The army’s mediation or facilitation — whatever you want to call it — in this inqilab/azaadi (revolution/independence) crisis has created a stir. The army’s unit of analysis, very rightly, is the state of Pakistan. This fact and the unique history of our country where the army has repeatedly played a role in determining civilian conflicts either through direct intervention or through pressure (in the case of General Waheed Kakar in 1993 and General Kayani in 2009) made it almost a certainty that the Pakistan army would step in if things got out of hand.
It is, therefore, of no consequence if the government asked them to play a role or if the two adventurers with their hordes outside the citadel of democracy did. It is naïve to assume that the military would have stood on the sidelines while a few thousand people continued to hold the country hostage through blackmail. After all, it is not a colonial power’s army but our own national army, extracted from within us. The problem is not their intervention or intrusion but the fact that things had to come to that. It has irreparably damaged the process of democratic consolidation in Pakistan and there are only two individuals directly responsible for this outcome: Imran Khan and Tahirul Qadri. The prime minister and the Chief of Army Staff (COAS) have only done what their respective stations dictated.
Both Imran Khan and Tahirul Qadri knew very well that their ill-timed and ill-advised ‘movements’ would force the hand of the government and army. Indeed, both these ‘leaders’ had been asking for intervention in so many words. Who raised the issue of a technocratic government? Who spoke about the formation of a national government or an interim government for an indefinite period? Who did they expect would deliver on these demands if not the army? The alacrity with which these gentlemen ran to meet the COAS shows their desperation as well as the inherent weakness of the constitutional system.
The supporters of these two wannabe revolutionaries say that Nawaz Sharif could have averted the issue by resigning. But why should the PM resign? Where is the evidence for the allegations? Just because a few thousand people march on the capital and hold it captive is not enough reason. Let the evidence come out and whoever is at fault may be asked to resign. The government has, for its part, agreed to the demands put forward by the PTI on the issue of elections, though they too could have done this earlier and saved the situation. Here, though, statesmanship is required by all concerned and they are found wanting.
Consider, for example, Imran Khan’s shrill charge that this is “Hosni Mubarak’s democracy”. First of all, the civilian constitutional system undergoing democratic consolidation is very different from Hosni Mubarak’s 30 years of absolute rule of the Arab Republic of Egypt. This charge itself is inaccurate. Secondly, let us indulge Mr Khan’s fantasy, and say that indeed the situation in Pakistan is similar to Egypt in 2011, which is absolutely false. It must be repeated: what did the revolution against Hosni Mubarik achieve? And was this so-called Arab Spring a genuine revolution?
When the Arab Spring was underway, I wrote an article for this newspaper called ‘The broken spring’ (Daily Times, October 24, 2011) in which I argued that these revolutions would lead to absolute disaster, including the rise of a military regime in Egypt and the rise of an extremist Islamist government in Syria and elsewhere. Wikileaks revealed in 2012 that this article was emailed on the StratFor List and had the attention of policy makers in the US, though clearly they did not act on it. Not to blow my own trumpet, but the fact is that the predictions I made did come true.
The whole Arab Spring drama is said to have emanated out of the writings and influence of Gene Sharp of the Albert Einstein Institute for Non-Violent Action. The New York Times lists him as the inspiration for the so-called Egyptian Revolution. Imran Khan, who is always willing to accuse others of being “funded”, seems to have no problem accepting externally imposed solutions that can potentially tear asunder the political and social fabric of society.
Unfortunately, the impatience of PTI’s support base, the urban middle classes, in getting what they want is largely behind Imran Khan’s disastrous decisions. The misleading slogan of ‘Naya (new) Pakistan’ envisages a rupture with the past with the slate swept clean. That is not how societies work. A better Pakistan has to evolve and not be created anew. We have to get our priorities right. First, there should be democratic consolidation through political stability. Political stability will ensure economic opportunities and, ultimately, an egalitarian society. If only we would allow the system to work long enough, dynasties would wither away. Dynasties in politics are created by interruptions and violence. Had the 1977 coup not happened and had Zulfikar Ali Bhutto not been assassinated through a farcical court case, the PPP may well have developed as a political party independent of the Bhutto legacy. If only the 1999 coup had not happened, the Sharifs may well have been phased out by now. No society or country is exempt from these rules and every society has to evolve at its own pace.
We are much better off than the Arab world. Pakistan has a democratic constitution, however flawed, that if worked honestly can self-correct. What will, however, stop the process if politicians derail it for selfish gains every few years? This does not mean that one should not fight but that the fight should take place within the constitutional framework, in the legislatures and the courts of the country. This is what Imran Khan needs to understand and this is what needs to be driven home to people like Tahirul Qadri, whatever private grief they may nurture.