Linear thinking

Rabid nationalism closes the mind to humanism and then creates an environment which can only engender extremism. It builds the ground for puritans to take over.

By Ayesha Siddiqa
Friday, 25 Dec, 2009

LINEAR thinking is about viewing the world from the perspective of a straight trajectory without bothering to appreciate the nuances. The problem with this approach is that people often miss the actual picture because they cannot see the vertical and horizontal trajectories.
I recently bumped into an old friend who thought that any questions raised regarding the recent Supreme Court judgment on the NRO were tantamount to providing support to a corrupt gang of people, which, in turn, meant strengthening the hands of the religious right and the extremists/terrorists in the country. Another friend immediately chimed in and thought that my act of not supporting the decision outright was due to some personal fascination with the president.

Such assertions are based on three linear assumptions: first, the argument that the decision will result in destabilising the current political set-up is based on personal whims; second, a lot of people who today argue along similar lines as my two friends were also those who initially thought of the NRO as a mechanism for Benazir Bhutto to allow for Pakistan’s transition to democracy and the weakening of undemocratic forces. This was always a fallacy.

Third, questioning the manner in which the court arrived at the decision denotes support for the NRO or giving credence to corruption. In fact, the issue highlighted by several people is that the NRO was the easiest to strike down as there was no defence against a discriminatory law. The problem arises with the manner in which the judiciary appeared to single out an individual while there were hundreds of other cases covered by the NRO.

Singling out one person, who also happens to hold the topmost office in the country, is tantamount to weakening the political government and creating space for extra-political forces.

All of the above happened in an environment where some hidden forces were constantly pulling the strings of other stakeholders. For example, it’s interest ing how the MQM — which was an equal beneficiary of the NRO — refused to support the government in tabling the NRO in parliament. This poses some questions about the deeper politics of the case. One could even argue that political instability will strengthen those very forces that have and will continue to partner extremist elements.

One of the victims of linear thinking is dialogue that takes in opposing viewpoints so that a strategy could be developed to take the country a step forward in terms of its political development. Given the deep sense of threat and hostility, stakeholders tend to violently defend their positions to the detriment of political development.

However, this is not the only example of linear thinking. There are others as well, and involve the notion that people with western/liberal cultural values are not religious and thus cannot support extremist/terrorist forces in the country, that the thinking of such people is different from the thinking of those who constantly cite religious texts or Islamic history.

Are we to assume that there is no relationship between ideas that espouse rabid nationalism and religious puritanical ideology just because of the difference in the lifestyles of those who propagate them? An affirmative response reflects linear thinking. A particular lifestyle does not necessarily say much about the state of mind. Personal lifestyle is about private choices that may not interfere with a person’s political opinion.

People generally forget to look at the similarity in views in terms of the impact that these create. For instance, rabid nationalism closes the mind to humanism and then creates an environment which can only engender extremism. It builds the ground for the puritans to take over. I know of people who think that there is no contradiction between their support for the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and their opposition to the Red Mosque brigade in Islamabad.

This is like arguing that one will oppose only those things that influence social norms, traditions and behaviour in one’s own society, and not in other societies. Such a mindset divides the Taliban or Taliban-types into good and bad categories. This thinking is extremely linear and problematic.

This is not to argue that it is not the Taliban’s religious character which poses a problem. The issue is with their thinking that primarily engenders a puritanical interpretation of religion, a kind that kills tolerance and pluralism. People with such mindsets cannot simply be used as military-strategic tools without there being repercussions in the society of a state which supports them. Once in partnership with this crowd, it becomes almost impossible to keep one’s own society in quarantine where puritanical lifestyles and interpretations and the use of religion will not have any influence.

Negative and reactive nationalism as opposed to positive nationalism create the same kind of environment as that created by religious puritans. The impact is the same. Any ideology which engenders hatred and violence creates similar results. Positive or constructive nationalism aims at encouraging pride in one’s nation based on a knowledge of history and traditions but without a deep hatred of others.

Negative nationalism, on the other hand, is about vanity that is caused mainly by ignorance of one’s past. It represents an inferiority complex and is devoid of humanism. Under the circumstances, it does not matter whether or not those who project such ideas have a western/liberal lifestyle.

In Pakistan and the South Asian region at large the clear and present danger emanates from this rather simplistic and linear thought trajectory. The inability to see the world except in shades of black and white makes it difficult to see the impact of our closed and single-track thinking. Perhaps this is what happens when social science begins to die or is already dead. ¦ The writer is an independent strategic and political analyst.

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Demystifying mysteries

By Ayesha Siddiqa
Friday, 01 Jan, 2010

The Pakistani media is playing its role by informing citizens about the threat posed by the American security contractor Blackwater. Every other day there is some news of suspicious cars being stopped by the Punjab police and the passengers being interrogated and then released under pressure from unknown and unnamed people in the government.

Intriguingly, we never get to hear the end. There are several questions that could be asked about what the occupants of these vehicles were doing in Pakistan. More important, why does the Punjab government and its police let such people go?

Although the impression one gets from such news items is that phone calls that facilitate the release of presumably American security personnel or private contractors are made by high-ups in Islamabad, the fact remains that it is the Punjab police and government that are responsible for the release of these people.

It would be highly appreciated if newspapers and television channels also reported details of such cases — for instance, the exact identity of the people in these cars with tinted glass. Are they Americans visiting Pakistan on some secret CIA mission? Or are they simply American or other western contractors and consultants working with the Pakistani government?

Most possibly these people are stopped and then released because they cannot be searched under international conventions with regard to diplomatic immunity. Diplomats do not include every American national or private contractor, but foreigners who are providing some assistance to the government of the host country. This is not something specific to Pakistan. It is there all over the world. Therefore, the Punjab police, which these days is imbued with the ambition of fighting American culprits, finds itself unable to take any concrete action against the people they stop. They cannot check a vehicle covered by diplomatic immunity.

Or perhaps the provincial government does not want to clarify things as it could benefit from the windfall of bad publicity for the central government in Islamabad which is both a partner and a main rival of the PML-N. Possibly, the party in Punjab and the military establishment might tone down their criticism of the US once they are in charge of the government again.

It is worth remembering that the first Nawaz Sharif government was eager to assist the US during the first attack on Iraq. This is not to suggest that some strategic divergence in policies will not continue but the conflict could be kept away from the public eye as is happening at the moment.

While the Punjab police is extremely belligerent towards the presence of US personnel in the province, top leaders are involved in carefully managing the threat posed by jihadi outfits. In the past, there was a divide between how the federal government and the establishment and the Punjab government perceived the terrorist/extremist threat. Currently, given the rise in anti-US hype, options available earlier to the provincial and central governments have closed. Any individual desiring to hang on to power in government will have to conform to popular military-strategic norms if he/she has not already done so.

It is also a fact that there has been a formidable rise in the number of American personnel in the country. These may not necessarily be CIA spies planning to kidnap A.Q. Khan or take over nuclear warheads. The number of foreign consultants, advisers and security personnel has increased over the past three to four years. This is due to different reasons such as management of aid and development projects provided after the earthquake, the new aid package negotiated by the present government and increased engagement between Pakistan and the US because of the diversion of international attention from Iraq to Afghanistan and, hence, South Asia.

Aid donors tend to use their own people for aid management due to corruption concerns in the recipient country. Though questions could be raised about how development assistance is planned and distributed in recipient states, the fact is that foreign countries have been increasingly sceptical of the capacity of successive governments in Pakistan to distribute aid.

There are a lot of people in the country’s intelligentsia who were critical of the government’s handling of development assistance. Now everything seems murky given the cloud of fear and insecurity vis-à-vis the US. A popular perception in the country is that the US is out to destroy Pakistan. Such insecurity coincides with friction between the political government and the military on the one hand, while on the other it represents a critical time as what happens in the coming months in Afghanistan and Pakistan will have a bearing on the war on terror.

The Obama administration’s AfPak policy seems to be a mixed bag of clarity and confusion on how to deal with both Kabul and Islamabad. Given the limited options available and Pakistan’s centrality in the war on terror, Washington seems to constantly play the carrot and stick game which only leads to one step forward and one step back.

Meanwhile, the spectre of negative public opinion in Pakistan is extremely useful in providing Rawalpindi with multiple options to tackle various players at the same time. In fact, public opinion limits the options for the partners rather than the players in Pakistan. It has certainly proved fruitful in rolling back the strategy of the political government in Islamabad which clearly understands that while it could play an aggressive battle with political actors, it has to limit itself to military-strategic and geo-political options favourable to the armed forces.

So, the days of a Washington-Islamabad partnership that would be aligned with American interests are over. All key players of the cabinet would rather do what helps them survive personally. The Zardari government’s were naturally limited after it developed a bad reputation not just in terms of financial mismanagement but also of compromising national interests. This is something that does not go down well in circles or segments of population driven by the idea of a strong security state.

Such games do not serve the country’s interests and consequently weaken the state. This is not a prognosis about the country breaking up but about its emotional health. Pakistan will probably survive the current crisis physically. But whether we can as a nation survive the crisis emotionally is another matter.

The writer is an independent strategic and political analyst.

ayesha.ibd@gmail.com

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India’s challenge

By Ayesha Siddiqa
Friday, 08 Jan, 2010

The statement by Indian army chief Gen Deepak Kapoor regarding his army’s capacity to fight a two-front war upset a lot of people in Pakistan. Both Pakistan’s army chief and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee rebutted such superfluous claims.

Pakistan’s military high command did not mince its words in dissuading its Indian counterparts from giving any thought to ‘military adventurism’, and highlighted the severe implications of this and of the Pakistan military’s capacity to respond.

Such exchanges represent the heightened tension between the two traditional rivals. For many political pundits the year 2010 does not bode well for bilateral ties. The tide of peace and amity has been reversed even though people thought that the peace process, started during Musharraf’s reign, was ‘irreversible’. At that time, one of the major reasons for hope on both sides was that a possible deal could be negotiated between an elected government in India and a military dictator in Pakistan, who, it was assumed, could carry his institution along in reaching out to New Delhi. Now things are back to square one with hawks on both sides intensifying tensions.

Kapoor’s statement and its response from Rawalpindi is not the last time that such an exchange will take place. Needless to say, such exchanges do not bode well for peace in the region.

The Indian army chief had spoken of a capability that India desires but does not possess at the moment. Taking on two neighbours militarily and ensuring a ceasefire on its conditions is New Delhi’s dream. But it does not have the capacity to translate this into reality. In fact, India does not even have the capability to successfully try out ‘cold start’, its strategy to allow the Indian military to strike specific targets inside Pakistan and pull back without incurring a high cost. The basic assumption is that if India targets terrorist training camps or headquarters in Pakistan and pulls out without holding Pakistan’s territory or annihilating its military, Rawalpindi will have no excuse to deploy nuclear weapons.

Theoretically, such an adventure is possible because it is based on another calculation that the Indian army will not waste time in regrouping but would already be regrouped to carry out a strike. Official sources believe that activating ‘cold start’ could mean Pakistan deploying nuclear weapons at forward positions or keeping them ready for use. Such a situation would result in India deploying its arsenal as well, making the atmosphere highly charged.

Thus far, the Indian strategy is not in place. It requires complete inter-services harmony and would essentially be a joint services operation which could only succeed if well simulated. So far, there is no indication that India has this capacity. There are internal problems in establishing a new force structure. The establishment of this would indicate that headway is being made in bringing necessary changes to the organisational structure.

So, should Pakistan just laugh off Kapoor’s statement? It would be wiser to understand the nuances of the statement which are more important than the actual content of what he said. It basically indicates the shifting of plates in terms of civil-military relations in India. This is not to suggest that the Indian military is getting ready for an internal coup or that it could take over politics or even wage a war on its own.

However, Kapoor’s statement is one of the many symbols of the growing significance of India’s military in the country’s security and foreign policy paradigm, particularly as far as Pakistan, China and the US are concerned. It is no longer the military of Nehru’s days that sat silently waiting for orders from Delhi as it saw the Chinese army creeping into areas India considered part of its territory.

The modern-day Indian military has access to the media and has managed to build a partnership with it to get its message across when it is in need of public pressure on the political government regarding a particular issue or policy. Furthermore, the military’s overall significance in military security decision-making has increased for a number of reasons.

First, the current lot of Indian politicians is comparatively less skilled to deal with security issues than their predecessors and so tend to seek advice from military officers on security issues. Second, given India’s desire to become a global player and its acquisition of modern technology to achieve this objective, the significance of the armed forces has increased. Third, India’s security partnership with the US has bolstered the Indian military’s significance. Finally, (as in Pakistan) senior commanders who retire from the service find jobs in think tanks. This has allowed them to influence the national security discourse in the country.

For instance, the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry recently published a report on national security and terrorism proposing extreme measures. Thus, senior retired military officers and hawkish civilian experts drive the thinking of businessmen and traders who are key to peace in the region. This is indeed unfortunate and depicts a reduced capacity of the civilian sector in India to take on or oppose the military’s perspective.

From Pakistan’s perspective the important thing is that Indian politicians might find it difficult to go against their military’s opinion in case there is a crisis in the future. Not to forget the fact that both the Indian and Pakistani military have changed qualitatively as far as their class structure goes.

Greater indigenisation of the officer cadre and troops has meant larger numbers from the lower, lower middle and middle classes. One of the distinguishing features of these classes is their sympathy for socio-cultural traditions that have a significant religious flavour. Consequently, the men in uniform might view matters of war and peace differently.

Such factors as mentioned above are difficult to quantify but have a greater bearing on military planning and decision-making than what one would imagine. Under the circumstances, any misadventure or misperception could cost heavily.

These are two neighbours who do not know or understand each other and this makes an accidental conflict or some other dangerous miscalculation possible. Perhaps it is time that the two rivals began to understand each other.

The writer is an independent strategic and political analyst.
ayesha.ibd@gmail.com

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Mapping the establishment

By Ayesha Siddiqa
Friday, 15 Jan, 2010

AS the battle rages between the political government and its rival, popularly known as the establishment, the public silently awaits the final result.

For some, the civilian government has already lost because its capacity to influence policymaking or make decisions without interference has diminished. National security, foreign policy and all strategic decisions are not being made in the presidential palace anymore.

One of the key indicators of this is that the president has deviated from the alternative vision in terms of regional politics and certain other issues that he initially pursued. Now, it is back to the establishment’s agenda, something he needs to do to buy time for his personal survival.

However, incapacitating the president from a policymaking and administrative perspective does not seem to satisfy the establishment which has gone for the PPP leadership’s jugular. The top man of the party has to go at all costs. Even if he survives the onslaught for a while or until the end of his legal term, he would have bled profusely.

This is not a new battle. It has been going on between different individuals versus the establishment for over 50 years. The difference lies in the various actors’ ability to stomach a fight and juggle the different players to survive. It’s a battle fought in space and time.

Why is the establishment so powerful? Because of its character and ability to develop meaningful partnerships. Most people think of the establishment as the military only. This is not wholly correct. But considering the dominance of the defence services neither is such a perception altogether misplaced.

The establishment is not a static entity. It has evolved over the years with newer members joining in and becoming more significant than others. However, a distinction must be made between the core, peripheral and associate members. It is the core members that moderate and control the dynamics of the establishment while the peripheral ones provide support to the system without determining the direction of the working of the establishment. The associate members are taken on board when the need arises.

The core members include senior members of the military and civil bureaucracies, select politicians, media houses and some key economic players. While the military and civil bureaucracies are easier to identify because they have a formal organisational shape and well-defined institutional interests, other actors such as politicians and the media are not so easily captured.

There are some politicians whose primary job it is to watch out for the interests of the establishment and tip the balance within their respective parties in favour of the establishment in case there is any threat to its interests. Each party has such members. So, while a party in power may consider itself as representing the ultimate power and being the establishment, it has some in its ranks who form the core while others including the top bosses may belong to the other two categories.

Part of the media is a core member but it is also divided between the other two categories. For instance, the ownership of media groups had always been part of the core group of the establishment. The editorial teams, on the other hand, did not follow a single path i.e. not all had links to the establishment. There were always some editorial groups with peripheral members while others remained independent.

However, as a professional group, the media was considered too important to be left out of the system and so was brought into the fold completely in the past decade. Proactive engagement with the media was planned to ensure uniformity in terms of alignment between the editorial teams of the media and the establishment. Along with the media as an institution, key intellectuals, academics and opinion-makers have also become part of the peripheral group.

The system is intelligent: it doesn’t resemble that of the former Soviet regime. People are often confused by the various debates in the media that gives an impression of independence. Views can differ and internal battles within the establishment can also surface through the media but this does not mean a qualitative difference of opinion.

Members of the media can support certain political positions or individuals without necessarily wanting to change the overall system in a way that the establishment becomes less significant. And so certain political actions can become a means to negotiate power within the core group of the establishment rather than signify a major systemic change.

It must also be noted that there are some other state institutions, including the judiciary, that are taken on board on a need-be basis. Historically, the judiciary was brought on board to endorse the legitimacy of the system and so the group has associate membership of the establishment. The militant groups on the whole also belong to the category of associate members which means that these can be abandoned or their significance reduced once they are not needed any more. However, a distinction has to be made between the militant groups and those among their leadership who have become part of the peripheral group just like the religious parties.

Another feature of the socio-political system driven by the establishment is that it is largely informal which means that there are no institutionalised modes of communication. A lot depends on signals. Also, an individual, though he/she may be part of the core group, could lose his/her significance if found to deviate from the interests or ideology of the establishment. The system then kicks in to push out the deviant member.

Even the topmost member of the military has been pushed out once he abandoned the principles. The most recent example is Pervez Musharraf who became irrelevant for the establishment once he deviated from certain key principles and embarked upon policy change. The establishment is not a monolith, but it comes together as soon as its interests are threatened. Understanding this dinosaur is necessary before its power is contested.

The writer is an independent strategic and political analyst.ayesha.ibd@gmail.com

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Burnt dreams

By Ayesha Siddiqa
Friday, 22 Jan, 2010

Many years ago, during the mid-1980s, I remember a conversation with the great Urdu writer Ashfaq Ahmed. He was then the director-general of the Urdu Science Board in Lahore and had begun his journey towards religion and Sufism. I was keen to know what young people could do when public intellectual icons had sold their souls to dictatorial regimes.
Perhaps I sought to understand how, intellectually, a society was prepared for greater and deeper feudalism/tribalism. What I am referring to here is a normative issue rather than a structural problem.

More recently I sat through a long monologue by a senior bureaucrat lambasting the country’s feudal culture. The crux of his argument was that this was the main problem with Pakistan’s politics. Removing landed feudals from politics and inserting educated professionals was the only recipe. Somehow, I was reminded of the conversation I had with Ashfaq Sahib.

In my mind, whether we would become a better, law-abiding society through eliminating structures identified with feudalism was a moot point. Talk to many educated people in the cities and they are sure to tell you that Pakistan has not progressed because of its feudal/tribal culture. Indeed, feudalism continues to thrive in the country if not as a mode of production then definitely as the dominant culture. However, it is vital to contextualise the debate and understand the features and dynamics of the said culture.

I recall the debate that some of us had in this paper regarding feudalism. There were economists and political scientists who were of the view that feudalism was a thing of the past. Of course, this means feudalism as a mode of production. The farm sizes in Punjab are no longer what feudal landowners in this country had 50 years ago.

A glance at the data shows that the number of smaller farms (around five to 10 acres) has increased as compared to larger farms. Big land holdings, or jagirs, continue to exist only in Sindh. Despite the archaic cultural norms of denying inheritance rights to women of the family in Punjab and Sindh, farm sizes have grown relatively smaller.

The main problem with the Marxian definition of feudalism is that it is confined to the concept in terms of mode of production with no attention given to the concept as a norm. This means that people with lesser acreage would continue to display the same authoritarian attitudes. But then if we begin to look at the term in a normative fashion we would realise that the concept has evolved over the years. In fact, now the concept has taken on newer shapes and brought into its fold societal groups that were not associated with this behaviour.

From a theoretical standpoint, there are those who have a problem with calling this ‘feudalism’. They believe that this can be called ‘authoritarianism’. However, the authoritarianism of the ruling elite has a specific historical context and cannot be interpreted separately from cultural norms, especially those pertaining to the power structure of the land.

This means three things. First, more than representing a mode of production the concepts of feudalism and tribalism represent a normative structure which is averse to the rule of law. Second, this particular norm is meant to facilitate a particular formula for the redistribution of resources, which, in turn, is based on the exercise of power in a certain manner.

Third, this also means that other groups, which do not necessarily draw their power from land ownership and are not part of the hereditary tribalism and feudalism, could follow the norm to gain and exercise power in a certain way. This also means that those claiming to replace feudalism as a redundant and negative social norm might be following the same pattern without identifying their own behaviour as a replication of what they hope to replace.

This applies to the urban, educated upper-middle class in the country. People who belong to different professions and have risen from the lower-middle class or the middle class tend to consciously or unconsciously behave in the same manner as the traditional feudal/tribal elite. In most cases they even tend to acquire symbols of feudal/tribal power. This certainly pertains to the acquisition and management of agricultural land.

Hence, the procurement of farmland in rural areas or at the periphery of big towns and cities is less about finding a post-retirement occupation and more about expressing personal power. Interestingly, we can observe senior military officers, civil bureaucrats and even professionals and entrepreneurs following this behaviour pattern.

Since the acquisition of land is linked to personal power, technological advancement in agriculture is not one of the by-products, despite the fact that it is comparatively educated people who are the new owners of land. Even individuals, who are basically the products of urban life and are exposed to the international environment, fall prey to feudalism/tribalism as a prevalent norm. Associations and groups are then formed and managed along the lines of feudal patronage as was done in the past.

The military, the civil bureaucracy and political parties like the PML-N or the MQM fall into this pattern. Most recently, even professional groups like the media, lawyers and medical practitioners have shown similar tendencies. The various patronage groups are meant to provide security to their members and save them from the law and the process of accountability.

More importantly, the path for normative feudalism was prepared intellectually as well. A large portion of literature, especially in Urdu, which was read in the largest province, did not challenge the feudal authoritarianism particularly exercised by the new feudals, such as the military in power. In fact, numerous intellectuals became conduits for military regimes trading their souls for land, money or cushy positions.

Some of them even manipulated religion and converted the discourse to the advantage of authoritarian military rulers. So, most tragically youngsters at that time like me saw the edifice of neo-feudalism being built through encouraging intellectual dishonesty. The Zia years were among the darkest in our national history. Personally I saw Lahore, a city I was born and grew up in, and which was known for its intellectual shine, capitulate to dictatorial rule. Things would never be the same again.

Although both civilian and military regimes in Pakistan have used religion for their power games, none can surpass the Zia years in morphing the intellectual discourse. As for my conversation with Ashfaq Ahmed, I still recall telling him about the pain of burning dreams — the only option left for youngsters fed to feudalism and militarism by pretentious intellectuals.

The writer is an independent strategic and political analyst.
ayesha.ibd@gmail.com

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The Afghanistan problem

By Ayesha Siddiqa
Friday, 29 Jan, 2010

NOTHING could be clearer than the fact that there is an ever-widening divide in the perception, interests and understanding of the situation amongst the various stakeholders in Afghanistan. The regional states have their eyes on maximising benefits as the US reviews cutting its losses and bailing out of Kabul.

Although American officials explained that the Obama administration is yet to take a final decision regarding withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, it is quite clear that the US and its Nato allies are looking for an exit. This would mean finding some face-saving method for allied forces to withdraw.

Regionally, attention is drawn towards Gen McChrystal’s recent remarks regarding negotiations with the Taliban. This is not a new idea but the conspiracy mill — which is forever productive in South Asia — has begun to talk about the possibility of the US doing a deal with the Taliban alone and leaving Afghanistan at the mercy of a Karzai-Mullah Omar coalition supported by India.

The Obama administration is considering various methods to woo the Taliban, that would include the use of money and carefully applying the divide and rule policy through which the ‘good’ Taliban could be separated from the ‘bad’. In this case, the good probably refers to a newer generation that might be more willing to cut deals with foreign forces than the older generation, which partnered with the likes of Osama bin Laden.

The anxiety expressed by some circles in Pakistan regarding a negotiation plan is strange considering that the military and the strategic community on the whole have always supported such an idea. In fact, Pervez Musharraf continues to market the idea. There is also the worry mentioned earlier that the US might do the talking on its own. However, this shouldn’t be a worry since it is not easy to ignore the ISI — with its extensive contacts with the Taliban. Sources even claim that a meeting between the ISI, CIA and Mullah Omar did take place in the past couple of months organised by Pakistan’s intelligence operatives.

The Taliban do not seem averse to talking to the US, especially now that Washington might not be insisting on Mullah Omar and his men surrendering Osama dead or alive. The Taliban and their handlers would be happy to negotiate with the US since they were never really averse to the idea of such talks. There are some who believe that an agreement could have been reached only if the US was not in such a hurry to attack.

Consequently, Mullah Omar seems to have signalled his willingness not to engage in a war in case he is included in Afghanistan’s future political set-up. Interestingly, other sources have denied the report. But why wouldn’t he talk as he has everything to gain?

Not only would he be a part of Kabul’s future political dispensation, he would also be a part of establishing a religion-oriented state that would get as much support from the West as Saudi Arabia, if not more. So denying reports of conciliation may be for harder bargaining but definitely not to create anxiety in western capitals which may force them to change their minds.

A deal with Mullah Omar is all that the allies could look forward to since there is no possibility whatsoever of a much-needed arrangement amongst regional stakeholders like India, Iran and Pakistan regarding Kabul’s future.

While Islamabad is apprehensive of the Indian presence due to its fear of a two-front situation in the future, India seems to be thinking in terms of the best- and worst-case scenarios. The former pertains to a situation where Delhi is able to put Pakistan on the defensive. It has already tried to achieve the objective through a mix of intelligence and development assistance tactics. The worst-case scenario for Delhi, on the other hand, pertains to the political balkanisation of Afghanistan in which Islamabad’s influence is limited to the southern provinces while India has greater influence over Kabul and the north.

There are apparent holes in this strategy since India might not be able to hold the south after an American withdrawal. Since Delhi has not invested in the friendlier provinces in the north and concentrated all its efforts in the south, it may not be able to establish a foothold in either part. It may try to do the trick through pumping money to the Afghan Taliban, but there are no guarantees that this will work.

There could even be a worst-case scenario in which Delhi gets crushed in Afghanistan and on its mainland through these non-state forces. The fact that Pakistan also bleeds profusely in the process is a given. But it’s sad to see states not understanding the future cost of their strategic games.

It’s most unfortunate that the regional states, which will suffer the most after they are left to confront each other’s interests in Afghanistan after a US withdrawal, do not think of a joint strategy. The Pandora’s box — which many believe was opened due to American intervention in Afghanistan — will not be shut by a US withdrawal. There are a couple of possibilities that come to mind.

First, there could be a deliberate lull in violence after the allied forces leave. This is a period when other regional forces with stakes in Afghanistan will be regrouping to claim greater territory and interests. Second, violence could probably increase initially in Afghanistan and then in the entire region.

The regional actors would pump in resources and use contacts with the proxies to create greater chaos and mayhem on the other side. This is certainly a dangerous proposition since what we may be looking at is a conflict which will not be contained within specific boundaries. Therefore, we may end up having larger ungovernable spaces. Such a development will threaten India as much as it will Pakistan. Or perhaps it will affect Pakistan more since society is already bleeding from the impact of a decade of the war on terror.

Sadly, there is no end in sight to proxy wars in the region and non-state actors. In fact, heightened competition between India and Pakistan over Afghanistan will result in greater justification on both sides for maintaining non-state actors as proxies. Such a prognosis means that there will be more youth who will be deprived of their right to education, a better and hygienic environment, greater access to health and personal security. They will be sacrificed at the altar of national ego and fooled into ‘martyrdom’ in the name of faith.

The writer is an independent strategic and political analyst.
ayesha.ibd@gmail.com

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Education and values

By Ayesha Siddiqa
Friday, 05 Feb, 2010

The ’80s witnessed education falling prey to a process of rapid de-institutionalisation and capitalism. Schools gradually became places where one bought education without any baggage of values.

A YEAR ago, some of my old classmates from Lahore’s Cathe dral High School tracked me do wn through the Internet. I can’t be grateful enough for this won derful invention in communica tions, and the patience of this crazy bunch that wanted to trav el back through the time tunnel.
The conversations of the class of 1981 continue; it is fascinating to go back in time, think about all those people and yourself, and then see how each has grown. All the people in our chat group are well settled and excel in what they do. Quite a few seem to have shifted to North America and have become suc cessful doctors, engineers and manage ment experts. I suspect that the majority are engineers and doctors since we be long to a generation whose parents could not see beyond these two professions.

A bright mind had to pick one of the two areas which left others, whose hearts were not in either field, quite out of sorts with themselves. You could not pretend to be bright without wanting to join either of the two vocations. Deciding for yourself was rare. So, the new generation has far more options.

But as I sat exchanging notes with former classmates and trying to remember the faces in some old photographs that we shared, it struck me that we had the privilege of studying in an institution. Moreover, we grew up in a value system that was grounded in a middle-class narrative. Looking at the photographs, I could recognise a classmate whose father owned a bakery in Neela Gumbad, Lahore (not a chain of stores but a single shop). It struck me that the overall value system and the educational institutions that produced our group did not cater to the class divide.

There were a range of such educational institutions, including Cathedral High School, St Anthony’s, Sacred Heart, Queen Mary’s, Divisional Public School and many others that were quite well grounded in middle-class values. These schools acted as melting pots where individual social realities had to soften enough to create ease for whoever else was part of the institution. While there were schools like Aitchison, which was socio-economically a class above, the oth ers were generally at the same level.

The reason that Cathedral High School and other such institutions offered this was linked to the fact that they were run by different Christian missionaries or similar set-ups. This meant that upper-class children had to learn to survive with less affluent ones. So, while the Convent girls were generally reputed to be a bit ‘up in the air’, even they had to study with children whose fees were subsidised by the mission. This led to social intermingling that watered down the class barriers to a large extent.

Also, the fee structure was quite affordable. I remember our parents kicking up a racket when in 1977 the fees were suddenly jacked up from Rs50 to Rs75. Those were certainly not the days when children brought cellphones to school or got obnoxious amounts of pocket money. I remember us being warned to stay away from one child: he allegedly got Rs10 from his father every morning — there’s got to be something wrong with money doled out with such ease! The coexistence of various economic classes also meant greater tolerance for other differences, be it class, religion, caste or creed. During the morning assembly, we would sing hymns followed by the national anthem. There was generally no fear of being induced to convert to another religion. At our school, students from all religious backgrounds had the option to join the choir, which some found attractive because it occasionally allowed you to skip a class to go to the cathedral for practice. (For a long time, one popular myth was that there were ghosts inside the cathedral, which naturally kept the majority away.) It was not that all the students at this and other such schools came from upper-middle class families. The majority was middle class and yet liberal enough to allow a bakery owner’s daughter to attend a co-ed school. There were many others like her; there were children whose parents owned businesses, including in Anarkali, and others who came from the households of professional and educated parents. That was a value system that allowed the coexis tence of many colours, sounds and smells. There was lesser tendency to create unfathomable compartments.

But all of what I have described was the case before society became flush with money. The ’80s witnessed the systematic strangulation of pluralism and multi-polarity. This was achieved through several methods, but certainly through changing the tenor of the socioeconomic and educational systems. In the first category you could see changes regarding people’s behaviour towards money: the source of the money did not matter and, in fact, not having money or having less of it started to become a stigma. (A year ago I heard my five-year-old niece ask her mother about the model of their car; apparently, such questions are now not considered weird.) The other major shift related to education, which fell prey to a process of rapid de-institutionalisation and capitalism. Suddenly, there was a mushrooming of new schools with fancy names, which aimed at establishing a class above the rest — based on money. Questionable sources were certainly not a prob lem. The more expensive the school, the greater a symbol of high status it became.

Schools gradually became places where you bought education without any baggage of values or responsibility towards society. The teachers began to be treated like they were the parents’ personal staff, there to keep the brats entertained. The social background of your classmate also became important. I remember being told about a school for children of the staff of a prominent university; the majority of the academic faculty had reservations about sending their children to a school that was also attended by the children of the staff.

Unable to compete in terms of money and good human resources, schools like Cathedral High crashed and it is not a place where I would today send my child. However, I am indebted to the school and our teachers for giving us more than just the ability to read and write; I am sure the class of ’81 will agree that studying in an institution was a great privilege. ¦ The writer is an independent strategic and political analyst.

EMAIL-- ayesha.ibd@gmail.com

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The patronage networks

By Ayesha Siddiqa
Friday, 12 Feb, 2010


A COUPLE of months ago while walking through the F-9 park in Islamabad I met a young undergraduate studying information technology. He was critical of corrupt politics and the feudal mindset of the ruling elite. He was bitter about our leaders who he said do nothing but grab and exercise excessive power.

The conversation went fine until I asked him about his future plans. He wanted to take the civil service exams. Why won’t you pursue the profession for which you are training, I inquired. The answer was that he wanted to have power, since you cannot survive in the country without it.

I was reminded of a similar conversation I had with another person aspiring to join the civil service. This person was pursuing postgraduate studies abroad and wanted to become a bureaucrat to avenge the system that killed his parents. Being poor, the only option he had was to take his ailing parents to a government hospital without sifarish. Naturally the doctors on duty couldn’t care less and the man’s parents died. Now the young man who got an opportunity to go abroad for studies thought he would join the system and change it from within.

‘Changing the system from within’ is quite a popular argument. Those distressed by the ‘system’ are told to take it easy and watch the incremental changes which will be brought about by qualified bureaucrats or others. You are told to ‘look at the glass as being half-full rather than half-empty’. It’s your fault not to notice the small changes which have taken place or those that are in the pipeline.

Many of us must have met retired bureaucrats (both civil and military) and heard them talk endlessly about how well they ran the system. They will tell you about their adventures, their vision, brilliance and originality. Interestingly, all retired bureaucrats sound the same: lots of endless storytelling but no clue as to why their individual brilliance and that of their colleagues hasn’t made the state more efficient. They almost never confess to the sin of working the system just to enhance their own power.

Deep down I think the young men I talked to were lured by the power of ‘power’ and would eventually settle for greater nuisance value for themselves rather than change the system. In both cases I tried to tell them that they probably wanted to have more power just to serve themselves and would adapt to the ‘system’ rather than the other way round.

The civil and military bureaucracies in the country are two patronage groups which can assure entry into power circles. This does not mean that everyone aims to gain influence, but becoming part of a patronage network ensures you can survive in this environment. A common citizen has no value.

So ultimately things don’t improve. Just look at the menace of terrorism, for which we have no answers. According to the popular narrative it is the work of American, Indian and Israeli intelligence agencies. This means that the threat is enormous. But it shouldn’t necessarily mean that nothing can be done to counter it.

How about tactical moves like improving and sharing intelligence? The country has no system where different agencies can sit together and share critical information and technology to fight terror. The police generally do not have the capacity to intercept communications between terrorists. They have to go to military intelligence agencies to, for instance, trace mobile phone calls. So lack of timely information does not help the police as a lot often depends on interpersonal relations.As for sharing information at the organisational level, this is also a non-starter due to turf warfare. Thus opportunities like the newly established National Counter-Terrorism Authority (Nacta) are lost because every boss wants to be bigger than the other. This power-grabbing behaviour is replicated at all levels, the best example being the opposing views of the president and the army chief on ‘strategic depth.’ While the president being the head of state disowned this particular option, the army chief spoke openly about maintaining this framework.

Sadly no one bothers to even take responsibility for his or her actions. It was interesting to read in the newspaper that it was the Rangers’ sniffer dog that failed to detect the bomb that went off outside the Jinnah Hospital in Karachi. The government should now move rapidly and punish the dog lest he refuses to take the blame. Or perhaps even he might be accused of being a foreign agent.Such behaviour is also found among non-bureaucrats. One would not like to exclude well-trained and educated professionals like doctors, engineers and lawyers from this list. Taking responsibility also means subjecting yourself to accountability which, given the desire for individual power, is certainly not the goal. Will education change this? But then education is sought not for personal enlightenment but for social mobility of the kind that means greater nuisance value. The educated are some of the biggest crooks of our society.

Recent incidents like the death of children due to the alleged negligence of doctors who then failed to subject themselves or other members of their profession to accountability, the tragic death of Shazia Bashir Masih and the appalling behaviour of lawyers, or retired Brig Obaidullah Ranjha allegedly subjecting Professor Tahir Malik to brutality are all examples of what strong patronage networks can do for individual power.

Not allowing their colleagues to represent the 12-year-old girl’s family in court depicts the power lawyers have recently acquired by being part of a movement. Instead of making them conscious of the primacy of the rule of law, the movement for the restoration of the judiciary seems to have granted lawyers the right to be above the law.

The murdered girl’s family may also have little chance to knock on the doors of the PTI, JI and other parties because being a member of a minority group, Shazia Masih is perhaps not considered a daughter of the country. This case looks exceptional because no one wants to own it, which goes to show that it may not bolster the country’s reputation nationally and internationally.

As for the professor, he is up against the most stable patronage network. The brigadier accused of manhandling him may have resigned but the ex-army man is unlikely to pay a price that is commensurate with his actions. As for the boys mentioned in the beginning, I welcome them to the world of patronage networks which continue to thrive. That’s the only glass that’s full.

The writer is an independent strategic and political analyst.
ayesha.ibd@gmail.com

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Pakistan’s Jinnah

By Ayesha Siddiqa
Friday, 19 Feb, 2010

Some time ago, I had a chance to read veteran columnist Ardeshir Cowasjee’s article ‘Bring back Jinnah’s Pakistan’ in which he talked about the founding father’s liberal vision for the country.

Mr Cowasjee’s argument was that the state envisioned by Mohammad Ali Jinnah would have been governed by a different set of social norms than the one in place today.

I would like to inform the respectable writer that while he is searching for Jinnah’s Pakistan, we might be threatened with the eventuality of losing Pakistan’s Jinnah.

A journalist friend was recently presented with a historic photograph of the founding father in which he was holding his pups.

I am glad it was given to a friend rather than a foe because there is always the possibility these days that the person presenting the photograph would be accused of being a foreign agent for distributing such photographs of Jinnah.

We shouldn’t be surprised if in a few years’ time we come across a doctored photograph of the founding father in a turban and a beard to prove a certain point.

There are now devious elements who are tinkering with Jinnah — the person — and his narrative. We are being told that all those details which describe the Quaid-i-Azam as a man with western liberal habits are but a conspiracy and a figment of the imagination of enslaved minds.

We are being told that Jinnah never had a lifestyle that might not get the approval of the puritanical-religious crowd in the country. The purpose behind altering details of Jinnah’s personality is the first step towards changing the national narrative.

The next step will be to argue that Jinnah wanted a state where only a certain school of thought could live. Others would have the status of second-class citizens or be shunned, or put in jail for their alternative identity.

But why is a liberal Jinnah unpalatable to these people? Mohammad Ali Jinnah could have hidden his identity as a liberal as he concentrated on the legal case of getting a separate state for the Muslims of India.

He didn’t hide his reality or make an effort to adapt to what the majority of the people followed because in his mind the new state could allow for all creeds, castes and religions.

The Muslims of India had not struggled to move away from the dominance of one culture to the dominance of another. This would be a country where people of different religions could proudly become equal citizens.

In a speech in 1948, Jinnah had said: “We are the inheritors of these glorious traditions and are fully alive to our responsibilities and obligations as framers of the future constitution of Pakistan. In any case Pakistan is not going to be a theocratic state to be ruled by priests with a divine mission.

We have many non-Muslims — Hindus, Christians and Parsis — but they are all Pakistanis. They will enjoy the same rights and privileges as any other citizens and will play their rightful part in the affairs of Pakistan.”

Having access to modern forms of media, these characters seem to be assisted by ‘ghost warriors’ in creating a new national narrative formulated on the basis of a post-modernist agenda.

The country’s survival, hence, does not any longer depend on the struggle of its citizenry to make its political system work, but on establishing an imagined political system which these people guarantee their followers will rid the state of all its evils. Based on puritanical norms, the new political system, which they call the ideal khilafat, can do wonders.

These people are not the Taliban, nor are they even a single bunch of people. There are several layers operating at various levels and in different forms.

There are those that market the traditional religious identity and then there are others who appeal to the secular. Not to forget those who sell high doses of what they term ‘nationalism’ while pursuing a very western, liberal kind of lifestyle.

Very few people realise that the country’s national narrative is being strategically and cunningly reorganised and rewritten. The underlying norm of the new narrative is a puritanical version of religion and history.

In the process, the nation-state is being stretched and society adjusted to meet the challenges of the new version of nationalism.

What goes without saying is that there is probably very little space for those who do not conform to the description of an ‘ideal’ citizen. The description not only extends to those condemned as ‘enemies of the state’ but also others who cannot fall into the category of this description due to their peculiar caste, creed, faith, ethnicity, or other factors.

So, it is with a heavy heart that I would like to inform Mr Cowasjee that the new perimeters of citizenship define a citizen and give him/her rights on the basis of their putative relationship with religion as interpreted by a certain set of people.

This is no longer about a pluralistic state and a multi-polar polity. Therefore, the new narrative makes it imperative for this ‘gang’ of people to kidnap Pakistan’s Jinnah.

Can the honourable columnist and citizen do something about getting the founding father back? Surely, there will be those willing to fight for his recovery or even a pay ransom to do so.

The writer is an independent strategic and political analyst.
ayesha.ibd@gmail.com

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Conspiracy theories galore

By Ayesha Siddiqa
Friday, 26 Feb, 2010

I COULDN’T believe my ears when responsible quarters informed me of an American-Blackwater conspiracy to isolate Pakistan.

According to this heinous plan the objective will be achieved by infiltrating the media, specifically through placing people in responsible positions in the print and electronic media. These plants will then be made responsible for freaking out ordinary people.

While some Blackwater agents are said to be responsible for making people paranoid about a secret plan to destroy Pakistan and take away its ‘crown jewels’ — its nuclear weapons — others have been given the task of exciting the populace with the idea of fighting some kind of holy war against neighbouring states and more.

This is called psy-ops, the art of instilling fear in the hearts of citizens and making them lose touch with reality and faith in their own capabilities. The biggest tool of course is the rumour mill, which is constantly in action churning out half-lies and half-truths. Anyone who cannot be bought off by the company is immediately termed a foreign agent. Such tricks are also useful in hiding the fact that it is in reality these people, who are working to isolate Pakistan, that are on Blackwater’s payroll.

There is evidence of using psy-ops in the past against ordinary folks and making them believe in some outside force conspiring to destroy them. The Germans before the Second World War are a prime example. The entire nation had lost touch with reality to a point that they stopped using rational thinking to assess the behaviour of their own leaders and held a certain kind of people responsible for the malaise they suffered from.

Resultantly, there was the famous witch-hunt through which the Jews, the ‘gypsies’, the physically disabled, homosexuals and non-conformist intellectuals were killed or forced to leave. Very soon, the Nazi military machine managed to get rid of people who would have proved to be an asset for the Third Reich.

Apparently, one of the secondary objectives of the conspirators is to create an environment which kills creative minds and pushes them to leave, hence the brain drain. It didn’t occur to ordinary Germans that their leaders, who were responsible for the First World War as well, were caught ‘with their pants down’ in the process of using military power against the rest of the world, and as such were equally responsible for the tragic state of affairs. In fact, the real conspiracy was to take away the rational faculty of the ordinary citizen.

In Pakistan today ordinary persons are being fed fear and paranoia so that they cannot think about the mistakes made by their own leadership. This is not to suggest that other nations do not make questionable plans but the fact is that painting the world in shades of black and white is in itself a conspiracy against the people.

For instance, the story about the historic American let-down does not mention that our own leadership was equally responsible for serving the interests of foreign states in return for both ‘cash and kind’. Publicly asking Hillary Clinton questions regarding the control of the ISI, for example, is nothing but superimposing the idea of the Pakistani nation’s EQ (emotional quotient). So Washington — rather than Islamabad — decides everything in Pakistan.

I haven’t been informed as yet but I suspect that there is even a larger conspiracy afoot to impair the minds of Muslims all over the world. This is done through instilling the fear of some ‘foreign hand’ behind everything that happens in their countries. Spreading such rumours gradually weakens and ultimately deadens their capacity to think of themselves as people who can control their destinies.

According to this plan, the answer for everything bad or unpleasant lies outside. The bulk of the mentally de-capacitated citizenry then gradually looks up to a certain set of leaders as ‘knights in shining armour’ who will protect them and the state.

The absence of systems in what is called the Muslim world is an eye-opener. The conspiracy deepens since people are also made to believe that their lives will only improve through installing a certain kind of programme on their national hard drive.

The writer is an independent strategic and political analyst.
ayesha.ibd@gmail.com

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