These
shadow are the problem for Pakistan
Musharraf's
Political System Putting Pakistan to Sleep
By
Ayaz Amir
ISLAMABAD:
India goes to the polls and the world notices. Pakistan plunges
into another exercise in authoritarian management and the world
notices but through jaundiced eyes. Are we so dumb that the comparison
escapes us?
Riding
the slogan "India Shining", and convinced that favorable
winds were blowing his way, Atal Behari Vajpayee called elections
five months before time. After tendering his resignation he will
have all the time in the world to figure out how he got it so
wrong.
Pundits
will also have enough time to wipe egg from their faces. No one
had predicted this outcome. Such is the beauty and vibrancy of
democracy, especially subcontinental democracy.
Both
of our countries began from the same point and with the same trappings.
Yet what a distance separates us now. Indian democracy is an established
thing while we are still at the stage of defining what kind of
democracy suits us.
In
India, if Pakistanis haven't noticed, the chief election commissioner
is the chief election commissioner. Apart from his mistress, if
he has one, no one dare meddle in his affairs. In Pakistan the
election commission gyrates to orders from above. Do I divulge
a state secret? Everyone here knows this to be true.
When
will we wake up? When will we learn? When will it dawn on us that
it is not India's size, population, tourism or IT industry making
us look small but Indian democracy? Figure this out how you will,
this is how the chips fall.
India
was seized with election fever. For days on end the entire machinery
of government here was obsessed with the coming of one individual,
the PML-N's Shahbaz Sharif. It took something resembling a military
operation to deport him. Do we need enemies to make us look bad?
We do the same job far better ourselves.
It's
not a question of personality. As far as rulers of his type go,
Pervez Musharraf is an easygoing and relatively open person, able
to take a lot of criticism. But what should the nation do with
these qualities when he presides over a political system threatening
to put Pakistan to sleep?
Pakistan's
current problems are rooted in the collective genius of the military
and its reluctance to conduct an orderly withdrawal from the political
arena. In fact, we are witnessing something new, not so much the
military dominating other institutions as the line between the
military and civilian spheres blurring altogether.
Other
countries have gone through a similar process: the Philippines
under Marcos, Indonesia under Suharto. Long after Indonesia discarded
Suhartoization Pakistan is moving in that direction.
Pakistan
is not in turmoil. Which is a pity because turmoil is creative,
giving birth to new things. Pakistan is afflicted with just the
opposite: lack of ferment and too much docility.
Is
anything happening here? There's no movement, no sense of direction,
no understanding about where Pakistan should go. In four and a
half years the present order's most notable achievement is a string
of unconvincing statistics. We are at the take-off stage, we are
told. Considering how long this stage is proving, we seem stuck
on a pretty long runway.
As
opposed to any vision, all we have is a set of desires. The regime
wants to be impregnable and in power forever. That's about it.
Beyond this elemental desire, nothing.
The
generalissimo wants to keep wearing his uniform although he knows
he's promised to take it off. He's unhappy with the prime minister
and would gladly see the last of him but has no idea who to replace
him with.
The
presidential camp wants nothing to do with the PML-N or the PPP,
the two parties topping its list of enemies to be thwarted and
destroyed. It's also unhappy with the clerics of the MMA. You
would think it would be happy with its own creation, the Q League
- the king's party - but it is not.
Now
under official auspices, which in Pakistan means the intelligence
agencies, the various governmental Leagues, a collection of big
and small zeros, have been brought together to constitute a unified
League, in effect a bigger zero. What miracles this phenomenal
zero performs remain unclear.
What
these conflicting desires have produced is a unique creature neither
animal nor bird. A dispensation half-military, half-democratic,
half-presidential, half-parliamentary, which, when it cannot walk
or fly, elicits the muttered remark, "...damned politicians".
What
have politicians got to do with this mess? The most you can blame
them for is acquiescence. Whenever a military strongman puts the
Constitution in an icebox (the fourth time it's happened in not
too long a history) and blows his whistle, there is no shortage
of politicians, led invariably by figures from Punjab, in a mad
scramble to take service under military rule.
But
politicians aren't the only collaborators. Don't judge them too
harshly. According to the unvarying script of military rule, the
first collaborators are those who legitimize it, including lawyers
and journalists.
Politicians
come afterwards when military rule matures to the point of wanting
a political facade. Resurrect Maharaja Ranjit Singh from his samadhi
and these classes of professionals will collaborate with him too.
Remarkable,
is it not, that Pakistani dictators have never lacked the best
legal advice? Bar councils may agitate as much as they like but
the fact remains that from Field Marshal Ayub Khan to General
Musharraf, some of the very best lawyers have served Pakistani
dictators. And to think that some of the titans of the Indian
freedom struggle - the elder Nehru, Gandhi, Jinnah - were lawyers.
Times change. The chain of collaboration, however, doesn't just
go down. It also reaches up.
If
lawyers, journalists and politicians (by which, of course, is
meant "some") collaborate with the military, the military
has always seen its deliverance in collaborating with the United
States.
Lower
and upper collaboration - collaboration second class and collaboration
first class - are regular themes in Pakistan's history. It's no
different this time. The military expects and gets docility from
the people of Pakistan. It shows an extreme form of docility to
the US, all in the name of the national interest.
Some
of the outward marks of this skewed relationship are scarcely
flattering. Since Sep 11 it has become standard practice for an
assistant secretary of state, Christina Rocca, to visit Islamabad
at regular intervals and in one go meet everyone who matters:
president, prime minister, foreign minister, - quite a power trip
for a middle-ranking official of the State Department. I suppose
we like it this way.
But
this is turning out to be an interesting year. In India we have
seen an upset and unless the American people are dumber than anyone
thinks, Bush's re-election chances look dimmer by the day, not
because John Kerry is setting the electorate on fire but because
Iraq is playing out so badly.
This
is no time for any Marcos or Suharto. We must move with the times
and not keep slipping back. We aren't a banana republic or at
least weren't when we started out as an independent country.
We
deserve better. We have the talent and promise to do better. Democracy
is the foundation of our nationhood, Pakistan being born by an
Act of the British Parliament, and to nullify democracy means
to question the very basis of Pakistan.
I
suspect the great drama of democracy next door leaves many Pakistanis
(let me not presume to speak on behalf of all) with a sense of
sadness because it's a reminder of what their country is missing
out on and where it has gone wrong.
But
no reason to be downcast or give up hope. The bad times are not
irreversible. We can still pick up the pieces. But on one condition:
only if the army does its own thing and leaves government and
politics alone. - Courtesy Dawn
