Desperately Seeking Dictators and Dissenters

“By year 2015 Pakistan would be a failed state, ripe with civil war, bloodshed, inter-provincial rivalries and a struggle for control of its nuclear weapons and complete

Talibanisation” – CIA

“Pakistan President Gen. Pervez Musharraf is among ‘the world’s 10 worst dictators’, figuring for the first time in a list prepared by a widely-circulated us magazine in consultation with human right groups.”

After these two news items comes a report that Pakistan will get arms worth $1.2 billion from the USA by the end of this year. Another cute headline says, “UK believes in Musharraf”.

This is double-talk and extremely dangerous. There is every likelihood of Indians celebrating the disclosures, but wait a minute. How will it help us? And when was the last time we looked in the mirror? Do we truly believe that the West is sparing us because we do not have problems? No. The simple reason is that we are a bigger marketplace and the ‘civil war’ within our boundaries is too diverse and unlikely to make any radical difference to the West.

Interestingly, it is the West that has buffered dictators and strife within nations, the latter giving rise to terrorism that it is now purportedly fighting against. America is the largest dictatorship in the world today. There is greater racism there than there was in South Africa; its crime figures are staggering; in terms of nuclear arsenal, it beats everyone else. Worst of all, it encourages disputes.

The West Asia peace talks were a great photo-op for which the American tax-payer forked out money. But the United States administration continues to have a strong Jewish lobby and it takes great pleasure in creating rifts among the Arab states, and its friends are those with money power or ones who make for convenient sitting ducks.

Pakistan is being looked at for the second possibility, but with some element of caution. Which is why in a ridiculous manner, the dictator is sometimes ticked off for abetting terrorism. A dictator ought to squash dissent. That is what King Gyanendra has set out to do with the Maoist groups. So, how does President Musharraf qualify as a dictator? Only because some magazine in the US states, “Two years after seizing power in a military coup that overthrew an elected government, Musharraf appointed himself president. He recently agreed to step down as head of the military, then reversed his decision”?

The idea behind the current double whammy is devious. If Musharraf is seen as somebody who forcibly came to power to restore order in his country and in this capacity it would be incumbent on him to talk to Indians, then as head of a terrorist state he would be out of bounds with a license to kill. By isolating the opponent, one elevates him.

There are many interesting contradictions his life and career. In a largely feudal set-up, he comes from a family of working parents. It is said that he was promoted in rank because he was not from the ruling Punjabi class and would pose no threat. But what Nawaz Sharif forgot is that not all soldiers are willing to suffer the humiliation of being asked to retreat. Post Kargil, Musharraf became an unlikely hero. Sharif’s attempt to do away with him was met with an announcement from the cockpit, “Nobody can sack me.” Was it bravado? It seems like conviction, because the people were with him then. He promised to get back the looted monies. He promised equal rights for the minorities, the first leader since Jinnah to do so.

He has admitted that “decision-making is an individual process, and the more you are supposed to take decisions the more alone you feel”.

The terrorist trail

By parroting the latest indictment of the Pakistani leader by the West, which can afford to sit at a distance and throw a matchstick and watch the fire, we would end up burning ourselves. It is also time for Pakistanis to accept that their elected governments have not produced the best leaders. Merely going to the polls is not fortification enough. The real enemies are probably hiding somewhere in foreign lands.

No government in the world can contain terrorism as it comes in varied forms and often in unexpected ways.

Timothy McVeigh, the man behind the Oklahoma blasts, who called himself a “prisoner of war”, was a most unlikely terrorist. As one of his colleagues was to recall, “He was kind of almost like a robot. He never had a date when I knew him in the army. I never saw him at a club. I never saw him drinking. He never had good friends. Everything was for a purpose.”

The purpose behind the cult Aum Shinrikyo’s Shoko Sahara gassing a subway in Tokyo could well be the belief that the world would end between 1997 and 2000 and he had to be the instrument to do it.

What was it that made people follow Malcolm X although he was not a conventional terrorist? Could a once petty thief, a killer, who turned over a new leaf after reading the Quran, really appeal to the people merely on the strength of the fact that he was telling them Christianity was not for them because Christ was White? He became the iconic figure of Harlem because he told his people to seek self-respect. He, like the terrorists, offered something. These are people which no police force can completely demolish because they are willing to sacrifice themselves. Said one terrorist, “I will never give up my weapons. It is the only path open to us. With elections we will never win. I am ready to die for my people”.

They are often like good soldiers. In fact, Tim McVeigh’s action, it appears, had a lot to do with his anger against the system for having denied him, a recognised committed marine entry into the Special Forces, the Green Berets, on psychological grounds. By his carefully- planned act, he proved that his mind worked.

On the other hand, peaceful Tibetans were used as guinea pigs in hospitals; they were paraded before execution for “crimes against the people”. Radio Beijing called the Dalai Lama a “political corpse, bandit and traitor”. And worst of all, the Tibetans were forced to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Chinese occupation.

The fact is that when you have desperate elements they will have desperate needs. One often wonders at what point in time the need for a separate state and identity does really arise. Khushwant Singh offers an explanation for Punjab: “The seeds of Sikh separation were sown by the Sikh’s own gurus when they gave them their own temples, their own scripture, their distinct appearance, the common casteless name, Singh”.

The moot point is that people do not realise the difference between internal and external terrorism. Many young Christian Palestinians converted to Islam because they felt it brought them closer to an Arab identity against the common enemies, Israel and the West.

When Iran with its indigenous form of religious militancy decided to lift the fatwa the first time against Salman Rushdie, many small groups had come forward with their own rewards for the author’s head, from the Association of Hezbollah students at Tehran University, to a small village on the Caspian coast that had given the bait of tracts of land, an orchard, a house and carpets. But, most amazing of all was a fundraising drive by 500 Iranians (no doubt from a militia group) pledging to sell their kidneys, to use the money for a just cause: the murder of Rushdie.

What can governments do in such cases? The militants have no fear; they are not seeking to get sanctified.

The idle state

Why is it that virtually every state in the world has at least one strong terrorist group? It is easy enough for us to see it as a protest against the system, but surely there has got to be more to it. Such commitment has got to go beyond rebelliousness.

If this were the only yardstick, then each of us would be deemed a militant. So what makes some people make it into their driving force? One dead relative is enough to make people ready to lay down their lives. In the heat of anger, they lose all reason and are sucked into the womb of a cause they believe is just.

No one can pass moral judgment on the issue anymore. For, the system has become its own enemy. Governments, the police force, the judiciary wallow in callousness and corruption and co-opt the people.

I was speaking with an Indian settled in London a while ago. “What’s going on in Kashmir?” she demanded in the tone NRIs adopt with us unconcerned citizens. Before 1 could formulate a cogent response, she said, “Tomorrow, if we have Puerto Ricans demanding a separate state here, will we give it?” Here? What was she, Wembley-ni-dikri and the Southhall satsangi, if not an outsider? They may not demand a separate state but their masalas and sabzis in the streets keep most locals at bay. Besides, how are Puerto Ricans lesser in any way?

Consciously or subconsciously, a section of the public tends to sympathise with the terrorist persona. It probably reveals a part of our repressed selves. We are all in situations we may not like, but social cowardice makes us complacent. We may occasionally want to give in to a sudden desire, but fear of consequences and maybe the lack of a consolidated ideology makes us hold back. We remain respected members of society whereas the terrorist goes about doing the dirty work. But does he have a uniform agenda? Is it not often a response to the issues of the moment?

Therefore, world opinion declaring the Pakistani leader a dictator and the country as a hub of terrorist activity is a futile exercise. In today’s global scenario, democracies institutionalise dictatorial policies and terrorism works as legitimate political dissent.