Adil Najam
The two videos attached below – one of a student speaking at a student convention presided over by Gen. Pervez Musharraf and the second of an MNA speaking in the National Assembly during the no-trust motion against Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz – have recently been floating around over email on Pakistani lists.
[Thanks to Eidee Man for alerting us to this new version of the first video which includes Gen. Musharraf’s Response to the student’s speech. Even if you have seen the student’s speech already, the response is worth listening to.]
While the remarks from Muslim League (N) MNA Khawaja Asif is less surprising (especially since it came right after Nawab Akbar Bugti’s death and during a no-confidence motion) the speech from the student (Syed Adnan Kakakhel) is much more of a surprise. Gen. Musharraf listens intently, takes notes, and seems engaged. Indeed, as you can now see from his response (later in the video) the speech certainly got to Gen. Musharraf. He responds at length – including on the military rule and Balochistan issues.
I should also add that this event was organized by the government itself and also note that Adnan Kakakhel was awarded the second prize in the speech contest and also that this was telecast over Pakistan Television.
Whether you are a government opponent (i.e., this shows the depth of people’s frustration with the current order), a cynic (i.e., such talk is tolerated because everyone knows it will make no difference), or a government supporter (i.e., this proves that this government has given people real democracy and freedom of speech), you should celebrate these videos for what they are: a demonstration that political thought is alive and well in Pakistan (irrespective of whether you believe its content to be righteous or misguided).
Coming from the bol ke lab aazad hain tairay school of democracy, to me the space for dissent is itself important to the democratic polity; for that reason alone I beleive that these are important articulations.
Hasnat sahib, baat tou aap nay sahi ki hai. But I wonder why you chose to ignore the question mark in the headline in your last line. Just to score a point?
1. There is no excuse for killing more than 80 Pakistanis of the tribal areas. The way the attack was conducted and the manner in which the government spokesmen justified it, raises lots of questions.
There is enough evidence by the foreign and Pakistani journalists that there were children at the premises and that the air attack was more than from the Pakistani air force. Another fact comes to light is that just after few days a peace treaty was going to be signed with the tribal elders, same as that of Waziristan. Whoever did that desire to sabotage the peace treaty as well as the unity of Pakistan. The main problem with Musharraf is that for him Pakistanis are of no consequence, as long as his prolonged military rule continues unchallenged, with of course the foreign approval – as he lacks domestic legitimacy.
The dictators of today are much cleverer than their predecessors as they have adjusted themselves to the new requirements. They allow a bit of free opinion (for the world community-thanks to the advancement of global communications) but when it comes to the “real stuffâ€
I am glad you have the question mark after the headline.
The politician in the second picture, Kh Asif, was one of the people who stormed the supreme court in the Nawaz days. He has no right now to talk about democracy after that.
PatExpat, the matter is much serious. Do we want Pakistan to end up in a war with US? Much as Pakistanis don’t like what is happening in Afghanistan, they have no choice but to stay put. Press can say or not what they want but fact remains US is the stronger party here and dictates for most part what happens in this area, not to mention the rest of the world.
[quote post=”362″]would you rather US only bombed a few madrassas or the whole nation? [/quote]
Other people’s lives are so cheap. Is anybody asking who was there in the Madrassahs as all except the government are mentioning that it were ordinary civillian casualties – mere students. Or do we want a public relations fiasco like last year where the first government denied US intrusion stating that a bomb went off in the hide out and when pieces of US missiles were found, meekly accepting it. Though its mentioned everywhere that Pakistan Air Force has been used to bomb Baluchistan, Mush can claim that the cave caved in over Bugti.
US has always been good at bombing. Napalming the vietnamese. Allowing Israel to destroy lebanon and massacring civillians. Almost twice every week the newspapers mention that NATO forces have killed 30-100 “alleged” taliban in Afghanistan. Does anybody care who are they killing? At this rate, Taliban would have been finished by now.
But freedom of press being lowest in the world as mentioned above, I am sure nobody is going to waste paper on them. For God’s sake, they were 80 lives.