Albanian recipe - Newspaper - DAWN.

COM
dawn.com/news/1697290/albanian-recipe

June 29, 2022

ALTHOUGH geographically Albania is a small country, its

commitment to the fight against violent extremism and
radicalisation carries significance for its neighbourhood.

Albania is the 18th smallest country in Europe, sharing borders

with Montenegro, Greece, North Macedonia and Kosovo. Spread
over 28,748 square kilometres, it is a little larger than erstwhile
Fata. It is inhabited by Albanian (82 per cent), Greek,
Macedonian, Montenegrin, Serb, Roma, Egyptian and Bosnian
ethnic groups.

To keep Albania and its neighbourhood free of extremism and

terrorism, the country has signed and ratified all United Nations
anti-terrorism conventions and protocols relating to terrorism.
In 2014, Albania adopted a National Security Strategy which
outlined constitutional obligations to guarantee national security
and strengthen fundamental freedoms, human rights and the
rule of law. Albania focused on improving its legislative
framework to criminalise all forms of violent extremism as well
as the recruitment of foreign terrorist fighters. Building the
capacity and expertise of law enforcement agencies was marked
as another priority area.
Here’s how Albania countered extremism.

The Albanian plan was based on the promotion of the

engagement of state institutions with local communities,
religious representatives and other stakeholders to identify
vulnerable groups that are or may be targeted by violent
extremism.

To counter radicalisation, a package of social, political, legal,

educational and economic programmes was recommended.
Many countries fail to define violent extremism (VE). Albania
sought clarity by defining it as, “the use of violence to pursue
political goals”.

In the age of globalisation, encouragement of critical thinking,

civic participation and promotion of tolerance is not possible
without education. In the Albanian plan, the school was
described as a community centre. The initiative sought to
encourage partnerships between schools, families and the
community. The concept had the potential to respond to the
threat of violent extremism by offering counselling services
through schools, which would also act as focal points in
designing preventive programmes and reaching hotspots.
Teachers were made important front-line workers to serve as
liaisons with communities and diagnose and react to signs of
radicalisation.

The strength of the Albanian plan was its bottom-up approach,

through which communities would serve as focal points for
formulation and implementation of policies. To this end,
communities were empowered to develop partnerships with
government departments, media, the business community and
CSOs.

Building community resilience is not possible without

community empowerment, and that is not possible without
community policing. In 2007, Albania introduced a seven-year CP
strategy based on a proactive and collaborative problem-solving
approach.

Reducing the impact of propaganda and discouraging

recruitment by extremists through social media was another
priority area. In developing societies, communication barriers
often affect the implementation of plans. Thus, the engagement
of bureaucracy, academia, media, social media companies, civil
society and the clergy is inevitable. The Albanian plan attached
great importance to communication with the public.

The Albanian plan also identified the need for the promotion of
local research, as extremism cannot be tackled in an effective
manner without developing knowledge of and expertise on CVE.
A combination of local research and international best practices
may be an effective recipe.

Since extremism does not know geographical frontiers,

countering VE requires partnerships at international and
regional levels. The development of such partnerships is one of
the top priorities of Albanian policy.

A few developing countries have developed plans to counter

extremism, but evaluation of implementation and identification
of gaps has usually been found to be missing. Albania intends to
periodically evaluate CVE policies and apply and share lessons
learnt.

In developing societies, financial constraints mar

implementation of plans. Even engagement of volunteers
requires funding. States which have CVE plans often ignore
funding and, consequently, have found their relevant
departments burdened further with responsibilities. The
Albanian plan tried to address this issue and highlighted the
need for exploring funding options, including the possibility of
seeking help from international donors.

Kinetic measures may be effective in defeating terrorists, but

countering extremism requires more inclusive approaches,
including deradicalisation and reintegration. Extremism is a
cancer which infects followers of different religions, cultures and
ethnicities. However, it is a curable cancer. A living state which is
protective and humane can act as a protective shield between
extremists and innocent citizens.

The writer is the author of Pakistan: In Between Extremism and

Peace.

Twitter: @alibabakhel

Published in Dawn, June 29th, 2022

BRICS exclusion - Newspaper - DAWN.COM
dawn.com/news/1697287/brics-exclusion

June 29, 2022

FOR Pakistan’s sustained economic progress, it is essential for the

country to maintain strong linkages with multilateral bodies that
focus on trade and development. In this regard, it is unfortunate
that Pakistan was unable to attend the High-level Dialogue on
Global Development hosted on the sidelines of the virtual BRICS
summit by China. Aside from the BRICS members, a number of
states, including from this region, participated in the event,
which is being viewed as the first step towards the expansion of
the multilateral body. The Foreign Office says “one member”
blocked Pakistan’s attendance, with sources telling this paper
that India — a founding member of BRICS — was responsible for
this country’s exclusion. This, sadly, is the same attitude that has
resulted in the paralysis of Saarc. Moreover, the authorities need
to explore the reason why China did not push harder for
Pakistan’s inclusion in the event, even though decisions within
BRICS are taken with the consultation of all members. And
though the FO insists Islamabad-Beijing ties are as strong as ever,
irritants, if any, must be removed using diplomatic channels to
ensure that bilateral relations remain strong.

It is possible that China is concerned about the security of its

nationals working in Pakistan, especially after the terrorist attack
at Karachi University in April in which three Chinese citizens
were among the victims. The state needs to convince Beijing that
it is doing all possible to ensure the security of Chinese nationals,
and to bring to justice those responsible for terrorist attacks
targeting Beijing’s citizens. However, it must also be said that
were it not for China’s behind-the-scenes help, Pakistan’s exit
from the FATF grey list would have been more difficult. It is
therefore hoped that bilateral cooperation continues at the
highest levels, and Pakistan is able to one day join BRICS and
other development-focused bodies. Where India’s malevolent
actions towards this country are concerned, there needs to be a
new thinking in the subcontinent that focuses on cooperation
instead of perpetual confrontation. India’s efforts to isolate
Pakistan internationally will do little to bring peace to the region.
Instead of indulging in mutually damaging behaviour, both states
need to start afresh and work towards regional integration and
South-South cooperation in general. Pakistan, thus, must liaise
with its foreign friends, and keep channels open with perceived
external foes, to ensure that this country has representation at all
forums where developing economies gather for mutual benefit.

Published in Dawn, June 29th, 2022

Opinion
Covid resurgence - Newspaper - DAWN.COM
dawn.com/news/1697286/covid-resurgence

June 29, 2022

PAKISTAN is facing yet another wave of Covid-19 infections, with

health experts predicting a surge in hospitalisations by next
week. Sadly, pandemic fatigue is writ large everywhere — with
no one bothered about wearing masks at restaurants, shopping
centres, wedding halls, offices, etc. People are going about their
daily lives without following safety precautions, endangering
themselves and others. During the past few days, hundreds of
cases have been recorded all over the country, and infections are
steadily rising. The highest number of cases are being reported
from Karachi where the positivity rate touched 22pc. Other cities
too have reported relatively high rates of Covid infections —
Mardan has a positivity rate of 9pc, Hyderabad 8.5pc, Islamabad
3.45pc and Peshawar 3pc. The fresh wave of infections is being
attributed to a super contagious Omicron subvariant, the
BA2.12.1, which was first detected in the country in the second
week of May. But lethargy has prevailed in the weeks since its
detection. According to officials, the number of reported cases
and positivity rates of different cities have more than doubled
since the previous week, indicating the fast transmission of the
virus. Some health officials attribute this rapid transmission to
the hot and humid weather prevailing in many areas of the
country. Though the NCOC, now part of the National Institute of
Health, has instructed people to wear masks while travelling by
public transport and on domestic flights and trains, other parallel
measures by the federal and provincial governments remain
conspicuous by their absence.
It is against this background that a meeting of the NCOC was held
on Tuesday where the authorities decided to ramp up testing,
ensure contact tracing and undertake aggressive campaigning to
promote mask-wearing. It was reported that the Sindh
government might soon announce a strategy for curbing the
alarming rise in infections. The authorities should implement
strict prevention measures at the earliest, because even a
moderate rise in hospitalisations in the current economic climate
might prove too much for the country’s fragile health
infrastructure.

Published in Dawn, June 29th, 2022

Opinion
Supreme patriarchy
dawn.com/news/1697289/supreme-patriarchy

June 29, 2022

THE dissenting opinion by three judges in last week’s landmark

US Supreme Court decision on abortion spelt it out rather
succinctly: “After today, young women will come of age with
fewer rights than their mothers and grandmothers had.”

This is neither the first time the court has stripped US citizens of
their rights, nor will it be the last. Justice Clarence Thomas —
whose wife, coincidentally or otherwise, has been implicated in
the conspiracy to overturn the popular verdict in the 2020
presidential election — made it fairly explicit in his concurring
judgement that related rights such as contraception and same-
sex marriage could now also be rescinded.
That sense of mission wasn’t echoed in the majority opinion —
but then, the three Trump appointees on the bench also
dissembled during their confirmation hearings when asked
about Roe vs Wade, the 1973 judgement that established the right
to terminate unwanted or risky pregnancies.

Notwithstanding the outrage it has sparked, last week’s verdict

did not come as a shock, given that it conforms pretty closely
with the draft opinion by Justice Samuel Alito leaked last month.
But perhaps the entire trend should hardly be a surprise.
Who’ll stop America’s relapse into the Dark Ages?

After all, at international “women’s health” conferences over the

decades, the US has fairly consistently voted alongside some of
the worst transgressors against the equality of the sexes,
including Saudi Arabia and Iran. Furthermore, under some
administrations it has withdrawn aid from organisations
facilitating contraception in parts of the world where the rate of
population growth poses a serious problem.

And besides, the Equal Rights Amendment passed by the US

Senate 50 years ago wasn’t approved by enough states before the
deadline for its ratification passed.

It remains in limbo, much like the United States itself. A majority

of Americans of every significant faith agree that abortion on
demand should be available in all or almost all circumstances.
Evangelicals are the only segment of society where it’s the other
way around. The American Taliban, as they are sometimes
described, believe in a God-given right to prescribe what women
can do with their bodies.
There is a monumental irony in the fact that women’s rights
were paraded as one of the excuses for invading Afghanistan.
One would like to know where were the ‘pro-life’ activists when
children were being killed by American artillery in Afghanistan,
Iraq or Yemen — or, for that matter, being bayonetted in Vietnam
half a century ago by ‘our boys”?

At a Trump rally in Illinois on the weekend, congresswoman

Mary Miller applauded the supreme court verdict as a “historic
victory for white life”. Her campaign claimed she meant to say
“right to life”. But it wasn’t necessarily a Freudian slip. Just last
year she declared, “Hitler was right on one thing. He said,
‘Whoever has the youth has the future’.” Yes, many people
remember the Hitler Youth. Donald Trump himself,
appropriately taking credit for the supreme court verdict — after
all, he appointed the three judges who made it a slam dunk —
hailed Miller at the rally as a “warrior for our movement and our
values”.

A lot more of her ilk could end up in the House of

Representatives in November. There is no clear evidence so far
that the national pro-abortion majority can pre-empt a
Republican majority in the House, or prevent the Democrats
from losing their fairly pointless parity in the Senate.

That, in turn, suggests Senator Elizabeth Warren and

Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are pretty much
whistling in the wind when they bring up the worthy ideas of
enhancing the supreme court bench or impeaching the unworthy
errant justices.
It may not be impossible to halt America’s regressive trajectory
towards the kind of misogynist dystopia envisaged in Canadian
novelist Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, but there is
little evidence so far of the kind of popular mobilisation and the
federal and state legal and legislative efforts that would be
required to stave off the extremist onslaught.

More alarmingly accurate, perhaps, is the scenario sketched out

by former PEN America president Francine Prose, who worries
about how great the shock would be “to wake up one morning
and find that while we were driving the kids to soccer practice
and enjoying that welcoming after-work cocktail, more and more
of our rights had been stripped away … The overturning of Roe v
Wade should shock us … into looking beyond the dance floor of
the Titanic and spotting that iceberg, looming in our path, not so
very far away.”

The analogy isn’t all that far-fetched. President Joe Biden seems
keen to “save Ukraine” by gifting it the firepower to prolong the
war, but on the home front he is frequently missing in action as
the retrograde Putinesque elements gather force, presaging
unpleasant consequences on a global scale.

mahir.dawn@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, June 29th, 2022

System imbalance - Newspaper - DAWN.COM
dawn.com/news/1697288/system-imbalance

June 29, 2022

SAGGING under the weight of internal weaknesses, the political

system once again seems to be wobbling towards disequilibrium.
Monday’s proceedings in the National Assembly saw the
government’s key coalition partners reacting angrily to being
‘ignored’ by the ruling PML-N. They accused the party of going
back on promises that were made to them before the vote of no-
confidence against former prime minister Imran Khan. Their
indignation was taken seriously enough that the prime minister
hurriedly invited key leaders to PM House for a dinner the same
night. Over dinner, he reportedly attempted to soothe nerves and
assuage concerns, while trying to keep his allies from jumping
ship before his economic and political stabilisation project is
completed.

That is easier said than done. Judging by the way the proceedings
in the Lower House played out on Monday, it seems that the goals
of the federal cabinet and the smaller parties in the rainbow
coalition are not aligned with each other. The government
clearly does not have much space to be granting wishes. It
cannot, for instance, do much if an ally starts asking for
development funds while the IMF is breathing down its neck. It
also cannot do much about ensuring Ali Wazir’s presence in the
National Assembly, because it cannot afford to annoy the
powerful quarters who do not want to see him there. Likewise, it
cannot be expected to take serious action over allegations of
rigging and violence during the recent local government polls
held in Sindh, which nearly every party other than the PPP has
denounced as being neither free nor fair. The government will,
of course, try to find ways to appease its disgruntled partners,
but it is also up to the partners to meet it halfway. In case any ally
decides to jump ship because the political costs of staying get too
high, it could all be over for the government. As one lawmaker
reminded the treasury benches, there are only two votes keeping
them there.

The prime minister must also keep an eye on Punjab, where the
government is balanced on a knife-edge amidst legal challenges
to its legitimacy and a make-or-break by-election due next
month. A loss there could be a fatal blow. Meanwhile, Mr Khan
has announced plans for another protest in Islamabad on July 2
— exactly a day after the government’s budget for the next fiscal
year goes into effect. He will have sensed the growing public
resentment over painful budgetary measures and likely wishes
to ride it back into national relevance. With the prime minister
intent on navigating the economy out of the ongoing crisis, the
challenge will be to keep one hand on the wheel while he tries to
keep his government together. As the challenges mount, it will
take much patience and experience to see this summer through.

Published in Dawn, June 29th, 2022

Opinion
The Punjab imbroglio
dawn.com/news/1697293/the-punjab-imbroglio

June 29, 2022

THE future of the newly installed PML-N government in Punjab

looks more precarious after the impending notification of five
PTI members on reserved seats for women and minorities. The
outcome of the coming by-elections on 20 provincial assembly
seats could well seal the administration’s fate that is hanging by a
thread. The Punjab crisis may change the whole course of
Pakistani politics.

The prospect of the fall of an already teetering administration in

the country’s biggest province could make the situation
increasingly untenable for a fractious coalition set-up at the
centre. The prolonged instability in Punjab has a direct bearing
on the federal government struggling to implement the tough
and unpopular policy measures required to stabilise the
economy. Can the current dispensation sail through choppy
waters? The next few weeks could be critical.

Punjab has been in the midst of a political crisis triggered by the

move to oust the then PTI government led by (former) chief
minister Usman Buzdar. A controversial election, marred by
physical scuffles between rival parliamentarians, elected Hamza
Shehbaz, the son of the prime minister, as the province’s chief
minister. Despite having the support of 25 PTI defectors,
including five members on reserved seats, the PML-N candidate
returned with a very thin majority.

He, however, could not take up his position for weeks because of
the then governor’s refusal to administer the oath of office,
leaving the province without an effective administration. With
the appointment of a new governor, the cabinet is now in place.
But the political uncertainty has persisted.
It is evident that Imran Khan’s populist politics has helped the PTI regain its
support base.

With the de-seating of 25 PTI defectors, the fate of the chief

minister is uncertain. There had been serious doubts about
whether he has the confidence of the truncated assembly. The
Lahore High Court ruling this week instructing the Election
Commission to notify five members nominated by the PTI against
the vacant seats has further complicated the numbers game.

In the April 16 election, boycotted by the PTI and its allies, Hamza
Shehbaz got 197 votes, including those of 25 PTI dissidents and
some independent members. But the de-seating of the PTI
renegades that has reduced the number of his supporters in the
House to 172 has left the chief minister with less than what is
required to establish a majority in the assembly.

On the other hand, the notification of five PTI members on

reserved seats would increase the opposition’s strength. With 20
seats at stake in the July 17 by-elections, the balance could swing
either way. But it is not likely to produce political stability in the
province, given the narrow margin of difference between the
two sides. The odds seem stacked against the PML-N in the
coming by-election, given the swelling public support for the PTI.

Moreover, the granting of tickets to PTI deserters is likely to

divide PML-N supporters. While the choice of candidate may
make the predicament of the ruling party worse, the PTI has
played it safe by relying entirely on electables, contrary to Imran
Khan’s so-called campaign against dynastic politics and pledge to
give preference to ‘ideological’ members.

Most of the defectors were elected as independents, and later

joined the PTI, helping the party form the provincial government
with a thin majority. Many of them have a history of aligning
themselves with any party in power. It may also be pressure
from the security establishment that forced them to join the PTI.

Their defection to the PML-N, when the chips were down for the
PTI, too, was not surprising. They have strong individual
electoral support bases in their respective constituencies but it
won’t ensure victory for them in the fast-shifting political
scenario. It also can’t be taken for granted that PML-N supporters
will vote for candidates not from their party’s ranks. Perhaps, it
will be even harder to get them to vote for former PTI members.
Local rivalries are an important factor in constituency politics.
Their individual vote bank alone won’t ensure victory for them
in a highly charged political atmosphere. Moreover, the ruling
party candidates would find it hard to defend some of the
economic measures that are fuelling the rising cost of living.

It is a completely different situation now than it was before the

fall of the Imran Khan government in April. The PTI is now using
the same issues — spiralling food inflation, increase in the prices
of petroleum products and a worsening economic situation —
that it faced while in power to whip up anti-government
sentiments.

It is evident that Imran Khan’s populist politics has helped the

PTI regain its support base to the advantage of its candidates in
the critical by-elections. If the opinion polls are to be believed,
there has been a significant increase in the former prime
minister’s popularity in Punjab which has always been
considered the bastion of the PML-N. By-elections would
certainly be a test of the political strength of the two adversaries.

In order to survive in power, the PML-N needs to win at least 16

of the 20 seats being contested that will give it a bare majority in
the assembly. Most indicators show that such a sweep may not be
possible for any side. It becomes much more difficult for the
PML-N to win the numbers game with some dissenters in its own
ranks. Five party members had abstained from voting for Hamza
in the April 16 elections. The game is far from over.

More importantly, the fate of the 10-party coalition government

at the centre, that hinges on a two-vote majority, is also linked to
the outcome of the battle for Punjab. In a bold move, the ruling
alliance has decided to continue to hold on to power until the end
of the assemblies’ term. But the Punjab crisis has made things
harder for the Shehbaz Sharif government that is trying to
stabilise the political and economic situation.

The prospect of losing Punjab has generated further political

instability in the country. With Imran Khan out to destroy the
entire political edifice, the country is moving towards greater
political and economic uncertainty. Even early elections in this
highly polarised political atmosphere may not help stabilise the
situation.

The writer is an author and journalist.

zhussain100@yahoo.com

Twitter: @hidhussain

Published in Dawn, June 29th, 2022

The ‘modernising’ project
dawn.com/news/1697291/the-modernising-project

June 29, 2022

IN 1886, the Colonial and Indian Exhibition was held in London.

It lasted for six months, and visitors — there were said to be over
five million of them — came from all over the world to view it. It
was a time when the British Empire appeared to be at its zenith;
it had been some decades since the Indian ‘mutiny’ of 1857, and
the empire’s power over its far-flung outposts had once again
been solidified. At the same time, it was necessary to keep British
voters at home satisfied with the imperial project. Not everyone
could be taken to British colonial landholdings, obviously, and so
the curators of the exhibition decided to bring the empire to
them.
At this exhibition, the British public could see Indian arts and
crafts, view artisans — many of them said to be prisoners in
India — at work, eat Indian food, gawk at Indian women, and so
on. The purpose here, as with previous exhibitions was to
underscore how the colonial project was not about loot and
subjugation but of altruistic concern at the abhorrently primitive
and pre-modern lives of the native colonial subject.

Fast-forward to 1896. That year marked the date on which the

first film was screened in Bombay. Few would ever have guessed
then that Bombay would become one of the most productive
film-producing cities of the world. At that time and in the
immediate decade following, Bombay could not even claim to be
the most important centre of culture (and thus film) in the
subcontinent. Cultural production happened in other cities of the
subcontinent in the colonial era. In cities such as Delhi, the
cultural industry had long been patronised by the city’s Muslim
elites. There was a framework that existed to promote art, and
film after all was art.

For their part, the colonial rulers held the same philosophy as
they did during the 1886 exhibition. They thought Indian cinema
like so many other facets of Indian life could be co-opted and put
into the service of Empire. Film after all was terribly modern, a
utilisation of technological advancement to do what had been
previously unthinkable: make pictures move. In presenting
visions of urban life, the British could encourage dowdy pre-
modern Indians to now be like the subjects of the films —
progressive, forward-looking and ultimately malleable to the
general modernising project of the British Empire.
It is true that a kind of national identity formed around cinema.
This was the state of affairs until pictures began to talk. In her
book Bombay Hustle: Making Movies in a Colonial City, author
Debashree Mukherjee notes how the end of the silent film era
and the beginning of the talking cinema marked a moment when
the easy equation of empire and modernity did not sit as well as
it once had. This was not quite obvious at first, as the themes of
cinema stayed the same. Many Hindi movies at the time featured
the ‘arrival’ theme, in which a poor Indian peasant arrives from
the rural outposts of the country to the big city of Bombay. This
was the colonial motif; old lives and ways of thinking had to be
discarded if one wanted to be remade in the modern, advanced
city. The openness of the character to being remade suggested
India’s relationship with modernity.

Sound, it seems, changed everything. When dialogue came to

film, the actors were now whole — laughing, singing, arguing
and so on. In India, it also meant the wild multilingual melee of
films made in its many various languages. This new development
indigenised Indian cinema in a way that disrupted the idea of
film as a foreign power’s means to bring pre-modern people into
the modern age. Instead, talking cinema solidified nationalist
sentiments, as the characters chatted away in Urdu and Hindi.
The talkies were also difficult to control. In the 1930s and 1940s
and sometimes before, British censors had to be appointed to
make sure that the cinema was not fomenting hatred against the
colonial administration. Obscenity thus was a crime that could be
committed against the colonial administration. This created
visible hypocrisies; if the cinema was a sign of progress and
advancement, then censors of the cinema were naturally
preventing such scientific progress from spreading to the
colonised population.
It is difficult to come up with numerical proportions of the extent
to which the emergence of talking pictures produced in Bombay
might have contributed to the independence movement. It is true
that a kind of national identity formed around cinema. In
Bombay, the industry was further facilitated by trading in cotton
futures, which produced capital that could be and often was
invested in the movies. The speculative nature of film production
thus used up the city’s financial capital with cultural production.

Even today, Indian cinema continues to rely on nationalistic

themes. Alas, unlike the movies of old, which tried to create a
post-colonial subject and imagined a future free of colonial
occupation, today’s productions do the opposite. Hindu
nationalists now demand revisionist versions of history, the
inclusion of at least one if not more villainous characters, and
liberal copyright infringement of songs produced by Pakistani
singers. Far from being forward looking, much of it seeks to
create revisionist history and to pad the facts to make Hindu
characters into kings and conquerors.

Despite this, however, the story of the Bombay Talkies is one

which typifies how technological advancements, as unexpected
as they may be, can produce the sudden and dramatic change
that makes people look at the world entirely differently than they
used to mere months and years earlier. It is entirely possible that
the emergence of handheld devices that provide access to movie
making and movie watching will be seen as similarly
transformative from the vantage point of the future.

The writer is an attorney teaching constitutional law and political

philosophy.

rafia.zakaria@gmail.com