“Everyone in Pursuit of His Own Paradise”
By Mohammad Ashraf Chaudhry
Pittsburg, CA
(This article was written in 2013 and is as relevant today as it was then. )
“To strive for freedom is fine. I can even understand dying for it. But to turn living people into mere vegetables, without passion or drive, is beyond me. To live in poor housing, shun amenities, sing the Lord praises, shout patriotic slogans- fine. But to stifle the very desire for beauty in human! Students coming out of these madras and ashrams look like the udders of a cow from which every drop of milk has been squeezed.” - Manto, “Freedom Sake.”
The title of this article is partially borrowed from Mr. Rauf Klasra’s column of July 31, “Dono Ko Apni Apni Janaat Ki Talaash- both are in search of their own brand of paradise”. Klasra uses the term, “dono/both” for the Taliban and the Politicians of Pakistan. Taliban kill and harm the innocent people, plunder the banks and do the kidnappings; break in the jails and liberate their clients. They do all this because they want to preserve their places in the Jannat/paradise after they die. So their journey to Paradise is pretty risky. The politicians on the contrary indulge in wholesale corruption because they are the impatient ones, and they want their “Jannat/Paradise”, now and here in this very world.
According to Mr. Rauf Klasra, there appears to be a tacit alliance between the two. Both are engaged in the looting and plundering of the country, and both are in hot pursuit of their own brand of Paradise. But the difference is in the approach, which is implicit and subtle: “The politicians plunder the country without giving an impression that they are the plunderers…”Rind ki rind bhi rahtay hai aur janaat bhi loot latai hai (they keep drinking without ever being dubbed as drunkards, and yet they comfortably manage to make their way to the paradise); while the Taliban often end up in jail, or even feel constrained to break the jail in their journey to the Paradise. In this race to the Paradise, it is often the crafty politicians who win.
During the exile days in London, according to Mr. Rauf Klasra, (July 10 column) Mian Shahbaz Sharif shared with him some thoughts. Mian Shahbaz Sharif has a tendency to speak the truth, even if it goes against his own interests. He said, “After the October 12, 1999 military coup, general Pervez Musharraf came up with his own “Seven-Point Agenda” in order to change Pakistan. Mian Sahib said, “If Musharraf succeeds in implementing even 20% of this agenda, then we are doomed to rot in prison for the rest of our lives”. Mian Shahbaz Sharif was 100% correct. Musharraf’s Seven Points present a universal recipe for good governance that can guarantee success to anyone who will act upon them. Those points were:
- Rebuild national confidence and morale (Pakistan is not a poor country, it is just poorly governed)
- Strengthen Federation, remove inter-provincial disharmony
- Devolution of power to the grass root level (the PPP govt. passed the 18 th amendment –a step in that direction.
- Revive economy and restore investors’ confidence. ( current Mian Sahib government has placed the economic revival as number one priority)
- Enforce law and order and dispense speedy justice ( the APC meeting in Karachi and the dire law and order situation in Pakistan is an echo of this point)
- Depoliticize the State Institutions
- Ensure swift and fair accountability.
What use are those ideas if they are not meant to be implemented or acted upon. Mere wishful thinking is not a violable substitute for a good, practical action. Pakistan needs action oriented leaders, and not hollow bag pipes. Self-induced inaction and self-imposed paralysis due to one consideration or another when the need for an urgent, bold action is as clear as the day light, is more dangerous than the presence of an outright evil. The realms of politics and religion, both have earned a bad name on this score. Both present wonderful ideas for the betterment of society, government and people, but both get followers who master both the disciplines more through profession than through performance.
Countries are like the families; They disintegrate and break if the members that constitute them refuse to stick to some norms of discipline, decency, fair-play and justice. Looting and plundering done by the members with impunity seals their fate. It is the head of the family, or the head of the country that sets the tone for the rest.
Mr. Larry Elder in his book, “The Ten things You can’t say in America”, gives two interesting examples as to what happens with the disciplining agent becomes missing. A chaplain in a federal prison in America decided to improve morale of the inmates. With Mother’s Day approaching, he made a deal with one of the major greeting card companies. Supply us, he asked the company, with five hundred Mother’s Day cards, one for each man. Sensing good PR, the card company went along. The prisoners enthusiastically sent each mom a card. Morale improved so dramatically that the chaplain decided to repeat the success on Father’s Day. He approached the card company again, and the company agreed to supply five hundred Father’s Day cards. The good intentioned chaplain offered the cards to the inmates.
But not one inmate sent a card to his father. Not one. In fact, most got furious; cursed their fathers; some even hinted that given a chance, their next murder would be of their fathers. Why so much hatred for the fathers?
Mr. James Robison in his book, My Father’s Face,” comments on chaplain’s experience. The majority of men in prison came from a home with an absentee father, or one in which he doesn’t even know his father, or one in which the father was present but abusive. Just the absence of an effective father damages the family, and even passes on this damage to the society. Same is true of a country.
Pakistan has been fatherless far too long. To call the present brand of politicians as the leaders of the country is a matter of shame. They lie to the people about the cause of problems; they lie about the effect of the problems and they lie about the solutions of the problems. In fact, they themselves are the problem. Such leaders make poor role-models.
Children growing up in fatherless or ineffectual -father families often lose a sense of discipline and fairness. The one who should inculcate values, goals and morals into the young is not there. Criminals say that crimes go up when the possibility of getting caught, convicted, and incarcerated goes down. Remember what the Quran says. We have a tendency to go wrong. Hobbes went a step further and he said man basically is vicious. Only good rules can keep him on the right track. Same is true of a country where ineffectual and corrupt and weak leadership exists, and where the State becomes toothless.
In Africa, observers reported a very unique and disturbing problem. Baby elephants were found attacking rhinoceroses and other animals as never before. Why? Poachers had killed off mature elephants for their ivory tusks, and sometimes game wardens for controlling the population had done that. This left the young elephants to grow up without the socializing and “civilizing” effect of a father figure. Rogue elephants, like the fatherless baby elephants, grow as destructive, angry, punks, or they run amok, not unlike what happens with male humans who grow up without paternal guidance and leadership. Lawlessness in the country is the direct off-shoot of ineffective, in-disciplined, undedicated and un-committed leadership.
Governments that are not effective, and are not caring, loving, and are incompetent, people under them develop a tendency to become dysfunctional in their development. They lose self-esteem and self-reliance; lose the zest to move upward, or even to improve themselves.
Present day Pakistan is passing through such a phase. Our “virtuous Politicians” rejected the Musharraf agenda because he was a dictator; he had himself violated the constitution of the country. So nothing good could ooze from him. And he failed, notwithstanding a good start in the first 4 years, solely because he sidetracked himself from his own 7-point agenda, and made alliances with those that should have been shunned for a low aim to sustain his stay in power.
It is a sound logic but is coming from the stinking mouths. Did the five-year rule of PPP under President Zardari adhere to the law of the country? Some break it in a big way, others break it in every move of their rule. For a common man it makes no difference. President Zardari’s colleagues plundered the country like no one else had done before. People bought Prado land cruisers, worth 1.7 crore rupees from the Universal Support fund meant for the poor people; one Jiala gave about 12 crore in advertisements to his own party out of this fund. One board member of this fund paid to his own I. T. firm some 62 crores, contending that it would promote I. T. in the country; one prime minister failed to return 8 billion bank loans; one senior member one day woke up and found some four crore rupees deposited in his account. And why forget the country’s president. Bhutto family friend, Mr. Tarek Ali in his book “The Duel” writes about Mr. Zardari as “one of the most venal and discredited politicians in the country and still facing corruption charges in two European courts” pg. 187. All those will fail who fail the people. This is the law of nature; this is the law of religion and this is the law of good governance.
The country, embroiled as it is from head to toe in problems, yearns for immediate correction and action. The country needs an Umar (R) and not a conniving Abdullah Ibn Ubbay; it needs a Caesar, and not a Hamlet. It needs Ali (R) because the people to be dealt with are a facsimile of the Kharajittes. The big question now is: “Is the present government under the leadership of Mian Nawaz Sharif capable, competent and bold enough to steer out the sinking ship of the country?” The seventy-day rule offers no positive answer. It is just hollow talk; assessment, surmise, precaution and deferment of action under one pretext or another. Sheikh Rashid, the motor-mouthed politician from my town, calls his former Boss’s rule as the rule of G-6 (two brothers, two sons and one nephew)
The situation is similar to the one once faced by Abraham Lincoln in 1860’s but in the reverse. Pakistani generals at present want the civilian politicians to assume responsibility and ownership of the decisions they make. But the politicians of Pakistan are accustomed to playing safe, which being, never commit yourself openly or you will mar your chance to come back. Therefore, their rule is: stay in power without assuming any responsibilities, just like a vice principal in a big college. They intentionally try to remain un-ambitious, undecided and uncommitted, even when the country is sinking in every sense of the word, and there is not much left to save them as for as credibility and trust is concerned.
Lincoln on the other hand, when the civil war had also almost begun, wanted a general who could act, decide and deliver victory. He inherited a general, Winfield Scott, who was 75 years old and who could not walk more than a few steps without pain. The general was often heard saying, “If I could only mount a horse, but I am past that” Lincoln had another general , Wool, who often repeated things he had said a few minutes before and whose hands shook so much that he could not put his own hat on his head. To another general, Mr. McClellan who often ignored his political chief, the President, and who tailored excuses for not acting against General Robert E. Lee in Richmond, forced President Lincoln to write his famous one line letter to him, “If you don’t want to use the army, I should like to borrow it for a while. Yours respectfully, A Lincoln”, as reported by T. Harry Williams in his book, “Lincoln and his Generals.”
It cost America more than 650,000 of its own people to keep the country as one. History is full of examples when the State acts when its very own writ gets challenged. In the early Islamic history, Hazrat Abu Bakr acted boldly and determinedly when some tribes refused to pay the Zakat. Their plea was interesting. We had our allegiance to Prophet Muhammad (s), and with his death, that allegiance is also dead. They also held that they would not pay the Zakat, but they would keep praying the Salat. So it was not a simple question of about the collection of Zakat or allegiance to one person, the Prophet (s), it was about the total program of Islam. It was also about the writ of the State.
In Turkey, in 1925 some 60 to 70 people died, fighting like a tiger when they were asked to stop wearing the Fez, the tasseled cap. Interestingly, they hardly had lifted a finger when the Caliphate was abolished in 1922. So was it the preservation of the cap or something behind it. Kamal Ataturk was a leader of action. For him, the writ of the country was most important. Often movements start under the cover of inauspicious things.
Economists often tell us about the 80/20 Principle. They contend that about 80% work is done by 20% people, same way, in most societies, 20 percent of criminals commit 80 percent of crimes; 20 percent of bad motorists often cause 80 percent of road accidents; 80 percent of corruption is done by about 20 percent of people (politicians); 80 percent of bank robberies, lootings, kidnappings, target killings are done by about 20 percent criminals (patronized, and protected by political parties) in Pakistan; 80 percent diseases are spread by 20 percent of viruses.
The formula changes a little bit in case of epidemics and viruses and ideas in proportion. Malcolm Gladwell in his book, “The Tipping Point” presents this interesting idea. Ideas are like viruses; they spread rapidly. “Ideas and products and messages and behaviors spread just like viruses”.. The spread of corruption is like a contagious disease. Same is true of lawlessness. One breaks it, the rest get affected automatically. When the teacher comes late by five minutes, students add five more minutes; when the father lies sparingly, his children begin to lie frequently. The crime virus spreads as quickly as the flu virus.
The good thing is that as they spread rapidly, they also taper off and decelerate and end with the same speed. Only you need a certain point, a right kind of vaccine, and that would jam the brakes. So, according to Mr. Gladwell, there are three common characteristics in crimes and ideas and fashions:” one they are contagious; two, the little causes can have big effects, and three, changes happen not gradually but at one dramatic moment”. We see it happening everyday on T. V. Fashion fads picked from the T. V. are followed in our homes in quick succession. Attend a marriage party and you will find my saying right. Same way, let the correction start somewhere; let the good virus of discipline and decency take the root somewhere; let a town, a zone, a city or a corner in Pakistan present the presence of good governance and cleanliness; the virus of goodness will spread to other places. In America, people before buying a house, research for the grading of the schools and the number of police stations and liquor stores present in that area. Why?
Pakistan is having that dramatic, historic moment- the third point- when the back-ward tide can be stopped; when a big change can be ushered in; when criminals can be eliminated; when law and order can be restored. Pakistan has reached that Tipping Point. Only the man, the leader is not there to harness this Tipping Point.
Never was there a better golden chance for a politician in Pakistan to outshine all the previous leaders ; to redeem the institution of politics, and to go straight in the pages of history than the current times in Pakistan. Bad and hard times test the soul and mettle of a leader; they bring out what is the best in him or they throw him out. Mian Nawaz Sharif has been provided this atmosphere by the most inept and corrupt regime of his predecessor. If he delays like the generals of President Abraham Lincoln, he is bound to lose. Modern historians in America now tend to regard President Abraham Lincoln as the Second, real father of America. New America owes its birth to President Lincoln.
Karachi is a test case on a mini scale. The businessmen and the Industrialists of Karachi on September 3, on the occasion of the APC meeting have spoken the truth, ( the political parties as usual minced matters, and hid the truth), and have given him the summary of what Karachi is in one line. “ Karachi is the hen that lays a golden egg. Everyone wants the egg, but no one wants to take care of the hen”. The problem is that all the political parties including the criminal elements want to obtain all the golden eggs immediately by killing the goose. Stephen R. Covey through this goose and golden egg story warns the leaders that those who want to maximize immediate production with no regard to the production capability, they end up losing the capability too.
Nawaz Sharif should not try to act like Gaissu and Madhu, the two famous characters of Munshi Prem Chand in his masterpiece, “The Kuffin”, published in 1935. Both, the father and son, all night sit outside the hut and hear the painful cries of Budhia, (Madhu’s wife), while she is giving birth to a child. She dies, but they keep eating baked potatoes that they had stolen, and keep talking about who fed them best in the village last time. Then both collect money for Budhia’s Kuffin; go to the town; eat to their fill with that kuffin money, and return consoling each other,” What good is the kuffin for a departed soul; the body mixes with the dirt; it is just wastage of money; death had been a big relief for Budhia”. Mr. Prime Minister, the people of Pakistan are like the Budhia, who keep feeding the politicians when they are alive or even when they are dead. Don’t play with them anymore.
Even I am reminded of Manto too about his beautiful story, “Mustaqim”. The theme of the story is that mere wishful thinking is not enough. It is rather dangerous. Mahmooda, a good looking girl ends up becoming a bad woman because she got a husband who was a complete failure and who would hide his failures as husband under the cover of religion; Mustaqim is a married person and he knew Mehmooda since childhood. He still loves her beautiful eyes, and is very genuinely motivated to help her, but is never able to put his remedial measures into practice. As a result Mehmooda slips inch by inch into a sinful life, while both of these well-intentioned men fail to hold her back. Leadership is about timely action. Don’t try to be a Mustaqim.
Devolution, 18 th amendment, security a provincial matter; interference in provinces a bad move; corrupt police force; No-Go areas; army busy on the eastern and western front; political parties having armed wings etc. etc. Day and night the media pundits churn this non-sense mantra; they scare the people and they embolden the terrorists. Columnists like Mr. Irfan Siddiqui, in his column “Wazir-i-dakhla ka pur azm paigham” writes more than six lines while counting the virtues of Mullah Umar; Hamid Mir remains more worried about the missing people than about the people living in hell. Javed Chaudhry loves the past glory of Muslims. Why are they spreading the virus of despair. Statements like, “We will die fighting the Taliban; the terrorists have the latest arms etc.” What people day and night see and hear is the carrying of dead bodies of innocent people by Chhibba and Eidhi Sattar Trust vehicles. They have never heard about the hanging of the terrorists. Because they sit safe and sound somewhere under the protection of political parties. Very few talk about the soldiers fighting terrorism; the police men laying down their lives while fighting these maniacs; the rangers getting killed. There is more discussion going on the efficacy of holding talks with the Taliban. The Pukhtun Khwan government even has announced total clemency to those who had been taken out of the Dera Ismail Khan Jail by the terrorists. Sheikh Rashid is right when he says, “there is every possibility that Karachi may become another FATA. So the criminals will not have to go for a hiding in the tribal areas; Karachi has had enough No-Go areas to provide them the safe haven”.
The nation expected from Mian Nawaz Sharif to announce the time- line of action, in a clear worded statement, “Lay down your arms by such and such date; anybody found asking for ransom, Batha, or anyone found linked even remotely with the criminals, shall be tried under the Terrorist Act etc. By now some laws should have been passed; some courts working in camera should have been established; some hard core terrorists should have been dispensed with. On the contrary, even those who were on the death row, and were to be hanged, their sentence has been postponed because a note from the terrorists was received.
The virus of corruption and terrorism shall recede and end as quickly as it had spread once the genuine and sincere action becomes operative. This action must be quick, merciless, harsh and across the board, without any exception. Any political party or its leader attempting to defend even his own son, must be picked up and tried as an accomplice. Remember, the 80/20 formula. The 20 percent corrupt people of Pakistan cannot be allowed to pollute the good 80% people. Famous Indian Election Commissioner, Mr. T. N. Seshan, would hang a sign outside his office door, “Silence is demanded here”. He did not write, “Silence Please”. Pakistan needs a leader who demands compliance and who delivers the results; not the one who delivers sermons and lectures on the virtues of goodness. These criminals are not going to come one day, saying, “We have felt that much wrong has been done. We are sorry”. A Good and strong government makes criminals and their associates repent all their lives, and saying,” Why did I do it?”
