Rethinking conspiracies

The debacle of 1971 taught us that it is dangerous for a country to be cocooned in an artificial sense of immortality. But it is also disempowering and futile for a nation to live with the paranoia of imminent death. Not a day goes by without our prophets of doom (who incidentally are often proponents of non-representative power elites in Pakistan) bellowing that a US-led global plot to divide Pakistan into pieces is close to fruition. Their smoking gun is a redrawn map of Pakistan (now widely redistributed over the Internet) that was published by the Armed Forces Journal in 2006. There are thousands of such journals in the US that publish all kinds of crazy ideas produced by analysts and think tanks. But our conspiracy-mongers are convinced that this lone article is irrefutable proof that "America" wishes Pakistan's dismemberment. Further, we are also cautioned that if the current democratic dispensation does not sort itself out, or is sorted out by our Khaki saviours, the skies will most definitely cave into Pakistan within months.

Yet, any attempt by the civil society or the civilian government to rethink conceptions of national interest and national security that heighten citizens' insecurity and have brought Pakistan to this sorry pass is labelled as treason by the same motley vanguards of our strategic interest and moral values. At a recent talk show organised at NUST in Islamabad, one such clown (whom I shall not name, to avoid drawing attention to his ceaseless, virulent diatribes about trivia and instead call him Mr X) declared that the present civilian rulers were all CIA agents. An inquisitive student asked what proof backed this very serious charge. His response amidst wild cheers from other students in the audience: When Zardari meets the American ambassador before swearing oath as president and when all ministers frequent the US Embassy to get security briefings, what additional evidence do we need. It was an open and shut case.

It seemed futile to argue that the PPP-led government's spineless interaction with the Bush administration was more a reflection of a decadent state, a purposeless ruling elite and a disempowered society, where unconditionally bowing before power is emerging as the accepted norm. Such, unconditional surrender to power within the country and abroad points to our alarming degeneration into a predatory state and society and not necessarily to a grand CIA design to engineer electoral outcomes in Pakistan. Mr X was outraged that Pakistan's "pseudo armchair intellectuals" wished to impose western-style democracy in a Muslim state that deserved an authoritarian system of governance. To support his thesis he argued that if democracy were allowed in our households, children would outvote parents and order in KFC all the time! Just like loving parents looked out for minor kids, a benevolent autocrat should rule our "illiterate" nation with good intentions but an iron hand.

The argument was that there is something unique about the "Muslim-psyche" that makes us ill-suited to a government of the people, for the people and by the people. We needed a strong leader who could revive national pride, self-respect and Iqbal's "khudi." Mr X emphasised that the PPP's top leadership returned under a deal guaranteed by the US and Zardari was koshered by the despicable NRO, but conveniently forgot that the other partner in the US-brokered deal was Musharraf, our army chief-president, who was the author of the NRO that whitewashed Mr Zardari. While the glib talk of Iqbal's "khudi" translated into appealing rhetoric and sound bites, Mr X did not explain how pride and self-respect could be injected in the citizens and leaders of a nation that had resigned itself to that fact that it was unfit even to govern itself.

The invidious idea that poverty, illiteracy and the peculiar nature of South Asians robs them of legal agency and renders them unfit to rule themselves was propounded in a theory called the "white-man's burden" and not Iqbal's "khudi." But it was the elixir that Mr X prescribed to get Pakistan out of the woods that gives perspective to this hackneyed narrative: the PPP government should be given six months to sort itself out; if it doesn't the military should step in and clean up all our corrupt politicians. This is a familiar argument that our hapless nation has been fed with since its inception. And we have choked on it every single time. The identity of those appealing to the "moral responsibility" of our praetorians and preparing the nation to be reinvaded and saved from the malice of our own representatives is irrelevant. But the contradictions in the failed ideology that they shamelessly continue to preach must be addressed.

Is it not amazing that the poor and the illiterate – the worst victims of malfeasance and mal-governance in the country, and the ones supposedly incapable of determining where their true good lies and thus need to be repeatedly saved by our khaki adventurers – are actually the most ardent democrats who take their right to vote seriously and exercise it every time? Is it not unbelievable that merely a few months after the demise of a dictatorship that has left the country in a deeper hole than it has ever been in, there are voices beckoning khaki messiahs to save them all over again? It is about time that we bury repeatedly failed ideas and the magical hatchet that can even dig into the rock bottom. Why must we dream of knights with shining armour or creative revolutionary ideas instead of pursuing the screamingly obvious option of building processes and institutions of democracy? This course will take time but it has a proven record of safety and workability in our neighbourhood and around the world.

It has been said before, and it must be repeatedly reiterated. No one said democracy was the most efficient system of governance – only the safest, that nurtures long-term stability. It is almost a truism that democratic chaos that enables a nation to hold leaders accountable every few years – together with an independent judiciary and a watchful media – is much better than an efficient dictatorship rooted in the contemptuous belief that a nation of 170 million Muslims is too impotent to make sensible choices about its life and future. The best thing that could happen to Pakistan is for it to be blessed with a new breed of leaders with their credibility, integrity and dignity intact and the courage and the wisdom to drag us out of the vicious cycle we are caught up in. But leaders are not conceived or born in political vacuum. The second-best option for the country, thus, is that the democratic process – however flawed and corrupt – be allowed to run uninterruptedly to provide us a chance to find and groom such leaders.

Pakistan is not a laboratory and we are not guinea pigs destined to endure failed experiments of authoritarianism and controlled democracy. Once we put to rest the debate about reinventing a tried-and-tested system of governance founded on the principles of democracy and equality, we need to reconstruct our concept of national interest and how it informs our ideas of national security and national identity. There are a few preliminary points that need to be made in this regard.

One, states are not monolithic entities. It is disingenuous to project the Armed Forces Journal as the gospel on the collective thoughts and intentions of the American people. The Bush administration pursued disastrous policies with an arrogant style, and that led to the proliferation of anti-Americanism across the world, and especially in Pakistan and the Muslim world. But that doesn't mean "America" as a whole is either evil or conspiring to bring Pakistan down. There are competing power elites within the US, as in all other countries. And we must find ways to work with policymakers within the US who comprehend the need for a rethink of the US policy towards Pakistan. Indiscriminately drumming up hate against "the evil empire" might be cathartic for some, but doesn't necessarily promote Pakistan's national interest.

Two, conspiracies have probably been hatched since time immemorial. Even within the nation-state context, all superpowers in recorded history have attempted to influence the policies and actions of other states. While foul precedents are no justification, in reality the US foreign policy has been no less or more amoral than that of any other empire in recent history. But the more crucial question for us is: Why "US conspiracies" work in some countries and not others? Why have CIA regime-change operations failed in America's backyard – against Cuba's Castro and Venezuela's Chavez – or even in our neighbourhood against Iran? If successive US administrations have been able to influence the manner in which successive Pakistani government's (both military and civilian) conceive and pursue our national interest, where does the fault really lie?

And, finally, Pakistani nationalism must not be defined by its hostility towards India or the US. Such defensive antagonism breeds paranoia and undermines self-confidence. For a majority of Pakistanis that constitute the post-1971 generation, Pakistan is as embedded a reality as can be. The idea of its creation is a historical matter that no longer needs to be defended for the sake of justifying the country's existence. It also means that this generation is free to define our purpose and our national consciousness independent of India, and we must. For reactive nationalism is continuing to fetter our true potential and calling as a nation.



The writer is a lawyer based in Islamabad. He is a Rhodes scholar and has an LL.M from Harvard Law School. Email: sattar@post.harvard.edu