Brussels or Pyongyang?

The flow of information is crucial for democracy; without it, Pakistan risks dysfunction like North Korea.

Uninterrupted and uncorrupted flow of information from the state to the people is considered as an important and essential aspect for developing a progressive and homogeneous civil society in the western world. In our part of the world, flow of information is interrupted and at times deliberately corrupted and so the true information stops reaching the people. In this vacuum of lack of true information or supply of misinformation and disinformation, civil society in our part of the world starts decaying. Even, national institutions start losing their sense of purpose and direction and start experiencing unlimited confusion that ends in them eventually becoming dysfunctional. The fate of such institutions is the loss of people's support and trust. How can our society progress if our politicians insulate themselves from the developing reality of societal degradation? How can any progress be ever made if the institutions of a state are pushed and politically pampered to become more patrimonial than impersonal, independent and autonomous? Could such institutions ever take the right decisions that the people may consider as just and fair?

The two ends of the spectrum in an evolving political system are dictatorship and democracy. The central government or the central authority that believes in centralising power and dictating decisions pushes the political system towards the extreme end of the dictatorial spectrum that we call dictatorship. A classic example of existence of such a political system is in North Korea. The country has a Mansudae Assembly Hall in Pyongyang where the 687 members of North Korean Supreme Peoples Assembly meet and discuss and debate politics. The assembly is officially known as the North Korean Legislature but it hardly legislates. Elections in North Korea are held regularly after every five years but the people of North Korea and even the entire world knows that it is not an assembly but a rubber stamp. Decisions are not taken in this assembly but at some other place and so no one expects this assembly, as an institution, to play any meaningful role in changing the fate of the North Korean society and the people. But all know that North Korea is a rouge state. Signing NPT and then walking out of it and becoming a nuclear power is one of the many ways that this country has lost its global credibility. Paths are made by travelling. Would the Pakistani politicians take time out to consider which path are they travelling? Being a relatively young democracy, should we allow ourselves to take the North Korean route? It is popularly believed that democracies die when freedoms die - one of them is the freedom to speak. But democracies also die not because we are not free to talk but more because we are not free to listen. Recent events in Pakistan clearly indicate that many politicians preferred not to listen to the voices of their inner conscience but can they afford not to listen to the voice of the majority of the people?

Unfortunately, more and more politicians in Pakistan have started putting their faith in the belief that might is right. Some of them even consider the opposition they face as the head of a snake that must be quashed before it bites. This is dictatorial and not a democratic way of thinking. Not like the North Korean way of political thinking that revolves around the idea of power being the only reality, what the politicians in Pakistan need to do is to help all institutions to build their credibility not by making them bow before their dictates and become powerless but exercise their power without any political interference from their side. This would mean us becoming more Brussels than Pyongyang. The pursuit of truth is the most essential societal function and it is the job of the politicians to not allow it to die down. If people start believing that they are being fed lies and the politicians are the purposeful promoters and beneficiaries of these lies, they will stop relating, connecting and linking themselves with their politics. Individually this may mean nothing to some of the politicians but collectively it would mean a lot to what we would eventually end up becoming - an unbelievable, distrusted rouge state following the path of totalitarianism or a modern welfare state pursuing the path of truth and respecting civil and human rights. The path to becoming North Korea is not a path that we should take. We have already taken a dangerous trajectory where the results of the elections conducted in our country are considered doubtful. Decisions given by our courts are being popularly viewed as lopsided. Reports by media are considered biased. Even the education in the universities is being seen as unreal and superficial.

President Erdogan is famously believed to have said that, "Democracy is like a Tram. You ride it until you arrive your destination, then you step off." Personally, I think that most politicians in Pakistan are overstaying in the Democracy Tram of this country. They should have got down at some station a very long time ago. They didn't and what we have in Pakistan is the same old way of politics that remains more dictatorial than democratic. It is not one Tram that leads to a destination. In this age of acceleration, there are many Trams that must move very fast and head towards various destinations. If the rate of adaptation lags behind the rate of acceleration, what results in is dysfunction. For Pakistan, not to become North Korea or a dysfunctional state, it is extremely important that we promote decentralisation of power; institute the separation of institutional power; not deprive courts of their powers and not try and pack them with loyalists; and open up the media and not control the independent media outlets or make them an omnipotent propaganda machine. How can a society reform if the media only parrots the government line, and the appeals against anti-democratic measures are not heard or dismissed by the courts? Even those who criticise these measures are apprehended, punished or fired from their jobs.

All civilised societies have their self-correcting mechanisms and most of these mechanisms have already been mentioned by me. The choice is clear: do we see Brussels or Pyongyang as our democratic destination? And do we want one Tram to continue to move in one direction in a similar fashion or do we want many Trams in this age of acceleration to head towards many destinations?