Islamic Republic of Westeros?

“Oh, I think not,” Varys said, swirling the wine in his cup. “Power is a curious thing, my lord. Perchance you have considered the riddle I posed you that day in the inn?”

“It has crossed my mind a time or two,” Tyrion admitted. “The king, the priest, the rich man—who lives and who dies? Who will the swordsman obey? It’s a riddle without an answer, or rather, too many answers. All depends on the man with the sword.”

“And yet he is no one,” Varys said. “He has neither crown nor gold nor favor of the gods, only a piece of pointed steel.”

“That piece of steel is the power of life and death.”

“Just so… yet if it is the swordsmen who rule us in truth, who do we pretend our kings hold the power? … Tyrion cocked his head sideways. “Did you mean to answer your damned riddle, or only to make my head ache worse?”

Varys smiled. “Here, then. Power resides where men believe it resides. No more and no less.”

“So power is a mummer’s trick?”

“A shadow on the wall,” Varys murmured, “yet shadows can kill. And ofttimes a very small man can cast a very large shadow.”

(George R.R. Martin, A Clash of Kings)

As the seventh season of the global blockbuster TV show Game of Thrones starts next Sunday, tens of millions of fans across the planet will be riveted to their screens to see the fabled land of Westeros come alive in full living colour. The season premiers exactly six days after the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) in the land of Pakistan will submit its much-awaited report to the three-member implementation bench of the Supreme Court.

High drama is about to unfold in King’s Landing and Islamabad. Can truth actually be stranger than fiction?

In the land of Westeros, all is not well. Westeros is one of the four continents in the TV series based on George R R Martin’s famed novel A Song of Ice and Fire. Westeros is composed of seven kingdoms fighting for the Iron Throne, the seat of power in the capital known as King’s Landing. Cersei Lannister — unencumbered by any JIT — sits on the Iron Throne while the combined opposition comprised the King of the North John Snow and Dragon Queen Daenerys Targaryen march on towards King’s Landing.

In the land of the Islamic Republic, all is not well either. The Islamabad throne is under attack as the ruling family is hauled over for interrogation in the dungeons of the Judicial Academy. As the capital city resonates with the clanging of swords, shouts of warriors and neighing of horses, power starts to bleed away like a punctured wound.

If power actually does reside where men (and women) believe it resides then doubts are growing large like dark shadows over Westeros and Islamabad. Cersei blew up an entire congregation inside a building to rid herself of all opposition inside King’s Landing and yet the extent of her power — as she knows well — is inversely proportional to the distance between her throne and the approaching armies.

Nawaz Sharif is armed with the steel blade of popular mandate and yet his throne quivers under the crushing weight of the London apartments. His party has won almost all the by-elections in the recent past, denoting as they do an updated mandate-check, and yet he knows well the extent of his power is inversely proportional to the evidence in the JIT and the invisible pressures — if they exist — of the ‘king beyond the Wall’.

Is there then an indirect correlation between diffusion of power and perception of power? Locked in a steel frame of constitutionalism, the linkage between the two becomes weak for an obvious reason: diffusion of power is a deliberate mechanism to ensure a system of checks and balances within the state governing structure. The perception of where power lies within such a defined mechanism does not ebb and flow with the growing or shrinking fortunes of individuals. The office protects the occupier from the vagaries of naked power struggles.

And yet — as evidenced by the turn of events in Westeros and Islamabad — it is not that simple. Ned Stark lost his head when all thought he was untouchable; Renly Baratheon was murdered by a mysterious shadow in the safety of his tent as he was marching at the head of his army and Mance Rayder could not imagine he would be burnt at the stake after his army had successfully breached The Wall. What divided absolute power from utter powerlessness was a twist in the tale in the blink of an eye.

The twists in turns in Islamabad will take on sharper curves from tomorrow onwards as the JIT report is tabled at the court (unless the JIT asks for more time). Multiple options stare all stakeholders in the face as the plot unfolds at breakneck speed. Even though the legal and political battlefields straddle different locales, the stratagem to fight both with the power of narratives did mix together in the early stages. Each day brings forth new threads with which to weave this narrative and the fortunes of many will depend on the traction their narrative finds among the populace. Yet there is something more that will determine which way the shifting perception of power flows.

And this something holds true for truth as well as fiction. Dany Targaryen draws her power from her three dragons and her Unsullied army of Astapor as well as key alliances but she draws her legitimacy as a rightful queen from her royal bloodline. Jon Snow, the other main character, is said to be the illegitimate son of Ned Stark and yet throughout the story there are hints that his lineage may be of a higher value. Power ultimately rests on legitimacy, whether royal, popular or constitutional.

And so as the Panama Leaks case moves into a decisive legal stage, what is at stake is not just the fate of a prime minister but perhaps more importantly the basis on which this fate will be decided. It is this basis, this evidence and the final arguments and justifications based on solid evidence that will constitute the ingredients for the battle after this battle.

In the game of thrones between the seven kingdoms of Westeros, power is lost and power is grabbed again and again through the most vicious of means and yet this bloodletting ensues within the rules of a game in which your war is only as good as the justness of your cause. If power resides where men believe it resides then this belief can be shaped through the unbreakable force of legitimacy. As the game of thrones in Islamabad plays itself out, warriors may want to remember that whoever wins in the end must do so on the basis of rightful legitimacy drawn not from shadows on the wall but from the system itself.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 9^th, 2017.

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