| August 06, 2008 | Wednesday | Sha'aban 3, 1429 |
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‘To govern is to exploit’
THE divisions in American society were brought into sharp focus during the 2004 presidential elections: pundits carved up the country between ‘red’ states that supported the Republicans, and the ‘blue’ states that were behind the Democrats. The interesting thing was that the major coastal states of New York and California were solidly blue, while much of Middle America was red.
This divide has been further elaborated this year, with college-educated professionals and ethnic minorities generally favouring Barack Obama, while middle-class white Americans are pro-McCain. More and more, these differences are surfacing across the media. Regional newspapers and Fox TV are solidly behind the Republicans, while webzines like Huffington Post, and liberal newspapers like the New York Times and the Washington Post are pro-Obama.
Echoes of this electoral battle are often heard in St Andrews, the Canadian border town I am spending a few quiet weeks in. Situated just above the American state of Maine, it attracts a number of Americans in the summer, many of whom have had holiday homes here for years. Several of them have become good friends, and we mostly discuss the tense presidential race. Confirming the old saw about ‘birds of a feather’, we are all rooting for Barack Obama as we agree that his election might change not just America, but the rest of the world’s view about the only superpower. As we all know, Bush’s handling of domestic and foreign policy has caused enormous damage to his country’s global standing and image.
Among this group of ‘summer Americans’ is Carl Sapers, professor emeritus of law at Harvard, and a keen observer of the American scene. As he is also a wonderful cook, he and his wife Judy are warm and generous hosts. A few years ago, in a conversation about the rule of law, he made the point that the American constitution had robust checks and balances built in to prevent the executive from misusing its powers. But as we know to our cost, the Bush administration has walked all over the constitution in the post-9/11 scenario, so when we met recently, I reminded him of his words. By way of response, he pulled out a cutting downloaded from the New York Times, and handed it to me. It contains a quotation from James Madison, one of the founding fathers of the American Republic, and a powerful voice in the drafting of the constitution.
Writing some 220 years ago, Madison wrote: “In no part of the Constitution is more wisdom to be found than in the clause which confines the question of war or peace to the legislature, and not to the executive department… War is in fact the true nurse of executive aggrandizement. In war, a physical force is to be created; and it is the executive will which is to direct it. In war, the public treasures are to be unlocked; and it is the executive hand which is to dispense them… It is in war, finally, that laurels are to be gathered, and it is the executive brow they are to encircle. The strongest passions and the most dangerous weaknesses of the human breast; ambition, avarice, vanity, the honourable or venal love of fame, are all in conspiracy against the desire and duty of peace.”
Since Carl gave me this quote a fortnight or so ago, I have re-read it many times for it seems to encapsulate the abiding tension between the executive and the other two branches of the modern state. Elegantly and presciently, Madison has gone to the heart of the danger facing the young Republic. We in Pakistan are long familiar with the conundrum of establishing a strong, effective executive that does not trample over the jurisdiction of the legislature and the judiciary, thereby eroding the rights of the citizen. Thus far, we have failed abysmally in reining in the powers of the (mostly military) executive.
But even states with a long and proud history of democracy have often failed to control their elected leaders. The ongoing war in Iraq is a case in point: Bush and Blair took their nations to war on the basis of flawed and doctored intelligence without being brought to account. Torture of the most unspeakable kind has been inflicted on adversaries without lawful authority. And the executive hand has dispensed public treasures without proper oversight. The one things denied the executive are the laurels to encircle its brow.
The truth is that Madison and his colleagues had presumed a certain degree of honour and idealism among elected officials. Being decent, honourable men themselves, they had thought that those who followed them would be similarly motivated. Alas, we have generally seen a succession of amoral, venal politicians more concerned with their own narrow constituencies than the wider public good. In more developed democracies, this selfishness is better concealed than it is in aspiring and emerging democracies. But lurking below the surface is a smug self-regard.
Bakunin, the 19th century Anarchist philosopher, once wrote: “To govern is to exploit.” For me, this aphorism sums up the gulf between rulers and the ruled. English friends are often shocked by my cynicism when it comes to politicians, but it has been forged over the years I have spent in Pakistan, observing the ruthless political games played by civilian and military leaders.
In Pakistan, the state has been militarised to such a degree that an elected civilian government cannot even order the ISI to report to the interior ministry. So vice-like is the army’s grip on the nation’s jugular that a debate on the extent of powers the executive should enjoy seems academic and largely irrelevant. And as we have noted, even long-established democracies like Britain and the US have seen human rights being snatched away from citizens at the whim of the executive. But here, there are built-in devices that correct imbalances over the long run. An Obama presidency, for example, could well result in the closure of the camp at Guantanamo Bay. In the UK, Gordon Brown might be unseated soon, partly for his support of the Iraq war.
In Pakistan, we have no way of making our military rulers accountable for their costly and bloody mistakes in Afghanistan and Kashmir. Another lesson from history is that political power is never handed over: it has to be taken by force.
