An antidote or ailment?

Pakistan's elite status quo thrives on historical mistakes, maintaining a brutal system at people's expense

Every now and then, we come across pragmatic speeches, columns and academic discourses — not necessarily from the beneficiaries of the system — that echo the idea that we, as a nation, seldom learn from historical follies. This might, for many, sound like mere blunders or thoughtless insanity; yet the unapologetic pursuit of these common patterns across history speaks otherwise.

Notwithstanding the blame-shifting by successive power dispensations on their predecessors, no one has bothered to learn from history and include the lessons in policies and practices. The perpetuation of "cursed" policies and pursuits suggests both foresight and vision. A vision to sustain the decades-old practices so that their architects can stay relevant.

The policies and practices — all in the name of democracy, national security imperatives, sensitised religious and nationalistic sentiments and repeatedly betrayed promises of public prosperity — have left little, if any, space for the needs of the people. The decades-long continuation of these practices by successive governments has almost excluded the masses from the fruits of the system.

Worse, it has made the masses victims, forced to solely fund through lifelong labour, sweat and the public exchequer, the luxuries of the elite. Lasting disregard for the masses has evolved the status quo hence that its sustainability now relies on their subjugation.

Today, the potential prosperity of the people and the survival of the system have almost become mutually exclusive, where the existence of one is at the expense of the other. Therefore, letting go of the system or substituting it with an inclusive one would amount to a betrayal of all the efforts of stakeholders, as well as to a collapse of the architects, sympathisers, abettors and beneficiaries of the brutal system. Since it sustains the whims, gluttony and brutal pursuits of all its actors, they tend to sustain the brutal status quo.

So then, how has the elitist status quo been sustaining itself for over three-quarters of a century? The architects of the system first engaged in wrongdoings and eroded the enforcement of the law to encourage the illegitimacies of complicit actors from all walks and the length and breadth of the country. Then, they used the threat of potential retribution to absorb these wrongdoers and attached their survival to that of the system. Recent legal tweaks have now legitimised precisely the very illegitimacies that originally amounted to unlawful acts and encouraged people to engage in and get absorbed in the system.

Who does the system serve, and how does it get served or sustained in return? The characters with questionable legitimacy, public say, and constitutionality, or anyone with contested competency and mandate, are exclusively served. Those with dynastic or despotic success, or who made it into it via illegitimacy, corruption, influence, recommendations, pecuniary means, fraud, brute force or coercion in various institutions and fields such as bureaucracy, politics, mainstream media, the judiciary, crony capitalism or even the service sector, abet the status quo against the people at large.

The courtier clerics, their megalomania and gluttony and their selective edicts authenticate the system. Or those who doubt their ability in a transparent system, who dread potential accountability for all their wrongdoings, and who consider Pakistan as merely a place to be plundered — and then to shift their loot elsewhere — are the ones who support and love the system. Their love is mostly conditional. Isn't it? Yet, it's the victims of the brutal system or its rightful critics who show logical defiance that get banned or branded with treason.

The answer to the question that most of you undoubtedly have — namely, whether this system offers any hope — lies in deciphering whether an ailment remedies its host or whether any problem can solve itself when doing so would be at its own detriment. Understanding it isn't that brainy. Is it?

The system, nevertheless, offers an antidote for inclusive prosperity. Honesty. Transparency. Merit. Truth. And of course, freedom of expression. It is, undoubtedly, the best system for the worst. And the other way around.