Obama’s resolve

IN what appears to be a welcome shift in his usual refrain about Pakistan, Senator Barack Obama has emphasised the need for a Kashmir solution. He has said if he is elected he will continue to promote a better understanding between Pakistan and India. In two TV interviews, the presidential hopeful while focusing on terrorism, saw Afghanistan as the greater problem. A shift in his view — now he admits that the militants could not be defeated “without Pakistan’s help” given the “porous and very difficult” nature of the border — might explain the softening of his tone vis-à-vis Islamabad. The Democratic candidate’s reference to Kashmir vindicates Islamabad’s view that the current normalisation process can lead to a lasting peace between Pakistan and India only when the Kashmir issue is finally settled to the satisfaction of the people of Kashmir.

While terrorism, especially the criminality perpetrated on 9/11, cannot be condoned under any circumstances, America’s indifference towards the oppression unleashed on Muslims in several hotspots of the world, including Kashmir, has left them disconcerted. As for the war on terror, the US should not expect to win it without adopting a regional approach. That would be possible only if Washington were to engage Islamabad, New Delhi and Kabul in its Afghan strategy so that the war has their collective support. Without promoting further understanding between India and Pakistan, the next president — whoever gets elected — cannot really hope to forge a regional approach. Mr Obama realises this fully when he gives credit to the Bush administration for modifying the US line on South Asia and persuading Pakistan to review its traditional defence strategy that hitherto was India-centric. This became a subtle factor in the dialogue and reconciliation process in South Asia that helped change the climate in the region.

India-Pakistan ties have improved considerably in the last five years since the composite dialogue was launched. The failure of the two countries, however, to find a comprehensive settlement on the Kashmir dispute has pre-empted a closer understanding on their approach to the war on terror. By focusing on Kashmir, Mr Obama has indicated that he understands the dynamics of international politics in South Asia. He also needs to understand some of the concerns of the Kashmiris that have generated the current unrest in the Valley. With the level of cross-border terrorism having fallen considerably, New Delhi needs to look into the indigenous causes that have brought Kashmir to this pass. India has never been happy about a third party showing any interest in its dispute with Pakistan — and Obama’s statements evoked protests from Indian circles in the US — but this matter cannot be shoved under the carpet.

‘Independent’ advice

IN a fast-changing world conventional roles of state functionaries and institutions are also changing — in fact they should if their performance is to be effective. Keeping this in view, many governments have sought to give depth and strength to their policies by seeking the advice of independent experts. Think-tanks, research institutions and universities worldwide have increasingly emerged as key advisers to governments. Against this backdrop, it was heartening to read the statement of an additional secretary of the Foreign Office that interaction between the foreign affairs ministry and intellectual forums will be encouraged. So Pakistan is catching up. Internationally renowned organisations such as the Council on Foreign Relations in New York and Chatham House in London, and the research conducted in universities such as Harvard and Oxford, to name a few, have benefited their government’s policymaking in all spheres through their unbiased and independent analyses, informed debate and new ideas. If Pakistan’s policymakers have not felt the need for such considered opinion so far, it does not mean that such advice is dispensable. It was partly the undemocratic nature of the governments that have ruled the country and the autocratic culture of the policymaking process during times when constitutional rulers were in office that sidelined independent opinion. In an age when we suffer from information overload, objective experts can skilfully sift the grain from the chaff and preserve the useful bits for considered analysis.

Having said this, one could still ask if Pakistan has the basic infrastructure for intellectual debate and research. The fact is that this country has never encouraged freedom of thought and expression. Dissenting ideas have been frowned upon and even suppressed if they emanated from a government-funded institution be it a university or a research institute. University professors challenging the government’s point of view have been victimised and quite a few have lost their jobs or not been promoted. Unfortunately, this culture has not changed at all even with the induction of democratic governments. Even in the present case we know how the heads of various institutions with whom the present dispensation was not too comfortable have been replaced by loyalists who can be trusted to give the ‘right’ advice that invariably endorses what the policymakers have decided. The entire approach towards research and intellectual freedom must change if the government is serious about allowing independent intellectual input in policymaking.

Environmental degradation

THE toxic brew of official indifference, corporate greed and public apathy has long been wreaking havoc on the country’s environment. Worse, environmental degradation is picking up pace in Pakistan instead of being checked. Ecosystems are being destroyed and species lost, mountainsides eroded and our soil and waterways poisoned. Forests in the north and mangrove stands in the south are being decimated, and the Arabian Sea has been turned into a sewage dump. Desertification is on the rise and arable land is being lost to sea intrusion at an alarming rate. The urban environment has meanwhile suffered immeasurably at the hands of unplanned and often rapacious ‘development’. Trees are being chopped down indiscriminately, congestion is increasing and the few open spaces left are disappearing. All this comes at a massive health risk, especially for the poor who tend to be relegated to the most polluted of areas be they rural or urban. Unsafe water is a major concern in many parts of the country while air and noise pollution in cities are taking a heavy toll on the physical and mental well-being of citizens. Naturally, workplace efficiency and productivity in general are also affected by the rigours of living in such stressed environments.

The economic cost of environmental degradation is said to be huge. According to a speaker at a seminar organised in Karachi on Saturday, environmental damage in Pakistan is valued in the region of Rs365bn a year. The Sindh environment and alternative energy minister, for his part, put the figure at between six and eight per cent of GDP. These are staggering sums and should shake out of their stupor even those who tend to be unmoved by human misery or the destruction of flora and fauna. The seminar highlighted the major causes of environmental degradation which include lack of interest on the part of government officials, poor coordination between relevant agencies, negligence in both the public and private sectors, and a general disregard for environmental concerns in the planning and execution of development projects. The latter demands a special mention here, for the system as it stands is flawed. When environmental impact assessments are carried out by those executing the projects, environmental concerns are bound to be downplayed or ignored. Honest appraisals are unlikely if EIAs are not conducted by reputable independent organisations.

Adjusting to change

I WILL begin by making two predictions and then offer four suggestions. The predictions are aimed at those who are bewildered by the changes that are occurring in what can loosely be labelled the global economic and social order. The suggestions are for Pakistan’s current policymakers to consider.

The two — the predictions and suggestions — are connected. Islamabad is struggling to deal with a crisis that has roots that go beyond the way the affairs of the state were managed by a series of administrations that governed the country over several decades. The crisis is also linked to the changes that are taking place in the way the world is currently organised.

Let me start with the two predictions. The first concerns the economic problems that have engulfed the globe. They started in the US in the summer of 2007, spread to Europe a year later and then began to lap at the shores of Asia and Latin America. There have been many economic crises before. What distinguishes the present one from all those that occurred in the last half century are its depth and reach. This crisis has interrupted a sustained period of economic prosperity that affected both the citizens of the developed world and billions of people living in developing countries.

Between 2000 and 2007, the world economy grew at a rate faster than experienced in nearly four decades. Income per person across the globe increased at 3.2 per cent a year, the fastest rate in world history. The percentage of the world’s population living in absolute poverty — those with incomes of less than $1 a day — declined from 40 per cent in 1981 to 18 per cent in 2004.

What brought about this remarkable change was an economic model that placed private enterprise at the front of the economy, pushing the state to the back. The change also depended on the forces unleashed by what came to be called globalisation. This was the process that freed capital to flow across national frontiers, allowed trade among nations to be relatively unrestrained, and reshaped industrial processes so that final products were put together from parts and components made in different parts of the world.

My first prediction is that a fundamental change will occur in this model before calm returns to the global economy. While the process of globalisation will continue, the state will step forward and take a position at the front of the economy. Governments across the globe will increase their oversight of the economy, bringing regulation to the parts of the economy that had known little constraint.

The second prediction concerns the distribution of power among the leading economies in the world. The system that was invented after the conclusion of the Second World War will be reshaped. The 44 countries that met in 1944 at Bretton Woods initially created two institutions, the International Monetary Fund and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, now called the World Bank. Fifty years later the world added the World Trade Organisation which was to be the third leg of the stool on which the global economy was to rest. While the IMF and the World Bank added new functions to their original mandate, and increased the number of countries that were their members, policymaking and decision-making powers remained with the rich nations, in particular the US.

That will change but it will not happen quickly since those who have power find it hard to give up even a little bit of it. That said, the process will begin with the summit forced upon Washington by Europe, in particular France, to be held on Nov 15. This gathering will take place only 11 days after the US will have elected a new president. The winner of that election will have a larger presence at the conference than the lame-duck George W. Bush. The president-elect will go to the meeting with ideas of his own and is likely to be more receptive to change than those who currently govern from Washington.

Having made these two predictions — that a new model of economic management will take shape as the world begins to find a solution to the current economic crisis and that a major realignment is likely to happen in power-sharing among the large economies of the world — I have four suggestions for Islamabad’s policymakers to adjust Pakistan to this new environment.

First, Islamabad must figure out the implication of the new economic order for its own position in the world; second, it should seek a niche for itself in the new system; third, it should strengthen the state to manage its own economy; and, fourth, it should seek closer partnerships with some of the nations that will gain more power in the new structure. I will deal in turn with each of those four suggestions.

As the new administration settles down in Islamabad, the responsibility for analysing the shape of the international economic order and its implication for Pakistan should be given to the Planning Commission. As I have written before, it is unfortunate that the commission was sidelined by previous administrations. This happened in particular during the period of President Pervez Musharraf when all economic powers were first usurped by the Ministry of Finance and later by the prime minister’s secretariat. There is an urgent need to restore a balance in economic policymaking and one way of achieving that would be to assign most analytical functions to the commission. Understanding the emerging economic order should be one of these assignments.

Pakistan’s indifferent economic performance over the last two to three decades has pushed it to the margins of international economic discourse. It will not be represented at the Nov 15 meeting and will have to accommodate itself to whatever structure finally emerges. However, it should seek to enter the system by cultivating strong working relations with the countries that will gain in the anticipated redistribution of economic power.

The obvious partners are China and the oil-producing countries in the Middle East. While there are good working relations with these countries, it is important to give them an institutional base. The Planning Commission and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs should establish economic wings that focus on particular countries. The foreign affairs ministry should develop the capacity to undertake economic diplomacy as one of its more important tasks. For analysis it should turn to the Planning Commission.Finally, Pakistan must not fall behind in strengthening the state to play a more productive role in economic management. This was another area that was neglected during the Musharraf period. I will pick up this subject in greater detail next week.

A Mandela moment

GIVEN the drama of our last two presidential elections, most of us Americans are much too cautious to prognosticate prematurely. Nevertheless, I can’t stifle a fizzy little hiccup of joy at the prospect of something like our own Nelson Mandela moment.

By this, I do not mean to say that the election of Barack Obama would launch us into some sort of ‘post-race’ utopia — it is naive to think that the urgently worrisome accumulations of racial inequality, ghetto isolation, horrendous rates of incarceration, or economic disparity will evaporate overnight.

As one marker of progress, however, the election of Obama would be hugely significant. It would surely count as something like a toehold on the proverbial mountaintop for which Martin Luther King so longed.

I had just turned 12 when Martin Luther King delivered his searing ‘I have a dream’ speech at the March on Washington. I remember weeping in front of the television. Who could fail to be moved? Things were changing.

Nevertheless, these events put political pressure on President Johnson, as well as on Congress, to sign and pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

In the years since, various aspects of those foundational moments have been re-fought, in new settings, with differing facts and faces. As more blacks moved to the urban north, ‘inner cities’ became the battle ground. Blacks were appointed to cabinet-level posts, military commands and the Supreme Court.

Today, there are hundreds of black mayors in all parts of the United States, including the Deep South. And as the demographics of the United States have changed.

And while there are moments when a Democratic partisan such as me wonders if it it’s the kind of victory that turns winning into losing, there has even sufficient diversity to herald the first conservative Republican African Americans in high places, like Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

So while there is still much to be achieved, what is exciting about Obama’s ascendancy is that it has been so unequivocally positive, so uplifting, so ... happy. When I think of the long slow progress of the modern Civil Rights movement, with its innumerable marches, murders, and martyrs, I can think of few victories that simultaneously had the potential for such genuine, uncompromised rejoicing as the vision of — dare I really say it? — President Barack Obama.

The writer is a professor of law at Columbia University, New York.

— The Guardian, London

OTHER VOICES - Sindhi Press

If budget figures are wrong

Ibrat

PAKISTAN needs to raise $5bn within the next 15 to 20 days to cope with the present economic crisis….

The talks in Dubai with the IMF have concluded and it was informally decided that the IMF will provide a $9.6bn loan facility to Pakistan. There are reports that the Friends of Pakistan will meet in Dubai on Nov 17 to consider measures to take Pakistan out of the financial crisis.

Shaukat Tareen has termed the budget figures as incorrect while the government is also backing his stance. This is strange as it is the same government that prepared the budget. The question is, if the budget figures are wrong then what is right?

No doubt, Musharraf and Shaukat Aziz are responsible for the present financial crisis. But the present rulers should have done some homework about the financial affairs. Except Shaukat Tareen, the ministers, advisers and economic managers are the same.

Reduction in the PSDP will mean less spending on public-welfare projects. The construction of infrastructure will be halted and the people of the country will suffer because of the mistakes of the economic managers.

Today Pakistan has no option but to accept the unpopular IMF rescue package. The people will have to pay the price for this IMF loan facility. The adverse impact on the poor sections of society cannot be ruled out. It is strange to note that the rulers and our economic managers woke up when the country reached the verge of default and the economy started drowning. Where were they earlier?

Pervez Musharraf can be blamed … for many mistakes, blunders and misadventures. But it should also be admitted that some blunders have been committed by the incumbent rulers and their advisers. It was their inability to carry out reforms.

If some homework had been done the situation might have been quite different. The government would have had some time and other sources could have been tapped for the urgently needed inflow of funds. Some money could have been arranged from the IMF and friendly countries. The sword of ‘economic reforms’ would have not been hanging over the people.

There is time, though very little, to avoid further disaster and start planning. If it started it today, the country will get the results in the coming years. — ( Oct 31)

— Selected and translated by Sohail Sangi.