Contest of optimism and pessimism in a flat society

Elders are tear-cheeked, young are frustrated and disappointed, the only people happy today in Pakistan are children

My best friend who has contributed a lot to inculcating in me a false sense of self-importance surrendered in our discussion yesterday. A great source of encouragement like all friends are, he always encouraged me to continue reading, writing and lecturing in the universities because he agreed with our long-standing position and belief that education and intellect make a huge difference in creating the essential balance between a society and a state. No more, he thinks in the despotic state that we live, there is no sense in living in a world of false beliefs. An optimist suddenly turned and sounded extremely pessimist. Why?

Why did he suddenly lose hope? And why did an ardent and passionate believer like him take such a cornered position? Two events, he said, finally proved to him that “we as a society have finally surrendered in front of the state”. One, the appointment of Kamran Tessori as Governor Sindh; and two, the acquittal of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and his son in a money-laundering case. My friend reached the end point of his ideological conviction and despite my arguments and insistence he has clearly taken a position that he considers has taken an absolute and final form. The reason I share this with the readers is to ask this extremely important question. Does anyone care anymore where we are heading as a society, nation and as a state? If this state has become as despotic as it has become, is there any authority that can turn around the unjust, cruel and oppressive ways of this despotic state?

Like the raging water, is this debate not the most moving debate in our society? Is anyone taking the stock of the psychological pain and distress this unending debate is causing to the people? Is tapping into this debate a foul, a crime? Can there be even two sides to this debate? There is only one side and put simply it means that the despotic state we live in has two sets of laws – one for the elite and the other for the common people. It is also a debate of murder of merit and galvanisation and glorification of kinship and nepotism. Ask any scholar of political science – going by the empirical evidence the political decay and the political disorder of our society and the state is complete. Where to go from here? The struggle for survival has to continue but like for everything there is a capacity of people’s endurance.

What is the future of a state that employs stalling tactics to delay and prolong everything, including the miseries that people suffer? All decision-making in this state suffers from procrastination. Even the judgements coming from our honourable courts are delayed and at times justice denying. People of Pakistan are being treated like goats and sheep devoid of cognitive abilities and dictated and controlled by a state through its own poor vision of reality. The poor have become poorer and if they were apprehensive, they now are frightened. The London going and the New York visiting elite have no sense of what they have done to the most valuable asset of this country – the people of Pakistan.

The actions of the elite have created a political and economic stampede and the poor people are mindlessly running like frightened animals from a perceived threat that they think is coming – the end game. The end game will eventually arrive and when it does there will be little left to mend and recover. Didn’t the end game visit us before also? Haven’t we already lost half of our country? Wasn’t our strategic sense telling us at that time that ‘the battle of East will be won in West’? Did we win that battle? Winning and losing is part of any contest but those who are alive today will agree with me that the battle of East was lost much before we started fighting it. It was the shameful manner in which we neglected our Eastern half when it was part of Pakistan.

We did everything to add to the distrust and insecurities of our Eastern brothers at that time. We may twist our history, we may stitch it with truths that cannot stand the test of time and we may even justify our righteousness of approach, what we cannot justify is the mistreatment that was meted out to the people of Eastern wing and the momentum that it created for them to start the secessionist movement. Have we not learnt our lessons?

Do we have the courage to remind the people how we rewarded all the elite involved in the dismemberment of our country? Gen Yahya Khan, the President at that time, became a beneficiary of two pensions – one as Chief of the Army and the other as President of Pakistan. Lt Gen Yaqoob Ali Khan who resigned from the post of Commander Eastern Command at a very critical time was rewarded and made ambassador to France and the US and later appointed as our foreign minister. Gen Tikka Khan who took over from him and initiated the infamous military operation in Dhakka was rewarded with the post of Army Chief. Gen Farman on return to Pakistan was appointed as chairman Fauji Foundation and Brigadier Jahanzeb Arbab was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant General. All these appointments, promotions and awards were given to people whose contribution was not in a winning but a losing cause. We lost half of our country.

Could all this recompense, reward and prized recognition have been possible without the consent of a political authority? The state rot was set then and what we are seeing is the continuity of a policy alignment – linked to the great civil-military huddle. The elite of our country that the poor people look up to haven’t learnt their lessons.

Elders are tear-cheeked, young are frustrated and disappointed and the only people happy today in Pakistan are the innocent children. Because they cannot relate what the appointment of the Governor Sindh and the acquittal of the Prime Minister and his son means to this country – my friend could, and lost all hope.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 16^th, 2022.

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