mdlake.net

So Musharraf has decided that his prospects under elections are too slim for his tastes, and declared himself dictator. Excuse me, declared martial law to keep order, the only chaos in evidence being that people are considering a change of leader. Armed thugs patrol the streets, seeking dissenters. Scary times in Pakistan.

The military dictator is operating under a tight schedule; Bhutto is proving more popular than he expected, and if he doesn’t stamp opposition out now, he’s likely to face a popular revolt. Although the individual people in popular revolts often lose, and quite badly, “The People” always win, once they’ve decided they’re willing to die for it. So Musharraf has to make people good and frightened, right now, and keep them there, before things snowball beyond his control.

What bothers me the most about his coup is his choice of primary target. What he’s doing is flatly illegal—unconstitutional—so anyone who understands the law is dangerous. As corrupt as the country’s government generally might be, the courts still understand that the law is to be taken literally, and the legal profession has already proven itself willing to play by the rules in declaring last year that the constitution demands Musharraf stand for general election. He has, therefore, with perfect logic, decided upon judges and lawyers as his first target. Whether a lawyer, or worse, a judge, supports or opposes Musharraf is immaterial; simply being a lawyer means knowing that he is breaking the law. Knowing Pakistani law is, almost by definition, a crime. Arguing that it be upheld has become a crime. Simply wearing the professional garb has become an invitation to beating, jailing, or execution by armed mob.

With their situation put that starkly, whatever lawyers and judges had not already cast their lot against the warlord have done so now; or rather, it was cast for them. And that means Musharraf, if he remains in power, can do so only by eliminating the courts. And what then? How is a country to operate at all when the only law is the word of a military dictator? He can’t take care of every case to arise, and he will have eliminated those who can. He’s likely to give the job to whatever thugs are handy. They, in turn, will simply use their new posts to take everything they can. Someone will be sitting on the bench, but the court will be closed. In the absence of justice and the law, the country will collapse, economically if not geographically. Order will exist only where Musharraf’s loyalists stand, weapons in hand. Everywhere else, chaos—a far grimmer chaos than he pretends to be acting to avoid.

Musharraf has another option, however: he can employ Muslim clerics. Islam is a highly legalistic religion, after all, even more so than its mother and sister religions of Judaism and Christianity, written by a merchant with a merchant’s sense of justice. Islamic scholarship operates with the same careful dicing of words and ideas that the law does, and with a similar tendency to take the law broadly or narrowly, according to whichever serves your momentary interests. Islamic scholars can operate as makeshift judges, albeit not very good ones. They must inevitably be unaware of certain stretches of civil law, and will inevitably employ Islamic law to fill the gaps. The tyranny will be terrible to witness, the more so when it becomes apparent that the clerics are the only proof against collapse. Suddenly, Musharraf will find he is beholden to a power block that the general populace holds in some esteem, higher esteem than he enjoys, himself. He may be allowed to remain in the saddle, but the imams will hold the reins of power.

Had Musharraf simply stepped down graciously, there is every chance the opposition would quickly destroy itself through its own corruption, and he could return in exactly the fashion in which he once arose. There is even some chance he could win further elections legally. He could rely upon the courts as an ally against that corruption, and to uphold legal elections. Instead, he has made his bid to retain power, and justifies it with the need to preserve order. Very shortly, he must relinquish one. If he is not careful, he will have neither.

When that sorry state is reached, we in the US will have another object lesson on what happens when questioning the leadership is criminalized. I doubt, by that time, that we will be paying much attention, at least to the lesson. By that time, things may be going so badly in Pakistan that we begin looking at another imperial encroachment, and begin another round of silencing the thoughtful in our own country, the better to pursue it.