Of Dictators and Dramatists
A letter to General Musharraf

by Maliha Masood, Matrix Correspondent and Sheraz Malik






















Bravo Mr. President! Lajawaab Huzoor Alam! Another fine feather tossed in your green beret. You, dear sir, surely know how to make for one good drama. Keeping the audience on their toes. Building suspense. Going head to head against your protagonists. Doing battle as you see fit. Playing for all or nothing. Wah bhai wah! What an act, what a man. Has anyone ever told you that you might consider auditioning for the world’s greatest dramatist? Perhaps doing a one-man gig on Broadway next year? You’re bound to be a shoo in.

Think about it. Your illustrious name on the marquee in glowing neon. We’re no theater experts, but we advise you to come up with a catchy title, something along the lines of My life as Supreme Protector and Leader of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Now that would make for a stirring show if we do say so ourselves. We can just see the accolades piling up, the thundering applause, all the bells and whistles just because of you and only you, General Musharraf a.k.a Army Chief and Judiciary.

Allow us, dear sir, the honor of congratulating you on your recent victory, however rash it was. You could have waited and let things settle down a bit. But now that you’ve done the deed, we do so hope that you will not lead Pakistan into an even bigger stalemate than before. We think the country could use a break, given its topnotch reputation as social pariah, security hazard and all around schizophrenic. And we are understandably worried about the implications of your latest maneuver that some are calling your second coup d’etat. Why did you do it? More importantly, what it is to be expected?

By all accounts, your justification for restoring order and rescuing the nation from the brink of suicide is not very sound. Pakistan has been walking a tightrope ever since you decided to join forces with the U.S led war against terror. What choice did you have but to say yes, given the strategic crossroads Pakistan occupies on the world map, sharing borders with India, China, Afghanistan and Iran, not to mention the amenable port facilities along the Arabian Sea. If geography is destiny, then Pakistan’s troubles are far from being over. And you, dear Mr. Unelected President are right smack dab in the middle of it all.

Ever since the changing world order in the aftermath of 9/11, your fortunes rose from being a bit player in the international arena to a commander in chief catapulted into the limelight. You lapped up every moment of glory. Wooed by the foreign press, you appeared a consummate statesman in your immaculately ironed khaki duds and fielded questions with the panache of a seasoned pro. Perhaps you did not anticipate the extremist backlash that followed your concession to the Americans. You tightened the noose on democratic reform when you devolved power at the grassroots level by a system of centralized governance. The elected nazims or local district magistrates were at best Islamabad’s stooges to be told how and when to sing and dance. Only when the Islamist MMA party got itself elected in the North West Frontier Province, did you balk at the threat of Talibanization in Pakistan. But even then, you offered mere sound bites, scoffing at their “petty thinking” and did not break new ground.

It is noteworthy that your friends in Washington conspicuously stayed away from exercising any overt or covert pressure to put a damper on the religious zeal of MMA after the electoral victory in NWFP, probably because it is in the interest of the Americans to allow the mullahs to behead Pakistan to bolster ammunition for their campaigns against terror. This of course is nothing new and anyone who rebukes U.S. policy makers for supporting your dictatorial tactics, needs to go back and revisit world history textbooks, paying close attention to Latin America and South East Asia.

Now we do have some issues with your vacillations over religion and politics. On one hand, you goad the fanatics by giving into their demands. The lack of curbing politically oriented madrassahs is a case in point. The argument often made and consequently lost is that bringing the religiously right wing parties into the political mainstream will offset their extremist agendas. Many Muslim countries have taken this tack and failed. Given as you are a man of worldly tastes and means, you don’t have much tolerance for the sort of nonsense that was staged at the Red Mosque. You showed those hooligans you were not a man to mess with when the army stormed in to put an end to the siege. Well done, Mr. President. Strong leaders ought to be admired. It is good to take a stance and not dither around with indecisiveness. But you, dear sir, have taken your leadership role to a whole other level. And now that you’ve resumed your megalomaniacal post at center stage, we can only wonder what will happen next.

One small favor if you don’t mind. When and if you do make it out for your debut one-man show on Broadway, please bring us some jelabis. We really miss our jelabis. As a token of appreciation, we’ll offer you some of Seattle’s finest espresso. Or perhaps you prefer some good old fashioned chai like the kind we enjoy back home. Home. Now that rings a bell. We do hope there will be a home waiting for us in Pakistan. Not the kind of home that exists there now of security threats and bomb blasts and 24/7 mayhem. We’re not saying we couldn’t handle such a mess. We are, after all, Pakistani natives inured with a fine instinct for survival. Nothing really surprises us anymore. But we do like to brag now and then to our American friends about the Porsche dealership in Lahore and Karachi’s once thriving stock exchange. We’re also rather proud of our beautiful babe worthy supermodels that we have the privilege of seeing via satellite dish on GEO TV.

If you do only thing, Mr. President, we do so hope you will reinstate the independent media that has brought about a cultural renaissance of sorts that you’ve been fortunate enough to witness in your own lifetime. We must tell you how much we have enjoyed the shows on GEO and AJJ and ARY. They gave us many hours of entertainment, especially when we watched the Pakistani talk show, “Late Night Show With Begum Nawazish” hosted by that funny transvestite, Ali Saleem, who was rather fond of throwing a few punches at your Excellency. To tell you the truth, General Musharraf, we appreciated quite a few political satires. We couldn’t help comparing them as the Pakistani version of Jon Stewart’s show and those spoofs on Saturday Night Live.

Back then, you took it all in stride. It was so generous and so very accommodating a gesture for someone who likes to rule with a tight fist. Even more remarkable that in a conservative Muslim country, a transvestite was on national television taking cheap shots at the President (and you were OK with it). With such a liberal attitude toward Pakistani broadcasters, why have you suddenly turned the corner? It does not sit down well with those who are unaware of your former support of a free and independent media (and there are sadly many folks who are clueless about the positive aspects of Pakistan given your lackluster PR job). You, dear sir, are most certainly not helping. Many of our friends in America say that you are the Pakistani problem personified. Whether the country will be better off without your esteemed presence is yet to be determined.

The options are not so inspiring. It is common knowledge that you are not the biggest fan of Benazir Bhutto. Neither are we. But there is something to be said for making a plea bargain. And now that you have put yourself in a fine old pickle, dear sir, we advise you to consider the alternatives. Of course, being the ruling king of drama, you are not likely to step off the stage so easily. But think of past predicaments when General Jehangir Karamat was forced to resign from the army after getting too big for his breaches and we don’t mean that strictly as a metaphor.

Surely, General Musharraf, you don’t want to get into a tussle with the very group from where you derive all your support. And if you really want us to recall ghosts from the past, then think of the sad fate of our country’s long departed Prime Minister, Zulfikhar Ali Bhutto, Benazir’s once dashing father who was hung in a Rawalpindi jail on the orders of General Zia. He too was a military man and like you, he did a marvelous acting job as dictator/dramatist in backing America’s proxy war during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the mid 1980’s.

Good old Zia. Do you remember his famous retort to Carter when offered one million dollars to fight the communists next door? It is only peanuts, he had said with a glint in his bold black eyes. Now we know for a fact that you are receiving more than just a handful of peanuts from Washington to thwart off terrorism and Al-Qaeda factions and all those ill-mannered louts and Pathans with their love of guns and drugs who came as refugees to roost in our troubled land in the wake of the Afghan mess. How convenient that the Americans never bothered to clean it up. Rightly so, it is rather unfair to take up the burden of solving a problem not entirely of your own making. But this, we are afraid, is an occupational hazard that all leaders have to contend with, whether they run corporations or countries, and like it or not, Mr. President/CEO, you’re stuck with the job you so badly wanted.

Now we won’t get too bogged down with Zia and his legacy in this short letter, but let us just remind you, General M, that General Z did not live to see the full harvest of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. So what’s your ultimate agenda, dear Mr. President and chief law giver? Do you want to take this scarred nation down the road of further disrepair? Do you want to patch up the country’s wounds with more scotch tape policies and hope it all stays together for a few more weeks or months? Do you want to keep on alienating friends and enemies alike until you’re standing alone, all alone, facing only your own reflection? What will you govern, dear Mr. President, when Pakistan is no longer willing or left to be governed?

We know you like living life on the edge. All dictators and dramatists do. That is why they are always up to something, creating havoc in their countries. But surely there are better ways to live and to rule. Maybe you can be more creative and reverse the trend of Pakistan’s militarism. Take the country to new heights of fame. Tap into the potential of the burgeoning civil society, all those talented, educated and progressive men and women who want to see the nation succeed and prosper. Of course, you will get due credit for what you sow. And if you just think for a moment about the inscription on your tombstone, would you prefer Autocratic Dictator to Champion Maverick?

The choice is yours. We only hope that you’ll make a wise one.


Maliha Masood is an award-winning writer and the author of Zaatar Days, Henna Nights. A former policy analyst at the International Crisis Group in Islamabad, she is the founder and president of The Diwaan Project, a Seattle-based cultural institute geared toward public education on global affairs. Maliha teaches a course on women and Islam at the University of Washington and is currently at work on her first novel set in contemporary Pakistan.

Sheraz Malik is a business consultant, social activist and a political analyst who has a deep insight into national and international policy issues concerning South Asia. He is also northwest Bureau Chief for GEO TV and a cultural ambassador for “Safeer-e-Pakistan”, an organization of expatriate Pakistanis living in the U.S.

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