This is a crucial admission and an important point in democratic Pakistani governance, if only because of it’ll help build a national conversation about homegrown terrorists.

Zardari: “The terrorists of today were the heroes of yesteryear until 9/11 brought things into a new light,” Zardari said in what he called “a candid admission of the realities” in an interactive meeting with former bureaucrats Tuesday night at the presidency.

“Let us be truthful to ourselves and make a candid admission of the realities… Militancy and extremism emerged on the national scene and challenged the state not because the civil bureaucracy was weakened and demoralised, but because they were deliberately created and nurtured as a policy to achieve some short-term tactical objectives,” he said.

But now, Akki, Bebo and their annoyingly loud piece of trash (putting it rather lightly), Kambakkht Ishq has done it.

Warning: DO.NOT.WATCH.
]]> http://subcontinentalbreakfast.wordpress.com/2009/07/05/protest/feed/ 0 Rohan Venkataramakrishnan http://subcontinentalbreakfast.wordpress.com/2009/07/03/a-free-lance-prototype-multimedia-and-entrepreneurial/ http://subcontinentalbreakfast.wordpress.com/2009/07/03/a-free-lance-prototype-multimedia-and-entrepreneurial/#comments Fri, 03 Jul 2009 19:03:08 +0000 Rohan Venkataramakrishnan http://subcontinentalbreakfast.wordpress.com/2009/07/03/a-free-lance-prototype-multimedia-and-entrepreneurial/ ]]>

Now this looks like the sort of thing I would want to do right out of college. Work as an international correspondent, wherever they send you, for just enough money that it costs you to travel and live there. Imagine that.

You have to free-lance, and be ready to live with the uncertainty that comes from that, but otherwise, I’m already somewhat of a multimedia journalist, and I’m prepared to go anywhere for pretty cheap, as long as the stories are interesting (and usually, if it’s not London, Washington or New York, those cheap stories have to be interesting.

“Last week’s events in [country in the news] were truly historic, although we may not know for years or even decades what their final meaning is. What’s important, however, is that we focus on what these events mean [on the ground/in the street/to the citizens themselves]. The [media/current administration] seems too caught up in [worrying about/dissecting/spinning] the macro-level situation to pay attention to the important effects on daily life. Just call it missing the [desert for the sand/fields for the wheat/battle for the bullets].”

* Opinion poll shows big swing against Pakistani Taliban

* Overwhelmingly negative views of U.S., Obama also seen

* Pakistanis express opposition to the war in Afghanistan

Some interesting news out of Pakistan, both good and bad.

The good bit, is obviously that public opinion, as far as this new poll conducted by WorldPublicOpinion.org shows that up to 81 percent of Pakistani people view Islamist militants and local Taliban as a critical threat to the country, up from 34 percent in 2007. That’s a tremendous increase, if accurate. If coupled with the fact that the poll also shows widespread sympathy with the present government and support for the army, this could mean that Pakistan can now begin to really hit the Taliban and other radicals where it hurts, without worrying about alienating the public.

Meanwhile, the country that has given them billions of dollars and continues to promise plenty more, is still the target of widespread disdain (to say the least.) Pakistanis are still not fond of their American allies, but that doesn’t matter as much, as long as they realise that the local militants are the ones that really matter and need to be beaten.

Interesting experiment into our natural tendency to be cruel.

“Last year Karla Hoff, an economist at the World Bank who is currently working at Princeton University, and her colleagues reported the results of experiments conducted in villages in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh (American Economic Review, vol 98, p 494). In these tests, two players started out with 50 rupees each. The first could choose to give his to the second, in which case the experimenters added a further 100 rupees, giving the second player 200 rupees in total. The second player could decide to keep the money for himself, or share it equally with the first player. A third player then entered the game, who could punish the second player – for each 2 rupees he was willing to spend, the second player was docked 10 rupees.

The results were startling. Even when the second player shared the money fairly, two-thirds of the time the newcomer decided to punish him anyway – a spiteful act with seemingly no altruistic payoff. “We asked one guy why,” says Hoff. “He said he thought it was fun.”"

Instead, the Taliban are at it again, and now people are getting seriously worried. Serious as in, 70 miles away from the Pakistani capital serious.

That’s right, after initially attempting and failing to capture the Buner district, the Taliban have managed to come in, take over and keep the small groups of authorities at bay. From the NYT,

Pushing deeper into Pakistan, Taliban militants have established effective control of a strategically important district just 70 miles from the capital, Islamabad, officials and residents said Wednesday.

The fall of the district, Buner, did not mean that the Taliban could imminently threaten Islamabad. But it was another indication of the gathering strength of the insurgency and it raised new alarm about the ability of the government to fend off an unrelenting Taliban advance toward the heart of Pakistan.

This has multiple consequences, and one of the biggest ones that’s yet to be seen is how the Pakistani public will react to this incursion. They’ve been know to favour a certain kind of moderate Islam, without necessarily being against Islamists, until recently. Then, somehow the tide in the country started turning against the Americans (and consequently pro-extremists), despite the tremendous amount of aid and protection from that country. Now, the question is, will this further display of the Taliban’s capability cause more consternation and thus less support for the fundamentalists?

That would be a positive sign, because it might permit the government to open up the borders to American attacks some more. On the flip side, it might cause Zardari to cede more power to the Army which is always, in Pakistan, always looking at taking charge of the country.

So apparently now some of the Taliban have left, but they’re still in strong control of the area.

Meanwhile, America’s questioning the Pakistani government’s ability or will to stop the  Taliban, again from the NYT,

Pakistani authorities deployed just several hundred poorly paid and equipped constabulary forces to Buner, who were repelled in a clash with the insurgents, leaving one police officer dead.

The limited response set off fresh scrutiny of Pakistan’s military, a force with 500,000 soldiers and a similar number of reservists. The army receives $1 billion in American military aid each year but has repeatedly declined to confront the Taliban-led insurgency, even as it has bled out of Pakistan’s self-governed tribal areas into Pakistan proper in recent months.

Obviously, there are issues at the center in terms of settling the cities and fixing the political process, but all that money has to be going somewhere, right? (Other than conventional weapons for the arms race with India).

Whatever happens, this shouldn’t turn into an argument for and against the Taliban in power, like it did in the Swat valley. It should turn into an argument of how best to deal with them, rather than ceding some control for the time being. And hopefully,  the public will see that and support strong measures for fighting the militants, without giving too much to the Army, and be open to letting America help them stop the militancy, without civilian bloodshed.

It’s been a long journey to this point, starting initially with capturing the terrorist alive in the first place.

Then there was the rather complex issue of having the Pakistani government actually accept the fact that he is a citizen of their country. After the Indian government had already made the claim, based on his confession, and investigative reporters from Pakistan’s media visited his hometown, Faridakot, to confirm that he lived there, Zardari’s government responded by cordoning off the village, shutting down a nearby office of the terrorist organization Lashkar-e-Toiba, and tried to stop his parents from speaking about him. In January, National Security Advisor Mahmud Ali Durrani admitted that Kasab is a Pakistani citizen, and, naturally, was fired by the President for opening up, a move that even had the Prime Minister critizing his own president.

Once his nationality had been confirmed, attention moved to the domestic problems of how India was going to deal with Kasab, and specifically of who would represent him, after his request for representation from the Pakistani consulate had been denied.

Hundreds of Indian lawyers refused to represent Kasab, citing ethical concerns, and also the worry that violent nationalist groups, like the Shiv Sena, would cause problems for whoever attempted to defend the terrorist. And that’s exactly what they did, after the Indian judiciary (thankfully) upheld the constitutional right for Kasab to have legal aid. The house of Anjali Waghmare, Kasab’s appointed lawyer, was attacked, and Waghmare asked to be removed from the case, before changing her mind and returning, only to be dismissed for a conflict of interest, considering that she represented one of the witnesses as well.  Meanwhile, the police built a special bomb-proof tunnel between Kasab’s cell and the court t ensure his security at all times. Finally, Abbas Kazmi, another lawyer, was appointed to the role and has begun defending the man as the trial began on April 15.

Despite the calls to summarily execute Kasab or try him without representation (because he was waging war, and the judicial system doesn’t require representation for ‘the enemy’) I think it was a sign of the maturity of India’s judiciary that they were ready to offer him legal aid, and managed to appoint someone to do the role as well.

While the real way to deal with the attacks is to dismantle the terrorist networks in Pakistan, this is also an important symbolic way of showing that India will be able to punish those involved in such attacks, but in a fair, civilized, humane manner. And if we’re lucky, the trial will also coax more details about the attacks so we have more information on which to act.