Daily Times

“In the immediate nearness of the gold, all else had been forgotten, and I could not doubt that he hoped to seize upon the treasure, find and board the Hispanola under cover of night, cut every honest throat about that island, and sail away as he had at first untended, laden with crimes and riches.” — Robert Louis Stevenson: “Treasure Island”

In a statement read to the press, Nawaz Sharif has vowed to fight the ‘Muqadema’ of the Quaid’s Pakistan, its 200 million people and the sanctity of their vote, its constitution and democracy, and its prime ministers who were wrongfully removed from power.

He proceeded to recount a plethora of his assets ranging from roads to motorways to China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) to dams to energy generation projects to carrying out the nuclear explosions, ad nauseam.

Of all the assets that he lays a claim on, I have not been able to understand his ownership of CPEC. Does he want us to believe that if there were a non-Punjabi, incorruptible, transparent, honest, accountable and intelligent prime minister ruling the country, the Chinese would not have initiated the project? Or that they would have insisted on making Nawaz Sharif the prime minister as a precondition to Pakistan becoming part of the CPEC? Nothing could be more preposterous than this narrative.

One may also ask that since he has been in politics for almost four decades, often among the ruling echelons in the province and at the federal level, why is it only now that he is vowing to fight the ‘Muqadema’? What have been his priorities all these years that he has been ruling the roost?

In his relentless harangue, he forgot to mention some of the most noteworthy assets that he has bequeathed upon this hapless country.

He is the one who originally introduced to Pakistani politics the vile instrument of buying and selling people. The bottle that the late General Jilani used to feed him is another asset of high value in the national archives. Vowing to carry forward the sacred mission of his mentor, late General Ziaul Haq, brought indescribable glory to Pakistan. The attack on the Supreme Court, introducing a sickeningly personalised form of governance, making the parliament totally irrelevant, systematic liquidation of state institutions and appointing people with criminal backgrounds as their heads, mauling the national economy and putting the country under insurmountable debt, building a family oligarchy in the discipline of the Sicilian mafias and earning the title of the godfather are just a few other incomparable assets which deserve a pride mention in the national annals.

The assault on the judiciary is lethal and direct while the army gets the hate flak without being named. Simultaneously, there is a rabid rallying of other stakeholders including the paid cronies in the media to agitate against what they perceive as derailment of the people’s mandate

Now that he is finally in the dock with diminishing prospects of manoeuvring the system and buying prosecutors, judges and the lot that he has been so used to doing, he is dreaming to get a fresh start as if the last four decades never happened!

But, there is a sinister game plan that the godfather and his attendant mafia are instigating: provoking a clash among state institutions. The assault on the judiciary is lethal and direct while the army gets the hate flak without being named. Simultaneously, there is a rabid rallying of other stakeholders including the paid cronies in the media to agitate against what they perceive as derailment of people’s mandate.

They believe that, by rendering state institutions controversial, they may be able to stage yet another comeback with a license that, through the duration of their reign by disdainful whims and fancies, they would not be checked for even the most grievous transgressions and sabotage of justice that they may be guilty of perpetrating. As per this master plan, parliament should remain irrelevant. Judiciary should pack up. Army should go hide somewhere. NAB, ECP, FBR, IB, FIA, et al. should act as part of their personal fiefdom. In simple words, the Sharifs and their attendant mafia should be the absolute power, law and the state onto themselves.

They are drumming the beat of their righteousness on the international stage. From the United Nations to the Asia Society to interviews with media channels to every other opportunity that is thrown their way, the mafia members are proclaiming their intent to cleanse the system and walk the path that has never been treaded before.

I have been one of the fiercest critics of the state policies concerning the elimination of terror. For long I have advocated a serious review of Pakistan’s espousal of some non-state actors and its consequent failure in eliminating terror indiscriminately. In spite of the efforts made in the recent past, I still see rampant unwillingness to come to grips with the root causes of the spread of terror. The abject failure to implement the National Action Plan (NAP) is a living testament of my contention.

But, I also believe that it is only through a collective effort of the state institutions, notably the military, that the menace of terror can be effectively eliminated. Instead of being at perpetual odds, the political and the military wings have to work closely together in this effort.

That does not appear to be the desired destination of this malevolent assault. Given its high intensity of malice, the intent appears to be to further widen the existent divide to the detriment of the state.

The Sharifs are not the first to use the international stage for subverting the state. However, what is different is that they have occupied the highest offices in the country not once, but many times over and are privy to a host of state secrets. I don’t have the slightest doubt that they would use this information to advance their sinister plan.

There is a need for the state of Pakistan to look inwards at the way it has been functioning and the role its policies and institutions have played in bringing about these virulent, regressive and degenerate trends. It must also invest heavily in improving the stock of its people as, otherwise, it is an excruciatingly long trail of Sharifs and their likes that it will have to contend with!

The writer is a political and security strategist, and heads the Regional Peace Institute — an Islamabad-based think tank. Email: raoofhasan@hotmail.com. Twitter: @RaoofHasan

Published in Daily Times, October 3^rd 2017.