The nothingness of it all

The media once again, at September’s end, courtesy a military dictator’s endowed freedom of the press, whipped itself up into a frenzy over what to the USA were home truths. The government followed suit and after much futile huffing and puffing we now seem to be back to square one.

This incredibly dysfunctional government, which continues to exist because alternatives are short on the ground, put itself into a warlike mode and rounded up what are known as political parties — even though quite a few of them have scant following and even scantier membership. Missing from the grand gathering named the All Parties Conference were members of the minority communities, thus putting them firmly in their place in the scheme of national things, and the Baloch who occupy 43 per cent of Pakistan’s land mass, and of course, the co-chairman of the ruling PPP.

It turned out to be a truly pathetic gathering — even though attended by the most powerful man of the land, he who commands the mighty army and guides national ideologies and policies in the absence of any political clout. The best thing this impressive lot could do was to come up, war being the theme, with the pop song slogan “give peace a chance”.

Very funny — which ‘peace’? That of the on-going internal wars being waged against the nation by the politicos themselves, the ineffectual war against the multiple various terrorist organisations spawned by the state, terrorism home-grown and exported, the 64-year-old national psyche war waged in the national mindset against the traditional enemy India, or the battleground that is Afghanistan fuelled, as claim the Yanks, by the state within a state?

From pathetic to scary — the sight of the gathering of the political illuminati, the faces known and unknown, was enough to put wobblies into collective stomachs. The attempted eloquent waxing of the main players only succeeded in un-bolstering any remnants of national confidence that may have existed.

Anyhow, the non-event has gone, vanished into the bottomless bucket that is politics in Pakistan. What is it with the main players, which makes them so unattractive — if not downright contemptible? They guard their lives so zealously, thoroughly inconveniencing the gullible citizens who voted them in. Though, one must wonder, in the case of many, whether the most hardened terrorist would not think twice before wasting a bullet on them.

The worst example is the PPP co-chairman’s appointee as the minister known as ‘prime’. The man from Multan, guardian of a holy shrine, continuously and remorselessly spouts mundane statements, that have absolutely no effect on anyone within or without the country. The frightening thought is that the current dispensation is with us till 2013 — and who is to say they may not disastrously wangle their way back on the national scenario. They are, after all, in the ballot box saddle and unless the greater power that is steps in, free and fair will not be adjectives applicable to the next elections.

Afterthought: one man in the entire country, in the recent past, is deserving of praise and respect: Judge Syed Pervez Ali Shah of the Rawalpindi anti-terrorism court. In the highly tinged with religion case of a murderer, he abided by the law and did what he had to do despite knowing the risks involved. And this, while a gutless government dare not even utter the words “blasphemy laws”.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 8^th, 2011.