“Dating back to Jinnah, Pakistan has a history of overcoming difficulties” : President Obama to Dawn News.
From The Dawn
WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama, in an exclusive interview to Dawn, has said that he believes the Pakistani state is strong enough to win the military offensive against the extremists.
In this first-ever one-on-one interview by any US president to the Pakistani media, Mr Obama assured the Pakistani nation that he has no desire to seize Pakistan’s nuclear weapons or send US troops inside the country.
The US president also emphasised the need for resuming the dialogue process between India and Pakistan, which was stalled after the Mumbai terrorist attacks in November last year.
The interview covered a wide-range of subjects — from the controversy involving the Iranian presidential election to Mr Obama’s speech in Cairo earlier this month in which he called for a new beginning between the Muslim and the Western worlds.
The venue, the White House diplomatic room with murals of early settlers, brought out the importance of Mr Obama’s historic victory in last year’s general election.
Close to the murals — under the watchful eyes of George Washington — sat a man who overcame gigantic hurdles to become America’s first non-White president.
Here was a man tasked with finding a graceful end to two unpopular wars — in Iraq and Afghanistan — and to steer America, and the rest of the world, out of an unprecedented economic crisis.
Yet, when he strolled into this oval-shaped room, Mr Obama seemed completely at ease with himself. Tall and slim, the 47-year-old US president had the youngish looks of a man who works out daily.
He walked straight towards the camera, greeting everyone, shook hands, occupied the chair reserved for him, and started talking about how he had a special affection for Pakistan and its people.
Asked to comment on Ayatollah Khamenei’s statement that the US was interfering in Iran’s internal affairs, Mr Obama said what’s happening in Iran was remarkable. ‘To see hundreds of thousands of people in peaceful protest against an election that obviously raised a lot of doubts tells us that this is an issue that the Iranian people care deeply about.’
The US and the West, he said, had been very clear that this was not an issue between the West and Iran; this was an issue about the Iranian people seeking justice and wanting to make sure that their voices were heard.
‘And it’s unfortunate that there are some inside Iran and inside that government that want to use the West and the United States as an excuse,’ he said.
‘We respect Iran’s sovereignty, but we also are witnessing peaceful demonstrations, people expressing themselves, and I stand for that universal principle that people should have a voice in their own lives and their own destiny. And I hope that the international community recognises that we need to stand behind peaceful protests and be opposed to violence or repression.’
Mr Obama said that since there were no international observers in Iran, he could not say if the elections were fair or unfair. ‘But beyond the election, what’s clear is that the Iranian people are wanting to express themselves. And it is critical, as they seek justice and they seek an opportunity to express themselves, that that’s respected and not met with violence.’
‘Your speech in Cairo indeed was a speech that created a lot of stir, both in the US and in the Muslim world. Was it the beginning of something bigger to come, or was it just a one-off thing? He was asked.
‘No, I think that this is going to be a sustained process. As I said in Cairo, one speech is not going to transform policies and relationships throughout the Middle East or throughout the world,’ Mr Obama responded.
‘But what I wanted to do was to describe very clearly that the United States not only respects Muslim communities around the world but that there’s an opportunity for I think a new day, where there’s mutual understanding, mutual tolerance; where the United States is seen as somebody who stands with people in their daily aspirations for an education for their children, for good jobs, for economic development,’ he said.
‘And just as the United States at times has, I think, not fully understood what’s happening in Muslim communities, sometimes there have been countries that haven’t understood the rich history of Muslims in America,’ he added.
‘As I mentioned in that speech, it was Morocco that was the first nation to recognise the United States. We have Muslim Americans who are doing extraordinary things. In fact, their educational attainment and income is generally above the average here in the United States. We have Muslim members of Congress. And, in fact, we have 5 million Muslims, which would make us larger than many other countries that consider themselves Muslim countries.’
Mr Obama then explained how he plans to further expand the peace process he introduced in Cairo.
‘So what we want to do is just begin to open up a dialogue around which we can constructively work together to deal with significant issues,’ he said, acknowledging that ‘part one of those issues is the issue of the Middle East.’
Mr Obama explained that he has been ‘very aggressive’ in saying that Israelis and Palestinians have to resolve their differences and create two states that can live side by side in peace and security.
He said he also has put forward a special envoy, George Mitchell, a former majority leader of the US Senate, to work with the parties involved.
‘But part of the key is also to isolate the extremists who have been wreaking havoc around the world. And we’re seeing that now in Pakistan, and I think the Pakistani government and the people of Pakistan recognise that the kind of mindless violence that we’ve been seeing, that that cannot be the answer to long-term prosperity.’
His comments led to a larger discussion on Pakistan and the issues confronting this nation of 170 million people.
‘Some people say that it is still too early to push Pakistan into a military offensive in South Waziristan; that the Pakistan army, and the Pakistani state, is not strong enough to win this war and that it may break up the country.
What do you say?’
‘Well, let me make two points. Number one, nobody can or should push the Pakistani government. The Pakistani government is accountable to the people of Pakistan,’ said Mr Obama.
‘I think the Pakistani government and the people of Pakistan recognise that when you have extremists who are assassinating moderate clerics like Dr Naeemi, when you have explosions that are killing innocent women and children, that that can’t be the path for development and prosperity for Pakistan,’ he said.
‘And so there’s been a decision that’s made that we support, that the Pakistani military and the Pakistani government will not stand by idly as extremists attempt to disrupt the country,’ Mr Obama said.
‘But ultimately these are decisions to be made by the Pakistani government and the Pakistani people. What the United States believes is, is that we are a partner in the process of peace-loving nations seeking to root out extremism, increase development, and that is the kind of role that we want to play with Pakistan.’
‘Do you believe the Pakistani state is strong enough to win this war?’
‘I have confidence in the Pakistani people and the Pakistani state in resolving differences through a democratic process and to isolate extremists. Dating back to Jinnah, Pakistan has always had a history of overcoming difficulties. There’s no reason why it can’t overcome those difficulties today,’ Mr Obama said.
‘Going back to what we discussed about the Muslim world, there are issues that are too difficult even to discuss – for instance, the Indians don’t even want the ‘K’ word (Kashmir) to be mentioned to them. In your inaugural speech you did mention Kashmir and after that it had been absent from your statements and those of other officials in your administration. Why?’ he was asked.
‘I don’t think that we’ve been silent on the fact that India is a great friend of the United States and Pakistan is a great friend of the United States, and it always grieves us to see friends fighting. And we can’t dictate to Pakistan or India how they should resolve their differences, but we know that both countries would prosper if those differences are resolved,’ said Mr Obama.
‘And I believe that there are opportunities, maybe not starting with Kashmir but starting with other issues, that Pakistan and India can be in a dialogue together and over time to try to reduce tensions and find areas of common interest,’ he said.
‘And we want to be helpful in that process, but I don’t think it’s appropriate for us to be the mediators in that process. I think that this is something that the Pakistanis and Indians can take leadership on.’
Asked if he was urging India to resume bilateral talks with Pakistan, Mr Obama said: ‘Well, what we have said is that we think that all of South Asia would benefit by reduced tensions between India and Pakistan. I think that dialogue is the best way to reduce tensions.’
Mr Obama noted that recently the Indian and Pakistani leaders met at a regional conference in Russia. Although they did not hold an extensive conversation, it was the start of what may end up being more productive talks in the future.
‘Well, I won’t engage in hypotheticals like that,’ said Mr Obama when asked if the US could seize Pakistan’s nuclear weapons to prevent the Taliban from capturing them. ‘I have confidence that the Pakistani government has safeguarded its nuclear arsenal. It’s Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal.’
His main concern, said Mr Obama, was to make sure that the Taliban and other extremist organisations were not taking root in South Asia, Afghanistan and the Middle East.
‘And we want to partner with everybody to make sure that this cancer does not grow. One of the things that I said in my speech in Cairo is that Islam has an extraordinary tradition of tolerance and peaceful coexistence and that tradition is being distorted and being warped,’ he said.
‘We do not want to be in a position where we’re having to send troops to Afghanistan, for example. We would love the Afghans’ government to be secure and stable so that it can ensure that it does not become a safe haven for organisations like Al Qaeda,’ he said.
‘We would much prefer being a partner with countries like Afghanistan or Pakistan, and simply work together on issues of common interest like commerce and increasing trade and improving development in all countries,’ he said.
‘But it’s very difficult to do that if you have people who have distorted a great religion and are now trying to wreak havoc not only in the West but most often directed against fellow Muslims in places like Pakistan. And that is something that we will always stand against.’
Responding to a question about drone attacks inside Pakistan’s tribal zone, Mr Obama said he did not comment on specific operations.
‘But I will tell you that we have no intention of sending US troops into Pakistan. Pakistan and its military are dealing with their security issues.’
The US, he said, was focussing on helping those displaced during recent military operations.
‘Our primary goal is to be a partner and a friend to Pakistan and to allow Pakistan to thrive on its own terms, respecting its own traditions, respecting its own culture. We simply want to make sure that our common enemies, which are extremists who would kill innocent civilians, that that kind of activity is stopped, and we believe that it has to be stopped whether it’s in the United States or in Pakistan or anywhere in the world.’
‘Any plan to visit Pakistan in the near future?’
‘I would love to visit. As you know, I had Pakistani roommates in college who were very close friends of mine. I went to visit them when I was still in college; was in Karachi and went to Hyderabad. Their mothers taught me to cook,’ said Mr Obama.
‘What can you cook?’
‘Oh, keema … daal … You name it, I can cook it. And so I have a great affinity for Pakistani culture and the great Urdu poets.’
‘You read Urdu poetry?’
‘Absolutely. So my hope is that I’m going to have an opportunity at some point to visit Pakistan,’ said Mr Obama.
‘And obviously one of the things that I think ties our countries together is the extraordinary Pakistani-American community that is here in the United States who are thriving and doing great work as physicians and as lawyers and as business people. And one of the great opportunities I think for Pakistan is to be able to draw on all this talent and extraordinary entrepreneurship to help provide concrete benefits to the Pakistani people, and I think that’s one of the biggest challenges for Pakistan,’ he said.
‘We want to be a partner in opening up trade opportunities, but making sure that people on the ground, day to day, they’re getting an education, children are going to school, that farmers are able to get a decent compensation for their products, that electricity and infrastructure is built, because I know the Pakistani people and I know that if the tools are there available to them, then they will thrive and continue to be a great nation.’
‘Some people say that you’re against some of the restrictions introduced in the House version of the aid to Pakistan bill. Are you?’
‘Well, my view is, is that we have to help Pakistan – to provide them the resources that will allow for development. Now, we have in the past supported, I think, Pakistan militarily. I think it is important to make sure that military support is directed at extremists and our common enemies,’ said Mr Obama.
‘But I also think that the relationship between the United States and Pakistan can’t just be based on military-to-military cooperation. It’s got to be based on something richer that involves development and exchanges of students and business people. And so we want to encourage that kind of work, as well,’ he said.
‘And we helped to lead an effort that raised $5 billion of development assistance for Pakistan at a donors’ conference in Japan, hundreds of millions of dollars that we’re trying to provide to support internally displaced people. That’s the kind of strategy that I think will bring our countries closer together. And having known the people of Pakistan, I am convinced that the future between our two countries can be very, very bright.’
‘You cannot escape cricket while living with Pakistanis. Did they leave a cricket bat with you?’
‘You know, I have to say that I have tried to get up to bat a couple of times, but I’ve been terrible. So I’m an admirer of great cricket players, but make no claims in terms of my own skills,’ said Mr Obama, breaking into a broad smile.
DawnNews will telecast the full interview at 12 noon today (Sunday) and repeat it at 14:30, 16:30 and 18:30.
Foolishly, I didn’t actually keep a diary during this trip, and unlike my stay in Japan, this time around there wasn’t a computer downstairs for me to use. So, I’ve returned from two of the most intense weeks of my life, my head swimming with emotions, ideas, and information, and I hardly know where to begin.
Where to begin…. How about this? I’ll start off with a few random thoughts, and then sketch out the overview in this post — the itinerary — so that my subsequent postings can focus in on the particular nuggets of experience.
Random thought one — the smartest thing I did was get a cell phone my first day in Kenya, and I advise everyone travelling to Africa to do this. It cost me just $30 for the phone and roughly 200 minutes of domestic calling time. A phone is necessary, in my view, because the country seems to run on cell phones, even moreso than in the United States or Europe. People even lend money to their friend by transfering cash via their cell phones. Whether one is walking around the glitz of downtwon Nairobi, the pristine halls of academia, an impoverished city ghetto, or among subsistance farmers in the country where people are practically starving, one will see cell phones everywhere. It seems to epitomize the paradox of globalization where poverty and wealth, traditional culture and modern technology, exist side-by-side. And pragmatically, cell phones almost seem essential for getting around a country where the disparity between rich and poor is so intense that the city seems to be not so much a grid of streets but a series of guarded compounds. And that leads me to random thought number two.
Danger. A few days after I arrived, my Ugandan friend living in Kenya asked me how my trip was going and if anything surprised me. I answered that everything was going well and that not much was surprising, but that was a lie. Everything was going well, but there was something that profoundly surprised me — something I’d never seen before in my travels (and I’ve travelled a lot). What surprised me is how much Nairobi is a police state. The police that I saw, however, were not government police, but privately run security. I was advised by everyone not to walk alone… anywhere, anytime. I didn’t take this as seriously as I should have until one evening my taxi pulled up to the gate of the guest house where we were staying. My friends and I were parting ways, they continuing on in the taxi, but we were saying goodbye, still chatting, exchanging parting gifts, taking our time to exit the vehical, when out of the shadows two men armed with large machine guns (M-16 rifles, I think) peered in and asked us what was the matter. They worked for the security company that my guest house had hired — a guest house run by Catholic nuns, I want to add in a desparate attempt to be ironic.
Random thought number three. The image of Kenya that most Americans have is the romantic Hollywood images of Tarzan , Madagascar , Out of Africa , and The Green Hills of Africa — that is to say, an image of the safari into the untouched wilderness, a journey back in time to an Eden-like pre-modern world. And still today the Kenya government promotes this nostalgic image because of all the cash it generates; it is one of the largest sectors (if not the largest sector) of Kenya’s economy. Ironically, the main cell phone company is called Safaricom. But whether that image was ever really true (or just a convenient motif invented by British colonials to justify their pillaging of the land and violent removal of the indigenous farming communities), it certainly isn’t true today. Today, except for the national parks and wildlife preserves maintained for tourists, Africa is crowded with people, not just in the cities but also in the countryside — more crowded, it felt to me, than the United States and Europe; land scarcity is one of the primary causes of ethnic violence; in some areas, the percentage of the populations with HIV-AIDS is 30%; and deforestation and industrial farming has caused permanent environmental damage. Once pristine lakes are now repositories of raw sewage, chemical fertilizers, and soil erosion. Whether all this is primarily the effects of neocolonial/neoliberal capitalism or of a corrupt government is still a matter of debate, but one has to acknowledge that the “nation” of Kenya began its history with a serious handicap. After a long fight for their independence, the terms of that indpendence in 1963 left their nation in debt to the very colonial powers that had ransacked it of its wealth for the previous century. It’s hard for a fledgling government to build infrastructure when the largest chunk of its budget goes not to police, education, roads, environmental regulation, or sanitation, but to servicing its debt.
I apologize if my random thoughts are negative and dreary, but I have my reasons. First, I want to disillusion you that this blog will engage in romantic portraits of gazelles leaping through the bushes, but more importantly, it sets the stage for the raison d’etre of our trip — which was to see the many ways in which the people of Kenya are trying to solve all its problems. My colleagues and I were deeply impressed by the work we saw, and we have perhaps never met a group of people more deserving of the title “saint” than those we met on this trip.
So, to finish this blog post and prepare the way for the posts I plan to write over the next few days, I want to give an overview of the itinerary. But of course, before I do that, I have a couple of prefatory remarks. (Come on, you must know me well enough by now to expect these things!!!) The trip was organized by another faculty member at my university, so the itinerary was his and his alone, though during our few “free” hours here and there, I could pursue my own agenda. Basically, for the most part, I was along for the ride (literally, since we spent quite a bit of the trip being driven here and there), but I am grateful for it — what an amazing ride it was!
One other prefatory remark. Although the trip was billed as a “faculty development” trip, it was really a “delegation” with two distinct, though related, agendas that I would describe as more “missionary” than “scholarly.” The first agenda was to build upon an already existing relationship with a Catholic university in Nairobi in hopes of engendering future student and faculty exchange, and the second was to represent the St. Cloud diocese in Minnesota and bolster its “solidarity” with the Homa Bay diocese in Kenya. I put the word “solidarity” in quotes because I plan to discuss this in more depth in a later post. The advantage of this kind of trip is that we gained access to all kinds of places and people that visitors to a country (any country) rarely have access to. The disadvantage is that the singular focus and missionary nature of the trip limits the perspective. In other words, there was really only one perspective, and consequently, it felt at times as though there was little room for dissensus, critical thinking, or scholarly inquiry, which made the non-Catholic academics on the trip (such as myself) a bit uncomfortable at times. All that said, in addition to the two agendas, some time was set set aside for us to be tourists. (Possibly too much could be made of this odd combination of tourism and sense of mission, but I won’t go there.)
Anyway, you’ll see what I mean when you see the itinerary:
Day One: we met with Catholic Relief Services in the morning, and in the afternoon toured the Bomas museum of traditional huts.
Day Two: we toured the Catholic University of Eastern Africa in the morning and in the afternoon visited with the Benedictine community there.
Day three: visited the institute of Islamic Studies (which turned out not to exist, oops) at the Catholic University in the morning and then toured the Nairobi National Park in the afternoon.
Day four: visited with the Kenya Human Rights commission in the morning; free time in the afternoon. I chose to spend my free time first meeting a friend of a friend who is working on behalf of the Borana Oromo, a people indigenous to northern Kenya. After that, I visited an old friend from graduate school, which fortuitously led to attending a wonderful play. More on that later.
Day five: visited the Cardinal Maurice Otunga Girl’s Empowerment Center in the morning and then in the afternoon visited the Christ the King church/school/library mission inside of Kibera, one of the largest and poorest slums in the world.
Day six: visited museums and downtown Nairobi (including the famous Masai market) in the morning and in the afternoon met with People for Peace in Africa and its friends in the literary community (which coincidentally included people who knew my friends in the literary community, which turned out to be very lucky for all sorts of reasons as I’ll explain later.)
Day seven (Sunday): mass at an African Catholic church (which I skipped not for any religious qualms, but because this was the only time I could meet with someone I desperately wanted to talk to — a friend of a friend who works on behalf of Oromo refugees from Ethiopia living in Kenya), and then in the afternoon we boarded a plane to Kishimu and there got in a minivan bound for Homa Bay, a town that faces Lake Victoria.
Day eight: in the morning we met with Catholic Relief Services in Homa Bay, and in the afternoon visited a school and a hospital.
Day nine: this was probably the most significant day of the whole trip. In the morning, we visited CRS “project sites”, which were the homes of impoverished farmers who had been impacted by the AIDS epidemic in one way or another and which CRS was helping get back on their feet. Then we visited a Day of the African Child celebration, and then a festival at a local parish. Lastly, we met with a group of men and women, all subsistance farmers struggling with poverty and HIV, who with the help of CRS had created a ”Savings and Internal Lending Community” or SILC.
Day ten: after a morning boat tour of Lake Victoria, we had lunch with the Bishop of Homa Bay, and then returned to Nairobi.
Day eleven: our last day was left for last minute shopping, but instead I took two of my colleagues to an Oromo Christian Fellowship meeting in the middle of the Gidorai slum so that we could talk with Oromo refugees and so that I could give a brief presentation on Ogina: Oromo Arts in Diaspora .
Then we came back to the United States. Stay tuned for more Nairobi Diaries….
VNBusinessNews.com - Due to shrinking orders, falling prices and other difficulties on the domestic market, in April and May 2009 the US market has become a potential market for many businesses. Russia and the Middle East have also drawn a lot of attention from businesses although they have only imported a small amount of wooden products in the first few months of this year.
Not easy to sustain the domestic market
When facing problems in the export market, foodstuff and customer goods often find opportunities in the domestic market and consider it a good way of overcoming difficulties. However, wood businesses have said that it has not been easy to increase their sales on the domestic market.
According to wood businesses, since early this year, domestic purchasing power has decreased due to the economic difficulties and customers have cut down on unnecessary products, including wooden products. Another important reason causing the fall in turnover from the domestic market is that the real estate market is frozen, leading to a decrease in the purchasing power.
Vice chairman and general secretary of the Vietnam Wood and Forestry Products Association (Vietfores), Nguyen Ton Quyen, said that currently the customer taste for wood products has not changed. They like products made from natural wood, instead of made-made composites.
General Director of the Truong Thanh Wood Processing Joint Stock Company, Vo Truong Thanh added that wood businesses must change their production and forward planning from marketing to designing and distribution if they want to successfully return to the domestic market. However, to fulfill this task will take at least 3 or 4 years while obstacles will always appear. Currently, wood enterprises are focusing on two potential fields: producing chairs, tables and learning facilities for schools in remote and mountainous areas and markets that are urbanizing rapidly and use a lot of wooden products.
Hoping for the best
Wooden exports in the first half of this year are estimated to have reached US$1.3 billion, down by 30% compared to the same period last year, according to Vietfores.
A survey that Vietfores conducted in the central province of Binh Dinh and southern province of Dong Nai showed that many businesses are in difficulty because of the shortage of orders. In addition, export prices have fallen by around 10-15% compared to before while the prices of input materials, transport and electricity have increased, making more than 70 percent of enterprises face bankruptcy.
Nguyen Ton Quyen said that to cope with these problems, in addition to maintaining the traditional markets such as Japan, the EU and the US, wood businesses should pay more attention to new markets, like Russia and the Middle East. Since March 2009, businesses began to seek opportunities in new markets, including Russia. However, it is difficult to convert from the Rouble to US$ and the Euro. Therefore, businesses have proposed that the Government deal with the issue to access this market more easily.
Recently, the Truong Thanh Company has begun to penetrate the Russian and Middle Eastern markets. However, it has only earned a small amount from these markets. Therefore, to penetrate these markets more effectively, the State and businesses must develop a long-term strategy.
Vo Truong Thanh said that in April and May the US market showed signs of recovery when exports increased by 12% and some US importers were reported as buying Vietnamese products instead of Chinese ones. As this current pace, many businesses hope that the US market will fully recover sooner than the EU. (VOV)
A Midland community committee investigating school closures took a bus tour of elementary buildings Thursday. Between stops, members gave thumbnail sketches of the buildings. This is the second in a series on those presentations. Adams Elementary School information presented by Angela Brandstadt is summarized below.
Adams School was built in 1964, and classrooms were added in in the 1980s and 2000. Three portables are currently in use, one for storage.
Sinking fund money has been used for improvements to bathrooms and the parking lot. An electrical upgrade is planned in 2011.
With 500 students at the end of the 2008-09 school year, Adams has the largest elementary enrollment in the district. It is at 90 percent capacity, and has an average general education class size of 25. In 2009-10, there will be four sections each of fifth and third grade, and three sections of all other grades.
Twenty-four percent of Adams students are schools of choice, from both inside and outside the district.
Adams is a true neighborhood school. There is no busing of general education students except for midday kindergarten runs.
Students east of Swede are in the Northeast Middle School/Midland High School attendance area. Those west of Swede are in the Jefferson/Dow High area.
Adams is diverse, with students from a wide range of economic backgrounds and from all over the world, including Japan, Brazil, Argentina, Switzerland, Germany, France, the UK and Belgium.
The PTO is very active. It pays for all field-trip busing, including an annual fourth-grade trip to Lansing. The PTO also provides a supply stipend to each teacher and funds “wish list” items like literacy stations, new rugs, and Proximas.
The PTO also funds speakers and camp scholarships and sponsors the annual carnival, ice cream social, holiday shop and Count Me In. It is purchasing almost $20,000 in new technology equipment for classrooms. In addition, parents are very active volunteers.
A Camp Fire program at the school provides before- and after-school care. There are other day cares in the area, including Montessori. Building and grounds are used after hours by scout groups, basketball practice, Little League, and soccer and baseball practice.
The building is also used in the summer for extended-year programs for special needs students and the week-long Camp Invention program.
Adams students consistently perform very well on the Michigan Educational Assessment Program tests.
Ten of the 11 teachers in the building with school-age children send them to Adams. Most are school-of-choice students.
Over the last two years, 12 teachers have trained for the Instructional Consultation Team, and four have trained in Cultures of Thinking. Teachers have also learned how to differentiate teaching for all students, to compensate for the elimination of Advanced and Accelerated programs next year.
