“The dominant forces simply have not allowed democracy to function” said Kaiser Bengali, Advisor to the Government of Sindh, “you can have democracy on paper, but they will rig the elections”.
Mr. Kaiser Bengali was speaking on the fist day of the Sustainable Development Policy Institute’s (SDPI) thirteenth annual conference, ‘Peace and Sustainable Development in South Asia: The Way Forward’, in Islamabad today. Mr. Bengali cited Islamabad ’s repeated obstruction of the NFC implementation process being as evidence that “the dominant group simply does not want to share power”. He said there was an exemplary spirit of cooperation and compromise between the federating units during the NFC negotiations, but that in the months following, Islamabad created “one obstruction after another”.
Mr. Bengali bemoaned ethnic fragmentation in Pakistan and the failure of the Establishment to construct a genuine vision of national identity, arguing they were instead pursuing personal agrandizement and a policy of “beating heads” in Balochistan, reminiscent of the Centre’s strategy towards East Pakistan .
Earlier, in a panel on sustainable development and religious diversity, MNA Ms. Marvi Memon proclaimed a jihad against religious intolerance in Pakistan . “We find massive discrimination and massive intolerance”, she said “and definitely there is a huge area where the blasphemy laws are being misused”.
Ms. Memon said that the Madina Accord is the essence of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan and that parliamentarians have a responsibility to ensure that that the misuse of the blasphemy laws does not continue. “Anyone who has any courage to speak on this issue is shot down immediately”, she said, “whenever we want to talk about it we are told not to touch it. I do want to touch it”.
During the opening plenary of the conference, the Federal Environment Secretary, Mr. Javed Malik, urged that there must be a “change in thinking” on the relationship with India . “A paradigm shift in policy towards fostering peace is a must for achieving sustainable development in the region”, he added.
He noted that people on the ground across South Asia desire normalized relations between states in the region, and that collaborative efforts for attaining peace would help diverting resources from security to confronting the catastrophic consequences of climate change. Mr. Malik’s comments were echoed by Dr. Saeed Shafqat, Chairperson, Board of Directors, SDPI, who slammed the manipulation of inter-state conflicts by regional governments to benefit the status-quo: “In South Asia and many other cases, the states themselves have used the instrument of ‘external enemy’ to perpetuate rivalry and deflect and curb inner peace and societal reforms”, he said.
Dr. Shafqat urged that South Asia needs a “cultural revolution” to “dismantle, disrupt and destroy the nexus of poverty, social injustice and economic inequities”. “For peace, internal reform is a necessary precondition” he said, arguing that expanding economic opportunity, improving social justice and, most importantly, pursuing the democratic process are key to normalizing relations in the region.
Dr. Abid Q. Suleri, Executive Director of SDPI, in his introductory speech added that “one of the prerequisites for a stable and prosperous Pakistan is a sustainable Afghanistan and one of the prerequisites for India to top the league of emerging economies is a sustainable Pakistan .” Likewise, Dr. Suleri said, NATO is unlikely to leave Afghanistan without peace and development in Afghanistan ’s neighbouring countries”.
Dr. Suleri said that the TAPI gas pipeline and the Pak-Afghan Transit Trade Agreement show a commitment to collaborative initiatives on the part of the international community. Yet, Dr. Suleri warned, “ civil society must play an effective role in suggesting some honourable exit strategies and amicable solutions to our respective governments who are not taking the necessary steps to resolve the pending issues hounding South Asia partially because they are scared of their political opponents”.
Indian Feminist and historian Urvashi Butalia gave a comprehensive account of how people at the grassroots level were trying to catalyze steps towards peace between Pakistan and India . Ms. Butalia noted that the common masses are more concerned with earning their bread and butter than engaging in inter-regional animosity and are demanding their governments deliver on issues like climate change, sustainable livelihoods and food security.
In a concurrent session on sanitation and water issues, experts called for an integrated poverty alleviation program in Pakistan , agreeing that the lack of water and sanitation facilities in Pakistan directly contribute to some crucial dimensions of poverty including health, education, gender, and income.
In another concurrent session on disaster preparedness in light of the recent floods, experts emphasized the need to shift from a disaster management paradigm to a disaster risk reduction. They emphasized community-led reconstruction model as a method to promote democratic participation, increase transparency and accountability mechanisms, and thus directly address the pervasive perception of government corruption. The conference will continue tomorrow discussing a range of issues on sustainable development and peace in South Asia .
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
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