Born-again Muslims
The government of Mian Nawaz Sharif recently moved a Bill in the National Assembly (NA) for the 15th Amendment to the Constitution (popularly known as CA15). Certainly the government could not have chosen a worse time to launch another initiative. On a number of major fronts, the Mian Nawaz Sharif regime has been facing disaster, starting with one certainly not of its making. It is incumbent on any government to maintain control over the tension level, each major initiative has raised apprehensions as well as the stakes, polarising society along the way at a particularly critical time in our history. Has anyone in the regime’s camp heard of such a thing as a “trial balloon?”
A number of major contributing factors encompassing decades of bad governance and malpractice went into the economic crisis that we were immersed in at the beginning of May 1998, culminating in the hands-on looting of the public exchequer during the Asif Zardari-Ms Benazir regime circa 1993-1996. Despite widespread institutionalised reforms and the putting in place of supervisory controls by Mian Nawaz Sharif’s economic team, the economy continued to deteriorate but displayed some early indicators of possible recovery. Then came May 8th and 11th and our world changed overnight. Suddenly we were under immeasurable domestic pressure to counter the Indian blasts and under severe external pressure not to go ahead with a response. As we stood between the devil and the deep sea, the Indians launched a most vicious propaganda campaign, designed to rub our noses in the dirt, to wreck the nation’s morale, “to win a war without bloodying swords,” to quote Sun Tzu. The proliferation of vitriol decided our May 28 nuclear response at Chagai, we were left with no options but to either “eat humble pie” or to “eat grass.”
It seemed we had no contingency plans in place despite the wealth of advice available on courses to follow and consequences thereof. The freezing of Foreign Currency Accounts (FCAs) was necessary in the circumstances but the methodology/terminology used was a major mistake. This instituted a panic, exposing our foreign exchange cupboard as being bare and without recourse to regular inward remittances that were the backbone of our economy. An erratic course thereafter has sent us into a flat spin, only our much-berated parallel economy keeping us afloat. As was to be expected, as a part of the US-led sanctions, the IMF held back promised tranches, deepening our economic miseries. Most of the blame was left at the doorstep of the prime scapegoat, the Federal Finance Minister Senator Sartaj Aziz, a loyal soldier of PML(N) who chose to give his views (and objections) in private rather than public grandstanding, also choosing from time to time not to implement the more radical of instructions given in the heat of the moment. In contrast Mr. Hafiz Pasha is a rubber-stamp who will hasten to do his master’s bidding. One doubts also that the Governor State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) Dr. Muhammad Yaqub will last much longer, as a self-respecting human being of some consequence he has done a remarkable job of keeping us afloat. In the absence of focussed direction and/or a commitment to certain basic reforms one can only hope and pray for a miracle. As yet the economy has not hit the streets, when it does anarchy may well result. Despite the many mistakes and the adverse foreign economy environment, the regime still comes out narrowly ahead.
The Kalabagh Dam announcement without arranging a broad consensus was mind-boggling. Mind you, the Dam has to be built but the political fallout should have been calculated and avoided. The net result has been that in spite of the necessity for building the Dam, elements opposed to the unity of the country have joined together with saner factions in a joint opposition to the Dam. The task has now become much harder with separatists in the Provinces of NWFP, Balochistan and Sindh having a field day sowing enmity against the larger Province, Punjab. On the plus side, the PML(N) is far better off without ANP because that alliance was muddying their ideological content.
PML(N) never really had a government in Sindh. What they have is a puppet on a string in the form of Liaquat Jatoi who dances to the dictations of the PML(N) coalition partner, MQM. For its part MQM was content to let the CM have the pomp and glory (and his two close aides “Brothers Nazirov” their cut in everything under the sun) while in fact the MQM ran the government to the exclusion of all the other ethnic communities. Karachi is Pakistan’s economic and industrial capital as well as its only really functioning port city. After Gen Babar cleaned out terrorists in late 1995, the city enjoyed a modicum of relative peace in 1996-97.
However in 1998 we are back to square one, with dacoities, car snatchings, kidnappings and assassinations going hand in hand with an unofficial urban civil war raging between the two factions of MQM, everyone and his uncle in the crossfire, literally and figuratively. Karachi needs firm handling as well as democratic rule, particularly for Local Bodies where at the grassroots level there is a leadership vacuum. Unless there is meaningful people participation in city governance, Karachi’s problems will continue to escalate, the permutations and combinations of Sindh Assembly notwithstanding. Why are we persisting with the Quota System? PML(N) has generally been handling the situation in a mature manner but bolder steps are necessary to curb the rot because if Karachi goes up in flames, can Pakistan be far behind?
The Taliban now effectively control 95% of Afghanistan, with both emerging opportunities and deep rooted problems. The biggest problem is with Iran, a traditional Pakistani ally with whom our relationship has gone sour over the Taliban. The best solution would have been a negotiated peace and a coalition arrangement comprising all the factions in Afghanistan, that route has become infructuous. We should reinforce the efforts for mutual accommodation, urging the Taliban, as the victors to be magnanimous in dealings with their opponents. We cannot afford to lose Iran, we cannot afford to alienate the Taliban. One believes that Senator Sartaj Aziz as Pakistan’s Foreign Minister understands this enigma and is looking to solve the issues within very restricted parameters.
Where Mian Sahib’s aides seem to have badly erred is taking on press freedom needlessly. Mr. Irshad Ahmad Haqqani and Dr. Maleeha Lodhi have their own views, I may not agree with all of them but I will always defend their right to express them as they think fit. If newspapers are cowed down by the government, whatever little of accountability is left will go out of the window. One does not know Haqqani too well, but as for Dr. Maleeha Lodhi, other than being one of the leading lights in journalism in the country, she has been the most outstanding Ambassador that Pakistan has sent to the US for sometime. She welded a disparate Pakistani community together on a bipartisan basis and brought intellectual depth to all our discourses with the world’s remaining Super-power. She used the fact of her female gender representing an Islamic country to extremely good effect, making it an asset of some consequence. Her advice has to be taken with value, not rejected as unnecessary criticism.
Which brings us back to CA15! To start with let us not have any controversy over the fact that it is in fact the Quran and Sunnah that rules over all the laws of the land, Pakistan was created on the basis of Islam. However recent political, economic and religious happenings both within and outside the country have made the issue far more complicated and potentially explosive. There is a broad mass of the people who do support the government’s initiative in principle, what they are not comfortable with is the timing and the motivation. There are misgivings also due to patent misinterpretation but the colour being given to oppose the Bill is wrong. How can we as Muslims militate against anything derived from the Quran and Sunnah? There may be parts of the Amendment that can be debated (and even amended) so that no part of the community feels that the Bill can be used for discrimination against them in any manner, whether they be minorities or women. Again this fault is not so much in the content, which may need some adjustment, but in the timing and the method. As for the detractors, they believe that the government is filibustering to get out of a tight political and economic situation, that the government’s risking of a social explosion does not justify putting the whole concept of Pakistan in danger and that by doing so Mian Nawaz Sharif is displaying dangerous irresponsibility. The PM cannot be accused of straying from his vision, what he can be faulted is for the force-feeding of his vision onto the nation without giving the intelligentsia and the masses time to absorb the full ramifications. Some leaders are very impatient, Mian Nawaz Sharif more so than others. As the elected leader, he has a right to try and change the status quo in Pakistan. Let us debate CA15 with logic and maturity, honing the clauses to our satisfaction. Let us not be blinded by opposition for opposition’s sake.
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