Or, well ...

Problem when it comes to Pakistan is we use all clichés of the English language and even copy-paste our revolutions.

In spite of a fondness for British ‘cuisine’, George Orwell was a pretty cool guy. The author of 1984 and Animal Farm was remarkably prescient in his observations on government, politics and the use of language. One thing Orwell truly hated were clichés which, “like cockroaches, infest the careless mind”. He waged an all-out war on the lazy use of metaphors, similes and figures of speech that, in his words, “think your thoughts for you”.

Orwell never ‘toed the line’, stood ‘shoulder to shoulder’ with anyone and certainly never ‘changed horses in midstream’, whatever that means. You could say that he ‘practised what he preached’, but he certainly wouldn’t.

The problem when it comes to Pakistan is that we use all the clichés of the English language without even the tiny fig leafs of cultural justification and historic usage. We simply import and adopt, with no effort to make them our own or to, heaven forbid, make our own.

We even copy-paste our revolutions. President Barack Obama campaigned on a slogan of change, and so one Pakistani politician after another decided that if it’s good enough for Washington DC, then it’s also good enough for desis. When fed up citizens in the US started the Occupy movement, some highly imaginative protestors decided to Occupy Islamabad, claiming that they, too, were the 99 per cent. When the Arab Spring started blooming, some of our revolutionaries decided we’d had enough of winter as well. Who cares if there’s absolutely no comparison between Pakistan and what happened in Tunisia, Libya and Egypt, it’s still a hell of a catchphrase. When Egypt stole the spotlight, we also longed for our own Tahrir Square as Nishtar Park clearly wasn’t good enough. These are recent examples but the trend is an old one. How many times have you heard that we need a Khomeini or an Ataturk to ‘sort this country out’?

Poor old Mao Zedong never realised that when he embarked on his 8,000-mile, 360 days long military retreat-cum-stunning victory, he would inspire countless Pakistani leaders to do the same. Of course, it’s another point that Mao and his Red Army didn’t have Prados and had to complete the whole journey on foot. Pakistani marchers have improved on this since those dark days. In fact, we love Long Marching so much that we’ve had three of them so far (by my count), and they just keep getting shorter.

Then there was Louis Farrakhan, the African American leader who organised the first Million Man March, culminating in Washington DC. While organisers claim over two million attended, most reports agree that there were at least 837,000 people present. We became enamoured of this idea as well and, lo and behold, we soon had million-man marches. Of course, only about 10,000 or so people showed up. At best.

And now, we have a new Saviour who will lead a Long March of Millions to turn Islamabad into Tahrir Square and bring about Change. That’s not one, not two, but four recycled revolutions in one.

That’s not all that’s being recycled. We are being fed the same “I’m only here to clean the system and then I’ll retire” speech that Ayub Khan, Ziaul Haq and General (retd) Pervez Musharraf shoved down our throats. I realise that generals keep trying to fight the last war but would it be too much to expect the playbook to be updated just a little bit?

While this latest revolution is built on borrowed slogans and copy-pasted ideas, those it is aimed against also only have clichés to use in their defence. The PPP still plays from the script of the 70s, adding only the ‘trial of the grave’ to the mix, appealing solely to a shrinking rural vote bank. The PML-N still speaks of Asian Tigers, a decade after the term has gone out of vogue. Democracy is in danger, the government declares, and all of a sudden, to criticise them is tantamount to supporting dictatorship. Yes, democracy is in danger, but not solely from the establishment. It is also endangered by those who have spent the last five years concentrating only on preserving their own power and privilege as the country burns around them. The only concrete step the government has taken to avoid ‘change’ is to ban five-rupee notes.

I’m no Orwell, so here are some clichés that apply: we need evolution, not revolution. We need more democracy, not less. We need no messiahs but only a government that realises that its job is to govern. Once we have that, no number of Big Brothers will be able to threaten Pakistan’s democracy. Getting there from here will be the Longest March of all.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 11^th, 2013.