May 23 , 2008

Hide N’ Seek

 

“Hide and Seek” is not just an innocent children’s game.  It is also played with equal gusto by adults, especially so, in Pakistan -- hiding intentions and seeking self-advantage without mercy for the legitimate rights and concerns of others.
In October 1999, the then-Prime Minister hid his intentions from the then COAS.  The simpler and more sensible thing may have been for the COAS to be summoned for a cup of tea, where a one-on-one good-faith attempt could have been made to clear the air.  Certainly, the skies would not have fallen.  Instead, a more convoluted route was chosen, with disastrous effect. 
Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto also sprang a surprise in 1976 by handpicking a COAS, superseding half a dozen worthy contenders.  In effect, he selected his own hangman.  Had this decision been duly vetted, its side-effects would have been readily apparent. 
In the summer of 2004, the presidency was equally sly by imposing – via a dubious process, which was never fully digested – a prime minister with feeble leadership skills, thus paving the stumbling path of crisis upon crisis. 
Intentions are sometimes kept hidden from even close associates, who are likely to be most affected by the blowback repercussions of bad decisions.
The game of musical chairs, which is at the core of politicking here, is often a brazen exhibition of maneuvering and how to act without self-respect when the ultimate goal is chair-seeking. Machiavelli would have been thrilled to find so many puny clones of his ‘Prince’ flourishing. 
Elements of self-focused and inconsiderate behavior are in resplendent display, whether it is in washrooms or at wedding extravaganzas where food is occasionally attacked with ferocious disregard for others.  In public offices, queues are routinely jumped and the principle of first-come-first-served squashed. 
No opportunity is spared to make the common citizen feel small.
There is an aura of permanent entitlement which surrounds the over-privileged seekers, who feel little shame in stacking the cabinet, parliament, and other sinecure posts with their kith and kin, with no thought about usurping the rights of the meritorious. 
The overriding philosophy is me-first. 
The big losers in the game of hide-and-seek are the values of trust and fairness.  Those were the values that drove the Pakistan Movement under the leadership of the Quaid, whose uncompromising honesty and strength of character were attested to even by his staunchest foes. 
But the more recent narrative is replete with episodes of stealth and deception, of loot-all and grab-all.  Beneath the burqa of democracy is plutocracy.  The pioneers of the nation did not envision the homeland to be an oasis for the privileged few. 
It is this unchanging perception of an unfair system which gives particular rise to despondency amongst the youth.  This perception is unlikely to change when there is rot at the top.
Sixty years after Pakistan’s independence, the time may have come for a brutal self-examination.  A few key questions are simply unavoidable: where do things stand, what is happening, and what to expect? 
Seeing the sordid results of following the same old beaten track, the moment is now to try a new and different approach which appeals to nobler aspirations of fairness.
The task may look Herculean but it is much simpler compared to the heroic effort put to making Pakistan, against all odds, 60 years ago.