WHILE stories of children being abandoned by their wretched parents do indicate the extreme point in despair that is seizing the poorest of the poor in Pakistan, they do not offer a fair idea of the size of the population rendered utterly destitute by the current economic crisis.

Experts everywhere agree that the economically weak segments of humankind are again going to be the worst victims of the profligacy of the privileged. Their plight is receiving little attention in the tomes that are being churned out by the hour across the globe by economists and laypersons alike. Nor do they figure in the discussion on the effects of the global turbulence on Pakistan’s fragile economy, although they could well account for a third of the country’s population or probably more. Worse, their number seems to be increasing and even the most recent estimates of the number of Pakistanis living below the poverty line have become irrelevant.

Regardless of what the experts tell us it is impossible to believe that the economic crisis has only one dimension, the stroke suffered by the market, and that the only possible cure is the Bush prescription — injection of huge cash resources into credit institutions. Whether Pakistan should blindly follow the western capitalist path to recovery, indeed to survival, is open to question.

In a country where the trickle-down theories have never provided the marginalised the means of bare existence, resuscitation of the market cannot be accepted as the only effective talisman for recovery. The impact of the economic crisis on the lives of the people, especially the underprivileged, must command as much attention, if not more, as the cash needs of banks and stock exchanges. The government’s efforts to deal with the situation seem flawed on quite a few counts but at the moment we are concerned with two main fault lines, one within the national jurisdiction and the other noticed at the regional level.

The essential question is: how is the economic crisis affecting the have-nots and are these matters being covered by the remedial efforts?

The principal problem faced by the poor is a sharp drop in employment opportunities and their increasing inability to provide for their substandard living. Their capacity to buy food has further declined, they cannot tend to the sick and they cannot send their children to school. Are these problems on the agenda of the beneficiaries of state resources? The assumption that the needs of the poor will be met when industry and trade grow, as said earlier, is not backed by historical evidence.

Once again Pakistan is under pressure to earmark resources for the social sector apart from investment in industry and the market. So far we have not heard of a meaningful plan to assure the poor of adequate food security or of any emergency plans to improve their access to health and educational facilities.

This is not to deny the creation of the Benazir Bhutto fund for the poor or efforts to subsidise the sale of bread. These initiatives were conceived in the pre-crisis environment and were not based on any assessment of the grim situation that is now unfolding. Besides an increase in the circulation of dole is not a good way to extend the poor relief without harming their productive capacity. Pakistan should be worrying not only about the day-to-day hardships of the underprivileged but also about the threat to its human resources.

Apparently a realisation of this aspect of the problem has persuaded Mr Obama to pledge the creation of millions of new jobs instead of confining himself to the meaningless chatter about market stabilisation. Pakistan must also give priority to a crash programme to provide gainful employment to the poor. At the same time steps need to be taken to ensure availability of medical and educational facilities at costs the economically weak can afford. This may be done through local bodies or in partnership within civil society organisations, depending on circumstances in the different parts of the country.

The second fault line is the absence of action at the regional level. All countries in the South Asian region are threatened by recession, and as a consequence millions of people are going to face indescribable hardships. While some pockets in South Asia may be able to meet the crisis with bearable discomfort, some other parts appear to be tottering on the edge of a precipice. No knowledgeable observer can deny that economic calamities befalling any member of the South Asian family will affect all its other members and may eventually disrupt the fragile political understanding the region’s leaders have reached after years of difficult negotiations.

Like Pakistan its South Asian neighbours also are, by and large, banking on the strategy borrowed from the country in whose financial extravagance the global crisis had its origin. Resources are being pumped into the same system that created whopping inequalities in national societies and condemned millions upon millions of people to impoverishment and dehumanised existence. Can South Asia as a whole view this prospect with equanimity?

Further, South Asia has not realised the need to contribute to the international rescue plans. The meetings of the G8, G20 and Asia-Pacific leaders have been held apparently to pursue the agenda already set by the US. It is doubtful if any other country has had possibilities of suggesting amendments or alternatives to the American assumptions. It is time South Asian leaders pondered whether they should for ever be stuck with plans in whose formulation they have had no role.

Even a little deliberation will reveal the possibilities of improving the region’s economic prospects by strengthening intra-region cooperation. For example South Asia could force some much-needed reform in the lending and aid policies of international finance institutions by confronting them unitedly instead of each of its states separately negotiating with them.

They can also ease each other’s problems by raising the level of regional trade and investment. If greater economic cooperation among South Asian states demands changes in the direction and substance of their national economic plans let their planning commissions meet and start devising measures for the common good of the subcontinent’s people. Pakistan should be able to garner considerable goodwill by making a move in this direction.

There should be little doubt about the urgency of moving towards a common South Asian strategy to overcome the current crisis and thereby lay the foundations of a better future for the region’s population, especially the poor hordes. What needs to be grasped is the stark reality that failure to work together now will destroy all South Asian nations, even if some national entities are destroyed to a lesser extent than others.

CANADA celebrates its citizenship week every year during the third week of October. The purpose of having a week dedicated to this aspect of national life — something not common in other countries — is to recognise the value of citizenship as well as immigration.

While the week focuses on the privileges, rights and responsibilities of citizenship, it is also a time when questions are raised on where Canada’s immigration policy is headed.

Official numbers show that approximately 260,000 individuals enter Canada every year. Parallel numbers from Statistics Canada also show that the country has over 1.1 million officially unemployed which is 6.2 per cent of the population. So when concerned Canadian voices wonder why Canada is bringing in so many people, it is a rational question.

The issue however is too vast to fit into one rational question and a subject which directly influences many lives all around the world. Unfortunately, hopeful immigrants are quite unaware that many Canadian employers too are asking that very same question.

With effects of the economic recession in the US predicted to eventually bear down on Canada as well, concerned Canadians are hoping that there will be a slowdown in the immigration process.

Besides the yearly number of immigrants mentioned above, there is reportedly also a backlog of about 900,000 applications for permanent residence and 500,000 to 1,000,000 undocumented workers in Canada. An immigration lawyer openly questions the Canadian government regarding these numbers, “What are we going to do with them? Are we going to continue importing the world’s best and brightest so that we can seat them behind the wheel of a downtown-Toronto cab?”

Unlike the American dream of its founding fathers of ‘a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone’, the Canadian livelihood is mostly about shedding past glories and making do with crumbs from a tightly guarded job market. The sob stories of qualified professionals compromising on their job descriptions can fill many volumes on ‘life after immigration’.

Considering the settlement histories of immigrants, the logical course to follow would be to caution others from falling into the same pit and limit the number of new immigrants. But the flip side of the argument points out that those who have reaped the benefit of immigration and are now second- or third-generation Canadians should have no right to deprive others of that same option, even at the cost of a depreciated lifestyle.

There are additionally 60,000 to 70,000 asylum seekers or refugees in Canada waiting for a hearing with the Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB). There has been criticism that knowing the humanitarian stance of the Canadian government some seem to have exploited the term ‘refugee’. A category which originally comprised those fleeing political persecution, asylum seekers now include cases of spousal abuse, discrimination against gays, parental abuse and even ridicule of an obese condition.

The Canadian immigration debate is one public-policy issue which stirs up the most controversies within Canada. Successive immigration ministers have hardly ever attempted to influence or change the immigration policy. With the immigrant and ethnic vote bank exceedingly valuable to all politicians, there is no way that the immigration policy will be altered in a hurry. In fact, in the recent elections almost every candidate’s mandate included a promise of an increase on immigration inflows and on funding for their settlement.

The concern regarding the immigration fallout is now becoming more active. Immigration Watch Canada (www.immigrationwatchcanada.org) is a forum which publishes strongly worded comments on the impact of immigration and infringement on the rights and interests of long-term Canadians. The objections include resentment of all new immigrants who come in and end up on welfare rolls or displace local workers.

While angry Canadians are getting alarmed, the country of origin of these immigrants should be thinking of plugging the causes of the brain drain depleting their country’s resources. Pakistan, from where 20,000 immigrants made it to Canada between 2001 and 2006 and which continues to bid farewell to a significant number every year, is a sovereign, democratic and moderately enlightened state. But still droves of Pakistani immigrants give up a settled lifestyle to go and eventually affirm their commitment to be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second, Queen of Canada.

There also needs to be a screening of the legitimacy of the numerous immigration services that have mushroomed all over Pakistan and who are adding their bit to entice potential immigrants. These agents — a breed somewhat finer than the first batch that came up with the Dubai chalo fever of the seventies — not only fleece the clients by charging hefty sums for a documentation process which can easily be carried out by anyone handy with the computer, but also withhold information regarding the Canadian job market which does not extend its arms to the new immigrant.

Since restriction on non-white immigrants was removed in the 1970s, a vast influx of visible minorities has taken place in Canada. Supporters of the immigration theory still maintain that Canada has unlimited space and as such is able to adjust any number of people headed this way. Geographically the idea of limitless space might be correct, but only three main cities are bearing the burden of the influx, namely Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal, which actually constitute only a tiny part of Canada’s land mass but which admit 75 per cent of the immigrants. Canada’s northern territories receive a very small percentage and probably none even dream of risking going to the sub-Arctic regions.

The impact mass migration has had on health, education, traffic, social services and crime rates in these cities cannot be denied. And the consequences will multiply with and affect the new immigrants.

Considering the economic factor of the immigration process, the uncertainty of the future in a new land and the growing antipathy of Canadians who support the ‘cut immigration’ view, there’s perhaps more reason for would-be immigrants to utilise their savings and energies at home.

maheenrashdi@yahoo.ca

IN the days running up to the American presidential election, Barack Obama was sighted reading Ghost Wars, Steve Coll’s seminal volume on the US role in Pakistan and Afghanistan during the Afghan-Soviet war. Given the high priority Obama has placed on making progress in the war in Afghanistan, brushing up on the Pakistan-US relationship is a bright idea.

As the presidential transition charges into full swing, the issue of Pakistan should remain a high foreign-policy priority for president-elect Barack Obama. Pakistan is the key to achieving any sort of realistic stability in Afghanistan. US and Nato forces “cannot defeat the Taliban as long as they have a sanctuary across the border” in Pakistan, according to Bruce Riedel, a top South Asia adviser to the Obama campaign. Without defeating the militants in Pakistan success in Afghanistan is all but impossible.

At present, there appears to be an under-the-table understanding between the US and Pakistani governments which allows the United States to carry out air strikes on high-value targets in Pakistani territory — there have been 17 such strikes in Pakistan since mid-August. Ground incursions by US troops seem to be off the table for now, but likely an Obama administration would continue the air-strike-only policy for the immediate future. So how will the Obama administration’s Pakistan policy differ from the current policy?

For most Obama’s position on Pakistan can be summed up by his (in)famous campaign statement: “If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won’t act, we will.” Much ink has been wasted arguing the value of this statement, but one campaign sound bite doth not a Pakistan policy make. Besides, any US president would adopt a similar policy, annunciated or not.

More interesting (and largely unnoticed) is Obama’s position on the India-Pakistan relationship. He has argued that putting US efforts toward a solution to the India-Pakistan dispute over Kashmir could relieve enough pressure on Pakistan’s security forces that Islamabad would be able to focus more exclusively on resolving the militancy in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region.

This strategy is premised on the assumption that Pakistan has not been successful against the insurgents in its border areas due to a lack of resources not a lack of will. Obama is said to be considering former president Bill Clinton for the role of mediator to the dispute; certainly an affirmation of his belief in the importance of the mission. Others might argue that he is merely trying to exile his favorite ex-president to the other side of the world, but that’s beside the point.

In conjunction with the above strategy, Obama has pledged to aggressively increase non-military aid to Pakistan and has threatened to make military aid conditional not automatic. It appears that Obama’s overall strategy is to give Pakistan the resources it needs to properly deal with the militancy threatening US and Nato forces in Afghanistan, while threatening to cut off the military aid that Pakistan’s rulers lust after if they do not show the willingness to carry out the task of disabling the militants in their territory.

However, without an effective oversight method, providing additional non-military aid to Pakistan is rather ineffective. Additionally, cutting off military aid to Pakistan is always dangerous, to which recent history can attest — the warlordism and chaos that followed the Afghan-Soviet War in the 1990s can at least be partially attributed to the US withdrawal from the region.

Despite these critiques, the current policy allows militants effective sanctuary in Pakistan from which they can attack US and Nato forces all too easily. This is an untenable situation and makes a stalemate in Afghanistan more likely than victory. Obama’s more-focused look at the region is already a welcome sight; one that needs to be followed up by effective engagement with the conflict.

President-elect Obama already has a dinner plate overflowing with the current economic mess but it would serve him well to spend some time on the region from which CIA Director Michael Hayden believes the next terrorist attack on America will most likely emanate.

The writer researches US foreign policy in Washington D.C.