Obama no friend of Pakistan

DURING my recent trip to Pakistan, I noticed tremendous excitement about the possibility of Senator Barack Obama winning the presidency.

People seem to believe that he would be a friend of Pakistan. There is also a perception that since his middle name is Hussein, he is Muslim.

Both views are incorrect.

Barack Obama is no more Pakistan’s friend than George Bush or any other president in the past, and perhaps in the future as well. American friendship is based on American national interest, not personal preference of the man occupying the White House. Additionally, despite his Muslim middle name, Obama is a proud Christian and he has emphasised his Christian upbringing and his Christian faith on every occasion he was either asked, or he felt the need to explain it. Even his presidential website clearly elaborates that Obama is not Muslim.

Senator John McCain on the other hand doesn’t have the religious problem. Senator McCain, who is 71 years old and will be 72 in January 2009 when the new president takes over, has a different set of challenges. He is perceived as a warmonger, and as someone who is too eager and too quick to resort to the use of America’s military might, should there be a conflict involving American interest.

There is a genuine reason behind this concern about Senator McCain. John McCain’s father and grandfather were admirals in the United States Navy. McCain himself is a graduate of the United States Naval Academy and he went on to become a naval aviator. McCain’s one son is in the navy and another son is in the Marine Corps. Some of his critics believe that because Senator McCain is too involved with the military due to close family and professional ties, and because he has not opposed any military action by the United States ever since McCain was elected to the Congress in 1982, he is more likely to militarily strike Iran, and even inside Pakistan if the situation continues to deteriorate according to American perspective, which runs contrary to Pakistan’s point of view.

A closer look at America’s foreign policy tells us that Americans don’t change overnight. Despite what any presidential candidate said during the campaign, American’s foreign policy is moulded slowly and cautiously. More importantly, the process of formulating a policy goes through a laborious process of discussions, meetings, dialogues and review amongst both elected officials and career professionals at the State Department, Pentagon, National Security Council and numerous other institutions. Input is solicited from retired experts, civilians and academics.

The secretary of state is generally responsible for making suggestions to the president; the decision is only made after the president has exhausted every option available to him by discussing the matter with a broad range of experts across the board. The United State Senate and House of Representatives also plays a role in advising the president.

After all that is done, the president normally asks the secretary of state for additional information or answers and consults his national security advisor before settling on a new direction for the United States. Any change, especially if it has to be approved by the Congress is not easy because it is very unlikely that the Congress would accept everything that comes from the White House. Since Congress controls the money, it can exert tremendous pressure on the president to accept its recommendations. Therefore, it is quite safe to suggest that there won’t be any major change in terms of foreign policy, regardless of who becomes the president in January 2009, especially about Pakistan.

The only change we can see is the shifting attitude towards Pakistan. Senator Obama is on record about his intentions to hit inside Pakistan, unilaterally, if he has to deal with the threat. Delivering a speech in Washington in 2007, Obama said, “If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won’t act, we will.”

Speaking on another occasion on July 15, 2008 in Washington, Barack Obama said, “I will pursue a tough, smart and principled national security strategy — one that recognises that we have interests not just in Baghdad, but in Kandahar and Karachi, in Tokyo and London, in Beijing and Berlin.” This language is neither ambiguous nor wrapped in diplomatic code. It is simple, direct and clearly lays out Obama’s plan to act unilaterally if he sees it fit to move against the terrorists. The attacks on Pakistani territory in recent weeks are a clear example of the policy that is already in place.

However, in light of all this, it is very surprising to hear Pakistan’s foreign minister insist that Pakistan won’t allow allied forces to operate inside Pakistan. American forces don’t need Pakistan’s permission to launch an air attack, and just like they have done in the past, they would strike anywhere they feel they have a high-value target, either hiding or operating. This has been clear to anyone who was paying attention to America’s message. It is time for Pakistan’s Foreign Office to recognise the reality. It is also time for the country to evaluate Pakistan’s options and Pakistan’s future role in the conflict against terrorism.

John McCain has been equally tough about terrorising the terrorists and he too won’t hold back fire if he has information about a valuable target inside Pakistan. American presidents make decisions based on the advice they receive from the experts and there is virtually no difference between Senator Obama and Senator McCain, especially in dealing with terrorists that these two candidates believe are hiding inside Pakistan’s tribal areas. If we still believe that there is going to be any change, and by change if we expect to be left alone by Washington, we are being naïve.

Nothing is going to change and if anything, Washington is going to demand more and more from Islamabad in the coming days. You can count on it.

Platform for media women

SOMETHING that should have happened long ago has finally come to pass — women working in the media have set up a platform for voicing their concerns. They have also sought out kindred souls in other countries of South Asia.

While quite a few women have been prominent in the Pakistan media, by and large they have been at the sufferance of their employers and male colleagues, except for establishments run by women themselves. The explosion in TV journalism, however, has increased the employment of young women.

The employers value these women especially because they represent the current phase of girls’ advances in the pursuit of knowledge. In view of their numbers and the quality of their input neither their weight nor counsel can now be ignored. This is undoubtedly one of the happier developments in Pakistan society.

That women in the media should get organised is a fact that can easily be appreciated. The justification for this is the principle that has inspired the formation of women workers’ unions, associations of women parliamentarians and, of course, such trailblazers as the Women’s Action Forum.

True, Pakistani media women share many problems with male journalists and for this they have to work together in broader associations, just as all media people’s organisations have to join other civil society organisations to steady the ship of state. A separate association of media women is needed not only because there are problems specific to them but also, and more importantly, because their perspective on life and issues is different than that of their male colleagues, and also relatively fresh.

This became evident at the launching of the South Asian Women in Media (SAWM) recently. One was pleasantly surprised to note that out of the 10 grounds offered as justification for the association’s founding (and its 10 objectives) none referred to the media women’s economic demands (wages, conditions of work). And questions about lack of space for women in decision-making at the workplace, the stereotyped portrayal of women in the media, and their potential for contributing to information technologies came at the end.

Precedence was given to matters of wider national concern — freedom of expression and the right to know, people’s empowerment for inclusive politics, rights-based governance and development, end to discrimination against women, and the hazards faced by women, especially media women, in conflict situations. Unfortunately, our social consciousness has declined so much that every initiative, however laudable, is suspected. Media women should not expect better reception. But they need not worry about such irritants so long as they can overcome inertia and the ill winds of obscurantism.

Three issues raised at the launch of the media women’s association merit a serious debate by entire society. First, it was said that the media had replaced the word ‘terrorists’ with ‘militants’ to describe the men who are challenging the Pakistani state through brutal violence and are training and dispatching suicide bombers. Since the expression ‘militant’ does not carry the opprobrium attached to ‘terrorist’ the subtle switch of nomenclature could be designed to soften disapproval of the terrorists.

The effect of the linguistic trick is more consequential in Urdu. The substitution of ‘askariat pasand’ for ‘dehshatgard’ casts some of the worst criminals the world has known into a heroic mould. For one thing, a large number of people do not understand ‘askariat pasand’. For another, ‘askar’, ‘askari’ and ‘askariat’ are sacred words in Pakistan and ordinary people will have difficulty in associating anything wrong with them.

Media people everywhere know the key role nomenclature plays in propaganda. They know why the Algerian and South African freedom fighters were called terrorists while the guerillas operating in Afghanistan became the mujahideen. Is somebody trying to lull the people of Pakistan into complacency and a false sense of security by dissuading them from recognising terrorists by the only word that defines them? Something we should be thinking about.

Secondly, references were made to the notoriety some TV behroopias have gained by instigating violence against the disadvantaged. The failure of state to address the preaching of hate, which is a serious crime not only against the individuals/communities targeted but also against society, seems to have made media bosses oblivious to their obligation to prevent any abuse of their facilities by mendicants of dubious credentials.

This is not a matter that can be solved by cancelling a programme or sacking an anchor, though both are necessary first steps. Much more important is the need to raise the level of public discourse, and encourage the frank and objective scrutiny of ideas and norms presented as dogma.

Finally, the new government was called upon to define the role of PTV in the task of raising a dynamic, forward-looking, and democratic society. In view of the fact that PTV still commands a larger audience than any cable network the importance of the subject is obvious. All governments have claimed to have hatched a media policy and the new outfit is unlikely to forego the distinction. But if PTV is following any such policy the government has a lot to answer for.

It seems that PTV has never been able to get rid of its foundational flaw. PTV was conceived as the Ayub regime’s final assault on the information and culture terrain, after the press, cinema and writers had been brought under its hegemony. Further, it was floated to help Ayub Khan stay in power. The vision and the policy framework drafted by the midwives attending PTV’s birth have not undergone any substantial change (other than change of privileged faces that regime changes ordain).

Despite a long history of criticism of the bureaucratic control of PTV and the whimsical leasing out of its key positions (unabashed favouritism or rank commercialism), nobody has had the brains or the will to use PTV as the vehicle of the people’s emancipation from ignorance, fanaticism and violence.

Of late one has surely been hearing of a policy to dismantle the curbs on the media and enlarge its freedom. That is essential but not enough. Indeed, our experience tells us that allowing unbridled freedom to raw minds or people with unsavoury affiliations is as dangerous as abusing the pulpit for promoting anarchy and murder.

The new government is expected not only to avoid the devices of authoritarian rulers to gag, control and manipulate the media but also to end state control of Radio Pakistan and PTV and help the media realise its potential as an instrument of healthy change. That will be a media policy a democratic authority could proudly own. It will cover, besides newspapers and television, literature, theatre, cinema and all the arts. But that is something to be taken up in greater detail on another occasion.

An uncertain future

THERE is a growing perception in the West that Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), created the Taliban movement in Afghanistan and that the agency still has active Taliban supporters. However, a more realistic point of view is that while the ISI, along with CIA support, helped anti-communist elements during the 1980s war in Afghanistan, to say that they created the Taliban either there or in Pakistan, is not justified.

In fact, the heinous crimes of and infighting among Afghanistan’s warlords in the pre-Taliban era fuelled the militancy. There is the well-known incident of the gang-rape of two sisters at the hands of a warlord and his troops in Kandahar. The story of the Taliban is said to have started on the day when students at a madressah administered by Mullah Omar accompanied by a few more orphans from a seminary in a refugee camp in Pakistan freed the sisters after massacring the warlords and his troops.

This was the beginning. The ISI exploited the situation when 200 trucks loaded with goods and heading towards Central Asia was looted between Kabul and Mazar-i-Sharif. The second convoy found its way through Kandahar and Herat on the route mostly controlled by the Taliban, who with major assistance from the Pakistan and certain Arab elements swept through almost 90 per cent of Afghanistan in a very short time.

In Pakistan, poor governance of the tribal areas by the Fata administration played a major role in alienating the much neglected population. It is not surprising then that militancy should have been fuelled by a situation in both Afghanistan and tribal Pakistan where extreme social and economic injustice prevailed.

Exposure to the political and socio-economic reality around them meant that things started changing. The youth saw how they were still subjected to draconian laws like the FCR and wanted to be treated like other Pakistanis.

Besides the warlords, the other major reason for the militancy in Afghanistan was the reckless post-war behaviour of the US that left the ravaged country to the mercy of people who had no ability to govern. Terrorism replaced jihad once America withdrew after the Soviet defeat.

Pakistan’s interest in calming its western border and maintaining good ties with Kabul is threatened by external factors including India that would like to see Pakistani troops engaged in the northwest especially in view of its allegations that Pakistan helped fuel violence in held Kashmir.

The Northern Alliance would certainly like to settle old scores as it still blames Pakistan for helping the Taliban against them, especially in the days preceding the US invasion of Afghanistan after 9/11. Hence their involvement in Fata cannot be overlooked.

On the other hand, would the Iranians like America to reinforce its presence in the region by establishing itself on their left flank? The Russians still have the scar of defeat on their face. China is a growing economic and military superpower and would certainly like to have no problem for at least a decade. The Americans have a lot at stake. Their miscalculations in Iraq have meant huge political and military costs. At the same time, they probably would like to avoid a Vietnam-type withdrawal. So their interest in Afghanistan is enhanced which makes the situation more precarious.

The Taliban in Afghanistan are a large force. Similarly, the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan too is a reasonable fighting body that supports those fighting Nato. The biggest question is: who is supplying weapons to them, or who is paying for these? Some news reports mention that one fighter gets about $200 more than what an Afghan soldier gets. Many observers claim that the poppy fields give them the required money to be able to fight the Nato forces.

Meanwhile, people in Fata charge the political set-up with corruption and inefficiency, saying that almost all aid money is consumed by the administration. Their case is strong for the example lies in the poor conditions of schools, hospitals and other civic facilities.

The future is uncertain and one wonders when all parties, with their diverse interests in the region, will agree on how the suffering of refugees and residents should be alleviated.