[Date: December 31, 1999 ]
Some Expendable Aspects of Global Democracy
by Edmund Zimmerman
In the age of information nothing is written in stone. A modern day Moses coming down the mountain might be carrying moral dictates as soft and floppy as the tablets they're written on. In recent weeks even sacrosanct concepts like "democracy" and "self-determination", long teetering on the edge of the superfluous in the thrall of their many shady defenders, have sunk to new lows. The recent coup d'etat in Pakistan is the latest example of the ever-changing morality of the global investment community championed by the U.S., the World Bank and the I.M.F. News services in many countries acknowledged the tacit blessing these world governing bodies bestowed upon Pakistani General Pervez Musharraf who deposed and arrested democratically elected Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and selected members of his government. The press in the United States however shares a certain synchronicity (not to mention countless board members) with our global banking and investing societies and their mysterious doings. It's almost a sixth sense.
Any article about corruption in Pakistan's system of government written before the October 12th coup would certainly have included the military, which commands over a third of the country's budget, in its list of offending bureaucracies. After the coup, however, virtually all American press reports speak of the difficult job the military will have cleaning up governmental graft. Not mentioning the military while discussing Pakistani institutional graft is so illogical, so jolting that a clearly coordinated effort at the editorial level was necessary. Not surprisingly most of the sources quoted in these articles have been either military or sheepishly pro-military opposition to the military not being a viable option in public discourse in Pakistan at this time. This fact is rarely noted in the US press while the absence of mass demonstrations is reported as "widespread public approval". A piece in the Oct. 21 New York Times quotes Mehreyar Pataudi, senior VP of the ASKRI Bank in Pakistan in scathing criticism of the National Banks without identifying the ASKRI Bank as being owned and operated by the Pakistani military.
Repeating the same catch phrases and even the same headlines over and over again in articles written by different writers at different news outlets might appear too cynical for reasoned public discourse (or at least too obvious) but skeptics should remember how frequently they heard the exact phrase, "weapons of mass destruction" during another recent mobile morality moment. When it comes to going along with ad agency style simplification of complex issues members of the U.S. press frequently 'just do it'.
These three headlines topped stories by three bylined journalists in the Times, the Washington Post and the San Francisco Chronicle in late October in the span of less than a week: "Pakistan Coup Leader Targets Corruption" "Pakistanis Cheer General's Uphill Fight Against Graft" "Corruption Top Priority In PakistanÖHopes Rest With Coup Leader"
Democracy be damned; this man's on a mission from God.
Opinion pieces in the Chicago Tribune (Oct 30) and Pakistan's English language Jang News International agreed that Pakistan's 62% illiteracy, a vast majority of the population living in devastating poverty and the lack of a proper middle class conspire to disqualify Pakistan from democracy. This is a formula typically interpreted as a popular mandate for a style of leadership in high hats and jackboots.
Character profiles can also be helpful when preparing readers for otherwise distasteful occurrences. Nobody is all bad and we've been weaned on profiles; they act as a bridge between Newsweek and People, between Entertainment Tonight and Meet The Press. An Associated Press story headlined, "Coup Leader-Iron Will, Sharp Mind" caused the newsprint to literally run down the page. General Musharref is fond of both "breaking new ground" and "finishing the job". He's described as "brilliant" but "uncomfortable with pomp and ceremony" and a few sentences later as a "standout" "not at home with pomp and show". He's "decorated for valor"(We already knew that from the photos with all the shiny medals) and "elite"(always a dangerous term in its military application). The Chief Executive, as he now refers to himself, is "a bon vivant likes good food, traditional music, poetry, dressing well." He "particularly admires German WWII Generals Erich von Manstein and Erwin Rommel for the blitzkreig tactics they innovated." (The writer of this AP profile could have used a little aversion to pomp and ceremony.) President Bill Clinton, another world leader who recently commemorated (inadvertently or not) the "desert fox" while "blitzing" the Iraqis yet one more time, has made use of plenty of pomp and ceremony in calling publicly for a "restoration of democracy" while actually lifting certain sanctions which had been imposed during the terrifying game of nuclear one-upmanship between India and Pakistan in May of í98. On Oct. 28 he rushed to make use of Brownback-2, the presidential waiver authority attached to the new defense bill, to ease restrictions on US commercial lending and agricultural credit guarantees to Pakistan. The spin on this contradiction was supplied by the National Security Council's Mike Hammer who noted that virtually all the sanctions against India have been waived, explaining that the "different treatment of the two countries" reflects "our hope that Pakistan returns to democracy soon." Actually Clinton probably lifted all the sanctions against Pakistan that he could considering that Section 508 of the Foreign Assistance Act supercedes Brownback and expressly forbids aid to countries where elected governments have been replaced by military coups.
The conflict three months ago in the Kargil Heights of Kashmir near the Line of Control nearly set off an all-out war between India and Pakistan and is said to have been the brainchild of General Musharraf. Its resolution, when Prime Minister Sharif ordered the withdrawal of Pakistani forces, was seen as a moral victory in India and is said to have aided in the re-election of the BJP Hindu coalition government of Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee while contributing to Sharif's own political demise in Pakistan.
The lifting of sanctions on India soon after the re-election of the nationalist government that kick-started South Asia's race toward mutually assured destruction while appeasing Gen. Musharraf, the oft decorated veteran of two wars with India may seem counterproductive
Unfortunately for the people of South Asia, when it comes to nuclear proliferation versus disarmament the United States leads by example. Unfortunately for the people of the US, when it comes to dissemination of crucial information there are sometimes only followers.
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