The general in his own eyes
Ekram Kabir finds the memoir of a dictator amusing
In the line of fire a memoir
Pervez Musharraf
Free Press
Military governments or army-driven governments usually erupt in poorer countries. They even try to rule in countries that are at break-even point vis-a-vis prosperity. They do not have a chance in countries like the United Kingdom, the United States or even Saudi Arabia --- nations that have already become prosperous and where the 'poverty' jargon does not work any longer for the ruling class.
This is exactly the reason why Pervez Musharraf's In the Line of Fire is full of words such as 'democracy' and 'poverty'. Once one has read through the book, the fact does not escape one's notice that Musharraf wants to make the whole world believe that whatever he has done has been done for Pakistan. He has wanted to build a nation that was, he says, left in all sorts of trouble by his predecessors in power.
In this memoir, Musharraf talks about Pakistan, Islam, Al Qaeda and the threat of terrorism and especially in relation to Pakistan's position in that war. Readers are also told how his country was unwittingly drawn into this war, and how he had no choice but to cooperate.
The book begins with glimpses from his childhood, the years spent in Turkey where his father served in the Pakistan embassy, and his youth at the Pakistan Military Academy. From the academy to Army House (the home of Pakistan's army chief) to being head of state has been a journey was filled with dangers. Readers are taken to that evening in 1999, the night of the counter-coup, as he calls it, when as the army chief, he was denied permission on the orders of the then-prime minister Nawaz Sharif to land his aircraft in Karachi; and how by a counter-coup he and his associates captured power and deposed Sharif and his government.
The next few chapters deal with the issue of rebuilding the economy. He is extremely critical of the appeasement of the religious right in Pakistan and of two of Pakistan's former leaders, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and General Zia-ul-Haq, for their appeasement and kowtowing to the religious fundamentalists. He says about Bhutto: "By the time his regime ended, I had come to the conclusion that Bhutto was the worst thing that had ever happened to Pakistan. I still maintain that he did more damage to the country than anyone else, damage from which we have still not fully recovered. Among other things he was the first to try to appease the religious right. He banned liquor and gambling and declared Friday a holiday instead of Sunday. This was hypocrisy at its peak, because everyone knew that he did not believe in any one of these actions."
At a later stage Musharraf speaks thus about Zia: "President Zia, in the 1980s, completed what Bhutto had started in the dying phase of his regime --- the total appeasement of the religious lobby. Zia found it convenient to align himself with the religious right and create a supportive constituency for himself. He started overemphasizing and overparticipating in religious rituals to show his alignment with the religious lobby. Even music and entertainment became officially taboo, whereas I am told that in private he personally enjoyed good semiclassical music."
Readers will likely wonder what may be written about Musharraf himself when, down the line, another Pakistani head of state or army chief chooses to write another book such as his. Musharraf also talks about Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar a lot. In fact, his book goes quite deep into how the Taliban in Afghanistan ran their activities. There is a confession about how Pakistan contributed to Taliban activities when he says: "We helped to create the Mujahidin, fired them with religious zeal in seminaries, armed them, paid them, fed them, and sent them to a jihad against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. We did not stop to think how we would divert them to productive life after the jihad was won. This mistake cost Afghanistan and Pakistan more dearly than any other country. Neither did the United States realise what a rich, educated person like Osama bin Laden might later do with the organisation that we all had enabled him to establish."
Musharraf's book helps the reader to understand how the war on terror was in the making even before 9/11. He is extremely critical about the US as far as Afghanistan's development is concerned and particularly when the Soviets left the country. He says the US did not even consider the rebuilding and development of Afghanistan after the Soviets departed. America, Musharraf says, simply abandoned Afghanistan to its fate, ignoring the fact that a wretchedly poor and unstable country, armed to the teeth with the most sophisticated weapons and torn apart by warlords, could become an ideal haven for terrorists.
In the Line of Fire is also full of personal incidents. There are stories of his love for a Bengali girl, his arranged marriage to his wife, Sehba, their long courtship, and the birth of his children.
But Mushrraf does not tell all when he talks about the political developments of 1970 and 1971. He possibly intentionally hides many historical facts that, if written, would further tarnish his and his country's image. Talking about Bangladesh's independence war, he asserts that it was an Indian conspiracy. Like him, most Pakistanis still subscribe to this idea. But the question is: was the March 25 military crackdown on the innocent people of Bangladesh an Indian conspiracy? Did India cause the crackdown that ignited a full-scale Bengali liberation war? A Bengali reader would certainly be infuriated when he reads this part of the book. The general conceals these facts. He does not say how many million lives the Pakistani military had to take before it surrendered. He totally forgets about the terror the military caused among the people of Bangladesh. Certainly, neither the freedom fighters nor the Indians had killed all those innocent people. It was the army that the general served.
Again, talking about how Bangladesh's independence war ended, he says: "A cease-fire was declared on December 17, 1971, and Pakistan was cut in half." Musharraf does not say Pakistan's soldiers 'surrendered' and 'Bangladesh was independent.' Rather he says 'Pakistan was cut in half.'
Musharraf's portrayal of Bangladesh's liberation war shows that it will take a long time to reduce the mental gap between Bangladesh and Pakistan.
Except for one or two instances of wrong use of the English language, the language of the book is lucid. Unlike many South Asian writers, Musharraf has a free flow in telling his stories. However, when the book was published, suspicions arose in Pakistan of ghost writing involved in the work. In Pakistan, such suspicions also arose in the 1960s about Ayub Khan's autobiography Friends Not Masters. However, In the Line of Fire is a widely-read book. It has attracted huge media attention across the world. And unlike Ayub Khan's book, it will remain good reference material for the future.
Ekram Kabir is a journalist and regular book reviewer .
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