The unfinished story

IN the midst of the current political turmoil, it is unlikely that the media or the general public will have much time to remember the second anniversary of the earthquake which shook large parts of northern Pakistan on Oct 8, 2005, and took a toll of more than 70,000 lives and made about half a million people homeless.

With the presidential election held just two days before its second anniversary, it is unlikely that the people in high offices have had any time to remind themselves of the horrific events of that fateful day or recall the promises they made to those most affected by them.

In the United States, two recent catastrophes — 9/11 and Katrina, one man-made, the other natural — continue to be recalled and focused on not only with solemnity but also with intensive debate about the failure to prevent them and the inadequacies of the measures taken to erase their adverse effects.

The haunting images of the 2005 earthquake in Pakistan, with children in school uniforms being buried alive under collapsing school buildings and dozens of villages being swept away and buried under the rocks, and disfigured and dismembered bodies lying around, helplessly watched by distraught relatives, should have left a deep imprint on the human consciousness.

It seems that more devastating has been the sight of falling skyscrapers engulfed in smoke and people scurrying around in lower Manhattan on 9/11 or of human beings being flown over like autumn leaves or huddled in shelters or rooftops of houses surrounded by rising tidal waves.

But the world seems to suffer from emotional apartheid, which places the woes of the poor and disempowered on a much lower pedestal than the sublime human tragedies of the rich and the powerful. This has, to some extent, been assuaged by the work of humanitarian initiatives by a number of national and international organisations.

However, these efforts are hardly adequate to shift the balance of power towards the vulnerable groups to enable them to command their own destinies, especially in Pakistan, where the dice has eternally been loaded against them and where mechanisms for the articulation of their grievances are dominated by elite groups, who use them for furthering their own interests.

Two years after the powerful earthquake, it is not yet easy to comprehend or analyse the causes and consequences of the colossal tragedy. The numbers are mind-boggling. The earthquake destroyed or damaged around 585,000 rural homes and some 40,000 urban homes. Around 73,000 people were killed and 70,000 people were severely injured or disabled. Three million people were left homeless in the immediate aftermath. Nearly half of those killed on Oct 8, 2005, were children. Around 6,300 schools and colleges were damaged or destroyed in the earthquake.

A large number of those in areas directly affected by the earthquake, and which have been a breeding ground for religious fundamentalism since the 1980s, were persuaded to believe that it was divine retribution. The colossal loss of human lives and destruction of public infrastructure, especially schools and hospitals, however, pointed to more earthly causes.

It also served as a wake-up call to public authorities for enforcing building codes and for not awarding construction jobs to unscrupulous contractors — a major source of rent-seeking in Pakistan — as well as for greater institutional preparedness in facing natural disasters.

Unfortunately, the government has failed to be awakened to address these basic issues. As is well-known, the area lies on a tectonic fault-line, which is one of the most dangerous in the world and could become reactivated without warning.

Along with this physical fault-line, the 2005 earthquake also unravelled a number of other fault-lines that deserve attention.

In the Sept 2007 issue of the National Geographic, Don Belt also identifies it (somewhat inaccurately as pointed out by columnist Irfan Husain) as the fault-line between the forces of moderate and fundamentalist Islam, although the protagonists of the latter played an active part in the relief work after the earthquake, to the discomfiture of both the government and the western countries.

Among other fault-lines that emerged were the civil-military divide and the NGO-government and the local vs foreign NGOs tension in the management and implementation of the relief and reconstruction programmes, which considerably reduced the effectiveness of those programmes.

On the occasion of the first anniversary of the earthquake, most assessments of the national and international efforts to overcome its aftermath found considerable fault with and shortfalls in the progress achieved in the implementation of the programmes for which the government had amassed pledges of six billion dollars against a loss of five billion dollars estimated at the beginning of the disaster.

One of the main weaknesses of the implementation of the programme was the ineptness with which the transition from the relief phase to the rehabilitation and reconstruction phase took place, which was executed predominantly in a military and bureaucratic style, with minimum — and largely passive — involvement and participation of the local population and NGOs.

A year ago, Oxfam estimated that, out of the approximately four million rendered homeless ‘at least 1.8 million people have not begun rebuilding their homes; most of them are in makeshift shelters that offer limited protection against the coming cold’.

During the last one year, the Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority (Erra) has distributed about half a billion rupees in three tranches for the reconstruction of houses (in addition to the first tranche of Rs25,000 per household distributed to all affectees). The number of beneficiaries has, however, rapidly declined with each tranche, from about 600,000 for the first, to 543,000 for the second, 236,000 for the third, and just 26,659 (or less than five per cent of the affected households) for the fourth or last tranche.

On an average, the beneficiaries have received Rs150,000 per household, while the majority has received less than Rs100,000 for rebuilding the houses which would cost Rs500,000, if Erra’s specifications were to be followed. Thus it would appear that a great majority of the households have not been enabled to follow the much-heralded “build back better” strategy which has totally failed, leaving the affected households largely to their own devices, with some help from the more well-heeled NGOs and individuals.

There are many other flaws in the implementation of the Pakistan earthquake which can’t be discussed for reasons of space. However, a few pertinent observations seem in order.

First, by keeping the earthquake relief and rehabilitation programme under the military’s overall supervision and direction, the government has reduced it to a routine mission losing the opportunity for turning it into an innovative social and economic programme.

Second, the huge amounts of funds that have been mobilised have yet not been spent in a transparent and effective manner.

Third, the economy of the affected region has yet to be revived through employment generation schemes which would reduce the dependency syndrome that has been a byproduct of the relief programmes.

Fourth, most NGOs have become passive partners of the government and have abandoned their advocacy role for vulnerable groups and have not mobilised participatory structures to articulate the needs of these groups and to enable access to their entitlements from the government and other agencies.

Two years after the quake

TODAY is the second anniversary of the devastating earthquake that shook the Kashmir valley on Oct 8, 2005. In our novelty-obsessed culture, amnesia sets in fast. A tragedy that occurred two years ago is almost history. But the survivors of the disaster are not history yet.

Their struggle to rebuild their lives is all the more poignant because of its fast-fading visibility in the media and the collective national consciousness.

Recently, I visited a women-friendly space (WFS) in Muzaffarabad in Azad Kashmir in collaboration with Sungi, an NGO which has worked extensively with earthquake survivors in Hazara and Azad Kashmir. By training, I am a mental health counsellor, and I was interested in assessing whether women survivors would benefit from regular psychosocial counselling.

The best way to do this was by meeting and asking the women at the WFS which have been established by Sungi with financial support from Shirkat Gah. Permanent centres are under construction but thanks to the generous donation of space by community members, three temporary WFS are operating in Muzaffarabad district. Here women socialise, share their skills, learn embroidery, cooking, and crafts from one another, and also attend adult literacy classes.

As the jeep moved up the meandering mountain road, I gazed in awe at the breathtaking valley, the sparkling Jhelum rushing past rocks and boulders, playful in its girlish restlessness. The late September morning was warm, yet gentle.

The sun shone on the valley benignly. How deceptive, I thought. In that blissful moment, it was hard to believe that I was in one of the most violent regions of the world, where much blood has been shed in the last six decades over territorial disputes between India, Pakistan and China; and where the earth had most recently outpoured its pent-up fury, killing thousands, and rendering hundreds of thousands more homeless.

The narrow road ended as we reached the village of Batliyan. The Sungi project coordinator and I walked up a narrow path to reach the WFS at the top of a hill.

About a dozen women were sitting on the floor on chatais. More women came in as the morning progressed. How do women go on laughing, singing, embroidering in the face of so much insecurity? Women at the WFS are learning crafts that would help them to generate incomes at home. Women walk for two hours to fill a vessel or two with drinking water.

Some walk for an hour or more to get to the WFS. Their men won’t carry water, they tell me. It’s a woman’s job.

Many of them are still living in camps, where they are making do with donated household items.

Their third homeless winter is just round the corner. The tents are not weather-proof against the rain, snow and freezing winds that threaten to blow away the very pretence of a shelter. Compensation from the government to rebuild homes arrives but installments are not always on time.

A home, a safe place, a space many had taken for granted — the everydayness of courtyards, kitchens, household chores. Life might have been harsh, but a measure of stability and predictability made the harshness tolerable.

For the survivors in the relief camps, life is now a long uncertain stretch and stability a concept to be newly carved out from the shared uncertainties of people with similar fates.

I met about 20 women, each with her own stockpile of tragic memories.

The oldest in the group was ‘Dadi’. When she spoke haltingly of losing her son, her daughter, and her daughter-in-law in the earthquake, I looked around. Women were hiding their eyes with their dupattas. There were stifled sobs as each one relived her own losses through Dadi’s narrative, revealing how fragile their calm was, how grief hovered just below the surface of their outwardly collected faces.

Some women were very quiet. Some simply listened and once in a while smiled at some comment I made. Others were very vocal. Children were crying. It would have been like any other women’s gathering but for the pain that was a palpable presence in the room.

I had feared distance, lack of sharing, linguistic difficulties and a lack of trust since I was an outsider, a city person, visiting for a few days. But neither language, nor differences of social class or educational background were obstacles that morning. We discussed how women all over the world faced limitations on their mobility and freedom of speech.

Some women mentioned how restrictions on going out of the home had increased after the earthquake. They explained that in the villages, everybody knew who they were, whose wife, whose daughter. In the camps, identities had got mixed up. ‘So our men fear that we’ll be harassed by other men. And since we’re not in our village anymore, our men are always worried about our whereabouts in a strange place.’

Earlier, the men worked in the cities, and would only come back home to visit once a year or so. But now they’re home after the earthquake and so they keep a strict watch over women’s movements. Some have to negotiate with male family members to come to the WFS. Men are suspicious about what women are taught at the WFS. The restrictions on young, unmarried women have increased the most, upsetting their opportunities for socialising, education and employment.

But in the midst of the hopelessness I heard the words ‘women’s rights’ and a young woman mentioned that of all the activities at the WFS, she liked using the library (a steel cabinet lined with books) the best. ‘I like to read books that talk about women’s rights,’ she said. I smiled. This was the ray of hope I had hoped to find.

Most women expressed the wish for more group discussions on women’s issues, and some also wanted individual counselling. This openness too was surprising as I hadn’t expected such willingness to talk about personal emotional issues with a professional counsellor. Slowly, imperceptibly, change has started happening. Change was written in the face of the young woman who knew that as a woman she had indisputable rights, even if all her rights had not been granted to her yet.

Dadi recited a noha about the pain of losing loved ones. Again, dupattas were raised to hide moist eyes. But young Shafqat dispelled the gloom by reciting a naat in her soulful voice:

Faslon ko takkaluf hai ham se agar

Ham bhi bebas nahi, besahara nahin

Khud unhi ko pukarenge ham dur sey

Raastey mein agar paon thak jaengey.

In the silence of the room, 25 women, old and young, were praying — for scars to heal, for life to return to normal, for new beginnings. For these women, many of whom have missing family members, whose corpses have never been found, psychosocial counselling may prove beneficial in helping put a closure on their grief, but it is their shared faith, hope, love and courage that’s serving as the cement to rebuild their shattered lives.

The writer is a mental health counsellor.

nighatm2002@yahoo.com

Migration and development

IN the present-day world, marked by globalisation, economic integration and technological advancement, migration has become an international phenomenon.

There is freer movement of goods, services, capital, labour and ideas than ever before. Although barriers to international trade and financial transactions have been dismantled significantly over the past two decades, barriers to cross-border movement of people still remain high.

Migration was considered a problem in the past with negative implications for development. It was adversely viewed in terms of brain drain, labour force depletion and rural exodus. However, in the globalised world of today, there is a growing recognition of the positive effects of migration.

International migration has the potential to generate substantial welfare gains for migrants and their families and for the countries involved both of origin and destination. For developing economies like Pakistan, remittances are an important source of much-needed foreign exchange earnings. Migration also entails benefits such as knowledge, skills and technology transfer, reduction in unemployment, modernisation, democratisation and empowerment of the disadvantaged segments of society.

Despite its benefits, however, migration remains a polemical issue. The main reason for this is that migration, like trade and capital flows, has distributional implications, whereby net gains for society may entail losses for some individuals and groups. Migration also creates ripples of resistance because the movement of people has economic, psychological, social and political consequences.

Viewed from this perspective, the gains and losses from international migration need to be objectively evaluated, particularly from the standpoint of developing countries. What is more important is to consider policy initiatives that could enhance the developmental impact of migration and its contribution to poverty reduction.

This by no means is an easy task. As migration is a diverse phenomenon, its economic impact in one place or another is largely determined by the particular circumstances involved. Moreover, in view of the paucity of basic data on migration, assessing the impact of policy changes is fraught with difficulties. This underscores the need for better data and more research.

Moreover, institutional arrangements need to be made to provide authentic information on migration opportunities and risks to avert unfortunate migration decisions and to limit the abuse and exploitation of vulnerable migrants. An effective regulatory framework for recruitment agents is required to protect intending migrants and to improve transparency.

Greater emigration of low-skilled workers from labour-surplus developing countries could make a significant contribution to poverty reduction. A feasible option could be managed migration programmes between origin and destination countries that combine temporary migration with incentives for return.

The countries of origin that are adversely affected by high-skilled emigration can help to retain key workers by improving working conditions in public employment and by investing in research and development. Countries of origin can also take steps to encourage educated emigrants to return by offering incentives.

Governments can deepen the developmental impact of remittances through the adoption of appropriate policies. These include improving access of poor migrants and their families to formal financial services, expanding banking networks at home and abroad and facilitating the participation of micro-finance institutions in providing low-cost remittance services.

An important factor in this phenomenon is respect for human rights of all migrants. This is an essential component of migration management and development strategies. Enhanced dissemination and understanding of UN and ILO legal norms and instruments relating to migrants is required among all the stakeholders. Maltreatment of workers and non-compliance of contractual obligations in receiving countries are a cause of concern and require cooperation among origin country representatives abroad.

In this context the illegal human trafficking that needs to be checked assumes great importance. It needs the cooperation of a number of agencies to enhance capacity among institutions and individuals dealing with these issues.

However, the root causes of this phenomenon need to be addressed by undertaking development in high migration areas in countries of origin and by increasing opportunities for legal labour migration in countries of destination. The management of labour migration requires a multi-dimensional and well coordinated approach in order to contribute to the development of both origin and destination countries.

The efforts and initiatives undertaken by the International Organisation on Migration (IOM) during the recent past have resulted in positive outcomes. The ministerial meetings held at Colombo and Manila as well as the workshop held at Islamabad last July initiated the process of exchanging ideas and best practices.

The role of IOM as an inter-governmental facilitator in the migration process needs to be recognised. This role can be enhanced to assist countries of origin like Pakistan in placing our labour in new markets. It may be mentioned that about 3.8 million Pakistanis are working or living abroad.

The UN High-Level Dialogue on migration and development held in New York in September 2006 was a step in the right direction. The credit for this initiative goes to all the member-states who have worked to put international migration on the global agenda. The UN High-Level Dialogue offers a unique opportunity for states to share best practices on migration management. It also provides an excellent forum to foster international cooperation on key migration issues such as migration and development, migration management and human rights issues of migrants.

Such initiatives are raising awareness about the development dimension of migration worldwide and serve as a catalyst for governments to improve their internal coordination on migration and development issues. The developing countries, including Pakistan, should play a vibrant role in these global initiatives and ardently support the idea that the dialogue on migration and development should continue through an international body mandated for the task.

This should also be supplemented by regional consultative processes which are crucial for fostering dialogue and mutual understanding on shared migration challenges.

The writer is a civil servant. The views expressed by him are his own.

samisaeed7@hotmail.com

Maulana, please!

JUST the other day, the wall chalking in Glasgow spelt out a death warrant to all ‘Pakis’ (westerners’ slang for Pakistanis) which was prompted by the doubts over some Asians’ involvement in an alleged terrorist attempt. The top government functionary there had to rush to the area to cool things down and halt a possible outburst against the local Asian community, largely consisting of Pakistanis.

This and much more gives a vivid idea of the perception of the international community that being a Muslim means an extremist, a terrorist and what not! The West in particular is bent upon giving a religious (specifically Islamic) connotation to terrorism.

The scholars and think-tanks in the West, after the 9/11 incident, have incessantly been painting it as a ‘crescent versus the cross’ world and openly approving of Huntington’s doctrine of the clash of civilisations. Pakistanis residing in western countries are pained to see their brethren being dubbed as extremists and terrorists and stories of butchery being attributed to them day in and day out.

How far the world is justified in having such perceptions of Islam, one cannot say for sure. But it is time that we mend our ways before things go out of hand. With this backdrop, if we analyse the Lal Masjid incident, we can only say the whole affair simply added to our miseries and contributed immeasurably to ruining the image of Islam and Pakistan. We have been endeavouring to project Islam as a peace-loving and forward-looking religion only to see some psychos like the red brigade wizards coming in our way and spoiling the show.

Well, the Lal Masjid turmoil had been brewing for quite some time before the climax, and persistent goading, moral suasion and even outright condemnation by all shades of opinion, including the religious scholars of the country, fell flat on the ears of the big shots in Lal Masjid’s administrative hierarchy.

It is bewildering to learn that even the advice of the revered Imam-i-Kaaba, to observe restraint and take recourse to sanity could not move the stone hearts of the maulanas who kept making a mockery of the law of the land.

The most amusing aspect of their chivalry was using innocent girl students as human shields in their skirmishes with the security forces.

The most poignant moment, the inevitable, then came on 03/07 when the showdown started, resulting in the death of and injury to innocent souls and above all, total embarrassment to us as a nation.

No matter what the government’s strategy or thinking on the issue and no matter what the magnitude of the government’s fault in the whole affair, the obstinate and stubborn land mafia of the Lal Masjid cannot escape responsibility in this catastrophe. The incident also revealed the state of the art arsenal that the red brigade had amassed in the mosque and put to good use, measuring swords with the security forces.

The gory incident sent the wrong signals to the world community yet again that we are a nation of eccentrics and that religious schools and institutions in Pakistan are a sanctuary for extremists and terrorists. We have been trying tooth and nail to wipe out this blot from our faces but the Lal Masjid saga dented our attempts beyond repair.

When all this has already happened, there could be more in the offing. The most pertinent question is how would the security forces handle a similar situation and what approach would the media adopt on reporting the issue henceforth.

The media has a sensitive role to play in this. It is expected to call a spade a spade and shun making heroes out of villains even unintentionally. The majority of the people are already fed up with the antics of the likes of the red brigade. In the mosque episode, this was evident from the open condemnations coming from various quarters including the clergy. The Lal Masjid authorities were expected to behave and put an end to their land grabbing pursuits. As they did not, there was unnecessary bloodshed.

For the sake of law and for the sake of Pakistan’s image in the comity of nations, the government has to take some kind of action. It cannot just sit idle and watch the militants’ game from the sidelines. We can only hope that the current situation ends in peace and not in pieces. So maulanas please, for once listen to the voice of people.

farhan_q1991@hotmail.com