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| April 28, 2008 | Monday | Rabi-us-Sani 21, 1429 |
The Thar dream
Suicide prevention
OTHER VOICES - North American Press
Public policy & political process
The aftermath of Sufi’s release
THE legislature has historically been the weakest link amongst our state institutions and politicians have been the poorest performers amongst our power wielders.
THE Amir of the Tahrik-i-Nifaz-i-Sharia’at-i-Mohammadi (TNSM), Sufi Mohammad, was released on April 23, 2008 after serving a prison sentence in Dera Ismail Khan jail for quite some time.
THE police failed Jagdeesh Kumar in his hour of need and relatives say the law enforcers are now failing his family. Eyewitnesses maintain that a police contingent arrived while Jagdeesh was still alive but did next to nothing as the 20-year-old was beaten to death by co-workers at a garments factory in Karachi. Jagdeesh was lynched for allegedly making blasphemous remarks, a charge his relatives deny. They insist his murder stemmed from personal rivalry and that concocted charges of blasphemy were used as an excuse to kill. In any case it is immaterial to the argument here whether or not Jagdeesh offended anyone’s religious sensibilities. No law in the land, however questionable, prescribes such a fate and consider also that we will never hear Jagdeesh’s side of the story. A savage mob that assumed the role of judge, jury and executioner put paid to that possibility and, even more incredibly, the police watched him die.
Nor have the officers distinguished themselves in their investigation into the case. While some arrests have been made, family members and at least one representative of Karachi’s Hindu community suspect a cover-up in which the ringleaders are being let off the hook. The family meanwhile lives in fear and says it will do so until justice is delivered, the ‘lie’ expo-
sed and the ‘stain’ of blasphemy removed from their community.
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan has long demanded the repeal of the country’s blasphemy laws, as have other independent organisations and commentators. Many have pointed out that these laws introduced by Gen Ziaul Haq have been manipulated to settle personal scores and to persecute communities, particularly the minorities. It is believed that people have been charged with blasphemy so that the accuser can renege on debts or grab property left behind by those forced to flee. Egged on at times by clerics spewing hatred from mosque loudspeakers, vigilantes have killed individuals and burned down homes and places of worship. Moreover, the laws themselves are so vaguely worded that even a scholarly questioning of ultra-orthodox interpretations of Islam may be construed by some as insulting behaviour. Sections 295-B and 295-C also come across as discriminatory because the holy books and prophets of other faiths are not ‘protected’. There has been one procedural change though whereby arrests for blasphemy are now generally preceded by an investigation. Earlier any allegation, however unsubstantiated, by any person could lead to an arrest by the police. But Jagdeesh Kumar received neither the benefit of an inquiry nor a helping hand from the police.
THE decision to hold an international conference in Pakistan to seek foreign investment to exploit the Thar coal reserves for power generation would surely help untangle many of the snags that have so far held up progress on this front. But what is needed more urgently is a national conference on the subject of coal to finalise a national coal policy. Given the escalating oil prices in the international market and Pakistan’s preponderant dependence on oil for generating electricity, the need to diversify our energy mix cannot be overemphasised. It defies all logic that with an abundance of coal reserves Pakistan has not made optimum use of them. It is time to review comprehensively on the national level as to why efforts made so far to put the Thar coal reserves to profitable use met with failure. A Chinese company, an American organisation and a local sponsor have at different times shown interest in Thar coal. The factors that jeopardised these attempts need to be analysed. It would not serve any purpose if an international conference is held and the funds mobilised without first identifying the hurdles that have blocked earlier ventures. Once these are identified and a consensus has been developed at the national level on how best to remove them, then alone would it be desirable to call an international conference of investors interested in coal mining and coal-fired power projects.
Thar coal reserve estimates are said to be equivalent to at least 850 trillion cubic feet (TCF) of gas — about 30 times higher than Pakistan’s proven gas reserves of 28 TCF. Other estimates put the reserves equivalent at a minimum of 400 billion barrels of oil — equal to the oil reserves of Saudi Arabia and Iran put together. These estimates have been confirmed by separate bankable feasibility studies conducted by Chinese and Russian experts. It is claimed that by using only two per cent of the existing Thar coal reserves, Pakistan could generate around 20,000 megawatts of electricity for almost 40 years. However, these studies recommend that in the first phase, a modern mine with an annual output of six million tons of coal be developed at Thar to cater to the fuel requirements of a 1,000MW power plant. The capital cost of developing such a mine is estimated to be around $1bn, whereas a total investment of $4bn is required to undertake full-scale coal mining at Thar. With oil at $120 a barrel — or for that matter at even $85 — the capital cost of developing coal mining perhaps wouldn’t pose a problem today if a foreign investor with the right technical expertise is convinced that his margin would be commensurate with the risks involved.
TWO cases of attempted suicide reported in this paper last week, one in Rawalpindi and the other in Islamabad, coupled with the recent suicides in the capital and elsewhere in the country, draw attention to this grave problem. More than anything else, it is evident that there is a palpable lack of awareness in our society about recognising and responding to the cry for help of emotionally disturbed and anguished people. For the man in Islamabad, it was his second suicide attempt. Yet the reaction was simply to register a case against him although under the Mental Health Ordinance 2001 suicide is no longer a crime. In this case the more important fact that was overlooked was that a person who attempts suicide needs psychological counselling since he is unable to cope with the stress he is under. Without professional help, he is likely to attempt suicide again.
Suicide has historically been condemned the world over by religions and states as a sin or a crime until very recent times. It has been decriminalised only recently in many countries What is more significant is that many countries in Asia and the West are now recognising suicide as a public health issue and are developing national suicide prevention plans to try and break down cultural barriers to suicide prevention. This calls for public awareness and education and the establishment of crisis helplines to make psychological help easily accessible. But these are at best first-aid measures. It is the mental health sector that actually needs to be strengthened. Given the high incidence of clinical depression in the country, the first line of defence should be promoting the mental and emotional well-being of people by and large. This is a tall order. The apathy towards the health sector — low investment in the health-care system keeps it a deprived area — affects the mental health subsector badly since it is considered to be the least important of all health problems. Besides being the most misunderstood area of human health, there is much stigma attached to mental illness that acts as a barrier in the way of progress.
A shameful, ugly ad
The New York Times
MANIPULATIVE. Shameful. Race-baiting. Those are the only words to describe a new television ad from the Republican Party running in North Carolina that attacks Senator Barack Obama as “too extreme” for the state.
Senator John McCain was right to condemn the ad and demand that state Republican Party leaders pull it — a demand they refused. As of Friday, the state party’s website was soliciting contributions to “keep this ad on the air.”
… The ad is built around the well-known video clip of the Rev Jeremiah Wright Jr — Mr Obama’s former pastor — declaring “God damn America.” We have said before that we find Rev Wright’s oratory racist. And we have criticised Senator Obama for waiting too long to denounce it….
But that’s not what this ad is about. The assertion that Mr Obama is “just too extreme for North Carolina” is a clear bid to stir bigotry in a southern state. The ad’s claim that its target is actually two Democratic gubernatorial candidates who endorsed Mr Obama is ludicrous.
This is too familiar. In his 1990 re-election campaign, Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina ran the infamous ‘hands’ ad showing two white hands crumpling up a letter while the announcer intones: “You needed that job, and you were the best qualified. But they had to give it to a minority.”
… Senator McCain was right when he said, of the new ad, that “there’s no place for that kind of campaigning — and the American people don’t want it, period.”
Now he needs to get his party to listen. — (April 26)
Pakistan’s bold gamble
The Toronto Star
AS political gambles go, Pakistan has just rolled the dice on a big one. Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gillani hopes to tame some of his country’s wilder regions, especially along the Afghanistan border, by striking peace deals with Taliban-friendly, violence-prone movements and Pashtun tribes rather than through military pressure.
This week Gillani set free Sufi Muhammad, a cleric who heads a movement that has fought for decades to establish Quranic law in [Malakand]…. Gillani is also reportedly in peace talks with Baitullah Mehsud and elders of his tribe….
This is playing with fire. Some radicals can be expected to use any truce to regroup and rearm or to despatch fighters to Afghanistan, creating havoc there. It has happened before. But despite the risk, Gillani is right to try to stem the frontier violence to make the areas safer for commerce and development and to dry up a source of terrorists.
Under the ceasefire, Muhammad’s group can lobby for Sharia law, but only peacefully. It renounces violence and terror. It promises to respect the government….
This looks like a bold attempt to rehabilitate Taliban-friendly Islamists and to isolate and marginalise pro-Al Qaeda extremists. Whether it will work … is anyone’s guess….
Prudent Pakistanis are reserving judgment. But most rejected radicals and voted for moderate parties in the Feb 18 election. And the extremists have been under growing military pressure. That strengthens Gillani’s hand. To the extent that he manages to pacify Pakistan’s anarchic regions and to choke off the cross-border insurgency, he deserves international encouragement...— (April 25)
And this in a country where institutions per se have lacked integrity and commitment and have enjoyed perpetuation only for personal profit! Legislators have hesitated in asserting their authority and discretion; succumbed to temptation and benefaction; and, surrendered to bullies and browbeaters.
Suddenly the post Feb 18 successful politicians have found a new metaphor — rapprochement and national integration — and a new idiom — the supremacy of parliament. It is music, though strange and unbelievable, to the ears of the enlightened elite. The downtrodden are under a suspension of disbelief and cannot see the light of optimism while clouded by blackouts and the grain drain. Still, there persists a spring in the air, after a year long winter of discontent.
Pakistan came into being through a political process, spearheaded by two lawyers — Iqbal and Jinnah — one with a philosophical vision and the other an embodiment of sagacity, steadfastness and commitment to institutions and the law. Therefore, public policy in Pakistan in its earliest years was pursued and developed through the political process and the fundamentals were entirely the domain of parliament. The executive was the product of the legislature and not imposed upon it by gun toting marauders of political power.
Most politicians of the pre-independence struggle understood that public good through public policy was their principal pursuit. Hence the entire political process had to be respected and employed. The citizen had to demand and that demand had to be encouraged and ascertained. Thus informed, the legislature had to apply its faculties to thrash out issues voluntarily or on reference from the executive. Parliament would develop public policy through enactment or encourage and guide the executive through resolutions. The executive would then implement its agenda under parliamentary guidance or legislation. The executive would not ignore the politicians who created it. But this was in the very early years of Pakistan.
Soon the civil and military bureaucracies combined to conspire against the political process. An establishment emerged outside the political fold. Nascence of institutions and scarcity of human resource of quality amongst practising politicians allowed the bureaucrats to arrogate to themselves direct exercise of political authority. A submissive political executive was in attendance for petty crumbs of favour and opportunity thrown their way.
Public policy, thus, became the exclusive domain of the establishment which considered it irrelevant to involve a larger body for counsel, whether the parliament or the civil society. The self proclaimed prophets of public good within the establishment have always been convinced that their intuitive knowledge was sufficient and superior. They consider their untested hypotheses as laws of nature which must be inflicted as public policy. The socio-economic costs of such experimentation are of no concern to them as accountability is a concept foreign to our make up. For the common man reconciliation with our fate is the national order.
Since the mid-fifties to date, all major public policy decisions have been made in divorce or concealment from the political process. The only exceptions belong to Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s years in power, when several public policy decisions, including foreign policy, were orchestrated through the political process. Mr Bhutto was conscious of his populist appeal and charm and had the leader’s capacity to influence mindsets rather than following the herd, and could impose his will as a populist measure.
All our national security, economic and social sector policy decisions over decades have been taken by the establishment without a real political debate. At best the political process has been a cosmetic fringe to lace the decision making process with a representative border.
Fundamental policies in the field of education, health and population can and do bring about social change and determine the future course a society may embark upon — sometimes a stark choice between destruction and development. Not one major comprehensive policy intervention in these areas has evolved through the political process culminating in a parliamentary debate and legislation. Almost all such decisions were taken by the executive without regard to the centrality of a political debate for their ownership by all stakeholders. The result is that we revise them every so often.
Experiments in public policy advancing the whim of the ruler is a direct cost to the public exchequer and can have far reaching effects on the economy. If the people and politicians are ousted from the process there is no ownership and no sustainability. The people bear the cost of the ruler’s enchantment with an idea regardless of the basic unsuitability of the concept. The devolution plan, which has been a disaster on many counts, is a case in point. Apart from basic damage to governance mechanisms, it has cost billions of rupees in wasteful experimentation and poor change management. Perhaps, it’s because of a major policy decision that did not go through the political process.
But the socio-political cost has been greater. Governments do not realise that denial of the political process alienates people from the government and ultimately from the state if the denial persists. Estrangement of a sizeable section of the Balochistan population is an example.
Back to the euphoria (fast fading though) of the spring of 2008. The supremacy of parliament is the chanted slogan — left, right and centre. All power to the people through their representatives is the new mantra of previously ruthlessly autocratic politicians. A great feeling to hear this and one likes to believe them, perhaps against more informed advice. There is talk of several public policies in the front row of consideration — education and privatisation, to name just a couple. Yet there are no declarations of following a political process to form these policies. There is pontification galore and a self sufficiency of wisdom demonstrated by the ministers.
After a political process, public policy cannot be undertaken by a government without a commonality of purpose within its ranks. As of today, the coalition is yet to coalesce. The two main parties in power seem to articulate separate calendars of yearnings. For a successful marriage of public acclaim they will need to follow a single stream of shared ambitions, and be mindful of the aspirations of the citizens, not just defer to foreign influences. Their policies must respond to demands and needs of the people ascertained through the political process.
jha45@yahoo.co.uk
Sufi Mohammad had led an uprising against the government in 1994 and had brought the whole administration of Malakand Division, situated in the North West Frontier Province, to a standstill till the government carried out an operation and curbed his movement.
The government had then promulgated the Sharia’a Nizam-i-Adl Ordinance of 1995 in Malakand Division (Swat, Lower Dir, Upper Dir, Shangla, Buner and Chitral) but the TNSM leadership was avowedly unhappy with the measure of influence allowed to the clergy in the judicial process of Malakand Division. The government had then revised the ordinance and had promulgated another version, giving more clout to the clergy, in 1999.
When the US invaded Afghanistan in 2001, Sufi Mohammad mobilized some 10,000 fighters and went to Afghanistan to help his ideological patrons in that country. Hundreds were killed in battles with the Northern Alliance and hundreds are still missing in the army of zealots from Malakand Division who accompanied Sufi Mohammad for ‘jihad’ while the leader returned unscathed to Pakistan. He was then arrested and put behind bars.
The NWFP government has released Sufi Mohammad ostensibly as a confidence-building measure to facilitate a dialogue with the ‘Pakistani Taliban’. The move is also seen as having the potential of taking the ‘moderate Taliban’ led by Sufi Mohammad on board. This is apparently meant to bring about an ever-lasting peace in the high intensity conflict zones of the NWFP. The reduction of attacks on the civilian and government installations in recent weeks and the reported statement by Baitullah Mehsud on April 23, 2008 are seen to be the result of these political moves by the newly elected government of the NWFP.
Some reports in the national and international media also suggest that the government may succeed in bargaining for the release of the abducted ambassador of Pakistan to Afghanistan, Tariq Azizuddin, who has been held hostage by the ‘Taliban’ in dubious circumstances. Government circles continuously refute the claims of some analysts in this regard. At the same time, two prominent people have come under attack in Swat in the last one week — Baidar, an SHO who has been critically injured in Kanju township, and Muhammad Hussain, a lawyer and the nazim of union council Kabal who was killed. The Taliban affiliated with Fazlullah are presumed to be responsible for these attacks.
The US officials keep sending notes of ‘concern’ to the international media to communicate to the newly elected government their reservation regarding the dialogue process. The UK minister of foreign affairs held discussions with the central and the NWFP governments on the issues related to the ‘war on terror’. The concern of the US and UK governments that the dialogue might give an opportunity to the armed militants with links with the Al Qaeda to regroup is also shared by a section of the public in Swat and Malakand Division at large. There are people who believe that instead of sidelining the hardliners, the release of Sufi Mohammad might give them courage to continue with their ‘agenda’ of imposing ‘Shariah’ in Malakand Division.
The crucial questions being asked by the intelligentsia around the globe are: is there any link between local militants and Al Qaeda on the one hand and the fighting against the US and Nato forces in Afghanistan? Is the ‘Jama’at-Wahabi (Deobandi)-Brotherhood alliance’ still intact?
These crucial questions prompt us to take a harder look at the matter from the perspective of the eternal conflict between the pan-Islamist movements and the global capitalist agenda of de-regulation, liberalisation and neo-imperialism. This discourse also takes us to investigate the US geostrategic interests and the ‘new great game’. As there are several missing links or unexplained hidden knots in the whole story, the intelligentsia and the public opinion around the globe are anxious to understand the outcome of both the ‘war on terror’ and the process of ‘dialogue’.
The public opinion in Swat and elsewhere in Malakand Division is divided on the outcome of the release of Sufi Mohammad. One section — the middle class businessmen, professionals and educated circles — think that with the release of Sufi the demand for the implementation of the proposed Sharia’a Nizam-i-Adl Ordinance might be renewed. That, according to them, means that Malakand Division might go into the hands of the clerics once and for all. They think that the situation in Malakand Division might even slip into the quagmire of warlordism as has happened in the case of Afghanistan before. Other section of the public opinion suggests that the release might help the ‘moderate’ elements of the armed militants to mobilise public opinion against the ‘hardliners’ which may ultimately lead to peace in the region.
The common people of Swat are probably too perplexed to decipher the complex situation that keeps changing at an amazingly fast pace. They might be interested to see a comprehensive strategy for rehabilitation and a plan for holistic development of their valley. Swat valley has yet to come to a normal and routine life. Restoration of tourism is still a far cry. Businesses in the urban centres are still under the shadow of an unknown sword of Damocles.
Though the situation in the valley has considerably improved in recent times there is still fear lurking on the banks of the River Swat, in the streets of towns and in the orchards and forests of the green hills surrounding the valley. Cultural activities like music and mushairas, once a hallmark of the lively nature of the people, are still in the doldrums. The historical and cultural heritage of the valley is still in danger. Any observer who visits the devastated villages of this Switzerland of Asia clearly finds confusion, perplexity and uncertainty in the eyes of the common people.
Who will bring certainty and hope back to the weary eyes of the hapless population? The newly elected government probably cannot afford to ignore this aspect of the issue. A poet has given voice to the feelings of the people in this manner:
Ruins have germinated
In the land of flowers
Who turned my village?
Into a symbol of devastations
khadim.2005@gmail.com
