Stratocracy
or Democracy in Uniform?
By Dr Ahmad Faruqui
Danville, California
When
the 19th century English writer, Thomas Carlyle,
penned Sartor Resartus, he noted, “Clothes
make the man.” Little did Carlyle know that
he would find a receptive audience in Pakistan
a century or two later. “What shall I wear
today” is a very important daily question
for President Pervez Musharraf.
If he wears “khaki” apparel, he becomes
the military man and guarantor of national interest.
If he wears western suits, he becomes the enlightened
man who is much needed by the West in the Muslim
World. If he wears a sherwani, he becomes the
president of Pakistan whose power derives from
the Quaid-i-Azam. If he wears a vanilla desi outfit,
he becomes the dispenser of poverty-alleviation
remedies.
Despite all this variety, his wardrobe essentially
consists of either khakis or muftis. He cannot
dispense with either one. Like an investor who
needs to have both stocks and bonds in his portfolio,
the general has to diversify his risks.
In more than one way, this duality of attire brings
to mind the comic book hero, Superman, a man of
steel from another planet Krypton who lived on
earth as Clark Kent until it came time to carry
out grand rescue missions. Then Clark Kent would
enter the nearest phone booth and come out flying
as Superman causing bystanders to proclaim, “It’s
a bird. It’s a plane. It’s Superman!”
In one musical, the man of steel was portrayed
as saying that it was a great feeling to know
that when he hung up his Superman cape at night,
he had prevented “Murder, larceny and rape.”
He added, “Other men have their work to
do. But as for me, I must live. Not one life but
two.”
He confessed that it was hard to keep on wearing
the old Clark Kent smile but the disguise of a
bespectacled meek and mild man was essential for
him to carry out his mission for the good of the
world. The people, pleased with his dual role,
chimed in, “In a world of evil and doubt/We
need him/We need him. Trouble looms and somehow
he knows. We need him, we need him. Down he zooms
and that’s the end of those/Who fight him/And
that’s why we need him. Yes, when the world’s
moral standards grow murky/We need him.”
Does this not read like the script for the play
that is being acted out on Pakistan’s political
stage by the president-general? One might be forgiven
for thinking that the honorable Sheikh Rashid
moonlights as a writer of musicals.
Musharraf, along with his three military predecessors
constitutes Pakistan’s “Fantastic
Four.” A film of that name, based on the
Marvel Comics series, is playing these days in
American theatres. The special effects seem to
have been developed by a teenager on a desktop
computer. The whole experience, according to one
film critic, reminds one of contestants at a high
school costume party. No wonder it has been dubbed
the Fantastic Bore.
Pakistan’s Fantastic Four have tried to
pass themselves off as democrats and, for a variety
of reasons that have been discussed in past columns,
found ready believers in Republican presidents
in the White House. Field Marshal Ayub paired
nicely with Eisenhower and not so well with Kennedy.
Gen. Yahya paired nicely with Nixon. Gen. Zia
did not pair well with Carter but bonded well
with Reagan. And Musharraf did not hit it off
at all with Bill Clinton but developed excellent
rapport with Bush.
After spending five days on a state visit to India,
Bill Clinton only allocated five hours to a Pakistani
stopover. The general was not allowed to meet
with him in uniform and even in civilian dress,
was not allowed to have a photo-op with the American
president.
Such a dual-attired lifestyle has of course not
been the exclusive preserve of Pakistan’s
military rulers. The same lifestyle was favored
by many a military ruler in Latin America, including
the infamous General Augusta Pinochet in Chile.
But Pakistan’s khaki kings have brought
it to perfection.
Ayub was old fashioned and switched out of khakis
in just two years time. Henceforth, he would only
dredge out the uniform on ceremonial occasions,
such as awarding 1965 war widows posthumous medals
on the September 6th holiday.
Yahya did not stay long enough in power to even
worry about retiring from the army or dispensing
with the tired martial law routine. He made no
pretense of being a democrat. Thus, he served
unabashedly as the Chief Martial Law Administrator
(CMLA) and his two provincial governors were Martial
Law Administrators (MLAs). Further down the chain
of command there were deputy martial law administrators
(DMLAs), sub-martial law administrators (SMLAs)
and lesser minions all the way down to the unlucky
fauji havaldar.
Zia decided to wear the uniform over the long
haul and developed the dual wardrobe into a political
instrument. Richard Reeves discussed this sartorial
weapon in his book, Passage to Peshawar. Musharraf,
of course, has outdone Zia by introducing Armani
suits into the panoply. They let him keep a safe
distance from Osama bin Laden’s shalwar-kameez
fatigues.
It is time to add a word to Pakistan’s political
lexicon. The word is “stratocracy (struh-TOK-ruh-see)”
and it means military rule, just like democracy
means rule of the people. It comes from the Greek,
where “stratos” means army (from which
comes the word strategy and stratagem) and “-cracy”
means rule.
The most cited use of the word is due to British
natural law political theorist, Robert Filmer.
In response to the ousting and execution of King
Charles I and to Cromwell’s seizure of power,
Filmer wrote in his classic work, Patriarcha or
the Natural Power of Kings, in 1630 that the English
“…fell to be governed by an army.
Their monarchy was changed into a stratocracy,
and not into an aristocracy or democracy.”
In spite of its elegance of construction and rich
pedigree, stratocracy is not widely used today.
Given the durability of Pakistan’s tradition
of democracy in uniform, and its deep-rooted acceptance
of Kelsen’s Law of Necessity, the term is
a natural fit. It is more compact than “military
rule” and certainly more politically correct
than “military dictatorship.”
Stratocracy would also serve as a form of political
anodyne. Most people would not know what it meant
and may simply think it is a form of democracy
that suits the “genius of the people.”
Nothing would please the generals more. Whichever
Section Officer in the Information Ministry gets
the term first to Sheikh Rasheed has a very good
chance of getting promoted to the rank of Information
Secretary.
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