An Empowering Verdict!

Romair:

I am on record here to be among the first one of the non-believers to oppose Military action. I even called it Pakistani Jalianwala Bagh. My support is considering the forces that are pulling apart, and sentiments and not. Indira Gandhi also lost in the Supreme Court, and yet turned out to be one of the most courageous leader of the time for India. She too made a lot and really a lot of enemies, and paid the ultimate price for the leadership.

"Indira Gandhi also lost in the Supreme Court, and yet turned out to be one of the most courageous leader of the time for India."

Courageous in doing what? Fighting Pakistan? Curbing democratic rights? Creating trouble in Punjab, Assam etc and then killing lots of people? Nationalising banks? I would really like to know.

#34 HP

Excellent analysis. This verdict is great for the long term and moves Pakistan in right direction but complicates things for the intermediate term.

Pakistani political chess game is too complicated for outsiders who are used to a normal game with two players/parties with certain rules. Here there are multiple players with their own agendas, many times diametrically opposite to each other. Each player also has his own strengths/rules - street power, mosques and ofcourse the tanks.

On top of all this, Uncle Sam controls, some if not all, players and supports their rules just to make sure that the winner is capable of making good on assigned deliverables.

May God help these players for their own, and others, well being.

#48 GT

"Courageous in doing what? Fighting Pakistan? Curbing democratic rights? Creating trouble in Punjab, Assam etc and then killing lots of people? Nationalising banks? I would really like to know."

You forgot couple of more courageous acts

- building first Sanjay and then Rajiv so that power stays with her family
- building Bhindrawale and then destroying him (and many others) when he went out of control

Need more proof :)

Hamidm #30 So you are now forecasting the future, viz. i think the mullahs, who have jumped on the cj's bandwagon, will gain the most from this 'victory'

:-(

you continue While the rest of the politicians squabble over what to do next, the mullahs will throw the rotten carcasses from the lal masjid and other fresh bodies from the daily suicide bommbings on to this bandwagon and run off with it

I dont get it, but sounds horrible. :-(

You conclude in any case, there is no reason not to celebrate - it is step in the right direction even though the future is still quite uncertain

hmmm...restating this double negative in plain english, I think you are sayhing "Celebrate!!" So, we agree there.

PS: "pyrrhic" is still the wrong word, btw, despite your clarifications. You clearly think this is victory has no legs. Use the word "ephemeral" if you must use a difficult word in your vain attempts to match masadi's intellectual standing. :-)

#34 Posted by HP on July 21, 2007 11:59:40 am

HP:

I read your post after reading Pardesi's reference. I disagree with your last statement:

"Creating another power block in countries like Pakistan is fraught with many dangers."

IMO, more the number of power centers less is the ability to collude. Lesser the ability to collude, lesser is the ability to exercise power.

I guess, you and I differ on the question of how much power a state should have.

I would like to state that I too am wary about the power of the judicial branch of the state. I had mentioned this somewhere in chowk, I think in my ilog, a long time back. In the case of Pakistan, though, this power is just about starting to evolve. Hence, unlike you, I am not very concerned.

re hamid/tahmed

i disagree with hamidm...i used to think so too, i.e that the CJ thing was too linked to the mullah movement to be something i could embrace. But i was wrong. The bad mullah element has clarified things by trying to blow up CJ supporters, its clear that they (the murderers) have left the party, now i am totally unreserved in my glee at what was a great victory not only for pakistanis but for justice and civil society believers everywhere.

#50 Posted by Pardesi on July 21, 2007 1:55:51 pm

Pardesi:

Yes that too. Actually lot of people associate 1971 with the 'bravery' of Indira Gandhi. As Salim Chauhan constantly reminds us, 1971 had less to do with Indira's bravery and more to do with Pakistani 'valor'. To this I would add the Jewish conspiracy ... what with Jacob disregarding command and heading straight for Dacca and then threatning the Tiger with only 7000 stationed outside Dacca. The whole thing really beats me.

cliftonbridge # 53 "i used to think so too, i.e that the CJ thing was too linked to the mullah movement to be something i could embrace."

I would hate to put an abrupt end to your glee, but the mullah movement continues to be instrinsically linked to CJ thing. Unless of course if you dont consider Fazlur Rehman, Liaqut Baloch etc to be mullah enough :)

Secondly PPP, whose people got bombed in Islamabad, has put the blame on ISI and not on mullahs. So perhaps some facts are in order before you have to change your opinion again.

Malik the other story is that the lal muskers were attacking the PPP for showing solidairty with the govt. I think thats more plausible.
I agree that there are likely several overlapping threads, and yes i agree that i probaby still dislike alot of the CJ's supporters ...but when it comes to habeus corpeus for pakistani's even nutcase pakistani's i am on their side (even if they only belive in habeus for themselves and noone else).
Anyway i think the big picture here is that the institutions of civil society ie media and independant judiciary have been strengthened...some mullahs may also shortsightedly applaud this for now but in the long run its us liberals who have really won.

One can never be sure, but the way mushy meekly accepted the "verdict", one has to wonder whether this vote and the "verdict" were manipulated by him. This "verdict" lets the educated classes to declare victory and go home, takes attention away from the Lal mosque, and gives him some breathing space.

Paki "intellectuals" would be celebrating another great victory, the mullahs would have been dealt yet another stalemate.

Who knows, maybe the White house even advised him on this.

:-)

Oh - and this theory would be conclusively proven by the CJ's future verdicts. I think mushy has effectively castrated him by scaring the living $hit out of him before letting him out of the bag - from now on he is going to be more useful to mushu-baba than the islamic "intellectuals".

This is indeed a victory for Pakistan. The judiciary has graduated from being a rubber stamp for the dictators to an independent pillar of the government. However this could not have happened if the public had not come out showing massive support for the CJ. But for this, the CJ would have been thrown in the jail for the trumped up charges.

My only concern is, that was this massive support for the rule of law, or is it that the public was tired of the old Messiah and just looking for another Messiah. Would the people again celebrate the coming of another dictator when they are tire of the politicians.

The CJ too has to understand the he is not a politician but a judge and should show judicial restraint

#52 Posted by GT

I remember reading a column by a leading Pakistani Journalist Irshad Haqqani. He mentioned that he (Irshad) pointed out the seriousness of the CJ issue to the President in a meeting but Mushraf dismissed Irshad’s concerns. Mush at that time seemed more worried about the Jihadist intentions. The CJ was not high on Mush’s list. That was April before the 12th may massacre in Karachi. The seemingly stupid actions by the MQM made no sense at all. Who cared if the CJ partied in Karachi or not? His popularity was never going to translate into a popular movement against the Mush regime. I have mentioned it several times here that without the smaller provinces participation, there is never going to be a popular movement against the army in Pakistan.
Benazir’s attitude also confirmed that the attempt was to confine “the reinstate the CJ” movement to Punjab alone.

The government succeeded but not without the black face it got in Karachi.

As Perdesi(#49 Posted by Pardesi) mentioned there are no two sides of stories in Pakistan. There are plenty of sides and there are several stories and one has to muddle through many layers of vested interests to actually figure out what is taking place in Pakistan. Army has created many small factions with in the society both in political and cultural sense. While the army created the mullah brigade it also encouraged the seemingly secular nationalists in the smaller provinces besides other groups like the MQM or the MMA. The game is to play all these groups against each other and when groups grow in power and start talking back to the army, the army puts them down forcefully.

Sardar Bugti for most of his life was a trusted army lieutenant in Baluchistan. But when he thought he was indispensable, the army violently murdered him. The recent action against the Lal masjid is another example of how brutally army crushed a group that the army itself nurtured over the years. Lal masjid was made an example for the islamists who for the most part are army’s best allies in Pakistan. Bugti murder was a warning to the Baloch and Sindh nationalists, the Lal Masjid action is sure to send some cold shivers down the Islamists spines.

Remember that these lawyers and justices for the most part, get their jobs and rozi roti through the army. The army is allowing them to gain some traction in Pakistani political arena but that does not mean that army cannot or will not pull them back when needed. The lawyers and judges are just one spineless group in the true middle class traditions. They may be happy with this easy victory but when the time comes for a meaningful pro democracy movement, most of them would be found lecturing the politicians from the barrooms.

Mush has outlived his utility and he must go but a big scene has to be created to replace him. He knows he has to go but he will not hand over reins to civilians. His game is to create a situation where only an army general can replace him.
I do agree that a sequence of smaller victories can turn into a tide; however, generating that sequence and turning even the tide in to a real victory in Pakistan is asking a lot.

Getting out of this current mayhem in Pakistan is tied to the next elections and hopefully a peaceful transfer of power, which the army would attempt to prevent as much as it can.

clifton,

"civil society ie media and independant judiciary have been strengthened"

........ i would not break out the ladoos just yet .... have you ever seen the media ?.... aniq ahmed and shahid masood? .... do they appear to be independent ?...... i might not be the brightest bulb on mo's palmtree but as far as i can tell, the media has been 'captured' by the mullahs ..... these mullah's masquerading as 'enlightened maaderates' in suits and some without ties, are much more dangerous than the bearded variety - at least you shoot as soon as you spot a beard ... what do you do when you see a guy in a pin striped suit with a koran in his hand ?

"what do you do when you see a guy in a pin striped suit with a koran in his hand ? "

... sorry tahmed, i didn't mean you ... your koranist movement is about as harmless (and useful) as madonna's kabbala judaism ......... please carry on