Imran Has to Clean His Own House
By Karamatullah K. Ghori
Toronto, Canada

 

It was a horrible thing that happened to unsuspecting, innocent, people of Karachi at Keamari Port last week. At least 15 of them died from inhaling what was said to be poisonous fumes.

On February 18, Karachi University’s Chemistry Research Center—which had been founded by a great philanthropist Haji Jamal and had the late Dr Salimuzzaman Siddiqui as its first head, and later had the distinction of being headed by world-renowned Pakistani scientist, Dr Ataur Rehman—came up with its findings that pinned the source of the tragedy on a Soybean cargo ship docked at Keamari.

The Karachi University findings said that because of careless unloading of the Soybean cargo from the ship by crane operators of the port, dust particles of Soybean had been released in the air. Inhaled by unsuspecting people in the area, it led to their unfortunate death.

Soybean dust particles have been pinned down by several researchers in Europe and elsewhere as the source of cases of asthma. In the Spanish port city of Barcelona, for instance, 26 cases of widespread asthma have been reported since 1961. The sources in each case has been Soybean dust.

Soybean shipments destined for Karachi—until recently—had been handled at Karachi’s alternative Port Qasim. There, because of the sensitivity of the cargo, whenever Soybean cargo was off-loaded, the cranes used to be covered, fully, as is, and should be, the norm in regard to this commodity. This time, however, for reasons yet to be explained, the shipment of Soybean, on board an American cargo ship, was diverted to Keamari where the tragedy occurred.

The tragedy occurred because crane operators were negligent and careless. Human life has no value in our culture. It can be taken away for a variety of reasons and it doesn’t shock the conscience of those who are supposed to be guardians of people’s lives and interests.

In this case, too, it seems that guardians of Pakistan aren’t prepared to own any responsibility for this horrific tragedy, which could have been avoided had there been a little bit of care taken by those in charge of the Keamari Port. But it wasn’t.

A man of such impeccable credentials as Dr Ata ur Rehman—whose opinions carry the sanctity of a respectable scholar—has vouched for the accuracy of KU’s findings in this deadly occurrence. However, Ali Zaidi, a pompous and spoiled brat from the inner circle of Imran Khan—and who also happens to be a cabinet minister—stoutly denies that KU’s findings are accurate.

Brazenly sticking to his guns, Ali Zaidi hectored at a TV talk-show, on the very same day that the KU report was released and became public property, that it wasn’t the case and Soybean particles, released in the air, were not the villain in this case.

It isn’t the first time that a factotum of Imran Khan has made an utter fool of himself and so proudly put his ignorance on public display. Only last month, another upstart lieutenant of IK, and another cabinet colleague of his, Faisal Vaoda, had pulled up a soldier’s polished shoe from his bag, in the middle of another TV talk-show, and pompously displayed it on the podium. He was—as in the case of Ali Zaidi—brazenly unapologetic, too, of his macabre sense of humor.

Publicly displayed outrageous and infuriating acts of arrogance seem to becoming norms with IK’s minions and cohorts. Their self-absorption is so overpowering and self-consuming that they seem not to have any foreboding of the damage done to their credibility. But much more than that, they seem to have no sense, at all, how their infantile and petulant conduct is tarnishing the image of their ‘leader.’

It would be an under-statement that IK’s problems are mounting by the day. The crushing burden of a run-away inflation on the common man is causing the greatest damage to his standing with the people. He has been desperately trying to deal with those responsible for the shortage in the availability of wheat flour and sugar to ordinary consumers. But that, at best, may be an effort to stem bleeding with BandAids.

The government’s lackluster performance in managing the economy is the betenoire in plummeting IK’s goodwill with the people. Of course, it’s his chosen managers of the economy who can’t escape owning responsibility for the debacle. But as the leader of Pakistan, IK has to carry the lion’s share of the blame.

Imran Khan’s political rivals and self-indulgent media gurus may, at times, be a bit too harsh in their critique and condemnation of him. He isn’t, by any stretch of imagination, the ‘dark prince’ they paint him to be. However, there’s a fair amount of truth in the critics’ broad-brush caricature of him being still in the mold of ‘on- the-container’ image that he can’t seem to brush off.

His rhetoric as PM of Pakistan is still, more often than not, that of a leader of the opposition. He gets into his elements—sadly those of a demagogue—when he may be assailing his mega-thief opponents and rivals like Nawaz and Zardari. He has yet to learn how to moderate his tone, and style, as the leader of Pakistan.

And borrowing a leaf from their leader, his minions and lieutenants, haven’t felt any compulsion of their own to behave like responsible people with the burden of governance on their shoulders. Their rhetoric is as soap-box-like as that of their leader.

So, it doesn’t matter whether it’s Faisal Vaoda thumbing his nose, on a live TV talk-show, at his political opponents in PML-N or PPP, or Ali Zaidi making an utter fool of himself by denouncing the authentic research of academics as unauthentic, just because he got an obtuse sense of the tragedy that has engulfed the people of Karachi because of errant port workers.

Any non-partisan pundit of the Pakistani scene would conclude that there’s an urgent and unavoidable need for IK to do some serious house-cleaning.

One, he needs a new team of competent managers of economy, still hobbled by myriad challenges and problems. As these lines are being written, FATF plenary session is on in Paris. Among other things, this session will decide whether Pakistan should remain on FATF’s ‘Grey List’ or be allowed to move out of it. Pakistan’s fate—and the future of its economic discourse, vis-à-vis the outside world—hangs in the balance. It’s, in the truest sense of the word, the Sword of Damocles hanging over Pakistan’s head.

Two, he must, for his own sake, show the door in his cabinet and inner-circle, to errant performers, such as Fisal Vaoda and Ali Zaidi. These out-of-bound characters may have suited Imran when he was in the opposition. They are, at best, rabble-rousers whose utility doesn’t go beyond the hustings in an election campaign. But they are utterly unsuited to hold responsible positions of authority. Immature and un-couth, they are doing far more damage to their leader—with their unbridled self-absorption—than any of his opponents.

It’s high time for IK to discard excess baggage before his boat gets rocked because of it. He may not get another wake-up call. K_K_ghori@hotmail.com

(The author is a former ambassador and career diplomat)