In pursuit of reconciliation

Contrary to what the Prime Minister says, reconciliation has is considered as the source of all our current woes.

“We will continue the policy of reconciliation” — so stated the syed of Multan in one of his verbal ramblings last week, meandering on about the triumph of the Azad Jammu and Kashmir elections, somewhat of a non-event when it comes to the travails of the republic. They were simply a trial exercise leading up to the general election to be held under the auspices of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP). The fiddling and fudging worked as did undoubtedly the funding, a good deal of which surely came from the national till.

Yousaf Raza Gilani, himself a non-event in the present dispensation which is concentrated in one pair of wonky hands, is where he happens to be, appointed for obvious reasons by Asif Zardari, who, after waving a piece of paper in the air, ran away with the party of the people on that sad day at the end of December 2007.

Reconciliation is not a word that falls trippingly off the tongue of those citizens of Pakistan aware of the actual state of their country — reconciliation is considered by many to be the source of all our present woes. According to Gilani, the first amongst a mound of equals, the government’s reconciliation policy is leading the country towards development and progress. Well, one must feel sorry for the poor chap because he is obviously totally blank as to what is happening within or without the boundaries of Pakistan.

Why do we all forget the most unlawful and damaging ordinance ever to have been promulgated, an ordinance that decided the fate of an entire nation? All who now occupy positions of height are where they are because of the disgraceful National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) — or they were involved in its making. When it comes to anti- Americanism, what we all should be wailing about is the fact that the US, in its own national interest, indulged in deal-making with a discredited military head of state who was very much on the downslide. A pliant PPP government, admittedly not headed by Zardari, was to be imposed and the retired equally pliant general would continue to head the state.

Things, of course, went horribly wrong, and we ended up indeed with a PPP government but one headed by a man who would not have been in Pakistan had the original deal stuck — with at his beck and call, installed in government, people who would not have been on the scene had Benazir Bhutto lived. And in the current army bashing season, with the army chief very much in the foreground, hand in hand with the ISI, let it not be forgotten that it was General Ashfaq Kayani who, as head of the ISI, was General Pervez Musharraf’s man on the spot to finalise the iniquitous NRO.

So, when Gilani charts out whatever future this country has as being firmly focused on a reconciliation policy, it should not warm the cockles of our hearts. Reconciliation has but heralded in a swarm of dubious characters accused of all manner of crimes who have managed to survive because of a lack of the all-important proof needed to convict — but then, as someone said in the not too distant past, thieves and robbers do not provide receipts.

The reconciliation ordinance was naturally shot down by the Supreme Court of the land, being as unlawful as it is. It was declared null and void in December 2009. But then what happened? The hundreds affected by its demise continued merrily on their haymaking way. Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, who on so many occasions has thundered about his Court having zero tolerance towards corruption, either decided that he wishes to act no further, or he has succumbed to helplessness.

Way back in 1832 in the mighty US, former president Andrew Jackson quipped: “John Marshall [the US Chief Justice] has made his decision. Now let him enforce it.”

Published in The Express Tribune, July 2^nd, 2011.