Not a plug of tobacco

POLITICS in Pakistan is getting curiouser and curiouser. I am not dwelling on the dynastic succession which is becoming common in India, not at the centre but also in the states. I am referring to Benazir Bhutto’s husband, Asif Ali Zardari becoming in charge of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) until his 19-year-old son Bilawal, named as the successor, returns from London after finishing his studies.

Even otherwise, he cannot contest elections until he is 25.

Zardari has, no doubt, been in jail for many years, a qualification for leadership in the subcontinent. But he was jailed for different reasons. He was said to be involved in cases from blackmail to corruption and murder. He reportedly admitted owning the ¤h4.35m estate in Surrey, England. He was known as Mr 10 per cent, allegedly extracting money from industrialists and businessmen. His list of acts of omission and commission is long.

How is a person like him qualified to become even the officiating head of the leading party in Pakistan? The ethos of the PPP is roti, kapra aur makan, a slogan which the party’s founder, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, coined to give the party a leftist image. I have not heard anything progressive attributed to Zardari. He is a landlord from Sindh.

Feudal tendencies do not debar a person from pretending to be a ‘man of the poor’. Zardari claims to be one. He has seldom mixed with the rank and file of the party and came to be a front leader only because he was the husband of Benazir Bhutto. His years in politics have not won him many admirers because of his strong likes and dislikes. The manner in which he conducted the press conference, the first after Benazir’s assassination, indicated as if he was the party. Benazir Bhutto reportedly nominated him as her successor in the will she has left behind. If she did, this could be yet another misjudgment of her life. Strange, Zardari should refuse to show anyone the will which is handwritten.

Maulvi Farooq, the Hurriyat chief, has told Bilawal that even though he (Farooq) was of his age, he followed his father. Farooq should know what his unsolicited advice can mean in the context of Pakistan. Makhdoom Amin Fahim, the party’s co-chairman, was also at the press conference.

But he sat impassively and was never asked to say a word. It was quite odd when Zardari said in reply to a question that Fahim or “someone like him” would be the PPP’s nominee for prime ministership. It sounded like an off-the-cuff remark. Was this the decision reached at the PPP executive meeting at Larkana?

Zardari said that Ghinwa, the wife of deceased Murtaza Bhutto, brother of Benazir, was consulted. But she issued a statement to point out that the leader was chosen by the people, not nominated. Even if she had said yes, it did not mean that a Zardari sibling, rechristened as Bhutto, had to head the PPP.

The issue was the party, not property. True, the word Bhutto has an advantage. But the party was choosing a leader, not anointing a king. The entire thinking is feudal.The PPP should have convened a meeting of its leaders from all over the country to elect the chief. A person like Aitzaz Ahsan should have been kept in the picture. He led Pakistan’s first successful agitation of lawyers to have Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry reinstated. Aitzaz is still under house arrest. President Pervez Musharraf’s personal bias did not allow him to attend Benazir’s funeral. Asif Zardari has not even demanded Aitzaz’s release or, for that matter, the release of other political detainees. They are the backbone of the PPP. They were the party stalwarts when Zardari was nowhere near the PPP. They have given their lives. How can they be ignored? Zardari has hijacked the party.

Bernard Shaw, the eminent British author, was once asked why Mahatma Gandhi did not give the leadership to Jawaharlal Nehru. Shaw said it was not a plug of tobacco which could be passed on. Nehru was then working hard to establish himself. Many years later when he emerged, Gandhiji nominated him as his successor and wrote a letter suggesting what he wanted India to be. It is another matter that the craze of big industry spoilt his dream.

Nawaz Sharif has also withdrawn his call to boycott the polls. Yet it is an open secret that elections will be rigged. I believe that Benazir Bhutto was also thinking of boycotting the elections because she said that there could be no free and fair polls under a military-ruled country. Zardari is banking not only on the sympathy factor but also Musharraf’s ‘blessings’.

Still the sympathy factor will count. Yet, Nawaz Sharif’s Muslim League has deep roots. It may hold its own, particularly in Punjab. Moreover, Nawaz Sharif has grown taller than before because he has kept a distance from Musharraf and the military. His stance on the reinstatement of the judges sacked by Musharraf will elicit popular support. The PPP is silent on this subject. Even Benazir Bhutto was equivocal, much to the embarrassment of her supporters, among whom are lawyers.

I must admit that the developments in Pakistan have disappointed me. I thought the fight was for the restoration of democracy, an institution where, as we in India know, parliament is supreme, not the army headquarters. Zardari says that they have nothing against the fauj but the rulers. Who are they except those in khaki? The tragedy is that both America and Great Britain want to give a semblance of democratic legitimacy to Musharraf and that is the reason why they persuaded Benazir Bhutto to return to Pakistan despite her warning that she would be killed on her return.

Meanwhile, I want to record here that I have never found such a groundswell of support for Pakistan before as I did after the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. It was as if every Indian wanted to reach out to the Pakistanis in their hour of crisis to assure them that the people of India understood their grief and wanted to do whatever they could to share their sorrow. They really meant it when they said the stability of Pakistan was necessary for the stability of India.

Benazir Bhutto talked about the ‘borderless subcontinent’ before returning to Pakistan. But she was snuffed out before she could pursue it. In the midst of such feelings, New Delhi’s suspension of bus and train services between India and Pakistan, however temporary, was a thoughtless act.

This was the time even to relax visa rules. The intelligence agencies must have won the first round till someone like Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon, who was India’s High Commissioner at Islamabad, repaired the damage.

The writer is a leading columnist based in New Delhi.

Selfish capitalism is bad for mental health

BY far the most significant consequence of ‘selfish capitalism’ (Thatch/Blatcherism) has been a startling increase in the incidence of mental illness in both children and adults since the 1970s.

As I report in my book, The Selfish Capitalist — Origins of Affluenza, World Health Organisation and nationally representative studies in the United States, Britain and Australia reveal that it almost doubled between the early ’80s and the turn of the century. These increases are very unlikely to be due to greater preparedness to acknowledge distress — the psychobabbling therapy culture was already established.

Add to this the astonishing fact that citizens of Selfish Capitalist, English-speaking nations (which tend to be one and the same) are twice as likely to suffer mental illness as those from mainland western Europe, which is largely Unselfish Capitalist in its political economy. An average 23 per cent of Americans, Britons, Australians, New Zealanders and Canadians suffered in the last 12 months, but only 11.5 per cent of Germans, Italians, French, Belgians, Spaniards and Dutch. The message could not be clearer. Selfish Capitalism, much more than genes, is extremely bad for your mental health. But why is it so toxic?

Readers of this newspaper will need little reminding that Selfish Capitalism has massively increased the wealth of the wealthy, robbing the average earner to give to the rich. There was no ‘trickle-down effect’ after all.

The real wage of the average English-speaking person has remained the same — or, in the case of the US, decreased — since the 1970s. By more than halving the taxes of the richest and transferring the burden to the general population, Margaret Thatcher reinstated the rich’s capital wealth after three post-war decades in which they had steadily become poorer.

Although I risk you glazing over at these statistics, it’s worth remembering that the top 1 per cent of British earners have doubled their share of the national income since 1982, from 6.5 per cent to 13 per cent, FTSE-100 chief executives now earning 133 times more than the average wage (against 20 times in 1980); and under Brown’s chancellorship the richest 0.3 per cent nobbled over half of all liquid assets (cash, instantly accessible income), increasing their share by 79 per cent during the last five years.

In itself, this economic inequality does not cause mental illness. WHO studies show that some very inequitable developing nations, like Nigeria and China, also have the lowest prevalence of mental illness. Furthermore, inequity may be much greater in the English-speaking world today, but it is far less than it was at the end of the 19th century. While we have no way of knowing for sure, it is very possible that mental illness was nowhere near as widespread in, for instance, the US or Britain of that time.

What does the damage is the combination of inequality with the widespread relative materialism of Affluenza — placing a high value on money, possessions, appearances and fame when you already have enough income to meet your fundamental psychological needs. Survival materialism is healthy. If you need money for medicine or to buy a house, becoming very concerned about getting them does not make you mentally ill.

But Selfish Capitalism stokes up relative materialism: unrealistic aspirations and the expectation that they can be fulfilled. It does so to stimulate consumerism in order to increase profits and promote short-term economic growth. Indeed, I maintain that high levels of mental illness are essential to Selfish Capitalism because needy, miserable people make greedy consumers and can be more easily suckered into perfectionist, competitive workaholism.

With over-stimulated aspirations and expectations, the entrepreneurial fantasy society fosters the delusion that anyone can be Alan Sugar or Bill Gates, never mind that the actual likelihood of this occurring has diminished since the 1970s. A Briton turning 20 in 1978 was more likely than one doing so in 1990 to achieve upward mobility through education. Nonetheless, in the Big Brother/It Could Be You society, great swathes of the population believe they can become rich and famous, and that it is highly desirable. This is most damaging of all — the ideology that material affluence is the key to fulfilment and open to anyone willing to work hard enough. If you don’t succeed, there is only one person to blame — never mind that it couldn’t be clearer that it’s the system’s fault, not yours.

Depressed or anxious, you work ever harder. Or maybe you collapse and join the sickness benefit queue, leaving it to people shipped in to do the low-paid jobs that society has taught you are too demeaning — let alone the unpaid ones, like looking after children or elderly parents, which are beneath contempt in the Nouveau Labour liturgy.

There is much tearing of hair across the media and advocacy of nose-pegging on these pages of the ‘grin and bear it’ variety. In fact, there is an alternative. We desperately need — and before long, I predict we will get — a passionate, charismatic, probably female leader who advocates the Unselfish Capitalism of our neighbours. The pitch is simple. Not only would reduced consumerism and greater equality make us more ecologically sustainable, it would halve the prevalence of mental illness within a generation.—Dawn/Guardian Service

Another political watershed

THE PPP is back on the road again to fight its political battle. While the steering wheel has been passed on to Benazir Bhutto’s 19-year-old son Bilawal, Asif Zardari will be the actual driver. The decision will not be welcomed by all. The PPP will most certainly be criticised for being a dynastic party.

The foreigners, the educated middle class and the military’s covert propagandists will berate the murdered Bhutto and her party for concentrating power in her family’s hand. After all, progressive and liberal political parties do not do this. But then this is pragmatic politics and about the survival of a party which the evil forces in the country damaged severely by killing its leader.

I just read an offensive letter circulated to most writers by a fictitious character employed to propagate the myth of the military being the only worthwhile institution in the country. I would like to agree with the ghostwriter. In fact I would like to add that the PPP, which was the only remaining civilian institution representing the politics of federalism in Pakistan, has also been killed which leaves ample space for just one institution.

The symbolic significance of another dead body flown to Sindh from Rawalpindi does not bode well for relations amongst the federating units, especially the smaller apropos the one large province. Moreover, the PPP was one of the rare civilian institutions which connected the federating units and held them together. There was truth in the slogan ‘Saray soobon ki zanjeer — Benazir, Benazir” (the link between all provinces — Benazir, Benazir). Now we have just the military. Perhaps we are fated to remain with only one institution.

Is it then a foregone conclusion that the PPP is no more? Many believed even in 1979 that the party would die after Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s assassination. The appointment of Benazir Bhutto’s son Bilawal is designed to keep the party alive. The educated classes might not understand how important are emotional symbols in Pakistan’s politics. Personal charisma is central to the game of politics. If you can’t excite people then it doesn’t work for you.

Many years ago I remember a personal conversation with Aitzaz Ahsan about playing a more active role in the PPP’s politics and about the possibility of challenging Bhutto’s dominance of the party. His answer was that the PPP worker commonly known as the jiyala only recognises the sacrifices of the Bhutto family or his own. No other person has the personal charisma to take over control of the PPP.

I remember another conversation with an Indian friend about the possibility of Rahul Gandhi, who is deemed intellectually less sharp than other youngsters in the party, taking over the Congress. Despite all what we believe about Indian politics I was informed that it would not take a lot for Rahul Gandhi to lead the party. For the common person it is not how smart you are but whether you have the personal charisma which the Gandhi name carries.

The PPP’s decision is about the politics of personal and familial charisma which its other leaders do not possess. There is no one to fill Benazir’s shoes. It is true that lately Aitzaz has built an impressive image but one wonders if he can carry this beyond the educated to the illiterate crowds and across the ethnic divide. The Bhutto name still works because of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s political legacy and personal charisma.

He was the man who for the first time in the country’s history convinced the masses that the world was about them. Furthermore his ability to come down to the level of the people and speak their language and inspire them was something totally new. He was truly the only charismatic leader. Bhutto even surpassed Jinnah who was not personally magnetic but had a charismatic cause.

So one understands Asif Zardari’s decision to appoint Bilawal as the party’s chairman. However, the boy is 19 and deserves political and social grooming to actually play the role he has been assigned. The six years in which he will educate himself, followed by years when he will have to acquaint himself with Pakistan, must be spent reorienting the party and providing it with a charismatic ideology.

The fact is that the PPP faces the major challenge of keeping itself intact. The forces which killed Bhutto will also find an opportunity to exploit the difference of opinion amongst its leaders and between leaders and party workers. After all the PPP no longer has Benazir whose commanding voice could silence difference of opinion and make all decisions appear unanimous. Under the circumstances, the best option is to adopt two approaches. First, the party must become inclusive and recruit leadership for the future. This could include other members of the Bhutto family such as the young Fatima and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Junior who could be seen sharing his duties during the burial of his aunt.

Second, the party leadership must revive some radicalism in the party ideology. Asif Zardari’s present posture is indeed understandable. His first priority is survival of the party and keeping it relevant nationally. However, he must get rid of the conservatism which had crept into the party. The PPP’s election manifesto, which almost seems to have been developed in the offices of the Asian Development Bank or other multilateral NGOs, is one example of this conservatism.

Surely Mr Zardari realises that the evil forces within Pakistan’s establishment might let him build and enjoy some power, but they will not let the PPP survive unless he can connect with the masses. The politics of pragmatism that every single person will talk to him about or educate young Bilawal in is good but it didn’t help Benazir Bhutto save her own life. The evil elements were not keen to see her party survive.

I remember talking to a prominent PML-Q leader a couple of months before Bhutto’s murder. The gentleman insisted that the era of Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif was over. Perhaps what he didn’t tell me was that they had planned to terminate Bhutto’s era because she was not listening. She was the leader of a popular party and could not be expected to compromise beyond a certain point. This would threaten the new state which the powerful forces of the establishment have built. So it made better sense to get rid of Benazir.

Asif Zardari is a survivor and has learnt the ropes of politics during his years in jail. But this also means that he might instinctively over-concentrate on the game of survival. The party intellectuals will teach him about pragmatism. But being ideologically barren is the least pragmatic thing. He has already filled the board of advisers with conservative members representing the landed-feudal-cum-industrialist. He must bring the more honest and ideologically motivated people on board as Bilawal’s trainers and party advisers.

The Bhutto name is important but it might not necessarily help Bilawal when he returns to Pakistan after six years to start his life as a Pakistani politician. More than the Bhutto-Zardari son, this traumatised country needs a political party which can heal the bleeding wounds. Mr Zardari, let it be the PPP once again.

The writer is an independent analyst and author of the book Military Inc: Inside Pakistan’s Military Economy.

ayesha.ibd@gmail.com

Benazir’s shadow on US polls

DEC 27, 2007 was a black day in Pakistan’s history. A shooter and a lone bomber. In a matter of seconds, tragedy. The world’s sixth most populous country was robbed of a leader.

The charismatic and effervescent woman that she was, Benazir Bhutto lived a life of a celebrity, a writer, an astute politician and vocal populist. Her sudden and shocking assassination in Pakistan reminded many Americans of the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Benazir Bhutto remains a topic of discussion at American political gatherings as well as on television and in newspaper columns.

The news of the killing consumed the presidential candidates’ attention. Democrats and Republicans alike, all were unanimous in squarely condemning the assassination. Barak Obama and Mike Huckabee took a bizarre stand. They advocated US military incursions inside Pakistan to take out the terrorists hiding in its tribal areas. Republican John McCain and Democrats Hillary Clinton, John Edwards and Bill Richardson came up with more compassionate and measured reactions.

The US media outlets, like CNN and MSNBC, gave live coverage to the violent backlash and wave of grief in Pakistan following its worst political disaster in recent memory.

Pakistan has almost become a campaign issue in the US presidential elections. Bhutto’s assassination ignited a debate on the ability of presidential candidates to deal with a potentially explosive situation in a nuclear-armed nation. Some of the reactions were so naïve and off the mark that they became a subject of ridicule in newspaper columns. Thus the incident directly affected the political fortunes of the candidates. The tragedy put to test the foreign policy skills of the aspirants, their global vision and their ability to deal with an international crisis.

The biggest loser in this unusual test was Mike Huckabee, the Baptist-priest-turned-politician and former governor of Arkansas. Huckabee’s reaction was unimaginative, simplistic and far from being logical. In Huckabee’s wisdom, Benazir’s assassination should lead to a crackdown in the US on illegal immigrants from Pakistan. Embarrassed Huckabee campaign officials had no excuse for their candidate’s gaffe but to frankly admit that he was trying to turn attention away from scrutiny of his foreign-policy knowledge.

The former Arkansas governor said: “In the light of what happened in Pakistan yesterday, it’s interesting that there are more Pakistanis who have illegally crossed the border than of any other nationality, except for those immediately south of our border.

America might look halfway around the world and say, ‘How does that affect me?’ We need to understand that violence and terror is significant when it happens in Pakistan [and] it’s more significant if it can happen in our own cities. And it happens if people can slip across our border and we have no control over them.”

A day before his difficult-to-understand reaction, Huckabee made another gaffe when he incorrectly suggested that Pakistan was under martial law.

His attempt to link Benazir Bhutto’s assassination to anti-immigrant sentiment in the US was compounded by its shocking senselessness.

For his part Obama surprised his admirers when he too committed his faux pas, unconvincingly connecting Benazir’s assassination to the political conduct of his election rival Senator Hillary Clinton. Without explaining in detail what he would have done if he were the president, Obama said the Iraq invasion, for which Senator Clinton had voted, had strengthened Al Qaeda in Pakistan. Obama too apparently failed the test as, instead of giving his vision, he entrenched himself in blame-game politics.

The so-called rising star of the Democratic Party was not too bright in rising to a foreign policy challenge.

Other Republicans, including Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani, towed their traditional tough line on the war on terror while expressing their condolences with the Bhutto family and the Pakistanis.

However, none had a more appealing message or a different strategy. Romney and Giuliani are largely seen as camp followers of Reagan’s and George W’s political doctrines. Their reaction can thus be greatly anticipated as well.

John McCain was the lone voice of reason from the Republican side. He not only condemned the incident but also acknowledged the limitations of President Pervez Musharraf in dealing with terrorism in what he called one of the most difficult terrains in the world.

Bill Richardson, the Democratic candidate, was another visible voice. He came down hard on President Musharraf, calling for his resignation. He said the risks of Musharraf staying in office were far more than what his resignation may entail. America, he said, must support the democratic forces in Pakistan and not just go for Musharraf. Richardson’s vision was broad, focused, proactive and promising.

Hillary Clinton and John Edwards were eloquent, displaying greater clarity of thought and action. Edwards even called President Musharraf and asked him to allow an international inquiry into the incident. American politicians have developed a love-hate sentiment for Musharraf and this is reflected in the ongoing campaign.

The Pakistani president has been made a punching bag by the candidates, some of whom also consider him essential to Washington. The commonality of views between Clinton, Edwards and Richardson is that they want to employ both American military might as well as values in achieving foreign policy objectives. Little wonder that Democrats are increasingly focusing on foreign policy, and stress diplomacy as a major weapon in improving America’s battered image overseas.

Many voters foresee a cliffhanger in both parties’ upcoming primaries, where voters’ heads are with Clinton and hearts with Obama. The same is true of Romney and Huckabee, respectively, within the Republican Party.

Democrats and Republicans are thus in for blazing primaries, which are already generating enough heat to fire up their campaigns.

While it is unlikely that Benazir Bhutto’s assassination will alter the primaries’ results, yet it has left an imprint no foreign leader has had on a US presidential election in decades.

The writer is a US-based journalist.

mjehangir@aol.com