Ready For Change

Ready For Change Tuesday, November 04, 2008
Mosharraf Zaidi

The writer is an independent political economist

Even after almost three years of news coverage like it has never received before, two presidents equally adept at creating headlines during visits to New York City, the diligent efforts of cold war analysts to brand it the most dangerous place on earth, and an ambassador that can outshine Madison Avenue's best and brightest, Pakistan is still not the defining issue in the US election. Pakistanis should be thanking their lucky stars. Their luck, and the whole world's, just got better.

If Pakistan was the primary talking point for this election, we would collectively suffer four more years of Bush's "us-versus-them" world view. Instead, the free market decided to intervene. The tanking of the US and global economy is the best thing to happen to Pakistan (and the world) since Ali Ahmad Kurd. It has shifted the focus of the US election from whether Barack Obama is prepared to lead a nation at war with its enemies (however abstractly defined they may be), to whether John McCain is prepared to lead a nation at war with itself, its credit cards, and its greed. Obama would have had trouble winning the first argument. McCain however, simply cannot win the second. If David Axelrod (Obama's chief strategist, and far and away the most brilliant political operative, ever) can continue the Zen magic for the last few days before the election, if Obama wins, America is about to be great again, and people all around the world, especially Pakistanis should be grateful.

Pakistanis have got all sorts of garments in a twist about Obama. This discomfort is not nascent South Asian racism (though that deserves a look of its own), it's Pakistani territorial insecurity. Analysts and politicians in New Delhi and around the world can't seem to understand it. But Obama can. That's why when he visited Kabul he clearly identified South Asian regional stability as being central to Pakistan's evolution into the vision of its founding fathers, and a stabilizing influence for Afghanistan and the rest of the world.

Did Obama promise to violate Pakistani space to pursue terrorists? Sure he did. And he was honest and idealistic enough to say so. McCain has repeatedly said that "we shouldn't be telling the Pakistanis that we're about to invade them". When Obama says he will pursue Al Qaeda and the Taliban, it is easier to hope that he will hold his military to account for the kind of "collateral damage" that was all too easily tolerated and even encouraged by the soulless, money-making neo-con machine that gave lifelines to corporations and death to little Pakhtun babies.

Obama may pursue the dangerous path of hot pursuit in the short run, but his long game, if the evidence thus far is any indication, will be an intelligent one. This intelligence is predicated on Obama's multicultural heritage, and his significant exposure to the world outside. Obama recognizes perhaps more than any other recent presidential candidate that most people around the world, whether they actually know it or not, worship the same ideals as the ones American founding fathers articulated in their original demands for freedom. While it is absolutely true that American reality has never quite lived up to American ideals, it is also true that on its worst days, the American Dream is still a lot closer to what the average human being wants in life, than what any other country, anywhere offers. Part of the genius of America is that it has labelled natural human idealism with a name all its own. The American Dream is not solely owned by Americans. This is a reality that Obama is much more at ease with than the farcical and Manchurian John McCain.

This intelligence and this worldview will help an Obama administration construct its Pakistan policy around three essential realities.

First, that no matter how shrill the rewrite of South Asian history, and how loud the bhangra remixes from Bollywood, Pakistan's existence is the product of a regional and historical context that is not a figment of the imagination of Pakistanis, but complex economic, political, and social realities. Something a former community organizer is better capable of understanding than a Texas party animal (Bush), or a bitter fighter pilot (McCain).

Second, that no matter how imperfect and how embarrassing democracy is for Pakistanis, the rules of legitimacy have to apply to Pakistani government as rigorously as any other. Democracy is the only route out of the hole that Pakistan has dug for itself.

Finally, that while Pakistanis have been doing all the digging of the hole, the shovels for this excavation have been provided to Pakistan by its frivolous friends, among which the US stands tallest. They've provided Pakistan with too many hatchets and shovels, and not enough books and candles. The only way Pakistan will get out and stay out of the hole, is by not getting any more "help" (including IMF loans).

Many feel that this level of nuance in an American government is unthinkable. That is true only to the extent that the current realities of US politics are true. But Obama and Axelrod are altering not just the electoral map, they are changing the basic realities of US politics. If it comes to pass, Obama's White House will be the first since at least Lyndon B Johnson's to be this unrestrainedly idealistic, and this unburdened by the stupidity of dumb people, the arrogance of rich people, and the blood lust of contractors and corporations. In essence, this is what US politics had become since the advent of the 24 hour news cycle and the consequential emergence of a political culture that was more concerned with stooping to the level of the dumbest and most idiotic voter, rather than raising the consciousness of a nation. George W Bush took this political paradigm to its logical conclusion: a president that could blend in with the moral and intellectual lowest common denominator in America. Obama has turned back the clock in American politics. The utter failure of the cynical choice of Sarah Palin as McCain's running mate only highlights how successful Obama has been in altering the fundamentals of US polity. He is taken seriously as a politician, because he is a serious politician. He's not pandering to the worst instinct in people, but the best.

The Pakistani elite should be running for cover. The searing reality they need to embrace is that Obama and his entire policy team grew up admiring Nelson Mandela, and Vaclav Havel--not Ronald Reagan, and Augusto Pinochet. They grew up on idealism. If Obama won't pander to the worst in his own people, why would he pander to the worst that Pakistan has to offer? Who is more likely to elicit a more favourable response in such an administration? The heroic Ali Ahmad Kurd or colonially-spawned landowners that fear Kurd and the lawyers' movement so deeply? It's not even a fair fight.

The feudal, corporate and military elite are worried about the possible invasion of Pakistan air and land space by US forces, because it will make them seem powerless and pathetic. Wow. Talk about being out of touch. That train left the station way back when Pakistan started to hand over its citizens to US courts without due process, when drones started to bomb villages, and when the leadership started to beg for money openly and without a hint of remorse. Pakistan's elite can change parties and positions a hundred times, they can intermarry till the holy cows come home--but they cannot manufacture heroes. Heroes are built on real effort, of the kind that the lawyers had the courage to invest in.

The Pakistani elite are about to face foreclosure, because they will never be popular at the Obama White House. As in the past, low-level western diplomats will continue to fill telegrams with tales of their "influence" with these elite. But the times they are a'changing. Those underlings have no real political leverage, other than cheese and wine. The Pakistani elite come cheap, but Ali Ahmad Kurd and the Pakistani middle class do not. Their political interests are larger than cheese and wine. More importantly, for every telegram out there, there are ten Pakistani blogs. The White House has an Internet connection. The Pakistani elite do not. Predator drones and the Special Forces may or may not invade Pakistani space, but the west's "engaging with the elite" philosophy is dying with the counting of every early voting ballot in favour of Obama. If he wins, change isn't just coming to Washington DC, it's coming to Pakistan.