Leaky plumbing

Finally China, the US and the Middle East agree upon one thing – censorship and punishment for Wikileaks. It’s befitting too, since all three countries are self-styled democracies of the most authoritarian kind. The political class is an easy target for scandal since its members tend to accumulate so much dirty laundry. Now, thanks to internet journalism, they are plagued by a new-age plumbing that can leak out all the dirty suds for public revelation.
It’s always informative to observe the spins that follow such exposes. Those who blindly defended Pakistan’s current government’s leaders would mock all allegations against them as conspiracies – against democracy, no less. Now, as the allegations about their compromised politics are confirmed, the same apologists suggest that the evidence proving many of the conspiracies is, a conspiracy itself.
Never mind the politicos and their apologists – and while the former are expected to disappoint, it is always worse when others find excuses and defend such acts. This lowers the minimum standards that we should be able to demand of those in public office. If timely pressure and resistance to autocratic political decisions by the new government had been checked, leaders may have come across less scathed.
Several commentators have suggested somewhat cynically, that the Wikileaks disclosures are going to have little impact on our political structure or future modes of relationships. Most have objected to the sycophancy of our political leaders who have proven pliable to US interests to the point of selling out other state institutions. Often, this was not even on the pretext of Pakistan’s interests but to leaders’ own personal, parochial ends.
The apologists had insisted that these interests were inextricably linked towards the transitional path to democracy. We can now see clearly the falsity of this thesis of the ‘slow, unchecked path to democracy’. While democratic jostling for power amongst institutions can be healthy, it is truly base when Pakistani leaders and public officials invite non-representative actors (which include other countries and their ambassadors) into not just the conversation but the driving seat. There is no excuse for such spineless leadership.
But let’s be honest and cast the net of guilt a little wider. Within a week of the leaks, the Karachi Stock Exchange invited the US ambassador to address its members on the topic of … ‘corruption’? What qualifies the ambassador to do so and who decided that the KSE represents national economic interests? Which part of the lesson of ethics and integrity, which the business community is so happy to preach to our political leadership, was it demonstrating in light of the timing of the leaks? How does this reflect on the lack of ethical boundaries and relationships between US and local interests?
Consider, if there were a cable-gate comprising leaked communications of the private sector, including those between and amongst multinationals and their headquarters? These may reveal the deals made by companies when they buy out local property at throwaway prices for their businesses; tax evasions; bribes given and taken; lists of compliant officials on payrolls; accidents and ‘collateral damage’ when labour is injured or killed and villagers’ homes razed for pittance; cover-ups when children are hurt or handicapped by pollutants from private businesses.
How about NGO-leaks? Alternative leaders and civil society activists who position themselves on the highest perch of the moral high-ground, are guilty of some of the most opportunist, grovelling “social networking” with foreign commissions. Cable chatter would show the solicitation of projects for their NGOs outside the scope of a transparent bidding process and a skillful navigation of conflict of interests such that they juggle governmental and non-governmental projects simultaneously.
Many of the NGOs have cultivated client-patron relationships with communities on exactly the same pattern as they accuse politicos of doing, perhaps by way of a softer exploitation. False representation on behalf of “communities”; selection processes whereby projects are awarded on the basis of personal bias but masked as if based on an equal opportunities criteria; inside information shared out to pliable consultants; secret research studies and ‘findings’ that are never seen by peers, let alone accredited by any collective group or made available to the public; collusive machinations between donor offices and consultants that ensure that some reports bypass national government approval… All these would raise hairy questions regarding, not the efficacy of successful NGO projects, but really, the ethical boundaries that dirty politicians are accused of crossing.
Moreover, it would also bring to light the internal processes and contradictory pursuits by donor organisations. Many such funding organisations have become directly part of Pakistan’s social delivery process while complaining about the presence of (non-representative) faith-based groups doing the same thing. Which governance system are they then accountable to – ours or their home government’s?
At the same time, several donors have decided to intervene directly into the legislative and bureaucratic machinery by embedding themselves in drafting, or funding the process of drafting, laws and even budgets. The World Bank and other financial institutions have secured free access to the corridors of national economic policymaking. Where is the elusive line, which demarcates national interests in these cases, to be drawn?
It’s an ingenious machinery devised to circumvent merit and representative outcomes but which preaches monitoring, transparency, public service, community upliftment, poverty alleviation, ‘collective’ research and social delivery.
Equally, a section of the media that claims that it works for the people’s right to freedom of information itself evades and redefines the boundaries of journalistic interests. The liberal task of freeing information for the people is often the result of the most conservative, ‘unfree’ methods, sources and attitudes of the media itself.
The point is that while there is much to be embarrassed and disappointed about our political representation, it should not be an excuse for other sectors to absolve their own behaviour and assume to be purer. This is not to dilute the scale or damaging effects of unethical global political leadership as revealed by Wikileaks but a caution, that leaky plumbing in a house affects all its members and eventually, can drown out the entire household.

The writer is a sociologist based in Karachi. She has a background in women’s studies and has authored and edited several books on women’s issues Email: afiyazia@yahoo.com