February 06, 2008	Wednesday	Muharram 27, 1429

Archives Write to Mr. Irfan Husain

EVERY time I have been to a public protest in Pakistan, I must confess to a quickening of the heartbeat. The sight of scores of cops in full battle gear does not exactly reassure one that in the course of the demonstration, heads will not be broken, tear-gas shells will not be fired, and protesters will not be locked up. But so far, apart from spending a few hours at a police station during an MRD demo in Lahore many years ago, I have escaped unscathed.

Protest rallies in the UK are an entirely different experience. For instance, when over five hundred people collected outside Downing Street in London the other day to protest against President Musharraf, there were only a score or so of unarmed police officers visible. These uniformed men and women made sure the protest remained peaceful, and that traffic was not obstructed. In Pakistan, the protestors would have been outnumbered by the police, and in no time at all, the rocks, the tear-gas shells and the bullets would have started to fly.

When I marched with about a million others against the invasion of Iraq six years ago, the atmosphere was friendly and the cops stayed on the fringes. No violence occurred, and after the fiery speeches, the crowds dispersed. The next day, there was hardly any sign of a million people having collected in Hyde Park.

What does this difference in approach to public protest say about the UK and Pakistan? Here in Britain, the government is legitimately elected and therefore does not see every demonstration as an opposition plot to topple it. In Pakistan, military dictators are deeply insecure, and live in constant fear of being deprived of all their perks and their opportunities to coin money.

Another delusion dictators constantly labour under is the belief that they know everything, and can therefore lecture the world on how to solve its problems. This is based on their experience of autocratic rule where nobody in their inner circle questions them, and they are cut off from reality by an insulating layer of sycophancy.

While this arrogant self-belief may work for a while, the dictator of the day drags his country to the edge, it backfires when he tries it out abroad. Thus, when President Musharraf recently lectured a British audience on his ‘five-point strategy’ to end extremism in Pakistan, people found it hard to keep a straight face. Here was a dictator whose country was being torn apart by terrorism, and who had reneged on many promises to fight extremism, but was nevertheless lecturing them on how to deal with the problem.

Another example cited in the UK press to show how out of touch with reality Musharraf had become was his amazing response to a reporter’s question. During the question and answer session at the Royal United Services Institute, my colleague Ziauddin, Dawn’s London correspondent, asked a perfectly legitimate question, and was rudely put down by Musharraf.

The snub was not only widely reported, but was quoted in an editorial in the Guardian. Basically, Pervez Musharraf could not stand being put on the spot by a Pakistani journalist. So much so that he supposedly asked a couple of his supporters to ‘thrash’ Ziauddin. This, too, was reported in the Guardian.

At the Downing Street demonstration, the loudest and most animated section of the protesters were the PPP supporters. There was a scattering of PML-N, Justice Party and Jamaat activists, but the piplyas had clearly stolen the show.

In one enclosure were a handful of Musharraf supporters whose numbers and decibel level were a faction of the protesters. Indeed, we were told that they had been rounded up by the intelligence agencies that cling to the High Commission like ticks.

The irrepressible Asma Jehangir was at the demo, as was Imran Khan and his ex-wife, Jemima. When Musharraf’s convoy of cars drove into the British prime minister’s office and residence, the slogans rose to a crescendo, with party flags flying and fists waving. Despite this show of anti-Musharraf sentiments, the traffic continued to flow, while pedestrians walked past, often with an amused smile.

London is used to political protests of all kinds. At the corner near Downing Street, an old man often sits with a wide range of posters proclaiming his opposition to everything from the Iraq war to global warming. He has never been told to move along by the police as he is not breaking any law.

Every Sunday morning at Speakers’ Corner in Hyde Park, a motley crew of protesters turns up with chairs and boxes to stand on while they make speeches on everything under the sun. On a good morning, you could listen to diatribes against globalisation, the theory that the earth is round, and the Martian plot to take over the planet.

Often, the topics are serious, but any screwball with a grudge can hold forth. And in this marketplace of ideas, you need to make sense in order to attract and retain an audience.

It is this tolerance that makes London such an attractive place. Over the years, it has become a magnet for political dissidents, revolutionaries and exiles. For Pakistan, with its endless periods of military rule, it has traditionally been a haven for politicians who oppose the dictator of the day. Many a so-called “London plan” has been hatched here, and several party conferences have been convened in this city. When Jam Sadiq, the late chief minister of Sindh, was in comfortable self-exile here, rumour has it that he asked a friend how he could grab a corner plot at Hyde Park.

A few years ago, I went to Highgate Cemetery to pay my respects at Karl Marx’s grave. Of course his exile in London resulted in the writing of Das Kapital, and other seminal works that were to change the course of history. Jam Sadiq can make no such claim.