The Khaki Man’s Burden

Daily Times, July 2, 2006
VIEW: The Khaki Man’s burden —Ahmad Faruqui

We find that Pakistan’s Khaki Man is toiling to save an ungrateful nation. But why? In private conversations, uniformed officers from generals down to lieutenants concede that the people of Pakistan are not fit for democracy, since they are unruly, illiterate and corrupt. In public statements, they blame the politicians for bringing the country to the verge of ruin

About two weeks ago, Nigeria’s President Olusegun Obasanjo, a former military dictator who was elected to office after taking off his uniform in 1999, announced that he would not seek a third term. A week later, General Pervez Musharraf told Al Arabiya television that the uniform was like a “second skin” for him and he would seek re-election for a third term. The un-stated sub-text was that he will continue to wear the uniform for at least another five years.

How does one explain the divergence between the actions of Nigeria’s former dictator and Pakistan’s current dictator? Let us step back in time to the year 1899 (a hundred years before Musharraf’s coup), when that great poet of imperialism, Rudyard Kipling, penned a paean to the White Man’s burden.

Kipling, who was born and raised in Lahore and at one time edited the Civil and Military Gazette, called upon the Americans who had invaded the Philippines to shoulder the White Man’s burden, as the British had done:

Send forth the best ye breed,

Go bind your sons to exile

To serve your captives’ need;

To wait in heavy harness,

On fluttered folk and wild,

Your new-caught, sullen peoples,

Half-devil and half-child.

Kipling’s White Man would have to “abide in patience”, to “veil the threat of terror” and to “check the show of pride”. He would be called upon to “wage the savage wars of peace” and to “toil endlessly” to end famine and sickness. He would have to be prepared for the hate of those he guarded and the ungratefulness of those he brought out of bondage, those “silent, sullen peoples/Shall weigh your gods and you”. In the end, after all those thankless years, the White Man would have to search his manhood, only to come up “Cold, edged with dear-bought wisdom/The judgment of your peers!”

Fast forward to 2006 and we find that Pakistan’s Khaki Man is toiling to save an ungrateful nation. But why? In private conversations, uniformed officers from generals down to lieutenants concede that the people of Pakistan are not fit for democracy, since they are unruly, illiterate and corrupt. In public statements, they blame the politicians for bringing the country to the verge of ruin. During the Musharraf years, the blame is placed at the door of the leaders of the two largest political parties. During the Ayub years, all politicians were held accountable, found wanting and forbidden by the EBDO law from engaging in political activities.

Ayub was the first Khaki Man to assert that the army had been given the task of saving the people from themselves and that it would take two generations before they would be ready for self-rule. Of course, while arguing this position, he had no hesitation in recommending self-rule for the people of “occupied” Kashmir.

Viewed in this light, it is not surprising to hear today’s Khaki Man saying: “At the end of the day I am a soldier and I love to wear the uniform”. He said the uniform was a part of his being and “in fact” his second skin, when it would have sufficed to say that it was second skin, in a manner of speaking. Musharraf went on to say that his wearing the uniform had been good for the country and the fulfilment of a constitutional requirement. One of these days he will be telling us that his coup also represented the fulfilment of a future constitutional requirement that was only known to him at the time.

Of course, Zia had essentially said the same thing when he said that his uniform had been sewn into his skin. So why do Pakistan’s Khaki Men insist on wearing the uniform till the bitter end? Because they know that the moment they lose their uniform, they will lose all their power. Their uniform carries the same power as Samson’s hair. A biblical figure, he was known to have performed heroic feats unachievable by ordinary men such as wrestling a lion, slaying an entire army with nothing more than a mule’s jawbone, and tearing down an entire building. When Delilah, his female companion, betrayed him to his enemies, they shaved off his hair, gouged out his eyes and put him in irons.

So don’t expect the uniform to come off any time soon. In the mean time, the Khaki Man will continue to afflict his burden on the society. The visible aspect of this is the defence burden, measured by the ratio of defence spending to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). This bears almost no resemblance to the optimal ratio that would be derived from an objective analysis of Pakistan’s security environment. According to governmental data, the defence burden has declined to a mere 2.8 percent of GDP, which is very near the optimal number. But is there any independent economist out there, i.e., one who is not beholden to either the government or the international lending agencies, who believes the government’s figures, especially those relating to defence spending?

And, even if one was to accept the government’s numbers, they measure only the tip of the iceberg. A bigger burden is placed on civil society by the intrusion of the military in commercial corporate activity and nowadays even in non-commercial affairs, such as running universities. So, even if defence spending were to be cut, it would not affect the military’s ability to extract rents from the populace.

So why has Nigeria’s Khaki Man chosen a different path? He too rules a large nation with a long history of military rule. In fact, President Obasanjo’s supporters wanted to amend the Constitution to enable him to run for a third term but the parliament defeated the measure and Obasanjo wisely accepted its decision. Obasanjo backers had argued that he needed more time to complete his reforms but opponents said an extension would undermine democracy. Pakistan’s parliamentarians should talk to their Nigerian counterparts.

And Musharraf should talk to Obasanjo, who restored Nigeria to financial health and shed his uniform. The Nigerian economy grew at 8 percent this year (faster than Pakistan’s) and it has become the first country in Africa to pay off its foreign debt of $30 billion to the Paris Club (while Pakistan carries a foreign debt that is close to $38 billion).

If Obasanjo was able to tame the coup-prone Nigerian army, surely Musharraf can do the same. And it would be best to do it while he is still in the good books of the Americans.

Dr Ahmad Faruqui is director of research at the American Institute of International Studies and can be reached at Faruqui@pacbell.net