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Issues
Pakistan protests
agenda dictated
by hardliners
P akistan’s
By Sami Zubeiri
handling of protests against an anti-Islam
film was a risky attempt to cash in on religious sentiment,
analysts say, and could fan the flames of
extremism in the troubled nation. As anger raged across
the Muslim world at the US-made “Innocence of Muslims”,
the coalition government led by the Pakistan People’s
Party (PPP) declared Friday a public holiday and encouraged
people to protest peacefully. But what was officially a
“day of love for the prophet” ended in bloodshed and looting,
with 21 people killed and more than 200 injured as
angry demonstrators clashed with police, smashing up
shops, cinemas and fast food outlets in major cities.
Compounding the problems for Pakistan’s leaders, on
Saturday Railways Minister Ghulam Ahmed Bilour offered
$100,000 of his own money to anyone who killed the filmmaker,
urging the Taleban and Al-Qaeda to join the hunt
to accomplish what he called the “noble deed”.
More than 50 people have died around the world in
violence linked to the low-budget movie, which mocks
Islam and Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), since the first
demonstrations erupted on September 11. But if the
Pakistan government’s intention in calling a public holiday
was to take the sting out of the demonstrations on its own
doorstep, the policy failed. There had been dozens of rallies
against the film, some of which had led to clashes, but
nothing on the scale of Friday’s violence.
While the number of protesters was relatively small -
around 45,000 out of a population of 180 million - many
carried the banners of extremist groups, and as often happens
in Pakistan, their voices drowned out the forces of
moderation. Pakistan is locked in a struggle against militant
Islamism on its own soil but its “war on terror” alliance
with Washington is unpopular and the government is keen
to avoid accusations from opposition parties and hardliners
that it is too cosy with Western powers.
Najam Sethi, editor-in-chief of the Daily Times, an
English-language newspaper, said the day of protest was a
calculated move that backfired. “It was a gamble. They
hoped and thought that the demonstrations would be
peaceful,” he told AFP. “And even when they saw this could
turn violent, they did not do anything, or much, because
they’re afraid, as they are already accused of being soft on
the West.”
Author and analyst Hasan Askari said the events
showed the elected government had allowed a small but
vocal minority from the religious right to dictate the agenda.
“As usual the government played on the wicket of religious
elements and lost to them,” he told AFP. “By declaring
Friday as a holiday it did not keep the initiative with it. The
initiative went in the hands of the religious elements.”
Pakistan’s government on Sunday distanced itself from
Bilour’s bounty offer but political analyst Rasul Bakhsh Rais
said it was further evidence of politicians’ willingness to try
to capitalise on religious sentiment. “The statement shows
the so-called secular and moderate politicians are using
Islam for domestic politics,” Rais said of the reward offer.
Bilour’s Awami National Party (ANP) is under pressure from
hardline religious groups in the deeply conservative northwestern
province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where it holds
power and where anti-Western feeling runs deep.
The bounty was in part an attempt to outflank the religious
right, Askari said - to show that the nominally secular
ANP can be as hardline as anyone. But efforts by mainstream
parties to win support from religious conservatives
- to ride the tiger of extremism - are both unlikely to succeed
and fraught with risk, warned Rais. “It is typical of the
mindset of the leaders to play to the gallery,” he said. “It will
encourage religious fanaticism and in the long term it may
harm peace and stability at home. Such elements need to
be condemned.”
Askari said that while Bilour’s offer of a bounty was
embarrassing to the government internationally, particularly
with President Asif Ali Zardari due to address the UN
General Assembly today, it was also indicative of a stratum
of opinion within the coalition. “These things show that
hardline thinking is there in the government circles also,”
he told AFP. “There is a common phenomenon of pointscoring
in Pakistan politics and Bilour wanted to show that
‘we are not lagging behind any other group’.” A general
election is due in the next few months and with anti-US
sentiment running higher than ever in Pakistan, the government
thought it could seize the moment to boost its
popularity, said Sethi of the Daily Times. “Everything,
including this attitude, is also linked to the upcoming elections”.
— AFP
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14 opinion
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 2012
Japan, China military conflict seen unlikely
By Linda Sieg
H awkish
Chinese commentators
have urged Beijing to prepare for
military conflict with Japan as tensions
mount over disputed islands in the
East China Sea, but most experts say
chances the Asian rivals will decide to go
to war are slim. A bigger risk is the possibility
that an unintended maritime clash
results in deaths and boosts pressure for
retaliation, but even then Tokyo and
Beijing are expected to seek to manage
the row before it becomes a full-blown
military confrontation. “That’s the real
risk - a maritime incident leading to a
loss of life. If a Japanese or Chinese were
killed, there would be a huge outpouring
of nationalist sentiment,” said Linda
Jakobson, director of the East Asia
Program at the Lowy Institute for
International Policy in Sydney. “But I still
cannot seriously imagine it would lead
to an attack on the other country. I do
think rational minds would prevail,” she
said, adding economic retaliation was
more likely.
A feud over the lonely islets in the East
China Sea flared this month after Japan’s
government bought three of the islands
from a private owner, triggering violent
protests in China and threatening business
between Asia’s two biggest
economies. Adding to the tensions,
China sent more than 10 government
patrol vessels to waters near the islands,
known as the Diaoyu in China and the
Senkaku in Japan, while Japan beefed up
its Coast Guard patrols. Chinese media
said 1,000 fishing boats have set sail for
the area, although none has been sighted
close by.
Despite the diplomatic standoff and
rising nationalist sentiment in China
especially, experts agree neither Beijing
nor Tokyo would intentionally escalate to
a military confrontation what is already
the worst crisis in bilateral ties in
decades. “The chances of a military conflict
are very, very slim because neither
side wants to go down that path,” said
former People’s Liberation Army officer,
Xu Guangyu, now a senior consultant at
a government-run think tank in Beijing.
Pressure from the United States,
which repeated last week that the disputed
isles were covered by a 1960 treaty
obliging Washington to come to Japan’s
aid if it were attacked, is also working to
restrain both sides, security experts said.
“I very seriously do not think any of the
involved parties - Japan, China and
including the United States because of
its defence treaty (with Japan) - want to
see a military conflict over this dispute,”
said the Lowy Institute’s Jakobson. “They
don’t want to risk it, they don’t seek it
and they do not intend to let it happen.”
Still, the possibility of a clash at sea
remains. While the presence of the
Chinese surveillance ships - none of
which is a naval vessel - and Japan Coast
Guard ships in the area might appear to
set the stage for trouble, military experts
said each side would try to steer clear of
the other. “The bad news is that China
sent ships to the area. The good news is
that they are official ships controlled by
the government,” said Narushige
Michishita at the National Graduate
Institute for Policy Studies in Tokyo. “This
is good news because they are not likely
to engage in aggressive action because
that would really exacerbate the situation
and turn it into a major crisis,” said
Michishita. The Chinese ships, he said,
had another mission besides asserting
China’s claims to the islands and nearby
waters. “My guess is that some (Chinese)
official patrol boats are there to watch
out for fishing boats ... to stop them from
making problems,” Michishita said.
Military specialists say the Chinese
patrol vessels are well disciplined as are
the Japan Coast Guard ships, while the
two sides have grown accustomed to
communicating. “Both sides are ready,
but both sides are very well under control,”
said a former senior Japanese military
official. What worries observers most
is the risk that a boat carrying Chinese
fishermen slips through or activists try to
land, sparking clashes with Japan’s Coast
Guard that result in deaths - news of
which would spread like wildfire on the
Internet. In 1996, a Hong Kong activist
drowned in the nearby waters.
Diplomatic and economic relations
By David Morgan
E ven
before his running mate was booed by a lobbying
group for older Americans on Friday, Republican presidential
nominee Mitt Romney was losing support
among such voters, whose backing is crucial to his hopes of
winning the Nov 6 election. New polling by Reuters/Ipsos
indicates that during the past two weeks - since just after
the Democratic National Convention - support for Romney
among Americans age 60 and older has crumbled, from a
20-point lead over Democratic President Barack Obama to
less than 4 points. Romney’s double-digit advantages
among older voters on the issues of healthcare and
Medicare - the nation’s health insurance program for those
over 65 and the disabled - also have evaporated, and Obama
has begun to build an advantage in both areas.
Voting preferences among seniors could change in the
final six weeks of the campaign, but the polling suggests
that a series of recent episodes favoring Obama and the
Democrats could be chipping away at Romney’s support
among older Americans. Romney’s selection of Wisconsin
congressman Paul Ryan as his vice presidential running
mate put the federal budget and Medicare at center stage in
the campaign. But the debate over spending and entitlement
programs that Romney seemed to be seeking has not
unfolded the way Republicans wanted.
At the Democratic convention in Charlotte, North
Carolina, on Sept 5, former President Bill Clinton gave a
folksy but blistering critique of Ryan’s plan to revamp
Medicare, warning that it could leave seniors unprotected
from escalating healthcare costs. Meanwhile, Democrats’
efforts to portray Romney as a wealthy former private equity
executive with little sympathy for the less fortunate got a
boost last week, from Romney himself. On a secretly recorded
video released by the liberal magazine Mother Jones,
Romney was shown telling supporters at a $50,000-a-person
fundraiser that 47 percent of Americans would never vote
for him because they do not pay federal income taxes, feel
they are “victims,” and depend on government benefits.
Democrats accused Romney of dismissing a range of
Americans, including elderly people who depend on government
programs such as Medicare and Social Security.
Romney’s campaign rejected that, but the recent polls suggest
that such claims may be resonating with Americans
aged 60 and older, who for months had been the only age
group to consistently support Romney over Obama.
Analysts say that if Romney cannot reverse the trend among
older voters, he won’t win on Nov 6. “If Romney loses seniors,
he loses this election, period,” said Jonathan
Oberlander, a health policy specialist at the University of
North Carolina. “A bad showing nationally (among older voters)
does not bode well for Florida and other states with big
senior populations.”
Ryan’s plan for Medicare would limit the program’s costs
by converting it from a provider of popular benefits to a system
that would give future beneficiaries a financial stipend
to help pay for private insurance or traditional Medicare.
Obama and fellow Democrats say Ryan’s approach, which
chilled sharply in 2010 after Japan arrested
a Chinese trawler captain whose boat
collided with a Japan Coast Guard vessel.
This time, tensions are already high and
China is contending with a tricky oncein-a-decade
leadership change while
Japan’s ruling party faces a probable
drubbing in an election expected in
months.
“Two rational governments of major
countries would not intentionally decide
to enter into a major war with each other
over a few uninhabited rocks,” said
Denny Roy, an Asia security expert at the
East-West Center in Hawaii. “But unfortunately,
you can arrive at war in ways other
than that - through unintended escalation,
in which both countries start out
at a much lower level, but each of them
think that they must respond to per-
ceived provocation by the other side,
both very strongly pushed into it by
domestic pressure. That seems to be
where we are now and it is difficult to see
how countries can get out of that negative
spiral.”
Others, however, were more confident
that an unplanned clash could be kept
from escalating into military conflict.
“That’s not really a major possibility,
because there are still broad channels of
communication between the two sides,
and they would help prevent that happening.
Both sides could still talk to each
other,” said former senior PLA officer Xu.
“Even before anything happened, you
would also have the U.N Secretary
General and others stepping in to ensure
that the situation does not get out of
control.” — Reuters
For Romney, troubling
signs among older voters
largely has been embraced by Republicans including
Romney, would further expose seniors to rising healthcare
costs and hasten Medicare’s financial instability.
Republicans argue that their plan would preserve Medicare
for future generations. Medicare serves nearly 50 million
retired and disabled Americans, and polls show stiff public
resistance to the Ryan plan, with older voters opposing it by
a 2-to-1 ratio. Until now, however, there have been few tangible
signs that opposition to Ryan’s plan would translate
into a preference for president.
Pollsters say Obama’s recent rise in popularity among older
Americans could signal that Democrats are winning the
advertising battle over Medicare. That would be something
of a turnaround for Democrats. For much of the past two
years, Republicans have helped to sway public opinion
against Obama’s signature legislative achievement, his overhaul
of the healthcare system, by casting it as a government
overreach that will kill jobs by raising costs for employers.
Republicans also said Obama would cut $716 billion from
Medicare, an allegation rejected by Democrats and independent
analysts. Even so, the Republican claims of
Medicare cuts drew large numbers of seniors to the polls in
the 2010 elections, when Republicans won control of the US
House of Representatives.
AARP, a grass-roots lobbying group with 37 million members
aged 50 and up, backed Obama’s healthcare plan
against Republican critics. So it wasn’t too surprising last
week when Ryan, speaking at an AARP convention in New
Orleans, faced a tough audience. Less than five minutes into
Ryan’s speech, there were boos and cries of “No!” as he laid
out the Republican message on Medicare and vowed to
repeal “Obamacare”. But the data from Reuters/Ipsos polling
- along with similar results from survey data of older voters
by the Pew Research Center - indicate that the crowd’s
response in New Orleans could symbolize more than just
one large group’s discomfort with the Romney-Ryan ticket.
A Pew poll, conducted Sept 12-16 and released last week,
showed Romney with only a 47 to 46 percent lead among
registered voters aged 65-plus. He also trailed Obama by 7
points among people aged 45 to 64 - a huge potential voting
bloc that analysts say is increasingly concerned about
retirement security. To illustrate the challenge that Romney
could face in November, analysts note that Republican John
McCain won 53 percent of the vote among those 65 and older
in 2008, and lost to Obama with 46 percent of the overall
vote. “This is certainly a bit of a game changer,” Ipsos pollster
Julia Clark said of the increasing support for Obama among
older Americans. “Older individuals vote. They’re the ones
who turn up on Election Day, for sure.”
Romney and Ryan are likely to need a clear victory
among older voters to win the election, given Obama’s
advantages among other important voting groups such as
women, minorities and young adults, analysts said. “For
Romney to win the election, he has to have the majority of
the vote from people over 50,” said Robert Blendon, a political
analyst at the Harvard School of Public Health. “If they
share voters over 50, Romney’s really going to take a loss
here.” — Reuters