WHEN America wants to see the world, it stands in front of the mirror. When the world wants to see America it takes a long shot. If America does not find the world transformed in its own image, it seeks to change what it does not like. The rest of the world ponders the cost, and checks the exchange rate of collateral damage.

If America looms across the world, then it broods over Canada. To be a peacetime neighbour of America is to win a lottery in destiny’s stakes. To be a neighbour when America has been wounded in war, is a test of nerve. The brooding has become a glower ever since Canada wafted out of Washington’s familiar embrace and refused to send troops to help America’s occupation of Iraq. The Bush administration has been either sulking or fretting ever since. Geography makes no difference to America’s inability to appreciate that others may have genuine reasons for their stance. Washington is as clueless about Ottawa as it is about Timbuktoo.

Canada’s Iraq policy is a manifestation of not what America has become as about what Canada has become. This nation is reinventing itself, once again, as a warm experiment in multi-culturalism, or even multinationalism, as it becomes home to a hundred different displaced communities from around the globe. It is a slow fusion perhaps, but the Canadian government is determined to represent the ethnic rainbow that now nestles among the branches of the national maple. Its Iraq policy is driven by an internal dynamic. But here also lies an extraordinary opportunity, for Canada can become the bridge between Washington and the world that Washington has lost through haste, ignorance and overreach.

Iraq hovers over every conversation like Banquo’s ghost; and sprawled across the table is the subject of Islam in all its dimensions. Larger issues are being worked through the collective consciousness, conscientiously. In the short run, Canada is relieved that its soldiers are not on the daily roll call of death that permeates the news from Iraq. There is relief but no joy, for time will make the 2,000 Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan vulnerable. Ottawa watches with perplexed anxiety as a traditional friend and neighbour is trapped by misconceptions, and the best and brightest in Washington take recourse to inanity as policy begins to crumble.

On more than one occasion I hear a reference to Colin Powell’s “evidence” for the return of normality to Iraq: he claimed that parent-teacher associations were opening up in schools in Baghdad! Even more outlandish is the fact that some eight billion dollars, or nearly one-third of the reconstruction budget that George Bush seeks for Iraq, is slotted to be spent on Iraq’s postal service. I wonder who thought up the formula: if you keep the Iraqis busy writing letters they won’t shoot. One of Frank Sinatra’s most famous songs was My way. George Bush has a remix version titled, “My way — or take the highway”.

It might seem odd that I am going to tell you the latest about Afghanistan from Montreal, but this is September, the hunting season when the world’s leaders choose the opening session of the United Nations General Assembly to make their fixed trip to the United States. President Pervez Musharraf was in Ottawa in recent days, and happy to offer information and advice to the media. So here is the news, as delivered by Pakistan’s supremo:

Osama bin Laden is alive, well and taking long walks in the mountains between Pakistan and Afghanistan. “Yes, indeed. I am reasonably sure.” How? Ahem... “technical means... we were getting close, we knew he was in the mountains. Either across or on our side. But he was in the mountains...” Who is ‘we’? The ISI and the CIA, of course. So who is to blame for the fact that Osama is still as free as a bird. “Let it be clear to everyone: if I am to blame, if ISI is to blame, then the CIA is equally to blame... The border is porous, there is no doubt about it.” So how did the doubts disappear? Intercepts of Al-Qaeda communications.

By the way, free-as-a-bird Osama could have dropped in to visit Rawalpindi as well: “It’s a possibility. I won’t rule it out.” And how about the Taliban? How were they doing in the war they had restarted against the United States? “They are far better than any other soldiers in the world. If you go into the mountains they will beat you. They will be faster. They know the routes. They are more hardy.” So what next? Send more troops, pals, or friend Hamid Karzai is toast while America gets burnt. Send the extra soldiers where? To the provinces, where the warlords still rule, and will turn to whichever side they find is winning the war.

And now to some domestic news. President Pervez is a firm believer in democracy, particularly of the sustained kind, and even more particularly if it empowers women. So when will he get out of the way of democracy? “The moment I see democracy stabilized and functioning I will remove my uniform.” When could that happy day come? A few months? Chuckle. “No, not months. More than months.” He also has “a system in place” to make sure that Islamic extremists never come to power, particularly through democracy.

None of this will ever be denied, but just in case: the quotes are from the interview and reports published in The Globe and Mail of Friday September 26.

And here is the news not delivered by President Musharraf. Canada is well-known for being a cold country, but it got positively frigid with President Musharraf. Apart from denying the Pakistan leader a visa it did what it could to be cool. No question of state honours and all that — no flags, no black-tie dinner at Rideau Hall, just a private meal with Prime Minister Jean Chretian. The president’s request to visit Toronto, which has the largest population of Pakistani-Canadians, was turned down. Reason? Security. Interesting. The Canadians clearly believe that President Musharraf needs to be protected from Pakistanis.

There were suppressed giggles at the rather desperate manner in which a programme was sought to be manufactured for the president’s visit. He even wanted to appear before a parliamentary committee on foreign affairs and trade, and drop in on a conference on Canada and Islam in the 21st Century. President Musharraf gets a much warmer reception south of the snow-line, in America. Which internal hurricane drove him north?

There was much innovative imagery during the speeches at the conference in Montreal. One Canadian senator took out white, brown and black doughnuts from a bag, placed them on top of one another and declared that this was the harmony that made Canada unique.

A feisty Thai-Muslim politician then took out three plastic forks and offered his own Theory of Three Forks to describe the world. This was the cutlery he had got on the airline coming to Canada, he declaimed, while the rest of the passengers got steel knives and forks. Why? Because he had asked for a Muslim meal. Muslim-mealwallahs could only be trusted with plastic; steel would be injurious to everyone else’s health. Fortunately, there was a sensible interlocutor to break the deadly impasse between the Three Doughnuts and the Three Forks. He intervened to point out that since Air Canada was virtually broke, it provided no meals at all, so Canada was safe from all charges of bias.

Since every conference has to have an airline joke, here is the chestnut I heard in the lift. Passenger to airline ticket officer: “Could you please book me to Hawaii and my baggage to Singapore?” Ticket officer: “No, sir, we can’t do that.” Passenger: “Why not? You did it last year.”

All right, maybe that is not the best joke of the year, but take it from me: any joke has its uses during an East-West conference on Islam.

Canadians are proud to tell you that they discovered the telephone, cellphone and personal computer. What they keep a closely guarded secret is the fact that no Canadian ever made money out of these inventions. Canadians got the idea and Americans made the money. On 25 September 1973 Mers Kutt, from Toronto, showed the world his invention, a typewriter-sized microcomputer called MCM-70 with between 2 and 8 kilobytes of random memory and 14 kilobytes of read-only memory.

This was arguably the world’s first PC, and appeared four years before Apple bit into the game. But Kutt was squeezed out of his own company when he sought money to expand. He therefore is left with the memories while Bill Gates is left with the money.

Another Canadian now says he has produced a cure for the common cold, and suggests you take 9 tablets on the first day and 6 on the second if you see a cold coming. My first reaction is that this was probably just enough Vitamin C to stop any mild sniff. But the makers say that their secret formula is based on ginseng. If ginseng can cure impotence in Korea there is no reason why it can’t cure the common cold in Canada.

Did you know that Queen Victoria’s left hand was significantly shorter than her right one, and a bit withered as well? Neither did I, until I visited the splendidly colonial buildings that house the Parliament of Canada beside the Rideau river. No wonder all the great sculptors of the Empire concentrated on her nose, generally tilted about twenty degrees to the north.

The writer is editor-in-chief, Asian Age, New Delhi.

ADDRESSING the current session of the UN General Assembly on September 24, President General Pervez Musharraf said that if India was genuinely concerned about cross-LoC infiltration it should agree to a viable mechanism to monitor this, on both sides of the LoC, and to strengthen the United Nations Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP) for this purpose.

However, Indian prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, instead of appreciating President Musharraf’s positive suggestion which indeed was more in India’s favour, adopted a negative stance and in his vitriolic speech at the UN General Assembly session, on September 25, maintained that unless the “infiltration” across the LoC ends completely there can be no talks with Pakistan.

Regrettably, India has mobilized its entire propaganda machinery to convince the international community that Pakistan is sponsoring “terrorism” in the occupied Kashmir by facilitating the cross-LoC incursions into that territory. Pakistan has, time and again, denied this allegation. However, in the words of President Musharraf, “India cites cross-border terrorism only to refuse a dialogue with Pakistan”.

Probably, India also thinks that the only way to gain the sympathies of the international community for its excessive use of force against the people of Kashmir is to project their indigenous movement for freedom as acts of terrorism.

There are indications that the western world has, to some extent, been influenced by India’s malicious propaganda against Pakistan. It would, however, be instructive to recall that sometime back, the then Indian army chief, General Padamanabhan, publicly admitted that the on-going trouble in the occupied state was an insurgency which required a political solution. This established, beyond a shadow of doubt, that it is the indigenous people of Kashmir who are in rebellion against the occupation of their territory and India’s allegation of infiltration from across the LoC, was merely a fantasy.

After the suspension of hostilities between Pakistan and India in Kashmir in January 1949, the military representatives of the two countries met in Karachi and signed an agreement establishing a ceasefire line there. This agreement also provided the stationing of the UN military observers on each side of the ceasefire line, to monitor and report to the UN secretary general all the incidents of the cease-fire violations. The agreement in question further set forth certain activities which were prohibited on either side of the ceasefire line such as the strengthening of defences or the increase of forces, in specified areas, as well as the induction of additional military forces into Kashmir.

The basic aim of the deployment of the UN military observers on each side of the ceasefire line was to deter both Pakistan and India from using force against each other. Thus, the UNMOGIP has a unique role of minimizing the possibility of an armed conflict between the two belligerent states and to ensure stability in the region. Needless to say that the success of such a peace-keeping mission largely depended on full and wholehearted cooperation by the parties concerned.

In 1972, India asked the United Nations to withdraw its observers from the ceasefire line which the Simla Agreement had redefined as the Line of Control. These UN observers had been operating there since 1949 when the ceasefire line was established. India’s request was based on the plea that after the Simla Agreement, the mandate of the UNMOGIP had lapsed. Pakistan, however, did not accept this position and asked the United Nations for the retention of its observers on the LoC as neither the Kashmir dispute had been resolved nor had it been withdrawn from the United Nations by the two countries.

Given the disagreement between Pakistan and India over the UNMOGIP’s mandate and functions, the UN secretary general took the position that the mandate of the UNMOGIP can be terminated only by a decision of the UN Security Council. In the absence of such a decision, the UNMOGIP has been maintained with the same mandate and functions, and the cost on its maintenance is met from the regular budget of the United Nations.

Accordingly, Pakistan has continued to lodge complaints of any violations of the LoC by India with the UNMOGIP but India has not done so, since 1972, and restricted the activities of the UNMOGIP on its side of the LoC. It, nonetheless, provides accommodation, transport and other facilities to it in occupied Kashmir.

Basically, Simla Agreement related to the termination of 1971 war between Pakistan and India and was not Kashmir-specific. However, India deliberately misinterpreted it to project Kashmir as a bilateral issue between the two countries and has unjustifiably maintained that Pakistan cannot now raise it either at the United Nations or at any other international forum. India’s interpretation of the Simla Agreement is, however, self-serving and distorted.

The Simla pact has not rendered the UN resolutions on Kashmir infructuous. They have not become invalid because of their non-implementation either. Ironically, India has even reneged on its commitment to the Simla Agreement which provides the two sides to seek a final settlement of the Kashmir problem through bilateral talks. It wants the world to accept its illegal position that Kashmir is an integral part of its territory.

It is astonishing that the United Nations as well as the United States, which are playing a key role in defusing tensions in South Asia, have not been able to persuade India to allow the monitoring of the LoC by the UN observers who are already present in the area since 1949 and form the nucleus of the UNMOGIP.

The United Nations, in particular, has the prime responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security, and has been mandated, under the UN Charter, to take necessary measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the international peace and act decisively in situations like the one which exists in the subcontinent today and which is likely to endanger the world peace. It must, therefore, fulfil its mandatory obligations and ask India to let the UN observers perform their duties on its side of the LoC as well.

The deployment of the UN observers on both sides of the LoC no matter how small in number, would not only serve to prevent its violations, by either side, but may also have a stabilizing effect on the efforts for peace in the region. Their deployment will not in any manner impinge on India’s sovereignty, as claimed by it. Kashmir is a disputed territory and not its integral part of India.

The writer is a former ambassador of Pakistan.

FOR about a decade, especially after 9/11, the Muslims all over the world have been struggling sulky with increasingly intense emotions that are a mix of anger, humiliation, vengefulness, self-pity, and a sense of betrayal by the West.

The ummah today is in a state of greater disarray and vulnerability than, perhaps, at any other time in history. That has not, however, impelled us to do more than indulge in repetitions polemics where we round up the usual suspects to apportion blame for the mess that we are in. Understandably, that is something we cannot resist doing, but let us also consider, if I may suggest, an alternate view that while other may, indeed, have had a role in getting us into this mess, we alone are responsible for not getting out of it.

In fact, we do not seem to be in any hurry to get out of this mess. Worse, we have not yet even begun to comprehend the implications of the sheer scale of conflicts that we, for whatever reasons, are involved in: Muslims vs. Jews, in Palestine; Muslims vs. Hindus, in South Asia; Muslims vs. Christians in North America, Europe and the Philippines; Muslims vs. Communists, in Xinjiang, China; and Muslims vs. Muslims (Shias vs. Sunnis), in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq and some Gulf states.

This is not all. Under this stormy surface there is a powerful undercurrent of a bitter, even violent, conflict between the traditionalists and the reformists all over the Muslim world. This enduring siege within has had the Muslim societies trapped, for more than 800 years, into a structural socio-political deadlock, perhaps the longest in the history of civilizations. This is in sharp contrast to the steady evolution of the western civilization: the beginning of Renaissance in the 14th century; the Reformation in the 16th; the scientific revolution in the 17th; the socio-political revolutions (the American, the French, and the industrial) in the 18th; and the technological revolution in the 19th.

Various ideas on how we got into each of those separate conflicts with other communities have, by now, been done to death in innumerable books, articles and talk-shows, but we have yet to put all the separate pieces of the mosaic together to comprehend the implications of the awesome totality of the world at war.

If we keep the global perspective in mind, the question how we got into this mess is not as important for the present as the question how to get out of it or, more candidly and meaningfully, how to come to terms with the rest of the world and, indeed, with ourselves.

We have to respond to this situation urgently, for it could evolve into a divided world, reminiscent of the cold war era, complete with a brand-new curtain; massive disinformation and hysterical vilification by both sides; and the dread, even desire, of a mortal combat between the two hostile worlds, neatly divided between us and them.

Now how do we respond, and where do we begin? The first and the most urgent task is to deal with the four primary sources of conflict that fuel the fire of violence and militancy in the Muslim world: Palestine, Kashmir, Chechnya, and Mindanao. The Palestinians, Kashmiris, Chechens, and the Moros of Mindanao have carried on their struggle for decades (Moros since 1850) but the end is not yet in sight. In fact, the situation has only worsened, and the wars of attrition go on and on to inflame the Muslim world.

It is obvious by now that these conflicts will not, and cannot, be resolved by the communities directly involved in them. The powerful will not concede; the weak will not surrender. But unless these conflicts are resolved no amount of scholarly, diplomatic, political or military exertions can bring about peace and harmony, or rid the world of the terror of sudden revenge by whatever means, wherever and whenever.

It is time, therefore, for the ummah to step in to bring these unending tragic conflicts to a peaceful conclusion quickly, using all its financial, economic, moral and diplomatic resources. This is a generalized foundation of a more specific proposal for the consideration of the OIC at its forthcoming meeting. That specific proposal is that since all the 57 members of the OIC as a body would make too unwieldy a forum for dealing with the intricacies of the long-standing conflicts, the OIC should, by a unanimous resolution, constitute from among its members a small task force consisting of no more than five or six most respected heads of state or government, with a mandate to bring about an end to the four major conflicts, that is, Palestine, Kashmir, Chechnya and Mindanao. The task force should proceed in its efforts after ensuring the support of the European Union, United States and the Russian Federation. Its proposals should be binding on the concerned Muslim communities if accepted by their adversaries.

There is no reason why the proposed task force should not succeed in its mission, given an across-the-board global support that it is likely to receive. It would succeed also for the reason that this is the only way out of this impasse that would not involve loss of face for any of the eight parties to the four conflicts. The task force would succeed for the reason that, on the one hand, the world is sick and tired of these conflicts and, on the other hand, there are signs of battle fatigue amongst those involved in these conflicts. Now is the time, therefore, to intervene purposefully to find a way out. Finally, the task force should succeed for it would be speaking on behalf of one and a half billion Muslims, and with their unequivocal mandate.

The OIC should also appoint a commission, as proposed by President Musharraf, to deal with a host of lesser but important issues, such as the questions relating to Muslim expatriates in the West, code of conduct for the Muslim and Christian missionaries, and inter-communal irritants like the dispute over the Babri Mosque that has poisoned the relationship between Hindus and Muslims in India. The commission should be able to smooth out and eliminate the points of friction between Muslims and non-Muslims everywhere, and also make OIC more affective in dealing with the internal matters of the ummah as well, including greater economic and diplomatic cooperation between the member states.

That and much else is easily achievable once the task force is able to achieve a breakthrough in the resolution of the major conflicts that remain an impassable roadblock to world peace. The first priority is, therefore, the creation of a task force by the OIC, with a unanimous and unconditional mandate to speak on behalf of the Muslim nations, and to bring about a peaceful resolution of the conflicts in Palestine, Kashmir, Chechnya and Mindanao.

Only then could the world be free not only of terrorism but also of the causes of terrorism. Only then could the nations of the world, Muslim and non-Muslim, get down to the more meaningful business of coming to grips with the real issues, that is the issues of poverty, disease, ignorance, and the protection of the life support systems of our common home, three-fourths of the planet Earth.

E-mail: tvo@isb.comsats.net.pk

PRESIDENT George W. Bush did not instantly kill the Kyoto Protocol on global climate change just by pulling the United States out of the treaty in March, 2001, but it did mean that every other major industrial country on the planet had to ratify it before it could come into effect.

He then proceeded to turn the screws on those who might be induced to defect, and last week in Moscow, Russian President Vladimir Putin started to crack. If Russia pulls out, the treaty dies. Addressing an international conference on the science of climate change in Moscow on 29 September, Putin openly said for the first time that Russia might never ratify the treaty. He is considering where Russia’s interests lie, and there is not even a timetable any more. Since neither the science nor the economics have changed since Putin declared two years ago that Moscow would ratify the treaty, however, there are grounds for suspecting that his motive for postponing a decision is mainly political.

There can be no treaty without Russia, because it does not come into effect until 55 countries that together account for 55 percent of the industrialised countries’ emissions of carbon dioxide have ratified it. Over a hundred countries have ratified it already, but since the US alone accounts for a quarter of the whole world’s CO2 emissions, Russia must ratify to clear the 55 percent threshold. So why is Moscow moving away from a decision?

Putin’s public explanation was the need for further study. “(Critics of Kyoto) often say, half-jokingly and half seriously, that Russia is a northern country, and if temperatures get warmer by two or three degrees Celsius it’s not that bad,” he told the conference. “We could spend less on warm coats, and agricultural experts say that grain harvests would increase.” But surely he did not really mean that it’s fine for other people’s countries to turn into deserts or be drowned by rising sea levels so long as it’s good for Russia — and besides, it is far from clear that global warming would benefit Russia.

If the northern limit for grain-growing moved a couple of hundred kilometres further north all across the immense east-west breadth of Russia, it would add the equivalent of another France to the world’s agricultural resources. Since other countries’ food production would be falling at the same time, there would be high demand for Russian exports. But the real benefits and costs of climate change in Russia are not so easily calculated.

A report by scientists from Kassel University in Germany and Moscow State University early this year rejected the assumption that more warmth and rain automatically mean bigger Russian harvests. Some northerly agricultural regions would do better, but established farming areas in the south and west would suffer badly from excessive heat and recurrent drought. And Putin acknowledged this conclusion in his speech: “We must also think what consequences we will face in certain regions where there will be droughts and floods.”

So why has the Russian government given credibility to pro-global warming scientists like Alexander Bedritski and Yuri Israel, the Russian organisers of the current conference, by having President Putin address it personally? Especially when Russia could earn a lot of money by selling its surplus carbon emission rights to other industrialised countries that are having trouble meeting their target of a 5 percent reduction in their 1990 level of emissions by 2010. The answer, almost certainly, is international politics.

Like most European leaders, Putin is appalled by the Bush administration’s foreign policy, but he is trying hard to retain good relations with the most important country on the planet. Having openly opposed Washington on the invasion of Iraq and the Russian sale of nuclear power-plants to Iran, he doesn’t want to incur its wrath on Kyoto as well.—Copyright

NAWABZADA Nasrullah Khan, who died a week ago, will be fondly remembered by friends and foes alike. To the cartoonist, he was the eternal hookah-chomping octogenarian in fez cap and dark achkan, wagging a finger at an inquiring journalist. But to the members of the thinking public, he was the very embodiment of the struggle for establishing a democratic society in Pakistan.

He was a politician in the true sense of the word. Politics was his vocation and his life. He has left behind a number of mourners, and unlike some deceased Pakistani politicians, will be sorely missed. In Pakistan, as indeed elsewhere, obituaries of famous or important people, are invariably studded with tributes. The good deeds are often embellished with charming tales of valour and sacrifice, and anecdotes that make them larger-than-life. The wrong doings are inevitably squeezed into the last paragraph, which nobody reads, or cheerfully swept under the carpet.

In Nasrullah Khan’s case, there was hardly a sour note. The character analysis, although it touched lightly once or twice on some endearing fable, like the time he made a hash of the Kashmir desk, was nevertheless highly favourable in the main. The old stalwart was projected as an indefatigable fighter for the restoration of democracy in Pakistan

Curiously enough, in spite of the hype, the Nawabzada’s role in the political process was a limited one, and that too, invariably on the wrong side of the fence. He usually emerged from the political wilderness towards the fag-end of a dictatorial regime, whenever there was a whiff of democracy and a stirring in the political wind. And then, when his mission was completed, he would unobtrusively return to the wilderness and his hubble-bubble, awaiting the next summons to urge jaded battalions to continue the struggle against dictatorship.

His role has invariably been that of a catalyst, whether it involved taking up cudgels with a dictator, or exercising his uncanny ability to forge alliances out of often disparate political elements. And he always remained on the wrong side of the fence — in the opposition. However, once he had got together the knights of his round table, he became their undisputed leader. The way he brought the ARD and the MMA into the APC in recent times was marvelously involving.

Under his direction the ARD spoke with one voice and from one platform. That was his great contribution to the opposition politics. He was very gregarious and loved to be surrounded by people, enjoying his role of eminence grise immensely. Whatever the occasion, one instinctively knew who was in charge. Such was his charisma. Father Coppleston, the author of that excellent treatise ‘Medieval Philosophy’ , had a phrase for such people. He referred to them as ‘prime unmoved movers’ — people who made things happen without giving the impression that they were directly involved.

The cigar and the hookah had to go after the first heart attack. Over the years he had become frail, but even at eighty, his mind was sharp and alert, and those with whom he came into contact said they always found him focussed. He was shrewd , fond of Urdu poetry and a good listener. When engaged in a discussion he always weighed the pros and cons and gave the final pronouncement an air of poignant elegy.

He also had an anarchist streak, which would have warmed the hearts of scholars like Prince Kropotkin and Sir Herbert Read. They would have admired and approved of him — a rebel who defied authority and who intensely disliked the arrogance that went with power, whether wielded by men in battle fatigues, politicians or bureaucrats.

If leaders from various shades of political opinion accepted him, it was because they knew that he was not in politics to make money or to grab political power. His humility and simple living endeared him to people of all walks of life. Many will remember the many years he spent in that large room in that modest house on Nicholson Road in Lahore, in which he lodged, boarded, held meetings and met visitors. Nawabzada Nasrullah Khan will certainly be missed.

Some of the political heavy weights with whom he crossed swords included Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, his daughter, Benazir, and Nawaz Sharif. But, in his negotiations with these politicians he displayed a rare pragmatic streak and managed to enlist the support of their parties — be that for the Movement for the Restoration of Democracy during the Zia years, or the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy in recent months. He once confided to a friend that there was no such thing as permanence in politics. There are no permanent friends or foes. Yesterday’s enemy could become a formidable ally today. Politics makes strange bedfellows.

The most retrogressive of the dictators, Zia-ul-Haq, ensured that the Nawabzada remained under house arrest for a little under five years. During this time, efforts were made by government stooges to bend his will. And when that didn’t work, they tried to bribe him. But Nasrullah Khan remained steadfast and refused all overtures. Like G.M. Syed, he believed that whatever he was doing was right and that he should defend his principles with honour and dignity. What is, however, worrying the supporters of the opposition is the question of the future of the ARD, as there doesn’t appear to be a suitable replacement for the Nawabzada. It is quite understandable that the post of convenor would be offered to the PPP, which is the largest of the ARD parties in terms of parliamentary strength. Makhdoom Amin Fahim, president of the PPP, is a good choice for acting convenor. Currently, the PPP enjoys a special relationship with the faction of the Muslim League which follows Nawaz Sharif, and possibly Ms Bhutto would approve Makhdoom Amin Fahim’s appointment as the ARD convenor.

There are, however, a couple of nagging questions. Will the ARD, under the stewardship of the PPP, stay united in its struggle against army rule, or will it break up into smaller groups vying for leadership and control? And what kind of status will it accord the MMA which, on occasions, has decided to go it alone when negotiating with the government?

It is reasonable to assume that the parties will stick together. Political parties form alliances when they have common goals and interests, even though their ideologies may be diametrically opposed. But, that is not to forget that a man as skilful in the art of getting people to agree on common objectives as the late Nawabzada could not hold the original 19 component parties together for too long.

Parties leave alliances when their objectives have been achieved, or when they see certain benefits in forming new alliances. In the present scenario, the PPP, PML(N), PDP and JAH have really no choice but to stick together. They know that they cannot individually lead a movement for the restoration of the 1973 Constitution, in its original form, or successfully agitate for the return of their exiled leaders, unless they work as a team.

The three major opposition parties, the PPP, PML(N) and the MMA will continue to be targeted by members of the ruling alliance, who will try to chip away at the weak links.. The PPP suffered a major blow when the Patriots left the fold shortly after the election. But fortunately, they still have a clutch of loyalists like Aitzaz Ahsan, Raza Rabbani and Nisar Khuhro. Even the MMA has had its problems which started with the defection of Maulana Samiul Haq, and graduated to recent threats by two components of the alliance, the JUI(S) and a section of the JUP, to leave the ARD if their demands were not met.