Decay and democracy

How many obituaries will we write? Our tragedies have surpassed the sensibilities of mourning and lamentation because human life has become the cheapest business for the keepers of public order.

To want to kill is the only instinct this nation is good at expressing. The numbness of our mental and moral faculties is so painful that every tragic event looks like a comedy of errors. The soul of poor Shakespeare must be perturbed by our genius of translating his dramatic tragedies into adverse realities. Our insidious and homicidal follies and mistakes are so well entrenched that they look like a mundane affair in a place where tragedy has become a social norm. Ghosts and demons rule our streets who unleash terror and violence with impunity, as if they have been granted the freedom to tame the weakest. One’s strength lies in their ability to maim the frail and make them submit to the giants.

This is the rule of the game, we are told. We had better mend our ways if we dare to speak for rule of law, peace, dignity and democracy in this country. And those who have gone astray will face the wrath. We are supposed to be disciplined, faithful and loyal, and not go beyond the permissible limits of freedom and inquisition. This is not a fable or a fictitious story for those who posses critical thinking, curiosity and sanity in this country. The art of Machiavellian rule of governance has been mastered, and in this fear is the central tenet of controlling hearts and minds.

But in reality we have not even been able to execute this art efficiently. We have been selective in using Machiavellian tricks against only the weaker and the vulnerable. The agony and brutality inflicted upon little Zainab in Kasur was just another act of our venomous urge to mutilate the dignity of the weakest. Fata’s Naqeebullah, killed by police in Karachi last week, was another victim. But our tragedy does not stop here.

This is not only about moral decay but more about the rules of the game we have chosen to make use of as our mode of social and political control. We prefer power to govern citizens over justice and rule of law, lest the powerful are held accountable for their deeds. Every one of us vies for power and prestige because that is the only means to avoid the ghost of Brutus haunting our backyard. We love to exercise discretionary powers because that makes us look like loyalists of Caesar. If you stand up and question the political demeanours of the powerful, you stand to lose the sanctity of the institutions that breed patriotism and valour. You are free to curse the dilapidated parliament but you cannot question the sanctity of the institutions that have failed to deliver justice, peace and prosperity to a poor citizen of Pakistan.

The country is being dragged into a new war where institutions mandated to voice the concerns of common citizens are being pressured. It is not a conspiracy hatched by an imagined enemy but something that is happening from within. Some politicians claiming to be champions of a new Pakistan are playing the role of Brutus here. They publically denounce parliament if it is not serving the cause of their rise to the supreme seat of governance.

It is of course the height of political hypocrisy when the self-proclaimed champions of new Pakistan make alliances with their arch rivals to dislodge an elected government. Imran Khan and his comrades are now desperate to make alliances with the icons of old Pakistan. Until not very long ago, labels like corrupt, inept and murderous were attributed by Imran Khan to Asif Ali Zardari and his party’s political workers. It would not be fair to call this alliance an ‘unholy nexus’ as the PML-N would have us believe. However, it is a strong indication of Imran Khan saying farewell to his mantra of a new Pakistan. He has become more of a conventional political leader, just like Nawaz Sharif and Zardari, and a less credible politician because of his highly mercurial political conduct. With this new move, the hope of a new Pakistan has vanished and plummeting with it is the PTI’s image as a representative force of the educated middle class of Pakistan.

Imran Khan has lost the opportunity and momentum to present an alternate to the corrupt, dynastic and inefficient political system of Pakistan. He is now ranked among those traditional politicians who aspire for a fanciful shortcut to reach the top seat of the government rather than promote a new leadership from the educated classes who supported him.

Imran Khan has also been less vocal on the systemic challenges facing democracy in Pakistan. These challenges go beyond the Sharif brothers, and must be addressed as the first step in providing an alternate political system, that of an accountable democracy. The PTI has become a dumping ground of political defectors and opportunists who found it to be a tailor-made platform to continue with their political goals. They occupy key positions in the party but none of them is convinced of the idea a new Pakistan.

Indeed the PTI has done more disservice to parliamentary democracy than conventional political parties like the PPP and PML-N could ever manage to. The party has not been able to come up with a consistent political strategy to counter the institutional imbalance of power between the legislature, judiciary and establishment. Many political experts have dubbed the PTI as a pro-establishment and an anti-democratic force. However, it is likely that the PTI will lose its prospects of electoral victory in the forthcoming elections.

Going back to our agonies and tragedies, there has to be an intrepid political party that can exorcise the ghost of Brutus. The time-tested criterion for a leadership is to come up with a systemic approach to our problems of democracy and institutional decay. The sanctity of human life must precede all other values and principles for a strong democracy to take root in this country. We must nurture a culture of critical reflection, tolerance for dissent, dispensation of justice and economic equality if we want to be counted as a civilised nation.

We have become politically accustomed to bemoan democracy as the root of all evils but this is the most unrealistic and ill-informed opinion to hold. In fact, we have not seen the bounties of true democracy yet. We may need to go a long way to attain a people-centric system of governance but this is the only course we must tread upon to free Pakistan of the fear of Brutus and Caesar.

The writer is a freelance columnist based in Islamabad.

Email: ahnihal@yahoo.com