What is more important for Pakistan, A sham Democracy or a Better Quality of Life ?

 A Disease called Demrocratitis

In the past, lawyers were unleashed to bite whoever comes in their way, pulling oxygen masks from the faces of patients in a Lahore hospital. They were provoked by the doctors, the media reports, who had mocked the lawyers earlier in scathing videos. We do not know the reason for the doctors taking offense though.

Democracy, they say, is better than any other political system. And “the remedy for democratic mayhem is more democracy”. We have all the paraphernalia of a democratic system – parliament, judiciary, executive, and a thriving, conniving, and blackmailing Fourth Estate- the media. For the commoners, there is the freedom to block the roads, rape (especially the minors), loot the pedestrians (and occasionally some banks), attack hospitals (this is a recent sport), etc., etc.

The elite class –media barons and their carpetbaggers, feudal lords, industrialists, politicians, and banking sharks, etc., have more sophisticated pastimes. They have the freedom to launder money, run private armies of goons, do all sorts of jiggery- pokery with bank loans, and make the commoner majority fool in the name of “democracy, religion and human rights”.What more freedom do we want? And what greater dose of democracy is needed to enable the teeming millions, reeling under the grinding poverty, illiteracy, and disease, to earn two square meals a day?

Even during my college days, I used to think that the governments, as they appear to us, are mere façade and the world is actually being run by invisible governments, not only in the Third World countries but also the so-called “Geopolitical aristocracy” symbolized by White House, White Hall, Kremlin, andÉlysée Palace?

During the 60s and 70s, the terms “secret government” and “secret society” were in vogue. I and some students like me were enthralled by the stories about the Knights Templar, Knights of the Holy Cross, Order of Christ, Order of Montesa, Hospitallers, and Freemasons. Their counterparts in Muslim history were the“Assassins” of Hasan Bin Sabah from the Valley of Alamut and the “Kharijites” who emerged in the time of the Right Guided Caliphs. The Kharijites assassinated, besides many other notable Muslims, Hazrat Ali (RA). 

The Assassins held sway during the 11th Century and kept terrorizing the whole of the Middle East for more than 150 years till crushed by the Mongol armies under Hulagu Khan. Thereafter, like the Knights Templar, they went underground. In recent times we hear about the “Deep State” which includes the Freemasons, Wall Street, World Bank, Pentagon, corporate sector, etc.

 In the Third World, the Deep State is symbolized by the civil and military bureaucracy, feudal lords, and other manifestations of the moneyed class. In the US and European countries also the Deep State operates behind the façade of democracy.

Is democracy merely a sport of the rich or it provides a better quality of life? While India, Pakistan, and many other pseudo-democracies swim in a turbulent sea of organized chaos, authoritarian governments in China, Russia, and the Gulf states–to name a few, provide a better quality of life to their citizens. In the case of Iran, another authoritarian state, whereas the quality of life of its people has not improved, the country is certainly governed better than Pakistan. 

Then there are Malaysia and Singapore, two South East Asian democracies that have become Asian Tigers under the rulers who have behaved like despots. I do not suggest that Pakistan should emulate the examples of authoritarian states. My point is that why democracy and dictatorship both have failed in Pakistan? 

We have tried military rule, parliamentary democracy as well as the presidential form of government. All three have failed. The main drawback of parliamentary democracy, in the context of Pakistan, is the blackmail to which the leader of the house is subjected by his own party members. As for the presidential system, Ayub Khan’s Basic Democracies failed because they deprived the politicians, lawyers, and other vested interests of the power to manipulate.

Should we, then, cling to the parliamentary system because it facilitates the politicians in their plunder and loot and keeps them pliant? Perhaps the trappings of parliamentary democracy are a necessary evil which the state should learn to live with. Whether we like it or not, either we should have a watchdog (call it the National Security Council, with teeth) like the Wilayat e – Faqih, as they call it in Iran, or the army should continue to play a larger than life role in the country. The term shogun appeared in various titles given to military commanders commissioned for the imperial government’s 8th- and 9th-century campaigns against the non-compliant tribes of northern Japan. Legally, the shogunate was under the control of the emperor, and the shogun’s authority was limited to control of the military forces of the country, but the increasingly feudal character of Japanese society created a situation in which control of the military became tantamount to control of the country, and the emperor remained in his palace in Kyōto chiefly as a symbol of sovereignty behind the shogun.

Pakistan, as it stands today, is a feudal society where feudalism is slowly transforming itself into crony capitalism. It will continue to bleed till society autocorrects itself.

Saleem Akhtar Malik

13 December 2019

The author is a Pakistan Army veteran who regularly writes on national and international affairs, defence, military history, and military technology. His talks on these subjects are aired on his YouTube Channel "The Observation Post". His blog "Sam1953.blogspot.com" features his articles. Tweets @saleemakhtar53.