The liberals of Pakistan have been a dilemma since General Musharraf’s military takeover in October 1999. Immediately after the takeover the liberal camp split uneasily into two groups. The first group supported, or at least acquiesced into, the new dispensation; the second did not. The argument of the supporters of General Musharraf was that Nawaz Sharif’s government was bent upon passing the Shariat Act which would have made the PM a quasi-religious head, probably called Ameer ul Momineen, and dissent would be equated with heresy and suppressed with religious enthusiasm. Moreover, they said that Nawaz Sharif was bent upon suppressing all the other organs of the state, including the judiciary, which would pave the path to a fascist, authoritarian, regime. The argument of the opponents of the military takeover, who were quickly dubbed as ‘democratic fundamentalists’, was that Nawaz Sharif, an elected PM, could be removed by the electorate. Moreover, what Nawaz Sharif was trying to do---turn Pakistan away from liberal, parliamentary, democracy---had already been done by the military. Above all, they argued, it is the system not the individual which is significant. The democratic system, even if flawed, should have continued no matter what the faults of the government might be.
The dilemma did not vanish over time. It became a schizophrenic split in the Pakistani liberal consciousness. Come Nine Eleven, all pragmatic people breathed a sigh of relief when General Musharraf did not alienate the Americans any further. The bombs which might have fallen on Peshawar kept themselves confined to Afghanistan. But this pragmatism cost General Musharraf the goodwill of not only the religious activists but a large section of other people as well. Everyone felt that Pakistan should have saved itself but, at the same time, shown some independence and need not have helped quite as much as it actually did. Again, the liberals were divided over the fate of Afghanistan. Whereas it appeared morally unjustified for the Americans to bomb ordinary Afghans, it also appeared wrong to keep supporting the Taliban whom, of course, the liberals loathed from the core of their hearts. Again, the pragmatic camp among the liberals either kept quiet or actually approved of the American action against the Taliban government while the ‘democratic fundamentalists’ opposed the American action.
Then came General Musharraf’s referendum for the presidentship and, after a long time, there was some semblance of unity as almost all liberals opposed it. But, again, most objections were to the way the referendum was held and not to Musharraf’s presidentship itself.
Now the liberal camp stands deeply divided once again. The crisis of the Legal Framework order (LFO) is the major problem. The LFO has two ideas which are not in consonance with democracy as it is defined at present. They may be amalgamated together as the idea of civilian supremacy. This idea is compromised by two provisions of the LFO: the presidentship of a serving Chief of the Army Staff; the supremacy of the National Security Council which has armed forces chief as members. The first is less significant because it is related to General Musharraf’s tenure alone. The LFO does not stipulate that future presidents will be army chiefs. The second will really change the nature of democratic rule for ever. If the military is constitutionally empowered to sit in judgment over and above the parliament then it violates the principle on which democracy is based i.e. that the will of the people, as symbolically represented by their elected representatives, is supreme in any political dispensation which calls itself ‘democratic’.
The most vociferous opponent of the LFO is the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), a political alliance of six religious parties. The MMA government in the N.W.F.P has just passed a Shariat Bill. It threatens to pass a Hisbah Bill which may give power to vigilante groups of youth the power to curtail personal freedoms in daily life. It talks of enforcing dress codes on women and Islamizing educational institutions along the lines of the Taliban. In short, the MMA is doing what the liberals have always feared. General Musharraf, much to the liberal’s relief, has warned the MMA against such excesses. This then is the liberal’s predicament: if they support General Musharraf then they are drawn into supporting the LFO and military supremacy. This would be the end of democracy. If, however, they support the MMA’s demands and weaken Musharraf, then the religious lobby will be further strengthened. And if that happens Pakistan would go the way of Talibanization and that will be the end of democracy, and perhaps a worse end than any one of us could have imagined. So, what are true liberal-democrats to do?
It is not easy to suggest a way out of this dilemma. It is easy to be tempted to support personalities rather than principles. However, the problem with this approach is that it does not contribute to the strengthening of institutions or the values which make them work. Indeed, democratic culture has never taken root in Pakistan because of our personality-oriented approach. The religious lobby supported Zia ul Haq, although he too was COAS-President, because he strengthened the religious lobby. Likewise, when General Yahya Khan clamped down in Dhaka there was no protest from either the religious lobby or the liberals (barring a few individual exceptions) against this act. In short, we have supported people not policies; not principles.
While one agrees that there may be circumstances in which it becomes extremely risky to support principles, such circumstance occur only once in a blue moon. One such occasion was when a known fascist party, the Nazis in Germany, was poised to win the elections and one could be reasonably sure that individual freedoms would be curbed, dissidents jailed or hounded out of the country and so on. If on that occasion a liberal was tempted to wish for a military coup to prevent such a catastrophe, one could understand and sympathize with such a wish. However, even in such a case it might have been disastrous to prevent the peoples representatives from taking over. The German army general who might have taken over might have been as bad as Hitler. After all, once the principle of democratic rule is removed, one can only wish that the dictator who takes over proves to benign and not like Saddam or Stalin or some such horrible figure. Supporting undemocratic rule if one fears that a right wing religious party is about to win the elections may plunge the country into a civil war such as plagues Algeria to this day. In any case, before a party actually governs, it is impossible to pass judgment upon it. So, while one can see the risks of supporting parties which are inherently inimical to diversity and freedom, one must keep supporting their right to demand civilian supremacy, supremacy of the parliament and the right of the people’s representatives to accept or reject any changes in the constitution. The choice of principles over personalities may turn out to be a bad choice---only time will tell---but it seems to be more in accordance with the spirit of liberal democracy as we know it than any other choice at the moment.