Mosharraf Zaidi

http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=126802

Muslim Indignity in Karadzic’s Arrest

Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Mosharraf Zaidi

Given the unlucky associations with the number 13, thirteen-year anniversaries tend to be relatively uneventful, but the accidents of history are ironic indeed. Thirteen years ago, in July of 1995, Serbian militia and troops (joined by a small number of Greek volunteers) “cleansed” Europe of at least 8,731 Bosnian Muslims. The ghosts of the holocaust had reappeared, this time drawing blood on the other side of the Abrahamic family tree. While estimates of the total number of victims of a war largely driven by Serbian ethnic and religious aggression ran well over a quarter million, the Srebrenica Massacre was its pinnacle, unparalleled in its brutality and depravity. For the primary architect of Srebrenica, former Serbian President Radovan Karadzic, the thirteenth anniversary of the massacre was his last as a free man. He was arrested last week, and the International Criminal Court (ICC) at the Hague will be putting him in jail for a long, long time.

It is important for Muslims to take a minute to really absorb three things at this juncture of Karadzic’s arrest and the thirteenth anniversary of Srebrenica. First, that the pursuit of justice against Slobodan Milosevic, Radovan Karadzic and the remaining cast of war criminals that ravaged Sarajevo, set up Srebrenica, and murdered Muslims by the thousands, has been pursued by non-Muslims. The International Criminal Court is the furthest thing from a Muslim institution imaginable (a Muslim institution being critically distinct and different from what an Islamic institution may look like). It is that institution that has pursued and prosecuted justice against the inhumanity of Serbia’s war monsters.

Second, that in the last thirteen years, expressions of outrage at the atrocities committed in Srebrenica and the continued freedom enjoyed by Karadzic, Mladic, and others responsible for the massacre of thousands of Muslims, have been few, and far between. There have been a few, but none of them, outside of Sarajevo, have been newsworthy.

Third, that the most memorable expressions of outrage in the Muslims world over the last several years have been reserved for causes clearly more dear to Muslims than the lives of their fellow believers at Srebrenica, having nothing to do with war criminals like Karadzic. Instead, the most pronounced protests have been against the attack on Saddam Hussein’s murderous regime in Iraq, and the publication of blasphemous cartoons in a Danish newspaper.

The collective Muslim memory is long on general indignities, and short on specific horrors. Muslim consciousness is highly sensitive to abstract offenses, like name-calling, and highly passive to tangible offenses, like the massacre of 8,731 Muslims. At least that is the conclusion to be drawn from systemic and consistent failure to pursue justice for events like Srebrenica, through legitimate, legal, and faith-neutral processes. In short, Muslims have an uncanny ability to cede moral high ground—even though some of the most traumatic and violent incidents of recent times, tend to find Muslims at the bloody, wrong end of the stick.

Thirteen years before Srebrenica, in September of 1982, the Muslim refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila were ambushed by Christian militia from Lebanon, under the protection of the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF). The militia exacted revenge for the alleged Palestinian-sponsored murder of their leader Bashir Gemayel, by murdering over 2,000 Palestinian men, women and children, and raping plenty more. There has been no justice for Sabra and Shatila, and there will never be. Sabra and Shatila was among the crowning glories of the ruthless Ariel Sharon, the Israeli Defense Minister at the time. Attempts to indict him as a war criminal have failed repeatedly. Now, with his vegetative state, and a legacy tarnished in Israel by his halting of the proliferation of settlements in Gaza, he’ll never have to face the music for his atrocities in the name of Israel.

While justice may be a distant dream, Muslims might have been at the forefront of the campaign to record the history of events at Sabra and Shatila accurately. If nothing else, in the political debate about the worthiness of the cause for Palestinian freedom, it may have been, Advantage: Muslims? Muslims might have been able to seize and retain the moral high ground that Israel has so regularly and consistently ceded to them, especially since 1973.

True to form, there was and has been no such initiative, curiosity or passion in the Muslim world. Instead, journalists like Robert Fisk of the Independent, and Fergal Keane of the BBC have pursued the real story that took place in Sabra and Shatilla that bloody September of 1982. Yasser Arafat’s ego and the endemic corruption of the PLO ceded whatever political advantages the Palestinian people had paid for with their blood, Hamas has ceded whatever legitimacy it might have had, had it not regularly spilt the blood of innocent Israelis, and the conflict is as far away from resolution as it was in September of 1982. How far? Well, Barack Obama just promised the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC, a powerful Israel lobby in Washington DC) an undivided Jerusalem as its capital. That’s several steps backwards, even from the weakest Palestinian position in memory—the days and months leading up to Ariel Sharon’s ill-advised traipsing through the Temple Mount, and the ignition of the Second Intifada in September of 2000.

In the case of Srebrenica, European guilt and the functionality of Western institutions to fulfill, at least partially, their commitment to justice, and fairness, is seeking to address the question of justice.

In Israel, the gaping hole of leadership in the post-Rabin, post-Sharon scenario, and the fading skills of the Israeli lobbying juggernaut are enabling a greater degree of fairness than Palestinians have known in over sixty years.

The one thing we can be certain of is that Muslims cannot take credit for Karadzic’s arrest, nor will Muslims be responsible for his eventual conviction. Similarly, in the hypothetical case scenario of a resolution of the Palestine-Israel conflict, Muslims (other than Palestinians) will not be able to take credit for whatever miracle that eventually generates a resolution.

Remember, Muslims are too busy burning flags, effigies, and given the chance, private property such as cars, and government buildings. In enough instances to make it a worry, Muslims are doing so, sporting pictures of the mythical Osama Bin laden—a latter day caricature of a vile Muslim anger, that is all too real to ignore. In too few instances to make it legitimate, Muslims are not doing so, in memory of Srebrenica, or Sabra and Shatila. Instead, they’re driven by the manufactured rage of whatever poison-pill the mullah fed them with that Friday afternoon.

It is a fallacy that the global terrorist enterprise has any legitimacy because of these and other injustices in the Muslim world. The true measure of intellectual disability and moral fragility in the Muslim world is the fact that analysts from all points within the spectrum of Muslim thought—from progressive, to retrograde—consistently rationalize terrorism as a legitimate, or natural response to the indignity of being a member of the Muslim Ummah in the 21st century.

As simplistic as it is, there is no getting around the un-Islamic nature of the global Muslim experience. Muslims sure do anger and rage all too easily to be confused with jahilliya. This is pitiful. Remember, we claim a faith whose primary articulation was conducted by a man who prayed for those that abused him (Taif), forgave those that attacked him (Quraysh), and forbade vengeance against those that actively plotted against him (ibn Ubayy). Indeed, there is no evidence of any kind, in any text, anywhere, that the legitimate Islamic response to injustice, to attacks, and to conspiracies is unmitigated and indiscriminate rage.

Here’s the rub. After all the protests and demonstrations against the invasion of Iraq, the Danish cartoons, or even, further back in time, Salman Rushdie’s pedestrian literature, what’s the fruit of Muslim rage?

An Iraq that is bloody, but no worse than it was when Saddam Hussein was massacring Shias and Kurds. Repeat publications of those cartoons, and a dozen mediocre cartoonists living la vida loca. And best of all, the friendship of U2’s Bono, and a Knighthood for the self-hating Rushdie.

Meanwhile, the burden of bringing attention to massacres like Sabra & Shatila, and bringing justice to war criminals like Karadzic, continues to be pursued, not without success, by non-Muslims. How’s that for indignity?

http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=126057

Counter-Terrorism Strategy for Whom?

Friday, July 25, 2008
Mosharraf Zaidi

Perhaps Pakistan does have leadership after all. That would be the optimistic conclusion to draw from Prime Minister Gilani’s announcement that the government will be drafting a counter terrorism strategy this week. The PM is a real politician with real stakes in making sure he delivers real outcomes for real people–a surprising novelty in a democracy. We can be almost certain that he is serious in putting together an effective counterterrorism strategy. But the PM is one man, managing a country with three million government employees, 160 million mouths to feed, too many seths and bankers fleeing to Dubai, and a non-existent policy-making apparatus.

Pakistan’s efforts to devise a counter terrorism strategy are doomed to the same, slow and painful failure that most other strategies in this country tend to meet with. Producing a counterterrorism strategy will produce no results, if the production process mirrors the past. The inability of the state to produce effective strategies is perhaps nowhere better demonstrated than in the examples of the Poverty Reduction Strategy, and the National Social Protection Strategy–both of which, seemed like the kind of documents that Pakistan would do well, to do well. Surely reducing poverty and protecting the poor are easy sells. They make political sense, and they would do wonders for Pakistan’s “soft image”.

What has happened with these two strategies? Let’s begin with the poverty reduction strategy programme, or PRSP. In November 2001, Pakistan wrote its first PRSP, largely to fulfill its lenders’ requirements. That year the poverty rate in Pakistan was 32.1 per cent. What did the PRSP help Pakistan achieve? In 2005 the government claimed poverty had reduced to 23.9 per cent, ostensibly backed up by an endorsement from those lenders. Soon after those same lenders began to question that endorsement, and confirmed what “outside the loop” economists like Akmal Hussein, and Kaiser Bengali had known all along: the government claims were exaggerated.

In 2006, the government failed to “update” the PRSP as it was supposed to. The government babus insisted that the new, PRSP 2, focus on economic growth (read: the rich), while the lenders and donors insisted it focus on the poor. Of course, nobody won — Pakistan still has no updated PRSP 2.

It is now July 2008. The Mahbubul Haq Centre pegs the current poverty level at above 33 per cent. That’s right, you guessed it, that’s higher than it was in 2001 — when the state wrote its first Poverty Reduction Strategy.

The net results of Pakistan’s poverty reduction strategy? A total gain of 10 million poor people.

The example of social protection is linked to that of poverty. Social protection is a set of instruments used to shield citizens from the vagaries of the economy, and society. They are especially useful in times like this, when food prices reach for the skies. Pakistan has an array of these instruments, including baitul maal, zakat, and programmes like Tawana and Khushaal Pakistan.

In July of 2007, after almost ten years of coddling and cajoling, and millions of dollars from lenders and donors, Pakistan approved a national social protection strategy. The idea was to fix the existing instruments, and to create new ones to benefit the poor. A year later, it is July 2008, and nobody seriously believes that the baitul maal is doing better than it was before the strategy. In fact, the government is auditing several programmes fearing some truth in persistent rumours of corruption. Poor Pakistanis will have to be forgiven for rolling their eyes. They have seen this movie before. They are no closer to being “socially protected” than they were before the strategy. The government is awash in good intentions, but it is running a state drowning in a competence deficit. The newly-announced income support fund has no connection with, and no institutional links to the national social protection strategy. How will the income support fund behave differently from its predecessors? Short answer: It won’t, and it can’t.

Clearly, strategies to reduce poverty and improve social protection are failed strategies. A similar fate awaits Pakistan’s counter terrorism strategy, unless decision-makers recognize why “strategies” in Pakistan fail. Strategies rarely fail because of their content. Instead, they fail because the system that produces them, and tries to implement them, does not work, and in desperation to make it work, decision-makers try to cheat the system. The system cannot be gamed. You cannot fake democratic traditions with speeches. You cannot replace real leadership with imported advisers. You cannot undo the damage of thirty cumulative years of dictatorship with half a dozen meetings in Murree, London and Dubai. In short, the broken system will take a long time to heal. What can be done in the here and now?

In developing counter-terror strategy, the government needs to protect the process from the state’s habit of cheating the system. The ownership of the strategy is a good place to start. Most strategies in Pakistan that fail, fail because they are not really Pakistani. Successful Pakistani “strategies” succeed because they are fully owned subsidiaries of the people of Pakistan. They usually don’t even get put together very strategically, but they have real power. You can’t scare them away, you can’t call them names and win, you can’t shut them down, or shut them out. Can’t think of any? Perhaps Shaukat Khanum Memorial Hospital, Pakistan’s nukes, and the Bhutto family ring a bell?

A strategy owned by Pakistanis would have to be in a language most Pakistanis understand. That would rule out the Queen’s English, and it would definitely rule out the embarrassing pseudo-babu English that is not only bad, but badly broken too. Indeed, when it comes to language, a good strategy would not only not be in English, it would almost certainly not be in Delhi Raj Urdu either. If you need a dictionary, it is probably not very ’street’. This is not a case for producing strategies in dozens of regional languages – but it is a call for common sense. If the average Pakistani doesn’t understand how his country is going to tackle terror — she cannot help in the process.

A strategy owned by Pakistanis would have to be authored by people who are connected in some way to ordinary Pakistanis. Simply put, the drafting of a strategy has to be vested in parliament, ideally through bipartisan cooperation, with wide representation. In a democracy, its embarrassing to have to even specify this point — but it begs repetition, because too often the criteria for choosing a strategy drafting team is whether they can make colourful presentations, in finely tailored suits. Regular MNAs may not be as sophisticated as an articulate and aggressive man holding fort at Agra or in Washington DC — but they do have real legitimacy. They represent real people. We need not be enamoured by every politician — but it is certainly not too much to ask that they be accorded the respect that should come with having somehow gotten tens of thousands of real people — regular folk — to turn out to vote for them.

A strategy owned by Pakistanis would have to have been produced in a manner that is transparent. A transparent process would represent the greatest tool to counter the rhetorical poison of the agents of intolerance that have hijacked the peaceful religion that, despite all else, remains vital to Pakistan’s past, present and future. There are many other important elements that would make a good strategy. Military expertise, bureaucratic buy-in, international support, and big-time financing — but these are all secondary to the ownership of the strategy. Fixing how Pakistan does strategy has to begin with the principal of primary ownership. Writing sexy strategies that only babus understand may be quick and convenient — but they don’t beat poverty, and they won’t win this war. Pakistan has been trying quick and convenient since October 1999 — clearly, it does not work.

Strategies are defined by having a clear goal to begin with. If the goal is to assuage BBC anchors and the NY Times’ editorial board, then it doesn’t matter who owns strategy, it will probably be able to achieve the aim of shutting up the questioners (for a time). However, if the goal is to counter terror, to stop those who seek to terrorize ordinary Pakistanis, and to make the world safer, then the way forward is clear: by the people, for the people, of the people. Surely, that’s not too alien a concept for Obama and McCain.