Faheem Niaz
Senator (1k+ posts)
The historian Charles Beard once said that a lifetimes reflection on history has taught him four things. When darkness comes, the stars begin to shine; the bees that rob the flowers provide the honey; whom God wishes to destroy he first makes mad, and the mills of God grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly small. This sums up the situation in Pakistan today. Truth is on the march. Mighty trees are falling. The storm raging outside shows no sign of abating.
Where do we stand today? Pakistan is has a nuclear bomb in one hand and a beggars bowl in the other. All the pillars of state, with the exception of the Supreme Court and the media, are dysfunctional. The President, the symbol of the unity of the federation, is mired in corruption. Parliament, the so-called embodiment of the will of the people, is fake. Under an imbecile, corrupt and feeble government, like the one we have today, there is but one step from discontent to revolution.
Our corrupt leadership is trapped in a time warp sustained by US power and dollars. Pakistan, an America colony in all but name, is at the beginning of the end and resembles a fading star. A terrible explosion could happen any moment. The opposition languishes in torpid impotence. I have never seen an opposition so nonplussed, so impotent, so clearly without a shot in the locker. In the words of Hazilitt, the two parties are like competing stage coaches which occasionally splash each other with mud but travel by the same road to the same place.
After the restoration of the deposed Judges, the clock of history had been stopped. Now it has started again. While political leaders are dithering, the poor people, the bulldozer of history in the words of Marx, have taken to the roads all over the country. A window of hope has opened for Pakistan. At last people have found their life mission: fight for their inalienable rights. And I believe they have also found the tool to achieve this mammoth task: massive, peaceful, street demonstrations all over the country. Pakistan has stumbled on the magical strength of street-power.
Otto von Bismarck once said that political genius entailed hearing the hoofbeat of history, then rising to catch the galloping horseman by the coattails. History offers opportunity. Timing is the essence of politics. Imran is an acknowledged leader of a mainstream political party and has a decisive role to play in the fast evolving situation in the country. People expect him to provide leadership. The voice of history beckons him. He must listen to the street.
He must, in the words of Chairman Mao, seize the moment. He must seize the hour, he must respond to the challenge. He must identify himself with the leaderless, rudderless protestors who feel abandoned by the political parties in their hour of greatest need.
The stage is set for a collision between those who are fighting for their inalienable rights: water, electricity, gas, the right to live and those who represent the forces of darkness and oppose them. In this Manichean struggle, you are either with the people or against them. You have to choose sides. To march at their head and lead them? To stand behind them, ridiculing and criticising them? To stand opposite them and oppose them? Every political leader and every citizen is free to choose among the three; but by force of circumstances they are all fated to make their choice quickly. For members of the intelligentsia living under this corrupt, authoritarian regime, not to be politically rebellious is, in my view, a moral abandonment of their social post. Members of civil society doctors, engineers, journalists, writers, academia, civil servants must be implacable opponents of corrupt rulers.
One of the lessons of history is that when hunger and anger come together, people sooner or later, come on to the streets and demonstrates Lenins Maxim that in such situations voting with citizens feet is more effective than voting in elections. The bringing together of anger with hunger is like the meeting of two livewires. At their touch a brilliant incandescence of light and heat occurs. Just what and who would be consumed in the illumination is hard to tell. Well, hunger and anger have come together throughout the country in the wake of the unprecedented load-shedding. I see blood in the eyes of the protestors. I dread their determination.
Our country is in grave danger. Pakistan looks exhausted, ossified and ideologically bankrupt, surviving merely to perpetuate its corrupt rulers. Never has the divide between the ruler and the ruled seemed so yawning, and perhaps never has it been so dangerous. Thievery at the summit of power, a totally new phenomenon introduced in this country by Zardari, inspires outrage and disgust among the people, especially the poor. Both he and his prime minister are servile, obsequious, lackeys of the United States, insecure, highly dependent on American support, too willing to sacrifice national interest in order to secure American help for themselves and remain in power.
Today we are engaged in a great battle. The lines are drawn. The issues are clear. Those who are not with the people are against them. It is as simple as that. The time to hesitate is through. Now or never is the moment when salvation from corrupt rule is possible. Too long have we been passive spectators of events. There is a moment in engagement, Napoleon once said, when the least manoeuvre is decisive and gives victory. It is a one drop of water which makes the vessel run over. For us that moment has come.
Ultimately, the true guardians of Pakistan are the people of Pakistan. People power alone can protect Pakistan from the corrupt leadership. Time and again in 1789, 1848, 1871, and 1968, to name only the most historic years mass protests have kicked out rulers, and toppled governments. Our corrupt rulers know that the street is all they have to fear. Confronting them has now become a patriotic duty. Today there is no other path for our country, but the one, which led to the restoration of Chief Justice Iftikhar Choudhary.
People confuse two types of politics, Imran told The New York Times sometime back. One is the politics of movement. The other is traditional power-based politics. Tehreek-e-Insaf is never going to win the traditional way.
Destiny has embarked Imran on a path never trodden before. He must follow this path wherever it takes him. Napoleon once famously said: Enter the battle, engage the enemy, acquire power, then see what can be done.
Our cupboard is bare. This only antidote to this debilitating situation is to throw out this corrupt government and give the people a chance to elect their representatives with a fresh mandate. Everybody knows this is the only effective answer.
The wrong answer is to allow this corrupt government to go on plunging towards the abyss. The only way to ensure victory is to wield the weapon which has brought the anti-Zardari movement thus far: massive demonstrations, rallies and marches all over the country.
The writer is a former federal secretary. Email: [email protected], www.roedadkhan.com
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