Musharraf’s New Ordinance Hoopla Re: tahmed32 # 31

The bottom line is that the idea of institutionalism has suffered a body blow, from which it might never recover in Pakistan. The "midnight deal" was about the interests of a few personalities and had nothing to do, with the process of democracy. The silver lining in all of this is, that the reality of the political process has been unveiled in Pakistan and because of that, both the army and politicans; secular and religious stand discredited.

Hopefully, this will cure our public's national emotionalism and bon hommie, which has caused so much stink in our politics and as to the Reconciliation Ordinance, it would have passed more muster had it been debated and passed by the next parliament. As things are right now, this ordinance has simply and rudely slapped the Pakistani public in the face and there is a complete sense of inalienation in politics; the people have no idea to whom to turn and there is a tangible "trust deficit".

In this situation, out of sheer hopeless and befuddlement, the people will look to the likes of Imran Khan and Baitullah Mehsud and the final curtain will finally descend. Again, the blame lies squarely with us and our total abdication of our civic responsibility.

Is there a way out? Yes, there is, but for that to happen, we must accept the ownership of our politics and the manner of achieving this still passes through a national reconciliation, but not in form of a presidential ordinance, but in the shape of a national referandum on the issue.

Let the people decide in a truely populist tradition and this will reconcile us to the reality and finally, based on the decision, will hold us accountable for our actions. Reconcilation comes from admitting our wrongs and learning to live with them, and sadly this ordinance does not attain that mark.

Ciao

Musharraf’s New Ordinance Hoopla Re: hamidm2# 23

Hamid sahib, I am stating what is written on the wall, but let me assure you that there is no pain. I have been a certified cynic, jaded, to a perfection for a very long time.

We have no choice.

I was merely venting my "idealism" and I am guilty of that occassionally and I will not defend my lapses. :)

Honestly and dispassionately speaking, blaming the Pakistani leadership is useless. Leaders come from the people and the governments they create, reflect the character of the people who elected them. The cynic in me applauds the statements of Dr. Salman Shah, Owais Leghari and Sheikh Rashid, when they talked about people supporting the ones who looted and plundered. Politicans and people who in engage in politics are not boy scouts and neither should they be judged along those standards.

This was a faustian bargain pure and simple. It was about votes and it was about power. It was based on cold political interests.

Imran Khan and Baituallah Mehsud are two opposite sides of the same intenable option in Pakistani politics. What I was alluding to was civic accountibility and that is, unless the people of this nation do not take responsibility of participating in the politics of the nation, they should not blame the people, who come to power. Without civic accountibility, politicans will look after their own interests just as water makes its own way, because they are not accountable for their actions.

All of this talk of democracy in Pakistan is facile, because we have abdicated our civic responsibilities. We do not ask our leaders to justify the policies that are being made in our name and we take no ownership for those policies. We are willing to die to put back into power those who have robbed us, but we are not willing to die to remove those who have robbed us from power. Here lies rub. Our priorities are out of sync with our wishful thinking and we are not willing to admit to our own complicity in our own misdeeds.

Hamid sahib, we are living in denial. :)

Ciao

Musharraf’s New Ordinance Hoopla re: # 19

The sentence: "The elections are over and it is a tragedy that PPP boycotted it and gave Musharraf the throphy and in the process, allowed Musharraf to waltz into the presidency contested."

should read as

"The elections are over and it is a tragedy that PPP boycotted it and gave Musharraf the throphy and in the process, allowed Musharraf to waltz into the presidency uncontested."

Ciao

Musharraf’s New Ordinance Hoopla The Reconcilation Ordinance is an awful piece of legislation and the manner of it's passage - rushed in the hours of the night - speaks to it's flaws. It was an ordinance that was passed by the president, acting on his authority to pass a law, in the absence of a sitting senate or a parliament. As an ordinance, it has a sunset clause and it will automatically lapse and will be null and voided after a period of 4 months.

The only way this piece of legislation can exist longer than 4 months, is for the next parliament to pass it as a parliamentary bill. In any case, as the law stipulates, any presidential ordinance passed, has to come before the parliament and be debated. The next parliament must debate this law.

There is a parliament in session right now, but it was not allowed to pass this legislation, because Musharraf's PML-Q (which as one wit said on GEO, today, stands for Pervaiz Musharraf League - Quislings) is itself divided over the issue of granting amensty to Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif and such a law, had it been put to a test, would have not passed.

The elections are over and it is a tragedy that PPP boycotted it and gave Musharraf the throphy and in the process, allowed Musharraf to waltz into the presidency contested. If not Musharraf, they should have participated in the elections and should have voted for Wajeeuddin (sp.) The game plan of the PPP is now to approach the courts and challenge Musharraf but the courts might throw this argument out. If the PPP gives up its right to cast a vote against Musharraf, there is not much the law can do and now, PPP will question the legitimacy of this election and cry "murder most foul".

Painful shades of MMA in 2002 and the 17th Amendment! Just like the MMA then, PPP today abdicated its responsibility as the opposition. PPP as a political party is supposed to represent the people of Pakistan, because the very name PPP stands for Pakistan's People Party. It did not!

It supported its own interests and in the process, effectively disenfranchised its electoral support.

Today, despite the abysmal nature of the events, it was a watershed day in the political history of Pakistan, because for the first time, the mask of deceit was torn off the faces of the "national leaders" and the people finally saw the real face of politics in Pakistan.

The secret behind the portrait of the Pakistani Dorian Greys had been revealed!

Today, was the day to face reality and admit; we are all guilty. Today, we have to ask ourselves who is to blame if we select these people again? Will we blame the "hidden hand" again, or our own naive emotionalism? Today, we learned what happens to a nation and its people, when they ignore their past experience; change their history and lie to themselves.

Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the most foolish of them all?

Ciao

Musharraf’s New Ordinance Hoopla re: Mohammad A Shaikh

Interesting article.

The British army did stage a coup against the English Parliament, when Oliver Cromwell dismissed it in the 1640s and then ruled England as the "Lord Protector" and Puritanism reigned supreme. When Cromwell died, the parliament restored the monarchy in a period of English history known as the Restoration. Then, they dug up Cromwell's body from its grave and tried him for treason against the state, for dismissing parliament and ruling England without it's consent and then dragged his corpse through the streets of London and after which, they hung his decayed body in a public square.

The message was, that parliament is the supreme law making body in England and no one is above it or would be allowed to rule over it!

The Reconcilation Ordinance will incite a backlash, because though politically it may make sense to those who have a stake in the politics, the common person on the street will think that it is a "deal amongst thieves".

It is always a good idea not stir silent waters...

Ciao

A Sad Day for Pakistan Re: # 165

Hey fool, you are guessing again, aren't you? You guessed wrong...again...you moron!

Howz life in utopia?

I was right...you really are miserable living in this world, aren't you?

Go back to the rock you crawled out from....you know...where all the fools go...

ciao

Pakistani Twist to “Aliens in America� TV Series re: Ras

I hope that the humor of the show is not watered down and that it shakes people out of their comfort zones. I remember a sitcom called "All In The Family" and its jokes were rude and racist, but they made a point!

The show must not be politically correct and cater to the whimpy tradition of the networks, but must plough new paths. People will be upset, but that is to be expected, but if the situational humor of the show is accepted, it will lead to a larger acceptance of the differences that exist within the communities.

Humor and laughing at something is always the first step towards accepting it.

It is hoped that character development by the show's creators is done intelligently and with deftness and the characters are not allowed to remain one dimensional.

The nuances in the cultural traits of the characters must be defined more sharply and brought into focus to show that there are differences in the similarities of the characters similarities in their differences. (A phrase borrowed from Rogoff).

The show must not be timid, because the potential is too great to be wasted by playing safe to the gallery.

Ciao

A Sad Day for Pakistan re: masadi

Masadi writes: "This is not the world I choose to live in and I'll be goddamned if I end my life because of the doings of the US elite"

So that is it, isn't it?

You simply cannot deal with the reality and have gone stark raving mad, haven't you?

None of us likes the way the world is, but we all deal with the reality, but you have created your own reality and in your self-created reality, you are the lone defender of the suffering humanity and sole beholder of the truth, aren't you?

The US elites won't have to end your life, Masadi; you will end it yourself in one of your fits of righteous indignations. I should have known that the saying was right...if you give someone a long enough piece of rope, they will eventually hang themselves.

You must be really a miserable person living in this world, aren't you?

Ciao

A Sad Day for Pakistan re: Mantolives # 130

I think that Masadi's problem is that he is an academican and somewhere he got lost in the academia and lost all contact with reality. He lives in a world of his own creation and seems to fight with the demons of his own creation.

Last night, I was researching the records of the Spanish Inquistion in the period 1790 to 1815. When the French invaded Spain in the 1800s, they ended the Spanish Inquistion and imprisoned the priest and freed the prisoners. The French records showed that two prisoners considered themselves to be Napoleon and had gone mad from the torture.

As the records noted, one prisoner who considered himself to be Napoleon was an Arab and the other one was over seven feet tall!

Masadi has gone nuts simply because of his obession with his chosen tormentors - the US elites!

Ciao

A Sad Day for Pakistan re: masadi

I answered your questions, but you have not answered mine.

Ciao

A Sad Day for Pakistan Re: masadi # 65

Masadi, you are a disappoinment. Your insults are getting stale...you need to find new and better ones! I know that you can do it! I have unlimited faith in your ability to insult people! Give it a try! :)

Thanks for stating the question and answering it!

If a parliament, elected or appointed, cannot make laws under the threat of a gun, why did MMA support the passage of this law? Why did the parliamentarians not resign in protest? Were their perks of power too important?

This parliament was in league with Musharraf and now, having been denied their share in power, they want the courts to undo their bargain of political greed and its resultant stupidity.

You are right; amendments cannot be tailor made for one person, but this is just what this parliament did when it passed the 17 Amendment in 2002. From 2002 to 2004 and from then to today, it was silent? Why?

I agree, with you on the interpretation of the 17 Amendment, but it still does not absolve the role of the parliament and that was the question to Mantolives.

Justice Rana Bhagwandas talked about his dissent on the basis of "conscience", where was the conscience of the parliament in passing a law it had no right to pass in the first place?

Read the 17 Amendment and you will realize that it copies the (whole) LFO into the constitution and as to what Aitzaz Ahsan said, he was debating the legality of the law whereas the court was debating the reality of the law in its decisions. What was the choice before the court? Musharraf for another 5 years or martial law? Political prudence or judicial recklessness?

This is what I said in my earlier posts, but you choose to ignore it in your personal hatred of me. The issue is not dead; if it can be proven that parliament was not competent to pass the 17 Amendment, as you say, then the duality of the two offices can still be ruled against. The issue is, whether the parliament had the procedural right to do such, and the answer is it did not, beacause in doing so, it significantly changed the nature of the constitution.

As to the interpretation of the constitution, the court can be faulted there, but had it done so and called the 17 Amendment illegal, who have amended the amendment itself?

If this parliament was not the proper authority to pass the 17 Amendment in the first place, as it was not, then how come it can be judged as the right authority to repeal it under the court's judgement?

Aitzaz Ahsan was not arguing the competence of the parliament in the passage of the 17 Amendment, whereas the court was saying it was the competence of the parliament that allowed for the eventuality of Musharraf contesting elections in uniform.

Now, by all means feel free to insult me all the names you can think of, while not answering any of my questions as your past habits suggest. Please feel free to twist my words and quote me out of context and please do not hesitate to sink to the lowest levels of maturity to make your venom known against me. While you are foaming at the mouth, please do not refrain from repeating your socialist-religious mantra about the US elites and the glories of socialism and the joys of poverty.

Ciao

P.S.: Make sure you are wearing a bip, when you foam at the mouth, I would not like your clothes to be soiled!

A Sad Day for Pakistan re: bjkumar # 40

That was a very good post.

re: Mantolives

Please consider the following, if you will.

There is no prohibition on the re-submission of the petition, and it can be re-filed but on a diffrent constitutional argument.

The legal issue is not dead. It has been adjourned sine die. It can be revived when a new petition is filed.

Does this mean that a new petition challenging the duality of the offices, if it holds the parliament as a defendent instead of an individual, will have a better chance of success?

To borrow your from your idea, it would make good sense if there is a new petition filed, before the Supreme Court, that raises the question, whether the parliament has constitutional competence and the right to pass a law that violates the constitution itself?

(I think, that this seems to be the next phase of the process)

In other words, asking the Supreme Court to define the legislative powers of the parliament itself and in the process, giving it the power of the judicial review over all acts of parliament.

I think that you are right; the real question is whether the parliament has the power to make extra-constitutional laws.

If such a petition is filed and it is held to be in violation by the Supreme Court, then that would automatically anull the law that allows Musharaff to hold two offices and also make him ineligble to contest the elections at the same time. Is this a correct assumption?

The key, right now, is to follow the correct procedure by asking the right questions and in turn, forcing a constitutional debate on the issues in the fora of Pakistani public opinion.

Looking forward to your comments.

Ciao

A Sad Day for Pakistan re: HP # 6

Agreed!

It does open up some interesting possibilities and as to the Islamic groups controlling the streets, HP, my view is that their influence though vocal and violent will be limited.

Islamic groups, without outside support, will have a hard time to win the popular opinion, because the people have wisened up - the real issues the average person cares about is the price of flour, tea and sugar; crime and law and order, inflation etc. The real issues will marginalize the trival issues, which the politicans keep mouthing and the same goes for the Islamic parties.

Their political-religious message, to be successful, has to resonate with the people and not threaten them!

The politicans are, and have been, out of step with the popular view and that is one reason, why the politicans have not been able to mobilize the people. No one is willing to face death and be shot for the sake of criminals and plunders and looters and liars and cheaters and this is what you hear on the streets and what the people are thinking.

The people have seen through the politicans and now with the Supreme Court decision and its reasonings, the politicans also stand discredited in the public forum. It is not the end, by any means, but a level of political muturity, if not sophistication, has developed in the Pakistani public awareness.

The Supreme Court did right by it's decision and refused to be held accountable for the misdeeds of the politicans and finally, has made the politicans accountable for their own actions!

Ciao

A Sad Day for Pakistan re:Naeem Sadiq

I agree, with cliftonbridge, Mantolives and philosopher.

The real issue here was the supremacy of the law and independence of the judiciary in Pakistan.

The disappointment of the verdict aside, the decision of the court should not be simply taken as an acid test against or for Musharraf. In Pakistan, what we urgently need is the institutionalization of the process and the procedures for debating, and resolving and accepting and ultimately, respecting the final decision. The emphasis in Pakistan, and where Pakistan needs to pay attention is towards the idea of the supremacy of institutionalism and not the supermacy of the individual personalities.

Presently, the decision of the court might be a bitter pill to digest, but there is hope in the disappointment. The Supereme Court's decision, when looked into from the perspective of the nature and role of the court itself, makes sense. It is about the upholding of the idea of seperation of powers in Pakistan even, when in reality the seperation of powers in Pakistani politics is murky.

What the court was saying was that it is not the responsibility or the function of the court and law to legislate the legislative process.

Through this decision, the court has, ironically, reinforced the idea of the seperation of power by suggesting that it cannot make laws; only parliament can make laws. Through this decision, the court has squarely blamed the parliament for passing the Seventeenth Amendment and has also said, that parliament and politicans and not the courts should make the law.

It has, via this decision, maintained the independence of the judiciary as a seperate branch of the government and did not allow the judiciary to slip into deciding legislative issues.

The job of the judiciary is to define, interpret and implement the law of the land and not make the law itself.

This is the far-reaching and the consquential result of the Supreme Court's decision.

One only has to thank the fickle minded and self-serving politicans for making the law that allowed Musharraf the legal legitimacy, which he needed to contest the elections in uniform!

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?

Solution to the problem, as the court has said is simple. Parliament can change the law and if the offending amendment is removed, then the illegality of dual offices becomes a matter of the law and can be judged upon.

This is a landmark decision in the history of Pakistan, because it states clearly the importance of following a procedure to change the law - acts of parliament instead of judicial ad hocism, no matter how expedient it may seem in a given moment for a particular reason.

The Doctrine of Necessity has been rejected, because the supremacy of the law and means of the law have been upheld.

Ever since the dismissal of the Chief Justice of Pakistan to his restoration; to Nawaz Sharif returning, all the decisions have been made on the existing codex of laws in Pakistan.

Regardless of the decision, what has triumphed has been the process of the law itself and had the Supereme Court done, what you hoped; the idea and independence of a judiciary in Pakistan would have ended!

Ciao

The Power of Ideas and the Modern University re: tahmed32

Yes, and that was the final thought of post too.

The Muslim experience will be different, but the process which is underway seems to be more similar than it is different.

Ciao

The Transformation of the Punjabi Man: Pashtunization or Militarization? re: HP # 44

HP, that was the best interact, which I have read in a long time and your sense of the absurd must be appreciated, and was!.

Ciao