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| Cleaning up the mess in the minds |
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Tuesday, November 24, 2009
By Aniq Zafar
If you want to see how pathological and ugly an argument otherwise shrouded in the beautiful words derived from principles of higher morality in reality is, look at current debate on NRO and its beneficiaries. For the crusaders it is very easy to sweep away all and sundry with the same broom, labeling them beneficiaries and heap tons of abuse on them because its suits agendas of someone somewhere. It is however almost impossible for them to think beyond the immediate and understand that what are the consequences of their wild solutions and machinations.
Such is the anger amongst a select group of crusaders that they froth at their mouths when they appear on TV and their pens ooze poison when they write. This writer has worked as a journalist and also as a perception management professional, but had never believed that people with agendas would hide themselves behind morals.
Coming back to the arguments around NRO, the argument is that there is a moral requirement that all those who have been named in the list of NRO beneficiaries should resign their positions. The argument further states that if they do not quit then the whole government would sink. Reluctantly they admit that President Zardari enjoys some form of immunity. But there are others who think that the judiciary should become an epitome of a revolution that should crucify anyone that these crusaders hate. They argue that the Supreme Court should remove the immunity of the president and suspend the constitutional clauses that provide such immunity.
All these argument are backed by some very high sounding morals and obviously find sympathy and listening ears in the masses and of course in the establishment. After all who can argue back with the moralists? They can abuse you, degrade you and mix lies with facts at their will.
But some of the facts must be made public and arguments must be presented that are purely logic. I have no claim to have high morals and would hate to associate with morals that are driven by agendas.
The argument that all those who are alleged beneficiaries of NRO should resign is flawed to begin with. In Pakistan’s checkered political history there has been hardly any politician worth his name who has not been accused of one thing or the other. From Husain Shaheed Surharwady to Mohtarama Benazir Bhutto, politicians have had number of FIRs registered against them, cases dragged in the courts and of course media trials conducted. There is nothing new in the current situation as the bulk of the cases that will now be ‘reopened’ fall in the same category, where political considerations bore heavy on the investigation, prosecution and judiciary.
If the argument of moral brigade is accepted and it is established as a principle that all those who have had cases under process in the courts of law should resign then one has a very rosy picture for the future of Pakistan. This principle provides a great incentive to the government of the day to slap all kinds of cases against the opposition leaders. Finding irregularities and violations of the rules is the easiest of the cases that can be registered against anyone.
In this country a case filed against you for the violation of section 144 can take decades to settle. So you can literally put your opponents out of the contention for power by filing cases against them. Will that be acceptable?
In fact the concept of reconciliation forwarded by Mohtarma Shaheed Benazir Bhutto was to end this vicious cycle of political victimization. The Charter of Democracy signed by her and Nawaz Sharif in fact talked at length about the need to end this practice. But the new principled politics that the crusaders want us to follow obviously opens a new window for political victimization.
Also one may remind the moralists that in 1993 when Benazir Bhutto was elected as the Prime Minister of Pakistan, there were many references still pending against her in the courts. These were filed by Ghulam Ishaq Khan’s accountability machine. That Ghulam Ishaq Khan had to reach out to her in early 1993 despite those cases speaks volume about the real motives behind those. The cases filed by Farooq Leghari, Nawaz Sharif or Musharraf were also in the same league and there is hardly any reason to believe that these had a different motive.
The crusaders want this government to fall and they understand that as long as President Zardari is in the President House PPP will be present in the state structure even if the government is taken down by some political maneuverings. So there comes the quirky scheme of making the prime minister and president appear fighting. Not so original though, this game has been played in the past too.
One aspect of this strategy is to paint one white and other black. Prime Minister Gilani thus can be shown as very principled and President Zardari as the problem. But facts again here! Prime Minister Gilani was convicted in one case by an accountability court and his final acquittal happened after he had already taken oath as the Prime Minister of Pakistan. Interestingly, this acquittal was granted by Islamabad High Court in February earlier this year. The court is now defunct as the Supreme Court of Pakistan held in July this year that creation of the Islamabad High Court was unconstitutional. Hmm. NRO has not been declared unconstitutional so far!! What you say?
On the other hand President Zardari was convicted long time back by Lahore High Court and it was overturned by the Supreme Court of Pakistan in such a manner that three judges of the Lahore High Court had to resign.
So what is the argument here of the moralist brigade? But don’t underestimate them they have an agenda and that is to take both President Zardari and Prime Minister Gilani down. It is only a matter of strategy whom to take down first and then follow with the other.
The argument that there is an independent judiciary and all those who have been painted with NRO must resign and fight their cases is again full of mischief. This not about independent judiciary alone, it is about an efficient prosecution machinery and an efficient judicial process too.
There is no logic in failing to prosecute cases for more than a decade and just keep them with the status ‘Investigation under process!’ Also won’t it be against the principles of natural justice that someone should be penalized even before conviction. But crusaders of course are not interested in facts. They are interested in their agendas.
Schemes that want the judiciary to act and create some precedent where it can remove a legitimately and constitutionally elected president are full of dangers. These will again lead to a cycle of political instability that was created with article 58/2 b. Trying to sow dissent between the political forces, judiciary and military must be avoided as Pakistan can ill afford such divisiveness. It is a country that is in a war situation and is threatened with implosion.
Those who understand that big picture knows that it is not about President Asif Ali Zardari or Prime Minister Gilani, is it about how we can move forward without damaging the political fabric of this country. But for those who enjoy playing the game of destabilizing elected governments, what matters is the adrenaline rush that they enjoy in this game. And that is the saddest part of it.
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ISSN 1563-9479 
