From Great Game to Grand Bargain Ending Chaos in Afghanistan and Pakistan
By Barnett R. Rubin and Ahmed Rashid
From Foreign Affairs , November/December 2008
Summary: The crisis in Afghanistan and Pakistan is beyond the point where more troops will help. U.S. strategy must be to seek compromise with insurgents while addressing regional rivalries and insecurities
BARNETT R. RUBIN is Director of Studies and a Senior Fellow at the Center on International Cooperation at New York University and the author of The Fragmentation of Afghanistan and Blood on the Doorstep. AHMED RASHID is a Pakistani journalist and writer, a Fellow at the Paci?c Council on International Policy, and the author of Jihad, Taliban, and, most recently, Descent Into
The Great Game is no fun anymore. The term "Great Game" was used by nineteenth-century British imperialists to describe the British-Russian struggle for position on the chessboard of Afghanistan and Central Asia -- a contest with a few players, mostly limited to intelligence forays and short wars fought on horseback with rifles, and with those living on the chessboard largely bystanders or victims. More than a century later, the game continues. But now, the number of players has exploded, those living on the chessboard have become involved, and the intensity of the violence and the threats it produces affect the entire globe. The Great Game can no longer be treated as a sporting event for distant spectators. It is time to agree on some new rules.
Seven years after the U.S.-led coalition and the Afghan commanders it supported pushed the leaderships of the Taliban and al Qaeda out of Afghanistan and into Pakistan, an insurgency that includes these and other groups is gaining ground on both the Afghan and the Pakistani sides of the border. Four years after Afghanistan's first-ever presidential election, the increasingly besieged government of Hamid Karzai is losing credibility at home and abroad. Al Qaeda has established a new safe haven in the tribal agencies of Pakistan, where it is defended by a new organization, the Taliban Movement of Pakistan. The government of Pakistan, beset by one political crisis after another and split between a traditionally autonomous military and assertive but fractious elected leaders, has been unable to retain control of its own territory and population. Its intelligence agency stands accused of supporting terrorism in Afghanistan, which in many ways has replaced Kashmir as the main arena of the still-unresolved struggle between Pakistan and India.
For years, critics of U.S. and NATO strategies have been warning that the region was headed in this direction. Many of the policies such critics have long proposed are now being widely embraced. The Bush administration and both presidential campaigns are proposing to send more troops to Afghanistan and to undertake other policies to sustain the military gains made there. These include accelerating training of the Afghan National Army and the Afghan National Police; disbursing more money, more effectively for reconstruction and development and to support better governance; increasing pressure on and cooperation with Pakistan, and launching cross-border attacks without Pakistani agreement to eliminate cross-border safe havens for insurgents and to uproot al Qaeda; supporting democracy in Pakistan and bringing its Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) under civilian political control; and implementing more effective policies to curb Afghanistan's drug industry, which produces opiates equal in export value to half of the rest of the Afghan economy.
Cross-border attacks into Pakistan may produce an "October surprise" or provide material for apologists hoping to salvage George W. Bush's legacy, but they will not provide security. Advancing reconstruction, development, good governance, and counternarcotics efforts and building effective police and justice systems in Afghanistan will require many years of relative peace and security. Neither neglecting these tasks, as the Bush administration did initially, nor rushing them on a timetable determined by political objectives, can succeed. Afghanistan requires far larger and more effective security forces, international or national, but support for U.S. and NATO deployments is plummeting in troop-contributing countries, in the wider region, and in Afghanistan itself. Afghanistan, the poorest country in the world but for a handful in Africa and with the weakest government in the world (except Somalia, which has no government), will never be able to sustain national security forces sufficient to confront current -- let alone escalating -- threats, yet permanent foreign subsidies for Afghanistan's security forces cannot be guaranteed and will have destabilizing consequences. Moreover, measures aimed at Afghanistan will not address the deteriorating situation in Pakistan or the escalation of international conflicts connected to the Afghan-Pakistani war. More aid to Pakistan -- military or civilian -- will not diminish the perception among Pakistan's national security elite that the country is surrounded by enemies determined to dismember it, especially as cross-border raids into areas long claimed by Afghanistan intensify that perception. Until that sense of siege is gone, it will be difficult to strengthen civilian institutions in Pakistan.
U.S. diplomacy has been paralyzed by the rhetoric of "the war on terror" -- a struggle against "evil," in which other actors are "with us or with the terrorists." Such rhetoric thwarts sound strategic thinking by assimilating opponents into a homogenous "terrorist" enemy. Only a political and diplomatic initiative that distinguishes political opponents of the United States -- including violent ones -- from global terrorists such as al Qaeda can reduce the threat faced by the Afghan and Pakistani states and secure the rest of the international community from the international terrorist groups based there. Such an initiative would have two elements. It would seek a political solution with as much of the Afghan and Pakistani insurgencies as possible, offering political inclusion, the integration of Pakistan's indirectly ruled Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) into the mainstream political and administrative institutions of Pakistan, and an end to hostile action by international troops in return for cooperation against al Qaeda. And it would include a major diplomatic and development initiative addressing the vast array of regional and global issues that have become intertwined with the crisis -- and that serve to stimulate, intensify, and prolong conflict in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Afghanistan has been at war for three decades -- a period longer than the one that started with World War I and ended with the Normandy landings on D-day in World War II -- and now that war is spreading to Pakistan and beyond. This war and the attendant terrorism could well continue and spread, even to other continents -- as on 9/11 -- or lead to the collapse of a nuclear-armed state. The regional crisis is of that magnitude, and yet so far there is no international framework to address it other than the underresourced and poorly coordinated operations in Afghanistan and some attacks in the FATA. The next U.S. administration should launch an effort, initially based on a contact group authorized by the UN Security Council, to put an end to the increasingly destructive dynamics of the Great Game in the region. The game has become too deadly and has attracted too many players; it now resembles less a chess match than the Afghan game of buzkashi, with Afghanistan playing the role of the goat carcass fought over by innumerable teams. Washington must seize the opportunity now to replace this Great Game with a new grand bargain for the region.
THE SECURITY GAP
The Afghan and Pakistani security forces lack the numbers, skills, equipment, and motivation to confront the growing insurgencies in the two countries or to uproot al Qaeda from its new base in the FATA, along the Afghan-Pakistani border. Proposals for improving the security situation focus on sending additional international forces, building larger national security forces in Afghanistan, and training and equipping Pakistan's security forces, which are organized for conflict with India, for domestic counterinsurgency. But none of these proposals is sufficient to meet the current, let alone future, threats.
Some additional troops in Afghanistan could protect local populations while the police and the administration develop. They also might enable U.S. and NATO forces to reduce or eliminate their reliance on the use of air strikes, which cause civilian casualties that recruit fighters and supporters to the insurgency. U.S. General Barry McCaffrey, among others, has therefore supported a "generational commitment" to Afghanistan, such as the United States made to Germany and South Korea. Unfortunately, no government in the region around Afghanistan supports a long-term U.S. or NATO presence there. Pakistan sees even the current deployment as strengthening an India-allied regime in Kabul; Iran is concerned that the United States will use Afghanistan as a base for launching "regime change" in Tehran; and China, India, and Russia all have reservations about a NATO base within their spheres of influence and believe they must balance the threats from al Qaeda and the Taliban against those posed by the United States and NATO. Securing Afghanistan and its region will require an international presence for many years, but only a regional diplomatic initiative that creates a consensus to place stabilizing Afghanistan ahead of other objectives could make a long-term international deployment possible.
Afghanistan needs larger and more effective security forces, but it also needs to be able to sustain those security forces. A decree signed by President Karzai in December 2002 would have capped the Afghan National Army at 70,000 troops (it had reached 66,000 by mid-2008). U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has since announced a plan to increase that number to 122,000, as well as add 82,000 police, for a total of 204,000 in the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF). Such increases, however, would require additional international trainers and mentors -- which are, quite simply, not available in the foreseeable future -- and maintaining such a force would far exceed the means of such a destitute country. Current estimates of the annual cost are around $2.5 billion for the army and $1 billion for the police. Last year, the Afghan government collected about 7 percent of a licit GDP estimated at $9.6 billion in revenue -- about $670 million. Thus, even if Afghanistan's economy experienced uninterrupted real growth of 9 percent per year, and if revenue extraction nearly doubled, to 12 percent (both unrealistic forecasts), in ten years the total domestic revenue of the Afghan government would be about $2.5 billion a year. Projected pipelines and mines might add $500 million toward the end of this period. In short, the army and the police alone would cost significantly more than Afghanistan's total revenue.
Many have therefore proposed long-term international financing of the ANSF; after all, even $5 billion a year is much less than the cost of an international force deployment. But sustaining, as opposed to training or equipping, security forces through foreign grants would pose political problems. It would be impossible to build Afghan institutions on the basis of U.S. supplemental appropriations, which is how the training and equipping of the ANSF are mostly funded. Sustaining a national army or national police force requires multiyear planning, impossible without a recurrent appropriation -- which would mean integrating ANSF planning into that of the United States' and other NATO members' budgets, even if the funds were disbursed through a single trust fund. And an ANSF funded from those budgets would have to meet international or other national, rather than Afghan, legal requirements. Decisions on funding would be taken by the U.S. Congress and other foreign bodies, not the Afghan National Assembly. The ANSF would take actions that foreign taxpayers might be reluctant to fund. Such long-term international involvement is simply not tenable.
If Afghanistan cannot support its security forces at the currently proposed levels on its own, even under the most optimistic economic scenario, and long-term international support or a long-term international presence is not viable, there is only one way that the ANSF can approach sustainability: the conditions in the region must be changed so that Afghanistan no longer needs such large and expensive security forces. Changing those conditions, however, will require changing the behavior of actors not only inside but also outside of the country -- and that has led many observers to embrace putting pressure on, and even launching attacks into, Pakistan as another deus ex machina for the increasingly dire situation within Afghanistan.
BORDERLINE INSECURITY DISORDER
After the first phase of the war in Afghanistan ended with the overthrow of the Taliban in 2001 (and as the United States prepared to invade Iraq), Washington's limited agenda in the region was to press the Pakistani military to go after al Qaeda; meanwhile, Washington largely ignored the broader insurgency, which remained marginal until 2005. This suited the Pakistani military's strategy, which was to assist the United States against al Qaeda but to retain the Afghan Taliban as a potential source of pressure on Afghanistan. But the summer of 2006 saw a major escalation of the insurgency, as Pakistan and the Taliban interpreted the United States' decision to transfer command of coalition forces to NATO (plus U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's announcement of a troop drawdown, which in fact never took place) as a sign of its intention to withdraw. They also saw non-U.S. troop contributors as more vulnerable to political pressure generated by casualties.
The Pakistani military does not control the insurgency, but it can affect its intensity. Putting pressure on Pakistan to curb the militants will likely remain ineffective, however, without a strategic realignment by the United States. The region is rife with conspiracy theories trying to find a rational explanation for the United States' apparently irrational strategic posture of supporting a "major non-NATO ally" that is doing more to undermine the U.S. position in Afghanistan than any other state. Many Afghans believe that Washington secretly supports the Taliban as a way to keep a war going to justify a troop presence that is actually aimed at securing the energy resources of Central Asia and countering China. Many in Pakistan believe that the United States has deceived Pakistan into conniving with Washington to bring about its own destruction: India and U.S.-supported Afghanistan will form a pincer around Pakistan to dismember the world's only Muslim nuclear power. And some Iranians speculate that in preparation for the coming of the Mahdi, God has blinded the Great Satan to its own interests so that it would eliminate both of Iran's Sunni-ruled regional rivals, Afghanistan and Iraq, thus unwittingly paving the way for the long-awaited Shiite restoration.
The true answer is much simpler: the Bush administration never reevaluated its strategic priorities in the region after September 11. Institutional inertia and ideology jointly assured that Pakistan would be treated as an ally, Iran as an enemy, and Iraq as the main threat, thereby granting Pakistan a monopoly on U.S. logistics and, to a significant extent, on the intelligence the United States has on Afghanistan. Eighty-four percent of the materiel for U.S. forces in Afghanistan goes through Pakistan, and the ISI remains nearly the sole source of intelligence about international terrorist acts prepared by al Qaeda and its affiliates in Pakistan.
More fundamentally, the concept of "pressuring" Pakistan is flawed. No state can be successfully pressured into acts it considers suicidal. The Pakistani security establishment believes that it faces both a U.S.-Indian-Afghan alliance and a separate Iranian-Russian alliance, each aimed at undermining Pakistani influence in Afghanistan and even dismembering the Pakistani state. Some (but not all) in the establishment see armed militants within Pakistan as a threat -- but they largely consider it one that is ultimately controllable, and in any case secondary to the threat posed by their nuclear-armed enemies.
Pakistan's military command, which makes and implements the country's national security policies, shares a commitment to a vision of Pakistan as the homeland for South Asian Muslims and therefore to the incorporation of Kashmir into Pakistan. It considers Afghanistan as within Pakistan's security perimeter. Add to this that Pakistan does not have border agreements with either India, into which Islamabad contests the incorporation of Kashmir, or Afghanistan, which has never explicitly recognized the Durand Line, which separates the two countries, as an interstate border.
That border is more than a line. The frontier between Pakistan and Afghanistan was structured as part of the defenses of British India. On the Pakistani side of the Durand Line, the British and their Pakistani successors turned the difficulty of governing the tribes to their advantage by establishing what are now the FATA. Within the FATA, these tribes, not the government, are responsible for security. The area is kept underdeveloped and overarmed as a barrier against invaders. (That is also why any ground intervention there by the United States or NATO will fail.) Now, the Pakistani military has turned the FATA into a staging area for militants who can be used to conduct asymmetric warfare in both Afghanistan and Kashmir, since the region's special status provides for (decreasingly) plausible deniability. This use of the FATA has eroded state control, especially in Pakistan's Northwest Frontier Province, which abuts the FATA. The Swat Valley, where Pakistani Taliban fighters have been battling the government for several years, links Afghanistan and the FATA to Kashmir. Pakistan's strategy for external security has thus undermined its internal security.
On September 19, 2001, when then Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf announced to the nation his decision to support the U.S.-led intervention against the Taliban in Afghanistan, he stated that the overriding reason was to save Pakistan by preventing the United States from allying with India. In return, he wanted concessions to Pakistan on its security interests.
Subsequent events, however, have only exacerbated Pakistan's sense of insecurity. Musharraf asked for time to form a "moderate Taliban" government in Afghanistan but failed to produce one. When that failed, he asked that the United States prevent the Northern Alliance (part of the anti-Taliban resistance in Afghanistan), which had been supported by India, Iran, and Russia, from occupying Kabul; that appeal failed. Now, Pakistan claims that the Northern Alliance is working with India from inside Afghanistan's security services. Meanwhile, India has reestablished its consulates in Afghan cities, including some near the Pakistani border. India has genuine consular interests there (Hindu and Sikh populations, commercial travel, aid programs), but it may also in fact be using the consulates against Pakistan, as Islamabad claims. India has also, in cooperation with Iran, completed a highway linking Afghanistan's ring road (which connects its major cities) to Iranian ports on the Persian Gulf, potentially eliminating Afghanistan's dependence on Pakistan for access to the sea and marginalizing Pakistan's new Arabian Sea port of Gwadar, which was built with hundreds of millions of dollars of Chinese aid. And the new U.S.-Indian nuclear deal effectively recognizes New Delhi's legitimacy as a nuclear power while continuing to treat Islamabad, with its record of proliferation, as a pariah. In this context, pressuring or giving aid to Pakistan, without any effort to address the sources of its insecurity, cannot yield a sustainable positive outcome.
BIG HAT, NO CATTLE
Rethinking U.S. and global objectives in the region will require acknowledging two distinctions: first, between ultimate goals and reasons to fight a war; and, second, among the time frames for different objectives. Preventing al Qaeda from regrouping so that it can organize terrorist attacks is an immediate goal that can justify war, to the extent that such war is proportionate and effective. Strengthening the state and the economy of Afghanistan is a medium- to long-term objective that cannot justify war except insofar as Afghanistan's weakness provides a haven for security threats.
This medium- to long-term objective would require reducing the level of armed conflict, including by seeking a political settlement with current insurgents. In discussions about the terms of such a settlement, leaders linked to both the Taliban and other parts of the insurgency have asked, What are the goals for which the United States and the international community are waging war in Afghanistan? Do they want to guarantee that Afghanistan's territory will not be used to attack them, impose a particular government in Kabul, or use the conflict to establish permanent military bases? These interlocutors oppose many U.S. policies toward the Muslim world, but they acknowledge that the United States and others have a legitimate interest in preventing Afghan territory from being used to launch attacks against them. They claim to be willing to support an Afghan government that would guarantee that its territory would not be used to launch terrorist attacks in the future -- in return, they say, for the withdrawal of foreign troops.
The guarantees these interlocutors now envisage are far from those required, and Afghanistan will need international forces for security assistance even if the current war subsides. But such questions can provide a framework for discussion. To make such discussions credible, the United States must redefine its counterterrorist goals. It should seek to separate those Islamist movements with local or national objectives from those that, like al Qaeda, seek to attack the United States or its allies directly -- instead of lumping them all together. Two Taliban spokespeople separately told The New York Times that their movement had broken with al Qaeda since 9/11. (Others linked to the insurgency have told us the same thing.) Such statements cannot simply be taken at face value, but that does not mean that they should not be explored further. An agreement in principle to prohibit the use of Afghan (or Pakistani) territory for international terrorism, plus an agreement from the United States and NATO that such a guarantee could be sufficient to end their hostile military action, could constitute a framework for negotiation. Any agreement in which the Taliban or other insurgents disavowed al Qaeda would constitute a strategic defeat for al Qaeda.
Political negotiations are the responsibility of the Afghan government, but to make such negotiations possible, the United States would have to alter its detention policy. Senior officials of the Afghan government say that at least through 2004 they repeatedly received overtures from senior Taliban leaders but that they could never guarantee that these leaders would not be captured by U.S. forces and detained at Guantánamo Bay or the U.S. air base at Bagram, in Afghanistan. Talking with Taliban fighters or other insurgents does not mean replacing Afghanistan's constitution with the Taliban's Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, closing girls' schools, or accepting other retrograde social policies. Whatever weaknesses the Afghan government and security forces may have, Afghan society -- which has gone through two Loya Jirgas and two elections, possesses over five million cell phones, and has access to an explosion of new media -- is incomparably stronger than it was seven years ago, and the Taliban know it. These potential interlocutors are most concerned with the presence of foreign troops, and some have advocated strengthening the current ANSF as a way to facilitate those troops' departure. In November 2006, one of the Taliban's leading supporters in Pakistan, Maulana Fazlur Rahman, publicly stated in Peshawar that the Taliban could participate as a party in elections in Afghanistan, just as his party did in Pakistan (where it recently lost overwhelmingly), so long as they were not labeled as terrorists.
THE END OF THE GAME
There is no more a political solution in Afghanistan alone than there is a military solution in Afghanistan alone. Unless the decision-makers in Pakistan decide to make stabilizing the Afghan government a higher priority than countering the Indian threat, the insurgency conducted from bases in Pakistan will continue. Pakistan's strategic goals in Afghanistan place Pakistan at odds not just with Afghanistan and India, and with U.S. objectives in the region, but with the entire international community. Yet there is no multilateral framework for confronting this challenge, and the U.S.-Afghan bilateral framework has relied excessively on the military-supply relationship. NATO, whose troops in Afghanistan are daily losing their lives to Pakistan-based insurgents, has no Pakistan policy. The UN Security Council has hardly discussed Pakistan's role in Afghanistan, even though three of the permanent members (France, the United Kingdom, and the United States) have troops in Afghanistan, the other two are threatened by movements (in the North Caucasus and in Xinjiang) with links to the FATA, and China, Pakistan's largest investor, is poised to become the largest investor in Afghanistan as well, with a $3.5 billion stake in the Aynak copper mine, south of Kabul.
The alternative is not to place Pakistan in a revised "axis of evil." It is to pursue a high-level diplomatic initiative designed to build a genuine consensus on the goal of achieving Afghan stability by addressing the legitimate sources of Pakistan's insecurity while increasing the opposition to its disruptive actions. China, both an ally of Pakistan and potentially the largest investor in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, could play a particularly significant role, as could Saudi Arabia, a serious investor in and ally of Pakistan, former supporter of the Taliban, and custodian of the two holiest Islamic shrines.
A first step could be the establishment of a contact group on the region authorized by the UN Security Council. This contact group, including the five permanent members and perhaps others (NATO, Saudi Arabia), could promote dialogue between India and Pakistan about their respective interests in Afghanistan and about finding a solution to the Kashmir dispute; seek a long-term political vision for the future of the FATA from the Pakistani government, perhaps one involving integrating the FATA into Pakistan's provinces, as proposed by several Pakistani political parties; move Afghanistan and Pakistan toward discussions on the Durand Line and other frontier issues; involve Moscow in the region's stabilization so that Afghanistan does not become a test of wills between the United States and Russia, as Georgia has become; provide guarantees to Tehran that the U.S.-NATO commitment to Afghanistan is not a threat to Iran; and ensure that China's interests and role are brought to bear in international discussions on Afghanistan. Such a dialogue would have to be backed by the pledge of a multiyear international development aid package for regional economic integration, including aid to the most affected regions in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Central Asia, particularly the border regions. (At present, the United States is proposing to provide $750 million in aid to the FATA but without having any political framework to deliver the aid.)
A central purpose of the contact group would be to assure Pakistan that the international community is committed to its territorial integrity -- and to help resolve the Afghan and Kashmir border issues so as to better define Pakistan's territory. The international community would have to provide transparent reassurances and aid to Pakistan, pledge that no state is interested in its dismemberment, and guarantee open borders between Pakistan and both Afghanistan and India. The United States and the European Union would have to open up their markets to Pakistan's critical exports, especially textiles, and to Afghan products. And the United States would need to offer a road map to Pakistan to achieving the same kind of nuclear deal that was reached with India, once Pakistan has transparent and internationally monitored guarantees about the nonproliferation of its nuclear weapons technology.
Reassurances by the contact group that addressed Pakistan's security concerns might encourage Pakistan to promote, rather than hinder, an internationally and nationally acceptable political settlement in Afghanistan. Backing up the contact group's influence and clout must be the threat that any breaking of agreements or support for terrorism originating in the FATA would be taken to the UN Security Council. Pakistan, the largest troop contributor to UN peacekeeping operations, sees itself as a legitimate international power, rather than a spoiler; confronted with the potential loss of that status, it would compromise.
India would also need to become more transparent about its activities in Afghanistan, especially regarding the role of its intelligence agency, the Research and Analysis Wing. Perhaps the ISI and the RAW could be persuaded to enter a dialogue to explore whether the covert war they have waged against each other for the past 60 years could spare the territory of Afghanistan. The contact group could help establish a permanent Indian-Pakistani body at the intelligence and military levels, where complaints could be lodged and discussed. The World Bank and the Asian Development Bank could also help set up joint reconstruction programs in Afghanistan. A series of regional conferences on economic cooperation for the reconstruction of Afghanistan have already created a partial framework for such programs.
Then there is Iran. The Bush administration responded to Iranian cooperation in Afghanistan in 2001 by placing Tehran in the "axis of evil" and by promising to keep "all options on the table," which is understood as a code for not ruling out a military attack. Iran has reacted in part by aiding insurgents in Afghanistan to signal how much damage it could do in response. Some Iranian officials, however, continue to seek cooperation with the United States against al Qaeda and the Taliban. The next U.S. administration can and should open direct dialogue with Tehran around the two countries' common concerns in Afghanistan. An opening to Iran would show that the United States need not depend solely on Pakistan for access to Afghanistan. And in fact, Washington and Tehran had such a dialogue until around 2004. In May 2005, when the United States and Afghanistan signed a "declaration of strategic partnership," Iran signaled that it would not object as long as the partnership was not directed against Iran. Iran would have to be reassured by the contact group that Afghan territory would not be used as a staging area for activities meant to undermine Iran and that all U.S. covert activities taking place from there would be stopped.
Russia's main concern -- that the United States and NATO are seeking a permanent U.S.-NATO military presence in Afghanistan and Central Asia -- will also need to be assuaged. Russia should be assured that U.S. and NATO forces can help defend, rather than threaten, legitimate Russian interests in Central Asia, including through cooperation with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. Russia and the Central Asian states should be informed of the results of legitimate interrogations of militants who came from the former Soviet space and were captured in Afghanistan or Pakistan.
To overcome the zero-sum competition taking place between states, ethnic groups, and factions, the region needs to discover a source of mutual benefit derived from cooperation. China -- with its development of mineral resources and access roads in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the financial support it gave to build the port of Gwadar, and its expansion of the Karakoram Highway, which links China to northern Pakistan -- may be that source. China is also a major supplier of arms and nuclear equipment to Pakistan. China has a major interest in peace and development in the region because it desires a north-south energy and trade corridor so that its goods can travel from Xinjiang to the Arabian Sea ports of Pakistan and so that oil and gas pipelines can carry energy from the Persian Gulf and Iran to western China. In return for such a corridor, China could help deliver much-needed electricity and even water to both countries. Such a corridor would also help revive the economies of both Afghanistan and Pakistan.
MORE THAN TROOPS
Both U.S. presidential candidates are committed to sending more troops to Afghanistan, but this would be insufficient to reverse the collapse of security there. A major diplomatic initiative involving all the regional stakeholders in problem-solving talks and setting out road maps for local stabilization efforts is more important. Such an initiative would serve to reaffirm that the West is indeed committed to the long-term rehabilitation of Afghanistan and the region. A contact group, meanwhile, would reassure Afghanistan's neighbors that the West is determined to address not just extremism in the region but also economic development, job creation, the drug trade, and border disputes.
Lowering the level of violence in the region and moving the global community toward genuine agreement on the long-term goals there would provide the space for Afghan leaders to create jobs and markets, provide better governance, do more to curb corruption and drug trafficking, and overcome their countries' widening ethnic divisions. Lowering regional tensions would allow the Afghan government to have a more meaningful dialogue with those insurgents who are willing to disavow al Qaeda and take part in the political process. The key to this would be the series of security measures the contact group should offer Pakistan, thereby encouraging the Pakistani army to press -- or at least allow -- Taliban and other insurgent leaders on their soil to talk to Kabul.
The goal of the next U.S. president must be to put aside the past, Washington's keenness for "victory" as the solution to all problems, and the United States' reluctance to involve competitors, opponents, or enemies in diplomacy. A successful initiative will require exploratory talks and an evolving road map. Today, such suggestions may seem audacious, naive, or impossible, but without such audacity there is little hope for Afghanistan, for Pakistan, or for the region as a whole.
Monday, November 17, 2008
Marking in haste By Shahid Anwar
http://www.dawn.com/weekly/education/archive/081019/education1.htmEven the best individuals perform poorly in bad structures. The boards of Intermediate and Secondary Education in the Punjab have unwittingly done the same thing. In a bid to save some money, probably, they have introduced a faulty remuneration structure for marking papers.The fallout is reckless hasty marking with little sense of justice and fair play. It’s also making a mockery of the evaluation system, depriving the young students of their due awards while killing the hopes and aspirations of their parents.Before analysing the pros and cons of the payment structure, it is appropriate to describe briefly the boards’ system of central marking and the previous remuneration structure.The appointed examiners consisting of sub-examiners and head-examiners are called to the specified centres to mark papers of the students appearing in the matriculation and intermediate exams. The marking continues until the job is done.
Usually a centre runs for about 40 to 60 working days. It is called the central marking system. And it has been adopted to speed up the evaluation to enable an early tabulation and timely announcement of results. In this regard, the system has worked remarkably well and students and parents are saved from the inordinate waiting for results.The examiners were paid the standard daily allowance plus payment for paper marking. Having been given an assured amount as daily allowance, the examiners generally remained content with the marking of a prescribed number of papers (usually 20 to 25) per day. The system worked well as there was little incentive for crossing the prescribed limit for a meagre amount paid per paper. There were a few who sought more papers but they did it only through stealth. The overall working environment at marking centres was reasonable.But the boards abandoned the above remuneration system a couple of years ago and introduced a new one. It abolished the daily allowance and offered a lump sum amount per paper without any limits on the maximum number of papers one can evaluate per day. It means that hasty and speedy marking will be rewarded more than careful marking. Mark more, earn more ... became the driving passion.It serves the board as well. Getting more papers marked in a shorter span saves time and money. The unscrupulous examiners take advantage of this situation. Money matters the most. The boards want cheap labour and the examiners cheap money. But the very purpose of examination becomes the first causality. No just and fair evaluation can be expected in a system that promotes covetousness and haste and a demoted dignity of work and sense of fairness.Not surprisingly, it has opened the floodgates of reckless and carefree marking. A principal in a district college commenting on this phenomenon said: “It’s extremely shameful how the teachers are playing with the future of students.” The real culprit, however, is the faulty structure adopted by the boards. It is bound to unleash unjust measures.
There are several appalling stories regarding hasty marking and the corrupt exam mafia. For instance, a lecturer was told that a sub-examiner in English earned a cheque of around Rs2,75,000 from the Faisalabad Board for a single spell of central marking. The supersonic speed allows no room for appropriate time and attention that every paper deserves.In another case of carefree marking, according to an assistant professor privy to the details of the incident, an Urdu sub-examiner mistakenly marked his colleague’s Pakistan Studies paper, and similarly an English lecturer marked a Physics paper.Just imagine … this wild marking determines the future of thousands of students who appear in eight boards of the Punjab in an increasingly high-stake competition for admission to the professional colleges. The parents and students put in a lot of energy, time and also money on private tuition academies. What if they become victims of reckless evaluation at the end of the day?“There is plenty of discontent with more and more students applying for a recheck of their papers and in 50 per cent of the cases, the changes occur in marks,” shares a board official on conditions of anonymity. He also said that “Negligence is rampant. Many of the answers, at times, are found unmarked or unaccounted in the total.” Saying so, he cited a case of rechecking a paper in which the difference that came up was of 60 marks. The student actually got 76 but the examiner had wrongly written 16.What and where are the counterchecks? What if he had not applied for a recheck? Obviously, not all the students go for rechecking, many simply cannot afford the Rs670 fee per paper. It is also relevant to point out here that rechecking does not involve re-evaluation. There is no antidote for an examiner’s careless or injudicious marking.
The examples mentioned above are not rare occurrences. They are the tip of an iceberg. Any person with access to the boards’ official records can stumble on such astonishing facts through a simple scan.One needs to look for the following questions: ‘Who evaluated how many papers in a single day?’ and ‘Who got a cheque for what and of what amount?’Such an inquiry is highly desirable in order to find the nexus between money-minting teachers — always seeking exam duties and the board officials — never failing to oblige the same folk. Those familiar with the exam duty mafia are already well aware of such things.The plain but painful reality is that a combination of all pervasive silence, criminal neglect and self-serving greed is playing havoc with the future of our youth.So many students decide to change their subjects and go for another career depending on their examination results. For some sensitive souls, passing an exam is a matter of life and death. We often hear or read about some depressed young fellow committing suicide after failing to pass an exam. What if they never got a fair evaluation?The deterioration in quality of evaluation must be arrested here and now. The following suggestions may prove helpful:• High officials in education boards need to keep in mind that their topmost priority must be a fair, just and foolproof evaluation system.• It is very important to redesign the remuneration structure. Daily allowance should be restored and reasonably revised.• A lower and upper limit of papers that one examiner is supposed to evaluate in a day must be sensibly determined and observed strictly. Allowing anyone to mark as many papers as he wants to is damaging and should be recognised as such.• The mafia consisting of chronic exam duty hunters and their collaborators in the boards must be identified and busted.
• A fact-finding inquiry as mentioned earlier should be conducted to find those who marked hundreds of papers per day without any regard for their moral and professional duty.• The provincial government should step in to dismantle the structure of hasty marking that is denying our young students their fundamental right to be judged fairly. n
Usually a centre runs for about 40 to 60 working days. It is called the central marking system. And it has been adopted to speed up the evaluation to enable an early tabulation and timely announcement of results. In this regard, the system has worked remarkably well and students and parents are saved from the inordinate waiting for results.The examiners were paid the standard daily allowance plus payment for paper marking. Having been given an assured amount as daily allowance, the examiners generally remained content with the marking of a prescribed number of papers (usually 20 to 25) per day. The system worked well as there was little incentive for crossing the prescribed limit for a meagre amount paid per paper. There were a few who sought more papers but they did it only through stealth. The overall working environment at marking centres was reasonable.But the boards abandoned the above remuneration system a couple of years ago and introduced a new one. It abolished the daily allowance and offered a lump sum amount per paper without any limits on the maximum number of papers one can evaluate per day. It means that hasty and speedy marking will be rewarded more than careful marking. Mark more, earn more ... became the driving passion.It serves the board as well. Getting more papers marked in a shorter span saves time and money. The unscrupulous examiners take advantage of this situation. Money matters the most. The boards want cheap labour and the examiners cheap money. But the very purpose of examination becomes the first causality. No just and fair evaluation can be expected in a system that promotes covetousness and haste and a demoted dignity of work and sense of fairness.Not surprisingly, it has opened the floodgates of reckless and carefree marking. A principal in a district college commenting on this phenomenon said: “It’s extremely shameful how the teachers are playing with the future of students.” The real culprit, however, is the faulty structure adopted by the boards. It is bound to unleash unjust measures.
There are several appalling stories regarding hasty marking and the corrupt exam mafia. For instance, a lecturer was told that a sub-examiner in English earned a cheque of around Rs2,75,000 from the Faisalabad Board for a single spell of central marking. The supersonic speed allows no room for appropriate time and attention that every paper deserves.In another case of carefree marking, according to an assistant professor privy to the details of the incident, an Urdu sub-examiner mistakenly marked his colleague’s Pakistan Studies paper, and similarly an English lecturer marked a Physics paper.Just imagine … this wild marking determines the future of thousands of students who appear in eight boards of the Punjab in an increasingly high-stake competition for admission to the professional colleges. The parents and students put in a lot of energy, time and also money on private tuition academies. What if they become victims of reckless evaluation at the end of the day?“There is plenty of discontent with more and more students applying for a recheck of their papers and in 50 per cent of the cases, the changes occur in marks,” shares a board official on conditions of anonymity. He also said that “Negligence is rampant. Many of the answers, at times, are found unmarked or unaccounted in the total.” Saying so, he cited a case of rechecking a paper in which the difference that came up was of 60 marks. The student actually got 76 but the examiner had wrongly written 16.What and where are the counterchecks? What if he had not applied for a recheck? Obviously, not all the students go for rechecking, many simply cannot afford the Rs670 fee per paper. It is also relevant to point out here that rechecking does not involve re-evaluation. There is no antidote for an examiner’s careless or injudicious marking.
The examples mentioned above are not rare occurrences. They are the tip of an iceberg. Any person with access to the boards’ official records can stumble on such astonishing facts through a simple scan.One needs to look for the following questions: ‘Who evaluated how many papers in a single day?’ and ‘Who got a cheque for what and of what amount?’Such an inquiry is highly desirable in order to find the nexus between money-minting teachers — always seeking exam duties and the board officials — never failing to oblige the same folk. Those familiar with the exam duty mafia are already well aware of such things.The plain but painful reality is that a combination of all pervasive silence, criminal neglect and self-serving greed is playing havoc with the future of our youth.So many students decide to change their subjects and go for another career depending on their examination results. For some sensitive souls, passing an exam is a matter of life and death. We often hear or read about some depressed young fellow committing suicide after failing to pass an exam. What if they never got a fair evaluation?The deterioration in quality of evaluation must be arrested here and now. The following suggestions may prove helpful:• High officials in education boards need to keep in mind that their topmost priority must be a fair, just and foolproof evaluation system.• It is very important to redesign the remuneration structure. Daily allowance should be restored and reasonably revised.• A lower and upper limit of papers that one examiner is supposed to evaluate in a day must be sensibly determined and observed strictly. Allowing anyone to mark as many papers as he wants to is damaging and should be recognised as such.• The mafia consisting of chronic exam duty hunters and their collaborators in the boards must be identified and busted.
• A fact-finding inquiry as mentioned earlier should be conducted to find those who marked hundreds of papers per day without any regard for their moral and professional duty.• The provincial government should step in to dismantle the structure of hasty marking that is denying our young students their fundamental right to be judged fairly. n
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Muhammad Asad: the road beyond Mecca (Formerly Leopold Weiss)
by Khaled Ahmed
Muhammad Asad (1900-1992) is known in Pakistan for writing his inspirational autobiography The Road to Mecca in 1954 that told he story about how a Jew converted to Islam and found peace in it. In the fifties, Islam had not yet turned hard and Asad’s story did not raise any hackles. But by the time he completed his English translation of the Quran, the yardsticks had changed and it was difficult to find any defenders of his interpretive method. Because he had been a friend of King Saud, the Saudi government continued to help him. When no one bought his Quran (because it did not meet the current scholarly ‘consensus’) the Saudi Oil Minister Sheikh Zaki Yamani bought 20,000 copies of it. Asad’s Quran had been sponsored by Muslim World League headed by Sheikh Muhammad Sarur, member of a leading family of Kuwait, but when the League distributed its copies to its scholar members, a furore of disagreement arose about its deviation from the ‘consensus’.A meeting in Lisbon: I met Muhammad Asad in 1987 through the courtesy of our ambassador to Portugal, Birjis Hasan Khan, in Lisbon, where Asad was living with his Bostonian wife, Pola Hamida. I asked him about General Zia’s enforcement of the shariah in Pakistan. He was clearly in disagreement over the orthodox ‘extrapolation’ from the Quran of half a witness for the woman in the law of evidence promulgated by Zia. He was appalled by the Zina Ordinance and thought that no Muslim in his right mind could equate rape with fornication, as done by the Muslim jurists. He clearly did not accept the taqleedi jurisprudence of Islam and insisted that the Quran should be understood as it was before it was overtaken by the laws and tenets of later ages. He was a purist who disliked the political accretions of later times and did not take easily to hadith. His was an austere vision, much like the Saudi version of Islam.He told me that when he converted to Islam he simply translated his name Leopold into Arabic. Leo became Asad, but what inspired him with awe was what happened after he was guided by his mentors to go and learn the Quran in Lahore after the Second World War. (He had been interned during the war in Dalhousie). He joined the Ahle Hadith seminary at Sheranwala Gate. He was struck by the fact that the locality was named after ‘lions’ that decorated the Gate under which the seminary was located. I asked him about Saint-John Philby (famous spy Kim Philby’s father), the other friend of Ibn Saud, who in many ways was a precursor of Asad himself: an expert in Arabic and a relentless explorer of the Arabian desert. His _expression of dislike was immediate. Philby’s knowledge of Arabic was such that he often contested the meaning of some words with the Arabs. Asad’s own grasp was tremendous, which enabled him to challenge some of the meanings accepted by Imam Bukhari in his collection of hadith. But Asad did not think that Philby was a believer, nor did he trust the loyalty he showed to Ibn Saud. Asad’s travels took him to all parts of the Islamic world before he settled down to his job in new-born Pakistan.At a Lahore seminary: At the Sheranwala Gate mosque, he learned the Quran from Maulana Ahmad Ali (d.1962), the greatest Ahle Hadith scholar of the city, with strong ties to the anti-British luminaries of Deoband, including Maulana Ubaidullah Sindhi who, like Ahmad Ali’s father, had converted from Sikhism. Muhammad Asad also mentioned with extreme reverence the name of Maulana Abdul Qadir Kasuri (d.1942) whom he met frequently while he was in Lahore. Abdullah Malik, in his book on the family of Maulana Abdul Qadir Kasuri, explains the spiritual connection the Kasuris had with the Ahle Hadith, the ‘non-imitative’ school of thought closest to the Wahhabi version of Saudi Arabia. He also reports on the offer Ibn Saud had made to Maulana Abdul Qadir of a ministership or advisoryship in Hejaz, which the maulana had declined. The Kasuris became well-known lawyers in undivided India, based on the remarkable success of Maulana Abdul Qadir in the legal profession. His son, Mian Mahmood Ali Kasuri became an internationally known defender of human rights and was a member of the PPP government in 1971 before falling out with prime minister Bhutto. His son, Mian Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri, a lawyer, was an MNA of the Muslim League before the parliament was dissolved in 1999.Allama Javed Ahmad Ghamidi’s journal Renaissance in its May 2002 issue has reproduced an article on Muhammad Asad from The Impact International which tells the story of this extraordinary man who served Islam in general and served Pakistan in particular in its early days. Leopold Weiss was born in a Polish town called Lwow (lion, again?) from where he escaped when 14 and joined Austrian army under a false name. He was recovered by his father and brought to Vienna where he finally went to the university to study art and philosophy. But his dabbling mind was attracted to journalism, which he wanted to pursue in Prague. He was trained in the Jewish lore and knew his Mishna and Talmud in the footsteps of his grandfather who had been a rabbi in Chernovic. A natural polyglot, Leopold could read and speak Hebrew and was acquainted with Aramaic too. Shifting to Berlin, Leopold entered the cinema for a time before landing a job as a journalist with a news agency. It was in Berlin in 1922 that he was invited by his maternal uncle to visit him in Jerusalem where he was in charge of a mental asylum.An eccentric beginning: While in Jerusalem he was able to land the job of a reporter for the German newspaper Frankfurter Zeitung. He travelled frequently to Cairo, Amman, Damascus, Istanbul and Lebanon, seeing how the Arab world lived. When he returned in 1924, his paper employed him on a regular basis and got him to write a book on his experiences in the Middle East. The book did not sell because it was not sufficiently romanticised and because it was anti-Zionist. Leopold simply did not accept that the ‘Jewish homeland’ was justified after driving the majority population of the Arabs from Palestine. The newspaper sent him back to the Middle East. On the way he stopped in Cairo to learn Arabic, in the process getting to know Sheikh Mustafa Maraghi, a renowned scholar of Islam who later arose to become the rector of Al-Azhar University. He embarked on his wanderings soon after that, going to Iraq and Iran, and finally to Afghanistan, where a Pushtun told him that he was already a Muslim because of his knowledge of Islam. After two years of wandering and writing for Frankfurter Zeitung, he returned to Berlin via Central Asia and Moscow.By this time he was feeling attracted to Islam because of its lack of dichotomy between the physical and spiritual worlds. He married Elsa in 1926 and embraced Islam together with her in the tutelage of an Indian Muslim in Berlin, renaming himself Muhammad Asad. He was contracted by a number of German Dutch papers before he left again for the Middle East. This time he stationed himself in Saudi Arabia, meeting King Abdul Aziz Ibn Saud in 1927. At the age of 32, after Elsa died, he took an Arab wife and immersed himself in a library of early Islamic sources while also taking time out to ride through the length and breadth of the great Saudi desert, somewhat like Saint-John Philby. He travelled eastwards to Indonesia and India where he soon met Allama Iqbal who persuaded him in 1932 to ‘elucidate the intellectual premise of the future Islamic state’. While in India, he was trapped by the outbreak of the Second World War. The Raj government interned him in Dalhousie for the duration of the war. After 1947, Asad started working as head of the Department of Islamic Reconstruction in Lahore under the Punjab government, translating the hadith collection of Imam Bukhari and publishing his journal, Arafat.In the service of Pakistan: Irshad Haqqani wrote in Jang (6 April 2005) that Allama Muhammad Asad was a great Islamic scholar who was made director of Department of Islamic Reconstruction (1947-49) in Karachi to formulate laws about the new Pakistani society. But the archives of this department were no longer available. General Zia invited the great scholar in 1983 to show him the Islamic way together with Maulana Zafar Ansari and Dr Hamidullah, but when Asad disagreed with his idea of the shura he was displeased with him, which forced Asad to cut short his visit to Pakistan. However, back in 1952, he was chosen to represent Pakistan at the United Nations as minister plenipotentiary, but while in New York he soon developed differences with the Foreign Office back in Pakistan. When he applied to marry an American convert to Islam, Pola Hamida, permission was refused, compelling him to resign. Somehow he put Pakistan behind him forever, never writing the sequel to his famous The Road to Mecca which told the story of his life up to his stay in Saudi Arabia. His translation of the Quran was typically based on early sources and not on the tafseer literature which had proliferated in the medieval centuries. Although he had fled Western rationalism to become a Muslim, he could not avoid applying rationality to the understanding of the Scripture. He was influenced by the Egyptian Muslim reformers, Muhammad Abduh and Rashid Rida, whose rational presentation of Islam was later dubbed apologetics by the rising tide of taqleedi thinking. He wrote: ‘ The Quran cannot be understood if we read it merely in the light of later ideological developments, losing sight of its original purport and meaning’. Asad remained ever a restless soul, travelling and staying in different parts of the world, in all spending about 19 years in Morocco alone, before finally settling in Spain, where he died on 20 February 1992, and was buried in Granada, Andalusia. His book Islam at the crossroads (1934) advising Muslims to stay away from blind Westernisation was translated into many languages, and his This Law and other Essays (1987) explained his approach to the shariah and bemoaned the tendency of the Muslims to accept local accretions to the purity of Islamic law. If the early 20th century reformers thought that Islam would move towards rationality and modernity, they were proved wrong towards the end of the century. Intellectual activity, which could have shown the way forward, has been suppressed by a rising tide of violence. As he sat before me in Lisbon, he clearly understood that he had been rendered irrelevant by the march of events. Today, the extremism embraced by the ulema threatens to destabilise the Islamic state, and the moderate view of scholars like Allama Javed Ahmad Ghamidi is easily set aside by the more powerful but less learned religious leaders of Pakistan.
Muhammad Asad (1900-1992) is known in Pakistan for writing his inspirational autobiography The Road to Mecca in 1954 that told he story about how a Jew converted to Islam and found peace in it. In the fifties, Islam had not yet turned hard and Asad’s story did not raise any hackles. But by the time he completed his English translation of the Quran, the yardsticks had changed and it was difficult to find any defenders of his interpretive method. Because he had been a friend of King Saud, the Saudi government continued to help him. When no one bought his Quran (because it did not meet the current scholarly ‘consensus’) the Saudi Oil Minister Sheikh Zaki Yamani bought 20,000 copies of it. Asad’s Quran had been sponsored by Muslim World League headed by Sheikh Muhammad Sarur, member of a leading family of Kuwait, but when the League distributed its copies to its scholar members, a furore of disagreement arose about its deviation from the ‘consensus’.A meeting in Lisbon: I met Muhammad Asad in 1987 through the courtesy of our ambassador to Portugal, Birjis Hasan Khan, in Lisbon, where Asad was living with his Bostonian wife, Pola Hamida. I asked him about General Zia’s enforcement of the shariah in Pakistan. He was clearly in disagreement over the orthodox ‘extrapolation’ from the Quran of half a witness for the woman in the law of evidence promulgated by Zia. He was appalled by the Zina Ordinance and thought that no Muslim in his right mind could equate rape with fornication, as done by the Muslim jurists. He clearly did not accept the taqleedi jurisprudence of Islam and insisted that the Quran should be understood as it was before it was overtaken by the laws and tenets of later ages. He was a purist who disliked the political accretions of later times and did not take easily to hadith. His was an austere vision, much like the Saudi version of Islam.He told me that when he converted to Islam he simply translated his name Leopold into Arabic. Leo became Asad, but what inspired him with awe was what happened after he was guided by his mentors to go and learn the Quran in Lahore after the Second World War. (He had been interned during the war in Dalhousie). He joined the Ahle Hadith seminary at Sheranwala Gate. He was struck by the fact that the locality was named after ‘lions’ that decorated the Gate under which the seminary was located. I asked him about Saint-John Philby (famous spy Kim Philby’s father), the other friend of Ibn Saud, who in many ways was a precursor of Asad himself: an expert in Arabic and a relentless explorer of the Arabian desert. His _expression of dislike was immediate. Philby’s knowledge of Arabic was such that he often contested the meaning of some words with the Arabs. Asad’s own grasp was tremendous, which enabled him to challenge some of the meanings accepted by Imam Bukhari in his collection of hadith. But Asad did not think that Philby was a believer, nor did he trust the loyalty he showed to Ibn Saud. Asad’s travels took him to all parts of the Islamic world before he settled down to his job in new-born Pakistan.At a Lahore seminary: At the Sheranwala Gate mosque, he learned the Quran from Maulana Ahmad Ali (d.1962), the greatest Ahle Hadith scholar of the city, with strong ties to the anti-British luminaries of Deoband, including Maulana Ubaidullah Sindhi who, like Ahmad Ali’s father, had converted from Sikhism. Muhammad Asad also mentioned with extreme reverence the name of Maulana Abdul Qadir Kasuri (d.1942) whom he met frequently while he was in Lahore. Abdullah Malik, in his book on the family of Maulana Abdul Qadir Kasuri, explains the spiritual connection the Kasuris had with the Ahle Hadith, the ‘non-imitative’ school of thought closest to the Wahhabi version of Saudi Arabia. He also reports on the offer Ibn Saud had made to Maulana Abdul Qadir of a ministership or advisoryship in Hejaz, which the maulana had declined. The Kasuris became well-known lawyers in undivided India, based on the remarkable success of Maulana Abdul Qadir in the legal profession. His son, Mian Mahmood Ali Kasuri became an internationally known defender of human rights and was a member of the PPP government in 1971 before falling out with prime minister Bhutto. His son, Mian Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri, a lawyer, was an MNA of the Muslim League before the parliament was dissolved in 1999.Allama Javed Ahmad Ghamidi’s journal Renaissance in its May 2002 issue has reproduced an article on Muhammad Asad from The Impact International which tells the story of this extraordinary man who served Islam in general and served Pakistan in particular in its early days. Leopold Weiss was born in a Polish town called Lwow (lion, again?) from where he escaped when 14 and joined Austrian army under a false name. He was recovered by his father and brought to Vienna where he finally went to the university to study art and philosophy. But his dabbling mind was attracted to journalism, which he wanted to pursue in Prague. He was trained in the Jewish lore and knew his Mishna and Talmud in the footsteps of his grandfather who had been a rabbi in Chernovic. A natural polyglot, Leopold could read and speak Hebrew and was acquainted with Aramaic too. Shifting to Berlin, Leopold entered the cinema for a time before landing a job as a journalist with a news agency. It was in Berlin in 1922 that he was invited by his maternal uncle to visit him in Jerusalem where he was in charge of a mental asylum.An eccentric beginning: While in Jerusalem he was able to land the job of a reporter for the German newspaper Frankfurter Zeitung. He travelled frequently to Cairo, Amman, Damascus, Istanbul and Lebanon, seeing how the Arab world lived. When he returned in 1924, his paper employed him on a regular basis and got him to write a book on his experiences in the Middle East. The book did not sell because it was not sufficiently romanticised and because it was anti-Zionist. Leopold simply did not accept that the ‘Jewish homeland’ was justified after driving the majority population of the Arabs from Palestine. The newspaper sent him back to the Middle East. On the way he stopped in Cairo to learn Arabic, in the process getting to know Sheikh Mustafa Maraghi, a renowned scholar of Islam who later arose to become the rector of Al-Azhar University. He embarked on his wanderings soon after that, going to Iraq and Iran, and finally to Afghanistan, where a Pushtun told him that he was already a Muslim because of his knowledge of Islam. After two years of wandering and writing for Frankfurter Zeitung, he returned to Berlin via Central Asia and Moscow.By this time he was feeling attracted to Islam because of its lack of dichotomy between the physical and spiritual worlds. He married Elsa in 1926 and embraced Islam together with her in the tutelage of an Indian Muslim in Berlin, renaming himself Muhammad Asad. He was contracted by a number of German Dutch papers before he left again for the Middle East. This time he stationed himself in Saudi Arabia, meeting King Abdul Aziz Ibn Saud in 1927. At the age of 32, after Elsa died, he took an Arab wife and immersed himself in a library of early Islamic sources while also taking time out to ride through the length and breadth of the great Saudi desert, somewhat like Saint-John Philby. He travelled eastwards to Indonesia and India where he soon met Allama Iqbal who persuaded him in 1932 to ‘elucidate the intellectual premise of the future Islamic state’. While in India, he was trapped by the outbreak of the Second World War. The Raj government interned him in Dalhousie for the duration of the war. After 1947, Asad started working as head of the Department of Islamic Reconstruction in Lahore under the Punjab government, translating the hadith collection of Imam Bukhari and publishing his journal, Arafat.In the service of Pakistan: Irshad Haqqani wrote in Jang (6 April 2005) that Allama Muhammad Asad was a great Islamic scholar who was made director of Department of Islamic Reconstruction (1947-49) in Karachi to formulate laws about the new Pakistani society. But the archives of this department were no longer available. General Zia invited the great scholar in 1983 to show him the Islamic way together with Maulana Zafar Ansari and Dr Hamidullah, but when Asad disagreed with his idea of the shura he was displeased with him, which forced Asad to cut short his visit to Pakistan. However, back in 1952, he was chosen to represent Pakistan at the United Nations as minister plenipotentiary, but while in New York he soon developed differences with the Foreign Office back in Pakistan. When he applied to marry an American convert to Islam, Pola Hamida, permission was refused, compelling him to resign. Somehow he put Pakistan behind him forever, never writing the sequel to his famous The Road to Mecca which told the story of his life up to his stay in Saudi Arabia. His translation of the Quran was typically based on early sources and not on the tafseer literature which had proliferated in the medieval centuries. Although he had fled Western rationalism to become a Muslim, he could not avoid applying rationality to the understanding of the Scripture. He was influenced by the Egyptian Muslim reformers, Muhammad Abduh and Rashid Rida, whose rational presentation of Islam was later dubbed apologetics by the rising tide of taqleedi thinking. He wrote: ‘ The Quran cannot be understood if we read it merely in the light of later ideological developments, losing sight of its original purport and meaning’. Asad remained ever a restless soul, travelling and staying in different parts of the world, in all spending about 19 years in Morocco alone, before finally settling in Spain, where he died on 20 February 1992, and was buried in Granada, Andalusia. His book Islam at the crossroads (1934) advising Muslims to stay away from blind Westernisation was translated into many languages, and his This Law and other Essays (1987) explained his approach to the shariah and bemoaned the tendency of the Muslims to accept local accretions to the purity of Islamic law. If the early 20th century reformers thought that Islam would move towards rationality and modernity, they were proved wrong towards the end of the century. Intellectual activity, which could have shown the way forward, has been suppressed by a rising tide of violence. As he sat before me in Lisbon, he clearly understood that he had been rendered irrelevant by the march of events. Today, the extremism embraced by the ulema threatens to destabilise the Islamic state, and the moderate view of scholars like Allama Javed Ahmad Ghamidi is easily set aside by the more powerful but less learned religious leaders of Pakistan.
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Night of The General
By Aysha
Javed Akram
- Once among the country's most influential individuals, General Rani is now just a faded page in the country's history books.
The woman was a phenomenon. Easily the most influential figure during Pakistan's second military regime, with the slightest gesture of her bejewelled hand she could guarantee employment, ensure promotions and bring about unwelcome transfers. Yet, interestingly, few even know her real name: Akleem Akhtar. General Rani she was, and remains to all but an intimate few.
There are enough reasons for the lady's ascension to local legend status. In her glory days she seemed omnipotent and was brazen about her exploits. And now, even while suffering from breast cancer that has led to metastasis in the liver and kidney, bedridden and in semi-seclusion, she remains spirited and outspoken.
Yet, doing a story on her was probably the most difficult assignment I have undertaken. For one thing, everyone I was certain was acquainted with her, was reluctant to even own up to the fact that they knew her. So, for starters, I made a call to her daughter, Aroosa Alam, the defence journalist for the Pakistan Observer and the news coordinator for the Middle East Broadcasting Company, and pop star Fakhre Alam's mother.
Aroosa nipped all efforts at contact with her mother in the bud, claiming that not only was General Rani far too unwell to entertain visitors, but also, her brothers were completely against their mother appearing in the press. "My mother has been hurt sufficiently by the media already; we don't want her private life exploited any further," stated a stern Aroosa.
A call to Naureen and Arshad Sami, Adnan Sami Khan's parents, proved equally unsuccessful. Although General Rani is Naureen's maternal aunt, she politely but firmly denied even knowing the lady. There was a similar response from Zil-e-Huma, whose mother Madame Nur Jehan's friendship with General Rani was legion. Huma completely denied any knowledge of the woman.
A journalist working for the Jang group, Maqsood Butt nearly had an apoplexy when I mentioned the story I was working on. While in the past Maqsood Butt had written extensively on this topic and is said to have close ties with the family, he has for several years, refrained from even bringing up her name in an article.
"I promised her that I would never talk about her or her family again," he stated nervously and refused to help me in any way.
Clearly, the woman I was seeking out was no ordinary woman. As I kept running into a blind alley and became increasingly despondent, General Rani's lawyers, S. M. Zafar and Ijaz Batalvi, Mustafa Khar, and a few journalists and government officials who wish to remain anonymous, appeared like beacons and lit my way.
A sneak visit was arranged to General Rani's house and thereupon begins this story.
The house General Rani resides in is rather small, with little more than a handkerchief-sized lawn in front, and the main door opening into a virtually non-existent hall that leads straight to her room. There was an air of neglect about the house; the garden was unkempt and the floor unswept. General Rani was lying in bed. My first impression was one of shock. Having visualised an elegant, elderly woman, I was instead confronted by a dark, overweight woman. Her hair had obviously suffered due to heavy doses of chemotherapy, and the loss of hair accentuated the pock-marks on her face. But though visibly ill, she was in good spirits and happy to entertain visitors - a commodity I suspect, is a rare treat nowadays.
General Rani hails from a village in Gujarat. Her father was a zamindar and the family was reportedly well-to-do. Those who knew her family describe their house as one of the bigger mansions in the area, with a number of servants running around to the residents' bidding.
From the outset, Akleem was an independent spirit. She was a tomboy, fond of outdoor sports and hunting. And though she did not even complete her matric, her sharp intelligence more than compensated for her lack of education.
At a tender age she was married to a police officer many times her senior. Though the marriage lasted for some time and she bore six children, General Rani was never happy. Her husband was a traditionalist and believed that a wife's primary duty was to serve her husband. A woman as strong and independent as she found this hard to digest, and squabbles were common between the two. The sham their marriage was eventually reduced to, collapsed one day - right on Murree's Mall Road.
One summer, when the family was vacationing in Murree, a burqa-clad Rani and her husband went for a stroll on the Mall. As was customary for him, he walked a step or two behind her so as to keep an eye on her. Suddenly there was a gust of wind - "a lovely breeze" says she, and quite spontaneously Rani lifted the naqab covering her face to allow the breeze to caress her cheeks.
Her husband immediately tapped her with his walking stick to reprimand her. Enraged and insulted, she threw caution to the wind and flung her naqab to the ground, and her abaya into a cracking fire. She then turned to face her husband with a defiant gleam in her eyes.
She explains her reaction in these words: "I just felt I had had enough. The anger and frustration had been building up inside me for many months, but that day, it just all came oozing out. I wanted to tear my husband's muffler into bits, scratch his face, pull his hair out, and do all sorts of damage to him. The only thing that stopped me were the people on the Mall."
Though this incident marked the end of her marriage, the official divorce process (if there was one) took place later. Most sources agree that Rani was only married once, but one of her closest friend states that there was a second marriage, much later in her life and of an extremely short duration. Whatever the truth of that marriage, the dramatic end of her first proved a turning point in her life and transformed Rani irrevocably. She began to thrive on her independence and her life philosophy evolved into a specific ambition. As she puts it, "I was determined to beat men at their own game. Since my husband was in the police, I had been observing men in positions of power throughout my married life and I had realised that all men in positions of power needed a vent and the vent they require the most is a bedmate provided through a reliable agency. The higher a man's position, the greater his demand."
In one interview, Rani stated: "I knew that dumb, pretty girls who come with no strings attached are a universal failing of men in power. After my marriage collapsed and I had to find the means to support myself and my children, I decided to become the provider of such girls to men in need."
In yet another conversation, she talked about the understanding she gained of the workings of the government by listening to her husband's complaints. "I realised that in this country everything worked on mutual favours and the profession that I had chosen for myself entitled me to these favours."
This outspokenness notwithstanding, Rani maintains she personally never allowed herself to be used or even thought of as any man's keep. She contends she maintained her dignity and saw herself as a sexless mother figure. She says she was always the woman behind the scenes, there to run the show and mop up the mess.
The gods were obviously smiling on her, because soon after she adopted this profession, the man who was soon to run the show took a shine to her. She describes her first meeting with Yahya Khan. "At that time Agha Jani was posted at Kharian and I was living in Gujarat. We met by chance at a party in Pindi club. Though I would often frequent such parties, I never joined in the drinking and dancing. Rather, I preferred sitting some distance away from the party and usually found a seat near the men's room, well aware of the fact that the more they drank the more visits they would have to make to the toilet and hence past me.
"Agha Jani was in full swing at this party. He was completely drunk, and was continually traipsing back and forth from the men's room. During one of these visits, he saw me and took a fancy to me. I remember asking about him and after we were formally introduced, I invited him to Gujarat."
Thereafter Yahya Khan began making frequent journeys from Kharian to Gujarat. Somewhere along the way she earned the title of General Rani and the name stuck. While speculation about the exact nature of her relationship with Yahya Khan rages - they were said to be friends, lovers, shared a sibling relationship or one of demand and supply at various times through the course of their relationship - the general consensus among Rani's more intimate circle is that they never had a physical relationship. Various explanations are put forth to explain this. "Yahya never desired her," says a friend. "She was a woman of principles and from day one, she made it clear to him what her limits were," states another.
Nonetheless, after he became the martial law adminstrator, Rani became a cornerstone in his life. Yahya's weaknesses were drink and women and Rani masterfully catered to both. Among the women she introduced him to were film actress Taranna - film actress Andleeb's mother - Madame Nur Jehan and Nael Kamal. She relates how Yahya's fascination with Nur Jehan began.
"One night Agha Jani came to visit me and was somewhat agitated. The moment he entered, he inquired if I had heard the song "cheeche da chala" from the film Dhee Rani. I smiled and stated that I had no time to listen to songs. So, he called the military secretary and ordered him to have a copy of the song delivered to my house at once. It was two o' clock in the morning and the MS had to specially have an audio shop opened up in order to obtain the album. But the command was obeyed and within an hour, Agha Jani was blissfully listening to the song.
"Observing him I smiled and stated that since he seemed to enjoy the song so immensely, I would bring the singer to his house on his birthday. This greatly pleased him and so the very next day, I took a flight to Lahore. In those days, a suite at the Intercontinental Hotel was permanently reserved for me and so from the airport, I went directly to the hotel. From there I called Nur Jehan and asked her to come and meet me. Till now, I had never been formally introduced to her; I just knew of her, as she knew of me. Well, Nur Jehan came, and we talked, and the next week she arrived in Islamabad to dance and sing for General Yahya Khan."
Madame Nur Jehan's relationship with General Yahya Khan subsequently came under great scrutiny. At first, Madame persistently denied that she was on friendly terms with the general, but when objectionable pictures of both of them were printed, she resorted to another defence and officially stated that General Rani, had time and, again tried to get her involved with the general. In response to this, Rani laughed and commented that Madame was hardly a suckling infant who could be coerced into doing what others wanted her to do. The Rani-Nur Jehan tussle was played up by the press, until eventually, some time before the latter's death, the two made up. Following is an extract from an interview General Rani gave after Madame's death.
Q: Why did you introduce Madame Nur Jehan to General Yahya Khan?
A: Some tax inspectors were bugging Madame Nur Jehan and the poor woman was in great distress. She asked me to help her out and I introduced her to Agha Jani.
Q: How would you define your relationship with Nur Jehan?
A: She was just like my sister and I often called her baji.
Q: How would you describe her character?
A: She was an exceptionally brave and confident woman, who brought up her children singlehandedly. The only flaw she had was her greed for money.
Q: It is said that Madame tried to drive a wedge between you and Yahya Khan?
A: I don't want to say anything on this issue. If Rani catered to Agha Jani's every whim, there is no question that she was royally compensated. During Yahya Khan's time, General Rani prospered way beyond her wildest expectations. There are endless reports of how she would use her 'special relationship' with Yahya to fill her coffers. She would ask for a plot of land or a house in return for a favour and those desperate for a job or promotion would readily fulfill her demands. During this time, politicians were also eager to win her approval and among the many who curried her favour were Mustafa Khar and Z. A. Bhutto.
General Rani describes her relationship with these two men: "Both Mustafa Khar and Z. A. Bhutto would come and sit at my house for hours on end, begging me to introduce them to the General. Mustafa Khar was particularly fond of listening to the poems I used to write. In fact if you compare Yahya Khan to these two, I would say that I was closer to Bhutto and Khar and arranged more parties for them than I did for Agha Jani."
It was a closeness that was not to endure. As soon as Bhutto came to power, General Rani was put under house arrest and her telephone connection was cancelled. Her crime in the words of an eminent lawyer was that, "she knew too much."
Thus began General Rani's downfall. Once the issue of house arrest was resolved (courtesy S. M. Zafar) and her subsequent jail terms ended (the most recent for drug-trafficking), General Rani never really reverted to her former glory. By now the money that had so freely flowed into her hands had also freely flowed out.
Financially wrecked, socially ostracised, dependent only on the kindness of a few whose affections for her have endured, General Rani lives largely in the past - in the memory of days of wine and roses.
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Information on Ghana by Rhoda from Ghana
Ghana: History & Culture
By: Rhoda from Accra (Capital of Ghana)
History: Medieval Ghana (4th - 13th Century): The Republic of Ghana is named after the medieval Ghana Empire of West Africa. The actual name of the Empire was Wagadugu. Ghana was the title of the kings who ruled the kingdom. It was controlled by Sundiata in 1240 AD, and absorbed into the larger Mali Empire. (Mali Empire reached its peak of success under Mansa Musa around 1307.) Geographically, the old Ghana is 500 miles north of the present Ghana, and occupied the area between Rivers Senegal and Niger. Some inhabitants of present Ghana had ancestors linked with the medieval Ghana. This can be traced down to the Mande and Voltaic people of Northern Ghana--Mamprussi, Dagomba and the Gonja. Anecdotal evidence connected the Akans to this great Empire. The evidence lies in names like Danso shared by the Akans of present Ghana and Mandikas of Senegal/Gambia who have strong links with the Empire. There is also the matrilineal connection Before March 1957 Ghana was called the Gold Coast. The Portuguese who came to Ghana in the 15th Century found so much gold between the rivers Ankobra and the Volta that they named the place Mina - meaning Mine. The Gold Coast was later adopted to by the English colonisers. Similarly, the French, equally impressed by the trinkets worn by the coastal people, named The Ivory Coast, Cote d'Ivoire. In 1482, the Portuguese built a castle in Elmina. Their aim was to trade in gold, ivory and slaves. In 1481 King John II of Portugal sent Diego d'Azambuja to build this castle. In 1598 the Dutch joined them, and built forts at Komenda and Kormantsil. In 1637 they captured the castle from the Portuguese and that of Axim in 1642 (Fort St Anthony). Other European traders joined in by the mid 18th century. These were the English, Danes and Swedes. The coastline were dotted by forts built by the Dutch, British and the Dane merchants. By the latter part of 19th century the Dutch and the British were the only traders left. And when the Dutch withdrew in 1874, Britain made the Gold Coast a crown colony. The first Britons arrived in the early 19th century as traders in Ghana. But with their close relationship with the coastal people especially the Fantes, the Ashantis became their enemies. Ghana is located on West Africa's Gulf of Guinea only a few degrees north of the Equator. Half of the country lies less than 152 meters (500 ft.) above sea level, and the highest point is 883 meters (2,900 ft.). The 537-kilometer (334-mi.) coastline is mostly a low, sandy shore backed by plains and scrub and intersected by several rivers and streams, most of which are navigable only by canoe. A tropical rain forest belt, broken by heavily forested hills and many streams and rivers, extends northward from the shore, near the Cote d'Ivoire frontier. This area, known as the "Ashanti," produces most of the country's cocoa, minerals, and timber. North of this belt, the country varies from 91 to 396 meters (300-1,300 ft.) above sea level and is covered by low bush, park like savanna, and grassy plains. The climate is tropical. The eastern coastal belt is warm and comparatively dry; the southwest corner, hot and humid; and the north, hot and dry. There are two distinct rainy seasons in the south-May-June and August-September; in the north, the rainy seasons tend to merge. A dry, northeasterly wind, the Harmattan, blows in January and February. Annual rainfall in the coastal zone averages 83 centimeters (33 in.). The manmade Volta Lake extends from the Akosombo Dam in southeastern Ghana to the town of Yapei, 520 kilometers (325 mi.) to the north. The lake generates electricity, provides inland transportation, and is a potentially valuable resource for irrigation and fish farming. There's also another man made lake in the Ashanti Region, called lake Bosomtwi, it's the biggest man made lake. Ghana has a population of about 20 million and our currency is cedis. We derived the name from how we call cowries in our local language, "Sidie". About 74.8% of our population is literate. Christianity is the major religion practised here, followed by Islam and the traditional religions. Agriculture takes about 55% of the labour force, industry comes next with about 15% Ghana is a very peaceful country even though we r not very rich. The major foreign exchange earner is cocoa and it makes the best chocolates.As I told u earlier, I live in Accra, the capital of Ghana. Accra is the home town of the Ga tribe but it's now inhabited by people from all over Ghana and many foreigners as well. It is a beautiful city with a lot of tourist attractions, there are a lot of beautiful beaches and friendly people. The major vocation of the Ga tribe is fishing but most of them have diverted but there are still some fishermen around. The President lives at the Osu Castle which is along the coast with a beautiful scenery. We have a lot of entertainment centers, restaurants, and hotels in Accra. Most of the major government and private institutions have their head offices in Accra.Ghana actually has 10 regions and the region with the richest culture is the Ashanti region. The Ashanti kingdom is one of the richest, biggest and well respected in Africa. The King is called Otumfuo Osei Tutu 11. It's a modernised kingdom but it still maintains a lot of it's culture. The language of the Ashanti's is Twi and it is the most widely spoken local language in Ghana. The current President is from the Ashanti region. The cultures vary from region to region but we do have a lot of things in common. Will tell u more about the food, music and festivals in my next mail. I have to get back to work.
Some of the Best Moments in Life
Stop telling God you've got big problems.Tell your problems you've got a BIG GOD!
* To listen to your favorite song in the radio.
* To laugh until it hurts your stomach.
* To go for a vacation to some pretty place.
* To clear your last exam.
* To receive a call from someone, you don't see a lot, but you want to.
* To find money in a pant that you haven't used since last year.
* To laugh at yourself looking at mirror, making faces.:)))
* To laugh without a reason
* To accidentally hear somebody say something good about you.
* To wake up and realize it is still possible to sleep for a couple of hours.
* To be part of a team.
* To watch the sunset from the hilltop.
* To make new friends.
* To pass time with your best friends.
* To see people that you like, feeling happy.
* To use a sweater of the person that you like and find that it still smells of his perfume.
* See an old friend again and to feel that the things have not changed.
* To take an evening walk along fav path.
* To laugh ...laugh...and laugh ... remembering stupid things done
* To listen to your favorite song in the radio.
* To laugh until it hurts your stomach.
* To go for a vacation to some pretty place.
* To clear your last exam.
* To receive a call from someone, you don't see a lot, but you want to.
* To find money in a pant that you haven't used since last year.
* To laugh at yourself looking at mirror, making faces.:)))
* To laugh without a reason
* To accidentally hear somebody say something good about you.
* To wake up and realize it is still possible to sleep for a couple of hours.
* To be part of a team.
* To watch the sunset from the hilltop.
* To make new friends.
* To pass time with your best friends.
* To see people that you like, feeling happy.
* To use a sweater of the person that you like and find that it still smells of his perfume.
* See an old friend again and to feel that the things have not changed.
* To take an evening walk along fav path.
* To laugh ...laugh...and laugh ... remembering stupid things done
The Death of Great Pakhtun Patriot.
The Death of Khan Abdul Wali Khan, a great Pakhtun patriot
The towering icon of this province, Khan Abdul Wali Khan has passed away, after years of service and devotion to this land and its people. He spent the best part of his life struggling for the Pakhtun people and nation. Like his illustrious father, the venerable Ghaffar Khan, a truly Nelson Mandela figure, many of these years were spent in painful confinement. Both son and father were ignored by fortune, but I am certain the conclusion of history will be more favorable. No doubt there will be well deserved and many glowing obituaries about Khan Wali Khan and his contributions as a rare and a great Pakhtun leader; I wish to remember him as a seer, who could peer into the future. He was personally very kind to me in my various capacities as an administrator and someone belonging to this province.
In 1982-83, as deputy commissioner, Peshawar, I had the awful and distasteful duty to place Khan Abdul Wali Khan in preventive detention during the MRD agitation against the martial law of Ziaul Haq. There existed, I felt a bond, based on respect and which lasted beyond official capacity; it was love for a person, who struggled for the rights of his people. His periodic tirades against the federation served its cause many a times; it forced the federal government to be just to NWFP in terms of funds and other matters. I intend to write today about a meeting with him in which he analyzed Pakistan’s situation in clear terms. Because what he said then is even more relevant than before.
On the morning of 3rd October 1983, I was informed by assistant commissioner Charsadda, that Begum Wali Khan had a serious medical problem and if I would have her personal physician Dr. Alif Khan rushed to Wali Bagh. This was arranged. However, fearing that more assistance may be needed, I also went to Wali Bagh. Wali Khan was also present and was plainly distressed about the medical problem of Bibi. After it was controlled, I was requested to stay back for lunch. During and after lunch Wali Khan, spoke at great length about the situation in Pakistan and what he thought was wrong with it.
I reproduce verbatim my noting of the period, which I have kept. The situation then was that there was a guerrilla war going on in Afghanistan; a secret war in which Pakistan was the conduit for provisioning the Afghan jihad with money, weapons and jihadis from all over the Muslim world, including Osama bin Laden. Internally there was a martial law, where a military dictator had been in power since 1977. The political parties had launched a movement for the restoration of democracy (MRD). There was distrust between the PPP and the NDP, similar to the one today. Political activities were banned, preventive arrests were made and in Sindh there was violence and many deaths. President Zia, cautioned that the times were delicate and sought understanding from political forces.
Wali Khan was pessimistic about the future of the country. He felt that the political problems facing it required deft political handling and intermediation of political forces to resolve the issues of various nationalities composing the state. However, the United States was not allowing that to happen, because of support for the Zia government, in order to achieve its political objectives in the war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. Wali Khan said that the army looked for support not from its own people but from the foreign power. “It is an exchange of resources (armaments) for political backing of a military regime”, he said.
He felt that the MRD movement had become regionalized. That was its greatest weakness. The smaller provinces were fighting a political battle for getting their rights, but Punjab was happy with the continuance of the Zia regime because of the transfer of resources to it. “Until more balance was brought into the province - centre relationship, the smaller provinces would remain back ward and their development will be thwarted” Wali Khan said. He thought that “One way was to limit the powers of the federation and to confine them to the Lahore Resolution subjects of defense, foreign affairs, currency and communication”. Wali Khan spoke at length of the alienation of Sindh and suggested that its problems must be dealt with politically and not with the heavy hand of violent suppression.
Abdul Wali Khan said, “The main reason for the entry of the USSR into Afghanistan was Pakistan’s faulty foreign policy relationship with its smaller neighbor; if we had not been so callous in frequent closures of the Pak-Afghan border in the past, it would not have forced the Afghans to look to Moscow for trade and other needs. Our actions had brought Soviet influence to Afghanistan and into our back yard”.
Wali Khan felt that no military regime was capable of solving Pakistan’s political problems because, “The military was self centered and dependent not on internal democratic support but upon external help. On the other hand a political government is always dependent upon its popularity in the public; its agenda is internal. This gave the democratic process an edge in facing many difficult challenges not available to any other form of government. If the present trend of non-democratic governance continued for long, it could carry within it the seeds of incalculable danger to Pakistan’s future”.
It is indeed a sad state of affairs that the passing away of a great and a rare personality took place in circumstances, which in many ways resembles the internal and external situation confronting Pakistan in 1983. Does it mean that we have not progressed in the last 23 years? My only regret is that Khan Abdul Wali Khan could have been so much more. He had so many qualities, which would have served Pakistan well; however I believe he was not comfortable with power. The frontier has lost one of its most outstanding leader and a prominent fighter, who advocated equity and justice as the operating principles of the federation. S.M.Arif YousafzaiManaging DirectorZam Zam Tijarat PeshawarMobile Phone; 03005865516
The towering icon of this province, Khan Abdul Wali Khan has passed away, after years of service and devotion to this land and its people. He spent the best part of his life struggling for the Pakhtun people and nation. Like his illustrious father, the venerable Ghaffar Khan, a truly Nelson Mandela figure, many of these years were spent in painful confinement. Both son and father were ignored by fortune, but I am certain the conclusion of history will be more favorable. No doubt there will be well deserved and many glowing obituaries about Khan Wali Khan and his contributions as a rare and a great Pakhtun leader; I wish to remember him as a seer, who could peer into the future. He was personally very kind to me in my various capacities as an administrator and someone belonging to this province.
In 1982-83, as deputy commissioner, Peshawar, I had the awful and distasteful duty to place Khan Abdul Wali Khan in preventive detention during the MRD agitation against the martial law of Ziaul Haq. There existed, I felt a bond, based on respect and which lasted beyond official capacity; it was love for a person, who struggled for the rights of his people. His periodic tirades against the federation served its cause many a times; it forced the federal government to be just to NWFP in terms of funds and other matters. I intend to write today about a meeting with him in which he analyzed Pakistan’s situation in clear terms. Because what he said then is even more relevant than before.
On the morning of 3rd October 1983, I was informed by assistant commissioner Charsadda, that Begum Wali Khan had a serious medical problem and if I would have her personal physician Dr. Alif Khan rushed to Wali Bagh. This was arranged. However, fearing that more assistance may be needed, I also went to Wali Bagh. Wali Khan was also present and was plainly distressed about the medical problem of Bibi. After it was controlled, I was requested to stay back for lunch. During and after lunch Wali Khan, spoke at great length about the situation in Pakistan and what he thought was wrong with it.
I reproduce verbatim my noting of the period, which I have kept. The situation then was that there was a guerrilla war going on in Afghanistan; a secret war in which Pakistan was the conduit for provisioning the Afghan jihad with money, weapons and jihadis from all over the Muslim world, including Osama bin Laden. Internally there was a martial law, where a military dictator had been in power since 1977. The political parties had launched a movement for the restoration of democracy (MRD). There was distrust between the PPP and the NDP, similar to the one today. Political activities were banned, preventive arrests were made and in Sindh there was violence and many deaths. President Zia, cautioned that the times were delicate and sought understanding from political forces.
Wali Khan was pessimistic about the future of the country. He felt that the political problems facing it required deft political handling and intermediation of political forces to resolve the issues of various nationalities composing the state. However, the United States was not allowing that to happen, because of support for the Zia government, in order to achieve its political objectives in the war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. Wali Khan said that the army looked for support not from its own people but from the foreign power. “It is an exchange of resources (armaments) for political backing of a military regime”, he said.
He felt that the MRD movement had become regionalized. That was its greatest weakness. The smaller provinces were fighting a political battle for getting their rights, but Punjab was happy with the continuance of the Zia regime because of the transfer of resources to it. “Until more balance was brought into the province - centre relationship, the smaller provinces would remain back ward and their development will be thwarted” Wali Khan said. He thought that “One way was to limit the powers of the federation and to confine them to the Lahore Resolution subjects of defense, foreign affairs, currency and communication”. Wali Khan spoke at length of the alienation of Sindh and suggested that its problems must be dealt with politically and not with the heavy hand of violent suppression.
Abdul Wali Khan said, “The main reason for the entry of the USSR into Afghanistan was Pakistan’s faulty foreign policy relationship with its smaller neighbor; if we had not been so callous in frequent closures of the Pak-Afghan border in the past, it would not have forced the Afghans to look to Moscow for trade and other needs. Our actions had brought Soviet influence to Afghanistan and into our back yard”.
Wali Khan felt that no military regime was capable of solving Pakistan’s political problems because, “The military was self centered and dependent not on internal democratic support but upon external help. On the other hand a political government is always dependent upon its popularity in the public; its agenda is internal. This gave the democratic process an edge in facing many difficult challenges not available to any other form of government. If the present trend of non-democratic governance continued for long, it could carry within it the seeds of incalculable danger to Pakistan’s future”.
It is indeed a sad state of affairs that the passing away of a great and a rare personality took place in circumstances, which in many ways resembles the internal and external situation confronting Pakistan in 1983. Does it mean that we have not progressed in the last 23 years? My only regret is that Khan Abdul Wali Khan could have been so much more. He had so many qualities, which would have served Pakistan well; however I believe he was not comfortable with power. The frontier has lost one of its most outstanding leader and a prominent fighter, who advocated equity and justice as the operating principles of the federation. S.M.Arif YousafzaiManaging DirectorZam Zam Tijarat PeshawarMobile Phone; 03005865516
Pitras to his son ....
Ahmed Shah "Pitras" Bokhari, the eminent Pakistani author of humorous Urdu short stories, and man of letters, wrote this to his son Haroon ("Rooney") while he was studying in England. Pitras's genius and candour was by no means limited to Urdu alone: My Dear Rooney,
I sent off a cable to you when I received your most vivid letter & the 'Presto' photograph. Didn't the Presto remind you of "fatafat foto" - it did me. Your letter was delightful & reassuring as it clearly showed that you liked being where you were & doing what you were doing. This is the best tonic you can have for life ahead of you. Do you know that between this letter of yours & your previous letters one could feel the difference of several years of maturity, as if merely by the fact of launching upon a career of your own & by being in different surroundings away from home, you had added many years of maturity to your being.
Within a week I'll be sending you a draft for 40 or 50 pounds, so that your bank account looks a little richer and you have less anxiety about possible emergencies. Luckily you have known a great deal about England from books, magazines, etc, etc & directly from persons who have lived there, including such travelers as me & uncle ZAB. I am sure therefore that you would not have had the same strange & sometimes baffling reactions about your environment that I had, for example, when I arrived at Victoria Station, London in 1926 with no one to meet me there & heard unintelligible cockney from the railway porter for practically the first time in my life -- also when I didn't know whether a taxi would or would not be beyond my means, or whether I should or should not speak to a woman. You know all that it is important to know & have seen more of life than I had seen at your age. Nevertheless parents have an incurable habit of giving good advice, in season & out of it, even when it is not needed. It arises from affection and from protective desires & from anxiety for your welfare, born of love. Let me therefore give way to this incurable habit, & if you find my advice superfluous, as I sincerely hope you will -- I am sure you will -- you can ignore it forgivingly -- that is to say without being irritated by it. I will make it as brief as I can. First of all, a very simple piece of advice -- avoid breaking the law. I don't mean resist the temptation of committing a murder or robbing a bank. Your life is not heroic enough to have such monumental desires, as you haven't had the ample opportunities that are provided by having been brought up amongst hoodlums & gangsters. But one is always liable to break laws in little things. One had better avoid that in foreign countries. It is bad manners for a foreigner to enjoy the hospitality of a country & then break a queue or traffic rules or rationing regulations or evade taxes. It is also suicidal; for you'll find that if you break a law the consequences will depress you more in a foreign country away from home than if you broke the same law in Lahore. Deep down being civilized, we are always afraid of breaking the law & it is no use surrounding ourselves with avoidable fears specially in another country where these fears are likely to be large.
Secondly, women. This is not a delicate subject. I am not going to speak about the "delicate" side of this matter. There is nothing concerning that aspect of which you do not know or which your good senses, good breeding & decent values will not guide you in. And if you do not have the good values, one or a thousand letters from me will not give them to you. All that I wish to say is that when you meet women, you are bound to show off a little -- we all tend to do so, more or less according to the amount of vanity & the amount of desire to appear good & great in addition to being good or great. But do not try to impress women or for that matter anyone with your money. This is vulgar & besides can have disastrous consequences purely from the worldly point of view. Do not transform what can be a very pleasant experience into a vulgar or an expensive hobby. It is like smoking-- it is a mildly sinful, expensive & supposedly soothing activity, but there is a difference between smoking & chain smoking; also between smoking & taking drugs like opium. The next two or three years are important in your life. On them depends how comfortable your life as an individual or as the husband of a wife or the father of children will be in years to come.
Keep these 2 or 3 years reasonably free from entanglements that may be too big for you to handle. Emotional upheavals -- no one can help or condemn, but alas they have social consequences. These latter come up against the hard facts of life. If you would like to lead a life of pure emotions, caring neither for whether you starve nor for whether you are socially acceptable -- you would be a great man, & for me to advise you would be to insult you. But till you are sure that you have their measure of greatness, you will need all the caution & forethought that mediocre, average men, which most of us are, need for ordering their pretty undistinguished lives. Thirdly, as time goes on, your letters to us will be come less & less frequent & also more & more brief. It will be a sign, not of callousness, but of an expanding horizon & a change in perspective. But two things I will still like you to do. Do write regularly to Mummy -- however brief the letters. You are more important to her than she is to you. Also with the years her need of you will grow greater, your need of hers less. Therefore be kind & considerate. Her demands will be urgent to her, but not great or difficult to fulfill.
Also keep in constant touch with Mansoor. Do not let his friendship wither away for want of feeding. If he was only your brother, he could some time or other become a nuisance in life. But luckily he is also a very good friend & a friend is never, never worth losing. Besides, you are going to work in the same firm for many years & it will be comforting to both of you to retain the bond you have. As for me, write to me when you feel, whether it is for money, for advice, for consolation or for mere fun. Your letters will always be welcome to me & I don't think I'll ever fail to understand your point of view or to sympathize with you or to love you, whatever your joys or your pains may be and however right or wrong you may be. In your work, you can only use the intelligence & the character you possess. I cannot add to them by exhortations. But as one who has been a 'boss' in one way or another for many years, let me tell you that what bosses like & have a right to demand is that their employee should be above all, reliable. Not only your bosses but your friends have the same right to demand reliability of you. Your foolishness, your inefficiency, your weaknesses can all be overlooked by your friends & even viewed with affection if they feel that for moral values you can be absolutely depended on -- that you will not let them down. Bosses expect the same thing. However big the machine, & the organization and however impersonal their relations in & with that machine, they are after all human beings. Thank God that the highest pitch of a large-scale industrialization has not yet killed that fact. Above all, do not, if you can help it, create a crisis in your life -- that's all.This letter has almost become like Polonius's speech to Laertes. I am too close to it to see whether it is full of clichés & as pompous as Polonious's string of wise sayings was. But I am not afraid of exposing my pompousness to you, if I have it in me. You & I have been friends for many years -- you have been a jolly fine companion to me & I do not mind if I reveal my worst weaknesses to you. I am sure you will forgive them, and at the worst will smile at them with understanding & affection. I am studying the Mexican system of education, on behalf of our government. A large part of the Mexican population is illiterate & backward, but since the Mexican revolution of 1910, there is a great stirring of the soul in this baffling & picturesque country & their struggle to rise and redeem their cultural soul are fascinating and inspiring. This will take me right up to the end of June. After that I'll probably go to London -- to broadcast on Pakistan on the national & international network of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation & to give a lecture or two at the McGill University at Montreal. All these are in response to invitations received. Thereafter, back home through London of course. And who knows I may steal time to look you up in Liverpool or you to look me up in London. I'll keep you fully informed of my movements & plans.Mummy asked me to send you some clothes from here. I'll be sending you money instead, as clothes rationing is off in England -- sending stuff from here is expensive and complicated. A little later you might give me a picture of how you stand financially, so that I send you a steady supply of filthy lucre according to your needs. I was going to say that I am not rich, but you know how rich or poor we are. What you may not know fully I that, nevertheless, at all times we should be not only ready but delighted to treat your needs as the most paramount in the family. Bless you and wish you the best of luck. Have a good time -- I am using good in the Greek sense. The Greeks had the word 'kalos' which meant three things at once -- the great, the good & the beautiful -- for in their great wisdom they realized that all three were inseparable.With best of love,Affectionately,
AbbaP.S. Keep your Urdu alive. Ask Mansoor to keep you supplied with an occasional book or magazine. This is important.
I sent off a cable to you when I received your most vivid letter & the 'Presto' photograph. Didn't the Presto remind you of "fatafat foto" - it did me. Your letter was delightful & reassuring as it clearly showed that you liked being where you were & doing what you were doing. This is the best tonic you can have for life ahead of you. Do you know that between this letter of yours & your previous letters one could feel the difference of several years of maturity, as if merely by the fact of launching upon a career of your own & by being in different surroundings away from home, you had added many years of maturity to your being.
Within a week I'll be sending you a draft for 40 or 50 pounds, so that your bank account looks a little richer and you have less anxiety about possible emergencies. Luckily you have known a great deal about England from books, magazines, etc, etc & directly from persons who have lived there, including such travelers as me & uncle ZAB. I am sure therefore that you would not have had the same strange & sometimes baffling reactions about your environment that I had, for example, when I arrived at Victoria Station, London in 1926 with no one to meet me there & heard unintelligible cockney from the railway porter for practically the first time in my life -- also when I didn't know whether a taxi would or would not be beyond my means, or whether I should or should not speak to a woman. You know all that it is important to know & have seen more of life than I had seen at your age. Nevertheless parents have an incurable habit of giving good advice, in season & out of it, even when it is not needed. It arises from affection and from protective desires & from anxiety for your welfare, born of love. Let me therefore give way to this incurable habit, & if you find my advice superfluous, as I sincerely hope you will -- I am sure you will -- you can ignore it forgivingly -- that is to say without being irritated by it. I will make it as brief as I can. First of all, a very simple piece of advice -- avoid breaking the law. I don't mean resist the temptation of committing a murder or robbing a bank. Your life is not heroic enough to have such monumental desires, as you haven't had the ample opportunities that are provided by having been brought up amongst hoodlums & gangsters. But one is always liable to break laws in little things. One had better avoid that in foreign countries. It is bad manners for a foreigner to enjoy the hospitality of a country & then break a queue or traffic rules or rationing regulations or evade taxes. It is also suicidal; for you'll find that if you break a law the consequences will depress you more in a foreign country away from home than if you broke the same law in Lahore. Deep down being civilized, we are always afraid of breaking the law & it is no use surrounding ourselves with avoidable fears specially in another country where these fears are likely to be large.
Secondly, women. This is not a delicate subject. I am not going to speak about the "delicate" side of this matter. There is nothing concerning that aspect of which you do not know or which your good senses, good breeding & decent values will not guide you in. And if you do not have the good values, one or a thousand letters from me will not give them to you. All that I wish to say is that when you meet women, you are bound to show off a little -- we all tend to do so, more or less according to the amount of vanity & the amount of desire to appear good & great in addition to being good or great. But do not try to impress women or for that matter anyone with your money. This is vulgar & besides can have disastrous consequences purely from the worldly point of view. Do not transform what can be a very pleasant experience into a vulgar or an expensive hobby. It is like smoking-- it is a mildly sinful, expensive & supposedly soothing activity, but there is a difference between smoking & chain smoking; also between smoking & taking drugs like opium. The next two or three years are important in your life. On them depends how comfortable your life as an individual or as the husband of a wife or the father of children will be in years to come.
Keep these 2 or 3 years reasonably free from entanglements that may be too big for you to handle. Emotional upheavals -- no one can help or condemn, but alas they have social consequences. These latter come up against the hard facts of life. If you would like to lead a life of pure emotions, caring neither for whether you starve nor for whether you are socially acceptable -- you would be a great man, & for me to advise you would be to insult you. But till you are sure that you have their measure of greatness, you will need all the caution & forethought that mediocre, average men, which most of us are, need for ordering their pretty undistinguished lives. Thirdly, as time goes on, your letters to us will be come less & less frequent & also more & more brief. It will be a sign, not of callousness, but of an expanding horizon & a change in perspective. But two things I will still like you to do. Do write regularly to Mummy -- however brief the letters. You are more important to her than she is to you. Also with the years her need of you will grow greater, your need of hers less. Therefore be kind & considerate. Her demands will be urgent to her, but not great or difficult to fulfill.
Also keep in constant touch with Mansoor. Do not let his friendship wither away for want of feeding. If he was only your brother, he could some time or other become a nuisance in life. But luckily he is also a very good friend & a friend is never, never worth losing. Besides, you are going to work in the same firm for many years & it will be comforting to both of you to retain the bond you have. As for me, write to me when you feel, whether it is for money, for advice, for consolation or for mere fun. Your letters will always be welcome to me & I don't think I'll ever fail to understand your point of view or to sympathize with you or to love you, whatever your joys or your pains may be and however right or wrong you may be. In your work, you can only use the intelligence & the character you possess. I cannot add to them by exhortations. But as one who has been a 'boss' in one way or another for many years, let me tell you that what bosses like & have a right to demand is that their employee should be above all, reliable. Not only your bosses but your friends have the same right to demand reliability of you. Your foolishness, your inefficiency, your weaknesses can all be overlooked by your friends & even viewed with affection if they feel that for moral values you can be absolutely depended on -- that you will not let them down. Bosses expect the same thing. However big the machine, & the organization and however impersonal their relations in & with that machine, they are after all human beings. Thank God that the highest pitch of a large-scale industrialization has not yet killed that fact. Above all, do not, if you can help it, create a crisis in your life -- that's all.This letter has almost become like Polonius's speech to Laertes. I am too close to it to see whether it is full of clichés & as pompous as Polonious's string of wise sayings was. But I am not afraid of exposing my pompousness to you, if I have it in me. You & I have been friends for many years -- you have been a jolly fine companion to me & I do not mind if I reveal my worst weaknesses to you. I am sure you will forgive them, and at the worst will smile at them with understanding & affection. I am studying the Mexican system of education, on behalf of our government. A large part of the Mexican population is illiterate & backward, but since the Mexican revolution of 1910, there is a great stirring of the soul in this baffling & picturesque country & their struggle to rise and redeem their cultural soul are fascinating and inspiring. This will take me right up to the end of June. After that I'll probably go to London -- to broadcast on Pakistan on the national & international network of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation & to give a lecture or two at the McGill University at Montreal. All these are in response to invitations received. Thereafter, back home through London of course. And who knows I may steal time to look you up in Liverpool or you to look me up in London. I'll keep you fully informed of my movements & plans.Mummy asked me to send you some clothes from here. I'll be sending you money instead, as clothes rationing is off in England -- sending stuff from here is expensive and complicated. A little later you might give me a picture of how you stand financially, so that I send you a steady supply of filthy lucre according to your needs. I was going to say that I am not rich, but you know how rich or poor we are. What you may not know fully I that, nevertheless, at all times we should be not only ready but delighted to treat your needs as the most paramount in the family. Bless you and wish you the best of luck. Have a good time -- I am using good in the Greek sense. The Greeks had the word 'kalos' which meant three things at once -- the great, the good & the beautiful -- for in their great wisdom they realized that all three were inseparable.With best of love,Affectionately,
AbbaP.S. Keep your Urdu alive. Ask Mansoor to keep you supplied with an occasional book or magazine. This is important.
UN structural reform & Pakistan
PAKISTAN TIMES online edition (http://pakistantimes.net/2005/04/28/oped1.htm) 28th April 2005. 
UN structural reform & Pakistan
By Amer Rizwan Khattak
THE United Nations Organization came out of the most horrible and devastating war, the humanity has ever seen. However, the geopolitical realities and the very nature of the world system has undergone a transformation since its inception in 1945. So theorists and analysts have long been demanding an overhauling of its organizational structure. Of late, a ‘High Level Panel’ under the chairmanship of former Thai Prime Minister Anand Panyarachun has submitted a report to UN Secretary General on ‘Threats, Challenges & Opportunities’. Former Executive Director of the UN Population Fund Dr Nafis Sadik represented Pakistan in the panel. Roughly speaking, on the most important point of Security Council enlargement, the panel has suggested two models: ‘Model A’ recommending the creation of new permanent seat but without veto, and “Model B’ talking about quasi-permanent seats or members who could be rotated or re-elected after two years term. Pakistan is the member of Coffee Club that opposes expansion in the permanent category, and expostulates that such important decisions are to be based on the consensus of the general membership.Pakistan’s position on the creation or addition of new permanent seats in the UNSC is based on its own geopolitical realities. Its avowed stance is: “ There should be no new centres of privilege and power in the United Nations, because these are relics of the past; these are anachronistic in character, and that such inequities should not be perpetuated”.The Government of Pakistan also expresses its hope, along with a large number of countries, “That this process should be inclusive and transparent; that the question of Security Council reform should be addressed comprehensively which means that it should also look at working methods, decision making and so on. And then whatever decisions are taken should enjoy the support of the majority of the general membership because it is going to affect their fate”.Pakistanis Foreign Ministry Spokesman expressed his optimism that the finalization of these recommendations would be inclusive and transparent, and would keep in mind the need for consensus, because that was going to affect the entire globe, and that Pakistan would play a very active role in the debate when these recommendations were submitted to the general members.In any case, Pakistan has much stakes in whether India is successful in winning UNSC seat or not. That is why the most daunting challenge for the Pakistani policy-makers is to try to foil Indian designs in this regard, because if such eventuality occurs then India would get a perpetual strategic leverage vis a vis Pakistan, particularly the tenacity of Pakistan’s position on Indian Held Kashmir would receive a serious setback. India along with Germany, Brazil and Japan has been vying for that covetous slot. It is for this reason that Pakistan has embarked on hectic diplomatic activity in order to mould international public opinion against such a move. Pakistan is the member of ‘Coffee Club having forty odd members. Of late, Pakistan’s permanent representative in the UN Munir Akram convened a meeting of the club members supporting ‘Model “B”. Besides, the members have embarked upon a flurry of diplomatic activities. Pakistan’s former foreign secretary Riaz Khokher’s recent visit of People’s Republic of China is considered as a part of the same exercise. Again, Pakistan’s official position got its true manifestation in the statement read by Mr Tariq Osman Hayder as the special envoy of the President of Pakistan in the Arab League Summit held March this year in Algiers. He said there,“the question of Security Council Expansion in terms of the UN process, and in terms of substance, should be guided by consensus as any other modality would lead to divisiveness at a time when the United Nations should be more united. There should be no arbitrary deadlines, the issue is too important.” The latest event in that direction was a meeting called ‘Uniting for Consensus’, joint initiative by Pakistan and Italy at New York on 11 April. Former Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Inamul Haq represented Pakistan in the meeting as a special envoy. Invitations were extended to all members, and response was overwhelming. Representatives of 119 States, three inter-governmental organizations, the current President of the UN General Assembly and various facilitators of UN reform process were among the participants. The United States, China and the Russian Federation, the three permanent members of the UNSC, also attended the meeting. The proponents dismissed Annan’s suggestion that they settle the question of Security Council reform by a vote in the General Assembly before world leaders meet if they cannot reach a consensus on reforming the Security Council. Pakistan’s envoy Inamul Haq said that Pakistan fully supported the UN reform agenda but reforms, particularly the expansion of the Security Council, must be made by consensus among the member States. Moving towards the same direction, Pakistan has also demanded a permanent seat for Muslim countries in the United Nations Security Council, if at all any new permanent seat was created. Talking to a private news channel, Ambassador Akram said there should be a permanent berth for Muslim states at the UNSC. The OIC countries should decide which country would represent Ummah at the forum. When Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz was in Beijing, he discussed with his Chinese counterpart Premier Wen Jiabao the issue of UN reform as well because this is an issue of mutual interest. Both China and Pakistan are active in this regard. Both sides reiterated that there should be comprehensive reform of the United Nations, and that, not just the Security Council, but other organs of the United Nations including the General Assembly and Economic and Social Council should be reformed, and the sentiments of the General membership should be taken into consideration in this exercise, and that no issue should receive undue priority in consideration of UN reform. Again, one of the items of the agenda of the President of Pakistan’s first ever visit to three Latin American countries viz Brazil, Argentine and Mexico was UN Security Council reform and expansion. It is to be kept in view that Brazil has the aspiration to be a permanent member in the reformed UNSC, and Argentine has had apprehensions to that effect. That is why, both Pakistan and Argentine vowed to forge a united front against the creation of new permanent seats in the UN Security Council. However, Pakistan’s dilemma is that it cannot afford to alienate Germany, Japan and Brazil in its diplomatic maneuovrings. Accordingly, Pakistan did display astute strokes of diplomacy in its discussions on the subject especially with Japan. When Foreign Minister was in Tokyo earlier this year, he expressed his country’s principled position on the subject. However, he hinted at not opposing Japan’s candidacy for its economy and track record implying that latter’s candidacy would be backed by his country, perhaps, for the only Asian seat that might be created.Traditionally, Pakistan’s all multilateral and bilateral arrangements in the international sphere have been determined by its relations with its arch foe-turned-competitor India. Regardless of the fact, whether or not its manoeuvrings are braced with success, one may conclude that despite sweeping changes in the world system, the contours of Pakistan’s Foreign Policy are still circumscribed by its traditional tools.●
© 2005 Amer Rizwan Khattak
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UN structural reform & Pakistan
By Amer Rizwan Khattak
THE United Nations Organization came out of the most horrible and devastating war, the humanity has ever seen. However, the geopolitical realities and the very nature of the world system has undergone a transformation since its inception in 1945. So theorists and analysts have long been demanding an overhauling of its organizational structure. Of late, a ‘High Level Panel’ under the chairmanship of former Thai Prime Minister Anand Panyarachun has submitted a report to UN Secretary General on ‘Threats, Challenges & Opportunities’. Former Executive Director of the UN Population Fund Dr Nafis Sadik represented Pakistan in the panel. Roughly speaking, on the most important point of Security Council enlargement, the panel has suggested two models: ‘Model A’ recommending the creation of new permanent seat but without veto, and “Model B’ talking about quasi-permanent seats or members who could be rotated or re-elected after two years term. Pakistan is the member of Coffee Club that opposes expansion in the permanent category, and expostulates that such important decisions are to be based on the consensus of the general membership.Pakistan’s position on the creation or addition of new permanent seats in the UNSC is based on its own geopolitical realities. Its avowed stance is: “ There should be no new centres of privilege and power in the United Nations, because these are relics of the past; these are anachronistic in character, and that such inequities should not be perpetuated”.The Government of Pakistan also expresses its hope, along with a large number of countries, “That this process should be inclusive and transparent; that the question of Security Council reform should be addressed comprehensively which means that it should also look at working methods, decision making and so on. And then whatever decisions are taken should enjoy the support of the majority of the general membership because it is going to affect their fate”.Pakistanis Foreign Ministry Spokesman expressed his optimism that the finalization of these recommendations would be inclusive and transparent, and would keep in mind the need for consensus, because that was going to affect the entire globe, and that Pakistan would play a very active role in the debate when these recommendations were submitted to the general members.In any case, Pakistan has much stakes in whether India is successful in winning UNSC seat or not. That is why the most daunting challenge for the Pakistani policy-makers is to try to foil Indian designs in this regard, because if such eventuality occurs then India would get a perpetual strategic leverage vis a vis Pakistan, particularly the tenacity of Pakistan’s position on Indian Held Kashmir would receive a serious setback. India along with Germany, Brazil and Japan has been vying for that covetous slot. It is for this reason that Pakistan has embarked on hectic diplomatic activity in order to mould international public opinion against such a move. Pakistan is the member of ‘Coffee Club having forty odd members. Of late, Pakistan’s permanent representative in the UN Munir Akram convened a meeting of the club members supporting ‘Model “B”. Besides, the members have embarked upon a flurry of diplomatic activities. Pakistan’s former foreign secretary Riaz Khokher’s recent visit of People’s Republic of China is considered as a part of the same exercise. Again, Pakistan’s official position got its true manifestation in the statement read by Mr Tariq Osman Hayder as the special envoy of the President of Pakistan in the Arab League Summit held March this year in Algiers. He said there,“the question of Security Council Expansion in terms of the UN process, and in terms of substance, should be guided by consensus as any other modality would lead to divisiveness at a time when the United Nations should be more united. There should be no arbitrary deadlines, the issue is too important.” The latest event in that direction was a meeting called ‘Uniting for Consensus’, joint initiative by Pakistan and Italy at New York on 11 April. Former Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Inamul Haq represented Pakistan in the meeting as a special envoy. Invitations were extended to all members, and response was overwhelming. Representatives of 119 States, three inter-governmental organizations, the current President of the UN General Assembly and various facilitators of UN reform process were among the participants. The United States, China and the Russian Federation, the three permanent members of the UNSC, also attended the meeting. The proponents dismissed Annan’s suggestion that they settle the question of Security Council reform by a vote in the General Assembly before world leaders meet if they cannot reach a consensus on reforming the Security Council. Pakistan’s envoy Inamul Haq said that Pakistan fully supported the UN reform agenda but reforms, particularly the expansion of the Security Council, must be made by consensus among the member States. Moving towards the same direction, Pakistan has also demanded a permanent seat for Muslim countries in the United Nations Security Council, if at all any new permanent seat was created. Talking to a private news channel, Ambassador Akram said there should be a permanent berth for Muslim states at the UNSC. The OIC countries should decide which country would represent Ummah at the forum. When Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz was in Beijing, he discussed with his Chinese counterpart Premier Wen Jiabao the issue of UN reform as well because this is an issue of mutual interest. Both China and Pakistan are active in this regard. Both sides reiterated that there should be comprehensive reform of the United Nations, and that, not just the Security Council, but other organs of the United Nations including the General Assembly and Economic and Social Council should be reformed, and the sentiments of the General membership should be taken into consideration in this exercise, and that no issue should receive undue priority in consideration of UN reform. Again, one of the items of the agenda of the President of Pakistan’s first ever visit to three Latin American countries viz Brazil, Argentine and Mexico was UN Security Council reform and expansion. It is to be kept in view that Brazil has the aspiration to be a permanent member in the reformed UNSC, and Argentine has had apprehensions to that effect. That is why, both Pakistan and Argentine vowed to forge a united front against the creation of new permanent seats in the UN Security Council. However, Pakistan’s dilemma is that it cannot afford to alienate Germany, Japan and Brazil in its diplomatic maneuovrings. Accordingly, Pakistan did display astute strokes of diplomacy in its discussions on the subject especially with Japan. When Foreign Minister was in Tokyo earlier this year, he expressed his country’s principled position on the subject. However, he hinted at not opposing Japan’s candidacy for its economy and track record implying that latter’s candidacy would be backed by his country, perhaps, for the only Asian seat that might be created.Traditionally, Pakistan’s all multilateral and bilateral arrangements in the international sphere have been determined by its relations with its arch foe-turned-competitor India. Regardless of the fact, whether or not its manoeuvrings are braced with success, one may conclude that despite sweeping changes in the world system, the contours of Pakistan’s Foreign Policy are still circumscribed by its traditional tools.●
© 2005 Amer Rizwan Khattak
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Monday, November 10, 2008
Lord Macauly on Lord Byron and William Windham on the Lord Macauly
"From the poetry of Lord Byron they drew a system of ethics compounded of misanthropy and voluptuousness,—a system in which the two great commandments were to hate your neighbour and to love your neighbour's wife"
On Moore's Life of Lord Byron. 1830.
I wish I were as sure of anything as Macaulay is of everything. William Windham (1750–1810).
On Moore's Life of Lord Byron. 1830.
I wish I were as sure of anything as Macaulay is of everything. William Windham (1750–1810).
HEIGHT OF IGNORANCE
A worldwide survey was conducted by the UN.
The only question asked was:
"Would you please give your honest opinion about solutions to the foodshortage in the rest of the world?"
The survey was a huge failure,
In Africa they didn't know what "food"meant,
In Pakistan they didn't know what "honest" meant,
In Europe they didn't know what "shortage" meant,
In China they didn't know what "opinion" meant,
In the Middle East they didn't know what "solution" meant,
In South America they didn't know what "please" meant,
And in the USA
They didn't know what
"The rest of the world" meant!!!
The only question asked was:
"Would you please give your honest opinion about solutions to the foodshortage in the rest of the world?"
The survey was a huge failure,
In Africa they didn't know what "food"meant,
In Pakistan they didn't know what "honest" meant,
In Europe they didn't know what "shortage" meant,
In China they didn't know what "opinion" meant,
In the Middle East they didn't know what "solution" meant,
In South America they didn't know what "please" meant,
And in the USA
They didn't know what
"The rest of the world" meant!!!
LATEST ON SARDARS FROM INDIA
THIS IS AN UPDATE ON SARDARS FROM INDIA
Sardar comes back 2 his car & finds a note saying "Parking Fine"
He writes a note and sticks it 2 the pole " Thanks 4 d complement "
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
How do you recognize a Sardar in School?
He is the one who erases the notes from the book when the teacher erases
the board.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Once a Sardhar was walking and had a glove on one hand and not on other so
the man asked him why did he do so.
He Replied that the weather forecast announced that on one hand it would be cold and on the other hand it would be hot.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sardarji bought a brand new Maruti and decided to drive down from Amritsar
where he lived, to Jalandar, to show off to his friends. He reached there in a few
hours. After spending a few days there, he decided to return, and called up
his mother to expect him in the evening.
But he didn't reach in the evening and not the next day either. When he finally reached home on the third day, his distraught mother ran and asked him " Arre Puttar, kihoya?"
The Sardarji got out, obviously very tired from a long journey, and said,
"Oy, ye Marutti wale pagal hain, agge jaane waaste chaar gear banaatehain,
aur pichche jaane waaste sirf ik?"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Santa Singh decided to start a chicken farm so he bought a hundred chickens
to begin with.
A month later he returned to the dealer for another hundred chickens
because all of the first lot had died.
A month later he was back at the dealer for another hundred chickens, for
the second lot had also died.
The dealer was puzzled. But Santa now like a man with considerable experience from all this descerned " I know where I'm going wrong," said Santa to the dealer, " I think I'm planting them too deep."
Sardar comes back 2 his car & finds a note saying "Parking Fine"
He writes a note and sticks it 2 the pole " Thanks 4 d complement "
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
How do you recognize a Sardar in School?
He is the one who erases the notes from the book when the teacher erases
the board.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Once a Sardhar was walking and had a glove on one hand and not on other so
the man asked him why did he do so.
He Replied that the weather forecast announced that on one hand it would be cold and on the other hand it would be hot.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sardarji bought a brand new Maruti and decided to drive down from Amritsar
where he lived, to Jalandar, to show off to his friends. He reached there in a few
hours. After spending a few days there, he decided to return, and called up
his mother to expect him in the evening.
But he didn't reach in the evening and not the next day either. When he finally reached home on the third day, his distraught mother ran and asked him " Arre Puttar, kihoya?"
The Sardarji got out, obviously very tired from a long journey, and said,
"Oy, ye Marutti wale pagal hain, agge jaane waaste chaar gear banaatehain,
aur pichche jaane waaste sirf ik?"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Santa Singh decided to start a chicken farm so he bought a hundred chickens
to begin with.
A month later he returned to the dealer for another hundred chickens
because all of the first lot had died.
A month later he was back at the dealer for another hundred chickens, for
the second lot had also died.
The dealer was puzzled. But Santa now like a man with considerable experience from all this descerned " I know where I'm going wrong," said Santa to the dealer, " I think I'm planting them too deep."
Me and my boss//FAMOUS QUOTES
When I take a long time to finish, I am slow,When my boss takes a long time, He is thorough
When I don't do it, I am lazy,When my boss does not do it, He is busy,
When I do something without being told, I am trying to be smart,When my boss does the same, He takes the initiative,
When I please my boss, I am apple polishing,When my boss pleases his boss, He is cooperating,
When I make a mistake, You're an idiot.When my boss makes a mistake, He's only human.
When I am out of the office, I am wondering around.When my boss is out of the office, He's on business.
When I am on a day off sick, I am always sick.When my boss is a day off sick, He must be very ill.
When I apply for leave, I must be going for an interviewWhen my boss applies for leave, It's because he's overworked
When I do well, My boss never remembers,When I do wrong, He never forgets
Posted by AMER RIZWAN at 2:25 AM 0 comments Links to this post
Friday, July 14, 2006
When I don't do it, I am lazy,When my boss does not do it, He is busy,
When I do something without being told, I am trying to be smart,When my boss does the same, He takes the initiative,
When I please my boss, I am apple polishing,When my boss pleases his boss, He is cooperating,
When I make a mistake, You're an idiot.When my boss makes a mistake, He's only human.
When I am out of the office, I am wondering around.When my boss is out of the office, He's on business.
When I am on a day off sick, I am always sick.When my boss is a day off sick, He must be very ill.
When I apply for leave, I must be going for an interviewWhen my boss applies for leave, It's because he's overworked
When I do well, My boss never remembers,When I do wrong, He never forgets
Posted by AMER RIZWAN at 2:25 AM 0 comments Links to this post
Friday, July 14, 2006
THE HOLY KA'ABA
"KA'ABA" The House Of Allah in Makkah. The Ka'aba is covered by a black cloth known as 'Kiswa', which is produced and changed every year. Special factory is designed for the making of 'Kiswa' in Makkah. It costs approximately Saudi Riyal 17 million. the cloth is made of 670 kgs of silver and dyed black. About 120 kgs of pure gold and 50 kgs of pure silver is used in writing the Quranic verses over the cloth. The total area of the cloth is 658 square meters.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Giving Democracy a Fair Chance Thursday September 25, 2008 (1405 PST)
There has been much fuss both in the national as well as the international media with respect to the presidential candidature of Mr. Asif Ali Zardari, the Co. Chairperson of Pakistan Peoples Party. Most of the stories hit hard at him. The allegations range from corruption and betraying the BB legacy to his mental incapacity and owning large empires of wealth and assets. The ‘Times Online’ carries a story suggesting that Mr. Asif Ali Zardari
‘The Economist’ comments on Zardari`s Candidacy for President of Pakistan;
“For a man accused of massive corruption in his murdered wife`s two governments, on account of which he has spent eight years in prison, where his lawyers said he became depressed and demented, this is quite a turnaround….. At the least, it would make the PPP accountable for its handling of the country`s twin crises: a plunging economy and spiraling Taliban insurgency……..”
I personally think that PPP should be given a fair chance to complete its innings on its home ground lest it is packed home immaturely and it fights its case with the public arguing that it was not sinning but have been sinned against. Even the next government should be given a similar chance. Only after allowing them to have full terms that the people would be able to decide about the good and bad. This should not be taken by the incumbent government to be a sort of carte blonche by the incumbent government. This would levy an equal responsibility on the same to respect the democratic rules and let the PML(N) governs the province of Punjab in accordance with the mandate that it has won as a result of the February elections.
Remember Democracy is the self-regulatory system; it`s like riding a bicycle; the more you stumble and fall, the greater chance you have to master the art of cycling. Abandoning cycling with the fear that it would collapse and we would hurt, is not a very good recipe.
Democracy is like flowing water. Allowing it to have an uninterrupted flow would result in the settling down of the impurities. The crux of the argument is that it is high time that we try the norms and rules of a democratic system. The process would not be free of risks and troubles but ultimately we would have to master it. Pakistan being a multi-ethnic and multi-lingual country cannot afford the other way round. The dictatorships, both civilian as well as military have given an irreparable damage to the system; we have dismembered; we have been running by fits and starts; we have been the sufferers of the worst sectarian strife.
Now, around this murky circle, there is only murk, but at the outer edge of the same there is a silver lining i.e. Democracy that is the road to the stability of Pakistan. Devoid of democracy, we would grope in the dark; without freedom of expression and freedom of association and that of profession, we would continue hurtling down. We must be at liberty to express ourselves in a myriad of ways. That is the formula of social development and national integration. The more gregarious and versatile our society is the more glued it would be.
AMER RIZWAN KHATTAK
‘The Economist’ comments on Zardari`s Candidacy for President of Pakistan;
“For a man accused of massive corruption in his murdered wife`s two governments, on account of which he has spent eight years in prison, where his lawyers said he became depressed and demented, this is quite a turnaround….. At the least, it would make the PPP accountable for its handling of the country`s twin crises: a plunging economy and spiraling Taliban insurgency……..”
I personally think that PPP should be given a fair chance to complete its innings on its home ground lest it is packed home immaturely and it fights its case with the public arguing that it was not sinning but have been sinned against. Even the next government should be given a similar chance. Only after allowing them to have full terms that the people would be able to decide about the good and bad. This should not be taken by the incumbent government to be a sort of carte blonche by the incumbent government. This would levy an equal responsibility on the same to respect the democratic rules and let the PML(N) governs the province of Punjab in accordance with the mandate that it has won as a result of the February elections.
Remember Democracy is the self-regulatory system; it`s like riding a bicycle; the more you stumble and fall, the greater chance you have to master the art of cycling. Abandoning cycling with the fear that it would collapse and we would hurt, is not a very good recipe.
Democracy is like flowing water. Allowing it to have an uninterrupted flow would result in the settling down of the impurities. The crux of the argument is that it is high time that we try the norms and rules of a democratic system. The process would not be free of risks and troubles but ultimately we would have to master it. Pakistan being a multi-ethnic and multi-lingual country cannot afford the other way round. The dictatorships, both civilian as well as military have given an irreparable damage to the system; we have dismembered; we have been running by fits and starts; we have been the sufferers of the worst sectarian strife.
Now, around this murky circle, there is only murk, but at the outer edge of the same there is a silver lining i.e. Democracy that is the road to the stability of Pakistan. Devoid of democracy, we would grope in the dark; without freedom of expression and freedom of association and that of profession, we would continue hurtling down. We must be at liberty to express ourselves in a myriad of ways. That is the formula of social development and national integration. The more gregarious and versatile our society is the more glued it would be.
AMER RIZWAN KHATTAK
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
DO NOT STAND AT MY GRAVE AND WEEP (Poem) By: MARY FRYE
DO NOT STAND AT MY GRAVE AND WEEP
(Poem)
By: MARY FRYE
Do not stand at my grave and weep,
I am not there, I do not sleep.
I am in a thousand winds that blow,
I am the softly falling snow.
I am the gentle showers of rain,
I am the fields of ripening grain.
I am in the morning hush,
I am in the graceful rush
Of beautiful birds in circling flight,
I am the starshine of the night.
I am in the flowers that bloom,
I am in a quiet room.
I am in the birds that sing,
I am in each lovely thing.
Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there. I do not die.
(Poem)
By: MARY FRYE
Do not stand at my grave and weep,
I am not there, I do not sleep.
I am in a thousand winds that blow,
I am the softly falling snow.
I am the gentle showers of rain,
I am the fields of ripening grain.
I am in the morning hush,
I am in the graceful rush
Of beautiful birds in circling flight,
I am the starshine of the night.
I am in the flowers that bloom,
I am in a quiet room.
I am in the birds that sing,
I am in each lovely thing.
Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there. I do not die.
Friday, September 15, 2006
Article on NAM 'Havana from 1979 to 2006'
Havana from 1979 to 2006
Havana is preparing for the 14th NAM Summit on September 15 and 16. Ironically, the movement is caught between contradictory pulls, the lofty ideals of peace and justice and the imperatives of the national interests of its leading members. One of the pioneers of the movement i.e India voted against one of the NAM members ie Iran in the IAEA Board of Governors meeting, ostensibly to preserve its deal on the transfer of nuclear technology by a superpower to whom NAM showed aversion during the Cold War era. The problem of unity in the movement has been further compounded by the absence of strong charismatic leadership.
It is a measure of the dilution of the movement that more than half of its members were directly or indirectly tied with either of the two superpowers in the cold war rivalry. Its sermons on disarmament match poorly with the fact that some of the biggest arms importers are among its prominent members. Its image has greatly been damaged by the violation of international law by its own members. While the organization was intended to be as close an alliance as NATO or the Warsaw Pact, it has little cohesion and many of its members were aligned with one or another of the great powers. For example, in view of these conditions, the onset of new millinium could well mark the acceleration of the process of political decay that had already beset the movement. The need of the hour is to resolve political and economic strifes, to stop the use of coercion among the members and not to acquiesce the use of force against the NAM members.
The post-cold war era, particularly the period after 9/11 is important for NAM for it has to justify its existence. Now when the world is no longer bipolar, NAM is looked upon by many as an anachronism. The same problem was a matter for concern for the leaders of NAM when they met at Nicosia in 1993. Besides, Third World debt, economic issues and the changed geo-strategic environment were discussed. They clamoured for NIEO more vociferously than ever. The Durbin Summit Meeting 1998 was important for many reasons. Firstly, South Africa once the epicenter of apartheid policy got the honour of hosting the meeting, secondly ther legendary Nelsen Mandela was the belle donna of the entire proceedings and thirdly the meeting was being held after the nuclear explosions of the two South Asian neighbours. It was against this backdrop that Mandela served a diplomatic blow to India by acknowledging the gravity of the Jammu and Kashmir doispute between India and Pakistan, and by expressing willingness on behalf of the internatiomnal community to extend every possible help in order to help resolve this issue.
It was at Durban that the idea of Bandung-II was conceived. It is true that NAM played a key strategic role in galvanizing the Third World countries to pursue on an independent course during cold war but now they faced the prospect of becoming irrelevant in the post-cold war ear in the new unipolar world of the 21st century. Thirteenth NAM Summit that was held at Kuala Lumpur (Feb 20-25, 2003 was to deal with this big question and to justify its existence. Malaysia was the chair. Foreign Minster of Malaysia Hamidal Bar expressed concern at the obtaining situation in the Middle East and called for the deployment of an international situation to grapple with the situation. The big challenge before the member countries during the Bandung II Conference 2005 was to revitalize NAM so that it can perform the role of new rallying point for the developing countries to protect their interests against the tide of globalization and seek structural reforms in the UN to allow the third world a voice in all political and economic negotiations. It must be countervailing force to the monopoly on power now exercised by G 8, the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, each with a veto power, the Britton Woods institutions such as the IMF and the World Bank and the vastly enlarged NATO and the European Union.
Only consensus and will by the member countries would promise the Movement's revitalization at time when its members are considering the urgent need of keeping its foundational principles alive and taking new steps toward unity, coordination and solidarity that will enable them to confront with a single voice the challenges facing the nations of South at this time. In response to the challenges posed by the post 9/11 period, and tendency by the sole super power to go to any length and to settle international disputes on its own terms and conditions at any cost, the Third World has decided - as is laid out in the Political Declaration - that the defence of multilateralism and the principles of the UN Charter are the basis for revitalizing the Movement. As the text states, to this end it is essential: "like never before, for our nations to remain united, firm and to shoulder a greater level of activism" to close the way to such pretensions.
NAM must become an agency for political coordination, nay it has to promote and defend the common interests of the Third World, as well as to foster unity and solidarity; defence of peace and international security; cooperation based on international law; and promotion of the sustainable development of the peoples of the developing world. Multilateralism and the strengthening of the role that should be played by the UN, the fight for nuclear disarmament and the promotion of South-South cooperation are some of the many other elements that have been precisely outlined in the document.
In response to this reality, Havana 2006 text proposes a plan of action that includes the strengthening of the NAM's ability to give an effective response to the different events and issues that affect the interests and priorities of its member states, just as it expresses the need to define and promote a political agenda for the global economic matters of interest to member nations. The Havana event will be, without a doubt, a stage where the South will show its ability and determination to close the way to unilateralism and coercion and frustrate the designs of the developed world stop them from reaping the fruits of development.
The writer is a Research Scholar.
Email: amerrizwan@gmail.com
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