Pluses for the
General
By Anwar Syed
I went to see an old friend during
a recent visit to Karachi. After we were done with
the “good old days,” we got to the present
and, inevitably, to politics. He asked me to write
in support of General Musharraf because, as he put
it, men as good and capable as he do not come into
this world oftener than perhaps once in a hundred
years! I said I would think about it.
I asked others in towns I visited if they thought
the general had done well by Pakistan. To my surprise,
quite a few of them thought well of him. Another
one of my old friends, a veteran politician who
has won several elections and twice served as a
federal minister, contended, apparently in all seriousness,
that General Musharraf had been governing the country
and serving the public interest much more wisely
and effectively than any combination of politicians
could have done. Similar assessments of his work
appear from time to time in letters to the editor
in newspapers.
In my own writing, I have not endorsed General Musharraf’s
coup in October 1999 or the means he has since employed
to keep power: particularly his referendum, his
manipulations during the elections of 2002, his
Legal Framework Order, the Seventeenth Amendment
to the Constitution, his occupation of two offices
at the same time, and his continuing exercise of
powers and functions that do not lawfully belong
to him. Other commentators have written in the same
vein, but to no avail.
His position at the helm and his style of governance
having become “ground realities,” which
outsiders (including the MMA) are in no position
to change, I suggest that we move on to another
stance, namely, that we support such of his actions
as appear to us to be in the public interest and
dissociate ourselves from those which do not meet
that criterion. Since we are stuck with him, we
might as well help him gain a better understanding
of the ways and means of achieving his goals when
these are worthy.
Let us then look around to identify the courses
of action he has adopted that we can, in good conscience,
support. A distinction needs to be made here between
his professions and his practice. With his declared
aspirations and intentions we are not concerned,
for they get to be the same from one ruler to the
next.
Before setting out for her recent visit to the subcontinent,
Condoleezza Rice, the American secretary of state,
was asked if she intended to raise the issue of
his uniform when she met General Musharraf. She
said, no, and then went on to recount his accomplishments:
(1) he was fighting, and subduing, the terrorists
in Al Qaeda; (2) he had reduced extremist teaching
in Pakistan’s madressahs; (3) he was carrying
forward the peace process with India.
Terrorism poses a grave threat to Pakistan’s
own stability and the fight against it serves our
own interest as much as that of any outsider. Under
General Musharraf’s overall direction the
fight seems to be going well. The incidence of terrorist
acts within Pakistan does appear to have declined.
Bombings of the infrastructure in Balochistan are
probably better understood as acts of rebellion
than as plain terrorism.
The fight against extremism, the parent of terrorism,
is much more difficult to organize, because here
one is dealing with attitudes of mind rather than
overt acts. Musharraf should get credit for his
steadfast preaching of “enlightened moderation.”
In a recent statement, he called for “crushing
obscurantism,” and asked the moderates to
launch a “wave” of mass participation
to combat religious extremism.
I may not be the only one who has failed to understand
what exactly he has in mind. Moderates, by the very
nature of their disposition, are not the kind of
people who come out to launch movements. Consider
also that, because of the problems relating to the
general’s acquisition and retention of power,
his credentials as a preacher are not exactly impeccable.
But there are other problems which are within his
power to handle. Enlightened is he who understands
that diversity of opinions among humans is inevitable
and must therefore be tolerated unless we want a
war of every man against every man. Musharraf says
extremism in Pakistan is religious and sectarian
in its origin and impulses. The professional ulema
are its purveyors. He must then make up his mind
as to where he wants to stand in relation to them.
He cannot have them as his partners and as his adversaries
at the same time.
His government has adopted the tactic of setting
up a bunch of relatively unknown “ulema and
mashaikh” as a counterpoise to the Islamic
parties. The ministry of religious affairs brings
these gentlemen to Islamabad periodically, puts
them up in fancy hotels, compensates them in several
other ways and urges them to show the true face
of Islam (peace, tolerance, equal rights, etc) to
the world. They in turn praise Musharraf’s
leadership and his services to Islam. Nobody outside
their meeting rooms pays the slightest bit of attention
to their utterances.
This exercise is entirely futile. These men are
not enlightened. They know little of anything outside
Islamic studies, and their education even in that
area has most likely been superficial. They have
never wondered about the veracity or reasonableness
of the teachings to which they were exposed. Extremism
in the realm of belief is the only attitude of mind
of which they are capable. It is foolish to think
of them as spreaders of enlightenment.
If the present government is serious about fighting
extremism, it will have to stop playing games with
Islam. Somewhere along the line it will have to
leave Islamization to the people themselves and
tell them frankly that it simply does not have the
capability of enforcing it. Let us, for a change,
be honest: send Ejazul Haq out as ambassador to
the Sudan or Nigeria, shut down the do-nothing ministry
of religious affairs, and locate the function of
helping out the Hajis in a directorate elsewhere
in the government.
General Musharraf is to be commended for his part
in initiating the ongoing “peace process”
between Pakistan and India. It is conceivable that,
given patience and prudence, Pakistan will eventually
wrest some concessions from India in the matter
of Kashmir. Even if that does not happen in the
foreseeable future, but mutually beneficial arrangements
in other areas continue to be made, that may be
good enough. It is clear that the people on both
sides are eager to end hostility and move towards
cooperation. The general’s policy would then
appear to be not only the best that can be had in
the present circumstances, it is also one that accords
well with the wishes of his people.
The framework in which policy towards India is made
should be kept in mind. First, Pakistan does not
have the capability, military or any other, to impose
on India a settlement of its own liking of any dispute
between them. Second, while the outside powers would
like to see peace and amity develop between these
two countries, they have neither the capacity nor
the inclination to compel India to make the concessions
Pakistan might desire. Third, the cost of continuing
hostility is enormous for both countries, but India’s
ability to absorb it is greater than that of Pakistan.
It may then be that Pakistan needs peace and amity
even more than India does.
Many observers, including my friend (the veteran
politician), maintain that General Musharraf’s
devolution of authority and power to the district
and sub-district level governments is his most significant
contribution to our system of governance. Huge sums
of money are said to have been made available to
these governments and are being utilized to implement
local development projects.
Devolution was potentially a great idea and the
general is to be commended for it. But it was botched
up in the process of implementation. Functionaries
at the National Reconstruction Bureau sought to
convert local governments into dependencies of the
center, emasculating the provincial governments
in the process. This has caused anguish and fury
among provincial politicians, and made for confusion
and incapacity at both the provincial and local
levels. The head of the NRB has recently said that
amendments to the relevant law are currently being
considered.
At the same time, a larger measure of autonomy to
the provinces is under consideration. One should
hope that the two sets of considerations will result
in taking the center entirely out of the business
of local governments and returning them to the supervision
of the provincial governments. Such supervision
should have the purpose only of enabling the district
and sub-district governments to meet the needs of
their people as expeditiously and effectively as
possible.
Even the general’s worst opponents do not
accuse him of using his office to enrich himself
and his family. His self-denial and rectitude in
this regard are a boon for the country. The same
goes for the man he has chosen to be his prime minister.
Admittedly, he cannot abolish corruption at all
levels of the government, but it should be possible
for him to get rid of ministers whom one of his
own trusted agencies, namely, the National Accountability
Bureau (NAB), accuses of misuse of authority and
financial wrongdoing during their earlier tenures
in public office. Such cleansing will surely solidify
his own reputation for probity and enhance his credibility.
General Musharraf’s heart may be in the right
place, and his intentions may be good. But the ways
and means of implementing them, without spreading
a whole lot of “collateral damage” on
the way, are not likely to be found in a closed
circle of cronies. He needs the input of a larger
constituency, including that of critics. (I wonder
if he reads Dawn.)
(The writer is professor emeritus of political science
at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, USA.)
