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Journalism of Courage
It’s a story of two elections. Fittingly, on Pakistan, where Musharraf’s pre-poll manoeuvres ensured that most of the action was over before the polling day, the comment in the US and British press flowed in even before the ballots were cast. Not so for the J&K polls. In Kashmir, foreign correspondents couldn’t get away early. In the end, the strain of waiting and watching over a staggered and varied process began to show. Britain’s FINANCIAL TIMES, for one, impatiently signed off on the final day of polling, emphasising the violence: ‘‘Terrorist violence has overshadowed all four rounds of polling in the disputed state…’’
The day after, confronted with the rout of the ruling National Conference, the FT hailed it as ‘Kashmir’s first free election in a generation’. The NEW YORK TIMES said that the ‘unexpected election results’ are likely to do much to restore Kashmiris’ faith in the democratic process. Indeed, it said ‘‘the elections may bolster India’s international stock.’’ The result radically transforms Kashmir’s landscape, gushed the GUARDIAN, as it spoke of a ‘fresh start’ and a ‘new era’ for Kashmiris. The WASHINGTON POST observed that the final outcome could be analysed as both a defeat and a victory: while the National Conference’s defeat ‘struck a blow’ to the Vajpayee government’s ‘control over Kashmir’, it indicated that ‘elections had been conducted fairly’.
Free? Fair? Confused?
‘‘But the vote is neither free nor fair’’ the USA TODAY had protested on the morning of the vote in Pakistan. It said that Musharraf’s ‘political abuses’ deserve ‘loud condemnation’’. Yet, the Bush administration has felt ‘forced to muffle its rebuke’. Gamely, the paper tried to explain: Because ‘American style political reform’ may lead to ‘upheaval’… the prospect of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons falling to extremists … ‘too hard a US push for democracy’ could produce a ‘worse alternative for American interests’ in Pakistan. Having said that, the paper was forced to acknowledge that at a time when the Bush administration is calling for a friendly regime and democracy in Iraq, Pakistan is a reminder ‘‘of how difficult both goals are to achieve’’
The British media was more unbridled in its comment on the Musharraf brand of democracy. The FT rued that instead of running against discredited politicians he could ‘easily have defeated’, Gen Musharraf banned them. By doing so, Musharraf has set himself on a path to confrontation with ‘modern and secular forces’, it said, and the US must be warned that ‘these highly restrictive elections’ will not produce a stable ally.
But the GUARDIAN went the farthest. ‘‘If George Bush’s ‘war on terror’ were remotely rational, or even roughly reasoned, then its next target might be Pakistan, not Iraq’’, it said. Because ‘‘by most ‘war on terror’ measures, in fact, Pakistan, with its ruptured economy, unstable politics and military government is a state both failed and rogue that is over ripe for regime change’’.
Bang On, TIME
In the event, TIME would appear to have got it right. It had predicted that the likely beneficiary of the ‘General’s election’ would be the religious right. With the two major parties in retreat, the magazine warned that the force that ‘has filled the vacuum’ is the ‘volubly anti-American’ alliance of six hard line religious parties, the Muttahidda Majlis-e-Amal (MMA).
Until the clerics made common cause against America, leaders of the six parties were bitter foes, but came together to fight this election, joined by a shared litany of gripes against the Americans, and against Musharraf for being an ‘American agent’ and scaling down Pakistan’s covert support to militants waging ‘jehad’ in Kashmir. Noted TIME: ‘‘Musharraf has plainly given the religious groups more free rein in the campaign than he has allowed the two big parties that were his main rivals’’.
What’s Sexy, What Isn’t
There is still good reason perhaps to heed what Anatol Lieven said in the GUARDIAN. ‘Western commentary needs to cool down’ wrote the senior associate of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, from Lahore. He said that most western journalists in Pakistan for elections are preoccupied with the power of Islamist movements and popular attitudes to the US. You ask any Pakistani his or her opinion of US policies and you get a diatribe. But if you begin by asking people what issues are most important to them, in this election and generally, a very different picture emerges. Unemployment, education, health, sanitation, transport are issues, said Lieven, even in Pakistan. But trouble is, socio-economic issues are not considered sexy, they don’t grab the attention of western audiences or western policymakers. It is mostly on these issues, he said, that elections are fought.
