A lot at stake for Musharraf

DEMOCRACY is the same all over the world. What it means is that people rule through their representatives whom they elect freely and periodically. Pakistan is no different.

Abraham Lincoln has defined democracy as a government of the people, by the people and for the people. The words ‘of the people’ are the most important because they indicate that power resides with the people. They are sovereign and everything flows from them.

When President Pervez Musharraf tells Europe that their kind of democracy is different and far more advanced than that in Pakistan, he talks about a system where the military enjoys a pre-eminent position. It is not that the Pakistanis are lesser people. It is that they have been denied the right to rule themselves.

Europe has a long history of democracy except for the countries which were satellites of the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Successive army chiefs in Pakistan nipped democracy in the bud. Why should Musharraf say that Pakistan was not yet ready for full-fledged democracy? He himself came through an army coup. The system was never allowed to operate in Pakistan.

If one were to look back, one would find that both Congress and the Muslim League, with their different planks, put their faith in democracy and promised the rule of the people. It is a tragedy that Pakistan did not make it because its founder Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah died early and his successor Liaquat Ali Khan was assassinated. Had they lived they would have seen to it that the foundations of democracy were laid.

After them, the bureaucrats and the military were more interested in wielding power than ensuring the people’s right to rule. Congress was at that time full of freedom fighters who had gone through the Independence struggle and who had come from the roots.

Still, the level of poverty and illiteracy was more or less the same in both countries.

But India was less feudal and less dependent on the few landlords and even fewer rich which constituted the ruling class in Pakistan. For a long time only a handful of families had money and power. People never got the chance.

I do not know how Musharraf came to infer that the people in Pakistan are not yet ready for the type of democracy that Europe has — or next-door India. His observation may only deepen suspicions that polls are not going to be free and fair. His assurance, however loudly repeated, does not count for much since his own credibility is lacking.

It is difficult to imagine that he will quit once he knows he is not wanted. Who would dare to tell him so? He is not going to hold a referendum to assess his popularity. He has admitted in the past that the referendum held for his presidency got him few votes.

His re-election would not have been possible if the PPP had not abstained. That was probably part of an understanding between him and the late Benazir Bhutto. Apparently, she was led up the garden path.

Musharraf’s test of strength will come after fresh elections. If the National Assembly were to endorse him as president by a two-thirds vote, his stay in office would be justified. However, that may still not be the test of his popularity because members in the new National Assembly could come under pressure.

The impression in Pakistan that Musharraf is acceptable to India is not correct. Its sympathy and support is with the people of Pakistan. They want them to get democracy as they themselves enjoy. They are reluctant to raise their voice lest Musharraf should restart the propaganda that India is trying to undo Pakistan.

The Manmohan Singh government’s stand is, however, different. It wants to deal with the government in power in Islamabad as it has done in the past. India was one of the few members at the Commonwealth meeting favouring the removal of Pakistan’s suspension. The favourable noise that national security advisor M.K. Narayanan has made for Musharraf is because of terrorism.

Like President Bush and Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Narayanan too believes that Musharraf is the best bet for the fight against radical Islamists. Still the fact is that it was Musharraf who trained and blessed them. They were acceptable as long as they sneaked into Kashmir and fuelled insurgency there. Now that they have turned against the armed forces, the terrorists need to be eliminated.

Manmohan Singh has offered Musharraf joint action to eliminate terrorism in both countries. The Indian government has not yet spelled out what such action would entail. But the very offer means India is willing to give its full support to Musharraf on this point, whatever his deficiencies.

China, Pakistan’s best friend, is also worried about terrorism. It took the initiative to discuss the subject when Manmohan Singh was in Beijing last month. India did not reveal this for fear of being misunderstood. It was China which mentioned it at a press conference. Whether terrorism is specifically mentioned or not does in no way minimise the menace Pakistan faces increasingly.

The swathe of territory occupied by the terrorists is less important than the pitched battles they are fighting against the Pakistani forces. Benazir Bhutto was right when she said that she did not mind working with the military because political forces can stop terrorism, not the military.

Terrorism is an ideology of sorts that only an ideology can meet. The ideology of modernity and liberalism can draw support from the people who can be mobilised by political parties. Unfortunately, her approach to make up with the military for this purpose was mistaken for her ambition to come to power.

The important role of political parties makes it all the more necessary that the forthcoming polls are free and fair. Although Musharraf has given an undertaking to the West on this point, the impression is that elections may be rigged. Musharraf has also much at stake. He has to get a two-thirds vote in the National Assembly if he wants to stay on as president.

If one were to go by the observations of the army chief General Ashfaq Kayani, he will not interfere in the elections. Nor would he want his officers to have contact with politicians. It looks as if he may turn a new leaf in Pakistan’s history. The army, no doubt the only coherent and disciplined force in the country, has cast a long shadow on the people’s sovereignty. If it were to withdraw, as Kayani seems to be doing, people would find the ethos of Pakistan returning and would be getting back the authority to rule themselves. The world should do all it can to help the country evolve.

The writer is a leading journalist based in New Delhi.

Breaking out of Gaza

“MR Gorbachev, tear this wall down.” Visiting West Berlin and the wall that separated West Germany from the east, US President Ronald Reagan looked eastwards and threw that famous challenge at Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Soviet leader.

Of course, it was another two years before Reagan’s vision became a reality. But the Berlin wall did come down on Nov 11, 1989. And with it came tumbling down the mighty Soviet empire and the entire socialist bloc.

Watching the Palestinians trample the Gaza border wall at the Rafah crossing this week, I was reminded of Reagan’s historic words. No wall is high enough to imprison a free people. As a breathless Jacky Rowland of Al Jazeera, standing over the remains of the corrugated metal wall that the Rafah crossing was, put it, if Gaza was the biggest prison on the planet, this was undoubtedly the biggest prison break in history.

In less than an hour, hundreds of thousands of besieged and starving Palestinians had fled this prison to flood into Egypt. Men and women, young and old streamed into Egypt for freedom. And for more mundane things. As English classical poet Richard Lovelace warned: Stone walls do not a prison make,/ Nor iron bars a cage.

You cannot imprison a whole nation. Especially a people as free-spirited and irrepressible as the Palestinians. Even if the oppressor happens to be the most ruthless and racist regime on the planet. You cannot arrest a people’s fierce desire to remain free, even if you happen to have the most fearsome weapons at your disposal.

The sheer joy and boundless delight of ordinary Palestinians on breaking out of the prison that Gaza has been for years was exhilarating and infectious even to distant spectators like us.

The tidal wave of humanity stampeded towards Egypt from across the Gaza Strip, almost emptying the northern cities of taxis, as news of the breach spread by radio, television and word of mouth.

The United Nations estimates that nearly 350,000 people, a quarter of Gaza’s population, may have crossed the border by afternoon on day one of the border collapse. And all the Palestinians did was buy, buy and buy with whatever they had! It was easily the biggest shopping spree in the shortest time in history.

The grown ups went about picking up essentials like fuel, flour and groceries, smiling and enjoying themselves. Children were having a great time too, just being themselves. I wish every one of us could listen to those peals of laughter and shrieks of utter, helpless joy on this rare freedom to chill out with their elders without worrying about regulation Israeli rocket and tanks.

And if you happened to watch that rare spectacle at the Rafah crossing last week, you would know what a great crime it is to enslave those free-spirited souls; making them prisoners in their own land.

While those checkpoints at every possible strategic location on the Israeli side don’t let them get out of this narrow strip of land, the Rafah crossing along the border with Egypt is the only access to the outside world. But Egypt keeps it shut. Why? Because Egypt’s friend and ally Israel says so.

As a result, nearly two million people cooped up in a narrow territory are literally fighting for things that we all take for granted; essentials like food, water, electricity, fuel and medicines.

Israel switches off Gaza’s power and water supply, just as it had over the past week, whenever it pleases. The same water, electricity and gas it buys and steals from Arab neighbours like Jordan and Egypt. Who cares if critical patients in ICU and babies in incubators are vitally dependent on the uninterrupted supply of electricity? This is besides the regulation air strikes and attacks that the Palestinians are subjected to almost on a daily basis.

A friend this week e-mailed pictures of such a campaign. Mutilated bodies of children, blown up homes and charred remains of cars interspersed with human body parts. But Israel, the US tells us, has the right to defend itself. The Middle East’s most powerful military with a nuclear arsenal has to defend itself by targeting a defenceless population including helpless women and children.

Who knows how many innocents may have died as a result of Israel’s long siege of Gaza? Who cares? The civilised world — if there’s such a thing as the civilised world — doesn’t.

Even those token, whimpering protests that the so-called international community used to register by way of that wonderfully ineffectual angel called the United Nations aren’t heard any more.

Just imagine the predicament of those who are condemned to living under the world’s most oppressive occupation forever. In fact, life in the occupied territories is worse than a life behind bars.

For in a typical prison, you are at least assured of a regular supply of food, water and electricity. Besides, you are set free after you serve your sentence. But in the gulag called Palestine, the inmates have no way of knowing when and if their sentence will ever end.

What is their crime? Being born in the land that the Zionists have usurped and stolen from their parents and great grandparents? Looking at those young children at the Rafah crossing, and who are as innocent and sweet as your kids and mine, I wonder what have they done to deserve this? What’s their sin? They are so young, they don’t even know what sin is.

The only crime they can be accused of is being born to Palestinian parents and in the land that is sacred to three great religions and their followers. Is that a sin, being born a Palestinian, Mr Olmert and Mr Bush?

Ironically, instead of being ashamed of what their Israeli friends have been doing to a helpless, besieged people, the US says it is CONCERNED over the Gaza wall break. Concerned over what, Ms Rice? The liberation of a people from the clutches of tyranny? I wonder what America’s founding fathers would have said on this interesting reaction by Condi Rice, someone whose own people had to fight long and hard for their freedom. But anyone watching the Palestinians make their freedom run to Egypt, trampling the dismantled 40ft high barrier as if it were a broken concertina, would know that you cannot enchain a people as independent as this forever.

Freedom may take its own sweet time coming. But come it will, come it will. As Richard Lovelace promised:

If I have freedom in my love,/ And in my soul am free,/ Angels alone that soar above/ Enjoy such liberty/ Don’t let your hopes die, comrades.

The writer is a Dubai-based journalist.

aijazsyed@khaleejtimes.com

The debate on feudalism

IN the past few months there have been a lot of comments about feudalism in Pakistan. The general drift of the argument presented by many is that feudalism does not exist in the country any more.

There are others who argue that given the rise of capitalism in the country, feudalism is no longer a problem or a prevalent institution. So, have we now rid ourselves of the menace?

A couple of days ago, I had a chance to watch an old recording of a programme in which Makhdoom Amin Fahim of Hala talked to the famous Begum Nawazish Ali and claimed that feudalism in Pakistan was a thing of the past. He had a point, especially if we look at the concept from the perspective of the historical and textbook definition of the term. The term was first used in the 16th century referring to an institution which was distinguishable due to three elements: (a) the feudal lord, (b) the vassal and (c) fiefs.

The feudal lord exercised power based on land which he would grant to the vassal who, in turn, would pay a certain amount to the lord or serve in his military force. Here was an issue of concentration of power, capital and labour. The lord of the manor had the power and the capital in the form of land and was also the master of the people who served under him. The vassal entered into a contract with the lord to serve in his military and pay dues in exchange for the latter’s patronage. The term itself was coined by 16th century British and French lawyers to describe certain traditions and norms which prevailed amongst the aristocracy.

From this perspective, the term cannot be used in Pakistan. Landholdings in most of the country are no longer what they used to be before the country came into being in 1947. The landholding in Punjab, for example, is much smaller than what one would find in some parts of Sindh or Balochistan. Again, most land owners do not maintain private armies. Neither do they have vassals who would fight wars for them.

In any case, according to Akbar Zaidi’s research, the larger landholdings have shrunk. For instance, in 1939, 2.4 per cent owners controlled 38 per cent of the agricultural land which changed later. Between 1950-55, 1.1 per cent owners controlled 15.8 per cent of land with farm sizes varying from 100 to 500 acres; 0.1 per cent of landlords owned 15.4 per cent land with a farm size of 500 acres and above. This seems to have changed within years, with farm sizes being reduced. This development is attributable to problematic land reforms and laws of inheritance which distributed land.

Another important development relates to the fact that most major landowners have become industrialists or successful entrepreneurs. They no longer have private armies. Instead, they run large industrial units such as sugar, ginning and textile mills. But does this data mean that feudalism is no more? The answer is no. In fact, the issue is that as the institution of feudalism was diluted it led to two separate but interdependent developments.

First, the landlords diversified in terms of their capital-generating capabilities and became industrialists and entrepreneurs. The logic was that since agriculture did not ensure greater profit margins, business and industry were selected as the new course. These big landlords also had the advantage of being in politics which was essential for negotiating loans and manipulating the state bureaucracy.

So, in this respect the feudal landlord diversified the source of capital formation. He either did it himself or in partnership with other elites. The land was not just an asset but it also became a source to provide the collateral against which loans were obtained from banks.

However, land continued to have its symbolic worth in the form of expression of power. Resultantly, other elite groups also started to mimic the landowning class and began acquiring land. The wonderful farmhouses around Islamabad, Karachi and Lahore are not just an expression of individual economic strength but a symbol of the political influence of an individual as part of the extended elite.

Hence, it is not surprising that other elite groups such as those comprising industrialists, generals, senior bureaucrats and educated professionals who acquired capital were inclined to buy farmland. During the 1950s, the 1960s and the 1970s, the elite of the civil and military bureaucracy were not interested in retaining or exercising control of the agricultural land which they got from the government. Most would either sell the land to local landowners or neglect it.

After the 1980s, especially after the value of land increased and the bureaucracy started to institutionalise its role in the state, the owners became interested in actively becoming farmers. Those who had the institutional support used it in one form or the other to establish better control. Thus, a new class of agriculturists was born. It had no links with the soil but willingly became an influential factor in far-flung areas.

Many generals and senior bureaucrats, for instance, became numberdars of their villages. While they were not performing the role of collecting taxes, which a numberdar is supposed to do, they enjoyed the authority which comes with the office.

Land ownership also had an impact on elite culture and ethos. The culture of farmhouses was not about having large houses but in many ways replicating the decadent lifestyle of the old nawabs and the feudal elite. For instance, the huge parties, mujrahs and the flaunting of money which takes place in these new settlements reflected the desire of the inhabitants for copying the traditional landowning elite. They were not rejecting a redundant culture but accepting it as a superior norm. The culture also portrayed a negative development.

Second, the new economic groups and non-landowning elite acquired the attitudes of landowning feudals in the form of the exercise of authority. In a traditional feudal culture, there is an essential relationship between the lord of the manor and the vassals.

In modern terms, the new elite started to behave like the lord of the manor with those in subordinate positions being treated as vassals or minions. There was, hence, the proliferation of a certain kind of attitude which permeated different vocational groups. As long as an elite group dominated an organisation or profession, the attitude could be replicated. New feudals were created from amongst the entrepreneurs, industrialists, the military and civil bureaucracy and professional groups. The late Hamza Alavi defined the professional group as part of the Muslim ashraf (elite) of pre-Partition India.

These new groups also represented the diversification of methods of capital formation which was no longer tied to agriculture. However, such diversification did not necessarily create a capitalist society but resulted in a hybrid form of feudalism which one could categorise as pre-capitalism in which the seeds of capitalism were sown in a solid base of feudalism.

The results have been damning. The feudal attitude and the culture of power have proliferated and entered all institutions. The key, of course, is the concentration of power and the subservience of groups of people under a central authority. Resultantly, the MQM is as feudal as the lord of the manor who operates from interior Sindh or other parts of the country.

The writer is an independent analyst and the author of the book ‘Military Inc: Inside Pakistan’s Military Economy’.

ayesha.ibd@gmail.com

Islamabad’s unsustainable park

I ATE lunch and read a book in the sun last Sunday. Then it got cold and I moved inside, but the lights were off. I therefore left home for the office, hoping to find it better endowed.

As I left the dark neighbourhood, I passed by a gas station near the vacated Margalla Towers (destroyed in the earthquake) with at least a 75-metre long queue of cars waiting to fill up with CNG. I thanked my lucky stars for not having spent Rs40,000 for a CNG kit on which so many people are now dependent. Clearly, we have a major energy crisis.

Opposite the Margalla Tower is the Fatima Jinnah Park. Earlier in the day I visited it to update my September 2007 report:‘Fatima Jinnah Park – Metaphor For Pakistan’s Problems And Their Solution’ (http://tinyurl.com/2dz9jm). A great deal is happening in there, with the first phase of its ‘beautification’ almost over and the next phase about to begin. This work is the brainchild of Mr Kamran Lashari, CDA chairman, with design consultancy by the architect, Mr Nayyar Ali Dada.

The first thing you notice as you enter the newly constructed area is a paved walking path. It is made out of very uneven stones on which people can easily trip — many already have injured themselves, I was told by my guide. Give up plans of bringing your friend in a wheelchair for an outing here, and don’t wear heels. The standard of the floor stonework is poor all over and this extends to the vast new car park that has been laid out. If so many people are expected, how can only six new toilets under construction suffice?

Apart from the high cost, the non-porous surfaces stop the rain seeping into the ground and recharging the groundwater. Instead most of the water flows towards Pindi causing serious flooding there. Why couldn’t have a cheap porous gravel or clay path sufficed? In all such extravagant plans it is easy to see who gains by going for the expensive option.

Lining this path are new trees planted prematurely, covered with hay to avoid them being frost-bitten. (Trees imported from Thailand for Rawal Lake Park — perhaps even for this park — another extravagant and poorly planned area, have died according to a Dawn report of Jan 26. This import of foreign trees is unconscionable as the city’s allergic residents suffer greatly from the pollen of paper mulberry, an imported plant that is self-propagating and difficult to destroy).

Having failed to take note of the right time to plant the trees was no excuse for installing a 120-watt spotlight for each new tree. All these lights are kept on until late into the early morning. So I guess they and other new lights all over the park are kept lit until sunrise. This when we have an energy crunch.

The sides of the walkways are lined with long water drains lined with rounded pebbles. This labour-intensive task has been accomplished at Rs12/sq foot just for labour, and the quality of work is such that I could make the pebbles come out very easily, showing the shoddiness of the work due to lack of supervision. The expert mason who took me around — one was thoroughly disgusted with the waste on site — showed me the stone lamp box he was constructing which overall, in his estimate, would each cost close to Rs10,000.

I also noticed a number of fire hoses spread all over the park driven by a common pressure pump. And this in a place where there is little or no danger of fire, while next door in the large busy F-10 market, or for that matter any market in the capital, there is not a single fire-fighting outlet.

North of the park lies the large Pakistan Air Force colony. It has for years been dumping raw sewage into the park through a water drain. The nearby navy colony does the same into another rainwater drain, which thankfully does not come into the park but ends up in Pindi.

Both these colonies pump their own water from the fast depleting aquifer consuming lots of electric power. Then this potable water is used to water their golf course, while their sewage gets pushed into the park. Soon they will be joined by their cousins in the army who will take over the adjoining sector, thereby further denuding the reservoir, not to speak of increasing the general level of pollution.

All this comes at a time when it has become clear that the government failed to take care of the energy and food supplies. With energy shortages so common, it is incredible that the city planners fail to see the need for designs that are sustainable. The CDA has a budget of about Rs25bn for development, and it has set about spending it as if there is no tomorrow. This city of less than one million people spends on itself more than half the development budget of the whole of the NWFP and well over one-third the total budget of Balochistan. No surprise then that the provinces are annoyed.

An international junk food outlet appeared through carving prime land from the park. This place flourishes despite a legal notice served on it by Senator Saadia Abbasi. The petition was to be heard by a bench headed by the Chief Justice but then he got fired and nothing has happened since.

The monstrous Centaurus complex, which aims to turn Islamabad into an ugly version of Dubai with its high-rises and extravagant living, has speeded up its construction activities, despite opposition to it at a public hearing. Centaurus, an unsustainable project, caters solely for the elite and is against the government’s own ‘Vision’. It will take away scarce natural resources that would otherwise have been used by the poor and the middle-class citizen.

The new government post-Feb 18 will need to investigate the shady operations in and around the park. Reversing the harm being done will present a test case for the new government. If it fails to correct the problem under its nose, it is unlikely to succeed in doing good anywhere.

The author is a physicist with an interest in environment.