Among President General Pervez Musharraf’s many winning ways is his ability to talk straight and stay cool. This is a welcome relief from the hypocritical doublespeak of politicians. We can therefore hope that he won’t get too hot under the collar by some candid comments from us.
A pardon for Dr A Q Khan was apparently unavoidable. We are told that Pakistanis perceive him as a national hero, never mind that this perception was assiduously manufactured, never mind that this was at the expense of several brilliant but unsung Pakistani scientists and organizations, never mind that lesser mortals acting on Dr Khan’s instructions have been given no such grand reprieve, and never mind that Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, who envisioned the nuclear programme in the first place and can lay claim to be Pakistan’s most popular prime minister ever, was sent to the gallows by General Musharraf’s military predecessor General Zia ul Haq on the dubious evidence of a cowardly approver. General Musharraf has also reportedly decided not to deprive Dr Khan of his billions in ill-gotten wealth, never mind that two twice elected prime ministers have been exiled and disqualified from political office for stealing much less, never mind that NAB has hunted down scores of businessmen and civil servants for lesser crimes, and never, never mind that the official hunt is still on to compel foreign banks to cough up the relatively piddling sums gulped by all these undesirable elements. General Musharraf’s response is that, all things considered, a swift pardon was in the “national interest”.
That may or may not be the case. Certainly, the controversy over who and how many people and institutions were culpable, who was made the fall guy, and why, will inevitably spill over into the history books. Meanwhile, it is time to dissect one fundamental question: What is the “national interest”?
Apparently, every military coup d’etat was in the national interest, never mind what happened to democracy. The Islamic jihad against the Soviets in Afghanistan was in the national interest, never mind its crippling legacy of sectarian warfare, drugs and Kalashnikov culture. The support for the Taliban regime was in the national interest for six years, never mind that it plunged Pakistan into the eye of the storm only days after 9/11. The jihad in Kashmir was in the national interest for over a decade, never mind that the deaths of tens of thousands of Kashmiri and Pakistani jihadis have been in vain because it is no longer in the national interest. The Hamoodur Rehman Commission Report was buried in the national interest, the Ojri camp was covered-up in the national interest, the testing of the nuclear bomb was in the national interest, the subsequent freeze on forex accounts was in the national interest, the Kargil adventure was in the national interest, and Nawaz Sharif’s exile was in the national interest.
Who determines the national interest? The rulers determine it, of course. War mongering is therefore in the national interest and the peace dividend is not. Accountability of politicians and civil servants and businessmen is in the national interest, but accountability of generals and judges and nuclear scientists is not. So it goes on, ad nauseam. And now General Musharraf is thundering against the Pakistani media for “damaging the national interest” by publishing “foreign-inspired” stories about the proliferation affair.
General Musharraf is a hard man to please. He likes to boast of the free press in Pakistan as one of his great achievements. Then he rails against it for not behaving like the gagged press in Iran and Libya and North Korea. Does he think that the American press which is lampooning the American government for screwing up in Iraq and getting its soldiers killed there is unpatriotic and acting against the American national interest? Does he think the BBC was acting against the British national interest when it alleged that Tony Blair had “sexed” up the inspector’s report on Iraq? The problem with most dictators, benevolent or otherwise, and most democrats, autocrats or not, is that they think they are infallible, that they know best, that what suits them personally suits the national interest.
But the business of a free press is to hold rulers accountable, to challenge their self-righteous notions of right and wrong. One way of doing this is to present the people with as many facets of any situation as possible and let them determine where the truth lies. Another way is to make assessments of the national interest that are independent of particular individual or institutional or class or ethnic or regional or sectarian vested interests and concerns. This is a complex process in which debate and discussion are of the essence. Attempts to muzzle any divergence of opinion tend to defeat the very purpose of locating the real and enduring “national” interest in any situation.
We do not doubt General Pervez Musharraf’s integrity or patriotism. But he shouldn’t doubt ours either. The army and its generals cannot be allowed to have a monopoly over determining the national interest. In fact, history suggests that they have been wrong more often than right in defining and defending it.