|
| May 17, 2008 | Saturday | Jamadi-ul-Awwal 11, 1429 |
Lectures from the blind
The dangers of lead
OTHER VOICES - Bangladesh Press
Food at the mercy of the market
Has media freedom arrived?
AS world food prices continue to soar and developing countries’ struggle to feed their hungry and angry populations, the European Union has become entangled in yet another acrimonious internal debate on the future of its heavily subsidised farm sector.
THE media in Pakistan had barely recovered from the blows inflicted by the proclamation of emergency on Nov 3 when another attempt to curtail its freedom was launched. This time it was by the Supreme Court of Pakistan.
MIXED signals are emanating from Islamabad. Punjab undoubtedly is the big game in the power gambit being played out between the presidency and parliament, so to speak. The PPP-led coalition government is privileged only as much as it is watching the show from the VIP enclosure which, its detractors allege, is an extension of the president’s box overlooking the arena. The proxies are out as far as the brothers Sharif are concerned; both will be contesting the June 26 by-election. Meanwhile, the surrogates are in from the president’s side. The Sharifs have donned the gloves and will grace the ring for a duel with Governor Salman Taseer, backed quietly from behind the scenes by Asif Ali Zardari. The rest are spectators, many of them bookies, raising the stakes, the odds stumbling between one side and the other. The wider audience, the public at large, is flabbergasted at the ungainly spectacle.
Consider: there is more than meets the eye behind the acceptance by the Election Commission of Nawaz Sharif’s candidature for the forthcoming poll, even as his ministers quit the federal cabinet. The same ECP had earlier rejected his papers on contestable grounds, which he chose not to contest, that he had a conviction which barred him from running in an election. Is the PPP offering its erstwhile newfound friend the olive branch to keep the calm in Punjab? There can only be two opinions on the matter. Mr Sharif’s falling out with the PPP over the judges’ reinstatement is understandable; the same cannot be said of his preoccupation with settling scores with President Musharraf, to which the PPP could not have been a nodding partner after the implementation of the PPP-specific National Reconciliation Ordinance underwritten by Washington. Mr Sharif should know that public support alone could not save even Zulfikar Ali Bhutto from judicial murder, as it was, but of course principled stands cannot be abandoned.
As for the PPP, the judges’ issue cannot be made the reason for a lack of direction in its policies on all other important issues. There’s runaway inflation, an energy crisis, terrorism and extremism staring the people in the face. The inertia on the part of the government in addressing these issues — a beginning has yet to be made — is not winning it any brownie points. The mandate given to secular, democratic parties in the February election is tied to meeting the electorate’s expectations, including, though not restricted to, seeing justice done vis-à-vis the judiciary. Now that the PPP by its inaction on the judges’ issue has made its position clear, what is stopping it from tackling other pressing issues? As it tries to box in Sharif’s Punjab, it is time the government also began to govern, something it was elected to do.
ANY legitimate government installed in office through the ballot box has to be answerable to the people. It has to accommodate public sentiment even if those views are not to the liking of the United States. Pakistan has fought the good fight in the war against terrorism but it is clear that the policies of the recent past have failed to deliver. As such there is nothing wrong with changing tack, with trying to bring the enemy round to your point of view — that is if the enemy is willing to reciprocate and can ensure a lasting peace. Even at the risk of getting into territory fraught with tension, it has to be asked whether our foremost priority ought to be peace in Afghanistan or peace in Pakistan. The US has now gone public with its concerns regarding Islamabad’s efforts to strike deals with pro-Taliban militants and is understandably worried that such a shift may increase the likelihood of attacks on Nato forces stationed across the Durand Line. But Washington must realise that a policy cast in stone is rarely victorious. America invaded Vietnam, suffered and inflicted huge losses in human terms and eventually beat an ignominious retreat. Similarly, Pakistan’s Taliban ‘policy’, as espoused by Mr Musharraf and bankrolled by the White House, proved to be a dismal failure. A rethink is clearly in order, America’s worries notwithstanding.
Mark the difference between the talks now underway in the tribal belt and the ‘peace deal’ struck in North Waziristan in September 2006. That was a complete sell-out, a capitulation so abject as to make honest men and women hang their heads in shame. The Taliban were awarded fiefdoms where they could do as they pleased, where they could regroup, revamp and kill anybody they didn’t like. That is not what is happening now. There is a basic understanding that certain ground rules have to be followed come what may. Otherwise all bets are off. The US, nearsighted as ever, cannot see this distinction. Maybe this route will also end in failure. But at least give it a try. The outcome cannot be any worse than what has transpired to date.
Spin it any way you like, no one is willing to believe that Wednesday’s missile attack in Damadola was not carried out by a US drone. The Pakistani Taliban have pledged that they will not let this subterfuge derail negotiations with the Government of Pakistan. If the US is indeed responsible for the attack, it is guilty of gross folly. It is doing nothing to heal the wounds, it has learned nothing from history and before lecturing other countries it should revisit its role in making the world a more dangerous place.
THE traffic policeman in white shrouded in smoke is an all-too-familiar sight for those living in Karachi. It is, therefore, not surprising that a recent medical survey found high levels of lead in the blood of officers controlling traffic. This confirms the findings of a report by the Manchester Metropolitan University that termed Karachi as the ‘lead pollution capital of the world’. This is a matter of serious concern. Lead in blood, if found in higher levels than considered safe, is known to be injurious to human health and could lead to fatal diseases and ‘intellectual and behaviour deficits’. Thus encephalopathy, neurotoxicity, hypertension, renal impairment and altered cognitive functions have been traced to high lead levels in blood. This explains the aggressive behaviour of our law enforcers on the road. This not only affects their performance, it also jacks up the government’s health expenditure on the police force.
The main factor leading to this unhealthy phenomenon is, needless to say, air pollution caused by the heavy road traffic. Since lead-free petrol has not been introduced in the city and no serious effort is made to enforce the rules about smoke-free buses on the roads, the air is dangerously polluted. Who would bear the brunt of this pollution most but the traffic police? A concentrated effort is required by the government to combat this menace. Laws on vehicle fitness and emission need strict enforcement while a move should be made to begin the process of tapering down the level of lead in fuel and eventually making unleaded fuel mandatory. The manufacture and import of cars and buses with catalytic converters and vehicles running on compressed natural gas should be encouraged while the use of liquefied petroleum gas discouraged. Only by adopting environment-friendly measures can the government protect the health of the people — policemen included. At the same time, citizens should also partake in this endeavour by keeping their vehicles in a sound state and cooperating with the authorities.
A crucial speech Jugantor
IN a speech on Monday, Chief Advisor Fakhruddin Ahmed dispelled doubts about the promised year-end polls and said that the elections would be held in the third week of December. The interim leader lifted a long-running ban on so-called indoor politics all across the country, with a series of conditions attached.
Many analysts called the televised address to the nation crucial. One of the salient points in his speech was a clear schedule for dialogue with political parties ….
Fakhruddin also made broad hints that parts of emergency rule would be suspended or relaxed to let political parties take part in electioneering and create a proper context for the polls. Fakhruddin stressed the need for a ‘national charter’ meant to help an elected government keep up the momentum of the last government after the elections. He stressed that political parties must not relapse into politics tainted by strikes, blockades, violent street protests….
But the two major parties were not particularly happy and complained that Fakhruddin’s speech had not reflected their expectations — the release of former prime ministers Khaleda Zia and Sheikh Hasina from prison. The parties said the speech did not touch on issues they had discussed in ‘informal talks’ with cabinet members in the build-up to a ‘formal dialogue’ with the government.
We think that we have to keep up reform efforts to let democracy work and take shape. We have to stay away from bickering politics. Many said Fakhruddin’s speech focused broadly on politics but bypassed the problems that people face everyday. Fakhruddin stressed the need for the balance of power instead of the concentration of all leverages in a few hands. He made it clear that the government had no agenda or any malice against any individual or party.
If doubts about the pledged elections still linger, the political parties should discuss the issue in the upcoming talks with the government. Fakhruddin hinted that local government polls would take place ahead of parliamentary elections — a decision many political parties opposed.
Nobody denies the importance of holding local government elections, but we should not delay the deadline for parliamentary polls in doing so. Time is running out. We must consider if parliamentary elections could be held in six months from now. But there is no denying that this is important and a crucial task for the caretaker government.
The government has failed to pay enough attention to the economy that is wobbling. Businesses are slowing. Soaring oil and food prices on the international market are putting strains on the economy. So any unnecessary debate about the polls is a waste of time. We have to make it to the polls — for the sake of peace and prosperity. We have to ride past anything old and fossilised into a new year, a new future. — (May 14)
— Selected and translated by Arun Devnath
Significantly, the discussions, likely to last for several months, could well have a negative impact on efforts to revitalise the efforts of the World Trade Organisation to clinch a much-sought-after deal on global trade liberalisation.
The EU quarrel pits France and Germany, the EU’s most powerful nations, which want to safeguard — and reinforce — the bloc’s controversial Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) against Britain which is demanding a dismantling of CAP. The debate, coming only days ahead of the Irish referendum on the EU reform treaty on June 12, has assumed controversial political overtones, with many fearing that influential Irish farmers, angered by attacks on CAP, will vote against the EU treaty, plunging the bloc into another damaging political crisis.
Asian governments, focused on their own food policies, must also pay some attention to the EU wrangling over farm practices. For one, given its protectionist bias based on high tariffs and quotas, the death or survival of CAP will have an impact on future food exports from developing countries. Also, as poor nations strive to put their agriculture sector in order, it is worth spotlighting that despite recent reforms, CAP continues to encourage an over-production of food which, once it is dumped on world markets, damages the interests of farmers in developing nations.
Even more significantly, any EU move to suspend further CAP reform will slow down the current WTO attempt to further liberalise world trade in agriculture goods, a key focus of the current Doha trade round.
The coming weeks in Brussels look set to be dominated by the debate over agriculture. Mariann Fischer Boel, the European farm commissioner, will formally announce her proposals to overhaul CAP on May 20 in the face of a Franco-German alliance to defend the status quo against reform attempts.
Fischer Boel calls her package a ‘health check’ for CAP, rather than a fully fledged reform. The proposals aim to trim subsidies to farmers, divert more money to rural development, and get rid of a range of market intervention measures, which, she says, should be used only as a ‘genuine safety net’.
But even before the proposals have been announced, Horst Seehofer and Michel Barnier, the German and French farm ministers, have indicated their opposition to any radical changes to the EU’s farm support system. Barnier’s recent remarks indicate strong support for the EU’s farm subsidies and market-support mechanisms. The French farm chief has even recommended that countries in Africa and Latin America should adopt a version of CAP to curb the escalating problems of food supply and price rises.
The developing world should draw inspiration from Europe and form self-sufficient regional agricultural blocs funded with a redirection of development aid, Barnier said, adding that he would not allow Europe’s system of subsidies and barriers to trade to take the blame for ‘disorder’ surrounding the commodities spike in prices and associated unrest in some countries.
“What we are now witnessing in the world is the consequence of too much free-market liberalism,” he said. “We can’t leave feeding people to the mercy of the market. We need a public policy, a means of intervention and stabilisation”. France wants to use its rotating presidency of the EU, which starts in July, to kickstart a debate about the future of CAP after 2013, when the current funding regime runs out.
Germany’s Seehofer has sided with Barnier and argues that subsidies should be sustained for European farmers and that China, India and the US must adopt higher environmental and health standards if they want to export food products to the EU.
Both Barnier and Seehofer are on tricky ground, however. Their calls to toughen up food safety controls are likely to be disputed by the WTO and could also prompt retaliation from trading partners. EU efforts to block approval for genetically modified crop varieties, for instance, are a major transatlantic trade irritant.
In stark contrast, Alistair Darling, the UK’s finance minister, has urged EU finance ministers to support the dismantling of CAP because it keeps EU food prices above world market levels. Darling also wants to end direct payments to farmers and has denounced the fact that the EU continues to apply very high import tariffs to many agricultural commodities at a time of significant food price inflation.
The chancellor has called on the European commission to give urgent consideration to extending the suspension of import tariffs on grains and to reduce or suspend import tariffs that apply to other agricultural commodities.
EU states are also struggling to justify their efforts to promote biofuels in the face of critics who say such policies are worsening the global food crisis. Fischer Boel recently rejected allegations that EU policies to promote biofuels — by a commitment to raise the share of biofuels in transport from current levels of around two per cent to 10 per cent by 2020 — are to blame for rising food prices.
“Those who see biofuels as the driving force behind recent food price increases have overlooked not just one elephant standing right in front of them, but two,” she said recently, adding that the rising food demand and dietary shift towards meat in emerging countries like China and India, and the bad weather that hit the EU, US, Canada, Russia, Ukraine and Australia in 2006 and 2007, have each had ‘an enormous impact on commodity markets’. Other ‘influences’ include increasing speculation on food commodities, she said.
Her remarks came one day after Jeffrey Sachs, special advisor to the United Nations secretary general, told members of the European Parliament that EU and US policies to promote biofuels ought to be rethought. “These programmes were understandable at a time of much lower food prices and larger food stocks, but do not make sense now in a global food scarcity condition,” he insisted.
Sachs said one third of the US maize crop in 2008 will be used to fill petrol tanks — representing a ‘huge blow to the world food supply’. But Fischer Boel insisted that the contribution of EU biofuels policy to the current global food crisis is a mere ‘drop in the ocean’.
The debate is likely to get fiercer during the year. No EU deal on CAP reform is likely until at least November when France, by far the largest beneficiary of EU farm subsidies, will be in charge of EU policymaking.
The writer is Dawn’s correspondent in Brussels.
The restrictions that some of the judges tried to impose on the private television channels revealed a lack of understanding of the nature of the electronic media itself.
Reacting in particular to a report carried by Geo News and Jang about a supposed meeting between the interior secretary and three judges of the Supreme Court, the court took suo motu notice and summoned the bureau chief of Geo News, Islamabad. The judges’ stance was the meeting never happened.
Also irked by the daily debates on the judicial crisis, the judges ordered television channels to get clearance from the registrar of the Supreme Court before producing any programme on this controversial issue. However, such a restriction was a non-starter. As Mazhar Abbas, secretary general of the PFUJ, pointed out in a television interview, this kind of a requirement would mean queues outside the office of the SC registrar with still no clear guarantee of what would be said (or remain unsaid) in a live television debate.
Not surprisingly, the Supreme Court had to amend its order substantially, limiting the restriction to the use of derogatory remarks against judges on television and in the press.
Journalists had heaved somewhat of a sigh of relief when the new coalition government cancelled all the amendments made to the Pemra ordinance at the time of the proclamation of emergency last November, even though the demand for a major overhaul (if not an end) of the ordinance remained. However, the fact that the honeymoon between the media bodies and the government has hit the rocks already may be sensed by the allegations of official threats made by some journalists — those belonging to the Jang/Geo News group, in particular. The prime minister’s ubiquitous troubleshooter, Rehman Malik, as well as unnamed friends of the PPP co-chairperson, Asif Zardari, have been accused of threatening journalists and talk show hosts. Rehman Malik, though, has denied making threats.
Successive governments have not learnt the lesson that attempts to restrict the media is a recipe for disaster. In Pakistan’s recent history, such attempts have had a negative impact on an independent electronic media still trying to find its feet.
The most serious threat to the freedom of the media came with the emergency imposed by a desperate chief of army staff. The period of emergency meant turbulent days for the media as the private channels in particular struggled to retain independence while facing severe financial setbacks. Positions hardened and objectivity often took a back seat. The private television channels began to take partisan positions — and this disturbing trend continues even with the induction of a democratically elected government.
The frenzied, frenetic pace of news coverage — and worse, the aggressive approach — left the coalition government with little breathing space. From the issue of who would be chosen to be prime minister to the speculations on the restoration of judges, politicians (particularly of the ruling coalition) were confronted and practically forced to make statements they may not have made given the opportunity to think a little on the issue.
This, of course, does not condone the politicians who tend to perform for the media and love to listen to the 30 seconds or so of sound bite allotted to them. However, the attitude towards news reporting shows some unpalatable tendencies. Channels, for example, started a countdown as soon as the Murree Declaration promising the restoration of judges within 30 days was signed.
Similarly, Geo now seems to have made provocative songs a regular feature of its new bulletins, satirising situations such as Amin Fahim’s shattered hopes of being prime minister to the rifts between the PPP and the PML-N.
However, there are many positive developments, probably countering the somewhat negative ones. And among the reasons for hope is journalists’ resistance to dictatorship.
Following the emergency, journalists’ associations, supported by civil rights groups, led a sustained protest movement in the face of the government’s intransigence and were often the victims of state violence. Television talk shows became road shows, with banned hosts conducting their programmes before live audiences across the country. The culture of resistance, dormant to an extent, was suddenly revitalised. This courageous resistance was honoured by the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) when it gave the prestigious 2007 International Press Freedom Award to PFUJ’s Mazhar Abbas.
The World Press Freedom Day observed on May 3 provided ample opportunity for the media and media commentators to analyse and report on the state of media freedom in Pakistan. The role of journalists in upholding press freedom was rightly acknowledged. However, the day should also have been an occasion for a bit of soul-searching. After all, what have we made of the unprecedented freedom of the media?
On a balance sheet, the state of the media in Pakistan will probably give a favourable picture. But weaknesses remain. Foremost among them is the lack of professionalism. The unprecedented and fast-paced growth of the electronic media came with little investment in training. ‘Experts’ were instantly created and given the time and space to expound on issues without the depth of knowledge that experience brings. This remarkable growth has also led to an unhealthy competition where to be first with ‘breaking news’ often means going on air with unsubstantiated news.
Today, more than ever before, there is a need for an independent complaints commission for all media. A responsive commission will deflect the kind of attacks seen on the media in recent days. Journalists must strengthen their role as watchdogs. However, they should bark and, in spite of having teeth, refrain from biting.
