What the hell is happening in Pakistan?

I suppose it is a curse that some families and countries face--just when everything seems settled, they create new problems on their own and it is crisis all over again.

After decades of turbulence, for all the right and wrong reasons, for the first time ever a democratically elected government completed a full term in office and handed over power to another democratically elected government.  Marking that historic transition, I blogged (which later morphed into an op-ed):

Let us hope that this third attempt will help strengthen democracy in Pakistan, and usher in peace and prosperity to the hundreds of millions of Pakistanis who have been patiently waiting for better days.

But, apparently the politicians decided otherwise.

Despite his deep-rooted Hindu nationalist politics, the newly elected Narendra Modi invited to his inauguration Pakistan's prime minister, Nawaz Sharif.  It provided hope that the siblings could perhaps finally work out a truce.

That was in May.  

"What a difference a day makes" sang Dinah Washington.  Pakistan set out to prove that a lot more can happen in a hundred days!

Pakistan's former ambassador to the US, Husain Haqqani, writes that Pakistan risks anarchy with its obsession over India:

Sharif’s participation in Modi’s inauguration was billed as the first time a Pakistani prime minister had attended such celebrations in India – an opportunity for laying foundations of a new relationship between India and Pakistan. The prospect of a new beginning, however, was soon undermined by incidents of firing along the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir.

Haqqani reminds us that the original idea was very different:

Soon after independence, Pakistan’s founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah had said that he expected India and Pakistan to live alongside each other like Canada and the United States. But as long as Pakistan’s establishment continues to paint India as an existential threat and a permanent enemy in the minds of its people, no Pakistani leader –civilian or military –can embrace the Canada-US model. For now, the two sides will maintain their well-worn pattern of diplomatic engagement interspersed with periods of intense hostility.

The firings across the LoC rubbed Modi the wrong way, and he called off the talks after Pakistan's ambassador to India held talks with leaders of separatists in Kashmir.  It does not take a rocket scientist to figure out that such a meeting will not win brownie points with India's government and, yet, Pakistan went ahead with it?

If that is the case across the border, well, it is worse within the borders!  The former opening blower superstar, Imran Khan, is leading the offense against the government:

Khan, a famed cricketer-turned-politician, and fiery cleric Tahir-ul-Qadri have led massive protests from the eastern city of Lahore to the gates of parliament in Islamabad to demand the resignation of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif

Caption at the source:
Supporters of Pakistani opposition politician Imran Khan attend an anti-government protest
in front of the Parliament building in Islamabad.

Across the border, India canceled the high level talks.  Within the borders, it is no different:

"I have suspended the talks with the government," Khan said. He warned that his supporters would storm the prime minister's office if authorities launched any crackdown. It was not immediately clear if Qadri was also pulling out of the talks.

Because the US government issued a statement reminding everybody that Sharif heads a democratically elected government, Imran, as he is known, is pissed off at the US:

"You like only those governments in Muslim countries that are your slaves," Mr. Khan said in remarks directed at the U.S. "Is there another democracy for you, and another for us?"

This commentary in the Financial Times ends noting that:

In his third term, Mr Sharif has failed to restore the economy to health or end the electricity shortages Pakistanis so detest in the heat of summer. But the government has been in power for only 15 months, and even if Mr Sharif is removed from office, it may not be Mr Khan who replaces him. He may have made his move a year too soon. 

"He may have made his move a year too soon."  That's all there is to such irresponsible political leaders.  In other words, it is a big "fuck you" to the 200 million Pakistanis.  What a curse!

Pakistanis hate the US and love their military

Elections are round the corner in Pakistan; thankfully, it won't be on the Ides of March!  But then, it seems like the country is in a perennial Ides of March, and an election on that day maybe the equivalent of two negatives making a positive!

So, how are things there? (ht)

With President Barack Obama's first term characterized by strained relations between Pakistan and the U.S., more than nine in 10 Pakistanis (92%) disapprove of U.S. leadership and 4% approve, the lowest approval rating Pakistanis have ever given.

Really?  There is still 4% that approves the US leadership? Damn; we aren't doing a good enough job with our drone strikes then.  Oh, wait, what drone strikes?

To begin with, it is one heck of a shaky democracy in Pakistan. To add fuel to that fire, which was not always merely metaphorical, we did everything from drone strikes to, well, remember that crazy shooting incident?  Of course, there is that wonderful line up of prime ministers and presidents accused of corruption.  Should we then be surprised at all with the following?

confidence in the interventionist military -- the organization that has ruled the nation for over half of its post-independence history -- climbed to 88% in October 2012. While support for the military in Pakistan has traditionally been very high, it has regularly met or eclipsed 80% since 2010.The upcoming May elections in Pakistan will be of seismic importance for the future direction of the country and for U.S.-Pakistani relations. 

Oh my!  88% versus 23%.  No contest there!

If elections are held as scheduled in May, and if a civilian government follows, then it will be a historic event--two consecutive civilian governments.  A civil transfer of power.  But, of course, three months to go and a great deal can happen in between.

A few months ago, I wrote that "Pakistan seems to be rapidly fading from our radars":

On our part, here from the US, we ought to cheer these developments, and support them in every possible way we can. We definitely do not want to perpetuate a long‐held sentiment around the world, particularly in Pakistan, that the US quickly forgets as soon as its own selfish objectives have been met.

Oh well ... even more to worry about in that Gallup poll:

Pakistanis now more than at any other time in the past three years feel threatened by interaction with the West, according to a May 12-June 6, 2012, survey. A majority (55%) say interaction between Muslim and Western societies is "more of a threat," up significantly from 39% in 2011. 

Not good at all!

Let us hope that it will be a peaceful spring in Pakistan.

Imran Khan opens the bowling attack against the American drones

A couple of years after 9/11, when I visited Dubai for a a few days, I got a sense of the anti-American sentiments there, which were presented to me in a very unexpected manner.  A young man, perhaps in his late twenties or early thirties, who was a Dubai native, asked me whether I was an American, to which, I replied with a vigorous yes.

"So, you are a terrorist" he said.

I was shocked.  I was caught off-guard.  I had no idea how to respond to that characterization. I mean, where would I begin?  That I hate violence?  That I have never touched a gun?  How could I ever be a terrorist?

He noticed my puzzled expressions, and explained his logic.  "You are from America.  Wherever America goes, there is violence. So, you are a terrorist."

The academic in me appreciated the logic, to some extent.  But, it scared the daylights off the regular guy in me, and for the rest of the stay, I tried to hide as much as possible the Americanisms that I might carry with me.

The US does have a long track record of being the arrogant superpower, which has run many a covert and overt operations that have been violent.  The massively expanded use of unmanned drones in many parts of the world, especially in Pakistan, is consistent with that long trend, even though reports, like this one, question how productive those violent exercises are:

Families are afraid to attend weddings or funerals, it says, in case US ground operators guiding drones misinterpret them as gatherings of Taliban or al-Qaida militants.
"The dominant narrative about the use of drones in Pakistan is of a surgically precise and effective tool that makes the US safer by enabling 'targeted killings' of terrorists, with minimal downsides or collateral impacts. This narrative is false," the report, entitled Living Under Drones, states.
The authors admit it is difficult to obtain accurate data on casualties "because of US efforts to shield the drone programme from democratic accountability, compounded by obstacles to independent investigation of strikes in North Waziristan".
The "best available information", they say, is that between 2,562 and 3,325 people have been killed in Pakistan between June 2004 and mid-September this year – of whom between 474 and 881 were civilians, including 176 children. 

The Pakistani government certainly appears to be tacitly supporting the US drone attacks, while mouthing off anti-American rhetoric every once in a while.  Doesn't help build up the American brand, does it?  And people like me shouldn't be surprised when we are, in turn, labeled as terrorists, right?

The cricket phenom turned politician, Imran Khan, has seized on this as a political issue that can help differentiate him from the rest of the politicians and, thereby, win it big in the upcoming elections.  He is leading a caravan of protesters:

Mr Khan, who formed a political party 16 years ago after retiring from cricket, has emerged as an outspoken critic of drones.
Before leaving on Saturday, he told The Sunday Telegraph that drone attacks were providing a potent cause for the recruitment of militants.
"The people of the tribal areas are the ones who will bring us peace," he said. "It is not going to be the Pakistani military, it is not going to be drones.
"We have drone attacks for eight years and it has just made peace more difficult." 

But, even this peace march can easily become the target of violence--from the Taliban:

The caravan had more than 100 vans and cars when it left Islamabad, the capital, Saturday morning, and steadily grew in size as it made its way across western Punjab province toward South Waziristan, where demonstrators were scheduled to stage a rally in the village of Kotkai on Sunday.
The Pakistani army has control over large sections of South Waziristan after carrying out a major offensive against militant strongholds there in 2009. However, pockets of Pakistani Taliban militants continue to exist in parts of South Waziristan, and it remains a region extremely dangerous for Pakistanis to venture into and off-limits to foreigners....
Factions of the Pakistani Taliban, the country’s homegrown insurgency, have warned that rally participants could be targeted with suicide bombings and other attacks if they proceed to South Waziristan.     
Speaking in Mianwali, a small city 120 miles southwest of Islamabad, Khan told thousands of caravan participants that his “Peace March” will “create a new Pakistan. We are going to tell the people of Waziristan that we did not forget them. We stand with the people of Waziristan as they endure these brutalities by America.”

If Imran Khan is able to get some momentum from this, then it is very easy for his political message to become more and more anti-America itself, which will be a huge tragedy.  What a shame that we have let the drones tell the Pakistanis and the world about ourselves!

As much as I hate violence and wish for peace, I am not sure whether the CODEPINK approach is the best one either:

The American activists — around three dozen representatives of the U.S.-based activist group CODEPINK — along with Clive Stafford Smith, founder of the London-based legal advocacy organization Reprieve, want to march with Khan and publicize the plight of communities affected by the U.S. drones.
Ahead of the march, local media carried reports Friday of alleged suicide bombings planned against the demonstration and a pamphlet distributed in a town along the march route warned participants they would face danger. The main Pakistani Taliban faction issued a statement criticizing the event.
The foreign activists, meanwhile, met with relatives of people said to have been killed in drone attacks. The group also marched in the capital’s Jinnah Supermarket, chanting “Stop, stop drone attacks!” and singing “We are marching to Waziristan.”
One placard said: “Drones fly, Children die.”

We need the protests here in the US in order to try to force a change in our government policies, especially when the drone attacks have been ramped up by a Democratic president.  I don't see how productive and influential it will be for Americans to go marching in Waziristan.

Let us see if drones get any attention at all at the next Presidential debates, which will be about foreign policy.  I am guessing they won't.

I can only imagine that as long as the US engages in such violent acts, and continues to prop up regimes that are brutal to their peoples, we will provide enough and more reasons for them to hate us. 

PS: here is the HW Longfellow poem that the editorial cartoonist is playing with:

The Arrow and the Song
I shot an arrow into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For, so swiftly it flew, the sight
Could not follow it in its flight.

I breathed a song into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For who has sight so keen and strong,
That it can follow the flight of song?

Long, long afterward, in an oak
I found the arrow, still unbroke;
And the song, from beginning to end,
I found again in the heart of a friend.

Can Imran Khan undo Zia -ul-Haq's monsters?

It was the primitive days of the internet back in 1988 and, for all practical purposes, it was still the DARPNnet that was what research universities had made accessible to students like me also.  In those internet-prehistoric times, we relied on groups like soc.culture.indian to get informed about the latest news on India. 

It was through that group that I knew, within hours of the incident, of Zia-ul-Haq's demise twenty-four years ago.

I celebrated.

I never liked Zia.  Primarily because I didn't care for anybody who got into power through a coup and did everything to weaken the democratic institutions and processes, which were weak to begin with in Pakistan.  Further, as a kid, I had a soft spot for Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, and the atrocious manner in which Zia had him tried and executed didn't appeal to the teenager that I was then.

Zia's worst act was his systematic Islamization of Pakistan's society and politics, which has completely messed up the country.  The country's founder, Jinnah, was a westernized counterpart to India's Nehru, and the newly independent country even chose to be under the British crown for a decade, when it became "Islamic" even in its official name.  It took Zia's coup and his evil machinations for religion to enter into the public space in a big way, which then resulted in everything from assassinations to television censorship, all in the name of blasphemy.

The US conveniently made use of Zia and his Islamic allies, and actively supported and financed those fighting the Soviet Union, and the fighters included Osama bin Laden.  The tangled webs we weave!  Jeffrey Goldberg and Marc Ambinder summarized the US relationship with Pakistan really well: "The ally from hell."  There is a good chance that within Pakistan, it is a similar feeling towards the US too!

Now, Pakistan is far from any "land of the pure" and comes across as one unruly place, with political and military leaders who seem to be remarkably messed up. 

The New Yorker asks "Can a sex symbol and cricket legend run Pakistan?"  In profiling the cricket legend Imran Khan, the article (subscription required) notes that whatever the outcome in the elections in 2013 (if there is no military coup before then!) "Khan is accomplishing at least one of his goals, by keeping alive a narrative of change in Pakistan."

I cannot imagine Imran Khan being able to sweep clean Pakistan's politics the way he pulverized India's cricket team time and again.  The few times I have watched him being interviewed, it is understandable why the West finds him appealing.  He is charismatic, talks wonderfully, and seems compatibly westernized.

But, when it comes to the ballot, I suspect that the typical Pakistani, how much ever they idolize Imran Khan for his cricket talent and success, might not vote in huge numbers for his political party and candidates.  As in his personal life, politically too Imran Khan will turn out to be the proverbial guy with whom you have an affair but not marry and settle down for good.

Measure the region’s stability by what’s cricket in Pakistan

With bombs bursting in air and suicide bombers exploding at ground level, Afghanistan continues to be a dangerous place. After eight years of military engagement, we are more than a little behind schedule on finalizing our plans to exit Afghanistan.

The unrest and violence in Afghanistan is intricately linked to Pakistan’s. So, is there any simple metric that we could employ in order to understand whether things are getting better or worse in Pakistan, such that it can then feed into the decision-making process regarding Afghanistan?

Yes, there is: All we need to do is keep track of the game of cricket in Pakistan. As simple as that!

Cricket is played worldwide, mostly in countries that once were Britain’s colonies. In terms of a global following for a sport, cricket is second only to soccer. In the South Asian countries of India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, cricket can, and does, trigger passion among its peoples that can make even the most boorish college football fan here seem very tame.

Pakistan has a rich history of outstanding players who were admired for their skilled art by fans and opponents alike. One phenomenal player — Imran Khan — successfully cashed in his popularity to become a significantly successful politician.

For a number of years, Pakistan and India — both with millions of cricket fanatics — did not play each other because of political tensions. I barely had stepped into my teenage years in 1978 when India and Pakistan resumed playing cricket after a gap of 18 years. Watching those games on television was a transformative moment when it dawned on me that the “enemy” team comprised players who looked and talked just like those playing for India.

It became difficult to understand why the people and cricketers from Pakistan were demonized. Thereafter, it was nothing but sheer pleasure for me to watch the talented ballplayers from the neighboring country.

Those were the relatively calmer days before terrorism became a household word. Yet even as conditions in Pakistan started spiraling down, India and other cricket-playing countries continued to send their teams there, but with increasing levels of security.

No more. Now, no country is willing to visit Pakistan to test its cricket mettle because of the immense security risks.

Pakistan was to have hosted a prestigious international tournament — the Champions Trophy — in September 2008. But one country after another withdrew because of worries about safety for players and fans. It was then rescheduled for 2009, but in a different venue altogether — in South Africa.

Sri Lanka was the only brave country that ventured out to Pakistan to play a series of matches there, perhaps having been conditioned by the 25 years of civil war in the island. This visit in March 2009 broke a dry spell since October 2007, which was the last time Pakistan hosted a cricket team from another country.

In a way, that decision by Sri Lanka immediately provided enough tangible evidence regarding the terrorists’ stronghold on the country. The Sri Lankan team’s bus was ambushed in the city of Lahore, resulting in the deaths of six policemen and injuries to players.

Naturally, the Sri Lankan team returned home right away.

As a result, there is now no team that will dare to visit Pakistan, which is a huge loss for the game itself, and for the cricket-crazy fans there. Imagine how Brazilians would feel if they could not host soccer tournaments and if their carnival were canceled. Double that sense of utter disappointment and frustration, and I think we might get close to understanding the loss of international cricket play in Pakistan.

This yardstick of cricket suggests that normalcy might not return to Pakistan for a while. In that case, it might not be realistic to expect that the chaotic situation in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border areas will settle down any time soon.

Therefore, I am all the more worried that we might be stuck in Afghanistan for many more years to come. And that is not cricket!

For The Register-Guard

Appeared in print: Tuesday, Oct 13, 2009