Geography is destiny

GEOGRAPHY for Pakistan will prove to be its destiny. It can work both positively and negatively, depending on how policymakers act over the next several years. There are two ways of looking at the country’s geographic situation. Pakistan can be seen as situated on top of a number of fault lines, or — allowing for the mixing of metaphors — it can be viewed as a place through which a number of roads cross.

Whether we see Pakistan’s geographic situation as posing serious problems for the country or conferring on it a number of advantages that could be exploited for its economic betterment, there is no doubt that the question of location must figure prominently in the thinking of policymakers operating out of Islamabad.

In this new series of articles, I will discuss both aspects of Pakistan’s geographic location. In this article, the first of the series, I will give a preview of what will be discussed at greater length in the coming weeks. I will also emphasize that for developing its potential, for working towards a more stable economic, political and social future, and for becoming a responsible member of the international community, Islamabad’s policymakers will need skills they don’t appear to have in abundance.

They will have to turn not only to the disciplines of economics and finance to craft a better future for the country. They must also acquire good knowledge of geography, demography, globalization and the development of new production systems, and international affairs to develop strategies that take advantage of the country’s geographical situation.

Let me begin with the “fault lines” view. It sees Pakistan as the place where a number of problems that are generating tensions all over the world are centred. For instance, several strands of Islam meet and jostle for power in the geographic space covered by Pakistan. Not only do we see Wahabism and Salafism coming into contact with strong Sufistic traditions responsible for bringing Islam to a large segment of Pakistan’s present population, Pakistan is also the country in which Sunnis will have to live in social, political and economic harmony with the Shias. It has, after all, the second largest concentration of Shias in the world after Iran. There are many more Shias in Pakistan than in Iraq.

If there is strife between these two sects of Islam — an aim that appears to be motivating some of the insurgent groups in Iraq — this will have implications for Pakistan. If these two groups can learn to live in peace within a constitutional arrangement that protects their interests, that too will have an impact on Pakistan.

Pakistan is also the place where conservative and reformist Islams have begun to clash. If President Musharraf’s call for “enlightened moderation” begins to resonate with the people and if his government gathers enough political and social strength to confront the menace of extremism, Pakistan would have set an example for the rest of the rapidly changing Muslim world. This is one reason why the administration of US President George W. Bush is giving Pakistan so much attention. If this attempt to have modernity triumph over obscurantism fails and if extremism takes even deeper roots in the country’s fertile soil, Pakistan would be at the centre of an unprecedented convulsion in human affairs. A failing or failed Pakistan will be Afghanistan and Iraq combined on steroids.

There are other fault lines that could also produce destructive tremors. Pakistan has a prominent presence in the area in which three global powers — Russia, once a superpower; China, almost a superpower; and India, with aspirations of becoming a near-superpower — are vying for economic and political influence. A few weeks ago, China and Russia jointly called for the withdrawal of the United States from the bases it has established in Central Asia. They were emboldened by the decision taken by the government of Uzbekistan to ask Washington to close its base, established in 2001 as the US was preparing to launch a military campaign against the Taliban government of Afghanistan. Tashkent’s decision caused enough anguish in Washington to produce a hurried mission by US Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld to Central Asia to ensure that other countries in the area did not follow Uzbekistan.

There can be no doubt that a new Great Game is going to be played in this part of the world but this time around there will be more than two contenders. The original Great Game of the 19th century was between the British Empire and Tsarist Russia. This time the participants will include Russia one again abut also the United States, China and India and possibly the European Union.

Another fault line incorporates the political convulsions underway in Pakistan’s neighbourhood, in Afghanistan and Iraq in particular. Both countries are in the process of evolving political structures while Pakistan is engaged in a similar enterprise. What finally happens in Baghdad will have profound implications for Pakistan.

At the time of this writing, a constitutional arrangement was taking shape in Baghdad in which three questions are being hotly debated. They include the role of Islam in governance, the status of women in Iraqi society, and the amount of autonomy that should be granted to the three prominent ethno-religious groups in the country. These three questions are also central in the on-going debate in Pakistan about the shape of its own political and social structure. How Iraqis settle this debate will have consequences for Pakistan. I will have considerably more to say about this in a future article.

Yet another fault line under Pakistan is the developing competition for the world’s depleting energy resources. Pakistan is where the energy deficit mega-economies of Asia (China and India and Pakistan itself, albeit, a considerably smaller economy than the other two) meet with the energy surplus countries of Central and West Asia. The competition for oil and gas is heating up in Pakistan’s neighbourhood. As I will discuss below, both China and India are competing for access to Kazakhstan’s energy resources.

All these fault lines could cause problems for Pakistan and in the world beyond the country’s borders. But there is a positive way of looking at Pakistan’s geographic situation — the approach I will take in this series of articles. Such an approach should begin with a listing of the many advantages that the country’s location brings. Pakistan is the only major developing country that shares borders with two of the most rapidly growing economies in the world, China and India. This is an advantage that Pakistan must learn to exploit.

It has not fully occurred to Islamabad that its economic policymaking should be centred on this fact and not on continuing rivalry with India. Nonetheless, some of the recent moves to develop a new relationship with India should help to move policymaking in this direction.

It is not only Pakistan that has to come to terms with the fact that two economic superpowers are in the making. The already recognized economic rise of China and the much anticipated development of the Indian economy will change the global economic system in ways that are only now getting to be appreciated. The entire world has to adjust to the growing economic power of these giants.

It can be done defensively as is happening in Europe with Brussels attempting to limit textile imports from China or as has occurred in the United States with the political furore over the attempted purchase of one of its oil businesses (Unocal) by a company in China (CNOOC). Or it can take place positively as is also happening in America with millions of work-days being outsourced to India and China in the areas where these two large countries have abundant human resources. The defensive approach reduces human welfare, the positive approach advances it immeasurably over time.

For Pakistan, the changes this development spell are of even greater significance for the simple reason that it has both China and India sitting right across from its borders. Pakistan could easily become the hinge that connects these two economic giants. It could provide transit facilities to the rapidly growing trade between India and China. It could also become the energy hub for the flow of natural gas to these energy deficit countries. But these — and several other — are opportunities that will not be realized automatically. They will have to be realized with the help of public policy that incorporates both economic and foreign affairs. Pakistan must alter not only its economic strategy but also its foreign policy to reflect these global changes.

The demand for energy and access to the areas that still have large untapped resources of oil and gas will be at the centre of global affairs for several coming decades. As I write this, the price of a barrel of oil has passed $67. This is still not a record in real terms but it is high enough for many economic forecasters to predict that it will begin to affect the health of the global economy. The countries most affected will be those that rely on imports for the bulk of their demand. This includes both China and India and, of course, Pakistan.

The two economic giants in Pakistan’s immediate neighbourhood have begun to compete with one another in attempting to gain access to the few remaining areas in the world that are still not fully explored in terms of their potential for producing oil and gas. Kazakhstan is one of those places. With almost 40 billion dollars equivalent of oil and gas deposits, it already has three per cent of the world’s total proven reserves of oil and gas. It is becoming an important hub of gas and oil pipelines that connect its fields with the countries in its neighbourhood.

While the Chinese attempt to acquire an American oil company was being rebuffed by the US Congress on the grounds of possible jeopardy to national security, another Chinese company, the state owned China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), made a $4.18 billion bid to buy Petro-Kazakhstan, a Canadian owned company with large assets in the Central Asian country. CNPC’s only other competitor was India’s Oil and Natural Gas Corporation, ONGC.

Kazakhstan’s rapid development as an energy hub for the Asian energy supply system offers some clues as to the developments that could take place involving Pakistan. While Pakistan does not have energy resources of its own to supply to the large energy deficit countries of the continent, it has geography working in its favour. It could provide a much more economic link between the energy surplus counties of the West and Central Asia than could Kazakhstan.

The Kazakhs already have pipelines connecting its oil and gas fields with China in the east, Russia in the north and the Caspian Sea in the west. Pakistan at this point only has a pipeline that serves domestic consumers. But this is an extensive network which has provided the country with the experience to manage the transport of such a vital resource. The time has arrived to use this experience to build pipelines to connect foreign sources of supply with foreign points of demand using the Pakistani territory for the purpose of transit.

After Gaza, what next?

NO ONE would be have been happier at Israel’s disengagement from Gaza than Um Hussein al-’Ayidi. This 70-year old woman has fought a lone battle against the Israeli army’s attempts to force her out of her home for the last five years.

The house lies in the area between the Shuhada’ Crossing checkpoint and the Karni border terminal with Israel. It is the sole inhabited Palestinian house left in an area which, until last week, enclosed the middle Israeli settlement bloc and one of those evacuated during this month.

Such areas were out of bounds for Palestinians. Special roads connected them with Israel, bypassing the locals and creating an illusion of a land only for Jews. The same arrangement existed in the other two Gaza settlement blocs and presumably nurtured the same illusion. Disrupting this idyll, Um Hussein and her 30- member family have fought off the army’s every attempt to eject them. Only she was allowed to leave the house, her menfolk and their children imprisoned within it. Their only permitted visitors were the Red Cross and Medecins sans Frontieres.

Yet, undaunted, Um Hussein made the long and arduous journey into Gaza city from time to time and presented herself at the offices of the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights. Every step was hazardous. She had to negotiate the road leading from her house to the Nusseirat refugee camp, pass through to the coast, skirting the settlement, and then up to Gaza. She walked in part and took taxis when she could, always risking an army checkpoint that would send her back.

I just missed her when I visited Gaza. She had come after many months to ask for large plastic containers for water storage. She feared the army would cut off the water supply in another ploy to evict her. So last week, she must have felt that her determination and resilience had been vindicated by the settlements’ evacuation.

Gazans are still celebrating this event. They dream that it will end a communal nightmare as ghastly as that of Um Hussein. Gaza is cut off from the world. Its three exits are all controlled by Israel and subject to arbitrary closure: Erez in the north, Karni, the goods terminal, opposite Gaza city, and Rafah in the south, opening into Egypt.

A series of internal checkpoints hampers free movement inside Gaza as well. I tried the most notorious of these at Abu Holy, which blocks off Khan Younis and Rafah. A mile-long queue of cars stood motionless in the burning sun before the checkpoint, everyone desperate to move on. No one can walk through, and so one man had put his donkey in the back seat of the car, the animal looking wretched but resigned. These daily obstructions mean that Gazans never see relatives or friends living in Gaza for months, and those outside the Strip not for years. No wonder they are celebrating Israel’s departure.

I, too, was celebrating, standing on the shore. An azure sea, pale sand and a gentle breeze made this potentially the finest of holiday resorts. The anguished cries of settlers forced to leave this paradise are easy to understand. I don’t know about the Bible, but they will never have it so good again, lush lawns, swimming pools and space — 7,500 people living on 20 per cent of Gaza’s land, oblivious to the 1.3 million Palestinians crammed into the rest.

The G-8 countries have pledged $3 billion for Gaza’s regeneration. If they mean it, this small land (365 sq.km) could once more become Palestine’s foremost fruit and flower centre, a place steeped in history and a haven for tourism. The ancient seaport of Anthedon, inhabited since 800 BC, with its Greek and Roman remains, lies at the northwestern tip of Gaza. And is testimony to this history, as is the Byzantine church with its priceless mosaics close by.

Surrounding the church is an Israeli military base, and Palestinian archaeologists, who are not celebrating, fear that the departing Israelis will take valuable artefacts with them. Archaeological theft from the Palestinian areas started soon after Israel’s 1967 occupation. In 1974, Israelis lifted a priceless Byzantine mosaic from Gaza city, which now stands in the Israel Museum.

Gaza’s marvellous Wadi is another treasure that now may be preserved. It is a natural waterway network extending from the Negev and crossing Gaza to empty into the Mediterranean. It forms an important crossing point for migratory birds of numerous exotic species between the Orient and the Nile Valley. But its unique flora and fauna have been severely threatened by years of waste dumping and raw sewage discharged from the settlements and the refugee camps.

Palestinians now hope to build sewage treatment plants, whose building was limited by the Israeli occupying authorities. Whether their plans will succeed or Gaza’s anticipated development ever takes place, no one knows.

Despite the celebrations, Israel’s occupation of Gaza has not ended yet. Internal and external closures are still in place. The official handover of the evacuated settlements to the PA takes place in mid-September, although, as Israel’s defence minister said on August 18, no dates are sacred.

But the larger question hanging over Gazans is over their access to the West Bank and the outside world after the evacuation. So far, Israel has refused to relinquish its control of the borders, and its marginalization of the Palestinians has not changed. It is negotiating an agreement with Egypt about control of the Rafah crossing over their heads. None of this bodes well for the future freedom of Gaza from foreign domination.

At the same time, the West Bank settlements are being expanded. The wall is being built energetically, as I note every day when I pass through the Qalandia checkpoint out of Ramallah. and a new Jewish settlement is planned at Herod’s Gate, in the heart of Jerusalem’s Old City. Despite these facts, the world is heaping praise on Israel’s prime minister as a ‘man of peace’. In all this Gaza’s future will be decisive. If the Gazans’ long road to freedom is halted now, it will be a watershed. Israel should then beware of what happens next.

Ghada Karmi is an information consultant, based in Ramallah.

Darwin go home

WHAT did I do this summer? Part of the time I sat on the beach discussing Darwin vs. creationism. Those who believed in Darwin sat on one side of the sand and used suntan oil, because scientists say you don’t want to burn your skin.

On the other side were the creationists, who maintained they didn’t need oil because God would protect them.

One religious bather said, “Darwin didn’t know what he was talking about. I didn’t come from a monkey — or even a horse.”

A Darwin supporter said, “Conventional wisdom says the creationist belief is just a theory, while Darwinism is a science.”

“If creationism is just a theory in the Bible,” a born-again Christian said, “why does President Bush want it taught in the schools?”

“It’s good for him politically, and shows he believes in God,” I said. “I can believe in Darwin and God, but I don’t believe creationism should be taught as science in public schools. Besides, I thought the question was resolved years and years ago.”

There was stirring from the right. “Anyone who says that doesn’t believe in God.”

“I am not an atheist. I go to church every Sunday, but that doesn’t mean I have to buy the Adam and Eve story. I still want to know who wrote it.”

Things were getting more heated. The Darwin supporters started to kick sand at the creationists.

I tried to get the discussion back on track. “Intelligent Designers have no proof as to how life began, but we still have to respect their beliefs.”

A Darwin spokesman said, “I don’t say there is no God. All I am saying is there is no proof there is one.”

An evangelical retorted, “Proof is in the eye of the beholder. Anyone who doesn’t believe in Intelligent Design is a pagan.”

“And who is the father of Intelligent Design?”

“The people who wrote the Bible. They knew God’s words had to be passed on. Everything was just fine until Darwin took a trip around the world and said we descended from animals.”

“Why do people hold such a grudge against Darwin? He brought order to the human race. The Intelligent Designers have been fighting with each other for thousands of years,” a scientist said. “Even today they are arguing about God.” “Yes, but you need scientists to provide the weapons used against people who don’t believe in your theory. You can’t have strong beliefs without guns to back them up.”

A creationist who was building a sandcastle said, “How do we know Australopithecus wasn’t a hoax?”

The Darwin man retorted, “How do we know God isn’t a hoax?”

I said, “This is getting rough. It’s tearing people apart. Creationists live by moral standards and unquestionable beliefs. Evolutionists believe nothing unless they see it for themselves. I believe the two shouldn’t be in the same ballpark — or on the same beach.”

“What do you suggest?”

“Let’s have a volleyball game. The creationists against the evolutionists.”

A scientist said, “I’ll play only if the playing field is level.”

An Intelligent Designer replied, “God always makes the playing field level. That’s why we love him.” —Dawn/Tribune Media Services

Manipulating basic facts

IT was less than a month ago that President Bush and his Republican allies were celebrating a string of legislative triumphs, once again demonstrating Bush’s near-infallible ability to get his way.

This seems so strange because a virtual consensus has developed that the administration has been utterly incompetent in its planning and execution of the war in Iraq. So, what gives? How can an administration be so masterful in the way it campaigns and shepherds its legislative agenda, yet so blundering in its conduct of a war?

The answer is that Bush’s political successes all have three main elements in common, none of which translates well into fighting a war.

The first is massive partisan discipline. Bush’s ability to persuade fellow Republicans to swallow their misgivings and back his agenda is uncanny. Fiscal conservatives may balk at huge spending hikes like his 2003 Medicare bill, and deficit hawks may blanch at repeated tax cuts in the face of deficits. But when the vote is on the line, they always capitulate.

In 2003, Ohio Sen. George Voinovich, a traditional fiscal conservative, asserted that rising red ink would “undermine our economy instead of stimulating it,” and then proceeded to support a $350-billion tax cut. And even that concession was soon nullified.

Republicans bragged about how easy it was to cook the books to comply with Voinovich’s limit - “Numbers don’t mean anything,” scoffed Tom DeLay — and yet Voinovich remained on board anyway. In 2001, one GOP representative, Robin Hayes of North Carolina, actually cried after the leadership forced him to vote for a trade bill he disdained.

Element No. 2 is massive giveaways to well-organized lobbies. Bush’s string of midsummer triumphs — the energy bill, the transportation bill, CAFTA — were larded with special provisions for sundry lobbyists. The same holds for Bush’s tax cuts, Medicare bill, farm subsidies and various other elements of his agenda. It’s easy to get things done if you’re willing to empty the federal Treasury and enrich everyone who can afford a K Street lobbyist.

The third element is — how should I put it? — lying. The corollary to No. 2 is that a platform of massive tax and spending giveaways to the rich and powerful does not have wide public appeal. Therefore, Bush and his allies have had to systematically misrepresent basic facts about their policies.

Bush insisted that the majority of his tax cut would go to the lowest-earning taxpayers, which is untrue by any definition. —Dawn/Los Angeles Times Service

Voting for reform

THE fact that both Germany and Japan will shortly be holding general elections within a week of each other means a vintage time for international psephologists.

Japanese voters are going to the polls on September 11, while the German electorate casts its ballots on September 18. But aside from their proximity, the two elections also have complementary themes running through them. In both cases the central issues and election platforms would have a familiar ring to voters in either Osaka or Osnabruck.

In recent years the economies of Japan and Germany — the second and third wealthiest in the world respectively — have resembled two heavyweight boxers past their best. Japan has been in the throes of a long slump since the start of the 1990s, and is still experiencing a period of deflation — a fall in the general level of prices — that is not expected to end until next year.

Germany, similarly, has experienced stuttering growth and unsustainably high levels of unemployment since the afterglow of the fall of the Berlin wall: almost five million Germans remain out of work, more than 11 per cent of the workforce. These recent performances are an especially stark contrast to what had gone before: Japan in the 1970s and 1980s was regarded with the same mixture of fear and awe at its economic prowess as China is today, while Germany’s combination of education and efficient hi-tech manufacturing was widely admired.

Indeed, both governments had steered their respective countries through the aftermath of the second world war. In doing so both adopted consensual styles of government. In Japan the Liberal Democrat party has ruled for all but two and a half years since 1948, while German governments have oscillated within the narrow spectrum between the centre-left of the Social Democrats and the centre-right of the Christian Democrats.

In both countries the governments took active roles in directing their economies. The success of both led them to being held up as alternative role models to the Anglo-Saxon way of doing things. At the heart of both elections is an argument about the end of those models - in both cases the argument is over reform.

The trigger for the Japan’s election was prime minister Junichiro Koizumi’s thwarted drive to privatize the country’s vast post office, a national bank and pension provider whose assets run into trillions of dollars. In Germany, Gerhard Schroeder’s campaign to be re-elected as chancellor centres around the need for an overhaul of the welfare state, following his government’s ambitious labour market shake-up.

Normally in such situations the voters would be expected to be angry and eager to eject the ruling party. But — despite Mr Schroeder lagging in the polls — that is not entirely the case. In Germany the main opposition, led by Angela Merkel, is campaigning on a platform of even more radical reforms. In Japan it is the reforming incumbent Mr Koizumi who seems to be moving ahead into the lead and mounting an aggressive campaign to defeat anti-privatisation rebels in his own party. —The Guardian, London