Clinton Urges Reform at U.S.-Islamic Forum

In Washington, there’s been no shortage of conferences and discussions that have sprung up in response to the so-called Arab spring, but one gathering in particular stands out for its influential take on the revolutions that continue to rock and redefine the Arab world.

The eighth annual U.S.-Islamic World Forum, held at the Mandarin Oriental in Washington from April 12 to 14, was jam-packed with political heavy-hitters and explored a range of timely topics — from Muslim minorities in the West, to off-the-record assessments of the stalled Middle East peace process, to the roles of youth and the media in the recent uprisings.

All of these issues directly touch the forum’s sponsor, Qatar, a small but wealthy Persian Gulf emirate that is crafting a bold foreign policy in response to the turmoil and, many say, punching above its weight on the global stage.

So far there haven’t been any protests in Qtar, which in fact became the first Arab country to formally recognize the rebels in Libya and provided six fighter jets to the NATO campaign to protect civilians against Col. Muammar Qaddafi’s forces.

It’s a delicate balancing act for Qatar, a country of 1.4 million that’s surrounded by much larger and more powerful neighbors such as Saudi Arabia and Iran. But Qatar, flush with natural gas riches, wields its own considerable influence as a regional powerbroker, home of the Al Jazeera media network, and site of the 2022 World Cup, a major coup for the tiny nation.

“For the past decade or so, Qatar has skillfully straddled the competing groups of allies in the region — Egypt and Saudi Arabia versus Iran and Syria — achieving a status of neutrality that has allowed it to broker political deals in Lebanon, Sudan and Yemen,” wrote Clifford Krauss in an April 3 New York Times article. “At the same time, Al Jazeera has given a voice to dissidents, has rankled autocrats across the region, and has been both blamed and praised as a driving force behind the current ‘Arab Spring.’”

Perhaps as testament to Qatar’s growing clout, this year’s U.S.-Islamic World Forum was held for the first time ever outside of Doha, in Washington, D.C. Co-sponsored by the Qatari Ministry of Foreign Affairs along with the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution, the forum’s guest list read like a who’s who in U.S. policy circles: Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.), the National Security Council’s Dennis Ross, former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, former Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright, Fareed Zakaria of Time magazine and David Brooks of the New York Times, along with scholars and pundits galore.

The star attraction was Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who spoke at the gala dinner at the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium — echoing many of the views that made headlines the last time she swung through Doha, when she sharply, and presciently, warned that the region’s foundations were “sinking into the sand.”

“While some countries have made great strides in governance, in many others people have grown tired of corrupt institutions and a stagnant political order…. Those who cling to the status quo may be able to hold back the full impact of their countries’ problems for a little while, but not forever,” she bluntly told a group of Arab leaders, many of them U.S. allies, gathered in Doha on Jan. 13, one day before longtime Tunisian President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali was forced from of power and roughly a month before Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak met the same fate.

At the U.S.-Islamic Forum in Washington, Clinton candidly reiterated that the old Arab way of ruling is stifling development and simply no longer tenable. “Uprisings across the region have exposed myths that for too long were used to justify a stagnant status quo,” she said, above all denouncing “the myth that Arabs do not share universal human aspirations for freedom, dignity and opportunity.”

“Today’s new generation of young people rejects these false narratives,” she added. “That is why this January in Doha, just weeks after a desperate young Tunisian street vendor set fire to himself in public protest, I talked with the leaders of the region about the need to move faster to meet their people’s needs and aspirations.”

And as in Doha a few months earlier, Clinton returned to many of the same criticisms, from rampant youth unemployment to corruption-laden cronyism.

“First, can the leaders and citizens of the region reform economies that are now overly dependent on oil exports and stunted by corruption? Overall, Arab countries were less industrialized in 2007 than they were in 1970,” Clinton pointed out. “Unemployment often runs more than double the worldwide average, and even worse for women and young people. While a growing number of Arabs live in poverty, crowded into slums without sanitation, safe water or reliable electricity, a small elite has increasingly concentrated control of the region’s land and wealth in their hands.”

She noted initiatives such as “Partners for a New Beginning” to boost trade and spur foreign investment, along with direct economic assistance, to help the region create jobs and sustainable growth.

Clinton though largely confined her comments to the need for economic reform, veering away from openly advocating for regime change, although she urged Arab governments to stop muzzling dissent. “Citizens have spent decades under martial law or emergency rule. Political parties and civil society groups are subject to repression and restriction. Judicial systems are far from either free or independent. And elections, when they are held, are often rigged,” she lamented.

She also specifically called for greater women’s rights, a central theme of her diplomatic work, noting that “you cannot have a claim to a democracy if half the population is left out.”

“Now, all of these challenges — from deep unemployment to widespread corruption to the lack of respect and opportunities for women — have fueled frustration among the region’s young people. And changing leaders alone will not be enough to satisfy them — not if cronyism and closed economies continue to choke off opportunity and participation, or if citizens can’t rely on police and the courts to protect their rights,” Clinton cautioned, arguing that protesters now need to channel that energy into the hard, tedious work of building political coalitions to put the revolutions’ gains into practice.

Many people though were watching Clinton’s speech for clues on what America’s role in that process might be. So far, the Obama administration has tailored its response to each affected nation, intervening militarily in Libya while offering only tepid criticism of the clampdowns in Bahrain and Yemen, for instance — frustrating pundits looking for some sort of grand democracy-promotion doctrine for the uprisings.

Clinton though said “a one-sized-fits-all approach doesn’t make sense in such a diverse region at such a fluid time. As I have said before, the United States has specific relationships with countries in the region,” citing the decades-long friendship with Bahrain as an example.

Although she added that Bahrain’s ruling monarchy should refrain from violence, Clinton barely mentioned the brutal security crackdown that has drawn widespread condemnation by human rights groups. Likewise, she glossed over the violence targeted at protesters in Yemen, merely saying that Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh should “resolve the political impasse with the opposition so that meaningful political change can take place.”

Rather, Clinton saved her harshest words for Qaddafi, blasting the Libyan leader for turning his guns on his own people and unleashing “a rein of terror against people who had no means to defend themselves.”

The sharp differences in tone are a reflection of the struggle the United States confronts in balancing its strategic and security interests while adhering to its democratic principles (also see “As Arab World Roils in Uncertainty, What’s at Stake for U.S. Interests?” in the current May 2010 issue of The Washington Diplomat).

Yet even in Libya — where the Obama administration seems to have only reluctantly joined the air campaign against Qaddafi, adamantly refusing to put U.S. boots on the ground — an overarching theme has emerged: American power abroad, weighted down by the invasion of two Muslim nations that’s stretched U.S. military and financial resources, has its limits, and the United States can’t be a global policeman.

So unlike George W. Bush’s sweeping efforts to instill democracy in the Middle East, President Obama has made it clear that democracy can’t be dictated or shaped by the outside forces.

The secretary of state confirmed that the onus will be on Arab citizens to devise their own governments because “democracy cannot be transplanted wholesale from one country to another.”

“But there are universal rights that apply to everyone and universal values that undergird vibrant democracies everywhere,” Clinton added, citing freedom of speech and protest, human rights and “core” American values such as countering Iran and the threat of extremism.

On that front, Clinton offered another prescient tidbit, arguing that al-Qaeda’s hold on the region has been eroded — three weeks before Osama bin Laden, the terrorist group’s spiritual leader, was killed by U.S. forces, finally ending the world’s biggest manhunt.

“Al-Qaeda’s propagandists have tried to yoke the region’s peaceful popular movements to their murderous ideology. Their claims to speak for the dispossessed and downtrodden have never rung so hollow. Their arguments that the only way is violent change have never been so fully discredited,” Clinton said.

But whether Arab leaders, or the United States for that matter, get credit for ushering in fundamental change in the Arab world is a whole other question, one for which Clinton had no answer, as she openly wondered whether this forum, like so many others before it, would wind up being just another impotent talk shop.

“Will the people and leaders of the Middle East and North Africa pursue a new, more inclusive approach to solving the region’s persistent political, economic, and social challenges? Will they consolidate the progress of recent weeks and address long-denied aspirations for dignity and opportunity?” she asked. “Or, when we meet again at this forum in one year or five years or 10, will we have seen the prospects for reform fade and remember this moment as just a mirage in the desert?”

The Best Advice for Overcoming the Fear of Public Speaking

By Herb Schaffner | April 27, 2011

As a former speechwriter, publisher, and frequent presenter, I understand what drives many people to buy books about public speaking: Fear. I know because I’ve shared it.

I remember times when I walked up on a podium and took my place at the lectern in front of an audience, and suddenly felt dry mouth, sweaty palms, shaking hands, pounding chest, even my voice ringing in my ears. I’d prepared a slick speech, but not my brain for the inevitable shock of taking the stage.

Anxiety about public speaking is most commonly rooted in our past negative memories and experiences, according to Randolph and Kathleen Verderber’s classic text, The Challenge of Effective Speaking. The authors–emeritus management professors and communications scholars–say that  typically people will relive those times in their past when they were criticized, admonished or deemed in some way as unworthy of the center stage.

My book shelf contains a couple of books on overcoming fear of public speaking, and they all recommend these strategies:

• Practice, practice, practice: You need to desensitize yourself to the panic and fear of failure you associate with public speaking, Practice not only to become more comfortable with your material, but to experience the gamut of emotions that come with speaking.  Rehearse in front of friends and family members who will give you constructive feedback. Steve Jobs reportedly has become a world-class presenter through over-practicing.  ”Few speakers rehearse more than Steve Jobs,” Carmine Gallo writes in his excellent book, The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs (McGraw-Hill 2010). ”His preparation time is legendary among those closest to him.” Gallo’s book recounts how Jobs begins preparing weeks in advance, and typically spends two full days rehearsing, asking for feedback, making adjustments, and tightening his flow.
• Memorize and make eye contact.  Familiarize yourself with the stage or space where you will speak, and commit key points to memory so you can make effective eye contact with your audience. By connecting with your audience when you speak, you will benefit from the feedback of their reactions and you will find your voice.   Experts also advise: don’t practice to the point that you are bored or exhausted with the material.
• Visualize a Positive Outcome: In Small Message, Big Impact, author Terri L. Sjodin recommends visualizing how you will feel when you’re done with the speech, “on the other side” in that “space of completion, invigoration, and accomplishment.”  By visualizing a job well-done, you replace negative self-talk and put the speech in its perspective–as one event among many.
• Connect with the Audience: In Harrison Monarth and Larina Kase’s The Confident Speaker, the authors suggest speakers visualize what they have in common with the audience and collect information about your audience–from their jobs to their likely questions. By doing so, you will replace the anxious self-talk in your own mind with a new externally-focused challenge: what are the people like I will be speaking to?  If you are speaking in front of an audience that is unfamiliar to you, get an attendee list, learn about a few of the people on the list, even call a person or two who will be in attendance. or ask your host about the group.  This process is about easing your preparatory anxiety by presenting your brain with a visual and cognitive challenge–put real people and real faces in those chairs, not executioners.
• Rewrite the Negative Script: Write down the negative or fearful thoughts you have about your abilities as a speaker, including criticism you’ve heard in the past.  Then note how you felt after previous presentations were over, and how you’ve addressed or changed certain behaviors so that you are thinking more positively.  I remember being told that I spent too much time leaning away from the audience during a presentation, and I’ve consciously visualized the satisfaction of correcting that in my next speech.
• Remind Yourself, You’re Communicating, Not Performing.  If you see your speech as a chance to communicate with a group of people about something important to you, rather than a performance, the experience will feel more familiar.  In fact, the audience is far more interested in the substance of what you are presenting, than how theatrical you are in your presentation. Remind yourself of that, jotting down what you consider to be the best aspects of your speeches–in content and style. Monarth and Kase call this creating “positive expectancy”: develop a few words “that exemplify the way you want to feel as you’re talking.”

The experts also agree on these basics, which bear repeating:

• Get enough sleep for a few days ahead
• Thoroughly check out the technology you’ll be using a day ahead
• Lightly exercise a few hours before the presentation

Never, ever drink alcohol before your appearance

Normalising relations with India and America

Najam Sethi Sunday, May 01, 2011

 

Contrary to the earlier promises of the minister for water and power, it is now clear that there is going to be an acute shortage of power this summer. One expert has predicted up to 18 hours of “loadshedding” in parts of the country. This is bound to raise temperatures on the shop floor and on the street. The PML-N and other opposition parties will doubtless extract political mileage from the misery of the people and try to block the government from passing a hard budget. Thus, the absence of an energy policy in one sector of the economy could translate into a lack of economic policy for the country as a whole, and exacerbate the political crisis facing us. But we should not be surprised by this lack of policy-making in Pakistan.

In 1994, the top energy “experts” in Pakistan were bitterly opposed to the policy of the Benazir Bhutto government to commission new IPPs to cater to Pakistan’s future energy needs. Hydroelectric power, they argued, was cheaper and more efficient, while the IPPs were a royal rip-off. True, but no one had any idea how to bridge the yawning trust deficit between upper riparian Punjab and lower riparian Sindh over water sharing that had bedevilled all such project proposals. Nor did anyone know how to persuade the US to lift economic sanctions imposed in 1989 as a consequence of our nuclear programme and raise the billions of dollars needed for big water management projects.

Even the modest Ghazi-Barotha project was shelved for lack of money. Indeed, the first thing that the new government of Nawaz Sharif did in 1997 was to tear up sovereign guarantees and [sic] Senator Saif ur Rehman’s dreaded Ehtesab Bureau on the IPPs. This policy gathered momentum under the regime of General Pervez Musharraf when the higher courts were pressured to tighten the noose around the neck of Hubco, the leading IPP, and send a strong signal that multilateral foreign investment in the energy sector wasn’t welcome.

The tragedy was compounded when the civil-military bureaucracy didn’t allow the new government to export surplus power to India because trading with the enemy on the basis of MFN status was not kosher. Later, Nawaz Sharif’s peace overtures to India during the Lahore Summit in 1999 were sabotaged by the military’s Kargil misadventure, followed by General Musharraf’s misplaced concreteness at the Agra summit in 2001. General Musharraf’s pet project of the IPI pipeline also suffered from similar policy contradictions and shortcomings: on the one hand, the proposed IPI pipeline only banked on an annual rental of about US$50 million for transit to India rather than any Pakistani offer of resource stakes in the project. On the other hand, it completely ignored the US opposition to the project that put a severe constraint on its ability to borrow the big bucks needed for completion. The incredible thing was that the military high command saw no contradiction or roadblock in India’s demand for security guarantees at the end of the pipeline even as Rawalpindi seemed bent on continuing its policy of sponsoring jihad in Kashmir.

The absurdity of policy was demonstrated in 2004 when Shaukat Aziz, then prime minister, embarked on a visit to the SAARC region and tried to persuade New Delhi to buy into the IPI project while simultaneously insisting that trade between Pakistan and India could not be relaxed on the basis of granting reciprocal MFN status to India. By the time that General Musharraf realised the error of his anti-India Kargil-Jihad policy and launched a back channel for peace with India in 2005, New Delhi had made up its mind to opt for closer nuclear cooperation with the West in general and the US in particular, and closed the chapter on the IPI project.

Under the circumstances, it is doubly ironic that Pakistan should be exploring the prospects of importing electricity and fuel from India today and granting it MFN status even as it remains locked in a trust-deficit with the old enemy that has extended the conflict with it over the territory of Kashmir to the waters of Kashmir.

The lack of an energy policy framework is especially troubling in the wake of the recent floods when the issue of dams and reservoirs was raised for the umpteenth time, only to be derailed once again by recurring domestic political conflict. The tragedy is compounded by the fact that even when money is available for non-controversial water management projects under the Kerry-Lugar bill, the Pakistani military is inclined to look at the American gift horse in the mouth by staking the country’s economic policy at the altar of its national security doctrine. This explains why only a fraction of the money earmarked for Pakistan has so far come into our coffers.

Of course, the Zardari government cannot be let off the hook. It has done too little too late to stave off the impending crisis. Its rental power projects stink of kickbacks and commissions. It has dragged its feet over raising fuel prices in line with international rates, over narrowing the price gap between CNG and petrol, over injecting money into the circular debt that is at the core of the energy crisis. Indeed, if its relations with the Supreme Court had been better, it would not have been blocked from going ahead with a big LNG project. Even at this stage, the energy crisis can be partly overcome by coming to grips with the circular debt and enabling the IPPs to function at greater capacity.

The core of the issue is the gap of about Rs1000 billion between revenue and expenditure. This can be closed effectively by many means. Privatisation of the leading loss-making state enterprises can save at least Rs200 billion in annual losses, apart from replenishing the treasury’s coffers. Bringing energy prices at par with the region would help bridge the gap enormously. Freezing defense expenditures for the foreseeable future would be as relevant as the imposition of a tax on agricultural incomes. Bringing the services sector comprehensively into the tax net cannot be postponed any longer. And so on. In other words, everyone would have to sacrifice a slice of the good life for the common good.

Are we ready for a collective effort to put our house in order? Nothing will change until two preconditions are met: the national security state must give way to a social security state built on “normal” relations with India and the rest of the world, including America; and civilian democracy must deliver clean, competent, efficient and stable government. If this is too much to ask for, then we should brace ourselves for some terribly rude shocks in the near future.

The writer is Jang Group/Geo adviser on political affairs.

May/June 2011

COMMENT

The Black Swan of Cairo

How Suppressing Volatility Makes the World Less Predictable and More Dangerous
Nassim Nicholas Taleb and Mark Blyth
NASSIM NICHOLAS TALEB is Distinguished Professor of Risk Engineering at New York University’s Polytechnic Institute [1] and the author of The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable [2]. MARK BLYTH is Professor of International Political Economy at Brown University [3].Why is surprise the permanent condition of the U.S. political and economic elite? In 2007-8, when the global financial system imploded, the cry that no one could have seen this coming was heard everywhere, despite the existence of numerous analyses showing that a crisis was unavoidable. It is no surprise that one hears precisely the same response today regarding the current turmoil in the Middle East. The critical issue in both cases is the artificial suppression of volatility -- the ups and downs of life -- in the name of stability. It is both misguided and dangerous to push unobserved risks further into the statistical tails of the probability distribution of outcomes and allow these high-impact, low-probability "tail risks" to disappear from policymakers' fields of observation. What the world is witnessing in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya is simply what happens when highly constrained systems explode.
Complex systems that have artificially suppressed volatility tend to become extremely fragile, while at the same time exhibiting no visible risks. In fact, they tend to be too calm and exhibit minimal variability as silent risks accumulate beneath the surface. Although the stated intention of political leaders and economic policymakers is to stabilize the system by inhibiting fluctuations, the result tends to be the opposite. These artificially constrained systems become prone to "Black Swans" -- that is, they become extremely vulnerable to large-scale events that lie far from the statistical norm and were largely unpredictable to a given set of observers.
Such environments eventually experience massive blowups, catching everyone off-guard and undoing years of stability or, in some cases, ending up far worse than they were in their initial volatile state. Indeed, the longer it takes for the blowup to occur, the worse the resulting harm in both economic and political systems.
Seeking to restrict variability seems to be good policy (who does not prefer stability to chaos?), so it is with very good intentions that policymakers unwittingly increase the risk of major blowups. And it is the same misperception of the properties of natural systems that led to both the economic crisis of 2007-8 and the current turmoil in the Arab world. The policy implications are identical: to make systems robust, all risks must be visible and out in the open -- fluctuat nec mergitur (it fluctuates but does not sink) goes the Latin saying....

April 26, 2011

SNAPSHOT

The Post-Islamist Revolutions

What the Revolts in the Arab World Mean
Asef Bayat
ASEF BAYAT is Professor of Sociology and Middle East Studies at the University of Illinois. He is the author, most recently, of Life as Politics: How Ordinary People Change the Middle East.How should we make sense of the revolts that have engulfed the Arab world? Some observers see them as postmodern revolutions, diffused and leaderless, with no fixed ideology. Others view them as the next wave of democratic and liberal revolutions. Most commonly, they are described as youth revolutions, since young people played a key role in initiating them. Still others argue that they may be Islamist revolutions and will turn the region into a theocracy resembling Iran. In the United States, this is the position that many Republicans hold. The Iranian hard-liners concur, insisting that the Arab revolts are inspired by Iran’s 1979 Islamic takeover.
Religious factions have been involved in the Arab protests to an extent -- al-Nahda has in Tunisia, the Muslim Brotherhood has in Egypt and Syria, and the Islamic opposition has in Yemen, for example. But in truth, the revolutions transcend the Islamist politics that reigned in the region just a few years ago. In a 2008 essay [1] on the future of Islamic revolutions, I suggested that the Iranian experience “may well remain the first and the last Islamic Revolution of our time,” for the “growth of democratic sensibilities and movements [in the Middle East] is likely to push Islamism into the ‘post-Islamist’ course, paving the way for a democratic change in which an inclusive Islam may play a significant role. The outcome may be termed ‘post-Islamist refo-lutions’ [a mix of reforms and revolutions].”
Post-Islamism is not anti-Islamic or secular; a post-Islamist movement dearly upholds religion but also highlights citizens’ rights. It aspires to a pious society within a democratic state. Early examples of such movements include the reform movement in Iran in the late 1990s and the country’s Green Movement today, Indonesia’s Prosperous Justice Party, Egypt’s Hizb al-Wasat, Morocco’s Justice and Development Party (PJD), and Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). Each was originally fundamentalist but over time came to critique Islamist excess, its violation of democratic rights, and its use of religion as a tool to sanctify political power. They all eventually opted to work within the democratic state.
The protest movements underlying the current revolutions seem set to follow these earlier post-Islamist experiments. So far, religious rhetoric has been remarkably absent, even though the participants of the Middle East’s many uprisings remain overwhelmingly people of faith. In Tunisia, protesters’ central objective was to establish a democratic government. Rachid al-Ghannouchi, the founder of Tunisia’s main Islamist party -- Islamic Nahda -- has publicly rejected a Khomeini-style state and has declined to run for president in future elections. Similarly, in Egypt the revolution demanded “change, freedom, and social justice” and was broadly secular. In fact, the major religious groups -- Gamaiyya Ansar al-Sunna al-Muhammadiyya, a Salafi movement that controls 500 mosques and scores of schools and associations; al-Azhar, the main establishmentarian Islamic institution; and the Coptic Church did not initially back the revolution. The Muslim Brotherhood’s old guard joined reluctantly and only after being pushed by the group’s younger members.
Libya’s rebel movement and provisional government, the National Council, is composed not of Islamists or al Qaeda members but of a mix of the secular and faithful, including doctors, lawyers, teachers, regime defectors, and activists working to end Muammar al-Gaddafi’s oppression. According to their spokesman, Abdul Hafidh Ghoga, a human rights lawyer, Islamist presence is minimal, since the country’s Islamists were, for the most part, crushed by Qaddafi long ago. And in Yemen and Syria, where protesters are also demanding democracy, there has also been no evidence of a major Islamist presence. In Bahrain, of course, the protests have taken on a sectarian dimension, since the monarchy is Sunni and the population is Shia, but the mainstream opposition still has largely secular demands: an elected government, a free press, the right to establish organizations, and the end to religious discrimination.
Today’s overwhelmingly civil and secular revolts represent a departure from the Arab politics of the mid-1980s and 1990s. Bolstered by Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution, in those days the political class was consumed by the idea of establishing an Islamic order, including a religious state and sharia. Their primary goal was to forge an ideological community through which secular concerns would be addressed. For Islamists, the state was seen as the most powerful and efficient institution for spreading “good” and eradicating “evil.” In turn, Islamists viewed citizens as dutiful subjects and placed an emphasis on their obligations to the righteous state, with little concern for their rights.
The means for achieving such an order differed depending on the group. Militant Islamists, such as Egypt’s al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya, took up arms in the 1990s to dislodge the secular states. The moderates, or electoral Islamists, such as the Muslim Brotherhoods in various Arab countries, preferred da’wa (religious outreach) and working within the system to achieve gradual Islamist change. The militants and the moderates were united by their hostility toward the West. But their shared goals and enemies could not completely reconcile their differences on foreign policy. Shia militant groups, such as Iraq’s Hizb al-Dawa and Lebanon’s Hezbollah, allied with Iran, while their Sunni counterparts remained closer to Saudi Arabia.
Arab authoritarian states unintentionally sowed the seeds of their own demise. In the 1980s and 1990s, as populations grew and urbanized, demand for rights -- specifically for paid and secure jobs, decent housing and amenities, and respect -- rose. Of course, the economies of Arab countries could not keep pace with the demands. Throughout the 1980s, massive urban riots shook major Arab cities. Rather than taking on welfare tasks themselves, Arab governments, following the neoliberal economic agendas popular in the 1990s, tasked the growing sector of religious charities and nongovernmental organizations with providing help. Yet these arrangements proved too feeble to ameliorate the deep poverty and inequality that plague Middle Eastern societies. Indeed, the combination of new economic policies and a weak safety net increased the income gap between the rich and poor, made the working middle class more economically vulnerable, and marginalized much of the educated middle class.
The last two decades saw the expansion of a “middle-class poor”. This paradoxical class obtained college degrees, enjoyed contact with the rest of the world, used digital forms of communication, and expected a middle-class lifestyle, only to be forced to live in poverty with few prospects for improvement. Similar to the other disenfranchised groups in the Arab world, such as the marginal poor, women, and youth, the middle-class poor quietly struggled to improve their life chances. Many Muslim women strove to assert their presence in public, go to college, and pursue justice in courts. Youths forged collective identities in colleges, tea shops, and online and they attempted to affirm their autonomy and change politics by engaging in civil society and volunteer work. Yet these efforts mostly fell short. (The youth would only become a real threat to the regime in mid-2010, when social media facilitated their collective mobilization against entrenched regimes.) In the 1990s then, the most serious political challenge to the Arab regimes was the Islamist opposition, which much of the middle-class poor supported.
But recently, Islamism began to lose its appeal considerably, and the Iranian model of revolution lost much of its luster. The regime’s reputation for repression, misogyny, exclusionary attitudes, and unfulfilled promises became widely recognized, alienating its onetime sympathizers. Al Qaeda’s violence, moreover, had caused a backlash against ordinary Muslims, who found al Qaeda’s practices abhorrent to the true spirit of Islam. Much of the faithful in the Arab world decried the Islamists’ disregard for human rights, tolerance, and pluralism. They could no longer accept the exploitation of Islam as a tool for procuring power and privilege. To rescue Islam, they began to abandon the Islamic state. At the same time, the political class realized that its nationalist, anti-imperialist, and pro-Palestinian campaign would falter so long as it was associated with the demagogic rhetoric of the authoritarian regimes. Thus, the next logical step was to focus on a key internal issue: democracy.
The beginnings of a post-Islamist vision were first evident in Egypt in 2000, when a group called the Popular Committee for Solidarity with the Palestinian Intifada managed to bring together youth, civil society, and political activists to stage mass rallies in Tahrir Square against Israeli sieges of Palestinian territories. But it was the 2004 Kefaya (Enough) movement that heralded the coming of post-Islamist democratic politics: it focused more on democracy and human rights at home than on politics abroad, and it bridged ideological divides, especially between religious and secular activists and between leftists and nationalists. In doing so, it transcended exclusivist Islamist politics.
This new way of doing politics in the post 9/11 era eventually influenced the inner circle of Islamism, compelling activists and ideologues, such as the youth in the Muslim Brotherhood, to rethink their political project. Many groups -- including the reformers in Iran and Indonesia’s Prosperous Justice Party -- explicitly departed from their earlier vision of Islamism. In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood took piecemeal and pragmatic steps toward recognizing the legitimacy of democracy, the separation of powers, and minority rights -- when the Kefaya movement and former U.S. President George W. Bush’s rhetoric of democratization pushed it to do so in the late 2000s. Post-Islamism emerged as a frame within which religious politics could become more inclusive. Muslims could confidently remain Muslim but also have a democratic state -- as Turkey’s example indicated. And as electronic media expanded, Muslim and secular activists alike had an unprecedented opportunity to communicate, mobilize, and place their democratic demands on the agenda. Thus, by late 2010, an invigorated new public with a novel political vision and means of achieving it had emerged; ready to lead the current revolts.
It remains to be seen whether the post-Islamist vision can be sustained after the revolutionary fervor subsides. There is certainly the possibility of a renewed fundamentalism. Already in Egypt, Salafists who opposed the revolution are regrouping in the mosques and on the street with a message that democracy is haram (forbidden). Salafis may be able to galvanize some support by capitalizing on moral and religious issues. One thing is clear, however: democrats, whether faithful or secular, have a heavy task before them. They must work to bring democratic values from the rule books to mobilize the ordinary people. If Salafis can do grass-roots work, so should democratic forces.

The Undead Chicken

April 26, 2011 · By John Feffer

With Libya, the Obama administration has followed the Chinese adage: kill the chicken to scare the monkeys. But the chicken still rules the roost in Tripoli.

Muammar Gaddafi is the undead chicken. Bashar al-Assad of Syria and King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa of Bahrain are the unscared monkeys.
The United States has shaped its policy toward the evolving situation in the Middle East according to the Chinese proverb of “killing the chicken to scare the monkey.” The Obama administration has intervened in the conflict in Libya with the apparent goal of punishing Gaddafi for cracking down on the emerging protest movement back in February. This intervention was designed to send a message to other autocrats in the region: don’t fire on your unarmed opposition — or else.
But the United States and its allies are having problems with the "or else" part of the equation. Despite going beyond a no-fly zone, they have only struck a glancing blow against Gaddafi. The chicken is bleeding, but it hasn’t yet flown the coop. Rebel forces have regained their edge in the key city of Misurata, but Gaddafi’s air strikes have also knocked out oil production in the rebel-held zone for a month. There are voices inside NATO calling for more: more U.S. involvement, a surge in air strikes, even boots on the ground. The talk of where to send Gaddafi into exile has shifted to how to handle him if he survives the onslaught.
The Obama administration continues to insist that the mission is all about protecting civilians, not instigating regime change. But that position has become ever more difficult to maintain, especially with the recent introduction of unmanned drones and their dubious record of killing large numbers of civilians in Pakistan. In Vietnam, we destroyed villages to save them; in Libya, are we killing civilians to save them? Or is U.S. policy, as in Kosovo, more about protecting U.S. soldiers by dispensing death from a distance? Humanitarian intervention is not a dinner party, as Mao Zedong might have said under the circumstances. It’s not for the squeamish. And monkeys are not scared by chickens that have only been roughed up.
In Syria and Bahrain, the authorities may well be under siege, but the unfolding of the Libya scenario has not prompted them to step down, institute major reforms, or otherwise demonstrate their fear of outside pressure.
In Bahrain, for instance, Washington has given the ruling al-Khalifa family little more than a slap on the wrist. Since the protests began in February, the government has cracked down hard. Government forces killed more than 20 protestors; several have died under suspicious circumstances in custody; more than 30 medical personnel have simply disappeared. “U.S. pressure was crucial in advancing democratic revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia, but Washington has been far from helpful for Gulf protesters,” writes Foreign Policy In Focus (FPIF) contributor Richard Javad Heydarian in The Economics of the Arab Spring. “This has reinforced many protesters’ views of the United States as a staunch supporter of oppressive regimes rather than a democracy promoter.”
In addition to hosting the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet — and thereby holding it hostage — Bahrain has spooked Washington by identifying the hand of Iran behind the opposition’s activities. “With reference to Iran’s alleged covert intelligence activities in Bahrain, the leader of the National Unity Gathering party, Shaykh Abd-al-Latif al-Mahmud went so far as to claim that the Iranian charge d’affaires himself was distributing weapons to Shi’a protesters in Manama,” writes FPIF contributor Bernd Kaussler in Gulf of Mistrust.
In Syria, Assad knows that the Obama administration is not going to take on yet another military intervention, particularly in a country that could easily disintegrate into a nasty civil war. Even Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), the Hill's greatest champion of military intervention in Libya, is not calling for something similar in Syria. The Syrian government has already killed several hundred protestors and sealed off the city of Dara’a, where major protests began. As a result, the Obama administration is considering targeted sanctions. But even pulling the ambassador from Damascus is not yet on the table. If the demonstrators eventually dislodge Assad or his family or the Alawite minority that rules the country, it will not likely be because of a no-fly zone or similar military action. The most that the United States has done is fund an anti-government TV station. After all, Washington is not even sure that it wants Assad gone, since the alternatives might be less palatable.
Those who hope that the Arab Spring will turn into an Arab Summer can take some heart from the turn of events in Yemen. Readers of Dexter Filkins’ in-depth piece on Yemen in The New Yorker might come away with the impression that President Ali Abdullah Saleh could retain power forever through a mixture of brutality, pay-offs, and careful manipulation of a variety of après-moi-le-deluge threats including an emboldened al-Qaeda and a Somali-like failed state. And yet, even as Assad was sending in the tanks in Dara’a and Gaddafi was battling the rebels in Misurata, Saleh offered to meet a key opposition demand by stepping down. The catch is that he wants immunity from prosecution. The opposition, however, wants to see Saleh on trial, and who can blame them? Poles had to stomach a transition period with the much-reviled Wojciech Jaruzelski as president in 1989. In contrast, Egyptians have had the distinct pleasure of seeing Mubarak and sons go to prison. The Yemenis were aiming for an Egyptian solution but it now appears that they are settling for a Polish one.
Saleh’s sudden vulnerability stems largely from the courageous efforts of the opposition movement. He certainly didn't learn the lesson of Libya, which was that a tyrant can oppress his people, stand up to the international community, and live to rule another day. Like his fellow authoritarians in Syria and Bahrain, Muammar Gaddafi is not yet taking the golden parachute option. By maintaining his status as an undead chicken, he aims to make a monkey out of the Obama administration.

From Asia to Latin America

Shortly before the earthquake and tsunami hit Japan, a crisis hit the Japan section at the State Department. Kevin Maher, head of the Japan desk, was quoted in the Japanese press saying some very unflattering things about Okinawa and Okinawans. Maher resigned but has recently claimed that the quotes were fabricated. FPIF contributor David Vine was present at the meeting with American University students where Maher made his comments, and he corroborates the reports that Maher called Okinawans “lazy” and “extortionists.”
“Among the many ironies in Maher’s words was his characterization of Okinawans as extortionists when U.S. negotiators like Maher have long pressed the Japanese government for larger and larger contributions to support the U.S. military presence in East Asia,” Vine writes in Smearing Japan.
While the United States tries to mend fences with Japan, China is increasing its influence in Latin America. Chinese trade with the region has skyrocketed, and it has extended considerable aid as well. But China too has met with some of the same accusations of arrogance that the United States has in Asia. “Despite the strides that China has made in the region, countries remain apprehensive,” writes FPIF contributor Sebastian Castaneda in Chinese Take-Over of South America? “The WikiLeaks diplomatic cables highlighted the level of suspicion. One Colombian trade representative based in Beijing noted that his country would not be ‘walked all over’ by China ‘like Africa.’ A Mexican official stated that ‘we don’t want to be China’s next Africa.’”
Mexico, meanwhile, is being rocked by wave after wave of drug-related murders. The Mexican government has long accused the United States of lax gun laws that encourage the flow of weapons south. Now it turns out that the U.S. government itself has been secretly sending guns to drug cartels in Mexico.
“The operation, called ‘Fast and Furious,’ was run out of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) office in Phoenix, Arizona,” explains FPIF columnist Laura Carlsen in Obama’s Mexicogate? “ATF sanctioned the purchase of weapons in U.S. gun shops and tracked the smuggling route to the Mexican border. Reportedly, more than 2,500 firearms were sold to straw buyers who then handed off the weapons to gunrunners under the nose of ATF.”
Finally, in our FPIF Picks this week, FPIF contributor Greg Chaffin looks at The Sixth Crisis by Dana Allin and Steven Simon. The book, writes Chaffin in his review, “successfully provides an historical understanding of how the tensions between Israel and the Arab world have shaped the geopolitical realities of the region and influenced a looming crisis over Iranian nuclearization that will have worldwide repercussions.”

Fear of devolution

By Afiya S. Zia

IT is ironic how the very vocal supporters of a seriously flawed devolution programme under Gen Musharraf, are opposing a more comprehensive devolution initiated by the current government.

These critics accuse the present civilian rule of being a spurious democracy, presumably in comparison to the `true` democratic military rule of Musharraf. Many such allegations have not relied on legal or constitutional definitions of democracy, not even sociological arguments; but almost always on encryptions, such as the personalities of leaders, their academic (fake) qualifications or their naked profiteering from office. These may be important in assessing the quality of government but not necessarily in measuring its democratic worth. Instead, in the cacophony of political opinions, it may be fair to say that there have been two streams of more serious critical arguments concerning the flaws and shortcomings in the democratic credentials of the current government.
The first and most crucial misgiving over the democratic merit of this government has been with regard to its clash with the judiciary and the subsequent inability to resolve the institutional balance of powers. However, several commentators have held that the judiciary itself requires introspection regarding its own role in this impasse.
Second, the lack of resolve to govern when it is crucially required has exposed this government`s role in weakening democracy. By choosing to relinquish its authority, be it on issues of law and order, succumbing to unelected, non-representative religious lobbies, surrendering Fata to the army and US-led operations, reneging on reassurances to Balochistan, this government has been criminally irresponsible. Such rabbit-caught-in-the-headlights responses have amounted to lost opportunities for strengthening serious democratic change afforded in the post-Musharraf period and for which Pakistan will pay a price certainly.
However, any student of democracy will verify that those mechanisms whereby power is thwarted from a centralised system and redistributed, is a necessary component of a fair and representative political system. Even the most vociferous critics of military rule were honest in their assessment of the devolution of 2000 and acknowledged that in principle this was a feature of democracy. Of course, the political motivations behind such fig-leaf moves seeking legitimacy were immediately exposed in the contradictory outcomes. Some appreciable grass-root empowerment went unsupported due to the deliberately unsustainable projects that were launched.
The passing of the 18th Amendment is one of the very few parliamentary initiatives that suggest that this neutered government can actually be effectual if it resolves to be so. All the more reason, that oppositional voices should be muted on this point. Instead, even some pro-democrats are now objecting to the dismantling of federal ministries. Strangely, several `progressives` within civil society, who in theory have been supporting devolution, provincial autonomy and all the usual slogans that liberal democrats carry, are now demonstrating ambiguity over the wisdom of relinquishing authority from some institutions that were `doing good things` in their centralised capacity.
Granted, there has always been historical concern over possible challenges to basic liberties in the name of culture or provincial parochialism. The proposed Hasba bill in what was the NWFP is an example of such apprehension but this was resolved by invoking constitutional pre-eminence. The committee of the 18th Amendment has made it clear that constitutional supremacy and protection of fundamental rights defines the spirit of the devolution of federal authority. All the constitution is meant to do, after all, is to give us cover.
The fear of provincial elite capture, nepotism and ineptness are some of the excuses forwarded by critics. In reality, such criticism stems from a collaborative fear of loss of influence. This is particularly true of those who have made careers by way of establishing networks by pursuing personal relationships with the offices of government, the bureaucracy and donor agencies in Islamabad. It`s no secret that the more savvy and privileged maintain homes and offices in the capital to locate themselves within easy access to the corridors of centralised power. Under the 18th Amendment this may just prove to be a losing investment — not in terms of real estate but by way of power-brokering and procuring projects and contracts.
International agencies would prefer not to wander outside the confines of a city where, traditionally, the mountains have been coming to them. Now, there will have to be more direct interaction with the messy, less familiar, and non-urbane provincial actors and without the interlocution of friendly consultants to advise on the pre-decided fate of projects.
An additional reason to worry is that devolution provides an opportunity for autonomous thinking, planning and development. Under devolution, the Millennium Development Goals and other international guidelines may well be realigned for more contextualised policies that are more relevant to local priorities. So for example, `education for all` may no longer be seen as some measurable tool for increased enrolment. Instead, provincial departments may prioritise their immediate needs as the protection of schools from being bombed or preventing harassment of women on campuses. Yes, we`re told it`s not either/or, yet the fact is that a lot of donor and federal funds prioritise tailor-made projects that lend measurable `outcomes` rather than being led by locally identified, non-quantifiable needs.
Anyone who has been paying attention to the people`s movements at local levels would despair at the sheer distance and lack of responsiveness between federal authorities and the voices of peasants, lady health workers or families of the disappeared.
The devolution process under the 18th Amendment is a tremendous opportunity for us to forge relationships, influence policies and immerse ourselves in our provincial environs. It`s also a responsibility that calls on us to reflect honestly on why we fear what is in principle a fair and democratic process. If we do not embrace opportunities such as this under the pretence of losing `progress so far` then we need to rethink our tools of analysis that have made us such slavish thinkers. If devolution fails this time around we only have ourselves to blame.
The writer is a researcher who writes on socio-political issues.

Utopia and reality

Tanvir Ahmad Khan
The Arab world has been convulsed by people power that has as its vanguard a younger generation taking on regimes entrenched for three decades or more. In quick succession, Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain and Libya have faced a transformational upsurge with Jordan, Algeria and Yemen registering seismic shocks that are being contained with instant reform packages.
The people of Pakistan watch this panoramic change with an emotional mélange of pain, amazement and, perhaps, envy. The conventional wisdom is that this revolutionary wave will peter out short of Pakistan’s shore. This view is widely held despite the fact that many of the explosive ingredients that have rocked the Arab states are more abundantly present in Pakistan’s body politic. Judged by the traditional drivers of revolutions such as poverty, disease and other manifestations of social marginalisation of vast segments of society, Pakistan should be a more likely candidate for a mass upsurge for change than many of the Arab states.
Since 1990s, alike under political governments and General Musharraf’s dictatorship, resource-constrained Pakistan has been more exposed than most of the Arab states in turmoil today to the darker side of globalisation; the capacity of the state to intervene and reverse impoverisation of millions has visibly shrunk. It is unable to maintain law and order or, for that matter, deliver any kind of security. At the emotive level, the people share the ubiquitous Muslim outrage at injustice – an ingrained Islamic cultural attribute – and there is an extraordinary apprehension of betrayal by the political class. As amongst the Arabs, Pakistanis have a deep sense of humiliation at the hands of foreign powers with which their own government is aligned. Yet there is a sense of complacency that Pakistan is neither Tunisia nor Egypt.
What is the wellspring of this faith that the people of Pakistan will not look for Liberation Squares in their fast disintegrating cities? What are the building blocks of the breakwater that would roll back the revolutionary wave? The most cogent factor that the dominant political class cites for this optimism is that Pakistan has functioning safety valves such as democratic institutions and considerable freedom of speech. Then there is the collective memory of the people that the final outcome – the denouement – of past mass movements was very different from the one dreamt by the huge but poorly led marches because of forceful interventions by the “deep state” and the military. The Utopia of imagination just dissolved into the grim reality of dictatorship.
Where the rulers may be wrong is that many of the dykes have become vulnerable. Political challenges emerge unpredictably. The internet, the Facebook and the SMS provide alternative means of mobilisation; the minimum they do is to accentuate the disconnect between the younger generation and the ruling elite. New modes of communication, such as 24-hour TV, are driven by market forces to align themselves with popular sentiment rather than an unconvincing official narrative of stability and progress.
Above all, having denuded “reconciliation” of substance, the political class is returning to confrontation. This will impinge negatively on every factor from economic recovery to armed insurgencies.
The present scenario is, admittedly, not conducive to a quick liberating revolution; in fact, it portends something worse: descent into anarchy, drift and inane violence spreading from mega cities like Karachi to small towns and even rural areas. Revolutions can have a creative dynamic; anarchy only breeds nihilism. Pakistan has not reached the proverbial tipping point as yet. It needs to radically rethink domestic and foreign policies and not retreat into facile optimism if it wants to protect democracy.

The writer is a former foreign secretary. Email: tanvir.a.khan@ gmail.c

False choices and realistic options

Najam Sethi 
 Wednesday, March 02, 2011The word “inqilab” or “revolution” is on everybody’s lips. A majority of Pakistani “have-nots” is hoping for it while a minority of the “haves” is fearful of it. One caller to my live TV show asked: “what is the use of making all these atom bombs if they can’t be thrown on anyone,” to which another angrily provided an answer: “throw them on the poor people of Pakistan so that poverty can be eradicated in one fell blow!”
Last month, Mr Altaf Hussain added his two bits worth by exhorting “patriotic generals” to launch a “bloody revolution”. Now Mr Nawaz Sharif has decided to usurp popular sentiment and is thundering “Damadam Mast Qalandar” in his public gatherings.
So, is a “revolution” about to engulf Pakistan as in the Middle East? No, it isn’t. The collapsing autocratic kleptocracies in the Middle East are being rocked by populist forces for democracy and freedom, much like absolutist Europe in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries and Communist Eastern Europe in the late 1980s at the fag end of the Cold war. Each revolutionary wave was secular and each changed the global balance of power in the world.
But no such secular revolutionary movement for “liberty, equality and fraternity” is churning in the bowels of Pakistan. Indeed, Pakistan’s history is littered with relatively successful but non-secular popular movements for democracy and liberation from dictatorships, even if none quite managed to live up to the promise.
The first student-led revolt in 1968 ousted the secular military government of Gen Ayub Khan. The second multi-party led agitation in 1977 chucked out the secular autocratic regime of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. The third popular revolt was only three years. Young lawyers backed by a free media swept the moderate government of General Pervez Musharraf from power.
That’s why despite three decades of military rule and one decade of fascism under a civilian government, and unlike the states of the Middle East where non-Islamist (but not necessarily secular) democratic change is in the air, Pakistan has an established multi-party political system, regular and broadly acceptable general elections, a fairly consensual constitution, noisy federal and provincial parliaments, fiercely free media and an independent judiciary. So we have none of the political suffocation and repression that has characterised much of the Middle East.
Does this mean that Pakistan is immune to the winds of change blowing in the rest of the Muslim world? No, it doesn’t mean that at all. There are some striking similarities with the Middle East. Over 60 percent of the population of Pakistan, like most Middle Eastern countries, is under 30 years. Most of it is unemployed, alienated and angry because the democratic system is not delivering. Like the ME, anti-Americanism is rife. And like the Middle East, there is outrage against the double standards of the west in supporting decadent, exploitative and oppressive ruling elites in the Third World while simultaneously exporting ideas of democracy, freedom, human rights and liberalism. This suggests that the idea of “revolution, people’s power and radical change” is in the air even in Pakistan.
But the growing tragedy is that this sentiment is anti-democracy, anti-secularism, anti-liberalism and anti-pluralism because the system of political democracy a la Westminster has only served to sustain a game of musical chairs for corrupt politicians and grasping soldiers who have been living off economic rents and military handouts by the United States in pursuit of its foreign policy objectives in South and West Asia. Pakistani democracy is characterised by three Ds – dynastic, dysfunctional and discredited. So is Pakistan headed for an “Islamic revolution” like Iran under Ayatollah Khomeni in 1979? No, it isn’t.
Iran lent itself to an Islamic revolution because it was uniquely different from other Muslim countries. It is ethnically united and religiously homogenous. Also, it had a class of religious scholars who were all united behind one leader. But Pakistan is not ripe for such an Islamist state. It is ethnically divided and intensely sectarian, with dozens of groups or parties constantly squabbling over religious and political issues. Strong regional sub-nationalisms and ethnic loyalties also cut into religious unity, as demonstrated by the secession of East Pakistan in 1981. In 2002, all the major religious parties formed an umbrella organisation (MMA) to contest the elections but still did not make any dent in the political system. In fact, the MMA lost badly in the 2008 elections and the religious parties are squabbling again.
Under the circumstances, what sort of change is possible in Pakistan? The obvious expectation is regime change via elections later this year. But if that merely serves to replace one dysfunctional coalition government with another, there will be more popular frustration with “democracy” and we will have merely postponed the day of reckoning.
Another option is for the military, judiciary and media to implicitly join hands against discredited politicians and political parties by propping up a civilian regime of technocrats to set things right. But keeping the PMLN and PPP out in the cold for any length of time and disqualifying their leaders won’t work. Sooner than later, the media will switch sides and start criticizing the new regime and hankering for “accountable democracy” again.
Meanwhile The various flash points in Pakistan will continue to undermine the economy and disrupt foreign polity. Unemployment, inflation and shortages will keep tempers on the boil. Increasing religiosity and anti-Americanism will keep foreign investors at bay. The mad scramble to stockpile nuclear weapons will continue to ring alarm bells in and outside the region. The proliferation of armed and organised jihadi and Taliban groups will pose severe problems for installing liberal democracy, building peace with India and doing business with the west, all of which are necessary for rejuvenating the state and society of Pakistan.
If a war with India is provoked or there is conflict with the US, then all bets will be off. Elements of a failing state are anarchy, civil strife, war, economic meltdown and secession. The only realistic option is for our political leaders to keep religious passion out of law and politics, anti-American outrage out of economic and foreign policy, and unaccountable corruption and inefficiency out of government. We must make democracy work so that Pakistan can survive and prosper as a nation-state.

The writer is Jang Group/Geo adviser on political affairs.

Foreign policy: a headless wonder

By Syed Talat Hussain |

INTERNATIONALLY, Pakistan matters. A lot. Here are some random reminders: it is a nuclear state that operates in a completely nuclearised neighbourhood (India and China). Its conduct can determine the future of some of the world’s oldest civilisations and nearly one-fourth of humanity.
The geographic contiguity to Afghanistan makes Pakistan a vital element in the West’s most expensive war fought out of the European theatre. The US defines Pakistan as its core policy concern, even if at present Washington is struggling to keep its ties on an even keel in the aftermath of the Raymond Davis case. China sees Pakistan as a fundamental ally. India calls it a perpetual thorn in its side. Kashmiris see it — yes, they still do — as their only friend.
Then being the second-largest Muslim state, Pakistan’s internal developments cause ripples in the over one billion Muslim population across the globe. And yet, incredibly, for a third week running this very important country is without a foreign minister.
In the heap of other more immediate, headline-grabbing issues this might appear as a small omission. In reality, the absence of a foreign minister and the lack of any anxiety on the part of the government to fill the gap make a more important point, showing the upside down priorities of the PPP. This also shows that others like the PML-N are no better.
There are reasons for the relegation of foreign policy concerns to the lowest level of attention. The more obvious one is an all-consuming and increasingly self-defeating political wrangle that the entire political class has entangled itself in.
Practically every second of every day is being spent on winning the tug of political war. The PPP is preparing for the endgame with regard to its present stint in power. It has positioned all its cards for the mid-term elections. It is digging its heels in Sindh’s heartland.
The imagined assault from the army on its political base is making the PPP leadership issue clarion calls to its workers. While Punjab’s stalemated political arena is the main story, the real worry preoccupying everyone in the PPP is the possibility of a ‘constitutional coup’. Foreign policy is the last thing on their minds. Not having a foreign minister is the least of their concerns.
The cabinet head, the prime minister, has an additional set of problems. His family’s alleged corruption scandals have begun to compete in publicity with those of the more notorious of his comrades. His son has put up a valiant but late-in-the-day defence of his newly displayed assets, including a bulletproof vehicle. (The ease with which Gilani-2 rattles off the fake history of his ancestral wealth and privileged background is breath-stopping.) However, the prime minister’s name is still at the centre of the blighting accusations of financial misconduct.
In these unremitting circumstances, he, like his party, needs wily speakers with jaws of steel to lay counter punches into opponents. His first agenda is to have Dr Firdous Ashiq Awan around. Finding a suitable replacement for Shah Mehmood Qureshi can come later.
Normally, an agile opposition would have made a fuss over the critical cabinet posts being kept vacant and would have reminded the prime minister of his glaring neglect. However, the present-day opposition is just as engrossed in playing farcical politics as the government it hopes to undo.
The entire thrust of the PML-N’s activity is centred on cornering the government politically and scoring debating points. Nothing else is materially important to it.
Except in the context of Raymond Davis, even pro forma statements on foreign policy concerns have been missing from the opposition corner. No one has expanded on the symbolic as well as actual implications of a cabinet without a foreign minister. This is one subject that does not interest the opposition leadership. This is a low priority area.
The other reason for which politics has taken over foreign policy relates to civil-military relations that are in a state of disrepair. PPP leaders first complain that the army-led establishment has created an exclusive domain in foreign and defence policy, but then heave a sigh of relief in the same breath.
This arrangement saves them the trouble of taking controversial positions, helps them avoid locking horns with important foreign countries where their financial interests are being looked after rather well, and as a bonus frees up time to visit their constituencies to indulge in the politics of crumbs and cronies.
The truism that every elected politician knows by heart is that incumbent foreign ministers seldom win elections. But the general explanation they offer for casually treating foreign policy runs something like this: ‘What difference does it make if a federal cabinet has a foreign minister? He, at best would be a formal façade to a reality that everyone knows — with or without a foreign minister, the brass runs foreign affairs.’
Whether the generals sideline civilians or civilians abdicate their responsibilities and become marginalised is a circular argument that can last forever. (Though one can legitimately ask why have the defence minister when the generals’ power is the maximum in this realm.)
However, for an elected government in charge of arguably one of the world’s most important countries to keep the foreign minister’s post vacant is indefensible. While Hina Rabbani Khar (known mainly for copious note-taking in meetings from her previous assignment as minister of state for finance) is an improvement on her predecessor, she cannot step up to the task of representing Pakistan in a complex world.
Pakistan needs a full-time foreign minister. This vacancy reinforces the impression that this government simply does not understand how crucial these times are for the country.
The writer is a senior journalist at DawnNews.

Ideological radicalisation

By M. Zaidi | From the NewspaperIT is necessary to clarify the associations of ideology with radicalisation at the outset, since the debate about ideology being the major construct of radicalisation rages on. Simplifying complex issues into binary opposites which create a visceral impact is a characteristic of ideologies, especially when they tend to articulate a set of grievances of one set of people against another.
This sort of simplification is also the predominant process within radicalisation. This is the contextual paradigm of ideology that resonates within paradigms of terrorism in Pakistan, wherein the terrorists have used a reductionist worldview to whittle down complex socio-economic, geo-strategic and political problems, into essentially a contest between good and evil.
Thus, there are hardly any grey areas for terrorists in Pakistan i.e. the fellow citizen not following the terrorist ideology is clearly a murtid, one who has turned away from the true faith as perceived by one school of thought or sect against the other.
Since ideologies present the perfect spatial parameter for the conflict to be resolved by the logical triumph of the perceived good over perceived evil, it is important to comprehend that ideology can be used and has been used as a potent tool fostering terrorism in Pakistan. Thus, terrorist attacks become justifiable through the ideology of the perpetrators.
The need for action which edifies the spirit and allows the ideology to grow has been a common theme within anarchism, fascism, communism, and for the purpose of this essay, radicalisation.
When there is a conducive environment which induces a sense of emasculation or despair, ideology can provide not only a source of solace, but an impetus for action for populations undergoing stresses. Thus, venting grievances through the platform of ideology whether it is jihadism or any other, has the potential of making the message resonate, going out to other persons undergoing similar stimuli.
Since an ideology is self-replicating, it will have the potential of attracting more converts. In essence, it is actually more powerful than the violent behaviour which it inculcates. In the Pakistani context, this means that extremist terrorist ideologies are an over-arching paradigm which drive and foster terrorism, and in many cases, radicalisation.
It also needs to be realised that a single variable is not always enough to radicalise individuals.
For example, religion as an ideology or set of ideologies is often unthinkingly invoked as the paramount disposing factor radicalising Pakistan, without taking into account the fact that issues of terrorism and extremism do not arise merely out of ideology. Rather, the problems that Pakistan is confronted with also arise from fundamental socio-economic and class inequalities, which have prompted a reaction amongst the have-nots to challenge the disproportionately affluent elite.
This has espoused, promoted and encouraged orthodox, rigid and fundamentalist versions of religion, as opposed to more tolerant, peaceful ones. As Pakistan redefined its identity by invoking the Arabic origin of Islam during the Afghan jihad days, the relatively more tolerant, syncretic and peaceful versions of the religion in South Asia have been replaced by harsh, literalist and bland versions of orthodox Islam amongst an extremist fringe.
This ideological trajectory allows young Pakistanis to go towards radicalisation, and adds support for militant agendas from among the Pakistani populace, particularly when there is high unemployment and income disparity. This income disparity has manifested itself in the ratio of the highest to lowest income quintiles ranging from 3.76 in 2001 to 4.15 in 2005, and further to 4.2 in 2005-06.
Since poorer households in Pakistan tend to have a higher number of children on average, especially in rural areas, it implies that an exceptionally large number of young men and women are being forced to live below or around the poverty line.
Furthermore, at least one-tenth of the rural community does not have access to even basic facilities, which adds stress to an already overburdened economy. The families are ultra poor. Their children seem destined for a grim future, particularly with regard to employment. The high level of under-employment for the young from the lower socio-economic classes causes an additional strain. The growing economy has increased the labour market and the unemployment rate has declined to around 5.32 per cent in recent years. This modest improvement cannot cope with the rapidly-expanding youth population.
This alienates the poor segment of the youth, since the majority of non-elite young men can only find menial, unfulfilling jobs. Since the richest 20 per cent of the population continue to grow richer, the sense of alienation among the poor young men is not surprising, and forces them to look for alternatives.
Radicalisation is one of the ways through which the poor and the dispossessed find a voice, since the path to radicalisation demands action to challenge the status quo, often in the form of violent activism. This violent action may become terrorism in its extreme manifestations, or smoulder within the non-elite youth in the form of extremism.
Thus, assuming radicalisation to be a process, and also assuming certain Pakistani demographic segments to be more vulnerable to it than others, one can draw up frameworks of how individuals in Pakistan tend to get radicalised, and then occupy these frameworks. Studying these trends is the need of the day, and is becoming more urgent with every passing moment.
The writer is a security analyst.