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A president goes
online
By Siddharth Srivastava
NEW DELHI - It is not often that
a military dictator such as Pakistani
President General Pervez Musharraf takes to writing a
diary for public consumption. So the news from
across the border that Musharraf is taking a
personal interest in updating the newly launched sitewww.presidentofpakistan.gov.pk
on a regular basis is evoking plenty of interest
in India.
In the past Musharraf has shown
his ability to make use of the power of the visual
media to convey his thoughts and messages, as well
as take on India when the need arose. Now he
recognizes the power the online community has as
an effective tool in bolstering his image. The aim
seems to be to build an image of himself as a soft
and sensible person who is trying to make a honest
living, though a widely circulated US magazine
recently placed him on its list of the world's 10
worst dictators, and reports suggest that US
President George W Bush's advisers have been
telling him to get over his Musharraf mania.
(Islamabad plays an important part in the "war on
terror".)
A few days
back, Musharraf created a stir of sorts by confessing
(online that is) that he was almost dismissed
from service early in his career. This is his quote:
"Having opted for the army, while at the Pakistan
Military Academy, I almost got thrown out for
some disciplinary lapse. As a young second
lieutenant, court-martial proceedings were initiated against
me for another disciplinary infringement. War with
India broke out just in time to block the
proceedings. My subsequent war performance and a
gallantry award finally saved me from the court
martial. As a young officer before marriage my
bluntness and indiscipline landed me in much
serious trouble, with 'red ink entries' piling up
in my service record."
Reports have quoted
Pakistani officials as saying that the new website
"mixes moments of unusual frankness with a
glowing, hagiographical tone and puts the
country's people a mere mouse-click away from the
man behind the leader".
Musharraf does provide
a glimpse of the person he is in the section
on his personal life, providing one-line answers to
single-line questions, much in the mode of celebrity
Q&A sections that provide for popular reading
in the media here. Thus we find out that
tennis and swimming are his favorite sports and
that discovering the nuclear peddling of Abdul
Qadeer Khan, Pakistan's nuclear "father", was the
most embarrassing moment of his life. Predictably, becoming
army chief turned his life around; his
favorite food is a spicy lentil dish, and the
best book he has read recently was on Richard
Nixon.
One more important section is
the interactive portion, where several surfers
(mostly Pakistanis for now, though this writer counted
a few Indians as well) have written to the
president on various subjects. Through the tenor of
the letters it is quite obvious that there is
the strict backroom censorship machinery in place
as the subjects either praise Musharraf personally
or his regime and are critical of India and the
rest of the world. One such letter from a 14-year-old
Pakistani girl from Canada reads: "My name is
Tahniat. Even though I live in Canada, I love
Pakistan. Because it's my country. And I love you
too; you won't believe how happy I am that I am
writing to the president of Pakistan. It's a
pleasure for me to write you. You are a very nice
president. I just want to ask and tell you
something: you are doing a really good job with
Pakistan and keeping Pakistan a brave country."
Musharraf's response: "My dearest Tahniat:
Thank you for such sound advice. I am most
touched. You make Pakistan proud. Sincerely,
General Pervez Musharraf."
Another letter
reads: "Dear sir, I personally wanted to
congratulate you regarding your own website. This
is the first time in the history of Pakistan that
a president of Pakistan has launched his own
website. You are my ideal personality, full of
love, care and kindness."
Musharraf's response: "I thank you for your
compliments. Through this website the idea is to
promote Pakistan's image, and yes, you are right to have
a direct contact with my fellow Pakistanis. My
web team tells me that all of you are a
mouse-click away. Though I have not been very computer-driven
in my career in the past, I am now beginning to
really use this medium. Secondly, as far as making
Pakistan stronger is concerned, I am doing my
best, I expect everyone to do the same. Remember I
can't improve things on my own. I need all of
you."
In response to an Indian letter
writer on improving relations between India and
Pakistan, the president responds: "Peace and
stability is the common, shared desire of the
people of South Asia. This is a historic moment
for statesmanship for resolving differences. This
is a moment for making a transition, but it
requires sincerity, flexibility and courage on
reciprocal basis. Let's succeed in finding a
win-win solution that meets the aspirations of
Pakistan, India and Kashmiris."
Indeed,
one can expect that Musharraf will in the near
future surely use the website to air his views
according to his convenience, with the Internet a
far easier medium to handle than seeking out press
correspondents or TV reporters, who are free to
edit and interpret statements. It is also highly
unlikely that any overt criticism of the Pakistani
regime will ever find a place on the website.
However, there will be two matters to guard
against, one that Musharraf himself needs to be
careful about and the other the rest of the world.
The website will be a target of
hate mail from Indians in case relations between
India and Pakistan dip. Should such an occasion
arise, one can say with a lot of assurance
that anti-Pakistan hackers will work overtime to crack
the code, while others will clog the server with
their take. It happened during the height of the Kargil
war in 1999 when the then premier Nawaz
Sharif's much publicized e-mail identity
became completely dysfunctional because of the volume of mail.
The second issue can have more serious
consequences. Given his past record, one will hope
that Musharraf will not use the website for online
polls as a referendum for supporting his regime at
the expense of a thriving democracy.
Siddharth Srivastava is a New
Delhi-based journalist.
(Copyright
2005 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved.
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