Iraq prepares bill lowering marriage age for girls from 18 to nine

The first of three readings of the bill has taken place, with protests slated to be held today.

AFP

Updated 08 Aug, 2024

Rights advocates are alarmed by a bill introduced to Iraq’s parliament that, they fear, would roll back women’s rights and increase underage marriage in the deeply patriarchal society.

The bill would allow citizens to choose from religious authorities or the civil judiciary to decide on family affairs. Critics fear this would lead to a slashing of rights in matters of inheritance, divorce and child custody.

In particular, they are worried it would effectively scrap the minimum age for Muslim girls to marry, which is set in the 1959 Personal Status Law at 18 — charges lawmakers supporting the changes have denied.

According to the United Nations children’s agency, UNICEF, 28 per cent of girls in Iraq are already married before the age of 18. “Passing this law would show a country moving backwards, not forward,” Human Rights Watch (HRW) researcher Sarah Sanbar said.

Amal Kabashi, from the Iraq Women’s Network advocacy group, said the amendment “provides huge leeway for male dominance over family issues” in an already conservative society. Activists have demonstrated against the proposed changes and were planning to protest again later Thursday in Baghdad.

The 1959 legislation passed shortly after the fall of the Iraqi monarchy and transferred the right to decide on family affairs from religious authorities to the state and its judiciary.

This looks set to be weakened under the amendment, backed by conservative Shia Muslim deputies, that would allow the enforcement of religious rules, particularly Shia and Sunni Muslim.

There is no mention of other religions or sects which belong to Iraq’s diverse population.

In late July, parliament withdrew the proposed changes when many lawmakers objected. They resurfaced in an August 4 session after receiving the support of powerful Shia blocs which dominate the chamber. It is still unclear if this bid to change the law will succeed when several earlier attempts have failed.

For a bill to become binding it must have three readings, be debated thoroughly and then a vote will be held unanimously.

“We have fought them before and we will continue to do so,” Kabashi said. Amnesty International’s Iraq researcher Razaw Salihy said the proposed changes should be “stopped in their tracks.”

“No matter how it is dressed up, in passing these amendments, Iraq would be closing a ring of fire around women and children,” she said.

According to the proposed changes, “Muslims of age” who want to marry must choose whether the 1959 Personal Status Law or Sharia Islamic rules apply to them on family matters. They also allow already-married couples to convert from civil law to religious regulations.

Constitutional expert Zaid Al-Ali said the 1959 law “borrowed the most progressive rules of each sect, causing a huge source of irritation for Islamic authorities.”

Several attempts to abrogate the law and revert to traditional Islamic rules have been made since the 2003 US-led invasion that toppled dictator Saddam Hussein. This time, lawmakers are maintaining the 1959 law by giving people a chance to choose it over religious authorities.

“They are giving men the option to shop in their favour,” Ali said. The bill would hand them “more power over women and more opportunities to maintain wealth, control over children, and so on.” By giving people a choice, “I think they’re trying to increase the chances of the law being adopted,” Ali said.

The new bill gives Shiite and Sunni institutions six months to present a set of rules based on each sect to parliament for approval.

By giving power over marriage to religious authorities, the amendment would “undermine the principle of equality under Iraqi law,” Sanbar of HRW said. It also “could legalise the marriage of girls as young as nine years old, stealing the futures and well-being of countless girls.”

“Girls belong on the playground and in school, not in a wedding dress,” she said. HRW warned earlier this year that religious leaders in Iraq conduct thousands of unregistered marriages each year, including child marriages, in violation of the current law.

The rights groups say child marriages violate human rights, deprive girls of education and employment, and expose them to violence. Lawmaker Raed Al-Maliki, who brought the amendment forward and earlier this year successfully backed an anti-LGBTQ bill in parliament, denied that the new revisions allow the marriage of minors.

“Objections to the law come from a malicious agenda that seeks to deny a significant portion of the Iraqi population” the right to have “their status determined by their beliefs,” he said in a television interview.

But Amnesty’s Salihy said that enshrining religious freedom in law with “vague and undefined language” could “strip women and girls of rights and safety.”

Los Angeles will urge public transit at ‘no car’ 2028 Games

Reuters Published August 11, 2024

PARIS: Mallory Swanson (R) of the US scores the winner during the women’s football gold medal match against Brazil at the Parc des Princes on Saturday. Following a goalless first half, Swanson broke the deadlock 12 minutes after the break as the US claimed the Olympic gold in women’s football for a record-extending fifth time. It is the first time the US have taken the Olympic title in 12 years, their gold in Paris adding to those won in 1996, 2004, 2008 and 2012.—AFP

PARIS: Los Angeles, a city famous for its passionate car culture and notorious for its traffic, will strongly emphasise the use of public transportation when it hosts the Olympic Games in 2028, LA Mayor Karen Bass said on Saturday.

LA is the birthplace of the modern freeway system but its decades-long romance with the automobile has come with a cost, including soul-crushing congestion and frequently poor air quality.

“The no car Games means that you will have to take public transportation to get to all of the venues,” Bass said at a press conference in Paris. “In order to do that, we have been building out our transports and system.”


Bass said the city will utilize 3,000 buses loaned to it from around the country to ease traffic congestion. The US government last month pledged $900 million to help improve the city’s rail and bus systems in anticipation of the Games.

While the phrase “no car Games” is sure to raise eyebrows among Angelenos, there will be no prohibition on driving to venues like Dodger Stadium and the Rose Bowl, which have parking lots.

Instead the idea is to encourage the use of public transit as much as possible.

“We’re already working to create jobs by expanding our public transportation system in order for us to have a no car Games,” Bass said. “And that’s a feat in Los Angeles, because we’ve always been in love with our cars. But we’re already working to ensure that we can build a greener Los Angeles.”

Published in Dawn, August 11th, 2024

Iran finds new export destinations for its oil

Reuters Published August 11, 2024 

LONDON: Iran has sent small shipments of crude oil to new destinations such as Bangladesh and Oman, according to shipping sources and data, the latest sign of Tehran pushing to sustain output at close to its highest in five years.

Oil Minister Javad Owji said in July that Iran was selling crude oil to 17 countries, including those in Europe, according to the semi-official Mehr News Agency. The details could not corroborated.

In one new trade, the Golden Eagle tanker sai­l­ed near the port of Chit­tagong in Bangladesh earlier this year after receiving oil from another vessel that loaded it from Irans Kharg Island according to available evidence based on shipping data, Claire Jungman, from US advocacy group United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI), told Reuters.

The Golden Eagle offlo­aded parts of the cargo to smaller tankers around Chitt­agong in April, said Jun­gman, whose organisation tracks Iran-related tanker traffic via satellite.

The shipment to Bangla­desh was separately confirmed by another oil export tracking source.

An official with state-owned Bangladesh Petr­oleum Corporation, which operates the country’s main refinery, said it did not buy the cargo and it was difficult to establish who was the buyer.

Iranian officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

At least eight cargoes of oil — mostly from Iran — were heading to Syria with some already discharged, shipping sources said. Shipments to Syria,

A separate tanker delivered a cargo believed to be Iranian crude oil into the Omani port of Sohar in June after loading the consignment via a ship-to-ship transfer with another vessel that picked up the shipment from Iran’s Kharg Island earlier this year, UANI’s Jungman said, citing shipping data.

Published in Dawn, August 11th, 2024

Trade, debt and poverty reduction

Zafar Masud | Sayem Ali 

Published August 9, 2024

DAWN


The World Bank’s International Debt Report 2023 highlights that surging interest rates and external shocks have intensified debt vulnerabilities in all developing countries.

In the past three years alone, there have been sovereign defaults in 10 developing countries — greater than the number recorded in all of the previous two decades. The report warns that about 60 per cent of low-income countries are at high risk of debt distress or already experiencing it.

In a recent WTO panel discussion in Geneva on ‘Mainstreaming trade: the way out of debt crises for developing countries’, it was argued that trade competitiveness and productivity are prerequisites for better debt management.

While the reduction of debt through trade (and FDI) is a long-drawn process, it’s the only sustainable path to growth and poverty reduction.

According to the World Bank, a one per cent increase in FDI as a share of GDP leads to a 0.38pc increase in economic growth. South Korea is an example of how implementation of trade liberalisation and comprehensive industrial policies has led to a war-ravaged state in the 1960s graduating to a high-income country in the 2000s.

The starting point in achieving trade competitiveness is striking a balance between promoting exports (export bias) and protecting domestic interests (import substitution). The success of the Asean economies and China in moving from protectionism to trade liberalisation has led to a significant increase in incomes and a reduction in poverty over the last three decades.

Pakistan has experimented with trade liberalisation; however, there has been a complete shift back to protectionism since 2008, with a rise in customs duty and additional taxes (regulatory duties).

The tariffs collected at the import stage constitute around 48pc of Pakistan’s total tax in 2022. Pakistan’s weighted average mean tariff of 12.7pc is the highest amongst the top 70 exporting countries in the world. In comparison, the weighted average tariff of the top 70 exporting nations is 2.7pc.

The South Asian average is 5.9pc, the Asean average is 2.5pc, China is 3.8pc and India 5.8pc. Pakistan has the second highest effective protection for domestic producers of final consumption goods in the world, as intermediate inputs and raw materials typically have much lower tariffs than consumer goods.

The starting point in achieving trade competitiveness is striking a balance between promoting exports and protecting domestic interests.

As a result, Pakistan has been unable to develop a strong export base and has fallen behind regional economies in terms of per capita growth. Even today, more than 50pc of its exports rely on only four markets — the US, EU, China and Afghanistan.

The country has been losing competitiveness in international markets and finds it harder to sell its exports within its traditional markets. About 70pc of Pakistan’s exports continue to be low-tech; the country is unable to diversify its commodities and markets, with textiles and clothing (about 5pc to world trade) accounting for around 58pc of our total exports.

Pakistan’s loss of competitiveness is evident from the fact that its export-to-GDP ratio was only 8.4pc in 2023, whereas in India it was 19pc and in Bangladesh 15pc. A recent World Bank report highlights that between 1991-2021, labour productivity in Pakistan lagged behind other countries, rising only from about $3,200 to $4,700, a multiple of 0.5, compared to Vietnam, where it shot up from $1,200 to $6,000, a multiple of five.

The country has also tried selected liberalisation through free trade agreements with selected countries. However, this has not led to any incremental increase in exports, and, in fact, has led to the widening of the trade deficit.

Pakistan has distorted trade relations with its neighbours. The World Bank suggests that a 10pc reduction in trade barriers within South Asia could lead to a 31pc increase in regional trade.

A study by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute suggests that a 1pc increase in trade openness leads to a 0.8pc decrease in the risk of interstate armed conflict. The World Bank estimates that Pakistan’s exports could increase by a staggering 80pc, or about $25 billion, if trade with India reached its full potential.

According to the State Bank, about 45pc of Pakistan’s imports could be imported from India at a lower cost than the rest of the world, with average savings estimated between 0.3pc to 0.7pc of GDP per annum, whereas, about 70pc of the items exported from Pakistan have unit values less or equal to the Indian imports’ unit values, indicating a scope to enhance exports to 1.9pc of GDP.

While we strongly advocate the removal of trade barriers, any policy changes must be done gradually to allow domestic firms time to position themselves to benefit from the reduction in trade barriers.

Apart from tariff rationalisation, there’s also a need to build trade infrastructure and improve trade facilitation. The World Bank estimates that a 1pc reduction in the cost of trade leads to a 0.7pc increase in trade volumes.

We also need to revamp the fiscal and monetary incentives to exporters, introducing targeted and time-bound incentives that are linked to performance. The access to these incentives should not be limited to only traditional export industries.

These reforms have become critical to enhancing exports, attracting long-term foreign investment, and getting Pakistan out of debt distress. Vietnam launched the Doi Moi reforms in 1986, moving away from a ‘centralised planned economy’ to a global manufacturing and export hub, sustaining a growth rate of 7pc over the last three decades. Poverty rates fell from 40pc in the 1980s to less than 5pc in 2022.

Pakistan needs a new, home-grown economic plan. The current structure of the economy distorts the allocation of resources, stifling productivity growth. The new growth plan must focus on integrating Pakistan with the global economy by removing the anti-export bias and protectionist policies.

There is an urgent need for corrective actions to improve the investment climate, which will boost private and foreign investments in the economy.

Zafar Masud is president and CEO of the Bank of Punjab. Sayem Ali is an economist.

Published in Dawn, August 9th, 2024

PAKISTAN

Challenges to social cohesion

CONFRONTING a polycrisis mostly of its own making, the state’s governing capacity has gravely weakened and is wobbling between distress and failure.

Shahid Kardar 

Published August 10, 2024 

DAWN

There are increasing signs that degeneration has set in, with the capability to deliver on the social contract between the citizenry and the rulers compromised — even when it comes to the primary function of providing security to life and property. An attempt is made below to identify the manifestations of the polycrisis.

The country is teetering on the brink of financial insolvency, as the economy is hard-pressed to bear the burden of a bloated, predatory and extractive state machinery and its key functionaries’ lavish perks and privileges. The privileged segments, state functionaries and those well-connected with decision-makers have arrogated to themselves increasing shares of the pie.

Representative and supporting institutions lack moral legitimacy and general public ownership. Disenfranchised, people are discontented; they are not able to participate freely, openly and transparently in the political process, and are also hurt by the absence of the rule of law.

There is a deepening sense of vulnerability due to growing terrorism, the nature of the governing class, and the failure of administrative governance. The gap between diminishing state capability and the challenges being faced makes the task formidable.

Civilian institutions, which serve as pillars on which the structure of the state rests, are largely dysfunctional and in a condition of utter disrepair. The institutions are fragile, with a disempowered executive, an inadequately functioning bureaucracy with limited capability, a rubber-stamping parliament, and a judiciary unable to operate a grievance redressal system, especially against the state. All of them also suffer from a lack of internal stability and unity, having depleted their professional independence.

The growing gap between state capability and challenges has made the task formidable.

The reasons are several: political and establishment interference, mismanagement, non-merited appointments to decision-making positions driven by a culture of loyalty and patronage, sheer incompetence as an outcome of inadequate resource allocations for decent quality education and skill development, and ‘entrenched institutionalised corruption’. The challenge is how to remedy this situation by making these institutions ‘normal’ through orderliness, harmony, and consistency.

Then, there are self-serving definitions of national interest. A rational view of engagement with the world is missing. While harbouring a victim syndrome, we also entertain an exaggerated view of our own importance. In the past, this assessment was fed by fortuitous global events, coupled with an institutionally ingrained belief that the establishment was better equipped to address the country’s multifarious challenges, while holding a poor opinion of the capability of civilian institutions to deliver on such a mission.

It is difficult for the vast majority of the labour force, with limited education and skills, to participate meaningfully in the modern economy, which is also constrained by suffocating regulations.

The education and skill development systems have failed to enable this participation. Even university education is not producing knowledge and skill — nor the ability to acquire it — to meet the market demands of an economy growing at barely 2.5-3 per cent. The latest Labour Force Survey reveals that 31pc of graduates are unemployed and 34pc of 15-to-29-year olds have simply dropped out of the labour force.

Social indicators have not been allocated adequate funds for investments and operational spending. While spending on education and health was 1.7pc of GDP in the 1980s, 3pc of GDP in the 1990s, and 2.3pc of GDP in the 2000s, the comparatives for defence have been 6.5pc of GDP, 5.6pc of GDP and 3.6pc of GDP respectively, enabling establishment-related institutions to strengthen their capabilities significantly. To their credit, they deployed these resources to create and embed a culture of discipline and internal cohesion and a meritocratic system for career progression. They also brooked no civilian interference in their institutional affairs, jealously guarding their independence.

The economy is not growing at a pace to absorb the high population growth rate. But thanks to the internet and cable television, the youth is exposed to global developments, magnifying the challenges of managing expectations.

The state’s huge footprint on the economy distorts markets, blocks opportunities and raises the cost of doing business through excessive, obsolete and flawed regulations — with little clarity about why activity needs regulation. All this is presided over by a generalist, cadre-dominated civil service with a 19th-century mindset.

A highly protected industrial structure is producing low productivity and low value-added goods. The growth of one such industry has created markets for others (each flourishing with varying degrees of inefficiencies). The economy’s competitiveness is being eroded by a power sector beleaguered by poorly negotiated contracts, incompetence and misgovernance.

While there is deep-seated mistrust between Islamabad and the smaller provinces, widening regional disparities in growth rates, quality of physical infrastructure and social and economic services have contributed to ethnic and intercommunal strains and stresses. Even the much-referred to monolithic category of the youth as an emerging vocal stakeholder is alienated along national/ ethnic/ values lines, with little by way of a sense of shared identity, shared values and moral compasses between, say, the youth of Punjab and those of Balochistan and KP.

Society is fractured and polarised, both horizontally and vertically. Social divides are deepening, the space for talks is narrowing and hampering possibilities of coexistence, which is critical to social cohesion.

The result of all this is an unfair socioeconomic structure.

Social cohesion built around a set of values requires a holistic approach to our sociopolitical and economic affairs. It needs reconfiguration of state and society. This is a huge challenge. Tackling it would be overwhelming for the most capable leadership anywhere in the world. And what are we blessed with? Subsequent articles on the key issues will attempt to propose the structures, policy actions, instruments, and institutional arrangements on the way forward.

The writer is a former governor of the State Bank of Pakistan.

Published in Dawn, August 10th, 2024

AI versus economists

Aqdas Afzal 

Published August 10, 2024 

DAWN

Down Main Street from Union Station and the National World War I Museum stands the imposing Kansas City Fed, one of 12 regional offices of the Federal Reserve (Fed), the US central bank.

The Kansas City Fed has become synonymous with holding one of the most important economic policy symposiums each year. In late August, policymakers, central bankers and economists will gather in the picturesque town of Jackson Hole, Wyoming, for ‘Reassessing the effectiveness and transmission of monetary policy’.

This reassessment has become necessary due to the poor performance of the Fed’s current economic models used for forecasting inflation. Back in March-April 2021, when inflation started rising in the US, the Fed’s workhorse models failed to flag anything unusual. Tightness of the labour market, or what are known as Phillips curve effects, did not appear to be of concern, while inflation expectations were not anchored on the upside.

Despite economic models not portending inflation, the US ended up experiencing explosive inflation — the highest in 40 years. So much so that the Fed still appears leery of making a policy pivot towards lower interest rates despite a significant drop in inflation.

This recent failure to predict inflation demonstrates the narrowness of existing economic models, meaning that present economic models are not able to go beyond quotidian predictions. There are now also additional drivers of inflation, such as the ongoing structural transformations in the global economy as countries move from free trade to strategic trade.


What if, tasked with eradicating poverty, AI decides to reduce the population of poor people instead?

Given such gaps and the need to incorporate different variables, recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI) can add tremendous value to economic policymaking over the next few years.

Economists are taught to let theory guide the selection of variables in economic models. They are strongly advised to avoid a ‘kitchen sink’ approach, including too many variables, but often ending up with spurious inferences.

But, since economic theory cannot possibly identify every single variable, one workaround has been ceteris paribus, or the assumption that the world outside a model does not change. Sadly, not only has this assumption led to poor model fitness, but whatever relationships are established can only be described as ‘partial’ theories.

Recent advances in AI, particularly in deep learning involving neural networks like Large Language Models — GPT-4, for instance — demonstrate the power AI brings to economic analysis. LLMs have been shown to be remarkably resilient in “overparameterised” models — that is, when the number of model parameters exceeds even the number of data points — thereby heralding a potential paradigm shift in economic research by ending ceteris paribus.

LLMs can analyse structured economic data like GDP, inflation rates, etc, and unstructured text data such as news, reports, a finance minister’s press conference, or even a central bank monetary policy committee’s meeting minutes. LLMs can then be ‘trained’ to understand economic context and sentiments leading to the integration of LLM output with traditional econometric models. Such combined models can then be used to produce powerful economic forecasts.

We seem to be moving towards a future when the finance minister’s presser or the central bank’s monetary policy statement will bring about an instantaneous change in estimates for next year’s key economic indicators, such as economic growth.

Instantaneous economic adjustments are not entirely new. A number of firms have been using ‘dynamic pricing’, when prices continually adjust to reflect real-time supply and demand conditions. This is exactly what happens when different ride-hailing apps charge a ‘peak factor’ during elevated demand, for instance, at the end of a concert.

Given the exponential rate of AI development, dynamic prices will become the norm throughout the economy. Prices will adjust 24/7 like stock prices and, coupled with LLM-based models, the economy will autonomously equilibrate as if driven by an invisible AI hand.

Instead of a central bank trying to take the economy in the direction of a neutral rate of interest, or R-star, through monetary policy, the economy will itself adjust around R-star, the interest rate at which the economy is neither overheating nor in recession. Monetary policy — and all other econo­mic policies — will become endogenous to real-time economic ground realities. In such a future with autonomous economic adjustments, who would want to place faith in the whimsical ways of finance ministers, central bankers and economists?

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

The hype about AI appears a bit premature. AI is not truly intelligent in the way humans are. The much-touted LLMs are fundamentally pattern-spotting engines that cannot differentiate between what is linguistically probable and what is factually correct, leaving LLMs to ‘hallucinate’.

Human beings also hallucinate, but they can also imagine, creating counterfactual scenarios in their minds that can throw up clues about ‘unknown un-knowns’ — variables whose omission remains hidden from us, at least initially. Lacking the ability to imagine, AI has no way of discovering omitted variables.

AI also does not operate in a normative context; it neither has the ability to assign value to policy options nor the capability to carve a permissible action path. Rather, AI reinforces biases of those who design algorithms. In an offensive mistake, Google’s photo app labelled some African-Ameri­cans ‘gorillas’, leading to strong condemnation.

Bereft of a values compass, AI often behaves unexpectedly, raising doubts about whether it can be entrusted with policymaking. In the 1980s, an AI decision support engine called EURISKO sank its own slowest-moving vessel to maintain manoeuvrability in a naval wargame. AI will do what you ask, but not necessarily what you meant. What if tasked with eradicating poverty, AI decides to reduce the population of poor people instead?

Traditional economic models stand to gain much from exponential leaps in AI development. The incorporation of LLMs into economic forecasting might render economists redundant. But, due to serious issues with AI lacking ‘alignment’ with human goals and values, economists’ jobs are secure, at least for now.

The writer completed his doctorate in economics on a Fulbright scholarship.

aqdas.afzal@gmail.com

X*: enter link description here*

Published in Dawn, August 10th, 2024

Follow Dawn Business on Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook for insights on business, finance and tech from Pakistan and across the world.

Big friendships

Muna Khan

Published August 11, 2024 

DAWN

MY friend Meena came to visit with her family, and it was the right cheer I needed from the usual dreariness that comes with consuming news and being online 24/7. Nothing compares to spending time with your best friend or, as the kids call it, my ‘ride or die’.

We had breakfast a few times together, we caught up with our friends and extended family; we discovered new places, revisited old haunts; we attended a qawwali, listening to a new troupe she’d not heard before, and, of course, we ate a lot of barbeque, ma­­ngoes and paan. And her daughters taught me what the kids are saying, doing, uploading, which proves handy when teaching.

We all have those friends with whom we enjoy a special bond. You can go months, maybe years without speaking to them, but then pick up like you’d been in touch forever when you reconnect. Unlike childhood, where friendships are formed around play, as we grow older our priorities change, and sometimes friendships change too, but what we want from them, doesn’t.

A relationship expert in 2020 told The Atlantic magazine that “young adulthood is the golden age for forming friendships”. It is usually our first time as independent adults outside home and school, navigating life. We choose our friends and learn concepts of intimacy and care with them.


This generation born into a screen world has different challenges.

While Meena was here, I noticed a reduction in a chronic pain condition I have been afflicted with for years. I wasn’t always reaching for the pain relief balm, whose menthol smell has come to be associated with me. I wasn’t waking with the same stiffness, or doing my exercises every two hours for pain management, etc. Of course, I recognise that a change in routine can uplift the mood, as it does each time I meet friends MS, ZB and HZ here, whenever we can manage.

There’s science to back up my claims. Research shows people with “thriving social networks” tend to be healthier. It is down to understanding the biopsychosocial model of health, which examines health and wellness through biology, psychology and environment. It is no longer the purview of kooky science and the amount of research into this, from the 1960s, has shown how social connections can play a role in a person’s longevity.

In short, your friends can influence your immune system’s strength and your heart health, according to a story in the BBC. They help you live longer — along with a moderate, balanced diet, limited drinks and snacks, no tobacco, good sleep and exercise. Social connections are just as important, new research tells us, and they have been documented “using multiple methods to quantify people’s social connections” across different populations, using different measurement types, says the BBC. What’s more, research has seen “parallel effects in other social species” like dolphins, chacma baboons and rhesus monkeys. “The more integrated an individual is within its group, the greater its longevity,” the BBC says.

If our friends can increase our longevity, is the opposite also true?

Social media has also changed the meaning of a friend. You wouldn’t invite a stranger to your home but you are adding friends of friends you’ve not, people you just met, sometimes strangers, on your socials. These online communities have benefits — they help us through difficult times, make us feel less alone, etc, but they cannot replace familial connections. They keep you in a silo, as you’re only friends with people online because of a shared value or belief. Think of rabid political party supporters or incels online who lack intolerance. This is not the case in the real world, where you will likely not have the same opinions, for exa­m-­ple, on gender iden-tity, but can still talk about it without resorting to abuse.

The slow eros­ion of communities, that consisted of friends, families, neighbours in the mohalla, has chan­ged the way we communicate with each other. Especially as internet penetration has grown in the country — by 24 million from January last year to January 2024, according to Kepios. If we’re only being angry and resentful online, that frustration is going to show up somewhere. We’ve seen that intolerance for different views and misogyny online also convert to violence in real life. People have used social media to groom young people into doing illicit drugs, hating, and organising violent encounters.

Who amongst us was not warned about the one friend in their group that was a bad influence? We learned, sometimes the hard way, but came out stronger because we had communities looking out for us. However, this generation born into a screen world has different challenges.

How can we use our elders and our friendships as models to “expand our conceptions of intimacy and care” as The Atlantic wrote? Teaching by example yields the best results. Our kids need our friends as much as we do.

The writer is a journalism instructor.
X: LedeingLady

Published in Dawn, August 11th, 2024

BANGLADESH

Hasina’s downfall

Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry 

Published August 11, 2024 

DAWN

 

AS Sheikh Hasina Wajed boarded a military helicopter to flee from Dhaka last Monday, TV television screens showed scenes of angry protesters ransacking her official residence and hacking away at statues of her father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the first leader of Bangladesh, who himself was assassinated this month in 1975.

The student-led protests over civil service job quotas spiralled out of control and became the immediate cause for the downfall of Sheikh Hasina, who ruled Bangladesh from 1996 to 2001, and then again from 2009-2024. However, most Bangladesh watchers believe she was sitting atop a volcano waiting to erupt, a volcano that her own repressive policies, human rights abuses, and a rigged election last January had created.

Since 2009, Hasina had ruled Bangladesh with an iron fist. Systematically, she clamped down all political opponents. Her main political rival, Khaleda Zia of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, who served twice as prime minister, was caught in a web of legal cases and sentenced to 17 years in prison in 2018.

The leaders of the Jamaat-i-Islami also faced brutal persecution; many of them were convicted and executed by a so-called international crimes tribunal. In the final days before her unceremonious end, Hasina had exhorted Awami League supporters to fight the demonstrators, which brought the country to the brink of a civil war.


Pakistan and Bangladesh can make a fresh start.

Where is Bangladesh headed now? In the wake of Hasina’s flight, complete mayhem has engulfed the country. The residences of former ministers were ransacked, and Mujibur Rahman’s home in Dhanmondi was attacked. The police went on strike, and total chaos enveloped the country for days. Parliament has been dissolved, and an interim government headed by Muhammad Yunus formed.

The top priority at this stage is to restore law and order and then hold fresh elections so that a truly representative government comes to power. If that is not done, the unrest might continue because the people would not want to move from one dictatorial rule (Sheikh Hasina’s) to another. It is important for the people to resume their life. As it is, Bangladesh’s economy had begun to decline after years of impressive growth, and economic inequalities and unemployment have increased.

To what extent are these developments a setback for India, the Sheikh Hasina regime’s main foreign backer? India’s foreign policy under Prime Minister Narendra Modi has increasingly become more assertive and hegemonic towards its smaller neighbours. Bangladesh under Sheikh Hasina’s watch was being perceived as subservient to India, much to the resentment of the people, who wanted India’s friendship but not its dominance.

This writer had the opportunity to participate in the Bay of Bengal conversations in Dhaka in 2022, and could sense growing discomfort regarding India’s dominating influence over Bangladesh. In that session, a Bangladeshi-American scholar discussed his article ‘Saath saath [together] or too close for comfort?’ on Bangladesh’s relations with India. In many ways, it represented the prevailing sentiment.

How will these developments affect Pakistan’s relations with Bangladesh? This is an opportunity to reset ties. Sheikh Hasina had cut off all links with Pakistan, even though her father, Mujibur Rahman, had committed to ‘forgetting the past and making a fresh start’ when he signed a tripartite agreement between Bangladesh, India and Pakistan in April 1974.

Sheikh Hasina refused to bury the bitterness of the past, and started using the UN platform to pro­pagate false claims that three million Bengalis were killed in 1971, a claim that is grossly exaggerated and evidentially re­­jected by impartial observers. It is re­­g­rettable that exces­ses were committed by all sides, and hence it is important for both countries to let bygones be bygones and move on. Instead, she tried to politicise the events of 1971 to her own advantage, and continued to deepen estrangement with Pakistan. When India refused to join the Saarc summit in Islamabad in 2016, Sheikh Hasina teamed up with it to make Saarc, which was created in Dhaka in 1985, dysfunctional.

Given that there are large segments of people in Bangladesh and Pakistan who would like to normalise bilateral ties, a fresh beginning can be made, first by the interim government, and later when an elected government assumes power in Bangladesh. One hopes that fresh elections are held soon, as the democratic ethos of the people of Bangladesh must be respected.

An important lesson for Pakistan is for our political parties to adopt a culture of live and let live, respect people’s aspirations, and resolve issues through the democratic way of negotiations in parliament, and not on the streets.

The write is a former foreign secretary and chairman of Sanober Institute Islamabad.

Published in Dawn, August 11th, 2024

PAKISTAN
Islamic Madrassa; The question of reform

Muhammad Amir Rana 

Published August 11, 2024 

DAWN

THE madressah controversy, a long-standing issue in the country, is a reflection of the historical tension between state institutions and the madressah leadership. When religious institutions become a topic of public discussion, the madressah leadership often takes a more conciliatory approach towards the state.

In response to a statement last month by DG ISPR Lt-Gen Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry, who claimed that more than half the madressahs in Pakistan were unregistered and with unknown sources of funding, leaders from all the Sunni and Shia schools of thought have called for a meaningful dialogue with the state to address any misunderstandings.

This offer of dialogue indicates the strategic thinking of the madressah leadership, which understands that there is no immediate threat of intervention from the state. In contrast, state institutions have limited knowledge about the dynamics of madressahs in the country. Over the past 30 years, madressahs — that are flourishing in the country — and state institutions have engaged in direct dialogue, which has not altered the madressah system: the state has not been able to successfully regulate or reform the madressah curriculum and operations. Instead, the state has often agreed to reforms, registration, and audits on the madressahs’ own terms.

The madressah leaders’ long-standing demand had been to assign the task of registering the seminaries to the education department. In 2019, the Ministry of Federal Education and Professional Training initiated a dialogue with the Ittehad-i-Tanzeemat-i-Madaris — an umbrella body of all five organisations in the country registering madressahs — to decide the modalities of the registration. It was agreed with the ITM leaders that the registration of the madressahs would be done through the education department. A registration form for the madressahs was also decided on, in coordination with federal representatives. The leadership of the ITM approved it.


The madressah leadership understands that there is no immediate threat of state intervention.

The Directorate General of Religious Education was established to implement this agreement. However, contrary to expectations and without any solid reason, the ITM reversed its earlier stance and refused to register the madressahs under its management and affiliation. Despite the violation of the agreement, the government decided to continue with the madressah registration process at the federal level. The education department registered 10 new boards and five degree-awarding institutions with the Higher Education Commission. So far, the registration process of 17,552 madressahs has been completed, which is a commendable step.

The madressah leadership has also backtracked from its commitments in the past and learned the art of deceiving government institutions. They listen to the long lectures of the top security brass, bu­­reaucrats, and security officials, agree with them, but never allow the state institutions to inf­luence their system, thus showcasing their determination and resistance to state intervention.

Several civil society organisations are actively working in the madressah domain, focusing on reform, English teaching, and various skill programmes. The madressah system welcomes such organisations, as they provide an opening to the outer world and an opportunity for dialogue with Western diplomats, academics, and others. Notably, sharper madressah graduates, often the relatives of madressah leaders, have set up CSOs and are dealing directly with Western donors. This shift in funding sources indicates a broader, international interest in the madressah system.

Madressahs are masters in dealing with the state, as well as local and international donors. They agree on registration but still need to make good on their commitments; they agree on reform but resist when the process of implementation gets underway; they accept funding from all sources but do not implement the agreed programme. With state institutions, they agree on Paigham-i-Pakistan, a religious decree against extremism and religious intolerance, but teach their students otherwise. They enjoy all official perks and privileges but promote an ideological narrative contrary to the Constitution.

How can one expect the renewed offer of dialogue with state institutions to yield positive results? The ITM now insists on maintaining the status quo and is adamant about registering madressahs under a 1860 colonial-era law. An analogy can be drawn with the TTP demand for the reversal of Fata’s post-merger status and the enforcement of the draconian colonial order, which the state had eliminated reluctantly several decades after independence.

For state institutions, primarily the police, madressahs are no-go spaces, and remain significantly less known to the public outside their walls. It is only when cases of child molestation or torture of students inside the madressahs surface, and civil society complains, that police are allowed to enter the area. Few political analysts and madressah leaders act, as other mafias exist in the country.

Despite the madressah being a subject of policy debate for decades, it keeps its domain shrouded in mystery. Although the number of madressahs is growing across the country, and these seminaries can be found in every other street, the madressah space remains an enigma even for those who live nearby. There are exceptions where local students study in madressahs or in the case of some of the bigger madressahs that offer modern education and catch the attention of local communities. In most cases, the custodians, teachers, and students all come from economically marginalised regions that have scored poorly on the Human Development Index. The local community financially supports madressahs as a religious obligation but does not exercise vigilance.

Within the boundaries of a madressah, an exclusive sectarian mindset is nurtured, which is the source of the extremist tendencies and tunnel vision found in society. Madressah leaders may deny a formal structure for the TTP, TLP, or Sipah-i-Sahaba on their premises, but these groups are popular among both students and teachers. These madressahs are the breeding grounds of extremism and the religious divide present in the country, but the state has no plan other than to act according to the madressah leaders’ template.

The writer is a security analyst.

Published in Dawn, August 11th, 2024

www.brookings.edu/articles/pakistans-madrassahs-ensuring-a-system-of-education-not-jihad/

Pakistan's Madrassahs: Ensuring a System of Education not Jihad

The primary danger of this surge in Madrassah number and influence is that many of the more radical schools have become havens for extremist groups that teach ...

Rulers struggling with social media

Abbas Nasir 

Published August 11, 2024 
DAWN

VENEZUELA’s recently re-elected President Nicolás Maduro has banned X; the British prime minister says he would have to look at social media regulations following its use recently for incitement of racial hatred; and the Pakistani military and its acolytes in the media have liberally used the term ‘digital terrorism’.

Regardless of the context of each of these statements, actions, they all point to the fallout from the crumbling monopoly of traditional media over information flows, as more and more people are turning to social media for their news, views and analyses.

Those around the world with a stake in whatever their own particular established order is, are struggling to deal with the challenges this transition is posing. There are no existing rules of engagement in place, whether by consensus or arbitrarily enforced, because the social media has exploded and gained tens of hundreds of millions of users, outpacing any possible legislation or regulation.

Each country, or those in power to be precise, evolves its response reflecting its own unique circumstances. For example, Maduro won the presidential election, but the US establishment does not like the outcome because a left-leaning politician won. Having lived under a US-orchestrated siege for years, Maduro isn’t blameless. His government’s performance could be much better.


Social media is an instant mirror that shows us each our reality.

For its part, the US has put all means at its disposal, including social media, to change the outcome of the election, and this attempt at forced regime change includes fomenting social unrest and street violence, with wide distribution of video-taped incidents of staged violence, ostensibly by Maduro supporters.

In banning X, Maduro has not acted democratically, but fear drove his decision because those fanning the flames of violence and division were very powerful and well-resourced, apart from being tech-savvy. His response was to turn off the tap.

This is the Chinese model of media management (traditional and social both). Just develop firewalls; ie, place impenetrable blocks in the path of any and all conduits of information so that the monopoly reverts to you. Critics have called one such e-block the Great Wall of China.

On the auspicious occasion of our Independence Day next week, it is being rep­orted, our very own firewall will be activated. Its architecture is already in place and all that is required is the press of a button. What remains to be seen is which part of the hybrid set-up will earn itself the distinction of pressing it.

Given the eagerness of the civilian partners in the current hybrid set-up to shoulder a fair amount of the burden of their uniformed counterparts, I won’t be surprised if someone from the PML-N or even the PPP, with its sterling track record in Balochistan’s current administration particularly, will volunteer to do the deed.

Officials have already blocked X, as its new owner wants to call Twitter, and yet many Pakistanis are using VPNs to still tweet and have their say. Let’s see if the firewall is effective against their VPNs too, or if some information will continue to trickle out.

The Pakistani military believes that there is an ongoing campaign against it on social media that is being orchestrated by the PTI, because the latter believes its leader has been jailed unjustly and its victory in last February’s elections was blocked by the security establishment.

Social media has the capacity to fuel anarchy and chaos. Its major downside is that there is very little or no moderation. There is no editor or news editor who is held responsible for the content on social media. You and I and millions like us are/can be content generators with no editorial oversight at all. Its other major drawback is that all of us start existing in silos.

Most of us tend to follow, or are followed by, like-minded people, so any interaction with the ‘other’ side becomes more and more difficult. This reinforces self-righteous, even narcissistic, behaviour and responses. On the positive, it has broken the monopoly of a few over what we get to hear and see.

Take Israel’s genocidal campaign in Gaza. What is happening, or the so-called civilised ‘free world’ is allowing to happen, is unconscionable. Unlike in the past, where by and large only sanitised images of horrors of similar military transgressions were available to us, now the whole ugly reality slaps us in the face many times every single day.

I agree that the danger of such carpet coverage is the normalisation of such crimes against humanity, but I’d rather know what is being perpetrated on a helpless mass of humanity by a state backed by almost every Western ‘democratic’ state. There are honourable exceptions. But no more.

Social media is an instant mirror that shows us each our reality. Keir Starmer may be outraged that the former EDL leader Tommy Robinson’s Twitter account was restored by Elon Musk, and the racist rabble rouser used it to fuel, even direct, some of the recent days’ violence, but the British prime minister also needs to reflect on the role of mainstream politicians.

In the run-up to the recent elections in UK, both the Conservative Party and Labour succumbed to the temptation of using immigrants and immigration as an issue and mainstreamed the fringe, even somewhat racist, terminology and views on the subject. Both the parties also demonised the peaceful Gaza protesters.

When the police cracked down on violent racist thugs, it was accused of ‘two-tier’ policing, meaning the Gaza protesters were not shut down in a similar manner. The right-leaning X owner, a major donor of the Donald Trump campaign, endorsed the far right’s false two-tier policing accusation, to the chagrin of the British prime minister.

Elon Musk may not be fit to own a platform like X, but many of the issues that this platform (and others for that matter) exposes are not of his making. Platform owners, users, and those who hold the levers of powers in various countries also need to reflect on their own policies and conduct.

The writer is a former editor of Dawn.
abbas.nasir@hotmail.com

Published in Dawn, August 11th, 2024