Daily Times

The present political setup representing the different sections of finance capital is busy with the din of “change” but it has consciously failed to point a finger at the socioeconomic system that is ravaging this tragic land. The two clowns in the shape of Khan and Qadri and the not so funny clowns of the media houses have been somersaulting for over three weeks now but all they succeeded in was multiplying the misery and bewilderment of the masses. Harold Wilson, a shrewd conservative UK prime minister in the 1960s, once said, “A week is a very long time in politics.” In Pakistan, this farce has been carrying on for a much longer period than that.

All the real issues like the right to decent education, healthcare, housing and jobs are anathema to all the actors. This obscene circus is really for the control of the political supra-structure that is engineered to run this rotten socio-economic system’s continual onslaught of mayhem and catastrophically horrific conditions that have besieged society. They have no capacity to diagnose the disease or provide a remedy.

The right wing bourgeois regime of Sharif is talking about “saving democracy” when they are virtually illegitimate political children of the most vicious dictatorship in the entire history of Pakistan. However, like the conspiracy theories of Sharif’s removal by the army proved to be a hoax, the other religious and liberal secular bourgeois parties switched their support to this reactionary regime in this vulgar orgy of palace intrigues, sabotage and stabbings in the back. The conflicts within the PML-N are opening up. The talk of supremacy of parliament, constitution and, of course, the sacred cow of democracy is just another name for naked plunder. The MQM has yet again thrown its spanner into the works at a crucial juncture, threatening resignations to enhance its power and share in the loot. The fissures within the military’s high command and their hesitancy were too obvious and exposed to conceal.

The motives of Khan and Qadri are not that different from those on the other side of this farcical divide of the political elite. Khan’s main demands started with recounting in four constituencies but he became bolder after Sharif’s retreats and vulnerability, culminating in the demand for his resignation. Imran’s support base is mainly from the upper middle classes and a ‘rent a mob’. Qadri is a false imposter, talks about poverty and welfare but has exposed his lack of understanding of the prevailing socioeconomic system let alone providing an alternative for a way forward. His rhetoric does not wash with the vast majority that has to tackle these issues on a daily basis. People at his dharnas (sit-ins) are either his disciples or the employees of his madrassa (seminary) networks and paid hefty bonuses above their salaries for bringing their families along.

Khan’s demand for a midterm election and reconstitution of the Election Commission would make no fundamental change as the interests of finance capital, the establishment and imperialism, will actually decide the outcome. Khan has raised his stakes to such heights that his retreat without Sharif’s resignation would be a shattering blow for the PTI. This bubble will burst long before its expectations. The first major split has already transpired. Qadri’s desire to be a leader of the Barelvi majority similarly will have the same fate.

However, this does not mean that Sharif’s regime will have an easy ride thereafter. With a crumbling economy, civil wars and insurgencies engulfing the country, instability will aggravate. His arrogance and belligerence will only lead to provocation for the toiling masses. In the final analysis, politicians of all shades are impotent when it comes to transforming this historically obsolete and economically redundant system. The ever-increasing cracks in the state and system cannot be camouflaged with proselytisation and talk of the constitution, freedom and democracy. The PML-N regime is unlikely to last out its full term in power. It can only look forward to the spectre of more conflagrations.

Those PPP candidates who lost in the elections, especially in Punjab, were eager for a midterm election come what may. They were licking their lips at the prospect of taking a second bite of the cherry. However, the serious sections of the ruling elite and the state were aware of the fragile nature of the existing set up and hence have resisted the urge to change the political landscape. The discredited Zardari and other top PPP leaders, however, prevailed upon their sycophantic selected leaders to surrender before the status quo and fall in line behind the Lahore throne in the interests of protecting democracy. The real motive was to preserve their provincial government in Sindh from which they suck lucrative perks, power and opportunities of massive corruption. However, the actual survival of the PPP is in doubt now, particularly because it has even abandoned the pretence of its contradictions with semi-religious Pakistan’s bourgeois traditional party, the PML-N, especially in Punjab, on which they based their hypocritical rhetoric to be a political force. The prospect of the collapse of the PPP as the traditional party of the masses is now starkly posed.

It has been long since the masses rose in the form of a mass movement from below. The last time that happened on a sub-threshold level was on October 18, 2007 when Benazir Bhutto landed in Karachi from self-imposed exile. This movement was dissipated by the treachery and the subsequent betrayal of the dynastic leadership. However, this boisterous stagnation and the political indifference of uncivil society or the toiling masses cannot last very long. In their subconscious they are accumulating the experiences of being subjected to this disastrous democratic deception and the leaders they were forced to rely upon now stand utterly exposed. This subconscious awareness of the masses converts into a collective consciousness; the barrages will burst and the psychological and social obstacles will be smashed. A socioeconomic transformation is not a privilege of the oppressed working classes; it is their burning necessity. Karl Marx once wrote, “Necessity is blind until it becomes conscious. Freedom is the consciousness of necessity.” The working classes have endured the brutalities of military rule and for the last so many years have been coarsened by this moneyed democracy. This parliamentary circus has only subjected them to an economic onslaught to fill the coffers of the bourgeois bosses and imperialist corporations. There is no party or leadership at the helm of society that has any programme or intention of salvaging the plight of the workers, deprived youth and the poor. There cannot be one. Revolutionary parties only attain mass basis in a revolutionary or pre-revolutionary situation. In these times of mild reaction and social stagnation they have to, in Lenin’s words, “explain patiently” and build the infrastructure of a Marxist organisation. If that job is done then the next mass revolt, when it erupts, can be guaranteed a revolutionary victory. That is the verdict of history.

The writer is the editor of Asian Marxist Review and international secretary of Pakistan Trade Union Defence Campaign. He can be reached at ptudc@hotmail.com