Pakistan’s Arkham Asylum

Facebook is a great source to read trending articles. A couple of days ago, a few seemingly unrelated news items stood out. It was announced that Warner Brothers would be releasing their third instalment in the “Batman: Arkham City” video game series next month. The original version of the game held the Guinness World Record for the “most critically acclaimed superhero game ever”. For those who are unaware, Arkham Asylum is a fictional lunatic asylum appearing in many Batman comics. Arkham Asylum has a brutal history, starting when its architect became a lunatic and chopped his workers to death. He was convicted and sentenced to spend the rest of his life in the very asylum he had designed.

Many criminals from Batman’s world have been imprisoned at Arkham Asylum only to have also escaped from it. Arkham Asylum is situated at the edges of Gotham City and is where many of Batman’s foes, considered insane like the Joker, are imprisoned. Inmates such as the Joker are frequently shown escaping at will. Staff members at Arkham Asylum have also been known to go insane. The facility itself has been destroyed several times in its history only to rise again — decrepit as ever.

A photograph of Pakistan’s President, Asif Ali Zardari, is also trending on Facebook. This photograph has been manipulated, showing President Zardari smiling, with a paint-smeared face — not unlike Heath Ledger’s portrayal of the Joker in The Dark Knight. The Joker is considered to be the most criminal of all comic book villains and yet, somehow, still manages to recruit gangs of henchmen. President Zardari and his party have much to smile about. Recently, Swiss authorities expressed their inability to reopen the cases of corruption filed against President Zardari because of the impunity he enjoys as Pakistan’s head of state. Pakistani authorities, on the other hand, are debating what to do with ex-president Pervez Musharraf. On March 24, Musharraf, landed in Karachi, promising to “save Pakistan”. He has returned to Pakistan after four years of self-exile — fleeing both country and accusations that implicate him in the 2007 assassination of Benazir Bhutto, the killing of Akbar Bugti and illegally removing a number of judges from the Supreme Court. Surrounded by supporters, Musharraf showcased himself as the country’s saviour — someone who would return Pakistan to the prosperity and stability, he says, marked his presidency. He said, “I have come back for you. I want you to get back the Pakistan that I had left when we used to feel proud in ourselves”.

Musharraf is back in Pakistan to contest the election, which have scheduled for May 11. It will be a historic election because it will be the first time any democratically-elected government in Pakistan has completed a five-year term and will, in turn, be succeeded by another democratically-elected government. Can one have hope? I don’t think so — it is said a country where optimism best flourishes is truly a lunatic asylum.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 28^th, 2013.