Attitudes anonymous

When the general hogs the headlines, shunting prime ministerial deeds to the inner pages, well, he’s earned it

It should not be a matter of ease, that is, if one is at all interested, in getting one’s head around the grotesque story of a citizen of Pakistan, Abdul Basit, who has been sitting in a wheelchair on one of our local death rows since 2010. He was convicted in 2009 and it was in prison that he developed the disease which led to the loss of the use of his legs.

Earlier this year, his death warrant was issued. He was scheduled to be hanged last month. Prior to that, during his appeal to the Lahore High Court, the method of his execution was debated. How do you hang a man in a wheelchair? The prison officials were told to come up with a suitable plan. The jail manual proved to be a blockage, there was no way round the rules. The Supreme Court dismissed his appeal, stipulating that his hanging must be carried out but according to the rules.

Amazingly enough, rules prevailed and thwarted — one of those rarest of occasions in this Islamic Republic. But try they did, the Faisalabad jail lot. Reportedly, Basit was taken to the gallows but as his escorts were unable to make him stand (mandatory under the rules), the magistrate, doctors and jail officials had no option but to call it off — for the time being. To carry out court orders, prison rules will have to be amended. Over to the government of the ruling province!

Hangings are no longer hot news — some 250 strung up, thousands left to go, so no big deal within the republic. But outside it’s a different matter. A string of hangings of men convicted under an admitted wonky, slack and even corrupt judicial system, and a couple of hangings of those convicted of crimes committed when juveniles aroused international opprobrium. The Basit story was big news from Norway to New Zealand, a gruesome tale of the application of justice combined with human rights in a country falling abysmally short on both counts. The death penalty is contentious, the pros and cons hotly debated. But in most countries of what is known as the civilised democratic world, it is condemned. In a grand show of magnanimity, coupled with our well-recorded national hypocrisy, hangings were suspended by the federal government during the month of Ramazan-Ramadan. Exactly what message does that send and to whom?

We now have military courts, sanctioned by the Supreme Court and parliament. Our army chief is a stern upholder of the death penalty when it comes to those convicted of acts of terrorism. That is his prerogative and his due. General Raheel Sharif’s influence and the national and international recognition given to him is also his due. He has managed to do for his countrymen what the politicians they elected in as their representatives have, deliberately or otherwise, not done — they have accepted no responsibility for governing the country and have merely pursued their policies, practiced over three decades, of undermining their country’s credibility nationally and internationally.

So when the general hogs the headlines, as he so often does, shunting prime ministerial deeds and words to the inner pages, well, he’s earned it. The nation cheers him on. The powers outside well know who calls the shots in Pakistan, and they don’t seem the least bothered about it. He makes the news. Watching Wimbledon on PTV (an ordeal as its luminaries are maddening when it comes to breaks in transmission) this year, our government-controlled channel’s ticker tape recorded continuous ‘breaking news’. The chief of army staff was visiting his local headquarters in Quetta.

Hail to the chief! But, please, general, trash the sycophancy that surrounds you. Say farewell, when your due time is up, to your well-endowed army and go home with your head held high.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 3^rd, 2015.

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