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Pakistan Peoples Party at the Crossroads?

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Pakistan Peoples Party at the Crossroads?

Moeed Pirzada | Khaleej Times |

The rot may have been brewing for a while. The natural thought, “what will I get?” must have dominated many minds from the moment they descended upon Naudero and Gari Khuda Baksh to bury the last of the ‘real Bhuttos’. But in recent days the first shot was fired by PPP Senator Dr Babar Awan who issued a statement that no one but the party co-chairman, Asif Ali Zardari, was the right person to be nominated as PPP candidate for prime ministerial slot after the elections.

 The good senator was obviously testing the waters for Zardari. It then transpired, from newspapers, that party’s top most leadership has rebuked Awan for giving such a statement in violation of the party’s considered position that such a decision will be taken after the elections. Many wondered: “who is this top leadership?” Fortunately the confusion did not last long.

 PPP senior vice chairman, Makhdoom Amin Fahim, emerged on the scene terming Senator Awan’s statements his personal opinions and clarified that only party’s Central Executive Committee (CEC) has the authority to decide upon the matter — and that too after the elections. Perhaps to add authority to his voice he claimed that he and   Asif Ali Zardari were in complete cohesion over the issue.

 Makhdoom of Hala might have regretted his words. For soon afterwards   Zardari, while talking to the US publication Newsweek, made it clear that he is seriously considering himself for the prime ministerial slot, for he has the “widest name recognition in the party” and “no senior leader apart from him spent eleven years in jail”. Under his directions a copy of the will of Benazir Bhutto was made public to prove, once again, that she had nominated him, and no one else but him, as the acting chairman of the party.

 This is now the third time that PPP under   Zardari changed its position on the subject: First on 30th December, three days after Ms. Bhutto’s assassination,   Zardari had clearly indicated that Makhdoom Amin Fahim, who always lead PPP, in Benazir’s absence, would be the party’s candidate for the prime ministerial slot. A few days later this position was reversed announcing that CEC will decide this after the elections. This in itself was an indication of the growing fault lines.

 However, now with Senator Awan’s premonitions,   Zardari’s interview in Newsweek followed with the dramatic release of the Bhutto’s ‘political will’ it is abundantly clear that Benazir’s widower is making his moves towards the top slot-albeit cautiously, inch by inch, to make it more palatable. Even in the Newsweek interview he said that he might or might not be the prime ministerial candidate. And since then he has again tried distancing his person from the idea- he has planted himself.

 Since Benazir’s assassination,   Zardari has not only benefited from a natural wave of sympathy inside Sindh but several of his actions have generated a national goodwill and expanded his political space: his voice of reason and restraint at a time of great commotion in Sindh; his ability to defend the federation; his better command on the use and nuance of Urdu language and his indicating that Makhdoom Amin will be the party’s nominee for the prime ministerial slot all contributed to that.

Yet his, all too visible, desire to become the prime ministerial candidate is something he should better stay away from, in the best interests of his party, country and his family. And there are certain good reasons for that.

Zardari may not be that villainous character many in the media and the government agencies paint him into. Some of those who have interacted with him on an intimate level vouch that he is as normal or unprincipled as any other in Pakistan’s power structure. Yet someone, like him, rooted in reality might be painfully aware of the negative baggage, rightly or wrongly, he carries in Pakistan’s collective consciousness. The attempts of his lawyers and lobbyists to either defend him on the grounds that nothing has been proved or by drawing parallels with the misdeeds of other politicians, bureaucrats and generals will fail to make any significant dent in the overall collective perception, at least not in the short run.

Whatever he may do, in immediate future he will continue to be a divisive figure, especially outside Sindh. And both People’s Party and Pakistan, at this hour, need a less polarised, and a uniting figure.

Also, there is a limit to which this “will business” can be pushed; and for two reasons: One, even if it is 100 per cent original many will continue to doubt it for the simple reason that Benazir Bhutto had meticulously kept her husband out of immediate political arena in her last few months and her sudden change of heart on 16th October 2007, making her beloved husband the net beneficiary of her legacy – though analytically correct — continues to look far more dramatic than most people can digest.

But even if all this is ignored, this “will business” has serious limitations in the long run. Pakistan People Party may not be a party in the western sense of it, but it deserves to be at least comparable to a better managed Private Limited Company.

This “will business” belongs to private assets and properties and even there exist examples of private concerns where managers or long time associates end up inheriting the mantle of leadership over incompetent off springs. And PPP, in all fairness, is endowed with a range of competent persons.

Despite this, we must admit that today Asif Ali Zardari has been given a role by history; he is someone who can provide internal unity to PPP; by keeping it together he can help it to emerge as the most powerful political force in the aftermath of the elections; can wield tremendous influence for himself, his son and for people of Sindh and may end up developing a new profile for himself in his own role rather than the borrowed sheen of his slain wife.

But all of it will have a chance of possibility if he demonstrates the maturity of putting his good will and organisational abilities behind a ‘consensus candidate’; in other words: if he decides to become Sonia Gandhi of Pakistan.

Seeing Pakistan Through the Eyes of Pakistanis

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Seeing Pakistan Through the Eyes of Pakistanis

Moeed Pirzada | Khaleej Times |

You know I am saddened by this increasing lack of poise and confidence in my Pakistani students,” my friend Bob was telling us. Bob — not his real name — is a US expert on South Asia who has spent almost four decades of his life teaching and interacting with the students and scholars from both India and Pakistan.

And on this after dinner coffee, in our 550 square feet Camden Town apartment, this American academic did the blunder of telling me — and another friend who was then posted in Pakistan High Commission in London — as to how he finds his Indian students increasingly more confident, laid back and self assured in a quiet way in sharp contrast to the Pakistanis who always appear to be struggling with themselves — as if trying to prove a point.

I don’t know how Bob managed to reach his favourite Royal Horse Guards at the Embankment to read his paper next morning in the conference because my friend and I spent the better part of night convincing him, often with forks and spoons in our agitated hands, of our point that it is 9/11 and the persecution Pakistanis face at the hands of the US media, the immigration at JFK and Heathrow and the Zionist lobbies that is responsible for this ‘insecure state of mind’. He kept on arguing: “Yes! Yes! …I agree, but there is something more that defines this Pakistani consciousness…”

Fortunately that something more was on ample display during President Musharraf’s just concluded trip to Europe. One important objective of the trip, according to the president himself, was to correct the impression which Western countries and media have of Pakistan. So confronted with the expected non-sense about democracy and human rights he, in his blunt fashion, told them: “You need to understand Pakistan through the eyes of the Pakistanis.”

Pakistan now has at least three dozen television channels, if not more. Most of them have at least one current affairs talk show. So for the next two days, a few dozen anchors, along with their pet experts and politicians, and armed with flashy plasma screens connected via satellites and video beepers, spent hundreds of hours wondering on the special features Pakistani people have that make them so distinct and unique from rest of the humanity. They were just wasting their cerebral energies.

The president, never comfortable with ambiguity, was all prepared for a practical demonstration. So when at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) Ziauddin, the respected bureau chief for Pakistan’s paper of record, The Dawn, asked him about Rashid Rauf, the president had his great opportunity. He blasted Ziauddin for “casting aspersions” and for “undermining his forces and his own country”.

It was a perfectly legitimate question. Rashid Rauf, facing extradition to the UK, had mysteriously disappeared from police custody in Rawalpindi. The president while visiting the UK should have expected a question like that — when even in Davos he was asked more or less the same question. After all one stated objective of his visit was to assure the Western audience and think tank community that Pakistan’s strategic assets are safe. What better way then to prepare for the kind of awkward questions that if handled diligently could have added to the credibility of his government’s claims? Woe on Pakistan’s Foreign Office if this question was not part of his brief. If he had learnt anything from Tony Blair and New Labour’s spin machine then he would have asked to plant such a question. Maybe his government needs to hire Alistair Campbell as a consultant!

Yet Pakistan’s President was standing in Whitehall, few yards away from my friend, Professor Bob’s favourite Royal Horse Guards Hotel, shouting abuses at one of the most senior Pakistani editors; and letting a diverse international community wonder that maybe he has bones in the closet? But then David Blair, the Telegraph’s diplomatic editor, hit the bulls eye when he concluded that Musharraf would not have behaved this way if such a question was asked by a non-Pakistani.

He was right. The same day Musharraf addressed a gathering of Pakistani origin people in a London Hilton and advised them that such Pakistanis as Ziauddin need to be fixed. I wonder if he realised that he was the president of Pakistan, standing on British soil and inciting violence against a lawful resident in the UK. Many Pakistanis in the crowd laughed and cheered. In Mark Medoff’s famous screen play, Children of a Lesser God, most characters were deaf; in London Hilton they had a different problem; they lacked self respect.

And courtesy Internet and YouTube the whole world was able to understand Pakistan through the Pakistani eyes and mouths…I and many colleagues had to listen the audio links again and again to make sure we are not hallucinating.

But amidst all this grotesqueness something interesting also happened. President Musharraf had accused Ziauddin of undermining the army and the country. He forgot something: three or four days ago when he was in Europe, around 100 retired generals of Pakistan army signed a letter asking him to resign. When BBC asked his reaction, he thundered to the world: they are insignificant personalities and most cannot even go to their regiments. But many wondered: hasn’t he just retired from the same army?

Whether he realised or not, the retired generals did a marvellous job in nation-building. Through their resolution, the first of its own kind in Pakistan’s history, they have established a connect with the people; informing them that whereas discipline of the uniform may prevent soldiers to express their opinions, but their real thinking, in national interest, might not be much different from their countrymen.

If our generalissimo had quietly retired to spend some peaceful time with his grandchildren, maybe in Florida, then many Pakistani students in Prof Bob’s class would have a somewhat relaxed self-image! There is no harm in dreaming!

Long Live Musharraf

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Long Live Musharraf

Moeed Pirzada | Khaleej Times |

RECENTLY, in Karachi, a poor man living on the coast, went fishing and caught a big fish. Happy with his catch, he gave the fish to his wife to cook. But the disgruntled wife shouted: “Throw it, stupid man… I cannot cook; we have no gas, no electricity, no atta (flour) and no cooking oil.” The disappointed man went back and threw the fish into the water. It is said the fish then jumped back to the surface and shouted, “GEO Musharraf!” (Long live Musharraf).

Someone sent this to me as a text. And many such arrive almost every day. I had read somewhere that if you want to know a people, watch their dances for bodies never lie. I think the same is true of the jokes. They too have a weird, uncanny window to the pubic mind. And the interesting thing is not that there are these jokes; every dictator, perhaps every ruler is subject to this juicy gossip mill; what I find interesting is how increasingly these comic life forms are drained of their earlier acidity. Could it be that just like the political field the retired generalissimo has managed to exorcise the public mind of its venom against him? More importantly, is he on a path to a successful resurrection of his image?

It is time to make confessions. Many of us in the media were far too quick to write him off. One such journalist was my friend, Omar Warraich. Immediately after the first sacking of the Justice Iftikhar Chowdhry that had kick-started the lawyers’ movement in March 2007, he penned down an op-ed, in Guardian, with clear prognosis: “The End of the General.” A few days ago, we met again in Islamabad. And while reflecting on the thick steam clouds rising from his mulligatawny soup bowl, Omar confessed that it is embarrassing to recollect how hasty his conclusions were. I sympathised wholeheartedly. I think I also added patronisingly, “We all make our misjudgments.”

I was patently dishonest. I should have told him that how seriously I had believed this: The “beginning of the end” theory. And not only on March 9, but again on November 3, I spent hours convincing everyone around me and on top of it myself that the good general simply cannot tide this over.

I think Bertrand Russell had written somewhere that most people are more happy and excited in the days of war as long as it does not mean a personal loss. And on November 3, the day emergency was imposed, I found myself amidst a whole crowd of mediapersons possessed by the same frenzy, the kind of which makes you believe that something big is about to happen; history is being made and we are part of it, that sort of excitement. In that mood I confronted a stony faced senior colleague much known for his radical activism as an once powerful editor. And I tried marketing this “beginning of the end” thesis to him. His sombre face lit up with an ironic smile and he said, “I am afraid, he has rather saved himself.” And on hearing that cynical remark, I told myself, “Oh! He simply does not get it.”

A few days ago, we were again together in the newsroom. President Musharraf was on TV screens giving a rather brash dressing to the Western Press core, telling them more or less that they don’t understand this country; neither know the language, nor the culture and merely rely upon translators to understand. I remarked, “How desperate he sounds!” And my senior colleague said wryly, “Desperate? I think he is getting confident.” And this time around I knew that he knows better. And then he added, “I think they miscalculated; they don’t understand this country.” I did not ask him who are “they” for I knew what he meant.

Looking back at all these weeks since the imposition of emergency, I think Musharraf’s strategy of deliberate escalation and then a pre-planned step wise de-escalation, which he effectively managed at his own pace, has given him political dividends all along the way. His principal aim on November 3 was decapitation of the judiciary; rest of all including his fight with the media was an inevitable default of that option. But at every step down the hill – ending the emergency, easing restrictions on most of the media, taking off his uniform and announcing the elections, he managed to control domestic passions and international  concerns.

Let there be no mistake: I am not giving him any credits for sincerity or for substance; I am only deconstructing his technique and apparently it worked. Though courts are powerless to restrict the executive, but he takes the credit for lifting the emergency; the army is behind him, but he is without uniform; the media are tamed but he can point to fifty television channels as he just did in a public meeting in Brussels. His arguments may be flawed, but he ensures that they are half true. The most important message he has conveyed, internally and externally, is that: he is still the man who can control.

Musharraf’s gradual tiding over the storm that erupted with Bhutto’s assassination only reinforced this point. Only Gordon Brown might know what Scotland Yard found out in Pindi, but no one will deny that their presence certainly helped ease out the pressures on Musharraf government. And now Brig (retd) Cheema of Pakistan’s Ministry of Interior has earned the rare distinction that his rather hasty pronouncements on Bhutto’s murder investigation have been seconded by CIA.

Connect the dots and President Musharraf appears all set to be with us for a few more years. The only tiny weenie puzzle is: how to hold the coming elections in a way that they still look like elections. But looking at his impressive resume so far, I am sure he will find a way out.

Conspiracy Brigades

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Conspiracy Brigades

Moeed Pirzada | Khaleej Times |

General (retd) Musharraf’s recent interview with Singapore’s The Straits Times was widely misquoted, misrepresented and blown out of proportion. His words referring to the US — “…I challenge anybody to come into our mountains.

They would regret that day…” — certainly looked as if the general, following the inspirational example of Saddam Hussain, was threatening to make a horrible example of the intruders. But in reality most publications conveniently took out the last five words that followed: “It is not easy there.”

He was merely pointing out, for the umpteenth time, the flaws in US perceptions regarding the scope of military operations in Pakistan’s northwest. Yet it will be naïve to suggest that ever widening fault lines do not exist between his regime and the Bush administration.

A combination of interesting developments; a plethora of rather colourful conspiracy theories in Pakistan; leaks to important publications in the US and the fanciful Op-Eds that appeared there since the imposition of emergency in Pakistan; and then the quite unexpected jumping of international community’s man of last resorts, IAEA’s Dr Al Baradei, into that mishmash — all point to the increasing difficulties in managing a US-Pak relationship that was, to begin with, anything but easy.

Indian Booker Prize winner, Kiran Desai, had amazed me with her rather wild imagination running amok in her first novel, Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard. But let me make a secret confession. She was nowhere close to the rich and racing minds of Pakistani conspiracy brigade. In a perverse way I feel proud.

First it was Ms Bhutto who was conspiring along with the US to destabilise and denuclearise Pakistan. Unlike the dictionary definition of ‘conspiracy’, it was a rather disappointingly transparent kind of plan in which the US administration, the Congress and the media had openly joined hands with many inside Pakistan — notably the media, the judiciary and the civil society — to put up a weak, pliant and stooge government in place with the ultimate objective of undermining ‘national security’ and stripping Pakistan of its nuclear assets.

But then the US administration found out that the clever Bhutto was not following the script. And the CIA eliminated her. Israeli agency, Mossad, was also involved, according to one retired spymaster. Will anyone demand to know who sent the water hoses from ‘Tel Aviv’ to wash the scene of crime in Pindi?

South Asia had traditions of women gossiping across shared ‘mohalla’ walls; men spreading rumours at street corners and then that endless drawing room ‘bethaks’. But once again our Pakistani conspiracy brigades make me feel proud. In an age of Internet, they have made the art truly global. They send emails copied to tens of thousands; I had wondered why they never use the facility of ‘BCC’ or blind copy. But now I know: with hundreds of recipients openly displayed you create an impact.

Could it be the awe of these conspiracy brigades that even the US embassy in Islamabad decided to jump into the fray?

Investigative journalist Ansar Abbasi’s piece, “US rejects conspiracy theories amid new revelations” in the leading national daily, The News, starts by quoting the US spokesperson who termed the attempts to connect Washington to an international conspiracy behind Benazir Bhutto’s assassination as completely outrageous and unfounded. But by the time you finish reading that before her death Bhutto was sending secret messages to nuclear scientist, AQ Khan, and former ISI head, Gen Gul Hameed you leave with the impression that may be the US was doing something to stabilise or destabilise Gen Musharraf’s government if not Pakistan?

Could it be that many in the US now desire a more open, a more normal, Pakistani political system with political parties, judiciary, media and the civil society jostling for influence? If this becomes a reality then the role for central messiahs like Musharraf and the military will be limited. Such a plural system can provide the US and the West with a number of players to deal with. Is this what the conspiracy theorists describe as the ‘pliant government in Islamabad?

If this is the conspiracy then I am up for it.

But the conspiracy theorists insist on something else. Whether the US was acting through the political persona of Ms Bhutto or through a hole in her temple what they see is a foreign plan to create chaos, a kind of chaos that sets the stage for international intervention to either seize Pakistan’s nuclear assets or to force it to share command over them. Given that the nuclear issue is deeply embedded in Pakistan’s insecure sense of identity any such plan is unnerving to think of. Yet the conspiracy theorists have much to cite.

In November last year, two US scholars — Frederick W Kagan of the American Enterprise Institute and Michael O Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution — penned an unusually provocative piece, “Pakistan’s Collapse Our Problem”. It appeared in New York Times. This piece, reeking with fanciful ideas, fearing turbulence in Pakistan, even contemplated a direct invasion of the country to secure its nuclear assets. But that was not an exception; irrespective of the bizarre nature of calculations very similar themes keep on recurring in the media, think tank reports and now in the speeches of the US presidential hopefuls.

Responding to Pakistani concerns, the US administration keeps on re-affirming its faith in Pakistan’s ability to safeguard its strategic assets but many suspect that maintaining a certain degree of calculated ambivalence on this issue helps the US to exercise greater influence in Islamabad. Pakistani assets are believed to be widely dispersed which further heightens the Western fears of their falling in the wrong hands but then they are dispersed in the first instance not because of the fear of India or jihadis — but of the US and the West. And that really defines the problem.

The best solution would have been if the US could involve Pakistan in any of co-operative arrangement that could bestow international legitimacy to its nuclear status. But given the AQ Khan saga and Pakistan’s current image problem no such initiative could be in the offing. That means we continue to sit upon a fuselage while the conspiracy theorists will have many more field day.

Illusions of Reality

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Illusions of Reality

Moeed Pirzada | Khaleej Times |

We don’t know if Pervez Musharraf was ever an avid reader of Flaubert’s Madame Bovary or played some roles in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, but let’s admit that his ability to use ‘illusions’ to create ‘reality’ is much superior to that of many who spent their lives teaching English literature. And as Pakistan moves towards an election, like a skillful director, he demonstrates this again and again.

A team of Scotland Yard investigators is in Pakistan. They have been sent by the British government, on Musharraf’s request, to assist the Pakistani authorities with the investigation of Benazir Bhutto’s murder. Pakistani newspapers and two dozen television channels have a daily reportage on their activities. We know, for instance, how they spent their day; what were they wearing; when were they tired; whom they met; what they ate. But what we don’t know is what their real terms of reference are. Are they here to determine if Bhutto died of bullets or shrapnel or by the propulsive impact of the suicide bombing? Or are they here to help find out as to who were responsible for her elimination?

While a few tormented souls might be sleepless in Naudero or Ghari Khuda Baksh about this fine distinction, a great majority of Pakistanis appear to be very happy and satisfied that after all the government that specialises in washing the scenes of crime has finally decided to take Bhutto’s murder rather seriously. And what could be a greater proof than the investigation by the world famous Scotland Yard? Images of Sherlock Holmes, Dr Watson and Inspector Lestrade are already seducing many minds, I suspect.

Another interesting case is that of the election monitors.

The EU Delegation for Pakistan has established an impressive office in Hotel Serena in Islamabad. In the background of Serena’s amazing architecture and elegant woodworks the diverse array of professionals pouring day and night over their smart computers present a formidable look. However, with 64,000 polling stations for the 272 constituencies, spread over more than 0.7 million kilometres of territory, things might get a little exasperating. I wonder how many political parties in Pakistan have trained their workers to monitor such a large number of polling stations, but for the limited number of international monitors, not even knowing the local languages, even creating a sample survey will become tedious. Idealism and sincerity can work, but up to a limit only.

To help the matters, General Sahib’s government has strictly banned any kind of ‘exit polls’ either by the media or the election monitors. After testing the resolve of the government of Pakistan on this prickly issue, the observer group of the International Republican Institute (IRI) has called it a day and left. Will the National Democratic Institute (NDI) and the EU monitors be brave enough to insist on the ‘exit polls’? With the general displaying his tempers with international media in his latest Press conference, I bet: they won’t. Could this then explain why his government is so eager to display international monitors?

But these are minor examples. The general’s real skill, of creating illusions and getting away with it is on full display when we look at Pakistan’s newly emerging sanitised media scene. While Pakistan’s largest news network, GEO News, remains banned on country’s cables, at least six new news channels have penetrated the Pakistani airwaves in the past one month. And they include: Express by the Lakhanis; Waqat by Nawa-e-Waqat group; Samma by CNBC Pakistan and News One by the TV One group and then there are perhaps two Punjabi channels as well.

With such apparent availability of multiple choices, one may even find it difficult to talk of the curbs on media – especially when you are talking to a western journalist or a visitor. The official position that restrictions on media have totally eased or that all channels are back on air – except one – appears to be substantiated. Does that mean the forthcoming elections will now take place under the searching eyes of even more expanded media? But has anyone wondered: Where is Imran Khan these days? When was the last time he was seen on TV? Though no formal memos or orders have been issued, but the great Khan has simply vanished into thin air. And that might be a taste of the times to come.

In the beginning of 2005, Lahore University of Management Sciences held its first conference on social sciences. I had just finished my thesis in media regulation at London School of Economics and was luckily selected to read a paper with respect to the Pakistani media. Those were the heyday of stormy belief in Pakistani media’s unstoppable forward march. I was thus a painful disappointment to most, if not all, when I argued that what Pakistan is experiencing is not ‘free media’ but merely market expansion under a regime that wants to showcase its tolerant media policy as an alternative to constitutional democracy – and has tremendously benefited from that.

The brief moment of ‘free media’ was experienced in a developing world with the advent of satellite TV; but in a country like Pakistan that was only for a select few and could never sustain a market. However, with the arrival of multiple choices to millions, through the cable, that fleeting moment too was lost for ever. Cable represents architecture of control in the hands of the state; free media in a cable market can only grow as much as the constitutional structure of a state allows it. In the absence of constitutionally enshrined structures the very concept of a ‘free media’ is a charade. And the ongoing treatment meted out to media in general and GEO TV in specific only serves to prove that point.

The general is still practising more of the same. His regime is again relying upon another cycle of market expansion offering inducements to the potential investors; the deal is that investor cum owner has to control the editorial policy in favour of the government. The punishment being meted out to country’s largest network then only focuses other minds in media reminding them of what awaits if they did not follow the script. That is why Imran Khan has disappeared just like some of the anchors; and that is why media will have little appetite for scrutiny of the elections.

A Blow to the US

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A Blow to the US

Moeed Pirzada | Khaleej Times |

BENAZIR Bhutto was a gifted progeny of a remarkable mind. Confronted by a three-decade long adversity and tragedy, she displayed an uncanny ability to redefine and remerge. There is no doubt that she stood head and shoulder above all her political contemporaries.

And she was not merely brave; she was a woman of extraordinary courage that pressed ahead despite the ‘clear & present danger’ to her life. But let there be no doubt that this gifted Pakistani leader died, not for the Pakistani people but, fighting her way to power through the maze of contradictions that is: American foreign policy.

Few events inspire such copious comment, as her death did. Many were taken by the sheer tragedy and most took issues with the official explanations that Al Qaeda was behind her assassination. Fingers have been pointed at the elements inside the Pakistani security establishment and some like Robert Fisk, the veteran British journalist, have fired the shot at Musharraf himself. What remained missing is a sobre analysis of the conflict of interest that took her life.

Perhaps Michael Portillo, the former Tory politician, was an exception. He struck at the bull’s eye with his aptly titled article in Sunday Times: “That assassin’s strike killed the West’s foreign policy too.” Portillo, a former Tory politician and an old admirer of Bhutto from the days of Oxford was on spot with his candid admission that Americans have no candidate left in the Pakistani elections. Yet that may have been the problem.

An autopsy could have revealed what specifically lead to the 5-cm oval hole in her ‘Temporoparietal region’ and a political post-mortem may be needed to understand the wedge between the US foreign policy interests and those ‘interests’ that ultimately pulled the trigger. Unless the two are reconciled, or this widening crevice somehow narrowed, more on the so-called list of shadowy Al Qaeda may fall to the great peril of the state of Pakistan; this may also seriously escalate the later costs of ‘salvaging’ for the US policy making.

But the wedge is part of the complex relationship Pakistani establishment found itself in after 9/11. Changed global circumstances compelled them to accept, against their better judgment, a purely US construct of ‘war against terrorism’. Many, if not all, in the Pakistani security establishment, suspected the US of furthering long term objectives in Central and South Asia, in other words all around Pakistan under the panoply of the war against terrorism. The power sharing arrangements of the post-Taleban Afghanistan only confirmed these fears.

Combination of needs and insecurities lead both sides to a dangerous tango. If US foreign policy had to advance their interests, Pakistani establishment had to preserve theirs. The mushrooming of non-state actors, jihadists being the principal examples, inside Pakistan became the inevitable costs of this complex, asymmetrical and thus unstable relationship. This soon turned into a relationship without which one side could not achieve its objectives; but without which unfortunately the other could not even survive.

Before her death Bhutto was working with Mark Seigel, her lobbyist, on a new book, Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy and the West. But their relationship dated to early 80s when she was struggling, after her father’s hanging, against Gen Zia’s regime, and was active inside the US. From those days, she had grasped one clear lesson: political power in Pakistan is neither possible nor sustainable without the American blessing.

As a politician desperate to get back to power, Bhutto could spot the ever widening fault lines between the Americans and the Pakistani establishment. And she successfully managed to parachute herself in the flanks: between the Musharraf regime and the Bush administration.

Many publishers in the world may be thinking of hiring Javed Iqbal Cheema to continue Harry Potter sequels; but when this colourful spokesman for Pakistan’s Ministry of Information was charging Al Qaeda for Bhutto’s murder, he was not saying anything new. The received wisdom right from the moment or even before she landed in Pakistan was that she will be under attack from extremists and Al Qaeda. Her bravado statements which she routinely issued to burnish her credentials in Washington and to put Pakistani establishment on defensive, combined with the unconfirmed pronouncements from Baitullah Mehsud were cited to establish the universally accepted belief that Al Qaeda will eliminate her.

But was she a threat to the extremists? Musharraf government is already busy in a war, employing gun-ship helicopters and F-16s against the jihadists; whatever she could do more was to come through the same state apparatus. Isn’t it true that to argue that she represented any greater threat to the jihadists is to say that the war against terrorism under the Musharraf regime is not real?

Bhutto’s ability to do anything significant against terrorists or extremists was seriously at question, as even her old admirer, Portillo admits. However, as she tried building political pressure she successfully scared many other “interests” inside Pakistan to whom she represented an American plan to develop a further pliant government in Islamabad that might affect the overall policies in the region vis-à-vis Afghanistan, nuclear issue and even India; her calculating statements – mostly rhetorical – led to panic in these quarters.

The US is present in the region for the long haul. And new strategies may evolve soon but as it stands now the very “interests” the US may need to rely upon in Pakistan are not prepared to let the US develop multiple actors to deal with; the elimination of Bhutto whether at the hands of Al Qaeda or Al Pacino makes this one thing clear: the US is thwarted for the time being. I am sure this is clear to many of us in Pakistan and to the likes of Anne Patterson and Condoleezza Rice; may be President Bush will take a while to understand this but the message is loud and clear.

And while they decide, we may need to store water, milk and petrol…

Re-interpreting The Message

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Re-interpreting The Message

Moeed Pirzada | Khaleej Times |

On the second day of Eid Al Adha, in Pakistan, GEO TV marked its partial comeback on the country’s cables by showing Mustapha Akkad’s timeless masterpiece: The Message. With cables now reaching almost 10 million homes, inside Pakistan alone, a celluloid narrative about the life and times of the Prophet of Islam, dubbed in Urdu, was an event in itself.

But it was also time for a different set of reflections. The last time I watched this epic story, in the golden age of VCR, it was with my father and I was still in school. Three decades later, as I watched the film again, my young daughter was sitting snug in my arms. In the seventies, Pakistan was a conservative Muslim country, with aspirations of Westminster parliamentary democracy. In 2007, it is a directionless society bleeding itself by endless battles between rival interpretations of faith and modernity. Only on Eid day, more than 50 ‘namazees’ were blown to flesh and smoke in a mosque in Charsaddah, North Western Frontier Province. By whom? Like Iraq, it does not matter anymore.

Isn’t it remarkable how the same message can be interpreted in different ways?

When Mustapha Akkad was leaving his home in Syria to study in the US, his father gave him money for a one-way ticket and a copy of the Holy Quran, telling him: “…this is all I could manage…” In the land of opportunity, young Akkad found his way studying theatre arts at UCLA. In an age long before 9/11, Islam in America had different image problems: it was unknown and if known then it was the religion that spread by the sword. And young Akkad set himself the task of changing that image. His target audience was Western, principally, American. At one stage, it was rumoured that Akkad was thinking of casting an actor in the Prophet’s (peace be upon him) role. Given the worldwide furore among the Muslim clergy perhaps the idea was set aside and The Message turned out to be a unique film that could not personify the great man it was made about.

Akkad brought to life the great moments of Islam. With his lens resurrecting the sequence, Muslim sufferings in the holy city of Makkah, flight to Ethiopia, battles of Badar and Uhd, Treaty of Hudaibiya and the conquest of the holy city of Makkah, he was able to demonstrate that Prophet Muhammad’s (peace be upon him) message spread by the ability of his followers to bear and find meaning in their suffering.

When I first watched it as a child, I remember that the excitement of most people around me was due to the fact that a film on Islam, and that too a positive one, has been made in English. To our naïve minds, it was some sort of acknowledgment of the intrinsic good of our religion by the West and thus of ourselves. The other and perhaps the more relevant messages implicit in the film were conveniently missed. However, three decades later, as someone with a professional interest in media, and a painful awareness of the life around me, those messages stood out.

Perhaps the most important realisation I had was that Islam was a revolution of minds and Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him) was, above all, a prophet of change. Conflict was between right and wrong, but not necessarily between good and evil. With its shades of grey and room for compromises, it certainly lacked the black and white moral clarity of modern day suicide bombers. And Muslims then represented a new emerging order based on justice and equitable distribution for the weak and the dispossessed.

Allah is forgiving and may Muslims forgive me for quoting an interesting example from the American legal history.

In the 1920s, it became possible for the police forces to tap into phone lines from the phone exchange rather than plugging a wire to the phone at the place of use. When police – probably in Chicago – produced wire-tapped evidence against an accused in court, his lawyers argued that police had tapped the defendant’s phone and violated his privacy without a court permission – which was a violation of the Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution. Police argued that they never violated the privacy of the accused since they never entered his bedroom and merely recorded from the telephone exchange with the availability of the new technology. The matter went up to the US Supreme Court that decided in favour of the police.

But, in the 1970s, another Supreme Court, in a landmark decision, overturned the earlier judgment of the apex court explaining that newer technology, available to police, had changed the circumstances making it possible to violate the privacy without entering the premises.

This is an old debate in Islam itself; modernists have often accused “literalists” of drenching Islam with its true revolutionary spirit but the confusion and thus the true failure of the “literalist” is seldom understood. In reality, as we can see from the example of the US Supreme Court, with the passage of time, newer technologies and the changed circumstances of life transform the real meaning of words; unless they are understood in the changed context and translated for the new age, the message they contain is lost and may even be the opposite of what was actually meant. It was for this reason that Ibn-e-Rushd, the 12th century Arab philosopher, had argued that interpretation of religion cannot be the job of the clergy. Though he is sometimes referred to as the founding father of the secular thought in Western Europe; from the world of Islam he was banned by the orthodox Al-Mansur, and his books burnt.

In 2005, Mustapha Akkad succumbed to a terrorist bomb explosion in Amman, Jordan.

Not a Banana Republic!

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Not a Banana Republic!

Moeed Pirzada | Khaleej Times |

I write these lines in a state of euphoria. A prominent Pakistani columnist is often accused by his jealous critics that he writes his columns after getting a little tipsy. But in my case all I have been drinking this evening is “mint tea”. But still I am very happy! Almost intoxicated by relief; after all, only three days ago, the latest and the shortest emergency in the history of Pakistan has been lifted, and with dramatic improvements in the health of the nation.

President Gen (retd) Musharraf, immaculately dressed in a beautiful dark jacket over a brilliant white shirt, appeared on television screens. He was visibly hurt by the burden of difficult decisions he had to take to save the nation. But I am grateful: like always he candidly informed us of the political conspiracy against the country which he had to foil by “taking action”. President was especially saddened since senior members of the judiciary were part of the conspiracy against the nation. For my part, I am glad that nation has been finally saved.

For some reason he did not specifically mention the dark role played by the media; but we being the guilty party knew that we were part of the conspiracy against the nation. And for the record — just before his speech he did have a longish interview with Lally Weymouth of Newsweek and The Washington Post and ‘media’s conspiratorial role’ was certainly a good part of that interview.

Washington, London and New Delhi all have rushed with congratulatory messages. Only Pakistanis are a little confused. They obviously don’t have the superior intelligence gifted to the Bushes and the Browns to appreciate the greatness of the moment. But in this case we might excuse them a little bit. Emergency is after all a legal concept and many in today’s Pakistan do wonder what difference its absence or presence makes in a country that has no courts.

Perhaps few in the world realise that Pakistan is literally a country without courts. When almost 60 per cent of the superior court judges resigned or were sacked, the Musharraf government, confronted by a crisis situation, went shopping on the streets for suitable candidates. In the rush to grace the honourable vacancies, even a television presenter with a part-comedy kind of court show has been elevated to the bench. When his TV fans turned in the real court to record his new reality show through cameras in-built in their mobile phones, old fashioned court clerks tried intervening. But the new justice restrained them by waving his hands and posed for the “in camera proceedings”.

But let’s come back to President Musharraf’s interview with Lally Weymouth that was published by The Washington Post on December 16. In many respects, it was a historic interview. When Weymouth asked him, “Is there a difference now that you have shed your uniform…?” The answer was: “…from the national point of view, I don’t think there is a difference…” And that really me proud as a Pakistani; at least unlike many in London and Washington, Musharraf is still honest.

Interview had an ironic switching of roles. Musharraf blamed the media for spreading “despair and despondency” and terrorism, and suddenly it was Weymouth, the American journalist who retorted: “Mr President, terrorism is not rising because of the media. Terrorism is rising because the US went into Afghanistan, bombed the Taleban, and they ran into your country…” Little did Musharraf realise that a few years ago, he himself explained terrorism in similar terms to visiting American media and legislators.

But it was here at this point that Musharraf did a great favour to the Pakistani media. He blamed them for inciting terrorism by referring to the television coverage of military action against Red Mosque in July this year. And this is a very interesting point.

Immediately after the emergency, emails had started appearing, like frogs after the rain, from unknown patriotic Pakistanis that blamed the media for playing the American game to destabilise the Musharraf regime. These emails were sent to media owners, key journalists and in almost all cases copied to hundreds of people, usually opinion makers in the country. Interestingly they almost always had the word: despondency.

This witch-hunt finally reached its sophisticated expression in a mini-thesis espoused by a certain Ahmed Quraishi, a broadcaster with the state media, who posted a longish piece on his web site blaming the Americans for funding the Pakistani judiciary, the media and the civil society to topple the Musharraf regime. His arguments were well-structured and provocative and many Pakistanis – especially those among the insecure nationalistic diasporas – believed the argument on its face value.

When President Musharraf finally made his speech terminating the emergency, his references to the ‘political conspiracy’ reminded many of Quraishi’s thesis in the similar fashion they had remembered Naeem Bokhari’s famous letter to the Chief Jusitce of Pakisan. If Bokhari’s letter had provided the intellectual foundations for the actions of March 9, then Quraishi’s thesis was finding an expression in Musharraf’s comments on December 15.

But those who bought this argument, little had they realised that while this line was being taken for the Pakistanis, a different explanation was being sold to the Americans; visiting US legislators were given videos of the television coverage of the Lal Masjid siege to prove that elements in the media were hand in glove with the terrorists. Each side was sold their own set of fears. Who can say the Pakistani establishment is not keen to learn from the media? They just want to run it their own way.

And this reminds me of the good old Mullah Naseeruddin. It is said that once while Mullah was away, his wife stealthily cooked some meat, Mullah had left in the kitchen, for her own guests. When Mullah, never fond of his in-laws, came back and enquired about the meat, the clever wife told him that Mullah’s cat had eaten the meat. Mullah quickly weighed the cat which turned out to be just the same as the meat was (say one kg). Holding the cat by one hand, Mullah asked his wife, “If this is meat, then where is the cat? And if this is cat then where is the meat?”

Unfortunately, in the rainy season of PCOs and “Codes of Conduct”, it is not easy to ask General Musharraf – even if retired — that if the media were hand in glove with terrorists, then how were it in bed with Americans? And if it was indeed Americans, then what about terrorists?

But wait for the tail piece. When Weymouth asked, “Why can’t the US Intelligence people see AQ Khan?” The good general lost his patience and reminded her, “This is not a banana republic.”

Hope beyond the Failure of Boycott?

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Hope beyond the Failure of Boycott?

Moeed Pirzada | Khaleej Times |

NAWAZ Sharif has finally decided to contest the polls. APDM has thrown PML(N) out — as if it really mattered at this point. While the protests in LUMS and vigils in Lahore might continue things move towards the election; the issue of the reinstatement of the judiciary stands where it was. It is time for stock taking.

Those of us a little keen on history might remember a fateful day for India. When the English forces were about to storm Sirangapatnam, the capital of Tipu Sultan’s Mysore, his prime minister, the infamous Mir Sadiq, ordered distributing wages to the sepoys. Those who had not been paid in months rushed to collect the silver coins — leaving the fort for an easy entry by the English and their stooges: Marathas and the Nizam. Rest is history.

Some decisions have their dynamics. When General Musharraf (retd) imposed the elections he too set into motion a calculated process of deliberate escalation and de-escalation: mini-martial law; announcement of a date for elections; promise to lift emergency and fake lifting of restrictions from the media were all well thought out gimmicks, in series, to ease the conscience of his constituency: United States of America.

Elections — though needed more for Americans than Pakistanis — were also to constitute the ‘meat on the table’, coins for Pakistan’s political sepoys, and anyone with the slightest understanding of the history of this region or of the psychology of power politics in general would have only predicted what is happening.

So I was genuinely surprised when even veteran analysts like, Nasim Zehra, on the eve of the meeting between Ms. Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, allowed herself to believe in what she referred to as the convergence of the movement politics with the electoral politics. Where is it now?

No such thing was happening; nor will it happen in near future. Moment to moment changes and developments in the political field might create such illusions of alliance but reality is different. Pakistan has still not reached that point in its evolution. Yes it hurts but it is a sad fact. But accepting the viciousness of things might help in planning better for the rainy days ahead.

Expecting that somehow Pakistani politicians will adopt and support the agendas of civil society suffers from a flawed logic. For there is a serious conflict of interest: politicians need to come into power to save and enhance their support bases through “partisan distribution” of state spoils. Military regimes have already created parallel systems of patronage — that seriously threaten whatever loyalty has been left inside the political machines; if they were political machines ever. But civil society dreams of a system of collective good for the nation state through a process of “transparent distribution” through accountability. Two things are poles apart.

I have no doubt that in distant future that might actually be possible. But for that to happen, civil society and professional classes have to fight many more battles. Bastille is nowhere close to falling.

Civil society has one advantage though; it holds the moral argument. And this forces the politicians to wear cloaks from time to time — to identify with the issues civil society keeps on throwing in their field. Their predicament reminds me of Stanley Kubrick’s last masterpiece, with Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman: Eyes Wide Shut. Just like the high society characters whose erotic desires needed interaction under the veils of disguised identities, Pakistani politicians have to ally themselves with the causes that far from being important to them may actually be detrimental to their real interests.

That is why Ms. Bhutto had to go through the painful acrobatics of the last few weeks: taking one contradictory position after the other; in an effort to keep her aligned with the moral argument civil society keeps fabricating around her. And that is why poor Nawaz, desperate to fight the elections, had to work so hard to legitimize his position. He knew Bhutto will never agree to the boycott, so he needed her delicate shoulder to fire his gun.

And that is what compels the hired intellectual warriors of the political parties to keep coming back with ever more twisted arguments. One recent example was a widely circulated e-mail message by an obscure civil activist that brought forth PPP’s message to the civil society. It was prompted by an open letter written by Ms. Ghazalla MinAllah to Ms. Bhutto.

Ms. Ghazalla, the daughter of late justice Safdar Shah, one of the three dissenting judges who had disagreed with the capital punishment awarded to Z. A Bhutto, had severely criticized Ms. Bhutto for not taking up the cause of sacked judges. Citing the example of her own father, who was a victim of Bhutto’s usual high handedness, but yet risked the wrath of a military dictator in upholding the point of law in his case — she built a powerful argument for the role of personality in judiciary. This was a lame excuse Ms. Bhutto had cited to put a cover on her inability to take up the cause of the judiciary.

But the e-mail after referring to Ms. MinAllah’s powerful argument as ’emotional’ went on offering PPP’s advice that civil society should follow the political parties — read Ms. Bhutto’s PPP — rather than trying to persuade political parties to follow their agendas. Despite some adornment by contemporary references it is a patently weak argument. No doubt Pakistan’s civil society is at an infantile stage and cannot effectively market its ideas. But rest assured, forward march for the greater good in most political systems comes when civil society groups become powerful enough to set focused agendas for the politicians to follow.

Aitzaz Ahsan’s latest proposal that local bar councils should endorse the parliamentary contestants who support the reinstatement of judiciary might not yield the results many desire. But this is certainly the way forward for the struggle ahead. Civil society agendas should be like setting the tracks for the trains of the political parties. It is a long drawn struggle and it reminds me these lines from Robert Frost:

Two roads diverged  in a wood,

and I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference

These lines inspired various books, and one of them was: Road Less Traveled, by the American psychologist, Scott Peck. And if I correctly remember the opening lines of the book say: Life is difficult but once we understand that then it becomes easy.

The Conspiracy Theory

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The Conspiracy Theory

Moeed Pirzada | Khaleej Times |

In Pakistani collective consciousness, not a leaf dares tremble without the permission of either the Army or America. Together they share Allah’s sovereignty from the edges of the Arabian Sea to the mountain passes across Khyber, and beyond. Sometimes there are doubts as to who is closer to God Almighty, but such disputes are usually settled quickly.

So all wise men must believe that ZA Bhutto’s socialist ascent was an American conspiracy; and so was the Jamaat-e-Islami-led PNA’s movement against him. General Zia, a devout Muslim, but an American agent, was waiting in the wings for Washington to signal martial law and it was Henry Kissinger who decided to hang Bhutto. Ultimately, General Zia himself lost favour on the banks of Potomac and CIA sent a case of exploding mangoes to take care of him. Many expected more mangoes for General Musharraf and are disappointed that none has arrived so far; jury is still out on General Ashfaque Pervaiz Kayani.

With this mindset firmly entrenched should we be surprised by the popularity of the “Plan to topple Pakistan Military”, a thesis written by a blogger, Ahmed Quraishi, that has been circling around the planet via the Internet?

Absolutely not! Given the universal belief in his assumptions, there is no scope of causing a ripple in the perfect stream of this consciousness. However, there is one teeny-weeny problem: this time around, no one has been spared.

The plan would have been less worrisome if the conspirators were restricted to the usual suspects: CIA, Baloch nationalists, Ms Bhutto and the hated Indians. But Quraishi, trained in the mould of Agatha Christie’s immortal detective, Hercule Poirot, casts his net far and wide; the list of those working in an intricately linked conspiracy to topple the military includes: the US Ambassador, Anne Patterson, Consul General Bryant Hunt, students of elitist universities like LUMS, Western-funded NGO’s, Supreme Court judges, top jurists, lawyers, civil right activists, human right campaigners, prominent TV anchors, columnists and the biggest media network, GEO. And of course, my friend, Ayesha Siddiqa, the author of ‘Military Inc’, without whom, I now suspect, no conspiracy can have its intellectual foundations.

Ahmed Quraishi is a lead anchor with the state broadcaster PTV; imagining himself in the spirit of a Carl Bernstein he even refers to his sources. But many like me who read him are less concerned with him or his sources; we know we are dealing with a mindset. A mindset that sees everything as inter-connected; flowing from one large whole, a single source of intelligence. A mind set that is partly cultural and partly religious.

It reminds me of a poem we used to read in our school Urdu books, “Rab ka shukar ada kar bahi, jis nay humari gai banai” (praise be to Allah who made our cow). The poem goes on to thank God for making cow whose milk can be drunk and whose flesh can be eaten and so on. Looks so benign on the face of it, but so powerful in terms of influencing minds. For a long time, I, like many children around me, used to think that God created horse for riding, dog for loyalty, chicken for eggs, goat for meat and so on.

I grew up to realise that horses might have existed before men found it convenient to ride them — but many have not. Even today I come across and I hear and read many adults who essentially think of the world in such simplistic terms: interconnected; controlled and run by a single source of intelligence.

And from this mindset, it becomes difficult to understand that things can happen at random, can have momentums of their own or alternative explanations might exist: Baloch nationalists can also be worried for stagnant gas tariffs and demographic squeeze with developments in Gawadar; professional classes and civil society can be influenced by the economic change; lawyers’ sense of identity can be threatened by the open humiliation of judges.

A few weeks ago, I met Hussain Haqqani in London. Haqqani is widely understood to be the architect of Ms Bhutto’s new found acceptability in Washington and I asked him, “Don’t you squirm under your skin for so shamelessly following the American agenda?” And he retorted, “Oh! really, and what about those who admit in their books that they have been receiving money for handing over Pakistanis without trial to the Americans?” The dialogue ended.

With the creeping globalisation, the nostalgic water-tight state is neither possible nor desirable. Regional and foreign influences will enter and often mask themselves as domestic players. Now the Pakistani establishment has to learn to govern in a system not balanced on static but dynamic equilibrium.

If today, Americans have managed to paratroop Ms Bhutto on the establishment’s flanks, then who is to be blamed? There is evidence that General Musharraf had opted to share the stage with Ms Bhutto and both benefited: who brought the shameless NRO? Who legitimised the Presidential elections by not withdrawing from the assemblies?

Military is the most fundamental and primitive of the state structures; even today it may provide the barebones of most — if not all republics — but in this day and age, it has to acquire a flesh of civil society, of courts, of media and the politicians over it. This plurality adds to the depth of the nation, but if all these structures are mere extensions of the will of the military, or controlled by one button — as it is in Pakistan at the moment — then, sooner or later far from being safe, it is the military that will be at threat.

The establishment needs to learn that the untrustworthy Americans, the hated Indians and the ungrateful Afghans are part of the game — and so will be the politicians with friends in Washington. They too have learnt their lessons.

Good Show, General!

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Good Show, General!

Moeed Pirzada | Khaleej Times |

On November 28, the Pakistani dictator finally decided to shut the doors to the most colourful wardrobe in the land. In an auspicious celebration, General Pervez Musharraf became civilianised, so to speak

Since 9/11, my biggest fear was that he might one day disappear in a thud of flesh and smoke — along with his uniform. So his departure from the post of the Chief of the Army Staff (COAS) with a guard of honour rather than draped in the national flag is most welcome. I am relieved.

But this is it. The general continues as the president with the support of the armed forces, blessings of the mentors in Washington, a divided political field, an emasculated judiciary and a tamed media. Armed with this colourful bandwagon, he now heads for another managed election to choose a showcase parliament to cheer him for the next five years.

Where does this land us? And one may wonder, what happened to the civil society movement; the assertive judiciary and the powerful media?

Many still argue that, irrespective of whatever happened since the imposition of emergency-plus or call it martial law, the civil society movement has strengthened. I would beg to differ. There has to be a difference between romantic idealism and realism. And in the interest of realistic assessment, we need to accept that the general and his advisers have played this innings well: their understanding of the ground realities was superb; their analysis of the triangular nexus between the judiciary, the civil society movement and the media was correct and their promise of ‘electoral goodies’ achieved the necessary faultlines in the political field. No wonder then that with the skill of a ‘Rommel’, and fighting with his back against the wall, our general has secured the arena the way he wanted — at least for the time being.

In the spirit of sportsmanship — though the most popular sports channel is still banned — we may even congratulate the general and his team. After all, this is “fighting in-house”. If a few bottles of forbidden spirits are being popped in Islamabad or in Pindi, then they are well deserved. The media and the judiciary are the losers in this round but whereas the media has the intrinsic ability to quickly spring back, the judiciary is consigned to the trash can for the long haul. Since civil society needs an independent judiciary, this then is the real loss.

If the struggle of the civil society was against the person of Musharraf, then no doctor can offer the kind of powerful analgesics that might be needed to cure the itch at this stage. But if it was for something higher, rest assured that the reversals are temporary; if anything they were expected and like all struggles against authoritarianism, they might be a blessing in disguise.

Transformationists and revolutionaries, especially in Pakistan, often refer to the story of the French revolution. But if they spend some time beyond the editions of college history or the CSS curricula — beyond Rousseau, Robespierre, Marie Antoinette and guillotines — they will realise that the revolution gave way to chaos, and more authoritarianism. France convulsed for another century. Monarchy returned again and again and whatever was finally achieved was a result of painful slow, small step evolution. And even then the evolutionary England did better in many respects — if not all.

Musharraf as a civilian president — despite all advantages he enjoys vis-à-vis an ordinary officeholder — is nevertheless a great step forward for the civil society. It redefines the nature of the struggle against authoritarianism. We must not forget that the struggle is not against individuals; it is for the principle to restrict the arbitrary use of executive authority by the state and non-state actors. Individuals inevitably become symbols of hatred just as they become symbols of resistance and heroism; but in the end they are mere symbols.

Musharraf, the all-powerful civilian president and the focal point of state authority, provides that symbol against which a struggle to restrict executive authority can be waged. Bhutto and Nawaz, Qazi Hussain and Imran Khan, lawyers and the media, students and the NGOs and not to forget ace anchors like Talat Hussain and Hamid Mir are all part of that battle. No doubt Musharraf will have the backing of the armed forces — and for a while of Washington. He has been their most colourful and internationally renowned and approved –if not respected — brand name. But it is up to his opposition to strategise how they drive a wedge between him and the army; how they limit him and how they cut him to size.

But Pakistan and the civil society can win if the struggle yields a “civilised” rather than a merely “civilianised” executive; a state authority restricted by the rule of law that can then encourage organic restraints on the endemic use of violence that characterises Pakistan, from Khyber to Karachi. Replacing Musharraf with an absolutist Bhutto or Nawaz in the end or someone in the same mould will be another failure — a repeat of the past. But before you misunderstand: this is not an argument that Bhutto or Nawaz should not be at the top; this is to argue that the top needs to be trimmed and redefined.

Surveys a few years ago found that many Pakistanis approved of suicide bombings; they were probably then reacting to the asymmetrical nature of power politics in the Middle East. But recent surveys show a rising abhorrence of such tactics — asymmetrical or not. Confronted by the horror and ugliness in their backyard, perspectives in Pakistan have changed.

Similarly, the repeated emphasis on the phrase, “rule of law”, in Pakistan represents an organic development — a desperately felt need of the system; this then perhaps for the first time is more than the clichéd use of the term. Amit Pandya, the US scholar from Stimson Center, was not merely using the words when he recently felt, across Pakistan, a palpable desire for the rule of law.

But the struggle to restrict the executive cannot be waged the way many in the civil society or the lawyer’s movement thought it possible. Picking up a straight-unto-death fight with the office of the president or the prime minister will never work. Till the beginning of the 21 st century, it didn’t even work in the United States or the UK; yet one after the other the civil rights movements in these countries have further diminished the executive. We need to choose our targets carefully.

For instance, I think someone like Imran Khan, with his profile and domestic and international good will , would have achieved greater results if ten years ago he had decided to devote all his energies for the cause of public education rather than becoming controversial in the muddy waters of the mainstream politics. The media in near future, with sustained focus, can successfully reform the regulatory regimen through which it is being threatened and misgoverned. And media, lawyers and the civil society together have to strategise how to wean and resurrect an independent judiciary from the mess we are in now; this despite the fact that in all probability Musharraf will be around for a while.

Media Under Siege

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Media Under Siege

Moeed Pirzada | Khaleej Times |

It is Karachi. We are all standing, pushing and shoving, outside the offices of Jang, Pakistan’s largest paper. This private compound, off the famous II Chundrigarh Road, was packed to the last inch. We are here to protest the continuing ban on country’s largest TV network.

Most of us work for either the Jang, The News or the GEO, but I spot faces from the Dawn and the CNBC and other TV channels. Like everyone around me, I had two candles, one in each hand. Flames tremble in Karachi’s evening breeze and we struggle to keep them alive; for they are: Flames of Freedom.

Surrounded by cameras and large plasma screens that capture and display our gyrating bodies, we all are singing: “jeenay do, jeenay do, logo ko zinda rahnain do (…let us live, let us live…let people live their lives)”. These are the only screens on which we can see ourselves; all the GEO channels — even the sports and entertainment — have been banned. On three sides, the walls of the compound surround us, and towards the only exit: policemen look on, amused. Like the media in Pakistan, we are also under siege.

I have just moved here from London. And General Musharraf’s “emergency plus” has followed me. Doubts about the sanity of my own move only multiplied. But today looking around, I am happy. I think I made the right decision. Air is rife with a passionate belief for change; this is the new Pakistan we used to dream of. But yet, this scene has an eerie resemblance to Antonio Banderas’s ‘House of Spirits’ the movie set in the context of Allende’s Chile. Then it was Henry Kissinger, and we just had a visit by John Negroponte. On whose side they are this time? We still don’t know. Perhaps we will never know.

With the imposition of “emergency plus”, all TV channels had suddenly disappeared. From media regulator, PEMRA, we learnt that the cable operators have voluntarily taken off the news channel in ‘higher national interest’. Oh really? However, soon the government produced a 14 pages ‘Code of Conduct’, demanded that certain anchors be fired and the new interim set up be supported by the media. Those who signed on the dotted line, or just agreed in private, were allowed back — one day before the visit of Negroponte. Impressions are always more important than the reality.

But for some more special treatment was reserved. GEO and ARY, the biggest of the news networks, remained blocked on the cable networks. In case of GEO, its sports, youth and entertainment channels were taken off as well. GEO Sports had the exclusive rights to Indo-Pakistan cricket series. Ptv was to show it, on its terrestrial arm, as part of the contract. All gone. People sulk in disbelief and disappointment and the network has to suffer a loss of US$15 million, for cricket alone. But who cares? These niceties matter when you have rule of law. Since 99 per cent of viewerships watch the independent channels on cable that means practically these channels are unavailable in Pakistan. Yet Gen Musharraf decides to pressurise a friendly country to stop their broadcasts. Why? Because diasporas were watching them? I think hard, but there is no easy answer.

Pakistani novelist, Mohsin Hamid, thinks that General Musharraf was pushed into his desperate steps — ie emergency plus — by the intransigent judges, idealist lawyers and the irresponsible media. His arguments go to the heart of the debate, “transition versus transformation”, that raged across Daily Times, a Lahore-based paper, some weeks ago. Prominent author Ayesha Siddiqa sparked it when she criticised the editor, Ejaz Haider, who had argued that Pakistan needed a smooth transition. Ayesha, like many others in the lawyers’ movement, had believed that what Pakistan really needs at this stage is a transformation; a real change of the system. And I think Aitzaz Ahsan was a transformationist, at least from the days when he published his book, “Divided by Democracy” co-authored by Lord Desai.

But I am not much of a romantic journalist. Henry Kissinger’s Diplomacy used to be my holy book; in the discipline of international politics I strongly identify with what is called ‘realism’ and in all these years since 1999, I had strongly believed that General Musharraf and his benevolent dictatorship is needed for the continuing growth and stability. My friend Ayesha Siddiqa had always called me a Musharraf stooge; she even suspected that I am perhaps on the pay roll of one or the other agency. And when Ayesha was sparring with Ejaz Haider I firmly believed that Ejaz was right and Pakistan needed a smooth transition.

Today, the eminent barrister is languishing in Adiala Jail and the noted author is staying away from the country. So can we argue that those who believed in ‘transition’ have won the argument? Unfortunately, sometimes you lose by winning. Today I, like many others, believe that the General may have been a good man, but he has lost his plot — and he has lost it miserably. And, moreover, unlike Mohsin Hamid and many others, I am not even convinced that our good general was just pushed, by a few intransigent judges or irresponsible media anchors, into taking his steps. His acts since the terrible November 3 look far too scripted; and when we look more closely at his regimen for the media it becomes obvious that he wanted to paint with a broad brush.

The new Supreme Court disposed of five constitutional petitions related to the general in the course of a single day. A real court, however responsible it may be, will find it difficult to become such an efficient tool. It was not about a few judges; it was about the overall confidence the judiciary had acquired through its own convoluted journey. So could it be about a few anchors? Should we be so naïve to buy that a government that can hold on its own against the advice of its financial supporters — Negroponte and company — is really stuck at four of five men and women? Even when they have no real authority?

No sir! This is a bigger and more ambitious plot. Jang/GEO network is now the only media group that is still standing; it is losing almost a million dollars a day; soon it won’t have any liquidity to pay salaries to thousands of its workers. The Musharraf government wants to financially cripple this most popular of the media community to set an example — just like the judiciary. What he needs from the media is the kind of unquestioned loyalty PCO judges owe him. And that is why general Musharraf made that extra-regional leap, interfering in the laws of a friendly country, to silence the broadcasts that were blocked in his country anyway. He wants a quick capitulation, for the next stage: managed elections with desired results, without anyone to hold the mirror. But then they say: there is many a slip ‘twixt the cup and the lip.

Musharraf and the Media: What is the Way Forward?

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Musharraf and the Media: What is the Way Forward?

Moeed Pirzada | Khaleej Times |

The ongoing ‘mysterious ban’ on the private TV channels may be over within the next few days but General Musharaf’s twin assault on judiciary and the media has interesting implications for not only these two institutions, lawyers and the media persons, but for the state of Pakistan. And we may ask why?

Lets begin by examining the assumptions of the advisers of the general, or the ‘establishment thinkers’ so to say. They had rightly concluded that media provide the ‘connect’ across Pakistan’s diverse geography and population centres and would have fuelled the protests and demonstrations once the martial law was imposed. The impact of the televised scenes of state minions grabbing and shoving the chief justice on March 9 and the national reaction, mediated by the media, to the tragedies of May 12 in Karachi, when the regime was put on defensive, must have been on their minds.

If these ‘establishment thinkers’ have concluded that the lawyers movement, between March and July of this year, was in itself orchestrated and sustained by the e-media’s robust reportage and fulminating commentaries then they are probably not much in wrong, either. When a visibly agitated General Musharaf, on November 3, was haranguing against ‘judicial activism’ and ‘irresponsible ungrateful media’ he was no doubt giving effect to personal frustrations of a cornered dictator but yet at the same time his words echoed this growing feeling inside the establishment pundits, from the top echelons of the civil secretariat, police and the GHQ, to the drawing rooms of PMLQ, that the current nexus between the judiciary and the media makes it impossible to govern.

And this is not all. Many politicians in the opposition, beneficiaries of the so called ‘free media’ are potential recruits of this ‘governance mindset’; after all-if we take aside the latest ‘PCO/martial law’ episode — the track record of Ms Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif on media, when they were confronted by the challenge of governance, was if anything even worse than the general.

This ‘insecure governance mindset’ may conveniently ignore that the emergence of Pakistan’s private media is one singular achievement that makes Pakistani people, inside the country and across the globe, proud. Even the western opinion makers-from New York to London – are gradually realising that Pakistan has the Muslim world’s most vocal and dynamic media. This essentially distinguishes Pakistan from countries like Iran, Egypt and even the apparently liberal Turkey.

Every nation needs a narrative. And PTV did a great job in 70’s and 80’s in weaving together a Pakistani quilt of hope, love and tragedy but now this mantle has effectively passed to the private media. ‘Establishment thinkers’ may reflect on how the private Indian media galvanised Indian consciousness at the eve of Kargil-a small conflict as compared to the previous wars in South Asia. And then they need to fast forward and remember how Pakistani media created an equally powerful emotional tsunami, the realisation of being one people, that helped fashion the national and diasporas response to the earthquake in Kashmir and northern areas in 2005.

Approaching more difficult subjects: the media response to Karachi mayhem of 12th May — though irresponsible and unprofessional at times and certainly frightening to the ‘insecure governance mindset’ in Islamabad was a powerful check on the equally irresponsible and rash actions of a regime gone mad; and once again was an unmistakable emergence of one Pakistani people, connected together, through GEO, ARY and AAJ, from Karachi to Peshawar and beyond-in an increasingly globalised world — groaning with pain and disbelief.

The ‘Kakul & Walton mindset’ echoed by General Musharraf in his emergency address is groomed in the mid-twentieth century theories of ‘statecraft and governance’. This ‘static mindset’ – a threat to the survival of a state in a globalised world — is at unease grasping that at the beginning of 21st century, media are not to be governed by ‘hastily drawn ordinances’ or ‘code of ethics’.

This is not to deny that there is some meat in establishment’s often repeated allegations against the media. TV anchors may lack balance and judgment; some may act like partisans and footage at times needs editorial scrutiny and control. But all of these issues of fairness and editorial standards can be addressed through an open, transparent, legally precise, regulatory framework enforced through an independent regulator.

In retrospect, the vision of people like Javed Jabbar that lead to the creation of PEMRA, as a media regulator, was a great step forward. But we have seen the obituary of this dream: PEMRA, far from being a regulator, has been allowed to become a ‘subordinate tool’ in the hands of the ministry of information. Now almost quarterly we face this familiar specter of media owners walking into PEMRA offices with folded hands and cable operators confronted with a policy regimen of either the ‘pants down’ or ‘plug off ’.

But then am I making a fool of myself; talking of the sophisticated concept of ‘media regulation’ in a country where parliaments are little more than rubber stamps, constitutions can be scrapped at personal will and this time even courts have gone?

But unfortunately this is still the only way forward. Pakistan already has four 24 hours news channels and at least four more are about to enter. Market for news networks, beyond this point, cannot sustain itself without clear regulatory framework and genuine courts to mediate and enforce that- otherwise disputes with the civil-military establishment and politicians will only grow in intensity making it impossible for the market to expand any more.

General Musharraf’s commando action against both the judiciary and the media in the same line of fire was mere expediency; but having digested the ‘golden bullet’ of ‘emergency-plus’ media professionals and the owners must now wake up to this reality that: the future of both the media and the judiciary are inextricably linked.

Fortunately, there is another silver lining to the horizon. Elections, whether delayed or not, will soon be held. Buzz words like ‘free media’ ‘rule of law’ and ‘democracy’ will be espoused ad-nauseam but may be the e-media and the lawyers should now get together to draft a ‘regulatory framework’ with precise legal clauses to spell out ‘media responsibilities’ and offer that to the political parties for discussion, debate and adoption as part of their respective election manifestos. Politicians in the opposition have enjoyed media’s hospitality; we know there ‘democratic hearts’ bleed for a ‘free media’ and this may be a time for ‘reality check’.

These Lawyers Seem Somewhat Above the Law

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These Lawyers Seem Somewhat Above the Law

Moeed Pirzada | Khaleej Times |

These are great times. Pakistani state, civil society and the judiciary are in a state of flux. Some observers are convinced that a new nation is being born, out of the throes of the old. Eyes are focused on the supreme court with the lawyers forum now demanding a review of the Apex court’s earlier decision on 17th Amendment, and JI a verdict on Musharaf’s uniform; Nawaz Sharif is landing in Islamabad to a historic reception; and Ms Bhutto is about to conclude her deal with the Generalissimo for the umpteenth time.

History is being made. We are marching ahead. A group of intellectuals, courtesy a Lahore based paper, are ferociously fighting on the question: should we have transition or transformation? And the exponents of ‘transformation’ are convinced that finally the time has arrived for the civil society and its advocates to put the genie of the Pakistan army back into its bottle, that is, the barracks.

I don’t want to spoil this propitious mood. In the midst of this “Orange revolution”, who cares for the small negatives here and there? Yet apparently the puny events may have wider implications; for our lives are only a microcosm of our collective consciousness. And one such teeny-weeny incident, which reflects on who we are, took place in the Rawalpindi District courts on 9th August.

A group of lawyers, defenders of the due process of law, elegantly dressed in black coats, thrashed senior advocate of the supreme court, Naeem Bokhari. Inside the court room, right in front of the helpless eyes of the additional district judge, they dragged him of his chair; stripped him of his coat, tore his shirt and pants, threw lentils on his face, struck repeatedly at his head and pelted him with stones. Police had to be called who saved his life, took him for first-aid and gave him shirt and pants to put on. Before that a helpless district judge, instead of calling police or ordering arrests, kept on advising him to run from the back door of his court room. It wasn’t all that bad an advice but for the fact that the “legal revolutionaries” were outside blocking the exits. Bastille had been stormed; lawyers had conquered their own court.

Do I know Naeem Bokhari? Not personally. But-right from my college days I have seen him a zillion times on television. I guess now he must be in his late fifties. I was impressed of his knowledge, his wits, his sense of humour. Yet the moment I read his open letter to the Chief Justice of Pakistan, I like others suspected — though without proof — that this kind of extra-ordinary courage must be in cahoots with some official quarters. On March 9, when the illegal and mindless decision to sack the chief justice was taken, I was convinced — though without any clear proof — that Mr Bokhari must have acted as the advance shock trooper of the presidential attack. And I felt sorry for him for becoming a pawn.

But unlike many others in Pakistan he put his name and signature to his act. I expected that he will face charges for the contempt of the apex court. And, seven months later when the events in Pakistan have moved full circle, I still believe that whatever he has done, openly under his name, can only be judged through the courts.

Let’s move forward. A month has passed since the violence inside the Rawalpindi courtroom. Additional district judge had witnessed at least two things: assault and battery on a senior advocate and open contempt of his court. One wonders if any one has been arrested or any contempt proceedings ordered. Has the Punjab bar council cancelled any licences?

Interestingly, save with the exception of Nasim Zehra and Asghar Nadeem Syed, no columnist stepped forward, no editorials emerged either; and at least one prominent face of the lawyer’s historic movement, in a TV talk show, implied that probably Mr Bokhari deserved what he got. As if this near conspiracy of silence was not enough, a post-doctoral fellow, of all the places at Oxford, invented her new “doctrine of necessity” in relaxation of all principles of civilisation to defend the despicable act, of assault and battery, by arguing that “military touts” will not be tolerated.

This, in Pakistan, is a moment of change. Old order is certainly departing and a new one is taking shape. In times like these it is either safe to stay away from the losers or shout full throttle against them. However those who maintain eerie silence and those who gloat have misunderstood the inter-related realities.

It is not about Naeem Bokhari; or anyone else we don’t like; it is about law, courts and the social order. A selective application of the process of law that favours one individual or the group, and ignores the other erodes the respect for the process of law, undermines the system of courts and disrupts the social fabric.

Last year when Barrister Aitzaz Ahsan came to London for the launch of his book, “Divided by Democracy” — which he co-authored with Lord Meghnad Desai — we sat for an hour long television interview. The astute barrister repeatedly referred to the undermining of Pakistani society by the emergence of the national security state.

And what was the worst impact of this national security state? I think it encouraged a systematic process, and a mindset, that was prepared to set aside and disregard the country’s law in the perceived higher national interest. Today we can see the results: once powerful national security apparatus, wriggling in its own blood, is unable to confront the genie it has unleashed upon itself.

I recently asked a retired Judge, who once resigned from Lahore High Court, as to why the district court judge, who was witness to all this, did not order the arrest of the assailants and the wise old man looked at me with innocent surprise, as if I should have known it. “How can he? Pindi bar is very powerful; they will fix him up,” was his reply.

Interesting; isn’t it? So some lawyers are really above the law? Are we witnessing a new selective application and immunity from the country’s law, just like the national security apparatus had done since the Afghan war?

Unfortunately for lawyers, and the legal community, the situation may be a little more precarious. They derive authority, and whatever influence they have, not from sticks and stones, but from the power of the written and the spoken word; their ultimate weapon is their argument. And for understandable reason, in a country like Pakistan, it has never been much. And their antics of using courtrooms as circuses are only going to erode their moral authority.

The chaos that has ruled Pakistan’s periphery for a while is fast encroaching upon the centre. “Transformationists” lead by Dr Ayesha Siddiqa are still thinking that extremists are some fictional creatures out of GHQ’s old cartoon movies; others are not all that convinced. After the gory drama of Lal Masjid, the recent suicide attacks inside the Rawalpindi cantonment should help focus minds on the barbarians that have crashed open the gates. More than ever before, we need to restore the authority and prestige of the district courts. But if they cannot control the “legal revolutionaries”, if they are afraid of bar politics, then please forget about confronting the Islamists; they are somewhat tough.

Will someone consider a suo moto notice to restore the prestige of a district court?

The Continuing Challenge?

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The Continuing Challenge?

Moeed Pirzada | Khaleej Times |

IN 1986, Mikhael Gorbachev declared Afghanistan a “bleeding wound”. More than two decades later it is still festering. Among those who suffer is United States. But let there be no doubt that there are only two principal victims: Afghanistan and Pakistan.

For a start lets remember that with the overthrow of King Zahir Shah in 1973, Afghanistan found itself on a turbulent journey that passed through: political polarisation, civil strife, bloody coups, foreign invasion and occupation and finally a prolonged civil war. The primitive Taleban, so misunderstood and hated by the world, were only the pockmarked face of a society denuded of its modern layers.

And now a process of polarisation threatens increasing populations inside Pakistani territories. It is with these deep seated fears that many in Pakistani media and diplomatic community went on analysing the decisions of the recently held, US sponsored, Pak-Afghan Jirga in Kabul; and it is precisely why the response has been so cautious.

In itself Jirga was a land mark event; despite the boycott by the Taleban and the tribal leaders from Waziristan it was still the grandest collection of Pashtun tribal chiefs since the drawing of “Durand line” in 1893.

From Pakistan’s perspective there were at least two key positive developments: One, the Jirga’s decision, and the US tacit approval, to open a dialogue with all Pashtun factions, including the Taleban and Hizb-e-Islami, is a vindication of the longstanding Pakistani position that options other than war need to be on the table; Second, the decision by this trans-border congregation of tribes to strengthen the Pak-Afghan border tantamount to giving legitimacy to the Durand line.

So far so good! But those, like myself, who are taking a cautious tone in welcoming the positive developments are trying to grapple with two fundamental questions: One, to what extent the US will be willing to accommodate a militant and hitherto anti-American polity into the power sharing arrangements of Kabul to begin with?

Second, will United States be willing and able to set aside the force projection in Afghanistan and shape its regional interests, vis-à-vis Iran and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) through diplomacy that once again may involve some difficult compromises.

Three, given the growing hostility to the US presence in these areas, one wonders: is there any timeline for the US and other coalition forces to ultimately withdraw from this region?

For Pakistanis it becomes crucial never to forget or underestimate the broader contours of the US interests and concerns in Afghanistan. Three of them stand out: the prevention of future terrorist threats for Western democracies; creation of a secure trade and energy corridor extending from resource rich Central Asia to the growing economic engines in the South of India; and countering the growing political influence of SCO.

Americans are already working on the plan commonly referred to as TAP. International Oil Company (IOC), a US entity, recently won the Pakistani contract to build 2,200km pipeline, in a three year project, to bring oil and gas from Turkmenistan via Afghanistan to Pakistan and eventually India. And the Pak-Afghan Jirga, coming just a few days before the SCO summit was also seen as a mechanism to forestall the Chinese and Russians dreams of offering any mediation role inside Afghanistan.

The challenging problem for the Pakistanis is that in their ranks they have an army of: ‘realists’ ‘apologists’ and ‘stooges’ who are far too willing to understand, justify and even own the US interests as the “legitimate interests” of a superpower in the region. The tone and tenor of the recent pronouncements by various officials of the state department and presidential hopefuls like senator Barrack Obama were thus helpful reminders not to forget the basic reality.

General Musharaf, the master of self-preservation, had successfully marketed himself as someone integral to the war against terrorism.

Now Americans have finally recognised an equally willing if not more enthusiastic alternative: Ms Benazir Bhutto.

During her recent trip to the US, Ms Bhutto was prompted by a PBS anchor to comment on the consequences of unilateral US actions inside Pakistani territories. She could not even utter one strong word, one coherent sentence condemning such an action. Instead she went on to show understanding of the US rhetoric and condemned the cease-fires and peace treaties Musharaf had earlier signed in Waziristan. There was nothing ingenuous about it: she knew fully well that this is precisely what the American media and think tanks have been saying, about Musharaf’s peace treaties, for the past several months. Ironically she showed her vacuous vision for the region at a time when the US had already invited Taleban to the Pak-Afghan Jirga.

Where does it take us?

And the answer is it defines the Pakistan’s current and future predicament: we then have, in the form of General Musharaf and Ms Bhutto, two rival and competing sets of interests both equally willing and falling over each other to oblige Washington.

Given the political expediencies and the impotency of the power centres in Pakistan, it remains a challenge for the media and the civil society to zoom in the message: that the continuing military approach is eroding the centuries old syncretic social order; and that if it slips then the artifacts of executive, legislature and judiciary will become meaningless. If we have learnt anything from the 30 year old war in Afghanistan then this is it.

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