The ten-decibel rule - Irfan Husain - January 12, 2011

Source : www.dawn.com

GIVEN last week’s terrible events in Pakistan, I have been compulsively flipping across as many desi channels as are available to me here in Devizes. Needless to say, the chat shows taught me little, and the news endlessly repeated what I already knew.

Ever since private TV channels began cluttering up our airwaves, I have been struck by how little most of them have added to the public discourse, apart from sound and fury. If, through an act of divine intervention or an electro-magnetic pulse, they were abruptly terminated, would we really miss them?

Of course, the legion of chat show guests who travel in herds from one studio to another would be lost. How would they spend their evenings, and who would be their audience for the bizarre views they regale us with? Considering that they are not paid a dime for their efforts, TV channels get good value from this generally clueless bunch.

Anchors and hosts, too, would lose their fat salaries and their time in the limelight. But the audience could get on with their lives without being subjected to hair-brained conspiracy theories, and the ravings of the lunatic fringe.

Seriously, though, the 24/7 news cycle puts pressure on already ill-informed and poorly educated anchors who amplify and perpetuate myths and prejudices. Of course there are a few honourable exceptions, but by and large, the content of most of our TV channels is so tedious that finding anybody talking sense is a huge relief.

Above all, I find our panellists extremely loud. It’s as though they are convinced that they can only win an argument by the volume of their voices. Once one of them has the microphone, he is reluctant to relinquish it. Anchors abdicate control, and the guests indulge in a loud free-for-all in which they lose not only their dignity, but the thread of their argument as well.

A few weeks ago, I was sent a YouTube clip showing one guest losing it so completely that he stood up, flung his glass at a fellow panellist, and stalked off the set. Even though he is an intelligent, charming chat show host himself, I’m afraid I’ll have to decline an invitation to appear on his show if he ever asks me again.

So what makes us so loud and aggressive as soon as the cameras roll, and the microphone is switched on? A British journalist wrote years ago that Indians spoke at each other, and not to each other. This is equally true of Pakistanis. We are so convinced of our own point of view that we want to ram it down everybody’s throat without hearing what the other person is saying. Our opinion is the only one that counts, and everybody else is talking nonsense.

When three or four panellists sit around a table with this mindset, they are not going to allow something as mundane as good manners get between them and the microphone. The hosts allow control to slip away, and we are left with grown-up men and women talking loudly at each other. Often, the audience is left baffled by this loud babble.

The other thing that comes across is the anger so many of our panellists express. Faces contorted, they rage at each other and at the cameras. People like Imran Khan are perpetually furious at something or the other. Mostly, it’s the Americans, with Asif Zardari being a close second.

In the UK, if a guest behaves obnoxiously on a show, he is not invited again. Anchors interrupt if a panellist is taking too much time, and invariably, the guest would defer to a request to get on with it. But in Pakistan, people take umbrage at being asked to let somebody else speak. I suppose since they aren’t being paid for their time, they feel they can behave as they wish.

Many years ago, I half-jokingly tried to impose what I called ‘the ten-decibel rule’ in my house in Lahore. This was an arbitrary level of volume I plucked out of the air to limit how loudly friends were allowed to speak late in the evening by which point everybody was well lubricated. Of course nobody took me seriously, and continued yelling even though they were seated next to each other. Sadly, most of them have not changed in this respect.

My wife has often observed that whenever two or more Pakistanis get together, the only subject they discuss is politics. And not just current politics, but how things got to where they are today, starting with partition in 1947. I fear she’s right: we are completely fixated by politics, and repeat ourselves endlessly, specially as the evening wears on.

Hence, I suppose, the popularity of current affairs chat shows on TV. We just can’t get enough discussions about politics, so that’s what we are fed. I almost wish for the return of the anodyne, censored contents of PTV when it had a monopoly of the airwaves. When private channels first began broadcasting around a decade ago, I had high hopes that they would open new vistas, and make for a more liberal, tolerant Pakistan.

But the opposite has happened, with many private channels serving as a platform for the most virulent, hate-filled messages. Democracy and politicians are under constant attack, the sub-text being that given the lousy job the government is doing, yet another bout of military rule would not be a bad thing. The most reactionary, offensive views are pushed by clerics who are not challenged by their TV hosts.

I suppose many poorly educated viewers are impressed by the sheer volume of the discourse. Calm, collected voices have no chance in this fish-market of competing ideas. So to allow for a level playing field, I would like to suggest that microphones be adjusted so they stop working when the speaker raises his voice over 10 decibels. This would encourage civilised debate where arguments would have to be based on reason and knowledge, and not on sheer volume.

On a more serious note, I occasionally wonder how kids view politics as seen through the distorting prism of the TV screen. How can they possibly respect a process that is the subject of so much yelling and frothing at the mouth? Woody Allen, the quirky American film-maker, once wrote: “God goes about His business silently. Why can’t mankind shut up?”

Drones and aid - Rafia Zakaria - January 12, 2011

Source : www.dawn.com

ACCORDING to a study published last month by the New America Foundation, 2010 saw more drone strikes with fewer civilian casualties than in previous years.

The report goes on to tout the precision and efficacy of these strikes and emphasises that “under the Obama administration, approximately 80 per cent of those reported killed by drone strikes have been militants; under the Bush administration, it was closer to 55 per cent.”

The artful reduction of civilian casualties to percentages is clever. Twenty per cent sounds digestible but refers to approximately 100 civilian deaths that the Foundation has conservatively estimated from media reports. The glib presentation accomplishes an important purpose: among Obama administration officials it popularises the notion that the supposed precision of drones makes them the weapon of choice for war in a region that seems increasingly intractable.

An array of charts and graphs hammers home the point that drones were undoubtedly made for the tricky task of ridding the world of terror and eliminating militant leaders. Hundreds have already been killed and hordes more will undoubtedly be felled through this magical solution to a vexing problem.

Among Obama administration officials frustrated at the slow death of militancy in Pakistan, this argument defeats alternative plans such as one for America to use ground troops for targeted strikes within Pakistani territory. A Washington Post report published on Jan 8, 2010 described just such a scenario, in which proponents of increased drone attacks won out against those pushing for ground troops. According to the article, the review ultimately “concluded that the United States can ill afford to threaten or further alienate a precarious, nuclear-armed country whose cooperation is essential to the administration on several fronts.”

The reign of drones is thus likely to continue. According to reports in the American media, in his meetings this week with Pakistan’s top military officials Vice President Joe Biden is expected to push for specific demands aimed at convincing the security establishment to speed up its crackdown on the Quetta Shura, believed to be spread out between Quetta and Karachi. Offerings of expensive military toys are also expected in exchange for a commitment to eliminate the Haqqani network, which Isaf forces hold responsible for thwarting their gains in Afghanistan. It is expected that the fulfilment of such demands can then be spun into a rhetorical victory for the Obama administration in time for the July 2011 initiation of the pullout of combat forces from the region.

Little is new in any of these tactics. The crux of the drone programme, pushed endlessly by think tanks such as the New America Foundation, is that killing Taliban and Al Qaeda leaders is the key to eliminating militancy from the region. The use of Predator drones to eliminate these identified targets therefore rests on what is assumed to be a concrete distinction between civilian and militant, leader and follower. It is assumed that any damage caused can be patched over with a smattering of aid projects — a school here, a sanitation project there — and all will be well. So what if your father or brother was killed in a strike? A neighbourhood school, it is imagined, will alleviate any residual acrimony and douse the fires of revenge.

Occurring in the immediate run-up to Mr Biden’s visit, the assassination of Punjab Governor Salman Taseer should prompt a reconsideration of the above assumptions. The valorisation of his killer and the subsequent public exposure of the depth of fundamentalism in Pakistani society presents a compelling argument against a military solution to extremism. The polarisation of Pakistani society, now so visible, points directly to the instability of the assumption that the general population and those fighting against security forces in the tribal areas can be neatly and easily separated into two categories that never overlap. This does not suggest that everyone in Pakistan is a militant, but that the antidote to militancy is an ideological defeat that can and must be produced as indigenously as the militancy itself. Such an organic solution can never be produced in the shadow of an American presence.

The prospect of doing nothing, however, seems more repugnant to the United States than actual defeat. How can militancy be left to fester and foment given a weak Pakistani state reeling against the anti-American rants of the hordes that have taken to the streets in this first week of 2011? And how will Pakistan progress with its almost non-existent capacity to collect revenue and its lack of political will to enact necessary reforms? All this and more has been reiterated by American officials time and again. In a much-discussed statement the new American Ambassador, Cameron Munter, reminded Pakistanis that his country intrudes because “we care” and that the many programmes promoting women’s rights, education and other development goals would not be possible without the assistance provided by the United States.

Ironically, it is this very inability to leave Pakistan alone that is likely to make the war against militancy a completely rout. The attractions of aid do little more than promoting an unsustainable war economy in Islamabad, where a sliver of Pakistani society is quickly becoming adept at churning out slick status reports on real and imagined aid projects. Drone attacks, suspended in a grey moral universe where facts are elusive and the law irrelevant, provide a steady stream of resentment that insures a seemingly indefatigable cadre of fighters. Ordinary people, largely excluded from the bounty of aid, rise to the defence of any hero whose actions can be loosely interpreted as rising up against the hegemony of American power. The victims of drone attacks may appear insignificant to newly minted American experts who can toss around the names of this or that militant outfit, but their deaths appear magnified to a Pakistani public that has little else but hatred to hold on to.

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

rafia.zakaria@gmail.com

Reading the future - Hussain H Zaidi - Sunday, January 09, 2011

Source : www.thenews.com.pk

“Look, every Tom, Dick and Harry is divining the course of events in the New Year. I myself can’t resist the temptation of jumping on the bandwagon and predicting the state of things to come.”

“But you are hardly qualified to do so. As far as I know, you are neither a palmist nor an astrologer, nor a tarot-card reader, a numerologist or a clairvoyant. You need to be well-versed in occult sciences to read the future.”

“My dear friend, there’s no such thing as an occult science. The discipline called science deals only with observable phenomena, by a method which is open to public scrutiny. The occult, by its very definition, is beyond the scope of science. To me, an occult science is a contradictory term.”

“But, then, how come people predict the future?”

“To predict the course of events, all one needs is a little bit of common sense and some understanding of the contemporary world. Use of esoteric terms such as those pertaining to the zodiac signs and movement of the heavenly bodies always comes in handy. And, of course, if one has the gift of the gab, it’s of immense advantage. The important thing is to couch your divination in ambiguous and vague language, so that on no account it is confuted.”

“You are making it look too easy.”

“Yes, of course. You know our economy is crumbling and our politics are marred by grave uncertainty with a change in the government, and even the possibility of a military takeover always looming large. The menace of religious bigotry and fanaticism has assumed horrendous proportions. On the basis of these facts, it’s not difficult to come out with predictions as to what is in store for us. Here are some examples. Prediction 1: The year 2011 will be a difficult year for the people. We can hardly disagree, as no one expects that the economy will be put on track, inflation tamed or unemployment driven down. Similarly, it’s highly unlikely that the militancy menace will fizzle out and the law-and-order situation get better in the foreseeable future. Prediction 2: The New Year will be one of political change. Yes, but what’s meant by political change? Does it mean a change in the government? Does it mean a new person moving into the Prime Minister House’s? Does it mean a few fresh faces will enter federal or provincial legislatures because some existing lawmakers are unseated or simply pass away? Or does it mean fresh elections? That there will be some political change can’t be ruled out. So the prediction will come true in any event.”

“Yes, I recall that the other day when an astrologer was reminded by a TV anchor, rather bluntly, that her prediction of a change in parliament in 2010 didn’t come true, she retorted that the change she had forecast did come about, because some parliamentarians were disqualified for having fake degrees.”

“Here you are. A clever soothsayer either doesn’t define his or her terms, or defines them in such an all-encompassing manner that they will always stand the test of time. I have a few more examples for you. A familiar question put to these so-called occult scientists is: Will Mr A get back to power? The answer: yes, he can. Here the key word is ‘can,’ which implies a possibility, and a possibility may or may not be actualised. So if Mr A is back in power, the soothsayer will of course take the credit for a valid prediction; and if he doesn’t, she will maintain that she never claimed he would, and that she had only seen his prospects because stars were in his favour, but that he failed to use the situation to his advantage. On a more mundane level, a common question is: I love B but my parents want me to marry C. Whom will I wed? The answer is: The movement of the stars shows that you’ll marry B, but you’ll face some hindrances. Now, again, if by a stroke of luck the client weds B, the astrologer stands vindicated; and if he doesn’t, then wasn’t he warned of the hindrances? Questions relating to getting a job, going abroad and recovering from illness are addressed in a similar fashion.”

“You examples are well taken. But you’ll agree that science forecasts the future. What’s wrong if these poor soothsayers also do so?”

“Well, the singular characteristic of scientific forecast is that it is based on causation analysis. You can’t understand the effect without understanding the cause. When scientific analysis predicts, for instance, that the stock market will crash, the prediction takes stock of various forces that bear upon the sale and purchase of the shares. Non-scientific forecasts, by contrast, don’t distinguish between causation, and mere succession or precedence. Another important difference is that of attitude. The scientist makes predictions with a lot of humility and never claims infallibility, whereas the soothsayers boast of being infallible.”



The writer is a freelance contributor based in Islamabad. Email: hussainhzaidi@gmail.com

A blood-dimmed tide - Ghazi Salahuddin - Sunday, January 09, 2011

Source : www.thenews.com.pk

Shaken by the assassination of Salmaan Taseer in a high-end market in Islamabad on the fourth day of the New Year, many of us have been struggling to contend with the message that it bears for the future of Pakistan. And it is not just the brutality of that murder most foul that disturbs the mind. What has followed in the abject display of admiration for the murderer and the response of so many religious leaders presents a dreadful portrait of our society.

Logically, the assassination and its aftermath should have compelled our rulers to reflect on the existing state of affairs and make an attempt to understand the implications of this obvious surge in religious extremism and intolerance. I keep wondering about what our military leaders would be thinking about this situation, considering that they have to bear some responsibility for promoting and protecting this trend. What, for instance, are the thoughts of our erudite chief of the army staff? Is the military top brass engaged in any serious appraisal of a situation that has a bearing on our national security?

We may also refer to the ability of our politicians to comprehend and then deal with the challenges that Salmaan Taseer’s assassination has posed to the survival of a democratic system that is rooted in the freedom of thought and expression and in the cultivation of an environment in which rational debate is possible. But, ah, they seem rather powerless in shaping our national priorities. We know where the levers of power are located and who calls the shots when the chips are down.

Also, the politicians must dance to the tune of popular opinion and in the absence of any concerted efforts to educate or enlighten the populace, the clandestinely empowered Islamists, though still devoid of majority support, are able to intimidate even the supposedly liberal and democratic parties. The manner in which the Pakistan People’s Party has sought to camouflage the meaning and the significance of Salmaan Taseer’s admittedly courageous stance is a plot that would be fitting for a Greek tragedy. Even otherwise, the quality of governance and the propensity for corruption that our political rulers have demonstrated is in itself a tragic tale.

There is this intriguing attempt to ignore the antagonistic social division that the event has brought into a sharp focus, in spite of the fact that political parties of the ilk of the PPP, ANP and the MQM are morally bound to confront socially regressive and bigoted elements in society. In fact, the repeated policies of appeasement by our rulers have led us to the brink of disaster. This process, sadly, was launched by the founder of the PPP.

Anyhow, now that we are perched on the very edge of the precipice, what is to be done to salvage the option of creating a liberal, socially plural, egalitarian and democratic polity in Pakistan? This question is to be posed with the presumption that our ‘establishment’ has nurtured some factions of religious extremists – the so-called assets – only for tactical purposes and that it still believes in a Pakistan that keeps pace with the modern world and is mindful of the natural aspirations of the people of this country for peace and economic development.

A forbidding thought comes to mind: does the ‘establishment’ have the necessary intellectual resources to be able to understand the crisis of Pakistan with an open mind and in the light of historical and contemporary realities? As individuals, we may safely presume, many senior functionaries would have doubts about policies that have led to our present impasse. Perhaps the social divide that has acquired a deadly dimension at this time also pervades the higher levels of the establishment. What matters, however, is its collective mind and its deep-rooted biases – so deep-rooted that some major shifts in domestic and regional affairs have apparently not touched the contours of our national security policies.

What has happened in the wake of the murder of Salmaan Taseer is alarming in the specific context of the range of intolerance and extremism in Pakistan. We were always aware of the fundamental divide between the liberal and the orthodox, militant forces. We were also conscious of the fact that a rational dialogue between the two sides was difficult because of intolerance and prevalence of violence in society. Still, what we have now is devastating in its possible consequences.

When the floods came some months ago, we were astonished to see the deprivations of those who had been herded into relief camps. It was a kind of revelation. A similar revelation about the dominance of obscurantism in our society has now hit us. So much so that a cloud of fear has descended across the land, leaving so many liberate and moderate people to wonder if Pakistan is their country, too. The issue is not whether this country is safe for democracy. Also threatened is the culture of civility and human values and open-minded discourse.

Obviously, this is a situation that should readily attract the attention of our rulers, including the elected ones. Even though the blasphemy law has become an urgent point of reference, the basic issue is the surge in religious extremism and intolerance. Is this not an existential threat to the survival of Pakistan? And how can we deal with this threat?

Looking at it from another angle, it seems that the problem is not so much the rise of extremism as it is the continuing decline in our intellectual and humanistic values. Our social indicators remain very dismal. The scope for cultural and artistic creativity as well as appreciation is shrinking. The mass media, catering to the lowest common denominator, is reinforcing this trend. In the first place, we cannot provide universal primary education. Then, the ones who are able to go to school do not acquire any meaningful education. Our educational institutions do not encourage learning in its real sense.

To return to what I said at the outset, shouldn’t our military leaders who seem to have a veto power in defining our national sense of direction, be worried about this state of affairs? Can they not collaborate with our civilian rulers to at least make a serious review of what is happening to this country in its immortal yearning for peace and social justice?

The point is that the present drift is frightening in its potential to subvert the initial vision of Pakistan as a modern, moderate and democratic country. The political scene, too, is promoting instability and social discord. Against this flaming backdrop, the impression that any one who has the courage of his convictions is very likely to be silenced would tend to suppress the very spirit of resistance to forces of death and destruction.



The writer is a staff member. Email: ghazi_salahuddin@hotmail .com

Majority regained – barely - Zafar Hilaly - Saturday, January 08, 2011

Source : www.thenews.com.pk

It has been said that more than any other position of eminence that of prime minister is filled by fluke. We went one better in Pakistan: we filled two positions of eminence by fluke--president and prime minister. And three years later, the “flukes” are still there, albeit by the skin of their teeth. However, elections are not won by fluke. If they are free and fair, performance will determine the outcome and how adroitly the politicians campaign. All of which may be put to the test very shortly as the government is on its last legs, having lost, and barely regained, its majority in parliament, though surely not for long.

If it is to be returned to office, the government will have to do vastly better in whatever time that is left; and that is what Mr Zardari told the meeting of PPP’s Central Executive Committee in Naudero recently. While we have no idea who among the legion of ministers will get the chop, we can perhaps speculate who might.

Assuming, of course, that Mr Zardari will not be overcome with a rush of good sense to replace himself, the first deserving casualty that comes to mind is Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani. Mr Gilani’s performance in office has come within a hair’s breadth of being atrocious. And that’s only partially his fault; he was never cut out for the job, in the first place. However, because a strong and capable deputy with an independent political standing within the party is not what a fuehrer like Mr Zardari wants, Mr Gilani was the preferred candidate.

What ails Mr Gilani? It’s not the mediocrity of his thinking, or the poverty of his language, or because he has as much charisma as a superannuated clerk of the Statistics Division. It is because, rather than let his actions and good decisions speak for themselves, he spends most of his time trying to reconcile what is true with what is false, in the hope of coming up with something plausible and pleasing, and then failing. Initially, he invited sympathy as he shuffled about dowsing fires lit by his boss, until it became evident that he was starting as many on his own. Nevertheless, all that can be overlooked.

But what cannot be overlooked are his deplorable choices to fill key posts, his disdain for the established rules, his lack of common sense and a modicum of ethics, when it comes to promotions and postings, and his complete inability to manage or administer the vast edifice of government, or to take timely decisions and, most importantly, implement government policies. The poor impression that he makes on foreign leaders when interacting with them is another.

In short, Mr Gilani’s problem is capacity and, alas, cranium capacity. Put simply, he is unable to cope. His oh-so-contrived amiability with the opposition, the reconciliation that he preaches ad nauseam, even as other colleagues are plunging the dagger into the opposition. These fool no one and do not compensate for his many other deficiencies, even if we discount rumours regarding his financial probity. It is unimaginable, therefore, that Mr Zardari should want to enter the next electoral race with an albatross around his neck, or even put up with Mr Gilani for much longer as the clock winds down.

Nor will the military be sorry to see Mr Gilani go. Their control of the key ministries and the final say on foreign policy and strategy having being secured, they will support anyone who will deliver. Actually, they would relish being spared the micromanaging they have been forced to undertake due to the incompetence of the regime.

The most fancied successor is the perennial prime-minister-in-waiting, Shah Mahmood Quraishi. In intelligence, savoir faire and in making an impression, he is streaks ahead of Mr Gilani. He is a smooth talker, albeit, too smooth for the liking of many. However, he is unversed in handling the finances of anything but a shrine. Given our dire economic straits, this country needs someone with near-professional economic acumen to manage its affairs. He also has no special flair for administration, but then which politician does?

However, Shah Mahmood Quraishi has the one failing that Mr Zardari may well find impossible to overlook; he is seen as far too ambitious. And an ambitious man has as many masters as there are people who may be useful in bettering his position. Mr Zardari, like most of our political leaders, prefers slaves who have only one master. Let’s, then, just say that Shah Mahmood Quraishi may not be as nice as he looks as a replacement prime minister.

The other and better candidate, in my view, would have been Salmaan Taseer, but he is no more. A victim of that thought process that is hurtling Pakistan into the abyss of intolerance. In any case, neither stood a chance once Mr Zardari made it clear the other day that he and Mr Gilani would sink or swim together. Besides, having lost his majority and then regained it by some last-minute shabby concessions, Mr Zardari will probably not want to have another fight on his hands as he manoeuvres to oust Mr Gilani. Meanwhile, the country will be denied a government that is half competent, just so that Mr Zardari has his way and can boast that he has, as promised, ensured that the government has completed its term.

Mr Zardari would be better off to show some courage. We know that he is not risk-averse. Salmaan Taseer’s death has generated a mite of sympathy for the PPP which he could consider cashing in on. Of course, it is nothing like that which followed Benazir Bhutto’s murder, but frankly he has little else going for him, and time is not on his side. Mr Zardari may lose now, but there is every chance that he will be humiliated later. In any case the writing is on the wall. This government is a lame duck. And there is no light at the end of the tunnel, only more tunnel. Mr Zardari may as well bite the bullet and call for elections. If nothing else, he will be doing the country a favour.



The writer is a former ambassador. Email: charles123it@hotmail.com

What is happening today - Roedad Khan - Saturday, January 08, 2011

Source : www.thenews.com.pk

At a time when the country is at war, President Zardari, the supreme commander, spends almost his entire existence in the confines of a bunker-- he seldom leaves it these days. If he is so fearful for his life, he has no right to be the supreme commander.

The non-sovereign rubberstamp parliament is fake like a Potemkin village, with quite a few members of this body holding fake degrees. Pakistan will be Pakistan again as soon as we have swept away this scum, and there will be no Pakistani who will not cry with joy when that happens. Instead of being allowed to masquerade as chosen representatives of the people, its members should all be tried and sent to prison.

We have a disjointed, lopsided, hybrid, artificial, corrupt and dysfunctional political system. We have a weak, ineffective and corrupt prime minister, the epitome of self-satisfied mediocrity who changes his public statements as often as he changes his designer suites. Pakistan is like a nightmare in which you foresee all the horrible things which are going to happen and can’t stretch out your hand to prevent them.

While Pakistan’s rulers are corrupt, despotic and accountable to none, the opposition languishes in torpid impotence, utterly failing to play the role it should be playing in a parliamentary form of government. “The two parties are like competing stage coaches which occasionally splash each other with mud, but travel by the same road to the same place.” It is as if Hazlitt was referring to the PPP and the PML-N.

Otto von Bismarck once said that political genius entailed hearing the hoof-beat of history then rising to catch the galloping horseman by the coattails. Nawaz Sharif has a decisive role to play in the critical days ahead. People expect him to provide leadership. The voice of history beckons him. Why doesn’t he respond? For some inexplicable reason, he is hesitant to “seize the moment.” Instead, he continues to prevaricate and stays on the fence.

Will he “seize the hour”? Will he respond to the challenge? On that would depend the coming course of events in Pakistan and Nawaz Sharif’s political future. “If the individual and the situation meet,” Willy Brandt told Oriana Fallaci, “then the machinery is set off by which history takes one direction instead of another.”

Imran Khan has caught the flavour of the moment. He has a shrewd sense of timing. Zardari’s government is wobbling. His administration is paralysed and is lying prostrate in the boulevards of Islamabad. He is losing political capital by the hour. As his fortunes wane, Imran’s star glows brighter and brighter.

“Everything seems to be following its normal course,” as Goethe once said, “because even in terrible moments in which everything is at stake, people go on living as if nothing were happening.” This is true of present-day Pakistan. But the straws in the wind are there. Time will show whether there are enough of them to make a bale of hay. Beneath Pakistan’s placid surface the tectonic plates are shifting. We can wake up today--or we can have a rude awakening, and sooner than we think.

This nation asks for change. And change now. The demand for change reminds me of the fateful “Norway Debate” in the House of Commons in May 1940. Britain was at war, facing the full might of Nazi Germany. In the backdrop of the dismal picture of failure and retreat which confronted the nation, L S Amery, MP, delivered the historic speech which led to the resignation of Prime Minister Chamberlain and elevation of Churchill as prime minister. “I cast prudence to the winds,” Amery wrote in his diary, “and ended full out with my Cromwellian injunction to the government… You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go.”

The total collapse of state machinery in present-day Pakistan reminds me of the Twilight of the Mughals. “The symptoms of social collapse are progressive declines in standards of conduct, public and private, and the superiority of centrifugal over centripetal forces. When the administrative machinery breaks down, law and order is the first casualty. And when respect for law and authority declines, the devil of force leaps into its place as the only possible substitute and in the struggle that ensues every standard of conduct and decency is progressively discarded. Men begin by being realists and end by being Satanists. Sometimes synthesis takes place from within; sometimes it is imposed from without. If the original breakdown of authority is caused by a ferment of ideas, a genuine revolution like the French may result. If it is simply due to the decrepitude of authority, the solution is the substitution of a fresh authority, but whether that substitute is external or internal depends upon local circumstances.” This is a correct description of what is happening in Pakistan today and it is scary.



The writer is a former federal secretary. Email: roedad@comsats.net.pk,www. roedadkhan.com

What Taseer achieved, and where he failed - Saeed Qureshi - Saturday, January 08, 2011

Source : www.thenews.com.pk

Salmaan Taseer distinguished himself as a PPP bulwark in Punjab by fighting on the front foot on behalf of the Pakistan People’s Party. Cast in an uncompromising and bellicose mould because of his incessant verbal feuds with the PPP’s adversaries, particularly the Sharif Brothers, Salmaan Taseer was equally known for his devastating repartee. At one time the imposition of governor’s rule seemed to be imminent.

A man with an overbearing and tough demeanour, Salmaan Taseer was the closest confidant of President Zardari, who spurned demands from diverse quarters to replace the governor with a less combative person.

Pakistanis watched in disbelief as the rhetorical vituperations in Punjab degenerated into dangerous political brinkmanship. The governor and Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif remained at daggers drawn. Then there were the verbal salvos Salmaan Taseer and Punjab law minister Rana Sanaullah fired at each other. The attacks were a demonstration of what ugly proportions politics can assume on the verbal level.

Because of his unguarded, sweeping and hard-hitting statements, the late governor narrowed the popular support base for the PPP in Punjab. As a result of the governor’s aggressive approach, the PPP has remained in a defensive posture in the province. The coalition between the PPP and the PML-N in Punjab has never been harmonious. The late Salmaan Taseer can be held responsible to a large extent for the worsening of the political situation in the province.

At the same time, his combative, rash conduct made him a hate figure for the religious right, and this culminated in his tragic death. His visit to Aasia Bibi in prison and his press conference in which he heaped scorn on the clergy and criticised the blasphemy law showed how he underestimated the power of the religious outfits in Pakistan. His pronouncements against the blasphemy laws were unwise, because they were an unwarranted challenge to the violent and fanatical clerics in Pakistan. Given the present religious atmosphere in the country these days, even an ordinary person would have sensed that such challenges to entrenched rightist ideas were simply suicidal. They provoked the brutal and unforgiving religious demagogues. While his political opponents were nasty, the religious foes of the governor made a lethal attack on him.

In general, Pakistanis are liberal-minded and relatively casual with regard to the performance of religious rituals, even mandatory obligations. Liquor is legally prohibited for Muslims, but a segment of the Pakistani population drinks. Pakistanis also engage themselves in entertainment and merrymaking, which are equally frowned upon by the over-religious. But these Pakistanis seldom display public defiance regarding their conduct, as Salmaan Taseer did continuously.

That is why the whole religious lot, despite their mutual deep-seated sectarian disputes and differences, rallied onto one platform and launched a movement against him. There were looming threats to his life, with the religious zealots vowing vengeance for his perceived provocations. But it seems he did not take these grim threats seriously.

Nevertheless, there is another dimension to the whole situation .Salmaan Taseer was a great political stalwart of the PPP and a resolute defender and unswerving warrior for his party, and specifically for President Asif Ali Zardari. But his policies and muscle-flexing postures were making matters worse for his party, and not only in Punjab but in the other provinces too. There was concern within the PPP about the way the governor was running the show in Punjab. So his tragic assassination, although a heart-wrenching event for the party, may lead to the PPP high command appointing as his replacement someone who is more cautious and discreet.

One pernicious fallout of the blasphemy controversy is that the religious extremism that seemed to be on the wane seems to have resurfaced with new vigour and vitality. In the foreseeable future, no government in Pakistan will be in a position to amend Zia’s enacted blasphemy laws, even though they patently lack rationality and need to be brought in conformity with the spirit of Islamic jurisprudence. The professed secularism of the PPP would remain elusive until there is resurgence in civil society. Only this resurgence will put Pakistanis in a position where they can reassert themselves against religious extremists and against their myopic, over-dogmatic conservatism.

There are countless liberal and forward-looking people in Pakistan. But they lack the courage to come out and counter the obscurantist and reactionary elements. Religious orthodoxy and conservatism will remain dominant until a mass movement takes place in Pakistan to reduce the role of over-dogmatic attitudes in their daily lives and in the affairs of state.

Unless civil society, human right organisations and the progressive forces are strong enough to put up dogged resistance to the intimidating dictates and provocative antics of the religious zealots, no single person, not even someone as outspoken and daring as Salmaan Taseer, is going to change the stifling atmosphere.

One can gauge the powerful influence of the clerics in Pakistan’s society from the fact that the impoverished people, forgetting their own socio-economic sufferings, zealously take part in processions led by religious leaders and spiritual charlatans.



The writer is a Dallas-based journalist and a former diplomat. Email:qureshisa2003@ yahoo.com