The present crisis in Pakistan is not a simple case of democratic forces fighting against an oppressive military dictator as it is being commonly portrayed – or misconstrued; it is actually the crisis of the very body and soul of the criminal state entity called Pakistan. The fact is that the contradictions between the various components of Pakistan’s Western assisted and assembled gangster-style establishment setup, its elites and other political groupings (plus the “postmodern non-state social stakeholders” and “actors”) have now reached a critical level of contention. They are all an assorted motley of vicious mafias, banding thugs, looters and rascals of all shades out to get and outdo each other brutally without mercy or concession. To name them in order of importance: the military, the bureaucracy, the judiciary, the politicians, the mullahs, the “businessmen”, the “civil society”, the lawyers and the journalists. We have amply witnessed the work and acts of each of these and we know what skeletons they hide in their cupboards, and their filthy linen.
The reason for the fight now is that it is just one group, the army – albeit the main one, that is out to dominate and curtail the power of the others. To be fair enough, Pakistan has always belonged to its military, as it is only the army (given its relatively superior capabilities, making it the main British Imperial successor institution in Pakistan) that has succeeded in keeping this criminal, turbulent enterprise together and going – so far. Be that as it may, the Punjabi-dominated army’s main victory was in its Western sponsored Afghan “Jihad” in which the Punjabis exacted a historical revenge on their Afghan rivals. As a result, most of the army now comprises of officers and troops indoctrinated in Islamic fanaticism. Pakistan’s Islamic “ideology” was hypocritically used to justify Pakistan’s ill-intentioned formation and existence in the first place, but it is now that ideology which has (unwittingly) assumed real proportions and has turned on its dissolute creators (and their US patrons) and is waiting to replace them after they die of their self-inflicted illness of corruption.
Of the main political groups now allied against General Musharraf and his army, we have seen the performance of the two main opposition “parties” twice each, gangs of hungry brutes and their hangers-on, who in the last 15 years took power through the “ballot” and then wiped this country clean of its money and public property, while introducing thuggish feudal-style patronage and misrule. In fact it was the last such government which Musharraf overthrew in 1999, that had through its corruption brought the country to the brink of collapse. His excuse for this was to save Pakistan. Musharraf can be said to have delayed this collapse by 8 years, but he did nothing to rectify it even though he had the chance. Perhaps he couldn’t, given his own character and the typical constraints he had to work within – limitations that are rooted in Pakistan’s very culture and stipulated character, which have now led to its failure. Musharraf is after all, as Pakistani as “Miss” Benazir Bhutto (actually Mrs. Benazir Zardari) who is notorious as being the most corrupt Pakistani politician.
The other main rival of Musharraf is the Pakistani “legal fraternity”. Its vanguard leadership of opposition to military rule is unprecedented both in its severity as well as historically. But the Pakistani judiciary has always been stinkingly corrupt, and the lawyers are its cohorts in this. The recently dismissed arch rival of President Musharraf, Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, is no exception.
And what about the other rivals, the “civil society” and its NGOs? This is the post-cold war American globalist order’s contribution to this mess. Before that, the nonsensically misused term civil society was not even known to Pakistan’s so-called intellectuals, who now drop it fashionably after every few words of conversation. It includes those who have no place in the “official” scheme of things, but who contend with the established officialdom to wield an equal if not greater parallel “unofficial” influence on society. It is a significant contributor to chaotic conditions in what is already a jungle. It groups lawyers, journalists, women’s organisations, “liberals” and other lobbies – in short any aspirants who wish to wear the label of some sort of “cause” as an excuse to grind their nefarious axes, to peddle influence and grub easy fund-money by the ton-load.
This motley of various contenders on the Pakistani scene are all criminal and were till now “in it” together, except that they have now fatally fallen out with each other....and thus there is now no hope for their being able to reconcile and continue with their past mischief the way they once did. Not one of them is wont to acknowledge the truth about why things are the way they are in their society – or indeed the world at large.
At the extreme end of this sordid spectrum of Pakistani power stand the renegade Jihadi fanatics typified by the Pashtun Taliban, who are now truly alienated from its mainstream and can be said to be only the genuine rivals of Pakistan’s traditional criminal power structure – waiting for it to fail and crumble so that they can take its place. There is therefore no hope to be seen anywhere in this dark, confounding situation as it spirals downward.
