Until the inverted pyramid is correctly aligned, we must lurch from degradation to further degradation.
KARACHI: This is with reference to the so-called leaked initial draft of the Abbottabad Commission report. According to various reports in the media, Ambassador Jehangir Ashraf Qazi and another member of the Commission, Lt Gen (retd) Nadeem Ahmed, separately wrote the initial drafts. The reconciled and final version was authored by Justice Javed Iqbal, the head of the commission. Reports say that Mr Qazi disagreed with the final version and expressed his views in a note of dissent.
The “final report” whenever it is let out, would now be read in comparison with this draft and all changes and differences between the two will be keenly observed and commented upon. If the changes are too many, then the final report will never escape the charge of being deliberately modified to avoid harsh conclusions. More importantly, the final version itself has two versions, according to a report in this newspaper.
So, here is an interesting predicament. We have generals who arrogate unto themselves the right to define, determine and defend their version of the “national interest”; we have members of the superior judiciary possibly anxious to ensure that “the heavens will not fall”, and a media (especially the electronic version) that creates, manipulates and moulds the “national interest” in the form that most benefits its interests. Then, we have the feudal elite that ensure that their interests are aligned with the “national interest”. And let’s not even start on the clergy!
These pillars of state and what is referred to as “ideology” were and remain our national role models. In homes and nations, as in the corporate world, those on the lower rungs of the ladder look to those occupying the higher rungs and generally try to emulate them.
Why do we expect our simple, common and largely good citizenry to be angels in the face of such powerful “role models”? Until the inverted pyramid is correctly aligned, we must lurch from degradation to further degradation.
Dr Mervyn Hosein
Published in The Express Tribune, July 22nd, 2013.
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