Democracy: left, right and centre Written By : Amir Hussain
I have always cherished the discussions that my classmates and I had
during our university days on politics being an art of statecraft. The
idealism of our student days was a blessing indeed and all we did was
discuss world politics at length.
Deeply engrossed in political debates, we used to think that the world
was too small to accommodate our wisdom and knowledge. This is, perhaps,
how a young person with aspirations thinks in his/her heydays of
knowledge acquisition.
Our discussions dealt with the art of statecraft adopted by rulers
ranging from Chandragupta Maurya to Otto Von Bismarck, with intermittent
references to Machiavelli. We assessed Ibn-e- Khaldun, Karl Marx and
even Abu A’la Maududi with a critical eye. Our discussions knew no
bounds, representing a diversity of thoughts without venturing into an
all-out conflict.
Of course, it wasn’t all hunky-dory. But there was space for discussion.
Those were the initial days of Pervez Musharraf’s military coup. We
were astonished by how an elected prime minister could be sacked without
even a modicum of public outrage. It was the beginning of another
dictatorial regime in Pakistan that did not attract much hue and cry and
all of us had an axe to grind in this new setup. Our liberals threw
their weight behind Musharraf because of his one memorable picture with a
German shepherd on the front page of an English language daily.
Our liberal ideals proved to be ephemeral – as always – and they got
carried away by this symbolism more than the essence of the political
rule. The failure of democratic transition in Pakistan is not only about
what religious zealots have done with this country. It is also about
the short-lived political ideals of our liberals. The disdain among
liberals for the ‘rustic’ ways of Nawaz Sharif and their affection for
an urbane party pal and a Westernised dictator said it all.
Despite all its liberal leanings, the university campus had few students
who supported this coup because many of us looked for a deeper debate
on statecraft. Not contaminated by the compromises involved in practical
life, and the fear of the unknown, we spoke our hearts out to condemn
the coup.
We started to explore why our democracy had been so fragile that it took
only two hours for parliament to be stormed and a sitting prime
minister to be arrested. We had also witnessed the dissolution of
consecutive parliamentary democracies in Pakistan without the fear of
popular uprisings. The judicial murder of Z A Bhutto – one of the most
popular political leaders in the history of Pakistan – didn’t shake the
country with mass movements.
The people of Pakistan possibly didn’t see any tangible dividends of
democracy then. All they saw was an era of prosperity under dictatorial
regimes. A growing economy, the rapid pace of industrialisation in the
1960s, and the painful experience of 1971 in a political battle of two
elected civilian rulers couldn’t be erased from public memory till the
rise of General Zia in 1977.
Supported by the Western powers as a typical cold-war proxy, Pakistan
was bombarded with dollars. The flow of free money benefited all those
power aspirants – whose children were to have access to this new money –
rather than a tumultuous struggle for democracy. Those civilians who
could matter politically were cajoled into the world of dollar-backed
prosperity. This was a time when a brand of pliable political leaders
was created to provide public legitimacy to military rule.
That was perhaps the best era of political consciousness for liberals
who were threatened by the rising wave of extremism in Pakistan.
Liberals and progressive political forces joined hands in the Movement
for the Restoration of Democracy (MRD) in the country. For progressives,
it was the beginning of a long struggle, not only for the restoration
of democracy but also for the institutionalisation of democratic
processes. For liberals, it was a battle for the restoration of a
particular lifestyle, irrespective of who guaranteed it.
Liberals despised religious parties for their anachronism and outmoded
social outlooks. Most of these liberals were also fond of the
Westernised lifestyle under the dictatorial regime of General Ayub Khan
and the early days of Z A Bhutto’s civilian rule. In this part of the
world, liberalism has been more of a lifestyle than a political,
cultural and economic movement. Unlike liberals, progressive and
socialist groups faced state oppression and incarcerations in Pakistan
for their anti-dictatorial, long-term and institutional approach towards
an inclusive democracy.
In Pakistan, liberals and socialists are lumped together as one
ideological group. But in reality, they have always held two distinct
political thoughts. They converged only during political struggles for
democracy with varying political objectives – as they did during the MRD
in the 1980s. During the regime of General Musharraf, liberals stood by
a dictatorship while socialists continued their struggle for democracy.
In our contemporary political landscape, liberals supported the PTI for
its lifestyle promises rather than its commitment to a democratic
transition of Pakistan. Public concerts, a frivolous party culture and
the bashing of Nawaz and his coterie attracted the transient political
ideals of our liberals. Socialists opposed the PTI ideology as an
anti-democratic political vanguard of the status quo and a political
impediment to a democratic transition in Pakistan. Liberals found the
PTI to be the political saviour of a lifestyle, irrespective of its
right-wing political tendencies and inclination towards religious
groups.
Some socialist groups even contested the elections of 2013 under the
banner of the Awami Workers Party (AWP), and are aspiring to participate
in the general elections of 2018 as well. Divided between the AWP and
the PPP, socialist tendencies in Pakistan are driven by a social
democratic tradition.
There is also a marked difference in attitudes between liberals and
socialists about emerging movements from Fata or previous ones from
places like Okara. Socialists have supported movements for political
right of expression and to challenge oppression. Liberals, on the
contrary, have shown a disdain for such sporadic movements as they do
not share the values of elitist liberals.
This pseudo-liberalism in Pakistan has been an elitist way of life that
doesn’t find resonance with popular movements of the working and lower
middle classes. Civil society movements in Pakistan have been influenced
by this pseudo-liberal ideology, which is at peace with the status quo.
For these liberals, radical sociopolitical transformation is an
unsettling and obscure idea that is too dangerous to their lifestyle.
What we used to discuss at our university campus was idealistic, but it
seems to work in Pakistan till today. Therefore, universities are
special zones that face the wrath of power today. Two examples – among
many students and teachers – that highlight the situation today are
those of Professor Ammar Ali Jan at Punjab University and Dr Riaz Ahmed
at Karachi University who have faced this wrath as proponents of an
inclusive and democratic Pakistan.
In the current transition to democracy, we can see at least one
deviation in the traditional picture. Nawaz Sharif is now one of the
strongest dissenting voices in the country. Imran Khan, on the contrary,
seems to rely on the establishment more than the popular support for an
electoral victory. Bilawal Bhutto, strewn between popular aspirations
and his father’s opportunistic and status-quo pragmatism, is incapable
of making any convincing political pronouncements. In a nutshell, we
appear to be marching towards a wishy-washy political future. It will be
a test of nerves for those who continue to speak for a democratic
Pakistan.
The writer is a freelance columnist based in Islamabad.
Email: ahnihal@yahoo.com
Via : The News
Comments
Post a Comment