| 18 April 2004 | Sunday | 27 Safar 1425 |
Confusion over uniform
Persistent reports of "karo-kari" (honour killings) in Pakistan have prompted me to explore the elusive subject of honour. Allow me to begin with a story.
Cynthia is married to John Hardy who is an attorney. She is friendly (non-romantic) with Thomas Beaumont, a neighbour. He has told Cynthia in confidence that his two children from a previous marriage are living with him and his current wife, Betsy, in violation of a court order which had awarded their custody to their mother at the time of his divorce from her.
Cynthia has given Thomas her word that she will not disclose this fact to any other person. Thomas is afraid that if his first wife were to discover his whereabouts, she would get him prosecuted for "kidnapping" their children.
Betsy, on her part, wants to be rid of his children and she has quarrelled with him frequently about their future. Then, one morning, when he is out having coffee with Cynthia, Betsy is murdered in her home. In spite of the fact that he has an "alibi" for the time when his wife was presumably killed, the prosecutor's office regards him as a prime suspect.
Cynthia is called to testify before a grand jury. The prosecutor asks her if Thomas and his wife were having problems. She says, yes, they had been quarrelling over the children. She is then asked if she knows the reason for the quarrel. She says she does, but cannot reveal it, because she had given her word never to disclose it to anyone, and that she was honour-bound to keep her promise.
Cynthia is told that her refusal to tell what she knows constitutes contempt of the grand jury for which she will go to jail and stay there until she is ready to relent. She opts to go to jail rather than break her word.
Mr Hardy is tormented by the suspicion that his wife has been having an affair with Mr Beaumont, but he does not question her about it, because he feels that if she is indeed romantically involved with another man, she is honour-bound to let him know and ask for a divorce. He is patiently waiting for her to do so and, in the meantime, he is filing a writ of habeas corpus to get her out of jail. She, on the other hand, does not tell him anything because there is nothing to tell.
What is honour? That is a question easier asked than answered. The word suggests an alluring, seductive, almost romantic content. It seems to have some proximity to words such as respect, esteem, dignity, prestige, veneration, fame, face, shame, and glory. It does not comprehend all of a society's moral code. Indeed, its dictates, in certain situations may even contravene, law or traditional morality.
It has both subjective and objective dimensions. It is personal in the sense that it refers to certain qualities and attitudes that, in a man's self-perception, together constitute the essence of his being more distinctly than any other qualities and attitudes do. Yet, this mix cannot be chosen without reference to the social environment in which he lives and functions. Its worthiness must be recognized at least by his peers.
It is not enough for someone to claim and assert honour; others must allow it to him if it is to have any functional significance. These others will expect him to act in certain ways in given situations; want of the expected action will result in loss of honour. Conduct regarded as dishonourable may cause a man, and even his family, to be placed beyond the pale.
Speaking of the consequences for the man's family, an observer puts it thus: "Suddenly no one sees you. You can walk down the street and everyone is looking the other way. Dressmakers are too busy to see you. Milliners have nothing to suit you. Your tailors can't fit you in. You call on people and the butler tells you nobody is home, even if the lights are on and carriages are parked in the driveway. It is as if you had died, without being aware of it."
Honour may be inherited and it may be acquired. The "pirs" and "makhdooms" in Pakistan have honour, primarily because public veneration of some glorious deed one of their ancestors had done, somewhere along the line, has been carried from one generation to the next. On the other hand, there may be individuals whom the people have invested with honour because they have spent their treasure, or faced dangers and risked their lives, to advance the public good.
Beyond the general category of "gentlemen," the requirements of honour may vary, depending on one's role or station in society. A judge is honourable so long as he decides cases before him without fear or favour.
A physician or a lawyer is not to divulge information he has received from a patient or a client. A soldier is expected to be brave in the face of threat to his life and limb; running away from battle is dishonourable. But no such thing is expected of a merchant. It is both unlawful and dishonourable for a higher-ranking police officer to hush up a crime in return for a bribe but the same conduct, while illegal, may not be dishonourable on the part of a lowly constable.
It is dishonourable for a teacher to dismiss his classes without cause and for students to cheat in examinations. A code of honour, adopted by the US Air Force Academy in 1956, requires cadets to pledge that they will not lie, steal, or cheat, that they will not tolerate anyone among them committing these acts, and that they will do their assigned duty. A cadet's word is taken as true at all times.
An individual's honour, and that of the group to which he belongs, are usually connected, especially in that its loss is often socially determined more than it is self-determined. It is likely that a young woman, who is chatting and holding hands with a young man covertly, does not think she is doing anything wrong. But if she is discovered, her family and tribe will probably feel that she has not only dishonoured herself but them as well.
A man's sense of honour will come into play when someone says or does something that is calculated to diminish his self-perceived, or externally bestowed, station. The challenge is taken as an insult to which he must respond if he is to maintain his honour.
The offence may be as slight as a shove while walking in a crowded alley. But if an apology is not immediately forthcoming, a reprisal (in the old days a duel) may be in order. The challenge may come as an allegation of conduct unbecoming a gentleman (cowardice, cheating), in which case an equally stern response may be made.
There is no universally valid theory or code of honour. We have to look for one in each community by examining its culture, its professed and operational values. The findings will reveal both commonalities and dissimilarities, even uniqueness, as we go from one culture to the next.
Let us take an example or two. The Viking code in mediaeval Scandinavia expected a man of honour to be valiant, magnanimous, and fair. He exercised self-control, had the courage to declare the truth of a matter regardless of the unpleasantness it might entail, and showed equanimity in the face of physical danger.
Treachery would be unthinkable. He regarded the community's respect for his prominence as paramount. He proclaimed and publicly avenged any wrong done to his person or reputation to make it known that his honour had remained unimpaired.
If the aggressor had somehow disappeared from the scene, the intended penalty (death, injury, or loss of possessions) might be visited upon one of his close relatives. The state's inability to punish aggression in private interaction made way for personal retribution. But even if the law forbade it, the community expected the aggressed to go after the offender. Duels were an accepted way of avenging verbal assaults.
References to honour have become less common in modern western societies, but they do nevertheless continue to surface. Drawing upon accounts of British culture in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, I gather that a man of honour in that setting would never cheat at cards, and he would pay his gambling debts (called debts of honour) promptly. H would not betray a friend, meaning among other things that he would speak no incriminating words about his friends to anyone; not even to law enforcement agencies.
You invaded his honour if you hit him, called him a liar, or insulted a woman who might be under his care and protection. He was loyal both to his superiors and to his subordinates, and he did not even want to take that which did not rightfully belong to him. If an officer, he would deem it unforgivable to take credit for another man's act of courage.
He did what he considered to be the right thing to do regardless of consequences. He did not lose self-control and avoided emotional confrontations and outbursts. Most reluctant to be intrusive, he respected the other man's entitlement to privacy.
It is not to be inferred from the above characterization that even during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (let alone the present time) every Englishman was a man of honour. We can be sure that England, like much of the rest of the world, has always had its share of devious politicians, unethical lawyers, deceiving merchants, corrupt public officials, and all kinds of other swindlers, cheats and liars.
In a great many cultures - particularly the Mediterranean, Middle Eastern, and South Asian - honour in some of its critical aspects is bound up with the chastity of women. Next Sunday we will try to see if we can identify any Pakistani concepts and codes of honour and discuss the honour-related killings of women here and elsewhere.
The writer is professor emeritus of political science at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, USA.
E-mail: anwarsyed@cox.net
Confusion over uniform
Whenever the leaders of our government speak to clarify an issue they further confuse it. Too many speak too often, even those who have no concern with the subject, and leave the people guessing whether what they have said is their personal view, the party's position or government policy.
Its most recent and best illustration came in the statements and views that flowed freely and glibly, and still do, on a question which has far-reaching implications but is yet far away: Will President Musharraf quit his army command before the end of the year?
There appeared no occasion for it but some ministers said he wouldn't while others said he shouldn't. In a scene reminiscent of the colonial era, the breakaway Patriot PPP ministers called on the president one day in a glare of publicity to persuade him not to leave his army post for the stability and good of the country. The secretary-general of the Q League and other ministers followed with the same plea.
The issue was carried to a higher plane on a spate of protests and legal opinions from politicians and lawyers who were justifiably puzzled or rattled, by this campaign at a time when the National Security Council bill was being rammed through the lower and upper houses of parliament. Yet the milder among its dissenters were finding some comfort in the thought that when the council came into full play its head would be a civilian president.
Last Tuesday, the prime minister intervened to say that Musharraf's military uniform was a "non-issue". On the same day, his and the government's spokesman, Sheikh Rashid, called a press conference to affirm that the president would not go against the seventeenth amendment to the Constitution and that he would hold only one office after December 31.
Then on Wednesday came the last word from the man who matters and decides. What the prime minister had dismissed as a non-issue, Musharraf told his BBC interviewer, was indeed a "very contentious issue" and he had to consider many other issues before quitting the army command.
Now that everybody has spoken on this fateful issue, nobody can still make out whether General Musharraf will, as it has generally come to be described, take off his uniform before the end of the year. The world, too, shall have to "wait and see" with him for it pays heed only to what Musharraf has to say and not what is said in the Constitution. For the world, Musharraf's uniform has indeed become a non-issue.
He is judged and recognized not for his standards of democracy or respect for human rights but for his personal and total commitment to the war against terror. If the United States, China, Russia, India and almost every other country determine now or at any time later that his capacity to wage this war will be impaired if he were to take off his uniform all of them, like his ministers, too might agree to persuade him to keep it on. The United Kingdom might feel compelled to keep Pakistan out of the Commonwealth but would act no differently.
The repercussions at home, however, will be varied and serious. First, by not relinquishing his army post he will be seen to be acting in anger, for the religious parties did not give him a vote of confidence nor did they vote for the NSC. All along he has been flouting democratic norms to please and strengthen the religious and reactionary elements. He will be still doing that now that he has decided to give them a rap on the knuckles. The victims then were pluralism, civil rights and liberal values. So will they be once again.
Second, the NSC which is already seen by the people as a denial of democracy or, at the very least, the institutionalization of the role of the army in civilian affairs, when headed by a president who is also the army chief would not be a mere consultative council. In fact, it would reduce parliament to the status it had under Ziaul Haq before the 1985 election.
That might well be Musharraf's intention as it was Nawaz Sharif's through his Shariat Bill. Both of them, while undoing many of Zia's amendments and making more of their own, did not find it necessary to abolish the name "majlis-e-shura" that Zia gave to the parliament. A consultative assembly cannot be supreme - which a parliament must be - in a democracy. It is an appendage to autocracies.
Third, if the president on his own, or goaded by insecure and defecting supporters, decides to keep his army rank and command beyond December 31 it would create a crisis of a proportion which might once again result in the suspension of the Constitution. It is difficult to foresee a two-third majority in both houses of the parliament supporting the repeal of the seventeenth amendment.
But in times of shifting loyalties and crumbling institutions when even the Senate which is expected to be less partisan and more objective in considering national issues takes just three and a half minutes to pass a legislation it can also be made to repeal it. Then there are ingratiating ministers like Ejazul Haq who think Musharraf could become the president of the Muslim League while remaining army chief.
The bar lies in the army rules and not in the Constitution. Such weird thinking finds no limit in Pakistan's politics when power is at stake. Experts are always around to provide the necessary devices.
Besides Musharraf's uniform, the nervousness and contradictions in government ranks show themselves in the impending return of Shahbaz Sharif. Ministers, one after the other, express a variety of thoughts on how to keep him out of the country or in prison but no one provides the suggestion of facing him politically.
The guts and brains of a horde of ministers, advisers and parliamentarians are falling apart on the prospect of the return of just one politician opposed to the regime. How they would face the bigger challenges arising up to and beyond December should cause some anxiety to both the president and the common man.
It is a romantic notion to expect a democracy to develop and function in the absence of robust administrative, legal and judicial systems relying only on political parties serving the interests not of the people but of their leaders alone. All these systems were staggering under the blows given by successive governments. The coup de grace has come from this one.
The permanent institutions of the state were much more caring and assertive in the colonial times than they are now in independent Pakistan. The new systems introduced have not taken shape in three years nor does it appear that they ever will. With the president, the prime minister and all their bureaus intervening, it is not yet clear who is responsible for maintaining law and order. Obviously, a democracy cannot work in a state of lawlessness.
Scepticism of the ineffectiveness of the current system shows itself no better than in the tributes being showered on the judiciary, not for giving any relief to Shahbaz Sharif but just for telling him that he can return to his country. Imagine, even this inherent right of a citizen can be denied to him unless it is confirmed by the highest court of the country. The Sharifs can afford the long and costly legal proceedings to get this confirmation but how many other citizens can?
Democracy under military tutelage is a price being paid for remaining silent when the systems - legal, judicial, administrative and the rest - were being destroyed and the political parties chose to serve the interests of their leaders rather than of the people. Now unless there is a mass upsurge for their revival (and there is no sign of that) the centrepiece of governance will not be parliament but the army which, as Musharraf observed in his television interview on Wednesday, is the only institution left which is able to enforce its writ.
In the concluding part of the interview Musharraf also propounded a principle that no one had the right to claim that he is a better Muslim than him or his interviewer Mehreen Khan.
He should make this principle into a law. He would be remembered by it and not by his NSC or devolution process. The roots of terrorism in Pakistan lie in the state becoming a judge of the beliefs and morals of the people.