Riding the dark tiger

In his illuminating and utterly brilliant autobiography, A Journey to Disillusionment, Sherbaz Mazari mentions an intriguing episode that took place just before the creation of Bangladesh. Two West Pakistani political stalwarts, Mumtaz Daultana and Shaukat Hayat, met the Bangabandhu at his residence. Shaukat noticed that two of Sheikh Mujib’s lieutenants, Nazrul Islam and Tajuddin Ahmed, were not ready to leave him alone with them. So much so that when he asked Islam and Ahmed to get tea for the guests, only one would go, and the other would ensure his presence. Later when Shaukat returned, he received a messenger from Mujib, Khondkar Mostaq, a leading Awami League member who told him that after the Paltan Maidan episode on March 7, where Mujib had to save the day through his crowd management skills, most of the party’s leaders had turned against him. Nineteen of them had voted against his conciliatory approach, and only three had stood by him. The Bengali leader, in other words, was being kept under guard virtually as a prisoner.

Mazari is self-confessedly biased against Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. To understand the latter’s dilemmas, therefore we turn to Ayesha Jalal’s The Struggle for Pakistan. “For a West Pakistani Politician, let alone a Sindhi, to agree to such an arrangement (six points) was political suicide,” she writes. “Right-wing parties considered the six points blasphemous and would invariably denounce Bhutto for being opportunistic, and worse still, a traitor. His own ideologically divided party cadres were liable to revolt, certainly in Punjab, where the PPP had received strong electoral support in military cantonments.”

What happened next is known to us all. If Yahya thought by delaying the inevitable transfer of power, he could prolong his stay, he was sadly mistaken. Mujib was shot dead by young personnel of his army in a coup attempt. Khondkar Mostaq, then commerce minister in Mujib’s cabinet, immediately took control of the government and proclaimed himself the president. Bhutto was hanged by his appointed army chief almost two years after a successful coup. Even Indira Gandhi, the ruler of India who played a pivotal role in the fall of East Pakistan, was shot dead by her guards years later.

This is the thing about the populist tiger. Whether you dismount immediately or carry on for a bit, you are already dead. And yet intelligent, cosmopolitan, erudite politicians commit the common mistake of climbing up the tiger only to be devoured later. The question is, why?

Do they think they are immune to the staggering eddies of time, immutable lessons of history? Or are they so desperate for the high that comes with this experience that they don’t mind the consequences? Such a heavy price just for cheap thrills? Makes no sense.

Could the dark triad theory of personality by Delroy L Paulhus and Kevin M Williams explain this? The theory identifies three dark traits, namely Machiavellianism, subclinical narcissism, and subclinical psychopathy, which, when combined, can lead to similar, at times criminal, behaviour. Even then, it is improbable that they would knowingly agree to a course which results in self-annihilation, no matter how awesome the reward.

Want more recent examples? Before he embraced madness again, Trump did a few things right during Covid, from the rapid development of vaccines to advocating for them. But at that time, his base was ready to revolt against him.

Another example, and this one really hurts. Benjamin Netanyahu has cobbled together a coalition of extremists and opened floodgates of hate in his nation. A product of the best educational system, he could do much good with his charm, charisma and smarts had he been a voice of moderation. But can he be now? Unimaginable!

And our own Khan. This one doesn’t even realise he is riding a tiger. And those he sees as his enemies have nothing on the ferocity of the tiger he sits on.

And there is another pressing question to ask. Why are these dark tigers around? Why is it that the elements that support inflexible maximalist agendas and politics of hate and paranoia are increasing in number? When it was a matter of two to three per cent of the population, you could easily discount them as the weirdoes that must exist in every society. But now politicians win because of the support of such people. Why?

Several explanations have been offered since Donald Trump’s victory in 2016. You will find books upon books written on the subject. From poverty to population explosion, identity crisis to existential angst, genuine grievances to propaganda, countless reasons are given. But most of them keep dancing around the issue of responsibility. In every country (okay, nearly every country), since the monopoly on violence remains with the state, it is supposed to be the dominant power. Is it possible for such darkness to spread without state patronage, then? This is a question worthy of third-world countries, but now you have to ask it in the most advanced democracies as well.

Remember when the madness began in stable democracies? Right after the end of the cold war. When the old security apparatus was suddenly exposed to existential angst of its own, when pundits were already predicting the decline of nation-states, suddenly, we heard about the clash of civilisations. Mind you, even today, when books are written on the history of intelligence, authors make a point of using the clash of civilisations as an indisputable fixture.

I get it. States around the world are not ready for true globalisation. No one wants to lose a job or become redundant. So it would help if you kept inventing enemies. But right now, you should know you are hurting the very people you swore to protect.

And speaking of globalisation, let us talk about the engines of growth around the globe — entrepreneurs. They were supposed to right this ship. But in the slow derangement of Elon Musk and subversive propaganda campaigns of mega-billionaire rivalries, civilisation is the first one to lose.

I would have made peace with most of it, folks, but we already live in very trying times, even without dollops of troubles from people we call our own. We are already eight billion and counting. With climate change, inequality, diseases, AI and automation leading to unemployment and dwindling resources, we do not need more madness or war. Look at India, look at Israel, look at us. How much pain and suffering do you want in this world? At some point, you must realise this is neither a circus nor a videogame with non-player characters. This is real life with eight billion souls at stake. Make it stop.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 12^th, 2023.

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