Daily Times

When do you know every wrong has become right? When do you know being wrong is a quality that inspires people to do more of it? When do you know that being right is considered silly and impractical? It is when con artists, liars, defaulters and lawbreakers become role models. The very fact that Ayyan Ali was invited as a guest speaker by one of the best universities in Pakistan and students of that university ‘honoured’ her with awards and posed for selfies with her is an indication of how deep and how rotten our social and moral values have become. The media uproar resulted in a show cause notice to the students and that is about it.
The question is: how can a notorious model caught with half a million dollars become a role model for the educated youth of our country? The answer lies in the fact that what this generation of 20-year-olds sees is that the bigger the criminal you are the more rich and famous you become. This is perhaps the most dangerous trend in the country, more dangerous than the fluctuating exchange rate, more dangerous than the budget deficit and more dangerous than dengue fever. This cuts across the roots of what makes a society, a culture and a nation.
Just imagine the lives of 20-year-olds in Pakistan. Born in the 1990s they have seen the country’s steadily deteriorating development. They have seen electricity become a rare species. They have seen education standards falling. They have seen hospitals become epitomes of terrible hygiene. They have seen money losing value. They have seen going out on the streets becoming a life risking pursuit. They have seen robberies and muggings happening all around them. They have seen murderers, criminals and defaulters becoming the top people in our country. They know that education is important for success in life but see top leaders with fake degrees. They know that business needs ethics and principles but see top industrialists and businessmen indulge in tax frauds, loan defaults and breaking most rules. They know hard work is the way of life but see many people succeed without even lifting a finger. They know lying and deceiving is wrong but see blatant liars becoming media stars and mesmerising speakers. On the other hand, they see honest, hardworking people struggling and suffering, law-abiding people spending lifetimes trying to seek justice, bright, educated people waiting for jobs that go to the most undeserving.
With so much happening that should not be happening and nobody doing anything about it, they feel that success is defined by doing anything and everything and by being either above the law or being able to skirt or bend it. Ayyan Ali is just a by-product of leaders who make laws to suit their personal agendas. Laws have been deliberately made lax and selective to leave enough room for every smart lawyer to create doubt for case dismissals. The fact that the leaders of the two ruling parties have been living under severe charges of corruption and misuse of authority, and have escaped every time, is itself evidence of the non-existence of any system of accountability. That is why the military has to step in and that is why military courts have to be set up to scare the politicians. That is why political parties start crying foul the minute their corruption fortress is touched. The screaming and yelling of politician after politician for being interrogated on cases that have been dormant for years on charges that run into the billions portrays their complete disbelief on why their ‘law-proof’ system is being rocked.
Yousaf Raza Gilani was the Prime Minister (PM) who appointed Tauqir Sadiq as head of the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (OGRA), who was convicted in the Rs 82 billion scandal. When the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) wanted to hold him on the basis of his illegal appointment, Yousaf Raza simply said that since he was an ex-PM he had immunity against any such conviction. In the recent operation clean up, Yousaf Raza and Amin Faheem have again been given arrest orders, this time for the TDAP scandal. More than 70 cases related to this appeared and they were charge-sheeted in 12 of them last year. However, both Gilani and Faheem obtained bail and exemptions from appearing in hearings.
The formula for legalising immorality is very simple: buy and collude on coming into power, pass laws that create immunity against any conviction, choose heads of major institutions of accountability who are corrupt themselves or are your yes men, impede the passing of accountability laws, threaten investigators into submission, blackmail opposing parties who want to catch them by warning of spilling the beans on them. And, if need be, abscond to foreign countries through deals made with internal and foreign actors. That is what we have witnessed for the last four decades. They have done it so often and so successfully that it has become a norm. Nobody believes they will be caught and even if they are caught they will not be convicted. Thus, for the youth of this country they become aspiring role models of corruption management, deception management, rigging management, etc. They are the infallible supermen whom no law, no court and no power can dislodge.
One additional skill and talent they possess is that when their wrongs are being exposed they become the wronged people, the aggrieved party, the victimised victims, the brave saviours of democracy, the courageous custodians of the Constitution and the symbols of patriotism and integrity. Instead of embarrassment there is this outraged indignation of being subject to this targeted attack on their flawless conduct and behaviour. The ex-PM, Yousaf Raza Gilani, who has been found wanting on the biggest and the smallest of scams, is a typical example of this. From keeping a necklace donated for flood victims by the wife of the Turkish PM to billions in OGRA to awarding the Sitara-e-Imtiaz to some businessmen against gifted Prados and money, the ex-PM has been accused of all but is still not convicted. That is why, despite huge moral pressure, the Election Commission of Pakistan’s (ECP’s) provincial commissioners refuse to resign as they wait for the Supreme Judicial Council to elongate their stay for another six months. As the saying goes, laws are like a cobweb; when a big insect falls into it, it passes right through it and when a small insect falls into it, the more it tries to get out of it, the more entangled it becomes.

The writer is secretary information PTI Punjab, an analyst, a columnist and can be reached at andleeb.abbas1@gmail.com