Making a Mockery of Democracy

Frisco #93 While what you say about democracy being a question of attitudes is to some extent true , you are incorrect in assuming that is all there is to it.

Democracy is fundamentally a system of government - a system where every individual stays within the laws of the country, including the "apex law" namely the Constitution, on pain of charged and punished as a criminal.

By saying "it is in the eye of the beholder" you merely muddy the waters as surely as Cheema tried to muddy the waters concerning the manner in which Benazir laid down her life for the cause of democracy.

Dalrymple's article "but Bhutto has always seemed reassuringly familiar to Western governments - one of us."

The day the Western elite consider any one of us (Imran Khan included) as "one of us", that will be the day when a-holes like Dalrymple don't have to become "experts" on Pakistan and remind us their "best friends" are Pakistanis. Get this sob off our case, we don't need more of the orientalist BS about Pakistan who understand less about it than the illiterate, half starved eight year old who is grinding his fingers weaving carpets...

Pakistan's flawed and feudal princess

It's wrong for the West simply to mourn Benazir Bhutto as a martyred democrat, says this acclaimed south Asia expert. Her legacy is far murkier and more complex

William Dalrymple

Sunday December 30, 2007

The Observer

One of Benazir Bhutto's more dubious legacies to Pakistan is the Prime Minister's house in the middle of Islamabad. The building is a giddy, pseudo-Mexican ranch house with white walls and a red tile roof. There is nothing remotely Islamic about the building which, as my minder said when I went there to interview the then Prime Minister Bhutto, was 'PM's own design'. Inside, it was the same story. Crystal chandeliers dangled sometimes two or three to a room; oils of sunflowers and tumbling kittens that would have looked at home on the Hyde Park railings hung below garishly gilt cornices. The place felt as though it might be the weekend retreat of a particularly flamboyant Latin-American industrialist, but, in fact, it could have been anywhere. Had you been shown pictures of the place on one of those TV game-shows where you are taken around a house and then have to guess who lives there, you may have awarded this hacienda to virtually anyone except, perhaps, to the Prime Minister of an impoverished Islamic republic situated next door to Iran.

Which is, of course, exactly why the West always had a soft spot for Benazir Bhutto. Her neighbouring heads of state may have been figures as unpredictable and potentially alarming as President Ahmadinejad of Iran and a clutch of opium-trading Afghan warlords, but Bhutto has always seemed reassuringly familiar to Western governments - one of us. She spoke English fluently because it was her first language. She had an English governess, went to a convent run by Irish nuns and rounded off her education with degrees from Harvard and Oxford. 'London is like a second home for me,' she once told me. 'I know London well. I know where the theatres are, I know where the shops are, I know where the hairdressers are. I love to browse through Harrods and WH Smith in Sloane Square. I know all my favourite ice cream parlours. I used to particularly love going to the one at Marble Arch: Baskin Robbins. Sometimes, I used to drive all the way up from Oxford just for an ice cream and then drive back again. That was my idea of sin.' It was difficult to imagine any of her neighbouring heads of state, even India's earnest Sikh economist, Manmohan Singh, talking like this. For the Americans, what Benazir Bhutto wasn't was possibly more attractive even than what she was. She wasn't a religious fundamentalist, she didn't have a beard, she didn't organise rallies where everyone shouts: 'Death to America' and she didn't issue fatwas against Booker-winning authors, even though Salman Rushdie ridiculed her as the Virgin Ironpants in his novel Shame.

However, the very reasons that made the West love Benazir Bhutto are the same that gave many Pakistanis second thoughts. Her English might have been fluent, but you couldn't say the same about her Urdu which she spoke like a well-groomed foreigner: fluently, but ungrammatically. Her Sindhi was even worse; apart from a few imperatives, she was completely at sea. English friends who knew Benazir at Oxford remember a bubbly babe who drove to lectures in a yellow MG, wintered in Gstaad and who to used to talk of the thrill of walking through Cannes with her hunky younger brother and being 'the centre of envy; wherever Shahnawaz went, women would be bowled over'. This Benazir, known to her friends as Bibi or Pinky, adored royal biographies and slushy romances: in her old Karachi bedroom, I found stacks of well-thumbed Mills and Boons including An Affair to Forget, Sweet Imposter and two copies of The Butterfly and the Baron. This same Benazir also had a weakness for dodgy Seventies easy listening - 'Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Old Oak Tree' was apparently at the top of her playlist. This is also the Benazir who had an enviable line in red-rimmed fashion specs and who went weak at the sight of marrons glace.

But there was something much more majestic, even imperial, about the Benazir I met when she was Prime Minister. She walked and talked in a deliberately measured and regal manner and frequently used the royal 'we'. At my interview, she took a full three minutes to float down the 100 yards of lawns separating the Prime Minister's house from the chairs where I had been told to wait for her. There followed an interlude when Benazir found the sun was not shining in quite the way she wanted it to. 'The sun is in the wrong direction,' she announced. Her hair was arranged in a sort of baroque beehive topped by a white gauze dupatta. The whole painted vision reminded me of one of those aristocratic Roman princesses in Caligula This Benazir was a very different figure from that remembered by her Oxford contemporaries. This one was renowned throughout Islamabad for chairing 12-hour cabinet meetings and for surviving on four hours' sleep. This was the Benazir who continued campaigning after the suicide bomber attacked her convoy the very day of her return to Pakistan in October, and who blithely disregarded the mortal threat to her life in order to continue fighting. This other Benazir Bhutto, in other words, was fearless, sometimes heroically so, and as hard as nails.

More than anything, perhaps, Benazir was a feudal princess with the aristocratic sense of entitlement that came with owning great tracts of the country and the Western-leaning tastes that such a background tends to give. It was this that gave her the sophisticated gloss and the feudal grit that distinguished her political style. In this, she was typical of many Pakistani politicians. Real democracy has never thrived in Pakistan, in part because landowning remains the principle social base from which politicians emerge. The educated middle class is in Pakistan still largely excluded from the political process. As a result, in many of the more backward parts of Pakistan, the feudal landowner expects his people to vote for his chosen candidate. As writer Ahmed Rashid put it: 'In some constituencies, if the feudals put up their dog as a candidate, that dog would get elected with 99 per cent of the vote.'

Today, Benazir is being hailed as a martyr for freedom and democracy, but far from being a natural democrat, in many ways, Benazir was the person who brought Pakistan's strange variety of democracy, really a form of 'elective feudalism', into disrepute and who helped fuel the current, apparently unstoppable, growth of the Islamists. For Bhutto was no Aung San Suu Kyi. During her first 20-month premiership, astonishingly, she failed to pass a single piece of major legislation. Amnesty International accused her government of having one of the world's worst records of custodial deaths, killings and torture. Within her party, she declared herself the lifetime president of the PPP and refused to let her brother Murtaza challenge her. When he persisted in doing so, he ended up shot dead in highly suspicious circumstances outside the family home. Murtaza's wife Ghinwa and his daughter Fatima, as well as Benazir's mother, all firmly believed that Benazir gave the order to have him killed. As recently as the autumn, Benazir did and said nothing to stop President Musharraf ordering the US and UK-brokered 'rendition' of her rival, Nawaz Sharif, to Saudi Arabia and so remove from the election her most formidable rival. Many of her supporters regarded her deal with Musharraf as a betrayal of all her party stood for.

Behind Pakistan's endless swings between military government and democracy lies a surprising continuity of elitist interests: to some extent, Pakistan's industrial, military and landowning classes are all interrelated and they look after each other. They do not, however, do much to look after the poor. The government education system barely functions in Pakistan and for the poor, justice is almost impossible to come by. According to political scientist Ayesha Siddiqa: 'Both the military and the political parties have all failed to create an environment where the poor can get what they need from the state. So the poor have begun to look to alternatives for justice. In the long term, flaws in the system will create more room for the fundamentalists.' In the West, many right-wing commentators on the Islamic world tend to see the march of political Islam as the triumph of an anti-liberal and irrational 'Islamo-fascism'. Yet much of the success of the Islamists in countries such as Pakistan comes from the Islamists' ability to portray themselves as champions of social justice, fighting people such as Benazir Bhutto from the Islamic elite that rules most of the Muslim world from Karachi to Beirut, Ramallah and Cairo.

This elite the Islamists successfully depict as rich, corrupt, decadent and Westernised. Benazir had a reputation for massive corruption. During her government, the anti-corruption organisation Transparency International named Pakistan one of the three most corrupt countries in the world. Bhutto and her husband, Asif Zardari, widely known as 'Mr 10 Per Cent', faced allegations of plundering the country. Charges were filed in Pakistan, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States to investigate their various bank accounts.

When I interviewed Abdul Rashid Ghazi in the Islamabad Red Mosque shortly before his death in the storming of the complex in July, he kept returning to the issue of social justice: 'We want our rulers to be honest people,' he said. 'But now the rulers are living a life of luxury while thousands of innocent children have empty stomachs and can't even get basic necessities.' This is the reason for the rise of the Islamists in Pakistan and why so many people support them: they are the only force capable of taking on the country's landowners and their military cousins.

This is why in all recent elections, the Islamist parties have hugely increased their share of the vote, why they now already control both the North West Frontier Province and Baluchistan and why it is they who are most likely to gain from the current crisis. Benazir Bhutto was a courageous, secular and liberal woman. But sadness at the demise of this courageous fighter should not mask the fact that as a pro-Western feudal leader who did little for the poor, she was as much a central part of Pakistan's problems as the solution to them.

· William Dalrymple's latest book, The Last Mughal: The Fall of a Dynasty, Delhi 1857, published by Bloomsbury, recently won the Duff Cooper Prize for History

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisf...233334,00.html

What is "real democracy" in Pakistan? The answer is mostly in the eye of beholder. However the criticism on the political forces working with the people and for the people is mostly unjustified. In my observation, the context is critical factor to analyze the actions. Many analysts who lack the practical political experience on the ground consider the matured idealized democratic system to be achieved without going through the growing pains. The growing pain does not refer to the military dictatorship as a guide to democracy. It refers to the maturity of political process through open political process. Expecting a child to grow within few days of her birth is naïve at best. The political parties of Pakistan in general and PPP in particular have faced the wrath and brutal force of army intelligence since its inception. One can argue reasonably that PPP may not have the characteristics of an ideal political party. However, I will argue without any hesitation that it is the only people created political institution in Pakistan.
Coming back to the real democracy, I will argue that it has more to do with the attitude then anything else. I see secular and religious extremists in Pakistan with barely any moderates in the country. The moderation calls for co-existence in a pluralistic society with the acceptance of every member of the society as an equal partner in the future of the society. Both secular and religious consider each other as a threat to national integrity. While the extremist views of both sides are the major cause of intolerance and terrorism in the society.
Why transfer of chairmanship as monarchy within family? I will urge you to look at the India which is a democratic country in our neighborhood. The family factor plays a role. The Indian government had already tackled the issue of land reforms but still family factor is the strongest factor in political scene in India. There must be land reforms in Pakistan. However the lack of land reforms is not accurate logic for keeping party leadership within family. We are a society emotionally attached to individuals, groups, and/or families. This encompasses almost all groups in religion, politics, and/or other major social organizations. We can debate the reasons or causes for that behavior but it is the prevalent behavior in our society. This cultural and behavioral norm is accepted and practiced by majority. PPP represents is the representative of people and it has contributed to transform the society. It does so not by confronting the norms but working with these. It is very understandable to complain about the political forces without understanding the context.

tahmed writes "Scores of brave Pakistanis have given up their lives for this cause, with Benazir being only the latest martyr. Thousands of brave Pakistanis have faced armed polce for this cause. Hundreds have given up careers for this cause."

This guy is atrocious, his entire life on Chowk (which is a large chunk of his retired life) is spent trying to legitimize US agenda as if it were the desire of the Pakistani people. To that end he is using, much like the US elite do, the lives of our people for his own perverse ends. The people of Pakistan give a rat's a$$ about democracy, rule of law, dictatorship or any other such thing. They care first and foremost at this juncture about their needs being met and for someone to pull them out of this animal like existence that the US and its occupation force, the military has trapped them in. They are sick and tired of US/Pak Army shenanigans and distractions by deciding "democracy" for them and all the carnage and butchering that is mere distraction and further entrapment in this cycle of BS. The people of Pakistan want food, they want clothing, they want healthcare and security for their families, and the way to get that is neither through the US occupation force (the Pak Army) or US implemented "democracy" and for God's sake get this sob (tahmed ) off the case of the people of Pakistan. We don't need backstabbers. Spend your damn time talking about Paris Hilton and Brittany Spears, leave the people of Pakistan alone.

Mr. Gill, Well done! I just read your article which is very aptly summed up and in a nutshell, that exactly is what ails democracy in Pakistan. How can we expect democracy from people and political parties who themselves operate in dynastic, corrupt and opportunistic ways? Unfortunately after having been dispossed for so long, people have lost real awareness, and even the so-called educated ones are coming up with abominable lame excuses for democratic lapses in political parties and their dynastic and dictatorial operation. Having said that, I must say also that the murder of BB was a sad sad event from the human as well as the national perspective, and the ensuing rampage of the vandals was just as sad. How unfortunate that a handful of people could hold 160 million people hostage for so many days!

Krashi1961,
...and not to mention the thousands of martyrs who gave their lives against the oppression, brutality, and corruption of BB and her 10% husband and the notorious bloodthirsty Minister of her Interior, Ghaleezloola BuRbuR.

Sir TAhmed.
Democracy and rule of Law is very good.
1- In Lal Masjid and Hafsa people have announced Shariah Law and when Administration reacted a lot of Hoopla.
2- Army has ruled Pakistan for most of its years.
3- People in Northern areas Swat, Waziristan wants Shariah Law.
4- Baluch Liberation Army still believes in Seperate Baluchistan. And Army action there is not far off.
Democracy on the barrell of gun.
Second thing I am just refuting allegation on the basis of News . If you can give me more information, I might think again.
There is no question that there are not scores but millions of Martyrs for democracy in Pakistan. Before 1971 there were hundreds against Ayub Khan. Then in Bangladesh. Then ironically in Bhutto's time. During Zia era. And now.

krashid #92 the direction is clear for us as a nation - democracy and the rule of law. And the hurdle at this point is Musharraf and his ego.

Why do you say the direction is not clear? Scores of brave Pakistanis have given up their lives for this cause, with Benazir being only the latest martyr. Thousands of brave Pakistanis have faced armed polce for this cause. Hundreds have given up careers for this cause. If the direction is not clear to you, then perhaps you need to open your eyes to the reality of Pakistan. Instead of keeping them tightly closed, saying one thing ("I am not MQM") and doing another (plastering this board with the hollow MQM propaganda).

TAhmed. 83
As I said I am not MQM.
I will go by actions and words.
The list clearly demonstrate that MQM consists of people from all nationalities. How can I interpret it otherwise.
On my thought I have very clearly stated in the very beginning.
First we have not yet determined our direction as a nation.
Second local leaders and parties should take care of provincial politics.
Third for national decision making, not only political parties but all institutions of states should be involved.

{MQM Rally in Punjab: 17 April 2007
MQM WOULD HOLD ANOTHER LARGEST RALLY AGAINST RELIGIOUS EXTREMISM IN PUNJAB, DATE AND VENUE WOULD BE ANNOUNCED SOON PEOPLE OF PUNJAB TO PREPARE THEMSELVES FOR THE RALLY --- ALTAF HUSSAIN
Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM) would hold the another big rally against “Kalashnikov and Baton Wielding Shariah and Religious Extremism” in the province of Punjab, date and venue would be announced soon. Mr Altaf Hussain, founder and leader of Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM) has appealed to the people of Punjab to prepare themselves to participate in this gathering in large number to protest against enforcement of the “Kalashnikov and Stave Wielding Shariah and Religious Extremism” }
{Altaf Hussain Condemned Police atrocities against lawyers: 12 March 2007
POLICE BRUTALITY IN LAHORE ON LAWYERS FRATERNITY IS INHUMAN, UNLAWFUL
AND DESERVES SEVERE CONDEMNATION- ALTAF HUSSAIN
Mr. Altaf Hussain, founder and leader of Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM) termed the police brutality inflicted on lawyers’ fraternity today in Lahore during a protest rally as inhuman, unlawful and that deserves severe condemnation}
... {MQM Celebrate HOLI At Nine Zero: 03 March 2007
MQM SUPPORTERS OF HINDU ORIGIN CELEBRATING THEIR RELIGIOUS FESTIVAL HOLI AT THE MQM HEAD OFFICE NINE ZERO IN KARACHI ALONG WITH THE MEMBER OF MQM COORDINATION COMMITTEE}
{Altaf Hussain: Samjhota Express 10 February 2007
Samjhota Express blasts toll rises to 67
BOMB ATTACK ON SAMJUAHTA EXPRESS IS A NAKED TERRORISM
AND COWARDLY ACT AS WELL AS A CONSPIRACY TO SABOTAGE ATMOSPHERE
OF FRIENDSHIP BETWEEN PAKISTAN AND INDIA -- ALTAF HUSSAIN}
{ Altaf Hussain: Terror Attacks: 29 January 2007
Altaf Hussain slams terror attacks, Daily Dawn
Muttahida Qaumi Movement chief Altaf Hussain has expressed grief over the loss of life in another suicide blast in Dera Ismail Khan and rocket attack on an Imambargah in Bannu district}
{ US Consulate General: MQM Women Wing Punjab 16 January 2007
Women Protection Act is a landmark in Pakistan’s history, says, Bryn Hunt, US Consulate General, Lahore
Address to a seminar on “women role in the development of society” organized by the women wing of MQM }
{Altaf Hussain: Organ Trade 08 January 2007
Altaf Hussain wants law to curb organ trade, Daily Dawn
KARACHI, Jan 7: Muttahida Qaumi Movement chief Altaf Hussain has expressed his deep concern over the trading in human organs, and urged President General Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz to get the menace curbed through legislation}
All news are dated from MQM website.

#64 root {"Salim_chauhan,
Maybe you also did not watch what MQM did in May of 2007. How many people were killed by them and did any one of them was brought to justice? MQM is much bigger evil company than PPP. Do you know what much democratic MQM is? Why only blame PPP only? "}

Root,
I leave it to you to respond to Majumdar Bhai's questions in #66.
Suffice it to say that the events following BB's assassination, PPP workers, supporters, and goons have broken all records of collective hooliganism - only the Awami League of Mujib in 1971 comes close.

I talked to relatives in KHI and someone said that the destruction is so wanton that "we have regressed 20 years." I hope that is an exaggeration, but it shows how traumatized the victims have become.

If I were the Governement of Pakistan, I would jail all of these hooligans starting with Zardari on down and not release them until they have compensated everyone for their losses due to PPP's acts of looting, plunder, arson, and murder. Maybe the $1.5B can be requisitioned to pay off the victims. :(

#65 tvarad {"For the faujis, Pakistan is their own Swiss Bank and fiefdom, so why would they need to stash away their money elsewhere and buy up palaces in far-away lands?"}

TV Dude,
That's what I always say - charity begins at home. BB didn't even trust LaRkana for her stash. :(

{Altaf Hussain appeal for ceasefire: 29 October 2007
CEASEFIRE BETWEEN THE GOVERNMENT AND RESISTING GROUP IN SWAT IS WELCOMING – ALTAF HUSSAIN
London-29 October 2007 Mr Altaf Hussain, founder and leader of Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM) welcoming the ceasefire between the Government and resistant group asked both sides that it is necessary for the sake of long term and sustainable peace to analyse the situation which lead to the war and to ponder that? who would benefit from this war. He further enquired would the people of Swat or Pakistan benefit from this war? ]
[ Mr. Altaf Hussain, Founder and Leader of the Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM) said that Pakistan is confronted with extremely crucial situation. The issue of Northern Areas, Sawat and Waziristan should be resolved through dialogue and negotiation.]
According to him, on May 11, Jehangir called at the MQM International Secretariat in London and had a telephonic conversation with Mohammad Anwar, a senior member of the MQM in

London.

{Sattar claimed that on May 11 Asma informed him on the telephone that, “on May 12, there will be a bloodbath, bullets will be fired, and a conspiracy is being hatched against you (MQM).”}
{ Disappeared Families: Protest 11 May 2007
Families of 28 “Disappeared” Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM) workers held a peaceful protest out side the Supreme Court in Islamabad
Islamabad-11 May 2007 Families of 28 involuntarily “Disappeared” workers of Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM) held a peaceful protest out side the Supreme Court in Islamabad on Friday. Parents, Sisters, Brothers, children and relatives of the 28 missing workers of MQM had assembled out side the Supreme Court displaying play cards, banners and the photographs of the missing workers. During the demonstration, emotional scenes including wailing and crying were visible. The demonstrators briefed the representatives of Electronic and Print media the details of the arrests and “Disappearances” of their loved ones during arbitrary detention. }
{Altaf Hussain: Sucidal Attack in Charsadda 28, April 2007
SUICIDAL ATTACK IN CHARSADDA IS NAKED TERRORISM – ALTAF HUSSAIN
London – 28th April 2007: MQM Founder & Leader Mr Altaf Hussain has strongly condemned the suicide bomb attack in Charsadda, NWFP during the public meeting of Pakistan Peoples Party (Sherpao).}
tO BE CONTINUED.

majumdar #66 {"How so? How many people have MQM killed? How many people were murdered in B'desh at ZAB's behest, how many in B'stan and NWFP in the ZAB Govt. And how many Mojos in Karachi by BB- N Babur combine, and how many killed by Talibs spawned by BB's 2nd Regime."}

Majumdar Bhai,
Very good questions - I hope that you get your answers. All I can say is that Mojo bhayyas are called a "non-martial race" when military employment is the need and "bloodthirsty, organized killers" when bigots need to find escape goats for their own violence. :(

Chacha abhi bhi waqt he. Qabl isske ke doosri taaNg bhi uttar aaye, maafi maaNg lo. Taassub sirf ek bimaari he aur la ilaaj nahin he. :)