PEOPLE are aghast at the dramatic turns regarding the restoration of the judges. But I am not. They are seeing for the first time what I am for the second.

In 1971, I first saw, on the soil of East Pakistan, a confrontation between the same protagonists with the same mindset over the same issue that the residual Pakistan is seeing today.

It was a clash between the people and rulers in a remote part. At that time, West Pakistanis could not see across distance or censor but, unfortunately, even today they do not see that 2008 is another inning of the same old pre-1971 game.

What is this game? In simple words, it is a reckless gamble for power by vested interests, forced on innocent people with a loaded dice. It is the naked exploitation of the weak by overwhelmingly strong desperados.

Their strength lies in the gun (military dictators), religion (mullah) and feudalism (person-centric political parties). Still greater strength lies in their three-in-one system, which believes in its ‘divine’ right to rule by crushing the people’s rights. Their anti-people mindset does not tolerate pro-people actions, voices, thoughts or even short-lived bubbles. Instead of nation-building, they believe in nation-thrashing.

This wicked game has been uninterruptedly played by the mighty on the soil of Pakistan for 60 years. The nation lost East Pakistan in this game, and as an over-confident winner, the system is now bent on total control of the residual Pakistan by manipulating all people-oriented institutions. The Constitution, the legislature, bureaucracy and education were the earlier casualties, while the media and the judiciary are the latest victims. The system insists on continuing the game even after the Feb 18 polls, with total contempt for the people’s loud and clear refusal to play.

Let us be clear about one thing. As profit-sharing partners of the system our political parties have always played a double game, pretending to be with the people but working every minute for the perpetuation of the system.

They appear to be doing the same even today. The happenings of today are not the logical outcome of the people’s will expressed on Feb 18, but forced twists being fuelled by the three engines of the system. It is the gradual unfolding of pre-election secret deals struck among the partners to keep the nefarious game going. Much more will be revealed later.

The two-month old coalition already stands exposed by (a) the tardy pace of the committees, (b) the sudden adjournment of parliament on April 25 without passing a resolution for the restoration of the judges, and (c) the cat-and-mouse game of PPP and PML-N leaders in Dubai. There are many indications that efforts are afoot to safeguard Musharraf’s interest, instead of implementing the people’s mandate. The age-old collaborative loyalty of political parties to the military dictator and his system ranks much higher than their feigned loyalty to the people.

The parties would prefer that Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry is not restored (minus-one formula), or if restored, his wings, and those of the judiciary, are clipped to save Gen Musharraf and his strings. The previous Assembly was made a rubber stamp by guile; this one is volunteering to be the same.

Why are they doing so? Because they are (a) equally allergic to the rule of law and an independent judiciary, and (b) are bound by pre-election deals to serve the system, which has cleared sky-high heaps of their past corruption under the National Reconciliation Ordinance and has given them the licence to do much more in the future.

Any deviation is punishable by devious means (remember ZAB and BB). Tactical delays on flimsy pretexts will allow the system to strike at the opportune time (Article 58-[2][b], other diversionary moves, political assassinations, kidnappings, floor-crossing, violence, deliberate push towards anarchy — recall the referendum, the LFO and the Seventeenth Amendment). The people should, therefore, be mentally prepared for another betrayal by the politicians, as has repeatedly happened in our history.

The PPP rhetoric since the elections of “taking everybody on board” appears to be a cover for a compromise with Musharraf. Prime Minister Gilani’s ill-timed dinner for the army brass, ill-advised speech to revive the “ideological role of the army” and ill-defined invitation to “work together” means the same. They want to steer our future towards our past. The PPP might have made a new deal in 2007, but has been a comrade since 1971.

The same applies to the other political parties, including the PML-N. Mr Nawaz Sharif is not only the creation of the core establishment of the system, but has also been a beneficiary of more than one deal with it. We welcome his new talk and tone, but he will remain suspect until he proves his credentials with regard to a break with the past and showing sincerity in the future.

It is a continuing blunder for the people to put their trust in the current set of parties, but it cannot be helped. Our 60-year-old political culture (personality cult, corrupt pragmatism, crushed idealism and money politics) has transformed the Pakistani individual into a self-seeking opportunist. As of now, it is beyond his comprehension to form a new political party from the grassroots along democratic lines. Until the dawn of that awareness our people will be condemned to follow, elect and be jilted again and again by the existing politicians.

For the first time this mental block is showing hairline cracks inflicted by the lawyers’ movement. But these fall short of the critical mass needed for initiating a new thinking process. At present, neither the lawyers nor the supporting layers of civil society are prepared to raise the democratic pyramid of such a new party from the bottom. But sooner or later, they will discover that this is the only way out of the vicious circle of the mullah-military-wadera collusion.

Until then, let us pray for the success of the one and a half rays of hope in the ever-thickening darkness. The lawyers’ movement is the first complete ray, and Nawaz Sharif, with his proven past and unproven future, is the incomplete half. The source of both is the inner light of Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry and the Nov 2, 2007, judiciary. We should all fight for their complete restoration to avoid a repeat of 1971.

masudmufti@hotmail.com

FOR several decades, the social sciences — economics included — and policymaking have not accommodated analyses of the city and the urban process in the political-economic discourse.

This is puzzling given that the 20th century has been the century of urbanisation unleashing new transformations, especially in developing countries like Pakistan.

Urban space and the economic and social interactions it constitutes are rarely acknowledged in relation to the broader challenges of economic prosperity or the experiences of citizenship and democracy.

For instance, national identity is generally understood in terms of a dichotomy between the national and global. Cities and urban processes are ignored because the dichotomy tends to assume that globalisation of labour, capital and technology has neutralised the importance of place. Even mainstream economics renders place irrelevant: Nation-states are the arbiters of international capital and not cities. But capital must seek somehow to maximise profits.

The territorial logic of capitalism does not valorise the nation-state; instead, it turns its gaze to the skyscrapers, malls, stock exchange buildings, museums, bridges, roads, cineplexes, restaurants and gated communities that embody the modern metropolis. In this sense, capital is situated and creates value in urban space; it has a spatial dimension.

But the creation of value is also a highly exclusionary process whereby not all spaces are deemed valuable, for instance slums and low-income housing. But why should we care about cities and urban processes? If we fix what is wrong with the nation-state and the economy then we can fix the problems of the city.

This is a chimera because the exigencies of the modern nation-state are no longer marching in tune with the demands of its urban centres. This disconnect is apparent not only in the urban centres of developing countries like Pakistan, but also in industrialised countries. The fortunes and development trajectories of cities like London no longer fit neatly into the politics of the United Kingdom. Shanghai today is a magnet for global capital in ways that are not always within the control of the national government.

Here in Karachi, the tumultuous demands of a multi-ethnic urban citizenry, unstoppable urban growth, rising inequality, heightened spatial segregation and industrial and financial enterprises that are increasingly transnational do not always endorse the visions and policies of the nation-state.

This is not to suggest that the nation-state is no longer salient, but to propose that the global flow of commodities, images, people and ideas tends to increase the distance between national space and urban centres. Even though cities have always been the theatre of politics, in an era of economic globalisation and unprecedented growth of socio-economic inequality they are now more than ever the sites for the contestations of citizenship.

In cities, different groups compel us to recognise the contemporary features of urban life, which comprises multiple identities and new forms of appropriating space. Cities are especially sensitive to the wandering tendencies of labour and capital especially when there are sharp increases in socio-economic inequality. These dynamics provoke new ideas of what it means to be a citizen; new notions of rights, for instance access to housing, sanitation, electricity, health services, education on the basis of citizenship. It broadens the meaning of entitlement: is adequate housing a right? Is employment a right? Is access to electricity a right?

Compared to our forefathers just 50 years ago, we are today in Pakistan an urban species seeking refuge and opportunity in the folds of urban life. And yet, there is no serious debate on what it means to participate, prosper or be marginalised in cities.

If development means freedom then the process for the attainment of freedom is already taking place in the domain of the urban. If we think today about qualities of life in cities like Karachi, Sao Paolo and Bombay, the conventional view is one of dystopia — marginalisation, alienation, pollution, degradation.

We could say that this is not new because cities in industrial countries experienced this dystopia during the industrial revolution. But urbanisation and its consequences were taken very seriously by the late 19th century western bourgeoisie. They had a clear notion that cities were important places and urban reform was essential. They had a visionary notion of a ‘beautiful city’ with facilities and services that could placate alienated residents.

What we see today is a lethal combination of two forces: capital that is not interested in cities unless they can create avenues for profit maximisation and a bourgeoisie in our cities that is increasingly blasé.

We need an intelligent debate amongst policymakers and academics — for instance, on how patterns of urban segregation in cities like Karachi relate to experiences of citizenship and democracy. People attach meaning to the spaces where they live in varying ways. Contemporary urban segregation and urban violence are complementary. We need to ask how inequality is inscribed in urban space.

In Karachi, the spectacle of violent crime, slums and luxury shopping malls, high-rises, gated communities is articulated in the context of a ‘city of walls’ — a far cry from the walled city of antiquity or of the Mughal era. Physical spaces today — homes, parks, apartments, schools, offices — embody a new aesthetics of security and display status. This has changed the character of public life and public interaction. The new fortified enclave is socially homogenous and for mostly middle and upper classes.

This emergent alternative for urban life confers social distance, difference and inequality. It constitutes urban space and produces urban socio-economic inequality. Moreover, as if walls were not enough public streets are spaces for the elite’s circulation by car and for the poor the street is the primary space of circulation by foot or public transportation.

In Karachi, as in many cities such as Sao Paolo, the elite are abandoning an activity — walking on the public street — that accommodates spaces of sociability. These patterns do not equate with the idea of a democratic polity. Cities with fortified enclaves do not strengthen citizenship but foster inequality by making clear that different groups belong to different universes and therefore cannot reconcile claims.

We have to move the city and the urban process into a central position in our debates concerning political-economic development. We have to start getting things right first in our cities and only then can we move towards economic development. It is time that our national policymakers and esteemed academics turned their gaze to the city and the urban process because to treat cities as the secondary feature of the whole dynamic of economic development is wrong.

nha3383@gmail.com