Down the abyss

This ‘land of the pureed’ digs deeper into morass of destruction, resurrecting the dead, worship sacrifice, martyrdom.

This blighted land just can’t get it right. It has blundered along forever, to the point where it now seems a distant dream that it can take a respected place in a comity of democratic nations committed to the 21st century and progress. It has not even been one step forward and two backward — it has been simply backward.

Lawlessness has been around since the 1970s to the stage where now the sole law that seems to be followed and favoured by the state and its mobs of bigoted illiterates is the one that is increasingly being misused these days. The ruling classes and the so-called educated uppers rest in fear and silence while brainwashed individuals and mobs, with impunity, wreak revenge, greed and pent-up violence (probably also their form of recreation) and commit murder using religion as a cover. Can one lay all blame at Ziaul Haq’s feet, absolving those that followed and forgetting that Zulfikar Bhutto was the one who paved the way for Zia and his self-styled interpretation of faith? No, we cannot. No leader, military or civil, has had the guts, or perhaps the nous to recognise wrong, and tackle the misuse of religion by retrogressive forces.



Pervez Musharraf, now charged with a multitude of crime, treasonous and others, should be charged with not doing what he could have done when he held supreme power. Had he been what he is not, a perfect dictator in the mould of his hero Ataturk, genuinely believing in ‘Pakistan first’, he could have in a few fell swoops taken on the militant mindset and its backers — after all Nawaz Sharif in a previous coming managed Sundays over Fridays in one television appearance (granted, with his own industrial and financial empires in mind). Musharraf chose the retention of power path, pandering to the religious right and politicians fearful of the holy brethren.

Now we have back Sharif, with his evergreen teammates, legacies of Zia and his army who and which (under orders) distorted religion. So we cannot possibly expect any succour from this lot for the blight inflicted last century – they can’t help it, old habits and tutoring at the feet of the master are ingrained (always remember the shelved 15th amendment).

Democracy normally dictates the separation of church or whatever from the state for good reason as this country must at one point, if it can sort itself out into survival mode, realise. Democracy also normally dictates that elections are a cleansing process, weeding out the individual failures, even disaster-makers, and bringing in fresh minds and faces. But this ‘land of the pureed’ – as one witty columnist lately came up with as a headline – digs itself deeper and deeper into a morass of destruction, resurrecting the dead, worshipping sacrifice and martyrdom. This third coming of a man who was supposed to have been converted, learnt a lesson, and with a reconditioned mind has turned out to be a flop. He has brought in with him men who have been tried and failed. The hopes of the foolish who had them are dashed to the ground.

And what lies in opposition, one party which did nothing but complete a five-year term and is now trying to make the right noises, the once-shining newcomer with his dubious team and allies which threaten to drag the republic into more of a mess than it already is. What are the choices that lie ahead? Not even worth a mention.

Where is the knight in shining armour with a sharp lance?

Published in The Express Tribune, May 24^th, 2014.

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