Elusive narratives and floods

Governments have managed to bungle, fudge, prevaricate & generally cock-up national responses to repeated inundations

Representatives of the Pakistan government are busy at the United Nations in New York. Foreign Secretary Aizaz Ahmed Chaudhry was in action on September 24 when he addressed the fifth ministerial meeting of the Global Counter Terrorism Forum (GCTF). There were brave words saying that Pakistan stood with the international community in dealing with the threat posed by foreign terrorists. Foreign terrorists? Coming from the representative of a government that has singularly failed to develop a national counter-terrorism strategy that is owned by all stakeholders, this might be considered ‘a bit rich’ as the saying goes. He babbled on about the need to develop a ‘persuasive logic’ in response to radical narratives, observing at the same time that there has not been an ounce of visible effort to create a narrative that countervails that purveyed so effectively by the extremists within our midst. And logic has never played much of a part in the national skills-bank.

In another forum the Adviser to the Prime Minister on National Security and Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz told the UN Climate Summit on the same day that climate change was ‘the unresolved issue’. Doubtless, thousands in Sindh and Punjab stood up waist deep in floodwater to applaud him. Once again we agree, and equally forced to point out that this and successive governments have managed to bungle, fudge, prevaricate and generally cock-up national responses to repeated inundations. Speaking in an unrelieved stream of broken-backed clichés, Mr Aziz wrapped up by placing the begging bowl for an additional five billion dollars annually to enable Pakistan to adapt to the impacts of climate change. He made a fair point when he said that Pakistan has a very low carbon footprint and suffers disproportionately from the effects of bigger beasts than us, but the dysjunction between words and deeds was painfully obvious — and both men were decidedly 1.5 litre engines for a three litre job.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 26^th, 2014.

Like Opinion & Editorial on Facebook, follow @ETOpEd on Twitter to receive all updates on all our daily pieces.