Pakistan is being described as “The world’s most dangerous place” in the Western media like the Economist. This Western media onslaught is a part of the continued effort in spreading fear and jingoism serving the interests of the imperialist global war or as Washington calls it “Global War on Terror”. The Islamists, very conveniently projected as a homogenous monster, is on the loose and will take over the chaotic society of Pakistan that is about to collapse and worse they will take over its nuclear arsenal! Obviously the readers of the Economist will have a reason to fear.
Insecurity: Making of the Army
There is a popular saying in Pakistan, that while every country has an army, in Pakistan the army has a country. Sounds a bit of a cliché but like most clichés there is a degree of truth in it. And its roots are historical. According to I.A. Rehman, Chairman of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan “Pakistan came into being in August 1947 in circumstances that made its founding fathers acutely conscious of its security needs. To an extent this was understandable as the State had no history of its own, it had been born in a climate of tension and hostility with a bigger neighbour (India), and with a quite a few questions marks on its ability to survive”. Fear of India made its first leaders to give absolute priority to the development of a powerful army. Over 50% of the country’s budget was devoted to the army that even peaked to a colossus 75% in the beginning. This obsession with security has meant concentration and centralization of power in the hands of the military at the detriment of political parties.
Military Inc.
Since its birth in 1947 Pakistan has been under direct military dictatorship for more than half its life so far. The rest of the time there have been some kind of a transition towards democracy. Although the political trajectory of Pakistan does give us an impression of an eternal return in rhythmic succession of cycles of about ten years, in the course of which democratic phases and military governments alternate. This is for most part mere optical illusion, since Pakistan has never really tasted democracy.
Long periods of military rule has made the army an institution in itself. The power vested in the army has led it to control an astonishingly vast swathe of the nation’s broader economy. The military owns everything from cement firms to construction conglomerates to cornflake manufacturers. In her 2007 book Military Inc: Inside Pakistan’s Military Economy, Ayesha Siddiqa, a former researcher for the country’s navy, reckoned the army’s net worth at more than US$20 billion - or roughly four times the entire foreign direct investment into the country in 2006. Siddiqa, whose book is banned in her homeland, reckons that 11.58% of all state land is owned by the military.
Islamists and the Army
Islamists, or Islamic fundamentalists have never been popular in Pakistan. They have always performed miserably in every election so far held in Pakistan. Moreover, it is not the Islamists that install or remove army rulers in Pakistan. It is the army dictators who determine the space to be provided to the Islamists and democrats alike. It was the army dictatorship under General Zia-ul-Haq that strengthened the Islamists with overt support from the USA in its fight against the Soviet army in Afghanistan and it is the army dictatorship under General Pervez Musharraf that is now fighting the Islamists with overt support from the USA. The common denominator is clearly the Army and the support it gets from the USA. It is not the Islamists that threaten the Pakistani society. It is the Pakistani army.
Democratic Deficit
Under intense internal and external pressures, General Musharraf had announced federal and provincial elections for January 8, 2008. The leader of the most popular political party, the People’s Party of Pakistan (PPP) Ms Benazir Bhutto ended her self-imposed exile and came back to campaign for elections. According to almost all political observers she was heading towards a major victory. But that did not happen as she was tragically assassinated during an election campaign rally in the garrison city of Rawalpindi. Ironically it was the same place where the first Prime Minister of independent Pakistan Mr. Liaquat Ali Khan was assassinated and the same place stood a prison where Benazir’s father and the founder of PPP, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto was hanged to death by the then military dictator Zia ul Haq. Benazir’s assassination caused an uproar and resulted in rioting that has left many dead. Within Pakistan people accused the army and Musharraf while the Americans were quick to blame Al Qaida for Benazir’s death.
While it is still unknown who was behind the killing of Benazir she is being hailed as “a martyr for freedom and democracy”, at least in the American networks. The facts point at a different reality. Her own democratic credentials were far from impeccable. During her leadership the government was accused by Amnesty International of having one of the world’s worst records of custodial deaths, killings and torture. Within her own Party she declared herself to be the President for Life of the PPP. And it was under her watch that Pakistan’s secret service, the ISI, helped install the Taliban in Pakistan, and she did nothing to rein in the agency’s disastrous policy of training up fundamentalist jehadis to do the ISI’s dirty work in India and Afghanistan.
“Benazir Bhutto was a feudal landowner, whose family owned great tracts in the province of Sindh. Real democracy has never thrived in Pakistan in part because landowning remains the principal social base from which politicians emerge. The educated middle class-which in India gained control in 1947-is in Pakistan still largely excluded from the political process. Behind Pakistan’s swings between military government and democracy lies a surprising continuity of interests; to some extent, Pakistan’s industrial, military and landowning elites are all interrelated and look after one another. The recent deal between Musharraf and Benazir, intended to exclude her only real rival, Nawaz Sharif, was typical of the way that the army and the politicians have shared power with minimal reference to the actual wishes of the electorate”. (William Dalrymple)
Democracy vs Dictatorship
But all said and done, the recent upsurge in the fight for democracy is new to Pakistan. It was for the first time in the history of Pakistan that people refused to be cowed down during the emergency rule imposed by Musharraf a couple of months ago. They instead came out in increasingly large numbers and were ready to face police repression demanding ouster of Musharraf. When Musharraf took power through a coup in 1999 there was a certain sigh of relief amongst many liberal and Left groups. With three stints of a decade long dictatorship each of Ayub Khan, Zia-ul-Haq and Pervez Mushharaf, the Pakistan public has matured to understand the crux of the problem and with the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, all hope with the army to control the fanatics has all but disappeared. All liberal, left and democratic forces are unanimous in their fight against the military. Whether the elections take place or not, the battle in Pakistan, both in electoral and non-electoral arena, is clearly between Democracy and Dictatorship. Needless to say, the army has a lot to loose and people have that much to gain.