It should be commonly understood that feudalism as a mode of production does not exist. However, it is the feudal ways and norms that remain the bane of underdeveloped societies. Consequently, the term "feudalism" is used to describe pejoratively "anything reactionary, old-fashioned, or resonant of aristocratic values" (Oxford Dictionary).
Under the original feudal system, a vassal or a feudal tenant would hold land and would in return perform military duties for an overlord. The overlord would, in turn, provide protection and land tenure to the tenant. The overlord would pledge allegiance to a king. Land tenures of the lesser lords were thus guaranteed. The communities remained subservient to the vassals and the overlords. If some communities still have no better option other than servile existence under big landlords, it can be safely concluded that the world has yet to get rid of "feudalism" or feudal ways and practices. Surely, in Pakistan, it remains a daunting challenge.
Feudal system existed in Europe as much as it did in Japan. In England, it met with stiff resistance from its institutions as they developed. Industry rose on the ashes of feudalism. France is known for entrenched feudalism until their revolution. Modernization in France could not be conceived to coexist with feudalism. The French Revolution commenced by putting an end to feudalism by decree. It changed the structure of the society so as to make it growth- and development-oriented.
As the Philadelphia Convention met to draw up the American Constitution in 1787, France was ripe for a revolution. King Louis XVI of France had financed the American War of Independence against the British. France almost reached the verge of bankruptcy as, "those with the capacity to pay taxes failed to bear their share of the burden." The French King summoned the Assembly of Notables (aristocrats) requesting them to abandon some of their fiscal privileges. The Notables resisted and called for summoning of the Estates General (assembly) to deal with the fiscal crisis. The Estates General comprised three estates, namely, the clergy, the aristocracy, and the rest. When the Estates General met, the Third Estate, comprising the rest, withdrew and declared itself the National Assembly competent to give a new constitution to France. The fiscal crisis was thus viewed against the larger backdrop of the structure of the French society wherein the privileged few enjoyed tax privileges as the country was driven to bankruptcy. The fiscal crisis could not be addressed in 18th century France unless the structure of the society was changed. For, if the privileged were not willing to part with their privileges, then the privileged had to go. So it was ruled in 18th century France.
In 21st century Pakistan, the privileged argue that there privileges and the socio-economic hardships of the underprivileged are both a myth. The people of this country are neither dense nor dumb. Many similarities emerge as we look back at the economic development path of the developed West. All those aware of Pakistan's fiscal crisis and its distorted structures of politico-economic power would further know where the similarities end. The similarity ends when we display a lack of courage and will-power to effect change for the better.
Bastille was demolished on July 14, 1789 and feudalism was abolished on August 4, 1789 through a series of "Decrees Abolishing the Feudal System." The opening words were, "The National Assembly abolishes the feudal regime entirely ....." The decrees did away with many kinds of manorial obligations to begin with. The decrees also abolished special tax privileges and opened all offices to all citizens "without distinction of birth." Cornerstone to build a modern France had been laid.
The second important decree was the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen passed late August 1789. The second decree came on the heels of the first decree about abolishing feudalism and privileges. The decrees were thus logically sequenced. Without the first one, the second would have been meaningless.
The French Revolution did not end in the year it started. Rather, the Revolution kept consolidating itself even in the 19th century until the Napoleonic era. Even though Napoleon turned despotic, the ideals of the Revolution were pushed forward forcefully on nearly every front in his era. These ideas were also exported to Italy, Spain, and Prussia. Germany would then provide further intellectual thrust to the ideals of the enlightenment. Unfortunately, these ideas have yet to be assimilated and internalized by us.
We remain backward as we try to build a modern society on the traditional repugnant value system most prevalent in the countryside from where it also gets exported to the urban so-called modern sector. Thanks to this age of rapid and effective communication, one is saved the agony of personally witnessing the oppression in the villages. There is enough evidence available about life in rural areas on the basis of which serious students of economics can draw the sad conclusions from which the big farm lords wish to look the other way. It is true that behaviour and attitudes in other sectors of the economy are also repugnant in many ways. However, one needs to determine not just the "sources" of ills in the society but rather the "causes" of them. If a cause-effect tree is constructed, it will converge to the major problem identified way back in 1789 by none other than the French which is "feudalism." Later in the 20th century, it was identified by the Japanese, the Koreans, the Taiwanese, and the Chinese as soon as they embarked on development and modernization. However, China is ignored by many in this country due to its totalitarian political disposition. We may then travel Westward and find a case in point in the liberated France which exported the idea to other parts of Europe.
Until such time that the root cause is addressed in Pakistan, it would be very difficult to reform the rest of the society. Rather, it is impossible to reform if the major sector of agriculture or big agriculturists continue to occupy the privileged status that they do. They continue to wield the same amount of power as they did when their sector contributed over 40 per cent to the GDP in the 1950s and the 1960s. They might well know that their sector's contribution to the GDP stands declined to about 25 per cent in the decade of the 1990s. It is, therefore, not a "predominant factor" as still imagined by some of them. They should not, therefore, be allowed to continue to dominate the value system which some of them think is their birth right by virtue of the sector's significance in the economy.
Nonetheless, the rural economy remains significant as it is still home to 67 per cent of the country's population. With a declining GDP share, the misery of the multitude can only be expected to increase unless drastic land and agrarian reforms are undertaken. It is common knowledge that even though "begaar" is abolished, the tiller barely subsists. The condition of socio- economic or human rights remains pathetic on which enough data have been collected by many development centres at least one of which works under the auspices of the UN. There is enough empirical evidence already in support of the fact that the number of displaced and landless peasants is rising. This is creating pressure on urban areas due to influx of rural migrants. To argue the above facts, data, and actual trends is to be unreasonable and irrational.
The matter, however, needs to be addressed whenever status quo is supported. Otherwise, it would only reinforce the already existing barriers to reform. As soon as the sentiment for meaningful land reforms caught on in the country recently, big landlords tried to project "feudalism" as a myth. It would be a fantasy to assume that the country is not plagued with a feudal mindset. Some of the ills found in other sectors of the economy are actually a manifestation of this same mindset exported from the countryside to the rest of the economy. Absentee landlords, living off the wealth generated on the soil tilled by subsisting tenants, served as "role models." The societal goals got transformed to maximizing personal material gain and personal power only. These goals were sought increasingly in other sectors, be it industry or bureaucracy. The undesirable norms and attitudes caught on. These trends are now being used to justify oppression in that same agricultural sector from which they were exported in the first place. The vicious circle ought to be broken rather than justified. The importance of parallel attempts notwithstanding, first attempts should then be made in the sector from which these anti-developmental attitudes originated.
These attitudes have also been the biggest roadblock to the development of institutions in the country. As this sector remains virtually exempt from fiscal and other socio-economic obligations, other sectors find their legal fiscal and administrative requirements discriminating. Consequently, they are fulfilled only partially, if at all. Profitability in agricultural sector remains a question mark as the sector has made itself impervious. The luxurious lifestyles of big agriculturists belie their claims about economic hardships. Other sectors then consider it not-so-illegitimate to underreport incomes. The taxation structure remains horizontally iniquitous. Agriculturists complain of multiplicity of taxes and try to remain exempt from income taxation. Other sectors and salaried individuals too have to pay a number of taxes but their incomes remain heavily taxed. Despite heavy taxation, fiscal and economic problems have compounded because, inter alia, the economic managers can no longer justify the privileged status of agriculture. It is now even allowed market prices for output. The issue of implicit taxation exists no longer. But the privileges do!
Can a modern economy be constructed with attitudes and norms that discourage enterprise, seek rents rather than healthy normal profits, and which encourage distribution in favour of a few powerful rather than all the input providers? Economic history answers in the negative!
Feudalism: a myth or mother of all ills?
Why choose now to complain about Pakistan’s ISI?
Why now? Until this week, the ISI was an acronym for Pakistan’s powerful spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence, that was little known outside of South Asia. Now it’s all over the American media as the organisation accused of secretly helping Islamist militants in Afghanistan and Pakistan, while the country it works for is a crucial ally in the U.S. battle against al Qaeda and the Taliban.
The New York Times led the charge by reporting that the CIA had confronted Pakistan over what it called deepening ties between members of the ISI and militant groups responsible for a surge in violence in Afghanistan. It followed it up with a story quoting U.S. government officials blaming the ISI for an attack last month on the Indian embassy in Kabul. The Washington Post and TIME, amongst others, ran similar stories.
Whenever you see a deluge of stories in the media quoting government or intelligence officials, it’s always worth asking why those unnamed officials have chosen this particular moment to speak out. The accusations against the ISI — denied by Pakistan — are not new.
India has complained for years about the role of the ISI in supporting the insurgency in Kashmir. It threatened to go to war in 2001/2002 over a December 2001 attack on the Indian parliament that it blamed on militants backed by the ISI, a charge denied by Pakistan. The debate within India at the time was very similar to the one you can find today in the U.S. media — how much do the ruling authorities in Pakistan control the ISI, and to what extent is it a monolithic disciplined organisation, and to what extent does it have renegade members who might follow their own agenda?
More importantly, perhaps, in the current context, is how the Americans viewed the ISI. The U.S. diplomats I knew in India had no illusions about the ISI, although publicly they refused to take sides as they tried – successfully as it turned out — to persuade Islamabad and Delhi to stand down from a conflict that threatened to undermine America’s post 9/11 efforts to tame Afghanistan.
During the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan from 1979 to 1989, the CIA worked closely with the ISI to arm, train and fund the mujahideen. Between them they drove the Russians out of Afghanistan and helped bring down the Soviet Union. There can be no closer relationship between two countries’ spy agencies than that. The CIA knows, and has long known, the ISI — perhaps better than any other country’s intelligence services.
So I come back to my original question. Why turn on them now?
There are, of course, obvious answers. Pakistan’s new government, elected in February, just made a botched attempt to bring the ISI under civilian control. Its subsequent retraction served only to highlight the power of the ISI. The Americans and their allies are suffering heavy losses in Afghanistan, while going into a presidential election where the war in Iraq, and the U.S. failure to hunt down al Qaeda and the Taliban, have become a major issue.
But I can’t help but wonder whether those unnamed officials now so keen to talk to the media are spinning a line. There have long been arguments within the CIA about how to handle the ISI, with agents based in Kabul generally arguing in favour of confrontation and those in Islamabad backing cooperation.
So is what we are seeing in the U.S. media a reflection of a battle within the CIA over rival views on how to handle Pakistan and the ISI? Maybe.
Or is it a reflection of actual events, including the increase in violence in Afghanistan, the renewed focus on Iraq/al Qaeda created by the U.S. presidential election, the speculation about whether the United States will send its troops into Pakistan to hunt down leaders of al Qaeda and the Taliban, and heightened tensions between India and Pakistan over the attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul? Maybe.
I am not asking these questions in the kind of rhetorical way that suggests that I already know the answer. I’m asking because I don’t know.
But I am just a little bit suspicious when I see the media all heading in the same direction. It feels uncannily similar to the way the media quoted unnamed officials about WMD to justify the invasion of Iraq. Many countries had been suspicious of Saddam Hussein since the invasion of Kuwait in 1990. But having ignored that for years, there was suddenly a groundswell of opinion to remove him. Are we now seeing a similar groundswell against Pakistan?
Once again, I don’t know the answer, but suggest only that there is a need to ask why people have chosen this moment to talk. Otherwise we prove the old cliche true, that “we learn from history that we don’t learn from history.”
Situation in global war on terror remains stern
Two explosions tore through a crowded pedestrian area of Turkey's largest city of Istanbul when local residents sat around to enjoy the cool of the evening or strolled along bustling streets on late Sunday, July 27. The blasts killed at least 15 people and injured more than 150 others, and 15 of them seriously.
A day earlier, a string of 18 explosions rocked and destroyed markets, bus stations, residential quarters, hospitals and other crowded areas in the city of Ahmedabad in Gujarat state, west India last Saturday or July 26. The serial explosions killed at least 45 people and wounded 161. Also in India, 60 people died and more than 150 were injured in seven successive bomb blasts that occurred on May 13.
Terrorist attacks have taken place not only in Iraq and Afghanistan, but in other countries and regions since early this year. In some thrilling bomb blasts, the cruel, ruthless nature of terrorists has been fully exposed or unmasked. They not only target at innocent civilians at some overcrowded sites, but also resort to other means as fixing snag nails and other stuffings into deadly explosive devices to cause maximal casualties. They even did not let off hospitals, where many rescuers got killed.
Appalling horrible scenes drenched with much bloodshed have given people all over the world a clear and strong signal: Terrorism still poses a very immediate threat to the contemporary world, and the situation with global war on terrorism remains stern and stark.
Then, some people would naturally ask this question: The war on terrorism launched by the United States has been still going on with a steady increase in the cost of manpower and material and financial resources, and why terrorist activities have turned so ferocious and rampant? Here, we'd better hear what Tunisian President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali has said. "The war against terror cannot be won by police force alone," President Ben Ali acknowledged, and some new preventative measures should be taken, and the root cause for generating terrorism has to be eradicated by means of improving democracy, popularizing education and culture, raising the status of women and eradicating poverty. If the infallibility is claimed from one's might and persistence bent on via military means to combat terrorism, the effect is likely to discount greatly.
With the war on terror having been fought for year after year, some others may also ask: Why terrorists have not sunk into oblivion but contrarily make people feel the world insecure and more violent as they have gone on fighting against the terrorism more resolutely and relentlessly? This is, however, owed to an outcome inflicted by some of the moves taken to combat terrorism, apart from varied political, economic and social factors.
Former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan expressed his grave concern over the humanitarian crisis. He vehemently denounced such anti-terrorist moves as an "ethnic cleansing" operation, the massive bombing of cities, the mistreatment and torture of prisoners in violation of human rights and international humanitarian law and the ensuing deaths of innocent people. More important, he deemed such moves could possibly be taken as the excuse for terrorists to attract or regroup new recruits and create a round after another of violence. Facts have again told people that erroneous actions will incur even more serious consequences.
How to further reinforce global cooperation constitutes an important realm worthy of attention for the global war on terrorism. Without an effective international cooperation, it is out of the question to attain the objective for anti-terrorism efficaciously. Some Western nations could hardly push ahead the worldwide cooperation in the war on terror as they often resort to double standards in the sphere of fighting against terrorism and give heed only to their own concern to the neglect of terrorist threats posed for others.
To date, all above-mentioned questions have shed light on causes for an inconspicuous effect and stark reality in the ongoing global war on terrorism. So, the global community should reappraise and re-think carefully of such issues as those regarding the outcome of the war on terror, on how terrorism has been bred and multiplied, how to beef up cooperation in the anti-terrorism field and how to seek a temporary solution and uproot the cause of terrorism.
By People's Daily
U.S. Officials: Pakistani Agents Helped Plan Kabul Bombing
U.S. intelligence officials have concluded that elements of Pakistan's military intelligence service provided logistical support to militants who staged last month's deadly car bombing at the Indian Embassy in Afghanistan's capital, U.S. officials familiar with the evidence said yesterday.
The finding, based partly on communication intercepts, has dramatically heightened U.S. concerns about long-standing ties between Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency, or ISI, and Taliban-allied groups that are battling U.S. forces in Afghanistan, according to two U.S. government officials briefed on the matter.
The July 7 bombing at the Kabul embassy has been linked to fighters loyal to Jalaluddin Haqqani, an ethnic Pashtun militant who has led pro-Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan and has been associated with numerous suicide bombings in the region. More than 40 people were killed in one of the deadliest attacks on Afghan civilians since the U.S.-led invasion in 2001.
"There continues to be evidence of Taliban and Haqqani network involvement in the Indian Embassy bombing as well as the attempted assassination of [Afghan President Hamid] Karzai," said a senior U.S. official briefed on the reports. He said there was "significant" evidence suggesting that individual ISI members provided logistical support to the embassy bombers. He declined to elaborate further.
Pakistani officials today said there was no evidence of that the military intelligence service was involved in the bombing, according to an Associated Press report from Islamabad. Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammed Sadiq described the allegation as "total rubbish," and government spokeswoman Sherry Rehman also said there was "no proof" of ISI involvement in the bombing. She did acknowledge, however, that some members of the intelligence service may be working against official policy.
CIA officials raised the issue of possible ISI support for the embassy bombers during a meeting last month between the newly elected Pakistani government and a delegation led by Stephen Kappes, the agency's director of clandestine operations, two officials said. The conclusion by U.S. intelligence and the visit were first reported by the New York Times.
One official involved with U.S. counterterrorism efforts stressed that the ISI has generally worked closely with U.S. intelligence in battling al-Qaeda and Taliban forces in the tribal region between Pakistan and Afghanistan. But he acknowledged that the Pakistani intelligence service is "not monolithic."
The intelligence community is divided about the extent of Taliban sympathies within the Pakistani service, a second senior official said. "You will find folks who will say there is significant penetration of the ISI by terrorist elements and that's a serious concern," the official said. "But others are saying that certainly, there's penetration, but we don't think it's top to bottom."
Pakistani officials have repeatedly denied the allegation of ISI support for the Taliban, though Defense Minister Ahmed Mukhtar, who accompanied Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani in a visit to Washington this week, acknowledged that his U.S. counterparts had aired serious concerns. Following their meetings this week, Gillani and President Bush sought to ease bilateral tensions over the conduct of the campaign against terrorism. Their talks focused on efforts to clamp down on al-Qaeda and Taliban extremists in Pakistan's northwest tribal areas.
Gillani secured a pledge from Bush to respect Pakistani sovereignty in exchange for promises from Islamabad to crack down on the militants. "This is our own war," Gillani said. "This is a war which is against Pakistan."
Pakistan, which has received more than $10 billion in U.S. aid since 2001, has resisted suggestions that troops from the United States or other countries be allowed into the region.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Michael Mullen, when asked yesterday whether the ISI and the military were aligned with the Pakistani government, said it was a question "the government of Pakistan ought to speak to."
Mullen, who recently traveled to Pakistan, said the country's leaders made clear during talks that they recognized the tribal areas pose "a serious internal threat to Pakistan, and it's growing," and that they are "committed to taking steps to . . . address it."
U.S. concerns about Taliban support within the ISI's ranks date back nearly a decade. Robert Baer, a former CIA case officer with experience in the region, noted that the ISI was an early backer of the Taliban during the 1980s, at a time when they were allied in the fight against Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Some ISI officers forged personal ties with Taliban commanders that persist today, he said.
Pakistan spy agency 'fiasco' derided
The timing could not have been more embarrassing for Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani, in the United States for a meeting with President George W Bush on Monday that focused on Pakistan's role in the US-led war on terrorism.
Last week, Washington demanded Pakistan investigate Indian and Afghan accusations that the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) was involved in a Kabul suicide bombing that killed 58 people outside the Indian embassy, including two diplomats.
Mr Gilani's four-month-old government has issued denials of ISI complicity but can say only what the spies and army divulge.
The United States and its Western allies have trusted the ISI to help combat Al Qaeda, but there have long been suspicions that it takes a permissive line over the Taliban, allowing the militants freedom to attack Afghanistan over the border.
There is mounting apprehension that Pakistan's generals are becoming less cooperative because the country fears Washington has allowed rival India to extend influence in Afghanistan.
With Pakistan in a fragile transition to democracy after President Pervez Musharraf's eight years of military rule, Washington has been talking to various parties in the nuclear-armed nation about closer coordination on security.
On Saturday night, while Mr Gilani was still en route to Washington, his government dropped a bombshell with a decree that the Interior Ministry would oversee spy agency activities.
The government said the ISI and its civilian counterpart, the Intelligence Bureau (IB), would be brought under the "administrative, financial and operational control of the Interior Division with immediate effect".
On Sunday, the government issued a clarification saying it had been "misinterpreted" and that the decree "only re-emphasises more coordination" between the ministry and the ISI on internal security matters.
It said another detailed decree would be issued later.
"I think the ISI immediately got into the act and did what they thought was best to have the decision reversed," said Najam Sethi, editor of the Daily Times newspaper.
'Amateurish'
Defence analyst Nasim Zehra said the Government's action had been "amateurish, thoughtless and hasty", though there was a good case for streamlining the security apparatus and drawing more rigorous reporting lines.
Newspaper editorials saw the chain of events as farcical.
"Is it mischief, conspiracy or stupidity?" said the Urdu language daily Nawa-i-Waqt, while the English language News newspaper referred to the saga as the "ISI fiasco".
Sethi's Daily Times noted that two previous prime ministers with solid parliamentary majorities and public support had tried and failed to cut the military down to size.
It offered words of caution to a weak coalition, already under pressure from political, economic and energy crises.
"Unless this move is for cosmetic purposes, Islamabad should tread with caution," said the newspaper.
PAKISTAN'S ISI
The report in a leading US newspaper about links between the ISI and militants, which a CIA official reportedly showed evidence of to Pakistan government members in Islamabad recently, adds a new dimension to the much talked of government move to place the agency under the interior ministry. The same theme is reinforced by the defence minister who informed this publication that President George Bush had expressed displeasure over ISI behaviour in his meeting with the Pakistani prime minister. The Pakistan military has denied a nexus exists between the ISI and terrorists. It seems unlikely this denial has cut much ice in Washington.
While the ill-fated move to place the ISI under the interior ministry has kindled a heated controversy, the latest concerns regarding the role of the outfit, raised in the US, make it imperative that it be placed under some kind of civilian control. It is obviously unfair to expect a government to take responsibility for battling militancy while the country's premier agency backs the outfits engaged in terror. Indeed the consequences are potentially horrendous for all of us who wish to see Pakistan evolve into a modern, progressive state. The fact is that the ISI needs to be brought under check. As civilians we need to know what its role is. So far, the allegations that this role has involved conspiracies within the country, backing for militants in Kashmir and northern areas and other rather dubious policies makes it questionable whether it is working for or against the national interest. US leaders are quite openly now pressing for the agency to be brought into line. Many in the country would agree.
This having been said, the manner in which the notification regarding the change in control over the agency was issued by the government has not helped matters. Indeed it may have made things more difficult for the future. Criticism has also focused around the controversial adviser on interior, under whom the ISI would have fallen had the change gone through and the fact that he is not an elected person. The controversy rages on, with talk now of heads rolling. But all this has meant a basic principle is being completely overlooked as the rant against the government goes on. Looking beyond the issue of an individual and adopting a more institutionalized approach, the ISI, and indeed other secret agencies, need to serve the government and not act as an entity quite beyond the control of parliament. For this, the agency must be brought under the control of the civilian authorities. The suspicion that the ISI operates as a body quite outside the command of civilian set-ups is a key factor in the rumours and conspiracy theories that so often spread through the country, particularly at critical moments. This speculation in turn is often a key destabilizing factor for democratically-eldcted governments.
Over the years, the ISI has grown into an entity that is not answerable to government. As citizens, whose taxes help keep it running, we need to know more about the organization and its operations. After all, in many countries including Britain, there is today far greater transparency than ever before in the running of secret agencies. Looking beyond the ham-handed means adopted by the government, followed by a clumsy effort to present the whole fiasco as a case of misunderstanding, the fact cannot be ignored that there is an urgent need to bring the ISI under civilian control. One must hope that the attempt to do so continues and the government finds a way to achieve this goal by building greater consensus on the issue, keeping in mind the fact that Pakistan must move from a national security state to evolving as a pro-development state, where the needs of citizens take priority over other considerations.
Pakistani Military protect Elite !!!
LATE LAST year Pakistan's military rulers struck a deal allowing the former president, Nawaz Sharif, to avoid corruption charges and flee to Saudi Arabia. His departure shocked people even more than the sudden disappearance of the Sharif family from the political scene. After a year-long propaganda campaign against Sharif, the convict has been set free by government order.
The widespread anger this deal has provoked shows that the reaction from below is brewing against the military junta. Its claims that it came to power to save the country from a rogue prime minister and would cleanse a corrupt political system lie in tatters.
Sharif's exile, George W Bush's US presidential election victory, and the hurdles created to avoid the prosecution of Chilean dictator, Augusto Pinochet, show that there is no impartial judicial system in the world. The judiciary and other state institutions are manipulated by the ruling classes for their own convenience. Sometimes, powerful sections of the world ruling classes arbitrate in the disputes of another country. In Sharif's case, they arbitrated between different feuding factions of the Pakistani ruling elite.
Sharif's exit has proved that his political philosophy was only to enrich himself and his clan. Once he had run out of political options, he tried to salvage the wealth he had accumulated abroad. One thing is clear: at the time of their departure to Saudi Arabia, the Sharifs were as unpopular as when they were ousted in October 1999. The people object to the way Sharif has been allowed to leave and ask why those who plundered the country have been let off the hook.
At first, the US ambassador denied his government played any role. Now the US administration has confirmed that it was involved. Considering that Sharif signed the Washington statement of July 1999 agreeing to the withdrawal of troops in the Kashmir conflict with India - under pressure from Bill Clinton - the US president could not remain indifferent to his fate. The involvement of the Saudi royal family, with whom Sharif has close personal and business relations, comes as no surprise either.
The power exerted by the US and Saudi Arabia is mainly financial. The primary concern of the military government, on the other hand, is to preserve its rule, so it is prepared to accept the most humiliating deals, indifferent to the feelings of the masses. The people only ever figure in the establishment's considerations when they take to streets and attempts to suppress them fail.
What moves the establishment are its own interests. The ruling class reacts to the pressure exerted by Middle Eastern elites because they support Pakistan's establishment at a time when it is targeted by the West for its nuclear weapons programme, its support for the Afghanistan Taliban, and its confrontations with India. The Middle East supplies oil to Pakistan at cheap prices with deferred payments. These advantageous terms do not benefit the poor masses, of course. They are exclusively used by the ruling classes.
Instead of holding free and fair elections, the establishment always intervenes in the interests of the ruling classes to bring in the leadership of its own liking. This seems to be happening again. The military regime's effort to create a 'moral legitimacy' has come crashing to earth.
Another consequence of Sharif's release is to feed the discontent of the peoples of the smaller nationalities once again. What is the justification behind releasing one set of politicians while keeping those from the smaller provinces in jail? The nationalist parties of the smaller provinces have already started exploiting the ruling military establishment's discriminatory attitude. The Sindhis argue that Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Mohammad Khan Junejo and Benazir Bhutto (three Sindhi former prime ministers), all fell victim to conspiracies hatched by the Punjabi-dominated military establishment. They also point out that the first elected prime minister from Sindh, Zulfikar Bhutto, was sent to the gallows despite repeated calls for clemency by the entire Muslim world. On the other hand, a convicted prime minister from Punjab has been provided a safe exit.
The masses of the smaller provinces think of themselves as a deprived lot and see the 'federation' as taking unjust decisions against them, be it with regard to financial resources or water allocations. The military government's so-called devolution plan has added to their fear that it will further reduce provincial autonomy.
The BBC has linked the decision on Sharif to Pakistan's economic predicament. The military government does not admit this but, given the deteriorating financial situation of the country and the threat of default as a result of the post-nuclear sanctions, it is facing an economic impasse. The junta is increasingly worried of an explosion from below.
It is pertinent to recall the report of the State Bank of Pakistan (July-September 2000), which indicates that inflation has risen and price hikes are inevitable in utilities and petroleum. Efforts to increase tax revenues have fallen significantly short of their targets. The compulsion to rely on Western financial institutions remains. This means the International Monetary Fund dictating low public spending, fewer new jobs (if any), job cuts in sectors being prepared for privatisation, and a higher rate of unemployment which is compounding the already bad job situation, especially for young people.
With the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) leader, Benazir Bhutto, already in exile, Sharif's flight to Saudi Arabia means that the leaders of the two main 'liberal' parties are now banished from the country. This is a major boost for the religious parties. The political landscape has been cleared exclusively for those who have the support of reactionary Muslim fundamentalist forces. This is a dangerous development for the poor.
The military government will try to install a prime minister of its own choice. The ban on all political activity and the exile of the PPP and Muslim League leaders is a good opportunity for the army to get the desired result because it is easier for them to bargain with the weaker liberal groups and religious parties.
Though it seems that the junta has manoeuvered well to take hold of the political process, it is also the biggest loser in this game. Not all of its problems have been resolved by the Sharif case. The more serious problems are rooted in the feudal-capitalist state structure upheld by the military. The army is an instrument for safeguarding the interests of national and international big business. It makes no real difference who is on the scene, whether that is Sharif, Bhutto or General Musharraf. All of these represent feudal-capitalist class rule.
Sharif's exit has created a political vacuum. The masses are burdened by price hikes and feel betrayed by Sharif's exile but are not taking to the streets because they also distrust the old political leadership. The religious parties will try to exploit this opportunity with the help of their like-minded generals.
The most disappointing aspect is that the old 'left' has abandoned the politics of raising any alternative and have either become part of the bourgeois parties or have sunk into the oblivion of the NGOs (non-governmental organisations). There is a desperate need to build a genuine socialist alternative to the present political and social chaos, the imminent threat of reactionary fundamentalist forces and the danger of the break up of society. That requires building support for a programme aimed at the social, economic and national problems, all of which are intertwined.
A socialist alternative would start from the fact that the junta, religious groups and other feudal-capitalist leaders, like Sharif and Bhutto, have consistently betrayed the Pakistani masses, and convincing the workers and poor that capitalism means unemployment, poverty and wars. The real choice is between the struggle to overthrow capitalism and feudalism or continued poverty and talibanisation (brutal state repression).
A socialist federation of Pakistan would release the resources needed to wipe out social deprivation and poverty. It would create the basis for fulfilling the national aspirations of the smaller nationalities and protecting the rights of all nationalities. Only a genuine socialist alternative with a democratically-elected and accountable leadership can put forward such a programme.
Pakistani Elite !!!
An elite gone berserk !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Mwaqar
I think its already too late for failed politicians of Pakistan to save this country for which so many sacrificed, I been saying for years that Pakistan will become another SOMALIA, lets face reality that Army Generals, Politicians, bureaucrats, Mullahs, bourgeois and elite is responsible for destroying Pakistan. Pakistani politicians never had any agenda for developing the country, in this country elite is responsible for keeping people of this country backward and illiterate, where over 40 million people have no education, Islam has never been an issue in Pakistan. The cry of 'Islam in danger' is a powerful weapon and slogan of Pakistani politicians and Army generals. General Zia fully utilized the process of Islamization to achieve his political ends. The whole sprit of Qur’an is dynamic as pointed out by so many great Islamic thinkers like Jamaluddin Afghani, Muhammad Abduh, Sir Syed and Muhammad Iqbal. They waged real jihad against stagnation, dogmatism, ignorance and superstition in the name of Islam. It is highly necessary to revive the spirit of these great Islamic thinkers and activists. Their jihad was real jihad. Their main weapons were knowledge, understanding and constant efforts to change. Iqbal represented this spirit in his much quoted verse which says Firm conviction, constant efforts and overpowering universal love are the weapons of men in jihad of life. This is a challenge for us all Muslims. We must turn into a great opportunity and change the image of Islam in the modern world. Mullhas tell you what happens after death but they never told you how to live in this world, no one cared about education of people, selfish leaders of this country go to USA and WEST and ask for charity and then steal all aid money. Elite use name of Islam for their benefits, Cruel dictator Zia did not hesitate to introduce religious fanaticism for keeping himself in power. Nawaz sharif will do anything to get power, It was democratic government of Pakistan that created Taliban movement and installed Taliban government in Afghanistan. Nawaz Sharif, after meeting Osama bin Laden personally at least three times in Saudi Arabia and receiving a huge donation for reelection campaign, democratically elected government of Pakistan under Nawaz Sharif facilitated relocation of Osama bin Laden from Sudan to Afghanistan in 1996 to prove his (Sharif’s) own confides as a ‘true jehadi’ because Osama had taunted Sharif not being a ‘true jehadi’ in one of the meetings. The existing situations or expansions of Taliban in the regions were due to previous Mulla's govt in Pukhtoon land. It is a shame that Pakistani Army only takes action against criminal Taliban and their leaders when Washington force them, otherwise they have no will and sincerity to shoot these criminals who are involve in crimes against humanity. Pakistan seems to have a majority of moderate Muslims and a minority of crazed, religious fundamentals. Who will prevail??? Hard to say, but the religious wack-jobs definitely seem to operate as they wish. As a result, it's a problem. When extremist distort and totally misinterpret the Prophet Mohammad's teachings, they act like a bunch of crazed teen-agers high on Ecstasy with loaded weapons. It's a shame . But then again people like QAZI HUSSAIN whose son got educated in States, wants sons of poor to take part in his senseless marches and dharnas creates fanatics. Pir Pagara who loves to predict political events keeping his followers without education. All these so called failed politicians wants to be Prime Minister but no one talks about the miseries of people living in Pakistan. None of these so called ignorant politicians talk about education, health, poverty, terrorism, they don’t care about people who are committing suicide because of poverty, people who are selling their kids and kidneys for money. Most of the Politicians lack qualifications, experience and even commitment to tackle the problems of the Country. Politics and power dominates their agenda and real issues of poverty, illiteracy and disease do not fare in their book. Anyone who expects them to lead the country to peace and prosperity must be dreaming. The representatives of the people need to pass certain tests of eligibility. Character, ability, a sense of responsibility and experience are necessary ingredients of that eligibility, but in Pakistani Politics we don’t see that, a lot of these politicians, even can’t sign their names in English or Urdu. Typical Pakistani politicians thinks this following way. 1. They consider themselves higher than their institutions. 2. They believe - or at least that is what they claim - that only they can save the country. 3. Only they know what is right for their parties and for the country. 4. They make “temporary” compromises for their own personal interest. 5. They try to maintain a vacuum of leadership so that the party is identified with them - and no-one else. Where is the discussion about the higher education in Pakistan? How are the top notch scientists, engineers and doctors going to be trained? When will govt start pouring funds into these fields? I don’t really understand whether Pakistan and Pakistanis wants to become a peaceful and hopeful country or not. India, China and Iran are surging ahead in research and development. Pakistan is caught up in political and ideological quagmire. India and China will be super powers by year 2050. Leader means visionary personality who can lead others to achieve certain vision. Pakistan’s condition in over 60 year of its ‘independence is one of tragedy; it is a country which has lost its way and whose politicians care little for its reputation. It is not sufficient to change from military leaders to political leaders without changing the underlying political system. It will not work now, nor has it ever worked in the past. There is no check and balance in Pakistan. What Pakistan therefore needs is clear, a comprehensive change of system not a return to the failed politics of the past and another set of cosmetic leadership changes. Retired General Pervez Musharraf would be most remembered for his failure to change the political landscape of the country. In this he would share the fate of other three generals who attempted to remake the political structure of the country and who failed miserably, all three generals failed to establish a new political order in the country, they did achieve a certain degree of success in destroying Pakistan’s social, economic, and cultural landscape. Ayub Khan’s long reign fortified feudal culture, provided new opportunities to the rich to become richer, and gave unprecedented leverage to the notorious thirty-two families who controlled most of the industrial and agricultural holdings of Pakistan. This concentration of wealth in a few hands deprived the poor and middle classes of any genuine role in the country’s political and social structure. General Zia’s failure to bring any substantial changes in the political culture of Pakistan was primarily due to the fact that he was not really interested in this task; his own survival was his greatest concern. During his long reign, he presided over a process of rapid deterioration of the social fabric of the country and allowed a handful of military generals to amass huge amounts of money. The new power mafia which emerged during his reign brought a culture of drugs and violence even to those segments of Pakistani society where such things were unimaginable until then. General Musharraf has done to Pakistan what no other man has before him: his draconian measures have produced a total break down of Pakistani society in a manner never seen before. It may seem premature to pronounce the final verdict, yet it is absolutely clear that Musharraf’s ruthlessness is responsible for the emergence of unprecedented violence in Pakistan. He also allowed plunder of state resources at a level and of an order not seen before. His attempts to restructure Pakistani politics through exiling political leaders have been an utter failure. He relied on turn coats, just as his predecessors had, but it is a truism that one can only rent the loyalties of Pakistan’s corrupt politicians, they cannot be bought permanently. The rented loyalties are always available for anyone ready to pay higher rents. It cannot be denied that political power and authority were snatched away by the bureaucrats and generals after the assassination of the first Prime Minister of Pakistan, Liaquat Ali Khan, in October 1951.The former US national security advisor, Robert C. McFarlane rightly observed that the democratic system in Pakistan is comprised of "a few families struggling with one another to achieve absolute power and are inevitably, in Lord Acton's phrase, corrupted absolutely." The feudal controllers of the government appear to have a long-term strategy to maintain the status quo by ignoring human resources development and keeping the masses illiterate. Even before independence, the feudal lords blocked spread of education in their respective areas for selfish reasons. Since independence, all governments have without exception, deliberately curbed the spread of literacy. Education has never been a priority with any form of government whether it was a democratic or a military one. Since all governments, including the martial law regimes, solely depended on feudal support, they intentionally suppressed education, a potential threat to the status quo. Ironically, the billionaire club of our ruling elite, that enjoys all the privileges and political clout, does not pay any taxes. Generally, everyone who is some one in Pakistan does not like to pay his or her tax. Despite having declared assets of Rs 676.8 million of the Sharif family, , Nawaz Sharif and his brother, Shahbaz Sharif, filed a zero income tax and deficit wealth tax returns, in1998. According to the tax statements of June 30, 1998, total income tax paid by the 11-member Sharif family was just Rs 0.25 million. The family also paid Rs 0.55 million as wealth tax and 0.13 million as agriculture tax raising the total tax payment of the family to Rs 0.94 million and Nawaz family is not the only political family, there is a long list of other politicians and elite who does not pay tax. One can write thousand of books on selfish, failed Pakistani Generals and politicians, corrupt elite, bourgeois, cruel feudal lords, selfish bureaucratic system, but how to get rid of this selfish group of elite in Pakistan?, The Chinese revolution came about with the collapse of the Manchu dynasty, a result of increasing internal disorders, pressure from foreign governments, and the weakness of central government, that’s what we see in Pakistan today. I think we need a true revolutionary in Pakistan before this country breaks up.
“A great revolution is never the fault of the people, but of the government.” Goethe
AN ELITE GONE BERSERK
What else do you expect if you have pumpkins as your rulers and elite? At this point in time, vicious storms are gathering threateningly on the country’s western borders. After years of calm, the LoC is becoming uncomfortably live too, with the Indians pointing finger at us for the recent spate of bomb blasts in their country and accusing the ISI of the terrorist attack on their Kabul embassy as well. In the tribal belt and the settled areas in the vicinity, the extremists are becoming increasingly aggressive and a law unto themselves, behaving like a sovereign power, dictating terms to the state authorities for peace, and even projecting themselves as the alternative leadership for the Islamabad throne. But how are these elites reacting to all these threats and dangers? By setting deadlines, by announcing long marches, by threatening sit-ins, isn’t it? But what for? For their own self-driven agendas and for their own maddening pursuits of settling personal scores; isn’t it? Have you ever heard any of them ever making some sensible proposal or mooting some wise idea in detail for facing up to these threats? Isn’t it that you hear of only silly noises and populists slogans coming forth from their loud mouths? To cope with all these challenges, a visionary gracing the ranks of the opposition-in-wilderness has a gem of wisdom. Just redraw a new constitution, is his magic recipe. But the sage doesn’t tell how his magic formula would bring about his touted miracle when these challenges are immediate needing instantaneous remedial actions, while framing a constitution anew needs months upon months, if not years, in spite of the best intents and efforts of its framers. And that unbeatable intellectual light and unsurpassable political wizard who has anointed himself as this nation’s spiritual guru and its political guide, Mian Mohammad Nawaz Sharif, the head honcho of the PML (N), he has only a plaintive refrain to make to address all these existential threats to us. The ruling PPP leadership, he complains, has not taken him and his party into confidence on the moves taken to come to grips with these challenges. And that is it that he has all on this score. What do you make of it if not that his heart is not in these issues, even though of so fundamental import to this country’s existence and its security and stability? He is all obsessed with his blinding madness to avenge his ouster by the retired general and somehow get him and drag him to the gallows. Ludicrously, he has catapulted his obsession into the people’s mandate in the February poll, whereas the people had rejected him outright in Sindh and Balochistan, even in the subsequent bye-elections, and it is only in the NWFP where he could muster up a sprinkling of public vote and in Punjab where his party was though the largest but not even in simple majority. The PPP says, and rightly, that it holds a countrywide people’s mandate, which it secured not for the judges’ reinstatement but for its promise of roti, kapra aur makan. Yes, it did. But where is roti? Has not the runaway food inflation on its watch snatched roti from many more mouths? Has indeed anyone any idea what a piece of roti now costs, what rate a cup of tea sells in a shabby roadside eatery, and what price a plate of pulse is sold at? Does anyone in the PPP, or in the elite, for that matter, know that a labourer from Swabi in Islamabad has to spend more than half of his day’s earning on just his food and the rest he consumes up in the days he finds no work, leaving not even a paisa with him to send home for his hungry children and starving family? Does anyone in this elite nobility knows that he sleeps at night on the pavements, as do numerous labourers who work for a day or two and remain idle for days on end for no job? Has anyone in the gentry strutting on the national political landscape so grandiosely even a slight idea that jobless, hungry and starving pavement sleepers in cities and metropolises alike are multiplying by leaps and bounds in these days? These elites across the spectrum must wake up to the horrendous realities on the ground. If it becomes a Somalia of this country, as it seems heading to terribly, where would they stage their long marches and sit-ins, and to whom will they be setting deadlines to meet? They must change, their politics must change, their rhetoric must change, and their idiom must change before it is too late. A stormy tide is evidently in the making to ferociously sweep away each and all.
C.I.A. Outlines Pakistan Links With Militants
WASHINGTON — A top Central Intelligence Agency official traveled secretly to Islamabad this month to confront Pakistan’s most senior officials with new information about ties between the country’s powerful spy service and militants operating in Pakistan’s tribal areas, according to American military and intelligence officials.
The C.I.A. emissary presented evidence showing that members of the spy service had deepened their ties with some militant groups that were responsible for a surge of violence in Afghanistan, possibly including the suicide bombing this month of the Indian Embassy in Kabul, the officials said.
The decision to confront Pakistan with what the officials described as a new C.I.A. assessment of the spy service’s activities seemed to be the bluntest American warning to Pakistan since shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks about the ties between the spy service and Islamic militants.
The C.I.A. assessment specifically points to links between members of the spy service, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, and the militant network led by Maulavi Jalaluddin Haqqani, which American officials believe maintains close ties to senior figures of Al Qaeda in Pakistan’s tribal areas.
The C.I.A. has depended heavily on the ISI for information about militants in Pakistan, despite longstanding concerns about divided loyalties within the Pakistani spy service, which had close relations with the Taliban in Afghanistan before the Sept. 11 attacks.
That ISI officers have maintained important ties to anti-American militants has been the subject of previous reports in The New York Times. But the C.I.A. and the Bush administration have generally sought to avoid criticism of Pakistan, which they regard as a crucial ally in the fight against terrorism.
The visit to Pakistan by the C.I.A. official, Stephen R. Kappes, the agency’s deputy director, was described by several American military and intelligence officials in interviews in recent days. Some of those who were interviewed made clear that they welcomed the decision by the C.I.A. to take a harder line toward the ISI’s dealings with militant groups.
Pakistan’s prime minister, Yousaf Raza Gilani, is currently in Washington meeting with Bush administration officials. A White House spokesman, Gordon D. Johndroe, would not say whether President Bush had raised the issue during his meeting on Monday with Mr. Gilani. In an interview broadcast Tuesday on the PBS program “The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer,” Mr. Gilani said he rejected as “not believable” any assertions of ISI’s links to the militants. “We would not allow that,” he said.
The Haqqani network and other militants operating in the tribal areas along the Afghan border are said by American intelligence officials to be responsible for increasingly deadly and complex attacks inside Afghanistan, and to have helped Al Qaeda establish a safe haven in the tribal areas.
Lt. Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the acting commander of American forces in Southwest Asia, made an unannounced visit to the tribal areas on Monday, a further reflection of American concern.
The ISI has for decades maintained contacts with various militant groups in the tribal areas and elsewhere, both for gathering intelligence and as proxies to exert influence on neighboring India and Afghanistan. It is unclear whether the C.I.A. officials have concluded that contacts between the ISI and militant groups are blessed at the highest levels of Pakistan’s spy service and military, or are carried out by rogue elements of Pakistan’s security apparatus.
With Pakistan’s new civilian government struggling to assert control over the country’s spy service, there are concerns in Washington that the ISI may become even more powerful than when President Pervez Musharraf controlled the military and the government. Last weekend, Pakistani military and intelligence officials thwarted an attempt by the government in Islamabad to put the ISI more directly under civilian control.
Mr. Kappes made his secret visit to Pakistan on July 12, joining Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, for meetings with senior Pakistani civilian and military leaders.
“It was a very pointed message saying, ‘Look, we know there’s a connection, not just with Haqqani but also with other bad guys and ISI, and we think you could do more and we want you to do more about it,’ ” one senior American official said of the message to Pakistan. The official was briefed on the meetings; like others who agreed to talk about it, he spoke on condition of anonymity because of the diplomatic delicacy of Mr. Kappes’s message.
The meetings took place days after a suicide bomber attacked the Indian Embassy in Kabul, killing dozens. Afghanistan’s government has publicly accused the ISI of having a hand in the attack, an assertion American officials have not corroborated.
The decision to have Mr. Kappes deliver the message about the spy service was an unusual one, and could be a sign that the relationship between the C.I.A. and the ISI, which has long been marked by mutual suspicion as well as mutual dependence, may be deteriorating.
The trip is reminiscent of a secret visit that the top two American intelligence officials made to Pakistan in January. Those officials — Mike McConnell, the director of national intelligence, and Michael V. Hayden, the C.I.A. director — sought to press Mr. Musharraf to allow the C.I.A. greater latitude to operate in the tribal territories.
It was the ISI, backed by millions of covert dollars from the C.I.A., that ran arms to guerrillas fighting Soviet forces in Afghanistan in the 1980s. It is now American troops who are dying in Afghanistan, and intelligence officials believe those longstanding ties between Pakistani spies and militants may be part of an effort to destabilize Afghanistan.
Spokesmen for the White House and the C.I.A. declined to comment about the visit by Mr. Kappes or about the agency’s assessment. A spokesman for Admiral Mullen, Capt. John Kirby, declined to comment on the meetings, saying “the chairman desires to keep these meetings private and therefore it would be inappropriate to discuss any details.”
Admiral Mullen and Mr. Kappes met in Islamabad with several high-ranking Pakistani officials. They included Mr. Gilani; Mr. Musharraf; Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, the army chief of staff and former ISI director; and Lt. Gen. Nadeem Taj, the current ISI director.
One American counterterrorism official said there was no evidence of Pakistan’s government’s direct support of Al Qaeda. He said, however, there were “genuine and longstanding concerns about Pakistan’s ties to the Haqqani network, which of course has links to Al Qaeda.”
American commanders in Afghanistan have in recent months sounded an increasingly shrill alarm about the threat posed by Mr. Haqqani’s network. Earlier this year, American military officials pressed the American ambassador in Pakistan, Anne W. Patterson, to get Pakistani troops to strike Haqqani network targets in the tribal areas.
Gen. Dan K. McNeill, the senior NATO commander in Afghanistan until last month, frequently discussed the ISI’s contacts with militant groups with General Kayani, Pakistan’s military chief.
During his visit to the tribal areas on Monday, General Dempsey met with top Pakistani commanders in Miramshah, the capital of North Waziristan, where Pakistan’s 11th Army Corps and Frontier Corps paramilitary force have a headquarters, to discuss the security situation in the region, Pakistani officials said.
North Waziristan, the most lawless of the tribal areas, is a hub of Al Qaeda and other foreign fighters, and the base of operations for the Haqqani network.
On Tuesday, Pakistani security forces raided an abandoned seminary owned by Mr. Haqqani, Pakistani officials said. No arrests were made.
Ahmed Faraz
POSTCARD USA: One for Ahmed Faraz — Khalid Hasan
Daily Times - Site Edition Sunday, July 27, 2008
In 2006, angered by something Faraz had written, the minions of the regime had him and his family evicted from their Islamabad house, their belongings placed on the street. There was a nationwide uproar and the government pulled in its horns but did not apologise
This is Ahmad Faraz’s week as he lies in a Chicago hospital, fighting back, refusing to go gently into the night.
Sometimes prayers do get answered and this may well be one of those moments, because for the first time since July 7 when he entered hospital, he managed this week, with help from his attendants, to actually sit in a chair and remain there sitting for two full hours. But hopes that it could perhaps be the beginning of his journey on the long road to recovery were dashed later in the week when a hospital source described his condition as “irreversible” following the massive stroke he suffered while in hospital.
Poets, Ghalib said, are connected to a world that is not visible to the rest of us. Since that must be so, there have to be powers of which we have neither awareness nor understanding, but could we still hope that they will begin to smile on Faraz, the muse’s favourite son? Such a hope cannot be entertained, going by what one has been told. Are we going to lose Faraz, the supreme poet of romance, whose poetry we have loved and lived with all these years? It is a horrible thought and I want to banish it.
There is little doubt that there are few love letters written in long, stealthy hand by shy girls that do not bear one or more of Faraz’s verses. Challenged once at a mushaira held to honour protesting women to recite poetry dedicated to women, Faraz replied, “But all my poetry is dedicated to women.” Such a lover of the finer things in life needs must live and provide sweetness and light to what Faiz called “this land of yellow leaves”.
Ahmed Faraz is a national treasure and although he does not believe in kings or the succession system, let it be said that if there is one successor to Faiz, it is none other than Faraz. Like Faiz he has endured much persecution and received much love. Last year, and not for the first time, Faraz was persecuted by the regime of “enlightened moderation”.
In Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s time, which of all times should have been and in many ways was, Faraz’s, he was suspended from service by Maulana Kausar Niazi for a single verse of his that asked the books that advocate hate in the name of religion to be cast aside once for all. This misstep was soon corrected.
Faraz suffered imprisonment and persecution under Zia and was so heartbroken that he left the country like Faiz and lived in exile for six years. His great poem Mohasra (The Siege) remains one of the most powerful indictments of military rule. Who else but Faraz could have written: Peshavar qatilo tum sipahi nahin (Soldiers you are not, you professional assassins).
There can be no question that Faraz is also the greatest romantic Urdu poet of our times. But why do we treat our best and brightest so disgracefully, we should sometimes ask ourselves. Faiz was hounded all his life, except during the Bhutto years. Habib Jalib was jailed more than once. Ustad Daman was hunted as if he were a criminal. The progressive writers’ movement and its members were singled out for imprisonment and persecution as soon as Pakistan came into being. Why?
In 2006, angered by something Faraz had written, the minions of the regime had him and his family evicted from their Islamabad house, their belongings placed on the street. There was a nationwide uproar and the government pulled in its horns but did not apologise. Last year, Faraz was dismissed from his post as head of the National Book Foundation on the orders of “Shortcut” Aziz, Citibank’s gift to Pakistan. He is now gone but that infamous act is what he will forever be remembered for.
Faraz has always had the courage to remain to the left of every military regime, while many of our leading literary lights have taken the path of least resistance and keeled over. Faraz said in an interview last year, “I am against dictatorship and military rule. The time has not yet arrived when I should escape from the country out of fear. I will stay home and fight.” Faraz remained involved in the movement to restore the illegally dismissed judges and used his influence to persuade fellow writers to join the protest.
Asked once, when Zia was in power, why he had left Pakistan, he replied that he was in Karachi when an order was served on him, externing him from the province of Sindh. “I said to myself, ‘What have we come to when a man is exiled from his own land! Today, it is Karachi, tomorrow it will be Peshawar, the day after, Lahore. That is when I decided to leave.’”
He also returned the Hilal-i-Imtiaz conferred on him. When asked why he had kept it for two years, he replied, “Do you think it laid eggs in those two years?” I know of no one who can match Faraz’s wit. Let me recount some vintage Faraz stories.
One day Faraz heard loud banging at his door. He rose hurriedly to open it, only to see four or five bearded men in white skullcaps. “Can you recite the Kalima?” one asked. “Why, has it changed?” Faraz inquired.
Once when Faraz was staying at a Karachi hotel, Kishwar Naheed landed there with two of her women friends and announced as soon as they entered the room that they were all famished. Faraz picked up the phone and told room service, “Please send up some sand. The witches are already here.”
Faraz was once asked about the difference between Pakistan in 1947 and Pakistan today. “In 1947, the name of the Muslim League president was Muhammad Ali Jinnah. Today it is Chaudhry Gujrat Hussain.”
And then there is this Faraz story. A man is walking through a jungle on a dark night, when he is startled by a rustling noise in the bushes. “Who is that?” he asks, frightened. “An evil spirit,” answers a woman’s sweet voice. “Then come and possess me, what are you waiting for!” he says.
Husain Haqqani, who remembers more of Faraz than perhaps Faraz himself, phoned to tell me midweek that he had called Asif Zardari and the government was going to take care of the Chicago hospital expenses. All three, Zardari, Gilani and he, had also sent Faraz flowers. “Recite me two of your favourite Faraz verses,” I asked him. Here is what he recited:
Ye kaisa vasl hai tu samnay hai aur hamain
Shumar ab se judai ki saa’tain karnain
Ye kya ke sub se bayan dil ki haaltain karnain
Faraz tum ko na aayain mohabattain karnain
(What a union of ours is this! Here you are sitting across from me and here I am, already counting the moments of separation. You speak to all the world of what your heart is going through: Faraz, you never did learn how to love.”)
AFGHANISTAN NEEDS INTERNATIONAL HELP TO STAND ON ITS FEET
www.ruvr.ru...(voice of Russia)
In an interview for VOR, Shakh Mahmud Neck just back from Afghanistan says that the country urgently needs international assistance to embark on peaceful nation building. Kabul, microcosm of the entire country, best illustrates the crying need for help, said Shakh.
The situation in Afghanistan has not improved since the entry of coalition forces in 2001; rather, things have gone from bad to worse. Last year, a record 8.200 tons of opium puppies was gathered in the country and the UN forecast future increase Internal squabbling is out of control and bearing the brunt of it are Afghan civilians and foreign experts working in Afghanistan. Against this distressing backdrop, none of the fundamental problems have been solved, said Mahmud Neck. .
The situation is bad; Kabul is in ruins, said Neck, saying that the major problem in the country now is high unemployment. The youth can/t find work and cost of living keeps soaring. Kabul is a squalid city; refuse remains piled up, dirt everywhere, including presidential palace. Disabled children and women solicit for alms in the streets; Kabul is not fit for human habitation. On seeing such depressing picture, any sober minded person experiences shock. There is no evidence of the huge financial help by the world community that the world press has trumpeted about for a long time.
There is no security in Kabul, laments Neck who in three weeks saw the burning of convoys of 30 to 60 vehicles on the Kabul-Kandahar road; they included petrol tankers. The blast in front of the Indian Embassy which killed about 60 people was particularly horrendous and gory. Explosions happen in Kabul and other towns with frightening regularity. So-called peacekeepers live behind well protected compounds, shielded against bomb blasts.
In three weeks, Mahmud Neck saw five times armoured troop carriers speeding across Kabul . Soldiers shoot indiscriminately at civilians, mortally afraid of ubiquitous Taliban. Homes of civilians and police stations have recently been bombed by soldiers and ordinary Afghans believe that coalition forces came to their country to destroy Afghan customs, culture and religion. When children, women and the aged are mowed down in cold blood, the question arises as to why the coalition troops came to Afghanistan, said Mahmud Neck.
A Pentagon source has said that President George W. Bush is considering sending extra troops to Afghanistan to beef up the current 36 thousand strong contingents, half of who is under NATO command. Afghanistan really needs international help, but not men and women in uniform but civilians to help rebuild the country’s economy and collapsing infrastructure.
Obama on Iran, Syria, J'lem and settlements
Jul. 24, 2008
David Horovitz , THE JERUSALEM POST
Two months ago in the Oval Office, President George W. Bush, coming to the end of a two-term presidency and presumably as expert on Israeli-Palestinian policy as he is ever going to be, was accompanied by a team of no fewer than five advisers and spokespeople during a 40-minute interview with this writer and three other Israeli journalists.
In March, on his whirlwind visit to Israel, Republican presidential nominee John McCain, one of whose primary strengths is said to be his intimate grasp of foreign affairs, chose to bring along Sen. Joe Lieberman to the interview our diplomatic correspondent Herb Keinon and I conducted with him, looked to Lieberman several times for reassurance on his answers and seemed a little flummoxed by a question relating to the nuances of settlement construction.
On Wednesday evening, toward the end of his packed one-day visit here, Barack Obama, the Democratic senator who is leading the race for the White House and who lacks long years of foreign policy involvement, spoke to The Jerusalem Post with only a single aide in his King David Hotel room, and that aide's sole contribution to the conversation was to suggest that the candidate and I switch seats so that our photographer would get better lighting for his pictures.
Several of Obama's Middle East advisers - including former Clinton special envoy Dennis Ross and ex-ambassador to Israel Daniel Kurtzer - were hovering in the vicinity. But Obama, who was making only his second visit to Israel, knew precisely what he wanted to say about the most intricate issues confronting and concerning Israel, and expressed himself clearly, even stridently on key subjects.
There is a limit to what can be gauged of a politician's views as expressed in a relatively short interview at the height of an election campaign. But Obama, who chose to give the Post one of the only two formal sit-down interviews he conducted during his visit, was clearly conveying a carefully formulated message - and it was striking in several areas.
He sought to sound resolute on thwarting Iran's nuclear drive, while insisting on the need to "exhaust every avenue" before the military option. He was optimistic on the prospects of potential Syrian moderation. He was succinct and blunt on Jerusalem - and distinctly different from the "poor phrasing" of his "Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel and it must remain undivided" comments during his address to AIPAC's policy conference last month. And most notably, he was explicit and unsympathetic on the matter of West Bank settlement.
Speaking to the Post six months and a political lifetime ago in January, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert declared that the unique advantage of trying to reach an accord with the Palestinians during the Bush administration stemmed from the fact that while even Israel's best friends, when they envision the permanent dimensions of our country, think of Israel "in terms of the '67 borders," Bush "has already said '67-plus.' He's the only president who has ever said that... And that's an amazing achievement for Israel."
In the Knesset on Monday, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, a self-declared lifelong friend of Israel, underlined the point by setting out the "fundamentals" of a final-status accord involving "a two-state solution based on 1967 borders."
And on Wednesday evening, Obama answered my question about whether Israel has a right to try and maintain a presence in the West Bank, for security, religious, historic or other reasons, with a vigor and detail that also seemed to confirm Olmert's assessment of where conventional friendly wisdom stands and that expanded significantly on his brief settlement remarks in the AIPAC speech.
The 46-year-old senator, who must have been exhausted after a day's shuttling between Yad Vashem, Beit Hanassi, Ramallah and Sderot, with a prime ministerial dinner still ahead of him and Europe beckoning the next day, was personable and gracious, nonetheless, calling out to Post photographer Ariel Jerozolimski and me that he was just going to put his tie on and then striding down the corridor to greet us.
He spoke softly and deliberately, and though the interview was brief and there was, of course, much more to ask the front-runner in the race to lead the free world, his answers, transcribed here in full, offer considerable insight into his would-be presidential attitude to Israel and the region... and considerable food for thought.
Can you assure the people of Israel, and beyond, that as president you will prevent Iran attaining nuclear weapons?
What I can do is assure that I will do everything in my power as president to prevent Iran attaining nuclear weapons. And I think that begins with engaging in tough, direct talks with Iran, sending a clear message to Iran that they shouldn't wait for the next administration but should start engaging in the P5 process [involving the five permanent members of the UN Security Council] that's taking place right now, and elevating this to the top of our national security priorities, so that we are mobilizing the entire international community, including Russia and China, on this issue.
One of the failures, I think, of our approach in the past has been to use a lot of strong rhetoric but not follow through with the kinds of both carrots and sticks that might change the calculus of the Iranian regime. But I have also said that I would not take any options off the table, including military.
How do you address the concern that the Iranians, even in the "tough negotiations" that you envisage, will play you for time while moving towards a nuclear capability? Ahmadinejad said today, "We're not pulling back... not one iota." They are very adamant.
I think it is important in mobilizing the international community to make clear that this is not just a game that we're playing, but this is of the utmost seriousness - to send messages to Russia and China that in our bilateral relationships this is a top priority, not just a secondary priority. And one of my strong beliefs is that, to the extent that we are showing a willingness to negotiate but are very clear and direct in our goals, and are displaying a sense of urgency - that if the Iranians fail to respond, we've stripped away whatever excuses they may have, [and] whatever rationales may exist in the international community for not ratcheting up sanctions and taking serious action.
There'd be a very limited time for that kind of approach?
Time is of the essence in this situation.
You told AIPAC that the Israeli strike on Syria last year was "entirely justified to end that threat." Would you support an Israeli strike at Iranian facilities in the coming months if Israel felt it had no choice but to act?
My goal is to avoid being confronted with that hypothetical. I've said in the past and I will repeat that Israelis, and Israelis alone have to make decisions about their own security. But the grave consequences of either doing nothing or initiating a potential war with Iran are such that we want to do everything we can, to exhaust every avenue to avoid that option.
You've said on this trip that you want to work for an Israeli-Palestinian accommodation from the minute you're sworn in, so let me ask you about the thesis that there is no prospect of Palestinian moderation prevailing and enabling a peace process to really move forward until Iran's nuclear drive has been thwarted - that so long as the Teheran-backed extremists of Hamas and so on feel that they are in the ascendant, the moderates can't prevail and that the whole region is now in this kind of holding mode.
I think there is no doubt that there is a connection between Iran's strengthening over the last couple of years, partly because some strategic errors have been made on the part of the West. And [the same goes for] the increasing boldness of Hizbullah and Hamas. But I don't think that's the only factor and criterion in the lack of progress.
Hamas's victory in the [Palestinian Authority] election can partly be traced to a sense of frustration among the Palestinian people over how Fatah, over a relatively lengthy period of time, had failed to deliver basic services. I get a strong impression that [PA President Mahmoud] Abbas and [Prime Minister Salaam] Fayad are doing everything they can to address some of those systemic failures by the Palestinian Authority. The failures of Hamas in Gaza to deliver an improved quality of life for their people give pause to the Palestinians to think that pursuing that approach automatically assures greater benefits.
You know, look, I arrive at this with no illusions as to the difficulty in terms of what is required. But I think it's important for us to keep working at it, frankly, because Israel's security and peace in the region depend on it.
There's been some back and forth on your position on Jerusalem. So as editor of The Jerusalem Post, I need to ask you: Do you support Israel's current claim to sovereignty throughout the city, or should Jerusalem also come to constitute the capital of a Palestinian state?
I believe that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. But I think that how Israel and the Palestinians resolve this issue is a final-status issue. It needs to be left up to the two parties.
Tell me about Syria: Israel is now in indirect talks with Syria. Would you as president directly re-engage with Damascus even if it hadn't changed its position on hosting terror groups and so on?
My general view is that initiating direct contacts between the United States and other countries is a generally smart practice - if nothing else just to get better intelligence on what they are thinking, on what their approaches are, what their calculations are, what their interests are. I think that based on conversations I've had here in Israel as well as conversations with leaders elsewhere in the region, there is the possibility at least that the Syrian government genuinely seeks to break out of the isolation. What price they are willing to pay to break out of that isolation, is an unanswered question. It's worth exploring.
And if in fact there are some genuine signals that Syria is willing to drive out terrorists in their midst, shut down the arms flow into Lebanon, or to otherwise engage in more responsible behavior, I think it could be a shift in the region that would be extremely advantageous. And the United States should partner with Israel as well as moderate forces in the Palestinian community to pursue that.
The American position has been blanketly opposed to settlement construction. Do you think Israel has a right to try and maintain a presence in the West Bank - for security, religious, historic or other reasons?
I think that Israel should abide by previous agreements and commitments that have been made, and aggressive settlement construction would seem to violate the spirit at least, if not the letter, of agreements that have been made previously.
Israel's security concerns, I think, have to be taken into account, via negotiation. I think the parties in previous discussions have stated that settlement construction doesn't necessarily contribute to that enhanced security. I think there are those who would argue that the more settlements there are, the more Israel has to invest in protecting those settlements and the more tensions arise that may undermine Israel's long-term security.
Ultimately, though, these are part of the discussions that have to take place between the parties. But I think that, based on what's previously been said, for Israel to make sure that it is aligned with those previous statements is going to be helpful to the process.
The current Israeli prime minister told me in an interview a few months ago that the great advantage of the Bush administration on that issue was that they looked at Israel on the basis of "67-plus" - that their starting point was that maybe Israel can expect or deserve support for a slightly larger sovereign presence than the pre-1967 Israel. Do you think of Israel in its final-status incarnation on the basis of "67-plus"?
Look, I think that both sides on this equation are going to have to make some calculations. Israel may seek "67-plus" and justify it in terms of the buffer that they need for security purposes. They've got to consider whether getting that buffer is worth the antagonism of the other party.
The Palestinians are going to have to make a calculation: Are we going to fight for every inch of that '67 border or, given the fact that 40 years have now passed, and new realities have taken place on the ground, do we take a deal that may not perfectly align with the '67 boundaries?
My sense is that both sides recognize that there's going to have to be some give. The question from my perspective is can the parties move beyond a rigid, formulaic or ideological approach and take a practical approach that looks at the larger picture and says, "What's going to be the best way for us to achieve security and peace?"
How should the free world tackle the threat of Islamic extremism, the "death cult" ideology that holds that the finest thing you can do for your god is kill and be killed?
There are a number of different aspects. Our first approach has to be to capture or kill those who are so steeped in that ideology that we're not going to convert them. Bin-Laden is not going to change his mind suddenly. So we have to be very aggressive in simply rolling up those terrorist networks that have been set up and that adhere to those views.
I would argue that the number of Muslims who both embrace and act on that ideology is relatively low. There's then a larger circle, there's a broader part of the Muslim world that is fundamentalist, but is not wedded to violence. The key in dealing with that aspect of Islam is to help them reconcile modernity to their faith. A lot of times their gripe is not with the West per se, but with the forces of modern life and globalization that is disruptive to their views of what their faith means.
And I think that lifting up models of countries that have found accommodation between Islam and a modern economy, globalization, diversity of cultures...
Countries such as?
A country like Jordan has gone a long way in moving in that direction. A country like Indonesia, which I lived in as a child for four years, has a strong tradition of tolerance of diversity. And although there was a certain period of time when a fundamentalist strain of terrorism infected the culture, that's not its core.
A final aspect of this is recognizing that the population explosion of uneducated young men and women who are impoverished is always dangerous in any society. And that helps fuel and feed Islamic radicalism, even if there is not a direct correlation.
I recognize that many of the perpetrators of terrorist acts aren't poor; often times [they] come from middle class or even upper class families. [But] there's no doubt that the tolerance or the acceptance of extremism among the broader population is often fuelled by frustration and a sense of no prospects for the future.
To the extent that we can work with countries like Egypt, or countries like Jordan, to assure that the youth that are coming up have avenues that allow them to prosper... We're not going to end this, to eliminate terrorism entirely. There's always going to have to be a part of our strategy that involves force. But I think that we can shrink the appeal of that ideology in a way that makes an enormous difference.
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