Protestors
in Pakistan burn effigy of General Musharraf
Pakistan
at Risk From Banana Republic Status Under Army
By
Ayaz Amir
ISLAMABAD:
By all accounts, visiting Pakistan has been a wonderful experience
- the most favored adjective being 'overwhelming' - for Indians
coming to watch the cricket here. Whatever they expected, they
weren't quite prepared for the spontaneous warmth and hospitality
they encountered.
Should
this have been surprising? Both countries have demonized each
other but, speaking for Pakistan, it's a fact little recognized
in India that, except at the hands of the hard-core fringe standing
guard over the 'ideology of Pakistan', the demonizing of India
stopped a long time ago.
Official
policies are a different matter. Kashmir too falls in a category
all its own. Post-1989 Kashmir, in any case, was a problem invented
and manufactured by Indian ineptitude. Pakistan merely exploited
it although, in all fairness, it went on exploiting it even when
no one was quite sure what the ultimate objective was.
But
virulent, knee-jerk anti-Indianism, a part of the national psyche
for much of Pakistan's formative years, or the "Crush India"
stickers pasted on vehicles in Lahore during the 1971 war, became
discarded notions long ago.
Lost
amongst Pakistan's jihadi image is the little-appreciated circumstance
that in important respects the country has moved on. Certainly
as far as India is concerned, it is no longer slave to the old
shibboleths. Considering that the official 'enemy' was India and
that the real or perceived threat from India has defined Pakistan's
national security posture, this is not a minor change.
Cricket
hasn't created anything new. It hasn't begotten feelings or emotions
not there before. It has only held up a gleaming mirror to reality.
For a record number of Indians it provided an opportunity to step
beyond standard, everyday demonology and experience at first hand
feelings at the popular level they never knew existed.
If
Pakistanis in large numbers visit India it will be a learning
experience for them too. Taxis will not refuse fares nor shopkeepers
lower their prices, no fear of that happening.
But
they'll probably learn something about the vastness of India,
its new concerns centered on growth, commerce and industry and
the fact that whereas Pakistan can be a convenient whipping boy
in times of crisis, India has too much on its plate to spend too
much time thinking about Pakistan. The old cliche, about travel
being a wonderful education never more applied than to our two
countries.
Pakistan,
however, has moved on in other respects as well. Contrary to what
Pakistan's official posture might lead someone to conclude, two
other emotions define the Pakistani mood today. One, a profound
distaste for the role of American lackey, the other, an equally
profound yearning for -- and this is a shorthand word for a variety
of objectives -- democracy.
Pakistan
has lost what appetite it had for being governed by the old fears.
Which doesn't mean there's any sentiment for appeasement or bidding
farewell to Kashmir. At the same time all the evidence suggests
a quantum leap towards the realization that Pakistan's best interests
are served by a normal, sensible relationship with India, one
veering between misplaced sentimentalism and pre-programmed hatred.
While
entertaining warm feelings for the United States (there's never
been any visceral anti-Americanism in Pakistan), Pakistanis feel
humiliated at the spectacle of their country acting as an American
toady.
The
religious parties aside, Pakistanis were never pro-Taliban, their
governments were. Just as it is not the people of Pakistan who
are pro-Bush, only the Musharraf government.
The
people of Pakistan have remained steady. It is Pakistani governments,
tin pot affairs for the most part, which have been buffeted by
the winds of inconsistency. But who suffers the bad image? Pakistan
and its people.
What
accounts for the yearning for democracy and for rule by other
than khaki? Not any emotional longing for the return of either
of the two parties which between them mucked up Pakistan's ill-starred
decade of democracy, 1988-99.
Not
love for democracy in principle or as theory but a growing weariness
with authoritarianism because of the disasters it has meant in
practice. When concerned Pakistanis talk democracy, they are consulting
not Montesquieu or Mill but their own experience.
There's
also the growing awareness that Pakistan is most at risk from
banana republic status when the military is in command. Pakistan's
history testifies to this linkage.
On
India we are witnessing a remarkable convergence of perceptions
between the popular mood and the national security establishment.
In what is a first in the history of Pakistan, both want the clouds
of hostility to part.
The
popular mood has been like this for some time. The security establishment
has come round to this new way of thinking, thanks to American
sponsorship and tutelage.
If
September 11 had not happened and the Americans had not shown
the way, the presidential kitchen cabinet -- the four or five
men, including the president, who constitute the ruling politburo
-- would have been still belting out the old choruses.
On
this count at least banana republicanism has served Pakistan well.
Without American prodding the old India tunes, the golden oldies
with which the high command was most comfortable, would not have
changed.
But
that's about it. The American alliance may have its peripheral
benefits but most Pakistanis don't look with much favor or pride
at the way their country has become identified as a pliable instrument
in American hands. The Wana operation is a case in point.
It
has been widely condemned because of the perception (1) that it
was carried out at American behest and (2) that it was ill-prepared
and poorly executed, leading to unnecessary casualties.
This
picture of national disorder, of a national security machine out
of synch with the national mood, is behind the demands for a political
opening which heals the country's political fissures and allows
the two mainstream parties, the PPP and the PML-N, to play their
rightful role in national affairs.
If
the presidential kitchen cabinet had a monopoly on wisdom, it
would have been another matter. But its record being less than
infallible, the argument becomes stronger for giving a new direction
to a political system barely chugging along, a hybrid neither
fish now fowl, neither presidential nor parliamentary.
The
president's reluctance on this score is hard to understand. His
own position is secure and won't come under threat even if Shahbaz
Sharif and Benazir Bhutto return to the country.
Pakistan
will look good and its stock as a democracy can only improve in
the international community. The return of the two stalwarts should
also be good for the king's party, the Q League, because it will
have to look out for itself and improve its performance in order
to survive.
What
are the guardians of national security afraid of? Have they so
little confidence in themselves that they think that if the PPP
and the PML-N get going, their house of cards will fall? Doesn't
say much for their courage or for the strength of the system they
have so proudly spawned.
Consider
what our history has been. Every authoritarian figure has left
the country worse off than he found it. And with the fall or departure
of every strongman the country, instead of moving ahead, has gone
back to the beginning, to square one.
Gen
Musharraf has so much going for him. He has his qualities and,
as has been noted time and again, he has presided over a remarkably
tolerant dispensation.
No
military figure, not even a political figure, has taken criticism
the way he has, which is a great thing. He's a smart man but someone
who is refusing to rise above his circumstances. And refusing
to take the risks which alone can give him true leadership status.
TAILPIECE:
What on earth is being done to the PML-N leader, Javed Hashmi?
It was a mistake arresting him. It is doing no one any good keeping
him locked up and trying him for sedition, of all things. It's
high time this farce ended. - Courtesy Dawn
