Manufacturing facts

Legal eye

In 2012 I got a call from (now) Lt-Gen Asim Bajwa, DG ISPR saying that the then army chief, Gen Kayani would like to see me. A columnist who preaches the constitutional principle that there must be civilian control of the military in Pakistan can find trouble. (I was once called in by the ISI to counsel and cure me of my flawed opinion in a column about the ‘khaki mindset’). Having nurtured the self-delusion that my op-eds mattered and being partly paranoid that I might have written something that had upset the high and the mighty, my immediate concern was for personal safety.

It was a weekend night. I immediately called a trusted friend for advice. He told me that I was being an idiot. If khakis want someone picked up, the chief doesn’t get involved directly. Of course, he was right. I made my way to the army house. Gen Bajwa was there. There were no other invitees. I didn’t know what the meeting’s agenda was. Gen Kayani showed up. It was the first time I had met him. He came across as a congenial man. After pleasantries, he lit up a cigarette and told me that I could be candid and ask him whatever I wished. A drawing-room style conversation about the challenges confronting Pakistan followed.

I later found out that there was nothing extraordinary about the invitation. Gen Kayani was used to inviting journalists and columnists and the conversations continued late into the night. I am writing about this meeting five years later because toward its end the 2013 election and prospects of various parties came up. I recall being told that the PTI had very strong support within the military. I also recall developing a sense that Gen Kayani and the khakis wanted Imran Khan to win, which prompted me to volunteer the advice that no matter whom they were rooting for, it would be best not to fidget with the election to make wishes come true.

Lt-Gen Tariq Khan’s much-circulated Facebook post in response to Naeemul Haq’s allegation that Gen Kayani conspired (along with the US and Saudi Arabia), to steal the election from the PTI and hand it to the PML-N confirms my impression of the 2012 meeting. Having been a corps commander back in 2013, Gen Tariq Khan asserts that, “had their been any rigging undertaken by the army, not only would I have been instructed to do it but I should be held responsible for it as well. No COAS needs to answer the rants of a frustrated political party and its disillusioned workers. There was no rigging done by the army.”

The support the PTI enjoys amongst khakis is unmistakable. Whether the conspiracies about Dharna-I being sponsored by the khakis are true or not, many wanted it to succeed. Gen Tariq Khan concludes his post by stating that, “the little respect I had for any political party was the PTI... [the respect] gradually eroded with each stupid step [the party] took. Now I am disillusioned...I assure you, this last wild accusation will not go un-noticed, they [the PTI] would (sic) have lost the support of .7 million serving officers and soldiers and 3 million veterans. It appears that the PTI’s stupidity is only exceeded by the volume of its outbursts”.

Gen Tariq Khan’s prophesy might not come true. But to write off Naeemul Haq’s wild allegations as a figment of his personal imagination is disingenuous. While he might not have received any memo from the party to conjure this latest conspiracy, his allegation is a product of the culture nurtured by the PTI where facts don’t matter. This business of ‘alternative facts’ (that has caught on in Trump’s America as well) is quite the fad in Pakistan. The old definition of truth as something that is backed by verifiable facts is dying out around here. All you need to do is add a preface that “even kids know…” and the assertion needs no further verification.

The second device that helps manufacture facts is repetition. If you doggedly repeat an allegation with confidence and consistency, with the passage of time it evolves into a fact that needs no proof. The two main casualties in this new populist culture are credibility of institutions and dignity of individuals. It is no longer possible to debate or challenge ideas or positions as being right or wrong without imputing wicked motives to the proponent of the idea or position. No one is willing to entertain the possibility that people can still act without being guided by extraneous considerations or ulterior motives.

Someone can make vile allegations against your integrity and there is nothing you can do to salvage your reputation. You can deny allegations, issue legal notices and file defamation suits all you want. But once social and mainstream media repeat the allegations and you are condemned in such media trial, your goose is cooked. If you get a clean chit of heath from a court, the assumption will then be that the court was motivated by extraneous considerations and not that the allegations might have been false. Is anyone willing to believe that Hamid Saeed Kazmi is not guilty of corruption even after a court has acquitted him?

A judicial commission headed by a chief justice with impeccable integrity heard the PTI’s allegation about election rigging at length, and went through copious records before concluding that there was no evidence of any organised scheme to rig the 2013 election. Did that settle the controversy? If we tarnish the credibility of our institutions, what means are we left with to resolve disputes and build consensus within the polity? With no electoral reforms, a blemished Election Commission and a judiciary whose decisions we accept only if they are in our favour, how will we ensure that the 2018 election is seen as free and fair and its result accepted?

Our institutions have made mistakes. The judiciary has supported dictators. The military has intervened in politics and fixed elections (as found in the Asghar Khan case). Institutions aren’t infallible. Individuals run them and can make mistakes. It is thus essential to critique the policies and actions of those in charge of our institutions to hold them to account. But to perpetuate a view that our institutions are puppets in the hands of foreign masters who make things happen at their will discredits our institutions and nurtures a sense that we lack human agency, which then further accentuates our sense of disempowerment.

This sense of disempowerment and stunted self-worth is self-executing. The more you think someone else controls you, the more they do. The more you blame others for your ills, the less accountable you feel for your own actions. Is it surprising then that as a polity we lack accountability and as a society we are a fertile place for breeding conspiracies?

Many in Pakistan believe that the Jews in New York knew in advance that 9/11 was going to happen and so they didn’t show up at work and so no Jews died that day. Some even believe that 9/11 just didn’t happen. Many here believe that Osama bin Laden didn’t exist and was a fictional character created by the evil West to frame Muslims. Many believe he was a US agent and was used by the evil West as an excuse to attack Muslims. Many believe he is a US agent who never died and is now living in the Bahamas. Whatever the beliefs, whether or not they are backed by facts doesn’t seem to bother us.

A fact-free society is also an accountability-free society. Once verifiable facts and manufactured facts become indistinguishable, the only thing that matters is what side you are on. Our growing polarisation is making truth and the desire to search for it irrelevant.

The writer is a lawyer based in Islamabad.

Email: sattar@post.harvard.edu