Pope’s indiscretion

MUSLIMS from Indonesia to Morocco have reacted angrily to Pope Benedict XVI’s unfortunate remarks against Islam. While the two houses of parliament in Pakistan have condemned the remarks and demanded that he apologise, government leaders in Malaysia, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Palestine, Egypt and Morocco have expressed anger and regrets over what all agreed were ill-advised remarks. Even the head of the state-run directorate of religious affairs in Turkey has described the pope’s statement as “full of enmity and grudge” and made it clear that the pontiff wasn’t welcome to Turkey. Now the Vatican has issued a clarification, saying that the pope did not wish to “carry out a deep examination of jihad and or Muslim thought on it” or to hurt Muslim sentiments. The pope also said he was sorry that his speech offended Muslims, though he stopped short of offering an outright apology. But if he did not wish to carry out “a deep examination” of the jihad phenomenon in the first place, then he should have kept quiet rather than uttered words devoid of common sense much less intellectual content on a subject on which Christian scholars with a profound knowledge of history and comparative religion have recorded their thoughts. Secondly, one can accept that the pope did not wish to hurt Muslim sentiments, but then the end-result of his remarks has exactly been the same. If he did not wish to offend the sentiments of the world’s one billion plus human beings, the pontiff should have been a little more circumspect in his utterances at a time when the state of Muslim-Christians relations have come under strain.

Agreed that the pope said “I quote” twice in his speech at Regensburg University and quoted a 14th century Byzantine emperor’s remarks about the Holy Prophet and jihad. Normally, a person giving a quote cannot be held responsible for the views contained in it, so long as the quotation is part of a long discourse designed to prove or disprove a point. But here the pope quoted Emperor Manual II Paleologos approvingly, and the latter retraction saying that he did not wish to hurt Muslim sentiments sounds unconvincing. In any case, he was quoting an emperor who fought losing battles against the Ottomans, was once a vassal at the court of Sultan Yildrim, owed his throne to the sultan, and paid him an annual tribute after becoming emperor at Constantinople. Later he went to Europe to seek military help against the Ottomans but merely received lip service. That Pope Benedict should have approvingly quoted someone who was at the Turks’ receiving end is indeed regrettable. Besides, does not the world’s Catholic community have enough problems of its own? Should not the pope dwell on his flock’s problems rather than quoting profanities against the Holy Prophet?

His predecessor, Pope John Paul II, was Polish and belonged to a people who have a long history of persecution. As head of the Catholic church, Paul II worked hard to create understanding among the world’s faiths, especially between Islam and Christianity, and was never on record as having said anything hurtful to Muslims. Pope Benedict XVI has regrettably failed to follow in his predecessor’s footsteps. The controversy ignited by the Danish cartoons stemmed from the work of a single individual, but here the hurt and the potential for discord are greater because the profanity came from the head of the world’s Catholic community. Strange as it may sound, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has defended the Pope, forgetting that her country has millions of Muslim citizens.

Major setback for Bush

PRESIDENT Bush can do no right these days, even on home turf. An already tottering White House suffered a telling body blow on Thursday when the US Senate Armed Services Committee rejected the president’s plan to try foreign terrorism suspects in military tribunals, and, instead, passed a bill designed to protect the rights of such detainees. Far from providing legal cover for proposals which the White House had expected to steamroller through Congress, the Senate committee chose to introduce and approve a bill that bars any violation of the Geneva Conventions standards for the humane treatment of prisoners. The bill, it is hoped, will help undo the damage done to America’s image by the Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib scandals and, in the process, reduce the risk of captured US troops being harmed or abused. Mr Bush was forced to approach lawmakers after the US Supreme Court ruled in June this year that the president cannot set up military tribunals for terrorism cases without Congressional approval. In what proved to be a landmark case, the court was hearing an appeal by Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a former driver of Osama bin Laden who had challenged the legality of his trial at Guantanamo Bay.

Particularly worrying for Mr Bush is the fact that he was defied by four Republican senators, and that too despite intense last-minute pressure from the president himself. Making matters worse for the White House, the Republican rebels included such Capitol Hill heavyweights as John McCain, John Warner and Lindsey Graham. The schism in the Republican party is widening rapidly with crucial mid-term elections to both chambers of Congress, the Senate and the House of Representatives just seven weeks away. In this scenario, the Democrats are understandably keeping a low profile on the prisoners’ rights issue, hoping that the Republicans will self-destruct and hand them victory. It is clear that a number of Republican aspirants are now desperate to distance themselves from an increasingly unpopular, lame duck president. With anti-war sentiment in the US on the rise, the sins of the architects of the Iraq invasion may well be visited on fellow Republican politicians come November 7. If they do lose control of Congress, millions will cheer, not just in America but across the world.

Wanted: a cadaver law

SINCE its inception 20 years ago the Sindh Institute of Urology and Transplantation has performed 1,800 successful kidney transplants, all of which were donated by patients’ families. Had a cadaver law existed, innumerable more lives could have been saved. This makes it imperative for the government to take up the draft of the law — that has been lying with the Senate since 1992 — and see that it is passed. Not only will the cadaver donation law save lives, it will also play a major role in curbing the illegal organ trade which has assumed alarming proportions. India too faced the same problem but it took decisive action when it legalised organ donation and took strict action against anyone buying or selling human organs. Pakistan needs to get out of its ambiguity and indecisiveness on the issue. Thousands of poor people resort to selling their kidneys to make ends meet. Unscrupulous doctors too have profited from this trade. Passing a cadaver law and punitive action against racketeers can serve as powerful deterrents.

It is disappointing to note that Pakistan is the only Muslim country that does not have a cadaver donation law. If Islamic scholars the world over have given edicts in favour of donating organs, there is no reason for the interminable delay in the passage of such a law here. Sadly, the delay reflects the government’s laxity on the issue and its low priority for health problems generally. Early this year, the health minister told the ninth congress of the Asian Society of Transplantation that a draft law would be presented in the National Assembly soon. This was reiterated by the Senate chairman a few months later. Yet nothing has been done so far. It is time to stop mulling over the issue of cadaver donation and act decisively to pass the needed law.

What ails our foreign policy

PAKISTAN’S foreign policy currently suffers from problems of substance and image, a combination that has made the country vulnerable to the challenges of the 21st century. The nation faces the risk of grievous losses unless there is a radical transformation in foreign policy. That would not be possible without making fundamental changes to the way this country is governed.

Let us first deal with the image problem. The lead article on Pakistan in a recent issue of the weekly Economist had the following to say: “Terrorism has many sources and claimed justifications, but if it can be said to have a centre, it lies in the training camps, madressahs and battlefields of northern Pakistan and southeastern Afghanistan... perhaps the most damning criticism of General Musharraf is that he continues to do grave damage to the long-term political health of Pakistan.”

If one reads the comments appearing in the rest of the western media or coming from western opinion makers, it seems that the general perception of Pakistan is that of a politically unstable and economically impoverished country that is providing a breeding ground for extremism and terrorism despite its government’s avowed policy of condemning and combating terrorism in any form.

To give another example, Pakistan has been demoted to ninth position in the list of failed or failing states by the American journal Foreign Policy this year as against the 34th position it occupied last year. Lest it should be understood as a new development, the assessment of the US National Intelligence Council in its report entitled “Global Trends 2015”, issued in December 2000, was that by 2015, “Pakistan will be more fractious, isolated, and dependent on financial assistance.”

As for the corruption problem, Transparency International’s report for 2004 placed Pakistan at the 129th position with the most corrupt country being ranked at 145. The TI report for 2005 moved Pakistan down to 144 with the most corrupt country ranked at the 158th position. India, on the other hand, was ranked at the 88th position.

There should not be any doubt, therefore, that we are faced with a serious image problem abroad. To the extent the image problem is merely one of adverse perceptions by foreign observers, it should be relatively easier to fix it through external publicity, provided the government is prepared to allocate the necessary resources and adopt the right strategy for the purpose.

But if our image problem is based on realities, changes in conditions within the country and in policies would have to accompany the publicity effort abroad to rectify the situation.

Unfortunately, Pakistan’s tarnished image abroad is based mostly, though not exclusively, on domestic realities and the way foreign affairs are handled. Therefore, Pakistan’s image abroad cannot be improved without radical and substantial changes in the way the country is governed.

In short, if we wish to project the image of a moderate, progressive and enlightened democratic country, we would have to establish a full-fledged democratic system based on the primacy of representative institutions, rule of law, withdrawal of the armed forces from politics, independence of the judiciary, and the strengthening of various institutions of state besides following enlightened policies. However, enlightenment must be defined in terms of the promotion of the spirit of enquiry and the quest for knowledge rather than a blind and slavish pursuit of western behaviour patterns which are at variance with our cultural traditions.

Even in the context of the substance of the matter, our foreign policy historically speaking would fail the test of soundness in conception and formulation. The first and foremost test of a sound foreign policy is that its demands should be within the reach of the national resources consistent with national security and economic progress and well-being.

Unfortunately, from the very beginning Pakistan pursued a foreign policy which placed unsustainable strains on national resources as it entailed over-spending on the military at the cost of economic progress and welfare.

This was in contravention of the lessons of modern history according to which the rise of nations has been accompanied by the build-up of their economic strength followed by the strengthening of their military capabilities. We put the cart before the horse and built a top-heavy military super-structure on weak economic foundations.

The net result is that other countries like South Korea and Malaysia, which were more or less at the same stage of development in the 1960s as Pakistan was, have pulled far ahead with per capita incomes of $20,400 and $5,000 respectively as against $847 for Pakistan. As for economic welfare, roughly one-third of Pakistan’s population lives below the poverty line.

The undue emphasis on the military dimension of Pakistan’s foreign policy by over-straining a fragile resource base had the effect of increasing Islamabad’s reliance on the US to obtain the military wherewithal to face the Indian threat and economic assistance to make up the shortfall in domestic resources for the development of the country. This dependence inevitably limited Islamabad’s manoeuvrability in the handling of foreign affairs making it generally subservient to US dictates.

It is important that the foreign policy of a country adequately take into account the salient features of the global and regional environment. This is especially true of small and medium-size countries whose capability to influence or modify the global environment is limited. Pakistan’s history is again full of examples in which foreign policy has been out of step with global and regional realities. The pro-Taliban policy from 1995 to 2001 is a prime example of this shortcoming.

Foreign policy must also be dynamic in character. A dynamic foreign policy anticipates the emerging trends in regional and international affairs, and takes steps to avoid the pitfalls while exploiting opportunities.

Failing this test, foreign policy becomes reactive rather than pro-active in which the policymakers are constantly surprised by new developments and caught in a perennial race to catch up with changes in the regional and international environment. Pakistan’s Kashmir policy pursued since the 1990 reflects the absence of this dynamic element in foreign policy. The same was true of the pro-Taliban policy pursued from 1995 to 2001.

Foreign policy ideally should be part of a grand national strategy in which the political, economic, military and diplomatic dimensions of policy are well-integrated. Unfortunately, the reverse has been the case during most of our history in which the left hand of the government did not know what the right was doing, leading, in some cases, to disastrous results.

Another drawback of our foreign policy is that it has normally been guided by short-term considerations and has lacked long-term strategy and vision. In other words, the practitioners of our foreign policy have usually been pre-occupied with day-to-day adjustments in response to changing circumstances without any sense of long-term direction. Pakistan’s inability to look beyond the horizon or beyond what is current has robbed its foreign policy of the qualities of consistency and stability, resulting in a series of flip-flops as exemplified by our India and Afghan policies.

Several factors are responsible for this phenomenon. The ministry of foreign affairs has traditionally ignored the long-term policy planning aspect of its functions both in terms of priorities and the allocation of manpower and resources. Consequently, its leadership does not have the benefit of long-term analysis and thinking to assist it in policy formulation.

The quality of leadership in the country lacks the will and ability to plan ahead. This is also to blame for this weakness in foreign policy. Pakistan’s leaders by and large have been unable to provide a long-term vision to inspire and guide the nation and the officials working under them. They have been more concerned with the immediate issues of the day and quick results flowing from short-term and arbitrary approaches rather than grappling with the likely problems in the years and the decades to come when they would not be at the helm of affairs.

Further, the domination of the security agencies in the foreign policy establishment has prevented the foreign office from playing its due role in the formulation of foreign policy, especially during the past two decades, thereby, allowing non-professionals, who are incapable of understanding the nuances and the fine points of foreign policy or the emerging global trends, to take charge of policymaking. This has led to chaotic results.

In subsequent articles, I intend to analyse in greater detail the country’s India and Afghanistan policies in the light of the points made above.

The writer is a former ambassador.

E-mail: javid_husain@yahoo.com