The times they ain’t a’changing…

As some sort of comparison, in the same way that my good old friend, columnist Ayaz Amir, bangs on and on (of course with no result) about the ubiquitous plastic ‘shoppers’ that, for far too long, have littered this country from end to end, north to south, east to west, up and down, clogging up sewers, drains and streets, this column tends to bang on about the political beings who, for far too long, have littered the ‘system’, clogging up all available means of 21^st century progress.

Circulating on the net is a list of eight beings, probably just the tip of the heap, who in their own way, are relics of what undeniably and universally acknowledged was the worst of the worst eras Pakistan has seen. From 1985 to 1988 — count, we are now in 2014 — whilst General Ziaul Haq was president and CMLA, Shah Mahmood Qureshi’s father, Makhdoom Sajjad Qureshi, was governor of Punjab; Nawaz Sharif was chief minister of that same province; Javed Hashmi was an honourable member of ZuH’s ‘shura’; minister Khwaja Asif’s father, Khwaja Safdar, was speaker of the ‘shura’; Senator and PML-N chairman Raja Zafarul Haq was ZuH’s ‘opening batsman’ and his information minister; minister Khurram Dastigir’s father, Dastigir Khan, was a minister; minister Iqbal Ahsan’s mother, Aapa Nisar Fatima, sat in the ‘shura’; and Tahirul Qadri was khateeb of the Ittefaq mosque and the Sharif family’s pir.

Most readers have probably seen this and laughed. The point is that like the plastic ‘shopper’, it is no cause for mirth; it is just an indication of how stagnant is politics and how the stagnation grows from strength to strength, literally getting us nowhere. The PML-N and the PPP (Zardari dates back to 1988) are brothers-in-arms; they would be quite content to produce the same jaded faces over and over again and play their twosome game of musical chairs for as long as they remain standing. How the PPP can manage to do so is another question, broken and down as it is, vainly (so far) seeking revival.

Something has to give, there must be some way of breaking out, of clearing up the clogging. Military takeovers are not the answer as we have seen with Pervez Musharraf; they merely perpetuate the mess by turning to old politicos as a means of propping up and attempting to legitimise military rule. So what is needed? The most popular solution now put forth by those who realise that the constant revival of old and failed ‘has-beens’ must be stemmed if the country is to move onwards is massive, all encompassing electoral reforms in the hope that they will usher in new, fresh, untainted blood.

Imran Khan, and to a lesser extent, the former Sharif pir, had their chance but lacking political nous and downright common sense, they fluffed up. Rather than getting a vital message over to the highly numbered supporters Imran had, and to the flailing government, that electoral reforms were vital and must be implemented, he strayed into ridiculous territory and lost the plot. But all is not over, if he could sit down and think, shed the old termite-ridden wood around him, rally himself and his forces, there may be a way.

Why are we where we are? Well, think back to the appointment of Justice Fakhruddin Ebrahim as chief election commissioner, and to that ludicrous caretaker government installed to oversee the 2013 elections. Who put them where they were and why? They were there simply because their capabilities and incapabilities were known and recognised. We knew the result of the elections long before they took place. It was not a fair and level playing field.

The crimes committed in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan in the name of democracy tempered with religiosity are multiple, divisive and destructive. For as long as the relics of the 1980s remain, so will it be.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 22^nd, 2014.

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