‘National Security Council cannot
be good for democracy’
Dr Ayesha Siddiqa Agha, a Pakistani academic and author of Military Inc.: Inside Pakistan’s Military Economy,
talks to Syeed Ahamed and Faisal Ghazi of the Drishtipat Writers’ Collective
Q: National Security Council is a looming spectre for Bangladesh. What is your view on the matter?
A: A national security council will only institutionalise the military’s role in Bangladesh’s policy process. In every case, this Turkish model which has already been used ineffectively in at least three countries, Turkey, Pakistan and Chile, has undermined democracy by establishing a top-down authoritarian model. No matter what the intention is, the outcome of military authoritarianism cannot be good for democracy.
What has been the role of the NSC in Pakistan and how has it affected civilian administration?
When General Musharraf came to power, he immediately sought the help of the civil administration. The bureaucracy is very self-serving and responds positively to authoritarian rule. It does not have a political agenda and is far happier living with military bureaucracy. Bangladesh must have experienced the same during the 1980s. However, whenever the military starts to expand its control over the civil administration, civil bureaucrats become uncomfortable and non-cooperative.
Some say a meddling military is to be expected in weak democracies like Bangladesh and Pakistan and, therefore, we might as well institutionalise their role through an NSC. What is your view on this?
Both Bangladesh and Pakistan were ‘created’ without any major plan. We always compare ourselves with India. But the Indian Congress was exposed to a certain level of political accountability even during the First World War. Bangladesh was part of Pakistan, which was the result of a bargaining movement of Muslim elites who had no social development agenda. The elites did not even go for land reforms.
In East Pakistan, the separation movement also started without an agenda and even until the late 1960s there was no plan beyond provincial autonomy. So ultimately, Bangladesh also inherited the problems which Pakistani politics faced when it was created. Also worth bearing in mind is that the majority of the original officers of the Bangladesh military were repatriated officers from Pakistan.
What is common between Pakistan and Bangladesh is that politicians never learn from history. You cannot have true democracy with a top-down centralised political system in place. You need to revamp the political system considerably to ensure a multiple structure within the political system.
You have made repeated warnings to Bangladeshi politicians before the events of January 11, 2007. In the current political reality, why should the people of Bangladesh want the failed politicians back?
Yes, it is understandable that the politicians did not act responsibly which might have prompted the military to step in. However, Bangladesh was heading towards an NSC anyway and I could even sense the growing role of the military when I visited Bangladesh in 2006.
Bangladesh needs to address the long due political reforms which it requires to ensure grassroots participation, change of political culture and devolution of democracy with local level political institutions (such as panchayet in India).
Bangladesh’s political parties are an absolute mess at the moment and the military cannot be blamed for their total disorder. However, if Bangladesh fails to take the long road to political devolution and institutionalisation, and resort to the quick-fix solution of introducing an NSC, the situation is going to be a lot worse.
Civil society in Bangladesh welcomed and then accepted the army intervention just like their counterparts did in Pakistan. The relationship has now soured and the disenchantment is now palpable. What role should civil society play in Bangladesh now?
Bangladesh has a stronger and more progressive civil society than Pakistan and they have a rich history of revolting against authoritarianism. My question is: Where has this civil society been during this period? Didn’t they see it coming?
Apparently, the educated middle class have been very frustrated with the politicians, but this short-cut solution of NSC will only worsen the already weakened democratic system.
Civil society thought it would be able to use the military to overhaul the decaying political system. But the military is not a toy which can be thrown aside after you use it. Once used to bring change, it will start to demand its own share of the power. I guess, like in Pakistan, civil society has been thoroughly lazy by taking these shortcuts to reform. This will only be destructive in the long term. It is a mistake Pakistan has made and Bangladesh seems all set to follow.
What are, in your opinion, the most damaging aspects of an NSC in a weak democracy that are not communicated to or not allowed to be discussed by the public?
A national security council will not only institutionalise an authoritarian political system, once the military becomes part of this system, the system will become less transparent as well. Hence reforming that authoritative system will be much more difficult than reforming the existing political system.
Some say the establishment of an NSC directly affects the rise of religious right wing (Islamist) politics. Would you say that there is a link between the two phenomena in the context of Pakistan and Bangladesh?
Since military power does not have a development agenda, religion systematically becomes the power player in politics. Once religion enters the political system, it looks different. The BNP used it and the AL did not oppose it properly. The fear is, if Bangladesh uses an authoritarian system like the NSC, this political Islam will become more dominant.
Another concern is the overwhelming connection between military and de-facto religious fundamentalism. The military has always promoted religious groups. Ziaur Rahman was active in rehabilitating these groups when he was in power. In Pakistan Islamist groups are linked with the intelligence services, ISI (Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, also known as the Inter-Services Intelligence).
What I also noticed in Bangladesh is the rise of anti-Indian sentiment. This is exactly the kind of thing that will force the military to cooperate with the religious right. There has always been an informal link between military and the religious right. An NSC is going to strengthen that link. And inevitably, you will witness how civil liberties will gradually be taken away.
Does an NSC have any benefits and, therefore, can there be any such thing as a best case scenario?
Giving military a role in the development process is not a bad idea. But giving them a role in the policy process is probably not a constructive idea either. Last time Bangladesh experienced a military takeover, it ended in 1990, after fifteen years in power.
However, the military is far more disciplined and commanding than political institutions. Over the years, the Bangladeshi military has evolved from a ragtag revolutionary force to a hierarchically organised bureaucratic institution.
The new structure makes it politically more potent and lethal in pushing back civilian institutions. If the military is given an institutional role in the political system, it will eventually overstep politicians to create an elite power structure of its own. So, it is a bad idea to give it more power and to use it as a powerbroker.
Tiananmen’s shifting legacy
The Beijing protests of 1989 and the country’s turbulent activism of 2008 have more in common than it might appear, says Jeffrey N Wasserstrom
IT IS three weeks since the nineteenth anniversary of the massacre of June 4, 1989 in Beijing, forty-nine until the symbolically potent twentieth. The routine in advance of the event, by now well established, was again witnessed in full this year: security around Tiananmen Square is tightened, a candlelight vigil for martyrs is held in Hong Kong (still the only part of the People’s Republic of China where open discussion of June 4 is allowed); Ding Zilin of the ‘Tiananmen Mothers’ organisation submits an open letter to the Chinese authorities, calling on them to abandon their ‘big lie’ about 1989 and admit that those, like her son, who were slain by soldiers were not ‘counter-revolutionaries’ or rioters but ordinary urbanites; and human-rights activists, former student leaders, and China specialists issue statements or write commentaries assessing the legacy of 1989 or proposing a new way to honour the dead.
The lead-up to the latest anniversary followed this familiar pattern, but there were some novel twists – ‘novel’ rather than ‘surprising’, given how unusual a year 2008 had already proved to be and promises to remain.
This time, for example, some activists included a call for an ‘Olympic pardon’ in their June 4 commentaries, suggesting that a moment just weeks before the start of the games would be a particularly appropriate one for the authorities to release political prisoners. The Hong Kong vigil was given a distinctive 2008 cast via efforts to combine honouring the martyrs of 1989 and mourning the victims of the Sichuan earthquake. In a similar vein, when local police asked Ding Zilin a week or so before the anniversary if her annual letter was ready, she said that she had submitted it early but had a postscript to add, presumably inspired by how earthquake victims were mourned: ‘When will the national flag be lowered for our children?’
These are only some of the ways that ties between 1989 and 2008 have been and can be established for political reasons. They also suggest that it might be worth pondering how the events of the two years can be connected in historical terms too. Does a look back to Tiananmen help us make sense of what young Chinese have been doing in 2008? Can the recent behaviour of China’s leaders be understood as reflecting lessons they learned from the events of 1989? What, for example, should we make of the role of Wen Jiabao in each of these critical periods: as the inspirational prime minister who comforted victims and impressed millions of citizens in the earthquake’s aftermath, and as the man who went into Tiananmen Square to meet with protesters in 1989 in the company of his then-boss Zhao Ziyang (who would be purged and placed under long-term house-arrest for taking a softer line on the student-led movement than paramount leader Deng Xiaoping)?
At first glance, these questions may seem odd ones. It might appear, for example, that there are only contrasts and no parallels between the nationalistic young Chinese of today and their 1989 counterparts; or that the Chinese government’s refusal to allow open discussion of the June 4 events must mean that it has no interest in learning any lessons from the upheaval. In fact, however, it is possible to see ties between the two generations of youths and to appreciate just how much, even in defeat, 1989’s protesters altered Chinese political patterns.
History’s bridge
In order to do this, it is necessary to clear away some common western misunderstandings of Tiananmen. Here are five of the most important points:
l All protesters and all martyrs were not students; a great many of both were workers
l Chinese protesters’ ideological outlook was not identical to their counterparts in east-central Europe in 1989. In Beijing – in contrast to, say, Budapest or Bucharest – many people did not call for an end to communist rule but rather for party leaders to do a better job living up to their own professed ideals. This helps explain why there was division at the top over how to respond to the protests. The demonstrations began in mid-April, but it was not until mid-May that it became clear that Zhao Ziyang and others favouring a soft line had lost the fight within the upper echelons of power
l It is misleading to think that China’s 1989 had everything to do with democracy and nothing to do with patriotism or nationalism. The western media of the time were fascinated with symbols such as the Statue of Liberty-like ‘Goddess of Democracy’; but in fact anger at nepotism and corruption was a more central theme in Chinese wall-posters and manifestos of the time than demands for elections, and criticism of these failings was framed in terms of official selfishness endangering the nation.
The most powerful tactic adopted by the students, which brought them an enormous outpouring of support from members of other social groups, was launching a hunger-strike – an act with special meaning at a time when lavish banquets were a potent symbol of corrupt behaviour. Students insisted that for China to become great again, it required leaders willing to engage more fully with the outside world and pay more attention to the needs of the people. It is revealing in this respect that a main anthem of the movement, Hou Dejian’s Children of the Dragon, had strong nationalistic overtones.
l The economic background to the protests is often forgotten. Chinese protestors in 1989 did share with their east-central European counterparts a keen awareness that people living in capitalist lands were enjoying a much higher standard of living. To look from East Berlin to West Berlin or from Canton to Hong Kong was to become aware of the contrast between drab, backward cities and glittering, modern ones.
l There was a significant generational aspect in the demonstrations. China’s young people (and again this is a point of similarity with those in other communist societies) had a sense of being unable to take part fully in attractive and increasingly global forms of popular culture. Many also felt that the state’s interference in their private lives hindered their ability to express their individualism and do the things that would help define themselves as members of a distinctive generation.
These last two sides of the 1989 movement are summed up in comments that Chinese student leader Wu’er Kaixi made in The Gate of Heavenly Peace, the award-winning documentary film by Carma Hinton and Richard Gordon. He first lists ways that his generation’s beliefs and desires differ from those of their parents and even their older siblings, and then poses a rhetorical question: ‘So what do we want?’ His answer: ‘Nike shoes. Lots of free time to take our girlfriends to a bar. The freedom to discuss an issue with someone.’
When Tiananmen is reconsidered with these factors taken into account, it becomes easier to trace links between the young people who took to the streets in 1989 and those who flock to internet chatrooms, earthquake-relief campaigns and shopping-malls in 2008. Behind the surface differences there are connecting threads: an intense love of country, and a desire to make their mark as a generation, for example. True, the outbursts of anger in 2008 directed against foreigners who are chastised for being disrespectful toward China in one way or another marks a great contrast (even if it has precedents in China’s history); but there have been signs that this sense of moral outrage could easily turn, as it did in 1989, toward corruption and selfishness closer to home.
History’s threads
The contrasts between then and now can also be seen as due, in part, to the Chinese Communist Party taking stock of lessons it learned from 1989 – both as that year unfolded in China and as it unfolded in other regions. Three are notable. First, the party has understood the importance of material goods. In a China that has enjoyed high growth rates and embraced consumer culture, the contrast between Shanghai and Hong Kong lifestyles is now much less stark than those between East Berlin and West Berlin before the wall came tumbling down.
When it comes to educated youths in particular, the government has done more than just give them the chance to buy the ‘Nike shoes’ that Wu’er Kaixi mentioned. It has also made it possible for them to partake in global youth culture. And it has backed off from micro-managing campus daily life, and that of the educated classes generally, thus allowing more latitude for discussion of ideas and travel abroad. In short, if Tiananmen was fuelled by a frustration over the limited choices that Chinese urbanites had, the post-1989 period has been characterised by a dramatic expansion of the choices open to educated city-dwellers – apart from certain closed-off realms, such as picking who governs their metropolis and their nation.
A second lesson that the Chinese regime has learned is that the biggest threat to its longevity comes from movements capable of drawing together members of disparate social classes, as Solidarity did in Poland and Tiananmen did in China. This helps to explain, at least partially, the severity of the crackdown against Falun Gong, in a country where the authorities are increasingly willing to make concessions to protesters whose struggles are very localised and affect only a single class.
A third, more indirect lesson from Tiananmen is visible in the series of efforts by the regime to position itself as capable of steering rather than becoming the target of patriotic and nationalistic emotions. It has done this by ramping up patriotic education drives, and by leaping ahead of and trying to channel youthful outbursts (such as the one in May 1999 when Nato bombs hit the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, killing three citizens of the PRC).
The love of country continues to be a difficult thing to control completely. There is always a chance that this double-edged sword will turn against officials. In a milieu where corruption is still (as in 1989) seen as a great national blight, the authorities must show repeatedly that they are concerned with more than simply maintaining their positions of power at all costs and furthering selfish agendas. They also have to show that they care about the whole nation, not just one part of it.
This ‘purity test’ presents an ever-present danger, reflected in a couple of tense moments the Chinese authorities faced after the Sichuan earthquake, even amid the general goodwill their impressive response secured. The first tremor came right after the disaster, when angry bloggers chastised China’s leaders for continuing to show celebratory images of the Olympic torch-relay on state television at the very time when people in Sichuan were suffering so deeply. The second came soon after when talk began to circulate about the disproportionately large number of school buildings that had collapsed, due in many cases to shoddy construction linked to official corruption.
Beijing defused the first moment when it introduced a minute’s silence for earthquake victims to the relay, and then called a short moratorium in the ritual. The government also showed its sensitivity to earthquake victims and their families by lowering flags to half-mast, an unprecedented move in China for a case like this. The second danger was deflected in a different way, as Beijing’s effective response to the disaster meant that most of the anger at corruption was directed at local officials.
With the people
If the Chinese regime’s road from 1989 to 2008 is interesting to ponder, so too is that of man-of-the-hour, China’s prime minister Wen Jiabao. It remains a mystery to many how the reputation of Wen continued to rise despite his association with the disgraced (in official terms) Zhao Ziyang after the latter’s role in the Tiananmen events of 1989. In this context, however, the question of what lesson he has drawn from his trip to the square is moot.
Here’s one thought: when Zhao met with students on the square in 1989, one thing he reportedly said to them was: ‘I came too late’. The confession of bad timing carries a possible implication that he and perhaps the movement would have been better served if he had taken the initiative earlier on, made a bold gesture in support of the protests, or simply met with demonstrators sooner. Perhaps it is appropriate then that one thing that Wen has consistently done in other circumstances is to show an acute sense of timing, exemplified in the fact that his words and deeds after the earthquake were not just evidently heartfelt but were made quickly and spoke immediately to popular concerns. Here, perhaps, is a third connective thread with 1989, one that links leadership and people in a way that is full of political symbolism.
OpenDemocracy/UK, June 26, 2008. Jeffrey N Wasserstrom is a professor of history at the University of California, Irvine.
Corruption in Bangladesh
I thank A Rahman (July 3) for highlighting probably the greatest contradiction of all in our politics — how is it possible in a democracy to be totally unaccountable to the electorate, except, possibly, at the ballot box. It is simply amazing that politicians do not need to say sorry in Bangladesh. It is of course an insult to democracy, to the memory of our fallen heroes and to the dignity of our nationhood.
Sadly, the situation is far worse than Rahman states: it does not even occur to Bangladeshi politicians to apologise, it does not even occur to commentators that apologies are due and it does not even occur to the electorate to expect apologies.
It is enough to drive an open heart to ruin. It is for such reasons that Rahman and others should dedicate themselves to the cause of decent democracy in Bangladesh. Justice, peace and love need all the help they can get — from wherever they can get it.
Ezajur Rahman
Kuwait
More on DU turns 88
Dhaka University’s main successes are definitely the role it played during the Language Movement and the Liberation War. 37 years after independence, the time has come to assess what DU has achieved so far. Its research portfolio, indigenous and global applications of the research have to be quantified to evaluate the university’s performance. In this judgment everyone will not give good marks to the university.
One can remember that during the golden days of DU, Prof SN Bose (1894-1974) modified and corrected a fluid mechanics theory of Albert Einstein. The theory is called Bose-Einstein theory. The University has not enjoyed similar glory in years.
To bring back the lost glory of DU, teachers’ recruitment, promotion and their association’s election should be held without fighting over the issue of which ‘colour’ they belong to. Students may be aware of politics; some of them can even get involved in student politics and pave their path towards becoming future leaders, but should no way be allowed to do politics to serve their selfish interests.
An ex-student
Dhaka University
Balance of power
Balance of power between the president and the prime minister means dual leadership. Dual leadership never works. There are lots of examples in history. It brings instability. So it is a stupid idea from our shusil samaj and generals.
Balance of power between the prime minister and the parliament can be considered the best solution.
A citizen
Via e-mail
‘Khaleda’s claim’
I appreciate Ezajur Rahman’s concern regarding many people’s propensity to bash one party while ignoring the other (July 2). But I disliked the way he dragged me as a glaring example of the practice of ‘fairly criticising one party and unfairly ignoring another party’.
For his information, that quick comment of mine under the title ‘Khaleda’s claim’ (June 30) was on Khaleda’s allegation against the caretaker government. That’s why my comment was limited to the BNP alone. I hope in the coming days Rahman will notice the topic of Quick Comments and judge the observations of other people accordingly.
Ahmad Ferdous Bin Alam
University of Dhaka
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