Rescuing the Doha round

IN the last week’s column, I suggested that time may be running out for the Doha round of trade discussions to be concluded with an agreement that would satisfy the developing world. This time around, developing countries made it clear that they will only agree to further changes in the multilateral trading framework if they are allowed greater market access to the large markets of rich nations.

These markets are only partially open for some of the products that are of critical interest for developing countries. They are either labour-intensive manufactures or are produced on the still heavily populated agricultural systems of the developing world.

What would a country such as Pakistan expect to gain from the further development of the multilateral trading system? The way the Doha round was structured, its successful conclusion would bring benefits to Pakistan in many ways. Three of these are important. First, is the levelling of the trading field between different countries of the developing world. Textiles are Pakistan’s most important export but they face serious competition not only from other large producers such as China and India but from a number of “least developed countries” that have been allowed access to the markets of rich countries at tariffs considerably lower than those faced by Pakistan.

A number of market-distorting measures have been adopted ostensibly to help poor countries to develop more rapidly and alleviate poverty. These measures allow exports from these so-called “least developed countries” to export their products duty-free or close to duty-free to the markets of rich countries. In actual fact, however, such schemes have encouraged foreign capital to flow into the favoured countries so that the investors can benefit from the better access available in the case of a small number of countries. It is because of this that Bangladesh was able to develop a large garment industry, although it does not grow cotton and did not have a textile industry of its own.

The Doha round is not likely to do away with the trade-distorting category of least developed countries. It could, however, reduce the level of tariffs allowed to be maintained in industrial countries. This would dramatically reduce the benefit available to the least developed countries in the products in which they really don’t have any comparative advantage. It is bad economics to provide relief to poor countries by distorting the global production and trade systems. A much better approach would be to provide development aid to these countries and help them with the sectors and activities in which these countries have a comparative advantage.

The second benefit that would accrue to a country such as Pakistan from the conclusion of an unbiased system of world trade would be to improve the legal system within which international trade must be conducted. The Doha round was expected to strengthen the framework for the application of restrictions on dumping — the practice countries use to reduce the price of their exports well below their real cost. The dumping clause in the Marakesh treaty with which the Uruguay round — the one that preceded the Doha negotiations — was concluded has been misused by many countries, most notably India. It has been invoked to protect domestic industries rather than level the playing field.

There is no doubt that a careful review of the dumping provisions with the intent to clean up the way they are used could help a country such as Pakistan which faces stiff competition from countries such as China, Cambodia and Vietnam that have opaque pricing and costing systems. Once again it is important to check the tendency on the part of large countries that have the political weight and bureaucratic strength to distort the multilateral system in their favour.

The third possible benefit of the Doha round to Pakistan, were it to be concluded successfully, will be availability of large markets for its agricultural produce. Agricultural tariffs and subsidies constitute a highly contentious area. They have been the focus of attention during the entire life of the Doha round. Some of the preparatory work done to facilitate the round is likely to perpetuate some of the preferences that have been built into the multilateral trading system. A study recently carried out by the International Food Policy Research Institute, a Washington based think-tank, has reached the conclusion that only an insignificant amount of benefits will flow to the developing world if the proposals currently on the table were to be adopted.

These proposals are aimed at cutting tariffs on agricultural products (thus improving market access) and reducing subsidies given to the farmers in rich countries (thus making the farming systems in the developing world more competitive in relation to those in the developed countries). The bulk of the benefits will go to consumers in Europe, Japan and North America.

However, the picture changes quite dramatically if the farmers in the really poor countries — the “least developed” nations — are allowed duty free access. Such an approach would increase total benefits by a small amount — less than $10 billion — but the bulk of this would go to poor countries. This is an attractive proposal since it would allow developed countries to maintain relatively high tariffs on agricultural products while delivering handsome benefits to the poorest of the poor. But there is a problem with this approach: it would perpetuate the distortions in the global trading system that already hurt countries such as Pakistan.

In fact, the European Common Agricultural Policy provides protection not only to the farmers but also to agricultural processors. The tariff cuts proposed by the European Commission more often protect food processors than farmers. These proposals would hurt countries such as Pakistan that have the capacity to process agricultural products for export.

It has been recognised for long that Pakistan’s agricultural sector has performed much below its potential for many decades. There are several reasons for this. To begin with, there is little reason for large landlords to intensively cultivate the land they possess; their aggregate incomes from the large amount of land they own don’t provide them with the incentive to improve soil productivity. This is why in an earlier series of articles written for this space I had urged Islamabad to seriously consider a significant reduction in the size of landholdings; to implement, in other words, a programme of land reforms.

There is also a lack of managerial capability in the countryside and poor education makes it difficult for farmers to adapt new and more productive technologies. The result is that Pakistan’s agricultural system is characterised by low productivity; it provides enough output for the large and expanding population to remain close to self sufficiency but does not generate large exportable surpluses of high-value added products.

Given the potential of the agricultural sector, the country should have become a major exporter of farm products. In fact, it could have challenged other large agricultural exporters active in the international market. That didn’t happen partly because of the trade war with India in 1949 that deflected the attention of the first generation of policymakers in Pakistan away from agriculture and towards industrialisation. Once the development of the industrial sector had begun in earnest, strong vested interests developed that kept the government focused on developing industry. Agriculture was woefully neglected. That trend continues to this day

Providing larger and more sophisticated markets for Pakistani exports may produce the incentive for both the owners and cultivators to move towards high productive agriculture. If the markets of developed countries became available for Pakistani exports, it is entirely conceivable that the country could move towards the production of high value added products — dairy products, fruits, vegetables and flowers. Such output would be in keeping with the structure of agriculture. Since most of the land is cultivated with surface water, agriculture is not inexpensive in Pakistan. It must produce high-value added crops in order to provide appropriate social and economic returns to the country.

However, Pakistan’s exports to America, Europe and Japan have been constrained by a variety of non-tariff barriers, some of them put in place in order to protect domestic farmers. Given the presence of large Pakistani diasporas in America and Europe, there is a natural market for a number of Pakistani products such as mangoes and bitter guard — products with considerable ethnic appeal. It is disheartening for Pakistani consumers in the United States that they have to indulge their craving for mangoes by buying fruit from Mexico. Health regulations keep Pakistan’s mangoes out of the American market. This is one of the many market access questions that should be the focus of attention in Islamabad.

It would pay Pakistan handsomely if it concentrated its efforts in the current round of negotiations on gaining greater access to the developed markets for its agricultural products, including processed agricultural produce. However, Islamabad has focused on getting a better deal for its textiles. In fact, Commerce Minister Humayun Akhtar Khan has played an active role in Nama (non-agriculture market access) negotiations. He was particularly influential in the Hong Kong round of discussions last December. Will he continue with the same role as the Doha round continues or begin to focus also on the question of market access for agricultural products?

Today, the structure of the Pakistani economy does not fully reflect its natural endowment. Had the trade war with India not occurred so soon after the creation of the country, Pakistan’s agriculture would have continued to supply commodities to the Indian market. As the Indian economy increased in size and as a large Indian middle class developed — developments that were to occur beginning with the mid-1980s — Pakistan’s agriculture would have had the incentive to move towards the production of high-value added crops. That may happen if the recently launched South Asia Free Trade Area (Safta) develops the right instruments for promoting intra-regional trade. Whether Safta will help Pakistan if the Doha round fails is a subject to which I will return in a later article.

The failure to conclude the Doha round could become a major setback for Pakistan’s efforts to increase its earnings from export. This brings me to the question whether the successful launch and development of Safta could compensate for lack of progress on the multilateral trading front. In order to explore the possible impact Safta could have on Pakistan’s export earnings, it might be useful to first discuss the structure of Safta, the way the countries are preparing themselves for launching it, the obstacles that are likely to remain in place even when Safta is fully inaugurated, and half a dozen or so areas of public policy that need to be taken seriously by all member countries in order to draw full benefit from the creation of a free trade area in South Asia. These are then some of the subjects I will discuss over the next couple of weeks.

Ban on the book is deplorable

THE fear of the word has a hoary history. Plato, the father of philosophy, while discussing the perfect curriculum for the citizens of his republic, argued in favour of banning almost all Greek literature on the pretext that it would have a negative influence on young people.

In the end he had to exile the creator of literature (the poet) himself. In a passage which bears repetition he said that if the state was visited by a poet: “We shall treat him with all the reverence due to a priest and a giver of rare pleasure, but shall tell him that he and his kind have no place in our city...” (The Republic).

The modern decision-maker, not being brought up to revere poetry, will not even show the literary artist any ‘reverence’. He would ban him with pleasure because he has never been brought up to understand the value and function of literature.

The most recent example of banning books is the ban on Pakistani Kahanian for the ‘O’ Level Urdu course examined by the University of Cambridge. There are actually two books of the same title. The first is entitled: Pakistani Kahanian: Pakistani Afsane ke Pachas Sal edited and compiled by Intizar Hussain and Asif Farrukhi and published by Sang-e-Meel in 2000. The second was published by Caravan Book House of Lahore in 2005 and includes 19 poems but excludes eight short stories which were part of the previous volume. The reason the second book was published was that parents as well as teachers had complained against the stories which were, therefore, excluded.

In the present battle between the spirit of censorship and literature, parents and teachers started complaining once again about the other stories. Finally, in June this year, things came to a head and the second book was also withdrawn. The censoring mind won another victory; literature was defeated.

There were a few feeble protests in letters to the editor but no eminent literary figure, intellectual, social activist or academic spoke up in favour of literature. This implies that those of us who understand what literature is supposed to be, have given up all hope. Is it not, as Yeats said, “the best lack all conviction, while the worst/Are full of passionate intensity?” This may be a lost cause but I believe one should at least point out what good literature does.

First, a bit of the background. The spirit of censorship in literature has been gaining victory after victory since the British rule as far as the Muslims in South Asia are concerned. Victorian Englishmen, reacting to the sexual explicitness of Persian literature, condemned it as being obscene.

Though the references to the body and its functions were there in a spirit of naturalism, they appeared obscene to the Victorians. Muslim reformists, including people like Hali, Nazeer Ahmed and Sir Syed, agreed with this opinion and condemned most Persian classics of the day. Thus even the contents of Gulistan and Bostan of Sa’adi were expurged and most others were banished from the curricula.

After the British left the subcontinent, the Muslim identity of Pakistanis was interpreted to mean the adoption of an attitude of hypocrisy, shame, guilt and the denial of sex. This, in turn, meant that the tender and ennobling emotion of romantic love was to be either suppressed or explained away as the mystic annihilation of the self. At another level, swear words, which children hear from infancy, were to be excluded.

Going even further, rape, the giving away of girls as punishment for murder (swara), killing women in the name of honour (karo kari) were all to be taboo subjects.

The PTV went to absurd lengths in its plays to depict husbands standing at a puritanically enjoined distance from their wives even when the latter were weeping. So, parents complaining against these stories and the teachers teaching them are from the generation brought up during the time of the puritanical onslaught on art and literature.

The stories banned are by some of the greatest writers of this country. Sa’adat Hasan Manto’s story Khol do, on the theme of the exploitation of women during the riots of 1947, is a world-famous classic. Hajra Masroor’s Bhag Bhari is about the norms of existence in a feudal society in which the police itself showers gifts on the criminal — in this case a feudal lord — who rapes a servant girl. A story by Bano Qudsia is again about a woman whose sexual liaisons are to escape the intolerable conditions of her life.

These and other stories by great and respected literary figures were part of the first book but not of the second. The latter, as far as I can make out, came under the hatchet because it contained swear words, and referred to such realities of life as the fact that women have bodies and, possibly most annoying for the inquisitors, that social customs such as swara and karo kari are condemned.

Possibly the idea that sex is tied down to honour — the source of misery for women in our society — might have caused a few ruffled male (and female) feathers. Personally, I did not find the stories offensive. I found the attitude of teachers who could not teach them and parents who did not want them to be taught offensive.

And why? Because literature has human significance. It should present a view of society which should make people reflect. It should wake people up from their somnambulism and sit up and notice the joys and the sorrows of life; the beauty and the ugliness; the hope and the despair.

This is not done through direct preaching. It is done through the plot, the characterisation and the use of symbolism and figurative language. That is why, in contrast to a sociological treatise, literature evokes emotion. Good literature has tremendous power to move people. It may give as much pain as pleasure, but that pain may also be cathartic.

Literature is a great experience. By making students study it for examinations, the best part of that experience is lost anyway. But a young person is genuinely touched and maybe in the holidays goes back to the great literary voice which has touched him or her.

That is why one should expose young people to great literature. It is very narrow-minded to deny them the experience which Manto provides while the most exploitative, anti-women, violent, degrading, commercial pornography is only a few clicks away. It is foolish to deny them an excellent story because there are words in it that they use every day and which they have heard from almost everybody around them.

While it may make sense to ban things which can provoke violence or hurt somebody, there is little sense in banning the best literature in Pakistan because it shows us our face in the mirror. While banning graphic violence (as seen in horror and action-packed films) may save sensitive young people from trying them out in real life, banning the classics of literature is simply appalling. It is the kind of thing which creates barbarians and philistines. Of course, the classics do not shy away from war, rape and murder, but would we ban them for that? It would be like throwing out the baby with the bath water.

The banning of Pakistani Kahanian causes deep anxiety. Is it that we are becoming so bigoted and narrow-minded as a nation that we have become incapable of reading or teaching our literature?

Cheney, Cheney, Cheney

(This column was written by Art Buchwald from his hospice in Washington, D.C., where he is undergoing care. Buchwald has resumed writing his regular column.)

SUNDAY morning starts on Monday morning. You probably are wondering how the television networks choose their guests for “Meet the Press” with Tim Russert, “Fox News Sunday” with Chris Wallace,” “Face the Nation” with Bob Schieffer and “Late Edition” with Wolf Blitzer.

I was in on a meeting the other day. The executive producer said, “Cheney, Cheney, Cheney. That’s all you’re offering us is Cheney?”

The producer said, “Well, it’s either him or Karl Rove.”

An assistant producer said, “What about Condoleezza Rice?”

“We’ve had her on six weeks in a row.”

Another producer said, “She’s used up all her Oscar de la Renta suits.”

“The Pentagon has offered us Don Rumsfeld.”

The executive producer said, “We’ll take him if he does the show from Afghanistan.”

The producer said, “Well, that’s going to cost some money to get all the troops together as background for the show.”

“Are you people trying to tell me that all we can get this week are Cheney, Rove, Rice and Rumsfeld?”

The producer said, “The ratings are lousy on Sunday morning.”

An assistant producer said, “Has anyone checked to see if Laura Bush is available?”

“She did Larry King and she hates to interrupt her Sunday breakfast.”

The executive producer said, “This is the way I see it. Bush is as low in the polls as he can get. He’ll put any of his people on the air to increase his numbers.”

A writer said, “Last week we did Condoleezza from Budapest. It didn’t work.”

The producer said, “It wasn’t her, it was Budapest. Americans really don’t care much about Budapest.”

An assistant producer said, “Who can blame them?”

The executive producer said, “Well listen, we’ve got to get somebody.”

The producer said, “I heard that ‘Meet the Press’ has John McCain. He’s just written a new book and he’s running for president.”

The assistant producer said, “We had him three times last month.”

The producer said, “So here we have it. We’ve got McCain, Rice, Rove and Cheney. Not one of them has been indicted.”

The executive producer said, “It looked for a few minutes like Rove would bite the dust, but at the last minute he decided to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, and the special prosecutor let him off the hook.”

“All right, let’s have some backups in case the people we just mentioned don’t want to go on the air.”

“Tom DeLay?”

“That’s not bad, but we’ve got to put him with Jack Abramoff.”

“It’s summer and Teddy Kennedy is at Hyannis Port.”

“And Hillary Clinton is at Niagara Falls.”

“You would think in a country of 270 million people, we could get a guest for the Sunday morning show.”

“I’ve got an idea. Why don’t we put Katie Couric on? It could be her big debut.”

“If we can’t get Couric, why not Bush?”

“Bush won’t give us the numbers with the 18- to 40-year-olds.”

“What about Bono?”

“Well, if we’re going to go down that road, I suggest the only one that will work this Sunday is Angelina Jolie. She’s a new face, and I think people would stay at home to see her instead of going to church.”

“Let’s start all over again. How about the Secretary of Transportation?”

“It’s a slow period. How about asking the White House to send Bush back to Baghdad?”

“We can get Bush if we can’t get Cheney.”

“Cheney, Cheney, Cheney. All I hear is Cheney.” —Dawn/Tribune Media Services

Anything but negotiation

BY using vastly disproportionate force against Gaza, Israel has once again demonstrated its contempt for international law and its indifference to human suffering. America’s blind support may give Israel immunity in the short term, but the longer-term consequences of such irresponsible behaviour can only be dire.

Arab and Muslim loathing for the Jewish state — and its US ally — will inevitably be cranked up with everything this implies for the security of Israelis and Americans everywhere. There will always be Palestinians and others who will seek revenge, in one form or another, including a resort to terrorism.

Political pressures on Israel to end its occupation of Palestinian territories, even from the spineless Europeans, will steadily increase. Alarmed at US inaction, Britain and France are already working quietly on a project to define their own parameters for resolving the conflict. They will not endorse the unilateral annexations Israel’s prime minister, Ehud Olmert, has in mind.

When he travels abroad, Israel’s chief of staff, Dan Halutz, may find that he has joined the list of Israeli generals wanted for war crimes.

Why have Olmert and Amir Peretz, his hapless defence minister, gone down this road to nowhere? Some observers have suggested that they may want to show that they are as good at killing Arabs as their predecessors because, unlike previous Israeli leaders, they lack any significant military experience. But this can be only part of the story.

It would seem that there are two broad reasons for Israel’s destructive rampage in Gaza. Neither reason has much to do with the young Franco-Israeli corporal, Gilad Shalit, captured during a cross-border operation by Palestinian guerrillas against an Israeli military post.

One reason for Israel’s assault is military. Israel has been desperate to put an end to the homemade rockets launched from northern Gaza at the Israeli town of Sderot, which lies a kilometre from the Gaza strip in the north-west Negev desert. Sderot is Peretz’s home town.

These rockets have so far not killed anyone but they are a very considerable irritant. The city’s municipality is up in arms at the state’s inability to offer adequate protection. In response to the rockets, Israeli shelling and air strikes have in recent months killed some 50 Palestinians, including several children, and wounded more than 200.

But beyond the rockets themselves is the wider issue of Israel’s deterrent capability. Nothing inflames Israel more than any dent in this capability. This past week the US has, as usual, repeated its mantra that “Israel has the right to defend itself”.—Dawn/Guardian Service

The writer is the author of “Asad of Syria: The Struggle for the Middle East.”