I read Rahimullah Yusufzai's article, Pakistan Underwater ... in your October issue with great interest. I assume the writer is from Pakistan but, regardless, I think he has done an excellent analysis of the current economic and political situation in that ravaged country. The loss of life of some 2000 people last year and increasing numbers this year are bad enough but it is the damage to the country's infrastructure which is most worrying. There were some 11 million flood victims last year and, if the estimates are correct, about 8 million this year. Whole regions have been afflicted with Sindh and Balochistan suffering most, according to the writer. Refugee camps are trying to provide emergency housing to hundreds of thousands of flood victims but there is a widespread shortage of food because of the loss of a huge proportion of staple crops. Pakistan was always a poor country but for its economy to sustain damage and losses amounting to some $10 billion is catastrophic. The really worrying questions are whether or not its civil society can be rebuilt as well as its economy. According to Mr Yusufzai, the political leaders are not dealing with the crisis in an appropriate way. Visiting foreign countries is an important part of all political leaders duties but for President Zardari and Prime Minister Gilani to be abroad during this massive civil disruption is bordering on the insane. The people are losing faith with their politicians and that is ominous for the nebulous democracy that exists in Pakistan. Such widespread regional damage and the ineptitude of the central government generate social discontent, especially when corruption is also widespread. The military, as we know from a previous article in Asian Affairs, are taking the lead in moving refugees and supplies around the country. They have their own agenda in playing the role of the saviours of the people but even the generals may struggle to hold the country together. Pakistan is looking less and less like a country and rather more like a collection of regions where local leaders, religious, tribal or factional, are able to assert high degrees of independence. The Northwest Territories, Punjab, Balochistan and Sindh are already seeing inter-religious violence, separatism and opposition to Islamabad. The Islamic terrorist organisations such as Pakistan Taliban, al-Q'aeda and Laskar-e-Taiba seem to be able to operate freely all over the country and, whether they are being secretly supported by the ISI or sections of the military or not, they represent a threat to the rule of law and the stability of the nation. Pakistan can tear itself apart or it can heal itself. We can only hope that the situation may be contained in the short term and that the vested interests and disruptive factions can be subordinated to a positive and peaceful rebuilding so that Pakistan can join in the comity of nations in the region.

Stacey McDonald
Glasgow

Communists must adapt to new conditions

I agree with Kuldip Nayar, Worshipping a failed God (Oct. issue), that communist parties must adapt to the new conditions of global capitalism as they apply to India, or to any other country. Intransigence in any political movement is unhealthy but, when there are matters of principal at stake in the ongoing class conflict, parties of the left must stand firm. Property and profits are always at odds with the interests of the poor and the workers. Much is made of the failure of the socialist system but the collapse of the Soviet Union's economy was caused by a number of factors, political intransigence being one, certainly. There was also widespread corruption in the whole system. That corruption indicated the loss of idealism by the successors of the original revolutionaries and that in turn led to mass disillusionment amongst the people. The 'cold war' was invented by Britain and America to force the Soviets to devote a huge proportion of their GDP to the arms race and that divergence of resources into useless defence industries was even more telling in crippling the Soviet economy. Nevertheless, the main legacy of the Soviet experience for those on the left is the fact that the common people turned a backward country into an industrial superpower in a couple of generations without the aid of any capitalists, bankers or landlords. 

However, I feel Kuldip Nayar could be being a bit complacent when he says that younger people in the better paid industrial world are more concerned with consumerist values rather than social issues. It may appear so occasionally but that superficial situation can change rapidly. There are stark warnings for India, not just in the activities of the Naxalites but because India's underclass is massive and they can become much more militant. Capitalism is currently undergoing one of the worst of its periodic crises and the anti-capitalist demonstrations taking place all over America, of all places! and those in London and other capitals in recent weeks must be worrying to the economic/political elite. As they disemploy larger and larger numbers of their workers, could they be wondering if it is they who will suffer redundancy in the longer term future?

Tom Deegan
London

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