Rebuilding democratic order

FOR the fourth time in the turbulent history of Pakistan, a period of military rule has ended and the country is back on the rails of democracy. It is a reflection on Pakistan’s political credentials that its corrupt regimes got repeatedly derailed because norms of good governance were ignored time and again by those who ruled the country after Jinnah and Liaquat.

Mercifully this negative development is not without a silver lining. Repeated imposition of military rule has strengthened not diminished the resolve of the people of Pakistan for a democratic system of governance. The luminaries who played the game of musical chairs in the corridors of power for selfish reasons harmed the country, besides tarnishing their personal image. Our political, military, bureaucratic and judicial bigwigs used catch phrases like basic democracy, ‘Roti, Kapra aur Makan’, tailored democracy, Islamic socialism, sham democracy and law of necessity for promoting their own ends. They all share responsibility for weakening national institutions to the disadvantage of the country. Posterity may not remember them with kind thoughts.

Elections 2002 and the new federal and provincial assemblies provide mixed indicators of relief and anxiety. The holding of elections according to schedule silenced those critics who were sceptical that these might be postponed. The amended Constitution stands revived. The people have generally appreciated amendments relating to lowering of the voting age from 21 to 18 years; increasing the number of seats in the federal and provincial assemblies; introducing degree qualification for assembly candidates; bringing the minorities into the mainstream of national politics; enhancing the number of seats for women in the assemblies; and giving representation to technocrats.

Some amendments are controversial. These include the formation of the National Security Council; the president retaining the post of the Chief of Army Staff; and the discretionary powers enjoyed by the president that were used and misused in the past by previous heads of state. These are bound to be agitated inside the house, in the media and by the public.

The referendums held in the country under generals Ziaul Haq and Pervez Musharraf did not enjoy public confidence. It is for the judiciary to judge their legal status, but the public image of both the presidents dipped with allegations of rigging and other malpractices.

The split mandate in elections 2002 has resulted in the formation of coalition governments at the federal and provincial levels. This is not an abnormal phenomenon in parliamentary democracy. It causes some concern because the history of coalition governments in Pakistan is not deep-rooted and the performance of the coalition partners in the present case is yet to be tested. A political impasse will not suit the government or the opposition. Re-election, if forced, may be a painful and expensive luxury for both of them. Controversial issues should be discussed within parliament and the Constitution amended if desired. Wisdom demands the need to practise the art of the possible.

The elections split two broad-based national parties, the PPP and the Muslim League, and caused visible fissures in them. The president of the PPPP, Makhdum Amin Fahim, tendered his resignation to the PPP chairperson but it was not accepted. Mian Mohammad Azhar, president of the PML(Q), faced a non-confidence motion that was withdrawn when a compromise was reached within the party hierarchy. He had to resign from the presidentship of the party. Such incidents are unfortunate. National and broad-based political parties are better suited to promote national cohesion and closer integration. Regional parties and splinter groups (forward blocs) have their place in politics, but they are weak substitutes for broad-based parties.

Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif were prevented from participating in the electoral process for reasons already well discussed. The verdict of history is that political leaders are better defeated through elections and that they cannot be silenced for long by executive fiats. Both remain in the game of power and are unlikely to suffer permanent damage.

Many new members in the assemblies belong to the old feudal family groups that have traditionally dominated Pakistan’s political landscape in the past. It is noteworthy that politics based on feudalism has disappeared from neighbouring India. Nehru eradicated this menace of the imperial past in the early years of India’s independence. On the other hand, Bhutto’s much-publicized land reforms in Pakistan were an eyewash and were selectively implemented. Feudalism is a barrier to progress. But who will bell the cat when a majority of even the present law-makers are beneficiaries of services rendered by their ancestors in support of the British Crown.

Developments in Afghanistan and Pakistan’s participation in the “war against terror” influenced the voting behaviour of the electorate in parts of the country. The vote-bank of the rightist political parties in the country increased from three to four per cent in the past to about 11 per cent. This development has domestic and external implications for the parties concerned and for the country. The onus is now on the rightist parties to justify the trust reposed in them by the electorate. The hard realities of governance may now determine their popularity with the public.

Sardar Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali is the first prime minister from Balochistan. His immediate problem is to establish stable governments at the federal and provincial levels. The traumatic experiences in Balochistan (Bhutto era, 1970s) and in Punjab (the Benazir-Nawaz Sharif interregnum, 1990s) provide us ample food for thought. It is counterproductive to harass the opposition with the coercive instruments of state for political reasons. Responsibility for stability lies no less on the opposition parties. The inconsistent support given by the MMA and the MQM to the Jamali government at the centre and in Sindh is an indication of the problems that lie ahead.

Charity begins at home. Prime Minister Jamali can enhance his reputation if he performs the miracle of uniting all the factions of his own party — Muslim League — into a single united entity that it once was. Too many people have inflicted too many injuries in the past on too many occasions on the Muslim League for selfish motives. That this party retains a considerable vote bank shows its resilience. Its unification is worth a try.

Similarly, it may be good for itself and for the country if the PPP is united and becomes democratic within. Political cults and family-based political parties retard the growth of democracy. Those who preach democracy should also practise it.

The federal and provincial governments deserve a period of about three or four months in office to convert their party manifestoes into workable decisions. Hopefully, they will not repeat the errors made by their predecessors in the past. The decisions taken by them during the initial months of their rule will determine their popularity graph and administrative ability in good governance.

The Jamali administration will be judged by its acumen in governance, wisdom, maturity, tolerance and speedy decision-making. Mr Jamali’s critics castigate him for being a hamstrung prime minister working under the shadow of a constitutionally powerful president. Earlier, Prime Minister Junejo had faced similar criticism in 1985-1988. Despite the handicap, Mr Junejo proved his ability and history remembers him as an effective prime minister. It is for Prime Minister Jamali to prove his ability in governing the country democratically and effectively. A strong and cohesive Pakistan will make his task easier in handling internal problems and dealing with external challenges.

The writer is a retired general of the Pakistan army.

Identity crisis in Europe

IN today’s world, conditions are favourable for the treatment of the most complex matter of identity in dangerously simple ways. Everywhere, people are seeking to “define” themselves as belonging to a certain perceived cultural background as opposed to other people, who they then push into some other form of definition whether they, the others, like it or not.

The rate at which mental barriers are going up leads to the conclusion that it is a human need to possess a label and to label others without thinking too much about it. For, in nine cases out of ten, the label does not stand up to critical scrutiny.

Take, for example, the smug feeling of cultural superiority prevailing in Europe; the already mostly limited or even false perceptions about the rest of the world in general and the Muslim world in particular that hold sway in the West have only been strengthened by the wrong conclusions drawn from the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

The fact is, barring asylum seekers escaping persecution and economic refugees, educated people coming to Europe from other parts of the world are disappointed by the intellectual and cultural narrowness they often find in place of the enlightened mental width that they had come to expect.

This is a direct result of the educational system in most societies here, which, containing a one-sided Euro-centric view of history, deliberately fosters a sense of cultural superiority. Thus, people grow up in the belief that all important discoveries and advances, especially in the sciences, philosophy, ethics, sociology and politics were made in the past by Europeans.

The idea that other influences, such as that of Muslim thinkers on European thought in the earlier part of the Middle Ages, is sometimes grudgingly accepted if the role of Muslim scholars is seen solely as that of ‘middlemen’ in conveying Greek thought to the Europeans through their translations. Lacking as it is, even this limited concession does not find its way into the history books.

The fact is, recent research has shown that Muslim thought in its own right had a lot to do with shaping European philosophy. For example, a strong case can now be made for the Muslim authorship of the Liber de Causis, a 9th century synopsis of Proclus’ Elements of Theology.

So, education imparting less than the whole story, children growing up in Europe do not see intellectual history in its global context as should be the case, but only in the European context. To them it means less an exchange of ideas across the globe down the centuries, than a European phenomenon. This, in turn, leads them to perceive other cultures such as the Arab, as always having been essentially different and somehow backward and creates false stereotypes.

This is in stark contrast to the Westernised concept of education in most parts of the developing world, through which people there are encouraged to scorn their own culture. They are taught that the West, unlike their own societies, has always been progressive, tolerant, modern and the birthplace of new ideas. This sometimes leads to disillusionment when one is actually exposed to the West, even at the highest places of learning.

In Germany, there is an astonishing amount of religiosity and people tend to perceive immigrants and foreigners belonging to cultures other than the Western or European mainly in religious terms, which is irritating if they themselves have a more complicated sense of their own identity. There is, therefore, a lack of balance in both cases.

In the case of Muslim countries, it has led to the other extreme of militant Islam. In the West, the blinkered view of history has led in the case of Europe to a very narrow view of identity, illustrated these days by the attitude to Turkey’s accession to the EU.

Very regrettably, the two main German opposition parties, the Christian Democratic Union and the Christian Social Union both have strong objections to Turkey joining the EU on petty ideological grounds. Even more regrettably, a number of Social Democrats have recently joined the bandwagon, following in the footsteps of the former Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, who argued that, since the Turks belonged to a different culture, they should not need membership of the European Union for their self respect as a nation.

This brings to mind the totally misguided ‘respect’ that some have here in the West for other cultures, which is really a form of discrimination and is also partly responsible for the insufficient integration of immigrants, who are treated as second-class citizens. Their argument is, that Turkey does not possess the “European identity “ that is essential for membership, which boils down to their seeing Europe as a kind of Christian club. Shared values, which should really be the decisive factor, are not considered relevant.

Turkey has developed a far more secular society than many Muslim and Christian countries. Take former Yugoslavia and the new EU member Slovenia for that matter. One of the more absurd objections made by the Social Democrats in view of Germany’s own history is that democracy has not been a naturally evolving process in Turkey, but was imposed by Kamal Ataturk and the army, for instance.

Or the demand for religious tolerance in Turkey, meaning lifting the ban on headscarves for working women, when both Germany and France forbid it too.

The opposition sees the issue as an opportunity to gain votes by appealing to the xenophobic attitudes of the electorate, which is objectionable at any time and anywhere, but especially so in the present climate of suspicion between East and West.

So the whole notion of a ‘European identity’ becomes an alarming one if it incorporates narrow ideological and religious prejudices, which, unfortunately, but not entirely unexpectedly, is the case nowadays.

Turkey has been told that it might get a date for beginning the talks over accession by the end of 2004, if the EU decides that it, Turkey, has met important demands by then. Why this extreme circumspection in Turkey’s case, when the Italian Prime Minister, Berlusconi is openly violating just about every principle of democracy, such as free speech and freedom of the press, in the heart of European civilisation?

Koreans’ desire for freedom

THE DIVISION of Korea, predicted the South Korean radical and dissenter Paek Ki-wan, would make his country “a nail stuck in the flow of history”. That obstructive quality, the way in which Korea constantly pulls us back to the struggles of half a century ago, has certainly been evident in recent months.

It seems that the two Koreas cannot, will not or have not been allowed by the powers to settle issues which in other countries and regions are now only memories. The North Koreans in October worried the world by revealing that their work on nuclear weapons, supposedly suspended, in fact has never stopped, while, in the south, presidential elections have been dominated by the connected questions of relations with the north and with the US. The most serious demonstrations against the American military presence in South Korea for many years marked the final days of campaigning.

The common thread that ties together these different manifestations is the Korean desire for freedom from outside pressures, so often expressed and so rarely fulfilled.

Nuclear defiance in one half of the peninsula and electoral change in the other together represent a challenge to the established policies of America, Japan, China and Russia. What they suggest is a certain convergence of northern and southern objections to solutions, or rather the lack of them, imposed from outside, above all by the US.

The context is clearly different. In the north, those objections come from a narrow military and party elite that sees its survival threatened by American policies, especially since the Bush administration took over. To make matters more difficult to read, they are refracted through the personality of Kim Jong-il, who is, according to different observers, either a shrewd leader or a spoiled and perhaps mentally unstable man.

In the south, the victory of the liberal candidate Roh Moo- hyun is a democratic phenomenon reflecting a shift in generations, slippage in the power of the political right, and a desire for spending on social policies rather than military hardware, as well as the feeling that the US is dangerously mismanaging Pyongyang.

In spite of these differences, however, what it amounts to is that the north thinks that it is being mistreated by the US, and that the current of opinion in the south which agrees with that view is growing and is still represented, with Roh succeeding Kim Dae-jung as president, at the highest political level. Indeed Roh, with his expressed doubts about the American military’s usefulness in Korea, may well represent a more openly radical position. Even so, he will have to operate in power, just like his predecessor, with conservative partners and political associates.

Protests against the American presence have been ostensibly concerned with the treaty which, under most circumstances, shields US military personnel from the South Korean justice system. But the anger at the deaths of two schoolgirls crushed by an American military vehicle during recent manoeuvres also expressed a more fundamental questioning of the need for American protection.

South Koreans know that while a North Korean attack could cause terrible damage, Pyongyang long ago lost the capacity to invade and conquer the south. South Korea’s economic and military strength has for years so outweighed that of North Korea that it could deal with them without American help, at least on the ground, as Roh hinted during the campaign. The only military card the north has left was its nuclear, chemical and bacteriological potential, as a last resort if it came under attack. Indeed, that is the rub, for what matters strategically on the peninsula now is not the threat to South Korea but the threat to North Korea.

Korean troubles in their most recent form go back to the reunification of Germany, following which the North Korean elite began to suffer the disquieting experience of hearing other people talk about them as if they were dead. As the country lost its Chinese and Russian subsidies, the coming collapse of North Korea and the reunification of the peninsula on the south’s terms were subjects on everybody’s lips. Critics of the “agreed framework” of 1994 between the US and North Korea were told that, long before the US had to deliver, North Korea would have disappeared. That was the deal under which the pursuit of nuclear weapons would be halted in exchange for aid and trade, normalisation of relations and an American pledge not to use nuclear weapons against North Korea.

Often forgotten in accounts of North Korean duplicity is that the Americans have not kept most of these promises. The desire to get North Korea quickly into a well-deserved grave is still evident, a typical instance being recent leaks from the Bush administration about the idea that a collapse could be precipitated by a huge outflow of refugees, similar to that which precipitated change in eastern Europe.

Kim Dae-jung understood the north’s siege mentality, grasped that a North Korean collapse in whatever form would be a calamity for both sides, and tried to emphasise economic over political links as the two groped for agreement, only to find Pyongyang suspicious of that approach as well. Nevertheless he made progress, but that was undercut by Bush’s dismissal of his “sunshine policy” at their meeting in March 2001. Since that encounter, the administration has again and again compounded the problem, notably with the “axis of evil” speech, and more recently with the September 20 announcement on pre-emptive attack, and with the interception of the North Korean ship taking missiles to the Yemen.

Bush has added a personal note in telling Bob Woodward: “I loathe Kim Jong-il.” It is thus not altogether surprising that the North Koreans have been cheating on agreements which they feel the US has also not honoured. Yet, when Washington did belatedly decide to explore the diplomatic possibilities again, the North Korean admission in October that nuclear weapons work had continued was, in the view of the respected analyst Selig Harrison, an attempt “to wipe the slate clean and revive dialogue”. If so, the US has not responded, preferring instead to ask China, Russia and Japan to put more pressure on North Korea.

Koreans have a well-grounded view that the best interests of their country have weighed little in international decision-making. They see the US and others colluding in the annexation of their country by Japan, because Japan was more important to the West than they were. They see the division of the country and the war that followed as the result of a combination of initial American inattention and later obsession with the communist threat.

Now, once again, many feel Korean interests are at risk because of deals done and dogmas shaped in a distant capital. That is the message from both sides of the 38th parallel.—Dawn/Guardian Service

Snooping for America

Call it what you will, “Big Brother,” “George Orwell,” “Super Anti-Terrorism” — the Pentagon still wants to spy on you. The program called “Total Information Awareness” is being conducted to find out how much personal information the government can find out about every American citizen.

The head of the program is Rear Admiral John Poindexter, who was found guilty during the Reagan Administration of lying to Congress, destroying official documents and obstructing justice in the Iran-Contra scandal. He was found guilty but his sentence was overturned and so the Pentagon decided he was the best man for the TIA job.

How will this affect you, dear reader? If the data retrieval bureau succeeds, the government will know everything about you.

I can see next Christmas when the TIA has collected all its information.

The scene is Santa Claus Land in the Halldale Department Store in Minneapolis. The action is being monitored in the basement of the Pentagon by Gen. Sleuth, Col. Ripper and Navy Cmdr. Ruth, the highest-ranking woman in the TIA program.

“What have we got on Santa Claus?” Gen. Sleuth asks.

Col. Ripper goes to his computer. “He was married three times and his last wife recently left him. He likes bourbon, which he keeps in his sack next him. This is the only job he could get because he’s over 50. When he has money, he spends it on a steak and French fries.”

Gen. Sleuth asks, “But is he a terrorist or not?”

Ripper hits a button. “Let’s see what happens when he talks to a kid.”

Santa says, “Ho, ho, ho. And what is your name?”

“Butch. What is your name?” the kid asks.

Santa’s blood pressure goes up and he looks as if he wants to throttle the kid.

“Now what do you want for Christmas?”

“A video game called ‘Blowing Up the World.”’

Cmdr. Ruth says, “Butch isn’t kidding. For his birthday he asked for ‘Weapons of Mass Destruction, Upgraded.”’

Santa asks, “Have you been a good boy or a bad boy?”

“I can go either way.”

Cmdr. Ruth says, “The computer says he locked his sister in the closet for two hours last week and tried to put her cat in the microwave oven.”

The general says, “Have the Minnesota National Guard check him out. We’re making progress. By next year we will have data on everyone in America.”

Col. Ripper says, “I have a suggestion. Why don’t we sell our database to the department stores, mail order houses and magazine subscription departments? They’ll pay anything to know what goes on in the minds of their potential customers. In that way, not only can we find terrorists, but we can also make a profit.”

Gen. Sleuth agrees, “God idea. Let’s run it up the privacy flagpole and see who salutes.”—Dawn/Tribune Media Services

After three years of political limbo

IN Pakistan, out of the three military leaders who usurped political power through bloodless coups, only Ayub Khan and Pervez Musharraf, eventually felt the need to share their triumphs and achievements with the public through newspaper supplements. In cricket parlance Ayub Khan did so at the height of his power, after batting at the crease for eleven successful years, and did not realize at the time that he would soon be run out.

Pervez Musharraf did so after completing an innings which lasted three years, that by comparison, has the appearance of an ODI, with the judges performing the role of the umpires , ensuring that only 50 overs are bowled. The difference is, of course, that President Musharraf has not yet been given out. He is sitting in the commentary box, enjoying a cucumber sandwich, secure in the knowledge that he will remain captain of the team for the next five years, unless, of course, the audience behaves like the crowd at an ODI in Delhi..

Ziaul Haq, on the other hand, had his exceptionally long innings cut short by divine intervention, and never really got the chance to demonstrate through a newspaper supplement the fruits of his long, acerbic and, at times, highly repressive reign. This mandarin of depression went to such absurd lengths to impose his curious brand of religious intolerance that it was rumoured at the time that the girl who read the news at Pakistan Television had been given strict instructions not to smile at the viewers.

But one feels that even if he had gotten the opportunity, he would have had little to show for his eleven years at the helm of affairs. Besides institutionalizing corruption, he left behind a legacy of functional anarchy, a glut of weapons in the market place, large numbers of restless combat-hardened foreign guerillas, millions of Afghan refugees, lawlessness, an unbridled drug trade, an exceptionally high rate of inflation, and a foreign policy that had little chance of survival. To top it all, he tricked the population into believing that Pakistan’s salvation was inextricably linked to the formation of a theocratic state shorn of the principles of secularism on which it was founded. It was this legacy that Benazir Bhutto, Nawaz Sharif and Pervez Musharraf inherited.

Ayub Khan’s industrial achievements, and there were many, were etched in huge newspaper supplements with the accent of an assured diagnosis. His ‘Decade of Development’ was brimming with glowing statistics and bristling with heavily worn erudition. It presented the secular Ayub Khan as larger than life and gave birth to Friends, not Masters, the all-time best-seller in Pakistan, ghost-written by his information secretary, Altaf Gauhar, which represented a distillation of the thoughts of the Sandhurst-trained field marshal.

Older captains of industry, who instinctively prefer soldiers to politicians, still refer to the Ayub Khan era as the golden age of Pakistan. Some of them who have survived the rigours and excesses of the Bhutto era, have accepted with weary resignation, the recent switch-over from an unelected government of technocrats backed by the military to a government of democratically elected MNAs, headed by a prime minister whose survival depends on the pleasure of the president.

Soon after stumps were drawn on October 10, leading English and vernacular newspapers came out with a supplement entitled ‘Three years at a glance,’ which described the achievements of President Musharraf’s 1095 days at the crease. This hastily crafted score sheet remains largely unread as newspaper readers and television viewers are beginning to have a low boredom threshold and are becoming increasingly suspicious of officially projected success stories embellished with glowing statistics.

The first thing that struck this writer before he had time to wade through the 32-page self-appraisal was the blurb on the cover which focused entirely on fiscal achievements. The five bullet points referred to the reduction of the external debt and the foreign exchange liability by a couple of billion dollars; to the fiscal deficit which was reduced by two per cent; to foreign exchange reserves crossing 8.54 billion dollars; to an upswing in foreign direct investment by 23 million dollars a month; and to the lowering of inflation from 10.4 per cent to 3.5 per cent.

These are remarkable achievements indeed, even though 9/11 had a great deal to do with the boosting of foreign exchange reserves, as Pakistanis, unsure of their future in the US, suddenly increased the volume of their home remittances. Another area in which the military government achieved a measure of success, which was not spotlighted on the cover of the supplement, was a crackdown on defaulters, though there has been severe criticism against President Musharraf and the ISI of selective targeting of defaulting politicians who decided not to play ball with the King’s party.

There are chapters on rebuilding national confidence and morale, strengthening the federation, reviewing the economy, creating a safe society, depoliticizing state institutions (in which the civil service has come in for a bit of drubbing), accountability and national reconstruction.

The International Monetary Fund, however, did not quite share the enthusiasm of President Musharraf’s think-tank. In a detailed report which was filed a couple of months ago in Washington, they pointed an accusing finger at what they believed were glaring failures of the military regime. Chief among the criticisms were the failure to reform key enterprises like Wapda and PIA that continue to absorb the state’s resources like a giant sponge, levying hidden taxes without announcing them in advance, failure to curb corruption in any significant way and to eradicate poverty.

The recurring theme of poverty is rather pedantic. No developing country has been able to accomplish this. In Pakistan, where M2 as a proportion of GNP is over 150 per cent, alluding to the existence of a huge black economy and a population that is rising at 3.0 per cent speaks of a fetish. Even the late Dr Schacht, the financial wizard behind the Third Reich, would not have been able to do anything about these, though he would have certainly had a crack at changing the ground rules.

The criticism in the IMF report which really nicked the president’s nerve was about the National Accountability Bureau on which 80 billion rupees of the nation’s money has been spent to conduct 154 inquiries against politicians, 290 against bureaucrats, 38 against businessmen and seven against members of the armed forces. That is a great deal of money which was apparently used in spearing sardines and herring, while the sharks slipped out of the net. A lady correspondent in Islamabad suggested it was time there was an accountability of the National Accountability Bureau.

The section on law and order refers to arms control policy, combating terrorism, regulation of deeni madaris, immigration control, and reforming law enforcement agencies and arming them with sophisticated modern equipment “to enhance their capacity to enable them to tackle the problems faced by the country.” A fat lot of good this seems to have done. It has not stopped car thieves from lifting an average of eight vehicles a day in Karachi, terrorists from tossing hand grenades into a church during a Christmas service in Daska, near Sialkot, or two uncles in a small town in Sindh from chopping off the hands of their young niece, bludgeoning her face with clubs, stoning her to death and bribing the local station house officer to hush things up.

All because she got up and danced at a marriage party. Is the chief minister of Sindh going to wait until this incident is reported on the BBC and Sky News before he hauls up the SHO and orders the arrest and prosecution of the savage killers and tormentors.

The nation had not yet recovered from Meerwalla, where the gang rapists, the death penalty still hanging over their heads, are now out on bail negotiating with their victim, when this tragic incident was reported. It demonstrates the bleak landscape in which the defenceless Pakistani rural woman finds herself, the savage and barbaric side of tribal mores under which people are condemned to live, and the sublime indifference of the executive who continue to measure progress in fiscal rather than in human terms.

Thomas Hobbes was right. Life is nasty, brutish and short. But surely something can still be done to alter the mindset of the local apparatchiks, without resorting to the methods employed by Joseph Stalin to subjugate the Kulaks.