| 23 March 2004 | Tuesday | 01 Safar 1425 |
Sheikh Yassin's murder
It's become somewhat of a ritual to publish editorials and articles on March 23, Pakistan Day, every year. It is inevitable that much of what is written should have become cliched over the years and many of the observations made should have assumed a ponderous air.
Anniversaries always have an element of repetitiveness about them, but in our case this has become more marked because so little has changed on the political scene in the past five decades and more.
None of the contradictions and problems that marked the beginnings of the state formed as a result of the 1940 Resolution has been rationally tackled or solved. It is almost with a sense of despair that you ruffle though old newspaper files and find that most of us are still writing what was written 10 or 20 or 40 years ago.
The most crucial component of a state is the constitution; that is why it is called the Basic Document. In our case, a viable democratic constitution whose fundamental features would endure has eluded us.
In the initial stages, the federal character of the country was denied and thus the spirit of the Pakistan Resolution was negated. This ultimately led to the separation of our eastern wing.
The 1973 Constitution, although still nominally in existence, has been so badly pummelled that it has been knocked out of shape. This is particularly tragic because there was almost unanimous agreement on it among all sections of representative political opinion.
Although collective shortcomings have also contributed to this unhappy situation, there have been two main factors - the military-civilian tussle and lack of proper understanding of the demands of federalism.
The military's assertion of its self-assumed role as the arbiter of the country's political destiny has a clear benchmark in 1958, the time of Ayub Khan's coup, although it goes back farther.
This has continued in one form or another to the present day, so that we still have only a quasi-civilian set-up. Because of the centralized nature of military rule, the problem of regional aspirations and expectations has intensified, despite the fact that some of the more extreme forms of provincialism found some sublimation during the fitful years of elected government.
Military rule needs to be justified by those who impose it. One reason often cited is the ineptitude or downright venality of the political leadership. It is true that many of our political leaders have failed to govern efficiently for the public good, have relied on autocratic manipulation of their parties, ignored their constituencies, indulged in petty palace intrigues and have been far from honest in their dealings.
But it is repeated military intervention that is at the root of our inability to produce a cadre of credible political leaders and workers. In the crippling, stultifying Ziaul Haq era, military rule was presented to us swathed in folds of religiosity and ideology.
This added a new element to the already existing political confusion: religious extremism. It has led to the rise of sectarianism and aggravated factional differences.
The US-led 'war on terror' question was to arise later: we were actively nurturing bigots and fanatics in our ranks much before the new development. What we see, sadly, is that while all the historical anomalies have remained unaddressed, preventing fuller attention to the average citizen's needs, socially and culturally we have regressed as a nation.
There is neither freedom from want for millions living in urban slums and the less developed regions nor freedom for the creative urges of the people to find expression that would lend dynamism to the country.
It is no pleasure, year after year, to repeat a litany of failure. But we must squarely confront the challenge of discovering our political direction and identity if we want the times to come to be more purposeful and productive.
Sheikh Yassin's murder
Israel's brutal target-killing of Hamas founder and spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin will be seen as an act of state terrorism not only by the Arab and Muslim world but by all sane people across the globe.
It comes as a grim reminder that murders and assassinations are considered by Zionists to be a legitimate way of furthering their expansionist policy. Hamas, much to the chagrin of Israel, was never designated as a terrorist organization by the United Nations.
In fact, the US is the only other country besides Israel that outlawed the Islamist Palestinian resistance group. The Israeli helicopter gunship attack in northern Gaza Strip in the early hours of Monday that left the Hamas leader and eight of his close associates dead and many seriously wounded had all the hallmarks of an Israeli crime about it.
The attack sparked widespread anger among Palestinians belonging to all shades of opinion. As expected, Hamas responded to the outrage just minutes later, threatening revenge and saying that the latest killings had "opened the gates of hell" and would "send death to every house, every city and every street in Israel."
Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei condemned the attack, aptly terming it "a dangerous, cowardly act". British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw denounced the killings as "unlawful, unjust and unacceptable".
Most other western governments have echoed similar condemnations, the US so far perhaps the only exception, saying simply that both sides should exercise restraint.
The Bush administration's muted reaction may have much to do with this being an election year. But polls or no polls, American support to Israel is always continuous and uninhibited and it has encouraged Mr Ariel Sharon in his expansionist agenda to the extent that it has all but destroyed the US-led roadmap to peace.
The popularity of Hamas increased during the ongoing second Intifada, which began in September 2000, when Mr Sharon, then in opposition, paid a provocative visit to the Al Aqsa compound despite being advised against it.
The violence that followed his visit has so far claimed over a thousand lives, mostly Palestinian. The Middle East peace process has now come to a halt, with the Israeli army making regular incursions into occupied territories and the Palestinian militants responding through suicide bombings in Israel.
Frail and nearly blind, and often at odds with the Palestinian Authority, 67-year-old Sheikh Yassin had come to symbolize for his followers the uncompromising spirit of the Palestinian people to fight for freedom.
In July last year Hamas rescinded its unilateral ceasefire against Israel because Mr Sharon had continued his attacks on the occupied authorities. Soon afterwards, Israel declared Sheikh Yassin a "marked target" for assassination and attempted to kill him last September.
The latest, and indeed very provocative, killings confirm the fear that Mr Sharon is bent upon implementing his unilateral plan, which is aimed at scuttling the roadmap to peace drafted by the Quartet - the US, EU, UN and Russia - and presented by President Bush last April.
Mr Sharon's alternative plan, which envisages the dismantling of a handful of Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip in exchange for Israel's annexation of many larger settlements in the West Bank and the building of the controversial fence around these settlements, runs counter to the roadmap.
Palestinians have called it a conspiracy to grab more of their land and a recipe for disaster, which aims at creating "Bantustans", thereby rendering the future Palestinian state non-viable. Immediately, the fear is that Israel's mad act will now unleash a new wave of violence in the region, with its repercussions felt afar.