Leaders in the Times of Great Peril -1
By Mohammad Ashraf Chaudhry
Pittsburg , CA
“The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and the self-restraint to keep from meddling with them while they do it”. - Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919)
Leadership is all about leading, and not about lecturing; it is about performing, and not in mere professing; it is in the serving and not in just surviving; it is about finding solutions and not mere passing resolutions; it is about bringing clarity, and not just creating parity; it is in the instinct, and not in being just distinct. Leadership is, thus, about knowing people, and not about mowing down people. And as would ably say David Brinkley, a television journalist, leadership is about that successful man“who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks others have thrown at him”. Leadership is, thus, not about creating new hells; it is about leading people like Moses to get out of the hell.
History is replete with such hours of trial that had tried harshly as well as mercilessly, both the leadership as well as the nation. Who can forget Thomas Paine’s electrifying words that he wrote in his CRISIS under the light of a campfire, “These are the times that try men’s souls… tyranny like hell is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us that the harder the conflict the more glorious the triumph”. The dawn of the American Independence became a sure possibility the moment these words fell on the ears of the defeated and dejected soldiers of George Washington in 1776 at Trenton.
Leaders in such moments of dejection and despair do not go on fox hunting expeditions, nor do they undertake foreign tours for photo-opt sessions. They bring in play their best by staying sleepless and half-starved (by losing appetite), and stay focused. They set aside politics, at least for the time being. Amy D. Bernstein in his beautiful article, “American Icons”, published in the special collector’s edition of US News, beautifully sums up a few of such instances. This US News special issue “offers insights about why certain presidents, beginning with George Washington, were able to prevail in difficult times while others, such as Ulysses S. Grant - who like Washington, was elected after a brilliant military career - did not always succeed in governing as effectively…”. In his view “in the mercurial world of politics, some individuals, by means of a mysterious inner alchemy, seem to develop almost magically the talents needed for a successful presidency…”
“In times of peril, one of the most important qualities of successful presidents is a coolheaded willingness to assume personal risk ... Lincoln traveled to Washington for his inauguration even though that involved risk to his life… made speeches and extensive visits to battlefields and hospital to meet with common soldiers…. John F. Kennedy demonstrated great cool-headedness during the Cuban missile crisis… FDR’s fireside radio chats forged a bond with millions of Americans during depression and war”. Lincoln even appointed his worst adversary and chief rival as his secretary of state because under the circumstances he deemed him to be the fittest person. Cohesion rather than division was Lincoln’s chief objective.
“At other times, steadfastness of purpose was what was called for… George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson all governed in the uncertain early years of the republic… but they found the means to keep it whole: Washington largely by the force of his own personal prestige, Jefferson by his careful diplomacy, and Jackson by his personal heroism and charisma, along with his willingness to use force when necessary… each responded effectively to the pressing needs of his moment in history”. Lincoln did that relentlessly to defeat the secessionists in the civil war; FDR did that in the Second World War.
In Pakistan, the leaders of the two main political parties, and two former generals-cum-presidents, namely General Zia and General Musharraf have impacted altogether about 50% of the country’s history (1977-2009). They all have had their own times of peril and trial: General Zia had Russia moved in Afghanistan; Ms. Benazir and Mian Nawaz Sharif faced economic, political and ethnic turmoil as well as each other in two stints of their premiership; and General Musharraf confronted the menace of terrorism, combined with the absence of social cohesion during his over eight-year rule. How did these four leaders who came into power either through usurpation, or by design, manipulations or chance, and became a part of the country’s 50% history, act in the hours of trial that confronted them?
They all tried, but they all lacked the cool-headedness willingness to risk their careers or reputation or the desire to stay-in-power. General Zia created the monster of religious fanaticism in order to counter terrorism, knowing little that nations and civilizations taste their fall inevitably when religious intolerance begins to characterize their mindsets. His personal religious whims gave to Pakistan a bumper crop of religious fanatics. And they became conspicuous in all the institutions, including the army. To quote only the Muslim history, it happened to Muslims so clearly in Spain; and it is happening to them right now. Ms. Benazir did not risk her political career to curb corruption or financial indiscipline in her government. Nor could she muster enough courage to tell her over-ambitious spouse to sit and sip coffee and not meddle in matters that did not concern him. As a solution, she either began touring foreign lands extensively, or began visiting the shrines for spiritual consolation at home. Hillary Clinton most assiduously tried to distance herself from her husband because she knew fully well her own merits.
Ms. Benazir was no less brilliant, but she could not extricate herself from the burden of her father’s legacy or from that of her husband’s over zealousness to be everywhere. These two factors tragically impacted her intuitiveness, her political acumen, and even her ability to put in practice what she espoused most in politics - a genuine concern for the poor - and thus often remained handicapped by not giving her leadership a full, bold thrust. She had the vision and the talent, but surely not the zest to go full-throttled against corruption and injustice. Though being the head of a country, she thought it fit to assign to herself the role of a secretary of state in a royal robe.
The turf could have been easier for Mian Nawaz Sharif to play effectively by not repeating what had initially triggered the fall of Ms. Benazir. The man who had once given to the nation the concept of a free and liberal economy even before Manmohan Singh and president Salina of Mexico, easily became entangled in the loop of his own ego and heavy mandate. Cronyism, corruption and inefficiency, combined with political maneuverings destroyed him and his knack of leadership which once had accomplished what never had before been achieved in Pakistan, namely, uniting the over a dozen branches of the Muslim League. People very keenly looked towards him because he had not hailed from the long line of feudal lords in the country’s politics.
God knows best, but what still remains a puzzle for naïve people like us is as to why Mian Sahib, somehow, never debunked those bad fellows who often had played Brutus to him (Sheikh Rashid, Ejaz ul Haque, Chaudhry brothers of Gujrat and Chaudhry Nisar, to name only a few), and why he just always refused to learn the very basic lesson in politics, which is to patch up with the main party in opposition in the larger interest of the country. Each of these two main parties horn-locked themselves, two times in the past, and the final time now. Each party (PML (N) and PPP), each time in the two stints of being in power, acted like the proverbial wet-blanket to each other while drowning. The complete destruction of both will come now as what was left in the art of self-destruction will be accomplished by the current PPP leadership. Add to it the Musharraf syndrome; the ailment of Mian Sahib seems to have become all alarming.
In the fall of nations and people, the second sure ingredient after religious fanaticism and intolerance is the presence of arrogance. What is spared by the first two gets destroyed by the third. There are no exceptions to this rule, be they the Romans; the British as colonists; or the United States of America as the sole Super Power after the fall of the Berlin Wall, or be it Russia, India and China.
Then came General Musharraf wearing the robe of a messiah. Until October 1999, the country had been in turmoil on all fronts, except in the field of its sovereignty. At least there had been present a semblance of it within and outside the country. People like us greeted him, hoping he would prove wrong history’s claim that one of its constants is that nobody ever learns any lessons from it. Instead of distancing himself from the former military dictators, he began taking them as his role models during the times of grave peril. Except for the first three years, his rule basically had been an extension of all the previous regimes, plus a struggle to survive by hook or by crook. Arrogance and love for absolute power ideally settled in his mind, giving him the same foolish feeling that once had become a part of President Ayub Khan’s psyche, which being, “What will happen to Pakistan if he were not there?”. His recent statements at Birmingham are a source of personal shame to me as on more than two occasions I compared him to “Prometheus Bound”. I curse my English and my imagination for having written so.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
