Pakistan: A Country where Illusions Thrive
By Mohammad Ashraf Chaudhry
Pittsburg, CA
“The bad thing about a little sin is that it won’t stay little.”
Illusions and shadows have wrapped Pakistan like people wrap themselves in winter. Ghosts and ghouls saunter everywhere. A culture of fantasy and illusion thrives best in places where people lose faith and hope in themselves and in their institutions that keep them functional. People get driven to a state in which despair and cynicism settles in their hearts. Their strength loses foresight, and their might morality. It is in such a world of flickering shadows that people in desperation tend to rely on “Conspiracy Theories”, and begin to take illusions for facts. Instead of facing the hard facts of life, and mending their leaking roofs while the sun still shines, they quicken their pace of running after the shadows.
The dazed people of Pakistan in the recent past have been buffeted in quick succession by many a mysterious and illusionary character. First came Imran Khan like a Tsunami, predicting and promising a big change. The Economist called him a “Wild Card”. Tens of thousands gathered in the open looking towards the sky, little realizing that the rain comes only when the sky is overcast. Change is a sign of growth, and is a natural outcome of commitment and perseverance; it is never the result of some loudest but empty slogans. Then came on his heels, and again all of a sudden and from nowhere, not one but a whole set of dirty-dozen- fire-brand zealots and hardliners, visiting the people like a virus, concretizing themselves in a body called, The National Defense Council (NDC). They emitted fire, brimstones and sulphur, embittering even those who still held on to some residue of healthy sweetness. They promised to do the undoable, i.e. “Taming the Shrew” – America - and of the lifting the curse of the present-day government from the people. Nothing happened. Now, God knows what happened to them!
And then on December 23 of the year 2012, and on 14 th of January of the New Year, the country and the people both got hit like never before by what one may style to label as The Qadria Factor. This happening was different because it carried some method in it. The Qadria Factor, like the other two, receded with the same speed and spontaneity with which they had advanced. The Qadria phenomenon, however, established the fact that mobs can be disciplined too. Dr. Tahir ul Qadri, like the Nikku of Ghulam Abbas’ story, was not, after all, as ineffective as the other two had been. The Pundits scratch their heads about his genesis, and the Economist even names the source behind him - the Establishment/ the Army, but the real beauty of the Qadria Factor lies in its mystery. My mind takes me to Nikkuof Ghulam Abbas’ story, Jawari.
NIKKU was an established gambler who ran a gambling spot with the fullest blessings of the police. People from all walks of life came for a pastime to his gambling place. One day the police raided his gambling house and hauled up all the people engaged in the act. It is customary with the police to do so from time to time. Unfortunately those who were detained, they included some “well-reputed and well-respected gentlemen’ too. These “shurafaa” got really upset over the new development as Nikku’s place, in their perception and understanding, enjoyed the reputation of being a totally risk-free place. While all the detainees stood scared, Nikku appeared least perturbed. He still kept asserting confidently, “Just don’t worry. Nothing will happen to you. The SHO is my chum. You all will be out of here as imperceptibly as a hair stuck in a butter-bar is taken out”. Once they reached the police station, the SHO acted unpredictably. He, in a matter of fact manner, commanded one of his subordinates to strip naked all the detainees, and to inflict one hundred shoe-strikes on the bare buttocks of each one of them.
Once the process of “chitroll” was completed, the “thanedar” thundered in a warning tone and said, “Now, get out of here, and don’t ever you think of gambling again .” The detainees proceeded with their heads down, walking in pain and in shame. After having gone about a hundred yards away from the Police Station, Nikku all of a sudden stopped, and burst into a loud laughter. Such was the intensity of his fit that he would not stop. Finally he stopped, and addressing his clients, he spoke to them, “Didn’t I tell you that nothing would happen to you. And as you can see, no FIR, not even a Court trial, and not even a penny’s fine had been levied on you. I told you, it would be nothing but just a joke.” The people of Pakistan like those “respectable gamblers” face such humiliations inflicted on them on daily basis by their leaders for having committed the sin of ever gambling even for fun-sake, i.e., committing the sin of electing them. Watch now, the fourth shadow that is likely to fold them in its lap - the arrival of their erstwhile president, Pervez Musharraf.
There is another crude analogy which keeps circulating among the people in Brazil, and which I can’t resist sharing. The Brazilians quote it frequently when they get frustrated with their corrupt judicial system and with the theatrics of their politicians. A person suspected that his wife was cheating on him. He wanted to catch her red-handed. One day he saw his wife going along with another man and he followed her. Both of them went into a hotel room. The husband peeped through the key hole to reassure himself that she was actually cheating on him. He saw her embracing the man, and then flinging off their clothes. It is at this point that his wife’s underwear fell on the door-knob, and blocked his view, stopping him from seeing as to what happened next. The husband heaved a sigh of relief and said, “Thanks God, my faith in my wife’s fidelity is still intact”.
The poor people of Pakistan are like this Brazilian husband, who keep on sticking to their “loyal and virtuous politicians”, because they do not see the inevitable taking place with their own naked eyes. Even when caught with hands in the cookie jar, and involved from head to toe in corruption, the leaders keep telling the credulous people, “What is the proof?...What is the evidence? Why don’t you take us to the Supreme Court? etc.” There is a flea-market of electable politicians on sale these days, and both the main parties, the ruling PPP and the PML (N) are doing their bidding. Even anchor persons like Iftikhar Ahmed can be heard saying on TV, “What is wrong with the practice? Unless there is coercion, it is perfectly permissible in democracy.” So this is how democracy is explained and is understood in Pakistan. The French philosopher, Tocqueville on his visit to the fledgling democracy in America once said, “Democracy was more than simply the right to vote; it was a habit of the heart, a deeply rooted set of beliefs …” The Qadria Factor did one good job at least. He voiced people’s frustration well. As is endorsed by Rasul Bakh Raees, professor of politics, “Qadri espouses democratic principles that resonate with many in Pakistan who long for better governance.” Without a free will to vote; and without a free and fair process of voting, and without the presence of some character in the candidates who aspire to be elected, all voting is nonsense; a messy business .
Pakistan is a country where people by nature, culture, tradition and fashion love to create heroes and then love to worship them. If there are none, they feel as if incomplete, and repent for the void. From family unit to the public life; from the class room to the clinic; from politics to religion, the cult of hero worship is rife and rampant. Blind obedience is deemed, as an asset and as a virtue. It is a country where people sit and stand for hours on a mere phone call made from outside the country. Fifty thousand people sat in rain and cold with women and children, while their leader spoke to them from a bullet-proof container, and at one point asked them to “stand up”, and they all stood up. “Now sit down”, and they all sad down. Fifty thousand computers or mechanized dummies when hooked together would not act like that. At least a dozen would default, but not people in Pakistan. Slaves during the Roman times enjoyed more liberty than these people.
Difference of opinion in Pakistani narrative is classified and is taken as a mark of rudeness, defiance in the least, and as a threat in politics to the maximum. Chris Hedges in his beautiful book, “Empire of Illusion”, points out some of the myths of illusions that we all tend to create and worship. “We are chained to the flickering shadows of celebrity culture, the spectacle of the arena and the airwaves, the lies of advertising, the endless personal dramas… the celebrity gossip”. People just follow the leaders who have “money, might and manipulative power”, was also said by Dr. Tahir ul Qadri. “In the contemporary culture the fabricated, the inauthentic, and the theatrical have displayed the natural, the genuine, and the spontaneous, until reality itself has been converted into stage-craft”, says Daniel Boorstin about America, but which is equally true of Pakistan. We live in a world in which fantasy is more real than reality, and the best politicians and religious leaders are those who are best in their theatrics, in their stagecraft.
Celebrity culture is, at its core, the denial of death; it is the illusion of immortality says Chris Hedges. And it is so true. Fawzia Wahab, a very vocal leader of the PPP died, defending the corrupt leadership up to her last breath; governor Salman Taseer got assassinated in the capital of the country, proving that the PPP leadership daily took a shower in the holy water of Zamzam. Barrister Aitzaz, Dr. Baber Awan, Faisal Raza Abidi, and many more earned their hell for defending what had been so obvious. They believed in the “innocence” of their leadership like the Brazilian husband did in the fidelity of his wife. The death of these two serving PPP leaders hardly ever made the PPP leadership realize that they were mortals too. They continued with the business as usual. Winning elections in Pakistan is a robotic game.
Sean Wilentz in his book ‘The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln.” says that America did not wake up one day to find itself basking in the sunshine of democracy. Minority rights, which President Bush termed as the “common principles” of democracies, were non-existent when America declared its independence in 1776. The Founders owned slaves, and they excluded Blacks, women and many landless white men from voting. Free speech had often been elusive, and even the most cherished and most talked about virtue of the American Constitution, the system of checks and balances, got off to a rocky start because early presidents simply ignored Supreme Court rulings, says Sean Wilentz. In his worlds, the Republic of America was not ‘Democratic”, and nor does those who were in power wished it to be so. Thomas Jefferson was in a distinct minority when he declared, “I am not among those who fear the people”. The power of people was deemed as something dangerous, a sure recipe to ruin the country. Most reconsidered it like being in “a blind alley”, the reason being that they regarded people as “impassioned, unenlightened masses”. Since the direction of the Democracy was correct, America in a period of just 87 years , starting from the Declaration of Independence in 1776 to the passing of the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, ended slavery, consolidated the a country that was at the verge of disintegration, and emerged through the ashes of the Civil War as a new country. Leadership makes the difference.
(Continued next week)
