Conduct yourself with spiritual politics!

“Who dwells in a glass house must not invite the hostile sentiments of pebble throwers!”

As she was quoted verbatim on the front page of The Express Tribune, the ex-prime minister Nawaz Sharif’s angry, anguished and defiant daughter, Maryam Nawaz, reacting to the recently held All Party Conference in Lahore said, “All PML-N opponents are worth a used tissue paper.” One simply wonders about the use of such language. Did things have to sink so low in the country?

I count myself one among the millions of Pakistani common folks, the awam, who are the PML-N leadership’s opponents on the basis of political, ideological, philosophical, historical, analytical and above all, moral-ethical reasons based on factual arguments and verifiable authentic evidence. However, let us consider for the sake of argument, the possibility that all of us may be absolutely flawed in our reasoning and understanding of the entire situation in the country at the moment. The question that arises is: are all of us ‘used tissue papers’ worth nothing?

In the English lexicon, a ‘used tissue’ is one that someone has blown their nose in. Do we deserve such disrespect and such an insulting attitude? What kind of politics is this? In a mature and civilised nation, when an elected leader or a leadership is accused of ethical or moral misconduct, political mismanagement, criminal behaviour, the usual and appropriate political behaviour is that such a leader or an entire government resigns or seeks a fresh public mandate by early elections. It is unheard of in a democratic setup that a political party’s leadership insults foes with such derogatory language. That is one set of rules that is obligatory on all political actors.

On another level, the judicial rulings of the nation’s superior courts have a time-honoured binding on all citizens inclusive of the country’s top political leadership. It is a matter of historical record that in all democratic nations, accusing or ridiculing major national institutions is a constitutional crime punishable by severe legal sanctions. And yet, in Pakistan, the disqualified prime minister and his daughter have not only insulted their opponents, they have indirectly accused the superior judiciary and military of forming a political conspiracy against them. This oblique defamation is unfair.

For educative purposes, there is a need to explain why the army is so sacrosanct to this nation’s awam. I’m incorporating a few extracts from one of my articles written some years ago, showing that it’s an issue of historical concern. My intention is to bring some political enlightenment to our estranged leadership on how our common people view their military establishment and why. Understanding it, hopefully, will take a lot of sting out of the PML-N leadership’s fabrications and rhetoric on the issue and add cognisance to their conceptual comprehension as to why the awam find their oratory unacceptable.

The awam’s love affair with its military ‘jawans in uniform’ is not entirely an emotional, sentimental, historical or psychological matter. It is an existential experience spanning generations since the inception of Pakistan. History has made an immense mental impression on the awam that has contributed to their everlasting love affair with their uniformed jawans. Come what may, notwithstanding the endless emotional and symbolic rhetoric in praise of democracy and civilian political-economic ownership of this country, common folks in the street always stand behind the army.

The foremost reason is the fact that successive civilian so-called democratic regimes have violated their public mandates with absolute political contradictions, violations of democratic norms and principles and total disregard for greater public welfare. In Pakistan, democracy has been a mere ‘game plan’ to acquire civilian political-economic ownership of the state by a select few to promote vested interests, organise oligarchic political management structures and collaborate with powerful foreign actors and governments to remain in power.

Consequently, the fundamental necessity of implementing true democratic governance has been ignored. Take, for example, the democratic dispensation in Pakistan. It is ironic that there is no discussion on the management of the economy based on alternative economic models to enhance general public welfare, or to deal with the massive and ever-increasing income inequalities on a national level.

Tragically, Pakistan’s economic development models have been set virtually backwards. The awam consider the democratic leadership apathetic to their real fundamental issues of daily existence and, in fact, believe that their present-day tragic existence is the direct result of the so-called democratic leadership’s incompetence and mismanagement of national political and economic affairs.

In the last eight years of the so-called civilian democratic dispensation — both the PPP and the PML-N have remained steadfastly committed to oligarchic political structures — the status-quo forces have maintained a non-efficacious political posture as well as a stagnant mindset towards Pakistan’s economic needs and have dominated the entire political spectrum with an unbending ‘rightist’ approach to economic development. Consequently, instead of going forward, the civilian leadership of the few has been going backwards. Political-economic ‘ownership’ of the state by the leadership of vested-interests has turned Pakistan’s democracy into a business enterprise laying siege on national development and depriving the common citizens of their legitimate democratic rights to a just and egalitarian society. The awam feel justifiably cheated and violated by their chosen national leadership.

What the awam want is some kind of a subtle discipline in their existence, clarity of purpose and objectives for their democratic regimes. They are in search of an honest, dedicated leadership that exists to serve the country and its people. By and large, Pakistanis are interested in simple, straightforward solutions to their problems.

No wonder then that the awam in today’s Pakistan hold the armed forces as sacrosanct and look up to its leadership with hope. They believe that the needed societal discipline, clarity of national purpose, straightforwardness of strategy and plain talk are the functions that the forces and the superior judiciary can contribute to a much-needed political reform.

Consequently, Pakistan needs a kind of ‘Spiritual Politics’, which appears to be out of the realm of the present leadership. Spiritual Politics entails rolling back vested interests and personal selfish attitudes, consciously striking down self-serving behaviour, taking into serious consideration the faculties of reason and evidence, and giving appropriate weight to cause-effect relationships. It also means giving due respect and tolerance to diverse opinions, ideological political differences and opponents’ points of view, and above all, to the rule of law — and an absolute end to the massive corruption of political leaders. It also involves grooming self-respect, dignity and integrity towards oneself and towards others.

Imagine how a society would evolve if a leadership conducted itself within the parameters of Spiritual Politics! We would need far less dustbins to throw ‘used tissue papers’, good for nothings, into them!

To me, this appears to be a better option!

Published in The Express Tribune, January 5^th, 2018.

Like Opinion & Editorial on Facebook, follow @ETOpEd on Twitter to receive all updates on all our daily pieces.