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| January 14, 2008 | Monday | Muharram 04, 1429 |
Alternate realities
Who should clean Karachi?
Extremism vs moderation
OTHER VOICES - American Press
THE current conflict in Pakistan has been characterised by both government and independent analysts as the contradiction between extremism and moderation.
OIL has always remained a good source of revenue income for successive governments in Islamabad and the marketing companies have ensured for themselves unrealistically lucrative margins since the commodity’s trading was deregulated some years ago. The ultimate losers have been the final consumers who pay 45 per cent more in the shape of taxes for each litre they buy and of course the overall economy whose competitive edge relative to its neighbours is continuously blunted in the export market. So it is not the losses of the marketing companies that the government proposes to cover by mobilising loans worth Rs40bn at a very high rate of interest but to pay for protecting their high profit margins. On the part of the government, the loans are not being raised to finance what is euphemistically called the oil subsidy but to make up the shortfall in revenue income as the increases in world oil prices have not been passed down to the consumer since last year for political reasons.
The global crude oil market is a dynamic and somewhat unpredictable entity that is vulnerable to a number of risk factors. From a low point of just below $50 per barrel in January 2007, prices doubled hitting $100 a barrel in the last week of December, an all-time record. A year earlier they had averaged around $60-65 a barrel. Presumably the government had used the last figure for making its budgetary estimates for the current fiscal year. Therefore the shortfalls in government revenues and a slight erosion of profit margins for marketing companies.
Resultantly, the government’s bank borrowing has crossed Rs220bn in the first half of the year against a full-year target of Rs131bn, escalating the fiscal deficit beyond control. Petrol is one of the most important inputs in a nation’s economy and its price has wide social and economic repercussions. A number of studies have shown that the price of petrol in Pakistan is significantly high (not just in relation to per capita income) and needs to be scaled down in order to enhance the competitiveness of the country’s exports and reduce the burden on the purchasing capacity of the people. However, this cannot be an easy task unless of course the country reduces significantly its dependence on imported oil by accelerating its exploration activities and also by expanding its tax base enough to facilitate a marked reduction in the tax component in petrol prices. At the same time OGRA would do well to take a closer look at the margins of marketing companies and introduce fail-safe regulations to curb their appetite for unearned profits.
A RECENT news report highlights the contradictions inherent in the way business, and by extension, society conducts itself in Pakistan. Despite teetering on the brink of failure as a state, Pakistan continues to reward the people who specialise in moneymaking and handsomely so. For those with lots of ready cash, a pliant moral outlook and the pluck to stick it out, few destinations offer more stunning returns on investment, be it in the stock market, real estate or the banking sector. Even in Karachi, which has been wracked by recurring spells of violence since the mid-eighties, the rallying cry seems to be that business, and life, must go on come what may. Maybe people have no choice in the matter. Brutalised perhaps into a state of numbness that registers little else but the bottom line, they carry on regardless. Some innate resilience must come into it as well. True, the city came to a standstill for three days following Ms Bhutto’s assassination but then outrages of such magnitude are rare. Even so the possibility cannot be discounted that Karachi would have been back on its feet more rapidly if the law-enforcement agencies, particularly the rangers on whose annual upkeep Sindh pays through the nose for no discernible benefit, had not abdicated all responsibility for days on end.
On the face of it, Karachi doesn’t come across as a particularly desirable place to live — and not just on account of its pock-marked political history or the fact that it is flush with weapons and that violent crime is routine. The city’s infrastructure is crumbling, all the new flyovers and bypasses notwithstanding. Power outages are long and regular, the water shortage is dire and public sanitation pathetic, the city’s roads are congested, the sea is filthy, and air and noise pollution threaten physical and mental well-being. Yet property prices have skyrocketed in recent years. One reason is that money can bankroll an escape from reality. No electricity? Get a generator. Pay for water tankers if the lines are dry. Hire security guards to protect yourself against crime. Gated, fortified communities are also springing up, because an existence divorced from the collective reality is in high demand. All that matters is the individual good.
Never mind that mansions abut squatter settlements, what counts is the space hemmed in by your own four walls. Feel free to toss your garbage into the street or any other place where it is out of sight. No such options though for the majority that comprises the ‘other’ Karachi that has been bypassed by the economic boom. Hardly any form of housing, however decrepit, is really affordable any more for most residents. Food items as basic as daal, flour and vegetables are straining budgets to breaking point and access to decent education or health care is unimaginable. Yet this city of paradoxes is said to be booming.
IT is a bit too difficult to believe that we need foreigners to collect Karachi’s garbage. Solid waste management is, after all, not something which calls for high-tech expertise of a kind that it is beyond the capacity of Karachi’s city government to undertake this primary civic function itself. If the idea is to outsource this responsibility – which again is a questionable strategy – it is difficult to believe that no local company could be found to perform the task of cleaning up Karachi’s litter. Hence the need to bring in a Chinese firm for the job. On the face of it the economics of the whole project may appear to be sound. But one cannot be certain that hidden charges will not be revealed later. Thus we have been informed that the firm will collect the garbage, recycle it, and also use it for running a 560-megawatts power plant to supply electricity to KESC at an estimated cost of Rs3.5bn per annum when the district government and the 18 towns were spending approximately the same amount under the same head without producing visible results. Then comes the snag. A levy of Rs25 per house per month will be slapped on us to finance the scheme, in addition to the Rs50 already being charged.
Additionally, the implications of the agreement that was signed by the city nazim on Friday are disturbing. The move betrays a basically flawed approach to civic management. It pronounces the virtual death of the concept of self-reliance. Our city fathers are all too willing to hand over their responsibilities to foreign concerns. It amounts to their conceding that ineptitude, corruption and lack of political commitment hamper their working. Had this not been the case, Karachi – once declared the Queen of the East by Charles Napier – would not have been reduced to the ugly heap it has now become. Neither would the need have arisen to invite the Chinese to come and clean up the mess.
The first is represented by various religious outfits that seek to forcibly impose their will upon society. The second is represented by the government, its foreign backers and sections of society that oppose a religious order.
However, a closer examination of the discourse and the realities on the ground reveals that the battle lines are not between religious extremism on one side and tolerance and moderation on the other. Rather, the contemporary struggles being waged in our society appear to be between two forms of extremism that overlap and resemble each other in some ways and are different in others.
Both types of extremists, the Pakistani government and its foreign backers on the one hand, and religious organisations on the other, feed off each other, create each other and use each other — they form a continuum rather than a contradiction. Moderation and tolerance have not been exhibited by either side as both are engaged in the struggle for power and control over vital economic and political resources.
The moderate and tolerant elements of society which do not believe in resorting to extremist measures in the pursuit of power, and do not employ violent methods to achieve their aims, have been sidelined by both forms of extremists, the state authorities as well as non-state actors. Both seem to believe that all problems can only be resolved by the resort to militant or military means.
First, let us take the extremists who base their justification for violence on a religious worldview. These outfits range from relatively small organisations that are influential in a specific area such as the Sipah-i-Sahaba in Jhang or the Tehrik-i-Nifaz-i-Shariat-i-Mohammadi located near Bajaur Agency, to major powerful groups such as the Taliban who came to power in Afghanistan and operate in large parts of Pakistan’s northern areas. While there may be differences in their beliefs in terms of little details, the common aim of many such organisations is to enforce Sharia law and Islam by the force of arms.
Democracy, pluralism and diversity of opinion or way of life are alien to the way of thinking prevalent in such organisations. They believe in capturing state power through the use of armed struggle in order to impose their Wahabi version of Islam on the population. Such outfits are not averse to mass killing through suicide bombings. Such organisations must be distinguished from mainstream religious parties like the Jamaat-i-Islami which believe in capturing power through democratic means. Organisations like the SSP, TNSM and Jaish-i-Mohammad are generally considered not only extremist but also ‘terrorist’ since 9/11, and some of them have been banned by the government of Pakistan.
Now let us take a look at the other types of extremists who resort to violence, killing, bloodshed and other extreme measures based on an alternative worldview. This category justifies violence and mass murder by using the rhetoric of ‘democracy’ and ‘moderation’. Composed primarily of heads of states and governments, the latter category justifies mass killing through bombing and attacking on the basis of spreading democracy and human rights.The governments of the US, the UK, Australia, Italy and Spain are not the only ones implicated in this form of extremism, the government of Pakistan is no less involved. The extremist and terrorist methods employed by these governments are ostensibly to decimate the other form of extremism represented by quasi-religious groups.
However, it is widely believed that this form of extremism is designed to capture the world’s oil and gas resources illegally, but needs some kind of ideology to legitimise the imperial actions.
The latter form of extremism, exhibited mainly by governments and states, is also intolerant towards dissent, disagreement and the plurality of views. Democracy may be its legitimising ideology but the belief in democracy is fairly superficial. In the name of fighting ‘terrorism’, most of these governments suppressed dissent, concealed evidence, lied to the people and made exaggerated claims to such an extent that the prime minister in the UK had to resign.
In Pakistan, President Musharraf has tried to pose as a tolerant moderate leader while sacking the independent judiciary, jailing and beating lawyers, imprisoning human rights activists, muzzling the media and refusing to tolerate any view other than his own.
He has completely dismantled democracy by suspending the Constitution for the second time, amending the Army Act of 1952 thus enabling the court martial of civilians, forcing his own presidential election while still in the service of the state and disabling citizens from getting redress against government excesses by empowering the government to disbar lawyers. In short, there has been a resort to all extremist measures to hold on to power and unravel even the trappings of democracy meticulously built up in the last few years.
While he does all this, praise is showered upon him by David Miliband of the UK and Condoleezza Rice of the US who repeatedly argue that Pakistan is on the road to democracy and civilian rule. It seems the foreign backers of the Musharraf regime think Pakistanis are immeasurably stupid and can be duped into thinking that democracy is being ushered into their country on the back of tanks and F-16s.
The only moderates in the extremist/moderate divide are the great majority of the people of Pakistan. Caught between two forms of virulent extremism, of a religious and non-religious variety, the average, ordinary Pakistani citizen is baffled, grieved and incredulous.
The judges, lawyers, human rights activists, teachers, students, professors, workers, labourers and peasants are the true and only moderates who do not believe in picking up guns or bombs to destroy everything in sight. These are the people who go about their daily business to be able to eke out a living in spite of the terrifying circumstances created by extremists and terrorists on both sides.
These are the people who get killed in suicide bombings on their way to work, or are hit by the bullets of security forces and the state’s guns in Swat or South Waziristan. These are the people who are beaten, incarcerated and reviled in the name of “national interest” when they raise their voices to demand civil rights, rule of law, constitutionalism, an independent judiciary, the end of military rule, a free media — in short when they ask for the basics of liberal democracy.
Just as the populations of the US, Australia, Britain and Spain finally got the right to remove their extremist rulers through the ballot, Pakistanis clamouring for freedom, democracy and choice should have the opportunity to rid themselves of oppressive rule. Pakistan’s people and its electorate are mature and sophisticated enough to remove both kinds of extremist menace — one coming from those who commit crimes in the name of religion, the other from those who commit crimes in the name of the nation or country. The only moderate force in Pakistan is its citizenry both urban and rural. They should be allowed to determine their destiny.
Mideast plain talk
PRESIDENT Bush is making the obvious points on his trip to the Middle East. Any peace accord will oblige Israel to pull back settlements on the contested West Bank, and Palestinian leaders must rein in terrorist strikes.
But we’ve been there and done that on prior US diplomatic missions. What’s new and encouraging is the sharpness in Bush’s message. Israel’s presence in Palestinian-claimed land is “occupation”, a loaded word that Israel avoids and Arab states use freely. He also said Palestinians deserve better than a “Swiss cheese” state fitted between Israeli territories.
Bush was equally blunt in talking to the other side: The Hamas faction in the Palestinian government, which runs the Gaza enclave, “has delivered nothing but misery” by fostering internal strife and bringing on Israeli reprisals for missile strikes.
Maybe it’s frustration after seven years of little movement in reaching a peace treaty. Maybe it’s the quest for a golden legacy in his final year. Or it could be the kind of blunt talk that an aging and unsolved stalemate deserves.
In any case, Bush should keep up the pressure, something he may do in a possible follow-up trip. He should also make the dispute a priority on the rest of his eight-day trip that will take him to Arab oil states.
Until now, Bush has low-keyed his role in this stand-off. But Washington has a historic role as go-between, enforcer and knowledgeable player. It’s a pity he’s waited this long to try to settle a dispute that reverberates throughout the Middle East. But his newfound urge to settle matters represents a welcome change and potential legacy for his tenure. — (Jan 11)
Reducing greenhouse gases
FOR seven years, the Bush administration has advocated ‘voluntary’ approaches to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases that cause global warming. But that approach has been a failure. While responsibility for the problem extends beyond oil companies and automakers to the financial-services industry that invests in destructive activities, a recent survey shows just how little action 40 of the world’s largest banks have taken against climate change.
With their hands on the spigot of trillions of dollars, bankers play a crucial role in how the world responds to the threat of rising sea levels, drought and extreme weather events. But the survey, commissioned by Ceres, a Boston-based group of investors and environmentalists concerned about sustainability, found that the industry has far to go in confronting global warming.
Not surprisingly, the banks that are changing their practices the most are in Europe, where countries are trying to adhere to the greenhouse emission reductions required by the Kyoto Protocol. In the United States, the survey found that banks have been slow to involve their boards in the issue, incorporate the effect of carbon emissions into investment decisions, or set goals to reduce greenhouse gases in their portfolios.
One exception is Bank of America, which has set such a goal for its loans to utilities.
The Ceres survey is further evidence that industry will not adjust to the threat of global warming unless Congress passes legislation for cap-and-trade controls on carbon emissions. When market signals aren’t enough to awaken Wall Street to the danger of a climate catastrophe, government has to take the lead. — (Jan 12)