My article that was published in Sunday’s Dawn Op-Ed, page 6, on March 6th, 2011.
http://www.dawn.com/2011/03/06/bullies-at-the-gate.html
Bullies at the Gate:
By Sameer A. Siddiqui
A bully comes in various forms. From an overgrown schoolboy who throws his weight around among smaller children in his class to a dictator who rules his country with an iron-fist for over 3 decades to a MD of a national airline who makes destructive deals to benefit his own self to a superpower who threatens a sovereign nation with dire consequences unless one of its citizen is handed over without any due-process for murders which he has committed in that country. But a bully of any nature has to ultimately bow down to a sustained and steadfast stance taken by his victims.
This happens regardless of whether he is a seemingly innocuous child who has hit puberty earlier than his companions; or if is ex-president Hosni Mubarak who once wielded total control in Egypt; or if he is Ejaz Haroon, ex-MD of PIA who considered himself infallible being a close confidant of the Pakistani power brokers; or whether the bully is mighty US Government standing astride over a smaller Pakistan, pressuring to handover a mysterious Raymond Davis.
The most recent and publicized stance taken by a group of people against a bully is that of the Egyptian people. Carrying the torch from the Tunisians, they peacefully forced out an entrenched president who had come to be as much a part of Egyptian landscape as the Sphinx of Giza. They emphatically showed to other dictators that a worthwhile cause can unite people to achieve the unthinkable. They also shocked the Western world that a regime change movement in a Muslim country, by the local populace, has the legs to stand on its own without being dependent upon the crutches of an outside government that really has its own interest at heart.
But most importantly, the Egyptians and Tunisians set a pivotal precedence. In a judicial system, once a precedence has been set, subsequent cases within same category can follow its example. The masses in many Middle Eastern countries now have an example in Egypt where common people, simply with their sheer will, were able to stand tall in a single square and write (Tahrir) their destiny.
Additionally, a second precedence is that the western world was not needed for a regime change this time; it occurred organically from within. With all it fanfare, a democratically elected government, especially in the Muslim world, is the last thing the West wants.
Case in point is U.S.’s ire at Pakistan’s democratically elected government following its laws to bring justice to an American national who killed two Pakistani youths: Faheem Shamshad and Faizan Haider. Raymond Davis, in the gibe of a private contractor, murdered two Pakistani citizens with alarming accuracy, killing one of them from a distance of 50 feet in the back while he ran away from his assailant.
Whether this American is guilty or not should be a matter for the courts. However, U.S. is keen for Pakistan to hand-over its citizen bypassing the Pakistani judicial system. The sole super power is over-extending Geneva Convention laws to declare that their “diplomat” has immunity from murder, a “license to kill” to do his job properly. With the amount of pressure being applied from all quarters in US, it was assumed that the Pakistani government would do the expected and the alleged murderer would be in the land of plenty before Hillary Clinton’s next Botox surgery. But the tide seems to have turned, for now.
Media scrutiny and immense public pressure from within seems to have countered the opposite pressure from America. Pakistani Government, scared of the precedence in Egypt, has retracted its earlier statements and has found legs to stand-up to the Americans. But not before their foreign minister was sacrificed at the altar of political expediency and their Secretary Information, Ms. Fauzia Wahab, put her foot in her mouth arguing unabashedly in favor of immunity for the foreign diplomat regardless of his murderous rampage. One only hopes she can be as convincing in front of Hillary to persuade her that the foreign diplomats in U.S. should have immunity from paying parking tickets.
From parking tickets to airline tickets: the case of PIA workers rising in unison against the corrupt Mr. Ejaz Haroon and forcing him to resign definitely soars one’s spirits. While true that the strike was highly inconvenient for passengers, but short of a complete shut-down, nothing else could have excavated the czar of the bleeding airline from his catbird seat in Aiwan-e-Sadr. He tried to hold on as long as possible, with full support from his powerful allies. But as days passed, he realized that his lofty position was being visibly shaken by the tide from the common people of his airline. He finally left after a last ditch effort to use a police contingent to batter peaceful strikers failed miserably to shake people’s resolve.
Although another crony may take place at the helm of the fledgling airline, precedence has been set in Karachi similar to the one in Cairo: power of people united behind a cause is able to make molehills out of mountains. Once again, there was no single leader who motivated the people. A sense of being right, united common people against their oppressor to achieve success.
It is never easy to stand up to a bully, in fact; it can be down-right scary. But a strong belief that one is fighting for the right cause gives super-human strength to the weakest of fighters and that is when even a super-power may have to bow out of the fight. This united and unflinching stand is what keeps the bullies at bay, outside the gates!