Sunday, September 12, 2010
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Fault Lines in Focus
Fault lines in focus
The writer is a former envoy to the US and the UK, and a former editor of The News.
The epic proportions of the floods and sheer scale of the displacement and destruction would have stretched the capacity of any government. But there is also little doubt that the government has been unable during this unfolding disaster to show the leadership that the crisis called for.
Six weeks after the floods struck the government still conveys an impression of being rudderless and lacking direction-other than in dispatching ministers to drum up international assistance.
This activism on the international stage does not mask the ill-focused and inchoate efforts on the domestic front. The resolve and resolution that the catastrophe demands of its leaders is nowhere in sight. If anyone has been setting a national example it is citizens and voluntary organisations engaged in heroic efforts to assist the flood victims.
Where the government needed to rally the nation, it only made exhortations. Where it needed to set a direction it fumbled and made gaffes that included misstating the estimated flood damage and accusing humanitarian organisations from overseas of not spending most of their funds for relief purposes. Where it needed to bring all political forces on a single platform in a show of unity-in-crisis, it baulked at constructive suggestions from opposition leaders and reneged on assurances given to them. As opposition leader Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan recently affirmed before parliament the opposition did not receive any message of national consensus from the government.
Far from offering reassurance about its competence to steer the country in a moment of peril, officials conveyed a sense of helplessness. This has also eroded public confidence in the government's ability to responsibly administer the gigantic task of rehabilitation and reconstruction that lies ahead once the floodwaters recede.
The government's poor management is not all that this disaster has exposed. It also laid bare three longer-standing faultlines, which merit wider discussion.
The first relates to the dual society that the country has increasingly become. That it is the very poor who are most vulnerable and affected by a natural disaster is an ineluctable reality. But what the floods exposed was the abject poverty and sub-human conditions in which millions of people have been condemned to live from neglect by successive governments-people whose destiny is forfeited to the crushing burden of their daily lives. Before the floodwaters washed away all that they had, their life was a daily struggle against poverty and adversity, a silent emergency that seemed not to concern the country's privileged elite, much less its rulers.
The prolonged and unprecedented spotlight shone on how more than the other half lives-in an extreme state of deprivation and misery-is testimony to the monumental failure of the state under different managements to provide for their basic needs. That the rest of society has found this acceptable is telling commentary on the nation's collective conscience and values.
The wages of official neglect are reflected in the multiple deprivations faced by the rural inhabitants of the areas hit by the floods, especially in south Punjab and Sindh, which are among the country's most underdeveloped and where the vestiges of an anachronistic feudalistic order, including bonded labour, still survive. Images of impoverished flood victims battered as much by the raging waters as the rigours of their meagre living served as a reminder of the vast inequities that blight 21st-century Pakistan.
This makes even more compelling the need for reform and an urgent reordering of national priorities. Rather than issue warnings about a "bloody revolution" if flood victims do not receive help, political leaders should be thinking about reforms that can mitigate their suffering on a more enduring basis. People want solutions, not dire forecasts of a looming implosion triggered by a powder keg of social discontent.
The second of the faultlines highlighted by the tragedy are the bitter political and provincial divisions that have accompanied every phase of the widening disaster. This has not only hobbled a robust national response but indicates deep schisms in the body politic. Political feuding has marked-or marred-relief disbursement and has often assumed provincial or regional overtones.
The inability to forge political unity even in the face of such a catastrophe underscores how partisan interests and divisive politicking continues to trump a national approach. This is illustrated by the government's refusal to set up an independent commission comprising neutral and credible figures to raise and oversee relief funds despite initially agreeing to opposition leader Nawaz Sharif's proposal.
Allegations and counter-allegations about the politicisation of flood relief first sparked by Awami National Party leaders in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the hardest hit by the disaster, have continued to echo across the country. Charges have been traded between the Centre and the Punjab government, with the latter complaining of not receiving any money-as distinct from material help-for relief efforts. Fierce quarrels have raged over provincial shares in flood relief spending. A sense of unease has been created by the ethnic politics accompanying the influx of flood victims to cities in Sindh. This has added a new dimension to an already fraught environment. Fractious politics and provincial tensions have offered an unedifying spectacle of how public representatives carry out their responsibilities at crisis time.
For its part, the government in Islamabad has not been able evolve any mechanism for coordination with the provinces to deliver relief in a more organised manner. It has also been unable to regulate relief work undertaken by voluntary organisations. This has resulted in duplication of effort in some areas and under-focus in others.
The third faultline exposed and reinforced by the disaster is the deepening trust deficit that permeates the governance and the administrative system. This has been evidenced in the public doubts voiced about the government's ability to administer relief funds fairly and efficiently. It is also reflected in the modest amount of money contributed to official relief funds. The business community, for example, has preferred to donate to voluntary organisations rather than to the government.
Perhaps the most telling demonstration of this loss of faith is the readiness with which people have believed accusations that have swirled in the past six weeks that politically-connected landed notables in Sindh, Punjab and Balochistan have diverted the raging waters to save their land, imperilling the lives of the poor.
So serious have these allegations become that officials have been forced to concede to popular demands for an inquiry that the powerful deliberately breached embankments to protect their estates and crops. Punjab's chief minister has already ordered a judicial probe into these complaints, with Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani now following suit.
Whether or not anything comes of these inquiries and any allegation is proven, the public view that has gained ground is that this has happened on a significant scale due to collusion between prominent landowning politicians and the local administration. This has driven public confidence in public office-holders to a new low. In this toxic milieu nobody seems to be able to trust anyone.
But in every national tragedy is embedded an opportunity. This dire situation should act as a spur for reform rather than empty lamentation or hand-wringing. In this regard the resolution adopted by the National Assembly calling for land reforms to end the feudal system is a step in the right direction. But words will have meaning only when they are translated into practical policy measures.
Political leaders also need to reflect on how they can mend the broken public trust in official representatives. A good place to start is to forge a consensus on a minimum agenda of critical socio-economic reforms, including measures to mobilise domestic resources. This will also serve to demonstrate that political forces can unite for, and not just against, something.
The writer is a former envoy to the US and the UK, and a former editor of The News.
The epic proportions of the floods and sheer scale of the displacement and destruction would have stretched the capacity of any government. But there is also little doubt that the government has been unable during this unfolding disaster to show the leadership that the crisis called for.
Six weeks after the floods struck the government still conveys an impression of being rudderless and lacking direction-other than in dispatching ministers to drum up international assistance.
This activism on the international stage does not mask the ill-focused and inchoate efforts on the domestic front. The resolve and resolution that the catastrophe demands of its leaders is nowhere in sight. If anyone has been setting a national example it is citizens and voluntary organisations engaged in heroic efforts to assist the flood victims.
Where the government needed to rally the nation, it only made exhortations. Where it needed to set a direction it fumbled and made gaffes that included misstating the estimated flood damage and accusing humanitarian organisations from overseas of not spending most of their funds for relief purposes. Where it needed to bring all political forces on a single platform in a show of unity-in-crisis, it baulked at constructive suggestions from opposition leaders and reneged on assurances given to them. As opposition leader Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan recently affirmed before parliament the opposition did not receive any message of national consensus from the government.
Far from offering reassurance about its competence to steer the country in a moment of peril, officials conveyed a sense of helplessness. This has also eroded public confidence in the government's ability to responsibly administer the gigantic task of rehabilitation and reconstruction that lies ahead once the floodwaters recede.
The government's poor management is not all that this disaster has exposed. It also laid bare three longer-standing faultlines, which merit wider discussion.
The first relates to the dual society that the country has increasingly become. That it is the very poor who are most vulnerable and affected by a natural disaster is an ineluctable reality. But what the floods exposed was the abject poverty and sub-human conditions in which millions of people have been condemned to live from neglect by successive governments-people whose destiny is forfeited to the crushing burden of their daily lives. Before the floodwaters washed away all that they had, their life was a daily struggle against poverty and adversity, a silent emergency that seemed not to concern the country's privileged elite, much less its rulers.
The prolonged and unprecedented spotlight shone on how more than the other half lives-in an extreme state of deprivation and misery-is testimony to the monumental failure of the state under different managements to provide for their basic needs. That the rest of society has found this acceptable is telling commentary on the nation's collective conscience and values.
The wages of official neglect are reflected in the multiple deprivations faced by the rural inhabitants of the areas hit by the floods, especially in south Punjab and Sindh, which are among the country's most underdeveloped and where the vestiges of an anachronistic feudalistic order, including bonded labour, still survive. Images of impoverished flood victims battered as much by the raging waters as the rigours of their meagre living served as a reminder of the vast inequities that blight 21st-century Pakistan.
This makes even more compelling the need for reform and an urgent reordering of national priorities. Rather than issue warnings about a "bloody revolution" if flood victims do not receive help, political leaders should be thinking about reforms that can mitigate their suffering on a more enduring basis. People want solutions, not dire forecasts of a looming implosion triggered by a powder keg of social discontent.
The second of the faultlines highlighted by the tragedy are the bitter political and provincial divisions that have accompanied every phase of the widening disaster. This has not only hobbled a robust national response but indicates deep schisms in the body politic. Political feuding has marked-or marred-relief disbursement and has often assumed provincial or regional overtones.
The inability to forge political unity even in the face of such a catastrophe underscores how partisan interests and divisive politicking continues to trump a national approach. This is illustrated by the government's refusal to set up an independent commission comprising neutral and credible figures to raise and oversee relief funds despite initially agreeing to opposition leader Nawaz Sharif's proposal.
Allegations and counter-allegations about the politicisation of flood relief first sparked by Awami National Party leaders in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the hardest hit by the disaster, have continued to echo across the country. Charges have been traded between the Centre and the Punjab government, with the latter complaining of not receiving any money-as distinct from material help-for relief efforts. Fierce quarrels have raged over provincial shares in flood relief spending. A sense of unease has been created by the ethnic politics accompanying the influx of flood victims to cities in Sindh. This has added a new dimension to an already fraught environment. Fractious politics and provincial tensions have offered an unedifying spectacle of how public representatives carry out their responsibilities at crisis time.
For its part, the government in Islamabad has not been able evolve any mechanism for coordination with the provinces to deliver relief in a more organised manner. It has also been unable to regulate relief work undertaken by voluntary organisations. This has resulted in duplication of effort in some areas and under-focus in others.
The third faultline exposed and reinforced by the disaster is the deepening trust deficit that permeates the governance and the administrative system. This has been evidenced in the public doubts voiced about the government's ability to administer relief funds fairly and efficiently. It is also reflected in the modest amount of money contributed to official relief funds. The business community, for example, has preferred to donate to voluntary organisations rather than to the government.
Perhaps the most telling demonstration of this loss of faith is the readiness with which people have believed accusations that have swirled in the past six weeks that politically-connected landed notables in Sindh, Punjab and Balochistan have diverted the raging waters to save their land, imperilling the lives of the poor.
So serious have these allegations become that officials have been forced to concede to popular demands for an inquiry that the powerful deliberately breached embankments to protect their estates and crops. Punjab's chief minister has already ordered a judicial probe into these complaints, with Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani now following suit.
Whether or not anything comes of these inquiries and any allegation is proven, the public view that has gained ground is that this has happened on a significant scale due to collusion between prominent landowning politicians and the local administration. This has driven public confidence in public office-holders to a new low. In this toxic milieu nobody seems to be able to trust anyone.
But in every national tragedy is embedded an opportunity. This dire situation should act as a spur for reform rather than empty lamentation or hand-wringing. In this regard the resolution adopted by the National Assembly calling for land reforms to end the feudal system is a step in the right direction. But words will have meaning only when they are translated into practical policy measures.
Political leaders also need to reflect on how they can mend the broken public trust in official representatives. A good place to start is to forge a consensus on a minimum agenda of critical socio-economic reforms, including measures to mobilise domestic resources. This will also serve to demonstrate that political forces can unite for, and not just against, something.
Saturday, September 4, 2010
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