The Severely Retarded

By Aik Awaz - One Voice

A columnist known for her humor coined the epithet ‘Im the Dim’ for the Kaptaan’ who is currently swaying the masses with his oratory and regaling them with personal anecdotes and revelations about those in the government or those opposing him and his revolutionary ideas for a ‘new Pakistan’. There is no doubt that his charisma and the catchy tunes and slogans are pulling in the crowds but so far there has been nothing said that could indicate that the title of Im the Dim was inappropriate and that actually a great intellect is at work. In fact the talk is of bulldozers tearing down walls, masses confronting those in authority, billions coming back to the country and so on ad nauseum. Except for two or three the other faces on the stage with the kaptaan do not inspire confidence.

   

Fortunately for the Kaptaan those he is railing against are beyond dim. They seem to be retarded. Instead of choosing a team that could govern and gain them credibility they opted to sideline the few talented people they had and brought in mouth pieces to trumpet their nonexistent achievements. No one was surprised when these morons talked themselves and their leader into ridiculous situations. Instead of delivering on governance they totally ignored the grievances of the masses and set about mega projects that boggled the mind. Neither the declining economy nor the precarious security situation fazed these people and nor did they deem it necessary to consult with others-- even ignoring the voices being raised against them and highlighting their follies. Into this widening breach between the government and the people stepped the gallant kaptaan and the result is before us. 

Unfortunately what is visible to all is still not understood by the retarded. Their minions make fools of themselves when they call a clearly visible crowd of hundreds of thousands something ten times less. They raise themselves to foolish levels when a scion of their dynastic political ambitions keeps a crowd of young people waiting for three hours and then starts talking about irrelevant things. Is it any wonder that he was booed off the stage and had to beat a retreat via a back door? How can the leader of a country go abroad without an agenda to justify the expense of his visit? Instead of muzzling their mouthpieces and pushing those into the wood work where they should be, these three nightmares are still doing everything possible to destroy their leader. Not learning from their disastrous intervention in Model Town they let loose a bloated Neanderthal in Islamabad whose fat red face and bulging neck veins will be forever imprinted on the mind as the image of the police top leadership. 

Neither the military nor anyone else needs to move a muscle. The dim and the retarded are exposing the political institution as never before. In fact everyone needs to lie low and let the drama unfold. The trouble is that a nuclear power is getting the image of a politically and economically unstable country with a massive security problem. Many are working to maintain and magnify this image to the world. The feeling on the street is that between the dim and the retarded something has to give and they hope and pray that it is not Pakistan. There are, of course, the optimists who think that democracy is being strengthened without pausing to consider why no one ever took this road to a strong democracy before.

The Cost of Azaadi

By Saman Tariq
ZoneAsia-Pk

There is a famous saying that everything comes with a price; the recent political crisis has already cost Pakistan more than could be bargained for.  Expanded over almost 10 days, the deadlock between two major political forces PTI and PML (N) still continues without any foreseeable resolution.  Where PTI is adamant on their demands, PML (N) has also made it clear that resignation of the PM and midterm elections are out of question.

Amid calls for resignation of the PM and speculations concerning a military coup; political uncertainty is looming over country’s economy. The economic brunt of this political crisis is evident by reports of a 222 points fall in Karachi stock market. In addition to that, traders have also shown concern over the prolonged sit-ins in the Capital and their likelihood to paralyze trade and business activities.  A Business Recorder report highlights the losses of Rs. 30 billion in local trade and businesses over 12 days following the political turmoil. Where PML (N) has claimed a loss of around Rs. 500 billion to the national economy due to these ongoing protests, other projects such as establishing ten coal fired power plants have also been stalled due to disinterest of the investors for the time being.

On international front, with an ongoing military operation in North Waziristan following terrorism allegations by Afghanistan, it is indeed a crucial time for Pakistan. The diplomatic efforts over the past few months and subsequent progress with another neighboring country India have also been halted after India canceled talks with Pakistan, accusing it of meddling in internal affairs of the former. Under these circumstances, when any international support for Pakistan is of high significance, particularly a SAARC member, Sri Lankan President, Mahinda Rajapaksa had to cancel his trip in the wake of current political situation of Pakistan.  Keeping in mind the current international standing of Pakistan, the harsh criticism of the U.S. Ambassador by Imran Khan for meddling into internal affairs of Pakistan is unlikely to have positive repercussions in the long term for Pak-US relations.

This confrontational politics is not free of cost even for the two major parties involved in this crisis. From the decision to carry on the with the march even after announcement of formation of an independent Judicial Commission to probe rigging allegations to their refusal to compromise on any of the six demands put forth , resignation of the PM being the top priority, PTI is on the point of no return .  The pressure of the crowd present at the sit-in to take concentrate actions for ousting of the PM is an added disadvantage as these supporters are also not willing to settle for anything less now, after days of sit-in. The sit-in might be gaining moment; depending on how one perceives it, however people have started raising questions over PTI’s perplexed rhetoric (http://www.zoneasia-pk.com/perplexed-rhetoric-pti/). Their abandonment of KPK is being cashed upon by other political forces in the province, with displaced families and floods taking a toll over other issues.

The government, on the other hand, is at the brink of losing credibility over allegations put forth by PTI, due to their reluctance towards the initial demand of PTI to probe into four allegedly rigged constituencies. The decision to probe into the matter through formation of an independent Judicial Commission is perhaps seen by many as a step too little too late. PML (N) with the baggage of 14 PAT workers killed by police in Lahore is being openly criticized for their dictatorial tactics. Out of other pressing issues, the pressure over federal government to facilitate displaced families is also worth mentioning.  The elders of North Waziristan Agency have shown discontent over the shelter provided in KPK, threatening to stage a protest outside the parliament if they are forced to vacate school buildings.

In the end, both parties are being blamed for negligence particularly in their respective provinces and needless to say, gaining from the loss of both PTI and PML (N), parties such as PPP, MQM and JI have emerged as rational mediating forces in current political crisis.

Another considerable downside of this turmoil has been the plausible space created for the military to exercise their influence, following the political deadlock. Perhaps both parties are relying on the army to exert pressure on the other political force to back down in their favor. Even as the ISPR issued statements over seeking a political solution by the parties involved, there were reports of an agreement between the PM and the military over a shared political space. If history is anything to go by, in civil-military relations, superseding of institutions by any single entity is unlikely to go in favor of the system.

While the talks between PTI and PML (N) have resumed after a standstill, the clash of egos between the two parties needs to discontinue in greater interest of the country. In sincere efforts to end this deadlock, a compromise should be agreed upon between the two, where legitimate demands such as resignation of CM Punjab, electoral reforms, probe over rigging and accountability if proved guilty should be accepted by the government; in return, PTI should withdraw the demand of PM’s resignation and let the due process take its course.  After all, it is high time that some amount of normalcy returns in the country.

Beyond the ‘Revolution’

Tacstrat Analysis

From recounting in four constituencies to an overhaul of the whole system beginning with the resignation of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, our ‘revolutionaries’ seem to have come full circle to 2008. After the recent disclosure by a government official about the recent offer by the military to help the government out of the political mess in Islamabad in return for it not encroaching on the state’s foreign and security policy, one theory out there is that the backers of the ‘independence’ and ‘revolution’ marches could indeed be the security managers of the country, i.e., the military and the intelligence agencies.

It is no secret that the Pakistan Army and its intelligence agencies, by and large, have a hold over the country’s security and foreign policy. The Nawaz Sharif government’s attempt at trying to undo that arrangement, even if it came in the form of a draft of a tentative National Security Policy 2014-2018 in the parliament, might have unnerved the military.

The major point of contention in the draft is the emphasis the government has or had given to reconciliation or dialogue with the militants as opposed to the military’s desire to launch an operation against anti-state militants, in response to the burgeoning amount of terrorist attacks in the country. This was indeed seen with the continuous efforts at talks, by the government and the opposition, particularly, the PTI and the religious parties. Eventually, however, amidst failed talks, that were deemed pointless in some quarters; Operation Zarb-e-Azb was launched in July.

Another conjecture, appears to be the military’s strenuous relationship with the PMLN government, might entail a trust deficit particularly with regards to managing the state in the aftermath of Zarb e Azb. After all, why put so much effort in cleansing a whole region of enemy combatants and partially risk future strategic partnerships with those who have been doing the state’s bidding in the past, when, according to you, those running the show at home seem to be fully capable of messing everything at home and undoing the effort.

Talking about strategic partnerships, Afghanistan may answer part of the puzzle on the foreign policy front. With the drawdown in December this year, Nawaz Sharif’s ouster in Islamabad would mean setting back the diplomatic overtures made to Afghanistan on counter-terrorism collaboration, not that anything was achieved in the recent counter-terrorism talks between the intelligence officials on both sides. From the never-ending Afghan accusations at Pakistan to ongoing attacks being allegedly launched from both sides of the border against each other. It could be that the ruling party could not have been trusted at leveraging a ‘Pro-Pakistan’ post-2014 dispensation in Afghanistan.

Then, there’s India, the cancelling of the talks between the two foreign secretaries and the ongoing cross-border shelling and alleged ceasefire ‘violations’. Back-door channeling, promised by the PM’s of both the countries is gradually taking a back seat, with the present stalemate likely to be the least bad outcome for the medium-term. Lack of progress with New Delhi raises fear for Pakistan’s security apparatus with regards to the former’s future role in Afghanistan, something that is seen as inimical to Pakistan’s internal and external security interests. The ruling government, with its peace efforts, could have been seen as being dismissive of Pakistan’s security challenges in this regard.

It would be too premature to conclude the above conjecture as definite, for now. However, what seems clear is that the military as a whole is apprehensive of the government trying it to rein it in and would do everything it can to retain control over Pakistan’s foreign and security policy, something that it deems essential for the very survival of the state. The ruling government, on its own, is being called out as partially responsible for its own weakened state. One only needs to count all of those with the surname ‘Butt’ who have gained fame in the recent weeks to prove this notion right. Any foreseeable agreement between the government and the ‘revolutionaries’ has to be seen in the broader context of the institutional power politics that could be playing out. At the end of it all, it will be the change or lack of in the share of power between the different institutions that could really tell us about what this ‘revolution’ was in essence.

What has Imran Khan actually done by declaring Civil Disobedience

As soon as Imran Khan announced his Civil Disobedience movement the entire opposition and twitterati erupted into a tirade of jokes asking questions such as, how would PTI supporters not pay GST on milk, bread and other groceries. Or that if they wont pay the utility bills the utility services would be disconnected and so on.

However, none of these so-called intellectuals were able to understand that what this Civil Disobedience movement is aiming to do is declare Nawaz regime a dictatorial regime and hence render all foreign debts that the regime would contract as unenforceable. As, I have already explained that a debt becomes illegitimate if a) the regime that contracts it is despotic and/or dictatorial and b) it was not spent on the betterment of the nation.

The entire long march is based on the premise that Nawaz Sharif and his party rigged the 2013 General elections and hence the regime is dictatorial and illegitimate. Before announcing the Civil Disobedience movement Imran Khan went into elaborate details of how the Sharif has previously used foreign debt to fill his coffers. What Imran was trying to do here was to establish a case that the foreign debts which this regime would incur would not be spent on the nation but would rather be laundered out of the country to power the business of the Sharif dynasty.

In simpler words Imran has told the entire world and specially the foreign lenders aka (IMF, World Bank and Asian Development Bank) that any loans incurred by the Sharif regime would not be enforceable on the future governments of Pakistan. To make it abundantly clear to our intellectual elite, Imran is telling the foreign lenders that if he ever came to power, he wont pay back the loans that the Sharif regime would borrow. This means that the foreign lenders has only one option left before them and that is to decline all future loans to the Sharif regime. Since, the Sharif regime relies heavily on foreign lending to finance its budget, the move would cripple the government and will bring it down to its knees without any bloodletting on the streets.

I once read a quotation that Brilliance hits a target that no one can hit, Genius hits a target that no one can see.

Imran’s masterstroke against Sharif is such an act of genius that the entire nation is unable to see the target that it has hit. All that PTI and its horde of social media jihadi’s now need to do is explain this to the entire nation that:

Since, we consider the Sharif regime as illegitimate, all foreign debts that it would incur would be illegitimate odious debt and hence would not be paid by the future Pakistani governments.

Imran Khan himself needs to do a better job and explain this to the foreign lenders that since the Sharifs always loot and plunder these loans for their personal gains, future PTI/Pakistani government would consider the foreign loans received by the Sharif regime as illegitimate. Once this is made abundantly clear to both the national and international audiences, it does not matter an iota if the civil disobedience movement fails to reduce the amount of taxes collected at the National level. 

FOR PAKISTAN

On A Long March To Nowhere

Imprisoned for refusing to pay poll tax for the Mexican-American War, Henry David Thoreau, in his essay Resistance to Civil Government says: All men recognize the right of revolution; that is, the right to refuse allegiance to and to resist the government, when its tyranny or its inefficiency are great and unendurable.

Thoreau’s work today is considered foundational in providing the ideological basis for almost all revolutions over the past century. Leo Tolstoy, famous for his letters advocating non-violence, cites Thoreau’s work as the grounds for non-violent struggle.  Civil disobedience as a means of protest has been successfully used to force the government into acquiescence. From the Orange Revolution in Ukraine, the Singing Revolution in the Baltics, to Mahatma Gandhi’s Satyagraha campaign in South Africa to Nelson Mandela’s movement against apartheid. Civil disobedience as a form of protest cuts at the very heart of a government – by refusing to fulfill the duties of a law abiding citizen, the protester relinquishes any responsibility or acceptance of the government. It registers the citizen’s protest and in most cases the citizen is dealt with the way Thoreau was when he refused to pay poll tax – through imprisonment. But when the ranks of protesters swell, when more and more people surrender the social contract and refuse to acknowledge the government’s right to override their collective consciousness is when the government is brought to its knees.

When the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf convoy set out to shake things up in the capital, most of them truly believed that they were going to bring the government down with righteous and moral indignation against election rigging that took place on May 11, 2013. However, the convoy couldn’t boast the same numbers as their revolutionary counterpart, the Pakistan Awami Tehreek – imbued with the feeling of divine retribution against the violence against their fellow workers in the June 17 police operation – did. The rest of the 1.8 billion citizens of Pakistan felt relieved that this would all soon be over.

But then something strange happened that could have stopped the PTI in its tracks enroute to the long march – the government acquiesced. By announcing a judicial inquiry to probe rigging allegations, the government swept the carpet from under this party that had by now spent millions of rupees on its campaigns that had culminated in a camp at Zaman Park.

As PTI lawyer Ahsan Awais explained to the Lahore High Court a day before the march was to be carried out: It wasn’t enough that the government had given into their demands, all the preparations were complete and calling off the march at this junction would be a terrible blow to the party’s morale.

The government tried its best to stave off the protest, from cordoning off Model Town to playing PTI’s ally in KP against it, the government had its political tracks covered. What it wasn’t prepared for was Imran Khan’s call for civil disobedience.

The Kaptaan’s Sunday evening speech gave pause to many who had thus far maintained a neutral stance on the long march race.

Before his speech had even ended, Twitter was abuzz with talk of what Khan’s civil disobedience movement would entail.

Khan urged citizens to stop paying their bills and the business community to not pay their taxes. While these indeed are modes of civil disobedience, Khan seems to have missed the heart of what Thoreau meant when he urged people to regain their conscience and take direct action against an oppressive regime.

Khan bases his call on the need to deny the government flow of funds that he said are misappropriated and used for corrupt ends. Once the government is denied its cache of funds, it would eventually be brought to its knees begging for bounty from the populace.

But Khan doesn’t seek reform within the government. His civil disobedience movement aims to overthrow the government, not limit expediency through the government. This is a stark departure from what Thoreau aimed to achieve from civil disobedience.

None of the revolutions quoted earlier adopted civil disobedience as a means towards midterm elections, which is what Khan is gearing for. Using the term revolution as a means to gain political power is not unheard of – just abhorred. Democracy for Thoreau was an enabler of political expediency which ultimately led to the oppression of citizens. In other cases, civil disobedience was called as a means to achieve social justice and political emancipation. The underlying theme in all forms of revolution is emancipation – a concept the PTI’s politics is far removed from.

Khan found himself in a difficult position behind the podium on Sunday evening. He had a fifty thousand strong crowd to control and keep entertained. Four people lost their lives on the way to Islamabad and several fainted from standing for hours in the sweltering heat. Khan had the duty to make it appear that their sacrifices were not in vain. But Khan bumbled. Merely two hours after announcing his civil disobedience campaign, he backtracked on his previous stance of sitting to talks with the government and allowing a judicial commission to conduct an impartial probe into rigging allegations. He announced that Nawaz Sharif would have to step down.

There is a very personal flavour to Khan’s politics. He believes in himself, and himself foremost. He can decry the Sharifs for all their nepotism, but has to answer for the sheer narcissism with which he conducts his own party.

After his abrupt departure from Zaman Park, Javed Hashmi was brought back to the PTI fold not on bald-faced threats about not being able to control party workers but the guarantee that the PTI would consider negotiations with the sitting government. Hashmi’s solitary protest fell on deaf ears as Khan seems to have started a bushfire that does not appear to bode well for his civil disobedience.

PTI’s politics lacks the ideological bent civil disobedience movements are impossible without. For Martin Luther King Jr it was the emancipation of African Americans, for Estonians in the Baltics it was the idea of breaking free from state-sponsored strictures of the Soviet Union, for Mandela it was the apartheid. In this case, its the call for premiership. Not even the Islamic Revolution in Iran, which many look down upon as an oppressive rabble-rousing, saw the Ayatollah mobilise people to earn him the top slot.

There have been serious ideological basis to all revolutions and civil disobediences that Khan has grossly overlooked.

Moeed Peerzada, a political analyst, said this was a tactic to gain international traction for his movement, whereby international agencies would believe that this call would cripple the economy and force the government to give into his demands. Peerzada says that civil disobedience is a tactic that holds much sway in western countries. That Khan’s movement will now gain momentum and shake things.

By giving the ominous warning that two days from now Khan would not be responsible for his workers’ actions, Khan has stacked all of his chips on hoping for a violent confrontation from the state. A bid to gain even more sympathy from international quarters, it would seem.

Unfortunately for the rest of the apolitical populace glued to its TV screens for the next thrilling round of speeches, Khan’s call has come as a letdown. From a man who promised the moon, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa ended up receiving a moon walk. His tactics reveal themselves to be naive and ignorant of how Pakistan’s economy works. The long march might just end up with a long walk back home for Khan and especially his party leaders now left wondering whether they were pulling the cart for the wrong horse. The possibility of a civil disobedience movement in Pakistan has the potential to shake the very grounds of the state. Yet the lackadaisical call to stop paying your bills is only going end up in severed meter connections for citizens already leading miserable lives.

This calls for a rethinking of the role of opposition parties in Pakistan and maybe the possibility of reining in the odd loose cannon.

By Sarah Eleazar
ZoneAsia-Pk