What discretion demands

PRESIDENT Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s strong statement calling for “Israel to be wiped off the map” does not come as a bolt from the blue. Ever since 1979 when the Islamic revolution changed the direction of Iranian foreign policy, that country has adopted a strong anti-Zionist and anti-US line. Under Ayatollah Khomeini, the US was dubbed “shaitan-i-buzurg” (great demon) and Israel’s existence was constantly under attack from Tehran even at a time when some moderate Arab governments had begun to interact with Tel Aviv. This left Iran isolated in the international arena. The subsequent moderate and pragmatist regimes in Iran — President Rafsanjani’s and President Hatemi’s — considered it necessary in the interest of the country to modulate their stance on a number of foreign policy issues without compromising on their principles. Thus they entered into a dialogue with the European states and chose discretion in their public positions on many questions that were not of immediate concern at a given point of time.

President Ahmadinejad is known to be a hardliner and his electoral success in June is attributed to his extremist stance on many issues. There is no doubt that Israel has itself to blame for its unpopularity in the Muslim world, given its oppressive and intransigent policies vis-‘-vis the Palestinians whose homeland the Zionists occupied with the help of the West. But the world has changed over the years and, having realized that it cannot win a war against the militarily powerful Israel, the Palestinian leadership itself has been talking peace with Israel. In view of the existing balance of power and the political equations in the region, it is now realized that a conventional war is futile in today’s world as Israel’s own militarism and the American invasion of Iraq have shown. Hence, bellicose statements calling for a state to be wiped off the map — and that too one which is armed to the teeth and has the backing of the world’s only superpower — are not easy to justify, even though one can understand the reason for such outbursts.

These are difficult times for the Middle East in terms of the region’s geostrategic, political, economic and diplomatic interests. On the one hand, the western states, which have supported Israel’s creation and would resist any threat to its existence, are united in their global aims and are in possession of superior military and economic power. On the other hand, the states in the region — even though they all belong to the Islamic world — are fragmented, underdeveloped and torn by violence and terrorism. They should work quietly to create harmony among themselves and strengthen their political, economic and strategic power before they even think of a confrontationist approach. This is not an occasion to unnecessarily provoke Israel by breathing fire that further antagonizes Israel’s allies, especially when the same point could be made more moderately and convincingly. Since the Cold War ended, global politics has still to find an equilibrium. Russia and China are in the process of testing the waters and on different occasions their loyalties have swung from one side to the other. In the state of flux that characterizes international relations today, statesmanship demands that governments seek to resolve disputes through dialogue rather than through threat of force which may lead to disastrous consequences.

Political fault line

THE president is reported to be considering calling an all-party conference on the single item agenda of dealing with the earthquake aftermath. Contacts have been made by the PML president with various opposition groupings. But it is also said that the ARD and the MMA are unlikely to accept the proposal because they do not want to be seen as recognizing the position of the president-in-uniform, which they dispute. An earlier proposal for a meeting of all political leaders with the government was turned down on the plea that since the president called all the shots, he should be the one to ask for such a conference. Clearly, the president’s move now puts the opposition in something of a pickle. Not accepting the proposal, when and if it comes, will create an impression that the opposition does not wish to cooperate in relief efforts; accepting it would mean a compromise on its stand, particularly the ARD’s, that it will not talk to the president. A way out can be found if the government’s intention is not to put the opposition on the defensive: the proposed conference could be held with the prime minister presiding. The important thing is that the nation needs all political parties on board in the present calamity. Obviously, the parties and their workers could be of only limited utility in the initial rescue effort, but now when relief and rehabilitation work begins, their involvement will be welcome. They will at least be able to exercise vigilance and ensure transparency.

The earthquake has again underlined the fault line of hostility and distrust that divides the government and the opposition, indeed the fault line that runs through the entire body politic. This has been precipitated by the repeated military interventions that have rocked civil society and prevented the evolution of a healthy, democratic system. This may not be exactly the right moment to cavil about this considering the pressure under which the army is working in the disaster areas, but the military has got used to arbitrarily taking everything into its own hands and keeping politicians and parliament out of decision-making. The opposition’s feeling of exclusion in the present crisis is, thus, an outcome of our political history.

Horrific statistics

TUESDAY’s disclosure in the Sindh Assembly that 208 women were raped in 15 out of 20 districts in the province did not provoke the shock and outrage that one would have expected from a society that woke up from its deep slumber to reach out in support of earthquake victims. Perhaps this is because society places the onus of the blame on law-makers and law enforcers for failing to provide justice to the unfortunate victims of a deeply patriarchal society and feels that it has no role to play in preventing such crimes. This is somewhat odd, given that many men and women grilled President Musharraf for his insensitive remarks about rape victims made in his Washington Post interview and demanded an apology. One expected public pressure to mount but sadly, the matter quickly died and was relegated to drawing room conversations, where social issues are often discussed but rarely translated into action.

For this inertia, the intelligentsia has itself to blame for it has never played its expected role against rape. Horrific crimes against women are common all over the world but unlike Pakistan, civil society shows its disgust by organizing protests, lobbying lawmakers into changing discriminatory laws and galvanizing others into action. Were it not for some concerned NGOs and the press in Pakistan, society would have remained in the dark about crimes against women. Mukhtaran Mai is in the United States to draw attention to the plight of women in Pakistan. She is a symbol of courage whose tireless campaign against discriminatory laws that work against rape victims needs the support of every member of society.

Science, faith and the quake

MANY of those affected directly by the Oct 8 earthquake or those who have stood by and watched the tragedy to unfold seem to have come to the conclusion that it came because God wanted to punish man for his sins. A hadith is cited in this respect in which the Holy Prophet (PBUH) is quoted as saying that natural disasters are a manifestation of God’s anger at a people going astray.

In fact, such an understanding of natural disasters and catastrophes is deeply rooted in the Semitic religious tradition, and in instances of such events happening because of God’s anger can be found in Judaic as well as Christian holy scriptures. Both the New and the Old Testaments, as well as the Holy Quran, describe in details dozens of such catastrophes, from the plague of locusts that hit the Pharoahs during the time of Moses, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah or the flooding of the world during the time of Noah.

Many followers of these three religions are understandably inclined to view natural disasters and catastrophes in this light. That is what seems to have happened in the case of the quake that recently hit northern Pakistan with many invoking their faith in trying to decipher the tragedy and why it happened. The fact that it happened in the holy month of Ramazan perhaps is another reason why the causes of the quake have been seen from a religious point of view.

The electronic media, particularly the dozens of private channels, have played a key role in this as well. Every year, the degree of religiosity shown on national television during the month of fasting goes up a notch, and this time around there has been no exception. The lead has been taken by a popular private channel in spreading the idea of the recent earthquake as an expression of Divine wrath, and it seems that other private channels have followed the lead.

Also, much like the Farhat Hashmi phenomenon (which tended to reach out to and influence many women and girls from relatively educated and affluent backgrounds), this increasing religiosity on television has made its impact felt all around.

The massive disaster that happened, then, was easily co-opted by such a programming environment on television (for most channels) with the result that even most journalists tended to overlook any scientific explanation for what has happened. The main tremor of Oct. 8 has now been followed by hundreds of aftershocks (including one on Oct. 18 measuring 5.8 on the Richter scale) and there has been bad weather as well in the affected areas.

However, many a TV commentators (with a few notable exceptions) has approached the calamity or tried to explain it with reference to religion — the most common one showing surprise at the bad weather following such a massive disaster and that too during a sacred month like Ramazan.

The problem with this line of reasoning is that it tends to completely sideline any examination of the scientific and rational explanations for what has happened and what may well happen in the future as well, regarding the quake. For instance, how many programmes have been aired on any of the television channels seeking a scientific explanation for the disaster.

The quake of Oct. 8 can be explained by a discipline of science and geology called ‘plate tectonics’ which seeks to study the movement of the earth’s crust — something that has been happening for millions of years. Earthquakes happen when two or more such plates collide or push against each other and this happens along a ‘fault line’, which is the meeting point or location of two or more tectonic plates.

The world is divided into 16 such ‘plates’ and the one that hit Pakistan was caused when the Indian plate pushed against the Eurasian plate releasing vast amounts of energy, which caused the quake. In fact, this is not a new phenomenon in that the Indian plate has been pressing and pushing against the Eurasian plate for millions of years and this is the reason for the creation of the Himalayas, the Karakorums, the Hindukush and several of their subsidiary mountain ranges.

In Pakistan the fault line or meeting point of the Indian and Eurasian plates runs in a curved direction — coming from India in the east near the Azad Kashmir region, slightly curving north and across the Hindukush in northern NWFP (also a major source of seismic activity) and down south across the Suleiman range in Balochistan and parts of Afghanistan.

As for the aftershocks, there is a scientific and easily understandable explanation to that as well. They follow any major earthquake and can last for months, even years. In the case of this particular earthquake, according to a report carried in National Geographic magazine quoting US geologists who followed the Oct. 8 quake, the aftershocks have been substantial because the initial 7.6 tremor happened relatively close to the surface. These experts estimate that the aftershocks could happen for months or years because the initial tremor may well have exerted pressures on other fault lines.

In this context, adopting a view that the quake may have been caused because of God’s wrath and anger can only be a self-deluding exercise. For instance, it can be used as a handy explanation by anyone who does not like the present government or the direction in which it is taking the country and that includes many who are activists of or sympathize with the point of view adopted by the religious parties and lobbies. Take the case of a maulvi from Garhi Habibullah, a hamlet on the road to Balakot, which was destroyed and saw the deaths of hundreds of its schoolchildren. This gentleman told the local residents that the reason for their town’s destruction was because of obscenity and specifically because six months ago cable had reached it. He then asked the residents to bring to him their TV sets which he would burn himself — and four people actually obliged.

Perhaps, to expect this from a semi-literate maulvi is something that can be overlooked but when the head of a major religious party makes basically the same statement, completely ignoring the possible scientific explanations for the quake, it becomes a serious matter. An example of this kind is provided by a major religious party leader’s public statement saying that the earthquake was caused because President Musharraf “danced” during celebrations commemorating August 14. The intention of such a statement is clear and that is that such parties want to use the catastrophe to step up their drive to rid society of their notions of obscenity and vulgarity.

This obviously suits their agenda but unfortunately detracts attention away from the important issue of holding accountable and bringing to book all those who built such substandard buildings and all those in government who awarded building contracts to corrupt people. In any case, perhaps the religious party chief in question would like to explain why God’s wrath would escape those who committed such ‘misdeeds’ and instead fall on thousands of innocent children and on their relatively pious and devout elders.

Adopting such a view personally may be a matter of one’s individual choice but trying to foist it on everybody else, and then labelling those who do not subscribe to this proint of view as irreligious is not a very sensible thing. In this particular case, in which many thousands of people have lost their lives, thousands of schoolchildren and college students have died, thousands have become orphans and thousands more amputated and left without a home or food, there should be no departure from a scientific and rational understanding of the disaster. Bringing in religion or faith-based explanations for the quake can only create confusion and push a much-needed understanding of the physical factors behind the tragedy into the background.

In fact, it is these worldly reasons that need to be looked into. For instance, the primary reason for the very high death toll of schoolchildren, college and university students is that substandard material was used in most government buildings. The destruction of Muzaffarabad or Balakot may be because they were very close to the quake’s epicentre and perhaps partly caused by the poor construction and the use of shoddy building material by those who lived there. Also, there was no awareness of what to do in case of an earthquake among the local population.

In a developed country residents of a seismically active region would have been educated right from school on what measures to adopt in case of an earthquake, on evacuation procedures, on first aid and so on. In addition to all this, so many poor people died in the more remote valleys not because God may have willed it so or that He was angry with them, but because they were too poor to afford safer accomodation for themselves.

Once the dust settles, the federal government will need to dig deep and find out which AJK/NWFP government official had given away the contracts for the school, university and other government-owned buildings to their favourites. If still alive and in sound physical condition, these people should be given exemplary punishment. Also needing close scrutiny are the award of building contracts by the education and works departments of both the NWFP and AJK because the construction of education and official buildings comes under their jurisdiction.

Clearly, the lesson to be learnt from the quake is that if one lives in a region prone to earthquakes, it is important to prepare for the day when a massive quake may hit the area. The best way to do that is to ensure that all structures are earthquake-resistant, to prevent unscrupulous government officials from trifling with the prescribed construction rules and procedures and to make sure that the contracts awarded for building such structures are not given to those with no scruples, honesty or experience.

E-mail: omarq@cyber.net.pk