|
| January 31, 2008 | Thursday | Muharram 21, 1429 |
Fighting the fire menace
Mr Edhi’s ordeal
The mega follies
OTHER VOICES - Middle East Press
POLITICS is all about perception. If people believe that a policy is detrimental to their interests, not even a deluge of spin, arranged news conferences, full-page advertisements and assurances by its advocates is going to change that perception.
IT must have been irksome for the women’s development ministry to be presented with figures, compiled by an international organisation, indicating that little is being done to bridge the yawning gender gap that exists in the country. Nevertheless, reminders such as the one contained in the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap report for 2007 are essential if government departments dealing with women’s issues are to be pushed into doing more to create parity between the sexes. As the report indicates, Pakistan is way behind many countries in a number of areas relating to gender parity. It has an overall gender gap ranking of 126 out of 128 countries (the statistic for 2006 was marginally better at 112 out of 115), and is also positioned at 126 with regard to economic participation and opportunity. Paradoxically, Pakistan is ranked at 43rd position in women’s political empowerment despite the perennial problem of women not being allowed to vote or contest in conservative areas but thanks to the substantial number of parliamentary seats reserved for women. However, it continues to do pitifully in the areas of education (123) and health (121), which are also fundamental to measuring the gender gap.
The basic reason behind such disgraceful figures is rooted in centuries-old patriarchal attitudes that view women as lesser beings. This is not only true for Pakistan and much of South Asia, but also for many parts of the world which have yet to achieve the equality of sexes seen in the West. The difference is that where many other countries with large gender gaps are attempting to improve their standing, Pakistan’s efforts are insignificant. Change is slow. The state, which should have accorded priority to closing the gender gap, has, in fact, been instrumental in the regression of women. This was amply in evidence in earlier legislative measures such as the Hudood Ordinances. Never has its apathy been more apparent than in its failure to prevent militants from shutting down girls’ schools in the north or to enforce the right of franchise for women.
However, civil society, the intelligentsia and the various groups working for women’s emancipation are also to blame for their inability to mobilise public opinion. There are only a handful of groups, it seems, that are genuinely worried by the huge difference that exists between literacy rates for men and women or the fact that the girl child is viewed as an economic liability and treated as such with preference being given to her male siblings in even basic matters such as diet and medical care. They can make a difference if they find the right strategy (and, more importantly, the will) by working together for a common goal. The idea should be to create public awareness among women at the grassroots level, thereby increasing the pressure on the government to take proactive steps towards a more egalitarian set-up. This will also conscientise them and change their mindset thus enabling them to resist obscurantism.
BESIDES spawning a host of conspiracy theories, the recent spate of fires in Karachi has confirmed the need for urgent corrective measures on a number of levels. The city government is right in calling for a comprehensive survey of large buildings to assess whether they meet basic fire-safety standards. As things stand, most do not satisfy even the most rudimentary of requirements. When even major corporations fail to install smoke detectors or sprinkler systems, it is safe to say that small commercial outlets crammed into plazas and malls have taken few, if any, fire-related precautions. Also, there are no emergency exits in many buildings — including, incredibly, hospitals that cater to thousands of patients. Either that or they remain blocked for any number of reasons, including shops not envisaged in the original plans. Here the greed of construction companies that capitalise on every square inch of available space is also a factor. They need to be taken to task forthwith and made to pay for the necessary modifications.
Shoddy electrical work plays a part as well and several of the recent blazes have been attributed to short circuits. It would be unfair to lay the blame for this entirely at KESC’s door. The main electricity boards at many shopping centres have been turned into a jumbled patchwork of wires by shopkeepers who share or take out extra connections. Reckless use of overloaded extension cords is also routine. Clearly, the concept of safety first is not part of the public psyche and a refresher course in common sense is in order.
That said, the pathetic state of Karachi’s fire department is inexcusable. This paper reported in August last year that the number of fire tenders in the city fell from 74 in 1995-96 to about 20 in 2007. Of this woefully inadequate number, at least 10 were out of order at the time. To this day, firefighters lack basic equipment as well as protective gear and are poorly trained to boot. Hoses attached to tenders tend to leak and cannot generate the required water pressure. These are critical shortcomings and must be overcome without any further delay.
IN a country short on role models and living legends, Mr Abdul Sattar Edhi is a towering personality and the unstinted respect he enjoys is truly deserved. His has been a life dedicated to selfless social work, caring for the needy and sheltering the unwanted without hesitation or any of the biases that have sadly come to dominate public thinking in this country. Given the esteem in which he is held not just in Pakistan but across the world, the treatment he received recently at the hands of immigration authorities in New York is deplorable to say the least. He was detained and grilled for several hours upon arrival from London and let go only after Pakistan’s foreign ministry reportedly intervened in the matter. That may well have been a concern but Mr Edhi’s ‘appearance’ probably also influenced the decision to detain him in the first place. The noted philanthropist has said as much himself, adding that the American immigration services can take away his green card if they so desire. After this ordeal, he just wants to return home.
The US immigration authorities are no doubt well within their rights to interrogate anyone whose bona fides they suspect. Still, even if Mr Edhi’s reputation does not precede him in American officialdom, they ought to have taken into account the gentleman’s age (late seventies) and, as his passport would show, that he is a frequent traveller who has been welcomed across the globe. As for his appearance, it is unlikely that a trained terrorist would arrive in the US sporting a look so ascetic as Mr Edhi’s. He would, instead, take care not to stand out in a crowd. For similar reasons, a flowing beard is not something a person bent on mayhem would advertise, at least in this day and age, as he tried to enter a western country. Consider in this connection that all the 9/11 hijackers were clean-cut and, not without reason, wore inconspicuous western clothes. Appearances, as we all know, can be deceptive and deception is the stock-in-trade of artful criminals. The US authorities have blundered badly and an apology is in order, first and foremost to Mr Edhi and also to his admirers in Pakistan.
A majority of people in Balochistan view mega projects with extreme suspicion and certainly not without reason. The gaping divide between proclaimed intentions and reality completely undermines the already zero credibility of the government’s assurances in Balochistan regarding the people and its vast resources.
Gwadar, located on the southwestern coast of Balochistan, was granted to a Muscat sultan by the Khan of Kalat in 1783 and transferred to the mother province for £3m in 1958. At present, some 13 million barrels of oil pass by the port daily. Its strategic importance and economic potential has made it a favourite of many contending interests.
Interestingly, Gwadar port is a classic example of all that is wrong with mega project policies in that godforsaken province and makes it a useful guide to what not to do.
Inaugurated last year, it is supposed to handle transit trade with landlocked Central Asia, Afghanistan and western China. The Port of Singapore Authority has been given an unbelievable 40-year tax holiday to operate Gwadar but to date not a single ship has berthed there because of tariff settlement. More interested in other jackpots, they have neglected the essentials of marketing.
The people of Balochistan in all forums have expressed resentment against the building of cantonments and naval bases. There are already four major cantonments and 59 mini-cantonments along with approximately 600 checkpoints in the province, as well as six air force and three navy bases. Yet the government, in utter disregard for the wishes of the people, relentlessly pursues this policy. We find a deliberate disregard for public sentiment in the case of Gwadar as well.
The port at Gwadar is the latest after Pasni and Ormara. Its 14.5-metre channel allows not only ships of up to 50,000 deadweight tonnage (DWT) to berth there but also supersized aircraft carriers. Many people believe, rightly or wrongly, that this port is to become a naval base for the superpower that is eyeing Gulf oil. Such bases deprive the people of natural harbours and physically hinder fishing, severely affecting livelihood while the coast guards also make their lives miserable.
Contrary to normal procedure, the Rs1.05bn earmarked for the purchase of 6,500 acres for the new Gwadar airport were released to the Military Estate Officer (MEO) in Quetta instead of the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA). Any land acquired by the Military Land and Cantonments (MLC) makes it the property of the Pakistan Army and this fact alone thoroughly exposes the claim that Gwadar is an exclusively commercial project.
The area of land acquired is by itself of importance because New York’s JFK airport, one of the largest in the world, covers only 4,930 acres. There the total number of flights was 34,361 in November 2006 alone and the number of passengers 3,484,448. It is also twice the size of London’s Heathrow (2,965 acres) where a plane lands or takes off every 46 seconds at peak hours and which handled 128 million passengers in 2005.
It goes without saying that the volume of air traffic at Gwadar will be a tiny fraction of the numbers cited above. This oversized place is obviously required for objectives other than those publicised.
When Gwadar was earmarked for a mega port project, it prompted a mad rush for real estate and the land mafia made billions in the process. They not only deprived locals of their land but more ominously also created a situation where the demography started changing rapidly, a fact which rankles with most Baloch people.
In October 2006, Justice Javed Iqbal and Justice Raja Fayyaz Ahmed of the Supreme Court decreed, “The allotment of land in Gwadar has been made in violation of the policies formulated by the government itself. The discretionary power has been exercised in an arbitrary and capricious manner which has been cited as a clear example of abuse of authority and misuse of power (emphasis added). Nobody knows how the settled land owned by the state has been transferred to the private sector, that too on peanut prices which depicts lack of transparency and mismanagement.”
They ordered the cancellation of residential and industrial plots allotted in Gwadar. The SC Quetta Bench observed that the Balochistan government is not competent to set land quotas for politicians, ministers, elected representatives, high civil officials and the provincial judiciary without passing legislation on the subject. They also observed that “every allotment, sale and disposed of land appears to have been made in a dubious and suspicious manner” (again emphasis added).
The violations must have been extraordinarily blatant to have evoked such a reprimand. For a moment consider how an alienated people must already be feeling because of the numerous depredations against their rights and resources. It is doubtful if these directives have even remotely been followed up. Bypassing laws and rules and making a mockery of them have been raised to an art form in the ‘land of the pure’.
The government doesn’t seem to tire of touting the opportunities that mega projects create. It erroneously believes that menial jobs alone will satisfy the aspirations of the people who are demanding control over their own destiny. The Baloch are demanding their inherent rights and not an opportunity to be servants; all governments have failed to comprehend and redress this justified demand. When these injustices are opposed, people are labelled as anti-development and misguided and that only adds insult to injury.
Gwadar is not the only problem. The injustices, real and perceived, suffered by the Baloch are many and varied, and immediate redress is required if the already alienated and deprived people are not to be further estranged. Though Balochistan has suffered the most, other smaller provinces too have seen their fair share of discrimination because the policymakers of this country have been indifferent, inefficient, arrogant and compassionless.
The great reformer Sheikh Saadi wisely advised that:
Na dahad hooshmand roshan rai/Ba faromaya kar hai khateer/Booriya baaf agar che bafinda aast/Na barandish ba karga-i-hareer
(The wise entrust not incompetents/With tasks of momentous nature/Sack-weavers though weavers too/Are never asked to weave silken vesture).
The affairs of state and governance are too vital to be left in the hands of those who have so far been running the show to disastrous effect. It is time that civil society accepts the challenge because only the conscientious can be expected to defend and care for the rights of those who have long been trampled upon.
Time to act
Oman Tribune
IRAQ does not need more disagreements among its countless factions and communities. The country already has too many problems… So the dispute over the country’s flag comes at a moment in time when the country is at a crossroads. The idea of the new flag was pushed through by the Kurds, who thought that the old flag belonged to the Saddam era. At the same time, a large section of Iraqis want the old one.
They feel that thousands of Iraqis had died fighting under the old flag, which does not belong to any leader, person or community. And they have a point, which cannot be ignored. But it’s strange that this heated debate over the issue of a flag comes at a time when the country has to grapple with more important issues. Instead of bickering over the flag, Iraqis of all shades should have been discussing ways to bring about national unity.
National reconciliation seems elusive, despite steps being taken to bring all Iraqis under one umbrella. The latest move in this context was the de-Ba’athification law that allows former members of Saddam Hussein’s party to return to the mainstream. But this step is yet to be followed up with other concrete moves. On the part of Prime Minister Nuri Al Maliki, there has been no dearth of attempts to reconcile various parties representing various communities.
…The other day, he urged the Accordance Front and National List parties to rejoin the coalition. Will they heed his appeal? With the mindless killings on a much lesser scale now and a semblance of normalcy returning to the country with oil exports rising, leading to a small degree of economic growth for the first time since the US invasion, a determined push for reconciliation must urgently be made by the prime minister… — (Jan 29)
Suharto: How to judge a man?
Saudi Gazette
SUHARTO’S death has prompted the expected international expression of condolences along with respectful remembrances of the political, economic and social stability the dictator imposed on Indonesia during his 32 years in power. The sum of a man’s life, however, is far more complicated than that. Certainly, Suharto kept his country relatively calm at a time when a full-fledged communist insurgency might have been the alternative. But, at what price?
Suharto came to power in 1965 when the army’s six top generals were murdered and their bodies dumped in an abandoned well. He promptly initiated a purge of supposed communists, killing up to a half million people. Over the next three decades, a further 300,000 people were killed, disappeared or starved in the independence-minded regions of Aceh, Papua and East Timor.
According to Transparency International, Suharto’s family is estimated to have bled as much as $35bn from the economy. His successors as head of state vowed to end the graft that took root under Suharto, yet it remains endemic today. The very fact that Suharto never appeared in court to face corruption or other charges merits suspicion. So, what are we to make of Suharto?
His steadfast alliance with the US during the Cold War might possibly have helped contain communism… That also meant containment of the disaster of the Vietnam war.
Yet, he may be responsible for the deaths of up to one million alleged political opponents and responsible, say some, for Indonesia not transcending its developing status to become a middle-class nation. The nation’s wealth of natural resources was squandered as pay-offs and gifts, they say. — (Jan 28)