Case for simpler living

WE have all heard of environmental degradation. The ozone layer of the earth’s upper atmosphere is becoming thinner and there is the danger that one day it may develop a hole, which will admit radiation and other influences from the outer space hazardous to life on this planet.

Living styles in industrialised societies, fast spreading to the developing world, release forces that are bringing about climate change.

Global temperature, water level and temperature in the seas around us are increasing. If these trends continue, several countries will one day go under water and some others will become a desert. During the last few years we have already seen a tsunami and several other horrible storms that have killed hundreds of thousands of people and devastated their lands.

The main culprits here are carbon dioxide and other gases emitted by engines that use fossil fuels, particularly oil and coal. With the spread of modern technology and industry to the Third World, more countries than ever before are throwing pollutants into the environment.

The more sobering news is that human and animal waste (fecal matter), which emits methane gas, is also a pollutant. A few weeks ago I heard a famous demographer argue that the earth cannot sustain its present population (6.5bn or so) in reasonable comfort, and that it should be brought down to, and stabilised at, the optimum level of less than three billion. I have also heard the argument that we should all turn vegetarian and stop raising cattle for slaughter (to have meat) if animal population is to be controlled.

As noted above, our living styles produce the forces that cause environmental degradation. They need not be changed if alternative sources of energy—such as sun, wind, hydro—are developed and made operational to the point where they can replace the fossil fuels. There is much talk of these avenues but not much is being done anywhere to open them. The day we are no longer dependent on fossil fuels to run our factories does not belong to the foreseeable future. Until then something else will have to be done. What might that be?

The automobile is both a wonderful gift of modern technology to man and a curse in that it is just about the worst corruptor of the environment. It gives its owner the advantage of speed and a sense of power and command. But it has also brought about some unwholesome developments.

It has, for instance, dramatically changed social organisation by enabling people to live long distances away from their places of work. The wealthy have moved away from neighbourhoods where they had lived for generations, where they lived side by side , and in contact, with the less prosperous people. They now live in suburbs next to their own kind. The automobile has deepened class divisions.

Far too many people own automobiles. City streets in many countries, including Pakistan, swarm with them, making the traffic exasperatingly slow. They are all emitting gases which make the air that people breathe hazardous for health. Yet, I see no signs of the owners’ willingness to give up their cars.

A few months ago, when the price of petrol nearly doubled in America, the number of cars on the highways declined substantially, and folks turned to buses and trains. Bicycles were sold out and buyers had to wait in line. But this may have been a passing phase. At this point, about 10 per cent of the American commuters are said to have opted for public transportation on an ongoing basis.

If and when the realisation dawns upon the generality of the people that the privately owned automobile poses unacceptable dangers to human wellbeing, and they are persuaded to let go of it, what can they have instead?

I remember that in my younger days folks walked from their own neighbourhood to another to meet friends and relatives. Walking a couple of miles each way was no big deal. For more distant places they walked to a tonga or bus stand and got a seat on one of them.

Those who owned bicycles rode them. Countless students, teachers, and professionals rode bicycles to their colleges and places of work. A five-mile bicycle ride each way was nothing unusual. There may have been two or three persons in my native town (until about the early 1940s) who owned cars. Life was nevertheless pleasant and comfortable for most of us.

It may be said that now is now and the old days are gone beyond recall. Let me mention a more recent observation. About 10 years ago I stayed with a friend in a residential district of Cambridge (England) for a few days. Going out to town, we walked 50 paces to a street corner where a bus came every 15 minutes or so and we took it. I saw many buses but very few cars on the streets of Cambridge. I also saw many bicycles.

The individually owned car should then be the first to go, but that can happen only if state and society will provide inclusive and reasonably comfortable public transport systems. What else can we give up? One might go with Mahatma Gandhi who visualised India as a country of self-sufficient, neat little villages where residents grew their food, wove fabrics and stitched their own clothes. He wanted to take India back to the pre-industrial age. This vision, though charming, has not had many takers in India or anywhere else.

Modern industry pollutes the environment, but we cannot turn away from it entirely. We may, however, be able to reduce our dependence on it. Let us, for instance, eat fruits and vegetables that are in season and give up canned food and items that come from the cold storage regardless of the time of year.

Beyond that I don’t know what to suggest. If I were the one making choices, I would take only products needed for keeping one’s body in good health and moderate comfort and those needed for the improvement of one’s mind. But I have no quarrel with those who, instead of spending their money on books, want to spend it for running hot water in the hard winter months and air conditioning during the hot weather (for spaces in actual use). The guide in all of this must be that we make living simpler as much as possible to minimise discharges that will spoil the good earth.

The writer is professor emeritus of political science at the University of Massachusetts

anwarsyed@cos.net

Impeachment or resignation?

MR Nawaz Sharif’s unbending stand on the impeachment of President Musharraf is wholly understandable, though to his detractors it is to avenge the pain and insult he suffered at his hands.

The public weal or national security, both in jeopardy at the moment, is not the real consideration.

It is much less understandable, in fact surprising for some, that a long-dithering Asif Zardari should not only join him but also take a lead role in that direction. After all, everybody knows that Mr Zardari owes his return to the country and entry in politics to an authoritarian Musharraf’s unusual, perhaps illegal, National Reconciliation Ordinance.

A constitutional president would have gone to parliament or to the courts to withdraw the cases registered against him and others who coincidentally benefited from it.

What utterly defies comprehension, however, is the earnestness with which the sponsors of impeachment and almost every other friend or foe of Musharraf are now persuading, cajoling or threatening him to resign to escape impeachment.

Ishaq Dar (he has a vested interest in Musharraf’s early exit) should not be arguing for his resignation only to save the nation time and money. A parliament that has cost a lot of both for five months without working should now be made to earn its keep by working for a period which is expected to be much shorter. In any case, such mean considerations should not stand in the way of a high objective.

In the reasoning and rhetoric generated by the impeachment move it seems that the stock of an authoritarian Musharraf has gone up, if only a bit. That of the democratic legislators, never so high, can be seen diving.

Why some leading politicians would rather see Musharraf resign than face impeachment ceases to be an enigma if you imagine, as this writer does, that one day they see it descending on them — individually and as a class. Coups by the army have been, in fact, a kind of impeachment for them.

Accountability is not a hazard of Pakistani politics nor do its practitioners want it to be. But the danger for them is looming already. While preparing to brave the charges, Musharraf has let it be known that he would be bringing up his own pile against his tormentors. Musharraf must be held to account by the legislators for his conduct especially now that Asif Zardari has publicly accused him of misappropriating American money — more than he spent on fighting terror.

The agony and harm that the failing war on terror has caused demands that the money he pocketed be recovered to repair the damage done by the war rather than his taking it along to live in peace and opulence in Massachusetts, US.

Mr Zardari must surely have based his charge on the official record to which he now has easy and full access. Proved, Musharraf’s travails would go much beyond his removal from office. At the same time, the people must know what he has to say against his accusers.

Irrespective of its outcome, Musharraf’s accountability in parliament offers an opportunity to make the holder of every public office accountable likewise. The people, the press and the intelligentsia, the enraged lawyers in particular, must not let this opportunity pass. The scheming minds in politics do not want to hold Musharraf accountable so that, in turn, they too are not ever held accountable.

The constitution provides for the accountability only of the president and that too through a process which exposes the members of parliament to the same kind of temptations for which they are called upon to impeach the head of state. Switching loyalty is already said to carry a reward of Rs25m — the amount an honest legislator wouldn’t make in a lifetime of politics.

Musharraf is the first and, perhaps, the last president being impeached. The impeachment of a president in a parliamentary form of government, to which we are soon going to revert, is irrelevant. The president, as constitutional head, always goes by the advice of the prime minister. Imagine, Chaudhry Fazal Elahi being held accountable for what Z.A. Bhutto did or Rafiq Tarar for what Nawaz Sharif did.

Therefore, when the constitution comes up for amendments for its parliamentary character to be restored, it must provide for the accountability of the prime minister and all others who exercise high authority in the federation and provinces.

The fate of accountability, however, must not hinge on parliament alone. The people, in a broad sense, should also be associated with it so that it doesn’t remain a game of numbers with consequent horse-trading or harassment. Financial corruption, philandering and the abuse of power in many other forms cut across party lines. It cannot be left to parliamentarians alone to take cognisance of this and adjudicate as well.

The existing laws and tools having proved wholly inadequate, consideration must be given to a new strategy to check misconduct in all walks of life — be it politics, the bureaucracy or business.

Reacting to a suggestion for the open accountability of public servants, a former inspector-general of police, Mian Mohammad Amin, recalls a dramatic moment from the early days of Islam when in a public assembly a Bedouin stood up to question Hazrat Umar.How, he asked the caliph, was he able to carve out a long tunic (Umar was a tall man) for himself from a piece of cloth that he along with every returning fighter from the battlefield had received in equal measure from the booty when it was not enough even for the questioner’s shorter shirt? Hazrat Umar had to summon his son to testify that he had given his piece to the father to make his garment longer.

The world may have become more complex today and officials less accessible and much less tolerant but dealing with maladministration as an in-house clandestine activity has only been aggravating matters. A way has to be found to bring it on to the public stage where the Bedouins of today can question the propriety of the conduct of public officials without risking jail or banishment.

President Musharraf’s impeachment provides an occasion for a national catharsis to make accountability a part of public life. But the intention all around seems to be to draw a curtain on the past and let business proceed as usual. That the country is falling apart both morally and physically is hardly a concern.

kunwaridris@hotmail.com

The second time round

IT’S been 20 years and we are still doing what we were doing then: trying to see off a military ruler and seeking to establish democracy on solid foundations.

“Congratulations. Ziaul Haq is dead.” The words come vividly through the haze that has encompassed life all this while, through its various stages. The words caused a vacuum, the emptiness that occurs in people who have their purpose in life suddenly snatched away from them. Over the following two decades, they have had to adjust to more nuanced responses to issues around and the conviction with which things were done in the decade up to Aug 17, 1988 is yet to be restored.

The mould sticks tight to our lives and even if lambasting Gen Zia has developed into a favourite national pastime in a country he ruled until his death, the trends he set and the arguments he institutionalised are in good health and flourishing. And we are not speaking about the so-called Islamic militancy alone.

As the timid watched on dreamily, the messenger that had brought the news of Zia’s death got busy canvassing with the people in his Lahore locality about the unblemished and proven record of the man of steel as our saviour. He transcended the vicinity and in quick time captured the whole city, then the most visible part of the province and big parts outside it. The passing away of the general made it incumbent upon everyone to close ranks against an evil they could only ward off by being united and they have done a good job of it — without necessarily playing on their linkages with and liking of Ziaul Haq, but more or less taking the course that he had set for the country.

The result of the formula where the man is disowned but, what is more significant, not his tradition manifests itself in curious situations. The people who were once part of the (American) conspiracy to dislodge the father of the Pakistani bomb, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, are today found running a campaign to save Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan from falling into American hands.

Z.A. Bhutto is a non-controversial figure. Habib Jalib resonates as a new assembly takes over in Punjab and Faiz has become a poet who can be quoted universally without any fear of the leftist, and hence anti-Pakistan, ideology being invoked.

Those sitting on the other side of the fence, tamely blaming all ills on the lack of ideology, have surrendered their heroes as well as the initiative to Zia’s caravan. Yet, much above the loss of individuals, the biggest loss is the failure to pack enough steam in a collective search for collective rule — that could have saved us from the ignominy of trying to wrap up another one-man show exactly 20 years after Zia’s ouster.

The similarity in events leads to a similarity in analyses to the extent that we get bored of always talking about the Afghan war and its fallouts and how the almighty superpower can force us to forever dance to its tune. For some people who had grown up in the Zia era, the current is more frightening, despite the talk of the milestones we are supposed to have achieved on the road to moderation in recent times.

It could be that living it the second (or third or fourth) time, with all its nuanced differences and its new set of problems, drains all energy out of you and replaces it with cynicism. It could also be due to the frustration that grows out of the failure to create consensus on the merits of democracy, and due to the inability to create a system that would keep abusers in the name of democracy away.

There is, however, no shame in revealing the personal side of it all once in a while. The truth is that we do discriminate between our children and those of our parents.

Back in the 1980s, the responsibility of our future was ‘theirs’. It was our parents who were tasked with the job of guiding us through what they would tell us was a dark phase in our life. We would be upset on a personal level but the demands made on us were not of the order and scale that we are faced with now, when we ourselves are cast in the parental mode.

We are not quite the happy party that would go hammer and tong after Zia and still be able to indulge in the shows that life presented on the side.

We are a mature and cautious and fearful bunch caught between our past and a group comprising people who we find enviously free of the settling-the-children responsibilities that bog so many of us down — the retired 60-something general who is determined to take on his political adversaries in a final fight for supremacy, the justice-driven veteran politician whose family is well provided for at home and better still abroad and the senior lawyer who can concentrate on the constitutional battle without having to worry about the education of his children.