Points to Ponder

Dawn, April 15, 2006
Problems of Pakistani horsemanship
By Ayaz Amir

“You have sat too long for any good you have been doing lately...Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go.”

— Cromwell to the “rump parliament” (April 1653)

THERE’s a time to stay and a time to go. Mrs Thatcher in the end had committed no disaster. After eleven years in the saddle even her own party was tired of her and her swinging handbag.

Tony Blair, who has given an entirely new meaning to poodle-ism, is experiencing the same moment. Tired of his grinning face and his talent for mouthing the most shattering platitudes with the utmost solemnity, more and more people just want him to go.

Have we arrived at the same moment in Pakistan? There is certainly a sense of ennui and weariness in the air. Even the battalions of the so-called ‘liberal-minded’ — who were convinced that the horse-riders of October 12, 1999, were ushering in a velvet revolution — feel lost and betrayed.

Come to think of it, when such a diehard army-supporter as old bureaucrat Roedad Khan — who has loyally served every tinpot ruler in living memory, and who unabashedly welcomed the October dispensation — turns into champion of democracy you can imagine the plight of the liberati.

And when even the Yanks, leading defenders of the present order, become doubters, firing off statements loaded with innuendo, the sense of siege around the ramparts of ‘enlightened moderation’ becomes stronger.

Imagine a visiting assistant secretary of state, one of several in the State Department, saying that the US favoured civilian control over the armed forces. Since when, pray? As long as it suited them, our American friends have been quite happy with military lordship over all things civilian. So why this new tune?

The law of diminishing returns is applicable not only to economics but also to politics. Rulers dressed in tinpot armour tend to forget that their usefulness is limited and transient. Great powers are only too happy to use them, and make much of them while they are useful; and only too happy to discard them when their usefulness is over or not what it used to be.

(De Gaulle on the impermanence of some things: “Treaties are like roses and young girls. They last while they last.” He could have said the same about the usefulness of regional tinpots. It lasts while it lasts.)

Ayub was a hot American favourite when he seized power in 1958. Eleven years later, when the world was no longer the same, he felt cold vibes coming from Washington. Almost the same thing happened to Zia. There couldn’t have been a greater American favourite when the CIA was bankrolling and arming the anti-Soviet Afghan resistance. When the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan, Zia found his importance diminished.

The camaraderie of Camp David, where our president was feted as a reward for Pakistan’s services in the attack on Afghanistan, seems so long ago. Post September 11, our president was the most sought-after figure at annual meetings of the UN General Assembly. That also seems long ago.

It’s the way of the world and there’s no getting around it. September 11 happened in 2001. The landscape looks a lot different four and a half years later. Because the Americans were preparing to attack Afghanistan they were desperate to get Pakistan on board. Today the American priority in Afghanistan is to defeat the Taliban and shore up the Karzai regime. And for this it wants Pakistan to do more, no matter even if that means fomenting near-civil war conditions in Pakistan’s tribal belt along the Afghan frontier.

Imagine if an American assistant secretary of state, visiting Caracas, had told Venezuela what to do. The lesson he would have received from Hugo Chavez. We treat imperial messengers differently. Not even a whimper of a protest when they pass comments about our internal affairs.

Not that the message is to be faulted. We all want democracy and if the Americans too, for reasons of their own, are saying the same thing, so much the better. As for civilian control over the military, it won’t happen in my lifetime but it is good to hear this sentiment especially from a quarter which has lent the most support to our military. Pakistan democracy can do with all the help it gets. Still, how much better if we conducted the democracy discourse ourselves.

Just goes to show what we have reduced ourselves to. Of what use all our extended cantonments, huge army, two plus armoured divisions, missiles and nuke capability if we can’t put our house in order and we have to take dictation from outsiders? Nations are not always at war. Yet they retain armies for self-defence and to boost national confidence. We are a nuclear power. But when even that is not enough to bolster self-confidence, something is seriously wrong with the national condition.

Before importing Iranian gas it wouldn’t be a bad idea exploring the possibility of importing a bit of Iranian spine. Not that we should follow the Iranian road or take lessons in rhetoric from the Iranian president. But it might prevent us from turning wimpishness into the nation’s leading art form. There is, however, a crucial difference. Wimpishness towards outsiders comes accompanied with two-fisted arrogance (both fists raised in the air a much-favoured gesture) for the people of Pakistan.

Does empty showmanship impress anyone? After eleven years at the helm Ayub was a pathetic figure. So was Zia after an equally long innings. The present dispensation could have made the transition from militarism to constitutional legitimacy. But that would have required vision and courage, two commodities in short supply in Pakistan. So it finds itself boxed into a corner.

If, in the quest for security, the president sticks to his uniform, the credibility of the coming elections is destroyed. If he takes it off, he risks the collapse of the flaky political order in place since the last elections.

The Americans want a friendly Pakistan but also a stable one. They are not ditching Musharraf. (Why should they when he is the best bet they have?) They are only urging him to open the windows and let some fresh breeze come in. The advice is well meant but Musharraf can be forgiven for construing it as the kiss of death. Dictator-figures know instinctively that authoritarianism and open windows do not go together.

Systems founded on personal agendas are not open to reform. They stay the way they are or they go. There is no halfway house. That is why the time may have come to remember Cromwell’s words to the “rump parliament”.

Our sense of priorities, however, never ceases to amaze. A day after the carnage at Nishtar Park, Karachi, when it might have been supposed that all eyes would be on this tragedy, the federal cabinet approved the F-16 deal with the US (a deal temporarily put on hold because of last year’s earthquake). It is not known how many planes we will eventually go for. The figure mentioned last year was between 50 and 70 aircraft (the whole deal said to be worth anything between three to five billion dollars).

Are there no better uses for this money? Whom are we planning to fight? Afghanistan, India, Uzbekistan? Our problem is not likely external aggression but the all- too-real mess at home, the fires raging within. In what way are F-16s, fifty of them or even a hundred, expected to take care of this problem?