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Politics of response

As the protests continue, it is evident that in Pakistan, there exists a great divide on the cartoon issue. While in condemning the caricatures of the Prophet, unprecedented unity across the political spectrum has been witnessed, a sharp split is evident on how to respond to the outrage. The majority is opposed to a violent response. Yet, a politically vocal and active minority has viewed it as the ‘explosive’ which can help it whip up an anti-Musharraf political storm. And throughout history it is the reaction of those who occupy public space, as politicians do, that is ‘counted.’

Over the cartoons issue, the religious parties are in the lead to occupy public space. Other parties are still undecided about the extent to which they want to use this explosive issue to craft an anti-Musharraf campaign.

According to media reports, the MMA President has led the effort to turn the anti-cartoon sentiment into an anti-Musharraf and anti-US movement. In the parliament he said that the "protests against the publication of the cartoons also reflect public displeasure over the general’s (Musharraf) cooperation with the US and its allies, the Bajaur killings, army operation in Balochistan and rising prices in the country."

He accused the government of not doing enough to protest the publication of the cartoons. He accused the intelligence agencies and "anti-Pakistani elements" of turning the Lahore and Peshawer protests into violent ones. Determined to go for the February 19 rally despite the government ban, he had challenged the government to "aim the guns at me, not my workers."

Nevertheless, there are four factors that have contributed to the continuing tussle between street power and State power. One was the inability of the government to respond to the continuing publication of the profane caricatures by taking any proactive steps. Instead the top government leadership incessantly condemned the cartoons. Leadership has to lead and steer collective energy in constructive ways. In such crises, leaders are required to pacify frayed sentiments through appropriate steps. Words of wisdom must come to the angry from power pulpits to advice calm. Some, not all, would fall on deaf ears.

The emotional storm over these profane cartoons should have prompted General Musharraf to take an initiative to call a summit meeting of Europeans and key Muslim countries in a European capital aimed at a collective agreement on how to avoid a replay of the political mayhem that followed the cartoon publication.

Earlier Pakistan did call a high level meeting in Geneva to gather support for the October 8 earthquake victims. This was the time to show if general Musharraf’s so-called Enlightened Moderation notion is of any relevance. He should have taken this opportunity to actually engage the Europeans and the Muslims to work out some ‘rules’ requiring reason-based reformative action by both. This is a crucial moment for an output-oriented inter-faith dialogue.

Yet other than recalling envoys to Denmark, the Muslim countries have taken no proactive initiative to initiate such a dialogue. Even the OIC has failed to establish a contact group to engage the European-Muslim leadership on ways to prevent the crisis from aggravating. The Muslim countries should have combined these proactive initiatives with direct dialogue with their own people. In Pakistan, for example, Musharraf should have addressed the nation to reassure it that government is taking steps to prevent such incidents, that this is not a war against Islam but a blasphemous act by individuals that must be peacefully condemned and that the government would not tolerate violence.

This was not done. In fact, no other politician of the ruling dispensation engaged with the people to give them any direction. The few leaders including Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, who issued statements, were merely reacting to what the public was doing and demanding.

Two, for most Pakistanis their government’s participation in the terror war remains questionable. Its active opponents, mostly from religious parties, would not forego any opportunity for public protest. On terrorism-related issues including national sovereignty,

foreign policy, security at home and the limits to Pakistan’s participation in the war on terrorism, the global broadcast of the torture, insult and injustice meted out to the Muslims at Guantanamo Bay and in Abu Ghraib perpetuate the public discomfort about the Pakistan-US partnership.

Three, the absence of a credible and authoritative state structure with an even weaker tradition of enforcing law and genuine democracy cannot be an effective deterrence to conflict and chaos. When the agents of the State do not command authority, fear and respect in the public sphere, it’s then a ‘free for all.’ Wild rage, fury, local militias and goons then reign the public sphere. Continued mayhem does not only point to failure of leadership but also to the serious problems with law enforcing institutions.

Four, these continued protests, both violent and peaceful, also reflect Pakistan’s broader political problem. There is a leadership vacuum at the national level in Pakistan. There are no popular leaders representing national parties. Musharraf has greatly complicated matters by giving virtually no space to the political opposition.

The government does not have its ears glued to the political reality of wide discontent. It is hooked to the conventional political calculations of our establishment —that the politicians are incompetent, corrupt and dispensable. The Establishment believes that politicians are prone to manipulation and should be controlled and guided in the direction the Establishment thinks best.

These protests have highlighted an altogether different problem —the health of Pakistani democracy! The only way democracy becomes a major issue in Pakistan when the people come out on the streets agitating against the government or when the entire opposition resigns from the parliament. Neither is likely. The protests are something therulers will not allow. Resignations are something the parliamentarians will not opt for. Besides, there are few signs of unity in the Opposition.

Nasim Zehra is a fellow of Harvard University, Asia Centre, Cambridge, Mass. and Adjunct professor at SAIS Johns Hopkins University, Washington DC. She can be reached at nasimzehra@gmail.com