| 07 July 2004 | Wednesday | 18 Jamadi-ul-Awwal 1425 |
The new 'free' Iraq?
A people's army
Same story, different scripts
On July 4, President Karzai received from the mayor of Philadelphia the Philadelphia Liberty Medal and pledged that the cash award of $100,000 that accompanied the award would be used to support children orphaned by the many years of war in Afghanistan.
In presenting the award the Mayor of Philadelphia recalled that the medal was awarded annually since 1989 to "recognize leadership in the pursuit of freedom" and added that the American people had recognized since the 9/11 attack the importance of promoting democracy worldwide. "
Your fight is our fight. Your people are our people. And your future is our future," the Mayor told Karzai. The award of the medal was perhaps the only good news for Karzai on America's independence day.
He had come to the ceremony after attending the NATO summit in Istanbul on the June 29 where all the right noises were made regarding NATO's commitment to taking on the task of ensuring security for the Afghan elections scheduled for the end of September but far too little was done in concrete terms.
NATO promised that by September they would send another 1500 troops to Afghanistan and another 2000 would be on standby for deployment if needed. These troops would set up another three PRTs in the north and would take over administrative control of the British run PRT in Mazar but there was no commitment of forces for the far more troubled southern provinces, nor was there any commitment made to providing the money that was sorely needed by the UN office to complete the preparations for the elections.
NATO's European members may say that they regard Afghanistan as their top priority and may even maintain that, unlike Iraq, they have no differences with the United States on the policy in Afghanistan but the facts on the ground belie the rhetoric.
The Philadelphia mayor was right when he said that "your war is our war" because if one thing emerged clearly from the NATO meeting it was that Europe and the rest of America's "allies" world would do no more than the minimum in Afghanistan and it would be for America to carry the can for as long as it could sustain the will to do so.
If this was not disheartening enough for Karzai there was even more bad news on the domestic front. He came to the award ceremony after hearing that the office of his intelligence chief in Herat province had been taken over by the forces loyal to the local warlord.
Ostensibly Ismail Khan had taken umbrage at Karzai's temerity in appointing intelligence chief without consulting him. In practice Ismail Khan's creation of another mini-crisis was designed to ensure that the disarming of part of his militia scheduled for July 5 was stopped in its tracks.
This was the fourth time, since March, that local factional forces in the north and west either refused to let Karzai-appointed officials take up key provincial posts or drove them out.
If this was not enough he also got the news that his police chief in Mazar-i-Sharif had been confined to his home and his police force disarmed by the forces of Atta Mohammad, the local warlord and protigi of Defence Minister Marshal Fahim.
The police chief had been accused by Atta Mohammad of being responsible for drug running, a source of income that Atta Mohammad probably felt should be available only to him. The forces Atta Mohammad used were of course the forces that theoretically are under the control of the Afghan Defence ministry and therefore subject to the orders of Marshal Fahim.
Karzai may have been pleased by the success that appears to have attended the American anti insurgency efforts in the south and southeast of the country. In Uruzgan and Zabul the Americans claim that they have killed or captured over two dozen Taliban.
But this does not seem to have affected the disruptive capacity of the Taliban and other anti-Karzai forces as evidenced by the car bomb attack on the governor of Helmand province in which the governor was seriously injured and his bodyguard killed.
In the south and southeast the overall security situation remains fragile with few Karzai appointed officials feeling secure or being able to deliver on the promise of security.
Between the warlords in the north and west and the insurgency in the south and southeast it has become clear that Karzai has little hope of restoring to his benighted country even the minimum level of security needed to hold elections by the end of September or even as he has recently said in the Afghan month of Mizan which runs from September 22 to October 21.
The voter registration drive, having gathered momentum, has now slowed down again in the face of insurgent attacks that have killed at least three election workers in Jalalabad district and created panic among the election workers and potential voters alike.
Theoretically 5.5 million voters out of a potential 10 million voters have been registered so far, and according to one estimate some 120,000 new voters are being added to the rolls every day.
The fact however is that voter registration in the south and southeast is at a virtual standstill and bogus registration in the north, driven by the ambitions of local warlords, has climbed to an all time high.
During a recent visit to Kabul I was told that former president, Rabbani, had informed the election officials of cases that he had first hand information about dozens of cases in which women, duly veiled had registered seven or eight times and of many men who had done likewise.
It seems that little can be done to correct this. Officials under pressure to show high figures of voter registration, requiring warlord cooperation to be able to carry out any registration work at all are inclined to turn a blind eye towards such fraud.
The bogus voter registration will have an immediate consequence in terms of strengthening the hand of the warlords in the north as and when elections are held but it will also have the long-term consequence, with potentially disastrous results of turning the Pushtun majority or at least plurality ethnic group into a minority.
The Pushtuns should have seen the forthcoming elections as an opportunity to correct what they rightly perceive as their illegitimate marginalization in the power structure now set up in Kabul.
Instead what the failure of the voter registration drive in the Pushtun south and southeast and the bogus registration in the north will do is give legal cover to the current Tajik domination in Kabul.
The election then will become a divisive rather than a uniting force in an Afghanistan that at least so far has managed to an admirable degree to resist an erosion of Afghan nationalism.
But this lies in the future. The current problem is that elections are almost certainly not going to be held as scheduled. The first obstacle is the election law, which requires that the date of the election and the demarcation of the constituencies for the parliament be announced at least 90 days in advance.
The deadline for this expired on the July 1 if the elections were to be held on the September 30 and will expire shortly if a date in the first half of October is chosen. The election law can, according to the relevant UN officials, be changed by the Karzai administration but that would hardly be a good start for what is to be the era of democracy and the "rule of law".
Second, the population estimates on the basis of which constituencies are to be determined have yet to be made available to the election officers. Third, the $ 100 million plus required for the conduct of the elections only $ 70 million have been pledged and of this only $18 million have so far been received by the UN.
Fourth, almost half of the eligible voters remain unregistered and the vast majority of these are in the Pushtun dominated heartland of Afghanistan. These obstacles can perhaps be overcome but what can be done about the fact that there has been virtually no success in the DDR (Disarming Demobilizing and Reintegration) programme.
According to the original plan some 40,000 of the 100,000 strong militia forces were to have been disarmed by the end of June. Currently reports based on official briefings suggest that the number disarmed is somewhere between 3500 and 9000.
The variation, I believe, comes from the fact that many so called disarmed militia have rejoined their parent warlord militias. It is noteworthy that the withdrawal of the militia even from Kabul is yet to be accomplished and the so-called surrender of heavy weapons by Marshal Fahim's Shura-i-Nazar has been a laughable farce.
The ISAF commander lamenting the failure of the programme laid the blame squarely at the door of Marshal Fahim's ministry of defense but it seems to have made no difference to the power equation in Kabul or, more importantly to the degree of influence Fahim and his cohorts continue to enjoy with the American forces.
In any case it seems naove to assume that any fair elections can be held while the vast part of the militias remain intact and while local warlords continue to flout the authority of the centre.
Despite these problems there is enormous American pressure for elections to be held as scheduled and thus giving President Bush at least a semblance of a foreign policy success before the November elections.
Ambassador Khalilzade has said the problem of militias is exaggerated offering at this late date the estimate that the local militias number about 40,000 rather than the generally accepted figure of 100,000.
Presumably he now wants to regard the Fahim militia in Kabul and the Atta Mohammad and Dostum militias in the North as part of the Afghan national army. President Karzai has said that even if 50 per cent of the eligible voters are registered a fair election was possible.
He has been talking to warlords about power sharing in return for their support in the elections. In other words, as some cynical Afghans put it, do whatever is necessary to give the Bush administration a chance to declare victory.
For Pakistan there are two problems that arise. First despite the operation in South Waziristan and the general crackdown on extremist forces, with its beneficial consequences for America's battle against the Taliban in Afghanistan, Pakistan will remain the convenient scapegoat for the shortcomings of American policy in Afghanistan.
Second if farcical elections are held in Afghanistan and the Pushtun are disenfranchised, as seems likely, there will be fresh turbulence and fresh problems on Pakistan's borders.
Can the Americans be persuaded to change their policies? Analysts have criticized Karzai for clumsy attempts to impose his will on warlords, by sending in appointees to try to implement disarmament without necessary support bases.
The fact is that Karzai's muscle and support can come only from the Americans. If this is not forthcoming there is little Karzai can do except trying to bluff his way through.
Similarly Karzai's efforts at the disarming of Kabul and reconciliation with the "moderate" Taliban can succeed only if the Americans crack the whip on the Northern Alliance. This does not seem likely.
The writer is a former foreign secretary.
The new 'free' Iraq?
In his last hours as US proconsul in Baghdad, Paul Bremer decided to tighten up some of the laws that his occupation authority had placed across the land of Iraq. He drafted a new piece of legislation forbidding Iraqi motorists to drive with only one hand on the wheel.
Another document solemnly announced that it would henceforth be a crime for the Iraqis to sound their car horns except in an emergency. That same day, three American soldiers were torn apart by a roadside bomb north of Baghdad, one of more than 60 attacks on the US forces over the weekend.
And all the while, Mr Bremer was worrying about the standards of Iraqi driving. It would be difficult to find a more preposterous - and chilling - symbol of Mr Bremer's failures, his inability to understand the nature of the debacle that he and his hopeless occupation authority have brought about.
It's not that the old "Coalition Provisional Authority" - now transmogrified into the 3,000-strong US embassy - was out of touch. It didn't even live on Planet Earth.
Mr Bremer's last starring moment came when he departed Baghdad on a US military aircraft, with two US-paid mercenaries - rifles pointed menacingly at camera crews and walking backwards - protecting him until the cabin door closed. And Mr Bremer, remember, was appointed to his job because he was an "anti-terrorist" expert.
Most of the American CPA men who have cleared out of Baghdad are doing what we always suspected they would do when they had finished trying to put a US ideological brand name on "new" Iraq; they have headed off to Washington to work for the Bush election campaign.
But those left behind in the "international zone" - those we have to pretend are no longer an occupation authority - make no secret of their despair. "The ideology is gone. The ambitions are gone.
We've no aims left," one of them said last week. "We're living from one day to the next. All we're trying to do now - our only goal - is to keep the lid on until January 2005 [when the first Iraqi elections are supposed to be held]. That's our only aim - get past the elections - and then get the hell out."
The production of Saddam Hussein in a Baghdad "court" last week - he was actually sitting in one of his former palaces - was therefore the occupiers' last card. After this, there is going to be no more "good news" in Iraq, no more devices, no more tricks, no more captures to brighten our eyes before the November elections in the US.
Yet even the court melodrama was symptomatic of how little power the West is prepared to cede to an Iraq to which it last week falsely claimed to be handing "full sovereignty".
Americans continue to hold Saddam - in Qatar, not in Iraq - and Americans ran the court in which Saddam appeared. American soldiers in plain clothes were the "civilians" in the court.
American officials censored the tapes of the hearing, lied about the judge's wish to record the sound of the trial, and marked the videotapes "cleared by US military"; three US officers later confiscated all the original tapes of the trial.
"The last time that happened to me," one of the reporters involved said afterwards, "was when the Iraqi government took my tapes in Basra during the 1991 Gulf War."
But it's not just the crude handling of the start of Saddam's show trial - where he had, of course, no defence counsel. For if he is ever to be given a fair trial in the future, the "muting" of the tapes last week will have set an important precedent. For he can now be "silenced" again - if, for example, he deviates from the script and starts telling the court about his close association with the US rather than his non-existent contacts with Al-Qaeda.
But America's occupation continues in many other ways. Its 146,000 soldiers are still all too much in evidence in Iraq, its tanks guarding the walls of the US "embassy", its armour littered throughout Baghdad, its convoys humming - and sometimes exploding - along the highways outside the city.
The "new" and "sovereign" government cannot order it to leave. Mr Bremer's raft of reconstruction contracts to US companies ensures that American firms continue to cream off Iraq's money, described quite accurately by Naomi Klein in The Nation as "multibillion robbery".
And Mr Bremer managed to institute a set of laws that the "new" and "sovereign" government is not permitted to change. One of the most insidious was the re-introduction of Saddam's 1984 law banning all strikes.
This piece of folly was intended to muzzle the so-called Federation of Iraqi Trade Unions. Yet the trade unions are among the few secular groups in Iraq opposing religious orthodoxy and fundamentalism. A strong trade union movement could provide a vital base of political and democratic power in a new Iraq. But no, Mr Bremer preferred to protect big business.
And all the while, the power of the mercenaries has been growing. Blackwater's thugs with guns now push and punch Iraqis who get in their way: Kurdish journalists twice walked out of a Bremer press conference because of their mistreatment by these men.
Baghdad is alive with mysterious westerners draped with hardware, shouting and abusing Iraqis in the street, drinking heavily in the city's poorly defended hotels. They have become, for ordinary Iraqis, the image of everything that is wrong with the West.
We like to call them "contractors", but there is a disturbing increase in reports that mercenaries are shooting down innocent Iraqis with total impunity. US military and diplomatic officials have now set an 80/20 ration target for "security" details - 80 Iraqi mercenaries for every 20 western mercenaries.
And even if President Bush can forget it, the Abu Ghraib scandal burns on in a country where the filth and nudity and humiliation inflicted by US soldiers will take a generation to erase from the memory.
One leftist group in Baghdad now claims that several women, allegedly raped by Iraqi policemen at the jail while Americans watched, have been murdered by their families for their "dishonour".
Large areas of the country are now effectively outside any government control - even America's. Fallujah is a virtual people's republic and lynch law is occurring even in Baghdad.
The so-called "Mehdi Army" of Muqtada al-Sadr publicly executed a 20-year-old man in the slums of Baghdad's Sadr City last month for "collaboration" with the Americans. Understandably, few journalists dare to travel outside Baghdad - much to the pleasure of the US military.
"They killed all those poor people at the wedding party near the Syrian border and our military sources told us there'd been a ..." an American correspondent complained last week. "Then [Brigadier-General Mark] Kimmitt says that all the dead were terrorists and he knows we can't go and prove he's wrong."
Iyad Allawi, the new prime minister, we must recall, was a CIA man, an MI6 man and a former Baathist. Indeed, he boasted to journalists that he had taken money from 14 intelligence agencies while he was in exile.
However "free" Mr Allawi thinks Iraq is, he will not turn against his American protectors - nor against the glowering figure of John Negroponte, the new US ambassador of Honduras fame.
Ironically, the only real hope for the new government would be to do what a majority of its people say they want: to tell the Americans to leave. This, of course, Mr Allawi cannot do. His "sovereign" government needs those American troops to protect it from the people who don't want the American troops in Iraq.
And so we boil our way on to those January 2005 elections, the lid dangerously lifting from time to time to horrify us with little glimpses of the future. Many Iraqis believe that there will be a new dictator, a "democratically minded strongman" in the creepy expression of American neo-conservative Daniel Pipes, to bring about the security that we have failed to give them.
For after the elections, if indeed they are held, we shall self-righteously claim we can no longer be blamed for anything that goes wrong in Iraq. We liberated the Iraqis from Saddam, we shall say. We gave them "democracy" - and look what a mess they made of it.
- (c) The Independent
A people's army
We have a genius for belittling great ideas, noble concepts and inspiring events. We give the sacred name of jihad to a campaign to eliminate those who don't agree with us.
Political workers travelling by bus from Rawalpindi to Islamabad to hold a protest rally, describe themselves as being on a 'Long March.' And political leaders going without food and drink for three hours in front of the parliament building are on a hunger strike.
Some years ago it was the turn of the People's Army. My scrapbook shows that late in 1999, Mian Nawaz Sharif's parliamentary secretary for education told the National Assembly that in order to strengthen the country's defence, military training might be introduced in schools and colleges to "create a people's army."
No one in the House asked him what he was talking about, and no one else took notice of he revolutionary statement except perhaps General Pervez Musharraf who promptly declared a popular military takeover a few days later!
For all we know, the parliamentary secretary may have been an ex-army officer and have studied the two contemporary models of a people's army - in Israel and China - and was only speaking without authority from the PM.
On the other hand, maybe he couldn't tell an airman from a naval rating if he saw them together and was talking poppycock. You can never say about our legislators whether they are knowledgeable or ignorant. Those who know nothing talk a lot, while those who have something worthwhile to say don't know how to say it.
For instance, if this parliamentary secretary for education had told the National Assembly that the popular scheme of National Cadet Corps, running successfully in boys' and girls' colleges through collaboration between the GHQ and the education ministry, was being expanded as a precursor to universal military training to form the nucleus of a people's army, it would have made eminent sense.
But today, after almost five years, we can't even ask him if he had heard of the NCC, and inform him that the letters don't stand only for the National Construction Company.
I have always been in favour of military training for all as practised in every modern developed country because of what we have kept on saying for the last 57 years about a threat to our security from India and three wars with that country behind us.
There is nothing complicated or difficult about such a scheme as shown by the experience of numerous countries. Now and then our English newspapers have editorially written on the subject, I cannot say whether as expression of genuine concern or because there was nothing important to write about that day.
These comments have always moved me to agree with them, but, as you see, we are as far from the idea as we were in 1947. The usual system of universal military training in other countries is for young men of a particular age group who undergo training for a specified period.
When I express myself in favour of the system, I know that, in Pakistan, it will not be universal. While your sons and my sons will be drafted, those of persons with clout and influence will escape the imposition on medical grounds and will be sent out promptly to London to recover their health.
And I can bet that many of the parents will themselves be from the three forces. But even after making allowance for rich malingerers and VIPs' sons "with weak constitutions," it would build up an effective back-up force that could be called upon to supplement the defence forces in times of emergency.
That would really be a people's army. We are at pains to remind the world (and especially India) of our martial traditions, so it will be interesting to see how most of us with growing sons react to the scheme.
You will say that I am being unduly caustic, and pessimistic, and that there is always a rush for entry into the army, the navy and the air force. Right, but you will agree that that is more by way of joining a profession and building a career.
Even the military's advertisements on the subject say so. The American soldier is said to protest that he didn't join the army to get killed. We are slowly reaching that stage.
As it is, the three armed services are not very high on the priority list of careers for young men, nor are their doting parents anxious to see them join up. They come far below the civil service or employment with multinationals or reputed Pakistani or foreign firms.
Otherwise why should the dismissed premier's ADC son-in-law, and the captain son of his cabinet colleague, a retired lieutenant-general, have successfully wangled absorption in the DMG?
Universal military training would not only be an asset for the three defence services, but would also inculcate a measure of discipline in young men who are called up. Nothing would be better for them, especially for the sons of the dirty rich who, before having their desire fulfilled to enter the superior civil services or a foreign company, roam about aimlessly firing their fathers' weapons in the air for fun.
What they desperately need is a military parade on a winter dawn in shorts and singlets to teach them some hard facts of life.Some time ago I writhed with envy on watching on TV young Indian maidens enthusiastically tying the " raakhi" on the wrists of army jawans and making them symbolic brothers.
I yearned for the days when we too in Pakistan regarded army men as heroes and would have done anything for them. Remember the spirit of September 1965? Then, repeated martial law and the terrible happenings of 1971 undid all that and sadly we began to consider them as aliens.
I don't know how President Pervez Musharraf views this, but I think a leader of his kind should be giving the topmost priority to restoring the popular image of the army. Also, whether the concept of a people's army materializes through conscription and military service for everyone or through some other method, the armed forces are the best judge.
Look at me - carried away by my enthusiasm for the idea when it has not even been broached at any forum in the country. To tell you honestly, I neither like armies bristling with weapons nor the thought of killing people on the battlefield, so you'll need a psychiatrist to find out why I am so interested in universal military training.
I don't even know if I would be speaking the truth if I said that I favour the scheme because it will involve the people in it and instil some discipline in our wayward national life. Whatever it is, it is off my chest for the moment.
Same story, different scripts
Perhaps Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain had stones and glass houses in mind when, within days of being sworn in as prime minister, he offered the extraordinary comment that only people in power, and not their predecessors, should be held accountable for their actions.
It's a refreshing sentiment, particularly in so far as it recognizes a need to improve upon past practice. When the concept was evoked 27 years ago under a different military dictatorship, it was widely seen as a purely political ploy. as time went by, that impression was reinforced by the fact that, under General Ziaul Haq, corruption scaled unprecedented heights.
The semi-civilian interregnums that followed were undistinguished in every way, apart from some reputedly remarkable displays of ingenuity in topping up personal coffers. Unfortunately, General Pervez Musharraf's coup wasn't followed by any major deviation from the norm.
For one, the new regime's interest in accountability was restricted to the post-1988 period - which meant, conveniently, that the Zia era wasn't up for scrutiny. And then, when the time came to reintroduce a parliamentary element into the set-up, the excesses and trespasses of all those who were prepared to play a leading role in the charade were readily excused.
If transparency had been part of the allegedly improved, "true" democracy that Musharraf was kind enough to bless Pakistan with, the public might have had an inkling about why Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali - a striking nonentity, to all intents and purposes - had been elevated to the prime ministerial post in the first place.
Likewise, it may now have been evident why he was compelled to quit that office. As things stand, in both cases the absence of hard facts has inevitably given rise to conjecture. Some of what has been - and continues to be - conjectured may bear some relationship to the truth. The rest of it could well be nonsense.
Of course, deliberate obfuscation is hardly a recent innovation. Through much of Pakistan's history, "taking the public into confidence" has chiefly been employed as a rhetorical device rather than as government policy. And for all of Musharraf's protestations about a new beginning, there was never any good reason to expect something refreshingly different from the present setup.
It is nonetheless intriguing to consider the degree to which the rulers expect the ruled to suspend disbelief. "Rest assured, the president has reassured me," Jamali was quoted as having said on June 25.
"I have no problems with the party and as such there is no truth in reports about an in-house change. I am perturbed about the repetition of these reports while my word as chief executive should have been sufficient to end the confusion and responsible people in newspapers should have taken notice."
By the following day, his resignation had been accepted. He wasn't even asked to stay on until his successor took office. "What was being reflected in the newspapers since last 37 days has come to pass," announced the outgoing PM, thanking Allah and Musharraf, but offering no explanation for having dissembled the previous day and on innumerable earlier occasions.
"My faith is strong, my intentions are good and my conscience is clear." That may well be so, but what is not clear is why it became so imperative to the powers that be that he should make way for someone else.
In the past, when governments have been dismissed, they have invariably been accused of incompetence and corruption. Yet in accepting Jamali's resignation, Musharraf praised his services to the nation and described him as "person of sterling qualities of grace, dignity, sincerity and loyalty".
Granted, there's no mention of competence or honesty, but it's still a fairly gracious send-off. Shujaat has been no more forthcoming on why Jamali had to resign, in the latter's own words, "in order to ensure continuity of the system and to make way for some better person who can run the country in a better way".
Not surprisingly, the government has been keen to accentuate the positive, suggesting that the change is a landmark because it has occurred peacefully. Well, it's true that the Mir has not challenged the Chaudhry to a wrestling match, nor is there any evidence that the former was forced to cede his post at gunpoint.
Not literally, anyhow. Which is, no doubt, gratifying. But unless the significance of the change can satisfactorily be explained through means other than rumour and innuendo, it will be difficult to see it as much more than a vagary of Pakistan's hybrid military-civilian dispensation.
A change of prime minister certainly isn't undemocratic. But when it occurs within a parliamentary setup that effectively serves as little more than a face-saving device for a military ruler, not a great deal of value can be attached to it.
The charade would be more effective, however, if the leading players could at least ensure they are reading from the same script.Here's what Musharraf said on June 30: "I did not ask Mr Jamali to step down and he resigned after holding detailed consultations with party leadership ... I tried to be neutral and can tell you very honestly that the change was brought about at the behest of the PML president, Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, and other party leaders ... I had not nominated Mr Jamali for the post of prime minister nor did I play any role in the nomination of Shaukat Aziz as the future prime minister,"
Two days earlier, Shujaat had said: "I can swear to Allah that neither I nor Shaukat Aziz have ever desired the post but we have accepted the offer as a challenge." He added that the decision was solely that of Musharraf, "which we have all accepted".
Someone is clearly being economical with the truth here - and it is very hard to imagine the general as a disinterested observer in the process. Would any military ruler deny himself the right to choose his civilian subordinates? And it's also difficult to believe that an entity such as the PML, with its history of intrigues and power plays, would voluntarily throw up a technocrat as its prime ministerial candidate.
There are other unanswered questions, too. If Shaukat Aziz had emerged as the chosen one - favoured by all interested parties, including, presumably, Washington and the IMF - why couldn't his election to the National Assembly have been arranged before Jamali got the heave-ho? Alternatively, why couldn't Jamali have been left in place for another couple of months?
And why does Shujaat visibly bristle at being referred to as the interim or caretaker prime minister? That may not be his formal designation, but it's a reasonably accurate job description. Or is it? Could the Chaudhry, when the time comes, prove harder to dislodge than the Mir?
It's a less than gripping scenario, but it'll be interesting to see how the script develops.
* * * * *
In a comment that could easily have been applied to Pakistani politics, Marlon Brando once noted: "Acting is the least mysterious of all crafts. Whenever we want something from somebody or when we want to hide something or pretend, we're acting. Most people do it all day long."
When Brando died last week, he was hailed as arguably the greatest practitioner of a craft he refused to take too seriously. And there can be little question that at his best, Brando could be outstanding.
He will deservedly be remembered for his portrayal of Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire, of Don Corleone in The Godfather, and as the leather-clad young biker in The Wild One who, when asked what he is rebelling against, responds: "Whaddya got?"
But Brando wasn't only a screen rebel. He expended considerable time, energy and money on causes that an average Hollywood idol wouldn't have touched with a bargepole.
His association with the struggle for Native American rights gained prominence in the 1970s, particularly after he turned down the Oscar he won for his Corleone role in protest against Hollywood's racist depiction of Red Indians, but that was neither the first nor the last time he went out of his way to highlight the genocide against America's original inhabitants.
"To my mind," Brando wrote in his autobiography, Songs My Mother Taught Me, ten years ago, "the killing of Indians was an even larger crime against humanity than the Holocaust ... It is no coincidence, I suspect, that when Hitler was plotting his Final Solution, he ordered a study of America's Indian-reservation system."
He was equally appalled by the way his country treated its black inhabitants, which led him not only to participate in the civil rights movement but also, subsequently, to support the Black Panthers. Not surprisingly, Brando was also disgusted by the Vietnam War.
Amid the paeans to his star qualities and related exploits, it is certainly worth noting that this particular American icon was anything but blind to his nation's flaws. And, furthermore, that he was prepared to struggle against every injustice that grazed his consciousness.
e-mail: mahirali2@netscape.net.