It has gradually set in, never a huge cataclysmic event but a slow but sure seeping in of a perfusion finding permanent residence in the crevices, fissures and widening cracks finding permanence without healing what was fractured. Newer thoughts normally should never be the anti-thesis of existence but to withstand the reverberations of the spirit, both the mind and the body need to be strong to assimilate. The body, the state of Pakistan, has been repeatedly battered and weakened to the point of emaciation; while the thought is the ideological clash impacting its foundations. The people who form the nation and society are the ones who undergo the tumult of this clash. They are the ones who must digest the consequences. Fresh thinking nourishes societies but a healthy core, a healthy mind and a healthy attitude is what makes newer thoughts welcome. In Pakistan, sadly we lag monumentally on the scale of such nourishment. Some time we conceive badly and inappropriately. Every idea must like any plant find a suitable environment to grow. When that is not the case even the best of thoughts will only wither and decay. That is the case of the rate at which we wish change to happen and the state in an ill-prepared receiving environment for the newer seeds of thought and word. Pakistan suffers from serious and major deformities. Its governance system doesn’t suit the mindset in which these are applied; that is why our governance remains weak and mostly decrepit. Those that rule carry the making of kings, and those that choose their rulers haven’t shaken off the yoke of being subjects. This is the most basic fault-line of our societal structure which we let go quite conveniently even in serious consideration of why the society and the state have not melded. The kings follow no rules, while the subjects simply submit before the rules of their overlords, not of any written law. Constitutions and rule of law become alien to this way of interaction. Both then become lost pursuits. In form we may be pursuing the ideals of a modern state, but in effect we remain a couple of centuries behind in time. Society is anachronistic. Fata is a geographical manifestation of such a societal disposition which is now under the spotlight. Fata still might change because it is a narrow domain, but what do you do when the entire society is only nominally under modern rules but held back in time in practice. Without addressing these core vulnerabilities the rants of modernity that we sound every day from the pulpit of various avenues in the media are meaningless. Every new thought weighs heavy on such a structure. The vulnerabilities have been far too many: we had no constitution for a long number of years after we became a society and a state, and before then only the kings ruled. Constitutions were alien to our way of living. When an attempt finally began it fell victim to parochial and tribal motives borne from selfish ends; provincialism, parochial tribalism, primacy of one language over the other, the clamour for resource and political power, institutional disharmony, a dismembered country, of skewed priorities and power structures, of sham governance systems – presidential, prime ministerial, autocratic or democratic – which in effect were the same. And we were already a broken body even when we came around to agreeing on one. The intellect of those who led, and of those who were led, was always inadequate to address the deformities which only became entrenched. And when nothing works, religion takes over. Somewhere along the way the people were totally forgotten; we were so enamoured with the resource and its control. As a society we mimic eighteenth-century traits while the state only nominally exists in the twenty-first; in its effect through disposition and function it still largely is captive of the twentieth century. With such dichotomy the rupture is inherent. Now load this with the progressive thought largely gained through foreign education, external exposure and a liberal strain which dominates the daily discourse, and the divisions only magnify. Social media, far removed from the masses, is where such liberal presence congregates. To those inhabiting the digital world, the 250 or 300 members in their group constitute their world. Ditto for Twitter. Hundreds of millions remain outside the ambit of such rewarding discourse (pun intended). More importantly, those that interact seem to be speaking to the world, forgetting how narrow its domain is. When Nawaz Sharif or his daughter claim renewed idealism it unfortunately is aimed at satiating the tiny world of WhatsApp groups and Twitter followers. Or to spite an institution in a competitive sense. These are only games at the upper end of the societal crust with zero engagement of the masses. If the Flavians of Rome had their Colosseums, the upper-crust elites of Pakistan have their own set of power games. This is when religion took over. The government today is sans leadership, sans ideas and sans competence. It practically doesn’t exist. In this vacuum, competing power centres emerge. We saw one at Faizabad for three weeks. A cleric, not a noted scholar, waived before the people the sacred name of the Holy Prophet (pbuh) and the entire country shut down. Next would have been the burning of ‘Rome’ had the ineptness of the power wielders extended beyond initial attempts at instituting their writ. Writ relates to moral and political competence. When you are bereft of both, the writ is lost – never to be reinstituted until the capital rebuilds. This should become the abiding lesson of the last few weeks. When we invoke civ-mil dissonance as the reason behind such incompetence we enable very convenient cover to ineptness. Unable to see its weaknesses, the state only slides even further down the scale of failure. It is bigotry in reverse when we fail to acknowledge that what was on display at Faizabad is the real us. Perhaps not those who live in the exclusivity of modernity, but the masses only exhibited what is their belief system. It may be at odds with how we may wish to believe but we have all along failed to acknowledge that two separate belief systems exist here –depending upon which level of the societal scale you are located at. Till the cumulative intellect of society is enabled to the level where conservatism can be challenged – especially related to some dearly held fundamentals of the religion – we will need to slow down our idealism to the rates that this society can adapt to and assimilate. Too far, too fast will generate another disconnect. The failure is patently ours. Email: shhzdchdhry@yahoo.com
