M B Naqvi

The writer is a well-known journalist and freelance columnist

mbnaqvi@cyber.net.pk

All the talk now is of the aid America is going to provide or help obtain from others. There is familiar emphasis on common interests and values between Pakistanis and Americans as of yore, especially about democracy. The recent state visit to the US by the President of Pakistan was a great success, or so we are told by official publicists. But the point to ponder is about the meaning or extent of this 'success': whose success it is and who gets what from this visit? Also relevant is the query about the future: how will the political and economic life of the country fare after this renewal of the old American connection?

Let's not forget there was a definite disconnect between the US and Pakistan's policies. The highest expression of that falling out was seen on March 25, 2001 when US President Bill Clinton visited Pakistan for just over four hours but how? The way he snubbed the CE and his government was notable; but the lesson he read to the Pakistanis in his televised address from PTV was unexceptionable from a democratic viewpoint. From that point to the recent visit of the same Gen Pervez Musharraf is instructive.

Is all the past dead and buried? It would be odd if this were so. After all, this renewal of closer ties was the result of what was really an ultimatum from the most powerful government. That Musharraf's decision to give in was right -- because the course of action by Pakistan, the bone of contention, were inherently unwise and wrong -- is the redeeming feature of Islamabad's current policies. But who can find it amazing that the Americans are still wary and are taking precautions in dealing with a regime that is the handiwork of the same generals who were the initiators of all that the several American governments have disliked.

This caution is writ large over what the packages of aid and cooperation that the Bush Administration is supposed to have given. Indeed it looks as if that the quantum of aid was further pruned as a result of the new misgivings resulting from Daniel Pearl's abduction from Karachi. A lot of comment in the press has noted that the wells of American generosity are running low and the quantum of aid falls short of earlier expectations. Much of this is a regrettable manifestation of the dependency syndrome that has come to shape the thinking of the establishment types in this country: they judge the success of a ruler only in terms of how much aid he or she can manage to bring - no matter if the aid adds to the debt services burden with its higher rates of interest. It does not occur to them that Pakistan, as a self-respecting nation of 144 million, should act in accordance with a democratic philosophy of its own in both external affairs and domestic matters, including the management of the economy. Would public policies in Pakistan never be conducted with dignity and independence that are informed with democratic aims and values?

Let us briefly note the earlier differences with the US -- and indeed with much of the west. The generals had fomented, encouraged and aided Islamic extremist parties and groups. These were even helped to set up Jihadi outfits. It was all in the name of Kashmir Jihad. This was wrong and dangerous. Introduction of the gun, circa 1990, in the otherwise non-violent protest movement of the Kashmiris that started in 1989 was unfortunate. The net result of the violent Kashmir insurgency is the tragic deaths of 70,000 young Muslim men, with India showing few signs of fatigue. Kashmir Valley is not an inch closer to Azadi - whatever that implies -- and no end to oppression and suppression of Kashmiris is in sight.

Whoever may have actually started the violence in Kashmir, Pakistani generals cannot escape responsibility. Mischief lay in their theories of Pakistan's defence having become wholly invincible with the acquisition of nuclear capability. It allowed the generals to do what they pleased in Kashmir and elsewhere; all who supported the generals and were in their good books felt emboldened. Insurgency in Kashmir could only make sense on the assumption that a protracted period of strife would weaken India's occupation Army and destroy its morale. At that stage, Pak Army would intervene to administer a swift and telling punch and that will be that. Thanks to the Bomb India cannot repeat what it did in 1965. That was the basic safeguard (deterrence).

Well, the events since Dec 13 last year have shown that nuclear deterrence has worked neither for India nor -- and more importantly -- for Pakistan. India intended, or might intend again soon enough, to invade Pakistan with wholly unclear objectives. Pakistan's nuclear arsenals are not reason enough to hold it back; so says the new official Indian thinking. In point of fact our government's unending pleas to all foreign Toms, Dicks and Harrys to mediate and persuade India to begin military withdrawals and start talking may be a tactic to win brownie points. But it is also obvious that all their policies have run into sand.

Jan 12 speech of General Musharraf was late by two years; he should have begun with some such thing. The earlier policies -- total reliance on the Bomb, encouraging the insurgency in Kashmir, not adopting a peaceable policy on India and, above all else, encouragement of religious fanaticism while always looking for foreign aid in the economic sphere -- were wrong. They need to be given up altogether -- at least now.

Few democrats welcome total, or near total, reliance on the US either for national security or for turning around the economy and to make it more productive. No foreign power can be expected to provide Pakistanis security. Nor can they be expected to ensure economic development with a humane face, all the current talk about poverty reduction notwithstanding. Self-reliance is unavoidable if we aim at democratic freedoms, including jobs for all, at least in theory as a start. In basic policies, the central purpose and the preferred means have to be the people of Pakistan.

A return to democracy -- without any adjective at all -- is only a preliminary step. The purpose, apart from an all time preoccupation with being free, should be to reconstruct the economy. Its purpose has to be democratic: to ensure gainful employment to all able-bodied men and women. If jobs for all is too much to achieve in a short, measurable time, let the state accept the legal liability to pay unemployment allowance, no matter if it is small to start with. Politics as well as the economy, including its development planning, have to be participatory and people-centred. The country needs an assurance that it has made a clean break with the bad past.

What cannot be welcomed is the kind of role the US played in the past, now that the friendship with it has been renewed. The US has to answer for many evil things and trends that were started as a result of that connection. This is no place to go into all the history. But Pakistanis would be foolish to forget how the 1950s coterie that cornered power, comprising Ghulam Mohammad, Iskandar Mirza, Ch Mohammed Ali, Gurmani and Ayub Khan, secretly negotiated American support and aid for all they were doing. Later, the US role in the coups d'etat of Oct 1958 is now easy to be traced; at all events it was the full US backing and underwriting of Gen Ayub Khan's dictatorship that made it last over a decade. Washington would have sustained Gen Yahya Khan also if only he had not been so politically foolish.

The Americans began by happily upholding Z A Bhutto's populism, and would have gone on, if only he had not disobeyed them. They chose to make him a 'horrible example'. Zia, who never deviated from the CIA line, could last over a decade again. His legacy may be excoriated today but, in his hey day, all establishmentarians were exceedingly happy and Islamic withal. In the succeeding 13 years of manipulated democracy American ambassador was regularly treated as the Viceroy by both Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto. Many Pakistanis talked of living under a condominium of the US, multilateral agencies and Pakistan Army Chief.

Pakistan stands at the starting point of a new long march under American leadership. The government run by Gen Musharraf is one of the better things to have happened to the White House. But what about the common Pakistani? We ordinary folks can only hope that President Bush's pledge to stabilise Musharraf Presidency -- and not Pakistan -- and his demanding and getting the assurances that Musharraf will stay on to see his reforms through is not a replay of Dulles' determination of giving permanence to Ayub Khan's rule. Bush's interest in the upcoming Oct polls is welcome. But it is not enough. The US too has to assure Pakistanis that it will not go on always foisting dictators on them. Pakistanis need friends; they have had too many masters.