Delicious
Digg
StumbleUpon
Newsvine
Facebook
Google
Yahoo
TechnoratiFor anyone marinated in the history of Pakistan yesterday's decision by the military to impose a state of emergency comes as no surprise. Martial law in this country has become an antibiotic: in order to obtain the same results one has to keep doubling the doses. This was a coup within a coup.
General Pervez Musharraf ruled the country with a civilian façade, but his power base was limited to the army. And it was the army Chief of Staff who declared the emergency, suspended the 1973 constitution, took all non-government TV channels off the air, jammed the mobile phone networks, surrounded the Supreme Court with paramilitary units, dismissed the Chief Justice, arrested the president of the bar association and inaugurated yet another shabby period in the country's history.
Why? They feared that a Supreme Court judgment due next week might make it impossible for Musharraf to contest the elections. The decision to suspend the constitution was taken a few weeks ago. According to good sources, contrary to what her official spokesman has been saying ("she was shocked"), Benazir Bhutto was informed and chose to leave the country before it happened. (Whether her "dramatic return" was also pre-arranged remains to be seen.) Intoxicated by the incense of power, she might now discover that it remains as elusive as ever. If she ultimately supports the latest turn it will be an act of political suicide. If she decides to dump the general (she accused him last night of breaking his promises), she will be betraying the confidence of the US state department, which pushed her this way.
The two institutions targeted by the emergency are the judiciary and the broadcasters, many of whose correspondents supply information that politicians never give. Geo TV continued to air outside the country. Hamid Mir, one of its sharpest journalists, said yesterday he believed the US embassy had green-lighted the coup because they regarded the Chief Justice as a nuisance and "a Taliban sympathiser".
The regime has been confronted with a severe crisis of legitimacy that came to a head earlier this year when Musharraf's decision to suspend the Chief Justice, Iftikhar Hussain Chaudhry, provoked a six-month long mass movement that forced a government retreat. Some of Chaudhry's judgments had challenged the government on key issues such as "disappeared prisoners", harassment of women and rushed privatisations. It was feared that he might declare a uniformed president illegal.
The struggle to demand a separation of powers between the state and the judiciary, which has always been weak, was of critical importance. Pakistan's judges have usually been acquiescent. Those who resisted military leaders were soon bullied out of it, so the decision of this chief justice to fight back was surprising, but extremely important and won him enormous respect. Global media coverage of Pakistan suggests a country of generals, corrupt politicians and bearded lunatics. The struggle to reinstate the Chief Justice presented a different snapshot of the country.
The Supreme Court's declaration that the new dispensation was "illegal and unconstitutional" was heroic, and, by contrast, the hurriedly sworn in new Chief Justice will be seen for what he is: a stooge of the men in uniform. If the constitution remains suspended for more than three months then Musharraf may be pushed aside by the army and a new strongman installed. Or it could be that the aim was limited to cleansing the Supreme Court and controlling the media. In which case a rigged January election becomes a certainty.
Whatever the case, Pakistan's long journey to the end of the night continues.
Tariq Ali is the author of many books including The Clash of Fundamentalisms and Bush in Babylon.
© 2007 The Independent
13 Comments so far
Show All"All we have is one worn out, insignificant backwater planet cirling a minor main sequence star of no importance." (- Galen)
- Except to us, of course. Not to seem megalomanic, but the part of 'us' called 'me' I tend to find rather important...
Am I really alone in this? Or can we be so many "me's" feeling our lives are important that we together can make this "backwater planet" a fairly harmonious place to be, and feel to be? In spite of bleak sci-fi scenarious, I still think so.
Remember guys: the main property about the future is that it hasn't happened yet. It's what we do NOW that determines the future. And the future hasn't happened yet.
Pakistan's future is part of our future, too. And that future, as I said, hasn't happened. Yet.
There's something growing to be born, and none of us have seen it born yet. A universal understanding of how mankind should be governed, based on deeply balanced reciprocity. Just as it breaks through, the resistance to that common governance in mutual understanding will appear strongest. That's when the contrast between the old asymmetries and the new balance will be at the starkest.
(Not to sound too panegyrical here, billons of people can die – and are dying - in the process, and limiting that number is still up to US – recalling that we may actually need those people to keep all our lovely systems of trade and production functioning past this transition we're in the throes of. Not to mention how limiting the number of dead will have impact on the mood after humanity stabilizes.)
And then the flower bursts out of the wrecked bud...
ah, your just another jaded cynical cabinet maker in a long line of them reaching out to infinity.
and I'm just another 29 out of an infinite quantity of geoff29s.
Galen's prediction are, of course, well founded. I assume Galen would agree with Jared Diamond thesis so well articulated in Collapse.
Justpainjack: Dude, if you're seein me in a coffee shop, I'd be checkin your cup for CIA issue LSD... *chuckle*
I'm a cabinetmaker...I WORK for a livin.
As for being the prophet of darkness... well...let's just say I am more than a little cynical and jaded when it comes to how we hairless apes have managed to foul our nest.
I read too much history... and every single empire collapses due to one thing. Ecological over-reach. It just happens that this time there is no new frontier to expand to, no new continent to explore and colonise. this is it. All we have is one worn out, insignificant backwater planet cirling a minor main sequence star of no importance.
Geoff29... you had me howling! Prophet of Darkness Galen and I are suffering through the WGA strike to come in a matter of mere hours. We have to write our dystopian scifi somewhere. And Galen, dammit stop stealing my material... I see you on the other side of the coffee shop pretending not to work!
Look to summer 2008, with lots of protests, another staged "terrorist attack" and you will see the justifications that will be used to initiate martial law in the US.
Siouxrose--I agree. I bet Bush is very proud of his General and can't wait to suspend OUR Constitution.
It took a Republican to go to China. It took a Democrat to murder the Social Safety Net. It took a psychotic Republican scion of wealth and privilege, a mongoloid child of Edmund Burke, to shatter the Empire, the United States of AmeriKKKa, and the oligarchy of our fair land - along with everything else. Bravo!
Begin practice saying with me: The Former United States of America.
After that it's all a crap shoot but I would bet on selling the surviving monsters to the ICC for crude & food. And I wouldn't be investing in any IMF loans anytime soon. Unless you're placing Put options of course.
Pieces.
jesus christ, Galen, if things weren't bad enough now even you're turning into a science fiction writer?!
henceforth, Galen shall be known as the prophet of darkness. Galen, what will happen after the dark ages pass in a millenia, they asked?
Regardless of the dark ages, or if I survive whatever horrendous thing is on the bill for next week, or maybe tomorrow, I've really enjoyed the company of everyone here at common dreams! the folks here have made me appreciate better the strange beauty of this particular instance in time, and I feel fortunate to have been able to observe it, as weird as that may sound. the twists and turns. the mechanical bugs. the smiling guy leading us to ruin with every thing he does. even my own idiocy. simply amazing. If I should have to perish or be wretched or worse, I will do so trying to smile/frown/weep at the absurdity of the human condition.
'Time is an illusion, lunchtime doubly so.' - Ford Prefect, 'The Hitch-hikers Guide to the Galaxy'
We are in the final days of the empire. The resources are running out, we are overpopulated, overextended, soul-deadend by violent and degrading 'entertainment', and the governments are bloated with cronyism and greed. Mercenaries are now considered more trustworthy that the national armies, and the vox populi is rising in anger, but cast aside by the despots who lie and murder to cling to power. The wealthy belive they can hide behind their money and mansion walls.
This is not Rome.
There will be no Renaisannce.
The coming dark ages will shatter all that we have spent, mis-spent, the past two centuries building upon a foundation of sand, and oil. Modern technological civilization was a statistical blip, madness disguised as progress.
I gather we are fairly primitive here as well in many ways. When I go out on the roadways, I'm astonished. Yesterday I observed 8 or 9 individual accidents, and today I was subjected to 4 or 5 separate incidents of road rage as I was riding my bike. Can't yall slow down for a second or two and be a bit more careful. Time is an illusion, there's no reason to rush.
Seems in many ways the fore-shadowing (like a movie theater's coming attractions) of what is intended for the U.S. Nothing like seeing your nation's future mirrored in the dark reflection of a more primitive land. Looks like special fun for the ladies!
First!