Daily Times

A very well known and astute writer, who writes in an English daily, gave his analysis praising the new civil military dichotomy. Of course, with a tilt giving kudos to the uniformed general who has been extremely vital in shaping the new landscape if you will. According to his take, it does not really matter who has the reins so long as action is visible. According to his view, action is what the people desire, demand and expect. I am a fan of this particular gentleman’s style and have read his rather verbose write ups for the buildup, twists and art of storytelling. On views, I often disagree with his assessment and, yes, I have that much of a right.
I briefly tried to engage him on social media and posed logical questions but we had a rather polite exchange and none of us were able to alter our positions. The debate that often takes place at private gatherings, online forums, in the opinion sections of papers or for that matter on social media is the binary between the two entities. Of course, social media has its own universe where people very vocally express their rather bizarre devotion towards the armed forces and the general. Somehow, the measure of patriotism is comingled with the idea of unconditional praise of the armed forces. Sixty-eight years of existence and people still see their ultimate leader in a uniformed man. With utter respect to men in uniform, who are often underpaid and risk their lives for others, this selfless duty does not qualify them for executive office.
I beg to differ with the mindset that literally wants a general to be the executive of the office of the people as well. The two spheres are totally different, have their own respective domains and two different mindsets. Much like an ordinary civilian like me cannot go and lead a platoon of trained soldiers, similarly a uniformed man cannot just doff the uniform and start acting like a politician. The mindset in politics requires a lot of manoeuvring in the area full of gray. The people often confuse this gray with either deliberate wrongdoing or corruption. The gray is basically dealing successfully with varied interest groups and bargaining to get a desired outcome. In people’s business it is expected because opinions and interests are different. Military personnel are not trained nor have the ability to ‘put up’ with such behaviour.
The debate is not what or who is better here. The comparison that is presented very often by opinion makers is on these grounds. It is like comparing two dissimilar entities. If you hold an opinion that discourages military intervention in civilian matters, you are immediately labelled as a traitor. Somehow there is a misconception that is prevalent only in Pakistani folks that their existence is solely due to our armed forces. Had it not been due to their presence, we would have been swallowed up by our pesky neighbours in no time. This is parroted on Defence Day, Independence Day and Republic Day. For God’s sake, have some sense and some self-respect people!
The experiments that we have gone through where the ‘doctrine of necessity’ was used as a do or die excuse, with utter respect to our uniformed men, have never warranted that intervention. Because once you set a precedent, and tend to repeat it, it is hard to get yourself out of that mess. If history is any indicator, the repeated surgical procedure left a bigger hole everywhere.
The passionate argument that people present in which civilians are inept, corrupt and unworthy, and hence the system has to be handed over to a one man hero is very, very poor. The puppets on the idiot box make that pitch ad nauseam, as it gives them a reason for their existence. The argument is laced with the twist that Pakistan is an exception where civilian rule cannot function. The poor people who absorb this mind numbing rhetoric get conditioned subliminally to accept it as gospel truth. The logic here is that as poor, as inept, as corrupt, as inadequate and as spineless as these politicians may be, these are the faces representing a sample of who we truly are. These are people who are chosen by the people. To throw them out is the right of the same people who brought them to power in the first place.
The need for self-accountability by the representatives themselves, the vigilant media, the vocal electorate and the culture of elections and smooth transitions will build stronger civilian institutions. These strong civilian institutions will evolve over a period of time. The people should have the ultimate say, no matter what and no matter how grave the situation may be.

The writer is a Pakistani-US mortgage banker. He blogs at http://dasghar.blogspot.com and can be reached at dasghar@aol.com. He tweets at http://twitter.com/dasghar