Adil Najam
For a while now we have been carrying links in our middle column to what was featured at ATP a year ago and two years ago. If you look at the headlines for today, you will note that exactly one year ago today the lead story at Pakistaniat.com was Uncertainty Rules Pakistan and two years ago it was a post about the then-recent sacking of Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry and a video of the then-living poet Ahmad Faraz’s Mohassra. It seems that nothing much ever changes in Pakistan politics. Except, maybe, to get progressively worse.
I had started my post exactly a year ago, about Pakistan’s political uncertainty, with the following words:
Explaining what is happening in Pakistan, and why, is never easy. Never has it been more difficult than it is now.
I may have been wrong. It seems even more difficult today than it did a year ago.
The talk then was about Gen. Musharraf calling a session of the Assembly, the supposed agreement between Asif Zardari and Nawaz Sharif on Gen. Musharraf but the lingering questions about who would be Prime Minister and about what will happen to the deposed judges. Today, the question seem to be even more confounding:
- Would the ‘Long March’ of the lawyers movement be able to start, as it is supposed to, tomorrow? The Punjab government and some major PPP voices seems bent on not letting it happen. News suggests mass arrests as well as strong statements. Oddly, the questions that come to mind are: Would the lawyers’ movement actually be strengthened if it is somehow stopped from happening? And, if it did happen would the results be any different from the last ‘Long March’?
- Would the real – and really dangerous – battle now between the PPP and the PML(N), whose Punjab government was recently ousted, has this ‘Long March’ now really been co-opted by the Sharif brothers and is more about vindicating their cause than the original lawyer’s movement?
- Even if not, what is to become of the Punjab government fiasco? Everyone seems to be escalating the game with every move in what seems to be a rather silly game of ‘Chicken’ being played by our politicians as the nation sits and waits – knowing that no matter who blinks it is they who will be pushed over the ravine, especially if nobody blinks!
- What will happen to the very future of the PPP as Asif Ali Zardari takes one big gamble after the other? Another major leader of the PPP old-guard – Raza Rabbani – has resigned after being overlooked for the Senate Chairman’s position. The handling of the Punjab government has been obviously bungled. Even Prime Minister Gillani seems to be getting impatient. And so much more is going so very wrong in so many ways.
- One wonders, also, if Syed Yousuf Raza Gillani just made the speech of his life? Or was he merely conveying the deal already made? One refers, of course, to the speech he just made saying that he will advise the President to call a session of the Punjab Assembly to select a leader and also on ways to resolve the judicial crisis. Is he sending Asif Ali Zardari a message? Or is he conveying Asif Ali Zardari’s message to the rest of us?
- And what about the Pakistan military in all of this? This being Pakistan, they seem to be all over all of these stories, and yet no where to be found. Given our history, that is ominous in itself.
Too many questions. Each central to Pakistan’s political future. No answers in sight. Uncertainty can kill. And it may well do just that to Pakistan politics.
I strongly believe that as a nation we have lost our focus. Ask a Pakistani what she/he needs from life and the answer would fall in the category of roti, kapra, makaan and security. Ask the same person what she/he wants to do as a nation and be prepared to get a blank look. I think with all the mayhem going around in Pakistan, we need to sit down with a cool head and ponder over the following questions:
1) Right from the start we have been blaming the politicians as corrupt and evil. At least 2 generations of Pakistanis have now come and gone and we are still bad-mouthing politicians. Do we even realize that these are people from amongst us who were born in Pakistan and are part and parcel of our society. Rather, it is us, as a nation, who are corrupt and evil and have taken the country to this brink.
The solution has to start at the unit level, rather than at the group level: fix the unit and the whole will fix itself. Try fixing the whole and you will end up destroying everything.
2)Where do our values come from? One obvious answer is: media. I asked my teenage niece about her role-model and the answer was the name of an Indian actress. I watch TV and it seems as if I am sitting in Mumbai or Dubai. I read newspapers and it looks like as if commercialism is our religion. I look all around and it seems that 1947 was a huge mistake!
3) What exactly have Pakistanis done to make this a world a better place? 60 years and 1 name: Edhi! One scientist and even he was banished. One sport and we have been made an outcast in that arena as well. Ah yes: we made a bomb and are dearly proud of that fact
4) Are we Muslims first or Pakistanis first? This is a core question that needs to be discussed in every household: rich, middle class, poor, destitute. Everyone needs to ask herself/himself this question and come up with an answer. If the answer is the second option then we can very easily follow what others are following: be copy-cats and make money our focus, bring commercialism into our lives as if there is no other life and follow this path with complete confidence that it will make us a prosperous nation. However, if the answer is the first option, then we need to put our wholehearted effort in standing up to the Mullahs which can only happen if we, ourselves, have the knowledge to tackle them. This way we will end up killing these bigots using their own weapon: Islam and this place will be a better place
Just my 2 cents!
Ejaz Haider sums things up:
http://dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=20093\12 \story_12-3-2009_pg3_2
In my view Dogar is more piloticised as compared to Iftikhar Muhmmad Chaudhry.
Iftikhar Ch despite all his shortcomings has become a symbol of justice. His performance as CJ of Pakistan was excellent and his decisions in missing persons case, steel mill etc are widely regarded as independent and in the national interest. He was in fact a threat to status quo. He summoned police officers in the court and tried to reign the bureaucracy which gets wild against common man while obeying the orders of rulers.
On the otherhand Abdul Hamid Dogar sounds an opportunits. He stabbed his brother judges in the back when they needed his support against a dictator. Media is not paying attention to the fact that Zardari retained him because of his close association with Chief Minister Sindh. Dogar statrted his career as a lawyer with Syed Qaim ALi Shah. Both of them are from Kehrpur and have been meeting recently. In Zardari’s view Dogar was easy to tame because of this linkage. Farah Hamid Dogar case is another evidence of Justice Dogars personality. He elevated the CJ of Islamabad High Court becasue he dismissed the case against Farah Hamid Dogars rechecking of papers.
The PPP are in govt today thanks to the lawyers’ movement. It is because of that movement that we’re talking today about chances of democracy surviving or not. What will help and what will not. Dogar has turned the Supreme Court in to Zardari’s private games room. But surely we want a Supreme Court that the LARGEST possible number of Pakistanis can have faith in. Hopefully ALL. Whether they agree with a decision or not. Any one who knows anything about the independence of the judiciary knows that the most idependent judge is the one whose picture you have never seen and whose name you do not know, and yet he is one of the senior most judges and, perferably, has been a judge for decades. Even the US – a great justice system – doesn’t have that because, sadly, the President appoints Supreme Court judges… so the Press feels a legitimate right to talk about them. In Britain, although the separation of powers is ‘different’ to the one in the US, hardly any member of the public knows who the chief justice is. Suppose Chaudhry is reinstated today. (Which he should be as a matter of restoration of honour. Then he should voluntarily retire.) Imagine what the ‘appearance’ of absence of bias would be if he goes on to make decisions, or even simply heads the court, regardless of his personal probity (innocent until proven guilty). Any student of law knows how the ‘appearance’ of bias is just as bad as actual bias. It is about going forward and doing what’s best for the judiciary, democracy and the country. Not about entrenched positions, no matter how noble. There is nothing noble about rigidity. A degree of flexibility, like moderation, is in itself noble. Democracy is about (hopefully principled) compromise, flexibility and “antagonistic co-operation”. Sharif and Zardari are not Rulers of rival countries. They’re antagonists, who are Pakistanis, who must – somehow – co-operate. It is up to the PPP to sort out the total erosion of Zardari’s credibility and that of his word. And it’s up to Nawaz Sharif to show flexibility and willingness to co-operate.
SIR MUSHARAFF…PLEASE COME BCK….PAKISTAN NEED YU MORE THN EVER