ALMOST a year after the Feb 18 elections, Pakistanis are still waiting for the change they voted for. Asif Zardari’s government has taken some important steps in releasing political prisoners, lifting media restrictions and making attempts to mend matters in Balochistan which saw heavy-handed policies and army action under Gen Musharraf. Yet, much remains to be done.

As 2009 greeted us last month, it found Pakistan in the grip of major challenges as a result of the Mumbai terrorist attacks and the violence raging in the northern parts of the country. The Pakistani government must formulate its policy in three key areas. The US can play an important role in each of these areas.

The first subject of focus is the Kashmir dispute. Key factors of the Kashmir dispute have been empowering the military and militant organisations throughout Pakistan’s history. Pakistan’s intelligence and military have often been accused of using the Kashmir dispute to launch proxy wars against India through a partnership with extremist organisations. Any existing links to such groups must be snapped if Pakistan is to move forward. Pakistan must work with India to find a peaceful resolution of the Kashmir problem.

Rather than allowing it to continue as a bone of contention, Pakistan and India should look at Kashmir as a bridge of cooperation between the two countries. Could Kashmir become an autonomous region linking India and Pakistan rather than dividing them? This would require a major paradigm shift in the Indo-Pak mindset.

The region could be a kind of Kashmir Union administered by the two countries collectively, with its leadership rotating between India and Pakistan, possibly in the mode of the European Union. Such a process could be launched with increased trade and people-to-people contact and through the greater relaxation of travel restrictions between the Indian- and Pakistani-controlled regions.

To reach this point would require establishing trust between the two neighbours, which in turn would mean controlling militant organisations in Pakistan and bringing to justice the perpetrators of the Mumbai attacks. These would be the first all-important steps in fostering an environment of trust and cooperation. A peaceful Kashmir would undercut the jihadi organisations’ ability to recruit foot soldiers throughout Pakistan. The Obama administration can play a vital role in this process and Pakistan should actively seek its cooperation.

The second key challenge for Pakistan is the violent insurgency in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) along its frontier — the Durand Line — with Afghanistan. A comprehensive approach, including elements of diplomacy, politics and the judicious use of force would have to be implemented if the northern areas are to be brought under control. For this alliances with elements open to negotiations and a political solution are necessary.

Once control is established local leaders opposed to the violent ideology of insurgents can be empowered, with development of the social sector providing people with education and economic opportunities following immediately. Pakistan’s approach should be defined by the idea that the long-term resolution of the crisis in this region lies in the latter’s development and providing its local population with economic and ideological alternatives. Again, the US can play an important role by allocating the needed aid for the development of this perilous region.

A crucial policy change by the United States should be to stop missile strikes by unmanned predators, which have undercut the elected government’s credibility by harming Pakistan’s sovereignty. Whereas the strikes have killed some insurgents, they have caused civilian casualties as well, enabling militant organisations to add more recruits outraged by American bombardment to their existing numbers. The overall impact of the strikes has been damaging.

Pakistan should also seek to resolve the long-standing dispute between itself and Afghanistan over the Durand Line. Pakistan is in a unique position to work with the Obama administration to get Afghanistan to accept the Durand Line as the permanent border between the two neighbours. A fixed border would allow Islamabad better control over insurgent movement between the two countries, and bolster its efforts to integrate Fata into Pakistan proper. Without a fixed border between Afghanistan and Pakistan or the integration of Fata, Pakistan’s efforts to quell violence in these areas have borne weak results.

The third key area of policy change in Pakistan is the education sector. Pakistan spends one of the lowest amounts on education in Asia as a percentage of its budget, while it maintains one of the largest armies in the world. Long-term progress in Pakistan is not possible without allocating more resources for education. Pakistan’s misguided policy of proxy wars and America’s unquestioning support of military dictators has resulted in a dangerous neglect of the social sector, particularly education.

To start with Pakistan should launch a countrywide literacy drive, just as Afghanistan did in the years following 9/11. Madressahs teaching their narrow version of history and religion have received much attention since 9/11. Whereas it is crucial to control and reform madressahs, it is the country’s public schools that instruct the majority of Pakistani students using an outmoded curriculum. It might be more important and strategically more practical to reform public education before the government can get to the madressahs. Curriculum change and increased funding of education should be one of Pakistan’s top priorities.

Once again, the US can help by linking aid to the reform of the education sector in Pakistan. For Pakistan to move forward as a respectable nation it will have to change its myopic policies. The fragile civilian government can gain strength and credibility only by providing security, developing the social sector and seeking a policy of cooperation with India and Afghanistan.

The US, too, will have to change its strategic direction if it is to make secure this vital region for world peace. In his inaugural address, President Obama said: “To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward based on mutual interests and mutual respect…” President Obama can start in Pakistan by rethinking America’s policy of supporting dictators and, instead, trusting and seeking a partnership with the democratically elected government.

THE Taliban’s move to bomb and torch schools — most of them girls’ — have caught the public eye in a dramatic way. Nearly 200 schools have been attacked in Swat alone in the last several months.

Educational institutions in Fata and some of the settled districts of the NWFP have not been spared either. In fact, the first school that was bombed was in Angoor Adda in South Waziristan in February 2006.

Now that a hue and cry is being raised against this barbaric practice, the authorities have begun to take note. But the bombing continues. The government’s earlier failure to respond firmly to this criminal activity prompted the militants to escalate their despicable anti-people drive. Mind you, their ire is directed not just against women, although women are forced to bear the brunt of the Taliban’s brand of Islam that considers them to be the source of all evil on earth and destined for the fires of hell. Boys’ schools have also been attacked.

If more girls’ institutions have come under attack it is because that gives the Taliban more propaganda mileage. They make a song and dance about the education of women and of its being prohibited by Islam. Thus they are killing two birds with one stone: making a statement on the status of women and denouncing the ‘secular’ education system that is anathema to them. Of the schools attacked a substantial number had boys on their rolls.

Depriving women of education serves another nefarious purpose. It makes bleak the future of boys’ education as well. For education cannot be universalised without educating girls who as mothers ensure that their children are not denied schooling.The fact is that the Taliban are anti-education and their dislike for liberating the minds of people is like the aversion the government nurses for modern enlightened education. Admittedly, state functionaries do not act equally brazenly to destroy education facilities as the Taliban do, but their policies are no less destructive.

If the Taliban actually torch or blow up schools, the authorities choose more insidious methods. They allow them to become ‘ghost’ schools where no students tread. How can they when many of the schools are under the occupation of village landlords who use them as autaqs and hujras? According to the National Education Census 2006 there are 12,737 “non-functional” — a euphemism for ‘ghost’ — schools in Pakistan. The teachers missing from the scene — by a conservative estimate at least 50,000 of them who continue to draw salaries — are responsible for this criminal phenomenon.

Why do the two parties, that is, the Taliban and the government, share this common hostility towards modern education?

One basic reason is that neither of them would find their interests served by an entire generation of students who would be enlightened, capable of thinking independently, questioning and reasoning and thus evolving into rational beings. Unesco’s constitution says, “Since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defences of peace must be constructed.” Someone wisely added, “Wars in all their forms do not begin in men’s minds in adulthood. They are seeded in their minds when they are young. In other words, social conflict (including environmental degradation) is sown in the minds of children by adult society.”

A quality shared by those who claim to guide our spiritual fortunes and those controlling our temporal destiny is a dogmatic mindset. They fear a democratic dispensation that calls for a pluralist approach and persuasive skills to evolve consensual policies. They are intolerant of people questioning them or holding them accountable for their deeds. By denying the masses knowledge that would equip them with intellectual skills and inculcate in them the confidence to stand up for their rights, our temporal and spiritual rulers ensure that they are in a position to continue to fool their followers. One promises them paradise in the hereafter, the other a heaven on earth

Destroying schools serves the purpose of ensuring the destruction of education. It terrorises parents who become reluctant to send their children to school even if the building of the school their child attends has been spared. It demoralises children, causing them to become despondent and affecting their capacity to learn.

This is what a schoolgirl in Swat records in her diary, which was published by BBC Online, “I am quite bored sitting at home following the closures of schools.” Gul Makai (not her real name) continues, “Some of my friends have left Swat because the situation here is very dangerous. I do not leave home…. My father told us that the government would protect our schools…. I was quite happy initially, but now I know this will not solve our problem…. Our parents are also very scared. They told us they would not send us to school until or unless the Taliban themselves announce on the FM channel that girls can go to school.”

The government is more subtle in its approach. It fails to allocate an adequate amount to the education sector and then allows quite a chunk of it to be embezzled. It fails to open enough schools to make education accessible to all and sundry. The educational institutions under its management often lack basic facilities such as drinking water (one out of three), electricity (more than half) and toilets (nearly one out of three).

Worse still, the authorities have, after experimenting for 61 years, failed to determine the framework for education in the country.

Nine education conference recommendation packages/policies have been drawn up, announced, supposedly implemented and then consigned to the rubbish heap. The latest has been in the offing for three years. Confusion marks the policy on the language of instruction, textbooks and curricula. There is still indecision on how to train teachers and handle their trade unionism. Worse still, the authorities have yet to fix their priorities in terms of the sub-sectors: how their budget is to be divided among primary education, technical education and the universities.

The methods of the Taliban and the government may be different. The end results are the same.

zubeidam@gmail.com

THE rhetoric surrounding cellphones in the developing world has always been lofty. They are described as the antidote to the digital divide, the lifeblood of rural entrepreneurship, and the unlikely successors of the PC.

Sadly, rhetoric about cellphones in Pakistan — like much else having to do with our fair nation — is less optimistic. Here, cellphones are increasingly synonymous with crime.

On Feb 1, Pakistanis were asked to dial 789 so that Nadra could bless their SIM cards through the ambiguous process of user verification. The announcement that pre-activated SIM cards would no longer be available in the market came after months of hyped mudslinging between law-enforcement agencies, cellular operators and the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority (PTA). In the process, the cellphone was portrayed as the root of all evil in Pakistan — from kidnapping for ransom to extortion, bank heists to inter-gangster gup shup. In public discourse, the cellphone was reframed as a tool that criminals — rather than ordinary people — use.

Adding fuel to this fiery perception was the recent announcement by Sindh Minister for Jails, Muzaffar Shujra, that the government would install cellphone jamming systems in Karachi and Hyderabad prisons to counter the misuse of mobile connectivity by inmates.

This follows the revelation in December that Sheikh Omar, convicted and sentenced to death for his role in the Daniel Pearl murder case, along with Lashkar-i-Jhangvi (LeJ) activists was plotting an attack on former President Pervez Musharraf from his Hyderabad jail cell via cellphone. No less than three cellphones, six mobile batteries, several chargers and 18 SIM cards from different cellular companies were found in Omar’s jail cell at the time. Apparently, he was regularly placing calls to his family members and key LeJ operatives.

No doubt, criminals use cellphones. And it’s certainly a good idea to maintain a system whereby the government can identify cellphone users if their SIM cards are implicated in nefarious activities. But the PTA’s recent crackdown on unregistered SIMs has only slowed the growth of the mobile phone industry without dealing a blow to all those super-connected criminals out there. According to the PTA, cellphone industry growth rates have slowed from 1.4 per cent in July 2008 to -0.6 per cent in December 2008. This year is expected to show further decline.

Meanwhile, law enforcers remain sceptical about the efficacy of the Nadra verification system, with many complaining that the Feb 1 initiative is a case of too little, too late. Sharfuddin Memon, the chief of the Citizens-Police Liaison Committee who advocated most vocally for SIM registration, warns that a first step rarely means a done deal. In a recent phone conversation, he complained that the elimination of pre-activated SIMs from the market would have been far more useful two years ago, when law-enforcers began highlighting the link between connectivity and criminality.

Memon also admits that the PTA’s decision to block over 10 million unregistered SIMs in October last year has made little difference as kidnappers continue to use SIMs bought on stolen or fake IDs. He insists that the only way for the PTA’s new cellular initiatives to work is if the verification process is thorough. He recommends that in addition to checking CNIC information, the PTA should double check users by asking them to supply additional information that appears in the Nadra database, but not on the CNIC (for example, mother’s name). In fact, Memon continues to advocate for a system in which SIM cards are delivered to users’ mailing addresses after they have purchased a connection and been verified by Nadra.

Such measures would certainly hamper criminals. But they would also prevent many regular cellphone users — for example, day labourers stationed in Karachi with home addresses in the northern areas — from availing of easy connectivity. In fact, the low-income population that is currently benefiting the most from cellular connectivity will be the first to get disconnected if registration measures become too stringent. Security should be managed, but not at the expense of people-to-people communications and development.

As the mobile industry is increasingly suffocated by registration requirements and freewheeling cellphone jamming, the PTA should prepare to answer some difficult questions. What good is user verification in a country where comprehensive, computerised databases of criminal suspects and FIRs are not maintained? Is the authority planning to back up its initial crackdown on unregistered SIMs with sophisticated technology investments that can prevent SIM activity from being equated with criminality?

Consider the following scenario: a criminal places a sensitive call using a SIM card registered to a village woman who runs a mobile PCO. Will the PTA be able to fine-tune their investigations with voice recognition and audio tracking technologies? And what happens when people start asking questions about privacy? Will the confluence of the databases of Nadra and the cellular operators enable the government to improperly track and monitor its citizens?

If the PTA does not have the foresight to address these issues in a thoughtful way, engaging in a mobile phone call may begin to seem like a dodgy undertaking. And make no mistake: in the 21st century, any shift away from a thriving telecommunications culture is a terrible precedent. A recent Future of the Internet report by the Pew Internet and American Life Project predicts that cellphones will be the primary source of Internet connectivity across the globe by 2020. Think of how isolated our populace will be if access to cellular connectivity is thwarted.

One way for the government to reframe the national conversation about cellphones is to invest simultaneously in development projects related to cellular connectivity. Take, for example, Bangladesh and India, two regional countries that boast their share of cellphone-toting criminals and terrorists. In Bangladesh, cellphones are publicly affiliated with CellBazaar, an SMS-enabled ‘marketplace’ supported by the Grameen Phone network. Users send a text-message to CellBazaar and receive details of items for sale — from cows to fridges to deshi chickens and onions — from across the country. Another text-message, and users are connected to vendors.

Meanwhile, India is to be an early testing ground for Click Diagnostics, a tele-health company that will connect rural health workers to remote medical specialists. If all goes according to plan, health workers will be able to snap pictures of patients with eye or skin disorders using camera phones and submit the images to doctors anywhere in the world for diagnosis.

The fact is, the global conversation around cellphones will continue to focus on rural entrepreneurship, health, communications and development. The PTA must attract such energy to local networks as well. Otherwise, I’m going to feel like a criminal every time I take a call.

ON Oct 9, 1967, Che Guevara faced a shaking sergeant Mario Teran, ordered to murder him by the Bolivian president and CIA, and declared: “Shoot coward, you’re only going to kill a man.” The climax of Stephen Soderbergh’s new two-part epic, Che, in real life this final act of heroic defiance marked the defeat of attempts to spread the Cuban revolution to the rest of Latin America.

But 40 years later, the long-retired executioner, now a reviled old man, had his sight restored for free by Cuban doctors, paid for by revolutionary Venezuela in the radicalised Bolivia of Evo Morales. Teran was treated as part of a programme which has seen 1.4 million free eye operations carried out by Cuban doctors in 33 countries across Latin America, the Caribbean and Africa. It is an emblem both of the humanity of Fidel Castro and Guevara’s legacy, but also of the transformation of Latin America which has made such extraordinary cooperation possible.

But the West utterly fails to grasp the significance of the wave of progressive change that has swept away the old elites and brought a string of radical socialist and social-democratic governments to power across the continent, from Ecuador to Brazil, Paraguay to Argentina, challenging US domination and neoliberal orthodoxy.

That is the process which last week saw Bolivians vote, in the land where Guevara was hunted down, to adopt a sweeping new constitution empowering the country’s long-suppressed indigenous majority and entrenching land reform and public control of natural resources — after months of violent resistance sponsored by the traditional white ruling class. It’s also seen Cuba finally brought into the heart of regional structures from which Washington has strained every nerve to exclude it.

The seeds of this Latin American rebirth were sown half a century ago in Cuba. But it is also more directly rooted in the region’s disastrous experience of neoliberalism, first implemented by the bloody Pinochet regime in the 1970s — before being adopted with enthusiasm by Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan in the 1980s and duly enforced across the world.

The wave of privatisation, deregulation and mass pauperisation it unleashed in Latin America first led to mass unrest in Venezuela in 1989, savagely repressed in the Caracazo massacre of more than 1,000 barrio dwellers and protesters. The economic meltdown the 1998 financial crisis unleashed a far wider rejection of the new market order, the politics of which is still being played out across the continent. And the international significance of this first revolt against neoliberalism on the periphery of the US empire now could not be clearer, as the global credit breakdown has rapidly discredited the free market model first rejected in south America.

Hopes are naturally high in the continent that Barack Obama will recognise the powerful national, social and ethnic roots of Latin America’s reawakening — the election of an Aymara president was as unthinkable in Bolivia as an African-American president in the US — and start to build a new relationship of mutual respect. The signs so far are mixed.

Earlier last month, Obama insisted that the Venezuelan president had been a “force that has interrupted progress” and claimed Venezuela was “supporting terrorist activities” in Colombia. If this is intended as political cover for an opening to Cuba, then perhaps it shouldn’t be taken too seriously. But if it is an attempt to isolate Venezuela and divide and rule in America’s backyard, then it’s unlikely to work. Venezuela is a powerful regional player and while Chavez may have lost five out of 22 states in November’s regional elections on the back of discontent over crime and corruption, his supporters still won 54 per cent of the popular vote to the opposition’s 42 per cent.

That is based on a decade of unprecedented mobilisation of oil revenues to achieve impressive social gains, including the near halving of poverty rates, the elimination of illiteracy and a massive expansion of free health and education. The same and more is true of Cuba, famous for first world health and education standards — with better infant mortality rates than the US — in an economically blockaded developing country.

Less well known is the country’s success in diversifying its economy since the collapse of the Soviet Union, not just into tourism and biotechnology, but the export of medical services and affordable vaccines to the poorest parts of the world.

Meanwhile, the common sense about the bankruptcy of neoliberalism first recognised in Latin America has now gone global. Whether it generates the same kind of radicalism elsewhere remains to be seen.

— The Guardian, London