Re: Pakistan
Unprecedented floods in Pakistan means the country needs all the help it can get and we should all send our bit.
BUT (you were waiting for that!) here are two items that the UN, development experts, Pakistanis themselves, and, yes Americans ought to be thinking about as the disaster continues.
The first, is the fight Pakistan has been having with India about dams being built in Kashmir to provide electricity in rapidly developing India. The Pakistanis are protesting what they see as the ability of India to control their rivers (and water supplies) by their control of the dam(s). At the moment, Pakistan may regret that India didn’st start building the dams, which could also function as flood controls, twenty years ago. But we can predict that when this current disaster has been brought under control, the internecine struggle will be taken up again. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/21/world/asia/21kashmir.html?_r=1&ref=pakistan
The second, Pakistan has many wealthy people who don’t pay taxes. That means among other things that the government does not have the resources it needs to provide the disaster relief now needed, nor does it have the political will to close the gap between the very rich and the growing numbers of very poor (whose conditions are made even worse by the flood). http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/19/world/asia/19taxes.html?scp=1&sq=Pakistan+elite&st=nyt
In the meantime, the United States spends billions supporting the war against Pakistani insurgents and enhancing the power of the Pakistan millitary.
If it weren’t for their nuclear weapons, would Pakistan be considered a faltering, if not failed state?
Ms. S. -
Thanks for the information.
It seems to me that the U.S. is also a failed state if we judge by its tax system, if it can be called a system. It seems to be a patchwork of ad hoc tax breaks for the rich. I read recently that the richest 400 American families own 40% of American wealth, and some of them don’t pay any taxes at all. We certainly have a failed income tax system. Could we have a thread about this some time? The media have been coming up with some very interesting — and discouraging — figures lately.
Here is another excellent response from Larry Goodson at the Christian Science Monitor:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/320364;_ylt=As2.wjGT7Wucg03jjBrfh639wxIF;_ylu=X3oDMTI5YWtiNnRlBGFzc2V0A2NzbS8yMDEwMDgxOC8zMjAzNjQEY3BvcwMyBHBvcwMxMQRzZWMDeW5fdG9wX3N0b3J5BHNsawN3aHl1c2FuZHBha2k-
Highlights:
“The US must take two linked and challenging steps.
First, it must program a significant portion of its aid to Pakistan for non-security assistance that produces changes to its economic and political structures, so that long-overdue institutional reforms can be fostered.
The seamy underside of our transactional relationship is that most of America’s aid to Pakistan has gone historically to its military, thus preventing badly needed reform. That must change if the cycle of mutual duplicity is to be broken.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton made some progress on this front in July, when she announced $500 million in funds for hospitals and hydroelectric generation, part of a larger sum of $7.5 billion in US aid for development projects in Pakistan.
“It’s our goal to slowly but surely demonstrate that the US is concerned about Pakistan for the long term, and that the partnership goes far beyond security against our common enemies,” Secretary Clinton said.
But she faces an uphill battle. A Pew survey this summer showed that 6 in 10 Pakistanis regard the US as a “nemesis.”
Building goodwillThe best thing we have done in Pakistan in recent memory was the post-earthquake relief effort in 2005, which prompted enduring positive feelings toward the US in the remote northern villages of Pakistan where US military helicopters dropped from the sky to provide life-giving supplies and ferry the injured to US military doctors.
Now Pakistan is awash in historic and devastating floods, and the US response to this tragedy – $76 million in aid so far – could provide another opportunity to build goodwill. “The people of Pakistan will see that when the crisis hits, it’s not the Chinese, it’s not the Iranians, it’s not other countries,” said US special envoy Richard Holbrooke. “It’s not the EU, it’s the US.”
Yet the US should spend ten times that amount, and immediately offer to redeploy troops from Afghanistan to help in Pakistan. US government relief efforts in the wake of Hurricane Katrina eventually topped $100 billion, and the first supplemental appopriation just after the hurricane was for $10.5 billion, so pushing our spending on Pakistan up to $7.6 billion is viable.
Resolve KashmirSecond, the Kashmir dispute that is at the root of the historical animosity with India must be resolved. The US must provide leadership to bring about that resolution, despite Indian desires to have Washington sit on the sidelines. This step will be very difficult, as India has already rebuffed efforts by the Obama administration to do exactly that.
Both steps must occur in tandem, so that each side can make important, but painful, changes to longstanding institutions and positions. Above all else, the US must not abandon Pakistan again.”
“The second, Pakistan has many wealthy people who don’t pay taxes.”
This is also true of India where there are so many poor and desitute. The U.S has its problems but it is paradise compared to these and many other countries.
I readily admit that I don’t know just how we in the U. S. ought to respond to the tragedy occurring in Pakistan. And of course, there are other tragedies, e. g., Haiti, Sudan, etc.
Nonetheless, I hope that we Christians can agree that whatever we “own” is ultimately God’s and not ours. The notion of stewardship is so hard to apply, but that is no excuse for not working at it constantly. The needs of those suffering from these tragedies make a claim on justice, not only on charity. Trying to find just the most “rational,” or the most “efficient’ way to respond to these tragedies can end up serving as a trap that appear to give us license to do less than we should.
For my part, I know of nothing better to do than trust the judgment of the people at Catholic Relief Services.
But even so, I do have the sense that whatever I give will be less that i ought to give. That’s becauseI’m so attached to the security i have.
Security, perhaps a new “capital sin.”
At one time the Supreme Court favored the rich over the poor in every case noting that nothing should impede the free market. Hammer v. Dagenhart argued that Congress could not regulate interstate commerce. It was a manufacturer’s until FDR packed the court in 1941 in favor of justices who would favor people more over unjust labor. Still today we hear the term welfare state as if taking care of one’s citizens is a bad thing. The primary complaint of the anti-labor forces is that government regulation favored the lazy. The irony is inherited wealth promoted the biggest class of lazy good for nothings with few exceptions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hammer_v._Dagenhart
India and Pakistan need an FDR.
I’d rather be poor in India than Pakistan, because India at least has an economy that’s growing and will grow some more. I’ve never thought that “a rising tide lifts all boats,” always works smoothly or easily, but Indian citizens in the long run have a better chance of improving their condition than those of Pakistan. That said….
My point here is that while justice and charity requires that we help support aid efforts, we should contemplate the deeply ill-managed (even dysfunctional) society that Pakistan is. What is our obligation to think long and hard about what the U.S. should/could be doing to really help the tide rise in Pakistan, instead of feeding its military and, in effect, supporting its dysfunction.
There have been many stories now and in the past about how much the Pakistanis don’t like the United States. But so what… Why should that keep them from coming to grips with the problems of their own society? Problems that in many ways are of their own making and, of course, of the Brits… Should the Brits really have allowed Partition? Moot point I know.
Unfortunately, power politics prevail over human needs. A dictator who is for you is preferable to a saint who is against you. Just as in the church it is all about keeping the empire.
Margaret Steinfels,
Many of us will never have the knowledge or sophistication to contemplate societies like Pakistan and its structural problems. Though it is right to call for those with the expertise to give the rest of us some guidance, it is also important not to give us easy excuses to withhold aid from people in desperate need through no fault of their own. Many Pakistanis are in that condition now.
Ms. Steinfels – pretty sure that the British all but ran out of India. Not even Ghandi could resolve the politics around the West/East Pakistani split from India.
Some ill-thought out suggestions:
a) US needs to respond overwhelmingly to this with a coordinated effort – redirect troops from Afghan and Iraq withdrawal now to the flooded areas;
b) Clearly indicate that all aid is going to the legitimate government and people of Pakistan – the danger of the current government collapsing into military rule again;
c) US needs to couple its efforts with the UN and the European Union;
d) UN needs to support Kashmir as if it is an independent territory – in the process address the water issues; etc.
e) long term – need to move Pakistan out of having any nuclear weapons.
BD: “Many of us will never have the knowledge or sophistication to contemplate societies like Pakistan and its structural problems. Though it is right to call for those with the expertise to give the rest of us some guidance, it is also important not to give us easy excuses to withhold aid from people in desperate need through no fault of their own. Many Pakistanis are in that condition now.”
Professor Dauenhauer: Most of us could pay more attention to what our government does with our resources! All most of us have to do is read a good newspaper and/or find a good blog or talk to a Pakistani (et al) or two! Really it’s not that hard.
Far from citing easy excuses for not responding, I have suggested that you/we empty our personal coffers on behalf of aiding those who have lost everything in the flood. But that doesn’t relieve us of the responsibility of paying more attention to the governance and structure problems that made this flood and the relief effort worse than they had to be.
And not to you personally: the general social justice trop now widely adopted in the Catholic community oftens seems to me all heart and no brains–a fatal combination. As we often say here: Both/ And!
“it is also important not to give us easy excuses to withhold aid from people in desperate need through no fault of their own“.
And even if they were in desperate need through their own fault (the “undeserving poor” sung by Alfred Doolittle), it would still be our duty to give them aid.
Who’s arguing that it is not our duty?
I have often fantasized managing the whole world to administer food, clothing and medication for the poor. Alas much of it is indeed no brains. I have seen so many social programs in this country fight for and about the same clients, Almost as if the aid is for the social workers rather than the needy. Indeed, so many rulers of these desperate countries intercept the aid and make huge profits by selling food to the poor. Look at Romero. Killed by the government elite and sneered at by the Vatican. Specifically, John Paul II.
Does a Marshall plan for Haiti not work because the people are lazy or slow? Governments still kill people who are rioting for food. Holocausts still go on and the world is helpless or claims to be. Is it something only for the last judgment to resolve?
Margaret, agreed.
On a more personal note, my wife and I regularly find ourselves on opposite ends of the stick in donations. Do we give to agencies (my general approach)? Or do we give some part of what we can give directly to the “street people” we run across (her approach)?
Obviously, both approaches deserve respect. Also obviously, there is no algorithm or “one size fits all” resolution of this matter.
The big thing, and here again we agree, is always to acknowledge that our surplus really doesn’t in any deep sense belong to us.
BD: We are agreed!
Ms. Steinfels – another opinion piece about the historical and current tensions in Kashmir:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20100820/wl_time/09171201180800
This is separate from the immediate need to address the afflicated; a possible short term approach that would mimick the “Marshall Plan”; but it definitely would impact any long term Pakistani-Indian rapproachment and the stability of any ongoing Pakistani government.
Today Der Spiegel weighs in on why Europe has been so slow to help the Pakistan flood victims: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,712874,00.html#ref=nlint
“Three weeks after the Pakistan floods claimed their first victims, Europe is finally reacting. Why did Western countries take so long to provide aid? Is this a case of complacency or prejudice, or is there a deeper malaise?”
F.B. Ali, who I believe is a retired Pakistani military officer, has posted this on Pat Lang’e site: “Requiem for a Lost Country”; poignant: http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2010/08/requiem-for-a-lost-country-fb-ali.html#comments