Our winter of discontent

THE cataclysmic earthquake of October 8 continues to bring images of unbearable human suffering even three weeks after it devastated a large swathe of Pakistan’s northern districts and Kashmir. A huge effort by the people and the armed forces has kept the survivors alive but not, as yet, made millions of them immune to what Kofi Annan has ominously described as the second wave of death unleashed by extreme cold, untreated injuries and diseases.

We face a winter of sorrow that would, perforce, concentrate the mind on the timeline of a monumental tragedy; its past, present and future. Already, the media reflect a whole gamut of emotions, ranging from bewilderment about divine purpose to deep disillusionment with the state.

Elemental forces of nature always dwarf human endeavour in the moment of impact; it is only over a period of time that the indomitable spirit of man reasserts itself by superimposing continuity over transience, desolation and loss. Human beings fear that such catastrophes may have a metaphysical provenance. They contemplate that meaning but act in the belief that it is their destiny to live on this planet by the sweat of their brow and that they have to build, reconstruct and innovate incessantly to survive. Their thoughts reach out to metaphysics but their actions belong to history.

It is no small a consolation that in the present predicament, the nation of Pakistan was not found wanting in resilience, fortitude and enterprise. Having buried their dead, our people tried valiantly to hold their bodies and soul together under a pitiless sky. Nor was there any fatalism amongst thousands of volunteers, soldiers and skilled persons like doctors who rushed to their help. Amongst the heroes were the media people who kept vigil, day and night, over the unfolding tragedy. The scene was dominated by images of a relentless struggle to enable life to triumph over death.

It is this struggle that has also brought to surface the deficits and failings of half a century of our independent nationhood that added to the death toll and to avoidable suffering. This is a reality that we cannot, and must not, escape from. We may or may not be able to justify the ways of God to men but we must hold men accountable at the bar of history. There are dimensions of the present situation that go far beyond triumphs and failures under the stress of a sudden calamity. They have to be identified and addressed if the later phases of reconstruction and rehabilitation are to be free of the shortcomings of the initial rescue operation.

First and foremost, this disaster has been a painful reminder of how inadequate is the capacity of the state. For far too many years, our national scene was characterized by a low growth rate that hovered just above three per cent, high population growth, a crippling debt servicing liability, disproportionate defence expenditure, pathetic investment in human resources, decline in manufacturing, neglect of the social sector and many other indices that erode the states capacity.

We watched with apathy as large numbers sank below the absolute poverty line. Even as growth rates picked up, no significant evidence of a policy shift in favour of greater distributive justice could be discerned.

In fact, our present economic recovery is taking place in an international environment that has only a marginal interest in across-the-board amelioration of poverty. The dominant forces, backed by the awful power of sophisticated military technology, are content to see the world divided between zones of high consumption and cheap labour.

They strive to replicate the same view of globalization in the countries that participate in the new economy. If a sufficiently large ‘middle class’ in the non-metropolitan areas has the purchasing power to participate in global consumerism, the remaining millions can be simply written off. This short-sighted version of neo-liberalism is the sub-text of the wars of our times. It is not that this iniquitous concept is being universally acquiesced in. It is that for some time to come the struggle is unequal.

Natural calamities always extract a heavier price from the poor and the disadvantaged. The present earthquake is a case in point, particularly when we consider the suffering in Kashmir. Nehru had no intention of ever permitting a plebiscite and therefore no hesitation in making it an integral part of the Union under the Indian constitution. We maintained an unsatisfactory diarchy on our side of the Line of Control to safeguard our legal position and that of the people of Kashmir in terms of the UN resolutions.

The result was an even poorer focus on development there than in the under-privileged parts of the Pakistani federation. In some areas of Azad Kashmir, economic distress was mitigated by its hardy sons who worked their heart out abroad. But their labour could not provide developmental infrastructure or strategic investment. Confronted with the task of defending the territory, the armed forces had done whatever they could to establish lines of communication. But their facilities could serve as arteries of growth only up to a limited extent.

History demands that territories on our side of the Line of Control receive much better treatment. They are outside the Indian occupation primarily because they fought of their own volition to link their destiny with Pakistan. Behind their brave effort in 1947 lay a long struggle to preserve their distinct entity. In the Poonch revolt of 1830, the present districts of Azad Kashmir paid a horrific price. In subsequent years, when the British had their own reasons to fortify the Dogra rule in Srinagar, they continued to strive for relative autonomy.

The northern areas fought time and again to thwart Dogra encroachments. The British were interested first and last in the strategic salience of the northern territories. They balanced a respect for the desire of the people to be independent of a hated regime in Srinagar with the need to pass on some of the expense of guarding this frontier of India to the Dogra durbar.

Nevertheless, the establishment of the Gilgit agency in 1889 and its virtual delinking from J&K through the Gilgit lease of 1935 clearly underscored the separate personality of the territories. The premature termination of the lease on August 1, 1947, i.e barely two weeks before the independence of Pakistan was one of the many acts designed to make India the strategic successor state. It was, however, nullified, politically and juridically, by the successful revolutionary action of people who asked for formal accession to Pakistan in November 1947.

Fifty-eight years down the line, things are vastly more complex. Perhaps the present political arrangements are still the best option. Alternatively, one can ask if the plight of the people would be addressed better if Azad Kashmir and the Northern Areas get separately or jointly associated with the Federation of Pakistan provisionally as special autonomous provinces. These questions have national and international ramifications and impinge upon the overriding interest of the Kashmiri people. But two sets of considerations warrant a dispassionate and informed consideration of the issues involved.

First, it is imperative to bring about a radical improvement in the administration of the territories either within the present dispensation, or in reconstituted and reconfigured relationships with Pakistan. Secondly, we may be entering an era of new instabilities. The foresight shown by Pakistan and China in demarcating the frontier brought to an end a long period of tensions in the northern areas. But events such as the Indian advance in Siachen and the long drawn out crisis in Afghanistan have detracted from the stability of the area. A disaster like the present earthquake can generate ripples of its own.

The future of India-Pakistan relations still hangs between hope and uncertainty. Then India may not be the only power contemplating the geo-politics of the region. Perhaps it is time that the National Security Council commissions a fully fledged study of all options to improve both representation and governance of Azad Kashmir and the Northern Areas with a more precise definition of their relationship with Pakistan. We need not only to overcome the damage caused on October 8 but to turn them into a show case of democracy, development and political stability.

Much depends on Pakistan’s success in organizing relief, reconstruction and rehabilitation in the affected areas. Local administration all but perished when the earth shook and it has largely fallen to the armed forces to re-establish the presence of the state there. But they cannot be deployed for ever. So far one does not see the contours of a political and administrative structure capable of taking over the huge task ahead.

Community perceptions of how the state addresses the needs of the stricken people shape history. When I travelled in Bangladesh upon being posted there in 1982, I was struck by the place occupied by the cyclone of 1970 in the saga of Bengali alienation from Pakistan. Even 12 years later, the collective memory was that of bureaucratic callousness.

There has been generous international support for the relief of the victims. So far, Pakistan’s traditional Arab-Islamic friends account for 70 per cent of it. Potential donors brought together by the UN in Geneva have pledged more than half a billion dollars though actual, material assistance still falls notably short of it. There is talk of compassion fatigue and a nagging doubt about the size and sustainability of outside assistance. It is, perhaps, safer to assume that long-term reconstruction and rehabilitation would essentially be a national enterprise.

We need to review our priorities and re-think economic doctrines borrowed uncritically from the IMF and other bastions of the global capitalistic system. We need strategies that enable the proud and tenacious people of the region to earn a living. Reconstruction and employment can be inextricably intertwined. It does not take long to impart the necessary skills to a people who prize dignity and self-respect. Every polytechnic, college and madressah can run special vocational training courses. It would help resettle the victims in economically sustainable and productive communities.

In the last 58 years, we have allowed a hierarchical social structure to dominate the politics of the area. It received a mighty jolt on October 8; the on-camera outbursts of protest against local influentials hogging available assistance testify to it. The state should have no hesitation in aligning itself with the people.

The writer is a former foreign secretary.

Email: tanvir.a.khan@gmail.com

Tragedy in the mountains

WATCHING the disaster in Pakistan, it is heartrending to see so many ordinary people, whose suffer distress and poverty in their everyday lives now crushed into a state of unimaginable misery by the cruel power of nature.

The affected regions are among some of my favourite places on earth, and certainly the most beautiful and wild anywhere. How ample relief supplies will be gotten up the shattered roads leading to Muzaffarabad or to Gilgit remains a mystery — these roads are perilous at the very best of times.

It takes a great act of faith to accept this horrible disaster came during the holy month when God revealed all of his mercy to mankind. Beside the heartbreak of this terrible earthquake, one is forced to notice some glaring points.

First, Pakistan did not have enough heavy-lift helicopters, crucial items for a nation prone to earthquakes, floods, and border fighting. Much of the blame for lack must fall on the decade-plus US arms embargo on Islamabad which prevented Pakistan from obtaining heavy-lift Chinook helicopters. Less efficient, but cheaper models could have been bought from China and Russia, but, alas, were not.

Now Pakistanis see the rather embarrassing spectacle of US helicopters delivering aid from inside Pakistan and those in occupied Afghanistan. The American aid is, of course, most welcome and appreciated, but the fact that it comes from bases that should have been used by Pakistan is disturbing.

The Bush administration, still reeling from its amazingly inept bungling of the Gulf coast hurricane disaster, is making sure to rush aid to Pakistan to shore up its most important regional ally, President Pervez Musharraf. Washington is painfully aware that the handling of natural disasters can make or break political leaders.

On a major national US TV network, I was actually asked, ‘how many Al Qaeda (members) were killed by the earthquake?’ Stunned, I replied that it was time to think of Pakistan’s children, not the Al Qaeda.

Alas, natural disasters and massive international relief efforts almost inevitably bring bureaucratic chaos, misallocation of aid supplies and medical efforts, squabbling between various government bodies and theft. After last December’s killer tsunami in Southeast Asia, the Thai army managed to grab control of the relief effort and to reportedly monopolize some of the donated foreign funds, This must not be allowed to happen in Pakistan.

Hope is being expressed abroad that the earthquake disaster may shake up Indo-Pak relations to the point where the two old foes really move ahead with resolving their more than half century of bitterness and fighting. This is what happened when a large quake struck old enemies — Greece and Turkey. Their mutual relief efforts produced a sea change in attitudes in the two nations that led to a lowering of hostility and beginning of fruitful, mature relations that continue to this day.

So could it be the same between India and Pakistan, the world’s most angry rivals? I don’t think so. The Indians were just a little too eager to get a close look at Pakistani army installations and mujahideen camps behind the LoC, and just a little too eager to put their political footprint on Azad Kashmir, though their help would have been useful.

A problem these days is that so-called humanitarian aid is often a disguise for political intervention, This happened in Somalia, where the US sought a base in East Africa. It occurred in East Timor, where “humanitarian” Australian aid ended up in detaching the potentially oil rich region from Indonesia and putting it in Canberra’s orbit. It’s going on in Darfur, Sudan. And now the Indians are doing allegedly humanitarian things in Afghanistan and Tajikistan. Once the “humanitarians” come in, it’s sometimes hard to get them to leave.

Pakistanis around the world are being asked to help. But they, and Muslims everywhere, will find this difficult because so very many Islamic charities have been destroyed or shut down by the US and its allies in the so-called war on terrorism. Zakat is now considered supporting terrorism. So the poor will suffer even more.

Perhaps the oil Arabs, flush with unprecedented profits, will decide that this holy month is a good time to come to the aid of their fellow suffering Muslims in Pakistan’s shattered mountains.— copyright Eric S. Margolis 2005

Getting worse for the White House

WHAT is it about American presidents during their second terms? Not since Dwight Eisenhower nearly half a century ago has a two-term occupant of the White House not been hit by some sort of criminal investigation during his second period of office.

Since Ike, every second term has turned sour in this way. Richard Nixon resigned because of Watergate, Ronald Reagan was undermined by Iran-Contra, and Bill Clinton was impeached for perjury in the Monica Lewinsky affair. Now it is George Bush’s turn to see his presidency take a similar hit, with the indictment yesterday of Lewis Libby on charges of obstruction of justice, perjury and making false statements arising from the investigation into the leaking of the identity of a covert CIA agent, Valerie Plame.

The good news for the administration is that the indictment is procedural rather than substantive. The bad news is that the whole affair always comes back to the way the administration tried to bulk up the case for an Iraq war, which continues to drain Mr Bush’s domestic credibility.

Even so, lying to investigators and in court are still serious charges with real legal and political menace. Whatever the outcome of the prosecution, the political damage to Mr Bush will continue as long as the case plays out. Mr Libby may not be a man with a high international profile.

But he is a member of the absolute inner circle of a White House notorious for its tight control of decision-making. As a longtime aide and chief of staff for the past five years to Dick Cheney, one of the most powerful US vice-presidents of modern times, Mr Libby was one of the administration’s big beasts.

Losing a man described as Mr Cheney’s alter ego drives a big hole in the team. But things could get even worse. Judging by the indictment, Mr Cheney is likely to have to give evidence in Mr Libby’s trial.

— The Guardian, London

Hassles at the airport

IN the prehistoric days of P-forms and foreign exchange restrictions, getting out of the country wasn’t loaded with so much political innuendo.

One had to complete a little white card and a health form stating that one hadn’t, for the last three months, been anywhere near the land of the Kikuyu where they drink buffalo blood and export yellow fever.

A bored official with a two day growth and a jawbone contoured like a rusty anchor would then stamp one’s passport and drop the card into an empty tin which presumably was emptied into a larger tin at the police headquarters the next day, where details were entered into a register by one of the few chaps in the place who could read English.

It was all very civil and cordial. The cops were just doing their duty. And as John Cleese would have put it, they knew their place. However, one had to watch out for a fellow who worked for customs, and was more interested in how many dollars a passenger had hidden in his socks or sewn into the lining of his three-piece suit, than the fact that he was off to the Far East for a bit of R and R. With the arrival of Nawaz Sharif who let the rupee float in the market, the quangos responsible for exchange restrictions had to withdraw their collective finger from the dykes.

These days things are very different. To start with, a touch of solemn inquisitorial grimness has crept into the ritual of exiting the country, giving the passenger a riveting look at how the martial mind works, and confirming the fact that even if it wasn’t so before, Pakistan has, during the last so many years, been turned into a neo-colonial police state. One got a taste of this last week before boarding the PIA airbus for Abu Dhabi.

Our lot fell to a couple of heavily made up females in uniform wafting scent and crouched behind a computer table on which a keyboard was cunningly hidden. They struck an attitude and tried to introduce a little light heartedness into the proceedings by asking my wife why she didn’t look as attractive in real life as she did in her passport picture. It was their way of throwing a little informality into what is obviously a dull and monotonous procedure.

Their acute sense of comedy was, however, short lived when the older of the two medusas asked my wife to peer into what looked remarkably like a microphone but turned out to be a camera. One could almost see Franz Kafka in his native Prague shaking a bony fist and hear him saying “I told you it would eventually happen to you too.” It is the price that Pakistan has to pay for becoming America’s greatest ally in the war against terror.

Because of that small electronic contraption the FBI knows just when a citizen of this land departs from these shores, and when he gets back. If he looks anything like one of the four characters shown on British television responsible for the London bombings, the satellite finds out where he goes and what he does. What one cannot understand is why the Pakistani authorities have to adopt this crude method of monitoring movements. The European system is much more subtle. The immigration official simply takes a passenger’s passport, opens the booklet at the relevant page, places it over a flat electronic camera and photographs the details.

Every time one travels out of Karachi one is reminded of that trenchant observation made by a columnist in an eveninger over 20 years ago in one of the most amusing pieces he ever crafted. ‘As soon as a foreign passenger arrives at Karachi Airport he gets his first introduction to the 13th century.’ Those were the days of twitching fluorescence and dirt-ingrained, Rexene-covered furniture, an oil-stained moving belt which stopped at regular intervals and re-started with a jerk spilling properties out, and an under ventilated arrivals lounge wreathed in bluish tobacco haze.

A lot has changed since Nawaz Sharif bequeathed to the nation an airport which can hold its own against the best of London, Paris and Singapore — at least so far as the building and the facilities are concerned. It is when one encounters the human factor that one realizes that little has changed, and one gets the impression that the government goes through extraordinary lengths to ensure that the citizen is put through the maximum discomfort.

As soon as the PIA aircraft from Abu Dhabi landed at Jinnah International at three in the morning, one discovered that another four flights from different points in the Middle East had landed within the space of half an hour. What this meant in logistic terms was that there would be at least 700 passengers in the hall queuing up in front of five kiosks, one of which was supposed to be reserved for foreigners.

One was not disappointed. The hall was choc-a-bloc full. There were a couple of important looking toffs with brief cases who represented the ‘uppers’ and were soon whisked away by the roving sergeant-at-arms, and seven hundred ‘downers,’ the lumpen mass that represents Pakistan’s working class, whose cultural impoverishment blots out any modest material improvement, but whose remittances nevertheless pay for the lifestyle of the senators and the bullet-proof Mercedes-Benzes of Islamabad. These were the Pathans and the farmers of upper Sindh and the lower Punjab.

They had to stand in their respective queues for over an hour. It took me half an hour to discover that there was only one official handling the queue in which I was standing, and it was too late to change lines. Citizens who suffer a common affliction often develop a rapport, and the chap in front of me volunteered the information that the official who should have been there was on leave/had been transferred/ had eaten too many samosas at Iftar the previous evening / or was sulking because his application for leave had been turned down.

Blind item

ONE of the most important things a gossip column must have is the “blind item.” When you use people’s names you can be sued, so blind items are safe — yet the reader is intrigued as to whom the item is all about.

I usually don’t use the items, but I collect them.

Here are a few:

A White House aid has been called before the grand jury investigating who leaked the name of a CIA agent to columnist Robert Novak, which caused Judy Miller to go to jail for 85 days.

A former secretary of education and conservative broadcaster said the best way to stop crime was to give black women abortions — but added it was a stupid and ridiculous idea. African-Americans were furious because the secretary was saying they were responsible for all the crime in the United States.

A commander-in-chief of the armed forces told the pubic we would prevail in Iraq because we had right on our side, and we were the only country that could protect the Iraqis until their own troops could do the job — no matter how long that took and how much it would cost.

Conservatives were up in arms that the president chose a woman for a seat on the Supreme Court because they feared she wasn’t conservative enough and didn’t know where she stood on Roe vs. Wade or the Pledge of Allegiance.

A former head of Fema who testified he had done a fabulous job and every one else was to blame is back in the Arabian horse-breeding business.

This just in from Los Angeles — word is out that a big-time movie star and scientologist’s girlfriend is going to have a baby and the scientologist says after the baby is delivered the mother will take no pills for postpartum depression.

A Republican congressman indicted for money-laundering is one of the best golfers in the House.

Washington is still talking about the little boy who shouted “The Emperor has no clothes!” after Hurricane Katrina. A spokesman for the emperor said it wasn’t true, but just another political smear.

Rumour has it that a certain vicious dictator, who will be tried for crimes against humanity, will plead not guilty, get $10 million for his book and appear on the covers of both “Time” and “Newsweek” in the same week. His people are talking about an exclusive interview with Barbara Walters and a movie deal starring Russell Crowe.

Investigators are still searching for the dog that was used to torture prisoners at Abu Ghraib.

Gossip has it that conservatives are furious at a certain president because he is not conservative enough. And liberals are angry because he is not liberal enough and his White House staff think he is perfect.

Police arrested a baseball player when they found steroids in the glove compartment of his car after he hit a home run in the fifth inning. He said they were left there by a teammate who hit a home run in the bottom of the ninth.

A televangelist who claims he believes in God called for the assassination of the president of Venezuela.

Those are only a few of the blind items I have collected. Thank heaven my leakers keep throwing them over the transom every day. —Dawn/Tribune Media Services