American Values? Guantanamo, the CIA and US Torture

Richard Mellor

Afscme Local 444, retired
10-7-21

 

I know I have written of this before but when I was in eastern Macedonia in 2001-2, I had to go to these Internet cafes to write and to communicate with home. I wrote a few posts about being back in Macedonia as I loved it when I was there twice before and it was part of Yugoslavia.

 

The interesting thing was that when I got off the plane after my arrival from Vienna, I came upon this huge rally in the main square in Skopje and wondered what it was about. I walked up to this guy to ask him and he had this large button on his lapel with the words, Thank You Mr. President on it.

 

I wasn’t sure what it was about but he told me it was for our beloved war mongering, imbecilic president George W Bush. “What!” I responded, “Millions of us can’t stand him back home.” The majority of the crowd appeared to be Christian Slavs. The guy told me that Bush or the US had recognized the name of their country as The Republic of Macedonia. It didn’t seem like a big deal to me but apparently there were Greeks demonstrating on the other side of the border because they consider that they are Macedonian.  Things have changed and that seems to have been settled (for a moment).

 

Anyway, after I settled down I met a guy in an Internet café who told me that there were swarms of northern Europeans and Americans there now from different corporations there looking to set up shop and take advantage of the cheap labor. The visitors also included preachers and missionaries of various US religions trying to find recruits.  Many Yugoslavs are fairly political and well aware of the US and CIA role in the world and how they have on many occasions used religious organizations as a cover for their meddling activities.

 

But one time I couldn’t help noticing that I was being followed by two men. My friend had suggested I register with the local police when I arrived which I did and assumed it might be a local police safety measure. Some people had told me that in this post 911 period, there were tons of Americans there and there were suspicions about them.

 

I stepped in to the nearest Internet café and they came in also. It was a bit disconcerting as they sat either side of me, not directly to my right and left but a couple of seats away. They never spoke.

 

I am convinced that they were not police but possibly US personnel as the US, I found out later, had renditioned one person at least from Macedonia who, like many of them was tortured despite being completely innocent. Khaled el-Masri was his name and he was, “…..shackled, beaten, stripped naked, sodomised and drugged before being secretly transferred to a CIA-run “black site” prison in Afghanistan.” It seems US torturers see sodomy as quite the thing when interrogating people, specially people with religious convictions and of the Muslim kind, though as a Lebanese, el Masri might have been a Christian.

 

Fortunately I was not a threat which I am grateful for.

 

The US had these Black Sites everywhere, places where they would be safe from the scrutiny of the US population and muckrakers back home. One site was in Poland where Abu Zubaydah, who was captured, in Pakistan in 2002, was taken. In Poland the CIA tortured and brutalized Abu Zubaydah. He was transferred to Guantanamo in 2006

 

In 2010 lawyers representing him filed suit against Poland for collaborating with the CIA in torturing him during his time at the Polish Black Site.  His torture included water boarding, rectal rehydration, and being slammed in to walls. (WSJ 10-7-21). “In 2002 It lasted for 20 days, 24 hours a day. He was waterboarded 83 times in that period alone." Says Cornell law professor Joseph Margulies who was later to become one of his lawyers. 

In the US, lawyers for Zubaydah are seeking testimony from James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen who were CIA contractors, psychologists that designed torture methods, (Something sort of Nazi like about this isn’t there).  They designed the now infamous US interrogation practices that have been used throughout the world and in Guantanamo Bay. These two of course call torture “interrogation techniques”, but there are no two ways about it, they are modern day torturers; Of Zubaydah, “….he's the poster child for the program." Says Margulies. Another of their victims tells of his experiences here.  At one point Mitchell and Jessen, concluded that Zubaydah was, “….a broken man and they concluded he didn't know anything more. But the CIA thought he did, so the torture continued.”  NYT 10-6-21

 

The US is trying to block these two giving testimony based on national security and like Trump, Biden is also refusing to release information about Zubaydah’s treatment.

 

The issue is before the Supreme Court, a body composed of old lawyers whose job it is to protect capital and the capitalist system and we know there’s a few misogynists up there. As the NYT puts it:

 

“The central issue of the case concerns whether a detainee at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, who has never been charged with a crime can subpoena testimony from the CIA contractors who supervised his torture.”

 

This whole episode reflects “American values” as much as anything else. History is not pleasant as the powerful maintains their power through violence and coercion of one sort or another. Every US worker should be appalled at these events rather than turning a blind eye and carrying on with our lives as if nothing has happened. The prisons in this country are full of working class people. Had we been paying attention to what the state we call ours has been doing outside (and inside) our borders, 911 may never have occurred or at elast we would know why it occurred.

 

I know that I give no credence whatsoever to those who blame the German people for allowing millions of “undesireables” to be tortured, killed and sent to death camps.  How could they let that happen? People say.

 

It’s not so hard to understand now is it. Abu Zubaydah is still in Guantanamo along with 38 other prisoners and never been charged with a crime, and personally, I couldn’t name one of them.

Where is Kashmir and why the Problem?

The statement below is a public statement on the recent Indian government's recent annexation of Kashmir (Jammu and Kashmir) from the Alliance of Middle Eastern and North African Socialists. It is a statement worthy of support.  It is important also as a brief history lesson about what Kashmir is and why there is conflict there. At the heart of it is the exit of British colonialism from the Indian sub-continent. The British created Pakistan which was part of India but left the question of Kashmir unanswered. But now,  there is no answer on the basis of capitalism.

The rise of Trump at the head of the most powerful nation on earth has emboldened right wing forces throughout the world including the nationalist and neo-fascist Modi in India.

What we are seeing in Kashmir, Israel Palestine, Northern Ireland, Syria, Africa and even China are the consequences of colonialism and imperialism. These issues cannot be resolved by the same forces that created the problem in the first place. This message of solidarity gives a brief history of the region since British colonialism was forced out of the Indian sub-continent.  RM

Alliance Statement on India’s Revocation of Jammu and Kashmir’s Autonomous Status

Aug 13, 2019

As the Indian government resorts to annexation of the state of Jammu and Kashmir at gunpoint, detaining its political leaders and cutting off all means of communication, we extend our solidarity to the people of Jammu and Kashmir as they struggle for their most basic rights and freedoms.

The people of Kashmir were never given the option of having their own state. Since 1947, their land has been fought over by India and Pakistan and divided between the two. At Independence in August 1947, Jammu and Kashmir was a princely state ruled by Maharaja Hari Singh, and was given the choice to join either India or Pakistan. Since J&K was a Muslim-majority state, many expected it to join Pakistan. On the other hand, the party leading the independence struggle, the Jammu and Kashmir National Conference, was secular and allied to the Indian National Congress.

As the Maharaja dithered over the decision, there was a Pakistan-backed invasion of tribesmen from the west in October 1947, and Hari Singh appealed to India to help fight them. India agreed on condition that J&K accede to India, and the Maharaja signed the instrument of accession which on the Indian side was conditional on approval by the people of the state. As fighting continued, the UN Security Council passed a resolution requiring Pakistan to withdraw its forces, India to withdraw most of its forces, and a plebiscite to be held to decide whether Kashmir should join India or Pakistan. However, neither side withdrew their forces, the plebiscite was never held, and the state has remained divided to this day.

In 1952, on the Indian side, Article 370, which specified the conditions on which the state of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) had acceded to India,  was incorporated into the Constitution of India on the recommendation of the Constituent Assembly of Jammu and Kashmir.  In 1954, Article 35A was added with the agreement of the J&K Constituent Assembly.  Since the Constituent Assembly dissolved itself on 25 January 1957 without recommending revocation of Article 370, it has been deemed to be permanent by the Supreme Court of India.

On 5 August 2019, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government of India revoked Article 370 of the Indian Constitution,  which had given the state of J&K a considerable degree of autonomy, including having its own constitution and its own flag.

The Constitution of India does allow Article 370 to be revoked, but only with the prior approval of the Kashmiri people’s elected representatives in J&K’s constituent assembly.  Even the approval of J&K’s legislative assembly was not sought because it had been dissolved in November 2018 by the BJP-appointed governor.   On August 5, he fraudulently provided consent on behalf of millions of Kashmiris as they were held in captivity in their homes at gunpoint, while elected political leaders, even those who have been in coalitions with the BJP, were detained and all means of communication, including cellphones, landlines and the internet, were cut off.

The Revocation of Article 370 also involved the scrapping of Article 35A of the Indian constitution, which, crucially, reserved the right to own land and immoveable property, as well as the right to vote and contest elections, to seek government employment and obtain state welfare benefits, to permanent residents of the state.  Now, J&K has been carved up into two Union Territories ruled directly from Delhi, a move designed to further humiliate the already subjugated population.

This revocation by the Indian government is the most impressive feat yet achieved in the BJP’s steady demolition of India’s democracy over the past five years. The central government’s unilateral abrogation of the terms on which Kashmir acceded to India means that the state is no longer legally linked to India, and India becomes a foreign occupying power. Previous governments have been guilty of grievous violations of Article 370 as well as human rights violations in Kashmir, but this is the first time that the Indian military occupation of Kashmir has no legal basis whatsoever.

The excuses provided by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah for making this move – to end separatist violence and develop J&K to the level of the rest of India – make no sense.  Separatist violence will not be ended by enraging even those Kashmiris who previously wanted to be part of India by demolishing their democratic rights. The economic arguments the Indian government  gives are bogus too.

Far from lagging behind the rest of India, Kashmir is ahead of many states in India, including Modi’s and  BJP president and government minister,  Amit Shah’s home state of Gujarat.   Kashmir has  much lower infant and under-five mortality rates, lower percentages of underweight children and women, higher percentages of fully immunised children and girls aged 15-19 with at least 8 years of schooling, and higher life expectancy despite the ongoing conflict. Most strikingly, the poverty ratio in Kashmir is much lower than the national average. This is in large part due to Kashmir’s own constitution, under which extensive land reforms were undertaken in the 1950s, drastically reducing the landlessness and rural poverty which haunt the rest of India. Kashmir’s special status has been responsible for this reduction in poverty, both by allowing for the land reforms and by preventing non-Kashmiris from acquiring land in Kashmir.

This brings us to the real reasons, political, economic and ideological, why this drastic move has been made by India: it opens the door to a land-grab by settlers from the rest of India, which will also make it possible to change the demography of J&K. Muslim-majority Kashmir has always been a thorn in the flesh of Hindu supremacists, who in 1948 had killed and expelled hundreds of thousands of Muslims in Jammu.  The abrogation of Article 370 allows them to ‘integrate’ J&K into India by changing its ethnic composition. In other words, the intention is to turn Kashmir into a settler-colony like Palestine. It is not a coincidence that India, which from Independence had been a strong supporter of the Palestinian liberation struggle, has under Modi – the first Indian prime minister to visit Israel and literally embrace Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu – become a staunch ally of Israel.

At the same time, Pakistan-backed Islamic fundamentalists (both armed and unarmed) who call for uniting Kashmir with Pakistan offer an ‘alternative’ that would be disastrous for women, religious minorities, and the secular majority. They have acted in tandem with the Hindu supremacists to silence progressive voices and undermine democracy in Kashmir.

Meanwhile, the war hysteria whipped up by Hindu supremacists in India and Islamic fundamentalists in Pakistan serves to divert attention from the abysmal failure of both these states to satisfy even the most basic needs of their people, and can lead to an escalation of the armed conflict between them.  Russia backs India, China backs Pakistan, and the US calls on India and Pakistan to remain calm, while Trump’s overt racism and anti-Muslim bigotry serves to encourage the same attitudes in India.

At this moment of unprecedented trauma and repression, we, the Alliance of Middle Eastern and North African Socialists,  express our whole-hearted solidarity with the people of Jammu & Kashmir and reaffirm their fundamental right to determine their own future in their own land. At a time when support for Jammu & Kashmir’s freedom is treated as treason in both India and Pakistan, we would especially like to extend our solidarity to socialists and progressives there and their counterparts in India and Pakistan.

Alliance of Middle Eastern and North African Socialists
August 12, 2019

International Call – Pakistan: Release Ali Wazir

 International Call – Pakistan: Release Ali Wazir, withdraw false police cases

Ali Wazir. Member of the National Assembly lost 16 family members to Taliban Terrorists

On May 26, 2019 a peaceful procession in the Waziristan region led by Ali Wazir and Mohsin Dawar, both Members of National Assembly (MNAs), was fired upon by army men, leaving at least 13 dead and over forty injured.

Ali Wazir and Mohsin Dawar were elected as Members of the National Assembly (MNA) in the general elections held in 2018. They are also leaders of the Pashtun Defence Movement/Pashtun Tahfuz Movement (PTM), a mass social movement that emerged two years ago.

The PTM demands an end to military operations in the region bordering Afghanistan. This region is inhabited by ethnic Pashtuns. Their demands have brought them in conflict with the country’s powerful military. For the last two months, the military spokesperson has been passing threats to the PTM. Besides, the media were publicly advised by the military not to give any coverage to the PTM.

These threats and media black out translated into a tragic reality on May 26. On the one hand, the peaceful procession was fired upon. On the other, media unanimously reported that the PTM activists led by Ali Wazir and Mohsin Dawar attacked a military check post and ensuing violence claimed the lives of three protestors besides injuring three soldiers.

Ironically, video footages ---filmed through mobile phones---have emerged. These videos clearly show that Ali Wazir and Mohsin Dawar were fired upon from behind. While people were falling to bullets, Ali Wazir, instead of running to safety, went back to help an injured comrade. As he approached his comrade, near the checkpost, he was arrested by the military.

The next day, he was produced before the Anti-Terrorism-Court and remanded for eight days. Meantime, the entire opposition in the Parliament has demanded his release. He suffers from diabetes and high blood pressure.

There have been unconfirmed allegations of torture as well. In the event, even if he is released for now, his life remains threatened. Like the rest of the PTM leadership, he has been subjected to a vicious hate propaganda. He is being portrayed by the mainstream media and the military as a foreign agent, a traitor, and a terrorist.

Fact of the matter is, the PTM staunchly believes in non-violence while 16 members of Ali Wazir’s family, including his siblings and father, were assassinated by the Taliban owing to his family’s opposition to the Taliban. He emerged as a symbol of anti-Taliban struggle before the rise of the PTM.

We urge you to sign this petition for these democratic demands:
(1) The urgent release of Ali Wazir and his PTM comrades
(2) An end to vilification campaign against the PTM leadership
(3) Withdrawal of fake police cases under anti terrorist laws against Ali Wazir and the PTM members.

First signatures:
Serge Aberdam, historian, France
Gilbert Achcar, Professor, SOAS University of London, Britain
Badrul Alam, Communist Party of Bangladesh-ML(CPBML), Bangladesh
Aabida Ali, Awami Workers Party, Pakistan
Karamat Ali, Secretary, National Labour Council, Pakistan
Victor Amarilla, Socialist Convergence (La Verdad), Buenos Aires, Argentina
Alia Amirali, Awami Workers Party, Pakistan
Lionel Aymard, militant associatif, syndical et politique, France
Olivier Besancenot, spokesperson, NPA, France
Anthony Bobo, NPA, France
Pascal Boissel, President of the Union syndicale de la psychiatrie, France
Peter Boyle, Socialist Alliance, Australia
Orallo Carlos, Socialist Workers Party, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Jose Castillo, National Directorate of the Socialist Left, Argentina
Fathi Chamkhi, Popular Front, Member of the Parliament, Tunisia
Gérard Chaouat, Emeritus Research Director at the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), Paris, France
Terry Conway, Socialist Resistance, Britain
Philippe Corcuff, universitaire, Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Lyon, France
Randolf S. David, Professor Emeritus of Sociology, University of the Philippines
Alex De Jong, Co-Director IIRE Amsterdam
Sushovan Dhar, Radical Socialist, India
Felicity Dowling, National Secretary, Left Unity, Britain
Bernard Dreano, cofounder of the Helsinki Citizens Assembly international network
Penelope Duggan, Editor International Viewpoint
Lujan Echeverria, Professional Center for Human Rights, Argentina
Patrick Farbiaz, Ecologie Sociale, France
Tiago Ferreira, sociologist, Spain
Elea Foster, Fourth Internationalist, Greece
Pascal Franchet, President, CADTM-France
Franck Gaudichaud, Lecturer in Grenoble Alpes University, France
Sébastien Guex, Professor, Lausanne University, Switzerland
Laurent Gutierrez, professeur, member of the PCF and la Riposte, France
Anne Gutierrez-Vigreux, Conseillère Municipale de Longvic, France
Bouhbib Hamid, University Teacher, Algeria
Alex Hinno, Member of the Comunitat Palestina de Catalunya, Catalonia
Helena Hirata, Emeritus Research Director at the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), France
Robert Hirsch, trade-unionist (retired), member of Ensemble !, France
Norbert Holcblat, economist, France
Maral Jefroudi, Co-Director IIRE Amsterdam
Imran Kamyana, Editor of the online Urdu magazine Roznama Jeddojehad
Harsh Kapoor, founder and editor South Asia Citizens Web (SACW), India
Sheema Kermani, Artist, Pakistan
Dr Lal Khan, editor Asian Marxist Review, Pakistan
Pierre Khalfa, Member of the Copernic Fondation and of the Scientic Council of Attac, France
Stathis Kouvélakis, Reader in Political Theory, King’s College, Britain
Carlos Lordkioanidse, Former detainee disappeared, Argentina
Michael Löwy, Emeritus Research Director at the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), Paris, France
Carlos Loza, Survivor of the clandestine detention center ESMA (School of Mechanics of the Navy), Argentina
Amna Mawaz Khan, Awami Workers Party, Pakistan
Jeff Mackler, Socialist Action, USA
Christian Mahieux, International Labour Network of Solidarity and Struggles
Jan Malewski, editor Inprecor
Gustave Massiah, Cedetim, France
Gippò Mukendi Ngandu, Sinistra Anticapitalista, Italia
Diego Z. Neri, editor, Bandiera Rossa website, Italy
Olivier Neveux, University Professor, ENS de Lyon, France
Pablo Odriozola, Survivor of the clandestine detention center “Azopardo”, Argentina
Victor Ottoboni, Secretary of minutes and press of the Union of Tire Workers of Argentina
Ugo Palheta, sociologue, Assistant professor, Lille University, and director of the online magazine Contretemps, France
Jaime Pastor, Professor, Political Sciences (Spanish State) and editor of the magazine Viento Sur
Patrice Perret, responsable syndical retraité, France
Joël Pottier, NPA, France
Christine Poupin, spokesperson, NPA, France
François Preneau, trade-unionist, member of Ensemble !, France
Awais Qarni, Central Organizer Revolutionary Students Front(RSF), Pakistan
Asia Rahman, Politician for Vänsterpartiet (Left Party), Sweden
Victor Rodrigues, PCF, France
Xavier Rousselin, Ingénieur Divisionnaire de l’Agriculture et de l’Environnement, France
Dr Taimur Rehman, General Secretary, Pakistan Mazdoor Kissan Party, Pakistan
Hans-Peter Renk (solidaritéS), conseiller général (Le Locle), Switzerland
Pierre Rousset, ESSF, France
Olivier Salles, Ensemble !, France
Catherine Samary, economist, France
Edgard Sánchez, PRT (Partido Revolucionario de los Trabajadores), México
Patrick Saurin, member CADTM-France
Sukla Sen, Peace Activist, India
Soren Sondergaard, Member of the Parliament, Denmark
Dr. Farooq Sulehria, Assistant Professor, Beaconhouse National University Lahore, Pakistan
Arlette Tardy, NPA, France
Mansoor Tareen, organizer of PTM-Sweden
Farooq Tariq, spokesperson, Awami Workers Party, Pakistan
Juan Tortosa, solidaritéS, Switzerland
Eric Toussaint, CADTM International Spokesperson
Josette Trat, sociologue, France
Anwar Ul Haq, economist, Pakistan
Zafar Ullah, Member of Pakistan Trade Union Defence Campaign, Islambad, Pakistan
Miguel Urbán Crespo, Member of the European Parliament, Spanish State
Roseline Vachetta, former Member of the European Parliament, France
Achin Vanaik, Retired Professor of International Relations and Global Politics, former Head of the Department of Political Science and former Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Delhi, India
Christian Varin, Fourth International
Marie-Christine Vergiat, Member of the European Parliament, European Left, France
Pedro Vianna, poète, enseignant au mastère Mobilité humaine Universitat de Valencia (Espagne), ancien juge assesseur à la Cour nationale du droit d’asile, France
Nora Zaldua, Massacre Commission of La Plata, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Susana Zaldua, Massacre Commission of La Plata, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Philipp Zehmisch, Laal Hartal, Lahore, Pakistan
Muhammad Zubair, Member Fairness Committee, Magna international, Toronto, Canada
and hundreds of other signatures...
To sign, fill the ESSF “contact” form:
Put your name, “title” (function, organisation) and country, mentioning “solidarity withAli Wazir”.
http://www.europe-solidaire.org/spip.php?page=contact

Boom and then bust?

by Michael Roberts

Last March, I posted that the global economy seemed to be in a fantasy world where stock markets hit new highs but output of goods and services, investment and trade was stagnating in the major economies.  This week, the US stock recorded yet again new highs.  As the Financial Times described it: “The US economy appears to be enjoying the fabled Goldilocks scenario. Its porridge is neither too hot nor too cold”.


This financial market rally is founded on the decision of many central banks to hold their policy interest rates at very low levels.  The US Federal Reserve has basically announced that it will not hike its rate this year. The European Central Bank has done the same and has decided to have another bout of ‘quantitative easing’ (buying government bonds and other assets from commercial banks).  And today the Bank of Japan promised not to raise interest rates before spring 2020 as it continued its massive programme of monetary stimulus.

Central bank policy, along with the prospect of the US-China trade deal (still not realised), has given new encouragement to financial institutions to invest in stock markets.  But the biggest driver of the US stock market has been the major companies using this cheap finance to buy back their own shares to drive up the price and increase the ‘market value’ of the company.  In 2018, buybacks reached $1.18trn, twice as much as was invested (after covering for worn out equipment) in productive capacity (plant, offices, equipment, software etc).

Thus the financial markets boom, but the ‘real’ economy struggles.  The recovery since the Great Recession ended in mid-2009 is about to reach its tenth year this summer, making it the longest recovery from a slump in 75 years.  But it is also the weakest recovery since 1945.  And trend real GDP growth and business investment remains well down from the rate before 2007.  That is why I designate the last ten years as a Long Depression, similar to the periods of 1873-97 or 1929-42.

Behind the fantasy of financial markets, global growth has been slowing.  And worse, there are now several economies that appear to heading into outright recession.  Today, the Asian powerhouse, Korea, suffered its worst quarterly contraction since the global financial crisis (Korean real GDP growth has fallen to just 1.8% – graph), as this export-driven economy felt the pinch from weakening growth in China, global trade tension and a downturn in the technology sector.



Exports, which account for about half of the country’s GDP, are heading for a fifth consecutive monthly decline, falling 2.6 per cent quarter on quarter.  And business investment plunged 10.8 per cent, the worst reading since the 1998 Asian financial crisis, as big manufacturers, such as Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, refrained from increasing capacity amid a global economic slowdown and weaker demand for semiconductors.

Even worse, several large so-called emerging economies are experiencing severe contractions.  After President Erdogan suffered significant defeats in local elections in Istanbul and Ankara, the Turkish central bank has been forced to prop up the country’s fast dwindling dollar reserves using ‘dollar swaps’, taking high risk short-term loans.  It had to do this because dollars have been fleeing the country as the economy plunged and Erdogan refused to take an IMF loan to bolster finances because it would mean severe austerity measures being imposed.  The net foreign assets figure, a proxy for the country’s financial defences, slumped by $9.4bn between March 6 and March 22 to $19.5bn, the lowest level on a US dollar basis since 2007. Excluding swaps, net foreign assets have stood at less than $11.5bn during the entire month of April, down from $28.7bn at the start of March on the same basis.

Argentina went deep into recession in 2018 under the governance of the right-wing administration of President Macri.  When he was elected in December 2015, he said that his ‘neo-liberal’  economic policies would attract foreign direct investment and lead to sustained increases in productivity. The currency crisis that erupted in April 2018 underscored the failure of that policy approach.

Unlike Turkey, Macri turned to the IMF for a $57 billion stand-by loan – the largest in the IMF’s history – a clear case of bias by the IMF to help a government that it and US favoured over the previous social-democratic Peronist administration.  The money is being used to make debt repayments as they come up.  Elections are now just six months away, and the IMF conditions for the loan are biting into government spending and increasing tax burdens.

Investment is stagnating, inflation has rocketed and the high interest rates imposed by the central bank have attracted short-term speculative portfolio capital, or ‘hot money’.  Capital like that is just as likely to reverse with any new crisis.   Next year, the amount of external debt that must be repaid will be at its highest and the IMF must also be repaid.  The new government would then face two unpleasant options: a straitjacket of higher debt payments, more austerity, and more recession, or a painful debt restructuring with an uncertain outcome.

And there is Pakistan.  This is another so-called emerging economy where capital to fund economic growth and investment has dried up.  Up to now the new administration under Imran Khan, the former Pakistan cricket captain, elected on a no corruption platform, has refused to take an IMF loan, for the same reasons as Turkey.  Its finance minister, Asad Umar instead to tried to raise new loans from China and the Middle East, much to the chagrin of the US. But it has not been enough to stave off a new potential collapse in the currency.  Pakistan’s inflation is at a five-year high of more than 9 per cent, while the rupee’s value has plummeted 33 per cent since 2017.

Umar was forced to resign last week.  The new finance minister has reached an agreement in principle to take an IMF loan – Pakistan business will thus gain some stability while the Pakistan people will pay with more taxes and cuts in services, labour conditions and infrastructure projects.  “The solutions are not going to be easy. The choices will be politically difficult for any government,” said Abid Suleri, an economic adviser to Khan.

Stock markets may be booming in North America but economic prosperity in many parts of the world is disappearing like water in a desert.  And in some parts, a sand storm is fast approaching.

Kashmir: Merchants of devastation

Facts For Working People has received this article on the recent developments between India and Pakistan over Kashmir. Lal Khan is the editor of the Pakistani journal Struggle. We share it for the interests of our readers.

Merchants of Devastation

Lal Khan

Ever since the bloody partition of the South Asian sub-continent in 1947, the endless history of hostility between India and Pakistan has been a curse for the oppressed masses. Periodically, either one of the two regimes turns this mutual hostility into episodes of acute confrontation — mainly in the interests of continuing domestic politics by other means. The latest incursion into mainland Pakistan and the bombing at Balakot by IAF fighter bombers after the Pulwama terrorist attack, and the subsequent shooting down of two Indian jetfighters by the Pakistan Air force, have heightened the danger of a full-scale war between the subcontinent’s two nuclear-armed states. This military escalation has exacerbated a mad rush by the belligerent media on both sides of the Radcliff Line to bring about a scenario described by some as ‘MAD’ – the “Mutually Assured Destruction” syndrome. However there is some method in this madness.

Sidhart Bhatia wrote on the role of the Indian media in The Wire, “When the history of these times is finally written, the media’s reprehensible role in creating a climate of hate will merit a special mention…the nightly screaming about the nation, patriotism and Pakistan and the constant hate mongering against ‘traitors’ was done with an eye on the numbers. In a difficult environment, where channels found it difficult to make money, every trick in the book was legitimate. The audiences were manipulated into wanting it and the channels gave it to them, ensuring viewer sickness – it made business sense.” In the Pakistani media the modus operandi was perhaps a little different, but the intent was just the same.

According to Vipin Narang, professor of political science at MIT, “neither side seems to want a war. They have had their ‘Cuban Missile Crisis’ moment and recognise how a couple of wrong turns could set off uncontrollable escalation". In this gimmickry of war and peace negotiations, the Modi regime’s prime concern is the vulnerability of the BJP at the coming elections. In sheer desperation, it is trying to arouse the hysteria of Hindutva chauvinism, exacerbating anti-Muslim and anti-Pakistani hatred to inflame mass bigotry and thus secure electoral victory. Despite the pressures from imperialism, international finance capital and the Indian bourgeoisie, Modi wants to keep a sub-threshold state of near-war to linger on. For instance, just moments after the announcement of the release of the captured Indian pilot, Modi responded with a sarcastic broadside against Pakistan, saying: “A pilot project has been completed; now we have to make it real." While his supporters applauded, most observers found the comment arrogant and crude. Modi is acutely keen to keep militaristic jingoism simmering as a means of luring voters into the BJP camp. Perhaps Modi seems to harbour the misconception that he can continue toying with xenophobia without risking a full-fledged war.

The ‘moderate’ reaction of the ruling circles in Pakistan has been somewhat more restrained. Imran Khan’s gestures of peace and his warnings of the danger of Armageddon have more to do with Pakistan’s crumbling economy and the instability that ravages the state. He is desperate to avoid letting the conflict go beyond the brink, something that could bring down his short-lived government and bring Pakistan’s mounting crisis to disaster.

For long years now, the spymasters of Pakistan and India have maintained the pretence that they don’t really sponsor terror groups carrying out subversive activities in each other’s vulnerable regions. In fact, the Indian deep state wants to destabilise Pakistan by interfering in Baluchistan and other vulnerable regions where the Pakistani state has been rocked by chronic dissent and at times episodes of armed struggle by local nationalist movements. Likewise, Pakistan’s deep state has the long-term aim of wrenching Muslim-majority Kashmir from India. In the past three decades jihadist groups based in Pakistan have struck targets in India, but the Pakistani state has been conveniently ambivalent in punishing them. In this conflict between the subcontinental rivals as in many others around the world, war by proxy has become a new norm.

The irony is that both states pose to end the plight and bring prosperity for the Kashmiri masses; it’s the oppressed Kashmiris that suffer most on both sides of the LoC. In the Indian-occupied Kashmir, the viciously oppressed population has risen up against its oppression at the hands of India’s army, the largest deployment of military personnel against a civilian population in the world. The deprivation, religious discrimination and brutality of BJP rule have provoked a revolt that has rocked the might of the Indian state. One of the main causes of the revolt since 2016 has been the unemployment and deprivation under the Indian occupation. Yet across the LoC in the Pakistan administered Kashmir, according to a government’s Bureau of Statistics report released on March 02, 2019, unemployment rate in 2017-18 was 10.3 percent almost double to that of 5.8 percent in rest of Pakistan.

It’s a shocking fact that the Indian and Pakistani governments are the world’s top spenders on armaments and among its lowest spenders on health, education and social welfare. According to the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), in 2018 India allocated four trillion rupees ($58bn) – 2.1 per cent of its gross domestic product – to finance its 1.4 million active troops. Similarly, last year Pakistan spent 1.26 trillion Pakistani rupees ($11bn) – about 3.6 per cent of its GDP – on its 653,800 troops. The two nuclear adversaries have ballistic missiles capable of delivering these weapons of mass destruction. Achin Viniak in his epic work After The Bomb estimates that the costs of the two countries’ nuclear programmes would, if spent on social development, have largely eradicated women’s deaths during obstetrics, infant mortality and child illiteracy.

To perpetuate their rule, the subcontinent’s elites have used the Kashmir time-bomb that was left behind by the British imperialists to keep the region unstable. And yet successive wars between India and Pakistan have miserably failed to resolve the conflict. All negotiations have failed. Individual armed attacks, sans movements, have only furnished the occupying army with an alibi to perpetuate its tyranny and oppression.

For the last seventy years, the world’s superpowers and their subservient institutions such as the United Nations have failed to grant the Kashmiri masses any respite. In a startling confession, the United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres publicly washed his hands of any responsibility to promote a dialogue between India and Pakistan that would pave the way for the resolution of the Kashmir conflict. On January 18^th he said: “I’ve been offering my good offices in relation to the dialogue between the two countries that, until now, had no conditions of success.” It’s only mass uprisings by the Kashmiri people that have shaken the occupation forces. The militant movement that started in 2016 defied India’s 750,000 troops and even won support from Indian students, workers, academics and left political activists.

Most world powers have their economic and diplomatic interests aligned to a larger India, in terms of markets and potential for exploitation. Even Pakistan’s dearest friend China has partially supported the Indian narrative. On 27th February, without referring to the Indian Air Force’s cross-border strikes in Balakot on the previous day, China’s foreign minister Wang Yi said that it was “especially important to eradicate the breeding grounds of terrorism and extremism”.

Arundhati Roy wrote on the recent escalation of the conflict: “The country might be poised on the edge of a war with Pakistan or more likely against the people of Kashmir…the Modi government was making moves to push the country into a war-like situation to make the people forget the myriad oppressions the current regime had inflicted on them. The Modi government had promised to create two crore jobs every year. But unemployment was skyrocketing. One per cent of rich Indians had wealth equivalent to the combined wealth of 71% of the population.”

By exacerbating the economic and social onslaught by India’s coercive capitalism upon the masses, the Modi regime has aggravated a greater mass resentment. The world’s so-called “largest democracy” has the largest concentration of poverty in the world. Wars and conflicts are systematically used to obscure the working people’s revulsion and their growing revolt against the system. In such frenzied periods of aggravated hostility the bosses inflict further attacks on the living standards of the working class.

If the rulers of India have exploited the tension of this military confrontation to attack the ordinary people, so too their Pakistani counterparts have also not been lagging. Just during these two weeks of these sharpened hostilities, they have drastically increased the prices of petroleum products, gas and electricity. The inflation rate has shot up to a record 8.2 per cent. Once again the economic costs of this war hysteria will be laid upon the shoulders of the ordinary people of the two countries.

Despite his Hindutva chauvinist hysteria, Modi might still end up losing the election. But the threat of war and devastation for the almost two billion inhabitants of south Asia will linger on. Without this state of enmity and hatred, the rule of the elites would be precarious. There would be no justification for the massive military arsenals and expenditures of both sides. Hence the region’s elite and the top brass have a vital stake in maintaining this mutual hostility. At the same time, the imperialists and their military-industrial complexes extort huge profits from their arms sales to India and Pakistan. However, their heavy investments in these countries that extract billions from the sweat and blood of the region’s workers and resources are also put at risk by the threat of an actual all-out war. It’s one thing to start a war, but something totally different to contain once it unravels.

History is witness to the fact that from the wombs of wars often arise revolutions. The First World War was brought to an end by a chain of mutinies and uprisings culminating in the Russian revolution. The aftermath of the Second World War saw the revolutionary uprisings throughout Asia, Europe and beyond. The Chinese revolution of 1949 was perhaps the second greatest event in history. In the united India of that time, the revolution of 1946 spearheaded by the sailors of the Royal Indian Navy could easily have changed the course of world history. The Indo-Pak war of 1965 was followed by the eruption of the 1968-69 revolution in Pakistan, and even after her victory in the 1971 war Indira Gandhi was later overthrown by an upsurge of the Indian masses.

Serious experts of the ruling classes are worried at the prospect of such outcomes; hence they try to avoid wars. But the social and economic turbulence that arises from the crisis of their rotting capitalist system forces the ruling class to maintain warlike conditions to divert the class struggle and forestall the danger of revolution. This dilemma of the ruling classes is an inevitable outcome of their obsolete system. Hence, to expect any profound or lasting peace within the confines of the present system would be a delusion and its propagation a deception.

Lenin wrote on May 14, 1917: “All wars are inseparable from the political systems that engender them. The policy which a given state, a given class within that state, pursued for a long time before the war is inevitably continued by that same class during the war, the form of action alone being changed… Nothing but a workers’ revolution in several countries can defeat this war. The war is not a game, it is an appalling thing taking toll of millions of lives, and it is not to be ended easily.”

The current hysteria can backfire sooner rather than later. The misery, deprivation, bloodshed and poverty perpetuated by this system after seventy years of so-called independence has left the masses in agony and rage. There is a seething revolt against this system below the surface. The ruling classes cannot crush the working classes under this millstone of bigoted frenzy, loathing and wars. Paradoxically these could boomerang into the eruption of a mass movement with the class war coming to the forefront throughout the subcontinent. In such conditions the nationalistic and religious hatreds will be swept asunder once the masses arise in revolt on the basis of class unity. A victorious socialist revolution will not only change the socio-economic system and the character of the state; it will also transform geographical impositions and the course of history— uniting the oppressed of the whole region into a socialist federation of South Asia.

Pakistan: it’s not cricket

by Michael Roberts

Pakistan has 200 million people and 105m of them were registered to vote in today’s general election.  This makes it the fifth largest democracy and second largest Muslim democracy after Indonesia in the world.

Who won?  Well, it seems that voter turnout was unchanged from the last election in 2013, at just 53%.  So the ‘no vote’ party was the biggest winner.  But a relatively new party has won the most seats in the National Assembly.  This is Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) or Pakistan Justice Party, led by Imran Khan, a former international cricketer (the sport inherited from British colonial rule and godlike in the Indian sub-continent, muslim and hindu alike).


Khan’s party has defeated Nawaz Sharif’s Muslim League.  Sharif was the former prime minister of Pakistan before he was convicted of corruption.  Sharif’s family came under judicial scrutiny over the Panama Papers. After disqualifying Sharif from holding public office the Pakistan courts was sentenced him to jail and he absented himself to the UK.  Just before the election he came back to Pakistan to start a 10-year jail sentence.  This martyrdom, as he sees it, was designed to increase the chances of an election victory for his party now led by his brother.  But this risky move appears to have failed.

Pakistan is one of the most unequal countries in the world.  Just 22 families control 66% of Pakistan’s industrial assets and the richest 20% consume seven times more than the poorest 20%.  Both the names Khan and Sharif mean ‘ruler’ or ‘noble’. According to a 2013 study, 45% of all holders of office across Pakistan came from family ‘dynasties’, moving from one party to another with bewildering rapidity, with their political direction decided by whom the military establishment selects.

Khan has won because he had campaigned for several years on ‘fighting corruption’, for which the previous two main parties of government, the Muslim League and the People’s Party (led by the Bhutto dynasty), were notorious.  The anti-corruption message has won over sufficient voters, mainly middle class.  Khan appealed to this layer as a more ‘secular’ candidate (not surprising considering his personal affairs).

Although, the PTI’s support comes from the urban middle classes, in the election he aligned his party with smaller extreme religious parties in order to try to gain a majority, stepping back on equality and ‘social’ issues.  Moreover, he is regarded as the new favourite of the military, which wishes to continue its policy of backing the Taliban in Afghanistan and allying Pakistan with China against India.  China is now Pakistan’s largest foreign investor.

Khan claims he wants to ‘depoliticise’ the police and establish ‘law and order’ in a violent crime-ridden society; to ‘improve health and education’ through bringing health insurance to 70% of the population. Yet in no way is Khan sympathetic to the interests of Pakistan’s working class or rural farmers.  He is set to follow the dictates of the IMF as the ‘solution’ for Pakistan’s continuing economic failure.  And that means his policy ‘aspirations’ will never be met.

The reality is that Pakistan’s stuttering economy is entering yet another period of slump and crisis after a short boom.  The IMF’s last report reckoned that Pakistan was growing at 5-6% a year. But this was only being achieved by cheap money policy from the central bank, fiscal spending and a rising current account deficit.

Foreign exchange reserves have fallen to just 2.3 months of imports as the authorities tried to support the currency despite the deteriorating economy.  The trade deficit and upcoming FX debt repayments will double external financing needs, taking a further toll on foreign exchange reserves.  Pakistan will soon require an IMF funding package to pay its way, and with it, will follow yet another period of ‘austerity’.

Although there has been some improvement in human development indicators in Pakistan since 2010, youth enrolment in higher education and skills training remains very low. In health, stunting is chronically high among children under five years of age, with 44% in this age group being either severely or moderately stunted.  A large proportion of the population still does not have access to piped water at home or toilets linked to a sewage system.

There is little in public funds available to deal with these problems because the rich pay little or no tax.  Less than 1% of the country’s working population file income returns. Of the 72,000 or so firms registered in 2016, less than half filed returns. And of those that filed returns, half paid no tax at all. Pakistan aims to increase tax collection to 15% of GDP by 2020.  But growth in direct taxes is actually slowing because of a sustained reduction in corporate taxes. Most taxes are indirect i.e. through consumption purchases, which hit the poor the most.

Investment by the capitalist sector is just 11% of GDP (and falling), with another 4% from the public sector.  This compares with China at 45% or even most less developed countries at over 20%.  Most income held by the rich goes into real estate and financial assets (much of it spirited abroad).

Exports make up just 7.6% of the country’s GDP. That’s nearly 17 percentage points less than than the average for middle-income countries overall. What the country does export tends to be low-value-added products, like cotton and rice. Pakistan is the 115th most competitive nation in the world out of 137 countries ranked in the 2017-2018 edition of the Global Competitiveness Report.  As a result, Pakistan relies on an ever-decelerating flow of remittances and outside funding, which makes it highly susceptible to external shocks.

As Khan takes over (with the military behind the scenes) Pakistan is facing another balance of payments crisis.  The Pakistan rupee is diving as a result as FX reserves run out.

Without Chinese investment and funding, the crisis would already be upon the Pakistan economy.  The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is a collection of infrastructure and trade projects, valued at up to $63bn.  It has become the centrepiece of China’s $1 trillion-plus Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). From shoddy ports and expressways to inefficient power plants, the Chinese-funded CPEC aims to resolve many of the shortcomings that have stifled Pakistani manufacturers. The flow of loans to Pakistan has surged since 2015.

All this means that the Pakistan ruling elite must choose between the IMF for future funding or rely on the ‘goodwill’ of China.

Over to you, Imran Khan.

India Pakistan, Colonialism: The history of ‘dangerous fanatics’

Reprinted from the Awami Workers' Party. This article was originally published in the Pakistani paper, The News on Sunday. We share it for our readers interested in the history and politics of India, Pakistan and the surrounding area.

The history of ‘dangerous fanatics’
by Sonia Qadir 

May 27, 2018

Recent political events have brought to light some of the grievances of the Pashtun community in Pakistan against the backdrop of the war on terror; including extra-judicial killings and enforced disappearances, everyday humiliation at security checkposts, large-scale displacement and dispossession in the tribal belts as well as the surveillance, harassment, discrimination and violence faced by Pashtun migrants and refugees in urban centers across the country. While the situation was exacerbated by the launch of the global war on terror almost two decades ago, the marginalisation and demonisation of the Pashtun, especially those from the tribal belt, is hardly novel.

In recognition of the draconian nature of Frontier Crimes Regulation (FCR) 1901 – the colonial law that governed the Federally Administered Tribal Agencies (Fata), the National Assembly has passed a constitutional amendment aimed at abolishing FCR and bringing Fata under the ambit of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. While this is a welcome move that came about as a result of years of discussion and negotiation on the status of Fata and the colonial nature of FCR, it is perhaps too early to claim that the legacy of this legislation, and the wider framework of colonial governance are now at an end. To do that would require the recognition of the social, cultural, legal and conceptual framing(s) that paved the way for such legislation to be passed, and the ways in which they continue to hold sway over the lives of millions of ordinary Pashtuns today.

While certain provisions of FCR e.g. collective punishment are well known and discussed, the legislation also contained a certain conceptual categorisation that has evaded more thorough investigation. Section 36(A) of FCR 1901 stated that the Political Agent or the District Coordination Officer can require any person in Fata to relocate within or outside Fata if he is deemed to be “dangerously fanatic”. While the Act of 1901 does not mention “fanatic” elsewhere and does not elaborate on its meaning, the latent potency of the term can be judged by the fact that the earlier versions of these regulations i.e. The Punjab Murderous Outrages Act of 1867 and Murderous Outrages Act of 1877 make it clear that they aim to deal with the murders of state officials (as well as other persons), at the hands of the “fanatics” located in certain districts of the Punjab (which at that time included the frontier regions).

Who are these “fanatics” and what is the relationship of this conceptual category with the Pashtun community, and the way it is disproportionately targeted by counter-terrorism measures today? The answer lies in the historical understanding of the term fanatic in colonial India. There are multiple histories of both this terminology and its associated security paradigms, but one of the earliest instances where we begin to read accounts that closely mirror contemporary security narratives relates to a movement that the British knew simply as the “Hindustani Fanatics”.

Hunter’s characterisation of the “fanatic masses” and Sir Syed’ portrayal of the border tribes in response allow us a glimpse into one such trajectory through which such formulations came to be solidified into an episteme of governance in British India and post-independence Pakistan, and continue to haunt us today.

While much was written on the subject, it is W.H. Hunter’s 1871 book titled  The Indian Musalmans: Are They Bound In Conscience To Rebel Against The Queen?  which stands out. Rumoured to have been written in response to the then governor general Lord Mayo’s query regarding the propensity of the Indian Muslims to rebel against the British Empire because of the intrinsic ‘fanatical’ nature of Islam, the book provides a succinct overview of the British anxieties over its Muslim subjects in general, and of a certain group of Muslims called the “Hindustani Fanatics” in particular who the British alleged to be the followers of the strict but unorthodox sect of Wahabism. It also marks a watershed moment in British Indian history where the category of “Muslim” (and later “Tribal/Pashtun”) precipitates into the distinctive formulation of treasonous, anti-modern and anti-secular that is so exceedingly reminiscent of contemporary politics.

Interestingly, while Hunter begins his account with a suspicion of all Muslims as predisposed to sedition, he goes on to specifically identify the Wahabi movement in India as the cause for concern, eventually narrowing down the problem to the Pashtun tribes who followed these Wahabi preachers. The route taken to get to this conclusion though is worth deconstructing.

Hunter traces the history of the Wahabi movement in British India and notes that the founder of the movement Syed Ahmed Brelvi (Bareilly) started out as a bandit but later studied Fiqh and became a preacher. His first disciples were the descendants of Rohillas (Pashtun migrants who had settled in Uttar Pradesh a century earlier, and spoke Urdu), who had been “wronged” by the British, and were therefore ready to exact “undying revenge”. In 1822, after a pilgrimage to Mecca he became influenced by the teachings of Abdul Wahab. Upon his return, he set up a camp in Northern India among the “wild mountaineers of the Peshawar Frontier”, and incited them to do Jihad against the Sikh rulers of Punjab. Here, Hunter claims that these “most superstitious” of the Muhammadan peoples were only too “delighted to get a chance of plundering their Hindu neighbours under the sanction of religion”.

In her piece “The Phantom Wahhabi: Liberalism and the Muslim fanatic in mid-Victorian India” , Published online on December 5, 2012 by Cambridge University Press, Julia Stephens recounts the Great Wabahi trials of the nineteenth century to demonstrate how the panic over imperial security led the authorities on a witch-hunt against suspected Wahabis. She proposes the category of “Phantom Wahabi” as a way to understand the extent of British Indian government’s paranoia around the subject and their simultaneous inability to produce convincing evidence of a widespread conspiracy in the courts of law.

But a close reading of Hunter’s text suggests that the British were more equivocal about the Wahabis whom, Hunter states at one point – were merely “stir(ring) up thousands of their countrymen to a purer life and a truer conception of the Almighty”. Rather it appears that the crux of colonial paranoia lay elsewhere: according to Hunter the “noble teachings” of the Wahabis did not satisfy their audience who appeared to lose interest. Wahabi preachers were therefore forced to “enlist the more certain and more permanent hatred… towards the English” and to shift their teachings so as to appeal to “the fanatical fury of the populace”.

Hunter has woven a strange loop of a tale where the Muslaman and specifically Pashtun masses are instigated to rebellion by the Hindustani Fanatics, who in turn are only truly politicised by the fanatical demands of the masses themselves. As confounding as this sounds, in the last instance the weight of Hunter’s argument falls in favour of the ‘Fanatic Masses’ as the real culprits when he declares that it is “not the traitors themselves whom we have to fear”, but “the seditious masses” and “the superstitious tribes on our Frontier”, whom the Fanatics have organised to wage a continuous “Religious War” against the British.

In short then, it is the swathes of ordinary people, especially those on the remote Frontiers of the Empire, predisposed towards fanaticism that are the real cause of the sedition and unrest in the colonial state.

This imperial formation had important consequences not just for the rhetoric and policing techniques employed by the colonial state, but have continued to play a role in the way the global War on Terror has been imagined, and fought, in the 21st century.

Hunter’s diagnosis did not go without attracting criticism, even from his contemporaries. One of the most poignant, and historically relevant, of these critiques came from Sir Syed Ahmed Khan — an Anglophile Indian Muslim who worked as a jurist for the East India Company, and who went on to become a revered figure in certain sections of the Muslim community and later in the annals of Pakistan’s official history.

In his official response to Hunter, Sir Syed appreciated Hunter’s desire to understand Muslim grievances, but took exception to Hunter’s characterisation of the entire Muslaman population of India as seditious, fanatical, anti-modern and anti-British. He reminded Hunter that many Muslims had supported the British in the 1857 Mutiny, himself included. Most Muslims, argued Sir Syed, had in fact chosen to willingly live in peace under British protection, and were not vying for holy war. Yet what remains instructive about Sir Syed’s formulation is that even as he defended Muslims, he chose to utilise Hunter’s category of the ‘fanatic masses’, albeit in an altered vein. In response to Hunter’s comment that the British authorities had to constantly be prepared for war against the border tribes whose hatred against the infidels the Hindustani Fanatics had fanned, Sir Syed chides:

“Our author forgets the very important fact that these mountain tribes have been turbulent from time immemorial; that they have never allowed any peace to any nation living on their frontiers, whether so-called infidels or Musalmans; that they fought indiscriminately with the Mohammedan emperors of Delhi and with the Sikhs in the Panjab. Like the Irishman at a fair, it mattered little to them who it was, as long as it was someone to fight with. Even the great tyrant Nadir Shah, whose name was feared throughout India, was never able to keep them in subjection.

“The Pathan tribes of the Frontier are a destabilizing influence for the Empire not so much because the Wahabi Preachers radicalise them, or because they take their Islam too seriously. They do not challenge British rule because it is illegitimate – they do it solely because they know not how else to live.”

Here is a shifting of a gear – from the fanatic as the religious other to the fanatic as primarily the ethnic or racial other. The British narrative itself was laden with racial and ethnic distinctions – but Sir Syed’s formulation, when given as a defence of Muslim-ness, shifts the focus onto them more emphatically. That Sir Syed and his ideology occupy such a crucial place in the canon of the Pakistani state, hints at the way the postcolonial state has come to imagine itself, questions of sovereignty and citizenship, Islam and its ongoing tussle with fanaticism and terrorism, and racial and ethnic hierarchies.

It is not surprising then that supported by American money, Pakistani state’s geopolitical opportunism and a verdant socio-legal landscape harking back to the colonial era, “tribal and the Pashtun as fanatic/seditious/terrorist” is one principal vector in which contemporary Pakistani security regime has come to take hold.

Hunter’s characterisation of the “fanatic masses” and Sir Syed’ portrayal of the border tribes in response allow us a glimpse into one such trajectory through which such formulations came to be solidified into an episteme of governance in British India and post-independence Pakistan, and continue to haunt us today. The work of undoing these racialised security regimes will therefore involve not just challenging the laws and policies in place, but the very historical and conceptual foundations, with their accompanying vocabularies, that allow such laws and policies to take shape in the first place.

Sonia Qadir

The Feminist Collective Lahore

Pakistan: A Brief Look at History

Oppression of Pakistan’s caricatured feudalism

By: Farooq Tariq

Large swathes of Pakistan are in the stranglehold of caricatured feudalism. These feudal relations are increasingly penetrated by finance capital as it imposes itself on social relations, politics and the economy itself. It has made the lives of millions miserable, deepening and brutalizing class exploitation. Rampant inequality and poverty remain chronic issues as millions can still be considered bonded labour. Such a harrowing situation is revealed by the fact that only five per cent of agricultural households in Pakistan own nearly two thirds of the farmland.

In the Indian subcontinent the system prevailing before the advent of the British was known as Asiatic Mode of Production, or as Karl Marx put it, “Asiatic despotism.” The land was not privately owned but a common ownership of agricultural land. In this sense it was egalitarian. Feudalism was imposed by British imperialists through the Permanent Settlements Act. “Classical” feudalism, as described within the European context, never existed.

The Permanent Settlement Act was introduced first in Bengal and Bihar by the East India Company’s administrative head and later extended by Governor General, Lord Cornwallis over northern India in a series of regulations dated 1 May 1793. With it the British colonialists bestowed vast tracts of land mainly to the revenue collectors (zemindars) in order to raise land revenue. This grafted native Indians onto the British structure, insuring their loyalty to British authority.

After partition this class, along with the comprador bourgeoisie, became Pakistan’s hybrid ruling class. In their failure to carryout a national democratic revolution as the European bourgeois did in the 18th and 19th centuries Pakistan’s capitalists failed to abolish feudalism. Thus Pakistan was suspended in a hybrid model of feudal and capitalist relations.

Over the last few decades a new form of feudalism emerged particularly during the periods of military dictatorship. With the help of the state machinery, the poor, small landholders are forced to hand over their land to a particular family for insignificant sums. New feudal owners like Jahangir Tareen of Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek Insaaf now own thousands of acres of land. He has become a typical Pakistani feudalist: a “well-educated” person who, with the help of military dictators, was able to buy sugar mills along with thousands of acres of land. It’s a vulgar combination of feudalism and capitalism.

The landlords’ base of power over local people is takes place at every step. Debt bondage is passed down "generation after generation" and the landlord controls the "distribution of water, fertilizers, tractor permits and agricultural credit." This in turn gives them influence over the "revenue, police and judicial administration" of local government and its officials. In recent times, particularly harsh feudalism has existed in rural Sindh, Baluchistan and some parts of Southern Punjab. It is a form of slavery in 21st century Pakistan.

The feudal system is not confined to the political arena. Land ownership links feudal lords to Pakistan’s various other patronage networks. Landlords, such as Shah Mahmood Qureshi, act as religious patron saints to thousands of peasant as their disciples, who loyally vote for their feudal lords in elections. The Pakistani army is also deeply entrenched in this hybrid economy. It is an important action particularly in the industry and services sector as well as in the parallel economy.

However its elite layers are also part of the landed aristocracy, amassing vast landed estates. Army officers are bequeathed agricultural lands for serving in the army, and these are often rented out to larger landowners. In Punjab alone 68000 acres of agriculture land is directly or indirectly occupied by the Military Farms administration. Any struggle for their rights by those tenants has been ferociously crushed by the state and its civilian administration.

Ayub Khan’s land reform failed to deliver after it was introduced in 1959. Similarly the landed aristocracy in connivance with bureaucracy avoided the execution of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto’s land reforms in 1972 and 1977. The idea of land reform was simple – take the land from the rich and distribute it amongst the poor free of cost.

However the broad based Land Reform Act of 1977 was challenged by Qazalbash Waqf. He sued, arguing that Islamic laws provide broad protection from expropriation if the owners’ property was acquired through legitimate means, and the Supreme Court of Pakistan agreed. A petition against this decision of the Shariat Applets Court has been pending since 2012, but a hearing has yet to be set. When the military dictator Zia ul Haq came into power in 1977 with his Islamization agenda he fully used religious edicts in the interest of landlords and capitalists.

After he took control, it was announced that 1) no law in Pakistan may be repugnant to the Holy Quran and the Sunnah and 2) federal Sharia courts were established to serve the interests of Pakistan’s property owners. Looking over the last seventy years it is reasonable to conclude that state structures reinforce the power of landlords and capitalists and oppose an agrarian revolution.

An urban solution to the poverty of peasants?

An increasing number of small and marginal farmers migrate to urban areas to escape poverty. In fact Pakistan is already the most highly urbanized country in South Asia. Clearly increasing migration from the rural areas will create more pressure on already stretched infrastructure of urban metropolises.

Additionally, as industrial growth in the country remains stunted, and much of the installed industrial base is already capital-intensive, most migrants will be forced to work in the services sector. Thus majority will probably end up working in the informal or black economy at extremely low wages and atrocious working conditions, reinforcing the cycle of poverty and exclusion.

Small farmers and peasants

Let’s look at some of the actual situation of small farmers and peasants. In 2017, Agriculture contributed about 24% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of Pakistan and accounted for half of employed labour force. Important crops are wheat, cotton, rice, sugarcane and maize. The full potential of crop production is still a dream.

While over 60% of the population consists of small farmers, peasants and landless peasants, there is not a single school or a training center for hands-on-job farmers. [Is this actually true, or did I misunderstand something?] Extension Services that can educate and guide farmers with sound advice remain dormant. The knowledge gap is filled with the sales representatives of supply companies. Of course their advice is to urge farmers to buy inputs, driving them into greater debt while decreasing the quality of their produce and leading to greater environmental pollution.

Pakistan’s underground water level dropped an average of over 80 feet in the past 20 years due excessive pumping. This has caused wastage and salinity in the soil, resulting in reducing the land’s fertility. Both the quality and quantity of agricultural production is declining. Industrial agriculture, introduced in late 1960s, uses inorganic materials and genetically modified seeds.

Despite much opposition by peasant and civil society organisations (CSOs) and small farmers, the Senate of Pakistan approved the Seed (Amendment) Act in early 2016. According to the amendment, no unregistered person, whether farmers or institutions, will be allowed to stock, sell or exchange any seeds without official permission. It is a punishable crime with prescribed fines and imprisonment.

This is in contrast to the 1976 Seed Act, which was a farmer friendly. The earlier act made citizens sovereign over their seeds and placed responsibility for seed development registration on the public sector alone. In contrast, the present Seed Act allows multinational corporations to produce basic seeds for its multiplication and certification. Further the corporations are now in charge of accredited seed testing laboratories.

Industrial agriculture interrupts essential natural processes that sustain soil fertility. Instead of supplementing natural ecosystem dynamics, this kind of agriculture substitutes its inputs of energy and chemicals that disrupt and/or displace biological processes.

Agricultural productivity depends fundamentally on the sustained FERTILITY of soil systems and on the SUFFICIENCY of productive resources – land, water, labour, and capital. However, there are no mechanisms for helping the small farmers and peasants. They are the real losers at the hands of the corporate seed and fertilizer companies.

The situation of rural labourers is graver than for the peasantry. More than 80% of rural workers do not own their homes; they live under the age-old semi feudal system, which does not grant them right to shelter. Therefore all human settlements that are located on state land held by any civil and non-civil government departments or institutions remain unregistered. Government policies are designed to support landowners and those who own agricultural processing.

Peasant struggles

One of the most daring examples of peasant resistance has come from the tenants of the Okara Military Farms. They have constantly fought for their land rights over 18 years. However the repression of these tenants has also continued. Most of the leaders of Anjuman Mazarin Punjab (AMP) have been in jail since 2015. The main AMP leader, Mehar Abdul Sattar, is now locked up at the Pakistani “Guantánamo Bay detention center,” the High Security Jail at Sahiwal, which is meant for convicted religious terrorists.

The AMP, a component of Pakistan Kissan Rabita Committee, has been advocating land rights specifically at the Okara Military Farms. The tenants and their ancestors have been working on these lands – which comprise 68,000 acres -- for the last 100 years. Successive civilian governments have promised them land rights but have been unable to fulfill these promises due to the pressure of the military.

The AMP was formed in 2000, when General Musharraf’s dictatorship tried to change the status of the tenants into lessee. This was a tactic to remove them from the land over the long term.. At that moment the tenants revolted and refused to pay the share of the crop that they were accustomed to pay. They told authorities that they had paid enough and would pay no more.

Since that time severe state repression has been unleashed. Eleven tenants have been killed in various incidents and hundreds arrested under anti-terrorist laws. Women are in the forefront of the movement and have also been subjected to arrests and physical beating by the police and rangers.

The task of ending feudalism and attaining rights of the poor peasants can be accomplished through a class struggle of the workers and the peasants under the leadership of the proletariat vanguard. Such a struggle by overthrowing this system through a socialist revolution can ensure the basic rights and collective ownership of the land, means of production and a democratic control of the state and society by the toiling masses.

By: Farooq Tariq

General secretary

Pakistan Kissan Rabita Committee

farooqtariq@hotmail.com