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| April 22, 2007 | Sunday | Rabi-us-Sani 04, 1428 |
Exploiting wind power
Cutting down on police escorts
Living through history
“LAWLESSNESS is the son of anarchy and the brother of violence” and this “broken” family lives happily in Pakistan. These uncivil and renegade companions flourish only in societies where common purposes lose out to an individual’s personal will and where the will of the “wilful ruler” is the basis of the rule of law. But in Pakistan, we don’t have even a semblance of the rule of law.
CONTRARY to the claims made by President George Bush to justify sending more troops to Iraq, the level of violence in the strife-torn country has gone up dramatically. The “surge” is Baghdad-oriented aimed at restoring normality in the capital city, which has not seen a day’s peace since the fall of the Baathist regime in April 2003. However, as the carnage on Wednesday shows, the resistance seems to have made a determined effort to nullify the presence of more American troops and make its own power felt. On Wednesday, at least 200 people were killed in what indeed was one of the bloodiest days in Baghdad’s modern history. One blast at a crowded bus station alone killed 140 people – and this at a time when as many as 80,000 US and Iraqi troops are guarding the capital city. As for the situation in the country at large, the government’s own figures show that the death toll has gone up by 15 per cent since the arrival of more US troops. In a four-day period last month 400 people were killed, while the number of Iraqi civilian casualties and policemen in March came to 2,078 — 227 more than in February. Yet US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad says that violence in and around Baghdad has gone down by 25 per cent.
The deteriorating security situation has brought to Iraq for the third time US Defence Secretary Robert Gates, who challenged Democratic Senator Harry Reid’s claim that the Iraq war was “lost”. The war may not have been lost in the sense that the hostilities have not come to an end, and Iraq continues to be a battlefield between the US-led forces and the resistance that is divided against itself. But when Senator Reid said that the war was lost, what he meant — and most people would agree with him – was that there was no indication that in the near future the war could end successfully for America and for those whose regime its forces have propped up in Baghdad. President Bush himself seems to be getting increasingly sceptical about what the US-led troops can achieve in Iraq and has begun blaming the Democrats for a possible defeat. Last month, speaking hours after the US senate passed a motion linking the defence budget to a definite withdrawal schedule, the president said any delay in funding for the troops could make a “withdrawal and defeat more likely”, and the American people would know whom to blame. He repeated his threat to veto the legislation, prompting House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to say that Congress would not stand “threats” from the president and would stop issuing “blank cheques” to the administration.
The Republican dream of giving Iraq democracy and “spreading” it in the Middle East is dead. Instead, Iraq has been made to bleed, with the US dead numbering over 3,300, the number of Iraqi fatalities being a matter of opinion: it ranges between 300,000 and 600,000. This blood-letting will continue unless the White House draws up a sensible exit strategy. The broad outlines of such a strategy have been outlined by the bipartisan Baker-Hamilton Iraqi Study Group, which, besides fixing the September 2008 deadline for a troop withdrawal, asks the administration to “engage” Syria and Iran for a graceful exit from the Iraqi killing fields. The big question is whether the ‘neocons’ will accept the ISG’s recommendations or open a new front by attacking Iran.
THE official obsession with mega projects often comes in the way of less grandiose solutions to pressing problems. Besides lack of vision and a penchant for pomposity, the potential for graft is clearly a factor in a country that ranks high on the global corruption scale — the bigger the project, the larger the kickback. In the energy sector, however, the prospect of a crisis that could cripple industry by 2010 is forcing a change in both attitude and official policy. Large hydropower dams are still very much part of the plan but even the most realistic of the lot, Diamer-Bhasha, will take about a decade to come on line. As such, the focus now is on power plants that can be set up in relatively short time, such as thermal units. At the same time, the government has finally woken up to the vast, hitherto untapped potential of renewable energy. The first major step in this connection came in December last year with the approval of the country’s first renewable energy policy — a move rewarded almost immediately by the Asian Development Bank which offered a $510 million loan facility for developing clean and efficient sources of power.
While the ADB facility will initially focus on small and medium-sized hydropower plants in the NWFP and Punjab, private investors are now showing considerable interest in proposed wind farms along the Sindh coastline. The Alternative Energy Development Board has issued letters of interest to 81 local and foreign firms, of which 15 have already acquired land in a project area situated between Gharo and Keti Bandar. How much power these wind farms will collectively generate is still unclear, but some are expected to be operational by the end of next year. However, there is no doubt that Sindh’s exploitable wind power generation potential is enormous — 11,000MW, according to a recent government-funded study. While this figure is still a distant dream, realisation of even a fraction of the potential output can go a long way in easing the current energy crisis. A clean and infinitely renewable form of energy, wind power is where the future lies and every effort must be made to expedite its harnessing.
THE police’s inability to arrest the crime rate in Karachi can finally be explained. According a report, 6,000 policemen are serving as escorts for the city’s VIPs leaving the rest of the force with the duty of dealing with crime. It is strange that such a large force is employed for what can only be described as non-essential duty and it is no wonder that crime continues unabated, particularly car-lifting and cell phone thefts. It would be interesting to know how many policemen are deployed for the same purpose in other cities and what the crime graph is as a result of that depletion. There is no denying that there are some people whose lives truly are at risk and deserve a police escort. However, as the news report notes, for many people a police escort has come to represent a status symbol. This is also true of those self-styled VIPs who drive around with heavily armed private security guards trailing them. An armed escort may be a way of showing off one’s power but it also causes a great amount of inconvenience to the tax paying public which is ultimately funding this sick show. This must come to an end.
The government must put a limit on how many police escorts a person gets. A minister, for example, can and should have one policeman as his or her escort. That policeman can tail him on his motorbike or sit in the minister’s car. This will avoid huge and unnecessary traffic jams. More important, this will allow the police force to perform its primary duty which is to maintain law and order and provide protection to the citizens, not just to VIPs.
Our history is witness to this grim reality. During 60 years of our independent statehood, we have seen the rule of law perennially subjugated, constitutions repeatedly trampled and disfigured, elected governments overthrown one after the other in civil and military coups, political opponents including elected prime ministers and veteran provincial leaders eliminated with vengeance, and the country becoming the hotbed of extremism, hatred, violence, terrorism, militancy, intolerance and sectarianism.
Pakistan today is a country where Muslims are killing Muslims. Even mosques, churches and religious congregations have not been spared as venues of cold-blooded communal and sectarian killings. Crime and corruption are rampant both in scope and scale. Aversion to the rule of law is endemic. Poor governance is the national hallmark. There is constant erosion of law and order in the country.
We, as a nation, have not only failed to grapple with these challenges, we are living remorselessly with these problems as an “integral” part of our society. Unfortunately, Pakistan’s difficulties have been aggravated by decades of military rule, constitutional crises, institutional paralysis, provincial disharmony and general aversion to the rule of law and discipline. Unsure of our future, we are still struggling through an identity crisis and an ideological schizophrenia.
As an independent nation, we need to look back on our country’s chequered history and do some real soul-searching, however painful or agonising it may be. Woefully, by now we have a full generation’s lifetime behind us with very little to be proud of.
History never looks like history when you are living through it. We in Pakistan are living through our history of crises and tragedies, both real surreal, without any break or respite. Indeed, this has been a “bumpy and jumpy” roller coaster ride taking our country through a multitude of trials and tribulations that perhaps no other country in the world has ever experienced. The tragedy of our nation is that democracy was never allowed to flourish in our country.
We have been deprived of our democratic ethos. Pakistan, unfortunately, is today an archetypal example of the Machiavellian princedom in which the infamous doctrine of necessity is the life-line of the wilful ruler who seeks to maintain his rule by hook or by crook. In Pakistan, this doctrine has been repeatedly sanctified to become our political creed allowing successive military dictators to circumscribe the supremacy and integrity of the Constitution.
Ironically, almost in every instance, there was someone from the judiciary to provide a legal cover to this unconstitutional power play which not only reinforced the systemic aberrations of our body politic but also prolonged the staying power of the wilful ruler as well as the agony of the nation. But who cares for the nation?
Unfortunately, since their independence, the people of Pakistan have had no role in determining the course of history or the direction of their country’s political, economic and social policies. They have been exploited in the name of ideology and external threats with no attention paid to their own basic needs or their socio-economic well-being. Their legitimate problems and genuine needs remain totally unaddressed.
Machiavelli’s philosophy of government is premised on his assumption that in the absence of virtuous citizens, there are only “corrupt masses” and since the end justifies the means, they can be controlled only by a prince through his “deceitful and vicious behaviour.” Pakistan’s people have been treated only as corrupt masses whose fate has always been at the mercy of the country’s feudalised, bureaucratic and military power base.
Since 9/11, after our enrolment in the US-led war on terror, we find ourselves on the global radar screen for all the wrong reasons. Regrettably, terrorism and extremism remain our sole identity now. The US calls us the “ground zero” of its war on terror. We may not be a “failed” state but we certainly have failed to make Pakistan a truly democratic and progressive state, stable politically and strong economically, imbued with Islamic values and a moderate outlook. We prefer chaos and confusion. We don’t even believe in a value system. We shape our own values.
We have no convictions. Even our sins lack conviction. We don’t take anything to heart. Look, how remorselessly we digested the tragedy of 1971, the worst that could happen to any country. We did not make it an issue of our core for we had other core issues which also are no longer the issues of our core now. We are adept in making new core issues every now and then. Consistency has never been our virtue. We believe in changing our faces, policies and loyalties.
What is most worrisome is that Pakistan is now going through one of the most serious crises of its history. Its national edifice is being weakened methodically by keeping it engaged on multiple external and domestic fronts. It is the only Muslim country with an on-going military operation against its own people in the name of the “war on terror” or for the restoration of the governmental writ.
Excessive use of military force and indiscriminate killings instead of addressing the root causes is not only bringing the government and the armed forces on the wrong side of the people but also weakening the cause of the war on terror. Our blind pursuit of the Bush-Blaire anti-terror war strategy and botched-up military campaign is not only hurting the people of Pakistan but also widening the popular support-base of terrorists who are no friends of Pakistan or humanity.
Terrorism is our sole identity now. We are seen both as a problem and as the key to its solution. What a distinction for a country which on its creation, was considered a miracle of the twentieth century and which was fought and won entirely through a democratic, peaceful and constitutional struggle. It is now struggling for democracy, constitutional primacy and the rule of law.
This grim reality is being eminently flagged by Pakistan’s Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry in his addresses at various gatherings of lawyers. He has rightly described supremacy of the constitution and the rule of law as the basic requisites of any civilised society. He also calls for strict adherence of the principle of separation of powers in the three branches of the government as enunciated in the 1973 Constitution. But these are the norms of a civilised society. They are alien to our culture.
Decades of political instability resulting from protracted military rule, institutional paralysis, poor governance and general aversion to the rule of law have not only crippled our society at its roots but also distorted Pakistan’s external image. The current crisis over the presidential reference against the country’s Chief Justice on “flimsy” and “politically-motivated” charges only shows our bankruptcy in constitutional norms and values.
Unfortunately, we are never without a crisis. This new crisis has taken its worst toll in terms of political uncertainty in the country with serious damage to the institution of our judiciary. Pakistan is today a laughing stock of the world. We as an independent nation have had more than our share of crises and challenges that perhaps no other country in the world has ever experienced. We also are used to engineering crises to divert attention from governmental challenges.For the first time in our history, however, we are witnessing an unprecedented impulse to stand up to this power play. At stake is what the beleaguered Chief Justice describes as “the sanctity of the separation of powers” and the independence of the judiciary which though known for its traditional complacency during military take-overs and constitutional amendments, is today a symbol of unprecedented defiance of absolutist authority which for more than half a century has kept the country “strapped under long spells of military rule.”
Meanwhile, the signs are ominous. Another engineered crisis is already being enacted in Islamabad which has almost overshadowed the judicial crisis. The Jamia Hafsa crisis is serving a two-fold purpose: it has diverted attention from the judicial crisis, and it is also flagging a “scarecrow” to the outside world, especially the US, not to relent in its support for Musharraf and for his new five-year tenure in uniform. What an ingenious move.
But the world is not so naïve as to miss the reality of this hidden game. The politically-motivated drama in Islamabad is too obvious and the world knows the reality. These antics will not change the course of history in Pakistan which in any case is heading for a big change. The people have woken up. For Machiavelli’s prince who must remain in power by using every means necessary, fair or foul, the game is over now. He has already had his last hurrah.
As for the judicial case, everyone agrees that in reality it is not the Chief Justice of Pakistan who is on trial today; it is the whole country which has been put on trial, and it is Pakistan’s judiciary which now has the most decisive role to play. It owes many past debts to the nation.
Meanwhile, everyone wonders in agony if there will be ever an end to crises and tragedies in our country. Why don’t we learn lessons from our traumatic past? Did Pakistan come into being to perennially remain afflicted by the culture of blood and the bullet? Are we doomed for ever to live under military rule? Don’t the people of Pakistan have any urge to change their destiny? These are heartrending questions.
Perhaps, Hegel spoke for us when he said that man can never learn anything from history. We are not prone to learning any lessons from history. For us, history is nothing more than a “tableau of crimes, follies and misfortunes of our ancestors.” But our history as a nation is replete with a series of crises and challenges which has left us politically and economically unstable, socially fragmented and physically disintegrated. And yet, we are always living through our history.
The writer is a former foreign secretary.