Mostly it’s like a rule that
the issue a government and its functionaries spend a lot of time on is no issue
at all. Drone attacks over the Pakistani territory and the zeal of the
government of Pakistan from its top political and military leadership to the
parliament should be treated likewise. Indeed, everyone whether he is in the
government or outside it, whether he is an ordinary citizen like me or a
special dignitary like Mr. President and Mr. Prime Minister who are sitting
over the public exchequer of Pakistan, all (and sundry) are stormily concerned
about the sovereignty of Pakistan being damaged by these Drone attacks. But let
me confess I am one of those few (if any) who are least concerned and who
consider it no issue. That is what this article intends to argue about.
Our government is a declared
ally of the US government in the war against terrorists including those who
planned 9/11, abetted, aided and executed it, who still support their terrorism,
and who intend to go for such acts in future also, who are based on the Afghani
and Pakistani soil, and are using it to launch more 9/11s. So in that case, it’s
of no significance whose Drones they are and whose territory they are
targeting. It’s the common war and certainly the targets too are common. Then
why that fuss? Especially by Mr. President, Mr. Prime Minister, and a specific
brand of Pakistanis in whose eyes a country is just a piece of land and whose
sovereignty consists only in its territoriality.
Recently when I asked a friend
of mine who is lawyer, so, can you tell me, legally constitutionally, does
Pakistan exist; I repeat: does Pakistan exist legally constitutionally, he was
just numb. He had no answer.
History tells us there have
been conquerors/adventurers eager of establishing their principalities over
this much or that much territory. Or imagine the days of the fall and decline
of Mughal empire. There were war lords, who occupied a piece of territory and
ruled there, or they maintained bands of fighters and to sustain them they used
to ambush the territory of another weaker war lord, or they used to sell their
loyalties to whomever bade the highest price. It was that way of the powerful
where sovereignty was the greatest thing to be protected at any cost. Simply
because it was a symbol of one’s rule and power and of course in the last
resort it yielded booty/revenue.
That’s the story of
territorial sovereignty we the ordinary people are still nostalgic about. (How
can we forget how our army defended our territorial sovereignty in 1970 in the
Eastern wing and what was its outcome!) What it means for the extra-ordinary
people like Mr. President and Mr. Prime Minister not clear but that they are
beating about the bush by harping uselessly on the theme of sovereignty is
obvious. That’s all misleading!
The world we live today is a
world of legality and constitutionality. When a new country emerges on the map
of the world, regardless of the manner in which it comes into being, e.g. how
Bangladesh was founded, its first urge is to attain legally constitutionally justified
status and then to be admitted into the comity of nations as a legally
constitutionally existing country. A negative example explains it well: in case
Taliban after assuming full control of some of the areas on the borders of
Afghanistan and Pakistan declare the setting up of a state until and unless it
has no legal constitutional status there is no chance of its being given the
same status by the international community and admitted into the UNO as well,
its existence will remain mired in uncertainty.
With these points in focus,
we should know that today territorial sovereignty is somewhere at the bottom of
the list. On top of the list is the legal constitutional status of a country
that endows it with its real sovereignty.
This legal constitutional
sovereignty is in fact an internal phenomenon. It gives a tract of land and a
population of individual persons inhabiting that tract a name and identity, and
the form of a country. However, most of all, it ensures those individual
persons protection of their life, their property and their rights/freedoms as
the citizens of that country. Otherwise that legal constitutional sovereignty
is just meaningless, and is but the rule of thugs. Ah, who can refute that even
thugs provide their subjects protection of life and property!
To quote St. Augustine here
is more than relevant who says: ‘Set aside justice, then, and what are kingdoms
but great bands of brigands? For what are brigands' bands but little kingdoms?
For in brigandage the hands of the underlings are directed by the commander,
the confederacy of them is sworn together, and the pillage is shared by law
among them. And if those ragamuffins grow up to be able enough to keep forts,
build habitations, possess cities, and conquer adjoining nations, then their
government is no longer called brigandage, but graced with the eminent name of
a kingdom, given and gotten not because they have left their practices but
because they use them without danger of law.’ (City of God, Book IV)
That’s what ultimately
sovereignty amounts to: provision of justice which implies protection of life
and property and importantly the fundamental rights/freedoms to individual
persons. In this context, injustice is the absence of these protections.
Probably that is why in their specific dominions goons too protect life and
property (if not fundamental rights) of those people who live under them from
other invading goons. That is the essence of a sovereign country and the sovereignty
of a country. That is why legality constitutionality matters so much in today’s
world. It ensures individual persons their fundamental rights and inalienable
freedoms, in addition to protection to their life and property.
Internally that sovereignty
is a collection of sovereign individuals whose life, property and
rights/freedoms are ensured by legality and constitutionality of a country.
Externally the sovereignty of that country embodies in its territorial
boundaries and the nature of that sovereignty merely consists not only in
safeguarding the physical borders but that is all meant to protect life,
property and thus rights/freedoms of those individual persons also who live
inside those physical borders from the invaders. That sums up our argument:
sovereignty derives from sovereign individuals and reverts to them.
Where do we stand vis-à-vis
that sovereignty? It was quite after 60 years that we came to have a rule of
law movement which probably first time in the history of Pakistan brought the
issue of fundamental rights to the fore. Astonishingly prior to that there
existed no such issue in the political discourse in Pakistan; and surely there
was no rule of law and independent judiciary either. Ironically as that movement popularized, more
fundamental than fundamental rights, the issue of protection of life and
property started burning up the country. So fight for your life first, then for
your property, and go forget your fundamental rights you wretched of this earth!
That’s the message of the Pakistani state to its individual citizens! Loud and clear!
Under these circumstances,
listening to the headship of our state talking of sovereignty is just
nauseating. Already they were sickening in their parasitic appetite; their treacherous
acts have made their existence loathsome. They are the rot of this land ruling
and spoiling this land. From people to institutions, they have defied
everything that elevated them to their position. The constitution that gave
them a legal and constitutional status and distinguished them from St.
Augustine’s brigands’ bands, they have trashed that constitution into a dustbin
of their perverted interests.
By setting aside both the legal
constitutional chief justice and justice, they have turned Pakistan ‘into a kingdom
of brigands' bands. For what are brigands' bands but little kingdoms? For in
brigandage the hands of the underlings are directed by the commander, the
confederacy of them is sworn together, and the pillage is shared by law among
them.’
That’s Pakistan and that’s
its sovereignty. From FATA and Swat to Karachi we the ordinary citizens are at
the mercy of this or that band of brigands. We are sovereign individuals though
our sovereignty has already been slaughtered verily by those who were its custodians.
What if a sovereign individual is killed by a brigand or by a bomb dropped by a
Drone! What if a sovereign individual is coerced by a local or a foreign goon
or the state itself into subservience to this or that ideology! He is already
in limbo forsaken by the Pakistani state!
[This
article was completed on January 30, 2009.]
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