Fight for real democracy

In the last year of this government, ordinary Pakistanis are poorer, insecure, disillusioned, frustrated than before.

The old order is not dying, the new is not born yet, and it’s the big void in between that is killing us. This modified version of a much-cited quote sums up the core reason for the agonies ordinary Pakistanis suffer every day.  For all its pomp and show, the exiting political set-up is representative only in name. It is a near-complete failure in ensuring the larger good for the largest number of people.

For the inhabitants of Karachi, this means perpetual fear and murder under the reign of democratic terror. Armed wings of political parties are battling it out on the streets. Institutions of the state dedicated to maintaining normality seem to have fallen in a state of paralytic disorder. Gangs rule the roost. Either you are with them or against them. Neutrality is a sin punishable by death in the crossfire of hate.

For the northern rim of the country, Gilgit-Baltistan, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Fata, this old order has meant perpetual conflict, military operations, mushrooming of terrorist organisations, displacement and, like in parts of Karachi, withering away of livelihoods and businesses. For other parts of Pakistan, the torture of electricity breakdown and rising prices of fuel have caused anger to overflow. As factories shut down in industrial areas, laid off workers (in the millions) or whose meagre wages are cut to half, mix with the frustrated population to turn streets into tinder boxes ready to explode at a touch. For Balochistan, there is no solace and little hope that a visionary scheme will heave it out of its slow-but-steady burning mode. Fabian terror tactics remain pervasive. Law enforcement agencies continue to operate at a tactical level without any long-term policy to restore lasting harmony.

Generally, life for most of the middle class is a Sisyphean struggle. Except for the members of a limited but exceptionally resourceful class that has accumulated substantial assets in the last decade or so (not to be confused with the chronic and sickeningly rich elite of the country), or those who have secure skill-based jobs and are protected by institutional welfare schemes, most are worried sick about the future.

This total picture of the country and its citizens is a far cry from the rose water-dipped narrative of the elected leaders about the achievements of democracy under their command. The fact of the matter is that in the last year of this longest tenure of a civilian government, the ordinary Pakistani is poorer, more insecure, more disillusioned and more frustrated than before. The country, by the same token, is certainly more tormented, shaken and directionless than before. But this is the necessary cost of building a genuine democratic order, which the present one is certainly not. The horror of being ruled by a self-serving, self-perpetuating rapacious elite is a much-needed wake-up call to all conscientious and democratic-minded citizens that it takes much more than the ritual of elections to bring in a reasonable dispensation that could meet some primary, universally accepted standard of performance and service delivery. Indeed, elections can and have brought in the worst of the lot.

Yet this rule of the rotten represents a critical phase of transition for Pakistan to a stable and a more genuine democratic order where public voice and interest shapes government behaviour and where worship-thy-leader-no-matter-how-cuckoo is not the path to political success.  (Pakistan has the global distinction of having most public places named after individual ‘leaders’.  This naming spree indicates zero respect for the public and reflects a mindset that sees resources and possessions of the state as items of personal collection.)

The heightened level of public frustration and excessive privations of the voter serve the worthy cause of opening possibilities for new political forces. Protests bordering on mayhem lay bare the naked nature of people’s needs and these can no longer be hidden in the garbage tank of official self-praise. The sense that this country is slipping badly and might go over the edge is poking us all in the ribs to do something about it rather than wait for the free fall.

For the first time in Pakistan, we can pick up chatter about the triple ‘A’ formula (Allah-Army-America) not being enough to save our future.  A good number of people want to see Pakistan beyond its present-day problems, the source of which is a leadership that is as unwilling to govern as it is incapable of being honest. Civil society, professional groups, students, teachers, businessmen, media, the judiciary and all those who care about tomorrow will have to play their part to distil real democracy from the slime and slush that we face. This is a lot of hard work and struggle, but history offers no other path to building democracy than the one made by toil sweat and blood.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 6^th, 2012.