Reaching out to the masses

DISTANCE — both physical and temporal — produces objectivity. Events observed from the comfort of distance can be viewed without the passions that cloud the judgment of contemporaries. That notwithstanding, is it possible for contemporary observers to analyse the performance of President Pervez Musharraf’s administration from the perspective of future historians?

When the history of Pakistan in the early 2000s gets to be written, say a couple of decades from now, historians will reflect on the successes achieved by public policy during this period. They will also identify the areas neglected by policymakers. How they will balance the successes and failures and reach a verdict about the performance of the regime is not my subject today. Instead, I will write about two areas of success.

I believe that future historians will laud in particular two policy choices made by President Musharraf and his associates. The first was the decision to recreate the system of local government that — at least in the way it was designed and the objectives it was initially entrusted with — was freed from bureaucratic controls.

Musharraf’s military predecessors — Generals Ayub Khan and Ziaul Haq — had also made the system of local government the base of the political structure they wished to erect. Ayub Khan had also assigned the system of “basic democracies” the important role of delivering basic services and bringing development to the people. President Ziaul Haq’s motive was entirely political and he simply wanted to bypass the political establishment and go directly to the grassroots.

Those who designed the system of local government for President Musharraf no doubt learned from these experiences. I will have more to say about their initiative later in this article and why a discussion of decentralisation is germane to an analysis of the second important initiative taken by the Musharraf government.

The second policy initiative of considerable historical significance was aimed at bringing education to the poorly educated, skilled and trained Pakistani masses. Two quasi-autonomous institutions were created for delivering education at the opposite ends of the educational spectrum. In a series of three articles, the last of which appeared on May 23, I wrote about the purpose and performance of the Higher Education Commission. In the column that appeared in this space last week, I prepared the ground for the discussion of the goals and accomplishments of the National Commission for Human Development.

The NCHD initiative is remarkable for several reasons: it was developed by a group of individuals headed by Dr Nasim Ashraf, who had benefited from what economists call “learning by doing.” For several years, this remarkable group of dedicated individuals spent their time and own money to bring basic health care to the most backward regions of the country. They found that the surest way of bringing development to backward communities was to equip them to handle themselves the programmes aimed at their betterment.

In the jargon of modern day economics this is called “capacity building.” As I wrote last week, this is what the Social Action Programme funded by the donors for a decade failed to do in the 1990s. The SAP’s design as well as the way it was implemented and supervised saw the donors rather than the intended beneficiaries playing the dominant role.

The NCHD reversed the approach. Augmenting the capacity of local communities to look after themselves is the primary focus of the effort launched by the NCHD. This effort is sustainable since it exploits the opportunity presented by the creation of the local government system. But it is likely to run into bureaucratic and political opposition since it goes against the grain of some segments of the political and bureaucratic establishments. That is one reason why it must receive the full support of the top echelons of the political system. They must also support the system of local government they themselves created and not allow it to be mutated to favour the forces that feel threatened by it.

The system of local government, as initially designed by the Musharraf government, took power away from the powerful civil bureaucracy and gave it to the elected representatives of the people. The nazims, rather than the deputy commissioners, became the system’s anchors. This loss of power by what was once a powerful bureaucracy was deeply resented. Judging by the numerous articles written by a number of retired members of the now defunct Civil Service of Pakistan, it appears that the surviving members of this group will do everything to discredit the system. In attempting to achieve that end, they have been joined by the elected members of the national and provincial assemblies.

Since the period of President Ziaul Haq, Pakistan has maintained a peculiar programme of development under which large sums of money are given to the elected representatives to undertake development projects in their areas. These resources are handled by the local government under the direction of the elected representatives. I have called this system of appropriation “peculiar” since it has deflected the attention of the legislators and given them responsibilities that do not belong to their legitimate domain. The MNAs and MPAs, therefore, have become political rivals of the people’s elected representatives at the local level.

I would have thought that the Musharraf administration would discontinue this practice of direct support to the legislators once the system of local government it had created took root after going through two sets of elections. Unfortunately, political expediency appears to have triumphed over institutional imperatives. With subventions to the legislators continuing, the MNAs and MPAs deeply resent the power and influence of the nazims at the local level.

At this point it would be useful to pause for a moment and reflect on the importance of local government in promoting development. That a system of local government is good for community betterment is possible only when this tier of government is properly designed and works within a policy framework that ensures its effectiveness. “Successful decentralisation improves the efficiency and responsiveness of the public sector while accommodating potentially explosive political forces,” wrote the World Bank in its World Development Report, 1999/2000 that investigated in depth the virtues of decentralisation.

However, “unsuccessful decentralisation threatens economic stability and disrupts the delivery of public services. When a country finds itself deeply divided, especially along geographic or ethnic lines, decentralisation provides an institutional mechanism for bringing opposition groups into formal, rule-bound bargaining processes.”

What is the difference between good and bad systems of local government? What can the central government do to ensure that the policy framework within which the institutions of local government operate will increase their economic, political and social effectiveness? I will suggest in this series of articles that the successful execution of the NCHD initiative throughout the country is critical for the health and further development of the structure of local governments.

The history of decentralisation in many parts of the developed and developing world shows that this process succeeds when it is allowed to follow a carefully drawn path. A number of slow and difficult steps need to be taken and obstacles overcome whenever and wherever they occur. Systems that are encumbered with too many responsibilities right from the period of their inception mostly fail to achieve their objectives.

This happened to the system of Basic Democracy instituted by the government of Ayub Khan. It was burdened with political (as an electoral college for the president and national and provincial assemblies), social (as a vehicle for giving voice to people who had suffered from the stifling grip of the landed aristocracy and tribal chieftains), and economic (as a channel for bringing the government closer to the people for delivering the services they needed) aspects and succumbed to the weight it was made to carry. The Musharraf system is less weighted in that respect.

The several steps the system has already taken include its design, two series of elections and the establishment of the National Commission for Human Development. The design was aimed to create a multi-tiered system of government with the central government at the apex and local councils at the bottom. Provincial governments were in the middle. The main weakness of the design is that the system of rules that came with it is weak in determining the role of the provinces. This matter needs to be resolved.

The second series of steps involved elections for the councillors, nazims and other functionaries of the system.

The third significant step is to turn to a new institutional device to enhance capacity at the local level to deliver basic services, especially to the less privileged segments of society. Before analysing the goals and performance of the National Commission for Human Development — a subject I will deal with comprehensively next week — I will first address the important issue of what makes decentralisation work in complex societies such as Pakistan. In discussing the factors that lead to the success of local governments, I will focus on the important work the NCHD can play.

“Improving local services requires an effective local administration,” wrote the World Bank in the report from which I have already quoted. “Even a well meaning political team cannot overcome incompetent administration. In fact, lack of capacity at the local level and the need for a massive increase in skilled staff are arguments invoked against decentralisation... while problems of capacity constraints are surmountable, they deserve serious attention.

“Central governments need to provide technical support to local governments as part of the process of decentralisation. Decentralisation itself, by giving sub-national governments greater responsibilities and control over resources, will then increase their incentives to invest further in their own administrative capabilities.”

I will conclude this part of the discussion with one observation. It seems to me that the general and his associates have recognised that the problems faced by the Pakistani masses can only be addressed by adopting unconventional but innovative institutional approaches.

They had no grand design when they took over the reins of the government almost seven years ago. While Ayub Khan had come well prepared to bring about change, a set of essentially bizarre circumstances brought General Musharraf to power. More by a combination of accident and instinct and less by strategic design, the general has a system in place that can reach the masses and improve the quality of services the poor have long been denied.

The National Commission for Human Development is an important part of this approach. What it is expecting to achieve and how it hopes to reach its goals, the support it needs to be provided and how its work should evolve over time are some of the questions I will attempt to answer next week.

The dangers from within

PAKISTAN faces many dangers from within and without. This discussion looks at the former. There are three broad categories of dangers from within: ethnic conflict, class conflict and ideological conflict.

Let us take them one by one. Pakistan is a multilingual state. In such a state, it is possible to consolidate a group identity in terms of one’s language. As language is one component of culture, such an identity also takes into account cultural elements.

The Bengalis were the first to forge such an identity during the language movements of 1948 and 1952. The Sindhi nationalists did the same but with less strength and success in January 1970 and July 1972. Other groups, such as the Pakhtuns and the Seraikis, also used their respective languages to express separate identities. The reaction of the Pakistani state and the Punjabi-Mohajir elite of the 1950s and the 1960s to such expressions of identity was to declare these as old-fashioned ‘provincialism’.

The fact, however, is that ethnic identity — whether based on language, religion, common experience or some other distinctive perception — is deployed under modern conditions. Identity politics comes into play when different groups compete for jobs, admissions in educational institutions, development funds, powerful positions in the state structure and other goods and services.

It requires modern communications to disseminate the symbols of group identity, to create group solidarity and to organise protests and lobby the state. Pre-modern societies are tied to local economies and they think in terms of tribes, sub-tribes, clans, fraternities (biradaris) and families or in terms of occupational identities (weaver, potter, serf etc) rather than in terms of large identity groups.

Thus, the Pakistani elite dismissed the claims of ethnic leaders during the fifties and sixties as old-fashioned, backward-looking ‘provincialism’. They also used conspiracy theories to portray the ethnic leaders in a bad light. The favourite charge of the establishment was that ethnic movements were inspired by communists and foreign agents. While leftists favoured emancipation and some foreign powers did extend help to certain ethnic leaders, the left was actually weak and disorganised and foreign help did not amount to much. In the last analysis, the movements were as strong as their local supporters. And local support was driven by common grievances.

Ethnic movements are sustained by grievances. Thus, making symbolic concessions does not weaken them. Bengali was made one of the national languages of Pakistan but that did not weaken Bengali nationalism because the grievances did not go away. On the other hand, when Pashto speakers got a greater share in goods and services — through recruitment in the military and bureaucracy, work in the Gulf states, driving, manual labour, trade and smuggling — they abandoned all ideas of an independent Pakhtunistan and started talking about using the name for their province.

Thus, if we analyse the present dangers to the state in Balochistan, we must approach the problem through the grievances of the Baloch. These grievances are based on the distribution of resources, demographic balance and exercising power in the province. The fact is that natural gas is not available as easily to the Baloch as it is to people in Punjab.

The new port of Gwadar promises new jobs, plots of land, urban assets and a new home to the non-Baloch but to the Baloch it is tantamount to taking away a part of their land from them. Moreover, the Baloch feel overwhelmed anyway in their province because of the large Pakhtun presence and the cities being open to settlers. Now the Gwadar port is likely to be mostly non- Baloch.

As regards power, the Baloch are painfully aware that the army exercises the real power. As the army lives in cantonments which are like oases — completely different from Baloch cities and villages — they perceive these cantonments almost as colonial outposts. That is why they oppose them. During my own research on language politics in 1994 in Quetta and Mastung, when the area was quiet, I noticed that everybody resented the way people were stopped and searched in the cantonment. The club in the cantonment, whose facilities were excellent compared to those in the city, was closed even to university faculty. The Baloch considered this deeply insulting. The bitterness must have increased now.

In Sindh, too, the issue of ethnicity is a ticking time bomb. The province is virtually divided between the Urdu-speaking urban areas which support the MQM and the Sindhi-speaking people who look to various nationalist groups for leadership. Both resent the centre’s pocketing of revenues from the sale of cotton and those from the port and city of Karachi. But both have an inbuilt rivalry also. The potential for destabilisation is there and only by realising this can a solution be found.

Class conflict is possible because the rich are getting richer and the poor poorer. Moreover, the electronic media depicts a high quality of life which must be frustrating for most viewers. At the same time, because of privatisation and the withdrawal of subsidies, the state is no longer pushed about providing essential services to the people. Then, the judicial system is so weak that people do not believe they will ever get justice.

Under these circumstances, it is not unusual for people to take to rioting. This conflict can be expressed through the idiom of Islam but the young men used as cannon fodder, are driven by hunger and a sense of vengeance no matter what emotive slogans they use and what they profess to believe in.

Ideological conflict relates to the polarisation of views between the religious lobby and the secularists. Up to now the ruling elite, above all the military, had used the religious lobby to further its own interests, suppress pro-democracy secularists, fight for Kashmir and frighten the West into supporting strong men (mostly military) at the centre. But the religious lobby may become too powerful to be controlled.

After 9/11, the ruling elite is itself deeply divided. Part of it genuinely wants to reverse the policies of the Ziaul Haq era but there are some among it who still want to see a continuation of these. Thus the religious lobby retains its street power and can bring about civil conflict to counter secular forces. This can be really dangerous. Pakistan has survived many undemocratic interludes because even military governments have used the name of democracy to govern the country. The religious lobby may not use this fig leaf at all. And if this happens, we will be sent hurtling back into the dark ages.

Such are the internal dangers to Pakistan. Only seeing them for what they are can make us resolve them.

Trouble with the Da Vinci Code

(This column was written by Art Buchwald from his hospice in Washington, D.C., where he is undergoing care. Buchwald has resumed writing his regular column.)

AMERICA has never been as torn apart as it has been in the last month. The reason is the “Da Vinci Code.” There are those who read the book but haven’t seen the movie. There are those who have seen the movie but haven’t read the book.

There are those who liked the book and hated the movie. And there are those who hated the book but loved the movie. And some even liked the book and the movie. Others didn’t read the book, so they don’t understand the movie.

There are those who tell everyone they would never see the film of the “Da Vinci Code” because it’s anti-religious. There are those who sneaked into the movie without telling their priest.

There are those who don’t believe that Jesus was married, and those who buy the theory that he and Mary Magdalene had children.

There are those who think that Mary is hidden in Da Vinci’s painting of the Last Supper. And there are those who swear that Jesus was single and remained that way after the Passover dinner.

Now don’t go away. There are those who saw pictures of Leonardo Da Vinci’s “Last Supper” in newspapers and magazines, but the ones who get the highest marks are those who have been to Milan to see the original painting.

And then there are those who have been to the Louvre, where the murder in the “Da Vinci Code” took place.

Don’t forget the members of Opus Dei, who are furious at the way the author Don Brown portrayed them. They vowed not to see the movie.

There are some who won’t see it until it gets to Blockbuster.

There are some people who didn’t like Tom Hanks’ hair in the movie.

The makers of the movie are very happy with the box office receipts. And the theatre owners are very happy that there are enough people who want to see it.

What has split America apart is that people are so emotional about the movie that they have been picketing theatres.

But this hasn’t affected popcorn sales. In fact, almost everyone who went to see the movie ate popcorn while they watched.

The “Da Vinci Code” has become the major topic of conversation in people’s homes, churches, and schools.

The first thing people say to each other is, “Have you seen the ‘Da Vinci Code?”’ If you tell them you have, they either say “I hated it” or “I didn’t think it was as bad as everyone said.”

Some people said they wouldn’t let their children see the movie. As soon as they said that, their children wanted to see it.

There’s no doubt that the booksellers are thrilled with the popularity of the book. It’s been the biggest seller of all time, if you don’t count the Bible.

The question is, can Americans unite again and be the Judeo-Christian society we all believe in?

You may be wondering where I stand on the movie. I haven’t seen it, but would love the opportunity to do so.

I read the book. At least I read it up to page 18, where I am mentioned — in regards to an article I wrote on the Louvre.

That’s as far as I got, but I’m a slow reader.—Dawn/Tribune Media Services

Playing the ‘opening up’ to Iran

AMERICA’S opening to China had its ping-pong diplomacy. Detente with the Soviet Union featured the Bolshoi Ballet. Perhaps in the new diplomatic dance between the United States and Iran, a similar people-to-people role will be played by an immunologist named David Haines and his project to study Iranian victims of Iraqi chemical weapons.

Haines first told me his unlikely story several months ago, as he was seeking US government approval for his effort to bring an Iranian scientist to join him in his work at the University of Connecticut. The urgency of his project became obvious after Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced Wednesday that the United States is willing to join direct talks with Iran for the first time in nearly three decades. Perhaps Haines’s project can be a model for broader educational and scientific contacts if a US-Iran dialogue can begin.

Haines’s tale features many of the strands that are knotted together in the current Middle East crisis: weapons of mass destruction; the aftershocks of Saddam Hussein’s brutal regime; the legacy of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks; the need to prepare for future WMD attacks by terrorist groups. You may doubt that all those themes could converge in the work of one scientist, but read on.

At the heart of Haines’s project is a little-appreciated fact about Iran. Though the world’s attention is now focused on Tehran’s effort to acquire nuclear weapons, few realize that during the 1980s the country was the victim of massive Iraqi chemical weapons attacks. An Iranian medical census has identified 34,000 people who were exposed to mustard gas — the largest group of such victims since World War I.

Haines began studying the effect of chemical weapons on human beings in 1991 in Kuwait. He had served as a chemical officer supporting the 82nd Airborne Division during the Persian Gulf War. After the war ended, he left the Army Reserve but stayed on in Kuwait until 1993, studying Kuwaitis who had been exposed to chemical weapon residues after Iraqi stockpiles were demolished.

While working at Kuwait University, Haines quickly realized that it would be useful to study the experience of the tens of thousands of Iranians who had been exposed to chemical weapons during the Iraq-Iran War. He was turned down flat when he contacted the Iranian Embassy in Kuwait in 1991, but he persisted. He made contacts with Iranian researchers in the mid-1990s, and by 2000 he was invited to present papers at two scientific conferences in Iran. He returned for conferences in 2002 and 2004, and began working with Iranian scientists who were studying the mustard gas victims. This US-Iranian collaboration has so far produced three academic papers, with a fourth to appear soon in the journal Military Medicine.

In their study of WMD victims, Haines and his Iranian colleagues found some frightening effects. Of the 34,000 Iranians exposed to mustard gas, 42.5 percent had lesions on the lungs, 39.3 percent had eye damage and 25.5 percent had skin lesions. Lung cancer is widespread among the victims, though there are no solid numbers yet. The next step for the US-Iranian researchers is to investigate precisely how mustard gas changes the cell biology of the lung — and in that way, perhaps, understand how to counteract its effects.

Haines won a $300,000 grant last year from the National Institutes of Health to study lung tissue samples from Iranian mustard gas victims — in the hope of unlocking some of these basic biological riddles. The US Army’s chemical defence research institute at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland has encouraged Haines’s work and hopes to examine the Iranian tissue samples to help with US chemical defence.—Dawn/ Washington Post Service