On a wing and a prayer

Published January 7, 2020
The writer is a journalist.
The writer is a journalist.

JAATEY jaatey, former Supreme Court chief justice Asif Saeed Khosa broke hearts across the country by forcing the political parties to shed their rhetoric and vote according to the ‘ground realities’. Indeed, his decision to insist on a law to cover the appointments and extension of army chiefs has led to much confusion in politics, back and forth in parliament, and considerable hilarity on social media, at the expense of the poor politicians.

But the people are not without power, entirely — the barrage of criticism has forced an eager opposition, eager to do power’s bidding that is, to not agree to the government’s earlier efforts of passing the bill by Saturday; it now appears that the process will be delayed till Wednesday in order to prove that the parliamentary process is being followed in letter (and spirit?). However, regardless of the final shape the law takes — the PPP and the PML-N, according to reports, are now gearing up to suggest amendments — not much will change eventually.

Truth be told, a law giving cover to the extension was a given the day the judgement was made public — extensions, after all, are the result of political realities and not because of the absence or presence of a law. The decision had been made and if the court wanted a legal cover, one would be provided by the twirl of a magic wand.

The hue and cry raised over the past week was little more than just noise and proves yet again our faulty but obsessive thinking that laws and judgements can change political realities. Hence the fears that extensions will now become the norm — as if they weren’t already — or that the conviction in the treason trial will take us one step closer to a democracy which will not be derailed by a coup.

No one is willing to have a debate on what strategies can lead us closer to the goal of ‘civilian supremacy’.

It is noteworthy that many of those celebrating the Musharraf treason judgement are also the ones complaining that the present regime is as bad if not worse than a military government. And one can extrapolate further to ask whether coups will once again become a real and present danger if the special court judgement is overturned on appeal.

Perhaps this is why it is important to look at events from the other angle — that an army chief’s extension has been challenged or a half-baked attempt to impose an emergency has led to a conviction because the balance has shifted in recent years. It is changed power realities which have led to the legal challenges to the military’s domination — regardless of whether they were as successful as anyone watching would have liked them to be. Both the Supreme Court decision and the treason trial have to be seen in this regard.

Political realities lead the way and the law follows; courts and judgements cannot lead political change. But this is not all that the obsession with all things legal has led us to. For some reason, it has also led to this linear thinking that the civil-military balance can only be fixed by ensuring that the law is implemented (to prevent election rigging; stop coups and extensions) — and as a result, no one is interested in finding the solutions in the political sphere.

Additionally, no one is willing to have a debate on what strategies can lead us closer to the goal of ‘civilian supremacy’. Anger, rhetoric and droning on about what the law or Constitution says or requires is not a political strategy; it is sheer laziness.

Indeed, the lack of strategising is evident in the fact that the PML-N is said to have been inspired by Turkey where generals were tried for intervention in politics. Apparently, it was assumed that this was needed in Pakistan, as well. But a cursory glance at recent events in Turkey show how different our trajectory has been.

The trials in Turkey date back to 2007 when military officers were accused of planning assassinations as well as attacks to legitimise a military intervention and eventually several active and retired military officers were arrested and tried. This was followed by a second trial in 2010 in which around 300 military officers were accused of planning to overthrow the government back in 2003 by shooting down an aeroplane to justify a military coup. The former heads of army, air force and navy were sentenced to 20 years in prison.

But it is conveniently forgotten that the Turkey trials came after the Islamist forces had made many strides in the political sphere; by then the AKP was in its third reincarnation, having been banned by the judiciary twice before, which led to strong grass-roots support for the party). It had won two successive elections before the trials and gained civilian elite support — research distinguishes the Kemalist, secular elite that supported the military from the Islamist or Anatolian elite, which is said to have suffered or been discriminated against by the military. It had gained from the ‘democratic’ changes made in the political system to strengthen the case for Turkey’s entry into the EU. There were also fewer security challenges.

(Of course, we should not forget that Turkey may have pushed back the military from politics but without ensuring a far more democratic system; the current dispensation is proving to be authoritarian.)

In other words, the famous trials around 2007 can be seen as the changing point because much had preceded them. The trials in themselves were not the beginning of the change.

It’s hard to say that all this was considered by those who think a trial alone is enough to change the balance of power, forever. Few similar conditions existed in Pakistan — even if one assumes that Pakistan’s path can and is similar to Turkey’s — when a government here embarked on the trial route. No wonder then that the trial against Musharraf achieved little.

If parties in Pakistan are serious about shifting the balance of power, they will need a better strategy than just anger and an insistence that the Constitution’s implementation become a reality. A plan of action, a strategy may prove more convincing than mere words.

The writer is a journalist.

Published in Dawn, January 7th, 2020

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