US President Donald Trump declared “the dawn of a new Middle East” in Washington recently as the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain signed public agreements with Israel for the first time. Not “peace agreements”, as President Trump claimed, since neither country has ever been at war with Israel. Just documents involving an exchange of ambassadors, trade deals and the like. And it was significant that while Trump and Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were there in person, the UAE and Bahraini rulers just sent their foreign ministers for the signing of the papers. The only thing that actually happened at the White House was that two of the Gulf’s most progressive States went public on their ties with Israel, especially in the arms trade. This had previously not been a secret, but at least their ties with Jerusalem had been discreet. Apart from that, it’s still the same old Middle East, as corrupt, violent, dysfunctional and ironically as ambitious, glittering and fashionable as ever. The last time Israel fought an actual war against any of its Arab neighbours was in 1982, a full-scale invasion of Lebanon that ended in a prolonged Israeli military occupation of the southern part of the country. That’s long over now, although Lebanon remains a ghastly mess, but all the region’s other wars trundle on uninterrupted. The second Libyan civil war continues into its sixth year, with a cast of foreign participants and supporters that now includes Russia, Turkey, France, Egypt and the UAE. The atrocious foreign military intervention in Yemen, led by Saudi Arabia but involving most of the autocratic Arab States and their Western arms suppliers, is only one year younger and still killing around 5,000 a month.

The Syrian civil war is in its ninth year. It has killed at least half a million people and driven almost half the population from their homes. It may be creeping towards an end now, with only one province still in rebel hands, but the rebels have Turkish military support and the Russian air force fights for the Assad regime.

Iraq is enjoying only its second year of relative peace since the US invasion of 2003, but the signs are multiplying that Islamic State is going to launch a major comeback bid there. The collapse of the oil price has left much of the population destitute. Urban youth are in open revolt, with hundreds shot by the police this year. And when something genuinely new does crop up in the endless churn that distinguishes the region’s politics, it is often unwelcome. Saudi Arabia, once the stable, conservative linchpin of inter-Arab politics, has turned into a loose cannon, starting unwinnable wars (like Yemen), funnelling money and arms to jihadi extremists (in Syria), and commissioning the cold-blooded killing of critics of the regime (as in the murder and dismemberment of journalist Jamal Khashoggi).

Overshadowing all these wars, and actually driving some of them, is the religious and strategic confrontation between revolutionary Shia Iran and the conservative Sunni monarchies and dictatorships of the eastern Arab world. That’s what those huge Arab arms purchases are for, not for fighting Israel. Indeed, Jerusalem is a silent partner in this region-wide Cold War between the Sunni Arab States and Iran; that’s what made the little ceremony at the White House possible. There is no Arab-Israeli conflict. The major Arab players are already undeclared Israeli allies, and the Israeli army refers to its sporadic punitive strikes against the Palestinians as “mowing the lawn.”

Real change in this region happens with glacial slowness, if at all, but that does not mean that it is stable. On the contrary, it could tip suddenly into a radically different state. It almost did so in 2010-12, the years of the aborted ‘Arab spring’, and the forces that drove that uprising are even stronger now. Half the population in Middle Eastern and North African countries is under 25. As populations have soared (Iraq’s has doubled to 40 million since the first Gulf War in 1990), economies have not kept pace and living standards have fallen almost everywhere. A huge, mostly jobless young population living close to despair is now the Arab norm.

The oil-rich Gulf States used to be the exception to this rule, but no longer. The oil-price crash this time is not temporary: Demand is falling and will continue to fall as the climate crisis and cheaper new “clean energy” sources eat into oil’s traditional markets. The recent pantomime at the White House was about tidying up a few of the loose ends of an old conflict. It would have a certain relevance if the future was going to be just more of the present, but that is not the case. The  timing is uncertain but the destination is clear: Big changes are coming that will sweep away many of the existing regimes and reshape the politics of the region. Happy endings are not inevitable, but different endings are practically guaranteed.

(Gwynne Dyer’s new book is ‘Growing Pains: The Future of Democracy and Work.’)

There has been much talk about the wishful shifting of power from the West to the East. The rise of China, along with India and Japan, was showcased as a precursor that the 21st Century is destined to be an Asian century. But there’s many a slip ‘twixt cup and lip. The moot point is whether China can become a superpower like the erstwhile Colonial Britain and the present day America to control the international system. And if Beijing can’t, who can be. According to Richard Haass, one of the thinkers of world politics, a superpower needs to have, besides economic and military prowess, an ability to intervene politically in any part of the world and prove its unparalleled strength. Another qualification is to use nuclear weapons and its access to any entity across the globe. China flatly fails on both the parameters to become a superpower. The second problem for the rising China theory is that there are more than two powers emerging on the landscape of international system. The middle powers like India, Germany, Japan, South Africa are inching up to shape the world system together. Chinese aggressions in many parts of Asia have exposed Beijing’s desperation to become the unparalleled power in the region.

In these situation if there is a world order which could be developed beyond the conventional theory of world system, it can be a Green World Order that creates a pitch for non-fossil free energy system which can preclude catastrophic situations. This looks more promising for a sustainable world order. The world is sitting on the brink of catastrophe. Neither the US nor China is keen to safeguard the world through its roadmap for the Green World Order.  

We have heard of a Panchtantra story: In the extreme exigencies of flood, a tree becomes a shelter for a tiger, a human, a serpent and a peacock. None of them harm each other; they hang on calmly. The reason for this unthinkable habitation in the peculiar condition is the existential threat for each. The disruptions in climate have pushed countries in the same situation: to shelter on the same tree.  The corona pandemic is a harsh reminder of the undergoing change. The beginning of industrial revolutions in the early nineteenth century in Europe, along with the political ideology of an unchallenged charter of individualism, created a world order which was based on more consumption, better development and highly racial and geographical superiority. One after another geopolitical theorists from Henry Mackinder to TH Mahan, Heartland theory to Rim Land postulated to justify the western interventions and shaping the world system that keeps the western interests intact. This is how the two hundred years of history of the world is with us which has created a threat of existence not merely for Asians and Africans but for Europeans and Americans as well.

Now the larger question is which country has the ability to shelter like a tree in the universal flood. America is absolutely odd man out. It has been the biggest disrupter of the Green World. It did not sign the Kyoto Protocol and withdrew from the Paris Climate. China is developing huge infrastructure of green energy, especially wind and solar. China produced almost 170 GW of solar energy in 2018, but China has a dubious character. Dragon wants to keep its house clean but litters other parts of the world with fossil fuels. The Chinese system does not think magnanimously to safeguard the planet with an inclusive approach.

The Covid-19 pandemic has completely eclipsed the Chinese credentials in the international system. The way China manipulated the World Health Organization which led to an exponential spread of pandemic in the globe, its anti-green and anti-humanitarian face has been unmasked. The Climate Action Tracker gives China a very poor grade because of its continued reliance on coal. China has failed to stop the building of the new coal-based plants. China is financing coal-fired power plants outside the country, and increasing emissions elsewhere. China remains the world’s largest producer of carbon emissions. It is planning to finance and build roads, railways, bridges, ports, and industrial parks abroad, beginning with China’s neighbours in Central, South, and Southeast Asia and eventually reaching Western Europe and across the Pacific to Latin America. While China has imposed a cap on coal consumption at home, its coal and energy companies are on a building spree overseas. Chinese companies are involved in at least 240 coal projects in 25 of the Belt and Road countries, including Bangladesh, Pakistan, Serbia, Kenya, Ghana, Malawi, and Zimbabwe. It has a particular eye on the coal resources of South Asia, Southeast Asia, Central and Eastern Europe, the West Asia, and the Russian Far East. Secondly, Chinese political system is not transparent. Its next move is unpredictable. Third, China is very keen to settle the historical scores after becoming the largest economy. Therefore, its intentions are based on self-interests which would generate more conflicts in the international system.

So far world politics was driven by the greed for oil and gas. Churchill after the end of the First World War ventured to use imported oil in place of coal for British fleets, since then the oil became the driving force of world politics. Geopolitics of oil embargos are common. Oil and gas have not only been used as sticks to hurt or deter foes, but also as carrots to reward allies and ensure their allegiance. The climate conferences of the UN have been consistently reminding the world to switch over from fossil fuels to renewable sources of energy. But things are not moving. American President Donald Trump, in meeting with CEOs of the companies during the pandemic, assured them of carbon-led economic development in future. The impact of fossil-fuel economy is visible. The trade war between America and China is pitching for carbon-led energy system. The climate disruption has reached the tipping point. The whole world is severely under its grip. But certain parts of the world are more prone to climatic change. Like Southeast Asia and South Asia will face more severe consequences of climate change than other parts of the world.

The only country which shines out in the crisis is India. It will have the largest world population of the world by 2024. It has tested democratic credentials and strong constitutional framework. The ancient Indian wisdom is based on “Vashudhaiv Kutumbakam” which encapsulates each country in its fold. India has displayed its commitment for the resolutions of Paris Commitment. The 8 folds jump in solar energy in the last six years proved a point. India is going to generate more than 450 GW of energy through renewable sources by 2030. Prime Minister Narendra Modi was awarded the “Champion of Earth” by the UN Secretary General in 2018. He started to lead the International Solar Alliance. India has made important progress towards meeting the United Nations Sustainable Developmental Goals, notably Goal-7 on delivering energy access. India’s per capita emissions today are 1.6 tonnes of CO2, well below the global average of 4.4 tonnes.

Inequality and climate change are parts of the same coin. Therefore, climate change is also related to lifestyle. Western economist Thorestein Veblen, who coined the terms “invidious consumption” pointed out how individuals use luxury goods to show off their status. The US top ten per cent emits six times more than 50 per cent of the bottom at the household level. Adam Smith, the father of economics, explained in his path-breaking book “the Wealth of Nations”: It is the industry which is going to make the country rich. But ancient Indian wisdom is contrary to the views of Adam Smith. Mahatma Gandhi once said that India cannot afford to follow the British economic policy of greed. If two-thirds of planet failed to satisfy the greed of Britain, India had four times the population of Britain, so it would need four planets like earth to fulfil the greed. Unfortunately during the early decades after Independence, India became a copy cat of western pattern of development. That is why the Modi Government is working on to reintroduce the ancient wisdom. External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar has also said that Climate Change is not merely a fuel issue but it has a larger context. Unsustainable consumption is the fundamental cause of pollution and ecological destruction. India has increased its solar-energy capacity more than twelve fold since 2014. The Indian stand is not contradictory. It says what it does. The democratic credentials are well respected. This Government has prepared a blue print of Green World Order. According to PM Modi it is secure, sure and pure.

(The writer is a professor of political science)

In Pakistan, the majority community has licence to kill anyone, particularly persons from minority communities, in the name of blasphemy without waiting for court trials. The ugliest part is that the murderer is hailed as a “ghazi” or “martyr” to the nation.

It’s time the world wakes up to the medieval treatment of religious minorities in Pakistan. The blasphemy law was first introduced in 1860 by the colonial administration. The law stipulated ten years of imprisonment or fine or both. Later the law was amended in 1927. In 1953, when anti-Ahmadiyya riots erupted, Jamaat-e-Islami demanded amendments to the law but the Government of Pakistan did not entertain its requests. However, when anti-Ahmadiyya riots erupted again in 1974, the second Amendment was introduced in the Constitution of Pakistan and all Islamist parties came together under the banner of Tehreek-e-Tahaffuz-e-Khatam-e-Nabuwwat (movement for the protection of the finality of the Prophethood). Later in 1984, the Zia-Ul-Haq regime passed an anti-Ahmadiyya ordinance, which decreed that “Ahmadis cannot call themselves Muslims” or “pose as Muslim”, and those who defied the law faced three years in prison.

Cases of extortion from minorities in Pakistan are frequent but rarely reported to authorities for the fear of reprisals. Victims pay huge ransoms as protection money to mosques and madrassas to save their lives. Otherwise they have to leave their business and properties.

A Hindu friend of mine narrated one such incident to me: “Due to coronavirus, our temple is closed so I am performing my early morning prayers (bhajans) at home only. One day my neighbour knocked at my door and threatened our family. ‘You Hindus should go to India and sing your bhajans there. If you want to live in Pakistan, live quietly, don’t chant Krishna nonsense early morning’.”

He added, “Believe me I was not chanting loudly. My neighbour always look for an opportunity to browbeat us so that under pressure we should sell our apartment to them and leave this place, while they always listen Indian music loudly all the time. Even there is a mosque-madrasa in our apartments where loudspeakers keep on blaring out.”

In 2009, Aasya Noreen, better known as Asia Bibi, a Pakistani Christian, was accused of blasphemy. “Why you used my cup for drinking water? You are non-Muslim, a ‘kafir’.” Argument over this led to Noreen’s arrest in 2010. She was convicted of blasphemy by a Pakistani court and sentenced to death. Minorities Minister Shahbaz Bhatti and Punjab Governor Salman Taseer both were assassinated for advocating on behalf of Asia Bibi and opposing the blasphemy laws.

Under global pressure, in 2018, the Supreme Court of Pakistan acquitted Asia Bibi on grounds that there was insufficient evidence. But she was not released from custody because of safety concerns. A Muslim cleric Maulana Yousaf Qureshi announced a bounty of 500,000 Pakistani Rupees to anyone who would kill Asia Bibi. In 2019, she finally got a safe passage and arrived in Canada, but she continues to receive threat to her life.

Mishal Khan, a student of mass communication of Abdul Wali Khan University, was killed in 2017 on the premises of the university by a mob on allegation of posting blasphemous content online. He was in the hostel of the university when he was stripped naked and severely beaten up by a group of students and then shot. He succumbed to his injuries. The mob was kicking his lifeless body and beating it with wooden planks. His body was then thrown from the second floor of the building. The mob even tried to burn his body while chanting “Allah-o-Akbar”. At least 25 law enforcement officers were present there, but no action was taken. Later investigations found that the content Mishal posted had only secular views and references to books on democracy and equality of humanity. But before this realisation came out, Pakistan had already lost a beautiful soul.

Recently, on July 29, Tahir Naseem, an American, was shot dead inside a Pakistani courtroom where he had gone for a trial for alleged blasphemy. He was an Ahmadiyya but one of my sources told me that he was having mental issues. His murderer justified the killing, “A light appeared in my dream last night and ordered me to kill this enemy of Allah so that I can be awarded with gift of heaven.”

The murderer was praised by a majority of people in Pakistan and even Government officials and politicians used his picture as their display picture (DP) on their social media profiles.

When I reported this case and announced a campaign on social media against the blasphemy laws, forced conversions and enforced disappearances in Pakistan and organised a protest at the Consulate General of Pakistan in Houston, I received many life threats and was targeted by unknown profiles on the social media.

Blasphemy Law (Clause , 295C) of Pakistan panel court reads: “Whoever by words, either spoken or written or by visible representation or by any imputation, innuendo or insinuation, directly or indirectly, defiles the sacred name of the Holy prophet Muhammad (PBUH) shall be punished with death or imprisonment for life and shall also be liable to fine.”

The law prescribes the death penalty for those who are found guilty of blasphemy. The option of life imprisonment has been defunct since a 1991 Federal Shariat Court judgment.

Blasphemy laws in Pakistan are derived from the Holy Quran and Hadiths, but there are differences between different Islamic schools of jurisprudence in this regard. Several Islamic scholars believe that Quranic verses are misinterpreted by dominant Muslim groups in Pakistan with the support of establishment that allows them to use blasphemy laws as a tool to achieve their narrow sectarian interests and agendas. A Quranic verse, which directly mentions blasphemy, calls on Muslims to not blaspheme deities of other religions, lest people of those religions retaliate by blaspheming against Allah.

“And do not insult (wa la tasubbu) those they invoke other than Allah, lest they insult (fa-yasubbu) Allah in enmity without knowledge. Thus, we have made pleasing to every community their deeds. Then to their Lord is their return and He will inform them about what they used to do.” — Qur’an, 6:108

However, a few Hadiths justify severe punishments for blasphemy. But not everyone agrees. Secular Muslims in Pakistan have always demanded abolition of the blasphemy laws but didn’t succeed because of the interest groups. Whipping up religious sentiments is a powerful tool in Pakistan that has always been used by rulers to control people, and create pressure groups of religious parties to perpetuate fear. Minorities, especially wealthy Hindus, are easy prey in Pakistan.

(The writer, an exiled political leader from Sindh, is vice president of Jeay Sindh Thinkers Forum. He is currently living in the US)

Media, particularly television, coverage of Sushant Singh Rajput’s suicide — I will call the manner of his death so until established otherwise — and its aftermath has raised questions. Avoiding the mutually accusatory statements that have been doing the rounds, I would rather focus on some of the deeper issues involved. The first is whether the extent of coverage extended to it is justified.

The event, doubtless, was most tragic. A young man, who has given much to Indian cinema, and could have given more, has been cut short in his prime. The unnatural nature of his passing, the allegations and counter-allegations ranging over it, the controversy about who should investigate it, the Centre’s decision to put the CBI in charge, the Supreme Court’s verdict endorsing the transfer and the subsequent developments, certainly merited media coverage. But did it have to take up huge chunks of prime-time coverage on most channels since June 14 when the alleged suicide occurred?

The question is relevant when the country is facing a serious threat of Chinese aggression, a raging and escalating COVID-19 pandemic and an economy in crisis — to mention three of the most important challenges. The argument that these are also receiving attention raises the question: Is the attention of the deserved quality and extent? The question can be countered by two arguments. First, any answer, in the negative or affirmative, will involve a large measure of subjective judgement and, hence, cannot be regarded as definitive. The second can be that viewers want the kind of coverage provided.

As to the first, all judgments on all issues are subjective in the sense that whatever the quality of the evidence, a person or a group must assess it and come to a conclusion. The assessment is by individuals who have their own predilections and orientations, which they may or may not be able to overcome. But then, a society would not have been able to function if it did not proceed by accepting as valid judgements that, under the normative criteria embedded in its underlying social contract, passed the tests of rationality and morality.

Here, rationality dictates the question: Whether Rajput’s death and its sordid aftermath has greater relevance to the lives of the country and its people than the Chinese aggression, the COVID-19 pandemic and/or the economic crisis? One can argue that the aftermath’s importance can hardly be under-stated because it is leading to the unravelling of the Bollywood drug network, which in turn may lead to the eradication of the drug trade’s tentacles throughout the country. Against this, one has the Union Minister of State G Kishan Reddy’s written reply to a question by a Congress MP, K Sudhakaran, in the Lok Sabha on September 15 stating, “Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) carries out search, seizure, arrest and investigation continuously throughout the year on the actionable inputs developed on its own and/or on receipt from other sources. During the period of COVID-19 lockdown, no such actionable inputs were received by the NCB revealing the nexus between people in the film industry and drug traffickers.”  He, however, added, “However, a case in this regard has been registered by NCB Mumbai zonal unit on August 28, 2020. Till date, in this case 10 persons have been arrested. Drugs such as Ganja, Hashish, Tetra Hydro Cannabinol and Lysergic acid De-ethylamide have been seized in the operation.”

Clearly, one has to see what the NCB produces. Until then it would be a bit too much to cite the possibility of its unearthing a pan-India drug racket to justify the massive coverage given to the train of events following Rajput’s death. This leads to the second justification cited above: Viewers want it. This may be true given that the titillation and voyeuristic pleasure that a very large number of people get from watching the lives of celebrities unscramble or the aftermath of a shocking tragedy unfold.

The mere fact that people want to see something does not make it acceptable. Time was when nothing was considered wrong with masses assembled in Rome’s Colosseum roaring in applause as a gladiator killed another or a lion. Even now, many in Spain are happy to witness bullfights in which matadors kill bulls in unequal combat, and thousands participate in jallikattu in South India in which bulls suffer horribly.

Clearly, popular participation or viewing does not by itself justify an event or its extensive and approbatory coverage —especially when it diverts attention from critical issues facing a country and trivialises discourse in what the German social philosopher, Jurgen Habermas, calls the “public sphere.” The latter, he states in The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (1962), is a virtual or imaginary community which does not necessarily exist in any identifiable space. In its ideal form, the public sphere is “made up of private people gathered together as a public and articulating the needs of society with the state.” It is a space where private individuals discuss public matters, which mediates between society and the state, leading to a critical consensus translating itself into a coherent public opinion, which makes the state accountable to citizens.

The media has a critical role in providing information for discussion in the public sphere. It, however, also has a responsibility to ensure that investigations proceed along right lines. Investigating and prosecuting agencies charged with delivering criminal justice are known to make mistakes and even frame innocent persons, often when under pressure to solve a crime. This writer’s decision to become a journalist has been significantly influenced by his witnessing, as a school student in the early 1950s, the film Call Northside 777. Directed by Henry Hathaway, it was based on the real life efforts by a Chicago Daily Times reporter, James McGuire, undertaken at the behest of the city editor, Karin Walsh, that led to the release of Joseph Majczek, wrongly convicted of murdering a police officer and serving a 99-year prison term.

One, however, must proceed with extreme caution. Pressures on investigative agencies to produce results can make probes go horribly wrong, leading to prolonged, rough interrogation, arrest and prosecution of innocent people whose lives are devastated in the process even if the judiciary exonerates them in the end. The matter reminds one of the title of Malcom Feeley’s much-discussed book, The Process is the Punishment: Handling Cases in a Lower Criminal Court, first published in 1979. Doubtless, the book deals with lower criminal courts in the US and not India. Also, we are talking here not just about lower criminal courts but the entire process. It can be a long haul, involving expenses in the form of lawyers’ fees and transport, time spent in preparations, which often involves time taken off from income-generating activities and, of course, stress and worry.

Should a person, eventually proved innocent, have been made to suffer all this because media pressure led to him/her being pronounced guilty? This does not mean that investigative journalism should not extend to cases under investigation. But it does mean scrupulous observance of the canons of fair play and integrity and two cardinal principles of democratic, libertarian jurisprudence, wedded to respect for human rights.

The first is enshrined in Article 11(1) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the United Nations in 1948. It reads, “Everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defence.”

It is also incorporated in The European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights, originally Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, which came into force on 3 September 1953. It states in Article 6(2), “Everyone charged with a criminal offence shall be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law.”

The famous English jurist, William Blackstone, articulated the second principle when he wrote in Commentaries on the Laws of England, “..all presumptive evidence of felony should be admitted cautiously, for the law holds that it is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer.” Benjamin Franklin, one of the founding fathers of the United States, went further and said, in a letter in March,1785, “That it is better 100 guilty Persons should escape than that one innocent Person should suffer, is a Maxim that has been long and generally approved.” Journalists should remember both, always.

(The writer is Consultant Editor, The Pioneer, and author)