Nawabzada Nasrullah’s heroic efforts at corralling a motley crowd of unemployed, confused and rather desperate sounding politicos have come to pass. But it is worth asking what concrete purpose, if any, has been served by the All Parties Conference last week and the “nationwide” strike a few days ago.
Take the APC. When you put the PPP, MQM and JI in one cauldron, and garnish the brew with the spicy likes of ANP and QMA, you can only end up with an unpalatable concoction. And so it was. At the fag end of a day spent thundering about how the infidels are destroying the Muslim Ummah, our “principled” leaders couldn’t even bring themselves to demand a withdrawal of Pakistani troops from the wicked Sheikhdoms of the Gulf. As the benign Nawabzada later admitted sheepishly, “We’re not in government. We don’t know all the compulsions behind this policy”. Indeed. Every one of the participants had already given us more than an earful in the obstreperous run-up to the APC. And not one has told us in the APC what concretely Mian Nawaz Sharif should do in the circumstances. So, pray tell, what then was all this fresh ruckus about, unless of course, the intention is yet again to destabilize a civilian government on some pretext or the other? Clearly, the Nawabzada is whistling in the dark when he hopes that the APC might eventually develop into a workable opposition alliance.
As for the partial strike last Sunday, apart from disrupting business, which has become a trademark of sorts for bumbling politicians in and out of government, all we have to show for it are wrecked vehicles and burnt tyres. Bravo. Although the government’s strike call earlier may conceivably have had some semblance of rationality to it because it drew attention to the plight of the Kashmiris which has been all but totally engulfed by the war in the Middle-East,it is really time to put an end to these enforced holidays. We simply cannot afford to take this sort of loadshedding to such preposterous lengths.
Ms Benazir Bhutto is finally back from her untimely, ill-advised, gallivantings abroad. It matters two hoots to most people at home that she had a tete-a-tete with Mr Yasser Arafat, whose own position and initiatives in the Gulf crisis have become increasingly irrelevant. What does matter, indeed is of crucial import, is the dangerous turn some of her party stalwarts seem bent on taking under emotional pressure from their ranks. One insane lot has allowed its personal hatred of Mian Nawaz Sharif to publicly spill over into backing for the COAS; they’re clearly angling to play footsie with the very brass which booted them out not so long ago. Quite a few seem to have become so alienated from their leaderene’s way of thinking, as espoused in Washington, that they have become unwitting appendages of the Jamaat-i-Islami. Some, like the respected Malik Meraj Khalid, are openly disavowing Ms Bhutto and saying they are ready to call it a day.
Before she opens her pretty mouth to lay down the unchallengeable party line, Ms Bhutto might be advised to listen, for a change, to the many voices in her party before formulating any response to the rapidly changing scenario in the Gulf. She should also rap the more frustrated elements in her hierarchy who foolishly think they can exploit Mian Nawaz Sharif’s current predicaments to their own good by cosying to the armed forces.
As for Mian Nawaz Sharif, all this zooming around for half-hour chats with nervous Arab leaders is going to lead nowhere. His priority should be to take leading politicians into confidence and try to articulate a policy which is, by consensus, in Pakistan’s best long-term national interests. It is not enough to neutralise the Jamaat-i-Islami by flogging Professor Khurshid Ahmad’s “simultaneous withdrawal” thesis, although we dare say it’s a damned sight better than Mian Sahib’s original “three words” advice to Iraq!
Rumours about the mood in the armed forces continue to cast a shadow over the staying-power of this civilian government. Apparently, the khakis are irked by the PM’s disclosure to IJI parliamentarians of the minutes of a confidential meeting last August in which the armed forces pushed for sending Pakistani troops to Saudi Arabia. Sahibzada Yakub is being openly bad-mouthed by the brass for “pro-West sympathies”. And although Gen Beg appears to have informally backtracked on the timing of his recent statement, there is no evidence of any dilution of views on foreign policy at GHQ.
This is, inherently, a precipitous position. Mian Nawaz Sharif could not do much worse than refuse to huddle with supporters and oppositionists alike to find an acceptable equilibrium to the crisis at hand. The President, too, needs to move swiftly to lay all this dangerous speculation at rest about extensions and appointments in the armed forces. It is muddying the national waters and unnecessarily diverting attention from the real issues in contention. What is needed right now is a national consensus on the desirability, or otherwise, of concepts like “strategic defiance” for Pakistan in the post-cold war ear.