Shrouds Have No Pockets
By Mohammad Ashraf Chaudhry
Pittsburg, CA
“As its friends make their excuses, Pakistan turns to an old bogey”, claims The Economist, October 25, 2008. And this ‘bogey’ is IMF. “A Nuclear-Armed front-line state in the war on terror, Pakistan faces economic meltdown… the economy (of Pakistan) is close to freefall… inflation is running at about 30%. The rupee has devalued by about 25% in just three months. The fiscal deficit is a whopping 10% of GDP. Foreign-exchange reserves cover just six weeks of imports. A $500m Eurobond matures next February, but the market has already decided it is junk. The country needs at least $3 billion in short order, and a further $10 billion over the next two years to plug a balance-of-payments gap. Without it, default abroad might well coincide with political anarchy at home”, writes The Economist of October 25. And there appears to be no exaggeration in this depiction. It is a fairly graphic assessment of Pakistan’s economic, social and political milieu.
A proud country of over 160 million people after 60 years of its existence today stands defiled, denuded and leaderless, just ready to burst out of seems to fall into a whirlpool of chaos and anarchy. Did the people of Pakistan fail the country? Certainly not. “The caravan got looted by its own well-wishers”.
But wait, it is just not right to say that there is no money in the country? “Money is always there, but the pockets change”, wrote once Gertrude Stein, an American author. Ten billion dollars disappeared from the market in three months, says nobody else but the country’s own financial adviser on finance, Mr. Shaukat Tareen. And that money is sitting somewhere under the rugs in a few homes. And why undervalue the fiscal strength of the country’s own main leaders? They single-handedly can retrieve the country from this economic hole. And they may have the desire to do so as well, but their dilemma is that they cannot risk doing so. The gesture, no matter how sublime, has the potential to backfire and kill them politically forever, a risk they cannot afford taking. But, it has a silver lining also: it carries an inherent promise of acting as the first drop of the long-awaited rain in the parched land of Pakistan. Three billion dollars can come from the President of the country alone, and at least half of this amount can easily be dished out by his main rival as well.
But it will never happen. Leading by example is not the norm of politics in Pakistan. Politics in Pakistan thrives on empty slogans. Never had been the money of these leaders of Pakistan a bigger burden than it is now for them. It is a strange irony of circumstances that they stand doomed and condemned, just to watch while the country of their rule slides headlong into an abyss of no-return. Like the mythical King Midas who wished ordinary things to turn into gold by his touch, and they did, and finally he got buried in the very gold he had coveted so madly, he died of hunger and thirst though buried in gold, so appears to be the fate of the leaders of Pakistan.
Nancy Gibbs of Time, October 27, 2008, is right when she says, “It is good to be smart, but that’s no guarantee of success; Woodrow Wilson, the only President with a PhD, never won over a majority of voters. More important is the confidence that lets you welcome smart people around you - and hope they disagree. Hence Lincoln’s famous “team of rivals”, says biographer Doris Kearns Goodwin. “How can you do this?” people asked him, (Abraham Lincoln) when he stocked his Cabinet with former adversaries. “He said, ‘Look, these are the strongest and most able men in the country. The country’s in peril. I need them by my side’. He had the internal self-confidence to know that if he could get them working together as a team, it would be exactly what he needed for his leadership”. That is called leadership.
In Pakistan, it is just the opposite that happens. Even in this state of utter peril, when the country is in a hole, our leaders have not stopped digging. The two main contending political parties that virtually have carved 33% of the country’s history, could not see any urgency in their staying together, not even for a few months. They are haunted by their own shadows. An ounce of Lincoln’s leadership and sagacity would have compelled them to stick together to get the country out of this political and economic quagmire. This has been the best time for them to redeem themselves of their past shoddy performance. They childishly wasted it for nothing.
But why should they have stuck together? After all, it has been the best time for them for expanding their respective party’s voting bank; it has been a God-sent opportunity for each one of them to witness his rival’s fall. History, in the words of Nancy of Gibbs, (Time- Oct. 27, 2008), “is a dance of luck and intent, and sometimes they trip each other. Wilson was strong enough to win a war but too stubborn to save the peace. Herbert Hoover was “the Great Humanitarian” who saved Belgium from starvation; under the right circumstances, he could have been a great President. But his temperament undermined his talent; he never understood that politics was more art than engineering”. (By training he was an engineer). President Zardari has never tried to understand in the last seven months that merit and justice far excel personal loyalties in leadership or that talent is often hidden in those who oppose you most; or Mian Nawaz Sharif who has never attempted to see that forgiveness is far higher a virtue than remaining stuck in a passion for vengeance.
Willian Penn (1644-1718) was exceedingly rich, but was a Quaker. King James II had borrowed money from his father, which he had not paid as yet. When the persecution of the Quakers became worst in England, Penn demanded the payment the King had owned to his father. Instead of asking for cash, he asked for a grant of land from James II in the new country, called the United States of America. In the new colony, which was named Pennsylvania in honor of Penn’s father, he established a liberal government which permitted religious freedom to all. This was the time when in other states, “Jews, Turks, Catholics and Infidels”, as per Article VI stood banned to holding any office or even citizenship. Pennsylvania even then maintained good relations with the native Indians, and it eventually became a haven for all those who suffered persecution on the basis of religion in other states. Leaders lead through personal example and sacrifice.
Columnist, Javed Chaudhri in his Zero-Point column, titled, “Surkh Bin Mans”, the Red Chimp, mentions: “take the example of Salman Taseer… his telecommunication company has through fraud underpaid crores of rupees in taxes and cases in this regard are pending in the courts… it is rumored that during the past two months, he has transferred most of his assets and large amount of money into foreign countries”. And he is the governor of Punjab and is a very rich person.
The Founding Fathers of the United States of America owned slaves, but they disliked slavery. Once the Supreme Court of the United States became involved with the problem of slavery, people began to see a ray of hope that eventually slavery would end. That involvement came in 1857 when the Supreme Court gave a decision that slaves could not become citizens of the US. The real tussle between the Congress and the Supreme Court with regard to this issue of slavery started with this decision.
The case was simple. Dred Scott, a slave had been taken by his master from Missouri to a free territory in the North. A few years later the family returned along with Dred Scott. After his return Dred Scott took the stance that he should be a free man because he had lived for some time in a free territory where slavery was not permitted.
The Supreme Court ruled that he could not be a free man because he was a slave. As a slave, he had none of the rights of a citizen. As a slave, he was only property. The Supreme Court also ruled that Congress had no power to exclude slavery from the territories. The 13th Amendment passed in December, 1965 finally abolished slavery. In Pakistan, the Chief Justice of Pakistan became homeless overnight, and after one year, he is still seeking reinstatement notwithstanding the written and verbal assurances. Every thing, no matter how monstrous, gets validated in the Supreme Court of Pakistan because each government targets to induct in the Supreme Court its own brand of ‘grateful judges’. Law of Necessity’ is as valid today as it was in the fifties. Nations prosper that adhere to the rule of law and justice. God in the Qur’an emphasizes Justice so overwhelmingly that it appears as if He created the Universe only to see how His Best Creation, (Man), would conduct himself in matters of administering justice to others. The measure given by Him is, “Even if it were of an atom’s weight”. Wake up Mr. President.
Americans once saved 15% of their income; in the 80’s that rate dropped to 4%; and now it is in the negative, says Nancy Gibbs in her October 13, 2008 article, titled, “Real Patriots Don’t Spend”, published in the Time. On the average, an American carries 7 credit cards with a debt of $17,000. Borrowing has become a virtue; people borrow against their homes, pensions, and in the name of their kids as well. They live in a way that actually makes people grow old prematurely. But America will overcome its economic woes, because America is fiercely competitive, and its people highly conscious of their Americanism. Indians are picking up this trend. The world’s most poor people live in India, but no body is allowed to challenge the writ of India. It happened only in Pakistan that a cancerous growth of extremism became so well sugar-coated that over time it became one of the attractive choices to this lump.
Pakistanis traditionally saved when saving and austerity went hand in hand. Once the cellular phones became the most asked for birthday gift, and the possession of a credit card a symbol of elitism; and once the wide-screen TV’s became a necessity, why would then house-wives stay contented, and consent to roast themselves in the kitchens, cooking food for their spouses. In their haste to change, they picked up the habit of ‘dining out’ as well, without bothering to know that in the West eating out and eating fast food is not an option but a necessity for all members of the family who work there from dawn to dusk. Expenses increased easily, but not the sources of income. The government did the same. It borrowed people’s money heavily from the State Bank to meet its lavish and ponderous style of governance. Beautiful cities of Pakistan in a decade or so became shanty towns as walled cities emerged within them. People were encouraged by design to vent their rancor for their hardships by cursing the West for their problems, otherwise created by their own masters; forgetting that the secret to the West’s success lay, not in their lifestyle but in their competitiveness, and in their habit of working like machines and in their ingenuity and knowledge.
An Indian household still saves to the tune of 31.9%, which is much higher to that of a Chinese household saving rate, while Pakistan stays abysmally low at 10.6%. The result is obvious. China has about $1 trillion in personal savings with a savings rate of close to 50%. The US has about $158 billion in personal savings and an average saving rate of only about 2%. These savings rates speak for the overall economic condition of a country.
Pakistan stands nowhere in comparison. Even the so-called friends of Pakistan are not willing to dole out the requisite amounts Pakistan needs to escape a default. Never in its history had Pakistan been so bereft of its credibility. 80% of Pakistan’s troubles are due to lack of honest and able leadership, while the remaining 20% can be attributed to the external factors. The government as well as the individuals: all are mechanically engaged in a blame-game that can take them nowhere. Self-accountability is the pre-requisite to any solution.
The Marriot Hotel got raised to the ground when the IMF pundits were on a visit to Pakistan. The fight against terrorism has severely polarized the country while this should never have been the case. If there were one point on which all political and religious parties should have joined hands; it should have been the eradication of terrorism and extremism in the country. The unfortunate part is that there is no consensus among the country’s “most senior soldiers and politicians on how to conduct the war. Differences were widened rather than narrowed by a closed-door briefing by the army to parliament this month, and this week parliament passed a resolution calling for dialogue with the extremists to be made the priority,” reported the Economist, October 25, 2008. Nothing appears to be uniting the country; neither the economic meltdown, and political chaos; nor the threat to the country’s existence and people’s sufferings.
The IMF rescue would come with austere strings attached. “Defense and development expenditure may be among the casualties”, claims The Economist, Oct. 25. But this would make neither the army nor the general public happy. After all nobody “advances billions to an increasingly dysfunctional state”. Charity must begin at home.
To conclude with a story for the main leadership of the country. In a Medieval mystery play the lead character at his death-bed asks who would come with him into the grave to support him at his last judgment. His friends said, “Not us”. His each dear child said, “Not I”. His beloved wife intoned, “Not me”. His priest said, “No way, not me”. His fields of grain; his cattle and his sheep, his gold, and all his treasurers said, “Not us.”
Then came a voice that said, “I will stay with you”. That were his Actions. Having said so, his actions leapt into the grave to be by his side, arm in arm, they knocked at the door of death - together.”
“What did Ms. Benazir take with her?” Who should know better than her husband, Mr. Asif Ali Zardari. Into the city of death she did not take with her any suitcase, not even her purse; not even the picture of her only son, Bilawal or of her daughters’; not even the chairpersonship of her party; nor her degrees from Harvard and Oxford.
This is the time for President Asif Ali Zardari to act. As the Sufis say, “Die before you die”, i. e. strive to learn what you would be shown at death while you still have time to make use of this knowledge. The country needs dollars now that are rotting somewhere. If the President takes the lead, the rest would be constrained to follow suit. Let the world remember him as a “Mystic President”, for shrouds have no pockets. “No person was ever honored for what he received. Honor has been the reward for what he gave.” - Calvin Coolidge, American President.
