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Americans are looking for a solution for the war on terror — does Musharraf fulfill that end?
He only exacerbates the war on terror. There is the Newtonian law that every action causes an equal and opposite reaction, I don't know why the Americans seek to pursue this war on terror in the wrong fashion. This war on terror is all about misguided and ill-informed notions of justice. If you lock up the justices then people — particularly people who are armed and have little value of life — will take to alternate means of justice, particularly if they are possessed also with a sense of deprivation.
Pakistan seems to be stumbling from one crisis to the next — militancy, extremism, and the assassination of Bhutto. Are elections going to help?
The ballot will not provide all the solutions to the problems Pakistan faces today. It a decoy, and a diversion. It's the turn on the road that Musharraf has taken fervently, but it is not the road to a solution. He is running along this road because he can deceive the West more easily by saying he is going through the process of free and fair elections, and the West, alas, is ready to be deceived by him. The West is dying to be deceived by him.
Secondly it avoids the main issue. The main issue is the restoration of the constitution, and of the recognition that the arbitrary will of an individual has to be subservient to a document that is sacred to the people as a whole. Now people have to be given the faith that their lives and futures do not depend upon the whims of one man before they go to the ballot. The timing is very important. Otherwise the ballot itself will be meaningless and will not empower the people. These elections, if they are held under a dispensation in which one man can brutalize the constitution and get away with it, will only contribute to the disempowerment of the Pakistani citizen. Democracy means empowerment, not just voters queues on polling day. That empowerment is essential, and it cannot come without an independent judiciary. Without that empowerment you cannot fight terror. The tools, the weapons to fight the war on terror are an empowered people who are assured that no man has arbitrary will upon their lives.
Now when an election is held without that kind of empowerment, you can feel the lackluster response.... This should be an alarm bell for all those who want to fight terror. And it's not because of the threat of suicide bombers, it is because the people are not taking interest. They know the problem will remain. You know it's like the story of the dead carcass of an animal that fell into the village well. The villagers ask the local wise man how do you purify the waters, and he says take out 40 buckets of water. Still the water was polluted, so he said take out another 40 buckets. It didn't make a difference because the carcass remained there. So as long as the problem remains, the water will stay polluted. And here the problem is General Musharraf, who has violated the constitution and he is getting away with it only because he has hand-picked the current judges and arrested all the independent ones, he has not just removed them, he has arrested them. And the people know it.
So what is the solution?
The people need a recognition that they will be empowered. And that empowerment is through either the humbling of this one man who has demolished the constitution — that sacred document that shared belief among the citizenry across the country — either his humbling or his willing submission to the constitution. Not the changed constitution, but the constitution before he brutalized it, the constitution of the 2nd of November — that would empower the people. And that includes the restoration of the judiciary.
Pervez Musharraf has openly and vigorously held out that the PML-Q is his party. He has campaigned for Q... If Q fails to get a simple majority on the 18th, Musharraf must resign. He should admit defeat and resign. The election is a referendum on [Musharraf's] Q league.
What is your role?
That is not important. I think anybody who is representing civil society and its aspirations today must be seen as the real ally of the West for restoring civilized living and for the end of conflict. The tools that will help are the tools of Western civilization: due process, rule of law, constitutional supremacy, an independent judiciary with powers like habeas corpus and citizens who feels secure in their relationship with the state. These are all the things that Pervez Musharraf has denied and denuded the country of, and these are all the deprivations that the militant and the extremist thrives on. You have got to start thinking, is a mass of 160 million people deprived of their rights and of due process, witnessing the sheer helplessness of its most prominent citizen, the Chief Justice... does this contribute to the fight against terror or does such a mass not become that dry tinder ready to burst into flame? Do we have to wait for the storming of the Bastille?
People will rise, and let me tell you, what disturbs me is that we've not had so far in all our demonstrations — and we've had massive demonstrations, tens of millions have come out on the streets — and not once have you seen the flag of a foreign country burned. But last week in a demonstration we saw an American flag burning. There is a whole mass of people that the West is alienating. You know there is a feeling that there is discrimination against Muslims by the West. Pakistanis look at Iraq and Palestine and they identify with the victim. They see themselves also as exposed to the arbitrariness of a gentleman whom the West continues to embrace, encourage and sustain. He violates the constitution, declares emergency rule and [U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John] Negroponte says he's an indispensable ally. And this is the man with whom they have a problem.