Lasting legacy

The consequences of policies aimed at building an ‘informal empire’ still haunt the Middle East.

Maleeha Lodhi

Published August 19, 2024

DAWN

WITH the Middle East in turmoil and Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza having entered its eleventh month, a book that examines the region’s political experience in the postwar period makes for insightful reading. What Really Went Wrong: The West and the Failure of Democracy in the Middle East by Fawaz Gerges, published earlier this year, examines the contribution of Western, especially US foreign policy to the chaos and instability found in the region today. Gerges, who teaches at the London School of Economics, offers sharp analysis in his book on the evolution of the Middle East in the postcolonial era and seeks to explain what has led to present-day turbulence and tensions.

The main thesis of the book is that the Middle East’s instability is not rooted in factors inherent in the region such as ancient hatreds, tribalism and chronic violence, which many Western scholars and policymakers have assumed. It is mostly the consequence of America’s disastrous foreign policy decisions during the Cold War and its interventions that have left such a lasting legacy. Gerges shows convincingly that the Cold War confrontation between the US and Soviet Union turned the Middle East into a battleground for proxy conflicts, marking a continuity with the legacy of ‘dysfunction’ left by European colonialism.

Washington’s obsessive concern with countering Russian communism, efforts to establish a Pax Americana and secure access to cheap oil drove it to ally with repressive autocrats. These regimes were assured American patronage so long as they submitted to US hegemonic aims and ensured an uninterrupted supply of oil. This denuded the region of any postcolonial peace dividend and undermined these countries’ independence. “Resources that should have gone to development were directed to the military-security sector.” Washington’s aim to build a “new informal empire” thwarted the evolution of modern pluralistic political systems and strong economies independent of the West. This diminished the Middle East’s chance of achieving a peaceful future.

In relating the story of lost opportunities and dashed hopes, Gerges focuses on key flashpoints that “sowed the seeds of discontent, hubris and subsequent conflict”. They include the 1953 CIA-sponsored coup against prime minister Mohammad Mossadegh in Iran and confrontation with Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser in the mid-1950s. The author uses these ‘ruptures’ to reinterpret the history of the region and challenge the narrative popularised by Western scholars. He sees ruptures in Iran and Egypt leading to the defeat of “secular-leaning nationalist visions”. This in turn enabled “puritanical religious narratives” and movements to gain ascendancy in the 1950s and 1960s across the region and beyond. Popular leaders were replaced by those subservient to the West. The consequences of these events, writes Gerges, still haunt the region.

The consequences of policies aimed at building an ‘informal empire’ still haunt the Middle East.

He argues that before these two pivotal events, the US was viewed positively and with optimism in the region. Freed from the shackles of European colonialism, people looked forward to an era of economic and political freedom and prosperity. But soon, US policies meant Washington mimicked European imperialists by seeking to build an ‘informal empire’ — a term that resonates in the book — whose results were virtually the same as colonial rule. He cites political scientist Atul Kohli, who defined informal empire as predicated on “an alliance in which elites in the imperial country allow elites on the global periphery to share in economic growth in exchange for establishing stable but ultimately subservient governments there”. Gerges details how the US “exploited pliant local regimes, established extensive military bases, penetrated national economies, staged military interventions and imposed punishing multilateral sanctions”. These policies were obviously executed at the cost of people and countries. They hobbled political development, liberalisation and social change and, instead, pushed the region on the path of militarism, authoritarianism, strengthening of political Islam and intensification of sectarian rivalries. US decisions to ally with Islamist groups against secular-oriented nationalists proved just as fateful.

In the chapter subtitled ‘What could have been’, the author discusses the two events he sees as transformational and consequential to the region’s subsequent trajectory — ouster of Mossadegh in 1953 and American moves against Nasser that led to the Suez crisis of 1956. These triggered a chain of reactions and counterreactions that were to change the Middle East’s complexion. They also seriously undermined US relations with people in the Arab and Muslim world. Popular, progressive nationalist leaders like Mossadegh and Nasser were branded as ‘disguised communists’ because of their assertions of independence and pursuit of modernisation. Washington’s preference was to back ‘authoritarian strongmen’ on the grounds of ‘stability’ — a policy Gerges argues persists till today. Accompanying this was the expedient Western view that Islam and Arab culture were incompatible with democracy.

In answering the ‘what if’ question had the US not overthrown Mossadegh, the author posits that a democratic Iran would have evolved, at peace with itself and serving as an example to its neighbours. In Egypt, US hostility towards Nasser, although no democrat but a secular nationalist leader intent on modernising his country and pursuing an independent path, also had damaging consequences. It changed regional dynamics and shaped issues of war and peace. Gerges recalls that Nasser retaliated by turning to Moscow for arms and opposing Arab monarchs and leaders who joined the US military alliance, which in turn led to the Arab Cold War. Lost in the process was balance and equilibrium in the Arab state system with geopolitical rivalries dashing hopes of unity and regional economic integration. According to Gerges, “America’s imperial overreach and Cold War crusade ignited and escalated geostrategic rivalries in the region.”

The conclusion Gerges draws from his detailed assessment of covert and overt external interventions during the Cold War is this. Today’s grim situation in the Middle East would have been very different if Washington had shown tolerance for countries that disagreed with its foreign policy and declined to serve its economic interests at the cost of their own. Of course, one should add that blind US support for Israel drove a dagger into the heart of the region and destabilised it, which is so tragically illustrated by the catastrophe unfolding in Gaza today. This book is a must read for its riveting revisionist account of the Middle East’s modern history.

The writer is a former ambassador to the US, UK and UN.

Published in Dawn, August 19th, 2024

Winning the argument

Muhammad Amir Rana

Published August 18, 2024 

DAWN

ON Independence Day this year, the custodians of power issued formal statements. As expected, the leaders praised the nation’s resilience in the face of economic hardships and pledged a brighter future. Army chief Gen Asim Munir distinguished between the country’s friends and foes. His narrative, likely to shape the national discourse until the next Independence Day, carries significant weight, and its impact will be revealed over time.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif announced the upcoming launch of a five-year programme to provide significant relief to domestic electricity consumers. The civilian leadership of the hybrid regime is grappling with the challenge of preserving its image while taking responsibility for tough economic reforms. All coalition partners, including the PPP, which has benefited mainly without direct accountability, share responsibility for the shrinking space for freedom and activism, both online and offline. The actual test lies in succeeding in their five-year plan and enhancing their public image.

The army chief has blamed foreign powers for a wave of ‘digital terrorism’, which aimed to create a gulf between state institutions and the people of Pakistan. In his annual address at a parade held to mark Independence Day at the Pakistan Military Academy in Kakul, he also spoke about the situation along the western border with Afghanistan, the threat posed by the outlawed TTP, and the developments in Balochistan.

His speech echoed that of COAS Gen Ashfaq Kayani in 2009 on the same occasion in which he had elaborated on who the terrorists, and what their objectives, are, declaring that the extremists were attempting to impose a distorted version of Islam through violence. Despite making a clear distinction, Gen Kayani had been reluctant to launch an operation against the terrorists in North Waziristan. Gen Raheel Sharif completed the task later. However, it took a decade and a half after Gen Kayani’s speech to put the good-and-bad terrorist idea into perspective. This happened when the ‘good’ Taliban captured power in Afghanistan and started supporting the enemies of Pakistan.


State narratives are seen as overly controlled and biased.

The army chief has referred to the TTP as ‘Fitna al-Khawarij’, a term that has historical overtones in relation to an identifiable sect in Islam, which fought against legitimate caliphates. It is now an official term for the TTP. This clarity should eliminate the distinction between good and bad terrorists if it still exists somewhere among the power elites.

The state institutions’ position on terrorist groups, mainly the TTP, is legitimate according to all international norms and the country’s Constitution. However, they need to review their approach towards rights movements like the Baloch Yakjehti Committee (BYC) and Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement (PTM) and see the political polarisation in the country.

Tying together all security and political challenges into one mass, complicates the challenge. There is no doubt that both the BYC and PTM are the outcome of the state’s wrong policies. Spoilers within the power elites and beneficiaries of the hybrid system in the country are deepening the gulf between the state and marginalised citizens. The state has to review its approach of painting such movements as enemies and foreign-funded movements. The institutions mainly point fingers at the West when tagging someone as a foreign agent. The reality is that Europe and the US prioritise their relationship with the country’s powerful institutions to conduct smooth business with the power elites of the state.

Imagine if the state institutions’ perceptions changed about the PTM and BYC, and they were considered citizens of Pakistan who were resisting only a few policies and practices of the institutions — practices that had yet to yield the desired results even after applying them for decades. Imagine if such movements were no longer considered peripheral issues and outsourced to power-hungry sardars and other cronies. The whole context would change. Meaningful interaction between the right movements and the state would start, which would marginalise violent and radical actors. No foreign force could use them if the state was engaging with them.

However, our power elites firmly believe that this is an issue of controlling narratives and the mediums that spread these narratives. They do not look inside, neither do they want to change their perceptions, policies, and practices.

Perception management and narrative control are complicated phenomena, and only authoritarian systems can achieve them through the tools of oppression. The power elites are following the template of authoritarian states, and they believe that state-led propaganda will change the equation in their favour.

The power elites create narratives that blend fact with fiction, often dividing people into ‘us’ versus ‘them’. However, creating this divide weakens social and political cohesion, which religious-based nationalism cannot help strengthen. Paigham-i-Pakistan, a religious decree against extremism, may be a prime example of how the state-led narrative has not succeeded in changing the minds of the religious clergy in Pakistan.

The power elites need to do some soul-searching to find the solution, which lies in changing policies and practices, and not propaganda techniques. Counter-narratives are essential but it cannot cultivate trust between the power elites and the masses. It has been proven in many cases that people do not believe in state-run narratives, and they need to verify what they hear through independent sources — whatever is available, including reliable mainstream media, social media, and foreign media outlets. The reason is that state narratives are seen as overly controlled and biased; people often perceive them as propaganda designed to manipulate public opinion rather than the truth. People have also stopped believing in journalists who have changed their position and tried to come closer to the state narrative.

One of the major achievements of the recently deposed Hasina Wajed government in Bangladesh was digitising the country, but when the erstwhile prime minister tightened the cyber regime and let the police arrest people by just linking or sharing posts that criticised her government on social media, her decline started, even though mainstream media and social media had become the government’s mouthpiece.

The writer is a security analyst.

Published in Dawn, August 18th, 2024

The shadow of economics

Farid Panjwani 

Published August 17, 2024 

DAWN

‘I DO not care what career it is, as long as I can make a lot of money.’ This was the gist of the responses by a significant number of students in recent research conducted by our university.

Preparing students for careers is one of the aims of education — the economic aim. Education, of course, has other worthwhile aims too: inspiring the pursuit of truth, nurturing emotional and moral maturity, boosting creative expression and creating an informed sense of belonging. In recent decades, in Pakistan and elsewhere, the economic aim has come to dominate other educational goals, with significantly harmful consequences.

Though building one’s earning capacity has always been an aim of education, it has become prominent in modern education systems, which were created explicitly to meet society’s industrial and bureaucratic needs. Over the past 40 years, the pecuniary focus has become all-embracing, much like the boat being flooded with water rather than floating on top of it. This is due to the deliberate dismantling of public services, the encouragement of market-based approaches and privatisation in all walks of life, and the resulting growing inequities in wealth distribution — an era known as neoliberal. Like much else, education is seen as an investment for future higher returns.

There are many manifestations of the overshadowing of education by economics. One is the strongly held assumption that the job market is a given and that education must adapt to it; there is the perennial complaint that the graduates weren’t fit for the jobs. The economic focus also leads to grade obsession in schools, with teachers attributing exam-centric teaching to parental demands. Parents, in turn, argue that they are not being materialistic but rather reasonable, given the shrinking quality of public services and the need for individuals and families to fund education, healthcare needs, retirement living and emergencies. Perhaps that same reasoning underpinned the student responses noted above.

Economics dictating education has also led to the growth of adjunct faculty in universities, the closure of humanities departments, and revenue generation becoming an exceedingly important criterion in faculty promotion. Furthermore, research priorities are driven by funding agencies rather than the professional interests of scholars. Finally, most government reform projects focus on economically attractive subjects like science, math and English.

There are many manifestations of the overshadowing of education by economics.

One would have been fine with the lengthening economic shadow over education had our present system led to a fair distribution of wealth and an excellent quality of life for all or at least the vast majority. But this is not the case, and we have, instead, escalating concentration of wealth in fewer and fewer hands, with dangerous social and political consequences. Today, over 75 per cent of global wealth is possessed by 10pc of the wealthiest people; 22pc of the wealth is with the next 40pc wealthy people, leaving the bottom 50pc with only 2pc.

As fewer and fewer resources are sought by more and more people, competition — a potentially healthy wellspring of achievements — mutates into a constant source of stress, precarity and feelings of being inadequate. Competition is glorified to promote the idea that individuals are solely responsible for their fate and that the structures of society, such as the skewed distribution of wealth and moral luck, have nothing to do with it. Writers such as Gabor Maté, Shoshana Zuboff, Jonathan Haidt and Michael Sandel, among others, have persuasively shown the disastrous social, psychological and political impacts of unchecked capitalism and the resulting wealth inequities.

Can education reclaim its right to focus on multiple aims by cutting economic goals to size? I propose three ideas focused on the individual, institutional and structural levels.

At the individual level, schools should help young people discover and nurture their passions. The unadulterated pursuit of material success is often a compensation for the lack of joy and meaning in work and social relations. A fulfilled inner life encourages cooperation, shifting from schadenfreude (pleasure in others’ failures) to freudenfreude (joy in others’ success). With a cooperative spirit, the planet’s resources can meet everyone’s needs.

Second, at the institutional level, a conceptual and practical separation of lower grades of schools from higher grades is needed. The lower grades, till age 12, should be devoted to fostering morals, emotions, imagination, and literacies of various kinds (computer, languages, math, science), artistic talent and a love for knowledge through intrinsic rewards.

There should be no concern for grades or careers, only for cultivating humanity. Here alternative schools such as the Waldorf, Shantiniketan, democratic schools, forest schools, the Sudbury model and Summerhill can provide inspiration. The higher grades, age 13 and upwards, by when the foundations of personality are laid, could then be concerned equally with economic aim through engaging in subjects and skills that would eventually lead to qualifications of various kinds.

Finally, we come to the structural level. The problem discussed here is not organic to education. It is in the larger economic structure whose flaws are borne by education. Parents are reasonable in their expectations from education. Hence, a new social contract is needed that ensures that the basic human needs of all are met through the market and robust publicly funded health and education systems. This requires a thorough recasting of the dominant economic approaches that currently work for a few and against the many.

The three proposals are interlinked but can also be approached independently. Any school can pursue the first individual-level proposal. The second requires a system-wide effort and the third requires citizenry activism and political reforms. James Baldwin noted that ‘Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.’ We have attempted to face the issue.

The writer is a professor and dean, Institute for Educational Development, Aga Khan University.

Published in Dawn, August 17th, 2024

COP in Pakistan

Aisha Khan

Published August 19, 2024

DAWN

AS the climate crisis continues to escalate, the pressure to implement sectoral policies will also increase. It is often said that climate change is multi-sectoral therefore making it difficult to implement policies after the 18th Amendment. However, beyond that no mention is made of how to bridge the gap between policy and implementation, affix responsibility, monitor progress and make systemic functions ro­­bust and accountable. It has become common practice to identify problems and attribute inaction to lack of finance, capacity and technology without examining the core issues responsible for slow progress or taking action to make policy implementable.

All the major sectors affected by climate change have a policy that serves as the guiding document for coping with emerging threats. The National Climate Change Policy 2021, National Water Policy 2018, National Food Security Policy and Disaster Risk Reduction Policy are comprehensive documents that outline the challenges and provide a roadmap for action. The implementation frameworks provide targets and timelines but fall short of sharing means of implementation or any mechanism for monitoring, reporting and verification.

The institutional arrangement in climate governance after the 18th Amen­dment raises many questions. The fundamental question of responsibility stands diluted. Every province has developed its own climate change policy with place-based and people-centred priorities. While ostensibly sub-national policies feed into the National Climate Change Policy, there is no mechanism under which the centre can demand timely implementation from the provinces.

The Pakistan Climate Act, 2017, was designed to strengthen the technical capacity of the Ministry of Climate Change and Environmental Coordination, build capacity of provincial stakeholders and provide a forum for discussion between the centre and the provinces for coordinated action. After a delay of seven years, the notification for operationalising the Climate Authority was done at the behest of the Supreme Court but questions about procedural due diligence still remain.


The country can no longer afford inaction on climate.

The lack of human capital and short-changing the system in procurement are two big hurdles. Recruitment routinely ignores merit. This has caused a steady decline in functions and now reached a point where we are confronted with a critical capacity crisis. In climate governance, the world has moved into a domain where technical qualification, subject specific knowledge and quality research is needed to address challenges. This was the fundamental objective of creating a provision for setting up a ‘Climate Authority’ under the Climate Act. However, if roles are not assigned on merit, it will become another white elephant providing people with high salaries for low performance.

In order to improve coordination, build consensus, and enhance transparency and accountability, developing a customised model of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change would be useful. An annual COP in the country will bring all stakeholders together to discuss country climate issues and how best to agree on an agenda of solutions. The Paris rule book can serve as the toolkit for steering the process.

The modalities and responsibilities of the parties can be developed once the concept is actualised and representative bodies identified. Hosting an annual COP in Pakistan will allow for a systemic review of policies and compliance with ‘Pro-vincially Deter­mi­ned Contributions’ that feeds into the Nationally Deter­m­ined Contributions. The issues of mitigation, adaptation, finance and means of implementation can also be discus­sed at this annual convening, making the process both tra-nsparent and acco­untable with ‘Com-mon but Differen­t­iated Re­­spon­sibili­ties and Respective Capabi­li­t­i­­es’ for developing an equitable and in­­clu­­sive roadmap that leaves no one behind.

In 2016, Pakistan had also signed the Open Government Partnership at the Paris Summit but that agreement, too, fell by the wayside. The OGP offered the perfect tool for strengthening good governance by co-creating policies with agreement on priority actions between civil society and sector-specific government agencies. This parti-

cipatory approach to development would have made it possible to create collective ownership and a transparent mechanism for monitoring progress.

However, with mounting threats, the cou-ntry can no longer afford inaction on climate.

The judiciary in Pakistan has always taken a proactive stance on climate justice, upholding human rights. The best way forward is to enhance parliamentary oversight and increase judicial vigilance to ensure that the system is not derailed by vested interest groups.

The writer is chief executive of the Civil Society Coalition for Climate Change.
aisha@csccc.org.pk

Published in Dawn, August 19th, 2024

Privatising life

The state’s inability to meet people’s basic needs is a betrayal of trust.

Masood Lohar

Published August 17, 2024

DAWN

IN Pakistan today, the struggle for basic utilities epitomises a broader crisis of governance and societal inequality. The once taken-for-granted amenities have become luxuries for many, creating a chasm between the rich and the poor. Unreliable utilities, inadequate public services, and a pervasive sense of insecurity define daily life for millions of Pakistanis.

The unreliability of gas supply forces parents to keep a gas cylinder in hand to ensure their children get food on time. This uncertainty extends to water, with piped water rarely available in many areas. Households increasingly rely on tankers to meet their daily water needs, a costly solution that further strains already tight household budgets.

Supply of electricity and back-breaking bills are a regular highlight of mainstream and social media. Many prominent artists and other civil society icons feature in videos crying over high bills. In underprivileged areas, power cuts can last for hours, disrupting daily life and economic activities. Even in middle to upscale neighbourhoods, power outages remain a significant inconvenience. Residents in affluent areas often invest in generators or solar modules, with their choices heavily influenced by income and social status. This disparity highlights the inequality in coping mechanisms available to different segments of the population.

Public transport in Pakistan is inefficient, prompting affluent families to own one or more cars, contributing to the urban chaos and environmental degradation that plague the cities.

The same is the case of education. Children from middle to upper class families attend private schools. Though for lower and upper middle classes, this creates a significant financial burden for families, it is seen as a necessary investment keeping in view substandard education in government institutions.

Access to clean drinking water is another critical issue. Tap water is unsafe for drinking, so bottled water is a necessity. Prices range from Rs70 per litre for substandard options in areas like Shireen Jinnah Colony to over Rs400 for high-end brands in affluent neighbourhoods.

The pervasive sense of insecurity in Pakistan is perhaps most visible in the ubiquitous presence of private security guards in front of affluent homes and localities. This reliance on private security is a stark indicator of the state’s failure to ensure public safety. The fear of crime extends to everyday activities; walking down a residential street with a smartphone is fraught with danger due to snatching, because phone prices have skyrocketed, exacerbated by the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority’s tax hike. Numerous incidents of citizens being killed during phone-snatching attempt have been reported.

The state’s failure to provide comfort, security, and justice has led to a profound erosion of faith in the government. Persis­tent fear of loss and insecurity defines the daily life of ordinary Pakistanis, eroding their trust in the state’s merit and national identity. This denial of justice and basic rights has split Pakistan into two distinct groups: the elite, with power, money, and often dual nationality, and millions of poor citizens who lack any hope of justice or the ability to obtain fair wages, respect, and basic amenities.

Despite billions spent on governance machinery, privatisation of basic needs has become a hallmark of everyday life in Pakistan. The state’s inability to meet the basic needs of its citizens is its betrayal of the trust of its subjects. It is not a sign of a thriving free market but rather a symptom of a failing state that cannot provide its cit­izens with the essentials for a dignified life.

The human cost is immense. The daily struggle for basic uti­lities, the fear of cri­me, the financial burden of private educa-

tion and security, and the lack of clean drin-king water take a toll on the mental and physical health of the population. Children grow up in an environment where uncertainty and insecurity are the norms, impacting their development and future prospects.

The widening gap between the rich and the poor, coupled with an ineffective state apparatus and denial of justice, has left ordinary citizens in a vicious circle of misery. American psychologist Abraham Maslow, in his ‘hierarchy of needs’ implies that unmet basic needs can lead to significant negative consequences for individuals and society. Maslow’s theory suggests that fulfilling basic needs is essential for people’s prosperity. The state is a mother; it cannot have any other role. British philosopher John Locke says when the people are made to feel that the state is their enemy, they will inevitably rise up against it.

The writer is an expert on climate change and sustainable development and founder of the Clifton Urban Forest in Karachi.
mlohar@gmail.com
X: [masoodlohar][1]

Published in Dawn, August 17th, 2024

Outpacing the state

Umair Javed 

Published August 19, 2024

DAWN

THE modern state differs from its earlier predecessors in that it seeks to regulate and control all aspects of the society it lays claim to. Whether it is successfully able to do it or not is a different matter. Recently released results from the country’s digital census in 2023 help visualise some fairly far-reaching transformations taking place in Pakistani society. It is worth going through a couple of these, given how they interact with the state’s attempt to regulate and control different aspects of its citizen’s lives. One such arena is the country’s ongoing struggles with the electricity sector. Decision-makers across multiple regimes since the 1990s opted for a model of private sector-led electricity generation that expanded capacity but produces expensive electricity. The end-result of this model is an energy grid that is singularly reliant on residential consumers staying connected and paying a high tariff.

It is in this context that the state is attempting to regulate the use of solar energy, and especially net-metering connections. As Asha Amirali pointed out in an excellent piece on these very pages it needs high-consuming residential connections to stay on the grid and pay a relatively high tariff. Ultimately, it may be successful in discouraging net-metering in high-income households by changing the buy-back rate or by refusing to give out new connections. But there is an entirely different transformation taking place at lower tiers.

As per the 2023 census, approximately eight per cent of all Pakistani households — nearly three million households comprising 20m people — rely on solar panels as their primary energy source for electricity (lighting etc.). This number is up by about 60pc since the last such measurement through a sample survey in 2021. On its own, the number may not seem very high. But it masks important variations. Solar panel deployment is understandably higher in rural than in urban areas — 11pc of all rural households are reliant on it versus just 3pc of urban ones.

There are other key variations as well. In Punjab, solar reliance is not very high — just under 2pc of all households. But it is considerably higher in KP (13pc), Sindh (13pc), and Balochistan (26pc). Across the provinces, the urban-rural divide is fairly stark, with numbers reaching as high as 34pc in rural Balochistan.

Greater connectivity and educational attainment lead to heightened expectations and aspirations.

This variation captures important aspects of Pakistan’s development trajectory. It highlights the relative success of electricity grid expansion across rural areas in Punjab, but its continued failure in the smaller provinces. It also shows a higher rate of self-sufficiency among lower-income rural segments, who are bypassing the state altogether for reasons that likely include reliability and cost.

Ultimately, this dramatic turn towards solar shows the absence of a key point of interface — the electricity grid — between the state and its citizens. Just between 2017 and 2023, the percentage of rural households across Pakistan relying on grid electricity declined by 6pc.

If citizens cannot receive any electricity supply, let alone a reliable and cost-effective one from the state, they have one less reason to trust it or to see themselves as partners in a larger social contract. Alternatively, expecting deference and fealty from a citizen solely due to geographical incident of birth is unlikely to be successful over the long term. Another key issue of state regulation in recent months is the internet. State institutions are devoting energy to ‘digital terrorism’, which allegedly leads Pakistani youth astray. The logical response, in their view, is an internet-strangulating firewall that slows down the spread of content deemed to be questionable.

It’s worth considering exactly what such views are up against, demographically speaking. Among Pakistanis above the age of 45, ie, the generation currently found in positions of authority, only six out of 100 had a BA degree or above. Among those between 35 and 40, the same stat inches up to about 10 in 100. While new census data showing educational attainment by age group is yet to be made public, enrolment data is available. There are just over 4m students presently enrolled in colleges and universities across Pakistan. This number alone is 50pc of the total number of all graduates (and postgraduates) in the country back in 2017. Further, if we take 20 to 24 as the standard age range of higher education, we would end up with an upper estimate of nearly one in five, or 20pc, with college attainment. In other words, a tripling of university access in the space of two decades.

Combined with mobile internet reaching nearly 90pc of all households, and the sheer size of the youth bulge (76m individuals between 15 and 35), the demographic and social reality of Pakistan is on a planet entirely separate from the one occupied by the state authorities. One can speculate about the political preferences and allegiances of young people and their implications for the country’s ongoing politics. But it is equally important to stress that greater connectivity and educational attainment lead to heightened expectations and aspirations. Such expectations are unlikely to be satiated through the accidental leftovers of a re­­so­urce pie that decision-makers divide and dev­our among themselves. They are also unlikely to be quelled through lectures on patriotism delivered from above or from the strangulation of the internet.

Despite its faltering nature, Pakistan’s development trajectory is inducing societal change in its economy, in consumption preferences, and ideas at a fairly rapid pace. The implications of such change are becoming apparent, in the bypassing of state-provided services and the growing anger and frustration of young people across the country. What is left to see is whether state authorities acknowledge a strategy of adaption, or whether they stay committed to one of forcible control.

The writer teaches sociology at Lums.
X: @umairjav

Published in Dawn, August 19th, 2024

PAKISTAN
Businesses, rights activists decry internet slowdown

AFP 

Published August 19, 2024

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s government is throttling the internet and social media while it tests new controls to crush dissent, activists and business leaders say, putting the country’s economic recovery at risk.

Internet networks have been up to 40 per cent slower than normal since July, according to one IT association, while documents, images and voice notes have been disrupted on WhatsApp, used by tens of millions of people.

Digital rights experts believe the state is testing a ‘firewall’ — a security system that monitors network traffic but can also be used to control online spaces.

“The Internet slowdown is due to the installation of a national firewall and content filtering system by the state aimed at increasing surveillance and at censoring political dissent, especially the criticism of the security establishment for its interference in politics,” digital rights expert and activist Usama Khilji told AFP.

The authorities appear to be targeting WhatsApp because of its end-to-end encryption capabilities, which enable users to securely share information without it being accessed by any third party, he added.

The government and the telecommunications authority for weeks refused to comment on the slowdown.

Pakistan Telecommunications Authority declined to comment when contacted by AFP.

Not business as usual

The issues have surfaced as Pakistan’s military — the country’s most powerful institution — says it is battling the so-called “digital terrorism”.

Regular rallies have been held this year demanding the state do more to tackle militant violence in the border regions with Afghanistan, while protesters in southwestern Balochistan have rallied over alleged rights abuses by authorities in their crackdown on separatist groups.

But analysts say the main target of the digital disruption is the party of jailed opposition leader Imran Khan, still wildly popular and boosted by a young, tech-savvy voter base.

Prominent Pakistani journalist Hamid Mir has launched a legal challenge against the government over “the apparent installation of a firewall” at Islamabad High Court, which is due to hear the case on Monday.

The firewall’s “inexplicable opacity and ambiguity” is sapping Pakistan’s economic potential and could cost its IT sector up to $300 million, according to the Pakistan Software Houses Association, which represents IT firms.

Shahzad Arshad, head of the Wireless & Internet Service Providers Association of Pakistan, warned that if “this continues, we will see a mass exodus of businesses from Pakistan”. He added that connectivity had slowed by up 40pc over the past month.

But even as authorities throttled connectivity and WhatsApp access, Pakistan’s Punjab province splashed out last week on adverts in New York’s Times Square — trying to sell itself as an “IT city”.



“Even if a firewall is necessary for security, trials could have saved the livelihoods of thousands of freelance software developers and avoided damage to Pakistan’s credibility as a reliable supplier of IT/IT-enabled services,” Ehsan Malik, CEO of the Pakistan Business Council said Saturday.

AFP has contacted WhatsApp parent company Meta for comment.

‘Fundamental rights’

Activists have long criticised the government’s censorship and control of the internet and media, shrinking an already limited space for free speech in the conservative country. The social media platform X has been banned in Pakistan since the election when it was used to air allegations of poll rigging against Mr Khan’s party.

The party’s social media team has also been targeted by arrests and detentions.

Shahzad Ahmad, head of the independent digital rights watchdog Bytes for All in Pakistan, said the firewall was largely designed to give the government control of the internet.“We believe that the firewall will create distrust among IT investors in Pakistan… and will also compromise citizens’ fundamental rights.”

Published in Dawn, August 19th, 2024

Predatory instincts

‘surveillance capitalism’

Huma Yusuf 

Published August 19, 2024 

DAWN

THE government installs a ‘web management system’. Unidentified men whisk away a YouTuber who posts satirical content. A fashion designer threatens legal action against the director and cast of a TV serial. A legislator objects to a female professional’s outfit and calls for SOPs for women’s attire. These may seem like disconnected matters. But they are signs that a surveillance society is becoming entrenched in Pakistan, an outcome we must resist.

Anxieties about surveillance have been mounting globally and are largely linked to ‘surveillance capitalism’, ie, the commodification of personal data, particularly by Big Tech. There is a growing focus on the extent to which individuals are aware of what personal data they are surrendering, to whom, and why.

Concerns about surveillance capitalism mounted when it became clear that customer data collection was enabling not only targeted advertising and improved user experience but also behavioural manipulation, for example, by skewing voting preferences. The regulation of Big Tech and its use of personal data will soon be a key human rights battle.

In this context, old-fashioned state surveillance — in the sense of the state collecting information about its citizens — seems passé. But it continues to be a major concern globally, and certainly in Pakistan.

No good comes of surveillance states.

In an article for Constitutional Political Economy, Alshamy et al argue that state surveillance can either be protective-productive or predatory. In the former case, the state collects personal information to support citizens and improve welfare service delivery. In the latter, state data collection “reduces citizen welfare by violating the rights of citizens or by extracting resources from citizens to benefit a small group of politically connected elites. This harms individual agency, freedom and self-governing democracy.”

The authors note that predatory data collection is non-transparent, poorly legislated and regulated, and often in the service of nebulous national security considerations that can be interpreted variously by whichever stakeholder has most power. In this scenario, the courts become helpless to challenge surveillance, as they too become subsumed by the state narrative. The plight of missing persons in Pakistan is the perfect illustration of a predatory surveillance state in action.

Increasing attention is paid to the links between capitalist and state surveillance, in the sense of public understanding that private sector players, such as internet service providers or social media platforms, are required to surrender customer data when the state comes calling.

But what is less considered is the impact of surveillance becoming normalised — the de facto approach to political and social interaction. When power becomes synonymous with the ability to surveil the activities of others — shame them, report them, and so ultimately control them — then it will contaminate society. Those who seek status and control will increasingly use surveillance as a tool to shape public behaviour to their own ends. Meanwhile, self-censorship, the survival tactic of Pakistani media, will become the default mode of all citizens.

Pakistan has already seen the toxic effect of this kind of social surveillance through the misuse of the blasphemy laws — the fear that someone may perceive something you say, do, or absentmindedly forward to be profane, and wield that ultimate power of an accusation, resulting in conviction or lynching.

But we are now on the precipice where social control and abuse previously linked to state monitoring of ‘anti-establishm­ent’ activities is be­­coming more pervasive. We are moving from the realm of state and capitalist surveillance to one of social surveilla­n­­ce, one in which citizens, taking a cue from the state itself, are willing to police each other’s clothing, artistic output and sense of humour.

The powers that be may be pleased by this ripple effect. But they should tread with caution as no good comes of surveillance states. The most obvious toll is economic. We have heard all week about the millions lost to internet disruptions while the state installs its ‘web management system’, but that may not be the extent of it. Academic research on the Stasi in East Germany (admittedly an extreme example) has documented economic losses from lack of innovation, less self-employment, widespread unemployment and brain drain.

More material is the social toll of less inclusive, more predatory societies. In our highly weaponised and already conflict-prone context this would manifest as surveillance as a trigger for violence. The ultimate problem with surveillance is that its parameters are necessarily non-transparent and ever-shifting, meaning everyone is vulnerable. Who knows who already has eyes on your data?

The writer is a political and integrity risk analyst.
X: @humayusuf

Published in Dawn, August 19th, 2024

Tony Blair’s AI mania sweeps Britain’s new government

The former PM sees artificial intelligence as a silver bullet for ailing public services, government inefficiency and a stagnant economy. Is he right?

A tight knot of Blairite ministers are carrying forward his vision for the power of AI to transform government and public services. | Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

August 19, 2024 
By Laurie Clarke
POLITICO EU

LONDON — On stage at the Tony Blair Institute’s annual conference, five days after the July general election, the eponymous founder regaled the audience with evangelical zeal.

The freshly removed Tory government had bequeathed Labour a “ghastly inheritance,” the former prime minister said.

“There is only one game changer in our view, [and] that is harnessing … the 21st century technological revolution,” he said. Britain must grasp “the full opportunity of governing in the age of artificial intelligence.”

“In this new world, companies and nations will either rise or fall.”

Such claims will be familiar to anyone who’s paid attention to Blair’s interventions in past years. His think tank's central animating force is the revolutionary potential of technology. AI is touted as a silver bullet for ailing public services, government inefficiency and a stagnant economy.

With a Labour government in power in the U.K. for the first time in 14 years, Blair’s influence is growing. A tight knot of Blairite ministers is carrying forward his vision for the power of AI to transform government and public services.

The Tony Blair Institute for Global Change (TBI) event featured high-profile appearances from Health Secretary Wes Streeting and Cabinet Office fixer Pat McFadden, invigorated from the recent election that saw Labour win a landslide victory.

Meanwhile, Technology Secretary Peter Kyle has made driving digital transformation across Whitehall a top priority in his new role.

“We’re putting AI at the heart of the government’s agenda to boost growth and improve our public services,” Kyle said recently.

The messaging was echoed by Chancellor Rachel Reeves, who said AI would have a crucial role to play in helping the government find £3 billion in savings after an unexpected “black hole” was discovered in the public finances.

The plans have tech firms — some of whom have partnerships with Blair’s institute — swarming, lured by the tantalizing prospect of millions of pounds of public contracts.

But while most agree that AI holds promise for the public sector, some warn against “snake oil” salesmen and caution about embedding the sometimes unreliable and opaque tech into the heart of government.
The pitch

The TBI has claimed that integrating AI into the heart of government could save up to £40 billion annually and shed one million civil servants.

In a flurry of reports released to coincide with the TBI conference, the institute also claimed that more than 40 percent of the tasks performed by public sector workers could be partly automated by AI-based software.

Some of the tasks envisaged as ripe for AI assistance include helping to match supply of public services to demand, accelerating the processing of planning applications and benefits claims, supporting research and drafting notes — the kind of unglamorous back office work that can consume hours of labor.

The TBI’s headline figures have been disputed; academics quickly called attention to the fact that they’d been informed by consulting ChatGPT, the popular AI chatbot, itself.

“If you look across … the public sector, and the number of backlogs, waiting lists … we’re at a kind of pressure point across public services,” said Jeegar Kakkad, who previously worked as director of government innovation at the TBI and advised the Labour leadership during its time in opposition. He’s since taken on a new role at the TBI.

The TBI’s headline figures have been disputed; academics quickly called attention to the fact that they’d been informed by consulting ChatGPT, the popular AI chatbot, itself. | Pau Barrena/AFP via Getty Images

“Our view at the institute is to really think about, okay, where are the off-the-shelf technologies that could be deployed to help with those pressure points,” he told POLITICO in an interview conducted while still in his previous role.

This includes demand forecasting tools used to predict bed capacity in hospitals, said Kakkad, and AI that could help triage the millions of pieces of correspondence some departments receive every year, or the enormous backlog of cases in England’s crumbling court system.
The tech connection

But TBI’s coziness with the tech sector has aroused suspicion over the motivations behind its bullish claims.

Tech billionaire Larry Ellison has pledged a total of $375 million over the years for Blair's think tank. Ellison's cloud computing company Oracle is in one of the sectors benefiting from an AI boom and has a commercial interest in digitizing health records, another of the TBI’s key recommendations to governments.

One of the TBI’s major reports on AI for government was produced in partnership with Faculty, an applied AI company that has established itself as a go-to government supplier despite attracting scrutiny over its political connections.

Faculty’s founders are friends of Dominic Cummings, an adviser to former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, but the firm has wasted no time getting acquainted with the new Labour administration. Before Labour won the election, a Faculty staffer was seconded to the office of then Shadow Tech Secretary Kyle.

Business is intrigued by the new administration’s plans. U.S. industry lobby group Chambers of Progress, which includes the likes of Amazon, Apple and Meta, sent a memo to members shortly after the election highlighting Labour’s interest in government digital innovation as an enticing opportunity.

Microsoft has also been promoting its own AI product suite to central and local government. The company recently published a report championing its tech, including its Copilot tool, which integrates OpenAI’s ChatGPT, as useful for central and local government to summarize emails, generate text and create documents.

The tool has already been adopted by more than 100 local councils. Trials of the tool are underway in a handful of central government departments, too.

It’s important civil servants “know what ‘good’ looks like,” said Robyn Scott, founder of Apolitical, a learning platform for public officials. “Because there are a lot of great companies out there … and there are a lot of snake oil salesmen.”
Greasing the wheels of government

Right now, AI isn’t widely used across government.

The National Audit Office found last fall that 37 percent of government bodies that responded to a survey said they’d deployed AI, typically in only one or two use cases each.

The most controversial uses have drawn the most attention to date: for example, in predictive policing, the analysis of live facial recognition data and the use of algorithms to identify fraudulent benefit claims. Scant information about these use cases has been made available to the public.

But the generative AI boom of the past 18 months has drawn renewed attention to how the tech could be wielded to speed up monotonous tasks and grease the creaking wheels of Whitehall.

The previous Tory government had begun to expedite the roll-out of the tech. Former Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden launched an AI “hit squad” in November aimed at cutting jobs in the civil service.

The so-called Incubator for AI set up pilot projects using generative AI to analyze responses to government consultations, power a chatbot that would interact with citizens and collate documents for ministers, replacing the traditional “red box.”

Recent reports from the U.K. government’s Central Digital and Data Office and the Ada Lovelace Institute agree with the TBI that AI holds promise, but the range of predicted productivity gains varies wildly

.

Technology Secretary Peter Kyle has made driving digital transformation across Whitehall a top priority in his new role. | Leon Neal/Getty Images

An analysis of the costs of overhauling legacy digital infrastructure and implementing the new tech across government rarely features in the most optimistic forecasts. “Technology is not free,” pointed out tech consultant Rachel Coldicutt in response to Reeves’ plan to use AI to save costs.

“If something costs £500 million this year, how long will it be expected to take to recoup those costs, and could that money be better spent elsewhere?”

“We’re really at a preliminary stage of experimentation,” said Imogen Parker of Ada Lovelace. “We need to learn much more quickly about what works and what doesn't.”

This means looking at “the messy reality” of how this tech interacts with government processes, rather than “hypothetical, perfect, idealized use cases,” she adds.

A report from think tank IPPR found that about 10 percent of tasks could be automated across jobs in the private and public sector. “There are very few jobs that you could just … plug in AI and you don’t need humans anymore,” said IPPR senior economist Carsten Jung.

Guidance issued to civil servants last year noted that generative AI tools “can, and do, make errors,” meaning officials would need to verify the outputs. It noted that the tools could be biased and pose data privacy risks too.

Another concern is how it might change the nature of the relationship between government and citizens. “When you insert a technology into a system or service, it has a ripple effect … It changes what people expect, and it changes how people behave,” said Parker.

She pointed to the example of MPs using AI to write emails to constituents or the government automating the analysis of consultation responses. “It will unquestionably change the way that residents feel about their interactions with that system … It might change people’s willingness to engage in consultations to start with.”

LGBTQ+ book ban attempts are increasing in UK schools, study finds

By Jordan Robledo
18th August 2024

GAY TIMES



School librarians in the UK have opened up about the increased censorship regarding LGBTQIA+ books.

Over the last couple of years, queer literature in the UK has been targeted by conservative individuals.

In April 2023, a study from the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (Cilip) revealed that a third of librarians were asked to censor or remove LGBTQIA+ content by members of the public, with some even being threatened.

“We want to get past this period of culture war and politics and really focus on the job in hand,” Nick Poole, Cilip’s chief executive explained to The Guardian.

“It continues to be true that it just takes a spark in a children’s book to inspire a young person to go on and do something brilliant. That’s what we want to focus on doing.”

Unfortunately, the situation in the UK school library system has reportedly worsened.

According to The Independent, new data from the Index on Censorship found that 53% of surveyed school librarians were asked to remove LGBTQIA+ books, while 56% of librarians were forced to follow through with such requests.

The report also revealed some of the key books that have been targeted, including Julián is a Mermaid by Jessica Love, ABC Pride by Louie Stowell, Elly Barnes and Amy Phelps, and This Book Is Gay by Juno Dawson.

Since the eye-opening data was announced, an array of LGBTQIA+ activists and organisations have pushed back against the alarming rise of censorship.


Photo: Unsplash

In a statement to The Independent, Just Like Us CEO Laura Mackay said: “This small-scale study shows some worrying cases of fears around LGBT+ books in school libraries, but removing books will never change the fact that LGBT+ people, including same-sex parents, are part of society.

“The recent rise in far-right attitudes and dears stoked around trans young people make life so much harder for LGBT+ young people, particularly those of colour… it’s vital that young people can access books that reflect the diversity of the world around them.”

Local librarian Alice Leggatt echoed similar sentiments to the aforementioned news outlet, adding that librarians “don’t really have anything” to defend them from the ongoing requests.

“Pretty much every librarian I’ve spoken with says this is more of an issue than it was five years ago, and they’re concerned about in a way they never had to think about it before,” she explained.

“But we don’t really have anything with teeth to help defend school librarians, their collections and their students when these things happen.”

The UK isn’t the only country that’s seen an increase in book censorship and bans.

In the US, multiple states have attempted to block the availability of queer and racial-themed books in public and school libraries.

According to a report from The American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom, over 4,000 books have been targeted, in addition to “1,247 demands to censor library books, materials and resources in 2023.”

UK

Labour paves the way for huge payouts to workers contacted out of hours by their bosses in 'right to switch off' plan

By Emily Cooper
THE DAILY MIRROR
18 August 2024 

Workers who are relentlessly contacted by their bosses outside of work hours could be entitled to compensation - as Labour pushes the 'right to switch off'.

Plans under consideration by the new Labour government could help employees draw a line in the sand between their work and home life - as seen in the party's 'right to switch off' campaign pledge.

The government are looking to push out a code of practice which sets out normal working hours and clarifies when an employee can expect to be contacted by their employer.

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The policy, believed to be spearheaded by new deputy prime minister Angela Raynor, includes the right for worker's to refuse to take on extra work on weekends or to carry out work-related tasks while on annual leave.

Pushy bosses who repeatedly breach this agreement could be taken to an employment tribunal and drained of thousands of pounds as compensation.

The Labour government is looking to introduce the 'right to switch off' in a plan believed to be spearheaded by Deputy Prime Minister Angela Raynor (pictured)

The government are looking to push out a code of practice which sets out normal working hours and clarifies when an employee can expect to be contacted by their employer (Stock Image)


Although the out-of-hours contact would not warrant litigation on its own, employees could point to it as part of a wider claim against their employer.

Such practice could increase the likelihood of a worker successfully winning their claim, according to The Times.

As it stands companies who are proven to have ignored codes of practice set out by Acas are required to pay compensation - which can be increased by 25 per cent depending on aggravating factors.

Acas is an indpendant public body that provides free and impartial information to both employers and employees on workplace relations and employment law.