General Pervaiz Musharraf is not the first leader to have come in power with the claim and self proclaimed obligation to ‘fix’ things. Our 55 plus history is full of such leaders. It is one thing that they did not really solve problems, but it is a whole new dimension that they never left on there own. Whether it was the Marshall law administrators or a civilian govt., once in power there only objective becomes to make sure that they don’t leave the seat of the prime minister and ironically enough 99% of them never finished there terms and our thrown outside, mostly disgracefully.
Yesterday I was going through the history of George Washington. The man was practically was Chief of Army Staff of the soon to be United States. There was really nothing too great about him, except that he was an ordinary man who learnt his lessons from experience and luck was on his side also in helping him what he is today. He commanded the greatest army of the evolving U.S. and fought of the British troops. At the end of the war, he could have alone taken over the country both based on his achievements in war that earned him tremendous respect and the fact that he was in-charge of the most powerful physical force of that time. But what this guy does is that, he simply goes back to congress and ‘surrenders’ his sword as if he is saying ‘mission accomplished’. We can sum this up in one sentence but it has a great meaning behind it. The man surrendered, yes the word is surrendered. He did not go back claiming the ‘need of the hour’ or the ‘troubled times right now justify’ theme to take over the country. If he would have there would have been almost no resistance because he had practically created the U.S. by freeing it from Britain. His act symbolizes one thing, superiority of democratic institutions over any reasoning for dictatorship. And this has laid the basis which would prevent any future military leader from taking over because in order to do so they would have to justify that if ‘George Washington did not do it, why are you doing this’. He was not completely spotless in character, he had his own demons like in a number of occasions it became an issue of what he wanted for himself rather than being what is in the best interest of the country. But in the end he realized that nothing is superior over the democratic intuitions.
Let’s not go very far and take a very small example of the recent earthquake tragedy in Pakistan. The army practically took over the whole management of the crisis although this was not clearly a place for the army to manage, instead the army should have simply assisted the civilian authorities. This is where you can plug in Darwin’s theory of evolution also that if you don’t use it you will loose it. It is not that the democratic institutions are incapable, it is that there are never allowed to learn. Democratic institutions do not learn from text books like the generals do in colleges, democratic institutions learn from trail and error.
History is again repeating in Pakistan, Pervaiz Musharraf has no interest in democracy or leaving his seat as he frequently mentions about what his ‘friends’ are suggesting him to do. These comments clearly indicate that his focus is on how to hold on to both seats or if the circumstances persist which one. I do not think the architect of Kargil needs someone else’s wisdom that free and fair elections are important for the countries future.
