Thread: Editorial: DAWN
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Old Friday, September 26, 2008
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Friday
Ramazan 25, 1429
September 26, 2008

Intelligence deficit


IT is widely held that a suicide bomber can’t be stopped from carrying out the carnage he has planned. While this argument is not without merit, it is not entirely true either. Yes, there is little the security agencies or hapless private guards can do once a fanatic with explosives on hand and mayhem on his mind reaches the venue of the crime. True, it is impossible to thoroughly check every truck or trailer entering or leaving major cities and, come to that, to know what sort of vehicle the terrorists will use at any given time. So here’s the point: we need better intelligence so that potential attackers can be checked in their tracks. Granted there may be slip-ups even with the strictest of vigilance but the threat of suicide attacks can at least be downgraded from the ever-present danger it is today to the occasional tragedy from which, sadly, no major country in the world is now immune.

This is precisely the theatre of war where Pakistan’s vast and lavishly funded network of intelligence agencies must engage the enemy within and deliver telling results sooner than later. What we have seen in recent years is an intelligence failure of catastrophic proportions. Cabinet members minced no words on Wednesday when they stated that the intelligence apparatus had “miserably failed” in pre-empting Saturday’s attack on the Marriott hotel in Islamabad as well as other acts of terrorism. The prime minister and his cabinet are right in asking the security agencies to get their act together. But why this should be so difficult is a troubling proposition. It is no secret that the intelligence agencies, and the ISI in particular, possess a unique insight into the workings of organisations that once came in handy in the misguided pursuit of ‘strategic depth’ and have now turned on the state of Pakistan. True, the tactics of the militants have changed over the years, as has their leadership. Still, it should not be beyond the capabilities of the agencies to better infiltrate the insurgents with vastly improved results.

Perhaps, embroiled as they have been in politics over the years, the intelligence agencies have lost sight of the real problem. Now, without delay, they must refocus their energies. There is no want of expertise but the priorities are skewed — though understandably so given the direction in which the intelligence network has been pushed by a succession of politically vindictive rulers. More troubling is the lingering fear that decades of ideological indoctrination may have left their mark, that there may be ‘renegade’ elements within the agencies that not only sympathise with the Taliban and their ilk but actively further their murderous cause. Even if this is untrue, a thorough rethink is in order. We are not fighting someone else’s battle.

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Turmoil in Afghanistan


AS the clock winds down on the Bush administration, an eleventh hour review of the Afghan war strategy and overall mission is underway. The news from Afghanistan is grim: violence is up, the economy is down, and the local population is disillusioned with the Karzai government and its foreign backers. A further deterioration is expected this winter. A drought has endangered the food security of nearly a quarter of the population and fighting between the Taliban and Isaf and US forces is expected to increase dramatically in the normally quiet winter months. Almost everyone with knowledge of the Afghan situation is downbeat about the immediate prospects for the country. It is little wonder then that Americans are reviewing their mission only nine months after the last review was undertaken. President Bush will not want to leave office with Afghanistan on the brink of collapse.

The problem is that the Americans appear to view Afghanistan through the prism of a military strategy. The tens of billions of dollars that the West has poured into the country in development aid are virtually nullified by the ever-increasing civilian casualties of war. As the Taliban have grown bolder in their attacks on Isaf and US forces, the military response has been increasingly indiscriminate — further alienating the local population. This is the same pattern that is being played out in Waziristan, from where the Americans insist cross-border attacks are being launched inside Afghanistan. The only strategy that can be successful is one that empowers and enables local forces to take on the Taliban.

In Fata, this would mean the local tribes marshalled by the Pakistani state. In Afghanistan, this would mean the Afghan government, which must take the lead in securing the country and winning the trust of its people. However, the Afghan government led by President Karzai is widely discredited and alleged to be thoroughly corrupt and incompetent. This is another problem: Afghanistan will only be stabilised when the Afghan people have a political system and government they are comfortable with. Inevitably, this will differ from US perceptions of what a democracy ought to be. Perhaps the basic problem in Afghanistan these past seven years is a contradiction that originates in the White House. An administration chock-full of policymakers who loathe the idea of nation-building has been forced by its president to remake parts of the world in America’s likeness. Unfortunately, it is the Afghans who are paying the price for this contradiction.

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The curse of polio


POLIO continues to be a nightmare for the country and its health corps. Yet another incident of a five-year-old girl from Jamrud tehsil was reported last week. Although the victim had received several drops of the polio vaccine, doctors confirmed that she had contracted the P1 virus. Sadly, this year’s figures for NWFP and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas alone are close to 25. An anti-polio campaign was announced last week by the district coordination officer in Timergara to target 200,000 children. The announcement came soon after cases were detected in neighbouring Swat and the Bajaur tribal region. It came with a plea to religious and tribal leaders and social welfare organisations to cooperate with vaccinators so that no under-fives were left out — a possibility in view of the Taliban promise in Afghanistan to medics administering polio drops that they would not be deterred in their mission.

However, the fact that the most recent victim had already received polio drops is deeply disconcerting. Aside from a definite need for a committee to manage the Expanded Programme for Immunisation, assess its activities, introduce accountability for the security of funds, there are technicalities such as delicate dispensation methods where even a minor slip can render a vaccine ineffective. One such procedure involves the cold chain which requires storage in ice boxes with strictly prescribed temperatures. Also, the problem of health personnel and immunisation material reaching extraordinarily remote crevices of the tribal belt is a challenge that demands vigilant monitoring.

Experts also believe that before polio vaccines are administered, it must be ascertained that the child in question is not suffering from another infection, be it minor or major, as any illness can cause the shots to lose their efficacy. Another area of focus is an extensive survey to determine how many ‘immunised’ children have fallen prey to the debilitating disease, along with a follow-up programme on the inoculated to monitor the health of the children and the maintenance of the booster. In the end, it is hard to forget that the battle against polio is in its 14th year. Should such basic concerns not be in the past by now?

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Ijtihad in our times


By Dr Asghar Ali Engineer


OURS is one of the most progressive religions. The Prophet of Islam (PBUH) was surprisingly open and modern in his concepts. He not only accepted validity of other religions before him through divine word but emphasised peaceful coexistence with all, if others do not take up arms against Muslims.

He drew up the Covenant of Madina to promote harmonious co-existence between all faiths and called it one community. The Quran emphasised the doctrine of freedom of conscience (la ikrah fi’deen – 2:256) which was no less than a revolutionary concept in those days. It is also a harbinger of human rights as it declares, “We have given equal honour to children of Adam” (17:70).

The Quran also declared gender equality when it says, “And women have rights similar to those against them in a just manner.” (2:228). These are revolutionary declarations. The world realised equal dignity of human beings, gender equality and freedom of conscience only in the 20th century whereas Islam had declared this more than 1,400 years ago.

But today we see very different practices in the Muslim world. Many even accuse Islam of not permitting human freedom and deny human rights; women enjoy few rights in the Muslim world. Partly it is due to misconceptions and partly the Muslim world is responsible for all this. The conservatism which we see in the Muslim world today is more cultural and due to social structures, as it developed through centuries of monarchical or colonial rule which strengthened feudal values.

What developed by way of jurisprudence during these centuries was taken as authentic teachings of Islam representing its values. However, fact was that Quranic teachings were too revolutionary for the early medieval society to be accepted and hence the then social values became predominant and the dream of a Quranic society remained unfulfilled. Time has now come to realise this dream in more concrete terms.

The Prophet of Islam (PBUH) with his vision had realised that the Quranic teachings may not be easily accepted as prevalent social structures would try to overwhelm the Quranic values. Also, he wanted society to move ahead and not remain stagnant. He thus left room in the Sharia for the doctrine of ijtihad i.e. maximum assertion of human intellect to resolve new problems arising in society.

We find this doctrine enunciated in the hadith pertaining to his companion Ma’az bin Jabal who was appointed by the Prophet as governor of Yemen. The Prophet advised him to resolve problems through ijtihad if he did not find their solution in the Quran and the Sunnah. He also said that if one commits a mistake in doing ijtihad, one would be rewarded for the sincere effort; if one finds the correct solution then the reward would be twice as much.

One will hardly find such parallels in history of other religions where intellectual freedom to solve problems is promoted instead of falling back on conservatism. There is complete consensus among ulema on the concept of ijtihad as the way forward, yet the tragedy is that none encourages its application. This is not because of Islam but because of social conservatism pervading the Muslim world.

It is not only a necessary exercise today, it is, I believe, obligatory on scholars committed to the Quranic values to attempt ijtihad in order to rediscover the spirit of the faith. Many extremist and militant Islamic groups have promoted serious misunderstandings about the values and teachings of Islam and have thus hijacked it for their own political agenda.

Also, unlike during the Muslim rule in the first few centuries, a vast number of Muslims live as minorities in various non-Muslim-majority countries. There is a great need to develop a new code to serve the needs of these substantial Muslim minorities so that they could live with a good Islamic conscience.

Only ijtihad can make that a reality.

The writer is an Islamic scholar and heads the Centre for Study of Society and Secularism, Mumbai.

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Citrus cities


By Razi Ahmed


CITIES in Pakistan have expanded but without much imagination for sustainable development which, in some global cities, is premised on the green ideology.

The cities of Karachi, Peshawar, Faisalabad and even Lahore and Islamabad are coping with mounting urbanisation at the expense of the little greenery left in these cities. Green surroundings have more than ornamental value; they are critical to sustaining the ecosystem which is now becoming increasingly compromised in many industrial cities.

Unless we don’t think and act green, we will not be able to effectively counter the steel and concrete ambitions of estate moguls; nothing will transform current attitudes that accept the development which is turning our cities into places of municipal chaos and harming the natural environment. An enabling role by the state is necessary to mitigate the effects of the crass commercial exploitation of city limits propagated by biased developers. This can be done as demonstrated by Lee Kwan Yew’s experiments at greening Singapore in the 1960s, where stakeholders were passionately beckoned to plant a sapling or two. The results of the eventual implantation of the green idea in Singapore show that development is possible without impinging on natural surroundings.

Haphazard expansion and urbanisation have denuded Karachi of its fabled green streets and parks in the old colonial, multi-ethnic quarters of Saddar. Its favourite, sometimes bloody, political playground, Patel Bagh —now Nishtar Park — was once home to sprawling trees that made the adjacent Soldier Bazaar and Parsi Colony idyllic to live in. On the other end, Mumbai, despite its many post-independence teething troubles, has guarded the beautiful green rows of trees that line its streets. The neighbourhoods of Malabar Hill and Colaba, and in between, belie the city’s density of population largely because of the shade of sprawling trees in ample number.

The benefits of greening cities are abundant but developers, government and other parties interested in governing cities often relegate greenery to the realm of insignificance. At the most, they pay lip service to it. A strong agent of change needs to emerge as has happened in many other cities that, although plagued by similar problems, have demonstrated that an inclusive and integrated action plan, can actually work to promote development that is sustainable and in keeping with the natural environment.

From Bogotá to Barcelona, powerful, elected mayors have reversed the results of the urban malaise to rejuvenate their cities in green ways. These agents of change have galvanised public opinion and supported plans for a better environment — for instance, those that seek to cut down on traffic congestion and vehicular emissions. Models in Barcelona and Bogotá demonstrate how right policies with correct palliative mantras can bring about a sea change in urban architecture. Barcelona’s Avinguda Diagonal bifurcates the northern and southern stretches, has bike tracks under azure skies lined with bursting citruses.

Likewise, Bogotá’s many worlds — the rich and slum dwellers — have access to bike routes made possible by its former mayor, Enrique Peñalosa. The results may not be phenomenal but the schemes to cycle along green thoroughfares are playing a part in neutralising the carcinogenic city air.

Misplaced means adopted to achieve a green end have to be redressed as ad hocism prevails in the face of political flights. The current Punjab chief minister’s masterly transformation of Lahore during his last term entailed foreign trappings in the form of date palms imported at exorbitant prices to mirror the look of the Middle East. As was to be expected, these palms, climatically (also culturally) unsuitable to Lahore, have stood frozen in time serving only as relics of the broader Sharifian lust for the all-encompassing badge of amir-ul-momineen.

Development and environmentalism are not mutually exclusive. Eco-friendly ideas, anchored in a given local context and culture, have proven just that. Cities such as Singapore and Barcelona, despite being crucial nodes in the global economy, place emphasis on the sanctity of the environment and illustrate how development and the environment can be compatible.

The UN should annually assemble global city authorities and highlight the importance of greening cities in keeping with the Millennium Development Goal for environmental sustainability. The Clinton Foundation has, to its credit, initiated programmes in cities such as Karachi to work on greening public sector buildings to alleviate emissions. The forum ought to be broadened to disseminate ideas and information to approximately three billion people that populate cities around the world.

razi.razi@gmail.com

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OTHER VOICES - Sri Lankan Press


Coexistence of poverty with prosperity

Daily Mirror

It is not surprising that incidences of theft, robbery, house-breaking, financial racketeering and plunder of state funds have shown an increasing trend. When people find it difficult to live with the steady rise in the cost of living, they resort to various methods of coping with the problem…. According to police records, robbery related crimes have shown a marked increase.

On Tuesday, Governor of the Central Bank Ajith Nivard Cabraal informed the people through the media about the significant progress the economy has made. The overall economic picture he created was indeed bright…. In the Corruption Perception Index (CPI) 2008, compiled by Transparency International (TI), the country’s position has deteriorated to the 94th… on the basis of corruption perceived to exist among public officers and politicians….

The prevalence of this… corruption is well-known and the plague persists unabated while measures and institutions … remain atrophied. The absence of checks and balances and non-imposition of appropriate punishment to culprits provide encouragement to venal sections in society….Unfortunately, it is the law-abiding citizens of this country who have to bear the brunt…. While the vast majority of officers in the police department do their duty well …a small percentage … brings discredit to the department. IGP Jayantha Wickremaratne’s concern about this situation is evident from the comments he has recently made on allegations against the police force. It is hoped that the IGP will make every effort to restore the lost prestige of the police force… thus ensuring … efficient protection. — (Sept 25)
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P.R.
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