A Sad Day for Pakistan

The SC of Pakistan voted to maintain the status quo and therefore its decision (or lack thereof) was an endorsement of Musharraf. It decided similar to what the SC of Pakistan (subservient to the military) has been doing throughout the short history of Pakistan, nothing has changed. Even in the best scenario, if this decision was to prevent a premature Martial Law, even then justice was subverted because the decision was not made on the merits of the case. The SC in both cases failed to check the excesses of the Executive and the Legislature and acted against the interests of the people. Its decision has made this country a laughing stock of the world where democracy is concerned, a military general in office running for the civilian presidency of a country- a banana republic of clowns....

On a positive note, the lawyers/journalist protest that was witnessed today in Islamabad was the positive unforseen consequence of the manufactured CJ crisis. Whenever the US elite and its occupation force play games in our countries, they produce byproducts and conseqences that they have either not figured or ignored in their equation. Let the transitory period of "manufactured" democracy come and then another martial law, they will produce similar unforseen consequences that will be a major thorn in the side of the neo-colonials and their occupation force. Every new martial law diminishes the value of the Pakistan Army in the eyes of the Pakistani public, now it is at a very low ebb, one more martial law and this military is done for in Pakistan, then it is open civil war, what emerges from it is anyones guess.....the hypocritical experiment of the MAJ and the colonials has gone sour,let us hope we don't enter the union in this weakened state, we need civilian leaders of the calibre of ZAB...

Feroz writes "Note: The decision was based on the existence of the law, the Seventeeth Amendment, which incorporated the entire Legal Framework Order into the constitution and in fact, made it de jure.

Who made the law and passed the Seventeenth Amendment?

The Superme Court of Pakistan or the MMA?"


Of course, what else do we expect from a supporter of Neo-colonials and their dictators, little wonder that a name of someone Western wasn't thrown out as "authority" in this post. That said this is a bunch of BS. Amendments to the constitutions cannot be made to accomodate one person as against the nation, they cannot be made when the legislature- elected or not- is under the gun of military rule, and further the 17th Amendment (as Aitzaz Ahsan made clear quite clearly) does not authorize a military general in service to run for presidential elections. It merely allows the current president to maintain his uniform until November of this year, both are logically very different and sorting out both the legitimacy of the 17th amendment as well as the logicality of the claims is the INTERPRETIVE function of the SC from which it DELIBERATELY ran away to produce this veiled support of dictatorship....

Don't whine fellows about General Musharraf!

Od all the dictators of Pakistan, he is the smartest and can come around to help launch democracy. What do you think Benzair Bhutto is going to launch happy days in Pkistan forever.?

For minute imagine if General Mush is Gen Shwe of Burma!!

Good luck fellows. Take it easy and wait and see.

Kamath

Very unfortunatel that HP who understands the military and its dictatorship in this country had to agree with the miserable Ferozk

Honestly in all seriousness, for all his flaws had Mr. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto ever come across this Masadi character, he would laugh so hard at how ignorant Masadi is...

Ironically while the people of Pakistan were under the leadership of Fatima Jinnah waging a war against a US-Backed dictator in 1964-1965... the "civilian leadership" of ZAB's calibre were busy fudging the election for the Military dictator.

Here is a great article I found in the Time Magazine archives (oh yes the US elite backed time magazine)

Trouble with Mother
Friday, Dec. 25, 1964 Article



"They call her the Mother of the Nation," sniffed Pakistan's President Mohammed Ayub Khan. "Then she should at least behave like a mother." What upset Ayub was that Fatima Jinnah looked so good in pants. The more she upbraided Ayub, the louder Pakistanis cheered the frail figure in her shalwar (baggy white silk trousers). By last week, with Pakistan's first presidential election only a fortnight away, opposition to Ayub had reached a pitch unequaled in his six years of autocratic rule.

The Big Stick. White-haired Miss Jinnah, 71, the candidate of five ragtag and usually disunited opposition parties, was picked mainly because she was the sister and confidante of the late revered Mohammed Ali Jinnah, father of his nation's independence. But Pakistan's response to her razor-tongued attacks on Ayub's highhanded ways has surprised and shocked the government. Students throughout the nation staged angry protest marches against the regime, and at least one demonstrator was killed by police in Karachi. DOWN WITH THE AYUB DICTATORSHIP, cried posters in the East Pakistan city of Dacca, where students enthusiastically proclaimed Miss Fatima Jinnah Week. In Karachi, Pakistan's biggest city, student unrest prompted the government to close all the schools indefinitely.

Most legal groups in Pakistan have come out for Miss Jinnah, and were denounced by Ayub as "mischiefmongers." In reply, the Karachi Bar Association overwhelmingly adopted a resolution urging "the party in power to get rid of the notion that wisdom, righteousness and patriotism are the monopoly of their yes men." The usually complaisant newspaper editors defied the regime's attempts to make them endorse a restrictive new press law.

To Ayub's claim that he is trying to develop "basic democracy," Miss Jinnah replied: "What sort of democracy is that? One man's democracy? Fifty persons' democracy?" As for Ayub's charge that the country would revert to chaos if he is defeated, his rival snapped: "You can't have stability through compulsion, force and the big stick."

Running Scared. Actually, Ayub has been a reluctant and benevolent dictator, who has vastly improved the stability of a country that was paralyzed by squabbling politicians before he took over. Considering Pakistan's backwardness and poverty, the Ayub-designed electoral system is not half bad, giving the vote to 80,000 middle-and upper-class electors. While that is a tiny percentage in a total population of 110 million, most of those millions are not only illiterate but totally ignorant of political issues. With heavy support in rural areas, where many Moslem electors particularly disapprove of a woman's candidacy and where Ayub's economic reforms have helped more than in the cities, Ayub is still expected to win the election by some 60% of the vote.

Nonetheless, he is running scared, because Candidate Jinnah has managed to focus every form of discontent in the country. To brake her bandwagon, he abruptly decreed that elections would be held Jan. 2, instead of March, as originally scheduled. Explaining lamely that the situation is "a little tense," the government also rescinded a law specifying that political rallies must be open to the public.

At closed meetings with groups of electors, Ayub answered practical questions sensibly enough, but kept lashing out at the opposition with growing anger. Countering Miss Jinnah's repeated charge that he had been unable to restrain the U.S. from helping Pakistan's No. 1 adversary, India, he set out to portray her as pro-Indian and pro-American. Ayub's campaign, in fact, was turning increasingly anti-American.

Though U.S. aid (about $5 billion since 1951) is vital to the nation's wretched economy, a leading member of Ayub's party cried: "America never was our friend and never could be, because as a nation aligned with the anticolonial movements, we are at cross-purposes with America." As for Ayub, he plainly regretted ever calling elections in the first place. For after six years of insisting that Pakistanis were not ready for democracy, the campaign had shown that Mohammed Ayub Khan probably isn't either.


The last thing we need is someone like Khusro Bakhtiar becoming another ZAB from within the regime. God save this nation from another Zulfikar Ali Bhuttoady of the DICTATOR.

Manto: The reality is the supreme court does not follow either precedent or spirit in it's verdicts.

Also you have to appreciate minus a few exceptions the intellectual of some of the judges and their allegiances are very much suspect. I know off one personally from his early days who frankly was most unimpressive and had dubious links to the present regime.

The reality is the lawyer movement won the CJ's case not because of the SC but in spite of it..whats telling is the end of political parties in the old sense. They stand totally discredited as mechanisms of mobilising society. That is the product of Zias depoliticisation of Pakistani society and the post 88 self inflicted wounds.

In this vacuum we have the lawyers, the media, the terrorists and the mullahs as the real opposition in Pakistan. The first two being inspiring, the second two being disturbing.

The disrespectful corrupt and despicable insult for earthworm SC judges are responsible for legitimizing this m/f again. They had very well in their power to invoke the doctrine of necessity again - i.e. necessity to get rid of anti-Pakistan, anti-Muslim thug mucharaf. For once they could invoke the Doctrine in the favor of Peoples of Pakistan. Not that they couldn't do it. It was very well in their power. They had the power of people, media, and lawyer's community on their back. Most of all they had the power of truth on their back but they chose to be shortsighted, complacent, and disgrace for human race.

It is said time and again that unless we get rid of the oppressive, corrupt social class that acts as the custodians of Western colonial interests in our country such sad and disgraceful days are the fait accompli for the people of Pakistan.

Manto writes "Honestly in all seriousness, for all his flaws had Mr. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto ever come across this Masadi character, he would laugh so hard at how ignorant Masadi is...

Ironically while the people of Pakistan were under the leadership of Fatima Jinnah waging a war against a US-Backed dictator in 1964-1965... the "civilian leadership" of ZAB's calibre were busy fudging the election for the Military dictator"


The High Priest of the Church of MAJ who was thoroughly and completely defeated is back at it again but I will not let him hijack this thread as well. Those who want to follow the ZAB/M(f'ing)J debate can look through three whole threads where I came up with reason and facts and he came up with copy pastes.

Now, Fatima Jinnah was popular because of her brother and her brother had his support not because of people issues but because of evoking religious exclusion and veiled bigotry. The only people's leader this country had seen who for the first time change the debate from theology to bread and butter issues, regardless of his achievements or lack thereof towards that end, was ZAB and for that reason alone he is the greatest leader this nation has seen to date. For other details read our debates. I will not discuss ZAB/M(f'ing)J here.

Masadi mian,

Please note that M in MAJ stands for Mahomed/Muhammad/Mohammed...

Now your comments about Jinnah were ignorant to begin with... but your stupidity vis a vis ZAB is just hilarious... I wasn't this naive even as a 19 year old when I actually admired Bhutto... and isn't this the same Bhutto who sold out repeatedly to the Mullahs resorting desperately to making Islamic sects "Kafir" .... banning alcohol gambling etc... because Bhutto had no programme except the programme to fool the people. And even that could not save him in the end... with a popular uprising against him from all corners... much like the sort we see against General Musharraf today.


BTW I present to you a "civilian leader" of "ZAB's calibre".

Meet the wadera from Southern Punjab Makhdoom Khusro Bakhtiar ...

Like ZAB... the spoilt brat scion of feudal aristocracy...

Like ZAB... the blue eyed boy of a dictator...

Like ZAB... educated in the finest schools in the west that money could buy and a bad lawyer...

Like ZAB, in his 30s and "Minister of State for Foreign Affairs"..

Like ZAB, a member of the dictator's personal Muslim League (ZAB was part of Ayub's Council Muslim League while there was an opposition Muslim League called the convention Muslim League ... just like today)

Like ZAB, Squeeler the Pig of the Military regime...

Like ZAB, one of the many conpirators to keep people out of power...

Like ZAB, establishment's next big populist politician

There is your civilian leadership of ZAB's calibre.

"came up with reason"

Unless "Reason" means something else in your Bizarro world, abuse and insults do not amount to reason.

Re #57, 58- what part of "don't hijack this thread" do you not understand. I know full well what the M in MAJ stands for, I was not talking about MAJ but MFJ and the "M" in MFJ is not the same as the M in MAJ, even though the J in both stands for Jinnah. This thread is not on the ZAB/MFJ debate, so might I suggest politely that you run off to another thread and leave us be.....

Manto writes "... because Bhutto had no programme except the programme to fool the people. And even that could not save him in the end... with a popular uprising against him from all corners... much like the sort we see against General Musharraf today. "

Popular uprising to Manto signifies a military/US induced opposition which facilitates a military dictatorship of the worst kind where an elected prime minister is put to death in a most barbaric manner, sentenced under the force of the gun to which a kangaroo court (the SC) submitted. On the other hand we have the MFJ where the M stands for MAMA, the F for (F'ing) and the J for Jinnah, who was living a comfortable life in the lap of the colonizers till the feudals invited him over to evoke religion to carve out a country that would function as a whore of the colonials.....The difference is big and the difference is clear....

In addition to #60, I'd like to add the following to #60,

"Reason with that punk!"

Zakk #54 you write In this vacuum we have the lawyers, the media, the terrorists and the mullahs as the real opposition in Pakistan. The first two being inspiring, the second two being disturbing.

Well put. I would only add that the reason the former are inspiring and the latter are disturbing is because they are fighting for different things:

1. the lawyers and the media are fighting to get back the basic rights of Pakistanis, notably the right to change leaders through free and fair elections, and the right to habeas corpus.

2. The terrorists are fighting to remove the remaining basic rights that do exist to varying degrees today, notably the right to free speech and the right to privacy.

And of course, for mullahs the "prize" is power (same as it is for Musharraf), while for lawyers the "prize" is a free and just society for all Pakistanis.

#55 urstruly: need i remind you that it was the maulvis who made the "deal" with musharraf that has introduced the 17th amendment in the Constitution. but dont waste time with little things like facts...

bjk writes " so corruption will stay (in the same way it continues to stay in day-to-day affairs of state) until an alternative scheme for funding campaigns is developed. In the USA, it takes place via matching funds from the Treasury"

Nonsense, this is a mere cover for legitimizing and mainstreaming the buying of elections in America where no deomocracy exists and where an elite deeply in bed with the corporations not only decides on which issues will dominate and be covered but which (narrow number of) candidates "make it" before any voting takes place. All mavericks are eliminated with or without matching funds- they are not even given slots in major debates or unpaid time on the corporate media. In Pakistan this type of money control is not yet seen simply because the corporations have not dominated our economy and the media is still immature, and the people are already skeptical of the feudals and their representatives. Here people look at results and how much a person understand their problems, that is why the ZAB was the first populist leader of this country inspite of those "big families" that out spent him, the opposition, before the military stepped in, could only muster the "religion card" like the MFJ, where the M stands for MAMA, the F for (F'ing) and the J for Jinnah.