Legal eye

The writer is a lawyer based in Islamabad. He is a Rhodes scholar and has an LL.M from Harvard Law School

Turkey wasn't on tenterhooks in anticipation of bearded old men trying to conjure up the image of a nascent moon. Celebrating multiple Eids within this overwhelmingly Muslim country was not a customary practice. The faithful heading for Eid prayers were not worried about fellow Muslims blowing themselves up in the mosque. This wasn't a dream waiting to come true in Pakistan. It was Eid in Istanbul this past Tuesday. The benefit of relying on science and common sense in determining the lunar cycle, enjoying the social space to pursue religious rituals without bigotry or intimidation, and an overall sense of physical security and freedom from fear are all welcome aspects of celebrating Eid in Turkey.

But the most refreshing aspect of this country – where Muslims are over 99 percent of the population – is the pride that the Turkish nation has in its national identity and an unwavering faith in a promising future. Are the Turks a proud people because they have an illustrious history? Does the embattled Iranian president emanate an air of self-confidence because of his staunch religious beliefs? What is it that makes a people proud of their identity and gives them a collective sense of purpose? Is it their history, their culture, an honourable leadership, egalitarian political ethos or financial prosperity? Maybe there are no easy answers, and it is a combination of these factors that engenders pride in a nation. But there is no gainsaying that cultivation of such pride requires genuine leadership.

Can we really expect others to treat us well as a nation when even within our country a Pakistani identity is the most ill treated one? Visit Europe and you'll see everyone with a European passport being accorded priority treatment. Americans have taken their attitude toward non-nationals – especially from Muslim countries – to a whole new (and unhealthy) level. Even in the Middle East, the Arabs top the social hierarchy followed by "goras," and Pakistanis are lumped together with the nationalities deemed insignificant. And yet, even within Pakistan, we accord the least respect and courtesy to our fellow citizens in comparison to other nationalities. This is not an argument in favour or jingoism or misplaced xenophobia but only to point out that if we founded Pakistan for the benefit of Pakistanis, where did we go so wrong that our government started meting out the worst treatment to its own constituency?

Who will initiate remedial treatment for low national self-esteem when our leaders appear to be its worst victims and continue to articulate and promote policies that the average citizen is bitterly opposed to? How does one explain the various comments President Zardari made during his recent trip to the US that were not just misconceived, historically inaccurate and offensive to the people of Pakistan but also reflective of the worse form of sycophancy that mars the political culture of Pakistan? For example, the Pakistani president reportedly thanked President Bush for reintroducing democracy to Pakistan. Further, he argued in a Washington Post interview that the world was "a safer place" due to Bush's fight against terrorism but warned that "the axis of evil is growing."

During his 2002 State of the Union Address, President Bush had characterised Iran, Iraq and North Korea as the "axis of evil." The description was not only simplistic but frighteningly inaccurate as there was neither any nexus between the three countries lumped together nor any similarity in their circumstances. The Bush administration attracted severe criticism for its indiscriminate finger pointing even before the invasion of Iraq revealed that the country had no weapons of mass destruction. What did President Zardari then mean when he attempted to revive the discredited concept contrived by President Bush? Did he consider that the "axis" includes Iran, which is not just a neighbour and a fellow Muslim state but a vital friend in these energy-starved times? Or are we just overanalysing the utterance due to the mistaken belief that at least heads of states are supposed to think before they speak?

If the "axis of evil" remark was merely insensitive and rooted in ignorance, the claim that President Bush has made the world "safer" is simply horrid. Less than 30 percent of Americans presently believe that Bush is doing a satisfactory job in protecting their interests. The Republican Party is struggling to distance itself from the shadow of its own president to redeem itself in the 2008 election. The war in Iraq has not just been a tragedy of gigantic proportions for the Iraqi people but also a failure from the US perspective. The war in Afghanistan has been no different. Thousands of civilians have perished due to the Bush war effort and hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced.

The imprudent Bush doctrine has infused life into the academic concept of clash of civilisations and people wonder with regret what the world might have looked like had the US Supreme Court reached a different conclusion in Bush vs. Gore. Is the world, then, safer for Pakistanis today as compared to 2001 when Bush entered office? Over ten thousand Pakistani civilians have paid with their lives the price of the Bush war on terror, fires of hate against the US rage across Pakistan and yet the President of Pakistan has the gall to claim that the world Is "obviously a safer place" due to the actions and policies of George Bush. But probably even more repugnant than his estimate of Bush war doctrine was President Zardari's expression of gratitude to the US president for his service to Pakistani democracy.

The United States has a long and shameful history of pursuing its strategic interests at the expense of vulnerable democracies across the world. And this is not an outlandish claim made by anti-American historians and backed by radical US academics such as Noam Chomsky. It is a matter of factual record and even the more "patriotic" students of US history accept this as a legitimate critique of US foreign policy. The history of Pakistan's civil-military imbalance as well as its democracy might have been different had our dictators not received generous support from the United States. Other than the Pakistani Army, uninhibited backing by Bush administration was probably the biggest impediment in the way of freeing Pakistan from the stranglehold of the Musharraf regime.

And yet, in rubbing salt in the wounds of the Pakistani nation that suffered disenfranchisement for almost a decade and relentlessly struggled against it, President Zardari credited President Bush with revival of democracy. Was President Zardari merely doling out a dose of nauseating sycophancy to someone ahead in the global food chain that power elites in Pakistan receive day in and day out from minions huddled around him? But would it not be scarier for the future of our democracy, as well as sovereignty, if our president reposed genuine faith in the legend that the life of a government in Pakistan depends on the blessings of a reigning US administration?

In 2003, the Bush administration wished to build a northern front in the war against Iraq by bringing over 60,000 US soldiers to Turkey. Turkey was a close US ally and also a member of NATO. At the time Turkey was also negotiating a $1.5-billion financial package with the IMF, and the request for establishment of the US front came along with the promise of $6 billion in direct US financial support to Turkey. Deeming the request essential for future US-Turkey relationship, the chief of the ruling Justice and Development Party, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and then prime minister (now president) Abdullah Gul endorsed the resolution to allow Turkey to be used as a base by American troops and urged their party to support it in parliament.

Despite the support from the top ruling party leadership, the resolution was defeated in what came as a surprise to the Bush administration. In the ultimate resort the US carrot-and-stick policy did not work due to staunch opposition by ordinary Turkish people (according to opinion polls 9 out of 10 Turks opposed direct involvement in a war against Iraq), which got reflected in the parliamentary vote when as many as 100 members of the ruling party either voted against the measure or abstained. Notwithstanding the embarrassment caused to the leaders of the ruling party and the threat that the vote would permanently strain US-Turkey relations, Abdullah Gul conceded that democracy had spoken with finality and its verdict would just need to be accepted by everyone. And it was.

Servile political elites beholden to foreign benefactors are unlikely to facilitate the emergence of a proud nation or an empowered democracy. Sovereign nations can disagree with each other in view of their respective interests, and that doesn't necessarily mark the initiation of hostilities. Those opposed to direct US military strikes within Pakistan are not vying for a declaration of war against the US or even the pursuit of an acrimonious relationship. They merely want their country to firmly pursue policies that resonate with the people of Pakistan and protect their interests, and their leaders to exhibit a sense of honour, pride and conviction in leading a sovereign people with abundant untapped potential.



Email: sattar@post.harvard.edu