Far from a failure

In the movie ‘Up in the Air’, George Clooney stars as a man perennially short of time. While he is in an airport queue, he tells his colleague to get in the queue with ‘Asians’ since they are ‘efficient’. Aghast, Clooney’s colleague looks at him and he snaps, ‘yes, I stereotype. It’s faster’.
In real life, generalisations are dangerous and can lead to nuanced analysis being a casualty. Last week I read, in many columns, certain generalisations. They were, as I now realise, to my benefit. They reminded me of what I hear so regularly that it is easy to become oblivious to the need for dealing with and correcting them. Here is the crux of such generalisations: ‘democracy in Pakistan has failed and people of Pakistan are incapable of making intelligent choices’.
A very readable answer, in my view, to all such generalizations is 887 pages long and is contained in a book titled, ‘The Life and Death of Democracy’ by John Keane. Keane directly engages the critics of democracy and describes what he sees as the three stages, so far, in the life-cycle of democracy. These are the Assembly Democracy (originating in present day Middle East later traveling to Greece), the Representative Democracy (seeing its high point in the USA and carrying on till the 2nd World War) and the Monitory Democracy (post-World War 2 version of democracy, its peculiar language and growing body of interest groups, free media that ‘monitor’ democracy).
It never fails to amuse me how impatient the so-called liberals among us are when it comes to democracy in this country. The years of civil-military imbalance mean nothing to them. The NGO-wallahs will use the word ‘capacity-building’ in all fields except governance. Our politicians need capacity-building too and we the electorate can ensure that it happens. That is where democracy comes in and matters.
This ‘failed democracy’ brought us the NFC Award, a considerable success in addressing the grievances of our provinces. This ‘failed democracy’ saw the 18th and the 19th Amendments being passed, the acceptance of the need for greater provincial autonomy, the legislative assemblies in Gilgit-Baltistan etc. Not just that, for the first time in our history we, as a country, are seriously considering a re-division of our provinces along ethno-linguistic lines.
The electorate of this country is not incapable of intelligence if it chooses the Pakistan Peoples’ Party; a party that openly accepted that terror threatens our very existence and took on a difficult war. But those questioning the choices made by the electorate insult their own intelligence. Sure, structural imbalances remain and need to be fixed. But the beauty of democracy exists in the choices that it makes available and the freedom to choose among them. The high-browed do not have to like it. And they don’t. But voters cannot give two hoots about what someone else thinks is ‘intelligent’. What resonates with them is what matters. Their lives are directly affected by the faith they place in promises. A natural corollary to ‘one man, one vote’ could be ‘up yours’. Sorry for the heart-break but the English-medium types don’t make the final call here.
The people of this country have never elected a religious party into power. The electorate kicked out the Q-League and embraced leaders who were in exile. Intelligent enough? For all the talk of conservatism, one of the most liberal and secular parties of this land comes from the KPK in the form of the ANP. The parties that triumph in Balochistan do so because their message has a resonance — a resonance that for a large part of our history, owing to the civil-military imbalance and Punjabisation, we have been deaf to. But now Balochistan and its rights are a real issue in this country — a talking point to begin with but things are happening. The press, the electronic media, the parliamentarians are all a part of this ‘Monitory Democracy’. This along with devolution of rights to provinces is the answer and not a declaration of failure with a stroke of our over-intellectualising pens. And let’s celebrate one thing — our military leadership is finally beginning to get the flack and disparagement it deserves, at home and abroad.
If you admire China, speak to someone who has lost a child to the one-child policy or someone suffering the Hukou system. If you are a fan of Malaysia, speak to a Malaysian-Chinese and find out about the discrimination. Some may not see the wisdom here. But democracy is the only system of government that always puts itself and its participants on trial. Balochistan, KPK, FATA may forever be lost to us if we do not empower the electorate there and allow them to make choices through the ballot — choices that we must respect. Democracy is generous because, unlike utilitarianism, it does not have a ranking system for our choices. Our choice matters because it is, well, our choice. That, in itself, is sublime.
China, Malaysia and Egypt among others betrayed democracy for years by trusting the few to be ‘intelligent’. But there is wisdom in numbers. You see, democracy is only as good as our will. Let’s keep the will, and hence democracy, alive. I have a feeling Pakistan’s people and provinces are better off that way.

The writer is a Barrister and has a special interest in Anti-trust/Competition law. He can be reached at [email protected]