Doublespeak

11/30/07
Please note that this op-ed was published before Benazir Bhutto was assassinated.

On November 7, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto published an op-ed in the New York Times, by far her most outspoken and pointed critique of President Musharraf to date. She baldly stated “Pakistan is a military dictatorship” and called upon the U.S. to support its democratic rhetoric with actions that actually promote democracy in a country calling for it. Her statement signals quite a change from her earlier willingness to negotiate with a military dictator. By openly attacking Musharraf, she demonstrates a complete change of political stance, perhaps triggered by America. The proclamation of the emergency in Pakistan forced Ms. Bhutto to change her tactics and to promote herself as a representative of democracy by criticizing Musharraf’s actions.

Overall, I was relieved to read her opposition to the declaration of emergency and to Musharraf’s imprisonment of lawyers, judges, and activists. However, another part of me marveled at this woman’s opportunism: she turned on a former ally and declared Pakistan in the throes of a military dictatorship when it was an obvious fact that this had been the case for the past eight years. For Ms. Bhutto, right now was the prime moment to create an image of herself as the harbinger of democracy, an image that feeds directly into American rhetoric and sentiments.

In this respect, she is following in Musharraf’s footsteps. He has also created an image for the West: he is America’s foremost Muslim ally in the war against terrorism. These images do not necessarily have any grounding in reality, but that does not seem to matter to the U.S., which is so invested in rhetoric that it can only make a feeble protest when Musharraf institutes an emergency he claims is necessary in the war against terror. It appears that the keywords “war against terror” initiate a Pavolvian response of acceptance in the States, no matter how undemocratic the means. After all, since so many other human and civil rights have been violated both domestically and internationally, an extraconstitutional emergency is acceptable, as long as it is all in the name of fighting those terrorists.

On the other hand, the more Ms. Bhutto fashions herself as the democratic face of Pakistan, the less currency Musharraf has with the Bush administration. Thus, Ms. Bhutto knowingly continues to present herself as the reinvented democratic hope, not just for Pakistan, but for the Bush administration, which can regain some credibility by having a democratically elected leader in a country that is one of its allies. In doing so, she apes the keywords the Bush administration loves so dearly: “defeat of the Taliban and al Qaeda,” “contain extremism and terrorism,” “shut down political madrassas,” all of which she used in her recent op-ed.

She’s saying exactly what America expects to hear. It expects to hear that Pakistan is an unstable land bordering a hotbed of terrorist activity. It expects to hear that Pakistan’s educational landscape is dotted with madrassas spawning a new generation of terrorists by giving them explosives and hopes of attaining paradise through martyrdom. Although a current survey estimated that less than 7% of Pakistani children are actually educated in madrassas, the recent Lal Masjid debacle only reinforced these ideas. The political reality of the situation is so much more complex that it is frustrating to see Ms. Bhutto hone in on only the issues important to America.

Just because Pakistan shares a border with Afghanistan does not mean that it will succeed where America failed, because brute force alone cannot “contain extremism.” The defeat of the Taliban and al Qaeda is not so simple, as evidenced by the fact that many parts of Afghanistan are returning to Taliban rule. And how does Bhutto propose for the U.S. to “contain” the same extremists it helped to arm and fund during the Cold War? She goes after the madrassas, further playing into America’s idea that by shutting down all places where extremist thought is developed, extremism will cease. In reality, the phenomenon of martyrdom and extremism is not novel (nearly a millennium ago the Crusaders hacked and slashed their way through Jerusalem), hinting that a deeper understanding is required of this matter rather than political soundbytes that can be fed to an administration desperate for any positive feedback.

Pakistan is in a quandary, for its current leader and the woman who is perhaps the best hope for political change in Pakistan are posturing for America. They are both playing the U.S. in a desperate attempt to gain legitimacy and power. At this rate, America stands to gain the most from political change in Pakistan, not the Pakistani people.