The path of silence - Rafia Zakaria - January 5, 2011

Source : www.dawn.com

PAKISTANIS rang in the New Year with an ominous warning. While the rest of the world was engaged in revelry, activity in the streets and stores of Pakistan ground to a halt as religious parties called a strike over the possibility of amending the country’s blasphemy laws.

From pulpits from Karachi to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Friday sermons featured incendiary speeches castigating the motives of those proposing amendments and in some cases asking for the head of Aasia Bibi, the farmhand from Sheikhupura sentenced to death under the law.

The controversy over the blasphemy laws in Pakistan has been widely covered in media outlets around the world. A recent report by Julie McCarthy of National Public Radio (NPR) reflected the complicated task journalists face when pinpointing the beat of Pakistan’s public pulse. A detailed snapshot of an angry mob demanding that Aasia Bibi be hanged was followed by a cautionary mention of Pakistan’s “silent majority”.

This ‘majority’, the report magnanimously implies, would disagree with such vengeful and bloodthirsty demands and certainly pause to reflect on the injustice of a law that victimises poor and disenfranchised religious minorities. The listener is invited to assume that these benign, silent masses that form the bulk of Pakistan’s populace would not empathise with the virulent bloodlust that demands the death of an illiterate farmhand.

The NPR report must be appreciated for its efforts to elude the emerging stereotype of Pakistanis as roundly evil and inescapably shady Taliban sympathisers. However, the idea of Pakistan’s ‘silent majority’ must be evaluated in the backdrop of the realities illustrated by the outcry against any debate on the blasphemy laws. This involves examining the phenomenon that is most frequently proffered as evidence of the moderate tendencies of Pakistan’s public. The crowds at Sufi shrines, the kids happily munching burgers at McDonalds and KFC and even the fashion-week activities, held under high security, have all enjoyed stints in the collage of moderation that points to the inherent tolerance of Pakistanis.

Listening to a qawwali or partaking of the temptations of western capitalism such as movies and burgers help create a cherished self-image that sidelines repugnant realities. Simultaneously, they promote rationalisations that suggest that women are never raped, Christians and Hindus are never persecuted and the poor are never enslaved.

In recent years, as Pakistan moves deeper into the dregs of ignorance, these rationalisations have become a costly and obstinate delusion. Collectively, they hinge on the idea that random acts of tolerance and the scattered successes of this Hindu politician or that Christian businessman can form a bulwark against the angry mobs that see death and destruction as the road to purity.

If the above critique questions the presence of a silent majority, an equally apt one questions its actual potency in a country where democracy has meant the recycling of feudal and industrial elites arranged in varying party conglomerations. Even if it is assumed that the majority of Pakistanis would support the amendments to the blasphemy law, the tools at their disposal to hold back the vocal minority are despicably meagre.

Take, for instance, the most recent strike called by the religious parties, whose supporters went through markets and malls intimidating all into closing their shops and businesses. The result was an impression of widespread support while the reality may simply have been widespread fear.

The inability of a weak state perpetually poised on collapse to thwart such strikes or attacks on anyone who may resist intimidation means that there are few choices but the path of silence — even if it means that those espousing a hateful perspective are seen as victorious in the public perception. While efforts abound to fight terror through the security and military apparatus, no efforts exist to recover Pakistan’s millions of mosque pulpits from the control of those who have little religious knowledge but an insatiable desire for political power.

The cowering majority, retreating to their homes and watching lynch mobs and bomb blasts from safe distances, is not only fearful but deeply confused. While the ravages of suicide terror, and the tens of thousands of casualties that have been borne by Pakistanis, have led to the evolution of a public consensus against suicide terror, the current lack of support for amending the blasphemy laws reveals the fragility of this position.

The same religious clerics who have become adept at condemning suicide attacks in mosques and imambargahs see no contradiction in rousing mobs to kill a woman whose alleged crime is based entirely on hearsay. Nor, it seems, does anybody else, with few drawing attention to the idea that the same ideas of violence and intolerance that underpin justifications for suicide bombings are also at the root of laws that mandate state-imposed intimidation of minority groups.

The questions surrounding the existence or power of Pakistan’s ‘silent majority’ become crudely magnified in the light of the realities facing the country. The thousands of casualties lost to terrorism, vast swathes of the country still reeling in the aftermath of an unprecedented natural disaster, families selling one child to feed another and the rulers in Islamabad dangerously teetering on collapse all point to the dire need of a massive awakening of the ordinary citizen.

Never before has the country so urgently needed to rise up against the petty hatreds and political bickering that could produce yet another round of military rule with a new set of agonies. But even with foreign aid, few tools remain at hand to awaken Pakistan’s silent collective. The individual shopkeeper pulls down his shutters to ensure that his store will not be burned down for defying the strike, the bank manager chooses to stay home and enjoy a Friday with his family instead of venturing out, and a group of boys on a street quickly disband a game of cricket when they see a crowd coming out of the mosque. Together, their strategies for survival point to the silencing of a nation ruled by fear.

The writer is a US-based attorney teaching constitutional history and political philosophy.

rafia.zakaria@gmail.com

COMMENT: A plea for restraint —Mohammad Jamil - Wednesday, January 05, 2011

Source : www.dailytimes.com

In Pakistan, politicians have the tendency to take extreme positions that take them to a cul-de-sac. In the past, such attitudes resulted in the dismissal or removal of governments, as happened to the PPP and PML-N governments during the 1990s

Pakistan is facing multifaceted crisis and is passing through its most difficult period, yet our political leaders, instead of showing unity, are moving in divergent directions. To be precise, they are on a mutually destructive course. Could there be anything funnier than the show that the PML-N and MQM head honchos and their acolytes staged recently so enthusiastically? The leaders of both these parties have been talking about long marches and revolutions, though both parties are status quo forces and have the stigma of having been vaulted into power with the support of the military establishment. Of course, they had reciprocated the military rulers by helping them perpetuate their rule. However, at this point in time, when the country is caught up in the thorny thicket of difficulties and problems, even ordinary politicos would not think of making a call for street agitation. The military has indeed destroyed the strongholds of militants and terrorism has been reduced considerably (but it is still stalking the land), yet lawlessness is rampant everywhere and poverty, want and hunger are mowing down those living below the poverty line.

Yet none in the current crop of the nation’s political leadership is inclined to act responsibly. Either turf wars or sheer politics of power and pelf are consuming all their time and energy, while the country is slipping deeper into morass. The people are fed up with the internecine conflicts of the political parties and are disappointed over the ruling elite’s apathy towards their plight. On the one hand, the PPP and the PML-N are at loggerheads while on the other, the PML-N and the MQM’s top leadership and their acolytes have stooped so low as to use vulgar language against each other, dragging each other’s women folk into their war of words. In fact, top leaders of both the parties have spotted images and track records; both have been fugitives from the law. Altaf Hussain went into self-exile when the long arm of the law was chasing him for his alleged involvement in criminal cases. And Mian Nawaz Sharif could not bear the tribulations of prison life and eagerly fell in for an ignoble bargain and left for Saudi Arabia.

The people have witnessed the musical chairs of power politics Mian Nawaz played with the late Benazir Bhutto during the 1990s. The PPP, PML-N, MQM and PML-Q top leaders run their parties like personal fiefdoms. Inserting the clause in the constitution that gives unprecedented powers to the party head is reflective of their communal trait. Whereas they are on the same page on this count, they are at loggerheads on many other counts. There is always a difference of opinion between political parties, but the differences are narrowed down through negotiations. In Pakistan, politicians have the tendency to take extreme positions that take them to a cul-de-sac. In the past, such attitudes resulted in the dismissal or removal of governments, as happened to the PPP and PML-N governments during the 1990s. When in exile, the leaders of the PPP and the PML-N showed ‘unity in adversity’ and signed the Charter of Democracy. They formed a coalition government after the February 2008 elections just to part ways after a few weeks of this honeymoon.

Political leaders should know that the people are crying for food, jobs, schooling and healthcare for their families. There is nobody to listen to the impoverished, disenfranchised and enslaved people, especially in the rural areas. The signals coming from the streets are very ominous and troubling. There is a storm in the making. The leadership must change its course to pre-empt this storm; otherwise it will blow all over us and hurt the country as well. It is vital that both major parties rise above political exigencies and strive in unison to address the grave challenges faced by the country on account of security and stability; they should use their collective wisdom to strengthen the economy, create jobs, end corruption and collect revenues from the rich to give relief to the common man. Politicians should feel the pulse of the masses and synchronise their aims and objectives in line with the ground realities. They should reform their political agenda by showing what a change really means and how.

One can find many instances in history when nations confronted crisis or societies degenerated, and visionary leadership rose to the occasion to unite the nation with a view to arresting the decay and putting it on the path towards progress. Malaysia was a divided polity with conflicts between the Chinese and the local Malays because the former had dominated the economic scene. Malaysia is a multi-racial nation of 27 million where the Malays, Chinese, Indians and other ethnic communities blend to form a fascinating and distinctive social mosaic. Former prime minister of Malaysia, Mahatir Muhammad, played a pivotal role in creating unity among the people with different nationalities by ensuring equal opportunities for all and socio-economic justice in society. If people from diverse cultures and backgrounds can be united, then why can Pakistan not do so too where the people from various provinces are natives and not aliens? In recent history, Nelson Mandela, the former president of South Africa, floated the idea of national reconciliation. It should be borne in mind that this was reconciliation with members of the white minority rule that had committed atrocities on the black majority for decades.

Before his election as president, Mandela was an anti-apartheid activist and leader of the African National Congress. He spent 27 years in prison, much of it on Robben Island, on convictions for ‘crimes’ committed while he spearheaded the struggle against apartheid. Following his release from prison on February 11, 1990, Mandela’s switch from a policy of confrontation to a policy of reconciliation and negotiation helped lead the transition to multi-racial democracy in South Africa. Nelson Mendela was, indeed, a statesman and a visionary who could envisage that if he got rid of members of the then ruling elite, the nation would be deprived of talent, expertise and experience. In that case, there would have been a flight of capital, bringing the economy to a grinding halt. In such a scenario, Nelson Mandela would have been head of a failed state. Through patience and wisdom, not through anger and revenge, he helped improve the living standards of his people. He will go down in history as one of the greatest leaders in the world. He could have acted reflexively and banished his yesteryear enemies, but to achieve the broader objective of improving the lot of his people, he forgave them all. In Pakistan, leaders should also rationalise their outlook, show restraint and put an end to political hostility to take on the challenges facing the country.

The writer is a freelance columnist. He can be reached at mjamil1938@hotmail.com

On the cusp once more - Mahir Ali - January 5, 2011

Source : www.dawn.com

WHATEVER may lie ahead, it hasn’t been a happy new year for Pakistan’s ruling party.

Should the hectic efforts to salvage what’s left of its coalition and to bolster it sufficiently to fend off potential parliamentary motions of no-confidence come to naught, perhaps the likeliest outcome will be another bout of direct military rule.

That has always been a profoundly unpleasant prospect. It was particularly so in 1977, when Gen Ziaul Haq’s coup pre-empted a formal truce between Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s government and its political opponents, and led to the murkiest phase in Pakistan’s history, whose appalling repercussions continue to reverberate. But even in 1958 and again in 1999, when sections of the population welcomed military intervention as a form of temporary salvation from the shenanigans of self-obsessed politicians, the consequences were largely unsalutary.

Most Pakistanis ought to have realised long ago that if Pakistan has a future — and it’s arguably a bigger ‘if’ now than ever before — it lies in consolidating civilian rule, establishing a coherent modus operandi for coexistence with India, and easing out of the clutches of the US without conceding ground to violence-prone obscurantists.

It’s a tall order, no doubt, and the task is obviously confounded by the calibre of the politicians Pakistanis have to contend with. But there are no other feasible options. Direct military rule — and the deliberate implication in describing it as ‘direct’ is that the army has effectively never been completely out of power since 1977 — would be a case of two steps back without a face-saving one step forward.

At the same time, it ought to be acknowledged that the PPP’s political rivals offer little scope for comparative advantage. The MQM accurately accuses Nawaz Sharif’s faction of the PML of having been created by the military, but in doing so overlooks the circumstances of its own genesis in the early 1980s under a more ethnically specific nomenclature, when its emergence was facilitated by a regime that welcomed civil strife on the basis of ethnicity as a distraction from political challenges to its legitimacy.

Both these parties have evolved since then, but hardly in directions that could be deemed politically desirable. Much the same could be claimed about the PPP, of course. Notwithstanding its transformation within the first decade of its foundation in 1967 from a potential vehicle for social democracy into a profoundly personalised political entity characterised by autocratic zeal and a high degree of opportunism, circumstances in the late 1970s propelled it into the role of a pro-democracy force. The popular enthusiasm that greeted Benazir Bhutto’s return to Pakistan in 1986 must have caused the spontaneous soiling of more than one pair of khaki pants.

She lost little time, however, in demonstrating a tendency to imbibe the wrong lessons from the nation’s recent past. She had seen how her father had incurred the wrath of Uncle Sam by ploughing his own furrow in the field of international affairs, and by openly pledging to build a Pakistani nuclear deterrent after India had carried out a test in 1974. Although there are no WikiLeaks cables to substantiate the claim, it is widely believed that the US was complicit in Bhutto’s overthrow in 1977 and put up no meaningful resistance to his judicial murder two years later.

At the very least, one would think a certain wariness of Washington ought to have been the logical response of a bereaved daughter. She evidently decided, instead, that the only feasible route to power in Pakistan passed through Capitol Hill. And the extent to which she was willing to ingratiate herself is demonstrated during a particularly cringe-worthy movement in Bhutto, the documentary produced by her lobbyist-publicist friend Mark Siegel, when in an audio-clip Benazir seeks to clarify that Henry Kissinger’s notorious threat to ZAB, to the effect that a “horrible example” would be made of him should he persist with his nuclear ambitions, was in fact “a friendly warning”. She evidently couldn’t bring herself to suspect — or at least to say — that the US could do any wrong.

Which helped, of course, to propel her to power in 1988, after Zia got his comeuppance in midair. Perhaps ‘power’ is something of an exaggeration, given that the PPP did not have a parliamentary majority, compromised on continuity (with a hostile president and a military-affiliated foreign minister), and left hardly any discernible marks on the political landscape. The credibility of Benazir’s return to office in the following decade was compromised when her husband was appointed minister for investment, of all things, and a bitterly public estrangement with her mother ensued over the return to Pakistan of Murtaza Bhutto.

Murtaza’s murder in 1996 at the hands of a police posse on the streets of Karachi, just metres from his home, effectively sealed Benazir’s political fate for the time being. Her mortal fate was sealed 11 years later, at least partly on account of her willingness once more to be a pawn in the hands of powers she appears never to have fully understood.

Her political and personality flaws do not substantially detract from the intensity of the tragedy on Dec 27, 2007. In the film Bhutto, though, the attempts to strike a balance are somewhat superficial and ham-handed. A proportion of the sound bites are allocated to detractors, though, including Fatima Bhutto — whose visceral reaction to those she deems responsible for the assassination of her father, Murtaza, is much more human than that of her aunt. The movie provides a momentary counterpoint to the official narrative on this score with the image of a clean-shaven Asif Ali Zardari at a condolatory function in the aftermath of his brother-in-law’s demise.

A considerably more poignant clip — unlikely to have ever been seen before — depicts, all too briefly, ZAB in his prison cell. It serves as a reminder of what has been lost since the fleeting period back in the early 1970s when there were grounds for being optimistic about Pakistan’s future. Who on earth can bring back that feeling?

mahir.dawn@gmail.com

OMMENT: To hope or not to hope —Andleeb Abbas - Sunday, January 02, 2011

Source : www.dailytimes.com

The real reason for worry is the corrupt and inefficient leadership that, despite being openly accused of bankrupting the government and having policies detrimental to national security and economic stability, will continue to run under the guise of a misplaced perception of safeguarding democracy in Pakistan

A decade into the 21st century and sentiments around the world are those of an anti-climax. This century was heralded as a century of progress and development with the world witnessing historical improvements in the way people live, travel, work and interact, leading to a new world order that is more equal, less turbulent and more meaningful. However, the first decade of this century has fallen short of these expectations. The start to this century has been similar to the start of the 20th century. The world then was more cut off than it is now but had the same aggression and oppression designs we witness today. The two ferocious World Wars dominated the first half of the 20th century while the two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have made this decade reminiscent of an era where we felt that lack of information and global connectivity had contributed to a less aware and disjointed world. However, the lessons of the first 10 years into this century prove that to develop amazing inventions is easy but to rein in the human ego is perhaps still as complex as it was a century ago.

The biggest spurs to activity in the world are the emotions and sentiments of human beings. A charged creative mind can develop inventions that will transform lifestyles and world orders, and a destructive thought process can plunge the world into massacres and violent aggression. The way the collective thought processes of individuals work determines the shape of things to come. Thus the barometer to check what the general perceptions of people around the world are regarding the coming year is a fair indicator of how the world’s socio-political economy will fare in 2011. The Global Survey of Hope and Despair carried out by Gallup International annually surveys the sentiments of people across various countries to deduce trends in thinking and perception. Out of the 53 countries surveyed for 2010, 19 were hopeful for a better and more prosperous 2011 while 34 were pessimistic about the coming year. Most of the countries in the pessimistic group were high on per capita and low on hope while those that were optimistic were low on per capita and high on hope. The reason behind this dismal outlook of people in the West is because of the financial tsunami that has ravaged the banking system and corporate world, razing to the ground the biggest of names and mightiest of corporations. Confidence has been totally shaken as unemployment has hit the UK and US in huge numbers, reminding one of the Great Depression in the early 20th century. Many countries like Ireland and Greece have had to depend on EU largesse, while Spain and Portugal are standing in queue for more bailouts.

The same survey in Pakistan shows the despair of the nation. Only 13 percent think that there is hope for prosperity in Pakistan in 2011 while 34 percent think that it is going to be a year of difficulty, leaving a net hope score of 21 percent. This is in sharp contrast to India where the net hope score is 24 percent; one of the rare times that the net hope score in India is higher than in Pakistan. The reasons are obviously more political than economic. While in the West, the economic recession has acted as a dampener on people’s expectations, in Pakistan the economic recession, terrorism and floods are not the root cause of this despondency. The real reason for worry is the corrupt and inefficient leadership that, despite being openly accused of bankrupting the government and having policies detrimental to national security and economic stability, will continue to run under the guise of a misplaced perception of safeguarding democracy in Pakistan. With opposition parties being equally inept and corrupt, the public fails to see even a flicker of a silver lining in the stormy political landscape. The potential in the people of Pakistan is indisputable but the individual stardom that we witness from time to time in the form of academic distinctions, sporting brilliance and scientific inventions that beat the rest of the world are somehow never translated into collective national eminence due to a vacuum of visionary and inspiring leadership.

What can we do to make the next decade brighter and the world a better place? The answer is to go back to the basics and follow the fundamentals of being a human being. In the pursuit of more and more, the world has sacrificed contentment. Extremism of all sorts takes you away from the basics and creates an imbalance that finally results in a world losing its meaning and purpose. The blind race of consumerism where you earn madly to spend blindly and then pay for it dearly has become a tested and tried mantra for an eventual loss in direction and soul satisfaction. The speed of life is another extreme where the time to sit and reflect where we are and where we are heading is a luxury unaffordable, with the result that life flashes past you so fast that, at the end of it all, it is a blur where you are full of regrets. The loss of time for yourself and for those who matter to you is never felt till it is too late. The fast lane exhilarates for a while, leading to a temporary high but with severe hangovers of frustration it culminates in an eventual unhappy and cynical existence where being hopeful is considered crass and being sarcastic sophisticated. Thus the basics of living a simple life with minimum dependencies on externalities is an absolutely obsolete and outdated concept, which the modern day go-getter feels is part of the slow-motion lifestyle of the 20th century. However, fundamental principles have nothing to do with the 20th or the 30th century. They are ground rules of humanity that, whenever violated, are going to rob a human being of the capacity to live life to the fullest. Living to the fullest in today’s terms means having more money and power to out-buy things, outsmart people and oust countries; herein lies the problem. Thus the inauspicious beginning to this century is attributable to the extreme imbalance in the human desire to get rather than give, avenge rather than forgive, to control rather than share and to humiliate rather than respect. To restore hope for a better 2011 lies not in the obsession of more control over others but more control of our own baser inhuman instincts, which deny and degrade the very reason for us to be titled as God’s most superior creation.

The writer is a consultant and can be reached at andleeb.abbas1@gmail.com

COMMENT: China’s long march towards capitalism —Lal Khan - Sunday, January 02, 2011

Source : www.dailytimes.com

The turn toward capitalist restoration started in 1978 when the right wing of the Chinese Communist Party led by Deng Tsiao Ping was able to take charge after Mao’s death. With the opening up of China, the imperialist monopolies rushed in with massive investments. The totalitarian nature of the state was a bonus for these corporate vultures

The spectacular growth rates, massive commodity production, gigantic infrastructural projects and overtaking Japan as the world’s second largest economy has brought China to the world centre-stage. Yet all these enormous advances eclipse the intense social and political tensions that are rampant in this most populous country of the planet. The Chinese economy is surging ahead with a growth rate of around 10 percent, has a huge trade surplus, holds the highest forex reserves, technologically is catching up or even surpassing the west, and has built up a formidable military machine. It also has the largest gulf between the rich and the poor, stark regional disparities and excruciating working conditions of its toilers. The scourge of unemployment has reached a figure of 150 million. A large number of workers are caged in the factories. Privatisation of land has struck havoc for the rural population. Most of the ranting about China’s development obscures the real reason for this ‘miracle’ — the revolution of 1949.

China experienced three revolutions in the 20th century. The first was the bourgeois democratic revolution of 1910-11, which was led by Sun Yat-sen. This was defeated after the Wuchang uprising was crushed. In any case, the belated bourgeoisie was economically and politically incapable of carrying out the tasks posed by history. The second revolution was that of 1925-27, which was proletarian in its nature. It was led by Ch’en Tu-hsiu, the founder of the Communist Party of China (CCP) who remained its General Secretary till 1927. This revolution was drowned in blood by the nationalist forces of Chiang Kai-shek. It is an irony that under pressure from Moscow, the CCP was forced to merge with the Kuomintang led by Chiang as it was in a conflict with Japanese imperialism. Ch’en and other Chinese communists had opposed the fusion with the Kuomintang. As soon as the CCP entered the Kuomintang, Chiang abandoned the fight against the Japanese and crushed the CCP, killing thousands of its activists. The third Chinese revolution of 1949 was led by Mao Zedong. It was a peasant revolt led by the Red Army, which had been organised mainly in the countryside by Mao and Chou En-lai after they had fled the urban centres in the autumn of 1927. The expropriation of landed estates was being executed during the famous Long March. This gave a large social base to the Red Army amongst the peasantry. However, it was the industrial proletariat of Nanjing, Shanghai, Canton, Peking and other cities who occupied the factories and capitalism was overthrown. But the regime that emerged was not based on the model of the Moscow of 1917 but that of the 1940s. This was a bureaucratic caricature of a democratic socialist regime set up by the Bolsheviks after the October Revolution. Still the Chinese Revolution of 1949 was one of the greatest events of human history. Capitalism and landlordism were overthrown and the imperialist yoke was smashed. It was this planned economy that brought China out of the extreme backwardness imposed by its reactionary ruling classes and the imperialist repression and plunder. China had already achieved growth rates of 11-12 percent in the 1950s. Soaring growth in a planned economy, as opposed to the market economy, rapidly uplifts society. Although many mistakes and blunders were made, rapid development took place in the fields of health, education, technology, agriculture and industry. It was this social and physical infrastructural expansion, high level of skill and vocational training that has been the root cause of the present growth in China. However, a planned socialist economy needs workers’ democracy as a human body needs oxygen. Devoid of the methodology of Marxist internationalism, isolated in a nation state, the economy began to stagnate. Mao’s strategy of the ‘Great Leap’ and the ‘Cultural Revolution’ in the 1960s failed to impede the economic decline.

The turn toward capitalist restoration started in 1978 when the right wing of the CCP led by Deng Zhao Ping was able to take charge after Mao’s death. Initially they tried to follow the policy first put forward by Nikolai Bukharin during the debate on the New Economic Policy in the Bolshevik central committee around 1920. In Russia, the Bolsheviks had rejected this policy but Deng pursued this policy of opening up the planned economy to foreign capital vigorously. They called it ‘market socialism’, which was a contradictory term in itself. The 1989 Tiananmen Square uprising and massacre startled them. They also studied the collapse of the Soviet Union and the fall of the Berlin wall. Hence their approach became more gradual and they tried to maintain the state domination of the economy. But with the opening up of China, the imperialist monopolies rushed in with massive investments. The totalitarian nature of the state was a bonus for these corporate vultures. With workers under strict control, they had a better chance of extracting higher rates of profits. The gains of the revolution through obliteration of capitalism were now being used to prop up the system in deep crisis on a world scale. An hour’s wage of a Volkswagen worker in Stuttgart equalled a month’s salary of the worker of the same company in Shenzhen. However, wherever capitalism penetrates it brings along its vices of corruption, selfishness, prostitution, crime and exploitation. After the capitalist restoration has set in, China is in the throes of ruthless exploitation and social instability. Paradoxically, through this industrial expansion the Chinese working class has become the world’s largest proletarian bastion. The strikes and struggles of this young proletariat are on the rise. In 2010 there were threefold more strikes than in the previous year. Some achieved significant victories. There are mounting pressures on the CCP from below. The CCP is neither ‘communist’ nor a ‘party’. It is a bureaucratic elite where billionaires are leeching the system and awarding themselves a heredity status in private property and ownership. With massive export of capital, it assumes an imperialist character. This is a blatant desecration of communism. Splits in the ruling elite are sharpening. The process of capitalist restoration has been the cause of volatile contradictions in society. They will explode with volcanic eruptions. Once the mighty Chinese proletariat enters the arena of class struggle, a revolutionary socio-economic transformation will be inexorable. As Napoleon once said, “When China awakes, the whole world will tremble.”

The writer is the editor of Asian Marxist Review and International Secretary of Pakistan Trade Union Defence Campaign. He can be reached at ptudc@hotmail.com

ANALYSIS: A report from Kurram —Farhat Taj - Saturday, January 01, 2011

Source : www.dailytimes.com

Both Shia and Sunni IDPs have many complaints against the parliamentarians elected from Kurram. They say that elected representatives from Swat did a great deal to alleviate the sufferings of the Swati IDPs whereas the Kurram parliamentarians have done nothing to help the Kurram IDPs

Kurram is a mixed Shia and Sunni agency in FATA. Since 2007, both the Shias and Sunnis of Kurram have been facing violence, road blockades and large-scale human displacement. Sectarian clashes in 2007 displaced Sunni tribesmen, women and children from the Shia-dominated parts of upper and lower Kurram and Shia men, women and children from the Sunni-dominated parts in upper and lower Kurram. The Kohat-Parachinar road is unsafe for Shia travellers. Convoys carrying Shia travellers that were escorted by the security forces were attacked by militants on this road, leading to deaths and injuries. The convoys were especially attacked on a five kilometre portion of the road between Chapari Pathak in Kurram to district Tal in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. This area is known as Toor Ghar (Black Mountain).

I have had many meetings with Shia and Sunni tribal elders and displaced families. There were accusations, counter-accusations, claims and counter-claims. Both sides showed me video clips depicting acts of terrorism committed against each side. Unless there is a proper and impartial investigation, it is difficult to say who did what and how. What, however, is clear is that both sides are sick and tired of violence and want peace restored in Kurram at the earliest. Luckily, the two sides agree on three important issues: the Murree Agreement, university campuses in Kurram, and promulgation of the Political Parties Act (PPA) in FATA, including Kurram. Strangely, it is the government that is dragging its feet on these issues.

The Murree Agreement was signed between the Shia and Sunni tribes in November 2008 under the auspices of the government of Pakistan. The agreement asks for armed tribal groups to vacate their positions, the repatriation of IDPs, supply of food and medicine to the affected areas and removal of all road blockades. Any side violating the terms of the agreement would face punitive action from the government of Pakistan, including a fine of Rs 20 million. The government, however, has failed to implement the agreement right from the first day and the people of Kurram continue to suffer violence. Both the Shia and Sunni tribes want the government to strictly implement the Murree Agreement and both wonder why the government is reluctant to establish its writ in Kurram through the Murree Agreement that the government itself made between the two sides.

In terms of education, Kurram is far more advanced than other FATA agencies. The people of Kurram take pride in this. Both Shia and Sunni tribal leaders requested the government to establish two university campuses, one each in Parachinar, upper Kurram and Sadda, lower Kurram. The governor of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the political administration in Kurram supported the idea. The government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa directed the Vice Chancellor (VC) of the Islamic College in Peshawar (a chartered university), to set up two campuses in Kurram. The VC, Ajmal Khan, currently in the custody of the Taliban who kidnapped him, visited Kurram in July 2010 for this purpose. Two government buildings, one each in Parachinar and Sadda, were acquired and staff was recruited. Even the students’ admission process had begun in both campuses. Suddenly, the FATA secretariat refused to hand over the government buildings in Parachinar and Sadda for university purposes. Under pressure from the FATA secretariat, the Islamic College, Peshawar abandoned the whole plan. Both the Shias and Sunnis accuse ‘vested interests’ in the FATA secretariat as having spoiled the whole plan. They condemn the authorities in the FATA secretariat and especially accuse an additional chief secretary (ACS) for depriving the Kurram youth of higher education. They request the president of Pakistan to ensure that the campuses are established in Kurram at the earliest as per plan.

The late Benazir Bhutto had filed a case in the Supreme Court of Pakistan for the promulgation of Pakistan’s PPA in FATA. In August 2009, President Zardari announced the implementation of the PPA in FATA. The announcement was never followed by an official notification. Resultantly, FATA continues to be a no-go area presumably for secular political parties like the PPP and ANP, whereas religious political parties like the Jamaat-e-Islami and the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam continue to have free access to the area through mosques and madrassas. The people of Kurram, like people elsewhere in FATA, argue that the pro-Taliban Wahabi discourse of the religious parties must be countered by a pro-peace discourse of political parties like the PPP and ANP — the parties that unite rather than divide people on a sectarian basis. Both Sunnis and Shias in Kurram want the implementation of the PPA in FATA. The ANP and, especially, the PPP have a large following in Kurram.

Moreover, both Shia and Sunni IDPs have many complaints against the parliamentarians elected from Kurram. They say that elected representatives from Swat did a great deal to alleviate the sufferings of the Swati IDPs whereas the Kurram parliamentarians have done nothing to help the Kurram IDPs.

The people of lower Kurram, an area that produces many labour migrants, especially for the Middle East, request the government to open a passport office in Sadda. They also request upgrading of the grid station in lower Kurram because the area constantly suffers from low electricity voltage.

In short, innocent civilians on both the Shia and Sunni sides have greatly suffered in sectarian violence since 2007. They are tired of the violence and look to the government to bring normalcy to their shattered lives through a strict implementation of the writ of the government and provision of necessary facilities like education, electricity, etc. The government must rise to the occasion by fulfilling its responsibilities in effectively dealing with the issues on which the Shias and Sunnis have no differences.

The writer is a PhD Research Fellow with the University of Oslo and currently writing a book, Taliban and Anti-Taliban

VIEW: The man who made a desert bloom —Afrah Jamal - Saturday, January 01, 2011

Source : www.dailytimes.com

Pakistani horticulturist Hafeez Khan soon learnt that he was an integral part of the future mapped out by Sheikh Zayed. This was despite the mournful tidings received from the community of international agriculture experts who did not think anyone could ever make this desert bloom

“O Lord! We have crash-landed!” was Hafeez Khan’s first reaction when his aircraft touched down in what appeared to him the middle of nowhere. The plane was one that could land on unprepared surfaces, which is just as well since there was nothing remotely resembling a proper airstrip at that time in Abu Dhabi. Awaiting him was a king with a dream, a desert starved for greenery, and a dusty blueprint of a future that appeared far-fetched. Today, three things strike first time visitors to the beautiful city of Al Ain — tree lined avenues, roundabouts and the absence of tall buildings. Al Ain, which is the other city in the state of Abu Dhabi, in the past bore an unfortunate resemblance to a gigantic sandbox.

It was not that long ago and Abu Dhabi state had just struck it rich with black gold. But no one could mistake any part of the Trucial state of the 1960s for the ‘garden city of the Gulf’. Khan may have felt that he had stepped back in time but his real task was to help usher in the future. What the king probably needed was a magician. He got the next best thing. Pakistani horticulturist Hafeez Khan soon learnt that he was an integral part of the future mapped out by Sheikh Zayed. This was despite the mournful tidings received from the community of international agriculture experts who did not think anyone could ever make this desert bloom; the land itself, which had remained a blank and inhospitable canvas since time immemorial, seemed to echo their scepticism.

He must have cut an impressive figure at the time with his university degree and a surname Khan, which the natives automatically assumed made him a direct relation of Ayub Khan — the then president of Pakistan. Al Ain alternatively made a startling impression on the young Khan. “There was nothing there. Nothing!” He repeats to quell the “but surely” rising in anyone’s mind. Times were different; life was difficult but, he adds, Pakistanis were respected.

Abdul Hafeez Yawar Khan, originally from Pakistan, was studying in Beirut at the time. H H Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan (1919-2004) was the first ruler of the state of Abu Dhabi and later President of UAE. Reportedly, “members of the Al Nahyan family” have ruled since the beginning of the 18th century, “longer than any other ruling dynasty in Arabia.” Khan, who came out to help change a city’s fortunes, had originally packed for a year. Half a century later, he is still there.

Al Ain — the birthplace of the Sheikh — was destined to become a model city. When asked how long it took him to achieve this miracle, he replied with a faint twinkle in his eyes: “I’m still at it.” Khan is a gracious host and a veritable treasure trove of the city’s modern history. He fondly remembers the king who had a grand vision of turning Al Ain into an Eden and no qualms working besides his subjects to help propel his dreams faster. Khan who can easily pass off for an Arab now, knew no Arabic then and he and the king communicated through an interpreter. Till one day the king paid the interpreter to flee, forcing Khan to learn the language — fast.

He is eager to show off his adopted city and explains its many idiosyncrasies. Al Ain, unlike its sister city of Abu Dhabi, is vertically challenged because its ruler decided that there was enough space to grow horizontally instead of upwards. Khan muses over his late friend’s love for greenery that bordered on obsession; such was the king’s enthusiasm that in many cases the trees came first, the roads after. And then there is the saga of the poor sinking donkeys that led to a very important discovery. While selecting their flora, they had not catered for the fauna — grazing wild beasts. When the offending wild beasts were banished to the outskirts of the town, word got round that they had started to sink. The king acted on Khan’s information and subsequent digging at the site of Jabel Hafeet Mountain revealed a fresh water spring.

Finding Mr Hafeez Khan, who is now a UAE national, is not difficult. He continues to stay in the same compound, in another house built right next to the original one. He has seen many firsts, starting with his home which was the first concrete house ever built in the city, and a lovingly tended eucalyptus tree — the first ever planted by his old friend — the king — in 1962. Visitors get to see both the tree and the historic driveway frequented by his king and rulers of other states. “They went straight from camels to Cadillacs,” he observes. It is hard to reconcile present day UAE with the medieval living conditions that existed just four decades ago. In their haste to enter the 20th century, Al Ain — the second largest city of Abu Dhabi — got its first luxury hotel Hilton in 1971 but camels remained the primary mode of travel.

Khan helped complete the king’s original quest and conquer the desert. He is fiercely loyal to the man who put his country on a fast track and immensely proud of what they managed to accomplish together given the challenging environment and desolate terrain. They left lasting footprints in the sand. Now his (Khan’s) daughter cheerfully carries on her father’s mission.

The writer is a freelance journalist who blogs at http://afrahjamal.blogspot.com. She can be reached at afrahjh@hotmail.com