SOME 59-odd years ago, Mussalman leader Abul Kalam Azad, a genuine true maulana, a profoundly educated man, who habitually and openly imbibed of that God-given fine malt drink and made no bones about it, was heard to murmur one balmy evening, ‘Ummmm, but we must not forget that India is a country whereas Pakistan is an experiment.’
It is truly amazing, and we must thank the Almighty and also founder-maker Mohammad Ali Jinnah, that despite the best efforts of all who have ruled over the past 60 tumultuous years, the experiment, though a failure, still exists in some sort of retarded embryonic form.
President General Pervez Musharraf, whilst discoursing last week before an audience assembled to hear him elaborate on Erra how successfully (truly) Pakistan dealt with the 2005 earthquake, sent out a message to the members of Pakistan’s civil society who tend to criticise and to moan and groan about the country’s lot, that they should not be pessimists, that they should not despair and not spread despondency. As exhorted friend Pundit Ayaz Amir wrote in this space last Friday — ‘Never say die.’
We must at least congratulate ourselves that we are better than many other lands of our ilk — we at least do not eat each other, we may kill and maim but we stop there. Our president merely tried to humiliate his Chief Justice and has ended up ruing the day. In some countries in the Third World chief justices are often last seen or heard of when the president or king is having his breakfast. After that, they simply disappear.
Much praise must be rendered to Chief Justice of Pakistan Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry who very correctly has desisted from presiding over the benches adjudging the petitions involving the president and his legitimacy to stand for re-election. And more praise to him for having his priorities right — he is worried about the fate of the ‘disappeared’, the missing citizens of Pakistan casually picked up and either hidden away or killed by our fearsome ‘agencies’. More power to his elbow!
As this is being written, the circus is on in Islamabad, in Karachi, in Lahore and in Peshawar and the presidential allies in the half-empty assemblies are dancing the presidential jig — somewhat prematurely some might say. But Musharraf is a determined man and, law or no law, yesterday was the designated day for his re-election which took place under quite unusual circumstances. That its verification is open to a decision to be taken much later this month by the Supreme Court of Pakistan matters not a whit.
Last week, Dawn News’s Tim Sebastian interviewed the general and did a good job. Thankfully, the ‘core issue’ did not crop up, we were at least spared that, but we were given a healthy dose of ‘harmony’, of the upholding of the Constitution and of the doing of all things in a manner constitutional. Now, the Constitution as upheld by the general is essentially a one-clause document. Let us take Article 89, the mother and father of the National Reconciliation Ordinance:
‘Power of president to promulgate ordinances. — (1) The President may, except when the National Assembly is in session (no impediment), if satisfied (easily done) that circumstances exist (easily conjured up) which render it necessary to take immediate action (after having wrestled for months), make and promulgate an ordinance as the circumstances may require.’ This ordinance ‘shall have the same force and effect as an Act of Parliament…’
Well we all know what the ‘circumstances’ were which arose on the evening of Friday, October 5, when the already infamous and hated-by-the-pessimists National Reconciliation Ordinance was promulgated. The election of the next day was to be given some sort of ‘legitimacy’ by the participation of the Pakistan People’s Party. This did not materialise. The various “Capos di Capis” exercised their right to boycott, to spoil the party.
During his Dawn News interview last Thursday, when the subject of the Supreme Court decisions was raised, the general stated that, of course, naturally and constitutionally he had accepted the decisions handed down. When asked if this would apply to the decision expected in the matter of the petitions filed by the presidential candidates, Justice Wajihuddin Ahmed and Amin Fahim, the general clearly stated, ‘Let’s see what the verdict is, then we will decide.’
What exactly did he mean? Was he thinking in terms of an emergency, or even martial law, were the verdict to go against him? We will not know this for a while. A word of warning to him, a reproduction of the words spoken by Winston Spencer Churchill in the House of Commons in 1904, over a century ago: ‘Martial law is no law at all. Martial law is brute force. Of course, all martial law is illegal, and an attempt to introduce illegalities into martial law, which is not military law, is like attempting to add salt water to the sea.’
The entire matter of the deal is, to put it mildly, disgusting. And such is how many citizens regard it. Some dozen email messages have already tumbled into my inbox cursing the Musharraf-BB NRO Ordinance. To reproduce but one:
‘Apparently we need reconciliation so badly that corruption, embezzlement and murder no longer count. Legislators cannot now be arrested. Their misdeeds are to be considered by an “ethics committee”. So we have assemblies with licences to rob and to kill. Not only will legislators be given indemnity but their bankers and thugs as well, men such as Hussain Lawai, M.B. Abbasi and that former drug lord Rehman Malik. So black is white in the new Pakistan, murder and loot all in the name of ‘national reconciliation’— more like national humiliation. Bhutto banned booze in a last ditch attempt to save his neck. Musharraf, to save himself, now embraces embezzlers and murderers. What price accountability? Before reconciliation we need truth and justice. BB should admit her errors, ask for forgiveness and return some of the (expletive deleted) loot. Only two moral choices left — leave the country or join the Taliban.’
Under US tuition, General Musharraf preaches to us the delights of democracy. A short passage on that subject should appeal to him:
‘We learn from history that democracy has commonly put a premium on conventionality. By its nature it prefers those who keep step with the slowest march of thought and frowns on those who may disturb the ‘conspiracy for mutual inefficiency.’ Thereby, this system of government tends to result in the triumph of mediocrity — and entails the exclusion of first-rate ability, if this is combined with honesty. But the alternative to it, despotism, almost invariably means the triumph of stupidity. And of the two evils, the former is the less.’ (Why Don’t we Learn from History? by B.H. Liddell Hart, [1971])
arfc@cyber.net.pk