Chaos Theory: How Pakistan was Cast as a Failed State Columbia Journalism Review 4.24.09

An excerpt:

Pakistan is on the clock. “A fast-expanding Islamic insurgency…threatens to devour the country,” wrote The New York Times this month. The 175 million-strong nation has been on deathwatch since at least February, when The Atlantic Council sounded the alarm that Pakistan was headed for turbulence within twelve months. Recently, General Petraeus’s advisor shortened the time frame to within six months. “We could see the collapse of the Pakistani state,” said David Kilcullen. “Al Qaeda acquiring nuclear weapons, an extremist takeover—that would dwarf everything we’ve seen in the war on terror today.”

Tick tock. Boom.

It would be difficult to know from recent articles that Pakistanis scored a stunning mass-political victory only a few weeks ago. Instead, the press has been parroting Washington’s conventional wisdom on Pakistan as a country coming apart at the seams. There is no civil society here, only loons and goons that need to be bombed. The U.S. has based its actions on this decades-old story, and that has now helped produce the very realities Washington claims only to describe.

And shortly following my piece, it appears that other commentators have also noticed the breathless tone of the MSM with regard to Pakistan. Here are some:

1. Commentary: Pakistan Isn’t Falling Peter Bergen, CNN 4.27.09
2. Time Magazine’s “Reporting” on Pakistan Drone Attacks is Pentagon Propaganda Jeremy Scahill, Rebel Reports 4.29.09
3. Pakistan Crisis and Social Statistics Juan Cole, Informed Comment 4.26.09

1. It’s the social forces, stupid.
2. When writing editorials, making sense is a Good Thing.

Let’s start with the first. Here’s the lede to the NYT story announcing the reinstatement of the Chief Justice:

LAHORE, Pakistan — The Pakistani government agreed early on Monday to reinstate the independent-minded former chief justice of the Supreme Court, a stunning concession to the opposition leader Nawaz Sharif, who had been heading toward the capital in a convoy threatening to stage a mass protest over the issue after he broke free from house arrest at his residence near here.

This is just wrong. The concession was not to Nawaz Sharif; it was to the lawyers’ movement, you know, those thousands who have been marching in the streets defying government repression and getting their heads bashed in by the police.  Those people. The concession is to them. And while Nawaz Sharif and his party have been pushing for the reinstatement of the judiciary, the movement does not belong to them. They belong to the movement. The Sharif brothers know this. In fact, they’ve glommed on to the movement in a shrewd political manoeuvre to polish-up their tarnished image, and it’s a tenuous alliance.

It was Nawaz Sharif after all who smacked the judiciary around in 1997 because of criminal proceedings against him. He twisted the body, finally crippling it: that CJ, Syed Sajjad Ali Shah, was ousted.

Pakistanis remember these inglorious political moments. Writing in the aftermath of this Long March, a blogger at a popular Pakistani blog site atrributes to the Sharif brothers

a number of adjectives; none of which are flattering, to say the least. A few might include “Thieves”. “Crooks”. “Plunderers”. “Looters”. “Extortionists”. One may even go so far as to even call them “Murderers”.

So, the question for the democracy movement is how to retain its independence whilst ignominious politicians marshal influence in it. An op-ed in one of the largest mainstream dailies, The News observes:

Some will mistake the Nawaz League and the Imran Khan League (not to mention the sad and fading Jamaat-e-Islami) as having been the core of such political action. Others will make the even greater mistake of associating the heart of the movement that has ostensibly met with success as being a victory of Pakistan’s opposition political parties.

The truth is that the political parties, whether it was the PPP and the ANP in 2007, or the PML-N and the Great Khan’s Tehreek-e-Insaf in 2009 were leveraging a people’s movement that was at its core and its periphery a product of the single most impressive and successful social mobilisation effort in Pakistan’s history.

That mobilization effort is the consequence of organized communication and network building. Groups that crisscross lawyers, students, workers, feminists, businessmen, shopkeepers -in short a broad swath of Pakistani society-coordinated and executed the Long March. These included Sharif supporters but not only. It also meant a lot of labour. Flyers had to be designed and mass-produced. Black flags had to be procured. Slogans, posters, armbands and all the parapharnelia of protests had to be produced. Meeting times and transport for protests in a a public-transport challenged country had to be organized.  Communication, too, was synchronized. A particular feature of Pakistani activism has been the relatively sophisticated distribution of information via SMS, live blogging, and collaborative websites organized around live coverage from participants in the movement.

Over all this, the NYT rode its ‘journalistic’ tractor til all that was left was one pudgy, Punjabi ‘lion.’  Of course, Sharif wants to be seen that way (well, maybe not pudgy), a leader who commands the abject loyalty of the masses. To fall for for that however is to mistake political manipulation for fact, perhaps not unsurprising in a paper that has been–how shall we say it?–fairly gullible when it comes to politicians these last eight years. So, how does it happen that a mass-based movement becomes conflated with one man?  Mere credulousness on the part of the NYT is too simplistic an answer. It’s more than that. It’s about those technical requisites of  modern American journalism that employ the techniques of fiction to explain events. Journalists are familiar with having to find “characters” and “scenes” for their narrative. In so doing, the field sometimes breaks a cardinal rule of the social sciences: individuals are not stand-ins for social forces. Sharif is not the movement. It’s a theory of history that’s silly and deadly.  It’s what walked the US into Iraq and has it looking for Osama bin Laden as al-Qaeda incarnate, now.

Once social forces are written off the page, it becomes easy to forget that they ever existed or can have an autonomous impact. The story that is ‘Pakistan,’ in the NYT, hangs together as a small cast of disparate, unseemly characters: the demagogic opposition leader, Nawaz Sharif, an oily Zardari, a hapless Gilani, the inscrutable Kayani. It’s the actions of these great men, not ‘great’ in the normative sense of excellent, terrific, first-rate, but rather mammoth personalities that seem to drive events through their charisma and skill. Those who marched from Quetta, from Karachi, from Lahore only constitute a delirious mob, full of fury, signifying nothing. This is a particular kind of story about how change happens except that in ‘Pakistan,’ the story never changes.

In ‘Pakistan,’ these great-men unbound by institutions, social movements, networks, continually chance intricate political games in a space that’s only peopled by, well, bat-shit crazy extremists, an economic meltdown and a nuclear bomb:

The concession, broadcast on national television by Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani, came after a tumultuous weekend in Pakistani politics in which a dispute between President Asif Ali Zardari and Mr. Sharif escalated into a crisis that was destabilizing nuclear-armed Pakistan, already under pressure from a growing Islamic insurgency and severe economic troubles.

Shudder. And that’s how, within two graphs, the NYT reduces and transforms a broad-based non-violent democratic struggle into a sinister game of Chicken that might kill us all played by a cast smaller than the Sopranos. The apocalyptic narrative of crisis and crisis-averted is always the same, and it’s not limited to the NYT. See the Economist, “Pakistan: The World’s Most Dangerous Place”, Washington Post, Newsweek, or even Yahoo Answers “Why is Pakistan the Most Dangerous Country in the World?” In the final instance, the ‘great men’ are hackneyed aspects of a pre-penned narrative in search of scene and character to stage itself.

How to talk, then, about the concerns of those who marched? They are contemplating their victory. They’re wondering if their leaders–in the plural–were too hasty in calling off the Long March. They recall that they have been duped before. This is Adil Najam at Pakistaniat:

We also remember that promises and announcements are made by our political leaders to be broken. We also note that in listening to the speech it is not clear exactly what the terms of the decision are and exactly what the nature of the reinstatement will be.

But, what is clear is that the dynamics between Pakistanis and their only real national party, the PPP, have shifted precisely because it was a mass mobilization and not single-politican politics. The party lost key politicians including Sherry Rehman and Aitzaz Ahsan.

It is very clear that this is a moral and political victory not of any political party or political leader but of the Pakistani people and of the Justice movement. But we also know that victory has a thousand fathers and many, including the vanquished will seek to take credit for it. -Adil Najam

These turns can spell a sea-change in the internal politics of Pakistan. But the very moment that Pakistanis scored their first victory towards a stable country and against a government that has been failing them, some of the early comments by NYT readers to this article were these:

As the government crumbles, who controls Pakistan’s nuclear weapons? How secure can they be in an environment like this? — H, Cleveland, OH

Just what the world needs right now; another crisis and failed state. — George Ennis, Toronto, Canada

Paranoias have effects too. As Americans run for the bunker while the US government drone attacks the fuck out of small border villages killing hundreds of innocents and de-stabilizing Pakistan, there is less time to dig out from under the avalanche of words: “threatening” “tumultuous” “escalated” “crisis”  “nuclear-armed” “Islamic insurgency”, to say this was not the madding mob, to explain:

It was the multitudes that marched.

***

more to follow…

The lawyers have won! PM Gilani just finished addressing the country: The Chief Justice will be restored on Mar 22nd, and Section 144 has been repealed. This is the 5th day of the Long March. The protests and lawyers movement started in Nov 2007 when Musharraf deposed the judiciary.

This is what democracy movements can do towards a progressive Pakistan.

What next? More to follow….Right now, time to celebrate! Pass the mithai

SCENES FROM THE MOVEMENT :

via The News:

ISLAMABAD: In a golden moment in Pakistan’s history, the government has decided to restore the deposed Chief Justice of Pakistan, Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry.

The news was announced by PML-N leader, Javed Hashmi who was arrested briefly today. via Dawn Blog:

3.05 PST: Islamabad-Senior PML-N leader Javed Hashmi, who was arrested earlier in the day, has arrived at Iftikhar Chaudhry’s house. Speaking to the media, he said that he hopes that the PM’s announcement will fulfill the expectations of the nation.

PML-N’s Ahsan Iqbal call’s it a “people’s revolution,” while speaking with journalist Talat Hussain. Nawaz Sharif had earlier called the protests a “prelude to a revolution.” The state channel PTV is apparently not airing the current developments. Via Twitter:

HumaImtiaz: ptv is airing a show on the soap industry. like seriously. #longmarch

The Atmosphere there is ecstatic.. All the governments plans have gone in disarray..The police has stopped pelting people, they have stopped the tear-gas. Instead HIGH RANKING Police Officials (of SSP rank and above) are coming inside the High Court and making speeches!!! They are apologizing to the lawyers and civil society activists. They are saying that all that is happening is wrong and from now on they wont hurt them!!! Police officials are, in fact, talking and adjusting with the people inside high court!!!!

In what analysts here called an unprecedented reversal by security forces, phalanxes of riot policemen here in Lahore melted away rather than continue to confront protesters who had rallied around the opposition leader, Nawaz Sharif, when he defied a house arrest order early Sunday.

Lahore’s Chief Magistrate refused to comply with the crackdown.

SCENES FROM THE MOVEMENT:

Karachi protests:

…by late evening, all hopes of a possible breakthrough fell apart as, according to a high level government source, the message from the PML-N was that it was not prepared to given any concessions unless the government agreed to restore the deposed chief justice.

Sources said that this was enough to annoy President Zardari, who was already adamant to go ahead with his earlier decisions of using strong-arm tactics to deal with the lawyers and opposition members.

Hopes were high, and intense efforts were underway for the last three days to broker the deal with the various parties urging Gilani to persuade the president. General Kayani met with the Prime Minister on Thursday to discuss the new arrangements. US special envoy Richard Holbrooke had also encouraged accomodation in talks with Zardari and Gilani while US Ambassador to Pakistan, Anne Patterson reached out to Nawaz Sharif on Wednesday.

But, despite a midnight meeting on Friday, Zardari remained adamant to the disappointment of the Prime Minster. The News reports:

‘Yes, I can consider these options as part of a new reconciliation deal but only after March 16 so that no one should think that I had taken the decision under pressure from the foreign or local forces,’ a source quoted the president as telling his two guests at the Presidency

Meanwhile, the massive crackdown continues with dozens of activists, lawyers and political leaders being arrested in the NWFP yesterday, reports the BBC. Over 1000 activists and opposition leaders have been jailed or put under house arrest. Lawyers and others have gone into hiding in and around Islamabad. Protesters are hoping to make their way into the capital in small groups.

And finally, offices of Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) were raided. Office equipment and party flags were taken by the police.  The leader of the party, legendary cricketeer turned politician Imran Khan expressed resolve to continue the struggle to restore the judiciary.

NY Pakistanis are staging a protest in NY to show solidarity with Geo TV and the Lawyers’ Movement. Please participate and inform your contacts in New York to do so. Details are below:

What: Protest in solidarity with GEO and in support of Lawyers Movement.

Where: 786 Coney Island Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11218

Organized by: Pak American Society

Time: 7 PM EST

Speakers: Qazi Hussain Ahmed, Imran Khan, Ali Ahmed Kurd

This will be followed by a conference called “Jeevay Pakistan” addressing the challenges in Pakistan

Speakers: Mian Muhammad Nawaz Sharif, former President Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) Aitzaz Ahmed and PML-N Information Secretary Ahsan Iqbal.

Rehman had held a “a series of heated arguments” with other officials in the PPP, according to Dawn, but after failing to convince them against the ban, she resigned in protest.

A prominent member of the PPP, Rehman’s decision signals splits inside the PPP about how to tackle a vigorous press that has been openly critical of the government’s policies towards the Long March.

In fact, activists and politicians have relied on it during the recent crackdown. When police came to arrest lawyers’ leader Athar Minallah, he turned to the press for help. From Time:

“I locked myself in the car, and the police didn’t know how to get me,” he said. “So I called the television cameras who were only two minutes away. I began giving live interviews from the car, addressing the Interior Minister, Rehman Malik, directly. After a while, Mr. Malik came down himself and shouted the police officers away.”

There may be institutional issues at several levels in Pakistan, but the press is working. “The media,” Open Society Institute’s Fawzia Naqvi told us, “has become the most trusted institution in Pakistan.” The statement was borne out in interviews with refugees from the NWFP and Fata who thanked the press for covering the dismal situation in their hometowns and exposing the damage caused by the US drone attacks, the Pakistani military and the Taliban.

Activists over at the popular listserve, Emergency List, have asked that people thank Rehman for her principled stance.  You can email her at:

• sherryrehman@mobilink.blackberry.com
• ppp@comsats.net.pk
• sherryrehman@gmail.com
• sherryrehman1@gmail.com
• sherryrehman@hotmail.com

An email update by a protester on the ground in Khi:

it was a very up-and-down day. when people set out from the high court (felt brilliant!), we thought the police would respond immediately. they didn’t, but had  obviously made a plan to corner the marchers outside of the city…. the marchers reached there much later in the evening–it was slow because the bus drivers that were supposed to take people had been warned against it by the police, so new arrangements were made–when they finally did reach, after much nare-bazi, they were prevented from going further than the toll plaza….[where arrests were made].

people have been going thaana [police station] to thaana to release ppl from police custody. many have been released, but march seems to have been stopped for now, as best as i can tell. there were rumors that the buses were going to be burnt! though i don’t think that happened.

anyway — the feeling on the ground was brilliant, very fearless….

Karachi Police arrested  nearly 200 people. They were later released on Rs 5,ooo each after the local magistrate issued an order, according to the News. Dawn confirms that scuffles broke outside of Sindh High Court where 35 people were arrested including the Vice President of the Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) Party. Police beat protesters with batons and sticks, reports BBC. You can find the BBC’s video here. Approximately 10 prison vans were on hand at a main exit point in Karachi for arrests. An SMS update by Anonymous from Karachi:

Lawyers lock thenselves in their cars at the Toll Palaza Karachi and resisting arrests.

Protesters have been wending their way to Islamabad for the main rally in small groups.

OF NOTE:

1. Aitzaz Ahsan defies Section 144 and leads a rally on Mall Road, Lahore. A key leader of the lawyers’ movement and member of the PPP, Ahsan has been suspended from the CEC of the PPP for violating party discipline. Of PPP supporters of the Long March, he told Dawn blog:

”Many PPP supporters are with us because they know that Benazir [Bhutto] had promised them that the judiciary would be restored,” he says, adding ”it is not true that the lawyers’ movement does not have massive public support…. People are just waiting for the right opportunity to come out on the streets.”

2. In Lahore, police tortured a cameraman and seized his camera as he was filming lawyers arrests, GeoTV reports.

Head of Supreme Court Bar Association, Ahmad Ali Kurd led a march from Quetta which was stopped at Jacobabad. An SMS:

We have surrounded ali ahmad kurd. To govt authorities: if u have the courage come arrest him.

But protesters remained spirited. One texted:

Jacobabad we are going to have a sit-in here. We are not going down that easily.

TV MOMENTS

An emotional moment: human rights activists Tahira Abdullah broke into tears as she took on the PPP’s Minister of Information, Sherry Rehman. If you don’t speak Urdu, no worries here; much of the exchange is in English:

Nawaz Sharif on Live with Talat: PML-N leader Nawaz Sharif who’s party is supporting the Long March appeared for a hard-hitting interview on the news show of one of the top journalists in Pakistan, Talat Hussain. The exchange was interesting. The video will be available here. Hussain asked Sharif why he was taking on the PPP so directly rather than waiting till next elections.  He also questioned whether the Long March was a national movement or one that belongs prominently to the province of Punjab. Sharif’s responded by saying that most Pakistanis support the march and that the PML-N has been winning by getting votes in all provinces.

It may also be added that several of the top lawyers movement leaders are not from Punjab, but Sindh.

He writes in an email:

political activists, and civil society members defied section 144 to launch the long march to islamabad.

they cannot stop us.

Here are his videos:

Leaving the Sindh High Court, Karachi:

Note the Rangers standing by and the crowd walk through the barricades past the police (@ :20 sec). They don’t seem to making much of an effort to enforce the ban on gatherings in Khi. This, despite a statement by senior-officer-in -charge Wasim Ahmad who said according to GeoTV:

Talking to media, CCPO Karachi said police force is working under specific procedure. Anyone who violates section 144 would be punished and no one is allowed to disturb law and order.

Marching through Saddar Town in Karachi:

Watch the size of the crowd (and it’s just begun!) and listen to the chant:

Jeena ho ga, marna ho ga!

Dharna ho ga, dharna ho ga!

Rough Translation: Life or death, the dharna (sit-in) will happen!

Protesters are marching towards the capital Islamabad. Activists from Karachi and Quetta are expected to arrive  in Lahore on the 14th, and converge on the capital by March 16th for a dharna (sit-in).

WHAT IS THE LONG MARCH?

The Long March is a set of upcoming protests and rallies of thousands of Pakistanis demanding the reinstatement of Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry and other judges who were deposed by Gen. Musharraf in Nov 2007.  Protesters will begin marching towards the capital Islamabad on March 12th. Activists from Karachi and Quetta are expected to arrive  in Lahore on the 14th, and converge on the capital by March 16th for a dharna (sit-in).  This is an independent, grassroots movement for democracy led by the Pakistani lawyers movement that  includes lawyers, activists, students and workers. The term “Long March” refers to Gandhi’s march against British colonialism. The Pakistani government has reacted defensively to this broad-based movement by shutting down the capital and arresting hundreds of activists. Bans on gathering are in effect in several cities.

It’s the second such mass protest. Last June, thousands of Pakistanis of various political stripes and socio-economic classes, marched from Karachi to Islamabad to demand the restoration of the judiciary in first Long March. Benazir Bhutto’s PPP and Nawaz Sharif’s PML-N campaigned on the issue for the Feb 2008  elections. While the PML-N has continued to push for restoring the judges to the bench, the ruling PPP has spurned the demand since winning the elections. Instead, judges loyal to the party have been sworn in, including the questionable Abdul Hamid Dogar.  Also see here.

This is the new democracy movement in Pakistan today.

FOLLOW IT:

The Long March is here. A roundup of some places to keep up:

• Live Updates via Teeth Maestro’s collective effort: http://teeth.com.pk/blog/2009/03/11/long-march-live-updates
• Live Updates via Kashif Aziz: http://www.chowrangi.com/live-coverage-of-pakistan-long-march.html
• PK Politics is posting updates of the political situation: http://pkpolitics.com/2009/03/10/civil-dictator-zardari-orders-mass-arrests/
• Twitter feeds: 1) http://twitter.com/LongMarch 2) http://twitter.com/arnoldyb
• Website with basic docs and interviews: http://marchforjustice.wordpress.com/
• Twitter and SMS updates on one site: http://longmarch.seenreport.com/

OF NOTE:

1. Sahiwal, a district of approximately 1 million residents in Punjab, has refused to implement orders under a colonial-era law, called Section 144, which would ban public gatherings of five or more people. Mayor, Rai Hassan Nawaz Khan’s courageous act comes at a critical moment. Government officials have already imposed the law in several cities across Pakistan as part of a crackdown on activists and lawyers preparing for the Long March. Checkpoints or blockades have been erected on all main roads to the capital Islamabad, the destination of the lawyers protest.  The army has deployed some 300 Rangers in and around the city.

The law, which has its roots in 1860 British colonial Penal Code law, empowers district govermnents to promulgate order in cases of emergency for the public interest. Human Rights Watch has issued a demand to the Pakistani government to release the 300 activists currently detained under this draconoian legislation:

Since March 10, 2009, authorities have detained at least 300 activists from the opposition party and affiliated groups from across Punjab province, the party’s stronghold. Scores of opposition politicians are in hiding, fearing arrest. The activists have been detained under various provisions of the Maintenance of Public Order Act or simply detained without charge.

“It’s a disgrace for elected officials to mimic the discredited military government by using old and repressive laws to stifle political expression,” said Ali Dayan Hasan, senior South Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The protesters who were arrested should be freed right away and allowed to demonstrate peacefully without fear of violence.”

2. Punjab government leader, Shahbaz Sharif defies the ban and addresses a large gathering in Gujranwala. His government was ousted last week following a ruling by the Supreme Court retroactively disqualifying him and his brother from the watershed elections in Feb 2008 that brought him to power. The decision is widely regarded as illegitimate, a biased judgement by a discredited Supreme court packed with judges installed by and loyal to the ruling PPP party. Shahbaz Sharif’s speech is available here.  His brother, Nawaz Sharif’s speech in Abbottabad on the same day is available here.

3. Arrest warrants have been put out activists using lists that the Musharraf government had compiled.  The result? Warrants are out for folks who aren’t even in Pakistan at the moment. Five activists from the Student Action Committee including  Samad Khurram, who refused to accept an award for academic excellence in protest against US policy towards Pakistan from then US Ambassador Anne Patterson, have a warrant out against them. They should lapse after 90 days. “The crime?” says Khurram, is that they “could ‘potentially’ be protesting.”

GET UP TO SPEED:

• Pakistan Tries to Derail Popular Cross-Country Protest -CS Monitor
• Fascism in Action -Editorial, The News International
• Pakistan’s Long March on the Road of Political Uncertainty Continues -Adil Najam, All Things Pakistan
• Plunder of Justice -Editorial, The News International
• Viewpoint: Marching for Democracy in Pakistan -Sahar Shafqat, BaltimoreSun.com
• US Has Chance to Help Real Democracy in Pakistan -Sanjeev Bery, Wajiha Ahmed, Atlanta Journal Constitution

THE LONG MARCH BY OTHER MEANS:

Long March Songs hit the Internet: http://pkpolitics.com/2009/03/08/songs-for-rule-of-law-long-march/

Remember Jalib:

We will rock you -a Long March mix:

A Long March Anthem by Aitzaz Ahsan: