Widening power gap
PRIME Minister Shaukat Aziz has done well to declare a sort of emergency in the power sector with the aim of adding about 1,600-1,700 MW to the existing capacity of about 19400 MW by 2007 in view of the fast-increasing shortfall in power production which currently is estimated to be around a total of 1,700MW. He has appointed a high-powered committee to submit a plan and policy guidelines by Saturday next for a decision. It is part of good governance to anticipate problems and take the right decisions at the right time. If the Zia regime had spared a moment or two in the early 1980s to pay attention to transmission and distribution pilferage, and losses which had gone up to nearly 40 per cent and the massive shortages building up in the power output, the country would not have had to suffer the extensive load-shedding that it did in most of the latter part of the 1980s and early 1990s during which the wheels of the economy had remained jammed for almost half of the year on an average for long years and which had forced subsequent governments to enter into costly power project agreements to bridge the widening gap between demand and supply.
Even today the main problem on the power front relates to line losses, pilferage and theft to the tune of over 25 per cent of the power system produces. The newly formed committee, while designing a plan for launching projects for additional power generation, should also come up with a well-thought-out and practical action plan to cut down these losses to a maximum of seven to eight per cent which is the world average. While proposing new power projects, the committee should try to be innovative in the matter of fuel selection. As of today, there is nothing new or innovative about big dams. In fact, over the years big dams have actually become a political basket ball which every government likes to throw around but do nothing more. The proposed gas pipelines from Iran and Turkmenistan seem to have got caught up in international great games. So while these games continue to be played out by the big regional and international power players, we must pay serious attention to the question of how best we can overcome the burgeoning power shortages in the shortest possible time and at the most economical cost.
The NWFP and the northern areas are blessed with hundreds of small waterfalls. There is a report gathering dust in the ministry of water and power prepared by the German foreign aid agency which needs to be retrieved and studied in the present context with the aim of building small dams in the north to narrow the current power gaps. Next, the coal alternative should be considered rather seriously and urgently. Both India and China are using their coal deposits for generating power which keeps the costs of their industrial goods relatively low and gives the two countries a decisive edge in the export markets. The coalfields in Sindh alone have proven reserves of 175 billion tons. The present share of coal in the overall energy mix is only five per cent. This can easily be increased to 25-30 per cent in the next two to three years to enable the country to maintain a growth rate of eight per cent and at a highly economical cost.
Terror attack
TERRORISTS have struck in Karachi again, killing three people by exploding a car outside a restaurant belonging to an American chain and a bank. A “Balochistan National Liberation Army” has claimed responsibility for the blast though the claim was not verifiable (a gas prospecting company’s office is locate close to the site of the blast). In September, bombs exploded outside two US chain restaurants, though mercifully there were no casualties. In May, there was a greater tragedy when six people were frozen to death in a restaurant’s cold storage when an angry crowd burnt the eatery down. The timing of Tuesday’s blast is significant. It comes two days after a crowd worked up by clerics burnt down three churches in Sangla Hills in the Nankana district following an accusation of blasphemy. These crimes occur at a time when 7,000 foreign volunteers, an overwhelming majority of whom is Christian, are busy working day and night to help the survivors of the Oct 8 earthquake. What message the perpetrators of these crimes are sending to the outside world? But the issue is more serious than one of Pakistan’s image. The real issue is the utter disregard for the sanctity of human life by those for whom such blasts constitute their response to “Christian aggression” against the Muslim world.
In the first place, the Bush and Blair governments’ war on Iraq does not have the approval of the entire Christian world. In fact, some of the biggest anti-war rallies took place in Rome, London and Washington, and those who later exposed the hoax about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction were American and British journalists. Thus, to consider the policies of the American and British governments as “Christian policies” is absurd. But even if this were true, would this justify the spilling of innocent blood? While the intelligence agencies have recently had some successes in nabbing some leading terrorists, Tuesday’s blasts serve to stress the need for greater intelligence effort to smash terrorist cells in Karachi and elsewhere in the country.
Closure of Edhi centre
SEVERAL days after the Edhi centre in Gujranwala sacked four employees for pilfering goods meant for the victims of the Oct 8 quake, the police have sealed the Edhi premises there and seized the centre’s ambulances and records. No prior notice was given to the Edhi staff. The organization’s head, Maulana Abdul Sattar Edhi, who has sent memorandums to the president, the prime minister and the police chief complaining of the arbitrary police action, has accused vested interests of trying to malign the foundation. While details are not available yet, Mr Edhi’s observations carry weight, especially in light of the remarks of a police official that the centre was sealed on the instructions of certain high-ups. This is cause for concern, not only because it affects the humanitarian operations of the Edhi Foundation in the area but also because the police, widely regarded as riddled with corruption, now have access to both the material and monetary donations lying at the centre.
The president and the prime minister should take immediate notice of this shameful incident and order an inquiry into the police action that has been termed illegal. Moreover, if it turns out that local politicians have had a hand in the sealing of the premises, they should be brought to book. The Edhi Foundation is respected all over Pakistan for its social and humanitarian services, and while certain dishonest staff members may have, at times, been found guilty of pilferage and embezzlement, it remains, by and large, untainted by scandal of any sort. The police action has not served any purpose at all, and is, in fact, hindering relief efforts at a time when the quake victims in the north are facing a harsh winter. The matter needs urgent attention of the government and a speedy solution.
The French disconnection
THE riots in France that began late last month have, not surprisingly, been appropriated by clash-of-civilization theorists as further verification of their thesis that Muslim and western cultures are mutually exclusive. They cannot coexist. And, at a very superficial level, recent events in the suburbs of Paris and dozens of other French cities may appear to bear this out.
After all, as far as anyone can tell, most of the boys and young men who have spent the past couple of weeks setting fire to thousands of motor vehicles and buildings are of Arab origin. The majority of them were born in France, yet seem disinclined to consider themselves French. Insofar as the riots were intended to serve any purpose at all, they were aimed at intimidating local figures of authority, who were in some cases told: “Go back to France!”
It has also been assumed that the rampaging youths were mostly Muslims, and from that it’s these days all too easy to extrapolate that they must perforce be of the fundamentalist persuasion. Following this line of thought to its logical conclusion, next comes the assumption of some kind of direction from abroad. The name of Al Qaeda inevitably crops up in a direct or indirect context. Some commentators — including the American Daniel Pipes, an ideological soulmate of Israel’s Likud posing as a Middle East specialist — have dubbed the events in France as Europe’s first intifada.
They must be disappointed that in its third week the unrest in France has showed signs of abating, partly in the face of the French government’s carrots-and-sticks policy of combining curfews and emergency laws with small but not insignificant concessions at the social level. The two main Palestinian intifadas, in contrast, were measured in months rather than weeks, and coercive measures by Israel tended to spur further, not fewer, acts of defiance. (One must not forget, of course, that the appellation was in this case transposed to the French context as a means of condemnation rather than as a compliment.)
Just as the intifada analogy can’t get past the first hurdle, the charge of Islamist intent or motivation also cannot be sustained on the existing evidence. There can be little question that political Islam has made inroads among communities of Muslim origin through much of western Europe, and France has by no means been immune from fundamentalist influence. But it does not necessarily follow that this month’s rioting has had much to do with religion. However unpleasant random arson attacks may be, they hardly bear comparison with the odious methods of violence favoured by the Bin Laden school of jihad and its off-shoots.
Too great a leap of the imagination is required to associate the current unrest in France with events elsewhere in the world, or even in Europe. Although there are undoubtedly commonalities between France and other European countries in terms of the problems that have arisen as a consequence of post-colonial waves of immigration, the riots that erupted on October 27 were sparked by a local incident, and they spread rapidly through the country (and beyond — evidently copycat actions occurred in Belgium and Germany) because of local conditions.
In common with many of its neighbours, France encouraged immigration from its former colonies — above all Algeria, which was relinquished with great reluctance after an uncommonly bloody war of liberation — in the 1960s because of workforce shortages. The immigrants were settled in apartment blocks constructed at a place removed from city centres and other suburbs. Whether or not ghettoization was the intention of this social policy, it was inevitably the consequence.
Serious issues did not arise for as long as there were enough jobs to go around. But that has changed in recent decades, and throughout the 1990s there were indications of a tinderbox in the making. During that period, domestic conditions in Algeria also intruded into France after the military regime cancelled elections that the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) was poised to win and launched a crackdown against Islamists that degenerated into a veritable civil war. When the Paris Metro was bombed in 1995, the terrorist attacks were blamed on local adherents of the Armed Islamic Group (GIA).
It later turned out that the GIA had been infiltrated by the Algerian security services, which raised the possibility that the bombings in France had been initiated as a means of winning western support for Algeria’s “war on terror”. If that is indeed the case, it proved to be a successful ploy, notwithstanding the fact that the regime in Algiers was at least as guilty of the most egregious human rights violations as its Islamist foes. Furthermore, the uncertainty and fear engendered by those events left an exaggerated impression on the French psyche of Islamist penetration in their midst. This, in turn, meant that a growing audience was willing to lend an ear to the racist rants of politicians such as Jean-Marie Le Pen.
It would be silly to pretend that militant Islam has not gained a toehold among French citizens of North African origin. However, there are two points worth noting in this connection. For one, the appeal of radical religion is directly related to the appalling levels of alienation among the targeted demographic group, and this alienation stems from social and economic causes. Secondly, not only is there no obvious reason to suspect that confessional zeal had much to do with the present wave of unrest, but reports suggest that the rioters included more than a sprinkling of immigrants from non-Muslim parts of Africa as well as some Gallic natives.
Media descriptions of the conditions in which non-whites live in suburbs such as Clichy-sous-Bois — where the riots began after two teenagers were electrocuted when they took refuge in a generator while running from police — paint a picture of dereliction and neglect that goes a long way towards explaining the prevailing level of incendiary angst. Profound infrastructural decay is compounded by underfunded schooling and sporadic social services. Add to that 40 per cent unemployment — four times the national average — and you are left with the ideal recipe for an explosion. Perhaps the only surprise is that it did not occur much sooner.
France is estimated to have the largest Muslim immigrant population in Europe, at five million (or 10 per cent of the national total). There are, however, no official statistics available, because of what could only be described as a peculiarly French conceit. It stems from the entirely laudable principles of the 1789 revolution: liberty, equality, fraternity. What it implies is that all French citizens have equal rights and privileges, regardless of race or religion. This leaves no scope, in theory, for positive discrimination of the variety employed in various other western countries in order to compensate for underprivilege.
This also explains the absence of multiculturalism — in contrast to, say, Britain or the United States. And it’s hard to think of another country that takes secularism as seriously as France. The notion of religion as a private affair is commendable in general, but when reduced to a dogma, it militates against the Republican ideal of liberty. The strict ban on headscarfs in schools, for instance, seems as overbearing and unnecessary as rules in other countries that make hijab compulsory.
As far as cultural assimilation is concerned, whatever one may think of it — countries with a multiplicity of cultures are invariably more interesting than monocultural entities — the point is that it requires an effort on both sides. French youngsters of Arab origin can hardly be accused of not playing by the rules when they are relegated to the margins of society, when an Arab name on a job application increases manifold the chances of rejection, when they are constantly subjected to police harassment.
Amid the flames — on which Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy poured fuel by describing the rioters as “scum” that must be washed off (a journalist across the Channel commented that not even the most right-wing demagogue in Britain would be able to get away with such a harshly racist remark) — there have been calls for a dialogue, and between them President Jacques Chirac and Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin have sought to make some amends through educational and job-creation initiatives.
This suggests that the riots have served a purpose in drawing attention to intolerable conditions. A great deal more effort, including a rethinking of the principles by which France purports to abide, will be necessary to avert two potential catastrophes: increased alienation among second-generation immigrants leading to more explosions and creating fertile conditions for jihadist proselytizing; and a 2007 presidential contest that boils down to a choice between the ambitious neo-liberal Sarkozy and the veteran neo-fascist Le Pen.
It is not surprising for the French — and not just the conservatives among them — to be upset by the upheaval they have been witnessing. They would do well to realize that overcoming the “us” and “them” mentality requires goodwill on both sides, and that the riots had at least as much to do with class as they did with race. In fact, it could coherently be argued that the young proletarians of Clichy-sous-Bois and innumerable other ghettoes, notwithstanding their lack of direction, have upheld a very French tradition of revolt that encompasses the 1789 and 1848 revolutions, the unfortunately short-lived Paris Commune of 1871 and the student uprising — or intifada — of May 1968. Email: mahirali1@gmail.com