With Musharraf’s days in office now numbered, folks have been taking stock of his time in office and what the future holds for Pakistan. Amardeep’s piece talks about the New Guy coming in and raises the disturbing possibility that he might be too much like the Old Guy. Not Mushie but even worse, the guy(s) he replaced. And thus, the potential that Gilani is just the latest in a long string of popular leaders who’ve made up Pakistan’s checkered history with Democracy.
“A military dictatorship is a military dictatorship, and a democracy is a democracy. And the latter is always automatically better than the former.” …or is it?Via 3Quarks, I came acros an excellent piece from S. Abbas Raza titled “Defending Dictatorship: Another View on Pakistan“. Raza’s article takes a provocatively contrarian view of what’s possible in Pakistani politics (as opposed to what’s desirable) and readily recognizes the limits of dictatorship –
A military dictatorship is a military dictatorship, and a democracy is a democracy. And the latter is always automatically better than the former. It is safer to agree with this statement and to look at every particular complex political situation through the lens of this cliché than to risk having one’s liberal-democratic credentials questioned. But as a friend of mine once remarked, “All arguments for democracy in Pakistan are theoretical. For dictatorships, the greatest argument is the actual experience of Pakistani democracies.” Very similarly, another friend recently commented that “There are of course no theoretical arguments for a dictatorship, only practical ones.” In the case of Pakistan, the last two civilian democratic governments were sham democracies, and while I by no means support everything Pervez Musharraf has done, especially recently, there are various things for which his government deserves praise.
So if we’re going to assess Mushie’s government, we’ve first gotta make some of the criteria explicit. Francis Fukuyama, Fareed Zakaria, and a host of other “center-right”commentators (audaciously) assert that the final, universal answer to social stability and productivity are the 3 core pillars of Liberalism, Democracy, and Capitalism. These provide a great place to start…
While Democracy and Capitalism are pretty self explanatory to most, Liberalism is the most difficult to succinctly define. While not entirely accurate, one short hand definition is that it constitutes Rule of Law for the common man — e.g. that he is able to go about his affairs in an orderly, peaceful way without undue interference from either the state or other individuals. While Democracy is about telling the Government what to do, Liberalism is about what it’s never allowed to do. It’s the ultimate limit on mob rule and tyranny of the majority.
The question is emphatically not “was Musharraf Good?”On these 3 fronts, how does Raza assess Musharraf? Well, clearly, Democracy was NOT a hallmark of his regime. But Raza notes, Mushie’s regime was responsible for solid gains on both the Capitalism and Liberalism fronts.
Capitalism Before Musharraf –
“Pakistan stood at the brink of political and economic disaster [following] Years of mismanagement and outright pillage.
Capitalism After Musharraf –
“By 2002, Pakistan’s foreign currency reserves had risen from a few hundred million to $8.5 billion. That year, Business Week declared the Karachi Stock Exchange the “Best Performing Stock Market of the World.”…Pakistan’s economy has grown by more than 6.5 percent per year since 2003. While income inequality has increased somewhat, poverty has declined significantly.
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p>Liberalism Before –
…Members of the National Assembly (MNAs) of all parties were being bought and sold like pork futures, switching parties on a weekly basis. Sectarian violence was epidemic, crime was at an all-time high, and religious extremists were gaining ground. In a 1998 survey, Pakistan was identified as the eleventh most corrupt nation in the world, sitting uncomfortably between Latvia and Cameroon. All this in the nuclear-armed, sixth-largest country of the world.
Would most of you rather raise your family in election-less Dubai / Singapore or recently-electioned Pakistan?Liberalism After –
To confront the endemic and systemic corruption in the country, Musharraf set up the National Accountability Bureau (yes, it makes for an unfortunate acronym) to investigate charges against various bureaucrats and others, and put the incorruptible Lt. General Syed Tanweer Naqvi at its head. In addition, he assigned army personnel to be present in civilian government offices where the public could previously not obtain service without paying huge bribes.
…When I visited in 2004, a friend showed off his new driver’s license to me. But you’ve been driving for years, I said. Yes, he replied, but it used to be easier to pay off the cops if they stopped you than to pay the exorbitant bribes at the Motor Vehicle Department
Therefore, the question is emphatically not “was Musharraf Good?” In the implicit rules of Morality debate encoded in that question, a single stain is often enough to say “no” and Mushie’s got stains-a-plenty. (For ex., there’s no shortage of Lawyers and Judges who have a dissenting view of his Liberalism; for now, however, lets think about it in terms of the guy trying to run a kebab stand or trying to get a drivers’ license…)
Instead the question is “was he better than the alternative?” And at least in Pakistan, and particularly at the time of his ascendency, Musharraf’s a convenient proxy for the choice between [Democracy] and [Liberalism + Capitalism]. Other nations like Singapore, Dubai, and many Western nations prior to their current incarnations were (comparatively) Liberal, Capitalistic, but not necessarily Democratic. Putin’s popularity in Russia may perhaps be another example of a society choosing the fruits of Rule of Law and consumer Capitalism at the expense of latitude at the ballot box.
Put another way – would most folks rather raise their families in election-less Dubai / Singapore or recently-electioned Pakistan? The immigration flows and waiting lists present pretty dramatic evidence.
I think the rationale for this can be found in thoroughly operational grounds. For most normal peeps the majority of life’s questions aren’t about noisy, hyperbole-infused elections but instead day to day issues about earning money at the job, spending it at the shop and low level functional use of government services like the DMV. And on that basis, Mushie’s apparently done pretty well.
[related – Abhi’s previous “Defense of a Dictator” and my “Pakistan as Illiberal Democracy” posts. Nope, I didn’t get into Afghanistan here… that’s a long post for another time… 
]
MNAs of all parties were being bought and sold like pork futures
Raza ought to know that there will be no buyers of pork futures in Pakistan! Folks would prefer to raise their family in the US/Europe where individual rights matter. However, there are barriers to entry/exit. Framing the question as either benign dictatorship or fledgling democracy as a validation for dictatorship is incorrect, in my opinion.
But then a majority people of Pak are not as impressed with Musharaff. So where is the question of him being better than previous leaders?
Even assuming what all you said is right, it’s not as if Musharaff is good because he is a dictator or previous governments are bad because they are democratically elected.
first (or among the first five)! but seriously, the same argument has been used to support the stalinist dictatorship [the period of the fastest economic growth in the Soviet Union, which propelled it almost to the ranks of the “first world” from an agricultural backwater] in the past. This is however, not necessarily an argument against dictatorship, but merely seeks to demonstrate that it is almost impossible to give a “value-free” answer to the question raised here. Peoples’ ethical commitments are invariably going to dictate the argument, so I would balance pure utilitarian considerations (where the utilitarian outcomes themselves are defined very narrowly–you can, after all have many different kinds of utilitarian evaluation–, as in the article linked)with other criteria. For example what the author of the article basically argues is that Musharraf was (disproportionately) good for the middle class. Think about those poorer pakistanis whose livelihood depended on party patronage (ugly, I know, but again I am talking about the relative gains, among only two possible options). I would need far more evidence that the Mushy govt. was good for all pakistanis across class, ethnic, or religious lines, than the author even begins to provide.
Vinod — Excellent. A great argument in favour of the continued rule of Field Marshall Ayub Khan, circa 1968.
Thanks anyway.
also a really strange–outlandish even–definition of “liberalism” is implicit in this whole paragraph….
What an insightful post. Yes Musharraf has been so great for Pakistan, under his leadership Pakistan has gone from a corrupt country run by sleazy politicians to a haven of peace and prosperity and is next only to Iraq as a symbol of hope in the Arab-Muslim world.
Is this Sepia Mutiny or am I reading The Onion?
hey guys – keep the comments insightful / constructive rather than insulting…
Sorry if I have offended anyone’s sensibilities but to suggest that Musharraf has been good for Pakistan (or a lesser evil at the very least) is laughable unless you consider being known as a terrorist haven is sign of a well governed country.
9 · Yogi said
The alternative is not between Pakistan-as-it-is and a “well-governed country,” but rather between Pakistan-as-it-is and a failed state, possibly run by said terrorists. And, yes, viewed in those terms, it IS good that Pakistan is where it is today. Pakistan has a LOT of people with a LOT of problems, so much so that avoiding outright failure must be counted as a success.
It’s all about having realistic expectations. Too much political rhetoric out there is based on very naive ideas about what is achievable, and at what costs, and so ends up being shallow and misleading (and, worse still, demonizing and marginalizing people with realistic ideas that might actually help).
That said, it does seem that Musharraf has outlived his utility, and that Pakistan is ready to swing the pendulum back in the democracy direction. And more power to them. But let’s not pretend that this course of action is without costs of its own, or that the Musharraf years were a uniform failure.
The way I see it is that there are four power centers – (a) feudal, rich zamindars (b) military-intelligence agency bloc (c) islamists-radicals (d) urban-educated-yuppie-western oriented middle class. The fourth one is probably not a power center but more of a silent background. History of pakistan’s governance has been game of the first three. Now post cold-war with liberalization and globalization of world economy the fourth bloc was bound to grow. Though no doubt mushie encouraged it post 9/11 to use it against the fuedals power centers and to please the west that it as acting against the third. But the politics and the future of liberalism will still be dictated by the first three for some time to come albeit the first two have gained slightly over the third one over the course of past few years.
It would be misperception to think that voting Mushie out was a statement that they voted against dictatorship and favoured democracy ( read corrupt ). The people of Pakistan probably voted against all the turmoil associated with terrorism, suicide bombing and the war on terror alliance with US. Mushy and the Islamists represented what they were fed up with…thats all. Whether they will get the liberalist-moderate-democracy that they hoped for along with the normalcy depends on what Pakistanis define as liberalism/moderation and how the power centers play out their politics in future.
I am so bored with your bloggers defending dictatorship in Pakistan. It is pathetic. If it works in India, it would work in Pakistan given half a chance over enough time. The people of Pakistan in general want democracy and military rule has led nowhere – witness the 1971 civil war, the legacy of Zia and Musharraf’s flawed rule. No insight, no vision for your bloggers on this issue. Just cause the politicians are flawed, the principle is not. Really, if I were a Sepia blogger who know little about Pakistan I would spend my time writing about things I knew instead of pontificating on stuff I know little about.
I think that describing this phenomenon as the triumph of the appeal of ‘rule of law’ and ‘consumer capitalism’ is really only half right–Putin is an individual but represents a highly intrusive State that has aggressively nationalized several large industries including finite natural resources and effectively taken control of most popular media through crony intermediaries.
as it pertains to Pakistan, the consumer capitalism will certainly be attractive but not any Putin-style state-as-arbiter-of-all-transactions administration.
Um. Democracy in a Muslim world? Hell no. Look at Iraq once the US invaded. Pakistan has the potential to destabilize due to the radical elements. The Islamic Brotherhood and Hamas won the elections in these Arab regions. The principle of lesser evils would state that a military dicatorship is better in a Muslim country (no matter how messed up that sounds).
6 · Yogi said
Pakistani’s aren’t arab homey.
13 · Omar Khan said
Who said democracy works in India? Nirad Chaudhuri correctly described independent India as a dictatorship of the Nehru-Gandhi family. The BJP alliance was able to rule India because the Nehru family’s hold on Congress was weak. The rhetoric of India as the ‘world’s largest democracy’ conceals the truth about India’s political arrangements. At the state level it is certain families which rule the state. Political parties in India are vehicles for individuals and families to contest for power. In the west talented individuals rise through political parties to become leaders.
Most military events between India & Pak happened when Elected Government was not in control or charge of Pakistan. So for India’s prosperity, democracy in Pakistan is better for India. Now, if Democracy for Pakistan is no better than Dictatorship, then too bad.
The fact that Mushy had to let go of his power and bring about what is a step in the direction of democracy means that he was not popular. Events in the last year corroborate this. Thus unless we are trying to argue for a something akin to a neocon agenda of telling people what is good for them, I don’t see any argument for telling the Pakistanis that Mushy was good for them, they are the best judge of that. They were the ones who lived under him and they pressurized him to let go and thus we are where we are in Pakistan. As for liberalism, wont it in it’s most basic pure form be that a people decide whats good for them, before we even get into specifics and rule of law.
I am well aware of that, but is certainly muslim isn’t it? I was talking about a subset of countries that are muslim majority (Arab and otherwise) and pray tell what is homey?
I forgot to add that alliances are power sharing arrangements in which dictators of states share power with the Nehru-Gandhi family.
India has held free and fair elections, the power transfers have been peaceful,a robust press yes Indian democracy has problems and many of them quite severe but to call India a dictatorship is ignorant and plain wrong.
19 · Ardy said
Nah, when “a people” decide what’s good for them, that’s just self-determination. Liberalism is when each person gets to decide what’s good for him or her. This then leads naturally to the concept of individual rights (how can I decide what’s best for me when your decisions about what’s best for you end up impacting me?). By comparison, “a people” could decide that oppressing some particular demographic is what’s best for them (i.e., the people as a whole). But that would be a long way from liberalism. On the other hand, it’s hard to come up with examples of liberalism that don’t then imply self-determination for the people as a whole.
should read has a robust press.
Redr – I am speaking relatively and was comparing it to the other option presented, one of a single person/a few people deciding what’s good for everyone. I should have been clearer.
22 · Yogi said
The elections merely legitimize the rule of dictators who bribe the masses with goodies bought with state funds during election time. There is no robust press. Journalists are stenographers for the dictators. They write puff pieces on dictators and fling mud on the opponents of dictators in exchange for dictators either paying them directly or paying them indirecty by buying advertising.
sounds remarkably like american politics to me…except the bribing the masses part (they don’t have to do that here, since masses do not have any power to speak of);
27 · sigh! said
In America, Governors of States respect the authority of the law. They do not think they are the law like former CM Jayalalitha or current CM’s Modi or Mayawati.
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that is because the “law” is written in the interests of the people who control the society; and the governors you name represent them. they don’t have to disobey the law to meet their ends (since they write it)
What part of this was due to the payment received by Pakistan in lieu of helping the US with the “war on terror” ?? It would be interesting to know.
What role did the commodities bull market (that is still going on) play in the appearance of Capitalistic gains to the common people of Russia??
But overall, I do agree with this post. There has to be a reason why there was strong support of Musharraf from the middle class population of Pakistan (until the assassination of Bhutto, atleast)
Didn’t we beat this horse to death already? i don’t see any new insight in this post other than the usual rhetoric about some places not being ready for democracy crap, whenever it has a potential to work against the interests of u.s.
There is some tension between living standards and political empowerment. I’d opt for the latter. Furthermore, comparing Singapore with Pakistan is flawed since the former is wealthier than the latter, the equation would be more interesting if we had to compare rich undemocratic Singapore with rich democratic S. Korea, or poor undemocratic Egypt with poor democratic Pakistan. In both cases I, and probably most others would prefer to live in the democratic societies.
Very easy to say such thing, while living cushy lives in the west. Its not just easy but in some ways insulting also. To each their own.
Defeating the Taliban/AQ in the frontier areas of Pakistan only benefits the U.S. ?!
No one is talking about giving a free reign to Taliban in NWFP – for god’s sake, Bhutto herself was killed by one of those crazies. Everyone is going to fight them including the current leaders, it is only in the tactics they differ (well, these guys might talk with militants first, that is not a bad idea if you ask me). I also don’t believe U.S should be given free reign to do whatever they want. There can be effective police work without alienating the population and I think a non-U.S sponsored effort by Pakistani forces can potentially do that. Other than bombing the hell out of tribal areas, what good has U.S accomplished so far with Mushy’s help in NWFP?
the issue is cause & effect…. the focus on living standards is likely why Singapore is so much wealthier today. ’twasn’t always so.
Once you make a distinction between democracy and liberalism what’s left of the claim that “all arguments for democracy in Pakistan are theoretical”? Surely Pakistan can hold election, elect leaders, and conduct, for example, a foreign policy. It’s the liberalism thats the hard part, whether you’ve got the democracy (compare Canada to Venezuela) or dictatorship (compare Bismark to Stalin).
36 · vinod said
If you focus only on living standards to begin with and pay lip service to democracy in the short term then more people remain happy and contended with their normal life and not bothered with the flaws in their democratic process ( some people may call it the burgeoning of the middle class). Over the course of time you focus on improving the democracy but never lose sight that improving the living standards is the primary goal. This way the discontentment with “illiberal” democracies doesn’t get too much out of hand. This is what probably Singapore has perfected and I will probably go far to say that this is what many western deomocracies have and India will have to perfect if it has to avoid trouble. Now the discontentment that you see in western socities like here is probably because living standards are getting detiorated and people are getting dischanted with their “liberal” democracy.
Vinod, as you know on this issue I share much of your cynicism. However…I am always keeping my eyes and mind open to alternate views. I read this excellent NEW piece by William Dalrymple today that is making me back off my cynicism just a little bit and accepting a slightly more optimistic wait-and-see posture.
Color me cynical:
Not all people embrace freedom. In fact, the greatest danger of dictatorship is that so many are seduced by the fantasy of the “strong man” who “makes the trains run on time.”
No such leader has ever existed in the real world. Problems cannot be solved by magical commands. The belief in the Good Dictator is essentially a belief in sorcery.
Any country’s internal problems are based in its social and physical infrastructure (or lack of it). Only when its people as a whole can rise above petty tribalism and embrace universal literacy and individual liberty, will Pakistan see any lasting improvement. Dictators are rarely interested in promoting literacy. Educated people tend to demand more freedom.
39 · Abhi said
I read the article too and it is a welcome respite from the seemingly overwhelming negative press that Pakistan has been receiving as of late. I do have one contention with Dalrymple’s very good article, regarding the “mullah fatigue”, and it is that yes he is correct here: the best argument against so called “Islamic” government is to actually let the “Islamists” govern, but I would also point out that many of these people follow a policy of attempting to use democracy as an “in” before changing the rules to benefit them. Thus, I think it would be better to view this policy as sort of an “inoculation” as it were, with allowing limited amounts of the Islamists to come to power in a few places, letting them fail miserably as they undoubtedly will, and then regaining the areas for the secular parties.
Not that this is a major problem since Pakistan, despite all the suggestions to the contrary, has never rallied terribly behind Islamist factions (the Zia regime notwithstanding).
And I am cynical of the view being put forth by this blog, and not for the first time that Musharraf is better (has been better) for Pakistan than its democratically elected leaders. Let me make it clear that I have no illusions about the political class in Pakistan being angelic but having to face the electorate every five years keeps them some what accountable. Whereas a dictator who also controls the armed forces has zero accountability. How can you assert with such certainty that he was better than the alternatives? How do you know that? Never has Pakistan’s reputation been worse than it has been under Musharraf. It is a haven for terrorists, involved in nuclear proliferation (see Khan A Q)and last time I checked it was no capitalist mecca like Singapore.
Vinod, democracies often look muddy when compared to dictatorships, simply because they allow you to fling mud around. Rather than judging mushie, who’s skeletons are still to tumble out of the cupboard, look back at Pakistan’s previous dictatorships. What lasting good have the likes of Zia, yahya khan etc done?
11 · Bridget Jones said
Of these three (a) feudal, rich zamindars and the (b) military-intelligence agency bloc are variants of the third the (c) islamists-radicals. The feudals are the creators and sustainers of the muslims-as-a-nation; while the military is a late entrant to the game, seeking to sustain an Islamic super-state with Pakistan in some sort of leadership role. The last – (c) islamists-radicals – all but reject the idea of nationhood or statehood supporting the idea of a global comity organised on religious lines. A few (by no means a majority, substantial though) among the “yuppie” westernised group, reject the feudals for their conservatism, and the Islamic radicals for their orthodoxy, but favour the military for its “western” veneer – its attire, use of modern technology, structured organization, international links, use of English, and the modern efficient country-within-a-country it operates – the cantonments, schools and colleges, clubs, businesses etc. A fifth group that you miss out is the miniscule community of almost-humanist scholars and intellectuals best typified by the likes of Dr. Hoodbhoy. I say almost because Hoodbhoy comes across as George Monbiot-if-not-Dawkins-type of free-thinker, who would rather not identify himself as an atheist in Pakistan for obvious reasons. But Dr. Hoodbhoy is the first to bring about a refreshing turn of thought in Pakistan and goes well beyond pseudo-liberals like Eqbal Ahmed, and is willing to accept the real and unsavoury motivations of the League managed movement that led to the creation of Pakistan, so well analysed by Ambedkar in one of his last papers. This is not say that it will take an atheist to turn Pakistan into a secular state, but only an atheist has a perspective radical enough to question the entire Pakistan movement. The creation of Pakistan lies in the past and the Indian subcontinent – as Ambedkar, Patel, and Rajaji rightly concluded – is the better for it.
42 · Yogi said
Uh, the nuclear proliferation of the Khan network took place between 1989 and 2000, under Bhutto, Sharif, etc. As far as we know (and to be fair, there may well be plenty we don’t know), the proliferation stopped around the same time Musharraf came to power. That Khan was exposed and punished under Musharraf is, if anything, a recommendation of him over his predecessors, under whose watch all of the proliferation occurred.
And it’s not exactly like Pakistan didn’t have terrorist problems before Musharraf either…
Vinod, I do believe that there is merit to your arguments. Historically both democratic govt & earlier dictatorships have shown to be ineffective. At least Mush has moved the ball forward on two of the three axes. I do believe that in order for democracy to function and move the “ball forward†(maybe not in a straight line), Pakistan has to build up good strong institutions (that is sorely lacking today). Maybe this democratic govt will be different but I am not holding my breath.
Guha’s article in the context of intellectuals’ admiration for dictatorships might be relevant here: http://www.hvk.org/articles/0900/52.html Excerpt: “But, as Caute remarks, these intellectuals would not, of course, trade their own life in a free country for life under the boot. His explanation of this paradox was two-fold. On the one hand, these men practised an unconscious racism: they believed the British needed democracy, but not the backward Georgians or Chinese. On the other hand, they displayed the intellectual’s endemic love of power.”
Here we go again. Quite often disagree with positions that SM and the commenters even unpopular ones. But this position probably is the one that really gets to me. The very headline is deeply offensive. I happily indulge in Paki bashing especially over Cricket and Kashmir but for persons who live in a democracy to demand that others not be granted that same option is to say that the Pakis are a bunch of uncivilised savages. Replace Pakistan with South Africa and bingo- justification for apartheid.
Am an admirer of Vinod and his work but an intellectual is not a compliment that I would pay him. But, I would agree that most of us who live in relative freedom and comfort would not choose to live in Pakistan.
Rule of law are laws written by the people or by duly elected representatives of the people. Rules imposed on from above is not a law – it is an arbitary misuse of wrongfully appropriated power.
Please get a grip. It is intellectually lazy to accuse Vinod of what you are accusing him of. Don’t make an insulting statement and then say “that’s what he is saying.” Geez, I’m so tired of the lazy comments of people who disagree with this post.
17 · Mark said
Reminds me W. and Hill C. He-he.