Idiots of history....all utterly wrong

Imagine Mustafa Kemal's folly as he went about resisting the victorious Allies and raising the banner of revolt: he did not call an all-parties conference (APC). He did not consult the convenience of the Ottoman Caliph, nor did he sit with those eminently worthy men who were for weighing the pros and cons of doing this and doing that.
All his biographers speak highly not only of his military expertise but also his political skills. What do they mean by this when he never called an APC in his life? If only he had the gift of foresight and could have travelled through time and acquired some insight into the Pakistani experience. Maybe he would then have conducted the struggle he led on different lines.
(In other climes, APC stands for armoured personnel carrier. To us belongs the distinction of denoting by these letters something higher: all parties’ conference.)
Come to think of it, as commander 19 Division on the heights of Gallipoli, Mustafa Kemal did not call an APC when he issued his famous order: “I don’t order you to fight. I order you to die.” Surely this must count as one of the great lapses of history.
Lenin with his Central Committee seized with the momentous decision of when to launch their revolution, they did the thinking themselves, ruthless men that they were, feeling the necessity, sadly, of no APC.
Germany attacks the Soviet Union and German columns penetrate deep into the country. Stalin almost has a nervous breakdown. Then he recovers. By November the Germans are at the gates of Moscow. There is talk of abandoning the city. A train is ready to carry Stalin away. And he says, no, they are going to stay.
On November 7 is the anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution. Should they hold the traditional military parade in Red Square or not? After all, the Germans are only 16-18 miles away, the farther-most point of their Moscow advance.
And Stalin decides that the parade will be held. Addressing the assembled troops he recalls Russia’s glorious past, invokes Lenin’s name four times and expresses his resolve that the Soviet Union is bound to triumph. He speaks for seven minutes, that is all, but says everything. And from Red Square the troops march straight to the front.
The question for Pakistani minds: why at that critical juncture did Stalin not call an APC? Granted, thanks to the KGB, no other parties existed. But Stalin could have called a conference of writers and intellectuals, workers and peasants, so as to pass a resolution, duly printed prominently in Pravda, calling upon Germany to withdraw and settle matters peacefully with the Soviet Union.
And he could have asked the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, his Maulana Fazlur Rehman or Samiul Haq, to use his good offices to intercede with Hitler.
What about Churchill? Surely he should have called an APC. The German invasion of France, the smashing of the Maginot Line, the defeat of the French army, the trapping of the British Expeditionary Force at Dunkirk, the hopelessness of the Allied situation…did not all these events warrant first a briefing by the chief of the imperial general staff, followed by speeches of the heads of all political parties and, finally, a strong resolution calling for a peaceful resolution of the crisis?
But consider what happened. Neville Chamberlain, forever damned as the arch-priest of appeasement, stepped down as prime minister, misgivings about Churchill, hitherto a politically divisive figure, were set aside and to general acclaim he became prime minister. All this took place not at any APC but in the House of Commons.
Churchill’s ‘spirit of Dunkirk’ speech in which he gave a broad hint that even if Germany invaded Britain and Britain or parts of it came under Nazi occupation they would carry on the fight from their dominions overseas and “we will fight on the beaches, etc” is not only a stirring call to arms – read it and even now it will make your blood tingle – but also a military tour de force, Churchill giving a masterly exposition of the German attack and the Allied defeat. Understandably, he is full of scorn for the Nazi foe but, in passing, he also speaks of the bravery of the German nation.
The military briefing then to the House of Commons, and through the Commons to the British nation and the British Empire, comes not from the chief of the imperial general staff but from the prime minister.
It was the PM’s duty to have the facts on his fingertips and he passes on the facts to his audience. He doesn’t say, ‘oh, we will have an in-camera briefing on the military situation from Gen Kayani and the head of MI-6’. He does not shirk his responsibility, does not pass on the burden of leadership on to other shoulders. He speaks to the nation himself.
When at the drop of a hat our leaders and politicians call for APCs and in-camera briefings do they have any idea what monkeys they make of themselves? Nawaz Sharif goes to Karachi and there again is the usual pantomime of an APC and a security briefing by agency heads, followed by the obligatory resolution and the declaration that ‘everyone is on the same page’. Photo-ops, stern expressions, fearsome sound bites, sound and fury, and the illusion of movement…no more.
Did Jinnah consult the Khaksar Tehreek, the Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind and the Jamaat-e-Islami before moving the Pakistan Resolution? It was the Muslim League’s decision presented to the public. Consultations that Jinnah would seek would be with the Muslim League Working Committee. Not all Muslims supported the demand for Pakistan. Many Muslims were bitterly opposed to it, but Jinnah and the Muslim League took the path that they thought was in the best interests of the Muslim community, and then mobilised Muslim public opinion behind the demand for Pakistan. The decision came first, in 1940, the mobilisation followed, reaching its highest expression in the 1946 elections.
In the Pakistan of today paralysis of thought and action is dignified by the name of democracy and covered by the cloak of consultations. ‘All on the same page’ and ‘all stakeholders’…if Macaulay were to arise from his grave he would make these two obfuscations part of the penal code. (Stakeholders sound as if we are talking of a brokerage firm or a public limited company.)
Governments make fools of the people all the time. But do people have to be so gullible? When governments want to do things they do them without so much as a nod in the direction of the people. No APC when it comes to giving five billion dollars to independent power producers, or agreeing to tough IMF conditions. But where guns are doing the talking and some risk is involved – as in Balochistan, Karachi or the extremism issue – everyone falls in love with democracy.
War and peace, government has to make up its mind…what is to be done, and how best to do it? And if government is at a loss, basic decisions too painful for it to take, APCs are not the medicine that will cure the headache.
Email: winlust@yahoo.com