Just before he was killed in a
roadside robbery, Uncle Ben had reminded his young and energetic nephew, Peter Parker, of his future predicament in a concerned voice and said: “With great power comes great responsibility.” Poor Uncle Ben left the emerging Spiderman forever that day, but his nephew always kept his last words in mind and abstained from the reckless use of his powers throughout his life.
Theoretically, we also believe in the authenticity of the old man’s advice; yet the ground reality depicts an opposite picture in Pakistan. The practical approach to this recommendation here has essentially become, “With great power comes a greater opportunity to misuse it.” As a result, we invariably abuse our powers, both as a matter of right, and matter of factly. On top of that, in most circumstances, this violation of authority is not even considered illegal or immoral by people, eventually transcending across the board to corrupt every segment of society. This new phenomenon, regrettably, in a way defines our ‘neo-Pakistani’ culture — a culture to bring audacity to our crimes.
In accordance with our new traditions, let us recall that dreadful evening when Pakistanis once more were befooled by the ultimate misuse of power and celebrated the demise of their constitution. They were oblivious of the ‘master plan’ and were invigorated by the idea of accountability across the board, yet again. It was October 12, 1999, and until that day, we had a constitution and we were one nation under the rule of law. Although we were still struggling to become a respectable democratic country internationally, we had recently aligned our constitution to fulfill all the core democratic values and had successfully eliminated the dictatorial Eighth Amendment from it. For the first time, we also had made our prime minister free to make independent decisions; he did not require the approval of the president to continue to work anymore; and the job of the president was minimised to act as only the nominal head of state. Both the major political parties — the Pakistan People’s Party and the Pakistan Muslim League — had provided their unambiguous support to the 14th Amendment that had further strengthened the new constitutional framework. As a country, we had agreed it was nowhere close to being perfect; nonetheless it was an acceptable beginning for long-term political stability and we believed we could resolve the rest of our issues later.
The ‘black’ Tuesday of October 1999 was not a surprise for Pakistanis at all. It had arrived after every powerful president had relentlessly misused his authority to sabotage the political system in Pakistan over the last 10 years. Regardless of their backgrounds — military, bureaucratic or political — all of them misemployed their powers against the interests of the country for selfish or self-righteous reasons. Starting from May 1988 when General Ziaul-Haq had recklessly dissolved parliament for the first time using (abusing) his constitutional powers, the country had been ruled by four elected governments and four caretaker setups. Following the footsteps of that usurper, his successors too dissolved parliaments and accused their respective civilian governments of financial corruption, nepotism and misappropriation. But, interestingly, they were never obligated or interested to prove their allegations. After sacking the prime minister, they would nominate a ‘neutral’ caretaker government; they would consult unofficially (illegally) with the leader of the opposition and get under-the-table approval of the headquarters in Rawalpindi. They would also deliberately, and definitely, ignore addressing the concerns of the incumbent for ‘favourable’ results.
Through their comprehensive planning, they always obtained their target and the opposition easily won the elections to come into power. But regrettably, the buck did not stop even there, and as soon as the new prime minister was sworn in, the president got busy conspiring against him/her as well, finding more reasons to dissolve the newly elected parliament. In this way, the vicious cycle of intolerance to civilian rule continued until the country ultimately lost its path to democracy and the people lost their faith in the transparency of the electoral process. Under these circumstances, the whole nation was prepared for a ‘counter-coup’; politicians were waiting to pack their bags and the people were ready to welcome a new chief executive officer of Pakistan.
Furthermore, even after ruthlessly damaging the democratic process, none of the presidents had the moral courage to apologise to the nation or display any remorse for acting impetuously and selfishly. That is why none of them is looked at sympathetically by the people today; the historians despise them; their close associates disown them; and all of them lie in the dark shadows of political orphanage. Their legacy of consistent misuse of power and conspiratorial politics is therefore condemned at all levels, and is considered to be one of the reasons for the event that took place on October 12, 1999.
The writer is a US-based freelance columnist and can be reached at [email protected]