“There Is a Buzz of Excitement in the Wood-Paneled Assembly Hall …”
By Mohammad Ashraf Chaudhry
Pittsburg, CA
…Lest you forget the people whose abject plight is best pictured in this verse of Shelley:
“The seeds ye sow, another reaps;
The wealth ye find, another keeps;
The robes ye weave, another wears;
The arms ye forge, another bears’.
In the words of Barbara Plett of the BBC stationed in Islamabad, “There is a buzz of excitement in the wood-paneled assembly hall of Pakistan’s parliament”. Every member appears to be wearing a new, fresh and festive look. There is a good amount of hugging and embracing going on among them. New alliances are being forged, and old enmities are getting buried. Outwardly, all the three ‘King-makers’, namely, Mr. Asif Ali Zardari, Mian Nawaz Sharif and Mr. Asfandyar Wali Khan, are heard pronouncing loud and clear that in order to give Pakistan a new start, ‘We have forgiven all, and we expect forgiveness from all’. These are good gestures, but how do they relate to the people who just recently had retrieved them from the ‘docks’, and had put them on the ‘deck’ “?
Once a columnist wrote to the British prime minister, “I do not care how many times you plant a kiss on the right cheek of your wife in the morning, and how many on the left in the evening. What I care most is how you frame policies that affect people. I would rather have you whip your wife, provided you stay fair to people”. Mr. Zardari visiting 90, (Mr. Altaf’s residence), or Mian Nawaz Sharif’s farm house at Raiwind; and Mian Nawaz Sharif vowing to return his visit; Mr. Altaf Hussain pledging to send a delegation to Garhi Khuda Bux, or CJ Iftikhar Chaudhry visiting the Zardari house for condolences; all this and much more can be styled as great good-will gestures, and a great news too; but how do they affect the common people?
Another verse of Shelley offers the people in such a situation a workable solution:
“Sow seed - but let no tyrant reap:
Find wealth - let no imposter heap:
Weave robes - let not the idle wear:
Forge arms - in your defense to bear.
Any other leadership under such circumstances as are confronting Pakistan these days, would have chosen to abandon their wives for the time being; would have pitched tents in the lawns of the prime minister house and the parliament building, and would have framed policies relating to the four basic issues: one, how to re-orient the policy towards terrorism without picking-up differences with America, and without providing any respite to the hard-core terrorists; second, how to create sufficient extra electric power that could keep the houses of people lighted, and the wheels of the factories moving; how to end corruption in all the institutions of the country by staying totally transparent; and lastly, how to improve the existing personal security and law and order situation; how to provide med-care, cheap and quick justice, education to their children in the shortest possible time in a manner that people are able to feel the change. As regards the issues relating to the independence of judiciary first or the re-instatement of the judges; whether MQM should be accommodated in the Central government, or who should be the chief minister of Punjab etc. these matters still in a limbo portend that things are not as smooth as they appear to be.
What is popular is not always right; and what is right is not always popular, is a wise saying. What is popular with the lawyers may not be right with the politicians, and vice versa. Wounds inflicted may heal, but they never go without leaving behind visible scars. It can never be like before. The PCO card played by Musharraf would definitely leave behind some nasty scars, which the lawyers and judges must gracefully accept. Thomas Paine (1737-1809), once wrote in his famous Pamphlet “Common Sense”, “Society is produced by our wants, and government by wickedness; the former promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections, the latter negatively by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first (society) is a patron, the last (government) a punisher”. Being in the government is like being on the anvil. And the public is notorious for its mood swings.
The new coalition partners make odd partners. They all have their own pipes; and they all have enough wind in their lungs to blow out. The people of Pakistan, therefore, have a legitimate fear regarding their ability to rise above their petty cavils and deliver. They all claim to have mastery in the art of reading people’s lips. Maulana Rumi explains such leaders who make lofty claims to be having a knack of understanding their people better through an anecdote:
‘Once it happened so that a certain rich man’s close friend fell ill, and he was admitted in the hospital. The rich man due to his pre-occupation could not visit his friend. He chose an acquaintance of his to visit the sick-man on his behalf. There was, however, one problem with this man. He was totally deaf. He, nonetheless, convinced the rich man that he was good at reading people’s lips, and that by dint of this art, he understood people better than most without a hearing impairment. The rich man felt satisfied and allowed him to do the job.
‘On reaching the sick-man’s bed in the hospital, this deaf man like most patient-visitors asked him a formal question, “How are feeling now?” The sick man on discovering that he was sent by his rich friend felt irritated and replied, “I am at the death-bed”. Reading the movements of his lips carefully, this man responded, “That’s good. I’m glad to hear this. Most people often feel so.” In an effort to stay engaged with the patient, this man further shot, “Which doctor is taking care of you?” Piqued as the patient already was, he replied, “Izrael, the Angel of death”. The visiting man, looking as if he had read his lips, spoke thus, “You are in safe hands. He is a reputed doctor. Patients under his care hundred percent get cured”. “And which medicine are you taking?” he asked him further. The sick-man who had already reached his boiling point, instantly retorted, “Poison”. Once again reading his lips, the deaf man smilingly said, “That is a good medicine. Keep taking it.”
For eight years, President Musharraf along with a civilian prime minister and 70 ministers read the lips of the people of Pakistan, and claims to have read them well. Now, there is a whole new team of “lip-readers”. We pray that too read them well.
The path to the success of the coalition government in Pakistan passes through the corridors of the White House, and not through the rugged mountains of Waziristan, Wana or Swat. Pakistan’s alliance with America is viewed by many as a “fatal embrace”. In the words of Michael Hayden, the head of CIA, “The situation on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border presents a clear and present danger to… the West in general and the United States in particular”. To Mr. Tanvir Ahmed Khan, a former Pakistan Foreign Secretary, “There would be a restive parliament. There is no strong opinion in parliament for reversing the policy, but there is a strong opinion for moderating it, for a better mix between military and diplomatic measures”. General (retired) Shujaat Ali Khan thinks, “And if the armed force is withdrawn, there may be resurgence, and they’ll strike again”. Local Taliban leader Maulvi Faqir Muhammed tells Pakistan and the world, “Our war is with America… whenever Pakistan will work for American interests as its ally, we will oppose it”.
All this is a really dangerous mix, and Pakistan is fully entrenched in it. Mark Twain, the famous American writer once famously said, “Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it”. The same is true of America’s role in the world. In the words of Foreign Policy magazine, January-February 2006, “The rest of the world complains that American hegemony is reckless, arrogant, and insensitive. Just don’t expect them to do anything about it. The world’s guilty secret is that it enjoys the security and stability the United States provides. The world won’t admit it, but they will miss the American empire when it’s gone… all seem to bespeak a worldwide conviction that the United States misuses its enormous power in ways that threaten the stability of the international system. That is hardly surprising. No one loves Goliath. What is surprising is the world’s failure to respond to the United States as it did to the Goliaths of the past.” The countries banded themselves together in the past to check Revolutionary and Napoleonic France in the late 18th and early 19th century. The world checked Germany during the two World Wars, and it checked the Soviet Union during the Cold War through inspired coalitions… “No such anti American alignment has formed or shows any sign of forming today. Widespread complaints about the United States international role are met with an absence of concrete, effective measures to challenge, change, or restrict it.” “The gap between what the world says about American power and what it fails to do about it is the single most striking feature of 21st century international relations”. The ruling PPP, would be well-advised when reminded of the December 20, 1971 un-scheduled mid-night visit of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, the newly sworn-in civilian martial law administrator-president to the American ambassador in Islamabad (an unusual act in the sense that a head of State was calling on an ambassador), or a few words from his speech delivered the same night, in which he famously said, “We are facing the worst crisis in our country’s life - a deadly crisis… we have to pick up the pieces, very small pieces, but we will make a new Pakistan”.
A word of caution to Mian Sahib also. His ministers are often heard shooting from their hips in the talk shows. The other night one said, “We shall not get dictation from America”. They should let the foreign policy matters be dealt by the foreign minister. The nation would feel obliged if they focus their fullest attention on the affairs of the ministry they are in-charge of.
The new leadership of Pakistan, after it is done with the ceremonial hugging and forgiving-cum-forgiven-condolences sessions, will be confronted with this most important issue. What would serve Pakistan better, a Taliban regime carved out of Pakistan’s Federally Administered Territory Agency, FATA, consisting of North and South Waziristan, Wana, even Swat, or a clearance of this area of extremists and suicide-bombers once and for all, with American help or without American help, and giving the native tribal people a choice to live their lives according to their own traditions and customs. The days of mere rhetoric are over now. Admit it or not, Pakistan has reached a great level of tolerance. After all, was it not Governor Cunningham in NWFP who dismissed the Chief Minister Dr. Khan Sahib and his cabinet on a charge which appears so common a happening these days. Khan Sahib had refused to salute the Pakistan flag. The same Khan’s grandson is now sworn in as the Chief Minister of that province. Over half a dozen Nationalist parties in Baluchistan openly talk of independence, not maximum provincial autonomy, of Baluchistan. On the burial day of the late Ms. Benazir, the mourners openly raised slogans of Sindu Desh, and some even burned the Pakistan flag. These are real issues. It is good that in the coalition government all the three major parties are to get a real chance to outshine each other through performance. But much will depend on who rises above the provincial considerations, and serves the national interests best. Pakistan had never been beset with such a predicament in its total history of 60 years. May God grant these leaders wisdom that doesn’t get consumed by their over-confidence; perseverance that enables them to speak their grief softly.
“The evil that men do lives after them,
The good is oft interred with their bones”…. Shakespeare.
