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| October 01, 2008 | Wednesday | Shawwal 1, 1429 |
Reshuffle in the army
Dark clouds over the PCB
OTHER VOICES - European Press
Greening the industry
How much difference will the departure of George W Bush make to the politics of climate change? The answer as of today is: not enough. Both candidates for his job have acknowledged the need for action, but not such as to threaten the inalienable right of US motorists to cheap gas. And the boldest initiatives that now seem politically feasible in America will scarcely make a dent in the problem.
FOR all the talk of empowering women and giving them their rights, we still seem to be stuck in a groove when it comes to striking out discriminatory decrees that question women’s judgment and morality. Otherwise banks today would not be following Gen Ziaul Haq’s Qanun-i-Shahadat Ordinance 1984 that, among other things, equates the testimony of two women with that of one man. Neither would we have failed to repeal the Hudood Ordinance whose provisions, though softened somewhat by the Protection of Women Act 2006, still serve as a reminder of the repression women endure. Unfortunately, any steps taken so far towards the emancipation of women have been cosmetic and top-heavy. Changes at the grassroots have been minimal. No doubt, the head of Pakistan’s central bank is a woman — a fact that underscores the irony of banks not accepting the signature of female witnesses — and never before has parliament in Pakistan seen such a preponderance of women as now. Also, with more of them in the job market (many enter fields like the media where previously their numbers were negligible) there is greater visibility of women in the mainstream. However, only a handful of women have seen their lives change for the better. The vast majority remain in the backdrop, silenced by archaic customs and conservative mindsets that see their progression as a threat to the country’s patriarchal set-up.
Statistics make the picture even clearer: the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan reported more than 4,000 cases of abuses against women in 2007. These related to sexual crimes, honour killings, domestic violence, etc. Considering that many victims are reluctant to seek legal redress, the number is probably much higher. On the other end of the spectrum there are social and cultural rights that are being abused. Only 42 per cent of the female population aged 10 years and over is literate. For the provinces of Balochistan and the NWFP and the tribal areas, where many are not even allowed to vote, the figure is far lower than the national average. In fact, owing to the pernicious influence of Talibanisation in the country, the literacy rate in the NWFP actually plummeted to 28 per cent in 2006-07 from 30 per cent the previous year.
For its part the state has been able to do little to root out feudal and tribal norms that see women as a piece of property and their chastity as central to tribal honour. In fact with parliamentarians who actually subscribe to traditions that violate women’s rights, as witnessed recently in the Balochistan honour-killing saga, the government can do little to eliminate jirgas that challenge the authority of courts of law. The PPP was not able to make much headway on women’s issues during its last two stints in power. Unless it does so now, it will find obscurantist forces, be they the Taliban or similarly retrogressive elements, putting paid to any hopes for women’s progress.
BARRING changes at the very top, normal transfers and promotions in armies do not make news in democratic countries. In Pakistan, given its history, reshuffles in the army command make news because they have political overtones, especially when the ISI — some foreign powers’ bugbear — gets a new chief. On Monday, Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani reshuffled the top army command, changing four of the nine corps commanders, appointing a new chief of the general staff and a new ISI chief. The changes signify confidence in the army chief’s ability to shed the Musharraf baggage and place men of his choice in key positions. More significantly, he could be rethinking the ISI’s role by choosing a general who he thinks can give a new and professional direction to the ISI. Lt Gen Ahmad Shuja Pasha, who replaces Lt Gen Nadeem Taj as ISI director-general, has been overseeing operations against the Taliban in Fata and other parts of the NWFP for the last two years. This should be an asset for an ISI chief, because knowledge of the goings-on in Fata and the cloak-and-dagger operations involving half a dozen intelligence agencies there should enable him to give better intelligence data to the 100,000-strong army battling the Taliban.
Gen Kayani has been supportive of the democratic government, and the change in the ISI’s stewardship has been done with the prime minister’s approval. This should give rise to hopes that Pakistan’s most famous or infamous spy agency will give up meddling in domestic politics and concentrate solely on its role as the armed forces’ intelligence arm. Its political intrigues and shenanigans have had disastrous consequences. During Ziaul Haq’s regime its ranks swelled to an unbelievable 90,000, and the military dictator used the agency brazenly to persecute political dissent and consolidate his power. More disastrous for Pakistan, the ISI began funding and arming some religious parties to send ‘mujahideen’ into Afghanistan to take part in the US-led ‘jihad’ against the Soviet Union. Even during the weak post-Zia governments, the ISI continued to determine the course of Pakistan’s Kashmir and Afghan policies. Some foreign powers still accuse the ISI of latent sympathy for the Taliban and withhold intelligence for fear of leakage. One hopes that under the changed circumstances and with a new set of commanders, the ISI and the army should be able to concern themselves solely with national security issues.
WITH a seriously disappointing state of affairs prevailing in almost every single sporting discipline under its umbrella, one would have thought that the sports ministry would have enough on its hands setting things right in so many domains. Not quite. Its move to take control of the Pakistan Cricket Board indicates a gluttonous appetite and a tendency to have more on its platter than the ministry can savour. The Pakistan Sports Board, which the ministry controls, stands totally ineffective. The various associations and federations that fall under its purview have failed to throw up any talent worth its name in many years, and yet the ministry has decided to poke its nose in the affairs of the PCB which is uncharted territory for the bureaucrats. In fact, it goes much beyond that. The ministry has taken control of the PCB and the federal sports minister seems set to attend the forthcoming ICC meeting. The committee formed to suggest constitutional changes within the set-up and devise ways to improve cricket seems to be nothing but a sideshow to distract public attention from the distasteful manoeuvrings of the ministry and its minister. This is audacity at its worst.
Years of ad-hocism have already ruined the game. The good thing is that it is not beyond resurrection. Not yet anyway. However, the latest move — ill-advised, if not ill-intentioned — has the potential to make cricket join the ranks of, say, hockey and squash where Pakistan were once world-beaters but now represent nothing more than the fringes of sporting activity. When politicians join hands with bureaucrats, more often than not they end up creating more problems than they solve. This is a historical fact in our context. What the PCB needs is a technocrat or former cricketer with proven administrative skills who can both represent Pakistan’s case firmly on the global stage and set things right internally with the help of a team of professionals. The PCB patron has to intervene without delay, but he will also do a world of good to the cause of Pakistan cricket if he can somehow resist the temptation of appointing cronies to the top job.
Airport on the Thames
The Independent
THOSE who have been following the evolution of Conservative Party policy under David Cameron might have sensed the way the wind was blowing, but yesterday’s announcement still came as a surprise. Addressing the party conference in Birmingham, the shadow transport secretary, Theresa Villiers, pledged that a Conservative government would tear up plans for a third runway at Heathrow airport and use the money to build a high-speed, north-south rail line instead.
It stems also from the impression given by the present… government that approval for the third runway is already a done deal. There was thus no need for the Conservatives to make this a party political issue….
As the success of France’s high-speed railways and the Eurostar have shown, business and leisure travellers alike will choose the train if time and cost considerations are comparable.
But the discussion should not be allowed to stop there. London’s mayor, Boris Johnson, has shown the way by reviving the idea of a brand new airport for London in the Thames estuary. That his musings were at once dismissed as unrealisable or undesirable could have been predicted. Formidable vested interests are tied up in the status quo. But it is precisely such fearless, big-picture thinking that is required....
Current circumstances create unusually favourable conditions for new thinking about airport provision in general, and airports in the congested South-east in particular. High fuel prices and the credit crunch have already bankrupted some airlines, caused others to reduce the number of flights and started to curb passenger demand.
Heathrow has for too long been deferred to as an elemental force that brooks no resistance. With high-speed trains and many passengers whose chief requirement is to change planes, there is no reason why London’s flagship airport has to be at Heathrow and many compelling reasons why it should not. The mayor, we believe, has voiced an idea whose time has come. — (Sept 30)
For one thing, there is much less of a consensus in the US about the nature of the threat than exists in Europe, and powerful vested interests stand in the way. Four of the key swing states — Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and West Virginia — are built on coal, while others such as Iowa have big biofuel interests.
For another, the sheer complexity of America’s energy system is a serious barrier to progress. To take one example, there are more than 3,000 separate electric utility companies spread across the country, all of them given incentives to sell as much power as possible from the cheapest energy sources. There are three regional grids, with limited interconnection. And there are armies of sometimes competing regulators, at local, state and federal level.
Hence the importance of Thomas Friedman’s new book, Hot, Flat and Crowded. In many ways, it’s a maddening read for Europeans, and not just because it ignores the EU and the lead that it has taken on this issue. Friedman’s style is all-American.
He believes the vital role of the US is to stand as “a beacon of hope and the country that can always be counted on to lead the world in response to whatever is the most important issue of the day”.
But his arguments are pitched squarely at American readers, and his is an influential voice. His last book, The World is Flat, became required reading in the corner offices of Fortune magazine, and his latest offering is designed to win over the same sceptical audience.
The starting point is that ending America’s addiction to oil is not just an environmental necessity — it is also a strategic and economic imperative. Oil dependency makes dictators stronger, democratic countries weaker and radical terrorists richer. Rather than staying on this course, business and the country as a whole should see the development of a clean energy infrastructure as a source of competitive advantage.
— The Guardian, London
