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Americans! Say No to Busharrafism by Abid Ullah Jan July 08, 2002 We can never have peace in the world unless the Americans say “No” to tyranny and injustice in unison with others. We are paying the price of their inertia, which enables them to plough their little furrow without an impending sense of contingent disaster. Undoubtedly, it saves them from the grim need to end their indifference to the problems around the world. Yet, it can be said with certainty that the price of inertia is the loss of freedom within and outside America together with the civic sense in the multitude. Men who insist that some particular injustice is not their responsibility sooner or later become unable to resent any injustice. Pakistan is not that far away from the Americans to find out the reality behind half-truths their media is telling them. The New York Times (July 05), for instance, acknowledges that Pakistanis are “turning against Busharraf,” but ignores the phenomenon of Busharrafism that makes people chafe and fret against insurmountable odds for freedom and democracy in many other Muslim countries like Pakistan. The way Bush and his company described the perpetrators of 9/11 as “enemies of freedom and democracy” prevented Americans from discovering the reasons why the event actually occurred. Understanding “why” has further been obscured by subsequent denials of truth and continuation of the American anti-freedom and anti-democracy policies. Dexter Filkins of the New York Times has rightly pointed out that Musharraf's “dutiful carrying out of Washington's demands is galvanizing a widespread feeling that he has largely traded away Pakistan's sovereignty to the United States.” The American analysts trivially acknowledge that Bush has turned Musharraf into Busharraf, but no one asks, why, or what consequences would it have? As far we know, Musharraf seized power from an elected government in the best interest of the country. We stood behind him and he would definitely have chalked out pro-people policies, provided Washington had not assured him of full support to carry on with the dictatorship. The way he staged a fraudulent referendum; the way he is playing with the constitution; and the way he would bring in the people of his choice to national and provincial assemblies in October show that he has been pushed into this cycle of Busharrafism by the US. The American public is shown but just one side of the picture. While the US policy has pushed almost all rulers in the Muslim world into one or another kind of repressive Busharrafism, Washington Post’s editorial (“America’s repressive allies,” Dec. 31, 2001) could point out China as the only repressive ally. Consequently, most Americans seem content to attribute others’ hatred toward America to irrationality of Muslims. Many in the US actually agree with Ann Coulter's statement that the US should "invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity," (Town Hall, September 14, 2001). This, however, is not the solution. The solution for the Americans to live in peace is to say no to their government’s policy of supporting Busharrafism in the Muslim world. No matter how much the New York Times forces the Americans to think that American “security would be gravely threatened” if Musharraf could not “deal smartly with the rising challenge to his pro-western, secular rule” (Editorial July 03, 2002), the fact remains that we do not judge our government on the basis of secularism and pro-Westernism. We judge our government by its legitimacy and its pro-people policies. For the people of Pakistan, Islamabad’s role in the sham “war on terrorism” comes long after its responsibility to serve its people. Removal of an elected government by Musharraf was not a major concern for the people. They felt betrayed as they saw it prolonging its rule by every available foul method under the auspices of United States. Governments of the US, by the US and for the US are not acceptable to anyone outside the US. And this is where “hatred of America” comes into play. No one hates America for nothing. No one feels jealous of its progress. And there is no “Islamic militant hatred of America” as the NY Times points out in its July 3rd editorial. People simply do not like to suffer and die at the hands of an illegitimate government for the sake of “American security.” The Western analysts make a mistake of presenting regimes, such as Karzai, Musharraf, Mubarak etc., as legitimate governments by virtue of Loya Jirga, referendum and sham elections respectively. Simon Chesterman writing in International Herald Tribune (July 5, 2001) declared, “Afghanistan has a government that is somewhat more representative than the one put in place by American bombs and UN diplomacy in December.” To those who know the reality, there is not even a change of faces in Kabul. At the same time, calls to “liberate” Iraqi and other Arabs are on the rise, but there is no mention to Palestinians’ liberations. The idea is not to help Arab masses break out of their impasse, but to push the remaining countries into an unending cycles of Busharrafism. At the one hand there are calls for strengthening Busharrafism in Pakistan and on the other, American analysts, such as David Ignatius (Washington Post, July 5, 2002) suggest ways for waging a “long war of liberation in the Arab world.” The proposed war is not for “liberating Arabs” from the clutches of dictators - which is Al Qaeda’s slogan as well. It won’t help them establish governments of their liking in places such as Egypt. The more than two billion dollars going annually into support of Mubarak’s regime is not to help the common man in Egypt at all. It is to protect a regime working against wishes of the majority. We must not forget that the US can effectively install puppets and sustain them for some time as well. However, if it seriously considers changes in the political culture of the Muslim world, it has to keep in mind that it has no support of the "soft power," which is as important as hard military power and the raining dollars. Soft power lies is in the hands of ordinary people who hold the network of local institutions, indigenous culture, and religious values and norms dear and intact. They cannot be purchased by “open grants from Europe and the United States,” as suggested by David Ignatius. The Americans in particular must keep in mind that hatred against America is the direct result of the policies whose dark side is kept secret from them. Busharrafism is one of them. Western analysts agree that an Al-Qaeda-like movement is not an isolated phenomenon, but they fail to recognise its root cause. For instance, Wade Davis concludes in his recent column (IHT, July 6) that Al Qaeda is “manifestation of a deeper and broader conflict between those who have and those who have not.” This, however, is not true. It is not a conflict between “have” and “have nots”, but between the oppressor and the oppressed; the imposed rulers and the ruled; the people feeling proud of being Busharraf and the people going through agony of Busharrafism. Sanctions, daisey cutters and occupations cannot defeat hatred. It can be vanquished only by humanity, and the best way to do it is to put pressure on Washington through the American people. To travel that arduous path, which alone offers Americans the security they crave, requires a recognition that one is not fully human until one acknowledges and affirms the need to freedom and independence of others. We understand that so great is the decline of liberty in the US that the citizen today is notable who protests against injustice. He is not only notable, but even bizarre; the Americans tend to wonder that he has so little to do that he must interfere in government concerns. When Professor Chafee ventured to defend the rights of Americans to freedom of speech, there were Harvard alumni anxious for his removal from the university. It is déjà vu all over again. The Americans expect Bush and Powell to announce what organization of life is to be imposed; but when the ordinary citizen speaks, they are either amazed at his courage or indignant at his intrusion. Yet, after all it is the ordinary citizen who is affected by the US imposition of Busharrafism abroad. The unnecessary pain that results from the Americans unwillingness to engage in active resentment of their foreign policy would increase with each passing day. In this over-dependent world, an American cannot sleep in peace if people in the far most corner of the world cannot go to sleep due to unjust policies of the US. The Americans acquiescence in their government’s view of freedom and democracy enables dictators to deprive of basic freedoms millions of their people who might, otherwise, share in the gain as well as in the toil of living in a peaceful world. The Americans' refusal to believe that foreign affairs are their business not less than that of the men at Capital Hill may well send the next generation, as it sent the last, to die on the battlefield at home and abroad. Yet civilisation means, above all, an unwillingness to inflict unnecessary pain. Within the ambit of that definition, those Americans who heedlessly accept the commands of authority and the official version of each story of the suffering lands, like Pakistan, cannot yet claim to be civilized men. The US and its Allies are doubtless more powerful than at any period in the history of the world; but they are still dependent for that power on their willingness to obey the decent opinion of their subjects. The Americans must not support their government just because its intentions are sincere. A catalogue of the action of states undertaken from the highest possible motives could easily be made a list of errors now regarded as monstrous. No sincerity of purpose ever excludes the possibility of conduct for which no excuse can seriously be made. Calvin was completely sincere when he burned Serventus. The Inquisition served the highest motives when it imprisoned Galileo. George III was unquestionably sincere in his opposition to the American colonies and to Catholic Emancipation. In politics, at any rate, it is not only necessary to will what is right, but also to know what it is right to will. It is a nice question whether more harm than good has not been done by governments who have been left unopposed because it has been conjectured that they were doing their best. The most passionate conviction of rightness is never a proof that we are not mistaken. It is time for the Americans to act and stop their government from imposing Busharrafism on others. Concluded. Abid Ullah Jan is a columnist for The Statesman, The Nation, and the Pakistan Observer (Pakistan). He is also sub-editor for the Tribune International (Sydney, Australia), and is the Executive Director of the Integrated Regional Support Programme (IRSP). He can be reached at abidjan2@psh.paknet.com.pk
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