Its been a tough month for Pakistani President General Pervez "the Perv" Musharraf. Perhaps after casting a nervous eye towards the burning streets of Karachi, he decided that his country's biggest problem was an unruly media, and he moved quickly to rectify the problem. When a few European allies seemed a touch perturbed about the media clampdown, Musharraf's Foreign Ministry said the only reasonable thing:
"This is for our people, our government and our media to discuss, debate and decide"And that's precisely what they did. After much discussion and debate, the General reached a compromise. There would be no new media restrictions, provided the media agreed to observe new media restrictions. The media pledged to show "respect for national institutions like the armed forces." This was a gracious compromise for the General to offer. After all, he said it best in his own words: "I gave the media that freedom it has today."
Freedom is a relative concept, as Masud Alam eloquently explains in one of the most entertaining articles I've read in months. Perhaps General Musharraf genuinely feels that his country is free. Perhaps he feels that freedoms of Western liberal democracies are foreign to his culture and his country's world view. Or perhaps he feels that freedom of the armed forces and the Inter Services Intelligence is more important than the freedom of individual citizens. Either way, this sordid affair in a troubled country brings up an interesting point. By its nature, political language is peppered with vacuous and ultimately meaningless terminology. Every political leader in the world purports to defend "freedom" and "liberty," including thugs like President Musharraf.
That such words still carry a heavy emotional appeal is clear. Political speech writers of every stripe insist on inserting motherhood terms into their bosses words. But I am at a loss to explain why they still carry impact to citizens. This phenomenon can be seens even in the online comments following Alam's hilarious piece. It's fascinating to read the comments of people who seem oblivious to the concept of satire. Or perhaps they don't believe that people should be telling jokes when Freedom is at stake.
5 comments:
md - I have no idea what Rodrigo said above, but I'll assume he was agreeing with your post.
I find it amazing that the US was so quick to soften its stance after Musharraf's "deal" with the media. In fact, it was no deal at all, but rather a hobson's choice of accepting voluntary restrictions or having their licences pulled altogether.
The situation in Pakistan isn't surprising - the country has never been a real democracy. But this whole episode shows just how muddled and twisted US foreign policy has become, when they now have to get into bed with dictatorial thugs like Musharraf and with Sunni insurgents in Iraq just to achieve their own dubious ends.
p.s. Pervez "the Perv" Musharraf - love it!
Really interesting. Musharraf is in trouble and change might have had a better chance had the US not been so idiotic.
Given the Pakistan/Afghanistan situation, shouldn't the US be making this guy's life difficult?
What I find odd about the comments after Alam's post, is that the majority of those who criticize his piece are from outside the country. I wonder why that is?
knb - you're quite right. I hadn't noticed before that the piece seemed much better received by those living in Pakistan than outside. I guess when people recognize Alam's descriptions in their every day lives, they're more inclined to appreciate the satire. I've no doubt that many people living in Pakistan could use a dose of humour these days.
red canuck - the frustrating thing about US foreign policy is that they never seem to learn from past mistakes. In the 1980's they poured money in the general direction of the Afghan mujahadeen through the Pakistani ISI. The ISI used this monetary gift from heaven to strategically disable adversaries by sponsoring various terrorist groups (in Jammu and Kashmir, in Afghanistan, in the Punjab, and likely in Sri Lanka and Tamil Nadu etc). Naturally, some of these terrorist groups ended up setting their sights on America. And now that the Americans are locked in a "war on terror" they don't appear to have learned anything from their past.
Yes exactly, in some moments I can bruit about that I agree with you, but you may be in the light of other options.
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