Straight-talk
It is now the People’s Call to Uplift Pakistan
By Karamatullah K. Ghori
Toronto, Canada
Imran’s fall from a ‘lifter’ at an election rally in Lahore was an unfortunate accident. But this accidental fall of his could well prove to be the God-send ‘lift’ in his electoral fortunes that his doting followers were hoping for.
History is replete with accidents and near-misses that dramatically turned the fortunes, not just of individuals but of nations and the world.
Not digging too much the history of antiquity, recall a few instances from history of the past two centuries. What if Karl Marx hadn’t been shunned by the snooty Times of Londonand allowed to work as a journalist? What if Adolf Hitler hadn’t been refused admission to Vienna’s Arts Academy and given a chance to paint? What if Gandhi hadn’t been thrown off that ‘Whites Only’ compartment of a South African train for being a coloured man? What if Mohammad Ali Jinnah hadn’t relented to return to India, in mid-1930s, from his plush living in London to take command of the leaderless Muslims of India?
Just think of what course Pakistan’s history would have taken if Zulfi Bhutto hadn’t been so greedy as to rig the polls, in 1977 that he could have still won handily without it?
And why not think of the tragedy that consumed us, on December 27, 2007, in the murder of Benazir Bhutto? You think PPP would have done as well as it did, at the 2008 polls, without that BB sympathy vote buoying it and paving the way with gold for a thieving Zardari?
Accidents, let’s concede, have a habit of re-writing history in ways unforeseen and unanticipated. Serendipity has a place of distinction in the fate and fortunes of individuals and nations.
Thank God that Imran escaped with a toll seemingly minor compared to the gravity of the accident.
Thank god that a nation already bleeding, profusely, with a thousand cuts inflicted by the merciless and blood-thirsty Taliban has been spared another tragedy that it couldn’t have borne without haemorrhage.
Imran may be out of the woods but the nation he has committed himself to serve, no matter what toll this may exact from him, isn’t.
It goes without saying that the Imran Factor has injected something new into the arcane political culture of Pakistan. For the befuddled people of Pakistan Imran’s induction into politics may well be the breath of fresh air they so badly needed to escape the suffocation perpetuated by its traditional politicians and their politics of sharing of spoils.
Imran’s call for a Naya Pakistan is stirring. He has taken the tide of the times at its crest introducing a new calculus of politics.
Until he burst on the political scene, Pakistani politics had been a cloistered domain of feudal-barons and those who may not be feudal by birth, or pedigree, but had quickly adapted to the feudal moorings of politics.
A man of action—who had earlier galvanised Pakistan’s cricket with his dynamic captaincy—Imran shunned the culture of slogan-fed and deception-based politics. He never sought to delude and mislead the people of Pakistan with the kind of vacuous slogans that were never backed up with anything tangible.
Imran, with a charisma as captivating as Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto’s, struck a different course for himself and his politics than Bhutto’s deceptive sloganeering.
Zulfi Bhutto was a master of deception and a personification of hypocrisy, par excellence. He was a believer that one could make fools of the people, all of the time, with guile and guts. But he was dead wrong, and his walk to the gallows proved him wrong beyond any iota of doubt.
Imran is straight as arrow. He isn’t a practitioner of deception and believes in the ultimate power of the truth. He says what he believes in. And because of this faculty of his my candid advice to him—when he mentioned his intent of floating a political party of his own in a conversation in Kuwait and sought my opinion—was that he was ill-suited to survive in Pakistan’s political culture of deceit and deception.
I’m glad Imran didn’t take my advice. I’m glad he decided to take the plunge into the cess-pool of Pakistani politics. I’m glad he decided to take the bull by its horns.
I’m glad Imran has lived up to what he said to me, on that occasion in Kuwait when I was trying to dissuade him from the uncharted route of party-politics. What he said was true then and is true, to date: Someone has to have the gumption and guts to cleanse the Augean Stables of Pakistani politics.
Imran has already turned the Pakistani politics on its head by focusing his energies to energising the youths of Pakistan. And why shouldn’t he? Pakistan, after all, is a young and green nation, with 70 percent of its population under 35. These elections, 2013, are bringing into the equation 12 million new voters—all of them young.
However, this youthful force of new voters has been like a rudderless ship. It couldn’t see anyone at the helm articulating their hopes and ambitions and ready to give them a platform from which they could vent their hopes for a Pakistan in sync with their aspirations.
Imran, with his impeccable sense of timing (a necessary and required finesse for success in cricket) did just that: he offered the bemused and despairing youth the platform of his Tehreek-e-Insaf.
So, on this sad day—and just days before the country goes to the polls---while he lies all stitched up and convalescing in his Shaukat Khanum Hospital—Imran’s message to the people of Pakistan is simple: It’s your country and your future. You’ve spent far too much of your personal and nation’s capital in holding on to discredited politicians. You should experiment no more by still reposing your trust in leaders who have failed to deliver your dreams, over and over again.
It doesn’t take a genius to understand the clear and categorical message contained in that pithy saying of one of 20 th century’s wisest men, Albert Einstein: ‘It’s sign of madness to do the same thing over and over again, and expect different results.’
The people of Pakistan aren’t mad by any reckoning. But they must prove for all and sundry, beyond any shade of doubt, that they are sane enough to choose the right people to lead them to a New Pakistan. They must show political savvy by discarding the tried-and-tested from the pack of jackals in the electoral field, albeit many of them may claim they’re lions.
Come May 11; it’s the call of the people, especially the young among them. They have it within their reach to write the preamble of Imran’s Naya Pakistan by showing the door to those who have had so many innings but never performed. They must make room for a leader who has no blots on his character or person.
Up to this point Pakistan’s history has too many episodes of leaders taking its people for a ride with spurious slogans and flimsy dreams. For the first time in their tortured history, the Pakistani people have a leader with an untainted past and a clear vision for the future. Trust him, and vote for him.
Nothing captures the sentiment of the age than what one of my young nieces said to me on phone from Pakistan after Imran’s accidental stumble. ‘Uncle,’ she said, ‘the ball is in our court. We shall make or break Pakistan on May 11. It will be either Naya Pakistan or Gaya Pakistan.’ Let’s hope the people of Pakistan are listening. – K_K_ghori@yahoo.com
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