Daily Times

General Raheel Sharif and the Pakistan army have grown over the years in stature, enough to understand and respect the democratic process. Having said that, the recently attempted coup against the Erdogan government by the Turkish military has had a substantial effect on Pakistan for reasons intricately woven into the fabric of its society. As images of tanks on the streets of major cities such as Istanbul poured in, Pakistanis found themselves in an anxiously familiar position, with flashbacks of 1999 still embedded in the psyche.

However, just when it seemed that the coup had been successful, Recep Tayyip Erdoðan appeared on the screen of an iPhone, and called upon the Turks to come out on the streets and resist the takeover. Suddenly, the visuals changed to Turkish soldiers being beaten by citizens, tanks being blocked by human bodies and police officers arresting military generals. Slowly, Pakistani viewers made sense of the revolt and then the counter-revolt, and wondered: what would we do if the boys of the 111 Brigade show up on the Constitutional Avenue? Therefore, it is useful to know what to do in a coup.

Before we answer the question of what should be done, let’s talk about what will be done. If there is a coup tonight, a significant number of Pakistanis would take to the streets, with celebratory mithai (sweets). As acknowledged by the cricketer-turned-confused politician Imran Khan, if the army is to take over the reins from an inept PML-N government, there would be jubilation across the country. And while Captain Khan has faced harsh criticism for this stance of his, which was quite appropriately widely viewed as paradoxically anti-democratic, he is right. The people of Pakistan would celebrate a coup. They would celebrate a coup not because they hate or are sick of the PML-N government but because they celebrate coups.

The Pakistani nation, or the majority of the nation, does not believe that the democratic forces in this country — mostly for good reason — have the ability to save the country from the brink of an indefinite collapse, while it is believed that the man in khaki has that ability. Especially now when the military has commendably contributed to a sharp decline in insecurity and terrorism, helped the biggest city of Pakistan stand up on its feet, and compelled the Chief Justice of the Sindh High Court to say the words, “All credit goes to the army.” So chances are that you would be part of a huge crowd of people with mithai on the night of the coup. This is what you will do. The question is what should you do?

Stay home. Don’t come out on the streets, with mithai or otherwise. There is no reason you should be expected to come out on to the street to face loaded guns as you defend certain individuals representing respective institutions. This is because these certain individuals –politicians, judges, bureaucrats amongst others — have a history of choosing the “right” side during a coup instead of the democratic one. Time after time, coup after coup, we have witnessed the institutions that are meant to protect and uphold democracy be the first to cave in to undemocratic forces for personal gain.

The responsibility to uphold democracy is not yours. It is the responsibility of parliament, many members of which are the first to join military governments. It is the responsibility of the judiciary, which has repeatedly humiliated the constitution it claims to protect by legitimising military governments. And last but not the least, the bureaucracy, which has considered it a privilege to make tenures of military governments as comfortable as possible. Throughout Pakistan’s history, these three institutions have facilitated coups, at least up to now. It remains to be seen if our institutions are strong enough to stand up to dictatorships now. If by some miracle, however, you do see on your television that the judiciary, which has strengthened considerably over the years, refuses to be part of courts under PCOs, that parliamentarians have put their heads to the tips of the military’s guns as they expect the people to do, and that bureaucrats have left their air-conditioned rooms and comfortable chairs to occupy the roads of the city, and that all these institutions, for once, aim not to do what is ideal for them, but do what is ideal for the people as they vow to do, then and only then, you may come out, and fight for a democracy, which will thenceforth be worth fighting for.

The writer is an Islamabad-based lawyer