For the moment at least, Pakistanis are divided into three broad categories. There are the incorrigible optimists – vital for the vibrancy of any country – who think that with the recent elections Pakistan is at the threshold of a great new beginning. At the other end of the spectrum are the diehard pessimists, who are convinced that nothing good is going to come out of the impending dispensation given the track records of the two main coalition partners, that Pakistan is on the verge of its worst downslide ever given the near-insurmountable problems it faces, forgetting that nothing is impossible. Somewhere in the middle are the cautious with a wait-and-see approach, those who have paused to see whether the leopards’ spots have indeed faded (they never change) and this time round the politicians, having learned their lessons, will genuinely do their best for the country and not for themselves. If they do, then regardless of their performance, we will be on well our way, for when intentions are good one eventually comes good and, like water, finds its level.
One was concerned, therefore, to see some optimists suddenly feeling pessimistic, saying that “we have been reduced to a joke with a 19-year old kid being flown out of Oxford to help decide who our next prime minister will be.” (There are Easter vacations in British universities anyway). How does it matter? The son is just going to help the father make the announcement. If anyone genuinely believes that he is really going to make the decision then he doesn’t understand our emotion-ridden dynastic cultish politics. This is a tactical manoeuvre in possible damage control, for those disappointed are more likely to bow their heads and not make trouble, though there is no guarantee, even if the new prime minister is stop gap, keeping the seat warm for the father. It’s all pretty clever and perfectly legitimate. All is fair in love, war and politics, most of all in the last. We must get out of the syndrome of personalities and look at the larger, longer-term picture. Leaders, parties and governments come and go; the country must last forever. Yes, history is littered with the graves of states, countries, nations, civilisations, empires and superpowers, as the tearless Himalayas would bear witness, but we have to proceed on the assumption that they do, otherwise countries would never prosper, just as humans would never have been able to form societies governed by rules if no one believed that there was life after death. So give them a chance and hope and pray that the optimists are right and their euphoria is not ill-founded this time round. We will know soon enough, so hold your horses – it’s bootless getting emotional and arguing about it right now.
If the possible scenario that I have been painting turns out to be correct, that Nawaz Sharif may – repeat ‘may’ – have ganged up with the lawyers to force early elections because he assesses, not necessarily incorrectly, that this time he will win a majority, then I would also add a word of caution. Even though early elections are a legitimate and normal part of the Westminster-style political process, today’s Pakistan is in a fragile state and cannot afford more shocks than are coming its way anyway. Nawaz Sharif should be patient and the leaders of the lawyers’ movement should be careful that they don’t become victims of the sudden ‘greatness’ that has been thrust upon them. If they don’t then they are not only in danger of breaking their movement, but along with it the coming government, the political process and much more than one can bear mentioning. The dire need is to let this parliament and the coming government complete their terms so that the process can achieve cruising speed and get into auto drive. This has been our problem: every time we are about to reach cruising speed our car is pushed off the cliff by megalomaniac politicians consumed by self-aggrandisement and self-interest paving the way for generals who still don’t realise that they too don’t have any solutions to our myriad problems, not least because they have little knowledge of history – all they do is tinker with an alien system before they also get overtaken by survival. So why be surprised when every time we restart our journey we do so from where we left off – near the cliff in the same car with the same drivers.
Forget personalities, whether you like or dislike them. Frankly, the more apt words are ‘worship’ and ‘hate’, ‘thrall’ and loathe’, for they badly affect one’s long-term thinking and analyses. Think of Pakistan, a highly diverse and plural society now also highly divided and polarised because we historically left smaller and weaker groups out of the decision-making loop. Pakistan’s institutions and organisations must be inclusive of this diverse polity if it is to survive and succeed. Only by giving all our peoples the sense that they are participating in decision-making will we return to everyone their stake in the country.
Certainly, there is ample cause for optimism, not least because it is the elixir of a people on their march to success – I hate the words ‘realism’ and ‘pragmatism’. Idealism and optimism are the stuff revolutions are made of, just as dreams are the stuff reality is made of. Sure idealism only becomes revolution and dreams reality if they are tempered with realism and pragmatism, but when only realism and pragmatism remain to the exclusion of dreams and idealism, then all you are left with are ‘copout’, ‘dodge’, ‘excuse’, and ‘ducking’ that soon lead to colonisation and hegemony. We should always keep in front of us the fact that the greatest idealist-cum-pragmatist ever was our Holy Prophet (PBUH) who made the greatest revolution. Allama Iqbal was a great dreamer and thought up a country. Our founding father was all three – idealist, dreamer and realist – which is why he is the only man in history to have also done all of three things while few if any leader has ever managed one or two of them – liberate his people, change the course of history and turn Iqbal’s dream into reality by crafting a new country.
Yes, there is cause for optimism. Despite the mistakes, we have moved on in the last eight years. The last parliament, no matter what you think of it, was the first to ever complete its term, even though it fathered three governments. That’s something to celebrate. For the first time we are changing governments through elections. An embryonic civil society is emerging that will soon include the deprived and not just the fashionable. We have 50 new television channels that have not only changed people’s perceptions but enhanced their information banks as well. The media is the latest and very potent political player in a previously barren and information-starved wilderness. There is no turning back. And though these are not the most popular things to say in today’s highly vitiated atmosphere, the truth must be told: despite the yawning trade gap and the inexplicable failure to enhance power generation, our macro economic success has been phenomenal, as the figures testify (an angry people will realise this soon enough) and the president did kick-start the political process and manage to take us to the third stage that he had promised. Now it is up to us the people to ensure that it is never aborted again. Sure mistakes will be made along the way, there will be many glitches, but only then will the people be able to complete ‘Class One’ in their learning process and move forward. We have never been allowed to complete our learning process: before our first class could finish it was closed down, to be restarted a few years later only to be closed down again. We have to get out of this terrible syndrome, and if we cannot do it by revolution then we must give the system a rope long enough either to hang itself so that we can craft a better one or swing Tarzan-like to success.
There could be more optimism round the corner. Nawaz Sharif could help transplant the People’s Party’s ‘liberalism’ rooted in western social and political constructs into native soil, while the PPP could temper Sharif’s confusion of Islam with mullahism and his (past?) admiration of the Taliban. One is pro-America; the other not so. They could play good-cop-bad-cop to keep America’s unreasonable demands at bay. A new prime minister as stopgap makes sense. We have seen what happens when the party leader and the prime minister is not the same person, as is natural to Westminster’s parliamentary system. The party leader alone cannot do much by way of patronage for his parliamentarians while the prime minister loses touch with the people if he is out of touch with his party. We have suffered from this disorder since 2002. It is imperative that one person holds both offices. Today, the leaders of the three largest parties in the National Assembly are not even in parliament, just as the real leader of the last ruling party was hiding behind an obviously transparent veil while the offices of prime minister and party leaders were held by different people who were not even the real leaders. It’s time for the real leaders to stop being managers and coaches and come on to the playing field as the centre forwards of their parties and governments.
E-mail: hgauhar@nation.com.pk
Courtesy: The Nation, 23/3/2008
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