Aftermath of May 12

By Najmuddin A. Shaikh

THREE weeks ago, I had written that I would devote my next column to the lessons Pakistan could learn from the manner in which the Turkish government, suspected by the Turkish army and Turkish secularists of having an Islamist agenda, was handling the issue of the election of a new president.

I had intended to point out that by withdrawing the candidature of Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul for the presidency and by bringing forward the date for parliamentary elections Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan had defused the crisis.

He had, in effect, realised that despite the popularity of his party, a strong minority in Turkey entertained suspicions about his Justice and Development Party and that using his parliamentary majority to ride roughshod over these objections would not be in Turkey’s national interest.

I would have pointed out that the political climate in Turkey had changed. The opposition parties had certainly been encouraged by the statement of the army generals to boycott the parliamentary session at which the new president was to be elected. The constitutional court had probably been influenced by the same source when it decreed that in the absence of a quorum the election of a new president was null and void, even though there was at least one past precedent of such an election having been recognised.

These developments proved that the establishment, with the army in the lead, was still a powerful force in Turkey, but that Erdogan and his ministers could still get away with rebuking the army generals for having sought to influence the political debate. This was despite the army’s self-proclaimed role of guardians of Kemal Ataturk’s legacy and despite the high regard in which the armed forces are held by the Turkish people.

He could do so because the slogans chanted by the anti- government secular demonstrators who crowded on the streets of Istanbul and other major cities in Turkey were as opposed to an army coup as they were to the presence of the “hijab” in the Turkish presidential palace.

I would have pointed out that it was not the Islamist credentials of the party but the corruption-free administration it had provided and the welfare work it had done in the slums of Istanbul that won it such overwhelming public support.

The party had committed itself to the separation of “mosque and state” and the one foray it had made in changing secular law — making adultery a punishable crime — was reflective not necessarily of the desire to make Sharia the law of the land but of the conservative values of the vast majority of the Turkish people.

Erdogan chose to call fresh elections rather than to confront his opponents with a display of street power that could have led to bloody confrontations. He could do so secure in the knowledge that the phenomenal economic progress which his party’s administration brought to Turkey would ensure that his party would win an even larger majority in the next election. But even with this larger majority his party would not nominate a candidate for the presidency whose commitment to secularism, or at least to the separation of mosque and state, could be called into question.

I had hoped to elaborate on these themes and to suggest that Pakistan’s establishment and political parties could learn lessons from this to defuse the crisis triggered in our own country by the reference against the Chief Justice. The tragic events of May 12 on the streets of Karachi put paid to all plans for offering sane counsel.

This was the fomenting of ethnic strife in Pakistan’s most multi-ethnic, most volatile and most important commercial and industrial metropolis. This was the deliberate arousing of primitive emotions, eroding if not destroying the slow-building and still fragile veneer of tolerance that was beginning to return to Karachi. This was “Black Saturday” as one colleague put it in a recent column.

Who could think, leave alone write, rationally while in a state of blind fury, heightened by watching, alongside the gory visuals of the Karachi carnage, the “song and dance” act put on in Islamabad to display political support for the regime. This was Nero fiddling while Rome burnt. This was political miscalculation of monstrous and hugely destructive proportions.

In the 18 days that have passed since this tragedy, one sat glued to the TV hoping for the best but fearing the worst. That the worst has not happened is a tribute not to the administration but to civil society and political leaders who have kept smouldering passions in check so far and who hopefully will continue to castigate the regime verbally but will not permit such condemnation to escalate into physical confrontation.

It is to be hoped that the regime will refrain from a show of strength or what was termed as protection of the “political turf”. The current peace in Karachi, or indeed in much of Pakistan, is tenuous. The slightest provocation can make for a conflagration. In the currently charged atmosphere, political accommodation must be sought.

Even as it engages in negotiations on this score with its adversaries and its potential partners, the regime must recognise that action rather than words are needed to combat extremism and to enhance the appeal of the moderate forces in the forthcoming elections.

It is not enough to talk of the economic turnaround since its benefits have not trickled down to those who are most susceptible to the appeal of extremists. The best political card is working on and securing some success in stemming the growth of Talibanisation in our tribal areas and the adjoining settled districts and bringing to an end the farcical but highly dangerous activities of the Jamia Hafsa.

Besides we must continue to seek to insulate ourselves from the pernicious influences emanating from Afghanistan by closing or shifting refugee camps and fencing the unpatrolled parts of the border, and cooperating with the Afghan government in combating the common Taliban threat.

To say that Pakistan’s image has been tarnished would be the understatement of the year. Even so, there is much talk of the unqualified support that the Bush administration is prepared to continue to offer to President Musharraf. Statements to this effect have certainly appeared and have been repeated after the eruption of the judicial crisis. But are these statements as unqualified as they are made out to be?

The current thinking among American think-tanks is that President George Bush does not want to have a crisis in relations with a weakened but still ruling Musharraf at a time when Pakistan’s assistance is still crucial in the badly fought battle against terrorism and when other issues are dominating the political agenda in Washington.

It is true that the beleaguered Bush administration has its hands full with the Iraq crisis, the Iranian nuclear tension and other issues. So far its declared policy on both issues is to “stay the course”. But there is clear evidence that on both Bush is being made to give ground.

The American president may have won the battle in Congress to secure funding for the troop surge in Iraq but it has been made known that apart from laying down benchmarks for the Iraqi government Bush is also having to consider a 50 per cent drawdown in the near future of the troop levels currently maintained in Iraq.

On Iran, the first formal talks between the two sides have been held at the ambassadorial level, theoretically under Iraqi auspices. Both sides say they have the common objective of “support for a stable, secure, democratic, federal Iraq that is able to control its borders, is at peace with its neighbours and is bringing prosperity to its citizens.”

While the Americans maintain that Iranian actions are at variance with this stated policy, they think that the meeting was “businesslike” and from the cautious briefing offered one can surmise that these talks will continue as a “tripartite security mechanism”.

It may be too early to reach any definitive conclusion but it is more than likely that the talks may be upgraded to foreign minister level and then subjects other than Iraq will also appear on the agenda. Given the Iraq situation, the Americans may have no choice but to go down this road.

If Bush, famed for his stubbornness, is being made to bend on Iraq and Iran, he will do so on Pakistan too. It is indicative that questions are now being raised about the one billion dollars that Pakistan receives annually in coalition support funds.Initially, I believed that this support was compensation for the services and material provided for the airbases and other facilities maintained by the Americans in Pakistan. It now seems that this funding is to support Pakistan army actions to combat the Taliban. It also appears that, according to reports clearly leaked to the press from official sources, there are concerns about the manner in which expenditure statements are audited and there are recommendations from the American embassy in Islamabad that these payments should be related to the achievement of objectives.

It is also no secret that the Americans have been making it clear to all and sundry that the battle against extremism cannot be won unless the army joins hand with the mainstream political parties, primarily the People’s Party, which in the estimate of the Americans has the truest liberal credentials.

It is also no secret that the Americans are becoming increasingly impatient with the gap that they see between Musharraf’s verbalised anti-extremism strategy and its actual implementation, this gap being best exemplified by the Jamia Hafsa standoff.

The American perception that Musharraf is “stringing us along” and “milking us for whatever he can get”, delivering sops rather than substance, is getting stronger. Current official statements from Washington should be interpreted as designed to give Musharraf a negotiating hand and not a licence to ignore the public mood.

President Musharraf must read the writing on the wall, both internal and external. Perilous times lie ahead for Pakistan in the best of circumstances. They will be infinitely more perilous if the writing on the wall is not correctly interpreted.

The writer is a former foreign secretary.

How will historians see May 12?

By Zubeida Mustafa Wednesday, JUNE 06, 2007

AS PAKISTAN goes through a grave political and constitutional crisis, it increasingly becomes clear that we have learnt nothing from history, to borrow the title of Air Marshal (retd) Asghar Khan’s book. But how can we, when students are no longer taught history as a subject in our schools? You do not learn a lesson from something you are not even aware of.

Talking to a young and intelligent young lady, I was shocked when she said she did not know very much about what happened under Ziaul Haq because she was a child then. Later, she had not been required to study the history of that period.

When seen against this backdrop, it was a pleasure to see and read Dr Mubarak Ali’s recently published book (in three volumes) Tehzeeb ki Kahani (The Story of Civilisation) which so lucidly brings out the importance of recording and reading history.

Dr Mubarak Ali, who taught history for 26 years at the University of Sindh and is the author of countless history books in Urdu and English, has waged a tireless lifelong battle in support of historiography – not just any history but an authentic and impartial version of history that focuses on the people and not the rulers/decision makers. This school of historiography known as subaltern studies was launched in India in the eighties and, in the words of a researcher, sought to rewrite history “outside the historically dominant frameworks, first of colonialism and, later, of élite nationalism”.

Tehzeeb ki Kahani is significant from two points of view. First, the author explains the implications of writing history, how and why it is given a twist and why the focus of history varies in keeping with the conditions in which it is written. Secondly, the book has been written in simple Urdu for young readers. Its readership is expected to be from the masses who speak and understand Urdu better than English, which has emerged as the language of the elite.

Although many of our writers consider it to be below their dignity to write for children, it is commendable that one of the leading historians of the country should have thought it worth his salt to write for young readers to communicate to them eruditely his knowledge of history.

It hardly needs to be emphasised that what is taught to children when they are at an impressionable age creates a greater impact. The lessons they learn then stay with them for life. Older readers would also benefit from these three volumes, which might appear to be too simple to them but on deeper consideration would provide them food for serious thought.

In a few short paragraphs, Dr Mubarak Ali sums up the benefits a nation derives from a study of history. According to him, history makes people aware of the process of change, helps them understand the constant struggle between the old and the new and facilitates the acceptance of change which is essential for progress. If they have rejected change, history gives them a realisation of their backwardness. It gives people a sense of identity and pride in their legacy.

Conversely, we can deduce that people who have no knowledge of their history resist change, do not make progress and do not realise how backward they are and have no sense of identity or belonging especially vis-à-vis their culture and social values. That speaks volumes about what has gone wrong in Pakistan.

Admittedly, Pakistan’s history is not missing altogether from the archives and textbooks, even though it is not taken seriously. As Dr Mubarak Ali points out, sometimes history is selectively written to please the masters who order its compilation. At this point of time, one wonders how the history of the events of today will be portrayed.

As Eric Hobsbawm, the British Marxist historian, observes that “one can write (and must) write about a period known only from outside, at second- or third-hand, from sources of the period and the works of later historians.” He emphasises that the historian should not have accumulated views and prejudices about events as a contemporary rather than a scholar. Hence what we write today will become the source material for the historian of tomorrow.

Will the historian of tomorrow discover in the sensationally loud and exciting reports on the confrontation triggered by the judicial crisis the quiet steps that have been taken towards peace? His will not be an easy task because the mass of matter generated by new communication technologies of today have contributed to the information explosion. I wonder how he will view the Women’s Peace Initiative that was launched on June 2 to begin the process of the healing of the wounds of May 12 when catastrophe engulfed Karachi. Coming from women, will he dismiss it as a matter of insignificance?

Will the historian write about the 48 people who were killed in cold blood on the three fateful days of May 2007 when hell broke loose in the city or will he focus on the judicial crisis, the president and his allies, and those who are challenging his power?

Our historian will have to belong to the subaltern school of studies to write about Saeeda, the veiled woman, who came to the peace initiative to recall in tearful tones the sad tale of her brother, Sakhi Rahman, who was returning home from work when a gang of youth surrounded him and shot him in cold blood. Later, she identified her dead brother in the hospital morgue.

Will the historian of tomorrow write about the boys whose lives were cut short in their prime when they innocently walked into the valley of death unaware of the danger that lurked on Sharea Faisal where they ventured out unarmed to join the rally to greet the chief justice at the airport?

Will history record the burning of Karachi on May 12? The emotions of Karachiites were captured at the peace initiative by Sheema Kermani, whose choreography and recitations never fail to enthrall. She recited Pablo Neruda’s poem on the Spanish civil war, translated into Urdu by Fehmida Riaz. Will these words go down in the history books as a description of Karachi, the city we love?

(And one morning all that was burning

One morning the bonfires

Leapt out of the earth

Devouring human beings.

And from then on fire,

Gunpowder from then on

And from then on blood.)


http://www.dawn.com/2007/06/06/op.htm#2

__________________
Time is like a river.
You cannot touch the same water twice,
because the flow that has passed will never pass again.
Enjoy every moment of life.

I have learnt silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to these teachers.

12th of May 2007 is a black day in the history of Pakistan. most of us know who the actual culprits are but we cannot do any thing .........hahI am glad to see that someone of us felt the need to provoke thoughts about the issue. We should think about it and try to anlyze the causes to prevent such incidents in future. We can prevent ........ believe me not by fighting but by provoking our spirits.

__________________
Long, long afterward, in an oak
I found the arrow, still unbroke;
And the song, from beginning to end,
I found again in the heart of a friend

The May 12 carnage and afterwards

KARACHI is not new to civil strife and violence. Decades ago, scores died in consecutive hours of shooting at Sohrab Goth while the law enforcement agencies were bystanders. Since then political activists have shed inter-party and intra-party blood in chronic conflict.

No-go areas have been forcibly established and forcibly demolished. Rangers became part of the city landscape. APCs trundled down streets unremarked. Sectarianism turned into mass murder. And yet the May 12 carnage in which less than 50 people died has Karachi and the rest of the country – which hardly blanched at Karachi’s previous wounds – benumbed. Why?

Perhaps because for the first time the dynamics of Karachi’s violence and political conflict have emerged overtly in linkage with power clashes at the centre of the federation.

Up to now the occasioning has been ethnic and sectarian in political conflict manifested in terms of local bodies and provincial grievances.

The present conflict has two protagonists: A COAS-president; and a politically negated civil society seeking a vehicle. For although the parliamentary opposition served to keep the exiled mainstream party leadership relevant, it remained popularly inert.

The military regime has only now encountered its first real threat in the spontaneous clumping of the public around the figure of the Chief Justice.

The Chief Justice scheduled to address the members of the Karachi bar is no rally. But of course his May 5 drive from Islamabad to Lahore was something of a triumph. The route was lined, and not because recruits had been bussed there. It became a procession whose spontaneity evidently unnerved the regime.

If common people waited along the route of his motorcade to the Quaid’s mazar or coalesced with the legal fraternity and political parties planning to greet him a few days later at the Karachi airport it would be another serious public embarrassment.

The PML-Q parallel rally to be addressed by President Musharraf in Islamabad was not deemed enough of a counter-measure.

The Chief Justice’s supporters could be directly challenged in Karachi where the newly announced MQM rally would engage the crowds and be incontrovertibly seen as the preferred mouthpiece for public outcry for an independent judiciary.

Karachi is an MQM stronghold. With a huge population there is no need to inflate local numbers with borrowed guests; but there are also many segments outside the MQM.

The burnt children of Karachi dreaded a fire for they would be in the line of it but the administration rubbished their fears and preparations for the MQM rally proceeded apace. But by the May 12 containers had blocked access to and along selected parts of Sharea Faisal.

On the day itself lawyers around the bar association and court premises lost their freedom of movement. The pilgrims’ path for the MQM rally if not facilitated was at least not barred.

There is no need to dignify mutual allegations of who fired first on whom and whether in self-defence or self-assertion with rebuttals. For Karachi’s inhabitants on the day of May 12 and the day before and the day after things were self-evident. Sindh’s chief minister initially pooh-poohed an inquiry.

There are many reasons to agree with him, not the least of these being that the findings of commissions originated by an administration that has lost public confidence are practically irrelevant. But the more important thing is that absorption in a blame game would serve to distract from the real issue: the president’s political convictions are pushing the country into a crisis.

The regime embodies a mockery of constitutionality. This has meant the intrinsic weakening of an ordered civil society and system at the common routine level. The toxicity of such banal lawlessness exceeds more dramatic violent conflict, which is but a symptom. Karachi is a microcosm where, after the shambles of May 12, administrative functionality itself stands disproved.

Awareness of how little the state guarantees has long been experienced in terms of everyday life. There is contempt for an administration that appears no more than a spectator to its own irresponsibility. Where to take a KESC complaint, a traffic complaint, a plea for water? Can citizens hope for anything from official authorities unless they have a patron? Rising prices and utility services that lack utility have made survival a battle and existence an ordeal. Struggling people face the daily irritant of effortlessly conspicuous consumption, cultural gala and make-believe from a revoltingly over-supplied ruling class and its cronies.

A parliamentarian from the treasury benches might murmur true, but what has this to do with politics and weren’t Nawaz Sharif and Benazir corrupt and power hungry? There may be no rebuttal to that but nor is there a rebuttal to the emergent fact that the regime in its determination to prolong itself is making things ineffably worse.

Like his admirers, his detractors equate the regime and its characteristic status quo with one man: Pervez Musharraf. His power derives from his controlling position in Pakistan’s army. Internationally this means assured continuity to the military conveniences provided to America’s needs in Afghanistan since 2001.

Nationally it means he can be sure no one will refuse to box with shadows (as General Aslam Beg nobly refused Ms Bhutto when she complained of civil insurgency in urban Sindh).

If the general pleases, minions can micromanage airport landings and departures be they of the Shahbaz Sharif or Chief Justice variety. Likewise for things like now you see Section 144 violated now you don’t, inventive use of container transport, etcetera.

But as every military dictator of Pakistan discovers one of the demands of extended political incursion is a civilian face – even if it leers. General Musharraf’s most durable all-purpose extensors are the PML-Q and the MQM.

Through these party organs he has circumvented truer mainstream party politics and gone through the motions of parliamentary government. But sooner or later, as dictators also discover, there is a catalyst. Ignored and left unstructured the overflow of popular political discontent is now running through carefully devised parliamentary army housing schemes.

The Chief Justice is the emblem, but the cause is far beyond the reference. The public acclaim reflects a sentiment that says we do not want to be governed by army interests, we would like to live democratically as a civil polity.

People are doing more than asking for a change of government: they are asking for fidelity to founding principles, whatever the government. Such awareness and its articulation is a qualitative advance.

When Nawaz Sharif dismissed him, General Musharraf held on to his post with the institutional backing of the army. Mr Sharif was sitting so heavy with his heavy mandate that his forced exit was not mourned.

It is a tribute to the institutionalism that characterises Pakistan’s army that every military coup has been made in good faith and in concert with public sentiment. The body of the army has yet not consciously acquiesced in serving to oppress and deny the people.

Thus they believed they were fighting secession in former East Pakistan, and army actions in Balochistan are interpreted in the context of territorial protection.

Action in Fata is understood as necessary containment of Talibanistic Al Qaeda strains. In the context of the sweeping PNA movement though General Zia did not come down against the people. It is belittling the spirit of the national army and totally unjustifiable to suggest this may have been because the chief executive in distress was a civilian prime minister. The Pakistan army does not function as an armed militia in political factoring.

Given this tradition of civil and military interaction, first in his capacity as COAS and then as a fully autonomous executive president, General Musharraf is at once the answer to the problem and the problem itself. A dilemma indeed! The hardy commando has grasped both its horns and is tackling it from both the civil and the military angle.

He obtained a ringing endorsement by the corps commanders and the PML(Q). The latter lacks the grassroots reality that would give it weight but who doubts the reality of khaki? Not Pemra for one.

Though cable operators share the regime’s outrage, what to do about Dr Ayesha Siddiqa’s Military Inc. that sells out in two days despite a scrambled book launch?

Of course, literacy limits the audience, but this time the literate professional middle-classes are being problematic. General Musharraf may have to be increasingly dependent on his military wicket. The prospect is too ugly. Let us use our heads to reason it away.

http://www.dawn.com/2007/06/07/ed.htm#4

__________________
Time is like a river.
You cannot touch the same water twice,
because the flow that has passed will never pass again.
Enjoy every moment of life.

I have learnt silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to these teachers.