Crossing red lines

Tensions whipped up by ill-intentioned people on wrong side of popular politics, are trying to sow confusion, despair.

Amid all the din, and the shemozzle deliberately engineered by the Commando and his buddies: the violent behaviour of his ‘defence team’(which, Allah be praised, is still ‘intact’ according to himself — excellent luck to him); intemperate emails on ex-service officer’s discussion boards: emails bordering on sedition, comes the beauty to end all beauties.

Now, whilst I know I might be crossing a ‘red-line’ as imposed by an internet thug (as so aptly put by my friend also under threat); cross it I must. For this absolute beauty is so despicable that it militates against everything I learnt as a Gentleman Cadet at the Pakistan Military Academy and as an officer in our fine army. E.g., let alone being part of any political party, politics (and money and ladies) were NEVER even discussed by officers, and if a senior officer heard you do so you would be for the high jump, an army euphemism meaning that you would be marched before him by the Adjutant, and severely dealt with by the Commanding Officer (CO) the very next day.

A word on the COs (Commanding Officers of battalions and regiments of the rank of Lieutenant Colonel) of those days. Whilst one saw the CO when he visited the training area or the firing ranges now and then, young officers also met him in the unit tea-room for Elevenses at least twice a week. The CO was an ethereal being, his feet, in glistening shoes, barely touching the ground and golly, were we junior lot terrified of him. Even of the kind and soft-spoken Lt. Col. (later Lt. Gen.), Ahmad Jamal, a gentleman down to his toenails, his wife Begum Jamal an affectionate and motherly lady who and her husband would have the unmarried officers to their gracious home every so often so we wouldn’t miss our own.

Yet, a mere summons to the CO’s office outside of the regular CO’s conference when all officers attended, made one’s blood run cold. What have I done now, one would ask oneself! Even talking politics got you one of those visits accompanied by a ‘warning’ at the very least! If you repeated the crime you were up for a ‘reprimand’, and so on up the scale.

And what, pray, is this particular aberration nay crime, in a (good) soldier’s book that I talk about? The banner held by around seven people among a ‘crowd’ of about 17 Commando supporters who turned out in Karachi in his support on Sunday April 12. The banner shows the Commando on the right, his fist raised defiantly, and Chief of Army Staff General Raheel Sharif, uniform and all, on the left, his arm raised too as if in support of the Commando. I ask you. The Commando supporters obviously took it from newspaper photographs of the COAS visiting SSG troops at Tarbela at which he raised his arm to accompany the troops in the usual slogans.

The people who sponsored the banner are: Mohammad Ali Sherwani, Wasi-ud-Din Ahmad, Syed Qasim Rizvi and Misbah ud Din Sheikh. If I had anything to do with the government or the Army I should have the lot of them arrested and vigorously prosecuted for sedition for using the picture of the sitting COAS on a party-political banner in trying to prove the Commando had his support.

This is another absolutely pathetic and unsavoury and disgraceful attempt to once again try to conflate the Commando with the Pakistan Army and the COAS with him. Someone must act now, before the situation really gets out of hand. The army could even try these seditionists, for that is what they are, by Court Martial under the Army Act, as their action brings the COAS himself into disrepute. For his part the Commando ought to be ashamed of himself.

On another tack, nothing gladdens my heart more than news that political leaders of different political parties, different ideologies, have met in a most cordial atmosphere. The body language was telling, showing two men at perfect ease with each other. This is all the more a happy augury given the recent needless tensions whipped up by a clutch of ill-intentioned people who suddenly find themselves on the wrong side of popular politics, and who are doing all they can to sow confusion and despair while feverishly stirring their poisonous pot.

I refer to the meeting between the Prime Minister and the former President. Kindly note that, as I have said before, I am one of those who have lived through the acrimony of the late 1980s between the PML and the PPP, and also played my sordid part in that unhappy time for democracy. I am doubly blessed that I have seen in my lifetime one-time fierce opponents come together for the sake of democracy and to face down adventurers of all stripes and colours.

I am gratified too that as another thrilled Pakistani, I saw the COD being signed by the much-lamented Benazir and Nawaz Sharif, once more the PM now, Masha’allah. I also consider myself fortunate enough to have seen Nawaz Sharif’s eyes brim with tears when I asked him in an interview I did for Dawn News how he felt when he heard about Benazir’s horrific assassination. I knew then that our main political parties had arrived so to say, and that no outside force would ever now derail democracy.

Now let us hope that the other big party, the PTI and its ‘cabinet’ realise too that all politicians must stand together to face down the ever-present threats machinated by some of our TV ‘anchors’ and then eagerly pursued by the agents of strife and discord and that they too will help face down the extra-constitutional forces whose ugly shadow forever looms across this country.

It was disappointing then, to see that whilst her party boss has said that another Martial Law will bring the country to ruin, Andleeb Abbas, of the PTI’s Punjab ‘cabinet’ has tweeted:

Nawaz Sharif to meet his mentor Asif Zardari...Agenda?...tips on how to remain in Govt despite ruining the country!!!

— Andleeb Abbas (@AndleebAbbas) April 16, 2014

More Royal than the King, no?

Published in The Express Tribune, April 18^th, 2014.

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