So far, so slow
Same as it was under previous government, wonders of democracy have, at least, brought us continuity of deprivation.
The writer is editorial consultant at The Express Tribune, news junkie, bibliophile, cat lover and occasional cyclist
As the New Year gets into its stride and the memory of last year’s election fades, one wonders when it is that it ceases to be everybody else’s fault. After a year of governance? Two? Five? There must come a point when the finger pivots and points inwards not outwards, and the responsibility for whichever crisis Pakistan is currently bumbling through becomes the burden and responsibility of the government of the day. Or perhaps not, this being Pakistan.
As the wizards of futurology are prone to point out, Pakistan has managed not to fulfil the gloomiest of predictions and finally collapse into failed statehood, and there seems little possibility of that happening. What we are getting is more of the same as we had last time but with a change of wardrobe rather than attitude.
A dragging sense of the same-old same-old is settling in comfortably. There is to be no widening of the tax net to bring in the revenues from the richest. The IMF will tap its very considerable foot in irritation but not pull the plug on us because it might just create an instability too far. The Americans will guffaw at the antics of politicians labouring under totally unfounded delusions of grandeur and importance, yawn cavernously, and then take their materiel out via other routes, Pakistan having long been identified as a likely pain in the fundament.
Assorted crooks watch from a distance with satisfaction as their lower lieutenants are arrested in Karachi to be recycled through the porous penal and judicial systems before reappearing as if by magic six months down the line. The serried ranks of a massively corrupt police force will step forward to be culled with tedious and almost unremarked regularity. The bloody civilians will sweep the body parts into a bin-liner and traipse off to the cemetery yet again. Any number of terrorist groups will ply their gruesome and increasingly effective trade as the government dithers around, doing all it can to avoid calling a spade a spade. An aging population looks at the near future and wonders about everything that nobody but themselves has ever thought of. The increasingly preposterous ban on YouTube will continue to impede one of the principal conduits for the development of a knowledge-based economy; and we have acquired a prime minister who might as well be The Invisible Man for all that the parliament sees of him.
Food insecurity is increasing in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, children are not attending schools everywhere and polio looks like it really has retained its grip and is ready to gallop off over the horizon leaving cripples in its wake. Demented TV anchors froth at the mouth nightly, demented politicians do the same given half a chance, the national curriculum remains a poor foundation for anything other than a skewed and sectarian view of the world and power cuts for 12 out of any 24 hours is the norm for most of us.
All in all, reassuringly much the same as it was under the previous government, the wonders of democracy have, at least, brought us a continuity of deprivation unparalleled in the developing world.
It may be, Dear Reader, that this is it. This gangrel state that stumbles along a desolate shore may never be much different to what it is today, was last year and has been for most of the last 25. There will be an ebb and flow, a minor variation in the tides, but the reality is that things are not going to get better any time soon, they will get significantly worse but not so bad that the entire edifice topples into the abyss and this may be that it is as good as it gets.
A bleak analysis? Possibly, but with no sign of imminent revolution and no sign either of any significant shift in the political status-quo, we are set fair for an eternal state of never quite falling over. Most people will settle for their lot phlegmatically, nobody is going to tear down the walls of parliament and 190 million people will sleepwalk in a circle. And could it all have been much different? Probably not. Nice cuppa tea, anybody?
Published in The Express Tribune, January 16th, 2014.
As the wizards of futurology are prone to point out, Pakistan has managed not to fulfil the gloomiest of predictions and finally collapse into failed statehood, and there seems little possibility of that happening. What we are getting is more of the same as we had last time but with a change of wardrobe rather than attitude.
A dragging sense of the same-old same-old is settling in comfortably. There is to be no widening of the tax net to bring in the revenues from the richest. The IMF will tap its very considerable foot in irritation but not pull the plug on us because it might just create an instability too far. The Americans will guffaw at the antics of politicians labouring under totally unfounded delusions of grandeur and importance, yawn cavernously, and then take their materiel out via other routes, Pakistan having long been identified as a likely pain in the fundament.
Assorted crooks watch from a distance with satisfaction as their lower lieutenants are arrested in Karachi to be recycled through the porous penal and judicial systems before reappearing as if by magic six months down the line. The serried ranks of a massively corrupt police force will step forward to be culled with tedious and almost unremarked regularity. The bloody civilians will sweep the body parts into a bin-liner and traipse off to the cemetery yet again. Any number of terrorist groups will ply their gruesome and increasingly effective trade as the government dithers around, doing all it can to avoid calling a spade a spade. An aging population looks at the near future and wonders about everything that nobody but themselves has ever thought of. The increasingly preposterous ban on YouTube will continue to impede one of the principal conduits for the development of a knowledge-based economy; and we have acquired a prime minister who might as well be The Invisible Man for all that the parliament sees of him.
Food insecurity is increasing in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, children are not attending schools everywhere and polio looks like it really has retained its grip and is ready to gallop off over the horizon leaving cripples in its wake. Demented TV anchors froth at the mouth nightly, demented politicians do the same given half a chance, the national curriculum remains a poor foundation for anything other than a skewed and sectarian view of the world and power cuts for 12 out of any 24 hours is the norm for most of us.
All in all, reassuringly much the same as it was under the previous government, the wonders of democracy have, at least, brought us a continuity of deprivation unparalleled in the developing world.
It may be, Dear Reader, that this is it. This gangrel state that stumbles along a desolate shore may never be much different to what it is today, was last year and has been for most of the last 25. There will be an ebb and flow, a minor variation in the tides, but the reality is that things are not going to get better any time soon, they will get significantly worse but not so bad that the entire edifice topples into the abyss and this may be that it is as good as it gets.
A bleak analysis? Possibly, but with no sign of imminent revolution and no sign either of any significant shift in the political status-quo, we are set fair for an eternal state of never quite falling over. Most people will settle for their lot phlegmatically, nobody is going to tear down the walls of parliament and 190 million people will sleepwalk in a circle. And could it all have been much different? Probably not. Nice cuppa tea, anybody?
Published in The Express Tribune, January 16th, 2014.