How we see the US polls

THE recent US presidential elections seem to have caught the attention of Pakistan’s media in a big way. This is obvious from the fact that 33 out of the 50-odd television channels were directly relaying American election results with full-blown commentaries from academics, retired civil and military bureaucrats, and all those who could read, write and speak English or were ever involved with the media in some shape or form.

In a way, it is interesting to see the electronic media covering something other than the political developments at home. But more important, the coverage expresses the perceptions and expectations within Pakistan of change in the US.

The sudden emphasis comes in the wake of the heightened tension in bilateral relations between Islamabad and Washington. Since the US is so central to the Pakistani mindset, many people are interested in watching the change in the White House to predict a corresponding change in Pakistan’s political future. The media’s attention is largely driven by the fundamental belief in Pakistan that the country is actually run with the help of the three As: America, Army and Allah. It is scandalising to hear even ordinary Pakistanis believe that nothing changes in Islamabad’s corridors of power without a nod from the White House. Some even go a step further and trace the policies in Islamabad to Tel Aviv via Washington.

The media hype, as mentioned earlier, represents Pakistani expectations or shaping of the ordinary citizen’s expectations

of the political development in the US. In this regard, there are, broadly speaking, three kinds of opinions and two types of attitudes.

Beginning with the latter, there is one attitude which believes that any change within the US or in relation to its foreign policy will happen gradually but it is bound to happen. The other is that a major change in US-Pakistan relations after Obama’s victory will take place within 24 hours or it will be gloom and doom.

Coming to the opinions, the first set of comments, which can be termed neutral, focus on the everlasting significance of Pakistan for the US. This opinion in itself represents low self-esteem and emanates from the perception that the success of the Democrats will not bode well for Pakistan. So, there are commentators who are trying to reassure ordinary Pakistanis that there is nothing to worry about since Pakistan will continue to remain important.

A second opinion is that there will be a gradual shift in American policy with the aim of strengthening democracy in Pakistan. So, the emphasis will be on providing greater economic assistance than military aid. Such views, like the first category, are of a minority.

This particular type represents expectation of a political shift in Pakistan and the empowerment of democratic forces in the country on the shoulders of American politics. The problem with this approach is that it does not review the fundamental structure of the relations which have always been driven by convergent security concerns rather than a broader framework in which the linkage has cultural, social and economic dimensions as well.

The third set of views pertains to the conspiracy theorists who believe that there will be no change in US-Pakistan relations. In fact, a large number of commentators in the Urdu media seem to be toeing the line that Obama will be a setback for Pakistan. Such commentators find their logic in Obama’s pre-election statements in which he talked about targeting all those areas in Afghanistan and Pakistan’s tribal belt where terrorists could be hiding.

So, what the conspiracy theorists seem to have deduced from this statement is that there is a larger strategic plan to destroy Pakistan with an emphasis on defanging the nuclear programme. The war on terror is also seen as a conspiracy to launch an attack on Pakistan to shut down the nuclear programme. The view is that the US deliberately does not act on information passed on to it to target terrorists like Baitullah Mehsud. The question is that what stops Pakistan from acting on the information against Mehsud?

The above-mentioned opinion refuses to view the US like any other country concerned about its security interests and accountability of its security programme and funding the world over. Obama’s statements might not appear so threatening if viewed from the perspective of America’s concern about the ‘return on its investment’ for security purposes. In the eight years since 9/11, the Pakistani leadership talked about the pressure exerted on Islamabad soon after the attack inside America, but it never questioned the parameters and logic of the bilateral security alignment since it started in 1958.

The Pakistani state happily offered itself as a mercenary willing to fight for American security objectives in return for cash and other opportunities. Interestingly, no one from Islamabad has questioned the US claim that Pakistan was paid $1.6bn annually since 2003 although the economic affairs division accounts for only $600-650m. So, a shift in policy vis-à-vis our region might not take place if Obama is concerned that the allies who are being paid for their services are not delivering.

It is true that Pakistan has previously ceased to be a front-line state for the US after Washington achieved its strategic objectives in the region, creating the impression that its American ally eventually abandons Islamabad. Such a perception ignores two related facts that the relationship always remained limited and continues to be so despite the statements that the US will remain engaged with Pakistan. The other fact is that while presenting such an argument Pakistan’s media and strategic community fail to hold their own civil and military leadership responsible for not defining its own strategic objectives and often sacrificing long-term gains for short-term ones. Didn’t our leadership keenly accept the American goal of fighting communism in the 1960s and 1980s just as they have now claimed partnership in the war on terror?

The lack of clarity on Islamabad’s part regarding the reasons for its strategic alignment with the US becomes even more glaring due to the lack of internal consensus. The establishment views a partnership with the US in as much a tactical mode as it does its convergence with the various groups of Afghan warlords.

Under the circumstances, it becomes difficult to think of visible benefits accruing to Pakistan as a result of the change in the US. Islamabad will benefit from the said shift abroad as much as it has the capacity to do so. It is the lack of an internal vision and the absence of visionary leadership that will damage the country more than some sneaky American plan to disintegrate Pakistan. n

The writer is an independent strategic and political analyst.

ayesha.ibd@gmail.com

The carnage at Gauhati

I WAS in Dhaka a day after the carnage at Gauhati. The Bangladeshi press had front-paged the tragedy and had roundly criticised the perpetrators.

In a representative comment, the leading paper, The Daily Star, wrote: “Such an act of cowardice snuffing out and maiming scores of innocent people in thickly crowded public places is utterly despicable. We have no words strong enough to condemn it.”

But people were horrified by the impression that the blasts were the handiwork of Bangladesh. They attributed the remark to the ‘hostility’ of Indians towards Bangladeshis. They conceded that relations between the two countries had never been as low as they are today.

The chief adviser of the caretaker government, Fakhruddin Ahmed, said in an interview that he would not rule out some Bangladeshis crossing into India. But to allege that there were terrorist training camps or that the authorities connived in such activities was “very unfair to us and I deny all these charges categorically”. He said his government had been able to stop terrorism within its own country by taking appropriate measures. It was time that India realised that it had home-grown terrorists.Howsoever assuring the statements are from Dhaka, they have not removed the general impression in India that Bangladeshis are behind the blasts. The primary suspects are Bangladeshis living in India, said to number three million. Bangladesh is blamed because of the growing belief that it is a country where fundamentalism is spreading through mosques and madressahs mushrooming in the countryside.

I do not rule out some intelligence agencies in Dhaka conniving with the extremists. There is possibly a group which is inimical to India. But that has been there irrespective of the orientation of the government. Yet we would delude ourselves if we were to believe that the United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) was returning to the path of peace. It is an outfit which is mixed up in every type of terrorism in the northeast. ULFA chairman Paresh Baruah and some other leaders live in Dhaka.

My queries lead me to infer that the Guwahati incident is linked to the jihadis who have returned from Afghanistan after taking part in the holy war against America. But the motive of the jihadis is said to be money and the ISI is also allegedly involved. Many intellectuals, journalists and some others I have met presented the same scenario. They even regret that the ISI is operating in a big way in the area. But they are so distant from India — as one editor puts it “we are not even listening to each other because what we say sounds repetitive” — that joint action with New Delhi has never crossed their mind.

Yet like Pakistan, Dhaka resents it when India levels charges against outfits in Bangladesh without giving any evidence. Chief Adviser Ahmed wanted “some proof”. In fact, the best of our claims about cross-border terrorism or the involvement of extremists in Bangladesh have come to be doubted because we have not been able to produce even a shred of evidence in support of our case. Even within India, the version of the police is widely questioned.

I am not sure whether Bangladesh is going the fundamentalist way. During four days of my stay at Dhaka, I did not find any woman in a burqa nor any slogan poster or banner invoking Islam or Allah. Music, to which the extremists object, is the breath of life in Dhaka. Painting exhibitions and fashion shows galore are held. The hanging of Bangla Bhai and his eight fundamentalist colleagues did not evoke any protest. Even the Jamaat-i-Islami has, for the first time, acknowledged the contribution of the liberation struggle to the independence of Bangladesh.

The real danger to Bangladesh is the lack of alternative to the Awami League headed by Sheikh Hasina and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) headed by Khalida Zia. The Awami League looks like it will sweep the polls scheduled to be held on Dec 18. At the same time, the common belief is that the BNP in the opposition will bring back street politics and hartals. If that happens, Bangladesh will be back to square one. The good work done by the caretaker government will go awry and the fight between the two ladies will begin in right earnest.

I concede that the army did try to overhaul the system while remaining in the background. It may have wished for a political alternative. But the two ladies have been adamant about staying on in politics, although both have been hurt by the exposure of corruption in high places.

The army is rightly withdrawing and letting the people decide. The problem, which Bangladesh, like Pakistan has come to realise is that there is no halfway house. A country is either fully democratic or fully autocratic. The army intervening or pressuring the government from behind the scenes unhinges a democratic structure. People may be undisciplined or chaotic in their behaviour, but there is no alternative to the rule of the people. Despite inept governance and trivialised politics, India has been able to establish democracy because people are inured to the system.

I see in Bangladesh a fierce desire to return to democracy. If elections had not been announced, people would have hit the streets in protest. But this is no answer to the country’s problems. The real test will come when one political party comes to power and the other has to wait till the next election.

Probably both the Awami League and the BNP have learned their lesson. Probably both have come to realise that there is a Lakshman Rekha beyond which no individual or party should stretch a democratic system. My feeling is that all the countries in South Asia, including India, have to ponder the limit to which political parties can go to articulate their demand. Rulers do not suffer, the common man does. Religion is a diversion or a matter of personal faith. But it cannot occupy the centre stage. The political parties are not yet willing to face the simple truth: a distorted rule of law mars democracy not makes it.

Bangladesh has come full circle. Will the army ultimately walk in, I asked the chief adviser. He categorically said no. The institutions which have been built in the last two years, he said, will sustain the democratic structure. But the political parties will have to respect them.

The writer is a leading journalist based in Delhi.

A fairy-tale cabinet

PRIME Minister Gilani’s (or are they President Zardari’s?) ministers are a bit like Snow White’s dwarfs, Santa Claus’s reindeer and Disney’s Dalmatians: you know there’s a lot of ’em but, try as you might, you really can’t name them all. There’s Dopey and Dasher and Chew and Sherry and Zehri and — only this is certain: they are all Happy.

Though, unlike the fictional characters, our ministers are not quite so cuddly. Mir Hazar Khan Bijarani, PPP MNA from Jacobabad, is the man now responsible for the education of Pakistan’s children. His record is stellar. He is a veteran PPP leader, an LLB from SM Law College and an MA from the University of Karachi. Oh, and he was allegedly involved in a small matter of handing over five girls — the youngest was two, the oldest six — to settle a decade-old karo-kari feud in his area. Good ol’ Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry ordered his arrest in 2007. Bijarani points out though that he was subsequently cleared by a lower court.

There’s more good news for women. Senator Mir Israrullah Zehri, a Balochistan National Party (Awami) man who caused a furore recently by defending karo-kari as a tribal custom, has been rewarded with a ministry. To accommodate Zehri, postal services has been spun off from the communications ministry. So there you have it: Senator Mir Israrullah Zehri, minister for postal services. Women, beware: the confidentiality of your letters is now at risk.

Why not just give Zehri women’s development? The MQM has the answer: “[T]he ministry like woman development [sic] is of no importance,” an unnamed senior party leader told a local paper. Given the choice between no ministry and women’s development, the MQM chose the former. Serving the people apparently does not include women.

But there’s hope in Muzaffargarh. From there hail two new ministers, embodying the best of a secular, democratic dispensation. Abdul Qayyum Jatoi, NA-180, last made news in March when he was caught enjoying a late-night party at the ‘Cat House’ in Islamabad. At least Jatoi prefers the company of women; three Russians and three Chinese were amongst the 20 women detained in the raid on the house.

And Jatoi’s neighbour over in NA-177 is Hina Rabbani Khar, enlightened moderation personified. Our latest minister of state for finance and economic affairs is the envy of all ministers. She has an inherited constituency, so she can pick and choose who she wants to work with. The two-time MNA is already a two-time loyalist.

But at least she does not change her governance interests: Khar likes the economy. From parliamentary secretary to minister of state in the PML-Q dispensation and special assistant to the prime minister and back again to minister of state in the PPP one, Khar has stayed focused on economic affairs. And why not, for who better to explain to the IMF the mess we’re in than someone who had a front-row seat to the shenanigans that got us here?

My favourite though is Farzana Raja, who has used the chairmanship of the Benazir Income Support Programme to acquire for herself ministerial status. The poor have become a status symbol. Perhaps as the next step in self-aggrandisement ‘Minister’ Raja can have a bus load of BISP beneficiaries follow her flag-flying car. They can tumble out on demand, ready to sing Raja’s praises at opportune moments. Six months of that and she may be ready to be canonised.

And all this before Round 3, when the MQM and JUI-F will be brought on board — which they must before the Senate elections in March. And there still remains the possibility of the PML-Q, forward bloc or the whole lot of them, hopping on board.

At least we now know where a slice of that IMF bailout will go. The 55-plus cabinet is creeping up to the 75-odd ministers of Shaukat Aziz and the 65-odd of BB’s second stint. Good luck trying to get precise numbers. Farzana Rajas abound: ministers who aren’t quite ministers but have ministerial status. It’s all very confusing, unless you happen to be a beneficiary — in which case you are of course Happy.

It is easy to get carried away though. The cabinet has been plucked from politicians of the Class of 2008, a wily lot. The fact that the cabinet isn’t smaller points to another factor at play: survival is informing the choices of Zardari or Gilani (whoever the cabinet really belongs to).

But what’s good for Zardari’s survival is not necessarily good for our survival. The real problem isn’t size but performance. Try naming half a dozen ministers from the pre-expansion set-up. Visibility does not equate to performance, as the Mohammad Ali Durranis and Wasi Zafars of the last government proved, but after 12 years in the wilderness surely we can expect some ministers to be ready to unveil their plans. Where have they been all these months?

And if not some performance by every minister, then how about a decent performance by some ministers? Again, the most active members of the cabinet are unelected: Rehman Malik and Shaukat Tareen. For every 20 ideas they come up with, 19 may be nonsensical. But better to be 1 from 20 than 0 from 0.

And if not a decent performance by some ministers, then how about righting constitutional imbalances? Again, given the nature of our politics it would be unfair to expect Zardari to do anything about it before March when Senate elections will be held and much of the PML-Q and MMA deadwood will be cleared out. But if March comes and goes?

And if not constitutional readjustments then how about the law at the micro level: the lower courts, the police and public prosecutors? Set them free from political interference. Let them get on with the business of protecting the people; hobbled as the institutions are they can still make a difference.

And if not the micro level — then what? Where does it stop? At what point do you give up, resigned to watching opportunities slip by yet again. This cabinet can yet become a footnote to this government if Zardari wants. All he has to do is think. Think big, think small. And then act. Not in our name but in our interests.

cyril.a@gmail.com

The triumph of hope

AFTER a long time — eight years to be exact — America has regained its rightful place in the comity of nations. It has done so not by threatening a military invasion or using pressure tactics but by electing the first African-American president in its history. An African-American president whose middle name is Hussein.

The consequences of an Obama administration for Pakistan, especially with respect to Fata, are yet to be seen. But the fact remains that Americans have finally managed to shake off the fear that had overtaken them as a result of 9/11. Almost since the moment the planes hit the Twin Towers in New York, the American national psyche had come under assault from politicians and the media who were urging citizens to be cautious of outsiders and wary of strangers within.

The ubiquitous Department of Homeland Security was created. Law enforcement agencies were given unprecedented access to the personal information of US citizens. From the books they checked out from their local library to their telephone conversations and the items bought on their credit cards, everything was open to surveillance. And for seven years — since Sept 11, 2001 — Americans put up with this because they were persuaded to believe that it was being done for their own safety.

Several attempts were made to encourage the same fears during the recently concluded 2008 election campaign. Some tried to draw attention to the similar-sounding names Obama and Osama. The New Yorker magazine ran a satirical cover with Obama and his wife, Michelle, in terrorist gear.

The Republicans repeatedly referred to the Democratic candidate by his full name, with the obvious intention of reminding voters of the negativity associated with his middle name. There were rumours that he is in fact a Muslim, and that he sympathised with the Palestinian cause and even that he is an Arab.

When that last accusation was made in front of John McCain by a Republican supporter, he refuted it by saying, “No, ma’am, he is a decent family man” — implying that the two are mutually exclusive.

But the politics of fear had no place on election day when Americans came out in huge numbers to cast their vote in what was rightly being touted as an historic election. Young and old, rich and poor, white, black and brown, they started lining up outside polling stations as early as 4 a.m.

There were lingering fears that the Bradley effect would come into play, and despite favourable assessments Obama would in the end lose due to racism. But as poll results were announced and one critical state after the other — Ohio, Virginia, Pennsylvania — fell to the Democratic camp, those fears were put to rest forever.

Americans celebrated not just a new president but the reaffirmation of the ideals of their founding fathers. They were indeed ‘one nation under God’. They also rejoiced at the fulfilment of the late Rev Martin Luther King’s historic ‘I have a dream’ speech which was delivered in Washington D.C. a mere 45 years ago.

Indeed, the euphoria was so catching that countless people around the world watched president-elect Obama make his victory speech in front of an emotional crowd in Chicago’s Grant Park. And what a speech it was. Coming from anyone else it would have been dismissed as mere rhetoric, but coming from an African-American with a Kenyan Muslim father and an Indonesian stepfather, it was truly the stuff legends are made of.

Obama said: “To all those who have wondered if America’s beacon still burns as bright — tonight we proved once more that the true strength of our nation comes not from the might of our arms or the scale of our wealth, but from the enduring power of our ideals: democracy, liberty, opportunity, and unyielding hope.”

His victory is indeed the triumph of hope over fear. Despite ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and a struggling economy the American people voted for change. And by doing so, they have proven to the whole world that there is still hope for the American dream.

As The Guardian rightly said in its editorial after the election: “America, welcome back into the world”.