firstperson
Master planner
I think for the civil society movement to succeed in their objectives, there should be a state that is willing to talk and to discuss issues. Our state is not willing to discuss issues. It wants decisions and not discussion.
By Zeenia Shaukat
Leading architect, planner, researcher and writer Arif Hasan is considered to be an authority on urban development. Apart from setting up the famous Urban Resource Centre in Karachi, a very important research institute on urban development issues, Hasan has been a consultant to various international organisations and community groups across the globe. He has also been a consultant with the famous Orangi Pilot Project and has been a recipient of numerous prestigious national and international awards. He has also served as the jury member of the prestigious Aga Khan Award for Architecture. Hasan has published over a dozen books and a number of reports and papers on issues related to architecture, housing, planning, communities, the environment, development and social change.

Passive reaction
While the tragic Virginia Tech massacre has re-ignited a fierce debate over gun control laws, it is unlikely to bring a change in the status quo in the United States
By Jazib Zahir
Evil visited the Virginia Tech campus cloaked as a gun-totting student of Korean ethnicity on April 16, 2007. While the ashes of the dead have been cremated, specters linger on and pose us vexing questions. Will innocent Korean Americans elude the pitchforks of those looking to vent their frustrations over this incident? Are children under such intense social and academic pressure that morphing into a cold-blooded killer is a conceivable outlet? Are the students being gifted too much independence on university campuses and provided too few safeguards?

Much has already been said about what happened on 'Black Saturday'. The truth be told, not enough has been said. The events of Saturday, May 12 should remain at the centre stage of our political discourse for a long while, but they probably will not, largely because the government cannot afford it, and also because of the rapidly unfolding developments in this crucial period of Pakistan's history.

There can no longer be any pretense about the legitimacy of the ruling regime. As it approaches the end of its 8th year in power, it has proven beyond a doubt that its first and foremost concern is self-preservation. It matters little what the cost of this one-point agenda is for the polity. In this way, this regime is scarcely different from the Ayub and Zia juntas that insisted on retaining power at whatever cost. And it is now clear that Musharraf & co. will also depart the scene with their tails in between their legs as did their predecessors.

But the reason why this is a crucial period in Pakistan's history extends beyond the obvious. 60 years into the Pakistan project, there is a need to ask serious questions about the viability of the nation-building experiment. In the first instance, our collective memories are hopelessly distorted. The majority of people in this country have little understanding of the realities of the Pakistan movement and the manner in which the raison d'etre of Pakistan was transformed almost overnight once partition actually came to pass. As has been indisputably proven by conscientious research in recent times, our textbooks' depiction of the history of the Muslim community of the subcontinent is little more than myth. It is no surprise therefore that our educational system does not promote critical thinking.

Pakistan has been called a 'migrant state' which reflects the overwhelming influence on state and society of those who do not originally hail from the Pakistan areas. In principle, 60 years after the country's creation, there should not necessarily be a divide between indigenous and 'migrant' peoples. But there is, and the events of 'Black Saturday' once again underlined this grim fact. This divide has existed since well before Pakistan was created, and necessarily became ever more acute after the inception of the new state which was not only dominated by two ethnic groups, but was also constructed in a manner by the new state managers that suggested that the Pakistan areas had no prior history or culture. The imposition of cultural symbols such as the Urdu language on a majority of people that did not speak it was one manifestation of this huge gulf between the state and the society that it sought to mould in its image.

And much of this together explains our sad romance with dictatorial rule. Ethnicity and institutional/class imbalances are symbiotically related, and always have been. Add to this the imperative of national security (which was also propagated most militantly by the migrant community), and one has the makings of authoritarianism. From the very beginning, politics has been maligned in the classical colonial tradition, and the men in uniform (along with the higher bureaucrats) have graciously taken it upon themselves to guide the country towards progress and prosperity.

Quite amazingly, this model of 'bureaucratic paternalism' has persisted in spite of the tremendous socio-economic changes that have taken place in the wider society. Perhaps most horrifying is the fact that more than half the country was lost in 1971 largely because of this oppressive structure of power. The secession of the eastern wing is yet another tumultuous event in our history which has been banished from our collective memories. Instead of learning from the event, the state and its allies have insisted on reinforcing the 'Islamic essence' of Pakistan, fabricating a renewed mandate for oligarchic rule, and reasserting its commitment to the geo-strategic goals of western imperialism.

There was of course the Bhutto interregnum which represented arguably the only chance to date to make a fundamental break with oligarchic rule. Oftentimes, explanations for the degeneration of the populist experiment of the 1970s are rooted in Bhutto's personal failings. But such explanations overlook the long-standing structural imbalances that have been very fleetingly outlined here. It was in fact the idiom of popular politics that Bhutto symbolised, and ironically was unwilling to trust, which ultimately condemned him to his fate. And thus followed the dramatic and brutal reaction of the state and its allies under Zia ul Haq.

Since the end of the Bhutto period, the Pakistani people have become progressively more alienated from mainstream politics. Movements of various kinds, led by all sorts of individuals and parties, have come and gone. But not till now has there been a sniff that a popular political culture that threatens the very logic of authoritarianism might be revived. And there is some way to go yet. But this is a potentially historic juncture in Pakistan's history, precisely because the ideological and political bases of a 60 year project of nation-building (or lack thereof) are wavering.

During the Zia ul Haq period, brutal repression such as that witnessed last Saturday was commonplace. In this day and age, governments cannot get away with such flagrant abuses of power. The media has undoubtedly played a major role in fomenting the current movement, but it is important not to get carried away. Live TV has its benefits but it can also become a major impediment to democratic processes, as the experience of corporate television in the United States proves. In any case, TV only plays a progressive role insofar as it contributes to a healthy political culture.

In the final analysis, there is every reason to be cautiously optimistic about the sudden reemergence of a popular politics which people are gradually claiming as their own. But there is also a need to recognise that we have a long history to revise, a national psychology to deconstruct, and deep-rooted differences to resolve. All of these phenomena are the product of a 60 year state project that put paid to the euphoric expectations that existed at the end of the colonial era. 'Black Saturday' proves that this state project, albeit faced with serious internal contradictions, remains a continuing threat to society.

However, what the state and its allies cannot have expected is the outrage that the events of last Saturday have precipitated. They must know now that they are on the brink. On the brink of what however, one cannot say for sure. One would like to say that the fate of the long-suffering people of this country lies in our own hands.

With only weeks to go before the announcement of the federal budget for fiscal 2007-08, the number-crunching game in Islamabad is hotting up. So many officials are involved in the exercise and so much midnight oil is being burnt (at $ 70 per barrel of imported crude) that wags say that the rumbling sound being heard in the afternoon in the capital these days is not thunder over the Margalla Hills but the sound of the feet of thousands of bureaucrats changing shift.

We are now being told that the government has worked out an outlay of Rs 2.1 trillion for the budget for 2007-08 and has set a tax collection target for the Central Board of Revenue of Rs 1.12 trillion. In other words, we are likely to see a budget deficit of Rs 980 billion in the forthcoming fiscal year. This will be yet another notable record in a country where officialdom seems to take a perverse delight in setting such records. No wonder it is said that budgets don't work.

The only surplus budgets we have ever had in this country are the budgets presented in 1948 and 1949 by the government of Pakistan's first prime minister, Liaquat Ali Khan. Every budget since then has been a deficit budget, with the gap between revenue collection and expenditure having to be made up by resorting to domestic and foreign borrowing. In the jargon of our budget-makers, foreign borrowing is euphemistically referred to as 'external resources' -- as if money borrowed from other foreign lenders is somehow a 'resource' and not loans that have to be repaid with interest.

Etymologically speaking, however, a budget has nothing to do with money. All it means is a 'pocket' or a 'bag', from the French 'bougette' -- not to be confused with 'baguette', which, of course, is a type of bread. In American slang, 'bread' is also a term for money, along with such other colourful expressions as 'moolah', 'lettuce' and 'the green stuff'.

The present-day of the word 'budget' perpetuates an old British parliamentary custom, no longer practiced. When annually, Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer put before the members of Parliament the estimates of revenue and expenditure for the ensuing financial year, the documents containing the figures were 'brought down' to the House of Commons in a leather bag, the 'budget'.

The leather bag is a matter of the past, having been replaced by a battered red briefcase. Nevertheless, in parliamentary terminology, every year the Chancellor continues to 'bring down the budget', to make his budget speech. The (French) bag, in fact, has become the property of everyone's financial planning. In the general way of speaking, even a housewife budgets, not realising that the bag is missing.

The payment of debts has produced a colourful variety of descriptions. People 'cough up' the money. They 'fork' it out, and they are 'bled' for it. No doubt, the most puzzling idiom speaks of the 'paying through the nose'. However, the choice of words is not due to a desire to stress the painful experience of having to settle exorbitant debts, comparing it, in a far-fetched simile, to the forcing of hard cash through the narrow openings of the nostrils, which certainly would be agonising. The phrase is actually based on specific historical circumstances and English slang.

First of all, as the Sydney-based scholar Dr Rudolf Brasch notes in his book 'There's a Reason for Everything', it is a relic of a gruesome practice of some governments and countries to enforce the payment of taxes and other levies. Defaulting citizens or subjects had their noses slit or even cut off. The threatened punishment explains why, for instance, a ninth century tax imposed by the Danes on the Irish became known as the 'nose tax', and as the fear of such mutilating penalty made people meet the demands of the government, however unfair and unjust, it could truly be said of them that they paid 'through the nose'.

In 17th century England, the slang for money was 'rhino', the Greek word for 'nose'. It was not an arbitrary choice of word. Most likely, it was the result of a very expensive and popular sex stimulant, according to Dr Brasch. As still today among some primitive societies (and even among some highly industrialised societies such as South Korea), many people at that time imagined that powdered rhinoceros horn (from the animal's 'nose') was a potent aphrodisiac.

Given the fact that the Pakistani rupee is now worth less than two US cents (as opposed to 33 US cents back in the late 1950s), people in this country have good reason to say that money, today, is not worth a damn.

There is, however, nothing profane in anyone saying something is 'not worth a damn'. It goes back to the time of the Raj, when the British ruled the Indian subcontinent and therefore were well acquainted with its currency. A damn originally was a small copper coin, worth a mere 40th part of a rupee. When, eventually, it further depreciated, it was of so little value that people were well justified to refer to anything that was almost worthless as being not even worth a damn.

In the early 1960s, there were four Pakistani rupees to the dollar. The market rate, today, is about 60 to the dollar. If this is supposed to be progress, we can certainly do without it.

Back in January 1996, I once traveled from Karachi to Lahore in a Mercedes 180 D diesel-driven car for 16 rupees worth of diesel. There were two of us in the car, so the journey cost eight rupees per person. Today, that same journey would probably cost several thousand rupees.

On this subject of prices then and now, here are a few more statistics. In the mid-1960s, a PIA night-coach economy class ticket from Karachi to Lahore cost 90 rupees. Today, a one-way air ticket from Karachi to Lahore costs more than 5,000 rupees. In 1967, a brand-new, air-conditioned Toyota Corona cost Rs 27,000. Its equivalent today costs more than two million. Ah, the joys of hyperinflation!

In modern parlance, money merchants who had no cash left to repay creditors would have to close their bank. In the days when they transacted their business on a counter in the open, however, the original 'bank', this 'bench' was broken up. That is how they became 'bank-rupt', which created the now merely figurative expression of 'going bankrupt'.

But what do you do when a country owes more money to other countries than it can repay? Well, if the country in question is Pakistan, and the debt is of the order of $ 36 billion or more, you set up a task force to examine the whole issue and then hope that the problem will somehow go away. And when it doesn't go away, you can always set up another task force to rewrite the report of the first task force.

Colloquially, those unemployed are said to be 'on the dole' -- at least that's what they're said to be in countries where there is a dole, or unemployment payments doled out by the state. It is a very sad and descriptive phrase, expressive of the mood of people willing but unable to work. They are heavy-hearted, cheerless and -- doleful, from the Latin 'dolar'.

'Dolar', incidentally, should not be confused with the word 'dollar'. On second thought, perhaps the two things aren't so different after all. Liaquat Ali Khan, you should be living at this hour!

Politics of advertisements is the new trend which has emerged under the current regime. Almost every month we see special full/half/quarter page ads given in the newspapers carrying photographs of the VVIPs or VIPs, telling the story to the people about the development taking place under the leadership of the president.

I undertook a small study which is spread over three months' period, from January to March 2007, to identify how the public money was spent -- rather wasted -- in the self-projection of the leaders. Among the newspapers, I selected Jang, Dawn, The News and Nawa-i Waqt for my study. In total, during January 5 to March 20, 129 ads were given by the ministries, and the provincial, federal and district governments. During the same period, it is believed that other small and well-known papers also carried similar advertisements. We must also keep in view that this is also the election year. The findings are presented in Table I, II and III.

In Table I, the president tops the list as the most photographed VVIPs in the supplements/ads. Almost in every ad his photo appears next to the chief minister or the prime minister or a federal minister or a Nazim or other respected personalities. I was wondering if the president or the prime minister gave their consents to print their photos using taxpayers' money in these advertisements. It is believed that the VIPs are trying to make the 'big bosses' happy by placing the president's and the PM's photos next to theirs.

Table II indicates that the Government of Punjab tops the list with the Chief Minister Pervaiz Elahi being the second most photographed in the ads even beating the prime minister. In the race of VIPs, Sheikh Rasheed stands at the fourth place after the Prime Minister. His ministry score stands at third position in terms of most ads given.

People may wonder if the Railway ministry is finally getting rich under the leadership of our awami minister, the way he continues to make headlines. The minister seems to be very keen on being photographed whenever he travels from Rawalpindi to Lahore by train, or if there is an opening of a new restaurant in a train, or a launch of a new service.

Let us now look at the cost that this nation paid for these frivolities. A simple calculation will tell you that if 129 ads were given in the last three months and supposing each ad costs taxpayers say around a minimum 200,000 rupees, then a total of 25.8 million rupees were spent to print these advertisements. Thus if 43 advertisements (monthly average) were given per month, the total advertisements given during the last 4 years were 1548, with approximately a total cost of 31 crore rupees. And this figure stands only for ads appearing in four newspapers in the last four years. This figure is just a rough estimate and may understate or overstate the actual figure. Add to this, the cost of holding functions, parties, welcome addresses, opening ceremonies, etc. and the belief that our leaders have wasted hundreds of million of rupees on their self-projection starts making a lot of sense.

The contents of these advertisements speak highly about the performance of a ministry (railway, in particular) and the district governments. They also share good news on opening of development projects like Nala Lai Express Way, Rawalpindi, Coastal Highway, Motorway Police, etc. Through them, they seem to be telling their voters that they did welfare work for which the voters had sent them to the assemblies. It is taxpayers money which is used on these projects. However one must ask the president, the prime minister, minister of Railways, and the chief minister of Punjab and others in line, if they used money out of their personal pockets to pay for the ads/projects.

The other use of these ads is that these serve as an effective tool to keep the media in line with the policy of the government, and these ads act as one of the major punitive measures if newspapers decide to deviate from the 'official line'. It comes as no surprise that in a recent study conducted by the Committee to Protect Journalists, Pakistan ranks as one of the 10 worst countries for press freedom.

The government does not need to throw money in the ads in the newspapers to convince masses. The money spent on ads could be been put to a better use by addressing the above issues. What could be the best alternate use of the money spent on these ads? There are serious issues lying ahead for the government regarding poverty, education, health, lack of social safety-nets for orphans, widows, senior citizens, etc.

Table II

Source No of ads (during

5/1/07 to 20/03/07)

Government of Punjab 39

Federal Govt's ads 25

Pakistan Railways 15

City Gvernment, Karachi 10

Government of Sind 07

National Highway Authority (NHA) 06

Others 27

Total 129

Table III

Newspapers Number of ads given

(during 5/1/07 to 20/3/07

Daily Jang 43

The News 36

Nawai Waqat 38

Dawn 12

Total 129

Akbar (not his real name) was a skilled technician working in a federal government enterprise in Karachi. His family of six comprised a middle aged wife, an invalid old mother and two sons of marriageable ages. His abode comprised a rental premises of about 35 sq. yds, one room space with shared kitchen bathroom and services. When his son, also a technician, got married, Akbar had to volunteer to leave the house. The other rental premises that he could find in the same squatter settlement were half in dimensions and double in rent. It was located along the emission path of an illegally built chemical factory. In two years his health deteriorated and he died of respiratory complications in a government hospital.

The family has since sunk deep into financial problems and social trauma and is struggling to survive. This tragic but true story raises many key questions. Inadequate and swiftly diminishing choices of housing for the low and middle income groups; poor quality and unchecked living environments and absence of housing support services for the destitute are a few key domains where the input of state institutions is urgently needed without any further delay.

The various empirical evidences and findings from both state sources and independent studies point out to the fact that affordable housing choices is a key factor in stemming the exponential rise in poverty. It may also be noted that the provision of housing has to be assessed according to the fundamental and undeniable needs of the society. At certain ends, conventional economic logics of 'demand factors' shall have to be set aside to make the society sustain.

The needs of housing are multiplying due to various factors. Natural growth in population is the prime count. It is officially stated that Pakistan's population is increasing at an annual growth factor of 2.6 per cent. While many would argue about the veracity of the claim, even this conservative estimate means that Pakistan will be a country of over 220 million people after two decades. Amongst the other essential necessities of life, the availability of a decent abode shall always remain a prime pre-requisite for each of the households.

Many research studies conducted in the housing sector show that the present national housing need stands around 27 million units. It is also well known that not even a miniscule of this burgeoning need factor shall be met. Thus the backlog shall continue to rise. It is also vital to note that housing stock has a life factor associated with it. As observed in usual cases, since very low scale repairs and maintenance of existing stock is carried out, the cumulative need of housing will rise further due to non-utilisation of such units which would cease to exist after a few years!

Changes in demography are also vital contributory factors for housing need. While the next census which should routinely take place in 2008, may reveal fresh perspectives, the projections from the earlier count show that more than half of Pakistanis can be categorised as youth. As per normal life cycle, after marriages, young people constitute new families and hence require new houses to dwell. It seems that the economic planners of our country who have been harping about economic turn around have not taken cognizance of these vital issues that are likely to become soaring problems very soon.

As the situation stands today, the state apparatus cannot directly provide housing to the needy groups. It neither possesses the institutional capacity nor the financial strength to generate any worthwhile state programme to access the affected target groups. However it can certainly steer the provision of housing with the support and partnership of the other concerned stakeholders, should it decide to do so. Few pre-requisites have to be fulfilled in this respect.

It must be agreed upon by the policy makers that housing shall be deemed as one of the top priority sectors in the national development approaches. Unabated efforts need to be made to facilitate the provision of housing without any locational, social, economic and political prejudice. There are many success stories that exist in the country which can be carefully examined, duly referred as policy instruments and diligently applied after translating them into integrated plans. The review of a few of them may be useful.

For low income households with some basic wage earning capabilities, the concept of incremental housing development has proved to be most appropriate. This approach was pioneered by Tasneem Ahmed Siddiqui -- an eminent civil servant, who piloted it in Gulshan-e-Shahbaz near Hyderabad, Gharo and then in Karachi. Main ingredients of the approach included the careful access to the needy groups, complete removal of bureaucratic hurdles in the provision of land for housing, reduction of cost by lowering developmental standards, gradual provision of infrastructure and continuous support to communities through partnerships with other organisations. This housing model, which became an internationally acclaimed success story, was also included in the National Housing Policy of 1994.

SAIBAN -- a shelter related NGO -- has been actively promoting the concept and application in different parts of Pakistan on its own. The effort and initiative of the state, which is needed to scale up this useful approach, is conspicuous by its absence eversince. It must be noticed that the Incremental Sub Division of land (ISD) approach was successful in eliminating speculation from housing provision which was a root cause of failure in almost all housing schemes launched by successive governments. It may lead to sad consequences, if the government chooses to ignore this useful option which has the potential to benefit Pakistan's urban poor in a big way.

Housing for the middle income group has also become entirely inaccessible. No standard definition is available to describe 'the middle income'. It can be safely estimated that households of standard size with a monthly income in the range of Rs. 12,000 to Rs 30,000 can be categorised as middle income groups. Social orientation and circumstances compel our middle income population to acquire house ownership. This helps bring stability in the social and economic status and also enhances the asset base of the households for further strides in social mobility.

Cooperative housing societies, employer assisted rental or owned housing and developer built housing were some of the usual choices. The currently prevailing speculative trends in housing supply scenario have created a wedge between the actual needy and the providers. Ordinary middle income citizens do not have the means to even mobilise funds worth a fraction of the tag value at which housing stock is offered. For example, an ordinary 1000 sq. ft. apartment in a planned settlement in Karachi has a price tag of Rs. 3.0 million. Imagine a person in government or private service who is earning Rs. 30,000 per month. He can not even dream to arrange the booking or follow-up payments which are staggered in three to four years time span.

Similarly cooperative societies offer land only on upfront payment. Also the time lag between the announcement of the schemes and completion of rudimentary urban infrastructure is so spread out that genuine needy groups find themselves always at a loss. With the exception of defence personnel, no employer is now keen for the welfare of their employees. In the case of defence societies, the land is acquired on gross subsidies, some of which are passed on to the allottees.

In this backdrop, the facilitation of housing to the needy middle income households need a serious consideration. The government must take corresponding measures. Spiralling speculation on housing must be controlled through taxation measures. The ingress of black money both in the construction and investment in privately built housing should be checked. Fresh scales of property taxation must be put in place to stall the tendency of trading in land and housing beyond logical limits. When opportunities of investments in other sectors will be opened up, the speculative pressures on housing shall be automatically controlled. Creative strategies for housing finance must be worked out. The present schemes are too cumbersome leading to ineffective access by the potential target groups.

With the banks filled with ample liquidity, different types of options can be experimented. For formal sector, employer guaranteed credit packages may serve as appropriate measures for encouraging housing finance institutions to take a more active role in the sector. This is also in line with the recommendation of the State Bank of Pakistan that advised commercial banks some months ago to play an active role in housing finance. It must be realised that after food and clothing, housing is the most important human need. Any hindrance in its access can lead to social unrest and upheavals.

A report by the Institute of International Strategic Studies (IISS) on nuclear proliferation and a statement from a Saudi minister on training of militants carry enough material to defame us.

Before a discussion on the subjects related to these stories let us have a look on the most revealing part of an article 'Saving Afghanistan' written by Barnet R. Rubin, which appeared in 'Foreign Affairs', January/February publication, and which connects militancy and nuclear proliferation in an interesting way. It reads, "The United States tolerated the quiet reconstitution of the Taliban in Pakistan as long as Islamabad granted basic rights to U.S troops, pursued the hunt for al Qaeda leaders, and shut down A. Q. Khan's nuclear technology proliferation network. But five years later...it has allowed the Taliban to deepen their presence both in the Pakistani border regions and in Afghanistan. Even as Afghan and international forces have defeated insurgents... the weakness of the government... and the continued sanctuary provided to Taliban leaders in Pakistan has prevented real victory."

So Pakistan had started its Talbanisation of Afghanistan programme again after 9/11 and the Americans knew about it. They did not object to it because they needed our bases and our cooperation against Dr. Khan's 'business' activities. It appears that the Americans think of the rest of the world as so naive that it would buy whatever the Americans sell. Could a dependent state like Pakistan act on its own so boldly and for so long a time? Given the weakness of our economy, our internal problems and the kind of leadership we had have, a serious warning was enough to stop us. Factually whatever we did, the acquisition of nuclear capability or creation of the Taliban, had the tacit support of the Americans and their friends in the Persian Gulf. The Americans and the Arabs exploited our financial weaknesses and also our craze for war machines to accomplish their political aims.

The new story about our nuclear programme tells us that Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto was the political father of the programme, Dr. Munir Ahmed the technical father; and Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan a late entrant, who tried to help Libya, Iran and North Korea who also transferred a 'bit' of nuclear technology. The story points out Khan as the villain, whereas the government functionaries and top military brass were the suspects, but not to the extent of monetary deals.

In the 1980s an American research student wrote a paper on making of a nuclear bomb that would cost $ 2500 only. The gentlemen from two embassies, French and Pakistani, approached him for the details and deal. To this writer the story has brought a bit of solace. At least there was one more state, which was equally as crazy. While France could afford to be crazy, could we?

If a nation is poor in all kind of resources -- natural, technical, political and social -- and has to choose between an honourable way of having bread and a borrowed way of day to day living, what should it do? Internally it would become poorer, divided, uncertain, chaotic and even anarchic. Externally it would serve the interests of its masters and would also earn an irresponsible image. This is blackmailing on the masters' part and stupidity on ours.

This story is not exclusive to Pakistan. All nations, whose leadership has been visionless, have faced the same fate. Yet Japan and Germany rebuilt themselves after the WW II. Militarism of their elites failed them but the political acumen of their post-war elite salvaged them.

Had Pakistan had any wise leaders it could have saved itself from such end results that its craze for war machines brought. Unfortunately our friendship first with the US, then China, and again with the US taught us nothing meaningful. The US not only supported our mammoth conventional military development, but also endorsed our activities to acquire nuclear technology from black markets. According to earlier reports the US helped us till 1989 in increasing our nuclear capabilities.

The IISS report mentions that our army chiefs knew about the negotiations between AQ Khan and various countries interested in buying nuclear technology. It is no secret that our army chiefs are appointed with the consent of the US. So whatever was happening must have been in the knowledge of the US. The US was also informed twice by the Hollanders about the whereabouts of Dr. AQ Khan, when he was outside Pakistan. The US did not act and that was enough to delineate the US's friendly connection with our nuclear programme.

Behind the US game there could be many reasons other than our support to the Afghan Jihad. One of them could be to blackmail India. The other could be to blackmail Pakistan, when desired. Yet, another reason could be that with reverse technology a country like Pakistan would not succeed fully in making nuclear bombs and the related control and command system.

China, the other friend, on the other hand helped us to struggle with the remaking of first generation discarded missiles. Not a single one of the Anza missiles worked in Kargil.

The story about our 'brotherly' countries is no different. After Bangladesh, slowly and steadily, we moved towards West Asia, in search of an identity and also much needed financial assistance. The Jihad against the USSR in Afghanistan pushed us further into the West Asian camp. After the unilateral withdrawal of the Soviets from Afghanistan our relationship with Saudi Arabia grew faster. Its results were Talibans takeover of Afghanistan and introduction of thousands of new madaris in Pakistan and of course some facility in oil purchases. As for our search for identity in the West Asia, it only confused us further. How could the Arabs help us when their own identity was and still is a shaky tribal phenomenon?

But who is to be blamed? What could be done when we were so crazy about building our military muscles, and so indifferent to our social needs. Bhutto was in Azad Kashmir when he heard about India's nuclear test. He cut short his visit. Back in Islamabad he discussed the idea of a Pakistani bomb with the army, and thus the journey started. It was in 1974. No one raised any questions; and no one thought of the repercussions. The sad side of our state (governing system) is that it has remained visionless since the beginning. None of our dummy-rulers (politicians) and the real rulers (generals) ever tried to know where we stand geo-politically, economically and most importantly with regards to knowledge and technology.

If the bomb was made to show our capabilities to the nations interested in buying nuclear technology, it was unwise on our part. Most of us perhaps do not know that Europe is more interested in stopping Iran from becoming a nuclear power than the US. If the Pakistani bomb was meant to force India into solving the Kashmir problem, it generated no results. From the Cuban missile crisis, we should have learnt that a military match with a much stronger adversary was not and is not in our interest. It was also proved in the war of 1965, when we lost so many strategic places to India, in spite of our technical superiority in conventional weaponry.

Despite our love for making weapons, the bomb did not make us better off. It did not save us from having a humiliating defeat at Kargil.

While remarking on 172 terrorists apprehended in Saudi Arabia, the Saudi Minister said: "There are many troubled regions such as Somalia, Iraq and Pakistan. They could have received their training in any one of them." It is not that difficult to guess at whom the Saudi finger is pointing.

Factually the 'business' of training the Talibans had never ended. After 9/11 it was suspended for a few weeks and started again by the Americans, the Pakistanis and the Arabs. So colossal an activity could not be carried out without the support of many states. They were produced and patronised to save "Islam from danger," as Zibignew Brezenski, the then US Security Advisor, said. Islam has not as yet come out of danger, if one goes by the intentions of the US or the recent khutba of Imam-e Kaaba, in which he said that the capitalism, liberal and socialism were anti-Islam. It would be worthwhile to mention here that the khutbas of Saudi religious scholars are written by the Saudi state authorities.

The Saudis themselves are practicing capitalism, minus democracy, and are encouraging its liberal form in Dubai, but in the other Muslim majority countries (MMCs) they take it as anti-Islam. They are fearful of any MMC becoming democratic, because someday the tribal base of their autocratic rule might be threatened.

It is not the first time that the Saudis have maligned Pakistan. Just after 9/11 a Saudi prince said that Osama was an agent of ISI and not CIA. Factually he is an agent of all those who had recognised and supported the Arab-led Taliban government in Afghanistan. The Americans tried their best to help the Taliban government in getting UN membership. Not only that, they also threatened the Russians of grave consequences if they raided Kabul. The Arab-led Taliban spread their militancy in Russia and China, and the US watched the whole game with interest. It was only after the expansion of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation that the Americans retreated a bit. This retreat was one of the reasons for 9/11.

That the Arab militants wanted to oust the Americans from the region to establish a purely Arab dominated Afghanistan could be another reason. Instead the Americans preferred to reconstruct Afghanistan. Yet a reason could be a feud with the CIA over billions of dollars of drug money.

Whatever the reason the fact is that the Americans remained the biggest donors of the Taliban till 9/11. And after that they were instrumental in providing safe haven to almost all of their top leaders. A month of delay in starting war against terrorism carried a purpose. The US wanted a 'friendly' Taliban government, to stay and do the needful when needed. The Arabs on the other hand want only Taliban to stay.

What is going on in this complex world is nothing but politics of power and prosperity. The Arabs are taking advantage of their prosperity and increasing their influence through political Islam. The Americans are using their power and prosperity both. They have so many agendas. For Latin America they do not need Islam. They encourage military leadership there to look after their interests. In Africa they support wayward gangs, warlords and tribal chieftains. In Pakistan they have a presence everywhere from agencies to militants. Pakistan due to its absolute poverty of resources and vision is in fact playing in the Arab and American hands.

In a rapidly changing world due to ruthless globalisation the survival of Pakistani elite and common citizens lies in tackling the problems of poverty, societal disharmony and eradicating the menace of religious militancy. There is only one way to do it, say 'no' to our so-called friends and brothers and turn to social democracy.

May 12 was the day of the show of 'strength' by the ruling coalition. In Islamabad, the strength was demonstrated by organising a huge public meeting. In Karachi, it was exhibited by staging a public rally, while at the same time preventing the Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) and his lawyers from entering the city and addressing the bar.

Few will question the ability of the ruling party in Pakistan to organise huge, even mammoth, rallies. Given the fact that public resources are always at the command of the ruling party and public functionaries are treated as personal servants, it is not much difficult for the people in the saddle to swell the size of their processions. Likewise, in the absence of well-established democratic conventions and the rule of law, few will question the power (as opposed to the authority) of the government in Pakistan to harass its opponents -- real or perceived -- implicate them in cooked-up cases and detain or put them behind the bars.

That MQM is the largest political force in Karachi is also hardly disputable. Hence, holding large rallies in the mega city, with or without the support of the administration, is not much of a problem for the party. However, in the given charged situation, the wisdom of the rulers to themselves stage public shows while preventing others from doing this in the name of security is indeed very much questionable.

The public meeting in Islamabad was aimed at showing the popular face of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League (PML). The League is often accused of being no more than the political face of the establishment and lacking popular credentials. But does the Islamabad rally confute these accusations? There is no gainsaying the fact that the present League government owes its existence to the establishment out-and-out. After the PML government headed by Nawaz Sharif was toppled by General Musharraf in October 1999, many of his erstwhile party colleagues, true to the tradition of their party, ditched him and formed another League faction called the PML-Q. When political expediency made the establishment look for a king's party, as in the past, the PML-Q was the most convenient choice. Hence, not surprisingly, in the 2002 elections, the PML-Q emerged as the single largest party and formed the government. Ever since the League faction has served as the political face of the establishment.

By inviting the President-cum-COAS to address the Islamabad rally, the League has only lent credence to the charges of being the establishment's baby. As for demonstrating its popular credentials, a party in power need not do this by staging large processions or rallies. Rather it should do this by ensuring a pro-people, responsible government: providing a sense of security to the public; establishing the rule of law and justice; reducing poverty and unemployment; providing basic amenities like health, education, water, sanitation and electricity to the people; preventing artificial shortage of essential commodities; and establishing a clean and transparent administration;

Demonstration of the government's strength is thus demonstration of its performance. It does not consist in using the state machinery to browbeat the people on the other side of the political divide. The deteriorating law and order situation, the lack of rule of law and access to justice, the electricity crisis, the surge in prices of basic commodities through cartelisation, the growing gap between the rich and the poor. All these items are on the debit side of the governmentís balance sheet in the face of which it cannot shut its eyes to the reality. It must show its strength by grappling with these problems rather than holding rallies, restraining the freedom of movement of its opponents or gagging saner voices.

It is regrettable that on May 12, the government failed to show its strength where it should have and rather showed its 'strength' where it could easily have avoided. Before the fateful day, top federal and provincial government functionaries were very vocal in asking the CJP to cancel his scheduled address to the bar in Karachi, while the political leadership was harping on the note that a constitutional issue had been turned into a political one. But the ruling party did not try to set its own house in order. At no point did the government advise the MQM not to stage its rally. The government could have nipped the evil in the bud by simply telling the MQM to cancel or postpone its rally. Only last week (May 5), a big rally was staged when the CJP drove from Islamabad to Lahore to address the bar. And it went peaceful. On the other hand, the postponement of the MQM rally could hardly have made any dents in the party's popularity. But that option was never given serious, if any, thought.

Secondly, when the miscreants were on the rampage in Karachi, the government did nothing but point a finger at its rivals. Regardless of the political affiliations of the culprits and the victims, precious lives were lost and property damaged. Enforcement of law and order is a basic test of the governmentís strength, which it failed miserably. What irony that when people were being killed, the government was celebrating its success in staging a huge rally!

Thus on May 12, little was gained but a lot was lost. Precious lives were lost. The country's image went down. People's confidence in law enforcement agencies was further eroded. The public exchequer was drained. And the rule of law was struck a heavy blow. Even the regime did not get anything. Rather it lost whatever credibility it had. A show of 'strength' turned into a show of weakness.

Leading architect, planner, researcher and writer Arif Hasan is considered to be an authority on urban development. Apart from setting up the famous Urban Resource Centre in Karachi, a very important research institute on urban development issues, Hasan has been a consultant to various international organisations and community groups across the globe. He has also been a consultant with the famous Orangi Pilot Project and has been a recipient of numerous prestigious national and international awards. He has also served as the jury member of the prestigious Aga Khan Award for Architecture. Hasan has published over a dozen books and a number of reports and papers on issues related to architecture, housing, planning, communities, the environment, development and social change.

Hasan discusses with TNS Karachi's development, which has been a subject of much debate and controversy

The News on Sunday: What, in your opinion is missing in Karachi's urban planning? How do we compare with other cities with similar economies and political situations?

Arif Hasan: If one looks at the development of Karachi after 1947, we did remarkably well. We were beset with numerous problems, including population that more than tripled in 78 months after independence, and a huge refugee population in 1951. We managed to tackle these problems, and over the years we were able to provide water, electricity, sewerage system and rehabilitation plans for this population. Public sector housing was developed and the water needs of the city were also taken care of. In that sense, we did fairly well.

Problems became acute in the late 1960s since many of the government's ambitious housing and industrialisation programmes did not succeed. Karachi would have been a very different city had the Karachi Masterplan (KMP) 1975-85 been implemented. Successful implementation of the plan would have ensured that the needs related to housing, transport, port activities, bypasses, mass transit system are taken care of -- if not adequately, then to a reasonable extent.

With the exception of the road networks, all other (development) plans were shelved in the Zia-era. The Zia-era also saw the ruination of important institutes that govern a city; institutes such as Karachi Metropolitan Corporation and Karachi Water and Sewerage Board etc. The decline increased considerably in the post-Zia-era and has not stopped yet. One can conclude that in the 1980, the situation of Karachi was similar to that of other big cities in the region. However, whereas the institutions in other cities improved, those in Karachi became increasingly inefficient and corrupt. This is the big difference between Karachi and other (mega) cities.

Karachi was originally well-planned. The planning of the 1960s and the 1970s ensured that the layout of the new city is fairly well-integrated. Hence one can still move around the city with considerable ease, compared to other cities in the world. The environmental conditions are reasonable too due to the earlier planning as well as the easy availability of land around the city, which is mostly government-owned land. This is unlike other mega cities where land is privately owned making it difficult to utilise that land economically.

TNS: What are your objections to the Karachi Masterplan 2020?

AH: The important thing is not the current Masterplan itself; it is the projects that the government is negotiating for the city. Projects such as the Sugar Land City, the Beach Front Development, the Karachi Elevated Expressway or the development at the two islands at the Korangi Creek are not a part of the planning process initiated under the Karachi Masterplan (KMP) 2020. Unfortunately, these superimposed and ad hoc plans are going to determine the shape and the form of the city to a very great extent.

A good plan has to spell out its priorities very clearly. For me the priorities are housing, employment and transport. A major problem with KMP 2020 is the lack of clear-cut housing policy. Karachi requires around 80,000 housing units a year and the formal system supplies only 30,000 housing units. There are localities in Karachi that have grown dense to an extent of 10,000 people per hectare. The housing needs have to be addressed far more comprehensively.

Another issue is employment. According to the 1998 census and related figures, employment, has declined considerably in Karachi. One cannot address the problem simply by providing jobs through real-estate development.

The KMP 2020 draft has no clear policy on transport either. One hears conflicting reports about government's transport plans from the press but there is no policy on it in the draft report. All these issues need to be further discussed before the plan is finalised. It seems, however, that the City government is in a hurry.

There are four principles of planning. Firstly it should respect the ecology of the area in which Karachi is located. Secondly, the land use has to be determined by social and environmental considerations. They must not be based on land value. The third principle is that the planning should give priority to the needs of the majority population, which in Karachi's case is low-income and middle-income. Finally, the planning has to respect the tangible and intangible cultural heritage of the community that lives in the city. If you fulfil these four requirements you will have a city where there will be equity and hence peace, otherwise the development will be lopsided.

TNS: How would you describe the civil society's role in creating awareness and supporting movement to empower citizens to have a say in the matters related to urban development?

AH: I think Karachi's civil society has, by and large, organised itself to raise objections to the government's plans. However, it has failed to come up with alternatives to those plans. Also, they are fragmented. A larger network may have been more successful.

I think for the civil society movement to succeed in their objectives, there should be a state that is willing to talk and to discuss issues. Our state is not willing to discuss issues. It wants decisions and not discussion.

TNS: How have political parties fared in this respect?

AH: The political parties have not really addressed the (people's) problems. Their main focus has been constitution and political matters with a big P. They have not taken a position on the real issues concerning people, such as water, sanitation, eviction, housing and transport. They do not have think-tanks that work on these issues. For the political parties it has mostly been a matter of how to get votes in the elections.

TNS: Given the fragmented characteristic of political representation and the civil society organisations what would you suggest is the best course for the common man to get a better bargaining position vis-à-vis the state?

AH: The best way for the people is to form networks, and make a one-point agenda of no development without consultation. The form of that consultation can be decided later. (Those living in Karachi are faced with numerous problems.) The elite of the city is bothered about the projects that are pouring in as a result of the international capital inflow. The lower middle class is unable to afford a house, and increasingly unable to afford education. Lastly, there are Katchi Abadi residents afraid of being evicted out of their homes. There is massive congestion on the roads and power breakdowns are affecting businesses. For all these issues, Karachiites are unhappy. Unless they come together in some form of network, their fragmented voice is unable to have any affect.

TNS: You have been an ardent supporter of the development of the Katchi Abadis?

AH: Katchi Abadis emerge when the state fails to build affordable housing for its people. There has been no social housing schemes (in Pakistan) for many years, so where should people go and live? They can neither buy land, nor can they rent a place, both being far too expensive.

In my opinion an immediate regularisation of all Katchi Abadis is needed except those that maybe situated on land that is required for certain infrastructure. I think the cut-off date for the demolition of Katchi Abadis should be extended. And in the interim period -- until a housing policy that caters to the poorer sections of the population is developed -- land should be identified where Katchi Abadis can be permitted to be developed so that people can live in security. It is no point saying that we are not going to have Katchi Abadis after a certain date. Where will people go after that date?

TNS: How, in your opinion, has migration affected the demography of Karachi?

AH: Karachi has been a city of migrants well before 1947. The city has developed because of migrations from Balochistan, Katch, Goa, Rajhastan, and various other places.

A brief look at the various censuses in Karachi will give a clear picture of how migration has affected the city. No migration other than the one in the 1947 has overwhelmed the city. According to the 1941 census, Sindhi was the mother tongue of 61.2 per cent of the population. In 1951, the figure reduced to 8.6 per cent. Similarly Urdu/Hindi was the language of 6.3 per cent of the population in the 1941 increasing to 50 per cent in 1951. The Hindu population in 1941 was 51 per cent, and in 1951 it was 2 per cent. The Muslim population stood at 42 per cent in the 1941 and went up to 96 per cent in the 1951. Therefore (it can be said that) the migration at the time of partition completely changed the demographic and cultural complexion of Karachi. This further changed with the migration of the Pakhtuns and the Punjabis in the 1960s.

Today, the Sindhi and the Saraiki-speaking population form the major proportion of migrants into Karachi, according to the 1992 census. Migration from the NWFP has increased too. According to the National Alien Registration Authority 1998, there were 1.2 million aliens in Karachi, including Afghans, Bangladeshis, Burmese and Sri Lankans. The Burmese and Bengalis have replaced the locals in the fishing industry, while the Afghans have taken over scavenging. They are also employed in the building industry as unskilled labour fishing out the local labour. So this is how migration has affected Karachi. However, migration has also gifted Karachi Chapli Kababs, Nihari and Afghan Tikkas, and something as horrible as paan that was rare in 1947.

TNS: What is the status of research in the urban development planning?

AH: Politicians are the decision-makers on issues relating to development, and their decisions have to be well-informed. There are three ways to arrive at well-informed decisions. One is to enable the research that academia does on development, to feed into the decision-making process. In our case this does not happen. Second is through the process of serious consultation, not the one to justify that consultation has taken place. This again does not exist. Thirdly, (in many countries) the government has agencies that monitor developments, physical or demographic, in the city. Any decision regarding the city is taken on the basis of that information. This too is not operative. There was a time when the KMP carried out a wide range of studies regularly, though I am not sure about their level of influence on the planning. However, unless you can have the research aspect feeding into the policy you cannot have an informed decision making process.

For Karachi to develop into a proper city, apart from well-informed decisions, we need autonomous institutions that can turn that decision-making into a plan. Implementation agencies with proper rules, regulations and procedures need to be formed to ensure that the process is transparent and accountable.

On top of all these, the city needs monitoring organisations that keep track of the problems of the city and address them on the basis of its findings. Institution building is very important in development. Without it, even the best of plans will not be able to deliver.

TNS: Where does May 12 violence leave Karachi?

AH: I think there are three important things that everybody, including those from Islamabad, have to understand about the city. Firstly, Karachi is the capital of Sindh, and more than two thirds of the population of Sindh is Sindhi, Balochi, Brohi and Saraiki-speaking. Secondly, Karachi contains very large ethnic minorities that form the majority of the population of the city. Some of these ethnic minorities migrated to Karachi well before partition. Finally, 75 per cent of Karachi's population is lower middle-income or lower-income with majority of them based in Katchi Abadis. These three realities are extremely important to understand and respect. Even the most dim-witted social scientists would know that given these three realities Karachi cannot be governed by brute force, by any group.

What Karachi needs is the promotion of a political and development culture that is consultative and aims at consensus building and accommodation. Unless such a political culture takes root, what happened on May 12, will happen again and with increasing frequency. This is what a civil war is all about.

Evil visited the Virginia Tech campus cloaked as a gun-totting student of Korean ethnicity on April 16, 2007. While the ashes of the dead have been cremated, specters linger on and pose us vexing questions. Will innocent Korean Americans elude the pitchforks of those looking to vent their frustrations over this incident? Are children under such intense social and academic pressure that morphing into a cold-blooded killer is a conceivable outlet? Are the students being gifted too much independence on university campuses and provided too few safeguards?

There are no easy answers to any of these questions but one issue continues to generate more buzz than any other: gun politics. Do gun control laws need to be tightened as part of efforts to reign in rogues like Seung-Hui Cho? Or should the US anoint every man as the guardian of himself and encourage him to possess a personal fire-arm as the ultimate self-defence?

Gun control has been a fiery issue the world over, not just United States where liberals and conservatives continue to spin statistics to reinforce their claims. The issue had receded into the background for the past few years but is back on centre stage amid the soul-searching engendered by this tragedy.

Several aspects of the killing spree are quite disturbing. Federal Law in the United States prohibits the sale of firearms to those with a history of mental illness. Seung-Hui Cho had been labeled 'a threat to himself' by a Virginia court as early as 2005. Yet two years later, he was able to obtain two firearms of sufficient power to massacre 32 people and wound many more. The biggest irony of course is that Virginia proudly leads the pack among states that have disqualified people from purchasing guns on grounds of mental inadequacy. This suggests that the link between retailers of guns and the database meant to flag people with a history of mental disorder may be tenuous with the potential for many perpetrators to slip under the radar.

Then there is the eerie professionalism with which the gun was rapidly re-loaded at will and students eliminated with singular, precise bullets. This boy had no history of professional training with such weaponry, yet he handled it with such dexterity that he must have had ample opportunities to practice in private.

"I think if this does prompt a serious and reflective debate on gun issues and gun law in the United States, then some good may come from this woeful tragedy," the British Home Office minister was quoted as saying in the aftermath of the massacre. Indeed such sentiments were echoed by the majority of commentators outside of the borders of the United States.

The premise of proponents of gun regulation is quite straightforward: the less guns in circulation, the lower probability that incidents of domestic violence occur. But implementing such policy is far from simple. Traditionally, conservative groups in the United States have opposed stringent gun control on the grounds that it would tamper with their much cherished civil liberties. By the Second Amendment, all denizens of the United States have the inalienable right to possess firearms embedded in the fabric of their constitution.

A major argument from opponents of gun control is that a nation of prepared and well trained shooters is an asset to the country and capable of protecting itself from evils, both internal and external. But since the university was a 'no guns zone' this scenario could never materialise. People did save lives through ingenuity: pretending to play dead or blocking entries into rooms but no life was saved by a bullet launched in self-defence. Indeed, the majority of students on such campuses have little exposure to firearms. The present American government with its conservative tilt chose not to pass any concrete legislation, limiting its response to a call to strengthen laws preventing the mentally disabled from getting their hands on such weapons. Similar rhetoric followed the killings at Columbine and that rampage was replicated in Virginia eight years later.

What about other countries that have been vocal in criticising the United States for this internal security lapse? How exactly do they attempt to keep their own stables clean? Italy regulates gun distribution by strictly categorising the legitimate ownership of guns: personal safety, target practice and skeet shooting. Those opting for a gun for personal safety reasons must be adults and are required to register a valid reason for their request. Britain, Sweden and China are all examples of nations that only permit private firearms amid rigorous licensing and registration. In contrast, all permanent residents of the United States with a clean record are eligible to obtain a personal firearm with minimal fuss.

In 2002, a German teenager pulled off a massacre on a somewhat smaller scale than that conducted by Cho. But, the German government issued a strong statement by raising the age barrier to legal purchase of a firearm from 18 to 21. Similarly, Australian Prime Minister John Howard cracked down on the easy availability of guns following the Tasmanian massacre of 1996 and stringent gun laws in Britain can be attributed to the aftermath of the Dunblane incident.

These nations chose proactive responses to tragedies on their soils. The United States opts for a more passive response in the hope that such incidents are rare enough to be brushed under the carpet. It is difficult to produce empirical evidence establishing that gun regulation would make it safer since all relevant studies are obscured by a range of assumption. But if the American Government can take some form of concrete steps to preclude such a massacre ever occurring again, then perhaps the martyrs of Virginia will not have shed their blood in vain.