There is a scene in Gulzars Ijazaat where Naseeruddin Shah and Rekha are stranded at a railway station reminiscing about their broken lives with heavy rain holding up things outside the waiting room. Shah decides to go out and fetch something for them to eat but the bicycle he is supposed to ride has its chain broken. Ever the master of symbolism, Gulzar deftly uses the angle to showcase how the twain wasnt going to meet.
The Raymond Davis saga is just as rich in symbolism. For the discerning, there are enough lessons in the episode even if not everyone seems to be alive to these. Vested interest can, to borrow Bush-speak, blindside reason, but lets do a bit of unlearning anyway. The CIA contractors dramatic flight to freedom last Wednesday even though it was in the works for weeks was expected to inflame public opinion and leave the more sober elements a trite sad because notions of “national honour” and “sovereignty” would come into play.
However, the outstanding truth is that there is no place for emotion in state relations, which are largely, guided by strategic interests (Bill Clinton wagging the dog to take his and Americas mind off from the heat provided by Monicagate was a rarity). This is not only explained by how the Pakistani security establishment used the Davis affair to play hard-to-get and get their pound of flesh but also the way the Americans were forced to descend from their high horse (nixing notions of diplomatic immunity) to cut a deal by using a Shariah law to save the skin of their national.
Funny, money has never failed to make the law of the land this side of the Indus look like a rotund ass. The smoke surrounding who is going to foot whose bill in lieu of the blood money paid to the heirs of victims hasnt thinned but the dust has settled for the Americans at least. Having said that the best we can do is to put this behind us on the premise that the business of the state, like life, has to go on. But what do you do about a nation as hapless as ours, which at any given time is bombarded with bloated accounts of national esteem, self-respect and sovereignty. The last description actually, takes the cake for its brazen hollowness and manipulation.
What really is sovereignty in lay terms a states ability to make independent decisions and protect its territorial integrity? If so, Pakistan hasnt been able to do that for as long as one can remember (it didnt take much for the US to author the deadliest drone strike since 2006 barely 24 hours after securing Raymonds release). And it cant when its engine is fueled by dole-outs from Washington or the American-dictated IMF and World Bank. Empty vessels can only make noise, not lend a script with a shiny role for some spine. For a state wanting to be heard in the cacophony of international diplomacy, it is not enough to have geographical nuisance value alone.
First and foremost, it has to have its house in order ensuring political and economic stability which feed into the overall terms of independence. Pakistan, sadly, is increasingly being cited as a basket case for a state that has failed her citizens. Depending on the goodwill of foreign powers to run its kitchen (read economy) has meant it has had to barter services that have changed the very contours of the state as we had always known it. A highly counterproductive role in the so-called war-on-terror imposed on Islamabad has profoundly, weakened the foundations of the state.
This is where leadership comes into play. However, as the WikiLeaks cables showed us in the dead of winter, there is not much by which the nation can set store. In fact, all those who felt, the public dossier would force a rethink of some sort on the part of a broad spectrum of civilian and military leadership were sadly mistaken. What we see in the Davis episode is that all of the stellar cast the PPP government led by the president and his coterie, the PML-N leadership with its enterprising Punjab chief minister, the ISI and the army brain trust, the Saudis, the Emirates found in Ambassador Anne Pattersons cables as components of one large Yes Minster team were just as involved to bail the US out of a tight corner.
Yes, the subject was different and this time, the military establishment appeared to drive a hard bargain but the end result was the same. By making a deadly drone strike, the Americans showed just who the boss is. If at all, the Davis saga has reinforced how fictional the rule of law and governance in Pakistan really is. And that is stating the obvious.
The writer is a newspaper editor and can be reached at [email protected]
