SENATORS from both sides of the aisle argued the other day that the current pro-American policy, a product of the military establishment, should give way to an independent stance. Mr Raza Rabbani, a PPP spokesman and leader of the House, endorsed this call and added that his party had never had any connection with the ‘establishment’ and its fashioning of a pro-American policy.

These assertions are not correct. Pakistan adopted a distinctly pro-American policy beginning about 1954 when a civilian government was in place. It joined US-sponsored anti-communist alliances in the Middle East and Southeast Asia and began receiving American military and economic assistance. This policy direction continued during Ayub Khan’s rule and, in varying measure, during subsequent military regimes. But it is wrong to say that the military establishment had initiated it.

It should be noted here that the so-called alliance with the United States did not keep Pakistan from developing close relations with China, the communist giant in Asia whose influence the United States also wished to contain. American officials did not approve of Pakistan’s advances towards China but made no serious moves to stop them.

Relations between Pakistan and the United States during Gen Ziaul Haq’s rule and then again during Gen Musharraf’s regime became more specifically transactional than those of a generalised rapport. America needed Pakistan’s assistance for the attainment of its objectives in Afghanistan (expulsion of Soviet forces from that country during the 1980s and more recently the eradication of Islamic militants). Pakistan provided the needed assistance and received compensation for services rendered. The transaction did not make Pakistan a ‘friend’ or ally of America (except in the wishful thinking of some Pakistani commentators). Their relationship has remained essentially like that between a buyer and seller, even though it has included some peripheral American interest in Pakistan’s well-being. It was a bargain that governments in Pakistan made quite willingly.

Each side has had some minor dissatisfactions. Pakistan wants to be treated on par with India, which the United States has declined to do on the ground that Pakistan is not potentially the world power that India is. American officials approve of Musharraf because he has done a good job as an instrument of their policy, but they have not been happy with his being a military dictator. They have urged adoption of genuine democracy, honest elections, and respect for human rights.

The United States is not keeping Pakistan from pursuing an ‘independent’ foreign policy. It does not seek to influence Pakistan’s relations with the rest of the world, and Pakistan is able to reject its advice in those few cases in which it is offered. Pakistan has declined to support the American campaign to isolate Iran, and it has gone ahead with negotiating a gas pipeline deal with the Iranian government, and no American penalties have ensued. The United States has been advocating peace between Pakistan and India and this is a policy that successive governments in Pakistan have accepted for their own reasons regardless of American urgings.

The Bush administration is more than satisfied with Pakistan’s role in combating extremism and the accompanying terrorism. It is this area of policy that invites criticism from certain political forces in Pakistan. It is a complicated issue. Both Pakistan and America disapprove of extremism as such because it disrupts the good order of society. There is thus a mutuality of interest and identity of views on a vital issue.

But each side also has its own reasons for wanting to eradicate extremism and terrorism. Islamic extremists are anti-American. They want to expel American presence and dominance from the Muslim world. It is Pakistan’s assistance in the suppression of this anti-American drive to which critics in the Senate and elsewhere object. Pakistan, they say, is fighting America’s war and its army is killing its own people in its tribal region bordering Afghanistan.

But ‘our own people’ here are killing others of ‘our own people’. The critics believe that negotiations, and not force, should be employed to persuade them to stop their operations within Pakistan. American officials, who used to be sceptical, are now willing to give negotiations a chance and see what they will accomplish. If negotiations do not get anywhere, Prime Minister Gilani’s government will have to decide whether to use force against the militants or yield our territory and people to their control.

Let us now take up the matter of the PPP’s connection with the ‘establishment’. Raza Rabbani asserts that there never has been, and there isn’t now, any. He is a good old socialist, true to his party’s professed ideological commitments, and a man of honour. He declined a post in Mr Gilani’s cabinet because he did not wish to be sworn in by a president whom he regarded as illegitimate. I believe he has no desire to be an ally of the military establishment, and that he has had no part in the fashioning of its pro-American policy. But he does not control the thinking of his party’s top leaders.

It is a well-known fact that following the 1988 elections, President Ghulam Ishaq Khan invited Benazir Bhutto to form a government only after she had conceded the military establishment’s primacy in certain areas of policymaking. In her second term as prime minister, her inability to get along with successive army chiefs was a major reason, among others, for her dismissal. It is also a well known fact that she had been negotiating a deal with Gen Musharraf for almost a year, and finally made one before her return to Pakistan in October 2007. After her assassination last December, Mr Zardari has continued to honour it.

It is equally well-known that her return to Pakistan had been facilitated by the Bush administration’s intercessions with Musharraf. She came lavishly praising the American anti-terrorism campaign in Afghanistan and Pakistan’s tribal areas bordering that country. She declared her own resolve to eradicate the likes of Al Qaeda and the Taliban living in Pakistan. She went out of her way to present herself as America’s vice regent in Pakistan — a stance that may have cost her life.

This is where the PPP has stood with regard to the military establishment in this country and its interaction with the United States, Mr Rabbani’s preferences in these matters notwithstanding.

The writer, professor emeritus at the University of Massachusetts, was until recently a visiting professor at the Lahore School of Economics.

anwarsyed@cox.net

WHENEVER Asif Zardari finds himself surrounded by his slogan-raising partymen, as he was the other day in Lahore’s Governor House, he tells them not to worry about the judges and the president.

The ‘new order’ he is working on will take care of both and forestall all such crises in the times ahead. It sounds as menacing as did Musharraf’s devolution order.

Under the new order, the presidency too, he assures, will reverberate with Bhutto slogans — as the Governor House did on that day. What new order he has in mind, Asif Zardari doesn’t disclose. But as always on that day too, in the very next breath, he recalled a Pakistan of the dreams of his martyred father-in-law and martyred wife.

Today, Z.A. Bhutto’s dream of Pakistan being a polity in which the government commanded the heights of the economy and all power belonged to the people (as represented by the party and its founder) stands consigned to history. Now the government is a mere regulator and the power of the people must show itself through state institutions.

Benazir Bhutto’s half-hearted efforts to establish herself and the party as the source of ‘people’s power’ only led to the premature collapse of her two governments that were haunted by charges of indiscipline and corruption.

Mr Zardari, in these changed times, should not be relating his new order to the dreams of either Zulfikar Bhutto or Benazir Bhutto. Their party now stands much diminished and he lacks the charisma of the Bhuttos; hence he must rely entirely on the institutions of the state and the rule of law to sustain himself in power for five years. The same is true for Nawaz Sharif, whatever plan or picture of statecraft he may have in mind, and will remain true whether the two agree to collaborate or go their separate ways which appears more likely.

Both Asif Zardari and Nawaz Sharif, the former more than the latter, look set on a course where their personal and party interests appear to supplant institutions. When that happens inadvertently or when party chiefs control the institutions of state by design, even democratically elected governments tend to become totalitarian.

The authority continuing to reside outside the institutions after the elections would be like following the pattern set by the previous regime where President Musharraf exercised all power even after the prime minister was notified as chief executive in the constitution. Three prime ministers in succession owed their office to him and served in subordination to him.

For that, Musharraf drew his authority from the army (which, so to speak, was his party) and not from the constitution. He came to grief only when he overstepped his limits, even as army chief, at a time when popular discontent was growing and legitimate contenders for power had emerged from the shadows. His hold on state authority then loosened notwithstanding the elaborate structure he had erected to preserve it.

Asif Zardari and Nawaz Sharif, again the former more than the latter, must take note that the power of the state that they usurp by virtue of their popular standing or party position will surely erode the institutions which are there to underpin the stability of their governments. It is common knowledge that Mr Zardari is the de facto prime minister. Why doesn’t he become de jure when nothing in law or propriety stands in the way? Likewise, why shouldn’t Nawaz Sharif become leader of the opposition when he is the only one who can credibly fill that position.

The contradictions inherent in the current situation are distorting not the power structure alone but also state protocol. It is hard to imagine how Mr Salman Taseer, the constitutional governor of Punjab, justifies treating his party chief as head of state. The PPP and PML-N must let the parliamentary institutions perform the role that the constitution envisages for them and then get down to removing equally troublesome contradictions in the administrative apparatus down the line.

Surely, Asif Zardari and Nawaz Sharif are not unaware of the disappointment of the people with the state of affairs both at the centre and in the provinces. Nor do they see the behaviour of the leaders and performance of the governments improving in the long run. Lack of policy direction (there is really no policy in place) and divided leadership are the basic reasons behind this. Another reason is the plentiful number of ministers to whom the establishment is unable to provide the offices, homes and vehicles they insist they must have before they get down to work. In any case, they are too many for the work available — even if every department were to be broken into many bits. Most will just have to saunter or swagger to the disgust of the people. (It is to be hoped that Shahbaz Sharif doesn’t add, or is pressed to add, more to the 16 he already has).The collective responsibility of the cabinet and secrecy of its discussions, which is a central feature of the parliamentary system, is thus bound to succumb to party caucuses and the cabal of advisers. This is a situation which, understandably, even the party bosses cannot do much about. But they can surely reform the administration below the political level to work better in the service of the people.

The problems at the non-political level are best illustrated by some examples of maladministration chosen out of many that are reported every day. The Balochistan government had turned away the inspector-general of police sent there by the federal government; a district education officer in Sindh had issued appointment letters for 4,500 schools teachers while the provincial government had banned all appointments; Karachi’s water and sewerage board has two heads — one appointed by the nazim, the other by the minister for local government.

These examples mirror the conflicts and confusion caused by the police and district government system introduced by Musharraf over which he directly presided. Uncertainty now surrounds its future. Politics may be a fascinating game but the new rulers must find time to attend to the administration of public affairs which is all but paralysed at the moment. Let them pose this question to the provincial governments: who is responsible for maintaining law and order and who is accountable for their breach? They would surely draw a blank.

kunwaridris@hotmail.com

IT is nice to see that our elders are finally pulling us up for our waywardness. This is what elders are there for in the first place. The ex-servicemen who described a recent remark by Punjab Governor Salman Taseer as ‘bazaari’ (from bazaar) have hit the nail on the head.

Who are we to question their timing? We, who are as prone to delays as anyone else in this wonderful land of ours? A statement is as good as its reaction. It is good that they are saying these things now when we can at least venture to provide a response.

We owe all our politics to this realistic approach. Prompt action then and there could have denied us the honour of taking part in the ongoing battle of the ‘exes’. It doesn’t take too great an intellect to realise how bereft life would have been without our ex-military chief and ex-military men, without our ex-diplomats and without our ex-prime ministers.

To make matters more exciting we have an almost ex-Pakistan People’s Party politician leading the lawyers, some of his closest allies drawn from the party of an ex-cricketer and former supporter of the ex-enlightened moderate who today goes by the title of dictator.

These are not the only members of the ‘ex-ecutive’ group that defines politics in the country today. Where positions are interchangeable, yesterday’s mujahids are today’s terrorists, the internationalists have graduated to nationalists and those who swore by Jamaat ideals in the past now have the honour of representing the ‘liberal’ PPP in missions abroad.

The opinion pages of newspapers are a good source of judging just how much space these ‘exes’ enjoy. You are likely to come across a whole line of former bureaucrats, retired military men and diplomats and born-again reformists vying for attention in these columns. Seldom do you find in this illustrious company someone who has worked a lifetime in a newsroom sifting statements that are to be one day disowned or repented.

Not to forget, on your way to a better tomorrow, you routinely run into a group of ex-comrades who have since long shifted the venue of their revolution from the slums to a rhyming reality beyond the Defence Housing Authority of Lahore. The market of ideas, as the market of everything that makes up society and its norms, has shifted.

Too much emphasis on the bazaar, our elders appear to be pointing out to us. It couldn’t have been more urgent. For a long time we have been made to exist away from the etiquette evolved by the generations before us. The vulgarity that the market breeds may be more visible in politics which has undergone a sea change in the last few decades, but vulgarity is not peculiar to politics.

It could actually be argued that the trading which characterises the bazaar was always an influential factor in politics. The burgeoning market has only strengthened this influence by excluding other actors, and by placing ABC of the grain market and XYZ of the real estate business in full charge of the situation. The trade unions that once provided a counter-force to bazaar trends have long since been lying dormant as have student unions, the anti-thesis is missing, materialism reigns supreme etc, etc.

The shopkeeper may be accused of being the most powerful player in the prevalent political scheme, yet equally succinct proof of our bazaari ways can be found in any area of your choice. Take the ex-nationalised school system that we redeemed by placing it in the private sector, or take the international brand which is easily hurt by an honest assessment of one of its products. In the words of a young journalist in Lahore who has had professional exposure in the West, “I didn’t know the blasphemy law extended to multinational companies.”

It is no coincidence that the condemnation of bazaari language has been inspired by none other than the Punjab governor. As the biggest and most resourceful province of Pakistan, Punjab has ably led the land-grabbers’ drive that seeks to appropriate every inch to the market. It is continuing on its course;, the only difference is that the current slogans may sometimes create the impression of it being a two-way fight.

The banners in the bazaar have diversified. There are the usual ones that quote traders as welcoming Shahbaz Sharif but then there are those which egg on Salman Taseer on his way to God knows where. It is about time that checks were placed on these salesman’s teasers. The language of the bazaar must be curbed.