Plain Words
To boycott or not to boycott
THE opposition parties are making a spectacle of themselves. The All Parties Democratic Movement, minus JUI of Maulana Fazlur Rehman, has decided that the January 8 election should be boycotted. The reason given is that it is unlikely to be free, and would only perpetuate Mr. Pervez Musharraf's rule.
Behind Musharraf looms the Pakistan army, whose new chief was his confidante. The PPP chairperson will contest the election, with a fig leaf of doing so under protest. Anyhow, both JUI of Maulana Fazlur Rehman and PPP are sure to contest the election.
The need for unity of all opposition parties arises from the absence of democracy and presence of entrenched authoritarian forces in the country. The army has cornered power, which has been running or manipulating the country for much of 60 years. But it has done so in a way that has made it the darling of the country's social elites.
Big business, bankers, major industrialists, and even the trading community as a whole, irresistibly warm towards a military ruler; because the army provides a supposedly strong government that keeps the people quiet, which is good for business. Big business has, so far, liked all Martial Laws. That is unlikely to change.
But the need for united opposition arises from the fact that the ordinary citizens do not enjoy all the civil liberties the way western people do. In democracies, people's right to civil liberties is respected by courts, governments, political parties and all state agencies. In Pakistan self-perceived strongmen have ruled autocratically, whether they were democratic governments of PPP or PML(N) or a general's government.
Take the case of the treatment of the judges of superior courts. PPP's record is not a bright one; remember the harassment of Justice Sajjad Ali Shah and his family. Mian Nawaz Sharif's goons, led by a cabinet minister, stormed the Supreme Court and the judges had to run for their lives. What General Musharraf did on March 9 was a tad less crude than what happened in 1997. Factually, there is a strong element of commonality between major parties and the army itself.
The army flaunts its faith in Pakistan ideology, and makes others follow it despite its vagueness. It shares the value system of the feudals. It is a thoroughly conservative force dedicated to keeping the society as it has always been. Now look at the major parties: PML(N), PML(Q), PPP, or take the innards of smaller nationalistic parties that often pass as being left-inclined. Their leaderships belong to, or are descended from, the feudal class. Socially, they are as conservative as any Muslim Leaguer.
All these parties have an unwritten agreement with the military to leave the fundamentals of the social system untouched. Society with all its inequities must remain as it has always been. This is how the attraction of offices under the leadership of a general, or even a former general, is stronger than the facts about fundamental rights and democratic norms.
These parties implicitly accept the apologies to the west that these strongmen make about "doing things their own way." Pakistanis are supposed to be quite different from westerners; the police and other law enforcing agencies can beat them. They can be made to "disappear," "writ of the government has to run," and so forth in the name of Pakistan ideology.
Even the conduct of a PPP government, or the life within the party, is autocratic. The same applies to PML(N); the other day its central body left the final decision about election participation to Nawaz Sharif alone. Their acquaintance with democratic working of parties and governments has been more theoretical than real.
The fact is that since the two main parties (JUI and PPP) will participate, all others will follow suit. They cannot leave the field to others. The sight of other parties' members becoming ministers in the government is unacceptable. "If A can get a ministership, or chairmanship of a parliamentary committee, why can't my party allow me to do the same," a feudalist argues.
While there is a case for unity because people should have the freedoms a democracy guarantees, so is there a case for disunity: the lure of office has been strong enough to overcome the appeal of democratic norms and methods. After all, participating in a military-led government is seen as doing no great harm to society or to their own standing. Since their ideas on social matters remain undisturbed, what is wrong in participating, in winning ministerships and being happy. Which is a basic case for disunity.
The sad fact is that the army, or army-dominated or army-controlled, governments are actually acceptable to PPP, PML(Q), MQM, and many smaller parties. This is Pakistan's rightwing consensus, and it includes the army and all the other social elite groups. Their relationship with the free-enterprise west is historically close and ideological; their worldview is common with the west. There is, however, a new contradiction to be noted.
This is the emergence of a new middle class in the Punjab -- other provinces have not seen the process. Only Karachi boasts of a middle class that constitutes what is known as civil society. It is relatively affluent and educated. It is aware of the denial of political liberties that are freely available in democracies. Its love for democracy is genuine.
Today, civil society is being led by lawyers, who ran a four months long successful campaign for the restoration of the chief justice of Pakistan. They mean to continue the movement until they get the restoration of the chief justice and other judges now under internment. They need democracy keenly enough, and will not rest until they get it.
But civil society, luminous as it is, is politically weak. When pitted against the phalanx of the upper classes serried behind military-led governments they need the support of either the larger mainstream parties or of left parties, if there are any. As it happens, there are no cognisable left parties.
The destruction of the Left was the achievement of the past Pakistan governments. They destroyed students' movements, banned unions, and prevented teachers from having effective trade unions. The normal industrial phenomenon, trade unionism, has been all but destroyed. Most of the trade unionists have been purchased or co-opted; some stragglers are left. The lower social orders have no organisation; they have no voice. Their political clout today is zero.
The country's alliance with the West enabled Cento's anti-subversion funds to destroy the left groups, trade unions and students' movements. That happened in the 1960s and 1970s. The Pakistan that used to talk of social inequities, workers, peasants and the karigars has now disappeared. This weakens the middle class no end, because its natural allies would have been the leftists in the fight for all freedoms.
If the idea of a boycott means boycotting the election and going home to sleep, it will surely leave the field to all others, no matter if they are opportunists. To be significant, the boycott should accompany a fierce popular agitation for democratic freedoms, beginning with the restoration of the Supreme Court and High Courts as they existed on November 2 last, and the rescuing of the Constitution from the deforming amendments that had been forced by successive generals to make the president all powerful at the expense of a show boy prime minister, including what this latest PCO has done.
The question of provincial autonomy that will satisfy smaller provinces can no longer be postponed indefinitely. Without an all-out political struggle, boycott means nothing. It is a silly thing if it stands alone as some kind of virtuous gesture.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel.
Comments