Politics at lightning speed
I’m talking about both our weather and our politics
The writer is an Islamabad-based communications consultant
It blows hot and it blows cold. I’m talking about both our weather and our politics. Just as the dreaded heat suddenly gives way to thunder and hailstorm, so do developments take over each other at the speed of lightning!
As events unfold though, one realises that all our earlier huffing and puffing as civil society, as ordinary Pakistanis or even as parliamentarians just come to naught when the bigger players decide on something. A case in point is General (retd) Raheel Sharif’s appointment as head of the 39-country coalition against terrorism, led by Saudi Arabia.
How clearly the country signalled, when such a proposal was first floated last year, that it would not like to see this happen, primarily because our beloved RS was not for sale and we did not want to be partisan against Iran. Just when we thought we had exchanged happy notes on a situation handled well in our national interest, we are informed that the competent authority in the government has officially agreed to the same. The present government, with its personal obligations to the Saudis, may well also commit to contributing troops to the coalition force which will unnecessarily drag the country into a conflict it has tried hard to keep out of.
This and so many other decisions taken by the government in power mock us and our naiveté. It also foretells us that however strong the outcome of the Panama case may be, the ruling party will have a solution to fixing it to their requirement at a later date.
While we continue to agonise about why the PM’s daughter, one of the central figures of the Panama Papers and other leaks, is still being projected as future head of the PML-N, I was left perplexed by a news report. Apparently, pictures and posters have begun appearing all over Rahim Yar Khan, of another Raheel whose second name ends with Munir! The posters unambiguously state that ‘if Muslim League is to be saved, Raheel Munir must be elected’! In case it does not ring a bell, Raheel Munir is Mariam Nawaz’s son in-law!! The same one whose wedding was gatecrashed by none other than Modi of the pink turban! This heady mix of news relating to the Raheels and the Sharifs is generally disturbing. And what’s more, the father of this new son in-law of the nation, Raheel Munir, is the same Chaudhry Munir who is a leading businessman with many contracts awarded by the ‘competent authority’.
While everyone goes blue in the face, screaming their head off after disclosure upon more disclosure, the Sharifs of Raiwind remain serenely unmoved. The SC can stop crushing operations all it wants of the sugar mills owned by the Sharifs (as it investigates the shiftiness of sudden moving of the mills from cities A, B and C to cities D, E and F), the family continues to hum ‘sweets for my sweets, sugar for my honey’ under their breath! They seem unperturbed by the fact that they still owe the farmers over Rs400 million in sugarcane dues.
What’s more Mariam Nawaz continues to tweet and release pictures of Papa praying at her younger daughter’s 16th birthday and then Papa cutting an anniversary cake with mama. The anniversary cake is being served to them by none other than SS, the CM! No mention of Papa and Panama though. The only slightest of indications that has come to light about what may happen post-Panama is a Mariam tweet that indicates Papa has a kidney stone — which may suddenly warrant a trip to a London hospital. And as a trip to the UK in any case has no hotel overheads for the first family, we can be assured that Papa’s stone removal will cost us next to nothing! While that is happy news for the finance ministry who is to convey to MN that it’s not actually the removal of the stone in the kidney that’s bothering the bulk of Pakistanis — it’s more the removal of the tried and tested, the removal of the corrupt from office and from politics — in every party.
Published in The Express Tribune, April 9th, 2017.
As events unfold though, one realises that all our earlier huffing and puffing as civil society, as ordinary Pakistanis or even as parliamentarians just come to naught when the bigger players decide on something. A case in point is General (retd) Raheel Sharif’s appointment as head of the 39-country coalition against terrorism, led by Saudi Arabia.
How clearly the country signalled, when such a proposal was first floated last year, that it would not like to see this happen, primarily because our beloved RS was not for sale and we did not want to be partisan against Iran. Just when we thought we had exchanged happy notes on a situation handled well in our national interest, we are informed that the competent authority in the government has officially agreed to the same. The present government, with its personal obligations to the Saudis, may well also commit to contributing troops to the coalition force which will unnecessarily drag the country into a conflict it has tried hard to keep out of.
This and so many other decisions taken by the government in power mock us and our naiveté. It also foretells us that however strong the outcome of the Panama case may be, the ruling party will have a solution to fixing it to their requirement at a later date.
While we continue to agonise about why the PM’s daughter, one of the central figures of the Panama Papers and other leaks, is still being projected as future head of the PML-N, I was left perplexed by a news report. Apparently, pictures and posters have begun appearing all over Rahim Yar Khan, of another Raheel whose second name ends with Munir! The posters unambiguously state that ‘if Muslim League is to be saved, Raheel Munir must be elected’! In case it does not ring a bell, Raheel Munir is Mariam Nawaz’s son in-law!! The same one whose wedding was gatecrashed by none other than Modi of the pink turban! This heady mix of news relating to the Raheels and the Sharifs is generally disturbing. And what’s more, the father of this new son in-law of the nation, Raheel Munir, is the same Chaudhry Munir who is a leading businessman with many contracts awarded by the ‘competent authority’.
While everyone goes blue in the face, screaming their head off after disclosure upon more disclosure, the Sharifs of Raiwind remain serenely unmoved. The SC can stop crushing operations all it wants of the sugar mills owned by the Sharifs (as it investigates the shiftiness of sudden moving of the mills from cities A, B and C to cities D, E and F), the family continues to hum ‘sweets for my sweets, sugar for my honey’ under their breath! They seem unperturbed by the fact that they still owe the farmers over Rs400 million in sugarcane dues.
What’s more Mariam Nawaz continues to tweet and release pictures of Papa praying at her younger daughter’s 16th birthday and then Papa cutting an anniversary cake with mama. The anniversary cake is being served to them by none other than SS, the CM! No mention of Papa and Panama though. The only slightest of indications that has come to light about what may happen post-Panama is a Mariam tweet that indicates Papa has a kidney stone — which may suddenly warrant a trip to a London hospital. And as a trip to the UK in any case has no hotel overheads for the first family, we can be assured that Papa’s stone removal will cost us next to nothing! While that is happy news for the finance ministry who is to convey to MN that it’s not actually the removal of the stone in the kidney that’s bothering the bulk of Pakistanis — it’s more the removal of the tried and tested, the removal of the corrupt from office and from politics — in every party.
Published in The Express Tribune, April 9th, 2017.