A General is dead

Pervez Musharraf's death has left Pakistan going in circles

Picture from Dawn.com

He was more than an army man; General Pervaiz Musharraf once regaled us, immigrants with a bit of a fantasy about belonging. In that sense, he was a politician who sold us a sweet portion to keep us going. In fact, many like me felt confident enough to burn our bridges, pack our bags and return to Pakistan - exiting the white world, seething with supremacy and exceptionalism, heading towards the rooted bronze-brown country. My people, my land, and my politics. All without the constant need to overexplain my identity and self-justify my existence. It was a good deal.

Musharraf made us believe we were the emerging economy, headed towards open borders, trading something strategic for something valuable, and standing on our feet, not just landing on our feet.

We forgot that he wasn’t a politician, as one often does in youth. A mistake that is forgivable on my part but less so his. Musharraf took over Pakistan in 1999 in the usual way, a coup. As most Pakistanis were, I was disillusioned with the imbalance between those in power and those without it. Since I was young, I was also easily fooled by glitter in the sky, those hundreds and thousands of colorful kites flying over Lahore’s spring afternoons, playing sometimes with and sometimes against the winds. The atmosphere was merry; the Indians from across the border were in town getting steep discounts and vocalizing how after all, we weren’t that backward or uncivilized. Musharaff was the man responsible for the confetti.

I needed all the validation I could get. Standing on bus stands in American colleges made me somewhat embarrassed for being a Pakistani. In the newsstand displays, Pakistan was responsible for terror. Pakistan was named and shamed to be dealt with force, or it would go rogue. Going rogue often meant our nuclear arsenal was at risk of falling into the hands of the Taliban.

It was the turn of the century, and we knew the nations being “dealt with” in the war on terror were annihilated or, in President George W Bush’s lexicon, “bombed to rubble.” The men in power often used language to convey something that would inevitably happen; no one saber rattled. Threats were followed up with tanks and drones, and this was war. Many were dead, and many were slotted for the role.

Twenty years or so later, General Pervez Musharraf is dead. Still, his wiki page is also banned by the authorities, the Americans have withdrawn from Afghanistan, and the Taliban is a government only a few hundred kilometers from the Islamabad capital, where I live. For all practical purposes, Pakistan stands at default and is trying hard to re-negotiate an IMF deal. Populist ex-Prime Ministers like Imran Khan said they would never allow it. Now the current Shehbaz Sharif Government is in a tight corner, with zero leverage and a post floods economy begging for mercy from a lending institution that the UN’s Secretary General called “immoral”.

I looked out the window of a blue sky afternoon; there were no kites. The color is missing from the bare-branch trees, fewer and fewer. There was a national blackout a few weeks ago that financial gurus said was a metaphor for how ominous life is for Pakistanis — many have started skipping meals and filling hospitals with dengue, cholera, once eradicated Polio, and a resurgence of Covid-19 and innumerable waterborne diseases.

Musharaf had nothing to do with national disasters or political missteps after his decade-long reign. He played well almost every feature of the tyrant’s rule book, from being the likable and protective father figure to the well-articulated propaganda machine; he invented sticky buzzwords like “enlightened moderation.” In his second post-referendum term, he punished the religious parties’ choice of sinful minorities so he could stay in power longer. Yet, we can undoubtedly say the toxic patterns known to least developing countries were only strengthened - we are here to save the day, now we will have to stay to save the day, and only we can save the day; therefore, others must be annihilated.

No matter which clique of men has led Pakistan, the story is more or less the same. Despite the sprinkles of progress - the PPP came in and contributed towards structural reform through the 18th amendment, the PTI brought young people into the electoral system, and PMLN, currently in power, built infrastructure and networks like their life depended on it. What hasn’t changed, however, is the fact that only about a million people in the county pay cripplingly high taxes in a county of 240 million, that we are a 1 percent economy while neighboring China and India are worth trillions of dollars, and that only 1 percent of women are entrepreneurs.

I am back where I was two decades ago, outside looking in, despite being in, in the midst of a war that is more about math than the carpet bombing threats, and admittedly embarrassed. Our politicians’ brawl in the parliament, jails are full of people who shouldn’t be in, the private sector is leaving, and onions are a luxury.

Musharraf was loved because he took on the patronizing glances of the west by poking them in the eye. When asked why the Pakistan Government didn’t know about Osama Bin Laden (the man’s mention powered Fox News ratings), Musharraf had the guts to say it’s more or less the CIA’s failure. We liked that infotainment on TV and basked in its sense-making. Smoke and mirrors.

We felt like Musharraf was the modern Mohammad Ali throwing political punches, saying no to the proverbial Vietnam Draft, and a reflection of the founder Mohammad Ali Jinnah, telling the world to look at our Muslim nation as partners, not pawns. We felt with Musharraf, those threatening us with power could take their power elsewhere because Pakistan had two right feet to stand on.

2023 is an election year; there is sewer water at our knees, metaphorically and literally - and Sindh and Baluchistan remain largely waterlogged since the August 2021 floods. We struggle with moral authority, and our stance on Kashmir is diluted from all the hunger pangs.

Rest in peace (R) General Pervaiz Musharraf — this man, half wordsmith, half dreamcatcher, who believed in Pakistan as an entity with its rightful place in the world. This man helped us forget that any military institution’s job is to defend against threats, not manufacture them.

Here’s to forgetting. To survive, we must return home to our bad memory.