They Just Don’t Get It
By Nadir Khan, PhD
Alta Loma, CA
This past weekend was extremely exciting and promising for Pakistan and its future. The atmosphere is abuzz and there is a freshness in the air. The future suddenly started to look bright and glorious.
All of us do things without realizing how an action might unfold and what it may bring about. Benazir Bhutto and her Mr. Ten Percent husband thought that by making an agreement with Musharraf about their future by promulgation of a National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) they will return home, get elected and live happily thereafter.
But history had some other ideas and outcome in mind. Musharraf was removed, Benazir was assassinated, and lo and behold, Mr. Ten Percent became the resident of the Presidential Palace. No matter how cunning, shrewd, and ruthless Zardari may be, he is not very bright and certainly not a good student of history and not aware of changes in the air.
Pakistan ’s biggest tragedy, from its very inception, has been an antiquated and recalcitrant feudal system which has successfully kept the country backward. The lip service to democracy has been considered sufficient to maintain their stranglehold on the economic, political, and social life of a very promising country. Later on, the armed forces became co-conspirators in this tragic situation.
Citizens were treated as serfs, subjects, and vassals. Except for some urban areas, most of the country kept electing members of the same few families to decide our future. But they were not interested in us. They were interested in their own future. The middle class has literally disappeared. Pakistan was looking more like Haiti.
At least the armed forces are giving the impression of returning to their barracks. But the feudal system is still well entrenched and looking like a cemetery refusing to move. The only hopeful sign on the horizon is an independent judiciary, the heart throb of any vibrant polity. But hollow claims of respect for the judiciary are neither sufficient nor rewarding. Implementation of judicial decisions is what counts.
When the president and his cronies defy the highest court in the land, when the Governor of Punjab says that he is going to fly a kite during Basant despite the decision of the Lahore High Court not to do that, it does not say much about the rule of law. Whatever happened to Moral Authority?
There are two hopeful signs: the presence of a an honest and independent judiciary which is carefully navigating its way through the morass and a vibrant and vigilant media. The third and the most significant stage of public awareness is still in its nascent and growing pain period. The politicians have abundantly shown their contempt for everything decent and good in the country. It is incredible that in a country of 170 million people, we can have these corrupt and incompetent toadies leading the Land of the Pure. If this is the cream of the crop, it does not say much about the crop.
The last and most important stage is waiting in the wings: a revolt on the part of ordinary citizens to decide to throw these midgets out and to elect an entirely new and fresh leadership with a vision to make Pakistan what it was meant to be -- a modern, progressive Muslim state leading the Ummah to a different and higher level of achievement.
Let us tell these petty politicians that they can no longer hide anymore behind constitutional immunity, that it is a country of laws and not of men, that the days of accountability and transparency are here and the days of vaderas and feudal lords are over and done away with. And those who do not heed the call of the times are going to be relegated to the dustbin of history.
