Assessing a legacy

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NOW that he’s gone, his legacy will be debated. As the hysteria subsides and the political pantomime of heroes and villains takes a brief hiatus, the question many will have is: what did Musharraf mean for Pakistan? The answer: it depends and it’s relative.

It depends on what is good for Pakistan. Democracy? Then the general was bad for this country on Oct 12, 1999, and nothing he did subsequently could ever rectify that. The moral outrage of his latter-day opponents is a conceit. If Musharraf is at fault he is at fault for being a dictator, not for being a failed dictator — which is the crux of his critics’ complaint. A dictator is a dictator is a dictator. And no amount of subsequent goodness can ever overcome that.

But the people cheered on the dictator when he first arrived, so we need to descend from lofty ideals to more pedestrian measures: was he good for politics? No. Forget his seven-point agenda, his four-point strategy and his eight-year regime for a moment. The most devastating, straightforward assessment of his effect on politics is a statement of fact: his last rites as a politician were read by the very political leaders he sought to bury eight years ago. Coming full circle cannot be a success, especially when it is the opposite of the plan. The three-stage transition to democracy that Musharraf laid out eventually became a three-step ouster of himself.

So shall we conclude that he was bad for Pakistan then? Not on that basis alone. The people of Pakistan have alternated between rejecting and accepting their politicians. Yesterday’s heroes are today’s villains and vice versa. Musharraf’s problem is that dictators do not get a second chance. To assess his eight years on the basis of his ignominious end would be to fall into the trap of the politicians’ good/bad binary. The people do not see the world in those terms; they appreciate shades of grey. And the people clearly want something more than goodness from their politicians. But what is that something more against which the Musharraf era can be judged?

At first blush economic growth is a good measure. Polls and anecdotal evidence suggests the state of the economy is a key indicator of the public’s level of satisfaction. Not coincidentally, the economy was one of the pillars of the Musharraf era. But it is a very tricky exercise. Should the Musharraf era be assessed in comparison to what was achieved in the 1990s or on the basis of the resources that were available to the general in the 2000s? And how does one account for heightened expectations? In the 1990s governments aspired to a five per cent growth rate; today it would be received with great dismay. Then again, the governments of the 1990s would probably have killed to have the monetary inflows that a confluence of politics, war and a liquid global economy gave Pakistan this decade.

Besides what good is growth if the people are not invited to the party? Poverty rates matter. Until recently, before inflation engulfed the country, there was a fierce debate on the number of poor. Economists are worse than politicians, so the debate quickly became arcane. Yet, for those who followed the debate, what was in dispute was the rate at which poverty was decreasing, not whether it was decreasing at all. So what is a good rate of decrease in poverty? The answer: it depends. It depends on how much you hate the general and love the poor and how you judge Musharraf for what he could have done against what he did do. Numbers are quickly engulfed by politics.

It’s all moot anyway now that inflation has shattered lives and dragged more people into poverty, some may argue. True — to an extent. Follow the new debate and it quickly becomes apparent that there is actually a consensus on what needs to be done to guide the country out of the economic crisis. If the present government fails to implement sound economic policies, can Musharraf be made to shoulder the entire blame? And will it undo his record over eight years? Yes, if you hate him; no, if you are more circumspect.

Whether Musharraf was good for Pakistan is also a relative assessment. And about overcoming stereotypes and simplifications. Take Messrs Sharif and Sharif. Nawaz is one of Pakistan’s most popular politicians but he has his fair share of detractors. He’s the military’s creation. There are charges of corruption against him. He is accused of breaking the law. Shahbaz, on the other hand, has no significant detractors. Even his worst critics acknowledge that he is a fearsome administrator and a tireless worker. Yet, by virtue of being Nawaz’s brother and Abbaji’s son, Shahbaz benefited from the same money and power that Nawaz is accused of having amassed illegitimately. But Shahbaz gets a free pass because he gets things done rather than make promises.

And take a look at ZAB, the country’s greatest populist. Was he not catapulted to stardom by being an obsequious young man who served in the cabinet of a dictator? Yet he is celebrated for using that springboard to do something else: awaken the countryside politically. The PPP is considered the country’s most liberal, secular party. It was and is. But ZAB’s law minister piloted a bill through parliament that amended the constitution to declare Ahmadis non-Muslims, shattering any notions of secularism. BB, derided as the ‘daughter of the West’ by critics, signed off on the Taliban policy in her second term in office.

The people know these shades of grey; it’s the politicians’ narratives that are devoid of grey. Dislodging Musharraf was a political act that of necessity was portrayed as a battle between good and bad. But the public knows that good people can make bad decisions and bad people can make good decisions. Which does the country need more: good decisions or good people? Both are a luxury the people know they cannot have. That complex matrix of decisions good and bad, right and wrong is the only space in which Musharraf can properly — and honestly — be assessed. And honesty demands we acknowledge that any assessment can never be objective because the issues are too important, the stakes are too high and we are too close to it all.

What is good is that Musharraf is gone. To a genuine democrat he was never welcome in the first place. But to assess him on the basis of that ideal is meaningless because the people themselves have rejected that touchstone. There is a more prosaic reason to welcome his departure though: Musharraf was the product of our system; his mistake was to believe that its constraints were not applicable to him.

Courtesy Daily Dawn Lahore / By By Cyril Almeida