Elephant in the room

To the Economist, on the other hand, the prospects of peace shine distinctly brighter after Singh spoke in Srinagar than when Vajpayee worked the crowds nineteen months ago. But the magazine agreed with the Guardian that India’s problems in making friends with the Kashmiris are primarily political. Kashmiris, it said, had hoped for more political concessions while the PM came bearing mainly economic gifts. Kashmiris had hoped for the release of detainess and a unilateral ceasefire from Indian forces.

Politics of fear

In the three years since 9/11, an older balance is being hectically reworked in countries around the world: between civil liberties and public security. In Britain this week, sections of the media sounded alarmed that the scales may be tipping towards security and away from liberty.

The provocation was the Queen’s speech to Parliament, which focused ‘‘overwhelmingly’’ on security concerns: the introduction of identity cards, new anti-terrorist measures, curbs on anti-social behaviour, domestic violence and drivers using mobile phones.

Commentators agreed upon the need to acknowledge that the security agenda has changed in the 21st century. Yet, some accused Tony Blair and David Blunkett of playing a dangerous, and even cynical game. Fears of terrorism are being cannily conflated with fears of crime and with fears of asylum and immigration, they said. This was New Labour’s familiar Blairite bid to outflank the right.

It is also something more than that. In many ways, the political use of fear is nothing new, wrote Adam Curtis in the Guardian, politicians have always exaggerated threats to their advantage. But this time it is different. This time, politicians have turned to fear because ‘‘they feel their own sense of legitimacy and authority dwindling’’.

Politicians, concluded Curtis, are in the throes of a crisis of legitimacy and they have stumbled upon a way of restoring their power and authority. ‘‘Put simply, they have found a grand, dark force to protect people against, and they can use the power of the state to do this’’. Earlier, they promised us a bright future. Now, they promise to protect us from a terrifying one.

Disbelief once more

A.Q. Khan is more dangerous than Osama bin Laden, said former CIA chief George Tenet in the week when more evidence did the rounds linking the famous Pakistani scientist’s ‘‘private nuclear supermarket’’ with the crisis now brewing in Iran over its nuclear ambitions.

Reports in the western media despair at the ‘‘hermetic detention’’ of Khan in Pakistan. Western governments and the International Atomic Energy Agency who want to interview him to find out more about the countries and/or groups who were his customers, are not being allowed access. That reticence is fuelling suspicion that the Pakistani government may have something to hide, said one British paper, after a failed attempt to make contact with Khan in his isolated house in Islamabad.

The question of the Musharraf government’s double game is an abiding one in the western media. It is also an innocuous one. It makes a mandatory appearance every once in a while and then slips away again, unnoticed, till the next time. This week, Time asked: ‘‘Why Pakistan still isn’t aggressively pursuing the ex-Taliban leaders living inside the country’’. The article invoked reports by Afghan and western intelligence officials and the reported ‘‘impatience’’ in the White House with Musharraf. It was titled ‘Hiding in plain sight’.