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| The art of marching to the brink |
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Friday, January 04, 2008
Unexpected calamity is not tragedy. Tragedy is when you know that a certain course of action will lead to disaster but you can't help yourself and keep marching in that direction. Inviting calamity thus is what makes for real tragedy.
The killing of Benazir Bhutto puts our national failures under a spotlight. We know we are in trouble. We know that if we stick to the path we are on it will lead to disaster. The perils of one-man rule are known to us. We know that tricks played to perpetuate the present order, now in the last throes of bankruptcy, will lead to more upheaval. We know that national unity is at stake and that our salvation lies in democracy. Yet we continue to march towards the brink.
Complete selflessness is hard to come by because the pursuit of power -- another name for politics -- is not a saintly calling. But there are times when self-interest must take the backseat to national duty. This is such a time for Pakistan although it is a moot point whether there are too many people around capable of thinking big or having a sense of history, two conditions which must be met if we are to come anywhere near statesmanship.
We are a nation specializing in missed opportunities. We could have taken a new turning after 1971 when the army was defeated in East Pakistan and the country splintered into two. But the gathering of minds which that required, the looking into ourselves and into our collective failures that was called for, never happened. Or perhaps we were incapable of it. Instead of learning anything from that disaster -- arguably, monumental -- we simply shoved the memory of that tragedy and why it happened out of our minds. As an example of national amnesia, of a nation burying its head in the sand, it is hard to beat that performance.
For the eleven years and some months that General Ziaul Haq ruled this unfortunate land -- unfortunate given the Bismarcks prowling its deck -- Pakistan was enveloped in darkness. In tandem with an international coalition headed by the United States (our distant friend and the source of so many of our sorrows), General Zia sowed the dragon's teeth from which have sprouted the monsters we are still contending with today. It is a frightening thought that of all Pakistan's rulers his legacy has proven the most enduring of all.
The Quaid-i-Azam's legacy lives only in clichés and broken promises and shattered dreams. Zia's legacy is all around us. Every Kalashnikov to be seen, the sound of every bomb explosion, is a tribute to his malign genius.
The failures and missed opportunities marking our so-called Decade of Democracy from 1988-99 are mostly attributed to the inadequacies of its two star performers: Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif. They could have performed better, no doubt about it. But scratching below the surface, that decade was marked for failure because of the limitations of three cantankerous individuals: President Ghulam Ishaq Khan, the army chief General Beg, and that strange creature, Sardar Farooq Leghari. Some share of the blame must also be carried by General Karamat, army chief when Leghari dismissed Benazir Bhutto's government in Nov 1996.
The power to stabilize Pakistani politics lay in the hands of this quartet. But presiding over a game of musical chairs, dismissing four governments in succession, they showed that they had it not in them to answer history's summons. The country paid the price of their inadequacy, as it has paid for the inadequacies of all its stewards and helmsmen since the death of the Quaid-i-Azam in 1948.
Nawaz Sharif could have turned his 'heavy mandate' into a recipe for stability if only he and his party had concentrated on the essentials of governance. But too much time was wasted in trying to strengthen the powers of the executive instead of focusing on how best to use those powers. The imposition of sanctions following the nuclear explosions of May '98 led to a period of economic uncertainty. But what really undid that government and dug a grave for that decade of democracy was the Kargil adventure in early '99, a bizarre feat of arms whose reasons still escape most minds. The domestic fallout of that conflict led, almost inexorably, to the coup of Oct '99 (Pakistan's second October 'revolution', the first one having been carried out by General Ayub Khan in Oct 1958).
The coup was carried out on the ground by loyal senior officers when General Pervez Musharraf was yet in the air. By the time he landed the deed was done and another of Pakistan's civilian governments lay stricken by the wayside. But a justification had to be sought for what was done and this came in the form of Musharraf's seven-point agenda, his seven pillars of wisdom (since largely forgotten), hastily scribbled on a piece of paper in Lt.-Gen. Usmani's corps headquarters in Karachi.
Denouncing the political leadership (something that comes easily to military figures), Musharraf promised order, stability, progress and provincial harmony. Eight years and three months down the road, it is not difficult to make out what he has actually been able to deliver. Disorder and instability stalk the land and the outlook for the future is more uncertain than at any time since the breakup of Pakistan in Dec 1971.
No point in carrying out a further post-mortem of the last eight years. This has been done often enough. What needs to be done instead is to figure out how to emerge from the shadows and discover what so far has lain beyond our collective abilities: the holy grail of orderly government and political stability.
Like it or not, Pervez Musharraf can't be wished away. For better or worse, he is the man on the spot on whose shoulders lies the responsibility of taking key decisions. If lucky, we can move to some sort of a democratic transition once elections take place on February 18 but again he will be the man presiding over this transition. Whether this transition is smooth, whether it is a transition at all and takes us out of the woods and gives us stable government, depends to a large extent on him reinventing himself and turning his back on his eight years as Pakistan's supreme ruler. Admittedly, a difficult task but then who said thinking big comes easy?
Musharraf's political legacy amounts to one entity, the Q League, and three individuals: Ch Pervaiz Elahi, Ch Shujaat Hussain, and Arbab Ghulam Rahim. Is this legacy worth preserving in any museum of the modern arts? According to a news item: "Punjab PML-Q President Ch Pervaiz Elahi has said that they have to save Pakistan from one Sindhi and two Punjabi Zardaris and now people have to decide whether they want Quaid's Pakistan or Zardari's Pakistan." Try as one might, it is hard to get more brilliant than this. (Whose analysis is this, by the way? Surely not Mushahid's.)
December 27 put paid to all the government's plans to give a new lease of life to the Q League via the January 8 elections (now postponed to February 18). We now enter uncharted waters and what role Musharraf plays will determine whether he is remembered for good or ill in the history of Pakistan. If he still wants to manipulate things in the Q League's favour, then we are doomed and instead of a smooth transition we can brace ourselves for more disorder and mayhem. But if he can rise above his self and hold elections that everyone perceives as fair he may yet do Pakistan a bigger favour than has fallen to its lot in the last 30 years.
A tough call but one only the retired Generalissimo can answer.
Email: chakwal@comsats.net.pk
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