Army and civilians

THE claim by a US State Department spokesman that the “Pakistan military submits to civilian government control” and therefore his department deals with the civilian government is welcome. It at least establishes the principle that a civilian, elected government should exercise control over the Pakistan Army. While this might appear to be an obvious principle for the leader of the free world, the present Republican administration in the US has done much in its eight years to undermine the basic tenets of democracy in Pakistan. Pakistanis with perhaps a longer memory than the State Department spokesman will remember how the US feted Gen Musharraf over the years, celebrating the strongman for his ability to deliver Pakistani compliance without the bother of democratic debate or dissent. And Pakistanis will also remember that the only reason for America’s disillusionment with Gen Musharraf was his inability, or unwillingness, to fully comply with American demands in the ‘war on terror’. Indeed, the return of a broad-based, popularly elected parliament in Pakistan was America’s option of last resort, one it turned to almost in desperation to try and salvage the mission in Afghanistan. So while spokesman Robert Wood’s statement is welcome, Pakistanis will be forgiven if they don’t rise to their feet to applaud.There is another aspect to Mr Wood’s statement. Realists will argue that it is more hope than fact. Until mid-August, the Pakistan Army was squarely behind its ex-chief and refused to publicly back the civilian government even as Gen Musharraf wilted in the face of resurgent politicians. Since his ouster, two high-profile attempts by the civilian government to make decisions regarding the ISI have been summarily rejected. And President Zardari’s declaration of no-first-use of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal was pooh-poohed by the army. Clearly there is some way to go yet in the quest for civilian supremacy in Pakistan.

How to facilitate that quest is what should be on the minds of the incoming officials who will handle president-elect Obama’s policy towards Pakistan. What must be clear is that civilian supremacy in the civil-military relations cannot be imposed from outside, no matter how powerful the force. But the Americans can certainly boost the civilian set-up with aid, institution-building and a firm commitment to democracy. In this regard, the Obama team has made all the right noises. The Biden-Lugar democracy dividend, a stated intention to try and address Pakistan’s regional security concerns, a commitment to eschew President Bush’s ‘transactional’, military-dominated approach to dealing with Pakistan and an emphasis on a stable democracy with strong institutions — each of these would go some way in changing the power balance between the civilians and the military. More intangible, though no less important, would be a break from the zero-sum analysis of the civil-military relationship — that way the real winner will be the country.

Risky business

ONCE again Karachi residents had little to fall back on when one of the city’s more congested suburbs of Korangi was hit by an unprecedented calamity — countless people had to flee their houses when a colossal crude oil spill flooded the homes, shops and streets of the area. According to reports, the massive leak is a result of gross negligence on the part of Parco and Sui Southern Gas Company staff that was carrying out drilling work near the Korangi pipeline. The nightmare raged on for a few hours as, unsurprisingly, it took three hours for the emergency services to make an appearance at the site of devastation. Needless to say, the 60 to 70 feet high oil jet has, in its wake, wreaked considerable environmental and human havoc — the air is saturated to toxic levels and residents complain of an intense stench in their water supply. The locality resembles a war-torn zone with blackened buildings and oil-logged streets that confine residents to pitch-dark homes where food supplies are contaminated and lighting a stove is tantamount to a death wish.

The almost surreal disaster is reminiscent of the Tasman Spirit oil leak in August 2003, when acrid fumes pervaded the air across Karachi for some three weeks, and which was ruinous for marine life and for innumerable fisher-folk and their villages. The sad truth, however, remains that relevant emergency control departments and the government have learnt precious little from past catastrophes. Every blow is not much more than a déjà vu that intensifies an already heartbreaking human condition — inept emergency services continue to flounder with ill-qualified, underpaid staff, archaic equipment and negligible monitoring mechanisms that cannot ensure prompt action which is half the battle. Secondly, the time is now to raise the issue of compensation for the victims; medical aid, renovation facilities and funds for people to rebuild their business and recover their losses. There is a dire need for NGOs and civil society to engineer an aggressive campaign for reparation and for timely medicinal measures that can prevent future health repercussions. Also, there is no greater compensation than the identification of and suitable action against perpetrators, which must not be marred by political patronage. This incidence must also serve as a warning to our so-called town planners as nowhere else in the world are residential neighbourhoods, regardless of their income bracket, built on cross-country oil conduits.

End of emergency in BD

BANGLADESH now seems to be going through a process all too familiar to us in Pakistan. The state of emergency — imposed nearly two years ago — was lifted on Wednesday, and a general election is due towards the end of this month. But there is no guarantee that this will finally put the country on the road to stable democracy. Its history is full of military coups, and the principal political rivals are once again parties headed by Khaleda Zia and Hasina Wajid. Between them these two former prime ministers have quarrelled in a way that derailed democracy and led to military interventions. The elections scheduled for January 2007 had to be cancelled because Hasina’s Awami League alleged that the then ruling Bangladesh National Party was attempting to rig them.

Over the last two years, the military-backed government has launched a crackdown on corruption, arresting a large number of people, including Khaleda and Hasina. However, it is doubtful that such periodic campaigns against graft will produce lasting results. To go by Pakistan’s experience, the various accountability drivers launched by the military regimes were often politically motivated, and the parties which fell victim to persecution returned to power by vote. The military-led Bangladesh government has deployed 300,000 troops to maintain law and order during the polling, and there is every possibility that the election would be as transparent as is possible in a developing country. But the real issue is how the two former prime ministers, who are on bail, will behave. Both the Awami League and the BNP will have a major presence in parliament, no matter which party gets more seats in the election due on the 29th. What has been lacking is a sense of responsibility in the two bitter foes. Because both consider themselves heirs to martyrs they think they can resort to every imaginable political tactic to demolish the other. This attitude has destroyed democracy in Bangladesh. Unless these two leaders, both of whom undoubtedly have a large following, learn to exercise restraint and resolve to make a success of democracy, the country will continue to lurch from crisis to crisis.

OTHER VOICES - Sri Lankan Press

Shot in the arm...

Daily Mirror

AS UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has said the world’s current financial crisis has been caused by the combined effect of greed and corruption. Most of this country’s problems also could be attributed to these twin evils. The extent to which these evils have made inroads into most fields of activity in Sri Lanka is no secret to the people of this country.

The damaging effect of greed and corruption on the country’s administration has now dawned even on some sections in the government ranks. Home Affairs Minister Chandrasiri Gajadheera has said that bribery and corruption has become a deep rooted disease in our society and that efforts even greater than those made to eradicate terrorism have to be undertaken to eliminate corruption. The minister ... made these remarks while addressing a ceremony to mark International Anti-Corruption Day that fell on Dec 9. Minister Gajadheera has added that some persons enjoying power take bribes as commissions with impunity while the less privileged accused of bribery are hauled before courts and punished.

The people of this country are obviously concerned and indignant about the way the national assets and resources are frittered away by unscrupulous politicians and officials through corruption, extravagance and wasteful exercises. They detest these persons, curse them and invite God’s fury on them. But very few among these concerned persons take any positive action that would contribute to curing or curbing the malaise….

It is in this context that the rewarding of some persons who have made considerable contributions to checking the spreading cancer has to be appreciated. At a function held on Tuesday at BMICH to mark Anti-Corruption Day, Transparency International Sri Lanka (TISL) rewarded an investigative journalist, a school teacher and a police officer for their active roles in this campaign against corruption….

While observing the Anti-Corruption Day for the fifth consecutive year ... (TISL) director J.C.Welimuna has drawn attention to the crucial time the country is passing through where powerful forces are attempting to silence the anti-corruption movement…. It has been the realisation of the importance of this work that has induced Peter Enger to leave the World Bank and initiate his campaign against corruption. He says, from bribing a school teacher to business deals in the international arena, as much as $1,000bn is lost each year through corruption. “The real damage is the perversion of economic development and that’s the reason the world is reeling in poverty,” he points out.—(Dec 18)

Idea of justice in Islam

THE Quran puts great emphasis on the right to seek justice and the duty to do justice. In Surah 5, verse 8, it tells the believers: “Be ever steadfast in your devotion to God, bearing witness to the truth in all equity; and never let hatred of anyone lead you into the sin of deviating from justice. Be just: this is the closest to being God-conscious.”

Surah 4, verse 136, states: “Be ever steadfast in upholding justice, bearing witness to the truth for the sake of God, even though it be against your own selves or your parents and kinsfolk. Whether the person concerned be rich or poor, God’s claim takes precedence over (the claims of) either of them. Do not, then, follow your own desires, lest you swerve from justice: for if you distort (the truth), behold, God is indeed aware of all that you do!”

In the context of justice, the Quran uses two concepts: adl and ehsan. Both are enjoined and both are related to the idea of balance, but they are not identical in meaning. A. A. A. Fyzee defines adl as: “to be equal, neither more nor less,” and states that in “a court of justice the claims of two parties must be considered evenly, without undue stress being laid upon one side. Justice introduces the balance in the form of scales that are evenly balanced.”

Adl was described in similar terms by Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, who stated: “What is justice but the avoiding of excess? There should be neither too much nor too little; hence the use of scales as the emblems of justice.”

Surah 4, verse 95 distinguishes clearly between passive believers and those who strive in the way of God: “Such of the believers as remain passive — other than the disabled — cannot be deemed equal to those who strive hard in God’s way with their possessions and their lives: God has exalted those who strive hard with their possessions and their lives far above those who remain passive. Although God has promised the ultimate good unto all (believers), yet has God exalted those who strive hard above those who remain passive by (promising them) a mighty reward — (many) degrees thereof — and forgiveness of sins, and His grace: for God is indeed much-forgiving, a dispenser of grace.” Just as it is in the spirit of adl that special merit be considered in the matter of rewards, so also special circumstances are considered in the matter of punishments. For instance, for crimes of unchaste behaviour the Quran prescribes identical punishments for a man or a woman who is proved guilty (Surah 2:2), but it differentiates between different classes of women: for the same crime, a slave woman would receive half, and the consort of the Prophet (PBUH) double the punishment given to a ‘free’ Muslim woman (Surahs 4:25; 33: 30).

In making such a distinction, the Quran, while upholding high moral standards, particularly in the case of the wives of the Prophet (PBUH) whose actions have a normative significance for the community, reflects God’s compassion for women slaves who were socially disadvantaged.

While constantly enjoining adl, the Quran goes beyond this concept to ehsan, which literally means “restoring the balance by making up for a loss or a deficiency”. In order to understand this concept, it is necessary to understand the nature of the ideal society or community (ummah) envisaged by the Quran. The word ummah comes from the root ‘umm’, or ‘mother’. The symbols of a mother and motherly love and compassion are also linked with the two attributes most characteristic of God, namely, Rahim and Rahman, both of which are derived from the root ‘rahm’, meaning ‘womb’.

The ideal ummah cares about all its members just as an ideal mother cares about all her children, knowing that all are not equal and that each has different needs. While showing undue favour to any one child would be unjust, a mother who gives to a physical or mentally challenged child more than she does to her other child or children, is not acting unjustly. Rather, she is exemplifying the spirit of ehsan by helping to make up for the deficiency of a child who is unable to meet the requirements of life. Ehsan thus, shows God’s sympathy for the disadvantaged segments of human society (such as may be women, orphans, slaves, the poor, the infirm and minorities).

The writer teaches at the University of Louisville, US.

rshass01@gwise.louisville.edu

Working mothers

WHO is best placed to bring up your child? You, or the possibly transient, probably underpaid, young, and not as naturally qualified staff of a daycare centre?

This is the question raised by a recent report from Unicef on the state of childcare in 25 developed countries. For the first time in centuries, it notes, the majority of parents in the developed world are farming out the care of their children to paid workers. At the same time, neuroscientific research shows that the architecture of the brain is formed largely through the interactions of the early years; love, it turns out, is as important for intellectual as for emotional development.

So this mothering thing that my generation was taught to disdain as something we could fit in round our economically valuable, high-status, real work proves to be not such a side issue after all.

Women have always known this secretly, of course. When we were on maternity leave, or doing more of the childcare, we could see how much social capital was created by meeting other parents hanging around at school gates.

This awkward truth remains the great unspoken issue of the childcare debate. Feminists don’t particularly want to face it publicly because it plays into the hands of reactionaries. Unfortunately, there’s another unpalatable reality, in conflict with that one: being with children all the time can be boring, draining and frustrating. Most women work not only because they couldn’t otherwise manage financially, but also because work offers self-esteem, sociability, power and dignity. The trouble with paid childcare is that it lets men off the hook. Women have to pay for childcare because most men aren’t prepared to cut back their hours to do enough of the parenting.

The countries doing best in Unicef’s assessment are those with the most social and gender equality — Sweden and Iceland. In the UK, the debate about whether to opt for paid childcare, in what form, and how much of it, takes place against a background of growing inequality, a winner-takes-all society where not to be constantly available on your BlackBerry is not to have a proper career. The rewards for work of often opaque value, certainly compared to raising a child, can be enormous. Extended parental leave, job security and part-time employment are for wimps.

Many women look at the pay gap, at their own inclination to balance, at the impossibility of two parents being distracted most of the time, and choose to work part-time, or at any rate with less zealotry. And most parents manage to cobble something together that more or less works. (The Unicef report is flawed in not taking into account informal, home-based, or neighbourhood childcare — grandparents, child minders, au pairs.)

Parents may feel guilty about how much of their children’s upbringing they delegate to others, but the dangerous experiment that Unicef implies we are embarked upon is actually being pursued for the most part with love and concern for the balance of everyone’s interests. Which is not to say that the circumstances in which the decisions are being made are remotely ideal.

It is those who aren’t in a position to make decisions with whom we should really be concerned. One reason Britain figured so poorly on Unicef’s rankings is that there are still three million children living in poverty here. Many are clustered in places where the notion of family itself seems to have collapsed. Here it is not a choice of whether both parents have serious jobs, because there’s only one parent and no work.

These families feature a desire to do the best by children, as do families everywhere, but have little ballast in terms of work or structure to lives. A child from the most disadvantaged five per cent of families is 100 times more likely to have multiple problems at the age of 15 than a child from the most affluent 50 per cent of families. Nursery care can be invaluable here. The Unicef report acknowledges that daycare can improve linguistic and social development and help break the cycle of deprivation.

If you wanted to design an ideal childcare strategy, you wouldn’t start from here. You’d have to go much further back, to gender parity and social equality, and an economy that was designed to serve those ideals, not ride roughshod over them.

— The Observer, London