Still under a cloud?

INDIA’S willingness to make a ‘technical correction’ and cut down its import duties for Pakistan and Sri Lanka under the South Asia Free Trade Area (Safta) below its applied tariff level of 10 per cent for the rest of the world should indeed be viewed as an encouraging development for the future prospects of regional economic collaboration. But the question remains: can technical implementation of the treaty stimulate the kind of economic cooperation needed to unleash the real potential of the region? Not really. Economically, South Asia remains the least integrated region and intra-regional trade continues to hover below five per cent of the region’s total trade with the rest of the world. Full realisation of the promise of the treaty entails that the member countries, particularly Pakistan and India, move beyond the technicalities of the agreement and show political will to settle the issues impeding progress on the treaty.

Safta has remained under a cloud ever since the treaty was signed in 2004 because of the reluctance of Islamabad and New Delhi to facilitate bilateral trade mainly because of their tense political relations owing to outstanding disputes, especially on Kashmir. Even the peace overtures made by the two neighbours in recent years have failed to lift bilateral trade to the desirable level. But political tensions are not the only impediment to greater trade cooperation between the two neighbours.

Pakistan and other Safta members complain that India has restricted their access to its market by continuing to maintain non-tariff barriers (NTBs) in the form of quality restrictions, licencing requirements, etc. In Pakistan’s case, for example, the volume of its trade with India has doubled to $1.6bn in the fiscal year 2007 from $835m in 2005, but its share in the trade remains less than $400m. On the other hand, India denies having put in place any Pakistan-specific restrictions on imports. Its trade officials argue that if the rest of the world could export goods and services worth $200bn annually to India in spite of these non-tariff curbs, why can’t Pakistan do the same? In fact, they blame the restrictive import regime followed by Pakistan with regard to India (Islamabad allows the import of only 1,174 items contained in the positive list) for the slow movement on bilateral trade relations and consequently on Safta. Both the countries continue to stick to their positions and neither appears to be in a hurry to satisfy the other. As the rest of the world integrates into regional economic blocs, Pakistan and India should understand that they cannot afford to continue to blame each other for their weak economic relations. It is high time they took the bull by the horns for a better future for over 1.4 billion people in the South Asian region.

Beyond Kyoto

THE next 11 days could have a bearing on the future of the planet. A crucial UN conference gets underway today in Bali to lay the foundations of a post-Kyoto agreement on tackling human-induced climate change. The Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012 and it is critical that a new global framework for cutting greenhouse gas emissions is negotiated and ratified at the earliest. As UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon put it, the goal in Bali “must be nothing short of a real breakthrough”. There is reason to be optimistic, for worldwide awareness of the crippling threat posed by global warming has never been higher. In its landmark report released in February, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change confirmed once and for all that man-made climate change is an undeniable fact, not merely a theory. The perils of global warming were brought into even sharper focus in October when the Nobel Committee awarded the 2007 peace prize to the IPCC and former US vice-president Al Gore, reinforcing the link between climate change, environmental degradation and the increased danger of violent conflict. Most recently, the UNDP’s Human Development Report for 2007-08 also put the spotlight on climate change, calling it “the defining human development challenge of the 21st century. Noting that the poorest in the world will be worst affected, and far sooner than those in developed countries, the report added that “Failure to respond to that challenge will stall and then reverse international efforts to reduce poverty.”

After all that has transpired this year, even those who care little for the welfare of plants and non-human animals ought to be aware that unchecked global warming will kill people, strangle economic growth, and grievously imperil food and water security. The priority now must be to move beyond awareness to concrete and coordinated global action. As in the past, the US is expected to put up stiff opposition to any mandatory emission caps on carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. The US continues to deride what it erroneously calls the ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach to global warming, and it would be overly optimistic to expect the current administration to change tack. America and Australia are now the only major developing countries yet to ratify the Kyoto Protocol. A positive development though is the recent change of guard in Australia, the country with the highest per capita level of greenhouse gas emissions. Signing Kyoto and tackling climate change are high on the agenda of the incoming government and this bodes well for the emergence of a new, workable global framework. Also encouraging are signs that a US administration that is not blind to environmental concerns may well be in the White House come January 2009.

Controlling Islamabad’s haze

THE long-awaited winter rains in the capital have brought considerable relief to many residents who have been suffering from cardiopulmonary problems due to the recent increase in particulate air pollution in the city. This had increased hospital admissions and even the number of premature deaths. Unfortunately, the relief brought by the rains can only be temporary. The main conventional sources of air pollution in Islamabad are vehicular and industrial emissions as well as emissions from the burning of municipal waste. Add to this list a new source, namely, the numerous cement factories and some 90 brick kilns nearby whose products are fuelling the current construction boom in Islamabad. They are causing an alarming rise in particulate pollution.

Our city managers need to ensure, as is done elsewhere, that such industrial and construction firms adopt measures to control dust emission from their land clearing, earth and other material moving activities. This can be done by frequently watering the areas where dust is raised or applying chemical stabilisers to them. Simpler still, they can be covered by tarps or plastic material. The air quality index, similar to the pollen count index which was earlier adopted in Islamabad, should help the civic fathers determine the level of pollution in the capital. Local experts say that the particulate pollution level in the city, at 241 micrograms per cubic metre, is alarming. A general air pollution index is the need of the hour. Such an index, if regularly communicated through the electronic and print media along with a health advisory, could become a useful tool for public health officials to advise the public about the state of the environment and the general health effects associated with different pollution levels. Warnings on the precautionary steps that may be needed when air pollution levels rise into the unhealthy range should be widely appreciated.

Political crisis on a silent street

THE renowned sociologist Saskia Sassen, having witnessed the suspension of Pakistan’s Constitution during her recent trip to Lahore, raises a critical question in her Guardian article: will the street rise? Based on her experience of the initial reaction to the suspension of the Constitution she concludes that the street in Pakistan will not rise.

Unwittingly Professor Sassen’s Guardian article raises a more fundamental question: why has the good general suspended the Constitution, sacked a large number in the superior judiciary, incarcerated thousands and, like Saturn, eaten his progeny, the free media given that the street maintains its silence? In my view, these acts have been forced upon him by a crisis of political legitimacy that is structural to military rule.

In the popular mind, there was no teleological certainty that would have predicted General Musharraf’s deepening political crisis. Musharraf was hailed as Caesar by all hues of Pakistan’s urban middle class and its urban elite – then as now the street remained silent. He was hailed as the economic saviour and it did not matter whether Pakistan’s macroeconomic crisis had been averted because of the 9/11 windfall or in spite of it – as for the street, business began to stir but otherwise it remained silent. He was hailed as the deliverer of prosperity as massive inflows of money into property, banking and stocks created an unprecedented economic and consumer boom – the street, well, business boomed but it maintained its silence.

In my view three related factors, which are structural to military rule in Pakistan, explain the deepening political crisis faced by the Musharraf regime: the inability of his regime to win the popular vote in a free and fair election; the necessity of gaining political legitimacy for his Presidency; and the need to repeatedly turn to extra-constitutional measures.

The tragedy for rulers like General Musharraf is that democratic constitutions, which draw political legitimacy from the people, reject the famous maxim of Roman law – quod principi legis habet vicem, ‘the ruler’s will has force of law’. Given this, the initial violation of a democratic constitution causes a crisis of political legitimacy, while the uncertainty to win a majority vote forces extra-constitutional measures that exacerbate this crisis in spite of a silent street.

The need to draw legitimacy from the people has haunted Generals Ayub Khan, Ziaul Haq and now Musharraf. Consider what the fortune of General Musharaf’s political party was in the 2002 general election. It won no more than 34 per cent of the general seats and could only win 27 per cent of the popular vote. All this did not give the general’s party anywhere near a workable electoral mandate. It appears that the quiet on the street may have entailed a double-edged sword for General Musharraf. It is worth asking why a ruler with a popular agenda; in control of the military and civil machine; and faced with political parties that were leaderless and unpopular could not ensure an electoral win for his political party.

The answer is that the patronage networks offered by mainstream political parties act as an essential intermediation device for citizens confronted by an oppressive, fractured and dysfunctional state. The challenge for military rulers is that they have not been able to reform state institutions in a way that would substitute them for these patronage networks. Moreover, their strategy of using establishment-dependent politicians to effectively compete away mainstream political parties has not worked. Historically the establishment party may compete away some part of the network of mainstream parties but it has not been enough to ensure the generals’ continued control over the office of the president.

Like his predecessors, it is electoral uncertainty that continues to haunt General Musharraf in spite of the quiet on the street. What puzzles the good general is that in his gut he knows that economic growth in itself is not a panacea for the political and electoral conundrum that he is facing. His electoral trepeditions also indicate that he is aware that the mainstream political parties will get votes even if they cannot mobilise the street. It appears that the power of the vote matters even if it cannot entirely substitute for the muscle of the street.

The uncertainty of electoral politics and the inability to secure absolute majorities forces military rulers, like General Musharraf, to make constitutional compromises and to take extra-constitutional steps in order to retain power. In this spiral, power can only be legalised by nominated judges and by collaborative legislatures and to achieve this control over the gun has to be maintained. However, the more extra-constitutional measures that the ruler takes the more political legitimacy is lost by all organs of the state complicit in legalising these measures. This is because the rule of law and constitutionalism matters to citizens.

A vast majority of the citizens of Pakistan, some silently and some rather vocally, but all non-violently, today stand in opposition to General Musharraf’s regime because its recent actions indicate a grave disregard for the organs of the state and the rule of law. While the constitutionality of his act of filing a reference against the Chief Justice of Pakistan can be debated, what is not debatable is that the sight of a police officer dragging Justice Chaudhry by his hair can only be seen as the unadulterated exercise of the State’s coercive powers.

What is not debatable is that the act of removing superior court judges, who had taken oath of office under General Musharraf’s own Provisional Constitution Order (1999), because they challenged the ruler will be seen by citizens as indicative of personalised rule.

What is not debatable is that the suspension of the Constitution and fundamental rights at the end of a period of five years of his government will make constitutionalism appear arbitrary to citizens, to be invoked and removed without limitation at the behest of the executive.

In short, in Pakistan today it appears to citizens that all rules of the game, even those promulgated by General Musharraf himself, are expendable at his personal whim. This undermines the political legitimacy of the state and exacerbates the crisis of governance as it brings citizens into direct and silent opposition to the state and promotes the rule of expediency, which will erode the remaining vestiges of a functional state. This opposition will manifest itself in a multitude of ways that include: street protests; swing voting; criticism of government actions; growing support for anti-government anarchic forces; lack of credibility of government – all these will have one chant in common: the state is not of the people, by the people and for the people.

The writer is an Associate Professor of Economics at the Lahore University of Management Sciences.
cheema@lums.edu.pk

OTHER VOICES – Alternative US Press

Rebuilding New Orleans — for whom?

A MAJORITY white City Council has been elected in New Orleans for the first time in more than two decades. The election was held just when the demolition of 5,000 public housing units in the city had been projected to begin…. Not only did substantially more whites than blacks vote in the elections, but the total number of votes decreased sharply — by more than 60,000 — from the mayoral election in 2006.…

“The weekend election,” said The New York Times, “appeared to confirm what many had predicted immediately after the storm in 2005: New Orleans became almost overnight a smaller, whiter city with a much reduced black majority.”

This is exactly what organisers in the black community have been warning of — that the white power structure wanted to make it as difficult as possible for black people to come back.

The actual storm is only a small factor in the reduction of the black population in New Orleans. Stronger factors include the continued neglect of the survivors. Protests have recently been held in New York, New Orleans and other cities where displaced Katrina survivors live. Malcolm Suber — a well-known black activist — has called for “the need for revolutionary/progressive black working class leadership in the fight for the future of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. The struggle for the dignity right to return of Katrina survivors should be of great interest to all. — (Nov 21)
Workers World, New York

Bring them home

IT is increasingly clear that the invasion of Iraq was the worst military miscalculation in US history. It was based on specious connections with the 9/11 terrorists, an assumption that Iraq was developing weapons of mass destruction and, more importantly, it was based on a neoconservative theory that ousting Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq would show the Arabs who was boss and cause Western-friendly democracy to bloom throughout the Mideast.

The American public recognises the whole thing stinks. It’s time that Democratic leaders face up to it as well…. Now gas costs upwards of $3 a gallon, oil companies are recording record profits and Democrats are still dithering about whether to appropriate more money for the occupation. The top Democratic presidential candidates won’t even commit to pulling troops out of Iraq. Why? It turns out that nearly 4,000 American service members’ lives, 50,000 wounded and countless Iraqis killed and wounded and the $500 billion we’ve spent so far is just the down payment on possession of those oilfields.

The Bush administration’s apologists warn that if US troops are withdrawn, Iraq will be plunged into a bloodbath, but Basra recorded a dramatic drop in violence after British troops left. As Ron Paul has said, “The people who say there will be a bloodbath are the ones who said it will be a cakewalk or it will be a slam dunk, and that it will be paid for by oil. Why believe them?” — (Dec 15 issue)
The Progressive Populist, Texas