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S U B C O N T I N E N T A L D R I F T
PR Made Easy
Popular misconceptions--not democracy--failed Pakistan
By APARISIM GHOSH
October 28, 1999
Web posted at 1 a.m. Hong Kong time, 1 p.m. EDT
Talking about Pervez Musharraf's coup with an Australian businessman, I was struck by how easily the Pakistani general has been able to convince the international community (with some notable exceptions) that he did the honorable thing by evicting an elected leader, Muhammed Nawaz Sharif, and installing military rule in Islamabad. My companion pointed out that Sharif, having himself circumvented democracy by castrating the presidency and fixing the judiciary, deserved no pity for being ejected in an undemocratic manner. He added that many Pakistanis, by most accounts, seem to prefer dictatorship to democracy.
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"Who are we to impose our Western values on an Asian country?" he asked. "Who are we to impose democracy on the Pakistanis when it clearly isn't working for them?"
The dictator's propagandists have clearly done an excellent job, at home and abroad. They justify Musharraf's rule by pointing to Sharif's misrule. But my Australian friend is wrong on three counts.
First, democracy is not a Western value. This is a widespread misconception, shared by Westerners and Asians alike. Democracy is like common sense: it's universal. Nobody invented it, and nobody can claim ownership of it. That the West has a longer experience of democracy is incidental--and might not be entirely accurate, either. Historians say some small principalities in the subcontinent during the time of the Buddha elected their "kings." But that's not the point: the idea that people have the right to elect their leaders (and hold them accountable) is as much Pakistani, Chinese and Saudi Arabian as it is American, British and French.
Second: nobody imposed democracy on Pakistan. Democracy can't be thrust down the throat of an unwilling nation. Military rule, on the other hand, can only be established by force, as it has in Pakistan, time and again. If Musharraf believes he is the solution to his country's problems, then he should have resigned from the army, joined politics and sought a democratic mandate to rule. That would have been the brave, correct way to go about it. Instead, he chose to force himself on his people.
Third, and most important: we don't KNOW that democracy doesn't work for Pakistan because it's never really been tried. Remember, this is a country that has been ruled by the military for more than half the years of its existence. And when it has had civilian governments, they have always had to work under the thumb of the armed forces. So those Pakistanis who say military rule is better than democracy don't have a basis of judgment.
On the other hand, we know full well that military dictatorships DON'T work for Pakistan. Generals Ayub Khan, Yayha Khan and Zia ul-Haq all held power for extended periods--each longer than the truncated terms of civilian prime ministers Nawaz Sharif or Benazir Bhutto--but these military governments were either incompetent or corrupt, or both. There's no reason at all to believe that Musharraf will do any better. That he is now promising to clean up the country and eventually return it to democracy is neither here nor there. Despots everywhere begin their rule with such assurances. They rarely deliver.
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