No good blaming Pakistan

THE New York Times in its Feb 12 editorial has claimed that the ‘problem in Afghanistan is manufactured in Pakistan’. Others in the western mainstream media are convinced that the ‘war on terror’ will be won or lost in that state.

But the US presidential candidates have gone a step further. During the debates in the round of primaries in February and March, their unabashed militarism was plain to see. This attitude was expected from the Republicans in support of the Bush doctrine of unilateral military action. However, when Obama — who voted against the use of force in Iraq — and Clinton also chimed in from the same songbook of unilateralism, it did not seem to be just election-year rhetoric.

Even if one assumes that that such militaristic chest-thumping and flag-waving in an election year is meant for US domestic consumption, it is irresponsible. It is irresponsible because the consequences will be disastrous for the region and for Nato.

What is foolhardy in even speaking about US military intervention is to ignore how docile and compliant Pakistan has been historically as a client-state. The clientelism of the country’s military and bureaucratic elite and its upper classes has been built since the early 1950s. Most Pakistani political leaders’ clientelist embrace of the US has been with great eagerness. However, after the recent elections results, Pakistani political leaders have a historic opportunity to reverse the tendency of prostrating before the US.

However, in terms of the Nato mission in Afghanistan, there is a need to separate fact from fiction. Despite Nato’s claim, the Taliban in Afghanistan have not been contained but have actually become stronger. Militant Islam is a political movement and its aim is to capture state power. The US played a significant role in the 1970s and 1980s to empower the Islamists. The Taliban in Afghanistan took advantage of this nurturing environment to hone their political and military skills. They have had a taste of holding on to state power, and are eager to return to it.

Militant Islam, as is now becoming clear, cannot be defeated militarily. Every time overwhelming force has been used, Nato and Pakistani military casualties have increased and the Taliban, Iraqi and Pakistani militant Islamists have withdrawn and regrouped to launch their attacks again another day. This has been the pattern, and given the terrain of Afghanistan and Pakistan, winning the ‘war on terror’ appears to be a pipe dream.

All this raises the possibility that the ‘war on terror’ is not a war to be won at all. By all accounts, the Bush administration has crafted this war as the new permanent war, a ‘long war’, along the lines of forcing a stalemate as in the Cold War. This permanent war fuels not only the military-industrial complex, but now also the security-industrial complex all combined with the synergy that there is among big oil, the military and western economies.

However, this strategy of forcing a stalemate is ill-conceived against mobile and geographically untethered adversaries. These adversaries, in the heat of battle, can simple melt into the populace as Nato commanders are left to mull over their battle plans. Blaming Pakistan for the ‘war on terror’ going badly for Nato, therefore, does not help; it merely compounds the problem. The sobering fact is that Pakistan has very little to do with the ‘war on terror’ being won or lost. But alienating Pakistan is an option that Nato takes at its own peril.

As to the support that militants in northwest Pakistan have provided the Taliban on the Afghan side, there is a need to understand the ground realities of the area.

Southern Afghanistan and northwest Pakistan are contiguous and are inhabited by the same ethnic group, the Pashtuns, who have had historical kinship ties. The border, the Durand Line, is an arbitrary divide established by British colonial rulers, and it has never been possible to effectively police it. The border has always been porous and an attack by an occupying force against the Pashtuns on one side is seen as an attack against the other side as well.

Now that religious ideology undergirds this ethnic solidarity, it has become a potent combination that has produced a resilient guerrilla force. This kind of guerrilla force worked wonders for the US when its Islamist proxies in Pakistan and Afghanistan were waging jihad against ‘godless’ communism. Ironically, now that the shoe is on the other foot, Pakistan is being blamed for the war going badly for Canada, the US and Nato.

Therefore, the sooner the realisation sets in that the war on terror cannot be won in Pakistan or for that matter in Iraq or Afghanistan, the better it will be for all concerned.

The only way militant Islam can be contained, nay challenged, is for a democratic alternative to evolve within the realm of the political. However, it would be naïve to assume that this shift will be simple and painless because the democratic alternative is good neither for the military nor the militants. It will have to be the people who currently support the Taliban and other militants that will have to be won over through a meaningful democratic alternative.

In this context, the outcome of the Feb 18 elections in Pakistan gives cause for hope. The outcome reinforces the position that the political and democratic alternative is the best antidote to check the rise of militant Islam.

Undoubtedly, the use of force will not immediately end given the trajectory of militarism and violence on both sides. But for the long-term survival of Pakistan, democracy will have to be deepened, the sacked judiciary will have to be reinstated, the media will have to be free, meaningful public education will have to be promoted, the abysmally poor will need to have a semblance of human existence, and the unbridled privatisation of the public domain will have to be checked. This may appear a tall order, but if the politicians get their act together for once — and there are signs of this happening — then all this is within their grasp. n

The writer teaches politics at Ryerson University, Toronto.

takhan@politics.ryerson.ca

OTHER VOICES - European Press

No winners in this farcical event

The Independent

IF the international Olympic torch relay was a genuine sporting event, one suspects that it would have been scrubbed from the schedules by now. The disruption to the progress of the flame in London on Sunday was replicated in Paris... On its journey through the French capital, the flame even had to be extinguished on a number of occasions when the Paris police deemed that it was ‘in danger’ from Free Tibet campaigners.

When one considers that the whole point of the ceremonial procession is that the flame is seen to burn continuously, one wonders why the organisers did not simply give up and go home….

A number of questions are raised by this debacle. The second day of serious disruption raises doubts about the wisdom of the Olympic organisers in extending the torch’s journey on a tour taking in San Francisco and Tibet, where the reception is likely to be just as hostile. Closer to home, our own capital’s handling of the ceremony raises questions about our state of preparedness to handle the 2012 games. Why was it necessary, for instance, to parade the torch for such a long distance through London? The answer appears to be that it was deemed politically expedient to drag the event through a succession of the capital’s boroughs to show that the 2012 Olympics are for the benefit of the entire city, rather than just east London.

The ceremony is supposed to be an image of harmony and brotherhood. Even if there had been no protests, this phalanx of security would have rendered such pretensions risible. .…More seriously, some of the tactics deployed by the Metropolitan Police against pro-Tibetan protesters were absurdly heavy-handed. A number of demonstrators were allegedly told by police they were not allowed to wear ‘Free Tibet’ t-shirts. Others were ordered to take down Tibetan flags they had erected along the route.

The Met seems to have assumed that, since it was charged with protecting a torch bound for Beijing, it was acceptable to import some of the law enforcement techniques common in that part of the world. .…The Met and Beijing Olympic officials are reportedly engaged in a row over who was really in charge over Sunday’s fraught procession. ….Perceptions of London’s organisational and security competence have been dealt a heavy blow.

The Games in Beijing this summer, and indeed in London four years hence, can still be the success its hosts crave. But reaching the finish line unscathed will require a good deal more planning and considerably less hubris. — (April 8)

Where billions vanish

GEN (retd) Pervez Musharraf, aided by his trusted lieutenant and chairman of the Higher Education Commission, Dr Atta-ur-Rahman, lays claim to a ‘revolutionary programme’ that has reversed the decades-old decline of Pakistan’s universities.

The higher education budget shot up from Rs3.9bn in 2001-02 to an astounding Rs33.7bn in 2006-07. But, in fact, much of this has been consumed by futile projects and mega wastage. Fantastically expensive scientific equipment, bought for research, often ends up locked away in campuses.

An example: a Pelletron accelerator worth Rs400m was ordered in 2005 with HEC funds. It eventually landed up at Quaid-i-Azam University, and was installed last month by a team of Americans from the National Electrostatics Corporation that flew in from Wisconsin. But now that it is there and fully operational, nobody — including the current director — has the slightest idea of what research to do with it. Its original proponents are curiously lacking in enthusiasm and are quietly seeking to distance themselves from the project.

Now for the full story: in his article published in Dawn (June 25, 2005), Dr Atta-ur-Rahman announced the HEC would fund a ‘5MW Tandem Accelerator’ for nuclear physics research with an associated laboratory at Quaid-i-Azam University. It was shocking news. First, nowhere in the world of science is a major project approved without a detailed technical feasibility study, and without full participation of those scientists who would be expected to use it for their research.

Second, this machine — whose original form dates back to the 1940s — had long become practically useless for decent nuclear physics research. Whereas it can still be used in certain narrow sub-areas of materials science and biology, to my knowledge there are almost no active researchers in those specialties anywhere in Pakistan.

Immediately upon reading Dr Atta-ur-Rahman’s article, I telephoned him. His answer: Dr. Riazuddin, director of the National Centre for Physics, had approved the machine. That was stunning! The soft-spoken and diffident Dr Riazuddin, at 77 years of age, is not only Pakistan’s best nuclear and particle physicist, but also a man of great integrity. How could he have agreed to such folly? Why did he sign a flaky PC-1 proposal put together in less than an afternoon?

The answer was to come soon. On Sept 8, 2005, a nation-wide meeting was held in the physics department of Quaid-i-Azam University to look into the possible uses of the Pelletron. But the project’s proponents clearly had something else in mind, and probably not a work plan. They bussed in supporters who filled the auditorium. Most had no clue of what a Pelletron was but they seemed to have had instructions to hoot down all who questioned the need to buy one.

And so, when Dr Riazuddin expressed his reservations, and sorrowfully admitted to having signed the PC-1 under pressure, the assembled crowd burst into taunts and jeers. Some demanded that he resign as director. It was depressing to see Pakistan’s best scientist and a decent man thus humiliated.

The sad part of this story is not that the machine has arrived, but that in the intervening 30 months the original proponents gave no thought to making use of it or to assembling a group of scientists who could be persuaded to do research using the Pelletron. Still sadder, a second Pelletron was purchased, again with HEC money, for Government College University Lahore. No one can fathom what to do with it either.

The equipment fetish can be followed all the way to the much-advertised HEJ Institute for Chemistry. HEJ consumes the lion’s share of research funding in Pakistan today and boasts of the finest and most expensive equipment. For example, even good chemistry departments in the US rarely have more than one or two NMR spectrometers but the HEJ Institute has 12. Well, why not, if that is the price of excellence? Aren’t the 3,000+ research papers proof of public money well spent?

The answer is, no. There is little evidence to support HEJ’s claim that it has strongly impacted the Pakistani pharmaceutical industry. Readers may have more luck than I did in searching the otherwise elaborate HEJ website for its role in discovering new drugs or processes. But without this, all else is hot air. Only one international patent, registered in the UK and Germany, is listed. Two processes are mentioned as submitted for a US patent. This is not a high record for an institution that has been in existence for over 40 years and claims to be world-class. A good US or European applied science university department typically files several patents every year.

As for the thousands of HEJ research papers, the question is how many of these really matter? A paper is considered important by other scientists only when it contains new ideas or facts. Significant papers are cited frequently in professional journals. But an overwhelming number of HEJ publications, which are largely based upon routine aspects of natural products chemistry, have zero or few citations. The reader may find citation counts by accessing the free database scholar.google.com, or other more comprehensive databases.

My point is not to denigrate the HEJ, or other academic research in Pakistan, but to make the case that such research is consuming a disproportionate amount of resources at the cost of a desperately impoverished educational system. The real problem is that Pakistani students in government schools, colleges, and universities — as well as their teachers — are far below internationally acceptable levels in terms of basic subject understanding.

Current salaries militate against improvement. As a result of Dr Atta’s determined intervention, a professor at a government university can earn up to Rs325,000 per month but a government school teacher has a maximum salary of less than Rs10,000. This is highly unwise. Similarly, funds-starved government colleges and schools lack basic infrastructure such as laboratories and libraries but most government universities are awash in so much money that they do not know what to do with it. At QAU, for example, so many air-conditioners have been purchased with HEC research funds that the electricity bill has shot up by 50 times over the last six years.

A balance is desperately needed. Instead of over-funding universities and research, we need to focus resources on creating good quality schools and colleges. We need to encourage creative and skilled people to become school and college teachers, and for this we need to pay them well. We need teachers who can educate young people into becoming good citizens and with skills valued in the economy, and who can train the few going on to higher education.

The winds of change are blowing across the country. The Musharraf years are over. It is now time for parliament to carry out a full and complete public inquiry into the irresponsible and crazy policies that have hitherto been the hallmark of decision-making. Finally, there is a chance to reset priorities and use resources for a comprehensive reform of our education system. n

The author is chairman of the physics department at Quaid-i-Azam University.

Early days

IF one assumes Mr Asif Zardari is guilty of white collar crime, it becomes understandable that he has a stake in not jeopardising the NRO.

If the present PPP-led coalition is desirous of an acquiescent judiciary, then too it will be understandable if the Bhurban declaration melts away in parliament despite the excellent air-conditioning.

But for those who want a judiciary that is not bonding with military dictators or a parliamentary administrative whitewash, an unambiguous restoration to the pre-Nov 3, 2007, state is non-negotiable: not because it reinstates particular individuals, nor even because it establishes the rule of law, but because it pragmatically acknowledges that Gen Musharraf’s judicial tampering was wrong. It insulted the entire population in a country that was birthed consciously to assure its citizens’ rights in a dominion freed of imperators and tricksters. Loss and denial have taught Pakistanis the value of just equitable laws of state.

Their aspiration to that end is unremitting. People did not come out on the streets asking for Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif to come back. They came out because they endorsed the Steel Mill judgment and the pursuit of the missing persons’ case; the ratification of the civil rather than military principle and the upholding of common public benefit rather than specific personal gain. They see all this safeguarded by constitutional access and recourse to a fearlessly independent judiciary.

Election 2008 was about Pakistan’s judiciary; a lawless president and his preferred parliament and political agents and allies; and good governance. Of course, the energy crisis, the wheat shortages, the war on terror are a source of grave anxiety and much woe or even downright torment. But these are issues and they have flux. Justice is conceptual and abiding.

Pakistan is a country that is aware not just of the horrors of military fascism. It is also keenly aware of the horrors of a fascism that finds its genesis in populist demagoguery. Karachi has had microcosmic experience of it at the hands of the MQM; and there has been a more macrocosmic federal experience at the hands of the judicially murdered Z.A. Bhutto.

As we recall that disgraceful judicial sentence, let us also recall the Hyderabad Tribunal; General Tikka Khan dedicatedly at work earning the cognomen of butcher of Balochistan; Dalai camp; the ill-treated J.A. Rahim and a host of others like the labour leader Mairaj, or Dr Mubashir whose constructive criticism was too unpalatable.

The intellectually endowed, politically conflicted founding father of the PPP may not have craved sycophancy but he knew how to coerce and intimidate. Once he was entrenched in office, he had his official goons, and they were called the FSF.

What pattern is his circuitously anointed son-in-law going to follow?

The question is valid at a time when Pakistanis are being initiated (vocabulary fails me so condone — along with much else that may be condoned willy-nilly — the coinage) into a culture of necropathy. Two out of the four violently terminated Bhuttos interred at Garhi Khuda Bakhsh are getting to be habitually invoked as if their gestures and utterances have the sanctity of a political fatwa.

Rowdyism in the Sindh Assembly, intercity and inter-provincial jiyala ferrying make for unease. The MQM, which in any case is prone to things like bhatta and street violence, has for the time being made a choice of if you can’t beat them join them. Is that to be the stencil of a coalition government and in the National Assembly?

The PPP claims to be the chain of the federation. The federation has no intention of being shackled by it. There is a significant body that boycotted the elections and there is a sizable body of ‘other’ political colour inside parliament as well. They do not worship at the Bhutto altar for all that they recognise and honour the sporadic but nonetheless real democratic Bhutto effort and contribution.

Today, mainstream party leadership may be divided over the impact of the deposed judiciary’s restoration. The PML-N has more of a finger on the public pulse. But neither of the parties’ extra-parliamentary leaders has spoken out strongly enough against incipient party hooliganism which is disturbing observers. The PML-N has also displayed its own goonishness in ‘recapturing’ Muslim League House in Karachi.

The government and parliament are asking civil society and the lawyers to muffle ‘vox populi’ outside while the executive and legislature deliberate ways and means of reconciling their own NRO needs and public desire for the rule of law and the PML-N’s electoral mandate for the restoration of the deposed judiciary.

Opposition or coalition, if the legislators have faith in their own representative standing and their party platform they should not have to call on a mob of supporters inside the visitors’ gallery to make a point, nor keep them on call outside to prevent one.

It may well be true that saboteurs are out to blacken and frustrate the democratic process and public vibrancy. The argument would gain strength if party leaders showed their disapprobation of violent enthusiasts and militant activism. ‘Necropathic’ hysteria must not become Pakistan’s polity’s newest psychosis. The tactic may be useful in keeping the public mind off the restoration of the judiciary. But the distraction is only temporary and the damage done to healthy politicking is unforgivably deep.

A deficit of leadership

THE financial crisis being felt around the world will get worse – unless strong actions are taken by governments. The strongest action of all is required in the United States, where this global maelstrom originates.

Part of America’s economic problem today is a crisis in confidence — in its central bank, the Federal Reserve, in the regulators, in the Bush administration, in the political process. The way the crisis arose, and the way it has been handled, has provided ample reason for that lack of confidence. Bravado statements that everything is fine, followed by unprecedented and non-transparent bailouts and precipitous decreases in interest rates, has led to confidence in the Fed and the administration plummeting, as has confidence in America’s banks and their ability to manage risk.

The admission by Bush’s treasury that there is a need for regulation may at first seem refreshing, coming after steadfast insistence that these markets are self-regulating and must not be tampered with. But the fact that a core feature of the plan is to give the Fed — the very agency responsible for many of these problems — more oversight is hardly reassuring. It didn’t use what -powers it had to prevent the crisis; what -assurance is there that with more -”oversight” it will do any better?

Underlying the US’s financial woes are three distinct but related problems. First, a debt crisis, exemplified by sub-prime mortgages, with millions of Americans with mortgages greater than the value of their house.

Second, with so many bad debts, and such uncertainty about their magnitude, there is a credit crunch. Banks don’t even know the extent of their own problems; how then can they have much confidence in lending to others? It is not, however, just a problem of illiquidity; it is deeper than that — balance sheets have been badly hurt, and will have to somehow be repaired.

The third problem is macro-economic. The US has been sustained by a housing bubble, leading to a consumer binge. Household savings rates have fallen to zero. The Iraq war — and the soaring oil prices accompanying it — has depressed the economy. Money spent on oil or on Nepalese contractors in Iraq is money that isn’t being spent at home; these dollars don’t provide much stimulation for the economy.

The Fed let forth a flood of liquidity, and the regulators looked the other way as bad loans were made and debt became excessive. In a sense, it had to, if the economy was to keep going, if the costs of the war were to remain hidden, if Americans were to be persuaded they could have a war for free. Hundreds of billions of dollars in mortgage equity withdrawals offset the war’s adverse effects. But that game is over. The only reason things aren’t worse is that the US has exported its problems, just as it did its toxic mortgages. The falling dollar has helped US exports but hurt other countries’ exports to the US. It is the 21st century version of the “beggar thy neighbour” policies that predominated in the Depression.

Dealing with the crisis demands a multi-faceted approach. At the bottom, we need to help homeowners stay in their homes. Generous help is given to rich Americans, through tax deductions, government absorbs up to 50 per cent of the cost of owning a home for those in the upper-income bracket. But it provides little assistance to poor Americans striving to buy homes. Many of the foreclosures are concentrated in particular neighbourhoods; public programmes are needed to prevent that blight from spreading and deepening.

At the other end, government rescues will be necessary, as witnessed in Bear Stearns or Northern Rock. But they have to be done better. The US government didn’t charge a dime in insurance premiums, and yet Bear Sterns shareholders are walking away with more than a quarter of a billion dollars. It is outrageous for the government to say it is worried about moral hazard when it comes to poor homeowners, many of whom were taken advantage of by predatory lenders and are losing not only their houses but their life savings — and yet somehow to be unconcerned when it comes to the investment banks.

We should be clear, however, that monetary policy and these last-minute rescues can only prevent a meltdown of the economy; it can’t resuscitate it. As Keynes pointed out, it’s like pushing on a string — and even more so in this era of globalisation. With housing prices falling, new liquidity won’t make homeowners borrow more or banks lend more. The money will look for safer and higher returns elsewhere, like China, which is now worried about US irresponsibility showing up in asset-bubbles in its own economy.

Even the Fed recognises there is a need for fiscal policy. But what is needed is not the kind of stimulus that has been passed to date — too little, too late, and badly designed. With soaring deficits likely to hit a new record it’s important to maximise the amount of stimulus for each dollar of spending. Election-year politics may force the administration to do something, or at least not to stand in the way of Congress doing something.

Given where we are, the downturn is likely to be the worst in at least the last quarter century, probably since the Depression. But the US has more than just a trade and fiscal deficit; it has a leadership deficit. The result is likely to be a downturn longer and deeper than need be. And the whole world will suffer. n

—The Guardian, London