Seeing it in perspective

AS a gifted scion of a family noted for its commitment to Muslim causes, Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri has impeccable credentials to initiate negotiations designed to fulfil President Musharraf’s plan to bring about a qualitative change in Pakistan’s relations with Israel.

The meeting with the Israeli foreign minister, Silvan Shalom, in Istanbul on September 1, was a major departure from a 60-year old policy and was, therefore, liable to some controversy.

The decision to project it primarily as an initiative that would promote the Palestinian cause was, however, tantamount to walking on thin ice. The claim of its prior approval by the Palestinian leadership was almost immediately challenged. The Palestinian deputy prime minister, Nabil Shaath, was quick to make the point that it was “not good to give Israel gifts before it really implements the peace process, not only in Gaza, but the West Bank and Jerusalem.” Even when informed of it, they had not given the meeting a green signal. The Palestinian street was more vociferous in expressing its disappointment.

Since Abu Mazen is due to meet Ariel Sharon during the same month, the Palestinian concern cannot be doctrinaire. It is obviously triggered by the fear that recognition by Pakistan, the only nuclear-weapon Muslim state, would provide Israel with an unprecedented opportunity to reduce its moral isolation. This fear finds resonance in non- Arab comments too. In a joint article, Simon Henderson and Soner Cagaptay of the Washington Institute observe that the immediate effect of Pakistan’s new policy “ may well be to dent Palestinian diplomatic efforts at the United Nations to claim that Israel still occupies Gaza even though the settlers have left and the Israeli army is soon to depart”.

In reality, Palestinian apprehensions go far beyond the situation in Gaza. We in Pakistan need to assess the situation accurately, recognize the enormity and delicacy of the task and decide if we have the means to carry it out. In a comment published elsewhere, I have argued recently that Binyamin Netanyahu’s election as Israel’s prime minister in 1996 heralded the advent of a new coalition of the traditional right, the ultra-orthodox elements in the Israeli society and the main settler group, Gush Emunim (‘bloc of the faithful’), and that this ascendancy of the hard-line forces continues to shape Israeli politics.

After resigning from Sharon’s cabinet, Netanyahu has now challenged him as the leader of the Likud, a process that would ensure that Sharon holds on to as much of the West Bank as possible. In the sequence of recent Israeli leaders (Rabin, Shimon Peres, Natanyahu and Barak), only Barak was prepared to return much of the West Bank to the Arabs but even he insisted on annexing a vital strip that would split the emerging Palestinian state and tighten Israel’s grip on Jerusalem. He was also not prepared to concede the right of return to the Palestinian refugees. This is what wrecked the plan that Clinton presented to the two sides on December 23, 2000, at Camp David and the subsequent negotiations in Taba (Egypt) four weeks later.

The highly influential, The Economist, argues editorially that Sharon would be better for a revived peace process than the challenger, Natanyahu. But is the difference between these two hawks material and sufficient to permit the establishment of a viable Arab state living side by side with Israel in peace and security? If appropriating other people’s lands was the leitmotif of the imperialist saga, Sharon has been its principal practitioner in our times. He led the invasion of Lebanon in 1982 and presided over the massacres of Sabra and Shatilla.

As agriculture minister in Begin’s government, he drew up a plan to settle two million Jews in occupied territories. By his own statement, he planned the settlements in Gaza. Is the recent dismantling of the Gaza settlements proof enough of a change of heart in him? The present construction activity projects him as an unrepentant exponent of Greater Jerusalem, West Bank settlement blocs and security zones. In his letter of April 14, 2004, President Bush told Sharon that the Palestinians would have to recognize “the new realities” on the ground.

For Sharon, this was an American endorsement of his plan for reducing a future Palestinian state to three non-contiguous cantons. Sharon’s ultimate concession to the Arabs may be nothing better than a disconnected state on a land area smaller than what Barak had offered in 2000.

The only power that can make Israel re-think its policy is the United States. The other components of the Quartet — UN, Russia and the European Union — have much less leverage as they expect Israel to withdraw to the frontiers of June 4, 1967. In this scenario, it is difficult to imagine what Pakistan can do to bring about a substantive change in Israel’s position. It is also not easy to see how far Pakistan can influence Washington’s thinking.

There is, indeed, another set of considerations that may justify the change in Pakistan’s Israel policy. First, the change will, arguably, strengthen Pakistan-US relationship as the Jewish factor in Washington’s decision-making becomes more favourable to Pakistan. Islamabad may be seen as an ally not only in the war against terrorism but also in bringing western enlightenment to the Arab-Islamic societies.

When Pakistan swam against the tide of nationalism, socialism and non-alignment sweeping across many Arab nations, it found much intellectual resistance in the Arab world. Pakistan had to work hard to overcome the resentment created by its Suez policy and membership of the Baghdad Pact which became Cento after a bloody revolution in Iraq. It will have to establish credentials far stronger than that of a minor US-surrogate if it wants to play any significant role in the Middle East.

While this is in the realm of the abstract, a sustainable case can be made for the Israeli connection enhancing Pakistan’s military security. There is no gainsaying that India benefited substantially by creating a defence nexus with Israel after 1992 when it gave up its traditional deference to Arab opinion. It is a valid hope that Israel will open the tap of military sales to Pakistan in return for diplomatic recognition.

In fact, the pro-Indian lobby in Israel is already irked by the Kasuri-Shalom meeting. In an article illustrative of this discomfiture, Caroline Glick lambasts Pakistan in Jerusalem Post as the ‘operational epicentre of the global jihad ‘and a ‘major proliferators of nuclear weapon technology’. Her view is worth quoting: “if embracing Pakistan is part of a larger plan to internationally isolate Iran, then there is a strategic logic to holding the (foreign ministers) meeting.” She has given expression to the worst fears of the Pakistani nation.

It is essential at this point to make a distinction between relations with the state of Israel and the Jewish people. There are Jews who believe that the creation of Israel was wrong as their exile from the Promised Land was divinely ordained and that it precluded the establishment of a Zionist state. Many citizens of Israel and Jews abroad do not approve of Israel’s racist repression of Arabs and would support a two-state solution. Delink them from the agonizing politics of Middle East and you find amongst them the finest exponents of universal human values.

Many of the western writers and media men who jolted the conscience of the world community over the Serbian genocide of Muslims in Bosnia and Kosovo were Jewish, and not always from the secular strata. There is thus much merit in President Musharraf addressing a Jewish organization in New York. It is time to intensify efforts to break down the epistemological barriers between Muslims and followers of other faiths, creeds and ideologies. Huntington contemplated the world after the Cold War with a mind haunted by the fear of an impending decline of the West. He thought that this decline could be averted by developing a particularistic and exclusive view of western culture.

The resultant thesis of an inevitable clash of civilizations was simplistic and tribal and betrayed his ignorance of the universalizing impact of a globalizing economy and a continuing revolution in communications. Huntington’s ideas have enjoyed a longer shelf life than they were entitled to largely because a distorted self-serving version suited the neo-conservative political agenda. It is necessary to outline a less pessimistic view of history and we should judge President Musharraf by what he says to the American Jewish community and not by his decision to talk to it.

According to an unverifiable story on Islamabad’s diplomatic grapevine, Washington was expecting President Musharraf to announce recognition of Israel on January 12, 2005, which had to be postponed because of a strong Arab demarche. Be that as it may, the mixed reaction to the Istanbul meeting may well turn establishment of diplomatic relations into a protracted process rather than an event. An appropriate timeline for initial steps in the consular and commercial fields will keep Islamabad-Tel Aviv dialogue alive. It will also permit exploratory talks on the potential and limits of bilateral relations. Pakistan will have to ensure that Israel does not exploit relations with it to the detriment of any Arab-Islamic nations.

The Middle East peace process may not see a significant movement till a much later stage of the second term of President Bush. This is going to test Pakistan’s present declaratory position that recognition is conditional upon the establishment of a Palestinian state. At the end of the day, its recognition of Israel may have to stand on national interest. There should be a contingency plan for future crises in the Palestinian struggle for statehood. Meanwhile, President Musharraf must consider two axiomatic truths that his courtiers may not mention.

The people of Pakistan do not oppose his bold initiatives but will eventually judge him by the results they achieve. Secondly, when you rise to that eminence, you have no choice but to remain sensitive to the verdict of history. President Musharraf has the opportunity to become the first military ruler of Pakistan to be remembered kindly by the generations to come. For this, he has to rise above the expedient and aim at the highest level of statesmanship. Let him seize the moment.

The writer is a former foreign secretary.

Policeman, friend or foe?

THE act of taking a person’s life in the name of honour has often vexed the minds of members of the thinking public who watch helplessly as women are regularly brutalized and killed under a legal system which appears to be totally ineffective and an establishment that appears to be completely indifferent.

It was therefore a propitious moment when Marcus Gilbert, the recently appointed director of the British Council in Karachi, ably assisted by his deputy, Samina Khan, organized a seminar on this very subject, in collaboration with the Sindh police and the Northamptonshire police in the United Kingdom.

Hamish St Clair Daniel, the British deputy high commissioner who kicked off the proceedings, was, as always, marvellously prescient. He sketched the impeccably holistic dogged pursuit of suspected terrorists by the British police in the wake of the recent bombings; and pointed out that the boys in blue had to also occasionally grapple with problems that stemmed from customs that originated in the subcontinent and affected not only Muslims but also Hindus and Sikhs.

Some of the really nagging issues were child marriages, girls being forced to wed against their will which has led to the occasional suicide, and, of course, the odd case of murder being committed in the name of honour.

Many of the points that Hamish Daniel made were reinforced by Larry Ennis, director of investigations in the Northamptonshire police, who gave the audience a glimpse of how law enforcement is conducted in the United Kingdom. There are 43 police forces scattered throughout Britain, and each unit operates on three levels-local, regional and national where staff have access to the latest technology. At times people who operate on the wrong side of the law become exceptionally evasive and it is considered necessary to attach their assets in a bid to apprehend them.

Policing, in fact, had come a long way from the days of Dixon of Dock Green who appeared in black and white between 1955 and 1969 and in colour between 1969 and 1976 on the nation’s television screens. The reference certainly struck a familiar chord in this writer. Nobody who has seen that popular serial can ever forget Jack Warner’s warm and friendly greeting, “Evenin’ all”, or what was one of the most enduring and emotive of television images of flickering monochrome shots outside a police station, the chimes of Big Ben and a whistled ‘Maybe it’s because I’m a Londoner...’ Dixon used the good old bicycle to chase the dodgy burglar, or the louche performer who occasionally got nicked in possession of a dodgy bit of burlesque. The sight of the old truncheon was enough to persuade the lorry driver to keep a civil tongue and to sober up the habitual drunk who was bent on disfiguring a neighbour’s garden.

However, the point that Ennis was trying to make was that changing times and circumstances call for changing methods in policing and crime detection to tackle issues caused by malice, greed or ideology. They also call for specialization. Nevertheless, the efficiency of a police force increases when the local community gets involved — what is referred to in the United Kingdom as community policing.

Just as members of the audience started to conjure up images of a few pot bellied cops with handlebar moustaches sitting across the table with a cross section of the community, Asad Jehangir, inspector general of police in Sindh, brought the discussion back on the rails and dilated on the subject of the seminar ‘Honour Killings: Advanced Investigation Techniques.’ Unfortunately we didn’t hear too much about the investigation techniques, but on the issue of Karo Kari and Kali he was much focused, as he enlightened the audience with a few useful statistics.

At least a thousand cases of honour killing are reported in Pakistan every year; and most women in this country have experienced at least one act of violence. These crimes usually take place in areas where the population is illiterate and there is gender discrimination. The killers believe the act is Islamic, but it has nothing to do with religion.

The reasons attributed for the commission of this crime in which property disputes and alleged infidelity figure quite prominently, are well known and at times betray a Stone Age mentality — like the case of a woman who happened to sit next to a male stranger on a bench in a government hospital, which the husband considered was sufficient cause for having her head chopped off with an axe.

Or another equally sordid and bizarre case, cited by the inspector-general, where a man killed his wife after dreaming she had been unfaithful to him. It couldn’t get more wacky and weird than that. He pointed out, however, that during an investigation the police often hit a hidden reef because prosecutors, defenders and witnesses are often from the same family and issue contradictory statements.

This is certainly true in a majority of cases, but it was certainly not so in the Mukhtaran Mai episode where the police did such a splendid job of botching up the enquiry that the Lahore High Court had no option but to acquit the majority of the rapists. The struggle for woman’s rights in this country suffered a major setback after the imposition of the repressive, one-sided Hudood Ordinances and the dreaded 10(2) Zina clause. After four civilian governments and the emergence of a military-quasi-democratic government, and numerous trials and tribulations the Police Ordinance, based essentially on functional needs, was passed in 2002. As ordinances go, this is not a particularly remarkable document.

But as the inspector general pointed out, Article 3 is of special significance, as it makes it obligatory for the police to protect women and children who are in danger of being molested or attacked. Whether they actually do so is, of course, an entirely different matter. The Sonia Naz case, the reference in a British newspaper to police stations in Pakistan being rape stations, and the recent news about a DSP being involved in a gang-rape, make the Article completely redundant. But the point is, like Mount Everest, it is there and theoretically a citizen can hold them up to it.

However, not all male citizens who live in the hinterland are unmitigated scoundrels and reprobates. Asad Jehangir pointed out that there are a few compassionate sardars in Sindh and Balochistan who have offered shelter and security to the unfortunate women who are victims of male brutality. Could this be the dawn of a new beginning? Altering the image of the police both in the rural and the urban areas is a daunting task, and the police have to first ask themselves why a citizen is so reluctant to help the victim of a traffic accident.

The people who are supposed to protect the weak against the strong are still seen by the public at large as the aiders and abettors of a variety of crimes. The image of the rural policeman setting about his duties with grizzly zeal is largely confined to the script writer who churns out melodramas for television. How many landlords, the cynic asks, have been arrested under Article 3 for stripping women and parading them in the village? And how many rapists have been actually hauled up and brought to justice?

Urban centres are also rife with stories of police intransigence. One used to hear of districts being auctioned where corrupt and enterprising station house officers bid for those areas which have the largest number of brothels and illegal gambling dens; policemen allegedly masterminding the snatching of cars and motor-cycles and the odd burglary; and certain SHOs charging an exhorbitant fee for releasing youths arrested on flimsy charges, and lacing their demands with vile threats if their financial demands were not met.

One SHO stationed in New Karachi who was accused of practising the chicken-wishbone torture, is reputed to have killed 30 people and committed so many excesses that somebody eventually blew him away with a rocket launcher. Some of these tales are probably exaggerated and untrue, and there have been improvements under the current police administration. But they do express the acute frustration of a populace that believes, with justification, that law enforcement is there for the protection of the rich and privileged not only in places like Vehari and Tando Adam but also in cities like Karachi and Lahore. The IG faces an uphill task, but there is no time like the present to make a start. Getting the ulema and the opinion moulders on their side would certainly help.

Katrina

SOMETIMES an event is so staggering it is impossible to absorb. And so it is with Hurricane Katrina.

We are all involved, and as I watched my television screen, my mind kept jumping around and was unable to stay on any one part of the tragedy for long.

The immediate messenger was television. The reporters stood in front of destroyed houses and debris and told us what they saw over and over again.

First came floods, and then came the rescues. Then, because it was good television, came the pictures of the looters.

The National Guard arrived on the scene, but as the waters receded, the blame-sayers went into action.

Why didn’t the US Army Corps of Engineers predict what would happen in a Category 5 hurricane? How come the state didn’t communicate with the federal government, and how come it was so slow about going into action? And how come no one knew the Super Dome would leak?

Why did the president take so long to tell us the recovery would take a long time? What will it do to the nation’s budget? How will Katrina affect the price of gasoline?

Questions... nothing but questions.

As I looked at all the destroyed homes I thought, “People lived in those houses. They had families. All their worldly possessions were washed out to sea.”

Was Katrina an “act of God” as some insurance companies may claim, or did it have anything to do with global warming?

It is hard to absorb the numbers. How many dead, how many refugees, how many homeless?

So the hurricane becomes personal. You know people in New Orleans; you know people who knew people.

I know a lovely lady named Ella Brennan. She owned one of the finest restaurants in New Orleans, Commander’s Palace. Whenever I went to New Orleans I made the restaurant my first stop. Ella and I talked politics. We thought alike and had many friends in common. It was the conversation as much as the food that attracted me.

At this moment I don’t know where Ella is, but I care very much. Somebody else’s tragedy is really yours when you know the people involved. No matter how far we are from the Mississippi, we’re affected.

I feel stupid writing about the effects of Katrina from so far away. But I would also feel stupid not writing about it. We will hear about Katrina for weeks, possibly months, and then it will fade away, except for those who were there. They will never get it out of their minds.

We will have congressional hearings, commissions appointed by the Justice Department, and, politics being politics, the disaster will become a big issue in the next election.

The jury has yet to be called to decide who was right and who was wrong. Until then, all we can say is, “No man is an island. Ask not for whom Katrina blows; she blows for thee.” —Dawn/Tribune Media Services

Greenspan’s humility

FED CHAIRMAN Alan Greenspan has been an unusual figure in Washington because of his willingness to admit that he doesn’t have all the answers. In that state of uncertainty, Greenspan developed an economic approach that he described in a farewell speech last weekend as “risk management.” I wish more of our cocksure politicians and analysts shared his humility.

Washington is a city that lives on certainties. People want to score political and economic debates like a baseball game — how many hits, how many errors, who are the heroes and who are the goats. Greenspan wouldn’t play by those rules. His famous mumble wasn’t always an attempt to mask his real conclusions. Often, I think, it was a way of expressing the reality that he wasn’t sure yet what the answers were.

A telling example of Greenspan’s agnosticism appeared in a profile last week by Edmund L. Andrews in the New York Times. He cited a comment Greenspan made in November 1999, at the height of the tech boom, to a closed meeting of the Fed: “We really do not know how this system works,” Greenspan told his colleagues, according to a recently released transcript. “It’s clearly new. The old models just are not working.”

Knowing that he couldn’t be sure of what was going on in the real economy, Greenspan opted for a pragmatic, seat-of-the-pants kind of economics. He talked to business executives. He studied odd bits of statistical data. He reread his old economics texts. He made decisions about the economy the way most of us try to make decisions about personal matters, by asking: What’s the penalty if I’m wrong? How do I reduce the likelihood of a really bad event?

Sometimes that pragmatism made Greenspan cautious — keeping interest rates higher than critics wanted because he still worried about inflationary expectations. Other times, it made him very bold, as when he pumped massive liquidity into the system after the stock market crash of October 1987; after the collapse of Long-Term Capital Management in September 1998; and after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Through the ups and downs of his 18 years as Fed chairman, Greenspan tried to remain supple and adaptive — and to avoid becoming locked in his own dogma. His genius, it seems to me, was that by leaning one way, then the other, he managed to achieve a series of “soft landings” for economic problems that many analysts thought would produce a crash.

Greenspan was candid (for him) in explaining his approach at last weekend’s conference on monetary policy in Jackson Hole, Wyo. He noted how the economic certainties of earlier decades had dissolved: People no longer believed in the “Phillips Curve” that described a long-term trade-off between inflation and unemployment; they lost faith in controlling the money supply — the famous “M1” and “M2.”

Greenspan described the state of economic uncertainty this way in his farewell speech: “Our knowledge about many critical linkages is far from complete and, in all likelihood, will remain so.” Lacking certain answers, he continued, the most valuable asset for policymakers is an economy’s flexibility. “The more flexible an economy, the greater its ability to self-correct in response to inevitable, often unanticipated disturbances.” Mervyn King, the governor of the Bank of England, explained what he had learned from Greenspan about how to be a central banker. —Dawn/Washington Post Service