Date: 5th Feb 2012
Senate elections
SO it seems that the old conspiracy theory is being trotted out again. Talking to reporters in Lahore on Friday, Prime Minister Gilani claimed, “Six months ago, I had pointed out that conspiracies were being hatched to delay Senate elections. Be patient and wait for some days, all these conspiracies will be exposed.” The prime minister didn’t elaborate on these conspiracies but presumably he had his recent travails with the Supreme Court in mind. After all, ‘memogate’ has receded and the PML-N is negotiating with the government to cooperate in the passage of a constitutional amendment in parliament, leaving little else by way of crisis in the country at the moment.
Let’s examine the prime minister’s claim a bit. Six months is a lifetime in politics and back then there were murmurs that the run-up to the Senate elections would prove decisive to this government’s fortunes. At stake is a PPP near-majority in the Upper House, giving it a virtual veto over non-budgetary legislation until 2015. In addition, there is the psychological victory of being a civilian government presiding over elections to both halves of the Senate. For a government committed to constitutional milestones like the completion of tenures, the March Senate election represents a significant victory.
At stake, then, from the PPP’s point of view is a victory that the forces arrayed against it, real and perceived, will not countenance. ‘Memogate’ and the rash of political rallies in the country suggested that there was a real attempt to unseat the government. However, with only weeks left until the Senate elections, the political temperature was seen as subsiding and the government was exuding a renewed sense of confidence. Then came the SC and its threat to charge and convict the prime minister for contempt of court. But is this necessarily part of a grand conspiracy against the PPP or the result of an ill-advised government strategy of responding politically to the president’s legal problems? Even at this stage, the PPP has
simply not presented a cogent legal reason for why the NRO judgment of December 2009 cannot be implemented in its totality. As for the Swiss letter, legal experts here are near unanimous in their opinion that it will not have immediate consequences for the president. Not everything must necessarily be a conspiracy; if the government writes the letter that the SC has demanded it will probably be able to get on with its political agenda.
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Stalled reforms
DESPITE the fact that madressah reforms have been on the national agenda for a number of years, it is clear that on the state level these are going nowhere. As reported in this newspaper, the federal interior minister recently told a cabinet meeting he was ‘holding talks’ with the relevant quarters regarding the establishment of a madressah regulatory authority. Rehman Malik claimed it was difficult getting different schools of thought on a single platform in this respect. The minister had initially been tasked in November 2009 with setting up the authority. Over two years have passed but there has been no progress on this front. What is more, a spokesperson for the Ittehad-i-Tanzeemat Madaris, an umbrella body that groups together five different madressah boards, has contested Mr Malik’s claims, saying that the state has made no effort to set up the authority.
In this regard, one important argument is that de-radicalisation should not be limited to madressahs, but should be a societal endeavour, considering we have become a highly intolerant society. For example, it is said the curriculum taught in public schools is perhaps more effective in breeding intolerance than what seminaries teach. Also, it is fair to say that a significant number of college and university students in this country share the narrow worldview of their more radical madressah counterparts. It is also wrong to assume all madressahs preach violence. Yet the fact remains that some seminaries are indeed teaching their students extremist ideologies. Hence it is essential that madressahs be regulated, especially where the
curriculum is concerned.
As we have stated before, madressah reform is a subject the interior ministry is incapable of handling. It is an educational matter, not one of law enforcement, hence educationists should be at the forefront of the reform initiative. Since education has been devolved, the respective provincial education departments should be handling madressah reform, with the federal government maintaining a supervisory role to ensure uniformity. Making sure the state knows how many madressahs exist and what they are teaching seems like an entirely achievable endeavour — if the state has the
political will, of course.
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An unfortunate incidence
IT is unfortunate that some Palestinians should have expressed their anger the way they did. On Thursday, Ban Ki-moon was pelted with shoes, stones and sand as he crossed into the Gaza Strip. Those who demonstrated against the UN secretary general were angry over Mr Ban’s refusal to meet the relatives of Palestinian prisoners in Israel — estimated at 5,000. Their hurt was the greater, because Mr Ban had met the family of Gilad Shalit, the lone Israeli soldier held by Hamas and released last October. The demonstrators accused Mr Ban of a ‘bias’ in favour of Israel. Once in Khan Yunis, the UN chief criticised “people from Gaza” for firing rockets into Israel, while asking Tel Aviv to ease its blockade of the Mediterranean strip. Throughout his tenure as secretary general, Mr Ban has tried to maintain what he would consider a ‘balance’ in his criticism of the two sides. While he urges the Palestinian side to resume talks, he has often criticised Israel for its settlement policy.
It is ‘safe’ for Mr Ban to follow this policy, because America, too, disapproves of Israel’s settlement policy publicly. Beyond words, however, successive American administrations since Jimmy Carter’s days have done nothing practical to make Israel behave. President Barack Obama was condemnatory of Israel’s settlements policy in his 2009 speech to the Muslim world but has repeatedly surrendered to the Israel lobby’s pressures. Mr Ban’s refusal to meet prisoners’ relatives is less of an offence committed by default by the world body, considering the more serious issues it has on its conscience, like the failure to get two of its crucial resolutions — 242 and 338 which call upon Israel to vacate the occupied territories — implemented. The two-state solution is a good myth, and the UN chief is as helpless as President Obama.
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