Shift in soccer power balance: DAWN EXCLUSIVE

THE soccer team of the little town in Germany where I was born won three national championships in the space of 10 years against teams from the major metropolises. With soccer-mania rampant, my yearning to view these local heroes had to run the gauntlet of my parents, who preferred culturally more uplifting enterprises and were in the habit of scheduling these to coincide with soccer games.

Escapades from culture were inevitable but, since the town was small (80,000 population), I had a high probability of being discovered. And German parents in those days had means of expressing disapproval that were not quickly forgotten.

Having paid my dues, I have had the good fortune of attending seven World Cups since 1970, missing only two in that span of 32 years. Unfortunately, this year’s World Cup was one of them. But I did see about half of its 52 games on television, which, due to the time difference with Asia, obliged me to watch a number of them at 2:30 a.m. For a true soccer fan, inconvenience is not a sacrifice but a validation.

It turned out to be an exciting experience. For the World Cup of 2002 marked the beginning of a revolution in the sport that excites more universal passions than any other. It was the first time that the World Cup was contested outside Europe or the Western Hemisphere. It was the first time that the organization of the World Cup was divided between two countries — Korea and Japan. But these two countries — and the equally unheralded United States — have foretold an approaching change in the global balance of soccer power that parallels the transformation in the global balance of political power since the end of World War II.

The countries of Europe and Latin America have dominated global soccer because the game originally took hold there and because they had the resources to discover players, train them and compete for them via the major leagues by which each of these countries conducts its competition. Moreover, in both Latin America and Europe there has evolved a regional competition.

Nevertheless, some national differences remain. England, the inventor of the game and for long the dominant country (no English team had lost on national soil until 1955), exhibited the national virtues: fairness, discipline, dedication, fighting spirit. But it has not won a World Cup, or even reached a final, since 1966. But England is gaining ground. The English team in this World Cup was eliminated by Brazil in the round of 16 in the closest and most hard-fought challenge Brazil experienced. Since England’s is a young team, it has great prospects for the next World Cup in 2006.

Germany, as always, was the exponent of total football; every player was trained to attack and to defend, facing opponents with total commitment at both ends of the field in rapid sequence. But, with rare exceptions, Germany lacked the technically dominant players to prevail by maneuver rather than by frontal assault. Even so, these tactics and the condition and dedication of the German players have seen Germany win two World Cups since 1970 and play in the final of two others.

The basic Italian game plan is psychological: to throw the adversary off his game. Somewhere along the line, Italy will score a goal and then seek to erect an impenetrable defense based on the extraordinary technical skill of its players, designed above all to produce a level of frustration that reduces an adversary to incoherence. But the Italian game is hard to implement against teams of equal quality (of which there are few) and especially in the face of rabidly hostile spectators, as in this World Cup when Korea was the opponent.

Historically, Brazil has been the most joyful team to watch. Where the German team attacks as if engaged in a tank battle, and the Italians engage in stiletto thrusts, the Brazilian team is always on the attack, moving like a ballet and with the rhythm, and to the rhythm, of a samba band. Its players are sometimes too intoxicated with their virtuosity and forget that the purpose of the exercise is not elegance but goal scoring. Nevertheless, Brazil is the most successful team in World Cup competition, having reached the final five times since 1970 and won three of these games.

In this sense, the World Cup final provided the paradigms of two classical styles: the German, which represents in many ways the apotheosis of the globalized defensive soccer culture, and the Brazilian, which, as of now, stands as the outpost of creativity and intuition. It is no accident that since 1970 only one final (Argentina against the Netherlands in 1978) was played without one of these teams. In 2002, both teams played well, but, in the end, inventiveness overcame systematized routine, albeit narrowly.

However, it may be that the 2002 World Cup will be the last in which the current type of soccer dominates. Because the soccer market has been globalized, there is no longer any significant difference in the technical skill of the various national players — though Latin American and African players maintain an acrobatic edge. Because the largest resources for soccer are still in Europe, its dour style of primary emphasis on defense dominates.

The style has been likened by Franz Beckenbauer, the great former German international midfielder and current organizer of the 2006 Cup in Germany, to that of an accordion. Every player is a potential attacker and a potential defender, extending or collapsing the team as the tactical situation requires. The contest is over control of the space from which a goal can be scored. When all-stars play on both sides — as they do in the World Cup — scoring becomes a herculean effort. Indeed, Beckenbauer has pointed out that the normal outcome of an error-less accordion-style game is 0:0.

This dominance of the defense explains the rapid exit of such heretofore offensive stalwarts as France and Argentina and why, in the seven games in the quarter finals, semifinals and the final, exactly eight goals were scored in regulation time and, of these, five by Brazil and two by Germany. (The other games were scoreless, two of which were ended by “golden goals” in extra time and one by penalty shots.)

In the process, soccer is becoming as complicated as a mathematical equation. Teams probe for a specific weakness, the inability to protect adequately a specific area, or a difference in the height of the players — which is Germany’s comparative advantage, built on scoring from high balls into the penalty area. For the avid soccer fan, these tactics have the fascination of a fencing match in which two experts probe each other’s weaknesses until one makes the decisive thrust. But it casts doubt on how quickly Americans will take to a game of such low scoring, however intricate the maneuvers.

There is hope that a new style of soccer is emerging driven by new soccer powers, including the United States. The European dominance is not based on superior athletic ability but on a greater pool of trained players and on better coaching. But the pool of players is expanding around the world, and other national teams have been hiring European coaches. With European coaches, Korea and Japan not only won their first games ever in World Cup competition but also advanced deep into their draw. Thus the comparative advantage of European football is on the way to disappearing.

The so-called Asian values of teamwork and obsessive national dedication will come to the fore when success will be sought by immaculate coordination and wearing down the opponent through superior conditioning and relentless attack. Thus Japan and Korea are bound to improve playing their more offensive styles, and, by its disciplined performance, China has foreshadowed that it is only two World Cups away from a major role. And the established soccer powers will note that Brazil, despite its attacking style — and perhaps because of it — gave up no goals in its last three games. In this shift lies also the prospect for the U.S. national team. For the first time, it reached the quarter final where it held mighty Germany to a close 1:0 victory made possible by the German goalkeeper Oliver Kahn, the best in the world (despite a lapse in the final), and a referee’s oversight of what should have been a penalty. But the long-range significance was that the United States more than held its own against one of the best prepared soccer powers in the world.

African soccer is likely to progress even more rapidly. For three World Cups now, African teams have played perhaps the most attractive soccer of the tournament — acrobatic, joyful and offense-oriented. In 1990 it was Cameroon, in 1998 Nigeria, in 2002 Senegal and South Africa. Each ran out of steam for lack of experience, conditioning and perhaps inadequate political backing at home to support the infrastructure for an effective World Cup performance. The World Cup of 2010, which will likely be played in South Africa, may provide an impetus for putting all the elements together.

If there is a reason for concern, it is the structure of international soccer. FIFA, the governing body, deserves much credit for organizing a splendid World Cup under the leadership of its president, Joseph Blatter. But it has grown from an administrative body of a sport to a giant business with global implications.

Its structure is too feudal and too haphazard to avoid the frequent public clashes which, one of these days, are likely to erupt into a major crisis that could blight an enterprise that entrances people around the world. An outside examination organized by the governing body, such as was undertaken by the International Olympic Committee in the 1990s, would create a transparency and cohesion to enable FIFA to fulfill the passions and hopes that have given the world a month of excitement and unity. —Copyright Los Angeles Times Syndicate, 2002

NSC: an injurious implant

ZIAUl HAQ wanted a national security council but the politicians emerging from the elections of 1985 would not let him have it. The project figures prominently in General Musharraf’s constitutional proposals. Initially, he wanted to assign this council two main functions: (1) resolve the crises that might develop in the working relationship between the president and the prime minister; (2) stop the prime minister and his cabinet from acting to the detriment of the national interest.

His government has now further elaborated the council’s concerns. It will consider (a) matters pertaining to the country’s sovereignty, integrity and security; (b) system, structure, and working of the federal democracy and governance; (c) dismissal of federal and/or provincial cabinets, dissolution of federal and/or provincial legislatures, and proclamations of a state of emergency. Speaking at the National Defence College on June 17, the general added that the council would keep an eye on the conduct of the country’s affairs, and enforce “checks and balances” between the three “power brokers” (president, prime minister, and the army chief).

Proceeding either from confusion or crude deviousness, the general’s speech writers have sought to pacify those who might regard his proposals as subversive of parliamentary government. He has offered them the assurance that the council would facilitate, not hinder, the prime minister’s work. The council, and especially the army chief, would also help him overcome such difficulties as the opposition, taking undue advantage of sensitive situations, might create to unsettle his government.

It may be useful at this point to consider the proposed National Security Council’s composition. It will consist of the president, the prime minister, the four provincial chief ministers, chiefs of the three armed forces, and chairman of the joint chiefs’ committee. During the first five years following the October elections the president will also act as the army chief (assuming that the other generals let him). If the council settles issues by a show of hands, the general will probably have two votes-one as president and one as the army chief. The council will then consist of ten members, half of them military men and the other half civilians. But this may only be an illusion.

The naval and air force chiefs are not known to covet political roles. Since the army is the coup-maker, when one has been planned, its chief is the effective spokesman for the military establishment. The other three dignitaries have seats at the council table for appearance’s sake, and to increase the military’s votes should resort to voting become necessary.

The council will deal with issues of internal and external security. Why then aren’t the federal ministers for defence, interior, foreign affairs, and finance included? And what are the provincial chief ministers doing here? Let’s take a second look. During his tenure, General Musharraf will appoint a politician of his choice as the prime minister, and he will retain the authority to dismiss the prime minister if he turns out to be uncongenial for one reason or another.. The provincial governors will be his nominees, and they will serve during his pleasure. They will appoint, and dismiss, chief ministers, presumably with the general’s concurrence. It follows that, for all practical purposes, and not merely in a metaphorical sense, the chief ministers will hold office during Musharraf’s pleasure. The federal and provincial legislatures will have a role in these matters, but since the president can dismiss them also, they will probably go along with him.

Some of the provincial chief ministers may not belong to the prime minister’s political party and may, thus, be his political adversaries. It may then be easy for the president to recruit them as allies against the prime minister whenever it suits his purposes. In this connection, it should be instructive to recall that the revolt which the Punjab chief minister, Nawaz Sharif, mounted against Benazir Bhutto’s government in 1989 could not have made any headway without President Ghulam Ishaq Khan’s backing.

It may not be extravagant to conclude then that the proposed council will likely become a field where the game of “divide and rule” is played rather than an arena where a system of checks and balances is managed for the country’s greater good. It will essentially be a one-man show, run by the army chief wearing the presidential hat. His modus operandi may include deliberation, negotiation, and compromise but he may be just as willing to rely on intrigue and intimidation when necessary to get his way.

The council’s jurisdiction appears to be open-ended and all-embracing. A great many of the opposition’s activities (criticism of the government’s military and foreign policies; advocacy of ideological persuasions and regional or linguistic causes; demonstrations, processions, strikes) can be construed as threats to the nation’s security and integrity. Given the army chief’s professed willingness to help the government suppress the opposition’s challenges, the council can become an agency for authorizing massive violations of democratic rights. Concern with systemic and structural issues and the actual working of democracy may convert the council into a workshop for the constant redesigning and rebuilding of political institutions and their inter-relationships. (Good news for the “philosophers” and “technocrats” in the NRB!)

The council is expected to resolve conflicts between the president and the prime minister, and to stop the latter from misgoverning. Taking first things first, in each of the five cases of the prime minister’s dismissal, the “competent authority” acted with the army chief’s knowledge and concurrence. He did nothing to resolve the “crisis” that might have arisen. In none of the four army interventions (coups) did any dispute between the president and the prime minister figure as a reason for the action.

A crisis of the kind under reference arises because one of the principals wants to usurp some of the other’s authority in his/her quest for supremacy. In any case, how will the army chief resolve the crisis if and when it does develop? He can’t threaten to throw both of them out if they won’t “kiss and make up.” That is suppressing the dispute, not resolving it. Nor can he threaten to disclose the misdeeds of one or the other (recorded in files maintained by his assistants in the intelligence agencies), unless the one he does not favour yields to the other. This is blackmail, not an exercise in resolving crises. It also carries the most deplorable implication that the disputants’ misdeeds will be kept hidden if they do the army chief’s bidding.

Dictates of the national interest are loud and clear with regard to a great many governmental functions — for instance, spread of education and the maintenance of law and order among a hundred others. But men, honest and intelligent, can disagree on the priorities to be assigned to these competing claims on the public exchequer. Then there are issues on which the requirement of the national interest is not clear and disagreement over them can be intense.

The efficacy of the “Hudood” ordinances, the terms of our enlistment in the American-led war against terrorism, the whole range of our relations with India, levels of borrowing at home and abroad, among many others, are examples of issues about which the dictate of the national interest may not be readily known. How does it transpire that the proposed National Security Council will have a more reliable understanding of the national interest than do the other organs of government, such as the parliament and the cabinet?

Corruption, in places both high and low, is one of the most grievous violations of the public interest. How will the council deal with it? If one of the prime minister’s cabinet colleagues is the guilty party, he might be asked to drop that person and open the way for his/her prosecution. But what if the prime minister himself is said to be the culprit? Will the council, or some of its members, also blame him for the bribes that every other police constable in Islamabad is extorting from taxi drivers? Common sense will tell us that they shouldn’t, but they may still do so if they want to be troublesome, saying that he had failed in his primary mission of stopping corruption, and deserved therefore to be fired. Let the army chief put on his presidential hat and do the needful!

The pessimist will see the proposed council as a can of worms. There is indeed considerable potential here for mischief, intrigue, and strife. One may hope that considerations of patriotism on the part of the council’s members will not allow this potential to awaken. The optimists among us may also see another glimmer on the horizon. The general may be hoping that, mandated by the Constitution, the council will occupy a place of eminence in our political system. But even so it is to be understood that his assistants have not managed to forge anything better than an advisory status for it.

Its determinations will bind no one. At best they may fortify the army chief’s will to do whatever he might already have decided to do. But in that case why provide for it in the Constitution? Why not create it by statute? Another advisory body, the Council of Islamic Ideology, has been provided for in our successive constitutions, but that honourable mention has done nothing to energize it.

The task imposed upon us is to find a way of associating the army chief with the making of high policy. This can be done in more than one way. He can be consulted informally on issues regarded as vital. If his role must be institutionalized, he can be made, ex officio, a “minister without portfolio,” entitled to participate in cabinet meetings. Alternatively, we can establish a tradition whereby the army chief, like secretaries to the government, is regularly invited to attend these meetings.

Politics without the army

THE amendments proposed to the Constitution to give to the country new “political structures and systems” barely conceal President Musharraf’s preference for a presidential form of government.

He doesn’t call it as such because the Supreme Court, while validating the army takeover, barred him from changing the “salient features” of the parliamentary form set out in the 1973 Constitution.

The National Reconstruction Bureau has woven a tedious semantic web to make the presidential look parliamentary. Starting on a solemn note: “when in the course of human events...” the Bureau has now written down the first part of a new Constitution with another on the “economic and governance structures and systems” to follow at a later (unspecified) date. And all this is to be debated, agreed and enacted well before the elections in the first half of October next.

The Bureau has given just one month to the people to comment on a draft which took it two years to prepare. For its authors it was more important to consult the world experts on federalism, including one Prof. Watts from distant Canada, than the vast anthill of folks at home who are expected to benefit by it but may in fact be left to bear its brunt. Yet it would be interesting to know if Prof. Watts owns a piece of legislation on federalism which has a national security council as its central feature.

Musharraf is not the first authoritarian head of government to pine for a presidential system. Ghulam Mohammad, Iskander Mirza, Ayub Khan, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto too thought that way. The merger of the provinces in West Pakistan into One Unit was in part fulfilment of the designs of the first named two. Ayub Khan actually enforced it. ZAB, when he could not bring the parliament round to agreeing to it, merged the constitutional powers and even the ceremonial functions of the president in the office of the prime minister.

Musharraf should find himself in an even more exalted company. Mr Jinnah also showed his preference for the presidential system when, on independence, he chose to become the governor-general unlike Nehru who became the prime minister. He removed any doubt about his choice in his address at the Quetta Staff College where he told the army officers that “the executive authority flows from the head of the government who is the governor-general...”

Thus, while the leaders, charismatic or authoritarian, all along wanted a president, not dependent on a parliament, to be the executive head (some trace it back to the Islamic history and tradition), the political parties, almost all, want the leader of the majority in the house, or the prime minister, to be in that position. The politicians of Pakistan disown all forms and practices that are colonial in origin but not the Westminster model of government.

Both sides argue at length on the form but ignore completely the prerequisite and substance which make either system work successfully. For the president to head the government he must be elected directly by the people with the whole country as his constituency. It would be both anomalous and unfair for a president to dissolve an assembly (or to dismiss its leader) which is elected by the people and which has installed him in office.

To avoid the bickering and litigation that the assembly dissolutions in the past had caused and also to defend himself against the charge of being arbitrary or capricious, President Musharraf proposes to consult the National Security Council which he himself would head before dissolving the national or provincial assemblies or removing the federal or provincial cabinets.

This blend of the presidential and parliamentary forms carries many hazards. It may divided the loyalty of the service chiefs (all four would be members of the NSC) between the president and the prime minister and, further, may give rise to friction between the assemblies and the armed forces. Thus, the ‘unity of command’ on which Musharraf lays so much emphasis would be subverted.

One of the grounds on which the prime minister or the cabinet can be removed is their “failure to check corruption.” No prime minister or cabinet could escape dismissal on this count, nor would Musharraf’s own cabinet. Even without the pressure of the constituents or parties (the present ministers have neither) and in the presence of special laws and tribunals, Pakistan still remains among the top ten most corrupt countries in the world.

The general run of the politicians prefer the parliamentary government — not because they want to make good laws and policies for the benefit of the people but to extract favours, like jobs and contracts, in return for their support to the prime minister. The country has repeatedly witnessed bizarre bargaining for this support when the contending parties are equally balanced in an assembly. Laws, almost all, are left to be made through the ordinances for later approval by complaisant assemblies.

Fast-changing cabinets and prime ministers are a familiar and accepted feature of the parliamentary system. The seven years of the parliamentary government, after Liaquat Ali Khan’s assassination and Ayub Khan’s coup, perhaps saw as many prime ministers come and go but the business of the state went on uninterrupted. So does it happen in many advanced but fragile parliamentary democracies like Italy and Japan. Ministers come and go but the civil servants, economic planners, entrepreneurs and all the rest remain at work.

Paradoxically, the very politicians who show such deep attachment to parliamentary form of government are also responsible for discrediting it in Pakistan. The pillars on which it rests are: two major parties with a third waiting in the wings to make gains from the follies of both; a permanent public service based on merit and integrity; collective responsibility of the cabinet under the surveillance of the parliament; and last but most important, respect for unwritten conventions more than for the written rules.

The parties by the dozens without principles or programmes, their members ready to change sides, the public servants politicized and venal, and the ministers obsequious have made the parliamentary system unworkable here. Its grotesque version set out in the NRB document would not work either. It is unintelligible. It would be even less practical.

The choice has to be made between the parliamentary and presidential forms as they are understood and practised the world over. The looming fear in the NRB’s plan is that the army might lose its fighting ability without being able to put the politics of the country on democratic rails.

To quote the example of Turkey is a historical travesty. The Turkish army under Kemal Ataturk built a modern republic out of the rubble of the Ottoman Empire by quelling the uprisings by the adherents of a decadent sultanate-cum-caliphate. Pakistan’s army played no part in the country’s creation nor in the uprooting of the reactionaries. It should remain a professional army — out of politics.