WHEN Gen Musharraf successfully reduced the nation to a state of tedium with his ode to brevity on Dec 30 — a TV speech that went on for 55 minutes, the time it takes to screen a medium-length Hollywood thriller — did it not occur to him, or did no one among his gaggle of advisers tell him, that it would be a good idea to say something about the Asian tsunamis?

From one less-than-convincing argument to another he went defending his uniform but the greatest tragedy to hit Asian shores these last 50 years somehow escaped his attention. The wages of a troubled conscience or a mind burdened with other things? When you are obsessed with the trees, you are apt to lose sight of the bigger picture.

Setting out to be a great reformer, Pakistan’s fourth military saviour has reduced himself to total dependence on his army position. Is this power enhanced or power diminished, power impoverished? Even if he were to try, the president couldn’t have passed a more devastating vote of no-confidence against his own hand-crafted system, for no one is left in any doubt that without the prop of his uniform this makeshift system would collapse.

More seriously, it also shows distrust of the very institution which is the general’s power-base, the army. For sticking to the army chief’s position implies that no one else can be trusted.

The new mantra is that uniform strengthens democracy. One of the titles General Musharraf is being regaled with after his uniform speech is “Protector of democracy”. Stranger slogans have sounded on the Pakistani horizon, so no point in getting worked up about this. Democracy’s future is indeed bright when we are tempting all future army chiefs — although given Gen Musharraf’s robust health, this promises to be a long future — to cast themselves in the saviour mould.

Anyone would think a quartet of saviours — Generals Ayub, Yahya, Zia or Musharraf — would be enough for any country. But imagine a succession of Ayub or Zia clones stretching into the far distance.

When Gen Musharraf is done with saving the nation, it wouldn’t be a bad idea setting up a fullfledged museum, somewhere close to General Headquarters, to house and display his many uniforms, pride of place going to his commando jacket, still his favourite item of clothing when inside the country (on foreign tours the preference changes dramatically to smart civvies). Surely a subject as done to death as this deserves a serious national memorial. But if this is the news from the military front, it is not much more cheerful from the political front.

If our political parties were at all capable of leaving their petty interests aside, they would come together on the uniform issue. But what do we see? The Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy all but dead, the PML-N isolated and largely irrelevant for the moment, the PPP engaged in behind-the-scenes contacts with ISI or Military Intelligence, the religious alliance, the MMA, suffering from internal tensions and resolved, whatever its posturing, not to push matters to a point of no return. The MQM is firmly in the military camp, quite a change for a party which was a bugbear for the military not long ago.

Count on this moth-eaten front to make a success of the struggle for democracy? General Sahib may be on a morally weak wicket — we saw how defensive and unsure of himself he looked on TV on Dec 30 — but with the opposition confused and divided, he is under no pressure to change his priorities.

Something that would really have an impact would be for the opposition to say that as a last resort they’d walk out of the assemblies leaving the Q League, the Patriot renegades and the MQM to run this show as best as they can. Far from being irresponsible, such a move would be the logical, indeed the only credible, answer to the president’s insistence on remaining in uniform. After all, if the opposition parties say this is a sham democracy, made still more sham by a president who is also army chief, what’s the point of participation?

But again barring the PML-N which has nothing to lose, no one else is in a mood to act real or get serious: not Benazir Bhutto who would gladly cut any half-decent deal with the military, not Maulana Fazlur Rehman who has perfected the fine art of appearing to march towards the brink while staying well short of it, not even, despite his thunder, Qazi Hussain Ahmed, who has a fair idea of what the MMA is likely to lose in a confrontation with GHQ.

This leaves us with a collection of paper tigers, strong on roaring, weak on meaningful action. Democracy you would think requires some sacrifice. What sacrifice is anyone prepared to make?

Thus a double crisis of credibility threatens: a personal one for Gen Musharraf, a collective one for the champions of democracy.

But there’s no point in overdoing the compromized credibility theme. General Zia lost no sleep when he broke his pledge to hold elections in 90 days, getting around to holding them only eight and a half years later. He could even joke about this. After dissolving the Junejo assembly in 1988 he promised elections again but, and here pausing for dramatic effect, he said not in 90 days, at which he chuckled heartily. Not the slightest touch of humour in Gen Musharraf’s uniform-best-for-country speech, one reason, to my mind, why it has been such a public relations disaster. The very stolidity of the performance was a giveaway for it showed the general to the greatest disadvantage. If you look uncomfortable yourself how on earth do you convince your audience?

In Shakespeare’s Richard III, the Duke of Gloucester murders everyone, including a couple of babes, who stand between him and the throne. But with the crown finally in his grasp, he feigns a huge reluctance and hides indoors with two holy fathers to give the impression that far from being interested in worldly things he is devoting himself to the study of the scriptures.

His confederates arrange for a delegation of citizens led by the Mayor of London to call upon him and persuade him to take the vacant throne. This is what he says:

“Alas, why would you heap this care on me?

I am unfit for state and majesty:

I do beseech you, take it not amiss;

I cannot nor I will not yield to you.”

Having murdered his way to the throne he yet pretends for the sake of appearances as if he is not interested.

We know nothing in the world would convince Gen Musharraf to take off his uniform, his ultimate defence and source of power. This nation is not used to such surprises, nor does it expect them. But some Richard III acting, some display of reluctance, some statement to the effect that on more than twenty occasions he had thought of relinquishing the army chief’s position but the national interest and the great dangers across the borders had held him back, would have leavened the occasion and made it more acceptable in dramatic terms, if in nothing else.

Ah, but I forget myself. Dissimulation, we are told, is no part of Gen Musharraf’s character. He is a man of his word who hates to pretend. So we must leave it at this.

But not to ignore the positive side, there were some good lines in General Sahib’s speech, none more ringing than his invocation of the rule of law to justify his decision. He said that as both houses of parliament had passed the two offices bill, making it the law of the land, he couldn’t violate the Constitution. In other words, parliament having acted, he was now under an obligation to stick to his army uniform.

It was higher innocence of this kind that elicited the famous Ghalib comment: “Iss saadgi pey kaun na mar jaye ai Khuda...” (Who wouldn’t die seeing such innocence...)