Star and crescent

The sons of Nawaz Sharif have been acquitted in corruption cases. They would be walking on the soil of Pakistan as free and powerful men. About five years ago, it had seemed that Pakistan had finally set sail in the right direction where the strong and the weak were getting punished regardless of how fat they were in terms of connections. A whistleblower’s leak at the law firm Mossack Fonseca had resulted in the unraveling of the Sharif government. A Joint Investigation Team (JIT) had been formed to establish what was always common knowledge that Nawaz Sharif was not ‘honest’ and not ‘truthful’.

All that seems to be a dream now. Maryam Nawaz actually knows the hack of this justice system and she has successfully executed it. Pakistanis now live in this reality, which makes nightmares seem like a beautiful dream. All that taxpayers’ money that was spent to establish the corruption of the Sharifs went to waste. It is as if Pakistan had gone to another planet, which showed signs of life and water and returned empty handed and is now poorer than before the trip.

I was once talking to an American friend about Pakistani clothing styles. He was surprised that people in Pakistan were able to make tailored clothes. The idea of custom made clothes here in America is that of extreme luxury. I explained to him how tailors were cheap to afford and people mostly only just custom designed their clothes. Moving forward, if I ever got into a discussion with him again about Pakistan’s justice system, I wouldn’t need much effort to explain because I can just replace tailors with judges and clothes with justice. This is the best justice system money can buy, right just to your taste.

The Pakistani media, both print and broadcast, merely reported it without putting any form of analysis or critique or even a slight hint of question over it. This is worse than flat out lying because omission is more hypocritical than lying. The control of the media has not only turned social media into this giant noise making space but also created a giant wall between the imposed government and the governed. The vox populi is seething with anger. If the media was allowed some space to play its most elementary role of speaking truth to power, it would have created this feeling among the masses that their anger and frustration are being reflected in the mass media and that would have prevented the water from boiling.

The four pillars of the nation state of Pakistan namely the legislature, the executive, the judiciary and the media are all acting as if the people are not their fellow citizens but rather the enemies. That perhaps the people are not taxpayers with rights but rather a nuisance to ignore. That perhaps the mandate thieves are ultra citizens who can deprive people of their freedoms. The truth is that both the government and the people see each other as enemies. The four pillars mentioned above are standing on false foundations. How would they even act as pillars to the state is beyond the realm of metaphysics. I wonder what is even keeping the state together anymore. The government does not reflect the people, which is what should happen in a democracy with whatever extent of genuineness. Likewise, the public opinion does not reflect what is being touted and presented.

The moon shines in the night sky not because that is its own light but rather the light of the sun. It does not reflect what it is made of but rather reflects the light energy it receives from a star far away from it. Perhaps the crescent and the star on the flag is a warning by the founding fathers of this potential chemistry between Pakistan and other nation states. That Pakistan can fall victim to reflecting the light of foreign powers rather than its own citizenry’s.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 21^st, 2024.

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