Important Hints..how Pakistan was destroyed

The old order: on its last legs

Friday, January 18, 2008

By Ayaz Amir

It is darkest before dawn and the coldest before the first arrival of spring. It is inevitable that on this subject, the iron law governing the change of political seasons, Shelley, a poet of revolution if ever there was one, be invoked: 'Oh Wind, if Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?'

Indeed, if this be the worst winter of our discontent since that fateful December of 1971 when Pakistan was torn into two and from its severed limbs a new, breakaway country was born, can spring be far behind? The grip of the old order has already loosened and things are fast spinning out of its control. Everything--from the economy to law and order--is in a mess and this precisely is what gives ground for hope regarding the future.

During the Cultural Revolution the Chinese were fond of saying (and I stand guilty of repeating this endlessly in my columns): "There is great disorder under the heavens and the situation is excellent."

A fever or a viral infection must run its full course before it leaves the body. Contradictions have to sharpen and reach a breaking point before the old breaks down, yielding place to the new. If the problems now hitting the country--from bread lines to massive power cuts, to the battles fought almost daily in the badlands of North and South Waziristan--were not so acute, would people be so angry and would their yearning for change be so strong?

Interviews to foreign newspapers or TV channels make good sound bites but they don't change the situation on the ground. In one interview the nation is informed of plans to quit if the next parliament were to make any move towards impeachment. In another we are told that the next government would have to ensure the continuity of present policies--a tall order for any government, for continuing with the disasters the nation is presently facing requires more than ordinary talent.

We are putting up with a surfeit of such interviews these days, suggesting pointedly perhaps that there is plenty of time to kill in the power corridors of Rawalpindi and Islamabad. A new chief sits in General Headquarters and as far as the caretaker cabinet is concerned it seems to have left things on auto-pilot. No one seems to have a hand on the wheel or the tiller, giving rise, to no one's surprise, to a huge sense of drift in our national affairs.

But mark the silver lining in these clouds. That despite the pervading darkness things are changing, is suggested, among other things, by the new army chief's warning to his officers to keep their distance from politics and politicians. This is as it should be although in the current circumstances, and especially considering the uses to which the army was put during the last eight years, it is no less than a thunderbolt for those wielding absolute power during this period.

Political dirty work normally undertaken in times past by deputy commissioners was performed during the golden period of which we speak by corps commanders. In the 2001 local elections corps and div commanders went about interviewing and vetting tehsil and district nazim candidates. The referendum in April 2002 was very much a military affair with the president donning all sorts of headgear--turbans and the like--over his military uniform.

Some corps commanders also followed suit. At a public meeting in Lahore Governor Khalid Maqbool who considering his longevity in office could well teach a course in political survival distinguished himself by shouting slogans as strident and vociferous as that by any political worker. All else about him and his stewardship may be forgotten but not his memorable performance on that occasion.

Army personnel were put to reading gas, electricity and water meters. There was also an attempt to have income tax forms distributed among shopkeepers and tradesmen only to end in disaster a few days later after stout resistance from the trading community.

By having to perform such tasks the army, frankly, was made to look ridiculous, causing no small pain to guys like me who once served under its colours, proudly I may add, despite the many follies committed in the name of militarism over the years. Thank God, following the change of command in GHQ, that most holy of holies from which so many of our problems have sprung, this process is being reversed.

Word is also out that army officers seconded for civilian duties are being recalled to the army. Although not as quickly as might have been expected because on checking with WAPDA headquarters, Lahore, I was informed that those army officers serving in WAPDA, and consequently helping to make a mess of the power situation, are still at their posts. Change may have begun but slowly, slowly.

Among the achievements of the old order was the complete smashing of the district organization setup. Today administrative chaos reigns in all the districts of Pakistan, partisan nazims, out to settle their own scores or pursue their own political agendas, pretending to run a non-partisan system. The godfather of this hodgepodge of a system, if system it can be called, was Lt-Gen Tanvir Naqvi, his pioneering efforts at the National Reconstruction Bureau (nothing in all our history is more hair-raising than such attempts at reconstruction) were aided and abetted by foreign donors.

While Lt-Gen Naqvi was smashing the district crockery, another military pioneer (now turned democratic cheer-leader), Lt-Gen Moinuddin Haider, was spreading much the same havoc in the ranks of the police force. As a result of the Police Order 2002 which he godfathered, complete chaos now reigns in the police department, separate wings having been established for different work, which looks great on paper but which in actual fact has made life difficult for the ordinary citizen.

When change comes to Pakistan, two things will have to be done immediately by any incoming government with the slightest concern for the nation's plight: finish, at a stroke, the district nazimate system and abolish, at a stroke, the Police Order 2002. I never thought I would have a kind word to say about the post of deputy commissioner but compared to the pestilence of the district Nazim it was a godsend.

The point of all this exegesis, however, is that the old order--the one with us for the last eight years--just cannot go on in the way its advocates are fondly hoping. If anyone in the inner sanctums of power thinks that the Q League stunt can be repeated and another Shaukat Aziz installed in office to sing the praises of the current dispensation and be a willing rubber-stamp, he lives in a world of his own.

The Q League is a metaphor for the kind of toady party conquering generalissimos have always favoured. Field Marshal (self-appointed) Ayub Khan had his Convention League. This dispensation has immortalized the Q League.

Here's a poignant extract from Ayub Khan's recently published memoirs: "The situation is that whilst the opposition has been whipping up lawlessness, our own party is disintegrating (emphasis added)…In other words, the Muslim League party has ceased to exist." This was when the movement against him had started.

But who remembers history? The Q League has mounted what is arguably the most expensive political ad campaign in Pakistani history to refurbish its credentials. But all the good this blitz is doing is to make any symbol associated with the party an object of public scorn and hatred.

It's become a political cliché to say that the caretaker setup both at the centre and the provinces is an extension of the old regime. You could change the faces and it wouldn't make the slightest difference. But again all the resources of government and all its powers of patronage are doing nothing for the Q League's image.

Many pundits are of the opinion that the coming polls, whenever held, will be heavily rigged. And that rigging plans are already in place. However, one crucial factor has changed. The army was fully behind the kind of electoral shenanigans the nation witnessed in 2002, winners in many constituencies turning into losers overnight. But with the change in army command this kind of benign interference should no longer be possible.

So let us not despair. Things are bad. Of this there can be no two opinions. But the good thing is that the very bleakness of this situation holds the promise of change. Only when things break down, as they are threatening to do with us, are men and women moved to thought and action. So let us pray the same be true of us.



Email: chakwal@comsats.net.pk


The News international ,Islamabad, Jan 18, 2008