Daily Times

November 10, 2016, was my political savvy younger son Uzair’s 11th birthday. On the evening of November 8, the election day, as soon as I had returned from work, he asked me if I remembered his birthday was only two days away. I said I did. “Baba, as a birthday gift can you allow me to watch the TV today? I want to watch the election results.” Uzair requested.

Now, all electronic devices, especially TV, are banned on weekdays in my household except while doing school work. But this being an exception, I did allow him to watch the election results. He remained glued to the TV until 9:30 pm when I forcibly sent him to bed.

Next day, I got up around 5 am as usual and was surprised to see him sitting on the couch in the living room waiting for me to get up and permit him to watch TV. I let him do that. The moment he turned the television on and saw the results on the screen, his face turned red. I could see a very incredulous look on his face as if he could not believe what he had seen. However, as soon as the truth sank in, he ran to his elder brother’s room. Shaking Omar out of his deep sleep, he said: “Ada, Trump has won and he is building the wall!”

Trump has won — though not through the popular vote. Hillary has bagged more popular votes than Donald Trump. But that does not matter in the US. What counts is the number of electoral college votes. Donald Trump has,indeed, received the majority electoral college votes. Against Clinton’s 228 votes, Trump has grabbed 290: 18 more votes than needed for a four-year stay in the White House.

On June 27, 2016, only six months before the elections, I had written an article, “Troubled waters ahead for Pakistan” for this newspaper. The article had examined Mr Trump’s incredible, almost meteoric rise to prominence in the political arena. Grabbing the presidential nomination from one of the two major parties for anyone other than Donald Trump would have been impossible. A man plagued with charges of racism, sexism and financial and moral impropriety while facing criminal charges on various accounts would not have been able to make it to the city council, let alone be the top contender for the seat of President of the US.

Pakistanis living in the US are both puzzled and confused. Some of them scared to death as they feel that election pronouncements of Trump did not promise a very bright future for Muslims anywhere in the world. But it is not just Muslims, the whole country is in the state of shock. The outcome of the 2016 elections is being dubbed as the biggest upset in the history of the US. Anti-Trump rallies are being held everywhere. In some cities, even riots have broken out. Austin, the capital city of the state of Texas, known for the most liberal and open-minded population in the country that prides itself on being different from the rest of the state — “Keep Austin weird” is the motto of the city — is finding it difficult to reconcile with the reality that dawned on the nation on the morning of November 9, 2016. At my workplace, on the day after the election, an inter-office memorandum was sent to the staff that advised them to avoid certain streets and boulevards because they were completely taken over by the demonstrators. People of California have already started talking about the possibility of Calexit, on the lines of Brexit.

January 20, 2017, is the day when Donald Trump will be sworn in as the President of the country. However, his intentions for the next four years will only become clear when he selects his team. Many anti-Muslim, anti-immigration hardliners such as Rudy Giuliani, Chris Christi and Newt Gingrich are already being anticipated to be his top lieutenants. If these people get to the top positions they are being considered for, the situation could not be better described than as in the Persian verse “Gar Hamii Maktab-o Hamii Mullah/Kaar-e Tiflaan Tamaam Khwahad shud” (If this is the school and these are the teachers, then kids have no future).

I had a number of people invited over for Uzair’s birthday, all of them highly educated physicians and information technology professionals and legal citizens of the country. They too looked concerned. One of the friends present at the birthday party had, however, something different to offer. He said that not all was doom and gloom. The dark cloud gathered in the sky had a silver lining for some people, he said in a tongue in cheek way. He talked about Hillary Clinton’s close friendship with Shah Mahmood Qureshi, one of Imran Khan’s top men, and her good wishes for Bilawal Bhutto Zardari only a few months ago. Then he talked about Donald Trump’s leanings for India and his friendship with Narendra Modi. Wouldn’t that be the perfect setting for Nawaz Sharif with Donald Trump, a sworn opponent of Pakistan’s nuclear power and military, in the top office in Washington, DC, and Modi in Delhi? Would the Pakistani ‘establishment’ dare embark on any adventurism against the Nawaz government under these circumstances? Looks like some people are born lucky. The ‘Chief’ on the way out, Trump and Modi in the office, nincompoops leading the opposition, what else can Nawaz Sharif ask for?

One of my friends belonging to minorities in Pakistan posted on his Facebook wall the other day, “Now Muslims will feel in the US exactly how minorities feel in Pakistan.” Knowing our own record with minorities back home, I sincerely hope and pray that we Muslims do not have to go through that.

Postscript: the man who took an oath on PCO from Ziaul Haque, dismissed Sindhi Benazir Bhutto’s government, reinstated non-Sindhi Nawaz Sharif’s government dismissed on the same grounds, illegally dismissed Sindh Chief Justice Sajjad Ali Shah, purportedly a chauvinist to the fault, octogenarian, Saaeeduzzaman Siddiqui, is Nawaz Sharif’s new gift to Sindhis as their governor! Sindhis are hardly rid of Qaim Ali Shah, now they will have to deal with another zombie. Talk about luck!

The writer is an independent political analyst based in the US