The Economist: Post-revolutionary Tunisia – Moving Ahead

Frustration and uncertainty persist, but the country is heading the right way

 

COMPARED with the other upheavals across the Arab world this year, Tunisia’s is still the runaway winner. Since the country’s dictator, Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, with his greedy wife, Leila Trabelsi, flew off into a Saudi twilight on January 14th after a nationwide uprising that lasted barely a month, there have been political hiccups, sit-ins, strikes and riots, especially in the fly-blown towns of the interior, and several new governments. But under Beji Caid Sebsi, an avuncular 84-year-old who first served in a cabinet in the 1960s and took over as prime minister on February 27th, Tunisia has calmed down. “People think things are going better than they thought they would the day after the revolution,” says a diplomat.

The postponement until October 23rd of an election to a constituent assembly originally scheduled for July 24th was widely accepted with good grace after the independent electoral commission said it could not prepare properly in time. The country has a clear path ahead. The assembly, once elected, is expected to draw up a constitution within a year, perhaps even sooner, paving the way for a full-blown election. Tunisia is in with a good chance of having a decent democracy and a perky economy by the end of next year.

Its transitional government has a clutch of competent technocrats in key positions, several of whom worked abroad for many years in Western banks but were lured back by the call of patriotism. “Tunisia could be an amazing place,” says Jalloul Ayed, the finance minister, a former Citibank man and composer of classical symphonies. “We have a bright, highly educated population. We’re close to Europe’s markets. We have the right to dream of Tunisia as the Singapore of the Mediterranean. We could achieve it in five to seven years—with a few adjustments.”

The constituent assembly will comprise a range of secular and Islamist parties. More than 90 have registered. In a system of proportional representation in large constituencies, fewer than ten of them will probably get seats. The new constitution is likely to be both presidential and parliamentary, perhaps resembling the model of France, with which Tunisia still has many links. “But we don’t want it to be presidentialist,” says Rafaa Ben Achour, a minister of state and constitutional lawyer, stressing the last syllable.

Virtually every opinion poll puts Nahda, the main Islamist party, in the lead. It wins kudos for its courage and apparent incorruptibility under Mr Ben Ali, who imprisoned many of its leaders (and at one time a good 5,000 of the rank and file), some of them for 20 years. But no poll suggests that Nahda would come close to getting an outright majority. A recent one gave it 14%; its main rival, the Progressive Democratic Party (PDP), in the secular centre, got 5%. More than two-thirds of Tunisians said they had not made up their minds. Few people, even the Islamists, predict that it will get more than 25%.

The big question is whether Nahda, led by a dignified 70-year-old, Rashid Ghannouchi, who returned this year after more than 20 years in exile, mostly in London, will emerge as the most potent single political force—and whether secular Tunisians, whose various parties together could easily form a majority, would allow it to wield a dominant influence, let alone untrammelled power.

Mr Ghannouchi (no relation of Muhammad Ghannouchi, the short-term prime minister after Mr Ben Ali’s fall) has bent over backwards to present Nahda as moderate and tolerant. His colleagues promise to abide by the rules of democracy, insist on women’s rights, and say they will not impose sharia law, ban alcohol or deter skimpily clad tourists from the West. Like Islamists across the Arab world who have refashioned themselves under new freedoms, Nahda says it looks to Turkey’s mild-mannered ruling Islamists.

But many of the three-quarters or so of Tunisians who do not consider themselves Islamist mistrust Nahda, many of them deeply. Again and again, secular-minded Tunisians accuse it of speaking in different tongues to different people. “They do not understand democracy or freedom,” says Mustapha Mezghani, a businessman who has set up a liberal party. “The least one can say is that they are ambiguous,” says Maya Jribi, the PDP’s co-leader, while deploring Nahda’s tendency, as she puts it, to “use the mosque for sending its political message”.

One movement, calling itself the Modernist Democratic Pole, including the former communist party, Tajdid, is trying to band all secular groups together to ensure that Nahda is kept out of power. Yet most Tunisians also seem aware that excluding Nahda from power could be more destabilising for the country than letting it in, perhaps even as a partner in coalition, at least during a jittery period of transition.

In any event, Tunisia needs a financial helping hand for the next year or so. In late May the G8 group of rich countries promised $20 billion to Tunisia and Egypt in loans and grants over the next three years, of which several billion is to go to Tunisia—the first tranche, according to the finance minister, within a few weeks. It is sorely needed. Economic growth, which was nearly 4% last year, will fall this year to less than 1%. Tourism, which accounted for 7% of GDP, has collapsed. Youth unemployment is around 23%, according to the labour minister. The minimum industrial wage for a 48-hour week is around $50. Of the 700,000 officially reckoned to be jobless in a population of 10.6m, some 170,000 are graduates—the angriest part of a populace enraged by the inequities and corruption that helped spark the revolution against Mr Ben Ali.

The mood in the harsh interior, where the revolution began, is impatient. In Kasserine, a town 300km (180 miles) south-west of Tunis, protesters call for the provincial governor, a military man, to go. Barbed wire surrounds banks and state-owned offices, with armoured cars outside. Civic leaders say that 40% of the townsfolk are unemployed. Last week two prisoners died in the third jail riot since January.

“If there is another social explosion, democracy will be stymied,” says Ms Jribi. Almost everyone in Tunis agrees, often adding that it is also vital that Libya, by far its closest neighbour, also comes right, with Muammar Qaddafi removed. “We consider the Libyan people an extension of the Tunisian people,” says the finance minister. If Libya is set free and Tunisia’s own electoral course goes according to plan, with the angry young men in such towns as Kasserine persuaded to hold their breath, the country could indeed become a beacon for the rest of the Arab world.

Source: http://www.economist.com/node/18958251

Looking for heroes By Shada Islam

GROWING up, there was no dearth of heroes. My father was certainly one. Even now, 11 years after his death, I still marvel at his intellect, admire his vision and chuckle at his jokes. My quest for other heroes — and heroines — has been less successful, however.

It seems I’m not alone: The whole world appears to be on the lookout for a person who — according to my dictionary’s description of a hero — should be of “distinguished courage and ability, admired for his/her brave deeds and noble qualities”.

Here in Europe, the prevailing moan is about the lack of strong political leaders to help us climb out of the eurozone catastrophe and other assorted crises. In the US, as mourning continues over the death of Apple whiz-kid Steve Jobs, most heroes either inhabit Silicon Valley or the TV and cinema screens. Certainly do not try and look for them in the Republican Party.

The Middle East has recently produced an extraordinary number of nasty villains. Latin America has Brazil’s Lula da Silva as a pan-continental hero and Africa is lucky enough to call Nelson Mandela a son of the soil.

But apart from Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi, Asia has been quite unsuccessful in producing modern-day heroes. And as for Pakistan, the less said about the lack of contemporary heroes, the better. So where are the men or women who can stir our imagination, capture our hopes and embody our dreams? Where are the people who can inspire and amuse, enrage and inflame — and make us want to be better versions of ourselves?

Everybody has their list of people they admire. My favourite teacher in school insisted that we should all have ‘scrapbooks’ containing pictures of the men and women we thought were special. They had to be living heroes, she said, not people from history books.

I spent many wonderful afternoons filling the books with pictures of the (mostly) men who dominated the global landscape as I was growing up. Looking at one of the albums recently, I saw faded newspaper pictures of an eclectic collection of presidents and prime ministers, astronauts, scientists and writers.

President Nasser of Egypt, Indonesia’s Sukarno, Algeria’s Boumedienne show up on several pages, undoubtedly indicating my interest in the Non-Aligned Movement. But there are also pictures of President John F. Kennedy and his brother Robert, the Soviet Union’s Khrushchev, and once in a while, of Gen Ayub Khan and Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto.

There were two women who stood out: Indira Gandhi and Golda Meir — and yes, Jackie Kennedy but for completely different reasons.

I agree: I was confused. My list of icons certainly does not resonate with my son and daughter or any of their friends. Born after the end of the Cold War, into a globalised and interconnected world, both are able to travel and cross cultures without blinking an eyelid. And their standards when it comes to international and local heroes are much higher than their mother’s.

But my point is that there were many people in the 20th century who towered above the rest, inspiring interest in an impressionable girl sitting in faraway Karachi. It definitely does not appear to be the case today. As Europeans ponder over their future, it’s clear that one key problem is a lack of heroes — and heroines — to chart a new course for the continent.

Nostalgic EU-watchers get tears in their eyes when they talk of Jacques Delors, the much-respected former European Commission president, who ushered in the single market and the single European currency. The general consensus is that Delors, working alongside German chancellor Helmut Kohl and French president Francois Mitterrand, helped create an unparalleled golden ‘European Age’.

Contemporary European heroes are few and far between. Chancellor Angela Merkel has lost her gloss in recent months as she struggles to come up with a plan to salvage the euro.

For all their determination to liberate Libya from Qadhafi’s clutches, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and David Cameron do not qualify as heroes. Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi is a global laughing stock and Spain’s José Luis Zapatero is on his way out.

Vladimir Putin? Hardly. As he reinforces his grip over Russia, Putin — president or prime minister — is certainly making a place for himself in the history books but he is not winning many hearts and minds.

So what are we left with? I respect and admire both Recip Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey and Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono of Indonesia for turning around their countries’ destinies. But both men have significant flaws. Erdogan is suspected of having an
autocratic streak and Yudhoyono for being too ready to compromise. I like Manmohan Singh’s cool and quiet style and his success in transforming his country’s economic landscape. But his Indian critics appear determined to see the back of him.

No, I have not forgotten Barack Obama. America’s first black president is clearly not popular in Pakistan and has been unable to live up to his promises as regards the future of the Middle East. His numerous critics accuse him of being a cold, ‘egghead’
intellectual, unable to stand up to Israel and confused about Afghanistan.

I confess, however, that Obama remains high up on my list of ‘people to admire’. I still find it impressive that an African-American, whose middle name is Hussein, who thinks before he acts and knows the capitals of most nations, big and small, can
be elected as US president. I am urging my American friends to vote for him. And trying to convince my sceptical son and daughter that they should include Obama on whatever digital scrapbook they currently cut and paste their heroes into.

The writer is Dawn’s correspondent in Brussels.

Source: http://www.dawn.com/2011/10/15/looking-for-heroes.html

The burden of bans by Rafia Zakaria

AS September gasped its last, something unprecedented happened in the French town of Meaux, located about 25km from the heart of Paris.

In this town, whose previous claim to renown had been its cheese and a special variety of mustard, the first fine was imposed on two women who had been found wearing the niqab, or the full-face veil, in public.

The women, Hind Ahmas and Najate Nait Ali, were ordered by the municipal court judge to pay fines of 120 euros and 80 euros respectively. They vowed to appeal against the court’s ruling in the European Court of Human Rights.

It was through this humdrum route that France, historically renowned for its cultivation of creativity and its evolved appetite for artistry, entered the ranks of nations that utilise bans to eliminate from the public sphere acts which a majority deems morally repugnant or politically subversive.

France was thus inducted into the dubious fellowship of the afraid, which include — amongst others — the Saudi state that sends men with sticks after ‘inadequately’ covered women and the Chinese state that imprisons bloggers that try to tweet against the government.

Like the majority of the French, who would emphatically endorse the municipal court’s actions, most Chinese and Saudis apparently see no problem with their bans — after all, order and stability must be protected and who better to do the deed than the state under the imprimatur of law.

Bans catalogue a nation’s worst fears, enumerating acts which many believe would — if left unchecked — instigate a devastating loss of identity. It is a proximity to existential terror that creates justifications for the existence of bans —for the French, cafes spilling over with veiled apparitions; for the Saudis, a cavalcade of untamed tresses streaming out from convertibles; for the Chinese, virtual revelations of the peasants felled to make way for skyscrapers. In each case, the ban in question is tied, purposely and with great intention, to the behaviour it seeks to prohibit, its content justifying its coercive nature and obscuring its intrinsic fallacy.

Through this circle of flawed logic a ‘ban’ society, be it Saudi or French or Chinese, adheres to the specificity of the ban it produces as a justification for it. By criminalising an act, say the wearing of a niqab or the abandoning of an abaya, the act is redefined as deviance.

What is banned becomes the same as what is dangerous, leaving only incremental shades of difference between covered and uncovered women and murderers. The mechanics of bans is employed by governments with an appetite for political manoeuvring to get vast populations to back bans, to get scared minorities to adhere to them and to have those unaffected by their proclamations ignore them.

To draw up an itemised account of the costs imposed by bans requires moving beyond the intoxicating concoctions of right and wrong meant to trip the unwary citizen. Rid of context and criminality, a ban inflicts two wounds on society: the first cripples, the second kills.

The imposition of a ban, like no other act of state, proclaims the breakdown of a society’s own mechanisms for imposing blame and shame. Hence, it controls communal behaviour. A society that bans has no moral confidence in itself and becomes, with decades of accumulating bans, unable to judge behaviour without the mandate of the state to distinguish between right and wrong.

Acts become wrong not because of calculations of harm and the benefit or dictates of social conscience but because they have fines and penalties attached to them. With time, getting caught becomes more crucial than the act itself. Cleverly evading censure becomes the basis of moral decision-making, skewing all equations on the basis of being found out.

It is as a consequence of the stunting of moral life that the intangible costs of bans can also be weighed. The most avid fans of bans, the Saudis and the Chinese, believe in the assumption that an artful selection of prohibitions retains just the right amount of freedom. Based on this premise societies safely incentivise science and technology, for instance, while placing curbs on literary or artistic expression.

In China, therefore, you can consume an expensive French meal and purchase a Ferrari but you cannot get on Facebook or ask your friends to assemble and protest against the razing of a slum. This same idea of circumscribed freedom exists in all ‘ban’ societies, pivoted on the premise that freedom can be rationed or directed into certain permissible pathways.

This idea of limited freedom would work if those subjected to it were not already crippled by their navigation of bans. The ultimate cruelty of a ‘ban’ society is that it judges all acts by their permissibility; hence, an act becomes defined by limits instead of possibility.

Creativity, too, while initially whetted by the trickery required to get around firewalls and get on Facebook anyway, or drive a car deep in the desert, reaches a desolate dead end dictated by the very edict it seeks to evade. There can be no invention in these societies since the unimaginable is a realm that cannot be explored; the unimaginable is off-limits precisely because it is unknown.

A ‘ban’ society is a scared society, where the terror of the future must be curtailed by artificial guarantees of order. In its feeble attempts to destroy uncertainty, to create identity by outlawing this or that, it eliminates the possibility of ideas whose impetus is not defying bans and whose originality is not located in the simplistic mechanics of violating well-known taboos.

This past week, a world enamoured of bans bid adieu to an inventor whose creations could not be described, or even imagined, until they existed. Such is the potential of creativity unhampered by the maze of restriction, a suggestion that when acts and expressions are not teased and tampered with through prohibition, the translation of the unknown becomes not the terrible but the possible.

The writer is an attorney teaching political philosophy and constitutional law. 

Source: http://www.dawn.com/2011/10/12/the-burden-of-bans.html

CNN Article: Zakaria: How Obama can overcome the down economy

I talked to John King the other day about President Obama's reelection strategy in this down economy. Take a look at the video above and/or the transcript below:

John King: The data is just simply not good for the president. And then on top of that, that's looking backward on the data we already know, today markets are talking about a bear market, financial markets don't look good, the housing market don't look good, the president can't look out at the horizon and see anything to be optimistic about, can he?

Fareed Zakaria: It looks pretty grim. There's a famous model that was designed by a professor in economic at Yale, Ray Fair, which predicts outcome of presidential elections. He's never been wrong in 40 years. And the basic inputs are economic growth, unemployment, inflation you know your basic economic data that the theory is that the campaign itself is actually irrelevant, that you give me the economic data and I will tell you whether the incumbent will get re-elected. Well, if you use those kinds of models and those numbers, the situation looks very tough for the president.

John King: And this one issue. The president answers the question, 'No, people aren't better off than they were four years ago.' This is in one issue on which you would say he's in absolute agreement with his chief nemesis politically, that would be the House Republicans. Listen here for the majority leader, Eric Cantor: "The president said yesterday that people in the country are worse off than they were when he was elected. We feel the same way. The economy continues to sputter." Is the president's only hope to say it's not all my fault, it's their fault too?

Fareed Zakaria: I don't think that's going to be as convincing. I think his hope is probably the tack he's taking to say, 'Things are very bad; they're bad because of the very broad forces beyond our control, the collapse of Lehman, the financial crisis, the global financial crisis, Europe and the euro zone crisis. But here's the issue, I have a plan. I have a plan to help get us out of this. And that is my jobs plan. And I have a way to pay for it. And the Republican Party, on the other hand has no plan.'

He has to draw that distinction and he has to hammer home the idea that he has a set of proposals that are powerful that would take immediate effect that would help Americans and the other side doesn't. I don't think spreading the blame around or complicating the issue is going to help as much.

Elections are referendums. And there has to be referenda on something. If it's not about the plan, it's going to be about him. And, frankly, I think he's better off it being about a comparative analysis of the plans rather than just a referendum on him.

John King: And how complicated is it? How hemmed in is he by the fact that a lot of the long-term things that need to be done, whether entitlement reform, dealing with debt, other structural issues in the U.S. economy might be at odds. Those long-term challenges might be some would say certainly at odds with his short-term political needs?

Fareed Zakaria: I think the sensible thing to do economically is pretty clear, which is to have a short-term plan that has some stimulus for the economy, and various forms, tax breaks, extensions of unemployment, a very significant infrastructure bill because that is what you get. What the government can do more than anything else is rebuild America and put people to work and a debt reduction plan.

And you do it altogether so that you reassure the markets that while spending some money now, you're going get your fiscal balances in order. Politically this seems impossible. And that is the dilemma I think that the president is grappling with that he's not able to get any of that stuff done that would actually have an impact on the economy because there is so much political gridlock and opposition in Washington that he can't manage to make it happen.

Source: http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2011/10/07/zakaria-how-obama-can-overcome-the-down-economy/?hpt=wo_r1

WAR has raged between the Pakistani Army and Taliban forces for several years now, spilling over from the tribal areas and Swat into the plains and cities of Pakistan.

As a result, Peshawar, Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi have all borne the brunt of attacks on security targets, with Pakistan’s children being the most affected by the conflict.

Karachi-based psychologist Ishma Alvi explains the psychological effects of the war on terror and related violence on Karachi’s children. “There has been a marked increase in anxiety disorders, especially generalised anxiety disorder as well as agoraphobia, the fear of going to spaces where the sufferer might feel threatened, where there appears to be little escape and
where one might have a panic attack.”

She notes an increase in major depressive disorder, or clinical depression. “Not only have these disorders been appearing more frequently, they have been presenting in younger groups — teenagers to young adults.”

With 48 per cent of Pakistan’s population under the age of 18, and a small percentage of the budget allocated for education, chances are that extremism will continue to foment in the minds of young people faced with limited employment opportunities. According to Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, director of the Emmy-winning documentary Children of the Taliban, economic deprivation ensures that they will continue to turn to terrorism as a way of ensuring survival for their families.

Mindful of this ongoing threat, the Pakistan Army, during their 2009 operation in Swat, removed dozens of teenage boys who had been trained as suicide bombers from Taliban training camps. It enlisted Dr Feriha Peracha, a popular psychologist with a lucrative private practice in Lahore, to assess 12 of these boys. It was then proposed that she run a school aimed at rehabilitating them, and Dr Peracha agreed. Thirty-five children and teenagers were enrolled in this school, called Sabaoon, the Pushto word for the first ray of light in the morning.

The school was heavily guarded, and remotely located — security a top priority for such a delicate operation. The programme was administered by Dr Peracha’s organisation, the Unicef-funded Hum Pakistani Foundation. The programme included mainstream academic intervention and vocational training “for those who are unable to keep up with academics but continue with education at their own individual levels of achievement, starting with basic literacy”, says Dr Peracha.

Classroom education was supplemented with nature expeditions, art and drawing sessions and time to play sports, in order to give the boys a taste of the childhood that was snatched from them during the Taliban occupation of their villages and towns and their time in the training camps.

Religious academic and Swat University vice chancellor Dr Mohammed Farooq Khan visited the school once a week to teach the boys an Islam free from the distortions the Taliban had taught them. Undoing the damage inflicted upon the boys’ psyches — the five-point programme of indoctrination — was going to take months, if not years.

Rather than interrogating them or laying blame for their willingness to kill in the name of God, Dr Khan treated them as children who had undergone major psychological trauma, and attempted to educate and counsel them, helping them to understand how the Taliban had distorted their perceptions of religion and the West.

Sabaoon received media attention for its groundbreaking efforts and seemed to be off to a good start. Even the most severely indoctrinated children had begun to understand that the version of Islam previously taught to them was an ideology that encouraged death and destruction in their once peaceful valley. Then, one day in October 2009, the Taliban came to Dr Khan’s clinic and shot him in the head as he ate lunch with his assistant.

The murder has been linked to the ideological changes that Dr Khan had been attempting to institute in Swat University, which had become a hotbed of religious extremism during the days of the Taliban invasion of Swat, but his death had direct repercussions for Sabaoon and the boys in the school’s care.

“He was with me just two days before at the school,” says Dr Peracha, “and I had given some books to him about empathy training and requested him to use the parables and other narratives from the Quran to teach the same concept to the boys….”

Dr Peracha acknowledges the vacuum created by Dr Khan’s death, but it has not deterred her from her mission. She has hired another expert religious scholar as well as regular Islamic studies teachers to continue the work of Dr Khan, as she feels that the combination of religious education and psycho-social intervention is key to saving her charges from a path that no child should ever have to tread.

While danger continues to be a constant companion for Pakistan and its people, the key to surviving its psychological onslaught is to cultivate a place of safety within. Ishma Alvi urges parents to talk honestly to their children about the events and circumstances around them. She adds that parents must endeavour to keep calm in the moments of crisis that regularly erupt in Karachi and elsewhere in Pakistan’s restive cities. “That doesn’t mean they should fake calm, but that they should maintain calm despite fear.”

So many Pakistanis born in the age of the war on terror have died in these 10 years that it’s easy to imagine Pakistan as haunted by the children who never made it through the decade between Sept 11, 2001 and the death of Osama bin Laden in May 2011. But after the ones that have died, including the 160 children the UK-based Bureau for Investigative Journalism claims have been killed in US drone strikes since 2004, it’s the children who lived through and still live within the conflict areas that are the hardest-hit victims of the war and its violent blowback throughout Pakistan.

Source: http://www.dawn.com/2011/10/11/the-youngest-casualties.html

Killing the messengers by Ardeshir Cowasjee

WE Pakistanis are determined never to learn from history. Our leaders deem ignorance to be bliss and choose to pay no attention to what the world thinks of them or of our country.

Pakistan is more isolated internationally than at any time since 1971. That year, for those of us who care to remember, the country lost its erstwhile eastern wing after a civil war and a humiliating military defeat.

Any other nation would teach its young the lessons of its greatest tragedy in the hope of avoiding it. We, on the other hand, are insistent upon re-enacting every mistake we made then as if to prove Einstein’s definition of insanity. “Insanity,” said the great scientist, is “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

The 1971 crisis comprised several parts. Pakistan’s politicians were more concerned with parcelling out bits and pieces of political power, making petty arguments in the process, instead of realising that the country’s integrity was at stake.

The military formulated a ‘strategy’ that was based on flawed assumptions and could not be sustained in the battlefield. The religious parties went on a rampage, calling and killing anyone who disagreed with them in East Bengal a ‘Hindu agent’.

The Pakistani media created a false reality. Everything reported internationally was described as part of an international, anti-Islam conspiracy. We were shown as winning on every front even as we were being defeated everywhere. Jingoism was equated with nationalism.

Logic and reason dictated that the West Pakistani military negotiate with, and accept, those voted in with an overwhelming majority by the people of East Bengal. Instead, it was decided that the matter will be resolved with force of arms, without regard to the logistical difficulties of subduing a rebellious population separated by 1,000 miles of enemy territory.

Only one man within the government recognised the futility of the military operation in East Bengal and, after failing to convince his peers and superiors of their folly, sat quietly through the crisis after resigning as commander of Pakistani forces in the eastern wing.

The erudite aristocrat, Lt Gen Sahibzada Yaqub Khan, later became our ambassador to Washington D.C. and longest-serving foreign minister. But his elevation became possible only after ignoring his advice resulted in the mad events of the fateful year, 1971.

By December 1971, walls in Karachi were painted with graffiti declaring ‘Crush India’, with similar stickers decorating every motor vehicle. No discussion was possible about military balance or global alliances. Songs like Jang khed nayee hondi zananian di (‘War is not a game for women’ — a reference to Indian prime minister Indira Gandhi) were broadcast.

On Dec 16, Lt Gen A.A.K. Niazi signed the instrument of surrender that turned 90,000 Pakistanis into prisoners of war and gave Lt Gen Jagjit Singh Aurora control of the territory now called Bangladesh. But this newspaper of record’s issue of Dec 17 still proclaimed in a banner headline, ‘War till Victory’.

Other headlines on the front page that day reminded the nation, ‘Pakistan promised continued support by China’ and the existence of a government of national unity comprising civilian politicians from different political parties. There was even a quarter page advertisement with the word ‘JEHAD’ in large letters. Totally missing was any acknowledgment of defeat or failure or analysis of what really happened.

Forty years later, the nation is in a similar frenzy. This time, ‘Crush India’ has been replaced by ‘Crush America’ and anchorpersons on our many television channels are shouting inanities and talking confidently about teaching the world’s sole superpower a lesson.

China is still being touted as the hidden ace up our sleeve. Jihad is now a multi-billion rupee enterprise involving groups that kill Pakistanis more than foreigners but still have a claim on our support as strategic assets in dealing with our perceived external threats.

Can anyone dare in this environment to point out our weaknesses, the possibility of strategic isolation and the prospect of economic disaster that awaits us?

There is no general like Sahibzada Yaqub Khan to at least record dissent with the nation’s madness. Our self-made and well-read man in Washington, Husain Haqqani, probably comes closest. Recently described as “the hardest working man in Washington D.C.” in a column by Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic, the ambassador has washed off any sins of his past by gaining recognition for being internationally well-connected and acutely aware of international affairs.

As Americans voice anger over Pakistan’s pursuit of strategic depth in Afghanistan with the help of throat-slitting ruffians like the Haqqani network, Ambassador Haqqani continues to quietly persuade Americans to be patient with Pakistan and to plead with Pakistanis to understand the global power equation. But at home he is reviled frequently for not joining the ‘Crush America’ ghairat brigade.

TV anchors and newspaper owners who want to demonstrate Pakistan’s strength to the Americans would prefer an ambassador in Washington who denounced his hosts rather than an envoy who can win over hearts. As in 1971, the mood of the nation is not to hear what threats lurk in its near future.

The nation should only be reminded of how China is its all-weather friend and the unity of our people will somehow suffice to make the Americans roll over and play dead.

In our universe, Pakistan is in the middle of a party celebrating its greatness and no one wants a messenger of bad news to interrupt the self-glorification. But in the real world, we can kill as many messengers as we like, the message that Pakistan is in big trouble is unlikely to go away.

arfc@cyber.net.pk

Source: http://www.dawn.com/2011/10/09/killing-the-messengers.html

Family planning and Islam - By Asghar Ali Engineer

Family planning and Islam - By Asghar Ali Engineer

MANY people, especially women, have asked me if family planning is permissible in Islam. They say the imams and ulema say the Quran prohibits family planning and quote a verse which says, “And kill not your children for fear of poverty — We provide for them and for you. Surely the killing of them is a great wrong” (17:31).

In no way does this verse refer to family planning because it is talking of ‘killing’ and you kill one who exists. No law in the world will permit killing one who is already born and hence the Quran rightly condemns the killing of children. Some people suggest that the verse in question refers to the practice of burying girl children alive and when asked they would say they could not provide for them and hence Allah responds that He provides for them.

Imam Razi suggests the verse refers to both male and female children being kept ignorant. Thus killing them has not been used as in killing the body but the mind which is as bad as killing the body. The word used here is ‘awlad’ i.e. children, which includes both male and female.

Imam Razi’s suggestion seems to be quite reasonable and in fact a large family means children cannot be properly educated by poor parents and hence parents ‘kill’ them mentally by keeping them ignorant.

They cannot even clothe them properly nor can they provide proper living space. In such circumstances one cannot raise quality human beings, and quantity does not matter much. That said, we should understand that at the time of the revelation of the Quran, the problem of family planning did not exist, nor did the need for population control.

It is a modern problem which has arisen in our time. Most nation states in the developing world do not have the economic means to support large populations, and when we say supporting large populations it does not mean only feeding them but also includes education and the provision of proper health services. These are the basic duties of modern nation states.

In fact, in view of the paucity of resources, it has become necessary to adopt family planning. When the Quran was being revealed there was neither any properly organised state nor education nor health services being provided by a state agency.
It is important to note that the Quran, which shows eight ways to spend zakat, does not include education or health which is so essential for the state to provide today. Thus what Imam Razi suggests is not only very correct but also enhances the importance of family planning in modern times as a small family can support better education and health services.

It would be interesting to note that as for verse 4:3 (which is used by Muslims for justification of polygamy) Imam Shafi’i interprets it rather differently. It ends with the words alla ta’ulu, which is generally translated as ‘you may not do injustice’ i.e. do not marry more than one woman so that you may not do injustice. But Imam Shafi’i renders it as ‘so that you do not have a large family’. The Quran has already mentioned that ‘if you fear injustice then marry only one’ woman and so there was no need to repeat it. That is why Imam Shafi’i feels it should be translated as ‘so that you do not have a large family’.

It can be seen that in understanding the Quran even very eminent imams and great scholars differed with one another. One should not impose one single meaning of a verse on all Muslims. The Quran could be interpreted differently by different people in their own context and circumstances, as has historically been the practice. Family planning being a modern need, one should not reject it out of hand and quote Quranic verses out of context.

Family planning does not mean killing children after they are born but to plan the birth of children in a way that parents can bear all the expenses for their education, health, living space, upkeep, etc. in a proper manner. The Quran also suggests that a child be suckled for two years, and it is well known that as long as the mother suckles she may not conceive. Thus, indirectly, the Quran suggests spacing between children.

In hadith literature, we find that the Prophet (PBUH) permitted prevention of conceiving in certain circumstances. When a person asked the Prophet for permission for ‘azl (withdrawal) as he was going for a long journey along with his wife and he did not wish his wife to conceive, the Messenger of Allah allowed him. In those days this was the only known method for planning the birth of a child. Today there are several more methods available.

Imam Ghazali allows even termination of pregnancy if the mother’s life is in danger and suggests several methods for termination. He even allows termination of pregnancy on health grounds or if the mother’s beauty is in danger, provided it is in consultation with her husband. Some scholars referring to the verse 23:14 conclude that one can terminate pregnancy up to three months after conception as the Quran, in this verse, describes the stages of development of the sperm planted in the mother’s womb; it takes three months for life to begin.

However, many ulema today oppose the termination of pregnancy. Whatever the case one cannot declare family planning as prohibited in Islam as it in no way amounts to killing a child. Even the termination of a pregnancy is allowed in order to properly plan the birth of a child according to one’s financial resources.

The writer is an Islamic scholar who also heads the Centre for Study of Society & Secularism, Mumbai.

Source: http://www.dawn.com/2011/10/07/family-planning-and-islam.html