The New Nation - Internet Edition

Syed-Mohsin Naquvi

Another military dictatorship has ended, this time peacefully by the shear force of public opinion.

Ever since Pakistan was created, the armed forces have looked at the driving seat with great ambition. As early as 1951 one Major-General Akbar Khan aspired to take over government. His plans were found out. He was prosecuted and went to Jail.

However, that did not deter another General only seven years later to usurp democratic government. That was Ayub Khan. He actually is the main culprit in the latest saga. The public is equally to blame for that. Because, everyone, even today considers Ayub Khan as a hero.

Ayub Khan created a fraud of an election. He stood against Fatima Jinnah. She was called MAADAR-E-MILLAT. But the public could not find enough wherewithal to defeat the dictator in favour of the MAADAR-E-MILLAT.

The next inline was Gen. Yahya. He was a drunkard, a womanizer and a fool of the highest order. He conspired with ZAB to dismember the country and succeeded in doing that.

The country should have gone through a process of catharsis, but it did not. No lessons were learned. ZAB, the destroyer of Pakistan became a national hero.

Next came Zia-ul-Haq, the infamous butcher of the Black September in Jordan. He considered himself Khaleefat-ul- Muslimeen. The country went along with him. He created the bleakest political precedent in Pakistan's history by hanging the leader he had deposed. The whole world protested against that action. But the Pakistani public sat there supinely.

The intervening years saw a succession of civilian governments, each failing in turn due to its own internal wranglings, selfish motives, incompetence and ineptness.

Then came Musharraf. The whole country welcomed him as the savior.

If we compare Musharraf with all the other military dictators, he would probably rate the most moderate and reasonable.

Ayub Khan had killed all political institutions. He had persecuted his opponents and all those he feared, both legally by subverting the Justice system as well as by using strong-arm tactics. Many opponents of the military regime were liquidated. But it was done so quietly that many cases are still hidden. When one quarter of Karachi voted for Fatima Jinnah openly, his machinery imported hundreds of men from the NWFP and let them lose at that area of Karachi for looting and plundering that went on for three days. The police would just stand by on the sidelines and watch. Ayub Khan oppressed students and university teachers. Students were beaten by the police on the streets of Karachi, even school children of ages 12-14. This is my own eyewitness report. Ayub Khan had gagged the press. All media worked to serve his person. He had to be removed by the force of the public opinion - that public opinion which had surfaced in East Pakistan. The west Pakistanis supported him all along.

Yahya Khan's time was limited. He did not have much time to create any large mayhem . However, he was able to bring the greatest disaster to Pakisatn as a nation - A humiliating defeat at the hands of an Indian army, a record 90,000 prisoners of war and the loss of one half of the country . What he had not done as a dictator, all that was done by ZAB Eventhough he was a democratically elected ruler.

When ZAB's daughter came to power, all she wanted was revenge from the Army for her father's murder. She failed miserably as an elected PM.

Zia-ul-Haq's period will probably be rated in Pakistan history as the bleakest. Minorities were openly oppressed, tortured and exterminated. Women's rights were thrown out the window and the education system went through the drain. The Madarsah system flourished and with it religious extremism and Talibanization. God removed him from the scene in one of His strangest ways. But the monster of religious extremism and corruption he had created persisted and it was bequeathed to the nation in the form of Nawaz Shareef.

Shareef turned out to be thoroughly corrupt and a master of nepotism and favouritism. The war between Punjab and Sind intensified during his reign. Much as the hatred in East Pakistan against the West Pakistan institutions and people had built up during Ayub regime, the hatred against the institutions and people of Punjab has built up among the Sindhis and Baluchis during Shareef's regime.

As compared to that, Musharraf, much as he was an illegitimate ruler, did try to fix many things. But the problems had grown so much and they had intensified to such a degree that it wasn't one man's job any more. He did do the right thing by washing his hands off the Taliban and joining in with the west to eliminate terrorism and religious extremism. Musharraf provided much greater freedom to press. He let his opponent go into exile instead of trying him in a court of law and punishing him for all the wrongs he had committed. He never bothered the institutions of higher education like Ayub had done. His greatest folly was staying on longer than was necessary and reasonable. He got on people's nerves. He should have held general elections much sooner. If he had allowed legitimate elections to take place back in 2005 or 2006, we would have a different set of people in the assembly and the senate. And he would have been able to go back to the barracks in his uniform gracefully. But that was his stupidity. He would pay for that in the pages of history. One thing si very clear though, Musharrf is the only leader who has not been accused so far of embezzlement of public funds. Both Zardari and Nawaz Shareef make me laugh when they call Musharraf corrupt.

The Pakistani people must realize that by punishing an ambitious army general in a court of law and sending him to jail did not deter the later generals to usurp legitimate democratic power. That formula did not work, so leave it aside.

What is wrong with the society? Why do people, after every few years, crave for the army to come back and take over the society?

The army is the only organized institution in the country. People are trained in the army in a certain way. They cannot, of course, work as university vice-chancellors, educators and reformers, but they are trained managers and they can build roads, run institutions such as water supply and energy generation plants. That is why, during military regimes services do improve - but at the expense of democratic institutions. One other thing about the army is that the soldier is conditioned to protect the borders of his country. That becomes his second nature. So, when a soldier goes wrong, he can become greedy, inefficient and Zaalim. But he never stops to remain patriotic. On the other hand, a businessman and an industrialist will always think of taking his money and running with it to the farthest corners of the globe for a better opportunity.

For an army general, Musharraf had shown exceptional skills in diplomacy and politics. But that was Musharraf. Once again, I hate military take-overs and I believe earnestly in a democratic system. This is just analysis for reflection.

What is missing from the society is proper education at the primary and secondary level. There is no training in schools in civic responsibility, respect for the law-and-order institutions and a sense of belonging to the society. The average Pakistani always looks at the society belonging to the government - he does not feel himself/herself a part of the society. A part of that feeling has been inherited from the period of the British rule. The average Pakistani is more inclined in his daily life to break the rules rather than obey them. These things have to be fixed by education.

Lack of education at school level has killed any hope for moderation and the flowering of true pluralism, tolerance and acceptance of the "others." People are easily excited into violence on religious grounds and sectarian hatred.

Shia minorities are being killed in large numbers in the Kurram agency of Pakistan. And it is not just killings, it is real butchery with a lot of savagery. They do not just go and shoot people, they chop their arms and legs off and let them bleed to death. Why do people belonging to the same nationality and same faith do this to each other? No Pakistani is willing to stop and think on that. The press has been conspiratorially mum on such news.

What is the new elected government doing about such things? So far nothing.

Nearly 150,000 people have been transported from the NWFP and the FATA areas to be resettled in Karachi. Why? The new authorities want to re-organize the demographics of the country. They want to create a new seat in the assembly based on Pashtoon nationalism to counter the MQM in Karachi.

In Pakistan no one loves Karachi and her people but every one benefits from both. Karachi is the biggest tax-base in the country, it provides the largest market for all goods, it provides the best educational services to the society. But every ruler wants to loot Karachi. Now they are preparing for a new war on the city and the people of Karachi.

If that is how the new government plans to govern the country then we cannot stake much on the future of Pakistan.

Musharraf has left as a very unpopular leader. He may be maligned in the pages of history. But if the current situation is any indicator, years later, Pakistan public may actually, stop, look back and reflect on the Musharraf period.