Helping the due process

THE fourth hearing of the case against the “non-functional” Chief Justice before the Supreme Judicial Council on Friday saw more rallies by lawyers in Islamabad and elsewhere. Inevitably, the opposition parties, too, took part in the demonstrations, as they did on the previous three occasions. Is this going to be the pattern all along till the case is finally decided? Will the lawyers and the political activists demonstrate in the streets, while the judges hear the case inside? No doubt, the legal community was shocked by the way the government treated the nation’s top judge. But the issue needs to be looked at from a larger perspective and concerns not transient matters but such fundamental values as the rule of law, constitutionalism, civilised conduct and the country’s long-term interests.

A point that is often forgotten in Pakistan by those fighting for democratic causes is the need for them to uphold democratic values themselves. Any movement that aims merely at a regime change is unlikely to lead to a consolidation of the state or the strengthening of democracy. We have the examples of two mass movements — one against Ayub Khan (1968-69) and the other against Z. A. Bhutto (1977) — in which the focus of the campaigns, even if couched in democratic and religious languages, was on the removal of the two potentates. The movements succeeded in both cases, but the widespread death and destruction and the dislocation of normal life led eventually to the usurpation of power by a general in each case. The Bangladesh war cut short Yahya’s rule to three years, but Ziaul Haq went on to rule for 11 years, disfigured the 1973 Constitution and did incalculable harm to the nation’s polity by promoting obscurantism.

An even greater mistake on both occasions was the recourse to force and a glorification of street agitation. Since then, demonstrating street power has become the hallmark of a party’s or leader’s political hold on the masses. Unfortunately, this tendency has spread to all sections of society, and every group is quick to show its ability to whip up violence. The basic mistake during the two mass movements was the leaders’ failure to uphold democratic norms and principles. They forgot that those fighting for democracy must themselves demonstrate an unequivocal commitment to that cause. During the 1988-99 democratic period, the PPP and the PML-N resorted to every unconstitutional trick to bring the other party’s government down. Today again, the legal community and the opposition face the same situation. If they are struggling for the rule of law, they must carry these values with them at every step and observe them. Let the battle for or against Mr Chaudhry be fought in the Supreme Court and street protest marked by restraint. What the legal community should note is that some political parties, whose own commitment to democracy is questionable, are using the lawyers’ platform to advance their own political interests. Besides, however questionable, the issue of the reference against Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry and allied matters are now before the Supreme Judicial Council and must be decided judicially. So the best option is to leave the SJC free to examine all relevant issues and reach its verdict without any kind of pressure. All parties involved in the case, most notably the government, must pledge to let the due process work. Only then will the nation’s fears, particularly those of the legal fraternity, be allayed, obviating the need for street agitation.

Whither madressah reforms?

AFTER the failure of the madressah reform programme of 2003, the government is reportedly considering making another attempt at registering some 13,000 existing madressahs. The fresh effort comes in the wake of the on-going standoff between the government and the Islamabad-based Lal Masjid seminary and Hafsa madressah. According to the federal religious affairs minister, it will now be tried to get all stakeholders on board and secure seminary heads’ support for the government’s registration policy. As it is, the madressah reform programme has remained ineffective because a lot of ground was ceded to clerics resisting the registration process. Finally, it was left to the discretion of madressah owners whether to register their institutions or stay out of the process. This rendered the whole programme virtually meaningless. Thus, the attempts being made now to further appease the resisting clerics, like those managing the Lal Masjid, by subjecting the proposed reforms to their will and option, will make the process meaningless and a waste of time. It is true that madressahs do fulfill a vital function in society by bridging the gap left behind by inadequate educational facilities in the public sector, but there should be no leniency shown towards those which have virtually become bastions of bigotry, hate and militancy. The government’s soft-peddling of the issue has resulted in emboldening the errant clerics, some of whom are now challenging the writ of the state, besides resorting to coercive tactics against citizens. This is unacceptable in any civilised society.

There is a dire need to bring madressah education into mainstream knowledge as taught in non-religious institutions. Teaching seminary students subjects like English, science and mathematics will better equip them to become productive citizens and not just prayer leaders. Because of limited job opportunities available to madressah graduates today, a vast majority of them is at a disadvantage in securing any gainful employment. This need not be so if madressah students could go on to join a university or a professional college after completing religious education under a well-conceived and effectively implemented curriculum plan. Anything short of this will be just another exercise in futility.

Harassing students on campus

TROUBLE can flare up at Punjab University unless the administration takes swift action against those students spreading fear in the name of religion. Last Tuesday, a boy and a girl were beaten by students allegedly belonging to Islami Jamiat Talaba, for sitting together. The students were apparently told to “mend their ways” through threatening phone calls before they were finally beaten up. This incident is not the first of its kind, nor is PU immune from acts of violence. Other students too have been receiving threatening phone calls for mingling with members of the opposite sex while some have been beaten for their “crime” at other educational institutions in the city. The IJT strongly denies any involvement in Tuesday’s act, saying that it only interferes in extreme cases — presumably what they consider obscene — and does not indulge in violence. Whoever is responsible for this moral policing on PU’s campus must be taken to task for they have no right to declare what is or isn’t responsible behaviour. That is for the university authorities to decide, which it does in its code of conduct manifesto. It is encouraging that the administration has said that it will not allow any person or group to disturb the university’s academic peace and will look into this matter. It must take whatever action is necessary to ensure peace on the campus.

It is interesting to note that the PU registrar said that the miscreants involved in Tuesday’s incident were taking a lead from the Jamia Hafsa students, adding that this would not be tolerated. One hopes that the administration will act soon and prevent any untoward incident from taking place. Any dillydallying on this score may lead to a spate of violence and counter-violence, seriously undermining peace, discipline and order on the university campus.

Al Gore’s revenge

I LOVE America! The New York Times has four pages of sports news and not a single word on cricket. The eastern coast of the United States is the only region in the English-speaking world that can claim to be in more or less the same time zone as the West Indies; over here, you don’t have to keep awake all night to watch India lose. But as far as the World Cup is concerned, we might as well be on another planet.

Newspapers do not deign to publish a line of results in small type. What a blessing! One sub-section of an intermittent television channel in New York plays a few Hindi film songs in the morning, interrupting the music only to inform the world about the miraculous ability of Baba Manjhi or Sanjhi to foresee your future for the usual cash compensation, as well as to warn you that every other astrologer in the city is a fraud.

But there is no creepy crawler at the bottom of the screen giving running details of the score or, worse, advertisements featuring the unique contralto of the Sachin Squeak. What bliss!

The only intrusion from Mars is the regrettable presence of the BBC, regrettable because BBC has the effrontery to attach World Cup news to its sports section. I see no future for BBC America in America if it continues this head-in-the-sand obstinacy.

America plays something called baseball. It is a game played in which the players are required to chew tobacco very slowly before someone behind the bat makes a strange gesture and everyone starts hugging one another.

When I checked with an expert, a former government official who has become a fulltime intellectual, during dinner he told me that baseball has been at least partly inspired by an Indian game. ‘Gulli danda’? I ask incredulously. He lowers the rim of his spectacles and answers with a meaningful silence. It proves my theory that when government officials grow up to become intellectuals, they become very kind to temporary visitors.

This is what happens when you don't make Al Gore president of the United States just because of a few chads in Florida. He takes his revenge by changing the climate of the world. Spring has arrived in New York, but instead of fragrant breezes through Central Park, the city is shivering under snow flurries and a wind that was so cold that Canada let it go to America.

In the BG Era (Before Gore), sturdy New Yorkers would have called this unseasonal, put on their overcoats and gone off to church on Easter Sunday. But now we have to discuss the litany of a parallel faith, Earth Science, full of measurements of carbon emission and dire predictions that the polar bear will be extinct in 50 years unless of course drought kills us all before that. Progress now is recognition of the evils of progress. Amen

Al Gore may be able to convert summer into winter, and win an Oscar for being the prophet of gloom, but every serious political pundit believes that he cannot really win the next election for president. Gore himself is in a mood to tease, saying no with such a heavy implied wink that it would take an extinct polar bear to miss the point. However, the pundits would prefer that he save his cash and stay at home.

Why? Because he is still too fat to contest. Unless he loses about 50 pounds, he has no hope in this telegenic age. Television puts on 10 pounds to your image, and Internet is worse, but that is where elections are won and lost these days. Weight shifts ratings down.

The surprise package of this election season, Barack Obama, who stunned the system by raising as much in the first quarter as the Clintons ($25 million) is lean, lithe, lissom. His equivalent on the Republican side, Mitt Romney, might not be able to reach the White House, but he is a perfect candidate for any casting couch which wants a president in a soap opera or polopera.

Romney has raised $20 million, largely from his fellow Mormons, but I doubt if he would have survived if his stomach sagged like an obese gunny bag. Looks matter. Rudy Giuliani, the thrice married mayor of New York during 9/11with a thrice married wife, moves with the light step of man who has known a treadmill on intimate terms. He is the current favourite, having overtaken yesterday’s frontrunner, John McCain.

Has McCain slipped because of his expanding jowl? After all, we are still in the cosmetic stage of the campaign. Bill Clinton, who had begun to bloat as president, now looks like Cary Grant with a round nose, having cut down his consumption after his heart attack (barring ice creams, that is). Hillary is a bit stolid on the frame front, but fine. She has fat legs, but never shows them. That is why she always wears pants.

The campaign is about Iraq, and will continue to be so. One day’s news story, on an inside page, is enough to indicate why. This is what appeared in the papers on Good Friday: “Six Americans and four British soldiers were killed in separate attacks around Iraq ... an American helicopter crashed south of Baghdad, wounding four soldiers. Reuters quoted witnesses as saying that they heard heavy gunfire before the crash, suggesting that the helicopter had been shot down... (The British) unit repelled an insurgent attack... Later, the unit was hit west of Basra by a roadside bomb, followed by small arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades... Iraqi-American security stations in three Baghdad neighbourhoods were attacked in what may have been a coordinated offensive, American military commanders said...”

This is after the surge in troops ordered by George Bush, and the “success” of this strategy peddled by the administration and its supporters. If this is success, what could failure look like?

Would Jesus have gone to war in Iraq? Part of the answer may lie in the fact that the question is being asked. Four Easters ago there was conviction, as much in the newsroom as the White House. Doubt is a necessary precondition for peace, or at least reconciliation. The question was posed repeatedly on Saturday morning Easter TV programmes as a resplendent variety of pastors queued up to address dilemmas on war, peace and whether the church of poverty had been consumed by the church of prosperity.

The contemporary heirs of the church militant, like Jerry Falwell, are certain that Jesus would have been an excellent commander-in-chief in a holy war between the good guys and the bad guys. Others are less sanguine.

Two thousand years ago the Romans were the bad guys, with some assistance from the Pharisees. Jesus was angry at usurers who cheated the poor and false leaders who misled the innocent; he left war to Caesar. The sermon on the mount would probably be too liberal a manifesto for today’s realists. But enough. This column is in serious danger of drifting towards a sermon.

The writer is Editor-in-Chief of Asian Age, New Delhi.

Revolution not (quite) necessary

A GERMANword best describes how the British feel about the French economy: schadenfreude. In the run-up to this month's presidential election, economists have sermonised about how the French need to be more Anglo-Saxon.

The country has a brain drain, the detractors cry: just look at the 300,000 French who live in the UK. Never mind that there are over 260,000 Brits resident in France -- and not all of them are sun-seeking retirees. France's dirigisme has squeezed out the private sector, runs the allegation. Public spending is larger across the Channel, yet the French private sector punches its weight too.

The British may have the HSBC bank and WPP media group, but the French have BNP Paribas and Publicis. In the broad Dow Jones index of European stocks, UK companies make up a third of the market, while their French counterparts constitute 15%. Not bad for a country that never fell in love with privatisation. Magazines like the Spectator still accuse the French of having an economy that is "officially the second most socialist of the wealthy nations after Sweden". But there is nothing wrong with high state spending, if it is popular and can be paid for. France's trouble is that it has the former, but not the latter.

What detractors usually prescribe for France is another Thatcher. But with none of the leading candidates being sufficiently rightwing, they plump instead for the nearest equivalent, Nicolas Sarkozy. Sarko has capitalised on such talk by promising la rupture tranquille: a break with the French economic model.

All the talk of déclinisme ignores notable French successes. Investment in skills and equipment mean that French workers are far more productive than their British counterparts, getting nearly a third more done per hour of work.

Yet the welfare state too is much more generous. That generosity lies behind the two major problems of the French economy: unemployment and government debt. While the French worker's rights are well protected, getting into a job is in itself hard work. Over 8% of the French labour force is out of work. Youth unemployment is particularly high and, along with race, helped contribute to the riots across France a couple of years ago.

This campaign has been fought in the shadow of the Pébereau report from the end of 2005, which showed that the state's general debt, including pension liabilities, was almost as large as the annual national income. All the main candidates agree this needs to be tackled. But if the economy needs reform, it does not require rebuilding. The challenge for the next French president will be fixing those bits of the economy that do not work, while not junking those parts that do.

– The Guardian, London