| September 13, 2002 | Friday | Rajab 5, 1423 |
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Moot court
Towards an election without issues?
Wait-and-see in Guatemala
FOR well over two years most of our political leaders have had their records stuck in one groove: “Restore political activity.” Now there has been a fair restoration of “political activity.” What turns out is the dismaying fact that no political party, no leader of any weight or substance, is ready with any plan, road map, policy statement, not to speak of a properly thought out party manifesto. There was absolutely no constraint of any kind over the homework that properly organized parties could do sitting at home.
ON the 14th of August, I chose to talk of Mohammed Ali Jinnah rather than independence and the 55 years that followed.
My point was that since we had made a tragic mess of our freedom and sovereignty it was better to dwell on the greatness of the man who gifted them to us, that this might inject some hope into the national psyche.
But now, on the anniversary of his death, I can write about the Quaid-i-Azam without resorting to an excuse. Actually there is so much to say that I, at least, am never tired of recalling the various aspects of his life.
There is one aspect that has always amazed me as it has surprised foreign observers. The Quaid always spoke to his people, the Muslims of India, in English which few of them understood. And yet he was their undisputed leader. This was so because they trusted him implicitly.
They knew he was one leader who would not betray them. He was the idol that never fell, and never developed feet of clay. He did not hanker after cheap popularity by glossing over the truth and painting rosy pictures for them.
Then, he didn’t issue press statements every day, saying one thing now and quite another the next moment. He was never vituperative about his political opponents and strictly observed the rules of the game. He did not contrive huge gatherings to show how popular he was as a leader. He proved by his conduct that honesty is not only needed in money matters but also in day- to-day actions which had to be based on truthfulness. It is our misfortune that all these are qualities that are studiously avoided while playing politics today.
And he was no poseur. Maulvi Muhammad Bakhsh Muslim was imam of the famous Lohari Gate Mosque in Lahore for a long time. He once related a small anecdote to us about the Quaid which always amuses me when I think of it. It seems that Mr Jinnah was spending a relaxed evening on the roof of the old Nedou’s Hotel in Lahore which is now the Avari. Who else was there besides Maulvi Muslim I now forget, but that is immaterial. What is material is the silly question that the naive maulvi put to him and the reply that he gave.
Maulvi MBM: Quaid-i-Azam, sir, you are the undisputed leader of the Muslims of India. Why don’t you grow a beard?
QA: Maulana sahib, at this stage of my life I don’t want to deceive the Musulmans.
I am not narrating this small incident to you to highlight the merits or demerits of a beard, nor to tell you what Mr Jinnah thought about beards. In fact I’m sure he never thought about them, and had much more important matters to engage his mind during that crucial period of his life. Whatever else he may have said on the roof of Nedou’s Hotel that evening he made it quite clear to Maulvi Muslim that he had no time for hypocrisy.
For example, he was a very rich man. I am sure he could have gone for hajj every year or for umra every weekend if he liked and prayed there (as a press note would have told us) for the solidarity of the ummah and for the success of his efforts to carve a homeland for Indian Muslims. But what he had learned as a good Muslim was to do something practical for his people and not just pray for their political and economic salvation.
You think this carries a lesson for our government leaders, both political and military, who have ruled this country during the past few decades and are waiting in the wings to do it again? It should, but don’t even dream that they’ll learn anything from it. They’ll go on performing the ritual umra as long as the national budget allows them.
They and Mr Jinnah are poles apart. No one ever accused him of hypocrisy, while for them hypocrisy and deceiving the hapless people of Pakistan is a way of life.
One of the greatest qualities of the founding father was that he spoke out his mind freely he was dressed for the occasion or not. Do you get what I mean? Political leaders nowadays, especially those who are in government, say one thing if they are dressed in a suit and tie and quite another if the suit is shalwar-kameez. For instance, you will never see them addressing a public meeting in European clothes. No, never. Just try to go behind the psychology of this theatricality.
Those of us who unthinkingly aver that had the Quaid-e-Azam lived longer he would have done this or that, or not allowed such-and-such thing to happen, should keep in mind the fact that if their wish had been granted he would have been more than a hundred years old now. No political or social leader, howsoever great he may be, is absolutely irreplaceable. What his followers can do in order to continue to feel his presence is to act as he acted in his lifetime i.e. follow in his footsteps with honesty.
Nostalgia for a good man apart, it is futile and foolish to wish that he was alive. What we can do instead is to measure our present state of affairs against the ideals we associate with him and see where we stand in that light.
Since humbug and hypocrisy always give me the creeps, let me vent my spleen at a practice that is related to the birth and death anniversaries of the Father of the Nation. And that is the habit of issuing messages to the people by whoever holds any office of note in the country.
If you go through the news pages of this paper you will come across many such messages. Starting with the president (and the prime minister, if there is one around) everyone who is capable of uttering a cliche, which means all the governors and many of the federal ministers, are advising you and me, most brazen- facedly, to follow the ideals of the Quaid-e-Azam without lifting a little finger to do so themselves.
You will surely ask me, “Should they not issue any messages at all on the two occasions connected with the Quaid?” Yes, I say, they should not. Tell me honestly, what do these platitudes achieve? Anything other than a feeling of revulsion, especially when you remember that not a word in these messages is even read by these worthies themselves?
Let newspapers publish supplements and articles by those who knew the man intimately. That should be enough for us if we really want to learn anything. But for God’s sake not the “follow in his footsteps” thing! Its positively nauseating.
LAW school is the place where lawyers learn all the tricks of their trade. I sat in on a legal ethics class at Wuthering Heights University.
The instructor said, “Today we’re going to take a hypothetical case. A man named Hatfield is suing his surgeon for malpractice because his doctor cut off the wrong leg.
“Tina, you’re the lawyer for the plaintiff. Tommy, you are the insurance company’s defence lawyer. Tina, you go first.”
Tina said, “Well, first I have to prove the doctor didn’t know one leg from the other. I use charts, X-rays and slides to show the leg the surgeon removed was a healthy one. To do this, I have to call expert witnesses to testify to this effect.”
The professor said, “And how do you find the expert witnesses to testify for your client?”
“I will just go to the hospital and ask if I can borrow them.”
“No, Tina. You have to pay expert witnesses to testify. Since they are experts, they get $5,000 a day, plus lunch and transportation. Remember, the defence is going to hire their own expert witnesses who will say cutting off the wrong leg happens all the time. Continue, Tina.”
Tina said, “I will put my client on the stand and he will testify he could not find work as a dancer after his leg was removed.”
“Tommy, you object because that fact is irrelevant.”
Tommy said, “I object.”
The professor continued, “I will be the judge in this case and say, ‘Objection overruled.’ I will tell the jury to ignore the defence objection. As soon as the defence lawyer utters it, the jury will ignore the judge’s instructions and remember it. Now, Tommy, it’s the defence’s turn.”
“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, Hatfield signed a form giving permission to cut off his leg and did not specify which one. Once he signed the paper it was no longer the surgeon’s responsibility.”
Tommy said, “I would like to enter Exhibit A.”
“What is it?” the professor asked.
“When Hatfield went to college, he flunked Medieval History and was kicked off the football team.”
Tina said, “Objection. His school grades have nothing to do with his leg.” The professor said, “Now class, pay attention. This is very important for anyone who is defending a client in this kind of a case. You have to smear his reputation every chance you can. If he is divorced or has unpaid traffic tickets, try to put it into the record. Get the jury to forget the amputation and look at Hatfield as a money-grubbing, hateful scoundrel.
“I hope you have learned something today. As the great lawyer O.J. Simpson once said, ‘Winning is everything’.” —Dawn/Tribune Media Services
All that the ‘major’ political parties have to show for their last nearly three years is infighting, bickering, under-the-counter and behind-the-curtain bargaining and mutual recrimination. During the period since October 1999 there has been a phenomenal proliferation of political parties. This is, in fact, a case of disintegration and fragmentation of political parties. The manner in which our political leaders have been washing their unclean linen in public without so much as a twinge of remorse takes one’s breath away.
Today this limping democracy has more than 90 political parties. The actual number of parties accorded recognition by the Election Commission is just short of one hundred. If all the parties that had applied to the Election Commission were taken into reckoning, the number would be above 120. What other country of our size and age has this kind of confusion? All of this in the good name of a political culture called democracy.
Imagine we now have one PML that carries the label ‘Quaid-i-Azam’ and an opponent PML bears the name ‘Jinnah.’ They have separated the Quaid-i-Azam from Jinnah, or vice versa.
No sane Pakistani citizen was surprised when, after a fracas virtually in full view of the public, the son of dictator Ziaul Haq kicked away the party that had nursed and nurtured him, and set up yet another PML. This was to be PML(Z), the ‘Z’ to resurrect the memory of the longest and darkest phase in this country’s existence. This is just another instance of the embarrassment and humiliation the nation has been subjected to by its so-called politicians.
We are told that the PML and the PPP and the MQM are the three major political parties and hence entitled to displace the present establishment. In principle, this averment is indisputable. Restoration of democracy and the final exit of the military from seats of government is a consummation most devoutly to be wished for. But after all the fuss that this nation has been watching, it is entitled to demand that all those asking for democracy must define what they mean by ‘democracy’. How much of democracy have these parties imbibed and practised within their set-ups and functioning? When forced to have an elected leadership, the ‘major’ ones only went through the motions, ‘electing’ their sitting presidents — unopposed. The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), now PPPP, has had a life-chairperson for some years. Is that democracy?
The people of Pakistan have demonstrated time and again that, if their sovereign voice was properly heard and heeded, Pakistan would have been a democracy all the time and never under military rule and never under the ‘democratic’ governments that Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif foisted upon them. Goodness knows the people received Benazir with open arms, applauded her, trusted her, adored her, and at the earliest opportunity put her in power.
What did she do in power is not hidden from anyone in this country, nor from the world, for that matter. The very people who had voted her into power with uncontainable enthusiasm and with the sincerest goodwill were silent when she was dismissed for the first time from office. The people who could defy dictator Zia should have had no fear of President Ghulam Ishaq Khan. Why the people maintained a sulking silence was because Benazir had dashed all hopes and expectations of those who had carried her on their shoulders into the prime minister’s house.
In comes Nawaz Sharif. When he was chief minister of Punjab, he refused to extend normal protocol to Benazir, the prime minister of the republic. Not to be outdone, Benazir returned the compliment, calling him “Nawazoo” in her public tirades. When Benazir was dismissed from office, Nawaz Sharif celebrated. Groomed by General Jilani into a successor of dictator Zia, Nawaz Sharif shed copious tears at Zia’s funeral and committed himself, heart and soul, to carry on the dictator’s mission. Whatever he did while in power was certainly redolent of the instincts and inclinations of the dictator. All of this is on record in print, on the sound track as well as in film.
Until yesterday Nawaz Sharif and Benazir were the bitterest of foes. As they fought their no-holds-barred battles, the country was trampled upon and roughed up. When in office their performance brought no honour to them and none to this nation. Both had to be removed from office for offences that would have landed ordinary citizens into prison for long terms. Some of their closest cabinet colleagues and favourite bureaucrats have heaped upon themselves and their mentors heavy loads of disgrace.
A word about the third of our trio of political ‘majors’. In his eventful career he was befriended by Benazir as well as Nawaz and then not only booted out but actually hounded out. It is not for nothing that Altaf Hussain of the MQM has been sitting it out in London. Nawaz Sharif greeted his one-time partner with “Operation Clean-Up”. Benazir’s compliment to an erstwhile political ally was presented by her interior minister Gen Naseerullah Babar in the shape of a “Shoot-at-sight” order to the police in Sindh, more emphatically in Karachi.
Today the voter in Pakistan has a feast of choices. He/she has a choice that is a surfeit of delicacies the like of which has not been heard of before. There are scores and scores of parties to choose from. It would take a prodigious memory to remember the names or symbols of even a tenth of them. In their first outing since restraints were removed from electioneering in public, all of them have struck what they presume are ‘people-friendly’ postures. They will serve the ‘neglected’ and ‘mistreated’ people of Pakistan. Let us only think of the last decade and a half. Neglected by whom? Mistreated by whom?
Just as there was little to distinguish Benazir from Nawaz when they were prime ministers (twice), there is little to tell the one from the other today. They are both out of the country with only a vague prospect of returning, if any prospect at all. The same may be said of the third ‘major’ hibernating in London with British citizenship. But none of the three is away from his/her home constituencies and loyalists. Not a day passes without a fresh statement from Benazir. Nawaz has a strong lobby working for him here in Pakistan. Altaf Hussain is frequently on the phone from London with a long speech.
What is exasperating is that every leader is talking of ‘restoration of democracy’ but not one leader or party has come out with clear-cut programmes, or even anything announcement by way of a policy statement on the issues of the moment. This country is riddled with problems and overloaded with politicians but there is no one talking of what is to be done to address the most pressing problems making life so difficult.
This is not to be read as a defence of the status quo or a case for a government headed by an army general. In fact, this is written in defence of a democratic culture abandoned by the loudest advocates of democracy. What is an election in which there are no clear-cut issues under passionate debate?
EARLIER this month, when Guatemalan President Alfonso Portillo announced he would drastically cut that country’s armed forces, few Guatemalans cheered him. He also announced he would turn certain military installations into school classrooms, and the reaction of the people, even in a nation as desperately short of educational opportunity as Guatemala, was restrained when not openly skeptical. “I’ll believe it when I see it,” said a chief human rights activist.
Guatemalans don’t trust their military, and they won’t trust Portillo until he proves to them he will really change that secretive and feared institution. During Guatemala’s 36-year civil war, which ended in 1996, more than 200,000 people, mostly civilians, died or disappeared.
The military slaughtered Maya Indians, who without evidence were considered sympathetic to the rebels. Human rights violations — rapes, illegal detentions, torture — by the army and its paramilitary allies were widespread and did not quite end with the war. Whole villages were burned to the ground.
There is a consensus in Guatemala that radical cuts in the size of the army are necessary, not just because of its history but because the guerrilla wars across Central America have fully ended.
The first task is determining the size of the army, which officials put at 40,000, a disputed figure. By comparison, neighbouring Honduras has an army of only 18,000.—Los Angeles Times