Despair and ferment

IN Pakistan today, we are preoccupied, as indeed we should be, with the deepening of our own domestic political crisis and the newly amended Pemra ordinance. We despair over the government’s apparent helplessness as Jamia Hafsa vigilantes extend the scope of their activities to the nurses hostel in the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences in Islamabad and as Talibanisation of settled districts in the NWFP proceeds apace.

We watch with horror as suicide bombings and the destruction of rail tracks and gas pipelines become daily occurrences in Balochistan and the Frontier and threaten to become part of the scene in the other two provinces.

We may take heart from the leadership role civil society has taken in the judicial crisis and interpret this as pointing to a denouement bringing a democratic dispensation, strengthening liberal forces and leading to the weakening if not elimination of extremist forces.

We may entertain a further hope that sectarian strife, a corollary of extremism, will also cease to trouble our body politic, and that the sectarian harmony and tolerance that had characterised the practice of Islam in South Asia will return. Is this likely to happen or is the advance of extremism inexorable?

There is no doubt that the forces of extremism, which until 1977 had little more than nuisance value and no genuine political clout, have gained traction largely because of official patronage. Such patronage was justified on the ground that religious fervour, nay religious fanaticism, was needed to nurture volunteers for pursuing the war against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.

Such patronage continued to be extended after the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan because of the foolish notion that Pakistan’s interests in Afghanistan, including the nonsensical concept of “strategic depth”, could only be protected if there was a compliant Mujahideen, and later a compliant Taliban, regime in Afghanistan.

The truth is that Afghanistan and even the “Kashmiri jihad” were only secondary objectives. The first and foremost was regime perpetuation and later, when there was a democratic dispensation of sorts, the ability to use the extremists to exercise control even while political power ostensibly vested in the people’s representatives.

Internal dynamics alone, however, were not responsible for the growth of extremism. Huge sums of money and proselytising activities on a large scale by the Arabs and Iranians were permitted by the military government of the day to convert Pakistan into the secondary battlefield for the Iran-Iraq war and to give rise to sectarian strife. This was an add-on to the huge amount of funds expended by the intelligence agencies of Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United States to finance the madressahs run by religious parties to produce recruits for the Afghan war.

All sombre warnings about what sort of role these “freedom fighters” would play in Pakistan’s body politic after their successful foray into Afghanistan and their subsequent unsuccessful efforts in Kashmir were ignored not only by the military regimes but also by civilian administrations.

One civilian prime minister of limited intelligence and limitless ambitions entertained illusions of being the Fateh Kashmir, somehow convincing himself that Pakistan had on its own defeated a superpower in Afghanistan and could repeat the performance against a much weaker Indian resistance in occupied Kashmir.

There is no doubt that these two factors more than anything else fostered the growth of extremism, but one cannot ignore the injustices visited upon Muslims in other parts of the world, particularly in Palestine. For Pakistanis, solidarity with the Muslim world has been almost an article of faith, at least in public pronouncements.

We have grown up with the notion that the first major cause for which the Muslims of India had united in the 20th century was that of the Khilafat in Turkey. Our first foreign policy success was the role we played in securing independence for the Maghreb countries.

There is also no doubt that many rich Middle Eastern devotees of the faith saw in Pakistan’s poverty-stricken millions the Mujahids whom they could, with the aid of proselytising and money, persuade to wage the battle to rectify the wrongs done to the Muslims. It was this financing that put Pakistani volunteers in Bosnia, Chechnya and the Philippines and now possibly in Somalia.

It is this third factor that will continue to be an important part of the arsenal of religious parties as they try and hold on to the influence they have gained in Pakistan.

What do we see as we look around the Muslim world?

This column marks, almost to the day the 40th anniversary of the 1967 Israeli attack on Arab armed forces and the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, the Golan Heights and the Sinai. A few days after the Israeli victory, the Israeli hero of the day, Moshe Dayan, was telling reporters that Israel would soon startle the world again by demonstrating that it was not interested in territorial aggrandisement and, in a spirit of victorious magnanimity, would return all the occupied territories.

This of course has not happened. The Sinai has been returned to Egypt but only at the cost of Egypt’s commitment to normalising relations and to more or less removing itself as an adversary from the Arab-Israel equation. It is a fact that 145 Israeli settlements inhabited by about 145,000 Israelis dot the West Bank landscape while another 185,000 Israelis have moved into Arab East Jerusalem.

An imposing, solid 420-mile long, 200-foot wide and in some sections a 28-foot high wall has now been built to give permanence to the occupation of vast swathes of the West Bank and to separate the Jews and Palestinians. In the meanwhile, the roadmap for a comprehensive settlement remains a dead letter and the Palestinians seem intent on fighting each other, creating the ambience in which extremism is now flourishing.

The Golan Heights remain occupied. Bashar-al Assad has used this to quell public discontent and to maintain his hold on power to which he has sought to lend legitimacy through a referendum which borrowed from the example of Pakistan. His efforts at controlling extremism have been eroded both by his undemocratic behaviour and the uncontrollable flow through his country of Arab volunteers for the jihad against the Americans in Iraq.

Ruling a predominantly Sunni population, he maintains a queasy relationship with Shia Iran, never being sure that his interests in Lebanon coincide with those of his ally even though the main Shia parties, Hezbollah and Amal, appear to be in his corner.Beirut’s political crisis, exacerbated by the UN decision to establish a tribunal to investigate the killing of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, is dwarfed, in terms of the potential for a future disaster, by Lebanese army attacks on Palestinian refugee camps in the north and by strife spreading to camps in the south. According to western press reports, in both areas Islamist groups, reinforced by fighters coming from Iraq, have become the dominant force and are putting up a fierce resistance to the army’s onslaught.

Ostensibly, this is a Lebanese effort to reassert sovereignty over their own land and to ensure that the Palestinians remain temporary refuge seekers. The fighters, however, are Sunni Palestinians and in this charged atmosphere they may gain the sympathy of Lebanese Sunnis and exacerbate the Sunni-Shia divide. It is significant that the admiration the Hezbollah won for humiliating the Israelis appears to be waning particularly in the Sunni areas.

In Somalia, the US-backed Ethiopian army has managed to bring the transitional government to the capital Mogadishu but initial success has been followed by increasingly violent clashes in Mogadishu and other parts of the country. The clashes may have their origin in clan rivalries but the net effect has been a growth in the appeal of the Islamic Courts, who, for a relatively short period, brought peace to much of Somalia.

Whether or not the extreme faction of the Islamic Courts brought this disaster upon itself and Somalia is at this time a moot point. What is important is that in the current situation the Somalis will move further down the path towards extremism.

In Yemen, there has been a fresh outbreak of fighting between the central authority of this largely Sunni country and the Zaydi Shia minority in Saada province. The fight may be largely owing to the struggle of this minority to regain the autonomy they enjoyed before they were suppressed in 1962.

The Yemeni authorities, however, claim that Iran — which follows a different interpretation of Shia Islam — has been instrumental in fomenting the rebellion in which hundreds of people have died and thousands made refugees since January. In the present ambience this too will exacerbate the Shia-Sunni divide throughout the Muslim world, even though Iran’s claim that it is not responsible could be true.

In Thailand, the injustices done to the Muslims in the south have fostered an insurgency. The effect of this will be aggravated by the current political crisis and the ineptitude of the military junta now ruling the country behind the façade of a civilian government. There, too, extremism will flourish and draw upon the sympathies not only of the Abu Sayaf group in the Philippines but also co-religionists in Malaysia, despite efforts of government officials to the contrary.

It is perhaps a sign of the times that in Malaysia a Muslim woman’s plea for recognition of her conversion from Islam to Christianity has been rejected by the Malaysian supreme court on the ground that this was a matter that could only be decided by the Malaysian Sharia court.

It is of course a foregone conclusion that the Sharia court will reject her application since few if any Muslim scholars believe that Islam permits such a change of faith. Will there now be a move of declaring such apostasy as punishable offence?

This survey of the Muslim world has omitted those countries that are most relevant from the world’s, particularly Pakistan’s, perspective where the growth of extremism and sectarianism is concerned. The situation in Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran and its immediate and medium-term impact on Pakistan and its politics will be the subject of my next article.

The writer is a former foreign secretary.

How will historians see May 12?

AS PAKISTAN goes through a grave political and constitutional crisis, it increasingly becomes clear that we have learnt nothing from history, to borrow the title of Air Marshal (retd) Asghar Khan’s book. But how can we, when students are no longer taught history as a subject in our schools? You do not learn a lesson from something you are not even aware of.

Talking to a young and intelligent young lady, I was shocked when she said she did not know very much about what happened under Ziaul Haq because she was a child then. Later, she had not been required to study the history of that period.

When seen against this backdrop, it was a pleasure to see and read Dr Mubarak Ali’s recently published book (in three volumes) Tehzeeb ki Kahani (The Story of Civilisation) which so lucidly brings out the importance of recording and reading history.

Dr Mubarak Ali, who taught history for 26 years at the University of Sindh and is the author of countless history books in Urdu and English, has waged a tireless lifelong battle in support of historiography – not just any history but an authentic and impartial version of history that focuses on the people and not the rulers/decision makers. This school of historiography known as subaltern studies was launched in India in the eighties and, in the words of a researcher, sought to rewrite history “outside the historically dominant frameworks, first of colonialism and, later, of élite nationalism”.

Tehzeeb ki Kahani is significant from two points of view. First, the author explains the implications of writing history, how and why it is given a twist and why the focus of history varies in keeping with the conditions in which it is written. Secondly, the book has been written in simple Urdu for young readers. Its readership is expected to be from the masses who speak and understand Urdu better than English, which has emerged as the language of the elite.

Although many of our writers consider it to be below their dignity to write for children, it is commendable that one of the leading historians of the country should have thought it worth his salt to write for young readers to communicate to them eruditely his knowledge of history.

It hardly needs to be emphasised that what is taught to children when they are at an impressionable age creates a greater impact. The lessons they learn then stay with them for life. Older readers would also benefit from these three volumes, which might appear to be too simple to them but on deeper consideration would provide them food for serious thought.

In a few short paragraphs, Dr Mubarak Ali sums up the benefits a nation derives from a study of history. According to him, history makes people aware of the process of change, helps them understand the constant struggle between the old and the new and facilitates the acceptance of change which is essential for progress. If they have rejected change, history gives them a realisation of their backwardness. It gives people a sense of identity and pride in their legacy.

Conversely, we can deduce that people who have no knowledge of their history resist change, do not make progress and do not realise how backward they are and have no sense of identity or belonging especially vis-à-vis their culture and social values. That speaks volumes about what has gone wrong in Pakistan.

Admittedly, Pakistan’s history is not missing altogether from the archives and textbooks, even though it is not taken seriously. As Dr Mubarak Ali points out, sometimes history is selectively written to please the masters who order its compilation. At this point of time, one wonders how the history of the events of today will be portrayed.

As Eric Hobsbawm, the British Marxist historian, observes that “one can write (and must) write about a period known only from outside, at second- or third-hand, from sources of the period and the works of later historians.” He emphasises that the historian should not have accumulated views and prejudices about events as a contemporary rather than a scholar. Hence what we write today will become the source material for the historian of tomorrow.

Will the historian of tomorrow discover in the sensationally loud and exciting reports on the confrontation triggered by the judicial crisis the quiet steps that have been taken towards peace? His will not be an easy task because the mass of matter generated by new communication technologies of today have contributed to the information explosion. I wonder how he will view the Women’s Peace Initiative that was launched on June 2 to begin the process of the healing of the wounds of May 12 when catastrophe engulfed Karachi. Coming from women, will he dismiss it as a matter of insignificance?

Will the historian write about the 48 people who were killed in cold blood on the three fateful days of May 2007 when hell broke loose in the city or will he focus on the judicial crisis, the president and his allies, and those who are challenging his power?

Our historian will have to belong to the subaltern school of studies to write about Saeeda, the veiled woman, who came to the peace initiative to recall in tearful tones the sad tale of her brother, Sakhi Rahman, who was returning home from work when a gang of youth surrounded him and shot him in cold blood. Later, she identified her dead brother in the hospital morgue.

Will the historian of tomorrow write about the boys whose lives were cut short in their prime when they innocently walked into the valley of death unaware of the danger that lurked on Sharea Faisal where they ventured out unarmed to join the rally to greet the chief justice at the airport?

Will history record the burning of Karachi on May 12? The emotions of Karachiites were captured at the peace initiative by Sheema Kermani, whose choreography and recitations never fail to enthrall. She recited Pablo Neruda’s poem on the Spanish civil war, translated into Urdu by Fehmida Riaz. Will these words go down in the history books as a description of Karachi, the city we love?

(And one morning all that was burning

And from then on blood.)

Retributive justice

I DO not know if the Karachi shopkeeper who featured in a news item some time ago was acquainted with the word “retributive.” But if he was not, he certainly got introduced to it, and with telling effect. But this was the police way, and those who are fastidious in matters of etymology may not agree that the word was really applicable to the situation.

Retribution in this case lay in the fact that this shopkeeper, who sells shoes, was given a shoe-beating by the police for not obliging a thanedar who wanted a pair without paying for it. The shopkeeper was thus hoisted with his own petard (as the idiom says) because his own shoes were used to administer the punishment.

But witness the difference between a greedy trader and a magnanimous police officer. While the shopkeeper demurred and was reluctant to part with his goods free of cost, the thanedar charged him nothing for giving him the shoe-beating.

Our police is really good in making people realise their mistakes. Its standing advice to the public is to settle disputes among themselves and not to bother the law. The sanctity of the law must be respected. And if they insist on calling in the law then they should not grudge paying something to its minions. It is as simple as that.

There is really no cause for the usual petition to the Inspector General of Police afterwards that the police party which came to investigate a burglary, ate up the family’s monthly stock of meat and chickens. The burgled goods, or others similar to them, may be recovered if the proper strings have been pulled, but how to recover ten kilos of meat and twenty chickens? Not even the IGP can do that.

The police knows that it is blamed day and night by the public for alleged excesses and discourtesy and sheer cussedness. Looking at it from the police point of view, it is no fun living in a society that reviles you. The plight of the policeman in this respect is pitiable. Were it not for certain perks and compensations, policemen would go mad or live constantly on tranquilisers.

The main compensation is the opportunity to get the tension out of their systems by hurling choice abuses and a few well-aimed kicks at the unwary citizen who comes to the police station with a grievance. Apart from keeping the station staff alert, this cures the tendency among people to file too many complaints. It also teaches people respect for the law.

Take the case of this Karachi shoes merchant. After his experience of getting the feel of his own shoes on parts of the body where they hurt most, he is not likely ever again to show lack of respect to agents of the law. Rather unwisely he had brought the matter to the notice of the higher authorities, but it is quite possible that he has already started sending a pair of shoes every month to the very thanedar who gave him the shoe-beating and deprived him of 6,000 rupees.

Meantime, his application to the higher authorities would get automatically disposed of when the families of these authorities start patronising his shop in quest of (free) shoes.

Retributive justice, as practised by the police, takes many forms. Some time ago a young man and a young woman of Hafizabad, legally adults and entitled to exercise their free will, wanted to get married. They ran away from home and thought it prudent to take refuge with the police. They were provided refuge – the boy in the lock-up and the girl in the thanedar’s quarter. The lesson for the youthful lovers was that more than one can play at the same game.

Why is it that retribution never overtakes policemen? Even fate conspires in their favour. For instance, have you ever heard of the house of a police officer being burgled? Or a pickpocket trying his dexterous fingers on a fat thanedar’s purse? Or even a motorcycle carrying a policeman being hit by a speeding car? Such things simply do not happen.

Sometimes though retribution does come in the form of police officers with crazy modern ideas about what the police force should be like. These officers take them into their heads to castigate the poor subordinate who is doing his best to keep the conduct of the policeman in line with the expectations of people.

Look at what happened in the Kalurkot Police Station in Sargodha district some years ago. The entire staff of the thana was supended by the DIG concerned. For what? indiscipline? Thrashing a citizen who came to file an FIR? Harbouring criminals? No, none of these. Believe it or not, it was for eating a few chickens which is the staple diet of policemen.What had happened was that some anti-social elements were arrested for cock-fighting. Apparently this is categorised as a crime, because otherwise only politicians are allowed to indulge in this sport using themselves as cocks, and that too within the confines of the legislative assemblies.

The thanedar and his men pardoned the culprits and let them off but kept the cocks. They probably knew that after confiscation the birds had become state property, and the DIG was right in his view that not even police constables could be permitted to consume state property.

But such occasions are rare when the sins of policemen are visited on those of them who committed them instead of being visited on their children as threatened in the Bible. Except for public obloquy, most policemen have a jolly good time, which is evident from the girth of their waists. As for public condemnation, they are like the top leaders of the country – immune and insensitive to what is said about them.

It is only a few enlightened police officers at the top who resent the censure and bad name and are keen for a better image of their men. But the trouble is that the common man judges the force from the doings and behaviour of the constables and the subordinate officers whose official and extracurricular activities are not likely to serve as a passport to heaven.

Immigrants’ contribution

THE US Senate’s rancorous debate over immigration reform has for the moment muffled an equally contentious dispute about immigrants' economic impact.

The quarrel is in some respects a theological one, enlisting think tanks, scholars, researchers and statisticians whose irreconcilable and sometimes ideologically loaded conclusions fuel the broader political battle.

Amid the blizzard of data concerning immigrants' effects on wages, welfare and municipal budgets, the essential point is this: The latest wave of immigrants -- legal and illegal, skilled and unskilled -- has stimulated enormous economic activity and wealth generation in this country, and it is implausible that the American economy would fare as well without them.

A recent study using data collected through 2004 found that Hispanics in North Carolina (many of them immigrants, both legal and illegal) contributed $756 million in state taxes while costing about $817 million in public education, corrections and health care.

That nets out to a modest $61 million drain on state coffers. But the study, by researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, also found that that deficit was dwarfed by the fact that Hispanics contributed more than $9 billion, or some 3 percent, to the state's economy in 2004, an amount projected to double by 2009.

The North Carolina study further found that adults of prime working age (18-44) comprised a much larger portion of Hispanic households than non-Hispanic ones; that the state's 9,000-plus Hispanic-owned businesses were poised for rapid expansion; and the state's exports to Latin America, which account for 70,000 jobs, are booming, thanks partly to the swift growth of the Hispanic population.

Little wonder that the study was conducted for the North Carolina Bankers Association; immigrants are good for business. Similar studies in Arkansas, Texas and elsewhere have arrived at like-minded conclusions.

The flip side is that immigrants are said to add to the poverty rolls, strain public services and, in some high-immigrant states such as California, increase the tax burden on non-immigrant households. But even here the evidence is mixed. Since most immigrants come when they are young and working (55 per cent of Hispanics in the North Carolina study were 18 to 44), they tend not to collect Social Security or Medicare for many years -- even while paying into the systems with payroll taxes, in many cases with phony Social Security numbers (meaning they will contribute but not collect).

In fact, illegal immigrants do not get federal welfare benefits of any kind. At the same time they often pay income tax (through paycheck withholdings) and sales tax, thereby helping directly or indirectly to underwrite transportation, health care, education and other services.

And while immigrants surely have contributed to some extent to the ranks of the poor, that was also true of previous waves of immigrants; the point is, most of those immigrants didn't stay poor.

Most members of Congress realise that deporting 12 million illegal immigrants is a non-starter. But the real reason to find a humane solution that will enable those immigrants to stay legally and work toward citizenship, and to construct some workable system by which future newcomers can come and work, is that they make important contributions to the vibrancy of America's economy and social fabric. That's been true of immigrants throughout the nation's history and remains so today.

—The Washington Post