A flawed verdict

AFTER a trial that most international observers called seriously flawed, Mr Saddam Hussein has been sentenced to death by hanging. That the former Iraqi dictator was a tyrant whose one-party state system persecuted and killed his political enemies goes without saying. His enemies included Shias, Sunnis and Kurds, and he made no difference between them when it came to sorting them out. His criminal instincts were also to be seen in his behaviour towards the people of Kuwait when it was under temporary Iraqi occupation, and he used chemical weapons against Iranian troops during the eight-year Iran-Iraq war. One, therefore, shouldn’t be surprised if the charges against him included the murder of 148 people in the predominantly Shia town of Dujail on which he wreaked vengeance after an abortive attempt to assassinate him. But his real crime is not what the court has decided to punish him for but his defiance of the United States. Israel considered him its chief enemy because Saddam’s oil-rich Iraq had a huge army, and strongly supported the Palestinian people’s struggle for freedom. He became America’s blue-eyed boy when he attacked Islamic Iran, and had no compunction about using chemical weapons against the Iranian troops. His fatal mistake was invading Kuwait, though there is evidence that the then US ambassador, April Glaspie, gave her nod to it. From then on, Saddam was to have no respite.

The economic sanctions that followed the Kuwait invasion led to the death of half a million Iraqi children — a price that former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright thought was “worth it”. Thereafter, the US and Israel were determined to destroy him and his country. He had no weapons of mass destruction — as confirmed by UN chief inspector Hans Blix — and yet the US and Britain attacked Iraq without UN authorisation. Since the end of the Baathist regime — according to American sources — 600,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed, and the country is on the brink of dismemberment. The decision announced on Sunday will accentuate the fissiparous tendencies in Iraq, and perhaps lead to a process of fragmentation of the entire Middle East if Kurdistan becomes independent. Thus what began on March 19, 2003, with a US air blitz on Baghdad has finally ended in a Baghdad courtroom presided over by a Kurdish judge whose relatives were among Saddam’s victims.

Unlike Nazi and Yugoslav war criminals tried by foreign courts, Saddam was in the dock in an Iraqi court, but the trial was conducted in an Iraq that was — and still is — under American-led occupation. Mr Raouf Rasheed Abdul Rahman was the court’s third judge, the first having resigned and the second barred because he once belonged to the Baath party, and three defence lawyers were murdered. No wonder, the Arab world sees it as the “victor’s justice”, and Amnesty International has termed it “flawed in various ways”. The independence of the judiciary, it said, was “impugned”. America has welcomed the verdict, with President Bush calling it a victory for “Iraq’s young democracy”. But it is doubtful if in the aftermath of Saddam’s hanging — subject to appeal — America or Israel will be the gainers. He does not have that stature, but in his death Saddam could possibly become a martyr for the Arab world. Already in tatters, Iraq will then become a haven for radicals and terrorists, and this will hardly advance America’s purported aim of “spreading democracy” in the Middle East.

These discriminatory laws

WAF’S silver jubilee celebration in Lahore last weekend focused attention on two paradoxical aspects of the status of women in Pakistan. The event, which drew quite a few of the stalwarts of the women’s movement to the Punjab capital, highlighted the continuing commitment and courage of the women’s rights activists to the cause of a peaceful, tolerant and egalitarian social order. At the same time, the resolution adopted at the convention also indicated that the retrogressive forces of obscurantism and misogynism that have blocked the emancipation of women since time immemorial remain as powerful as ever in Pakistan today. Ironically, the Hudood Ordinances, to which the Women’s Action Forum owes its birth, remain as firmly entrenched in Pakistan’s statute book. WAF was created in reaction to the first conviction — that of Allah Bakhsh and Fahmida — that took place under these discriminatory laws. Their repeal was strongly demanded at Lahore.

There are many other laws that WAF denounced. It has demanded their repeal ever since they were enacted. It has raised its voice against the Law of Evidence (which had led to a massive protest rally in Lahore in 1983 which was baton-charged by the police), the Qisas and Diyat Ordinance and other anti-women laws. If these are still there, it is not because the women’s movement in the country has failed. If anything WAF, which was the first to challenge the oppressive rule of a military dictator, laid the path for others to follow suit when faced with tyranny. The lessons WAF has learnt have served it well. Had it not been for the resistance generated by women activists who have now joined various political parties, no movement would have started against the Hudood Ordinances. The drama being played out in Islamabad today vis-à-vis the protection of women bill is a testimony to the courage and spirit of defiance that have led women to take a stand on issues that militate against their rights. If many of these oppressive laws continue to be in place, it is because of the political machinations of the powers that be — both religious and secular. All progressive and liberal elements have demanded the repeal of these laws — a demand that would be wrong to ignore or dillydally with.

Price of overfishing

NATURALLY harvested seafood could be a thing of the past by 2048. According to a recent report in the research journal Science, 29 per cent of open-sea fisheries were in a state of collapse in 2003. ‘Collapse’, in this context, is defined as the point where catch levels fall to less than 10 per cent of the original yield. This means that over 90 per cent of all fish and other seafood stock in roughly a third of the world’s fishing zones had already been decimated three years ago. Drawing on a variety of data, including global catch records from 1950 to 2003, the researchers predict that wild fisheries will be completely wiped out by the middle of the century if there is no decline in the current levels of overfishing and pollution. Stressing the need to preserve marine biodiversity, the report points out that the more species there are, the greater is their ability to cope with exploitation. The oceans, where the survival of one species is closely linked to the well-being of another, become more productive as a result. Despite new fish-spotting technology as well as bigger nets and vessels, the global catch is steadily declining.

Close to home, the damage being done to our marine ecosystems is severe. Only six per cent of Karachi’s sewage is treated prior to being dumped into the sea, while coastal mangrove forests are being destroyed at an alarming rate. Deep-sea trawlers are stripping our waters bare and dumping huge quantities of unwanted ‘bycatch’ that occasionally washes up on the shore. Meanwhile, banned ‘katra’, ‘bhola’ and ‘gujja’ nets are still widely used. According to one estimate, nearly 50,000 kg of tiny, juvenile shrimp is netted daily in the creeks of Sindh. It is not too late to turn the tide. With the right will, the focus can shift from short-term gain to sustainable fisheries.

Empowering women in Bangladesh

THE collective noun is a poor cousin of the proper; the singular belongs to a higher caste than the plural. There was a crucial omission from this year’s list of Nobel Prize winners. Muhammad Yunus deserved the award for peace, but only half of it. The other half should have gone to the women of Bangladesh.

Yunus’s now famous micro-credit idea was considered “impossible” three decades ago only because no one trusted the poor. Banks are in the business of capital. Capital is the business of the rich. The rich have only one law: the business of money is to make money. Banks don’t mind being cheated by the rich, as any list of their bad debts will prove. But they will never permit themselves to be cheated by the poor. Trust, in their philosophy, leaves dark stains on the balance sheet. They would rather compromise with the greed of the rich than the need of the poor.

The poor are not mislaid angels. They are as vulnerable to temptation as any other class. The best decision that Yunus made was not to help the poor, but to help them through women. He trusted the right gender. His experiment might have collapsed if he had handed out little packets to men. Women prefer the human development index to the stock exchange. They know the value of food, cloth, education and healthcare. They give birth and understand death. If Bangladesh is slowly emerging out of the basket into which Henry Kissinger once dumped it (he called the country a “basket case”) it is because women have become the prime movers of economic development.

The Nobel citation confirms this: “Micro credit has proved to be an important liberating force in societies where women in particular have to struggle against repressive social and economic conditions. Economic growth and political democracy cannot achieve their full potential unless the female half of humanity participates on an equal footing with the male.”

Ninety per cent of Bangladesh’s population is Muslim. It is these Bangla Muslim women who have made Yunus a Nobelist. They are also a visible challenge to the stereotyped image of Muslim women, particularly in America and Europe, as shrouded in veils. I hope photographs of women, who deserve all the credit they can be given, accompany all features on Yunus. None of them will have their faces covered.

Almost all of them will have their heads covered. The sari is an excellent example of modest dress. One piece of cloth covers all parts of the body, including the head. In all eastern societies, both men and women have traditionally covered their heads. Those who do not wear the sari, use a scarf or a dupatta. Men wore the burnoose, fez, skin or cloth cap. Men’s dresses, as much women’s, reached the ankles, and in neither gender were private parts flaunted in the manner in which, say, the codpiece stressed certain physical assets, or disguised liabilities, among men in the western Middle Ages. Eastern Christians followed eastern norms, as they do in Kerala. Hindus and Sikhs would never contemplate entering a temple or gurdwara with their heads uncovered.

The full-veiled Muslim is a small part of the truth, and not by any means the whole truth. A valid argument can be made for change, but that argument will not be won through either legal compulsion or public contempt.

Jack Straw had every right to raise the issue of the full veil, but the problem was not the message but the messenger. Muslims are loath to listen to lectures from a man who is one of the principal perpetrators of war and havoc in Iraq, a man of vast power who used a lie and defends many more in the pursuit of an immoral and unacceptable war in which hundreds of thousands of innocents have died. I don’t know how many of you saw the interview with former Iranian President Khatami on BBC recently.

I suppose if he had said something hysterical, the media would have quoted him endlessly. But he supported a moderate form of dress, pointing out as so many others have that Islam insists on modest dress for both sexes. Mr Khatami was leader of a country which has a women’s wing in its armed forces, and can be seen marching in parades. The women wear scarves, not the face-veil. I suppose it is a bit difficult to shoot the enemy wearing a face-veil.

President Khatami made a much more important point, which Britain needs to address: that it is the politics of injustice, and not religion, that is fuelling anger among young Muslims in countries like Britain. They cannot understand the carnage in and international indifference towards Palestine. They feel demonised and alienated in their own countries.

They believe that the legitimate war on terrorists has illegitimate by-products, like the use of demonisation to gain public support for quasi-imperial adventures. They want to be accepted as themselves, and not as clones of another culture. All minorities need space for identity. They should not take such need to excess, for the good reason that it is silly; but anger will breed a touch of excess. At least the veil is non-violent.

The question that should worry Straw is why British Muslim women, who have not grown up in a conservative environment — this perfectly serious pun is intentional — are asserting themselves increasingly in this manner. Perhaps the anger is greater because Labour was the natural home of the British Muslim vote.

Multi-culturalism is no longer just a national phenomenon in some countries; it is an international fact. The success of western colonisation was bound to leave its impact on the dress code. You may have seen a million pictures of Iraq by now. I hope you have noticed that the urban Muslim bride wears a wedding dress straight out of a western Christian ceremony. Western dress was a vital part of Mustafa Kemal’s reforms in Turkey, and the Arab regions of the old Ottoman Empire paid their homage to success in similar ways. One of the most remarkable facts of 20th century social history is the triumph of the trouser in male, and now female, dress.

Or maybe not. Maybe the real phenomenon is the necktie. Trousers are practical, useful and can be elegant or comfortable or even both. I cannot think of a single practical reason for wearing a necktie. It is no substitute for a muffler; it neither hides nor protects. There is no logic to its shape. And yet it has become the definition of formality across the whole world. Even communism has succumbed to the tie: Mao jackets are no longer worn by the Chinese politburo.

I actually like wearing this utterly useless bit of hangman’s rope. I enjoy wearing ties in a range of colours, and take more of them than I need to on a visit to Britain. But I wonder what my reaction would be if the British immigration authorities passed an order that you could not enter Britain without a tie.

Marketing, persuasion and allure are far better alchemists of social change than political compulsion. The most serious problem in so many Muslim countries is gender bias, and this can exist with or without the veil. Gender bias is hardly unique to Muslims; Europe corrected itself only less than a century ago.

I believe that the West could not have seen its dramatic rise in prosperity without eliminating gender bias, and I even more strongly believe that Muslim societies and nations cannot find a future without making women equal partners in economic growth. This is the challenge of the 21st century, and those who rise up to the challenge will find a proportionate rise in wealth, stability and the happiness index.

Bangladesh’s women should have shared the Nobel Peace Prize for more than one reason. The woman who saved her family with micro-credit is a heroine of her nation and an inspiration to the world.

The writer is editor-in-chief of Asian Age, New Delhi.

North Korea talks

NORTH KOREA’S decision to return to the “six party” negotiations on its nuclear programme is, first and foremost, a victory for China and its strategy of preserving Kim Jong Il’s totalitarian regime. Whether it will contribute to the cause of dismantling the North’s atomic arsenal remains to be seen.

Beijing hosts the talks, which also include the United States, South Korea, Russia and Japan; the North’s refusal to attend for the past year, while testing a long-range missile and then a nuclear warhead, was an embarrassment to its chief patron. It appears China responded toughly: Though it supplies up to 90 percent of North Korea’s oil, none was delivered in September. This blunt use of economic leverage — if that’s what it was — is encouraging, and yesterday’s announcement was evidence that it can get results.

The resumption of talks nevertheless falls well short of a breakthrough in the Bush administration’s effort to disarm the Kim dictatorship. We hope Assistant Secretary of State Christopher R. Hill, who conducted lengthy talks with his North Korean counterpart in recent days, is justified in expecting “substantial progress” from the new round.

But history suggests that both North Korea and China may have achieved their objectives simply by making yesterday’s announcement. Pyongyang no doubt expects that its attendance will result in the relaxation of whatever pressure China has applied and that South Korea will now hesitate to cut back on its own substantial subsidies.

— The Washington Post