Defending Dictatorship: Another View on Pakistan

S. Abbas Raza in n + 1:

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. Moreover, while George W. Bush may have gotten almost everything else wrong, his Pakistan policy has been basically sound.

More here.

Comments

[MS]

And the same corrupt guys are returning to power, under different cloak this time.

Musharraf hasn't ruined his country, as many like to say. I couldn't say he took it out of abyss- but he kept it afloat. He managed the baloch rebels, for example, swiftly and well.

[Midland TX]

Insh'allah, this time round, the press, the judiciary, the lawyer class, and an engaged international community will be able to shine enough light under the cloak to minimise the corruption.

[Felix E. F. Larocca MD]

A fair dictator = oxymoronic...

[cvj]

So credit goes both to Musharraf for being a Dictator and to the people who resisted his dicatorship for eventually bringing back democracy. Each had their parts to play.

[Naadir Jeewa]

Not sure how giving unaccountable aid for Pakistan to spend on its bloated security services is good US policy...

[Hektor Bim]

Sorry to tell you this, but this is a deeply flawed article. Pakistan is in many ways in worse shape now than it was under Sharif. After all, Sharif didn't have multiple domestic insurgencies and regular suicide bombings.

Just one point is very instructive. Bush's policy toward Pakistan has not been a good one - the money is largely funneled outside official channels and has been divided into two parts: military hardware to confront India (always the last refuge of incompetent military dictatorships in Pakistan) and personal corruption. It hasn't done anything to improve the lives of individual Pakistanis.

There's also a strong whiff of upper-class NRP vibe in this article that is unworthy of you. "Most people I know happily voted for him" sounds exactly like the famous "Nobody I know voted for Nixon". I'm supposed to be impressed that rich professional Shiite Karachis liked Musharraf?

The most shameful statement here is this "Even Benazir Bhutto at the end was willing to work with him and cut a power-sharing deal because she knew that he represented the only honest and moderate force in the country." Pervez Musharraf as the only honest and moderate force in the country. That's laughable.

[morgan meis]

Cheers, my friend.
I cannot honestly speak to the relative rightness or wrongness of your analysis here. But it is clear headed and intellectually brave (no surprise).
You are good :)

Next, a defense of the necessary breath of "fresh air" Pol Pot brought to Cambodia.
I'm teasing, I'm teasing.

love,
morgan

[Samina Raza]

Great job Abbasi!!!! I have been saying similar things to people whenever they lamented the existence of martial law in Pakistan.
If only Musharraf would have stepped down gracefully instead of becoming absolutely corrupt himself. I really hope for the sake of Pakistan that the next government cares about Pakistan more than their own pockets or cronies or whatever.
xoxoxox
Samina.

[Khalid Hasan]

As a Karachi resident, I have to say you have gone overboard in praise of Musharraf. There is no doubt he did some good - most notably in importing Shaukat Aziz and giving him a free hand to run the economy- but nobody is totally good or totally bad.
Musharraf has long outstayed his welcome, at least from the time of his "referendum" in 2002. For your information, the only reason why he got 90% or some such figure on an incredibly high turnout according to the official figures was because of blatant ballot stuffing and multiple voting.
The absence of a free opposition meant that there was no check on the leadership with the result that even the much vaunted economic progress has been shown up to the extent that it seems neither of the coalition partners today wants the hot potato of the finance ministry. We will learn more about the errors and misdeeds of the Musharraf government once he goes.
Also, to repeat the claim that Nawaz Sharif tried to "murder" Musharraf by preventing his plane from landing in Karachi ignores the fact that Musharraf himself refused to allow his plane to be diverted to Nawabshah as originally directed - I may be wrong but I'm sure there was more than enough fuel in the plane to do that. More pertinent is the fact that Musharraf chose to overthrow a legitimate government rather than let it exercise its right to sack him as chief of the army staff.
Practically everthing he has done in recent years can be traced back to an effort to perpetuate himself in power, even though many of his actions have been in direct contradiction to the principles enunciated by him when he first took power.

[temporal]

Musharraf was good for Pakistan up to a certain point...

without effective check and balances men of good intent inevitably fail

true for k(h)akistocrats as well;)

[shahab]

This article is highly one sided and glosses over the severe problems in pretty much every sector the country is in at this point. For an analysis of Musharraf's economic performance, pls see this article:
http://watandost.blogspot.com/2008/01/kaiser-bengali-explains-economic.html

the one point I want to make is that over the past 9 years, Musharraf has had pretty much absolute power to run the country the way he wants to. No civilian gov't in Pakistan has ever had any real control over the military, which takes up more than a 1/3rd of Pakistan's budget. In the past 2 years he has thrown away any progress the country may had made during the past years of his rule.

shahab

[ali baig]

Could not agree more with your comments and analysis. Musharaf has been more democratic then the the so called elected politicians of the past and he was certainly not IDI Amin of Uganda or The Shah of Iran who were dictators in the real sense of the word. His performance was also not bad until he made a technical mistake perhaps on wrong advise to dismiss the judiciary and since then the fiasco has started.
I hope you forward your analysis to the mainstream media just to remind them of the historical facts.The world media is presently on a honeymoon spree with the present setup in Pakistan but this is not going to last long and nobody knows how long the coalition will last.

Regards

ALI
Canada

[MileStone]

I would advise Musharraf to step down as president and take charge of PML-Q, and lead this party from the front. I am pretty sure that this government of Mr.10% and Bhagora will not last for long, as these CHORS wont settle for less and would try to beat each other, when it comes to looting the treasury and over filling their bank accounts.

I remember people on streets distribute sweets when NS was ousted by Musharraf, and same thing is hapening again, but against Musharraf. I am almost certain that this so called government wont be able to deliver anything to the common person of Pakistan, as their motive to come into the government is not for the sake of common man, but their first job will be to recover the money that they spent on their election campaign by looting the treasury.

The best bet for Musharraf now is to resign and then sit in the oppostion as an opposition leader along with PML-Q and try to build consensus and prepare for next election. And I hope that, by then people of Pakistan will realise that they made a wrong choice by giving votes to these Thugs and will probably vote for Musharraf. Once Musharraf comes in a democratic way, then no one would have an objection on his status,and hopefully he will not make the same mistakes and will work on taking the country forward in a way he did in the first 7 yrs of his tenure.