"WE do not think the president receives honest feedback from his senior managers. He does not welcome criticism or tolerate dissent. Managers at all levels live in fear. Many have learnt that it serves them to agree with him. He is thus isolated from reality."

This is what the staff of the World Bank have written about their president, James Wolfensohn, in a memorandum answering his question as to why the members of his staff are so demoralized (Dawn, March 17). Wolfensohn, day by day, grows to look more and more like Peter Ustinov, but does not appear to possess the Caucasian's wisdom or sense of humour.

Fortunately, the same cannot be said of General Pervez Musharraf who has now been on the throne of Pakistan for eighteen months. On March 15, at Karachi, the General addressed what is euphemistically called 'the elite of the city', or as some would put it, 'a cross-section of opinion makers', or as others have it, 'a carefully selected audience'.

On my right sat a Sunni luminary, Professor Maulana Muneebur Rahman; in front of me sat the Shia cleric Allama Turabi; on my left sat the diminutive playwright Fatima Suraiya Bajia; and behind me was the strong silent jet black-haired Ghulam Nabi Shah, law secretary of the government of Sindh. Amongst the audience were many uniformed men, the eyes and ears of Musharraf - Commander 5 Corps being one, and Major-General 'Eagle' Rashid Qureshi, the ISPR chief, another. 'Eagle' forever hovers over the country, moving with the winds and clouds. He forever promises to return phone calls within the hour and does so within the fortnight.

As has been frontpaged in our press, Musharraf was very clear on one point: 'He came down hard on religious extremists..... one per cent of these extremists had made the other 99 per cent moderates hostage.' As long as the masses remain ignorant one will have to accept the fact that the extremists will get the better of the majority.

In Pakistan, in Afghanistan, in India, in China, in Indonesia, in Egypt and in many other lands, as long as the people are kept ignorant and uneducated, acts of barbarism will continue. The Greeks destroyed and burnt Persepolis. Later, the Romans were responsible for the destruction of the Bibliotheca Alexandria. The Chinese, during our lifetime, have destroyed the ancient depositories of Tibet. The RSS, the BJP, and the Sangh Parivar between them destroyed the Babri Mosque in India. Man will continue to hurt man for as long as man exists. There will be the builders and there will be the destroyers. UNESCO is now in the process of reconstructing the library in Alexandria.

A few days ago, a bunch of barbarians burnt a copy of the Holy Quran in India and so, on Friday, our street leaders, our extremists, forced some merchants and traders to 'strike'. Senseless, was it not? Who did the strike hurt? The barbarians or the strikers? Whose livelihood or well-being did the strike affect?

The general, during his address last Thursday, firmly told us that the assemblies are not to be revived and that he will move solely according to the Supreme Court order. This leaves our politicians jobless. Despite this, they will not seek alternative employment for two understandable reasons - one, they are schooled and trained only to intrigue and rob, and two, they are far too indolent to be capable of doing an honest day's work. However, it should be a matter of distress that many of our sacked politicians still hold at their disposal enormous amounts of stolen money with which to sustain themselves. How, for instance, are Nawaz and his cronies living? Eating sand and breathing hot air? At whose expense is Benazir globe-trotting, along the way picking up estates and necklaces and a coterie of unknowing foreigners who are willing to sympathize with her?

The general is keen on 'reconstruction', an absolute need, towards which he maintain his government is working hard. He is extremely proud of the Naqvi-NRB devolution plan which he feels sure, when in place and functioning, will bring about a true revolution. We must hope he proves to be right.

The country is deep in debt, he admits, and whatever we might do we cannot earn enough to pay back our debts. We must strive (and this is where diplomacy and foreign relations come in) to make friends and have our debts written off. Musharraf maintains that we are not isolated, that wherever he travels in the world he is received with open arms. He angrily admitted that he has to go 'begging', which he hates, but he did not disclose how much his 'begging' has brought in to the country.

Vladimir Putin of Russia is now busy sidling up to the Iranians. The Americans will soon wish to counter this and may need our help, as they did when they felt the need to destroy Afghanistan. In the Afghan case it was only a handful of generals who ended up making vast amounts of money to the detriment and loss of the country. This time Musharraf should make sure that it is the country which is the gainer.

It is high time the 'buddhas' of our foreign office started thinking rather than adopting hardline stances, with nothing to support the 'hard' part of the line.The main problem to be tackled now is the water problem, which it truly is difficult to remedy immediately. Building dams is a long-term solution. As the general said, we must pray to Allah, but as he also said, praying is not enough. We must get going and do something for ourselves. How about thinking along Swedish, Swiss and Norwegian lines, about seeding our clouds, and melting the ice and snows covering our mountains? We can seek the help of those nations experienced in exploding snowbound areas. We do have enough high mountains and are perhaps the only country in the world in which stands three high ranges - the Himalayas, the Karakoram, the Hindu Kush.

As to the Pakistani predilection of making a mess of perfectly viable going concerns, he cited the case of the grand New York hotel, within walking distance of the UN headquarters, on which it is veritably impossible to lose money. But, the Pakistanis laid their hands on it and the balance-sheet proudly declared a loss.

One thing on which Musharraf must be faulted is his explanation as to why his government grants so many public holidays. There is absolutely no reason why this bankrupt country should lose out on one day's earnings just to please its Kashmiri brethren who might be better served were this country to be less bankrupt and weakened than it is. His explanation as to the granting of three Eid holidays also did not hold water. His government should make quite sure that this year there is no May Day holiday and that the workers of this country unite in work. As it is, half the workers' working day is spent drinking cups of tea, chewing paan, or doing whatever they do in the bathroom.

Musharraf was not around, or he was too young, to see how Germany and Japan rebuilt themselves from the ashes into which they were rendered by World War 2. But he can read about it all and learn, and perhaps put some of the German-Japanese work ethics into practice in his own country.

Yesterday, we had some good news. Serious noises are at last being made about signing the CTBT. But again, according to the press, hedges are being built: 'Consensus to be sought. Musharraf to meet politicians on CTBT.' With which honest politician is he waiting to confer? Surely he is not worried about how the backward-thinking 'one per cent' think.

It is high time we got ourselves into gear and got going.