Opinion

Lincoln’s Speech: The Truth
By Mohammad Ashraf Chaudhry
Pittsburg, CA

Once I compared President Musharraf with “Prometheus Bound”, a Titan who stole fire for the benefit of human beings and as a punishment, got nailed to a mountain, where an eagle tore out his liver by day and it grew again by night, and the process repeated every day. That was then. In the scenario of the current political mess in Pakistan such a comparison seems naive. What completely has destroyed his credibility and his right to rule over people is his chain of persistent maneuvers to shift the blame on others; his act of imposing a state of emergency on November 3, and his using the formidable first person expression, staring with, “I”.
Whosoever wrote his fateful speech of November 3, 2007, did not do him a favor. It is naïve to remind the Americans of their own history. They may not be able to quote much from the Constitution; but they do fiercely know what is un-constitutional, and what violates their basic rights.
The President alluded to President Abraham Lincoln’s April 4, 1864 letter which he wrote to Albert G. Hodges. In fact, it is the same quotation that General Musharraf had used earlier on October 12, 1999 when he ventured to take over the country in a military action. In between these two dates, (October 12, 1999 and November 3, 2007), is bracketed the sad history of Pakistan which is nothing else but a long list of paradoxes. The nation was promised that out of the fourth martial law, there would emerge the lasting and sustainable democracy. By spitting at their feet, the general in these eight years has been trying to convince the nation that it should take that as the rainfall of democracy. In the words of The New York Times of November 8, ‘What does it say when a leader tells his people he must suspend their civil rights in order to combat extremism, then locks up judges, lawyers and human rights activists - society’s most moderate forces - while Osama bin Laden and the Taliban run free? And what are those oppressed people supposed to conclude when the reaction of the world and even some of their own leaders is grudging?”
President Musharraf in his October 12, 1999 speech had exactly the same words without naming its source, “My dear countrymen, The choice before us on 12th October, 1999 was between saving the body - that is the nation, at the cost of losing a limb - which is the Constitution, or saving the limb and losing the whole body”. Historian Michael Knox Beran debunks the comparison when he says,
1. “Lincoln did not, like Musharraf, seize power in a military coup; he was voted into office in a legitimate election”. Musharraf, on the contrary, violated the constitution on October 12, 1999. After eight years, he appears to have saved neither the limb (Constitution), nor the body, (the country).
2. Lincoln acted the way he did because “the Confederacy had violated the Constitution and had voted to secede from the Union”. No part of Pakistan in 1999 had openly declared to secede from the body of Pakistan, not even Nawab Akbar Bukti. Today, after eight years of his absolute rule, the extremists are openly in control of the North and South Waziristan, and have hoisted their flags in six tehsils in Swat; and are flourishing drawn swords, and displaying the beheaded bodies of victims.
3. Lincoln is accused of violating the Constitution in 1861, when he raised new regiments, which could have been done only by the Congress. The fact of the matter is, as says Michael Knox, Congress was not in session then, and “in an emergency the president must be able to defend the country and its Constitution”, so was argued by Lincoln. When did such a treatment the country’s parliament receive from President Musharraf in Pakistan? He called it ill-mannered.
4. Why would President Musharraf not quote George Washington who in grand foresight gave America the two most indispensable gifts: one, resigned his military Commission, and made the civilian president as the head of the army, a precedent followed even after 220 years; and second, refused to accept life-time Presidency. Thus by ensuring the supremacy of the civilian authority over the military, and by restricting the term of the presidency to eight years, he blocked the path of military coups, which remained a lot of most of the South American and South Asian countries.
5. What good tidings did President Musharraf give to his people after having availed two-term tenure of an American President? A ruthless crack-down on the country’s apex court judges, a cruel beating of the men of law? That he could not eliminate a fewer than two thousand Al-Queda members, or a few thousand nomadic Taliban while still being the head of a very powerful army, along with being a president with unprecedented powers who enjoyed un-wavering support, military and economic, from the West, speaks volumes for his failure. Quoting Abraham Lincoln may have an overtone of a sad foreboding as well. Honest Lincoln got shot just after one year of the writing of this letter President Musharraf has quoted two times.
6. Apparent contradictions that lie at the heart of America’s birth, have delivered far-reaching benefits to the people of America in the subsequent years, because its founding fathers were men of committed sincerity and integrity. One big paradox has been the concept of ideal democracy, based on equality for all. It did not apply to over half a million slaves.
7. When Thomas Jefferson sat down to draft a declaration of independence from England in 1776, and wrote, “We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal,” he was personally denying liberty to his more than two hundred slaves. The paradox appears simple, as says historian Morgan.
To understand the American paradox, a slave society seeking equal rights for all, it is essential to understand the State of Virginia, the largest of the colony, land-wise, population-wise and influence-wise. It alone contained 40% of all colonial slaves; it is with the help of slaves that it produced the most of tobacco that paid for the revolution of America. The Virginians drafted both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution in 1787; it were they who were most eloquent on the subject of freedom and equality; it were they who produced the first four out of five presidents, and it were they who governed the new republic for 32 out of its first 36 years, and set the tone of progress.
Did the four martial laws, including that of the present regime of Musharraf, produce any such lasting institution, not even democracy, safety, relief from poverty and disease, not even self-respect to the people of Pakistan? Today, they find their land becoming the abode of suicide-killers and extremists on one hand, and they themselves no better than hostages if spared by the extremists, by those whom they had fed so well.
7. It is never profitable to quote other people’s history without knowing the context and intentions behind the past events. Philadelphia, where the Constitution of America was being drafted, slavery though a highly volatile subject was there on the table. The southern delegates actually had threatened and kept doing so continuously, to leave the union before it was even fully formed, unless their right to black property, (slaves), was guaranteed and protected. The framers of Constitution then actually succumbed to them, and thus they digested the curse of slavery for a greater good- the creation of a Union. The people of Pakistan always tolerated the curse of martial law in the hope that one day it would emancipate them from the enslavement of poverty, corruption, disease, injustice and economic inequality. Did it liberate them from these vices?
8. Eight years ago, the two prime ministers, accused of corruption and abuse of state power, were ousted and exiled; of the two one is already in the country playing a “Topi Drama” with the people; the other after one failed attempt, is preparing to come again. The country is back to square one once again, or even worse.
9. Stephen Cohen is right when he says, the army does not produce individuals with the popular appeal… but it does ex post facto manufacture them. General Ayub Khan manufactured Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto; General Zia produced Mian Nawaz Sharif; and General Musharraf gave the nation the Chaudhris of Gujrat. Hasan Abbas defines General Musharraf as “a master of half measures”. Lawrence Ziring’s advice to President Musharraf is: “If he truly wants to reconstruct Pakistan, then he has no choice but to invite the free and open play of all politicians…accept the failures along with the frailties and to nurture a generation of leaders unencumbered by blind doctrines…”. .
Half measures produced extremists and suicide-killers; who will turn them into full-measures? Only God knows. Perhaps Time of November 19, is right when it comments on Pakistan’s state of Emergency, “Pervez Musharraf infuriates his people- and embarrasses Washington - by cracking down on democracy. Will that help him fight the war on terrorism? Probably not.”

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