Striking a balance

THE 1973 Constitution has existed in Pakistan in its original form as its basic law only for a very short while. For most of the time it has either been held in abeyance or has existed in a highly distorted form. Following the 1977 coup by Ziaul Haq, the Constitution was held in abeyance, and when it was revived it had been mauled. Through the Eighth Amendment passed by a rubber-stamp parliament, Ziaul Haq turned the 1973 Constitution into a presidential one and armed himself with draconian powers, including the right to sack a government even if it enjoyed a parliamentary majority. It remained that way till Nawaz Sharif, enjoying ‘a heavy mandate’ in his second tenure as prime minister, did away with the distortions through the Thirteenth Amendment. President Pervez Musharraf later dumped the Sharif amendments and reintroduced the Zia articles, including 58-2(b). This article has been abused by three presidents four times to dismiss elected governments. It is still there.

There are other powers also — like the appointment of judges, services chiefs and governors — that make the president unduly strong. The situation needs to be reversed, because on Feb 18 the people voted overwhelmingly in favour of parties that stood for restoring the 1973 Constitution to its undiluted parliamentary character. Seen against this background, Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani’s assurances to a delegation of newspaper owners are merely a reiteration of the grand alliance’s confirmed policy on the issue. A constitutional package, now reportedly under consideration, must also consider some other issues, like the abolition of the Concurrent List and the restoration of the judges. While there may be differences within the grand coalition on how to go about restoring the judges, there are no two opinions about curtailing the president’s powers. Given the unity in its ranks it should be able to manage a two-thirds majority.

The new situation presents a challenge to our parliamentarians, for they must show the responsibility expected of them. In the past, Assembly sessions were often prorogued because of lack of quorum. But even when the required number was present, the chamber very often lacked the vigour and vitality of an institution supposedly articulating the voice of the nation. Question hour, which is the soul of the parliamentary tradition, has seldom received the importance it merits. Reports indicate that not much has changed and the National Assembly sessions have not been vitalised as one would have liked to see them to be. While the Constitution needs to be amended, parliamentarians should also demonstrate by their behaviour in and out of the Assembly a sense of commitment to democratic values. The boycott seems to be the opposition’s principal mode of expressing dissent, while the ministers’ absence speaks volumes for their lack of regard for parliament’s sanctity.

Call for a UN probe

SO after the unopposed passage on Monday of a resolution in the National Assembly — following a similar move in the provincial assemblies — there is now little to stop the government from asking the United Nations to conduct an independent probe into the killing of Ms Benazir Bhutto. It has been the rallying cry of the PPP since the Dec 27, 2007, assassination of the PPP leader in Rawalpindi that a UN probe be initiated to bring the killers and financiers of the cowardly attack to justice. The then caretaker government and President Musharraf had turned down the party’s request, asking instead Scotland Yard to conduct the inquiry, which in turn revealed little more than their Pakistani counterparts had done. The scene of the crime had been washed clean of all circumstantial evidence within hours of the assassination, and a post-mortem of the slain leader’s body had been refused by Mr Zardari — handicaps which arguably worked against the Yard’s efforts to identify the guilty.

That the PPP’s demand for a UN probe should be revived at a time when a party-led government is firmly in the saddle is but sad and curious in equal measure: is it an admission on the part of the government that it has no faith in its own administration or the state institutions that are traditionally known for being subservient to the government to carry out an independent, credible probe into the slain leader’s cold-blooded murder? There has been no political party worth the name or a vote bank that did not condemn Ms Bhutto’s assassination in the strongest terms. One wonders with whom the ruling party seeks to have credibility by asking the UN to conduct the probe. Surely, it cannot be Al Qaeda or its local sympathisers.

That said, one may add we live in a country with a history of politically motivated assassinations that have never been probed in right earnest. The list is long, starting from the murder of Liaquat Ali Khan in 1951. More recently, the cold-blooded murder in an apparent police encounter and incidentally that of another Bhutto — Mir Murtaza — which took place in September 1996 during Benazir Bhutto’s second term in power, has remained shrouded in mystery. One of the accused, Mr Zardari, has only just been cleared of the charge, but the police on duty who were blamed for gunning down the PPP-Shaheed Bhutto leader, including some top police officers, virtually walked away without much ado. Under such surreal circumstances, a UN probe into Ms Bhutto’s killing may well be worth the trouble after all.

Suspicious fires

GENERALLY, inquiry committees and investigation teams come up with precious little that may satisfy rational minds about the purpose for which these teams are set up in the first place. That the relevant fact-finding body has found the rising number of fire incidents in Karachi to be suspicious, as such, is an inspiring departure from the norm. A police investigation team is even reported to have said that the fire in the Sindh Board of Revenue offices in March was caused by arson. The 17 major fires in the first 80 days of the current year as against 18 such incidents in the whole of last year tell their own tale. These months also happened to be the period when a political transition was being worked out in the country. This has widened the spectrum of suspicion in the eyes of the public. Adding to the intensity of this perception is the fact that most of these fires, especially those that ended up destroying vital records, erupted on Sundays and public holidays. The Sindh Board of Revenue fire coincided with the two-day Eid Milad-un-Nabi holiday and gutted the entire record. Earlier, two fires at the PNSC building, which houses a number of private and public sector offices, and one at Radio Pakistan, also erupted on holidays.

As for official investigations, lack of credibility is their unfortunate hallmark. The 15-day deadline for the BoR fire has long passed and the findings have not been officially announced. As regards the PNSC incidents, the Senate Standing Committee on Ports and Shipping only last week took strong note that no report had been submitted more than a year after it had called for an independent probe. It is quite understandable that in the absence of prompt government effort to either pin down the culprits or locate the cause of such incidents, people continue to take official investigations non-seriously and attribute the lack of transparency to attempts at a possible cover-up.

OTHER VOICES - European Press

Get it sorted

The Malta Independent

IT has to happen sooner or later. Waste separation at source is an issue that keeps cropping up every now and again, only for it to be shelved due to various difficulties that arise.

The latest shelving came about as a result of local councils demanding a slice of the pie to boost their coffers by taking over management of the issue. It is time to take a long, hard look at things.

Malta has received several warnings from the European Commission on subjects ranging from hunting, car registration tax and many others. Sooner or later … the EC will be issuing directives for Malta to conform to waste separation at source. We have an opportunity to implement a system which, by and large, seems to be a sound one whereby rubbish collectors will make an extra trip on Mondays in Gozo and on Tuesdays in Malta to collect recyclable waste from your doorstep. Even the bags are free.

If one were to take a look around Europe, one would find that not only does one have to pay for the transport of recyclables, but also for non-recyclable waste disposal. Not only that, but sometimes the trips are only effected once or twice a week. As far back as most can remember, Maltese citizens have had their waste collected daily from their doorstep free of charge.

As soon as the idea of waste separation at source was voiced, we did our usual rant and rave, “how many bags do you expect me to keep at home?”….

We ask people to take a look at our society. Can anyone remember when seatbelts were made mandatory? Many swore that come hell or high water, they would not be abiding by the law. Result: one of the highest seatbelt legislation compliance rates in the world. Can anyone remember the palaver that ensued once it was announced that the euro was to become legal tender? Result: a seamless switch from lira to euro without the slightest bit of moaning.

What are we getting at? We moan and groan and swear not to comply with things, when in reality, we are a really flexible and adaptable people that can pretty much do anything when we put our minds to it. The government is proposing to make use of the Marsascala recycling plant to reduce our carbon footprint, and we, basically, cannot get to full capacity because we do not have waste separation at source.

The situation is at a stalemate because of financial demands by the local councils. The government understandably has a bit of a hot potato on its hands because the collectors say they cannot make ends meet while the councils are demanding that they get a slice of the revenue to boost their coffers.

One way or another, get it sorted (excuse the pun). As we have mentioned, the EC will inevitably issue a directive on waste separation. Do we really want another rap on the knuckles when we can so easily avoid it? Something has got to give, and sooner rather than later. The issue must be resolved equitably, and the collectors must be treated fairly. Above all, the public must change its mentality and make use of this service that will eventually be mandatory. — (April 14)

Talking back to the state

THE state uses various lenses and methods to see, catalogue and control its citizens. These range from using routine data collection pertaining to their purchasing power and spending habits to resorting to force such as the controversial use of gun-ship helicopters to crush rebellions.

But our understanding of how people ‘talk back to the state’ is quite limited. In Pakistan, as in much of the Third World, resistance to the state mainly captures the attention of the urban intelligentsia and when it is expressed in organised ways it manifests itself in a confrontation between the state and its citizens.

The lawyers’ movement in Pakistan which began in March 2007 bears testimony to this. Resistance came to be associated with black-coats versus the law-enforcement agencies in uniform as well as in plainclothes. Alternatively, resistance surfaces in other ways as when it takes the form of violent reprisals, frequently expressed in suicide bombings.

Lost in the process is what James Scott calls ‘everyday resistance’ which takes the form of “foot-dragging, dissimulation, desertion, false compliance, pilfering, feigned ignorance, slander, arson, sabotage, and so on”. Such resistance makes no headlines and is hardly analysed by scholars because most forms of this struggle stop well short of outright collective defiance.

Opinion surveys, if conducted with empathy and care, help us to some degree to disaggregate the notions that people have and identify how different people ‘talk back’ differently to the state. The coalition led by Yusuf Raza Gilani has pledged to interact with citizens in a qualitatively different manner than the previous government. It is too early to say if the Gilani government will be able to fulfil its pledges and sustain itself for the full term of parliament.

If public pledges are well-intended then having some idea about how the people have been seeing the state in the past eight years will come in handy in determining the manner in which the new government should seek to converse with the masses. Here is a little sampling of how ordinary people view their relationship with the Pakistani state.

While state authorities and the spin doctors associated with them have been portraying the state as the bearer of development and security for conflict-ridden and unstable regions of the country, the people living in those regions mainly see the state’s role as a problem and not a solution. Regular resort to coercive measures has contributed a great deal to the perception of the state as the harbinger of conflict rather than peace.

Discourse emanating mainly from Islamabad often reduces opposition to the state in areas like Dera Bugti to the handiwork of disgruntled and anti-development tribal leaders. But it is safe to assert that people trapped in such conflict zones do not necessarily share Islamabad’s perception.

In a survey conducted by the Sustainable Development Policy Institute, it was found that the perception of 85 per cent of the people in Dera Bugti is that the law and order situation has worsened during the last five years. Close to half of those polled in Lahore hold a similar view. Now the new dispensation in the country has extended an olive branch to the Baloch population. General Ziaul Haq did the same by releasing incarcerated Baloch leaders when he assumed power in 1977.

But these gestures were not followed up by concrete steps to alleviate Balochistan’s psychological and economic grievances against Islamabad. We will have to wait and see if Islamabad seriously intends to turn over a new leaf this time.

The responsibility of providing protection to the people is the basis for the contract between the individual and the state. Individuals endow the state with the privilege of legally using force to maintain order. On this front too, the social contract between citizens and the state in Pakistan leaves much to be desired. In a majority of situations, when people think their safety and security is in danger, they will turn to non-state institutions either on account of fear of state institutions or the lack of access to them. Police are seen more as part of the problem than the solution.

In many instances, the state is simply absent or distant from ordinary people when they would like to turn to it to seek safety. Imagine a village in Sindh where a woman is subjected to constant spousal abuse. In the absence of social services and well-trained police authorities, the hapless woman is more likely to broach the subject with and seek safety and security from those members of her extended family whom she thinks will be sympathetic to her plight.

The vitality of the bond between the ruler and the ruled can be ascertained, at the very minimum, in terms of the level of satisfaction the latter feels for the national government. Pakistani governments usually suffer from satisfaction deficit. People in most parts of the country are not satisfied with their rulers in Islamabad. Only a quarter of respondents in Karachi and Lahore during our survey expressed satisfaction with the national government. The figure in Dera Bugti was a dismal five per cent on this count.

It is admirable to see leading politicians of the country coming together in a coalition government. Will this translate into a coalition between politicians in Islamabad and the majority of Pakistan’s 160 million people? It is a tough but not impossible task.

Thanks partly to past disenchantment with civilian politicians, ordinary people do not expect too much even from those they elected in the February elections. Once the euphoria over national coalition-building settles, the new administration’s actions will tell whether or not those at the helm have grown wiser over the last decade.

writer teaches at the School of International Studies, Simon Fraser University, Canada.

hnizamani@hotmail.com