Daughter of the Beast: The General's New Clothes

As Tom and Jerry style cat and mouse charades in Pakistan’s politics continue, apart from corruption and militarism, suicide bombing type terrorism is quickly gaining political currency in that country. With Benazir’s arrival on the scene it seems that an intensification of the trend towards suicide attacks is inevitable. Hence the question arises exactly what is going to become of Pakistan governance given the military’s history of meddling in politics? Acquiescing as the west’s “staunchest ally” in the war on terror is an uneasy experience for Pakistan and the long-term effects of the war are now setting in. Pakistan’s co-option in the war on terror enterprise was founded on Musharraf’s better sense to avoid being “bombed into the Stone Age” by the Americans. This now seems like a poor choice given that states (e.g. Iran, North Korea and Syria) which support terrorist organisations have not received the “Stone-Age” punishment.

Paradoxically the US wants simultaneously to bring countries like Afghanistan out of the Stone Age and, if we are to believe Musharraf, bomb voices of dissent back into an age of that description. It is also striking that the government of the Stone Age, i.e., the Taliban and al-Qaida, are the enemies of the Americans and that bombing Pakistan would only create more enemies for America. Indeed the Americans choose their friends and enemies carefully and support (Saudi Arabia) and oppose (Iran) states whose description is within the meaning of the term “Stone Age”.

But now the good times are leaving Pakistan yet again after the orgy of American dollars exclusively benefiting the rich, pumped in as a consequence of Pakistan’s obedience in the war on terror, seem quite likely to flee from a hostile political environment which is not conducive to foreign investment. All this is a far cry from the immediate concerns of the common people who intensely crave “good governance” but have not once seen it until now. The wait has been, and continues to be, painfully long; sixty years is a long time.

If a symbiotic relationship between the army and the PPP (under Benazir) is achievable then improved governance must be consistent and the benefits of any improvements should vest in the people rather than the personal fortunes of Pakistan’s political masters and their puppets. This is where the wait and see provisions of “the deal” will set in to extend our present state of limbo. Let’s hope that we don’t have to wait too long. The irrebuttable presumption operative in the minds of Pakistanis in relation to Benazir and Asif’s intentions to rob Pakistan blind again is only there because the couple have proved their adeptness in this art before. The question looming over Benazir’s credibility is simply whether we can foolishly (because this time we have the advantage of hindsight) trust that woman yet again? Eminent and distinguished Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid very presciently points out that the relationship between Benazir and Musharraf is fractious because she wants to “confront” extremists rather than follow his policy to “appease” them.

US support for Benazir Bhutto stems from her popularity which is in turn embedded in her father’s unlawful killing; indeed many in Pakistan believe this to be a historic martyrdom. Logically the question which follows is: can Pakistan’s governance be subjected to the lofty ideals of western liberal democracy? One would say well why not? But more imperatively is such a “transition” in Pakistan’s governance achievable under the aegis of the army with the collusion of their staunchest enemy, Benazir? Reliance placed in Benazir is bound to culminate in tragedy in an already complex and objectively atrophic situation because rather than serving as a catalyst fostering an accelerated restoration of democracy, Benazir’s quite perverse antecedents reveal that she is an impediment to freedom in Pakistan. However, easy as it is to accuse Benazir of being an interloper it would be improper to disregard the possibility that she might have changed, unlikely as this might now seem, and will not let Pakistan down again.

From the events of 18th October 2007, which left 139 dead and many more injured, it is obvious that the democratic enterprise as envisaged by Musharraf and Benazir, approved by Euro-America, is quite a regrettable development in Pakistan as it takes only one, or perhaps two, and at maximum three, determined Islamists to stop the democratic dynamo of progress dead in its tracks.

Pakistan’s famously twice disgraced former prime minister who has assets valuing US$ 1.5 billion is now largely cleared of corruption charges nationally. However the Swiss money-laundering probe still looms over her and Asif. As Benazir is now inexplicably free from vice and back in the political mainstream, her participation in Pakistan’s project of “good governance” seems a sine qua non. Determined Islamist militants will always present themselves, and indeed local people will see them in this light, as pious people who want to stop corruption and military misrule. The equation between Benazir and Musharraf is a contradiction because people who liked him now consider him to be corrupt and her popularity is also, but not equally, damaged because she is a crone of American and the army. Despite all that has been said about her, Benazir arrived with a bang rather than being taken out by one. If she had been killed then the buck would have stopped with Musharraf and he must have mixed emotions about her surviving the attack on her. Now they are part of the suicide bomb survivors club.

For the west to support Benazir with specific knowledge of her mischief making in the past is repulsive because true freedom is not achieved by inducing tin pot dictators and corrupt politicians to collude and hijack the diminishing and residual institutions of state for the purpose of misrepresenting the truth. In Pakistan liberty is inexorably in a state of malaise without a possible remedy and without any foreseeable relief. Promises made by the ruling classes need to be enforced and an effective mechanism of consultation and review needs to be established to hold everyone involved in governance accountable for their actions, decisions and omissions. Such an equation would have to include the army because if they remain immune from accountability, through the implementation of transparent measures, then Pakistan’s political system will never work. Thus far, the army’s interference in civilian affairs of state, more than Benzair’s incompetence and corruption, has been the primary reason for the failings of Pakistan as a state and the bane of Pakistan’s numerous tragedies and disasters which it is imprudent to enumerated here presently.

Former star cricketer Imran Khan and his former wife have pulled a few punches and their confessed odium of Benazir makes their comments on the situation too subjective and too damned sanctimonious to be taken seriously. In any event they are preaching a stale message and that too largely to the converted. Imran’s joint attack with Jemima, who is a still a “convert to Islam”, is unnecessary and her comments on Hermes scarves only serves to reveal parity in the ladies’ shopping tastes, budgets and indeed ilk rather than any substantive analysis of Pakistan’s politics. It is very giving of Jemima to say that Benazir (a) “is not bad looking either” and (b) “may look good on Larry King’s sofa” despite Benazir calling Jemima “names during her election campaign in 1996” which “left a bitter taste”. However Jemima elided in specifically making the comment that Benazir’s desirability is enhanced because she is a fair (no pun intended) woman and her complexion serves to compliment her princess image inexorably awarded to her by the west.

But is an ad hominem attack on Benazir untoward? The truth is that Jemima is right in saying that Benazir is no Aung San Suu Kyi but it is factually incorrect to say that Benazir has not suffered personally during her political career. The Bhutto family’s persecution by General Zia was systemic and Benazir was only a young woman when her father was judicially murdered. Like all members of the Movement for Restoration for Democracy, Benazir was detained at length and the military inspected her and performed surgical procedures on her without her consent. Or so she has said. And there are pictures capturing Benazir’s suffering in which she seems equally close to death due to emaciation as she now looks fat and pompous. Jemima and Imran’s comments advance no new analysis and only iteratively regurgitated Benazir’s infamy and opprobrium.

As for Imran’s university comparisons with the fat lady of Pakistan, well anyone can punch below the belt. Neither the fact that Benazir was a “friend” of Imran’s nor the fact that she is a woman halted his needless character assassination of her: it seems to have accelerated it. Not gentlemanly behaviour. Imran’s posthumous analyses about the odds of a suicide attack on Benazir are correct but perhaps he should have personally warned his university friend of the graveness of her security concerns. What does Imran mean when he states that “[t]he tribesman's culture is a revenge culture. When one is killed another takes his place.” This abhorrent misunderstanding of the social anthropology of indigenous pastoral hunter-gatherer people is very offensive and no man “educated” at Oxford, or anywhere else, should be capable of making such a dumb statement. He is as stupid as she is corrupt but what are we to do? Oh Allah please send us at least a sign if not an Angel.

Notwithstanding her own political correctness on the “gender” issue in Pakistan, Jemima’s stance, while a student at the School of Oriental and African Studies, mirrored Imran’s views on religion which his former wife shared as “correct” and which she proceeded to defend where one remained unavailable. This included positive comments about General Zia’s rule and surprisingly even overtures according common sensibilities to Sharia law despite her criticisms of there being no distinction between rape and adultery within such law. Under Chapter 2 and Article 31 (“Islamic way of life”) of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan 1973 Jemima could claim an amnesty for holding such views but I would discourage the world in taking Hugh Grant’s girlfriend’s myopic worldview seriously because it is redolent of Imran’s apologist “born again Muslim” position. Equally, and in irony, the requirements set out in Article 31 also serve as the grounds to resist and challenge limitations placed on madrassas in Pakistan. Herein is lies the imperative question: is it unconstitutional to close madrassas in Pakistan? Prima facie the answer is that such a prohibition is indeed constitutional.

Despite antecedents which are “repulsive” to Islam and very ironically, Imran’s religious tendencies are indelibly linked to a Taliban worldview and require a literal application of scriptural requirements of Quranic law even in contemporary times. Common sense militates against taking such a static view of religion and Islam must continue to confront modernity as must a plethora of other religions. However, adequate weight and relevance must be accorded to objective evidence identified by Jemima for (i) the US$ 1.5 billion assets of Benazir and Asif as ascertained by the National Accountability Bureau and (ii) the rigging of the 2002 election by General Musharraf as appraised by the European Union (Ahmed Rashid has very politely appraised this as “selective” rigging). Both Musharraf and Benazir will have to work hard to explain these are “understandable anomalies”, the expression Tony Blair famously used to explain Guantanamo Bay: a place Lord Steyn condemned unequivocally as a “legal black hole” but which Musharraf and Benazir must see as justified because of their respective near escapes in suicide bombings. Musharraf is leading the score two-one and is hence the senior member of the club and just from that logic he should, and indeed does, call the shots.

The Pakistan army’s agreements with Islamists first and would be “democratic” parties later are not only foreseeable but are equally historic. However, this symmetry is distorted only by the distinction that the presently continuing President and the Chief of Army Staff (COAS) awaits the verdict of his Supreme Court on the legality of his election in the aftermath of his lost battle with the Chief Justice who, shunning impropriety, has recused himself in a manner Lord Hoffman, who while simultaneously an executive of Amnesty International and a British Law Lord, had not done for General Augusto Pinochet.

The western media, in its Alice in Wonderland treatment of Benazir Bhutto, makes some historically inaccurate and unreasonable comments such as “[h]er party has a record of effectively clearing up trouble in Karachi as well as in the north-west in the mid-1990s.” By according her an inexorable princess position, because of her family’s political pedigree and her gender does the west not run the risk of putting their eggs in one basket? For if Benazir is returned to power through the connivance of the military junta it will mean the restoration of a person who was an accomplice of and the accessory to her husband Mr Asif Ali Zardari: a known criminal. It can be said deductively that by supporting Benazir the west supports corruption in Pakistan.

However, we have seen all this from Benazir before in the last century when the princess was young. Like the young Tony Blair, there was much to be said about the young Benazir. Despite being accredited by the BBC with a “clearing up trouble” tenure while “serving” as the prime minister of Pakistan she has failed to fit this description because trouble in the NWFP is alive and well and the Taliban operate with virtual impunity.

In fact it was Benazir’s interior minister General Babar who cunningly deployed the first of the Taliban to provide security for Pakistan army convoys traveling through Afghanistan which faced invariable attack from local warlords. What we did not see on Benazir’s return in 1986, where after the buoyant hopes of the masses were irreparably dashed by her consequent behaviour, was the suicide attempt on her life which will surely serve as a reality check for her understanding of the Pakistani political scene. In 1996 the combined military and police operation in Karachi left hundreds dead. Murder was redefined as a “police encounter”. In a world where international intrastate consensus discloses that judicial killing is no longer accepted, how could a champion of democracy like Benazir let such events unfold? Along with the irresolute policies of successive governments, including the present puppet civilian part of the regime, the onus for the problems of Pakistan rests equally upon Benazir for her comprehensive incompetence and mismanagement. Any nonchalance on anyone’s part in relation to Benazir’s intentions and antecedents would amount to a grave mistake if not a crime. In the eight years of Benazir’s “self-exile” we repetitively heard the same old story about “the holy warriors who were created for the Afghan jihad”. She facilitated the Taliban’s rise and now they want to kill her: as if for once miraculously lady justice tipped the scales in the right direction!

The prince, Asif, already blames the government. Zardari should note is that Benazir’s behaviour was contrary to the security advice of the Pakistani authorities. With 18 soldiers killed in Swat today (25th October 2007) it is obvious that the establishment is unable to protect its own armed forces and officials leave alone a foreign promoted ex disgraced prime minister like Benazir. Even in Israel’s heightened scrutiny in security matters suicide bombings are not always preventable. Stopping a suicide bomber in Pakistan’s most crowded city was improbable at best especially with the multiple express warnings intending to kill Benazir. When Benazir arrived at Karachi airport she said that she was “humbled”. One remains certain that this emotion is now at its apex with the attempt on her life.

Most striking in Benazir’s repertoire is the use of the possessive “my” which seems to accord her a higher interest or right in Pakistan than others. The truth is that those who seek to kill Benazir and Musharraf, the “Taliban”, are also a part of Pakistan and cannot be jettisoned as extra baggage. The country is theirs as well and they choose to exercise their constitutional rights in following Islam, establishing madrassas and advancing the Arabic language. It seems that Musharraf and Benazir will have to amend the constitution which is an uphill task to say the least.

I departed the above points with a mention of clothes. Jemima should not characterise Benazir as a “kleptocrat in a Hermes scarf” because an argument can be mounted that wearers of Hermes scarves are dishonest politicians from developing countries. This identification almost certainly precludes other fashion labels, such as Channel and Gucci, from having links with corrupt politicians and associates brands other than Hermes with nice people like Jemima. Only God and Jemima know how many Hermes scarves she has personally. Jemima might not be a kleptocrat but her opinion about Pakistan is neither here nor there. She could not tolerate living in that country despite her conversion to Islam and marriage to Imran. Or maybe that was not the real reason.

But let us hope that widespread allegations regarding the historic corruption and entropy in eras bygone has a salutary effect on the PPP leadership and that they behave with dignity and honour rather than vengefulness and immorality. The tit for tat war of words between Chaudhry Shujaat and Benazir proves otherwise; an accusation by her that that he is “protecting the killers” was met with a stern response by him that Asif orchestrated Benazir’s bombing to garner support for her because she reentered her fortified truck immediately before the explosion. In any event the buck stops with Benazir when it comes to her ostentatious arrival in Karachi in the face of express and specific advice by the government for her not to stage a triumphant parade upon her return because the Taliban considered her a military target.

Meanwhile, in an effort to fortify against future cataclysms and to bolster public confidence the Election Commission of Pakistan has unwittingly fused the judiciary and the armed forces together by declaring that political parties must redact their tone and refrain from making statements ridiculing or defaming these institutions. To defame the Supreme Court is a constitutional violation and “contempt of court” within the meaning of Article 204(2)(b) of the 1973 Constitution. In itself a requirement of civility is not an unreasonable, but limiting free speech and delineating criticism - especially of the military - is not terribly democratic especially in light of the fact that “free” and “fair” elections are, touch wood, forthcoming.

On 22nd October 2007 Dr Teddy Brett, who once taught me development management at the London School of Economics, was on Newsnight with anchor Gavin Elser and Sudanese billionaire Mo Ibrahim. Dr Brett said that the prize that the Mo Ibrahim Foundation was giving to the former president of Mozambique (Joaquim Chissano) for good governance in Africa should be earmarked for building institutions of good governance. In Dr Brett’s view a £5 million prize undermined good governance rather than reifying it. In class, at a time when “9/11” had not happened, I had always presented General Musharraf’s case as the “least worst option for Pakistan” because that is the only maxim that managers of development follow. Regrettably there are no “clean hands” requirements in social science as in law and equity may be, and is, offended at will.

A mitigation I advanced on the General’s behalf was that he would harmonise Pakistan and rid us of extremism. In this venture he has plainly failed. I doubt that taking the uniform off now will help because it would have been far better for him to step down rather than to cling to power, invoke global ridicule and compromise Pakistan’s survival as a nation state. Fawning dictatorship is universally an insult and hence there is acrimony between Musharraf and Benazir; she is eager to show that she is not doing deals with him but, as Ahmed Rashid points out, despite the army’s dwindling popularity she needs the army because it controls Pakistan. Even if overwhelming improvements in governance were evinced through proportionate policy measures - something that has not happened - the case for retaining the army for governance matters, “necessity” notwithstanding, would be feeble at best. The ostensible picture of economic prosperity and progress sold to us by Shukat Aziz is a cover up for a hiatus which will make itself apparent in future when we least expect it; this will be when America ditches us again or maybe it will be even sooner. Impugning putative truths Ahmed Rashid aptly locates the army’s intentions when he explains that Musharraf has perpetuated “a military-dominated political system.”

The institutions of good governance are alive in Pakistan although one cannot unequivocally say that they are doing “well”. Pakistan has a free press, an “independent judiciary” (one dare say) and legislature. Problems emerge because executive government positions are being hijacked by the army and their old foe Benazir Bhutto. It is very doubtable that a political stasis benefiting ordinary Pakistanis is achievable by these two forces because democracy cannot be achieved where the political enterprise is ancillary, incidental, peripheral or subordinate to the military. To borrow the phrase coined by Professor Keith Ewing in his famously advanced hypothesis, where he brutally dissected the human rights discourse in Britain: “liberty is in a state of malaise” in Pakistan and the patient seems to be losing the vital signs of life very rapidly.