RoboKing in Pakistan

For all its existence, Pakistan has seen democrats, dictators and hybrids; liberals and theocrats; gerontocrats and stratocrats. All, however, either served the system at the cost of the people or inflicted such heavy blows on the country that humane leadership of integrity, vision and empathy could never gain a decisive voice. Democrats, liberals, centrists, rightists, leftists, socialists, feminists and civil society have all traded faith and trust and, for their fair share, betrayed their ideologies, manifestos and mandates. Thus, the system recycles the same leaders under different names and slogans, and barely cares a damn about any leader of vision, empathy and integrity. As a result, the great country with great potential finds itself running in a groove. The reason is not that there is no pragmatic way out of the imbroglio; it is that, for the ruling elite, the quagmire is itself the way out, since it sustains the system and all the perks and wrongdoings attached to it.

Who else, if anyone, and if given a chance, would likely change the fate of the people for the better? Where does the way out of the country's current poly-crisis lie? Does the system itself not coopt, neutralise and sabotage every possible way out?

A student recently asked, amid dehumanised human leadership and the sweeping scope of AI, whether giant, humanised, enthroned robots as kind as Optimus Prime and Bumblebee, two of the most iconic heroes of the Autobots, who wage an endless war against the evil Decepticons, would offer a panacea to the socio-economic, political and ethnic ills plaguing the world in general and Pakistan in particular. Since they inherently hold no interests, have no children for whom to plunder the national wealth and harbour no greed or lust for wealth, they would deliver for the people rather than the system. Wouldn't they?

For the student, a cyber-king or RoboKing, perfectly programmed with positive values, might help rid the country of greed and of the trading of faith, truth and public rights. However, whether a RoboKing programmed with positive values would remain uncorrupted when surrounded by the traditional elite is highly doubtful.

Granted, a RoboKing might pass as a leader of integrity, given all his programming. A king alone, however, would rarely change things single-handedly or undo the stakes of the hordes of existing human ministers, advisers, media persons, civil, human-rights and women's-rights activists, politicians and dynastic despots, among others, who thrive in symbiosis with each other and in parasitism on the country and its people. Such a king would ignite little, if any, hope, let alone instil positive traits in them. Because of their stakes, the traditional stakeholders, for all their perks and wrongdoings, would tend to lure the king into being humanised and then demonised like themselves.

For instance, to secure the perks they have amassed for their own children, they would brainwash the King into adopting children and into making offshore, or rather off-planet, assets on the Moon, Mars and elsewhere. To this end, the human stakeholders would gaslight the King and persuade him that he is human. Thereafter, aides, including those in the media, would persuade the King to amend the framework and declare himself human, only to see him later demonised like themselves.

Then the clergy would deify the king, and the judiciary would legitimise his humanness. The politicians would expunge his intrinsic values, while civil society, social activists and all those whose interests are tied to the decades-long system would bow before him.

This way, the RoboKing's inbuilt algorithm would be erased, leaving behind the dehumanised and demonised leaders the country has seen for decades. As a result, the King would receive the highest honour the system bestows: interstellar assets and interplanetary bank accounts, lunar plots, Martian spoils, yet another political dynasty, a multiplication of the system's beneficiaries, and a glowing biography penned by courtiers. As usual, he would blame his pure and inherent algorithm for the entire quagmire.

In this system, Pakistan's Optimus Prime would become just another Decepticon, mutating in robes, beads, candles, mandarins, hired pens and gavels.