is described as a state of disorder as evident in a rise in crime, spread of lawlessness and a weakening of the state’s writ. This is the lowest form of anarchy in which non-state actors rule the roost. The state’s culpability in such situations is limited to failure to enforce order and its desire to control lawlessness is not necessarily questioned. This form of anarchy has been in evidence in Pakistan for quite some time. Now the country has moved into a deadlier version of anarchy---the state’s adoption of a policy of protecting those who are guilty of lawlessness and punishing the others for doing, or attempting, what is lawful.

The wanton killing of many innocent citizens and destruction of sizable property in the country’s metropolis was bad enough; what is much worse is General Musharraf’s denial of the state’s responsibility to go for all those who plotted and carried out the Karachi bloodbath. This is anarchy of a very high grade. By ruling out a probe into the events of May 12 the head of state has indicted himself of not only condoning what is unlawful but also contributing to its recurrence. One should be able to read in this policy a blueprint for state-sponsored anarchy.

What, after all, was the issue in Karachi on May 12? The Chief Justice had an appointment at the Sindh High Court--- a wholly lawful objective. Some elements in the provincial government, and some formally outside it, conspired to prevent the Chief Justice from carrying out a lawful activity by conducting a series of unlawful acts, beginning with the putting up of insurmountable roadblocks in his path.

In this case neither the federation’s de facto chief executive nor his surrogates in Sindh cared to show any respect for Article 4 of the Constitution, which lays down, in completely unambiguous terms, that “no person shall be prevented from or be hindered in doing that which is not prohibited by law; and no person shall be required to do that which the law does not require him to do”. (Although constitutional provisions have lost their meaning one persists in the bad habit of referring to them for some possible benefit to those who keep swearing day in and day out that all their actions are in accordance with the basic law.)

Now, all states sometimes indulge in unlawful activity of one kind or another. States that do so rarely, in cases touching on widely accepted state interests, are considered mature authorities, and states are branded imperfect or unstable if they frequently resort to unlawful acts and that too for petty ends. Also relevant is the question whether a state is discreet and takes steps to ensure that it cannot easily be blamed for its unlawful actions or whether its custodians do not shy of bragging about their unlawful adventures. That Pakistan falls in the latter category cannot easily the denied.The trouble is that if anarchy is preferred to law by the top echelon of a state its factotums down the line get quickly infected. Several recent instances can be quoted.

The Sindh government deemed it prudent to bar Imran Khan’s entry into their ‘peaceful’ domain. The Punjab government, despite its antipathy towards anybody associated with MQM, obliged by prohibiting him from moving outside Lahore for three days, and further confirmed its aversion to reason by saying that it had merely endorsed the Sindh government’s action. Apart from the fact that one had not heard of this form of internment for quite some time, the Punjab government’s ridiculous order meant that since Imran Khan’s presence in Karachi or Hyderabad was likely to endanger peace he could not go to Rawalpindi or Sheikhupura!

It is perhaps time the administration’s practice of curtailing citizens’ rights in the interest of public peace was properly scrutinised. What happens in such cases is that somebody is stopped from doing what is lawful because somebody else has threatened to disrupt peace and tranquility. Through perverse logic the former is denied his right on the ground that the administration cannot, or is unwilling to, deal with the latter’s defiance of law. Thus, criminals are appeased and innocents penalised. Unless ways are found to put an end to such blatant abuse of law, many more citizens will be made to suffer unjustifiable curbs on their fundamental rights to freedom of movement and assembly.

A glaring example of the devastation caused by the topmost authority’s disregard for law is the arrest and humiliation of Salimullah Khan, DIG police (under suspension). His crime: he took up the case of the abduction of women and children related to Munno Bheel, a hari who had dared to break the shackles of slavery, and persisted in his mission under the Supreme Court’s orders. This is a classic example of anarchy under state patronage — shielding the guilty by punishing the investigator/prosecutor. Unfortunately, the incident is not without precedents.

One may recall the arrest of Mr. Mobin, a senior CBR official, in Lahore some years ago while he was on his way to an industrial establishment to investigate a serious complaint of tax evasion. The police team that arrested him was resourceful enough to ‘recover’ some contraband from his possession. The Lahore High Court did come to his rescue but only after he and his family had suffered severe hardships, harassment and indignities for many months.

The whole country was taken aback when an SHO dismissed the Karachi lawyers’ FIR that had been registered under court orders. But this was nothing as compared to the Sindh Chief Minister’s fulmination against the Sindh High Court. Having taken suo motu notice of certain events on May 12, the court had summoned some senior officials. The provincial Chief Minister says he will decide whether he will allow these officials to respect the court summons. A slanderous defiance of the superior judiciary of this kind has no precedent in the subcontinent. It also indicates the extent of havoc state-sponsored anarchy can cause.

A particularly dangerous side-effect of state-sponsored anarchy is that the custodians of power become more and more self-righteous and stubbornly defend what is absolutely indefensible in the eyes of both experts and laypersons. They become immune to friendly advice even. This too is happening in Pakistan.

The Foreign Office took umbrage at a remark by the British High Commissioner about his or his government’s hope that President Musharraf will shed his COAS uniform by the end of the year. This “interference in Pakistan’s internal affairs” was strongly deprecated and an explanation called for. The reply that the High Commissioner was only reiterating the Commonwealth’s position on the subject seems to have sufficiently chastened the regime.

It chose to keep mum when the Canadian High Commissioner said the same thing and former Speaker Yusuf Raza Gillani asserted that Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz was a party to the Commonwealth decision. What Islamabad cannot see is that its external friends are almost unanimously suggesting to it ways of avoiding the uncontrollable chaos its intolerance of reason and justice is leading to.

The outside world’s anxieties over Islamabad’s refusal to accept democratic escape routes have been summed up in the report of the (U.S) National Democratic Institute’s pre-election delegation that visited Pakistan earlier in the month. It said: “If the upcoming elections meet international standards and have the confidence of the people of Pakistan, they can provide the basis for returning power to civilian hands and the newly elected government can negotiate the proper role of military in the nation’s life. If the elections are tainted, they could lead to the strengthening of extremist elements, which can fill the void left by the marginalisation of the more moderate parties. Such elections could also further consolidate the role of the military in governing the nation.”

The delegation added:

“Two issues cast a shadow on the upcoming elections: the president’s status as army chief and his intention to seek re-election under the current legislative assemblies…. Serving in both roles (as president and COAS) undermines the fundamental premise of a democratic society that the military should operate under civilian control. This delegation believes that if Pakistan is to return to a democratic path, its political leadership must be civilian and the military returned to its role of defending the nation…….President Musharraf’s dual status as president and army chief and a decision to hold the presidential election by the current assemblies are likely to further erode public confidence in the upcoming legislative elections.” (Emphasis added.)

There is nothing in this report that the common Pakistani citizen does not know or what democratic sections have not pointed out for years. Now General Musharraf’s principal supporters are telling him that the system he is presiding over is not democratic, that Pakistan must now make a transition to civilian democratic rule, that resistance to this advice will strengthen the forces the general claims to be fighting and that the country faces the danger of relapsing into direct military rule.

What they are saying in effect is that a free and fair election offers not only General Musharraf but the military as a whole a workable exit strategy. In other words, the only alternative to a totally destructive anarchy is fair elections and the military’s return to its defence posts. A complete reversal of the course the regime is at present following alone will indicate its absolute controller’s capacity to heed nation-saving advice while there is still time.

MOTORISED transport is a form of time travel. We mine the compressed time of other eras - the infinitesimal rain of plankton on the ocean floor, the settlement of trees in anoxic swamps - and use it to accelerate through our own. Every tank of fuel contains thousands of years of accretions. Our future depends on the expectation that the past will never be exhausted.

The energy white paper Britain published last week talks of new taxes, new markets, new research, new incentives. Anyone reading the chapter on transport would be forgiven for believing that the government has the problem under control: as a result of its measures, we are likely to see a great reduction in our use of geological time. Buried in another chapter, however, and so far missed by all journalists, there is a remarkable admission: "The majority (66 per cent) of UK oil demand is derived from demand for transport fuels which is expected to increase modestly over the medium term." To increase? If the government is implementing all the exciting measures the transport chapter contains, how on earth could our use of fuel increase?

You won't find the answer in the white paper. It mysteriously forgets to mention that the government intends to build another 2,500 miles of trunk roads and to double the capacity of our airports by 2030.

Partly to permit this growth in transport, another white paper, also published last week, proposes a massive deregulation of planning law.

There is no discussion in either paper of the implications of these programmes for energy use or climate change. There are plainly two governments of the United Kingdom, one determined to reduce our consumption of fossil fuel, the other determined to raise it.

What happens beyond the medium term is anyone's guess. But it should be pretty obvious that more roads and more airports will mean that our rising use of transport fuel becomes hardwired - the future health of the economy will depend on it. So the government must have examined this question. If our economic lives depend on continued growth in the consumption of transport fuels, it must first have determined that such growth is possible. Mustn't it?

Last week I phoned four government departments - trade and industry, transport, environment, communities and local government - in the hope of finding this assessment. But it does not exist. No report has ever been commissioned by the British government on the issue of whether or not there is enough oil to sustain its transport programme.

Instead, both the white paper and the civil servants I spoke to referred me to a book published by the International Energy Agency, set up by the OECD after the 1974 oil crisis. This in itself is odd. On every other issue that might affect the UK's security or economic growth, the government conducts its own assessments.

But in this case it relies exclusively on one external source. This reliance seems even odder when you read the IEA's book and discover that it's as polemical as my columns. Before it presents any evidence, the book dismisses people who have questioned future oil supplies as "doomsayers".

It announces that it has "long maintained that none of this [the possibility that oil supplies might be reaching a peak] is a cause for concern". Though it expects the global demand for oil to rise by 70% between now and 2030, and though it anticipates that output from the world's existing oilfields will decline by about 5% a year, it is confident that new supplies will make up the difference.

It bases this assessment on the finding that "the level of remaining reserves of oil has been remarkably constant historically, in spite of the volumes extracted each successive year". As the IEA must know as well as anyone else, this is partly because the level has been forged by members of Opec, the oil producers' cartel.

The quota assigned to a member of Opec reflects the size of its reserves. All members have a powerful interest in exaggerating their reserves in order to boost their quotas. The IEA admits in another report that Saudi Arabia has posted a constant level of reserves (260bn barrels) over the past 15 years, despite the fact that it has produced over 100bn barrels in the same period. Where has the magic oil come from?

But it is the liars of Opec on whom the agency's optimism relies. The growth in global demand will be met, it says, by a 150 per cent increase in oil production from the Middle East by 2030. What if this oil doesn't materialise? It is a question the IEA raises then rapidly drops. "Because of the uncertainties over the respective amounts of resources and reserves, it is difficult to predict the moment of peak oil, when production might be expected to start to decline. Estimates range from today to 2050 or beyond." Isn't that reassuring?

I should point out that peak oil is not like climate change. There is no consensus among scientists about when it is likely to happen. I cannot state with confidence that the IEA's assessment is wrong. But a report published in February by the US department of energy shows how dangerous it is to rely on a single source. "Almost all forecasts are based on differing, often dramatically differing geological assumptions ... Because of the large uncertainties, it is difficult to define an overriding geological basis for accepting or rejecting any of the forecasts."

The report then publishes a long list of estimates by senior figures in and around the oil industry of a possible date for peak oil. They vary greatly, but many are clustered between 2010 and 2020.

Another report, also commissioned by the US department of energy, shows that "without timely mitigation, the economic, social, and political costs will be unprecedented". The disasters invoked by the peaking of global oil supplies can be avoided only with a "crash programme" beginning 20 years before it occurs. If some of the estimates in the department of energy's report are correct, it is already too late.

The IEA believes that this crisis will be averted by opening new fields and using non-conventional oil.

But these cause environmental disasters of their own. Around half the new discoveries the agency expects during the next 25 years will take place in the Arctic or in the very deep sea, between 2,000 and 4,000 metres. In either case, a major oil spill, in such slow and fragile ecosystems, would be catastrophic.

Mining non-conventional oil, such as the tar sands in Canada or the kerogen shales in the US, produces far more carbon dioxide than drilling for ordinary petroleum. It also uses and pollutes great volumes of fresh water and wrecks thousands of acres of pristine land.

"In the long-term future," the IEA says, "non-conventional, heavy oils may well become the norm rather than the exception." If our future growth relies on these resources, we commit ourselves to ever-growing environmental impacts.

We don't need to invoke peak oil to produce an argument for cutting our use of transport fuel. But you might have imagined that the government would have shown just a little curiosity about whether or not its transport programme will bring the economy crashing down.

––The Guardian, London

PAKISTAN may have been created in accordance with the principles of democracy, but it is regrettable that since it became an independent state in 1947, it has been ruled by either members of the feudal elite or army generals. These regimes have been authoritarian in one way or another. Their disregard for democracy is considered legendary.

These regimes invariably sought to concentrate on strengthening their power and even used suppressive tactics to this end. The way that self-serving rulers treated the people of the country has been utterly ruthless and reminiscent of a colonial mentality. In such a situation, where successive regimes in the country were able to exercise their authority it was devoid of moral force and hence they could not enjoy popular public support.

The result of this unsavoury situation has been that the people, who have been thoroughly disillusioned with the governments in power, adopted a complacent attitude towards politics. However, now a change in their attitude is discernible and the educated middle class, in particular, now appears keen to take part in the country’s politics. Evidently, after suffering at the hands of highly oligarchic regimes during the last 60 years, the people are no longer prepared to forego their right to managing the country’s affairs.

The time has come when rulers in Pakistan, who for decades have remained overly relaxed about the people’s sensitivity to the denial of their legitimate rights also need to change their attitude. They must read the writing on the wall and, sooner than later, realise the fact that the future of Pakistan and its people hinges on democracy. They must also realise that a tiny ruling class cannot hold down indefinitely a population many times bigger its size.

It is indeed heartening that the people, fuelled by the need to vent their anger and frustration against successive totalitarian regimes and their callous attitude, want to set the country on the road to democracy. It would not, however, be easy to attain this goal in the face of likely opposition to the same by the vested interests that want to maintain the status quo.

Moreover, experience has shown that the evocation of political aspirations by the people in the absence of a strong-willed and principled leadership gets them nowhere. Unfortunately, in Pakistan, notwithstanding the claim made by every political party that its ultimate aim is to establish genuine democracy in the country, instances are not lacking of prominent political leaders, motivated by personal gain and self-aggrandisement, openly pleading with the military to play a permanent role in the governance of the country. Needless to say, this is an illogical and impracticable suggestion that can only result in the sterility of the government for all times to come.

Pakistan is now at a crucial turning point of its history. The grave political situation that now exists is hurting economic development as a result of which economic pressure all over the country has reached a crisis point affecting particularly the poor segments of society.

The simmering disaffection in Balochistan, the NWFP and the tribal areas has undermined national unity and cohesion. Religious extremism and political terrorism have reached new heights. The law and order situation in the country has assumed epic proportions. The ongoing judicial crisis has aggravated the situation further.

For many years, there have been serious problems between the government and the opposition parties in the country. The prospect of democracy in the country that is linked with true stability in politics remained bleak owing to continued government-opposition confrontation and also led the nation into troubled periods all these years.

A harmonious relationship between the government and the opposition parties is the essence of democracy and vital to promote national interests. It is reasonable to assume that in spite of a legacy of mutual mistrust the two sides can find an amicable solution of contentious issues.Polarisation that unfortunately persists among various political parties in Pakistan is an additional impediment to the development of a democratic culture in the country. Sometimes even ill will that develops between these parties makes matters worse and causes damage to the political fabric.

Estrangement between the political parties is not always attributable to their different perceptions on vital national issues. These are generally related to the promotion of narrow party interests or to the desire to satisfy the caprice of leaders. In a country where the relationship between the government and the opposition parties remains tense, mutual recrimination among political parties is neither desirable nor conducive to strengthening democracy.

It is a historical fact that virtually all the countries that now have a democratic system were able to install one through peaceful evolution without recourse to hostility and violence. The people of Pakistan who have a pronounced interest in promoting the cause of democracy in the country should also follow suit and act in a mature manner, even if their efforts in this direction are countered by those who want the status quo to remain. There is every reason to hope that their perseverance and democratic rectitude will pay off eventually.

The writer is a former ambassador.