sreena
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In diverse ways, and to diverse consequences, the US has become one of the most enduring domestic stories of Pakistan, central to the many raging debates over the future of this troubled nation.
Even as removed a decision as the summary sacking of General Stanley McChrystal from command in Afghanistan for speaking uncharitably to Rolling Stone about his Washington bosses sets off paroxysms of introspection: Could we do this to our military generals in Pakistan? And we still call ourselves a democracy? Our generals will do that sooner to politicians than the other way round.
McChrystals facile dismissal by Barack Obama widely showcased here as a stellar illustration of the supremacy of civilian authority has come to mock Pakistans long-stymied aspiration for a fuller democracy insulated from the peril of military takeover.
Can we ever hope for something like this to happen here? wondered Najam Sethi, one of Pakistans senior-most journalists in the course of a lively television debate, What is normal to democracies all over the world remains a dream for us. Which politician has the guts to summon a military general and sack him?
If the Pakistani echoes of General McChrystals departure refuse to die, it is probably for good reason. Many, especially amongst the informed elite, have begun to fear the return of the military boot to the centrestage in the name of ending political ineptitude and civilian strife. An unstable ruling coalition whose centre fluctuates erratically between President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousaf Gilani; an Opposition in daily outcry over a range of issues from spiralling prices to escalating bloodshed; a civil society flung helplessly into the pit of ideological and sectarian warring.
The army getting assertive is already a bold buzz. Its first symptom, many would tell you, is that army chief General Ashfaq Kayani has grabbed an extension well ahead of its expiry sometime in August. When reports first appeared of Kayanis fresh lease, defence minister Ahmed Mukhtar responded saying Kayani had neither sought an extension nor had being given one.
Shortly thereafter, they say, Mukhtar got what is known in these parts as a shut-up call. Mukhtar has not spoken in public since; Kayanis extension has become accepted public knowledge. McChrystal should have been a Pakistani general if he wanted to publicly flay his bosses and survive in his job, remarked a Peoples Party leader sardonically. He probably spent too much time in this neighbourhood, he forgot the fundamentals of America.
But it is more than mere envy that the US inspires. The bulk of it is plain hope or plain hatred. The arrival recently of three F-16 fighters from America the first batch of 18 contracted and paid for at the Jacobabad airbase in Sindh sparked more indignation than pride. Shireen Mazari, editor of the rightwing nationalist daily, The Nation, saw in their long-awaited delivery another blow to Pakistani esteem. The F-16s are flown by Americans and remain under American command, he railed, and Jacobabad is verily a US Air Force base, not Pakistani, have we become an American protectorate?
To some here American diplomatic and military presence means the last bulwark against the Talibans military sweep, to others the guarantee of protracted trouble the more the American shadow hovers over Pakistan, the more Islamists it will breed, the more the country will remain caught betwixt contrary fires. If Pakistanis think the Americans have come to their aid, they are mistaken, says Mohammed Osman, a postgraduate student of politics. They are to serve their ends, conducting their war on terror, one day soon theyll fly off leaving this mess for us to sort out, and who will do that?
His apprehensions may not be exaggerated. For somewhere along the fracture in opinion over America lies a silent admission that has begun to worry most middle-of-the-road Pakistanis: that their rulers mandated and self-proclaimed might have given up on the task. We are caught in another moment of dangerous drift, says the editor of a leading daily. It is either the Americans or the Taliban or then back to military rule, it is as if we have given ourselves no government, or if we have, it is not up to fulfilling its obligations. At the littlest hint of trouble, it turns its gaze to America.
LINK-http://www.telegraphindia.com/1100706/jsp/nation/story_12650752.jsp
The journalist Sanskaran Thakur was recently in Lahore.
Even as removed a decision as the summary sacking of General Stanley McChrystal from command in Afghanistan for speaking uncharitably to Rolling Stone about his Washington bosses sets off paroxysms of introspection: Could we do this to our military generals in Pakistan? And we still call ourselves a democracy? Our generals will do that sooner to politicians than the other way round.
McChrystals facile dismissal by Barack Obama widely showcased here as a stellar illustration of the supremacy of civilian authority has come to mock Pakistans long-stymied aspiration for a fuller democracy insulated from the peril of military takeover.
Can we ever hope for something like this to happen here? wondered Najam Sethi, one of Pakistans senior-most journalists in the course of a lively television debate, What is normal to democracies all over the world remains a dream for us. Which politician has the guts to summon a military general and sack him?
If the Pakistani echoes of General McChrystals departure refuse to die, it is probably for good reason. Many, especially amongst the informed elite, have begun to fear the return of the military boot to the centrestage in the name of ending political ineptitude and civilian strife. An unstable ruling coalition whose centre fluctuates erratically between President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousaf Gilani; an Opposition in daily outcry over a range of issues from spiralling prices to escalating bloodshed; a civil society flung helplessly into the pit of ideological and sectarian warring.
The army getting assertive is already a bold buzz. Its first symptom, many would tell you, is that army chief General Ashfaq Kayani has grabbed an extension well ahead of its expiry sometime in August. When reports first appeared of Kayanis fresh lease, defence minister Ahmed Mukhtar responded saying Kayani had neither sought an extension nor had being given one.
Shortly thereafter, they say, Mukhtar got what is known in these parts as a shut-up call. Mukhtar has not spoken in public since; Kayanis extension has become accepted public knowledge. McChrystal should have been a Pakistani general if he wanted to publicly flay his bosses and survive in his job, remarked a Peoples Party leader sardonically. He probably spent too much time in this neighbourhood, he forgot the fundamentals of America.
But it is more than mere envy that the US inspires. The bulk of it is plain hope or plain hatred. The arrival recently of three F-16 fighters from America the first batch of 18 contracted and paid for at the Jacobabad airbase in Sindh sparked more indignation than pride. Shireen Mazari, editor of the rightwing nationalist daily, The Nation, saw in their long-awaited delivery another blow to Pakistani esteem. The F-16s are flown by Americans and remain under American command, he railed, and Jacobabad is verily a US Air Force base, not Pakistani, have we become an American protectorate?
To some here American diplomatic and military presence means the last bulwark against the Talibans military sweep, to others the guarantee of protracted trouble the more the American shadow hovers over Pakistan, the more Islamists it will breed, the more the country will remain caught betwixt contrary fires. If Pakistanis think the Americans have come to their aid, they are mistaken, says Mohammed Osman, a postgraduate student of politics. They are to serve their ends, conducting their war on terror, one day soon theyll fly off leaving this mess for us to sort out, and who will do that?
His apprehensions may not be exaggerated. For somewhere along the fracture in opinion over America lies a silent admission that has begun to worry most middle-of-the-road Pakistanis: that their rulers mandated and self-proclaimed might have given up on the task. We are caught in another moment of dangerous drift, says the editor of a leading daily. It is either the Americans or the Taliban or then back to military rule, it is as if we have given ourselves no government, or if we have, it is not up to fulfilling its obligations. At the littlest hint of trouble, it turns its gaze to America.
LINK-http://www.telegraphindia.com/1100706/jsp/nation/story_12650752.jsp
The journalist Sanskaran Thakur was recently in Lahore.
