Bullet or ballot?
By Humayun Gauhar July 19, 2008 When I recently said, “Our salvation lies in the bullet, not the ballot” I upset my wife greatly. Poor dear, she can’t even slaughter a chicken, but microbiologist that she is, she doesn’t balk at killing cockroaches, so what’s the problem? Again we chose the ballot. Again we’re crying. Having made our bed, we refuse to sleep in it. Another unnatural intervention will not get us a better bed, as it never did in the past.
The excuses being proffered for the government’s paralysis are nonsensical. “Everything will be fine if Musharraf goes.” Will inflation suddenly come down? Will there be an overnight end to terrorism, lawlessness and uncertainty? Will the steep decline in the economy be arrested? Will the State Bank’s reserves, heading towards zilch by end-September, start rising? Will America’s threats recede? “The People’s Party has become Musharraf’s party.” How did its leaders, touted as great democrats yesterday by today’s crybabies, sell out so easily to Musharraf if they truly are great democrats? Because their way of removing Musharraf by restoring the sacked judges will take longer than Nawaz’s quick-fix solution?
Excuse: If the judges are restored adl will return and all problems will be solved. Understand the difference between adl and insaaf " balance and justice. Justice is an important element of an adil or balanced society, but it is only one element of adl. Will the poor and powerless get justice? Real justice starts from the bottom up; bad justice goes from the top down. Stuck at the top it remains justice for the elite only. What pray will the sacked judges do if they are restored, apart from encroaching again on the domain of the executive? Order fuel and food prices lowered without any understanding of economics " What is discounted cash flow? What is limited liability? Who will pay for the loss? The Supreme Court Bar Association, whose coffers must be full " have you ever considered how much the 16-month Lawyers’ Movement must have cost? I doubt that even the SCBA has the money to subsidise lower fuel and food prices. They can only be lowered if the government is born of an egalitarian, not an alien elitist system. How can a system that fortifies the iniquitous status quo by fortifying the hold of the anti-democratic feudal warlock and tribal warlord lower prices? They must eliminate waste in government and the overfed elite.
Do you think we have the ethos to do that? Ethos comes from an egalitarian ideology. We have none. Even though we hypocritically insist on describing Pakistan as an Islamic Republic, the Islamic concept of a balanced and egalitarian society is as alien to us as it is to a monarchy’s subjects.
Sure 100 days aren’t enough. Did we foist this on them or did the prime minister’s desire to emulate all things American? Had pragmatism given way to populism? Why not emulate President Eisenhower and place the same sign on your desk prime minister " “The buck stops here.”
A hundred days are definitely enough to show some movement in the right direction, a modicum of some strategy for crisis management. We’ve only seen leaderless drift, with the real unelected leaders of the two biggest ruling parties AWOL, a proxy prime minister all dressed up with nowhere to go and the coalition expected to break any moment. They “have” achieved a unique first though " government and opposition rolled into one sitting on the treasury benches. Have you ever heard of a government providing its own opposition? One expected all this to happen, but not so fast. I suppose even if a leopard’s spots fade, they come out in full glory once the sun starts shining again, so as not to be mistaken for hay by other leopards.
Food is the first and foremost fundamental human right, for if we have no food we are all dead and all other rights become irrelevant. Staple food is becoming so expensive that hardly anyone can afford it any more, even if it is available. What planning is there to ensure the availability of affordable staple foods? If that fungus that has reached Yemen gets to us, a large part of our wheat crop could be destroyed. If we have to import 2.2 million tons of wheat at $1,400 a ton, it means over $3 billion. Add $12 billion fuel imports and the lights go out.
The poor will be eating the rich. What has government done to reduce its energy wastage and other profligacy? Nothing. What planning is there for $200 oil " more if Iran is attacked? Nothing. Why go on?
What are the options? As if on cue, one is beginning to hear the same voices that recently screamed for “democracy” asking for intervention again. These very people howled for a coup and welcomed General Musharraf when he literally descended from the skies thanks to the bizarre shenanigans of a “democratic” prime minister. It didn’t take them long to start howling for “democracy” when they weren’t invited to make any hay under Musharraf’s sun " or got thrown out of the barn after making it for a while. Only three months after elections they are asking for intervention just because they fear losing the huge hay they have accumulated over the years under different “democrats” and “dictators”. Some are saying (hoping?) that the army will have no option but to intervene by December, whether it likes it or not.
Not so fast, my intellectually corrupt compatriots. It’s easy to break; it’s difficult to build. You know that, because you’ve helped so many rulers break but build nothing. We’ve seen that just as the politicians have no solutions to our problems, the army (and bureaucracy) has none either, even though it starts with great expectations. Its not supposed to; the politicians are. Ask yourselves: “What will they do after intervention that they didn’t do earlier when they had a better chance?”
