Sleepwalking into an Arab Spring

We thought we had seen it through. Arab Spring came as a tsunami and upended their order. Autocratic dispensations gave way to populist set-ups on the back of euphoric aspirations that have largely remained unfulfilled. These nations — Tunis, Egypt and Yemen — are immersed in political and social turmoil as they struggle to deliver on why the revolutions first occurred. In Libya, Syria and Yemen long wars rage as economies melt and societies are torn apart. There is exhaustive literature examining how and why such manifest failures could only cause even bigger failures entrenching instability. Once disturbed it has been almost impossible to put the Humpty together again. That is in the nature of imposed solutions not instinctive to the psyche of a people; but that is for another day.

We, in Pakistan, almost sounded victory when we emerged on the other side of a forty-year long war in Afghanistan of which deep shadows were cast on its landscape leading to a series of operations in an unending war belabouring us still with its remnants. We believed that a country of 220 million people with sound foundational institutions and a strong military meant that challenges, internal and external, were mostly in the past. That we had found our way to the promised land where even if grudgingly we were on course to reinforce institutional coexistence, especially parliamentary and democratic. We felt that the‘hue’ of the Arab spring threatening us was successfully seen off. It may have surprised‘motivators’ of such a ‘Spring’ who expected us to reel under in how our proverbial resilience held the country together in a forty-year long challenge. Consecutive civilian dispensation since 2008 has meant that we are willynilly moving along the axis of normalcy. There were, would be, challenges on the way but do we have it in our collective wisdom to navigate through the morass will tell if the promise still holds.

First it was political polarisation which translated into social division, repairable only with imaginative leadership. This led to incremental institutional decay where partisanism reared its ugly head. Entities whose credibility hung around being neutral and non-partisan are instead increasingly pointed for bias, partiality and prejudice. This has only reinforced the divide. Media — all kinds — is comprehensively divided along party lines. Political parties and other established entities now hire media specialists as cohorts to further personalised or group agendas. Many in what were meant to be neutral entities have come out in the open in institutional stand-off and are not shy to make public their preferences even if their stature and roles demand otherwise. Their sharper tones make us look confrontational and conflicted. Divisions seem perennially established. National interest is sacrificed at the altar of personal upmanship or authority. A divided house is what makes for a‘tinderbox’ in the words of MJ Akbar, the Indian writer, as he explains Pakistan. When a nation is as fragmented malignance seeps in. In our case malignance is manifest as hate and venom become the currency of exchange.

In most middle eastern nations when Arab Spring upended their order the trigger was an agitational impulse or resident disenchantment. In our case the division has been purposefully cultivated. The trigger or the impulse may be any but over time, slowly but surely, we have slid down the dreaded hole. Only a Herculean effort can save us now. Call it the second assault on us to foster and forge what may have been intended but went unrealised in the first attempt. Who is at the back of it? The net can be cast wide but only our incompetence and failure to comprehend its consequence is to blame for the dreaded but probable ultimate meltdown. Hopefully not. Hopefully, someone might still rise to the occasion and stem this slide and tide. But that someone shall have to be special and a healer than a peddler of hate and resident venom.

Imran Khan is incensed. He may be right in how he feels but it enthuses in his supporters and followers the same sentiment of hate. His opposition, traditional politicians, may still be patently opportunistic in pursuit of their respective pound of flesh but he has given his opposition currency and relevance in this confrontational pitch-up. They may be dirty, seeped in endemic corruption, only seeking their own gains at nation’s and people’s cost, but this confrontation has found them the chance to pitch their own stakes and buffer their claims. It has also found them the space to subvert institutional coherence by playing one off against the other keeping institutional standoff rife. Slander with hate thus finds relevance.

An emaciated economy and a fractious sociopolitics renders itself to a toxic mix waiting for a light to turn on the fire and burn itself down. Rupert Russel the author of Price Wars calls it the initial flutter of a butterfly which reverberates far and wide in a cascading escalation which keeps growing bigger as it engorges on more; at times in places far away from where a butterfly first fluttered. MJ Akbar called us a‘Tinderbox’ to our utter dislike but that is what we have precisely become. Did we just show it the spark needed to consume us down? When Arshad Sharif, the journalist, was tragically murdered near Nairobi, Kenya, it seemed ominous enough. Not at this time; not now. We could have done without it. The self-immolating Tunisian fruit-vendor Mohamad Bouazizi lit the fire that brought down most nations down but Pakistan survived. In a redux, Pakistan stands badly exposed, weakened and vulnerable.

From a case of mistaken identity to one of a trigger happy indisciplined force acting as hired assassins to a possible connivance of some who wished Sharif harm to a conspiracy driven to add spark to the tinderbox, the possibilities are immense. Unfortunately, we had got ourselves to that position of vulnerability where each such frame and hypothesis can fix. As we move on, especially under the watchful eye of many Pakistan watchers abroad, the truth will soon be out and what we may hear or learn may not be pretty. But till then, and even then, there will be a civilised legal resort which can guide us through our most heinous times. Jumping to conclusions has never helped. Reinforcing stereotypes too is fallacious, misplaced and misdirected even if historical evidence informs otherwise. Especially when future of a nation, its people and its insti- tutions is at stake. Burning something down to rebuild is a route for the vicious. To remedy and build on what already exists is a virtue.

Imran Khan may be pondering his next step as this piece appears. Before him is his anger, frustration and dismay — accentuated by the murder of an ally journalist who anyway must find justice. Were he to be guided by his sentiment it just may be the torch that the tinderbox must never see. An Arab Spring must not be the fate that we have so deftly avoided. He must choose wisely in the larger good of the nation; not driven by the impulse of the moment which could bring him narrow return. IK’s leadership is on test.