WWIII

‘Unlawful and aggressive’: Philippines say coast guard ships damaged after rammed by Chinese vessels in disputed waters


This handout photo taken and released by the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) on August 19, 2024 shows damage to the Coast Guard ship BRP Cape Engano (MRRV-4411) following a collision with a Chinese coast guard vessel near Sabina Shoal in disputed waters of the South China Sea.

Monday, 19 Aug 2024 

BEIJING, Aug 19 — Chinese and Philippine vessels collided on Monday during a confrontation near a disputed shoal in the South China Sea, the two countries said.

China and the Philippines have had repeated confrontations in the vital waterway in recent months, including around a warship grounded years ago by Manila on the contested Second Thomas Shoal that hosts a garrison.

Beijing has continued to press its claims to almost the entire South China Sea despite an international tribunal ruling that its assertion has no legal basis.

China Coast Guard spokesperson Gan Yu said a Philippine vessel had “deliberately collided” with a Chinese ship early Monday.

“Philippine Coast Guard vessels... illegally entered the waters near the Xianbin Reef in the Nansha Islands without permission from the Chinese government,” Gan said, using the Chinese names for the Sabina Shoal and the Spratly Islands.

“The China Coast Guard took control measures against the Philippine vessels in accordance with the law,” Gan added.

Manila’s National Task Force on the West Philippine Sea, meanwhile, said two of its coast guard ships were damaged in collisions with Chinese vessels that were conducting “unlawful and aggressive manoeuvres” near the Sabina Shoal.

The confrontation “resulted in collisions causing structural damage to both Philippine Coast Guard vessels”, Manila said.

China claims the Sabina Shoal, which is located 140 kilometres west of the Philippine island of Palawan, the closest major land mass.

Manila and Beijing have stationed coast guard vessels around the shoal in recent months, with the Philippines fearing China is about to build an artificial island there.

‘Dangerous’

Footage purporting to show the incident attributed to the Chinese coast guard and shared by state broadcaster CCTV showed one ship, identified as a Philippine vessel by the Beijing side, apparently running into the left side of a Chinese ship before moving on.

Another 15-second clip appears to show the Chinese vessel making contact with the rear of the Philippine ship.

Captions said the Philippine ship made a “sudden change of direction” and caused the crash.

The Chinese coast guard spokesperson accused Philippine vessels of acting “in an unprofessional and dangerous manner, resulting in a glancing collision”.

“We sternly warn the Philippine side to immediately cease its infringement and provocations,” Gan said.

Manila, however, blamed Beijing, with National Security Council director-general Jonathan Malaya saying the Philippines’ BRP Cape Engano sustained a 13-centimetre hole in its right beam after “aggressive manoeuvres” by a China Coast Guard vessel caused a collision.

A second Philippine coast guard ship, the BRP Bagacay, was “rammed twice” by a China coast guard vessel about 15 minutes later and suffered “minor structural damage”, Malaya said.

The Filipino crew were unhurt and proceeded with their mission to resupply Philippine-garrisoned islands in the Spratly group, he added.

Repeated clashes

Chinese state news agency Xinhua reported that the incident took place at 3:24 am local time.

It also said a Philippine coast guard ship had then entered waters near the Second Thomas Shoal around 6 am.

The shoal lies about 200 kilometres from Palawan and more than 1,000 kilometres from China’s nearest major landmass, Hainan island.

The repeated clashes in the South China Sea have sparked concern that Manila’s ally the United States could be drawn into a conflict as Beijing steps up efforts to push its claims in the sea.

Analysts have said Beijing’s aim is to push eastwards from the Second Thomas Shoal towards the neighbouring Sabina Shoal, encroaching on Manila’s exclusive economic zone and normalising Chinese control of the area.

The situation has echoes of 2012, when Beijing took control of Scarborough Shoal, another strategic area of the South China Sea closest to the Philippines.

— AFP

China accuses the Philippines of deliberately crashing one of its ships into a Chinese vessel


By Associated Press

 Aug 19, 2024

China’s coast guard accused the Philippines of deliberately crashing one of its ships into a Chinese vessel early on Monday near Sabina Shoal, a new flashpoint in the increasingly alarming territorial disputes between the countries in the South China Sea.
Two Philippine coast guard ships entered waters near the shoal, ignored the Chinese coast guard's warning and “deliberately collided” with one of China’s boats at 3.24am, a spokesperson said in a statement on the Chinese coast guard's website.
Philippine authorities did not immediately comment on the encounter near the disputed atoll in the Spratly Islands, where overlapping claims are also made by Vietnam and Taiwan.

Mischief Reef in the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea. (Getty images)
“The Philippine side is entirely responsible for the collision,” spokesman Gan Yu said.
“We warn the Philippine side to immediately stop its infringement and provocation, otherwise it will bear all the consequences arising from that.”
Gan added China claimed “indisputable sovereignty” over the Spratly Islands, known in Chinese as Nansha Islands, including Sabina Shoal and its adjacent waters.

The Chinese name for Sabina Shoal is Xianbin Reef.
In a separate statement, he said the Philippine ship that was turned away from Sabina Shoal entered waters near the disputed Second Thomas Shoal, ignoring the Chinese coast guard’s warnings.
“The Chinese coast guard took control measures against the Philippine ship in accordance with law and regulation,” he added.
READ MORE: New poll spells dire news for government
Sabina Shoal, which lies about 140 kilometres west of the Philippines' western island province of Palawan, has become a new flashpoint in the territorial disputes between China and the Philippines.
The Philippine coast guard deployed one of its key patrol ships, the BRP Teresa Magbanua, to Sabina in April after Filipino scientists discovered submerged piles of crushed corals in its shallows which sparked suspicions that China may be bracing to build a structure in the atoll.
READ MORE: Sydney Metro trains open doors after a decade of work

A member of the Philippine Coast Guard holds flags during the arrival of Chinese naval training ship, Qi Jiguang, for a goodwill visit at Manila's port, Philippines, June 14, 2023. (AP Photo/Basilio Sepe, File) (AP)

The Chinese coast guard later deployed a ship to Sabina.
Sabina lies near the Philippine-occupied Second Thomas Shoal, which has been the scene of increasingly alarming confrontations between Chinese and Philippine coast guard ships and accompanying vessels since last year.
IN PICTURES: TV stars shine on Logies red carpet
China and the Philippines reached an agreement last month to prevent further confrontations when the Philippines transports new batches of sentry forces, along with food and other supplies, to Manila’s territorial outpost in the Second Thomas Shoal, which has been closely guarded by Chinese coast guard, navy and suspected militia ships.
The Philippine navy transported food and personnel to the Second Thomas Shoal a week after the deal was reached and no incident was reported, sparking hope that tensions in the shoal would eventually ease.

SMOKERS’ CORNER: FEAR AND LOATHING IN BRITAIN

Nadeem F. Paracha 

Published August 18, 2024 

DAWN

Illustration by Abro

From July 30, deadly riots erupted in Britain when three young girls were stabbed to death in a quiet seaside town of the country. Britain’s far-right groups took to the streets when rumours of the murderer being a Muslim asylum-seeker spread, especially from social media platforms such as X. The murderer is actually a Rwandan youth who is a British citizen. But this didn’t stop far-right leaders from milking the rumour.

The riots were largely pitched against Muslims. But this is not the first time this has happened. However, till the 1980s, violence between white far-right groups and non-whites in Britain was often described as “race riots.” In these, far-right gangs fought pitched battles against immigrants from Caribbean countries and from South Asian regions.

It was from the late 1990s onwards that race riots in Britain increasingly began to be seen as violence between far-right groups and Muslims — especially after the 9/11 attacks in the US, and a spate of terrorist attacks by militant Islamists in Britain. Consequently, incidents of Islamophobia, too, witnessed a manifold increase.

Yet, even the roots of anti-Muslim riots in Britain can be found in the history of race riots in the country, despite the fact that the violence then was largely aimed at non-whites and not against Muslims alone. One of the first major ‘race riots’ in Britain took place in 1919. White working class men and soldiers returning from the First World War, began to attack non-whites for ‘usurping’ their jobs. The Chinese community suffered the most in these ‘riots’. It wasn’t religion but race that was the target.

Although far-right groups in the UK have initiated hostile attacks against Muslims for decades, could the recent ‘race riots’ prove to be a tipping point for both the rioters and Muslims in Britain?

This would remain the case across the decades till the 1990s. In a 2016 essay, Palestinian Professor Emeritus at Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium Bichara Khader wrote that immigration was not a serious issue as such in Europe till the mid-1960s. In the 1950s, large numbers of immigrants from Caribbean countries, South Asia, Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Africa began arriving in various European cities.

As European economies boomed, these immigrants were seen as vital contributors to this boom. It was only when the economies began to contract from the early 1970s that the term “migration problem” gained increased usage. Yet, it was still not linked to a “Muslim problem” as it is today.

The economic turmoil of the 1970s triggered vicious riots. These were explained as ‘race riots’ because they involved white far-right ‘hooligans’ on the one side, and non-whites on the other. The reasons were economic. The far-right accused their governments of allowing non-white immigrants to “steal white jobs.” It really wasn’t a clash of cultures as such — or not yet.

Till the early 1980s, Muslims in Europe were not very exhibitionistic about their faith. For example, their lifestyle in Britain mirrored that of white working class men, who would work all day in factories and then gather in pubs in the evenings for a drink. But, once settled, Muslim men began to marry women from their home countries.

They then brought them to Europe, even though it wasn’t uncommon for some to marry European women as well. According to Khader, most of the women who came as wives were from rural and peri-urban areas of South Asia, the Middle East and North Africa. They had been influenced by Islamist social movements that were initiated in their home countries from the mid-1970s. The influence of the wives changed the settlers’ attitude towards their community’s ‘cultural values.’

This attracted an influx of Muslim preachers, who began to set up shop in various European cities, especially in Britain. They were particularly appealing to the second-generation of British Muslims, especially from families that had failed to be fully assimilated by European integration policies.

This generation began to adopt the ideas proliferated by the preachers. The second generation used these to invent an identity for themselves, as Muslims in non-Muslim countries. Consequently, the presence of veiled women and mosques grew. This is when the “migration problem” began to be seen as a “Muslim problem”, triggering episodes of Islamophobia.



The chaadar, niqab and hijab were vigorously promoted by the preachers among the women of Muslim diasporas in the West. Men, too, were encouraged to adopt an “Islamic look” by letting their beards grow. From the 1990s, ‘multiculturalism’ began to be championed by most Western countries.

It was closely linked to the rise of neoliberal economics, which aimed to construct a global, interconnected economy. This meant that a Muslim community (in the West) didn’t have to completely immerse itself in the secular values of the West, as long as it was knitted to an integrated economy and remained productive.

But what happens when such an economy begins to struggle? A publicly asserted cultural identity, especially that of a diaspora, becomes that much harder to be accepted. It often comes under scrutiny, and criticised for being purposely ‘alien’ and even provocative.

After economies in Europe and the US began to come under stress in 2008, the number of complaints against Islamophobia increased. A majority of Muslims, who had adopted the identity that was first formulated by Islamist evangelical groups, found themselves in a quagmire. The way they looked, or publicly practised their faith, had been accepted by a multicultural West, but now this was changing.

The result was the electoral rise of populist far-right groups and the growth of anti-Muslim sentiment. Even though, according to most surveys, this sentiment is not widespread as such, it does get magnified online during riots or when Muslims are actually involved in any violent activity.

It is believed that non-Muslim immigrants in the West have gradually succeeded in pragmatically integrating themselves in the cultures of the countries they are settled in, but the Muslims have not. What’s more, this has been the case even in wealthy Muslim countries. For example, countries such as the UAE have imposed visa curbs on citizens of some Muslim-majority countries who want to work there. The UAE government has complained that workers from these countries are not willing to appreciate UAE laws against certain political and religious activities.

All this is not to suggest that white far-right groups have a point. They are simply using the Muslims as scapegoats, to divert attention from their own miserable failings. For example, Brexit, which was championed by these groups, has rapidly shrunk Britain’s economy and influence. But it is also high time for the Muslims in the West to realise that the zeitgeist of multiculturalism has eroded, and that they should accordingly refigure the way they exhibit their Muslim identity.

Published in Dawn, EOS, August 18th, 2024

BANGLADESH

Hasina’s downfall

Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry 

Published August 11, 2024

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.

Published in Dawn, August 11th, 2024

Indian foreign policy

Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry 

Published August 18, 2024

DAWN

WHEN it started its life as an independent country in 1947, India chose a foreign policy that would keep it ‘non-aligned’ in the polarised environment created by the US-USSR Cold War. India leaned towards the Soviet Union, maintained rather cold relations with the US, sought friendly ties with China premised on the Panchsheel (the five principles of peaceful coexistence), and saw itself as a member of the developing world. In South Asia, it embarked on a hostile relationship with Pakistan for separating from so-called ‘Mother India’.

Decades later, India’s foreign policy has undergone a paradigm shift, particularly since the dawn of the 21st century. With the US pivot to Asia, India has become the partner of choice for America’s Indo-Pacific Strategy that seeks to contain the further rise of China. India’s relations with China remain tension-ridden, even though both countries have flourishing economic and commercial ties. With Russia, India maintains a close relationship, notwithstanding the fact that the US-led West and Russia are at daggers drawn over the prospect of Ukraine joining Nato. India is, thus, playing a tight balancing act in its relations with the major powers. It describes its present foreign policy as the pursuit of national interests through ‘strategic autonomy’.

With UN-led universal multilateralism on the retreat, India has entered into several mutually incompatible multi-alignments, such as BRICS, SCO, and QUAD. It considers itself a leader of the Global South, and has deepened its ties with East Asia and Africa.

What has helped India maintain largely positive relations with all major powers is its growing economy and stable democracy. As the world’s fifth largest economy, it has sufficient buying power to purchase expensive military hardware from diverse sources, attract foreign investments for its growing economy, particularly its road and rail infrastructure, and enhance manifold its trade with the rest of the world. The Indian diaspora has been mobilised to project a positive image of the country. At the same time, however, divisive Hindutva nationalism, demonisation of minorities, and massive unemployment and high inflation have tarnished its stature.


India’s attitude towards South Asian states has not changed.

While a lot has changed in India’s global profile, what has not is its foreign policy towards its South Asian neighbours. India continues with its hostile posture towards Pakistan, and pursues a competitive, even rival relationship with China. Its policy to engage only with non-Taliban Afghan groups has failed. It has also bullied Nepal through economic embargos and the occupation of part of its territory. In the south, Sri Lanka often faces tough choices in its relations with both India and China. Bangladesh, surrounded on three sides by India, has experienced suffocating Indian dominance, particularly under Sheikh Hasina Wajed who recently fled to India. The Maldives has often demonstrated its discontent with Indian interference. Consequently, India’s ‘Neighbourhood First’ policy is in the doldrums, undermining its global ambitions.

Central to India’s overbearing attitude towards its South Asian neighbours is the China factor. India is unhappy with China’s close ties with Pakistan and Chinese attempts to enter into cooperative relations with Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, the Maldives, and even Bhutan whose foreign policy is controlled by India. These countries find China’s BRI projects a lucrative option and wish to exercise their own ‘strategic autonomy’ to benefit from the investments regardless of the Sino-India competition. India needs to recognise the legitimate right of its neighbours to be­­nefit from the in­­vestment opport­unities that ac­­­c-ompany cooperative engagement with China.

Pakistan is one country that has never accepted Indian hegemony in South Asia. This has been reason enough for India to make every effort to isolate it. The Kashmir dispute is unresolved because of India’s refusal to let Kashmiris exercise their right to self-determination. India has suspended all contact with Pakistan, especially since 2016, and chosen to demonise the country by harping on the mantra of cross-border terrorism. In fact, it is Pakistan which now faces India-sponsored terrorism. However, since India’s economy has done well and is a large market, in contrast with Pakistan’s, the world tends to lend a more sympathetic ear to Indian narratives.

For South Asia, India is the elephant in the room. The entire region would benefit if India gave up its dominating posture, and let other South Asian countries exercise the same strategic autonomy vis-à-vis India that the latter wishes to have vis-à-vis the US, China, and Russia. Taking the region along would help India build up its global profile that it cherishes.

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

Published in Dawn, August 18th, 2024

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