Enough of posturing

TRUE, posturing is an essential element of statecraft but our politicians need to be reminded that it is now getting on people’s nerves. In fact, one wonders whether the overdose of political rhetoric is meant to serve as a smokescreen for the failure to draw up pragmatic policies that could give some relief to the people. Four months after the euphoric Feb 19 morning, the national scene remains dangerously chaotic. The victors, it seems, had not done any homework. Confrontation is in the air, the principal players seem to be re-enacting the post-Zia anarchy of the ’90s, and there is no evidence that any side is willing to compromise for the greater good of the nation and end the sense of crisis. Yesterday, the lawyers began their ‘march’ from Karachi to Rawalpindi to achieve two objectives — to have Iftikhar Chaudhry reinstated and to get President Pervez Musharraf to vacate the Army House. There is already a split among their ranks, and the PPP lawyers’ wing and those in the MQM camp have boycotted the ‘march’. Besides, it is not clear how a ‘march’ can achieve these objectives, given the fact that the differences between the PPP and the PML-N have become obvious. Barring an agreement between the two major parties, the issue is unlikely to be settled politically in the near future, and that means that one can expect more confrontation which in our part of the world could lead to tear-gassing, baton charges, demonstrators being dragged and hauled into police vans, and the media having a field day. In brief, no respite from the crisis, while food prices soar.

The big question is: who is responsible for perpetuating this crisis? If President Pervez Musharraf is doing what he has been accused of doing — conspiring against a system he himself fathered — what stops the anti-Musharraf forces which control parliament to throw him out by legal and constitutional means? The truth is that the change in the PPP’s stance on the judges has added to the political confusion. Either it should not have committed to Iftikhar Chaudhry’s reinstatement, or if it did, as indeed it did at Bhurban, it should have honoured its commitment. Let down, the PML-N seems determined to pursue this goal in a scenario in which the odds seem pitted against it. The ultimate casualty is the people’s hopes — the people, who want no more than the right to live and have at least one square meal a day.

The PPP and PML-N today are in the corridors of power because of the people’s vote. Would they care to rise above partisan considerations and do something for the people’s good? The true indication of their concern, or lack of it, for their voters will be the budget. Will it be people-friendly?

Divided we fall

THOUGH nothing novel in idea or spirit, the three-day congregation of Muslim leaders and thinkers from around the world in Makkah has to be appreciated for what it was: an attempt to achieve some level of intra-religious harmony before reaching out for full-scale inter-faith interaction. The Muslim-kill-Muslim violence has for long kept the community divided, earning not just a bad name for the faithful both in historical and contemporary terms but also allowing others to play on such fissures. Saudi Arabia, indeed, has the spiritual leadership in the Islamic world and the economic clout to raise the right kind of questions and help change the mindset of lay Muslims who form close to 20 per cent of the global population. To his credit, King Abdullah, since he took over in August 2005, has taken some meaningful steps in that direction. On the inter-faith front, he broke fresh ground by meeting Pope Benedict at the Vatican. Besides, he took part in a US-hosted gathering in Annapolis where an Israeli delegation was also in attendance. On the other hand, to heal wounds within the Muslim community, he has been quietly trying to engender less adversarial ties with Iran, advocating a balanced approach with the West. As a confirmation of his reconciliatory approach, the king also invited Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to last year’s annual pilgrimage, which was the first such invitation to an Iranian president.

The presence of former Iranian president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani at the recent Makkah gathering — again a brainchild of the king — was yet another indication of the thaw between the two nations. When the two entered the venue together, it was more than mere symbolism; it was a message to the world that despite differences the Muslim world was united on most issues confronting it. And it was Mr Rafsanjani’s call that echoed in the final communiqué which urged various groups and schools of thought within Islam to close ranks and achieve unity while attempting to understand other religions and cultures and to strive for a peaceful coexistence with others. The world today is a troubled place, much more complex than during the bipolar existence of the Cold War era. Like it or not, the fact remains that the fault line today runs across religious lines. Any chance for Muslims to have a real say in world affairs is based on their ability to put up a united face. The age-old maxim of ‘divided we fall’ was never truer.

Need for early warning system

HELP is still awaited by hundreds of villagers whose homes near Thatta and Karachi were inundated by a tidal surge a few days ago. Some 40 villages lie devastated and drinking water sources have been contaminated by the sea. Local administration officials claim that rescue operations are under way but other reports suggest many in the submerged villages are having to fend for themselves even now. Since they received no advance warning, the victims fled with little else than the clothes on their backs and are now in desperate need of shelter, food and water as well as medical supplies. On Sunday, a senior federal official raised another key point related to natural disasters: the need for improvement in the early warning system. This issue is raised from time to time but somehow fails to make the leap from the drawing board to implementation.

It was reported in May last year that the Pakistan Meteorological Department had devised a nine-point ‘Multi-Hazard Early Warning and Response System’ that covered everything from tsunamis, cyclones and tide variations to earthquakes, floods and drought. The creation of search and rescue teams were also part of the plan which was to be coordinated by the National Disaster Management Authority. If the current plight of coastal villagers is any indicator, the early warning system is yet to be upgraded to desired levels. Information about potential hazards ought to be disseminated well in advance via a chain of communication stretching from the Met department and other monitoring agencies all the way to the people who might be affected. If evacuation is required, local administrations must be backed up by provincial and federal teams that can be mobilised at short notice. In these times of climate change, the need for an efficient warning system has become all the more pressing. As seen last summer, weather patterns are becoming more erratic and cyclones are hitting the country with greater frequency. The Arabian Sea is getting warmer and this, according to a senior Met official, is contributing to “the increase in extreme weather events in our coastal areas”. With the monsoon approaching, the time to act is now.

OTHER VOICES - Sindhi Press

Formula for NFC award ignored

Kawish

ALTHOUGH this is the budget season, there is more talk about the constitutional package than the budget. This constitutional package is to decide the balance between the president and parliament as well as resolve the complicated issue of the judges. The … 80-point package includes the distribution of revenue resources between the centre and the provinces. …However, it is clear that this package does not contain the NFC award on the basis of multiple indicators. That means the demand of the smaller provinces has been ignored.

Every new ruler … laments that differences cropped up between the provinces because of the wrong policies of the previous government and [pledges to] bridge these differences. The incumbent rulers have repeated this.

The two factors causing differences between the centre and the provinces and the smaller provinces and … Punjab are water and the sharing of financial resources. In the absence of judicious sharing … the smaller provinces have been distancing themselves not only from … Punjab but also from the centre.

The NFC issue is a crucial one.… [A study] conducted in 2002 by then Sindh finance minister Hafeez Shaikh and considered realistic … recommended that along with population, other indicators should also be incorporated in the formula for distribution of financial resources. After this report it was imperative that poverty, backwardness and revenue generation should also have been included as indicators as it would have benefited all the provinces, including Punjab…. This report was never implemented and even today we have a provisional NFC award.

If President Musharraf had implemented these, it would have minimised differences and reduced the distance between the centre and the provinces, and also that between the big province and the smaller provinces.

To maintain balance and harmony between the provinces is an art, so that no province should have a complaint against any one. This is not too difficult if there is a balance of power and [equitable] sharing of national resources….

If Musharraf did not implement the Hafeez Shaikh report out of fear of the anger of the big province, then he also invited the anger of the smaller provinces. Balochistan and the NWFP were demanding that poverty and underdevelopment be used as indicators, while Sindh’s demand was to include revenue. It is strange that Musharraf did not honour a study conducted by his own government due to the anger of the big province.

When it is called the judicious distribution of water and financial resources, there should not be any question of the anger or happiness of any one. The present government has made a bold decision in the case of the Kalabagh dam…. Now it can take more credit by incorporating other vital indicators in the NFC award which would really be a more realistic approach. — (June 5)

— Selected and translated by Sohail Sangi

Nasty jolts to the economy

PAKISTAN’S economy received several nasty jolts in the last several months. Some were delivered by the developments over which the country’s policymakers did not have any control. These included the inexorable increase in the price of oil which has affected all oil-importing countries including Pakistan.

There has also been an increase in the price of agricultural commodities Pakistan must import to meet domestic demand. These include wheat and oil seeds.

There were other jolts to the economy for which policymakers must take full responsibility. These include the shortage in the generation of electric power which has resulted in load-shedding that is taking a heavy toll in terms of both lost output and great discomfort to the citizens. Most affected by this shortage are the less well-to-do segments of society who cannot afford to buy alternate sources of electric supply such as portable generators.

These shortages should have been estimated by the previous administration and appropriate investments should have been made. Instead, for eight years, Pakistan did not make investments in electric power generation while the demand for electricity continued to increase at nearly seven per cent a year. This has left the country with a demand-supply gap estimated by the government at 4,000 megawatts.

Compounding these problems were the decisions taken by Islamabad to spend carelessly in order to help the party in power in the elections of Feb 2008. Public expenditure was allowed to increase way beyond the resources available to the government by way of tax and other revenues. The result was a ballooning of fiscal deficit estimated at 9.5 per cent of GDP by Ishaq Dar who was the minister of finance in the first coalition government to take office after the elections.

A significant part of this deficit was financed by borrowing from the central bank which added to the inflationary pressures already present in the economy. This produced price increases without precedence in Pakistan’s history. Once again it is the poor and the not-so-well-off segments of society that are suffering. Unless help arrives soon, Pakistan may begin to see political and social pressures building up. Considering the weak state of institutional development in the country, it would be hard to contain these strains.

The new set of political leaders, who have come to power, is being advised to adopt adjustment measures to deal with the pressures under which the economy is labouring these days. The prescriptions being offered are the usual ones: contain government expenditures by cutting spending on both current and development parts of the government budget, raise resources by expanding the tax base, provide relief to the poor by giving them cash transfers and by creating jobs for them by starting rural and urban works programmes, take advantage of the fall in the value of the rupee by encouraging exports, and make non-essential imports more costly.

In a report released by the new Lahore-based Institute of Public Policy that I chair, the government was also advised to transfer greater authority to the provinces and to the institutions of local government. This will help with the process of adjustment since it would bring economic governance closer to the people. We also advised the government to make sure that the design of adjustment policies ensured that future growth was not compromised. This was done in the 1999-2002 period when, following the advice of the International Monetary Fund, the then administration applied hard breaks to the economy.

This, as indicated above, is the standard advice given to most governments dealing with difficult economic situations. Pakistan, however, needs to do much more than follow the standard prescription. It needs to adopt an approach and develop a strategy that lessens the grip on the economy of several powerful vested interests. Over time, the Pakistani economic elite has increased its influence on the making of public policy.

The extent to which this has happened is clearly shown by some simple calculations. The latest World Development Indicators published by the World Bank provide estimates for all countries of the share in national income of various segments of the population. In Pakistan, the top 10 per cent of the population claims 26.3 per cent of the total national income while that of the bottom 10 per cent is only four per cent. This is one of the sharpest differences in the developing world: the rich receive 6.8 times the amount of national income that accrues to the poor.

However, a comparison of the shares in national income does not fully reflect the amount of real inequality between different classes of people. The rich have much better access to public services than the poor; the state generally looks after their interests much more than it does for the poor.

What makes these income differences even more problematic is that they are widening as a consequence of the growth model followed by the Musharraf government which favoured the rich. The sectors that flourished under President Musharraf did little for the poor while they provided large amounts of incomes and asset appreciation for the rich. The recent price increases in food commodities have added further insult to the injury inflicted by the pursuit of the growth model.The poor’s real income will decline significantly if food and fuel prices are allowed to eat into their disposable incomes. Not only is the price increase hurting the poor, the latter are also being affected by the various shortages that have appeared in the economy against which the rich can protect themselves but the poor are left to fend for themselves.

In fact, the rich have succeeded in creating large cocoons around themselves, thus isolating themselves from the less fortunate citizenry. They have built gated communities, protected by private security companies; they send their children to expensive private schools that provide education of reasonable standards; they go out over the weekends to shop in the malls of Dubai and go for summer vacations to various watering spots in Europe.While one should not grudge this lifestyle, it cannot be sustained in the midst of great and growing poverty. And it must not be sustained at the expense of the poor. Public policy must address this problem to ensure not only sustained economic growth but also social and political stability.

China: millions vie for varsity education

ON Saturday morning, Xu Ziwen strode through the gap the police had forced in the ranks of waiting parents and said the words that, even if no one believed him, everyone wanted to hear: ‘No problem. It was easy.’

Behind him a horde of track-suited teenagers poured out of the examination halls into the pale sunshine of Beijing.

Xu had just done the first part of an exam taken by the most people ever at one sitting, the Chinese school leaving exams or gaokao. This weekend more than 10 million 18-year-olds across China sat through four critically important papers. Now, they will celebrate –– or simply sleep. ‘A piece of cake,’ bragged Xu Ziwen as he cycled off.

But with only six million university places, many risk disappointment. In today’s increasingly market-oriented China, where high school and university are now the norm for urban populations, the results posted online at the end of the month will decide not only who will go on to further education but can also determine the future of the students and their families.

‘The gaokao now sets up your future life and your future social status,’ said Professor Lao Kaisheng, one of China’s top education specialists. ‘If you are poor, it can make you rich. If you are rich, it can make you poor. The exams are one of the very few ways to change your life in modern China. They are critical to social mobility.’

The exams are certainly important enough for Beijing’s main Buddhist temple to be packed last week with parents or friends of candidates seeking divine aid. Spinning prayer wheels, Shang Bing and Shi Yue, 17, said they were already worried about their exams next year. ‘There are more and more candidates and so there is more and more pressure,’ Shi Yue said. ‘The exam is the step that begins your life. You can’t afford to set off in the wrong direction.’

The gaokao is important in other ways too. With China’s social welfare system at an embryonic stage and the old safeguards of the centrally planned economy long dismantled, many parents are looking to their offspring to support them in later life. As most of those sitting the exams are only children –– a result of China’s long-standing one-child policy –– the responsibility laid on 18-year-olds’ shoulders is even heavier. Some families will have invested huge sums.

Authorities do their utmost to ensure the exams run smoothly. The papers are classified as ‘top secret’ –– upgraded this year from ‘secret’ –– and are kept under armed guard. Leaking information about the test attracts heavy prison sentences.

In Beijing’s Haidian district, more than half a million text messages were sent to residents reminding them not to distract students by shouting or using car horns, while authorities stop traffic to allow candidates to get to and from exam halls. The Education Ministry has also ordered universities to set aside places for students from Sichuan and Gansu, where the exams have been delayed following last month’s earthquake.

‘The gaokao is the heart of the whole educational system, which is in turn at the heart of the whole government system,’ said one western expert working in Beijing. ‘If the education system cannot provide for ordinary people to lift themselves out of poverty through hard work and raw talent, then that seriously undermines the legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party. Equally, the party is plugged into the education system all the way through and uses it to draw in the best and the brightest to manage the country. It relies on the education system as much as anybody does.’

The importance of the tests is underlined by the likes of Cathy Huang, a 23-year-old who came first out of 100,000 candidates in Fujian. She is now at Beijing University’s Business Studies Centre, one of the most sought-after faculties in the most prestigious university, and has already been taken on as an intern by major Western banks.

Her parents, a policeman and a worker in one of China’s remaining state-owned factories, invested much of their slim salaries paying for extra tutors. ‘I come from a simple background,’ Huang said. ‘Because I did well, I get a scholarship for my first four years of further education.’

Yet some resent the ability of wealthier parents to pay for extra tuition or for the costly foreign language schools whose pupils, prized by the universities, are often taken regardless of their results. And for those who can afford it, there is always the overseas option.

‘I am not too worried,’ said Li Bing, a 50-year-old manager turned legal academic, who was standing outside the Renmin University High School as the first day of exams drew to a close. ‘My daughter is a bright girl, but if she doesn’t do well I’ll send her to Hong Kong or the USA.’ Around him, other parents paced nervously, volunteers dispensed cups and an ambulance crew waited discreetly. Mothers swapped stories of their nervous children waking them at 3am, unable to sleep. When Li Bing’s daughter finally emerged, long-faced, it looked very much as if she would be heading to America.

There is much criticism of the exam as a test of memory that neglects creative thinking. ‘Students just learn what is tested,’ said Qu Husheng, 52, a teacher at No. 13 Middle School in Wuhan in central China. ‘It isn’t at all imaginative.’

Yet questions in the gaokao, coloured by centuries of civil service tests for mandarins, reveal a mix of current concerns and traditional influences. Last year students were asked to write an essay on ‘a mother tongue as the bearer of a people’s culture’, on the statement that ‘the drizzle dampens clothes but cannot be seen... flowers fall to the ground without a sound’, or on the proposal that ‘life is like climbing a mountain... even a small step ahead is a new height’.

The vital Chinese composition test sat simultaneously by the 10.5 million candidates on Saturday was based on a philosophical example involving a tumbler holding water, sand or pebbles. Students had to answer the question whether the glass was half full or half empty.

––The Observer, London