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.
Fairly tales excepted, we must first progress from military dictatorship to civilian rule by a political mafia. A cartel which has to face elections every 5 years, and find new ways to rig it and swindle people. The people getting a bit smarter each time. You do not need to be literate to know whats good for your community at the local level (you may not understand int’l economics and geopolitics… but you don’t need to in order to make your vote count for something).
Next, we may progress to cartel vs cartel competition (a two party polity). And so on and so forth. The mess that democracy is. The least evil system of running society known to man. Especially a hetrogenous society, e.g. Pakistan. The same diversity and plurality that makes it necessary for Pakistan to be a democracy – a parliamentary, not presidential, democracy – can also become its strength.
We need to ensure that the corp commanders have no confusion between their loyalty to the constituion of Pakistan (as per their oath) and their institution and its chief. For as long as they choose the latter against the constitution, we cannot progress to the next stage in the messy evolution of democracy.
We may get stuck at a subsequent stage and never progress further. But confronting the military sabotaging the process of democratic evolution – no matter how messy – is the first task. It is a slow process and we can only ever be as good a democracy as we are a people and society. But, a bit of pragmatic optimism is quite the most rational attitude to have. Right now, lets stand up to the existential threat from the religious extremists. Again, either we will or we won’t. But despairing before the actual end of time, sounds slightly irrational.
As long as a lieing and corrupt man is controlling our country, and as long as the only people protesting his actions are the second most corrupted people, what’s the point of discussing your six questions? The only thing that matters is that the situation in Pakistan will go from bad to worse. That’s the only umutable pattern in all of this. And the rest is just details.
Where were these protesters before the Sharif brothers were disqualified? Did they just realize that Zardari had broken his promise to resotre the judges? Aitezaz Ehsan has now made abundantly clear he is as corrupt as the rest of them. Where was he before the Sharif brothers were disqualified? Now all of a sudden he wakes up. Very convenient.
Both worthless and corrupt politicians who gave nothing useful to the country.
The way out of this mess can be first, restore the judiciary to 2,Nov 2007 position by the parliament therefore nullifying the actions of a military dictator. Secondly, Justice Chaudhry should rise above the self and resign voluntarily paving way for a new chief justice who has never taken oath under a PCO . Thirdly, punjab assembly should be convened asap and the party who shows the maximum numbers should have their chief minister. Fourthly, Sharifs should be declared “qualified” through the parliament. And finally all the powers should be shifted from President to the PM by the parliment. Voila!
In the next election, please vote for me. I will run on the following platform:
1) Work to change our democratic structure to a presidential system, so that people vote directly for the person who will be in power
2) Make peace with India along the lines of what we came very close to doing before Musharraf’s rule took a nose dive. This will allow us to focus on bigger problems
3) Do land reform. Put an end to waderaism. Enforce a tax on agriculture.
4) Establish a new military force that is trained to deal with insurgency. Our conventional army is not equipped. We end up killing the people we are supposed to protect. That is counterproductive and will create more support for the Taliban.
5) Establish a process where supreme court justices are appointed for life and cannot be fired/changed. This will hopefully prevent the endless tampering we see right now.
6) Establish a religious affairs authority that is moderate in its outlook and that has control over religious media. Outlaw extremist views as unislamic. Enforce this strongly.
7) Invest in infrastructure in remote / neglected areas such as Balochistan and parts of N.W.F.P.
8) Swear that I and everyone in the government will not be above the law in even the smallest of things. Establish a “National Accountability Bureau” that polices the government in power and does not try to scapegoat past governments.
Ok, so don’t elect me since I have no idea how I would do all this, but wouldn’t it be nice if we had a leader who stood for something tangible and actually carried through on his or her promises?