Will the X factor work for Musk?

Is Elon Musk committing ‘brandicide’?

Julian Saunders



When I first heard that Elon Musk had decided to drop Twitter’s iconic bird logo and replace it with an X, I thought it was a publicity stunt.

Perhaps by threatening to commit ‘brandicide’ Musk hoped he would trigger an outpouring of love for the departing brand, and that tweeters wouldn’t defect to Threads (Meta’s new clone of Twitter). If that was the idea, it didn’t work. Twitter is famous but not much loved. After an hour of dooms-scrolling on Twitter, you feel dispirited by the impotent anger of heavy tweeters, many of whom appear to be attention-seeking middle-aged white men. Twitter is not a happy place – and has become even more grim after the “free speech absolutist” Elon Musk took over.

But on second thought, there is a logic to it: Musk wants to turn his business into an ‘everything app’ a bit like WeChat – a place to browse, buy, link up with friends, message and much more besides. A lifestyle app. This would be a dramatic change of meaning for Twitter which is currently perceived as a public square for news, debate and argument. Most definitely not a lifestyle app in other words – you would never browse this year’s fashions or buy jewellery on Twitter.

Radically changing a brand’s meaning requires an action to challenge our existing perceptions, to get us to stop and think again about what the brand stands for. This is very difficult to achieve with a famous and well-understood brand. The most drastic way is to change the name. Brand theorists call this “a symbol of re-evaluation.”

That’s the logic. But will it work? I would not put my money into it. It would require a number of things to be in place, most of which are not.

• Motivated Talent – Musk has sacked a lot of his staff and what remains is not a happy ship.

• Inspirational leadership – Musk has shown himself to be a great leader of an EV company but a cack-handed one of a tech brand.

• Money – Musk has plenty but he has less that Meta. Twitter is losing money so he will have to fund it from Tesla. Tesla investors have always hated Musk’s investment in Twitter thinking it to be a distraction from the core business of EVs. They are right and will kick up a fuss.

• Time – Musk is very impatient and his competitors play long.

• Weak or complacent competition – You may not like Mark Zuckerberg but he is always alert to opportunity and steals competitor’s innovations for fun (see Threads).

It may after all turn out to be a publicity stunt – but a threadbare one.

Julian Saunders is a former ad agency CEO and Googler who has worked for the UK government. julians@joinedupcompany.com

PAKISTAN

Microfinance’s downward spiral

Mutaher Khan 


Ever since venture capital (VC) started flowing into Pakistan, the local ecosystem has seen polarising debates on whether the companies being built are sustainable, given their generally questionable unit economics.

From unbelievably high losses to calls for investigating lax corporate governance mechanisms, the space receives a high dose of flak, both fair and unfair, that may be disproportionate to the underlying scale.

But there’s another sector that’s going through a somewhat similar situation that has avoided scrutiny for the most part — exceptions include a few reports in the press here and there.

Pakistan’s microfinance banking has been undergoing its share of troubles in the last few years with a scale of losses that could, to an extent, rival VC-backed businesses and their capital revenue issues.

According to the State Bank’s Financial Stability Report, microfinance banks cumulatively posted a red bottom line for the fourth year straight. The post-tax loss of the sector reached Rs17.2 billion in 2022, significantly worsening from Rs8.08bn in 2021.

While the regulator conveniently blames it on the “lingering effects of Covid-19” and subsequent macro deterioration and floods, the sector’s woes began much earlier in 2019.

The number of loss-making institutions increased to six in 2022 from four in 2021. For quite a while now, some of the more notable players have been relying on the largesse of their sponsors for capital injections to continue operations — not too dissimilar to the VC-backed businesses.

The share of outstanding loans at interest rates of 25pc or more reached 77pc of the total by December, much higher than the earlier 51pc in June 2022

Similarly, the total capital to risk-weighted assets continued its downward trajectory for the fourth consecutive year, declining to 10.9 per cent in 2022 from 18.3pc in 2021. This is lower than the minimum mandated capital adequacy ratio for microfinance banks set at 15pc. The tier-one capital position has also posted a similar trend, falling to just 8.1pc.

While the sector only accounts for 2.2pc of the overall banking deposits, it still holds outsize importance due to the strong market penetration. As of 2022, there were 90.8 million microfinance bank accounts, of which 5.3m were borrowers with outstanding loans of Rs361.7bn.

Many of them have traditionally lacked access to credit and undergone serious financial stress since the onset of Covid-19 and the subsequent macroeconomic stresses of the last few years, affecting their repayment ability. As a result, the sector’s gross non-performing loans ratio rose to 6.7pc in 2022, from 5.2pc the year before.

This shouldn’t be too surprising, given the sharp recalibration in monetary policy over the last two years. One way to look at its impact is that the share of outstanding loans at interest rates of 25pc or more reached 77pc of the total by December, much higher than an earlier 51pc in June 2022.

Similarly, 15pc of all credit was at 36pc or a higher price, compared to 5pc in the period under review. Remember, the benchmark Karachi Interbank Offer Rate between these two dates rose by a relatively modest 184 basis points.

Meanwhile, the sector remains under pressure from two fronts simultaneously: first, the provisioning and bad debts written off jumped by 40.1pc to Rs22.8bn in 2022.

Second, the growth in admin expenses, in particular, considerably accelerated to 33.6pc, reaching Rs70.8bn. For context, the corresponding increase in net interest plus non-markup income was relatively slower at 19pc.

Though the sector’s health and ability to survive without constant backing from sponsors has been questionable for a while, the cracks are visibly widening now.

Even the International Monetary Fund felt compelled to take notice in its latest report on Pakistan, “We will also continue our efforts to tackle the pockets of vulnerability in the microfinance bank sector, which has been severely affected by the floods, among others by asking the owners for time-bound recapitalisation plans to address existing capital shortfalls and by otherwise ensuring the orderly market exit of non-viable institutions.”

Now the question is, what will the regulator do about it? If the two private commercial banks with capital issues are to serve as an example, it may be a while before any serious action is taken regarding the microfinance institutions. Especially considering how these entities help push the financial inclusion targets, particularly those relating to account opening.

Published in Dawn, The Business and Finance Weekly, July 31st, 2023

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ESSAY: DULCE ET DECORUM EST PRO PATRIA MORI?

Dr Naazir Mahmood 

Actors Peter O'Toole and Omar Sharif in Lawrence of Arabia | Sony Pictures

If you love good films, like to read history and enjoy literature, you must be familiar with three big names: Rudyard Kipling, Michael Collins, and T E Lawrence — aka Lawrence of Arabia. They help us understand the early 20th century and how the concepts of martyrdom, nationalism, patriotism and sacrifice play differently for the people associated with them.

Lawrence of Arabia, Michael Collins, and My Boy Jack are not equally well-known films, but have become a good source of understanding history — though of course with some fiction blended in them. What relevance do they have for us now?

The first quarter of the 21st century shares some commonalities with the first 25 years of the 20th century, showing that, no matter how the world has progressed in the past 100 years, a lot remains the same.

This year, 2023, marks the centenary of the declaration of a Turkish republic after the end of the Ottoman empire. Lawrence of Arabia contributed to the Arab Revolt that precipitated the demise of the Ottoman Empire.

What can three films based on the lives of Rudyard Kipling, T. E. Lawrence and Michael Collins tell us about notions of sacrifice?

Ireland also marks a century after the end of the Irish Civil War that officially closed in May 1923. Michael Collins played a significant role in the Irish war of independence and lost his life in the civil war.

Rudyard Kipling was a marvellous writer but also a blatant promoter of British imperialism and a fierce opponent of granting independence to Ireland. To quench his thirst for war, he engineered the recruitment of his own teenage son, who lost his life at the beginning of the First World War.

MY BOY JACK

Let’s begin with My Boy Jack, which is a British biopic based on David Haig’s 1997 play. Daniel Radcliffe, of Harry Potter fame, plays the role of John (Jack) Kipling, the only son of Rudyard Kipling.

The film appeared on screens in the early 21st century, when Britain was involved in another two wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and there was growing resentment among the British public against British prime minister Tony Blair’s shameless advocacy for these wars. The films shows how, a century ago, Rudyard Kipling coped with his grief after losing his only son in the war that he had advocated.

Kipling’s poem, ‘My Boy Jack’ that he wrote after the death of his only son is a testimony to his love for martyrdom in the name of nationalism. The film shows Kipling encouraging his 17-year-old son Jack to join British forces fighting in the Great War (WW I).

The elder Kipling stokes his son’s ambitions by arranging several appointments for him to enlist, despite Jack’s poor eyesight. His poor vision prevents him from passing the medical examination, but his father does not allow him to give up. Rudyard uses his connections with the military establishment to secure his son an officer’s commission in the Irish Guards.

The Irish Guards came into being in 1900 during the Second Boer War in South Africa, in which Irish soldiers played a significant role by sacrificing their lives for the British Empire. Rudyard Kipling was happy with the Irish for serving British purposes, but was against granting them independence in Ireland.

The film brings in a gender element by showing Jack’s mother and sister disapprove of this posting. The two women are more humane and do not wish for him to go to the war, but they fail to persuade the men. At just 17 years of age, Jack becomes an officer for much older men who soldier under his command.

Landing in France within six months, Jack receives orders to lead his platoon into action in the Battle of Loos in September 1915. For the first time, chemical weapons are used and inflict heavy losses on both sides.

Jack is posted missing-in-action and the film shows his parents struggle to track him down by interviewing the surviving members of his platoon for many years. At the end of the film, one soldier finally confirms that Jack lost his life by enemy gunfire when he lost his glasses in the mud during an assault.

Rudyard Kipling was one of the most famous men in the world after becoming the youngest Nobel laureate of literature in 1907, at the age of 42. He used his fame to make political pronouncements in his writings. But even before that, he was an influential promoter of war and wrote poems such as ‘The White Man’s Burden’ in 1899, when he was just 34.

While the British armies were fighting the Second Boer War, the USA had invaded the Philippines — both wars lasted for three years: 1899-1902. Kipling, addressing the Americans specifically about the Philippines, wrote:

“Take up the White Man’s burden —/ Send forth the best ye breed —/ Go bind your sons to exile/ To serve your captives’ need;/ To wait, in heavy harness/ On fluttered folk and wild — / Your new-caught sullen peoples,/ Half devil and half child.”

The poem smacks not only of imperialism but of patriarchy and racism as well. Women are there to breed and fathers must ‘bind’ their ‘sons to exile’. The ‘captives’ are under ‘heavy harness’; they are ‘wild’ and ‘sullen’, half devil and half child.

Can you imagine the writer of such lines receiving a Nobel prize? Yes, you can. Perhaps these lines contributed to his laurels. Exactly after a century, the USA and UK were at it once again. Kipling’s outlook on authority and patriotism prevails much beyond his country and times.

When Rudyard Kipling was in his 20s, two boys opened their eyes in Wales and Ireland; they would also leave their mark on history in a different way: T E Lawrence was born in 1888 and Michael Collins in 1890.

Liam Neeson as Michael Collins | Greffer Pictures


LAWRENCE OF ARABIA

Lawrence would become an archaeological scholar and military strategist, capping his achievements by penning his legendary war activities in the Middle East during World War I. By the age of 40, Lawrence had completed his account of those adventures in his nearly 800-page magnum opus, The Seven Pillars of Wisdom.

Based on this book, the film Lawrence of Arabia (1962) became one of the greatest movies in film history. Master director David Lean achieves an unbelievable feat through his genius in the deserts of Arabia.

Though the book by Lawrence and the movie by Lean both take liberties in their narration, both are by and large informative and interesting. In the first decades of the 20th century, the British Empire was at its zenith, but people like Kipling and Lawrence were not content. While Kipling was promoting invasions and wars by writing poems and prose in favour of war efforts, Lawrence was on the battlefield.

In the First World War, Germany and Turkey were allies, hence common enemies of the United Kingdom. The Ottoman Empire of Turkey had ruled Arabia for about four centuries and the Arab tribes were not happy under the Ottoman yoke. The British were keen to ignite an Arab revolt and Lawrence was the right man to do the job.

He played his role in uniting and leading the diverse and hostile Arab tribes to fight the Turks. The film stars Peter O’Toole as Lawrence — still in his mid-20s — commanding tremendous knowledge of the native Bedouin tribes, thanks to his vast travels and research in the region, coupled with a good command of languages.

The film shows Lawrence travelling to Arabia to find Prince Faisal and serving as a liaison between the Arabs and the British. His encounter with Sherif Ali (Omar Sharif) in the desert, and that memorable shot in which a horse rider appears first as a dot in the far distance, gradually approaching the camera, has become a legendary work of cinematography.

While the film My Boy Jack is more about the Kipling family and how it deals with the enhanced level of patriotism that the senior Kipling imposes on the family — even at the cost of losing their only son — Lawrence of Arabia is a tale of how an individual, steeped in his quest for British supremacy, tortures his own body and soul.

In this quest, Lawrence even rebels against the orders of his superior officer. The film beautifully shows how he strikes out on a daring camel journey, with just 50 Arabs to take Aqaba on the other side of the Nefud desert.

On the way, they come across Auda Abu Tayi, leader of the Huweitat tribe of Bedouin Arabs. The inimitable Anthony Quinn plays the role of Auda, whom T E Lawrence has described in detail in his Seven Pillars of Wisdom.

Initially, Auda is reluctant to take up the challenge of attacking Aqaba, as he gets a regular stipend from the Turks for not disturbing them. Lawrence manages to convince him with promises of more financial reward.

The film shows them crossing the Nefud desert, but historians have disputed the claim. They say Auda did not allow Lawrence to take his men through the harshest part of the desert; instead they took a longer and less harsh route to Aqaba. Here the film becomes semi-fictional, but David Lean keeps his viewers riveted to the screen with his cinematography and the musical score by Maurice Jarre, who later composed the unforgettable Lara’s Theme for Dr Zhivago (1964), also by David Lean.

Lawrence of Arabia does not show Prince Faisal leading any war campaigns, as his people — armed with swords — come under attack by German and Ottoman strafing. Lean does not miss an opportunity to show that Lawrence was much more caring and courageous than his Arab counterparts.

When Gasim — played by I S Johar — lags behind in the desert and loses his caravan, it is Lawrence who comes back to rescue him, while the Arabs oppose the effort, assuming Gasim is dead. When the rescued Gasim commits a crime against another tribe, the same Lawrence shoots him, to avert a tribal fight.

As Kipling would have said, Lawrence was ever ready to ‘Take up the white man’s burden’ with ‘fluttered folk and wild’ who were ‘sullen’, ‘half devil and half child.’ In the process, Lawrence himself changes his own outlook, as he goes through emotional and physical trauma after some Ottoman soldiers capture and torture him on his reconnaissance visit to Dera — a small town in northern Arabia.

Daniel Radcliffe as Jack Kipling in My Boy Jack | Ecosse Films

From then onwards, he is a brutal man who attacks retreating Ottoman and German soldiers on the way to Damascus. The carnage of killing the wounded and mostly exhausted enemy soldiers leaves Lawrence drenched in blood.

Lawrence is an embodiment of imperial ambition and faux remorse. The white man tries to improve things for the Arabs, as he pretended to do a century later in Afghanistan and Iraq, failing in both.

MICHAEL COLLINS

But Kipling and Lawrence are no match to Michael Collins, an Irish freedom fighter who challenges British domination and counters their atrocities with even more such actions. The film Michael Collins (1996) is another biopic that Neil Jordan — an Irishman — wrote and directed, making it the best movie on the Irish freedom struggle. In the second decade of the 20th century, Collins appeared to be a foil to both Kipling and Lawrence.

The film shows Collins (Liam Neeson) as a leading figure in the Irish struggle for independence against Britain. It begins with the end of the Easter Rising in 1916, when the besieged Irish freedom fighters surrendered to the British army at the Irish Republican Headquarters in Dublin.

While Kipling had sent his son to death with the Irish Guards, praising them as loyal subjects of the empire, the same empire was crushing the Irish aspirations for freedom, and Collins was at the forefront of that fight. His comrades face summary execution by firing squad and Collins, along with Eamon de Valera and Harry Boland, endure imprisonment.

By 1918, Kipling was vehemently involved in advocating a complete destruction of the Irish freedom movement and continued his role as a mouthpiece of British imperialism. By that time, Lawrence was able to extend British domination to Arab lands. But Michael Collins had a different take on the concept of patriotism and sacrifice.

Kipling’s advocacy for martyrdom was for the expansion of the empire, but Collins and his fellows were sacrificing to throw off the shackles of imperialism. The film shows the 1918 Irish elections, resulting in the victory of the Sinn Fein party, which unilaterally declared Irish independence.

Alan Rickman plays De Valera, who becomes president, with Michael Collins as director of intelligence for the emerging Irish Republican Army (IRA). British authorities decide to arrest the entire cabinet; Collins and Boland evade arrest and Collins becomes the senior-most leader still free.

He masterminds numerous assassinations of agents and collaborators under the IRA command. In retaliation, the British forces brutally suppress unarmed citizens who support an independent Ireland. Under the brilliant direction of Neil Jordan, the film’s portrayal of a massacre at Croke Park is moving and leaves you aghast at the British response to the Irish freedom struggle.

Michael Collins became an icon of guerrilla warfare in the first half of the 20th century; nearly 50 years later, Che Guevara overshadowed him in the 1960s. Just like Lawrence disobeyed his superiors, Collins does not agree with de Valera to fight a conventional war, as he thinks that would lead to another defeat against the might of the British Empire, as they faced at the end of the Easter Uprising in 1916.

We realise that Kipling, Collins and Lawrence were all adamant in their approach to violence in their own ways. The guerrilla campaign of Collins forces the British to offer direct communication with the Irish leadership.

De Valera wants to send Collins to London for negotiations with the British authorities. Collins is reluctant, but goes anyway and signs the Anglo-Irish treaty in 1921, enabling Ireland to achieve gradual independence, while remaining under British dominion during the interim.

De Valera rejects the treaty and seeks immediate and unconditional independence. The subsequent people’s vote backs the treaty but de Valera initiates a civil war against Collins, who loses his life in an ambush in August 1922; the civil war ends in 1923. From the martyrdom of Jack Kipling to the one by Michael Collins, the concept of nationalism and patriotism varies.

If you are an advocate of non-violence like Mahatma Gandhi, you may end up becoming a target of assassination by an extremist. But in the final analysis, when a world survey was conducted at the end of the 20th century to determine the greatest personality of the century, Kipling, Collins or Lawrence did not feature. It was Gandhi who had the distinction of being among the greatest personalities of the past 100 years.

Two more lines by Rudyard Kipling are worth quoting from, written as an epitaph of the First World War:

“If any question why we died/ Tell them, because our fathers lied.”

The writer is a columnist, educator, and film critic. He can be reached at Mnazir1964@yahoo.co.uk.
He tweets @NaazirMahmood

Published in Dawn, EOS, July 30th, 2023

PAKISTAN

Saving our children

Faisal Bari 

Published August 4, 2023 


BROKEN arms and legs, lacerations all over, wounds on the head, infections to the point where the life of the child is hanging in the balance. The Rizwana case is not the first of its kind. Tragically, it will not be the last one either. The question is: can we at least honestly try to make it the last case? Can anyone say that a child, any child, should be exposed to such brutality and outcomes? I appeal to everyone’s sense of humanity and justice to help move our society in the right direction.

Why do we need to employ children as domestic workers? I can understand that some households might find child servants to be more affordable, more manageable, easier to manipulate and less difficult to introduce into a household and more suitable for some tasks like babysitting, but these are exactly the reasons why children should not be working as domestic help. We do not want children to be in spaces that are not monitored by parents and others. We do not want them to be ‘manipulated’ and ‘managed’. Some households might treat their domestic workers very well. But this is besides the point. As a principle, we do not want children to be placed in environments where they can be exploited.

The dominant reason, various research reports say, why parents or guardians send children to work in homes is poverty. Children contribute to household incomes. But to put a child, potentially, in harm’s way, even if it generates some income, cannot be acceptable. Most people will find this to be a hard position but if a parent sends a child to be a live-in domestic help or even a part-time one, they bear some responsibility for what happens to the child. Yes, the bulk of the responsibility of any mistreatment will be on the perpetrators and the host family. But some of it will be parental as well.

So the reasons for the demand for child domestic workers and their supply are clear. They might even be understandable but they are not and should not be justifiable. Children should not be working before a certain age. They should be getting an education, having a childhood and growing up. This is as true of the children of the rich as it is of children born in poorer households.

All governments and all of us continue to fail the children of this country. Shame on all.

The laws in this domain are clear, though there is a need to harmonise them. And a tremendous need to implement them and to monitor the implementation strictly. All children, and there are no caveats or conditions in the Right to Education (Article 25-A) in our Constitution, should be getting an education at least till age 16. This is compulsory. Any activity that does not allow a child to get an education cannot be allowed to go on concurrently.

Children below the age of 15 (in Punjab) or 14 (in Sindh and KP) cannot be employed in any job. Again, there are no ifs and buts. No child below 18 years can be employed in any hazardous work.

But 20 million-plus children between the ages of five and 16 are out of schools and do not have access to educational opportunities. Twelve million or so children work, and around 300,000 of them work as domestic workers. These are unforgiveable failures of implementation. And it is not that one government or political party has failed to ensure implementation. All of them have. And despite assurances for justice in individual cases, all governments and all of us, as a society, continue to fail the children of this country even in such basic things as right to food, clothing, basic amenities, and access to quality education and health facilities. Shame on all of us.

If we are to ensure that our children are given the environment needed for their safety and growth and that our children get opportunities to grow and reach their potential, there are a lot of changes that need to happen. We need to ensure every child gets 10-12 years of education, we need to ensure they are not forced to work (domestic work or other work), are not forced to live away from parents/home for economic reasons (live-in domestic workers), they are not exposed to any kind of abuse.

This will need multiple tools. Employing children under 14 or 15 years is already illegal and education is compulsory. But there is no implementation. We need to ensure implementation, monitoring and strict compliance. We need to harmonise the laws as well. A child is a child till what age? Fourteen, 15 or 16? What is ‘hazardous’ work? If there is a violation of the law, what recourse is there? Do we have helplines and offices where we can complain? All of these issues need to be addressed.

But we need a lot more. We need society and state to commit to keeping our children safe and well and providing them with access to quality education and health facilities. This will require significant investment in changing mindsets of people who demand child domestic labour and parents who supply it. If people still do it, we need to criminalise such behaviour and catch and punish the culprits. Enough is enough. We need a larger and stronger safety net that provides income support to children in poorer households. We need compulsory provision of education to all. If all of these are not done, cases as the horrendous one we have just witnessed, will continue.

There should be justice for the victims but post-fact justice provision will not stop abuses from happening and will not eradicate the issue at the root level. For that, we need a much broader, deeper and serious effort to change the narrative completely, harmonise laws, improve data on compliance, and ensure 100 per cent compliance and zero tolerance for violations. Will society and state stand up for their children?

The writer is a senior research fellow at the Institute of Development and Economic Alternatives, and an associate professor of economics at Lums.

Published in Dawn, August 4th, 2023

Children as young as 6 help harvest blueberries in America

Scripps News investigates child labor on farms, one of the least restricted and most dangerous places for kids to work.


Zach Cusson / Scripps News

By Patrick Terpstra and Karen Rodriguez and Zach Cusson

 Jul 11, 2023

A pint of blueberries begins its journey to the neighborhood grocery store in a field like many others found on thousands of acres in southeast North Carolina.

The fruit thrives on bushes growing in the acidic, black, sandy soil near the Atlantic coast.

At the beginning of each summer, clusters of farmworkers race to pick the berries at their sweetest during a season that lasts just two months.

A Scripps News investigation found children as young as 6 years old are helping to harvest one of America's favorite superfoods.

The discovery comes years after the U.S. Department of Labor fined six North Carolina blueberry farms in 2009 for violating child labor laws, according to federal Wage and Hour Department enforcement records reviewed by Scripps News.

Those records show no documented cases of underage work on blueberry farms in the state since 2017, even as the Labor Department reports a surge of illegal child labor across industries in recent years.

Scripps News met a mother who says two of her three children, ages 6 and 8, work alongside her picking blueberries at a North Carolina farm.

The mother agreed to share their story in the privacy of her rented home and requested her family not be identified out of fear of retaliation.

The mother said they are undocumented immigrants from Guatemala, and that her two children, a 6-year-old daughter and 8-year-old son, began picking blueberries when school let out for summer.

Her daughter stands beside her with small feet still caked in dirt from a day in the fields.

"I take them to work because my husband isn't in good health and is sick," the woman said in Spanish. "He went two or three months without working and we needed to pay rent."

The mother said on the farm she can also watch her kids while they help make ends meet.

Her son began working with her in sweet potato fields two seasons ago at the age of 6, she said. "It is sad because a child shouldn't have to work," she said.

Estimating how many kids are working in similar blueberry fields is difficult.

Many farms are fenced off or have towering "no trespassing" signs posted to keep visitors away.

And Scripps News confirmed that the North Carolina Department of Labor tracks child labor complaints, but not for farm jobs. North Carolina is one of 17 states that exempts agriculture from child labor laws.

Young children working on farms spans generations, said Yessie Bustos, a leader of the nonprofit Student Action with Farmworkers based in Durham, N.C.

"I think it goes back to the fact that farmworkers are not entitled to a fair minimum wage, so they're getting paid by the piece," Bustos said. "That's kind of why you will see a lot of family members out there in the fields, because you need to be able to at least make enough money to provide for the family."

Bustos, 30, recalls picking blueberries herself as a 12-year-old in Michigan.

"For our family, it was a way for us to supplement income," she said.

She looked at a photo shared by the mother of her 8-year-old blueberry worker son, bucket in hand.

"I think of my inner self, like my inner child at the time, not really knowing why I'm doing this, just knowing I have to," Bustos said.

Research from the federal government says about half a million children, age 17 and under, are working on American farms.

A failed attempt to stop child labor years before a raid

A Scripps News investigation discovers a failed effort to stop child labor among young immigrants in rural Minnesota.

"It's backbreaking labor," said Reid Maki, director of child labor advocacy for the National Consumers League and the Child Labor Coalition.

He has long pressed for stronger federal protections for kids in agriculture.

"We have a copy machine around the corner here in the office, and I can't bring in a 12-year-old nephew to work on that copy machine, but that same child can be put on a farm and work 12- or 14-hour days," Maki said.

Federal law allows youth as young as 12 to work in agriculture if they have their parents' consent and it's not during school hours.

There also are exceptions that allow children of any age to work on a farm owned by a parent or on other "certain very small farms" outside of school hours, according to a statement from the Wage and Hour Division of the U.S. Department of Labor.

A Labor Department spokesman declined to answer whether the farm where the mother said she works with her children was violating any child labor laws.

Earlier this year the Biden administration announced a crackdown on employers hiring kids to work dangerous jobs in other industries, fining contractors illegally employing teens to clean meatpacking plants in the dead of night.

There has not been the same sweeping action targeting agriculture.

Scripps News Investigates: A city’s not-so-secret child labor problem

A Scripps News investigation found suspicions of child labor went back years before authorities took action against a Nebraska meatpacking plant.

"Monitoring the millions and millions of acres of U.S. farms is difficult," Maki said. "It's not impossible, though. I think that may be the case that they really could focus more on dangerous jobs."

A farm is a dangerous place to work, especially for minors.

One federally funded research study found about 33 children get hurt working on U.S. farms every day.

In 2018, a report from the federal Government Accountability Office found the "majority of work-related child fatalities were in agriculture" even though "agriculture employs a small percentage of working children."

The mother of the two young children helping with the blueberry harvest this summer said they sometimes complain about the summer heat.

"Yesterday my daughter had a lot of headaches," the mother said. "Last night she was complaining that her head hurt and she couldn’t stand it."

Bustos remembers the danger of heavy farm machinery.

"The example I always share is, I learned how to drive a blueberry picking machine before I even learned how to drive a vehicle," she said. "The thing is like three or five times the size of a regular car. They're huge."

Bustos and other advocates for farmworkers are pressing Congress to bring rules for employing minors on farms in line with other industries.

The CARE Act would raise the minimum age for work on commercial farms to 14 years old, while adding restrictions for all minors who work in agriculture.

It has not gained traction on Capitol Hill despite years of efforts to get it passed.

Bustos estimates there is a 50-50 chance children have had a hand in harvesting a typical pint of blueberries purchased by consumers.

"They should ask themselves, how are we putting them in a position where that's the only way to make ends meet?" she said.

After a day of work, the 8-year-old boy who goes to the blueberry fields still finds time to play.

He shows off his collection of Matchbox cars and, behind the house, his family’s pet chickens and turtles.

His mother said she sees education as a way for their children to eventually leave farm work behind them.

"I always tell my kids, first give thanks to God, and I tell them, I want you to take advantage of your time at school," the boy’s mother said. "I take them to the fields so they realize what working the fields is like and so they work harder in school."

They are lessons that come from a life of hard work beginning at a tender age.

Data analysis by Daniel Lathrop and Rosie Cima

Lactation & work

Hareem Sumbul Bari 

Published August 5, 2023 

WORLD Breastfeeding Week is upon us. Once again we see policymakers, institutions and communities step out of the void that breastfeeding support exists in all year and speak about it.

It’s good because at least it gets us talking without running to hide at the mere mention of ‘breast’. It’s not that good be­­c­ause a breastfeeding family is in that process for much longer than a week if they can help it. Some actual changes in policies — government and organisational — as well as focused community support would give us a lot more to talk about this week.

This year the governing theme is ‘Enabling breastfeeding: making a difference for working parents’. Maternity leave in Pakistan was 90 days of paid leave but the recent Maternity and Paternity Act, 2020, gives us 180 days for the first child, 120 days for the second and 90 days for the third child from the date of inception. It also has a clause for paternity leave. This comes as a great relief for working parents if they have been able to initiate breastfeeding and are to hold on to it for as long.

I often say that breastfeeding is natural but it may not come naturally to a new mother. It is indeed a skill that like any other needs to be learnt and taught. A few generations ago when breastfeeding was more common, learning mostly came by proximity to the action. That’s not the case anymore. The US has an initiation rate of over 90 per cent, but most barely make it to a few months of breastfeeding — mainly owing to their maternity leave of up to 12 weeks — and more commonly just a few weeks post birth.

Breastfeeding is not a one-person job.

Pakistan is teetering at the edge with a 15pc breastfeeding initiation rate despite our very strong religious and social inclinations to want to breastfeed. At this rate, most parents won’t be breastfeeding once they return to work. In order to enable breastfeeding for working families, we must ensure they’re breastfeeding in the first place. They need to be supported with lactation-trained and skilled professionals before birth and for as long as their breastfeeding journey lasts. Every medical practitioner they come into contact with should have at least a basic understanding of lactation so as to not inadvertently jeopardise the patient’s breastfeeding journey. Then perhaps we’ll have more parents returning to work and being able to continue to breastfeed. Having said that, many mothers even today are cut short in the effort, because of lack of support at work and home once their maternity leave ends. I cannot stress enough that breastfeeding is not a one-person job. It is the responsibility of the community to preserve it.

A mother returning to work before her breastfeeding journey ends will need to pump to maintain supply every three hours for around 10 to 15 minutes. Having worked in the corporate sector for over two decades even before having a child of my own, I clearly observed men taking longer and more frequent smoking breaks than that.

It is an easy win for any organisation to support their new mothers on board. All a mother needs is access to a comfortable, private room that isn’t a bathroom, and a 15-minute break every three hours. That’s not at all disruptive — if smoking hasn’t been for years!

Breast pumps can be imported tax-free in the US and most insurance programmes cover free provision. However, in Pakis­tan, it took the local franchisee of an international breast pump company months to even explain why a breast pump is not a luxury item. It is still taxed at over 50pc and is classified as a water pump instead of medical eq­­uipment. No health insura­nce plan cove­­rs it, which takes it out of the reach of the common man completely.

The FBR needs to re-evaluate its policies regarding the unfair taxes that take breastfeeding out of the game altogether for most parents. Misleading advertising of artificial nipples and breastmilk substitutes needs to be curbed as they lead to the cessation of breastfeeding.

We must provide more information to the masses on how best to support a mother going back to work, ranging from knowing breastmilk handling and storage protocols, having the correct tools to give the child expressed milk without compromising the latch, to moral support for a mother who is double-feeding.

For whoever is reading this, there is so­­mething in here each one of you can do to empower breastfeeding families and sustain a breastfeeding-friendly environment in work life. Whether it is getting them ac­­cess to breastfeeding support while they’re pregnant or initiating policies whe­­rever you have the power you can make those changes. Without everyone pit­­ching in, breastfeeding cannot truly be supported and we are here to change just that.

The writer (International Board Certified Lactation Consultant) is a member of LCGB and ILCA and runs her lactation clinic online and at Sajid Maqbool Clinic Lahore.
Instagram:@Lactnation

Published in Dawn, August 5th, 2023

The Anglo-Saxon burden

Aqdas Afzal 

Published August 5, 2023 





WE live in an Anglo-Saxon world. In a broad sense, this means that a combination of UK-US institutions has come to encompass our lives. For starters, many people around the world speak English, an Anglo-Saxon language. The dispensation of justice and contract enforcement in many countries is also based on Anglo-Saxon legal traditions visible in the precepts of the common law.

Additionally, capitalism, the dominant economic system today, truly came of age in Anglo-Saxon nations with first British and now American economic domination. Specifically, the story that explains exponential economic growth during the Industrial Revolution focuses on the institution of Anglo-Saxon property rights within capitalism as these are said to have created the right incentives. Even cricket is said to have Anglo-Saxon connections given that the name of the sport possibly derives from the Anglo-Saxon word ‘cricce’ meaning a crooked staff.

But, where Anglo-Saxon institutions have come to dominate the world through language, law, commerce and sport they have been able to do so through tremendous agility, flexibility and dynamism, always evolving to address changing social, political and economic ground realities.

Recently, the cricketing world’s attention was focused on the somewhat controversial dismissal of an English batsman during the second Test at Lord’s. The English cricket team and English cricket fans were up in arms against this dismissal as it was deemed to have gone against the norms or the ‘spirit of the game’. It even led to an interesting though good-humoured exchange between the prime ministers of UK and Australia as they met on the sidelines of a recent Nato summit.

We would need to follow in the footsteps of Anglo-Saxon policymakers to modify free trade policies that haven’t worked for us.

The English reaction was so intense because the English-speaking people pride themselves on meticulously adhering to the formal rules and norms — or the institutions — of this sport. ‘It’s not cricket’ is used in the English language to denote unfair behaviour.

This was all well and good. But, 90 years ago, the English cricket team was responsible for introducing new tactics in cricket that had been earlier considered unfair and had resulted in serious acrimony between England and Australia that lasted until World War II.

In 1932-33, the English team’s efforts at regaining the Ashes came up against a fortress called Donald Bradman. Bradman was, and probably his record still stands, the best batsman that ever played the game averaging around 100, twice that of other world-class batsmen.

English bowlers closely studied Bradman to identify chinks in his armour. Even though it was considered unsportsmanlike to target batsmen, Douglas Jardine, the English captain, concluded that Bradman appeared vulnerable against short, bouncing deliveries aimed straight at the body. Jardine directed his pacers to specifically target the Australian batsmen, while placing a ring of fielders on the leg side. As the ‘bodyline’ series got under way, Australian batsmen were often dismissed cheaply in attempts to shield their bodies from dangerous deliveries. Predictably, England won the Ashes series of 1932-33 four Tests to one.

In the same vein, the Anglo-Saxon nations have never shied away from changing their economic policies in their continuous quest for more prosperity. Ever since the implosion of the Soviet Union, the bulk of economic policy advice coming from international financial institutions such as the IMF has focused on the Washington Consen­sus. Washington Consensus policies drove a wedge between the state and the market, arguing that economic production and redistributive outcomes had to be left to the whims of the free market with a minimum, if any, input from the state.

This thinking was also extended to global trade, with the WTO asking countries around the world to open up their borders to goods and merchandise. At the turn of the century, China’s entry in the WTO was hailed as a significant win for the Washington Consensus as it was proclaimed that free trade would eventually force China to become a Western-style liberal democracy.

According to the IMF’s April 2021 WEO database, China’s GDP amounted to barely 13 per cent of US GDP in 2001. Twenty years later, this number is around 73-75pc. This spectacular economic, and the resulting geopolitical, rise of China has forced Anglo-Saxon policymakers to reject their own free trade ideas in favour of state-sponsored industrial and innovation strategies that in the case of the US, interestingly, have been conceived by Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser. In a sense, the US is gearing up for a serious economic fight with China by providing massive industrial subsidies in order to rejuvenate industrial hubs. The Financial Times labelled these momentous changes as “the new era of big government”.

As a caretaker government in Pakistan is about to unfurl its wings, the new finance minister would be well advised to use the period to bring together the relevant experts to evaluate what has not worked and how Pakistan can develop economic policies that address its social, political and economic ground realities.

Perhaps, the new finance minister would need to follow in the footsteps of Anglo-Saxon policymakers to modify free trade policies that have not worked in Pakistan’s favour. Where India has gained tremendously from free trade after opening up its economy in 1991, Pakistan has not fared well with persistent balance-of-payments crises and consequent exchange rate depreciations despite accepting assistance from the IMF 12 times since 1993.

It should now be clear that given Pakistan’s abysmal state of human capital, Pakistan’s economy cannot prosper in a free trade regime unless a systematic two-pronged strategy is employed. This will involve simultaneously picking winners and providing them with state support in the shape of cheap capital and energy — the IT sector is a good candidate — while channelling massive investment into health and education for Pakistan’s young population so that overall productivity in the economy can go up.

In time, Pakistan’s policymakers need to identify and change the policies and institutions that were implemented by Anglo-Saxon rulers before 1947. This is especially important since Anglo-Saxon institutions themselves have modernised and evolved over the years. It is simply not possible to shoulder the burden of antiquated institutions any longer.

The writer completed his doctorate in economics on a Fulbright scholarship.
aqdas.afzal@gmail.com
Twitter: @AqdasAfzal

Published in Dawn, August 5th, 2023

CLIMATE CRISIS

Walking the talk

External finance alone won’t provide relief from climate change.

Aisha Khan 

Published August 5, 2023 

THE planet remains in turmoil and global warming is on the ascendant. Stabilisation of the climate regime remains a major concern for the international community but conversations taking place on the need to accelerate commitments and reexamine financial architecture are lagging behind.

Despite 27 years of negotiations and the Paris Agreement of 2015, differences have increased and hostilities intensified. The party positions at the Bonn climate talks and the many disjointed attempts at financial reform are not reassuring signals for a reset.

This approach of duality with agreement on intent and laggard movement in action is very disturbing. Historic heatwaves, changes in weather patterns and disruptions in hydrologic regime are now sweeping the world. Once the process of destabilisation kicks in it will be difficult to control its dynamics.

The stock-take organised by the Ministry of Climate Change and Environmental Coordination on Aug 3 highlighted the challenges faced by the country.


With Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif as the chief guest and attended by government officials, Senate and National Assembly members, parliamentarians, diplomats, civil society and media, the event provided the perfect platform for sharing Pakistan’s climate journey.

While the achievements and contributions of the ministry made in the short span of 15 months leave behind an impressive track record, the daunting challenges and multiple constraints with no imminent solution, are a matter of grave concern.

External finance alone won’t provide relief from climate change.

The Conference of Parties this year will take stock of the Nationally Determined Contributions and pitched battles on finance and financial architecture will be fought in Dubai.

The Loss and Damage Fund will also draw considerable attention. In the lead-up to COP28, many asks will need a push to gather support for building momentum.

With visible impacts of climate change accompanied by losses and fatalities, it is the right time to seek expansion of de-risking finance facilities controlled by multilateral development banks and greater incorporation of climate risks.

This is also the time to lobby for increasing the voices of developing countries in multilateral institutions more effectively.

The UNSG climate ambition summit in September will provide yet another opportunity for bridging distrust and using the multilateral platform to move towards concrete landing points.

Similarly, the IMF/World Bank annual meeting in October in Marrakech can be leveraged for discussions to convey a stance on ending fossil fuel financing and the need for aligning high-level policy to ensure fiscal space for climate investments, not austerity.

As we get closer to the red line of 2030 for emissions reduction, the tensions and competition for resources between the SDGs and Paris Agreement goals will also increase.

This time should be used for reiterating the individual nexus between climate, nature, and development goals with emphasis on adequate financing for both.

Pakistan’s recently launched National Adaptation Plan provides a vision strategy for strengthening resilience. The action plan will not be of much use without a timebound approach and access to finance.

It is time for the country to accept the home truth that reliance on external finance alone will not provide relief from climate change. The window for effective response is shrinking fast.

It is time to broaden our understanding of adaptation and use it as a step change to keep pace with new realities. This applies as much to managing the unsustainable in­­crease in population to empowering women and exploring oppo­rtunities for regional social, economic and ecological integration.

Just as our natio­nal security policy has shifted its pivot from political to economic, we need to al­­­ter the way we look at climate change. Unfortunately, it is a subject that has not been embedded in public consciousness.

Experts deal with it technically, governments bureaucratically and electronic media with low emphasis.

Given the keen interest taken by people in politics, economics and food security, it should be used as the entry point for integrating climate into every conversation by linking it with the subject under discussion. Climate advocacy like climate diplomacy cannot be effective without sustained engagement.

We need to change but real change requires strong political leadership and a sharp focus on the reform agenda as part of the stock-take at home and at COP28. Inaction is not an option.

As the tenure of the present government comes to an end, it is important to highlight the need for the interim government to keep climate high on the agenda and provide strong leadership to carry the momentum built by Minister Sherry Rehman.

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

Published in Dawn, August 5th, 2023

Bring back the wild and leave it alone. Our survival depends on it

Halting and reversing biodiversity loss requires collaboration, transformative change, innovation, and a comprehensive recognition of the true value of nature.

Rabbya Shoaib 

Published August 4, 2023 

Amid mounting evidence from research on species and habitats, we are faced with a harrowing reality: the world is currently experiencing it’s sixth mass extinction, propelled by overconsumption and human-centred practices, which has accelerated climate change itself. There has been a 69 per cent decline in wildlife since 1970, reported the World Wildlife Foundation in 2022, a figure that was previously reported to be 60pc in 2018.

The annihilation of species now poses an emergency that threatens civilisation itself.

The need to protect and conserve wildlife has never been more pressing — we need to majorly rethink our conservation practices. Enter the transformative power of ‘rewilding,’ a resolute and visionary approach aimed at restoring nature’s balance through the creation of biodiverse and untamed landscapes. It stands as a compelling solution to combat this
unprecedented crisis.

Wildlife in Pakistan

In the not-so-distant past, the breathtaking landscapes of Pakistan were home to majestic tigers, evoking a sense of awe. It is a humbling realisation that less than a century ago, these magnificent creatures freely roamed this very land.

This region has been the cradle of human civilisation for over 4,000 years, coexisting harmoniously with a diverse array of wildlife, including lions, rhinos, and cheetahs. However, there has been a tragic decline over the passage of time, and in recent centuries, many of these majestic species have faced the grim fate of extinction.

The Indus River dolphin — Source: WWF-Pakistan

Pakistan is blessed with an extraordinary range of flora and fauna, from the graceful Indus River Dolphin gliding through its namesake river, to the elusive Markhor defying gravity as it scales vertical cliffs in the north.

Markhors in Pakistan. — Source: Dawn.com

Yet, today most species either teeter on the brink of disappearing forever or are critically endangered. Recognising this pressing reality, Pakistan has made significant commitments on the international stage, including the Kunming-Montréal Global Biodiversity Framework.

Among other priorities, this framework emphasises the urgent need to halt human-induced extinction of threatened species, reduce the extinction rate and risks by 10-fold, and increase the abundance of native wild species.
The role of humans

Halting and reversing biodiversity loss requires collaboration, transformative change, innovation, and a comprehensive recognition of the true value of nature in decision-making across all sectors.

Rewilding is gaining popularity as an approach that restores ecosystems to their natural state by reintroducing native plants and animals that would have flourished, had humans not interfered.

The term rewilding does not have a single simple definition. Instead, it has proved useful as a way of describing an approach to conservation that seeks to reverse past and present human impacts, maintain, and even increase biodiversity by restoring more functional ecosystems. Beyond this shared ethos, rewilding encompasses a range of different goals, contexts, approaches, and tools.

One key distinction in rewilding projects is the role of human agency. All forms of rewilding recognise the harm caused by human activities in the past, but they have different viewpoints regarding the involvement of people in present and future wilderness. Some consider the complete absence of humans as a sign of true wilderness, while others believe that certain ecological interventions are necessary to restore and/or maintain wilderness.

Scientifically speaking, rewilding projects are informed by three different benchmarks.

The first refers to the Pleistocene period, specifically the extinction of megafauna (large animals) that occurred during that time. The second benchmark relates to the early Holocene period in Europe and the precolonial period in the Americas, Australia, and tropical island ecosystems. Finally, the concept of novel ecosystems, which are ecosystems that have been significantly altered by human activity following the Anthropocene (the period in which humans became the single most dominant species on the planet), also influences rewilding projects. These benchmarks provide scientific frameworks and reference points for understanding and implementing rewilding initiatives in different contexts.

Personally, I believe a certain degree of human intervention may be needed during the restoration period, for example species reintroduction, however the ultimate aim is to minimise human intervention.

The three C’s

The scientific foundation of rewilding centres around three fundamental components: large core protected areas, ecological connectivity, and keystone species. This framework, commonly referred to as the “Three C’s” model (cores, corridors, and carnivores) suggests that we need core habitats linked up via ecological corridors of viable habitat, and keystone species, primarily carnivores, driving trophic cascades.

Cores refer to large, intact areas of habitat that serve as the primary habitats for wildlife and provide a foundation for ecological processes to thrive such as National Parks.

Corridors are the pathways that connect these core areas, allowing for the movement of species and facilitating gene flow, dispersal, and migration. They enhance ecological connectivity and enable wildlife to move between different habitats.

Keystone species are those species that have a disproportionately large impact on the ecosystem, playing critical roles in maintaining the balance and functioning of the ecosystem. If a keystone species disappears, the entire ecosystem can undergo significant transformations, potentially allowing new and possibly invasive species to dominate. The impact of the addition or removal of a keystone species thus ‘cascades’ through the ecosystem.

The concept of keystone species was founded by professor Robert T Paine’s research on the Pisaster ochraceus — also known as the purple sea star — in the Tatoosh Island of the US.

The purple sea star. — Source: Paul Nicklen/National Geographic

Removing the purple sea star from a tidal plain on the island caused a 50pc reduction in the plain’s biodiversity within a year. Since the purple sea star was a major predator of mussels and barnacles, its removal caused mussels to take over and crowd out other species, including algae that supported many smaller organisms.
Rewilding in action

The rewilding of Yellowstone National Park, in western America is perhaps the most famous example of the three Cs model as well as the trophic cascade on a vast scale.

The keystone species — in this case, wolves — were reintroduced and a vast ecological corridor was set up to link Yellowstone with Canada’s Yukon National Park.

Fourteen wolves were relocated from Canada’s Jasper National Park to Yellowstone. The wolves’ return changed the behaviour of deer and elk, whose unchecked populations had overgrazed the land.

The wolves drove out deer populations, further away from the core habitat, resulting in tree regeneration along riverbanks and an increase in flowers, insects, and birds. Beavers returned, benefiting fish, otters, reptiles, amphibians, and various other species.

The competition between the wolves and coyotes led to an increase in rodent populations, which in turn benefited birds of prey, weasels, foxes, and badgers. Leftover carrion by wolves provided more food for ravens and eagles. And most interestingly, the bear population increased as the bears benefitted from the hunting skills of the wolves, and from the increase in berries growing with the reduced herbivore browsing.



Most interestingly, perhaps, was the result of these wolves on the physical geography of the area. Not only did it allow biodiversity to flourish, the forest regeneration also stabilised the flow of the river.

While this is probably the most famous example, rewilding has been happening in different ways across the world for decades. In Europe, this has largely focused on the reintroduction of herbivores such as beavers in the United Kingdom. This is due to limitations around human population densities preventing the reintroduction of carnivores.

Interestingly the three Cs model has now been expanded to include climate resilience. Rewilding holds significance not only in terms of species restoration but also in the broader context of addressing climate change. Restored ecosystems through rewilding efforts play a pivotal role in mitigating climate change by increasing carbon removal from the atmosphere and safeguarding against its impacts.

Compelling data indicates that protecting or restoring specific wildlife populations, including Pakistan’s native marine fish and grey wolves, has the potential to collectively capture a staggering 6.41 billion tons [5.82bn tonnes] of carbon dioxide annually. This amount accounts for a remarkable 95pc of the annual requirement to meet the Paris Agreement target of reducing carbon emissions sufficiently to limit global warming below the critical threshold of 1.5 degrees Celsius.

It is crucial for Pakistan to prioritise rewilding as a conservation strategy and embrace the ten universal principles established by the IUCN Rewilding Thematic Group to effectively guide its rewilding initiatives and reap significant benefits.

According to the principles, rewilding:

i) utilises wildlife to restore trophic interactions

ii) employs landscape-scale planning that considers core areas, connectivity and co-existence

iii) focuses on the recovery of ecological processes, interactions and conditions based on reference ecosystems

iv) recognises that ecosystems are dynamic and constantly changing

v) should anticipate the effects of climate change, and where possible act as a tool to mitigate impacts

vi) requires local engagement and support

vii) is informed by both science and indigenous knowledge

viii) is adaptive and dependent on monitoring and feedback

ix) recognises the intrinsic value of all species and ecosystems

x) requires a paradigm shift in the coexistence of humans and nature.

In the face of the ongoing sixth mass extinction, we cannot afford to tolerate degraded ecosystems, excessive exploitation of nature in the name of development, and the devastation of our country. Sustainable outcomes for both nature and humanity can only be achieved through the adoption of proven strategies such as rewilding, its guiding principles, and a profound reverence for the natural world.

By embracing rewilding, Pakistan can actively promote ecological balance and safeguard future generations from the afflictions of an increasingly urbanised, concrete, and grey world.

Header image: Rewilding Europe


Rabbya Shoaib leads one of Pakistan’s pioneering programs at Pakistan Environment Trust which focuses on restoring habitats and large scale ecosystems along the Indus Corridor for rewilding endangered species. She has previously worked in human rights law and the development sector.

Algeria honours Eqbal Ahmad

Pervez Hoodbhoy

LAST week, at the invitation of the Ministry of Mujahideen, I attended five days of pomp and pageantry celebrating heroes of the Algerian War of Independence (1954-1962). Those remembered in the historic city of Algiers included a highly unusual ‘Friend of the Revolution’. That ‘Friend’ now rests in peace in Islamabad. Eqbal Ahmad is, to my knowledge, the sole Pakistani who fought to liberate Algeria from French rule.

Born in Bihar, Eqbal was a young boy when his family migrated to Pakistan in 1948. Soon after studying at Forman Christian College (Lahore) he won a scholarship for graduate studies at Princeton University. His PhD dissertation was formally a study of labour movements in North Africa but, in fact, he travelled there to fight French imperial rule. Through the struggle, he grew close to top leaders of Algeria’s FLN. In 1961, he was briefly arrested in Paris and beaten by the French police for supporting the rights of Algerian workers.

In those days, Algerian revolutionaries fleeing France’s police dragnet often sought exile in nearby Tunis. While living there Eqbal developed many close friendships. I recall his mentioning among others, Houari Boumedienne (later Algeria’s second president) and Ferhat Abbas (the head of state in exile). Appointed as a member of the Algerian Revolutionary Council, Eqbal was among those who researched the script of the Battle of Algiers, the classic film of the revolution. He was present while it was filmed.

According to his friend and biographer, Prof Stuart Schaar of CUNY (Brooklyn College), Eqbal frequently met with the revolutionary Belcasem Krim (assassinated in Frankfurt in 1970) and others. Through them he learned much about how they organised the uprising. But keeping alive the spirit of liberation was a still greater challenge.

Eqbal’s utterances of 50-60 years ago remain startlingly relevant in today’s troubled times.

The revolution was getting corrupted. Ben Bella, who later became Algeria’s first president, was cutting corners and using underhand methods to suppress political rivals. Schaar, who was then present, recalls that Eqbal was on the podium when he confronted Ben Bella — whom he had never met earlier — and, risking arrest, shouted that he had betrayed the revolution.

Upon returning to the US and submitting his PhD thesis in 1964, Eqbal maintained his connections with Algerian comrades. But this peripatetic had barely begun his journey. Eqbal’s closest friend, Edward Said (who died in 2003), described the rest wonderfully.

It was, Said wrote, “an epic and poetic one, full of wanderings, border crossings, and an almost instinctive attraction to liberation movements, movements of the oppressed and the persecuted, causes of people who were unfairly punished — whether they lived in the great metropolitan centres of Europe and America, or in the refugee camps, besieged cities, and bombed or disadvantaged villages of Bosnia, Chechnya, south Lebanon, Vietnam, Iraq, Iran and, of course, the Indian subcontinent”.

Counted among the very first opponents of America’s war in Vietnam, Eqbal gained national fame and notoriety for his brilliant writings and tactics. A nervous American government indicted him in a spectacular 1970 trial, along with the Berrigan brothers, of a conspiracy to kidnap Henry Kissinger and blow up the heating system of the Pentagon. In later years, Eqbal would relate with great gusto — often sending his listeners into fits of laughter — events surrounding the trial and the FBI’s futile attempts to nab him and his friends.

Ostracised by most of the American academic community for his passionate advocacy of Palestinian rights, Eqbal remained an itinerant professor at several US universities for much of his life. He recalled that his colleagues at Cornell University chose to stand elsewhere rather than sit with him at the same cafeteria table.

With a strong memory for events and people, an uncanny ability to quickly grasp the essence of a political situation, and a large circle of contacts that kept him informed, Eqbal achieved a reputation for prescience. Invited by Yasser Arafat to the Palestinian Council, he demurred. Instead, he bluntly warned Arafat in 1982 that firing Katyusha rockets from south Lebanon into Israel would achieve nothing beyond brutal Israeli retaliation. He was proved tragically correct.

Eqbal’s message to the Arabs was that they must learn to live with a democratised Israel, abandon exclusionary ideologies of Arab nationalism and Islamic extremism, and develop movements of mass resistance instead of terror tactics. Jerusalem as the capital of Israel was unacceptable but so was the control of all holy places by any one contender. An ancient heritage must be shared by Arab and Jew, and its protection should be a joint responsibility as well.

A lifelong involvement with Algeria, Palestine, Pakistan, and India, led Eqbal to a firm position on Muslim causes. Values, knowledge, aesthetics, and style, he said, was what had defined the Islamic civilisation and invested it with greatness. But those who glorify the past and seek to recreate it invariably fail while those who view it comprehensively and critically are able to draw on the past in meaningful and lasting ways.

In Pakistan, said Eqbal, Islam has been a convenient refuge for troubled and weak leaders. While the country suffers from a protracted crisis of leadership, promises of an ‘Islamic state’ serve to distract attention away from core issues.

To quote Noam Chomsky, another of Eqbal’s friends, Eqbal saw the postcolonial state as “a bad version of the colonial one”, with the same structure of “a centralised power, a paternalistic bureaucracy, and an alliance of the military and landed notables”. The new elite are the inheritors of the old: the propertied classes, the intelligentsia, the bourgeoisie that are “as heartless in its lack of concern for the poor, in some ways even more so, as the colonial state”.

When Eqbal Ahmad died on May 11, 1999, he was mourned across the continents from Algeria and Vietnam to the West Bank, from India and Pakistan to Europe and North America. Al-Ahram declared that Palestine has lost a friend, the Economist likened him to the Ibn Khaldun of modern times, and even the New York Times — with which he had a lifelong running battle — admitted that he had woken up America’s conscience. Eqbal, how we miss you in these troubled times.

The writer is an Islamabad-based physicist and writer.

Published in Dawn, July 15th, 2023