| 19 December 2004 | Sunday | 06 Ziqa'ad 1425 |
Time for a new mandate
Turkey's bid for EU membership
We are witnessing a bit of turmoil in our politics. The MMA and the ARD, each from its own platform, are attempting to launch popular movements to force General Musharraf to quit his army post and, in addition, abandon some of the policies he is currently pursuing. Ideally, from their standpoint, he should retire from active service, play golf or, better still, amuse his grandchildren instead of playing politics.
But the general cannot be certain that, if he took the advice being given to him, his successors in power will leave him in peace and let him occupy himself in ways they are now commending. Given our past experience, it cannot be said that his apprehensions in this regard, were he to entertain them, would be entirely unfounded.
The anti-Musharraf movement is by no means massive at this point. But it may gather more steam after December 31, if it transpires that he is determined to hang on to his uniform. Daunted by this possibility, General Musharraf, his prime minister and some of his cabinet colleagues, dignitaries in the ruling party, and even outsiders have of late been issuing calls for national reconciliation, consensus, and unity.
As a first response, hardly anyone will want to deny that these calls are eminently sensible and worthy. A recent editorial in this newspaper (December 13) advises us that "national reconciliation is in any case a necessary and desirable objective." It goes on to say that "consensus or national reconciliation is good per se" (that is, in and by itself).
Reconciliation could possibly lead to consensus, which in turn would bring about unity, which is desirable. We have all heard that united we stand, and divided we fall. Further reflection will reveal that reconciliation or unity is like peace; we all want it, but on our own terms.
If they cannot have peace on their terms, many of us would rather have war if there is good prospect of winning it. But if the drive for peace or reconciliation is to have any chance of success at all, the terms each side brings to the table should not be such as require the other side's complete surrender. When one side is able to enforce compliance upon the other, negotiations are not needed.
We hear of secret negotiations allegedly taking place between General Musharraf's representatives and the exiled leaders of the PML-N and PPP. Spokesmen of the latter deny that any such thing is happening. But it is interesting to see the terms that a PML-N information secretary has recently spelled out (Dawn, December 14) that must be met before talks can even begin. After saying that there could never be a deal between "patriotic Pakistanis"and a "usurper," he set forth his party's terms as follows:
General Musharraf must (1) apologize to the nation for his "mistake" (meaning, presumably, his coup and his subsequent treatment of Nawaz Sharif and his family); (2) restore the Constitution to its original form (meaning, presumably, the disfigured form in which Nawaz Sharif himself had left it after the Sixteenth Amendment); (3) allow the exiled PML-N and PPP leaders to return home and participate in politics; (4) announce new elections to be conducted by an independent election commission.
The information minister's claim that matters are being broached with the exiled leaders implies that under certain circumstances the general might be receptive to the idea of the exiled leaders' return to politics. He might also consider the possibility of new elections, let us say, in about two years from now. But I see little prospect of his accepting the demand that he apologize to the nation for his "mistake," or that he undo all the changes in the Constitution he has made since his coup.
The general has his own terms. When he urges reconciliation, he means that his opponents should call off their agitation against his uniform, the military's participation in settling national issues, the LFO and the Seventeenth Amendment, his own primacy in government, his cooperation with the United States in the war on terror, and his pleas for "enlightened moderation" and modernizing interpretations of Islam.
If the MMA accepts most of these terms, he would let them have their way in NWFP and Balochistan, offer them posts in the central government if they so desire, and perhaps even relent on issues of enlightenment and modernization. He would also let the Sharifs and Ms Bhutto remain where they are since their return could be unsettling for the MMA, its occasional advocacy to the contrary notwithstanding.
If the PPP accepts all or most of the general's terms, he may let Ms Bhutto get pre-arrest bail upon her return and then contest the cases against her at a leisurely pace without having to run from one court to another. These cases may be allowed to stay buried under an ever-growing pile of pending business. Their formal withdrawal may be left to a future government. The PPP "patriots," who are in the government at present may be sent away and some of Ms Bhutto's partisans taken in the cabinet. Persecution of the PPP notables and workers may be halted and the party allowed to do its work.
The case of the PML-N is a lot more complicated. It has been saying that under no circumstances will it accept General Musharraf as president (that is, even if sheds his uniform). Moreover, Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, Chaudhry Pervez Elahi, and all of the other defectors from PML, who now occupy the treasury benches as the "king's party" (PML-Q), would feel much securer if the Sharifs remained in Saudi Arabia.
The scenarios outlined above should not be taken to mean that this is assuredly the way things will go. These are possibilities, perhaps even probabilities, which come to mind while I ponder the situation as a student of politics. Nor am I making judgment as to the desirability or worthiness of any of these possible or likely courses of action.
Reconciliation, consensus, and unity may be related concepts but they should not be taken together as if they were all the same. An Arab saying has it that "my brother and I fight, but we are united against our cousin; we and our cousin fight amongst ourselves, but we are united against our more distant relatives in the clan." A tribe will have its internal rivalries and conflicts, but it stands united against another tribe in case of hostilities.
Normally, we call for unity when we are in a state of conflict with an outside power. I remember that the people of Pakistan were firmly united during the war of 1965 with India, as never before or since. In the absence of a foreign threat, calls for national unity are needless rhetoric. United for what? Folks are likely to ask.
We humans are likely to be different from one another with regard to the outputs of the mind, including beliefs, opinions, assessments, values, preferences, and aspirations. In a free society, these differences are bound to arise and remain. Even an appearance, let alone the reality, of consensus can be had only through extreme coercion unleashed by a stern dictatorship. A democracy not only allows but cherishes diversity. It expects consensus on no more than a few fundamentals such as commitment to the state's survival.
The trouble in Pakistan is that we are wanting in consensus even on the most fundamental of issues. Mr Altaf Hussain, the high priest of MQM, persists in telling his audiences that the very act of this country's founding was a huge and tragic blunder. At this point we shall not ask why then the present regime has adopted the MQM as an ally and taken it as a partner in the governance of the country that should never have come into being!
There is a most vexing controversy over the rationale of this country's existence. There are those who maintain that it was created to protect and promote the well-being of its people unhindered by the unfriendly interventions of a non-Muslim majority. Others insist that it was created to be an Islamic state, and that it remains untrue to itself until it becomes one.
The gap between these opposites is in fact unbridgeable. An appearance of reconciliation between them is sought to be made by hypocritical professions and concessions that the ruling establishment offers our Islamic parties from time to time. Recall Mr Shaukat Aziz"s recent "pledge" to make Pakistan into a "fortress of Islam."
There are vital issues on which consensus should be attainable but has not been reached even after years of debate, such as provincial autonomy, construction of the proposed Kalabagh Dam and Thal Canal, distribution of the available water resources, and revenue sharing. The fact that these differences remain unresolved may be attributed to the centralizing character of our political system.
We do have consensus on many of our national goals, for instance: spread of education and health care, rural electrification and increased generation of power, building of the needed infrastructure, industrialization and modernization of agriculture, speedy justice, security of life and property, honesty and efficiency in the public services, viability of representative institutions, among others. There may be differences of opinion concerning the ways and means of achieving these goals, but they are to be expected in a healthy and functioning democracy.
As I have said above, reconciliation is not the same as unity or consensus. It means, essentially, the avoidance of an internal state of war between the ruling establishment and its opponents, and between other groups in society. It means expressing differences within the bounds of civility, without resort to physical force or violence.
It means that the government of the day stops oppressing its opponents, recognizes them as an indispensable element in the democratic process, accords them proper respect, and listens to them. It means also that the opponents, on their part, voice their dissatisfactions in parliament, assemblies, and peaceful public meetings; not through the exercise of street power and its disruptions of the community's normal life.
The writer is professor emeritus of political science at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, USA.
E-Mail: anwarsyed@cox.net
Time for a new mandate
Right from the beginning, General Pervez Musharraf has staked his ideas and credibility, indeed his very rule, on three organizations - NSC, NRB, NAB - and one individual, Chaudhry Shujaat Husain. Five years later, he must the ruing the day he made that decision.
This writer is not alone in subscribing to the thinking that had General Musharraf relied, instead, on his troops (which hoisted him into power) and on established civil institutions (which are ready and trained to serve every government) it would have been good for him and for the country.
To choose elements from the government, toppled by him, to help him inaugurate a new era of clean, competent and impartial governance was too bizarre a thought. The game of fair play was thus lost before it began.
The new government, thus, could lay claim neither to impartiality nor to talent or standards of integrity any higher than the one it had superseded.
Its public image and administrative effectiveness was further impaired for most of its ministers were believed to have disowned the top leadership of the previous ruling parties - the PPP and Muslim League - in order to escape accountability.
The regime's pride creation, the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), thus was left to probe and punish only those among the politicians who had failed to find a safe haven in the government or, worse, if they had chosen to oppose it. The Lahore High Court was only airing public sentiment when it recently observed that NAB existed not to eradicate corruption from public life but to target selected persons.
In the five years of its existence, NAB is said to have recovered a mere two billion rupees in plea bargains from the people arraigned before it. That sum equals a day's income of the government. In any event, NAB remains involved in detecting the misdeeds of the past. If it has held any elected public official accountable for corruption or misconduct in the post- October 1999 period, the public is not aware of it.
The public surely is not at all persuaded that all in the present lot have a clean record. Rumours to the contrary abound as much as they did in the previous governments.
Corruption is too widespread a phenomenon for a single bureau, howsoever high-powered or feared, to tackle. With the focus only on NAB, all other agencies dealing with it at various levels, never too effective nor themselves free from corruption, have altogether atrophied. Now, in response to complaints about the fast spread of corruption, the people in authority, even those who themselves are not corrupt, can only shrug their shoulders.
The charter given to the other bureau (NRB) was much wider and so, inevitably, have been the repercussions of its actions. In dealing with the administration of public affairs, NRB defied conventional wisdom that institutions evolve and are not invented, and that their relationship with each other is determined more by traditions than by rules.
While the merits of the system the NRB has introduced will be debated long and hard, even its most dogged defenders would not deny that party politics in administration has become more pervasive and conflicts have aggravated.
More serious and perhaps irreversible, is the damage done to the country's federal structure by placing the local councils under the control of the central government. The loud protests and calls to rebellion may be on the fringes are nevertheless widespread and ominous. The federation is too weak to be wracked by new suspicions.
In their moments of exultation, the people in authority seem to forget that in the final analysis, the federation will stay together through a constitutional compact and not by physical force. The current complacency on this count in power circles is sadly misplaced.
Some three years ago, President Musharraf summoned (what his public relations men called) the intelligentsia to gauge their reaction to his idea of a national security council to act as a watchdog on parliament. Barring some counterfeits and sycophants in such assemblies, the idea was opposed by all as undemocratic. The day, however, was carried by the cool reasoning of the lawyers in the group that it would not help achieve the intended purpose which was to prevent recurring military coups.
That view now stands vindicated by the role assigned to the council, its composition and the fact that it is not a constitutional body as was originally intended but established, willy-nilly, by an act of the parliament. Its sole function is to "serve as a forum for consultation to the president and the government on matters of national security including the sovereignty, integrity, defence, security of the state and crisis management".
All these are also the functions of the parliament and the cabinet. The NSC in its two meetings held so far has discussed terrorism and sectarianism, the Kashmir dispute and relations with India, the prime minister's Saarc trip and similar topics which are discussed in parliament as well.
This may be needless duplication and a waste of time and money (NSC costs the treasury around Rs 25 million) but what defies understanding is how such a council with some members abstaining and others dissenting would ever be able to stop a military commander from taking over the control of the reins of government.
This indeed was the question the former Supreme Court judge Javed Iqbal had raised at a gathering of "intelligentsia". It rings stronger now that the NSC has come into being and has been in action. The NSC has become altogether redundant now that the president has acquired the constitutional power to dissolve parliament and dismiss the government.
The anguish and stress that the nation has experienced in the long tussle over the legality and justification of NSC cannot be undone. But by abolishing it, the president would ease tensions at a time when he is seeking to placate the alienated mainstream political parties and when religious parties are threatening to take to the streets to humble him and the army.
The lesson to be drawn from all these experiments is two- fold: one, it is safer to rely on tried institutions and conventional wisdom than on glitzy, unfamiliar ideas; and second, but more important, Pakistan appears poised for an Indonesia-like transformation from a quasi-democracy to a full-blooded democracy.
That could come about only through direct elections both of the president and the parliament much before 2007. The people then would themselves determine what they want, and not the generals or the maulanas or the politicians - all claiming to know what is best for the people. Their mandate was always doubtful. Now it is also out of date.
Turkey's bid for EU membership
The European Union and Turkey took a fateful decision this week. Unease, pride, anger and an element of guile are evident on each side. The settlement which it brings over Cyprus - much as it is to be desired - should not conceal from us the collisions between different values, and between the aims of decision makers and the instincts of their peoples, that lie ahead.
Nothing illustrated so well the disjunction between carefully formulated common aspirations and the reality of divergent values than the situation earlier this year. A final assessment of Turkey's application was being undertaken at about the same time as the European parliament was revolting against Jose Manuel Barroso's choice of Rocco Buttiglione as justice commissioner.
The objections to Buttiglione were that he held traditional Catholic views on homosexuality and the role of women. Can we imagine for a moment how a majority of Turkish MEPs, had they been present, would have voted on the issue?
The party from which most of them would have been drawn had just withdrawn a proposal to criminalize adultery because it had discovered to its surprise that the measure was offensive to the union.
Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish prime minister, nevertheless made it clear that Turkey had no intention of trading its social and cultural values for EU membership. And why should he not do so, as a conservative Muslim? Yet the same MEPs who were outraged by Buttiglione's views have now voted for accession negotiations with Turkey to begin.
They are either oblivious to contradiction, or they conceive of the negotiations as a project to transform Turkey into a country happy to be in the close company of a Britain soon to abolish the blasphemy laws, or a Spain moving to endorse gay marriage.
That may happen. After all, 30 years ago Spain, Italy, and Ireland, to take just three examples, were societies that appeared to be deeply religious, and they appear much less so today.
But that does not mean Turkey will go in the same direction, and it is not the direction in which Erdogan and his Justice and Development party, the AKP, wish to take their country.
When the AKP's predecessor, the Welfare party, came to power in 1996, a party journal declared: "For almost a century, the foes of Islam have governed Turkey. Now a new period begins." Erdogan clearly has no intention of confronting the Kemalist division between religion and the state, but a shift of power toward the religious and, in particular, toward the religiously educated has been obvious in Turkey for at least the past 10 years.
The irony is that the European political forces opposed to Turkey's entry because it is Muslim are precisely those likely to be in broad agreement with the conservative social views of Erdogan and his party, and with their conviction of the centrality of religious faith. Equally, the political forces in Europe most in favour of Turkish entry are the left and liberal groups least likely to share such views.
Surely there are grounds for trouble here. The stage is set for a struggle in which Turkey, at least as long as the AKP is in charge, tries to take from Europe what it wants in terms of economic and security advantage, and tries to change what it deems essential as little as possible - while Europe demands its pound of liberal flesh.
It is not only religious values that will be at issue, but deeply established habits of Turkish nationalism, such as the denial that anything happened to the Armenians worse than the general suffering of all the peoples affected by the collapse of the Ottoman empire - a position that must surely change before Turks can claim to have purged themselves of past sins.
On the surface, there seems to be a sharp contrast between European public opinion, in the main dubious about Turkish entry, and Turkish public opinion, strongly in favour. But if you go deeper, the asymmetry is not so obvious.
It can be argued that Europe is a curiously unifying factor in Turkey only because so many different, competing and sometimes mutually hostile groups see it as a solution to their problems, a way to move on the long game of modern Turkish politics in their favour.
For ethnic minorities such as the Kurds, and religious minorities such as Orthodox Christians, Europe could provide a guarantee of secure minority status, even autonomy. For the business class, at least the upper tier of it, the present arrangements with the union have already brought benefits, and more are in prospect. For those sections of the working class in western Turkey, which already have strong European connections, full EU membership would make easier the dual existence that is already a reality for their families.
For Turkish liberals Europe is a hedge against both religious extremism and secular authoritarianism. For the armed forces, uneasy about American policy in the Middle East, Europe may represent a way of reducing its US links. And, very important, for Turkey's decision-makers, who worry about population growth, unemployment and what will happen to the rural masses, Europe is the only visible answer.
For the Turkish political class, moreover, Europe was a policy that, pursued in the right way, could bring permanent advantage to the party that brought home the prize. Against the expectations of only a few years ago, it is the Islamic party that seems closest to this goal.
Having for years opposed entry and talked about an Islamic common market as an alternative, it shrewdly stole the European clothes of the secular parties and presented itself to the electorate as able both to maintain traditional and religious values and to reel in what Europe had to offer.
Its coup has, however, put it in an exposed position, for it must now deliver this contradictory package. It has also left the Turkish party system in a state of disarray, which is not often noted in discussions of Turkish democracy.
There are Turks who feel strongly European, and there is a true European sense in some classes in that country. But "If not Europe, what?" calculations, and a prickly "We're as good as you" sentiment also mark the Turkish approach. This latter feeling appears to have ruled out the halfway house of a special relationship.
Thus Turkey is embracing Europe less in enthusiasm than with a mix of pride and desperation, while Europe is embracing Turkey with reluctance and a degree of fear. Not fear of Turkey, but of its own population, because there is no getting away from the fact that this will be another big thing the European elite has done that its peoples on the whole do not want.
The ways in which, through lost referendums and other national votes, this could damage the European project are clear enough. A rocky road indeed.-Dawn/Guardian Service