Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Stop and Smell the Roses in Pakistan

By Mona Eltahawy

NEW YORK -- As an Egyptian whose country’s military dictators are either taken by God or an assassin’s bullet, I envy the Pakistani people their ability to now use the term “former president.”

As former Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf contemplates how his friends in the U.S. administration dropped him quicker than you can say “hot freedom fries,” for those of us from the Muslim world -- awash in military dictators who have friends in high places in Washington -- his exit from Pakistan’s frenetic political stage is miraculous.

The naysayers will remind us of all the “ifs” and “buts” that remain for Pakistan. For starters, Musharraf’s two main rivals, who engineered the threatened impeachment elbowing him towards resignation -- Nawaz Sharif and Asif Ali Zardari -- are nowhere near perfect leaders, especially since the only factor uniting them is now contemplating the real estate of exile sites in Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

Sharif -- the former prime minister swept aside by Musharraf’s bloodless 1999 coup -- was himself in exile until last year when he returned home vowing political revenge. He wants to try Musharraf for treason. Meanwhile, Zardari, the widow of assassinated former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, has taken a more conciliatory line.

They might disagree on Musharraf’s future, but what they do have in common is ignominious histories of corruption -- a reminder that dictators like Musharraf are experts at stifling the life out of their country’s politics, and leaving poor alternatives to their rules by coup d’état.

We will be reminded that the Taliban and al-Qaeda and all those other scary figures Musharraf dutifully fought as part of his card-carrying membership in the ‘war on terror’ are now celebrating in every cave that straddles Pakistan’s troubled border with Afghanistan.

Last year, militant friends of the newly insurgent Taliban and its al-Qaeda allies slaughtered hundreds of Pakistanis in waves of suicide bombings across the country. But much like his fellow Muslim dictators befriended by Washington, Musharraf just perfected his technique of using them as Islamist boogeymen.

My country’s President Hosni Mubarak points to the Muslim Brotherhood. Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas points to Hamas. But neither can beat having Osama bin Laden allegedly hiding somewhere in his country!

Although he presented himself as a secular leader, Musharraf gave free rein to those same Islamists that he was warning the West about, because they were a foil to Pakistan’s vibrant liberal community.

It’s unclear who will become Pakistan’s next president but there’s no doubt that the ruling coalition’s challenges are many, now that Musharraf is out of the picture: fighting inflation, reducing the gap between rich and poor, and continuing to fight militancy in the nuclear-armed country. For Pakistan, politics has been a rollercoaster ride since its birth in 1947, as a partition from India.

But let’s stop for a moment and appreciate what has just happened in Pakistan: The Constitution and the justice system of a Muslim country were about to impeach a sitting president who was once head of the armed forces. Rather than face such accountability, that president resigned.

To further put Pakistan’s achievement in context consider that had he insisted on fighting impeachment, Musharraf faced charges of violating the constitution and gross misconduct. Why?

Because he imposed six weeks of emergency rule and fired dozens of judges last November, when the Supreme Court met to decide his eligibility to stand for re-election for a third term as president while still army chief.

Egypt has lived under emergency rule for each and every one of Mubarak’s four terms in power straddling 26 years. In 2006, his regime showed a similar allergy to an independent judiciary. Mubarak’s regime disciplined two senior judges and arrested and beat dozens of their supporters when the judges had the temerity to press for an inquiry into electoral fraud during the 2005 parliamentary elections which Mubarak’s party swept. The elections were marred by violence, several deaths, and plenty of intimidation.

Just like Musharraf, Mubarak recognized the dangers of an independent judiciary -- which in many Muslim countries constitutes the most potent secular opposition. But don’t hold your breath for Mubarak’s impeachment any time soon.

“Let’s hope we can learn from this in Egypt,” my dad told me as we discussed Musharraf’s resignation. “It will tell our dictators ‘you are not more powerful than the people’.”

It will also signal to our various dictators that no matter how tight you are with Washington, no matter how well you have managed to persuade your American friends that you’re the only thing that stands between them and Islamist lunatics, they will look away when your people have had it with you.

For years Pakistan has been home to much that ails the Muslim world -- coups, dictatorship, militancy, and corruption. Let’s recognize it now as home to judges and lawyers who won their stare-down with the dictator.

And let’s remind Sharif, Zardari and whoever becomes Pakistan’s next president:

“Hey, those same judges and lawyers against whom Musharraf foolishly picked a fight and lost are there keeping an eye on you, too.”

To the people of Pakistan -- I salute you!


Mona Eltahawy is an award-winning New York-based journalist and commentator, and an international lecturer on Arab and Muslim issues.

Copyright ©2008 Mona Eltahawy – distributed by Agence Global
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Released: 19 August 2008
Word Count: 843

5 comments:

Riaz Haq said...

This Egyptian-American writer's view is definitely a tribute to the people of Pakistan. It shows how Pakistanis (South Asian Muslims) are different from their Arab brethren. Although there are no term-limits to military dictators, Pakistani dictators usually fold in approx 10 years. Examples include Ayub Khan, Yahya Khan and Ziaul Haq.
However, it's too early to say "kudos" to Nawaz Sharif or Asif Zardari, given their past failures. The real test of Pakistani politicians and people now is whether they can build sustainable institutions of democracy that are responsive to the needs of the nation. While I admire India's democracy, I strongly fee that it has failed to serve the vast majority of its ordinary people. I hope Pakistani version of democracy turns out better than its Indian counterpart.

Anonymous said...

I think the sarcasm in the "dropped mush faster than u can say freedom fries" somehow assumes that US betrayed Musharaf. It is the other way around.US gave green light to take down Musharaf to PPP as US State Dept got concrete intel that Pak intel is neck-deep in creating mess in Afghanistan.In Indian Embassy bombing incident,multiple intel agencies simultaneously tracked the communication from ISI in Pak and agents in Afghanistan.It was not a rogue operation as the orders from the very top clearly with green light from COAS,ISI chief and President in the loop. The impeachment is a joint effort to take control of ISI and Pak army to civilians. Musharaf's betrayal of US is the reason why US is not giving asylum to him.

Riaz Haq said...

I think the main thrust of the Op Ed is not to criticize the US or explain how it all happened. Rather, it is intended as a tribute to the people of Pakistan and to show how Pakistanis differ from their Arab brethren.

To me, Musharraf's time was up. He was running up against the informal, historical term limits of approx 10 years imposed on Pakistan leaders by the circumstances as the people get tired of them and want change.

Riaz Haq said...

Huma Yusuf blogs for Pakistan's Dawn.com site in Karachi and is a close watcher of new media in Pakistan. She says that in her country, new media has spawned a pithy brand of citizen journalism. The reason: “unlike Indians, we feel like we’re in a state of war”.

She says that during the Pakistan Emergency of 2006-7, Pakistan’s online population grew from 2.5 million to 18 million.

Click here for an MIT media labs paper she published on activism by Pakistan's online population.

Riaz Haq said...

#Pakistan elections seen through the eyes of a #Pakistani #Syrian #Arab dual national http://tribune.com.pk/story/1017660/pakistan-through-the-eyes-of-an-arab/ …

"What my fellow Arabs might find surprising is that it was the police that guided me to the polling station that I was supposed to vote in. The kindness they showed is worth mentioning. It is difficult to absorb the idea of a helpful police as an Arab. This is not to say that all Arab or Middle Eastern countries suffer from a lack of a public-friendly police. There are some countries, like Jordan, Tunisia and majority of the Gulf countries where the police do serve their people.

I consider myself lucky to be a Pakistani of Arab origin and that I had the right to vote in the LG polls and therefore had a say in the political process. The fact that my opinion, my vote and my choice mattered in my country gives me confidence and boosts my patriotism. I mourn the situation in the Arab world today, where at least 10 countries are in turmoil. The situation in Pakistan may not be ideal, but the country definitely has the makings of a pluralistic political system."