analysis: Regimental messes

[fatman17]

analysis: Regimental messes —Salman Tarik Kureshi

Tearing up the Constitution, General Zia ended the civilian interregnum of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. The eleven-year-long darkness of his satanic rule now descended. It was the script of a horror story: pain, public floggings, so many executions, people strung up and hanged on public television

It is incongruous to hear the names of former Presidents Marcos of the Philippines and Abacha of Nigeria being mentioned in the context of Pakistan today. The first of these suspended his country’s Constitution and declared Martial Law. As a civilian Martial Law dictator, Marcos committed human rights violations and crimes against democracy and amassed a personal fortune that included $ 600 million identified in Swiss bank accounts. His involvement in the murder of a political opponent sparked massive protests and brought on his overthrow in the People’s Power movement that brought Ms Corazon (‘Cory’) Aquino to power.

General Sani Abacha played major roles in successive military coups and then seized power on his own. His regime was notorious for immense corruption (allegedly $ 4 billion were stolen from his country), gross misuse of power, brutality and murder of political opponents. Declared ‘Thug of the Year’ by Time magazine, he died in 1998. His successor, General Abubakar, realising that perhaps enough was enough, commenced a process that led to a federal democratic Constitution for Nigeria and free and open multi-party elections.

This commentator fails to see even a superficial similarity between our present ruling government, its numerous failings notwithstanding, and these two absolutist destroyers of Constitutions. In Nigeria, which I happened to be visiting on business at the time of Musharraf’s seizure of power in Pakistan by the military, my friend Maduka Ezikuseli quoted to me, “Even the worst kind of democracy is preferable to the best dictatorship.”

“When you Pakistanis restored your Constitution,” argued Maduka, “and put elected governments in place, we Nigerians were happy that a Muslim country had renounced military rule. After many long years of watching Nigeria being ruined by a string of uniformed usurpers, we have installed an elected government and parliament here. But you people have chosen to slide backwards.” My African friend’s harsh judgement was in contrast to the views I was to hear from some allegedly ‘educated’ Pakistani professionals and, indeed, from numerous political personalities. Everybody, it seems, had his own idea of the political or administrative goodies that he or she believed the regime of General-cum-Chief Executive Musharraf was going to dispense to the nation. Pakistanis, it seems, had learned nothing from our own past.

Amazingly, even today, we hear noises just off stage — throat-clearings, as it were, of what could become a chorus of laddoo lovers, celebrating our nation’s next return to regimental rule. Let us quickly look back at the past, before we descend again to tragedy. Or just plain farce. Or something far worse.

One begins, of course, with the self-proclaimed Field Marshal. Ayub Khan’s regime was noteworthy for its efficiency in governance, when the trains ran on time, for the first and last time in this country’s history. This was of course the archetypal post-colonial military despotism, which many others in Africa and Asia would rush to emulate. Nehru’s ‘neutral’ India was effectively a Soviet ally; therefore, anti-communist US poured its largesse into Ayub’s Pakistan. US academicians like Gustav Papenak and Samuel Huntington became almost oriental in their eulogies. The former extolled the ‘robber barons’ of Pakistan’s business elite who, in collaboration with an increasingly corrupt bureaucracy, built an (albeit heavily protected) industrial base. The latter, more recently notorious for his post-Cold War ‘Clash of Civilisations’ fantasising, acclaimed Ayub Khan as “That Solon, that Lycurgus, that great institution-builder”. In point of fact, few people have been more adept at dismantling institutions than the Field Marshal whose governmental style, although effective, was highly centralised and personal.

For all his errors, his authoritarianism, his elitist contempt for his fellow countrymen, his near-racist attitude towards the inhabitants of our former Eastern Wing, Ayub is regarded by many with respect. There are still those who regard his time as a ‘golden page’ in our history books. But his achievements (like those of other personalised rulers) did not extend beyond his personal reach. As the country matured, the extent of his effectiveness became inadequate. The edifices he built around himself crumbled. Ayub’s personalised rule was, as Justice Rustam Kayani famously said, similar to the Ghanta Ghar in Faisalabad, which dominated the scene everywhere you looked. Such nation-building institutions as fundamental rights, one-man-one vote, universal suffrage, a sovereign parliament, federalism, judicial independence, etc., were cut down everywhere. The collapse of Ayub’s regime in a massive, near-revolutionary series of protests and uprisings left a vacuum.

This was filled by General Yahya Khan, whose two-and-a-half years in power were something of an adventure. Dissolution of One Unit, the LFO, restoration of parliamentary government, adult franchise, new education policy, new labour policy, the first general elections — these were heady times, an adrenalin-pumping ride on the roller coaster of a political amusement park. But then the script went sour, the politically dishonest producer lost control. Political adventure disintegrated to disaster: the cyclone, political standoff, military action, massacres, civil war, international war, shameful dismemberment. The calamity approached the scale of 1947 — close to a million dead, ten million homeless.

Enough of a disaster? There was more to come. Tearing up the Constitution, General Zia ended the civilian interregnum of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. The eleven-year-long darkness of his satanic rule now descended. It was the script of a horror story: pain, public floggings, so many executions (“I will never exercise my right of granting pardon”), people strung up and hanged on public television, kidnappings, blood, murders, drug trafficking and the weaponisation of society. Intolerance and sectarianism were nurtured and brought to dreadful bloom. Bigotry and violence became national characteristics. There was nothing small about all that was happening. And we are still living with the consequences...Or dying of them?

And 1999, we came to the most recent of our uniformed institution-destroyers, the last (we must pray) of an illegitimate line. To enunciate the litany of Musharraf’s “reign of error” is redundant. That self-appointed Emperor was transparently without clothes from day one. His period had neither the magnitude of Ayub’s time nor even the great evil of the Zia years. More dangerously still, the country’s very sovereignty was bartered away to terrorists and insurgents. This has all happened so recently! Have we already forgotten?

It is necessary to mention the successor regimes called upon to clean up the messes left behind by each bout of regimental rule: the governments of Bhutto (1972-1977), Benazir (1988-1990) and Zardari-Gilani (2008 to date), all from the PPP. It is beyond this brief essay to comment on the success or failure of these three governments. Let us simply observe that the first of these brought immense expectations, dreams of building up from “pieces, very small pieces”. The second began as a ray of bright light bursting out of the night of those irredeemably dark years. But the third such, today, what dreams has it brought? What vision does it offer? What hopes and dreams does it engender in the people?

“Pakistan khappay”...”Democracy is the best revenge”...Are these slogans the stuff of national inspiration?

The writer is a marketing consultant based in Karachi. He is also a poet