DAWN - Opinion; May 30, 2005
The police vs the people
SEVERAL recent incidents in Lahore, including the police handling of demonstrations in support of Mr. Zardari, raining of batons on journalists on Press Freedom Day, and excesses on human rights and women activists who only wished to run a short distance, have again brought into sharp focus the deterioration in norms that should guide the police in their treatment of citizens.
These matters need to be debated and resolved in a civilized manner. Otherwise, increasing abuse of powers by the police and their defiance by citizens will plunge Pakistan into a state of utter lawlessness.
The first question that has come up concerns the use of Section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code to impose restrictions on citizen’s exercise of their rights and freedoms. It has been used to prevent the sale of cut fruit when on epidemic is feared, to prevent tenants from collecting crops before they can satisfy the landlords, and to meet many other contingencies.
The most common application of this section during the colonial period, however, was to ban the assembly of more than four persons, and the legacy has been honoured by the governments of independent Pakistan with diligent reverence worthy of a noble cause. The alien rulers generally tried to remain within the letter of law and the people could circumvent the prohibitory order by moving in processions in rows of four or meeting in mosques or graveyards where this law didn’t apply.
The post-independence governments of Pakistan have never been afraid of public meetings inside mosques or any other enclosure but there have been many instances when processionists have been barred from walking in rows of fours or even two. Worst of all, the people have got so used to enforcement of Section 144 almost on a permanent basis that challenges to its application have become extremely rare.
More often than not Section 144 is used to curtail the people’s fundamental right to assembly and movement in a manner contrary to the spirit of the law. It may therefore be useful to read the provision. It says:
“144 Power to issue order absolute at once in urgent cases of nuisance or apprehended danger. (1) In cases where, in the opinion of the Zila Nazim, upon the written recommendation of the District Superintendent of Police or Executive District Officer, there is sufficient ground for proceeding under this section and immediate prevention or speedy remedy is desirable,
“The Zila Nazim may, by a written order stating the material facts of the case and served in manner provided by Section 134, direct any person to abstain from a certain act or to take certain order with certain property in his possession or under his management, if the Zila Nazim considers that such direction is likely to prevent, or tends to prevent, obstruction, annoyance or injury, or risk of obstruction, annoyance or injury to any person lawfully employed, or danger to human life, health or safety, or a disturbance of the public tranquillity, or a riot, or an affray.
“(2) An order under this section may, in cases of emergency or in cases where the circumstances do not admit of the serving in due time of a notice upon the person against whom the order is directed, be passed ex parte.
“(3) An order under this section may be directed to a particular individual, or to the public generally when frequenting or visiting a particular place.
“(4) The Zila Nazim may, either on his own motion or on the application of any person aggrieved, rescind or alter any order made under this section by himself or by his predecessor in office.
“(5) Where such an application is received, the Zila Nazim shall afford to the applicant an early opportunity of appearing before him either in person or by pleader and showing cause against the order; and if the Zila Nazim rejects the application wholly or in part, he shall record in writing his reasons for so doing.
“(6) No order under this section shall remain in force for more than two consecutive days and not more than seven days in a month from the making thereof, unless, in cases of danger to human life, health or safety, or a likelihood of a riot or an affray, the Provincial Government, by notification in the official Gazette, otherwise directs.”
It is obvious from the text that:
1. Restrictions under this section can be imposed only when sufficient evidence of a nuisance or a specific threat to peace is available.
2. That the main purpose of the law is to prevent an individual from harming life or disturbing peace.
3. That an expert order against a person can be passed only in a situation when he cannot be given a notice or chance to be heard.
4. The general public referred to in sub-section 3 is a crowd “frequenting or visiting a particular place” which obviously means a periodic congregation or ‘mela’. It cannot imply a population at large.
5. When an application is made for exemption from restrictions imposed under Section 144, the zila nazim will not pass an order without hearing the applicant and will give reasons in writing for rejecting his plea.
6. And, finally, an order under Section 144 can be valid only for two consecutive days and not more than seven days in a month. The provincial government can direct otherwise. In one sense this sub-section is extremely defective in that the period for which the provincial government can “direct otherwise” is not given. However, a provincial government cannot extend 144 for months or indefinitely, for that would make the limitation mentioned earlier meaningless.
At the same time it is clear that extension of Section 144 beyond seven days in a month is possible only “in cases of danger to human life, health or safety, or a likelihood of a riot or an affray”. Obviously these threats have to be seen within a small territorial context. There may be a threat of rioting in Mughalpura but that will not justify imposition of Section 144 on the whole of metropolitan Lahore. One may replace Mughalpura with Lyari and Lahore with Karachi.
The government is known to have advanced many excuses for imposing Section 144 that could not be admitted in any decent society. For instance, 144 is justified sometimes on the ground that a political party wants to take out a procession. The assumption is that the political party in question has no right to organize an assembly even if it has not been proscribed.
Sometimes women are told that they cannot demonstrate or run in public because the conservative elements do not approve of such things and may use force against them. These are untenable suggestions. The question is whether women can be forced to abandon a right because somebody threatens unlawful action. While dealing with the implications of a law, what needs to be considered is whether the law is being used to enforce a right or whether it is being used to collude with law-breakers. Nobody seems to ask the administration whether those opposing the appearance of women in public have a right to interfere with their freedoms.
The imposition of Section 144 is a justiciable matter. Superior courts in both Pakistan and India have sometimes struck down recourse to the provision for lack of justification. Unfortunately, the situation has changed for the worse (for citizens) because the people have lost the will to resist brute force and the spectre of terrorism has increased the margin of allowance the courts give the executive.
It is time the notorious piece of legislation described as Section 144 CrPC was subjected to intensive scrutiny and revision and the possibilities of its use by unpopular authorities to suppress articulation of legitimate concerns of the people were plugged. This has become all the more necessary after the demise of the district magistrate’s institution and the transfer of many of his powers to the police. This will involve a radical reorientation of the state outlook and its legal theories in a way that the foremost objective of law becomes defence of the fundamental rights of the people and not their curtailment.
Another matter that has attracted attention is the use of persons in plain clothes for police functions. The special branch in the provincial police forces as well as the federal intelligence bureau have always employed officers and constables in plain clothes for specific tasks, such as making notes of speeches at public gatherings, identifying people who organize protest demonstrations, or who order or instigate resort to violence, or who indulge in acts resulting in loss of life or property, but traditionally such plainclothesmen were not asked to directly interfere with the freedoms of a citizen, whether he was alone or in a crowd. They had no more authority than an ordinary citizen had to apprehend and report against wrongdoers.
The rule in the bad old days was that the coercive authority of the state could be exercised only by persons who were recognized by their uniform/insignia/number/name. Different branches of security forces had different uniforms and colours and citizens could easily recognize the force facing them. Each foot constable could be identified by the number on his belt — an essential part of his uniform (which could also be used as a weapon of defence and torture.) The officers at most police stations used to be few — a sub-inspector, an ASI, one or two head constables — and they could be identified by the stars/stripes on their shoulders/arms. Except for metropolitan cities, an ordinary citizen rarely saw a kaptan police. The proliferation of officers at police stations led to the introduction of name-tags to be worn on starched tunics.
The reason for stipulating that the coercive functions of the state should be performed by persons who can easily be identified is not difficult to understand. A state establishes the majesty of law by displaying its presence and not necessarily by wielding its force. A lone constable facing a crowd represents the whole state apparatus. The signal his presence sends out is clearer than the impact a whole group of plainclothesmen would make. More important than that, it is necessary to assure the citizen who is restrained that the authority proceeding against him enjoys a lawful mandate.
Over the years the constraints on the use of plainclothesmen on coercive assignments have become largely extinct. That these plainclothesmen arrest people, beat suspects, rough up political detainees, and make examples of journalists is common knowledge. Unfortunately the dangers embedded in such practices are generally not recognized. The most important fact is that the impersonal majesty of the state and the law is compromised; the victim is not always sure that the plainclothesman twisting his arm is a duly appointed state functionary or whether he is one of the tough touts SHOs are known to surround themselves with.
The nexus between plainclothesmen and private detention/torture centres is obvious. The proceedings involving plainclothesmen-arrest, detention, torture, extortion-need not be recorded. A victim of tormentors in plain clothes has no means of finding out whether they are acting under lawful authority. In many cases, use of plainclothesmen for coercive tasks may be a citizen’s first introduction to state corruption.
A most unwelcome result of employing plainclothes personnel to curtail citizen’s freedoms can be that an impersonal matter may get dangerously personalized. When a police officer tells a citizen to do, or refrain from doing, something there must be nothing personal about it. But if a citizen reacts harshly or violently to an unwelcome intrusion by a plainclothesman, whom he does not recognize as a state functionary, the matter becomes personal. What may then happen to the poor citizen can be imagined.
It is therefore essential to enforce a rule that all actions against citizens involving curtailment of their freedoms must be taken by identifiable personnel and the duties of plainclothesmen should be limited to non-custodial functions and observation, and that these too truthfully, if that is at all possible these days.
The third major issue is the method of apprehending citizens who are believed by the police to have caused disorder or are about to do so. The police certainly have powers to arrest people without judicial warrants, but arrest only means telling a person that he or she cannot proceed freely because of having been taken into custody. The fact of being taken into custody can be demonstrated through a verbal order or by simply putting one’s hand temporarily on the shoulder of the detainee.
The use of handcuffs is not mandatory and is recommended only when the detainee is genuinely expected to escape. Unfortunately in the process of vulgarization of law to suit feudal caprice, putting of steel bracelets on a citizen’s hands has become a favourite mode of punishing and humiliating rivals. Police officers are paid handsomely for just putting a rival in handcuffs and more handsomely if the handcuffed person can be paraded in public. Likewise, money can be made for granting the favour of removal of handcuffs.
The most unpardonable innovation in the method of arrest is the practice of lifting citizens — including women, old men and children — and throwing them into police vehicles and subjecting the victims to violence in the process. In the past when an arrest was made even for a brief period, the person arrested had to be told that he was under arrest. Now one finds street toughs carrying out arrests without disclosing this fact to the victims. The possibility of using force to effect arrest is not denied but what should have been a measure of the last resort has been made the first option.
The law that we inherited at independence conceded the possibility of use of force against unruly crowds or stubborn individuals and in order to guard against excesses it gave the authority to use force to magistrates and not to the police and also laid down the principle of proportionality of force to the need. One of the most serious aspects of the regression in governance is that the magistrate who could often shield the citizen against police fury has fallen by the wayside and cannons are now fired to disperse sparrows. That the norms of rectitude and propriety prescribed for the police have been undermined by irresponsible political authorities is no doubt true, but that only means that the political supremos and the police both have to be given lessons in sanity.
Both have to be reminded that the right to security and dignity of person is the only right of citizens the Pakistan Constitution recognizes as absolute (Article 14(1). It may not be a bad idea to fix plaques bearing this article at all police stations and offices of ministers and bureaucrats.
China makes its move
“THE storm centre of the world has shifted . . . to China,” Secretary of State John Hay said in 1899. “Whoever understands that mighty Empire ... has a key to world politics for the next five hundred years.”
Well, everything is different and nothing has changed since Hay announced the famous Open Door policy, which demanded American commercial access in China equal to that of other major nations. A century of Sino-American ups and downs — with far more of the latter — followed, but today, in very different ways, the United States still seeks an open door; the secretary of the Treasury and an enraged Congress are hammering China to revalue its currency to give U.S. companies a better chance to compete with the world’s fastest-growing major economy.
Arguments over the exchange rate are a small part of what goes on these days between the two most important nations in the world. Washington and Beijing have several vital common interests, notably in the war against terrorism and the desire for strategic stability in the Pacific and South Asia. And the two nations are still making an effort to work together; on the American side, responsibility for what Washington calls “the global dialogue” is primarily in the hands of Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick, who is planning a visit to Beijing soon.
But although both sides officially deny it, Sino-American ties are slowly fraying while other issues take up the attention of senior American officials. Beyond the never-ending Taiwan issue and Washington’s concern over China’s growing military muscle, two huge factors put the relationship under constant pressure: first, substantially different attitudes toward the rights of people to express themselves freely and, second, the massive trade imbalance.
What vastly complicates US relations with China is that every major foreign policy issue between the two countries is also a domestic matter, with its own lobbying groups and nongovernmental organizations ranging across the entire American political spectrum, from human rights to pro-life, from pro-Tibet to organized labour. The bilateral agenda, even a partial one, is daunting: Taiwan, Tibet, human rights, religious freedom, press freedom, the Falun Gong, slave labour, North Korea, Iran, trade, the exchange rate, intellectual property rights, access to Chinese markets, export of sensitive technology and the arms embargo. In Washington, where different parts of the executive branch dominate on each issue and Congress plays a major role, it can be difficult to stick to a coherent overall policy. China, on the other hand, with its highly secretive, tightly disciplined and undemocratic system, can establish long-term policy goals and then work slowly toward them: The Chinese, are, as they like to remind visitors, a patient people.
China’s advance toward long-term goals has produced extraordinary economic results since Deng Xiaoping’s reforms began in 1979, notwithstanding the terrible 1989 crackdown in Tiananmen Square. In foreign policy, however, things had been different until recently. After its war against Vietnam in 1979, China became defensive, even passive, on the world stage.
But China’s new leaders have begun to match their economic power with a more assertive foreign policy. Taken individually, Chinese actions may look like a series of unrelated events. But they are part of a long-term strategy. Some recent examples:
China’s gradual emergence as a political player on the world stage comes when there is a growing impression among other countries in East Asia that Washington is not paying the region sufficient attention. (Ironically, this is in sharp contrast to India, where relations with the United States are at their historical best.)
If we lose interest and political influence in the Asia-Pacific region just as it grows in economic importance, the imbalance will surely return later to haunt a new generation of policymakers — and the nation. The challenge is obvious, but the lack of clear focus at the highest levels in Washington on our vital national security interests in the region is disturbing. —Dawn/Washington Post Service
The writer was assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs of the US at the time of normalization of its relations with China.
Studying national traits
VISITORS to this country who have scoured the few bookshops that exist in the hope of finding a well-researched treatise on national characteristics, will be sadly disappointed. To the best of this writer’s knowledge, no sociologist or anthropologist has as yet embarked on such a project in any appreciable detail.
True, bookshelves groan under the weight of novels written in the vernacular where authors extol the virtues of unrequited love, heroism and sacrifice. But a proper systematic study of what makes the average Pakistani tick has, according to this writer’s research, not yet been accomplished.
Perhaps this is because writers regard the subject as uninteresting and unrewarding. Who wants to read about similarities and differences between Balochs and Pathans or why the men of a certain province feel it is imperative that they must have two wives. There are so many more interesting subjects that agitate the mind, like the constant abuse of human rights, the desperate need to reform the judicial system, the usurpation of political power by a succession of military dictators, and how feudalism continues to impede progress in an essentially agricultural country.
Noticing the void, an attempt was made in the early ‘eighties by a maverick American travel writer whom I once met in Lahore. After touring the country he focused on concepts like hospitality and valour, the two central spires of folk memory of which the Pakistanis feel exceptionally proud Hospitality, however, was always the dominant theme.
There is one story in particular which he heard wherever he went. Each of the four provinces claimed ownership and insisted the tale originally emanated from their neck of the woods. It is the old yarn about the poor farmer who had a magnificent white horse, rated by people far and wide as the finest horse ever to have been born in the subcontinent.
A nawab, so the story goes, who had heard about this wonderful animal, decided he had to add the steed to his stable and so set forth for the farmer’s humble abode with a bag of gold coins tucked under his cummerbund. When the poor farmer heard about the impending visit, he was devastated. He realized he had no meat to place before the prince, and so he slew his horse.
The American nevertheless abandoned the project when he realized that if his research was to have any credibility, it would have to also include things like intolerance, cynicism, cruelty to women, a preference for people from his own province, a strong predilection for taking short cuts and breaking the law and for preserving the more retrogressive and austere aspects of a stone age culture.
The British are much luckier than most people. Possibly the most tolerant nation in the world, they have a gift which is in considerably short supply in this country — the ability to laugh at themselves.
So many attempts have been made to define the British character that a researcher has considerable material at his disposal. What this writer has, however, noticed is that in all these literary investigations designed to demonstrate how the British are different from other people, which range from the mildly serious to the frivolous, both the approach and content have often evoked a chuckle.
One of the earliest forays into the qualities that make up a typical Englishman, is the one produced by one of Britain’s great cartoonists, who alas, no more enlightens and amuses the British public. According to Ffolkes, the French believe the English are always broke; are arrogant (who else could call it the English Channel?) have an obsession with dogs; make poor racing cyclists; make blundering lovers — when not queer, though they have to break through the defences of those frigid horsewomen somehow; speak ‘O’ level French, a language unknown across the channel; are exploiters of au pair girls; love processions; live off ketchup, never talk in railway carriages, restaurants, in the street or at home, but burst into speech when giving away confidential secrets; have no artistic talent; are parentally permissive; hunt what they cannot eat; have humour but no wit; and expect the world to speak English English and not American English.
The British in retaliation, naturally, had a thing or two to say about the French. They believed the ‘frogs’ talked too fast, did not love animals unless cooked, lived in controlled tipsiness from the age of four, had a tendency to leave dismembered waitresses in luggage lockers in the Gare de Lyons, based their cultural superiority on a few Impressionists, a backlog of unreadable poetry and Racine’s school texts, and the myth of military superiority entirely on a Corsican, lost all battles since then and always called in the British to rescue them, were parental tyrants, shot nightingales, stopped waving their arms only to go to sleep and were the creators of haute cuisine — a system of disguising flavour with garlic and sauces.
A couple of decades before Ffolkes entertained readers of Punch and The New Yorker George Mikes, a Hungarian immigrant, wrote the first of his series of cameos on different nationalities How to be an Alien was an instant success. His reference to extreme politeness, which in a sense set the tone in this hilarious book, if often quoted as a typical characteristic of the British. A foreigner bumps into an Englishman whilst walking on the pavement and the Englishman turns around and apologizes.
George Orwell once produced a list of essential Englishness that Anglophiles in Pakistan are familiar with. These include the public school system, clubs, codes and conformity. Six years ago, Jeremy Paxman added a few more — irony, mistrust of foreigners, a love of quizzes and crosswords.
He added the phrase ‘I know my rights’ and the modest self-confidence that produced the famous newspaper headline ‘Fog in Channel — Continent cut off.’ Researchers will be pleased to know that the research is very much alive and that somebody has taken a fresh look at what makes the English different from anybody else. Kate Fox’s book Watching the English published last year in London is highly recommended to Pakistani readers who while they have always admired the British sense of fair play, must have at times wondered why the English start most conversations by discussing the weather and have such a cynical no-nonsense approach to life.
The book is a delightful compilation of the qualities of her countrymen and women and how they came to acquire them. “I don’t see why anthropologists feel they have to travel to remote corners of the world and get dysentery in order to study strange tribal cultures with bizarre beliefs and mysterious customs,” Fox points out by way of introduction, “when the weirdest, most puzzling tribe of all is right here on our doorstep.”
In Watching the English, Kate Fox takes a revealing look at the quirks, habits and foibles of the English people. She puts the English national character under her anthropological microscope, and finds a strange and fascinating culture, governed by complex sets of unspoken rules and Byzantine codes of behaviour.
Her minute observation of the way the English talk, dress, eat, drink, work, play, shop, drive, flirt, fight, queue — and moan about it all — exposes the hidden rules that they all unconsciously obey.
In this fascinating study readers will find the entire tool kit: the rules of weather-speak; the ‘importance of not being earnest’ rule; the ironic-gnome rule; the reflex-apology rule; the paranoid-pantomime rule; class indicators and class-anxiety tests; the money-talk taboo; humour rules; pub etiquette; table manners; the rules of bogside reading; the dangers of excessive moderation; the eccentric-sheep rule and the English ‘social disease’.
Through a mixture of anthropological analysis and her own unorthodox experiments, using herself as a reluctant guinea-pig, Kate Fox discovers what these unwritten behaviour codes tell us about Englishness.
Watching the English is written with an insider’s knowledge, but from an outsider’s perspective. If the reader is English, it will make him stand back and re-examine everything he normally took for granted, discover just how English he really is — and laugh ruefully at himself. If the reader is not English, he can laugh without squirming.
He will finally understand all the peculiar little ways of the Anglo, and, if he wishes, can become like them. Englishness, as one reviewer pointed out, is not a matter of birth, race, colour or creed: it is a mindset, based on a set of behaviour-codes that anyone can decipher and apply — now that Kate Fox has provided the key.
The economic reality of Pakistan
UNTIL a few years ago, Pakistan was deep in debt and deficit with nothing to show for economic growth. The country couldn’t find a place except among such least developed countries (LDCs) as Somalia and Ethiopia.
But times have changed. From negative GDP growth in the fading years of the last decade, Pakistan has — perhaps more by chance than the outstanding performance of the country’s economic managers — shown a miraculously high economic growth. Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, who also doubles as the country’s finance minister, travels around the world proclaiming growth at a projected 8.3 per cent for the current financial year to end-June 2005. At that rate, the country’s economy is growing faster than India’s and next only to China’s in the Asian region.
That should switch Pakistan’s position from an LDC to a rapidly developing country. But by default or design, Pakistan continues to place itself either among LDCs or among developing countries, as the situation may demand. Officials in high places in the ministries concerned, when negotiating trade-related issues at international forums, meekly plead for concessions from trading partners that are meant to support only the least developed countries (the GSP plus case with EU). In doing so, they expose real and imaginary faultlines in Pakistan’s economy and portray the country as one in extreme economic distress and in dire need of international assistance.
Having passed the hat around for decades, generations of bureaucrats have learnt ways of how to win the sympathy of developed nations, to extract some concessions. But leaving aside the question of national honour, the economic managers need to put their heads together so as to adopt a well thought out strategy over the issue. There is not known to have ever been an open discussion even among the country’s economic team, on which side of the fence Pakistan falls. Is it a developing country or a least developing country (LDC)? No one appears to have ever weighed the costs and benefits of settling the country in either of the two groups.
The World Trade Organization (WTO) does not offer a clear and concrete definition. But one recognized way of differentiating developing countries from LDCs is to gauge their average per capita income. All countries with an average per capita income of less than US$700 are classified as LDCs and those above $700 are assumed to be developing countries. Pakistan, which has only recently managed to pull itself out of diplomatic isolation, should make a clear self-assessment of its economic position in comity of nations. Economic diplomacy is not all about socializing internationally.
The goal of economic diplomacy should be to contribute to the social and economic development of the country so that ultimately the average Pakistani can attain a quality of life that fulfils his aspirations. It should contribute to the creation of opportunities for local economic agents in the industrial, agricultural and the services sectors for a more stable and prosperous Pakistan.
The Musharraf government’s diplomatic initiative on the economic front leaves one confused over the strength and dependability of what Clinton had called a bridge between the domestic and foreign policies of a government.
If the success of economic diplomacy were to be evaluated on the basis of ‘attendance’ at different international economic forums, Pakistan would have found a place next to key global players. However, judged on the criteria of tangible benefits that may have accrued to the country and helped to improve the plight of its people over the last five years, there is really not much to show. Poverty alleviation and job creation have scarcely moved out of drawing rooms where verbosity, promises and dreams are made, only to fade away in thin air. For all the outward traffic of high-powered trade delegations — in both the public and private sectors — in real terms, the benefits hardly justify the costs.
In spite of pursuing policies of liberalization internally at a high cost, Pakistan continues to be looked down in the comity of nations as a ‘least open’ economy. Does this not signify a failure of the country’s economic diplomacy?
Though visibly active on the WTO forum, Pakistan avoids the legal course to settle trade disputes. This can be attributed either to a lack of trust or to the low level of understanding the mechanisms in place under the WTO. Instead of making its case on the foundation of hard facts, backed by the necessary homework, before the dispute settlements body of the WTO, those pleading Pakistan’s case depend more on rhetoric.
But does that work? In this age of growing transparency and logic, there is little scope for sheer charm to impress well-informed aggressive leaders engaged in economic diplomacy. Efforts to familiarize functionaries with the art and science of complex world trade negotiations cannot be overemphasized.
The quality of statistical economic data in the country does not conform to world standards, which quite clearly is another area that needs to be seriously looked into.
Pakistan under the guidance of Bretton Woods institutions — the IMF and World Bank — embarked on the road to liberalization in the early ‘80s, more than a decade before the wisdom of liberal economic policies arrived in India. When the economic environment in the region was still protective, Pakistan started lowering applicable tariff slabs for many items. This allowed the world easier access to Pakistan’s domestic market, much to the chagrin of a nascent local industry.
With donors breathing heavily down the necks of policy makers, Pakistan lowered subsidies in agriculture, industry and the social sector. To improve the country’s balance sheet it sacrificed aggressive public development spending programmes despite a poor physical and social infrastructure situation. People bore the direct cost of subsidy withdrawals. The most vulnerable were sidelined as ill-designed IMF-recommended policies leading to the creation of distortions fracturing the natural growth process in the country. It was not only the people who suffered due to liberalization; successive governments also had to bear the burden of unpopular policies, contributing to political instability in the country.
It was a painful process to make the country adapt itself to a freer trade environment. But it is ironical that instead of earning the credit that was its due for opening up earlier than many other countries, Pakistan is still labelled as ‘least open’ by many trade watchdog bodies. There is something terribly wrong here. The first and foremost challenge to economic diplomacy is to do what is needed to correct this anomaly.
The country seems reluctant to initiate legal proceedings in trade disputes. The cost may be high but in a free market environment of cut-throat competition, it is unrealistic to give undue weightage to political manoeuvrings in resolving trade disputes. Sometimes the strategy of out-of-court settlement is interpreted as a weakness that again works against the interests of the country. To devise efficient trade strategies, economic diplomats need background material based on high quality research. Both the government and the private sector have yet to realize the importance of capacity building to safeguard national economic interests more vigorously and effectively.
To earn respect and weight at global forums, the country will need to evolve better systems and adopt modern techniques of statistical data collection and dissemination. It will have to switch over from approximation and averages to a more rigorous exercise of economic data collection. The quality and effectiveness of public policy intervention depends on the quality of information and identification of linkages between fixed and variable factors.
In this age of global integration and interdependence, no country has a future in isolation. The goal of economic diplomacy, therefore, should be to reconcile and harmonize national, social and economic processes with the dynamics of the global environment.
The end of an era?
Imagine the political impact on Britain’s Labour party of failing to win an election in Scotland and you have some idea of what the election defeat in North Rhine-Westphalia means to Germany’s governing Social Democrats (SPD).
But the defeat for Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder’s party is more important than that. North-Rhine Westphalia is Germany’s economic powerhouse: as a separate country, it would be the world’s 13th largest economy. Its 18 million inhabitants, centred in the Rhine and Ruhr valleys in cities such as Cologne, Dusseldorf and Dortmund, have been the bedrock of SPD support in Germany. Until last week, the SPD had ruled there for 39 years. Last time the centre-right CDU beat the SPD in North Rhine-Westphalia, it did so by two per cent. On Sunday the gap was eight per cent.
It is not hard to see why Mr Schroeder’s man in Dusseldorf, Peer Steinbruck, did so very badly this time. The decline of the coal and steel industries on which the region’s wealth and cohesion were built has hit its people hard. When the SPD began its long reign there, nearly 60 per cent of the region was based on industry.
Today, the share is 27 per cent and falling. Like many parts of Germany, North Rhine-Westphalia has also seen traditional employers redeploying to the cheaper new EU nations to the east. The result is 12 per cent unemployment, well above the level in the old West Germany.
—The Guardian, London