Chief of Army Staff, Gen Asif Nawaz, told a correspondent that he was happy to be back in his “beautiful country, Pakistan” after his recent visit to the UK. He is also reported as saying that the Parliamentary session on December 19 “was good education for a hard core soldier like me”.
Whatever does the good General mean, wonder our intrepid COAS-watchers. Certainly, given the country’s depressing fragmentation, disarray and instability, it requires a measure of audacity to call Pakistan “beautiful”. Does the General, perhaps, mean to imply that the country is intrinsically “beautiful” provided its rotten veneer can be scraped off? If so, pray tell, what exactly is the despoiling factor and who precisely is equipped to scuttle it and restore the country to its pristine beauty?
As for being suitably “educated” by the ruckus in the Assembly, we are duly baffled. There is nothing novel in the sight of politicians literally at one another’s throats; in the past, they have broken chairs over one another’s head, scuffled like rogues and abused each other ad nauseum in parliament. While we may be amused or disgusted, (depending upon our sensibilities and political affiliations) we can hardly pretend to the shocked, let alone claim to be “educated” by such incidents.
It is then possible that Gen Asif Nawaz was alluding to some deep “educational” content in President Ishaq’s lecture which merits a fresh look by the brass?
The President said that democracy has eluded us because we are not good Muslims and have cut ourselves off from our “ideology”. The President is perfectly within his rights to comment on the strength or lack of his own faith. But he is hardly the Compleat Muslim to lecture us on ours. As for his laments about a lack of “ideology” to guide us along the true path, we might well question the bonafides of the particular ideology the President is talking about. As Zia ul Haq’s right-hand man for over a decade and his true authoritarian disciple, Mr Khan has done more to cynically deride the notion of the “ideology of Pakistan” than anybody else.
The President believes that the turmoil in Sindh has almost ended. As everyone knows, especially Gen Asif Nawaz, this is a blatant falsehood meant only to protect Mr Ishaq’s son-in-law Mr Marwat and protege Jam Sadiq Ali. The President is pleased with the way his government has handled the Co-ops crisis. As the millions who lost their lives’ savings and you will get an angry opinion to belie this assertion. And so forth. Mr Ishaq Khan may think these statements to be earth-shattering revelations. But the cold fact is that he has failed to impress even his diminishing band of die-hard supporters, let alone “educate a hard-core soldier” like Gen Asif Nawaz.
If anything, the President’s lecture is conspicuous by the flaws in his philosophy and the points he has consciously omitted. The central facts of political life today revolve on Ishaq Khan’s blinkered vision and his tacky role as a biased umpire in the system. Corruption in government is another issue which demands immediate redress. The fact that the opposition has no stake left in the President’s brand of accountability and democracy is a third dangerous omen.
So what exactly was Gen Asif Nawaz driving at? Has he, perchance, begun to believe that parliament is good-for-nothing and has outlived its utility or relevance? Is he now convinced that the authority of the Presidency has been so eroded that an office which personifies the state lacks legitimacy and cannot guarantee any consensus on the rules of the political system? That as long as an ageing, stubborn man sits in the Presidency and as long as a corrupt prime ministerial coterie rules in Islamabad, there is no great hope for stability in the country?
We cannot pretend to know how the good General’s mind ticks. But for their own sake in particular and for the sake of democracy in general, Ghulam Ishaq Khan and Nawaz Sharif need to seriously reflect on the answers to these questions. They have created a mockery of democracy by conspiring to dismiss the government of Benazir Bhutto and by rigging the interim government, elections and accountability trials of opposition leaders. Between the two of them, they have scaled the heights of moral and financial degeneration.
Benazir Bhutto is fated to stay out in the cold for some years to come. Depending on if and how they redeem themselves, one can only hint at what fate may have in store for Mr Ishaq Khan and Mr Nawaz Sharif. But if the story of “How the Great Liberator of Central Asia was reduced to being a factory manager in the blinking of a eye” is anything to go by, both gentlemen should draw the proper conclusions. Although the “education of hard-core soldiers” is a continuing process, we know from past experience that good soldiers are quick to learn and quicker to act when their “beautiful” country is in trouble.