Lessons from history By Javed Hussain Monday, 30 Mar, 2009 | 08:51 AM PST |

WHEN the last army chief staged a coup in October 1999, he was generally welcomed by the people because they had become disillusioned with the kind of governance that the deposed government was providing.

Their hopes were raised and they waited patiently in expectation of a better future. But as the years rolled on their hopes began to diminish as the army chief had begun to be seen as being too self-absorbed to care for the people.

Their worst fears were confirmed when he took, purely out of self-interest, the first of three ill-advised decisions — acting against the chief justice on March 9, 2007. On this fateful day, began the fall of the dictator. The other two decisions, staging a coup against the judiciary on Nov 3, 2007, and promulgating the National Reconciliation Ordinance to perpetuate his rule, also backfired as he was roundly rejected by the people on Feb 18 last year, and then forced to resign.

He fell because like others before him, he too had surrounded himself with people who lacked probity. They felt no qualms about becoming turncoats and carrying tainted reputations. Being past masters at the art of sycophancy, they extolled his virtues to the skies and deluded him into believing that he was actually the repository of all wisdom. Having been led up the garden path he suddenly found himself on the edge of the precipice, and fell. Soon after this these very people started finding faults in him. He had refused to learn from history.

Volumes have been written on Pakistan’s crisis of leadership. Here it would suffice to say that leadership is not a position. Just because a person has been elected, selected, appointed or self-appointed, doesn’t mean that he or she is a good leader too.

Authenticity is an essential characteristic of good leaders. They are a living example and serve as role models. They unleash energy and enthusiasm by creating a vision that people find inspiring, and create an environment of commitment and performance. They learn from the past to improve the future. They have integrity; they mean what they say, speak the truth and act honestly. They give the people a sense of history and hope. If one such leader had blessed Pakistan, its history would have been embellished by stories of success, not of failure.

History repeats itself because men repeat mistakes. The incumbent president is repeating the mistakes made by his predecessor — for which he was duly punished on March 16 this year. He too has surrounded himself with people who place their own interests above those of the country, who are incapable of high thinking, and who lack the ability to grasp the wider implications of a situation, problem and action. Their sole motive is to gain and retain power at any cost in order to flourish at the expense of the taxpayer and the state — all in the name of democracy. They have thus turned politics into a game of high stakes. Yet he continues to rely on them.

It is people like these who have dominated the political scene for almost all the years of Pakistan’s life. They talk of democracy, yet, practice dictatorship. They reject provincial autonomy, yet neglect the smaller provinces. They talk of supremacy of parliament, yet treat it with disdain. They talk of their commitment to the independence of the judiciary, yet fill it up with loyalists. They talk of supremacy of the constitution, yet demean it. They talk of the rule of the law, yet apply it selectively. Their assassinated chairperson of the party had signed the charter of democracy, yet they backed out of it. They promised in the full glare of publicity to restore the deposed judges, yet reneged on it.

It is people like these who have exercised a pernicious influence on the president, and let him down, not the ones who have been marginalised in the party because they dissented. It is because of people like these that there are undertones within the party that he is fast becoming a liability, and that unless he does something dramatic to restore the image of the party, and quickly too, it would be wiped out in the next elections, whenever they are held. The powers that be, here and abroad, agree. The sad fact is that what the third and fourth army dictators tried to do and failed in their long years of rule, the co-chairman of the party has done in one year — damaged the party immeasurably.

This is a decisive moment in the history of the PPP. The party’s fortunes are at their lowest level after the recent defeat. But it may yet get a reprieve from the people if the president becomes his own man and summons the courage to take bold decisions in order to pre-empt the crises that are staring him in the face and looming large in everyone’s mind by dispensing with the likes of Taseers, Maliks, Naeks, Khosas, Wahabs, Awans etc, by ending governor’s rule in Punjab, by restoring the constitution to its original form, and by implementing the Charter of Democracy.

If he can do this and more, like abolishing the feudal system by carrying out authentic land reforms that would liberate millions of Pakistanis groaning under its impact, he would be hailed as a hero, and in the process, his critics would be left with egg all over their faces.

But if he continues to rely on the small minds that surround him, and play partisan politics, he too would fall, never to rise again. These people would then begin to find faults in him. The awakening of the people from the deep slumber they had fallen into is an opportunity for him to use to his own advantage. He must learn from history.