Fear and loathing for military coups
Three unrelated stories reported in the mainstream media recently gave me an emotional high — and a low. The first story was about a decision by a court in the Turkish capital of Ankara to indict and charge the leader of that country’s 1980 coup with crimes against the state. Bravo! This was a high. But a sudden low came with a news piece on a tribunal’s decision in Bangladesh to send 90-year-old Ghulam Azam, the country’s most prominent Islamist leader, to jail, pending trial for war crimes. The 90-year-old was accused of helping the Pakistan Army in the 1971 ...
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Who will save democracy now?
I was 15 when Musharraf toppled the elected government in Pakistan. I’m a middle class guy who grew up reading Urdu dailies. I grew up thinking that our politicians are incapable of doing anything good and that the military should govern the country exactly like it does in Myanmar. I grew up thinking that Pakistan and India can never be friends. With time, I started reading publications from different parts of the world. This made me rethink my perceptions regarding democracy. When the elected government of the Peoples’ Party returned to power in 2008, I was as happy as any other ...
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Double standards and the infallible military hierarchy
US President Harry Truman famously placed a sign on his desk in the Oval Office that said “The buck stops here”. Thousands of miles away and some 60 years later, the only message on anyone’s desk appears to be “The buck stops anywhere but here”. Memogate has been an embarrassment for the sitting government, even though the credibility of the memo seems to be shrinking day by day. Meanwhile, the ever-reliable Mansoor Ijaz has become a media darling for his incessant, single-source (at best) allegations that have essentially revealed that everyone in power, elected, selected or promoted, just wants to rubbish ...
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Losing East Pakistan: Lessons we didn’t learn
Forty years ago, Pakistan and Bangladesh became separate countries. They may enjoy good relations with each other today, but it seems that Pakistan has not learnt any lessons from the East Pakistan debacle. After the separation, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto formed the Hamoodur Rehman commission, headed by the then Chief Justice of Pakistan. It was given the mandate to investigate all circumstances and events which led to the disintegration of the eastern wing. The commission submitted its report to Bhutto in October 1974, but the report was not made public. In august 2000, parts of this report were leaked out and ...
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Islamabad diary: Making sense of Zardari’s sojourn
When the coup comes, will it be a silent one or will it, like most coups do, make lots of noise? Is President Asif Ali Zardari in Dubai for genuine medical reasons or is he seeking a safe haven? Is it the army that is gunning for him or is it the Supreme Court, or perhaps a combination of the two? Such idle gossip seems to accompany nearly every elected government in Pakistan but this time there is a difference. Usually the rumours are spread by the military and their cheerleaders in the media. Now, however, most of the coup ...
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How Turkey tamed its generals: lessons for Pakistan
Half a century ago, Turkey’s democratically-elected Prime Minister Adnan Menderes and members of his cabinet were arrested by the military. Menderes was put on trial before a military court on charges of treason and subsequently hanged. Two decades later, Turkey once again witnessed a bloody period of political and social crisis, which had yet again been instigated by a military coup. This time around, the self-proclaimed guardian of self-styled secularism, the Turkish military, changed the constitution giving the generals a free hand in thwarting democracy at their whims. Turkish politicians say enough is enough However, the progressive Justice and Development Party ...
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Democracy: Whose right is it anyway?
I would be surprised if you still have not engaged in a charismatically disingenuous conversation in which a mischievous friend let lose a blasphemous idea, revolving around the topic of whether we, Pakistanis, are ready for, or deserve democracy. Democracy, which can be simply understood as the right of people to choose their leaders. Now some, without chivalry, argue insistently that our country lacks education, maturity, intellect and economic growth levels – typical indicators of a developed nation. Of course, I do not refute the idea that we are a developing nation with abysmally low levels of education and economic ...
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Meeting Musharraf (with 900 people)
On Wednesday evening, the ousted Pakistani president, Pervez Musharraf, sat at a table talking to the British diplomat, Sir Christopher Meyer, and but for the sober glasses of water, the spotlights, cameras and 900-strong audience, the two men could have been having an informal chat. The event was arranged by Intelligence Squared, the London debate forum, and it is the first in their ‘World Leaders’ series of talks. This idea is a new beast altogether – can you clap for a politician you don’t like, laugh at their jokes, even? What if they’re funny, but also responsible for unnecessary suffering? Musharraf ...
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Was a fourth military coup averted in Pakistan?
Hardly. Better still, there wasn’t a coup to start with. Monday’s well-timed meeting between the so-called ‘troika’ – the President, Prime Minister, and the Army chief – is being widely interpreted as having averted a possible collapse of the elected Zardari-Gilani government. There is no word from the military’s media people on the meeting but the president’s media office took the liberty of releasing a statement renewing the commitment of Gen. Kayani, and that of the President and Prime Minister, to defending democracy. If there’s anyone who created a frenzy about an extra-constitutional [read: military-engineered] change, it is the elected government ...
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Go, Musharraf go… once more
October 1 is set to be a momentous day when the erstwhile General Musharraf will return to the Pakistani political stage in a long-awaited and much speculated campaign. Musharraf’s entry into the political arena is exciting news for his new army. This new army is neither armed nor khaaki clad; this army of ‘Musharrafites‘ or ‘Mushies’ for short, emanate from the educated middle and upper class who view him as a saviour from all the ills that plague us today. This new army, primarily Facebook based, is eager to welcome him back into the country citing his previous stint in office ...
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