IS REGRESSION OF DEMOCRACY IN PAKISTAN INEVITABLE—INDEPENDENT-20-01-2012Friday, 20 January 2012

Author / Source : Kazi Anwarul Masud  Why is it that intellectuals like Samuel Huntington and Bernard Lewis who believe in  inherent contradiction between Islam and liberal democracy appear on occasions to be right when the essence of Islam and the origin of Islamic Caliphate reflect people’s participation in decision making is it comparable to Periclian democracy in ancient Athens? The current happenings in Pakistan, the second most populous and the only nuclear Muslim country in the world, where tussle is going on between the country’s elected government and the powerful army   has again brought into focus  the fragility of  democracy in a developing Muslim country.  Apart from the fact that Pakistan since its independence in 1947 has been mostly ruled by the armed forces, the factors now responsible for the disaffection of the army is due to US raid inside Pakistan that killed Osama bin Laden without the knowledge of the army intelligence denting the prestige of the army as the most powerful organ in the country. The memogate that refers to an unsigned document allegedly authored by the former Pak ambassador to the US, now being refused to leave the country, that sought the US assistance in containing the army in exchange for greater cooperation in the fight against the Taliban, and also, as reported by the New York Times, the “  government’s poor performance in the aftermath of 2010  floods which left 20 million people homeless and the nation dependent on handouts from skeptical foreign donors, laid bare the deep underlying tensions between military and civilian leaders”. The latest casualty of army-Prime Minister confrontation has been  the sacking of the Defense Secretary ( a retired three star General close to the army).The Defense Secretary is generally appointed with the consent of the army as the person acts as a bridge between the civilian government and the military. Prime Minister’s appointment of a civilian aide as replacement runs the risk of the refusal by the military to cooperate with the newly appointed Defense Secretary signalling the possibility of a serious rupture between the civilian government and the military. Earlier in the month Prime Minister told a Chinese news channel that the army had acted inappropriately in making its submission to the Supreme Court investigating the memogate by not going through proper channel, an accusation refuted by the army, and a report that the government was considering sacking the army chief and the intelligence chief, denied by the Prime Minister,  that  added fuel to the fire. The latest twist in the  drama is a pro-democracy resolution  adopted by the Parliament  in the face of Prime Minister Gilani’s appeal to the Parliament “to decide whether we should have democracy or dictatorship in this country” and his earlier criticism of the military of being a “state within  a state”.   To the demand by the army chief that the Prime Minister retracts his comments on the army Gilani reiterated his stand by saying that the Prime Minister was only answerable to Parliament and not to any individual. He added “What I said was not an accusation, We want there to be respect for the constitution, rule of law, and all institutions to work within their limits” It is difficult to predict if Pakistan is going for a military take over as the free media, politically conscious middle class, and the international community are most likely to oppose such a move by the army. Already Obama administration dissatisfied with the Pak army’s ineffective counterinsurgency actions against the militants has cut down on military aid to Pakistan. If aid  is reduced in projects meant to make up for budget deficit, remove difficulty in  balance of payment, to meet expenditure on social safety measures  etc then Pakistan economy, already in dire strait may collapse making the country ungovernable and expedite its drift toward a failing state with the longstanding risk of nuclear weapons falling into wrong hands. Such a scenario would be disastrous for South Asia.   But then again if the government is overthrown an alternative government with Parliamentary majority cannot be formed pushing the country into chaos. Any change in the status quo would make American pursuit of war in Afghanistan and President Obama’s plan to withdraw bulk of the troops from Afghanistan difficult to carry out. Besides despite Admiral Mike Mullen’s public denouncement of the double game played by Pak intelligence in supporting the Taliban who attacked the American Embassy in Kabul and Hillary Clinton’s warning to Pakistani leaders of serious consequences if they continued to give refuge to extremists, denied by Pak army and considered an insult, Americans have little option but to rely on ISI (Pak intelligence service) to facilitate their talks with the Taliban for peace in Afghanistan. The Americans have temporarily stopped the drone attacks as demanded by Pakistan that has given the militants an opportunity to regroup, mending intra-militant fences, increase attacks on Pak security forces and threaten NATO forces in Afghanistan. The Western demand to have talks with those Taliban who will renounce violence, accept Afghan constitution, and abide by laws of the land appears to be utopian because these Taliban may be waiting for the NATO forces to leave before they resume their fight to capture power and institute an Islamist state with imposition of strict sharia laws. The question that the secular world has to face is whether in Muslim states religion replaces national identity because religion has both emotional and spiritual content. In Islamic countries one is first a Muslim then a citizen of the country while in countries considered to have entered post-secular age religion does not perform functions of the government and sovereignty lies with the people and not with God- a concept contested by Harvard-Berkley sociologist of religion Robert Bellah(Civil Religion in America) as he argues  that implicitly, and often explicitly,  ultimate sovereignty has been attributed to God by successive American administrations . Overall, however,  the Westphalian concept of sovereignty is being eroded by globalization that creates growing economic interdependence among nations; change in the form of conflict  from inter-state to intra-state by sub-state or non-state actors; and violation of state sovereignty by powerful states if they consider their security interests are being threatened. In such cases Michael Walzer’s Just War principles have been swept away by conditions of realpolitik. The debate over the contradiction between Islam and democracy , in the words of Columbia University Professor Robert Bulliet may be summarized as follows:- "Some of the people who say that democracy has no place in Islam, what they really express is a sense that the word 'democracy' as presented in international discourse appears to be wholly owned by the West. The word itself has, for some, a connotation of cultural imperialism but on more idealistic grounds it makes perfectly good sense to a lot of Muslims. The idea of citizenry participating in government, particularly within Sunni Islam, is sort of a bedrock theory.French social scientist Oliver Roy argues (The Failure of Political Islam) that Islamism is a perversion of Muslim faith into a utopian political movement that would eventually wither away and that Iranian theocracy and Hammas has more to do with nationalism than with religion. In the case under discussion  one should not be disheartened but hope for a democratic solution of the Pak problem with the civilian control firmly imposed over the military whose fundamental duty remains to safeguard the nation from external aggression.  

The writer is a former secretary and ambassador.