SPEAKING
FREELY Pakistan's patterns of
power By Olivier
Immig
Speaking Freely is an Asia
Times Online feature that allows guest writers to
have their say. Please click hereif you are interested in
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Last July, Husain
Haqqani published his timely Pakistan: Between
Mosque and Military at the Carnegie Endowment
for International Peace. Besides being a visiting
scholar at Carnegie
for
a number of years as well as an associate
professor at Boston University, Haqqani also is a
well-known international publicist on South Asian
topics.
He combines some remarkable
qualities, among them a sound and profound
analytical approach, and an ability to report his
findings in lucid style and wording. Haqqani
throughout the years spoke with numerous
influential Pakistanis, carefully taking notes all
the time. His prominent political role (he served
as an adviser on international relations to three
civilian Pakistani prime ministers) enabled him to
do so.
In Between Mosque and
Military Haqqani instantaneously makes it
clear that all military Pakistani leaders, and
there have been quite a number of them since 1947,
from the early days of Pakistan"s inception to the
present have relied on the same ideological
framework in ruling their country. This so-called
"tripod" consists of: maintaining the territorial
integrity of Pakistan through a strong, dominant
military presence in all state affairs by
continued confrontational politics versus India;
maintaining the ideological "unity" of the country
by promoting an Islamist nationalist ideology; and
heavy reliance on continuing US economic and
military support by serving as the "West's eastern
anchor" in South Asia.
Of course, a number
of democratically chosen civilian rulers have been
able to try their hand at governing this "ethnic
mosaic" called Pakistan as well. After all, the
"Great Leader" (Quaid-i-Azam) Muhammad Ali Jinnah
meant to establish a democratically ruled homeland
for Indian Muslims. Unfortunately, Jinnah died
soon after independence; some years later the
first prime minister of the country, Liaquat Ali
Khan, was murdered. Soon, the military took over.
Haqqani reveals a carefully hidden, but
obviously powerful, repetitive pattern in
Pakistani military coups. All coups are carefully
planned, well in advance. They are preceded by
carefully orchestrated disorder and demonstrations
in the streets. These riotous movements against
ruling chosen governments are invariably led by
small but influential Islamist political parties,
usually well funded.
Although religious
parties such as the Jamaat-e-Islami and
Jamiat-e-Ulema Islam never do well at election
time, they mysteriously do succeed in mobilizing
angry crowds against civilian leaders. Thus they
enable the military "reluctantly" to step in once
more to "clean up the mess", usually within hours
after its announcement to do so, and without any
significant opposition from within its own ranks.
The first claim from any military leader always is
to declare that the army was "provoked to act
decisively" by an unjustly acting civilian
government. There follows the usual mumble-bumble
about "preserving the national unity", etc.
Interestingly enough, there never has been any
form of protest from Islamic parties against
military regimes - on the contrary.
This
coup pattern can readily be applied to the
takeover from Nawaz Sharif by General Pervez
Musharraf in 1999, and as such it is highly
revealing. However, Haqqani conveniently skips any
description of the great public relief that was
generally experienced in Pakistan when Musharraf
took over. The country's elite, most
intellectuals, the media and the public at large
felt not sorry at all for the forced departure of
Sharif. Why not? Which is not meant to state that
military coups are sufficiently legitimized by a
"doctrine of necessity" or any other twisted
notion: military belong in their barracks, and
should only come out if so ordered by a civilian
leader.
It is precisely at this point that
some fundamental flaws in Pakistan's founding
ideology come to the surface - flaws that ever
since have enabled military and Islamists alike to
acquire far more than their fair share of power.
Sharif intended to sack Musharraf. But to be able
to do so, he obviously felt obliged to send off
his once trusted commander to an airport in India
- or, if Musharraf wished to avoid that deep
humiliation, to let him crash with his plane. The
mere fact that Musharraf still holds on to the
reins of power today, while civilian leaders such
as Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif are living
abroad, once again serves to illustrate that,
ultimately, state power solidly remains in
military hands.
Obviously, it is a risky
task for any civilian politician, premier or
president, to replace an army chief. A military
leader, on the other hand, can sack a prime
minister virtually at will - by asking and
banishing, or by simply throwing him or her behind
bars. The so-called "balance" within the ruling
troika (army, president and prime minister) is
illusive. Islamic parties duly play their part
and, especially since the Zia ul-Haq era
(1977-88), pick up the huge rewards.
All
this, however, is a far cry from secular
parliamentary democracy, religious freedom, and
Pakistan being a safe haven for all Muslims from
the subcontinent, as intended by Jinnah.
Unfortunately, the state of Pakistan always has
been made up by a number of ethnicities and
nations, in spite of any founding "Two Nations"
theory. This is reflected, among others, in the
enduring absence of solid political parties that
are truly operating nationwide and attracting a
national electorate. Maybe it is for that reason
that Haqqani pays only scant attention to them.
Being a convinced democrat and Pakistani
citizen, Haqqani in his concluding chapter, "From
Ideological to Functional State", offers an
approach to dismantle this seemingly everlasting
Pakistani power structure. Haqqani distinguishes
three intersecting "fault lines": between civilian
and military, among various ethnic and provincial
groups, and between Islamists and secularists.
Repeated election results support his statement
that "most Pakistanis would probably be quite
content with a state that would cater to their
social needs, respect and protect their right to
observe religion, and would not invoke Islam as
its sole source of legitimacy".
Nevertheless, the key to advancing secular
politics over religious sentiments, and the
accompanying democratic reforms, firmly remains in
military hands. The military should be persuaded
to turn over their power gradually to elected
governments, since their all-powerful national
position is based on the early days of Pakistan's
vulnerable existence. The key question is, of
course: Who shall be able to persuade the
soldiers? Which benevolent leader, or leaders,
will step forward, if ever, to carry out this
complex process?
Letting politics run its
course, primarily under the rule of law instead of
that of the military, seems a risky affair. It
might even lead to another dismemberment of
Pakistan. Balochis in particular, like Bengalis
before them in 1970, might well choose to run
their own political and economic affairs. Would a
downsized Pakistan and an independent but
presumably weak state of Balochistan (making up
almost half the territory of Pakistan) signal an
end to the activities of Islamic radicals?
It remains the gruesome dilemma of the
state of Pakistan, present since its birth: any
meaningful loosening up of the old "steel ring" of
the military ideological and political presence
inevitably will threaten its very existence. The
greatest threat to Pakistan's continued existence
has always been its rich ethnic composition and
rivalry, which has never been successfully
overruled by any national ideology. Small wonder,
in this respect, that "arch foe" India always
mainly functioned as an ideological enemy, rather
than an actual military menace. Even today, Baloch
nationalists in Pakistan are "accused" of
receiving Indian support and encouragement.
Recently, newly energized radical
Islamists are putting forward their political
demands, enhancing rather than diminishing
Pakistan"s political complexities. Next year in
Pakistan national elections are supposed to be
held, that is, if in the meantime Musharraf does
not decide otherwise. It promises to be a
veritable spectacle, with the active participation
of former prime ministers such as Benazir Bhutto
and Sharif. Whatever the results may be, it takes
far more than elections to arrive at that highly
desired point: a truly functional state.
A historian by education, Drs
Olivier Immig between 1992 and 2005 was a
senior research associate at the former
Netherlands Institute of South Asian Studies
(NISAS). As such, he has regularly published
articles on political, economic and military
developments in Southwest Asia, in particular
Afghanistan and Pakistan. In 2000 he published, in
association with Drs Van Heugten, a book titled
Afghanistan: de Taliban aan de macht
(Afghanistan: The Taliban in Power).
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times
Online feature that allows guest writers to have
their say. Please click hereif you are interested in
contributing.
