It is high time that we woke up to the menace of Bonapartism lurking behind our religious militancy.
ISLAMABAD: I fully endorse Ayesha Siddiqa’s recipe for reining in the mindset that forced Jinnah to remind our armed forces of their oath of office at the Staff College Quetta and to effectively counter what Bhutto so insightfully described as ‘coup-gemony’ in his book If I am assassinated.
Ever since Mr Bhutto was hanged, the principle of civilian supremacy has been sidelined by the establishment of civil society. It is high time that we woke up to the menace of Bonapartism lurking behind our religious militancy, and tried to strengthen parliamentary democracy, civil rights and secular polity. I would very strongly urge all well-meaning bloggers, analysts and intellectuals to trigger off a national discourse that thoroughly discusses the following fateful events in our history: The inclusion of the Objectives Resolution in the Constitution; the role of the judiciary in endorsing the four military coups; Operation Gibraltar; the Fall of Dhaka and the Hamoodur Rahman Commission Report; the assassinations of Liaquat Ali Khan and Benazir Bhutto; Operation Black Horse; Operation Midnight Jackals; the Ojhri Camp disaster; Kargil; Balochistan and Fata-related security issues
Shoaib Mir
Published in The Express Tribune, May 10th, 2011.
