ONE has lived since the last three years of the 20th century with positive hopes and aspirations for the new century and millennium that were to follow the bloodiest and most destructive century in recorded history. The end of the cold war in 1989 had seen the rivalries and proxy wars that succeeded the horrors of the Second World War give place to a world order dominated by the US.

Recalling the role of that Great Power in the creation of the League of Nations, and later the United Nations, one drew comfort from the notion that the leadership of the world was in the hands of a country that represented a unique mixture of practicality and idealism.

The events of September 11, 2001, have been followed by trends and events that are rapidly eroding confidence in a peaceful and stable world that would concentrate its energies and resources on improving the lives of all its citizens. Even before the 9/11 incident, the Bush administration had adopted a unilateralist approach that had aroused widespread resentment and concern. The very concept of the Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD), launched on May 1, 2002, without advance consultation with allies and friends, was tailored to acquiring hegemony of an unprecedented character by combining “the strongest shield with the sharpest spear”, as the Chinese put it.

The concept of the BMD had encountered resistance and reservations among a wide variety of countries, including most members of the EU, as well as Russia and China. President Bush, who is surrounded by advisers linked to the military industrial complex in the country, had showed little inclination to pay heed to the critics of the BMD, among them many US analysts who believed that the unique superpower already possessed adequate power to counter any challenge from “rogue states.” President Bush and the hawks around him appeared determined to acquire the kind of supreme authority warranted by the country’s unchallenged technical and military edge.

US unilateralism appeared to have been tempered by the need to evolve a global coalition following the terrorist outrage of September 11. That coalition is still there, and its practical manifestation exists in the form of joint operations in Afghanistan by the military forces of numerous countries, ranging from Britain and Germany to Turkey and Australia. Both Pakistan and India are its members though India is engaged in a coercive diplomacy against Pakistan in the name of anti-terrorism. However, the obvious Indian goal is to have a free hand to crush the Kashmiri freedom struggle, very much along the lines of what Israel under Ariel Sharon is doing in Palestine.

There is a general recognition of the fact that the US is indeed the only superpower, the only one able to project its power to any part of the globe. Its military expenditure, which had been brought down during the Clinton years, has risen exponentially since the terrorist attack, and is approaching $400 billion — greater than the next eight largest military powers combined. In economic power, its only rival is the European Union. Not since Rome as a single power enjoyed such superiority, but Rome dominated only one part of the world. The expression used by the French foreign minister Hubert Vedrine, about America being a “hyperpower” is apt.

The US, since the end of the cold war, has perfected the art of exercising its influence in all spheres, ranging from political to economic to military. The expression used by Madeleine Albright, President Clinton’s secretary of state, about the US being an “indispensable power” is also apt. The agony of Bosnia went on for three years till the US stepped in to stop the bloodshed. It again took US leadership to prevent Milosevic from doing another Bosnia in Kosovo. Even the UN cannot intervene effectively in the discharge of its mandate, till the US gets involved. The rub is that the US is tending to make the UN either subject to its dictates, or irrelevant.

It had taken President Clinton his first term that was focused on domestic concerns, to realize the potential of America’s role as the unique superpower. He not only facilitated the Dayton Accord in Yugoslavia, but involved himself personally in the Arab-Israeli dialogue in the last year of his presidency, that nearly brought off a definitive solution at Camp David II, in July 2000. The Bush Administration was expected to do better, because of his personal equation with many Arab rulers.

However, the initial stance adopted by him was not to get dragged into mediation between the Israelis and the Palestinians, as Clinton had been. Subsequently, the power of the Israeli lobby in the US, and the skilful use made by Ariel Sharon of the terrorist threat to justify his unspeakable horrors against the Palestinians, have led Washington to play a role that even its European allies see as biased.

As Timothy Garton Ash, Director of the European Studies Centre at St. Antony’s College at Oxford states in a recent article in the New York Times, “America today has too much power for anyone’s good, including its own”. The writers of the American Constitution had wisely insisted on checks and balances. However, in the situation created by the September 11 events, Bush enjoys the kind of popular support for his policies, that has virtually eliminated any real check on his power.

His imposition of tariffs on steel imports in violation of the WTO rules was cited as an example. Dr Ash’s own recipe for the exercise of a check on US power was by Europe, which is an economic equal to the US, and has long diplomatic and military experience.

The exercise of total and unchecked power by the US looks different to the developing world, and in particular to the Muslim countries. The standards being set and he traditions being established cannot but be a source of deep disquiet for thinking people in Pakistan. We are directly affected by the impact of US power and policies in the region stretching from the Middle East to the Straits of the Moluccas.

Pakistan took a principled position following the September 11 events, and not only has been our cooperation important for the US-led military operations against terrorist networks in Afghanistan, but President Musharraf has taken courageous decision regarding the country’s ideological direction.

In doing so, he has taken on powerful religious groups, and undertaken daunting tasks. Not only has the system of education to be revamped, but the roots of agitation and extremism addressed through an economic rebirth. There is an external dimension to the disquiet and discontent in the country, in the form of India’s resolve to suppress the legitimate struggle of the people of Kashmir by brute force.

The US has clearly taken a policy decision to develop a strategic partnership with India, which is seen as the leading power in the Indian Ocean region, that claims to be threatened by the forces of Islamic fundamentalism, and is ready to play its part in the containment of China. The US is increasing the scope of military cooperation with India, with which it has entered into an agreement for the joint patrolling of the Molucca Straits.

The developing nexus with India has produced a disturbing case of double standards, so far as India’s own religious extremism is concerned. Whereas the Jihadist response to repression in Kashmir is reflective of dissatisfaction with genocidal repression by 700,000 strong Indian forces, to deny rights guaranteed in UN resolutions, the BJP is engaged in denying basic human and democratic rights to India’s large Muslim minority. The failure of the Bush administration to criticize the complicity of the Vajpayee government in the state sponsored use of terror tactics against the Muslim population, has a disturbing resemblance to its attitude over Ariel Sharon’s state terrorism in Palestine.

Even more disturbing is the US attitude towards the UN, an organization located on the American soil, which symbolizes the aspirations of mankind for a just and peaceful order. Ever since the Bush administration took power, it has used the UN to gain legitimacy for its own actions, notably in the war against terror. However, several recent decisions of the unique superpower have shown that the UN is not its chosen instrument for ensuring justice and peace.

After Sharon launched his unrestricted warfare against the Palestinians in the name of anti-terrorism, and carried out massacres in the Jenin refugee camp, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 1405 to send a fact-finding mission to Jenin. Sharon’s government refused to permit such a team to come, giving flimsy reasons, and got away with it, plainly because the US chose not to use its weight in support of the UN. Another decision taken in repudiation of a commitment by the Clinton administration was that of dissociating the US from the International Criminal Court, whose creation has been agreed by the international community.

The conclusion one is driven to reach by analyzing the policies and actions of the Bush administration is that Washington is determined to shape the world in the new century on the basis of its power, which is already preponderant and will be made overwhelming, rather than the ideals enshrined in the UN Charter. The BMD concept will give total military superiority to the US. The nuclear policy review advances the concept of the US using nuclear weapons against seven countries that may challenge US interests or concerns, that include four Muslim countries, Iraq, Syria, Iran and Libya, besides North Korea, Russia, and China. An attack against Iraq is seen not only as a possibility, but as a probability.

For us in South Asia, the influence of the US example in basing its policies on sheer military power is visible in the new arrogance by the Hindu extremist dominated government of India. It is keeping 800,000 troops massed on our borders, in the name of anti-terrorism, while letting massacres and genocide continue in Gujarat and stepping up state terrorism in Kashmir. In the meantime, we get advice from the IMF to lower our defence expenditure.

The US has a creditable history of bringing to bear the democratic and humanitarian principles of its founding fathers on the international scene. President Bush bases his war against terrorism on the challenge it poses to democratic order in the world. But, sadly, the regression to total reliance on power since the September 11 events is enabling the likes of Ariel Sharon and Narendar Modi to get away with complete contempt for human rights and democracy. Such trends cast a dark shadow on the bright dawn that was awaited at the start of the new century.

One can only hope that the influence of more moderate forces within the US will lead to a shift by the sole superpower towards its traditional role of promoting a world of peace and cooperation rather than one where scarce resources would against be diverted to a race for producing engines of war and destruction. The dark clouds hovering over the dawn of the new century and millennium will be driven away by winds of change that will address the causes of terrorism, rather than its symptoms.

F.E. CHAUDHRY, Chacha Chaudhry to every journalist, is just seven runs short of his first hundred. The cool, unperturbed manner in which he is playing through what for others would be the nervous nineties, leaves little doubt that he will reach the magic mark with the same ease and lack of fuss with which he used to take his pictures for the Pakistan Times.

In a country where everything seems to change for the worst, Chacha remains one of the few remaining signs that perhaps not everything has gone down the tubes. Chacha, who has been decorated more than once by different governments for his outstanding contribution to photo journalism, does not need a title, but were one to be found for him, surely it could only be Baba-i-Press Photography.

He was Pakistan’s first serious, full-time press photographer who worked freelance until he was snapped up by Mian Iftikharuddin soon after the Pakistan Times began publishing in 1947. He stayed with the newspaper almost until its closure, through good times and bad, working in his own inimitable style and snapping pictures, many of which have come to form the pictorial history of Pakistan. Had Chacha done nothing but recorded the upheavals of Partition and the arrival of thousands of refugees from across the newly-drawn dividing line between India and Pakistan, he would have assured for himself a place in the history of pictorial journalism.

Chacha, proud father of the 1965 war hero Cecil Chaudhry, who is currently the principal of Lahore’s St. Anthony School, lives by himself, as he has always done, at 7/10 Jail Road, Lahore. For years, his children, especially Cecil, have tried to persuade him to move in with one of them; and every time Chacha has said no. He says he is perfectly capable of looking after himself and though he may no longer hop on his Quickly motorbike and go cruising down Lahore’s roads in search of a story, he prefers to live by himself.

He may move slowly and some of the bones in his body might creak now and then, but he loves his independence. His needs are few and he is quite happy in his own space. Every newspaper in the city sends him a complimentary copy and his mornings are spent reading.

Some time ago when Chacha was taken ill, Cecil insisted that he move in with him. However, the day Chacha felt well enough to amble around, he returned to his own place. He lost his wife, a remarkable lady who had amazing collections of matchboxes and dolls, to name just two, a few years ago. Her things are exactly where they always were and nothing has been moved.

Chacha’s vast collection of negatives is also tucked away here and there in the house, as are his albums of newspaper clips dating back to the early 1930s. Next time you are in Lahore and want to read about the rise of Hitler, all you have to do is visit 7/10 Jail Road. Chacha has them all, yellowed and somewhat brittle, but still there, Swastikas and what have you.

Chacha described to me the other day his first meeting with Faiz Ahmed Faiz. The Pakistan Times had just started publishing and was housed in the same building on the Mall as its rival, the Civil and Military Gazette. Chacha had already sold some pictures to the new newspaper that the Quaid-i-Azam himself had founded, as some years earlier he had founded Dawn. Faiz said to Chacha, “Mr Chaudhry, can you take a picture of the front of the building which should show the names of our two newspapers, PT and Imroze, but you must make the building appear longer than it is. Chacha said it could not be done unless the picture also showed the C & M.G. sign.

That, Faiz said, would not do, adding, “I know you can do it.” Chacha did do it by including two trees that stood in front of the building and brushing off the last letters of the rival paper’s name from his negative. Faiz was thrilled and ordered 10 copies. When Chacha brought them in, Faiz told the accountant to pay Chacha Rs 12 for each print. “I will only charge what I charge others, three rupees a print and not a penny more.” That may have been yet another reason that Chacha, who also taught chemistry at St. Anthony’s to supplement his earnings from freelance press photography, was engaged as the staff photographer of the Pakistan Times.

Only once during his long and remarkable career at the newspaper, did Chacha come close to leaving. He recalled that story for me the other day. Mian Iftikharuddin had asked Chacha to cover an event at the Aitchison College, which Chacha had duly done, despite earlier having gone to attend the 10th anniversary celebrations of the PAF, where he had downed more than one glass of snake juice.

Some days later, Iftikharuddin asked Chacha why he had not covered the Aitchison function. Chacha said he had. Iftikharuddin, who must have had a bad morning, told Chacha he was “lying”. “No one tells me I am lying. If you don’t read your own newspaper then that is your problem. And I no longer want to work for you. My dues should be sent to my home,” Chacha said as he stormed out of the room. “You can’t leave,” Iftikharuddin said. “Then try to stop me,” Chacha replied as he strode out of the office, with the owner and chief executive of the Progressive Papers Ltd. running after him. Next morning, the doorbell rang quite early. “Who the heck can it be?” Chacha said to his wife. As he opened the door, who should be out there but Mian Iftikharuddin in his car, accompanied by his chauffeur. “What do you want?” Chacha asked. “Chaudhry, I have come to take you back. How can you leave!” he implored. But Chacha was unmoved. “I am a Rajput and no one tells me I am lying,” Chacha replied. Iftikharuddin told Chacha he wasn’t leaving until Chacha changed his mind. “The answer is no,” Chacha replied with finality, “because I am an employee of the Pakistan Times, not one of the tillers on your lands.”

That was when Chacha’s wife pulled him inside and said, “Look the Mian has come himself. What more do you want?” Chacha relented but said to Mian Iftikharuddin, “All right, but only on certain conditions. You will not order me around. My orders will only come from my editor who is my boss, and not from you.” The Mian said that was the way it would be from now on, adding, “Let’s go now.” “It is too early, no one is in yet, go home,” Chacha said as a relieved and beaming Mian Iftikharuddin drove off.

My advice to the young journalists of today would be not to try this sort of thing with their owners, most of whom are also editors. They would be shown the door before they have counted three. There are no more Mian Iftikharuddins in this country, and hardly any F.E. Chaudhries alive to invoke their memory.

And one last bit. Chacha was the one at the Pakistan Times we always borrowed money from. His memory is still sharp as a razor, so it is strange why he did not ask me to refund the tenner he had lent me back in 1968 on a strict promise of return within a week. All I can say is: Chacha Zindabad.

WHEN the history of our benighted times comes to be written, it will be noted that the Pakistan army was the one institution which served the nation most meritoriously in its hour of greatest need. It intervened to save the country at the darkest hour when we had almost given up hope.

General Musharraf appeared on the scene like a deus ex machina. When he seized power on October 12, like millions of my compatriots, I welcomed the change and heaved a sigh of relief. Our long national nightmare was over. It was morning again in Pakistan. Pakistan had found its saviour in General Musharraf.

After the trauma of Nawaz Sharif, the emergence of General Musharraf was widely regarded as an opportunity for a new start. Boundless hopes and expectations were invested in the unsullied young military general. For a brief ethereal moment, the country fell in love with him. His first address to the nation was a welcome relief to a people torn apart by corrupt leadership, rising crime wave and a sinking economy. His quiet dignity and lack of pretence provided exactly the stabilizing force that people sought.

In popular perception, what happened on October 12, was not a coup but a bloodless revolution triggered by a combination of factors including Kargil and nomination of General Ziauddin as army chief by Nawaz Sharif. It was not a simple substitution of existing authority by fresh authority. It sounded the death-knell of a corrupt, rotten socio-economic order. It was the expression of a revolution of expectations that had already taken place in the minds of the people. It was the embodiment of their fears, apprehensions, hopes and aspirations.

That is why they welcomed it with tears of joy in their eyes. They gave it their full support because they regarded it as the dawn of a new era. The old order represented by corrupt politicians had collapsed and was dead and gone, or so we thought. General Musharraf now had a unique opportunity to design and build a new structure on the ruins of the old in fulfilment of the dreams and aspirations of the people of Pakistan. What the people wanted was not a cosmetic change, but a purifying, cleansing, surgical operation to purge the country of all robber barons — politicians, civil servants, judges and generals. Times were ebullient, and yeast was in the air. The old order had discredited itself. We would conjure up a new and better one in its place. On October 12, General Musharraf assumed an awesome responsibility and faced a daunting task. He had one big advantage; his accession to power was hailed with jubilation and quite genuinely acknowledged as the only way out of the mess left behind by Benazir and Nawaz Sharif. Now that he was in power, he had to demonstrate to the people and the outside world that the assault on “democracy” and suspension of the Constitution was fully justified by his subsequent performance and that his military rule was qualitatively superior to civilian rule.

Unlike his democratic predecessors, he commanded absolute power and had no excuses. There was no reason why he could not challenge and demolish, brick by brick, the corrupt system he had inherited. Nothing could prevent him from bringing about an egalitarian economic and social order. Nothing prevented him from identifying himself completely with the poor people of Pakistan who looked upon him as a messiah. They did not expect a new heaven and a new earth but nothing prevented him from confronting their main anxieties.

“As we approached the October 12 anniversary, the hopes raised on that day dimmed and faded away. Even revolutions have a “morning after”. The euphoria following the dismissal of Nawaz Sharif’s government soon gave way to the sobriety of the morning after. Unrealistically high expectations were awakened on October 12 and when these expectations remained unfulfilled, frustration set in. The revolution we all expected and which seemed so certain at the time, has evidently not taken place. The economy shows little sign of recovery. Poverty has deepened. Investor’s confidence has not been restored because the law and order situation shows no sign of improvement and nobody knows what Pakistan will look like two years hence.

A year ago, ruthless accountability of corrupt holders of public office was on top of General Musharraf’s agenda. What prevents him from making good on his promise to arrange for the expeditious and ruthless accountability of all those who bartered away the nation’s trust and plundered the country’s wealth. Why are so many known corrupt holders of public office still at large? Why have so many got away? And why exempt corrupt judges and corrupt generals?

The contrast between the current tide of public shock and disappointment and the grass-root enthusiasm two years ago is stark. Two years ago, President Musharraf was being widely heralded as a people’s champion. Today, he risks being dismissed as the latest in a long line of easily forgotten rulers. To paraphrase Churchill, the last two and a half years of his rule were the years that locusts have eaten. His prospects of changing Pakistan are dimming fast although he continues to mouth the rhetoric of reform.

The electorate feels betrayed and is reverting to its customary cynicism and apathy. It sees President Musharraf as a prisoner of the forces he vowed to tame. Instead of crushing the corrupt, he has been captured by them and they have become his political allies. People are asking; is he really up to the job? Can we trust him now? Does he know where he wants to go? Do we want to go there? Does he have a central focus? In short, do we like what we see... or suffer from buyer’s remorse?

Few people had been offered the opportunity that lay open to General Musharraf. It is our misfortune that he did not walk through the door resolutely. On April 30 that door closed in his face with a bang. On that day, he took the fateful plunge in search of legitimacy. Whoever advised him to hold the referendum in order to extend his rule by another five years, did great disservice to him and to the country. On that day the silent majority sent a message, loud and clear, with a vengeance.

The referendum numbers stink, he gets terrible press at home and abroad. His credibility is shattered and lies in ruins. He has lost the high moral ground he once occupied. Power he always had and still has but his bid to acquire authority from the people boomeranged and failed miserably. With one throw of the dice he lost all that he had gained. Suddenly, the president who soared by standing on integrity, seemed to have been replaced by one who had failed to prevent manipulation and massive rigging of results.

Manipulation of referendum results has its own dynamism. It cannot be controlled and sometimes produces unintended results. It virtually invalidated the Referendum and denied the president the fruits of his pyrrhic victory. Disaster now roams the country’s political landscape. Pakistan is once again on the skids. How did we get into this clinch with ignominy? How will Pakistan now take the high road out of this moral squalor? Or will it go on wallowing in it?

We have been through many difficult times. The only difference is in the past we more or less knew through which tunnel we were trying to move, and what kind of light we expected to see at the end of the tunnel. Today we don’t even know if we are in a tunnel. We are in a mess. Are we at the beginning of a long slippery climb up a steep mountain or are we hurtling into the chasm beyond any hope of rescue? Either way it is a grim prospect.

The historian Charles Beard once said, that a life time’s reflection on history had taught him four things: “when darkness comes, the stars begin to shine; the bees that rob the flowers provide the honey; whom God wishes to destroy, he first makes mad; the mills of God grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly small”.

I passionately believed in General Musharraf when he seized power on October 12. But in the end, and I say it with deep anguish, he left us with nothing in which to believe, nothing to be proud of, and all too much to hold in contempt.