It looks like everything is in a state of flux. New coinages, new clichés and new plans are being introduced while the old ones given new meanings and relevance. In the process, crime is being incessantly glorified as if that were the only way to go by. The word liberal is under the scanner. Understandably, the term stands for those who believe in unimpeachable freedom for everyone, without any discrimination along faith and creed lines, to say what they believe in and what they stand for. But, all that seems to have changed and a subversive feature injected into its erstwhile meaning. It pertains to the necessity of abusing the establishment, more particularly the military, as a precondition for being inducted into the sanctified domain. Without preaching this gospel of hate and misogyny, one would only be deemed a sell-out. The other hot pursuit is that the election process, having been tampered with on behalf of the establishment, has been rendered dubious and its results untenable. The pontiffs conducting prime-time pantomimes advocating the supposed malady refuse to look inwards and see that, in fact, it is not the election process which has become controversial. It is their conduct which has become so. In the process, these media tricksters, having indulged in grave professional derelictions, have started looking like the real criminals. “They are engaged in acts of subverting the institutions of the state including the judiciary and the military. This is tantamount to subversion of the state itself. Is there someone taking note of this and measuring the damage it would do to sustaining the edifice? In spite of our battalions of media anchors, one needed a Stephen Sackur to point this out” Particularly mentionable among the commodity of journalists are those who are claimants to being the blue-blooded kind. They are coming across dripping in juices of hate, bias and venom of a kind and quantum that words would not describe. They sit like plastered dummies before their chosen masters who holler out one lie after the other without as much as the slightest corrective intervention. Such are the contracts that render them eligible to receiving an uninterrupted inflow of gratifications. Let’s not forget the likes of Qasmis and Shamis of this world who have brought nothing but unmitigated shame to the whole profession. One recoils in disgust at the very sight of these so-called media stalwarts and their slimy sycophants who snail around like creeps smelling for new offerings. In the process, the real issues are getting lost in a maze of confusion and obfuscation which appears to be systematically promoted. Enveloped in this pernicious smog, the issue of endemic corruption and the need for eliminating it from all echelons of governance is being consigned to the bin as unimportant and irrelevant. There is not even a hint of condemnation of the convicts who have ravaged the state exchequer mercilessly through over three decades of loot and plunder. Instead, a sympathy wave is being generated for the former prime minister and his daughter and better facilities solicited for them in jail. Even the bar associations are getting involved in this pursuit in the name of ‘justice’. Now, will these individuals and organisations also get involved in seeking ‘justice’ for the Allah Dittas and Karam Dins of this country — the ones who are nobodies and who have not partaken of the fruits of power? Will they also come in aid of the Asia Bibis of this land who continue to languish in jail because of a discriminatory parlance? Or, is this new-found sense of ‘justice’ only meant for those who are notorious for having filled their pockets, and those of their associates, cronies, collaborators, aiders and abettors and who, if they come back, will do more of the same with added relish and disdain? By generating doubts about the forthcoming elections in the name of alleged ‘intervention’ by the establishment (read military), a rationale is being cultivated for their ultimate rejection. There are these few select faces which appear in programme after programme, repeating the same narrative without any sustainable argument or attendant proofs. They sit across anchors, who are part of the overarching mechanism, egging them on to say more of the same unsubstantiated stuff to further vitiate the atmosphere. The new-found love for the Sharif clan is a classic example of this inherent corruption of the mind and the pocket. Forgotten are their sins as the principal perpetrators of oppression and regression in the country in cahoots with the demon dictator General Ziaul Haq. After his death, the older Sharif proceeded, post-haste, in becoming his self-anointed successor, vowing to complete his mission. Having been nurtured under the patronising shadow of the most vicious military dictatorship in the annals of national history, he claims a position today which is diametrically opposed to what he has practised in the past three decades. And he does so with such Machiavellian farce as if he were under the influence of some evil spirit all this while. Now, finally, having seen the light of the day and democracy, he treats his criminal indulgences like these never occurred. The claims of development and progress being made so blatantly by various political parties through paid advertisements make a mockery of the election rules and regulations. These claims are neither true nor do they reflect the conditions of abject deprivation and poverty which obtain throughout the country. They also symbolise the lopsided priorities that the provincial and federal governments adopted in the last ten years. Be it investment in building roads and highways or setting up some top-heavy energy projects, the principal objective has always been to mislead the public into believing that a lot was being done for their benefit. In reality, all this was of little to no consequence for them. Their struggle for two measly morsels a day for them and their families has only become more gruesome. Nawaz Sharif is no longer an alleged criminal. He is a convict who has been incarcerated for grave financial crimes. Demanding a preferential treatment for him on the plea that he has been the prime minister of this country on three different occasions in the past only speaks volumes of how this inveterate offender crafted his way through various stages of the grind to the top, and how he used the power of the envelope to buy people of all hues and shades, including the media stalwarts. This is the lowest that one could degenerate to, but to persevere in both the criminal intent and practise by his coalition of crooks and criminals only redoubles the shame that the entire country is immersed in. This whole act makes for a classic enactment of glorifying crime. The politicisation of every echelon of governance and the belief that one could get the moon if willing to sacrifice one’s soul is what has degraded this country to its present-day low ebb, with hardly a hope remaining of coming out of the morass. How far deeper can they plunge? Is there no limit for these bottomless degenerates who shamefacedly preach sermons of principles every bit of time they show their faces on the mini-screen? They are engaged in acts of subverting the institutions of the state including the judiciary and the military. This is tantamount to subversion of the state itself. Is there someone taking note of this and measuring the damage it would do to sustaining the edifice? In spite of our battalions of media anchors, one needed a Stephen Sackur to point this out. If such be the intent, let’s be done with the courts. Let there be no parliament. Let everything be decided by a motley crowd of criminals gathered by the masqueraders. We are perched on the cusp of time. A silence now will perpetuate the breach and render it unbridgeable in the future. Thereafter, the passing away of the state will only be a matter of time. 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, July 24th 2018.