Iran’s Economic jihad

GOOD news from Iran is rare, and the IMF is seldom a font of happy tidings about anything. So when a mission from the Fund cheered the Islamic Republic’s economy earlier this month, heaping praise on the policies of its ruthless government, eyebrows spiked upwards as in a comic scene in a Persian miniature. The shock was even sharper given that the IMF, whose biggest shareholder happens to be the Great Satan, America, is a pillar of global capitalism, a system that Iran’s maverick president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, gleefully lambasts as evil.

Yet the IMF’s upbeat pronouncement, in a brief press release (a fuller report is forthcoming) following annual consultations in Tehran, has some justification. This is not because Iran’s economy is performing brilliantly. Whereas other big oil exporters have boomed on the back of high prices, Iran has grown sluggishly, nudging upwards only last year to 3.5%. That is not enough to dent a rising unemployment rate, which is now close to 15%.

The reason for the praise is Iran’s exemplary execution of a task dear to the IMF’s heart: structural reform. The Islamic Republic describes things differently. Speaking on the occasion of Nowruz, the Iranian new year in March, the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, declared this to be the “year of economic jihad”. Whatever its name, the sweeping reform of a ruinous, three-decade-old system of state subsidies that Iran began last December seems to be radically reshaping the country’s economy for the better.

Not only has it relieved the government of a huge financial burden. It has slashed local energy demand, reducing chronic pollution and leaving more oil for export. It has dramatically raised disposable incomes for the poorest without placing extra burdens on the rich, spreading social equity while boosting consumption and bolstering the banking system. In future, Iran’s subsidy reform may even be seen as a model for top-down social change, not unlike successful schemes pioneered by Mexico and Brazil. But so far Iran’s scheme carries no conditions.

Until December, economists estimated the annual cost of subsidies on food, fuel and electricity at $60 billion-100 billion, a quarter of Iran’s GDP and equal to or greater than the value of annual energy exports. Most of this burden was carried as an implicit subsidy to domestic energy consumers, with the price of diesel fuel, for example, set at the equivalent of two American cents a litre, and petrol selling for less than bottled water. The predictable results were soaring energy consumption, waste, smuggling, pollution, market distortion and inexorably rising bills for the state.

Iranian governments have long grappled with this problem. Mr Ahmadinejad’s liberal-leaning predecessor, Muhammad Khatami, was stymied by a squeamish, conservative parliament. Mehdi Karoubi, a presidential candidate in 2005 and 2009, suggested tying cash handouts to reduced subsidies. Rivals dismissed this as an electoral ploy; Mr Karoubi, a leader of the opposition Green Movement, has since been hounded out of politics. Ironically, it may have been international sanctions, intended to punish Iran for its suspect nuclear programme, that at last persuaded its opponents of the need to scrap subsidies. Lacking the refining capacity to meet domestic demand, Iran found itself vulnerable to a sudden cut-off in petrol imports.

This long debate helped to prepare the public and let the government plan carefully. Accepting the need to compensate consumers for raising prices closer to world levels, Mr Ahmadinejad at first proposed a monthly cash transfer aimed at poor families. When defining the poor proved tricky, this was dropped in favour of blanket transfers to any family that applied for them. Some 19m families, 90% of Iran’s population, have done so, setting up bank accounts to receive monthly payments based on numbers of family members. The government then set up a fund to administer receipts from the higher-priced goods, demarcating 50% to go towards families, 30% to help businesses affected by price rises and 20% to meet the state’s own added costs.

The government cleverly doled out two months’ worth of family cash transfers, amounting to some $90 per person, before unleashing its shock. When the first tranche of price rises hit, quadrupling the cost of some kinds of bread and shooting diesel prices up by 2,000%, among other things, there was barely a peep from the public. Iranians have rapidly got used both to paying a lot more for some things and to having more money to spend as they wish. A family of five now pockets monthly sums close to Iran’s minimum wage, enough to pull a big proportion of the 10% of Iranians who live on less than $2 a day above that bar. Yet tight controls on the money supply have kept inflationary pressure lower than feared. By some counts it has already fallen from an annualised 20% in March to 14% in May. With government finances now in better shape, that may drop still further, and quickly.

Servicing America’s government debt

A GOOD friend of mine was born a subsistence farmer in a remote African village. He went to primary school in a one-room structure with no windows, electricity, running water or proper blackboard. I once asked him what he was taught about America (the country where he would one day make his home and achieve extraordinary success) as a child at this school. He remembers being told two things: America has a few, very large farms which produce food for everyone and it is the world’s largest debtor.

America has a special economic position. It can add to its debt each year while its sovereigns remain the world’s “risk-free asset”. Or, as I once heard PIMCO’s Mohammed El-Erian call it, the “least dirty shirt”. America’s risk-free status means it can borrow cheaply no matter how untenable its fiscal position becomes, at least for now. In principle a country like America can run deficits each year forever, so long as its debt payments do not exceed GDP growth (it’s sort of like you can have perpetual credit-card debt so long as your income keeps pace with your monthly payments and you never stop working). Assuming the debt remains serviceable, it may even be desirable to run deficits some years. The problem occurs if and when the music stops and the market offers a better “risk-free” alternative. When this happens, or the market begins to doubt America’s ability to service its debts, yields increase. If they increase enough then both new deficits and paying off old debt by issuing new debt becomes very expensive, or in extreme circumstances, impossible.

The deficits America currently runs are probably serviceable, even if the debt ceiling is raised later this spring; the problem is future entitlements. It could take another industrial revolution to generate the sort of GDP growth needed to sustain Medicare and Social Security in their current forms. To rely on that hope would be naive (to put it kindly), and one shouldn’t underestimate the economic impact of a smaller working population supporting a large aging population out of the labour force. Without a major productivity increase this will translate into lower levels of GDP per capita. It seems America’s debt party will eventually come to an end. The question is when and what can be done to minimise the costs?

Standard & Poor’s lowered its outlook on American debt last week, but this was merely calling out the hot-pink elephant in the room. It does not mean an explicit default on American debt is imminent, or even likely. I also don’t see much scope for America to inflate its debt away. The big source of future debt is entitlements which are linked to inflation (Social Security benefits are linked to CPI and wage inflation and Medicare benefits are linked to health care inflation which grows much faster than CPI).

Some cast debt as a moral issue. I see nothing immoral about being a chronic debtor nation, so long as paying your debts remains manageable. But I do find arguments that we can put off reforming Medicare and Social Security, “until they are a problem” offensive. The sooner reform is addressed the cheaper the solution will be; the difference is that all pay a little more now rather than sticking future generations with an enormous bill they never agreed to take on. An exclusive focus on higher taxes for the wealthy is also problematic. There simply aren’t enough rich people, for one thing. And the argument is akin to saying that one wishes to consume more and have someone else pay for it. I understand why a non-wealthy person would make that argument, but I don’t understand the righteous indignation directed at wealthy people who push back on the idea. Sustainability will require a larger tax burden for most middle- and upper-income earners.

America must also trim its entitlements. Many workers need to consume less retirement by working longer. Health care is a much harder problem than Social Security to solve.James Surowiecki seems confident that the Independent Payment Advisory Board, which is part of ObamaCare and is meant to increase efficiency by eliminating unnecessary treatments, will be sufficient to curb health-care costs. He has more faith in the omnipotent powers of a board of technocrats than I do. The board is absolutely not a death panel, but if the goal is to meaningfully decease costs and curb health-care inflation it may need to be. Dying tends to be expensive, most health expenses come at the end of life, and people usually and naturally want the latest and best treatments available to prolong family members’ lives. There is some scope to bend the cost curve, but ultimately Americans will have to accept an idea that Europeans embraced long ago: not every older person can receive unlimited, timely, top-quality health care.

The fact is, to avoid a potential debt crisis all must pay more and get less.

A Missing Wikileak

By Dr Ghayur Ayub

Tickers on different news channels were running fast at the bottom of the television screen. It was the evening before the next batch of Wikileaks were due for publication. I made sure to buy The Guardian – one of five newspapers publishing the documents. With remote control in hand, I was browsing through Sky News, BBC, CNN, Al-Jazeera and Press TV. To the best of my recollection, it was Sky News which caught my eye. The breaking news referred to a planned Israeli nuclear attack on two American cities, which were to be linked to Pakistan. America would have had a cause to respond in kind and take out Pakistani nuclear sites. I couldn’t believe my eyes! I rewound the news to double check what I had just read. Thinking details would be published in the Guardian newspaper the following day I did not record it. Later, I rang a friend and told him about the mind boggling news. The bizarre news kept me awake most of the night.

The next day I got the newspaper and went through it page by page. To my surprise, the “ticker news” could not be seen anywhere. I read it a couple of times but failed to find the particular piece. I could not understand how the newspaper missed such an important part of the leak? In pursuit, I opened the Wikileaks’ website and browsed through it carefully; no luck again. Then, I Googled relevant questions pertaining to Israel; still no luck! To make it more direct, I refined my search based on the information I had read on television. Again no reference. The news had just disappeared from cyberspace. Doubts started emerging whether I had really seen that segment which was embedded in my mind despite me vividly remembering its content. In fact I called a friend about it. So what happened to the news?

The only explanation I can think of is that the news item must have leaked out by mistake and then swiftly been retracted. After all it is common knowledge that the leaks are selective. I have no idea who else watched it during that brief period it was on the air. Was it a coincidence that at that very moment I was browsing through the channels? Many would say yes. But I don’t believe in coincidences. I call them part of ‘cosmic language’. All it means is that nature talks to us in its own language that has no syllabi. I may write on this subject some other time. But for now I had to find the ‘missing leak’.

During my search I came to know about a basic fact that even the embarrassment factor was not that high for the politicians and foreign diplomats as they all understood each other and routinely lied which explains the uniformity in their reaction to the leaks by denying them. It also became apparent that the leaks related to Israel were primarily Iran-centric and that Iran’s nukes pose an “existentialist threat” to Israel. It was interesting to find that before the leaks were publicized Natanyahu did not think they would seriously damage Israel’s position. No wonder when he visited jubilantly Tel Aviv’s Beit Sokolow, the home of the Israeli Journalists Association, for the prime minister’s annual meeting with the Editors Committee, he was all smiles. This is the place where Ben Gurion used to hold secret meetings. Last year he skipped the event; however, this time around it was different because of the Wikileaks publication. He showed up to display his political command by sticking to his public agenda and sending a message to the White House of what was befalling President Obama. As if he knew there was now no fear that Washington would persist on the question of a settlement freeze or to accelerate negotiations on withdrawal from the territories. He felt confident that the settlement issue would take a back seat and it was time to press on other issues such as extremism in Arab and Muslim world.

At Beit Sokolow he announced “no one will now be able to allege that Israel is acting irresponsibly”. Then he spoke about the Arab leaders urging them to “speak openly about Iran what they have been whispering to the Americans” Speaking his language in an interview with Time Magazine, Julian Assange sent an identical message “We can see the Israeli Prime Minister [Benjamin] Natanyahu coming out with a very interesting statement that leaders should speak in public like they do in private whenever they can”.

Natanyahu was proud that Israel maintained information security and that sensitive conversations were not conveyed in diplomatic cables but in face-to-face meetings or via secure telephones. For a split second that “mysterious ticker” flashed back and I thought if only Natanyahu knew that a blunder had been committed by someone somewhere exposing Israel’s intentions to start a nuclear nightmare!

He seemed content with the outcome of Wikileaks, ignoring what Huseyin Celik, the deputy leader of Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan’s AKP Party had said about Israel. Celic accused Israel of engineering the leaks, questioning how Israel could announce before the release that it would not suffer from its publication. He queried, “How did they know that?”

Instead, Natanyahu was quoting Arab leaders from Egypt, Jordan and Persian Gulf States, that they were also fearful of the Iranian threat. He was right in his statement because Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, the crown prince of Abu Dhabi warned, “Iran will threaten Israel’s existence should it go nuclear.” He called Ahmadinejad a “Hitler”, proposing that “if air strikes will not do the job in Iran the ground troops should be sent in.” Similarly, Saudi King Abdullah wanted the U.S. to “cut off the head of the snake”. Another UAE leader gave his reasons for Iran-bashing by saying that “Iran is establishing ‘sleeper emirates’ across the Muslim world including south Lebanon, Gaza, Kuwait, Bahrain and the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia with the mother of all ‘emirates’ in southern Iraq and now in Yemen.” Similar sentiments were heard from other pro-American leaders in the Arab world. One Israeli official stated, “the Arab countries are pushing United States towards military action more forcefully than Israel”.

As opposed to these reports the American intellectual Noam Chomsky cited a Brookings Institution poll that 80 per cent of Arabs consider Israel as the main threat followed by the U.S. at 77 per cent. Only 10 per cent rated Iran as a danger. He concluded by stating, “When they talk about Arabs, they mean the Arab dictators, not the population, which is overwhelmingly opposed to the conclusions that the analysts-Clinton and the media-have drawn.” According to another report, the Arab rulers “dare follow the American line completely, particularly if this includes a strike against Iran if they did, they’d risk popular revolts”.

I found nothing but Iran-centric Wikileaks in the Jerusalem Post and other Israeli newspapers. They were reminiscent of the “Zimmermann Telegram” during World War I. The declassified documents of history tell us that in early 1917 the British cryptography unit (“Room 40″ ) decoded a telegram from German Foreign Minister Arthur Zimmermann to his country’s embassy in Mexico City proposing that the Mexicans launch a war against United States and retake Texas. The British showed the telegram to American diplomats. It prompted the Congress and U.S. President Woodrow Wilson to declare war on Germany which contributed to Germany’s defeat at the end of 1918.

A few months after this episode of the “Zimmermann Telegram” the Bolshevik Revolution took place in Russia. The new leadership wanted to declassify the documents of the Czar’s Foreign Ministry. The task was given to Leon Trosky – the people’s commissar for foreign affairs. One of the documents revealed the 1916 Sykes-Picot Agreement in which Britain and France planned how they would carve up the Ottoman Empire and also promised a hefty slice to Russia which desired Istanbul and the Black Sea straits. What if the secrets were revealed at that time? Would it have changed the history?

The point I am trying to make is that exposure of secrets can influence events if they appear at the right moment, as in the case of the Zimmermann telegram. So what could be the reason for Wikileaks and how will it affect short and long-term relations amongst Muslim countries vis-a-vis pro-Israel lobbies in America. Would Natanyahu be resting in a comfort zone and constantly pressurizing Obama to stop interfering in the internal matters of Israel especially the settlements issue had the ‘missing leak’ been circulated? Here comes the million dollar question. Is there a ‘missing leak’ exposing Israel’s heinous motives despite the leaked documents stating that “there is no Israel lobby involvement to involuntarily force US in a war to serve Jewish interests” and that “the world opinion is wielding towards declaring Iran as the head of a snake that must be cut off as the Saudi potentate described it” Not many would believe in the existence of such a ‘missing leak’. Even my own lawyer daughter thinks I may have misread the news. But deep down, I know what I saw and read that evening. Perhaps 50 years from now this “ticker news” may show up in a slue of declassified documents similar to Zimmerman’s secret telegram. The leaked telegram changed the course of history but the ‘missing leak’ cannot; as long as it remains missing.

India’s ‘Kyrgyz plan’ for Pakistan

by: pakalert

RAW was created in the late sixties with one purpose, to destabilize Pakistan. Its first target was East Pakistan. Its second target was Bangladesh. In 1971 RAW was successful in creating the Mukti Bahni, recruiting 80,000 Hindus and then sending them into Muslim Bengal disguised as Pakistani soldiers. They exacerbated a bad situation and created a Civil War. RAWs second target was Bangladesh. The Rakhi Bahni was imposed on Bangladesh with a sitting Bharati General in charge. The first success in East Pakistan was reversed on August 14th, 1975 when Bangladeshi patriots killed the Indian agent and left his body to rot in the streets for a week. Bangladesh tore up the “Treaty of Friendship” which would have allowed Delhi to first reduce Bangladesh into a Bhutan and then take it over like Sikkim. Though December 16th 1971 is taught to Bharati citizens as a huge achievement, August 14th, 1975 is ignored.

The Bangladeshi scenario is reported by Barrister M.B. Munshi in his seminal book titled “The Indian Doctrine”.

Indian intelligence: “‘the aim of RAW is to keep internal disturbances flaring up and the ISI preoccupied so that Pakistan can lend no worthwhile resistance to Indian designs in the region.”

RAW used the same model to take over Sikkim and then created the LTTE with an aim to bifurcare and eventually take of Sri Lanka. Similar palns were hatched to destabilize Nepal, and Maldinves. Bharti forces were sent to Lanka and Maldives-but had to withdraw. Bhutan today faces the same intrigues.

Then down through the years RAW continued its operations in all neighboring countries. India supported President Dawood’s grandiose extraterritorial ambitions in the 1970s. Using the Mukti Bahni model, Bharat tried to use sabotage in Pakistan during the USSRs occupation of Afghanistan. On the wrong side of history, Bharat did not condemn the invasion-instead it supported the Soviets and allied itself with the KGB,KHAD and blew up market places and civilian hospitals. One of RAWs greatest ignominious achievements were murdering 300 people in Bhori Bazaar Karachi with a bomb. While the world condemned the bombing, Delhi cheered.

India’s dark shadow on Afghanistan. After 9/11, Bharat re-established its presence in Kabul and used its Consulates and projects to send mercenaries across the border. It has been doing this for a decade. The purpose of these attacks is to break up Pakistan into pieces with docile friendly mini-states. This is the wet dream of most Bharatis-one taught to them in temples, and one that is reinforced in their worldview by the Hindu Mahasabah.

Christina Palmer describes the nefarious activities on both sides of the Khyber Pass. Today the RAW activities continue in Pakistan.
Listing of Indian RAWs bomb blasts in Pakistan
“India supporting the terrorists in tribal areas & Balochistan” FM Qureshi
Indian Commanders grill MI Chief over Intel failure in Azm-e-Nau
RAW Chief directed to create Kyrgyzstan like scenario in Pakistan
Agency asked to fund protestors in Pakistan over loadshedding, price hike issue
180 million dollars approved for smuggling Pakistani wheat to Afghanistan to create flour crisis across Pakistan
RAW also given an unspecified and un-auditable amount for organizing suicide bombing in Pakistan
MI Chief praised for Afghanistan performance but snubbed for failure on intel about Pakistan Army’s joint exercises with PAF
RAWs trail of terror: Indian Bomb blasts in Pakistan

RAW Page: Indian Intelligence Services

NEW DELHI-Some more details of the 2-day special conference of the commanders of the joint Forces of India that ended here yesterday have surfaced.

Highly credible defiance sources revealed that on the last day of the conference, the participants where appreciated the Military Intelligence Chief General Loomba there they showed their utmost resentment over his failure in pre-empting the Pakistan Army’s Joint execrates with Pakistan Air Force, code named Azm-e-Nau that are in full swing at the moment. Chairman, Chiefs of Staff Committee Air Chief Marshal P V Naik grilled the MI Chief general Loomba for not collecting the sufficient intelligence about the ongoing war exercises’ of Pakistan Army. The sources say that Loomba completely failed to give any reasonable intelligence output to the participants the war games that the Pakistanis were conducting in the southern part of the Punjab Province of their country.

The sources say that the Chief of top spy agency the Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW) K C Verma was the one who stole the show on the day-2 of the conference as he not only got immense commendation by the participants for his briefing on operations in Pakistan and China but also managed to grab the endorsement for the approval of a huge amount of funds for future operations in Pakistan and China.
India a secret player in Afghanistan: Bases-Lashkargarh, Qushila Jadid,Khahak,Hassan Killies
RAW facts on South Asia- India fails to occupy countries
The TTP is a RAW agency: The Indian LTTE against Pakistan

The sources say that the RAW Chief was directed by the commanders to create Kyrgyzstan like situation in Pakistan and must exploit Pakistan’s internal crisis like the energy crisis, the price hike etc. The RAW chief apprised the participants that his agency had already started work in this direction. He disclosed to the participants that his agency was already in touch with certain elements in Pakistan to fund the anti-government protests over the constant power outage and jobless youth was being engaged on daily wages basis for the purpose. He further briefed the participants that at least the three foreign Independent Power Producers (IPPs) were already paid handsome amount of money for producing less electricity while Pakistan Power Minister was already helping the agenda as he was himself engaged in prolonging to power crisis so that he can bring in rental power projects that could earn him highly lucrative kickbacks.
Anatomy of Indian Intelligence Services and Alliances
RAW facts on South Asia- India fails to occupy countries.
LTTE was created by India
Indian sponsored Tamil terror in Sri Lanka continues unabated
Lanka: Indian LTTE terrorists use youth as cannon fodder
Lanka Letter: RAW THE RASCAL by Prem Raj in Columbo
Pakistan Sri Lanka growing military alliance
Growing Pakistan Sri Lanka ties

The RAW boss also briefed the participants that an amount of 180 million US dollars had already been disbursed amongst certain drug leaders in Afghanistan to smuggle out Wheat from Pakistan to Afghanistan by the start of month of May so that the flour crisis could be generated at the same time to destabilize the State. He further sought the recommendation for an unspecified amount for organizing suicide bombings and sectarian clashes across Pakistan while a similar recommendation was sought for creating unrest in China’s Xinjiang province via Afghanistan by funding and patronizing East Turkistan Islamic Movement( ETIM). He assured the participants that his agency was fully capable of creating Kyrgyzstan like situation in Pakistan and it was just a matter of time and money upon which he got full endorsement of the commanders. More details of the last day’s proceedings are likely to follow shortly. Daily Mail Post. From Christina Palmer
BLA – A threat to international peace by Ahmad Shah Baloch: “The BLA is the creation of Indian intelligence agencies, which are trying to create instability in the areas bordering Iran and Afghanistan.”. Expose on RAW by Isha Khan of Dhaka Bangladesh
RAW facts on South Asia- India fails to occupy countries
India intelligence: “‘the aim of RAW is to keep internal disturbances flaring up and the ISI preoccupied so that Pakistan can lend no worthwhile resistance to Indian designs in the region.”
Dhaka Diary: RAW 2008: An Instrument of Indian Imperialism by Isha Khan Dhaka Bangladesh. In typical “baghal main churi, moun men ram ram” fashion, the Indian delegation first hides the fact that the RAW agents are funding and arming the BLA and supporting suicide bombings by anti-Pakistan elements in the USA. BLA – A threat to international peace by Ahmad Shah Baloch: “The BLA is the creation of Indian intelligence agencies, which are trying to create instability in the areas bordering Iran and Afghanistan.”. Expose on RAW by Isha Khan of Dhaka Bangladesh. The delegation then only discusses the bombing of the Indian “embassy” (which was a military base run by the notorious “Brigadier Mehta” and his band of merry men.

If Pakistan Goes The Way Of Kyrgyzstan

A failed Pakistani political system is headed for chaos.

By Anjum Niaz

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan-Wake up before a mob attack. Nawaz Sharif and the faujis [military] may not be the catalysts of change that we seek; it’ll be the people of Pakistan. Shoaib and Sania’s nuptials are a welcome distraction, but in the end the starry-eyed couple will fly off to Dubai throwing back the nation into the pit of darkness and snoozing ministers.

Wake up, Naveed Qamar! If you don’t stop catnapping in public you’ll soon become our Rip Van Winkle, the simple easygoing chap who loved to sleep and not work. Where’s your homework? Remember your headmaster Gilani asked for a report on loadshedding you and your two colleagues Pervez Ashraf and Hafeez Sheikh were to deliver today? The headmaster had constituted a three-member ministerial committee to “examine and prepare a comprehensive report on electricity load management within a week” on April 2.

Let the report be read out aloud.

Loadshedding is hell. Do the rulers realise that Pakistanis can go the way of Kyrgyzstan? The people there have driven out President Bakiyev’s corrupt government. He’s fled while his interior minister has been shot dead. “No police guarded the government headquarters, and hundreds of jubilant but calm residents stood outside, others were walking freely through the building known as the White House,” reported AP.

Why did the Kyrgyz overthrow their government? Simple. The president was accused of enriching himself, his friends and family. “He gave his relatives, including his son, top government and economic posts and faced the same accusations of corruption and cronyism that led to the ouster of his predecessor, Askar Akayev five years ago.”

Our raja from Gujar Khan’s bread and butter was real estate. Zardari promoted the realtor to the dizzying heights of a federal minister and gifted him the ministry of water and power (how magnanimous!). Was this move on the part of the president a wishful thinking? Did he hope Pervaz Ashraf could control the horrible energy crisis left behind by Musharraf? Surely Ashraf must have known the Himalayan task ahead of. Two years up the slippery slopes and still climbing, the minister can suffer a freefall plunging him into a crevice of no return.

But the bright-eyed and bushy tailed raja – poles apart from his sleeping frontbencher Shahji Naveed Qamar — has had his Eureka moment (I’ve found it!) the way Archimedes shouted. According to press reports he told the National Assembly last week “that the country is facing an electricity shortfall, however, hydel power will be increased after improvement of the water situation in dams due to rains.”

The nation now needs to pull out its prayer mats and begin praying for rain! If the army and America can’t solve the power crisis, we can only turn to Allah.

The greatest disappointment has come from America. Hillary Clinton rubbed heads with our foreign minister Eskimo-style, but dodged Shahji Mehmood Qureshi when it came to rescuing us from power cuts. During the strategic dialogue, the lady promised us light when she spoke of the US being fully aware of the energy crisis in Pakistan. Taking the cue, Army Chief Kayani set aside his laundry list of military hardware and requested the US for First Aid to his country starving for electricity. This was a golden opportunity for America to win its war of hearts and minds. It’s still not too late. Prime Minister Gilani goes to Washington next week to meet President Obama. Let hope spring eternal. Except that yesterday’s stolid statement by Gerald Feierstein, deputy chief of mission at the US embassy in Islamabad, mentions ‘three phases’ before Pakistanis shall see light. Time and tide wait for no man, Mr Feierstein. Kyrgyz have revolted against your air bases. Out! They say.

While our minister for water and power cannot single-handedly move mountains to bring us power, just keep us posted, please. As for US, you have to do more.

Room for optimism

By Mohsin Hamid

EVER since returning to live in Pakistan a few months ago, I’ve been struck by the pervasive negativity of views here about our country. Whether in conversation, on television, or in the newspaper, what I hear and read often tends to boil down to the same message: our country is going down the drain.

Despite the desperate suffering, Pakistan is also something of a miracle.

But I’m not convinced that it is.

I don’t dispute for a second that these are hard times. Thousands of us died last year in terrorist attacks. Hundreds of thousands were displaced by military operations. Most of us don’t have access to decent schools. Inflation is squeezing our poor and middle class. Millions are, if not starving, hungry. Even those who can afford electricity don’t have it half the day.

Yet despite this desperate suffering, Pakistan is also something of a miracle. It’s worth pointing this out, because incessant pessimism robs us of an important resource: hope.

First, we are a vast nation. We are the sixth most populous country in the world. One in every 40 human beings is Pakistani. There are more people aged 14 and younger in Pakistan than there are in America. A nation is its people, and in our people we have a huge, and significantly untapped, sea of potential.

Second, we are spectacularly diverse. I have travelled to all six of the world’s inhabited continents, and I have seen few countries whose diversity comes close to matching ours. Linguistically, we are home to many major languages. And I mean major: Punjabi is spoken in Pakistan by more people than the entire population of France, Pushto by more than the population of Saudi Arabia, Sindhi by more than Australia, Seraiki by more than the Netherlands, Urdu by more than Cuba, and Balochi by more than Singapore.

Nor is our diversity limited to language. Religiously we are overwhelmingly Muslim, but still we have more non-Muslims than there are people in either Toronto or Miami. We have more Shias than any country besides Iran. Even our majority Sunnis include followers of the Barelvi, Deobandi and numerous other schools, as well as, in all likelihood, many millions who have no idea what school they belong to and don’t really care.

Culturally, too, we are incredibly diverse. We have transvestite talk-show hosts, advocates for “eunuch rights”, burka-wearers, turbaned men with beards, outstanding fast bowlers, mediocre opening batsmen, tribal chieftains, bhang-drinking farmers, semi-nomadic shepherds, and at least one champion female sprinter. We have the Communist Mazdoor Kissan Party and we have Porsche dealerships. We are nobody’s stereotype.

This diversity is an enormous advantage. Not only is there brilliance and potential in our differences, a wealth of experience and ideas, but also our lack of sameness forces us to accommodate each other, to find ways to coexist.

Which brings me to our third great asset. ‘Tolerance’ seems a strange word to apply to a country where women are still buried alive and teenagers have started detonating themselves in busy shopping districts. Yet these acts shock us because they are aberrations, not the norm. Pakistan is characterised not by the outliers among its citizens who are willing to kill those unlike themselves, but by the millions of us who reject every opportunity to do so. Our different linguistic, religious and cultural groups mostly live side by side in relative peace. It usually takes state intervention (whether by our own state, our allies or our enemies) to get us to kill one another, and even then, those who do so are a tiny minority.

The ability to hold our noses and put up with fellow citizens we don’t much like is surely a modern Pakistani characteristic. It could be the result of geography and history, of millennia of invading, being invaded, and dealing with the aftermath. Europe learned the value of peace from World Wars One and Two. Maybe we learned our lesson from the violence of partition or ’71. Call it pragmatism or cosmopolitanism or whatever you want, but I think most Pakistanis have it. I’ll call it coexistence-ism, and it’s a blessing.

Over the past 60-some years, with many disastrous missteps along the way, our vastness, diversity and coexistence-ism have forced us to develop (or to begin to develop, for it is a work in progress) our fourth great asset: the many related components of our democracy. Between India and Europe, there is no country with a combination of diversity and democracy that comes close to ours. Other than Turkey, the rest are dictatorships, monarchies, apartheid states or under foreign occupation.

We, on the other hand, are evolving a system that allows our population to decide how they will be ruled. Many of our politicians may be corrupt and venal, but they are part of a lively and hotly contested multiparty democracy. Many in our media may be immature or serving vested interests, but collectively they engage in a no-holds-barred debate that exposes, criticises, entertains and informs – and through television they have given our country, for the first time in its history, a genuine public space. Our judges may have a rather unusual understanding of the correct relationship between legislature and judiciary, but they are undoubtedly expanding the rule of law – and hence the power of the average citizen – in a land where it has been almost absent.

As I see it, the Pakistan project is a messy search for ways to improve the lives of 180 million very different citizens. False nationalism won’t work: we are too diverse to believe it. That is why our dictatorships inevitably end. Theocracy won’t work: we are too diverse to agree on the interpretation of religious laws. That is why the Taliban won’t win.

Can democracy deliver? In some ways it already is. The NFC award and, hopefully, the 18th Amendment, are powerful moves towards devolution of power to the provinces. Too much centralisation has been stifling in a country as diverse as ours. That is about to change. And the pressure of democracy seems likely to go further, moving power below the provinces to regions and districts. Cities like Karachi and Lahore have shown that good local governance is possible in Pakistan. That lesson can now start to spread.

Similarly, democracy is pushing us to raise revenue. Our taxes amount to a tiny 10 per cent of GDP. After spending on defence and interest on our debt, we are left with precious little for schools, hospitals, roads, electricity, water and social support. We, and especially our rich, must pay more. American economic aid comes to less than nine dollars per Pakistani per year. That isn’t much, and the secret is: we shouldn’t need it. New taxes, whether as VAT or in some other form, could give us far more.

Our free assemblies, powerful media and independent judiciary collectively contain within them both pressures to raise taxes and mechanisms to see that taxes actually get paid. This is new for Pakistan. Our number one war shouldn’t be a war on terrorists or a cold war with India or a war against fishing for the ball outside off-stump (although all of those matter): it should be a war on free riders, on people taking advantage of what Pakistan offers without paying their fair share in taxes to our society. Luckily this war looks like it is ready to escalate, and not a moment too soon.

I have no idea if things will work out for the best. The pessimists may be right. But it seems mistaken to write Pakistan off. We have reasons for optimism too.

If Not Quota, Then How?

By Yoginder Sikand

As several government-appointed teams – the Sachar Committee and the Ranganath Mishra Commission being the most prominent among them – have themselves pointed out, India’s Muslims are, on various socio-economic indices, at the lowest rung of Indian society. The conditions of groups from ‘low’ caste backgrounds, who account for more than 80 percent of the Muslim population, are particularly pathetic. Neglect, and even discrimination, by the State, is one of the factors for this. Given this, the rationale for positive discrimination or affirmative action by the State in favour of Dalit and OBC Muslims should be obvious. Lamentably, however, this proposal has met with stiff opposition.

The US is today the model for India’s elite to blindly follow, but while seeking to ape everything American, it is curious why and how our ruling caste-class combine turns a blind eye to US affirmative action policies for its minorities. And not just that – it relentlessly opposes any policy, no matter how symbolic, in favour of the marginalised sections of Indian society.

One argument against affirmative action for Muslims is that the Constitution does not allow for reservations on the basis of religion. If that is the case, one might counter, why is it that, till recently, only Dalits who professed to be Hindus could avail of Scheduled Caste reservation benefits?

In this regard, the demand by some ‘upper’ caste Muslim politicians and Islamic organisations for reservations for Muslims as a whole is equally dubious. As numerous ‘low’ caste Muslim activists point out, this demand, if acceded to, would benefit only ‘upper’ caste Muslims, who are educationally and politically much stronger than Dalit and OBC Muslims. They forcefully critique the argument that affirmative action for Dalit and OBC Muslims would divide the community, calling it equally as specious as the argument of ardent anti-reservationists who believe that any sort of affirmative action for any marginalised group is divisive and, therefore, ‘anti-national’.

An oft-heard argument against affirmative action for OBC Muslims is that they do not need a separate quota as they are already covered by the existing OBC quota. The fact is that OBCMuslims continue to lag far behind OBC Hindus. Widespread anti-Muslim discrimination within the State apparatus has made it more difficult for Muslim OBCs to benefit from the existing provisions for OBCs. Hence, the need for a separate provision for Muslim OBCs.

As the relentless waves of privatisation, liberalisation and globalisation overwhelm the Indian economy, scores of traditional caste-based occupations in which Muslim Dalits and OBCs were heavily represented, are being ruthlessly decimated, rendering millions of families destitute. In such a scenario, the need for affirmative action for Muslim Dalits and OBCs, as indeed for other such marginalised groups, becomes even more imperative. But this should not be restricted simply to jobs in a rapidly shrinking public sector.

Alienation, demonisation and violence against vulnerable groups has been a principal cause for resentment and even violence. Hence, it is essential that the State undertake adequate measures to promote genuine inclusion and empowerment of these sections of society.

The welfare of the entire society crucially depends on this, particularly with regard to Dalit and OBCMuslims as it does to any other. Mere rhetoric cannot work in the absence of rigorous affirmative action by the State to address the problems of the country’s Muslims, particularly of the Dalits and OBCs among them.