A New Constitution for Pakistan

Naqshbandi

God save Pakistan from sultans and Caliphs...

Given that Hamza Yusuf has called the red sultan a wali is all the more reason to be suspicious of the man. I am afraid your view of history is based on the works of people like Hamza Yusuf and not some real investigation. Sadly you are wrong on all counts.

Also Pakistan was not founded as a theocracy... the degree of Islamic inspiration is another matter but no one in Pakistan is going to allow Mullah rule... The people raised similar slogans at the beginning ... Jinnah shut them up quite well... `Pakistan shall not be a theocracy to be run by priests with a divine mission` . Naqshbandi Let me make it very clear to you ... Pakistan is not going to fashioned after Theocratic Iran, or the Ottoman Empire... it will be run according to finest principles of Constitutionalism and modernity of which our founding father was an embodiment. People like you will have to spill the last ounce of blood from my body before you succeed in your nefarious designs against Pakistan... and I am not alone.

Tahir ul Qadri is committed to Democracy... he sees no conflict between Modern democracy and his faith. If he was advocating `sultanates` and `caliphates` I wouldn`t respect him.

God save Pakistan from your constitution.


Sameerjb

Agreed!

Looking forward to a balanced analysis of the `transfer of power` in the subcontinent.

Manto--you are entitled to your views :-)

As for me I am NOT against democracy. BUT I think that what i am against is SECULAR democracy. a democracy where the ruler is chosen by the people but the laws are based om Shariat is what is acceptable. That too is exactly what Tahir ul Qadri supports. You can read his own `constitution of Madina` if you like as that is his model for the pakistani constitution he envisages. so yes there are certain aspects of democracy which are completely compatible with my faith too. no one disputes that. the difference is on what the laws are based on. you say ppl make the laws. we say no they have to be made based on quran and sunnah.

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ideally i would prefer caliphate to democracy but i am not against democracy either. as for ppl like Shaykh Hamza Yusuf I much rather trust his reading of history than that of a secular liberalist.

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btw yasser bhai what if there are free elections in pakistan some time in the future and most ppl vote for the MMA or similar. What will you do then? Will you accept it as the will of the ppl of pakistan to be ruled by quran and sunnah?

I wasted 5 minutes on this tripe. I regret that. If you can`t protect a constitution that you already have then this is what you deserve........everyone in town seems to comes up with his own constitution in the fish market. Dumb and Dumber.

this is entertaining. in one corner, we have the great white hope who will introduce secularism to a nation where 99% of awam cannot even spell this word. in the other, we have an individual who will bring prosperity to our extremely poor nation by insuring that zaviah of knee to perpendicular during rukuh matches the zaviah prescribed by some priest in 13th century baghdad.

and this is why when it comes to pak, it pays to be a determined optimist.

Chowk Staff:

I regret your editing of my post. It was better if you had rejected the whole post. I am not used to using lolo-popo language to sugarcoat the truth. This neo-con chowk attitude is unbearable. In the words of Qurat-ul-Ain Haider ab to bhonkanaiN ki bhi azadi nahiN. I think it is a natural consequence. Sooner or later it was bound to happen. The source of our ideological guidance is doing the same. ham kis bagh ki muli haiN.

MMA is welcome to try ... if they win we will accept.. provided they don`t block the door for elections again and don`t try and subvert the democratic system with stuff like `tazkia tul Shahood` ...


But the truth is that MMA will not win, because it doesnt have the vote bank. In these elections too they won only because of the absence of political parties.. how else do you explain a mere 1 million votes and 68 seats.

-Manto

#30 by HisExcellency

[Without education, free press and strong institutions, even a Presidential system will fail.

Consider the Watergate scandal of 1972.........

In the end, a combination of independent courts, educated electorate and investigative journalism prevented a dastardly politician from beating the Presidential system to become all powerful. ........]

The illiterate people of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh voted to throw Indira Gandhi out of office for her crimes under the Internal Emergency lasting 18 months during which time there was press censorship in India and the only radio and TV were government owned. Several of the comparatively more literate states voted for Indira Gandhi.

No, you don`t need no education to tell you when your rights are being trampled upon.

Or, as the protest song of the 1960s put it, you don`t need a weatherman to tell you which way the wind is blowing.

[I disagree with certain interActors who believe Indian democracy is a good model for Pakistan. It is not. The Indian model is still in intermediate stage, it is not a finished model yet. Lack of education means that religious parties can exploit the masses to get elected. Incidents like Rath Yatra/Ayodha (1992), Bombay riots and Gujrat genocide can never happen in mature democracies like UK, France, Germany and USA.]

Considering that as late as the 1960s, the Federal government had to send in troops to quell rebellious Southern governors on school/college integration, the US had to have 190 years of freedom before it reached the perfect state you are describing. In fact, it need 90 years before it freed the slaves.

Do you READ or UNDERSTAND history?

#23 by fuzair

[As ``proof`` of this thesis, look at the only truly successful post-WWII democracies in the world: Japan, S. Korea, Taiwan, Singapore (its a democracy all right, just not a liberal one!). So we could develop the ``perfect`` constitution but it would still fail miserably.]

South Korea and Taiwan didn`t have any democracy till the late 80s or early 90s.

As far as Singapore is concerned, any country that serially numbers its ballots and registers the ballot number against the voter`s name is making a mockery of the sacredness of the secret ballot. Any country that openly threatens that residents of government housing blocks wouldn`t get their buildings painted if they voted for the opposition and then actually stopped painting the buildings because the people did indeed vote in the opposition is blackmailing its people. A country that limits political speech to the pre-election period (which is usually 15 days before the polls and the polls are always a snap poll because the government decides when to hold the elections despite the 5-year term) and refuses permission to opposition party candidates to hold public meetings or processions on the basis that it is a danger to public peace is trying to get its candidates elected using every power the government possesses short of stuffing the ballot boxes. Any country that sues the opposition leader and party for libel and gets a victory in the local courts -- which, when appealed to the Privy Council got overturned and then of course the government abolished the right of appeal to the Privy Council -- and bankrupts the opposition is NOT representative of a democracy, liberal or illiberal.

A more appropriate name might be Constitutional Thuggery.

#15 by harimau

[Jeremy Grantham had his body stuffed...]

Make that Jeremy Bentham. Must be the effect of jet lag.

Re: Sridhar`s post

With all due respect {;-)}, India`s case doesn`t really disprove much. For the sake of argument, lets assume that India`s functional democracy is at the same level as, say, Sweden`s or Finland`s. All this shows is that India is a statistical outlier.

Consider this analogy. Suppose that X wins a multi-kazillion dollar jackpot in the last Powerball lottery. Does this ``prove`` that everybody who plays the lottery will win? All it does is to show that somebody, somewhere will win. Do you then go out, liquidate all your assets, buy lottery tickets and sit back and wait for the $$$$$ to roll in? Of course not. The expected value of the return on purchasing a lottery ticket is effectively zero.

Similarly, if I am told that a country has a per capital GDP of $500 and asked to guess at how ``democratic`` it is, my answer would be ``not very.`` And the odds are that I wouldn`t be far off the mark. Or do you disagree with me?

Now, lets actually look at the data. India`s most democratic accomplishment has been to hold regular elections and have more or less democratic rule (ignoring the lamentable Emergency episode). However, on virtually every other measure of ``democracy`` it hasn`t really do all that well for a substantial portion of its history. For example, the blatant rigging of elections in J&K, the dismissal of elected state governments and the impostition of President`s rule, the blatant disregard of civil liberties in its counter-insurgency campaigns, the pogroms`s against the Sikhs after Indira Gandhi`s assasination and the Muslim`s in Gujerat, etc.

So, if you check out various ``democracy`` score-cards, (e.g., Freedom House (www.freedomhouse.org) or World Audit (http://www.worldaudit.org), you will see that India`s historical track record (while much better than that of most LDCs) is spotty if compared to the real ``democracies`` of the world. But, to be fair to India, things do seem to have improved in the past few years (hmmmm, per capita GDPs been increasing...) but the World Audit people still put India at the bottom of the ``democracy`` list. So it is to India`s credit that, in spite of everything, it has still managed to maintain a ``democracy`` going (more or less) but it doesn`t effectively negate Zak`s argument.

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YLH,

Bangladesh has had several coups and attempted coups and military rule for a huge chunk of its short history. Remember Zia ur Rehman and Ershad? Also, Mujibur Rehman wasn`t exactly a democrat either.

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YLH and Sameer,

Thanks, glad to be back.

Harimau,

I was worried there... Grantham isn`t really dead...

Bentham on the other hand is..

-Manto

re: Mantolives

Yassir, sorry for this late reply. I was gone for the weekend and today, I saw your article. Apprently, it was ``rushed`` off the front page. :)

Interesting comments and observations. As to the powers of the president, I would add energy; cannot afford to leave that in the realm of provincial affairs. :)

re: SameerJB

I have a few questions.

One, you disagreed with the idea of a presidential system and seemed to favor the parliamentary one. My question is this: was is not the parliamentary system and its idea of proportional representation, which was a cause and the reason for the problem between East and West Pakistan? Do you agree or not that it was the West Pakistani tinkering with the proportional democracy, i.e. parliamentary democracy, which caused East Pakistan to feel alienated?

Secondly; you mentioned that the presidential system will not work. You said it will not work, because a politican can use provincialism (long live Punjab) to dominate the system and deny electoral rights to others. What do you think Punjab will do in a proportional parliamentary democracy? Do you think that Baluchistan enjoys equal electoral rights with Punjab and Punjab pays fairly for using Baluchistan`s natural resources? Do you think that Pubjab is not abusing Sindh`s water rights? When has Punjab not exploited its proportional majority in Pakistan? Proportional democracy in Pakistan is open to abuse by the feudals; ask the Bengalis and ask them why they finally came up with the Six Points? What was 1971 all about? It was about electoral and proportional rights between East and West Pakistan. Who was denying those rights to East Pakistan? The West Pakistani feudals, bureaucrats, and the army was denying those rights to the East Pakistanis. Who refused to accept the election results of 1970? Mujib-ur-Rehman or Z. A. Bhutto? Out of the two, who was a feudal landlord from West Pakistan?

If some one wants to use provincialism to deny rights to others and s/he is elected, then they have a right to pass laws, which deny electoral rights. That is democracy! If you are against it; then you are seeking/advocating/condoning controlled democracy. Are you?
Democracy means that electoral majority can be used to deny rights of the minorities and it is perfectly legal to do so.

Sameer, you favor the parliamentary form of democracy in Pakistan. Can I ask you why you think that it is still a workable system?

Mantolives is correct; Jinnah adopted the presidental style of government because of the curse of fedualism in the land which became West Pakistan. Parliamentary democracy, with proportional representatation will not work as long as the Pakistan remains in the political grip of the feudals. On top of this, the feudals also claim religious pretensions. Who combines politics and religion? The feudals, who claim to be ``pirs`` and use their ancestral lands as political constitutencies. It is the feudals who are in favor of theocracy in Pakistan.

Ciao

#42 by harimau

If you believe that education is not necessary for democracy, how else do you explain the fact that Western democracies in general are more tolerant of other faiths and do not let religious/theological issues dominate their polity? When was the last time the American, British, French or German voters brought a fascist, religious party like the MMA or BJP to power?? When was the last time an American politician led a ``rath yatra`` to demolish a mosque (or temple) and get rewarded by the electorate for doing so??

Although education is not a sufficient condition for democracy, it is nevertheless a necessary condition for a mature democracy. Misleading an educated electorate is hard because they ask tough questions, and demand rational policies. On the other hand, uneducated electorates can easily be excited/misled by demagogues who dwell on the ignorance of the masses. Educated electorates are less likely to succumb to these antics (but certainly not totally immune).

ferozK:

I support parliamentary democracy with very weak center. Whether we like it or not, we are heading for more provincial autonomy. East Pakistan felt left out due to presidential system and one-unit of Ayub Khan. They would have separated anyway sooner or later but bloodshed could have been avoided if center was weak and parliamentary democracy was in place.

The solution to the dominantion and exploitation by the majority province or feudals or military is precisely strong center supported by the majority culture. Under current circumstances and free elections, the presidential election will be between NS and BB with everybody left in the cold. Therefore, most political parties would resort to playing MQM and ANP type provincial politics. The winner of presidential election might not control any of the 4 provincial legislatures in a scenario with NS winning presidency, PPP winning Sindh and Panjab, Balochistan and NWFP to MMA, ANP and smaller parties. I would rather support presidents (or governors) of provinces as directly elected but weak center ruled by parliamentary system.

Yasser,

Honest opinion. Does not matter what law/system is good. What we lack in our part of world is implementation. Let us first start respecting and obeying the law that exists. Let us also start kicking the A$$ who do not.

#45 by HisExcellency

Could you please give your definition of education and democracy.

My Doodhwalla is better than me in maths. The guy cannot read and write. He, to me, is learned.

Democracy is not wishes and whims of majority. Even the majority wish has to be within a given moral/legal framework. If there are 10 men in a room and 3 women, simple show of hands, or a secrete ballot, may show a majority vote for rape as a call of the day. That is not democracy though.

Yogiraj Patil

Pakistan cannot be a true democracy, whatever the constitution, as long as the military considers itself the true custodian of Pakistan and most Pakistanis also believe it to be so in their hearts. And most Pakistanis will continue to believe that the army is the saviour of Pakistan as long as the hostility with India continues. And the hostility with India will continue as long as Pakistanis think that they have the right to use non-peaceful means to change the status quo in Kashmir.
If you can grasp the above, it is easy to understand what the road map to democracy in Pakistan will be like.