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TUESDAY OCTOBER 21, 2014
AFGHANISTANTIMES
We a r e a n a t io n a l in st it u t io n a n d n o t t h e v o ice o f a go v t o r a p r iv a t e o r ga n iza t io n
AFGHANISTAN TIMES
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Editorial
Social media role in 2014
presidential polls
Social media is expanding our universe as we connect with others or collect information easier and faster than ever, however its neutrality comes
under question at times as there is no filter of censorship. If there is any,
it’s self-censorship. That’s up to the individual capacity whether they exercise self-censorship or just use it for the spread of hate speech. It means
the use of social media may go in any direction. To look at social media
causative role, we are going to look at its brighter side and positive influence. Social media is a healthy tool in putting to work in the service of
building a better world. However, given the nature of Afghanistan’s political and ethnic shape, it’s highly essential that individual commentators
should exercise responsibility. In Afghanistan the slip of tongue or slip of
finger tips may spark tensions, which is why social media users need to be
careful to local sensitivities. In the presidential election days many social
media users consciously and subconsciously used sensitive language, but
despite that there was no lack of such users who used this effective tool
much constructively and played a constructionist role in public awareness
about their right to vote and the influence they could make. To bring the
importance and social utility of social media into limelight, a panel was
held in Kabul on the second day of the Afghan Social Media Summit to
shed light on the role played by social media during the 2014 presidential
elections. The pros and cons of social media came under discussion where
participants gave different perspectives. The crux of the panel was positive as most of the panel participants were of the view that social media
facilitated citizens to engage in the polls and exercise their right to vote.
Social media and the right use of citizen journalism proved to be much
helpful in uncovering fraudulent practices during the elections by posting
pictures and videos on social media. Social media eroded all frontiers as
the posts of citizen journalists created transnational dialogues in areas
that couldn’t be reached by foreign analysts. Among the nations where
literacy rate is higher, the face of news has been changing, but positively.
What is important in a country like ours is the language used. It shouldn’t
cause tensions among the populace. It’s a causative tool for electoral violence if users indulge in campaign of mudslinging, slandering, and character assassination of political contenders. What is essential is social media
shouldn’t be used for spreading hate speech that contribute to ethnic tensions. This media shouldn’t be destructive at all as it can be used to mobilize youth for peaceful elections and it could be used as a pressure tool to
mount pressure on leaders to be responsive to the will of the voters.
Through this media the youth may shape debates on issues of social, political and cultural importance by shifting discussions on who or what community wants to vie for. When trustworthy content is missing it leads to
the misuse of social media therefore trustworthy content has a balanced
point view, worth buying for majority. It asks and answers the right questions and tries to inform and educate rather than stirring sensitivities.
By Titu Shadow son
and Aamna Shahwani
After a failed project on a strategic
trinity between Pakistan, Iran and
Afghanistan that had a bi-product
as dominance on Afghanistan the
warmth between Iran and Pakistan
too was lost as two bosses can’t
rule over a single region. The Iranian government was losing cool on
Pakistan since last few years but
it was never so desperate before
but we can see a fierce stand-off
between Pakistan and Iran. Since
last week there has been cross border exchange of fire between Pakistani Frontier Corps (FC) and Iranian Border Guards resulting the
death of 5-6 Pakistani soldiers and
number of injuries. Worse, the diplomatic face-off between the two
nations stretched itself to Geneva
and the issue was internationalized
and externalized.
Iran’s Parliament Speaker Ali
Larijani in a meeting with Senate
Chairman Nayyar Hussain
Bokhari in Geneva warned against
Pakistan backed terrorism in Iran.
On the other hand Iranian ambassador to Pakistan Ali Raza
Haghighian was summoned by the
foreign office, Islamabad on 18th
October and was briefed about the
‘aggression’ from Iranian side to
the Pakistani posts in Mand area
in Kech district. A diplomatic protest was lodged and he was requested to launch an investigation into
the matter. The Iranian Border
Guards have become furious and
in a number of occasions they
stormed the Pakistani military convoys killing several FC soldiers and
one junior FC officer. Wassey
Khan, the spokesperson for FC in
Balochistan stated that 30 Iranian
Border Guards infiltrated into Pakistani territory and took the area
hostage for around 6 hours. The
silenced diplomatic face-off between Pakistan and Iran is getting
worse day by day. What are the
reasons behind all these?
One of the reasons is Pakistani
Sunni terrorist groups’ unconditional support to the Islamic States
that was announced last week.
Though Pakistan might discard
saying it’s all about non-state actors, the nature of ISI is an open
secret. Global intelligence analysts
view the Mujahideen as the NonOfficial-Covert (NOC) operatives
of the ISI. The reach and potential
of the Mujahideen inside Pakistani
intelligence and military establishment is clear from the murder of
Pakistani Special Service Group
(SSG) military operations’ head
Major General Amir Faisal by his
junior officers like Colonel Haroon
and some Majors. Major General
Amir was murdered because of his
‘inability’ to save his famous journalist sister Nadira Naipaul from
entering into interfaith marriage
with an Indian nationalist writer
Lord Suraj Prasad Naipaul. This is
the level extremism has seeped
into Pakistani establishment where
even a Major can assassinate the
Major General at will.
Iran believes that the Islamic
States (IS) has the backing of Pakistan. The IS has opened its
Balochistan chapter named Lashkar-e-Khurasan (LeK) in
Balochistan whose primary agenda is to weaken and eliminate the
Shia Muslims from Balochistan
along with the Hindus of the area.
LeK has been involved in massacring the Zikris which don’t fulfill
the Islamic standard set by the IS.
Iran believes that the Pakistan’s
creation of LeK is the indication
of their long term venom against
Iran. The anti-Shia sentiment of IS
will reflect itself in terms of terrorism inside the Iranian territory.
Though Pakistan maintains the
image of a coordinator among the
two warring sects of Islam, the
Shias and Sunnis and tries to unite
them under one umbrella with the
excuse of global jihad, Pakistan has
to appease its Sunni extremists as
majority of the Pakistani population is Sunni.
Iran also believes that the
Baloch rebels inside Sistan-waBalochistan, the Baloch populated province in Iran, are being sponsored by Pakistani agencies. Strategically the case of the Iranian
Baloch rebels is a complicated
matter. The Balch rebels inside
Pakistan do have a secular and socialist cover but just cross the border and they will be found to be
Sunni extremists. There is no meaning being an Islamic extremist in
Pakistan and ask for partition and
as a result the Baloch have to take
the socialist ideology which is not
needed in Iran to further the separatist or ‘liberation’ agenda. Iran is
a Shia nation and the Iranian Baloch
are Sunnis and that’s why the main
separatist organization in Sistan is
Jandullah-Iran. Despite joint adventures by Baloch rebels in Pakistan and Iran there has never been
an official acceptance of a bond
between the two rebel units. However Iranian officials believe that
Pakistan is supporting terrorism
inside Iran and backing the Baloch
Sunni extremists, who have chosen the path of Sunni extremism
to have a separate land from Shia
Iran.
The Iranian military officials
have delivered statements in the
media alleging Pakistan trained
militants infiltrating Iranian Territory. A top Revolutionary Guard
commander Abdollah Araghi categorically delivered a statement to
the State TV on Saturday that they
have prepared a dossier on Pakistani infiltration bids and Pakistan
backed terrorism inside Iranian territory and it will be submitted to
the Iranian government’s political
and security officials.
Iran-Pakistan face-off was always there but Iran never wanted
to lose Pakistan that could worsen
the security of Iran due to the IranArab stand-off and Shia-Sunni
stand-off, however now Iran is in
Can they all be winners?
By Dr Ahmed Mokhtar
AMID A cautious optimism, Cairo
hosted last week the second meeting of the tripartite committee,
which is responsible for studying
the situation of the Ethiopian Renaissance dam, with the participation of ministers from Egypt,
Sudan and Ethiopia. The Egyptians recalled the way the Muslim
Brotherhood group dealt with this
matter of strategic importance
when they were in power, and
compared that with how the current political leadership is handling
it. The Muslim Brotherhood’s approach in dealing with the Renaissance dam was one of the main reasons that made Egyptians feel the
inability of the group to lead Egypt
safely, especially after broadcasting a live feed of a meeting between
the former Egyptian president
Mohammed Mursi with several
political figures while discussing
different scenarios to deal with
Ethiopia regarding the dam, including threatening the latter militarily, which was an unprecedented
and unacceptable way of dealing
with a serious crisis. The Ethiopians reacted to that televised meet-
ing by insisting on completing the
dam construction project in a
shorter-than-planned timetable.
On the other hand, the current
Egyptian leadership is approaching the crisis politically, and is trying to solve the problems through
negotiations which were halted
during the period between January to August of this year following a failure in reaching an agreement on the recommendations of
the international committee of experts concerning the completion of
the dam’s studies. Negotiations
resumed after Egypt’s President
Abdul Fattah Al Sisi met with the
Ethiopian Prime Minister,
Hailemariam Desalegn, on the sidelines of the African Union Summit
last June, and both sides stressed
on their good intensions towards
each other. Several meeting took
place afterwards between representatives of Egypt, Sudan and
Ethiopia, with the last one held in
Cairo last week to decide on choosing a consulting office to be responsible for preparing complementary studies recommended by
the international committee in its
report last year. It concerns assess-
ing the environmental, social and
economic impacts of the dam on
Egypt and Sudan, as the river
Nile’s downstream states. Last
week’s meeting was coincided with
Al Sisi’s eagerness to show support for better relations with Sudan
and Ethiopia. This positive atmosphere is giving hope to the Egyptian people that their country is
winning back its due share in the
region, while knowing that water
is a lifeline to Egypt, since more
than 90 per cent of its people live
along the banks of the Nile.
It is important to note that
Egyptians do not deny any of the
Nile basin countries’ right to establish water projects, as long as
they do not harm Egypt in any
way. That’s why Egyptians remain
wary of the current crisis with Ethiopia. The Egyptian fears are not
related to what some unofficial reports speculate about the collapse
of the dam as a result of geological
factors. Moreover, early studies of
the construction of the Renaissance dam said its height will only
be at 84.5 meters with a storage
capacity of 11.1 billion cubic
meters, and might need to be ex-
search of a trustworthy and harmless strategic ally. Iran is counting
on India. India and Iran has always
been business partner and the gaspipeline project between Iran and
India has always been an apple of
discord for Pakistan which always
poked nose into this matter and
blackmailed both the nations. Iran
has also desperately exploited the
goodwill of India by ideologically
and in other ways supporting the
Kashmiri jihad. Iran wasn’t donating India the oil and gas it receives
but India purchased that, still the
political behavior of Iran to India
was somewhat to master and slave,
credit might go to the spineless
governance of India at that time
however now the situation swiftly changed and drastic strategic and
diplomatic games are being played
in India. China, Vietnam, Japan,
Australia, USA, Russia, Israeleveryone wants ally with India
whose new government is now
deciding the terms of alliance. Iran
has the confidence that India can
contain the Pakistani threat and
unnecessary nose-poking in IndiaIran matters. That is why Iran can
now compromise Pakistan for India. While the Modified India is
confident and trustworthy, Pakistan can’t be trusted as a strategic
ally by any single nation. Pakistan’s political character is like a
prostitute sleeping with different
strategic partners in morning and
evening. On one hand it receives
military aid from America and on
the other hand it conducts joint
military exercises with China. Pakistan maintains relation with both
Iran and Arab. A Pakistan which
was formed by religious extremist
leaders from Shia sect, has now
become the worst house for Shias
and been taken over by Sunni extremists. Iran has legitimate reasons to run out of goodwill for
Pakistan and it is running out.
The authors are strategic analysts based in Quetta and New
Delhi.
tended to 90 meters and 24.3 billion cubic meters of storage capacity. The Egyptian leadership is
certain about the necessity to reach
an agreement between all parties
involved, and that Ethiopia shares
the same view, especially if the
complementary studies confirmed
the Egyptian fears and suggested
the construction of the dam according to the early studies. This
way, all the parties will come out
of the crisis in a win-win situation. Egypt’s fears will come to an
end and Ethiopia will get rid of the
finances’ burden, which is estimated at $8 billion. While the construction of the Gilgel Gibe III dam,
which was started in 2006, is yet
to be finished because of the inability to provide $2 billion, and
the reluctance of international financial institutions to fund water
dams because they are not economically viable. Additionally, Sudan
will also come out as a winner since
it doesn’t have to worry about a
possible catastrophic collapse of
the Renaissance dam, besides
strengthening ties with Egypt and
Ethiopia and benefiting from that
as a support during its strained
relations with South Sudan.—
(Khaleej Times)
Dr Ahmed Mokhtar is the
deputy editor in chief of Al Ahram Al Masaai.
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