Any normal person, your average mortal, could have been forgiven for thinking that the in-camera session of parliament was being called to toss some tough questions at the military. After all, it was the army, Pakistan Air Force and Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) caught with their collective pants down by the Bin Laden affair. And the entire world, as a consequence, was laughing at our expense.
Pakistan was always used to being the butt of slander. But this was being the butt of jokes. And as we know, well-aimed jokes are harder to bear than slander.
But in the joint session of parliament there was a turnaround of which the Lucky Irani Circus if not Houdini himself would have been proud. So skilfully and with such finesse was the sitting handled – I would not say manipulated for that would be too crude a word – that Pakistan’s eagle-eyed parliamentarians found themselves questioning not the military but attacking with abandon – you’ve guessed it – the United States. What should have been an inquest thus turned into a festival of injured patriotism.
Indeed, wounded pride and injured sovereignty were the two musical keys pressed the hardest. Anyone looking for an admission of failure, or of passing regret for Osama bin Laden’s embarrassing presence in our midst, would have been disappointed.
Falling pants around entangled ankles was something which seemed to have occurred on some other planet.
This was a bravura performance relying on humility, smiles and honeyed words, but giving way to momentary sharpness when the proceedings so demanded. I am sure Gen Pasha would have chuckled to himself afterwards, his playing of parliament deserving an honoured place in the hall of fame where hang the ISI’s most cherished trophies.
The unanimous resolution passed at the end is a monument to the sense of unreality to which Pakistan’s ruling classes surrender in moments of distress and panic. All anger and denunciation, it talks about revisiting (everyone’s favourite word nowadays) Pakistan’s relationship with the US and not putting up with unilateral military strikes any more. It even talks of cutting Nato supply lines to Afghanistan should the US not respect Pakistan’s sovereignty. All in all, a vociferous declaration of independence directed at the US.
This was on the morning of May 13-14. Hardly had the ink on it dried before Senator John Kerry arrived in Islamabad on May 16 and then the fever which had the military establishment in its grip subsided and reality took over.
Before someone with no official position in the US administration the entire national leadership of Pakistan thought it not unseemly to line up: President Zardari, Prime Minister Gilani and army chief Gen Kayani looking less like angry guardians of injured sovereignty and more like students taking in a tutorial. There was even a statement from the prime minister’s office after the discussions with Senator Kerry, which must be some kind of a first because usually senators and congressmen don’t qualify for prime ministerial statements.
The question is, what was real? The play-acting in parliament or the status of the talks with Senator Kerry? The latter was engaging the entire Pakistani leadership and the leadership was paying close attention to his words. This was one end of the spectrum. At the other end, the Pakistani public was going all berserk about national honour and sovereignty and the army and ISI were exploiting this outrage to cover their exposed flanks. In other words, one dish for the great Pakistani public and another for the demands of the real world.
We are adept at playing these games. But do they fool anyone? More to the point, after the fallout from the Bin Laden affair, when Pakistan’s image and credibility have taken a further beating, does it make any sense to continue to live in a world of make-believe?
Part of the briefing in parliament was almost an invitation to go on the warpath with the US. That there was nothing genuine about this bellicosity was soon proved by the way Senator Kerry was received. The only thing he didn’t get was a military guard of honour. If all this bellicosity is posturing, what do we get out of it?
And now, wonder of wonders, we hear – there being a news item in this newspaper to this effect – that the army wants the media to cool it. After stoking the fires of outraged patriotism, the realisation has perhaps finally dawned that things have been allowed to go too far, and that the spirit of anti-Americanism let loose after the outing of Osama bin Laden needs to be reined in.
Our guardians of national honour and ideology did exactly the same thing after Raymond Davis, first unleashing the winds of disgraced national honour and then when things went too far, stepping in and arranging a settlement, even arranging for the blood money, although you will catch no one admitting this.
Now a repeat of the same performance, albeit on a much larger scale: beating the drums of patriotism after the Bin Laden affair but gradually settling down to a slower pulse rate after the first flush of the fever has subsided. But there is always a cost to pay when such games are played.
Made to feed at the trough of anti-Americanism, the nation’s raw emotions have been played with, giving rise to expectations wholly out of touch with reality. Pakistanis are being made to believe that their country can stand on its own feet and break its begging bowl and that, in any case, the American connection is about to be ‘revisited’… when the plain facts are that any such revisiting, in the real sense of the term, is the last thing on the minds of Pakistan’s governing classes, including the military.
Consider just one item of national sovereignty. Although the parliamentary resolution clearly states that if drone strikes continued, Pakistan would consider cutting Nato supply lines, the uncomfortable truth is that drones have struck even after the passage of the resolution but goods meant for Nato forces continue to move across Pakistan.
The US will listen to Pakistani concerns but we too will have to pay greater heed to American sensibilities. This is the one overwhelming consequence of Bin Laden being discovered on our soil. Whether we like it or not, the war against Al-Qaeda takes on a fresh urgency. And there will be less patience all round to listen to our theories and excuses.
This then points to a conclusion somewhat different from that being fed to the Pakistani public. Far from paving the way for any kind of a declaration of independence, Pakistan’s harvest of embarrassment post-Osama would appear to reduce its options. Why then are the guardians of national security trying to sell a different story to the Pakistani people? Why is the nation being pushed further down the paths of confusion?
Sovereignty needs redefining in Pakistan. More than anything physical, with fixed boundaries that can be traced on a map, it is a mental concept. And the most basic pre-requisite for asserting it is not to give hostages to fortune. Policies and postures which stretch national capacities, go beyond national capabilities, do not strengthen sovereignty.
Our misplaced obsession with Afghanistan compromises national sovereignty. Our blind hostility towards India does the same. Standing up for one’s interests is not the same as the blind pursuit of folly. Our India policy makes no sense and is a drag on all our efforts to make something of Pakistan.
The in-camera session of parliament was a benign charade. The military establishment did not submit themselves to political tutelage. They made a show of stooping only to conquer. But to what larger purpose remains as much unclear as the other items of dogma that make up our bible of national security.
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