|
| September 30, 2007 | Sunday | Ramazan 17, 1428 |
Carving a new path
Lahore’s traffic mess
Waiting for a deliverer
Black faces, white faces
APDM’s weapon
CONVERSATIONS on contemporary politics in my younger days often concluded with one of the participants offering the optimistic observation that God might one day send a great and righteous man who would set all things right. The awaited one has not arrived to date. Some of us believe that he will appear shortly before the Last Day, but we have no way of knowing when that will be.
GENERAL Musharraf may have won the day at the Supreme Court on Friday, and again at the Election Commission on Saturday when the latter accepted his nomination papers, but the battle for the presidency is far from over. Even greater is the issue of legitimacy that the president so craves. Outside the courtroom, the fault-lines are on the move, as witnessed in the mindless resort to violence in Islamabad and other places yesterday by all sides. Verbal assaults and sloganeering led to scuffles and skirmishes between angry lawyers and the police; teargas shells were fired and arrests made; even journalists, a minister and a ruling party legislator were beaten up. Camera crews were removed and news channels’ broadcasts were blocked. But trouble behind the bush along the capital’s greenbelts remained far from being mowed over. Given the government’s boast that it can safely sail General Musharraf through to the presidency, it is time the security agencies stopped their highhanded attempts at intimidating the government’s opponents by erecting roadblocks, baton-charging and tear-gassing the protesters. Protests and street marches are integral parts of the democratic, especially the electoral, process. Such street battles have a long way to go between now and October 6, and beyond.
The lawyers’ struggle for the restoration of the rule of law is justified in spite of the occasional emotional outbursts by a few. The principled stand to keep the army chief from running in the presidential race cannot be faulted. It may make the whole affair appear as a spectacle of self-righteousness to some, but that’s tactics in that the judiciary is purported to be alive and kicking one day, and a dead horse the next. Takes some nerve, doesn’t it? All said, the ensuing events promise to be the biggest show on the tube this season; it is sad that these are not participated in by the masses inhabiting the real world. The association with the movement of respectable practitioners of the law, like retired justices Wajihuddin Ahmed and Tariq Mehmood, with the former being the APDM’s consensus candidate for the presidential race, should have a sobering effect all around. If it’s going to be a legally fought battle against Musharraf in the country’s highest court, there is little cause for street sloganeering and ruses like spraying black paint on the president’s lawyer’s face.
Meanwhile, it is leaders like Benazir Bhutto and Fazlur Rahman who have continued to roll the dice with the devil and pray alongside the faithful. Again, above all else, where are the disgruntled masses in the streets? No cause, regardless of the high moral principle behind it, can succeed without thumping public support — much less the cause of democracy. Since the politicians have failed over and over again to do meaningful politics, and political matters are now being taken to the Supreme Court for adjudication, sanity demands that the judicial process underway be shown some respect by all concerned. For the ensuing legal battle between General Musharraf’s supporters and his opponents to be taken to its logical end, a degree of perseverance is required. The people, as silent spectators but also as the key stakeholders in the democratic process, are watching the capital skies as autumn sets in. There will be many leaves of different hues that shall fall; let this not be the fall from grace for those in leadership.
THE world will watch with interest the coming together of Iran, Bolivia and Venezuela in a global order in which the Third World has no voice. With the non-aligned movement virtually dead, there is no bloc of states which could air the Third World’s legitimate grievances against the combined economic and political power of the US, the EU and Japan which among them determine the rules of the game to their advantage. The sole superpower may come across opposition from Europe on such issues as Iraq, global warming, the international criminal court and land mines, but together with Japan they seem to be united in perpetuating the world’s economic and geopolitical status quo. Alan Greenspan’s views about the Iraq war being all about oil gives us an indication of how the superpower forced a war on a Third World country for monopolising its oil riches and is planning to dismember it for Israel’s benefit.
Arriving at Caracas from Bolivia, where he announced an investment of one billion dollars, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad was given a warm welcome on Thursday by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. If they stood together, said the Iranian president, ‘no one can defeat us’. President Chavez upholds Iran’s right to acquire nuclear technology in contrast to the US-EU position which, while opposing Tehran’s nuclear plans, has helped Israel stockpile nuclear weapons. The position taken by the two statesmen at Caracas could perhaps serve to show a path to some other Third World states which, in spite of being endowed with far more economic and technological power than Iran and Venezuela, have refused to stand up to the US-EU Inc. Notice India’s absence from the recently held talks between Pakistan and Iran on the proposed gas pipeline and Saudi Arabia and other oil-rich Arab countries’ logistic support to America in its invasion of Iraq. Here one cannot but miss such giants of the past as Zhou En-lai, Soekarno, Nasser and Nehru who made non-alignment an effective instrument of the Afro-Asian peoples’ struggle for political and economic freedom. The sole survivor of that era, Fidel Castro, finds himself without allies.
LAHORE’S roads and traffic problems may not be as bad as Karachi’s. But they are enough to give one a headache. Trying to do with a mere 370 kilometres of roads, the Punjab capital hardly finds the network large enough for its 1.4 million vehicles. Moreover, many of the roads have been dug up for the last many months either for repairs and remodelling or for the laying of new sewerage and drainage lines. Around The Mall alone 14 roads are in such bad shape due to the lack of maintenance, or because of it, that the whole area remains a vehicular mess for most of the day — rush hour or not. The situation in other areas is hardly any better.
The signs are that all this will become even worse in the coming days before it takes a turn for the better in some distant future. The government is planning to remodel Multan Road, one of the main city arteries, and digging for a mass transit system will start after Eid. Of course, in a city where the number of cars alone rose by 64,485 in the last financial year, these projects, and many more like them, are badly needed. With the number of other vehicles also rising, albeit not as fast, Lahore’s transport system certainly requires a big overhaul.
But the reports of more roads becoming off-limits or at best offering a very rough ride as a result of this overhaul are annoying if not maddening. Lahore needs bigger, better roads if it wants to have a future as a big city. A whole generation looks set to be lost to dust and gruelling gridlocks before a shiny, smooth and fast future emerges — if it emerges at all. Until then, keep Lahore moving — partly with good traffic management — if it is to run tomorrow.
This longing for a ‘deliverer’ has existed in ages and cultures other than our own. Let us begin with the Judaic tradition. The Jews had suffered unrelieved subordination, anguish, and even torment for many centuries, except when David and Solomon ruled.
Shortly after the beginning of his rule in 606 BC, Nebuchadnezzar, a Babylonian king, wiped out Judea and Israel, destroyed Jerusalem, and took the Jews away to his own country where they remained in captivity until 539 BC, when Cyrus, the Persian king, subdued Babylonia and allowed them to return to their own land on the condition that they would not form a state.
At some point God is believed to have promised them relief.
According to the Old Testament, He said: ‘I will save my people from the countries of the east and west. I will bring them back to live in Jerusalem.’ This was to be accomplished through a deliverer. But none, who would give the Jews independence and the pre-eminence they thought they deserved, came. The orthodox among them are still waiting for him.
The Christians entertain the same hope. They believe the promised one will come in the person of Jesus. That will be the ‘second coming of Christ’. His mission of mercy and reformation will extend to all mankind. Muslims have slightly amended the Christian doctrine.
Some of their theologians teach that Jesus will indeed return one day, as the Messiah, but that he will be accompanied by Mehdi, They will be co-deliverers, so to speak, and they will work together to cleanse this world and mankind of all evil with which it is currently afflicted. It is possible that the notion of a deliverer forms part of some of non-Semitic belief systems as well.
We do not know when the deliverer will come, if ever he does, but in the meantime the belief in his coming has kept the people concerned from taking their destiny in their own hands.
Akin to the longing for a deliverer is the quest for a ‘strong’ leader. Experience with ‘strong’ leaders in recent history has, for the most part, been exceedingly disquieting. The man we are talking about normally has high self-esteem, willfulness, determination, communication skills and a clear vision of what he wants for himself and the people he wants to lead. But he cannot attain and keep ruling authority only because of these and suchlike personal qualifications. He needs the support of external agencies.
In the context of authoritarianism, it may be a disciplined party that can be relied upon to do his bidding, or a military establishment that, being loyal to him, will do the same, or a combination of the two.
An ideologically committed strong leader will most likely end up being a tyrant. Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, Franco, Salazar and, in our own neighbourhood, Saddam Hussein and Hafez al-Assad belonged to this class. They may have delivered satisfaction to their people on some counts, but they inflicted long terms of imprisonment, torture and death on citizens of whom they did not approve for one reason or another. They also botched up whole segments of their country’s social and economic life.
Even the ‘benevolent’ ones among the strong leaders in authoritarian or quasi-democratic societies, such as Mustafa Kemal in Turkey and Gamal Abdel Nasser in Egypt, were bad news for dissidents. Kemal also sought forcibly to transform his society along European lines, which the masses in his country did not want, and which thus created an unnecessary polarisation.
Democracies do quite well with leaders of moderate capabilities. Here a strong leader, not only decisive but also brilliant, is more of an exception than the rule. Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin Roosevelt in the 20th century America, Winston Churchill in England, Charles de Gaulle in France, Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi in India were strong leaders.
Each one of them served his/her country well in some ways but each also left a baggage of difficult problems for his/her successors to contend with.
With the exception of the Quaid-i-Azam (when he was still living), and barring the generals who seized power, I cannot think of any politician other than Zulfikar Ali Bhutto who headed the government in Pakistan, and who may be regarded as having been a strong leader.
He was strong in terms of some relevant personal qualifications, and strong in that he was well grounded in the affections of a large number of Pakistanis, and led a vital political party. But while one might learn the techniques of mobilising the people and building effective leadership from his experience, he would have nothing to tell us about the art of good governance. His rule was disastrous for the country in more ways than one.
Institutions are systems of constraint that keep governments in check. Leaders in established democracies cannot act arbitrarily because here countervailing institutions, capable of restraining them, are in place in good working order. But in developing societies, where democracy is desired but not yet fully functional, strong leaders tend to bypass institutions if these do exist. It is often their design to stifle institutions and keep them from growing to maturity. Qadhafi in Libya, Nasser in Egypt, and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in Pakistan did not let even their own political parties become well-integrated and viable.
The quest for a strong leader is essentially an expression of a people’s political apathy, lethargy and want of self-confidence. Friends ask me who is out there to replace Musharraf if he were to go away. My answer is that there must be hundreds, perhaps thousands, of persons in a nation of 160 million people who are as capable as Musharraf and more public-friendly than he is. Some of them might even be found among our politicians.
This quest for a strong leader also reflects the absence of viable political and governmental institutions. If the parliament, bureaucracy, judiciary and political parties are all doing their assigned work, it doesn’t really matter how ‘strong’ the president or the prime minister is. Unless he is grossly incompetent or indecisive (in which case he will probably be replaced) the government will keep going reasonably well.
Even with rather weak political institutions, Mohammad Khan Junejo, who was in no way a man of exceptional abilities, did quite well as prime minister. In a parliamentary system, the prime minister has to carry his cabinet colleagues with him. If he is overbearing and domineering, which he will be if he is a ‘strong’ leader, he will not have their willing cooperation.
To have good governance in Pakistan, we need working institutions, active organs of civil society and a politically aware and demanding public much more than we need a strong leader.
The writer is professor emeritus of political science at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst
Email: anwarsyed@cox.net
Awami Awaz
A PESHAWAR lawyer, Advocate Khursheed, sprayed black paint on the face of Ahmed Raza Kasuri, an advocate for the federation. Khursheed said that he was provoked by Mr Kasuri’s outburst at a TV talk show where he said that when he could make an example of Z.A. Bhutto, Aitzaz Ahsan and Muneer Malik could meet the same fate.
He said there could be no other civilised reaction against Kasuri. Every action invites a reaction of the same intensity; but no one can be deprived of the right of expression.
However, there should be a difference between freedom and unbridled expression.
…Lack of tolerance has become the hallmark of society; hence we are braving unpleasant, undemocratic and non-parliamentarian reactions, which are dangerous, and everyone should be concerned. These should be stopped. This can only be done when we build a tolerant, healthy and democratic society.
…The absence of democratic and healthy values and norms and a situation where justice is not dispensed and excesses against the people are on the rise makes one intolerant. Instead of blaming the people, there is a dire need to make conditions conducive to justice, freedom of expression and tolerance. If there are healthy conditions, the reaction of the people will be healthy. There are many people who are black while others are white. But it is their character that determines…Regardless of the fact that Mr Kasuri’s provocative, condemnable outburst invited insult, we conclude that Mr Khursheed should learn a lesson, be accountable to himself and admit his mistakes.— (Sept 28)
Ibrat
TO BLOCK the re-election of Gen Pervez Musharraf, the All Parties Democratic Movement... has decided that all its legislators would resign en bloc from the national and provincial assemblies on Oct 2...The alliance has decided that the legislators would hand over their resignations to the central leaders of the parties in the APDM, while members of the provincial assemblies would send their resignations to the provincial heads on Sept 29. Maulana Fazl announced that the NWFP chief minister would send an advice to the governor on Oct 2 seeking dissolution of the provincial assembly. ... the government has options to block the APDM strategy regarding the dissolution of the NWFP assembly.
Though such a decision was not expected from Maulana Fazlur Rahman…his approval is quite surprising. The decision would have a far-reaching impact on the country’s politics, if it works well. If the NWFP assembly is dissolved, it may affect the presidential elections...If the NWFP assembly is dissolved, there would still be some legal and political complications. Even after the resignations, the presidential elections would be held. What are the options before the APDM?
When the APDM announced the resignations, its leaders and activists were arrested. Like previous governments, this regime too resorted to excesses and the use of force. However, the CJP took suo motu notice and these workers were released. It was judicial activism for which the people had been waiting for the last 60 years.— (Sept 28)
— Selected and translated by Sohail Sangi