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A consensus against democracy
Analysis By Khaled Ahmed
Pakistan is united against the United States, against the international community worried about Afghanistan, and against the elected government in Islamabad. It is united in favour of the Pakistan Army, gratefully, because of its resolve to oppose the world, the US and India, and it eulogises the Supreme Court because it will somehow get rid of the PPP government before its term in office. This national consensus flies on the wings of the overwhelmingly uniform media which refuses to decide what to do about terrorism in Pakistan if it is solely an American war which Pakistan should not fight.
President Asif Ali Zardari got sick and had to go to the UAE to get himself medically looked after. The media began to talk most blatantly about his 'exit' from Pakistan without realising what it would look like to anyone looking in from outside Pakistan. The two aggressive bantams it gave time to were: Chief Minister of Punjab Shahbaz Sharif whose message of sympathy for the sick president contained ironic exaggeration, thus confirming his earlier hate speech delivered so strongly that even the mikes in front of him were disturbed; and Sheikh Rashid who is betting on the Army winning the round by knocking Zardari out and winning the war against an elected government.
The visceral non-intellectual approach to presidential illness conveyed the extent of degradation Pakistan has allowed itself when it comes to democracy. The implication was that Zardari had fled the country after failing to destroy it through corruption and treason. It recalled the 'escape' from the political system by two former prime ministers: Ms Benazir Bhutto and Mr Nawaz Sharif. The quality of comment assumed that not only was the exit of Mr Zardari welcome as a step towards 'cleansing' the system from corruption but also that the earlier departures of the two prime ministers were good for Pakistan.
Even Imran Khan who is considered to be least fearful of undemocratic forces including the Army has admitted on an Indian TV channel that he is scared of the non state actors
From the nature and quality of discussion in Pakistan, it appears that there is a consensus against the democratic process and there is subliminal support to any unconstitutional replacement that may occur. No one cares for the constitution because the reflex of ignoring it in favour of military intervention is highly developed. So frequent has been the removal of the elected government in the recent past that it looks normal. The besieged PPP has had to fend against this reflex only at the cost of ignoring the inherited crises of a terrorism-disabled national economy. Those who have been toppled in the past become the topplers; and the PPP will soon enough become the next toppler after Nawaz Sharif's party takes over.
Public statements after the Memogate Affair are worshipful of the Pakistan Army; and accusations of 'treason' are being directed at an elected government. It would be a first in history of democracy if treason is presented as a crime aimed against the Army. The nation is agreed that an elected government has been guilty of trying to 'replace' the military leadership and must be ousted for exercising its right to survive military encroachment on its domain of governance. The nation praises the Army for its treasonable interference in matters of state, such as the Kerry-Lugar-Berman law, and fawns on it for taking on the world instead of getting rid of the non state actors it nourishes.
Politicians dreaming of revolution refuse to pause to think what they mean by it except that it will kill Zardari - possibly hang him the way the Pakistan-backed Taliban hanged President Najibullah in Kabul with dollars stuffed in his nostrils - and replace democracy with a utopia in which no one pays taxes and gas bills and Al Qaeda imposes piety
No one is thinking of the constitutional way of changing the government - that of challenging it to show majority in parliament or wait till the next elections in 2013 and defeat it at the polls. President Zardari has to be removed because the next elections may not be 'fair' under him. No one thinks of what the Constitution says. It is difficult to hear repetitive and mutually imitative discussions on the TV channels about how Zardari deserves to be punished. Even his efforts to survive constitutionally through coalition alliances are considered an unforgivable villainy.
Governance in Pakistan was never exemplary, and now that law and order has sunk low - because of al Qaeda and sundry other state-supported non state actors - it is possible that it would be more abysmal under any post-PPP government. Pakistan is now well set to return governments of split mandate after elections, which means coalition among unwilling partners embracing opportunism as the only creed. After the insertion of Imran Khan into the system, Nawaz Sharif has leaner chances of surviving in power. A permanently politically unstable state with an Army unwilling to let its governments be sovereign is about to enter its glissando phase.
Politicians who would remove President Zardari before causing a mid-term election to take place have policies in place to reconcile with the non state actors and let them undermine governance. Even Imran Khan who is considered to be least fearful of undemocratic forces including the Army has admitted on an Indian TV channel that he is scared of the non state actors. There are cases going on at the Supreme Court involving the PPP government and President Zardari but no one makes any pretence of remaining impartial till the honourable court has delivered its verdict. It appears as if the accused is being prejudged and the court is sought to be influenced by this groundswell of 'national consensus'.
Interior Minister Rehman Malik has thanked the Taliban for not killing innocent Shias during Ashura and ace TV anchors have joyously wondered why the Taliban have not killed as much as they normally did when Pakistan was cooperative to the US. Retired bureaucrats like Rustam Shah have welcomed the government's overtures to Maulvi Faqir Muhammad of Bajaur - which the Army has denied - and hopes that Islamabad will yield to Faqir Muhammad's savage sharia under which schools are dynamited, banks looted and businessmen kidnapped for ransom to replenish the coffers of Al Qaeda.
Pretend to be a non-Pakistani for a moment and you will see that that there is a collective lemmings-like tendency for self-destruction in all this. Intensely aroused politicians looking for populist acclaim repeat that President Zardari is partisan and that somehow it is not right that he is president and leader of the party at the same time. The truth is that the Constitution is silent on the matter and a future legislature must amend it to disallow a party leader becoming president.
Innovative legal eagles doing roaring business at the Supreme Court after doing the Long March in favour of its restoration, expect that where the Constitution is silent the Supreme Court will somehow stretch its activist agenda and remove this constitutional grey area to target Zardari. Instead of doing all this, why not wait till the next elections, and force the PPP government to meet its comeuppance? If corruption has become a national crisis and there is no way left but to kick out an elected government prematurely, again the Constitution will need to be amended, if you can't break the PPP's majority in the National Assembly.
It doesn't look nice that Pakistan is currently giving the impression of ganging up against its own elected government and that even the Supreme Court is being made to look like the bellwether of the march against democracy. The media and the politicians are at their visceral worst, if for nothing else than for the crime of consolidating the traditional supremacy of the Army. The PPP government's mode of survival, given these circumstances, is to blindly follow the lead of the Army. Those who want to pull it down loudly express their intent to do more of it.
Politicians dreaming of revolution refuse to pause to think what they mean by it except that it will kill Zardari - possibly hang him the way the Pakistan-backed Taliban hanged President Najibullah in Kabul with dollars stuffed in his nostrils - and replace democracy with a utopia in which no one pays taxes and gas bills and Al Qaeda imposes piety. No one realises that revolutions are pure destruction, at times rescued by an intellectual realisation about where they went wrong. Muslims in general and Pakistanis in particular are so intellectually deficient that a revolution in Pakistan will stop only after the agony of the invalid warrior state is ended by a second fall.
Analysis By Khaled Ahmed
Pakistan is united against the United States, against the international community worried about Afghanistan, and against the elected government in Islamabad. It is united in favour of the Pakistan Army, gratefully, because of its resolve to oppose the world, the US and India, and it eulogises the Supreme Court because it will somehow get rid of the PPP government before its term in office. This national consensus flies on the wings of the overwhelmingly uniform media which refuses to decide what to do about terrorism in Pakistan if it is solely an American war which Pakistan should not fight.
President Asif Ali Zardari got sick and had to go to the UAE to get himself medically looked after. The media began to talk most blatantly about his 'exit' from Pakistan without realising what it would look like to anyone looking in from outside Pakistan. The two aggressive bantams it gave time to were: Chief Minister of Punjab Shahbaz Sharif whose message of sympathy for the sick president contained ironic exaggeration, thus confirming his earlier hate speech delivered so strongly that even the mikes in front of him were disturbed; and Sheikh Rashid who is betting on the Army winning the round by knocking Zardari out and winning the war against an elected government.
The visceral non-intellectual approach to presidential illness conveyed the extent of degradation Pakistan has allowed itself when it comes to democracy. The implication was that Zardari had fled the country after failing to destroy it through corruption and treason. It recalled the 'escape' from the political system by two former prime ministers: Ms Benazir Bhutto and Mr Nawaz Sharif. The quality of comment assumed that not only was the exit of Mr Zardari welcome as a step towards 'cleansing' the system from corruption but also that the earlier departures of the two prime ministers were good for Pakistan.
Even Imran Khan who is considered to be least fearful of undemocratic forces including the Army has admitted on an Indian TV channel that he is scared of the non state actors
From the nature and quality of discussion in Pakistan, it appears that there is a consensus against the democratic process and there is subliminal support to any unconstitutional replacement that may occur. No one cares for the constitution because the reflex of ignoring it in favour of military intervention is highly developed. So frequent has been the removal of the elected government in the recent past that it looks normal. The besieged PPP has had to fend against this reflex only at the cost of ignoring the inherited crises of a terrorism-disabled national economy. Those who have been toppled in the past become the topplers; and the PPP will soon enough become the next toppler after Nawaz Sharif's party takes over.
Public statements after the Memogate Affair are worshipful of the Pakistan Army; and accusations of 'treason' are being directed at an elected government. It would be a first in history of democracy if treason is presented as a crime aimed against the Army. The nation is agreed that an elected government has been guilty of trying to 'replace' the military leadership and must be ousted for exercising its right to survive military encroachment on its domain of governance. The nation praises the Army for its treasonable interference in matters of state, such as the Kerry-Lugar-Berman law, and fawns on it for taking on the world instead of getting rid of the non state actors it nourishes.
Politicians dreaming of revolution refuse to pause to think what they mean by it except that it will kill Zardari - possibly hang him the way the Pakistan-backed Taliban hanged President Najibullah in Kabul with dollars stuffed in his nostrils - and replace democracy with a utopia in which no one pays taxes and gas bills and Al Qaeda imposes piety
No one is thinking of the constitutional way of changing the government - that of challenging it to show majority in parliament or wait till the next elections in 2013 and defeat it at the polls. President Zardari has to be removed because the next elections may not be 'fair' under him. No one thinks of what the Constitution says. It is difficult to hear repetitive and mutually imitative discussions on the TV channels about how Zardari deserves to be punished. Even his efforts to survive constitutionally through coalition alliances are considered an unforgivable villainy.
Governance in Pakistan was never exemplary, and now that law and order has sunk low - because of al Qaeda and sundry other state-supported non state actors - it is possible that it would be more abysmal under any post-PPP government. Pakistan is now well set to return governments of split mandate after elections, which means coalition among unwilling partners embracing opportunism as the only creed. After the insertion of Imran Khan into the system, Nawaz Sharif has leaner chances of surviving in power. A permanently politically unstable state with an Army unwilling to let its governments be sovereign is about to enter its glissando phase.
Politicians who would remove President Zardari before causing a mid-term election to take place have policies in place to reconcile with the non state actors and let them undermine governance. Even Imran Khan who is considered to be least fearful of undemocratic forces including the Army has admitted on an Indian TV channel that he is scared of the non state actors. There are cases going on at the Supreme Court involving the PPP government and President Zardari but no one makes any pretence of remaining impartial till the honourable court has delivered its verdict. It appears as if the accused is being prejudged and the court is sought to be influenced by this groundswell of 'national consensus'.
Interior Minister Rehman Malik has thanked the Taliban for not killing innocent Shias during Ashura and ace TV anchors have joyously wondered why the Taliban have not killed as much as they normally did when Pakistan was cooperative to the US. Retired bureaucrats like Rustam Shah have welcomed the government's overtures to Maulvi Faqir Muhammad of Bajaur - which the Army has denied - and hopes that Islamabad will yield to Faqir Muhammad's savage sharia under which schools are dynamited, banks looted and businessmen kidnapped for ransom to replenish the coffers of Al Qaeda.
Pretend to be a non-Pakistani for a moment and you will see that that there is a collective lemmings-like tendency for self-destruction in all this. Intensely aroused politicians looking for populist acclaim repeat that President Zardari is partisan and that somehow it is not right that he is president and leader of the party at the same time. The truth is that the Constitution is silent on the matter and a future legislature must amend it to disallow a party leader becoming president.
Innovative legal eagles doing roaring business at the Supreme Court after doing the Long March in favour of its restoration, expect that where the Constitution is silent the Supreme Court will somehow stretch its activist agenda and remove this constitutional grey area to target Zardari. Instead of doing all this, why not wait till the next elections, and force the PPP government to meet its comeuppance? If corruption has become a national crisis and there is no way left but to kick out an elected government prematurely, again the Constitution will need to be amended, if you can't break the PPP's majority in the National Assembly.
It doesn't look nice that Pakistan is currently giving the impression of ganging up against its own elected government and that even the Supreme Court is being made to look like the bellwether of the march against democracy. The media and the politicians are at their visceral worst, if for nothing else than for the crime of consolidating the traditional supremacy of the Army. The PPP government's mode of survival, given these circumstances, is to blindly follow the lead of the Army. Those who want to pull it down loudly express their intent to do more of it.
Politicians dreaming of revolution refuse to pause to think what they mean by it except that it will kill Zardari - possibly hang him the way the Pakistan-backed Taliban hanged President Najibullah in Kabul with dollars stuffed in his nostrils - and replace democracy with a utopia in which no one pays taxes and gas bills and Al Qaeda imposes piety. No one realises that revolutions are pure destruction, at times rescued by an intellectual realisation about where they went wrong. Muslims in general and Pakistanis in particular are so intellectually deficient that a revolution in Pakistan will stop only after the agony of the invalid warrior state is ended by a second fall.
