SACW #1 | 15-17 Feb 2006 | Undo Hudood laws in Pakistan; Bangladesh: Dont restrict women's freedom; Cartoon riots; India: Fast breeder Nationalism; Womens rights & marriage registation in India

Harsh Kapoor aiindex at mnet.fr
Fri Feb 17 04:18:21 CST 2006


South Asia Citizens Wire Part 1 | 15-17 February, 2006 | Dispatch No. 2217


Contents:

[1] Pakistan: Hudood laws must go (Zubeida Mustafa)
[2] Bangladesh: Reject restriction on movement of women in the name of
anti-trafficking (Farida Akhter)
[3] Cartoon Riots:
	- Agent Provocateur (Kamila Shamsie)
	- A day of shame in Lahore (Edit, Daily Times)
	- Cartoons and the "Street Arab"(I.K. Shukla)
	- For Pakistan, American Aid Is All Guns, No Butter (Helene Cooper)
[4] India: Deep Divisions On Fast Breeders - Nuclear deal in peril?
(Praful Bidwai)
[5] India: Today it is registered marriages. Tomorrow it could be a
social revolution (Pratap Bhanu Mehta)


____________________________________


[1]

Dawn (Pakistan)
February 15, 2006

PAKISTAN: HUDOOD LAWS MUST GO

By Zubeida Mustafa

LAST Tuesday was women’s day in the National Assembly. Four bills
directly relating to them were introduced in the house. The most
important of these was the one moved by the PPP (Parliamentarians)
simply titled the Hudood Laws (Repeal) Bill 2005. The Hudood Ordinances,
the most anti-women and anti-social of laws to be placed on the statute
book in Pakistan, were never brought before the Assembly.

They were promulgated as ordinances by a military dictator and have from
their inception remained anathema to most women and human rights
activists in the country. Once the implications of the Zina Ordinance
came to the forefront, women rallied round the Women’s Action Forum,
which was created in September 1981, to fight this evil law.

But once adopted, the Hudood Ordinances have proved to be almost
invincible. In the tenure of the present Assembly alone, last Tuesday’s
bill was the third attempt to have the Hudood laws struck off.
Legislation to repeal the Hudood laws was presented twice before in the
house as a clause of the Protection and Empowerment of Women Bill by MNA
Sherry Rehman (the first time in 2003 and again in 2004) only to be
rejected outright by the speaker on “technical” grounds.

Seeing the summary treatment meted out to the previous bill, Ms Rehman
feels that the government might have felt uncomfortable with its
provisions since it covered a number of other sensitive matters directly
relating to women — universalization of female literacy, prohibition of
domestic violence and honour killings and equal pay for equal work.
Hence, not to be outdone, Sherry Rehman sponsored the new bill that
focuses on only one item, namely, the repeal of the four ordinances
(Offence against Property, Offence of Zina, Offence of Qazf, and
Execution of the Punishment of Whipping) and the Prohibition Order
collectively known as the Hudood Laws. Should one be surprised that the
ruling party supported her move and the bill was sent immediately to the
select committee?

Not really, if it is recalled that the powers that be have resorted to
this ruse to kill a bill they do not like. The introduction of a bill
does not ensure its passage. Didn’t that happen to the Cadaver Organ
Donation Bill that has been before a select committee of the Senate
since 1994, notwithstanding the new bill drafted to update it and the
numerous promises made by ministers that it will be taken up soon?
Through this procedure a bill is effectively put in cold storage so that
it no longer remains in the limelight. Nor can the mover introduce it
again and again to embarrass the rulers. Hence, not surprisingly, the
sponsor of the Hudood repeal bill is not too hopeful about it actually
being enacted in the near future.

Much depends on the political will of the government and its commitment
to women’s rights, for without the support of the PML-Q the PPPP cannot
mobilize enough support to pass the bill. Some of the arguments used
against the Hudood Ordinances have been repeated ad nauseam. Sherry
Rehman lists 10 of them as: they violate the Constitution; they were
enacted without a parliamentary debate; they have no link with Islam and
are man-made laws; several commissions on the status of women have
recommended their repeal; they have transformed the nature of tazir
punishments; they make minorities doubly discriminated against; they are
the most misused laws; they encourage honour killings; they discriminate
against the girl child; they reduce the testimony of women to half; and
they keep superior courts busy in overturning the sentences of the lower
courts.

While the most devastating damage done by the Hudood Ordinances has been
to the status of women in Pakistan, they had a far-reaching significance
for democracy too. Their political repercussions have been felt
intensely. As an integral part of the military’s political strategy of
bonding further its nexus with the mullahs, the hudood laws served the
interest of the army as well as the religious elements. It may be
recalled that February 10, 1979, the day the ordinances were announced
by General Ziaul Haq, was Eid-i-Milad-un-Nabi. Religious dignitaries
from Saudi Arabia and other Muslim countries were in attendance at the
ceremony in Islamabad which was also graced by the PNA leaders, Mufti
Mehmood and Nawabzada Nasrullah Khan, who were guests of the government.

The occasion was projected as symbolizing the enforcement of
“Nizam-i-Islam”. Explaining “the philosophy of the Hudood Ordinances”,
the president had declared that they were intended not “to just chop off
hands and stone people to death”. The idea was “to create fear by
imposing deterrent punishments”. The political need of the day was to
terrorize the people. Four days earlier on Feb 6, 1979, the Supreme
Court had upheld Z.A. Bhutto’s conviction by the Lahore High Court. He
was hanged less than two months later. The unspoken fear of a public
backlash was always present.

Since fear and terror have been the instruments of control used by
military dictators and authoritarian religious leaders, it has been
ensured that the Hudood Ordinances get firmly entrenched in Pakistan’s
political and legal systems. Given the country’s undemocratic
structures, the need to create fear has been a basic necessity for those
in positions of power.

WAF (Women’s Action Forum) was formed in September 1981 when Fahmida and
Allah Bakhsh were sentenced to death by stoning under the Zina Ordinance
and women were galvanized into action in their support. Although it is
not perceived that way, the fact is that WAF played a profound political
role by challenging the authority of this nexus between the army and the
mosque. The laws designed to create terror mainly centred round women.
That was a considered strategy. In a patriarchal society as Pakistan is,
it was easy to make women the victims to silence the male voices. Many
of those who might otherwise have challenged the politics of Ziaul Haq
would not question the subjugation of women as that has been the norm.

By rising in defiance against the Hudood Ordinances, women broke the
shackles of fear and thus paved the way for others to follow suit in
adopting the politics of dissent. The Movement for the Restoration of
Democracy came later. Politically, Ziaul Haq’s power was shaken and
after his mysterious plane crash the army had to restore civilian rule
in the country. It was a different matter that the armed forces
continued to manipulate power from behind the scenes. But the power of
the Islamists was not broken and grew in strength.

Again it was the women-centred Zina Ordinance that became the focus of
the struggle against the religious establishment. Every voice that was
raised demanding the repeal of the Hudood Ordinances — be it the
Commission on the Status of Women headed by Justice Nasir Aslam Zahid or
the National Commission on the Status of Women under Justice Majida
Rizvi’s stewardship — struck a blow at obscurantism in Pakistan. That is
what Sherry Rehman has also done.

This has posed a dilemma for the rulers. On the one hand they pose as
the proponents of enlightened moderation — a posture that should
logically drive them towards supporting the repeal of the Hudood
Ordinances. On the other hand, they do not wish to alienate the
religious parties whose support has traditionally provided the army the
political legitimacy it has lacked.

Even today when the armed forces are waging the socalled war on
terrorism the president does not wish to make a clean break with the
Islamists. Besides, the ruling party has a fair share of obscurantists
who were nurtured by Ziaul Haq. Supporting the repeal bill would create
too many problems for the rulers. Isn’t it easier to sweep it under the
carpet? But then the law will continue to be the focal point of the
women’s struggle in Pakistan.

____


[2]

New Age (Bangladesh)
February 16, 2006

BANGLADESH: REJECT RESTRICTION ON MOVEMENT OF WOMEN IN THE NAME OF
ANTI-TRAFFICKING
Migration is a right of the people, human trafficking is a criminal
offence and violation of human rights. The two should not be muddled so
that a right is denied in the name of checking its violation,
writes Farida Akhter


In Bangladesh, activism against trafficking in persons, particularly in
women and children, is grounded in the women’s movement since early
seventies. Women’s organisations have been concerned about this as
increasing number of women and children were trafficked into various
forms of trade including the sex industry, sports, slave-trade,
organ-trade, cross-border marriages etc. If we look back to the history
of women’s development, particularly donor-supported NGO-based women’s
activism, the issue of trafficking received much less importance in the
beginning and much more importance in the last ten years. Initially it
was only UN bodies like UNICEF who picked up the issue, because they
were concerned about children. So it really raises a serious question
when the US State Department, which has nothing to do with women’s
development, funds women’s organisations in third world countries
particularly in Bangladesh on issues of trafficking. One would be
surprised to see that other multilateral agencies like the Asian
Development Bank (ADB) are now heavily involved in funding so-called
anti-trafficking activities. It is also very strange that now the
International Organisation of Migration (IOM) has taken the sole agency
of determining the fate of trafficked persons!
    The Ministry of Women and Children’s Affairs (MOCA) used to deal
with women’s economic development. The cell on violence against women
dealt in a very limited way with trafficking cases. Human rights
organisations, particularly those run by women lawyers, started dealing
with the cases of repatriation during the 1990’s. The media played a
very important role in raising awareness by publishing news on
trafficking. This helped to understand the grave situation that is
prevailing in the country. The women’s organisations in the country also
realised that dealing with issues of trafficking could not be limited at
the national level. It is a cross-border trade. Therefore South Asian
women’s organisation came together to form the Resistance Network
Against Trafficking in Women and Children in 1996. They took an
initiative to make South Asian governments responsible to take actions
to combat trafficking. The SAARC Peoples’ Forum has been taking up the
issue since 1998. As a result we now have a SAARC Convention to combat
trafficking in women and children enacted in 2002. Although the
Convention needs some improvement, it is still a reflection of the
positive attitude among the South Asian governments to deal with such a
heinous crime. The SAARC Convention must be amended and implemented in
the region. The South Asia Court of Women on Trafficking and HIV/AIDS
was organised by Asian Women’s Human Rights Council (AWHRC) in Bangladesh.
    Recently Bangladesh faced the threat of the US imposing sanctions
over trafficking issues. In the report called ‘Trafficking in Persons
Report, 2004’ released in Washington on June 14, 2004, the US State
Department blamed Bangladesh for making ‘no effort’ to curb
international sex trafficking, and put her in a list of ten blacklisted
countries with the warning that if they fail to better their record by
October 2004 they may face non-trade sanctions. The basis of
blacklisting countries for making ‘no effort’ was a unilateral judgement
by the US. There have been no prior consultations with the relevant
groups except taking information from the ‘USAID-funded’ NGOs. The US
State Department made a classification of the states in terms of the
government’s efforts against the crime. These are called ‘tiers’. Tier 1
included countries which had the best legal and administrative practices
against trafficking. Tier 2 countries had medium practices against
trafficking with a separate list called a watch-list for weak practices.
Bangladesh was put in Tier 3, where governments were accused of playing
no role in fighting trafficking. and therefore faced the threat of US
sanctions. The Bangladesh government as well as the NGOs resisted such
threat but also followed the conditionality of Tier 3. The Ministry of
Home Affairs took efforts for adequate measures to ‘punish’ the
criminals involved in trafficking and supported NGOs and other agencies
in the repatriation of the trafficked victims. One may still criticise
the government, but the sincere efforts should be recognised. An
inter-ministerial committee was also formed which meets regularly and
reports on the anti-trafficking activities. A National Plan of Action
has also been formulated by consulting with participating organisations.
Although this is not enough compared to the extent of the trafficking,
the efforts and initiatives of grass-root NGOs to raise awareness, the
role of the media and the women’s organisations are appreciable.
    We are concerned that at this stage when control of the movement of
persons across borders is perceived by the US as a security issue and
linked to their overall strategy of ‘war against terrorism’, there are
international organisations now active in Bangladesh who want to control
the movement of people, particularly those of women. The Ministry of
Women and Children Affairs which has absolutely no credibility in
handling such a complex issue is now working with large funds from donor
agencies such as the ADB. The IOM who has little to do with trafficking
has prepared a document called National Anti-trafficking Strategic Plan
of Action (NATSPA). The process is very obscure, unknown and
non-transparent. This report is prepared by consultants, with no
connection with the women’s organisations. The most dangerous aspect of
the report is that it is working on a new and inadequate definition of
trafficking which is very different from all the work done by women’s
and human rights organisation, not only in Bangladesh but in the South
Asia region. A Memorandum of Understanding on Common Operational
Guidelines for Government Agencies engaged in Addressing Trafficking in
Children and Women 2006 is drafted in which trafficking is seen as
‘sending people’ abroad. Bangladesh is termed as a ‘sending state’,
while it should be seen as a victim state because it is a victim of both
sides. It also implies that women will be restricted to go abroad for
job, livelihood or any other purposes. Globalisation and particularly
the demand-driven forces run by international syndicate and mafia, are
encouraging trafficking in persons but at the same time the
international organisations, donor agencies and particularly the US
Department of State are using the alibi of trafficking in persons as an
issue to pursue their anti-immigration policies. This is a dangerous
move and explicitly against the people of Bangladesh.
    Migration and movement of people is a human right and the task of
the state is to ensure the security of the movement. Undoubtedly, by
restricting the movement of people through strict immigration policies
will not stop multi-billion dollar trade but it definitely violates
human rights of migration. In the Fourth SAARC Peoples’ Forum (September
28-29, 2005), it was demanded that there should be clear legal
mechanisms for migration and processes of absorbing migrants into the
host countries as full citizens. Migration and trafficking are
interrelated. While migration is a right of the people, human
trafficking is a criminal offence and violation of human rights.
    We urge the Government of Bangladesh and the donors to go through a
transparent process and integrate the concerns of all quarters involving
peoples-based organisations, women and human rights organisations and
other relevant national institutions and individuals.
    Farida Akhter is a founding member of Resistance Network, council
member AWHRC and a key organiser of the SAARC Peoples Forum


____


[3]

New York Times (USA)
February 15, 2006

AGENT PROVOCATEUR

By Kamila Shamsie

OF course this isn't about freedom of speech."

I've heard that line countless times in Karachi lately about the Danish
cartoon controversy, including from journalists who fiercely guard their
own right to work without censorship. There is nothing but condemnation
here for European newspapers' publication of the cartoons.

But there are two separate threads to this condemnation. The first
relates to the extreme religious offense caused by the cartoons, which
has prompted an increasing number of protests, with a worrying trend
towards violence. The small rallies a week ago were heartening in their
peacefulness, but yesterday the protests claimed two deaths in Lahore
and significant destruction. Though the numbers taking to the streets
are still not vast by Pakistani standards they are growing.

The second thread to the condemnation concentrates not on the offense
itself, but on the motive behind it. The idea that the cartoons were a
deliberate provocation to get us to behave badly is being encouraged by
officialdom: various political groups have condemned "the planned
conspiracy by the West to instigate the Muslims"; the Foreign Office has
said the cartoons are part of "sinister agendas"; the chief minister of
the country's most religiously conservative province, himself a leading
member of the religious alliance that gains much of its popularity from
its anti-Western stance, has said the cartoons are aimed at bringing
about "the clash of civilizations."

"Do you think people buy this line?" I asked a businessman whose
political opinion I've always respected.

"Yes," he said. "But there are two ways in which that can be played out.
One is that your 'fringe element,' who often turn to violence, mute
their responses in order to defeat this alleged agenda of provocation.
And the other is that they say, 'You want a fight, O.K., we'll give you
a fight.' It all depends on how the religious leaders direct them for
their own political ends."

But to what extent do people away from the fringe buy into this notion
of a conspiracy? At a coffee bar in Karachi with four of my female
friends — two schoolteachers, a lawyer and an interior designer — I
asked, "Were the cartoons meant to be provocative?"

"Yes!" The response was unanimous.

"So is there a conspiracy to provoke Muslims into reacting violently?"

Here, everyone's certainty diminished. "No, not a conspiracy," one of
the schoolteachers said, and the others signaled agreement.

I couldn't quite work out if the distancing from the word "conspiracy"
had to do with the whiff of paranoia that has attached to it since the
term "conspiracy theorist" came into vogue. "What is the point of the
provocation?" I pressed on.

"Who ever knows what's going on?" one of the schoolteachers said. "It's
something internal going on in those places. Or something to do with
their own politics about, who knows, Iran, Israel. It could be anything."

"It's not the publication in Denmark I find most objectionable," said
the other schoolteacher. "It's the re-publication in France after all
the riots that happened there. This is their way of telling the Muslims:
'You are second-class citizens. We don't care about your sensitivities.' "

Later, over dinner, a member of my family said: "It's just racism. You
act in ways that you know will provoke the extremists to start ranting
and then you get bearded men frothing at the mouth, and — because those
are the only images that get significant news coverage — you can then
turn around and say, 'You see, all Muslims are fanatics.' "

"And that plays straight into the hand of the right wing in Europe whose
greatest strength comes from racist polemic?" I finished. That really
didn't seem a million miles away from suggestions of a conspiracy.

"Listen," said my father. "The most important thing here is not to
confuse a group within an entity for the entity itself. Europeans,
Muslims, European Muslims — most people just want to live in peace. For
us to start believing Europe is represented by its right-wing fanatics
would be as wrong as for them to believe Islam is represented by our
right-wing fanatics."

But until someone finds a way to turn "Muslims don't riot" and
"Europeans don't conspire" into news stories, there doesn't seem any
easy way to avoid precisely such confusion.

Kamila Shamsie is the author of "Broken Verses," a novel.

o o o

Daily Times (Pakistan)
February 16, 2006 	

EDITORIAL: A DAY OF SHAME IN LAHORE

There was mob rule in the streets of Lahore on Tuesday after the
provincial government allowed the “ulema” of 22 organisations under the
banner of Tahaffuz-e-Namoos-e-Rasalat Mahaz (Front for the Protection of
the Honour of the Prophet (peace be upon him)) to stage a protest march
in Lahore against Denmark in particular and Europe and the West in
general. If the government ignored the verbal violence of the Mahaz
leaders over the past months it did so at its own risk. The citizens of
Lahore had to pay for it. The damage the city suffered could be compared
only to the mayhem of 1977, which led to the toppling of the government
in power.

Thousands of youths from schools and colleges, still clad in uniforms
and some carrying their satchels, stormed Faisal Chowk, while groups of
35 to 50 youngsters staged separate protests all over the city. Over 400
markets and business centres in the city were already closed to observe
a strike called by religious groups and opposition parties and backed by
trade associations. The demonstrators shouted slogans denouncing
President Pervez Musharraf, President George Bush and European leaders.
They burnt tyres and piles of wood on roads and chowks across the city.
They also tore down large posters of General Musharraf and the visiting
Bangladeshi prime minister.

On the Mall rioters torched hundreds of cars and motorcycles and damaged
government buildings and private businesses. Outlets of foreign fast
food companies McDonald’s, KFC and Pizza Hut as well as several local
restaurants and businesses were attacked and set on fire. Several shops
and travel agencies were broken into and looted. The demonstrators
entered the Punjab Assembly and torched a room next to the opposition
leader’s chamber. After that they moved on to the PIA building and
damaged its front. They attacked the Holiday Inn on Egerton Road and the
nearby Aiwan-e-Iqbal, smashing windows and burning cars. On the Mall,
Dayal Singh Mansions came in for thorough destruction. The blaze at the
KFC restaurant spread to the upper stories of the Co-opera Art Gallery,
a Muslim Commercial Bank branch, a National Bank branch, and a Telenor
franchise. The mob had earlier set fire to a petrol station there.

When contacted by a TV channel for comment on what was happening in
Lahore the Muslim League chief, Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, launched into
a tirade against Denmark and emphasised the importance of Islamic
protest because the offence had gone to the heart of the Muslim faith. A
similar comment was made by Punjab Chief Minister Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi
but he admitted that he was shocked by the destruction of his city by a
mob he had allowed to stage the protest, thinking that the government
itself would gain some mileage out of this public orgy of lawlessness.
The promises made by the “ulema” Mahaz came to nothing. In fact the
Mahaz leaders called their protest a complete success and laid the
vandalism at the door of the government that had failed to restrain the
“unruly elements”.

The destruction was seen on TV by the rest of the country and the world
at large. School and college boys had entered the streets with clubs in
their hands. It was obvious that the march was planned to be violent.
The way they set about breaking the cars and then setting fire to them
was no spontaneous response to provocation. TV commentators kept noting
that the police was not present when the mob started its violence. When
it came to the scene afterwards it simply stood around and watched as
public and private property was being demolished. The destruction was
planned and the boys knew what they had to do. Many had handguns, which
they fired. On Davis Road in fact they got together in a phalanx and
fired their guns in volleys. Those who were busy breaking into shops and
banks were clearly youths who loot private citizens during the night
while posing as followers of religious parties during the day.

Intelligence sources told Daily Times that the chain of violent
incidents was orchestrated by a group of trained young activists of
religious organisations. Activists belonging to the student wing (sic!)
of Jamaat ud Da’wa (formerly known as Lashkar-e-Tayba), Islami
Jamiat-e-Talaba and Shabab-e-Milli of Jamaat-e-Islami gave the
destruction a professional touch. Groups of at least 35 men each carried
out most of the violence, including burning and ransacking of buildings
across Lahore. The main group travelled around in a maroon jeep and
motorcycles, and most of its members had long hair, beards and were clad
in commando uniforms. The Jamaat ud Da’wa flag hung from the jeep and
motorcycles. All of them were trained and many had been summoned to
Lahore from other cities. They were armed with petrol bombs,
firecrackers, small weapons and a fire accelerant.

The politicians have got it all wrong, except those who wish to achieve
targets other than protesting against the West. In Islamabad, the PPP’s
Chaudhry Aitzaz Ahsan took credit for a “silent” procession of the
parliamentarians; but next to him the PPP country chief Makhdoom Amin
Fahim threatened violence “the next time”. What violence? This
destruction will hurt Pakistan’s economy. (Lahore shops were deprived of
special custom from thousands of Indian visitors who had to remain
locked up in their hotels.) The European Union which accounts for 30
percent of Pakistan’s exports — our largest trading partner together
with the United States, both accounting for 60 percent of our exports —
will hardly be hurt if we carry on like this, except that our trade
imbalance will choke our nascent economy and bring us once again to our
knees.

The Punjab chief minister says he will join the two protests announced
by the religious parties, including the mammoth one declared for March
3. He has also announced (in a moment of self-contradiction) that
rallies will stay banned unless they are given official permission. But
the truth of the matter is that the damage from such protests marches is
too much and the results obtained from them not at all in line with the
federal government’s “moderate” intent. The protests are clearly aimed
at bringing the Musharraf regime down. Will the ruling party still try
to shake hands with elements whose real intent is no longer disguised?

In their attempt to be holier than the mullahs, the Chaudhrys of Gujrat
have lost their bearings. It is time General Musharraf knocked some
sense into them. This sort of nonsense cannot be allowed to continue to
hurt the nation-state.

o o o

CARTOONS AND THE “STREET ARAB”
I.K. Shukla (15Feb.06)

And then the US launched its wars. One of the major disconnects in the
present  conflict is the way in which European and American analysis
obsesses with the apparently anarchic outbursts of violence in the “Arab
street” without taking in how brutally violent the post-9/11 “coalition”
assault has been, not only physically but psychologically.
Mobs throw stones through the windows of European consulate offices, and
the legion of CNN watchers recoils with horror. Meanwhile, unmanned
drones fly across stretches of desert to drop loads of fire on the heads
of subsistence farmers in their villages; children die, but CNN is not
there.
                -- James Carroll in the Boston Globe/13 Feb. 06.

The contemptible “street Arab” is a smart lexical innovation of the
West, quite a popular creature for mass dissing by the general populace.
The not so clever inversion,
now being made similarly popular in common parlance,  is the “Arab
street”. The West has been in the business of solving many a problem
lexically: dictionary turned into a weapon of destructive diversion.

The two problems hinted at in the quote above are: interminable,
barbaric, and gratuitous violence rained on the “Arab street”, which, in
the Western mind, kills only the “street Arab”, who are even otherwise
disposable; and  the contemptuous notion of freedom of expression which
is so skewed as to be blatantly inhuman and immoral.

In sum, the right to perpetrate violence and smash the right to
resistance; and the right to hop, skip and jump in the matter of right
to freedom of expression. These are savage simplisms to which the West
has long been religiously wedded. Its capacity to think shriveled long
ago. A very instructive guide to its deficit in rationality is THE
CLOSING OF THE WESTERN MIND: The Rise of Faith and the Fall of Reason by
Charles Freeman, Knopf, 2003. As to how this erosion of reason is
continually boosted by a systemic dumbing down of the population via
educational infantilism forms the content of a very illuminating work
THE TWILIGHT OF AMERICAN CULTURE by Morris Berman, Norton, 2000.

Naked terrorism and fake freedom of expression were mingled in a
dangerous mix in the Danish cartoons. Much has been written on it to
need any recapitulation here. The crime was compounded by justification
with European papers ganging up in the name of solidarity, reprinting
the offensive cartoons as a massive slap in the face of the “street
Arab” and daring him as both imbecile and impotent. This was a publicly
defiant avowal to persist in perfidy and call it European democracy.
Those in the re-colonized world not sworn to historical amnesia
remembered that Nazis in the 20s and 30s were not a rare and freakish
phenomenon specific just to Germany. The whole socio-political climate
of Europe reeked of anti-semitism, which approvingly spurred and
facilitated Hitler. See WHY DID THE HEAVENS NOT DARKEN? by Arno  J.
Mayer, Pantheon, 1988.

Inconvenient though it be to the West, the “street Arab” would not
subscribe to, nor is willing to be forced to believe in, the right to
invade and destroy as freedom, the right to
rob, rape and desecrate sanctities as democracy, the right to overthrow
regimes and occupy the “Arab street” in nation after Islamic nation as
sowing civilization. In his historical world-view it is barbarians he is
confronting, and it is slavery, rapine and  gagging he is up against,
countering colossal crime as manfully as possible, handicapped though he
may be in a thousand ways. It is his moral stamina that he is reliant on
not on materiel that the West has a lock on.

Has the “Arab street” over-reacted? Certainly it has. And, there are two
points that need to be highlighted, to its chagrin. One, this Danish
cookie was a mean and mischievous bait, orchestrated, pre-planned and
well-timed, that it fell for. Two, its outrage chose to go somnolent
when monstrous atrocities were being committed by the West in
Afghanistan, Iraq, and by Israel in Palestine, and when those with
Muslim names were being massively hurt and humiliated, detained and
deprived of their rights and livelihoods ad nauseam all the world over.
This concordat of evil, unrelenting and ubiquitous, went unchallenged,
unhindered, thanks in part to the Arab street’s insouciance.

Is the “Arab street” to blame for its lack of spine and rage in major
and many matters of moment? Yes, but only partially. The “street Arab”
is horrified to find that the Arab palaces are in cahoots with the
vilifiers and victimizers of the “Arab street”. The “Street Arab”,
dispossessed by aliens and their native enforcers, finds himself
literally on the street now. His response to his trauma and tragedy is,
understandably, blind and mad. He is confronted with terrorism,
intractable, implacable and insurmountable. And, he is reacting with
what little he is left with: his body. He is sacrificing himself, but
needlessly.
He must realize this NOW. Whether others do so is immaterial.

Is that too difficult to understand?

o o o

The New York Times
February 16, 2006

FOR PAKISTAN, AMERICAN AID IS ALL GUNS, NO BUTTER
By Helene Cooper
LAHORE, Pakistan

Syed Jawad Ahsan's Valentine's Day this year was a heartbreaking window
into the box in which this country is trapped.

Around 10:30 on Tuesday morning, Mr. Ahsan, chief executive of Irfan
Textiles Pvt. Ltd., got into his car and headed for the factory just
outside town where his workers, some 5,000 of them, stitch and weave
underwear for Jockey. As he was leaving Lahore's outskirts, he saw some
boys in the middle of the road, setting fire to car tires. A group of
Sunni parties had called for yet another of the seemingly never-ending
protests against the Danish cartoon caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad,
and the boys had apparently decided that torching tires on their own
turf would teach the West a thing or two.

Mr. Ahsan threw his car into reverse and started to back away. But
behind him, another group had gathered, throwing rocks at a parked car,
breaking its windows and slashing its tires. Frustrated, Mr. Ahsan
turned left and made a quick exit, heading back to town. Using his
cellphone, he called and left a message that I should meet him at his
downtown office for our interview on Pakistan's textile industry. "I
think it's safer for us in town today," he said.

An hour later, we were drinking Pepsi and eating crackers in his office
in Lahore. Mr. Ahsan was visibly saddened. "Pakistan didn't used to be
like this," he said. "All this extremism that you see here now is
because of Afghanistan."

He meant the Afghanistan war that started in 1979, not the one that came
after Sept. 11. The way Mr. Ahsan sees it, Pakistan before 1979 was a
much more open society, with wine bars in the cities and a small measure
of freedom. But when the Russians invaded Afghanistan, America responded
by arming, and largely creating, the Islamist fighters who drummed up
religious fire in their war to drive out the Russians. Next door,
Pakistan became a front-line state, and American money flooded to the
mujahedeen. Ever since, Pakistan has been home to a growing cadre of
fundamentalist Islamists, many of them bent on jihad.

With the huge gap here between rich and poor, militants find young boys
with nothing to do easy prey. Mr. Ahsan can't fathom why Americans
aren't working on the economic conditions that breed discontent.

"We don't need more of your F-16's," he said. "What we need is trade in
textiles. We need a free trade agreement, like the one you're going to
give Egypt, like the one you gave Jordan, like the one you gave Morocco."

The United States agreed in 2005 to resume sales of F-16 fighter jets to
Pakistan. The sales had been suspended for more than a decade because
Pakistan began developing nuclear weapons. But Washington has refused to
grant a bigger and far more important concession: duty-free access for
Pakistani imports.

If there is a stronger case than Pakistan's for duty-free access, it is
certainly hard to find. This place is a breeding ground for Muslim
extremists, but it also has a population and government that has, by and
large, maintained cordial relations with America. Pakistan's biggest
industry is textiles, accounting for 45 percent of its manufacturing
jobs, and its biggest market is the United States. Pakistani factories
make everything from bras to shirts and sheets for companies like
Wal-Mart, Polo Ralph Lauren and Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia.

Since Sept. 11, it's been an uphill battle for such Pakistani companies.
American buyers have been skittish about trusting their orders to a
place that looks like a war zone on TV. Meanwhile, other countries,
including China, Bangladesh and India, have been quick to try to woo
business away. The overwhelming belief here is that without duty-free
access to the U.S. market, the textile and apparel industry here can't
compete.

Mr. Ahsan says his knitwear exports are down 17 percent in the past year
alone, and he believes that Pakistan's knitwear industry — the staple
of its textile industry — is dying. This week, another knitting
factory in Lahore became a casualty: 1,000 jobs will be eliminated,
although the workers haven't yet been told.

It is the end of our interview, and Mr. Ahsan and I have spent as much
time talking about religion and why Muslims are so upset about the
cartoons as we have about trade and textiles. Reaching into his back
pocket, he pulled out a Muslim prayer book — he said a friend had
given it to him to help him get through the difficult times he is facing
as he tries to keep his business together.

He said he was waiting to see whether President Bush's visit next month
would produce any new American promises to help Pakistan on trade, but
he admits that if past is prologue, Pakistan will come away empty-handed
on what really counts. "Textile trade, not F-16's, is the only thing the
U.S. should do if at all U.S. wanted to mellow extremism here," he said.
"It must be employment."

I left him and headed to a Lahore suburb to meet some friends. About a
half-hour later, the mob of boys, now thousands strong, reached Lahore's
downtown area, which locals call the mall. They ransacked around 500
cars, burned 75 motorcycles and 10 other vehicles, and torched the
Punjab Assembly. A bank security guard opened fire and killed two boys.
Three others were shot and injured.

The mob then turned to the business district, setting fire to a
Norwegian cellphone company's office and a KFC. Nestled between those
two buildings was an office belonging to Mr. Ahsan and his brother. It,
too, was burned down.



____


[4]

[4]

The Praful Bidwai Column
February 13, 2006


INDIA: DEEP DIVISIONS ON FAST BREEDERS - NUCLEAR DEAL IN PERIL?

By Praful Bidwai

Dr Anil Kakodkar, the chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission,
detonated a bombshell on February 6 when he publicly pronounced on the
“nuclear cooperation” deal with the United States and accused Washington
of shifting “the goalpost.” Dr Kakodkar confirmed that the principal
differences between the two sides pertain to the separation of military
nuclear facilities from civilian ones, so the latter can be placed under
“safeguards” (International Atomic Energy Agency’s inspections). The
sharpest divergence is about including India’s fast-breeder reactor
(FBR) programme in the list of civilian facilities.

The US wants India to put the FBRs in the civilian list because they are
a potential source of weapons-grade plutonium. India would like to keep
them out. India earlier claimed that the FBR programme is essential for
nuclear power generation and for India’s long-term energy security; but
since it’s still under development, FBRs must be treated as “research”
reactors and exempted from safeguards. Now, Dr Kakodkar reveals a
different rationale for keeping FBRs out. He says they are essential
“for maintaining the minimum credible deterrent” too.

Dr Kakodkar has thus tied FBRs to a security calculus. And to that
calculus, he has added considerations of sovereignty: the determination
of which facilities are civilian and which are military “has to be made
by the Indians… India’s strategic interests will have to be decided by
India and not by others.” His statement, made without prior
authorisation from the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), has clearly raised
the stakes in the complex transactions now under way between New Delhi
and Washington. It indicates a hardening of India’s negotiating posture.

The AEC chairman couldn’t have been unaware that his statement, made in
an interview to The Indian Express, would complicate matters in
Washington and impel policy-makers there to harden their positions
vis-à-vis India. In fact, he seems to have chosen this sensitive stage
in the negotiation process precisely because he wanted to hit back at
his detractors who have orchestrated a media campaign to mount pressure
on New Delhi to quickly finalise the July 18 deal on the lopsided terms
favoured by Washington. They want the government to ignore the
“isolationist”, “autarkic”, “outdated” lobby of “reactionary” nuclear
scientists.

The AEC chairman’s interview was clearly calculated to press Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh to stick to the first civilian facilities list
which India forwarded to the Americans. The FBRs were excluded from this
along with all facilities at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre in
Mumbai, the uranium enrichment plant near Mysore, and at least two
nuclear power reactors of the Madras Atomic Power Station. Dr Kakodkar’s
insistence that India stick to the original proposal, and the hostile
reaction to him from media commentators allied to his detractors,
together suggest that there is a serious division in the Indian
Establishment over the nuclear deal and how it is to be fleshed out and
implemented.

Broadly speaking, India’s policy-makers and –shapers are split between
two major camps: first, the “ultra-nationalists” who see the July 18
agreement as a “sellout” and capitulation to American pressure to cap
India’s nuclear capabilities; and second, “pro-US pragmatists”, who
themselves are nuclear hawks. There is also a third current represented
by the small but growing peace movement, which opposes the deal not
because it limits India’s sovereignty (itself questionable as regards
mass-destruction weapons), but because it legitimises nuclear weapons,
consolidates a US-India strategic alliance, promotes the wrong energy
path, and encourages proliferation. More on this later.

Three questions arise. What explains the split in the Establishment and
Dr Kakodkar’s rather extreme step of talking to the media? How will that
change the likely outcome of the Indo-US talks? And does India stand to
gain or lose on military and energy security if the agreement falls
through? The “ultra-nationalist” vs. “pro-US pragmatist” split
corresponds to differences between the bulk of India’s nuclear and
defence scientists-engineers, and those who unabashedly advocate a
Washington-dictated nuclear agenda.

The first group reflects the culture of the Department of Atomic Energy
(DAE), which has always been pampered and shielded from public scrutiny
despite its remarkable poor performance. The DAE is the government’s
most privileged department, which has soaked up thousands of crores of
public money to deliver a pitiful 2.5 percent of India’s
electricity—with a host of safety problems. It falsely claims that its
programme is largely indigenous, when it has borrowed and bought
technology from the UK, US, Canada, USSR, Russia, France, China, even
Norway. It loathes the very idea of international safeguards and
staunchly resists any accountability. The DAE was dragged, kicking and
screaming, into endorsing it. It’s now wreaking its revenge.

The “pro-US pragmatists” believe that India should accept the deal and
sign on the dotted line: there’s no better way to get India accepted and
legitimised as a nuclear weapons-state and strengthen the US-India
strategic alliance. That’s the shortcut to global glory and Great Power
status—while perpetuating domestic poverty and social backwardness. Of
late, this group has suddenly discovered the virtues of nuclear
electricity. It now points to the DAE’s appalling record in power
generation.

This group always knew that the US promise—reiterated by Dr Singh in his
July 28 Parliament Statement—that the deal would be strictly reciprocal
and equal, is empty rhetoric. In reality, India would have to satisfy
the US that the civilian-military separation is “credible” and
“defensible”. If that means bending the knee and compromising on India’s
foreign policy options, then so be it. No wonder this lobby campaigned
for India’s shameful votes at the IAEA against Iran on September 24 and
February 4.

The DAE is equally wrong to present FBRs as the gateway to energy
security. FBRs are not a proved, mature technology. They have been a
failure everywhere, including in France, the world’s fast-breeder
“leader”, which recently closed down the much tomtommed “Superphenix”
reactor after a series of disastrous accidents. India’s “third stage”
thorium reactor is a hypothesis, not reality.

However, the DAE has a trump card in the text of the July 18 deal, which
says the civilian-military separation would be “voluntary” and be done
“in a phased manner.” But the identification and separation won’t be
“voluntary” for India. India will have to satisfy Washington if the deal
is to go through the US Congress, which must amend domestic laws to
allow resumption of nuclear commerce with India. Dr Kakodkar has
capitalised on this and tried to checkmate the PMO! He knows the PM
cannot sack or reprimand him publicly without losing face and attracting
the political charge of acting under US pressure.

However, it’s extremely likely that the US will accept exclusion of FBRs
from the civilian list as a “credible” sign of India’s “responsible”
status and commitment to non-proliferation. FBRs are an open-ended
source of plutonium for both civilian and military purposes. If India
has raised the stakes on FBRs, so can the US. Besides, a beleaguered
President Bush, whose acceptance ratings have plummeted to barely 40
percent after leading America into the Iraq quagmire, and who faces
stiff domestic challenges, is likely to find or expend the political
capital to push the deal through if FBRs are excluded. So, the deal is
unlikely to go through before Mr Bush’s visit. If the deal is not
finalised soon, the momentum could be lost.

Will that be a bad thing for India? Honestly, the answer is no. It is in
no one’s interest to legitimise, dignify and “normalise” India’s (or the
US’s) nuclear weapons. The route to real security lies in the reduction
and eventual elimination of nuclear weapons worldwide. If a special
exception is made for India in the global nuclear order, that will have
a disastrous effect on future proliferation, not least in Iran,
Pakistan, Israel, North Korea, possibly Saudi Arabia, and even Japan. A
world crawling with more nuclear powers will be even more insecure. By
implementing the deal, India will have betrayed the Common Minimum
Programme’s promise to return to the global disarmament agenda.

Nuclear power is not the answer to India’s energy problems. Globally,
it’s unpopular and shrinking in its contribution to energy generation.
It’s expensive, and fraught with grave environmental and health hazards,
including the problem of containing hazardous radioactive wastes that
will seethe for thousands of years. High oil prices warrant not more
nuclear power, but investment in renewable energy and energy
conservation. India has already created a higher capacity in wind
generation than in nuclear electricity—without fuss or subsidies. She
can become global leader in wind and other renewables too.

The nuclear deal with the US will trap India in a bind. It will greatly
narrow her foreign policy freedom. The recent vote on Iran, and the
growing intimacy between India and Israel, are eloquent examples of the
peril of getting too close to the US on Washington’s terms—the more so
when the US is set to play an increasingly reckless and retrograde role
in the world. India should maintain a principled distance from the US.
Dr Kakodkar, despite his misguided logic, may have made a contribution
to that cause.—end—

____


[5]

Indian Express
February 16, 2006

Till the state recognises us
INDIA: TODAY IT IS REGISTERED MARRIAGES. TOMORROW IT COULD BE A
SOCIAL REVOLUTION
Pratap Bhanu Mehta

Pratap Bhanu Mehta The Supreme Court’s directive to make the
registration of all marriages compulsory will be nothing short of an
extraordinary revolution, at least in the history of Indian state
formation. Whether it will lead to a corresponding social revolution in
the protection of rights, especially of women and children, remains to
be seen. But the act of requiring all marriages to be registered
signifies some fundamental transformations in how the state and law are
structured.

While the Hindu Reform Bills of the 1950s did much to use state power to
reform the institution of marriage, this is the first time the Indian
state has emphatically announced that it, and it alone, will be the
vehicle through which marriages will be legally validated. This
represents a massive shift of legal authority from communities to the
state. It moves the regulation of marriage away from a pattern of
autonomous ordering towards formal legal supervision. And it deepens the
process whereby the state expands the domain of secular authority over
religious norms, or traditional forms of authority. Neither self imposed
commitment, or authority of community, or divine intermediaries can
legally validate a marriage. The validation will now have to be to the
satisfaction of the state. The Leviathan finally stamps its authority on
marriage. This is an extraordinary moment in the history of state
formation in India.

This moment was long in the making. Starting with the Indian Christian
Marriages Act of 1872, through to the compulsory registration acts
enacted by five state governments — Andhra, Gujarat, Himachal, Goa and
Karnataka — the state has been putting in place the elements of
compulsory legislation. India expressed its normative commitment to the
idea when it signed the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of
Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). Article (16) 2 of CEDAW enjoins
signatories to make the registration of marriages compulsory. But our
excuse was always this: the normatively desirable is not the practically
feasible. Indeed, we submitted to CEDAW the reservation that compulsory
registration would be impossible to implement in a country like India
with its diversity and illiteracy. The Supreme Court has finally
declared no alibi can last forever.

But enacting a law and effectively implementing it are two different
things. No one should be under any illusion that the process of
formalising a vast panoply of informal arrangements is going to be an
easy task. For one thing, as anecdotal evidence in Gujarat has shown,
endowing the state with any form of power runs some inherent risks. The
common experience of most citizens is that on most occasions on which
they are licensed, stamped, assessed, monitored or registered by the
state, the experience is not entirely painless. Rules will have to be
very carefully framed, so that they do not empower people who should
have no say in the process to intercede and make the exercise of
individual rights difficult.

The process by which formalisation takes place will also have to be
sensitive to different kinds of variation across communities, not a
procrustean framework that licenses state officials to recognise
marriages at their discretion. The state will also, in practice, have to
create mechanisms for dealing with de facto child marriages, for simply
annulling them will not answer the profound challenge they pose.

Second, there is a general impression that even in the states that have
enacted compulsory registration, there has not been substantial use or
enforcement on the ground. It is hardly the case that the states that
have enacted this formal legal requirement have seen a major social
revolution as a result. Third, the implementation of such a law will
depend upon a whole range of institutional capacities that do not exist
at the moment. For instance, even our rate of registration of birth and
deaths is considerably lower than it should be. If the registration of
marriage will require proof of age as it must if it is to be a tool
against child marriage, then all other information systems have to be
operational. Since one of the proposals is to have panchayats register
marriages, local bodies will have to be endowed with necessary
administrative and technological infrastructure.

But rather than throw our hands up in despair, the implementation of
these kind of registration requirements should be seen as an
opportunity. The Supreme Court is making one point that should be
central to all governance debates in India, not just the regulation of
marriage. It is absolutely impossible to enforce rights, provide
justice, target intended beneficiaries, or punish transgressors, in the
absence of reliable databases and formal documents. Across the board, we
make laws and policies; assign rights and responsibilities, without any
means of ascertaining identities of intended beneficiaries. The most
vulnerable are the least capable of having their rights enforced in the
absence of appropriate formalisation. We cannot run a state in the 21st
century, and hold it accountable, without proper identification of
citizens or proper documentation. Yet our state invests the least in
rationally building up its own capacities in these areas. This occasion
should be used as an opportunity to think about effective and
appropriate formalisation of rights across the board, whether it be
women’s property rights or land records.

Certainly, legal formalisation is a necessary instrument for the
protection of rights and the promotion of justice and can be a vital
instrument for preventing child marriage, illegal bigamy and the
protection of rights. But there is another cautionary tale in the fact
that many of the social ills that have occasioned the court’s
intervention still exist. The process of social reform has been
entrusted largely to state institutions and it is a big question whether
state intervention alone will be sufficient to get rid of a range of
social ills and conflicts. In any effective reform the state and society
must meet each other half way. Legal enactment of compulsory
registration does not do away with the need for social mobilisation, it
only plugs one loophole. This is also a way of saying that though heaven
cannot legally validate your marriage, the law alone cannot fully
determine its real meaning either.

The writer is president of Centre for Policy Research. Views are his own



_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/

Buzz on the perils of fundamentalist politics, on
matters of peace and democratisation in South
Asia. SACW is an independent & non-profit
citizens wire service run since 1998 by South
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