Conduct unbecoming

None of the protagonists in the latest bout of fisticuffs in and around parliament emerges well or honourably. The politicians that are elected to parliament appear not to have left the street corner and the gutter behind when they gained membership of the National Assembly, and the worst of times has been on display. It would be entirely inappropriate for this newspaper to repeat some of the utterances from the floor of the house and its immediate environs, suffice to say that remarks that have been passed, particularly relating to the female relatives of PTI member Murad Saeed and made by PML-N member Javed Latif, are beneath disgraceful. To have made such remarks in a parliamentary context debases the institution of parliament itself.

Subsequently — and it has to be said understandably — the leader of the PTI, Imran Khan, has said that no member of his party will appear on any TV channel or in any public forum/debate where Javed Latif is present. The apology by Mr Latif on March 10 is unlikely to do much to calm the troubled waters, the point being that he should not have made such remarks in the first place.

All this has its origins in a parliamentary session where Murad Saeed sought to raise issues concerning the alleged ‘profiling’ of Pakhtuns in the course of security operations in Punjab. The Speaker told him to keep his remarks brief and everything slid downhill from there. Unparliamentary language was used that was guaranteed to inflame passions and duly did. A brawl broke out between the principal antagonists in the corridor outside the chamber, the second such incident in the last three weeks. The Speaker of the House has ordered an inquiry into the matter to report by 16^th March — not that it is going to make an iota of difference no matter what the conclusions may be. Whatever dignity and gravitas the institution of parliament once had has been diluted by a philistine drip-feed from politicians on all sides, adding ironic heft to the old Anarchist adage — ‘Don’t vote, it only encourages them.’

Published in The Express Tribune, March 11^th, 2017.

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