How democracy can be sustained
By Ghinwa Bhutto (Daily Dawn November
15,2003)
When Pakistanis were given a chance for democracy for the first time in 1970, they
exercised their constitutional rights and elected a government that steered the country on
to the path of progress, prosperity and sovereignty. Clearly, then, the task of
democratization in Pakistan is not unknown to us. However, the task that seems to be at
hand is how to sustain democracy, especially after the October 12 coup of 1999, an
unwelcome occurrence in this day and age. Is it that history repeats itself or is it the
rulers who repeat themselves, consistently failing to understand the reason behind the
failures of their predecessors?Not a single empire, with all its military might, whether
the Roman, the Arab, the Mughal, the Ottoman, the British, the French or the Russian, has
ever succeeded in maintaining its absolute power over the people. Nevertheless, none
relinquished their colonies of their own accord. They had to surrender in the face of the
steadfastness of the people and the people's desire for freedom and justice. Hence, the
cyclical nature of history.
Today the principle of absolute power or of empire seems so archaic when contrasted with
the people's evolution. The conquests of Afghanistan and Iraq are akin to the conquests in
the Middle Ages. Even the means of war have relatively "shocked and awed" in the
same way as the catapult or the gunpowder when they were used for the first time in the
battlefield. The technology of the tools of death and destruction evolved with the
resistance of the people. The bigger the resistance, the deadlier the technology. The
'daisy cutters' used in Iraq and in Afghanistan were never meant to destroy the armies of
those countries - armies that had ceased to be a threat, thanks to numerous UN resolutions
in the case of the former and to the absence of an actual army in the case of the latter.
Those bombs were made to match the power that the people displayed in the streets of New
York, Washington, Bonn, Sydney, Rome, Paris and London in their protests against the wars.
The enormity of the bombs matched the enormity of the Empire's fear in front of the
people's resistance.
Furthermore, the Empire today is no more able to exploit by proxy. In the past 20 years or
so, native informants serving the Empire in the newly "decolonized" nations have
been able to rule and exploit on its behalf.
Today, they cannot cross any more the line defined by the Egyptian journalist Mohammad
Haikal as the line of what is "sacred and taboo", a line that has been drawn by
the people's resentment of their rulers' gross involvement with western governments.
Therefore, the American army's aggression in the region must be read as a sign of
political defeat in front of the peoples' power, disguised by the deafening sounds of war.
The cold war between the USSR and the USA dragged the then newly independent nations into
an arms race that even the Bandung declaration could not avert. The two superpowers of the
'70s gave generously in terms of military equipment to all the new nations in order to
keep the proverbial strategic balance of power.
Our nations dipped into that generous arsenal and we became the battlefields, the soldiers
and the laboratories of the conflicts of the cold war era. On the periphery, Germany,
France and other developed nations provided us with uranium and technology to make nuclear
reactors and power plants.
We were consumed with the idea that we had secured our future with a well-equipped army
and with a great infrastructure, imagining that we had set in motion the wheel of progress
and that nothing could ever reverse it.
The loss of that era's great leaders like Gamal Nasser, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Soekarno and
Tito hit us with the harsh reality that their achievements could be taken away or reversed
with their death. The arsenals that were meant to safeguard our independence and give us
our "strategic significance" fell into the hands of new masters. The pygmies who
replaced those political giants were self-serving and without any vision that could lead
their nations safely through the treacherous paths of the neo-colonial era.
The journey of capitulation seemed without end. Economically and militarily, we were
tripped of any semblance of independence. The people-oriented economies and power projects
that were initiated during the times of the socialist leaders were compromised to fit
prematurely into the new system of free trade.
The people suddenly realized that they did not have the power to guard the accomplishments
of their populist governments. They could sustain neither democracy nor progress since
they were still dispossessed, still poor and still deprived.
When we stood up against the Empire, we inadvertently adopted its strategies in engaging
in an arms race empowering our armies before empowering our people - as if our opposition
to the Empire was not out of our belief in the principle of justice but rather out of our
jealousy of its military might.
"Nuclear deterrence" and "balance of power" are imperial concepts.
They are tools to insure the supremacy of an unjust economic order that is always in
search for new markets to increase its riches.
Alas, we are not partners in this unjust economic order. We are ingredients. We are
victims. We are its targets.
When Zulfikar Ali Bhutto tried to build a nuclear deterrence in order to give Pakistan
what he thought would be a sense of sovereignty, he was toppled and executed as "an
example" for all those who would try to follow in his footsteps. Nevertheless, 20
years later we tested the bomb and now our discourse on nuclear deterrence is tolerated in
the intellectual milieus and the military think-tanks of the United States of America.
That is because the nuclear plant of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was substantiated with a
political vision of a united developing world and with economic policies of self-reliance.
Within his vision of deterrence and balance, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto's bomb was not even
remotely similar to the one we have today. We have become today a ghost lurking in the
shadow of the American nuclear arsenal.
In the nuclear community we are at the tail-end of the scale of deterrence. How does our
deterrence (two tests) measures against the United States' 1030 tests, Russia's 730 tests,
Britain's 45 tests, France's 210 tests and China's 45 tests to date (Arms Control
Association figures)?
How effective is our deterrence towards our neighbour India (three tests) where neither
the standards of distance nor of time apply? Furthermore, if either one of us attacks the
other, we will have a revolution on our hands for at least half the victims will have
relatives on the other side of the border.
During the Afghan crisis, we had zero deterrence in front of Bush's offer to be either
with him or against him. The people were told "we had no option." We are a
country of a 140 million people, we had 140 million opportunities to opt for other
options. Only if we were an empowered 140 million.
The army that has attacked Afghanistan and Iraq is not the army of the United States of
America, it is the army of the corporations of the United States of America. What is our
deterrence in front of these corporations and their satellites - the WTO, the IMF and the
World Bank?
How can we deter them from imposing cruel and untimely free trade conditions on us and
from depriving our economy from development spending? How can we make them accept our
priorities?
But, then, what determines our priorities? Our arsenals, our nuclear programme or our
hunger? When our hunger and deprivation determine our priorities, and our economy becomes
people oriented, only then can our democracy be sustained.
When our people are empowered to make laws, to make budgets, to dispense justice, to hold
their police accountable, to defend their country, to determine their priorities, only
then will our democracy be sustained.
The Empire has been defeated in Vietnam, Algeria, Lebanon and countless other places not
by military supremacy but by the supremacy of principles and determination of the people.
Today in Iraq and in Afghanistan, a "prehistoric" hand grenade or a
"primitive" human bomb are shaking the Empire beyond belief.
We will never be able to match the military supremacy of the West. The time and the
opportunity to do so have long gone. We will never achieve military supremacy over India;
neither will India ever achieve military supremacy over us, as long as we are customers of
the US military.
But we can achieve economic supremacy. Because the infrastructure of a good economy is the
people, and in this we are supreme. The micro economy of 140 million people makes a macro
economy.
The first task in the formation of democracy would be to bring back some direction into
the lives of our people. A direction that has been lacking and replaced with personal
agendas of the few instead of the concerns of the many. To sustain our democracy, we must
invest in the guards of democracy, the people, who are the only legitimate source of
power.
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