Tasks in 2008
THE new year is not yet too old. The nation owes to itself the chore of assessing its past and present in order to prepare for the new year. The year 2007 was chockfull of tragedies, crises and negative developments that have set back people's rights in a significant way. The people are now required to rectify what was done wrongly in 2007, and do better in 2008, especially as the rescheduled election is only a few weeks away.
One more word for 2007. The nation had faced a backlog of unresolved problems accumulated during the 60 years that Pakistan has been around. Apart from all the old, familiar problems, there was the task to evolve a new leadership. In fact, it became blindingly clear that Pakistan needs a new and more adequate leadership, largely during the endeavour of lawyers, judges, journalists and civil society.
While, clearly, a new leadership did emerge, the old leaderships in opposition parties and rulers alike did not accept it. Indeed, these fine individuals were hounded out, sacked and put in indefinite incarceration. The very first task in 2008 is for the people and opposition parties to accord recognition to the status of, and to honour, this new and authentic leadership, and help it to lead the people.
Nothing is more important than striving for the release of these valuable assets of the nation, and restoring them to positions of honour in parties and the government.
What are the other major challenges to the nation that have accumulated and which have not been adequately met by the people? These have been enumerated in this space frequently enough, and need to be tackled with imagination and moral courage. Let's enumerate them briefly again.
On top of the list is the phenomenon of Islamic extremism that has assumed the shape of an ongoing civil war in Fata and is spreading to the rest of NWFP; how does one tackle it? The American and the Musharraf idea of using mainly military force is defective and counterproductive. The much-politicised army has to be sent back to the barracks in an orderly fashion, and the polity demilitarised without any upheaval. Then there are obvious problems of governance, and they are many.
There is the electricity shortage created by the ineptitude and criminal negligence of the military rulers, who have not added one single megawatt of power during the last eight or nine years. Governance in general needs to be improved. It does not involve starry-eyed idealism.
An ordinary democratic dispensation has to be created, in which the people see themselves as the ones who are being consulted, and are allowed to participate in the resolution of the day-to-day problems of society -- from the grassroots up.
There is the old and perennial problem of federalism; the smaller provinces, corresponding broadly to distinct ethnicities possessing common historical traditions, are demanding more provincial autonomy. They demand more than merely ending of the Concurrent List of the Constitution; they want participation in decision-making and actual ownership of mineral resources in their provinces.
This is a problem that cannot be over-emphasised. Remember 1971; it was because of this problem that Pakistan was dismembered, and the potential of this problem for mischief has not decreased with the passage of time.
The new leadership has to be allowed its due place, and unless the nation accepts this new leadership that has so strongly and clearly emerged and gives its due place in major political parties, Pakistanis shall risk the continued all-round stultification. In fact, considering the nature of unresolved major problems and today's chaotic conditions, what is needed is a new social contract that would involve either ridding the 1973 Constitution of the anomalies that various dictators and authoritarian rulers have heaped on it, or writing a new constitution -- which might even be a better idea -- provided the stakeholders stay united.
The fear of opening old debates is now no longer an adequate answer to Pakistan's difficult problems. That opens even bigger debates. One reason for it is that the 1973 Constitution envisages only an amended structure of governance given by the Government of India Act of 1935; it is wholly outdated, conceived as it was by the colonial masters for their own purposes.
For the rest, Pakistanis need a really democratic dispensation and, in any case, the restrictions that have been imposed on the media and the press have to go in to. Gagging measures run the risk of an explosion before long. Less than democratic rulers are being too myopic and imprudent in trying to put the Djinn back into the bottle. The people have to participate in decision-making as well as in implementing those decisions, especially in crucially important political matters as also in development processes.
The nation faces many other serious problems. Chief among them is economic underdevelopment and social backwardness. It requires population control; more and better education for all, especially females; economic development has to be rethought and given specific or concrete objectives that correspond to people's actual need for assured employment for all.
The ambience and dispensation have to be necessarily liberal and inclusive. The society has to tolerate all multi-cultural phenomena, trends and cultures.
Then there is the current foreign policy that has made Pakistan a vassal state of America. Americans are not merely interfering in political matters but are also micro-managing them. They are making not only subsidiary policies but also setting goals for Pakistan to follow. This is based on hare-brained ideas about Afghanistan among Pakistani generals.
Afghanistan is a foreign country for Pakistanis and must remain so. Pakistan is in no shape or condition to correct history's accidents, especially the Afghan state that was; Pakistanis must accept it as it has been and let it remain what it has become for as long as the Afghans themselves do not peacefully and democratically correct or change it. Pakistan ought not to nurse imperial ideas while itself being a vassal state dependent on foreign aid.
An early election impends. That many think it will again be postponed and many others fear that it will be rigged can only be noted here. But the powers that be have to remember that an election, which is not free can cause much more damage; fixing, or again postponing, it had better be avoided.
Pakistan is already in a bad shape, and there are widespread fears of the incipient civil war spreading, implosion, and even of economic meltdown. All these should not be dismissed as negative or unfriendly thinking. The fears are real and are entertained by patriots. Why create other, and potent, causes for more trouble?
Since selecting the parties, which will rule has to be done primarily by the people, let the politicians make their parties more democratic by enforcing regular internal elections and having an elective leadership. These parties must have clear-cut ideas on the major problems that Pakistan is facing. The leadership of the parties must be politely forced to do some research on political and economic matters and come up with their own economic plans.
As of now, who can say with certainty what precisely does PPP stand for? How exactly would PML (N) govern Pakistan for achieving which objectives? And so on for each party. These parties must be urged to have their own think-tanks for suggesting democratic and workable economic and political programs for which the people should vote for them; the intelligentsia should create conditions in which parties make concrete promises to voters, and show how they will keep them. That will be the way voters can vote intelligently for parties.
A real transformation of the parties is called for to make them true instruments of intelligent political change that is also in consonance with popular wishes.
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