Qissa Khwani قصہ خوانی : In Persian Qissa Khwani means story-telling. Legend has it that the story-tellers used to gather in the ancient Qissa Khwani bazar of Peshawar. The tales here focus on that region but may not be as romantic as those of yore.
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
PTI's financial scruples
Daily Times
Thursday, November 10, 2011
COMMENT: PTI’s financial scruples —Dr Mohammad Taqi
If one red US cent goes towards putting a US soldier in harm’s way, that does not reflect well on the US officials who had been cosying up to Imran Khan and had a meeting with him just before the Lahore rally
http://t.co/tLNTjer0
In the wake of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) rally at Minar-e-Pakistan Lahore last month a flurry of reports and opinions has appeared. These perspectives range from laudatory and supportive of the PTI and its leader Imran Khan to strong criticism and downright condemnation. A lot of information and perhaps disinformation has been circulating on the traditional and contemporary media about the financial disclosures of the PTI and indeed, of its leader.
Ali Aftab, the lead vocalist of the band Beygairat Brigade, whose single ‘Aaloo Anday’ has been a hit political satire, took a crack at it in a contemporary this past weekend. Aftab wrote: “Imran Khan is very determined about keeping a check on the assets of the current political figures. But shouldn’t these good intentions begin at home? A well-known political analyst from PTI said that Imran’s annual income culminates to 2 crores from which he donates around 1 crore to Shaukat Khanum and other non-profit institutions. But one can’t but have conjectures about where the dough is coming from for all his campaigning”. Aftab also asked as to who picked up the tab for the logistics including the fanfare, musical entertainment and floodlighting at the PTI’s very successful event.
But even before the PTI’s Lahore rally a lot questions were being asked about the party’s resources to support its high-profile anti-government and anti-United States campaign. Several media people, especially in informal interactions on the social media, have pointed finger towards the PTI drawing financial support from its foreign and domestic patrons, including the Pakistani establishment. Others have raised concern if funds from Imran Khan’s philanthropic projects were diverted to shore up his political fortunes. A media anchor who had tweeted about whether funds from Shaukat Khanum Memorial Hospital (SKMH), were going towards the PTI, was apparently being threatened by the PTI-walas. On the other hand, senior editor and seasoned analyst, Najam Sethi had tweeted:” FACT: Public donated Rs. 3 bn (billion) to Imran’s ‘flood relief fund’. Qs: How much was spent? On what? Where is the balance? Public has a right to know.”
In my last column I maintained that there is no reason to doubt Imran Khan’s personal financial integrity and so far I have not seen anything that will change my opinion. But what I have noticed is that there are several genuine questions that have either not been handled well by the PTI and its leaders or answered in a way that added to the confusion rather than clearing the fog over their financial scruples.
For example, one of the newest converts to the PTI, Mian Muhammad Azhar had, ostensibly, remarked on a recent television show – the YouTube clips of which have now mysteriously disappeared- that Imran Khan does raise funds (simultaneously) for the SKMH and the PTI. A prominent anchor and former information secretary of the PTI, Nasim Zehra, despite her kid-glove treatment of Imran Khan in a recent interview, was forced to ask about his personal assets and property. Even though Ms Zehra did not ask pertinent follow up questions, Imran Khan was visibly antsy answering queries about his financial propriety.
The fact is that the media people are not the only ones concerned about the mixing of philanthropy and politics to the extent where it becomes hard to tell one apart from the other. My considered opinion is that SKMH funding remains squeaky clean and it would be highly inappropriate to cast aspersion on that wonderful humanitarian service. There, however, remains a serious issue with how Imran Khan has over the years used the SKMH platform and its fundraisers to peddle his brand of anti-politician politics. About a year ago, at an SKMH charity dinner in Houston, he went on his usual drivel against the Pakistani politicians and especially the President Asif Zardari. A Pakistani-American doctor subsequently got up and protested very vocally that they were there to raise money for a good cause and not to listen to Imran Khan’s political spiel.
In the interest of maintaining his own good name and that of the stellar charities that Imran Khan has championed, he must not wait for someone to call an audit by saying “ mera ihtisaab kar leiN ” (I am ready for accountability). If he had a transaction where his ex-wife gifted him a 300 kanal land parcel, rather than a transfer transaction entailing potentially higher fees and taxes, he should declare the details of the deal. Similarly, if there is a legitimate reason for him to have declared his ancestral properties at their fifty year-old value, the people should be taken into confidence about it.
Another important disclosure that Imran Khan has been remiss in making is his political fundraising and lobbying outside Pakistan. For example, the PTI is registered in the US under the Foreign Agent Registration Act 1938, with the stated objectives of organizing the party, lobbying the elected and appointed US functionaries and above all for fundraising for political purposes. Pervez Musharraf’s APML and the MQM are the only other Pakistani parties similarly registered in the US.
Imran Khan is a frequent flyer to the US and shortly before his Lahore rally he raised 140,000 dollars for PTI at two events in Florida. Now what the PTI USA does is perfectly legitimate and according to the US law as they operate under a US tax identification number and maintain a bank account in the US. But the waters become murky when the US taxpayers’ (in this case predominantly Pakistani-Americans) money is channelized to PTI Pakistan and potentially used for whipping up anti-American hysteria there. Chiding the US Secretary of State, as “Chaachi Clinton” can be conceded as just political theater. However, it gets trickier when the PTI puts the US service men and women at risk by blocking the NATO supply lines in Pakistan, which it has done at least twice this year.
If one red US cent goes towards putting a US soldier in harm’s way, that does not reflect well on the US officials who had been cozying up to Imran Khan and had a meeting with him just before the Lahore rally. The PTI’s anti-US leader – like many politicos he detests - is perhaps oblivious to the ethical dimension of biting off the hand that has been steadily feeding him. Regardless, he must become the change he wants to see and answer questions about the PTI and his own financial scruples. It would only raise his stature not harm it.
Thursday, March 3, 2011
A passport to dystopia?
Daily Times Thursday, March 03, 2011
COMMENT: A passport to dystopia? —Dr Mohammad Taqi
Professor Ali has taken serious liberties with the facts and has tried to denigrate the Pashtuns by portraying them as a people inherently incapable of living under a democratic dispensation. He simply ignores the secular-democratic Khudai Khidmatgar Movement (KKM) that dominated the Pashtun polity in the first half of the 20th century
When Samuel Huntington and Warren Manshel co-founded the Foreign Policy magazine (FP) in 1970, they felt that “in the light of Vietnam, the basic purposes of American foreign policy demand re-examination and redefinition”. They pledged to do so through “an effort to stimulate rational discussion of the new directions required in American foreign policy”. They described their vision in their first editorial dated January 1, 1971:
“Our goal is a journal of foreign policy which is serious but not scholarly, lively but not glib, and critical without being negative. And we frankly hope that the discussions of these issues in our pages will affect the actions, or at least the thinking, of those in government, academia, business or elsewhere who shape our foreign policy.”
FP has since gone through many phases, editors and management, but has more or less stuck to the original vision of a lively yet serious debate. Even those of us who have never subscribed to Huntington and FP’s US-centric view of the history and future, considered the periodical a sober entity — well, up until last week.
On February 25, 2011 an article titled ‘The Islamic Republic of Talibanisation’, by Professor Saleem Hassan Ali of the University of Vermont, was published online by FP in its section titled “Argument”. The gist of Professor Ali’s outlandish theory is that having failed to rout the Taliban in Afghanistan through military means, the US should somehow arrange for a referendum to be held in Afghanistan and several adjoining parts of Pakistan, in which people would opt for an Islamic emirate under the Taliban rule. If and when such a referendum is successful, the people of Afghanistan and Waziristan subscribing to the Taliban worldview can immigrate to this autonomous emirate. The US and its allies would have to make sure that this entity is encapsulated from the surroundings so as to prevent export of violence but would be induced to trade with the neighbours and encouraged to “try its hand at governing”, which shall eventually result in everyone and their uncle living happily ever after.
Reading the 1360-word piece left me scratching my head. Was this a tongue-in-cheek swipe at both the Taliban and the regional and world powers? I wondered if some political fiction had gone totally haywire. Is this what Huntington and Manshel had meant by serious, rational and lively debate, without being negative? But reading the comment section underneath the article one could almost hear the Twilight Zone music playing: Professor Ali in his responses to a barrage of criticism appeared to be seriously defending an atrociously glib thesis!
Making a case for a fundamental change in the western and US strategy to cope with the Taliban’s ‘staying power in Afghanistan’, Professor Ali starts with a frontal assault on the Pashtun nation itself. In an utter disregard for the history of the region, he writes: “The fact is that the Taliban and other Islamist elements are popular in the region out of which they operate, the Pashtun tribal belt between Afghanistan and Pakistan. This has always been an utterly conservative locale where the local population has generally favoured Islamic fundamentalism. Even going back to the 1930s, Waziristan’s rallying flag against the British was a simple white calligraphic ‘Allah-Akbar’ (God is Great) on red fabric.”
Well, the fact is that Professor Ali has taken serious liberties with the facts and has tried to denigrate the Pashtuns by portraying them as a people inherently incapable of living under a democratic dispensation. He simply ignores the secular-democratic Khudai Khidmatgar Movement (KKM) that dominated the Pashtun polity in the first half of the 20th century. He then mentions the doctored elections of the 2002, stating: “In Pakistan’s frontier province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Islamists were freely elected into power in one recent election.” However, cherry-picking the history, he skips the electoral rout of these same Islamist political parties at the hands of the secular Awami National Party (a continuation of the KKM) in 2008 elections that were widely accepted as free and fair. And even before that, the Pashtuns of the tribal belt have elected people with impeccable secular credentials like Abdul Lateef Afridi (Khyber), Shahabuddin Khan (Bajaur) and Dr Javed Hussain (Kurram) in various national assembly elections.
Professor Ali quotes a New America Foundation poll, which had suggested that the majority in Waziristan opposes the west’s military presence and that the parties (JI, JUI, PTI) with Islamist inclinations would gain almost half of the votes in a free and open election. Ironic that an article published under the section “Argument” would have a deductive fallacy bigger than the Hoover Dam: most Waziris despise foreign presence while all Taliban fight the foreigners, therefore the Waziris want to be ruled by the Taliban!
But this is not it. The article lectures the geopolitical strategists to seriously consider a canton under the Taliban where they may be free to flog and maim people. Professor Ali writes: “Although the west and its allies in Pakistan and Afghanistan have been terrified by the spectre of a second Islamic republic, there is a way to mitigate the threat: the creation of a semiautonomous region where Islamists can exercise their draconian system of law — if that is what the people agree to impose upon themselves.” In the most blatant manner Professor Ali not only blames the victim but also expects that the Pashtuns of FATA, held hostage by the armed mercenaries and their masters in Rawalpindi, will somehow vote freely in a fair referendum.
Pashtuns are outraged at FP for allowing its pages to be used not just to disparage a proud people but also to propose creating a terrorist haven. FP calls its flagship blog, ‘Passport’. But with this new low in geopolitical discourse it seems more like a passport to a barbarian dystopia, where new techniques of torture and terror would be perfected.
Sam Huntington had said in an NPR interview: “I think clearly the US, as well as other western nations, should stand by their commitments to human rights and democracy and should try to influence other to move in that direction.” This is precisely what Barack Obama has decided to do in the rapidly unravelling situation in the Arab world. But apparently, Professor Ali has opted to stand on the wrong side of not just the Pashtuns but also the history itself. As for FP, it ought to revisit its first editorial.
The writer can be reached at mazdaki@me.com
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Beyond Egypt: the changing face of the Middle East
Daily Times Friday, February 18, 2011
COMMENT: Beyond Egypt: the changing face of the Middle East — Dr Mohammad Taqi
The Saudis are deeply worried by the Bahrain-like events where the demographic makeup of the population and regime are lopsided and the socio-political unrest has the potential to topple the regime
The toppling, within a month of each other, of two autocratic rulers, due to popular uprisings, is a first in North Africa and the Middle East (ME). Well, as a placard in the Tahrir Square read last week: “Two Down, Twenty To Go!” These events have monumental geopolitical implications for the broader region — a region where despots and destitution both abound.
We noted last week that the US pundits, wearing their geostrategic interest blinders, had completely missed the ball on Egypt. On the eve of Hosni Mubarak’s disgraceful exit, Zbigniew Brzezinski — in a state of denial matched only by Mubarak himself — was still talking about how democratic transitions in the ME could really have adverse outcomes! I was reminded of Benazir Bhutto’s lament that such US and western double-speak treats democracy as a non-universal value, applied only selectively in pursuit of foreign policy objectives. She wrote in her Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy and the West::
“Here again, one can only wonder how different the history of the Middle East, the Arab world, and the Muslim world would have been, if Egypt, the cultural leader of the Arab world, had been encouraged and allowed to develop a sustained, viable democratic government. It could very well have triggered the domino effect of democracy throughout the ME that the United States hoped to achieve with its intervention in Iraq in 2003.”
Benazir was spot-on about Egypt’s pivotal position in the Arab world and her book is a must read in the backdrop of the Tahrir uprising. The way things are unfolding in the Arab capitals from Algiers to Amman, it is no longer a matter of if, but of when the dominoes will start falling. The key questions are how would such a change start and what would be the extent of it? The Rock of Gibraltar is in a sea of uncertainty since the status quo is no longer acceptable to the — largely young — Arab population.
Whether it is the people’s perception of the economic inequalities in society or a desire for civil liberties, it would not be placated by the autocracy’s belated perestroika from above. It is premature to say how events will unravel in the Maghreb and the ME because the objective conditions in each country will ultimately determine the course and extent of change. However, it is clear that the one-size-fits-all model of revolutionary change will not be applicable any more. It is the inspiration and not the revolution itself that has become the biggest Egyptian export to the region. For future political changes in the ME to succeed, there cannot be copycat upheavals. The secularists and the Islamists both cannot afford to ignore the ground realities, including the pan-Arab aspiration for democracy.
A traditional classification of the Arab world has the oil-rich monarchies with sparse populations on the one hand and the states without oil but with sizeable populations, on the other. Historically, the countries without oil have had strong opposition movements, which, despite severe state repression, maintain a certain level of political organisation. Algeria, Syria, Jordan and Palestine fall under this category and until last week included Egypt as well. Yemen, with its tribal structures intact is rather unique but also belongs in this group.
The West and the US have no love lost for the regimes at the helm in these states, except for Jordan, and are likely to remain neutral towards, if not encouraging of the change. Jordan — essentially a US-Israeli protectorate — had remained a cornerstone, along with Egypt and Saudi Arabia, of the American ME policy. Nothing would rattle the Saudis and Americans more than an imminent political change in Jordan. But despite that, it is likely that a fairly representative constitutional monarchy, accommodating even the Islamist Action Front is in the offing. But if one were to take a pick, Abdelaziz Bouteflika appears to be the next one out the door, leaving behind an Algeria not too different from post-Mubarak Egypt.
A key question is whether the oil-rich countries like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the UAE and smaller sheikhdoms are immune from an Egypt-style change. The UAE with its liberal economy and society would perhaps be the last one from this group to experience any major upheaval. And while many would like to see a regime change in Riyadh, the monarchy appears relatively safe in the short to midterm. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s (KSA’s) unique geography with population, business, political and religious centres being far apart from each other, near absence of past or present political activity — notwithstanding one political party created last week — and coffers flush with cash, suggest that the rentier model of state may still work for perhaps another generation. Outside of some unexpected external force causing a major shift in the kingdom’s dynamics resulting in geographic as well as regime change, the impetus for transformation coming from the liberalised royals and restive youth would result only in a veneer of openness.
The Saudis, however, are deeply worried by the Bahrain-like events where the demographic makeup of the population and regime are lopsided and the socio-political unrest has the potential to topple the regime. Similar events in Kuwait can trigger uprisings by the population in the oil-rich eastern KSA, which can become a pain if not a threat for the kingdom.
Pertinent to note are the events in a non-Arab entity, i.e. Iran, which can have an impact on two Levant states. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wanted the world to believe that the Egyptians were following Khomeini’s lead but the Iranian opposition showed that the converse is true. The desperate call by the hardliner Iranian MPs to execute the opposition leaders has lifted the regime’s façade of strength. What had started in the Muharram of 2009 will end like the Muharram of 1979 — the fall from power and grace of the tyrants. This will remove key support that Iran extends to Syria and Hezbollah, leading to a weakened regime in Syria and strengthened anti-Hezbollah forces in Lebanon. A regime change in Iran could drag down Bashar al-Assad with it or at least tamper with his tremendous capacity to use brute force.
Alexis de Tocqueville had said that the power of the periodical press is second only to that of the people. The social media has now upended the traditional media. But it is the people who ultimately remain the most powerful agents of change and only they will determine what the changing face of the Middle East looks like.
The writer can be reached at mazdaki@me.com
COMMENT: Beyond Egypt: the changing face of the Middle East — Dr Mohammad Taqi
The Saudis are deeply worried by the Bahrain-like events where the demographic makeup of the population and regime are lopsided and the socio-political unrest has the potential to topple the regime
The toppling, within a month of each other, of two autocratic rulers, due to popular uprisings, is a first in North Africa and the Middle East (ME). Well, as a placard in the Tahrir Square read last week: “Two Down, Twenty To Go!” These events have monumental geopolitical implications for the broader region — a region where despots and destitution both abound.
We noted last week that the US pundits, wearing their geostrategic interest blinders, had completely missed the ball on Egypt. On the eve of Hosni Mubarak’s disgraceful exit, Zbigniew Brzezinski — in a state of denial matched only by Mubarak himself — was still talking about how democratic transitions in the ME could really have adverse outcomes! I was reminded of Benazir Bhutto’s lament that such US and western double-speak treats democracy as a non-universal value, applied only selectively in pursuit of foreign policy objectives. She wrote in her Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy and the West::
“Here again, one can only wonder how different the history of the Middle East, the Arab world, and the Muslim world would have been, if Egypt, the cultural leader of the Arab world, had been encouraged and allowed to develop a sustained, viable democratic government. It could very well have triggered the domino effect of democracy throughout the ME that the United States hoped to achieve with its intervention in Iraq in 2003.”
Benazir was spot-on about Egypt’s pivotal position in the Arab world and her book is a must read in the backdrop of the Tahrir uprising. The way things are unfolding in the Arab capitals from Algiers to Amman, it is no longer a matter of if, but of when the dominoes will start falling. The key questions are how would such a change start and what would be the extent of it? The Rock of Gibraltar is in a sea of uncertainty since the status quo is no longer acceptable to the — largely young — Arab population.
Whether it is the people’s perception of the economic inequalities in society or a desire for civil liberties, it would not be placated by the autocracy’s belated perestroika from above. It is premature to say how events will unravel in the Maghreb and the ME because the objective conditions in each country will ultimately determine the course and extent of change. However, it is clear that the one-size-fits-all model of revolutionary change will not be applicable any more. It is the inspiration and not the revolution itself that has become the biggest Egyptian export to the region. For future political changes in the ME to succeed, there cannot be copycat upheavals. The secularists and the Islamists both cannot afford to ignore the ground realities, including the pan-Arab aspiration for democracy.
A traditional classification of the Arab world has the oil-rich monarchies with sparse populations on the one hand and the states without oil but with sizeable populations, on the other. Historically, the countries without oil have had strong opposition movements, which, despite severe state repression, maintain a certain level of political organisation. Algeria, Syria, Jordan and Palestine fall under this category and until last week included Egypt as well. Yemen, with its tribal structures intact is rather unique but also belongs in this group.
The West and the US have no love lost for the regimes at the helm in these states, except for Jordan, and are likely to remain neutral towards, if not encouraging of the change. Jordan — essentially a US-Israeli protectorate — had remained a cornerstone, along with Egypt and Saudi Arabia, of the American ME policy. Nothing would rattle the Saudis and Americans more than an imminent political change in Jordan. But despite that, it is likely that a fairly representative constitutional monarchy, accommodating even the Islamist Action Front is in the offing. But if one were to take a pick, Abdelaziz Bouteflika appears to be the next one out the door, leaving behind an Algeria not too different from post-Mubarak Egypt.
A key question is whether the oil-rich countries like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the UAE and smaller sheikhdoms are immune from an Egypt-style change. The UAE with its liberal economy and society would perhaps be the last one from this group to experience any major upheaval. And while many would like to see a regime change in Riyadh, the monarchy appears relatively safe in the short to midterm. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s (KSA’s) unique geography with population, business, political and religious centres being far apart from each other, near absence of past or present political activity — notwithstanding one political party created last week — and coffers flush with cash, suggest that the rentier model of state may still work for perhaps another generation. Outside of some unexpected external force causing a major shift in the kingdom’s dynamics resulting in geographic as well as regime change, the impetus for transformation coming from the liberalised royals and restive youth would result only in a veneer of openness.
The Saudis, however, are deeply worried by the Bahrain-like events where the demographic makeup of the population and regime are lopsided and the socio-political unrest has the potential to topple the regime. Similar events in Kuwait can trigger uprisings by the population in the oil-rich eastern KSA, which can become a pain if not a threat for the kingdom.
Pertinent to note are the events in a non-Arab entity, i.e. Iran, which can have an impact on two Levant states. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wanted the world to believe that the Egyptians were following Khomeini’s lead but the Iranian opposition showed that the converse is true. The desperate call by the hardliner Iranian MPs to execute the opposition leaders has lifted the regime’s façade of strength. What had started in the Muharram of 2009 will end like the Muharram of 1979 — the fall from power and grace of the tyrants. This will remove key support that Iran extends to Syria and Hezbollah, leading to a weakened regime in Syria and strengthened anti-Hezbollah forces in Lebanon. A regime change in Iran could drag down Bashar al-Assad with it or at least tamper with his tremendous capacity to use brute force.
Alexis de Tocqueville had said that the power of the periodical press is second only to that of the people. The social media has now upended the traditional media. But it is the people who ultimately remain the most powerful agents of change and only they will determine what the changing face of the Middle East looks like.
The writer can be reached at mazdaki@me.com
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