Beyond the headlines

In the moderately enlightened era of the previous government, one used to often catch the phrase 'Aayen mil keh Pakistan ka naam roshan karain' on television. Musharraf used to say it, Pervaiz Elahi loved it … I even heard the phrase being used to sell soap. Having noticed that, I’ve spent the past few years thinking – particularly when I read the foreign press – that I’d prefer us to have been aiming for merely Pakistan roshan karna; never mind the naam.

As an ordinary Pakistani with ordinary ambitions, and with the knowledge of decades’ worth of political debacles, I restrict my hopes and desires to the very ordinary: sufficient – not even plentiful – supply of items indispensable to my life, such as electricity, water, gas, wheat, sugar, edible oil and suchlike. Some basic human rights and dignity would be welcome too.

The thing is, you see, that I truly believe that in terms of making a name for itself, Pakistan has more than done the needful. It really is time now for it to rest upon its laurels.

Matters have come to such a pass that I find myself looking back with some fondness to the times when the mention of my nationality would elicit a question about whether the methods of transportation “over there” involved horses or camels. I regret the impatience and disdain with which I used to react then. Today, the world is not only far too well aware of my country’s past, present and the looming question mark of its future, but uncomfortably, those who could do something about this disaster-zone – including you and I – are busy arguing amongst ourselves to the point of total apathy.

Retired Gen Musharraf used to blame the media for having, as he once said, the habit of making public the country’s problems and embarrassments. And after the change in government, the murmur has been taken up by a few parliamentarians and politicians as well. They’re missing the point, though. It is not up to the media to refrain from pointing out errors in judgment and mismanagement on the governmental scale; it is in fact up to the government and its executive/legislative arms to try to avoid making such mistakes as far as possible.

Given that the country is facing so many, and such myriad issues, it is perhaps a good thing that they are being discussed nationally and internationally. Perhaps only then can potential solutions and avenues of redress be found.

The point for those in government and those at the receiving end to ponder, however, is why we are facing these issues at all; how the current situation vis-à-vis a host of matters from the militant terrorists to infrastructural issues to those of governance came to pass; how far earlier and which regimes were by either omission or commission complicit, and what can now be done to address our current status of international stardom.

The point is simple yet subtle, and one of vital importance. News commentators and observers are falling over themselves to take a side in the discussion about whether or not the earlier Bhutto/Sharif regimes were better than the Musharraf years, and that old discussion about whether military or democratic rule proved better for Pakistan is back on the agenda. But, the Bhutto vs Sharif vs military debate, for example, takes entirely the wrong track.

Democracy is important, not because the democratic leaders we have experienced were better but because under it the politicians themselves have a stake in the system; they cannot afford to weaken the fabric of society too far.

Leaders elected in all faith and all fairness can turn out to be corrupt or insincere, but once their credibility is destroyed in the eyes of the electorate, the voters can themselves prevent their return to power. While democracy is no magic wand, it does at least serve to level the playing field.

Because of this, democracy also means having to put up for some time with leaders that prove themselves myopic, misguided or render themselves unpopular. After all, it was during Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s government that the seeds of the ISI’s political cell, the infamous FSF, were sown. And Nawaz Sharif may be looking good today, but he did once attempt to have himself crowned the Amir-ul-Momineen.

But – and it’s a very important but – the electorate has to bear an unpopular democratic government for only the given term, after which those who have been found lacking can be voted out. In Pakistan, the legitimate term of an elected government is five years but we bore the last general for nearly double that. The politicians of today appear to be returning to earlier divisive tactics, and here’s what there is to be scared of: all a future general has to do is cite the doctrine of necessity and stamp his way in. The trouble with demanding of a general “Oh yeah? You and whose army?” is that all he has to do is point out of the window.

In Pakistan right now, the brew is poisoned further by the militant-terrorist nexus against whom our army is battling. They may have been sidelined in the news by the NRO, but we forget about them at our own – very real – peril. And what we need to succeed in the fight against them is a government with a legitimate and popular mandate; not one under siege by elements that ought to be backing it.

Before we begin to upbraid the world for “meddling in our internal affairs,” it is vital for us to put our own house in order. Significant portions of the country’s territories are in a state of war and the army finds itself at war with people of whom at least some are Pakistani citizens; the writ of the state in the north-west is a question mark, and secessionist feelings are rife in more than one province; even the viability of the federation is under debate. Meanwhile we lack an adequate supply of electricity, water or gas. And yet, we take umbrage when someone expresses disbelief in their ability to defend our nuclear arsenal.

Imagine that you live next door to a family whose lawn is unwatered and the plants are dying, whose children constantly beat each other up and the head of the household falls ever deeper in debt, whose housekeeper is slatternly, the larder is empty and the utilities are one by one being cut off because of the non-payment of bills. And then you hear that they’ve gone and bought 400 kilogrammes of TNT and are storing it in a house where everybody smokes. I don’t know about you, but I know I’d be worried.

Postscript: I read somewhere recently that “If you can’t be a good example, it could be that the sole purpose of your life is to serve as a hideous warning.”

hajrahmumtaz@gmail.com