I would like to add some somments by Ayaz Amir (Dawn's Friday Columnist) on March 17, 2006. Especially the opening paragraphs are interesting.
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Tahir Ali Khan
Bluster and performance
IT IS a matter for some rejoicing that we continue to be the world’s greatest futurists, postponing everything to the distant future. We ‘will’ eradicate poverty, or bring its levels down. We ‘will’ see to it that ‘the writ of the state’ — a concept increasingly hard to understand — is established. We ‘will’ usher in progress. The list is endless and all in the future tense.
Having such a touching faith in the future is a sign of optimism. Who says we are cynical or pessimistic?
Indeed, if good intentions alone provided the shortest route to heaven, we would be up there in the clouds with the most favoured nations. Alas, if performance could match this genius for bluster.
In six years Hitler prepared Germany for war. Admittedly a bad example but trotted out to show what can be done in this time. In six years the Second World War was over and done with, the world transformed at its conclusion. Sher Shah Suri ruled north India for only five years. Yet down the ages he is still remembered as one of India’s greatest kings. He spoke little, he did a lot.
After six and a half years Pakistan’s present general-president — fourth in a line of distinguished saviours-in-uniform — is still talking of establishing ‘the writ of the state’. What does this phrase mean? No more than that the state’s authority, as expressed and represented by the government in power, is obeyed, not challenged or flouted. This is the very essence of statehood: the ability of the state to enforce its will.
Of course it is far more desirable that this authority should be based upon a system of laws instead of being arbitrary and stemming from the whims of an individual. But even if a state is operating in a legal or constitutional vacuum, to earn the title of effective state it must be able to implement its decisions.
Now consider this: if after six and a half years a seemingly strong government is still struggling with the necessity of establishing its writ, it doesn’t say much for its performance. What has it been up to all this time?
Not that there’s been no movement or frenetic activity. But to what end? At every conceivable opportunity the general-president has said his hyphenated status — president and army chief at the same time — was essential for effective governance. Well, he has had his way. But how much effective governance have we had?
Leaving Balochistan and North and South Waziristan aside, the most visible symbols of our present discontent, we can’t seem to get even kite-flying right.
The Supreme Court orders a ban on kite flying. Then it relaxes its previous order and allows kite flying for a fortnight around Basant (the onset of spring). This amounts to saying that something illegal for the rest of the year is all right for 15 days.
But right on the eve of Basant the Punjab government bans kite flying, on grounds that the glue-and-iron reinforced twines used for the sport were dangerous for public safety, this realization sinking in after a couple of kids have their throats literally slit by the killer threads. Despite the police being out in force, the government is unable to enforce its decree, thus making a mockery of it. Enforcing the law is a hard enough undertaking at the best of times, much harder when law is put at the service of stupidity.
Pakistan being in the throes of a sugar crisis — the price of sugar hitting the roof — the government announces that the National Accountability Bureau, the scourge of the political class when Musharraf seized power, will look into it. Considering that the biggest sugar barons are political fat cats, the government darkly warns that no one found guilty of hoarding or manipulating the market will be spared.
The public waits with bated breath. Imagine its surprise when word gets out that NAB has been asked to lay off for fears that the market will be disturbed.
The law and order situation is worse than it has ever been. No one goes to the police if he/she can help it because doing that means suffering first one loss and then another. Respect for the judiciary is at an all-time low, this again accounting for the reluctance of ordinary people to go to court if they can help it.
A good deal of the money flowing into Pakistan after September 11 went into the property sector, making it one of the fastest-growing sectors in the economy. If anything needed regulating, as much for income tax purposes as to protect the interests of small investors, it was this sector. But it remains largely unregulated, a handful of bright souls becoming tycoons overnight while a large number of small-time investors have been left holding title deeds relating to land existing only on paper.
But this is part of the freedom we enjoy in Pakistan. If you are properly wired or your pockets are deep enough you can get away with anything.
Not that Musharraf is to blame for everything. It is just that the instruments and institutions of governance have become rusty and ineffective. The result is that even with the best goodwill in the world, if the government decides to do something its ability to implement it is limited. The writ of the state is not what it used to be and military rule far from reversing this trend has only accelerated it.
We confuse and mix up two things in Pakistan: democracy and the rule of law. There can be democracy or a form it as in post-communist Russia but no rule of law. And there can be the rule of law as in British Hong Kong or 19th century Prussia without much democracy. In Pakistan, despite quasi-military rule, we have a fairly open society. This is certainly not the kind of repressive set-up that we have in much of the Islamic world. But despite this openness, despite a relatively free press and so many TV channels dedicated to the ritual of talk, the rule of law has deteriorated.
There was a time when regardless of whether we had democracy or not, trains ran on time, public transport was fairly good, the streets were kept clean, municipal services functioned, garbage was regularly lifted, the police were still corrupt but not as much as they are today, and, strange as it may sound, even bicyclists made sure the front and rear lights on their bikes worked.
Somewhere in the mid-sixties, perhaps after that ill-fated war-without-purpose in 1965, things began to go wrong. And afflicted by God knows what evil star they have not become right since. Loss of democracy, as I have already suggested, is only part of the story. There is no democracy in Dubai but, thanks to good leadership, things work there. They don’t in Pakistan, despite the undoubted talent and capacity for hard work of its people.
Not for a moment do I say that democracy is an irrelevant consideration. Pakistan’s soul is bound up with it because through a democratic process, sanctioned by the British parliament, did it become an independent country. I am only saying that we need democracy plus something more: strengthening the foundations of the rule of law, which all Pakistani governments, both dictatorial and democratic, instead of working towards have done their best to vitiate and weaken.
Government based on a system of laws or government run by whim: that is the true Pakistani challenge. But far from understanding this challenge, at the highest level we continue to take refuge behind meaningless talk and bluster, no higher monuments raised to the empty, meaningless word than in Pakistan. This by people at the helm who think they are very bright and understand everything.