Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Cut from the same cloth
Sometimes to gain insight regarding one place, you have to observe another. Such is the case today when today a Pakastani writer articulated the true sentiments of the Venezuelan opposition better than anyone:
His wife is an actress, his sister a journalist, his dad a university professor - clearly a person cut from a certain cloth - wealthy, urbane, sophisticated, educated, to his mind I'm sure, deserving. Of course, it's not easy being those things in a country of 165 million dominated by poverty and illiteracy, as Pakistan is. No one ever said it was all a bed of roses for the elite.
I guess that explains why someone so educated and sophisticated has no problems supporting a government that is as illiberal as they come. Why should it concern him that tens of millions of poor people have no voice as long as the multi millionaires who own the media are allowed to be "free and vibrant"? And isn't it great that journalism lecturers like his sister get to have their financing and salaries increased - no matter that there are virtually no educational opportunities for most Pakistanis.
What matters to the elite is... the elite. They don't care about poverty. They don't care about freedoms (apart from their own). They are willing to walk into a voting booth and vote for a dictator - as long as that dictator perpetuates their privileges and protects them from the rabble.
So it is in Pakistan. So it is in Thailand. And so it is in Venezuela.
The Venezuelan opposition likes to pretend it cares about a lot of things: good government, democracy, freedom, the poor. In reality they don't care about any of those things.
Whatever they say about any of those things the reality is they are only rhetorical weapons to remove a government that doesn't serve their interests and to rescue their endangered privaleges. In reality they have no more use for democracy, freedom, or human rights than their Pakistani counterparts.
Witness their support of a coup against a democratically elected government. Witness their support of devestating oil strike aimed at toppling that same government. Witness their fighting tooth and nail virtually every anti-poverty program Chavez has divised - until they thought they could make political gains by pretending to support them. Witness how they complain so bitterly when fortunes are reversed.
Strip away all the fancy rhetoric learned at places like Oxford and Harvard and all you are left with is a crass elite, be it Pakistani, Thailandese or Venezuelan, that is concerned about nothing more than its own privileges and status. We've seen this picture before.
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I was one of the few Pakistanis who actually voted for Gen. Pervez Musharraf in the rigged referendum of 2002. I recall walking into a polling station in Islamabad and not seeing any other voter. When I took the time required to read the convoluted ballot, I was accosted by a man who had the overbearing attitude of a soldier although he was in civilian clothes. He insisted that I hurry, which I refused to do. He then hovered close by, watching my every action, in complete defiance of electoral rules.
Despite this intimidation, I still voted in favor of the proposition that General Musharraf, who had seized power in a coup in 1999, should continue as Pakistan’s president for five more years. I believed his rule had brought us much-needed stability, respite from the venal and self-serving elected politicians who had misgoverned Pakistan in the 1990s, and a more free and vibrant press than at any time in the country’s history.
The outcome of the referendum — 98 percent support for General Musharraf from an astonishing 50 percent turnout — was so obviously false that even he felt compelled to disown the exercise.
Rigged elections rankle, of course. But since then, secular, liberal Pakistanis like myself have seen many benefits from General Musharraf’s rule. My wife was an actress in “Jutt and Bond,” a popular Pakistani sitcom about a Punjabi folk hero and a debonair British agent. Her show was on one of the many private television channels that have been permitted to operate in the country, featuring everything from local rock music to a talk show whose host is a transvestite.
My sister, a journalism lecturer in Lahore, loves to tell me about the enormous growth in recent years in university financing, academic salaries and undergraduate enrollment. And my father, now retired but for much of his career a professor of economics, says he has never seen such a dynamic and exciting time in Pakistani higher education.
His wife is an actress, his sister a journalist, his dad a university professor - clearly a person cut from a certain cloth - wealthy, urbane, sophisticated, educated, to his mind I'm sure, deserving. Of course, it's not easy being those things in a country of 165 million dominated by poverty and illiteracy, as Pakistan is. No one ever said it was all a bed of roses for the elite.
I guess that explains why someone so educated and sophisticated has no problems supporting a government that is as illiberal as they come. Why should it concern him that tens of millions of poor people have no voice as long as the multi millionaires who own the media are allowed to be "free and vibrant"? And isn't it great that journalism lecturers like his sister get to have their financing and salaries increased - no matter that there are virtually no educational opportunities for most Pakistanis.
What matters to the elite is... the elite. They don't care about poverty. They don't care about freedoms (apart from their own). They are willing to walk into a voting booth and vote for a dictator - as long as that dictator perpetuates their privileges and protects them from the rabble.
So it is in Pakistan. So it is in Thailand. And so it is in Venezuela.
The Venezuelan opposition likes to pretend it cares about a lot of things: good government, democracy, freedom, the poor. In reality they don't care about any of those things.
Whatever they say about any of those things the reality is they are only rhetorical weapons to remove a government that doesn't serve their interests and to rescue their endangered privaleges. In reality they have no more use for democracy, freedom, or human rights than their Pakistani counterparts.
Witness their support of a coup against a democratically elected government. Witness their support of devestating oil strike aimed at toppling that same government. Witness their fighting tooth and nail virtually every anti-poverty program Chavez has divised - until they thought they could make political gains by pretending to support them. Witness how they complain so bitterly when fortunes are reversed.
Strip away all the fancy rhetoric learned at places like Oxford and Harvard and all you are left with is a crass elite, be it Pakistani, Thailandese or Venezuelan, that is concerned about nothing more than its own privileges and status. We've seen this picture before.
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