Tag: politics

When it comes to climate change, Pakistan is on its own

by Mirrors For The PrinceUncategorized2 Comments on When it comes to climate change, Pakistan is on its own

The enormity of the damage wrought by Pakistan’s recent floods is staggering. One third of the country submerged, 3 million acres of agricultural land ruined, almost a million livestock drowned, 1.8 million homes destroyed and 33 million affected. Early figures estimate the cost to rebuild at $30 billion.

Pakistan’s leaders responded by traveling the world to elicit sympathy and donations as they lamented how little their nation has contributed to climate change and pushed for a new “green Marshal Plan.” America has promised $30 million while the UN has pledged another $160 million. China will donate $57 million, and the UK has agreed to provide $17 million. The Asian Development Bank has agreed to provide 2.5 billion in loans. Though helpful, these amounts are a tiny fraction of what is needed, laying bare a painful truth. The international community will not give Pakistan the money it needs. Borrowing more money is not an option either. Pakistan is already “drowning in debt” and unlikely to find creditors willing to lend the necessary amounts.

All of which means Pakistan must shoulder this burden alone. Arguing for climate justice, though worthwhile in theory, is ultimately a waste of time. The world has never been a kind or just place and rising temperatures and sea levels will not change this fundamental truth. If anything, they will reinforce it. Those nations capable of adapting will survive, while those that are not will perish.

That might not be fair and has already led to op-eds highlighting both the dangers and hypocrisy of leaving Pakistan to deal with climate change on its own. But that is exactly what will happen because, for better or worse, that is how the world works. Rather than complain about the injustice of it all, Pakistan’s elite would do well to focus on the harsh realities they now face and act accordingly.

The sad fact is these floods are but a preview of what is to come. Pakistan is home to thousands more glaciers that will continue to melt as the world warms. Sea levels are also expected to rise 1 meter by 2050, placing its commercial capital of Karachi and its flood prone infrastructure in grave danger. It was already experiencing brutal heat waves and diminished crop yields before these floods. These trends will only worsen over the next few years.

As a result, Pakistan must develop a practical and comprehensive plan to deal with the short term need to rebuild and provide disaster relief to roughly 1/7 of its population while simultaneously developing a long-term plan to protect itself from more destruction. And it must do so under the assumption that the international community will not provide substantial aid or assistance. Instead, it must save itself.

The urgent need for action cannot be overstated as time to deal with these potentially catastrophic threats is running out. Pakistan’s last great flood was ten years ago. It will be lucky if the next one waits as long. The consequences of inaction, though impossible to forecast with precision, will be grim.

The cumulative dangers posed by climate change represent an existential threat that could lead to serious political and social upheaval. Calamities of the sort now confronting Pakistan often lead to violent change. For example, some have argued West Pakistan’s poor response to a typhoon that struck its Eastern half in 1970 was an important catalyst for the civil war that followed. It is entirely plausible that a string of climate induced disasters could lead to similar social and political unrest, sweeping Pakistan’s elite away in the turmoil of revolution or civil war.

Unfortunately, their early responses have not been encouraging, indicating they do not appreciate the gravity of the situation. Instead of coming together, they have continued with business as usual as they bicker over politics and leaked recordings. Though not entirely surprising, their inability to adapt could easily doom the entire nation.

To avoid this fate, they will need to embrace reform. They must come together to create their own version of Japan’s Meiji Restoration. Only meaningful political and social reforms that lead to developing the economic, industrial, and technical capabilities needed to deal with these dangers will save them.

The first step is straightforward, long overdue, and yet deceptively difficult. Pakistan must improve its tax collection methods and widen its tax collectors’ nets. In 2021, Pakistan’s government collected only 10.4% of GDP in tax receipts. The average for Asian nations is 19.1%. Pakistan must bridge this gap while bringing more of its estimated $180 billion informal economy into the taxpaying realm. Taxing just a third of its informal economy while getting its tax collection rates to 15% would boost revenues by over $20 billion.  

As simple as this seems, achieving these goals has proven out of reach because they require gutting Pakistan’s tax collection agencies from top to bottom, modernizing them, and then subjecting them to vigilant oversight to make sure tax revenue is spent where it is needed rather than stolen by corrupt bureaucrats and politicians. In other words, Pakistan’s elites must do what they have adamantly refused to do for decades: build a modern administrative state and the competent tax, law enforcement, regulatory, and judicial agencies that come with it.  

Once Pakistan gets its finances and governance in order, it can focus on climate change. It will need to make massive investments to climate proof its infrastructure while re-locating entire towns from flood prone areas. It will need to wean itself off imported fossil fuels by building an indigenous renewable energy sector focused on green hydrogen and solar power. And it must modernize and climate proof its agricultural sector, in part, by building thousands of acres of indoor, climate-controlled facilities. It will also need to build a modern public education system to provide the skilled labor required to make all of this happen.

Pakistan is entering a pivotal period in its history. One that will decide its trajectory for many years. The days ahead will be hard. They will require sacrifice and drastic social, political, and economic changes. If Pakistan’s elite can successfully guide their nation through these troubled times, they will reap the rewards. If they do not, they will suffer the consequences.

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Why Muslim Governments Have Authoritarian Tendencies

by Mirrors For The PrinceUncategorizedLeave a Comment on Why Muslim Governments Have Authoritarian Tendencies

Many nations in the Islamic world are governed by authoritarian rulers who have concentrated as much power in their hands as possible. One of the reasons that Muslim governments are so prone to developing authoritarian tendencies is that they have given themselves the power to legislate on any matter they choose. The more power a government has, the more likely it is to develop into a dictatorship. In Muslim nations, governments have given themselves the power to control almost every facet of their citizens’ lives including decisions that relate to personal lifestyle choices or how they express themselves. The region’s dictators are not the only ones guilty of overreaching either. In its quest to erase its Muslim past, Turkey enacted laws regulating how its citizens dressed by preventing them from wearing traditional headgear under the guise of secularism. Secularism is meant to give people the freedom to pursue their religious convictions without interference from the state. Using such ideologies to prevent people from practicing their faith is a subversion of the very essence of secular ideas. Laws that prevent people from practicing their Islamic faith in accordance with their personal convictions are just as authoritarian as the worst tendencies of entities like ISIS or the many governments in the Muslim world that impose laws meant to force compliance with Islamic values. The prevalence of such laws in so many Muslim countries shows how deeply entrenched authoritarian practices are throughout the Muslim world. 

Too many Muslims have been content to give their governments the power to control the personal lives of their fellow citizens due to their conviction that such laws were necessary to protect the morals of the community. The problem with allowing governments to have so much control over their people is that they will inevitably use this power to restrict activities or opinions that threaten their grip on power. A government that can tell its citizens how to dress (or not dress), what to eat, or how to conduct their love lives will have no problem using its broad powers to also control political expression. This is the path to dictatorship. Even if it results in social conduct they find morally offensive, Muslims must stop using their governments to regulate and control the personal lives of their fellow citizens if they ever hope to create governments that are not prone to dictatorship and the abuse of power. In order to ensure that governments do not encroach on the rights of their citizens they must only be allowed to legislate on matters that they have been explicitly empowered to regulate and that relate to a core government function such as building highways or schools. Laws that do not relate to a core government function should not be allowed on the grounds that they are beyond the scope of the government’s authority. Limiting governmental power by specifically enumerating those powers in a constitution or similar document is meant to prevent governments from acquiring the sort of broad powers that lead to dictatorship. Restricting a government’s legislative powers in this way is one of the most important mechanisms used to prevent the development of dictatorships.  
 
With respect to laws that govern morality or personal behavior, only conduct that impacts the safety of others should be regulated. For example, laws that prohibit the consumption of alcohol should be considered outside the scope of permissible government regulation. Whereas laws that prohibit operating motor vehicles after consuming alcohol are geared towards protecting public safety and therefore permitted. The loosening of restrictions on personal conduct or expression will result in behavior many Muslims find objectionable.  Despite this side effect, limits on a government’s ability to prevent such behavior are a necessary compromise meant to reduce the chances that a government can turn into a dictatorship. Of the two evils, unchecked immoral behavior may lead some citizens astray, but unchecked government power eventually leads to the subjugation of all citizens and has the potential to destroy the entire nation. 

The idea that governments cannot regulate such conduct is anathema to many Muslims because of the way in which Islamic governments have traditionally been given such powers. Despite this history, the evidence shows that it is impossible in the modern age to create a government that can effectively regulate such conduct without leading to an abuse of power. For example, Saudi Arabia is well known for regulating the personal lives of its citizens by forcing them to adhere to conservative Islamic social norms under penalty of law. At the same time, Saudi princes are well known for living hedonistic lifestyles that ignore many of these norms. Likewise, the founder of the Taliban, Mullah Omar, was said to have an extensive music collection despite overseeing the ban of music throughout his country. The hypocrisy of having rulers who are free to order their personal lives as they see fit while simultaneously preventing their citizens from doing the same perfectly highlights how such laws, particularly within an authoritarian political system, inevitably lead to an abuse of authority and repression. 
 
The truth is that it is impossible to regulate religious conviction and laws that attempt to do so will only lead to conformity with respect to superficial expressions of religious devotion such as dress or diet. The greater concerns of religion such as having faith in god are impossible to regulate. Laws intended to enforce religious practices are therefore an exercise in futility and only serve to increase the power of those charged with enforcing them in a manner that eventually leads to authoritarianism and dictatorship. 
 
Citizens that empower their governments to make subjective personal choices for society are also giving their governments the power to make similar subjective judgments about how people express themselves in other areas such as political speech or academia. As such, freedom, or a lack thereof, with respect to personal lifestyle choices will inevitably impact the freedom to express political views or engage in intellectual discussions. Authoritarian tendencies in one area will naturally lend themselves to authoritarian tendencies in other, seemingly unrelated areas. 
 
Muslims that argue such ideas or the constitutional mechanisms used to enforce them are un-Islamic are too focused on form over substance. Instead of limiting themselves to creating governments based on ideas and administrative practices that are centuries old, Muslims must create new governments that still embody the substance of Islamic values but use modern methods to achieve them. Muslim governments must still fulfill their religious duty to protect and preserve the Muslim community, but they must do so by focusing on only those Islamic values that are directly relevant to achieving this goal. For example, Islamic values regarding the need to maintain a united Muslim community or care for the poor are extremely important values that must be embodied in the laws and policies of all Muslim nations. 
 
Laws related to personal conduct or lifestyle are irrelevant to such ends. Instead of relying on the state to impose morality on our neighbors, we must teach our children how to behave morally and send them into the world confident in our ability to guide them. The fact that some of them may engage in behavior that is considered socially unacceptable may be upsetting but can only be viewed as an individual failure, not a societal one that requires a legal solution. Ultimately, it is the responsibility of each person to make the choices that best suit them. If that means engaging in behavior others find objectionable then this must be viewed as a consequence of the need to prevent governments from using their authority to abuse their own people. 
 
In the end, Muslims must learn to live and let live and we must stop using our governments to project our values onto our neighbors. It is tragic that some may falter but in life, some people fail, while others succeed. This is how the world has been ordered. Attempts to legislate against the natural order of things will always lead to irrational results. This is best illustrated by the prevalence of dictators and power-hungry leaders throughout the Muslim world that have manipulated their citizens’ willingness to cede them so much authority in order to maintain and extend their power.  

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Introduction: The What and The Why

by Mirrors For The PrinceUncategorized1 Comment on Introduction: The What and The Why

Welcome to my blog, “Mirrors for the Prince.” I hope you enjoy yourself and, more importantly, I hope you find the content informative and educational.

Before explaining what this blog is about, I wanted to explain its name. About 1,100 years ago civil servants and ministers wrote books intended to provide practical advice to their rulers regarding how best to govern. This genre of literary work was referred to by an Arabic phrase that translates to “Mirrors for Princes” since these books were meant to encourage rulers to engage in the sort of self-reflection that would help them be better leaders.  The purpose of this blog is also to advise the current rulers of the Muslim world based on my experiences as a lawyer, veteran, and civil servant to help them be better leaders. The title “Mirrors For The Prince” therefore struck me as an equally relevant and fitting name since each article I publish is intended to function as a mirror the rulers of the Muslim world can use to help them reflect on the governments they have created. As with most of the ideas that will be presented here, the title is a fusion of Islamic and Western ideas since it also references one of the Western world’s seminal works of political thought, Machiavelli’s The Prince.  

As I said, this blog is meant to provide advice to the rulers of the Muslim world regarding what sort of policies they should pursue if they are at all interested in reversing the seemingly permanent state of weakness that has enveloped their nations. It is not an attempt to predict what they will do but to suggest what they should do. The goal is to try and spark the re-birth that the Muslim world so desperately needs by suggesting new policies that can substantially increase its power. The policies currently pursued by its rulers have resulted in the total military, political, economic, and technological domination of the Muslim world by the West, Russia, and China. The resulting instability has caused widespread poverty and warfare which has, in turn, caused the deaths of countless innocents.   

Though this blog will mostly express itself in the language of politics, economics, and history, it is truly concerned with questions of morality and basic human decency since its main goal is ending the marginalization of millions of innocent people who are suffering from violence and poverty. The analysis and ideas presented here are offered with a view towards finally creating the political and economic conditions necessary to end the suffering of these innocents. To that end, I will strive to provide the most objective and logical advice I can.   

Unfortunately, I am not confident my intended audience will heed my advice. As such, I will occasionally provide what limited advice I can to my fellow Muslims. I hope that some of my ideas will be well received by them. Ultimately, even if it’s a distorted representation, governments are still a reflection of their people. The ineffective governments of many Muslim countries therefore reflect poorly upon both their people and their rulers. As a community, Muslims must continue to search for answers to the deep-rooted issues within our societies that have affected our ability to develop and modernize. Please note that I suggest we need to modernize, not Westernize. The only way for Muslims to move forward is to begin relying on our Islamic values but in a manner that is consistent with the demands of modernity and evolution.  As such, my advice will be geared towards suggesting ideas that can allow Muslims to modernize and finally develop the technical, economic and military capabilities to protect themselves from the aggression and conquest they have been subject to over the past few centuries. My policy recommendations are based upon the idea that the excessive concentration of power by central governments leads to unjust policies that are mainly designed to further the interests of tiny groups of elites. Consequently, most of my ideas will relate to how best to diffuse power to the masses of the Muslim world so that they can determine which policies would benefit them. The underlying assumption being that political power leads to economic empowerment. The idea is to give the people of the Muslim world the power to create better lives for themselves without the undue influence of elites or outsiders who do not have any regard for the suffering their policies cause.   

I am uniquely qualified to offer my perspective because, in my professional capacity, I am tasked with critically examining relevant facts in relation to legal standards in order to determine the appropriate outcome without any pre-determined biases or preferences. Though it does not relate to the specific topics addressed here, my job emphasizes the sort of neutral and impartial analysis that allows me to objectively discuss a variety of subjects. We will see if these skills are equally applicable to the analysis of facts in relation to the theories of international relations, history, philosophy, and other various military and social sciences that govern the relations between nations and the power of nations that will be discussed here. Understanding the laws that govern how nations interact with each other is important because global peace and stability rests upon the ability of nations to work together for the betterment of the entire human species. Our technological abilities have now reached the point that humans have the potential to render the entire planet uninhabitable and devoid of life either through war or environmental destruction. It is time to come together, as a species, to develop the institutions and resources that will be needed to meet the challenges of the future. We cannot accomplish this by dividing ourselves into tribes and then condemning those outside of our tribe to poverty and underdevelopment. We must learn to work together.   

With respect to the Muslim world, this begins with a critical analysis of the relevant factors that have led to its decline combined with devising practical solutions grounded in the philosophy that humans must strive to be better and help each other. Humans have the capacity for both good and evil so we must work towards creating political institutions that reflect this reality by incentivizing our leaders to work for good and creating checks on their evil impulses. Many of the destructive elements in human societies result from our never-ending need to violently confront one another over the acquisition of resources, which is a fancy (I think) way of saying: people are greedy! And it needs to stop. Instead of pursuing selfish policies that only consider narrow and short-sighted interests, people and the nations we have divided ourselves into must learn to live in peace and work together to help all of us meet the demands of the future. Unfortunately, given the current trends in population growth, resource consumption, and technological development we are not on a path that will lead to a prosperous future. We need to correct course before it is too late, and I hope my ideas will be taken with these considerations in mind.   

Our governments have forgotten the basic concepts of human decency and morality that must govern the relationships between all people. Criticism of government policies that do not conform to these ideals is meant to spur reform, not express hatred. One should not assume that criticism equals a lack of affection. It is quite the opposite. In the same way that I correct my children’s bad behavior out of love, I am also trying to correct the bad behavior of both Muslims and the West by pointing out the injustices committed by both groups. Having grown up in the US, I am both Muslim and American and am loyal to both identities. As such, my advice is intended to help both groups be better.  

My ideas are based on both Islamic and Western political thought and values. For example, my views are pan-Islamic in the sense that I argue for the unity of Muslims working together on the basis of their shared Islamic identity. But this argument is also supported by Samuel Huntington’s theory of civilizational based international competition. When I refer to the need for Muslim nations to act as brothers, I am euphemistically alluding to the need for alliances among Muslim nations but in Islamic terms, not Western terms. This is intentional because it is important to describe these ideas from an Islamic perspective since it is Islamic values that will drive such relationships. Similarly, when I argue for the creation of democratic political institutions in the Muslim world that follow Western models this is also based on Islamic notions of consultative decision making and the democratic precedents of the Rashidun.  

The Muslim world has been consumed by weakness and stagnation and it is time to correct these issues. I realize it may seem presumptuous on my part to offer such advice, particularly since I grew up in the US. Though living as a minority in the US is not always easy, overall, I feel blessed to have grown up in a country that (imperfections aside) has allowed me to live my life as I see fit. Growing up in the West has given me the freedom to develop my worldviews and the intellectual justifications for these views without limitation or restriction. It has allowed me to develop the ideas that will be presented on this blog free from constraints on my ability to express myself. There are too many Muslim countries today that prevent their people from expressing themselves under penalty of torture, imprisonment, and death. I feel lucky that I was able to find refuge in the US. Even though I have managed to build a prosperous and happy life for myself here, I also feel a duty to try and help others create their own refuges. Since bringing the world’s billion plus Muslims here is not a realistic option, the only remaining choice is to help them build better nations for themselves. All my advice and suggestions are based on this goal.   

 
Enjoy! 

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