Our National Dilemma By Jehanzeb Afzal

 

With some examples from history. Where Must the Soldier Stand?
Normally this should not be a very difficult question to answer. But in the face of galloping national catastrophe, "when loyalty to his oath becomes disloyalty to the state", it becomes for some soldiers, a difficult question to answer despite the fact that as a last resort, they must unequivocally stand with the state. This difficulty of making a decision in such circumstances arises more often from lack of nerve than it has to do with intellectual doubt. Doubt? Where there should be none, when the future of the state itself hangs in the balance.

However it would be useful to examine the conduct of Generals when put into similar situations in the past. So let me visit, from memory, three such historical times when this choice was forced on them.

When Hitler came to power in Germany, he did so through the democratic process, which his party almost immediately started to undermine, in order to grab autocratic power. The single most important tool to be used towards this end was the Enabling Act, which was pushed through both houses of parliament. In short order this gave Hitler and his cabinet total power to make and implement any decision without recourse to the legislature.

Effectively, this left only the German Army which could have stood in in the way of Hitler's march towards gaining complete dictatorial power. Thus the next step which his Nazi underlings undertook was to destroy the cohesive internal loyalty which was one of the hallmarks of the German Army. This loyalty was to be substituted by mutual suspicion among the Generals. Thus Gen von Fritsch, the commander in chief of the army was hauled up and tried on trumped up charges. This happened in 1937 or 38. But before things went far, Gen Beck, who was a retired Army Chief himself, had already suggested to Fritsch to carry out a putsch against Hitler if he was to save Germany from the clutches of madmen. This Fritsch refused to do. Eventually, nothing came of the trial, and Fritsch resigned. But the Nazi Party had achieved its main goal. Thereafter, as Germany lurched towards disaster, incapacitated by mutual suspicion, no German General could summon the courage to stand up to Hitler, till it was very late.

By 1944, the utter terror at the very thought of occupation by Soviet Forces, led to the July 20th plot to kill Hitler and his henchmen. The aim was to make a separate peace with the Allies in the west, shift all available forces to the east, and stop the Russian advance. But that was not to be, and many of those involved in the attempt, including Field Marshal Rommel had to pay with their lives, for their belated attempt to save Germany. The failure of the Army to stand for the higher interests of the state cost Germany and the world such horrendous damage, as is impossible to assess or tabulate.

Though the scale is not comparable, the drift in the affairs of Pakistan, has similarities with the Germany of the 30s which are difficult to miss, though we do not have an "Enabling Act", nevertheless, a malign partnership between the government and the opposition has undermined democracy and mangled the Constitution to remove any check on the Government. Add to this the politicization of the bureaucracy, the police, and the judiciary, and you have a formula which gives total power to the politicians, power which is visible and on display against the higher interests of the State.

Much like Hitler, the Government did its best to destroy the cohesion of the Army. That in this it failed was through no lack of trying. But this is a temporary setback. After Gen Raheel's retirement, the probability is that the Army will receive body blows from which it will be unlikely to recover.

In the China of the mid-30s we have the unlikely figure of Marshal Chang Hsueh-Liang emerge. He was a northern warlord who took over from his father, when the latter was killed in a Japanese air raid on the train he was traveling in.

Chang would have suited the Japanese eminently as an enemy, slave as he was, to opium and sex. But Chang had a born again experience. He gave up his addictions, and the space created was occupied by patriotism. This was the time when the Chinese were fighting the Japanese on the one hand, while internally there was a civil war going on within China in which the Communists were pitched against the Government forces.

In 1936, Chang Hsueh-Liang kidnapped Marshal Chiang Kai-Shek, and forced him to pledge an alliance with the forces of Mao tse Tung, so that they could face the Japanese with a united front. For this supreme act of patriotism, Chang Hsueh-Liang had to spend more than fifty years of his life under house arrest as a guest of the Chiang Government who whisked him off to Taiwan!

Even in this example there is a parallel with the situation obtaining in Pakistan today. Our Army is fighting a war against terrorists, which is an existential war for Pakistan, but the Government, abetted by the opposition, is doing everything in its power to impede the efforts of the Army. Why? Because, there is a direct linkage between the terrorists, and terror financing; this financing has a direct linkage with Mega Corruption; and the lords of this Mega Corruption are the politicians who are ruling and raping the state, with the committed assistance of the political "opposition"; and with the police, the bureaucracy, and the judiciary playing the role of facilitators. What we lack in this situation is a Marshal Chang Hsue-Liang, because the Generals seem not to have figured out whether they need to stand with the state, or with the politicians who are undermining this state!

No such examination can be considered complete without Ataturk. After the surrender of Turkey in WW1 he was in Istanbul, which was under the occupation of the British Army. Beyond being ADC to the Sultan, Ataturk really did not have a job.Turkey had its constitution and parliament in place, but these and the Sultan were taking dictation from the British. Rumors were rife that the allies intended to divide Turkey into four mandates to be run by the British, French, Italians, and the Greeks. A super patriot like Ataturk could only chafe at this knowledge, and plan his exit from Istanbul into Anatolia, the Turkish heartland. Eventually he wangled his posting as Inspector General whose job it was to demobilize and disarm all Turkish formations in the hinterland, and improve internal security.

In May of 1919 he set sail for Samsun. Instead of demobilizing and disarming the units of the Turkish Army, he set about reorganizing and revitalizing them, as well as setting up various committees for national resistance. He was under no illusion that Turkey was to be dismembered, and would have to fight to the death to save itself.

Very soon thereafter the Government in Istanbul issued orders for his arrest, which were followed by the pronouncement of a death sentence on him. The man who would have been charged to carry out these orders was General Kazim Karabekir, the only commander to still have a sizable force under him, which was in reasonably good shape. Karabekir was a war hero in his own right. Like Ataturk, he was one of the heroes of Gallipoli, and was victor over General Townsend in the battle for Kut al Amara. And later he was to defeat the Armenian forces which were advancing into Anatolia from the east.

Had Karabekir arrested Ataturk, he would having been acting within the law and following the dictates of the Constitution. But most crucially, he played the hero yet again. Instead of standing with the government who were being dictated to by the British, he chose to stand with Turkey instead, and threw in his lot with Ataturk. And the rest, as they say, is history.
Again here there is a very strong parallel with the Pakistan of today. The only institution still left standing in the country is the Pakistan Army. And though this is not exactly like the case it was with the Turkey of 1919, because the Turkish army of that time was in shreds, but nonetheless, whatever part of it was still on the ground, it was the only cohesive and disciplined force left in the country. And the government of Turkey was in the hands of foreign masters, who had already decided to dismember Turkey---and this goal became manifest later in the infamous Treaty of Sevres of 1920.

But could it be that our national leadership is also playing in the hands of foreign masters? This one should be very easy to answer. When the whole lot of our national leadership has all of its huge ill-gotten wealth stashed abroad---wealth which can quite easily be exposed or impounded, it would be an idiotic conceit to imagine that this leadership will not follow the dictates of powers who can do this. As a matter of fact this is exactly where such powers would like to have the leadership of client states placed--where they can squeeze and blackmail these "leaders" and thus twist Pakistan to surrender its vital national interests to further those of governments holding our national "leaders" hostage!

The situation of Pakistan today is, that the with the police, the bureaucracy, and the judiciary thoroughly politicized there can be no accountability. The only possible restraint on the depredation of the men in government could have been the political opposition. But most of those in the opposition are in cahoots with the government, and this partnership has defaced and distorted the constitution. Thus, with no incentive to rein in their greed, this greed remains in satiated, so that it has left the country teetering on the edge of catastrophe.
It is a gift of our "democracy" that it has so arranged matters that the Constitution [ the 18nth amendment to which has already brought about a formal end to the Federation], stands in direct opposition to the national interest. And it is tragic that the Army must now choose to stand with the one or the other because it is impossible for it to stand with both. Indecision at this time will be tantamount to standing against the state.

And the Army MUST stand by the State, for without the State a Constitution has no meaning. The Army MUST intervene, but NOT rule. Indeed it should never have ruled in the past either. It would have done Pakistan a lot of good, had it stayed in the shadows and used its tremendous influence against the mother of all evils i.e mega corruption, from which all other evils result. It should now move with the judiciary to put a national government in place and then withdraw to the barracks, and support this government to clean out the mess. And if the judiciary refuses to go along, it should move without it. The new government can appoint new judges and redo the Constitution.

But first the police and the bureaucracy will need to be revamped. The case of the Inspector General KPK police affords a very good example of how to go about it i.e select the very best officers, even getting people of merit out of retirement, and putting them in the most important slots to clean up the Augean stables in their areas of responsibility, with the full support of the government.

Mega corruption should thenceforth be considered a national security imperative, and discussed openly in the National Security Council, which should be revived.
The Constitution should be amended by any suitable legal instrument, pending ratification by a new elected legislature in which those fighting for seats must give a prior guarantee that they will vote for such ratification, in the absence of which their election will stand automatically annulled.

The powers of the Prime Minister and the President should be put in some sort of balance, so that we are never to face our present situation again. But most importantly, the new Constitution must put in place a system which does away with the present system of " Return On Investment" politics in which a person spends ten crores to earn a hundred. This has to be curbed at the pain of fearful penalties.

The present system is rooted in corruption from which all our ills spring. When the incentive of all our elected representatives is first to recover what they have spent on elections, and then to make at least a tenfold profit on this initial outlay, they first need to corrupt the bureaucrats, who facilitate their money making, which destroys the bureaucracy. Then the police and the judiciary need to be politicized and corrupted, so that there is no accountability or even a threat thereof. And this about does it for any pretense towards governance, or administration, or justice. Then the political opposition needs to be made toothless by bringing it into the tent of inequity. And lastly the government and the opposition need to join hands to deface the constitution so that under its new face it assures the perpetuities of power of those who have mangled it.
All this has been achieved by Nawaz Sharif and Zardari, and some leaders of the lesser parties.
In short, the system now prevalent is tailor- made to further the cause of corruption and rule by thugs in perpetuity. And it stands directly against the cause of governance, administration, or dispensing of justice. Indeed, this system, masquerading as "democracy" is the biggest evil that plagues the land.

When countries like ours are to be put back on rails, a lot needs to be done. Not doing it because it is difficult to do so, does not cut it. The decision to move in order to save the state will have to rest with Gen Raheel. He enjoys the highest popularity rating in the country, and justly so. But if he is aware, his popularity has slid in the past year or so, because in the minds of most people now is a strong [and perhaps justifiable??] suspicion that the Army operation is primarily directed against the little man, while the big crooks are still at it, filling their pockets in broad daylight. The rumor is taking hold that there is an understanding between the Army high command and the chief plunderers of the state, which guarantees their immunity. Such rumors are bad for the morale of the people of the land, but especially so, for the troops and junior ranks of the army who are daily putting their lives on the line for the sake of their country. If they cannot understand the hesitation of the Generals to go after those who are impeding the operations against the terrorists, while at the same time gouging out the innards of the state, they have good reason to feel suspicious.

There is no easy choice, therefore, for Gen Raheel. But what makes great leaders great is not easy choices, but the will and the commitment to make the most difficult ones at the most difficult of times, regardless of consequences. The General will not be remembered for Zarb e Azab, or for saving "democracy". What he will be remembered for is the hands in which he leaves the future of his country, at a time when he was the most powerful man in Pakistan.
The hour is indeed here. It now remains for the man to either rise and fill the need of this hour, or turn about and fade into the sunset, taking the hopes of his country with him.
A tough choice indeed, but one that is not impossible.

About the Writer::
Jahanzeb is a person with strong convictions, a retired army officer, he is self employed & is presently based in Lahore and Islamabad. He can reached on Email::afzaljahanzeb@yahoo.com

by webmaster@insaf.pk (tkiadmin)