The New Nation - Internet Edition

Observations on current stand of PML (N)

Dr. M. S. Haq

PM Nawaz Sharif's party, Pakistan Muslim League - Nawaz (PML - N), has pulled recently its members from the country's federal cabinet over a deadlock as to when and how to restore the deposed judges. The latest deadline for restoration of judges was 12 May 2008.

In the midst of above development, PML - N has, however, made it clear to people (used in a wider sense) that it will, among other things, continue to provide support to the ruling PPP (Pakistan Peoples' Party) at the center and maintain its government in the province-that is, Punjab. Interesting though, the government of Pakistan is yet (as of 13 May 2008) to accept the resignation tendered by federal ministers of PML - N.

Sharif's party quits Pakistan cabinet at the time when the coalition government is 06 week old. The development strengthens further - doubts - about the continuation of at least a workable coalition government (including inter alia PML - N) at the center through the life time of present government, unless such development is resisted by reasons over emotions in pertinent areas in a responsible, contextually relevant, pragmatic, meaningful, and sustainable manner, and by moves towards transforming, in real terms, the immediate, as well direct well-being of majority of Pakistanis into key competing priorities of PML - N and concerned others, at this point in time and among other things.

Pakistan is currently in the process of preparing annual budget for the next fiscal. Given that budgeting this time will be critical to the immediate future of Pakistan in terms of for example, the people's urgent needs, as well as expectations, re-stabilization of the country's economy, better governance, war on terror and commitment of political parties to the people-the withdrawal of PML - N ministers from the cabinet at this juncture of the country's history - I mean, when their intense involvement in relevant areas is needed in the country's greater interest, does not appear to be a pro-people decision in an overall sense. To involve actively in the budget preparation, as well as to provide support to it in the parliament or to provide support only to budget discussions in the parliament are, in many respects, two different ball games. It will be, in that context, interesting to observe: how would ordinary people of Pakistan and others take the stance of PML - N. Is PML - N not a friend of people in these days of need? It is expected Senator Zardari and others will be able to convince Nawaz Sharif and company to reconsider the latter's decision in relevant areas.

Judges should be restored in a lawful, satisfactory, acceptable to all (as far as humanly possible), result-generative, sustainable and example-setting fashion. I believe PML - N is matured enough and well placed to respect, appreciate and practice the law of land under the authority of parliament when it comes to for example: dealing with cases of judges and judiciary; and accepting the time lag associated with the constitutional, as well as legal processes connected with and ancillary to those cases. The party should now stop using the judges' issue as a part of its effort towards gaining a further political mileage, per se. Given the moving reality, it could be that PPP and others will be in a better position than PML - N in the event of say, an eventual restoration of judges-PML - N could then regret for its present day stance and apparent impatience. After all, the time and the people are, in a worldly sense, ultimate judges when it comes to above matters.

On one hand, PML - N is talking about a continuing flow of cooperation from its side for the sake of Pakistan; it has, on the other, given recently an indication that it will be a part of for example, lawyers processions and other programs - demanding restoration of deposed judges - knowing perhaps fully well such things with the support of parties like, PML - N could be instrumental in inter alia destabilizing Pakistan and enhancing terror threats, as well as vulnerabilities in the country and the world at large. In light of above, it now appears PML - N would be required to prove otherwise that the party is not hypocritical.

Utterances made and behaviors demonstrated by certain leaders of PML - N in recent times via the media are apparently objectionable and they lack basic elements of civility. Those and other related factors, tend to indicate, among other things: there are greater chances for say, party supporters, weak minded adults, younger generations and others to pick up (used in psychological and genomics senses) those elements of personality - if factors of above nature are allowed to continue at least in an unrestricted manner. A windfall from above and related developments could be instrumental in inter alia affecting the political culture of the country on a continuing basis - while isolating Pakistan more and more from the mainstream political culture. By the way, is PML - N ready to take the responsibility of resultant intra and inter-generation transfers in areas of say, a less competitive political culture?

The last word: abusive political rhetoric could - beyond a tolerable limit (after all, we are human beings) - bring about some psychological relief to certain people at certain time but it could also help increase, in varying amounts though, reputational costs (used in a negative) of a country or a nation at any time, per se.

Politicians have the responsibility to protect for example, the country from those things, as appropriate. Let us work collectively and with determination in pursuits of cultivating more pro-people, more relevant, more competitive, more constructive, more acceptable, and more satisfying political culture in concerned countries.

Lessons from Myanmar

Amitav Ghosh

THE word "cyclone" was coined in Calcutta (now called Kolkata) in the 1840s by an eccentric Englishman named Henry Piddington. Inspired by the great British meteorologist William Reid, Piddington became one of the earliest storm-chasers, besotted with a phenomenon that he once likened to a "beautiful meteorite."

His elegant coinage was originally intended as a generic name for all revolving weather events, but is now applied mainly to the storms of the Indian Ocean region like Cyclone Nargis, which struck Burma with devastating effect last week.

Piddington was among the earliest to recognize that a cyclone wreaks most of its damage not through wind but through water, by means of the devastating wave that is known as a "storm surge." In 1853, when the British colonial authorities were planning an elaborate new port on the outer edge of Bengal's mangrove forests, he issued an unambiguous warning: "Everyone and everything must be prepared to see a day when, in the midst of the horrors of a hurricane, they will find a terrific mass of salt water rolling in . . ." His warning was neglected and Port Canning was built, only to be obliterated by a cyclonic surge in 1867.

The phenomenon of the storm surge has been extensively researched since Piddington's day, yet few public-response systems have drawn the obvious lesson. To this day, the warnings that accompany a storm's approach typically say nothing about moving to high ground: Their prescription is usually to seek shelter indoors. As a result people tend to hunker down in the strongest structure within reach - only to find themselves trapped when the surge comes sweeping through.

But even if they were fully warned, where would those people go? The delta regions of Burma and Bengal are flat and swampy with very few elevations. To move millions quickly is not an easy task even for a technologically advanced country, as Hurricane Katrina showed.

Yet for the rapidly growing countries that surround the Bay of Bengal there is an increasing urgency to find a way to protect themselves. They have experienced some of the world's most devastating storms. The Hooghly cyclone of 1737, for example, almost erased the infant settlement of Calcutta and was once considered the worst disaster in human history: The surge that accompanied it is reckoned to have reached a height of 40 feet (as opposed to the 12-foot wave generated by Cyclone Nargis).

There are no reliable casualty estimates of that storm, but two other cyclones are known to have killed some 300,000 people each: the Buckerganj cyclone of 1876 and the Bhola cyclone of 1970, both in what is now Bangladesh. As recently as 1991, a storm surge killed more than 100,000 people in Bangladesh.

Nor are the energies of the Bay of Bengal exhausted by its all-too-frequent cyclones - there is also the extremely unstable fault line that produced the Boxing Day tsunami of 2004, which took some 230,000 lives. If global warming does bring an increase in cyclonic activity there can be no doubt that the bay's heavily populated coastline will be among the most vulnerable regions of the world.

Natural phenomena like tsunamis and cyclones have no respect for national boundaries - in fact, they follow trajectories that seem almost to mock the vanities of nation-states. Cyclone Nargis, for example, had it stayed on its original path, would very likely have hit either India or Bangladesh; it was only in the last stretch of her journey that she veered off toward the Irrawaddy Delta.

Nation-states tend to see their interests as being confined within their own borders. But the reality is that the people who live around the Bay of Bengal have a vital interest in common that they do not share with their compatriots in the hinterlands: they are joined by the furies (and let it be said also, the blessings) of that body of water.

Clearly they have a common interest in working together to mitigate the effects of natural disasters. For example, by designing inexpensive, elevated shelters that are appropriate to the terrain; by cooperating to preserve the mangrove forests that are the best natural safeguards against surges; and by creating a joint rapid-response force familiar with the local conditions.

This would require these governments first to acknowledge a basic and ever-more evident truth of the human condition, which is that in dealing with nature's fury, no nation is an island.

This is where national pride gets in the way, for this acknowledgment requires a humility that does not come easily; a glaring example was Bush's rejection of the offers of foreign aid that poured in after Hurricane Katrina. It was as if the world's generosity were an affront.

Recent experience has demonstrated in spectacular ways that rich, technologically advanced nations are not invulnerable to extreme weather. What has also been demonstrated, but more quietly, is that a nation need not be wealthy or technologically advanced to be well prepared for natural disasters.

A case in point is Mauritius, a small Indian Ocean island in a zone that meteorologists call a "cyclone factory." The islanders have evolved a sophisticated system of precautions, combining a network of cyclone shelters with education (including regular drills), a good early warning system and mandatory closings of businesses and schools when a storm threatens. It's been a remarkable success: Cyclone Gamede of 2007, a monster of a storm that set global meteorological records for rainfall, killed only two people on the island.

I happened to be in Mauritius when Hurricane Katrina struck. I still remember the open-mouthed disbelief with which people there watched the unfolding of the events in Louisiana. Mauritius is a country that has learned, through trial and experience, that early warnings are not enough - preparation also demands public education and political will. In an age when extreme weather events are clearly increasing in frequency, the world would do well to learn from it.

(Eminent Indian author Amitav Ghosh's novel, The Glass Palace, is set in Burma. His forthcoming novel is Sea of Poppies)

Beirut, bullets and breakfast

Rami G. Khouri

AS OFTEN happens in this strange world, it was my water turtle Jerry who brought home to me the tough choices we make in times of war.

This happened on Friday morning, when bullets and rocket-propelled grenades were exploding all around our apartment near the Hamra area of west Beirut, during the latest episode in Lebanon's long-running civil strife and political showdown.

We went to bed Thursday night amid repeated rounds of automatic rifle and handgun fire, punctuated by the occasional roar of a loud explosion that was probably a rocket-propelled grenade. The fighting stopped around 1 am, soon after a serendipitous spring rainstorm engulfed Beirut.

The fighting resumed in the early morning. One of our balcony window panes shattered just after we woke up at 7.30am, pierced by a bullet or a ricocheting stone.

A few minutes later, as we prepared coffee in the kitchen that we thought was shielded from the shooting in the streets below, a bullet hit the balcony above us. Shattered stones fell past our balcony to the street below. We ducked and quickly got out of the kitchen, but with our coffee in hand.

Jerry the turtle was in his water tank on the balcony, and had not been fed since the previous night.

We knew we had to feed him soon, but wondered whether it was safe to go on the balcony, from where the gunmen along the large street junction, 25 metres away and four stories below, could clearly see us.

The trouble was, we had no idea who was fighting whom, or whether any actual battles were taking place. Some neighbours thought that heavily armed fighters were simply asserting their presence and control of the neighboumrhood.

This was the third time in a generation that I lived through armed conflict in Beirut, including the early months of the civil war in 1975, the war with Israel in summer 2006, and now this battle - both a local test of political strength and a proxy battle for the wider ideological war pitting United States-led, predominantly Sunni Muslim Arabs versus Iranian- and Syrian-led, heavily Shia Muslim Arabs.

The regional and global confrontation translated this past week into who controlled a few buildings and streets in West Beirut.

Our home is near two key buildings owned by the family of the late Rafik Hariri and his son Saad Hariri, who essentially heads the government coalition - his home in Qoreitim district and the Future television station. Pro-Hariri armed young men had always occasionally patrolled our neighbourhood, given our proximity to Hariri installations. This city block had much symbolic significance.

Hezbollah and its allies decided on Wednesday and Thursday to make a show of force by quickly taking control of and closing Beirut's airport and seaport, and then shutting down all the Hariri-owned media (television, radio and newspaper). The message was clear: Hezbollah could take over all Beirut at any moment it desired. This was probably an inevitable moment, when Hezbollah felt it had to show the government the real balance of power between them.

The fighting on Thursday morning saw Hezbollah, Amal and smaller Lebanese leftist allies quickly take over Hariri-owned facilities, and then just as quickly turn them over to the Lebanese Army, which is still seen as a national institution working for the unity and security of the country.

Hezbollah may have been making the point that it did not want to conquer Beirut or run all Lebanon, but rather that it wanted to push the government into making a negotiated deal that would recognise and institutionalise the real political and military power of Hezbollah and its allies.

On Thursday evening, both the Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and the Future Movement leader Saad Hariri had made television statements in which they insulted each other, but also offered proposals to end the clashes and reach political agreement.

The two principal political leaders in Lebanon were doing what they have always done: protecting their own communities' rights and wellbeing, asserting their willingness to fight if necessary, relying on foreign powers for whom they often acted as local proxies, insulting each other with mutual accusations of serving Israeli or American interests, and, finally, offering proposals that comprised a political opening for dialogue and negotiations.

All of this happened in the span of 12 hours, during which my water turtle Jerry had not been fed. In his own little water tank world, he was getting anxious, as were all the Lebanese people who were becoming fed up with their leaders' inclination to perpetuate civil strife.

In the context of the new political balance of power in Lebanon, our stepping out on the balcony to feed Jerry might have risked our lives. I told my wife Ellen I would kneel down and do a semi-crawl to the balcony, reaching Jerry and his food without being seen by the gunmen whom we could see from the corner of our window.

I was overruled by the prevailing balance of power in our home, when my wife insisted she could do the crawl more safely and swiftly. I concurred, and as she prepared to feed Jerry, I held my breath.

I also thought then that the situation might be changing. The gunfire was slowing down and becoming more sporadic. Every 10-15 minutes or so, a burst of shooting or a loud explosion would rattle our windows. It seemed that whoever was emerging on top was asserting his control of the neighbourhood. Ellen timed her feeding expedition with one of the lulls, and all went smoothly.

An hour later, the situation seemed to change. The rumble of Lebanese Army armoured personnel carriers on our street signalled that the pro-Hezbollah gunmen had turned the neighbourhood over to the army. The shooting and explosions stopped.

Neighbours ventured out onto their balconies for the first time in 18 hours.

We and Jerry seemed to sense that a new situation was coming into being - in Lebanon and the entire Middle East. Where it would lead was not clear, but by the next feeding on Friday night we would probably have a better idea.

We decided to leave Jerry on the balcony, assuming that reaching him would not be dangerous. We shall soon find out.

(Rami G. Khouri is editor-at-large of The Daily Star and director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut.)