The Pakistani state has come to a level of incompetence, corruption and structural paradoxes that define a dictatorial regime. The centrally controlled state apparatus by non-representatives for the last 8 years and their dominance since the creation of the Pakistani state is highlighted by every suicide bombing, militants taking over northern towns, mafia style assassination of the hand picked subordinate of the chief justice, televised state terrorism with a casualty figure of 50+ in Karachi and all of it culminating in the professional assassination of the only princess this diverse land collectively called its own.
The meaning & purpose of the state in this land has not been a political organization based on a social contract but an instrument for capture by the most powerful for the purposes of milking the cow. The current and retired military officer class has done this job best as compared to the civil services and even the political class. It includes the largest or second biggest industrial group, the best developed real estate in the country pseudonym ‘Cantt’ in all major cities and agricultural lands to be watered by World Bank canal projects. During times of direct rule, the serving & retired military officers run hundreds of civil institutions such as the National Accountability Bureau to the University of Engineering & Technology (UET) while in times of power sharing with the political class, they are the biggest proponents of national security based on militaristic terms as foreign arms contracts at least allow for kickbacks. Given that the military budget is not scrutinized by the parliament and is included as 2 line items in the yearly budget, this behemoth is just not ready for accountability.
It is thus not strange that the current military dictator went through three handpicked secretaries (prime ministers) in the last parliamentary term even though the vested interests were cobbled together into a majority party by the military intelligence itself. In the ranks of the military, subordination is an anathema. Thus when the judiciary and the media started to raise the real questions – challenging the military discourse, they were packed up and sent home. We now live in times of no public discourse in the media, hand picked judiciary and thus ‘No Accountability’. The military has moved beyond its dictatorial role. Its industrial and real estate interests, its control of public opinion, its intelligence agents playing the role of political king makers are but vestiges of fascism. One may criticize Musharraf or his political minions but challenging the ‘legal’ but corrupt military infrastructure amounts to treason.
The reportedly cordial visit of Hamid Karzai with Musharraf and Benazir spells that this tragedy could very well be an independent interference with the political destiny of a people. Al-Qaeda, the hypothetical nemesis projected by all states to clamp down on critical expression and to justify own policies has been the culprit highlighted by the Pakistani state less than a day after the assassination. Of course this fits perfectly into Musharraf’s strategy of highlighting extremism and presenting himself as the only savior to the West – ‘God forbid, if Musharraf leaves, the helms of this extremist Muslim nation will be in the hands of gun totting bearded mullahs shouting death to America’. Still, one can not discount that the anger felt by everyone requires certain heads to roll, Musharraf being the one first one on the list.
But the roots of the crises go much deeper than the one word symbolism of the unknown Al-Qaeda. The current tragedy is a culmination of daily brutality of the state faced by the common man. The people so used to political violence that it has become an internalized acceptation and only time will tell if a fallen princess will jolt them out of their sleep. Picking up the historical continuum in the 80s when another military dictator ruled in the name of religion and a superpower funded a global ideology of non-state militancy through the Pakistani intelligence agencies. This was the beginnings of militant religious discourse, drug lords, intelligence agencies and uncountable dollar funds coming together. In Benazir’s words, the 1st afghan war gave rise to three militant phenomena’s. The participating Arabs later came to be known as Al-Qaeda, the afghans fought each other but eventually coalesced into the majority pushtoon group – the Taliban (supported by Saudi & Pakistan) and its nemesis the Northern Alliance (supported by Iran & India) and the Pakistanis were left with a huge infrastructure and groups of all hews under the tutelage of the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI).
This infrastructure prospered even more after the afghan war through the rallying cry of Kashmir, a cause that the Pakistani state with its stress on two nation theory, (the founding ideology of Pakistan based on simplified division of Hindus & Muslims as separate nations) had propagated abound in its 40 year history and which was second nature to state education curriculum graduates. Using the time tested guerrilla warfare techniques of the Afghan war, the state went about opening a new front for the Muslims to fight the infidels while internal Muslim fighting raged in Afghanistan. Soon after one heard names such as ‘Lashkar’, ‘Jaish’ & ‘Sipah’ referring to militias and coaxed in religious discourse. Considering that most of the money during the Afghan war had gone to groups closest to Saudi Wahabi ideology such as the Ahle-Sunnat and the Deobandis of Pakistan, it is understandable that this lead to a violent struggle between the Sunni and the Shia leading eventually to the assassination of 200 Shia doctors during the 2000-2003 years. The state’s behavior is no different now towards civilians as it was when assassinations were at their peak as it was but a price to pay for the military’s strategic depth in Afghanistan and its tying down of Indian army in Kashmir. It was only after 9-11 that the state allowed a more open discussion regarding the intermixing of jihadis in Kashmir, the sectarian terrorists in Pakistan and the Taliban in Afghanistan.
It is common knowledge that this infrastructure includes hundreds of madrassas across the country, concentrated in the pushtun areas, hazara and the saraiki belt. In Benazir’s words, the madrassas are to be divided into two, the political producing the next batch of canon fodder for the controlling party and the religious who for lack of employable skills will either setup a new mosque or become a part of the much touted growing services sector of the economy. Unfortunately the much projected madrassa discourse has become the darling of liberals and the west without a sincere effort to look into factors that have brought it about as well as the reasons why other sections of society have not raised their voice or become organized in the same manner. Are we to believe that only the militant extremist right condoned by the religious right can become active & organized while all other social groups never felt a need for it.
It is thus important to understand that along with the creation of the jihadi infrastructure, the other active social groups in society were and have been clamped down upon. Left & liberal leaning teachers were kicked out of universities, labor unions were banned under previous & current martial laws, restricted by Musharraf through ordinances and their leadership co-opted. Student unions were banned and universities given as dowry to the establishment aligned political parties. What you may have heard of student protests are primarily students from private colleges who are at least free to express their opinion.
In contrast the Punjab University, the largest in Punjab if not the country has been controlled by Jamiat (the student wing of Jamaat-e-Islami, an Islamist party) for the last 25 years. Over this period, freedom of thought and expression has been the main casualty. No student societies or independent student organizations exist in this university of 25,000 and because Jamiat is literally hated by students, there thus exists no organized body to mobilize students on issues of concern. Same is true for Jamiat dominated Science College and Civil Lines College. Among other public colleges of Lahore, Dialsingh and MAO College are controlled by the MSF (Muslim Student Federation, a pseudonym for hired goons for the party in power). In my last visit to MAO College, I saw an election truck inside the college campus being decorated with Musharraf’s party’s stickers. If this seems horrendous, imagine the University of Engineering & Technology, a premiere technology university with 10,000 students which is run by an x-general. Here students can be expelled for wearing a black arm band.
Such goes the reality of this land, where collective unions have been destroyed to bits and not given space to evolve their own thesis. Thus it’s no surprise that lawyers are the vanguard of the movement against military hegemony. They are but one organized group under a functioning democratic structure of Bar Associations which have stayed beyond the dominance of the military. The same can not be said about political parties, most of which are but an outcome of military upbringing. The others instead are feudal in nature as clearly demonstrated by the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) adhering to the will of its departed leader as if the party was her personal asset. It is through this lack of democratic culture pervading even the progressive elements of society that one can understand the impact and consequence of our most dominant ‘madrassa’.
The fact of the matter is that the most powerful madrassa is not in the tribal areas but in Kakul with later polishing of graduates at Rawalpindi and various cantonments across the country, generating military officers brainwashed to believe that they are a creature superior to the civilian, to analyze national security in militaristic and territorial terms, to term civilian prime ministers as threat to national security, to relate with other states through the realist paradigm of zero sum game. The problem is not the existence of this madrassa but of its ruling the state for practically all of its history. Add material benefits and military corporate interests and one can start understanding how accountability through a genuine democracy is the biggest threat to this madrassa. Its 1980s alumni were dollar billionaires and their son’s ministers of commerce and religious affairs in the Musharraf regime. It is but humorous that the US sponsored madrassa reforms worth hundreds of millions of dollars were headed by the son of the Islamist military dictator – the founder of the jihadi structure.
Musharraf may have partly cleansed the military officer class of Islamist elements but as argued earlier extremisms’ genesis and growth is due to a lack of representative government and not vice versa. This regime has not changed the mind set of the officer class that they represent but one of the many bureaucracies of the state accountable to the parliament. Their disregard for Pakistani collective wisdom, hijacking of the state to implement own militaristic national security strategy, subordination of the nation’s interests to super powers for the sake of money and domestic power has lead to militarization of society and has culminated into the professional assassination of an x-prime minister and leader of the largest political party.
The real power struggle within Pakistan is thus not about extremism & enlightened moderation, between dictatorship and voting democracy but between the civilian and the military. In my one & only discussion with Ms. Bhutto in a civil society gathering, I criticized her for not leading the people in their resistance against Musharraf and army rule and instead making unpopular underhand deals perceived as power sharing agreement under the tutelage of the Americans. She did not bother to respond but all her political moves gave importance to a transitional process for the transfer of power through an election however unfair, under no judiciary and a controlled media. She had disassociated herself from the lawyers’ movement calling on them to form a political party if they carried an independent opinion regarding the elections. Her political acumen guided her to the possibility of power sharing within the national assembly and playing her politics there. She even declined when asked to give a public statement on the closing of Geo (a private news channel) by UAE at the behest of Pakistani government stating ‘If I give a statement, they will also shut me down’. With such clipped wings, even this arrangement was betrayed by a ‘religious extremist’ either because she was overstepping the bounds of her agreement or because the agreement itself was not acceptable. The first threatening Musharraf and the military while the second removing vestiges of state patronization of the jihadi infrastructure.
But how can one believe that if tens of intelligence agents are present at peaceful protests of students and ordinary citizens, always trying to get a bit of information, they have no capacity to penetrate extremist networks when they themselves created them in the first place. Recent bombings on intelligence’ own staff points to the patronage of this network at the heart of state apparatus, a power struggle within the regime itself or a staged self emulation to become one of the aggrieved. A regime that does not provide requested security to a national leader, does not conduct requested investigation into earlier try on her life leading to the casualty figure of 150+, lies about the conditions of her death and does not protect the crime site for further investigation makes itself complicit in the murder.
Still one needs to include other state actors in the analysis. If one evaluates the Harriri affair (assassinated in similar conditions), the Syrian army fearing backlash retreated from Lebanon after three decades and soon after Israel invaded to crush one of its last standing nemesis. A similar scenario can not be rejected out of hand today for Pakistan. With complete lack of trust among the PPP and the current regime, a UN probe has been requested. This will remain a bone of contention between the military establishment and the PPP as it gives credence to the military discourse that super powers are out to dismantle Pakistan and take away its ultimate asset – the nuclear bomb. But the real issue with this PPP demand is that it moves beyond the military control of all things significant and thus must be termed unpatriotic. In Pakistan, the actions of the politicians have never been bad judgments but conscious acts of treason while the military follows up on a huge strategic blunder at Kargil with a coup against an elected prime minister.
The continuing struggle has not yet won concrete state reforms but it has broken the military’s conditioned power of discourse. It has also extracted an extremely high price in the demise of the most eloquent and brave democrat. Books can be written on required reforms for this centralized, bureaucratic colonial state structure but the reform process hinges on civilians having the space to conduct them. This means that the military officer class wakes up to the reality that in power, it does not bring this nation security, it does not bring it sovereignty, it does not bring it education, health & energy and it does not bring it prosperity. Instead, it brings militaristic discourse; it brings its own hegemony, it brings the super powers’ interference, it brings continuous death & underdevelopment through lack of clean water and treatment for curable diseases. Unless it understands its own destructive dominance in a strategic sense, its own patriotic dogma and related hegemony as the root of our current predicament, the princess’ assassination will not be the last shot in the saga of betrayal of this tortured land.
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