No-fly zone

By all means let us challenge the VIP culture at every juncture, but do so within the bounds of the law

Whatever the real reason for the delay of flight PK-370, whether it was for what PIA called ‘technical reasons’, or because former minister Rehman Malik caused it to be held to suit himself; what was at issue was the pernicious VIP culture. It was at issue later on the same day when the captain of PIA flight PK-757 allegedly refused to fly to London because the wife of Nawaz Sharif and her daughter had brought their cook who was travelling with them in the first class section. The cabin crew protested to the pilot, he stood his ground, the members of the Sharif family reportedly told him that it is ‘the Sharif family airline’ and the cook eventually went back to economy class where she had a paid-for seat.



The incident with Rehman Malik was captured on cellphone cameras by several passengers, complete with audio and spread rapidly across the social media on the morning of September 16. Few, if any, sprang to the defence of the senator (and former interior minister), and some saw the incident as the start of a revolt against VIP culture. The blame-and-denial game started within minutes of the video going viral, statements were issued right and left and the waters swiftly muddied and remain muddied 24 hours later.

The people of Pakistan are heartily sick of being inconvenienced and brushed aside by their politicians — and others of elevated position — who believe in their unassailable right of primacy of passage. Whether it is in the air or on the ground these people demand and get ‘protocol’ and ‘respect’ on the entirely specious grounds that they are in some way more deserving than everybody else using the roads or airways. They stop traffic sometimes for extended periods, jump queues automatically, have their thugs intimidate anybody that might object to their behaviour and generally act like the kings and queens that they most assuredly are not. They are supported by obsequious police and grovelling captains of aircraft fearful for their jobs and the pernicious cycle goes round and round.

Privilege even extends to those who no longer hold office — Rehman Malik is no longer a minister — and the saga of the defeated MNAs who refused to vacate their parliamentary lodge accommodation after the last election dragged on for months. They eventually had to be forcibly evicted, protesting a violation of their ‘rights’ as they were, by the Capital Development Authority (CDA). Whilst nobody in Pakistan has yet gone as far as those protesting against corruption in Ukraine who manhandled a senior politician into a rubbish skip and then beat him with his own briefcase, one suspects that there will be many who would not raise a demurral were that ever to happen. The evicted ex-parliamentarians in Islamabad garnered not one iota of sympathy.

Two threads are intertwined with the incidents noted above. One is a deepening mistrust and outright dislike of politicians particularly those of the ‘Old Order’; and the other is an awakening that appears to be gathering pace by the day to the realisation that direct action can occasionally have dramatic results, all the more amplified if there is a cell phone with camera enabled waiting to capture every detail. Social media, particularly Twitter and Facebook in Pakistan, are avid consumers — and propagators — of gossip that is sometimes ill-founded, and a growing play-bill of the gaffes of those that purport to rule the nation. However, in this particular situation, they were important vehicles in channelling public resentment against the ruling elite.

Embarrassing a politician with an inflated sense of his own importance is all very well, but vigilantism is a slippery slope in a society as volatile and prone to violence as exists in Pakistan. The mob does not come equipped with a handbrake, and events all too quickly can slip out of control. By all means let us challenge the VIP culture at every juncture, expose those who abuse their position, but do so within the bounds of the law — a revolution we sense the people may welcome.

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

Like Opinion & Editorial on Facebook, follow @ETOpEd on Twitter to receive all updates on all our daily pieces.