Daily Times

I have always been in favour of U-turns and never found anything wrong with it. Personally, l have suffered a lot in life because of not taking the necessary U-turns when they were the need of the hour. It was my ego and arrogance that led me to self destruction.

In 2009, one of the great leaders of Pakistan and current Prime Minister Imran Khan, in one of his lectures in Lahore addressing the students said, “you never compromise on your goal/dream- you only compromise for your dreams.” This has to be one of the greatest lesson out of many that me and a lot of my young peers have learnt from the lectures delivered by the leader of the party back in the day. Little did we truly comprehend this quote till it was too late for us as well.

Meanwhile, his opponents would laugh at the leader of the party. The one man show was a laughing stock and was treated as a joke amongst all these old and mighty big shots of Pakistani politics. They ridiculed him by saying that he takes ‘U-turns’ on his decisions and would even address him as ‘U-Turn Khan.’

Nobody realises the repercussions of not understanding the kind of U-turns he took. Had these ‘experienced’ leaders and politicians known the power of the kind of U-turns this leader had been taking, this vacuum for Mr U-Turn Khan would have not been created.

The same lot who used to laugh at ‘U-Turn Khan’, didn’t realise g that their lack of self-realisation and their ignorance towards their sins would cost them everything they had made in the last three decades.

Prime Minister Imran Khan, in one of his lectures in Lahore addressing the students said, “you never compromise on your goal/dream- you only compromise for your dreams.” This has to be one of the greatest lessons out of many that I and a lot of my young peers have learnt from the lectures delivered by the leader of the party back in the day

All that was needed was a U-turn and the entire experienced lot of Pakistani politicians would be living in peace. A U-turn on money laundering would have saved them from NAB. A U-turn from making fake accounts would have saved them from FIA. A U-turn from target killing would have saved their political Party. A U-turn from using Islam for their personal benefit would not have costed them such a massive failure in the general elections. What was required was a compromise for the goal they all must have had in their minds before stepping into politics to ‘serve the people.’

Everyone makes mistakes and makes amends. In Pakistan, our corrupt segment, instead of mending their ways, came up with new ways to cheat, deceive and loot the country’s remaining bank balance.

Yesterday, I read a caption on siasat.pk website on Zardari and Shahbaz Sharif’s picture, ‘mother of all U-turns’. The entire day the media was sensationalizing this U-turn. No one is willing to acknowledge the fact that it was not a U-turn. It was just two people getting exposed. In fact it was anything but a U-turn. It is another to attack the national treasury. These attacks on the tax payers wealth is common. The only difference this time is that the guard of the treasure is one of the most credible person of Pakistan. It might be the mother of all U-turns for many, however, not for me.

For someone like me, it’s the mother of all previous attacks on the National treasury. This time, failure is inevitable.

The writer is a human rights lawyer and the director of Human Rights Protection Center, Lahore

Published in Daily Times, January 23^rd 2019.