Mistakes were Made

The judges in Chile recently made an apology for the role of the judiciary, more particularly the Supreme Court, in giving legitimacy to Augusto Pinochet’s coup d’etat and allowing subsequent impunity to the dictatorial regime in killing, maiming and abducting its citizens. The apology is chilling, just days before the first 9/11, September 11, 1973, when Salvador Allende’s government was overthrown by the junta, unleashing a vile rule lasting till 1990. The apology comes late by 40 or at least, 23 years, in any which way one looks at it. It will not bring the dead back; the misery of the past has already been suffered; Allende’s legacy and greatness hardly needs the feeble crutch. Yet, an apology has come. That means a lot.

We do not apologise. We lie, justify and fabricate instead. Justice Munir is long dead. However, some of those who legitimised Ziaul Haq (a monster no less than Pinochet, whatever one’s measuring scale) and ordered the murder of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto live unrepentant. All military adventurers have been legitimised and welcomed on arrival (although much bravado has been displayed when two of them exited). My Lord, the chief justice was on the bench that not only allowed Musharraf to take over power but also to amend the Constitution, a relief which even the Commando had not sought. The Supreme Court judgments begin now post-restoration as if the past will go away by not talking about it, PCOs, etc. forgotten. Floods have passed over the bridge since then, yet an apology would be nice.

Apologies are not hollow sentimentality. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa, the Khmer Rouge Court in Cambodia and the Tribunal of Rwanda are not for kiss and make up only. The victims need to know that they did not imagine all of that; it was not misfortune, cosmic bad luck. Real people deliberated and ordered those crimes; now they pay or at least, have to admit they were wrong. The book of atrocities has to be opened and read in the open. Only then, you move on.

Ayub, Zia and Yahya have all moved on without paying what was due. Their collaborators — generals, judges, politicians and journalists — are here; have the common decency to apologise. Apologies are also about setting the historical record straight. Who will pay for the IJI and Asghar Khan verdict? Mian Sahib, you are a changed man, right? As the Difa-e-Pakistan Council warmongers march to Islamabad, there is still silence on the 1965 war, except for tired cliches. As our brave soldiers of the armed forces and police are martyred on a daily basis, Hamid Gul and those of his creed still take pride in creating ‘his’ boys, the ‘Taliban’. Every day is defence day; sacrifice of our soldiers is unremitting. Yet, instead of an apology by the architects of the shallow ‘strategic depth’, we have shameless arrogance.

Most children in the country now know Balochistan burns and something needs to be done, etc. Mian Sahib, all else is failing in any case. So, a novel proposition — go to Balochistan, take the army chief, the DG ISI and the IG FC with you and apologise. Not to those who have taken up arms; but to those who haven’t. Not, the generic we have wronged you before, will try better next time stuff. Be specific; start from 1948, for Nauroz Khan Zehri, for denial of resources, royalties, for military actions and assassinations, for those who have been abducted. It will not solve everything or perhaps, anything; but you will have their ear at least.

When nobody apologises, everybody writes history. And it has to be written and rewritten continuously. In Nineteen Eighty-Four, the Ministry of Truth is Big Brother’s propaganda arm (or in contemporary parlance, the information ministry). One salient function it seeks to perform is that when a prediction made by the Big Brother is proved wrong, going back in history the prediction is rewritten to make it absolutely accurate. We also tailor predictions to outcomes. The vision Mr Jinnah had for this country is contingent upon what our beliefs today are; everybody is sure to find a quote of their liking. Due to efforts of the excellent Mr Murtaza Solangi, we now have two of Mr Jinnah’s speeches, previously with the All India Radio. Yet, the August 11 speech remains missing. It is sobering to recall that an attempt was made to censor Mr Jinnah at the time of making. If any of this proves he was secular or not is for the historians; however, it does prove that we seek to control history, ignore it and hence, as the cliche goes, are condemned to repeat it.

The clumsy phrase ‘Ideology of Pakistan’ and Jamaat-e-Islami inspired slogans did not sprout organically from the earth; they were constructed, disseminated and made mainstream by ministries of truth. A recent example of how ‘words’ change their meaning is that of the whiskered old columnist Dr Ajmal Niazi, who now faces potential blasphemy charges. Since he used the word ‘secular’ in relation to the Almighty and a pious reader looked it up in the dictionary and found it meant ‘La deen’ (atheistic). One wonders what dictionary it could be, written by some Ministry of Truth no doubt. Perhaps, from the time of when Hamid Gul and his boys sought to bury ‘La Deen’ (Soviet Union) while fighting as the front line of the Ahle Kitab (United States). A judge admitted it and has ordered the police to act in accordance with the law — sheer madness and against established principles of jurisprudence, right? Wrong, this is in line with the previous musings of two of the highest judges. While hearing the ‘Wukla Mahaz’ case in 1998, the then chief justice, Ajmal Mian, philosophically asked the rhetorical question if Parliament decided to make Pakistan a secular country, would the court be a silent spectator. My Lord, the present chief justice had an identical inquiry in the Eighteenth Amendment case.

In the times of the unremorseful guardians of monolith historical narratives, the courageous few are hunted. The alleged plot to assassinate the indomitable Ms Asma Jahangir by the intelligence agencies is in the news again. Will the ISPR clarify? Will Mian Nawaz Sharif order a high powered inquiry? If not, will My Lord, the chief justice find this issue to be on a par with the use of ‘sharamnaak’ and worth his time?

Published in The Express Tribune, September 8^th, 2013.

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