A nation begging to be excused

There is no shortage of optimists, however, who say that a good general knows when to retreat. A “good” general does, an inept one doesn’t. Call the masterminds of Kargil good generals? Call the architects of Wana (another piece of brilliance the army could have done without) good generals?

Of all the operations of war, retreat is the most difficult, calling for more skill than defence or attack. Expect the present dispensation to conduct an orderly retreat out of this mess? Miracles can still happen, but considering the odds they have managed to stack against themselves, it looks increasingly a forlorn hope.

Glibness and bluster have served this dispensation well for seven and a half years. Alas, what it now faces, a crisis born of dimwittedness and arrogance, goes far beyond the exercise of glibness. Pakistan was a different place on March 8. In the next 24 hours it had utterly changed. Judging by what has happened thus far, a long summer of discontent looms ahead.

To recap a few points now widely accepted. The materials for an outbreak of pent-up feelings were all there. All that was needed was a spark and it came in the form of one man’s courage. If during the 4-5 hours he was confined in General Musharraf’s lair in Rawalpindi, Chief Justice Chaudhry had bowed to pressure and resigned, as he was being asked to do, he would have become history.

But he stood his ground and said no, by this one gesture capturing the imagination of the Pakistani people. Of course he has his faults. Which mortal doesn’t? But that particular moment called for fortitude and he was able to provide it.

When you are called upon to man a bridge it’s your courage which counts, not what you may have been or what your psychological profile is. Chief Justice Munir was one of the most brilliant judges to preside over the Supreme Court. But he was also the father of the “doctrine of necessity”, the ill-tuned logic which has served to give a dubious legitimacy to all Pakistani dictatorships. So what are we to do with his brilliance?

Chaudhry has struck a popular chord. That is why lawyers have come out so fervently in his support and why public opinion is with him. Indeed, not so much for his person as for what his defiance has come to symbolise: The independence of the judiciary, the rule of law, the necessity of respecting the Constitution, the responsibility of standing up to the nonsense of one-man rule.

We are an emotional people, easily swayed by the striking gesture or the striking image. A bar association somewhere (is it Toba or some other place?) has offered to buy and put on display Chief Justice Chaudhry’s torn coat and broken spectacles — resulting from his roughing up at the hands of the Islamabad police on March 13 when he walked out of his official residence to appear before the Supreme Judicial Council.

We used to wonder whether in this over-populated country there was someone who could be an honest caretaker and be counted upon to conduct free and fair elections. The answer now seems pretty obvious: Justice Chaudhry. Given the current national mood, the people of Pakistan are unlikely to accept anyone else.

Indeed, I am almost ready to bet that the time may not be far off when people will start saying make him the next president

of Pakistan…

Providence moves in strange ways. Seven and a half years is long enough. If they were meant as punishment for our sins, at least we have the satisfaction of knowing that we have paid for them in full. Our penance having been comprehensive, the heavens now should allow us to move on.

Reading the entrails of the future is always difficult but some things have already changed. The Generalissimo, much as he may cherish the desire, now seems to be in no position to go before the present assemblies and from their safe bosom seek another five-year term. Such a farce lay within the realm of possibility before March 9. Not after what happened that day. This is one dream or illusion which can be safely buried…

It is perhaps the fear of the unknown; what was unthinkable before, or at least unrealistic, now looking plausible: The dim outlines of a post-Musharraf era.

Dawn