Dislodging a Dictator

Just out of curiousity. Has there ever been any other politician from South Asia who has been convicted of corruption in an international court. Do any of our Indian colleagues know of anyone in India? I don`t think there has been one in Pakistan before......

re: this article
Nice to see YLH back. He seems to have changed his opinion about the Army. We need young people like him to realise what the Army is doing to Pak. Realisation is the first step.
re:#94 by harish_hyd
Nice post. Also, do not forget the Allahabad H.C judgement nullifying Indira Gandhi`s election. That was a bold move. I heard the judge lost his life. How many times have we seen the judges in Pak stand up against the rulers to defend democracy and individual rights? Not once, i bet.
I do not agree with Arjun when he says education is needed for democracy. India became a democracy 50 years ago when its literacy rate was abysmal. What matters is the common will of the people. If latter continue to believe (as they are lead to believe) that Army alone can save them, they cannot have democracy. Nobody is going to gift them with a demcracy from heaven. They have to carve it out themselves.
Sridhar

PS Are you aware of a leader by the name of Syed Ata ullah Shah Bukhari?
If so tell us what firqah he belonged to and what his role in that era was...

This is what shah sahib said about his role :

`A Barking bi-tch was tied to my tongue in that era`

Naqshbandi

So in your opinion is a Shiite and a Fasiq eligible to be the leader of the Muslims?

Give us the brailvi view... please!

-Manto

PS: Watch Naqsh Bhai fire a whole post on how Jinnah wasn`t a shia.. that he was a staunch Sunni with complete faith in the ahle Sunnat way of Islam.

Manto--I didn`t see that interview (I dont have GEO Tv) but it doesn`t mean that the venerable Maulana was criticising Jinnah personally. You see in Shariah, if a person has a clean shaven face that is a sin and a person who sins openly is termed a fasiq. It is a technical term of Islamic jurisprudence, that`s all. As I have said in a another post in another board the Barelvi ulama--as opposed to the Deobandis--actually supported the Quaid and the Pakistan movement and as Mawlana Noorani is a Barelvi Sunni I doubt he would be against the Quaid.

***

My post 120 seems to be a little disjointed. I apologize ... It is a combination of the conjuctivitis I am suffering from, late night law study, and just general frustration with people like Romair.

Perhaps SAC is right.

-Manto

sac

Why such lack of faith?
I sense vibes of deep unexplained hostility.

Anyway.. you have the right to your own opinion.

-Manto

Despite the fact that I haven`t gotten personal the resident chowk fauji, he continues to take pot shots at me. Eventhough ever since I found out about Benazir`s conviction I have taken back my support for her, he is singing the same old mantra. So blinded is he by hate and the fact that he couldn`t answer simple questions posed by Sameerjb, PM, Stuka and myself, that he is willing to barter all self respect. Well then so be it. I ask you who is to Blame for Pakistan`s ills... I write this post after having suffered fools for so long in Pakistan... After long hard thought I have come to the conclusion that the Religious extremists as much as I hate them are not to blame for Pakistan`s current ills. They have only recently gotten to power... whatever damage they will do is only beginning. My estimate is that it is neither the secularists nor the religio-fanatics, it is people like Romair who are wholely solely responsible for all problems today. They are the ones who sit on the fence when it comes to Democracy, secularism and modernity. Due to their own lack of adequate research on the subject they only serve to obscure Pakistan and what it was meant to be. I have no doubt in my mind that he is the kind of person Jinnah had referred to as `counterfeit coin`.

Read his posts and you will understand why. Much like his hero Musharraf, Romair is willing to barter even Pakistan and its pride He has been on a rampage against the secularists and in doing his weapon has been one and only one, the weapon used by the feudals and petty thugs who have ruled this country ever since Jinnah died, obscure Pakistan`s foundations, lie about the real facts of the independence, ... On the other board he has been screaming at the top of his lungs that Jinnah was confused ... that he didn`t know what he wanted when he made the 11th August speech, that Jinnah was drugged maybe when he said that in Pakistan religion would have nothing to do with the business of the state.
Some of Romair`s arguments are classic parodies of the Mullah`s. For example he seems to think that since partition (A fearful minority separated from a majority) happened, a secular Pakistan is automatically a contradiction. Sure Jinnah led a `Muslim` Nation in the last 10 years of his life... but the issue is not the faith of the nation that Jinnah led, but the state that he created, and remember the state that he created was not homogenously Muslim, nor was his Muslim nation one homogenous body. A new revisionist angle amongst Islamists in Pakistan is that Jinnah`s 11th August speech was harking back to the Prophet Muhammad`s Mesaq-e-Madina. Ok... but how do you explain the `Hindus will cease to be Hindus and Muslims will cease to be Muslims, not in a religious sense but a political sense` and `They may belong to any religion caste or creed- that has nothing to do witht he business of the state`. Jinnah`s speeches, as his earlier speeches, were the clear declarations of secularism. Was this secularism compatible with Islamic faith was another issue, and Jinnah seemed to think so. The matter of religious interference was ended by Jinnah when he replied to a bunch of sharia honking mullahs `Sharia, whose sharia, I don`t have time for this`. Pakistan was meant to be a modern democratic state with equal rights for all.

Yet People like Romair would obscure this by suggesting that all those times Jinnah was a little tipsy with alcohol and thats why he didn`t know what the hell he was talking about... Why stop there Romair... When Jinnah made that speech in the constituent assembly, he was stoned to the bone. When he told the world that `Pakistan will not be theocracy to be run by priests with a divine mission` it was the dangerous cocktail of drugs and alcohol that was speaking. This is what people like Romair would have us believe. This is what Mullahs have been saying in dhakay chupay alfaz anyway... that Jinnah was a fasiq (Maulana Noorani, salivate Naqshu, was on a show on GEO earlier today, where it slipped out of his mouth that Allah Tallah can even get his work done through a fasiq. The comment was made in reference to Jinnah`s clean shaven face). Romair reminds me of the veteran Muslim leaguer Raja of Mahmudabad who was an advocate of the `Islamic state`. He used to make forceful speeches from the League platform promising masses an Islamic state. When Jinnah found out he called the young man and snubbed him. He told the young raja that he, Jinnah, had nothing to do with such fanciful ideas.... Infact afterwards Raja sahib was forced to pack up and leave the league... rightly or wrongly. The very religious Raja Sahib however admits that he understood later on why Jinnah was right.

Another guy who was much like Romair was Dr A H Qazi, the Muslim Leaguer from Bombay who had drawn up a resolution calling for the future Pakistani government`s basis in the Holy Quran, Sunnah and rule of the pious caliphs. Again the proposal was swept under the carpet at the insistence of Mr. Jinnah who declared forcefuly that such a resolution would mean a censure on every leaguer. Instead let the democratic state of Pakistan decide what its constitution would be. People like Romair, with average understanding of politics, and very little appreciation of basic civic concepts, were a dime a dozen in the Muslim League, and Jinnah snubbed them every chance he got. However it was people like Romair who shaped Pakistan unfortunately. Many Romair-like people got together and passed the `Objectives Resolution`. Same people started harping about the `Islamic ideology` ... same people were behind the inclusion of religion in that pathetic document that we called constitution in 1973. Another Romair like individual was fella who we know as Zia ul Haq. People like Romair have really come to bite this state in the rear. They know what is right for Pakistan. They also know that we the `secular extremists` haven`t caused any ruckus in Pakistan. They know that while Pakistan was made to allay the fears of the Muslims about the Hindu Majority, it was not made to snub the rights of everyone else living there. Yet they continue to obscure this with lies.

An easy scapegoat for people like Romair is India. Instead of concentrating on making Pakistan what it was supposed to be they keep chanting `India is horrible, Hindu, Hindu, India is Hindu`. What is that though... `you are not better than us ... so we will stay the same` mentality? To Romair India is not secular or humane because BJP is ruling India. Exact same words were used by Maulana Noorani by the way. To Romair the equivalent of BJP in Pakistan is SSP... hence if BJP can rule India, SSP can be allowed in Pakistan. Pray tell oh Great one when and the how Hindu Nationalist BJP has tried to make India an exclusive Hindu State? The SSP is not just concerned with making Pakistan an Islamic state, it wants to make Pakistan a sunni Islamic state, and wants to kill off all Shias. How can such a fanatical party be compared to a legitimate Political Party like BJP which has come legitimately through the ballot and has abided by the secular Indian constitution? Is Romair hallucinating?


Romair continues to accuse myself, Sameerjb and PM of secular extremism. Let us consider what in our `ideology` is so extremist... Romair finds it so extremist that we stand for a Pakistan where a conservative Muslim man could go to the mosque while a liberal secular atheist could go to the bar if he so pleases. We stand for a Pakistan where no one dictates the others their faith. We don`t stand for the state`s control of religion as in Turkey. We praise the current pro-Islamic yet secular Party in power there (at one point romair also claimed that Ataturk had been undone in Turkey by that party.. he didn`t answer after I showed him that the current `Islamist` Prime Minister of Turkey is an Ataturk admirer and used his picture through out the election campaign) We stand for a Pakistan where no one dictates the dress code... where a Pakistani should be free to wear western eastern or african dress if he so pleases... a Pakistani woman would have the choice to wear Burqah, shalwar Kameez, see through shalwar kameez, jeans, tight fitting jeans and even a mini skirt (the first five are allowed... I am fighting for the last one). We don`t want to crush Islam... Islam is the religion of the majority of the Pakistani people.. no one can change that and no one wants to, least of all the secular liberals. What we want are equal rights for those non-muslims, atheists, dissenting Muslims, agnostics, gay people, bisexuals etc so that they can live in peace openly with their convictions and secular orientation.

What is so extremist in dreaming of a Pakistan which is open minded, Free thinking, liberal, progressive .. which allows its citizens complete freedom of conscience and religion, which doesn`t oppress any religion nor establishes it, and which doesn`t discriminate against its citizens on the basis of their religion, caste, creed, gender or sexual orientation? It is hard to think of such a Pakistan at this juncture... but let us not forget that only 40 years ago the conditions for Black people and Homosexuals were similar in the US. Maybe all of this sounds too childish, but that is how I feel and that is our point of view.

-Manto

PS: Romair is dead wrong about why I supported Benazir. I supported Benazir not because she is secular (neither PPP, which gave us the theocratic constitution of 1973 nor Benazir can be called secular, though they are a liberal party)... but because despite her corruption she hasn`t done half the damage to Pakistan Musharraf has done. Anyway this was written before she got convicted and since then I have reconsidered my position.

PPS On Imran Khan... all chowkies would testify that I was his biggest supporter. Yet he is a political nitwit who knows nothing and whose vision is like Shandana said `a 14 inch tv screen`. I asked Romair why he thinks Meraj Muhammed Khan left the PTI? He didn`t answer me... Pakistan Tehreek-e- Insaaf is not feudal. Romair is right. Even feudalism is an advanced concept for PTI. PTI is tribal.... if Imran Khan had his way, all of Pakistan would be elaqah-ghair. So much for an Oxford education... what a waste.

Disregarding ylh`s recent `rational` reincarnation as I doubt it will last for too long, the article makes a good argument about BB. She is probably worse than her worst enemies make her out to be but she is the ONLY politician with any roots in the masses. If she is upto it, she can still return home and the people will rally behind her. The conquerors of their own countrymen realize this and will do their best to avoid that.

later
-sac

=== Interact Filtered ===
view this users filtered interacts

shankar #102: “What about Imran?
Now why in the HELL did his party perform so badly in the elections?!
Pakistani awam HAD an alternative
but they made their choice clear...even in this jury-rigged election..”

This is the million-dollar question. My father was offered a MNA ticket by PTI, in this election. He did not take it, but he is involved with the party, as is my family. So here is what saw, kind of as an insider to the PTI campaign:

1) If you were to ask most Pakistanis whether they think Imran Khan would make a good PM, and is honest and progressive, they would say Yes. They would probably prefer him over Benazir and anyone else. At the same time, they will not vote for him nor his party.

- The main reason is that his party has zero feudal support. PTI is, in fact, anti-feudal. So this takes him out of around 66% of the seats, to start with. This is the area where the PPP and PML score big. And this is the main source of their 25-30% vote bank, each. Only a feudal, and that too the most powerful one in the area, can win in a feudal election. Doesn’t matter what that feudal stands for, what party he is from etc. In many cases, feudals switch parties back and forth and still win. The people in feudal areas, do know what is best for them, however, their hands are tied, since they owe their livelihood to the feudal boss. So they, by force, have to vote for one feudal or the other.

This is also why Pakistan has never been able to establish democracy, while India has (India is rural, but non-feudal, while Pakistan is rural and feudal). And, in my opinion, Pakistan will never have true democracy without massive land reforms.

This is also why the only parties that can win big are the ones that have all the feudals, as their members. In Pakistan’s case they are PPP and PML. If you take out their feudal vote, you will realize that in urban areas, where they cannot control the voting population, they are not as dominant as many people think.

2) But, PTI did not get votes in cities, either. How does one explain that? Well, this was the big surprise to me, also. This is what I saw. Pakistanis city voters, currently, have no faith in the system. They vote more to protect themselves, then for progress. In essence, it is like the Chicago mafia stories. Everyone needs a powerful thug to protect him against the other party’s powerful thug. If you candidate is not a powerful thug, regardless of how good he maybe, he cannot win. Because, voters know he cannot protect them from the thugs they need protection from. Hence they will not vote for him, even if he is Gandhi.

This is a Catch-22. Once voters feel your guy cannot get elected, they will not vote for him, even furthur, even if they know he is the best candidate. They do not want to end up in the bad books of the thug who does get elected. Why support a guy who cannot get into power, and make enemies for one’s self. Why not create a powerful ally, who can protect you from other powerful people?

So, the basis of city politics, is protection from others, rather than progress of the community. It is more survival, than progress. PTI does not have any thugs as candidates. It usually nominates lawyers, dentists, scholars, senior retired beaurecrats, etc. Hence, people feel it cannot protect them, even though they know the candidates are good.

This is why a well-known, philanthrapist, super-rich, credible, national hero like Imran Khan, himself, gets defeated by big margins in his hometown of Lahore (where some people literally worship him for the cancer hospital they have benefited from), by unknown figures, who have the support of powerful parties like PPP and PML. For example, everyone in Pakistan knows who Imran Khan is. Can anyone name the guy who defeated him in the elections in Lahore this time around. I doubt it, even though, he defeated Imran Khan by a good margin.

This is also why, it is very very very difficult for any decent honest non-feudal politician to get elected in Pakistan, based on a progressive honest agenda for the country. Any party would love to have Imran Khan join them. I think PPP and PML would both offer him the Presidentship if he joined them. They accept his popularity. But he still cannot win. And if Imran Khan cannot get elected, what chance do other less powerful honest well-meaning politicians have?

3) The third, more minor, factor was that he was against Musharraf and PML(Q) in this election. But the first two are the main reasons.

This is a good article. One has to admire the author for bringing up the flaws in ``Sacred Institution``. I remeber we Indian students would share and live in rented, small apartments in NJ area and all these Pakistani students would live in YMCA, Dorms and buy expensive cars. Every one of them was either son of General, Brigadier or Colonel. Feel sad for people of Pakistan. But no need to give up. Some one has to fight!!!

re: rozibia # 112

Please read this as supplement to your interact post # 112.

Japan`s economy bloomed because of the Korean War (1950-1953), when the Americans used Japanese economy as an engine to sustain their war effort against the North Koreans and the Chinese, both of whom were communists and considered as enemies of United States. The Korean War helped the Japanese economy just like the Vietnam War helped the Korean economy. The United States designed, created and allowed the Japanese and Korean economies to sustain American interests vis-a-vis its struggle against communism.

The United States allowed market access to Korea and Japan in the 1970s and early 1980s, as its economy went/changed from an industrial manufacturing base towards an information economy. In the 1980s, United States economy was not producing anything as much as it was consuming and this American need for consumption allowed many nations to enter the American economy.

Hope this helps!

Ciao

re: Dost-Mittar

I agree with you said and there is another argument, which suggests that Pakistan under Ayub Khan progressed because of good administration. As to the climate of investment in Pakistan, the slide began under Z. A. Bhutto and his program of nationalization. Bhutto chased away quite a MNCs and a few Pakistanis too, whose businesses were nationalized. It was a time, when Pakistanis started to look towards Dubai as an investment haven. What Bhutto started, Nawaz Sharif fine tuned with his decision to freeze foreign currency accounts following Pakistan`s reply to the Indian nuclear explosions.

Pakistani governments, both civilian and military, have contributed to the image of Pakistan as an instable nation and money never chases instablity. Democracy to a Pakistani may seem like anarchy to a foreign investor. It is all about perceptions and the perception of Pakistan may be ill informed, but it does influence potential investors. India`s politics may be anarchic and laced with corruption, but the perception of India is that of safe investments, market regulation/government transperancies and as you mentioned, a robust infrastructure. Perception is what we see, and what we see we believe.

re: Harish

Excellent analysis! Pakistan is still struggling to determine the balance of power and as long as the basic balance of power, in the sense of governance, is not settled, Pakistan will lurch from a crisis to another disaster.

I will even suggest this, that the reason why most Pakistanis accept military rule is that they seem to value order and obedience over democracy. The area of Pakistan today was a feudal fiefdom and it had no concept of individual will and the peasant did what the lord wished. The idea of democracy was a British instilled value cherished by the British educated and trained Muslim lawyers, who practiced law in Bombay and Delhi and not in Lahore or Peshawar or Karachi.

Keep this in mind, democracy in a political sense implies a constituency and the Muslim leaders who migrated to Pakistan had no constituency. Muslim League was orginally created to prevent the partition of Bengal from being anulled and thus, safe guard the economic interests of the Muslims in an environment where there were no Hindus. Muslims saw the partiton of Bengal as giving them a seperate electorate, where they existed in a majority and when the partition was anulled in 1911, the Muslim League would campaign for seperate electorates. Pakistan and the demand for Pakistan as as an area where the Muslims of India could enjoy a majority was nothing more than an inspired idea, whose basis was still rooted in the ideals of a seperate electorate. Muslim League`s orginal constitutuency was in Bengal and not in what became West Pakistan. The Muslim political emigres who came to West Pakistan did not have a political constituency and thus, sought one in the guise of Islam to justify their political role. Hence, it was the lack of a political constituency, which forced the politicans to seek legitmacy from religion - make Islam their political constituency and in doing this, they invited religion into politics. The politics of Pakistan have always played around this theme; lack of legitimacy and how to gain legitmacy.

Liaquat Ali Khan started the process, when to reinforce the power of his office after the death of Jinnah, he canvassed the religious sentiment and to get the legitimacy, offered the religious parties the Objectives Resolution. Objectives Resolution brought religion into the main stream of Pakistani politics and what was a power struggle between the governor-general and the prime minister incorporated the religious view point, which became the fulcrum to the whole struggle. Thus, religion became the lever, which everyone uses to gain advantage in Pakistani politics and it is all about power.

re: rozibia

Sorry for not replying earlier, but many interactors have posted comments, on the topic, and I would be merely repeating them. If you still wish a reply; I would be happy to oblige.

Ciao

rozaiba:

no offense taken. i also apologize for being rude and flippant. i actually have a very, very high opinion of lums and of its grads. i had the good fortune of taking part in a couple of courses for execs at lums (at rausing executive center) and my mind was blown away by the quality of facility as well as by the strength of its faculty. we pakis, if we put our minds to it, can get things right once in a while. another good thing that came out of my lums experience was that i was able to get to know couple of punjabs finest (helps if you work in one of paks top foreign banks. helps even more if you dangle internship offers). my own grad school experience in the u.s. would have been so much better if the offering was one-fourth of that of lums.

with regards to your analysis of economic development of s.e. asia, i still dont agree with you. remeber that america was also involved in defense of saudi arabia. and saudis had plenty of capital. and yet look what happened to them. and i was also not comparing park chung hee to mush either. instead, i was simply pointing out (i) characteristics of a good leader (in a manner similar to b-school case study) (ii) that you dont need west minister style democracy to develop.

development of s.e. asia is a very intersting topic. i am currently super busy. will chat with you on this topic later.

dost-mittar:

i agree with you on pakistan`s image problems. but they stem from fauji meddling. i also agree that pakistan needs to quit trying to compare itself to india. again, the only people wanting to do that are the faujiz.

as for east asian countries, i wasn`t referring to multi nationals opening up in china and korea- i was rather referring to korean and chinese and japanese companies getting easy access to american markets. that was a huge factor in their rapid development in my opinion. that is something current pakistani ministers looked for US to provide but the US denied any such benefits (other than a measily increase in quota).

for 60`s record, yes, those in west pakistan reaped great benefits. but you may want to look at the statistics for the majority, in east pakistan and how it was decapitated and left to be merely a source of raw material. at 47, it had far more industry than the west. by 70, it was in shambles. i dont see this as anything to thump chest to.