How Pakistan survives
Wednesday, 18 Aug, 2010
By Zubeida Mustafa
FOR some time now — especially since the electronic media was unwittingly liberated by the military government of Gen Pervez Musharraf — cynics and pessimists have been writing off Pakistan.
Since the closing days of July when devastating floods brought large chunks of the country under water, the question being raised by numerous analysts and commentators is how long would Pakistan survive.
There are many who have predicted apocalyptically the end of Pakistan. Others, who are more generous, have warned of collapse not of the state but of the government. Economists speak of the economic downturn as though Pakistan was not in its grip already. But it is a pity that no one deems it necessary to focus on the resilience of the flood victims and the humanitarian spirit of many who are extending a helping hand.
Statistics might be difficult to verify but now it is known that the destruction has been huge. The NDMA recorded close to 1,500 deaths, more than 2,000 injuries and almost 900,000 damaged houses. But before reconstruction and rehabilitation come rescue and relief. Lives have to be saved.
Many have been rescued from the waters of the raging rivers — almost 700,000 according to the NDMA. But now the spectre of hunger, starvation and disease looms large. If more lives are not to be lost it is important to work swiftly to provide healthcare, sanitation, clean drinking water and protection from the natural elements.
The sad part is that the people of Pakistan, expatriates abroad, as well as foreign governments, have lost confidence in the government which should have been in a position to conduct an effective rescue, relief and rehabilitation operation with financial help from the people and friendly foreign governments.
The people of our country always loosen their purse strings when it comes to providing financial relief to a genuine cause if they trust those managing a project. Their generosity has never been in doubt and the Pakistan Centre for Philanthropy estimated that in 1998 Pakistanis donated Rs70bn towards philanthropic causes. This figure must have risen over the years.
Yet the government has failed to mobilise massive donations at home and abroad. While foreign governments have begun to respond to the appeal for disaster relief, they are reluctant to hand over funds to the government.
According to the NDMA, 43 governments/agencies have committed flood relief aid to Pakistan, quite a bit of it in kind. Of these, only 11 have made their donations directly to the government or its agencies. The rest have preferred to give the pledged aid to the United Nations, its agencies or NGOs, both international and local.
This trust deficit was most visible in the case of the funds received in the prime minister’s relief fund account in the National Bank of Pakistan. Ten days after this account was launched only Rs4.3m had been raised. The bank itself donated Rs50m. Conversely, individuals and NGOs have demonstrated that they have greater credibility in the public’s eyes. I personally know of many of them who have raised big amounts for flood relief and have joined the relief efforts.
The Pakistan Medical Association was one of the first to take the initiative by collecting donations in the form of goods, cash and medicines for the flood victims. Other doctors have also responded and the Sindh Institute of Urology and Transplantation, which is an autonomous body in the public sector but depends preponderantly on public donations and has a long tradition of free public service, let it be known on Sunday that in 10 days it had provided medical treatment to over 10,000 people in the flood-hit areas.
Other groups have also joined the relief operation. They comprise like-minded people whose integrity is above reproach. They are trusted and manage to raise donations. There are others who carry weight because they include trusted public figures, such as Aitemaad Pakistan led by Justice (retd) Fakhruddin G. Ebrahim who is trying to provide immediate help to the flood affected in Sindh. Target: collect and distribute 24,000 dry ration bags to provide meals for 6,000 families for four weeks.
Yet another organisation I know of is The Citizens Foundation which also aims to provide relief packs to 50,000 families to feed them for a month. Given its success in setting up 660 schools for 92,000 children from low-income families, TCF should hopefully succeed in meeting its target.
Another I know personally which has stepped forward to help is the Indus Resource Centre that has been working in the field of education for rural communities and their sustainable livelihoods in Sindh. The IRC has adopted camps in Dadu and Khairpur where it is supporting over 1,500 families by providing food, water, sanitation and even temporary schools.
There are a host of other dedicated workers and groups who have responded to the emergency with remarkable speed. They are far too many for me to list here. What gives heart and hope is that many have said that once the immediate danger has passed, they will help with the rehabilitation efforts.
It is of course not possible for individuals to do what the government with its resources and administrative machinery has failed to do. But if the numerous groups that have sprouted in the wake of the floods were to adopt an area and work with the community leaders on a long-term basis, the floods could prove to be the turning point in the lives of many Pakistanis.
It must be ensured that whichever village is adopted, it must be provided a primary school and a health centre, however small it may be. Those who adopt a village should continue to interact with the villagers to provide them motivation, moral support and whatever financial assistance possible.
Actually all this should come from the government. But waiting for that amounts to waiting for Godot. Even in these testing times the big landowners have not been moved to part with some of their own wealth that they stole from the people who till their land, to help them in their hour of need.
-------------
SC’s responsibility?
Wednesday, 18 Aug, 2010
REMARKS made from the bench during the course of legal cases carry no legal weight. Nevertheless, the world over, such remarks give an insight into the thinking of judges. On Monday, during the ongoing hearings on challenges to certain parts of the 18th Amendment, Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry posed the question: “Should we accept if tomorrow parliament declares secularism, and not Islam, as the state polity?” That the question was asked in a rhetorical way was relatively clear: several judges indicated that such a move was even beyond contemplation. That is a troubling position.
Leave aside the remote possibility of secularism being constitutionally approved as the governing ethos of the Pakistani state. The question is really, should the Supreme Court appropriate for itself the responsibility of determining under what system the Pakistani people want to live, as expressed by their elected representatives? Is the SC the guardian of the document, the constitution, which enshrines how Pakistanis want to organise their state, vertically between state and society and horizontally between the institutions of the state, or is it an institution which determines how the state should be organised? The two are very different matters: the first places the SC as a referee, the second as a determinant of the structural design of the Pakistani state.
There is a further issue here: that of secularism itself. Demonised and distorted, the original meaning, and perhaps for reasonable people the only applicable meaning, of the term ‘secularism’ has been lost here in Pakistan. Secularism is not ladeeniat, it is not anti-religion, as has been the claim of religious conservatives since the 1960s. It is one thing for Islamic parties to make that deliberately false claim, quite another for it to have apparently gained traction in the highest court of the land. Secularism is a very specific and narrow concept: the separation of religion and the state. Rather than being anti-religion, secularism is religion neutral. Standing in the way of those claiming that secularism is anti-religion and even vaguely anti-Pakistan at some level is one giant: Mohammad Ali Jinnah. The speech that the Quaid made from the floor of the constituent assembly in 1947 was a clarion defence of secularism, notable both for the occasion and the powerful oratory. Unable to rebuff the straightforwardness of the words — ‘religion is not the business of the state’ — conservatives have resorted to watering it down or ignoring it altogether. Perhaps the SC should ponder this question: would a constitutional amendment passed on the basis of the Quaid’s speech be declared against the ‘basic structure’ of the constitution?
---------
Children at risk
Wednesday, 18 Aug, 2010
WHILE the waters have yet to recede, the spectre of disease has begun to haunt the millions stricken by the flood disaster. The United Nations has sounded the alarm bell, with a spokesman for the world body’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs saying that children are at particular risk from waterborne diseases. The UN is saying that out of a total of six million people at risk from waterborne diseases, up to 3.5 million children are at “high risk” of falling prey to ailments such as diarrhoea and dysentery. Over 20 children have reportedly died in different parts of the country over the past few days, many of the victims suffering from gastroenteritis. Concern has also been raised at the possible spread of cholera. (Thankfully, no case of the dreaded illness has been confirmed as yet.) The UN spokesman has observed that the severity of the disaster might be amplified if donor funds do not start flowing in.
Without a doubt the situation is incredibly depressing and the latest fears about the possibility of epidemics will do little to dispel the pall of gloom enveloping the country. However, there is little time for complacency, and the state — mustering all the help it can— is advised to move swiftly and decisively to check the spread of disease. As experts have pointed out, the provision of clean drinking water and proper sanitation facilities at the camps housing flood victims is essential. There are various options available in this regard that the government might want to employ. These include the use of portable water filtration units. Considering that access to fuel or power could be difficult in certain areas, the solar water disinfection method can be used. Pharmaceutical companies and the corporate world can do their bit by stepping up efforts to get water purification tablets and oral rehydration solutions to the flood-hit people. Also, considering that large concentrations of children are present in the relief camps, it is a good idea to vaccinate them to prevent the spread of disease. The government must waste no time in taking action to prevent the outbreak of epidemics.
--------------
More confusion
Wednesday, 18 Aug, 2010
AMERICA will withdraw but will remain “engaged”. This in a nutshell has been the Obama administration’s Afghan policy. On Sunday, Gen David Petraeus added to the confusion by both opposing and guardedly supporting President Barack Obama’s decision, which visualises the beginning of the withdrawal of US troops a year from now. In a TV interview, the commander of the American and Nato forces in Afghanistan said he was not bound by the 2011 target date given by the president. He repeated his views in two interviews given subsequently to two major American newspapers. While sticking to his opposition to the withdrawal, the general said at the same time that he remained “supportive” of President Obama’s decision but that it was too early to determine the size of the withdrawal. Coming in rapid succession, the three interviews give the impression that the general is on a campaign of sorts to assert his position on the withdrawal question.
Let us note that Gen Petraeus is part of a system where it is the civilian leadership that calls the shots, the example of his predecessor, Gen McChrystal, being too close in time to be recounted. As a soldier, the general cannot go against the Obama administration’s policy, for his duty is to translate it into action. For that reason, when he speaks, and speaks repeatedly, in ambiguous tones on the withdrawal issue one cannot but wonder whether the general himself is guilty of ambiguity or his statements are an inevitable consequence of Washington’s Afghan policy, characterised as it is by lack of clarity. When seen in the context of Washington’s position on negotiations with the Taliban, the general’s statement seems to confound all, especially a country like Pakistan, which cannot but be conscious of its security concerns in the aftermath of the American withdrawal.
------------
China overtakes Japan By David Teather
Wednesday, 18 Aug, 2010
CHINA overtook Japan as the world’s second-largest economy during the second quarter of this year, marking another milestone in the country’s transformation from impoverished communist state to economic superpower.
With its red-hot economy growing at around nine per cent a year, some experts now expect China to outstrip the United States as soon as 2030, its financial strength carrying broad political implications.
Official data published on Monday showed a faltering Japanese economy growing by just 0.1 per cent in the three months to June, with GDP of $1.28tr eclipsed by China, which had economic output of $1.33tr. Although it is not the first time China has outpaced Japan in a single quarter, most economists now expect the emergent economy to end the year firmly ahead.
China’s spectacular growth since Deng Xiaoping began to introduce free-market reforms three decades ago has seen it bounding up the world league of economic powers. Ten years ago it was the sixth-largest in the world but it has since outstripped Britain and France in 2005 and Germany in 2007.
John Hawksworth, chief economist at PricewaterhouseCoopers, described the figures as a symbolic shift. He said: “Clearly it was inevitable, it was a just a question of when it would happen — just as it is pretty inevitable in the long run that it will be bigger than the US as well, because it has four times the population.”
For now, China remains a distant second behind the US. The International Monetary Fund expects China’s GDP to reach $5.36tr this year, while the US is expected to hit $14.79tr. The UK projection is $2.22tr. Japan is expected to have GDP of $5.27tr.
Nick Parsons, head of research at National Australia Bank, said the global financial crisis, which pitched more developed economies into recession, has underlined the shifting world power. “The Chinese economy has more than doubled in size in the past 10 years and will double in size again in the next 10 and I don’t think the financial crisis has accelerated that change as much as it has cemented it,” he added.
For Japan the figures reflect the continued decline of a nation that has held the second spot since 1968, when it overtook West Germany, the result of a remarkable rise as a manufacturing and financial giant in the wake of the Second World War.
But the “economic miracle” came to a juddering halt at the beginning of the 1990s when a property bubble burst. What followed was a lost decade in the doldrums and the country has never fully recovered. Today it faces deflation, an ageing and shrinking population and only minimal growth.
Economists also cited the figures as evidence that the global recovery was still facing strong headwinds.
China’s breakneck growth has not come without cost, causing huge social upheaval, including large-scale migration from the countryside to cities, which are growing at an unprecedented rate.
The Guardian, London
-----------
Nehru due soon: Ayub
Wednesday, 18 Aug, 2010
QUETTA: The Indian Prime Minister, Mr Jawaharlal Nehru, will come to Pakistan around Sept 19 to sign the water treaty. Disclosing this, the President said today that the treaty will be signed in Karachi to ensure the convenience of World Bank representatives who would also be coming to attend the ceremony.
President Ayub Khan arrived here from Rawalpindi to attend the Shaheen Air Training Corps passing out parade and to be installed as chief of the Tareen Tribe.
Replying to a question, the President said that if Mr Nehru is willing to discuss other Indo-Pakistan disputes, they could be settled. All these issues are solvable, he asserted.
In New Delhi, Mr Nehru in a brief reference to Pakistan while opening a debate in the Rajyya Sabha, this morning said he was sure that with the help of the World Bank the treaty will he finished soon. He also told the House that he hoped to visit Pakistan some time next month.
President Ayub said that Karachi has been selected as the venue for the signing of the water treaty because the representatives of the countries that have contributed to the replacement works fund under the canal water treaty, will be coming to sign the agreements, and moreover Foreign Minister Manzur Qadir and Finance Minister Shoaib will be in a hurry to proceed aboard. Mr Qadir is leading the Pakistan delegation to the United Nations General Assembly and Mr Shoaib will be going for the Commonwealth Finance Ministers’ talks.
Replying to a question, the President confirmed that the United Nations have asked for an ordnance company of troops for Congo to manage and distribute stores.
Nehru, Khrushchev discuss aid
NEW DELHI: Letters are believed to have been exchanged between Mr Nehru and Mr Khrushchev recently concerning a further installment of Russian aid for the Third Five-Year Plan, says The Statesman. In this connection a definite announcement is expected to be made soon simultaneously in New Delhi and Moscow.
The Statesman said: “Sources believe that the forthcoming offer may not be very much less than the previous installment of Rs180 crore.”
-------------
The dance of death
By Mansoor Raza
Wednesday, 18 Aug, 2010
FLOODS 2010 have apparently affected more than 10 per cent of the population and some 132,000 square kilometres of the total area of Pakistan.
Going by the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) website, almost 1,500 people are dead (though independent sources cite a larger figure). Almost 900,000 houses have been damaged. The UN has put the disaster “on a par” with the 2005 Kashmir earthquake. The intense flooding, that began some three weeks ago, has washed away roads, bridges, communications lines, health facilities and educational institutions.
The immediate impact of the floods has been telecast in various media images. However, the full picture of the damage has yet to be assessed. The impact on housing, livelihood, livestock, gender, ecology, health, education, water and sanitation and on the psychological health of the people needs to be determined carefully. So far “too little, too late” has defined relief efforts and public anger is mounting.
The patchy, shaky and rickety response of the civilian government is providing space to the social service wings of militant organisations to fill the gap, thus broadening their political base. Destruction and militancy, it seems, are Siamese twins, as we observe the Falah-i-Insaniat Foundation, linked to Jamaatud Dawa, running 12 medical facilities and providing cooked food for 100,000 people every day, with plans to open shelters.
The idea of diverting money, as floated by officials, from public subsidies to the resource pool for relief efforts, may appear pragmatic but will not be appreciated in the long term by a public already reeling under burgeoning inflation. This is a potential threat to a vulnerable parliamentary democracy. The floods pose more questions than provide answers to each institution responsible for planning cities and land management in the affected areas.
Every year, Pakistan is hit by one disaster or another. Major calamities have included earthquakes, landslides, floods, drought, cyclones and sea intrusion. Monsoons are a regular feature of Pakistan’s predominantly agrarian society. During the 1973 floods, more than three million houses were destroyed while in 1976 floods demolished over 10 million houses. In 1998 the floods resulted in damage to property to the tune of Rs17bn, and Rs50bn in 1992. The official death toll in the 2001 floods was 210 and in 2003 it was 230.
Handcuffed by their respective mandates, the Pakistan Meteorological Department, the Federal Flood Commission and the NDMA are trying to blame each other. Though NDMA is doing its best, it has its own challenges regarding the availability of funds by donors. So, the question is, after having so much experience with disasters, do we have long-term, inclusive and coherent institutional arrangements to address disaster issues successfully? Power circles have the tendency to label all man-made disasters as natural, to absolve all those who are responsible for lack of preparation and poor coordination.
For rehabilitation and damage need assessment the relevant institutions will need data on CNIC holders, housing, livestock and all the people. The last census was held in 1998. The headcount exercise was due in 2008 but was not conducted because of reasons best known to our officials. The question is: in the absence of such crucial numbers, how will the relevant departments devise a compensation policy and prioritise rehabilitation efforts? We have bad memories of compensation money from the 2005 earthquake.
There exists a relationship between demography, underdevelopment, environmental degradation and disasters. This relationship needs to be understood. We have to ask why housing societies and cantonments are allowed near catchments areas and riverbeds. Why are people allowed to settle in kachha areas alongside River Indus in the south? Then, there are reports that regular transportation of logs by the timber mafia via rivers has seriously damaged embankments. This may be the reason for canal breaches in the current floods and otherwise as well. The activities of the timber mafia are well known and need little discussion. Landslides are another outcome of this unlawful activity, in which many big shots are involved.
In the last 28 years Pakistan has seen 50 floods in which on average 136 persons have died. The 1990s was a period of response and in the new millennium there is at least talk of preparedness than response. Before these floods, many NGOs jumped onto the band wagon of disaster preparedness. The efficacy of programmes linked to this idea needs to be seriously debated and a comprehensive evaluation of such programmes should be conducted as the related projects involved much donor money. NGOs running micro-finance programmes in such areas should also come up with innovative solutions as the flood victims have lost almost everything and are not in a position to pay back loans.
The enormity of this disaster should lead to adequate measures. The need for an early warning system was recognised as early as 1947, but the country’s forecasting system is still inadequate.
The development mindset of the planners in Pakistan is at best insensitive towards environmental and ethical obligations. They treat ecology as a commodity and human beings as mere numbers. A market-based economy does not account for the cost of ecological destruction. The two major factors that turned the floods into calamity are market-oriented greedy development ventures and the diversion of the national income to non-development expenditures. The tragedy is another example of the catastrophe caused by an avaricious social order. Will the perpetrators be brought to book?
The writer has worked in disaster and emergency situations in Afghanistan, Sri Lanka and Pakistan.
mansooraza@gmail.com