Two promising institutions: Part - II

The People’s Primary Healthcare Initiative-Balochistan (PPHI-B) is another success

story that we must highlight so that some positive developments in Balochistan can
come to notice, both nationally and internationally. Of course, we cannot attribute
the success of this project to an individual. It is the work of multiple teams, the
board of directors led by eminent writer Munir Badini, and the donors that have
contributed immensely.

Several stakeholders have guided the PPHI-B by their knowledge and expertise so
that it can implement its mission tasks and initiatives. Primarily, it has worked to
improve the quality of health services across Balochistan. Though overall the health
department of the government of Balochistan is responsible for providing an
enabling environment to the PPHI-B, its young CEO Aziz Jamali has worked
wonders. Supported by partners such as the WHO, Global Fund, JICA, Mercy Corps,
the National Health Institute (NHI) Islamabad, and some others, the PPHI-B is
transforming the health scene in Balochistan. The Institute of Public Health in
Quetta and the Health Services Academy Islamabad have also helped it.

The same applies to organizations such as BRSP, NRSP, IDSP and Jhpiego which have
supported this initiative. This model is based on contracting out the management
and execution of primary health services to PPHI. The 18th Amendment introduced
by the PPP government in 2010 further enhanced provincial autonomy and
empowered the provinces in this regard. As a result, so far nearly 700 Basic health
Units (BHUs) and Health Facilities (HFs) across the 33 districts of Balochistan have
come under the administration of the PPHI-B. Perhaps the best part is that the
PPHI-B operates as a not-for-profit registered company with a board of directors.

Here it is important to understand that primary healthcare refers to the first point
of contact between a patient and the health system usually via one or more health
professionals at a BHU. Sometimes, primary healthcare also refers to emergency
room visits. It may include curative care, disease prevention and health promotion
in a particular community. Ideally, it should be free and the state should be held
accountable if it fails to provide primary healthcare in every nook and corner of the
country. Although without addressing the issues of poverty most problems remain
unsolved, the PPHI-B is contributing its bit to address at least some issues in the
health sector.

It is governed by a sound legal and regulatory framework which helps in its

autonomous functions. The PPHI-B appears to be committed to health equity
without which no social justice can be complete. Another feature that one can
observe is its stress on community participation not only in defining but also
implementing its health agenda. It has also acquired appropriate technology to
respond effectively to health management challenges. The PPHI-B has not only
focused on improving public health in rural areas but also in urban slums and has
been able to reduce preventable mortalities, especially among women and
children.

A major problem that the public health sector faces across Pakistan is low capacity
of healthcare providers, and Balochistan is even worse in comparison with other
provinces. To counter this, the PPHI-B has evaluated the healthcare services in
Balochistan. Without such evaluation, no improvement could be achieved in the
first place. Second, it managed and monitored the health infrastructure across the
province. As a result, a focus on BHUs and HFs started helping the local populations,
at least in some of the areas of primary health. An imbalance between primary and
secondary care still exists and a lot needs to be done to reduce such disparities in
Balochistan.

Primary care cost and equity still remain a challenge as even with donor support
they cannot be met adequately. Being a garrison state focused on security, Pakistan
has overall neglected the human development and welfare needs of its people.
After the 18th Amendment, the provinces have tried to alter their preferences to
some extent and that has helped the PPHI-B too. Defining priorities has been one
of the features of the PPHI because once it was able to prioritize it could measure
primary care and improve practices leading to noticeable reforms in healthcare.
Another achievement of the PPHI-B is its transition in focus from therapeutic to
preventive medicine which is essential to reduce hospitalization rates. That
includes cultural and environmental factors that contribute to diseases. Though the
PPHI model is working in other provinces too, the scattered nature of population
and rough territories in Balochistan make it even more challenging and it becomes
a literally uphill task to offer health services across the province. Now with
improved health facilities, the ageing population has also become a challenge.
While previously maternal and neonatal mortality were the primary concerns, now
communicable and infectious diseases have doubled the burden, especially in the
wake of the covid-19 pandemic.

Luckily, the Balochistan Nutrition Programme was already underway when the
Covid-19 pandemic descended on Balochistan. The project completed in December
2019 just a couple of months before the advent of Covid-19. The timely completion
of this project left Balochistan slightly better prepared thanks to the PPHI-B. But
malnutrition is still there and must be tackled by the donors and the government
of Balochistan by providing more funds to the initiative.

Another challenge that the PPHI-B is facing relates to stunting and wasting among
children below five years of age. This comes from anemia among women of
productive age. And that in turn emanates from food insecurity and lack of
livelihood resulting in rampant poverty.

It is alarming that Pakistan ranks fifth in the world in terms of the largest number
of unimmunized children, and Balochistan taken separately is even worse. This is
while we claim to be the seventh atomic power in the world and Balochistan was
the locale for the atomic detonation. The PPHI-B is lucky to have Aziz Jamali as its
CEO and Dr Ameer Bakhsh as its technical director, and of course their teams
support them to achieve the targets. By the end of 2020, another 100 or so BHUs
are expected to be functional.

The PPHI-B model appears to be both: efficient and flexible. It has been efficient as
most BHUs under its purview are functional and operating, of course with limited
medical and professional resources. Now there is a need for a massive scaling-up
of immunization of children under one year, and reduction of malnutrition among
children under five years. In the same token, population growth is an issue that we
need to tackle. The population growth rate in Pakistan is nearly 2.5 percent,
whereas in Balochistan it is nearly 3.4 percent.

With a population of 13 million people scattered across the vast arid and hilly areas
of Balochistan, the teams of the PPHI-B are putting their heart and soul into their
meagre resources, and must be appreciated. Now the PPHI-B must conduct more
independent evaluations and consistent monitoring mechanisms must be in place
to continue working. Regular assessments of its work are in order, which must go
beyond its own routine monitoring. To remain effective, it needs independent
reviews. In the end, to prove my point, let me give some solid numbers.

In Awaran for nearly 50, 000 children, the PPHI-B runs only seven BHUs, whereas
for 90, 000 children in Barkhan, it also has just seven BHUs. For a hundred thousand
children in Chagai it has only 11 BHUs; and let’s not forget: this was the district we
used for our nuclear experiments.

By: Dr Naazir Mahmood

Source: The News

 An imminent threat to public health
Influenza infection is highly contagious and often, mild to severe respiratory illness
of birds, animals and humans is caused by it. According to recent estimates of the
World Health Organisation (WHO), influenza viruses, particularly IAVs, cause
recurrent regional epidemics which cause about 3 to 5 million cases of severe
illness and about 290,000 to 650,000 respiratory deaths worldwide.

In recent years, influenza A subtypes H1N1, H3N2 and influenza B viruses are the
prevailing seasonal viruses amongst human beings. Therefore, type A and B
influenza viruses are the only included in seasonal influenza vaccines. Pandemic
influenza occurs when a new influenza virus appears in a human population which
has no pre-existing immunity to it. 2009’s Pandemic (H1N1) was the first of the 21st
century. It was caused by a virus that has swine origins and was documented as
swine flu by the media. This virus affected 214 countries all over the world.
Although, WHO’s report revealed that 18,631 laboratory-confirmed deaths
occurred during the pandemic, the statistical modelling showed 10 times the
mortality rate—calculated using H1N1’s mortality data retrieved from different
countries. Moreover, this virus (H1N1pdm 09) continued its circulation as a
seasonal influenza virus along with subtype H3N2 and type B influenza virus.

Wild aquatic birds such as Waterfowl are the principal reservoirs for influenza A
viruses. While it is not lethal for these aquatic birds since the viruses have adapted
in their natural habitat. However, they can transmit the influenza virus to a variety
of animals including pigs, horses, sea mammals, birds as well as human beings.
Avian influenza viruses, which are highly pathogenic, are H5 and H7 while low
pathogenic subtypes are H9 and H10. By the end of 2005, the highly pathogenic
H5NI virus was reported from East, South East, Central Asia and Europe. In February
2006, the virus’ infection was seen in Pakistan, India and Nigeria –causing a threat
to poultry as well as to the global community by triggering the chances of the next
pandemic.

Although, animal to human transmission of avian influenza viruses is rare, 20

human cases of influenza A (H5N1) were reported in the province of Khyber
Pakhtunkhwa (KP) in 2007.These cases indicate that human to human transmission
is possible and that is a matter of great public health concern. Influenza A may
cause high morbidity with a drastic increase in hospital expenditures and duties
exemptions, thereby decreasing the production capacity of a country. Moreover,
excessive deaths due to this disease are the major contributing factors for causing
a burden on a country.

Influenza is believed to be a major cause of mortality and morbidity worldwide but

a limited number of epidemiologic studies have been conducted in less developed
countries like Pakistan. In this regard, we conducted a population-based cross-
sectional survey and hospital-based sentinel surveillance from 2015 to 2016.The
rationale was to get precise estimates of the burden of the disease in the human
population of Lahore and to get a better understanding of disease epidemiology in
the community. We also gathered information on genetic characterisation and
phylogenetic analysis of circulating virus strains which were collected through
hospital based active surveillance.

Our research concluded that pandemic (H1N1pdm09) and seasonal (H3N2)

influenza viruses are circulating in the local community. A distinct seasonal peak of
laboratory confirmed influenza A was recorded in December 2015 while cases of
respiratory illnesses (other than influenza but influenza-like) were also recorded
during the study period—amounting to a maximum in February 2016. Moreover,
we detected influenza A subtypes, H1N1pdm 09 (28%) and H3N2 (30%) among a
total of 50 out of 311 influenza A cases.

Our study confirmed that out of a 100 reporting patients to outdoor clinics, 16 are
confirmed new cases of influenza A and approximately 10 out of 100 are existing
cases—already present among the population of Lahore. Genetic characterisation
of viruses indicates that both subtypes, H1N1 and H3N2, were found resistant to
nearly all anti-viral drugs however, they are sensitive to influenza vaccines
recommended by WHO for the Northern Hemisphere.

So these estimates will enable concerned health authorities to initiate public health
interventions at appropriate times to prevent and control the next influenza
epidemic in a country and include influenza vaccination in the national vaccination
schedule in order to get effective control over this disease.

By: Dr Saima Hasan & Dr Mamoona Chaudhry

Source: The Nation

 The trust crisis
One of the key political issues in the global debate today is the steady erosion of
people’s trust in governments across the world. More than evident in the pre-
pandemic era this came into sharper relief after Covid-19 struck. The issue of trust
was in the spotlight when handling of the coronavirus crisis was assessed and it was
found that where people had greater trust in their government, they listened to
health advisories and complied with restrictions. This enabled authorities to
manage the crisis better. The reverse held true in countries where trust was low,
which compromised the government’s ability to tackle the disease.

This has not been a function of the type of political system of a country. Instead, it
has been a reflection of people’s confidence in how competent their leaders have
been in responding to the challenge. Positive perceptions helped build trust in
governments.

But why has trust been declining in governments which today is accepted as a
global phenomenon? A review of the literature on this — books and knowledgeable
essays — reveals that multiple factors and their interplay may be responsible. The
more plausible among those identified are the sheer scale and complexity of
governance today, rising and unmet expectations, growing disconnect between
political elites and the public, governments becoming too remote from citizens,
economic performance becoming the touchstone of people’s evaluation of
competence, conduct of leaders, and the information revolution that has
empowered people in ways that are truly unprecedented.

With a world moving at hyper speed, governments struggle to keep pace and are
seen to act and deliver much too slowly. The short-term approach usually adopted
by political leaders often overrides acting in the public interest in the long term.
Many political leaders operate with mental maps of the past and do an unedifying
job of understanding and responding to people’s sentiments and grievances. All
these factors undermine trust between rulers and the ruled.

There is little doubt that a more informed citizenry with access to multiple channels
of information is more empowered and has several platforms available to make
their voices heard. This empowerment also produces higher expectations which
morphs into popular discontent when governments are unable to deliver and
address public demands. Therefore, technology has much to do in being a driver of
mounting expectations.

The trust debate is hardly new even if its context has been changing. Reports that
track global risks published annually by the World Economic Forum (WEF) have
been highlighting this phenomenon for over a decade now. One of its reports, in
assessing trust, called attention to a “legitimacy deficit” which referred to a sense
that “we might nearly be better off without rulers”. The report observed this trend
across the world in countries in very different stages of development.

Harvard scholar Joseph Nye, writing in one of WEF’s Global Outlook Reports,
stressed the need for democracies to adjust to the long-term decline of trust in
elected governments and the new challenges of the information age. This decline
has been confirmed by several surveys. For example, a report last year found only
45 per cent of citizens in OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and
Development) countries trusted their government.

Scholars such as Nye tackled this rising trust deficit mostly from a Western
perspective. A book that comes to mind in this regard is The Fourth Revolution
published some years back but still relevant for its insights. Its authors, John
Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge, argued that the West must address what
they called the “7 deadly sins” which seemed to lie behind falling confidence. They
include overlapping areas of responsibility in oversized governments, surrender of
too much power to special interests and political paralysis and gridlock.

More recently, well-known scholar Francis Fukiyama wrote about the crisis of trust
in the US and again, his observations have wider applicability. He argued that trust
is built on two foundations. One, “citizens must believe that their government has
the expertise, technical knowledge, capacity, and impartiality to make the best
available judgments” — which of course speaks to government competence. The
second foundation is “trust in the top end of the hierarchy”, in leaders and whether
they inspire public confidence in knowing what they are doing and acting in the
public interest.
A recently published book, Democracy and Globalisation: Anger, Fear and Hope by
Josep M. Colomer and Ashley L. Beale, examines the issue from a fresh angle. Its
authors explore the causes of what they see as the current crisis of democracy and
why trust in governments and satisfaction with the way democracies work has been
declining. They see more democracy across the world but less governance. They
attribute much of the rising public disaffection to unfulfilled expectations and
aspirations. Disruptions caused by technological change and globalisation have
undermined the effectiveness of governments to deliver the policies needed for
sustained economic growth. What they call the Great Disruption has produced
anger and fear. “People hurt by social and economic changes and lack of public
delivery get angry and react against the rulers and the rules when their
expectations are not met.”

Whether practicable or not, the authors’ recipe for effective governance is

“democracy at multiple levels” with “reallocation of power at local, national,
continental and global levels with innovative combinations of direct democracy,
representative government and rule by experts”.

A key factor that emerges in the discussion of trust is the negative impact of
political polarisation prevailing in countries — in both East and West — on the
public’s view of leaders and governments. This has rightly been seen to cause
waning public confidence in political institutions and those in charge of them. This
should strike a familiar note in Pakistan and is directly relevant to the present state
of play in the country. With political polarisation reaching a record level and the
government and opposition locked in unremitting confrontation this cannot but
affect the public’s opinion of their leaders especially at a time when their focus
should be on the challenges facing the country. The lesson from the ongoing power
struggle is that both sides can end up losing the trust of the people they seek to
serve.

By: Maleeha Lodhi

Source: DAWN

The writer is a former ambassador to the US, UK and UN.

 Biden’s foreign policy with Russia
What is apparent on the face of President-elect Biden’s coming tenure is that
relations between Washington and Moscow are going to be on a slippery slope.
Relations between both are at the lowest ebb since World War II and need
sustained efforts at different levels of interaction to avoid confrontational politics.
Besides other flashpoints; Russia’s annexation of Crimea [2014] and the
understanding between Trump and Putin, coupled with allegations of Moscow
meddling in 2016 U.S elections stick out like a sore thumb.

Under Biden’s watch, there will be no ‘mixed messages’ [reference twitter

outbursts and efforts to set a redirect by his team members], the policy will be
sharp, loud and clear.

Some areas where one can fairly make a clear statement by Biden are: His efforts
in strengthening ties with NATO allies. He will want to address issues with them not
just in traditional military support/alliance but the non-traditional security threats
like cyber warfare. Biden will look for further strengthening of relationship with
Germany and France. Trump was openly in contempt for U.S European allies.
Bitterness arising between Germany and France on the European Defence owing
also to a certain degree by Trump’s presidency showing lack of U.S commitment to
European security will need urgent attention by President-elect. Though U.S
European allies will probably be relieved to see Biden in the President’s office, U.S
at this point stands polarized with a strong chance of Republican-controlled Senate,
Biden may have a tough opposition on home ground to bring about meaningful
changes.

There will be issues with NATO allies too that will make a supported policy for
Russia not free from glitches [one example is Biden’s opposition to the Nord stream
2 gas pipeline, this may increase Germany’s ire. In spite of differences of
multidimensional nature, Biden is expected to approach them in a very balanced
manner respectful of sentiments of other nations.

He will try a tougher approach in his Russian policy. Biden will support a multi-
national base of leadership, upholding global values of human rights. Democratic
norms. More leaning towards inclusivity than Trump’s interpretation of “America
First.” However, Russia has been very wary of what it views “democratic values” of
U.S backed revolutions. “Russia perceives anti-government protests and popular
uprisings that seek to overthrow incumbent regimes to be part of a wider strategy
of US-sponsored regime change, deliberately designed to undermine rival states.
Such events, such as the so- called “coloured revolutions”, popular uprisings that
occurred across the post-Soviet space in the early to mid-2000s in countries such
as Ukraine and Georgia, are seen as a fundamental threat to Russia’s national
security and regime stability. The Kremlin believes that Russia is vulnerable to
foreign interference in its internal affairs via western efforts to promote democratic
forms of government.” [The Conversation, November 12, 2020] Biden will oppose
Lukashenko regime, backed by Moscow regime in Belarus. Biden has called
Moscow opponent, as well as the biggest threat to the security of the United States
today. He has openly criticized the annexation of Crimea and Moscow’s support in
Ukraine’s Donbas region.

Biden will make a consistent effort to try recapture the role of American supremacy
which was largely frittered under Trump’s watch under the policy of “America
First.”

New York Times reports, “A former French ambassador to Washington, Gérard

Araud, said that “every single European leader has had an appalling conversation
with Trump.” [Nov. 8, 2020] A very interesting situation that Biden will have to face
is the low ebb of relationship between U.S and China at many levels, including
technological, economic, ideological areas. Trade tariffs, pressure of company like
Huawei, are only tip of the iceberg.

Policies by U.S under Trump have brought China and Russia together on many
platforms.

However, Russia’s foreign relation policy has been sharp- not putting all its eggs in
one basket [something this writer has long been promoting Pakistan should do],
instead, Russia has focused on increasing trade and technological
partnerships/exchange with countries including India [with whom it enjoys a long
term relationship], Iran and European Union.
What one sees on the canvas, are the indisputable areas of possibility of heightened
emotions between Moscow and Washington. Russia largely believes relations
between both nations will flow in a similar uncomfortable pattern as they did under
Obama’s watch. There is no ecstasy in Russia over President-elect’s win. This was
very obvious by the muted reaction to the American election results in Russia.

An extremely interesting one liner which says it all from an article by Ian Hill is
worthy of a share, “Biden has foreshadowed that in dealing with Russia he will
balance confrontation with engagement: “Hang tough but keep talking.” [The
Interpreter, November 25 th 2020] Biden will have an open door policy with Russia
in issues where dialogue may be the key to handling/settling issues.

Where dialogue is not the key, a hardline by U.S cannot be ruled out. Yet there are
grounds, for both to engage on selective issues. An organized and subject based
bilateral engagements between the two can help smoothen out flashpoints with
potential to escalate into an ugly confrontation. Interaction at top-executive level
and military to military interaction alone may not in themselves be sufficient. The
Arctic Council for example is a forum that gives an opportunity for both nations to
work together.

Fire-fighting to diffuse conflicts is one thing, an ongoing diplomatic effort is another

that diverts fire-fighting ab-initio, or if it comes to it, compliments those efforts.

Both nations at the end of the day, are smart enough to work together where
needed.

They need to expand the smartness so that the areas of working together grows
further.

By: Yasmeen Aftab Ali

Source: Daily Times

The writer is a lawyer, academic and political analyst. She has authored a book
titled ‘A Comparative Analysis of Media and Media Laws in Pakistan.’
 A push for democracy in the Muslim world
The term ‘globalisation’ gained currency in the 1980s. It described the flow of ideas,
finance, trade — even people — across national frontiers without too many
restrictions. Among the ideas that went from developed to developing countries
was the notion that the system of governance that had worked in rich nations for
centuries was the right choice the developing world should also be making for itself.
The basic idea that became the preferred option in Europe and the United States
was that people should have a voice in the way they were governed. Also, there
were human rights that governments should define and protect. However, some of
these beliefs have been challenged by leadership in many parts of the developing
world. This is because of the way Donald Trump governed for four years after
moving into the White House in January 2017.

When this article appears in The Express Tribune on December 14, 2020, the
change in America’s leadership will still be 37 days away. President Trump has
refused to accept the result of the elections. He and those close to him refuse to
call Joe Biden the President-elect. On December 8, the Supreme Court refused to
consider the case filed by Trump’s lawyers challenging the result of the poll in the
state of Pennsylvania.

The fact that all 50 states that make up the American federation formally certified
in early December that Biden was the winner in the electoral contest didn’t prevent
Trump and his followers from maintaining that the election of November 3 was not
fair. According to Trump and his associates, the election was marked by fraud in
many states, in particular in those in which Biden had won convincingly. Trump’s
post-election behaviour is a test of the strength of the American democracy. There
are many in the US who worry about the direction of political change in the country.

Among those who are concerned about the country’s future is Richard Hanania, a
research fellow at the Saltzman Institute of War and Peace at Columbia University.
He wrote an article that appeared in The Washington Post two days before the
Americans went to the polls not only to elect their president but also thousands of
officials at the state and county levels. Hanania quoted a number of other scholars
who also worry about the fragility of the American political system. For instance,
David Kilkullen, an Australian scholar who has worked as adviser to the US Army,
describes America close to the point of “incipient insurgency”. Peter Turchin, a
Russian-American scholar who specialises in mathematical modeling and statistical
analysis of the dynamics of societies, was pessimistic about America’s future.
According to him the American society is “getting awfully close to the point where
a civil war or revolution becomes probable”. Thomas Friedman, a New York Times
columnist, says that the situation in the US reminds him of the time he spent in
Lebanon where in the mid-1970s, street clashes between sectarian militias erupted
into multifaceted strife that lasted a decade and a half.

Reviewing these assessments, Hanania reached a depressing conclusion about the

state of American political affairs. “The logic underlying most of these predictions
is consistent and straightforward. Americans are more divided on social and
political issues than in previous decades, and they hate each other more than in
previous decades, and they hate each other more.” he wrote.

“Violence is boiling over: Armed right-wing militants travelled to the sites of left-
wing protests this summer, supposedly to enforce order, and deadly clashes
occurred. If tensions continue to grow, these isolated incidents could become more
common and the United States might follow the path of other nations that have
experienced full-blown armed conflict in recent decades.”

The rapid deterioration in the socio-political affairs in the US was encouraged by

President Trump who had been put into office by disaffected groups. They had
deep grievances about the way the elite in the country had treated them. What
happens in this country affects the world outside. Instability in America begets
instability in the world. At the time of this writing, Pakistan’s still evolving political
system was under stress and was being challenged by some of the groups that lost
in the 2018 elections. Acceptance of election results is one of the important
indications of the working of a successful representative system. Imran Khan and
his party refused to accept the results of the 2013 elections. When he and his party
won five years later in 2018, the opposition took the same stance. They called him
“selected” rather than elected Prime Minister, suggesting that his electoral victory
was the result of meddling by the military establishment.

Islamabad is one of the few developing country capitals that resisted the
temptation to opt for authoritarianism encouraged by the government headed by
Trump. After four years of coddling dictators around the world, the US soon to be
under president Biden is likely to encourage a participatory system of governance.
The President-elect has promised to host a gathering of the world’s democracies to
demonstrate his commitment to democratic values both abroad and at home. To
convince those who will be watching his time in office, he might make an example
of Egypt, a Muslim nation that has drifted towards authoritarian rule more
confining than the one practised by Hosni Mubarak. It was the highly constrained
system of governance that did not permit popular participation under Mubarak
that led to what came to be called the “Arab Spring of 2011.” The youth rose and
challenged the system Mubarak had founded. Their rebellion against the system
led to the fall of the military dictator in Cairo.

After a brief interlude that lasted about a year, the military in Egypt came back, this
time under President/General Abdel Fattah El Sisi who attacked the few remaining
structures of independent civil society in the country. The military dictator was
secure in the knowledge that he could act with impunity but it may not be right in
the way it is reading the situation. Some experts who study the Muslim world have
suggested that Biden, once in office, should make Egypt a test case of his resolve
to promote democracy in the world.

“It’s basically unheard-of for Washington to undertake a major reassessment of a

longtime partnership like the one with Egypt,” wrote Michael Wahid Hanna who is
senior fellow at the Century Foundation. Moving against the current trends in Egypt
“would send a powerful signal not just in the Middle East but would be a necessary
first step in resetting the terms of America’s relationship in a region that still
represents a disproportionate focus of American policy.”

Interpreting broadly the geographic meaning of the Middle East would include
Pakistan, a country critical for American interests in the area. Washington should
encourage the development of representative democracy in what is the largest
Muslim country in the region. Pakistan could serve as a model for the restive
nations in the larger Middle East.

By: Shahid Javed Burki

Source: The Express Tribune

 COVID-19 exposes need for radical policies to tackle inequality
In the run-up to Joe Biden and Kamala Harris taking office on January 20, a key
debate raging now is about what kind of change they will usher in. Some say it is
clear from those two leaders’ biographies that they herald the bold
transformations needed to tackle the inequalities that scar society. Others say it is
clear from their biographies that they will not. History suggests, however, that
neither of those arguments gets it quite right. That key to what happens is what we
do, together.

For my new book, How to Fight Inequality, I looked at what we could learn from
how inequality had been tackled in the past. What I found, across the world, was
that progress in tackling inequality was never simply gifted by political leaders. It
was won through people power.

That we cannot rely on political leaders to bring change for us is not because
policymakers are venal and uncaring. Indeed, far too much time is lost, when we
could be organising, by first trying to work out if people in power are personally
nice or not nice – as if that is what determines whether or not we need to organise.
Rather, the point is having good policymakers is not enough to shift inequality –
there are too many pressures on them from the interests at the top, which need a
countervailing pressure from below. Remember the story of President Lyndon
Johnson telling Martin Luther King: “I know what I have to do, but you have to make
me do it.”

The famous progressive policies enacted in the US from the 1930s to the 1970s
would not have come about without a powerful combination of pressures from
below. They were won by trade unions, Black organisations, churches and other
progressive grassroots groups together devoting their energies, in Dr King’s words,
“to organize our strength into compelling power so that government cannot elude
our demands.”

In the Venn diagram of the movements are people like African American trade
union organiser Philip Randolph, who successfully pressured both the Franklin D
Roosevelt and the Kennedy-Johnson governments by reminding them of the power
of organised people – without which we would not remember them as such
reforming presidents.

And more important even than the famous movement figureheads were the huge
numbers of movement organisers. As civil rights activist Diane Nash noted: “It took
many thousands of people to make the changes that we made, people whose
names we’ll never know. They’ll never get credit for the sacrifices they’ve made,
but I remember them.”

Trade unions were key. Unionisation does not change wage levels in firms, it
changes power and therefore policy in nations. Indeed, high rates of tax on the
superrich, and relatively high investment in public services to benefit people, were
maintained in this period under both Democrat and Republican presidents. In a
fascinating reversal of that, by the 1990s, when far fewer people were organised in
unions, both Democrat and Republican parties pursued economic approaches that
were in many respects less progressive than either had pursued in the 1950s and
1960s.

So whether Biden and Harris will preside over radical shifts that the COVID-19 crisis
has shown to be key is not only, or even mainly, up to them. It is up to us.

The election was not the end of the process, but only one part of it. If the US – and
other nations – are really to turn the corner on inequality, it will be through the
swarming of what Reverend William Barber calls “Fusion Coalitions”: When people
come together in ever larger numbers in connected movements to ensure that
their wages go up, their healthcare is provided, and they are not burdened by debt;
to at last break the hold of white supremacism and structural violence; and to win
a Green New Deal to protect their environment, provide quality public transport
and create millions of jobs. It is not just that these are worth fighting for – it is that
only through millions of people fighting for them that will they be won.

No one saves others; people standing together is how they liberate themselves. It
can be slow and it is always complicated and it sometimes fails – but it is the only
way it works. King, when asked why he needed to organise rather than focus only
on persuasion, replied: “We have not made a single gain without determined
pressure.”

So as we look forward to the removal van entering the White House, let us all
breathe a welcome sigh of relief, but then, recalling history, let us remember this:
Hope is not above us – it is around us.

By: Ben Phillips

Source: Al Jazeera
 For liberals, Brexit is a hard lesson in the politics of resentment
There is a law of physics that also applies to politics: energy cannot be created or
destroyed. It can only be changed from one form to another.

The story of Brexit is a story of energy conversion – the work of political engineers
who mined a generation of scattered grievances and forged them into a single
demand, to leave the European Union. Nobody did this more successfully than
Nigel Farage, who transformed an untapped reservoir of xenophobic suspicion into
a political force by making the EU synonymous with “immigrants”.

In the days before the referendum – around the time Farage unveiled his infamous
“breaking point” billboard, and a far-right terrorist murdered the Labour MP Jo Cox,
there was a vivid sense that this atmospheric energy, present in the air for so many
years, had finally taken a new form. For decades, anti-immigrant feeling had been
left to grow, unchecked and unchallenged; now it was coupled with a political
resentment against an amorphous governing elite, and in a single moment changed
the future of the country for ever.

This week, as remainers once again contemplate our defeat, we may reflect on
those days after Cox’s murder – when it felt like there might be a pause for thought,
a public recognition of the dark place we were heading. But there was no such
moment: the campaigns barely paused, and the entire circus of bile and lies
barrelled onwards with a redoubled haste. I remember feeling at the time that
there was a steely national insistence that we must refuse to draw the obvious
conclusions from the case of a murderer who spent years collecting anti-immigrant
propaganda and filing it away neatly in his house in folders.

If you think that was a grotesque failure to stop and confront how this happened,
then the years since will provide no solace either. Many people who had lived in
the UK for years, or indeed all their lives, reported their first experiences of racist
abuse in public. I was one of that number. In 2018, a plot to assassinate another
Labour MP, Rosie Cooper, was uncovered. These attitudes did not develop
overnight, or even over the span of the EU referendum. Even the pain and
frustration caused by austerity are of relatively recent vintage. According to
research by Lucy Hu of the University of Pennsylvania: “Exclusively economic
arguments proved to be a facade for private racist attitudes of many leave voters.”

The longer, more corrosive history is that of a right that exploited immigration for
cynical ends, and a Labour party that made its own cynical compact with this
sentiment, using it, when needed, to show its own “toughness” against the devious
migrant. It was always a myth that New Labour was fundamentally a pro-
immigration project; immigrants were welcome as a feature of a pro-globalisation
view. High-skilled migrants, who came in on a points-based system, were the most
desirable; asylum seekers, after some initial promises, were quickly ditched.

Much of the “hostile environment” infrastructure of immigration controls that

exists today is the legacy of Labour’s last government. The tier system that sorts
immigrants according to their value to the UK, the high barriers to gaining
citizenship and the conversion of employers into border guards were all policies
established by Labour in 2006.

But it was the way that politicians talked about immigration, or rather didn’t talk,
that allowed this resentment to congeal, ready to be shaped into an explosive. The
years before the financial crisis saw increased asylum applications from from
conflict zones such as Iraq and Afghanistan. And between a governing party eager
not to look like it was too soft on claimants and a rightwing media that tapped into
the rich vein of scaremongering about migrants, the tone was fixed. The presence
of immigrants was now a matter of “legitimate concern”; there was a need to look
out for “the indigenous population”, in the words of Labour’s immigration minister
Phil Woolas. By the time Gordon Brown was on the ropes trying to save his
premiership, it was “British jobs for British workers”, the progenitor of Ed
Miliband’s dismal “controls on immigration” crockery.

All that energy had to go somewhere. In politics, everything is connected: liberals

cannot pick and choose when they care about immigrants. Britain went into the
Brexit referendum hobbled by a financial crisis and a decade of austerity, many of
its communities badly damaged by deindustrialisation. There were no quick
answers to any of this, and so the pain was shifted on to an immediate, intimate
enemy, easily purged: the immigrant, and all the immigrant represented, be it the
enabling EU, the elected elite, the lawyers or the judges.

Perhaps we could not have predicted how and when this would happen – but we
allowed it to happen. Liberals across parties who are horrified by the consequences
of Brexit must realise that they were defeated by an epic national scapegoating
project – one whose power needed to have been checked long before. That is how
to understand Brexit: not an irrational rightwing populism, not a derangement of
post-truth politics, but the predictable outcome of a concerted political and media
campaign that capitalised on a colossal failure of our economic model.

Just as I did in the days after the murder of Jo Cox, I have searched for signs of this
epiphany since the Brexit vote. I have looked for it among Conservatives, naively
bewildered by the thuggishness that has captured their party. I have looked for it
in Labour under Corbyn and Labour under Starmer. And I have looked for it, in the
past few days, in the belated mea culpas of those enraged that all the calamities of
a Brexit blunder may finally be upon us. I have not found it. Which means that all
that we love will be wrecked, again and again, by an energy that shifts the blame
for our national failures from our leaders on to anyone who is not “indigenous”. If
you think that energy is gone because our borders are closing and we have taken
back control, think again. It is simply changing form.

By: Nesrine Malik

Source: The Guardian

The writer is a Guardian columnist

 Many hard lessons ahead in great green economy gambit
A global battle for a green and low-carbon economy is quietly taking place. This is
yet another big 2020 event that could not have been anticipated.

The United Nations and relevant countries held the Climate Ambition Summit on
Saturday to mark the fifth anniversary of the Paris Agreement and to further
mobilize the international community to strengthen action and promote
worldwide cooperation in the fight against climate change.

Chinese President Xi Jinping delivered a speech via video link at the summit, putting
forward three proposals regarding global climate governance and making four
further commitments to scale up China's determined contributions. The
commitments include lowering its carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP by over
65 percent from the 2005 level, and increasing the share of non-fossil fuels in
primary energy consumption. They also involve increasing forest stock volume, and
enhancing wind and solar power.

China, in September, for the first time, put forward a goal of achieving carbon
neutrality before 2060, and peaking carbon dioxide emissions before 2030. It also
vowed to launch a new journey of ecological civilization as part of its 14th Five-Year
plan (2021-25). The nation has thus entered a green and low-carbon era.

Some other countries have also made efforts in this field. The European
Commission in March presented a proposal to enshrine in legislation the EU's
political commitment to be climate neutral by 2050. Japan and South Korea in
October set the goal of being carbon neutral by 2050 as well. US president-elect
Joe Biden pledged to re-join the Paris Agreement and proposed to have the US
achieve net zero carbon emissions by the middle of the century.

The goal of carbon neutrality will enable the global economy to enter a new
international pattern with low carbon and sustainable development as the core. It
will also promote other small and medium-sized countries to participate in the
"battle for low-carbon economy." So far, more than 110 countries have committed
to becoming carbon neutral by 2050.
This means that the green sustainable and low-carbon competition will become the
main keynote for the third decade of 21st century. The establishment of a new
pattern of low carbon will bring about the fresh layout of industry, as well as new
markets. Among them, the most promising one is the international carbon financial
market, which includes various instruments, such as carbon emissions trading,
carbon securities and carbon derivatives. This fully meets the financing and risk
management requirements for global green development.

The new economic construct and ensuing competition over the goal of carbon
neutrality will bring about large demands for investment and capital. Against this
backdrop, the carbon market will be promoted into a new market with similar scale
and status to existing markets: stock, foreign currency and derivative products.
Meanwhile, active efforts of countries are needed to set new rules and new
standards that will fit this new market.

During the G20 summit on November 21-22 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, many heads of
states discussed green transitions. For example, China put forward talking points
regarding clean energy transition and the construction of coastal flood control
facilities. Japan brought up solar cell and hydrogen technology ideas. South Korea
underlined issues regarding the updating of energy policies, and increasing the
status of green economy.

According to the Climate Transparency Report 2020 that was released in the second
half of November, energy-related carbon emission of the G20 members is expected
to be reduced by 7.5 percent in 2020. This was to some extent a result of the COVID-
19 pandemic. In the meantime, this matter should not be overlooked: Many
countries have attached importance to clean development while striving to achieve
carbon neutral goals.

Surely, the goal of this green and low-carbon economy war is not to destroy a
country or group - in contrast to all previous wars. Instead, it aims to save
humankind itself. If the global temperatures are to rise again, the human race may
face extinction in the next century.
Obviously, this worldwide campaign for low-carbon green economy is not about
who can be fiercer, but about who is more determined to grab the opportunities
and seek new advantages for the future of humanity so as to push forward win-win
norms.

In the new battle, China is forced to become green. During the past five years, China
has promoted green finance in an all-round way, almost from scratch. Though
China has become the largest green financial market in the world, it still has a lot
to learn about the global carbon and clean energy markets.

By: Wang Wen

Source: Global Times

The author is professor and executive dean of Chongyang Institute for Financial
Studies at Renmin University of China.
 Biden’s Turkey challenge
Like multiple foreign policy challenges in countries such as Afghanistan, China nad
Russia, another key challenge for the incoming Biden administarion will be how to
deal with a more assertive Turkey under Erdogan.

In recent years, Ankara has pursued its own foreign policy objectives via various
military offensives in Syria, provided assistance to Azerbaijan in its conflict with
Armenia, has been in confrontation with Greece, Cyprus and the EU, and
particularly has shown no restraint over drilling rights in the Eastern Mediterranean
region.

The most significant and thorny issue that has affected Turkey-US bilateral ties is
Ankara’s purchase of Russian S-400 defence system, ignoring all US threats.
Whether or not to impose the US Countering America’s Adversaries Through
Sanctions Act (CAATSA) will be a tough test for Biden. While Turkey was severely
pressurised by the Trump administration not to go ahead with a military deal with
Russia, Trump also repeatedly refused to enforce the said sanctions despite
multiple calls from Congress and State Department officials’ threats to Turkey.

Following the purchase of Russia S-400 components, the Trump Administration

announced in July 2019 that it was “removing Turkey from participation in the F-35
Joint Strike Fighter program”. Hence, there is also the possibility that the new US
administration could impose sanctions or some kind of arms embargo on Turkey as
it did in the 1970s on the Cyprus issue.

Historically, Turkey has mostly remained a key US ally. Outside Europe, it was the
only nation that received US aid under the Marshall Plan aimed for the
reconstruction of war-battered European countries. Turkey was provided $137
million from 1948 to 1952. The 1950 Korean War also played a key role in bringing
Turkey and the US closer as the former sent about 4,500 military personnel under
the US command. In terms of troops, Ankara provided the fourth largest number
of soldiers following the US, Britain and Canada. Because of Turkey’s vital support
in this overseas military mission under the US command, the latter fully endorsed
Ankara’s membership to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato).
Consequently, Turkey became an important member of Nato in 1952.

It has been appropriately pointed out that, unlike Israel or Greece, Turkey did not
have any domestic constituency in Washington to lobby for it but despite that it
emerged a key country in the cold war theatre due its geo-strategic location as it
was situated at the fulcrum of three distinctive regions comprising Asia, Europe and
the Middle East.

During the cold-war period as well as during the two Iraq wars and in the US-led
‘war on terror’, Turkey sided with its Western allies and reaped the dividend in the
form of US economic and military aid as well as getting access to US defence
arsenals. According to data obtained from USAID, from 1948 to 2008, the US
provided a total of $30 billion in economic aid and over $40 billion in security
assistance.

Similarly, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI),

Turkey has purchased military arms worth $57 billion from 1950 to 2019, out of
which the US alone has delivered Turkey arms worth about $34 billion. It is more
than half of the amount that Turkey has purchased from all other countries
together. These figures indicate the significance of Turkey for successive US
administrations and policymakers.

After the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the end of the cold war, Turkey’s
geopolitical importance decreased for a while. At the same time, there was a brief
period of the end of the honeymoon era in the Turkish-US relations. However, the
first Gulf War once again proved Turkey’s geostrategic significance. It would not
have been possible for the US and its allies to successfully conduct military
operations without the military and intelligence support provided by Turkey.

Hence, Turkey’s vital role during the Gulf crisis once again ensured US policymakers
who had their own acumen, pertaining to “Turkey’s enduring strategic
importance”. Because of Turkey’s contribution in the Gulf crisis, President Bush
paid an official visit to Turkey in 1991. The aim of the visit was to offer his country’s
gratitude for Turkey’s pivotal part in the US-led military campaign against Saddam
Hussein. It was the first visit of a US president to Turkey in more than 30 years as
Eisenhower was the last president who had travelled to Ankara in 1959.

However, Turkey did not offer much assistance to the US and its coalition forces in
the Second Gulf War. In October 2003, the matter was brought to the Turkish
parliament to decide whether to send its troops to Iraq or not. During the voting,
the Turkish parliament voted 358 to 183 to respond positively to the US request for
about 10,000 Turkish troops to help contain the rising wave of insurgency in Iraq
following the ouster of Saddam. Although the US offered billions of dollars in loans
to Turkey, it decided not to send its security forces to Iraq because there was a
strong objection from the Iraqi side. Although Turkey declined to send its troops to
Iraq, it allowed US flights more than 4,000 sorties over its territory into Iraq.

Because of unabated civil war and instability in neighbouring Syria and volatility in
Iraq, Turkey has been hosting over 2.5 million refugees from war-ravaged Syria and
over 200,000 from Iraq. Turkey criticises the role of the international community,
particularly the US-led coalition forces which are largely responsible for the
destruction in these countries. The US and EU countries have not been able to
provide sufficient support to Turkey to bear the costs related to hosting such an
unprecedented influx of refugees.

In addition to the above issues related to the role of Turkey in Syria and purchase
of the latest weapons and defence system from Russia, there is another set of
issues that has become contentious between the two countries in recent years.
These issues include the Eastern Mediterranean tensions with Greece and Cyprus,
evading US sanctions in dealing with Iran, matters regarding democracy and human
rights violations, Erdogan’s highly critical stance towards Israel and sympathies
with Hamas and the conversion of Hagia Sophia into a mosque. There has been
increasing divergence between the two countries on these matters.

Although Turkey established diplomatic and trade relations with Israel long ago,
the Zionist state has been consistently chastised by President Erdogan by
highlighting human rights abuses by Israel against Palestinians on various
international forums including at the UNGA. It is believed that Ankara has been
tacitly supporting Hamas. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and some other
members of the Congress were openly critical of the conduct of the Turkish
government when the regime decided in July this year to reconvert Istanbul’s iconic
Hagia Sophia museum into a mosque. It must be mentioned here that the building
had been built as a church in the 6th century and was transformed into a mosque
during the Ottoman Empire in the 15th century. However, the mosque was
designated as a museum in 1934, following Turkey’s declaration to become a
secular republic.

In sum, all these issues have become major points of concern and have caused
some kind of estrangement in the Turkey-US relations in recent years and will be
an additional headache to the new US administration.

By: Dr Murad Ali

Source: The News

The writer holds a PhD from Massey University, New Zealand. He teaches at the
University of Malakand.
 A playground for perversity
Privatisation of state assets is a global phenomenon and has its own pros and cons.
If it improves efficiency, quality, productivity, jobs then it should be adopted. If it is
just an attempt to increase government revenue, it is not a good idea at all. In the
economic perspective, under the prevailing economic conditions it may be
considered an odd time to privatise any assets, let alone planning to sell any major
concern.

In the last 24 years, this is the third time that Pakistan Steel Mills Corporation
(PSMC) is being considered for privatisation. Such indecisiveness is rarely found
globally and reflects on incompetency or gradual neglect of our institutions by the
national leadership. We are witness to the sustained annihilation and obliteration
of our national institutions over the last many decades. Unfortunately, from the
very inception, PSMC suffered heavily due to corrupted political and professional
culture. Overstaffing, poor management of financial liabilities, lack of work
discipline, low-capacity utilisation, inefficient operations and maintenance,
creation of mafias and non-accountability are a few to mention. Before
commenting on the current privatisation recommendations, I find it is pertinent to
briefly provide the background history of Pakistan Steel Mills.

An organisation that was established in 1968 but hardly achieved its full scale
production in 1984 was considered for privatisation in 1997 by the Council of
Common Interests (CCI) for the first time. For multiple reasons this privatisation did
not materialise and later in 2000, the new government introduced restructuring of
the PSMC with a goal to make it a financially viable entity. Other than repair,
maintenance and financial restructuring of the mills, this initiative also included
right sizing of the manpower and equity offer to the private sector. This
restructuring paid off and after paying Rs. 11.35 billion as principal amount on debt
in 2003, the PSMC earned net profit of Rs. 6.0 billion with annual sales of more than
30.0 billion rupees in year 2004-5. At this stage, ironically, the ministry of
privatisation and investment through the approval of privatisation board
advertised the privatisation of PSMC again. Obviously, the privatisation was
challenged in the Supreme Court of Pakistan. The apex court observed serious
violation of law and gross irregularities with regards to sale of PSMC and
consequently stopped the government from privatising it.

The Supreme Court of Pakistan, in its verdict on the PSMC privatisation case in 2006
declared that the process of privatisation of PSMC stands vitiated by acts of
omission and commission on the part of certain state functionaries reflecting
violation of mandatory provisions of law and the rules framed thereunder. Here is
a synopsis of a few major observations made by the court in its detailed verdict.

The guidelines provided by the privatisation board on the valuation exercise of the
PSMC were not followed. All sorts of ‘due diligence’ was prepared on the basis of
unaudited financial statements prepared on book value. It is worth noting that in
such cases the market value of the assets is reckoned globally. The report did not
undertake independent exercise in respect of accounting, tax and other aspects of
the matter. Additionally, the valuation recommended by the financial advisers
reflected only the core operation of PSM. It did not include surplus land and assets.
The non-core land and assets which were being unbundled from PSMC had worth
more than the replacement value of the plant. It was found that the PSMC was
being sold at far less than it’s worth and associated assets.

Contradicting the initial advertisement, several incentives and concessions worth

more than 33 billion rupees were extended to the successful bidder. These included
stock in trade of 10.0 billion rupees, commitment by the government to clear the
debt liability of Rs. 7.67 billion, up to 15 billion claim of the workers opting for
voluntary separation scheme and refund of 1.0 billion rupees paid in advance as tax
to the government of Pakistan.

The financial advisor companies had recommended to include market value of the
total assets of PSMC, however, it was ignored by the Board of Privatisation
Commission. The Supreme Court also highlighted the indecent haste exercised by
the privatisation commission and Cabinet Committee on Privatization (CCOP) as
they approved the report submitted by financial advisors in a single day. The SC in
its verdict mentioned that CCOP’s decision not only disregarded the mandatory
rates but also all material which was essential for arriving at the fair reference price.
The CCOP not only ignored inclusion of net assets while valuing the project but also
reduced the share price by more than a rupee (from 17.43 to 16.18).

The Discounted Cash Flow method was adopted for valuation of the assets that
clearly favoured the buyers. The pre-qualification process was also not transparent.
The highest bidder was a consortium of companies that failed to apply within the
due date and had not undergone the test of scrutiny.

The above stated observations by the SC are enough evidence to highlight the
nepotism, destruction of merit and transparency prevalent in our houses of power.
This is also to remind the current government to abstain from committing such
omissions and injustice while dealing with PSMC, else the suffering will continue. It
is customary for a government to make efforts and adopt procedures that ensure
fair market value of its assets. Let me refer to an excerpt from a World Bank report
that stresses on the principles for assessing the market value of assets. It says, “The
government on the other hand has a fiduciary responsibility to its citizens when it
privatises an asset. It is entrusted to sell privatise-able assets at or above their fair
market value, and must take every precaution to ensure that this happens.
Agreeing to sell state assets below their market value is tantamount to favouring a
buyer, and it deprives the state of needed financial resources. While this may
sometimes be politically desirable—for example, in the case of employees of
privatised companies—transparency is crucial. Thus the size of discount offered
should be determined and publicly disclosed.”

We are a populous country where job creation should be a priority to support

people. While it is expected that the government may generate a few million US
dollars in the short term from privatisation, do we have a guarantee that this
privatisation will be productive and we will not be facing another type of mafia or
exploiter imposed on us! While we have seen improved PTCL after privatisation,
the Karachi Electric is a counter example. In the Middle East, most of the major
concerns are state owned yet they are the most productive organisations. People
prefer to work in the government sector in these countries. So mere privatisation
is not the solution unless we commit ourselves to good governance, merit and
transparency as they are prerequisites for growth, efficiency and development.
In the wider national interest, a better solution would be that the government
fulfils its promise of restoring the state-owned institution on its footing, or else give
preference to its employees for the ownership. It is known that in 2005 the PSMC
workers were also interested to participate in the bid but they were asked to
deposit US $30 million as earnest money which they could not arrange obviously.
However, about 18 billion rupees belonging to employees were lying with the
management. A similar example in which employees were preferred could be
quoted from Turkey where the government was finding it hard to run a state-
owned steel mill. The employees showed interest in running the concern privately,
agreeing that the government practically gifted the mills to a consortium of its
employees charging just one Lira as token money in 1995. Following privatisation,
all the company’s shares were distributed to the people domiciled in that district.
Now, this company is engaged in the production and sale of iron, steel and coke
products and operates via 8 subsidiaries and affiliates.

I hope that the government will fulfil its fiduciary responsibilities towards its
citizens and strategic assets of the state. Rebuilding national institutions is a
difficult yet achievable task, the prerequisite for which is commitment,
competence, honesty, right planning and true execution.

By: Dr Tariq Khan

Source: The Nation

 Dynasticism and its discontents
Recent events have brought concerns around dynasticism in Pakistan’s electoral
politics to the fore once again. In reviewing the issue’s causes and consequences,
it is important to consider both dynastic leadership succession and local candidate
selection. As research by Hassan Javid, Farooq Naseer, and Ali Cheema has shown
for the case of Punjab, dynastic candidates — ie those who followed a relative in
politics — accounted for approximately two-thirds of the elected legislators and
around half of the top three contestants in National Assembly elections in the
province between 1985 and 2008. This is coupled with the fact that the share of
dynastic politicians in the Assembly has remained relatively stable during this
period.

The high and continuous prevalence of a dynastic logic in politics makes it hard to
ascertain that it flows from the proverbial top, ie lower tiers are replicating the
practice of dynastic leadership succession in political parties; or whether the widely
prevalent practice of promoting close relatives to take your place in electoral
politics ultimately gets reflected in leadership transitions as well. The causes now
appear to be mutually reinforcing regardless of the original sin.

Simultaneously, no matter how complicated the causes may be, making the
theoretical case against dynastic politics is relatively easy. If we consider individual
autonomy, equality of rights and opportunity, and the replacement of traditional
authority with legal-rational authority to be worthy normative goals, dynastic
succession stands in stark contrast to all three. History tells us that ordinary people
have spent several centuries trying to change politics from being the preserve of
the few, and revising their status from subjects to legal equals. If political parties
accord privilege to familial ties in decision-making, they are essentially violating
equality of status and opportunity.

Some argue that electoral politics makes this case slightly complicated because
ultimately dynastic politicians, unlike monarchs, are subjected to public validation/
invalidation through a one-person, one-vote test. If people prefer dynastic
candidates by voting for them, as the data for Punjab superficially suggests, then is
that not sufficiently democratic and even meritocratic (given that merit in politics
is whoever can best win an election)? The problem with this position is that it
ignores supply-side inequality. Only some — ie relatives — are given access to
resources and influence that makes them eligible and successful as electoral
candidates. Others who may have the potential of becoming great leaders,
legislators, and policymakers may miss out simply because of the birth lottery.

Occasionally, those coming through the principle of dynastic nomination and

succession may be very good at something other than just winning an election.
They may, for example, be good at policymaking or may be necessary in holding a
party together locally or nationally as an institution. But this would be a
probabilistic exception rather than a logically designated and purposeful outcome.
Whatever way one cuts it, dynasticism is a sub-optimal phenomenon in principle.

The problem is that all of this is relatively easy to state and agree with in principle.
The issue, for those perturbed by it, is to find a solution. Dynastic nomination and
succession is a de facto phenomenon. It is not written down as a legal condition in
our statute books or a rule in the internal constitutions of political parties, so a
ham-fisted danda-driven strategy (such as the degree condition superficially tried
by Gen Musharraf in 2002) can’t work. It exists as an unwritten norm — a script for
understanding the world that guides actual behaviour.

Challenging norms is harder because it requires getting some people, in this case,
those in power, to change how they interpret the world around them. However,
unless compelled by circumstances, why would you change a norm that largely
works in your favour?

The possibilities out of this situation are remote, but they exist along two
trajectories. The first is mass cultural change on the demand side: voters refuse to
vote for dynastic candidates as a matter of ideological principle, thus rendering the
norm ineffective for the most important thing in politics — winning an election.
This may happen over a longer period of time as attitudes and motivation for voting
change, but will likely be in fits and starts.
The second is a shift within the realm of party politics itself, ie on the supply side.
Imagine a situation where a party ideologically commits itself to some non-dynastic
logic of candidate selection, such as a combination of party loyalty, experience,
ideological clarity, grassroots work, ability to raise resources etc. Repeat cycles of
enforcing this rule with some electoral success may slowly change norms and
beliefs of what helps you win within the political sphere and resultantly leave the
voters with high-potential, non-dynastic candidates to choose from.

Anyone with even a cursory understanding of Pakistan’s politics knows that a shift
via the supply side is nowhere on the horizon. Those parties benefiting from
dynasticism in leadership transitions right now are obviously not going to do it. The
other party theoretically best positioned to do it, the one that rhetorically
champions a platform of meritocracy and breaking with damaging political
traditions and whose core supporters lament dynasticism the most, has repeatedly
reinforced dynasticism in its candidate selection practices. In turn, instead of
upping the pressure on the leadership, some of its supporters are left with the
unenviable task of rationalising it as a necessary evil, occasionally even citing it as
a voter demand problem (rather than a party problem).

Leaving aside the debate on whether changing this norm should even be a priority
or not, whichever way one cuts it, there is no clear path out of this sub-optimal
situation. One can either hope for long-term cultural change among voters or a
near-magical change in heart among parties to change their practices. Neither
seem possible or plausible in the years ahead.

By: Umair Javed

Source: DAWN

The writer teaches politics and sociology at Lums.

 Local government system
The Prime Minister's words from a speech indicate that the ruling party has
noticed perhaps its largest failing since coming into a power; the inability to keep
the local government system going. The PTI government has often addressed the
Issue and pointed towards reforms, the pandemic and other reasons for not
renewing grassroots governance in provinces such as KP, where it is in power.
However, whatever the reason the ultimate result is the same- power has not
trickled down the way it should in order for our Administrative Services to be fully
functional for the public. The party has often stressed the importance of letting
democracy take its course down to the last tehsil, which is why it is surprising that
two years at the helm has not already led to the revolutionized system of local
government that PM referred to recently nevertheless, there is still time: time
enough to follow through on the orders of the judiciary in KP and beyond and
conduct the LG exercise as soon as possible. Issues that escaped the Federal and
provincial government notice are normally the purview of the local setup.
However, in Pakistan, the inability of the successive governments to make the local
government exercise fruitful has led to the toothless practice that does little to
alleviate the problems of the public at the district level. Areas such as waste
management, infrastructural upkeep and overall community development are all
facets we have seen our country struggle in, with the potential solution all but
ignored. It is hoped that the current PTI government will strike a different path and
actually get around to establishing a local model that does not need to be
overhauled every term. Local government needs to be taken more seriously than it
currently is, and now the PM has turned his attention towards this issue one can
hope that there is quick resolution.

Local government system implies governing of men at grassroots level or

understanding people in communities that have good ideas of structure and
functions of government personnel serving at Central, provincial, divisional,
district, tehsils level and the structure and functions of local government
institutions which vary from country to country, and local culture and needs of the
people. Compliance of authority and rules and regulations is important and is
ensured through formal as well as informal control. Authority, Responsibility,
Transparency and Accountability are essential elements at local level governance
as well as at higher tiers of the hierarchy of the system of public administration. All
departments of the government are represented at the grassroots level making the
need for the effective public relationing imperative for public interest, peace and
security as well as good performance and delivery system. Naturally, it all requires
knowledge of services provided, systems of control and coordination, delegation of
authority and unity and discipline within communities being served by the local
government system.

Local government systems will not be new for us. Good or bad, we have had the
experience and sharing of working with communities. We have been working with
a variety of systems involving interaction in union councils for the sake of working
together for serving the people and resolving their issues and solving problems.

Local government has been there before the partition of the subcontinent. These
institutions have been functional since the establishment of Pakistan and our
sovereignty and independence. How come some people are so forgetful or
ignorant? It is a different thing that to be fully effective and performing we need
some reforms to enable the machinery of the government at all level, including the
grassroots level, or local governance. We have to look at the total systems of the
government including the police or control systems.

The police system seems to be set to make some very needed structural changes.
One of the changes, according to the Inspector General of Police (IGP) Punjab is
that citizens should not be called in police offices or stations without summons.

Moreover, funds have been set aside to set up a software for Digital monitoring of
people who were called in the police stations and offices, which has been planned
to be launched in January 2021.

There will be a formal system for the summons investigating work and to register
the orders to appear at a police station and offices in register 5/A. At all RPOs,
DPOs, SPs, circle officers and SHOs offices, the attendance will be recorded on the
dashboard system. This dashboard system will also be responsible for recording the
number of attendees, absentees, medical leave overseas leave and personnel on
security duty.

Police reforms should be viewed as an effort to strengthen state Institutions and to

promote National narrative in Public Interest, particularly to forge National Unity.

Indian media and government are playing Mischief to malign Pakistan's

security institutions instigating them giving false impression of Pakistan's
opposition political parties stated to be working against the army. India is no friend
of PTI government either. This is something that every Pakistani should keep in
mind. Any clash between the Imran Khan's Government and the opposition
political parties can never be in the interest of Pakistan. Indian state terrorism is
targeting Pakistan and its interest, it should be clearly understandable. And this has
been happening for the last over 70 years. The international community is aware
of this scenario. The same awareness should be visible at local government level as
well.

The government business is expected to be free of corruption. It has to be

transparent. It has to promote accountability, responsiveness and good
governance.

By: Iftikhar Ahmad

Source: Daily Times

 A hard place for newborns
November 17 marked the World Prematurity Day, held every year to raise
awareness regarding the challenges posed by premature births. A premature or
preterm birth is when a baby is born before 37 weeks of gestation. Pakistan,
unfortunately, is among the top five countries that have the highest proportion of
premature births. It is estimated that out of nearly six million births in Pakistan, a
million babies are born prematurely. Due to the lack of adequate facilities 600
babies die every day in Pakistan due to prematurity, asphyxia and infections. Even
those preterm babies who survive, without proper care are likely to suffer from
vision and hearing problems and respiratory disorders.

Pakistan also has the dubious distinction of being among the top five countries
having the highest number of neonatal deaths i.e. deaths of babies below one
month of age. We are only second to Lesotho while the other four are the Central
African Republic, South Sudan and Somalia. The major cause of neonatal deaths in
Pakistan is due to preterm births.

Maternal and child health indicators are a good measure to gauge a country’s level
of development. Our statistics reflect the sorry state of our healthcare system and
the government’s priorities.

There is no easy and quick fix that can overhaul the problems afflicting our health
system. We do not have the resources to meet the ever-increasing health needs of
a growing population. We cannot keep expanding healthcare at the same rate as
our population is increasing. Systemic issues that have plagued the health system
cannot be fixed overnight. But what the government can do, is introduce cost-
effective preventive interventions that can reverse the negative trajectory of our
health indicators.

Premature births are related to both maternal and fetal conditions. Mothers
suffering from high blood pressure, diabetes, obesity, younger age and
interpregnancy interval of less than 24 months are more likely to have preterm
births. Preterm birth management requires specialised neonatal intensive care
units with trained neonatologists and auxiliary staff with adequate equipment such
as functioning incubators, ideally available in at least all district and tehsil
headquarter hospitals. This may be difficult to implement considering our meagre
healthcare budgets. Simple community-based interventions such as maintaining
skin-to-skin contact of the baby and mother soon after birth to prevent heat loss,
delayed bathing, cord care, clearing of airways and correct use of antibiotics by
Lady Health Workers and Community Midwives can save precious lives.

But most importantly a key intervention that can help both the mother and
newborn is birth spacing. Research evidence shows that mothers who conceive less
than six months after giving birth have a 70% higher risk of preterm birth than
women with an optimal pregnancy birth interval of 18-23 months. While the risk
for those with an interval of six to 11 months was 20% higher. Nearly 37% of
pregnancies in Pakistan occur within 24 months of the preceding birth. Couples
need to be informed that after a live birth they need to wait for 24 months before
attempting the next pregnancy. Provision of family planning services and
counselling can help couples freely decide upon the number and spacing of their
children based on their fertility preferences.

Pakistan is undoubtedly an unsafe place for newborns, neonates and mothers. This
situation cannot be allowed to prevail as even resource constrained countries such
as Afghanistan and Nepal have done much better in improving child survival. We
have no option but to focus on greater inclusivity in healthcare provision with a
greater focus on investing in preventive care.

By: Dr Ali M Mir

Source: The Express Tribune

 How have philosophers responded to the pandemic?
In her message to mark World Philosophy Day 2020, UNESCO Director-General
Audrey Azoulay underlined the exceptional nature of this year’s celebration.

“This day is particularly meaningful this year,” she said. “It gives us the opportunity
to celebrate much more than an academic discipline or a human science, but a
certain way of being in the world made all the more necessary by the context in
which we live today.”

The context Azoulay was referring to, of course, is the coronavirus pandemic that
has touched every aspect of our lives. Indeed, from Barcelona to Baghdad, COVID-
19 has radically altered the daily routines of everyone, that is, their “being in the
world”.

Unlike the September 11 attacks and the 2008 financial crisis – the first two
supposedly global events of the 21st century – this pandemic has not spared
anyone anywhere, and its consequences will continue to be felt for decades in
every corner of the world.

The global nature of this emergency has compelled everyone to contribute to the
efforts to end it either professionally or in a personal capacity. While
immunologists, doctors, and nurses became indispensable in the quest to develop
vaccines and assist patients, others contributed simply by wearing masks and
offering to help their vulnerable neighbours during lockdowns.

But how have philosophers contributed? Can “the love for wisdom”, as it is
classically defined, make any difference in a pandemic?

As Karl Marx once pointed out, “Philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the
world in various ways; the point is to change it.” Something we learned this year,
however, is that this truism must be reversed.

The pandemic is a direct consequence of the imperative for growth at all costs,
especially through extractive wealth-concentrating capitalism, and at the expanse
of the environment. This should make us all think whether any of us have spent
enough time interpreting the world around us, and whether our actions have been
preceded by thoughtful consideration and debate.

The recent US presidential election, in which the isolationist “America first”

candidate experienced a crushing defeat, signalled a growing consensus that this
unprecedented global emergency requires a global solution. If this is indeed the
case, then philosophy can contribute in a great way to the resolution of this crisis.
After all, unlike “experts” who often have a narrow focus and offer localised
solutions, philosophy always aspires to address problems from a global
perspective.

Many renowned philosophers, such as Judith Butler, Achille Mbembe, and Giorgio
Agamben, have written about the pandemic and the lessons all peoples of the
world could learn from it, but there are two thinkers whose global perspective can
especially help stem our obsession to change the world without taking the time to
interpret it first – Slavoj Zizek and Bruno Latour.

Zizek and Latour do not necessarily agree on how we can overcome this pandemic,
but they both offer new ideas and questions that might at least prepare us for the
next global emergency.

Zizek asserts that the way we deal with this pandemic “ultimately depends on our
basic stance toward human life”. This is why he believes this emergency, more than
it has changed the world, has brought to the fore those issues – such as extreme
inequality, the commodified digitisation of our lives, and institutional disregard for
the environment – that were raging beneath the surface all along.

The fact that there are billions of people, from refugees to those trapped in
extreme poverty or in war zones, for whom COVID-19 is a comparatively minor
issue is an indication that we are not “all in the same boat” as many suggest.

This is also evident for those who cannot work from home, in safe isolation, and
must instead spend their day working in supermarkets, distribution depots,
factories and on the streets, protected only by whatever safety measures their
employers care to offer them. In order for some to survive in their private
quarantine, Zizek explains, many have to risk their lives for nothing more than the
smooth functioning of the world capitalist market.

According to the Slovenian thinker, the pandemic not only reveals these
devastating consequences of capitalism, but also presents an opportunity for the
reinvention of communism. He is not talking about a possible rebirth of the old-
style communism of the Soviet Union, but rather a “reorganisation of global
economy which will no longer be at the mercy of market mechanisms”. Alongside
the viral pandemic, Zizek calls also for a confrontation with the pandemic of
inequality and ecological degradation – a reconsideration of our entire stance
towards life and nature.

This reconsideration is also at the centre of Bruno Latour’s response to the

pandemic. The renowned French philosopher of science suggests that the
coronavirus emergency should be understood as a “dress rehearsal” for the
ongoing ecological crisis.

The coronavirus epidemic, he explains, is not simply a stand-alone health crisis but
part of a much bigger problem, a moment within the ongoing global ecological
annihilation.

While it might be true that we have now acknowledged the need to fight this virus
collectively, this acknowledgement did not expand to the ongoing ecological crisis,
as not many have drawn the connection between the continued degradation of the
environment and the outbreak of this sickness.

According to the French thinker, the pandemic calls for a new definition of society
that is not limited to “humans among themselves” but also includes other actors
who do not have human forms such as “microbes, [the] internet, the law, the
organisation of hospitals, the logistics of the state, as well as the climate.”

When this pandemic is over, Latour believes, it will be our obligation to demand
from politicians that economic recovery does not bring back the climate policies
that created this condition in the first place. The fact that we managed in a few
weeks to put our economic system on hold everywhere is a demonstration that it
is possible to instantly stop the so-called capitalist train of progress and create an
alternative. “If I could change one thing,” as he recently said, “it would be to get
out of the system of production and instead build a political ecology.”

Both Zizek and Latour, as well as other philosophers who have publicly reflected on
this pandemic, concur that this is the time to reconsider our “way of being in the
world”. For too long we have changed the world too rapidly without thinking
carefully about the consequences. This is why both Zizek and Latour welcome the
lockdowns that forced many into a kind of retreat to think, question, and imagine
new ways to create a better future.

While Zizek’s call for “a reorganisation of global economy” and Latour’s desire for
“political ecology” might sound unrealistic even during this pandemic, even merely
thinking about these ideas could exert enough pressure on us to reconsider our
“way of being in” and interpreting the world.

By: Santiago Zabala

Source: Al Jazeera
 Never mind the Brexit deadline drama – the shape of our bad deal is
clear
As the seemingly interminable Brexit negotiations draw to their final conclusion,
both Boris Johnson and the EU negotiators are reverting to type. For the EU, this
means making – and then withdrawing – an 11th-hour proposal for a “ratchet
clause” that would ensure “dynamic alignment” with “level-playing field
conditions”. For Johnson, it meant a festival of xenophobia: first insulting the
French, then threatening to use gunboats to fight EU fishermen, and finally causing
deep offence to Angela Merkel and the German people. It is shaming.

Yet the talks continue. Though their methods may differ, both Britain and the EU
have a common interest in raising the temperature in the last stage of thrashing
out a deal. Just as Johnson plays the politics of the gutter press, the EU is also a
political entity. For their own audiences, each has to give the impression of fighting
for their interests to the bitter end. The two sides released an almost laughably
downbeat joint statement at lunchtime saying the talks would go on. They are in
this together, after all.

The contours of the Brexit deal are almost precisely the same as those set out by
Theresa May’s Lancaster House speech nearly four years ago. Britain will be a “third
country” to the EU, outside the customs union and the single market and all the
other institutions. There will be a free-trade agreement that means there will be
no restrictions on the quantity of goods Britain and the EU can sell to each other,
nor on tariffs imposed upon them. But it will mean costly rules-of-origin and
regulatory compliance checks at borders. And it will make trade in services – where
the UK has a competitive advantage – much harder.

The main stumbling block is measures to ensure that trade is fair. If Britain and the
EU are to allow unfettered access to each other’s markets, then there must be
mechanisms in place to prevent undercutting – whether it takes the form of a race
to the bottom in stripping workers’ rights and environmental protections, or
artificially lowering the costs of production with direct or indirect state subsidies.
For all the tedious railing against EU regulations by our own Europhobic grifters, it
seems Johnson has already signed up to swallow the entire pre-existing EU
rulebook through “non-regression” clauses in the draft agreement.

The disagreement that is still holding the deal back is about the future evolution of
regulation. Both sides accept that there must be known and proportionate
consequences for future changes in regulation that amount to unfair competition.
For all the hot air over the weekend, it seems that the negotiating teams are
working through various technical arrangements that each side can live with. It
looks likely there will be a mechanism where sectoral tariffs can be imposed if there
is unfair competition, with independent arbitration.

The other stumbling block is fishing. The idea that the EU had “stolen” our fish was
one of the myths that fuelled Brexit. In truth, English fishermen sold off their quotas
to foreign operators in the 1990s – in contrast to Scotland where 96% remains in
Scottish hands. The UK exports 80% of the fish that it catches, mainly to EU
countries. And fishing is a tiny industry contributing little to our economy or
employment. It is the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea that requires Britain to
negotiate access to its waters for its neighbours – and there is little chance that a
politically and economically significant trade deal will be scuppered over fishing.

The eventual UK-EU deal will be perhaps the first trade agreement in history to
envisage more friction rather than less, less economic cooperation and regulatory
alignment rather than more. Both sides will be worse off because of it, though the
UK is three times as exposed and will be the biggest loser. It suits Johnson to define
success as having any deal rather than no deal – a threat that was a political hoax
all along. And it suits the Labour party, which has come to believe that voting for
Johnson’s deal is in its electoral interest. Titillated by the drama, British political
commentators have played their part too, focusing on the fact of a deal rather than
the quality of it. As has always been the case with Brexit, there was never a betrayal
of Britain in Brussels; that only happens at Westminster.

By: Tom Kibasi

Source: The Guardian

The author is a writer and researcher on politics and economics

 New goals show China is serious about global climate governance,
commitments
Chinese President Xi Jinping delivered a speech on Saturday at the Climate
Ambition Summit on the fifth anniversary of the Paris Agreement, where he
announced some further commitments for 2030.

The commitments include a further decrease in carbon dioxide emissions per unit
of GDP by over 65 percent from the 2005 level, an increase in the share of non-
fossil fuels in primary energy consumption and in the forest stock volume, as well
as an advance in total installed capacity of wind and solar power.

The goals that China set for 2030 can be seen as a great adjustment compared with
those China set in 2015. But the commitments are practical, based on past
experiences and within China's capabilities. The world has increasingly realized the
importance and urgency of tackling climate change and China aims to reach a
reasonably higher goal with its technological progress. No doubt, achieving these
goals will face difficulties, such as how to improve the energy structure and adjust
the production system, but they can still be achieved if we make the effort.

China has a good foundation in implementing the Paris Agreement, which enables
it to commit more. China has already lowered its carbon dioxide emissions per unit
of GDP by over 48 percent from the 2005 level by the end of 2019, and has already
met and exceeded the 2020 climate action target. This shows that the country
means what it says and will achieve what it has promised.

In the five years since the signing of the Paris Agreement, China has played a leading
role in the global fight against climate change. UN Secretary-General Antonio
Guterres said that China is clearly proceeding "in the right direction" and "providing
leadership."

Apart from China's initial contribution to the adoption of the Paris Agreement and
the formulation of its framework, China's practical implementation of the
agreement in the past years is a tangible manifestation of how the country has
promoted the idea of community of shared future for mankind in fighting climate
change. Every commitment that China has made is based on careful calculation. It
is never an easy job considering the large population and size of the economy. But
each goal has been achieved and will be achieved through concrete actions step by
step. China has demonstrated its responsibility as a major power and tries to set
an example for the rest of the world.

It is also worth noticing that China will continue to ensure its own stable
development while promoting climate governance. Over years, China's overall
understanding of the relationship between economic development and climate
governance has been increasingly deepened.

The faster the economy develops, the more Chinese people pay attention to the
environment and have a more comprehensive and in-depth judgment on which is
more important. The country has the vision and wisdom to plan its development
from the perspective of long-term competitiveness, which will be in how to achieve
green and low-carbon growth and development.

Climate governance is a global issue that requires multilateral cooperation.

Countries should formulate plans according to their own national conditions and
capabilities to achieve common goals. Meanwhile, countries that are making rapid
progress in climate governance should provide understanding and support to
countries that are moving more slowly.

China and the US are the two largest global economies, as well as two important
carbon dioxide emitters. US president-elect Joe Biden said on Sunday that the US
is going to rejoin the Paris Agreement in 39 days. This is a very proactive signal. It
is foreseeable that in the future, China and the US will have many opportunities for
dialogues in multilateral fields, including talks between governments, experts and
scholars. But it does not rule out the possibility that Biden, in the context of China-
US competition, will put pressure on China on climate change issues.

If China and the US can cooperate on climate change, then it will benefit the whole
world. The cooperation between two major powers will make it easier for other
countries to cooperate with each other. When China and the US head in the same
direction, then trivial differences do not matter. The concerted efforts of China and
the US are definitely a good thing for the global response to climate change.

Source: The Global Times

The article was compiled by Global Times reporter Wan Lin based on an interview
with Duan Maosheng, deputy director of the Institute of Environmental and Energy
Economics, Tsinghua University.
 Morocco-Israel deal has wide-ranging benefits
The late King Hassan II was indefatigable in his efforts in three main policy areas:
Morocco’s claim over the Western Sahara, seeking a just solution to the Israeli-
Palestinian dispute, and his kingdom’s relationship with the US. The three issues
have continued to characterize Moroccan foreign policy and it is therefore fitting
that a deal was last week secured that included them all.

The White House announced on Friday that President Donald Trump and King
Mohammed VI had agreed that Morocco would “resume diplomatic relations
between Morocco and Israel and expand economic and cultural co-operation to
advance regional stability.” A more important facet of their agreement was that
the US recognized Morocco’s sovereignty over the Western Sahara, with plans for
a US consulate there, following those that have been opened in recent weeks by
the UAE and Jordan.

The deal has been lauded as Moroccan recognition of the Israeli state, when in fact
it is the resumption of relations that had previously existed. It will see the
reopening of liaison offices in Tel Aviv and Rabat — which had shut in 2000, when
relations broke down amid the Second Intifada — and the eventual opening of
embassies, while Morocco will also grant direct flights to and from Israel for all
Israelis. Despite being a vocal and diplomatically active player in support of the
Palestinians and a two-state solution through the Fez Plan of 1981, Morocco has an
independent relationship with the Jewish people that is exclusive to those which
other members of the Arab League enjoy. A large indigenous Jewish population,
coupled with as many as 1 million Israelis being of Moroccan origin, is an important
facet of the Morocco-Israel relationship, which has familial, cultural and historical
significance. Moroccan Jews are the second-largest Jewish group in Israel. Despite
Morocco being the only Arab country in which Jewish history is taught in schools,
King Mohammed VI remains the chairman of the Al-Quds Committee and a close
collaborator with the Palestinian leadership in its struggle for statehood, as well as
in the maintenance and protection of the holy Islamic sites in Jerusalem.
Further to last week’s announcement, the Moroccan government has been keen to
underscore its commitment to the Palestinian cause. In many respects, this is why
its diplomatic activity has not been met with the level of criticism that followed the
Bahraini and Emirati normalization efforts. This is, however, separate to and
exclusive of its own relationship with the Jewish people, which is long-standing and
indeed a critical facet of Morocco’s tolerant society. The multiconfessional and
multiracial fabric of Morocco is central to its identity; indeed, the pluralism that
other Arab nations are only now trying to encourage has always been a fact of life
in Morocco.

Whether through the historic efforts of the Jewish emissaries of Morocco’s many
sultans, the Moroccan government in saving its Jewish population from the
Holocaust or the modern-day contribution of Jewish entrepreneurs to the
Moroccan economy, the relationship is positive and deep-rooted. In fact, the
discussions that took place last week even allowed for some remedy of the great
tragedy of the Moroccan Jewish experience, which was their mass exodus to Israel
in the 20th century. Fearing social strife that never occurred, the experience
divided families and caused many Israelis to lose their centuries-long Moroccan
identity and privileged societal status — only to then be treated as second-class
citizens in Israel on account of their Arab-Berber heritage.

The Jewish community is not, however, the only group Morocco’s leadership and
government have been keen to deal with in a protective manner. The Western
Sahara has been the focus of developmental efforts as the government has sought
to reinforce the International Court of Justice’s advisory opinion of 1974, which
affirmed “legal ties of allegiance between the Sultan of Morocco and some of the
tribes living in the territory of Western Sahara” from antiquity. Given the recent
outbreak of hostilities following the attacks by Polisario rebels on civilian trucking,
many had feared a more widespread escalation of what was actually a greatly
promising regional story of economic and human development. Following a
diplomatic and at times military struggle that has lasted almost half a century, the
US decision to unequivocally support Morocco’s claim is not only important with
regard to the North African kingdom, but also to bringing about regional peace and
the unity that has long eluded the countries of the Maghreb. For the least-
integrated region in the world, a resolution to its most pressing political problem
will allow for the economic and political integration for which its countries are
desperate.

As he welcomed this week’s deal, Trump warmly noted Morocco’s historic role in
being the first state to recognize the fledgling union. This sentiment has also been
publicly shared by President-elect Joe Biden, who famously stated during his vice
presidency that: “Morocco was the first nation in the world to recognize the United
States of America… in December 1777. So I’ve come here to say thank you.”

The US-Moroccan relationship is not dissimilar from Morocco’s ties with the Jewish
people or the Western Sahara, as it is rooted in history and also the focus of modern
diplomatic efforts. The Morocco-Israel deal is a positive step toward peace on
several fronts in a wider region that has been ravaged by conflict. Though resource-
poor, Morocco is historically rich — a fact that continues to pay dividends for its
modern efforts and, no doubt, future aspirations.

By: Zaid M. Belbagi

Source: The Arab News

The writer is a political commentator, and an adviser to private clients between

London and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).