Curtains drop on theatre of the absurd

Nisar never expressed the idea of summoning a national assembly session to deliberate over the post-Mehsud chaos.

A day after the killing of Hakimullah Mehsud, Chaudhry Nisar Khan held a thundering press conference in Islamabad last Friday. Sounding hurt and furious he kept claiming that by killing the TTP leaders, the Americans had sabotaged the prospects of peace with Taliban. A complete review of Pakistan’s relations with the US was thus required on fast track basis. The Cabinet Committee on Defence and the National Security Committee were supposed to do the initial homework in this regard. After approval of the federal cabinet, the recommendations of these forums would then be laid before our political leaders that might need calling of another all-party conference.

Not for once throughout his too stretched a presser, he ever expressed the idea of summoning a national assembly session to deliberate over the post-Mehsud chaos.

Since the return of Nawaz Sharif from an extended stay in London early this week, the federal cabinet met briefly on Monday evening. Most participants of that meeting profusely praised the interior minister for talking tough and straight over the killing of Mehsud. They believed that by doing so, he brilliantly denied the TTP any justification for launching its sleepers to stage revenge-driven strikes. But, the question of how to go about reviewing relations with the US was not discussed, somewhat seriously, in that meeting.

Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan rather went to the first sitting of the sixth national assembly session Monday evening. After delivering another bombastic speech there, he invited the rest of legislators to guide the government in dealing with post-Mehsud scenario through participating in an exhaustive discussion. Cutting across the party divide, our representatives pounced at Nisar’s offer with vengeance. Speaker after speaker has been standing from each side of the house since Monday evening to lynch the “Muslim-hating USA.” Their rhetoric sounds pathetic. The whole exercise has rather begun projecting all shades that you relate to the theatre of the absurd. Finally, Mehmud Khan Achakzai stood up on Wednesday to shout for the curtains to drop on the ongoing farce. A move that was desperately required.

The Pushtun nationalist from Balochistan was too blunt at the outset by sincerely wondering about how we Pakistanis continued to project ourselves as “the best specimens of good Muslims.” With an expansive panning of the house with piercing eyes, he furiously put a question: “How many of you habitually mention the exact price on stamp papers when you buy or sell any property?” Not a person from the crowded house dared standing up which helped Achakzai to pronounce, “We, in fact, are ultimate liars and hypocrites who savor the habit of rushing to Makkah to perform Umra after spending two-three weeks of absolute joy and fun in various countries of Europe.”

Preventing noisy disruptions with a blunt intro, Mehmud Khan then switched to build on the thesis that the “Punjab-dominated state of Pakistan is expansionist by nature.” After suppressing the Sindhi, Pushtu, Baluchi and Seraiki speaking masses of this country, the state of Pakistan eventually tried to stretch its influence to Afghanistan. He dared representatives of various parties of the religious-right to deny his claim that Pakistan had begun intruding into the Afghan affairs from the mid-1970s. “Neither the Russians nor the Americans had yet reached there; but we invited Hikmatyar etc to play our game in Afghanistan.” After the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, he went on, “we waged a so-called Jihad in a country that was led, financed and armed by the USA.” With a painful heart, Achakzai added that most people “delivering bombastic speeches against the US these days had worked like the spineless foot soldiers of that country during the so-called Afghan Jihad”. People like him, on the other hand, kept forewarning that we were playing with fire and what we were doing in Afghanistan would certainly come back to Pakistan in the end.

Achakzai did not confine himself to hypocrisy bashing. With tremendous confidence, he offered his services to establish peace. But, he wanted the “civil and military oligarchs of Pakistan” to promise a few things to him. The three commitments he demanded went like this: We will recognize and respect Afghanistan as a sovereign country. FATA will be made a province with an elected governor and a provincial assembly and no armed lashkars etc would be allowed to act like proxies of our national security outfits in the Afghanistan-neighboring Pushtun areas. He continued to assert that only with these guarantees he could persuade the foreign militants to throw up arms and bring peace and order in FATA, “maximum by March 23, 2014.” He also promised to quit politics if failing to deal with post-Mehsud chaos, provided the conditions put by him were conceded sincerely.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 7^th, 2013.