Lost in translation between Naya & Purana Pakistan
Naya and Purana Pakistan are acting like they’re on the brink of a divorce. Much like the Shiza and Fiza meme though, Naya and Purana Pakistan look so alike that it’s difficult to tell them apart but they’re struggling to speak to each other. Forget believing in different sets of facts, even a simple word like ‘elected’ means two different things in Naya and Purana Pakistan. And this isn’t just a generation gap. It’s an ideological gap intoxicated by two Ts — testosterone and Twitter.
Take the word elected. When this parliament elected Imran Khan in 2018, he was called ‘selected’ by Purana Pakistan and said not to enjoy the mandate of the Pakistani people. In 2022, when the same exact parliament elected Shehbaz Sharif as Prime Minister, he was viewed as genuinely enjoying the mandate of the people and perceived as elected by Purana Pakistan and rejected by Naya Pakistan. In short, both sides are projecting their hyper partisanship onto words as foundational as ‘elected’. If aliens from Mars were to land in Pindi and ask us who our leader was, the answer would depend on who they happen to ask.
This would be funny if it wasn’t such a disaster and had such real world consequences. So, where do we go from here? Perhaps one way to build a bridge between Purana and Naya Pakistan is to talk about what we can agree on, before we fight over what we disagree on. So, here are two ideas or platforms that everyone in Pakistan can agree on. First, that the boys should stay out of politics. And second, that elections should be free and fair. If those two hold true, we should let the chips fall where they do. The people of Pakistan should elect to live in Naya or Purana Pakistan. These sound like basic ideas but they illustrate that both sides have more in common than their disagreements convey.
After 70 years of flirting with the fantasy of dictatorship versus democracy debates, we now have broad-based consensus from all three major political parties that selectors are counter-productive and electors (people of Pakistan) are the ultimate guarantors of progress. And this is actually a much bigger and positive outcome than any of us could have imagined. It is the silver lining or light at the end of this dark and twisted tunnel. We have to take a moment to savour and build on it versus rush to the next partisan fight.
It’s hard to find light in the darkness these days but I’m going to keep trying in this piece. While partisanship is condemnable when it turns violent, healthy disagreements and sharp differences in policy platforms is a good thing in a democracy. And while you may love or hate one side or the other, when you add all the pieces together, Pakistan has all the ingredients to keep progressing on its democratic journey. For example, we have a mainstream political party that positions itself as competent and experienced. We have another mainstream party that positions itself as liberal. And another party that wants to topple the entire elite status quo and build a Naya Pakistan. While none of these parties can transform Pakistan on their own, when the push and pull of their politics comes together, the country makes progress, no matter how painful and slow.
What we are witnessing in Pakistani politics right now are the non-violent contractions that will deliver a new social contract, not a civil war. We are seeing all political parties compete aggressively for votes from the electors, not the selectors. This is a good thing. A small example of this is when this government was chartering a PIA plane to Saudi Arabia to take a big delegation with everyone and their mother in law. Due to public pressure, they were forced to reverse this decision. It’s a small victory but showcases that fierce competition among political parties can lead to healthy outcomes. There is no easy pathway out of the political quagmire we’re in today but a good start is to focus and build on the positives versus drowning in the negative.
Published in The Express Tribune, May 15th, 2022.
Like Opinion & Editorial on Facebook, follow @ETOpEd on Twitter to receive all updates on all our daily pieces.