Definition of terrorism

THESE days terrorism is a fashionable topic. The entire world seems to be involved in the war on terror, whether it is those who claim to be fighting terrorism or those who are perpetrating it.

Moreover, there are opposing claims about terrorism. As the popular, albeit somewhat modified, adage goes, one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter, indicating that we can distinguish between one set of violent activities and another. So, where do these opposing interpretations leave us?

Can terrorism be used as a neutral term defining all acts of violence by non-state actors against civilians? Such a suggestion is bound to encounter opposing viewpoints that it is not just non-state actors that can be termed as terrorists but states too must be considered as such. For example, a lot of people would be willing to call the US a terrorist state.

As the US State Department sees it, terrorism pertains to violence perpetrated by non-state actors including individuals or groups on civilian populations with a view to achieving political objectives. Interestingly, the US view includes acts of destabilising governments because this would then include American and British citizens or some European nationals as well as those who work as private contractors in numerous African states and are often involved in destabilising governments.

Referring to the definition debate the term can be used in terms that do not involve state actors. There are two important components of the definition that must be considered. First, the purpose of violence which means that non-state actors use violence to gain certain political objectives. It is not important to attach a value-judgment at this stage because whether or not we agree with the objective the fact is that certain individuals and groups opt for violence to attain their goals. Be it the Palestinians, Chechens, Kashmiris, Al Qaeda, Taliban or others, it is a case of groups using violence to achieve their respective goals. We as observers reserve the right to agree or disagree with the cause of violence.

Second, the perpetrators of violence in this case happen to be individuals or groups that do not have legal or constitutional sanction to use coercive methods against civilians. This makes non-state actors fundamentally different from state actors. The difference lies in the sanction that states have to impose and use violence as an essential part of state power.

Those who disagree must consider that the actual problem or the difference between a state and non-state actor’s violence lies in the nature of the nation-state itself. Be it the First World or the Third World, we all live in a state system that has connections with European history and the state system. The nation-state, which evolved in Europe after the breakdown of monarchies, imposed certain tasks on the state and was based on a social contract between state and society. According to this system, people owed their allegiance to the state, cherished it and paid taxes in return for certain tasks performed by the state. Securing the people and a predefined territory was one of the primary responsibilities of the state. The people’s allegiance, in return, was unquestioned —‘my country right or wrong’.

The political system, especially the concept of democracy, as a form of government also evolved as a system that would represent the wishes of the people. However, the problem began when the state itself became less representative of the majority of the people or those living in certain areas of the state. This naturally strained relations between state and society. More specifically, problems arose when the ruling elite pursued their own interest or those of the majority without any concern for the minority. Given the absence of the means of negotiating interests, individuals or groups opted to use violence to affect state behaviour.

In such circumstances, the state tends to use violence to counter violence. However, in the current nation-state system the state has the legal and constitutional authority to use violence. In fact, states that choose force can be called oppressors or accused of using aggression against their own people or other states to retain external or internal hegemony. From a moral perspective, this can be as good or bad as an act of terrorism. But the point being raised here is that from the perspective of definition, the term applied to state violence is technically different from its application to non-state actors.

It is after we accept terrorism as a neutral term rather than a value-laden concept that we can ask why there is a phenomenal increase in such activities. There are two categories of terrorism: (a) violence linked to specific territory-based issues and (b) terrorist acts meant to support and implement specific political or religious ideologies. This is where we would get into differentiating between what is happening in Palestine, Kashmir, Chechnya for example and the Al Qaeda. We are also at liberty to agree or disagree with a particular cause.

The fact of the matter is that ruling elites have captured states all over the world and political systems do not cater to the interests of minorities. We live in an age where due to the dispersion of the tools of violence it has become possible for non-state actors to access potentially lethal technologies and use these to gain attention. Weapons, which were once meant to be used by state militaries that had a monopoly over violence, are now being used by non-state actors to force policy changes at the state level.

The real problem is that states are becoming increasingly less relevant or redundant as far as representing the will of their citizens is concerned. The decreasing relevance of the state had come under discussion a few years ago in relation to the growing power of multinationals. The fact is that both multinationals and terrorists are crowding out the influence and moral authority of the state. What is a needed at this point is to think deeply about the future of the state and its relevance for citizens.

The writer is an independent strategic and political analyst.

ayesha.ibd@gmail.com

The weave of India

IT is time that we looked at ourselves. India is entering the 60th year of its constitution’s initiation whereby the country became a sovereign democratic republic.

All citizens were promised justice, liberty and fraternity. It is a long story of failure in many ways.

True, India is a democracy in the sense that elections are held on time, freely and independently. But money and muscle power have reduced poll fairness. Castes and sub-castes are factors increasingly swinging the voters. The current crop of political leaders is stuck in narrow caste, language and religion loyalties. Democracy faces danger from sectional and sectarian identities.

Criminals constitute one-fifth of parliament and the state assemblies. One criminal was brought to the House last year to vote for the ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA) facing a no-confidence motion. The rules are such that a candidate or an elected member is not disqualified until he/she is convicted. The charge-sheet is not considered adequate. That may be the reason why numerous criminals are getting ready to contest the Lok Sabha elections to be held in the next three months.

Corruption knows no bounds and the nexus between politicians and the dishonest is firmer than before. The latest Rs7,000 crore scandal in an information technology firm, Satyam, is partly the fallout of land contracts and other deals which the Andhra Pradesh government gave it. The lead may stretch to New Delhi. Two sugar mills in Uttar Pradesh also got the largesse and they have been transferred to a company close to the apprehended owner B. Ramalinga Raju.

One state chief minister who has been repeatedly accused of corruption is UP’s Mayawati, a Dalit leader. She is already facing the charge of accumulating disproportionate assets. Only recently, her MLA killed an engineer for refusing to fudge figures to give him money for the Bahujan Samaj Party she heads. She is reportedly converting black money into white through donations during her birthday celebrations.

Justice, figuring at the top of the preamble of the constitution, is distant from the people. When there are millions of cases pending in law courts, many for more than a decade, justice is almost denied. Then the judges are not above board. A former chief justice of India has said that 15 per cent of the judiciary is corrupt. Serving Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan has disclosed that he is getting more and more complaints about judges taking bribes. Investigation agencies are already processing a few cases in which even a Supreme Court judge is involved.

A retired chief justice of India, even when asked by colleagues to face an inquiry, has been silent. His sons had used the official residence for their property business. The government has expressed its helplessness. He should personally volunteer for the probe to save the judiciary from ignominy.

The process of impeachment is so cumbersome that the government is considering an amendment to the constitution. The earlier proposal to set up a national judicial commission would have laid down a concrete procedure to deal with dishonest judges. But the Supreme Court does not favour such a body.

Justice also means “social justice”. The Supreme Court has spelled it out to mean elimination of inequality of income and status and standards of life, and to provide a decent standard of life to the working people. Yet the fact remains that two-thirds of India’s one billion population lives in poverty and one-fourth goes without food at night. The financial meltdown has pulled down the lower half still further. Even the verdict on social justice has not decreased the distance between the top, cited in Forbes as among the richest in the world, and lower classes.

However, one positive step by the centre is the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act. It guarantees work to anyone who is willing to do manual labour at the statutory minimum wage within 15 days of his or her request to the deputy commissioner. A household can get a job at local public works for 100 days. But this only sustains the family. It does not take them out of the maelstrom of poverty in which they have been stuck for centuries.

Liberty which the constitution has consecrated is being restricted every now and then. To an array of oppressive laws which India has, a new law has been added after the attack on Mumbai. If terrorists are out of reach, then why make the Indian citizens pay for the failure of the government? The new act puts the onus of proving one’s innocence on the person arrested. It is the government which has detained him and it should explain the grounds.

In fact, the ruling UPA government has brought back the anti-terrorism POTA through the back door. The Vajpayee government had framed the law to detain critics without a trial. The UPA was applauded when it did away with POTA. Home Minister P. Chidambaram promised a fair balance between human rights and tough laws. He should prove it by precedent. Dr Binayak Sen, a member of the People’s Union for Civil Liberties, has been under detention for 19 months. He should be released immediately. He is a practising doctor detained on charges that he was carrying messages from the Naxalites to their sympathisers. Even if this is true, the crime is that of ideological differences.

Where the republic has failed the most is in the domain of pluralism.. Muslims want to join the mainstream but are kept away. The narrow-mindedness of the Hindu community is at fault. It is the duty of the majority not only to deal with the minorities but to win them over, to make them feel that they “belong” to the nation and not merely to a smaller group in it, to have a sense of solidarity with the others.

What India represents is what Yehudi Menuhin, the famous violinist, wrote to Nehru: “To me India means the villages, the noble learning of the people, the aesthetic harmony of their life; I think of Gandhi, of Buddha, of the temples of gentleness combined with power, or patience matched by persistence, of innocence allied to wisdom, and of the luxuriance of life from the oxen and the monkeys to flame trees and mangoes; I think of the innate dignity and tolerance of the Hindu and his tradition.”

How far India has strayed from that path! What makes our rulers more answerable is that people forgive them their mistakes and expect them to do better the next time. Yet no political party has learnt its lesson.

The writer is a leading journalist based in Delhi.

A double standard

WHEN the Americans or the British do it, it is interference; when the Arabs do it, it is friendly intervention. Get involved in domestic politics, that is.

As political instability stalks this unfortunate land once again, every prince, sheikh and Arab tycoon who fancies himself to be a political dilettante is racking up frequent-flier miles, working the phones or receiving as his guest one or the other Pakistani politician hoping the chips will fall in his favour.No effort is made to hide the double standard.

If a president or prime minister or an army chief meets a US assistant secretary or ambassador or a UK foreign secretary or high commissioner, someone, somewhere pipes up with a snarky remark about ‘protocol’ and ‘dignity’.Yet, if a Saudi intelligence chief huddles with our leaders — as happened this week when Prince Muqrin bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud met President Zardari, Prime Minister Gilani, Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif and PML-N supremo Nawaz Sharif, among others — the coverage is largely positive.

The wise Saudi king is counselling our errant young bucks through his brother and everyone should be grateful, at least if the media is to be believed. And what was the message that the prince brought? Well, he had advice on everything from Pak-India relations to the situation in Fata to the economy to political instability in Islamabad and Punjab.

Anne Patterson must be sulking somewhere; what she wouldn’t give for the US ambassador to get a slice of the goodwill extended towards the likes of Prince Muqrin.

There are other aspects to this double standard. DG ISI Gen Pasha has been excoriated for defending the Taliban ideology as “freedom of opinion” but a subtext of the criticism has been the fact that he gave the interview to a German newspaper, Der Spiegel.

Why is our spy chief giving an interview to a newspaper, some have asked in anguish. Never mind that a clue was in the piece itself (Pasha “lived in Germany for a few years in the 1980s, taking part in officer training programmes”); what riled many of the would-be sticklers for propriety is the fact that it was a western newspaper. Had the interview been granted to the Khaleej Times or some other Arab newspaper, the criticism would have been muted.

Personally, more than who is coming for dinner at the presidency or Raiwind, what worries me is the calibre of politicians our foreign interlocutors have to brave.

Ever wondered what happens after the obligatory smile and handshake for the cameras, once the media is shooed out and the doors are shut?

David Sanger, chief Washington correspondent for The New York Times, has published an account of one such meeting between PM Gilani and President Bush. I can do no better than quote his account; the wretchedness of the encounter speaks for itself.

“Washington’s sanguinity was not increased when Pakistan’s new prime minister, Yusuf Raza Gilani, arrived in Washington over the summer for what turned out to be a disastrous first visit. Gilani, as the country’s first civilian leader in more than a decade, was under huge pressure to show he could bring the intelligence agency, and the country, under control. He couldn’t — a brief effort to force the ISI to report to the civilian leadership was quashed — but he thought he had better show up with a gift for President Bush.

“Gilani wanted to tell Bush that he had sent forces into the tribal areas to clean out a major madressah where hard-line ideology and intolerance were part of the daily curriculum. There were roughly 25,000 such private Islamic schools around Pakistan, though only a small number of them regularly bred young terrorists. The one he decided to target was run by the Haqqani faction of Islamic militants, one of the most powerful in the tribal areas.

“Though Gilani never knew it, Bush was aware of this gift in advance. The National Security Agency had picked up intercepts indicating that a Pakistani unit warned the leadership of the school about what was coming before carrying out its raid. ‘They must have called 1-800-HAQQANI,’ said one person who was familiar with the intercepted conversation. According to another, the account of the warning sent to the school was almost comic. ‘It was something like, “Hey, we’re going to hit your place in a few days, so if anyone important is there, you might want to tell them to scram.”’

“When the ‘attack’ on the madressah came, the Pakistani forces grabbed a few guns and hauled away a few teenagers. Sure enough, a few days later Gilani showed up in the Oval Office and conveyed the wonderful news to Bush: the great crackdown on the madressahs had begun. The officials in the room — Bush; his national security adviser, Stephen Hadley; and others — did not want to confront Gilani with the evidence that the school had been warned. That would have required revealing sensitive intercepts, and they judged, according to participants in the discussion, that Gilani was both incapable of keeping a secret and incapable of cracking down on his military and intelligence units. Indeed, Gilani may not even have been aware that his gift was a charade: Bush and Hadley may well have known more about the military’s actions than the prime minister himself.”

Yes, the outside world barges in because we leave our doors wide open. But, invited or not, they come because we are an awful mess and send a shudder down the collective spine of the rest of the world. Reading Gen Pasha’s assessment that “we may be crazy in Pakistan”, our foreign friends would probably nod in agreement, though they may dispute the general’s assertion that we aren’t “completely out of our minds.”

The problem is that we’ve slipped so far from the norm that we can’t figure out what the fuss is all about. Amateurs masquerading as statesmen has been our lot for a long time. While it’s true that this isn’t the only country in the world to have suffered such a fate, what worries the international community is that our amateurs punch above their weight, buoyed by the possession of the most lethal toys a state can dream of.

Big toys, small men — don’t expect the world to look away.

cyril.a@gmail.com

Supportive environment for mothers

IN 1631, a beautiful empress, Mumtaz Mahal, died while giving birth to her 14th child. Overwhelmed by grief, her husband constructed a monument in her honour — the Taj Mahal, one of the world’s most renowned edifices. And yet, while the Taj Mahal’s domes and spires are instantly recognisable, there is far less global awareness of the tragedy that inspired its creation.

Nearly 400 years after Mumtaz Mahal lost her life in childbirth, a woman dies from causes related to pregnancy or childbirth every minute of every day — more than 500,000 women each year, 10 million per generation. How can it be that in our age of modern advances and medical miracles we are still failing to safeguard women as they perpetuate the human race itself? The answer, of course, is that while public health has made breathtaking strides, the benefits have not been equally shared, either among countries or among the geographical areas and social groups within them.

Even though the causes of pregnancy and childbirth complications are the same around the world, their consequences vary dramatically from country to country and region to region. Today, a young woman in Sweden has a one in 17,400 lifetime risk of dying of pregnancy-related causes. In Sierra Leone, her risk soars to one in eight. And for every woman who dies, another 20 are afflicted with serious infections or injuries. An estimated 75,000 women each year become victims of obstetric fistula, a physically and psychologically devastating condition that can result in social exclusion.

The toll in women’s lives is enormous. But they are not the only ones who suffer. As a group of experts stated during a global conference on women’s health in 2007: “In their prime reproductive years, women ‘deliver’ for their societies in multiple ways: they bear and raise the next generation, and they are critical actors for progress as workers, leaders and activists.” When women’s lives are cut short or incapacitated as a result of pregnancy or childbirth, the tragedy cascades. Children lose a parent. Spouses lose a partner. And societies lose productive contributors.

Our world cannot afford to keep sacrificing so many people and so much potential. We know what it takes to prevent and treat the vast majority of pregnancy-related difficulties, from eclampsia and haemorrhage to sepsis, obstructed labour and anaemia. Indeed, the World Bank estimates that such basic interventions as antenatal care, attendance at delivery by skilled health personnel, and accessible emergency treatment for women and newborns could avert almost three quarters of maternal deaths.

But expanding medical interventions is just one part of improving maternal and newborn health. More fundamentally, we need to boost women’s empowerment around the world. Consider that in a century increasingly defined by information, we still do not have precise data regarding the numbers of women who die in childbirth each year. Why are maternal deaths only partially enumerated? One possible reason is that, in too many places, women’s lives do not fully count.

As long as women remain disadvantaged in their societies, maternal and newborn health will suffer as well. But if we can empower women with the tools to take control of their lives, we can create a more supportive environment for women and children alike.

Empowerment begins with education, the best development investment we can make — from ensuring that girls as well as boys are able to attend primary school to teaching women to read and write, and providing public health education. Although much remains to be done, many countries are beginning to make strides in this direction. In Jordan, for example, nursing students from the University of Jordan are volunteering to educate girls in public schools about women’s health issues.

Study after study shows that educated women are better equipped to earn income to support their families, more likely to invest in their children’s healthcare, nutrition and education, and more inclined to participate in civic life and to advocate for community improvements. Educated mothers are also more likely to seek proper healthcare for themselves; according to the 2007 Millennium Development Goals Report, “84 per cent of women who have completed secondary or higher education are attended by skilled personnel during childbirth, more than twice the rate of mothers with no formal education.”

Children of educated mothers are 50 per cent more likely to survive until the age of five and beyond than those whose mothers did not receive or complete schooling. For girls in particular, education can make the difference between hope and despair. Research shows that young people who complete primary school are less likely to be infected by HIV than those who never managed to graduate from primary school.

Educated girls are also more likely to delay marriage and less likely to get pregnant while very young, reducing the risk of dying in childbirth while they are still children themselves. As girls continue their education, their earning potential increases, enabling them to break the bonds of poverty too often passed down through the generations.

Put simply, changing the trajectory for girls can change the course of the future. And if these girls grow into women who choose to become mothers themselves, they will view pregnancy and childbirth as something to celebrate, not fear.

The writer, the Queen of Jordan, is Eminent Advocate for Children for Unicef.