The Emergency Times 36

The Emergency Times Dec 27th, 2007 1
Please Photocopy and Distribute Issue 36
The Emergency Times
Quote of the Day

“Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side
with the powerful, not to be neutral.”
- Paulo Freire
People’s Resistance’s Outreach Program – Teach-in/Skit at SeaView

Courtesy Teeth Maestro (www.teeth.com.pk)
A few members of People’s Resistance organized a Street Theater on the Beach at SeaView for the general
public. The short street play titled JADUGAR was conceived by Husna and Ambereen of People’s Resistance,
the skit was about a Jadugar (magician) who lodges himself indefinitely in the house of a poor family,
promising to bring khushali (well being) and health, prosperity and jobs. But these promises are hollow and
he becomes a burden to the family, by using their space, and eating most of their food .
When asked about his promises, he demands that the family keeps dogs and build higher walls to secure the
riches that are to miraculously fall upon them in the future. After months of enduring his “dictatorship”, the
family decide to evict the jadugar. Not much has changed for them - the young son is still unemployed, and
his grandmother has passed away. The skit ends with the actors engaging in the audience in a discussion
about what is to be done with the jadugar. Most keenly responded that he must be thrown out with force. The
skit was an allegorical reference to Musharraf’s dictatorship and his usurpation of resources and wealth that
has contributed to poverty and class disparity in Pakistan.
Later while interacting with the audience after the play they asked, if they could personally relate to this play,
there was a overwhelming response sharing with us stories of how the present circumstance in the country
have made their life miserable and were quite open to state that the entire play resembled the eight year
tenure of Musharraf and his long list of fake and broken promises. In unison they all agreed that it’s about
time to also throw him out. The basic goal of the PR’s outreach program was to share with the people the
present dilapidated condition of our country and urge them to stand up and say NO to these looters and
plunderers who care for themselves while the people of Pakistan can literally go to hell.
A standing ovation to the team of actors Ambereen, Husna, Saad, Abira and Monezza who did a fabulous job
in the spot light The Beach theater was conducted at three different locations on Sea View so as to maximize
its exposure and as usual tons of pictures (60+) were taken, courtesy of a trigger-happy photographer
[hopefully a mobile video to soon follow once its uploaded]
(Original article and more pictures on http://www.teeth.com.pk/blog/2007/12/26/peoples-resistance-

outreach-program-street-theater-at-seaview/)
Account of Hunger Strike at Karachi Press Club

The Karachi press club hunger strike ended at 4.00 p.m on the 26th of December. The event was started at
10:00 p.m and included activists from civil organizations, like the Aurat foundation, Labour party leaders,
Nasir Mansoor and Abdussalam , National Worker Party, APDM leader Yousaf Masti Khan, Dr. Azra and Wali
from Roots, Uzma Noorani , Usman Baloch, HRCP Representatives Asad butt, Abdul Hai, Ejaz, Nadeem from
PILAR, and social activists Afiya Zia, Sophia and Saleha. Many Trade Union leaders and Fisher folk
representatives also visited and expressed sympathy with lawyers and media. The overall response from
people was great and many felt it was an overall success.
Disclaimer: This publication is not affiliated with or does not endorse any political party or social group.
It is a humble effort to inspire and make aware- for we together can make a difference in these
troubled times.
Write to us at theemergencytimes@gmail.com. Our online version is on
pakistanmartiallaw.blogspot.com
The Comedian of Pakistan; Musharraf’s punchlines

By Ahmad Faruqui
TIME magazine has declared Vladimir Putin as Man of the Year, even though he has severely restricted civil
liberties in Russia and slowed its march toward democracy. The argument is that he has brought stability to
the country and restored its status as a great power. What must also have weighed heavily in the magazine's
choice is that Putin remains very popular in Russia. He can even count Mikhail Gorbachev among his
supporters.
Being a dictator and restricting civil liberties is of course not a sufficient condition for making it to Man of the
Year. No one knows this better than Pakistan's Pervez Musharraf. Like Putin he has been in power for eight
years. And like Putin he is trying his best to extend his tenure. But unlike Putin, his popularity has tanked.
Events have gone downhill since he declared an emergency on the 3rd of November. Things did not improve
much when he lifted it on the 15th of December. All of this is a self-inflicted wound which began when he
decided to "suspend" the Chief Justice of Pakistan on the 9th of March. That event set in motion a country-
wide protest by the attorneys the like of which the country had never seen. This protest threatened the army's
dominant role in society since it was designed to institute the law in the country. It brought out the worst in
Musharraf.
That is why he was not on the short list released by TIME for its Man of the Year competition. This is ironical,
since the general was featured extensively in the magazine just a few years ago as having "the world's most
difficult job." His picture in uniform, taken as he stood overlooking a panoramic view of the white government
buildings in Islamabad, spanned two pages.
This year, as a consolation prize, perhaps the magazine should have created a special category and declared
him "Comedian of the Year."
On the global stage, Musharraf is the undisputed king of dark comedy. But mind you, Musharraf's humor is
very different from the slapstick humor you might see on the Monty Python show, the kind that would leave
you in stitches.
Musharraf's comedic device is the utterance of non sequiturs with a stern demeanor. And it is this austere
visage almost bordering on anger that imbues his acts with an inimitable touch.
Who else would say the following? "Against my will, as a last resort, I had to impose the emergency in order to
save Pakistan." You see, he is a man of many wills. The president in him did not want to impose it while the
Chief of Army Staff in him did. Hah!
And what does it mean when he says, "As a last resort?" This is an admission, albeit a very indirect one, that
without the emergency, he would no longer have remained president. Just the thought of Pakistan without
him as president is enough to bring a smile to most people's face.
The script continues, "The conspiracy was hatched to destabilize the country." But the conspirators were
never named. Dame Agatha Christie would not have approved of such an incomplete story but it is funny in
an old fashioned way.
He goes on to say, "I cannot tell how much pain the nation and I suffered." Alice would have said, "Goodness
gracious, general, you had complete freedom of movement, you could go visit relatives, stop by your office if
you were in the mood for working and, come to think of it, you could even go shopping. So what caused you
to suffer?"
Maybe he felt the police would pick up him up because he was openly expressing his opinions on TV, which
was contrary to his own diktats.
But wait. Maybe the suffering was moral. As he went to bed every night, he lay awake thinking of the people
that he had put in jail that were lying awake in rotten surroundings. To relieve his suffering, all he had to do
was release them.
But did he? Of course not! He had declared an emergency precisely to make them suffer. How dare they rise
against him on the streets, agitate against military rule and file petitions in the Supreme Court. He was going
to fix them once and for all.
The emergency was not entirely unexpected. For a while, he had been dropping hints that he might impose an
troubled times.
emergency if (a) the senior judges of the country joined in a "conspiracy" to end his eight-year rule and (b) if
street riots caused political chaos that would hobble the fight against Islamic extremism.
Musharraf went on to say that the Supreme Court, which had been poised to rule on the legality of his
October re-election, was acting beyond the constitution. Now that calls for a good round of applause.
The person who suspended the constitution was acting constitutionally and staying within its boundaries but
the apex court that was seeking to prevent the abuse of power by that individual were acting beyond the
constitution. Says who? Perhaps the Mad Hatter at his tea party.
He concluded his 20-minute address triumphantly by saying that "Now [that] the conspiracy has been foiled
[i]t is my commitment to the entire nation and the world that the election on January 8 will be on time and
will be absolutely free and transparent."
He threw the gauntlet at those political parties that plan to boycott the polls because they feared that the
polls would be rigged. Musharraf warned, "This is all baseless and they must desist from it." To alleviate any
doubt, he said the government would invite "any number" of foreign observers to come and watch the fairness
of the polls. Whether the invitations have been sent out is an open issue. Whether they have been accepted is
another open issue. And whether they will show up to monitor the polls is the $64 million question.
The dictator's comments beg the question of what is free and fair. Pakistanis have had a few elections under
military governments. Perhaps the fairest was held by Yahya in 1970 and the most unfair election by
Musharraf 32 years later. In both cases, the results were disastrous because the military was not prepared to
share power with the elected representatives of the people.
Yahya refused to hand over power to the Awami League and plunged the country into a disastrous civil war
that ultimately dismembered the republic. Musharraf pretended to hand over power to parliament but never
did.
In his speech during the presidential inauguration, he took a swipe at the West and lambasted it for seeking
to impose democracy on Pakistan. He said it had taken the West centuries to get there and they should not
expect a poor nation like Pakistan to get there in just a few decades.
So why was he now proceeding to hold free and fair elections? Pakistan is either fit for democracy or not fit for
it. Perhaps he was telling us that he likes to hunt with the hound and run with the hare. That is
Musharrafian humor for you.
Like the three dictators before him, Musharraf is exploiting the fact that Pakistanis have not had much
success with democracy. When he says that he intends to bring "the essence of democracy" to Pakistan with
the next elections, he forgets that India has been a successful democracy for the past 60 years and that it has
achieved this result without a single army intervention.
It is true that India under a single prime minister (Nehru) had better luck with democracy than did Pakistan
under seven prime ministers in the 1950s. But the army has been in power in Pakistan since 1958 for all but
a single decade. If feudalism was the barrier to introducing democratic traditions in Pakistan, the army could
have eliminated it. Surely, the generals with their big guns had more power in the country than the civilian
Nehru did in India.
But that presumes that the army wanted to eliminate feudalism. The truth is that the army had no interest in
bringing democracy into the country because it would threaten its prima donna status in the country.
Moreover, in Pakistan, the feudal lords and the army are two of the country's leading oligarchs.
Musharraf concluded a fairly difficult interview with the Washington Post's Lally Weymouth recently by
lashing out at Weymouth at the end, saying that the interviewer was implying that Pakistan was either "small"
or "a banana republic." The irony is that because of the army, it has become both.
Denial won't change the reality. But repeated denial will evoke a good laugh. That is why the man who was
trained as a commando, the retired general who attacked Indian in Kargil and the former army chief who
seized power illegally deserves to be declared "Comedian of the Year."
Dr. Ahmad Faruqui is author of "Rethinking the National Security of Pakistan," available from Ashgate. He can be
reached at Faruqui@pacbell.net.
troubled times.
Honor among thieves, while starving people for profit

Ministry declines to share names with other departments
by ARIF RANA (Courtesy The Business Recorder)
Islamabad: The Ministry of Food and Agriculture is not willing to share the list comprising the names of wheat
hoarders with other ministries, thus undermining the government efforts aimed at taking the hoarder mafia to
task. According to well-placed official sources, the denial by Ministry of Food to share the names of alleged
hoarders with other government departments is said to protect some leading lights of major political party,
whose mills reportedly have huge storage facility in Punjab.
Sources told Business Recorder that Ministry of Finance (MoF) and Planning Commission (PC) had
approached the Ministry of Food and Agriculture for the list of the mills involved in massive hoarding of
wheat. They said the ministry of Food and Agriculture shrugged off the pleas of MoF and PC. They said both
the MoF and Planning Commission repeatedly asked for the name of hoarders but each time their requests
were turned down by the ministry. Sources said secretary MoF, Ziaur Rehman, read out a few names from the
list of the alleged hoarders during a meeting of the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) of the federal
cabinet in October and then suddenly closed his folder, saying the details would be provided to the concerned
departments after the meeting, but it never happened.
Sources said the Ministry of Food and Agriculture is protecting some senior leaders of a major political party
who have huge storage facilities in Punjab. Some very influential politicians from NWFP were also involved in
export of atta to Afghanistan and Central Asian Republics (CARs) for years and they make billions from their
'business' every year. The atta businessmen-cum-political leaders are so powerful that they can easily manage
atta smuggling into Afghanistan and other CARs as much as they want. An atta businessman told Business
Recorder that a difference of Rs 500 per 40kg atta in Afghanistan is a great attraction for powerful Pakistani
mafia. He asserted the mafia is making huge money through this illegal business.
Reinventing the Sharif Brothers

By Dr. Haider Mehdi
“Like piano players,” wrote a distinguished scholar, “leaders also need to be adept improvisers, willing to set
aside their scripts and listen for signals, follow their instincts, and imagine a future that has not yet arrived.”
Imagining a future that has not yet arrived is what Pakistan’s contemporary politics is all about. Our future
demands revolutionary changes from the political status-quo that has prevailed in this country for the past 6
decades – and from the anticipated political future, where the present political dispensation will continue after
elections should the Musharraf-Benazir team be at the helm of political affairs. In a coalition government, the
Sharif brothers’ role as leaders of a major political party (not as members of Parliament) will have to be
defined as outrightly revolutionary.
This is how they will politically survive and contribute to the nation’s well-being in the volcanic future that
awaits Pakistan, starting post-elections. Failing to reinvent themselves as such, the Sharif brothers will
become lame ducks, as good as dead, politically. Musharraf’s 8-year rule, resulting in deformed political
institutions in the country, has put the Sharif brothers in the spotlight. Being the leaders of the most
powerful political party in Punjab, and with a reasonable following throughout the country, the burden of
responsibility for revolutionary democratic change in the political landscape of Pakistan and its power
structure rests squarely on the Sharif brothers now.
troubled times.
But the question is: Can they handle it? Are they capable of doing the needful and save Pakistan and its
people from another impending future political atrocity? Are they aware of the historical role that has been
entrusted upon them by the turn of events in the country? Can they honor their own commitments? Do they
understand the demands of civil society? Can they comprehend the lawyers movement? Do they follow in
earnest the constitutional damage that has been inflicted by removing the Chief Justice of Pakistan and other
judges of the apex courts? Can the Sharif brothers deliver to the masses what they demand? Can they
conceptualize the difference between minor changes in the status-quo and revolutionary change? Are they
politically competent to enact ground-breaking changes in Pakistan’s polity? Are they politically proficient
enough to take on the challenges and constructively confront grave dangers that confront Pakistan now and
after the elections, should the present political structure prevail? Are they able to differentiate between
political managers and political leaders? Can the Sharif brothers re-invent themselves and transform their
political role into revolutionary leadership?
In the historical and evolutionarily political context, the Sharif brothers can be best described as political
managers. During their stance of power, they worked to preserve the political status-quo, pursued business-
friendly economic policies, maintained the traditional rhetoric of promoting political and economical stability,
enfranchised military with more economic and institutional power, remained faithful to the historical foreign
policy linkage to the US and the West, and did not do much to enact fundamental changes in the power-
structure and in the decision-making processes of the country.
In addition, many close associates of the Sharif brothers saw their main faults as being remote, dictatorial
and disinclined to listen to the concerns of the party and its allies. There was a common perception that a
“Kitchen Cabinet” invariably prevailed in all national and provincial political decision-making. It was in this
context that decisions were made to appoint Rafiq Tarrar as president and General Pervez Musharraf as the
COAS – in a unilateral decision-making anti-democratic mind-set.
In re-inventing themselves, the Sharif brothers will be required to transform themselves from political
managers (which they have been so far) into political leaders (which they need to be to survive politically in
future Pakistan).
Political management is a process that gets the work done through others. It involves planning, organizing,
leading and controlling, which are critical steps in the process of getting the national agenda accepted. It is an
essential component of an efficient state organization, but it is not a substitute for political leadership.
Political leadership, on the other hand, is fundamentally a different notion and involves a different set of
dynamics. It involves developing a vision, an ability to influence others, creating willing followers, an
appreciation of situational appropriateness, and consistent and constant communication with all levels of
society (examine the present political regime in Islamabad in this context to understand the lack of political
leadership in Pakistan).
“Perhaps… the distinction between the two perspectives is that managers are people who do things right and
leaders are people who do the right things.” Leadership involves strategic and tactical skills in innovation and
change, and constructive and productive dealings with national political turbulence. Political managers rely
on authority and positional power to maintain so-called economic and political stability and pursue the
status-quo. (Progressive democratic regimes do not impose a state of emergency or martial law. -- Again
examine the incumbent administration in Islamabad in this context and see its recent failures.)
Political leadership, on the other hand, is the art of influencing others, adapting to the situational
circumstances, effectively energizing followers, listening and using feedback, creating multiple channels of
communication and recognizing public opinion in the making of national policies (it is evident that the
present political establishment has failed on all of these accounts). An effective political leadership, in
troubled times.
absolute essence, alters the political status-quo.
Can the Sharif brothers alter the decades-old political status-quo in Pakistan now? Can they stop relentlessly
harping on the need for so-called economic and political stability as a cover-up for the reactionary and
regressive politics of successive military dictators, civilian regimes and traditional right-wing politicians? Can
they suspend the politics of fear imposed on the nation in the so-called “war on extremism and terror”? Can
they terminate the nature of the contemporary American connection with Pakistan? Can they put the military
back in the barracks? Can they restore the judiciary to pre-November status? Can they influence the followers
and invigorate the voters? Can they heal the sufferings of Pakistani masses? Can they give an alternate model
of economic development? Can they provide a new VISION? Can they engineer a White Revolution in Pakistan
-- symbolizing a part of the nation’s flag and the metaphorical purity implicit in the name of the country (just
as the Yellow Revolution signifies peaceful revolutionary democratic transformation in Kyrgyzstan by people’s
power)?
These are the million dollar questions that only the Sharif brothers can answer. Due to the fact that the
elections have not been boycotted (which they had pledged to), the task of national reconstruction and re-
habilitation will become far more difficult and problematic.
And yet, the Sharif brothers can re-invent themselves to meet the challenges – but it needs imaginative vision
and a departure from the politics of status-quo.
Will they do it? Time will be the judge.
“…leaders are like contributing members of an improvisational jazz group. The musicians carefully listen to
each other and use the interplay to create new directions.” The nation awaits the Sharif brothers re-inventing
themselves!
But will they? That is the real question…!
The New Face of Controlled Media in Pakistan

Courtesy Teeth Maestro
Iftikhar, Aitzaz to sue Musharraf for defamation
Deposed Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry and Supreme Court Bar Association President Barrister
Aitzaz Ahsan are suing President Pervez Musharraf to claim damages worth two billion rupees through a
troubled times.
defamation suit.
Talking to The Nation on Thursday, Aitzaz made his intentions known when asked to comment on a
statement of President Musharraf in which he charged former Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry,
Aitzaz Ahsan, senior deposed judge Justice Khalilur Rehman Ramday and PML-N Chief Nawaz Sharif for
hatching a conspiracy to throw him out of the presidency. “A time has come when he will see a controversy
behind every curtain”, said Barrister Aitzaz while playing down the allegations levelled by President
Musharraf. “We are consulting our lawyers and will soon file a defamation suit of two billion rupees against
Musharraf for leveling false allegation and bringing our name into disrepute without any substantial
evidence”, said Aitzaz, who was released earlier in the morning for three days.
troubled times.

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The Emergency Times Dec 27th, 2007 1

Please Photocopy and Distribute Issue 36

The Emergency Times

Quote of the Day

People’s Resistance’s Outreach Program – Teach-in/Skit at SeaView

(Original article and more pictures on http://www.teeth.com.pk/blog/2007/12/26/peoples-resistance-

Account of Hunger Strike at Karachi Press Club

The Comedian of Pakistan; Musharraf’s punchlines

Honor among thieves, while starving people for profit

by ARIF RANA (Courtesy The Business Recorder)

Reinventing the Sharif Brothers

absolute essence, alters the political status-quo.

Will they do it? Time will be the judge.

But will they? That is the real question…!

The New Face of Controlled Media in Pakistan

Iftikhar, Aitzaz to sue Musharraf for defamation

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