Dangerous Old Ladies

In Uncategorized on November 27, 2007 at 3:07 am

VIEW: Dangerous old ladies Feisal Naqvi

The time has come now for the United States to realise that it is the
citizens of Pakistan who are indispensable, not their army. We have lives,
we have views, and until recently, we had rights. If America wants to win
our hearts and minds, it can start by giving a damn about them

Two weeks ago, General Pervez Musharraf imposed martial law in Pakistan
for the second time. The main reason given by him was that the courts were
interfering with his efforts to crack down on religious extremists.

If that reason had been correct, the Pakistani government would have spent the
intervening period happily arresting every religious extremist in sight (and there are
plenty), without fear of an overly zealous judiciary. That has not been the case.

The first mass arrests which followed the declaration of emergency resulted in the
rounding up of 54 people who were attending a meeting in Lahore of the Human
Rights Commission of Pakistan.

The people arrested were neither overtly religious nor extremists. In fact, out of the
54 persons arrested, 24 were women, several of whom were well past sixty. One of
the ladies is the principal of a highly regarded school for girls. Another is an
internationally renowned artist and the former principal of Pakistans leading college
of fine arts. What exactly did General Musharraf think would happen if this
monstrous gathering of old ladies was not stopped? Assault with a deadly handbag?

The men there were no bomb-throwing revolutionaries either. There was a

Cambridge-educated economist, two Cambridge-educated lawyers, a lawyer who is
the son of a retired Supreme Court justice and yet another lawyer whose father-in-
law happens to be a serving justice of the Supreme Court of Pakistan.

These people are not a threat to anyone. Liberal, secular, highly educated and
deeply concerned they are the best this country has to offer. Why then is the
United States supporting a regime that regards these people as a threat?

The average lawyer in Pakistan is no Oxbridge graduate but a liberal and generally
secular outlook is common to the profession. Pakistans founder, Mohammad Ali
Jinnah, was one of the finest advocates of his generation. Ever since his demise
(and the birth of Pakistan), lawyers here have felt a special responsibility in trying to
protect the values which he left to the fledgling state of Pakistan.

In 1968, when General Ayub Khan tottered after ten years of martial rule, the
opposition was spearheaded by lawyers. When Zulfikar Ali Bhutto rigged the
elections in 1977, the opposition was led by lawyers. When General Zia-ul Haq
imposed Islamisation in the early 1980s, the opposition was led by lawyers. In
1995, when Benazir Bhutto tried to stack the judiciary with incompetent cronies, the
opposition was led by lawyers. And six months ago, when General Musharraf tried to
fire the chief justice of Pakistan, the opposition was led by lawyers.

The men and women who lead these protests are not people with cushy lives. Many
of them live lives of abject poverty, scavenging for a handout on a daily basis
among the hurly-burly of lower courts. They have no reserves to fall back on: those
days when they do not find a client are days when their families go hungry.

Once again: why is the United States supporting this regime?

The answer is that the Bush administration has long regarded Pakistan as a captive
client, one in which only the army needs to be won over. This is a dangerous
strategy. The war against religious extremism will be won or lost in the hearts and
minds of the Pakistani nation, not in the hearts and minds of the army.

We hear quite often that the United States has given over USD10 billion to Pakistan.
But where has that money gone? Pakistanis can look all they want but they will find
no concrete evidence of American generosity. So far as the ordinary man is
concerned, there is no hospital, no road, no school and no dam which marks the
benefits received by Pakistan in exchange for its cooperation with the United States.
Instead, a substantial portion of the aid given to Pakistan is re-circulated back to
the United States in the form of payments for new weapons systems. Not only does
this give our generals shiny new toys to play with but it subsidises the defence
industry back in the United States.

The time has come now for the United States to realise that it is the citizens of
Pakistan who are indispensable, not their army. We have lives, we have views, and
until recently, we had rights. If America wants to win our hearts and minds, it can
start by giving a damn about them.

This column appeared earlier in the Daily Times.