The Tarzan Factor

Hey Mr VIP: wanna try keeping aircraft passengers waiting again?  Ever? Or lesson learnt?

Yes Mr or Mrs VIP will keep doing many things that VIPs in this country do, but holding an aircraft waiting won’t be among them. See, nothing works like a deluge of abuse from passengers, and the nation. And surely nothing works like a VIP caught doing the VIP thing on camera and then getting a right royal smacking on screens.



What we saw happening on that aircraft was an outrageously effective way to thrash some sense into those who strut around with a misplaced sense of entitlement. Sixty-four years of this abuse of power is enough and we won’t take it any more, one passenger was heard saying. He was right. This nonsense has to stop. And if it does not, then we the people will start meting out rough and ready justice.

Clap, clap. Rough and ready justice is well, rough. And to those wronged, it feels just right. You do wrong, you are introduced to pain. Simple. But sometimes simple is not good enough. Sometimes simple needs to be a bit more complex. And so in a strangely simple yet complex way, what happened on that aircraft says a lot about what is happening on D Chowk in Islamabad.

No, it’s not that much of a stretch. The fuming passengers dealt sternly with two VIPs. They threw them out. The fuming crowd at D Chowk is dealing with a parliament — full of VIPs. They want to throw them out. The passengers were wronged by the VIPs. The nation has been wronged by the rulers inhabiting the parliament, and other grim corridors of power. The passengers shouted, abused and said enough is enough. The crowd at D Chowk, and elsewhere, is also shouting, abusing and saying, enough.

Enough because what the passengers on the aircraft felt, and how they reacted, has resonated deeply with this nation. How dare these pompous, stuffy VIPs take us for granted. How dare these fat cats ruling us bend and twist the system to suit themselves at our expense. How dare the mighty use the law to whip us while using the same law to shield themselves. How dare they heap privileges on themselves while heaping scorn on us.

And this is precisely why Imran Khan and Tahirul Qadri’s rhetoric continues to resonate among the populace. Laced with vitriol and dipped in poison, their words are reverberating loudly across the country. People nod when they hear them. Yes we too want a better life, they say. We too want the rulers to play by the rules, and pay for the wrongs they commit. We too want to feel empowered like the passengers on the aircraft; empowered to hold the high and mighty by the scruffs of their necks and shake them till their teeth rattle. That would feel so good. That would feel so right. That would feel so just.

But simple is not always simple. The passengers threw out the pompous and stuffy VIPs from the aircraft. They did wrong.  They took the law into their own hands. They became a mob. And they did exactly what the mob does: hand out rough and ready justice. Imagine if they had allowed the VIPs to board the plane, and then shamed them throughout the journey. And yes filmed the shaming process. Imagine the impact that would have had. Imagine that.

Now imagine the crowd at D Chowk dragging out pompous and stuffy VIPs from the palatial buildings on that broad avenue, and meting out rough and ready justice. Yes you can hear the roars of approval; you can hear the cheering and jeering; and perhaps you can also sense that a lynching is imminent.

Do we want this to happen? If the answer is no, which it should be, then lynching a government amounts to the same thing. Yes indeed these fat cats who rule us need a good whacking; yes indeed they need to be force-fed lots of yucky-tasting humble pie; and yes they absolutely need to be shamed like the VIPs on the aircraft. But throwing them out like this is just plain simple wrong.

Do I hear howls of protest? Know this then: What Imran Khan and Tahir Qadri are saying is right. What Imran Khan and Qadri are doing is not right.

Together these two men have achieved what few could have imagined. They have stripped off the layers of hypocrisy that masks the real face of our fat cat rulers, and exposed them for what they are: archaic political creatures increasingly out of step with the sentiments of the nation. Together these two men have thrust their hands inside the throats of these fat cats and pulled out concessions that needed to be pulled out. Together these two men have brought such Titans to their knees and forced them to acquiesce to just demands.

But time to stop now. Yes, because for these two men, slowly and surely, the law of diminishing returns is setting in. Slowly and surely, the plot is being lost; their grip is being loosened; their narrative being weakened; their moral strength being sapped. This is bad for all of us. Both men deserve to walk away as victors. Yes, they need to walk away. And when do they, they will be clutching under their arms a bouquet of reforms that will surely weaken the fat cats and strengthen this nation.

The alternative is twofold. And terrible. One, both men succeed somehow in smashing the government and system, and then beating their chests like Tarzan. Might then would indeed have become right. We might as well kiss this infantile democracy goodbye.

Two, both men stay where they are and gradually get reduced to two lonely men withering away in the full glare of cameras. Till the cameras also get tired and walk away. Fat cats would then beat their chests like Tarzan and we may as well kiss all thoughts of reform and progress away.

Tarzans we do not need.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 21^st, 2014.

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