Plain Words
The inescapable dilemma
PAKISTANIS face a painful dilemma; but it has to be decided one way or another. This dilemma takes many shapes and formulations, all inter-related. But the reality remains the same.
The issue is whether the War on Terror Pakistan has to fight should be fought in the way the Americans want or should Pakistanis make their own alterations or evolve new strategies to tackle the problem of Islamic extremism inside Pakistan, and the question of Afghan Taliban finding refuge in Pakistan.
If Pakistanis are to go along with American wishes, they are required to keep President Pervez Musharraf in power and the emergent government would be required to strengthen his hand so as to prosecute the war more vigorously.
Finding a new strategy relating to Islamic extremism and the Afghan policy requires vigorous democracy at home, including the release of judges, undoing of all that ex-General Musharraf did on November 3, and sending him home. This can be reformulated; either Mr. Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry resumes his job as the Supreme Court head or President Musharraf continues to rule Pakistan and the judges remain in limbo, while democracy has to make do with the extraordinary powers of President Musharraf.
This is zero hour, when a decision has to be made. A new government is still about two weeks away. Will it remember the reason why the voters to the Musharraf-supporting PML (Q) or to religious parties preferred the winners? This was largely due to the lawyers' movement that will become more intense and expand with more in the intelligentsia and civil society, and more parties, joining in, if the new government does not quickly accept its demand. It will not be a bed of roses for the government.
Remember the likelihood, of the raising of user charges in order to pass on the accumulated subsidies to the consumer that impends. Other necessary economic measures would create a climate of popular anger, and new opposition will grow. The coming popular political behaviour can be imagined. New men are in as a result of the vote for change. So they have to bring significant and necessary changes.
True, Americans have removed all stops; all US-loving powers, mainly Nato powers, are openly engaged in coercive diplomacy on winning parties. The objective is to persuade PPP, PML (N) and other parties to line up with the western strategy of fighting this endless War on Terror. This is to be done militarily, the way the Americans are doing. This requirement translates into strengthening Musharraf's hand by being a government under him.
This was why the Americans had brokered the deal between Musharraf and late Ms. Benazir Bhutto. It does look as if the Americans are insisting on both sides to observe its terms. The Saudis are to persuade Mian Nawaz Sharif to be more flexible and tolerant of Musharraf. This kind of diplomacy is only seen in the case of failed states. Pakistanis can take heart from Nepalese politicians, who rejected foreign advice and made their own peace last year.
The PPP and PML (N) and others should remember a few facts; Pakistanis want to remain an independent people; they do not want their government to be at the beck and call of any foreign power. They also want to set up a democratic dispensation. They hate dictatorships. Pakistanis have shown this by keeping all the dictators politically on the defensive through denying them legitimacy.
Their desired democracy had better make human rights actually enforceable. That translates into an independent judiciary and a sovereign parliament. It also presupposes free media -- electronic press and films. They also want their democratic government to be committed to social justice and an economic development that is oriented not so much toward GDP growth as toward creation of jobs and ending of unemployment and poverty. Without social justice no Pakistani will be satisfied.
This is one reason why the lawyers' movement, and the judges, cannot be left to strew in their own juice. Apart from law and order problems, this would break the nation's unity and weaken the new government' despite its electoral credentials; it may not last long.
Needless to say, the lawyers' objective are what everyone shares; no one can disagree that the judiciary should be independent, and the executive should not be as powerful as it has been in Pakistan. That will strengthen the new democratic government. The legislature has to be not merely theoretically supreme but also be competent as a sovereign body.
The economy has been mismanaged during the last eight years. Far too much was spent on non-essentials, not to say wastefully. Which is why inflation rates are high. There is no other way of defining inflation. All the major macro-economic indicators have been steadily going down during the last three years -- negating the stabilisation of macro-economic indicators of the early Musharraf years. The new government is required to change the whole economic ambience.
There has to be more stability in prices through serious thought, and initiating development of the desirable kind. All unnecessary expenditures, including the foolish arms race with India at this time, need to be cut down. The economy has to be stabilised first, and put on the path of not merely growth but also of actual development in real sectors and not merely in the services sector alone.
The new rulers ought to realise their responsibility, and see the amount of work that awaits them. That should make them alive to political imperatives.
Coming back to the current difficulties vis-à-vis Afghanistan, America, war on rerror, Taliban, and Islamic extremism's various manifestations inside Pakistan. These are Pakistan's problems, and should be resolved by Pakistanis in an informed and rational way. Creative thinking is needed.
It presupposes a reappraisal of the policies that Islamabad has followed vis-à-vis Afghanistan, and of Islamabad's own contribution in the promotion of Islamic extremism, sectarianism, various jihads and the absolutely unrealistic policies of trying to dominate Afghanistan while Pakistan itself has remained a satellite state of the US. Foolish are imperial pretensions when that imperialism itself rides piggyback on foreign aid.
The Americans have virtually no idea how to fight the Taliban or al-Qaeda, or any other extremist or terrorist group. They only rely on superior fire-power and technical intelligence in order to fight them. That merely aggravates the problem, and produces more terrorists through so-called collateral damage that goes on increasing. About a million Iraqis have perished.
How many thousands of Afghans have died cannot reliably be known; known facts are far too sketchy and far too suited to the exigencies of public relations of the Nato powers. Few see an American victory in either Afghanistan or Iraq.
Indeed, the American actions have finally destroyed the state of Afghanistan, and the current efforts to create a new state under an American nominee, Hamid Karzai, does not promise success. Iraq may either survive against the machinations of American diplomacy or divide itself into three states, and also possibly cause mayhem throughout the Middle East.
Pakistanis cannot afford to follow American policies in Afghanistan or in Pakistan's tribal areas. The Americans know too little about these places or, for that matter, Islam and its spirit.
As has been noted, Pakistanis have to find a way of reconciling the demands of Islam with the political realities of Afghanistan, and find a modus operandi through democratic means and intelligent understanding of the wishes of people in Afghanistan and in Pakistan and the tribal areas.
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