Author: Ghazi Salahuddin
Publication: The Jang
Date: June 15, 2003
URL: http://jang.com.pk/thenews/jun2003-daily/15-06-2003/oped/o2.htm
Considering the influence that America
exercises over our lives and our national sense of direction, we should
have a right to vote for the president of the United States. But we did
not even vote for our own president. He seems to have been 'elected' for
us by the present American administration. At the same time, democracy
is said to be the name of the game. At least that is the American ideal
and the inspiration that many of us have gained from America's historical
experience. Somehow, the making of the new free world after the end of
the cold war has been disrupted by 9/11. And Afghanistan. And Iraq. So
where do we belong in this sorry scheme of things entire?
Fortunately, America would support
President Gen Pervez Musharraf's freshly articulated resolve to challenge
religious extremists. This should be a major point of reference in President
Musharraf's meeting with President George W. Bush at Camp David in about
a week's time. We can expect the US to prescribe a proper strategy for
creation of conditions in which Pakistan does not become a breeding ground
for al-Qaeda activists. It is interesting that President Musharraf has
now identified the threat of Talibanisation. This expression has been used
for a long time by us, the poor scribes, though the rulers gave little
heed to our warnings.
Unfortunately, the entire issue
of how the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal, the religious alliance, came into being
and became a key element in the combined opposition's campaign against
the Legal Framework Order is the offspring of President Musharraf's own
convoluted devices. Again, many of us had seen this coming in the wake
of a rigged electoral process. Pakistan has suffered because its liberal
and democratic political forces were wilfully alienated.
All this has left our society in
a state of disequilibrium. We do hear good tidings on the economic front
but the present arrangement is visibly under pressure. With the MMA in
power in the crucial Frontier province, bordering Afghanistan, and leading
the offensive against the king's party at the centre, it would appear as
if democracy in Pakistan would inevitably promote religious militancy.
Should the US, then, support democratic dispensation in Pakistan or a chief
of the army staff who came into power by overthrowing an elected government
and then became president through constitutionally dubious means?
We know that the choice is not a
simple one. Essentially, America has also to contend with widespread anti-American
feelings in not just the Muslim world but also, after the Iraq war, in
many western countries. In Pakistan, MMA has effectively mobilised this
feeling and it also serves as a barrier to America's war against terrorism
in this region. In fact, a large segment of the MMA was seen as an ally
of the Taliban in Afghanistan and it is feared that the Frontier province
and the tribal belt along the Afghan frontier may serve as a sanctuary
for al-Qaeda and Taliban activists.
America's predicament as the sole
superpower has become a subject of intense analysis and interpretation
at the global level. Many observers compare its present influence with
the supremacy of the British Empire in the nineteenth century. One historian,
Niall Ferguson, has said that the United States is the empire that dare
not speak its name. "It is an empire in denial, and the US denial of this
poses a real danger to the world. An empire that doesn't recognise its
own power is a dangerous one". The gist of it all is that no country can
ignore America's power and its policies. The New York Times columnist Thomas
Friedman has quoted a Pakistani diplomat as saying that during the nineties,
America began to touch people's lives around the planet "more than their
own governments".
Without going into the mind-boggling
statistics of America's military, economic and technological power, we
have also to realise what America is unable to do, as the situation in
Iraq would testify. What it can do in Pakistan is something that we should
seriously ponder at a time when President Musharraf is about to go to the
States and to other important European capitals. Irrespective of what our
feelings are about the 'empire', it should be a source of some satisfaction
for us that President Musharraf will be an honoured visitor to be received
by President Bush at Camp David.
According to The Washington Post,
some Bush aides were worried about how India would react to the visit but
intelligence agencies strongly supported the Camp David treatment for President
Musharraf as a "reward for his continuing help in the war on terrorism".
This, perhaps, does not mean that we would not be assigned some new responsibilities
that may require adjustments in policies that our present rulers have pursued
in divergence with the spirit of that famous U-turn. It is expected that
America would want us to take firm measures against al- Qaeda establishing
a base in Pakistan. In addition, we would be required to improve our relations
with India.
In both these areas, the growth
of Islamic fundamentalism and relations with India, Pakistan's military
establishment has played a dominant role. The problem now is that any new
initiatives in this context would call for some decisive moves in the domestic
arena. Chances for reconciliation between India and Pakistan promise a
new era of hope in the area of darkness that South Asia has become. But
will President Musharraf make the necessary moves, resolve the LFO deadlock
and restore democratic norms in the country's politics? Both America's
and President Musharraf's policies will be severely tested in the wilderness
of Pakistan's political and social conditions.
Let us look at the state of our
society at this time when our two-in-one leader is set to appear on the
world stage and claim high credit for his own and his country's performance.
We can be sure that he plays his role rather well. That his image as a
confident and impressive ally of the west is in conflict with the headlines
Pakistan has generated is something that the international audience would
have to sort out.
In any case, the available state
of our society is not to be ignored by those who take ground realities
into account in deciphering Pakistan's political and social drift. Our
American friends, who have a vested interest in the evolution of a tolerant,
plural and progressive polity in this country, particularly need to gauge
the aftermath of the October elections. At the moment, acts of terrorism
and organised violence have portrayed a frightening law and order situation.
A six-page spread in the latest issue of Time magazine on Karachi, "Asia's
roughest, toughest town" makes scary reading.
Finally, is the choice in Pakistan
starkly between President Musharraf and the MMA? This assumption would
naturally place President Musharraf in a very strong position from the
standpoint of our guardians in Washington DC. But it would not be rational
to countenance this equation because it has been contrived by the establishment.
Moreover, the king's party, fortified by political turncoats, is forever
willing to make a deal with the MMA. We must not forget that the present
government has gained its strength from its support to America's war on
terror. A logical continuation of that U-turn would be for the ruling establishment
to make peace with its traditional adversaries -- the liberal and democratic
forces. This would amount to accepting what democracy actually means.
(The writer is a staff member ghazi_salahuddin@hotmail.com)
