Subtle signals
Friday, September 04, 2009
As a commentator on a private TV channel said on Sept 2…"We solve all our problems abroad. We send our children abroad for their education and the same with our political problems. We never seem to sort them out ourselves here at home." Thus the sight of our previous president jetting in to Saudi Arabia on an aircraft sent by the Saudi government and then being received with full protocol should not surprise us. Neither should we be surprised at the apparently coincidental arrival of assorted government figures in Saudi Arabia at the same time as a past president and not surprised either that they did not – of course they didn't – meet or have any contact whatsoever with him. And no deal regarding his future, or any trial, was even thought about let alone agreed upon and signed with a discreet handshake. No, nothing like that at all.
Much turns for us on the Saudi hinge, and it has long been the antechamber in which out-of-favour Pakistani politicians have waited for a shift in the political winds allowing their safe return to the homeland and places at the top of the governmental tree. The Saudis are happy for this cycle to continue as it allows them a degree of control over our internal affairs – and here we were fretting that America is pulling our strings behind the scenes when it was our friends from the Gulf all the time. Our politicians are not averse to the idea of a political parking-lot either, because it allows them to do nothing about solving the problems that bedevil our political system; while appearing to be busy-busy rushing around signing MOUs and opening 150-yard stretches of freshly-laid tarmac road. The Saudis have an investment – literally – in our stability and will do what they can to preserve what for them is going to be an important factor in their own future food security. Parking past presidents and politicos in Arabian palaces suits all players. The theatricality of our domestic politics is for local consumption … the real drama is being acted out in a theatre across the waters.
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Close shave
Friday, September 04, 2009
The minister for religious affairs has been extremely fortunate. He narrowly escaped death in what was apparently a determined assassination attempt in Islamabad. His driver, killed as a hail of bullets fired from two directions by the assassins who followed the car over a short distance pelted the vehicle, has not been quite as lucky. The immediate conclusions are predictable. The minister, an outspoken critic of the Taliban, had been on the hit list of extremists. His status as a scholar, opposed to the orthodox, hard line view of Islam taken by the Taliban, also made him unpopular with them. We have been seeing the Taliban enter a new phase. The recent spate of terrorist attacks, at Torkham, in Mingora and now in Islamabad shows us a force that is far from being vanquished. There have also been less dramatic attacks in other places in the northern areas. The climate we live in means that incidents that cause few or no deaths go virtually unnoticed. In the most recent case, questions also arise about security arrangements. We are told the police commandos assigned to protect the minister had not been performing their duties at the time of the attack. Is this merely coincidence, or a consequence of the inefficiency we see everywhere? Or is something more sinister involved?
The possibility of a security lapse is being mentioned. While it is true that every street corner across our country cannot be policed, there may be some benefit in looking at the training and expertise available to our police and other forces. At least as far as VIP security goes this could make a difference. Our western allies should be able to help out in this respect. But this of course will do nothing at all to deal with the attacks on policemen at pickets or on other ordinary citizens who do not have access to top-notch security. We need a strategy with many prongs. The Taliban may be preparing for a new offensive that is fiercer still than those that have come before. This is ominous. The authorities need to cast aside the smug complacency we have seen over the past few weeks and accept that the struggle ahead will be a long and hard one.