Hundred-day failure

A WEEK can be a long time in politics but it seems a hundred days aren’t enough to deliver on promises. On March 29, shortly after securing a unanimous vote of confidence in parliament, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani set out his administration’s priorities for its first 100 days in office that end today. It was an ambitious plan for a coalition government struggling to come to grips with the diverse and sometimes conflicting interests of disparate component parties. Still the 100-day programme was by no means unachievable, and consider also that the PM spoke in certainties, not possibilities. But then politicians are not averse to stating their intentions in uncertain terms and letting implementation simmer on the back burner. Asif Zardari, for instance, defended his Bhurban volte-face on the grounds that the accord was merely a ‘political statement’. Given how assertion and intent can rarely be conflated in this country, perhaps Mr Gilani was just talking politics when he announced his 100-day programme. But to be fair to the man, he is only a figurehead prime minister with no real power. The shots that tell are called elsewhere. The stasis that passes for governance these days does not help either and the PML-N’s cabinet walkout has further clouded a picture that was murky to begin with.

As it turned out, the PPP-led government reneged on most of the promises made on March 29. Let’s begin with what the 100-day programme has managed to deliver, for the list is short. Talks were initiated with militants interested in peace, student unions are no longer unlawful, the support price for wheat procured from farmers has been raised to the pledged level, the minimum wage now stands at Rs6,000, at least officially, getting an ID card does not involve shelling out money for the time being and PM House expenditure has been slashed by 30 per cent, which is fairly close to the 40 per cent cut announced by Mr Gilani. That’s it.

The 100-day deadline for a new freedom of information law as well as the abolition of the anti-union Industrial Relations Order 2002 ends today with nothing to show by way of achievement. The British-era Frontier Crimes Regulation 1901 is still in place, a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (which was to focus on the state’s excesses in Balochistan) is yet to be set up and NAB courts continue to function independently of the mainstream judicial system. The promised literacy and health corporation is nowhere to be seen. The same is true of the employment commission which was to provide jobs in the public and private sectors, as well as the much-touted housing initiative for the poor. Also, where is the madressah authority that was supposed to ensure a uniform curriculum in all seminaries? The government’s austerity plan, meanwhile, has been reduced to a joke by officials hooked as if by heroin to luxury automobiles, flattering entourages and foreign junkets. The list of failures is long and cannot be accommodated here for want of space. Suffice to say, the 100-day programme can rest in peace.

A nuclear mystery

DR Abdul Qadeer Khan has once again caused a furore. This time he has claimed that a shipment of P-1 centrifuges to North Korea in 2000 was supervised by the Pakistan Army. And leaving no doubt about who the target of his latest revelation was, Dr Khan told a foreign news agency in a telephonic interview, “It must have gone with his [Musharraf’s] consent.” President Musharraf hit back promptly via his spokesman, who rejected “with full confidence” Khan’s claims describing them as “lies and false statements”. There is much cause for alarm in this very public spat between Dr Khan and President Musharraf. The international community still looks upon Pakistan’s nuclear programme with a great deal of suspicion, particularly when it comes to issues of proliferation. Dr Khan’s statements make international headlines and are a foreign policy headache this country cannot afford, especially as it battles militancy and economic stagnation at home. However, the spate of interviews that Dr Khan has given since May also raises fundamental questions of power on the local political front. Who has allowed Dr Khan to speak to the media and to what end?

Since he offered the country his “deepest regrets and unqualified apologies” in February 2004 for “errors of judgement related to unauthorised proliferation”, Dr Khan had been kept under the tightest of media blackouts. But now Dr Khan appears at liberty to use his telephone to speak cavalierly to the media, local and international, on issues no one else can dare broach. The government has by and large looked the other way, with only occasional voices of disapproval raised and no explanations offered. Ahmed Mukhtar, minister for defence, could only muster the following in response to Dr Khan’s latest claim: “Such statements can be harmful for the country.” What is undeniably harmful to the country is the murky world of politics in which yet again nameless and faceless individuals are stirring the nuclear proliferation pot via Dr Khan for unclear reasons. The government’s bystander status is further creating confusion. It needs to address this matter more forthrightly. If investigations deem it necessary, it must either put Dr Khan on trial and let him have his day in court or release him. Otherwise, the danger in letting Dr Khan live out his days in a legal limbo is apparent: Pakistan’s most famous nuclear protagonist will be used as a pawn in power struggles within the highest echelons of the state apparatus.

Planting trees

TREES are said to be the lungs of the earth that purify the air. Even in urban areas where only small patches may be forested — parks and open spaces are used by thoughtful civic planners to plant trees in abundance — natural greenery is an asset. It is aesthetic and has a positive impact on the ecosystem. Hence the Karachi city nazim’s announcement that nearly 10, 000 trees will be planted in the city under the Greener Karachi project by December will be greeted as a welcome move. The nazim has also called for the active participation of the people in this campaign. Needless to say, without the cooperation of the public the Greener Karachi project cannot really make much of a headway. Planting a sapling is only the first step; it also has to be nurtured and protected. Who can do this better than the people if they are involved in the tree plantation drive from the word go. If they are sufficiently motivated and mobilised, citizens would prove to be useful carers and protectors of plants. For this, public education campaigns to teach people about the significance of trees for human health and the environment will certainly be needed. The help of the media — both electronic and print — can always be enlisted to win the cooperation of the people.

But this is the easier part of the job. What would require both funds and exertion is a planned strategy to launch the programme in such a way that it does not adopt an ad hoc approach and at the same time creates sufficient public interest in the project. For this the civic authorities would have to provide people the seedlings/plants that thrive in Karachi’s climate as well as basic inputs such as water and fertiliser as not everyone may be able to afford them. But if these are made available and some guidance is provided, there is no reason why people should not develop an interest in trees.

Expatriates’ role in politics

EXPATRIATE Pakistanis are a force to reckon with in the politics of the country. If a proof of their presence in absentia was ever needed, reports of recent meetings in the United States indicate just how desperate the Pakistani community is about the situation in the country of its origin.

There is no denying the importance of expatriates in the history of Pakistan, which by some accounts, has in recent years been run by local and foreign outsiders. Reports have been continuously warning us against putting our faith in a set of people who are destined to pack their bags and depart at the first sign of danger a la Shaukat Aziz.

The country as we all know was created by a man who returned from exile in the 1930s. It has since its inception been in need of constant redemption by politicians sacrificing the comfort abroad for a struggle of the people at home. Ms Benazir Bhutto made a return in 1986 and again in 2007, when she paid for it with her life, and determined not to be kept out, the Sharifs came home from England last winter.

A number of politicians are said to have a large following in the West and are quite often spotted leading rallies in London and Washington. Politicians such as Asif Zardari and Nawaz Sharif have been frequently touring foreign lands since they formed a coalition after the general election on Feb 18 this year as has been Imran Khan et al, along with other assignments, seeking to increase their clout among Pakistani expatriates. The lawyers’ movement and the revolution we are told that has been brewing in the land of late have also drawn heavily on the support extended to it from Pakistanis abroad — not least in the form of the morale-boosting emails that have piled up in our inboxes.

Expatriate Pakistanis have most certainly played an important role in pursuing causes that they have been further committed to by their exposure in foreign lands. Their contribution in improving certain aspects of life here has been enormous and had it not been for the examples of better life they have been providing us with, we could have been living in a darker era. But as the exposure brings ideas, perhaps the failure to implement them in Pakistan with the facility these ideas have been executed in the West, breeds desperation, even contempt.

Newspapers recently reported two incidents from the United States in which groups of Pakistani expatriates had reacted strongly to speakers from their country. In the first instance, a woman got so angry with the proceedings that she, apparently, tried to throw the ambassador, Husain Haqqani, off the stage for remarks that were considered to be against the movement for restoration of the judiciary. Not too long afterwards, Pakistan People’s Party sympathisers, upset over the treatment past judges had meted out to PPP leaders, disrupted a speech by the honourable Justice Wajihuddin. Both were valid questions and both the respondents did qualify to be subjected to even more probing questions. Yet the brashness on show ran contrary to the old adage which says that distance from the scene of action allows for a rational view.

Our internal experience with responding to ‘remote’ problems has indeed led to some very unemotional reactions to even indifference and apathy. The visibly irritated information minister of the NWFP recently reminded television viewers that those based in Swat were better placed to assess the situation there than those who viewed it from afar. Someone with a brasher tone could have told us to keep to our safe houses, and with reason.

Ask a group of well-meaning youngsters in the Punjab metropolis and they are honest enough not to feign an understanding of the trouble in Fata or for that matter the misgivings Sindh has about the Big Brother. Every few days, you are likely to run into some proof of the always complaining Baloch who are ‘too selfish’ or ‘too tribal’ to talk about the common good of the country. The Lahore brand of politicians compliments these trends by limiting their flight to the ideological and geographical boundaries they have created around them. Plenty of noise has been made around the just cause of a free judiciary in the country but little has come by way of reaction to the law enforcers’ action in Fata. As if it was another country.

City of extravagance

ASTANA: If there is one thing Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev cherishes as part of his legacy, it is the gold-plated extravagance of his new capital, Astana.

Tucked away in the empty heartland of Eurasia, Astana was little more than a windswept provincial town a decade ago when Mr Nazarbayev declared it the capital of his vast oil-rich state.

Now, with its grandiose, if somewhat surreal, skyline dominating a barren landscape, Astana stands as a monument to Mr Nazarbayev’s two-decade rule in the former Soviet state.

With gold-tinted tower blocks, oddly shaped skyscrapers and a giant pyramid with an opera house in the basement, Astana also offers a peek into what a country can do with billions of dollars of new-found oil wealth.

In power since 1989, Nazarbayev dreamt up Astana’s creation – Kazakhstan’s answer to Dubai and Brasilia -- in 1994 as a symbol of Kazakhstan’s independence and a way to give a sense of national identity to his people.

Like other nations born out of the break-up of the Soviet Union, Kazakhstan endured years of post-Soviet chaos in the 1990s, but its economy is now booming thanks to billions of dollars of foreign investment.

Five times the size of France but populated by only 16 million people, it wants to copy the experience of Gulf Arab states that have grown rich on the back of oil since the 1970s.

It is also at the centre of global oil diplomacy as Europe courts it as an alternative to Russian energy supplies.

Nazarbayev, however, has been criticised by rights groups for tolerating little dissent and backsliding on democracy.

This week, he is unlikely to hear any critical voices: he is at the centre of lavish festivities being held to mark the city’s 10th anniversary with the culmination on July 6 conveniently coinciding with his own, 68th, birthday.

Over $12 billion has been invested in Astana, which is growing fast in line with a master-plan laid out by Japanese architect Kisho Kurokawa.

And, it seems, some of Astana’s once-sceptical residents have finally come to terms with their city’s flashy image. A walk around Astana, once a tiny outpost founded by Russian troops, reveals a city of magnificent proportions, with some of its austere, glass-and-marble buildings and abstract statues harking back to the brutal grandeur of Stalinist architecture.

“Behind his back we call (Nazarbayev) the chief architect of Astana,” said Bair Dosmambetov, a senior official who oversees Astana’s construction. “We always seek his advice.”

The official hero worship is also explicit.

“Goal: position the First President of the Republic of Kazakhstan as a leader of global proportions,” stated the official Astana website, explaining the gist of week-long celebrations that include massive theatrical shows and concerts.

Somewhat mystifyingly, it also lists the “sacralisation of the capital” as another key goal. The official cost of celebrations has not been made public.

Kazakhstan’s military march-style anthem, its lyrics co-authored by Nazarbayev, blared across Astana and scores of people waving blue-and-yellow national flags strolled through its streets as the festivities started.

At one event, a flag-raising ceremony attended by Nazarbayev, a crowd cheered and chanted “Kazakhstan! Kazakhstan!” as the president spoke.

“We’ve lived through many challenges,” he said. “One of the challenges was to build a new country ... Our country has become respectable. Astana has become the centre of Eurasia.”

But away from the rallies and speeches, there was little cause for celebration in Astana’s poorer districts where people have yet to see the benefits of oil wealth, like millions of others outside Astana and the old capital, Almaty.

Spiralling food inflation is threatening to undo the gains built up through economic expansion of around 10 percent a year since 2000 in a country where around one quarter of the population still lives in poverty, according to UN figures.

In one district, dotted by crumbling huts and bisected by a rough dirt track, people said their only source of water was a rusty metal pipe sticking out of the ground.

“This celebration isn’t for us but for the elite,” said Gulzhamal as she collected water from the pipe. Like many people who criticise the government, she refused to give her surname.

“We have to solve our own problems, figure out how to buy bread, how to buy clothes for our children, how to support them.

We simply have no time for celebration.”

Some have compared Nazarbayev to Turkey’s first President Mustafa Kemal Ataturk who moved the capital from Istanbul to Ankara in 1923. Some have dubbed Astana the Brasilia of the Kazakh steppe, referring to Brazil’s capital since 1960.—Reuters

OTHER VOICES - Indian Press

Kashmir: Time to show sensitivity

The Asian Age

THE prolonged turbulence over the official transfer of 40 hectares of forest land for undertaking infrastructural improvements by the Shri Amarnathji Shrine Board in Kashmir has sprung from a misreading of the government’s motives and a communication gap which the Ghulam Nabi Azad government did nothing to bridge. In fact, the agitation would have been seen to be totally unwarranted if people had understood that land was being diverted temporarily for raising prefabricated structures only for camping purposes of pilgrims, without going in for permanent structures.

The government has ensured that the proprietary status of the forest land will remain unchanged. Instead of clarifying the facts, the board’s ex-officio chief executive imparted religious overtones to the land transfer action by terming it as a justified response to Hindu interests. The government’s action threatens to polarise society on communal lines, a development that can negate the positive results of the ongoing peace process. — (July 1)

Repeal the law

Deccan Herald

THERE is an urgent need for India to halt discrimination against sexuality minorities. This was the main theme of rallies and processions in three Indian cities to mark Rainbow Pride Week, which commemorates riots that erupted in New York when police raided a pub and arrested several gays in 1969.

The rallies in three cities [were] an attempt by the community to have their demands heard. They have called for repeal of Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, which criminalises homosexuality.

Some have argued that there is no need to change the legislation as gays are not actually arrested in the country and are allowed to lead the lives of their choice quietly. This might be so. But by making homosexuality illegal, gays are made vulnerable to police harassment and blackmail.

That many of those who participated in the rallies in Bangalore, Delhi and Kolkata wore masks and needed police protection from the public indicates the extent of social prejudice and discrimination. — (July 5)