So where are we?

With Eid a few days away and there being no sign of the government of Nawaz Sharif and the PML-N abdicating in the foreseeable future, our very own homespun revolution seems to be running out of steam. The supporters of Dr Q have been told that they can go home for the holiday, and those of IK that they can enjoy a moveable feast as Containerstan goes from city to city in the coming weeks.

As we move into October, the predictions by our revolutionary leaders that the government would vanish in a puff of smoke on September 1 are long forgotten. Whatever ‘negotiations’ there were between the two sides have got nowhere — and one wonders what there really was to negotiate about anyway. The electronic media whip up a studio-based frenzy that is nowhere mirrored on the streets of the nation, and Pakistan dozes its way into the cooler months seemingly unmoved.

Ah but … something has changed. Things are never going to be the same again. Politics is going to be different. Oh yes … you mark my words, this is the end of an era and of the dynasts who ruled it. Well actually no, very little has changed below the surface, and as for the events of the last six weeks having been transformative, there is precious little evidence of that either.

The exercise of a little people power in the form of a protest against the VIP culture was hailed as a turning point as well. It was not. The VIPs will do as they please, and the man who briefly starred in a camera-phone epic set in an aircraft doorway has been sacked by his employers. No crowds have formed to protest this injustice beyond the wide plazas of the Twitterverse and Facebook.

Furthermore, there have been no nationwide protests against the blatant exploitation of privilege, power and corruption — and no, a rally in Lahore or anywhere else does not count as a revolution, more it is a fun day out for a population starved of anything remotely like having a good time.

Whatever the personal qualities of the two men leading from the front, they appear to be surrounded, certainly in the case of IK, by people who have been recycling themselves in the political churn for decades in pursuit of their goal of heading up a motorcade in the future. There is no new blood; no coming of the men and women who will staff the revolution once it has taken place. There may be young leaders somewhere in the throng, but they have yet to break surface and breathe the air of… something or other.

Ah yes … but but but Mr Chris … things are going to change. Really. They are. Honestly. It will all be different.

It won’t — at least not for a long time. Things will indeed change as that is in the very nature of all things, nothing is wholly immutable. Truly revolutionary political change is relatively rare in historical terms, and where violent revolution has overthrown states, it is generally followed by a period of chaos, while things get sorted out, alongside considerable bloodletting and the settling of old scores.

So, this is not a revolution Dear Reader, but it may prove to be political evolution on fast-forwards. Those in power today are not going to relinquish it easily, and those who wish to replace them have much to learn in the school of political hard knocks — and I do not mean the men atop the containers, I mean the young men and women who will have to forge a new polity that has brains as well as brawn. That can re-vision Pakistan and turn that vision into something beyond the rhetoric and bombast.

They may well be out there, this next generation of change-agents, and I really hope they are because yes, something has to change and even I at my most curmudgeonly can see that.

You want change? Then be very careful what you wish for, because the dream-merchants atop their modern-day soapboxes are not selling much of substance. We may all in principle — and I certainly do — espouse their core message of change, but thus far, it comes without a roadmap. Tootle-pip!

Published in The Express Tribune, October 2^nd, 2014.

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