Civil Society in Pakistan Takes on the VIP Culture
By Karamatullah K. Ghori
Toronto, Canada

I was all set to write about Desert Storm-II , which is what Obama’s announced and articulated mission to tackle the IS challenge is all about.

Even the most optimistic of pundits has given up on the quest to find anything novel, or out-of-the-box, in Obama’s policy in regard to the Muslim world. The pretender to a policy of change has ‘Dubya’ Bush written all over him, so much so that he’s increasingly looking like a Bush-clone.

But what distracted me from the IS-Obama match—destined to be much longer than a typical Test Match in cricket—was a different choice that Pakistan’s energised civil society clearly seems to be getting the hang of—as far as the art of public protest goes—in a marked departure from the culture of Dharna that the odd-couple of Qadri and Imran has been so desperate to foist on Pakistan’s civil society.

That minute-and-a-half video clip of irate, jittery, passengers on board a PIA domestic flight giving Rehman Malik the boot—which went viral within minutes of its uploading on a civic website—says it all. The Pakistani civil society has the imagination and gumption to think of more ‘doable’ ways to cut their bloated and arrogant cabal of ‘elites’ to size than the Dharna in Islamabad already on life support and showing no sign of recovering from its coma.

Rehman Malik deserved what was meted out to him. Imagine the grotesque arrogance of a has-been like him who was a cabinet minister, once, but no longer is. Yet, he’d the cheek to hold the PIA flight sitting on the tarmac for two hours, with those two hundred-plus passengers perforce made to cool their heels because Lord Malik couldn’t come earlier than the time of his own choosing to board the flight.

Malik—adding insult to injury—isn’t a hereditary feudal. A man of very humble origins from the environs of Sialkot, this upstart has been throwing his weight around as if he were a blue-blooded patrician through ancestry. Nothing could serve the cause of ridding Pakistan of its scourge of elitism than showing a pigmy like Rehman Malik his place in the pecking order. He’s nothing more than a gate-crasher into the elite club and must be consigned to where he belongs: cleaning the stables.

Rehman Malik is only a symptom of the disease—a cancer, if you will—called elitism which has been gnawing at Pakistan’s innards for decades. The disease is threatening to become a pandemic with every Tom, Dick and Harry tilting at the wind mills to join the exclusive VIP domain and become part of it.

It’s not a problem of upstarts like Rehman Malik behaving like royalty. It’s the larger problem of the elitist attitude endemic in our feudal culture that ordains that some are more equal than others and must be recognised as such.

Shoving off an elitist minion like Malik is the easier part of the fight ahead of Pakistan’s civil society. A much tougher nut to crack is the elitist mind-set which is deeply embedded in the feudal culture that has spread its tentacles all around in Pakistan’s fertile terrain. By now it has struck deep roots which may be immensely more difficult to uproot than throwing Rehman Malik off a PIA flight.

But the right beginning has been made, provided the civil society’s denizens—conscientious, educated and enlightened people like those who refused to let Malik ride roughshod over them—take up the challenge to fight a real jihad against VIP culture and persevere in it until they have knocked the bottom from under the elitist club. It will have to be a fight to finish.

Civil society will have to pin-point the pillars of this elitist façade and bring it down by knocking off one pillar after another.

Take, for starters, the issue of tax-payer-funded police expending a heavy chunk of its assets and personnel on the security of VIPs. Who doesn’t know for a fact that nearly one-third of Karachi’s police is deployed, 24/7, for the security and safety of both in-saddle and off-saddle VIPs? This is the case in a city endemically in the cross-hairs of terrorists, criminals and other law-breakers.

It’s risible, to think of it, that a defrocked khaki, General Moinuddin Haider, for instance, should have half a dozen guards securing his abode in Karachi, round the clock, at tax payers’ expense. Why? He was Governor of Sindh and Musharraf’s Interior Minister. Fine. But that was in the past. Has it been written in the scriptures that he should remain a VIP for the rest of his life and the people of Pakistan should pay, off their noses, to make sure that no harm comes to him? What is it if not ludicrous?

For the sake of argument, General Haider was once a man of power—an elite, so to argue. But what about the puny office-bearers of MQM, a so-called party of everyday people? Why are they having a VIP ride, like their feudal baron allies, at tax payer’s expense? Why are their abodes being secured at the cost of the Treasury?

Civil society will have to focus on these parasites feeding themselves on the people’s blood and acquiring heft and power by default.

A campaign should be kicked off—with the Rehman Malik episode as its take-off point—to put an end to VIP Lounges at Pakistani airports. These lounges should, thenceforth, be used only for visiting foreign dignitaries and for heads of foreign diplomatic missions in Pakistan. The Pakistani VIPs don’t tire of parroting their claim of being from the masses and for the masses. So why shouldn’t these ‘servants of the people’ join the masses and queue up at airport’s departure lounge just like an ordinary Joe. After all, they aren’t children of a different God, are they?

As an ambassador of Pakistan I was entitled, while in service, to use the VIP Lounge at all airports of Pakistan. The VIP crowd—hordes of them—I came across at these lounges more often than not made my hairs stand at end. I used to wonder what monstrous feudal hatchery had been breeding them and why had God given them an open license to prey on the hapless people of Pakistan. It was sickening.

Imran and Qadri have been frittering their energies—and those of their purblind aficionados—in barricading a PM who is in power because the people of Pakistan cast their votes—rightly or wrongly, that’s not for anyone to question—in his favour. Bungling in four or even forty constituencies, even if proved, wouldn’t still pull the rug from under Nawaz’ feet as PM.

The odd-duo of Imran and Qadri would’ve a much better chance of success—early success, at that—if they could switch gears and turn their guns, instead, on targets embedded in the culture of elitism and privilege.

But, then, the sad truth is that both Imran and Qadri haven’t quite divested themselves of their elitist mind-set. Imran has been spending nights in the plush comfort of his elegant Bani Gala retreat while Qadri has all the comforts of a five-star hotel accommodation inside his container-bunker. They haven’t been losing any sleep bunking out in the open, under a rain-soaked sky. There are long yards to go between what they preach and what they practice.

Civil society will have to fight its battles without a party flag fluttering over their heads. And, frankly, it’d be better that way. Politicians of all stripes and colors are dodgy and doggedly self-centered to expect them to crawl out of the woodwork; they’d do so only when their turf is being poached by some other stake holder within the VIP clan.

Battles against the VIP parasites wouldn’t be too hard to clinch. They’re basically craven and cowardly and retreat under serious assault, just the way that clown Rehman Malik took off under the heat unleashed against him. They are phony people, mostly, with feet of clay and wilt, quickly, under pressure.

So here’s your task cut out for you, dear civil society of Pakistan. Take the bull by its horns. The time for it has come; it’s now, right now. The castle of clowns and court jesters is shaking. A determined push could bring it down to its feet. History’s rubble would only be too happy to welcome an addition to its mound. It’s waiting. - K_K_ghori@yahoo.com

(The writer is a former ambassador and career diplomat)