COMMENT: Let’s defy Bush —Nazir Naji

Now that the United States has turned against our president’s uniform, it is obligatory for Gen Hamid Gul to start supporting the uniform. Obviously, if the president chooses to keep his uniform, it will be a challenge to the US. The people, too, should rise to the occasion. Countrymen, comrades, resist Bush

I insist that there is simply no way we can be friends with the United States. It plays the patron to our military rulers when we are demanding democracy. And now that 96 percent of the people are begging the president not to doff his uniform, these Americans have started supporting democracy.

God alone knows what it is with Americans; they are always doing exactly the opposite of what we wish. When we were opposed to defence treaties the US snared us in and kept us shackled. When we wanted its military cooperation it abandoned us in East Pakistan and walked away. When we wanted to give a tough time to the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, the Americans offered us peanuts. When we started the battle on our own, the CIA used dollars it had made in the heroin trade to give its enemy a beating at our hands. Once it had been beaten, the Americans abandoned us without regard to our preparations and plans to take the fight to the enemy. Had it not been for Americans we would be sitting in Moscow today, distributing among ourselves the housing colony plots. This, of course, was a disappointment we will never forget. We take in our stride huge losses, including battlefront losses, but cannot get over the loss of plots. From Tashkent to Moscow, I am told, the best sites for real estate development had already been marked. We would have got our plots right after the imminent victory.

The US does not let go of a single opportunity to hurt us. We have these days been concentrating on our president’s military uniform. We want him to keep for another ten years the uniform we are used to. We do not want another uniform to replace it. Once we had got used to Ayub Khan this uniform gave us Yahya Khan. By the time we had resolved to declare Yahya Khan’s constitution Islamic, the uniform had moved on. Mr Bhutto got himself a uniform of sorts to appease us but we were not comfortable with any other uniform. The old uniform, therefore, re-emerged with Gen Zia ul Haq. This cheered us no end. Gen Zia served Islam well. Sipahe Muhammad was established. Kalashnikov rifles that our elders had never seen became a toy for our children. Heroin became commonplace. Religious-political leaders exchanged their mosque pavilions for bungalows and bicycles and tongas for Land Cruisers and aeroplanes. The mawlvis used to leaving the doors open when the slept came to need ten-twelve Kalashnikov-wielding guards each. Through Zia, the uniform gave us a whole new society. The US was unhappy with our contented ways. Zia met an accident.

Gen Aslam Beg did us great disservice in keeping the uniform away from public view. To this day he remains un-forgiven. We never go near an organisation he has founded. We also resent Benazir Bhutto for picking a chief of army staff who denied us the rule by uniform. We had similarly resented Nawaz Sharif for picking a chief of the army staff during his first tenure who did nothing for us. We had to make do with a uniform-less government. The second time around, however, Nawaz picked the right man. It is thanks to him that we entered the golden era of uniformed rulers. For nearly five years now, we have been quite contented and at peace with ourselves. We have manufactured assemblies and even picked two prime ministers from within assembly members. The experiment did not go well but we have made the correction, bringing in a prime minister we like. Like 96 percent of the people, the prime minister wants to see the president in the uniform. We are a modest people. This talk about two more years, no four, no ten — reflects just that. In our hearts we cherish the wish and the hope that Prevez Musharraf keeps his uniform to the end of his days. The man demanding that Mr Musharraf should proclaim monarchy, was expressing the entire nation’s sentiments.

Sweet dreams we have been dreaming. A glorious, uniformed future beckons us. And then President Bush brings his ugly democracy discourse to the United Nations. His revolting argument in favour of democracy is a turn-off. He has threatened us with a proposal even to set up a United Nations fund for development of democratic institutions. We don’t like this fund thing. But we are also thinking of how to get our share. Of course we cannot let the president hang up his uniform. So how do we get the funds? I think we should declare Maulana Fazlur Rehman the champion of democracy and get him a hefty amount from the proposed United Nations fund. This will save the uniform as well as secure the funds. The Maulana has been very resentful of the dollar drought since the Soviet retreat from Afghanistan. Also, now that the United States has taken up this democracy ruse and turned against our president’s uniform, it is obligatory for Gen Hamid Gul to start supporting the uniform. If the president chooses to keep his uniform, it will obviously be a challenge to the US. Gen should support, as matter of principle, whoever challenges the US hegemony. The people, too, should rise to the occasion and foil the evil designs of Bush in casting an evil eye on our president’s uniform by mentioning the democracy. Countrymen, comrades, resist Bush.

Nazir Naji, a former chairman of the Academy of Letters, is a freelance columnist. This column was translated from Urdu by Daily Times
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default...7-9-2004_pg3_3

Very humourous.