Muhammad Idrees Ahmad

I last met Imran Khan in Peshawar back in 2002 during the election campaign. For all his personal resolve, it appeared he had few people around him who had either the committment or the capacity to change. I was sympathetic since while the rest of the mainstream was given to sloganeering and reactionary politics, he was addressing issues such as education and the judiciary. While it was predictable for the media and the opposition to focus on the person rather than the ideas, I found it sad that the people who surrounded him were doing precisely the same. For them he was a celebrity, and a stepping stone — a first foray into politics, which will hopefully garner them some name recognition and possibly an opportunity to hobnob with the real politicians.

Not the most astute of politicians at start, Imran has made an effort and definitely sharpened his political skills and understanding over the years. Benefitting from the advice of people from Arundhati Roy to Mahatir Mohammad, he has developed a more rounded political position which also retains an anti-Imperial edge. It remains to be seen, however, if the people of Pakistan are ready to move beyond the personal and engage the political.

Note: I concur with rumple stiltskin‘s perceptive comments below — it isn’t the wisest of decisions to ally oneself with the discredited Benazir and Nawaz Sharif in order counter the assault of the Military-Corporate-Feudal elite. These politicians are just as much a part of the neocolonial structure that has kept the country divided and weak — they are part of the problem, not the solution.

Here Imran has some useful comments on recent events:

But this use of force is likely to produce unintended and dangerous consequences, as it has in Baluchistan, Waziristan and Bajaur. It may be salutary to recall how Indira Gandhi’s order for troops to attack the Golden Temple, where Sikh militants were holed up, not only failed to subdue the militants but triggered a wave of violence, including her assassination. While few Sikhs may have sympathised with the militants, many came to deeply resent the government’s high-handedness.

Suicide bombing and other noxious forms of terrorism were once alien to Pakistan. After eight years of military dictatorship, radicalism and fundamentalism are in the ascendant everywhere. Musharraf is perceived among radical elements as the west’s instrument in a “war on Islam”–there could be no greater failure in the battle for hearts and minds.

Terrorism requires a political solution. Extremists can be marginalised through debate and political dialogue in a democracy. Military dictatorship, as we are now seeing, only exacerbates the problem. It has become obvious to every Pakistani that, far from presiding over a transition to genuine democracy in the country, Musharraf is intent on dismantling every democratic institution in his way. Over recent months he has assaulted the judiciary, restricted freedom of the press, and put hundreds of members of the opposition behind bars.

The roots of the most shocking incident so far, however, can be found in north London, where the chairman of the Musharraf-allied Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), Altaf Hussain, resides. When Pakistan’s chief justice decided to address the bar in Karachi, a vast welcome was expected in the city. This worried Musharraf and his MQM allies, who control the Sindh government–and especially Karachi, the provincial capital. They decided to organise a rival rally the same day, despite protests by the opposition. What followed on the blood-soaked May 12 could be described in two words: state terrorism.

While the police stood aside, the terrorist arm of the MQM sprayed bullets into a peaceful procession of the opposition parties. Some 48 people lost their lives and 200 sustained bullet wounds. Among them were 10 members of my party. Most callously, Musharraf later that evening triumphantly claimed that the people had shown their “force”. None of the opposition parties believe MQM’s denials that they were involved in turning this peaceful protest violent. It was then I decided to launch legal proceedings against Altaf Hussain, who has been living in exile in London since 1992 and became a British citizen in 1999.

The MQM came into existence in the mid-1980s as a genuine people’s movement in Karachi, representing the immigrant community that had arrived from India shortly after the creation of Pakistan. This community had serious grievances, the most significant being that educated young muhajirs could not get jobs because of imposed quotas. But within a few years it had degenerated into a thuggish mafia outfit, controlled by one man, Altaf Hussain.

Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and even the US state department and the European Union have issued reports about the MQM’s terrorist activities. The only independent provincial assembly in Pakistan recently denounced the party as a “terrorist organisation”, and last weekend the conference of opposition parties jointly resolved to support the legal proceedings against Hussain.

While Musharraf maintains that he is at the frontline of the war on terror–in which thousands of Pakistani soldiers and citizens have lost their lives–he has allied himself with the country’s number one terrorist. And Tony Blair’s government, which was at the fore of this war, gave Pakistan’s number one terrorist citizenship.

It is impossible to embark on any quest for the hearts and minds of Pakistanis when these blatant double standards exist. Are dictators somehow fine when they exist to serve US interests, even if they destroy hopes of democracy in the process? And are terrorists only a problem when it is western blood that is shed?