Catriona Luke2013-05-23T15:15:28-04:00Catriona Lukehttp://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/author/index.php?author=catriona-lukeCopyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc.HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Catriona LukeGood old fashioned elbow grease.Democracy in Pakistan is a work in progresstag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.30222722013-04-05T16:51:24-04:002013-04-05T16:52:41-04:00Catriona Lukehttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/catriona-luke/Next Generation report published on 2 April. The assassination of Benazir Bhutto topped the list. It was followed by the earthquakes of 2005 which killed over 87,000 people and left millions homeless. The third event was another natural disaster: the floods of 2010-11, which affected 5 million people.
The international news coverage of Pakistan focuses predominantly on terrorism and extremism, but this report reveals a slightly different picture.
Quoted in the Next Generation report (available from the British Council Pakistan site) is the work of the IRI Survey of Public Opinion in Pakistan which has been asking the general population whether they think the country is heading in the right direction since 2006.
"Their results show an equal split between optimists and pessimists until the spring of 2007, when General Pervez Musharraf suspended the Chief Justice, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry and Pakistan's lawyers took to the streets in protest. This period also saw the siege of Lal Masjid (the Red Mosque).
"Confidence in the future continued to plummet as the former President held on to power, before recovering slightly as elections were announced. However, it again fell precipitously after the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, and has never really recovered."
This round-up by the Next Generation Task Force of the 31 per cent of the electorate aged between 18 and 29 is endorsed by the British Council, but comes with the disclaimer that "it does not necessarily agree with all the views expressed in it", so best to surmise that this is not entirely an official BC publication. There has been a great deal of coverage in Pakistan and in the international media that the winners in the report are the military. But the actual picture is more complex and contradictory.
For one thing 62 per cent of the young generation said they are going to vote, 12 per cent said perhaps they would, 26 per cent they wouldn't, which comes in at comparable levels to the UK and other developed countries. When asked why they were going to vote (that is, exercise the democratic right) 45 per cent said it was a citizen's duty, 25 per cent said my vote makes a different, 15 per cent said to change things, 16 per cent said other reasons.
The report continues: "Fewer than a quarter agree that democracy has benefited either themselves and their families, or Pakistan as a whole, while over half disagree (the rest are neutral). This finding is broadly consistent with the experience of other countries that have experienced a democratic transition. In Eastern Europe, for example, there was very strong enthusiasm for democracy after the fall of the Berlin Wall, but two decades later, the public in most countries was much more sceptical. According to the Pew Research Center, the speed of political change is usually slower and more messy than voters would like. The patience of the next generation therefore becomes an important factor."
For all this there are discrepancies in the findings, which sought sample opinion from a small base and presents limited explanation of how questions were sequenced. The army, judiciary and media came out well, but you would have to have access to communications media to form opinions on these. One in four of the next generation does not have a television at home, 40 per cent have access to cable (less conservative as a result than terrestial viewers), 35 per cent only have terrestial television. The last, within the military establishment's control, puts out a diet which is anti-government, anti-minorities, pro the religious, Sunni and conservative state, and has a tendency to big up Pakistan's "enemies", of which the traditional one is India.
The conclusion of the report that political parties that can capture the needs and mood of this young generation will do well also has a question mark over it. Sixty-nine per cent of the electorate are not in this age-group.
The biggest surprise is the way that Pakistan's real difficulties are apparently rated (page 29 of the pdf): unbelievably the provision of basic services electricity, water and gas is thought by only six per cent of young people to be significant to the country's woes. Rising prices and unemployment are rated by a combined 65 per cent of those questioned. Terrorism concerns just 11 per cent, corruption 9 per cent and poverty 7 per cent.
The country has virtually no national grid, severe water problems and patchy gas supplies: day to day misery for most people. Did they put the question correctly? It's a reminder that polls and surveys are always to be taken with a pinch of salt.
Meanwhile the challenge for whichever political party or coalition parties win the election in May remain much the same as ever. To deliver good governance in the face of the various covert and overt pressures from the establishment, for which one might read, the military.
As the BBC summed it up (Taliban threats hamper secular campaign, 5 April): "Often those with the largest vote, the secular political forces, have in the past had their wings clipped repeatedly by a powerful military establishment which finds an Islamic image of the state more suited to its security needs. Now that job is being done by the Taliban."]]>Rushdie has Damaged Rather Than Protected Free Speechtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.19027732012-09-21T06:17:51-04:002012-11-21T05:12:01-05:00Catriona Lukehttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/catriona-luke/
Rushdie told the World Service that "the most frightening change" that he saw in Pakistan was that the mass of the people seemed to have given up on the "very moderate" religious beliefs that they used to hold.
The reality with which Rushdie failed to qualify this is that Pakistan has been largely in the military's grip and on (Sunni) Saudi Arabia's pay roll for the last 35 years - and Pakistan's people, the majority of whom are very poor, have had no say in that. But this perhaps is too real for Rushdie, so he is happy to limit himself to soundbites that will raise the temperature and extend stereotypes.
Despite Alan Yentob's sympathetic and credible portrait of him on BBC's Imagine, Rushdie is not a pussycat, although he may have a gift for friendship and be a good dinner guest. After Cambridge he could have turned his intellect in any number of directions including reflecting the reality of British prejudice and history back at us. Instead he chose to shred his own, the subcontinental culture from which he came and then the religion into which he was born, despite the fact that this is a wider religion, a more composite religion, than one might think: his sister Sameen on Yentob's programme spoke of honour being central to Muslims in the subcontinent, but honour runs across north Indian history, Sikh and Hindu.
The history degree at Cambridge would have told him that fundamental religiosity is always a mask for political and geo-strategic power. In the sixteenth century the Spanish Inquisition was the theological weapon of a secret police state funded by the monarchy to impose orthodoxy, terrorise minorities, collect information, seize property, enforce blasphemy laws, ban books and force conversions. At stake was the prestige and survival of the monarchy of Catholic Spain. Today this story is being repeated and repeated over the Middle East, with the added complication of Shia and Sunni states battling for supremacy. Why didn't Rushdie stop counting the number of angels who could sit on the head of a pin and go to on this in 1989? When he finally got around to it with Shalimar the Clown in 2005 it was too late.
Free-speech is about telling the truth. You stand up for it by telling the truth, not by peddling conceited and erroneous fictions.
He is also personally not known for his humility. Marianne Wiggins, his second wife, in an interview with the Sunday Times in March 1991 spoke of his self-obsession. "While others campaigned in his name for freedom of expression, he was concerned solely with his career." "He's never aligned himself with writers being executed around the world. He's put all the focus on himself."
His autobiograpy ('Joseph Anton' is taken from Conrad and Chekhov's first names, but also close to Joseph Andrews, Henry Fielding's 1742 novel: Rushdie drew on Fielding's groundbreaker of an English novel Tom Jones for style in Midnight's Children) has just been serialised on Radio 4, infact cleverly so, and to show that Rushdie is someone who has constantly courted other people's irritation with him. It must have been very shocking to have a fatwa put on him, but on 14 February 1989 he still made it to see his agent and to Bruce Chatwin's memorial service where Paul Theroux, in a rare moment of humour, said that they all expected to be back quite soon.
Rushdie went into whirling panic as the day wore on. The narrative continued that he got a call from his wife that he couldn't come back to the house because - if you were listening to this you sat forward - "there were" - what? - "there were two hundred" - two hundred what? furious fundamentalists? fatwa-wielding book burners? - "there were two hundred journalists" outside the house. Journalists? Terrifying. Completely terrifying. Impossible, I'm sorry to say, not to laugh. He didn't go home for five years.
Who can take any more of this man? Freedom of speech is hugely important but sometimes things aren't wise because they merely add heat to prejudice at a sensitive time. He probably shouldn't be across the BBC and acting as a commentator on international relations because what he does say is damaging and banal. He has a track-record of advancing debate in the Islamic world precisely nowhere. He probably should have apologised for offence caused in 1989 because goddamit, he's just a novel writer; they do not matter very much.
In bookish circles it was said that Rushdie on the freedom of speech issue was really freedom of Rushdie to say whatever he liked without acknowledging consequence. He isn't a humanitarian, he is an attention seeker, he is irresponsible. Taken at all manner of levels he may not be a very important writer. Heresy, non?]]>Imran Khan's Deal Done?tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.9859132011-09-28T19:00:00-04:002011-11-28T05:12:01-05:00Catriona Lukehttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/catriona-luke/
You cannot rule without doing a deal with the army, a prominent PPP politician told Christina Lamb, then FT correspondent in Islamabad, in 1990 and very little has changed in Pakistan. Imran Khan after 15 years out in the cold after the founding of his Tehreek-e-Insaf (Movement for Justice) party in 1996 is considered to be the military's first choice. That he did not have any political clout in those years is because, as the army reminded him, his party was disorganised, chaotic and lacking unity, a description they have always applied to any opposition, civil or political, that they don't like, or which is inconvenient to them. Khan was his sole party member with a seat in the National Assembly, 2002-2007. On paper it is the unlikely equivalent of Caroline Lucas of the Green party becoming prime minister at the next election.
Internationally Khan is thought of as a man of drive and perseverance and neither of these qualities are in question. The same year that he launched his political party, he drove through the funding and building of the country's NHS equivalent of a cancer hospital, the Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital & Research Centre which provides free care to all regardless of whether they can pay. He was prominent in the aid and charity work that followed the 2005 earthquake and the 2010 floods. He has rightly made corruption in the state (but no mention of the army) the main focus of the party. He voices many Pakistanis' anger about the role of the US of exacerbating violence and extremism in the country after 9/11 - voices from Sherard Cowper-Cowles to Rory Stewart have said consistently that the American presence in Afghanistan and the FATA tribal regions has made a bad situation worse. But the 'deal done' with the army should come with cautions.
In Pakistan and in response to the uncritical acclaim that has greeted his media appearances in Britain people complain that he is not standing for the House of Commons. The BBC news story that UK aid should be cut brought this response from twitter in Pakistan: 'Imran Khan calls for Britain to cut aid to Pakistan bec it fuels corruption. Killing poor to end poverty?' 'Cut aid 2 kill corruption, not the poor. I'm not a huge PTI fan but sometimes his criticisms are just for the sake of criticizing'. 'Imran Khan calls for Britain to cut aid to Pakistan. In other news: cricket player plays football, scores own goals'. Criticising other political parties for corruption, when if they achieve power end up equally hamstrung by the military's control, is old hat in Pakistan. To a British audience it looks fresh and novel.
At a personal level Khan is well known for the stray bees in his bonnet which distract from larger concerns. In an interview with the Guardian last week, Stuart Jeffries points out that abolishing private education in Pakistan is part of his party agenda, although Khan was educated at its leading private school, Aitchison College. Say what you will but Pakistan's independent day and boarding schools and universities have produced more civil minded, energetic, non-political citizens of Pakistan than any other institution; Khan himself in 2008 spoke to the New Statesman about creating an Oxbridge style university (like his hospital, open to all) in his former constituency of Mianwali. The difficulty is that there is sometimes clear blue water between Khan and his party, and education is one of the areas.
Secondly the reform that the country needs is to have the army not only fighting extremism, which they do, but to turn their bloated funding and manpower to restoring the country's civic infrastructures: engineering projects in Sindh to prevent flooding, a proper national electricity grid, schools, hospitals, roads and harnessing solar power. Not so much an army back to barracks, but doing something to help its citizens.
Thirdly, state building is about keeping what is good and sound and building up from that position. It's about slow careful change, not fast revolutions.
Reservations about Imran Khan are that he gets sidetracked by his personal annoyances and they become a point of principle; he is thought capable of going off on tangents. His party has more hardline agendas than he does. Despite his aristocratic Urdu, he is little more than a clumsy Pashtu speaker. Despite a following of young educated people in the universities (an irony, perhaps) he has failed to capture his country's imagination. Crowds of five thousand turn up for his rallies, but this is small fry. Given the likelihood of being squeezed between the army and his own party, Pakistan's English language media are sceptical of his ability to be a statesman, to protect the country's rich culture - that provides Pakistan's social glue across class and income - and to be a committed civil libertarian and humanitarian.
On the plus side, if he can say one thing and do another - campaign in bad poetry, govern in good prose - he may just be able to help initiate change in the country. The fact remains that his political nous would be far better tested and the results better for the country if it was initially in coalition.]]>China Will Have Mastery of Asia's Water Tap by 2020tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.9171582011-08-03T11:04:11-04:002011-10-03T05:12:01-04:00Catriona Lukehttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/catriona-luke/
The Mekong whose flow takes in Yunnan province in China, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam and feeds an estimated 60 million people has been severely depleted in the last two years. Despite drought in Yunnan last year in the peninsula of southeast Asia, users downstream are turning their frustration on the Chinese government whose three dams on the Mekong since 1996, to generate hydro-electric power, are set to increase to twelve. On China's border with Burma, a giant hydro-electric dam, the Myitsone, is being constructed near the source of the Irrawaddy to supply power to Yunnan, affecting the Kachin people of north Burma who will be left to pick up the environmental tab.
Since it began damming the Yangtse in 1995, China has acquired a large appetite for hydroelectric power and a lack care for environmental consequences, although it may argue a vast saving to the carbon footprint estimated on large dams at 200m tonnes of carbon.
More worryingly in the last decade Beijing's engineers have turned their attention to Tibet, south Asia's water tower and rich mineral depository - copper, iron, lead and zinc desposits are estimated to have a value of £80bn/ $130bn - where the region's great rivers rise and whose flow downstream provides livelihood, irrigation and food to an estimated 1.3 billion people around and below the Himalayas.
Here the Indus, Sutlej, Mekong, Brahmaputra, Salween and Yangste emerge to start epic journeys through the subcontinent, southeast Asia and China. Little more than deep running mountain torrents, they catch the seasonal glacial melt and drop through immense heights - the vital pressure for momentum to drive them off the Himalayas and into the plains below - picking up thousands of small tributaries as they go.
For China, with glacial melt on the plateau rapidly increasing because of climate change, Tibet's rivers are proving as rich resources for hydro electric and geo-political power as its mineral wealth. But frenzied dam construction projected until 2020 means that a prehistoric irrigation system that dates back 30 to 40 million years is coming to an end. Delhi-based travel writer Alice Albinia noted in 2005 that the Chinese had built a dam on a tributary of the Indus at Senge Ali as she was in the last stages of her Indus journey. "The structure itself is complete, but the hydroelectric elements on the riverbed are still being installed. There are pools of water this side of the dam, but no flow. The Indus has been stopped," she writes. She suggests that the main force and volume of the river comes from its flow and tributaries in Tibet, Ladakh and Baltistan rather than from Punjab tributaries. Infact Pakistan's floods in summer 2010 were the result of the Kabul River's flow into the Indus and the deciding role was played by jet stream weather systems.
If river systems are complex, the speed of China's dam building is geopolitically contentious. Tashi Tsering, a Tibetan expert of environmental policy at the University of British Columbia, has been monitoring the construction of dams since 2004 with the use of Google Earth and official documents from Beijing.
He has shown how the Brahmaputra, Tibet's last main undammed river, was due to receive a 38 gigawatt hydropower plant - more than half as big again as the Three Gorges dam, with an energy capacity of half of the UK's national grid - within a series of 28 lesser dams for the river, including a 500MW hydroplant at Zangmu and a huge plant at the great bend of the river at Metog where the river falls 2000 metres on its journey to eastern India. He has also found completed dams on Tibet's international rivers including the Sutlej (a hydroelectric project at Langchen Khabab) and the Indus.
The geopolitical and environmental consequences of China having a hand on the water taps of Tibet are immense for the region south of the Himalayas - both the subcontinent and southeast Asia. Damming dramatically changes the character of water not only in terms of pressure and flow but in course as well. By rockblasting new channels the sluggish slipstream that emerges from the dam's base can be diverted.
Off the Tibetan plateau, the Brahmaputra which runs through Assam and on the border between India and Bangladesh is the first flashpoint of the water battle in south Asia, and not least because India's northeastern state of Arunachal Pradesh, the bridging state between Tibet and Assam, has long been claimed by China.
On the eastern subcontinental plains, farmers rely on glacial melt and high river pressure for irrigation between February and June. The water treaties signed in the region in the 1960s after the China-India war of 1962 are out of date and inadequate; India's tense geo-political relations with China and four disputed territories across the Himalayas have put India on the defensive. Delhi is alarmed that ultimately Beijing may intend to divert the river for Chinese farmers.
Within days of Wen Jiabao's visit to India in December 2010, the Indian press reported that intelligence agencies had found 24 new hydro electric projects on the Brahmaputra and its tributaries in Tibet, a four-fold increase. The course of the Brahmaputra, as well as China's provocative suggestion that Indian Kashmir is a 'disputed territor' were at the heart of Manmohan Singh's statement on Wen's visit that India had " some outstanding issues with them (the Chinese) which we hope to resolve in an atmosphere of friendship." Meanwhile the implications for Burma of Chinese interest in the Irrawaddy and south Asia's dependence on the Mekong are troubling.
If there is good news at all it comes from Pakistan, although under terrible circumstances last summer: that river flow and irrigation depends upon south Asia's monsoons and weather systems - the droughts in Russia and the Chinese and Pakistan floods were due to atmospheric pressure, governed by global warming, high up in the jet stream - as much as mountain river sources. Bangladesh's epidemic of land erosion through the Sunderbans delta might be eased with proper damming of the Brahmaputra if India (upstream) can take the initiative first.
Too much water, not enough water. The present century is predicated to be tinged with its geopolitics. Prior to the flooding in Pakistan, there was constant documentation over hundreds of miles of the Indus's reduction to a thin stagnant trickle and the incursion of sea water from the Arabian sea delta, and much of this has been blamed on damming in the north and the demand on shared waters with India.