Options, consequence, rhetoric and sham democracy

While commenting on the domestic scene, it is hard to find something that has not been commented upon, analysed threadbare and not known. There are no unknown knowns. While keeping the optimism on ventilator, something very disturbing lurks in the shadows on our national scene with far-reaching social, psychological, political and economic implications. And that is ‘apolitical apathy’ in all its ugly forms. This apathy afflicts our body and soul, and our state and society, and it manifests itself in weird ways.

At societal level, people, for example the bike mafia in particular, pay no heed to any rules, regulations, laws and courtesies when on road, and the traffic cops haplessly and hopelessly shrug in despair, frustration and apathy. Teachers willfully avoid teaching in schools to encourage students to come to their private academies for exam-specific and marks-oriented tuition, and not to be educated per se. Doctors over-prescribe tests for commission in the laboratory fees. Lawyers do not tell the whole truth to clients when taking in cases. Officials enjoy long prayer breaks while business of the state and fellow citizenry can wait in agony or come again. Businesses, yes reputable businesses, import foreign items through informal channels to defy import ban and buy dollars off the open market to pay for it in cash...furthering rupee devaluation and dollar hike.

Workers on construction sites just do the job as worst as possible and are only bothered about their remunerations. The consequences of shoddy construction be damned. Hawkers sell merchandise as deceitfully as possible. Transporters in hired transport treat passengers with respectability, just a notch higher than that reserved for cattle. Everybody with opportunity would cheat in taxes, steal electricity and divert to misuse arable water. And all, yes mostly all would consider deceiving the Government just right and absolutely okay. And this is a snapshot.

At the political level, the economy was in free fall while the corruption-laced cabal of PDM was doing politics and politics alone. And before that, the great leader left no stone unturned in exposing...only exposing corruption and the corrupt, with no tangible results. Advice to concentrate on governance instead was bothersome for his fragile sensibilities and easily offended ego.

Add to the above toxic mix, the root cause of our economic woes. And that dear reader...has been the fact that ‘we are addicted to spending more as a nation than we earn.’ Pure and simple. In the heydays of our ‘relevance’, our ‘friends not masters’ would come to our rescue through budgetary support and other forms of largesse. No more. Hence the crisis. And now, pitifully, escaping the noose of FATF, and securing loan from all and sundry are considered achievements, worthy of congratulations.

And with a begging bowl around our neck, we would utter nonsense like ‘absolutely not’, accuse foreign governments of meddlesomely exacerbating our plight, visit Moscow when it attacks Ukraine and go for cheap Pakistan-harming but politically attractive diatribes to cling to power or regain it so that those around continue to reap hefty economic and financial windfalls. Hence, it is okay to continue to unleash the media brigade to foster, promote and propagate falsehoods, spin every fact, twist each truth and confuse each issue.

At the state level, for some time now, the official machinery has been in retreat, waiting for messiahs...and that too in good numbers, to come and put all that is wrong with this country while doing nothing itself. From shopkeepers to labourers to petty officials to teachers to lawyers to traders... to men and women, young and old at all social strata, we are all consumed by politics, and universal apathy elsewhere. With exceptions, a few and far between, nobody wants to do his or her job, and has an opinion on everything under the sun. And indulges in lofty, acrimonious and divisive political verbiage.

While turning a blind eye to our own failings and taking our respective obligations seriously and honestly, we relish in finding fault right, left and centre. We have become social media warriors, breaking the most sensational news...any news...to friends and family, irrespective of its consequences and without checking its authenticity and validity.

In this environment of despair, confusion and lack of direction, there are no leaders larger than life, who could be role models, who could rally the nation in these trying times and gel the people. It is crises like these that bring out the worst (and hopefully the best) in people.

In my last column, I opposed holding elections under this poisoned atmosphere in the foreseeable future, as it would further polarise an already divided state and society. And that stability and de-politicisation, keeping our sham democracy on hold, are callings of the hour. Those at the helm can pick from the available options of national government, or technocrats, or elections, etc in the country’s best possible interest.

If we step back and zoom out to find what ails Pakistan the most, besides the curse of apathy, we will put our finger on leadership crisis and faltering economy in any sequence, contributing to instability...economic, social, political and psychological. Hypothetically speaking, we pick elections. Electioneering, holding elections and the run-up to the sham democracy ‘again’ would further agonise an already tormented common man. As no political party has any economic plan or capable team. We have seen them all. None has the nerve to impose the much-needed agriculture tax. None has the vision to undertake economic reforms (we still pay through the nose from the lopsided IPP contracts of Benazir era). None can restructure our import-dependent economy to jack up exports. None can reign in the rampant corruption that has now seeped into our body politics by becoming a business. Because the beneficiaries of corruption sit in the legislatures and rub shoulders in the corridors of power, privilege and protocol. For them, elections are just hollow promises based on hopes and aspirations without solid foundations.

And any new government would cry foul in its early years for an empty treasury, as is the norm. Hence instability and economic woes would persist. The acidic and abrasive personalities of our leaders further compound an already complicated national scenario. Elections will not heal us...period.

Let this sham democracy perish, as its stakeholders are non-democratic at core! There would be no obituary!

Published in The Express Tribune, September 7^th, 2023.

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