Crucial Human Rights Review By Reema Omer: New Age Islam's Selection, 22 January 2018
New Age Islam Edit Bureau
22 January 2018
• Crucial Human Rights Review
By Reema Omer
• Who Killed Zainab?
By Syed Zeeshan Haider
• Celebrating Women Academics
By S. Akbar Zaidi
• Myanmar Must Mainstream The Rohingya
By S Mubashir Noor
• The ‘Do More’ Mantra!
By Khalid Saleem
• Final Frontiers
Zarrar Khuhro
• Taxation And Politics In Gilgit-Baltistan
By Mudabbir Akhund
• Troubled Exports
By Ali Tahir
Compiled By New Age Islam Edit Bureau
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Crucial Human Rights Review
By Reema Omer
January 22, 2018
THE European Commission is due to issue a status report this month on Pakistan’s compliance with the Generalised System of Preferences (GSP) Plus conditions, which also include an assessment of the human rights situation in the country.
The GSP Plus trading status is an instrument of the EU’s trade policy that aims to encourage developing countries to comply with core international standards in return for trade incentives.
Conditions to get and retain the special status include ratification of seven core international human rights treaties including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR); the Convention Against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT); and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR).
Will Pakistan Retain Its GSP Plus Status?
Prior to receiving the GSP Plus status in 2014, Pakistan ratified all seven treaties. And just before the first review of Pakistan’s implementation of the GSP Plus conditions in January 2016, Pakistan submitted its reports to the treaty-monitoring bodies under the periodic review procedures of these treaties, another requirement under the agreement.
In a report issued at the time, the European Commission noted with concern that “human rights violations remain widespread in the country”, but had commended Pakistan for a number of “constructive initiatives” such as “strengthening the institutional framework for human rights”. Based on this report, the EU decided to renew Pakistan’s GSP Plus status for two years.
Since then, Pakistan’s implementation of a number of international human rights treaties including the ICCPR, the ICESCR, and CAT has been reviewed for the first time by the expert committees created by the treaties.
The upcoming review will take into account the ‘concluding observations’ — or findings — of these bodies. This is particularly significant as one of the conditions in the GSP Plus agreement is that the most recent conclusions of the monitoring bodies under human rights conventions must not identify any serious failure to effectively implement them.
While it is commendable that Pakistan participated in the review process of these treaties and expressed its commitment to human rights, the findings of the committees show that much of this commitment remains unfulfilled in practice.
Take for example the review of Pakistan by the Human Rights Committee under the ICCPR. In its concluding observations issued in July, the committee noted that “the rights enshrined in the Covenant are not given full effect in the domestic legal order and that courts have, in certain cases, proved reluctant to apply the Covenant”.
It expressed concern about the implementation of the death penalty; that the National Commission of Human Rights is not fully independent; that violence against women is still prevalent; that the extension of the jurisdiction of military courts over civilians raises serious fair trial concerns; the blasphemy laws and the severe penalties they carry are incompatible with international standards; and the government’s international NGO policy, including “broad and vague grounds for cancellation of the registration” of INGOs, hampers their ability to work freely and raises concerns about the freedom of association.
Significantly, the committee also expressed concern at “the high incidence of enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings allegedly perpetrated by the police and military and security forces” — a practice that continues to persist and even expand since the review in July.
Similarly, concluding observations issued by the Committee against Torture in May 2017 found “widespread use of torture by the police”. The committee expressed deep concern that “military forces, intelligence forces … and paramilitary forces … ” are implicated in a significant number of cases of extrajudicial executions involving torture and enforced disappearances, and regretted that Pakistan provided “no information on members of the military, intelligence services or paramilitary forces who had been prosecuted and punished for acts amounting to torture...”
The Committee against Torture also expressed concern about the “continued reports of intimidation and harassment, including physical attacks and administrative detention, of human rights defenders, lawyers and journalists and their family members”, and like the Human Rights Committee, noted that “hundreds of enforced disappearances have been reported in recent years in the State party and that the State party’s authorities have not taken adequate steps to investigate the reports and identify those responsible.”
The European Commission is to take such findings into account as it prepares its review and decides whether or not to renew Pakistan’s trade incentives under the GSP Plus.
Pakistani authorities should take note that Sri Lanka’s GSP status was suspended for a number of years after 2010, when the European Commission found “significant shortcomings in respect of Sri Lanka’s implementation of three UN human rights conventions relevant for benefits under the scheme.”
Some of Sri Lanka’s shortcomings included the significant number of cases of extrajudicial killings, torture and enforced disappearances; the unwillingness or the inability of the police to investigate human rights violations; the inadequacy of the criminal justice system and the courts to prevent human rights violations and hold perpetrators accountable; and the failure of the authorities to take effective action to protect journalists and human rights defenders. To many observers, these findings have a number of parallels with Pakistan’s human rights situation today.
It is therefore crucial for Pakistan to take seriously the recommendations of the treaty-monitoring bodies, to prepare a concrete, action-oriented strategy in consultation with civil society organisations on their implementation, and to be in a position to demonstrate concrete and significant progress in practice.
Failure to do so would hurt the Pakistani people twice over — not only will they continue to be deprived of fundamental human rights guaranteed by Pakistan’s Constitution as well as international instruments, they also risk losing the economic benefits that result from the EU’s trade incentives under the GSP Plus.
Source: dawn.com/news/1384409/crucial-human-rights-review
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Who Killed Zainab?
By Syed Zeeshan Haider
January 22, 2018
This brutal murder of Zainab shook the entire country to its core. It garnered both national and international outrage. But, Zainab’s is only one case among thousands. According to a recent report, 2,760 cases of sexual assault on children were recorded in Pakistan in 2017. The highest number of sexual attacks was reported in Punjab at 1,755. 790 incidents were recorded in Sindh, 96 in Balochistan, and 52 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Like the family of Zainab, these children who were victims of sex crimes in the past are still awaiting justice.
In Zainab’s case, in particular, there is an urgent and vocal demand for the capture and punishment of the perpetrator from all segments of society. The Chief Justice of Pakistan took suo-motto notice of the incident, the Chief of the Army Staff publically expressed his grief and sorrow, and Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif assured Zainab’s father upon meeting that perpetrator will be brought to justice. At this juncture, the question arises: are the right tactics being used to capture Zainab’s killer?
It is important to recognise that the rape and murder of a young child is not the work of an ordinary criminal, but rather the actions of an extremely sick individual. People who prey on women and children to commit heinous crimes have unusual psychological illnesses that set them apart from other criminals. The traditional police force cannot handle cases that involve such individuals. In Pakistan, police officers are not trained to investigate serial killers or sexual predators.
All around the world, specially trained investigators are employed to work on cases involving violence and sexual depravity. In the US, for instance, the FBI has a special Behavioural Analysis Unit (BAU) that is comprised of an elite team of trained specialists, including criminal psychologists, criminologists, and special detectives. These specialists search for perpetrators based on criminal profiling that, based on the nature of the crime, they use to shed light on the likely characteristics of the perpetrator. By using behavioural analysis, traditional police work, as well as informational and forensic technology in conjunction, the investigation is able to narrow in on the culprit, eventually leading to arrest. Unfortunately, Pakistan lacks the resources needed to investigate in this manner.
People who prey on women and children to commit heinous crimes have unusual psychological illnesses that set them apart from other criminals. The traditional police force cannot handle cases that involve such individuals
In recent years, Pakistan has shown improvement in its capability to fight terrorism. The success of the Anti-Terrorism Force is commendable. This illustrates that Pakistani forces if given proper training and equipment, can get the job done. It is imperative to develop a wing in the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) similar to the BAU of the FBI, which can recruit well-educated and well-trained specialists to track down and apprehend unusual criminals. Failing that, no amount of media pressure, military, political, or judicial attention will be able to yield meaningful results. Creating a special task force is not a far-fetched idea – any number of friendly nations is available to collaborate with Pakistan to train personnel and establish a dedicated investigative team.
Of the underlying problems that Pakistan must confront, the Kasur incident is merely the tip of the iceberg. First, Pakistan’s population continues to grow at an alarming rate, outpacing its means. Family planning and population control should be recognised as a government priority so that society as a whole can have sufficient resources to nurture future generations.
Secondly, mental health problems need to be addressed. The services of psychologists and psychiatrists must be provided in our schools, colleges, and universities. There is a growing incidence of mental health diseases in the contemporary era and failing to treat psychological issues can lead to far more significant problems down the road.
Similarly, we need to adopt sex education and increase awareness amongst people of all ages about what is appropriate and inappropriate sexual behaviour. As a society, we must emphasise sex education at home, teach children to identify abuse, and give them the proper tools to protect themselves.
Third, mental illness must be de-stigmatised. In the West, seeking treatment for a mental disease is regarded as normal as any physical disease. In Pakistan, however, an individual who is suffering from a psychological illness is labelled as either unstable or crazy. The negativity surrounding mental illness in Pakistan discourages people who need help from seeking it, often until it is too late.
Appropriate resources ought to be allocated to improve security infrastructure and technology. In the Kasur case, the face of the killer cannot be identified – despite CCTV footage – due to the low resolution of the cameras. The government must put in place minimum standards for CCTVs in terms of the resolution and the backup time so that the faces of perpetrators are clearly identifiable.
No single entity is responsible for horrific incidents such as the one in Kasur. A multitude of shortcomings at the governmental, societal, and individual levels all contributed to it. Until there is a concerted effort to address our country’s collective flaws and deficiencies, such episodes will continue to occur while the criminals will remain at large, fully able to attack again.
Source: dailytimes.com.pk/186121/who-killed-zainab/
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Celebrating Women Academics
By S. Akbar Zaidi
January 22, 2018
BARRING a few notable exceptions, recent scholarship by academics on Pakistan in the social sciences and books by scholars of Pakistani origin writing not necessarily on Pakistan are almost all by women. Most of these women are Pakistani, but some are of other nationalities. Not all — in fact, just a handful — write about women’s issues and on feminism. Most write on issues which are not defined or constrained by the authors’ gender. This implies that most women academics are not writing simply as ‘women academics’ on women’s issues, but as competent and able scholars, where gender does not define or restrict their work.
In order to gauge the scale and nature of what Pakistani women academics have been writing, a short list is essential.
Probably the most celebrated academic of Pakistani origin, one who has ironically not written on Pakistan, is Saba Mahmood, an anthropologist at the University of California, Berkeley. Saba Mahmood’s highly controversial work on women and Islam has made her a global star, much reviled and much celebrated by academics working on Islam, as well as those working on women and gender. She is the first Pakistani scholar to acquire global fame, as well as notoriety, after sociologist/anthropologist Hamza Alavi, albeit with very different ideological and theoretical perspectives.
The list in this article is just a powerful indication of the breadth, scope and depth of the scholarship of Pakistani women academics.
Pakistan’s most well-known and prolific historian Ayesha Jalal has written 11 books on numerous themes related to South Asian and Pakistani history, while Masooda Bano, at Oxford University has a number of books looking at madrasas, and at women and development using Islamic frameworks.
Earlier work by defence analyst Ayesha Siddiqa on the Pakistani military’s business interests has already become a classic, while historian Farzana Shaikh has written two books — one a classic on the history of South Asian Muslims, and another well-received one on Pakistan’s political history.
Other, more recent, scholarship, comes from the likes of Sadaf Ahmad on al-Huda, Sadia Saeed on the politics of de-secularisation in Pakistan, Saadia Toor who offers a radical perspective on Pakistan’s political history, and Saima Zaidi who has without doubt edited the most valuable and comprehensive, unparalleled book on a cultural understanding of Pakistan.
One must, of course, mention Vazira Zamindar’s exceptional book on Partition, and Sana Haroon’s examination of clerics in the Frontier.
Humeira Iqtidar, a political scientist, has edited a number of books, with her own tract, the highly controversial work on the Jamaat ud Dawa, in which she argues how Islamist political praxis in Pakistan actually ‘secularises’ Pakistan, a thesis which has been highly contested and rubbished by numerous scholars, including many mentioned here.
Mariam Mufti, another political scientist, has a new book on political parties in Pakistan out soon, while Ammara Maqsood, has had a recent book published on Pakistan’s new middle class. Non-Pakistani women scholars would include Christine Fair, Naveeda Khan, Anita Weiss and Sarah Ansari, who have written books on Pakistan — on the military, Muslim identity, women and Sindh respectively.
Probably the most anticipated of all is the recently published book Faith and Feminism in Pakistan by radical feminist scholar Afiya S. Zia, which is already being heralded as ‘indispensable’ to our understanding of faith and feminism and secular alternatives in Pakistan. This book, in fundamental ways, critiques much of the scholarship which frames Pakistan, especially by those women scholars who reduce all social processes simply to an Islamic paradigm.
There are numerous other women scholars writing on Pakistan as well, and this list is just a powerful indication of the breadth, scope and depth of the scholarship of Pakistani women academics, although, as one expects, the quality varies.
There are two aspects which are striking about this collection of writers. The first is that most of these women academics live and work in the West, and their intellectual worldview is much determined by their location in Western academia. Many academics based in Pakistan have emphasised that location is critical to one’s perspective and understanding of Pakistan, and one can see the difference in the scholarship of those Pakistani academics, both men and women, who live and suffer in Pakistan, unlike the diaspora which has acquired numerous privileges on account of its location.
The second striking fact is that most of these women academics have been writing on some aspect of Islam, a revisionist Islam, an Islam only imagined from the West rather than from Pakistan. This, again a locational paradigm, affects their work accordingly.
One celebrates all academic scholarship in a country where the social sciences were once considered to be ‘dismal’, but especially the academic and scholarly work of women writing on Pakistan. There are numerous reasons why there is a revival in the social sciences in Pakistan, related mainly to the social and structural transformation in the economy and society. Women may perhaps be one of the main beneficiaries of such developments.
Given the very large number of Pakistani men and women undertaking graduate work in the social sciences at universities in Pakistan and abroad, one expects an even greater field of scholarly research and output. In 2018, one expects a rich feast of some new scholarship by both men and women academics in the social sciences whose books are about to be released.
This trend would seem to be an oddity, for some Pakistani journalists have framed their arguments and concern about women in the more mundane manner of looking at women’s social position in Pakistan. Some have told us that there is a ‘gap’ between women in Pakistan and those in almost all other countries with regard to social and gendered indicators. Other journalists lament the ‘failure of women’. No one, man or woman, would deny that these facts exist and need to be urgently redressed. Yet despite numerous constraints and severe discrimination, the success of these women is worth much celebration, where women academics have put their male colleagues to shame. More power to them.
Source: dawn.com/news/1384408/celebrating-women-academics
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Myanmar Must Mainstream the Rohingya
By S Mubashir Noor
January 22, 2018
Bangladesh and Myanmar recently signed a bilateral deal to return in phases over 650,000 Rohingya refugees languishing in Bangladeshi border camps for over a year. While this move may release some of the swelling international pressure on both states to uphold basic human rights, it does little to improve the future prospects of the Rohingya. And with the UN kept out of this deal, there will be no neutral oversight to ensure the process goes smoothly and without bloodshed.
Some media sources, including the BBC, have oxymoronically termed the negotiated return‘repatriation’, which is facetious. Repatriation implies the Rohingya will return to their country of citizenship. They won’t. The reality is they are South Asia’s equivalent of the Roma gypsies: a people persecuted for their very existence and having no legal claim to the land they have inhabited for centuries. Myanmar’s military for years has systematically killed, raped and pillaged the Rohingya in Rakhine State, while banning UN human rights observers from the country to cloak their nefarious deeds.
Consequently, there is genuine fear that barring a UN Security Council resolution that compels Myanmar to seek non-military solutions to the crisis, the Rohingya upon their return will again fall prey to the genocidal campaign that made them flee in the first place. That said, Myanmar must realise the costs of ethnic cleansing could far outweigh its perceived benefits, as I outline later in this piece.
In late 2016, when the self-styled Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army began ambushing military outposts as payback for the massacres, the junta ordered entire villages in Rakhine State be razed to drive the Rohingya out and discourage their return. This policy forced the mass exodus of nearly 1.1 million members of this hapless ethnic group to various corners of the world, including Pakistan that presently hosts some 55,000 of them.
With Myanmar’s military now owning up to the mass graves containing remains of summarily executed Rohingya ‘militants’ and insurgents escalating the frequency and scope of their attacks, notions that order will somehow return to Rakhine state as a result of the bilateral deal are exceedingly naive. Also disappointing is the UN’s next to non-existent role in resolving the conflict beyond blanket condemnations.
Myanmar treats the Rohingya as unwanted foreigners to be expelled or exterminated, while Suu Kyi – in the past celebrated as the Asian Nelson Mandela – maintains an eerie silence that has sparked calls to strip her of the peace prize
This state of affairs is largely due to US President Donald Trump’s blinkered foreign policy that exaggerates the sins of Iran and North Korea, while turning a blind eye to Myanmar’s state-sponsored butchery. Shockingly, even the much-feted civilian government of Nobel Peace Prize-winner Aung San Suu Kyi continues to deny the Rohingya citizenship and refuses to recognise their language and nativity.
Myanmar treats the Rohingya as unwanted foreigners to be expelled or exterminated, while Suu Kyi – in the past celebrated as the Asian Nelson Mandela – maintains an eerie silence that has sparked calls to strip her of the peace prize. Myanmar claims the Rohingya are in fact ethnic Bengalis who were ferried to the country as cheap labor during the British Empire, and hence must go back. Bangladesh categorically rejects this claim. At its root, the crisis may be about simple economics, of scarcity and choice. Myanmar is an underdeveloped country that has witnessed repressive military dictatorships for most of its post-independence existence. Consequently, the Rohingya are not only a drain on resources, but also squat on land that is rumoured to be mineral rich. Moreover, we must remember that any form of dictatorship necessitates crystallising and maintaining an antagonistic ‘other’, which in Myanmar’s case regrettably happens to be the Rohingya.
Bangladesh, conversely, is buckling under the weight of a young, rapidly growing and densely packed population. In such circumstances, the last thing it needs is to legalise more people that would further strain resources and arguably trigger mass social unrest in a country where political differences routinely turn violent.
Yet, it is important to stress here that the status quo in Rakhine state is unsustainable. Without a pathway to citizenship or the UN designating the state a protectorate, the Rohingya may well be driven to extinction over the next decade, or resort to a bloody and protracted civil war not unlike the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka. Depressing, too, is the Organisation of Islamic Conference’s abject failure to protect Muslim interests worldwide. Regrettably, it remains log-jammed by the intense rivalry between Iran and Saudi Arabia.
If this deal is not caveated by a framework that provides the Rohingya freedom of movement, legal status and enhanced employment prospects, Myanmar risks up-scaling the now limited insurgency to multi-pronged, countrywide terrorism. We must not forget that despite the recent diminution in their global appeal after being routed in Syria and Iraq, ISIS and Al-Qaeda are always on the lookout for opportunities to rebound. Hence, a significant Muslim population that fears for its life from supposed ‘infidels’ will always be low-hanging fruit for recruitment.
Put another way, Myanmar could lose far more by sustaining its military operations against the Rohingya than by finding means to ameliorate the situation. For one, if they’re not legalised and consequently remain outside the justice system, Rohingya will have no compulsion to hand over the insurgents who they presently see as heroes. Also, without legalising their ownership of land, Myanmar continues to deprive itself of tax revenues the Rohingya would otherwise pay, and which would incentivise them to protect the local ecology.
Additionally, if they cannot access adequate healthcare facilities, the Rohingya may unwittingly incubate and spread deadly contagions that could activate nationwide epidemics. And finally, if they are deprived of education and employment opportunities, then future generations will inevitably embrace organised crime or the violent extremism of ISIS and Al-Qaeda.
When saner heads prevail in Myanmar, it will realise the potential cost in blood and treasure required to tame the large-scale insurgency that looms near is best avoided by appeasement. Before the Rohingya are forced to pick up arms en masse to protect themselves, it behooves Suu Kyi to broker an armistice and explores means to mainstream them into Burmese society. It’s time for her to re-earn that prize.
Source: dailytimes.com.pk/186152/myanmar-must-mainstream-rohingya/
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The ‘Do More’ Mantra!
By Khalid Saleem
January 20, 2018
WITH the advent of winter, the affliction that – for want of a more apt appellation – may be referred to as ‘do-more-itis’ appears to be rearing its ugly head once more; this time apparently with a vengeance! Not that we did not already have a load full of problems of our own. What with the heating up of the political tangle, the on/off dharnas’ imbroglio and the ‘leaders’ of all ilks firing salvos left, right and centre, this blessed land’s basket of woes is on the verge of overflowing as it is. And now like a bolt from the blue comes this renewed onslaught from our ‘strategic partner’! A quick look over the shoulder may be in order. During his visit, US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis did his bit to rake up the embers once again, his somewhat cautious public statements notwithstanding. It became evident at the time that, having burnt its fingers badly in its Afghanistan adventure, our strategic ally was out looking for a ‘fall guy’. What with other members of the US administration adding their bit to pour oil on the embers, no prizes for guessing who the finger points at. Suffice it to state that the Trump administration is making no secret of its intention to take a ‘tougher stance’ against Pakistan.
As if the aforementioned were not enough, came the salvo of President Trump himself! Always known for his shoot-from-the-hip style, in his tweet, the big man appears to have outdone himself! Using language that would hardly qualify as ‘diplomatic’, Trump holds Pakistan responsible for all the woes of the US forces in Afghanistan. He rues the fact that US had (in his own words) “foolishly given…more than 33billion dollars in aid over the last fifteen years”. He went on a binge to gild the lily by adding that “they (Pakistan that is) have given us nothing but lies and deceit”. Testy language that emanating, as it did, personally from a Head of State!
The new administration in Washington appears to be taking up from where various luminaries of NATO left off in the past years. The call asking Pakistan ‘to do more to eliminate the safe havens of terrorists’ is not unexpected nor is it new. What is surprising, though, is the intensity of this chorus among the higher echelons of Washington. One must also look askance at this deplorable tendency to issue unwarranted tweets and that too at the highest level. Matters that could and should be discussed and settled confidentially at diplomatic level are hardly fit subjects for inane tweets.
One does not wish to take issue with the right of luminaries of the Trump administration to hold a particular point of view or indeed to give it expression. Difference of opinion is the right of an individual as, indeed, of an administration. What nettles though are two things: a) the transparent attempt by the US to put the entire blame for its failures in the field on this country, and b) its continued and inexplicable assertion of extra-territoriality in its dealings with a declared ‘ally’ of sorts. What need must be recalled and recognized is that Pakistan’s then leadership had executed a disastrous U-turn at its ally’s behest – one that amounted to an undertaking to take the latter’s irons out of the Afghanistan fire at the imminent risk of burning its own fingers. As a consequence, this country has had to suffer – and continues to suffer – the blowback of a ‘war’ that is not of its own making, but one that had been thrust on this region by the powers that be for motives that do not necessarily coincide with our national interest. As a corollary, Pakistan’s order of priorities has gone awry; with the concept of sovereignty and territorial integrity turned on its head. To add insult to the injury, this country is being constantly reminded that its commitment is not only open-ended but also indefinite.
A look over the shoulder at recent (and not so recent) facts of life may be in order. History is witness that the Afghan people have never lived at peace with an occupying power whatever the rationale for its intervention. The Generals and diplomats (and now leaders!) of the West, who appear to have made a habit of asking Pakistan to ‘do more’, should study the history of this region and, if possible, eschew attempts at over-simplification. It should also be evident by now that the Afghans have never looked kindly at crude attempts by aliens to shore up an unpopular regime.
As for our very own armchair “liberals”, all one needs to remind them of is the truism that the allied forces are going to have to leave Afghanistan sooner or later. It is we who will be left to face the music. Prudence demands that we dread that day! One other matter calls for some clarification at this point. This hapless country is being constantly called upon to be the frontline state in the so called ‘war on terror’ – all in a transparent attempt to bail out those powers that ignited the fuse in the first place. Let it not be forgotten that Pakistan, as a consequence, is being obliged to confront the onslaught of ‘terrorists’ on more fronts than one. The least our ‘friend and ally’ can do is not to add to our basket of woes that is already on the verge of overflowing. Or is that asking for too much?
Source: pakobserver.net/the-do-more-mantra/
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Final Frontiers
Zarrar Khuhro
January 22, 2018
HUMANITY is a species in constant movement, dating from the time that humanity, as we understand it today, didn’t even exist. Homo Erectus left their African homeland to spread far and wide some 1.9 million years ago, and despite the differences between our various genetic ancestors, the need to move and migrate has remained a constant that has endured to the present day.
By and large, the main driver for these migrations has remained the quest for resources to sustain and improve life; nomadic early humans’ life and migration patterns were primarily dictated by the quest for food: the tribe would follow the herds that sustained them, and the rains to reach lands that were fertile and could sustain life.
When humanity began to settle down in towns and cities, learning how to farm and domesticate animals, the nature of the resources being sought changed: now arable land and access to fresh water became the contested resources, and of course the still-nomadic tribes were drawn to these settlements like moths to a flame, posing a danger to the settled communities for millennia.
The earth will run out of the resources needed to maintain our lifestyles.
Even as our needs have evolved, our basic drive to access and control crucial resources has not dimmed. Wars have been fought over salt, spice, oil and rare minerals – something that continues to this very day, and the spectre of wars waged over access to fresh water (a rapidly dwindling resource) is very real.
That’s the problem with natural resources: they are by definition limited and finite. Thus, nations have raced to stake claims to Antarctica and its resources including, but not limited to, potentially harvesting icebergs to provide freshwater supplies. Nor is the world’s surface enough; corporations and governments are increasingly turning their attention towards the ocean floor itself.
Dubbed as a ‘new resource frontier’, the deep seabed can yield a variety of valuable minerals and metals, such as nickel, copper and manganese and also rare minerals that are increasingly crucial for the high-end technologies required to build hybrid cars, wind turbines, and even the mobile phones we are so wedded to. How much of a bounty is there to be had? Japanese geologists estimate that a 2.3 square kilometre patch of seafloor might contain enough rare earth materials to sustain global demand for a year.
But ultimately, scour the oceans all we like, the earth will run out of the resources needed to maintain the lifestyles we have grown accustomed to, and, barring a technological miracle, earth’s rapidly growing and rabidly consumerist population will inevitably strip this planet clean.
When this will happen is up for debate: the WWF predicts that we will be forced to colonise two planets within 50 years if natural resources continue to be exploited at the current rate. Others are less alarmist, but the consensus is that resource exhaustion is simply a matter of when.
So the farsighted are looking beyond the confines of this blue planet; some plan to colonise the moon and even Mars but others have a more practical and profitable goal in mind: mining the many asteroids speckled around our solar system.
What would that yield? Consider that a single 500-metre diameter asteroid can contain more platinum than has even been mined in the history of the earth and you can get an idea why so many are salivating at the prospect of tapping these resources.
Then consider that there are over 2m asteroids in the asteroid belt, which has been valued by Nasa at a staggering $700 quintillion … that is $100 billion for every person living on earth right now.
Of course, not all of these asteroids are easily accessible but there are about 16,000 near-earth asteroids that several companies already have their eyes on. One of these asteroids is Eros, which is said to yield a value estimated at $15.84 trillion, and to contain more gold than has ever been mined in the history of the earth.
The companies pioneering asteroid mining are planetary resources and deep space industries, and PE has already started the first phase of this ambitious project launching the Arkyd3 Reflight satellite in early 2015 with the aim of identifying the likeliest asteroids for mining purposes. Their next satellite, the Arkyd-6 is twice as big, and was launched into orbit on Jan 11, 2018.
The end goal is still far away, as efficient resource extraction will eventually require the creation of deep-space mining colonies which will have to be relatively self-sufficient — using the resources found on asteroids to build new bases and even satellites and spaceships — and thus providing launching pads for the human colonisation of the solar system. In time, we may even see a subspecies of humanity emerge, one better suited to life in the low gravity of space stations. One thing is clear though: our salvation lies in the stars.
Source: dawn.com/news/1384406/final-frontiers
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Taxation and Politics in Gilgit-Baltistan
By Mudabbir Akhund
January 22, 2018
The people of Gilgit-Baltistan lack fundamental rights like the right to elect their representatives to the national Parliament and the right to have a say in use of their own natural resources.
Though the arbitrary administrative control of Pakistan over GB is not only welcomed by the locals, with passing time they have also showed their loyalty by sacrificing lives in the name of Pakistan, but even these sacrifices could not buy them citizenship rights from Islamabad.
Citizenship rights became important in the modern world with the emergence of the idea of nation-states. Not having citizenship rights, the people of GB lack any anchoring into the national foundations of Pakistan and have been rendered vulnerable as well as suspicious in the eyes of many in the rest of Pakistan. This is the reason why students from GB at education institutes in other parts of the country complain of being ‘alienated’ and ‘otherised’ while interacting with administrative forces like the police and other law enforcement agencies.
The political orphanage of GB is undeniably linked to the Kashmir dispute, and it is understood that Pakistan can never see GB detached from it, which in other words mean that people of GB will be able to exercise their fundamental rights only once the Kashmir dispute is resolved. But there has been zero progress on that front even after 70 years of Partition.
Importantly, the question of getting basic rights through self-determination has been a quite irrelevant question for the people of GB, until recently. In the last few decades, GB has undergone massive socio-economic changes, and its society has opened up to the rest of the world, resultantly a vast middle-class has appeared with its own prejudices and apolitical character. Politics has lost its meaning for this vast majority having an exceptional literacy rate. In their perception, the fight for constitutional rights or for self-determination is merely a wastage of time and energies which otherwise could be utilised to get a lucrative government job that will eventually help sustain a life with ‘dignity’ and ‘respect.’
If through some historical accident, GB had become a part of the Kashmir dispute, it does not mean that the people of the region should just wait and watch for another historical accident to rid themselves of the consequences. People ought to make history through their collective struggle and sacrifices
GB has remained a political enigma with respect to its status as a polity since the day it was affiliated with Pakistan. To come out from this perpetual politically volatile situation, the region has hitherto failed to create an all-inclusive and collective social movement around the issue of basic rights – the only exception being the struggle against the Dogra Raj and resultant declaration of independence on November 1, 1948. Although there have been attempts for collective struggle in the past, almost every time the movement was either purposefully crashed from within – before it could get strength – with use of sectarian, ethnic, and regional cards or from outside by its convenient tagging as anti-state.
In such a detestable situation for politics, political activists like Baba Jan have played the role of an icebreaker. Against the backdrop of Attabad land disaster, a sudden and spontaneous pressure group emerged in Hunza and started gaining momentum, demanding the rightful compensation for the victims, under the leadership of Baba Jan. It was purely a working-class movement that later also spoke for the constitutional rights of the region. But it was crushed from outside with all might of state machinery.
Here it becomes important to remind ourselves of the role that organised parties can play by leading and sustaining movements until they reach their logical conclusion. The party at the helm keeps a record of each and everything that can influence the movement both positively or negatively, and accordingly plans future strategy.
Instead of organised political parties, the political spectrum of GB in the last few years has remained dominated by spontaneous lobbies that build pressure on the government and get their exclusive self-interests protected.
Take the example of the recent movement built around the tax issue. It had enough potential to become the foundation that could have led the region towards a constitutional status and accompanied citizenship rights, but the lobby comprising mainly of traders and businessmen settled on the withdrawal of taxes mainly targeting people with high incomes, and the Awami Action Committee (leading the protests) vanished from the scene leaving the big questions of protection of constitutional rights and civil liberties untouched. The majority of the protestors, from the working classes, who spent cold nights on the roads during the agitation returned empty handed.
Spontaneous lobbies die out so quickly because they have no political project, no organization, and no room for laywomen and men to gain leadership positions.
The political lesson that can be learned from the recent protests is that while political organisation and mass movements do not depend on each other, they can complement each other for better results. Movements without organised party have not delivered fruitful results. If through some historical accident, GB had become a part of Kashmir dispute, it does not mean that the people of the region should just wait and watch for another historical accident to rid themselves of the consequences of the earlier one. People ought to make history through their collective struggle and sacrifices.
Source: dailytimes.com.pk/186162/taxation-politics-gilgit-baltistan/
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Troubled Exports
By Ali Tahir
January 22, 2018
WHAT ails Pakistan’s exports? The key causes are well known. These include: increase in domestic cost of production, erosion of the small- to medium-scale manufacturing sector in the country, contractionary fiscal policy pursued under the last IMF programme, prioritisation of revenue generation over business facilitation, high energy prices and shortages, security crisis and decline in global commodity prices.
Most economists concede that an overvalued rupee has been encouraging imports and adding to Pakistan’s burgeoning trade deficit for some time. But the extent of overvaluation and its negative impact on export growth are sticking points subject to inconclusive technical controversies.
For sceptics, too much emphasis on an overvalued rupee and its downward adjustment to push exports is misplaced. To them, historical evidence demonstrates that devaluations are temporary fixes and their impact usually peters out without sustained export growth. Reinforcing this view are Pakistan’s exports which increased in the first quarter of FY2018 sans devaluation.
Pakistan should take advantage of the global trade regime.
The above reasons, however, cannot explain why Pakistan’s exports in goods and services have grown only 36 per cent or so from 2005 to 2015 but those of Bangladesh, Vietnam, India, and Mexico have increased by 313pc, 473pc, 277pc and 175pc (World Development Indicators) respectively.
Why in terms of percentage share of GDP, have Pakistan’s exports slumped from 15.7pc in 2005 to 10.6pc in 2015 and those of Bangladesh risen from 14.4pc to 17.3pc, India from 19.8pc to 19.9pc, Vietnam from 63.7pc to 89.9pc and Mexico from 26.6pc to 35.1pc in the same period?
Why has Pakistan, the fourth largest producer of cotton, been trumped in textiles by Vietnam and Bangladesh who import all their raw materials?
To understand the underlying dynamics, one needs to look beyond supply side factors in Pakistan and identify global catalysts which have propelled comparable developing economies into becoming export engines of the world in the past decade. One can identify at least four key reasons.
First is the steady inflow of Foreign Direct Investment into export-oriented sectors of these competing economies. From 2005 to 2015, Vietnam, India, Mexico and Bangladesh have respectively received $82 billion, $326bn, $308bn, and 16bn as net FDI. These inflows have been divided into export sectors including textiles and others. Pakistan received almost $29bn, but this investment was concentrated in local communications, oil and gas, power, and financial sectors with negligible inflows in export sectors of the economy. FDI in export sectors of recipient countries is usually driven by and tied to pre-arranged market access, and it scuttles competition with suppliers from other countries. This has been one of the reasons for the stagnation of Pakistan’s textile exports to countries like the United States.
Second, the mushrooming of free/preferential trade agreements (FTAs) amongst countries reduces the incidence of tariff on member countries, putting non-members at a competitive disadvantage. According to the WTO statistics, the current tally is around 453 with most signed in the past 15 years. Some such agreements, including the US FTAs with Bahrain, Jordan and Oman, Nafta and Asean have directly eaten into Pakistan’s potential textile exports; others have simply driven Pakistan out from the market or squeezed its share due to higher incidence of tariffs on its products. A recent case in point which reflects the beneficial impact of such arrangements is the spike in Pakistan’s own exports to the EU after it was granted GSP Plus status and related tariff concessions.
Third is the regionalisation of trade in the past decade and a half, which is also an outcome of preferential trade agreements. This has led to promotion of inter-regional trade amongst countries at the expense of their global partners. For example, Nafta, Asean and the EU accounted for almost 58pc of the world’s merchandise trade in 2016. West Asia where Pakistan is located has lagged behind, and failed to grow as a regional trade hub due to intra-state rivalries.
Finally, Pakistan’s economy has not been integrated into cross-border production value chains of multinationals and other large corporates. Such networks guarantee market access without competition to beneficiary economies and their intermediate products now account for a large share of global exports and imports.
Pakistan’s inability to take advantage of structural shifts in the global trade regime has stunted its exports no less than other domestic factors. The country’s greatest weakness lies in its continued perception amongst foreign buyers as an unpredictable and unsafe place to do long-term business. It is necessary to see competitiveness and stability as two sides of the same coin to achieve sustained export growth as witnessed by Pakistan’s competitors.
Source: dawn.com/news/1384407/troubled-exports
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