Daily Times

Lets take stock of the style of ghost governance that is so brazenly being trumpeted about as democratic rule by the elected representatives albeit through a manufactured majority where millions of votes were reportedly bogus as admitted by the Election Commission. That apart, what is ironic is that those they so comically claim to represent and serve are the most neglected and carelessly overlooked. Pakistan was swept by massive floods in two consecutive years in 2010 and 2011. The world community responded to our humanitarian disaster with money and material quite generously, which we spent less and squandered more. As a result, the devastation caused by floods in Sindh and Balochistan remains largely unaddressed. More than 2.3 million people are still without secure food and shelter. About 70 percent of schools in Sindh and Balochistan remained shut till last December and every one in four flood-hit farmers could not till his fields to earn a living. More disturbingly, international donors have publicly expressed lack of faith in the government of Pakistan and have demanded accountability of available funds. There could be nothing more damning for the credibility of the country whose leadership is accused of plundering aid for its own needy. Yet not a head rolled, no remorse was shown nor any one of any consequence responsible for that disgraceful label bowed out. Business as usual continues for these merry men from Mercury.

See the sort of sticky revelations hitting the fan in ‘memogate’ and the Mehran Bank political bribes scandals. People being implicated are no less than some of the highest and most prestigious office holders of the country like presidents, COAS’s, DGs ISI, prime ministers, ambassadors and everybody who is anybody in national politics. It appears every saint in our country has an unenviable past and hides it. We have a chief executive of the country who publicly mocks and ridicules the superior judiciary and thinks he is a great political animal. That could just be right as very few chief executives in the world could claim a thicker skin, especially when indicted before the country’s highest court of law. We also have heads of state who like to play the parochial and challenge the chief justices of the country in the most unbecoming manner. Then there is the Federal Law Minister who prided himself in impeding every decision of the superior courts to not only show that he was too clever by half but also shield the corrupt and the criminal from the law. In the process a string of attorney generals were lost who, unable to defend swindlers on government expense, resigned. Honourable men in unlikely company. There is a whole pack of lesser hooters in the administration who echo their master’s voice most of the time in all the awkward ways. Self-respect, good sense, propriety and integrity have become rare and out of fashion.

One has never seen political imbecility of this magnitude where the executive undermines the country’s superior judiciary on purpose and then hopes to be appreciated for the nauseating hubris. They are in fact destroying the very cohesion of the state structure in their lust for power and money. The judiciary is the glue and the master key that holds the state and the people together. Tamper with it, disgrace it and rubbish its decisions habitually and the country rolls up like what happened in 1971. Do take out time from your business of state to visit Caliph Ali’s historic letter to his governor in Egypt and see what that greatest sage and philosopher of all times says about the judges and the judiciary.

While a spiteful ideology of hatred, intolerance, contempt and prejudice is replacing compassion, accommodation and charity in our society, constitutionality and the law are being trampled over; violence and fear of persecution is driving thousands of people to flee the country and seek asylum abroad. Close to 40,000 have already fled, which includes religious scholars, artists, writers, journalists, members of religious minorities, non-Muslims and sub-nationalists (UNHCR estimates). Our unabated ethnic, sectarian and communal madness is most regrettably forcing our Hindu, Sikh and Christian countrymen to migrate to India and western countries, and Hazaras from Quetta to as far as Australia. This appears to be the final destruction of harmony and diversity that began at the time of Partition, simmered under the surface meanwhile and re-erupted in force under the highly flawed sectarian zeal patronised by the country’s greatest nemesis, late General Ziaul Haq. This deadly absolutism has already turned towards other sub-creeds, preparing the ground for a scorched moral landscape in our country.

Seeing the sad trend and tragic indifference of the state, one might predict that in times to come a terribly violent struggle for the religious and socio-political spaces in Pakistan between competing sectarian ideologies on the one hand and between the state and the sub-nationalists on the other. This is what normally happens when religion becomes the business of the state rather than a matter of personal preference and voluntary affiliation. We are being led to a collective hara-kiri. It is time we reviewed the entire scheme of things, ripped apart the great hoax of ideology, sham constitutionality, bogey of people’s welfare and the farce of democracy. We must walk out of this gigantic bluff, our deeply ingrained religious and racial conceit and despicable bouts of sub-humanity if we want to be respected as a country and welcomed as a constructive, beneficent people. Watch out as: The moving finger writes and having writ/ Moves on: nor all your piety nor wit/ Shall lure it back to cancel half a line/ Nor all your tears wash out a word of it — Omar Khayyam.

(Concluded)

The writer is a retired brigadier of the Pakistan Army and can be reached at clay.potter@hotmail.com