Response to Mumbai

PHASE two of the response to the Mumbai attacks is nearing. In phase one, India and the international community demanded that Pakistan track down any local architects of the attacks and begin to shut down the terror network that sustained them. Now, attention is turning towards prosecuting the Mumbai suspects and building on the early steps to dismantle the Jamaatud Dawa. Indications are that Pakistan will file criminal cases in local courts against a number of persons and seek India’s cooperation in providing evidence which can withstand scrutiny in a court of law. We support this course and urge India to act responsibly when dealing with this aspect of the Mumbai attacks. In this regard, Indian Home Minister P. Chidambaram’s rubbishing of Pakistan’s interest in more information is unfortunate. Indian officials must facilitate, not impede, the legal process.

In South Asia, where the judicial process is often tainted, it is easy to forget that a conviction in a court of law is the only just way for a society to punish its criminals. Since November, India has often thundered about Pakistani duplicity and Pakistan has often seemed confused in its response, but the fact is once the issue is in the hands of lawyers and judges, nothing short of full cooperation between the two states will ensure convictions that will not be overturned on appeal. Here in Pakistan, we need look no further than the legal limbo of A.Q. Khan to understand the repercussions of a half-baked attempt to apply the law. Meanwhile, the Indian government, which caught Ajmal Kasab red-handed, would do well to remember that it still only has the lone surviving gunman in judicial custody. On Feb 2, when Kasab’s remand in police custody was set to expire yet again, the police once more asked for an extension. Additional Public Prosecutor E.B. Dhamal explained to the Press Trust of India: “It was argued that the police had to carry out further investigations in the case for which custody was needed.” In legal matters, patience is not just a virtue, it is the bedrock of justice.

However, prosecution of the Mumbai suspects will only bring partial closure to the Mumbai issue. The second half is political and will depend on Pakistan’s commitment to shutting down militant networks that operate here. This is where the issue becomes murkier. The government has locked some offices of the Jamaatud Dawa and curbed the movement of a few of its leaders but it is still not clear if a full-scale closure is in the offing. Indeed, on Kashmir Day members of the erstwhile Jamaatud Dawa gathered under the banner of a new organisation. This must not be allowed to happen. A selective response to the threat from militants will only embolden them, and complicate regional relationships.

Non-availability of urea

FARMERS have every right to feel angry at the persisting shortage of urea for their wheat crop. They responded positively to the call for an increase in domestic food production. However, the government failed to ensure the availability of the essential fertiliser, leading to growing protests by the farming community in many parts of the country. It is reported that in parts of Punjab, the nation’s granary, small groups of farmers have been involved in attacks on the agriculture department’s field offices and officials. In at least one incident, a farmer from central Punjab is reported to have killed himself because he could not get the fertiliser. Small landholders, who have been hit the hardest, believe that the reduced use of DAP fertiliser, due to its formidable cost, and urea, because of its unavailability, will prove disastrous for the crop output.

The situation has not even eased after the arrival of the latest consignment of 120,000 tonnes of imported fertiliser via Gwadar, reflecting poorly on the government’s ability to handle the crisis effectively. When the government raised the minimum support price for wheat to Rs950 per 40 kg in September to increase its output, it knew that the farmers would respond positively. The area under wheat cultivation went up by almost 1.5 million acres to 22 million acres this year from last year’s 20.05 million acres. That meant a substantial increase in the use of fertilisers. But planners did not realise that hoarders and profiteers would see this as an opportunity to make a quick buck. The decision to import urea to bridge the huge gap between its domestic production and demand was made late in the day. Meanwhile, hoarders were allowed to fleece the farmers. The district administrations, especially in Punjab, failed to take action against the hoarders thus exacerbating the crisis.

The urea crisis will be history in another week or so, not least because the right time for its use is almost over. But another crisis — the expected bumper wheat production estimated in excess of 24 million tonnes — is looming large. It’s high time that the federal and provincial governments declared their procurement policy and took measures to implement it to ease farmers’ fears of a possible crash of the market resulting from a record output. If growers don’t get the right price for their product this year it will be difficult to convince them to grow wheat in the next season.

Capital punishment

MISCARRIAGE of justice is a global phenomenon. Take the case of the Guildford Four who were released in 1989 after spending 15 years behind bars on charges of bombing pubs on behalf of the Irish Republican Army. Justice was delayed, immeasurably, but it was eventually established that all four accused were innocent. It was accepted that the local police had concocted the case and hidden facts in order to secure convictions in court. Capital punishment in the UK was abolished in 1965 for almost all crimes other than treason. In 1998 it was expunged from the books altogether. The Guildford Four may have been put to death, for no acceptable reason, had the UK not done away with the death penalty. In the US, advanced DNA testing has shown, on a number of occasions, that persons convicted of murder were in fact innocent. Not every innocent person wrongfully sentenced to death is so lucky.

Capital punishment can be opposed on purely ethical grounds. But philosophical merits and demerits are another debate altogether. This paper has consistently held that the death penalty has no place in Pakistan because the investigation and judicial processes are hugely flawed. ‘Confessions’ are extracted in police stations that specialise in torture. The police, and even the lower judiciary, let monetary incentives colour their judgement. The poor do not have access to quality representation in the courts while petitioners with resources can employ the cream of the legal profession. The privileged are at an intrinsic ‘legal’ advantage in a country where a few thousand rupees can get you off a murder charge or have you implicated in it — and hanged in due course. Those who maintain capital punishment serves as a deterrent are clearly unfamiliar with the crime charts for the last few decades. Hanging is not a deterrent when the system is unfair and when you can buy your way out of the most heinous of crimes. The prime minister promised last year that the death penalty would be abolished. He must abide by his word.

OTHER VOICES - European Press

A surveillance state

The Telegraph

EVEN in the name of countering crime, why should the state know everything about us? The evidence is growing by the week that the government is creating a surveillance state. It was confirmed ... that a database containing the international travel records of all citizens is being compiled; and Jacqui Smith, the home secretary, is drawing up plans to keep similar details of every phone call and email that is sent. In addition, the records of all children are to be held on a system called ContactPoint, a national ID database is currently being developed, all health records currently held by GPs will be centrally available and a database of DNA profiles, ostensibly for criminals, is being built by stealth. Meanwhile, the ubiquitous CCTV cameras in every public space make personal privacy increasingly hard to maintain. Even in the name of countering crime or combating terrorism, why should the state know where you are going, where you have been and whom you call while watching everyone’s movements on camera?

Concerns about these developments are no longer confined to a few people dismissed by ministers as paranoid obsessives who fail to understand the security requirements of the modern state. Last year, a Commons select committee made a number of recommendations about the need for new regulations, controls and restrictions on state accumulation of information about its citizens. A few days ago, a House of Lords committee published a report stating unequivocally that monitoring the everyday activities of innocent individuals was becoming ‘pervasive’ and ‘routine’. The peers noted that this intrusiveness had altered the relationship between the state and its citizens and represented “one of the most significant changes in the life of the nation since the end of the Second World War”.

The peers also observed that most Britons were unaware of the extent of these surveillance practices and did not fully appreciate their potential consequences. One reason for this is the lamentable record of the Commons in curtailing these developments. However, while the government says it recognises that many people may well feel uncomfortable with the increase in surveillance it insists it is for their own good and proposes to do nothing to curtail it. Indeed, the Coroners and Justice Bill currently before parliament contains powers to let Whitehall departments and other state agencies use and share personal data for whatever purpose a minister sees fit. This removes protections that exist in statute precisely to stop this happening. If parliament is really serious about halting the advance of the surveillance state it must draw the line now and throw out this pernicious measure. — (Feb 8)

Swat inferno and militant ideology

THE writ of the state in Swat has been demolished. When Operation Rah-i-Haq was launched by the Pakistan Army in 2007, the militants controlled only 25 per cent of the area. After a year of military operations involving approximately 20,000 troops, the Taliban diktat has, like ink spilt over blotting paper, spread to at least 75 per cent of the territory.

The government has been a passive bystander as Maulana Fazlullah has continued to perpetrate brutality on the people of Swat. As a consequence 80,000 girls no longer attend schools and 8,000 teachers are without employment because female education and emancipation are unacceptable to the false creed of the Taliban. The situation is further compounded by mass resignations, desertions and the exodus of security officials from this picturesque region which was once an idyllic tourist spot.

Terrified by the possibility of annihilation, some politicians from the area have not only suggested negotiations with the Taliban but have also called for the withdrawal of the army. Such appeasement can only further embolden the militants. Maulana Fazlullah and other clerics have already declared that they will continue to wage war against the state till an ‘Islamic emirate’ is established and Sharia is imposed as the law of the land.

The imposition of Sharia is easier said than done and is beyond the ken of these semi-literate extremist elements. Scores of learned ulema, subscribing to various schools of Islamic thought, were not even able to come forward with an agreed criteria for determining who is or is not a Muslim before the Munir Committee of 1953, leave aside such complex issues as the interpretation of Islamic law.

Of the Quran’s 6,247 verses only 100 deal with ritual practices, 70 with civil laws, 30 with penal laws and 20 with jurisprudence. For all other forms of legislation, the Quran only emphasises the need of being just. This, therefore, leaves ample scope for legislatures in Muslim countries to enact laws that conform to contemporary requirements and modernity. The logic behind this is that the needs of various societies, people and times influence the perception of what is just and what is not.

Contrary to what the militants claim, colonial-era laws in force in Pakistan do not militate against the canons of justice and, therefore, cannot be considered un-Islamic. In 1981 Gen Ziaul Haq created the Federal Sharia Court for the purpose of examining all prevalent laws in the country and determining if any of them violated the injunctions of Islam.

The court, accordingly, examined laws dating as far back as 1841 but could hardly find anything violative of Islamic tenets in them. Ironically the few provisions that were considered un-Islamic were the ones that had been enacted after 1947.

In the early 1980s, the federal government also attempted to bring the law of evidence in line with Islamic tenets. A revised draft of the law of evidence was sent to the four provinces for their views. The deposed Justice Khalilur Rahman Ramday of the Supreme Court, whose historic judgment of July 20, 2007 reinstated Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, was one of the few asked to review the draft.

In a recent interview he highlighted his observations on the revised draft to the effect that there had been no substantive amendment to the laws except for the name and renumbering of the provisions. This futile exercise was undertaken because a few people close to President Ziaul Haq had convinced him that the Evidence Act of 1872 was un-Islamic. When they were asked to make the required revisions, they merely reproduced the provisions of the act verbatim, renumbered them and renamed it as the Qanoon-i-Shahadat Ordinance of 1984. This was intellectual dishonesty at its worst.

The imposition of draconian laws which the Taliban claim to be in accordance with Islamic tenets further reaffirms that their skewed interpretation of religious doctrine is far removed from a moderate reading of Islamic injunctions. Vandalism, banning of girl’s education and brutal suppression of any ideological opposition are alien to religious principles promoting tolerance, humanity and peace.

Interior Adviser Rehman Malik has declared in parliament that Swat will be reclaimed in a matter of days and that the militants will be flushed out of the area. General Ashfaq Kayani’s visit to Swat and the subsequent military operations indicate a commitment beyond empty rhetoric, which was the case in respect to Parachinar some months earlier. The pacification of Swat, however, will not be complete unless military action is followed through with the ideological defeat of the Taliban and their sympathisers amongst segments of the religious right in the country.

The writer is editor-in-chief of Criterion Quarterly.

mushfiq.murshed@gmail.com

Liberal fascism

IT is undeniable that the best way to have avoided complicity in the horrors of the last century would have been to have adopted the politics of Jonah Goldberg, author of Liberal Fascism.

Much can be said against moderate conservatives, but it has to be admitted that their wariness of grand designs and their willingness to place limits on the over-mighty state give them a clean record others cannot share.

Few of Goldberg’s contemporaries will grant him the same courtesy. He lives in a western culture where “smug, liberal know-nothings, sublimely confident in the truth of their ill-informed opinions” accuse him of being “a fascist and a Nazi” simply because he is a conservative. Meanwhile, the heart-throb-savant George Clooney can assert that “the liberal movement morally has stood on the right side”.

Behind the insults and the self-righteousness is the assumption that politics runs on a continuum from far left to far right. Goldberg sets out to knock down this false paradigm and show that much of what Americans call liberalism, and we call leftism, has its origins in fascism.

Liberal Fascism is not a clean blow to the jaw, but a multiple rocket launcher of a book that targets just about every liberal American hero and ideal. The title comes from H.G. Wells, the most strenuous intellectual advocate of totalitarianism on the early-20th-century British left. “I am asking for a Liberal Fascisti,” he told the Oxford Union in 1932, “for enlightened Nazis. The world is sick of parliamentary democracy. The Fascist party is Italy. The Communist is Russia. The Fascists of liberalism must carry out a parallel ambition of a far grander scale.”

Wells saw no difference between communism and fascism and Goldberg puts a compelling case that neither should we. Mussolini began as a socialist agitator. The Nazis were a national socialist party which despised bourgeois democracy and offered a comprehensive welfare state.

I agree that all totalitarianisms are essentially the same, and that far leftists combined with far rightists in the 1920s and 1930s and are doing so again now. But I had difficulties with Goldberg’s concept of totalitarian unity. Communists killed different people to fascists. If you were a peasant farmer in Nazi Germany, Mussolini’s Italy or Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, they allowed you to live — as long as you did not cross them.

In America, flustered liberal critics have had far greater difficulty with the notion that they and their predecessors are the inheritors of ideas that began in the fascist movement. Goldberg certainly leaves them little left to be proud of as he provides an alternative history of an America that Simon Schama lacks the intellectual courage to confront.

He begins with Woodrow Wilson and shows that before Mussolini came to power, a Democratic president imposed a militarised state. When America entered the First World War, the progressives of the day used the conflict as an excuse to arrest dissidents, close newspapers and recruit tens of thousands of neighbourhood spies.

Beginning with the Black Panthers, multiculturalism has also placed racial and religious identity above all else and beyond the reach of rational argument. Fascism was a pagan movement, whose mystic tropes are repeated by new age healers, vegetarians and greens.

Repeatedly he insists that he does not want to allege that, for instance, Hillary Clinton’s admittedly sinister desire for the state to take the place of the family makes her a totalitarian, merely that her ideas come from the totalitarian movement.

Liberal Fascism is a bracing and stylish examination of political history. That it is being published at a time when Goldberg’s free market has failed and big government and charismatic presidents are on their way back in no way invalidates his work. Hard times test intellectuals and, for all its occasional false notes, Goldberg’s case survives. n

— The Guardian, London