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As the presidential race heats up in the United States, there is a little-known fact about one of the presidential contenders that Pakistanis should consider with greater care. Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee for President has seven children, which is a common family size in rural Pakistan. However, Mr. McCain’s youngest child Bridget stands out as phenotypically quite different from the rest of his progeny as she was adopted from an orphanage in Bangladesh and brought to the United States in 1991. Bridget had a heart defect and her parents had abandoned her at one of the orphanages led by the late Sister of Charity and Nobel laureate, Mother Theresa’s network. The McCains adopted the child and paid for all her medical treatment and she is now a pivotal part of their family.
During the primary in South Carolina, this noble deed sadly became a point of contention among some of the voters who continued to have a residual racial prejudice. In a recent interview, McCain described the situation as follows: “A lot of phone calls were made by people who said we should be very ashamed about her, about the color of her skin. Thousands and thousands of calls from people to voters saying ‘You know the McCains have a black baby.” I believe that there is a special place in hell for people like those.” Even when there is no prejudice, the coverage of adoption in the press is often ambivalent and uncomfortable. Regrettably, the adoptions of poor children by celebrities such as Angelina Jolie and Madonna have also been trivialized with cynical commentary by the tabloid media.
Sadly many Pakistani families who wish to adopt a child still contend with prejudice as well when they strive to adopt poor children from the slums of the country. Many try to find a Pathan child who would be “fair and lovely” rather than a child of Dravidian lineage, and hence darker skin, who may be just as deserving. Others try to hide the fact that the child is adopted in various ways at social events and the frequent whisper is heard at weddings about the mysterious origins of the adoptee. Many families are afraid to adopt because there is a feeling that the child may have birth defects or some other inadequacy. In such cases the goal is to strive for a perfect offspring rather than to meet a societal need. There is unfortunately an unsettling stigma associated with adoption that must be erased by all of us.
For a country that has such a staggering birth rate, adoption must be considered a more viable option for elite urban families as birth control education catches up with the rural population. The matter is clearly complicated by a misperception of religious doctrines on the matter. There is a continuing perception that an adopted child is secondary in Islamic law. While there are injunctions in shariah that give preference to blood offspring over adopted children, this does not mean that Islam discourages adoption. The differentiation here needs to be made between legal tenets of adoption in shairah, and the spirit of guardianship and parenthood or kifalah that Islam encourages. If you take the term adoption mean the caring of a child in need within a family setting, there are numerous instances of adoption in Islamic history including the Prophet Muhammad’s own life when he as “adopted” by his Uncle upon the demise of his parents. However, many scholars have confounded this matter with the legal aspects of inheritance of adopted children, in which case the Quran makes a clear distinction between genetic progeny or heirs and adopted children. Even in this case, the Quran allows up to one-third of inheritance to be gifted by discretion to anyone, including adopted children. The matter has been confounded by Orientalist commentary regarding the Prohpet’s adopted son Zaid bin Haritha (an emancipated slave whom the Prophet brought up as his son and who was later married to the Prophet’s cousin Zainab bint-e-Jahsh). The accusation is often made that the Prophet wanted to marry Zainab and hence to allow for such a union, the adoptive status of Zaid was questioned in the Quran (Surah 33, verses 37-38) so as to allow for the marriage to occur after Zainab’s voluntary divorce from Zaid.
However, this line of reasoning is not supported by the full historical record on the matter since the Prophet was married monogamously to Khadija for 23 years and after her death when he did take on multiple wives, his first choice was an elderly widow named Sauda binte-e-Z’ama rather than an attractive cousin whom he had known since birth. Call me an apologist, but the reasons for the Prophet’s marriages were far more varied and complex than the average Islamic textbook in the West may reveal. Indeed, Zainab was the Prophet’s sixth wife and the hadith record shows that the marriage was largely arranged to allow for a respectable exit strategy for Zaid and Zainab who were quite unhappy in their marriage. The Prophet continued to maintain a very strong bond with Zaid throughout his life. Indeed, he was deeply protective of Zaid’s family and the Prophet chose Zaid’s son Osama as the leader of the legion to Rome as one of his last acts of governance before his death.
Thus the history of Islam provides us with adequate encouragement for adoption as a worthy deed and one which families should consider more actively across the Muslim world but particularly in Pakistan. While Senator McCain might not be the most appealing U.S. presidential candidate for many Pakistanis on other accounts, his nobility as an adoptive parent must be admired and emulated.
Dr Saleem H Ali is associate dean for graduate education at the University of Vermont’s Rubenstein School of Environment and on the adjunct faculty of Brown University’s Watson Institute for International Studies. Email: saleem@alum.mit.edu
As the presidential race heats up in the United States, there is a little-known fact about one of the presidential contenders that Pakistanis should consider with greater care. Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee for President has seven children, which is a common family size in rural Pakistan. However, Mr. McCain’s youngest child Bridget stands out as phenotypically quite different from the rest of his progeny as she was adopted from an orphanage in Bangladesh and brought to the United States in 1991. Bridget had a heart defect and her parents had abandoned her at one of the orphanages led by the late Sister of Charity and Nobel laureate, Mother Theresa’s network. The McCains adopted the child and paid for all her medical treatment and she is now a pivotal part of their family.
During the primary in South Carolina, this noble deed sadly became a point of contention among some of the voters who continued to have a residual racial prejudice. In a recent interview, McCain described the situation as follows: “A lot of phone calls were made by people who said we should be very ashamed about her, about the color of her skin. Thousands and thousands of calls from people to voters saying ‘You know the McCains have a black baby.” I believe that there is a special place in hell for people like those.” Even when there is no prejudice, the coverage of adoption in the press is often ambivalent and uncomfortable. Regrettably, the adoptions of poor children by celebrities such as Angelina Jolie and Madonna have also been trivialized with cynical commentary by the tabloid media.
Sadly many Pakistani families who wish to adopt a child still contend with prejudice as well when they strive to adopt poor children from the slums of the country. Many try to find a Pathan child who would be “fair and lovely” rather than a child of Dravidian lineage, and hence darker skin, who may be just as deserving. Others try to hide the fact that the child is adopted in various ways at social events and the frequent whisper is heard at weddings about the mysterious origins of the adoptee. Many families are afraid to adopt because there is a feeling that the child may have birth defects or some other inadequacy. In such cases the goal is to strive for a perfect offspring rather than to meet a societal need. There is unfortunately an unsettling stigma associated with adoption that must be erased by all of us.
For a country that has such a staggering birth rate, adoption must be considered a more viable option for elite urban families as birth control education catches up with the rural population. The matter is clearly complicated by a misperception of religious doctrines on the matter. There is a continuing perception that an adopted child is secondary in Islamic law. While there are injunctions in shariah that give preference to blood offspring over adopted children, this does not mean that Islam discourages adoption. The differentiation here needs to be made between legal tenets of adoption in shairah, and the spirit of guardianship and parenthood or kifalah that Islam encourages. If you take the term adoption mean the caring of a child in need within a family setting, there are numerous instances of adoption in Islamic history including the Prophet Muhammad’s own life when he as “adopted” by his Uncle upon the demise of his parents. However, many scholars have confounded this matter with the legal aspects of inheritance of adopted children, in which case the Quran makes a clear distinction between genetic progeny or heirs and adopted children. Even in this case, the Quran allows up to one-third of inheritance to be gifted by discretion to anyone, including adopted children. The matter has been confounded by Orientalist commentary regarding the Prohpet’s adopted son Zaid bin Haritha (an emancipated slave whom the Prophet brought up as his son and who was later married to the Prophet’s cousin Zainab bint-e-Jahsh). The accusation is often made that the Prophet wanted to marry Zainab and hence to allow for such a union, the adoptive status of Zaid was questioned in the Quran (Surah 33, verses 37-38) so as to allow for the marriage to occur after Zainab’s voluntary divorce from Zaid.
However, this line of reasoning is not supported by the full historical record on the matter since the Prophet was married monogamously to Khadija for 23 years and after her death when he did take on multiple wives, his first choice was an elderly widow named Sauda binte-e-Z’ama rather than an attractive cousin whom he had known since birth. Call me an apologist, but the reasons for the Prophet’s marriages were far more varied and complex than the average Islamic textbook in the West may reveal. Indeed, Zainab was the Prophet’s sixth wife and the hadith record shows that the marriage was largely arranged to allow for a respectable exit strategy for Zaid and Zainab who were quite unhappy in their marriage. The Prophet continued to maintain a very strong bond with Zaid throughout his life. Indeed, he was deeply protective of Zaid’s family and the Prophet chose Zaid’s son Osama as the leader of the legion to Rome as one of his last acts of governance before his death.
Thus the history of Islam provides us with adequate encouragement for adoption as a worthy deed and one which families should consider more actively across the Muslim world but particularly in Pakistan. While Senator McCain might not be the most appealing U.S. presidential candidate for many Pakistanis on other accounts, his nobility as an adoptive parent must be admired and emulated.
Dr Saleem H Ali is associate dean for graduate education at the University of Vermont’s Rubenstein School of Environment and on the adjunct faculty of Brown University’s Watson Institute for International Studies. Email: saleem@alum.mit.edu
The mourning period of Benazir Bhutto’s tragic assassination has passed this week with a surprisingly calm election and Pakistanis will no doubt begin to approach her son and political heir Bilawal Bhutto Zardari in various ways to express their hopes and fears for the country. As one such citizen, I write this article at the eve of the publication of his mother’s notable book and also after a pivotal election victory for her party. You may ask why I write to give advice to a nineteen year old who couldn’t even run in the election? The answer is simple: reform is far easier to advocate to those who are new to the process than to those who are entrenched in entitlements of the old system. Perhaps that is why so many Americans are gravitating towards an inexperienced but youthfully optimistic senator named Barack Obama.
As an expatriate, like Bilawal, I have much less at stake in the future of Pakistan than the millions who languish in poverty and despair or the elite who continue to benefit from an arcane system of privilege. Yet I cannot help feel the need to emotionally connect with the land with which I am most frequently identified by language, ethnicity and tradition.
Since Bilawal has accepted to carry forward the mission of his mother despite the risks entailed, it is important to get this message to him at the earliest. As he is immersed in studies at Oxford and perhaps insulated temporarily from the gathering storm of discontent in Pakistan, it is a time for the PPP to consider effectively what role he might play as a positive catalyst for change. I heard his first press conference in London, and was pleasantly surprised to observe relative composure in the face of some very tough questions from the media about his tender age and the perceived lack of legitimacy as a political force. There is little doubt that he has the potential to be a fine leader in terms of intellect and that should remain his forte rather than the Bhutto name. In this regard, he should seek to find some common ground with his cousin Fatima, who has quite emphatically called for the emergence of a culture of meritocracy in the country.
No doubt there will be plenty of people who will try to erode Bilawal’s youthful idealism and make him feel as if feudal politics are all that can work in Pakistan, including perhaps some in his own family. Let’s hope he is wary of such enticements that the establishment will try to seduce him with in various ways – perhaps by servile compliments or by elderly admonition. The only way to change the system of privilege in Pakistan is for the next generation of elite like Bilawal to move us out of this inertia.
True democracy will only flourish when each candidate can be evaluated on their merits and we can have a more equitable distribution of power across society in Pakistan. The most fundamental resource that the country has is land and until we are able to have a comprehensive land redistribution program our attempts at democratization will fail and so will Bilawal’s call for “revenge through democracy.” The Peoples Party has always prided itself for principles of social equity and under the leadership of a true reformer there is perhaps a chance that it will make comprehensive land reform a priority. Bilawal should endure the opposition that he may face on this fundamental matter with the same fortitude that he has shown since the loss of his mother. Land reform is always tough but as Pakistan’s neighbor India has shown in many states, it is indeed possible and once it is achieved, democracy can take firm roots. As a martial artist trained in Karate, the young Bhutto perhaps appreciates the importance of self-denial and leveraging power through efficient use of our muscles. Similarly, land redistribution, will be the most effective way to leverage power to move the Body Politic towards collective victory against poverty and deprivation. We are beginning to see the public move away from entrenched feudal politicians in some of the results from central Punjab in this election. However, the winners are still largely connected to old families of influence.
The question of religion will always remain salient in Pakistani politics. In this regard, Bilawal has an admirable manifesto from his mother in her posthumous book: Reconcilliation, Islam, Democracy and the West. There is indeed a way to reconcile Islam and modernity but that must be accepted within some clear parameters. Islamic societies are beginning to reform in many positive ways to allow for pluralism and the process will no doubt be generational as it was with its Abrahamic predecessor faiths: Christianity or Judaism. The power of intangible spirituality and benign religious practice cannot be ignored in societies just as the power of a good story remains timeless, even if it may be fictional.
There will certainly be attrition and conflict as we move beyond a literalist interpretation of scripture but moderation of Islamic doctrines is quite possible in an increasingly globalized world. Surely, Bilawal’s upbringing in the Emirates will have provided him with enough experiential learning in this regard on how to evolve a modern society within an Islamic context. Such proclivities for spirituality must be embraced so long as they are not exclusionary in implementation – a lesson which Benazir Bhutto clearly reveals in her book.
Finally, let’s hope that Bilawal appreciates that no one is indispensible and the human urge to govern has tremendous resilience across societies. However, as a student of political science, Bilawal might well consider the words of Charles de Motesquieu, which underscore the admirable insistence his late mother had to spend time with the public, and which he must aspire to amplify through action: “to be truly great one has to stand with people, not above them.”
Indonesia’s pesantren (the local word for a madrassa or religious school) have come under great scrutiny in recent years due to their perceived connections to terrorist incidents such as the Bali bombings in 2005. Even US presidential hopeful Barack Obama felt obliged to distance himself from his childhood days in Indonesia because of a rumour that he too had attended a pesantren, since both his father and stepfather were Muslims. Yet the transformation taking place at Pesantren Lingkungan Giri Ilmu would certainly please most constituencies in the West. Children from the village of Bantul are learning about the importance of preserving their ecosystem as a mark of worshipping God. The tenacity of Islamic religious doctrines that often manifests itself in uncompromising stances on political conflicts is being channelled more positively towards environmental ethics.
In his latest book The Creation, eminent Harvard ecologist E O Wilson writes an open letter to the clergy in which he urges theologians to unite on environmental causes: “The defence of living Nature is a universal value. It doesn’t rise from nor does it promote any religious or ideological dogma. Rather, it serves without discrimination the interests of all humanity.” It seems as though Wilson’s plea is at least being heard in Indonesia — one of the world’s highest biodiversity regions.
To further develop this trend and to link environmental education to a larger agenda of conflict resolution, the United Nations mandated University for Peace held a week-long workshop on peace education in an Islamic context in November 2007. The setting for the workshop was Gadgah Mada University in Yogyakarta, not far from our eco-friendly pesantren. Scholars from numerous Muslim countries gathered to consider various dimensions of peace education and to develop lesson plans for implementation in Islamic schools. I was invited to develop specific ideas on how to use environmental issues within an Islamic context as an instrumental means of peace-building.
It was fairly easy to convince the delegates that the advent of Islam as an organised religion occurred in the desert environment of Arabia, and hence there was considerable attention paid to ecological concerns within Islamic ethics. While Islamic theology is not pantheistic, and shares many of the anthropocentric attributes of other Abrahamic faiths, there is a reverence of nature that stems from essential pragmatism within the faith. Due to resource scarcity, early Muslims realised that long-term development was only possible within ecological constraints which were shared by all of humanity. Thus, the universality of environmental resources provides a valuable template for peace-building that is realised in Islam.
Nevertheless, there are several systemic challenges to the realisation of a sustainable development paradigm within contemporary Islam, largely due to institutional inertia and a reluctance of ulema to engage contemporary issues. First, the Islamic belief of humans as Ashraful Makhloqaat (the most superior creation) poses serious challenges to inculcating environmental ethics, particularly with reference to animal rights. However, this can be countered by considering numerous injunctions about the great responsibility that comes with the status of being a “superior creation”. The concept of khalifa (vicegerent) can be considered an antidote to this concept since the role of a vicegerent is to act as a steward for the land and for all creation.
Second, the Islamic focus on the after-life rather than the present has also led many Muslims to consider environmental and developmental challenges as trivial compared to the hereafter. This has led to a sense of complacence and fatalism about our developmental predicament, since it is deemed the will of God. I felt this strong apathy whilst conducting research on the Islamic schools of Pakistan three years ago. Yet this fatalism is no longer pervasive among the devoutly practicing Muslims of Indonesia. The Islamic religious schools in the world’s largest Muslim country are realising that the most profound act of worship is to conserve natural resources on which all life depends. Just as suicide is forbidden in Islam because of a deep respect for the sanctity of life, so too is the deliberate desecration of the life support systems that make our planet so unique.
Even beyond Indonesia there are several promising signs that narratives of policy makers are changing positively. The Islamic Foundation for Ecology and Environmental Science, based in Birmingham, UK, is developing numerous programmes for religious institutions in Muslim countries around the world. Even development donors are beginning to take note of such efforts. In late 2006, the US Agency for International Development launched an environmental education program in Tanzania in partnership with NGOs such as the Baraza Kuu la Waislamu Tanzania (BAKWATA) and the Jane Goodall Institute. The “Roots & Shoots” programme will target 12,650 primary school students and 12,650 madrassa school students. As part of this effort, two hundred and twenty primary school teachers and 220 madrassa teachers will be trained on coastal and marine ecosystem issues.
Even hard-line states like Iran are taking positive steps in this regard and are quite proud of the fact that the highly successful Ramsar convention on Wetland Protection takes its name from the Iranian city where it was signed in 1971. Despite several subsequent years of conflict and environmental indifference, in 2004 the Iranian government organised an international conference on environmental security to which Americans were also invited and where a strong case was made for using environmental conservation for peace-building. The former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami stated during his tenure that “pollution poses an even greater threat than war and suggested that the fight to preserve the environment might be the most positive issue for bringing the Gulf neighbours together”.
The usually profligate Gulf States are also catching on to the trend and trying to reduce their huge ecological footprint — albeit with modest results so far. Abu Dhabi has committed itself to establish the world’s first carbon neutral city of 40,000 residents by 2012. Masdar city (which means the source in Arabic) will have at its core an educational institution and numerous environmental technology firms to support a sustainable economy.
If the energy of Islamic scholars and their madrassas as well as our development tsars can be collectively channelled towards such positive acts of social and environmental activism, perhaps we can begin to appreciate our common humanity. Rather than harping on the divisive rhetoric of tribe, sect and political persuasion, we have a theological and teleological imperative to “green our society”.
Dr Saleem H Ali is associate dean for graduate education at the University of Vermont’s Rubenstein School of Environment. He is the editor of the new book Peace Parks: Conservation and Conflict Resolution (MIT Press) and can be contacted at saleem@alum.mit.edu
]]>Benazir was a charismatic yet polarizing politician who showed remarkable courage in returning to Pakistan earlier this year despite numerous threats to her life. It is a tragedy for the country that those who follow absolutist ideologies are armed to the teeth and can inflict such damage both literally and figuratively to Pakistani society. The only way to address the problem is to have a massive campaign to disarm militants, and also strengthen civil institiutions so that people have a voice and the fanatics lose their recruiting ability. At the same time it is important for Americans to keep things in perspective about Pakistan. While this is a terrible tragedy, America has also shown to the world that strong societies can recover after such dreadful assassinations and the vast majority of Pakistanis have a vibrant national commitment that will allow them to recover as well. The next few weeks will be crucial in terms of how fast this recovery will be -- the international community must remain engaged with Pakistan's transition towards democracy and keep the pressure on President Musharraf to hold free and fair elections in coming months.
Linked below is a long audio interview that I gave to our local press about the Bhutto tragedy which they have posted online with a slide show about Bhutto's life and tragic passing which can be heard from the link below:
http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/legacy/slideshows/122707bhutto/index.html
Linked below is a long audio interview that I gave to our local press about the Bhutto tragedy which they have posted online with a slide show about Bhutto's life and tragic passing which can be heard from the link below:
http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/legacy/slideshows/122707bhutto/index.html
British-born South African diamond tycoon Cecil Rhodes left a lasting legacy of learning for brilliant minds aspiring to study at one of the world’s oldest centers of higher learning – Oxford University. Despite his adamant support of colonialism and overt claims of British superiority in all world affairs, the endowment of the Rhodes scholarship in his bequest is considered one the most significant acts of global educational philanthropy. Notable politicians such as Wasim Sajjad in Pakistan or Bill Clinton in the United States have been Rhodes scholars and one can make a good bet every year that winners of the scholarship will end up in notable political positions within a decade or so later.
Among the recipients this year is a young Pakistani-American named Isra Bhatty who is currently a first year law student at Yale University. While South Asian families are well known for being “model minorities” and often produce many overambitious youngsters that end up with prestigious scholarships, Isra stands out as a particularly remarkable recipient. She attended high school in the Chicago suburb of Glenview and came from a devoutly religious family that was deeply committed to bridging Islamic learning with modern education. Even though Isra attended an American public school, she also was intimately involved with a mosque school that her parents helped establish on weekends and is a deeply observant Muslim. She wears the hijab but considers it a personal choice and has no ill feelings towards those who choose not to do so.
Isra has only visited Pakistan three times in her life for brief family visits, but her ethnic identity is strong and she can read and interpret Urdu poetry. Her parents were quite insistent that she always embrace her multiple identities as a Muslim, an American and a Pakistani. When I questioned her about how she might prioritize these identities, she was hesitant to suggest one was more dominant than the other but admitted that “Islam is her compass” and thus most salient in how she defines her life. Given her strong cultural sensitivity, it is not surprising that as an undergraduate at the University of Chicago, Isra chose to major in Economics and Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations – one of the few programs in the United States where you can even get a doctorate in Urdu. She subsequently went on to work for a law firm that was advocating the cases of prisoners being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Isra speaks six languages and these rare skills were used by the firm to facilitate communication between the inmates and their families in Pakistan and with the legal teams in the United States.
This assignment was a particularly emotional experience for Isra as it had the potential to bring her identities as an American and as a Muslim and Pakistani in conflict with each other. Yet she handled the matter with tremendous maturity. One of her professors at Yale Law School, Dr. Ian Ayres spoke glowingly of her ability to balance her Faith in Islam with her Faith in science and the democratic process: “Isra is amazing in how many different worlds she can simultaneously inhabit. She is devoutly religious but at the same time can be speaking at the same time about Monte Carlo simulations.” Such an ability is perhaps what many young Muslim students need to embrace with greater vigor as it exemplifies the Islamic concept of meezaan, or the ability to judiciously balance values.
At the age of twenty four, Isra is already married but has managed to continue her career with a supportive Muslim husband who is also a lawyer (and a graduate of Yale Law School). She still has two more years to complete her law degree but will first take a year off to complete her M.Phil in “evidence-based social intervention” at Oxford. She plans to focus her studies on the improvement of the American criminal justice system, particularly its interaction with people of color. “It is my motivation from the scriptures of Islam and also the scriptures of America – the constitution,” she says with confidence.
Defying the stereotype of many Muslim youth who are often branded as killjoys, Isra also knows the importance of enjoying life. She is an avid fan of American football and plays sports regularly (one of the criteria for evaluation in Cecil Rhodes bequest for the scholarship). The ability to connect with youth through sports and peer-mentoring programs is so essential among social activists and Isra has used these skills in her work with the Inner-city Muslim Action Network in Chicago. Such programs bring positive competition to youth that might otherwise be indoctrinated with radical absolutist ideologies and are gaining momentum in Muslim communities.
As we ponder the future of Muslim societies, inspirational stories such as those of Isra Bhatty give us much-needed hope. We must all strive to encourage such young scholars to flourish with multiple identities in an increasingly globalized world.
]]>(originally published by the Carnegie Council's online publication Policy Innovations November 20, 2007)
Saleem H. Ali, Michael Cohen
We are once again at the brink of a Middle East peace conference and Syria's attendance remains unlikely. U.S. and Israeli policy makers continue to speculate about the sincerity of Syrian involvement, and consequently the Syrians have dismissed the forthcoming meeting as a "waste of time." The most significant point of contention between Syria and Israel remains the disputed mountainous region of Golan, which Israel has occupied since 1967. In order to have meaningful engagement from Syria, creative solutions to the Golan conflict must be on the agenda of the proposed Annapolis meeting that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is planning.
Interestingly, the original Druze inhabitants of the region see themselves as distinct from Israelis and Palestinians since their religious group has its own culture and ethnic identity. The Golan Heights has a population of about 38,900, of which 19,300 are Druze, 16,500 are recently settled Jewish immigrants, and about 2,100 are Muslim. Golan is also an environmentally sensitive region with a cool and moderately wet climate that has allowed fruit orchards to flourish. Underscoring the unique environmental conditions of this area, Israel has allowed Druze farmers to export some 11,000 tons of apples to Syria each year since 2005.
This confluence of interests makes the region an ideal case for implementing a novel dispute-resolution strategy known as environmental peace-building. The strategy involves transforming disputed border areas into transboundary conservation zones with flexible governance arrangements. Such territorial arrangements are increasingly called peace parks. To some realist commentators this term may suggest idealistic or naive notions of conflict resolution, but it is championed even by military officers, such as retired Indian Air Marshal K. C. "Nanda" Cariappa, a former POW who has called for such a strategy to resolve India and Pakistan's dispute over the Siachen glacier.
Earlier this year an old proposal for resolving the Golan conflict was resurrected by Syrian-American negotiator Ibrahim Suleiman and former director-general of Israel's foreign ministry Alon Liel. They met with the Israeli Knesset's Foreign Relations and Defense Committee to develop a plan to establish a jointly administered peace park between Syria and Israel in the Golan. The proposal was initially motivated by Robin Twite's work at the Israel-Palestine Center for Research and Information during the 1990s. Now the strategic plan for the effort has been laid out in detail and the momentum is there to move forward on this solution, which is feasible in the Golan given the demographics of the region. According to the plan, Syria would be the sovereign in all of the Golan, but Israelis could visit the park freely, without visas. In addition, territory on both sides of the border would be demilitarized along a 4:1 ratio in Israel's favor.
When one looks at the stalemate between Israel and Syria over the Golan Heights it is clear that neither side is willing, at present, to relinquish its claim to that important piece of Middle East real estate. Syria has a legitimate claim on the basis of recent history, while Israel has a claim based on the ruins of 29 ancient synagogues, and more importantly as a security buffer. One way to break through this stalemate of legitimacy is to phrase the dynamic in a different way. That is to say, it is not so much that Israel wants to keep the Golan Heights, but that they don't trust giving the Heights back to Syria. At the same time, while it is important for Syria to have the Golan Heights back under her rule, she is more motivated not to have Israel remain there.
This understanding of the dynamic opens up possibilities for a new scenario whereby a third party is involved. In addition to the peace park proposal, it is also possible to set up a Druze Autonomous Area that is neither Israeli nor Syrian but jointly administered by a commission. Similar proposals have also been initiated by Friends of the Earth Middle East along the Jordan River, and there is, at least on paper, a marine peace park between Jordan, Israel, and Egypt in the Gulf of Aqaba (which was established as part of the first round of Oslo negotiations). The Golan proposal is geographically much more significant in terms of its joint-management potential and also as a means for instrumental conflict resolution between two states that currently do not recognize each other.
Following the recent air strike by Israel on a suspected nuclear site in Syria, tensions are again running high. Syria announced on October 24 that it is issuing identity cards to Druze inhabitants in the Golan (only ten percent have Israeli citizenship). At the same time, Druze inhabitants in Israel have started protests about discrimination. While prospects for a peace deal may seem distant these days, the Golan peace proposal is much easier to implement than some of the other complicated territorial arrangements proposed for the West Bank and Gaza.
Putting a Golan Heights Peace Park on the Annapolis conference agenda may help garner wider support among Arab states and also facilitate stabilization in Iraq since Syria is a significant player on that front as well. Territorial bargaining with environmental factors in mind has proved successful in other conflicts, such as between Ecuador and Peru in the Cordillera del Condor region in the 1990s. The establishment of a jointly managed conservation zone was instrumental in resolving that dispute, which was mediated by the United States twelve years ago. It is high time that we consider ecological solutions in the Golan conflict, which is demographically and spatially configured for green diplomacy.
Saleem H. Ali is associate dean for graduate education at the University of Vermont's Rubenstein School of Environment and editor of the new book Peace Parks: Conservation and Conflict Resolution (MIT Press). Rabbi Michael Cohen is the director for special projects at the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies in Israel.
http://dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2007\11\10\story_10-11-2007_pg3_6
I received news of Pakistan’s latest state of emergency during a visit to Beirut, Lebanon for a conference on regional conflict resolution. While driving past the shattered remains of the Saint George Hotel, where Rafik Hariri had been assassinated, I pondered the fate of my ethnic homeland that sadly is just as fractured today as Lebanon.
Interestingly enough, only a month earlier, Saad Hariri, the son of assassinated Lebanese prime minister and business tycoon, had been mediating to resolve the dispute between General Musharraf and Nawaz Sharif. As with many other cases of political exile in the Muslim world, the Saudis had also played a questionable role as interlocutors. Yet the lessons which Saad Hariri and the Saudis most acutely needed to highlight to President Musharraf and his opponents were that neither autocracy nor democracy are sufficient solutions to civil discord within nations.
The Saudis tried autocratic curtailment of civil liberties and cooptation of the religious establishment that led to further empowerment of Al Qaeda. The Lebanese, being a highly educated society, focused on democratic channels through a creative constitutional arrangement for governance based on devolved religious leadership but are still dealing with discord.
What then is the key to concord in multi-ethnic societies?
First, absolutist ideologies that dehumanise other points of view must never be used as political tools as was done by the American and Pakistani alliance during the first Afghan war and which has led to the current situation. Now that the militants have overwhelmed the army with their weapons, the only option left is to disarm these groups without compromise and strictly enforce laws about the sale of weapons.
In many cases, this can be undertaken through international programmes for household weapons purchases such as what was undertaken in Bosnia and Serbia after the Yugoslav civil war under the auspices of the United Nations. In an impoverished country like Pakistan, if enough money was put into such programmes rather than in buying more weapons for the army, there is immense likelihood of success. Any remaining hard-line elements would be much more easily dealt with through police action.
The only reason why militant groups are able to wield such widespread influence in Pakistan is because they are armed to the teeth, similar to the militias that existed during the Lebanese Civil War. Preventing vigilante anarchy is the responsibility of the government that has so far not been taken seriously in Pakistan because of a general acceptance of an armed culture of tribal fiefdoms. There is of course a dark side to having a defenceless populace. If the military is malevolent and willing to abuse its power to suppress the people, as has been the case in Burma, we are left with an agonising status quo. This is the argument that the founders of the American Bill of Rights used to give citizens the “right to bear arms”.
However, the Pakistani military generally has, until now, not shown abject physical abuse of citizens that military juntas elsewhere often demonstrate. This is largely owing to a fairly strong civic culture within the armed forces. Interestingly enough, this culture of relative civility may have evolved as a result of the army’s forays into private enterprise and institutions such as the Fauji Foundation. However, what is most troubling in the recent action has been the government’s disregard for the judiciary and the independent media that are both important institutions to prevent the abuse of power by the state in the absence of arms-bearing militias. The subjugation of the judiciary and the media has, in reality, given the cause of violent militias much boost, which the Musharraf regime should consider as an ominous and self-defeating sign.
Even well-intentioned rulers can fall prey to a grandiosity complex, feeling that only they have the ability to lead the nation to salvation. Sadly, it appears that General Musharraf, despite his sincerity and commitment to Pakistan, is now beginning to exhibit severe symptoms of such a psychological situation, just as the Lebanese leaders did before the civil war began.
In crises, rulers are often reinforced into believing that they are indispensable because of a circle of servile sycophants that inevitably surround them. Instead of falling for such self-indulgence, what must be considered is the power of due process that gives power legitimacy.
Let us not forget that President Abraham Lincoln, whom General Musharraf so emphatically quoted, followed due process throughout his career and was an elected president. Lincoln’s main emergency actions pertained to suspending the writ of habeas corpus (convincing body of evidence) for arrests of dissidents which is incidentally allowed by the US constitution in “cases of rebellion” and when the “public safety” requires it. Furthermore, unlike General Musharraf, Lincoln did not interfere with the authority of the Supreme Court, and Congress and the Courts subsequently validated all his actions.
Apart from the justification of a war on extremism, General Musharraf’s second justification for his actions has been to continue the path towards development that he takes credit for in terms of economic growth indicators. Here too, there are important lessons to be learned from Lebanon. Following the end of the civil war in 1990, private capital flowed to Lebanon and Beirut was rebuilt to its days of mid-century splendour. Yet many of the underlying tensions remained since income inequality and tribalism were not directly addressed in the economic euphoria that followed the investment boom.
Indeed, this is a lesson even Pakistan’s neighbour India must learn as it tends to gloat over its rival’s predicament. As Martha Nussbaum has argued in her important new book The Clash Within, India also has many structural symptoms of radicalisation and inequality that even a robust democracy and economic giant must be willing to address if it is to prevent conflict.
Peace is fragile in a fractured world and until institutions of human tolerance and economic and political justice are carefully nurtured at the most fundamental level in societies, there is little chance that either elections or martial law can salvage countries as far afield as Pakistan or Lebanon from such perennial cycles of crises.
Dr Saleem H Ali is associate dean for graduate education at the University of Vermont’s Rubenstein School of Environment. He is the editor of the new book: Peace Parks: Conservation and Conflict Resolution (MIT Press)
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A Review of "An Inconvenient Truth" (By Al Gore, Rodale Books, 2006), Reviewed by Saleem H. Ali
Al-Gore has admirably reinvented himself as the environmental conscience of public officials. Unlike his earlier book "Earth in the Balance," which read like a regular nonfiction paperback, this publication is more like a coffee-table compendium with glossy pages and illustrations elucidating the impact of global warming. Each chapter is punctuated with a personal interlude that ties momentous events in Gore’s life to concerns abut global warming. The book and its accompanying documentary film has been credited by Time magazine as making a definitive change in public perception of global warming, and Gore has been named one of the “people that mattered” in 2006
I wrote the following review before the Nobel Prize announcement on October 12, 2007. While there is much to admire about his activism, the Nobel committee has just politicized the debate further by giving the prize to Gore. The IPCC certainly deserves to be recognized and that should have been sufficient:
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A Review of "An Inconvenient Truth" (By Al Gore, Rodale Books, 2006), Reviewed by Saleem H. Ali
Al-Gore has admirably reinvented himself as the environmental conscience of public officials. Unlike his earlier book "Earth in the Balance," which read like a regular nonfiction paperback, this publication is more like a coffee-table compendium with glossy pages and illustrations elucidating the impact of global warming. Each chapter is punctuated with a personal interlude that ties momentous events in Gore’s life to concerns abut global warming. The book and its accompanying documentary film has been credited by Time magazine as making a definitive change in public perception of global warming, and Gore has been named one of the “people that mattered” in 2006
Fear of climate change is emblazoned through every page of this book and some of the analogies with World War II are hyperbolic and trite. The title of the book itself is claimed by Gore to be reminiscent of European denial of Hitler’s influence which later was realized to be an “inconvenient truth” – but then it was proverbially “too late.” Quotation’s from Churchill in 24-point font also remind us of the peril of the hour.
While there is little doubt that climate change is occurring, the impact of this change and our range of responses is not presented with as much care and nuance as the topic deserves. For example a notable article by Oreskes (2004) in Science magazine is cited by Gore to suggest that there is a trifling minority of scientists who differed from the view that anthropogenic greenhouse gases were drivers of climate. However, as a major skeptic of climate, Gerhard (2006) later pointed out, the article had ignored a petition by 17,000 signatories under the auspices of the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine that challenges the orthodoxy. What is perhaps disturbing is also that any dissent is immediately dismissed as being motivated by greed and corporate interests similar to the tobacco research. However, there is tremendous qualitative difference between climate science and the linear impact of tobacco products on human health. Comparing epidemiological studies of tobacco usage to climate change models is utterly asymmetric and a misplaced analogy. Instead, it would have been much better of Gore had made the argument on its own merits and also tied in the clear issue non-renewability of fossil fuels as a good enough reason to change our behavior.
Critics of climate change such as MIT Professor Richard Lindzen have also argued that the peer review process has itself been corrupted by the preponderance of views about climate change. In a recent article for the Wall Street Journal Lindzen (2006) describes several instances where skeptics of climate change were chastised for their views. He also tries to show how any opponents of the dominant orthodoxy about global warming are “libelously” discredited and dismissed as "stooges of the fossil fuel industry.”
Even the relatively liberal Boston Globe appeared to support Lindzen as he tries to clear his name from a lawsuit filed by environmentalists incriminating scientists with connections to the fossil-fuel sector. The article affirms that he has never communicated with the auto companies involved in the lawsuit and only received a total of $10,000 from any fossil fuel sector for his research in the early nineties. The Globe columnist Alex Beam (2006) ended a recent article on this matter with the following: “Of course Lindzen isn't a fake scientist, he's an inconvenient scientist. No wonder you're not supposed to listen to him.”
Attempts have been made to connect climate change to more palpable examples of human suffering in the domain of civil conflict or the proliferation of diseases. However, these issues have been addressed with some measure of caution by professional associations in the health sciences. For example, The Royal Society for Tropical Medicine and Hygiene stated in its proceedings that “both conflict and climate change may produce serious negative health consequences. However, there is insufficient evidence that climate change, e.g. through environmental degradation or freshwater shortages, leads to conflict as is often claimed. Also, current theory on conflict would refute this hypothesis” (Sondorp and Patel 2003).
Thus climate change continues to be a pervasive source of dissent and discord within the scientific community as well as among policy-makers. However, such dissent should not be an excuse for inaction, specially in these heady days of preventative warfare. Comparative security analysts might also argue that since the United States is willing to incur over $500 billion dollars in preventative wars in the Middle East over a five-year timeframe, some measure of serious consideration to preventative strategies on climate change is also in order. Towards this larger goal of prioritizing policy, Al Gore must be commended for drawing our attention to issues of global salience beyond our all-consuming fear of terrorism.
Beam, A. 2006. MIT’s inconvenient scientist. The Boston Globe, August 30.
Gerhard, L.C. 2006. Climate Change: Conflict of observational science, theory, and politics: Reply. American Association of Petroleum Geologists Bulletin. Mar. 90(3): 409-412.
Lindzen, R. 2006. Climate of Fear. The Wall Street Journal, April 12.
Oreskes, N. 2004. The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change. Science, 305, December 3.
Sondorp, E. and P. Patel. 2003. Climate change, conflict and health. Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. Mar-Apr. 97(2): 139-140.
]]>The impact of this negative vote from the quartet on native communities was palpable. “We’re very disappointed... It’s about the human rights of indigenous peoples throughout the world. It’s an important symbol,” said Phil Fontaine, leader of the Canadian Assembly of First Nations in a press interview.
Why would the quartet miss an opportunity for such a chance at cross-cultural understanding with their own citizens? The arguments given for the negative votes revolved around contesting sovereignty and incompatibility with the constitutions of the respective countries.
Yet even if such contestations might prove to be true in a purely legal context, the fact remains that this declaration was purely ceremonial and no litigation could possibly be launched on its behest. The sole purpose of the declaration was to hasten the healing process between settler populations and pre-colonial indigenous communities. Regardless of how we may view social policy towards indigenous people at present, there is little doubt that settler communities in all the quartet countries benefited enormously from the victimisation of the indigenous inhabitants. From land appropriation to forced cultural assimilation, the impact of colonialism was most acute in these four countries where the colonisers also became the majority population.
All this declaration aimed to do was to acknowledge that hurt and move on. This declaration was no threat to any of these states in terms of a cavalcade of lawsuits. Granted that many positive laws have been passed in the quartet during the last few decades to give greater rights to indigenous communities but the statistics are still grim. In a Harvard study published last year, Native American males in South Dakota had the lowest life expectancy of only 58 years among all counties in the country — 33 years less than the highest life expectancy that was found among Asian women in Bergen county, New Jersey. Data from the other three quartet shows a similar asymmetry between indigenous and settler populations.
Sadly, many politicians continue to blame the victims as being culturally indolent or perpetually inebriated with welfare payments. Yet, we refuse to confront the underlying causes of despair in these communities that often stems from a sense of rejection and diminished self-worth.
As I have argued in these pages before, tribal populations constitute ancient social systems that historically provided a means of survival under hostile environmental conditions. In Pakistan, the term “tribal” has an ominous ring because of its association with a decadent form of medievalism that masquerades as conservative theology. At one level, we should try to transcend “tribalism” as broader conceptions of human civilisation become widely accepted; on the other hand, however, these tribal affiliations give us distinct and diverse cultural traditions — food, music and language, which provide texture and meaning to the fabric of humanity. It is this positive side of tribal identities that we should embrace, while rejecting the exclusionary attributes.
If we are to mitigate threats to national unity and contain conflict escalation, we must first acknowledge the past. In the case of Pakistan, it requires acknowledging past injustices against tribal groups such as the Baloch or the Kalash. This is only possible through collective healing processes such as those enunciated by the UN declaration, which also affirms that: “all peoples contribute to the diversity and richness of civilisations and cultures, which constitute the common heritage of humankind.”
Given their unique historical status, indigenous communities in the quartet countries deserve to be specially recognised not just for political correctness but for the larger good of democratic governance. The great American jurist Felix Cohen’s words come to mind: “Like the miner’s canary, the Indian marks the shift from fresh air to poison gas in our political atmosphere; and our treatment of Indians, even more than our treatment of other minorities, marks the rise and fall of our democratic faith.”
Pakistan should be proud of voting in favour of this resolution but the affirmative vote also brings forth immense responsibility. We should consider how the development paths of our tribal groups could be improved while celebrating the positive attributes of their cultural traditions.
Instead, we seem to cling on to the negative aspects of tribal culture (such as misogynistic behaviour) and reject the ancient positive aspects such as music and religion. There is a glimmer of hope that trends are changing. At least Islamabad now has a national museum that can institutionally support cultural attributes of our indigenous people. Let us make this UN declaration more than a mere document that resides in a database or a web site. Only then can we overcome the despair that ails so many of our most ancient cultural brethren.
]]>Celebration among the villagers of Bil’in was understandable, but even the losing side in this case was celebrating before cameras and applauding the objectivity of the courts. The Israeli government spokesman remarked to the BBC that the decision made him proud to live in a country where “the rule of law prevailed over politics”. Soon, comparisons were being made with Muslim states where such independent decisions would never have happened. Israel was once again heralded by Washington policy-makers as the bastion of good governance as compared to its neighbours.
Clearly, many neighbouring states have a long way to go before they meet international standards of human rights, particularly with regard to women. However, the independence of the judiciary is also significant in other Muslim states that are often maligned in such contexts. Consider the example of our own Pakistan, which shares with Israel the characteristic of being the only other country in the world that was formed exclusively on the basis of religion.
Two weeks earlier, the Supreme Court in Pakistan ruled against the government of General Pervez Musharraf by allowing the former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to return from exile in Saudi Arabia. The court also ruled that extrajudicial arrests of street suspects on grounds of terrorism need to be justified by the government. Of course, these decisions came after the reinstatement of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, following months of street protests by lawyers. However, this strong stance of the courts, as well as the Pakistani civil society, was not given the credit it deserved in terms of positive governance. Instead of applauding the independence of the judiciary in Pakistan, think-tanks in London and Washington continued their complaints of “poor governance,” and “state failure”.
Since comparisons are so often made between countries in the region to justify favouring one country over another, it is worth mentioning that Israel has not necessarily abided by all legal standards itself, despite the celebration of the Bil’in ruling. In 2004, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued a non-binding ruling that parts of the 650-kilometre (410-mile) barrier along the West Bank are illegal and should be torn down. However, among many American political circles these days, the ICJ and the United Nations are quickly dismissed as “politicised institutions”. Such selective celebration of judicial high ground only furthers cynicism about the West in most Muslim countries.
As the next US presidential election approaches, the world should consider which politicians are willing to go beyond such trivialisation of international institutions. The only candidate in the race who currently shows promise to be balanced in these matters is Bill Richardson, the former US ambassador to the United Nations and currently Governor of the state of New Mexico. He understands global politics better than any of the other front runners like Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton or Rudolph Giuliani. Understanding and contrasting measures of justice are essential if we are to move towards resolving global conflicts.
While recognising these asymmetries of power and double-standards, it is essential that Muslim countries applaud the Israeli court’s decision and perhaps use this as a positive means of self-criticism. The Saudis in particular should reconsider their recent snub of the Pakistani courts by suggesting that their ad hoc exile deal with Musharraf regarding Sharif should override the Pakistani Supreme Court’s decision. This intervention led Musharraf to forcibly deport Sharif when he arrived in Islamabad earlier this week. This is not to exonerate Sharif, or for that matter, Benazir Bhutto: they should face all court cases in which they have been charged.
Despite these cautionary comments about reading too much into the Bil’in decision, we should certainly use this as an opportunity for further peace-building. Palestinian Prime Minister Salaam Fayyad’s visit to the village, to gain some credit for what was basically a grassroots action, is nevertheless heartening. His comments were the most explicit to date about the prospect for peaceful co-existence between Israel and Palestine. Fayyad stated unequivocally that it was a sign that both Israelis and Palestinians could live “side by side” in peace. The work of Michael Sfard, the Israeli lawyer for Bil’in municipality, also shows the potential for working across physical and political barriers on such matters.
At the end of the day, Israelis, Palestinians and Pakistanis alike seek justice just as much as any other human community. The perception of how justice is configured and dispensed on either side of an issue is just as significant for conflict resolution as the substance of the cases themselves. It is high time that the West and the East become more discerning about giving credit and censure where it is due, regardless of our own political proclivity.
Saleem H Ali is associate dean for graduate education at the University of Vermont’s Rubenstein School of Environment. He is the editor of the new book Peace Parks: Conservation and Conflict Resolution (MIT Press). Email: saleem@alum.mit.edu
]]>Nostalgically, most Pakistanis salute President Ayub Khan for his vision in establishing the capital city of Islamabad. Apart from its abysmal airport, which pales in comparison to Lahore and Karachi’s lavish terminals, Islamabad is often mentioned by expatriate Pakistanis to foreigners with a sense of pride. The spacious boulevards and relatively clean environs are a welcome relief from the sweltering dusty bazaars of most other cities in the country.
During the twentieth century, there were a series of planned capitals built all over the world. From Canberra in Australia, to Brasilia in Brazil, to Abuja in Nigeria, countries were keen to sanitize their diplomatic image, and the easiest route to many was a gleaming new metropolis. Such a large enterprise as building a new city is a tremendous opportunity for improving plans and learning from design mistakes of the past and the planners of Islamabad aimed to accomplish that.
The team which designed Islamabad was led by the great Greek urban planner, Constantinos Doxiadis, who is considered a pioneer in modern ecological urban design. The fabled “green belts” which we often extol in Islamabad were his brainchild, and he also founded a movement in architecture known as “ekistics,” which aimed to harmonize various aspects of aesthetic design and livelihood needs in human settlements. Doxiadis famously said: “What human beings need is not utopia (‘no place’) but entopia (‘in place’), a real city which they can build, a place which satisfies the dreamer and is acceptable to the scientist, a place where the projections of the artist and the builder merge.”
Each sector in Islamabad was designed to be self-contained with its own central area, the “markaz”, and parks, as well as easy access routes to the downtown “blue area”. Over the past four decades or so, Islamabad has endured rapid growth and infringements of zoning regulations from madrassa construction to shopping complexes with relative grace. However, there are limits to what even the most visionary of architects could accommodate in terms of mismanaged growth and careless infrastructure planning.
Instead of focusing on good public transportation infrastructure, the government has chosen to build more roads and underpasses that only tear up the original urban plans. Imagine the vitality of a good monorail, similar to Kuala Lumpur, which would connect the F-11 sector to the Blue Area, or a circular rail system, starting from the newly refurbished Golra train station, that trails the Margalla hills across to Quaid-e-Azam University and around to Rawal Lake, and then back towards Rawalpindi. Consider how easy life would be for the average commuter and also for the tourist who currently languishes in wait for taxis at one hotel or another.
The amount of money needed for such green planning is usually no more than what is invested in many other misguided infrastructure projects. Since competition with India usually spurs many Pakistanis out of their complacency, I should mention that Delhi has a new subway system which is pretty good and is being used by people from across the economic spectrum. Chandigarh (capital of Indian Punjab and Haryana), which is also a planned city and one which shares some design similarities with Islamabad (though designed by the Swiss architect Le Corbusier and the American urban planner Albert Mayer), has made tremendous strides to reduce pollution. Its air quality is now comparable to many Western European cities. Interestingly enough, the city was established because Lahore, the old capital of Punjab, came to Pakistan. While Chandigarh is not a patch on Lahore in terms of historical and cultural richness or monumental splendour, it has clearly scored well in true “greening”.
Air pollution is now getting quite oppressive and intolerable in many South Asian cities, and in this regard the situation in Pakistan is looking a bit positive due to widespread use of CNG in cars (the highest in Asia). Nevertheless, we still have a major problem with diesel fumes and factory pollution that will eventually have to be curtailed.
As a Lahori, I am quite proud of the city’s green space and some credit should certainly be given to former Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif for aesthetic embellishments and road maintenance. Sadly, gargantuan bill-boards have obscured many of the picturesque vistas that were created by the greening efforts of that time. Furthermore, many of the long-term urban planning features for sustainable growth are still absent in Lahore, just as much as they are in Islamabad or Karachi. Poor public transport, uncontrolled sprawl and non-strategic construction of new public buildings such as schools, universities and colleges are a major problem.
The strategies for green design of an ancient city such as Lahore clearly require greater innovation and are far more complex. Historic buildings need immediate preservation and preferential subsidies for developers to rehabilitate rather than demolish and rebuild. Water and sanitation infrastructures need prime attention and these are sadly lacking in all of Pakistan’s major cities. I was amused to recently encounter a brand new sign in Samanabad which declared a road bordering an open sewer as the “Ganda Nala Road”!
Imagine the amount of concrete needed to build the Lahore-Islamabad Motorway. If one less lane had been built on this largely vacant causeway, we would have had enough material to probably fill all of Lahore and Islamabad’s “ganda nalas”. The benefits of this would not only be in terms of stench-reduction but also prevention of contagious diseases and reclamation of thousands of acres of wasted land that are taken up by putrid sewers. Yet, the master-builders were more concerned with building big rather than with building smart. Just as the Gulf states are obsessed with satisfying some phallic urge to build towers upon towers, we seem to have fallen for the same urge. Thankfully, the Abu Dhabi establishment has decided to truly green their city and not emulate Dubai’s rampant real estate euphoria.
Squatter settlements are a major concern throughout the developing world and any green city will need to equitably address the millions who live in such kachi abadis. In this regard, Indian cities are even worse than Pakistan and tend to have the most intransigent squatter population. I remember landing in Mumbai once to discover that our flight’s landing had been delayed because one of the runway radars at the airport had been stolen by some thugs from a neighbouring slum!
Perhaps a good lesson in dealing with these informal settlements can be drawn from the experiences of dealing with the Kashmir earthquake of 2005. There are numerous low-cost habitation arrangements which can be instituted for squatter communities with careful planning and regulatory enforcement. One would hope that education and employment opportunities would eventually catch up with the slum-dwellers as they did in Malaysia, so that they can have their own formal apartments.
With growing urbanisation rates, Pakistan will have to contend with the challenge faced by our cities immediately. The solutions are not as far-fetched as we may initially consider. This week, as forest fires raged in Greece and arson by greedy real estate developers as well as growing urban sprawl was blamed for some of them, I pondered over how the grand vision of Doxiadis was being shattered by his own country. More than thirty years after his death, the man who gave us our capital deserves to be remembered now more than ever. His plans for an eminently liveable Pakistani city must be realized by the government and by us all.
Originally published in Pakistan's Daily Times, September 1, 2007
As I personally watched the events in Islamabad unfold, the issue became much clearer and far more sinister than the revisionists had assumed. An exchange of gunfire between militants at the madrassa and government rangers outside the building quickly escalated and within hours the environmental ministry building was randomly attacked and set alite. Scores of people on both sides had been killed. Yet the perpetrators of the arson as well as numerous other acts of vandalism across the city were not just from the madrassa itself but from an entire network of seminaries spread out across the city. In a country where one-third of the population has cellular phones, it is quite easy to mobilize action when a network of militancy exists as it does with the madrassas.
It is high time that we become more aware of the perils of extremist educational institutions which have a far broader base in Pakistan than we care to admit. The only way to address the problem is for Muslims countries to independently monitor and control madrassa vigilantes, while ensuring curricular reform. Muslim governments must make it clear to all clerics that the most important verse in the Quran is Surah 2 Verse 252 which states quite clearly that “there is no compulsion in religion.” Those militants who are not willing to tolerate alternate views and assume the writ of the state without consensus from the public are nothing more than thugs. Tolerating the intolerant is a recipe for disaster.
The good news is that there are now emergent organizations that are attempting to combat this fanaticism. For example, The Council on Islamic Education, based in California is also trying to professionalize the curriculum in Islamic schools and promote greater tolerance and context to Islamic texts by differentiating between jihad (a just struggle for rights) and hirabah (unjust war) through a detailed training program. According to the training manual: “The jurists prohibited hirabah because Islam places an absolute value on public safety and protection as God-given human rights. Hirabah is punishable by the most severe penalty mentioned in the Qur'an, where it is called fasad in chapter 5, verse 33, meaning in this case mayhem and destruction.” The Islamic Cultural, Educational and Scientific Organization (ISESCO) based in Morocco is a nascent pan Muslim-organization deserves greater support at an international level.
The challenge of preventing cooptation of Islamic institutions by external interests for political conflict, while preserving their independence and social service is reaching a critical juncture in Pakistan and across the Muslim world. A multifaceted strategy is essential to tackle this challenge – one which accepts the empirical insights that are provided by research and avoids sensationalistic or sanguine accounts of the problem.
Saleem H. Ali is associate dean for graduate education at the University of Vermont. His book titled Islam and Education: Conflict and Conformity in Pakistan is currently under review
]]>Perhaps the starkest example of such an educational institution was the “University of Dawah [evangelism] and Jihad” set up in the mid-eighties in Peshawar by Professor Abdurrab Rasul Sayyaf. The founder of this “university” which produced acrimonious alumni such as Ramzi Yousef and whose aim it was, and remains, to quash critical reasoning has been one of the top warlords during the Afghan war and later the civil war. Since 2001 he has been vying for supremacy within the Karzai government. To call this institution a “university” is particularly unfortunate.
This is not peculiar to a particular country or religion. Institutions that stifle critical reasoning and thrive on agenda-driven education can be found at many places.
In the United States, one of the leading lights of the evangelical movement with absolutist views about Christian supremacy, Reverend Jerry Falwell, died last week. His well-known Liberty University produced a legion of activists, many of whom have found employment in prominent government positions. Falwell was as much valorised by his disciples and with as much fervour as Maulana Ghazi of Lal Masjid is by his minions. While the tone of his messages was more measured, he clearly stirred militancy in his own way.
Consider that only a few days after his passing, a young student from Liberty was arrested with a cache of bombs. Authorities in Virginia indicated that Mark David Uhl intended to use the bombs to “stop protesters from disrupting Falwell’s funeral”.
It should be noted here that like Christianity, Islam is a strongly evangelical religion (unlike Judaism). Even the more enlightened institutions of higher learning such as the Islamic University of Islamabad, which offer courses on global trade and environmental law, have a “Da’wah Academy”. This should, itself, not be a cause for concern, since Islam ordains that there must be “no compulsion in religion”. However, problem arises when other competitive forces of evangelism are stifled in countries like Saudi Arabia, leading to an autocracy of proselytisers who claim monopoly over communication.
Similar to other social movements, religious motivation has often been linked to violence as well as building peace. Like any powerful human phenomenon, religion can be used to either end and has tremendous potential to instil pugnacity as well as cooperation. Similarly, we can find ways of harmonising the best of Eastern and Western traditions, if absolutism is avoided. There are some remarkable stories to be told of graduates of Islamic schools that have been able to bridge their education with Western traditions.
Consider the case of Bakhtiar Effendy, who started his formal schooling in the Pesantren Pabelan in central Java, Indonesia, in the early 1960s. While at that Islamic boarding school, he received an American Field Service scholarship and attended Columbia Falls High School in Montana. Subsequently, he returned to Jakarta for his college degree and then went back to the States for his doctorate at Ohio State University. Following his doctoral degree, Dr. Effendi returned to his homeland and joined the faculty of the Islamic State University in Jakarta. Such meandering interactions between East and West, while rare, are possible between educational traditions and deserve more careful study and analysis.
The use of educational institutions for political ends is a well-established tradition across cultures and societies. Exemplified recently by anti-war activism at universities in the West as well as the rise of Marxist movements in schools in South America or the Ayatollah ascendancy at Tehran University, institutions of learning are often places of revolution. Ideas invigorate young minds to action but Alexander Pope’s prescient observation of “a little learning being a dangerous thing” is just as true today. While the independence of educational institutions must be maintained, some level of quality assurance and critical reasoning is also essential to ensure that captive audiences of students are not manipulated.
The Lal Masjid case clearly shows us the need for instituting a peace-building curriculum in all educational institutions across Pakistan. We shall explore the efficacy of such a curriculum in this space subsequently. Until then, let us reflect on the words of Robert Frost:
“Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or self-confidence”.
Saleem H Ali is associate dean of graduate education at the University of Vermont’s Rubenstein School of Environment and a senior fellow at the United Nations mandated University for Peace. He can be reached at saleem@alum.mit.edu
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