On Goes the Circus

The upcoming twin Marches on 14^th August, ostensibly there to remove corruption from Pakistan, are nothing more than distraction. Leaders of the two parties Imran Khan of Pakistan Tehreek e Insaf and Tahir Ul Qadri of Pakistan Awami Tehreek are working to establish confidence in the existing system by attacking an individual and not the mechanism of law making.

Imran's most notable achievement to date is the infusion of life in democracy, a system that by repeatedly failing the people was on life support after the Zardari regime. By mobilising the youth and selling them the slogan of Naya Pakistan he reversed the chronic apathy that had taken root and by then taking on power in KPK legitimised PML-Ns hold on power, not to mention endorsing democracy and its ways of placing legislation in the hands of corruptible law makers.

TuQ's container antics last time were in a similar vein, appealing to a more religiously inclined and generally older conservative demographic within the population to that of Imran’s. With much the same noise and fanfare TuQ, a long term resident of Canada, returned all of a sudden in Jan 2013 with suspected military blessing to demand the dissolution of the Electoral commission and early dissolution of the National Assembly ahead of the General Election of 2013. At the time he called for the military to be involved in picking a caretaker government, a sure fire way to spook anyone wanting to avoid another dictatorship out of their apathy and to take part in the democratic process. Yet a mere month later all of these demands were dropped, given that much pent up steam within the population against the antics of politicians had successfully been released in TuQ’s march. TuQ, 7* container and all, departed the scene once more only to return a few ago.

The objectives of these marches are to once again cement faith in the faltering democracy in the face of pathetic results. A recent survey of 84 countries by the US Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research service found that in 2012 Pakistanis were spending 47.7% of their income on food, the highest ratio of any of the countries surveyed. Inflation is set to rocket once more as CNG, used in more than 4 million vehicles in the country, is set to be replaced by costly LNG which. This will lead to an estimated increase in fuel costs of Rs 170 over the standard cost of filling a CNG tank of Rs600, an approximately staggering 28%. This will not only affect the individual consumer but have an inflationary effect across the entire economy as the costs of transportation affect all goods that need to move from one place to another. To top this off debt stock as a percentage of GDP, which was 29.2pc in 2009, rose to 42.2pc in FY13 and there is no indication of this trend reversing. 

It has always been lamented that there are no institutions in Pakistan and the electoral commission is seen as a key body that can be projected as making the democratic set up 'accountable'. But Nawaz is going on nowhere on 14th August; he is corrupt but then so is every other party. He is following the foreign agenda both on the economy and on foreign policy. Economically he is slavishly following the agenda of the IMF in selling off huge amounts of govt assets ranging from areas in Oil and Gas, Telecoms and infrastructure in exchange for paltry bailouts. As for foreign policy he is happily pursuing America's war in Waziristan, an operation which has long been desired due to NATO admitting to the problem resistance fighters put up to its occupation of Afghanistan from Pakistan.  Therefore to remove Nawaz is to put these endeavours at risk, something which America and its stooges in the military top brass would not allow. There is no appetite for the army to take over in any area of influence for said reasons, so you won't see 'Mere Azziz Humwatno' from Raheel any time soon.

The drive for all this is ultimately to keep a circus going that distracts people from the main issues of being engaged in America's war in Waziristan, structural problems with the economy driven by a Capitalist agenda and fundamental problems in the law making process which continually enables thieves to occupy politics through acts like NRO. With an eye on the Middle East where people are beginning to question and are struggling against their secular overlords, it would be most untenable for the secular military/political establishment if public opinion is for the establishment of an Islamic System which would challenge not just their petty thrones but also the geo political objectives of their Western masters. The most realistic outcome of this charade is a reformed Electoral Commission of sorts, so that people will again wait with baited breath for the next election of the circus that is politics in Pakistan.

Muhammad Asim

Twitter: @AsimWriter

Published on 14th August 2014 on Asia Times Online as Parades in Pakistan's Political Circus

Who will be the Caliph?

The question is asked often when mentioning the establishment of the Caliphate. Sometimes it is asked out of genuine interest, in others it is asked more in terms of cynical criticism. The fact that those who push for secular democracy would be embarrassed to offer an answer of Zardari, Nawaz, Gilani and so on if asked who would be your secular leader is an irony lost on many of these kinds of questioners.

If one thinks about the question, the incorrect to expect and give is the name of an individual. The reality is the question is incorrect as the matter really being enquired about is how political unity will be achieved between various factions made up of differing races, provinces, Islamic schools of thought and so on. The incorrect question is asked as a result of living under a secular political system which places huge emphasis on the individual personality of a leader rather than the policies by which he would rule by.

Pakistani politics is characterised by cults of personality. Come election time, there are no policies to distinguish any candidate or party from the next. Indeed it is a rare event that anyone comes up with a coherent policy on any one issue, let alone a manifesto worthy of the name. People are left to choose based upon criteria such whether candidate in question offers any personal benefit to them. Whilst this ranges from bags of flour and other foodstuffs for the poor to huge kickbacks and corruption deals for the rich, the principle is the same across society.

Each leader builds their cult on the politics of division rather than unity. There is the Sindhi party, the Karachi/Muhajar party, the Punjab party, the Pathan party and so on. As soon as one leader dies the people are tuned to look towards the next cult to follow. Who is whose son/brother/nephew/uncle is more important than meritocracy. This same thinking is applied when mentioning the Caliphate as an alternative to current failing secular democratic system

What needs to be understood is that those calling for the Caliphate are not working to put one individual in power under a new title. If the objective were this shallow then instead of trying to establish a alternative political system those working for the Caliphate would simply set up a political party to take part in the existing political system. Yet this is not the case; it doesn’t matter who comes to power in the existing system as he will be able to do nothing for Pakistan.

The current system thrives on corruption and rewards it in a systematic manner. The NRO, which so brazenly and unashamedly allowed criminals to run for high office, and powers like Presidential pardons are examples of this. This is a fault of the system and not an individual as these laws are processed and implemented by the system in what is deemed a perfectly acceptable and legal manner. In the name of political expediency rule of law can, crucially, be legally suspended.

The process of getting to power is one where only the corrupt and the mega rich can take part in. The process of staying in power is a story of subservience to America and the West and pushing out the feeding trough to all those that help keep you in power domestically.

The Caliphate does away with this on a systematic level. Contrary to the claims of those who oppose the Caliphate, the Caliph need to not be an angelic figure in order to rule. The Caliph is kept on the straight path by a system of checks balances, comprising of defined limited executive powers and an active judiciary that monitors his actions.

The Caliph is unable to pardon those convicted of crimes, as he is not above the law, nor does he have the ability to legislates laws that suit his desires or political needs. The Majlis al Shura also only serves as a consultative body for the Caliph, representing the people, and it too does not have the power to issue pardons or enact laws.

The Caliph also does not have immunity from prosecution like current rulers do whilst in office, which may be rather unappealing for the likes of Rehman Malik and Zardari for obvious reasons. This in itself should also highlight the issue that the Caliphate is not to be a utopian state populated by angels who would do no wrong. Rather the strength of the State would lie in being able to keep such individuals from doing damage to the State and holding them to account, rather than rewarding and protecting them like the existing secular system of Pakistan does.

Another issues related to the question of who will be Caliph is the attempt to show that no matter who is picked, he will belong to one school of thought. This would mean people from other schools of thought will never obey a Caliph who is not from their own, leading to divisions and conflict.

Differences in understanding of legal texts and evidences are a natural and expected occurrence. It is not something that should be feared or thought of as a weakness. It is unthinkable that in any free thinking society and political system there the entire population would view every single matter in the same way. It is human to differ and a healthy political environment can only exist if people are free to express their differences in their understanding of Islam. What can lead to problems if there is no meaningful outlet for these differences and further no mechanism for society and State to adopt an opinion amongst many in order to move forward on an issue. In the secular system of Pakistan, there is no such management system which leads to frustration.

In the Caliphate, the Caliph is the sole authority that has right to adopt laws and from Shariah all others are obliged to obey. This is the practical mechanism by which all political differences are solved. This is something that no matter what laws a secular system establishes or who comes in to power, can replicate. It is irrational to expect people from various schools of thought to have to obey the edicts of a secular leader, whose leadership is based upon ignoring God’s laws and ruling by other than Islam, whilst Islamically it the right of the Caliph in his capacity as Imam of the society and State to settle disputes and differences. This is a tried and tested system which dealt with differences for centuries, settling disputes amongst heavy weight figure as Abu Bakar as Sadiq and Umar Ibn al Khatab.

An ancillary issue related to this point are instances of clerics engaging in violence against one another on the basis of their supposed differences. These clashes are in fact political differences being masked under the pretext of religious variance. This is actually a reflection of those who happen to posses beards engaging in the same kind of secular politics of division and violence as their non-bearded counterparts; the only difference is that the domain of these individuals are local mosques and villages instead of the Parliament and the Senate. This situation exists due to the absence of the rule of law in country which has been the result of implementing secularism and the resulting lack of legitimacy such as system brings.

The Caliphate relies upon the strength of various checks and balances of the system and operates within the confines of the Shariah. This enshrines rule of law and justice in society, something which secularism in Pakistan has failed to do. Whilst those who work for the re-establishment of the Caliphate would naturally be expected to have a leader in mind, who it is is of less importance for the public than the issue of what he would rule by.

It may be that this individual dies or for some other reason is no longer able to become Caliph. Should this mean that the effort to re-establish the Caliphate should cease? Clearly not, as the work to re-establish the Caliphate is a work to re-establish a system, not to bring an individual to power.

This is something that many find quite hard to fathom after decades of being subjected to a secular system which, whether in the guise of a dictatorship or democracy, has spectacularly failed to bring any semblance of the rule of law or justice to the country. This has produced mentality where a miraculous ‘chosen one’ is awaited so that he may come to lead Pakistan out of the spiralling abyss of corruption and backwardness that it finds itself in

When the correct system is in place, the country will become stable and this will result in prosperity and progress. Clearly only the Caliphate by implementing the Shariah can produce these results. The discussion should therefore focus on the solutions the Shariah and the Caliphate can provide to solve Pakistan’s raft of problems concerning areas of foreign policy, economy, judiciary, energy and so on which the secular system has not only be unable to solve but has created and exacerbated.

Muhammad Asim.

Twitter: @AsimWriter

The author is a freelance columnist.