Passage to Nowhere
De-Tararising Pakistan
Military regimes in this country have a triple choice of acts to follow, the Ayub, Yahya or Zia role models. Or they can do the smart thing, be selective about what is good for the country from all three models and shun what is bad. Ayub and Zia took the manipulative route to extend their respective tenures, in hindsight Yahya probably should have manipulated the elections to maintain the unity of this country. The Yahya model was easily the best with respect to governance but he gambled free and fair elections against the country’s future and lost, the good points of his regime have been long forgotten. Ayub’s formula was indirect elections through an 80,000 strong electoral college, while Zia, more of a hands-on politician, mastered the art of manipulating a few hundred parliamentarians. Except for a profound belief in God, Zia never meant what he said and never said what he meant. Both the dictators enjoyed favourable international environment, reasonably good economies as well as having their considerable military outlays shored up by countries that had a self-interest in doing so, at least so long as it suited their geo-strategic grand designs.
Lowering the boom
US President Bill Clinton barely escaped conviction by the US Senate after he was impeached by the US House of Representatives over the Monica Lewinsky affair. Before leaving office, Clinton entered into a plea-bargain with the Special US Prosecutor confirming he had committed perjury, accepting being barred as a result from practicing as an Attorney for five years. This compromise was to avoid further prosecution (and persecution) at the hands of his zealous detractors after he left office, or so he hoped. Unfortunately he did not do his cause any good in the last days of his Presidency by, viz (1) seeming to take more gifts and furniture from the White House than was his by right and (2) the pardoning of fugitive US commodity trader Marc Rich. Gifts and furniture are a matter of simple accounting, anything in excess can be returned or the US Government will be reimbursed accordingly, the Marc Rich pardon is more of a problem. Outgoing US Presidents have the prerogative to pardon a short list of those who seem not to have been fairly treated by the law or have served enough time in prison to justify early release. The underlying premise is that there should not be any “quid pro quo”, the pardon should not seem to have been “sold”. Marc Rich’s ex-wife Denise donated US $ 1.3 million since 1993 to the Democratic Party and US$ 450000 to the proposed “President Bill Clinton Library” in Arkansas. Clinton has shown enough resilience in the past to be nicknamed “the Comeback Kid”, but faces a bipartisan lowering of the boom by those who hate him, joined this time by some of his friends and allies aghast at what seems to be virtually a “bribe”. “Baywatch” may have run its natural course on TV, the “Clinton Years” show no sign of abating and may outlive “OJ Simpson” yet.
Davos days
This year the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Annual Meeting 2001 urged participants to “Sustain Growth by Bridging the Divides”. Olivero Toscani produced a stark and remarkable documentary as a graphic reminder of what the divide is, images of modern technological advances, space travel, aircraft, computers, etc superimposed by the drawn and haggard faces of the hungry, under-nourished, emaciated and the diseased, moving the assembled hard-bitten and (even some) callous to tears. To quote Dr Klaus Schwab, “business has to make a special contribution to the effort to establish a world where everybody — each global citizen — can live a dignified existence”.
The reaches of democracy
The general perception about what’s been happening in the US of A since the Nov 7 Presidential Election is that it’s bad for the US and bad for democracy. One daresays that in the first flush of the confusion that followed the divided count, that perception stayed with most of us. Four weeks later, with the endgame in sight we come away with a far different perception, despite the travails the rule of law prevails in a civilised society. A recent cartoon said it all, a contested election in Russia would have had tanks coming out in the streets to influence the outcome, in Sierra Leone machetes and knives would ensure the result, but in the US an army of lawyers waded into the breach. And what a contest for democracy! With 50 million voting for each candidate (with about 3 million lawyers probably on either side) across the length and breadth of the land, the battle finally raged in three Counties in Florida (Palm Beach, Miami-Dade and Brawar), slightly more than 537 votes separating Bush from Vice President Al Gore. The Democrats waged a last-ditch guerilla warfare, their wild card is to try and to toss out 25,000 absentee ballots in Seminole and Martin Counties. That would erase about 8,000 votes for Bush and hand the Presidency over to Gore. All the pillars of democracy, the legislature, the judiciary and the administration, are inter-acting with each other in a contest where there may have been technical irregularities, no hint of fraud or intent thereof. Strident voices on the extreme edges notwithstanding, Republicans and Democrats have remained civil to each other, never even raising their voices in Court. Even on the streets protest has been muted, the odd exception notwithstanding. This speaks volumes for a real democracy, a rare privilege in this world of the unhampered right of vote for every individual citizen.
Bush or Gore?
By all accounts this is the closest US Presidential race since 1960 when Richard Nixon conceded defeat to John F Kennedy despite lingering doubts about Mayor Daley of Chicago managing a strategic “switch” of some votes (Third World-style) to the Democratic candidate. Based on the polls about popular votes to be cast, Texas Governor George W Bush seems to be still ahead, but in the matter of electoral college votes, it could well be very, very close. The US President is chosen not by adult franchise but by the electoral votes of each State and these differ according to the population. While Bush is expected to carry most of the States, he is not expected to win in New York (33 electoral votes) or California (54), which between them represent almost 25% of the electoral votes needed to win. What is very surprising is that despite the fact of brother Jeb Bush being the Governor, he will probably also lose in Florida (25 votes), Pennsylvania (23 votes) is too close to call. Bush may well win in almost 35 of the 52 States (i.e. about 2/3rds) but could still fall short of the 270 electoral votes needed to win the US Presidency. If colour coding would be used, the coasts would be primarily Democratic while the US heartland solidly Republican. On the other hand Vice – President Gore, striving to be his own man by distancing himself from US President Bill Clinton, if not from his achievements as a President, has major, major problems convincing even the Democratic vote to turn out. To add to that, Ralph Nader, standing as an independent may take away at least 3% of the votes. In any case former Reformist Party candidate and founder Ross Perot has endorsed Bush. In what may be a stinging slap to any home-boy, Gore may well lose his home State of Tennessee to Bush.
Intent and credibility
Given that military regimes are not in fashion in the New Millennium, the Chief Executive’s “live” presence in New York was a success by itself. Staying at home when 150 or so of the world’s leaders were assembled for the UN Millennium Summit would have been a disaster, force-multiplied by the massive anti-Pakistan propaganda unleashed by India. His absence would have been exploited as nervousness in facing the “free world” averse to giving “legitimacy” to a military regime. The democracy practiced by leaders of more than two-thirds of the nations attending the UN Summit is a sham. We are neither hypocrites in posing to have “democratic credentials” nor hypocrites in accepting them as “democrats” knowing them to be otherwise. Not only did the CE address the assembled leaders from the UN pulpit, he met a dozen plus leaders despite the heavy agenda of a host of Heads of State and Government running free in the few square miles of Manhattan. Apparent from the world media attention, including breakfast meetings at the “Asia Society” and the “Council of Foreign Relations”, no social ostracism, of the nature that the malicious one-page Ads planted by the Indians in prestigious international newspapers sought, happened. This undercut the credibility of the “anti” campaign, the motivated were left with very little to try and build a mountain out of a molehill.
Adjusting “our principled stand”
A week long “senior” envoys conference started a couple of days ago in the nation’s capital. Among the dozen or so envoys taking part are Ambassadors Maleeha Lodhi (USA), Shahryar Khan (France), Riaz Khokhar (China), High Commissioner Jahangir Ashraf Qazi (India) etc. To quote an unnamed source, “It will be a unique occasion in a sense that it will provide ample opportunity to the Foreign Office and the envoys to re-orient the foreign policy. We are endeavouring to turn the foreign policy from a somewhat poor vehicle to an efficient vehicle to achieve results,” unquote. The “seven” (after the CE’s annunciating of a seven-point agenda SEVEN is somewhat of a magical number in Pakistan) includes (1) peace and security in South Asia (2) Kashmir (3) terrorism (4) CTBT (5) enhancing Pakistan’s image abroad (6) economic, trade matters and (7) domestic issues.
Track 3
On July 1st and 2nd, THE NEWS, with the support of UNDP and CIDA, held a SOUTH ASIA MEDIA SEMINAR for “a free, fair and vibrant media” in the MARRIOTT in Islamabad. Print and electronic media persons in a good number from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal took part in the event at the end of which a draft resolution outlining the objectives of a “South Asian Free Media Association” (SAFMA) was approved, with only one dissenting voice and that also not on the thrust of the declaration but adjusting a couple of phrases here and there. Bhutan and Maldives are far behind the others in development both of the print and electronic media, as such their absence was not felt. One must note that the representation from Pakistan was not as broad-based as it should have been, one would have been far more satisfied if the other big newspaper Groups had participated. The 3-member Committee for Pakistan in SAFMA is thus not really representative of the majority of the print-media.
South Asia – The media and conflicts
South Asia was a region of endless conflicts between the various configurations of races and religions before the British started their rule in India after the Battle of Plassey 1757. And that is to be understood because two great religions struggled for living space (lebensraum). Internecine conflicts continued during the minority rule of the British period, local animosity was mostly focused on the British Raj, symbolizing the third great religions stamp on South Asia. Since the British departed in 1947, the conflicts have been more defined, some have even gone beyond the South Asian parameters eg the border problem between India and Burma as well as Burma and Bangladesh, the Afghan conflict, etc..
Challenges, opportunities
The stopover in Kuala Lumpur on the way to the Asia Society’s 11th Annual Corporate Conference in Shanghai was exhilarating. Malaysia is both an occasion for euphoria and depression, sheer pride in this Muslim and Asian country having achieved so much in so little a time, a numbing depression following the realisation that we have been left so far behind as a nation. Contrary to what is propagated in the western media about widespread demonstrations in the streets due to Anwar Ebrahim’s incarceration, there was not even a hint of protest. Even his die-hard supporters admit that protests are very much confined to a small area in midtown Kuala Lumpur by a very small number of people and that too on days that the former Mahathir ally makes a court appearance. Perceptions mostly being influenced by what the western media dishes out to us, the absence of anarchy that is supposed to have engulfed Malaysia was a surprise. Anwar Ebrahim is not even a topic of conversation. The ruling party elected to go to the polls in the face of dire predictions by the western media, even though it lost some ground it only proved that the elections were transparent and that democracy must remain the ultimate arbiter of what is right and what is wrong. Literacy level does play a huge part in achieving political maturity and Malaysia has invested billions in education. Having written an article entitled “Mahathir the Magnificent” sometime back, it is a matter of the greatest satisfaction to note that there is nothing to suggest any subtraction from that well deserved epithet. Transforming a diverse and divisive multi-racial society into one great melting pot of economic and social emancipation deserves far more!