Nuke power
By Anjum Niaz

A well-heeled Pakistani American questions why our nuclear energy can’t be diverted to producing power in an effort to end the curse of loadshedding. Because, I answer back, “America won’t help. It has strung us along, promising to pass on its technology but has conveniently bypassed Pakistan and promised India instead.” The lady refuses to buy my argument. “Pakistanis have a habit of putting all their eggs in the American basket. Why not shop elsewhere? Go seek Chinese help or French,” she shoots back.

A day later, Nawaz Sharif makes almost the same statement. “It’s a tragedy that a country with atomic weapons is deprived of electricity and has no electricity for even 20 hours a day. How can a country develop in such a situation?”, he laments at a ceremony celebrating 15 years, to the day, when Pakistan successfully tested its nuclear bomb under his premiership.

Lacing his speech with a little melodrama, the PM-in-waiting says he can’t sleep at night being worried sick of the worst energy crisis Pakistan faces today. Good news: his sleeplessness spurs him to act. He has sought China’s help. Remember the smart lady who made this prescient point saying why wait for a hand-holding session with Obama. Why not approach an alternative source like China?

During his meeting with the visiting Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, Nawaz Sharif requested Pakistan’s ‘all-weather friend’ for transfer of civil nuclear technology. Of course, what was discussed and what promises were made or postponed between the two will never see daylight. Diplomatic deliberations don’t usually waft outside the confines of the four walls of a room. So we wait with bated breath for a positive response from Beijing.

The foreign media has upped its antennas as a new government readies to take charge. Pakistan has suddenly moved centre stage in world affairs with media oracles making their own predictions. Chief among them is the recently expelled New York Times reporter Declan Walsh. He now sits in London and, long distance, casts his lapidary look on Islamabad, until recently his news gathering hub.

His recent New York Times dispatch spread across page 4, headlined ‘Pakistan Faces Struggle to Keep Its Lights On’, has a facetious tongue-in-cheek paragraph saying: “In a bid to quell discontent, Pakistan’s interim government, which is running the country until Mr Sharif takes over, has ordered civil servants to switch off their air-conditioners and stop wearing socks – reasoning that sandals were more appropriate in such hot conditions.”

Indeed, the caretaker government did holler ‘off with your socks’ to its officers. It even suggested wearing light-coloured bush shirts or shalwar kameez so that they don’t feel hot during office hours when the air conditioning is switched off. The dress code was just one part of the story. It didn’t warrant a full-blown account of “moccasins or sandals” as Reuters did in its ‘Pakistan Socks Solution: Sock-Wearing Discouraged Amid Power Crisis’ headline.

“I found the socks story trivialise a serious issue faced by Pakistanis across the board,” comments a Karachiite living in New York. “It was insensitive.”

Concurring with his friend is another concerned Pakistani who didn’t find the socks story funny. “Why has the western media suddenly woken up to our power crisis with such flippant reporting when the crisis is chronic and has been crying for help since long?”

Not one to miss the gravy train is Canada’s Globe and Mail. “That a nuclear-armed country of 180 million cannot solve its electricity crisis is another sign that their country is heading in the wrong direction,” it writes. It also carries a quote from a local columnist who says “So deep is the penetration of the power-related anger in the public at large that even a hint of the continuation of the inaction of the past may bring the government down sooner than later.”

Since 2008, each summer has brought with it long hours of loadshedding. Each summer has seen the suffering public come out on the streets and protest, sometimes violently. How come the Islamabad-based foreign press has noticed the crisis only now and is reporting it at such furious speed?

There can be one plausible reason: the fifteenth anniversary of Pakistan’s detonation of the nuclear bomb. And the man who gave the nod will next week again take the oath of office as the prime minister for the third time. What next?

The writer is a freelance journalist.Email: anjumniaz@rocketmail.com