Pakistan holding trump card on NATO supply halt

Though initially the United States was not showing any anxiety on Pakistan’s action to halt all supplies to US-led forces in Afghanistan through Pakistani soil, at least the statements emanated from Washington reflected so, but, after three weeks, the reports reaching from Afghanistan suggested that Pakistani action has inflicted a telling blow on them.

A panic-like situation is witnessed in the military camps and garrisons across the Durand line as level of mobility and actions of the forces fighting with Taliban have come down. The winter has become very harsh for the NATO forces after cutting off fuel supply through tankers from Pakistan, standing in long queues at Pakistani ports, different areas on Pak-Afghan borders and roadsides resting places along the highways in Pakistan waiting green signal from the government.

More than four thousand tankers engaged in supplies have been halted while the loading and carrying containers with food and other essentials have also been stopped, cutting off life line of the forces, at least in this harsh winter when the northern supply routes through Central Asian Republics and Russian Federation have also frozen this year.

Pakistan is holding a crucial trump card at least for three months when this inhospitable winter will keep its wings on the northern supply routes for the forces in Afghanistan. The US can manage its light supplies through northern routes by air, but its heavy supplies, possible only through sea and land routes can not be carried out in this harsh winter without route from Pakistani. Even, a long supply route through Russian Federation and central Asian Republics, after the winter is over will cost the super power 100 times more than the route through Pakistan, which is the shortest one.

The situation for the NATO forces can further worsen, if Pakistan announces to close air corridor given to the US over Pakistani territory. This situation can precipitate the miseries for the forces fighting in a barren land infested with Taliban. Pakistan Government is also contemplating to put taxes and route cess on NATO supplies, the sources in the government said.

All these steps can expedite the evacuation of US-led NATO forces from neighbouring Afghanistan, the sources told this scribe.

Nato supply disruption reduces tea smuggling

Tea smuggling from Afghanistan has started declining after disconnection of NATO supply and improvement in border control system during last few months. With the slight decline in smuggling from the neighbouring country, the legal import of the highly consumed kitchen item has also started increasing, sources told Profit. Though improvement in legal imports of tea is temporary and lesser as compared to over 40 per cent smuggling Afghanistan, the fresh move of controlling borders will benefit the country, they said.

 

The interruption in NATO supply from Pakistani border has caused decline in smuggling in the couple of months. Tea, as one of the major import items of Afghanistan under Afghanistan Pakistan Transit Trade Agreement (APTTA), was mostly being smuggled to Pakistan as it was not being consumed in the neighbouring country. Major import commodities included yarn and synthetic staple fibers fabric; electrical appliance and equipment; yarn and fabric of synthetic filament; machinery and mechanical appliance; paper and paperboard; animal and vegetable oils; coffee and spices; rubber and article thereof; sugar and sugar confectionaries; auto parts and accessories, etc.

 

According to sources, Pakistani market consumes 225,000 tonnes a year currently with handsome annual growth in imports and sales. The import of black tea is heavily carried out from different countries for meeting the local demand. Pakistan meets its green tea requirement from five countries including Indonesia, Vietnam, Bangladesh, China and Sri Lanka. Vietnam has a major share of 64.38 per cent in this group. Indonesia, Bangladesh and China’s shares in Pakistan’s green tea market are 2.33 per cent, 3.58 per cent, and 29.76 per cent respectively.

Facing the music: President Zardari returns under the cover of night

The president’s arrival prompted almost as much confusion as his departure.

Protocol was in place for a landing in Islamabad and Karachi, but ultimately Pre­sident Asif Zardari arrived back in Karachi, where top Pakistan Peoples Party officials had gathered at Bilawal House.

Despite initial reports of an afternoon arrival, the president landed just after 1am at the PAF Base Masroor in the city’s Mauripur area and was driven straight to Bilawal House. He was accompanied by seven people on his private plane, including his daughter Aseefa and the petroleum minister, Dr Asim Hussain.

The acting president Farooq Naek and the president’s sister Faryal Talpur were on hand at his city residence to receive the president – alongside a heavy security presence. Sindh Home Minister Manzoor Wassan personally supervised the security arrangements, which saw extra Rangers deployed all around Bilawal House and other parts of the city.

Talking to the media, the Sindh home minister could not resist a dig at the president’s detractors in the electronic media. “These pundits on TV channels were predicting the president would never come.”

The president’s spokesman Farahatullah Babar had earlier said that the “president is now fine and the doctors have given him permission to travel, but we cannot disclose his schedule with media.”

Sources indicate that after resting, the president will hold key meetings for a few days before flying off to Islamabad. “He can hold meetings with party leaders to dispel the impression that he is suffering from serious illness and afraid of recent developments in the wake of the memo case,” a senior PPP leader said, adding that Zardari will be in Larkana on December 27 to attend the death anniversary of Benazir Bhutto.

The president flew to Dubai on December 6, sparking a flurry of speculation about his health – and the health of democracy in the country. He was released from the city’s American Hopsital on Wednesday and has been convalescing at his residence in the emirate. The official line is that he was treated for a transient ischemic attack, in which the blood supply to a part of the nervous system is cut off, but not for long enough to kill tissue, as happens in a stroke. According to the presidency, Zardari suffered numbness and twitching in his left arm and had lost consciousness for a few seconds.

“I’m gonna make him an offer he can’t refuse”- Don Vito Corleone, The Godfather (1972), this dialogue comes to my mind , when i think about Mr. Zardari. Welcome back Sir, the media have just made you more stronger…

Mehreen Syed joins list of power women as L’Oréal Spokesperson

Claiming a right for a multi-faceted beauty over a standardised or perfect beauty, L’Oréal Paris, the world’s leading beauty brand, and its international ambassadors have always been influential personalities from the world of arts, fashion and beauty: Penelope Cruz, Aishwarya Rai, Eva Longoria, Beyonce Knowles, Jane Fonda and Patrick Dempsey are a few amongst the many who have come to represent a cross section of age, morphology and ethnic origin - all illustrative of the brands’ beauty philosophy. L’Oréal Paris Pakistan’s spokespeople share the same brand philosophy and this December 2011, the brand proudly introduces glamorous model and media personality Mehreen Syed as a Spokesperson in Pakistan. 

Mehreen Syed, one of Pakistan’s top supermodels, has set national, regional and international fashion runways ablaze with her show stopping poise and confidence. She continues to grace the pages of local and international magazines and is among Pakistani’s most sought after supermodels. An entrepreneur, Mehreen has most recently launched the International Fashion Academy Pakistan [IFAP] where she combines her expertise in fashion with her business acumen to lead the institute with a passion to succeed and indeed contribute positively to institutionalizing and organizing the fashion industry in Pakistan today. 

Indeed through IFAP Mehreen has sought to establish a platform that allows the next generation of fashion industry professionals, specifically stylists, models, makeup artists and photographers, to study their field in a professional environment, equipping aspiring specialists with the technical know-how and exposure enabling such students to be able to pursue such studies as a viable career. As model, Mehreen has also achieved numerous accolades which to her credit include the “International Model of the Year” award in 2005, “Face of the Year” award in 2007, “Glamorous Entrepreneur” award in 2010 and was ranked 16th in the Hottest 50 Asian Women in the World 2009 survey.

Real revolutions

There is disappointment among many young Egyptians who took part in the movement that toppled the autocratic government of Hosni Mubarak.

The cause of this disappointment is the impressive electoral showing of both the moderate as well as hardcore Islamist parties in the recently concluded parliamentary election (the first of its kind in that country).

The same transpired in the recent election in Tunisia as well, the country from where the so-called ‘Arab Spring’ sprung up triggering a series of democratic movements in Egypt, Yemen, Syria and Bahrain. But I do wonder exactly what the young Tunisians and Egyptians who gathered in their thousands to agitate and send their respective autocrats packing were expecting from their revolutions? Clearly many weren’t aware of the history of such movements that suggests that ideological uprisings that result in democracy hardly ever facilitates the voting in of the ideologues of the movement. Instead, after the turmoil, people are more likely to vote for stability. Such has been the case in the history of protest movements even in developed democratic countries, where potent protests and uprisings (usually against scruffy and corrupt systems), have seen those parties that were attacked the most being voted back into power. This is one of the main reasons why many revolutions decided to spring up new ruling elites and dictatorships instead of legitimising their revolutionary successes through an electoral process. Maybe history taught them that their ideological successes in the streets could not be transformed into an electoral victory, mainly due to the practical and circumspective nature of the electorate that usually votes for economic and social stability rather than a continuation of ‘revolutionary turmoil’. Of course, one did not expect young Egyptians or Tunisians (who’d envisioned the dawn of some enlightened era of secular Arab democracy) to be well versed in the theoretical and historical trends regarding democratic movements and their outcomes. But examples are always there to see and learn from.

Two examples worthy of a deeper study by those disappointed by the election results in Egypt and Tunisia are the radical uprisings in France and the United States in the late 1960s. In May 1968, a left-wing student uprising against the conservative government of Charles de Gaulle was soon joined by both blue and white collar unions and also managed to attract the sympathy of the middle-class. The uprising and the strikes that it triggered were so intense that de Gaulle, a war hero and president, resigned, calling for new elections.

The result: Reeling from days of protests and strikes, the electorate gave a thumping victory to the candidate of the pro-de Gaulle party that (along with allies) won a crushing 57 per cent of the total vote. Furthermore, in the 1969 presidential elections, it was again the candidate of the Gaullist party that swept aside his main leftist opponent.

So what happened? The boisterous hue and cry heard in the streets, campuses, factories and the media did not transform into votes as the voters settled for stability that they felt only mainstream parties could guarantee. The rebels had great slogans, but it was the conventional parties that actually had an economic and political plan.

What gets missed is the fact that (ever since the mid-20th century), populist political movements are not exactly political in nature; they are more social in context. That’s why, and as can be seen in the rebellious uprisings by the youth in the West in the 1960s, the impact of such movements was more social and cultural than political. The intense leftist student turmoil of the 1960s in the US for example, impacted the country’s sociological and cultural aspects more than its political structures.

The youth uprisings failed to put America’s two mainstream parties in the dock. As a matter of fact, the loud movements there when taken to the electorate saw the election of a conservative, Richard Nixon (Republican Party) in 1968 and then again in 1972 (in a landslide). The promise of returning to stability through mainstream parties overwhelmed the movements’ more revolutionary posturing at the polls.

Even in Iran when after a popular Islamic revolution toppled a despotic monarch in 1979, the first election held under the Islamic revolutionary regime (in 1980) did not usher in a tsunami of votes for the revolutionaries. For example, in the legislative elections the revolution’s ‘official party’ won 130 of the total 270 seats whereas the collective seats of parties opposed to the revolutionary maneuvers of the Islamists also managed to gather 130 seats (120 to liberal democrats and 10 to Marxists).

What’s more in the same year’s presidential election, it was the liberal/moderate, Abolhasan Banisadr, who bagged a whooping 76.5 per cent of the vote compared to the pro-revolution Islamist candidate who could only muster 4.8 per cent.
Promise of post-revolution stability outweighed revolutionary turmoil in the elections. So much so that alarmed by the results, Iran’s revolutionary elite (within a year) impeached Banisadr (for opposing the ‘revolution’s principals’ and being ‘soft on pro-West liberals and communists’). Movements attempting to cleanse so-called corrupt systems and challenge the ‘hegemony’ of established democratic parties or of undemocratic despots must learn how to evolve their boisterous and defiant ways from being street-and-media-savvy heroism to becoming circumspect, organised and practical harbingers of economic and social stability because that is what is on a majority of the voters’ minds on election day. Revolution thrives in the streets (and now social media), but it is stability and a practical programme outlining the modus-operandi of achieving this stability that carries the ballot.

And those concerned about the Islamists’ victory in Tunisia and Egypt should actually be respecting the people’s democratic mandate, no matter how ‘disappointing’ it is. Real revolutions come through the vote. They make more sense.

The Bangladesh model

The debacle of Dhaka is regarded as a national tragedy in the history of Pakistan whereas the people of Bangladesh celebrate December 16 as their day of Independence. 40 years have passed, but our feudal vanity has restrained us from learning any lesson from the catastrophe of Dhaka or to mend our policies or priorities in any sector. I have no desire of highlighting the reasons for the creation of Bangladesh. Instead, I would prefer to highlight the reasons of the prosperity and peace in Bangladesh.

Soon after its creation, the people of Bangladesh had carried out fundamental reforms in their constitution and system of governance. Like vast majority of the Muslim countries, the prefix of “Islamic” was omitted from the name of Bangladesh. This was the case of Pakistan as well for some years after its creation. Neither the Quaid-e-Azam nor the Independence Act of 1947, called Pakistan an Islamic Republic. Instead, it was called “Dominion of Pakistan” or simply “Republic of Pakistan”. There was logic in this decision as religions are meant for the people and not for the state. In their constitution, the people of Bangladesh very wisely decided to specify four cardinal principles of the state namely secularism, socialism, nationalism and democracy. Initially, there was a clause in their Constitution that stated that “Islam will be state religion”. Subsequently, even this clause was deleted. The superior courts of Bangladesh imposed a complete prohibition on issuance of any fatwa by any religious organisation or scholar in the name of Islam, on any issue. The said decisions have created religious harmony and saved minority sects of Muslims from being branded as kaafir. Resultantly, incidents of sectarian killing or religious militant extremism and intolerance, which are rampant in Pakistan, rarely occur in Bangladesh.

Religious harmony and absence of terrorism are the key factors that have contributed to the phenomenal economic development in Bangladesh. Peace is a precondition for any country to prosper. Unfortunately, we have destroyed the same. The intense floods that Pakistan has suffered from in 2010 and 2011, the people of Bangladesh suffer the same if not more, virtually every year along with the cyclones. But unlike us, they apply efficient flood control management to minimise the losses and suffering. Despite these natural disasters, most economic indicators of Bangladesh appear to be much better than Pakistan. Unlike us, Bangladesh allocates a high percentage of about 12 percent for education and technology in its annual budget. On the other hand, their allocation for defence is merely 7.3 percent in the current budget. The GDP growth in Bangladesh has been around 6 percent and 6.7 percent this year. Until recently, the Bangladeshi Takka was better by 20 percent in comparison to the Pak rupee. Bangladesh does not grow a single ounce of cotton, but it is one of the largest exporters of cotton garments and materials. In contrast, Pakistan is one of the biggest growers of cotton, but rarely, we have surpassed the export targets of Bangladesh in the recent past.

Bangladesh does not possess nuclear weapons or technology. We do possess nuclear weapons and technology, but regrettably, we are incapable of maintaining even our nuclear power generation station in Karachi in working order or use this energy to meet the colossal energy shortage. Though Bangladesh had more population at the time of its creation in comparison to Pakistan, but it has managed to control its population, which is now around 145 million as opposed to 180 million in Pakistan. The foreigners visiting Bangladesh are in much larger number because of the peace and economic growth. Sadly, our hotels are rarely full and the foreign investors/visitors now hold their meetings with their Pakistani counterparts in Dubai, due to the insecurity in Pakistan.

Unlike Pakistan, Bangladesh is fortunate not to have any major territorial dispute or tension on its borders. Recently, when the Indian PM visited Dhaka, Bangladesh resolved its territorial disputes amicably by signing an agreement with India. They still have serious differences with India on water issues, but resolution is pursued through peaceful negotiations. Bangladesh is much smaller than India, but it does not fear threats to its existence. Most painfully, our country is much larger and our arm forces are much better equipped and we do possess nuclear weapons but, Pakistan’s integrity is consistently been threatened by the religious extremists militants within Pakistan and from both Western and Eastern borders.

If Bangladesh being one of the largest Muslim countries can have a secular constitution and system, I see no reason why we can not. It is absolutely false and baseless to allege that secularism is against Islam or promotes la-deeniyat. The undeniable truth is that in a secular society people are more free and safe to follow the religion or sect of their choice, as was guaranteed by our Quaid-e-Azam. It is the plight of Pakistan, more particularly after the dictatorial reins of Gen Zia and Gen Pervez Musharraf, that religious extremism and militancy has risen to such a level that Muslims in Pakistan are being constantly killed by the Muslims in the name of Islam. It is all due to exploitation of religion for nefarious selfish political aims and objects of our dictatorial rulers and their civilian collaborators that we are in such a mess that neither the life nor property nor places of worship of Muslims or that of non-Muslims are safe in our country. In all four wars with India put together, our armed forces, law enforcement agencies and ordinary citizens have not suffered as many casualties as they have at the hands of religious terrorists.

It is high time that Pakistan must radically correct its internal and external policies, political strategy and priorities to eliminate all kinds of terrorists and bigots from our soil, establish relations on peaceful basis with all our neighbours and learn lessons from the constitutional, political, religious and cultural reforms and strategies adopted by Bangladesh.

Pakistan PM rules out military 

intervention

Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani denied a military intervention was imminent against his government over a secret memo that sought US help to prevent a supposed coup.

Tensions between the army and government appear to have soared in recent days as intelligence chiefs demanded an inquiry into the scandal that threatens to implicate President Asif Ali Zardari, who is abroad following an illness.

“There is no room for a martial law in Pakistan,” Gilani said in a brief televised interaction with the media in Lahore, two days after he met army chief General Ashfaq Kayani in Islamabad.

Pakistan’s military, which has staged four coups, remains the chief power-broker in the country.

But Gilani described the memo as a “non-issue” which was being blown up unnecessarily.

The scandal relates to a memo that sought US intervention to prevent a feared military coup in exchange for overhauling Pakistan’s security leadership after US troops killed Osama bin Laden near the Pakistani capital on May 2.

The existence of the document came to light when American-Pakistani businessman Mansoor Ijaz wrote in the Financial Times that Zardari feared the military might overthrow his government.

Ijaz accused Pakistan’s ambassador to Washington, a close aide of Zardari’s, of crafting the memo with the president’s support.

Opposition leader Nawaz Sharif filed a petition in the Supreme Court on December 1, demanding to know who was responsible for the document.

The PIA syndrome

In 1962, PIA, Pakistan’s flag carrier, created a world record flying from London to Karachi nonstop in the shortest amount of time which was 6 hours 43 minutes and 51 seconds. The record remains unbeaten to this day. Enter 2011, and the Hajj season: one of the busiest times of the year, with an immense amount of passengers, calling for good services, crucially on time flights and a good experience. But alas, the PIA is far from the airline that it was in 1962. With the flights being delayed for an uncertain amount of time and thousands of passengers stranded in the terminals, the PIA’s inefficiency was more evident than it has been for years. And it isn’t only these delayed flights and the stranded passengers that have plagued PIA and its passengers but a number of things which include the poor condition of the airplanes, the shortage of the planes themselves, crash landings and an administration that can barely be bothered. All in all, we can say that the past 3-4 years, have easily been the worst in the history for the national flag carrier airline of Pakistan, and things do not seem to be getting better.

The ‘loss’ brigade
Earlier this year, PIA announced that it had once again suffered a loss of 10.7 billion rupees, just in the first half of the year. The cabinet committee on loss making entities has said that it might use 20 billion rupees on the condition of restructuring the airline. One of the main reasons why the debt is increasing every year for the national flag bearer is its Rs15 billion long term debt, on which it has had to pay billions of dollars of interest every year. Along with the long term debt, the short term liabilities for PIA are also increasing at an alarming rate and if not dealt with soon, will lead to more liquidity problems. In 2008, the airline’s accumulated losses stood as high as Rs73 billion and have risen to over Rs107 billion at present. Financially, it is this long term debt, and the losses that are not dealt with which is causing most other problems for the airline. There are a number of varied opinions regarding why this does exist; politics, global economy and inefficiency are cited as a few, and they all hold true. 

Diverging interests
First, we will take on the problem that is cited by the Pakistani officials. In order to take blame away from themselves and the airline, the directors of PIA and the government have time and again blamed the global economic conditions for its persistent financial losses. The primary blame goes, as expected to the rising oil prices in the world and the conflict in the Middle East. True as it might be, the rising oil prices and the conflict in many OPEC countries is not the only reason why PIA is in such a sorry state. Oil prices have been on the rise for the past five years, but the rise has not been very sharp or unanticipated. If proper planning was done, and appropriate cost cutting measures were used by the airline, the negative effect of this ‘bombing in oil prices’ could have been countered much more effectively.

Politics of disaster
Other airline companies too have experienced losses in 2011 but for PIA, the same story has existed from way before the current year. Adding to the fact that the Pakistani currency is in an abyss of devaluation, the problem just doesn’t seem to get better. What I meant by proper cost cutting measures was mostly, reducing the staff. The PIA is one of Pakistan’s largest employers, with over 18000 employees within its ranks. The average staff-planes ratio for an effective airline is supposed to be somewhere around 100:1 aircraft. The PIA however has an overwhelming ratio of 400:1, clearly being overstaffed. In order to run the airline smoothly, some hard decisions have to be made by the administration and one of the most important decisions that they do have to make is to reduce the number of employees in order to work more efficiently and reduce the losses at the same time. 

The sordid journey
Now we will take a look at how and why the passenger experience has decreased over the years for the PIA passengers. People have complained of soggy seat covers and messy floor carpets in the planes. There are bathrooms which seem to stink even when one is far away from them. Such aspects are reminiscent of the forms of transportation in Pakistan that are much cheaper, like trains, busses and wagons and are hardly good for people who have been paying increasing amounts of airfare. Adding to that fact is that the passengers have to deal with rattling aircrafts and poor equipment, and of course the hours of waiting at the Hajj terminals. Two PIA aircrafts were grounded on ‘technical grounds’ which left thousands of passengers stranded in the Hajj terminals. It is inexcusable for a national flag carrier to malfunction, and not have a backup plan for such a crucial time of the year. When the airplanes eventually did arrive, upon landing, one of the plane’s engines caught fire, causing a horrid landing at the Allama Iqbal airport, which again left the Hajjis trapped inside the plane for several hours. So the PIA ended up making an event that many will cherish for their entire lives, one that they would remember for all the wrong reasons. Not only did PIA mismanage its planes and flights, it also put the lives of many local passengers at risk when its Boeing 747 caught fire near the Allama Iqbal airport. Had it been anytime earlier, the plane might have had to make an even cruder or even fatal crash landing. Why the condition of the planes and the fleet is so, can be explained by analysing the situation in greater detail. 

Playing with lives
Due to the financial losses that the PIA has been suffering for the past few years, rather than using formal cost cutting procedures such as reducing the staff, they have resorted to play with their passengers’ lives by cutting back on their fleet maintenance and up-gradation. PIA has had a problem of maintenance and repairs for quite some time now. It is stated that the tender for the maintenance of the aircrafts has been given to a company that does not have an international reputation, and does not possess the necessary technology or skill to maintain an international airline’s fleet. It is pertinent to mention that one of PIA aircrafts was inspected at Paris Airport by the inspectors of Safety Assessment of Foreign Aircraft (SAFA) while en route from Paris to Lahore. They detected several snags in the aircraft. The organisation warned PIA to overpower the shortcomings or face the consequences. The team detected fuel leakage from one of the engines of Airbus A-310. It is further stated that PIA tends to sublet dubious and substandard companies with no international credibility and little experience for maintaining its fleet. Some former employees have even come forth with claims that high-ups of PIA have financial stake in these small and substandard companies, which is why they are favored. The obscure vendors, hired by PIA, are one of the major problems. 

Vested interests, bleak future
Once again we see that the interests of the higher ups are entertained over the interests of the general populace. It is not surprising to see that such a policy exists in a government institution when the powers that be have adopted similar policies themselves. Like the country, the national airline is also losing its national credibility and with the people in power, leeching off through their vested interests, the state of the airline has been left in tatters, and it does not seem that it will be fixed anytime soon, judging by how things are going. Unless the proposed bailout does take place, the future of the national airline does in fact look bleak. If the administration does not admit that it is more than the rising oil prices and currency devaluation that is hurting them, and takes solid measures, the fleet of PIA will soon be stranded on ground, rather than operating up in the air. A change of administration is desperately needed and even though it does sound clichéd, without an administration that actually cares for the safety and well being of the people, there is little chance for the revival of PIA. 

Aisamul Haq ties the knot


Aisamu­l Haq Quresh­i marrie­d Faha Akmal in Lahore on Saturd­ay.

Aisamul Haq Qureshi poses along with his wife after their wedding ceremony on Saturday evening. PHOTO: APP

LAHORE: Pakistan tennis star Aisamul Haq Qureshi tied the knot with Faha Akmal on Saturday evening at an elaborate ceremony in Lahore, Express News reported.

Qureshi, decked out in a trendy white sherwani with a red jewel on his chest, signed off on the legal documents among family and friends before being joined by his wife on stage at the Garrison Club.

Akmal, a British citizen, wore a red dress with golden encrustations. She had recently acquired a masters degree in psychotherapy from the University of Greenwich, UK.

Akmal’s father, Dr Muhammad Akmal Makhdum is the son of renowned educationist of Pakistan, professor Muhammad Ajmal, former secretary education, principal of Government College Lahore and vice chancellor Punjab University.

 

Social media users widely criticized and circulated a picture of a female Egyptian protester who was stripped from her black abaya by some army men. (Photo courtesy of twitter users)

Is Egypt becoming another Pakistan?

The past experience of three major players on the Egyptian political scene ― the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), the US Embassy and Islamists ― suggests that Egypt may soon come to resemble Pakistan.
But why Pakistan and not Turkey? Though many have long hoped to implement the Turkish model in Egypt, Pakistan ― not Turkey ― seems to be the most plausible outcome. In fact, Egypt may turn out a worse version of Pakistan.

Field Marshall Hussein Tantawi, the head of the ruling SCAF, worked as a military attache in Pakistan and has made no secret of his admiration for civil-military relationship there. In Pakistan, he believes, politics is the job of politicians but the military maintains the right to change the power equation whenever it wants, because state affairs are too important to be left completely in the hands of civilians.

Over the last 40 or so years, Pakistan has seen military coups led by generals Zia-ul-Haq and Pervez Musharraf. In the Pakistani power equation, the army is the compass.

US Ambassador to Egypt Anne Patterson is also experienced in Pakistani affairs, following years of work there at a time when political tensions between the two countries ― in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, the invasion of Afghanistan and the rise of Islamists in Afghanistan and Pakistan ― were at their peak.

Patterson is prepared to implement a similar plan in Egypt ― a currently unstable country that has important military and religious waves that need to be tamed to incorporate US interests into their agendas. Having successfully led a similar process in Pakistan, Patterson is the right woman for an Egypt that is transforming into another Pakistan, with the rise of the Salafi-led Nour and Brotherhood-led Freedom and Justice parties to power.

Signs have emerged that the US is changing its stance toward rising Islamists. First, the US moved Patterson from Pakistan to Egypt. Then, US officials, including Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, expressed trust in the Brotherhood before the conduct of elections.

Next, US Senator John Kerry, Chairman of the Senate's Foreign Relations Committee, visited the FJP’s headquarters during his recent visit to Egypt, a gesture suggesting that the US is ready to deal with a Muslim Brotherhood-led Egypt.

Another reason why Egypt may evolve into another Pakistan is the fact that most religious waves in Egypt have, since the 1970s, been drawing on the writings of Pakistani thinker Abul Aala Maududi, who is closer in thought to Sayyed Qutb than he is to Hassan al-Banna.

The normal process would be for Islamic ideas to spread from Arab countries ― the owners of the Arabic language and jurisprudence ― to non-Arabic-speaking countries, and not the opposite. Oddly enough, though, political Islamism originated in the Indian subcontinent and spread to Arab countries, such that the younger generations of Arabs currently do not realize that Maududi is not an Arab.

We should therefore brace ourselves for the pakistanization of Egypt. Thinkers should get busy studying the Pakistani model instead of wasting their time examining a Turkish model that will never happend.

(The writer is a columist and political commentator. This article first appeared in Al Masry Al Youm on Dec. 16, 2011)

Pakistan PM seeks to dispel rumors of army rift


Pakistan's prime minister dismissed speculation of a rift between the government and the military over a secret memo sent to Washington seeking its help in averting a supposed military coup, saying the country was committed to democracy.


Political tensions have soared in recent days as the Supreme Court begins a hearing into the circumstance surrounding the memo. The absence of President Asif Ali Zardari, recovering from a likely "mini stroke" in his Dubai home with no word on his return, has only added to rumors that the current civilian administration is in possible fatal trouble.

Zardari's plentiful critics are hoping the scandal will lead to his ouster, and delighted in portraying his trip to Dubai on Dec. 6 as a flight from the fallout from the memo. The president's aides have denied that, and most independent analysts believe the veteran politician, who has outlasted numerous predictions of his demise since taking office in 2008, will ride it out.

Late Friday, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani met with army chief Gen. Ashfaq Pervez Kayani to discuss the memo.

Gilani said in a statement he rejected the nation of a "standoff" between the army and the government.

"The government of Pakistan and its institutions remain committed to their constitutional roles and obligations to a democratic and prosperous future for Pakistan," he said.

Tensions between the army and the government could complicate American attempts to rebuild ties with a country seen by many U.S. officials as key to shepherding peace in Afghanistan. A raid by the U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan in late November killed 24 Pakistani soldiers, hammering relations already strained by American suspicions that Islamabad is playing both sides in the Afghan war and virulent anti-U.S. sentiments inside Pakistan.
Pakistan has a long history of army coups or behind the scenes meddling by the generals to engineer pliant regimes, often with the support of the judiciary. That has left the country's 180 million people specially receptive to the idea that the collapse of the government is just around the corner.