Pakistan's Moment of Democracy?

It will not be going to far to say that lately every Pakistani has been inundated with an ethereal feeling that they’re living through a page of history. As we watch history unfold before us with the country swaying from one crisis to another we are overwhelmed by the sheer enormity of the recent events, the scope and scale of which seems beyond our grasp right now. For the millions of Pakistanis living abroad the chaos back home brought uncertainty and despair which was magnified by the helplessness one felt sitting thousands of miles away. However even as many conceded that ‘Musharraf is not going anywhere’, a confident optimism was ushered in by the pro-active response of Pakistanis around the world who seemed beset with an intangible urge to 'do something'.

‘There is a palpable sense amongst Pakistanis abroad that this is a decisive moment in Pakistan’s history and that they cannot just sit silently. There is an urge to speak out. It is the urge to not sit silently and let history go by. It is the urge to say something, to be heard, to be counted’, says Adil Najam. A professor of International Relations, Geography and Environment and the Pardee Chair for Global Public Policy at the Boston University, Najam is among the many other US based Pakistani academics who have been very vocal about the current state of affairs in Pakistan. He describes the people’s reaction to the current state of affairs in Pakistan as ‘Pakistan’s moment of democracy’. ‘Even if we do not get democracy out of it, we have proved that Pakistan is a democratic society trapped in an undemocratic state’, he says.

In recent times the Pakistani community in the US witnessed a flurry of activity with young students, prominent community leaders, academics and ordinary people holding vigils and demonstrations. At one end of the spectrum were the silent somber vigils for Bhutto and one the other was the upbeat campus-activism which came to life with Pakistani students initiating protests ‘teach-in’s and Panels like ‘Pakistan: A War on Civil Society’, ‘Pakistan: Political and Civil Crisis’, ‘The Past and Future Emergencies in the State of Pakistan’ at the Mount Holyoke College ,University of Pennsylvania and the University of Chicago among others.
Sohail Hashmi, a professor of International Relations, who was on the Mount Holyoke panel describes the students’ response to events in Pakistan as truly unprecedented and says ‘I can't think of another instance in Pakistan's history when so many ordinary people responded so swiftly and with such conviction. The reason for this new-found activism is the new age of instant communication which makes it possible for a spontaneous and worldwide network of concerned people to respond immediately to events on the other side of the globe’.

Hashmi believes that although the international protests are important they are secondary to the courageous response of many people in Pakistan itself and says ‘Civil society in Pakistan can be supported in many ways by people outside the country, but in the end a vibrant civil society that undergirds a vibrant democracy can only come about if Pakistanis themselves nurture and defend it’.

And it was precisely this fact that the well-known human rights activist Hina Jilani tried to drive home when was invited to the Capitol Hill by the ‘Congressional Human Rights Caucus. She very forthrightly pointed out to the Congress members that she was not there ‘to ask the United States to do something’. ‘All we ask the international community to do is to support us and further our objectives rather than stand in our way. The same standards apply to us, the citizens of Pakistan, that apply to people here in America. We have a right to be governed under the rule of law’, she said. Unfortunately such voices of dissent have not found their way into the US State Department which seems to be impervious to the public furor over Musharraf’s policies.

Not surprisingly most experts do not expect any substantial change in US policy towards the Musharraf regime. Aqil Shah, a Professor of Political Science at Columbia University says, ‘The Bush administration sees elections as the answer to the crisis which is why it has consistently pushed for ‘free and fair’ polls at least in rhetoric, while ignoring the no less important issue of the rule of law in Pakistan, including Musharraf's purging of the the judiciary. Interestingly this administration has carefully skirted the issue of the restoration of the judiciary in Pakistan on the grounds that it would be unacceptable to Musharraf. But it does not take a genius to figure out that the Supreme Court's active role in retrieving the ‘missing’ persons from the illegal custody of the ISI did not have many fans in an administration which has tried to circumvent even the U.S. justice and legal system in its no holds barred approach to the prosecution of the ‘war on terror’.

While the lifting of the emergency and the elections in Pakistan are being presented as an anecdote to Pakistan’s pain, many people remain unconvinced. ‘The end of the Emergency means nothing, what we have now is invisible repression which is even more dangerous. Any elections will be meaningless under this regime. So we’ll keep on protesting,’ said Alizeh Yousuf, a graduate student from Boston, very adamantly. Yousuf was one of the hundreds of protesting in front of the UN the other day in sub-zero temperatures, a perfect picture of defiant conviction that has characterized Pakistani students of late. ‘It is heartening to see that especially the young standing up and demanding change,’ Najam says. ‘Will they get the change they want? Probably not. But not getting it does not mean that their desire for democracy will go away. The cynic will say that its just about them getting ‘bored’ with Musharraf. But it’s all really about people getting tired of not being listened to’. Najam believes that the poorest performers in Pakistan today are ‘our so-called political ‘leaders’ . ‘Not only are they not leading, they are not even wise enough to ‘follow’ the people’, he says.’ I am hopeful that we are also witnessing the emergence of a new generation of leadership – from amongst the lawyers, the journalists, the students’.

This hope has been voiced unequivocally by many other prominent Pakistanis. Salman Ahmad of ‘Junoon’ who has somewhat become a cult figure for young Pakistanis in the US and has been very visible at the New York protests wrote recently in the Washington Post, ‘The lawyers and the judiciary that are the hope and future of Pakistan. The United States and its allies need to unequivocally support the Pakistani judges, lawyers, journalists and rights activists fighting for the rule of law. A strong Pakistani civil society would provide stability and a powerful institutional deterrent against violence and extremism. The reward for such support now could one day be a democratic Muslim country at peace with itself and the world’.

Shah however believes that while the active, mobilized sections of civil society, are important in the struggle for democracy and the rule of law, they are not a substitute for political parties and political leadership. ‘Leadership assumes a critical role especially when political institutions are weak. But there is a difference between leadership in civil society and the political leadership in terms of their role in a democratic transition and after. Political parties serve the crucial function of mediating between state and society. So Pakistan's best bet for re-democratization lies in the PPP and the PML-N, however, imperfect and flawed they may be. It is the best hope for discouraging future political and military actors from grabbing power unilaterally’, he says.

Given this scenario where people can only look up to corrupt and incompetent leaders as saviors, there is understandable pessimism. ‘Where does one look for change? ’ asks Adnan Mirza, a graduate student who participated in the New York protest and who finds Musharraf’s policies ‘intolerable’. But while many young people are protesting against Musharraf a lot of them are supporting him too. One comes across groups on the Facebook ‘Pakistan would be LOST without President Musharraf!’ or ’The Truth About Musharraf’ which believes that ‘Musharraf is a visionary, he sees what’s invisible to others’. Bareeha Jafri, the creator of the group ‘Musharraf - The Only Hope’ argues, ‘What are the choices if not Musharraf? The extremists or the leading civilian politicians who hope to take over from Musharraf? Every one of them when in office proved corrupt and incompetent’.

Others like Afnan Ijaz, an under-graduate student from Pennsylvania supports Musharraf because he’s ‘secular’ and ‘moderate’ and ‘he knows what he’s doing’. Like many Musharraf supporters Ijaz believes that ‘these public protests have only attracted negative attention and reinforced the image of Pakistan as a failed country’.

Whether the vociferous protests by Pakistani people around the world have done a disservice to Pakistan’s image or actually vindicated them for standing up for their rights, time will tell. One things is certain though. The Pakistani people’s determined public reaction has challenged the simplistic assumptions about Pakistan and it’s people, forcing those who fail to make a distinction between voice of the state and the people, to think twice. ‘Far from reinforcing the image of Pakistan as a failed country, the response to the emergency shows the world that for many Pakistanis, the constitution and civil rights are worth defending, even at grave personal risks’, Hashmi claims.

Najam supports this view and believes that recent events in Pakistan are not a failure on the part of Pakistanis, instead a proclamation of their success and a matter of great pride for Pakistanis. ‘How can you not be proud of your people when ordinary citizens come out on the streets ready to be beaten up and put in jail? The Pakistani state and politicians have disappointed, but the Pakistani people have not.’ And to stand up for the people of Pakistan Najam suggests, ‘remain bearish on Musharraf but bullish on Pakistan’.