Political analysis: just join the dots

Daily Times, July 7, 2006
SECOND OPINION: Political analysis: just join the dots — Khaled Ahmed’s Review of the Urdu press

Anti-Americanism comes in two brands: aslambegism is secular; hameedgullianism is ideological. Aslambegism has less of a chance to survive. It is also more adventurist which is indicative of Aslam Beg's repeated intellectual short-circuiting

Political analysis depends on factual data. If you theorise on the basis of facts your analysis will be plausible. The heart of any theory is where no facts are available but some parallel facts point strongly to a possibility. Where conspiracy replaces thinking, the joining of imaginary dots supports the thesis already in the mind of the analyst.

Columnist Nazir Naji stated in Jang (April 28, 2006) that PMLN’s information secretary Ahsan Iqbal had compared Nepal’s recent crisis to Pakistan’s crisis under President Pervez Musharraf. He disagreed with the comparison and said that unlike Nepal the opposition in Pakistan was a part of the system created by Musharraf and was not outside it as in the case of Nepal. But he added that America and India had come in to make King Gyanendra change his mind because they feared that the Nepalese army might become the target of the people. It meant that when an army is threatened then big powers come in to aid the army.

Ahsan Iqbal’s rather loose analogy was forgivable since politicians are perhaps duty-bound to vulgarise anything they touch. That is what ‘politicisation’ is meant for. But Naji’s comparison between the Nepalese army and the Pakistani army was a bit of a stretch. More clearly, the big powers including China rally around whoever is in power. The problem is really with power. In Nepal it had shifted away from the king. In Pakistan too, when it shifts conclusively, it will be time for the big powers, including China, to make an adjustment.

Quoted in Nawa-e-Waqt (April 30, 2006) ex-army chief Aslam beg said that America had decided to get rid of the Musharraf government. A woman, Ms Bhutto, was able to defy America and defend the nuclear programme but a man in the person of Musharraf had kowtowed and agreed to keep AQ Khan in confinement by diverting the pressure on to the scientist. He said Ms Bhutto had threatened India with a nuclear strike through foreign minister Yaqub Khan which had scared India. Musharraf had no clue what was happening in Pakistan. The Americans will destroy Pakistan but keep Balochistan in hand.

How will America get rid of Musharraf? One sure way would be to support the ARD-MMA combine. This will depend on what happens in the coming months, especially after July 31, 2006 (and September 2006). The mainstream PPP and PMLN are mature enough to keep the door open to American support, but others like Qazi and Imran have decided which way America will go. The leverage is always there: between America and EU 60 percent of Pakistan’s exports are absorbed. Aslam Beg is very ordinary because he hates America like everybody else. The ARD is more realistic. Anti-Americanism comes in two brands: aslambegism is secular; hameedgullianism is ideological. Aslambegism has less of a chance to survive. Aslambegism is also more adventurist which is simply indicative of Aslam Beg’s repeated intellectual short-circuiting. He was wrong on the Iraq war simply because he made a perilous prediction with a short-term denouement. About Yaqub Khan, Ms Bhutto got him as a part of Aslam Beg’s bargain with her. She cannot be held responsible for what Yaqub Khan did. That is also a rare blot on Yaqub Khan’s career.

Taking offence on President Musharraf’s idea of voluntary veil (that a woman who chooses to go unveiled cannot be coerced into wearing one) Hafiz Saeed said in Nawa-e-Waqt (April 29, 2006) that this was the thinking of one individual and had nothing to do with Islam. He said this was encouragement of obscenity in society. He said Islam did not allow women to go out unveiled.

Hafiz Said is paying Musharraf back for favours granted. He is taking advantage of Musharraf’s ill-considered retention of the ‘jihad option’ vis-à-vis India. In Pakistan hijab has never been compulsory but the Deobandi-jihadi underworld has already announced that all Pakistani women would be forcibly put under the veil. Maulana Azam Tariq vowed that he would enforce the veil in a number of cities as an experiment, but he was shot full of bullets by his rivals in 2004. The clerics will have to come to power to enforce hijab or they will have to become more powerful than the state itself to enforce it de facto. We will then have to condemn Pakistan’s history retrogressively: that Fatima Jinnah was an apostate, etc.

Columnist Nazir Naji wrote in Jang (April 29, 2006) that Indian films were banned in Pakistan after the 1965 war, but before that an agitation against Indian films was led by top stars like Santosh Kumar and producers because they feared competition with India. The government had banned new Indian movies but the old ones could be still seen in Pakistan till 1965. But those who thought competition was wrong were proved to be at fault. The producers made windfall profits after 1965 but they could meet neither the demand for quantity nor quality. Finally the Pakistani film industry collapsed without Indian movies entering the Pakistani market.

It is true that Pakistan’s film industry flourished under protectionism. It seemed the right thing to do. The world was not yet obsessed with free market and Pakistan was fighting wars with India, with the film industry partly acting as war propaganda. It is quite natural that the greenhouse of cinema in Pakistan is being dismantled by the rough winds of competition, not only because of the changing politics but also through new technology.

Quoted in Nawa-e-Waqt (May 4, 2006) clerical alliance MMA protested strongly against the opening of an FBI office in Chitral which was a sensitive locality abutting Afghanistan, China and Tajikistan, which was against the security of Pakistan. The paper also published the news picked up from TV channel ABC that Osama bin Laden could be in Chitral because there were reports that some Arabs had come down in jeeps from the Afghan border and bought food supplies in the Chitral market before they disappeared back in Afghanistan.

As things stand today, Osama could be anywhere in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Many observers think he could be in some big Pakistani city because most of Al Qaeda terrorists have been arrested from or killed there. *