Business Recorder Column October 26, 2021

Trouble all round

 

Rashed Rahman

 

Trouble has raised its disquieting head, or is looming, on diverse fronts for the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf (PTI) government. First and foremost, Chief Minister (CM) Balochistan Jam Kamal Alyani has finally succumbed to the logic of having lost the trust of his own party, Balochistan Awami Party (BAP), and resigned on October 24, 2021, on the eve of voting on the no-confidence motion moved against him by BAP dissidents and virtually every other party in the Balochistan Assembly, which the numbers showed even before the vote he was bound to lose. Thus drew to an ignominious close the two month long crisis in the province. The denouement seems to have been clinched by the talks Senate Chairman Mir Sadiq Sanjrani and Defence Minister Pervez Khattak held with Alyani after flying into Quetta. Sanjrani had earlier made attempts to reconcile the alienated BAP MPAs with the former CM, but to no avail.

Alyani lost out to ignoring one of the by now cardinal principles of our so-called parliamentary democratic system, which more than ever fails to justify this description for this ‘system’. It’s about constituency politics, stupid. His own party members incrementally got alienated from Alyani for his failure to take into account their concerns about development funds for their respective constituencies, without which they feared losing the next election. The system of political patronage in the country has therefore two layers, the first between the incumbent government head and his Assembly members, the second between those members and their constituency electorate. If either or both are disrupted, the end is nigh.

Following Alyani’s late night resignation after assertive denials of the same earlier, the Speaker of the Balochistan Assembly, Mir Abdul Qudoos Bizenjo, was named as the new leader of the house, i.e. the would-be next CM. On October 25, 2021, Bizenjo resigned as Speaker, thereby clearing his path to the CM office. His replacement as Speaker is likely to be Mir Jan Mohammad Khan Jamali, a veteran of serving as CM and Speaker Balochistan, and Deputy Chairman Senate twice. What change, if any, can be expected from this ‘new’ dispensation? Hardly any, except perhaps greater sensitivity to and accommodation of MPAs’ constituency concerns. The development funds of the country’s poorest province are now more likely than ever to end up in pockets they were not intended for. To single out Balochistan in this regard, however, would be unfair since the whole political structure functions at its core on this basis.

The successful BAP dissident group mentioned and thanked Asif Ali Zardari for his support, although everyone and his uncle had pitched in to ensure seeing the back of Alyani. The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), which left the opposition Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) over strategic and tactical issues, is now trumpeting the success of its preferred strategy of bringing political change through no-confidence motions, in Balochistan today, Punjab and the Centre tomorrow, it argues. The latter two challenges may appear more daunting than the Balochistan collapse of Alyani’s rule, however.

The second, and even more serious crisis confronting the PTI government simultaneously was the Tehreek-i-Labaiq Pakistan (TLP) agitation against the continued incarceration of their leader Saad Rizvi and the failure of the government to implement the agreement signed with the TLP in November 2020 regarding, amongst other things, the expulsion of the French Ambassador over the republication of blasphemous cartoons in France through a reference to parliament. The trouble started a few days ago in Lahore, which led to deaths and injuries to both the law enforcement agencies (LEAs) as well as the TLP protestors. The latter announced in the wake of these clashes a long march on Islamabad in an ominous reminder of their previous demonstrated ability to use their undoubted street power to paralyse the federal capital. Last time round, a months-long sit-in in Islamabad by the TLP was only dispersed through the open distribution of cash to the protestors by an LEA official, an incident that Justice Qazi Faez Isa of the Supreme Court roundly criticised in a judgement and which sparked off the honourable judge and his family’s protracted round of troubles of one kind or another.

Now the PTI government called in Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid to negotiate with the TLP to halt their long march at Muridke, where they are still camped, in return for the release of Saad Rizvi and the hundreds of incarcerated TLP supporters. Seemingly successful, the new agreement reiterates the fulfillment of the earlier commitment to take the matter of the French Ambassador’s expulsion to parliament and revisiting the inclusion of TLP supporters’ names in the Fourth Schedule under the ant-terrorism laws. All this palaver conveniently ignored the fact that there is in fact no French Ambassador currently in Pakistan, the incumbent having left the country to avoid any embarrassment or threat when the blasphemous cartoons issue re-emerged and French diplomatic relations since then being handled by the Charge d’ Affaires.

The third direction trouble is looming from is the opposition campaign against the PTI government’s incompetence generally, and its inability to control runaway inflation particularly. On this battleground, whatever their differences, the PDM, PPP and even the Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) are marshalling their troops. How far a divided and so far less than inspirational opposition can trouble the incumbent government cannot be firmly predicted at present. But if the PTI government’s demonstrated incompetence and lack of grip or direction over the last three years continues, all bets are off.

Fourth, the quite unnecessary controversy in public about the appointment of the next DG ISI. Strange things surround the issue. The ISPR issues a ‘proclamation’ in this regard, which appears to fall foul of Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan’s preference as well as irritation at indicating the decision was made by the army as an institution rather than the PM, whose theoretical prerogative it is. This ‘storm in a teacup’ may well blow over soon, all indications say, but our commentariat has read this as the ‘shredding’ of the same page narrative.

However, things may not be as black and white as this. There are indications the top brass is less than pleased at the manner in which the issue has been handled and bandied about publicly rather than discreetly behind closed doors. One fallout of the shredded same page thesis is the palpable unease and distancing from the PTI of its coalition partners, the Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) and Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P), who are reliable weather vanes of which way the political wind emanating from the establishment is blowing.

Two years away from the next general elections, the chickens of that establishment’s imposed government seem to be on the verge of coming home to roost.

 

 

 

rashed.rahman1@gmail.com

rashed-rahman.blogspot.com

Business Recorder Column October 19, 2021

Colonial atrocities: belated reckoning

 

Rashed Rahman

 

On October 16, 2021, French President Emmanuel Macron commemorated the 60^thanniversary of a massacre of Algerian independence protestors by Paris police by characterising the state bloodshed as ‘crimes’. He admitted several dozen protestors were killed. The precise numbers of victims remains unclear, not the least because the police threw many bodies into the River Seine. The protest rally was called in 1961, the final year of France’s increasingly violent attempt to retain Algeria as a colony. However, as expected, President Macron failed to issue a formal apology for this (or any other) atrocity against Algerians fighting for their inherent right to independence.

France occupied Algeria in 1830. By 1959 more than one million European (largely French) settlers constituted 10 percent of the country’s population. These settlers, dubbed Pieds-noirs, had a sense of entitlement to be seen as superior to the natives to the extent of instituting an apartheid-like system. By the 20^thcentury, a proliferation of nationalist Algerian parties and movements were incrementally radicalised as the understanding sank in that peaceful means of struggle were not enough, especially after World War II when protestors demanding independence were massacred in Setif on May 8, 1945. With the defeat of the French at Dien Bien Phu in Vietnam (another colony the French attempted to hold on to by force after World War II) in 1954, the emboldened Algerian resistance turned to armed struggle under the leadership of the National Liberation Front (FLN). This struggle lasted from 1954 to 1962, starting from the rural areas but soon moving on to urban guerrilla struggle in 1956-7 in what came to be known as the Battle of Algiers (immortalised in a film of the same name, which shows the first three bomb attacks that sparked off the Battle being planted by women).

The French colonialists response to any manifestation of resistance, peaceful or armed, was mass atrocities, massacres, torture, and summary executions. This unwittingly fed into the resistance, since the populace increasingly became convinced that there was no other way to get rid of the French colonisers drunk on their so-called ‘civilising mission’ and unable to see Algeria as anything other than part of Metropolitan France.

A major turning point was the May 1958 storming of the offices of the Governor-General in Algiers by a mob of Pieds-noirs angered by their government’s inability to crush the resistance. With the support of French army officers, they clamoured for World War II hero Charles de Gaulle to be installed as leader of France. But de Gaulle turned out to be a realist who recognized by September 1959 that French continued control of Algeria was untenable and declared self-determination necessary for Algeria. The Pieds-noirextremists were aghast, the FLN wary. The former supported a French Generals’ colonialist revolt against de Gaulle under the rubric Organisation de l’Armee Secrete(OAS) in April 1961 but the putsch was unsuccessful. The latter eventually chose to enter into talks with the de Gaulle government.

May 1961 witnessed the first (and unsuccessful) round of negotiations between the French government and the FLN in Evian, but the second round in March 1962 yielded a French ceasefire. On July 1, 1962, a referendum was held in Algeria to approve the Evian Agreements, which called for an Algerie algerienne. Six million Algerians cast their ballots for independence, which soon followed.

The bravery and courage with which the Algerian people fought French colonial occupation amidst massacres, torture, summary executions and other atrocities is both an inspiring and tragic tale. Colonialism across the globe was guilty of similar atrocities wherever it found lands to conquer. Its victims, running into the millions, included indigenous peoples (some wiped out, others reduced to a miserable state), black African slaves, and even relatively developed civilisations such as the Subcontinent and China. For at least three quarters of a century since independence was incrementally granted to the subject peoples of the erstwhile colonies and even longer in the case of the victims of slavery, the western developed countries responsible for these colonial atrocities remained ‘oblivious’ to their guilt, having brushed this criminal history under the carpet amidst a nauseating repetition of their stubbornly claimed ‘civilising’ role in the former colonies.

Only in recent years, and especially since the turn of the 21^stcentury, a better educated, knowledgeable series of generations in both east and west have brought to the fore in stark daylight this atrocious period of world history. As a result, slavers’ statues are being demolished, the ‘heroes’ of the slavery and colonial causes are literally being ‘unseated’ from statue plinths and horses and their much lauded status critiqued, as an increasingly assertive movement insists on removing these vestiges of a shameful past.

Had such atrocities been committed in reverse, i.e. if the shoe were on the other foot, the (unlikely) perpetrators would have been subjected to insistent demands to be brought to justice. Instead, the peoples of the erstwhile colonies cannot even receive a decent apology from the perpetrators of these injustices and atrocities. So much for a fair and just world where every human being, let alone whole peoples, can expect to be treated with the respect and dignity they deserve.

 

 

 

 

 

rashed.rahman1@gmail.com

rashed-rahman.blogspot.com

Business Recorder Column October 12, 2021

The Chinese Republican Revolution 1911

 

Rashed Rahman

 

On October 10, 2021, China marked the 110^thanniversary of the October 1911 Republican (Xinhai) Revolution with a speech by President Xi Jinping calling for the reunification of the breakaway province of Taiwan. Taiwan became the sanctuary for the defeated retreating nationalist Kuomintang led by Chiang Kai Shek after the Communist victory in 1949, where his forces still numbering an astounding two million took refuge and declared Taiwan as The Republic of China. However, the ‘Republic’ of Chiang Kai Shek in 1949 bore little resemblance in size or political philosophy to the Republic declared by Dr Sun Yat Sen and his bourgeois democratic revolutionary comrades in 1912.

China had been an imperial monarchy for at least 4,000 years till then (the historical evidence earlier than this is shrouded in the mists of time and myth). But the China we recognise today took shape over the millennia since then, passing through great turbulence (especially the Warring States period 475-221 BC) before the Qin (pronounced ‘Cheen’, from which we derive the country’s name in Urdu) Empire finally conquered all others and established a unified imperial dynasty. Through the millennia that followed, one imperial dynasty replaced another until the last Han (the overwhelmingly dominant ethnic group) dynasty called Ming (1368-1644) was overthrown by the Manchu (from Manchuria) dynasty.

The Manchu dynasty reversed China’s traditional isolationism and incrementally opened its doors to western and Japanese traders who, as happened elsewhere in the Third World, used their commercial presence to make inroads into China’s sovereignty. These inroads came through wars, unequal treaties, and the consequent ceding of territory. So much so that by the 19^thcentury, enclaves in the main trading cities of the east coast and inland were ‘reserved’ for foreigners only, with signs stating emphatically: “Dogs and Chinese not allowed”.

This humiliation of China, which till then had considered itself the centre of the world and constantly attempted to seal itself off from the rest (considered ‘barbarians’), aroused nationalist feelings against these imperialist interlopers as well as the Manchu (or Manzu) dynasty named Qing (or Ch’ing), for its inability to fend off the imperialists, concentrating its efforts instead on crushing internal uprisings aimed at the foreign invaders and sometimes the Qing dynasty itself. By the turn of the 19^th-20^thcentury, this nationalist fervour to recover the lost sovereignty and independence of China had gripped the Chinese student community sent abroad to acquire modern knowledge and help China stand on its own feet.

Amongst a galaxy of such activists in exile, Dr Sun Yat Sen stands out as the great unifier of all the disparate nationalist groups abroad in a Revolutionary Alliance (Tongmenghui), that played the role of the vanguard in the republican overthrow of the monarchy in 1911 after a series of local uprisings challenged the grip of the Qing dynasty. Although the revolution declared a republic and attempted to abolish the ancient feudal system, it was unable to exercise complete control over the country. The local vacuum of power in many parts of China gave rise to the phenomenon of warlords and a civil war ensued. The Kuomintang, a party formed by Dr Sun Yat Sen on August 25, 1912, pledged itself to the elimination of feudalism internally while defending the country against imperialism externally.

By 1921, when the Communist Party of China (CPC) was founded and an alliance formed between it and the Kuomintang against the warlords, feudalism and imperialism, China was in turmoil. The Kuomintang had deep fissures between the Right and Left in its ranks, the former hostile to communism and the CPC, the latter in favour. After Dr Sun Yat Sen’s passing away in 1925, both the Kuomintang and the CPC recognized his legacy as the father of the 1911 revolution but the Right in the Kuomintang, led by Chiang Kai Shek, turned away from Dr Sun Yat Sen’s policy of combating the warlords and feudalism to concentrating on wiping out the communists and the CPC. In the 1927 Shanghai massacre of communists and their supporters lies this epic break.

It is to Mao Tse Tung’s credit that he saw the fate of China’s revolution, democratic and later socialist, rested on the peasantry, not on the embryonic working class. However, he also posited the role of proletarian ideology in leading the peasantry on the revolutionary road, without which, and despite China’s long history of peasant uprisings that often led to changes in imperial dynasties in the past, both the democratic and socialist revolutions would flounder. In the midst of the despair attending the Shanghai and other wholesale massacres of communists and their supporters by Chiang Kai Shek in 1927, Mao retreated to the countryside and spelt out his strategy of protracted guerrilla warfare on the base of the peasantry in brilliant works such as “An Analysis of the Classes in Chinese Society” and “The Struggle in the Chingkang Mountains”. The CPC eventually had no choice but to follow Mao’s prescription of basing itself on the peasantry. For their pains, they were subjected to five ‘Encirclement and Suppression’ campaigns by the Kuomintang forces.

By 1931, amidst this titanic struggle between the CPC and the Kuomintang, Japan’s capture of Manchuria and nibbling away at more and more Chinese territory rang the alarm bells of the danger from imperialist (and fascist) Japan. Though the communists tried hard to deflect the military campaigns of the Kuomintang towards this threat, Chiang Kai Shek was adamant in his hatred of the CPC. By 1935, partly because the Kuomintang encirclement campaigns had taken a toll, not the least because Mao’s prescription of guerrilla protracted war was not adhered to, partly to reposition itself to confront the Japanese threat, the CPC broke out of the noose and carried out the extremely difficult and challenging Long March northwards to confront Japan. Mao was now Chairman of the CPC and in command. Under the pressure of Japanese aggression, even some of Chiang Kai Shek’s Generals had had enough of his myopic concentration on eliminating the communists while ignoring the greater danger from Japanese imperialism. The Xi’an incident, in which a group of troubled patriotic Generals seized Chiang and forced him to change course helped forge a national alliance against the Japanese, against whose cruelties the Chinese people struggled until Japan’s defeat and surrender in 1945. Chiang then turned his attention back to suppressing the communists, but having gained strength during the anti-Japanese resistance, the CPC won the civil war in 1949 and declared the People’s Republic.

The democratic revolution of 1911 did not entirely succeed in transforming China. The 1949 people’s democratic revolution paved the way for the building of a socialist society. However, by 1978, a mere two years after Mao’s passing away, Deng Xiao Peng turned socialist China towards an embrace of capitalism. Currently, under Xi Jinping, it appears the high point of that embrace may have ended, and the socialist current in China may once again be gaining strength. But this short survey of China’s modern history also points to the country’s recovery of its pre-eminent position in the world. However, whether this is another manifestation of Chinese nationalism or adherence to an internationalist socialist revolutionary road, only time will tell.

 

 

 

 

rashed.rahman1@gmail.com

rashed-rahman.blogspot.com

Business Recorder Column October 5, 2021

Pandora’s box

 

Rashed Rahman

 

The Greek myth of Pandora’s box seems to have come true with a vengeance by the revelations gleaned by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists from a fresh set of leaked documents exposing the secret fortunes of prominent individuals across the globe. This investigation, dubbed ‘Pandora Papers’, is the latest in a series of mass International Consortium of Investigative Journalists leaks of financial documents that started with LuxLeaks in 2014, followed by the Panama Papers, Paradise Papers and FinCen. About 35 current and former leaders and heads of state and government are featured in the leaked documents. They include Jordan’s King Abdullah II, Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta and others. The modus operandi for secreting funds in tax havens is to set up offshore companies that can then be used to hide wealth obtained through dubious or corrupt means and aid money laundering and global tax avoidance.

The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists found personal or family links between almost 1,000 companies in offshore tax havens and 336 high-level politicians, public officials, ministers, ambassadors and retired military officers amongst others. More than two-thirds of the companies were set up in the British Virgin Islands. An offshore British Virgin Islands company pays zero income tax, no capital gains tax, gift tax, inheritance tax, sales tax or value added tax (VAT). The British Virgin Islands function under British common law. These ‘arrangements’ propel Britain to top of the list of tax safe havens, where offshore companies can be registered and function without any questions being asked.

Like the Panama Papers that named, among others, former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif (and led to his disqualification in the case, albeit because of an unconnected and undeclared iqama– work permit – for the Gulf), the Pandora Papers potentially could prove explosive for Pakistan’s elite. They include the names of about 700 individuals from Pakistan allegedly holding millions of dollars in such offshore companies’ accounts. Strictly speaking, setting up an offshore company (or trust) is not illegal. However, the crunch comes when it is revealed whether such companies have been declared by their owners in their returns or not.

This list of 700 Pakistanis reads like a Who’s Who of the country’s elite. It ranges from current Finance Minister Shaukat Tarin to Minister for Water Resources Moonis Elahi, former federal minister Faisal Vawda, former special adviser for finance and revenue Waqar Masood Khan’s son, the family of Minister for Industries and Production Khusro Bakhtiyar, Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf (PTI) leader Abdul Aleem Khan, Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) leader Sharjeel Memon, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader Ishaq Dar’s son, some retired high ranking military officers, businessmen, owners of media houses, etc, i.e. a very representative sample of our rich and powerful elite.

Some of these named worthies have attempted mea culpas to justify the setting up of such offshore companies, others have argued the companies are now dead, still others that they have been declared in countries where tax laws apply to their owners. Prime Minister Imran Khan has pledged to take action if any wrongdoing is established after investigation. One report has it that the Pandora Papers reveal two offshore companies registered with the Prime Minister’s residential address in Lahore: 2 Zaman Park. Government spokespeople have dismissed this by arguing there are two properties half a kilometre apart with the same address! Curiouser and curiouser. The government is reportedly contemplating either a judicial investigation by the Supreme Court or a special commission headed by a retired superior courts judge to delve into this complicated and wide ranging matter and establish the veracity or otherwise of the International Commission of Investigative Journalists’ findings.

Whatever the outcome of such a commission of inquiry or judicial investigation, and experience of past such efforts does not inspire confidence in a credible and transparent result, the Pandora Papers reveal the structure of global arrangements to favour the rich so that they can hide their wealth and escape taxes. Capitalism theoretically runs according to laws. But if you have laws that facilitate the secretion of wealth without questions being asked or taxes to be paid, that claim is morally weakened, at the very least. The revelations of the Pandora Papers, like similar exercises in the past listed above, have further blown the lid off this shady enterprise. But it is highly unlikely the rich and powerful global elite that is its main (if not only) customer, will permit such a lucrative and convenient loophole to be plugged.

As the small sample list of the Pakistanis named in the Pandora Papers indicates, all are naked in this hamaam,politicians from all sides of the political divide, serving or retired members of the civilian and military elite, and some Johnny-come-latelies who have managed to hitch a ride on this bandwagon of loot and plunder. Does Pakistan as a state, judging from our history, have the political will and wherewithal to challenge and bring to book those of the elite charged with dubious wealth hoarding abroad in safe havens?

A rhetorical question, if ever there was one. So far, all we have seen and been subjected to are partisan witch-hunts in the name of anti-corruption accountability, first by one, then the other side of the mainstream political divide. There is little if any evidence that this practice is poised on the cusp of a change. The rich and powerful need not lose any sleep over the Pandora Papers. Like their predecessors, it would come as no surprise if they too, after much huffing and puffing all round, fizzle out in a damp whimper.

 

 

 

 

 

rashed.rahman1@gmail.com

rashed-rahman.blogspot.com

The October 2021 issue of Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) is out

 The October 2021 issue of Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) is out (link: pakistanmonthlyreview.com).

Contents:

1. Rashed Rahman: The National Question in Marxism – III.

2. Dr Ali Raza: Book Review of Dr Chris Moffat's India's Revolutionary Inheritance: Politics and the Promise of Bhagat Singh.

Rashed Rahman

Editor, Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) (link: pakistanmonthlyreview.com)

Director, Research and Publication Centre (RPC)