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UNDER Zia ul Haq’s Islamisation, Pakistanis ‘stole Indian culture through the dish antenna.’ Under Pervez Musharraf’s liberalisation trends ‘they absorbed entertainment of Indian film culture.’ The hope now is that hundreds of Pakistani cinemas, employing thousands of people, may be revived with Indian movies. This is well-known Pakistani columnist Khaled Ahmed’s prognosis.
   Whatever may have been Jinnah’s vision of Pakistan, it certainly could not have been one where Islamic extremism had any quarter.
   The guilt for what Pakistan faces today must, as we all know, be placed at the door of Zia-ul-Haq, Saudi Arabia and the United States for having reared an intolerant version of Islam in Afghanistan to defeat the Soviets and check Shia Iran.
   This arrangement, though initially designed with a limited purpose, was given a long lease of life by the new cultural policies of the Islamic state.
   We must not lose sight of the perspective that Zia, in cahoots with Jamaat-e-Islami, was giving fillip to a Wahabised Islam at a time when the cold war was at its peak. The US was indifferent to the type of Islam being promoted so long as it served the purpose of being mobilised against the Soviets.
   To consolidate this state of affairs, Islamic practice in Pakistan was sought to be given a West Asian, indeed a Saudi, flavour. This is what Nizam-e-Mustafa was all about. Pakistan had to be pulled away from the all-encompassing composite culture which belonged to all in the pre-partition subcontinent.
   This Sufi-influenced composite culture had a pan-Indian spread as well as exquisite regional motifs.
   Music, for example, was pan-Indian. If you visited Bhimsen Joshi’s house in Pune or Gangubai Hangal’s in Hubli-Dharwar, you would find their guru Abdul Karim Khan’s photograph on a prominent niche. Considering that the great ustad’s daughter, Roshanara Begum, found Karachi musically ‘restrictive’ is, therefore, ironical. Of course, Pakistan produced ghazal and qawwali singers but never a great classical singer like Amir Khan or a sitarist and sarod player like Vilayat Khan and Ali Akbar Khan respectively.
   Josh Malihabadi regretted his decision to have migrated to Pakistan where, he had mistakenly imagined, Urdu’s greatest living poet would have great currency. He wrote:
   Sab se zyada khauf hai
   Is baat ka mujhe
   Dum tor dein kahina
   Meri wazadarian
   Aisa na ho ki aale subu
   Se bigar kar
   Ahle wuzoo se
   Gaanthna par jaaen yariyan
   (I fear most that in Pakistan I may have to abandon my style. Instead of spending my evenings with my drinking companions, I may have to follow companions for daily prayers.)
   Even Faiz Ahmad Faiz was much more in his elements with friends in New Delhi or London.
   Bangladesh is a different story. Its national anthem itself is a composition of Tagore’s. The extravagant use of Shakti, Durga, Shiva in the poetry of Qazi Nazrul Islam is without any prejudice to the Islamic faith of those who rejoice in his songs. Faith is different from culture. The most vivid example of this truth is Indonesia – a deeply Islamic country with culture which is inseparable from Mahabharata and Ramayana.
   A pity that most of the westernised elite on the subcontinent is aware that Mousetrap has been running at the West End for forty years but no one knows that one hundred Muslims, who say their ‘namaz’ five times a day, are part of ballet troupe which has been performing the Ramayana without a break for thirty years in the shadow of the most exquisite temple in Yogjakarta!
   It is this Wahabised Islam, shorn of its Sufi and Indian elements, which is plaguing Afghanistan and now increasingly north-western Pakistan.
   The opening with India will strengthen the vast and intimidated majority of Pakistanis who fear being stifled by religion.
   During the reign of Aurangzeb some of the clergy issued an edict that men must keep beards. The great poet Bedil wrote a satire on the proposition: ‘Do you want this to become a country of goats?’
   Relaxation of Indo-Pak relations works miraculously as a soothener on people both sides of the border. Remember the refrain of Indians who had returned from Pakistan after watching a cricket match in Lahore some year ago: ‘We have never experienced such hospitality.’
   These are tougher times: Pakistan finds itself at war with its own people; India is heating up for elections. But slowly
   and surely a shared culture will be a soothener.
   Saeed Naqvi is a Distinguished Fellow, Observer Research Foundation and senior journalist.

SINCE independence, Bangladesh has been facing a serious crisis to become self-reliant, free from conditions, policy prescriptions and dependency imposed by the donors. For over three and a half decades, in the name of development, the international financial institutions and the corporate agencies of rich countries have determined economic policy apparently for the county’s development. It has been observed that the policies are framed in such a way that the prescribing institutions benefited out of the policy impositions and conditionalities for aid instead of improving the socio-economic status of the country. In fact, the poverty reduction rate, of around one per cent till 2007, is not satisfactory. The question is then where does the money go? Recent trends show that though aid flow is decreasing, conditionalities are increasing.
   In this age of capitalist globalisation, marginalisation is increasing while people’s struggle for life and livelihood is worsening due to the interventions of lenders in national development policy as well as to the political sphere. One of the major reasons of the poverty situation in Bangladesh is for policy impositions and interference by the lenders. For more than last 36 years, development history clearly indicates that foreign aid cannot solve the problems, rather in most cases, it creates a market for the companies of the rich countries, leads public service sector to privatisation, forces adoption of policy decisions of the donors which mainly protect interest of the rich countries. And with that point of view, it is also clear that the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper, mainly a lending policy instrument where people have little participation cannot reduce poverty at all.
   Foreign aid must be free of conditions for its effectiveness that helps being self-reliant for a country. Foreign aid to Bangladesh’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) dipped in the last 20 years. Foreign assistance constituted 10 per cent of GDP in the 80s, bit stands at about 2.4 per cent now. It is also observed that the lenders’ funds were actually channelled back to them in several ways. A study shows that 75 per cent of the aid money returned to the lending agencies or countries in different form which included 13 per cent as consultancy fees, 12 per cent as equipment suppliers’ fees etc. Besides, various vested interest groups plundered the money including bureaucrats and politicians of the country who took seven per cent of the total amount. And most of the remaining amount was gobbled up by their local mediators. And the conditionalities also cripple the process and aid hardly puts any effective impact on the ground for which it is designed.
   The International Financial Institutions like International Monetary Fund, World Bank, Asian Development Bank and the United States Aid play dominant role and put conditions even in granting loans that further cripple political decision making process of the government. Lending agencies and the rich countries maintain double standards in granting loans and aid to developing countries. Formulation of any national policy, there is a need for healthy debate bringing together politicians, members of the civil society, professional experts, academics, researchers, activists, citizen groups, non-governmental organisation and communities. But hardly, any meaningful participation of different stakeholders takes place in police formulation. Any national policy must be participatory where people from all walks of life should have the scope for active participation so that they can put forward their opinions effectively.
   But the decisions are made in closed-door meetings where people don’t have any access. Lenders and bureaucrats define guidelines and formulate policies for national development. Foreign aid has made the country indebted and burdened with huge liabilities which currently stands at some
   Tk 10,000 per capita.
   It is demand of the conscious citizenry that lenders, in the spirit of honesty, transparency, and good governance, provide the public of Bangladesh with the all kinds of information for every project funded by them, including the percentage of project funds believed to have been lost due to corruption at different levels, breakdown of which groups are the immediate recipients of the funds, independent benefit incidence analysis with a breakdown of who the ultimate beneficiaries of the project are, clear statement of the specific conditionalities, signed declaration stating whether disbursement of the project funds may be used as leverage for other concessions or favours from the government.
   Aid, in the neo-liberal framework cannot be effective, and it can rarely put positive impact on the ground for which it is supposed to work for the development of the poor people in particular. It is also important that developing countries devise their own means to maximise utilisation of aid effectively denouncing the imposed conditions and at the same time hold lenders and recipient governments accountable to the people. And for effective aid, there must be the real commitments to realise ownership, harmonisation, alignment and mutual accountability that have been emphasised in the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness.
   Ahmed Swapan Mahmud is a head of Voice for Interactive Change, a non-governmental organisation and a development activist

FOR years, the US never considered Africa as a priority foreign policy agenda. The only context in which Africa came up in Washington was for preferential trade as in AGOA (Africa Growth and Opportunity Act) or in AIDS-funding from PEPFAR (the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief) and, of course, humanitarian assistance. Despite its continued use of the term ‘partnership with Africa’, no administration viewed Africa as anything but a source of extractive resources and a perpetual conflict-ridden region with few business opportunities.
   So now, when the US declares Africa to be a very important region and pays special attention to it, one has got to be suspicious. With little fanfare, on October 1, the US officially launched a new militarised initiative for Africa that has come to be known as AfriCOM, or the Africa Command. The announcement was held in a small press conference at the Pentagon where defence secretary Robert Gates stated: ‘AfriCOM represents yet another important step in modernising our defence arrangements in light of 21st century realities.’
   According to William (Kip) Ward, the African-American General who will be heading the command, AfriCOM is about ensuring security and interventions to prevent war and conflicts. He admits the increased need for an Africa Command came in the post-9/11 ‘global war on terror’, where Africa is seen largely as ‘ungoverned’ states where extremists are posing a threat to US national security. A special case that is frequently used to depict these ‘lawless’ states is Somalia. The southern region of Somalia has remained in internal conflict since the last president was deposed in 1991. When finally an indigenous civil society group reinstated order and stability, the US (and its ally Ethiopia) declared them ‘Islamic extremists’. In January 2007, the US bombed innocent Somali civilians – an act which went unreported and un-criticised – and continues to use its military interventions either directly on the country or through its alliance with Ethiopia.
   With the prerogative of openly using military power against states that ‘threaten the US national security,’ AfriCOM will operate with little supervision from Congress or international bodies like the United Nations. Prior to the announcement of AfriCOM, Africa was treated as a side region and US military command was divided between the European, Pacific & Central Commands. In fact, the headquarters of the newly launched AfriCOM is still based in Stuttgart, Germany, but will not be so for long. When fully operational, the new Africa Command will not only be based in the continent, but will ‘network’ and militarise all aspects of US policy with Africa.
   If you’re thinking traditional bases with thousands of military personnel, think again. General Kip Ward has said it is not about ‘bases’ and ‘garrisons’ but rather a network of sophisticated military operations strategically placed throughout the continent which can be moved around and utilised for any purpose. Defence Secretary Gates called AfriCOM ‘a different kind of command with different orientation, one that we hope and expect will institutionalise a lasting security relationship with Africa.’ It is ‘a civilian-military partnership’ where diplomatic and humanitarian relief by the US Agency for International Development will get directives from the Department of Defence. Imagine US military personnel delivering emergency aid and conducting diplomatic missions and the appropriate term is ‘colonisation’.
   AfriCOM is being sold to the public as a good thing for Africa, one that will bring lasting peace and stability to a continent rife with conflicts and disasters. Many African heads of states are not buying this and have rejected the move including the most powerful 14 state-member Southern Africa Development Community, which publicly denounced AfriCOM. Typical of past US historic missions in Africa, there was no prior consultation with African leaders and many heard about it when it was officially announced on February 6, 2007. The Department of Defence sent medium-level delegates to ‘sell AfriCOM’ to heads of state after it had been finalised, but African leaders rejected it as a threat to their sovereignty and a move to further militarise Africa; the last thing Africa needs is more militarisation! . The only exception is, ironically, the first and only democratically-elected female president in Africa, Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf. When heavily criticised about her support for AfriCOM, Johnson-Sirleaf admitted it is an unpopular move but one she has had to take to secure high infusion of US capital for her country’s beleaguered economy.
   Why is the US suddenly interested in ‘prioritising’ Africa? The answer is the same one that has motivated countless interventions into the continent in the past centuries: control of resources. The need for the US to secure oil from the Niger Delta where it is estimated by 2020, a quarter of the imports will originate. Equally important are ‘strategic minerals’ which the US has substantial dependency on. Without cobalt, manganese, chromium and platinum, among others, most US technological and military industries would come to a halt.
   Another perceived threat and rationale for AfriCOM is China’s increasing presence in Africa. It is not ‘new’ as it may seem to be, China has been building industries and accessing oil and extracting minerals for at least decades. Despite the growing criticism on China for its military and industry activities in Africa, many say it at least provides African countries with an alternative to the dominant Western capital push which had remained challenged until recently.
   Excluding Egypt, AfriCOM will, when fully operational, in effect have a sophisticated and well-networked military capability throughout 53 African countries. The Department of Defence will oversee ‘civilian’ activities that were previously the mandate of diplomatic and humanitarian agencies. We can also count the increase in private military activities which, as seen in Iraq, remain unregulated and with no congressional monitoring.
   This fundamental shift in US-Africa relations has come under tremendous attack by civil society and policy research groups in both the US and Africa. A national coalition group has organised as a way to counter the move. Resist AfriCOM is conducting massive education and mobilisation to send a clear message to Washington in solidarity with African civil society to say a clear and unequivocal ‘no’ to AfriCOM.
   How does one say no to a policy that was announced a year ago and has been, for all intents and purposes, officially operationalised already? Through continued response from the grassroots in the US (working in partnership with African civil society), the progressive Africa-justice community and the peace movement in the US has a responsibility to continue to reject this initiative even when it appears to be moving ahead.
   As a good friend from the anti-apartheid movement always states, the US had officially sanctioned and supported the racist apartheid state of South Africa politically and economically. To those who were working actively to oppose it at the time, it seemed like an impossible task to change these policies and indeed it took decades to do so. But logic and morality prevailed and eventually, through national grassroots pressures, the US made radical shifts to its policy and denounced apartheid.
   AfriCOM is nothing new, it is simply a new initiative to ensure ‘command’ of land and resources that in the past was called just plain ‘colonialism’. As the competition for global resources tightens, not only for oil and minerals, but for basic rights to land and water, we can expect increased focus on Africa as the new frontier. Joining this increasing Africa resistance movement and speaking out against Africa Command should be everyone’s responsibility.
   ZNet, October 26. Nunu Kidane is network coordinator for Priority Africa Network, based in Oakland, California.

Chief adviser and baul sculpture

According to New Age report of October 22, the chief adviser urged the people to enrich our own arts and culture.
   It is really fantastic to hear him say so when baul sculpture was pulled down without caring a wee bit for our ‘culture and heritage’.
   Ariful Islam Mithu
   Purana Paltan, Dhaka

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It seems the teachers belonging to the White panel are more attentive to country’s election/politics than the quality of education in the DU.
   Haq
   Via e-mail

The army-backed government came to power with the slogan of curbing corruption. But the seeds of corruption are ripening and increasing day by day. Corruption is taking firm roots in every sphere of life.
   Moznu
   Sunamganj, via SMS

I don’t think the bailout plan is the wisest alternative. It seems like a Trojan horse. President Bush should choose the best alternative that will benefit the common man in the street and not just the government.
   Secondly, this bailout will allow the government to exercise undue control over the economy which should have been privatised in a land which is known for freedom.
   Sarah Chowdhury
   Los Angeles, USA
   

Next on Quick Comments

a. Shibir men attack Udichi programme at Jagannath Univ (New Age, October 26) b. Cultural group terms baul monument removal ‘melodrama’ (New Age, October 26) c. UK bans Maggi Noodles, Horlicks ads on false claims (New Age, October 26) d. Stores hide tainted milk brands in fear: No step seen to execute HC ban (New Age, October 26)