Daily Times

Freedoms of speech and movement, and the freedom to take out a procession to express one’s grievances are generally recognised as fundamental human rights. The first two, referring to speech and movement, are exercised by citizens in democracies every day without let or hindrance. Protest marches surfaced in the US during the civil rights and anti-Vietnam War movements in the 1960s. They have been organised in other western countries from time to time, but their appearance is not a frequent or normal event in their politics.

The political culture of Pakistan is different in this regard. Here folks will join protest marches and processions even if their grievances are minor. It provides an escape from their drab and dreary lives. Going out, jumping up and down and shouting slogans against the dominant elite whom they see as their oppressors can be fun. Burning tyres on highways and setting fire to vehicles, breaking into stores and plundering merchandise, manifests their latent power and expresses their long-suppressed anger. Their “anti-social” behaviour, which is a protest against their persistent deprivation, is not hard to understand.

There are times when a great cause becomes the motivating force behind protest movements. Mahatma Gandhi and his associates organised and led processions to oppose the continuance of British rule in India. They were struggling for their national independence. The British authorities attempted to suppress this movement. In their reckoning they too were fighting over a momentous issue, which was the continuance or termination of their empire. Situations may also arise in which the dominant elite’s own intransigence will provoke opposition. On November 3, 2007, General Pervez Musharraf imposed a state of emergency in Pakistan and fired more than 60 judges of the Supreme Court and the provincial high courts. His action angered the country’s legal community and the lawyers, led more notably by Mr Aitzaz Ahsan, launched a protest movement. They held meetings and organised marches to express their disapproval. This agitation gathered strength with the passage of time. Its leaders decided to organise a long march from Lahore to Islamabad. Lawyers from all over the country gathered in Lahore where the march began and as it passed Jehlum, the government relented and decided to reinstate the chief justice and other judges to their office.

On May 2, 2011, a bunch of American commandos flew their helicopters from a location in Afghanistan to Abbottabad, went into a house where Osama bin Laden had been residing, killed him and took away his body. All of this happened without any of the Pakistani security officials’ knowledge. This action on the part of the US provoked widespread disapproval and protest in Pakistan. The National Assembly adopted a unanimous resolution condemning it and appointed a commission to investigate this event and the culpability of relevant officials. The government did appoint a commission but it did so without consulting the individuals who had been named as its members. One of them, Justice (retd) Fakhruddin G Ebrahim, declined to serve because he had not been consulted ahead of time and Justice Javed Iqbal of the Supreme Court declined because the chief justice of Pakistan had not been requested to approve his appointment. As a result, the commission remained inoperative. Prime Minister Gilani may have acted in this manner because he did not really want an inquiry into the events of May 2 in Abbottabad and appointed this commission just for appearances’ sake. In any case, it brought forth widespread protest from various organs of civil society.

More recently Saleem Shahzad, a journalist, was killed. This action outraged journalists in the country and they demanded a commission, headed by a judge of the Supreme Court, to investigate it and identify the culprits. After three weeks of delay the government did appoint a commission but named the chief justice of the Federal Shariat Court to head it. This action did not satisfy the journalists who staged a sit-in outside the parliament building starting at 2:00 pm on June 15. Wiser counsel prevailed during the night and the government appointed a judge of the Supreme Court to head the commission. But it did so without prior consultation with the chief justice (again). It remains to be seen whether this commission will be able to do its assigned work. One may wonder why the prime minister chose to ignore appropriate procedures in taking the requisite action. The protest and criticism that it evoked could easily have been avoided.

People are coming out on the streets in various towns and cities because there are power outages for 10-20 hours each day. Life in homes, businesses in the marketplace, manufacturing in factories are all adversely affected. Many workers have lost their jobs and are unable to put food on the table for their families. Their lives are made all the more miserable by the intensely hot weather that the country has experienced in recent weeks. Neither President Zardari nor Prime Minister Gilani have addressed the people to explain the shortage of electricity, whether anything can be done about it, or whether they have to learn to live with it. They should also have taken steps to reduce the consumption of electricity in their own establishments, which they do not seem to have done.

Beyond the cases in which the government’s own action provokes an adverse public response there is, I think, the fact that we as a people are much too easily persuaded to lose our temper and get angry. We look for elements of negativity in situations that confront us. Furthermore, instead of being modest or sceptical about the validity of our own position and conceding that the other side’s interpretations may merit serious consideration, we tend to be loud and exaggerative in pressing our point of view. Participants in television talk shows all speak at the same time, scream at each other, and do not wish to listen to the other side. It may well be that this inclination to be excessive is at work with those who provoke protest movements and those who organise them.

The writer, professor emeritus at the University of Massachusetts, is a visiting professor at the Lahore School of Economics. He can be reached at anwarsyed@cox.net