| 25 September 2004 | Saturday | 09 Shaban 1425 |
One-upmanship game
How to reach there: The mirage of democracy-II
Unless the Muslim ummah courageously tackles the real challenges confronting it, it cannot escape from the downward spiral of rage, self-pity, poverty and oppression.
It is heartening that religious leaders, scholars and thinking people in the Islamic world have begun to openly discuss the problems facing them and are suggesting ways to solve them. A commendable effort was recently made by Hamdard Foundation which sponsored an international conference on the Muslim ummah in the modern world.
Before dealing with its problems and challenges, it is necessary that the Muslim ummah is seen in its true perspective. The ummah is not a monolithical or homogeneous entity.
Geographical, ethnic, cultural, linguistic, political and economic differences underline the heterogeneity of the Islamic world. The 50-odd Islamic countries provide a motley of political systems - hereditary monarchies, one party-systems, military dictatorships, multiparty democracies with civilian supremacy, controlled democracies with military domination, secular governments, multi-party democracies with theocracy wielding the veto power.
However, despite the diversity of its political and economic systems and the differences of geography, ethnicity and culture, the ummah faces common problems and challenges which will be discussed in this piece. These must be tackled firmly and courageously because they have been mainly responsible for the ummah's decline.
For almost a thousand years, from the first Moorish landing in Spain in 710 AD to the second Turkish siege of Vienna in 1683, Muslim supremacy and domination extended across Asia, Africa and Europe. But with the fall of Grenada, the last outpost of Muslim power in the Iberian Peninsula in 1492, began the great European counter-offensive against Muslim domination.
Incidentally, 1492 was also the year when Columbus discovered America. By 1920, the triumph of Europe over the Islamic world was complete as vast Muslim territories and countless millions of Muslim peoples were brought under the control of western empires.
Of course, there were many causes for the Muslim decline, but the chief among these was that the ummah turned away from the path of reform and regeneration and began to resist change and stifle intellectual curiosity and creativity.
Just one instance will illustrate the point. In 1492, after the fall of Grenada, the Spanish Jews, because of Christian persecution, migrated to Islamic Turkey with their printing presses.
They were granted permission by the sultan to take refuge in Turkey and print books in the capital and other cities on one condition: they would not print books in the script used by the Turks or other Muslim subjects, because the clerics were against the spread of new ideas.
Consequently, until the 18th century, books were printed in the Ottoman lands in Hebrew and many other languages of the world except the ones used by the Muslims. Thus, for over 200 years, the ummah remained out of touch with what was happening in the scientific, technological and intellectual world.
It is not Islam but our refusal to practise ijtihad, to accept new ideas and bring about reforms that has led to the present state of affairs. Islam is not an obstacle to freedom, to science, to economic, social or political development. When Europe was living in the dark ages, the Islamic world was a global leader in science, technology, state craft, culture and the arts.
It was in the Islamic world that old sciences were recovered and developed and that new sciences were created. It was again there that new industries were born and commerce achieved a level unknown before.
It was again in the Muslim ummah that governments and societies achieved a degree of tolerance, freedom of thought and expression that led persecuted Jews and even dissident Christians to flee for refuge from Christendom to Islam. Ironically, today even Muslims are not safe from their co-religionists.
Iqbal pinpointed in his Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam" the problems ummah faces and has suggested ways to solve them. Few Muslim thinkers and scholars of recent times can rival Iqbal in his understanding of the Holy Quran and the message of Islam. He had the unique advantage of having thoroughly studied not only Islamic history and thought but also western philosophy and sciences.
Time and again, he emphasized the need for reform and regeneration. For instance, he said: "During the last five hundred years, religious thought in Islam has been practically stationary.... The task before the modern Muslim is, therefore, immense. He has to re-think the whole system of Islam without completely breaking with the past."
The two most serious threats to the Ummah today are extremism and terrorism. If we do not tackle these properly, the current crisis will aggravate further. The problems of militancy in the Islamic world is usually explained in terms of extraneous and overt causes like poverty, illiteracy, deprivation, social injustices, foreign occupation and so forth.
Recently, President Pervez Musharraf, in an interview with ABC TV, described political disputes, poverty and illiteracy as "the root causes of terrorism".
These extraneous factors play an important role but it is an over-simplification to argue that they alone can explain the rage and resentment that drive suicide bombers to blow themselves up in order to wreak vengeance on their perceived or real enemies.
None of the 9/11 hijackers lived in poverty or suffered from illiteracy or deprivation. None of them was a Palestinian victim of Israeli aggression. It is obvious that there are some other factors which have contributed to their resentment against the United States.
No one can deny that many parts of the Islamic world have lost their way. In most Islamic countries, a deep divide has developed between those who govern and those who are being governed.
The political and economic systems are dominated by selfish and corrupt elites who have aligned themselves with the West with whose support they are exploiting the political and economic systems to enrich themselves while driving the common people towards poverty and deprivation. But this state of affairs cannot continue for long. Television and satellite, fax and internet are bringing about a new openness that is beginning to undermine a closed society and closed minds that have so far sustained autocracy and social and economic injustices.
The teeming millions are now beginning to get impatient. They are grappling every hour with the consequences of political corruption, incompetent governance, overpopulation, and unequal distribution of wealth and resources.
Since they hardly share any of the material benefits of modernization or the so-called "aid" from the rich West, it is not surprising that terrorist camps are overflowing with new recruits. As French president Chirac put it: "Terrorism is a feverish expression of suffering, frustration and injustice."
No doubt it is hurtful for Muslims to be weak and poor after centuries of being rich and strong and to lose global leadership and be reduced to the status of a third-rate power.
But instead of facing the real challenges and removing the causes that have led to our decline, we have developed a culture of victim hood. Instead of inquiring. "Where did we go wrong?", we have been asking the wrong question:" Who did this to us?" First we blamed the crusades, then the Mongol invasion, then the western imperialism of the last two centuries, and now we are blaming the Americans and the Jews for keeping us down.
We must realize that the success of our adversaries has not been the cause but the effect of our decline and weakness. It is not the outsiders but we ourselves who are responsible for our present state of affairs.
This blame game continues because it serves a useful purpose for the oppressive, corrupt and ineffectual governments that rule much of the Islamic world. It serves to explain the poverty the rulers have failed to alleviate and justify the tyranny that they have inflicted on their people. They are quite happy if the mounting anger of their unhappy subjects is deflected to external targets.
There is yet another important factor that explains the current turmoil in the Islamic world. The larger crisis of the ummah is neither political nor economic. Rather, it is the crisis of a civilization that has become aware of its inadequacies but is too confused or fearful to walk the path of reason and initiate reforms to move forward.
This factor largely explains the social, political, economic, cultural and institutional stagnation that prevails throughout the Islamic world. For instance, in Pakistan the rulers and the opposition both know that "karo kari" is an unIslamic and horrendous practice, yet the government has done nothing to move forward on a pending bill prohibiting it.
The same is true of some other laws which need to be amended so that they are not abused or misused. But the very thought of change or reform frightens us. We are living in an interdependent world which is changing fast.
In order to keep pace with it, we have to heed the wake-up call and regain the lost spirit of inquiry, reform and regeneration.. Our best hope lies in reason, free discussion, openness, tolerance and seeing the other person's point of view.
If we continue to ignore these virtues, the future may become even more bleak for us than at present. In the words of Iqbal: "It is one of the most essential teachings of Quran that nations are collectively judged, and suffer for their misdeeds here and now."
One-upmanship game
Meeting at the summit between India and Pakistan, whether on the sidelines of the UN or in formal surroundings, is always welcome. It indicates that the two countries have journeyed, going on still towards normalization. It sustains hope that persistent meetings may span the distance between the two one day, however hard it may look at present.
The important point is that the talks should continue. America and the then Soviet Union did not stop talking even at the height of the cold war. Representatives of the two countries would secretly meet at one place or the other and keep the dialogue going. India and Pakistan should have done this after independence.
However, the interview by President General Pervez Musharraf to Washington Post a couple of days before meeting the Indian prime minister appears to take the entire process to square one.
He has said that Pakistan does not go along with the Indian idea to put off the substantive discussions on Kashmir in favour of short-term confidence-building measures. This means Kashmir first and other steps later. We have gone over this exercise earlier without any result.
Status quo is not the answer, says Musharraf. But there is no option till the two countries sort out the problems between them. The status quo, that is the Line of Control, can be modified is indicated in Dr Manmohan Singh's interview to the Time magazine. The report has naturally been denied. But there could be something in it.
I recall after the Tashkent agreement in 1966 Soviet Prime Minister Kosygin asked Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri to solve the Kashmir problem as well. He agreed and talked to Lt-Gen Kumaramangalam, then India's chief of the army staff-designate.
Shastri told Kosygin that India would be willing to make some adjustment in the cease fire line and give some territory of the state to Pakistan. Kosygin conveyed Shastri's offer to Ayub. He did not reject it and said he would consider it and give his reply later. He never did.
Humayun Khan, Pakistan's former high commissioner to India, has also revealed in a book: "Zulfikar Ali Bhutto convincingly argued with Indira Gandhi at Shimla that given enough time, he would be able to make Pakistan accept the LoC with minor adjustments as a permanent border."
The Pakistan establishment denies this. But there is enough evidence to indicate that Bhutto gave such an understanding. Musharraf's statement to "take the bull by its horns" sounds odd when the ground has not been prepared.
New Delhi's unilateral relaxation of visa restrictions is a step in the right direction. Only people-to-people contact will remove the distrust which is the core of the problem.
Why couldn't New Delhi relax visa restrictions many years earlier? The Shimla agreement in 1972 gave it an opportunity. But the mania of reciprocity has obsessed New Delhi so much that it inch-tapes the stride Pakistan takes to determine the response.
Even the relaxation, I fear, may not be implemented on the ground. New Delhi has genuine problem of infiltration because the Pakistan policy to send militants into India has been relaxed, not renounced.
Only a few days ago did the army chief say: "500 militants are waiting in the wings to cross over to Jammu and Kashmir." If this goes on, how can there be a climate for a settlement?
Easy travel is welcome but the trade is the one which establishes the real bond. Lifting the restrictions on import of goods from Pakistan unilaterally would have created a stir in that country. It is the economic activity that develops a vested interest which becomes the sinews of peace. People resent the snapping because their livelihood depends on ties.
If a list were to be prepared of what the two countries should have done but did not do, it would run into many pages and indicate missed opportunities. That is the reason why I fail to understand Islamabad's persistent 'no' to India's permanent membership of the Security Council.
Granted suspicion has crusted into layers of hostility and most Pakistanis genuinely believe that New Delhi may influence the decision on Kashmir once it sits in the array of Council's permanent members. It does not happen that way. New Delhi by itself can hardly do anything.
If Pakistan is keen on straightening things out with India, then why continue with the same old obduracy? What can New Delhi do if it becomes a permanent member? America is firmly behind Pakistan. No member, not even Russia, has anything against Pakistan for New Delhi to exploit. India gets no advantage on Kashmir if it is a member.
Were Pakistan to shed its hostility, it would realize that New Delhi in the Council would be a source of strength to South Asia. Pakistan should recall how New Delhi withdrew its objection to Islamabad becoming an observer at the ASEAN and how it okayed its membership to the Commonwealth although Pakistan continued to be a one-legged democracy.
However, I admit that Delhi's opposition was wrong in the first instance. Personal pique should never dictate policies because they are unproductive. India's membership of the Council is, however, dependent on Washington.
It may one day support the proposition for some reason or the other. What will Pakistan do then? It should know that international politics works enigmatically. At present Islamabad is in a position to show the gesture and even propose India's name.
Islamabad believes that Kashmir should be solved before India gets the membership. None objects to that. But even if there is no settlement it does not mean that the region with two billion people should be denied a place on the body which has become lopsided. When it was founded after the Second World War, the importance of countries was different from today.
Keeping India out and allowing the UK and France to be permanent members does not make sense. Coming to Kashmir, the path the two countries have taken so far does not lead them to the stage where a solution is possible.
From the days of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and President General Ayub Khan, the effort has been to talk at the top and see if some solution can come about.
Parleys between Lal Bahadur Shastri and Ayub, Indira Gandhi and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Inder Gujral and Nawaz Sharif and Atal Behari Vajpayee and Musharraf were at the top. The solution has to be built from below where the desire of the people to live in peace is strong. They are sick and tired of tension.
In fact, officials particularly and ministers in general have tangled the problem still further because their purpose is to show political one-upmanship, not to face the reality. People nominated to Track Two are cleared by New Delhi and Islamabad. How can they have a different approach?
The new formulas that have emerged away from religion and regionalism are the ones which are based on the people-to-people contacts. The process will accelerate once travel and trade are liberalized and allowed to touch all tiers of activities.
Ultimately, not only India and Pakistan but the entire South Asia, from Afghanistan to Myanmar, should become one economic union, beyond borders and beyond bickering. Kashmir will come to submerge in that scenario.
The writer is a leading columnist based in New Delhi.
How to reach there: The mirage of democracy-II
For a start let us evaluate where we are with respect to the rule of law, free and fair elections and freedom of speech. We are not as bad as the Arabs or even other Muslim countries.
We don't have to despair, even if since October 1999 we have been under military rule, and this is likely to continue for the foreseeable future, in the shape of the National Security Council, with some sort of civilian facade.
The good thing about it is that constitutions will probably not be overturned every so many years. There will be some sort of institutional stability. However, it would be safe to make the following assumptions:
(i) The president will continue to exercise the authority to dismiss the PM and/or dissolve the National Assembly; (ii) The COAS will be more powerful than the president; (iii) Devolution would remain (it's a bit of a mess at the moment but that can be resolved).
Given the above assumptions, the present fuss about Musharraf's uniform simply means that such people want a change of general at the top. It is difficult to see how this would benefit the country.
Nevertheless, the issue of electing a president with the power to dismiss the prime minister needs to be debated. More important, how is a future COAS to be selected? On this we can no doubt consult the Turks.
It is within this framework that we will have to evolve a suitable democratic system. Promotion of democratic rule is in the national interest. Pontification is not likely to get us anywhere.
Nor will the alternative of the presidential form. Actually the presidential form is easier to convert into a dictatorship. We don't have to go very far. All military rulers in Pakistan have initially started out as presidents and only when they wanted to create a facade of democracy that they introduced a prime minister.
Ayub Khan didn't even bother to have one but his successors reintroduced the office. How does one revitalize the democratic process? The performance of our four "elected" governments after 1988 - two led by the PPP and two by the PML - is not very inspiring.
Corruption was rampant: good governance was ignored. The prime ministers ruled with an iron hand doing more or less as they pleased, but were probably conscious of the shadow of the army hovering over them.
Once Mr Sharif had succeeded in humiliating one COAS and getting him to resign, he felt encouraged, a la Bhutto, to take over the control of the armed forces. The rest is common knowledge.
There are four elements needed for good governance: the right to free speech and freedom of assembly, rule of law which requires independence of the judiciary, free and fair elections and a merit-oriented non-political civil service.
These are also the requirements for consolidating the democratic process. Instead of wringing our hands about sour dreams and disillusioning journeys, it would be more productive if concerned citizens concentrated their efforts on these issues instead of lecturing on generalities about democracy.
Freedom of speech is the bedrock of a democratic process. This is the first government after 1958 to have been genuinely liberal in this matter, allowing freedom not only to the press but also to the electronic media.
Censorship of the media is possible but difficult to enforce. I recall Mogadishu thirty years ago when the streets used to become deserted at around 6:00 p.m. There were crowds gathered around radios listening to the BBC.
It is time PTV took some lessons from the BBC provided the government allows it to do so; if they do not, PTV is likely to lose its audience to the private channels.
Although Choudhry Shujaat has modified the libel laws to protect his fellow politicians, the press should do much more investigative reporting than it is doing at present.
What newspaper lack is consistent follow-up. Because to a long period of press censorship journalists have become lazy because there is not much reporting that can be done under such a regime.
They should buckle down and at least go for the municipal government and then move higher up the ladder. They can't leave everything to some brave columnists - it isn't fair.
The judiciary used to be the institution which interprets the law in an impartial fashion. The problem started when Chief Justice Munir decided to go political in aid of the executive.
Gradually appointments to the higher judiciary, instead of being based on co-option by the higher judiciary itself became the privilege of executive authority; and therefore susceptible to influence by the executive branch.
One thought that the lowest point had been reached when Shahbaz Sharif's goons stormed the Supreme Court and dispersed the bench being presided over by the Chief Justice. Worse was to follow when the majority of his fellow judges (probably induced, if not forced, by the executive branch) decided to sack the Chief Justice.
General Jehangir Karamat, the COAS, when asked to protect the Supreme Court, prevaricated and allowed Mr Sharif's goons to have a field day. It was poetic justice when this same COAS was humiliated by Nawaz Sharif and forced to resign. The executive has by now become used to controlling the judiciary.
A periodic occurrence in Pakistan is the abrogation or suspension of the constitution. Things can only function under the directions of the military which also happens to be carrying guns. The superior judiciary could, in theory, resign en masse. It might have some sort of salutary effect except that one doesn't see it happening.
However, with the creation of the (highly undemocratic) National Security Council we can probably look forward to 15 or 20 years of constitutional stability. During this period efforts can be made to strengthen democratic processes.
The simplest solution is to appoint members of the higher judiciary for life, and on (voluntary) retirement they would carry their emoluments with them. This would be radical but eventually it would work. If people don't like this, they can come up with other means to rescue the judiciary from the clutches of the executive.
The voters have lost interest in the process of elections as can be witnessed from the last election in which the voter's turnout was only 33 per cent or so.
This was the basis of Nawaz Sharif's massive "mandate." Elections which are not perceived as reasonably free and fair lose their relevance. To some extent free and fair elections and a merit-oriented non-political civil service are interrelated.
One of Mr. Bhutto's acts, approved by many people, was his destruction of the civil service. Even people who may have been capable of acting in the public interest and advising without fear or favour, were turned into lackeys of the government overnight.
It had a predictable as well as an unforeseen result. He wanted the 1977 elections to be managed in such a way that it gave him a majority sufficient to amend the Constitution.
In their enthusiasm to please, the officials in charge went overboard and over-rigged the elections. This resulted in major agitation possibly encouraged by external forces hostile to Mr. Bhutto. We know the sad ending.
The succeeding government took some temporary notice of malfeasance at the top. However, before long they had to remove two establishment secretaries because they had suggested that there should be a limit to lateral induction from the armed services.
This was not well received. The government soon realized that tame civil servants were better than the ones that tended to give impartial and unpleasant advice. And this is how things are at present. For instance, the people who were suspected of rigging the 1977 elections ended up having normal careers.
While the powers that be have avoided going overboard - perhaps remembering 1977 - all elections after this date have nevertheless been managed by the local administration supervised by the proverbial "agencies." The neat rotation between Junejo, Ms Bhutto, Nawaz Sharif, Ms Bhutto, Nawaz Sharif does raise questions.
If we are serious, and one is not sure that we are, we can learn something from the experience of our neighbour in the east. After all, they do manage reasonably free and fair election in a very much larger country.
After 1970, Chief Election Commissioners have generally been of somewhat questionable competence. Persons responsible for announcing the unbelievable results of the Ziaul Haq referendum and the current referendum for General Musharraf can't possibly be taken seriously.
Even Mr. Shaukat Aziz's vote count in Tharparkar appeared extraordinary. It was, in any case, a safe seat. Some officials just got carried away in their enthusiasm to please. Without official cooperation major rigging is not possible. That is why we need a strong civil service able to resist political pressure.
Not that anything remarkable has to be done for the civil service. The present system of written examination plus interview is probably the best that can be done. The examination subjects can be reviewed.
The Chairman of the FPSC should be someone with a known intellectual stature. The terms and conditions need to be such as to attract a certain number of genuinely able people who now seem to be disappearing from the scene. If we are keen on good governance they also have to have a certain amount of plausible insulation from political pressure. It is largely a question of will.
The consistent elements for achieving democracy, freedom of speech, the rule of law, free and fair elections and a non-political merit civil service are inter linked. We have to decide, amongst ourselves, how to proceed. Some cooperation from the top would help.