|
|
|
|
|
 |
 |
 
|
debate essay Prospects
and challenges health The Indo-Pak
peace paradigm first
person Consensus
with divergence
Malala versus Malala All conversation between the hero-worshippers and those who think of her as the tool of Western propaganda rings hollow in a society which still has millions of out of school children and where a 14 year old was almost shot dead for pointing this out By Irfan Muzaffar The run up to
the Nobel Peace Prize this year has involved heated conversations on the
social media about Malala and the prize. A good number of Pakistanis spent
a great deal of keyboard time in supporting and opposing Malala’s
nomination for Nobel Peace Prize. People’s comments during the run up to
the prize are striking inasmuch as they reveal the cultural fissures in
the Pakistani polity than anything else. I have attempted to
construct a conversation between two fictitious characters based on the
comments I read on various Facebook pages. In accordance with the tenor of
these conversations, I have named the fictitious characters as
Enthusiastic Pakistani (EP) and Ambivalent Pakistani (AP). The
conversation is followed by a brief epilogue that represents my own
opinion on the subject. EP: She is one of the
bravest and most courageous girls the world has ever known. Her fighting
spirit and resilience is extraordinary and commendable. Her speech betrays
her firm belief in the cause she stands for. I salute her and hope that
one day her efforts will bear the sweetest fruits. Pakistan and the world
need more people like her. I fully support her and do not understand why
you don’t. How can you fail to be moved by this rare combination of
fearlessness, modesty, confidence, and commitment? AP: How can you be so
superficial in your opinion? There are many more children of her age who
display similar spirit and are equally articulate. Malala is but one of
them. Could she have made her mark on the world stage had it not been for
Adam Elick, her dad, and the shots fired at her by the Taliban? Regardless
of her own child like spirit and enthusiasm for education, the entire
world is using her as an excuse. Why should the world need a poster child
for education after all? Can you not see that the
same powers, which are perpetrating atrocities and injustices elsewhere in
the world are also appropriating the symbolic Malala? Why do they not have
poster children for such causes as stopping the massacre of Rohingya
Muslims in Burma? Where are the Palestinian and Kashmir’s symbols of
resistance? Isn’t it also disturbing to see the United Nations
privileging Malala and yet remaining largely silent in the face of
injustices elsewhere? EP: I think you are
over-analysing this situation. All governments and supranational
organisations do both good and also bad. It is a good thing to keep
holding a mirror to them, to point out that their actions are unfair when
they are indeed unfair, and to let them know that their response to an
issue is inadequate when they are indeed not doing well enough. So when
the United Nations is unable to respond adequately to the injustices
inflicted on, say, the Palestinians, we should question its effectiveness.
But when it attempts to support education we should welcome its actions.
We should not get into the habit of throwing the baby out with the bath
water. We can only work with what we have and try and improve the world we
live in. You are implying that
Malala is a construction of New York Times. Far from it, I think. You are
giving too much credit to a newspaper and not considering that she is, in
fact, produced by a peculiarly unfortunate situation in our own country.
Every injustice produces people who suffer and others who symbolise
people’s outrage resistance against injustices. What part of her message
sounds conspiratorial to you? Do you think a call for educating all
children by a child is really such a bad thing? Her speech on the
importance of education and her articulation, simplistic as it was, worked
for me, as I am sure it does work for others like me to act. AP: I don’t know
whether to laugh or cry at your simplicity. Is lack of education alone the
root-cause of all injustices? It is easy for us to talk about education as
the panacea for all ills, when poor people out there are subjected to all
kinds of injustices. Are these injustices going to be eliminated merely by
education? EP: I can begin to
discern a common ground between us. Both of us want to live in a just
society, don’t we? While I agree with you that education is not a
panacea, both of us know that we are better equipped to make this world
work for us because of a decent education. Our education helped us by
making us aware of our rights and responsibilities. It taught us how to
solve problems, think critically, and communicate effectively. It is true
that education can also be seen as a means of creating a governable
population. But isn’t it better to have a law abiding population in a
just society than mayhem in an unjust society, or would you rather prefer
the latter? So while education may not be a cure for all our social and
economic ailments, we do know, at least from our personal experience, that
it does help individuals understand and improve their condition. EP (Continuing): I have
a long list of questions that I could pose to you but I’d rather state a
concern. I am concerned that Pakistanis are again dividing themselves in
the liberal and not-so-liberal camps around Malala. Our judgment as a
people is being impaired by this ongoing culture war. In the midst of this
culture war, Malala will become a symbol of division and fragmentation
when it should have been the other way round. Both of us aspire for
better education for our children. The dream for a better education is our
own dream for our children. Don’t you think it is utterly unfortunate
that even a call for better education works to divide us in opposite
camps? You argue that the
goodness of her message is lost because of the way Western media and
corporate world is rallying around her. But we do not and cannot control
the preferences of Western media. We should focus on our self and just be
fair to one of us. Just recall how shaken the nation was when she was
shot? Do you remember that popular outrage against those who tried to kill
her within Pakistan? So what has happened between then and now? You are a
reasonable person, aren’t you? Why make an exception in this case? AP: You are discounting
the fact that we live in a war zone and many of us think this war has been
thrust on us by the Western powers. The Western media seems to be on a
fault finding mission as far as Pakistan is concerned. Similar problems
elsewhere, such as in the neighbouring India, are usually ignored by the
same media. So you cannot blame people for being suspicious of the
international reception of Malala as yet another ploy to embarrass
Pakistan. The same media does
nothing to embarrass Israel, India, and Burma for atrocious violation of
human rights. While we should be self-critical, such criticism is likely
to lose its critical edge and credibility by using the privileged symbols
of Western media. EP: You are missing my
point. I never said we should not chastise the powers of the world for not
addressing the injustices elsewhere. We should also stand against the
drone attacks and the violence perpetrated by the states on people
everywhere. Indeed, we should make use of every opportunity to further
justice wherever and whenever it arrives and Malala, I believe, does
represent such an opportunity simply because she refocuses our sights on
educational injustices. Epilogue: Should we even
be having this conversation? After the Nobel Peace Prize had been
announced, I heard a number of statements from Pakistani politicians. A
good many of them, including the cabinet ministers, said that although
Malala did not win the prize we were still proud of her nomination. Are
our politicians proud of the fact that an 14-year-old was almost shot
dead? In fact, we should hang our heads in shame for bringing this country
to a state in which a child had to go through this ordeal. Let us get the facts
straight. There is no possibility of a Malala volcano erupting in a
society, which provides educational justice to its citizens. This is
regardless of the perceptions about Malala as a tool of Western
propaganda. It is no propaganda that we have millions of out-of-school
children, girls and boys alike. It does matter to put them in schools and
provide them with a quality education. The state and our political elite,
more than anything else, are responsible for the circumstances in which
Malala phenomenon is born. Is Malala a symbol of Pakistan’s strength?
Certainly not! Does she represent an opportunity for reflection and
action? Yes!!
Left in Pakistan — III Issues of the moment It is not the rebellious highlights of left history and thought but the paradoxes and conundrums that have most to say to us today. The need for reflective engagement being most pressing in the case of terrorism as well as privatisation of higher education By Sarah Humayun Should a
‘new’ left try to cater to expectations that it will take distinctive
positions on some of the issues of the moment? To some extent this is a
reasonable expectation from a political tendency that feels that its
enfeebled presence in the political and public space has resulted in its
degradation. It would be a welcome development to see forceful left-wing
perspectives on issues such as the power c ‘Public’ here
indicates a collective but not mathematically or sociologically defined
category which does not map on to the state, for one of the things the
left now needs to do is find models of solidarity and collectivism that do
not wish to coincide exactly with the state, but also refrain from
uncritically rejecting the state form, with all the opportunities and
limitations inherent in it. It needs to do this
because both the opportunities and the limitations of the state need to be
continually rethought and restated in their relation ‘equality,
solidarity and participation’, which political thinker Benjamin Arditi
describes as ‘operators of difference imprinted in the cultural and
affective jurisprudence of the left’ but which have ‘no relevant
political existence outside efforts to singularize them in cases’. To take one of the
questions that came up in a conversation with a student activist:
privatisation of higher education. There is considerable overlap between
left and right stances on this issue, as historian Humera Iqtidar has
pointed out. The Jamaat-e-Islami has opposed privatisation of education
on the same ground – equality of access – as the left. It would be interesting
to know whether there has been significant recruitment in the left-wing
National Student Federation from public sector universities, and, if so,
to what extent is it happening in parallel with the educational reforms
begun by the Musharraf regime. In the last few years it is private
universities and lawyers’ movement activism that have served up some of
the key younger members of the left. Public universities are still riper
recruitment grounds for the right-wing IJT. At first glance it might
seem that the student left, in advocating state ownership, would merely
stick to a traditional pro-public-sector position, and perhaps be able to
make a bid to re-enter university politics with an agenda that appeals to
lower-middle class and working class students. But this ignores that
control by the state was also one of the reasons for the right’s
exclusive ascendency in public universities; it was achieved on the back
of not only martial law but also of the heavily-bureaucratised machinery
of state-run universities, for which no single regime can be held
responsible. The right in the
university as elsewhere has then learnt both from the left and from the
state. From the first, it has learnt how to politicise religion by
translating it into a platform for some demands usually associated with
the egalitarian ideals. From the second, it has learnt to depoliticise
religion by removing it from the context of debate and dissent; to use
monopolistic violence as the basis for overriding the educational autonomy
and modes of critical reflection proper to the university. Given similar
circumstances, there is in principle nothing to stop this situation being
replicated in private-sector universities except their defence of the same
autonomy and their cautiousness with respect to the power they invest in
administrations vis a vis the university community. To support the state’s
role as it presently exists in public education may or may not translate
into a progressive political position. Debate on this is crucial. There
can be no simple choices when it comes to the question of privatisation or
state ownership. The particular form that state or private ownership takes
and its suitability for the university, then becomes a question to be
considered along with that of access. An intelligent student politics will
concern itself with the autonomy and character of the university as well
as with affordability of access. It is questionable,
therefore, whether any constructive politics of the left can assume that
one social or institutional form can advance the interests of
everyone.Indeed, it is not for nothing that post-cold-war writing about the
left has stressed antagonism, dispute, contingency, and the transformation
of political identity in the process of articulating and linking it with
other identities in alliances that can effect change. Instead of
universality, it has stressed hegemony. But hegemony, whether
‘organic’ (as with Gramsci) or contingent and reversible (as with
Laclau and Mouffe), still remains aspiration for domination that is
relevant to only a section of the political field. It is possible to
discuss this difficulty in the modernist-inspired language of
fragmentation, and consequently to look for answers in the revival of pure
forms of Marxian politics and in the search for hegemonic
‘alternative’ narratives that will seek to displace the dominance of
existing ones. That’s one way to go. Another path is to recognise that
there can be more than one left politics at the same time.
ndeed, there has always been more than one: the putschist vanguard,
the secessionist movement, the parliamentary party, the trade-union
movement, the guild, the educational association, Christian socialism,
ecological movements, etc. They have had different trajectories and not
all have taken the overthrow of capitalist world-domination by the
proletariat as their express object. In just-made history, spontaneous
protests against sexual violence in India have arguably made a significant
social impact. This considerable success has not interested anyone as much
as the ambiguous Arab ‘revolutions’ or even the fortunes of the Maoist
insurgency in India. Why not? Is it because its impact and its
still-evolving meanings are hard to discuss in the orthodox vocabulary of
left politics? From the (sadly few)
writings and interventions that one sees by left-wingers in mainstream
public fora, it seems that most failures of left-wing politics can be
explained away by state repression and the global ascendancy of
capitalism, which have blurred class boundaries and so reduced the space
for effective class struggles based on strong identities. Another familiar
storyline recounts a history of the urban, cultural left of the
intelligentsia and the conditions of its interactions with the state, with
progressive loss of traction and space. More interestingly, it sometimes
sheds light on how the left itself was shaped by hierarchical class or
sectional interests, or had differences of opinion on critical questions
that have not become irrelevant (as in the work of historian Kamran Asdar
Ali). These ways of making
sense of left history are all relevant and illuminating; and perhaps one
could do worse than live with the belief that given the right conditions,
which are more or less identifiable, left political activity could have
taken a different turn: that is, it could have stayed as once it was, more
robust and promising. But there should be room to think, as Michael
Freeden says, that ‘unintended consequences, ineffective intentions, and
misinterpretations of the message are equally valuable insights … they
are part of the continuous metamorphoses that ideologies experience’. In my view what a
revived conversation about the left should foreground is the more nuanced
thinking that suggests not only that identity politics within the Marxian
framework is improbable now but, furthermore, instances of it that are
invoked are not easily decipherable in terms of the polemical claims made
for them. Left polemic invested in the Marxian orthodoxies often appears
to turn a face of brave defiance to those whom it feels it needs to
educate in history and theory before they can grasp its ‘logic’. This may well be worth
doing. But it leaves out what appears to some observers to be a critically
important promise of the political left: not just to attach the notion of
alternative, negativity, resistance, to a particular theoretical
elaboration of a dominant economic or social system, but also to offer a
site from which it is possible to think alternatives to the
‘alternative’. ****** Nowhere is the need for
reflective engagement as pressing as in the case of terrorism, to which, I
think, the left has largely avoided giving facile answers. But it has also
avoided advancing the debate. This is a thorny issue.
The All Parties Conference of the AWP put out a statement on what to do
about terrorism in February: the state and religion should be separate.
The state should not have a religion. Intelligence and armed forced should
be under civilian control; support for extremist organisations should
cease and they should be disbanded. Only those negotiations are acceptable
which can lead to the achievement of democratic goals; negotiations that
weaken constitution, democratic goals or democratic state are
unacceptable. On Balochistan, its public statements have stressed that the
Baloch have been denied basic human rights and access to resources, and
that no solution can be found without ending the illegal abductions,
torture and killings carried out by the agencies. Despite this clear
stance, from time to time, concerns are voiced about the left’s position
on terrorism and insurgency. There is unease that the sections of the left
are pro-talks, that they choose to avoid the problem of fundamentalism by
talking about class, or by seeing it as a consequence of American
involvement in the region and the related use of proxies by the military.
On Balochistan, too, the left has been criticised for going beyond support
for Baloch rights to endorse the case for Baloch nationalism.
I do not want to enter a
discussion on whether these positions are held by a significant number of
leftists or none at all or whether they are tenable. In the polarisation
or talks or operations, what is evident is a rift between those who demand
a position on terrorism to address the present moment, and those who want
to begin with the context which has created the space for terrorism. The
argument is partly about immediacy. The criticism of those
who are in favour of negotiations, however qualified, targets their
unwillingness to endorse solutions to terrorism understood as
immediate threat; it argues that successful coercive action can create the
space for addressing the context. Each side in the argument is prepared to
pay a certain price: those who favour immediacy are willing to chance the
deployment of the same war machine against nebulously-defined terrorist
outfits that (they agree) inspired their formation; and those who favour
addressing the context are presumably willing to maintain a stance of
endurance on the immediate threats of attack. I’m not sure that this
division can be mapped on to the political left or the political right.
But one thing that perhaps the left can contribute in thinking about
terrorism and insurgency is to look beyond ‘what the state can do’,
which is no doubt critical, to engage in reflection about what will in
general lead to a reduction of violence, through deployment of state
forces and apart from it. It can think about ways of reimagining the state
in from the insights gleaned from Balochistan’s militant nationalism and
the Taliban’s supra-state terrorism that treats the state as a shadow of
an idea embodied in a yet-to-be-determined Islamic constitution. The left is eminently
placed to have this conversation because it shares the enlightenment
legacy that understands freedom as autonomy and self-determination, and
which it has also done much to complicate. At various times, it has sought
out such figures of autonomy in nationalist movements, in the working
class, as well as in the authoritarian state. Interesting work is now
being done on climate of thought in the years preceding Pakistan and the
philosophical lineages of some of the ideas that went into the imagining
of the Islamic state. Kamran Asdar Ali has written a series of articles
focusing on pre-partition left debate about Muslim nationalism and
separatism in India (which documents opposing voices in the debate), the
debates among left intellectuals about the nature of the Pakistani state
and about the lessons of the 1972 Karachi strikes in Karachi. Faisal Devji, who also
counts the communism as a strand in the intellectual genealogy of
Pakistan, has recently talked about how ‘religion was not a supplement
to geography but its alternative’, in the ‘politics of radical
non-coincidence between nation and state’ that envisaged its creation.
These and other contributions tell us, not so much that Pakistan would
have been a different place had everyone’s politics been better, but
that there has always been a radical indeterminacy in the ways that states
and nations are imagined that opens a door to violence. In an interview after
the events of September 11, Jacques Derrida, the French-Algerian
philosopher, talked about ‘on the one hand, the positive and salutary
role played by the “state” form (the sovereignty of the nation-state)
and, thus, by democratic citizenship in providing protection against
certain kinds of international violence (the market, the concentration of
world capital, as well as “terrorist” violence and the proliferation
of weapons) and, on the other hand, the negative or limiting effects of a
state whose sovereignty remains a theological legacy, a state that closes
its borders to noncitizens, monopolizes violence, controls its borders,
excludes or represses noncitizens, and so forth?’ ‘The worst’, he
continued, ‘it seems, is also the best. That is... the ultimate resource
of all terrorisms.’ The ‘state’ — the
ultimate figure of the free self-determining individual as imagined by
liberalism — allows for divergent possibilities in the same time and
place and the tension between them can be a fraught one. Each political
intervention that bears the name of the state will produce an ensemble of
effects, some of which will be more and some less conducive to violence.
To operate on this territory of ‘less’ and ‘more’ will require
considerably dexterity. It is not the rebellious
highlights of left history and thought but the paradoxes and conundrums, I
think, that have most to say to us today. Does this mean that the left’s
politics can give few easy answers and unequivocal positions? Is this a
challenge it is ready to accept? Whatever the answer, perhaps it should be
kept in mind that for every easy answer the left offers, there will be
others willing to offer an easier one. (Concluded)
There may be several obstacles to the By Dr Raza Khan The economic
corridor which China and Pakistan have agreed to construct between
Pakistan’s underdeveloped seaport of Gwadar to Kashghar border region in
western China has colossal prospects of trade, investment and
socioeconomic development for the entire region. Although the idea of
economic corridor between China and Pakistan was conceived several years
back, it started getting a concrete shape during the visits of prime
ministers of both countries after the election of Nawaz Sharif as prime
minister in June this year. Pak-China economic
corridor could be instrumental in increasing the trade between the two
states and the South-Asi The economic corridor
for Pakistan is critically important as it could trigger industrialisation
in different areas along the route and could turn many areas into economic
hubs. Consequently, the process could give rise to new cities and urban
centres most importantly in some of the remotest parts of the country. One of the key obstacles
to the laying of a new trade route between Gwadar (Pakistan) and western
China is the serious security problems in Balochistan. Area-wise the
biggest province of Pakistan is facing active separatist insurgency by
Baloch nationalist militant outfits. The interior of Balochistan, through
which the road-rail route is supposed to pass, is nearly a ‘no-go’
region for Pakistani state functionaries. Only the military is operating
in the area and it is also under attack. Keeping this in view, the
security of the trade corridor would be a very tough task. However, this does not
mean that the route cannot be built. In fact, the route can be used to put
an end or at least neutralise the insurgency by giving the Baloch
nationalist a big share in the profit from the route like the transit fee
charged from the trading vehicles. Only a big economic stake for the
inhabitants of Balochistan, particularly those areas through which the
route would pass as well as the surrounding areas, could guarantee the
security of the route. Otherwise, no amount of policing or security
apparatus could keep the route secure. Not only the proposed
Gwadar to China trading corridor route would face problems of security in
Baloch-inhabited areas, the route is most likely to pass through upper
Balochistan inhabited by Pashtoons. Although there are no separatist
militant groups active in the region, there are pockets of Taliban present
in these areas which could pose a serious threat to the security of the
route. Likewise, in some areas of southern Pakhtunkhwa, which would be
crosscut by the proposed road-rail route, the presence of Taliban would
disturb smooth movement of trading convoys. Keeping in view the presence
of Taliban militants across the KP, the security of the trading route
throughout KP would be at risk with varying degree of intensity. From the KP, the trading
route would enter the Karakorum Highway in Pakistan’s northern areas.
Traditionally, this has been a very secure route but some events in recent
years and particularly recent months including the killings of Shiites and
the rare incident of killing of foreign mountain climbers in Gligit
Baltistan are alarming. The incident of killing of nine foreign mountain
climbers, including Chinese, at a time when the proposed route was to be
announced formally, is extremely significant. The incident was followed by
the killing of a lieutenant colonel, a captain and a senior superintendent
of police in Chilas which is also very alarming. These incidents suggest
that some forces are against the construction of the new trading corridor.
In this situation the security of the trading corridor in the
traditionally peaceful northern area of Pakistan would be a daunting task.
Apart from security
challenges to the new China-Pakistan trade corridor, the construction of
physical infrastructure and the development of the existing infrastructure
is very important. Road and railway infrastructure has to be laid down
right up from Gwadar in the extreme Southwest of Pakistan to the north.
There does not exist any road or railway track linking Gwadar port even to
its provincial capital, Quetta. Whereas, there does exist a road from
Quetta on the border with Afghanistan further northwards linking
Balochistan province to the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province. However, the road
is narrow and in a dilapidated condition. It cannot be used for heavy
vehicles transporting goods. Likewise there is a railway track from Quetta
to Zhob on border with KP but there is a missing link between the two
provinces. However, this track is not usable in its present form as it is
of narrow gauge and has since long been abandoned. More importantly the
pressure of traffic is already huge on these roads. Therefore, they could
not be of significant help in making the new trading route a success. In
order to make these roads facilitate the trade they need to be
reconstructed and their width needs to be doubled. In this regard, the
construction of a motorway from Peshawar to DI Khan in the South and from
Hasanabdal interchange on Peshawar-Islamabad Motorway (M-1) to Mansehra
could be instrumental. There may be several
obstacles to the construction of China-Pakistan economic corridor, but the
stakes involved for both the countries are colossal which demand that it
should be built on war footing. Apart from both the countries, the
potential benefits of the project for the entire region are numerous.
Therefore, all the regional countries must also contribute to the
expeditious completion of the corridor. The writer is an expert
on South Asia and Afghanistan. He can be contacted via email:razapkhan@hotmail.com)
Can humans live forever? Though advances in medicine and existing By Syed Mansoor Hussain Immortality has
been the ‘holy grail’ of medical thought over millennia. However,
humans cannot live forever and it is for this reason that religion is so
popular. Frankly as a Muslim, all I can really say about this issue is
that be a good Muslim, follow the commandments of our faith and then hope
for the best in the life hereafter. But even so in our lives today,
physical immortality is still something that science is sort of looking
for. Perhaps the nearest
thing to immortality is the concept of ‘cloning’. Cloning is the
creation/production of an animal ( I remember reading about
a ‘maharaja’ in the days of the ‘Raj’ who would always buy two
Rolls Royce cars, one to drive and one that could be cannibalised for
‘spare parts’ when needed. Of course getting new spare parts from
England in those days took time. That reminds me of the movie, “The
Island”. This movie is based on the idea that the ‘rich and the
famous’ invest in genetically identical clones that are kept on an
island, available for the transplantation of organs for the sick
‘originals’. Besides cloning, the
other area that tremendously excites people interesting in immortality is
‘stem cells’. These cells have the capacity to differentiate into
almost any organ and when such an organ is developed it does not produce
‘rejection’ when implanted into a human. The major use of stem cell
technology at this time is to augment failing organs. As we stand today
even if cloning and stem cells can eventually develop an entire human
being, we will still have major problems. It is unlikely, at least
in the foreseeable future, to clone ‘us’ from when we are in the prime
of our lives and put the clone in the ‘bank’ for a time when our
present body falls apart and then transfer ourselves into the clone ad
infinitum. The first major problem with cloning is that many, if not all,
major ‘non-acquired’ diseases like cancer, heart disease, diabetes,
auto-immune disease probably have some genetic basis. As such any clone
will also ‘inherit’ that tendency for such disease and that was
probably what did Dolly in at the age of only six. But even if we can
detect and fix all genetic tendencies for disease, the battle for a
perfect human clone is not over. The next major problem is that of the
‘mind’. We as people are, besides our bodies, also made up of
memories, experience and emotions that define us as humans and unless we
can transfer our minds to the ‘clones’ we will never be able to
produce another ‘us’. And even the most optimistic predictions at this
time do not foresee such a development. And if we cannot ‘transfer’
the mind to a clone, immortality will only be a distant dream at best. But advances in medicine
and existing technology do promise ‘longevity’. As it is the average
human life span in the ‘advanced’ countries is approaching the mid and
high ‘eighties’. To put this in perspective, in 1965 the Medicare Act
was passed in the US that provides government medical insurance for all
Americans after the age of sixty five. At that time, the average life
expectancy of an American citizen was in the high sixties. The idea was to
provide ‘old’ people with healthcare over the last few years of their
life. But then the ‘law of unintended consequences’ came into effect. Because of government
support of healthcare, there was a tremendous improvement in medical care
and research into diseases of the elderly funded by the government and
within a generation the life expectancy was pushed by a couple of decades.
That is one of the major reasons that today the entire medicare system in
the US is under tremendous financial strain. As it is said in the US only
half in jest, sixty is now the new forty. Clearly if a person
escapes what I called ‘premature death’ in a previous article, eats
well, exercises a lot, avoids bad habits, stays happy and seeks timely
medical help then such a person could live well into their eighties or
even nineties and enjoy good health along the way. And if they do develop
problems, transplants both organic and mechanical can prolong life. The
most advanced concept in such a machine-human interface is the ‘cyborg’.
Here again science
fiction is full of such beings but even in real life we are seeing human
bodies being augmented by mechanical devices and replacements. Cardiac
pacemakers and artificial joints are already an everyday reality, but
newer innovations are helping the blind to see, the deaf to hear and even
the paralysed to walk. One of the most exciting areas of research and
development is the interface where the brain can directly control a
mechanical extension like a mechanical limb. Based upon the way
humans are living longer, it is predicted that soon there will be a lot of
people living into their nineties and even beyond. But that brings us to
two important problems. First, of course, is that with advancing age many
people start losing their physical strength and often require what is
euphemistically called ‘assisted living’. In other words even without
being sick, the elderly require physical assistance to perform ordinary
acts of life. This will place a tremendous strain not only on the families
and care givers of such people but also place an increasing financial
burden on society. The other problem is the
pesky brain. As populations get older, brain degeneration often sets in
and conditions like Alzheimer’s disease become prevalent. So far medical
research has been unable to come with any treatment for this disease or
even any way to slow it down. The best that has been accomplished is
earlier detection. So what seems to be happening is that even if we live
longer, the chances are that we just might end up as living organisms
incapable of intellectual function. Not all that pleasant an idea. So, there is always a
market of pseudo scientific clinics that offer ‘rejuvenation therapy’.
The rich who wish to live longer and find their lost youth are attracted
to such establishments. After paying often exorbitant sums of money, they
are provided with treatments of dubious scientific value, based on stem
cells or other such stuff. Also, some of the very rich are supporting
research into methods that will prolong life. So the search for
immortality goes on and just as ancient ‘Alchemy’ with similar aims
gave us chemistry, perhaps such modern research will also yield real
scientific breakthroughs. The writer is former
professor and Chairman Department of Cardiac Surgery, KEMU/Mayo Hospital,
Lahore: smhmbbs70@yahoo.com
The
Indo-Pak peace paradigm The Kafkaesque
reality of the Indo-Pak relationship plays out once again as the region
advances towards a political re-alignment. A milieu symbolised by cross-LoC
violations, bureaucratic wrangling, diplomatic reticence and proxy bids in
Afghanistan delineate the course for the foreseeable future. With a
determined leadership at the helm, somewhat mellowed by the exigencies of
its domestic threats, Pakistan’s forthcoming overtures fail to find the
requisite response in India. An array of factors prevails. A confluence of myriad
dynamics, the current contours of India’s Pakistan policy spell a
‘toughened’ approach. An election year and its attendant arithmetic
form the immediate momentum for the ‘casus belli’. Unlike the recently
concluded election in Pakistan where the Indo-Pak hostility hardly figured
in the campaign trail, the jingoist rhetoric looms large on the Indian
electoral horizon. With an under-performing government, an opposition
hinged on majoritarian fundamentalism and a shrill electronic media,
Pakistan bashing remains the most potent point-scoring plank India’s
answer to Pakistan’s political Islam? Events such as the
furore over the tit-for-tat beheading of soldiers along the LoC (why not
the uproar on past such occurings) and the ill thought-out hanging of
Afzal Guru earlier this year form the corollary to the approach of keeping
sentiments simmering and in response whetting nationalist credentials. The
revised statement of the defence minister over the killing of Indian
soldiers along the LoC in early August betrayed the duress to compete with
the ultra-radical posturing of the main opposition party ‑ BJP. The hardened posturing
of the Indian prime minister for a meeting with his Pakistani counterpart
on the sidelines of an upcoming UN General Council meeting in New York
further belied the compulsion to compete with the histrionics of the
far-right especially in the light of the meeting eventually taking place. Notwithstanding the
Indian propensity to play to the electoral gallery developments within
Pakistan also stoke the trending radicalism. The attack on the Indian
consulate in Afghanistan earlier last month was perceived as the handiwork
of Pakistan-based militants in tandem with Pakistani intelligence
agencies. According to sources in
India, “It was Pakistan’s way of signaling to India”. Marking
Pakistan’s Defence Day on September 6, 2013, Hafiz Saeed, head of
Jamaat-ud Dawah, openly led an anti-India rally in Islamabad. The
sensitivity attached to Hafiz Saeed and his brazen show of power in
Pakistan’s capital didn’t go down well in India. Then there’s the
Damocle’s sword of the Pakistani military undermining the civilian
government’s accomplishments with India, if for nothing else, to
destabilise the government domestically. The revival of the NSC by the new
Pakistani dispensation is a step towards allaying such fears and extending
the impression of a unified approach. It, however, fails to cut the ice in
India. Developments in
neighbouring Afghanistan also cast a long shadow, hardening positions in
both countries. India fears a raised level of violence on its territory
once the US departs from Afghanistan after the 2014 drawdown. There
already exists the perception of an alignment between the Lashkar-e-Taiba
(LeT) and the Haqqani group in Afghanistan against Indian targets. The
receding US presence, and with it the restraint on the outfits, could well
extend the liaison into mainland India. An assumption finding
credence by the admission of a veteran LeT member to Reuters earlier this
year: “Jihad is being stimulated and various militant outfits are
cooperating with each other under one umbrella”. The alienation in
Kashmir, which India cared less to address over the course of the ‘last
decade’ (2003-2013), provides fertile grounds for such an enterprise. Already the violence is
up in Kashmir with 103 militant-related violent incidents being recorded
in the first eight months of this year against 57 such incidents occurring
in the corresponding period of 2012. Ceasefire violations across the LoC
are also up by 80 per cent from last year. Against this backdrop, India
elects to follow a ‘wait and watch’ policy towards Pakistan. Pakistan too is wary of
extended Indian influence in Afghanistan which it views as part of its
larger design of ‘strategic encirclement’ of Pakistan. It perceives
India’s juxtaposition with a hostile Karzai government, in particular
its assistance in training the Afghan National Army, with suspicion.
Pakistan conceives such moves as directed at destabilising its western
border, further undermining its efforts against the homegrown terrorists
in the adjoining Waziristan region. It has reservations
regarding the perceived Indian interference in its restive Balochistan
province through its various consulates in Afghanistan. It further
perceives India’s foot dragging on peace with Pakistan as a link in the
scenario wherein stability on its eastern front will enable it to better
focus on its western border and hence India’s resistance to move forward
with Pakistan. The recent
‘revelations’ by the former Indian Army Chief V.K Singh regarding the
‘foreign operations’ undertaken by the controversial ‘Technical
Services Division’ only fuel such perceptions. The emerging contours of
the new proxy battlefield in Afghanistan are evidently shaping into
another caustic conflict between both the neighbours, aggravating the
already acute security dilemma. Recent books by leading
western academics and policy-makers such as Stephen Cohen and Bruce Reidel
also underline the prognosis as did visiting US dignitaries to Delhi Joe
Biden and John Kerry by stressing the need to resume the stalled peace
process. Against this backdrop, the accentuated track two gambit between
both the countries betrays the imprints of a ‘nudge’ by western powers
towards engagement between both the neigbours. Such ‘facilitation’ is,
however, an anthema to New Delhi and it remains keen to both underplay and
undermine it. The Fidayeen attacks in
Jammu on the eve of the Manmohan Singh-Nawaz Sharif talks on the sidelines
of the UNGA meeting in New York further undercut any substantive
engagement. Like the Mumbai attacks proving a basis for blunting the
momentum of the ‘Obama thesis’ in 2008, there are parallels being
drawn how in the wake of the rising western interest in the region once
again, India is searching for pretexts to circumvent renewed forward
movement with Pakistan. Any ‘photo
opportunity’ like the New York meet is only a means of relieving
(nagging) US pressure. Unlike Pakistan where there exists an extended
public opinion for peace with India, there is no parallel peace
constituency in India. asma_sgl@hotmail.com
first
person Marc-André
Franche was appointed as the Country Director UNDP Pakistan in January
2013. Prior to his assignment in Pakistan, he was the Deputy Director UNDP
in Haiti, a position he held since 2008. In this capacity, he oversaw an
extensive portfolio of projects addressing governance, rule of law reform,
improvement of livelihoods and environmental protection. Between 2004 and 2008,
Franche worked for the UNDP in New York as Program Adviser for Conflict
Prevention Initiatives in Latin America and the Caribbean. In his capacity
as Program Adviser, he was part of a team supporting consensus-building
and dia He holds an MSc in
Development Policies from the London School of Economics, an MSc in
European Studies from Lund University and a BSc in Political Science from
Université de Montréal. Excerpts of his interview with TNS follow. The News on Sunday (TNS):
What is the role of the UNDP in Pakistan? Marc-André Franche (MAF):
The UNDP is a key development partner supporting the government of
Pakistan in achieving its own development objectives as well as the
internationally agreed anti-poverty Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
The UNDP promotes transformational change by fostering strategic
partnerships with national counterparts in the federal, provincial and
regional governments, civil society, the private sector and the local and
international community. We support transformational change by providing
technical assistance focusing on developing capacity within national and
local authorities, providing solutions with strong monitoring and
evaluation tools, and delivering programmes with maximum efficiency,
transparency and accountability. The ultimate goal of the
UNDP is to improve the lives of the people of Pakistan through the broad
thematic areas of democratic governance, environment and climate change,
crisis prevention and recovery, development policy, poverty reduction and
the empowerment of women. TNS: What was the idea
and outcome of the recently-held UNDP’s international conference on
participatory federalism and decentralisation? MAF: It is clear that
the issue of the management of the federation and the implementation of
18th Amendment is going to be increasingly important for the future of
Pakistan. Any success in soothing poverty, achieving the millennium goal,
any sort of positive result related to growth will largely depend on how
it is implemented. So, because it is so important for the country, it was
natural for the UNDP to support the government of Pakistan, the IPC and
getting an intelligent and informed discussion on the different challenges
of the federation and for the implementation of the 18th Amendment. We also have to realise
that Pakistan is a young federation. There are 28 federations around the
world with all sorts of good and bad experiences from which Pakistan can
learn. It was particularly important for us that it was for the first time
in Pakistan that we brought together politicians, academics from Pakistan
and from around the world public policy specialists, civil society and
media together to discuss the 18th Amendment. I think this shows the
enormous enthusiasm through discussing the amendment. The purpose of the
conference was to highlight different trends, level and indicators of
institutional interplay between democracy, federalism and decentralisation
and global and regional case studies and lesson learnt on the subject to
provide a technical baseline to inform and facilitate the process in
Pakistan. There is no subject of
public life in Pakistan that is not influenced in the 18th Amendment. That
is why it was important for us to organise the conference as a first event
to get the conversation going. In parallel, we are giving scholarships to
study federalism and are working with a group of universities as well to
continue this kind of debate and dialogue. We will give some publications
to engage the media also on this subject related to federalism and we are
working on happy implementation of it. TNS: Let’s talk about
the time of holding the conference. Don’t you think it was too early to
hold such a conference as the new government has taken charge in Pakistan
only a few months ago? MAF: I think it was the
best time. This was a perfect opportunity for the new government to start
conversation. The conference was held at a time when an elected government
completed its term and smooth transfer of power to the new administration
was witnessed. It was a momentous step forward for democracy in Pakistan.
The UNDP also took the opportunity to support the government and people of
Pakistan in this process. The conference was particularly relevant in
Pakistan’s democratic transition process. We also have a very
interesting political scene in Pakistan; there is no singular centre of
power in Pakistan. The electoral trends indicated that power in Pakistan
is distributed among diverse ethnic and ideological dispositions. TNS: What would be the
role of the newly-established policy support and reform unit in
Balochistan by the UNDP? MAF: The unit is part of
the strengthening participatory federalism and decentralisation project
recently launched by the UNDP which aims to facilitate and support the
process of transition-management at federal, provincial and grass-root
levels to develop and strengthen systems and mechanism for improved
delivery in social sector at relevant tiers of governance in Pakistan. The unit works under the
guidance of the Balochistan chief minister. Its main focus is to provide
technical assistance and analyses and facilitate policy research to
develop post-18th Amendment policy and institutional framework for an
effective transition management in the province. The unit will also study
the legislative, institutional and fiscal spaces provided to Balochistan
by 18th Amendment and 7th NFC award. The unit will explore new ways to
increase provincial revenue. It will explore ways to broaden the entire
rules of business structures of different ministries in Balochistan. We will also set up a
local government support unit in KP province which will assist the
provincial government in implementing local government laws. TNS: Why does Pakistan
lag behind other developing countries in the Human Development Index
ratings? MAF: Let me give you an
answer to this question in three parts. We looked at the country that you
mentioned do well in development. First, they have all stuck to a plan;
there was a national consensus which was acted upon. You see China has
made a tremendous progress in poverty reduction and for this China has
developed a plan. We think that Pakistan
needs to agree on a strategic plan and should stick to the plan and this
is not government’s five-year plan. This is 15-20 year plan to which the
society should stick. This is the first step. Second, every country
should invest in its people by investing in education and technical
training — there is no country which cannot achieve the desired goals by
significantly investing in its people. We are encouraged by the decisions
of provincial governments to massively invest in education and by the
declarations of the prime minister to double the investments in education
and health over the next five years. But, still Pakistan will have to do a
lot on this front. Third aspect is
integration. All the countries that have done well have developed on their
regional economic opportunity. Pakistan could do much better with India,
which is potentially the bigger commercial partner with one billion
people. So, regional integration is also fundamental for human development
and good governance. Every country that has done well has done well
because of significant improvement in governance. I don’t need to
elaborate too much on Pakistan. We need institutions to work for general
interests of the people and not for the private interests and not for the
interests of a few individuals. TNS: Pakistan has a
dismal Gender Inequality Index. What can Pakistan do to improve it and how
can it learn from other countries in this regard? MAF: Pakistan loses 30.9
per cent of HDI due to inequalities in life expectancy, education and
income. This loss is more than the South Asia’s average of 29.1 per
cent. Loss due to gender inequality in education which is 45.2 per cent is
the highest contributor to the overall inequality index of Pakistan
followed by inequality in life expectancy. So, how can a country do well
in HDI without addressing the issue of gender inequality. Unfortunately, South
Asia’s performance as a whole on gender equality is not that good. None
of the countries in the region is on track to achieve MDG5: to cut
maternal mortality by three quarters. Similarly, the proportion of women
employment in non-agriculture wage employment is quite low. Studies show
that infant mortality rates are lower when mothers are educated. Economic
development and gender equality are closely interlinked. Compulsory
education, training, paid maternity leave, flexible working conditions and
protection against sexual and workplace harassment are important enablers
of women economic empowerment. TNS: How do you see
Pakistan’s performance regarding Millennium Development Goals. Do you
think natural and man-made disasters are responsible for Pakistan’s poor
performance? MAF: Yes, these are
obviously some of the main factors for slow progress on MDGs in Pakistan.
The government has estimated a cost of around USD100 billion on the
account of terrorism alone and other implications like stoppage of foreign
investment. Huge costs were incurred on natural disasters. Therefore,
there is no doubt that external factors have had negative impacts on
progress towards MDGs in Pakistan. However, I would not say
that external factors are the only reasons for weak performance. The
performance could have been better had some structural and systemic issues
were properly addressed. Pakistan has adopted 16 targets and 41 indicators
against which progress towards achieving the Eight Goals of the MDGs is
measured. Time series data available for 33 of these indicators reveal
that Pakistan is on track to achieve the targets on 9 indicators, whereas
its progress on 24 indicators is off track. Punjab is leading in
achieving MDGs as compared to other provinces. Targets for 2015 have been
achieved or are on track to being achieved for one or more indicators in
each MDG. In Sindh, at the current rate of progress, no MDG will be
achieved in entirety. While the province has made substantial progress in
certain indicators of MDG 7 and MDG 3, the floods of 2011 and the
declining national economic and security situation post-2007 may adversely
affect the progress that has been made. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has made
significant progress in MDG 7, reflected in its achievement of targets for
indicators of forest cover and land area protected for the conservation of
wildlife. Progress in other MDG areas, however, has suffered in part owing
to the unprecedented natural as well as manmade calamities which have
afflicted the province. Balochistan is the worst performing province in
most if not all areas of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). As
available data shows, at the current rate of progress, no MDG can be
achieved in entirety in the province. TNS: What happens after
2015? MAF: The UN is in the
process of developing the post-2015 development agenda. More than 1
million people have been consulted across the globe to gather their
feedback and inputs in this regard. The emerging post-2015 agenda builds
on MDG Framework and aims to address some of the current challenges which
were not there at the time of developing the MDG Framework in 2000. For example, there has
been much progress on poverty reduction. The world’s poor ($1.25 per
day) decreased from 1.9 billion in 1990 to 1.3 billion in 2008. However,
income and wealth inequalities, access to productive assets, social
outcomes and services remain widespread. For example, child death rates
and stunting are 2-4 times higher between the lowest and highest
wealthiest quintiles. Similarly, around 1.4
billion don’t have access to sustainable energy. The frequency of
natural disasters has increased. The 2008 global financial crisis has
reminded us the need for a responsible global governance system.
Therefore, the new development agenda tends to address these and other
issues including peace and security, national and global governance,
inclusive economic growth, sustainable development, sustainably energy,
disaster preparedness and recovery etc. The post-2015 agenda
will seek to eradicate poverty rather than reducing it. It will be
universal in nature, yet adaptable to national situations and will have
special emphasis on what is called a “data revolution” for increased
accountability. The new agenda will seek global partnerships in a much
broader sense. TNS: What does Pakistan
need to do on the environment front? MAF: Pakistan is among
the most vulnerable countries facing climate risks and mechanisms need to
be devised for greener, more resilient options for growth and sustainable
development. Adaptation to climate change has been singled out as one of
the top most challenges by the developing nations and Pakistan is ranked
as a country highly vulnerable to negative impacts of climate change. The UNDP supports
national efforts in undertaking vulnerability assessments, institutional
capacity-building and implementing climate change adaptation measures
across different eco-regions of the country. A national programme will be
implemented to comprehensively address the adaptation needs of various
institutions and communities. The livelihoods of
majority of population of Pakistan are dependent on the use of natural
resources including land, water and fisheries. In the remote mountains,
arid/semi-arid and coastal areas, the dependence of local populations is
almost entirely on the natural assets. Some of these eco-systems are also
of global significance and home to the plants and animal species that are
rare and endemic. To protect the livelihoods of the local communities and
the natural capital, it is imperative to promote sustainable use of
natural resources in these eco-systems. The UNDP, through targeted
interventions, will promote this sustainable use by providing better
alternatives to the local communities to transform them from resource
users to resource managers.
For the Pakistani government, the task of holding talks with militants appears to be alarmingly By Tahir Kamran The consensus
that has been forged between various political actors of Pakistan to hold
talks with Taliban is, generally speaking, a good omen. One can hardly
dispute the fact that negotiation is the only way to resolve and
disentangle all issues. The ulema of various
hues have also put pressure on all parties, primarily the Taliban, to
bring the frenzy of killing innocent people to an end. Such a call coming
from Maulana Fazl-ur-Rehman is indeed a welcome development. One may hope
that he, along wi Yet one can only
speculate as to how effective the pleadings of these ulema will prove.
Both parties are still keeping their respective cards close to their
chest. The parameters of the prospective talks are yet to be determined
and the government of Pakistan, as it seems, is in a state of ambivalence.
It is really
disconcerting that the Pakistan government is not likely to hold these
talks from the position of strength. It is not because the government of
Pakistan has any inherent weakness vis a vis the Taliban (TTP). In any
case, if the latter put forward such preconditions which the Pakistani
government cannot agree to, like promulgation of sharia or in the
eventuality that the talks are held but somehow fall through or fail to
yield the desired results, the stakes for Pakistan government will be of
entirely different kind. As a government of a
sovereign country, it is obligated to provide protection to its people by
safeguarding their lives and property. That will be, as is the case even
now, a gargantuan task, given the geography of Pakistan. The danger of the
whole process of development coming to a halt is extremely deleterious for
a democratically elected government. Democratically elected governments,
if bogged down in such a situation, are looked at by the electorate as
incompetent and devoid of any political sagacity. For the Pakistani
government, the task appears to be alarmingly difficult because state
ideology is essentially not different from what Taliban also subscribe to.
The difference is only a matter of scale. The difference between the two
positions of the parties engaged in talks will at best be that of a
literalist (Taliban) and exegetical (Pakistani government). However, despite such a
tiny difference may impede the process of dialogue because Taliban may not
be amenable to a rather modernist approach of the Pakistan government. We
have not allowed other ideologies to flourish rather they were ruthlessly
muzzled. Consequently, in the whole of Pakistan the voices mounting
ideological challenge to Taliban are few and far between. A large majority of
Pakistanis subscribe to what the Taliban profess and believe. Thus, the
categorical resistance to the Taliban’s way of thinking in certain
sections of society is virtually non-existent. Besides, the method of
carrying out violence, too, has assumed new levels of subtlety, which has
made the task far more arduous for the states to deal with the
perpetrators of such ‘globalised’ violence. On top of it, the Taliban
spokesperson keeps putting pressure on the government by accusing it of
being a band of US lackeys. The current government,
many thought, enjoys a semblance of legitimacy in the eyes of Taliban but
the events unfolded so far prove otherwise. Reverting to the point of
violence and its different trajectory, one is forced to assume that the
methods employed henceforth to deal with it, are far from effective any
longer. Ever since the violence
along with other things has gone global, nation states are finding it
extremely daunting to come to grips with this illusive opponent.
Protagonists of theories of violence such as Arjun Appadurai, a world
renowned anthropologist, contend that it no longer has any spatial or
ethnic specificity. They are mobile, resourceful, equipped with technical
know-how and thus they can launch their operations from multiple sites
simultaneously. Unlike any state or country, they have no obligation
towards the people at large, and indeed paradoxically while using the
language of conscientious global citizenship they put members of society
at risk. The global network which
these groups are often plugged into is illustrated in Pakistan by the
example of the Sipah-i-Sahaba which used to operate in the 1990s.
Immediately after carrying out an act of attrition anywhere, its
operatives wasted no time in disappearing into the urban jungle that is
Karachi, or finding refuge in the remote parts of neighbouring
Afghanistan. Thus, the Jhang-Karachi-Afghanistan nexus worked to the
benefit of offenders who perpetrated crimes in the name of religion. Karachi was, and still
is, a safe haven for such criminals, where they lived and did all they
wanted with impunity. Now Lashkar-i-Jhangvi, one of the most feared
militant organisation, is employing the same tactics rather it has
perfected the art of their deployment. One question that arises,
therefore, is how to engage in talks with a group that is so undefined and
whose presence is not local but global? The writer is a noted
Pakistani historian, currently the Iqbal Fellow at the University of
Cambridge as professor in the Centre of South Asian Studies |
|
risis,
privatisation, health, education and urban planning, among other things.
With a perspective that privileges the collective over the individual, and
looks at the aggregated force of social processes before the singular
action, the left can surely provide persuasive arguments and examples
against moving these concerns from the realm of the public to that of the
‘market’. 
a,
Central Asia and Middle East manifold. At the moment, the total volume of
bilateral trade between China and Pakistan is $12 billion. As the western
part of China, which the economic corridor aims to provide with an outlet
to the seacoast, is practically part of Central Asia while most of
Pakistan is located in South Asia and Gwadar itself an outpost of Middle
East, the economic corridor could increase the volume of inter-regional
trade manifold. If Afghanistan is, somehow, provided a link to Pak-China
economic corridor, it would further boost the prospects of trade with
Central Asia. Apart from providing China’s northeast the shortest
possible access to the sea the route, it could be an energy lifeline for
the same region. Middle eastern and Gulf oil could be supplied efficiently
and at a minimum cost to northeastern parts of China.
human?)
that is identical to its ‘genetic’ parent. To produce such an
offspring, the cells from the parent are used to create a copy. The most
famous cloned mammal was Dolly, the sheep who was born after cloning in
1996 and died after only six years from multiple problems. So far human
cloning is not allowed, but it is quite possible that some attempts have
been made and were not successful enough to be publicised. But in science
fiction, cloning is a popular topic.
logue
in the region. Prior to that, he worked on applied research and policy
initiatives in conflict prevention for the UNDP in Colombia from 2001 to
2004, and poverty reduction and local governance for the UNDP in Bolivia
from 1999 to 2001.
th
Maulana Munawar Hassan, will soon start condemning the suicide bombing. It
would have been of huge consequence had Sami-ul-Haq said something to that
effect too. His condemnation or even a mere statement would have carried
far more weight than anybody else. Obviously, he is Taliban’s eminence
grise and openly embraces this role. 
