| 12 April 2004 | Monday | 21 Safar 1425 |
A matter of double standards
A new deal for women
The change in Brazil
One thing you have to say about President Musharraf. He's got a great sense of humour. "I believe," he said recently, "in the supremacy of parliament in a democratic system." Actions, they say, speak louder than words.
Democracy is in flames. The constitution - the fundamental law of the land - is being mutilated, disfigured, and defaced. Parliamentary democracy has been replaced by a presidential form of government. And yet, Musharraf affirms his commitment to democracy he once promised but did not deliver.
"Democracy," Churchill once said, "is not a harlot to be picked up by a man with a Tommy gun." Democracy grows out of a nation's history and experiences. It cannot be put on like a hat. Nor can it be imposed, even by well-meaning or well-armed. One need only read a few pages of Churchill's "History of the English-speaking peoples", to realize how tender a plant it is.
And how much it needs protective institutions, like independent courts, rule of law, civilian supremacy and last but not least, non-interference from the military. On democracy, Musharraf is clearly on the wrong side of history. Today, Pakistan has no choice: It is condemned either to be part of the democratic world or not to be at all.
For a country to be democratic, it is necessary that its people must have the freedom to choose their rulers in free, fair and impartial elections. It should have a parliament with authority to legislate on all matters without any restrictions, including matters relating to the making of a constitution.
The sovereignty of parliament is the dominant characteristic of our political institutions. What does this mean? It means neither more nor less than this, namely, that parliament has the right to make or unmake any law whatever; and further, that no person or body is recognized by law as having a right to override or set aside the legislation of parliament. It can in short, do everything that is not naturally impossible.
"True it is, that what the Parliament doth, no authority upon earth can undo." It is a fundamental principle inherent in the concept of parliamentary sovereignty, "that parliament can do everything but make a woman a man, and a man a woman".
Legally speaking, if parliament decided that all blue-eyed babies should be murdered, the preservation of blue-eyed babies would be illegal; but parliament must go mad before it could pass such a law, and subjects be idiotic before they could submit to it.
There is no power which can come into rivalry with the legislative sovereignty of parliament. This doctrine of the legislative supremacy of parliament is the keystone of parliamentary democracy throughout the world.
Regrettably, in Pakistan it does not always find ready acceptance and it is well worth examining the difficulties which impede the admission of its truth.
We have to travel in the past in order to realize how a parliamentary constitution has been violated and changed beyond recognition by repeated military interventions in the politics of Pakistan.
On August 14, 1947, all discretionary powers of the governor-general (M. A. Jinnah) were restricted through an amendment in the Indian Independence Act 1947. Under Section 8(c), the powers of the governor-general to act at his discretion or to exercise his individual judgment lapsed from August 15, 1947.
From then onwards, the governor-general was presumed to act on the advice of his ministers. No discretionary powers were left with the governor-general under the act as adopted in Pakistan.
With effect from August 14, 1947, all governmental activities were brought under the control of the cabinet which was responsible to legislature alone. All powers of the governor-general were to be exercised on the advice of the cabinet. Where do we stand today?
The Constitution has been defaced, disfigured and decimated by successive military rulers in pursuance of their political ambitions. Today, one doesn't have to be a great constitutional expert to realize that we are back to the pre-independence Government of India Act 1935 with a powerful president, (in uniform, to boot) a non-sovereign parliament and a powerless prime minister.
Parliament is one of the chief instruments of our democracy. Is it consistent with the principle of parliamentary democracy to empower a president in uniform at the expense of the prime minister? And is it consistent with parliamentary democracy to divest the parliament of its constitutional role as the sole check on the executive and pass on this function to an unelected body like the NSC, dominated by the armed forces and answerable to none?
How can you have democracy when the nation has been stripped of all its core values? How can you have democracy if people don't have the freedom to choose their president in accordance with the Constitution? How can you have democracy when elections are rigged and results manipulated? How can you have democracy when known corrupt leaders are resurrected and then sworn in as ministers? How can you have democracy in this country when the Constitution is treated with contempt and the army is treated with more respect than the constitution?
Democracy requires fostering fair, accountable institutions that protect human rights and basic freedoms. Democracy requires a parliament that represents the people, not one controlled by the president.
It requires an independent judiciary that guards the constitution and enforces the law with equal concern for all citizens. It requires security forces that are politically neutral and serve the needs of the people.
It requires an accessible media that is free, independent and unbiased, not one controlled by the state or corporate interests. Above all, it requires that ultimate authority on all key security matters must rest with the elected representatives.
Free, independent, sovereign Pakistan opted for parliamentary democracy on August 14, 1947, but till today we have not resolved one basic question which has bedevilled the growth of our fragile democracy.
Who is to rule this country? The people through their elected representatives or the army? "Where ought the sovereign power of the state to reside?" asked Aristotle. "With the people? With one man, the tyrant?" One thing is clear. The sovereignty of the people is a myth.
To apply the adjective "sovereign" to the people in Pakistan is a tragic farce. Electors in England or even neighbouring India, can in the long run always enforce their will. Not so in Pakistan.
Countries experience malaise as Jimmy Carter once said. Pakistan is clearly in that state today. Tycoons and oligarchs are brazenly buying access to power - or to more wealth. Criminals and mafiosos have found in "democracy" the perfect Trojan horse for attaining and preserving real power. There is an unhappy mix of plunder and power. This is what people call "managed democracy".
At a time when people speak openly in terms of national decline, our parliament has committed suicide by creating the NSC thereby abdicating and divesting itself of whatever sovereignty it possessed. The politicians who conferred legitimacy on General Musharraf thought they were clever, "ridding themselves of the wolf by introducing him to the sheepfold!"
Today there is a popular perception in Pakistan that we lost our sovereignty and freedom of action on September 13, at 1:30 pm when Musharraf, to Colin Powell's great surprise, succumbed under American pressure, accepted all the seven American demands and surrendered tamely. On that day, Musharraf put his foot on the slope and we joined the coalition of the coerced.
Nuclear Pakistan became an American vassal. "It looks like you got it all," Bush told a triumphant Powell. As a direct consequence of that fateful decision, today our troops are back in Waziristan, after 57 years, to fight a proxy war in the mountains against our own tribesmen.
Today Pakistan is experiencing the warning tremors of a political earthquake. Things have gotten so bad in this country that people look back to Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto with nostalgia.
For the people of Pakistan, it boils down to a choice between the unimaginable and the hardly bearable. To seers there is a detectable element of disquiet, an unease not often declared, nor even perhaps realized, but intuitive, a thunderstorm feeling - a heaviness in the air, an unusual brightness of the light.
A matter of double standards
Answering a question on PTV's Newsnight programme last week, President General Pervez Musharraf expressed his readiness to engage opposition leaders in political parleys but at the same time he showed a disdain for those who as he put it take orders from outside. No names were mentioned. But it was obvious that he was referring to PPP and PML-N leaders who take orders from Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif.
Since he has the best of relations with the MQM, which is also a coalition partner of the Jamali government, one assumes that he has no objections to the Muttahida getting their orders from Mr Altaf Hussain in London.
Apparently the MQM has been exempted from this rule because it has joined hands with the ruling party to form governments at the centre as well as in Sindh. It is another matter, however, that the Haqiqi, an MQM breakaway engineered by a former COAS, the late Gen. Asif Nawaz in 1992, accuses the government of demolishing its Karachi stronghold, the Baitul Hamza, and arresting its members in November 2002 in return for the MQM's support to the ruling parties at the centre and in Sindh.
The Haqiqi has accused the government once again of obtaining the MQM's support for the National Security Council bill with the arrest of its leader Afaq Ahmed.
The three MQM MNAs who recently resigned their National Assembly seats did not send their resignations to the speaker, as Chaudhry Zafar Iqbal Waraich of the PPPP did, nor did MQM federal minister Ahmed Ali send his to the prime minister which is the norm.
All their resignations were routed through Mr Altaf Hussain to the final destinations. Even Senator Babar Ghori, who replaced Ahmed Ali, was inducted into the cabinet after being named for the position by the MQM leader. Can you do any better than that in obeying orders from abroad?
What perhaps President Musharraf does not want to consider while refusing to talk to the two of the three parties that take orders from abroad is that the elected representatives of all these parties take their orders from their respective leaders in exile not because they are beholden to them but because their voters leave them with no other option.
This applies equally to all the three parties - the PPP, the PML-N and the MQM. To be fair to Mr. Altaf Hussain, if he is trying to get maximum political gains (at the expense of the Haqiqi) from the circumstances currently obtaining in the country, he can hardly be accused of resorting to political expediency. It is a prerogative of a political leader to take advantage of circumstances to push forward the interest of his or her party.
But the president by making a distinction between the PPP and the PML-N on the one hand and the MQM on the other has only thrown into relief his own selective preferences based on political expediency.
Mr Altaf Hussain, who now also holds a British passport, refuses to return home, saying that his enemies will eliminate him if he came back. So in effect he has expressed his total no-confidence in the law and order machinery of the country, though today his own party member holds the provincial home ministry portfolio.
Ms Benazir Bhutto still has a number of cases pending against her in the courts. She claims she is innocent but does not want to come back and face these cases as, according to her, she will not get a fair hearing. This way she is virtually expressing her total no-confidence in Pakistan's judiciary.
The continued incarceration of her husband despite having been bailed out in almost all the cases he is facing seems only to have reinforced Ms Bhutto's fears about our judicial system. As opposed to this, a number of persons who are still facing accountability cases and whose names are mentioned on the ECL have been inducted into the federal and provincial cabinets.
Mr Nawaz Sharif's case is totally different from that of Mr Altaf Hussain and Ms Benazir. He is not in self-exile like the two. He has been sent into exile for 10 years by the president himself in December 1999 without there being any provision for such a punishment on the statute books.
Indeed, the way President Musharraf reacts whenever even a hint is dropped about Ms Bhutto and Mr Sharif in his presence in public, one gets the feeling that as long as he is in power, there is no possibility of the two returning home and engaging in normal political activity.
So, while he makes it impossible for them to come back, he uses this very fact to damn them with the argument that since they are sitting outside the country, they have no right to lead their parties which have significant representations in parliament.
In the case of the PPP, the argument is only half true. Even during the tension filled days of government formation in November-December 2002, it was the incarcerated Asif Zardari who was being hectically consulted both by the party leadership and the faceless representatives of the government.
Even today on day-to-day matters, Makhdoom Amin Fahim reportedly consults Mr Zardari rather than Ms Bhutto. It is only when important policy matters come up that the Makhdoom and his colleagues make a quick trip to Dubai or London.
In fact today, young workers of the PPP from all over the country seemingly take their inspiration from Mr Zardari rather than any other party leader inside the country. He is allowed to meet no more than 15-16 people whenever he makes an appearance in the court, but one has heard stories of how PPP youth have been falling over each other to get their names on the list of visitors to have a glimpse of their leader and talk to him about their problems.
In the case of Mr Sharif, at least this argument appears totally devoid of any logic. Since President Musharraf himself sent him into exile, how can he be blamed for leading his party from outside.
A new deal for women
This is definitely the first time during the tenure of the present government that a concerted and determined effort has been made in parliament to come to grips with the problems unleashed by the controversial Hudood ordinances.
The credit for this momentous and courageous move goes to the committee of nine PPP women members, who worked tirelessly and with considerable presence to present a draft of the Protection and Empowerment of Women Bill 2004.
To say that the draft met with fierce resistance would be an understatement. Serious objections were raised by not only the MMA, but also by some members of the Nawaz faction of the Muslim League, which ostensibly form part of the opposition in the National Assembly and the Senate.
However, the women's group found a kindred spirit among some ladies of the treasury benches. And so, somewhat reluctantly, the group agreed to the suggestion of the prime minister's adviser for women development, to agree to a deferment of the bill until April 13, so that a consensus could be developed among women from six political parties. The argument advanced was that there was a number of technical creases that needed looking into, and these could be ironed out through mutual consultation.
No commentator who has been closely following recent events in Islamabad seriously believes that the committee of nine will be successful, unless it enjoys the support of the treasury benches.
The deck has always been stacked against courageous men and women in this country who dared to stand against repression and injustice. They have had to fight not only against the collective male chauvinism of the ignorant and the calculated mendacity with which they continue to deny their womenfolk their rights, but also against the violent and the abusive, whose behaviour often drifts into that cretinous barbarism which results in domestic violence and death.
It is bad enough that antediluvian laws and an inbred bigotry militate against members of the weaker sex. But when people who run the government also connive to deny women their basic rights, what hope can there possibly be for the silent majority that forms 56 per cent of the population?
The Hudood Ordinances were introduced by that obscurantist dictator Zia-ul-Haq with devastating consequences for the women of this country. How else can one explain the fact that 86 per cent of women prisoners languishing in the country's jails are there because of the ambiguities in these controversial ordinances, and not because they were guilty of having committed a crime? And yet when one of the stalwarts of the MMA heard about the draft bill, he produced the fire and brimstone of the early orthodox preacher and said that nobody can alter something prescribed by God!
A lot has been written about the proposed bill, but not too many people know just what it contains. It would be therefore interesting to take a look at some of the features and to demonstrate that there is nothing arcane or unconstitutional in the proposal. .
The document starts off by pointing out that while gender discrimination is prohibited by the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, it is necessary to provide for the protection and empowerment of the women of Pakistan so that they can enjoy the right to life with dignity as equal citizens of Pakistan which is necessary for emancipating and uplifting the whole nation.
The document then spells out a number of things that have to be achieved to make the bill meaningful. The first places a number of responsibilities on the district government which is not used to working.
Primary education for all children under ten years of age should be made compulsory and with immediate effect, and that it would be the duty of every parent or guardian to enrol every child within one month of the coming into force of the act. Every district government would be bound to provide free primary education to every child resident in the district under the age of ten.
Each union council would be required to maintain a register of children under ten resident within the precincts of the council. At the expiry of one month from coming into force of this act the chairman of the council would be required to file a return with the district government containing the names and addresses of the children under the age of ten as per the census records, the school where such children are attending and the names and addresses of children under the age of ten who are not attending school.
The district government shall, within a week of receipt of the return, serve a notice upon the parent or guardian to enrol the child in the school specified in the notice which shall not be more than a distance of two miles from the residence of the child.
Any parent or guardian who fails to comply with the provisions of this section will be liable to mandatory imprisonment until the child is enrolled. The nazim of the union council who fails to file a return and the nazim of the district who violates this section will stand disqualified for election to the local bodies.
The federal public service commission and each provincial public service commission will establish a minimum of one-third recruitment of women with effect from January 1, 2005.
It was recommended that discrimination in pay on the basis of gender would be prohibited. Each and every employee whether in the public or the private sector will conform to the ILO Convention 100 prescribing equal pay for equal work. The chief executive of any private employee or head of department of any public sector organization or government, would be liable to a fine of 100,000 rupees and one year's rigorous imprisonment in case of transgression of the ILO Convention 100.
Now comes the bit that will throw a spanner into the works. Domestic violence including honour killing or bodily harm will be punishable in the same manner as personal injury or culpable homicide under the Pakistan Penal Code. A husband or relative of the husband of a woman who subjects the woman to violence or to cruelty which may be mental or physical shall be punishable with imprisonment which may extend to three years and shall also be liable to a fine of 500,000 rupees.
Each bench of the high court shall assign one judge to try offences under this act. The single judge of the high court so appointed will enjoy the powers of a judicial magistrate and/or court of sessions. This section ends on a positive note with a repeal of the Hudood Ordinances.
The husband of a woman or in his absence the eldest male resident of a household will be held responsible in all cases of stove burning and liable to grievous harm or culpable homicide under the Pakistan Penal Code of 1860.
The mother of a minor shall be presumed to be the natural guardian unless the welfare of the minor, for reasons to be recorded by the Guardian and Wards Court, dictate otherwise. There is also a section on a woman being allowed to marry a person of her own choice, without undue influence, coercion or duress being imposed, with specific duties being imposed on the nikah registrar, and the fixing of the haq meher in consonance with the financial status of the husband.
And finally there are sections on property rights, the participation of women in public life and the protection of women prisoners through the appointment of additional inspectors general of police for women's wards, who will ensure that adequate arrangements will be made for the accommodation and education of minor children of all women prisoners.
Even if the women on the treasury benches and the six political parties meet the PPP legislators half way, it would be a great achievement. But a little help from the top always helps. Whatever people might say about the president, I still believe he is a liberal, secular and progressive head of state. The ground has already been laid, and the spade work has been completed. All it needs is a little nod and a nudge from the man in battle fatigues. Surely that isn't asking for too much!
The change in Brazil
If Brazil has long lived out its personal fantasy as the archetypal relaxed, tolerant and gregarious country with Copacabana beach, the samba, the carnival and a great deal of sexual freedom it is now living out in real time its almost forgotten societal dream, an economic-cum-social revolution.
Brazil has had economic growth before. For the first eighty years of the last century it was the country along with Taiwan with the world's fastest growth rates. Even today after repeated setbacks it is the world's eighth largest economy. Yet it has never kept up with its burgeoning population, the inequities of the feudal land system that cast millions into shanty towns and a murder rate that is more akin to a war zone than a normal society.
But with a government led by a former lathe worker and union leader, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who is determined to beat the metal of his country into shape as he once did the cars and workers in his Sao Paulo car factory, it has a clear and active agenda- fiscal discipline first, more than ever before, economic growth second, and third, a commitment with the Zero Hunger programme, to give everyone three meals a day and a chance to move up.
Brazil once appeared to have everything - a nation of vast dimensions, the size of Europe, bounded by the steamy tropical rain forests of the Amazon to the north, and the cool, temperate, munificent, prairies to the south.
No other country in the world offers such geographic contrasts, or probably such an abundance of raw materials and raw opportunities. For the best part of four centuries too much of this has been squandered - the Amazon raped, the poor exploited and the rich indulged. At last Brazil has a chance of building a First World society out of its Third World inheritance.
Lula in political terms is in part a lucky man. His predecessor, the right of centre, two term president, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, laid many of the foundations for future progress.
For the first time in living memory Brazil had fiscal discipline and social reform- from a rapid increase in primary education to large scale land redistribution- and made steady progress. But even with a big congressional majority he was stymied on many important issues.
Lula is also unlucky. He can only control congress with an alliance of other parties. And although Brazil has always been different from other Latin countries in having a non ideological and non-violent political climate- the Marxists and terrorists have never made inroads here despite the terrible inequalities- too many politicians are beholden to special interests.
They are a broad mix - the self-important, cosseted, slow moving, judiciary, the powerful landed class, an inept and often brutal police force, the public sector workers with their 100% state pensions and the well to do students who get a disproportionate share of state handouts whilst working class children are unable to afford a university education.
Lula has a sharply defined no nonsense personality. He has a down to earth, straightforward manner, even though he is a rather shy man who sits fidgety and uncomfortably in the presidential suit and tie.
In conversation he shines with one insight after another. His credibility with the Brazilian public is unprecedented in modern Brazilian history. But administration is not his forte and the unmanageability of layers of ossified laws and regulations and the self-interest of the huge Brazilian bureaucracy compounds the problem. - Copyright