The price we pay for forgetting

The incumbent government, according to surveys, doesn’t invoke confidence, nor does it appear to have full support.

President Zardari can’t seem to do anything right. He gives up his presidential powers, goes on vacation, leaving a behemoth government machinery at the centre and in the provinces of all the main political parties. Everyone it appears has a stake in making sure we continue down this very slippery democratic path. Consensus of some sort has been reached and our political class and bureaucratic and military establishments continue doing what they do best. Unfortunately governance is not one of the things they do particularly well. And to add momentum to that downward slide Mother Nature chose the summer vacation months to drown Pakistan. It poured and the rivers crashed down the length of the country taking everything that came in their way.

The incumbent government, according to several surveys, doesn’t invoke confidence in most, nor does it appear to have the full support of its partners. The helpless and rather clueless images of the political leadership, smartly turned out in suits and ties, being ferried about in helicopters and planes never getting their feet wet and making regular staged appearances at dummy relief camps contrasted with the images of the military, pulling the hapless population out of the water and getting them to dry land could not have helped. Surely it’s not fair to blame the international community’s muted response to the crisis on callousness or donor fatigue, they saw the same visuals we all did. And while Pakistanis rushed out to help their fellow citizens they made it clear they were not giving anything to the government.

The government continued to flounder, stories of bund breaching were reinforced by television footage of fake relief camps. While all this was going on, showing the government’s incompetence in all its glory, an even more disturbing aspect to all was unfolding — that of those exploiting the tragedy for personal gain and their belief that they could continue to delude us. In Sukkur, Senator Islamuddin Sheikh came on television to talk about the huge relief effort he had undertaken. He was having food cooked for tens of thousands of people. The money came from the government and private donors but the sums didn’t add up. Someone was over invoicing misery.

The downward spiral prompted visits by the UN secretary-general and Senator John Kerry. More aid was pledged. The US ambassador and the consul-general were active and visible in flood relief, the foreign minister came back with lots of pledges but none of this stopped Altaf Hussain from calling for the military to step in and assist with a clean-up of corrupt politicians and help rid this country of its feudal class. It has ignited a huge debate; rather than talking about subversion of the constitution and invoking Article 6, the thought of military intervention to stem the rot and to get rid of a few corrupt politicians seems to have touched a nerve. Even former dictator General Musharraf is being given airtime on how to manage the crisis.

We so easily forget what happens under martial law regimes, we forget the effects of dismantled systems, when you have no accountability. We forget that this is what creates lawless societies where there is no rule of law, where we continue to descend into anarchy. It is that act of forgetting which ensures that we will have many more Sialkots, Gojras, attacks on Shias, Ahmadis, Hindus, Christians, karo kari killings. Forgetting will allow us to condone the burying alive of women, of raping women, of parading them naked in the streets to avenge some dispute. Forgetting will allow the rapists and murderers of little children continue their depravity knowing they can pay off the police and ensure their cases never get prosecuted.

Today, Pakistan’s citizens have no confidence that the state will provide them with justice because for 63 years the ruling elite, kept in place by many of us, have systematically dismantled the institutions required to govern. They ensured and continue to ensure their own progress and advancement at the cost of a nation.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 27^th, 2010.